Teach Us To Pray - 5
“LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY”
based on Matthew 6:9-13
This is our final message of this series where Jesus has been teaching us how to pray. And I’m going to try to bring it altogether this morning with the question … what do we pray about when it comes time to pray?
Last year I started noticing that our car was drifting to one side as I drove. I kept putting off doing anything about it, and by the time I finally had it checked, my tires were really worn. Bad alignment led to a costly repair … I had to buy 4 new tires.
Likewise, I believe that “bad alignment” can also be hazardous to our prayer life. If I get lopsided in my prayers, if they’re not “balanced”, then my relationship with God is going to get all out of kilter.
If I’m not prioritizing thanksgiving in my praying, I might actually forget that God is the One who provides for me. If I don’t ask God for anything when I’m praying, I might begin to believe I can provide for myself, and that I really don’t need Him.
If I don’t confess my sins when I pray, I might forget that I actually need a Savior. If I don’t spend any time praising God when I pray, I can lose sight of who He truly is, and my prayers will simply become a kind of therapeutic exercise.
But if I’m balanced in my prayers, if I’m hitting on all those points, my prayer life thrives … and as a result, so does my relationship with God. Praying in a balanced way helps us to pray rightly. It causes us to pray the way the Lord wants.
“The Lord’s Prayer” is a balanced prayer. That’s not all it is, but it is that. And that’s how we’re going to approach our study of it this morning.
I’m going to be asking 3 questions … and the answers to those questions will help us achieve balance in our prayer life.
Listen to Good News from Matthew, as he records the words of Jesus, to you here at Community Church. Within your hearing now comes the Word of God …
“This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven:
May your holy name be honored;
may your Kingdom come;
may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need.
Forgive us the wrongs we have done,
as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
Keep us from being tempted,
and protect us from the Evil One.’” (Matthew 6:9-13)
May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion, to His glory and to our edification. Amen
Question #1 … should we use patterns or should we be spontaneous in our prayers?
I remember taking a speech class in college. My 1st assignment was a “how to” speech. I had to explain “how to do something” to the class. And the topic given to me was … “how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
1st I had to identify the purpose … “I’m going to demonstrate how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’m going to explain the steps that are involved.” And then I made one. My goal was that when I finished I’d get an “A” on my “how to” speech.
Jesus is giving a “how to” speech. He’s an excellent pray-er, and He wants to teach His followers how to pray. He has a goal and purpose in mind. He wants His disciples to become good pray-ers. And He’s giving them a pattern so that they can accomplish that.
Jesus didn’t say … “This is what you should pray;” He said, “This is how you should pray.” Jesus just doesn’t tell us to pray … and then leave us guessing on how to do it. He gives us a pattern to copy. “Pray like this.”
Let’s 1st take a look at the prayer as a whole, and keep in mind the balance I was talking about.
“Our Father in heaven.”
He begins with an address to God, which is followed with 2 sections that make up the bulk of the prayer.
“May your holy name be honored;
may your Kingdom come;
may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
This 1st section makes 3 requests that relate to God. God’s the focus of the 1st ½ of the prayer. This is exactly like the 10 Commandments. (Exodus 20:3-17) The 1st 4 Commandments relate totally to God. God should always be 1st. (Matthew 6:33) All too often, we get the order reversed, don’t we? We begin with our human needs, and unfortunately, never get around to God and His glory.
“Give us today the food we need.
Forgive us the wrongs we have done,
as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
Keep us from being tempted,
and protect us from the Evil One.”
This 2nd section has 3 requests that relate to human need. 3 for God … 3 for humanity. It’s a balanced prayer. Jesus gets an “A” in His “how to” speech. He gives us a pattern to copy, and He does it in a perfectly balanced way.
But remember our question, when we pray, should we use patterns or should we be spontaneous?
Obviously we don’t want our prayers to have a lifeless sequence to them. We don’t want to pray simply by rote. In fact, Jesus Himself was concerned about that very thing.
Immediately before presenting this prayer He discusses ritual abuse. (Matthew 6:5) Jesus was talking about giving, fasting, and prayer, and He says that each of those things can be done with selfish motivations.
And He contrasts a self-centered, me-centered, ritual type praying with a God honoring, earnest, unselfish type praying. Jesus wants to get us to personally commune with God. And when we do that our prayers won’t be mechanical or self-seeking.
So this prayer is not to be simply memorized and repeated without thought. On the same token, here is the model prayer that Jesus presents when His disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1) Jesus responds, “This is how you’re to do it.”
And that answers our 1st question … “should we use patterns or should we be spontaneous in our prayers?” … While recognizing that this can always be abused, Jesus offers us a good pattern to follow.
Okay, it’s Monday morning, you’ve listened now to 5 sermons on prayer, and you want to be obedient, (James 1:22) so you’ve set aside some time to pray. And you’re going to use the Lord’s Prayer as your conversation with God.
So you pray it … and it takes about 20 seconds. And you think to yourself, “Hey, not bad, I can be finished with my prayer time in less than a minute.”
But there are a couple of problems with that. We learned in the 1st message of this series that we’re to develop a relationship with God … and that’s simply not going to happen in 20 seconds a day.
The other problem is equally obvious … most of the needs and issues in our life aren’t identified in this prayer. It’s a nice pattern, but it’s not dealing with all the stuff each of us will be dealing with this week.
That’s why Jesus has given us this prayer simply to guide our praying.
The Lord’s Prayer provides the boundaries. It furnishes the topics. And from there we’re to be spontaneous in our conversations with God.
Okay, I’m confused. Should we use patterns or be spontaneous? Which is it? We should be both. Jesus gives us the “Lord’s Prayer” as a guide. But He wants us to personalize it with our own praise and requests
Kathy is amazing in her creativity. For example, she made 2 little quilts for the twins over in England. She came up with this idea of what she wanted to do. Then she got a couple of books and magazines to see how other people did similar things. And then she put it all together and made something really creative and unique.
This is what’s supposed to happen in our prayer life. We use this pattern that Jesus has given us. But then we incorporate personal stuff, and all of a sudden our prayer has become spontaneous.
Jesus’ prayer assures us that we’re going to strike the right balance.
Now one of the ways we can use the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern in our prayers is to take it, line by line, and expound on it a little bit. And I’m going to show you how to do that in just a moment.
Another way is to take the 7 items in this prayer and use one each day during the week. Sunday, use “our Father in heaven” as the theme of your praying. Then on Monday … “may your holy name be honored.” Each day focus in on a specific thought in your prayer.
Another way to use the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern is to highlight the themes that are mentioned … praising God and confessing sins. I’ve talked about this before. One of the ways I learned to pray, as a boy, was to use the acronym, ACTS: A … C … T … S
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication
That’s a really useful pattern because it helps us remember that we’re talking to God, and we adore Him 1st. And then we confess our sins; which gets us into a right relationship with Him before we begin to ask for things.
Use a pattern and be spontaneous.
The 2nd question … should we express intimacy or reverence in our conversations with God?
The 1st Church I pastored was in Niagara Falls. We had a pretty active young people’s group there. And one day the youth group leader was teaching on prayer. He was trying to get the kids to really pray personally.
And to emphasize his point he told them to talk to God like they talked to anyone else. And they seemed to connect with that idea. A few weeks later, Gary asked me to lead the group, because he was going to be away.
I presented a lesson, and then we got in a circle to close in prayer. And the kids started to pray. “Hey good buddy” … and they used all kinds of personal, familiar language as they were talking to God.
So later that week when Gary stopped by to see how things went, I told him that I appreciated the openness of the kids in their prayers, but … they hadn’t been taught the whole story.
Jesus did call us friends, (John 15:14) and there should be a familiarity in our prayers, but there also must be reverence because we recognize that this is also Almighty God. (The Revelation 14:7)
So should we be expressing intimacy in our prayers or should we be showing reverence? … Both. We should be doing both … because if we leave out either one our praying will be imbalanced.
Take a look at the way Jesus balances both intimacy and reverence in His prayer.
“Our Father” …
Actually, when Jesus prays He uses the term, “Abba,” which means “Daddy.” Talk about intimacy! And Scripture teaches, “The Spirit makes us God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, ‘Abba! my Father.’” (Romans 8:15) We’re given that same intimacy.
Jesus tells us that God knows what we need even before we ask Him. (Matthew 6:8) He says that God forgives those who come to Him with a repentant heart.
(Matthew 6:14)
He forgives, He knows our needs. So in prayer we encounter a loving and personal God, our Heavenly Father, and we can pray to Him as such. That’s great news!
But then Jesus balances it out …
“Our Father in heaven.”
Jesus tells us that God is in Heaven. (The Psalms 115:3)
Scripture teaches …
“The LORD placed his throne in heaven;
he is king over all.” (The Psalms 103:19)
God is a personal loving Father, and He’s also the Creator of all things. God’s our Heavenly Father, and He’s a powerful King. So when we’re praying we need to remember who we’re talking to so that we come to Him with the proper respect; we approach Him reverently.
Back in 1983, I received a phone call from Linda Moore, who lived in Indiana, PA, inviting me to come and offer the invocation at Jimmy Stewart’s 75th birthday party. Well, I thought about it for a fraction of a second, and then, very humbly, accepted. I was excited. This was an incredible honor.
So, on 20 May 1983, I found myself sitting next to him at the head table. And during the meal, as we’re talking, he says to me, “Call me Jimmy.” … No way!
Jimmy Stewart was an Academy Award winning actor. He’d received A Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He had been a Major General in the Air Force.
You can see my point coming from a mile away. If I have this much respect for a mere mortal, who does deserve respect and honor, how much more should we give reverence to God, who is our Father in Heaven?
There’s a real delicate balance here.
When we approach God in prayer we need to remember who we’re talking to. We must come to Him with the right frame of mind, demonstrating humility. He rules the heavens … and He’s my Heavenly Father.
It’s a good idea that before we spend time praying to pause for 15 seconds and consider … “who am I about to talk to right now?”
We need to praise God in our prayers for His attributes. He’s holy. He’s loving. He’s all-knowing. He’s all-powerful. He’s eternal. He’s faithful. He’s creator.
One more quick thought on this point. To think about God as Father is a wonderful and comforting truth.
The Apostle John says this, “To all who received him and believed in him, Jesus gave them the right to become God’s children. They did not become God’s children by natural means, that is, by being born of a human father; God himself was their Father. (John 1:12-13)
You can call God, “Father”, if you have come to faith in Jesus Christ.
So we’re trying to balance our reverence and intimacy. We’re trying to balance patterns and spontaneity.
Here’s our 3rd question … should we focus on big stuff or small stuff?
I know people who actually pray about getting parking spaces, or what clothes to wear. I know other people who only come to God if it’s a life and death situation. So which is it? Should we be praying about small stuff or about big stuff? Both! We should be praying about both.
I’m going to read the whole prayer again so that we can think of the complete context.
”Our Father in heaven:
May your holy name be honored;
may your Kingdom come;
may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need.
Forgive us the wrongs we have done,
as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
Keep us from being tempted,
and protect us from the Evil One.”
Earlier I pointed out that Jesus gives 2 sets of requests. The 1st 3 concern God’s glory, the big huge things. The other 3 are related to human needs, the smaller daily issues in our lives.
Now I’m not going to go into these in detail, but I think it’s important to know what each phrase means and why they matter. I’m going to explain each of the 6 items so that when you pray you’ll know what you should include.
1st … “May your holy name be honored.”
We’re asking that God receives the respect that’s due Him. We’re asking that God’s name be treated as holy. It already is, but it needs to be regarded as such in the lives of those who bear His name. That’s us.
When I come to this category in my praying I pray for people who have huge influence in this world, in their platforms as followers of Jesus, that they would honor God, not dishonor Him. I pray for brothers and sisters in the faith who are being persecuted, that they would be able to stand firm and honor the name of Jesus.
I pray that Jesus’ name would be treated as holy by those who claim to be His followers.
2nd … “May your Kingdom come.”
We’re asking that the Kingdom that Jesus launched in His 1st coming be brought to culmination when He returns the 2nd time to reign. (The Revelation 22:20)
And then we grab the newspaper and read about all the awful things going on in the world and pray for God to come and save us from ourselves. We pray for believers to be bold and witness to the reality that Jesus is the only way to eternal salvation. (The Acts 4:12) We pray for our Church. We pray for our missionaries.
3rd … “May your will be done.”
We’re asking that our lives confirm to God’s will that’s made known in the Scriptures. We have the newspaper in one hand, and the Bible in the other.
In Matthew’s Gospel, right before the Lord’s Prayer is presented, Jesus teaches the Be-attitudes. (Matthew 5:3-12) This is what our character is supposed to be as we conform to God’s will. “Lord, help me be these things.”
4th … “Give us today the food we need.”
As we pray this sentence we recognize that Jesus delegates our daily earthly needs.
We’re praying that God will put in us a daily dependence upon Him. And then we’re actually asking that He’ll provide the things we need.
John Calvin says that Jesus is referring to more than bread or even food here; He’s talking about all our daily needs: food, health, families, anything small, anything that concerns us in this life.
5th … “Forgive us the wrongs we have done,
as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.”
We’re confessing our specific sins. Conversations, thoughts, actions, things we didn’t do, things we should have done … anything that offends God.
And then we think of people in our lives to whom we need to extend forgiveness, or from whom we need to receive forgiveness.
And 6th … “Keep us from being tempted,
and protect us from the Evil One.”
We’re asking God to protect us from the various sins we’re prone to … probably those that we just confessed. And then we pray protection from evil and the Evil One, and his deceitful tricks to accomplish that evil. (1 Peter 5:8)
6 requests, perfectly balanced on God’s glory and on our needs. 6 requests of things that God cares about. 6 requests that should be regularly in our prayers.
If Jesus was standing here this morning, and we had the opportunity to ask Him what we should be praying about. He’d say …
• God’s name
• God’s Kingdom
• God’s will
• Humanity’s needs
• Humanity’s deliverance
• Humanity’s forgiveness
These are the things that God cares about and we should be praying about. And we should be praying about them in this order.
We pray for God’s glory 1st, and then humanity’s needs 2nd. Praying with this kind of balance places God in the position where He belongs.
It’s very difficult for me to pray selfishly if I’ve just been praying for God’s name, and God’s Kingdom, and God’s will to be done.
It’s very difficult for me to pray with doubt if I’ve just prayed “God, you are holy. God, you are King. God, you are sovereignly bringing your will into accomplishment. God you’re doing all these things.”
Heaven comes to earth as God responds to our dependent prayers for these things. That’s the meaning of the little phrase right in the middle of the prayer.
You can see up on the screen that that line …
“may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
… is right in the middle between both sets of requests. The 1st 3 are answered in Heaven. The 2nd 3 are on earth requests.
And God responds when we pray every day for our dependence on our needs, every day for forgiveness for our sins extended and received, and every day for obedience in the face of trials and temptations.
Honor God’s name. Bring God’s Kingdom. Accomplish God’s will.
We should pray about these things because God cares about them, and we pray them in this order. Pray about big things. Pray about small things
• Patterns and spontaneity
• Intimate and reverent
• Big and small
And as we close, let me issue a word of caution. In fact I think that there should be a warning label on the Lord’s Prayer. Sincerely praying this can turn your life upside-down. We’re praying against our natural tendency, our self-centeredness … we’re praying for God to take total control of our lives. Wow! May it be so.
MARANA THA
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Comments
Excellent teaching on the Lords prayer. I believe that there is much to glean from these short but powerful words of scripture. Certainly the Lord new exactly what we would need to connect to Him and gave us the formula that leads to a right relationship with the most high God. A well received instruction. Thank you.