When You Pray (The Lord's Prayer) - Tim Horman

[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning!

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to see you all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you join me in a word of prayer as we prepare hearts to open up God's word together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, thank you that we can be here together in your presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for the way in which you have been moving among us already for the beautiful time of worship that we have shared together with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is such a privilege and a joy to come before you father and to enjoy your presence and to rest in your love, and I pray that we will be able to do more of that today and as we progress in this series, but for now Lord I ask that you don't open our hearts, open our ears, open our minds, help us to hear your word.

[SPEAKER_00]: and to receive it as you desire us to receive it in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in his book, Abbas child, the late Catholic priest, Brennan Mening, shared a beautiful story that continues to haunt me in the best way possible, while speaking on a speaking tour in New Orleans, a woman knocked on his door and asked, are you Brennan Mening?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he answered.

[SPEAKER_00]: My father is dying, she said, and a regular priest is unable to visit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Will you please come and pray with him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Brendan agreed and arrived shortly thereafter in the hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the man's room, he noticed an empty chair pulled up next to the bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Brendan said, you must have been expecting me.

[SPEAKER_00]: The old man looked puzzled and he said, no, I have no idea who you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a priest, he said, I've come to pray with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the chair, I thought maybe you were expecting someone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the man laughed and he said, I, yes, the chair.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's not for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I tell you a story?

[SPEAKER_00]: Years ago, he had asked the priest to teach him how to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Priest handed him a very thick theology book on prayer by some Swiss scholar.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I apologize if I've done that to anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm truly sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do like my hefty books of theology.

[SPEAKER_00]: About three pages in, the man said, I had to look up around 11 words also, and I just gave up in frustration.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I whispered under my breath, well, thanks for nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: In any case, later on, another friend gave him some very simple advice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to pray?

[SPEAKER_00]: All you have to do is pull up a chair, imagine that Jesus is sitting there across from you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He promised, he would always be with you, trust that promise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just talk to him like you would talk to a friend.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what he did every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as he grew in this discipline, sometimes for hours, he asked Brennan, well, you're a priest, be honest with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that really prayer?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that really prayer?

[SPEAKER_00]: Brennan smiled and he said, that is indeed simple, profound and beautiful prayer, and it pleases the heart of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: A few days later, woman returned her father had passed away, and she said, he called me in before I left for the store, he kissed my forehead, he told me a joke, and when I got home I got a message that he was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that story has always stayed with me, an empty chair, an imagined presence, a real encounter.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see the gospel's portrait Jesus, as a man of relentless prayer, we're told that he often withdrew by himself to lonely places to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Luke 6, we're told he prayed all night before he chose his disciples.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he would often pray alone before he was meant to be teaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or while he was meant to be teaching it, in fact, this happened so often.

[SPEAKER_00]: And usually at very inconvenient moments in the midst of busy days of ministry, the disciples would get really frustrated, search for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: The people are looking for you, they would say.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even so, Jesus always put prayer first.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet surprisingly, Jesus rarely prayed in public.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have only a handful of examples of Jesus praying out loud in public, and most of those in fact take place on the two days of the last supper on Thursday in the crucifixion on Friday.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, there's absolutely no question, despite Jesus almost never doing it publicly, that the disciples could see this centrality of Jesus prayer life to everything that he did.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it was so captivating to his disciples, so mysterious to them that they begged him in Luke 11 to teach them how to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, they said, please teach us how to pray just as John taught his disciples how to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the only thing, by the way, recorded in the gospels that the disciples ever specifically asked Jesus to teach them, which is really surprising.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they never asked him to teach them how to preach, or to cast out demons, or to heal the sick, or to command the wind in the waves, or even to raise the dead, but they did ask, Lord, whatever it is that you're doing when you go off by yourself,

[SPEAKER_00]: That which you seem to value more than anything else in your life, more than the crowds, more than the ministry, more than the impact, more than the fame, more than the influence, more than the likes, more than the followers, please Lord teach us how to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because prayer wasn't just something that Jesus did, it wasn't just one activity among others.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just a spiritual practice he engaged in occasionally when he felt a bit overwhelmed or anxious like most of us do.

[SPEAKER_00]: The disciples could see that it was the basis for everything that Jesus was and everything that Jesus did.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the one activity that defined and shaped the rest of his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And since the disciples could see just how important it was to Jesus, they understood that it should also be important to them and I believe it should also be important to us as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, and here's the thing, what I want to narrow in on today, that because prayer is so important, we often assume then that it must be something complicated and difficult.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we've made it into something that feels like a burden and a requirement, rather than something that Jesus actually teaches it to be, something easy and joyful as we learn in the offer course actually when it comes to prayer, we're told to keep it short, keep it honest, but keep it going.

[SPEAKER_00]: So today and over the next few weeks

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to look together at what Jesus says about how we should pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: His most famous teaching on prayer, in fact, sometimes called the Lord's Prayer, as has been mentioned already.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we prayed it earlier, and now let me just read the context of this teaching of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, which happens right in the middle of the sermon on the Mount.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now today we're going to focus on the context and the purpose of the Lord's Prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: within the sermon on the Mount, rather than the actual content of the prayer, although we'll touch on it, but we'll dig into that more specifically next week.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's read together, while I'll read and you can read in your minds and your hearts, Matthew 6 starting at verse 5, where Jesus says, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.

[SPEAKER_00]: Truly I tell you they have received their reward in full.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, but they think they'll be heard because of their many words, do not be like them.

[SPEAKER_00]: For your father knows what you need before you ask him.

[SPEAKER_00]: This then is how you should pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our father in heaven, how Lord be your name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from the evil one for the kingdom the power and the glory are yours now and forever men and our men.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just go back to Matthew six verses five to nine will sit there for a bit But let me ask first as we jump in

[SPEAKER_00]: Who here has heard of the sermon on the Mount?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see, show off hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's heard the sermon on Mount?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we talked through it last year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does anybody remember that?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, excellent.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for the benefit of those who weren't here and who didn't hear what we had to say about this, what is the sermon on the Mount?

[SPEAKER_00]: A sermon on the Mount is the clearest teaching we have from Jesus of what life in the kingdom of heaven or life in the kingdom of God should look like for disciples of Jesus and those who are therefore citizens of heaven living as we are in the in-between time of Jesus first coming and the promise the hope of His second coming.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord's prayer functions as a way of giving us an understanding of how we're called to live in that in between time, living as much as we can and as faithfully as we can in the presence and power and promise of the kingdom of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we've been talking about the kingdom of God for these last few weeks, but again, in case you weren't here, because I know that the rest of us who were will remember everything that we've said, let me just revisit this very briefly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said last week, the Jesus had two favorite topics, two main themes that appears in all of his preaching and teaching ministry.

[SPEAKER_00]: The most common things he speaks about are number one, the kingdom of God and number two, the character, the person of his father in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: He spoke about the kingdom over a hundred times and his father over fifty times.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's no wonder then.

[SPEAKER_00]: That the two most important themes in Jesus' preaching and teaching ministry are introduced like right out of the gate in the first two lines of the Lord's prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our Father, who's in heaven, hello be your name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, kingdom, kingdom, father.

[SPEAKER_00]: The two always go hand in hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also said last week that the heart of the prayer, the direction of the prayer, is not that we escape to go to heaven, but it's the exact opposite of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, that heaven would come and invade earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be made real on earth, that it would be manifest on earth, heaven to earth, not earth to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's just take a second with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, what is the kingdom of God or what is the kingdom of heaven as Matthew calls it?

[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom is not Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom is not the same thing as the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom is not found in any particular geography or nation or politics.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom is any place or any space with a reign and the rule of God is welcomed and accepted through Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where we see Jesus doing what Jesus does.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you become a Christian, you become a member of the kingdom because you accept the one who is the king of that kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get a name into that?

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you pray the Lord's prayer, this is what we are saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want your kingdom to be as real down here, Lord, as it is up there where you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want your reign and rule to be down here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to do what it does down here, just as it does up there where you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I've just up and above and below, you know, it's not really like that, but we think in those terms because well, we're bound by three dimensions.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: What are we praying?

[SPEAKER_00]: It means that what you're asking, what you are praying for, is for the vision of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: The moral, ethical and spiritual vision of life that is outlined in the sermon on the Mount to be the world that you actually inhabit, to be the life that you actually live, even in the midst of this fallen broken and hurting world.

[SPEAKER_00]: especially perhaps in the midst of this fallen hurting and broken world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heaven to earth, friends, not earth to heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not here to just wait around until Jesus returns and we get to live in bliss forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are here to partner with him in making sure that every place in this world that is not yet

[SPEAKER_00]: where it's not yet clear that Jesus is raining and ruling, that we will take the promise of the kingdom to those places, to the dark places, to the hurting places, to the broken places, to the places where people are weeping, in pain, and we bring the rain and rule of Jesus into those places, because that's what kingdom people do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll explore this more in the coming weeks, but when we pray the Lord's prayer, even if we do it by wrote without really thinking about it too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to lead my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be in charge.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm laying everything down to Christ, and I'm willing to be a slave to Christ because Jesus demonstrated this in his own life.

[SPEAKER_00]: He obeyed the Father perfectly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to imitate that perfection.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to live his style of life and imitate his way of living.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be holy as he is holy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that mostly means I want to know the Father and therefore obey the Father, just as Jesus did.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, Father, your kingdom come, not mine, your kingdom come, your will be done, not mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here on earth, in my life, in my thinking, in my heart, in my body, in my relationships, just as it is in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: The same prayer that Jesus prayed, sweating drops of blood in anguish and in sorrow, on the night that he was betrayed, arrested, tried and crucified.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you find this hard, you're not alone because this, as it turns out, was hard for Jesus too.

[SPEAKER_00]: As Hebrews tells us, he learned obedience by the things that he suffered.

[SPEAKER_00]: As one person said, while the kingdom of God is total gift,

[SPEAKER_00]: It is also, total demand.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to pray this prayer means, well, what does it mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: It means that we want the loving reign and rule of God, loving reign and rule of the kingdom of God in our homes.

[SPEAKER_00]: in our marriages, in our friendships, in our family life, in our money, in our sex lives, in our sexuality, in what we do with our bodies, in what we consume, in our tax returns, in our lifestyle, and our attitudes toward other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Especially those we might consider enemies and our attitudes toward our job, to our boss, to our colleagues, towards politics, and toward our political leaders.

[SPEAKER_00]: In short, everything, that's what the kingdom of God wants to rule over, everything in every way, as we said last week, everything in all creation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone take a deep breath.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus will break down for us what this means in the Lord's prayer in a series of clauses, one by one, that each take the prayer into deeper and deeper dimensions of our lives and our desires and our actions.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'm going to argue as we progress through these series, that the Lord's prayer is intended to cover every aspect of what it means to be a disciple.

[SPEAKER_00]: which also unfortunately means that I can't just pray this and then not address the questions that it raises for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I really want God's kingdom in my life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I really trust him for daily bread?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I actually want to forgive my enemies?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I really want to resist evil as he resisted evil?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I want what the Father is offering me here?

[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is if you've done church for a while and probably a bunch of you have, you'll also know that most people divorce what Jesus is teaching in the Lord's prayer from the rest of the sermon on the Mount.

[SPEAKER_00]: We turn the Lord's prayer into kind of like a formula for how to pray, a methodology, a technique.

[SPEAKER_00]: when it is in fact none of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord's Prayer is actually meant to be understood as a roadmap for your discipleship.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is teaching you what a disciple will need to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: because this is what a disciple is attempting to live.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get an amen to that?

[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot divorce prayer from action because as soon as you do that, then your prayers are no longer honest and you're no longer following the way of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're just putting on a mask like a hypocrite, which is by the way what the word hypocrite means, a mask.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you hear Jesus teach, bless it at the poor and spirit, and bless it at you when you're persecuted for my sake, and love your enemies and do not judge and remove that plank from your eye before you deal with the speck and your brothers eye, and do not store up treasures for yourself on earth, and don't murder someone in your heart, and don't let adulterous lust and flame your thoughts, and you're saying to yourself, Dear God, I'm not sure I can do any of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you'd be right, of course you can't, you sinner you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do we just carry on thinking that we can do this in our own power?

[SPEAKER_00]: If only we try hard enough, and no matter how many times we fail, we're just going to keep on keeping on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I have a men in the house?

[SPEAKER_00]: And next time we'll do better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all that shows is that you actually haven't heard the very first line of the sermon on the Mount, which is what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the poor in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Spirit, blessed of those who know that they are weak, who know that they need help, blessed of those who are humble enough to admit it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you choose this option, the root of self-sufficiency, then your prayer life will shrivel up and die because why pray at all if you don't actually want God's help in the first place?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you pray if you think that you can do this on your own?

[SPEAKER_00]: Prayer becomes pointless and the name for this church is pride.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you even as a Christian?

[SPEAKER_00]: Pray for something like daily bread or teach me to forgive or to cry out for help, intimidation or freedom from demonic influence when two ask those things would actually violate your whole world view.

[SPEAKER_00]: To pray these things would just expose the content of your heart so you don't pray or eventually you don't pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because God helps those who help themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Am I right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But what does Jesus say?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the most important thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a prayer problem, friends, then there's a good chance you have a pride problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I know some of you be thinking most of you probably.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's not my issue at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really do want God's help.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really do.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not sure I believe that He'll give it to me, even if I ask Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'm not even sure that He wants to hear it from me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a million reasons why we can think this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And trust me, I and I know many of you have been through all of these.

[SPEAKER_00]: We feel inadequate.

[SPEAKER_00]: We feel like we're not good enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not righteous enough that we fail too many times.

[SPEAKER_00]: The God knows what I did last night or last week or last year that my sins are too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: My problems are so tiny and comparison.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all the other real problems that are going on in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: So why would he care about my small life?

[SPEAKER_00]: And anyway, I've asked before and it didn't seem to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not sure that the God, that God the Father even wants me to talk to him, let alone have me walk into his room, jump up on his lap like a child and ask him for something.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus says, well, no, actually, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: My dad would very much like you to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, this all sounds very selfless and humble, but in reality, it's just fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dressed up as self, sorry, as false humility.

[SPEAKER_00]: So pride and fear, those are two of the biggest perkylers I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the real problem with both of them, though, is that at the bottom, what they reveal is that we don't really believe that God is good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really believe that God is good.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really trust that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is as good as our Lord Jesus says He is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why Jesus begins this prayer with father or with Abba, which roughly translates to doubt or even the more tender expression that a child might use, Daddy, which we'll explore more in next week, but for now, let me just say this.

[SPEAKER_00]: that the foundation of all prayer, of all conversations with God is based on this one truth that God is good and that He really, really loves us and that He wants us to be around Him and that He wants to hear from us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as Jesus says later in the sermon in Matthew 7, that when we ask Him, when we ask Him, when we seek Him, when we knock at His door, we discover that He is an unimaginably generous Father who loves to give good gifts,

[SPEAKER_00]: to his children, that if we ask him for fish or bread, he's not going to curse us with something we don't want.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's good, and he loves us, and he gives good gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if only we would trust him, it would transform our lives forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as I've said, many, many times before, if you want to know what the Father is like,

[SPEAKER_00]: You look at Jesus because Jesus is the revelation of the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Jesus said about Himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the Father of one.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've seen me, you have seen the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you believe that Jesus is good and you trust Him, then you can know that your Father is good and you can trust Him as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: for Jesus wants nothing more, nothing more than to bring us to His Father and to reveal His Father to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, that is literally why He came.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, the Spirit of God who dwells within us through Christ wants nothing more than to reveal Jesus in us because it's as we see Jesus more clearly than we will know the Father more truly.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the basis of all prayer,

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that, is the goodness of our Father in heaven expressed in His grace to us in the Lord Jesus, which is made alive in us by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, what is prayer?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's demystify this a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dallas will have said that prayer is an intentional conversation with God about mutual concerns.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a dialogue God has some things on his heart that he'd like to speak to you about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you have things on your heart that you'd like to talk to him about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul Miller in a praying life says that prayer is simply the medium through which we experience and connect to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm renounced as prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or as Jesus says in Matthew 6, prayer is not performance.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not pretence and it's not perfection.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not performance, it's not pretence, it's not perfection.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is simply presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's you showing up to be with God who is already with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's you taking time to have a conversation, not a monologue, but a dialogue with your father about mutual concerns, to experience his presence and to make your home in his love.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus knows we struggle or we'll struggle with prayer that many of us find it really difficult but the moment we take some time out, quiet, immediately our mind starts to race and we scroll in our phone and we do everything other than actually pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus wants to make it clear to us in his teaching, just how simple and easy prayer is meant to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does he say?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go back there.

[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, Jesus says, don't pray to be seen, don't pray to be noticed.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not about how good you look in front of other people because really there's only one person that matters when you pray and that's your father.

[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, he does not care how you show up to appear before him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just wants you to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might not feel ready, you might not feel worthy, you might not feel righteous, you might feel like you're dressed in filthy rags and how can you present yourself before the king of kings and lot of lords, the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: How dare you come into his presence, covet as you are with all your filth and your muck.

[SPEAKER_00]: God does not care.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Jesus touches the leper.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Jesus allows the woman with the issue of blood to touch him.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why he

[SPEAKER_00]: Is willing to embrace those who no one else will touch for he loves those and forgives those that no one else will love or forgive because he doesn't care what we're covered with when we come into his presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just wants us to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just show up.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus says don't be like the hypocrites who pray to be noticed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Literally again those who wear a mask when they pray and where it's all show, it's all performance, it's not honest, it's not real, it's fake.

[SPEAKER_00]: So come with honesty, come with simplicity, you're not there to impress God, you could never impress God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He just wants you to be with Him because He loves you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got nothing to prove in prayer because Jesus has already proven everything on your behalf.

[SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, don't be like the pagans.

[SPEAKER_00]: You think that prayer requires many words or special words or some kind of ruling technique or hours and hours of devotion on your face or some special religious place, like a church or a temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in his teaching, Jesus encourages you to pray and just about the least

[SPEAKER_00]: sacred place that you can imagine.

[SPEAKER_00]: The the word in Greek here basically means a cupboard or a store room or a closet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think what he's trying to say is just pick somewhere private where no one is going to expect to find you praying, where no one's going to bother you, a cupboard if necessary, the father doesn't care, the shower, the toilet, the laundry, the car, the train on the way to work, it doesn't matter so long as you come before him honestly.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus says some pretty astonishing

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, keep the prayer short, don't use many words, keep it direct, ask for what you need and don't go on and on and on about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because trust that when you ask, your father's heard you, so you don't need to keep repeating yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, some people would say, well, no, you've got to pray for hours in order to kind of break through whatever it is that's preventing you from getting into God's presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus says, no, you just ask and you trust and that is faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some people think faith is like praying for hours and hours and hours until you've moved the heart of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, faith is asking for what you need simply and directly as honestly as you can and leaving it at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then trusting that God has heard you and that He will manage the outcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is so incredible, I think, because as I said, many people feel that in order for prayer to be valid, it has to be long and deep and full of profound ideas and deep thoughts and use big theological words that short, honest, direct prayers or somehow not as good or not as valid or not as powerful as long and complex ones.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is totally turning that on its head and he's taking the pressure off you in that regard, he's making this as easy for you as possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus approached a prayer is taken to heart, that not much is required of us before we can have much of the Father, and that He knows our needs before we even pray, we are liberated to pray much more simply and less heavily.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not much frees us from the amount of time we think we have to spend in prayer in order to get through, and He knows frees us from the amount of information we think we have to give before we are understood.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the beautiful thing that happens when we approach prayer like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Press stops being some burden that I have to get right in order to feel like it's acceptable.

[SPEAKER_00]: When press stops being with performance when I take off the mask and can simply be myself honestly before my father telling him what I need,

[SPEAKER_00]: then it can shift from being a ritual or a requirement and become simply relationship and rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said, come to me and I will give you rest, but most of us don't actually experience that, certainly not in prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Prayer becomes this place where we feel guilty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where we feel like it's not enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: We feel like we don't do it enough or we don't say the right words or we don't come with the right attitude and so we're just defeated before we even begin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone ever feel like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why pray when I just, I know I don't get it right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Jesus is saying, look, forget about all that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry about whether you're getting it right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just come, just show up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can rest in prayer and I can actually begin to enjoy prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can experience what it was meant to be just me and my father, speaking about mutual concerns, finding my home and his love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Learning to be myself and his presence, like the man in the hospital, no mask, no performance, no ritual, no requirements, no special practices.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just me and my father who loves me and cares about me, who listens and responds, because he is good, because he's good.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not trying to trick you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not trying to, as Jesus said of the Pharisees, loads you up with all these additional burdens that you have to carry around with you everywhere you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I know it, listen, when you understand prayer like this, you will in time come to trust in the Father's goodness if you don't right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you will find rest in his presence, as Jesus said you would, if you don't write now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think all of this is indeed simple, profound, and beautiful prayer that pleases the heart of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, let's not forget that in this moment in the sermon on the Mount, remember the Lord's prayer happens in the middle of the sermon on the Mount.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's looking at you across the table.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just poured you a very strong cup of coffee.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's telling you that while prayer is easy and beautiful, it only works if it's honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: It only works if it's honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it's not that you will always get what you're asking for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Jesus never actually promises that you'll get whatever you ask for, like I'm asking for a new BMW that would be awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or a new house that would be cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is you think you might need.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember this prayer is happening in the middle of the sermon on the mount and what he's saying What he goes on to say Matthew 7 just a few verses later if you ask and seek and knock you will receive But he's not just talking about whatever it is that you might ask while he's talking about

[SPEAKER_00]: what he's teaching about in the context of the sermon on the Mount.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus is looking at you in the eyes this morning and he is asking you, do you want what God is offering you in His kingdom and in His will?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that this is the path not to the easiest life may be but to the best possible one?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe that the father truly wants the best for you, even if that looks entirely different to what the world is going to offer you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe this enough to pray for it and to ask for it?

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we say yes, then Jesus has given us this prayer, the Lord's prayer, to help us do exactly that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the prayer is given so that we will see that we cannot live the sermon on the Mounts, we cannot be disciples in our own power and in our own willpower and in our own desires.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't be self-sufficient.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have to let go of fear because to live this calling,

[SPEAKER_00]: That is beyond us, since we don't naturally trust in God's goodness.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to need help to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't naturally want the kingdom and all that it represents.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we're going to be truly honest, if we are going to be honest, we want to lie and we do.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to judge and we do.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to commit adultery and we do with our hires and hearts if not our bodies.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to hoard our wealth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to get revenge.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to let go of our unforgiveness.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, we also don't want to do those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember there's another law at work in us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at this in Romans 8, the law of the spirit of life who has set us free from the law of sin and death.

[SPEAKER_00]: So while we don't want the kingdom of God on the one hand, we also want the kingdom of God with everything within us on the other.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do want to follow the way of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do want to love God with all our hearts, our mind, and strength.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do want to love our neighbors as ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus says, if you're humble enough to admit your need and ask for help, if you will pray like a little child, your kingdom come, your will be done,

[SPEAKER_00]: that same power that filled him at his baptism, that same power that enabled Jesus to do the will of the Father, will fill your minds and your bodies and your hearts, and you will find as Paul says in Ephesians 3 and 2 Corinthians, that the Father who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to his power that's worked at work within us,

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we behold the face of Christ, we are being transformed from glory to glory ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so at the heart of all of this friends, if you're struggling with, yes, I want the kingdom, but I'm not sure I really do want the kingdom, then welcome to the Christian life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to discipleship.

[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is, we all feel like this, at different times, we all go through phases where we're more or less willing to submit our lives to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But again, the prayer invites us to name these things, to be honest about these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And say, Jesus, I want you, but I don't want you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want your kingdom, but I don't want your kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm torn off in between these two competing desires, and I pray, Lord though, help me, help me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to you like a little child.

[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, let's in fact just stand right now, I'm going to the band to come on up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I'm coming to you like a little child.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to you aware of my weakness.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to you aware that I have these competing desires within me that war against my soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I also know, Lord Jesus, what you've done for me, I know the grace that you've poured out on me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know the riches of your love and I do want more of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know the Father as you know the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to love the Father as you love the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to follow the Father as you follow the Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want all that the Father has to give.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all that the Father is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that for many of us, Father is a difficult word, but we'll look at this next week in more detail, but for now, for those of us who are struggling to truly believe in our heart of hearts that the Father is good, and that He loves us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just come before Him in honesty.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take off the mask.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not be hypocrites.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or think that we need to impress God with our amazing prayer, with our fabulous words.

[SPEAKER_00]: Prayer is a relationship, not ritual.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord, with you face to face, and your presence now, I know that you hear me, I know that you're with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know I can't prove anything to you, and I know that all my righteousness is like filthy rags, but I also know you love me and sent your son to die for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't give such a rich gift, if you didn't care about my life, you didn't care about my destiny, you didn't want me to become what I was created to

[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord, I present myself here before you now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I do ask Father, show me your ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: Show me your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Show me what you're like so I can trust you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do want your kingdom to come in greater and greater power in my life and in the world around me.

[SPEAKER_00]: As much as I might struggle, just even as Jesus struggled at times, I do want your will to be done in my life just as it is in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, show us the face of Jesus, show us the goodness of Jesus, and Jesus, show us your Father, the goodness, the mercy, the love, the kindness, the glory of our Father and Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: It does not want to remain distant but to come close, which he has done in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he continues to do for all of us in the presence of the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So church, just take a moment, open your hands, close your eyes, open your hearts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you speak honestly with God, take a moment before we sing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Carmen, present your requests to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're stumbling over your words, struggling to express it right, you're not really sure actually what you need.

[SPEAKER_00]: The beautiful thing here is Jesus tells us you're farther already knows.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the request that matters so much as he just wants you to be with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to be with you, because he actually likes you, he actually loves you, actually wants to spend time with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not like so many of our fathers, but he is always available, always ready, always accessible, no hoops to jump through.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just here I am, Father.

[SPEAKER_00]: Come your kingdom, be down your will, in my life on earth as it is in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: give me today what I need.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure what I need, but I ask for what I need today from you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Forgive me, Father as I learn how to forgive others.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you've me, Lord, in the midst of trials and tests and temptations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And deliver me from the oppression and destructive power of the evil one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because all that matters in the end, Lord, is your kingdom, your glory, your power.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what will remain forever and ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.