The Lord's Prayer // Sermon on the Mount

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is an older Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

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So we have been in the middle of the Beatitudes.

It has been such a good series.

To be frank, Luke had asked if I wanted to step into this series and share, and I told him no.

I said, I'm overwhelmed.

My kids are home for the summer.

We just moved.

And I just said no.

And then about three weeks later, he called me back and he said, Are you sure?

And the only one I was tempted by was this.

The Lord's Prayer as a child was the most dead scripture to me out of any other prayer.

It was actually some of the first scripture I was ever bribed to memorize.

You heard that right.

My mom was a creative homeschool mother.

She would pay us$10 in 1990 to memorize a chapter from the Bible.

And she would always start with Matthew 5 and then it went to Matthew 6.

I don't know if that's like theologically sound, but that is how it went in our household.

And out of those two chapters, everything really made sense to me, but the Lord's Prayer.

It felt like something was vanilla about it, robotic about it.

I every time I pictured it, it would be something that I would imagine Catholic children would recite in Catholic school.

I'm not Catholic, my cousins were.

I did go to Mass with them, so I kind of had a vision of how they would do this thing.

It was until the Lord brought the Word of God to life for me.

So my hope in prayer is that this morning, prayer would start to be this cornerstone in your faith with Jesus.

Are you guys on board?

Okay, so let's start with a word.

All right, can you bring up the passage in Matthew 6?

I believe I told you.

Yep, start in seven.

Okay.

Here we go.

When you pray, don't babble on and on as the Gentiles do.

They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.

Don't be like them, for your father knows exactly what you need, even before you ask him.

Pray like this.

Just before this in six, he says, but when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father in private.

Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be your name.

May your kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

So there's a reason Jesus is speaking on prayer in the middle of all the beatitudes.

It is so easy as a person of faith, we're more comfortable operating from our soul, and we're more comfortable feeling like we have a checklist.

And the Gentiles, you know, they really seem to be enjoying getting really loud on the street corners.

And I just want to say every Christian you see out there is not operating from connectedness in the Holy Spirit.

Often, sometimes we miss it if we're operating from our soul, and we think we're bringing glory to God, and we're actually bringing confusion to the kingdom of God.

And so what I have found in the last decade of my life when I have been encountering situations that feel unsafe, maybe cancel culture, sexual identity, confusion, maybe people I felt really misunderstood for my love for Jesus.

What I have found is if I'm operating in my soul and I'm disconnected to the Spirit of God, I tend to make a mess of things.

I mean, I've seen somebody under the anointing of healing, and man, I have been knocked out in the spirit, and I was like, I was not expecting it, and it was not, I wasn't prepared.

But when the power of the Lord starts to move, you're just like, whoa.

And so they go to Jesus and they say, Teach us to pray.

And Jesus gives them the same prayer, word for word.

So there's something in this that is really important.

And the first one is, well, the first instruction is go get alone with your father.

Why is that important?

I want to caution you if the majority of your relationship with God is at church or in a corporate setting, you're missing the sweetest part of your faith.

And I want to encourage you to start to practice talking and communing with God in the secret place.

My best friend outside of Jesus and my husband is my sister Mindy.

And I mean, we're best friends.

It's not uncommon for us to pick up the phone four times.

We might hang up on each other 30 seconds into the phone call because life hits, but she is, we we have cultivated this connection where even when we disagree, we are steadfast committed to each other.

We will speak truth, we will let God do the rest.

We will love, we champion each other, we contend for each other.

And can I tell you something?

If you look at our social media and if you come around us at our family events and our friend groups, you would not know we are best friends.

Why?

Because our true connection happens in the secret place.

It's our secret place.

And that is what God is instructing the disciples and the Jews in six to do.

They're saying, He's saying, go find a secret place.

Yes, there's time for corporate.

Yes, I want you to be a part of the body, but that is should be from the overflow of your intimate relationship, your connected relationship with the father.

So the first thing that he's teaching us to pray is get alone.

The second thing is our Father.

Whoa, that's identity.

Some of us approach the Father like he hasn't proved himself to us, like we're not quite sure about him.

Or some of us approach the Father like we know he's our heavenly father, but we're ashamed of ourselves because we know we haven't measured up.

We keep going around a certain mountain over and over.

And why am I insecure over here?

And why am I wounded here?

And so we kind of just tiptoe into kind of his presence and we'll see how it goes.

And God is saying, nope.

You're my best friend and you're my son.

And some of you may say, I don't know if she's twisting the word of God.

I'm not.

If you look at Luke 15 and if you pay attention, here's why it's important to know the word.

Not just to know the words, but to actually know his nature.

Ha ha.

Like when you know the nature of your daddy, it is so, so good.

And so the father and the prodigal son, you have two sons.

One totally rebellious, brought shame to the family.

The other one did everything right, and he has, you know, represented the family well, but they both missed it in Luke 15.

And it ends with the father saying, Don't you know everything I have is already yours?

So, our Father who art in heaven, when you go into prayer, I exhort you to go in as a full-fledged son or daughter.

It's a paradigm shift.

Hallowed be thy name.

He is teaching us to praise.

Why?

Because we think he has an ego?

No.

He's teaching us to praise because it's the praise that shifts and prepares our hearts for petitioning.

It's what that song.

Can I get a bottle of water?

Or actually, baby, my tea is right there.

Thanks.

That song, um Good Father.

I've just been learning the piano, and that song is the song I've been learning chords on.

And every time I get to that part that says, You have led me through the fire.

Darkest days.

You are close like no other.

I've known you as Father.

I can't I can't take it.

I've known you as a friend.

It's in the nearness of his presence that our heart is prepared and ready to encounter and petition the Lord.

So many times we put I we had someone in our life many, many years ago.

Um, none of you know them, so don't try and guess, okay?

But um through some crazy circumstances, uh, one day I ran into somebody at the mall, they couldn't find somebody.

Long story short, I ended up tracking them down and I bailed them out of jail.

Most bizarre.

Like, I love it when the Holy Spirit starts leading you, and you're like, this is kind of weird.

Okay, let's go.

Um, and so they ended up for a few days at our house, and we just loved on them.

And it was a situation where they had been manipulated and betrayed, and it really escalated.

And uh the Lord was using it though, the Lord was using it to draw near to them.

And about the second night, they came to us and they said, I just can't forgive.

I can't forgive.

And it's I I know God's good, and I know God provided you guys, and I know God showed up, but I cannot forgive.

Thank you, please.

And Joey and I just said, You need to get in the secret place with the Lord, and you just need to keep asking.

God, I know you're good.

Help me, help me, help me forgive so that I can receive your forgiveness.

And it seemed so simple.

And and when they left, I thought, man, that didn't feel very powerful.

They still seemed heavy, but they said, Okay, I'm gonna do it.

And we said, keep asking, keep asking.

And they came back to us a couple days later and they said, Oh my gosh, I'm free, I can forgive.

And that's why when we praise and we enter into his presence with Thanksgiving in our heart, it shifts the atmosphere.

When my husband and I, I've shared this before, when we hit walls relationally, we are having our 19th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, 22 years together, and he's still good looking.

Thank you, Jesus.

I'm naming and claiming that.

I'm like, keep them together, Lord.

Um sorry, that was a bad joke.

Um, but when we hit these roadblocks in our relationship, it's so funny.

Can I tell you?

I don't want you guys to think, oh gosh, Amy really has it together, because we'll hit these roadblocks and we'll be like, I just don't agree.

Well, I don't agree either.

And then I'll say, Well, you haven't even prayed.

And it'll say, Well, you haven't prayed.

And I'll say, Well, why don't you pray?

And eventually one of us starts praying.

And it's amazing how when we enter into prayer, and it often looks like this God, I thank you that you're here.

I thank you that you love us.

God, we help us.

Help us.

We disagree.

And then it's like all of a sudden the love will start to flow in.

And and it's like, Lord, thank you for my husband.

I thank you for the gift that he is.

I I know you're gonna bring unity.

And and sometimes we don't have the problem worked out, but we can go to bed in peace.

There's a covering with this with the spirit, and so praise and worship prepares our hearts to pray according to his will.

And what does the word say about that?

Anything we pray according to the will of God, the word says what?

It's ours.

I want to move over into Philippians 4.

Just to prove my point.

Okay, I'm not making this stuff up.

Okay, normally we start in Philippians 4, 6, but I want to jump up into Philippians 4.

Always be full of joy in the Lord.

I say it again, rejoice.

Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do.

Remember the Lord is coming soon.

Don't worry about anything, instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done.

Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.

Prayer leads us into the peace of the Lord.

That is exactly what our elder Bob Young was speaking about.

It's not in our own strength that we pray, it's by the Spirit.

The word says that the Spirit even groans and prays on our behalf when we don't have words.

And I wonder if the disciples were just in awe of Jesus' ability to move and walk in the spirit.

And Jesus promises us that we're gonna do greater things than him.

But then there's that one little scripture in the back of our mind that says, I never knew you.

Right?

That one I should, I should have the reference.

This was not in my notes.

But the one that says, We prophesied in your name, you know, we did we did miracles, and and Jesus looks at them and says, I never knew you.

So what is the difference?

Where's the key?

And I believe that the key is in here.

Jesus also said in the New Testament, I do only what my Father does.

It takes an intimacy and a nearness with God, a walking, a stride, a knowing to walk in his fullness of joy.

And so this morning, I believe that I believe that God is shifting us from wanting to get the perfect faith walked down and the perfect theology to being connected with our Heavenly Father.

We are sons.

It's in his presence that there are fullness of joy, and it shifts our heart.

I don't think that Jesus would have been able to run the race and hang on the cross if he was not in such a rhythm and a nearness to his heavenly father, and that's what he's inviting each one of us to.

And some of us, though, I do want to warn you when you get in his presence, there is a often a moment of surrender of will.

But just as Jesus had to surrender his own will, He just before He went and hung on the cross, He said, He said he was sweating blood.

He did not necessarily that I, you know, I've had moments where I'm like, God, I would not write the story this way.

I would not do it this way.

What are you doing?

Can you remove this cup?

Can you shift it in my life?

This feels like struggle.

I don't have the capacity to love.

And it's when I enter into his presence, just like my friend, it's when you enter in all of a sudden, oh my gosh, there's the grace, there's the love, there's the freedom, there's the nearness, there's peace and fullness of joy.

I want to invite you this morning.

I felt like we were supposed to this the ending of the message, for lack of a better way, was actually supposed to be an invitation into worship and prayer.

So I want to invite you to enter into worship and remind yourself that if you profess that Jesus is your Lord and Savior, that you have full access, I'm not done.

It says, your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

I this is huge, church.

I had had a moment as a child where I prayed for someone to be healed and they were not healed.

And it brought deep, deep disappointment to my heart.

And it brought doubt where I would say, Did God not want me to pray for them to be healed?

Should I have not rushed into that?

And when this chapter came to life for me, it was when I I was actually really sick and I was struggling, I was scared.

And all of a sudden, your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

And the Lord gave me a picture of my wholeness in heaven.

And I immediately realized He blesses me by faith to call forth my wholeness here on earth as it is in heaven, because I'm his daughter.

That's a word for someone in here.

You've been operating in a lot of doubt.

And the Lord is saying, You, you have my blessing, child, to release the kingdom of God.

It doesn't matter what your childhood was, it doesn't matter what your parents have spoken over you.

You, if if you come from uh if you have had poor examples of marriages, God's telling you, no, who you are in heaven, who who he created you, he formed every hair on your head, he knows the plans he has for you.

They are good plans, they're not to harm you.

He's saying, His kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven, and you are blessed in Jesus' name to encounter that.

Is that not a good word or what?

By the way, I was healed and the Lord direct me.

I, my whole health journey, man, I could talk about that.

God is really good.

You guys can play.

I love, sorry, I love Piper.

They're like hiding out here.

Um says, give us the food we need and forgive us our sins.

And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

I imagine as Jesus was before the Father and he's going, I don't know.

I don't know, God.

I don't know if I have it in me to love these guys.

I'm not sure they deserve it.

But as he received the Father's heart for God's creation, I imagine that the love came rushing in.

And all of a sudden he had the capacity in his heart to hang on the cross for your sins and mine and the world's.

In church, if we are not near to the Father, we are a dying church.

But the second you step into his throne room, you are a light set on a hill.

And in the name of Jesus, I bless each individual here to be filled with the Holy Spirit and lit up, that they would have the capacity to love someone in sexual confusion and not judge them, that they would have the capacity to pray for an alcoholic or a drug addict.

They would have the capacity to pray for their boss that has betrayed them and made examples of them, that they would have the capacity to throw off the labels that have been put on them because they know that they are a son and a daughter.

So, Father, I pray, just as you say, if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you.

But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive your sins.

Father, we repent of trying to be religious apart from your spirit, God.

Father, as your sons and daughters, we I say as your daughter, have your way in me.

Bring correction in me.

Help me love those that I do not understand.

And Father, forgive me when I've been ashamed of the goodness of God in my life.

Because all my days, God, you have been faithful.

One day in your courts is worth everything.

Father, would you, as we enter into worship, wherever each of us have clung to false identities or control, you know, you know it all, God.

I pray that we would step into your presence and that we would receive access to the Father.

That there would be no more shame.

So, God, just do what only you can do this morning that we respond.

In Jesus' name, amen.