EP15: Learning to Pray Like Jesus

Welcome back to the grace church members podcast.

My name is Ryan Donnell and I'm filling in for our host, Chris

rivers. And with each episode, we try to

address a discipleship issue in a life of the Grace Church body

and discuss how to be more fully devoted to God.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, I personally was interviewed on

this podcast to explore how prayer can serve as a kind of

barometer to what we really believe about God.

God the gospel and our salvation and in thinking more about why

it's important to consider prayer and what it means for the

life of a Christian. One of the things we discussed

was that it's not just something to think about to study about or

even listen to a podcast about, but specifically, it's a learned

practice. So, prayer is something you have

to do something. You have to live in to and

participate in. So we thought.

Okay. How could we use this podcast to

help facilitate Practicing prayer and episode 12, we

discussed the Lord's Prayer in particular and so we thought

today we would use the Lord's Prayer as a guide for our prayer

and to show how you can do that, how you can experiment, you can

play with the Lord's Prayer. As your guide is kind of an

outline and yet prey naturally about the different things in

your life and the things that are on your own heart.

So today we're going to hear Jeff and again, Berg as he

guides Us through this powerful prayer.

The Lord Jesus gave us specifically from the Matthew

Matthew 6:9–13

chapter 6 verses 9 through 13 text.

He's going to introduce each phrase and then he's going to

have a little a short explanation about it and then

he'll pause and just give us space to actually pray there.

And so you fill in that preying on the heels of what he just

said. And then he'll pick up again

with the next phrase, short explanation, and prayer.

And so, during this time I just Invites, you to take this time,

enter into it, listen to what Jeff says, but then enter in,

with others. And with the Lord Jesus, and to

speak to him. Pray and let's learn how to

practice prayer, as we become followers of Jesus.

Hi, my name is Jeff and again Berg and I serve Grace Church

currently at our Taylor's campus.

And what I'd like to do in this podcast episode is to work

through the Lord's Prayer together.

The prayer that Jesus gave his disciples when they asked him,

teach us to pray and this prayer is compact, it's short.

And yet at the same time, it is so rich and Powerful in, it's

got such big themes in it, it's a great way of orienting, our

hearts and our minds toward God, As we pray, it's a great way to

start off praying because it aligns ourselves with God and

his kingdom and his ways. So the way this is going to

work, we're going to go phrase by phrase through the Lord's

Prayer. And with each phrase, I'll give

a little bit of explanation of that phrase and then some

direction and some prompts of what to pray about and then give

space to pray after that. So the first phrase that Jesus

gives us is Our Father in heaven, and immediately we see

the tension between a couple of ideas As in this phrase, the

idea that God is in heaven which means that he is great and

glorious and Majestic and far beyond us.

But also that he is father that he is close, that there is

relationship between he and us because of our belief in Jesus

Christ. We are adopted as sons and

daughters and we can call out to God and approach him as father.

And so we want to respond to these ideas by praying to God.

Halogen his character and who he is that these things are true,

that he is both great and glorious and Creator, and King

and Sovereign and far above us. But he is also closed and

approachable and has made a way for us to be in relationship

with him and the scriptures. Make it clear that he is a good

father with good purposes for us.

So take this time to acknowledge those characteristics of God and

then to thank him for that to praise him for who he is.

Go ahead and take this time to pray.

The next phrase that Jesus gives us is Hallowed be your name and

our prayer here is that God's character.

His reputation would be recognized in such a way that he

would be seen as special and unique, and holy that, he'd be

honored in that way. And so, we're praying thinking

about God's character and his name, and we can think about in

scripture how God often there are.

Names of God associated with, how he relates to his people.

He is the god who sees the God, who provides even as he reveals

himself to Moses. He is Yahweh the Covenant.

Keeping faithful God. So we can take some time to pray

about some of these names that were aware of and acknowledge

God's character that way. But we also want to pray that

our lives would be lived in such a way that we reflect God's

character to a watching world and that his reputation is

honored. Because of that.

So pray that our lives would be in alignment with God's ways and

that his name and his character would be honored.

Jesus, then leads us to pray. Your kingdom come your will be

done on Earth as it is in heaven.

And what we're praying here is that life would be different

than it is. Now we know this world is full

of Injustice and evil and wickedness and strife.

And the prayer is that, God's kingdom would come that.

Instead of those things, we would experience Justice and

peace and alignment with God. In harmony with his ways, his

goodness his wisdom that life will be carried out that way.

And so, we were praying that all things Thanks and every person

would bring themselves under the authority of God and let him

lead and direct. And we're also praying that his

will would be done that. Just as he is perfectly obeyed

in heaven, he would be perfectly obeyed on Earth.

So take this time to pray that today in the situations and

circumstances of your life in the decisions, you're making

that God's kingdom would come. That you would be surrendered to

God's leadership in your life, and that his will be done.

That we would be A obedient and faithful to God.

And not only are for ourselves but also for those around us and

for the situations in our world, take this time to pray for those

things. at this point, we begin to Pivot

from praying about who God is and his kingdom coming in his

will being done to the needs in our And we're recognizing that

we do have needs, but we want those needs to be met in

alignment with God's kingdom and his purposes in his way.

So we're asking that God would would provide for our needs, so

that we can be active participants in God's greater

purposes and Mission and honoring his name.

And so we're coming to God as our father saying, Lord, would

you give us this day, our daily bread?

Would you provide what we need today?

It's not limited to bread. It's not limited to to food.

It's any of the physical needs. Any of the needs?

We have that sustained us each day so that we can live our

lives devoted and faithful to God.

So take this moment to think about the needs in your life

commit that you're not going to try to fulfill those needs on

your own and out of your own resources, but you're going to

humbly trust and depend on God to provide for those needs in

your life today. And as we're praying, this

prayer about God's kingdom coming and his will being done

on this Earth, that's going to affect our human relationships.

So we're praying. Now, as Jesus instructs us,

forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven, our debtors, and

that means that we're both asking God for forgiveness were

acknowledging the faults in our lives, and we're confessing

those to them and asking for his forgiveness for those things,

but we're also committing to That we are forgiving others for

the things. They've done wrong against us.

I think it's helpful for us to just review this area in our

lives regularly to think about any things.

We may need to confess to God, or to others, and apologize for

and seek forgiveness. But also that we're aware of

the, the ways that people may have done harm to us.

And we need to be forgiven them with the same Grace that God has

shown to us. So, take this time to ask for

forgiveness, take this time to forgive And in doing so, I trust

in God's grace to help you in both of those things.

Jesus then instructs us to pray and lead us not into temptation,

but Deliver Us from Evil. There's a genuine

acknowledgement that we live in a broken Wicked world.

That is full of evil, chaos and death and destruction and so

we're praying that as we Face the hardship of living in this

world. As we Face trials that we would

not fall into temptation that we would not succumb to Um to that.

But instead that God's strength and Grace in our lives would

sustain us so that we can live Faithfully to him and represent

him well for his honor and His glory, take some time to pray

that as you face Temptation today, that you would rely on

God's strength and Leadership to help you to escape that

Temptation. So you can be faithful to him.

It's likely that if you know this prayer from your upbringing

that you're familiar with the phrase, for yours is the

kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen may surprise you to know that this actually isn't found

in Matthew 6 where Jesus Is The Lord's Prayer to his disciples

but instead it's something that the church has added on over the

years borrowing phrases from other parts of scripture just to

give kind of a fitting conclusion to this prayer and

praying it in conjunction with the Lord's Prayer.

So I would invite us as we finish up this time to recognize

that God's kingdom is eternal, that God's character is in his

power, and His glory are Eternal, that he calls us to

live for Eternal things and I'm just going to pray.

This prayer to wrap up our time. By saying that final phrase and

I invite you to say it aloud or quietly with me for yours is the

kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen. All right, well, as we wrap up,

today's guided prayer time. We want to thank you for joining

us. I realized that listening to a

podcast episode. It sometimes can get narrowed

into an echo chamber or just an individual experience.

It's not really shared with other people in your community

or your friends and so we really want to extend what you've heard

or learned or practiced here to other people.

And so we wanted to give you ideas for how to flush that out,

how to use the potty. Cast as more than just a

privatized experience. So we really like to encourage

you to use this episode with somebody else.

You can share your takeaways with them.

Another way to do this, get with your community group, or a

handful of guys or ladies in your group and just press play,

and let this guided prayer. Time guide you again through the

prayer. Another way to do this would be

to just write out the different phrases of the Lord's Prayer on

a Prayer card. Leave it on the table.

Well, it's your home and then before your meal, or after your

meal, you could have a time where you're guiding your family

roommates kids through the Lord's Prayer and then giving

them space to pray on the heels of these phrases.

And then of course, you know you could use it just driving down

the road on your way to or from work or wherever you're going in

the morning and let this become a rhythm certain number of days

a week or just first thing in the morning.

Let it be Begin with the Lord's Prayer so that you can begin to

learn this rhythm of living in his presence and doing that with

the prayer that Jesus gave us. So these would be some great

ways to move towards the practice of Prayer in your

discipleship. If you do have any questions or

want to access additional resources, be sure to check out

the podcast page located in the show notes and we just want to

thank you for joining us today and we look forward to joining

you on the next episode.