Teach us to Pray: Jesus Prayer Requests

SLIDE 1 - As I go up

Growing up I loved Christmas; I love the snow, I love the cold (I know, I’m crazy), I love Christmas Eve services, I love family get togethers, but especially as a kid I loved getting presents, giving them was ok too, but getting them, that was the good stuff. Almost as exciting as getting presents, was making my Christmas list. Growing up this was the true sign that Christmas season was coming SLIDE 2. The JC Penny Catalog - a lot of boring clothes - and then a hundred plus page toy section! Pages upon pages of lego, hot wheels, action figures, and more - anything a child could ever want or wish for! My brother, sister, and I would take turns going page by page circling what we wanted, then writing it down on a separate sheet of paper, with page number, and item description to play it safe, making sure our parents new exactly which toys we wanted. Some years making our lists, and the expectation waiting for Christmas morning to see what we got was just as exciting as Christmas morning and getting the gifts. (pause).

If you were here last week you know we started a series on the Lord’s prayer and you’re thinking, Pastor Brian… what does any of this have to do with Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 6? If you weren’t here last week you’re probably thinking, does Brian not know Christmas is still 6 months away.... But stick with me, we’re getting there!

By taking the Lord’s prayer outside of the context of the sermon on the mount we are doing it a disservice, we are missing so much of the related truth around this teaching, so before we jump back into the Lord Prayer, don’t worry we’ll get there, lets jump ahead from Matthew 6 to Matthew 7, Jesus has been teaching for two chapters, and in chapter seven, starting in verse 7 SLIDE 3 Jesus says

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? SLIDE 4 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. 12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

You may first see what we like to call the golden rule here at the end, what you want others to do for you… do also for them - but even before the golden rule we get this concept of God giving good gifts. If your child is legitimately hungry and asks for some bread or a fish you won’t give them a stone or a snake right! Someone here is going ‘um actually in our house snake is a delicacy, and I grew up with the children’s book stone soup so.... (pause) if that’s you… awesome… just don’t invite me over for dinner on stone soup and snake night.... (pause)

Jesus is driving a point home, God is greater than the greatest father - and God is our father - and God, being a good father, being our father, wants to give us good gifts. (pause) but it doesn’t always feel that way does it. We watch loved ones suffer and die, we watch the news and see horrible things happening around the world and in our back yards and we ask God why? To answer that question, why, would be a sermon in and of itself - or a series of sermons - and trust me I want to tackle that some day, but today I just want to focus on two parts of this passage briefly to bring us back to the Lord’s Prayer

First notice these words in verse 7: SLIDE 5 Ask… Seek… Knock… Does God know what we need before we pray, yes, we see that in Matthew 6:8, the verse right before the Lords prayer. SLIDE 6

8 Don’t be like them, (the gentiles) because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.”

We looked at this briefly last week, God doesn’t care how long or fancy our prayer is, He just wants us to pray, he wants that relationship. But just because God knows our needs doesn’t mean he will go about willy-nilly giving us them. In Matthew 7 he tells us we need to ask, seek, and knock - then God gives, reveals, and opens.

Second notice a key word at the beginning of verse 12: SLIDE 7

God will give good things to those who ask him… THEREFORE.... whatever you want other to do for you, do also the same for them....

Wait… did you catch that! Since God will give good gifts I should treat others the way I want to be treated… For this is the law and the prophets?! What?! Jesus is doing something really cool here - the sermon on the mount began in Matthew 5, three chapters earlier, where he said, SLIDE 8,

17 “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

Jesus is flipping and representing the golden rule; rather than treat others as they treat you, the eye-for-an-eye understanding Jesus references in this same sermon, Jesus is saying show them how to behave - show them how to treat others, and apparently that is one way God gives good gifts, through us modeling that life style! By embracing this we are following the fulfilled law, the fulfillment of the prophets teachings in the Old Testament!

A couple weeks ago, when Alex was here, he said something that has stuck with me, when reading a couple chapters after this sermon ends, in Matthew 9, Jesus tells his followers to pray for laborers, Alex said, “The problem isn’t with the harvest, its the lack of laborers.” end quote. That stuck with me! There is no problem with the harvest; the harvest is ripe and ready for harvesting - the problem is with the laborers, or the lack there of. The problem isn’t with the world not being ready for Jesus it is with us, the church, not going into the world to show them Jesus, or as may be more scary, when we do go into the world we are being a bad witness - note I am using the royal we, all Christians, not just our church. Look at the abuse scandals, the financial scandals, they are all over the news in the last decade. We are not representing Jesus well. Now again, Alex just said it’s not a harvest problem its a laborer problem… I added the rest over the last two weeks as I meditated on that - and man, those words cut me deep! We need more laborers modeling the life of Christ, doing for others what we want them to do for us.

God wants to give good gifts - life, hope, joy, heaven - and we’re to be the conduit, the road that others follow to get there… don’t be a stone… don’t be snake… be bread, be fish....

Pause

Alright… a 10 minute intro, I think that’s a new Fayette Community Church record! (pause) and don’t worry - it relates to the message, mostly, so lets jump back into the Lord’s prayer. SLIDE 9

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread; 12 And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; 13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.

Last week we looked at the first six words of this prayer, this week we will look at the rest of verses 9 and 10. As I Was writing this sermon I toyed with the idea of titling this sermon, Christ’s Christmas List, but I decided it was too early in my career to lean into silly sermon titles; SLIDE 10 hence the more appropriate, but admittedly less amusing Jesus’ Prayer Requests.

I used to be in a small group Bible study that always ended after the study with the group splitting up guys and gals to separate areas for prayer. I can’t speak for the ladies, but all us guys would take turns sharing a prayer request, which would get written on sticky note, then another guy would take the sticky note of that first guys prayer with the goal being he would put it somewhere he’d see and whenever he saw the sticky note over the next week he would pray for that person… And we’d repeat that until each of us had a prayer request from another guy in the group. After a few months, the end result was we all had a bunch of sticky notes stuck on the inside covers of our Bibles and we may or may not have prayed for the person during the week, great goal, poor execution. It even got to the point that after a while I could predict each guy’s prayer request. Person A would ask for God’s help with a hard conversation he had to have, person B would ask that God would help them find the motivation to work on a project he’d been putting off for months, person C would ask that God would help him learn to be more patient… Good requests, but if we have the same requests for 6 months… you begin to wonder whats up… why are none of us growing? why is person A always having hard conversations? Why is person B never getting to work on his project he claims to be excited about? Why is person C never patient… I don’t have an answer for that question today, but I think it was an us problem, not a God problem… but one night after study while I was trying to think of a clever prayer request I thought - what would Jesus ask for? If Jesus were in this circle of men, what would His prayer request be?

I honestly don’t remember what my prayer request was that night, but I remember the question, I thought about it quite a bit and at different times I’ve come up with different answers, but once while thinking about this question I decided to see what the bible had to say, so I looked at John 17, I looked at Jesus prayer in the Garden before his arrest in Matthew 26, and I looked at the Lord’s Prayer here in Matthew 6.

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

When you read, or prayed these verses in the past did you think of them as requests or declarations? Is Jesus declaring Father - your name is hallowed. Father your kingdom will come. Father your will will be done. Or is He making a request; Father make your name be hallowed. Father make your kingdom come. Father make your will be done? So I ask again, is Jesus making a deceleration or a request? Pastors, scholars, and keyboard warriors have debated this question for ages; most agree they are request, but some still argue declarations. But as I studied this prayer, as I prayed this prayer, I began to wonder can they be both? SLIDE 11

Father - hallowed be your name

Father - Thy kingdom come

Father - They will be done

Jesus being being God, has the knowledge, the wisdom, of God. He knows how eternity will play out. He knows that in the end, spoiler alert, God’s name will be made holy. He knows that God’s kingdom will come. He knows that God’s will will be done. Yet the grammar, the words used in the original language, are phrased as a question. Most traditional Bible translators now agree the most accurate interpretation or understanding would be

may your name be hallowed

may your kingdom come

may your will be done

So Jesus is modeling that we should pray for God to do what God wills to do. We should pray for God to do what God plans on doing. This is an interesting format as we’re not asking God to change His mind, we’re not asking God to do something for our benefit, we are asking Him to do what He already plans and wills, wants, to do! Why? Why would Jesus model this kind of prayer? As we pray

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

This is, in a way, a prayer for us. As we repeat this prayer, we should be moulding our wills to align with God’s. We should be saying, God I want you to be glorified. God I want your kingdom to be made on this earth. God I want your will to be done on this earth. And unless our will aligns with, is the same as, God’s will - that means we are wanting God’s will to be done not ours; and as we pray this, as we long for this, our will should shift, if we are praying God may your will be done not mine - than my will should become like God’s will… that’s how wills work… (pause)

So lets take the next ten minutes or so and break down these three requests of Jesus. SLIDE 12

Hallowed be thy name

This is a weird word, hallowed, growing up I’d pray this and always wonder, what does God have to do with Halloween… well… very little. Dating back to the 4th century, however, that is before the year 400, over 1600 years ago, there was a festival called all hallows day, now called all saints day, when the church celebrated the lives and deaths of Christian marters. Traditionally this was celebrated in May, but in the 8th century, by year 800, the celebration was moved to November, by the year 835 the Frankish Empire, which at the time was pretty much all of Western Europe, made November 1st the official date for All Hallows Day. 400 years later in the 1470s the Catholics joined the Eastern and Orthodox churches in moving the celebration to November 1st, making the 31s, Hallows Even, later All Hallows Eve, later Halloween. That’s the summary of way too much research this last week (pause) but Halloween, actually does derive its name from this same root, hallowed. But that doesn’t answer the question what does hallowed mean…

This is where modern translations come in helpful, not because older translations are inferior, but because we don’t speak old English; I won’t call any of you up this week and say, good morrow would’st thee like to dine with though servant - no, I’d say, hey wanna grab lunch. So modern translations can come in handy in helping us understand the same truth, but in modern English. So the Christian Standard Bible, reads SLIDE 13

Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

Hallowed is an old English way of saying, be honored as holy; Jesus is praying that people revere, respect, honor, God’s name. In America we often relegate God’s name to a curse don’t we, when something goes wrong, when we stub our toe… That is so far removed from the old Jewish tradition in the Old Testament. You may have heard God’s name used in the Old Testament was YHWH, spelled in English as Y-H-W-H. I’m not a Old Testament or Jewish scholar, but reading a bunch of those this last week many claim the Jews revered God’s name, viewed it as so unique, so special they would not write it in whole, but only four letters, and granted the Hebrew language has changed over 4,000 years, but the Hebrew equivalent of YHWH was determined about 1,000 years ago as the best equivalent. They Jews would also only pronounce God’s name in full in the Holy of Holys of the temple on a certain holy day, Yom Kippur. God’s name was so honored, so revered, they refused to speak it. Those are two extremes! Do we not speak God’s name… like a holy Voldemort... he who must not be named… or do we use it so casually it becomes a curse word when we stub our toe?

Or more likely; should it be somewhere in between?

Jesus continues SLIDE 14

Thy kingdom Come

Father bring your kingdom to earth! You know what, someday He will! Someday every knee will bow; some with joy and gratitude, excited to see Jesus before them, others will bow in terror; realizing the thing they declared as false is true, and they learned this too late. In our series on Philippians we saw in Philippians 2 the call to adopt the same attitude of Jesus, where Paul wrote, SLIDE 15

10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We see a piece of this fulfillment, every knee bowing in heaven, on earth, and under the earth - ie in hell. And they do so… (pause) at the name of Jesus - Jesus name will be hallowed, honored, revered - I mean how cool is this - Jesus, God the son, Prays to God the father that God’s name may be honored and that God’s kingdom will come, then in Philippians we see a glimpse of that coming kingdom, and the global human response being at God’s name, Jesus name! I mean come on; if that’s not divine poetry, I don’t know what is!

In Revelation 11 we see the deceleration SLIDE 16

15 The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.

We see the end game, the result of this grand supernatural conflict (pause) almost - there are 10 chapters of revelation after revelation 11 - but in the final chapters, Revelation 21 and 22 we see a new heaven and a new earth an God coming with a New Jerusalem to rule forever.

Pray that God’s kingdom comes, not because we fear that it wont, but because we long for the day that it does! And live a life ready, and expectant, making a way for that day.

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. SLIDE 17 Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

Have you ever thought about the fact that when you pray, Father may your will be done - you are in effect saying, Father make me do your will. Because for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaved we would all have to be abiding, living, by His will, and we all… includes you. It includes me. It includes your kids, your parents, your neighbors, your cousins, your nieces, your nephews, your crazy uncle Argus twice removed! When we pray, God your will be done on earth as it is in heaven - you are praying God may we ALL obey your word, live a life worthy of you, abide by your commands. That’s a scary prayer. I don’t always want to abide by God’s commands. Sometimes I want to be selfish, I want to be prideful, I want to be angry, I want to doubt - but God, Father, thy will be done. Thy will, not my will.

In the chapter following this one, Matthew 7, still part of the sermon on the mount, Jesus says SLIDE 18

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ 23 Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’”

Wow - harsh! On the day when the kingdom comes - many will say Lord Lord! but Jesus will say, "I never knew you, depart from me.” OUCH, I don’t want to be one of them. These aren’t even eleventh hour converts; these are people who think they are in, they say Jesus - didn’t we prophesy in your name? Jesus didn’t we drive out demons in your name? Jesus didn’t we do miracles in your name?

I never knew you, depart from me.

What separates those who do and don’t enter according to this passage? SLIDE 19

but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven.

Following God’s will is a big deal, and Jesus prays,

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

So. Are you following God’s will and are you helping others do likewise? To follow God’s will you must know God’s will. To know God’s will we need to be in scripture ourselves - I can only give you so much on a Sunday morning. Are you reading scripture yourselves? Are you in a small group or a Bible study yourself? Are you dedicating time to pray and ask God to help show you his will and guide you through events and decisions. Are you saying Father, Thy will be done. Or are you saying, no, my will be done.

The prayer requests Jesus first modeled for his followers, Christ’s Christmas list…

That God be glorified, honored, hallowed. That God’s kingdom comes. That God’s will be done. We need to adopt these same prayer requests. We need to embrace this will of Christ. We need to pray this way.

Let me pray for us today.

Pray