Teach Us to Pray Powerfully (4)

Greetings:

Welcome to the Grove Community. We are a church that seeks to Love God, Love Unity, and Love Community.

We are glad that you are here to worship this morning.

Over the next few months I want to utilize a few minutes in the service to talk about that mission. In order to see everyone thrive in a relationship with Jesus we have to first know Him.

God is real, and He is able to be known. People need to know that. We all need to tell people that. What makes it hard is that you know that it is true, yet in the past you have told people that and they did not experience God like you do. That is not your fault.

God’s Word says

James 4:8 (HCSB)

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

God opens the heart and mind of people in His time, but if we don’t take the time to tell them how will they know?

Romans 10:13–15 (HCSB)

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

But how can they call on Him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about Him? And how can they hear without a preacher?

And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good things!

God delights in us when we are willing to take what we know to be true and share it with others so that they can share in the eternal life that we have.

If you are exploring Christianity this morning or your here because of a hard life situation you don’t know if you can handle it. Maybe you’re certain you can’t handle it and you are hoping that there is something here or in the Bible for you. There is!

There is hope, there is strength, wisdom, healing and freedom in Jesus but only if you open your heart to Him and draw near to Him; He will draw near to you, if you are sincere.

God never wanted you to go through life alone, that is why the church exists; to walk the hard road of life together. Let’s take a second and thank your neighbor for being here today and walking this journey together.

Meet and Greet (music soft)

Review

Prayer is the only thing we see the disciples directly ask Jesus to teach them. From the context of Luke 11 and Matthew 6 we discover that Jesus began to teach them to pray privately, powerfully, passionately and publically.

1. When we pray in the presence of God not for the presence of others we discover sweet intimacy with God.

2. When we pray with the position or posture before God we learned that we can ask our Father who has all the authority of a king but operates in the love of a father.

3. Today and next week we are going to see how the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to pray to the person of God before asking for the provisions of God.

Introduction.

“If you had the ear and the favor of the most powerful being in the universe, what would you ask for?”

Text in their town

Jesus is teaching the disciples that powerful prayers starts by seeing God as compassionate and capable of answering our prayers. They could be bold about petitioning the lord and that it would create a humble spirit not a prideful one.

Text in our town

Matthew records that teaching and it is equally as true for us today. God’s desire is for you to be bold in your prayer life knowing the compassion and capabilities of God is greater than we can ever ask. And when we approach prayer the way Jesus teaches we will pray with a humble spirit.

Matthew 6:9–14 (HCSB)

“Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven,

1. Your name be honored as holy.

2. Your kingdom come.

3. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

1. Give us today our daily bread.

2. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

3. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]

“For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.

What Did Jesus want us to understand when He pointed to “Our Father, in Heaven?”

definition of Heaven οὐρανός (ouranos)

“The vaulted expanse of the sky with all things visible in it”

The universe, the world the aerial heavens or sky, the region where the clouds and the tempests gather, and where thunder and lightning are produced as well as the starry heavens. The seat of order of things eternal and consummately perfect where God dwells and other heavenly beings

In other words

God is not of this world, He has the vantage point; the best seat in the house to operate with absolute power and rule with no restrictions.

the Book of Matthew contains the the word heaven over 70 times. We won’t look at all of them but to demonstrate that the word is applied as “God sees you, and His perfect power is coming to you.”

Matt 5:3 10-11, 16, 18-20, 33, 48

Matthew 5:3 HCSB

“The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Matthew 5:10–11 HCSB

Those who are persecuted for righteousness are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. “You are blessed when they insult and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me.

Matthew 5:16 HCSB

In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:18–20 HCSB

For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Bible teaches many things about the characteristics of heaven

Luke 15:7 (HCSB)

I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.

Revelation 14:13 (HCSB)

Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write: The dead who die in the Lord from now on are blessed.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “let them rest from their labors, for their works follow them!”

Share rich man and Lazarus

Luke 16:25 (HCSB)

“ ‘Son,’ Abraham said, ‘remember that during your life you received your good things, just as Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, while you are in agony.

Matthew 5:11–12 (HCSB)

“You are blessed when they insult and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me.

Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

1 Peter 1:3–4 (HCSB)

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

The reason Jesus talks about gaining Heaven, and that Heaven is the place where we rejoice, find comfort, rest, and we are given an inheritance and rewards is because that is where God is.

Heaven its self is powerless, and is not omniscient. But God is. And He dwells there. So by extension, heaven is too.

He is in control, He needs no ones permission, He is blackmailed by nobody. He can not be over powered and His agenda has always won and it will always win.

“Our Father who is in Heaven”

Is a call to draw near to God who is not only has the compassion of a Father but has the capabilities to do whatever is needed.

Jesus set out to make a way for us to have access to God the Father by His dying on a cross enabling us to be

heard by God,

be loved by God,

and receive what we need from Him.

“If you had the ear and the favor of the most powerful being in the universe, what would you ask for?”

Hopefully, you are at least intrigued that the most powerful being over all creation is for you, my hope is that you become enamored by the truth that God is both compassionate towards you and capable to care for you.

If you took hold of this truth. I mean really own it.

God, creator of all things, over all things, sees me, knows my needs, loves me with the compassion of a Father and the capabilities of the King of Kings… How could this change your prayer life?

First. It should make us bold

The Lord’s Prayer invites believers to approach God not in polite timidity but in bold confidence.

James R. Edwards

Jesus wanted the disciples and you to know that you can boldly enter into the presence of Our Father in Heaven.

Matthew 7:7–8 HCSB

“Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

The second way this our prayer life should change by knowing God sees us, loves us with the compassion of a Father and the capabilities of the King of Kings is

Second. It should humble us.

Ecclesiastes 5:2 (HCSB)

Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.

God is not here to be a genie and grant us wishes or fuel our idolatry.

We are not to act like trust-fund kids.

Illustration

Holly is a great mother. Piper could ask

Breakfast

Juice

Her tablet

vitamins

She’d take her to the Dollar Store if she asked

But shed never respond to any of those requests if Piper demanded them

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

As a member of Team Jones she has expectations. Standards to live by and her role is unlike any other in the family but since its hers she needs to live it out.

Application

“If you had the ear and the favor of the most powerful being in the universe, what would you ask for?”

Illustrations

Three Amigos: “Share of the money”

“A car, a big silver car. Id drive it all around Hollywood”

“New York, then Paris, Champaign, lots of parties and; Id be a real big shot for a while”

“I want to start a foundation to help homeless children.”

How far down the list are the following?

To live a life pleasing to him?

To have Him rule over you?

To replace your radical heart?

As we will see next week, Jesus tells us that these are the three things we are to ask of God since we have God’s ear and His favor.

If God is compassionate, all powerful and all knowing, then those things make sense because we are limited in our knowledge of what would be best for us while he knows it all!

Our prayers are only as powerful as our lives. In the long pull we pray only as well as we live.

A. W. Tozer

There lies the problem. Most people’s prayers are give me, give me, give me, because their lives reflect the same attitude.

If your prayers are not powerfully connecting you to God its probably because of you motive and desires.

He has the compassion and capabilities to help us in our time of need.

(Band up, Close strong)

“Remembrance”