Teach Us to Pray

Intro: We have spent quite a bit of time looking at the church, in what a church looks like and how its supposed to operate. These things have been essential and needed, especially as you plant and begin a new church.

But as we get ever closer to covenanting, the question should become, especially as we establish as a church, is to really dig deep and ask the question, “what do we do?” And foundational to the church as everything we talked about it, it will be all for naught if we don’t then do what a church is supposed to do.

Jesus makes it clear, as he is asked and as he presents kingdom living in the Sermon on the Mount, what life looks like in the kingdom. The church should then live this way, and the way they live is informed and empowered by prayer. Let’s see what Jesus says kingdom of God praying looks like:

READ MATTHEW 6:5-15

CTS: Pray like your life and your church depends on it.

BACKGROUND: First, let’s briefly see how we are not to pray.

We don’t pray to impress others (prayer is communication meant to be between God and man)

We don’t pray without engaging the mind (rote and magical incantations like prayers that pagans do are nothing. Christian praying is meaningful and engaging with our God.)

This is not to say that public praying is bad. As a matter of fact, the upcoming teaching that Jesus gives is in the plural, indicating that its in community. Its the heart behind it that must be addressed.

That is also not to say that repetition is bad. Repetition with the mind engaged keeps our prayers focused and needed for remembrance. The idea is that when we pray, we are thinking and actually addressing an all-powerful God.

So, then pray like this, like your life and church depends on it...

I. Focus on God’s Glory (9-10)

A. Who we pray to

The importance of a name! God revealed Himself personally yet powerfully to Moses in the burning bush.

Exodus 3:13–15 ESV

13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Father - personal and loving

The interesting thing to note is that Jesus is teaching his church to pray, and teaches us to pray by calling God our Father. The Jews of that day, and really, the OT in general, did not communicate God as Father often. But because of the clarity of the gospel, been made sons and daughters of God, we are able to address God in this very personal way. Paul expounds this out in Galatians 4:1-7

Galatians 4:1–7 ESV

1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

You are able to address God in such as a way, with such intimacy like that of a Father whom you can call upon who cares and loves you with such incredible purpose and joy.

You may have a good father that this can relate, but maybe you don’t. This may be hard for you to grasp. But know this, where your earthly father fails in giving love, support, care, and advice, God your heavenly Father never fails.

Heaven - above us and powerful

The in heaven of this line also communicates a vital truth to prayer. Not only is God personal, He is still above us, not like us. This is a good thing, by the way. Where man is limited in power, knowledge, and the confines of time, God is not. This then informs our prayers to remind us that there is this incredible reverence we need to continue to show to our God.

God is holy and perfect. So, we pray with intimacy, but also respect to our holy and perfect God. This also gives us confidence to know that our God can and will be able to do all the He plans to do and answer in prayer. In essence, we can say, My Father can do anything.

“My Dad can beat up your Dad.” That’s a good thing to pray in times of temptation, when we get to that later in the prayer!

Hallowed - given reverence and honor by us

Hallowed means to give reverence to. I like how the New Living Translates this line. May your name be kept holy. That’s the idea of hallowed. So, our words and our lives are to hallow the name of God. Our lives should be worship and honor to our heavenly Father. So we pray to God to keep us, use us, and conform us to the image of His Son, that God’s name would be one that would be honored through our actions and our words.

Ezekiel 36:23 ESV

23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

As Christ vindicates the holiness of God, all those in Christ, the church, is called to vindicate and hallow the name of God.

So pray for our gathered worship to hallow the name of God. Pray for the actions of Cross Church is all things give positive testimony to the goodness of God. Pray for each other individually that we would all give reverence to God’s name in our homes, our workplaces, our community, and everywhere we go. We should pray “God, make the testimony of Cross Church as such that there is no doubt that God is holy, yet good and loving, seeking the lost and loving when we were unlovable.”

B. Whose will is done

His kingdom

The recognition of our prayers is that God’s kingdom comes into this world, that the kingdoms of me and kingdoms of man fall and bow before God’s. That’s what God has done in our hearts. By repenting and trusting in Jesus, what we have done is said, God, I am no longer the ruler of my life. I acknowledge my ways have only brought about pain, sickness, heartache, and death. Sin has broken me and others. Forgive me, and may you rule and reign in me, and may your kingdom be expanded through me. I follow you Jesus.

As the church, we pray that God’s kingdom expands until one day it will in finality come in fullness. Php 2:10-11

Philippians 2:10–11 ESV

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

His will

The heartbeat prayer of the church is God’s will to be done. And we must ask ourselves if we really mean this prayer, or do we just say it yet live like its my life. Like when Frank Sinatra crooned many years ago, “I did it my way.” Yet we know the results of that. And the church itself can fall into this trap. We’ll do this our way. Sure, we’ll say its God’s will, but operate in our own power, for our own glory. Sure, some success may come (it will be flimsy and falter), but over and over again, without hesitation and with sincere hearts, we want to pray that God’s will be done in us.

That means that when He shows us His will, we do it. We also are praying for His power to carry out that will. Prayer is the engine by which we live out God’s will, the means of the Spirit who guides us in truth and empowers us to live it.

Transforming a sin-sick world to an eventual heaven-on-earth kingdom.

The church’s purpose is clear in its call. Lost sinners, outcasts coming to faith in Christ, gaining life who were once dead. The church reversing sin and bringing life, spiritually and also physically. We are to bringing life and light into the darkness of this world, where death and sin abound.

The teaching of Jesus on prayer first and foremost focuses and prioritizes our prayers. Unlike the hypocrites or the pagan Gentiles who make themselves the center of prayer, Christian prayer aligns us to God’s ways and purposes.

Application: For us at Cross Church, prayer should be the life-blood of each individual person, but as you notice, in prayer is in the plural. Our. We. So we as a church should pray with a particular focus. And that focus is the will of God for His people. We should pray that we live...

Lives that know their are loved by a good Father that has heavenly ability and holiness, worthy of our worship and praise. The church should pray that the culture of Cross Church that presents God as He is, holy and unmatched, yet a good Father that desires to save his own.

Lives that honor and hallow the name of Christ. The prayers of Cross Church should be that we grow in grace and knowledge of God, and in turn, live to honor Him with our words and actions. We should pray that all praise and glory is focused on him, and that the testimony of Cross Church is one that reflects the goodness and holiness of God.

Lives that seek God’s kingdom and will be done in us and around us. The focus of Cross Church is that third focus I talked about, expand the kingdom. How do we expand the kingdom? We seek God’s kingdom through His word, and then seek to expand it. The will of God is bound up in his redemption of the world through His Son. The focus of the church, His people, is not to expand our kingdoms, to make a country club that serves us and our comforts, but a place where sinners come to find redemption, reconciliation, and transformation through the testimony and work of the church.

II. Depend on God’s Grace (11-13a)

A. Physical needs (11)

Daily dependence on God is never taking anything for granted. This puts God in the forefront of our days, when we pray daily for our daily needs to be met, we are in essence saying to God, we trust you.

The Message of the Sermon on the Mount 2. The Christian Way of Prayer

Luther had the wisdom to see that ‘bread’ was a symbol for ‘everything necessary for the preservation of this life, like food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government and peace’,2 and probably we should add that by ‘bread’ Jesus meant the necessities rather than the luxuries of life.

Corporately as a church, we should be constantly praying together for the needs of one another and the needs of the church. Yes, that physical sustaining of bread, but also, we should be asking God to provide the physical of what we need to carry out ministry.

We should pray for God to bring people into our midst to help us harvest. We also should pray for God to equip those that are in our midst to serve in the ways He has gifted them.

Matthew 9:35–38 ESV

35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

We should pray for the means to carry out our mission, monetarily and also physical. It is not unspiritual to ask God to provide money for His mission through us. It is not unspiritual to ask God to provide a space for us. What we do trust is His timing and provision.

B. Spiritual needs (12-13)

But also the spiritual is vitally important. We should be praying in our own hearts for ourselves, but also as a whole church to be forgiven.

Daily and weekly confessing our sins to God

Daily and weekly asking God to help us forgive those who have wronged us, because we have been forgiven in Christ.

Colossians 3:12–14 ESV

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Daily and weekly praying that God will help us overcome temptation sin and the Enemy. John Stott paraphrases it this way:

The Message of the Sermon on the Mount 2. The Christian Way of Prayer

‘Do not allow us so to be led into temptation that it overwhelms us, but rescue us from the evil one’.

That realization that we are we struggle with the flesh and cannot overpower Satan himself, it is another notch in our prayer of relying on God to help us and empower us to live out the kingdom in our lives.

Application: So our prayers should be aligned with complete trust in our God. God, we need you to provide and empower us. So let’s pray with complete trust, asking God for all things, no matter how little or small we think they to be. Don’t let us be tempted to think that we can do the work of the kingdom out of our own strength. We should always ask one another and as a church, have we prayed about it? And if we haven’t, we pray for forgiveness that we trusted ourselves and then go to God in prayer.

III. Trust in God’s Rule (13b)

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

The last part of this prayer is one that we often recite and know, though you may be wondering why its not in the ESV and some other modern translations. This is because of manuscript studies, and in essence, the last line is not found in the earliest manuscripts. But it also has some attestation and recognition in the early church as there. So, though its not in the ESV, I will address the line because though it may not be found in the manuscripts, its principles and truths do not contradict the Bible and is actually found to be very close to an OT prayer from 1 Chronicles 29:11-13.

1 Chronicles 29:11–13 ESV

11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. 13 And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.

What can we glean from this in prayer? A distinct recognition and trust that everything is God’s. All power belongs to God. All glory belongs to him. Its a natural bookend to how the prayer of the Christian was introduced. God and acknowledgment of his kingdom and his power begin and end the Christian’s prayer life. Our lives are the in-between, where we humbly seek Him and the need we have in order to live His kingdom.

Conclusion: So we pray like this, like our lives depend on it. Like Cross Church depends on it. When we model our prayers in this way, what it does is put God’s will first, everything in submission to him. If the prayers of God’s people align with His will, He will answer everything according to it. We can bank on them. God told us to make disciples, so we pray that to be fulfilled in us, and if we truly mean it and are surrendered to it, He’ll do it. No, we don’t repeat this as a magical incantation without thinking, but rather, with this model in mind, with constant and unrelenting prayer and trust to God, we trust His Spirit to work in us and through us to expand His kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven!