Kingdom Prayer

Call to Worship: 1 Peter 1:3-4 // Prayer

Adoration: Blessed are you, Our God and Father. Through Jesus Christ, by your great mercy, you have caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of our Savior from the dead, to an inheritance that cannot be spoiled or defiled, that cannot fade, which You keep for us in heaven in love, and by your limitless power...

Confession: And so, we come to you to confess our sins: in comparison to your love, we see the darkness of our selfishness; in comparison to your tender mercies, we see the evil of our pride; in comparison to your holiness, we see that our impurities are far worse than we had thought; and yet in these things we also see a Father who hears receives our confessions by the blood of your Son, which you gave in love. And so we confess: Father, forgive us; for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: And in amazement we see that we are forgiven, and that you have done it. You have made us free in Christ. You have cleansed us and brought us to yourself.

Supp: And so we beg you, Father, teach us to fulfill the mission your Son gave us: teach each one of us to take a strong interest in the spiritual condition of our brothers and sisters in the congregation; give us a heart for it; give us eyes to see those we’ve missed; give us eyes to see the war that is raging in every heart; give us faith and love to enter that battle in each other’s lives, that your name be glorified among us! // and for Laurel CC we ask: may your name be glorified there also—as we join them for the Sunrise Service this Easter morning, please show us your glory in the resurrection of your crucified Son // Father, we bring to you the terrible problem of drugs in our city: we ask for wiser governance by those in power, that less of our neighbors would be sucked into that horrific life; we ask that you raise up more believers who are prepared to minister with the gospel into that sin and suffering // And now…

Family Matters

Benediction

Isaiah 60:1–3 ESV

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Sermon

Read: Matthew 6:7-14

Intro:

What kind of prayers does God love to hear us pray?

We might be tempted to say, “Man, who cares what kind of prayer it is? Who cares what folks are praying about, as long as it is addressed to God? As long as they’re even praying at all?!” Well, it’s understandable to think that way—that we should be happy, just so long as people are praying. But is that how Jesus thought about it?

There’s an interesting practice at many public libraries: you can go there at the beginning of the summer and get a bingo card. And if you read a book, you get to cross off a square of the card. And if you cross off enough squares, you get a prize. And let me tell you something: you don’t have to once crack open the cover of a good book to get that prize. A few trashy reads, and you’re rewarded with a prize. The thinking seems to be: it doesn’t matter what they read—let’s just get them to read anything at all!

And my guess is, scarcely anything is read which is truly beautiful, or actually makes anyone wiser in a way that matters.

Now, maybe that’s overly critical toward our libraries. But I wonder, do we sometimes think that way about prayer?

Is it enough to simply engage in the activity of prayer? Or is there something more, for our prayers to be truly worth praying? For our prayers to matter in God’s Kingdom?

As we go through our passage today, we’re going to see that Jesus does think something more is needed. Actually, Jesus goes so far as to command us not to pray more, if it’s just prayer for prayer’s sake. Instead, he teaches us to pray seeking God’s honor and our holiness, from the heart.

Seeking God’s Honor

**Now, the way I just summed that up sounds very spiritual. What Christian could disagree with a whole-hearted prayer that seeks God’s honor and our holiness?**

But there is a problem, both ancient and modern, in prayer, which can prevent us from following Jesus’ pattern—from praying prayers which matter in God’s Kingdom. What is it?

Thinking that God is primarily a needs-granter. A wish-fulfiller. In the ancient world, this might mean praying for rain, so that the crops don’t die and the village isn’t wiped out by famine. In the modern world, the needs can be equally severe: a potentially deadly health crisis; an empty refrigerator. Many people think of God as the One you go to when you have such a need.

But maybe if you’re more spiritual, you also take smaller needs to him: a health struggle, loneliness, a goal that seems difficult to reach.

And in the Modern West we have a third category: felt needs. If I come to God, he’ll fix the broken things in my life that bother me: relationships that aren’t going well; a lack of purpose; a struggle with addiction… or even just a desire to feel something spiritual.

And so we approach prayer like that: it’s the time when we ask God to do things for us. And so we’re very interested in learning how to pray more effectively, because there’s some things we’d like God to do for us. And that’s how we think of prayer.

In the ancient world, one answer for ‘more effective prayer’ was this: “If you want God (or, the gods) to hear you, you need to pray more.” That’s what Jesus is referring to in verse 7:

Matthew 6:7 ESV

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

You could translate that: “don’t babble like the Gentiles, who think they will be heard just because of how many words they say”

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot?”

So there you are, and you just bought ladder or something at an estate sale. You’re super happy about your find, but… it won’t fit inside the car. It has to go on top. You’ve got some cord with you, but knots are not your specialty. So you do your best, and at the end, you just tie as many knots as you can. You’ve got to make it 15 minutes on the freeway with out the thing falling off. And probably, if you just tie enough “things” enough “times” you’ll make it!

But prayer is not like that. Prayer works on the bases of knowing God as “Father”

But many folks in the ancient world had this idea: “Say enough words, and God will do what you desire”—is there anything like that today?

One example is this: our catholic neighbors, when they pray the rosary, toward the beginning there are three “hail Marys” in a row. And the idea of those “hail Marys” is that you pray the first one for an increase in faith, the second for an increase in hope, and the third for an increase in love. Did you catch that? The words you pray are not even about thing you’re seeking. But as with ancient Gentile prayers, they are a repetition of words. And by the end, you’ve prayed the “hail Mary” many times. It is a violation of Jesus’ command here.

Now the practice of the rosary has other problems as well. It was designed as an alternative to the book of Psalms, but focuses more on Mary than God.

But it’s too easy for us to sit here as Protestants and point fingers at Catholics. Do we follow Jesus’ pattern for prayer? I will tell you, studying this passage was very convicting for me: in my own private prayers, quite often I don’t follow Jesus’ pattern—and I suspect most of us don’t. But I want us to see the lovingkindness of the Father as he deals with us on this subject. Look at verse 8:

What reason does Jesus give, that we shouldn’t heap up words, trying to get the Father to hear us? “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” You are not trying to get the attention of a distant God, who has forgotten you or doesn’t care. You’re speaking with the God who in mercy has made himself your Father, who has numbered the hairs on your head, who “causes all things to work together for good” for his beloved children.

Now, by reminding us of that, what is Jesus doing?

Is he discouraging prayer? “The Father already knows. So you don’t need to pray.”—no, because the very next thing he does is teach us how to pray.

So then, is he encouraging us to spend more time asking God for things? Is that what Jesus is doing?

That might seem like the right answer, at first. But take a look at the example prayer:

It’s five verses long. The first two verses are a petition to God, to make his own name great—pure worship

The last two verses are a plea for the Father’s help as we seek to live holy lives

Only the middle verse, which is the shortest in the prayer, has anything to do with worldly needs.

So, the prayer neither starts nor ends with our physical, social, or emotional needs. If you count verses, physical needs is only 1/5th of the prayer. If you count words, they only make 1/7th—the short request for daily bread in vs. 11.

Now think about that: Jesus introduces the prayer with an assurance that the Father very much has our daily needs in mind. But then he gives the prayer, and it minimizes the importance daily needs. So what’s happening?

This is the lovingkindness of God. In order to free us up to prayer about what really matters—to care about what really matters—Jesus begins by gently assuring us that the Father will take care of us in this life—we don’t need to focus our prayers on that.

Now, maybe you’re not convinced about this. You’re thinking of other passages in Scripture where praying for physical needs is a big deal. True. And in this passage, Jesus isn’t commanding you never to pray for your earthly needs.

But let me show you something: Jesus is not done talking about our physical needs by the end of this passage—the very next passage is going to be a deep-dive on the subject. And here’s how he concludes that discussion on needs:

Matthew 6:33 ESV

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Our prayers are not exempt from that pattern: our prayers, just like the Lord’s Prayer, are pleasing to the Lord when they whole-heatedly focus on God’s kingdom and righteousness, and only secondarily on our earthly needs

Maybe for some of you, that’s straightforward. For others, it may be revolutionary. But if you’ve never thought about prayer that way before, in all love, I sincerely hope that Jesus just turned your world upside-down.

But, see how gently he did it: he could have simply scolded us for the selfish focus of our prayers— “your prayers need to be God-centered, so get with the program!”—and Jesus does rebuke us when we need it—but look at his gentleness here: our hearts have gone out of tune, so that our prayers are dominated by wants and anxieties, and he engages us by saying, “Your Father knows. Your Father will care for you. So you are free to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness when you pray.”

Now, I want to take a second to avoid a possible mistake: Jesus is giving us principles and patterns here, not exact rules. So, it’s not that every prayer you ever pray must conform exactly to the order and proportions of the Lord’s prayer.

But at the same time, it is a model prayer. Do you spend the first 40% of your prayers asking God to glorify his own name? Do you spend any time at all, doing that? Or simply worshiping him for who he is and what he’s done? We could look down on our Catholic neighbors for their practice of the rosary… but are we much better?

Now, if that has convicted you—and I’ll tell you, comparing my heart to the Lord’s prayer tells me I’m much less spiritually deep than I thought—but if you’re convicted, there’s a problem: repenting is good, but it probably won’t immediately bring you to the point where you regularly, wholeheartedly, deeply seek the glory of God as the first and greatest subject of your prayers

So, what do we do?

Our lack of desire for the honor of God’s name is simply because we don’t know him very well.

Think again about the kindness of God, just in this passage—to gently assure us of his fatherly care for us—his tender affection and daily love, which he pours out in our hearts by his Spirit...

That’s not even touching the subject of the Father’s love given through his Son on the cross, slain that we might have life.

Charles Wesley wrote:

'Tis mystery all! Th'Immortal dies! Who can explore His strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries To sound the depths of love divine! 'Tis mercy all! let earth adore, Let angel minds inquire no more.

Amazing love, how can it be,

That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

So what do we do? We meditate on the perfections of God: his holiness, his love, and much more. And as his Spirit opens our eyes to see Him, our hearts begin to desire that his name be honored. And our prayers follow that—we begin to offer wholehearted prayer seeking his honor:

Matthew 6:9–10 ESV

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Seeking Holiness through Grace

And what’s next? Well if we believe in his power and love, then we ask him for our daily needs—our daily bread. Though, we don’t focus so much on that.

But there’s something else that gets much more attention from us: a desire for God to be honored in our lives. As we look backward on our lives, we see sin. And as we look back on the lives of others, we may see how they sinned against us. And so we pray:

Matthew 6:12 ESV

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

That’s verse 12. And it’s talking about a moral debt—a debt that you have from sinning, or that others have from sinning against you. Perhaps speaking gruffly to your spouse or kids. Maybe failing to speak the gospel when you had a chance. Or whatever it is.

You see the sin, and your heart is broken over it. But you know the Father’s mercy, and so you come to him for forgiveness on a regular basis.

And then you look forward, in your life, and you know temptation is coming. God’s grace has humbled you, and so you know your own weakness. And so you pray:

Matthew 6:13 ESV

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

You know that you need the Father’s help for those temptations of lust or anger that you know are going to find you later, or that struggle to be patient, or that area of anxiety.

And actually, notice it’s not just “forgive me my debts”, but, “forgive us our debts” and “lead us not into temptation”—why? Because the concern here is not merely for your own life, but for the spiritual health of the body.

So then, how much of your prayer life is given to seeking spiritual growth and holiness in yourself and in your brothers and sisters? To seeing them flourish in Christ?

May God help us to pray like this.

But there’s something that can stand in the way of praying like this. I said, earlier, that Jesus’ teaching can be summed up as: pray wholeheartedly seeking God’s honor and our holiness. But there’s a way in which we can ask forgiveness and help from God with double-mind. Jesus explains:

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

What’s he saying? You can’t be double-minded about God’s grace. You cannot truly seek God’s grace with a humble and repentant heart, while at the same time refusing grace to others.

Or to put it another way: you cannot divide your heart in half—out of one half comes a prayer which matters in the Kingdom of God, and in the other half is a fist which tightly clings to the debt that someone owes you, denying the grace God has given you to those around you.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

But what about those who don’t show mercy?

If they are true believers, they will be under the fatherly discipline of God. Life will feel like a curse, because he’s pushing toward showing repentance and mercy. And then, God in his mercy will restore you in your relationship with him, when you humble yourself to forgive others.

But if someone never does learn to forgive, even after much time and help, it begins to call into question whether they ever received God’s own forgiveness toward them.

But when your heart is shaped over time by an experience of God’s grace, you will see more and more these areas of bitterness, unforgiveness, lack of mercy in your own heart—and you will cry to the Father for forgiveness, and you will find in Him grace upon grace for your every need.

Conclusion

And then, as those who have seen God’s glory, and received his grace, we will be ready pray like Jesus taught—seeking the honor of God’s name, and our own holiness, from the heart.

English Standard Version Chapter 6

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come,

your 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.