The Prayers of Jesus
Pursuit in Prayer • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 5 viewsNotes
Transcript
Recap Season of Prayer: This is Final Week
Outline of Upcoming Weeks: Widow’s Mites, Vision, Core Values, Christmas
Recap last week: Teachings on Prayer, we heard about what NOT to do… Don’t use vain repetition, don’t seek to manipulate or coerce God, don’t picture God far off and think you have to shout so He can hear you… Don’t pray to be heard or for attention, don’t pray as though you were conjuring through a spell… And we are left thinking: SO HOW DO I pray? And this is Jesus’ answer to that question:
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is 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 do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’
This is one of those portions of scripture that you will hear used over and over again in different contexts, recited as memory verse, and memorized to be used as personal prayer.
If you’re like me, I never know which version to quote when we are saying it together.
This prayer has been cemented in the history of the Church as one of if not the most important prayer in history.
It’s not the longest, nor the most profound of Jesus’ recorded prayers, but it is the sole template of prayer given that He tells us to emulate.
Taken at face value, just knowing where it sits in history, aside from everything else we can admit that this is a powerful, challenging prayer that Christians for centuries have recited…
But even more so when we remember how long the journey has been through scripture to arrive at this place…
13 weeks ago, we began with the premise that prayer began in Genesis 4 when men began to call upon the name of the Lord to fulfill His promise in sending the seed that would crush the head of the serpent…
When they realized the fulfillment of that promise may not be immediate or even in their lifetimes, they began to pray for the first time in human history as a plea to God to do what He said He would do…
We first ran into the attempt at using prayer to conjure a response from God when Saul built an altar that God ignored…
We contrasted that with the heart of David whose sole desire was to see God dwell among His people again, thus making Him a man after God’s own heart..
We heard from Hezekiah that even when it looks hopeless, prayer is rooted in the assurance that He is still a God who sees me…
In fact, He’s so much a God who sees you that even when Jonah tried to run, God saw him and pursued him until he returned to his calling…
That’s when the people of Nineveh found out through prayer that God is slow to anger and abounding in mercy… It was their prayer and repentance that stayed the hand of judgement against them…
But there was something else mentioned that the people of Nineveh did that we explored the next week when we talked about Dethroning King Appetite with fasting… We even fasted together for a week and saw testimony after testimony start rolling in about what God was up to in people’s lives when they put Him back on the throne of their hearts and dethroned King Appetite.
We took a journey through the psalms and sang through the prayers recorded in the songs there, we prayed according to 2 Chronicles, If my people who are called by my name…
We prayed for our leaders, we prayed for Charlie Kirk and his family… We prayed for those who hate us and would persecute us… We prayed for unity in the church and in our country…
We have looked at the prayer habits and patterns of Jesus, examined what He taught about prayer, and now we will look at His example for prayer…
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
From the very start, Jesus does something profound here…
Remember, the origin of prayer is that men began to call upon the name of the Lord to fulfill His promise… and for most of human history prayer was rooted in that mode in one form or another…
On rare occurance, sometimes in the psalms, but hardly anywhere else do we see this kind of intimacy in addressing God…
It’s not like the prayer of Solomon in 1 Kings 8:22–30
“O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no god like You in heaven above or on earth beneath… who keeps His covenant…”
It’s not like the prayer of Daniel in Daniel 9:4–19
“Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness…
It’s not even like the prayer of Ezra in Ezra 9:5–15
“O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads…”
Jesus doesn’t begin with titles, shame, or distance… He starts from a place of familiarity and intimacy… Our Father…
Not only that, but He uses the term “OUR” Father…
Not just MY Father… So this isn’t just the son of God praying in a way that is only for Him…
No this is His pattern for us and He tells us to start with the same intimacy and acceptance and position as Him…
OUR Father…
16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
OUR Father…
We begin from a place of sonship…
This is the place where prayer shifts in history forever…
Where prayer all this time had been looking forward to a time when God would allow access into His presence again, Jesus tells us to begin from that place…
So we start at a place of sonship, having been reconciled by His grace… Because we have given everything we are for everything He is…
For those who have died with Christ have been born again into new life through a supernatural resurrection in Him…
OUR Father…
This is not at the sake of the reverence due his name, but as a compliment to it…
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Hallowed… Holy… Sanctified… Pure… Set apart… Sincere…
I don’t just use your name any which way… I sanctify it in my thought and set it apart by the words of my mouth…
He is close as Father, but also Holy and Highly Exalted… Enthroned high and lifted up… and the train of his robe fills the temple… Angels circle around Him and cry HOLY HOLY HOLY….
Hallowed be Your name…
I approach you with intimacy and familiarity, trusting in your grace, depending on your mercy…
But also with the reverence due a Holy God whom the bible describes as a consuming fire…
You know what the best part about having a close Father who is also Holy and Righteous and powerful and undefeated?
It’s that we can declare with Jeremiah…
11 But the Lord is with me like a dread champion;
Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
Listen, you can mess with me all you want to… Talk about me if you wish…
BUT the moment you even look sideways at Derek or Paizley…
Because it’s a Father’s responsibility to protect and provide for His Children…
How much more, then will the God who sees all and holds all power in His hand be both Father and Hallowed to His children…
9 ‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Following after the pattern of the psalm we read last week:
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
Before Jesus does anything else, He acknowledges who God is and where He ranks in the priority of His life…
Before asking anything, before talking circumstance or need… He determines in His prayer to exalt the name of the Lord…
Then He immediately follows with this:
10 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
In other words, not only do I place you as the priority of my heart, reigning on the throne of my life… but it’s also your agenda over mine, your mission that guides mine…
It’s YOUR WILL, YOUR KINGDOM, YOUR MISSION…
It’s not just the mission of God that guides the Church or helps us form our vision statement…
But it’s His mission and His kingdom that forms and guides every agenda and plan I put in place…
10 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
I don’t just want it in the future.. I don’t just want His will in the end… I don’t just want His kingdom and His will in theory…
No!
His Kingdom Come… His Will Be done… On EARTH as it is in heaven…
Not only here, but look at the next verse…
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
Daily!
I don’t just want His will and Kingdom when He returns…
I need His will today! I need His kingdom to reign this very hour!
Today! Daily…
That’s what it means when Jesus says…
23 “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
I take up the cross… I lay down my life… Because I need His Kingdom and His will, not mine…
This is the same prayer that is echoed in a much darker time in scripture, but it sounds like this:
39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”
It may not be easy… It may not be comfortable… It may even cost me everything… but!
YOUR KINGDOM COME… YOUR WILL BE DONE… On Earth as it is in Heaven…
Make it look the same here as it does there… Where everything bows to your will… Where your Glory is manifest…
And I know there will be a time of fulness that is to come, but even today, Your Kingdom come Your will be done…
Then after God has been declared as Father and priority…
His will paramount over all else…
THEN we get to daily needs…
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
He is the provider of all and insures our daily provision… Later in this same chapter Jesus says…
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
This prayer of provision then is not simply a request, but an affirmation that we recognize God is our provider and all good things come from HIM!
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Notice the assumption here… Forgive as we have forgiven…
Let me ask you a question… Would you word your prayer this way?
God, forgive me like I have forgiven…
How much more often do we pray and leave that part out altogether? We want forgiveness, but we would rather speak of God’s unending supply of grace and mercy…
But this prayer takes the teaching of Jesus literal when He says…
14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
So we pray… God forgive us as we have forgiven…
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
God does not tempt…
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
but Jesus can attest first hand that there are times when He leads us into a place where we must lean on Him and His power…
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
This was two chapters before the Lord’s prayer, so Jesus speaks from experience when he prays…
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
This verse could also be translated “deliver us from the evil one.”
I want you to notice something about the prayer of Jesus…
Every line so far has been an acknowledgement of God’s place in the life of the one praying…
He is Father and He is holy…
He is provider of our daily bread and forgiver of our debts…
It makes sense, then, that this line would also be an acknowledgement of the fact that it is God who keeps us in the face of temptation and acts as our deliverer from evil…
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,
He is ABLE to keep you from stumbling and make you stand in His presence and His glory, BLAMELESS!
This is what it means to be kept from evil…
This is the daily prayer of the believer…
This is the prayer that coincides with the daily taking up of the cross…
This is the daily consecration of our time back to God…
Call Worship Team
And the very last line that may be in your bible…
13 For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’
This line is not in the earliest manuscripts, but it sums up this prayer and acknowledges exactly what the whole of the prayer just asserted…
We can pray all of this… We can acknowledge all this about God and position ourselves because…
13 For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’
There is no other king, but the king of glory! He’s the king of all kings… the Lord of all Lords…
HIS is the kingdom! and the power!
He holds all power! There is no other power that can rise against the omnipotent God of the universe…
There is no other force powerful enough to combat the one who has never lost a battle…
Yours is the kingdom… and the power… and the glory!
How long?
FOREVER! AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER!
This is what we declare day in and day out… From the rising of the sun to the setting of the same…
We can only pray this way because of who God is to us…
Not just who He is in general, but it begins and ends with who He is to us…
If He’s not Father and Holy to begin with, then you cannot say that it is His kingdom and His will over yours…
It begins with your position as Son or Daughter to Him, then immediately travels through a submission to His will and His kingdom…
Altar Call 1:
Will you answer the call? Will you begin your journey as a son or daughter?
Altar Call 2:
Or maybe it is that you need to submit your will to His?
Altar Call 3:
Or maybe you need to acknowledge Him as provider…
Altar Call 4:
Or maybe you need to forgive in oder tat He would also forgive you…
Altar Call 5:
Or finally, maybe you need help with temptation…
