The Kingdom Manifesto - 13

The Kingdom Manifesto – 13

Live with a Trusting Heart

Matthew 6:7-9a; 7:7-11

Introduction

When you write a letter or type an email, the opening of it is different based on who the recipient is. If you are writing to a friend or family member, you might start it with “Hey” or just jump right in. If you are writing to a potential employer, it may start with “To Whom It May Concern”. Who the information is going to determines how the information is addressed. No different with prayer.

Last week as we started the section of the Sermon on the Mount that deals with prayer, and we set things up by seeing that Jesus is after a Humble Heart in prayer. Before he could teach us what to pray, he taught us how to pray. Now, as he begins teaching us what to pray, he begins with who to pray to.

Matthew 6:9 - Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

“Our Father” - Jesus addresses the prayer to God, our Father. To those listening to Jesus, this would have been absolutely shocking. For a couple reasons:

-God had hardly ever been called ‘Father.’

-In OT (22,570 verses), God is called ‘Father’ 14x - 0.05%

-In SOM, in 23 verses on prayer, God is called ‘Father’ 11x - 47.8%

So, this is new. The way people relate to God is changing now. Just a quick scan of the OT reveals that this is radically different.

Abraham prayed: "O Lord God…"

Jacob prayed: "O God…"

Moses prayed: "O Lord…"

Hannah prayed: "O Lord of hosts…"

David prayed: "O Lord God…"

Hezekiah prayed: "O Lord…"

Jesus prayed: "Our Father…"

Jesus eternally changes our relationship with God.

The specific word Jesus uses - Abba. Some would say it means ‘daddy.’ That is partially true. It is not a flippant word that strips God of all power and makes him a cuddly teddy bear. It is a word that perfectly blends both authority and affection. God is our powerful dad, who invites us to crawl into his lap and talk to him.

Let me remind you of the truth that we established last week - prayer is not about the words we say, but about our hearts. Since that is true, what kind of heart is Jesus wanting us to have.

Jesus is after a childlike heart. If a humble heart acknowledges that prayer is all about God and not about me, a childlike heart acknowledges who God is and who we are. By addressing the prayer to ‘Our Father’ Jesus is telling us that, when we address God, we should take the posture of a child.

TS - So what difference does that make? Addressing God as Father, seeing ourselves as His children, how does that affect our prayers? Furthermore, how would that affect our lives? Jesus said in Matthew 12 that the heart determines what we say. So, if my heart was childlike, what would that do to my prayers?

1. A CHILDLIKE HEART MAKES OUR PRAYERS MORE PERSONAL

On what basis does God hear your prayers? On what basis does God answer them?

We have this tendency to view prayer almost contractually. We pray - say the right things, live the right way - God will do what we ask him to do. Kind of like a contract - we do this, God does that.

This is why we struggle so much with unanswered prayers (or getting a ‘no’ answer). We feel like God should have done what we wanted. We feel like God didn’t live up to his end of the bargain. But if the first two words of the Lord’s prayer show us anything, it is that prayer is not contractual. It is about family. “Our Father.”

ILL – several years ago we moved from one city in the Metro East to another and our house didn’t sell, so we have had renters for years. My relationship with my renters is based on a lease document. That document spells out their responsibilities, and mine as well. It is purely a contractual issue - they do this, I do that. I do this, they do that.

I have a very different relationship with my renters than I have with my children. Similar things may happen in my house and in my rental house. Repairs are made, safety is ensured. But the motivations are quite different. One, I have to. The other I want to. There is a level of personal affection that is exists with my kids that just isn’t there with renters.

God doesn’t answer our prayers because he is obligated to. Because he signed on a dotted line on a contract. He does so because he wants to. He listens because he is our Father.

This is what Jesus has been telling us about prayer the whole time.

Matthew 6:5-8 - “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

There is no word count quota you have to meet before God becomes willing to hear you. Pray in secret - you don’t have to amass a crowd or impress anybody.

ILL - When my kids ask me for ice cream (which is often), their eloquence doesn’t matter. “Hey dad, can we have some ice cream” verses “Dearest Good-looking Father, hast you the willingness to procure for us, your humble lowly offspring, some exquisite frozen dairy product.” If they ask me for ice cream, the answer is always yes! Why? Because if they get some, I get some. Just don’t ask mom.

With ‘Our Father’ Jesus invites us to stop viewing prayer as jumping through hoops and start viewing it as a conversation with our Father.

ILL – when our kids were little, at the end of the day when I got home, I wanted my kids to sit with me and tell me about their day. I want to hear from them...even if I already know what they did that day. Even if I know they went to grandmas or the park, I still want to hear about it from them. Even if Jodie had called during the day to tell me “Your kids have misbehaved”, and even though she had already disciplined them wonderfully, I still want to hear about it from them. I want the chance to offer counsel, encouragement, direction, and reaffirm my love for them personally. If they’ve been hurt, I want to personally kiss the boo boo. If they had fun, I want to personally see the delight.

Prayer is our chance to do that with God. To share our lives, ourselves, with our Father. That certainly changes how we view prayer. No longer an obligation, but a great pleasure and privilege. What a better way to pray! And not only that...what a better way to live! God then isn’t just somewhere out there, but our relationship is personal. To know that God, my Father, is delighted in me as his child, that he loves and accepts me, that he is interested in me...that changes everything for me.

2. A CHILDLIKE HEART MAKES OUR PRAYERS MORE TRUSTING

Knowing that we are talking to our Father makes our prayers much more trusting. I think this reveals itself in two ways:

1) In the words we say

Usually we feel the need to address God with a certain amount of decorum and politeness. With a certain amount of respect - and we are going to talk about that in-depth next week. We feel the need to “dress up” our prayers. Maybe with Elizabethan/Shakespearean English, using no contractions, no slang terms, have to avoid any emotion. Really, making prayer like an academic paper.

But that is not the biblical pattern of prayer. If you read through the bible and see the prayers recorded by the heroes of the faith, they are full of emotion.

Jeremiah 20:7 - O Lord, you misled me,

and I allowed myself to be misled.

You are stronger than I am,

and you overpowered me.

Now I am mocked every day;

everyone laughs at me.

Habakkuk 1:2 - How long, O Lord, must I call for help?

But you do not listen!

“Violence is everywhere!” I cry,

but you do not come to save.

Psalm 10:1 - O Lord, why do you stand so far away?

Why do you hide when I am in trouble?

These are brutally honest with God! They express frustration, anger and doubt. Many have asked me over the years “I am mad at God, but what do I do about it?” Tell him. He already knows anyway! God is not intimidated by your anger. He is not insecure. There have been times when I have yelled at God, expressed my disappointment...why? Because I was right? No, because that is what I was feeling. And God wants all of that to come to him. He is the only one who can do anything about it. And those times have marked me deeply. My relationship with God deepened because I was able to get that junk out of the way and allow God to do some great work.

Psalm 13:1-6 - O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?

How long will you look the other way?

How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,

with sorrow in my heart every day?

How long will my enemy have the upper hand?

Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!

Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.

Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”

Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.

But I trust in your unfailing love.

I will rejoice because you have rescued me.

I will sing to the Lord

because he is good to me.

What happened? Is David schizophrenic? No, he got all that emotional turmoil out in the open, allowing God to intervene. And you can only do that with someone you trust. You can’t talk like that to God if you don’t trust him. Because you don’t know how he is going to react. But we can trust him, he is our Father. Could it be that our prayers lack power at times because we aren’t honest enough? Because our prayers are too shallow? A child trusts his father. Therefore, our words are more trusting.

2) The answers we receive

One of our biggest problems with prayer is unanswered prayers. We will come back to this issue a few times in the coming weeks. If we view prayer contractually, and then we don’t get what we prayed for, there are only two conclusions to come to:

-God is holding out.

-I am not good enough.

Could it be that our problems with unanswered prayer come from this misunderstanding? Remember, prayer is not contractual, but relational. It is not that God is holding out, nor that we necessarily did something wrong and are being punished. Our Father is telling us ‘no.’

ILL - I have 4 kids. I say ‘no’ a lot. At times, it seems like I say ‘no’ much more than I say ‘yes.’ Why? Because their requests are ridiculous! I know better. They are limited by a child’s perspective, I am not. I see things they don’t see. “No, you can’t have everything you want because you will become an entitled, spoiled brat that no one likes.” My answer of ‘no’ is truly for your best. And maturity is discovering that dad was right.

Could it be that God does the same with us? As his children, we are limited by a child’s perspective. We can’t see the big picture. But God does. And when he says ‘no’ that is an opportunity to trust our Father.

Matthew 7:7-11 - “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

Our Father gives good gifts, not bad. And sometimes the good thing he gives is not what I asked for. God gives the bread; he gives the fish. He gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want. And sometimes after I ask God for something and he says ‘no’ and gives something else, only then do I realize that I was asking for the stone/snake and didn’t know it.

Bryan Chappel in Praying Backwards - “We limit God by the wisdom of our wishes. If God were really obligated to do what we think should happen, then God would be tethered to the leash of our understanding. Our wishes would fence God’s omniscience within the limits of our brain and restrict his plans to the extent of our insight. But if our wisdom defines the limits of God’s, then our world will inevitably unravel. The job we may want for extra income may take us from the family that God knows needs us more. The immediate cure for our sickness may deny doctors an insight that would save millions or may deprive us of the patience that God will use to bring Jesus into the hearts of our children. We must trust God more than our wishes or concede that our world will be controlled by billions of competing wishes that we have neither the power nor the wisdom to control.”

Our Father always gives what is right and good. Because he is our Father. He can be trusted.

1 John 3:1 - See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

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