Powerful Prayer: Learning to Pray from Jesus

Welcome/Prayer Practice Check-in/Prayer/ Intro

Good Morning Church! How is everyone doing this morning? This morning we are continuing our series this morning on powerful prayer! I hope you enjoyed the intro video I created for this series. Keep an eye on that video as the quotes change and we have space to reflect.

Recap On Prayer Practice- How did this week go with our prayer practice?

Who was able to embrace prayer as a conversation to speak and listen?

Raise your hand if you were able to spend five minutes a few times this week?

Does anyone want to share about how this practice changed their prayer lives?

Lets come before the Lord in Prayer as we prepare our hearts to hear from Him this Morning, Would you pray with me?

Intro-

One of my proudest moments in growing up in the church is when I was able to impress my pastor during confirmation classes. I did a full out analysis of the Lord’s prayer. My pastor was so impressed. To me they were just words to analyze.

They were words that I repeated, except during one prayer meeting when I started the Lord’s prayer differently and was stuck.

What is our experience with the Lords prayer?

How many of you know this? How many of you can say it without thinking?

Does anyone pray it daily? How often do we stop to think about the words we are saying?

This prayer is the only recorded prayer that Jesus Taught his disciples

Shouldnt we be praying it too?

Shouldnt we give it more attention?

A Model of Prayer

First thing I want to point out is that this a model of Jesus teaching his disciples. Not something to be repeated word for word all the time.

Matthew and Luke include different verisions of this prayer using different words (Slides)

Jesus prayed many other prayers in the Bible and we see various other prayers from early Christians in other places of the NT

The Lord’s prayer is supposed to be a guide rather than a script to what God wants us to be focusing on and praying daily.

Think of it like one of those thousand piece jigsaw puzzles. There is not one set way to put a puzzle together: border, sections, from middle. In the end you use the same pieces to create the picture. It is a prayer that when it comes together it paints a beautiful picture of the Kingdom, the World that Jesus is building. Its the Kingdom.

If we view this a daily earnest prayer that we all prayer, its not only radical, but we will see the world Change.

The Last thing I want to draw out before we dive into the specifics is how the prayer is structured to reveal what God wants us to be praying about.

This is a prayer that Jesus expects his disciples to pray individually and together as He uses plural througout.

Its formed of three petitions that revolve around God and who He is.

Then three petitons that Jesus wants us as his disciples to be focusing on and living out.

its not just our lives but how we interact with other.

The prayer typically ends with Doxology “For thine is… but since its not in the text we wont covering it today.

Transition: Now we are going to look at this prayer that on the surface seems really simple and for some of us all too fimilar, but we are going to walk through it together and unpack the power and radical nature of almost every word of this short prayer.

Walking through The Lords Prayer

“Our” - The first word in this prayer. (slide)

This is the first aspect of Radical nature of Jesus’ desires for us breaking through.

This one word defys our entire nature and culture. We live in an individualistic culture that is centered around me and you. So much so that we have turned Christianity from a family focused spirituality to a me and Jesus spirituality.

This is not a me prayer but a we prayer.

When we begin with OUR it immediately puts us in a context where the words we are about to speak, join an ongoing sypmphony of conversation with our creator.

In talking with my friend Dean about prayer a little over a year ago he told me, “You know its pretty amazing that when I kneel down to pray I am not the only one praying, I am joining millions of brothers and sisters around the world. Let’s pause and think about that for a moment.

“Father in Heaven” - God is a person we are talking to

Father, Dad, Abba, this is a word that for some of carries fond memories or baggage, but this is our father in heavan! He is completely different. The best part of our earthly father’s and all the things our fathers lacked. He is our heavenly father

Father also reminds us that our prayer is in context of a relationship. We are talking to someone that we are in relationship with. This isnt a chant to a far removed diety but a talk with papa. this is only the second word of the prayer, but it powerfully impacts how we think about the God we are praying to

Transition: I promise we wont look at every word individually.

“Hallowed be Your Name”

Hollowed We dont use this word but its a reminder that although God is father and personal He is also Holy. Set apart. Its a reminder to Disciples that Yahweh holds sepremacy in our lives.

In a world where we recognize brands by names and names are connected to who’s in power its God’s name that should be set apart.

Draws the disciples back to the words found in Leviticus, “Be holy as I am HOlY”. It draws them also to the words of Yahweh in Isiah 49:6- Where we see the purpose of being set apart to be a light to the nations.

This is radical that even Hallowing God’s name isnt about what we do, but How we lead others to Him.

“Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done”

These so much that could be said about this little Phrase but this a simple reminder that now that We are Disciples, our prayers and lives should be centered around his Kingdom and His Will not our own.

Possibly share the story about app game in College: Lords Mobile

“On Earth as It is in Heaven”

This one phrase captures the entirety of Jesus’ mission on earth. For God saw that it was impossible for humans to make their way to Him, so He brought heaven down to earth. Yet, as we are now part of that mission. We are called to keep bringing heaven to earth. Thats what it means to build the Kingdom.

This means we dont have to wait to get to heaven because our Job is to make heaven a reality on earth!

Sometimes, We think of Heaven coming to earth like a person going to a suprise party. That we will arrive in heaven and there will be a big crowd cheering for us at the pearly gates.

But, the reality is and I think to some of us the real suprise is that Heaven has broke into earth and we are called to be the people on the inside waiting to surprise others with the news that the Heaven starts right here!

N. T Wright puts it this way: This is, in fact, a prayer for the kingdom of God to become fully present: not for God’s people to be snatched away from earth to heaven, but for the glory and beauty of heaven to be turned into earthly reality as well

Transition: The first three petitions have been about God, but the Next Three revolve around what Jesus wants us as disciples to focus on in our daily prayers and daily living: bread, forgiveness, and deliverance in times of testing.

“Give us Today Our Daily Bread”

We need to approach this phrase, by thinking about who Jesus is talking to? Who is Jesus talking to during the sermon on the mount?

Dont just feed me but Feed we.

This is a radical prayer, becuase it is not just praying for God to give you what you need, but what the community needs.

Connects us back to the times where God simply gave the people’s daily bread. It also cultivates a today mindset. It reminds us We should pray this way just thinking about this 24 hours.

It also inspires radical generousity, because it says that anything beyond our “daily bread” is a gift.

How this played out in the early church was if one person needed something, another would see something of their’s to meet the needs of the group. This is a revolutionary prayer in the western world.

Asking for OUR daily bread defys my desires as an individual. It also defies our cultural mindset. There is no room for me or my here.

I dont know about you but this challenges me to think about what I ask for as my needs when I pray.

“Forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against Us.”

Forgiveness of Sins is the Heart of Jesus’ work on the Earth. Forgivness is the undeserved gift that God offered to us all. Forgivenss. Just think of how much God has forgiven us Church (Pause)

Tim Makie describes this perfectly, He says forgiveness from God inspires us to forgive others. At the core, forgiveness is releasing the right to get even.

Sin is a endless cycle of “getting even” the Cross breaks that cycle.

Tim says, Jesus’ approach to forgiveness here is naming and calling that sin to attention, but the person releases their right “to get even”. Yet, if we follow Jesus’ other guidelines in that process you will never be alone again with that person. He doesn’t say if you struggle to forgive or if you take time to forgive, but if you refuse to forgive.”

Thus forgiveness is so important to what it means to be a follower of Christ that Jesus says if we dont forgive, we wont be forgiven because part of what it means to recieve God’s grace is to extend that grace to others. Now, forgiveness doesnt mean reconcilation or that “everythings okay but we have forgotten simply we have released the right to get even.

“Lead us not into Temptation, but Deliver us from the Evil One”

I am going to continue to draw from Tim Mackie here as we contine. Tim says, When we daily, Remind Yourself daily of who the father is, We are hallowing God’s name, We are bringing the Kingdom on and Will on Earth, Living The heart of Jesus’ work in forgiveness. Then expect something to happen. If you do this, Expect opposition.

Jesus knows if your about this Kingdom work there will be temptation. Its right in his story, so if Im lead down the path of temptation, Deliver me.

We see this in the two places where Jesus experienced Testing, In the Garden and in the Desert. Jesus faces temptation, Was it a fun time or a good thing for Jesus? No of course it was terrible.

Yet, Jesus knows we will face the same Kind of Tests on a daily basis. So this prayer is saying when we face testing, father deliver us from the hands of the evil one.

We have reached the end of this prayer, can you believe that there is so much in these few lines. I hope that we can begin to see these words as a powerful guide that we can use to shape our prayer lives each and every day.

Application: Prayer Practice

For this weeks application: I want to encourage us to use the Lord’s prayer as a model of one of our daily prayers this week. (Challenge Slide)

We are going to close the sermon time this morning by practicing praying through the Lords prayer together. We are going to continue practicing this idea pray as a conversation: Speaking out loud and listening after.

I am going to go through each part of the prayer that we reviewed show you how I would pray for about thirty seconds and then you are going to pray out loud together. Pray just like I did in your own words.

Our

Father in Heaven

Hollowed be your name

Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread

Forgive our Sins as we forgive those who sin against us

Lead us not into temptation, but deliever us from EVil

One note before we close as We pray through the Lord’s prayer daily this week, dont forget to make this prayer your own. This is not Joe’s prayer or Jess’ but your prayer. Pray the way that best feels comfortable to you. That may be speaking, singing, drawing, writing, acting or dancing.

Benediction:

(May) the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.