Sermon Tone Analysis

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Who hasn’t found it difficult to find the time to pray on a regular basis?

There is always time to pray when the chips are down, but on a regular basis?

That can be more difficult.

Well, never fear!

Now you can outsource your prayer life.

For $3.50 per month at InformationAgePrayer.com you can have the Lord’s Prayer recited for you daily.

Catholics can purchase a “Complete Rosary Package” for nearly $50.We have the opportunity to converse with the sovereign Lord of the universe and we outsource it to a computer?

I would say something is lacking in our faith.

Note: If the praying of the Pharisees was hypocritical and that of pagans mechanical, then the praying of Christians must be real - sincere and authentic as opposed to hypocritical, thoughtful and mechanical.

Jesus intends that our minds and hearts would be fully involved in what we are saying in prayer.

We do not mindlessly pray by heaping up empty words of repetition before God.

We do not pray for our own glorification we must pray with a humble heart fully focused and committed to God and His glory.

Note: It is possible for us to fall into empty phrases in prayer and lapse into religious jargon while the mind wonders and is detached from the prayer.

To sum up what Jesus is saying, He forbids his people from any kind of prayer when the mind is not engaged in the process.

The so called “Lords Prayer” was a model of what genuine Christian prayer is like.

Notice that Jesus starts of with “When you pray,” the implied here is that all Christians are actively daily involved in prayer.

Let Calvin answer your question: ‘Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant.

On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word, that they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for others, all good things

Luther put it more succinctly still: ‘By our praying … we are instructing ourselves more than we are him.’2.

The Lords Prayer begins with...

“Our Father”

I think it is appropriate and necessary before we ever come before the throne of God in prayer that we recognize who He is.

Remembering who it is to whom we are praying.

Only then can we truly come to the God in heaven with appropriate humility, devotion, and confidence.

“hallowed be your name”

When we talked about adoring or hallowing the name of God we referenced that it is expressing more than just a reverent speech.

“Hallowed” means to make holy or ‘treat as holy reverence’.

The name represents God himself as revealed to men.

The expression is both a desire to see God honored as God in the world today, and a future eschatological longing for the day when all will acknowledge God as Lord.

“One day at the name of Jesus everyone will bow in worship.”

What is Prayer?

Prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God.

Note: It is frustrating is it not?

How unclear language can be if we are not careful.

Why do we say intentionally conveying a message of God?

Why not just say that prayer is talking to God? So, Romans 8:26 says,

So, this means that there are groanings for our hearts that the Spirit inspires that are sometimes wordless.

So, prayer is usually talking to God, but there are times when you cannot talk and can still pray, that is, convey a message to God.

So, why don’t we just say that prayer is communicating with God?

Well, because that sounds like i’m talking to him and he is talking to me.

But that is not what prayer is.

God talking to me is never called prayer in the Bible.

When God communicates something to us, we call it revelation or illumination.

It is not prayer.

And we get into a big, unbiblical mess when we use the word prayer for what God speaks to us.

Why don’t we just say that prayer is conveying a message to God? Well, because people convey messages to God all day long, but we would not call it prayer.

People are conveying messages like, God is not important to me.

Or, God is irrelevant to this situation.

Or God does not exist.

But, because the messages are intentionally sent to God.

They are clear, and we can sometimes discern them.

God always discerns them.

So I chose the words: Prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God.

I heard a teaching not long ago about the moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is.

God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH.

Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels.

But scholars have noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds, aspirated consonants that in the Hebrew alphabet would be transliterated like this:

Yod, rhymes with “rode”, which we transliterate “Y”

He, rhymes with “say”, which we transliterate “H”

Vav, like “lava”, which we transliterate “V” or “W”

He rhymes with “say”, which we transliterate “H”

A wonderful question rises to excite the imagination: what if the name of God is the sound of breathing?

How amazing that God would give us a name for Himself that we cannot help but speak every moment we are alive.

Big Idea: The way of prayer is breathing in and out the breath of God.

The Christian Way of Prayer

The model prayer that Jesus gives us to follow teaches 3 indispensible truths about breathing in and out the prayers of God.

1.

The way of prayer shows a dependence on God and His goodness.

When a brain tumor took away Dorothy Holm’s ability to speak, she picked up index cards and began filling them with what appeared to be random sequences of letters.

When Dorothy passed away in 1996, her 11-year-old granddaughter Janna kept the cards, thinking they might be some kind of coded message.

As a teenager, she thought the letters might be song lyrics or a secret message to the grandchildren, but eventually she gave up when she could not figure out the meaning.

In January 2014, she posted a picture of one of the cards to the Internet site Metafilter.com and had an answer within 15 minutes.

Someone using the site recognized the letters OFWAIHHBTN as the first letters of the words in the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”

*We depend on God’s kingdom and royal rule.

How do we depend on God’s Kingdom?

3 Things that the Kingdom represents

The rule of Jesus Christ here on earth.

The blessing and advantages that flow from living under Christ’s rule.

The subjects of this kingdom which is the Church.

So, when we pray that God’s kingdom Come, we are praying two primary things.

We are praying that God’s kingdom will grow as through the church and it’s people as they submit to Jesus rule and reign in their lives.

We are praying that soon it will come to a completion when Jesus Christ returns to take his power and reign.

Already, Note Yet

When we pray the kingdom we get a true picture of the gospel as Jesus unfolds the teachings of the kingdom is that it is both present and it is still future.

This is what Jesus meant when he indicated that the mystery of the kingdom is here-presence without completion.

So, we should regularly be praying everyday that God would rend the heavens and come down completing his kingdom purpose and plan.

Trading a throne for the Cross

Remember the picture of the kingdom that Christ came to give was one of the ultimate sacrifice.

His own life.

So, when we pray “thy kingdom come,” we are also praying the God refocuses us not on the treasures or pleasures of this life but on the heavenly kingdom and it’s treasures.

*We depend on the Good and perfect will of God.

Our Father’s will is certainly done, for the Lord does whatever he wills among the inhabitants of the earth.

We should always pray according to the acceptable and perfect will of God.

So, What is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God?

Two Wills of God:

1)God’s Will of Sovereignty (will of decree).

Matthew 26:39, “My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

What does the will of God refer to in this verse?

It is referring to the fixed sovereign will of God.

So the “will of god” was that Jesus die.