How you should pray
Notes
Transcript
Handout
There is alot of stuff out there telling you how to pray.
SO much it’s almost overwhelming!
So much it’s often hard to know where to start,
But Jesus says, the Lord’s Prayer.
is the answer to an age old question...
How do I pray?
Matthew 6:9 (NIV (Anglicised, 2011))
‘This, then, is how you should pray: ...
No one’s even asked him how to pray,
Jesus just wants his disciples to have this right.
In Luke’s Gospel, he is directly asked how to pray, and he gives a similar version to this prayer here.
The early church adopted the Lord’s prayer both as a model for prayer and a set prayer.
What i mean by that, is that here in Matthews gospel, Jesus says,
‘This, then, is how you should pray: ...
In other words here is a model to base your prayers around.
But in Luke’s gospel, Jesus says
He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘ “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
Meaning, these are exact words to say.
This then can be a liturgical prayer for us all to repeat and learn as a prayer.
sometimes it is all we need say.
When we have no other words,
our joy too much to convert to words,
or our sadness to deep to say more.
But it is also a model.
It models for us the elements of a loyal and wonderful prayer life.
You have a handout with the elements on it - and I hope it will help us all to shape our prayers.
you can take each section of this prayer and expand a little or change it each day to fully enjoy talking to our God.
A prayer that
is both honouring to God,
and wonderful for us.
We’re going to go through each element of the prayer, but
The first thing to note is that it’s commonly recognised that the prayer is in 2 halves.
And it seems right to say that you can’t pray the second half without first praying the first.
The first half is all,
For the glory of God
For the glory of God
hallowed be your name,10 your kingdom come , your will be done,
And the second half is all
For our needs
For our needs
Give us today
forgive us
lead us and deliver us
Its such a helpful balance to remember when we pray - that even in prayer, as in our life, it is all for the glory of God.
We are not so absorbed in ourselves,
or having such a high view of ourselevs that we get straight to a shopping list from God.
He is worthy of our affection and attention before all our needs and wants.
We pray first about and for his glory,
for that is what we truly need to enjoy and recognise ‘before’ ourselves.
In prayer we put God’s Glory before our Needs
In prayer we put God’s Glory before our Needs
And why wouldn’t we, for we address him as,
Our Father in heaven,
So let’s get into it..
Our Father in heaven
Our Father in heaven
God is not a far off divine unrelatebale God.
or atleast he is not to those who approach him in Christ Jesus.
Jesus constantly calls God his Father.
He is intimate, close, trusting and secure in his Father God.
And now he gives all Christians that same closeness.
It is an extraordinary idea that we can address the creator of the universe as Father.
Fatherhood was an important role in Jewish tradition,
a good Father would be seen as strong, providing, loyal, loving and trustworthy.
He provided security and comfort - an example to follow.
The word translated is here is ‘Abba’,
It’s sometimes argued to have a very specific meaning,
perhaps a childlike sentimental name, for example -
but it was actually most likely the word used by everyone towards their earthly Father, young and old alike.
It’s why translators simply use the word ‘Father’.
My old man, or daddy etc,
When applied to God It communicates everything good about a father.
Both the sentimental attachment and love as well as the strong, protective, loyal and trustworthiness,
the one to turn to and speak to as an adult child.
The one to run too when we graze our knees as toddler.
Father is a good word,
and it communicates both respect and love.
When you pray says Jesus say,
Our Father.
Our Father is also in heaven.
We are taken straight from the privileged intimacy to the highest glory of heaven.
We pray to the warmth and intamacy and respect we have for a good Father -
but this Fatehr is not earthly and human - he is not frail or weak,
he does not make mistakes!
He is our Heavenly Father.
Our Father in Heaven
says our prayers can be
Intimate, respectful and glorious
Practically, then when we pray we should think about who we are praying to.
We might often just say - Dear God.
But Jesus says,
When you pray, Pray to your heavenly Father, Our Father.
It is a privilege and a joy, and one we should dwell on deeply in our prayer life.
There are examples of calling on the Spirit to Come,
Or thanking Jesus in prayer,
but Jesus himself declares he did all things for the Father - for they are one with each other.
And the Holy Spirit loves to show us God the Father through Jesus the Son,
Indeed Jesus intercedes for us before the heavenly Father, through the HS, so that we are heard by God our heavenly Father.
So on the whole, but not exclusively - I think it’s right to pray as Jesus does - to our heavenly Father in heaven.
After all - as we’re about to see - all things are to be for His glory.
Hallowed be your name
Hallowed be your name
Hallowed carries the idea of: to magnify fully.
And it’s the name of our Father which is to be magnified.
A name in this context stands for all that someone is.
The name represents and declares the fullness of someone’s character.
Simply put then,
we begin to pray by asking that the very nature and character of our Father be known and amplified in all of life and the world!
It’s a prayer exulting God’s holiness, his justice and righteousness, his love and compassion, his grace and mercy, his glory and might.
We
Lift up the character of God
Your kingdom come, your will be done.
Your kingdom come, your will be done.
This is a prayer now that longs for the coming of God’s Kingdom - and longs for the doing of God’s will.
This whole sermon of Jesus’ is helping the believer to align our whole lives
to living in anticipation of the coming kingdom
- of the day when Jesus will bring about judgment on all sin
and bring about his full and perfect world for all to enjoy.
It is a pray that
his will , will be seen and done at every turn.
For every knee to bow to his name and majesty and rule.
A prayer for evil to be done away with,
for a people in the kingdom to gladly do the will of God.
It’s a prayer to fully enjoy what we have been made in Christ.
Presently, today Christians find themselevse in a world they do not belong to.
We have been saved from sin and death, by repenting and believing in Jesus,
But we still live in our mortal bodies, we still sin, we still go against God’s will,
and so we long for the day, that what we are through Christ,
becomes a full reality.
When the full measure of God’s people are saved.
Your kingdom come!
And we long for us and every human across time and space to do the very will of God.
It’s a call to live a life consistent with the future life we will eternal enjoy.
It’s a prayer that God would act and change our world.
In short we
Pray for Jesus to return and that while we wait we would live and see God’s kingdom and will be done.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Now we move to requests for us, and
What a wonderful prayer this is,
simply asking for the basics that we need in this life.
Bread represents the essentials we need.
In context of the passage we must remember
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
OUr Father knows our needs and hearts.
We don’t need to nag Him, or go on.
We simply ask.
It’s a wonderfully freeing life the Christian lives.
Of course we need to work for a living and to provide for our families,
but in the grand scheme of eternity,
we need not worry about anything!
That’s exactly what Jesus is about to teach on in v25.
‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
We belong to eternity, to the kingdom of God.
We are loved by a heavenly father who’s name is to be magnified across our world.
Who’s kingdom will come
and who’s will, will be done!
Give us what we need Father, we trust you.
It’s a hard prayer too of course,
sometimes we wont get what we think we need - we’ll feel hungry.
Most of us here are hugely blessed in material and physical wealth unlike most of history has ever seen,
but still
illness may take a loved one,
In some parts of the world a person trusting in Jesus may be starving.
But trusting God for our daily bread has an eternal perspective as we’ll see in in next weeks passage.
So simply ask,
Trust,
accept what we receive
for our Father is the Almighty God - and we know he is eternally faithful.
Give us our daily bread is a
Call for his provision and our commitment to trust his answer in the light of eternity.
It frees us from worry about the everyday things, so that rather we can concentrate on seeking first the kingdom of God.
Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors
Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors
Our debts holds the same understanding as our sins.
Our sin puts a seperation between us and our Father,
and so for justice, a price has to be paid.
We are in debt to God. And without forgiveness we will be punished.
But in Christ Jesus -
as the disciples will soon find out, we have a saviour who will pays that price.
He died so that we don’t have to.
As such
Asking for God’s forgiveness is the only hope in this life.
For the Christian who begin their faith through repentance, we continue faith in the same way,
regular asking for God’s forgiveness - not as a magic formula -
If we say sorry the right way and enough times we’ll be saved.
No - Jesus died once for our sins, our debts - so we may be forgiven.
But our ongoing life lives in response to that grace.
We continue to repent and believe for he has saved us.
We don’t need saving again, but we do need to mainatin a repentant humble heart.
And it is also that very forgiveness and salvation that leads us to live a life of willingly forgiving others.
It’s such a significant principle - that the one who receives great forgiveness will forgive the debts of others -
and so Jesus even clarifies it after the prayer.
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
It is not that our forgiveness from God is based on whether we forgive others,
but rather if we have truly rejoiced and understood the forgiveness we have received from Jesus,
then we can’t help but be people who are willing to forgive others.
Like the parable Jesus told of the king who cancels a huge debt only for that person to go out and have no mercy on someone who owes him a tiny amount!
The king threw the first man in prison - clearly he didn’t appreciate what had been done for him!
An attitude that fully comprehends that once we were dead in our sin,
but Jesus paid the price for us - he bought us from death into life.
will change our attitude towards others similarly.
It’s not easy to forgive those who have hurt us,
- so let us reflect deeply on the debt Christ paid for us,
so we can forgive others.
In our marriages,
our families,
our church.
Our work places
our schools
This is an important prayer to pray.
So, we
Ask for forgiveness and ask for our lives to match the grace we have been shown
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
Here we pray for Our Father to lead us away from temptation,
from trials that cause us to sin,
from the plot of the Evil one who loves to see Jesus’ people rebel against their saviour.
Deliver us,
lead us away from sin and temptation and towards the kingdom and will of You Our Father.
I wonder how much time we devote to praying that we wont fall into sin and temptation.
To live a in the light of the coming Kingdom and according to God’s will,
means we will need his help to avoid temptation!
So simply, We
Ask for help in avoiding the temptations we face
Be it lust,
or angre
or worry,
or pride,
or greed,
We rely on God to help us, so we pray.
There it is - our model for prayer.
So simple,
It focus’s us on God’s Glory first,
Then on our needs, in a way that elevates our heads out of this world and into the eternal Kingdom that awaits us.
We don’t get bogged down in the self-pity of this world,
but lifted up into the glory of God.
And There is one final thing to note about this prayer.
It is all in the plural.
‘Our’ and ‘Us’
‘Our’ and ‘Us’
The people of God, Christians - we are not individuals on our own,
only concerned for ourselevs.
We pray for daily bread, for forgiveness, for leading - not for me me me,
but for us us us,
Even when praying on our own,
it’s so helpful to pray in the plural as well as the individual.
When you pray in the morning, in the quiet of the day,
we can still pray,
Our Father,
Lead US.
We pray it for our families,
For our church family,
We are not individuals,
we are united in Jesus.
Who is to say your prayer for us to Avoid temptation doesn’t save someone else in your family from terrible sin.
Who’s to say you pray for God’s will be done doesn’t casue the church to be directed more rightly in God’s ways.
Who’s to say your prayer ‘forgive us’ doesn’t help your spouse find forgiveness in christ afresh.
Our problems are not the only problems,
Our temptation or trial are not the worst,
God is not exclusive to me or you,
He is Our Father,
and so togetehr we Lift up your heads to Our father in Heaven.
And
Pray for ‘us’ not just ‘I’
Pray
9 ‘This, then, is how you should pray:
‘ “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 today 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 the evil one.”