Transcript

The Model Prayer-Part One

Matthew 6:9-10
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Pastor Randy Smith

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It was a combination of being appalled, embarrassed and confused. Back on U.S. soil less than one day and the first headline I read was: "Americans find little to celebrate this Fourth of July." Little to celebrate? Part of enjoying the privilege to be a United States citizen should be the requirement to spend just one week overseas in a developing country!

As I recall my recent visit to Armenia: A place where recreation consisted of playing soccer in an overgrown weed-infested field and swimming in sub-arctic lakes. A place where you go without heaters and air conditioners and warm showers and flushing toilets. A place where food is limited, water is impure, cars are unavailable, insurance is inaccessible, healthcare is primitive and cleanliness is uncommon. And a place where entire towns have made the trek into Russia to find employment. Yet ironically, a place where people are content and happy and grateful.

And we Americans on the birthday of our great nation find little to celebrate? One week overseas will quickly reveal our misplaced priorities as it did mine.

It is easy to judge the world, but have we as Christians shown the world anything about correct priorities, especially priorities in the spiritual realm?

Tune into the variety of television church networks and you get the impression that God wants everybody healthy, wealthy and prosperous. That the more spectacular we are in our worship, the more spiritual we have become. That suffering for Christ is a thing of the past. And that the only sovereignty that matters is my will, and God had better do something about it! Dying to self, brokenness over sin, meekness and all the other marks of true discipleship that we learned about in Matthew 5 are antiquated and no longer fit for our sophisticated church of the twenty-first century.

The twelve disciples were far from perfect men, but when they asked the Lord for help, they demonstrated at one point in their ministry, the proper priorities. They did not say, "Make us rich" or "Give us perfect health." Rather they said, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Lk. 11:1).

As a church, do we have our priorities in order? Have we rightly placed the spiritual above the worldly? And among the spiritual, have we committed ourselves to a passionate, dedicated and fervent pursuit of prayer?

Let's think about our attitude toward our weekly public prayer meeting. Let's think about our attitude toward our daily personal time of prayer. Is there anything more important than prayer? Forget our words; do our attitudes and lifestyles reveal that prayer is a priority for us? Have we Christians, who should know better-blessed with the mind of Christ - become more foolish than the world in relation to correct priorities? We have far fewer excuses!

In the most famous sermon ever delivered, Jesus delivered the most famous prayer. Commonly entitled "The Lord's Prayer," it was not a prayer our Lord needed to pray as He never needed forgiveness for His sins (Mt. 6:12). Nor was it intended as a prayer that the church was to repeat publicly and often mindlessly week-after-week in their church services as Jesus warned us just two verses earlier to avoid "meaningless repetition" when praying (Mt. 6:7).

When Jesus told the disciples in verse 9 to "pray, then, in this way," He was delivering to them a model prayer, an outline that would assist them and us to organize our requests when we come before the living God.

The proper use of this prayer becomes clear when we rightly understand the first two words of the prayer: "Our Father." Our prayer life is to be birthed in this child-father relationship. Therefore, our heavenly Father is not impressed with the mindless repetition of this prayer. Rather He delights in hearing our hearts as we personally speak to Him intimately and intellectually.

This prayer from our Lord is only here to guide our thoughts and saturate our prayer life with that which is most important. So as we study this model prayer, I believe many of us will be convicted as to how little we prioritize prayer and when we do pray, how little we prioritize the most important aspects of prayer.

"The Lord's Prayer," or as it is called by some, "The Disciple's Prayer," can be divided into two halves. The first half found in verses 9 and 10 contains three petitions directed toward God's glory, specifically, His name and kingdom and will. The second half found in verses 11, 12 and 13 also contains three petitions but this time directed toward the needs of humans, specifically, provision for sustenance, forgiveness and protection from temptation.

Due to our limited time with the baptisms, this morning we will only cover the Recipient of the prayer. Then as the Lord permits, we will examine the six requests of the prayer the following two Sundays. I believe these three sermons will revolutionize your prayer life and consequently, your priorities.

1. THE RECIPIENT OF THE PRAYER

Let's begin the only point of today's sermon, which I have entitled, "The Recipient of the Prayer." As you can see, verse 9 directs us to address our prayers to "Our Father who is in heaven." Let's examine three key words of this clause in further detail.

A Fellowship - "Our"

Immediately we cannot get beyond the first word, "our." In our individualism and maverick living and "personal relationships with Jesus," we initially discover that the Christian life is a family thing. Jesus did not introduce God as "my Father" but rather "our Father." We all belong to one spiritual body. Therefore to be right with God, it is imperative that we are right with each other (c.f. 5:9; 23-24). And as we approach God it is imperative that we remember that He loves His other spiritual children as much as He loves us. Words cannot express the peace we will experience in the church family and the unity we will enjoy in the body of Christ when we understand that God is "our" Father.

Pastor John Piper once referred to this word as "the sweet 'our' of prayer." If you want to determine how sweet that word "our" is in your prayer life, try to spend thirty minutes in prayer one day without using the words "me" or "I." It will not take long to realize the only "our" we often prioritize are our individual needs. We will also discover the expectations we place on God to prioritize our concerns over others in the flock and even His own will (which the next verse calls us to ultimately prioritize).

An Intimacy - "Father"

Second, is the next word "Father." Though we take this title for granted today, it was revolutionary when Jesus first used it to address God. Though Jesus used it some sixty times in the Gospels, it was used only fourteen times in the thirty-nine Old Testament books altogether and almost never in a personal sense. The Jews had no problem addressing God as the Father of their nation, but when approaching Him personally they preferred titles like, "Sovereign Lord" or "King of the Universe." So you can imagine the outrage among the first-century religious leaders when Jesus informed His followers that they should begin addressing God as "Father." For the first-century Jew, that designation was way too personal.

Offensive to some, but this is the reality of the relationship we have with the living God. When we come to Him through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we are literally adopted into His family. We enter a father-child relationship with Him that is built on trust and acceptance and comfort and discipline and contrition and forgiveness and encouragement. We come not before a distant deity, but before a heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us and wishes to bless us. One who desires intimacy, not religiosity, in our relationship with Him.

Once we rightly understand God as Father, doubts about His goodness are put away and concerns about out problems are already over. For the Sovereign Creator of the universe is not ashamed to set His affections on His children.

When any of you approach my office it is customary for each of you to knock before entering. But when the door flies open I know immediately it is one (or all) of my three special children. My children enjoy a privilege with me that none of you share. It is the same with God and His children.

Unfortunately, the world without Christ does not enjoy this privilege. The Bible declares that most will only know God as Judge. Far from receiving His love, they are under His condemnation. Yet John 1:12 says, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name." Have you received Jesus Christ? Are your sins taken away? Are you a child of God?

Once orphans, now children. Once under the fatherhood of Satan (Jn. 8:44), now under the Fatherhood of God (2 Cor. 6:18). Once alienated and excluded from His promises, now brought near and accepted through the blood of Christ. In his first epistle the apostle John said, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God" (1 Jn. 3:1).

In the Aramaic, the language which Jesus probably spoke, the literal translation of the word "Father" is "Abba." It is the same word that Jewish children still use today to address their earthly fathers. Yet thanks to the work of Christ on the cross, which removed our sins and made this relationship possible, we may approach the Creator of the universe as "Abba! Father!"

Listen to a few verses that speak of this wonderful relationship: Galatians 4:6, "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" Romans 8:15, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'"

Yet this joyful truth is not for all a cause of celebration. In a 1996 Newsweekarticle, Kenneth Woodward penned the following lines:

"These are tough times to be a father. The media are full of stories about abusive fathers, fatherless children and deadbeat dads… (T)his is an age when fathers get little respect, and you don't have to look further than the biggest father figure of them all, God… God the Father is out, unless coupled with God Mother… Few theologians these days seem to want a God who takes charge, assumes responsibility, fights for His children, makes demands, risks rebuffs, punishes as well as forgives. In a word, a Father" (June 17, 1996, p. 75).

As grand as this designation is, the Fatherhood of God has fallen on hard times recently. Though intended to encourage us, too many fail to receive the comfort that I have been speaking about. Either they do not want God to be a Father as the article I read suggests, or they have grown up in a home where the father was weak or absent or detached or distant or angry or abusive. Therefore the comfort intended by God's Fatherhood, to some, brings fear or disappointment or distress.

Even though my layover in London was very brief, it is impossible to pass through the capital city of England without witnessing Beatles merchandise. Though we remember the fame of the Fab Four, we seldom hear about the frequent failures that surrounded the band's legacy. The son of John Lennon, Julian Lennon, was abandoned by his father at age five. When interviewed thirty years later he made the following comments:

"I felt he was a hypocrite. Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world, but he could never show it to the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son. How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces-no communication, adultery, divorce? You can't do it, not if you're being true and honest with yourself" (Servant, Summer 1998).

You couldn't grow up in the seventies as an unbeliever and do without a good dosage of comedian Steve Martin. Even his success was hidden behind the aches and pains of a poor father. In an article entitled, "The Death of My Father," written in The New Yorker in 2002, Martin said:

"After he died, at the age of eighty-three, many of his friends told me how much they love him-how generous he was, how outgoing, how funny, how caring. I was surprised at these descriptions. I remember him as angry. There was little said to me, that I recall, that was not criticism. During my teen-age years, we hardly spoke except in one-way arguments-from him to me. I am sure that the number of words that passed between us could be counted. At some point in my preteens, I decided to officially "hate" him. When he came into a room, I would wait five minutes, then leave (June 17 and 24, p. 84).

These sad testimonies should send a stern reminder to all the men. We must model our fatherhood after the fatherhood of God so that when our children receive Christ they welcome and embrace this attribute of God's fatherhood as something attractive.

Moreover, what a reminder this is that God is the fulfillment of all our earthly imperfections. Even the best fathers are plagued by many limitations. Yet regardless of our age, we all long for that perfect parental relationship. Once again, we are reminded that all earthy gifts, as good as they are, are only shadows and signposts to reveal the true satisfaction that only God alone can provide.

A Respect - "Heaven"

Lastly in verse 9 we are to address our Father "who is in heaven." The Jews approached God in a way that was too distant. The church has a tendency to approach God in a way that is too casual. He is our Father, but He is much more than "our buddy" or "the man upstairs" or "the big guy in the shy." There is an intimacy with God we enjoy, but there is also a transcendence to God that we must respect. He is in the heavens which means He is our Father, but He is still sovereign Lord. He is good, but He is still great. He condescends with an ear ready to listen to our prayers, but He still dwells in unspeakable majesty in unapproachable light.

So based on the teaching in verse 9 so far, we see that we are invited to come before God in prayer. And when we come before Him we should approach Him with the knowledge that He cares and the reverence that He deserves. He is our Father-who is in heaven. A combination of goodness and greatness. A combination of love and power. A reality that breeds confidence in our hearts.

According to the Lord's Prayer, prayer is not a time to manipulate God to always change our circumstances based on our limited wisdom and propensity to be self-focused. That is why it is important to understand the God we are praying to before we make any requests. For until we do so, we will not approach God with the proper attitude. And until we rightly understand the living God to whom we are praying, we will neither prioritize the discipline of prayer nor prioritize Him in our prayers.