The Lord s Prayer - Adore

Transcription

1 Matthew 6: th January 2016, 11.30a.m. The Lord s Prayer - Adore As the boat was sinking, the skipper lifted his voice to ask: "Does anybody know how to pray?" One man spoke confidently in answer: "Yes, Captain, I do." The captain nodded. "That's all right then," he declared. "You go ahead and pray. The rest of us will put on life-belts. We re one short." I love that story because it s funny but also because I think it gets to the heart of what we really think of prayer. We know it s important or at least we know that we should think it s important - but when push comes to shove, we tend to take other options or rely on alternative action, don't we? So before we go any further, I want you to think a bit about prayer in your own life. As you sit here in church, maybe shut your eyes and think when do I actually pray? How do I feel about prayer? What part does prayer play in the rest of my life, if any? If you had to sum up your prayer life in one word, what would it be? Think about it, ask God about it. Is this what you want are you happy with your prayer life? For me, I want more prayer in my life not dry, boring, hard prayer, though I m willing to go through

2 some of that if needs be, but prayer that gives life, that brings transformation, that connects me with the God who loves me completely, wants to be involved in my life, and wants to use me to be force for good change and blessing in this community and this world. What about you? You see, many of us here this morning call ourselves Christians followers of Christ which by definition means that we try to emulate or copy how Christ lived and what Christ taught. And Pete Grieg, founder of the 24/7 Prayer network points out that prayer was a priority for Christ. There are no fewer than seventeen references to Christ s active prayer life in the Gospels. Now this is remarkable because if anyone could ever have got away with NOT praying it would surely have been the Son of God. But Jesus was a man of prayer. He loved to pray. He needed to pray. We are told that he got up early in the morning to pray; that he took himself off to pray; that he launched his mission with a forty-day prayer retreat and concluded it with a late-night prayer session in the garden of Gethsemane; and that on one occasion (and this is amazing), that he even requested personal prayer support from his closest friends!

3 Now - if prayer was a priority for Christ, do you think it should be a priority for us? Folks, time and time again, the pages of the Bible call us to pray in one way or another. For example, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says: Pray without ceasing. Luke writes in 18:1 - He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. And every chapter of church history calls us to prioritise prayer. Prayer isn t just an option on the Christian menu; it is the menu; the heart and soul of every aspect of our relationship with God. So why don t we pray? Let s be really honest with each other. Maybe we don't pray because when all is said and done - we don t have or particularly want a relationship with God. Something Jim Cymbala wrote which I read this week in preparation for today has gone round and round in my head. He said: If we don't want to experience God's closeness here on earth, why would we want to go to heaven anyway? He is the center of everything there. If we don't enjoy being in His presence here and now, then heaven would not be heaven for us. Why would He send anyone there who doesn't long for Him passionately here on earth? Perhaps for some of us, this is why we don t pray.

4 But for the vast majority of us here today, I reckon the reason why we don't pray or pray sketchily is because prayer is hard. Does anyone here find it easy? I don t and I m paid to pray!!! We all need help with prayer. If you are like me, we struggle to find the time, or the words, or the faith, or we think of all the other things we need to be doing! Or we just have prayer day-dreams when our thoughts go in all sorts of directions rather than Godwards. Or prayer naps! Who s been there? Come on now, be honest! I have. But listen don't be despondent; lets not disqualify ourselves. All of us have the L plates on when it comes to prayer. All of us talk about God more than we actually talk to him. But God doesn t condemn us he loves us and wants to help us to grow in our relationship with him just as he did for those first disciples. And thankfully Jesus was remarkably practical about prayer. He didn t just leave his disciples to work prayer out for ourselves he taught us about it. He told memorable parables packed with wisdom about how to pray and how not to do it too. He gave astounding promises about the things that would happen when people pray. Read John 14 and 15 - in it Jesus says three times

5 so that we get the message: If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Remarkable! And Jesus also gave us a prototype prayer to use when we are talking to God we know it as the Lord s Prayer. And over the next few weeks, I want to look at that prayer together and see what we can learn and put into practice. Lets pray that God will use this teaching to release us all into more of the dynamic prayer life that Jesus modeled and wants for us! So today is the start of our sermon mini-series on the Lord s prayer. There are lots of different ways of looking at the Lord s Prayer, but I m going to focus in over the next 4 weeks on 4 key elements of this prayer. These are Adore which is what we are going to look at today, then from next week, we ll be looking at Ask. Examine and Surrender. So then, you may want to open your bibles at Matthew 6 and verse 9 today - let s look at that first element - adoration. As you know the Prayer opens with, Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Jesus tells us to pray to Our Father in heaven. This should set our attitude as we come to pray. We understand that we are praying to God, and that He is our Lord and King - we owe Him our lives and our service. But Jesus tells us that we can come

6 to Him and call Him, Father - like a child climbing into the arms of their dad. So when we pray, we are saying to God, You are the infinite, all-powerful One - way above us. But we re also saying, You are our father. Our God is personal; our God has a name. He s not an impersonal life force, He s a person, someone we can talk to and who can talk back to us. He s a person whom we can love and who loves us. David Jeremiah in his book on Prayer, the Great Adventure writes: When John F. Kennedy was President of the United States, Life magazine published photos of his children, John Jr. and Caroline, playing with their toys on the floor of the Oval Office. Those images captured the hearts of the American people like nothing before or since. Why? I think it s because it bridged a gap between two thoughts: Kennedy was the President of the United States, but he was also a father. He held ultimate political power in the Free World, but playing at his feet were two little kids who called him Daddy. Friends, in a similar way, God is both the eternal, Ruler of the Cosmos and our Father. We can approach Him confidently in prayer because He is all-powerful and because we are His dearly beloved children. We ll talk about this some more next week when we look

7 at asking. The next part of the prayer though is: Hallowed be thy name. The first thing that Jesus tells us to ask God to do - the primary thing, head of the list, above all others is for us to ask God to cause his name to be hallowed. What does that mean? Well, it means that we are praying that God s name is set apart in people s hearts, minds and lives as the infinitely great, beautiful and valuable reality that God is. We are praying that God would display the greatness of God; that God would make much of God; that God would remove people s obstacles to knowing and admiring and loving and trusting and treasuring and obeying God; that God would be supreme over everything. Folks perhaps the most essential aspect of prayer is to adore God for who He is, in our words and in our lives. We worship who He is. We praise Him for what he has done and what he does; we thank Him for His care and provision. So we begin our prayers by focusing on the One to whom we pray - He is worth our life s attention. He is magnificent! CS Lewis notes that adoration is doing what comes naturally. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise... The world

8 rings with praise lovers praising their mistresses, readers praising their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game. So friends, when we pray, take time to adore God, to praise Him, to exalt Him. Don t just launch into a big list of things which you want God to sort out. Prayer begins and ends in worship. Remember, God already knows what you need before you ask. There isn t a need to rush into God s presence like He needs to be informed. Rather than God being informed, prayer is principally about our need to be transformed. So if you, like me, are guilty sometimes of rushing into prayer and with your agenda - stop and take time to praise Him. Focus on who He is and how great He is. And actually there are so many things that can help us adore God. Look out at creation - or go for a walk in it - and think about the type of God who can make such beauty praise him! Use the psalms or other favourite passages of Scripture many of which are packed-full of adoration read them out loud, or silently and meditatively, and adore. Use some of your favourite hymns or worship songs, sing them, or play them use the words and music to lift your thoughts to how great God

9 is! You get the picture let s adore God! So folks as I finish - I want to set you all a challenge over the next few weeks. If you have a mobile phone, set the alarm on your phone for a convenient time each day. If you don't have a mobile, use some other means of reminding yourself the alarm on your clock radio, a meal, the end of the news. And when you are reminded, take a few minutes and slowly pray The Lord s Prayer, trying to use each line like a spring-board into other prayer. So this week, for example, when you pray, Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name, think about the ultimate power in the Universe as your father. God is your Dad, and He totally loves you take it in. And then take time to adore Him and give Him thanks lift your eyes and your soul at some point every day, to ask God to reveal who He is and honour Him for that. Let s take a moment to do that now.