Introduction
One day an atheist who didn’t believe in God was walking through
the woods admiring the beauty of nature and thinking how amazing it was the “big
bang” created the whole universe and this marvelous forest. Suddenly, a
grizzly bear jumped from behind a tree and knocked the atheist to the
ground. Just as the bear’s jaws closed in
to finish the atheist off, the man cried out, “God help me!”
Everything in the world around him froze. Even the wind
stopped blowing and the birds ceased their chirping. And then from Heaven
a booming voice spoke. “I am God. And even though you don’t believe in me, I
love you and want to help you. What do you want me to do?”
The atheist thought for a moment and said, “I’m not a religious
person and I don’t want to become one. But if you could just give this
bear some religion that should do the trick.”
God spoke with a voice of thunder, “So be it! It is done!” And then the forest came back to life again
and everything returned to normal. The atheist looked up hopefully at the
massive grizzly bear standing over him.
The bear clasped its paws together and began to pray very religiously:
“Thank You, O God, for this meal I am about to receive...”
It seems almost everyone believes in prayer. Of course, most
people who go to church believe in prayer. However, even people who don’t
go to church will ask you to pray for them when they need help; or they will
tell you they will pray for you if they hear you are having trouble. Even
atheists often pray for divine help when they are in big trouble! (I guess it’s hard not to hope for a divine God
when you desperately need supernatural help!)
Prayer is essential. It’s not just something religious
people do or something for those who desperately need help. Prayer is a
living relationship with our Creator.
Prayer is what we were made for.
But who really knows how to pray?
Jesus’ disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And Jesus
gave them a simple prayer to model how to pray. Today, I want to look at
that simple prayer we commonly call “The Lord’s Prayer”. Now, most of us
have heard this prayer and recited it again and again ourselves until it’s so
familiar we take it for granted. That can hinder our ability to
understand it. So I encourage you to try
to listen to the Lord’s Prayer with fresh ears this morning--like you are
hearing it for the very first time.
Matthew 6:9-13
Our Father in heaven,
may your
name be kept holy.
10 May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is
in heaven.
11 Give us today the food we need,
12 and forgive us our sins,
as we
have forgiven those who sin against us.
13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but
rescue us from the evil one.
A Simple Prayer
Christians often enshrine The Lord’s Prayer as the holiest of holy
prayers. It’s been part of religious tradition for so long and often
linked to some of the holiest religious experiences of our lives; we can’t help
but think of it as a sacred prayer. However, Jesus never meant for the
Lord’s Prayer to be some super fancy sacred ritual. When he told his disciples, “Pray like this…”
he was actually teaching them how simple and ordinary our prayers ought to be.
In fact, the language he uses in the Lord’s prayer was so common, many of
the religious leaders of his day would have considered it sacrilegious. It was blasphemy for Jews of Jesus’ day to
even say the name of God—for His name was thought to be too holy to be spoken
by human lips. To them, Jesus went completely overboard by calling God
“Father”. People thought, “How can any
sinful human mortal presume to call the God of the universe, Daddy?”
But Jesus is the Son of God. And when we trust Jesus as our
Lord and Savior, we are adopted into the family. God is our Father too!
A Daddy Prayer
Calling God “Our Father in Heaven” (or “Our Daddy up in the Sky”)
is precisely the point Jesus wants to make. You see, praying really is
very simple. Now, I know not everyone
has had a good relationship with their father here on earth. However, if
you did have a good father you trusted, you knew loved you, who you also loved,
a father you felt very comfortable being with and talking to, you would know
you could just go to your dad and talk about anything. It’s what
your dad wants you do because your dad loves you and loves to spend time with
you. And Jesus is saying, that’s our relationship with God and that’s
what prayer is!
Prayer is not some highfalutin religious ritual. Prayer is
us talking to our Daddy--our true Dad, our perfect Dad, our Daddy in the Sky,
our Heavenly Father. And that sets the tone for everything about simple, authentic
prayer. We can and should go to God in
prayer like a child goes into the arms of a loving, welcoming father. And
God receives us in prayer like a loving, welcoming dad embraces a little
child.
I think we really ought to change the name of this prayer.
Instead of calling it the Lord’s Prayer, we ought to call it the Daddy
prayer. That’s the heart of what it really is. We are simply talking to our Daddy, who also
happens to be the God of the Universe. What a blessing!
A Model Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer (or the Daddy Prayer) is a model for how we can
pray. Jesus didn’t intend us to have to recite it by wrote—like this was
the only words you can pray. (You can recite it. I have heard people say sometimes when they
don’t know what to say in prayer, they will recite the Lord’s Prayer. And
that works too. It’s always good to have
a few prayers memorized for when you just don’t know what to pray.) But the Lord’s Prayer (the Daddy Prayer), is
really meant to be an outline
of the kinds of things you could pray about. So what’s in the outline?
of the kinds of things you could pray about. So what’s in the outline?
- Address God – Our Spiritual Dad
- Praise Him
- Pray about our purpose
- Ask for our basic needs
- Pray about forgiveness
- Ask for spiritual guidance
In the King James Version, the version we recite on Sunday
mornings, we say, “Hallowed be thy name…” What does that even mean? It means, “Daddy God, we want You to be
revered and honored.” God is perfect and
holy and good and loving and powerful and we were created to love and honor and
adore Him. We want the whole world to honor and adore Him too. So we praise Him in our prayers. And in doing so, we lift up our own
hearts. Our spirits soar out of darkness
and gloom as we reconnect with our created purpose—to honor and glorify our
Holy God. Every problem, worry, concern
seem smaller when placed beside our praise of the One True God.
A Prayer for
Purpose
Thy Kingdom Come… Prayer helps us name and ask God to help
us align our purpose with His divine purpose. Prayer changes things. And the most important thing prayer changes
is us. We might ask God to change our
situations (and sometimes He does), but the most important thing God changes in
prayer is our will and our desires. The greatest blessing in life is to
discover what God wants you to do with your life and the joy of living on
purpose. Those who follow Christ ask God
to help us discover His will, to help the whole world discover and do God’s
will until we realize His Kingdom’s goals on the earth as much as they are a
reality in Heaven.
A Prayer about
Basic Needs
Our Daddy God cares about our needs. Jesus said that God
knows and cares about every single bird that dies (Matthew 10:29). You
are way more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows (Matthew
10:31). So we can ask Him to take care
of our basic needs. And doing so reminds us of our complete dependence on
God. Food seems pretty easy to come by
for most people today. But the reality
is, every one of us is only a few hours away from being very hungry.
(Some of you are pretty hungry right now and really want me to wrap up
this message so you can go have lunch!) All
of us are only a day away from being famished or a few days away from starving
if there were no food to eat. Do you think you are the one who puts food
on your table? “Well, yes. I have a job and I buy my food.” But the Christian is one who recognizes it
all really comes from God. Without His
provision, we could not survive. And we
ought not ever forget that the simple and basic blessings of having enough to
eat could be taken away in a heartbeat.
Some do not enjoy that
blessing—maybe by no fault of their own.
And so we pray, “Give us the food we need.” And not just the food; what about all the
other basic things we need? We can and
should ask our Daddy God for them. He’s
our Daddy and we need Him. And our Daddy
God loves us and will take care of us. Pray about it.
A Prayer of
Forgiveness
If food is our basic physical need, forgiveness is our basic
spiritual need. Without it, we cannot
live. Sin separates us from our Creator,
who is the source of life. And yet “all
of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And “the wages of sin is death, but the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “All who call on the name of the Lord [Jesus
Christ] shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (1 John 1:9). But Jesus also said, “If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your
sins” (Matthew 6:15).
Forgiveness can
be very hard. I don’t have time today to
really address forgiveness. All I have
time to say is this: we desperately need
God’s forgiveness and we desperately
need to forgive others. And
forgiveness—real, godly, divine forgiveness—is a miracle that is beyond our
ability. And so we need to pray about it
and ask God’s help.
A Pray for
Spiritual Guidance
"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..." This
life is a battle ground. We don’t often
realize it as we are driving around in our comfortable Toyata Camrys and
SUV’s. But while we are enjoying our
homes—with their thermostatically heated and air conditioned environments—a spiritual
war is waging for our souls just beyond the grasp of our physical eyes. The Devil and His demons wants nothing more
than to see you’re soul distracted, disarmed, and destroyed. He is OK with you living a life of comfort
and ease, with few serious problems—so long as that ultimately leads you to
join him in hell for the rest of eternity.
Thankfully, God has not left us unprotected in this battle. The Holy Spirit is available to show you the
way of Christ that leads to eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. The stakes are high. We desperately need to pray for God to guide
us to walk in the light. “Daddy in
Heaven, lead us not into temptation, but deliver from evil.”
A Word About Amen
It has become an almost universal practice to end prayers with the
word “Amen”. The word means “so be it”, and it’s a way of affirming what
we’ve just prayed. For most people, it’s
just a way to signify we’re done praying. Although almost everyone says
amen, it’s not really necessary—especially when you are praying by yourself and
you don’t need to let anyone else know your done. You can say it or not
say it, whatever you want to do.
Holy Communion
Prayer is communion with God. Whenever, we have the privilege of sharing the
sacrament of Holy Communion, it is also
a kind of prayer—a prayer we act out as we take the bread and grape juice and
remember the love of God that was so strong it left the glory of Heaven to come
down to our broken world to save us from our sins by dying on a cross.
I hope you will focus on prayer as much as you can. It is the life blood of our relationship with God.
