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The Disciple’s Prayer, Part 2

Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt—November 23, 2008
 

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“This, then, is how you should pray:
              ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
    ¹⁰your kingdom come, your will be done
              on earth as it is in heaven.
    ¹¹Give us today our daily bread.
    ¹²Forgive us our debts,
              as we also have forgiven our debtors.
    ¹³And lead us not into temptation,
        but deliver us from the evil one.’
¹⁴For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:9-15)

Introduction
Have you noticed that some owners and CEOs of businesses have chosen to be the chief spokespersons for their companies, and even star in their own commercials? We saw it in previous years with the late Dave Thomas of Wendy’s restaurants, and with Lee Iacocca when he was Chairman of Chrysler. We see it regularly on our local TV with car dealers and retail store owners, as well as with attorneys hawking their services (“If you’re in an accident, call us!”).

I read a story recently in a Christian magazine about one such business owner, who had a local chain of jewelry stores. For years this fellow, Bill, had been personally promoting his products on television and radio spots, always ending with the same line. Then came Bill’s wedding day. As he and his bride stood before the pastor, he found himself distracted by all the pomp and pageantry—as many brides and grooms are on their big day. He wasn’t really listening with his brain engaged. At one point in the service, the minister turned to him and said, “Bill, please repeat after me: ‘With this ring…’” Bill’s mind immediately switched into auto-pilot and, trance-like, he said the line he had spoken so many times before for his commercials: “With this ring comes a money-back guarantee if you are not entirely satisfied with the product.” The bride and the pastor and the whole audience stared at him in surprise. “What did I just say?” he sheepishly whispered.

When you say the same words over and over again, without thinking about them carefully, they can become like Bill’s advertising slogan. They get stuck in our brain, but we lose awareness of the meaning or context. And that, unfortunately, can happen to us with the wonderful words of what has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Many of us have memorized these words and can rattle them off rapid-fire the way Bill could promise his money-back guarantee. But today we want to turn off the auto-pilot, as we consider each of these words of the Lord’s Prayer that we tend to say so quickly. This is the second of three messages studying carefully the words of Jesus to His followers in Matthew 6—the greatest teaching about prayer ever given. What is provided to us in these few verses is not actually the Lord’s Prayer, but rather what is, in effect, the “Disciple’s Prayer.” It is meant for us. Jesus already knew how to pray perfectly, and didn’t need any help. But he offered this as a model for His disciples—and for us—because we need the most basic help and instruction.

Perhaps it is helpful to think of this short prayer as being a model or example for us to follow when we talk with God. There is nothing magical in the actual words. It is the spirit and the intent of our hearts that matters—which is why rattling off the words without thinking about them does us absolutely no good. When Jesus introduced this to His disciples, after all, He did not say in verse 9, “This is what you should pray” (as if the words were all that mattered); rather, He said, “This is how you should pray.” This is meant to be an outline; we could even consider it a checklist. These are the various things we should talk with God about in a healthy, holistic and spiritually-nourishing prayer life. Are any of you pilots? I have a friend who was a commercial pilot for a number of years with a major airline. He and his co-pilot and crew had a strict pre-flight checklist to go through before they gunned the engines down the runway. Engines on? Check. Oil pressure? Check. Tire pressure? Check. Flaps & rudders operational? Check.

Checklists like that help us to make sure we don’t forget something important. And that’s what the Disciple’s Prayer is meant to be for us in Matthew 6: a spiritual pre-flight checklist.

Focus on God First
Now let’s examine the details of it. What I want us to focus on for the next few minutes is just the first half of this great prayer. Scholars have identified 10 specific sections or petitions in this prayer. The first five are all God-centered, focusing on who He is and worshipping Him. Then the last five, beginning with “Give us this day our daily bread,” turn the attention to our own needs and problems. The order is not accidental or coincidental. Jesus means to teach us that, if our prayer life is going to be effective and meaningful, it has to first be focused properly on God.

If we start and end our prayers with ourselves—“God, I want this, and that, and all this other stuff”—that’s not really praying; it’s presenting a shopping list. It would be no more enhancing and enriching of a relationship between us and our Lord, than if my only conversations with my wife were asking her to do things for me, without ever looking in her eyes, or expressing my love for her, or asking about her, or listening to her. What a rotten marriage that would be! And that’s how strained our Christian lives become, if all we ever do is whine to God about what we want. In fact, my wife is much more likely to help me and serve me if she feels that our relationship is reciprocal. A reciprocal relationship with our Lord is what He desires as well.

Here, then, are five things we need to remember, whenever we pray, if we want to get in touch with the true God and develop our personal relationship with Him.

Remember that God is our Dad (Our Father...)
Whatever your relationship is (or was) with your earthly Father, I believe there is within us all a longing to have a perfect dad—One who is always there for us with love and discipline, tenderness and strength. That longing is there because we were created to be the son or daughter of the true Father. And we’re never truly secure until we find our Perfect Father and are reconciled to Him.

This concept of the Creator, Lord, Ruler and Judge of the Universe also being our Father is one that has been around now for 2000 years, and therefore doesn’t seem all that significant. But if we were able to go back in time, to before Christ, we would see how radical and world-changing it really is! Neither the pagans nor the Old Testament Jews could ever conceive of God in this way. In fact, it was this “crime” for which Jesus was convicted and sentenced to death by the Jewish leaders: that He dared to presume that God was His Father. Nor, in our own time, can Muslims even imagine a God so approachable that He invites human beings to call Him “Dad.”

Yes, it’s a radical concept. Don’t ever take it lightly. Be thankful for it. Every time you pray, in church or at home or wherever, whisper a word of thanks to your Creator that He has chosen—not for anything good or worthy in you, but simply out of His own loving heart—to care personally for you and desire to be your dad.

Remember that God is “in Heaven” (... in heaven...)
Some people have mistakenly assumed that this portion of the Lord’s Prayer relates to something like the address part of a letter or envelope. If God’s Name is Father, they reason, then His address is Heaven. We all know that, in order to get to the intended recipient, any letter or email has to have both the name and the address—the street or the email identification. Some people have assumed, then, that this second statement is simply the modern-day equivalent of Father@heaven.org.

But I think the term “in heaven” has a different meaning entirely. Heaven, according to scripture, is not a physical place. It is a realm, a spiritual dimension beyond the apprehension of the five human senses … but one that is even more real than the one we can touch and see and hear. And to identify God our Father as the one who is “in heaven” reminds us that He is an invisible Spirit who is everywhere, at all times. That’s why we don’t have to be in a church to pray.

It is why, from a sobering perspective, when we disobey the Lord at a Saturday night party or at a Tuesday morning business meeting, we know for certain He knows all about it—because He was right there. And it’s why, from a comforting perspective, when we cry out in fear or grief at the casket of a loved one, or as we’re lifted onto a gurney to be wheeled into the surgical suite, we know for certain that His strong arms are wrapped around us—because He’s right there.

In the first of her series of novels set in the mythical North Carolina mountain town of Mitford, Jan Karon tells the story of a traveling salesman passing through the area who was at the low point in his life. He stopped his car by the Episcopal church, slipped inside, and went to the altar steps to pray. Everything seemed to be coming apart on him, and he needed help. “If you’re up there, prove it!” he cried. “Show me if you’re God.” Several minutes of silence followed. Looking up to the ceiling, the man pleaded, “Are you up there?”

Father Tim, the church’s pastor, was listening from the back of the church. He quietly came forward, kneeled beside the man, and said to him, “You may be asking the wrong question. I believe the question you want to ask is not, Are you up there? but Are you down here?” That is what we most need and long for, isn’t it? A God who is not distant and removed, “up there” somewhere, but One who is right here with us in the midst of our daily lives.

So when we pray to our Father in heaven, we don’t need to look upwards through our telescopes to try to locate Him, somewhere between Orion and the North Star. He’s around us, within us, at our offices and homes and schools. Heaven is that spiritual dimension we can only perceive through glimpses and feelings, and through the truths of God’s self-revelation in Scripture.

Remember that God’s Name is Worthy of Honor (...hallowed be your name.)
We all know the importance of a person’s name. It represents to us their very self. We hear people “name-dropping” at parties, to impress others with who they know. We read of government witnesses who “name names” to grand juries investigating mafia crimes. We hear of a person suing for slander or libel because their “good name” has been damaged by lies. Therefore, to honor God’s name is to honor and worship and revere Him.

The most obvious application of this prayer involves cursing and blasphemous or crude speech. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are promising that we will not use God’s name lightly, as a swear word; we will not take His name in vain; we will not belittle Him or make fun of Him in front of others.

To pray this third statement of the Lord’s Prayer also means that we commit to remembering and revering God with a proper respect and awe and reverence. The danger of intimacy is that we take another person for granted. How easy it is to do that with our most cherished family members and friends—and then to realize how precious they are to us only when we’re separated from them. It’s a terrible mistake for a Christian to take God for granted, to treat Him flippantly or carelessly. We need to honor or “hallow” His name.

Remember that His Kingdom is our Highest Priority (Your kingdom come...)
The fourth request is a prayer for God’s Kingdom, otherwise known in scripture as His Church. It pleases our Heavenly Father when we pray and work to build the Church, for it is our earthly foretaste of Heaven’s sweet, unbroken fellowship with the Lord and with one another. Our greatest purpose and meaning on this earth, after all, comes not from building our own little kingdoms, which will all pass away one day, but rather in helping to build something that will last forever: the Kingdom of God. The houses, cars, bank accounts and stock portfolios will all be left behind.

When we pray for God’s Church to be strengthened—to grow and expand and do its work in the world—that is an unselfish prayer. It is a prayer that values the Kingdom of God above our own little kingdoms. Many people, in the face of uncertain economic times today, are making decisions to restrain their spending on unnecessary and insignificant things—the toys and the pleasures that don’t last. It’s wise to be cautious.

But several people have said to me in the last month, “Doug, we are going to cut out some of our spending, but we don’t want to cut back on what we give to the Lord’s work. Because we know that’s most important.” I applaud that value system, and I share it. We’re not going to quit tithing or giving generously. We’re confident that God will take care of us if we’re faithful in honoring this fourth statement of the Lord’s Prayer: to seek the expansion of His Kingdom as our highest priority.

Remember that His Will is our Command (Your will be done...)
The final God-directed petition in the Lord’s Prayer is this: “your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven [the spiritual realm].” We know that, ultimately, God’s will is going to be accomplished in every corner of His Universe. But for now, He has granted to some of His creatures, including human beings, the privilege of free choice, with consequences for those choices. And so, when we pray that God’s will be done “on earth,” including our little portion of the earth, we are really committing ourselves to doing His will.

This is a personal commitment: “God, I will obey you in my daily life today, just as your angels, and the stars and planets and mountains and oceans obey your commands.” This, my friends, can be a dangerous prayer to pray! This is a prayer of surrender and submission, of yielding your will to your Father’s will. Watch out! The results could be profound! It’s a bit scary, isn’t it? It’s also incredibly exciting: to think of what could happen in each of us if we really prayed this prayer and yielded our lives to the Lord—to let Him make us into the men and women He wants us to be.

Conclusion
That’s the first half of our great prayer. The next time you sit down to talk with God, remember that He is your Father; He is in the spiritual realm (everywhere) and He is worthy of honor; pray for Him to bless His work in this world and tell him you’re willing to be a part of the accomplishment of His will, by surrendering yourself to Him each day. If you begin your prayers like that, you will have built a solid and unshakeable foundation for your life and your relationship with God—like a house built on a solid and unshakeable foundation.

In the years I’ve lived in Florida, I’ve found it fascinating to watch a number of new homes being constructed in the community. It typically takes four to five months to build a house from scratch. And these Florida homes are so solid, compared to the wooden house I used to live in. The new building codes have made our houses as solid as bunkers—able to withstand the worst storms.

When homes are constructed, the first several weeks or more are devoted to portions of the home that will never be seen. The ground is leveled, trenches are dug for the footers, the wooden frames are built, the concrete is poured, then the concrete block walls go up and the roof trusses are mounted. None of those things will ever be visible once the home is finished. But they’re so vital. And it’s worth giving them all the attention and care the contractors lavish on them.

The part of our prayer life we’ve talked about today is, I believe, like that invisible foundation to the homes we live in. If we will devote the time to solidly constructing our relationship with God in these ways, it will pay off for the rest of our lives!