Sermon for 7/28/13 on the Lord's Prayer, part 1

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them one thing. There were many things they could have asked him to teach them, but we have record of one request: Lord, teach us to pray. I believe that this is because the disciples saw the fruits of Jesus' prayer life. I believe that they saw him spend countless hours in prayer, and they saw how his life was guided by his abiding relationship with his heavenly Father. I believe that they wanted this same intimate relationship, the same depth to their discipleship, and so they asked him to teach him to pray.

We, too, want a deep and abiding relationship with our Father in heaven. We want to be connected to God, to lean upon him and feel his strength and power in us. We want to place our complete trust in him, because we know that only in him will we find true life. We've tried everything else in the world, and we've discovered that they cannot fulfill our deepest longings. We know that only God can do this, and so we want to learn to pray like Christ prays.

In reply to the disciples' request, Jesus teaches them the Lord's prayer. He tells how to pray. As someone suggested, 'if Jesus had known a better prayer, he would have taught it to us.' So let us, too, sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from him over these next five weeks.

Matthew 6:7-13  (CEV) 

7 When you pray, don’t talk on and on as people do who don’t know God. They think God likes to hear long prayers. 8 Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask.
9 You should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, help us to honor your name. 10 Come and set up your kingdom, so that everyone on earth will obey you, as you are obeyed in heaven. 11 Give us our food for today. 12 Forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others. 13 Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil.

When I was in seminary, I did a work study job in exchange for my scholarship. I worked 10 hours a week doing administrative tasks for one of the offices, and it wasn't exciting work, but it wasn't very difficult.

One day, my supervisor took me into a closet and opened up a cabinet. In it were two stacks of unwrapped paper. He told me that he wanted to know how much paper we had left. I looked at him curiously, because I knew how meticulous he was and inferred that he wanted me to count all this paper, which probably totaled several thousand sheets. This did not sound like an engaging or necessary task.

He left me to it, and after staring at this stack for a few minutes, I decided on a simpler method. I went and got a full ream of paper, knowing that it was 500 sheets, and I guesstimated based on the relative size of the unwrapped stack. I then went into my boss' office and told him about how many sheets we had.

I still have the distinct memory of the disappointment in his eyes as he looked at me. It was now very clear that he had expected me to count the individual sheets of paper. He asked me a few questions about my method, and then gave up on getting an exact number out of me.

I had fulfilled the task, I suppose. He was pretty disappointed with the effort I had put into it, and I knew that my heart wasn't in counting all that paper. I hadn't tried very hard to get an exact number, and it was a pretty big waste of everyone's time, despite the fact that the task was done.

We do this throughout our lives. We come up to a task that appears daunting, or maybe it's something in which we're just not interested. But it's something that has to get done, so we put in the time. Often it's half-hearted or distracted time that we invest, but we make sure the task gets done, even if it's not well done. We satisfy the requirement and check off the box, glad to have it done and confidant that if anyone asks, we'll be able to say we've completed it.

There's nothing wrong with this approach at times. No one gets really excited about paying bills, but it's necessary. If you've got to take the trash out, you don't need to get really excited about it first. Some things in life just need to be done.

The problem comes when we approach prayer in this fashion. We do it because it's supposed to be done, and we do it only because we think we look better to God after we have prayed. We trot out familiar lines and make sure we've completed our task, but we weren't necessarily paying attention to what we've just done. Sometimes it's a distracted prayer while the television is on, or maybe while we're rushing from this to that, and we don't even pay attention to the words we're saying, but we're praying, right?

Jesus warns his listeners of this risk. He tells them that there are people who used lots of words and pray long prayers because they think this makes them look good. They think that the longer the prayer, the better it is, so they go on and on, but their heart isn't really in it. They're just putting in an appearance, putting on a show. They've got time to fill, so they fill the time, but their empty hearts are not filled.

Jesus wants us to pray with hearts on fire for God. He wants us to get caught up in the passionate embrace of God, to fall in love with God and let God's love surround and fill us. When we pray, he wants us to recognize that it's more than empty words shouted at the heavens. It's adoration toward the creator of the universe, and it's intimate conversation with the God who promises to always abide with you. He wants our hearts and our attitudes to be in the right place, that we might be mindful of what we are doing when we pray.

And so he begins his prayer with an amazingly intimate term. “Our Father,” he begins, and instantly our relationship with God is placed in a different position than any other religion on earth. God as Father is not a God who dwells in the clouds and remains removed from humanity, preferring to keep his hands clean. God as Father is a God who desperately loves his children and rushes to meet them, rushes to love them, rushes to save them. Father is the God who sees his child running into the street and runs to keep him from certain death. Father is the God who hears the cries of his children and promises to always abide, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Father is the God who promises that not a hair shall fall from your head without his knowledge.

Now, Father is also a God who is willing to discipline, but only out of love, only because he wants the best for us. Father is a God willing to punish, but only in the hopes that we might be reformed and transformed, that we might see the error of our ways and repent, turn back, turn towards him. Father is a God who knows that only he can ultimately satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts, and so when he sees us playing with fire he sternly rebukes us, knowing that it will be our destruction. He doesn't want us to dwell in senile happiness—he wants us to dwell in abundant life with him forever.

This is all amazing that God wants to do this, that God wants to be in an intimate relationship. God is so holy, so perfect, that we know that we cannot look at him, lest we perish immediately. Our God is the one who created the earth, who told the rivers where to flow and set the stars in the sky. This is the God who will always be near, who will never let you be separated from him. Our God is amazing.

Look to the next phrase--'in heaven, hallowed be your name.' Jesus is starting our prayer with intimacy, but it is immediately coupled to the holiness of God. We can never forget just how holy God is. We can't lose sight of God's perfection and that he dwells in unapproachable light. If we lose sight of this, than God loses his power and simply wants to be our friend, but is incapable of doing anything about the dangers that threaten us. But when we hold onto the holiness and power of God, we recognize that the God who wants an intimate relationship is the same God who dwells outside of time and space, the same God who creates simply by speaking, the same God who is able to vanquish sin and death and promises to return to defeat Satan with finality. This is the God we worship, the God we adore, the God who will reign forever. There is no question of his victory—it is assured, and we have no need to doubt or fear.

And so, in the beginning of our prayer, Jesus asks us to hold together the intimate love of God with his awesome power and majesty. Our minds cannot wrap themselves around such a concept, for it is too great for us. As the Psalmist says, I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

So what can we do?

Here, we can only worship. We can bow before the throne of grace and marvel at the God who is all-powerful and yet deeply loving. We can be amazed at who God is and what God has done. We can simply fall before the throne and adore this God. We can be grateful for all that this God has done for us, for he didn't have to do any of it, but chose to use this power for our ultimate good.

This is how our prayers ought to begin, Jesus says. They ought to begin with adoration of God, and with a recognition of the depths of his love for us. They ought to remind us of where we stand—before the throne of grace of the all-powerful God, and they also ought to remind us of just whose we are—we belong to this God, and he proudly claims us in Christ. Nothing in the world or beyond it could stand between us, but he rushes toward us, wanting to be known intimately by us. He wants to hear our prayers, to hear our joys and concerns, to know our hearts. He doesn't want to hear half-hearted prayers tossed in his general direction so we can consider the task completed and go on with our lives. He wants our hearts to be completely oriented towards him, because he knows that such an orientation, and only such an orientation, will be completely fulfilling for us. For us to grow into the fulfillment of our potential, we have to turn to him alone, in love and worship, and Jesus begins our prayer with a simple sentence of infinite depth, one that focuses our hearts and minds upon the God who creates with a Word, upon the God who descends to earth and dies so that we might live with him, upon the God who abides with us by the power of the Holy Spirit in each and every day.

Let us pray