5-25-08 – This is How You Pray

How many of you were told that you needed to pray at some time in your life? Ok, But how many of you have been sat down and asked someone, “Will you teach me how to pray?” Some of us have prayed for little while, some of us for a long time. Some of us may have prayed for our whole lives, some of us maybe haven’t prayed at all, but want to start, but don’t know how – maybe don’t want to do it wrong. For those of you who have been praying already, have any of you ever considered that maybe you’re not praying right?

Wouldn’t it be kind of embarrassing if someone came up to you and said, excuse me, but you’re not praying right? Nobody here would ever do that, but maybe you’ve never thought that there was a right way and a wrong way to pray, but in the ministry of Jesus, there was a time when Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray.

Now this is really interesting, because Jesus’ disciples were young Jewish men and they had been praying from a very early age. Prayer was a huge part of their culture. Praying went on in the synagogue or the Jewish temple and everyone went to one place or the other and everyone prayed. Every devout Jewish male, and everyone wanted to be devout in their culture, prayed. But the disciples saw Jesus praying, and apparently the way he prayed and the way they prayed was so different that they felt compelled to say to Jesus, Jesus, will you “teach us how to pray”.

Now that’s an odd request. I’ll bet nobody in this room has ever asked anybody to teach them how to pray, because, after all, isn’t prayer just talking to God? That’s what I’ve always understood prayer to be, but apparently that’s not all there is to it because when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he didn’t say, Awe, what do you mean, you already know how to pray. There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is talk to God. Get out of here, ask me something important.

Jesus says to the disciples, OK, I’ll teach you how to pray, and he launches into this discussion on prayer that kind of surprises us.

Now, I think the first time that I realized that prayer was something different than just talking to God, or something more than just praying to God saying, “Help me find a parking spot so I’m not late”, or “Help me pass this test”, or “Help there not to be a quiz”, or “Help me get this job”, or “Help me get this raise”, was when I was in seminary.

There was this man from Africa, who was the head over all these churches and he had come to the seminary in order to get his doctorate in Theology. I sort of befriended him. He didn’t have many friends because he was from a different country, and I was kind of interested in Africa, the animals that are there and the beauty of the land and these people that seem so different from us. So we talked several times and then one day he asked if I would pray with him every day at a certain time. I agreed, because that’s what people are supposed to do when you go to seminary. You’re supposed to pray right, so how could I say no. So I said, “Sure, I’ll pray with you.”

So we got together to pray down in the student lounge early one morning and he began to pray and oh my gosh, I had never heard anyone pray like this man prayed. It was like he was in heaven talking to God and they weren’t strangers. This guy knew God. He didn’t know about God. He knew God and he talked to him with a passion that I had never heard. His prayers were incredible and it wasn’t just because he was really smart and knew a lot about God, because it wasn’t just knowledge that came out of this man’s heart, it was communion, it was this great connection that he had with God. It was the most incredible thing that I had ever witnessed.

But here’s the thing. My prayers felt small and insignificant next to his. And to my shame, after praying with him just a few times, I made up some lame excuse about being too busy and not having time to pray with him anymore, but as I look back, the real reason that I didn’t want to pray with him anymore was because he made me feel like I didn’t really know God very well. It made me feel uncomfortable when I prayed with him, because I really thought that I knew God, but compared to him I didn’t. I learned then, that there is so much more to prayer than just talking to God and praying for this, or for that, or the other thing. There is so much more.

I think Jesus’ disciples were in a similar situation when they heard Jesus pray, because they realized, when they heard him pray, that his prayers were different and they weren’t these memorized prayers and they weren’t just asking for things and, unlike me, they leaned in and wanted to learn how to pray better, whereas I leaned out and walked away from maybe the greatest opportunity that I will ever have to learn how to pray. So the disciples, when they heard Jesus praying like this, said to Jesus, teach us how to pray.

And so Jesus said, Ok, you want to learn how to pray, I’ll teach you how to pray, and remember last week, Where Jesus teaches them where to pray. Some of you might go, wait a minute, is it important where I pray? Can’t I pray anywhere? Yeah, you can, but if you are really interested in getting close to God, God says that you have to carve out some time and find a place where you can get rid of all the distractions and where you can get alone with him.

And you might say, but I’m busy! And that’s true for all of us, but if you want to find out who God is and who you were created to be and what prayer is all about, and you want to really get to know God, then you’re going to have to find some time to be all alone with him.

What if prayer is something completely different than what you’ve ever been taught and you’ve spent your whole adult life missing it, because you’ve spent your whole life saying, “Thank you God for this, and thank you for that, but now let’s get down to business, my business, bless me, help me, protect me, give me, give me, Amen.

But Jesus, in teaching his disciples, he tells them, You know that part where you say, ‘bless me protect me, help me, give me, give me?’ Jesus tells his disciples, don’t spend too much time on all that, because your heavenly Father already knows everything that you need. But then I think to myself, “Well then, what am I supposed to pray about when I go into my room and close the door, because that’s pretty much all that I know how to pray.”

Today in Matthew 6, Jesus takes us through some of the most familiar verses in the Bible, and about a year ago, I went through them with you, but I find that I need a refresher because I sort of fall back into what I thought prayer was for most of my life, and I don’t think that I’m alone in needing a refresher. Most of us where never taught to pray, so we develop some bad habits that can only be gotten rid of with persistence. So we need to keep coming back to Jesus and asking him, “Jesus, will you teach us to pray. Matthew 6 is understood in most circles as the Lord’s Prayer.

Jesus says, ok, listen up, This then is how I want you to pray. What Jesus gives next is not a formula prayer. It’s not a prayer that we should repeat back to God every day. Jesus does not say, pray this prayer. Instead, this is like an outline that reminds us how we ought to pray. Jesus says,

“This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven”

Every word here is important. The first word is “Our”. When I pray, I most often think first about me. I might thank God for a few things, but then I want to get down to me, my list, the things that are bothering me, the things that I want God to fix, but Jesus reminds us here that when I come in prayer, I shouldn’t be thinking about me, I should be thinking about us.

Have you ever thought about this? The greatest two commands in all the Bible are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor, the person that you find yourself next to, as much as you love yourself. Where is “me” in those two commands. Yeah, “me” isn’t there. Everybody’s in there but me.

I have been asked several times, “How am I supposed to love God and love others, when I don’t even love myself.” I didn’t know the answer to that for a long time, but the answer is clear now. You begin to love yourself when you begin to love God and love others. We become all that we were created to be, not when we focus more on ourselves – that makes a certain kind of sense, but instead, we become all that God created us to be when we focus on God and on others.

I find that when I start my prayers with my agenda, when I start my prayers out with me, my, me, my, me prayers are dead, dry, and crusty. My life is so small, it can’t be very exciting, but when I start my prayers out with God, who is bigger than life, and keep focusing my prayers there as long as I can, I find that my prayers become full of life and passion, and goodness.

God is Creator of every human being in the world. He is Our Father, not just mine. And the word Father, means that I live in a family, in which God is our Father, and he cares for every human being, including the person that cut me off on the freeway, your boss who’s been a jerk, your spouse, or child, or parent that you haven’t been getting along with. God is their Father too.

The first two words in the Lord’s prayer, remind us of how we are to be oriented. They are like a compass that always points north. The way that the Lord’s prayer begins reminds us that, when we pray, we are to me oriented towards God, not towards me and what’s mine, but the first two words remind us to be oriented toward God and what’s his.

Jesus could have used so many other words besides Father. He could have said pray this way, Our King, or Our Lord, or Our Judge, or Our Savior, or Our Redeemer, and all of those are names for God, but the name that Jesus asks us to use when praying to God is, “Father”.

The other names for God don’t have any relational value. There’s no closeness in the name “King, or Lord, or Redeemer”. Jesus tells us to use the word “Father” which tells us that God wants a relationship with us. God doesn’t want you and I to just know about him, he wants us to know him, for us to be connected to him, to be in love with him. God wants us to have this common union or communion with him.

The word “Father, suggests that we are children and if we are like children, then there are going to be some things that I don’t understand, because I know as my children’s father, that I know many thing that they don’t and can’t understand. When we go to prayer, we have to trust God that he knows what’s best and will take us there, even if it doesn’t make sense to us.

Jesus says, that before you go any further in your prayers, spend some time focusing on God, who is our Father, who is the one who brought you into this world, the one who is our parent and our creator, and the one who keeps us alive and sustains us. God, our Father, is the one who provides everything that we need, in the same way that I, as my children’s parent provide everything for them.

Focus on this point. God loves you as the best father in the whole world loves his child – and then way more than that. God, your Father, loves you so much that he was willing to die in order that you might live, and he was willing to do that, not only for you but for every human being who has ever lived. Our Father.

Our Father in heaven

Heaven is what we were created for. It’s not so much a place as it is a way of being, a way of living. Heaven is what existed in the Garden of Eden before sin entered. Heaven is what you and I were created for, and even though we, as human beings, have messed this world up, maybe messed our lives up, God is at work in our lives working on bringing you back toward who we were created to be, back toward heaven, back towards good.

Our Father in heaven, Holy is your name

Though the world that we live in is a mess and maybe our lives are a mess, God is separate from it. That’s what Holy means. It means separate. Separate from sin, separate from the mess that we have brought to this world. And because of the sin and mess that we have in this world, we can’t see what’s right and wrong very well, but because God is holy, because God is separate from the mess, he can see perfectly.

God knows what’s right and wrong, he knows what’s good and bad, and even thought we don’t understand it now, we are called to trust in him, because he has the blueprint of heaven. He knows what’s right. He knows what’s good, and when we pray, we’re called to remember that God is in heaven and he is separate from this mess and because of that, he can see the world and our lives clearly.

When we address God in this way, it reminds us of the context that we live in. It is to remind me of how great our God truly is. It puts me in proper perspective. Me, my problems, my physical problems, my financial problems, my relational struggles, my job troubles, it puts my life in proper perspective, and it reminds me that God is great and that God is good, and that God cares, and that God loves, and though I can’t see it, God, if I follow him, will lead me towards heaven, toward him, toward who I was created to be.

Jesus is saying, don’t start out with the me, my, me, my, fix this, take care of that, God. Jesus is saying, stay on the subject of who God is and how great God is for a while until it begins to sink in who God is and who you are in him. We have been invited by Jesus to say, Heavenly Father, Great Is Your Name. Would you not rush by that! Would you not let the pressures and fears and concerns of your life tempt you to rush right by who God is? Because the longer we stay there, and the longer we dwell on who God is and allow that to sink in, it will effect every other facet of how we live.

Our Father in heaven, Holy is your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Nobody here ever heard me teach on this subject have you? You hear this part of the Lord’s prayer almost every week. Our focus is not to be on Our kingdom coming, and let’s be frank, that’s what most of our prayers have become. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we realize that most of our prayers could be restated as, “God, may my will be done and may my kingdom come.

Jesus reminds us in this model prayer that we are called to come alongside God, rather than to ask God to come alongside us. We are called to go on a mission with God, rather than ask God to go on a mission with us. Do you see the difference? Jesus is saying that when we pray to God, that we are to go humbling ourselves before him, saying, “God, not my will be done, but yours”.

This is the point of prayer! This is how you are to pray! This way of praying will change your life! This way of praying will change how you see God! This way of praying will change how you see you! This way of praying will change how you see your problems! This way of praying changes how you do your job. It changes how you drive. This way of praying changes how you view the world, your life, my life, EVERYTHING!

God, your agenda comes before my agenda. God, I want a new job, or God, I want to make more money, because things are always tight, or God, I want to get married, But God, may your will be done. God, your understanding of things is so much better than mine. My will looks right and it seems right to me, but God, my view and my understanding is so small compared to yours, your will be done! God, before we get down to my needs, I want you to know that I am completely surrendering my will and my life to you.

That’s love! Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That’s the greatest commandment in the entire Bible. Love God with all that you are. Trust him! Give yourself to him. Become one with him! You’re God’s anyway. He gave you life. God allows you to breath, allows you to move, and allows all the stuff inside of you to work. He’s the one who created you. He’s the one who holds your life in his hands. He’s the one who controls your destiny.

When we say, God, your will be done and your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, “We are saying, God, I want to practice for eternity, now. God, I don’t want to wait until I get to heaven to experience heaven. God I want to begin to experience heaven now and in order for that to happen, I have to completely trust God with my life, knowing that he knows way more than I do.

Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

We’ve talked about all of these issues in the past. Prayer is all about, connecting, and communing with God. It’s so much more than just talking to God. You and I cannot become all that we were created to be without a deep connection with God. God is spirit and we were created in his image. There is a part of us that is fulfilled when we pray. Is it easy? NO! It’s a discipline that takes hard work. Is marriage easy? NO! It takes lots of hard work. Is raising kids easy? NO. It takes lots of hard work. Anything in life that is worthwhile is never easy. Prayer is no exception, but when we pray as Jesus teaches us to pray, it has the power to change our lives.

For the next 30 days, I’d love it if you would join me is seeking to use the Lord’s Prayer as an outline for our prayers, so that we might become better prayers and become more connected to God our Father. The greatest commandment is to love God with all that we are. Prayer is a key way to do that and the Lord’s Prayer especially orients us toward God, so that our prayer life and really all of our life isn’t dry, dead and crusty, but rather full of life, passion, and goodness.

Life Link:

Have you got your next outreach event on the calendar? How is your group doing at “looking outward”? Is prayer a primary part of your group? Are you praying for those who are not yet with you? How about setting up an empty chair and praying for God to fill it?

• What one relationship would you seek to mend and grow, if you knew that God would answer your prayer for relational healing?
• Summary – don’t draw attention to people who weren’t there by asking something like, “Was everyone there”. Everyone needs a bit of a refresher, so ask people to share pieces of the message that they remember. Fill in the gaps when others can’t.
• The question – was there anything that anyone disagreed with or that struck you, or that you just don’t understand?
• Why do you think we always focus on “Me” when we pray?
• Why does God call us to not focus on “Me”, but rather, to focus on him?
• Why do you think Jesus tells us not to spend too much time focusing on our list of needs? Why do you think we tend to focus on our needs?
• How does God bless us when we focus on him?