Praying Like Jesus

·       Do you believe that prayer is really important?                                                              

·       Would you like to be a better prayer?

·       If you could take prayer lessons from one person, who would you ask?

If you ever need divine intervention and a divine connection, you need prayer!  Prayer connects us with God, so it is surely one of the most important and powerful things we can do!  Yet it can be difficult for many of us – we could do with some help! 

Jesus taught a profound lesson in prayer one day – it is recorded in Mathew and Luke.  If we could learn about prayer from anyone, Jesus is surely our best choice!

Matthew chapter 6 from verse 5:

5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 "This, then, is how you should pray:

   Our Father in heaven,

   hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,

    your will be done

    on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 Forgive us our debts,

    as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation,

   but deliver us from the evil one.

Before the “how to” part of the lesson, Jesus “demystifies” prayer and deals with religiosity in prayer. 

First, he rebukes those who say “impressive” public prayers for human recognition – that is all we will get from that kind of praying!  Instead, Jesus urges us to develop a private, personal prayer life; to “get alone with God”. 

Jesus also urges us to “keep it real” – not to go on and on in lengthy prayers, but to simply “tell it like it is” to God.  He reminds us that we don’t have to point out our needs to God or explain the gravity of our situation – he sees and understands all - perfectly!

So let’s allow Jesus to deal with any religious and mystical attitudes we have about prayer:

·       Prayer is not for “religious Brownie Points” – it’s not a religious achievement or status symbol.  It’s a conversation between you and God.  So don’t worry about impressing others with “beautiful prayers”, just seek God! 

·       Prayer is not a test of endurance to see how long we can go on for – as if that would impress God into listening or earn his attention!

·       And prayer is not complicated – as if we need to explain anything to God or say it the “proper way”.  God understands all!

These are liberating truths!  Prayer is not reserved for “spiritual masters” or “experts” – it’s for ordinary people like you and I who simply want to connect with God!

Jesus then says: “this, then, is how you should pray” – and gives us the “how to” part of the lesson.  This text has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer”, and is probably the most known and recited prayer.

But it is much, much more than a magnificent prayer that we can simply recite!  It is a MASSIVE lesson on HOW TO PRAY! 

There is no way we can tap into all of the lessons now – we could spend weeks learning from this – but let’s see what we can learn in the time we have today…

OUR FATHER

Jesus teaches us to start by calling God Father.  It’s a profound beginning! It starts with the most awesome relationship known to man – that we can be children of God!!      If God is our Father, we come to him as beloved children.  We are not strangers… we are not undesirable… we don’t creep into his presence hoping to be tolerated; we run into his presence as his children!

So, as Christians, as children of God, we approach God with the confidence borne out of the relationship that Christ has given us.

IN HEAVEN

When we come to God in prayer, we come with confidence, but we also come with humility, awe and reverence – because our Father is in heaven!  He is not on our level; he is not our ‘mate’!  He is GOD!  He is GREAT – far greater that we can imagine!  Isaiah put it like this in chapter 55 verse 9:

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Our Father in heaven… the most amazing relationship ever!!!  FATHER… and GOD!  This is where great prayer times begin!  Coming confidently to our awesome, holy, glorious Father!  Confident in his love, as the Father who has adopted us and calls us his own.  Confident in his power as God who is over all.  Yet with a profound sense of awe and reverence as we realize that we are speaking with GOD ALMIGHTY!

I don’t know about you, but when I reflect on these things, I find myself worshipping!  So it’s not that surprising that the next line is…

HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME

“Hallow” is not a common word in the 21^st century. It literally means “to make holy” or “to regard with utmost respect, reverence and awe”.  Other translations are “let your name be kept holy”, “let your name be treated with reverence”, or “help us to honour your name”.   These are words of reverent worship as we realise that we are in the company of God.

There is an ALLIGNMENT that takes place as we pray this.  We are recognising our relative positions: HE is God, we are not; honour and glory are due to HIM, not us.  We are putting him above and us below.  It is a good place to be!

YOUR KINGDOM COME

As we pray this, we are embracing the RULE OF GOD.  He is KING over his kingdom.  He is the RULER.  He has AUTHORITY over his subjects – US.  So we put ourselves in SUBMISSION to his rule.

We are also praying ADVANCE of God’s rule.  We are asking for it to come to where it is not yet being exercised.  Partly we are praying for ourselves – that more and more of our lives will come under his authority.  Partly we are praying for others – that more and more people will come under submission to the King.

YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Now our submission gets practical!  This prayer means that when our will is not the same as God’s will, we choose God’s will.  When heaven and earth differ, we side with heaven.

This prayer means nothing when we are in agreement; there is nothing to be asked for!  It means everything when we are in disagreement; when our desires are contrary to those of God.  Its means that we surrender our personal desires and preferences to the will of God.  We choose to SURRENDER… TO OBEY … even TO SACRIFICE.

Jesus prayed like this in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Facing the cross and all that it meant, we cried out “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)  At that moment of anguish, heaven and earth were in disagreement… and Jesus sided with heaven.  He surrendered his will… and his life.

Jesus teaches us to pray like this because he knows we will face times when our will is in conflict with God’s.  And we will need his help at those times to make the right choice: YOUR will be done.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…  we need to learn to pray like this.

At this stage you may be feeling somewhat challenged!  Because, so far, this is all about GOD and nothing about ME!

And this is SO counter-culture!!  Our 21^st century society says that I am the centre!  It is MY space!  MY way!  MY choice!

And this ME FIRST culture has even invaded the church.  When this happens, the church gets treated like a kind of “service-provider” – and dare I say it, even GOD is treated like that!  People join a church because they like it – it’s “our kind of church”.  They come to meetings when it suits them and don’t come when it doesn’t.  They come to Jesus because they want him to keep them out of hell and to make their lives better.  It’s more about ME than GOD.

This message is preached so strongly through the media that even the strongest of us can be affected.  So we NEED to pray like Jesus has taught us – to get our minds back to where they are supposed to be!  John Piper makes the point that Jesus is teaching us to PRAY FOR THESE THINGS – because we need God’s help with them!  He is not beating us over the head as he rebukes us for our “me-focus”; he is teaching us to ASK GOD TO HELP US RE-ALLIGN OUR LIVES AROUND GOD.

So please don’t shut down in self-defence!  God understands our situation – the challenges we face with this – even better than we do!  And he says “Ask me to help you to get your world the right-way-up!  Trust me; it’s actually for our own good!”

Not much time left… but the rest is easier!  Once we have our world the right-way-up, we can pray effectively for ourselves!

GIVE US TODAY OUR DAILY BREAD

Jesus is not asking us to ignore our needs; rather, he tells us that God knows exactly what they are!  (Read the rest of Matthew 6 for more on this.) So he points us to the TRUE SOURCE… and teaches us to ASK GOD for what we need.  Remember where we started: we are asking our FATHER – he loves us and wants what is best for us… And we are asking GOD – who is fully able to provide. 

James chides his readers in James 4:2-3: “You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives…”  The first part of the Lord’s Prayer sorts out the messy issue of skew motives… with that done, Jesus says, “ASK!”

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORS

Forgiveness is like air – we have to breathe it in and breathe it out in order to live.  We need to be forgiven – and we need to forgive.    We cannot afford not to be forgiven and we cannot afford not to forgive!  Yet it can be difficult when we have hurt and been hurt.  So Jesus says, PRAY!  Because FORGIVENESS IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!

Jesus follows his prayer with this very scary “wake up call”:

14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

So we ask forgiveness – and extend it.  We breathe… we live!

Finally: LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE

Jesus reminds us that sin and the devil are absolutely real and absolutely dangerous!  So he teaches us to pray through our battles: our temptations to sin and our exposure to the schemes of the devil.  It’s a supernatural attack and it requires supernatural defence.  So we call on God to deliver us from evil.

What a lesson on prayer!  This message is simply too short to do it full justice!  I urge you to read this prayer at home this week… read it again… a few times… and lets let Jesus teach us to pray more and more like him!.