Prayer

Today we are thinking about prayer. Isn't that what Christians do? Isn't that what happens in church? It's pretty obvious that that's the thing we should be talking about. But all sorts of people pray. You might be surprised to know that there was a study that was done in the UK not all that many years ago. The UK, where about 2 to 3% of the population go to church, discovered that over 50% of the population pray. So it's not just the thing that happens in church; people pray all the time. That study also showed that young people are more likely to pray than older people, which is pretty interesting.

In the book, this little book here called short steps for long gains, we try to take inspiration from some of these little topics. They're very, very simple. I was suggesting to you that the 50 copies I put up the back, that you might like to take one and perhaps use it to meet with someone and discuss some of the topics that are here. I noticed they're all gone, so if you want more, please let me know. If you have taken one, see that as my gift to you, but please, please use it though. Please don't just have it sitting on a bench somewhere. Find someone, think about who you might ask to meet up and discuss.

P is for prayer. And the first question that is on P for prayer goes like this: Why is the Lord's Prayer a great gift to us? Why is the Lord'sPrayer a great gift to us?. I thought I might just speak about that question—why is it a great gift to us?.

Imagine you went to work on Monday and people said to you, "How was your weekend?" And you said, "It was great, I got to speak to theUnited Nations General Assembly or I got to speak to the EU". That sounds pretty grand, although apparently when you get to do that thing, it's usually to a room with just a few diplomats or on their phones. That's what I've been told anyway. But Jesus is saying you can speak to the God of the galaxies, which is extraordinary.

When you read the Lord's Prayer, it's very familiar to us, but you should ask yourself, who talks like this? Who talks with such confidence?. It says a chapter later in Matthew's gospel that he spoke with authority, not like the teachers of the law, but he spoke with real authority. I take it the word authority comes from the word author, the one who wrote it in the first place.Whatever you think the great issues of life are, the Lord's Prayer changes the mall, and oceans of ink have been spilled on these few sentences. Lloyd Jones says, "We're confused when we pray, but in the Lord's Prayer I've covered it all".

It's a good thing for us to remember before we really start that Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer as a correction for overconfident prayer and underconfident prayer.

He says to those who pray so overconfidently that they think it's all about show, see verse 5: "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 people". If you think it's all about show, that over confidence, he says they've received their reward in full. In other words, people hear them, but God doesn't hear them. That's always the risk when you pray so that people hear you and admire you: you'll get what you ask for—people will hear you, people will admire you—but God will not.

And he says to those who are just babbling, look at verse seven:"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they'll be heard because of their many words". He says to those people whose mouth's in gear but the brain is somewhere else, he says they think they'll be heard because of their many words. He says, "Your father knows your needs".

The Lord's Prayer is probably the one that's most likely to be said just by rote because it's so well known. The words are so familiar that they often just don't register. I dread to think sometimes where my mind is when I'm saying the Lord's Prayer because I don't have to think about it. I would suggest that for us in a church like ours, where we say some very great things, but we say them often and repetitively, we've got to be especially careful that we don't just say them and we're not really thinking about what we're saying.So he's going here to the heart of hypocritical religion, but to the under-confident he's saying this is how to pray: "Pray like this" ifyou're not sure, if you're not feeling confident about how to pray to God, just pray like this.

In just a minute or two on each of the lines, let's have a look at what the Lord's Prayer is saying.

The God-ward Petitions

The first thing Jesus says is say this: "Our Father in heaven". In other words, before we think about us, turn your mind toGod. Before you think of yourself and your requests, turn your mind to God:"Our Father in heaven".

Access to God is limited. It's not a popular thought, but it's a true thought. Read the Old Testament all the way through, and you see access to God is limited. You read the New Testament, and you see that access to God comes through Jesus. The Bible makes it black and white: the fact that you can say"Our Father in heaven" but not have a Father in heaven, and it's not about going to church. You can go to church and not be Christian, like you can go to McDonald's and not be a hamburger. But when you do come to God throughJesus, you have unlimited privilege. God is your father, and as aFather, he is so loving, so personal, so tenderhearted, so interested. And then we add "in heaven," which means he's sovereign. Lloyd Jones again says we ought to put our hand over our mouths for a moment and remember who we are praying to: "Our Father in heaven".

And then we pray, "Hallowed be your name". This is more than God's name tag. In the Bible, names are descriptive. The name conveys something of the character of the person. When God says he is the rock, it's true. When it says he is shield, it's true. When God says he's provider, he's the fortress, he's the helper, it's all true, because the words convey the character of the person behind them. What we're praying here is we're praying that God's name be hallowed—that is, God's name be revered, God's name be honored, God's name be made famous.

Have you ever had the experience when you discover an unsung hero?Someone not many people know about, but when you discover them, you realize that you want to tell everybody about them; they are that good. My son and daughter-in-law who live over in Bristol, they have a little boy, his name is Fergus. Sometimes when he gets very grumpy, they allow him to watch MickeyMouse on the TV. I've got to let you know, if you ever see Mickey Mouse, the modern day Mickey Mouse on the Disney Channel, it's hopeless. He's computer-generated, and there's no plot or anything like that. As we were sitting there, and he was in one of those moods, and I was sitting there with him, I thought to myself, "I'm going to teach him about the real MickeyMouse". So I showed him Steamboat Willie. I know none of you were born when it was made; it was made in 1928, but it was the original MickeyMouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie. Now, do you know who drew the originalMickey Mouse? You're thinking to yourself, "It's Walt Disney, aren't you?" But it wasn't. The original animator of Mickey Mouse was a bloke by the name of Eyeworks. Go and have a look at Steamboat Willie, and you'll see his credit right at the front: obiworks. When I discovered this, I thought,"Why do people not know this? This is amazing. I need to tell everybody I can about Eyeworks". He's amazing. His praise needs to be widely sung.He's the unsung hero of Mickey Mouse.

Now, God is the great unsung hero, isn't he? God needs to be widely known. His name needs to be hallowed. He created the world from nothing.He redeemed the world by his son. When you know him, you will praise him. When others know him, they will praise him. His name should be hallowed, and that's what we pray for, that his name would be.

And then we pray, "Your kingdom come and your will be done".The kingdom is not a geographical place with a monarch, but it's still very real and it's very concrete. It is simply to be under the rule of Christ.That's the kingdom.

Can you imagine the king of Sydney looking out over Lavender Bay, and a pirate ship sails through the heads? Although the king has got a great war fleet behind him, he just sends out one little ship, and he drops the gangplank and says to the pirates, "You've only got a certain amount of time to cross over. If you do, you'll receive a king's pardon. You'll receive a new uniform. You'll join me. Everything will be forgotten. The past will be completely forgotten. There'll be an amnesty for you, and you'll join my side". Christ is the King, and we are the pirates, and the death of Jesus makes a gangplank invitation to us. The kingdom is the most wonderful thing in the world because to cross over is a wonderful privilege. It's the only kingdom where there is an unshakable king.

I was watching a YouTube video the other day, and it was showing this graphic. It starts in the 1700s and ticks away, and then as it does, it's like a horizontal column graph that's showing the greatest nations in the world byGDP. You see the great nations of places like Portugal and things like that, and they come and go, and they move up and down the rankings. Then in the 20th century, you see the United States jump up to the top of the rankings, andAustralia makes an appearance. They get into about number 10 position, and they come up to maybe number nine, then they disappear as well. You're seeing the great rankings of the great dominions, if you like, over the last couple of hundred years, and you realize that they come and go. All the great nations come and go, but that will never happen with this King. There is one greatKing, and you'll never come to the end of his reign. God's kingdom has been inaugurated in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. It will be consummated when he returns. That's why we pray for it.

And because he's King, we pray his will be done. It makes sense, doesn't it? If he's the King, we want his will to be done. What would happen if God's will be done? Maybe he would change some of our plans to his. Maybe we would lose something, perhaps we might lose an honor that we have. We might gain something. We might gain a thorn.

The Human Petitions

So the Lord's Prayer starts with thinking of God, and then we turn to the human petition. So three God-ward petitions and then three human petitions. We ask for ourselves.

The first thing we pray is: "Give us this day our daily bread". We ask God to provide for us, especially given the production line is invisible. You don't see where it all comes from, but it all comes fromGod.

I found out yesterday, I was listening to 702, and my old primary school, Stanwell Public, apparently they have an award-winning garden-to-kitchen vegetable garden there. Students at my old primary school get to dig and pick vegetables and things like that, and they discover that food doesn't come from the shop. When you ask a child from the city, "Where does milk come from?" a child says it comes from the shop, of course—comes from Coles orWoolworths or IGA or something like that. But this prayer reminds us that it all comes from God, to depend on God for everything. It's not easy for some people to swallow. We tend to think we can make it without God, especially so for men. We find it very hard to say we're depending on anyone. Literally here, it's "our daily bread"—that is, it's just the right amount every day.The idea is don't look too far ahead, don't look too far into the future, but just the day. He'll give you enough for the day. When we do this, our mind and life will be filled with the important matters because we know that God will look after the day, he'll look after the daily needs. To pray this line and mean it means we stop worrying about tomorrow. Worry says, "I want everything under my control," but this says no, it's under God's control.You don't have to worry about it anymore. God is not watching the world from a distance, but he's right here, right beside us, knowing our needs even before we ask.

And then he says, "Forgive us as we have forgiven our debtors. Be forgiven as we forgave". This is not forgiveness that brings you into the family; it's forgiveness for the strain that we put on the relationship.When a person turns to Christ, you're in a new family. To fall short is to not be cast out of the family, but it does put a little bit of strain on the relationship, so it's fellowship forgiveness. Jesus said Christians are to confess their sins to God, and they're forgiven, so we don't walk around depressed because we know of Christ and his forgiveness, and we don't go around pretending we're perfect because we know ourselves too well.

It's not conditional—only forgiven by God if we forgive—because that makes it all about me. It becomes my effort; that's the result of my forgiveness. That can't be from what we know the rest of the Bible. I know some people have been badly hurt by other people, and sometimes repeatedly so, and sometimes deeply so. But Jesus is urging us to forgive because a Christian cannot carry a grudge safely. Show me someone who's carrying a grudge, and I'll show you someone who's corroding away on the inside. They're the most unhappy people in the world. If you carry a grudge, it will eat away at you. If you can say—and sometimes it's not easy—if you can say, "I forgive them,"you're liberated. Our perspective has changed, we've let it go, and we pass on a trickle of forgiveness because we've received a waterfall of forgiveness fromGod.

And then lastly we say, "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one". Does this mean do not tempt us? No, because God does not tempt us. Does it mean to not be tested? No, because testing makes you stronger. Wasn't Jesus tested? He was. This is to ask God that when we face temptation, we won't fall, we won't fall into it.

Our world is a minefield. You can't live in the world and not be tempted.Sparks come at us from every side. Our hearts are like a tinder box and can beset off by almost anything. None of us are unaffected by things like anger or greed or impatience. So we pray that although we face it, we won't want to fall into it.

The Apostle Paul in Ephesians puts it like this, he says, "You need to get up and get dressed. Get up and put your armor on". Can you imagine a soldier getting up, going into a battle unprepared?. Can you imagine anAustralian opening batsman walking out into an Ashes Test series saying,"I'll just wear my thongs"?. Get up, put your armor on. God has provided protection for you; you should take it up.

So these last three petitions are about God's pardon, God's provision, and his protection. That's why it's such a confident prayer. We know God can do it. He can provide for us, he can pardon us, he can protect us. It's a prayer that causes us to be God-centered in every way, and that is why it is such a gift.

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