When You Pray Talk 1

0:00 This morning, we begin then our new series, this series, When You Pray. And this title that comes from Jesus' words in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, before he opens up the teaching on what we call the Lord's Prayer. And very simply, what we're going to do, we're going to take four Sundays, and we're going to walk our way slowly, step by step, through this prayer together. So, like I said with John before, when we talked about why John, and we've just talked about why John, we want to talk to you about why this series, why this prayer-focused series now. Well, if you remember back to our vision series in September 2024, you may not, but if you do, one of the strands we focused on there when I had a conversation with Jill Campbell was our deep desire to grow together as a praying church, to be far less self-sufficient and to grow in our dependency on God together through prayer and to grow in our humility and to grow in our expectancy. And that like Jesus, more and more prayer would be and become a lifeline, a central lifeline of our lives together, a central lifeline of our being living stones together. Added to that, I've talked with a number of different people from inside this church over the last while who have told me that for various reasons, the discipline of prayer is largely absent from their lives. They feel they don't know how to pray, or they struggle to pray, or they're too distracted to pray, often digitally distracted.

1:51 And it becomes a little bit of a vicious circle in terms of they pray less, and so it becomes less a part of their lives, and then it just diminishes and diminishes over time. And they're coming and asking for help and guidance to draw closer to God and listen to him and talk to him in prayer. Add into that as well the number of people who I talk to who are nervous, who are fearful to ever pray aloud in a group setting, often because they've got it into their heads that praying aloud needs to be this ordered, eloquent, stirring, carefully crafted, even poetic praying almost. And so they actively avoid context where gathered prayer is taking place, or they hold back from praying from the heart if they do place themselves in those contexts. And so other people are missing out on what they have to say and their prayers and hearing their prayers and being encouraged and challenged by their prayers. And so we want to talk into, we want to teach into, we want to help in those situations and those circumstances and those contexts. And then on a very personal note, the Lord's Prayer is deeply, deeply precious to me as a pattern, as a template for my own relationship with the Father.

3:20 Around 11 or 12 years ago, inspired by different reading and thinking that it was doing at the time, I made a really conscious choice to focus on placing this prayer at the heart of my own praying. Not in a prescriptive, rigid way. I don't think that's what Jesus is getting at here. But in a first and foremost sort of way. And at that time, that had a genuinely significant impact on my life at a very significant season of my life. That prayer played a really major part in me moving out of education and teaching and into what I'm doing right now. And so it's continued to be that precious lifeline for me ever since. And my own personal prayer then for this series, if I'm sharing that with you, is that our focus together on it over the next few weeks might have something of, something of that transformative effect on people here who might be struggling in their relationship with God.

4:29 So let's get stuck in. Let's read from Matthew's recording of Jesus outlining this prayer. Here's what he says, beginning in verse five of chapter six. 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 others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 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. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

5:05 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. And we're going to stop there just for today. And we're going to rest on these eight words and think about these eight words. Now, I'm not a great sleeper. I struggle to sleep and I have come to rely on white noise to help me get to sleep. So whatever the weather is outside at night, inside our bedroom, it's raining because that's why I've got rainforest rain beside my head every single night.

5:51 My wife's a very patient woman. And part of the problem, part of the problem with the whole of the Lord's prayer, but these opening words in particular is that we're so familiar, we're so accustomed to them. They're almost like white noise to our ears. We find ourselves, don't we, falling back into that school assembly rhythm and intonation of them being said. And so we really need to pause and focus, and we really need to attune our ears to what is actually being said and allow God's Word to help us see what is being said to how Jesus the Word, the Son of God, is guiding us into how the Father wants us to approach him. What the father wants us to ask, how the father wants us and invites us to pray. And that's so true of these opening two words, our father. We just automatically gloss over those.

6:52 Like I say, white noise. They're the most familiar. In a sense, they're the most ordinary words in the world. But if we take time to truly contemplate them, we'll realize they are anything but ordinary. They are as far away from ordinary as you could possibly get. And they certainly wouldn't have been ordinary to Jesus' original listeners, the disciples. They would have been, I think, completely taken aback by his teaching when he said to them, address God as our Father. You see, up to now, the prayers that they would have heard, prayed in the synagogue, would have begun with the exalted names of God from the Old Testament scriptures.

7:40 Adonai, Yahweh, Sovereign Lord, El Shaddai, God Almighty, God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, Lord God of heaven, Lord of hosts, all of these exalted names. So for Jesus to say none of those are required and that this is how you should pray, our Father would have been a shock. How on earth, I'm sure they would have thought, is Jesus inviting us to begin praying like this? How is he telling us to come to the sovereign, holy, almighty God as our Father? And what does that mean? What does it look like to relate to him in this way? so first of all our father how how is that possible it seems audacious it seems irreverent to dare to call god father how is this possible well well jesus when he's talking to disciples he's preparing them for their future after his death and resurrection when they become the early church. And he's looking for it all that he's going to achieve through his sacrificial death on the cross and his resurrection.

8:57 And on the cross, he is going to win for them and for us all sorts of spiritual blessing. He's going to win salvation and forgiveness and redemption and legal justification. But crucially for these words, he's going to win our adoption. And we've talked about this recently. Remember a few weeks back to John 1. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God.

9:38 Or a little further back in Ephesians 1. Remember these words, these struck so many people so significantly at the time last year. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. At the cross, Jesus won our adoption and he made us children, children of God. In the Roman empire, in the time of Jesus, in the time of Paul, to be adopted was to be given a completely new identity. Was to be made a completely new person by law, given every single right of a legitimate son in your new family.

10:47 Nothing held back, nothing at all, no distinction. It was to have all debts, all obligations connected with your previous family and your previous identity canceled forever. And that's what has been achieved for us. at the cross. All the eternal rights and privileges of God's Son by nature, Jesus, are now ours by adoption. And so we are invited. And it's even more than that. We are commanded to approach and to call the sovereign Lord of the universe, Father.

11:37 to call God Almighty, God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Lord of hosts, Abba. This Aramaic term of reverent affection of a little child for their father. The disciples would have been astonished that this is how they were invited to address him. to be allowed to do this, never mind taught or commanded to use these words. And I know in my heart, so often I need to come back and recapture something of that astonishment out of my own familiarity. Because the price that was paid for this privilege is immeasurable. And we need to remember that. So that's how.

12:39 But when Jesus invites us to talk to and with our Father, who is he talking about? And he doesn't leave things here. He doesn't leave that sort of uninformed. He doesn't leave us to make up our own picture of who the unseen Father is. He tells us and he shows us. He reveals to us through his teaching and through his character what the father is like. I can't go through all of what he says, but let me give you a couple of examples. Matthew 7, 9 to 11.

13:10 Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him. There's a little revelation linked to that in Matthew 10. He talks about the father seeing sparrows and how they won't fall outside his care and how we are so much more cared for and so much more precious than sparrow. Luke 6.36, he tells us that our father is merciful. And Luke 10.21 says this, Jesus saying, praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you've hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you're pleased to do.

14:03 He's pleased to reveal himself to those who are humble, like little children, to those who come to him with open hands expectantly, not with anything to give, but trusting to receive. And then in Luke 15, in Jesus' parable of the lost son, Stephen was here in the summer. He gives us this extraordinary image of the father seeing his son in the distance and then filled with compassion, shamefully tucking up his tunic and running to his son. Fathers did not run. Elderly men did not run, but he did this and threw his arms around his son and kissed him. Again, a picture of what the father is like. And Jesus describes the father with all sorts of words in all sorts of ways. holy father, righteous father, the father who is perfect, who is good, who is just, who is generous, who is loving.

15:03 But of course, Jesus reveals the father uniquely in himself, not in his, simply in what he describes the father as, but in his own character, in his own life. Again, you go back to John 1, 18, no one has ever seen God, But the one and only son who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the father has made him known. To see Jesus is to see the father, to know who we're praying to is the father. We look at Jesus. And then in John 12, Jesus says, for I did not speak on my own, but the father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the father has told me to say. So to hear Jesus is to hear the father.

16:00 So as Jesus tells us then to pray our father out of the privilege that he has won for us, he also reveals the father's character. He reveals the father's heart. He reveals the father's love to us so that we might by his word be able to pray our father and open up that word and look at all of the richness in it that he has given to us through what he says and how he shows us the father and reflect on that and meditate on that and have our picture of the father growing in richness because of that. He doesn't leave us to make up who our father is for ourselves. And then that leads us then to why. Why does he tell us to come to the Father in this way? Why does he tell us to come to God in this way and start with these words as our approach? Well, I think we need to mention the R in there, the O-U-R, because I think he's put that in very purposefully.

17:03 So many of us, I think, pray with tunnel vision, don't we? With blinkers on, it's just me and God. And nobody else matters. But Jesus is trying to take us out of that mindset, I think. Instead, every time we approach our Father in prayer, even when we're on our own, our peripheral vision should encompass our brothers and sisters in Christ, those who call him Father too, those who share that privilege. Whether alone or together, this is always in some way a family prayer. our father and that same hour encourages us it encourages us to step into not step away from not avoid but to step into every opportunity we have to come to our father together and pray together as his family so let's not miss the hour but why then father and why is this important?

18:08 Well, I think the context of where Matthew places this prayer in his gospel and the collected teachings of the Sermon on the Mount gives us some of the why and it's all connected with hypocrisy and with authenticity. So in the section before this part on prayer, Jesus warns not to give to the needy like the hypocrites do, announcing it with trumpets that would have been the way you would have announced it in those days today we'd probably say announce it with social media posts and tell everybody what you've done in the section after this he teaches on fasting and again he says don't practice it publicly and surely like the hypocrites do but do it simply and only for your father and your father alone in secret and then in this section that we've read I read at the beginning he's warning against prayer turning into a hypocritical, mask-wearing performance, either to God or in front of others. Or the babbling of the pagans who think the more words they taught up, the more they will be heard. But if we know, and if we approach God as our Father who loves us, Our Father who accepts us in Christ, our Abba, to whom we have nothing to prove and nothing to gain that we don't already have. Well, then you see, there's no need to perform.

19:48 There's absolutely no need for the hypocrite's mask. We can come not as a cowering subject. not as an insecure servant, not as someone who needs to achieve acceptance, but with the simple, uncomplicated confidence and audacity of a loved and accepted child whose full adoption has been secured by Christ. Now, all analogies fall short. They always do, and this one does too. but think of that picture think of that picture of a loved child I think when I was thinking about this during the week I thought of my boys as toddlers I don't know two, three, four and when they woke up in the morning and do you know what they didn't on their way to our bedroom call past the bathroom to brush their teeth to comb their hair to get themselves ready, to make themselves acceptable.

21:00 They didn't knock on the door and wait to say, excuse me, mother, excuse me, father, and wait to be invited in. No, they toddled into our room, hair everywhere, toddler morning breath undealt with. They would climb up into our bed, elbows in the head, knees in the stomach and they would find their little space and they would cuddle in and they would tell you everything that was on their little minds. They had nothing to prove. They didn't need to perform and neither do we. And that's the point. That's the point. In Christ, we're always acceptable to and accepted by our Father.

21:52 In Christ, our hair is always brushed, our teeth are always clean. everything is always acceptable. And our prayer and our praying needs to begin with the confidence of our intimate relationship with him as our Abba. It is the key to the rest of the prayer and it is the key to us wanting to come and pray in the first place, our Father. It's not unusual for my prayers that begin our Father to actually never get past that. I don't know about you for some people here. I pray each morning when I walk the dog around our block. I don't take headphones with me.

22:31 I don't take anything with me. I just pray. And I start here. That's the common way I start. And I sometimes realize when I get back that I haven't got any further. I've just been thinking about and thanking him that I'm his beloved child and just taking this Our Father as a platform, as a springboard, and just thinking about all it means and thinking about what it says in his word and what that means for me. and I don't get any further. And that's okay, in a sense, because I am his beloved child.

23:02 And he knows what I need. And I don't need to tell him what I need. And I get to come to him as father. And as I do, as Romans 8 says, he promises to testify to my heart by his spirit that I am his child. As I pray, that security, that assurance grows. and grows. I am his child. Okay.

23:31 We then move on. Jesus encourages us actually not to stop there. He encourages us to move on. And where he encourages us to move on to is hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name. Now, as I was thinking about this, I was asking myself, how often, How often do I think about, how often do I contemplate even the name of God? It's a massive thing in the Old Testament. The Old Testament writers thought about it and talked about it a lot.

24:03 Think of some of the Psalms even. Psalm 8, 1, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Or Psalm 52, for what you have done, I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. and I will hope in your name for your name is good. And then that verse that I began our service with, not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory because of your love and faithfulness. And this one links so clearly with where Jesus teaches us to take our praying after we approach God as our father. He teaches us that the first place our prayers should go are not to ourselves and our own concerns, but to God's concerns, to his glory, to his holiness, to his name. And you see, in the culture of ancient Israel, in the culture of Jesus context, names weren't just labels.

25:08 They weren't just given to us because our parents liked that name. They were far more meaningful than that. They revealed something much deeper about who someone was. In a sense, you were your name. And that is no more true of anyone than of God. Think of Exodus 33 and 34, when Moses asks to see God's glory. And the Lord says, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you. And I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.

25:44 And then we see what God does further down in chapter 34. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God. Slowed anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. What we are seeing here is the Lord's name, the glory and the holiness of it revealed.

26:24 And his name is who he is. God's name is his revelation of who he is. So why then does Jesus take us from our father to hallowed be your name? They almost feel like they don't fit together, but they absolutely do. They're so important that they come together. Why is it crucial? We've got to ask that the practice shape of our praying, that the grooves that we carve out as we pray have this, have the holiness, have the glory of God's name as our primary concern?

27:09 Well, first of all, it's because Jesus knows that hallowed be your name is the opposite of the natural cry of our hearts. We don't want to begin with God. We want to begin with ourselves. the natural cry of our hearts is not to you Lord not to you but to my name be the glory that's what I want you see when we pray things or when we pray to change things we often forget that the thing God wants to change most is us. And so by teaching us to pray for this first, to meditate on this first, Jesus invites us into that place of the Holy Spirit's recalibration work in our hearts, his transforming work in the renewing of our mind. Think about it as we pray. Father,

28:19 it's amazing that I get to come to you as Abba. No mask, no performance because of Christ. You know me better than I know myself. And you know that right now it's the glory of my name that I'm so concerned with. But Father, as I pray, hallowed be your name. Work in my heart by your spirit. stir up in my heart a passion for the holiness and the glory of your name and lead me to be able to say with full sincerity, not to me, Lord, not to me,

29:05 but to your name be the glory because of your love and faithfulness so that the most important thing to us, the most important thing to us in the world, the most precious thing to us in the world, will become, as we pray it, this the Lord's name. A zeal for his name. Knowing that whatever is for his glory, as we've sang already, and as we've talked about already, is for our ultimate good. Jesus puts, hallowed be your name here. Because that puts the rest of our praying on the right tracks. I was thinking about this. If you've ever been ten-pin bowling with young children, or if you've ever been ten-pin bowling with adults who are really, really, really bad at it, you know that sometimes you have to get the bumpers put up. You know the idea?

30:00 So that the ball doesn't go down into the gutter on either side. Well, in a sense, this part of the prayer, hallowed be your name, is the prayer version of Bumpers, because it aligns everything else we pray for. It aligns everything else we ask for with the holiness and the glory and the honor of God's name in the world and God's name in our lives. And so as we pray as adopted children of God, as his family, as his people marked by his seal of ownership, put on us by his spirit, he puts his name on us in a sense. As we pray, hallowed be your name. And through that prayer, God's spirit works in us, that will, that's got to impact every area of our lives. If we pray this prayer, it is going to change things in our lives. Hallowed be your name.

31:06 What does that mean for how I speak to my wife and my children tomorrow morning? Hallowed be your name. What does that mean for the levels of diligence and humility and faithfulness? I apply to my employment or you apply to yours. However difficult things are, however challenging our superiors are, however ungrateful those we serve appear to be, hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name. What does that mean for how I choose to spend the money you've given me to steward? Or what does that mean for me as I seek to find someone who might become a spouse in the future?

31:53 Or what does that mean for that promotion opportunity that's in front of me? Or what does that mean for how I get on on the football pitch or on the golf course on a Saturday afternoon? Or what does that mean when I have to sing songs that aren't really my preference on a Sunday morning? hallowed be your name. And then finally, hallowed be your name. What part does this play in our motivation to be witnesses where we began, to scatter seed? See, often our sole motivation, I think if we examine our hearts, is our love, is our care for the other person who we want to see come to Jesus. And of course, that's a really great and wonderful motivation.

32:48 But as we pray these words, and as the Holy Spirit responds and grows our zeal for the glory of the name of God, it'll be that glory, that zeal for that glory, that will propel us in a totally different way into those opportunities. Because we are zealous for the glory of his name to go out. And to be seen in the world. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Eight words for us to consider afresh this week. Eight words for us to pray this week together. And on our own. and let's not spend all our time talking about them.

33:43 Let's actually pray them. Eight words for us to ask our Father by his Spirit to renew and transform our hearts and minds with. Eight words to lead us into this incredible privilege of approaching God's throne of grace in Christ and being welcomed as his adopted, beloved children with all of the rights of legitimate children. Let's take these into our lives this week. Let's pray together as the band then come back up. Father, we pray, our Father. these words that are so incredible, so unordinary.

34:47 And we pour out our hearts in gratitude that we are welcomed to come to you as your children. That we are accepted that we are loved, that you see us as beautiful. Think of those words of you singing over us. Help us to grasp this privilege and help us to enjoy this privilege. may we draw closer to you may people here who are struggling with those words for whatever reason may there be breakthrough with them we pray today and may we be people who

35:51 respond to your love and faithfulness in our lives with a growing zine to glorify your name in our words, in our actions, in our attitudes. Wherever we get the opportunity, may we be people who are hallowing your name this week, we pray. As in Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen. Amen.