Speaking with God
When we became Christians, we entered into a relationship with our Creator. Like any relationship, communication plays a major role. God speaks to us and we listen to Him as He speaks to us primarily through Scripture. God also listens to us as we speak with Him in prayer. Our listening to and speaking with God is what prayer is, isn't it? Prayer is listening to God and speaking with God, talking to Him about anything and everything; it's a joyous time, it's a privilege, and it should be absolutely natural for His children.
A. How do I pray?
As new Christians, we may be asking, "Okay, how exactly do I pray?" Jesus' disciples asked the same question and Jesus' answer is known as the Lord's Prayer; it is in the Gospel of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament. In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus teaches us how to pray; I want to spend my time this morning on this passage.
Notice how Jesus starts, "Pray then, like this." Jesus did not intend this model prayer to be mindlessly repeated as if it were some kind of magical incantation. He never intended the Lord's Prayer to be something we would be saying in church while we're thinking of something else. The Lord's Prayer is intended to give us the basic structure and the basic content of what prayers in general should look like. I think there is quite a bit of room for flexibility as we pray through the Lord's Prayer, but we are supposed to pray "like this".
B. "Our Father in Heaven"
Jesus starts, "Our Father in heaven." Prayer starts with a proper view of God. Prayer starts with our understanding who God is and what He is like; He is our Father. When Jesus was speaking, He would have been speaking in Aramaic. The Aramaic word for father is Abba; you may have heard that word-it's not just a Swedish pop-music group!
Abba was the word that a child would use to address his or her father, and it is a term of familiarity. By starting prayer with "Our Father," Jesus is teaching us to approach God with that sense of familiarity—that sense of family. He wants us to understand that the God to whom we are praying, the God with whom we are speaking, cares for us in the same way that a father cares for his children, and yet He is our Father "in heaven."
Jesus is teaching us that we can never forget that "Our Father," with whom we are talking, is also the God who has created all things, who sustains all things, and who merely spoke and galaxies came into existence. He is teaching us to approach God with astonishment and trembling and reverence and awe. So Jesus teaches us to start our prayers, "Our Father in heaven." He is teaching us to pray with this mix of familiarity and of reverence.
C. Focus first and foremost on God
Jesus then moves into the prayer. In the first half of the prayer, we can see that prayer focuses first and foremost on God, not us. It's not going to be clear in most translations, but the Lord's Prayer is made up of a series of imperatives. In the Lord's Prayer, we are calling on God to act, but we are not calling Him to act primarily on our behalf. We're calling Him to act primarily on His behalf. In our prayer, we are calling on God to act in such a way that His glory be spread abroad. We are calling on God to act in such a way that people will praise and honor Him, not us.
1. "Hallowed Be Your Name"
The first of those imperatives is "Hallowed be Your name," or more accurately it should be translated, "May Your name be hallowed." Hallowed is simply an old word that we like to hang onto in the church, no other reason for it, and it simply means holy or sinless. When we pray, "May Your name be hallowed," it's not that we're making God something that He isn't. What we are saying is that we are calling on God, as an imperative, to act in such a way that people see that He is holy. We are calling on God to act in such a way that people see that He is glorious, sinless, and perfect in all of His attributes. "Through what You do, God, may Your name be seen to be what it truly is: holy, perfect, sinless, glorious. In all that we say and don't say, in all that we do and don't do, may people see that You are, indeed, a holy God"; that's what we're saying when we say, "hallowed be Your name."
2. "Your Kingdom Come"
The second imperative is "Your kingdom come," or more properly, "May your kingdom come." God's kingdom is not some earthly realm. Jesus took care of this with Pontius Pilate when He said, "If My kingdom were of the world, My followers would have fought for it. My kingdom's not of this world." God's kingdom, is His kingly rule in the hearts and lives of His children.
When you and I pray, "May Your kingdom come," what we are praying is, "God, will You exercise Your kingly rule in me, such that it spreads out through me to all of those with whom I come into contact. May Your kingdom spread through what I say and don't say. May Your kingdom spread through what I do and don't do"; this is eventually what is going to happen, isn't it?
At the end of time, when God has had His fill and He sends Jesus back, as Paul tells the Philippian Church, then, "every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Some day, God's kingdom will come in its fullness, but in the meantime, it is our prayer that His kingly rule pervades our lives, takes over our lives, controls us, and then moves out through us to everyone with whom we come into contact. "May Your kingdom come."
3. "Your Will Be Done"
The third imperative is "Your will be done," may Your will be done, "on earth as it is in heaven." God's will, His purposes, His desires are always done perfectly in heaven. What the prayer is teaching us is we are to pray like Jesus did Gethsemane; we are to pray, "Not my will, but Yours, God, be done." Your will be done, not mine, and may it be done perfectly on earth as it is perfectly done in heaven.
This part of the prayer should come as no surprise to a Christian because being a Christian means we understand that it is no longer all about us. Right? Paul tells the Galatian church, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Jesus says, "You want to be my disciple? Then deny yourself—deny your will and take up your cross. Live every day as someone who has been crucified to himself and this is how you follow me"; this is the whole point of being Christians; it's no longer about us; that's a hard lesson to learn, isn't it? The temptation keeps coming back, and I say "But it is about me! I don't like the way that you do it, I want..."; that's the way it happens, right? At least it does with me, anyway. I have to constantly remember that it is not about me.
Praying the Lord's Prayer is one of those reminders that it is "May Your will, my Father, be done and may it be done on earth in me, may it be done on earth around me, and eventually may it be done on earth everywhere! May Your will be done on earth, just as it's done in heaven."
Biblical prayer begins with God and it is putting God first. As we pray, "Our Father in heaven," we fade into the background and we become consumed with God and His glory and His praise and His honor, then our lives become no more about all the things that we have done. Prayer teaches us that we move into the adoration and the worship of God, with our praising Him for who He is and for what He has done. Prayer begins with worship, doesn't it?
D. Express Total Dependence on God
The second half of the Lord's Prayer takes a little shift because, in the second half, we are taught that prayer is an opportunity for us to express our total dependence on God. I know that it is common in the second half of the Lord's Prayer to say that we get to pray for ourselves; that is not really what is going on. We pray for God's glory at the beginning and then we have this marvelous opportunity to admit our complete and total dependence upon Him.
So the prayer is still focused on Him, even though we are involved. Self-reliance is not a Christian virtue; self-reliance is a sin. God does not help those who help themselves; that is not in the Bible. God helps those who, in the words of the psalmist, cry out, "You are my Rock. You are my Salvation." "When I am attacked and when times are tough, it is You to Whom I run and it is under Your wings that I hide." Self-reliance is a stoical, a worldly, and a sinful attitude. Christ-reliance, complete dependence upon God, is to what God calls us. So total dependence upon God is what the second half of the Lord's Prayer is about.
1. "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread"
In the fourth imperative, we get to admit our total dependence upon Him for our physical needs. We pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." God is concerned with the details of our lives. He is concerned with the mundane, the boring, and the normal. He is concerned about our daily bread. What kind of friend would He be if He weren't interested in the details of our lives?
I think the point of this fourth imperative, though, is not so much that we pray for food and nothing else. I think the point is that we have the opportunity to admit our dependence upon Him for all of our physical needs; that is going to include things like clothing and shelter. I say that because it is the point that Jesus moves onto later in Matthew 6. In Matthew 6:25 He says, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on..." Then He goes on in verse 31, "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles," which in our context is the non-Christian, "seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added," will be simply given, "to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself."
Security is an illusion, is it not? It is always God upon whom we base our trust for even the most basic things of life. Notice, though, that the promise of Scripture is that God wants to give us our needs, not our "greeds". We are called to pray for daily bread, not yearly bread. At times I find myself praying for yearly bread. "Oh God, do this or that so that I won't have to worry." What I'm really praying for is, "God, I don't want to trust you right now, so I'd rather put enough money into the bank so I don't have to worry about things"; those are our "greeds". The commitment is to trust Him. We get the joy of trusting Him; in that trust, He provides all that we need day in and day out. "Give us this day our daily bread."
2. "Forgive Us Our Debts as We Forgive Our Debtors"
The fifth imperative is that we get the chance to express our dependence upon Him, not just for our physical needs, but also for our spiritual needs and so we pray, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." "God, forgive us what we owe You, just as we forgive what other people owe us." Jesus is thinking of sin as a debt—a debt that we owe to God. The payment for that debt, which is forgiveness, comes only from God.
You may be familiar with another translation that interprets the metaphor, "Forgive us our trespasses," our sin, "as we forgive those who trespass against us." Both translations make the same point that we are to come before the throne of grace and ask God to forgive us, just as we have forgiven people who have sinned against us. Please note the relationship between God's forgiving us and our forgiving others; in fact, this point is so important, and perhaps so difficult to understand and put into practice, that of all the things that Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer, when He gets done, He reviews this point. Verses 14 and 15, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are going to be sinned against. We are going to be sinned against perhaps by a friend, perhaps by a co-worker, perhaps by a pastor, or perhaps by an elder or someone in the church. The temptation (it is a temptation, but if we yield to it, then it's sin) when we are sinned against is to cross our arms and, in sinful arrogance and pride say,
"I'm right, they're wrong."
"They hurt me and I'm not going to forgive them until they come crawling to me."
"I'm not going to forgive them until they repent."
"I'm not going to forgive them until they at least admit that what they did was wrong."
The only person that we truly hurt when we do this is ourselves. If we do not forgive the other person, God will not forgive us. There is no qualification here that if they repent, if they admit that they did wrong, if they come crawling to us...; there is none of that. It simply says, "Forgive or God will not forgive you." If there is no forgiveness, then all the damage will come in our relationship with God as the walls come down and communication is broken.
There are a couple of verses that are very strong on forgiveness, and I want to emphasize them. Jesus found it necessary to emphasize this point, and that is why we have the two verses after the Lord's Prayer. Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another..." when they have come crawling to you in repentance and sorrow. No! "Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
I have been sinned against, just like you. No one has ever nailed me to the cross before, but I nailed Jesus to the cross. On the cross, Jesus said, "Father, forgive Bill Mounce; he doesn't have any idea of what he's doing." Certainly, if God has forgiven me in Christ, then I can be obedient to Him and forgive anyone who has sinned against me; it is a sign of my true repentance before God. "Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
The other passage that is actually stronger is in Matthew 18, a few chapters over; it is the parable of the unforgiving, unmerciful servant who owed a large sum of dollars to his master—I mean millions. He pled with his master to forgive the debt because he couldn't pay it and the master was a gracious master. He said, "Okay, I forgive your debt." This unmerciful servant went home and found someone who owed him a couple hundred dollars, and he absolutely refused to forgive him and had him thrown in jail.
Well, his friends didn't like what he had done, so they went to the ungrateful servant's master and told him what happened. The master called in the unmerciful servant, the one who had been forgiven for a large sum of dollars in debt, and he said to the servant in Matthew 18:32, "You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?" So in anger, the master threw the unmerciful servant in jail. Then in verse 35, Jesus concludes, "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us"; it is not an easy thing, but it is a necessary thing.
3. "And Lead Us Not Into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil."
The sixth and final imperative in the Lord's Prayer is, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Now, we know from James 1:13 that God doesn't tempt anyone with sin. What Jesus is calling on us to do is to express our dependence upon God, to resist the power of temptation, to resist the power of sin, and to resist the power of evil and the power of the evil one. You and I do not have the capability ourselves to resist evil, especially Satan. Evil can also be translated as evil one.
Do you know that verse where Paul says, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood"? I struggle with that verse because I want to put a period there and say, "I don't know about you, Paul, but I wrestle against flesh and blood. I wrestle against my own flesh and blood and I unfortunately end up wrestling against other flesh and blood." But Paul says, "No. In comparison to the realities of life, if you could really know what's going on, Bill, you don't wrestle against flesh and blood, you wrestle against the spiritual powers—the principalities and the rulers, and you cannot win that battle alone." So we cry out to God in dependence upon Him to not allow us into temptation that we cannot resist but rather to deliver us from evil.
E. Two Practical Suggestions
Well, that's the Lord's Prayer; that's how He taught His disciples to pray. The Lord's Prayer is the general structure and the general content of how you and I are to pray as well. I want to leave you with two practical suggestions on prayer. There are many, many things that I could be saying about prayer. I found it very hard to choose which ones I thought were most important, but let me leave you with two practical suggestions.
1. Speaking With God Is a Dialogue
The first is speaking with God; notice the title of this talk. We are not speaking to or at God, but we're speaking with God. Healthful communication is always a dialogue, isn't it? It's always a dialogue; there's always give and take. When Robin and I sit down in the morning, we don't talk at each other, we share, going back and forth, we interact, and we mull over things—we speak with each other.
One of the things that I have struggled with in prayer is that my mind wanders. Am I the only one? Here we are doing our best (maybe that's part of the problem), coming before the God who spoke galaxies into existence—He said the words and it happened—standing, sitting or kneeling before the God of galaxies, then a minute later, we are wondering if we have to mow the lawn today! Then, in comes all the guilt; I just hate that!
Approximately three or four months ago, I was reading from Tozer and he did the same thing. He gave a suggestion that I have put into practice the last couple of months and it has been breathtaking for me. He says, "Don't just start in the morning and pray; it's just too hard to keep focused." What he does is start by reading the Bible. (I would encourage you to just read through the Psalms and revolve through them. I always see things I have never seen before.) But start by reading Scripture. As you're reading, listen for the Spirit's promptings.
What will happen is that you'll hit a verse and the Spirit will say, "Do you understand that?" Or the Spirit will say, "You need to be encouraged today. I know what is going to happen! You need to be encouraged. Listen to this verse." Or, perhaps the Spirit will say, "You know, that is something you do need to work on." So I would encourage you to read the text but be listening the whole time. As soon as you hear that prompting, stop, reread the verse, and then move into prayer saying, "Okay, Lord, what is it that you want me to see? How do I need to be encouraged or convicted? How do I need to understand or apply this verse?" So you talk, and then what do you always do after you talk? You stay silent—absolutely dead quiet.
I don't know about you, but I'm a little hard of hearing physically and spiritually. I know Americans are scared to death of silence. However, when we've heard the promptings of the Spirit of the God of the Universe, and we've asked for help and insight, stop and listen maybe for five minutes. What happens in this process is that we enter into a dialogue with God; it's a bit mysterious, but we enter into this dialogue with God. I find that it is out of the dialogue that I'm able to move into extended times of prayer when I'm not thinking of mowing the backyard. I can go for a long time focused on the God of the Universe—my Heavenly Father. That's just a practical suggestion, but it's made more of a difference in my prayer life than anything I've tried to do. Speak with God.
2. Memorize the Lord's Prayer
The second practical suggestion I want to give each of you is to please memorize the Lord's Prayer. Now, do not memorize it just to mindlessly repeat it; it's not some magical incantation; it's not going to get you out of a speeding ticket when you're going to fast. There will be times in our prayer lives where we just can't find the right words. Something is going on, and we're in distress or we're hurt or we realize that we've been caught in sin, or something like that, and the words aren't going to be there. We're going to want to be able to say, "My Father, who is in heaven, may Your name be holy. May Your kingdom come, may Your will be done." So I would encourage you to memorize it. Not to mindlessly repeat it, but to have those words when words fail.
The other thing that I would encourage each of you to do is once the Lord's Prayer is memorized, pray the structure of the Lord's Prayer; this is one of my favorite things to do. Once we are aware of the flow of the theology of the Lord's Prayer and understand what those six imperatives are all about, it is possible to go through and start paraphrasing the Lord's Prayer and to start putting in the specifics of our lives. We're going to do that in just a minute, and I'll show you what I mean. I encourage you to memorize it, to repeat it when you need to, with meaning, and then use your understanding of the theology of the Lord's Prayer and put your own words in there, making it your own prayer.
I want to close (together praying the Lord's Prayer) and then I would like to close in prayer myself. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
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