How to Pray Part II
Winter Bible Study: How to Pray • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewIn the 2024 Winter bible study we will learn from Jesus how to pray.
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
“Therefor you should pray like this”
“Therefor you should pray like this”
Having just shared in Matthew 6 how not pray to pray, in verse 9 Jesus not only teaches, but he actually shows us how WE should pray.
Having just shared in Matthew 6 how not to pray, in verse 9, Jesus shows us how WE should pray.
This prayer is not a prayer the Lord himself would pray because Christ was without sin. But if you are a sinner like me, it is a model you can pray.
Jesus starts, “Therefore, you should pray.”
I’ll stop here to highlight Jesus expects you to pray. The focus of this sentence is on “like this,” which is coming next, but you can’t ever get there without “you should pray.”
It’s a point I made this morning as well that Jesus’ rules on prayer also start with expecting you to pray.
If, in reading this, you recognize that you aren’t praying, Jesus’ words are clear.
YOU SHOULD PRAY
And you are about to hear how.
“You should pray like this.”
Jesus isn’t giving us a magic formula for prayer like the pagans want, nor the right words to look righteous like the hypocrites are trying to do.
This is a model of the type of relational prayer that Christ has already described. Prayer to a Father who loves you and knows what you need.
1. Focus On God
1. Focus On God
9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy.
The model prayer starts somewhere we often never end up in prayer. Not on ourselves (where our prayers often ARE focused) but on God.
So the first step of prayer, as Jesus models, is to Focus on God.
Our Father in Heaven
Our Father in Heaven
Jesus begins this prayer with the words “Our Father in Heaven.”
You’ll note that he says “our,” not my. This would be less surprising if a Southerner had translated this verse because they would have written “Therefore y’all should pray like this” to match the Greek second person plural. Jesus isn’t talking just to you, but to you all. And YOU aren’t praying MY father but YOU ALL are praying “OUR Father.”
Jesus just taught us that one way to avoid the dangers of hypocritical prayer is to pray alone in private, and now he’s showing us that:
a. when we pray alone, we are still part of a larger community of believers. You aren’t just saved, you are saved into the family of God.
b. and how to pray properly together with other believers.
Jesus tells us to approach God as our Father.
The religious Jewish culture of the world in which Jesus and his disciples lived had a remote view of God. Some believed they needed angels to carry their prayers as messages to God. People had even stopped using the word God for fear of using the Lord’s name in vain. If you talk to Jewish people today, you’ll see these habits persisting.
But Jesus paints a different picture. God is not far and distant. He’s not uncaring. He doesn’t need to be tricked or persuaded like the Gentiles thought.
He is approachable and close, like a loving father.
I’ll point out, not an American father. Sunny told me a story about a Korean who was raising his daughter here. He was concerned that she was becoming a bit disrespectful by Korean standards and the father grew concerned. One day she said “you can’t tell me what to do and if you try to punish me I’ll call the cops.
The next day on the flight back to Korea, the girl realized that she did not have an American father.
First century Jews didn’t call the cops on the their parents either. They were expected to obey them. Love, closeness, and relationship are suggested when we call God Father, but so is obedience.
Jesus clarifies this point even more by saying Our Father IN HEAVEN. This is a reminder not of God’s holiness. He is still king and we should approach him with confidence in his love but still with reverence and awe.
In teaching us to address Jesus as Our Father in Heaven Jesus isn’t teaching us proper etiquette.
We’ve been watching a TV show set in the Korean Joseon dynasty and their are really specific rules on how to address the kings and the queens. You could be executed for not following these rules.
That’s not Jesus focus here. He’s not interested in protocol or etiquette but truth and reality. He wants to make sure that we come before God with the right frame of mind.
2. Seek First the Kingdom
2. Seek First the Kingdom
Jesus continues in verse 10 showing the first things we should ask for in our prayers.
9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Your name be honored as holy
Your name be honored as holy
The first petition, or the first thing we should ask for is that God’s name be honored as holy.
You may have memorized this as “hallowed be they name.” Hallowed means to be holy or recognized as holy.
What might not be clear when we say these familiar words is that Jesus is telling us to pray for this as a prayer request. It’s the first thing that should be on our prayer concerns email.
God already IS holy, what we are asking is that others might see and realize this. In Jesus day the term name is used more like we would use the words identity or reputation.
Just as we might pray “God please help John recover from the flu” we might ask
“God please make your name honored as holy.”
“Father, please help my neighbors see how good you are.”
May your reputation spread throughout the world as holy and good.
This first request is for for people to know that God is Holy.
But you may also recognize that as image bearers and and adopted children of God our actions and attitudes reflect on God’s image and name. There is a great hypocrisy on asking that God’s name is honored as holy while dishonoring God in our lives. We are reminded in our praying for God’s name to be “honored as holy” to choose to live in a way that brings God glory and to pray to God to work in our lives that we might reflect his holiness.
Your kingdom come
Your kingdom come
The second prayer is for God’s kingdom to come. This is ultimately about God’s rule and reign. We know that this kingdom will not fully come until Christ’s return. When we pray for God’s kingdom to come we might keep at least an eye forward to Christ’s second coming and hte New Heaven’s and New earth. We might live with a longing to be reunited with brothers and sisters who have gone to be with the Lord and to be united with Christ in his kingdom.
Paul prays this way in 1 Corinthians 16:22 when he prays Maranatha, come Lord. We too can pray with expectation and longing for God’s kingdom to come through Christ’s return.
But even now whenever people honor Christ as Lord his kingdom is coming in a real way. Sometimes this is described as the “now and not yet.’ It’s like a Venn diagram where the circles of the world, and God’s kingdom are desperate but already crossing.
In our prayers we should long for and ask God to bring his kingdom ever more fully into our world.
Here is one such example of the impact of prayers for the kingdom:
Illustration: Wycliffe Bible translator Hyatt Moore shares an example of praying for God’s kingdom to come:
In 1983 two students, David and Ray teamed up to pray for the Tira people in Africa who had no Bible in their native tongue.
Two years later, Jerry and Jan joined in praying daily for the Tira people.
In 1990, Jane and Marjeaanne wrote to the Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project asking for who they can pray and they too began praying for the Tira people.
So far, that’s six young people praying over a period of seven years for the Tira people. But more than six since they were from different churches and could share their passion to pray with many more.
Later, in 1990 Hyatt learned that Avajani, a young Tira man was beginning to translate the Bible and shared this testimony.
In 1983, the year and month David and Ray began praying, I got saved.
In 1985 when Jerry and Jain started praying I was accepted for theological studies.
In 1990, the year Jane and Marjeanne started praying a miracle happened. I met a man who was able to arrange for me to study biblical translation principles and linguistics.
These prayers for the kingdom brought God’s kingdom to the Tira people in a real way as the Bible was translated and many young Tira became Christians and part of God’s family and kingdom.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Prayers for God’s kingdom to come are about God’s presence and rule in new places.
The third prayer, praying for God’s will to be done is praying for the what happens in those those places. When God’s kingdom rules in our heart we do God’s will. When God’s kingdom comes into the Tira people or other places, beleivers lives are transformed to live for God’s will rather than their own. When God’s kingdom comes in our church we have a new ferver for God’s will in our actions.
The first half of the Great commission deals with God’s kingdom:” go into all the world and make disciples,”
But sometimes we forget about doing God’s will. You see that’s not the end of the Great Commission. Jesus continues “teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.”
Obedience to God’s will is not only what Christ modeled through his own actions, it’s what he longs for in his disciples, and what he tells you to pray for. For God’s will to be done.
You can pray:
For you to know God’s will
For you to do God’s will
For God to work his will in your life
All of those same things for your family, friends, church members, neighbor
As we move in the next section to praying for our needs we might keep this idea of God’s will in mind as we bring our requests to God. God’s will comes first. It’s before our desires and needs and we can prioritize in our prayers and it will likely shape what we see as our needs to be more inline with God’s will for our lives.
In Heaven
In Heaven
Each of these three prayers, for God’s name to be honored as holy, for his kingdom to come, and his will to be done are already happening in heaven. In fact, these are defining characterstics of what heaven is.
But our prayer is that these realities of heaven come to earth.
God calls for us to long for God’s glory, his kingdom, and his will in our lives and in our world.
Seek First the Kingdom
Seek First the Kingdom
To sum up the first three prayer requests that Jesus models: They are all to seek first the kingdom of God. We seek the name of the king to be glorified as holy, the kingdom to come, and the will of the King to be done, and all of those here on earth as in heaven.
Next we will turn to our concerns, but Jesus promises in verse 33.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
That’s the type of prayer Jesus is modeling, here one that starts by focusing on God and then seeks God’s kingdom.