“Living through the Lord’s Prayer”

Matthew 6:9-13

1. the 1st song on U2’s most recent release is called Vertigo. According to one review, it’s an aggressive beginning that compresses an LP’s worth of intensity into 3 minutes. It might be the most compact piece of musical dynamite that U2 has yet produced.

2. the song is about someone in a glitzy night club disillusioned with what he’s experiencing. He asks for his check. The girl with crimson nails has Jesus around her neck swinging to the music swinging to the music. Jesus is made the center of the song by both name & change in tempo.

3. and then Vertigo ends with a reference to prayer –
Hello hello
We’re at a place called Vertigo
Lights go down and all I know
Is that you give me something
I can feel your love teaching me how
Your love is teaching me how to kneel…

4. God’s love calling someone to prayer in the midst of a light’s flashing, rock ‘n rolling, dancing night club. An earlier line in the song informs us that your soul it can’t be bought. The love of God calling us to pray.

Living through the Lord’s Prayer
1. I’m beginning a new series this morning on the Lord’s Prayer. We’re going to take 6-7-8 weeks to work our way through this prayer.

2. in Matthew 6 Jesus addresses giving to the needy, prayer & fasting. These are common religious practices found in Islam, Judaism, Buddhism & Christianity. There is nothing uniquely Christian about them except the approach that Jesus teaches.

3. when it comes to prayer Jesus points out the wrong way to pray in Matthew 6:5 – prayer that is concentrated on itself & being seen by others. Then he explains the true way of prayer in 6:6-7.

4. I’m glad that Jesus tackles prayer here in Matthew. All of us need teaching on prayer, help with prayer. Prayer is difficult for most of us. I experience seasons in my own life when prayer is a struggle. I’m in one of those times now.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. (Matthew 6:6).

1st Jesus teaches us the importance of exclusion in prayer.
1. go into your room, close the door. To make sure that I realize I am approaching God I have to exclude certain things (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones). Exclusion brings up the necessity of place. A private place where you can shut the world out and meet with God.

2. I understand this. Place has always been important for me in prayer. I pray best & easiest & longest & most passionately when I have a place to pray. Quiet, private, orderly, allows me space to pace back ‘n forth. I have to be moving when I’m praying.

We’ve been in our new building now for 5 months. I’m still
searching for my prayer place. Nothing feels right yet. I keep looking, shutting the door, pacing, praying. Hoping to find the rhythm of a new sacred space. But so far, nothing. It’ll come. I’m not worried, just impatient.

3. I wonder about each one of you. Do you have a place (sacred space) where you regularly pray? Or places? The corner of the sofa next to the window. The garage. Your car. A park. The cemetery. Your prayer walk. The prayer room here at church. Kneeling down at your bed. Your office desk. I encourage you to find one, make one.

5. Jesus had sacred spaces where he went to pray. In the gospels we find him retreating to lonely places, the wilderness, a mountain, the garden.

6. place helps us to deliberately remind ourselves that we are going to talk to God & listen to him.

2nd Jesus teaches us the importance of awareness in prayer.
1. when we enter our private place of prayer we need to realize that we are in the presence of God. We pray to our Father who is unseen. Before we utter a word it would do us good to begin to think about who God is & what he has done. Awareness.

2. here’s a ‘God awareness’ list from John Piper –
® God’s power to walk on water, heal the lame, still storms & raise the dead
® His knowledge that makes the library of Congress look like a matchbox, that makes quantum physics like a 1st grade reader
® His wisdom that has never been, will never be added to by humanity
® His word that upholds the universe & keeps all the atoms & molecules together
® His purity never to sin
® His trustworthiness never to break his word or let one promise fall to the ground
® His wrath that will one day cause people to call out for the rocks & mountains to fall on them
® His amazing grace that justifies sinners
® His love that dies for us even when we were sinners
3. the ‘God awareness’ that is closest to Jesus’ heart is the awareness that we pray to the God who is our Father. Father God.

4. Father God is a stumbling block for some of you because of the failures of our own earthly fathers. I’ll have more to say about this next week. But know this. The God we meet when we enter our private place of prayer is our Father.

5. sometime this week sit down & make a list of God’s characteristics. Who he is. What he has done. Take that list with you into your place of prayer. Reflect over it before you begin praying. Remind yourself who it actually is you are getting ready to address. Laminate your list. Keep it with you.

then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (6:6)

3rd Jesus teaches us the importance of confidence in prayer.
1. we need to let these words sink in. Then my Father who sees what I pray in my secret place will reward me. Prayer is approaching our Father with the simple confidence of a child. We need childlike faith in prayer. The assurance that God is our Father. That he delights to bless us, protect us, provide for us.

2. I almost drowned to death when I was 6 years old. A bunch of us – Barton relatives – floated down the Boise River on inner tubes from Barber Dam to Ann Morrison Park. My inner tube was tied on to my dad’s & I floated behind him. I couldn’t swim & didn’t wear a life jacket in those days.

Trouble developed as we went over 1 of the 3 falls on the river. My dad’s tube went between 2 posts. The current swept me to the right & I went around the outside of the post & was flipped off into the water. If you’ve been down this river you know how fast & swift the current moves.

I remember being in the water & looking around. I saw my dads legs moving toward me. He tried to pick me up but lost hold of me when he slipped on the rocks & went down. At this point I began to panic. I thought I was going to drown.

Somehow he got back up on his feet. Found me in the water & grabbed me. I came up out of the water screaming & crying. I held onto my dad with an iron grip. I rode the rest of the way down the river in his lap, feeling his big, strong, safe warm body around mine.

3. for several years after that experience I thought my dad was like a god. I trusted him. I looked up to him. I felt loved. He was my hero.

4. if only we felt the same way about our Father God. Especially in our private places of prayer. Jesus wants us to know that God – for all that he is & has done & will do – that we are to approach him as our Father.

5. our Father who art in heaven…

6. do you have confidence in God your Father? Do you believe that he is going to reward you when you pray? Do you expect your prayers to be answered? Cultivate confidence in God your Father. Exercise a childlike faith in him.

7. we 1st move into exclusion (find that private, quiet place of prayer). Next we become aware of God‘s presence. And then in childlike confidence we make our needs known to God who promises to reward our praying.

8. april 4th 1st Friday 24 hours of prayer.

Music i listened to while sermonizing – u2; cheryl crow; bob dylan; willie nelson; emmylou harris; arentha franklin; elton john;

Books i read & studied while sermonizing – a broom of one’s own by nancy peacock; the reason for God by timothy keller; ain’t too proud to beg by telford work; preaching the cross by mark dever; studies in the sermon on the mount by d. martyn lloyd-jones;