July 28, 2019                       Prayer 2.0                                        

         In every church that I have served, I have had a number of people ask me to preach a sermon on prayer at one time or another. When they do this, I have often gone back to the old “My Confirmation” book, and preach on the types of prayer found in the bible. There are prayers of Thanksgiving for all that God has done for us, prayers of petition – asking God for things we need, prayers of intercession – asking for God to intercede on our behalf in some situation we are facing, prayers of forgiveness – where we ask for God to forgive our sins, or to help us forgive others, and prayers of blessing – asking for God to bless our lives or endeavors.

         If I were to guess, I would say that the prayers we most often say are prayers of petition or intercession. Some people give thanks in prayer on a daily basis for their meals, or for the people God has given them. Some people remember to ask for God’s guidance or blessing in whatever endeavors they are about to undertake. But I think that many people often turn to prayer as a last resort, when all their human ways have failed them. It is in this moment that they turn to God for help, hoping, wishing, praying that God will be there for them.

         But this morning, I would like to come at prayer from a different direction. I would like to approach prayer as something that we do daily, something which if we practice it regularly, should help us to grow in our relationship with God, and with one another. I think that is the purpose of Jesus teaching his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, so that by praying it, they may grow in their relationship with God, and ultimately God’s Holy Spirit.

Our Father,…..  Many times I have heard preachers speak about how Jesus uses the word Abba to begin this prayer. Abba is more accurately translated as Dadda, reminding us of a child’s total dependence upon their parent for life. Praying Abba, means believing that it is God who gives us life, not our own strength, knowledge, or power. It also means believing that God knows what is best for us, and will give us the good things that we need.

Who art in heaven……  just a few weeks ago in one of my sermons, I spoke about imagining a better world. Jesus calls us to imagine the kingdom of heaven and what it might look like among us. The Lord’s prayer invites us to imagine the kingdom in which God reigns.

Hallowed be thy name. …. One of the reasons I chose the old testament reading this morning, is because of the dialogue between Abraham and God. God has chosen Abraham to be his servant, and Abraham wants to know if God is a just and merciful God. So we get this back and forth, to determine if God will destroy the innocent along with the wicked. In the end, Abraham seems satisfied that God is indeed just and merciful. And that is where the Hallowed be thy name part comes in. In hallowing God’s name we are remembering that God is just and merciful, so that we can trust in God’s will for our lives.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. … This is a reminder that faith is not simply about our own personal salvation, but it is about the salvation of the world. In praying this we are supposed to orient our lives towards bringing God’s kingdom of heaven into our lives here on earth.

Give us this day our daily bread, ….  The prayer for our daily bread is a reminder to us to ask for the things that we need verses the things that we want. In a world rampant with consumerism, where we are constantly offered every kind of product to satisfy our wants, this part of the Lord’s prayer calls us to focus on our daily needs so that we can be freed from the worldly desires that plague our world.

 and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. ….  In a world full of brokenness, we need reconciliation. Forgiveness is the power to overcome the brokenness of human life. We need forgiveness when we go astray, but we also need to be able to forgive others, so that we might be reconciled to one another. Forgiveness is an essential part of the Gospel, so that we might practice in our lives the kind of forgiveness that Jesus practiced toward us.  

And lead us not into temptation…    all kinds of temptation in this world, a reminder to us to be aware of all the different kinds of temptation there are in our lives, and to be ready not to give in or succumb to temptation.

When we look at the ways in which the Lord’s prayer invites us to become more aware of how the world operates in contrast to the way that the Kingdom of heaven operates, it seems that goal of this prayer is to help us to grow in the Holy Spirit, so that we might have peace and strength, blessing, and abundance, in the living of our lives. And that’s the Good News of Jesus Christ!