Upside Down Living #15 - Prayer in a Time of Trouble
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund looks at the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:5-15 in a message on the importance of prayer in our life, how to approach praying, and practical steps for how to pray.
Message Transcript
So today, we're going to look at a really famous section of the Bible. It's what's known as the Lord's Prayer. It's found in Matthew chapter six, as part of the Sermon on the Mount. We've talked about Upside Down Living in this series. And when we talk about prayer, my guess is that there are a lot of different ideas that come into our mind as soon as we hear that word. For some of us, what we hear right away is we hear prayer, and we think of amazing answers to prayer that we've seen, or we've heard other people have in their lives. And we think this is a great thing that God has given us. And for others, we hear the word prayer, and we say, well, it's nice that God has answered some people's prayers dramatically, and miraculously, but it seems like a lot of times when I pray for things, nothing happens. And so for us, maybe the prayer topic brings a little bit of disappointment, because there's a piece of us that says, I've prayed for something, I've hoped for something, and this was even one of the things that brought me to God originally was the hope that I could pray to the God of the universe, and he would intervene in my life, and yet, I haven't seen it that much. And so, there's a little bit of disappointment for some of us, just as we come to this topic.
And yet, whether you're a longtime person of faith, or faith is new to you, or you're not really sure kind of where faith fits in your life, chances are there have been moments in your life where you have turned to God in full desperation. Where you've come to God and you've basically said, God, would you do something here. Maybe you've been waiting to get the lab results back from a test, or you got that call in the middle of the night about somebody that you love and an emergency situation, and the the pleas and calling out to God were just so strong in that moment. Or maybe you've prayed for years just saying God would you allow us to conceive? God would you bring somebody into my life God? God would you work in this situation that seems desperate and beyond anything that I can kind of imagine? You see, there's something in us.
Regardless really of where we've been in our faith journey, what kind of faith experience we've had that longs to take what we have in our lives that's troubling and say, God, would you work in this way? And it's not that God doesn't answer prayer, when some of us have the experience of saying maybe I'm a little disappointed, it's that God answers prayer in different ways. Sometimes his answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. And sometimes his answer is wait a little bit. And so for us to experience God through prayer sometimes means that we will not get exactly what it is that we had hoped to get.
Now, Jesus begins in teaching about prayer in verse five. And he says this, verses five and six, he says, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. And that was just a word for somebody who was an actor basically, and so the the hypocrite is somebody who portrayed themselves as one thing, but they were something else. And it wasn't necessarily a negative word in that culture like it is in ours. It was a word almost for somebody who acts. He says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and on street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they've received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen.
So Jesus, very simply begins by saying, one of the ways that many of us pray is we pray by praying to be noticed. Now, you may say, I've never done that. And we don't generally in modern church have a lot of prayer moments where people go, oh, look, that person's praying. And so you may say, this seems removed. But what I think Jesus is driving at here is that sometimes we can do things that are spiritual with the desire that other people will see them and think of us as spiritual people. And so sometimes we can say something like, oh, I'll pray for you, when we don't actually intend to pray for somebody, or maybe we intend to, but we don't actually because it sounds spiritual.
And Jesus is saying, be careful that you don't do your spiritual stuff in a way that other people see it or think about it. Or maybe it isn't I'll pray for you, but maybe sometimes when you're gathered with a group of people, and somebody is there and you think, oh, I'd like them to think that we pray before we eat or something, and you're like, hey, let's pray. And it's that total awkward moment where it isn't how you normally do things.
Jesus is saying, go into your inner room. And the inner room, by the way, was a word that meant a room that was so inside your home that it had no windows. And the way homes in that era generally lived is that there was an inner part of the house that people outside couldn't see anything that you did in there. Jesus is saying make that the essence of your prayer life, what isn't seen, not what everybody sees. And the point I don't think is ultimately saying, don't ever pray in front of people. You know, when you go out to eat, don't bow your heads and pray, it isn't Jesus saying that, as much as he's saying, the core of your spiritual life, of your prayer life, ultimately needs to be something that is personal and private, not something that you do for display.
And maybe you can think of it like this. It's like prayer should be kind of like an iceberg. The majority of it shouldn't be seen. And then there's a little tip that would be seen. In the little tip, are the times people did go to the temple to pray that was part of their culture, part of the way they did things, and where people would see that. But Jesus was saying, let your prayer be so robust and private, that what's seen in public is just a small reflection of that. Rather than an inverted iceberg, where the majority of it is above water, and there's very little that's private.
So Jesus is saying, if you want to really commune with God, that part of it is to not pray to be noticed. And then I think we see this, and that is in verses seven and eight. Be careful that we don't pray to manipulate God. Verse seven, and when you pray, do not keep on babbling, like the pagans, for they think they'll be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. And the babbling here was probably the idea of people having a kind of formula that they would bring to God, and then they would think if I say all these words in just the right way, then God will be forced to answer my prayer. And so what it was was it was a way to say, okay, I'm going to pray, but I'm going to pray perfectly in this format, so that ultimately God has to answer my prayer. And in a sense, it became a way to try to manipulate God.
I remember hearing about one woman who decided she wasn't going to pray for anything for herself because she wanted to make sure that her prayers were focused on other people. And so she began to pray. And as the story goes, she prayed God, please give my mother a handsome son in law. And what she was doing was she was in essence saying, okay, I'm going to pray, and I know I shouldn't pray for a lot of stuff just for me, and so I'm going to pray for others, because that sounds more spiritual. But here's what I'm doing.
And the point of Jesus here is he's saying, I want you not to come to me with a formulaic prayer, not to come to me so that others notice, but to come to me on my terms. And then he launches into this teaching that is familiar to so many of us. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And he works through this teaching people how to pray. Now, this is Jesus, God's Son, God in the flesh, teaching us how to pray. I mean, this is one of these moments in scripture where it should almost cause you to go, wow, I want to sit on the edge of my seat, and I want to understand this. And I know sometimes the mere familiarity of the words can cause us to say, okay, yeah, I've heard this all before. But there's something here that Jesus is teaching us about how to come to God in a way that will help us to understand something that we don't understand already about him.
And so I want to look at this by saying that Jesus instructs us how to pray. And he really gives us three different ways that we want to pray. And the first is we want to pray by relating to God. This is in verse nine, where it says this, that is how you should pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And the word father is a word in the original language, Abba. And it means almost like Daddy, it's almost a pet name. And this would have just shocked the Jews of that day, because a lot of times they didn't even want to mention the name God. This is where if you know some of the Old Testament, they had Yahweh. And they wouldn't even say the name. Yahweh was how they address God. And when they wrote it, they wouldn't put the vows in to try to be reverent. In other words, to have Jesus come along and say, approach God by saying, Daddy, Papa, it would have felt almost irreverent to the people of that day.
And then he says, hollowed would be thy name. And hallowed isn't a word that we use a whole lot. Once in a while, you'll hear it in reference to something like the hallowed grounds of something or that. And what it means is ultimately to be set apart or to be made holy. And what you have here is you have Jesus giving us an incredible juxtaposition of ideas. Because he's saying, when you approach God, you approach Him as your father, your daddy, and as the holy, distinct God of the universe.
Skye Jethani, he wrote a book not long ago, called If We Take Jesus Seriously. And in it he has this chart. And he basically talks about how there's one side of Christian thinking or prayer thinking, that emphasizes the our Father and another side that emphasizes the hallowed would be thy name. And on our father's side, what happens is kind of sentimental faith will emphasize this idea of the eminence of God, the familiarity, the lovingness of God, the approachableness of God, and the safety of God. In other words, this is where people will constantly talk about how you can go to God with anything. God is like your dad. God is all these wonderful things in your life. And then on the other side, is more of the hallowed be thy name or the transcendent, mystical faith, where God is transcendent, he's mysterious, and he's terrifying. He's unknowable, and he's even a little dangerous.
And what Skye Jethani does is he draws two circles around these two things. And then he has the little section in the middle. And he says, that if you end up emphasizing God the Father without God the transcendent, hallowed be thy name God, that you'll end up with with kind of a sentimental version of who God is. And if you emphasize the transcending God, to the exclusion of the our Father, you'll end up with this terrifying scary God.
And that what we actually need to do in biblical faith is we need to have a God who's both transcendent and accessible, because that is the God who is. And so the little section where the two circles overlap is where he says this is biblical faith. And we constantly have to check ourselves that we don't go too far to one side or the other. Because on either side, there are errors. On the side of God being just our father and not the transcendent, Holy God, and that is we make a God who is impossible for us to really offend, or in a sense, be so other that he demands much from us. And on the side of the transcendent God, what we can do is we can say God, so other than I can approach this God. And really, if you think about it, this is exactly what Jesus achieved on the cross. Because Jesus went to the cross because a holy transcending God demanded payment for the sin of all humanity. And yet, that same God cared so deeply that he became human in Jesus Christ. Jesus, his son came to the cross, as a sacrifice, his way of saying I'm accessible.
If you think about this concept, it's not a hard concept. If you think back to when President Obama was president, when he came to office, his two girls were ages ten and seven, Malia and Sasha. And this is a title that's often given to the president, is often called the most powerful man or person in the world. And that's an appropriate title because as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, it's an appropriate title. And people do anything they can to get an audience with this person because this person can move things for people from countries and businesses, and is in constant demand. And yet, I would imagine that his daughters had free access to him, maybe not all the time, but that they could come in and sit on his lap and approach him in a way that no world leader could. And that's a great, just simple reminder of what Jesus is teaching us here about prayer, he's saying, have a reverence that understands that I control the universe, and yet I want to relate to you as a dad relates to a child. And so we need to have an approach to god that's commensurate with who he is, or we will end up in our prayers dividing too far to one side or the other. So that's the first element of praying as Jesus teaches us.
Here's the second and that is we need to pray, I'm going to say adjusting to God. And this is in verse 10. It says this, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And these phrases, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, point to this idea of adjustment. And here's why I say this. When you think about a kingdom, which again, is not a concept that's really common to our day and age, but a Kingdom means a place where you like things, and they actually happen. I've joked before and said, you know, in my house, I have one space that's my kingdom, and it's my study at home where I can arrange things just however I want. Everywhere else, somebody else has a say in what it is. But in that little place where I want to put books, where I want to leave things, I can do it. That's a place where how I want things, they are. So to say, God, your kingdom come. What we're doing is we're saying, God, I want how you want things to happen here and in my life.
*I don't know if you've ever seen this goofy show Wife Swap. The pandemic gives all of us more time than we ever thought we would have had. But Wife Swap is a show where, where they take a wife from each home, evidently, and they put them in different homes. And the whole show is they usually take somebody who's from a really unstructured family, and somebody who's from a hyper-structured family, and they crisscross them. And then what happens is the person who's in the structured family tries to bring structure to this unstructured family, and the person who's unstructured tries to bring some spontaneity and fun to the family that's all structured. And it ends up being kind of like watching a train wreck, which is why people watch it, because it never seems to work.
But here's what Your kingdom come is as a statement. It's saying, God, I want you to come into my home, into my life, into my everyday decisions, and I want you to bring your way of doing things, seeing things, to be the operating motif of how we live our lives. That's what saying Your kingdom come means. It's like saying to somebody, I want you to move into my house, and I want you to set the tone for how everything happens in our house. If you go with a family who comes to your house for vacation, instead of expecting them to adapt to you, you say you are going to set the tone and I'll adapt to you. That's what it means to say your kingdom come, because what we're doing is we're saying, God, I want your way of seeing things, your values, your passions, your criteria for everything to be the thing. And so that's what you pray, as you say, God, I want your kingdom to come, I'm willing to adjust you.
And then it's followed up with this phrase, your will be done. And what that is saying is not only do I want your your rule to be effective, but I want to be able to say God your way, instead of my way. And you see, asking God to do something, because this is all pre-request without adjusting, is in many ways very haughty. Because what you're doing is you're saying God I want you to bless me, I want you to do something in my life, but I'm not willing to do for you what you have asked. This would be a little bit like if you work somewhere, and you want to leave early from work on a particular day. And for the two weeks leading up to that day, you just say look, I'm not going to produce very much. I'm going to walk around, drink coffee, and talk to everybody. I'm going to do all kinds of things other than what I'm supposed to do. And then I'm going to go in and say hey, can I leave early on such and such a day? If your boss is is engaged, she'll look at that and say, what are you thinking? No. But when you say I'm going to adjust everything before you ask, then what you're doing is you're saying God, I'm looking at how you want things.
Now notice something else here. This idea of Your kingdom come. A lot of times the view that modern Christians have about faith is that we just kind of endure this world. And then we escaped to the next world. But Jesus is painting a picture here when we say Your kingdom come that says as a person of faith, part of what you want your life to do is to say, what would it look like here and now if we lived out the values of God's kingdom, rather than our own values? What would it look like? How would it be different? And when we get that, then things are different.
Now Jesus did say right at the beginning, verse eight, he says, Your father knows what you need before you ask him. And I want to just take a moment because here when we pray Your kingdom come, Your will be done, God I'm going to adjust to you, if God knows what we need, then there's a question of what good is prayer. Well, let me just answer that with two quotes. One from John Calvin and one from Martin Luther. Here's what John Calvin said. He says, "Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek Him, and that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, and that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom." And then Martin Luther put it even more succinctly, he said, "By our praying, we are instructing ourselves more than we are him." In other words, part of what prayer is, is not saying, God, you don't know what's going on here, so let me inform you. It's us, adjusting our wills to Gods.
And I know I see this in my own life. When I pray, when I get into the word and spend time praying, what happens is the way that I'm naturally seeing things starts to be shaped by how God sees things, and it changes the entire perspective before I even ask for anything. I think that's what Jesus is talking about here. So we pray by relating to God by adjusting to God. And then I'm just simply going to say we pray by requesting from God. And this we see in verses 11 through 13. "Give us our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." So four requests, all with this little word us, so there's an imperative in us, give us our daily bread, forgive us our debts, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.
And this is Jesus way of saying, here are some of the things that I want you to feel free, once you've related to me as God, once you've adjusted to me, to ask for. And his first is provision - Give us this day our daily bread. Now daily is a striking word here to me. Because so often the concerns that I have are not just for today, but they're for next month or next year. God would you provide in this arena or that arena in bigger ways than I can even tend to think. But Jesus says, pray this way, God would you provide for us today, give me what I need today, give me the strength I need to work through this situation to care for this loved one, give me the strength to be patient and kind, even though it doesn't feel like a situation that calls for patience and kindness, help me to be big, and to give even if it cost me money for Your glory God rather than for mine.
Do you see how that works? God, we're hurting right now. I know many of us have lost jobs or income during this pandemic, God would you provide a new opportunity, a new source of income, becomes a legitimate prayer. But I love how the writer of Proverbs put it in Proverbs 30:8-9, "So keep falsehood and lies far from me. He said, this "give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God." And what Jesus does is he says, pray, say God, give me my daily bread. In other words, I don't need enough forever, what I need you to provide for me now. Because I don't want to become haughty and say who is the Lord, I don't need him. And I don't want to become desperate, and do something that's dishonorable in order to try to make enough. And so we can pray for provision, God give us your daily bread.
The second request here is forgive us. And this is praying for pardon. He says, and forgive us our debts as we are have also forgiven our debtors." And Jesus is saying I want you to pray for forgiveness as an ongoing part of your prayer. Now you may rightly ask the question, well, how does that work? If I pray to receive Jesus as my Savior, does that mean that I'm forgiven of all my past sins, current sins and future sins? Then why do I need to pray for forgiveness now? Well, the issue is that, yes, if you trust Jesus to be your substitute, your Savior, then all of your past, current, and future sins are forgiven. But what happens is, you still in a fellowship sense, your relationship to God, want to ask for forgiveness through repentance, because a lack of relationship will hurt you. And so there's still a place to consistently say, God, forgive me for the places that I've blown it. And to examine yourself and to say, here's a place God where I didn't live by your standard in any kind of consistent way.
Then he says, lead us not into temptation. And I would say that this is priming for protection from ourselves. And so often we think of Satan as the tempter. And so we say, well, God, don't lead me into temptation, is a way of saying God keeps Satan far from me. And certainly that could be in view. But listen to these words from James one, verse thirteen and following. "When tempted, no one should say God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they're dragged away by their own evil, desire and entice, and after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death."
Now, here's what that is communicating. And that is James seems to be saying something a little different than Jesus, because Jesus is saying, delivers from temptation. Don't let me be taken into temptation. But James says, your God doesn't tempt us. That the way that we're tempted is when our own evil desires conceive. Now, how do you put those together? The way I put those together is I would say, Lord, help me, one, to have limited exposure to temptation today and what's in front of me, and God, here are the places where I know I could be tempted. Help me to be wise, help me to stay away from those situations, and when I'm thrust into the situation, to handle them in a way that honors you.
So, just as an example, let's just say that anger is an issue and you know that you have an anger that sometimes becomes an unrighteous anger. And so all of a sudden, you're praying and you're saying, God deliver me from temptation. And so what you can do is you can say, God help me not to be in a situation today where my anger will be triggered, and then go about saying, how do I avoid those situations if possible? And then when the situation comes up, God, would you deliver me from that temptation? Would you help me to choose to honor you in that place?
And then his final request is to say, and God deliver us from the evil one, and this is protection from others. And this is an interesting moment in this prayer, because he says, deliver us from the evil one. And that certainly could be again, a reference to a spiritual being, but it could also be a reference to a person. And sometimes what we need is to be delivered and protected from the evil that others want to perpetrate on us in our lives. And Jesus says, here are the ways that you can come to me and ask. Ask that you are provided for, give us our daily bread, that you're forgiven, that there's pardon for your sin, that there's protection from your own evil interior desires being delivered from the temptation for sin, and delivered from evil from others.
Now, you may say, okay, well, how does that really work? That we kind of are like that. So, let me just give you an example. And this may work for some of you, some of you may have to think outside the box a little bit. Let's just assume for a moment that you have some kids and you want to pray for your kids. And notice, by the way, all of these, these phrases are us, they're plural. And throughout this whole prayer, it's plural. And the reason that's significant, is because prayer is not meant to be purely a personal thing. Meaning we don't just simply say, it's between me and God and nobody else. That there's power and praying together physically, virtually, however you pray together today, but praying and community doesn't just mean that we actually physically or virtually pray together, but it means we're praying for one another. We're praying about the community needs. And one of the places many of us feel community is in our family and praying for kids.
So let me just give you an example of these requests. So Father, give us our daily bread. If you have little kids at home, and maybe a few of them go to school and have a hardship there, or maybe they're encountering a difficulty in some way, what you can do is pray for your child very specifically, and this is according to Jesus, is come and say, God, provide what they need in the situation that they're in. And then you say, and God, forgive us our sins as we forgive our debtors. Which is a moment of saying, God if I've contributed to this problem, have I helped my child or encouraged my child not to think biblically, in this moment, have I added to the stress by by putting something on them that they shouldn't have? God, forgive me for my part in whatever's happening here. Do you see how there's a self examination? And then Lord, deliver me from my temptation to project my stuff into my kid's life or into this situation, trying to get something from it. And then God, deliver them from the evil one. And you can take that rubric, and you can use it in any situation.
Now, notice, Jesus does say here, as we forgive our debtors, and then he doubles down on it and says, if we don't forgive those who sin against us, that basically, we're not experiencing the grace of God. Verse 14, if you forgive other people, when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your sins, your father will not forgive your sins. And what I think this is saying, ultimately, is when you and I choose not to forgive somebody, it's because we haven't actually encountered the grace of God deeply ourselves. Because we're still saying, I'm going to hold things against people. And maybe this is part of the adjusting. But it's at the end of the text so it fits right here as well. Because Jesus is saying, don't just come and ask for something, but adjust your life, to who I am and to what I'm asking for in your life.
Now, I don't know how prayer has fit into your life. What I can tell you about my life is that I pray more when I feel need and desperation than I do when I don't. Sometimes one of the reasons that I don't pray as passionately or consistently as I would like is because God's provided abundantly in many ways for me, so that I don't feel desperation every day to say, God, I need daily bread. And my point is this, and that is for some of us, maybe our prayer life spikes when we're in great need, and it kind of wanes when we aren't in great need. But that's a misperception of where we really are. Because ultimately we are always in great need and the abundance of God's blessing, provision, or goodness in our lives should never keep us from saying God I come to you in complete and total dependence and desperation for what you can do that I can't do.
This is one of the really cool things of Christianity because what God promises here through Jesus Christ's teaching is that if you are a follower of Jesus, you have access to the God of heaven, to say, God I want to come to you with the things that are concerning me. Think about that! I talked about the president earlier. Think about going in to somebody with power and saying hey, you know, the or add outside my house has a few potholes, can you look into that or something. I mean this is the God of the universe saying come to me as a dad telling me all of your concerns. adjusting to me, request and I will work in your life. That's aaaamazing!
We're in a time where many of us maybe feel more desperation than we have felt in a long time. And so maybe your prayer life has been stronger because you know more about your needs. Or maybe you’ve prayed and have felt like God didn't answer, or maybe his answer was for your good, or was no, or wait, or something else was going on. And all I want to say to you is this in, one of the great ways you can relate to the God of the universe by simply coming because of what you know Jesus has done on your behalf. God, I'm bringing you what's concerning me, what's hard and difficult. and I'm asking you to work. I’m trusting your will, not mine. I'm not demanding. I'm saying your kingdom come and maybe your kingdom will come in a way that I wouldn't have chosen it to come, but I believe and trust that your way of bringing it is better than my way. And that will let us be people who say I can live upside down in the world not just praying when i most need something and I ;m in trouble but praying because I realize my need is always great. Father we thank you for a chance to gather. Lord I pray that you would help me and each person of Orchard Hill Church this weekend to bring what we have to you and let you work in our lives and be able to say with conviction your will be done, your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. Father I pray that for those who may be have heard this today and have related to you as either the transcending God or the God who doesn't have any standard, but its always accessible. God I pray that the reminder of the cross and what you’ve done would move nay of us to say God I want to know you both as my father and the transcending God. The one whom I've offended but who has paid the price. I know that can be known right now just by simply trusting Jesus as our savior. And we pray this in Jesus name, amen.
