Sermon
The Lord's Prayer - Our Father
March 20-21, 1999
Pastor Donald Sheley

Take your Bibles and join with me in the Sermon on the Mount. We're in Matthew 6:5, and in my Bible it's marked the model prayer. For the last number of weeks we have been thinking concerning prayer. Last week we had Brother Tryon with us who presented us with a new concept of evangelism, and that simply is, when in our conversations with folks around us and they share a particular need, a pain, a hurt, or a tear, simply ask them 'Can I pray for something in your life this week?' A number of our folks have already ventured forth in that approach to witnessing and the response has been tremendous. We're praying for our families, those who live to the right and those who live to the left and those who live across the street. You'll notice our map is up today and the porch lights are on of all of those homes that are praying for the people that live about them, and if your porch light isn't on and you'd like to be one of our houses of prayer, make sure that you indicate that and we'll put a light at your front porch there on that map. 

We have, as you know, over 1,000 children who are in our school and those parents come in and out every day and it's become the talking point; the parents are wondering why that map is there. We just simply tell them it's our people, families praying for the families that live about them. And as I've noted that this year it's been an amazing thing to find that so many of the national programs have concentrated on this whole theme of prayer and evangelism. It must be the heartbeat of God. So we've come to that part in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about prayer. Join me in Matthew 6:5. 

He says, "And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. "Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. "In this manner, therefore, 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 forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptations, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. 

We, in our study of the sermon, have noted that Jesus in chapter 5 discusses sins of the heart. He said if you've got anger, it's just as sinful as if you murdered. If you have bad thoughts, it's equal to the performance of the act itself. So Jesus dealt with this issue of sins of the heart; the inner sins that can linger there and man on the outside doesn't see; at least for a while. Now we've come to chapter 6 and Jesus selects three areas of Christian expression that if done in a Christian way become a very beautiful thing and a very rich and rewarding experience, but if it's done wrongly, if it's done for self gratification or for self exaltation, then it becomes ugly. And He talks first of all about alms giving in the first few verses of chapter 6. He's saying when you give something do it in a way that men will not look on and praise you for it. He said, in fact, do it so secretly that your left hand will not know what your right hand does; which is a Hebraism which simply says do something in the most secret fashion that you can. And Jesus says if you do it to be seen of men, you'll get your reward. It's a phrase that's used in business and what it simply says; you have been paid in full. There are no eternal results or eternal rewards for those who do things to be seen and exalted by man. Jesus said the only reward you get is the praise of men here on earth. 

Now He comes to the issue of prayer. Prayer can be a glorious and a precious and a sacred experience. Jesus watched those religious people of His day. They had so changed the beauty of prayer. First of all He says when you pray I don't want you just standing in the synagogues and at the street corners praying. You see, Jewish people had a set time every day when they prayed, much like the Muslim people. And they tried to make their way as quickly as possible at times of prayer to the synagogue, but some of them would purposely delay the leaving from the home, thus not arriving at the temple or the synagogue, and somewhere at a street corner they put on their show of piety by praying in the street corner. Jesus said the only reason why you do it, is you do it to be seen by men. When you pray to be praised by men, prayer gets ugly and it looses its beauty and its sacredness. Jesus said when you pray then go to your closet, find that quiet place for your Father who sees in secret. And in the original, the implied is He who hears always keeps it in confidence. Your Father who hears in secret will reward you openly. 

And He said don't be like the heathen who think that vain repetition of words will create the reason for God to answer their prayers. Don't be like them. Don't say words just to say words. Put your heart in what you're going to say to God, not just words. Don't be like heathen people. So He's told us how we shouldn't pray, and I'm sure for most of us today we'd say, well, I really don't have a problem with public prayer because I've never prayed in public. It would just be too fearful an experience for me. Thus it seems that maybe this warning may not be applicable to us today, but what Jesus is saying, make sure that your spiritual life, your prayer life, is done with such privacy that people will watch your life and glorify your Father in heaven because they'll see your good works, but your works will not draw attention to themselves, but cause people to be drawn to God. 

Now Jesus said I'm going to teach you how to pray. We find that in Luke's gospel chapter 11:1. It says, Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples to pray. It must have been a moment. It must have been a time in the relationship between Christ and His disciples when He's involved intensely in prayer and for some reason the disciples slip into this sacred moment with Christ, and then immediately when He's finished, they're so impressed with the prayer of Jesus they say, Jesus, would You teach us how to pray? 

You maybe have had the experience, maybe someone in your home or maybe you went to a church where you thought it was quiet, there was nobody there; all of a sudden you realized that there was somebody in intense prayer and it just seems like you invaded when you walk into someone's presence who's in prayer. You absolutely invaded a very sacred moment in their lives. Surely, that must have been what impressed these disciples. To listen to Jesus pray, and they said Jesus, John, which all rabbis do, taught his disciples some prayers, would you teach us how to pray? 

We often call this the Lord's Prayer. It would probably be more appropriate to call it the disciple's prayer. So Jesus said, "when you pray, you say: Our Father. Now what I want to do in the weeks to come, I want to take this prayer and almost word by word analyze it, because it's rich, its eternal dimensions of truth are vast and I want you to catch such an understanding of the Lord's Prayer that when you say it in the future, it will have a far different meaning than it does today. So let's start with two words; Our Father. We can only say that because of what Jesus Christ did at Calvary, and when we come to Christ and we place our trust in Him, and we receive the gift of forgiveness and salvation, now our relationship with God almighty is; we're His children and He's our Father. Ah, what a privilege. 

You know there is a teaching abroad in the world today that everybody is a child of God. Not in this sense, folks. They're children of God simply by creation, but we're children of God by relationship through Christ and that is a privileged relationship. I'm suggesting when we can kneel and say, Father, my Father. There are four areas of life where it settles the problem of relationship. You might want to write these down in your notes. When we say, Our Father, it settles our relationship with the unseen world. Missionaries tell us that one of the greatest reliefs which Christianity brings to the heathen mind and heart, is the certainty that there is only one God. Because you see, in the heathen belief there are hoards of gods, and these gods are jealous, and they are grudging, and they're even hostile; and so these poor heathen folks fearful of all of these hoards of gods somewhere out there in the unseen world, they're do anything they can to appease those gods.

I've stood on the streets of Calcutta India, and one day with Mark Buntain, the great missionary who's passed on to his eternal reward, he and I were standing there and I saw this scene coming down the street. And it was a man whose whole face, his stomach, his legs were just bleeding cuts and he'd stand up and then he's fall flat on his face, he did not catch himself, then he'd mark where his head hit then he'd stand up and fall flat on his face; and I said, Mark, why is he doing that? He said, Don, he's appeasing his gods. Then to learn that some of them in the Ganges River, to appease their gods, throw their babies.

And when those heathen learn that the God who created everything, the God who controls this world, now because of what Jesus has done, is now their heavenly Father of the unseen world, which we know so little of, we have no fear of. And there is an unseen world out there. Satan with all of his demons, they're there. And I find people who come to me frequently and they've read these books and they're all so concerned, there're demons everywhere and they chase them around. I say no, no, no. If Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and we pray to the God of heaven who controls everything, we don't have to fear what we don't know about, the unseen world, because we know the One who controls. We know the God of heaven. The almighty God, and He is our heavenly Father. It brings me at great peace with the vast universe that I know so little about. I do know the God who has it in control.

Secondly, when I can say my Father who art in heaven; it settles the relationship with the seen world. You say, what do you mean by that Pastor? Well, we live in a world that we do not understand because there are changes that take place which we do not control. There are sufferings, and there's death, and there's pain, and there're tears, and there're trials, and there're triumphs. But you and I live in a world that tomorrow can be dramatically different than it is today. We might have our sufficiencies today, but they may all be gone tomorrow. We may have our family about us today, but tragedy could come and tomorrow is a different picture. I live in a world I cannot control, but I know this, my heavenly Father is in control. 

Paul said, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose. I've said in the other services, and I say it here with genuine meaning, I really do not know folks how people live without a faith in God. It must be miserable. It must be desolate. It must be lonely, because in the time when I need someone, who do I call on if I don't have faith in God? We as Christians we're not exempt from all of life's problems. I have my times of triumphs and I have my times of tears just like you folks. But I know this one thing, I'm held in the hands of a loving God. And Jesus said if we as earthly parents love our kids, how much more, how much more, how much more does our heavenly father love us? So come what may, even though I don't understand the way, because I can say Father. I know that ultimately everything is going to work out for His glory. I know that.

Thirdly, when I can say; Father, it settles the issue of a relationship to ourselves. You say what do you mean by that Pastor? Well, there are times when every person despises, maybe even hates themselves, because our heart knows our bitterness and our own heart knows our own worthiness better than anybody else. There are times when I have blown it. There are times when I've turned something that was beautiful into something that was ugly, and I despised myself and I. You know what I'm talking about. We all go through those experiences where we're ashamed, we're ashamed. We feel that nobody else loves us, and we don't even love ourselves.

Mark Rutherford wished to add a new beatitude. He said blessed are those who heal us of our self-despisings, or blessed are those who give us back our self-respect. You see God does that. In these grave moments we can still remind ourselves that even if we matter to no one else, we matter to God. And I want to drive this one home folks because sometimes we were raised, some of us were raised, in a home where our parents said if you're bad, I won't love you. We should never tell our children that because I've learned that the more my children needed my love the more I reached out to them. And as they started their journeys down avenues I did not wish them to go, my love and concern reached out with a far greater intensity; and when they needed me, I wanted them to know that they could come to me and I would not abrade them. 

You see, when I say Father, and I bow in His presence and I know what I've done has been shameful. It has been wrong and I hurt over it. I pain over it. I'm not going to come to a heavenly Father who's going to beat me over the head with a 2x4 and shame me further. I'm coming to a heavenly Father who's going to wrap His arms of mercy and grace around me and love me back to Himself. I know that because this Bible tells me that His love and His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. So when I can say Father, I've settled this issue of dealing with myself. I put that in His hands.

Fourthly, when I say Father, I've settled the issue between my heart and God. It's been settled because I've placed my trust and faith in Jesus Christ. Now, it's not that it removes that might and that majesty and power of God. It is not that it makes God any less than God, but it makes that might and that majesty and that power of almighty God approachable to me. The Bible says, Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance.

The writer of Hebrews says, because Jesus went to that cross, and because in the rending of His physical veil, His flesh, was also the rending of that veil in the temple. And when He said it's finished and that veil was rend, mankind now has the privilege of walking right into the presence of God. Have you felt that in a moment when you just bow in quietness, and then you say, God. Haven't you felt that He was right there? That's our privilege because of what Jesus Christ did. We have that glorious privilege of walking into His presence in prayer. 

The story is told in Roman history of an emperor who had been away and he was coming home in triumph, and as was the custom in Roman history when a general or a conquering army came in, they would have a procession down the main street. They'd line that procession. They'd put the conquering general or the emperor in his chariot and he had all the spoils of war and the servants that had come, and the captives and it was a long process and the streets were lined by thousands and tens of thousands of Romans shouting and giving honor and accolades to the conqueror. Well this emperor now has returned home and he's coming around the bend down the way and his little boy sitting by his mother sees his daddy in that chariot and he jumps out of his chair and he makes his way through the crowd, and he's trying to get out there in the street so he can see his daddy and one of those guards him and said, little lad you can't do that. Why do you know who that is? That's the emperor. And the little boy looked up to that guard and said sir, he may be your emperor, but he's my father. 

He may be the God who created everything, and He is. He holds everything in the palm of His hand. He's the God of history. The God of greatness. The God who has all power, who has all knowledge. Ah, yes, but He's also my Father. And when I can say, Father, which art in heaven. I want you to think when you say that prayer in the future because those two words have a massive amount of theology in them. You're saying Father, because You control this vast universe I need not fear the unseen world which I know so little about. I'm Yours and You're mine. And Father, even though I live in a world I can't control that today brings me joy and tomorrow brings me tears, yet I'm held in Your hand and those are the hands with nail prints; hands of love. 

And Father, even through there are times when I'm so ashamed of what I do, and I despise myself, and I don't love myself and nobody else does, when I say Father, I know. Heavenly Father, You love me when maybe nobody else does. Father, when I pray thank you for the privilege of inviting me into Your very presence through what Jesus Christ has done for me. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy 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 forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Our Father. God bless you.