Sermon
The Lord's Prayer - in heaven
March 27-28, 1999
Pastor Donald Sheley

I am aware that it's Palm Sunday, but for some weeks my mind and my heart and my thoughts have been immersed in the thoughts of prayer. I have filled my desk with many, many books on prayer. And I found it just somewhat difficult to join the masses today in being a part of Palm Sunday in the sense that when your thoughts as a pastor are traveling down a certain avenue, it's hard to be sidetracked just for the day. So if you don't mind, I want to go back to the passage of scripture we started with last Sunday, and I'd like to talk to you for a few moments on the subject of prayer. 

Would you go with me to Matthew's gospel chapter 6, and we read these words last Lord's Day. I'd like to read them once again and share with you some of the thoughts that have been in my heart and mind the last two weeks. Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount, we have noticed in chapter 6, has selected three areas of Christian expression that when performed in a godly way, bring great joy and great blessing, but when done for personal praise, their beauty turns to ugliness and there is no eternal reward given. And the three areas that Jesus is talking about, we talked about verses 1 through 4, He talked about alms giving; or the thought of giving. We recognized that as Christians when our hearts have been flooded with the love of Christ that generosity is a natural characteristic of a Christian. I don't think there is such a thing as a selfish Christian. Because God has lavished His love and His mercy upon us in unlimited dimensions, how can we be selfish in our expressions and our love to others? But Jesus said, if I give to be seen by men, then that beauty of giving turns into something that's very ugly. 

And we noted that in those days, the days of Christ, those religious leaders, those Pharisees, would take and when they had their coins to give to the poor they made sure they had a crowd of poor people behind them, and they'd walk along and flip their coins over their shoulders and watch the poor people scurry. But it made a scene, and it made the neighborhood realize that here again was a Pharisee demonstrating his giving; and Jesus said I don't want you to act like that. That's the way hypocrites give. He said when you give, you do it with an extreme amount of secrecy and dignity. He said when you give don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. 

Now we may not understand that in the western context, but that's a Jewish Hebraism and it simply is saying, when you give, do it with the utmost amount of secrecy and enclosure so that you make sure that God gets all the glory and you don't do it to be seen by men. So we understand that. Now the second subject that Jesus brings up is the subject of prayer, and that's what we're talking about, and we started it last week. In the weeks to come He'll bring up the third subject, and that's the subject of fasting. These are three expressions that often flow from a Christian's heart. And Jesus is warning us that when we do these things don't be hypocritical in doing them, but in doing them may we bring honor and praise to our wonderful God. 

Now let's talk about prayer. Jesus said I don't want you to be like the hypocrites; they love standing in the synagogues and they like to be seen by men. Don't do it that way. When you pray find a secret chamber so that you might be alone with God, and He who sees in secret will reward you openly. I think that you will agree with me that there might have been a time in your life when unbeknownst to you someone, maybe in your family or in your home, was praying and without knowing, you walked into the presence of that person and you immediately felt that you must leave because you knew that here was a beautiful sacred expression of someone talking to God. 

In Luke chapter 11:1 a similar situation like that occurred. The disciples walk into a moment when Jesus is in prayer, and it says that when He finished His prayer, they said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples to pray. Would You teach us a prayer to say? And we learned that all rabbis taught their followers prayers to say. And so they're just simply saying, Jesus, those who followed John have been taught how to pray, would You teach us how to pray? And that's the setting for the prayer we pray today. Look at verse nine, "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven. 

Now last Lord's Day we were only able to cover the first two words. This is an immense prayer filled with tremendous spiritual truths, and I don't want to hurry through it. As I was praying with the elders this morning, I said to them, you know, my prayer is that when we have thought together and considered all the aspects of the Lord's pray, may it be that it's changed all of our prayer lives as the result of learning what Jesus really wanted to tell us in this prayer. We've often called it the Lord's Prayer, but it would be more appropriate to call it the disciple's prayer. It's a prayer that He taught us to pray, and when we, through faith in Jesus Christ, have come to that personal relationship where He's our Lord and our Savior, it is then and only then we can really pray this prayer because now that relationship with God almighty has been arighted through faith in Jesus Christ and we are now at peace with God. And it's only a true disciple that can say My Father, Our Father which art in heaven. You can only say this when you have a personal relationship with Him. 

Last Lord's Day remember I suggested two or three different relationships that are settled when we can say Our Father. And I suggested that the relationship with the unseen word is settled. We are told by missionaries that when they tell the gospel of Jesus Christ and pagans and heathen people who for all their years had hoards of gods that they worshiped, that they feared, and they didn't know how to always appease them; when they learn that now through faith in Jesus Christ, the God of the universe was their heavenly Father. Ah what peace comes into a heart when one has wrestled all their lifetime with a fear of all kinds of gods. I went further to suggest that we don't understand the unseen world of all the demons and the devils. 

I constantly meet people who are so fearful, but I say listen, if God almighty who controls this universe is our heavenly Father, He's going to protect me. I need not fear that which I know not of. I need not fear the unseen world. I know that He loves me and that He's going to care for me and that I'm His child and He's my Father. I suggested that it also settles the relationship with my seen world and that's the world in which all of us live. We live in a world we don't control. Today we sit here and things might be well and right for us, but tragedy can come that quick and in a moment of time our triumph changes to tears and our laughter and our joy becomes pain. We don't control life. And sometimes we have our valleys and we have our mountain top experiences. We have our successes and we have our failures, and as hard as we try sometimes it's difficult for us to understand, God why are You allowing this in my life? I live in a world I don't control, but I have a heavenly Father who has everything under control and I'm His child.

I have an illustration I'd like to give to you. It's very personal, but it's something I shall never forget. It was a learning experience for me in my spiritual growth. In 1971 we were given the opportunity to acquire this mammoth building, nearly 70,000 square feet. For a little group of 100 people, it was a tremendous undertaking. As I walked through these cavernous rooms I wondered if we'd ever fill them, but furthermore I was deeply concerned how we were ever going to pay for it. We were just a small group of people. And after the final papers were signed and I'm driving home from Redwood City, because it was there I signed at the Bank of America, all of a sudden I was engulfed in this tremendous fear. I had never understood fear before that. Fear was not something that I could never relate to because life had allowed me to do almost anything that I wanted to do, and now to come to a place where I was just filled with fear. 

No sooner had I got home than I began to break out in hives from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. It was miserable. I couldn't sleep and then came the nightmares, and I dreamt that we had 'For Sale' signs all over the church and the newspapers were telling about a preacher who went broke. And I tell you fear just absolutely drowned me for five weeks, and it got deeper and deeper and deeper. Beside that, we as a family were much short of personal finance and it was difficult to pay our bills. And in the midst of all of that fear and the pain, and the trauma, at night time I would take my three boys, and we had them sleeping on bunk beds, and I'd take them into bed and say their prayers with them and bid them good night and stand there and watch them go to sleep. I watched them; they had such confidence. You see, I was their daddy and as far as they were concerned they had nothing to worry about. There were going to be Corn Flakes on the breakfast table tomorrow morning. They just knew that, and maybe a banana, because I was their daddy. 

And yet I knew of the restrictions and the limitations that I was living with and the fear and the possibility of so many financial calamities; and I'd stand there and cry and I'd look at these boys with their calmness and confidence as they went on to sleep, and then I would pray dear God would you teach me how to trust You like my boys trust me? Just teach me to have that confidence knowing that You're my Father, even though I can't handle all the unknowns in the world in which I live and I can't change much of it, that You're going to see me through. 

And I look back now nearly 28 years and I assure you that God has always been faithful. And I learned from those boys a lesson. Why should I worry when God almighty is my heavenly Father? We took that thought and went a little further with it, but I'd like for you now with me this morning to take two more words. You say, we're going to work it all the way through? Maybe that will be the way we learn this prayer. Our Father, the next two words, in heaven. A mammoth amount of theology in those two words. For you see this God whom we call Father is the God whom we must still approach with reverence and adoration and awe and wonder, for heaven is the high and exalted place infinitely above us and it speaks of God's majesty, and His glory, and His power, and His holiness, and His eternal love, and His grace, and His mercy, and His judgment. And so when Jesus said when you pray not only be grateful for the relationship that allows you to call almighty God your heavenly Father, but never forget who you're praying to. He is the awesome God of heaven. 

Emotional feelings of awe and reverence and honor and adoration will be stimulated within us as we have great thoughts about God, as we encounter His majesty and His splendor and His holiness and His love; it has to do with the recognition of His awesomeness. It's interesting. Here's a word that's used in scripture very, very infrequently, but always when used, when it speaks of the greatness, of the awesomeness, it is always talking about God. We live in a day of hyperboles where we use words that are completely out of reason, and I sometimes become a little uneasy when somebody says, ah Pastor, that is awesome! And immediately in my mind I'm saying there is only One that is awesome and that's God almighty Himself. 

David said in Psalm 47, clap your hands, all you nations! Shout to God with cries of joy! How awesome is the Lord Most High; the great King over all the earth. What Jesus is saying, when we bow in prayer we're not talking to some sidewalk vendor who may meet our needs and in three minutes we go on; when we go to prayer we're talking to the awesome God of the universe. 

You remember Peter. He's been fishing and now Jesus says, Peter, if you will cast your nets over on the other side the nets will be filled. And you remember Peter did that. He bargained there for a while. He knew that it was high day and on the Sea of Galilee you don't catch fish. You do your fishing at night because the water is so clear they won't bite during the daytime. So He just simply says, Jesus says, just cast your net. And Peter knew as a fisherman he knew that was an impossibility, but he did it and all of a sudden the nets are full and what is his reaction? He doesn't say Jesus join me as a partner in my business. He didn't say that. He said Jesus, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. You know why he said that? All of a sudden he realized that he was in the presence of none other than Deity. And his reaction was, depart for I'm a sinful man. When we begin to grasp God's awesomeness it does something in our lives. 

I tell you folks; you know I have a great fear. I've watched Christendom, and especially evangelicalism, and I must tell you that, and this may come from a prejudicial point of view, but I've become deeply disturbed about the last 15 years of what evangelicalism has done to what I think is the majesty and the awesomeness of God. And here's what I'm trying to say. There is something glorious, there is something wonderful about walking into the sanctuary and hearing the glorious tones of a magnificent instrument of music as an organ and the piano, and somehow it just, if you're like me, it just lifts me heavenward and it makes me sense the awesomeness of God. Like I say, I might be a little square and I might be a little old fashion, but when I see evangelical churches throwing away their hymnals and tearing out their organs and throwing away their pianos and sitting and listening to a few old guitars being played, I say have we not to some measure diminished the awesomeness of God? 

When you read the great writings of the puritans, I've a book by the name of Stephen Charnock who wrote it back in the 1700's, and Stephen spends 200 pages of fine small print taking simply about the power and the holiness of our awesome God. Somehow in the frivolousness, and I think it also comes maybe sometimes in the songs that are sung, my heart cries to somehow experience the majesty and the awesomeness and the wonder of God in our midst. When in adoration and in reverence we realize that the God we call Father is the God who controls this universe. Isaiah saw that. 

Go with me to Isaiah chapter 40. Here's what I'm talking about. I want you to sense this awesomeness about God. It's hard for us to grasp because He's so far above us, and so beyond us. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. But somehow to grasp the awesomeness of the God we pray to. Look at verse 10. Isaiah 40:10. It says, Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, And His arm shall rule for Him; Behold, His reward is with Him, And His work before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom. And gently lead those who are with young. Here's the awesome God he's now going to introduce to us, but he tells us He's the God who personally cares for us as a shepherd cares for his sheep. 

Look at what he says in verse 12, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand? He sees the immensity of God and somehow he uses these earthly descriptions. He says here's the universe in which you and I live. A globe that 75% of its surface is covered with water and some of that water is six miles deep. That's a lot of water. And yet he said who is it, this God of ours, that takes the waters of the universe and as it were He holds them in the hollow of His hand? If you and I tried it, we'd get a teaspoon of water and no more in the hollow of our hand. What he's just simply saying, he's just saying God is so immense, so immense. Look at what he says. The next one. He says, who measured heaven with a span. What's a span? It's an ancient measurement. It's the distance from the tip of the small finger to the end of the thumb. And he's just using that human illustration. 

He says here's the God who measures the massiveness of all of the heavens, of all the universes, of all the galaxies, and they're no bigger, as it were, than the span of His hand. How immense is our God. Look at verse 15. He says, Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before Him are as nothing. And they are counted by Him as worthless. He takes the comparison of Lebanon. It was a land of forests, and he says even the land of forests doesn't provide enough wood to create even a fire for a sacrifice. 

Look at what he says in verse 26, Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things. Now he's talking about the stars, and he says, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name. Ask an astrophysicist how many stars are there in the heavens and you know what his answer will be? There are more than 100 billion galaxies in the heavens and there are more than 100 billion stars to every 100 billion galaxies. It's massive folks. And look at what Isaiah says, look up into the skies and you can see what He's created. He brings out their host by number and He calls all of those stars by name; all of those stars by name. And by the greatness of His might And the strength of His power; Not one is missing. He simply has total control and total observation of His universe. 

What I'm trying to show you folks; the God who we call our heavenly Father, when we bow in prayer before Him, He's the God who sees and knows everything and controls the world in which we live and has all power in heaven and earth. He's the God in heaven. Look at the closing verses of this beautiful chapter. Look at verse 29. He gives power. Let's go back to verse 28. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait, those who pray, those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. The God who counts the stars, the God who holds the waters of the world in the hollow of His hand, is the God that we pray to and in our times of weakness He gives us strength. His knowledge has no limit and yet He cares for us and He says we'll mount up with wings like eagles and we'll run and not be weary. We'll walk and not faint. My message is very simple. Jesus said, when you pray always be grateful for the relationship that allows you to call God in heaven your Father, but never forget who you're praying to. He's the God of the universe. He can do anything He wants to, and yet He's so interested in us. He sees us in our journey when we're weary and He gives us strength. That's the God we pray to and we call Our Father. Let's pray.

Our Father, in heaven, would You help us to somehow grasp Your majesty, and Your awesomeness, and Your glory, and Your power, and Your love? Please dear God, teach us how to pray. And may it be that our prayer life grows and develops so that these moments in Your presence will become cherished moments of worship and adoration. Teach us to pray. Not just flighty words or a sentence or two or a paragraph of three, but a relationship with You, Our Father, which brings us to our knees in deep adoration and worship. Thank you dear God. Thank you very much. It's in Your name we pray. Amen. God bless you.