SUMMARY KEYWORDS

god, pray, jesus, prayer, kingdom, altitude, lives, heaven, bigger, reverence, step, talking, idea, world, posture, power, colorado, disciples, give, heart

SPEAKER

Phil EuBank

‍

Well, Good Morning, Menlo church. So glad that you've chosen to spend part of your weekend with us. Whether you're joining us at one of our Bay Area campuses, or you're watching online, thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope that God uses this series to maybe pull back the curtain on a subject that can feel pretty overwhelming if you look deeply into it. Last week, Cheryl kicked off a series on prayer that I hope you've been thinking about over the course of this week. See, the prayer really is an invitation to an actual not just a transactional relationship with God. It can feel really overwhelming if you think about what we're actually doing in prayer. But the good news is that Jesus, He gives us a model of how to begin to understand how we might pray most effectively. Now we call this model the Lord's Prayer and Jesus' disciples asked Him how to pray. And before Jesus kind of dives into the model, He begins with a list of how not to do it, really a preamble to this prayer. And the reason that Jesus does that is because our motives are often how we measure the impact and the effectiveness of our prayer, and sometimes how we think about God. And in the Lord's Prayer - this thing that churches often recite, including us, as sort of a regular pattern to remind us of how the Lord's Prayer works - the reason that we do that is for a reminder, but it's bigger than that it's bigger than just this thing we say over and over again. It's something that we can pattern our prayer lives after. And so over the course of this series, that's exactly what we're going to learn to do together, including today.

But before we get started, I'm going to pray for us. And if you've never been here before, or never heard me speak, I pray kneeling. And the reason that I do that is actually really, really present in the passage that we're going to look at today, where we remember how big and how powerful God is. That whatever you brought into today, God can handle it, that God is transcendent. He's bigger than you can imagine. And He's imminent, He's closer than you can possibly dream. So right now, would you pray with me? Wherever you are?

God, thank You. Thank You that we really do believe that you hold the whole world in your hands, that there is nothing we face today or this week in our lives that is too big for you. And nothing that we face that's too small for you to care about or pay attention to. Help our hearts overflow with gratitude, that as we think about approaching you, we know that God, you love us. It's in Jesus name. Amen.

So this week, I went to Colorado met up with some pastors that I've known for a little while and we had a chance to dive in. If you didn't know this, that's where our family most recently lived was Colorado before moving to California, and it's been eight months since I've been back to Colorado and there was something that is really easy to forget, when you've not been in Colorado for a little while, and that is altitude. It's a big deal. Right? When you live there you forget because your body gets acclimated to it. But here's the thing, when you don't normally live there and someone picks you up, good friends, when they pick you up, they have a bottle of water waiting for you. And if you pick someone up from the airport, who does not spend any time at altitude, it's actually kind of a high pressure scenario. You're like start drinking this bottle of water right now. And the little bit of you is like, what did you put in this bottle of water? Like, why do you need me to drink it?

There's a whole industry of products for tourists going to altitude, they sell cans of air, which I always thought was hilarious, because I think empty cans also have air in them. But it's a whole industry of trying to help people not be uncomfortable when they are at altitude, of ways to avoid pain. Now I knew that part of my time in Colorado was going to be doing some active stuff, one activity in particular I'll talk about. So I wanted to get a couple of early runs in once I got there to get my body reaclimated to the altitude and wow, even after just eight months of not being there you could really feel that altitude change. And you probably know this, but the reason for that is this thing called altitude sickness. See, the higher that you go, the less oxygen there is at that altitude. You have to condition your body to take in and hold more oxygen than when you're at sea level. Thankfully, I was able to get through the runs. Not super fast, but I got through him and I was able to do that experience we'll talk about, but I'm so glad that I knew it was coming. I'm so glad that I could calibrate my mindset and my pattern of choices so that when that day got there, I was ready for the day.

And the thing is, when I talk about the posture of prayer, I'm not talking about the way some of us maybe learned to pray right? I have little kids in my home and our youngest in particular, he prays maybe you've seen this before, right? Knees clenched, fist, eyes closed as tight as possible, like talking to God as though if you open Jesus is gonna be right there and mad to see you, like close your eyes, you know? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the heart posture, the attitude that we approach God with in prayer. So we can sit, we can stand, we can have our eyes open, we can have our eyes closed, we can kneel or not. It's actually about what's going on, on the inside. God just wants to talk with you. In the first few lines of this famous model of prayer that Jesus provides, we will learn that our altitude in prayer shapes our attitude with God; that the more we understand the gravity of who God is, the greater we can have an attitude that submits to and understand God's will in our life. Some of us, we can miss the subtle shift of our attitude with God, and then we wonder why we never pray. And I think the hard part is you do what you want to do, we all do what we want to do. And so it may not be that you don't want to pray, maybe that's not fair. But you want to do something else more. That's why you're not praying.

Maybe for you, your life has become so busy that there are so many things you want to do. It has created a hierarchy and praying just isn't near the top of the list. The first part of the Lord's prayer that we're gonna see that Jesus shares with us as it relates to how we maybe reframe how we think about prayer, is to remember, reverence. Now, reverence is a word we don't use in our normal routine. And even if I wanted them to, my kids are not interested in showing me reverence, right? There just aren't a lot of contexts in our world where that shows up the same way. But as Jesus is sharing this with his disciples, it would have been kind of second nature, especially with their Jewish background, they understood the nature of God was vast and powerful, what is sometimes called transcendent. They understood that the nature of God was bigger than anything that could possibly imagine.

One of the most quoted passages in the Hebrew Scriptures comes from the book of Proverbs, and it shows up over and over again. And it's that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," that reverence is core to what it means to understand God. It's not talking about, it's not talking about phobia, or unhealthy avoidance of a God who's angry or annoyed with you. It's about a reverent approach, understanding who God is, and who you and I are by contrast, Jesus wanted to make sure His disciples remembered that this is at the beginning of all of our prayers. This is the model that we remember who God is and how powerful He is. And so in the midst of that, Jesus says this, he says, "Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." Jesus, He starts by sharing where our Heavenly Father is located. He's doing this not because God is limited to heaven, that that's like his physical spot. God is omnipresent. He exists in all places at all times forever. This is about authority and power.

And we know this actually, we talk about it; just the way that someone would say about someone that was president at the time, they might say, that person is in the White House. They're not referring to the idea that that's where the person is, at the moment, they're describing that person's position. They're telling you that person's power. It's the same idea about God, it's about authority, and power, just the way that someone might say that about the President. That's what Jesus is talking about in prayer. Even the idea that we pray to our Heavenly Father; that might be difficult for you. For me, I had an abusive father, and so this idea that God is Father was very confusing because the only father that I ever knew was a pretty bad one, and the only thing he ever did with his power - it seemed like - was hurt people. And so when I was little, and somebody told me, I had a heavenly Father. I was like, one feels like enough, right? One of my favorite pastors and authors is A.W. Tozer. He's a mid 20th century pastor who puts complex ideas in very simple language. And if you struggle with the idea of a heavenly Father, who is very different than your experience, if that's not the way you grew up, then consider these words from Tozer he says, "An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others." Think about that.

If you really were the only person God's love for you would be no greater. And if the world had 10 times the number of followers of Jesus in it, He would love you no less. His love is infinite and personal, vast and accessible, transcendent, and imminent. And that's a god that's worth being reverent of. See our biggest clue to this reference is actually in the word hallowed. It's another word that I'm guessing didn't show up in your normal vocabulary this week, but has a deep impact if we allow it to. The word that we translated from the original language is about how perfect God is. And because of that, there's this honor that we should naturally extend to Him. For the Jewish people, it was hardwired into who they were. The third commandment was not to take the Lord's name in vain. And for us, here's what we think that means, that means don't use God's name as a swear word or don't say it when you're angry. But for them, it was much, much bigger than that. See, vanity in their context, it had this idea which extended the sense in which you and I used God's name, without the reverence and honor that it deserved. This was such a big deal, that the original name that God gives himself in the Hebrew Scriptures, it was written without vowels. And the reason it was done so was so that it couldn't be pronounced, it was actually supposed to function that way. There were all sorts of traditions around that specific name of God, so that people would approach God with the appropriate respect, that was all in place to avoid taking God's name in vain.

See, the thing is to prevent altitude sickness in our faith, it takes a posture of humility. And that's not about thinking of yourself less, it's about understanding how much bigger and more powerful God is, and then that part will take care of itself. We don't approach God without understanding who God is and how big He is, in this model of Jesus, it's where it starts on purpose. The attitude or the activity rather than I did some pre runs for last week in Colorado is actually called the Manitou incline. Manitou incline is less than a mile hike, but it has over 2000 feet of vertical increase. Yeah, and you finish at 8590 feet above sea level, some of you are like, I didn't know that height existed, right? It's a beast. From the bottom, you actually can't see the top and it's only point eight miles, there's no way to start this journey, without a little bit of reverence for the magnitude of what you're about to try, especially if you don't live at that altitude anymore. I'm telling you, as we journey through Jesus model of prayer that He gives to His disciples, I want to carve out time for you to experience the components that He's describing, just like that idea of kind of looking up and going, Wow, this is much bigger than I expected, I'm not just going to jump onto it, I'm going to give myself my posture a chance to process. So whether you're a longtime Christian, whether you're someone who's maybe considering returning to faith, or maybe you're totally skeptical of all of this, and you're here because somebody convinces you to be, I want us to pray this line together. And then I'm actually going to give you a moment, to just in the quieter of your heart, pray a personalized version of this sentiment of however you see God's magnitude. So pray this line with me and then take a moment to consider God's power and position today. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." Take a moment.

Creator of the heavens and the earth, author and perfecter of our faith, the one who holds molecules together and universes in place. God we give this time to you. We asked that before what we want is even considered, before we would bring our problems to you we would remember your position. Give us that perspective and knew today in Jesus name. Amen.

So the God over heaven and earth, the God who exists outside of time itself, who as infinite love to give to all of us and never run out or divided, who has infinite power to call you back from the pain of your past mistakes or the failures of your current decisions, that's who we're talking to.

No matter what your journey of faith has been, up to this point. Sort of changes the way we think about prayer a little bit, doesn't it? I hope it does. Remember our altitude in prayer, it shapes our attitude with God. When God is nothing but an invisible friend, we can become very frustrated or annoyed when it feels like He is powerless or disinterested from helping us but that is, so far from the truth of who God reveals Himself to be. The second part of our posture in prayer is to understand that our prayer, your prayer, my prayer, our prayer is for God's plan, when we follow the pattern that Jesus is setting for us. We want to go before God with our laundry list of requests, and we'll get there. But God wants to hear those, He really does. But before He wants to hear those, He wants our posture to shift to a plan that's bigger than ours, it will help make the rest of our lives make much more sense, even to us.

As a parent, this happens when you walk in the door, right? Maybe for you, this is a brand new reminder that what God wants for you in prayer, you actually want the same thing, which is an actual, not transactional relationship. You walk in at the end of the day, maybe you're a grandparent, maybe this is nieces and nephews, maybe this is your kids, and your kids run up to you. And before you can ask about anybody's day, or what's happening that night, or catch your breath or blink, you have 30 requests for fruit snacks, and popsicles and Nintendo Switch time and bike rides. Everything just sort of floods onto you. And with kids, it can be really overwhelming, but we get it there kids. That's how they think that's where they are. But hopefully over time, they grow out of it, or at least they grow and evolve through it. We should do that with God too. Right? We should, over time understand that it's more than just about what I want in that moment. When we remember how big God is and how much he longs for a real relationship with us, we should want to start there.

Jesus next line, after reiterating the magnitude of God's power and prestige is that we pray with this as our model. He says, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Notice whose kingdom we are praying for. Spoiler alert, not yours. We all want to pray for our kingdom, our kingdom at work our kingdom at home, our kingdom with friends, we all want to pray for our kingdom. But there is nowhere in the model of prayer that Jesus gives us through His disciples in which we are instructed to pray for our kingdom, or our will. Let that sink in for a minute. It makes sense when you think about it. As a matter of fact, we're told that we're vapor; we're here in the morning and we're gone in the morning. According to Jesus' baby brother we are just morning dew and our kingdom disconnected from God, a me-shaped kingdom isn't worth praying for, it's a bad investment. You might have a huge bank account and amazing house, a beautiful family and impressive resume, terrific friends patents in your name. But they will fade away if they are in service of any kingdom other than God's kingdom, because those kingdoms are all temporary.

As a matter of fact, in the chapter before the Lord's Prayer, Matthew who's writing this account of Jesus' life, he records Jesus talking about the difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. God's Kingdom is an upside down Kingdom. It doesn't make any sense to us. So as we pray for God's kingdom to come, remember what you're praying for.

These are the ideas that Jesus talks about the poor in spirit, who will inherit the kingdom, those who mourn that will be comforted, the meek, those who have power under control who will inherit the earth, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness that God will satisfy, those who are merciful that will receive mercy, those who are pure in heart that that will see God, the peacemakers, the persecuted for righteousness sake. When we pray for God's kingdom, that's what we're praying for little slices of the eventual eternal reality into this moment, and to where we are today. The reason is because that's what God actually desires. That's how God made His kingdom to work and flourish even in this broken world. The enduring and eternal kingdom of God will outlast your and my little legacy on our own. Can you see why Jesus wants to start there?

None of us are in this room. None of us are watching online. None of us are a part of this Jesus movement if there weren't men and women who are committed to a kingdom that was bigger than ours, for century after century, millennia, after millennia. Think about that kind of kingdom being ushered into our social media feeds, into our school pickup lines, we need some Jesus in those lines. I've experienced our coffee stations at work, our neighborhood parks, our local communities, our politics, God help us there. That's what we're praying for. We're saying, God, your kingdom come, Your will be done. And just in case, we weren't sure what He meant, Jesus, He finishes with that exact line that it should be done on earth as it is in heaven. And this one might seem redundant. But I think a lot of times what God does is He helps us think about something big picture, and then he narrows it into our individual lives. And we want the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, we really do if we knew what it was. The hope of heaven into the hurts of our world, we really want that we want justice, shaped like Jesus, we want mercy shaped like Jesus, we want hope shaped like Jesus, but not only in a general sense, we want the kingdom in our hearts and lives in our own decision making frame.

Jesus is offering His prayer, but He also prays this prayer that He's teaching His disciples, that He's teaching you and me by the power of the Spirit of God, thousands of years later. He actually prays this prayer to His heavenly Father. On the night that Jesus would be arrested and eventually crucified for our sin we see this unfold. It says then he said, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me. And going on a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed," saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." He tells his disciples to keep an eye on Him because of how sour sorrowful He had become, and this prayer that He asked the Heavenly Father, is the same idea that He had just taught his disciples to pray. See the thing that He's asking the Heavenly Father, that one God in three persons; God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, from before the world was even made had a plan that would require Jesus perfect life, sacrificial death, and supernatural resurrection, to offer salvation to all of mankind. And Jesus the night that He would be betrayed, facing what was about to happen, says, Father, is there a different option?

If Jesus Himself has to pray this prayer, don't you think that you and I probably need to as well? He says, Father, if there's a different option besides the cross, can we do that option? But then He says what all of our prayers should say; nevertheless, this is what I want, but it's what you want God that I'm ultimately praying for. He finishes His prayer, with the posture that He was telling His disciples and telling you and me to have. Not my will, but yours. That's what we pray for when we pray God's kingdom first, when we asked for heaven, on earth, we surrender our will to Gods.

Now, for some of us, praying for God's will to be done is hard, because we don't know what we're praying for. But for others, we actually do. We know what God wants us to take a step towards. We know that in relationship with Him, maybe he's asking us to take a step towards generosity or community or faithfulness or forgiveness, there is some spiritual blockage that, you know, God wants you to take a step towards. And so really, your prayer is about courage to do it. And for some of you, God's will is about what you need to change. Because you know, it isn't in line with the kingdom that He's calling you to pray for. God's will being done in you might start with you paying your taxes, or being honest at work or being honest at school, or getting help with that unhealthy addiction that has held you and nobody knows about it. But you're not going to figure it out without support.

That climb I told you about 2 thousand feet of vertical gain, it sounds like a lot but actually, it's almost 2,800 physical steps. And they're all different, different sizes, different depths, and you're getting really high. You remember being at the base looking up the incline and not being able to see it, but you remember the magnitude. But as you're taking each step, you're only looking at the next step because if you look too high at that altitude, it'll be very easy to fall. One step at a time. That's all you can think about. That's all you can do in that experience. And I think one step at a time as the only way that you and I can follow God, and pray that the kingdom of heaven might show up in our life through our prayer; asking God to reveal the next step. Maybe He's giving you a vision or He's giving you clear steps of what it might look like years from now, but today we're saying God right now what would you have me to do? Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We're going to ask that right now. God, would you show us that today? What does it mean for me to take that step with you? With that big God that we honor in our approach, would you pray these words with me? Once you pray them out loud, take a moment, and let God show you where your kingdom and His Kingdom have diverged. And what the right next step is for you. To bring them back together, Pray these words with me. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Take a moment.

From the headlines that we can easily scroll past about the brokenness of our world, to the decisions that we wish we could go back and make differently, to the obstacles that are on our calendar that we don't see, but you do God, would you help us? That your kingdom would come, your will would be done. Right now, right here, as it is in heaven. Political parties aside, preferences aside, conflict aside, God help us to be people who faithfully follow you in every place you place us. In Jesus name, Amen.

Now, think about this. We're only two verses into this prayer. Just a handful of words. And Jesus has already unlocked power and clarity in this invitation to an actual, not just transactional relationship. That's the point of prayer. Now, where the incline metaphor kind of breaks down is that I got to the top of the Manitou incline and you know, you take the selfies, you do all that stuff. This side of heaven, there are only false summits for you and me, in our climb of following Jesus. So we are always just partway on our journey. Which is why we always want to do this together, we always want to be locked in with other people in relationship, and if you're not, man, let this be an invitation to take that step. Maybe for you, you've been wondering about how much you're really going to reengage with your life group this fall. And I would just encourage you do it, it wouldn't make all the difference. Or maybe it's been a little while maybe three COVID that kind of dropped off for you and it's time to reengage. This is not enough; a few minutes sitting in a row is not enough for the kind of relationship of taking these steps that God wants you to have. You weren't made to do this alone. Now there's one more prayer that I want to help you pray as we pursue God's Will today, which is oftentimes for us not always clear; when we pray for God's will sometimes we're not sure what we should be praying for. Sometimes, we're like, okay, am I in the right place that I should live in? Am working the right job? Do I have the right person in my life that I'm supposed to be with, right?

Those questions, they often require a lot of discernment and a lot of patients; we want quick answers, but God has a slow process for us in giving those answers. But there are moments in the Scriptures where we very, very explicitly are told what God's will is. And we can pray for that. And we can choose to walk into that. And actually one of those is written down by Peter, who's one of the first century church leaders who followed Jesus, and he's reflecting on why God is holding back the end of the world. He tells us why God is waiting to usher in the next era of eternity. Everybody kind of sits up they're like, well, why? You know, I've asked that same question. This is in answer. He says "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." Did you catch that? Why hasn't the end of the world come yet? It's because God loves humanity so much, that He would send His son to live a perfect life 2 thousand years ago, to die in our place and to come back from the dead so that we could know Him forever. Who is we? Peter is saying, this is the perfect heart of God; the perfect heart of God is I want to give you as much time as possible so that no one should perish.

So as you pray for God's will to be done, who are you praying would not perish, but instead would repent, turn from their way, their kingdom, to God's kingdom, from their work to get to God to God's finished work to save them. Throughout this series, I would just encourage you to pray for open doors of relationship to that person in your life, for an increased burden of that person in your life who needs to hear the good news of Jesus in their life. After this series, we will do a series called Exploring God where we will hopefully help you have a place with one more service at all of our campuses, to invite a friend to sit next to you. And you guys can have a faith conversation and other opportunities, hopefully, that make this just one more step to see His kingdom come His will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

It should tell us something that two weeks into the series on the model of Jesus that He gave us for how to pray; we haven't even gotten to what we often or I often use prayer for. But that's the thing. See, God wants to be you so much more than a cosmic vending machine for you and me. And so as we finished, let's pray just one more time that God might transform our hearts, that prayer really, genuinely could be a vehicle to an actual relationship, not just a transactional one. Would you pray with me?

God all of us carry things into this room things that in our lives, we have convinced ourselves that if they would just get fixed, our life would be all better. Got all of us have weight that we are anticipating and waiting for for the week ahead. And we are just convinced God that if you would show up this way and do it exactly this way, everything would be all better. But God, would you remind us that as we begin any prayer, that we would be reminded of how big you are, how powerful you are. And that God ultimately as we come before you remembering how big and powerful you are, there is a will and a kingdom that is upside down to the one we live in. Help us as people who are finding you and following you, that we might surrender our lives and our will to you. It's in Jesus name. Amen.

‍