Let us raise our voices and sing: All creatures of our God and King
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Scripture Reading: Matthew Ch6:5-15
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
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As we entre into our prayer time let us Be Still and know that His presence is with us.
Let us pray
Dear Father God, the God who provides. We thank you that you hold everything in your hands. We thank you that you know our needs before we even ask. You’re aware of all that concerns us, and you have a plan and provision. You alone can move mountains to make a way for your children. We ask for your answer, in your timing, for every need that weighs our hearts down. Forgive us for doubting you, for worrying, and for trying to work everything out on our own. Help us to trust you more. We choose to recognize and to believe that you are able to accomplish far more than we even thought possible.
We thank you in advance for your miracles, for paving out pathways, for your provision for those who love you – the church. Thank you for the abundance of blessing and goodness you have already stored up. Thank you for teaching us to be content in all circumstances. We love you Lord; we’re leaning on you. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Please share with me in the Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
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Lord Of All Hopefulness, Lord Of All Joy
Let us sing.
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Our Father who Art In Heaven
“When you pray don’t be like the hypocrites, those people love to pray standing up in the synagogues or on the street corners so that everyone can see them. To tell you the truth they’ve already received their full reward but when you pray, go in your room, close the door, pray to your Father who is unseen then your Father, who sees what’s done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, don’t keep on babbling like the pagans. You know, they think they’ll be heard because of all their words. Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
Jesus is saying a few things in this scripture. Firstly, when you pray do it in secret. Why? Because prayer is intimate and personal. It’s private, it’s not for show, it’s not to impress other people. Another thing is this; It’s not about a lot of words. It’s not a formula, it’s not how eloquently you pray, it’s got nothing to do with that. You don’t have to impress God, in fact it’s the opposite. Prayer is not about me impressing someone. Prayer is about you talking with God.
Sometimes I think we start off in prayer with this underlying thing that it’s all about me. But, the first thing that Jesus taught people about prayer is, it’s not about you. You’re not in the centre of the universe. And how does He teach us that? By saying, “Don’t go out there and try and impress someone. Don’t go out there trying to impress God. It’s not about impressing anybody.” What a blessed release, I don’t have to learn a formula, I don’t have to look good or sound good or anything else good. The starting point for prayer is not about me, it’s about God.
The teaching of Jesus about prayer is to get the ‘me’ out of the road, my ego, myself, what other people think about me. The most important lesson to learn about praying with power is this, laying the ‘me’ down, laying our ego aside. Because when we do that, when we get it out of the road, we usher in something new and something fresh and something powerful and something exciting.
Look at how Jesus starts off, in teaching us how to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
Did you know that there are two words in the New Testament for Father? One is Abba; daddy, and Jesus used this a lot towards His Father in Heaven, it’s a close and tender relationship but it’s not the one He uses here in the Lord’s prayer. He uses the word Pater (pronounced pat-ayr'). It has a more formal meaning which we derive patriarch, paternal. It’s a more formal way of approaching God. What this means is this: We are to come to God, who is our Father in reverence. We are to hallow His name. Show deep respect for who He is. We are to venerate, to honour, to bow down, for He is Holy.
You see, prayer begins by worshipping God. It’s not about me first, it’s about God first. Worshipping God first, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Do you know its an amazing thing that happens when we worship God? When we reach out from our heart and our soul and our spirit and we gaze upon Him, our Father in heaven, when we honour and revere and worship Him. When we do that, it gets me out of the way, and puts God first.
I experience peace and joy and security because I don’t have to impress anyone, particularly not God. Worshipping God is the most selfless thing that we can do and when we get the ‘me’ out of the road, we have peace. When we lay the ‘me’ down, when we die to the ‘me’ and become alive to God, God our Father, we experience a joy unspeakable.
Let us always begin our prayers by worshipping God. “Lord, I praise you, I thank you, I worship you.” Think through all the things God’s done in your life and I give Him thanks for that and that takes the focus off me and puts it where it belongs – on God. It changes us when we do that. If we think prayer is just a shopping list we’re missing the whole point of prayer.
First, God wants us to behold Him, to experience Him and the way that we do that is by worshipping Him. Let me say this; when you worship God, He takes so many cares away, He takes so many fears away, He takes so many troubles away. It’s a miracle what happens when we just worship God, instead of focusing on us, focusing on Him.
Most people these days like to think of themselves as being pretty much self-sufficient. Your life is what you make it, you can achieve whatever you set your mind to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no doubt that we do reap what we sow. In the past, I’ve relied completely on myself. And I have to say, that even now I try and do a good number of things in my own strength. But, if we are honest with ourselves, there are a lot of things in our lives that we can’t control.
Even things we think we should be able to control, it ends up that we can’t. Take our bad habits for instance, those things that just creep in day after day, anger or resentment or selfishness or whatever it might be for each one of us, and they ruin our lives. For me, I believe there’s incredible power in prayer, power to change lives because prayer is a place where we join hands with God to make a difference.
The Lord’s Prayer, for me is essential in my daily prayers with Him. Jesus said, pray in this manner.” He was giving us a framework, an approach, a guidance, a direction for how to pray. The Lord’s Prayer is about worship. “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” It’s about surrendering my way and joining hands with God to do it His way. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Put God first; then ask for Him to meet your needs. When I do that, put God first, it’s acknowledging that all good things, all provisions, every need is met through God.
As you look at each part of the Lord’s Prayer it puts the Creator/creature relationship back in order. Instead of putting us first, it puts God first. As I look back at my life, for years I laboured under perfectionism, discontentment, and impatience with life. I knew they were impacting my life; I knew they were robbing me of peace and joy. It doesn’t matter who we are or how strong we think we are, there are things we just cannot cope with by ourselves. And as long as we deny that, as long as our own self sufficiency gets in the road and declares, ‘it’s all up to me, I can do this’, it stops us from ever actually being healed. We need to put God first, and this prayer has always helped me to do just that.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed by thy name.
People are wandering around suffering and struggling and having their lives ruined by something as simple as anger or perfectionism or loneliness or low self-esteem or wrong attitudes. We need to acknowledge that we are powerless in our own strength to do anything about it and invite God into that space to make things happen inside us by His power that we can’t make happen for ourselves.
We can go on in pride and never admit that we need His help. And you see people doing that over and over again, going around the same problem, struggling with the same issues, dealing with the same pain, over and over again through their lives and it need not be so.
We can keep going on by ourselves and let pride ruin our lives or we can surrender our lives to Him and invite Him to pour His power into us. For me, when I did that, that’s when changes started happening to me, things that I could never have done for myself, I did through Him who gives me strength. There’s power in the Lord’s prayer.
“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. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”
There’s power in that prayer, it’s when we take ourselves off the pedestal and put God there, first and foremost and honour Him before we honour ourselves and let Him meet our needs. The power comes when we get that relationship the right way up.
You know what the alternative is? The alternative is to keep struggling through life. We don’t have to do that, Jesus came and taught us how to pray. And there’s power in prayer. Prayer is a place of surrender, prayer is a place of beauty, prayer is a place where we communicate with God through Jesus Christ. The choice is up to each one of us.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
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As we come to the close of our worship this morning, let us listen to the Staff Songsters
as they sing for us.
I Am Praying Blessed Saviour.
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The Benediction
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