When I sat down last June and started to ask the Lord about what might be on his heart for this autumn term I felt acutely that we should focus on prayer. And as I have pondered that over the summer I have became more and more persuaded of it. Completely independently, Alan Farish at Stockton was struck by the same conviction over the summer. We both read books about prayer on holiday and we both committed ourselves to pray better. God is calling us, I think, to a deeper commitment to, and a more real experience of, prayer.
All of which is a little daunting because, if we’re honest, few of us find praying easy. In fact, 90% of Christians interviewed say they find prayer difficult (and the other 10% have been known to lie). I don’t find praying easy either. I cannot usually sit down and pray much longer than 10-15 minutes before my mind wanders off down a side track. Actually, I find I can pray most productively when I’m out jogging, so if you’ve ever seen me early in the morning running round Preston Park in a world of my own that’s probably why I didn’t notice you. You thought I was just being rude. In fact, I was communing with the Lord of Hosts!
But I want to say this. Prayer is the key that unlocks so many doors. Just as you’re never going to get a harvest without first ploughing the earth, sowing seeds and watering the ground, you’ll never see God move significantly in your life without an investment of prayer. You just won’t. In James 4.2 God calls a spade a spade when he says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” That’s it, that’s why. Prayer is the connection between what we want God to do and what God actually does. So however hard we find prayer, and practically all of us do, we’ve got to find a way through the fog and make progress.
Praying Christians are positive Christians. Why is that? Because spending time in the presence of God lifts the soul. Praying that the kingdom will come lifts the eyes of faith to see bright new possibilities. That’s why praying Christians are positive Christians. Do you see that? If I am only ever thinking about the sad realities around me, my mind will be full of sad reality and my mood will reflect that and so will my face. If my mind spends time contemplating the potential and promise of God changing my sad realities, my mood will lift and my face will show it. That’s also why my most negative and pessimistic moods in my 30 years of being a Christian have coincided with the lowest ebbs in my experience of prayer.
And just as praying Christians tend to be positive Christians, praying churches tend to be prevailing churches. We have a notice attached to the doorpost of this church that says, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” I have to be honest with you, since coming here just over a year ago, I have only experienced that God-breathed atmosphere of passionate, believing prayer occasionally. I don’t think we’re there yet. I don’t yet see a faith-propelled rising tide of passion for the coming kingdom in prayer. May God give us this grace in fuller measure.
Because when a church gets it together, and seeks God’s face, and prays heaven down, things happen; people come to Christ one after another, people get filled with the Holy Spirit, remarkable miracles and ‘God incidences’ occur more frequently, ministries get raised up and the church moves forward. I’ve seen this kind of virtuous circle time and again in my ministry – the key is consistent, fervent, believing, prayer. “My house shall be called a house of prayer” says God.
The Lord’s Prayer
So why a series on the Lord's Prayer? Don’t we need to be getting away from saying formal, repetitive, recited prayers? “Our Father which art in heaven… hallowed by thy name… forgive us our trespasses.” It’s a bit of a pity that the Lord’s Prayer has been allowed to become a liturgical drone. The habitual, conventional recital of it has dulled some people’s awareness of the power of this prayer.
The Lord’s prayer is a great yearning, a magnificent calling out to our loving, heavenly Father, whose name is holy, for the coming his majestic reign and rule on earth. “Your kingdom come” means, “Oh God, let the mighty powers of the age to come break into our routine lives and establish your good plan on all over the earth, from pole to pole and from east to west.” I believe that this is a time when we need urgently as a church to strategically pray for the coming of the kingdom here.
But, because the Lord’s Prayer has so much in it, we’re going to take it line by line so we can really savour its truths and engage with its challenges. So this morning we’re just taking the first line, “Our Father in Heaven.” Next week, Terry will speak on “Hallowed be your name” and so on until we get to the end of it sometime in November. That’s the plan.
The Strengths of Fatherhood
My mission impossible this morning is to try to tune our ears to the wonderful sound of the beating of the father heart of God. Jesus said when you pray, say “Our Father in heaven.” Sometimes people say Jesus was doing something radical and new when he called God Father. But he wasn’t, really. In our Old Testament psalm, and many other times in the Old Testament God reveals himself as Father. He was Father even before he was Creator. God has always been a Father because he’s always had a Son he loves. The father heart of God is absolutely central to his character and nature.
They say a father is a man who has replaced the money in his wallet with snapshots of his family. I can confirm that this observation has more than a grain of truth in it. The 5th April 1985 was Good Friday that year – and it was also one of the most significant days in my life, and always will remain so. Just after 10 o' clock that night, our first child Anna was born. A few hours later, I took a taxi home across north London, just overcome. And, in all the emotion, which was just welling up inside me, I sat staring at the streets thinking to myself that my life will never be the same again. My life had been tipped upside down forever by a little person wrapped up in a pale blue sheet weighing 7lb, 4oz.
This new person was no longer an ungainly lump on my wife’s abdomen, but my treasure, my delight, my joy. From nowhere, an army of macho hormones burst into my bloodstream. If anybody laid so much as a finger on my daughter I'd rip them apart with my bare hands! I know that I would unquestioningly stand between her and a mad man with a knife. And, yes, her photo found its way into my wallet replacing good money, which disappeared on cots and nappies and prams and mittens and fluffy rabbits.
Sadly, not all of us have a great mental image of God because our experience of fatherhood is bad. But when you see a good father, you are looking at a portrait of God because God has designed human fatherhood to be a pale picture of himself. Good fathers are strong, they protect and they provide. I have made mistakes as a father with all four of my kids as all dads have. To be honest, it’s a miracle that mine haven’t all grown up with a complex, but in Psalm 103 God gives us some snapshots of what his father heart is like.
Let’s have a quick look at it. Verse 13; “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” Compassion is an overused word. These days, even politicians say they are compassionate. Here, it doesn’t mean that God probably ought to be doing a bit more about the poor. It means that he really loves you as his child, that he cares strongly about you and involves himself with what’s going on in your life. “Compassion” in Psalm 103.13 is a heart word that carries emotion; it literally means God really feels for you.
Verse 14: “He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” God the Father understands our funny ways, he knows all about our flaws as well as the public face we project. I remember when I first started going out with Kathie. I was petrified because I thought to myself, “Sooner or later I’m not going to be able to pretend anymore - she’s going to see the real me. I bet she’ll dump me when she sees I’m not all I crack myself up to be. But my heavenly Father already knows the absolute scum worst about me, he has seen the dregs of John Lambert, and still loves me to death. What a blessing to be the object of the Father’s acceptance.
Verse 17: “From everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him.” Isn’t this saying the same thing as v13? Yes, it is repeating it to emphasize its significance but it’s saying a bit more besides. God’s heart of love and compassion for you is from everlasting to everlasting. That means long before you were born or conceived, and long after you’ve died, God’s affection for you and his commitment towards you is steadfast, immoveable, unwavering and enduring.
This is the Father we come to in prayer. When we begin the Lord’s Prayer saying together “Our Father,” we’re saying you are such a loving God, you are a compassionate God; I am treasured by you. You are such an accepting God, such a dependable God; I am secure in you. You are strong, you protect and you provide.
And God is not just our Father, he is our Father in heaven. That is to say he is enthroned, surrounded by throngs of adoring worshippers and mighty angels. He is crowned with glory and honour, he reigns on high with all wisdom and authority.
He is unique. He stands alone. “In heaven” means that God the Father is above all. His supremacy has no equal, his love has no limit, his authority has no rival, his mercy has no bounds, his wisdom has no peer, his power knows no match and his kingdom will have no end.
Fearing God
And notice who he is compassionate towards. “The Lord’s love is with those who fear him.”
I once led an Alpha discussion group and it was this expression “fearing God” that one person found incredibly difficult - well, impossible - to accept. She had been married to a man she became scared of, because he was a violent alcoholic. He was a controlling, unpredictable, aggressive man and she was petrified that he would assault her. There’s unhealthy fear and there’s healthy fear. Unhealthy fear of a father is being terrified that he’s going to come home drunk and start shouting, swearing and hitting out. Of course the Bible never means that.
What does it mean for each of us to fear God? John Piper says, “I think fearing God means that God is so powerful and so holy and so awesome to us that we would not dare to run away from him, but only run to him for all that he promises to be for us.”
I think I grew up with a healthy fear of my father. I never felt unsafe with him but I did think twice of doing something he had specifically told me not to do. Healthy fear of a father is a deep respect for his authority and a glad inclination to accept his leadership. It’s good to have a healthy fear. And that’s what the Bible means by it.
So when we say “Our Father in heaven,” we come gladly and we come reverently. We come without the vain presumption that God owes us anything.
Coming to God the Father in Prayer
Which brings us to our Gospel reading. Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; those who seek find; and to those who knock, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
These words from Jesus are specifically about approaching our Father in heaven in prayer - and the obstacles that prevent us from receiving what he actually wants to give us. It’s one of the most encouraging passages about prayer in the whole of the Bible.
Supposing you say, “I’d love to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Or “I want to have a greater experience of the love of God.” Or “I need to know I’m truly forgiven.” Or whatever… How do I get through, how do I receive from God in prayer?” What is getting in the way of that prayer being answered?
The first issue is that we wonder if God is going to answer at all. We doubt. And Jesus knows that. He knows that so many people are going to say, “I’m just not sure that my prayer will work. I’m not all that good at praying really. I don’t honestly know what to say.” Well, “Ask and you will receive.” “I’m not sure Lord.” “Look, just seek and you will find.” “Well, I don’t know.” “Go on, all you have to do is knock and the door will be opened.” “But what if prayer is only for people with super faith, and not for the likes of me?” “Everyone,” Jesus says, “who asks, receives; those who seek find; and to all those who knock, the door will be opened.” He ends up saying it six times.
If we come to prayer riddled with doubts, we also struggle with fear. “Lord, what if something bad happens? What if he says I have to give all my money away? What if he calls me to be a nun? So Jesus says, “Look: Supposing one of you is a father and it’s tea time and you say to your kids, “what would you like for tea?” And they all say, “Dad, can we have fish fingers? So you say, “Okay I’ll go and get some” - Jesus doesn’t actually mention the exact form of the fish by the way!
So you go down to your local exotic pet shop and say, “Do you sell snakes?” And they say, “Yes, £150 a pair.” And so you buy them and take them back and say, “Look what Cap’n Birds Eye brought you today you ‘orrible kids.” And you throw a couple of rattlesnakes on the table to terrify them.
Supposing the next day you say to them, “Now then, what would you like for lunch?” And with quite a lot more hesitation than yesterday they say, “Well, maybe just a sandwich this time dad.” So you say, “Well, how would a cheese roll sound to you?” “Great,” they say. So you take a couple of large stones and paint them to look just like wholemeal bread rolls. Then, when your kids break their teeth on the stones, you fall down laughing.
Jesus says, “Now come on, when your children ask for sandwich, who honestly is going to give them a brick? Or if they ask for fish and chips, what kind of weirdo would give them a snake?
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Ending
I think I’ve said enough, so I’ll draw to a close now. “Our Father in heaven” is the perfect way to address the God who loves us, who feels for us, who knows us inside out – and who is all powerful, altogether wise, who reigns on high and who can do all things.
I believe that God is wanting, at this time, to teach us at All Saints’ how to pray because praying Christians are positive Christians and praying churches are prevailing churches.
Do you feel God is calling you to pray more like Jesus did? I want to give you an opportunity this morning to say “yes” and to respond…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 6th September 2009
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