It’s easy to think of prayer as telling God everything we need.  A bit like a shopping list.  But when Jesus taught us to pray – He taught us to put first things first.

It’s great to be with you again at the start of a new week. And this week on the program we’re continuing our look at the power of prayer. Not just some vague every now and then kind of maybe kind of prayer but the sort of prayer that’s certain, delightful, wonderful and powerful.

Most people pray, survey’s show that time and time and time again. I believe there’s a reason for that, I believe we were made to pray, created with a desire and the need somewhere deep inside to communicate with God.

And if we’re going to experience the power of prayer, my hunch is that we need to know how to pray. Last week on the program we took a short look at how Jesus taught His disciples to pray. Today and over the rest of this week I’d love to spend some more time with you unpacking that a bit further.

At the end of the day it’s a decision for each one of us. Is praying something we want to do? That’s up to me in my life and up to you in your life but if we’re going to pray let’s pray with power.

I don’t know, I can’t talk about prayer without looking at how Jesus taught His disciples to pray. We don’t have a record of Him teaching them how to preach; now you’d think we would have. These disciples went on to establish the Church but we don’t have that, what we have is a record of Him teaching them how to pray.

It makes sense, I mean Jesus was someone who prayed with power and He went on to teach his disciples about this special relationship that He has with His Father in heaven through prayer. Have a listen to what Jesus actually said, He said:

“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.”

That is really interesting because He’s saying two things there. Firstly, do it in secret. Prayer is intimate communication with God. It’s personal, it’s private, it’s not for show, it’s not to impress other people. Think about a man and a woman, a husband and a wife communicating the deep things, the important things. How do they do that? They do it in private, it’s not for show.

And the second thing He says is that 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 somehow, in fact exactly the opposite. Just tell him in your own words the way you see it, what you need because he already knows what you need.

It’s not about me and it’s not about me impressing someone. Prayer is not about you and it’s not about you impressing someone.

You know what I think, I think sometimes 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 not about you.

You know where the power of all this is? The very teaching of Jesus about prayer is to get the ‘me’ out of the road. My ego, my self, what other people think about me, what God thinks about me. Jesus is saying, “Wake up! No.” Can I tell you? I think this is the most important lesson to learn about praying with power.

There is power in laying the ‘me’ down; there is power in 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 He starts off in teaching us how to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

Do you know there are two words in the New Testament for Father? One is Abba, Dad and Jesus used that a lot towards His Father in heaven, it’s close and familiar and tender but it’s not the one He uses here. He uses the word Pater from which we derive patriarch and paternal, it’s a more formal way of approaching God.

“My Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” What does that mean? What does it mean to ‘hallow’ someone? It means to make holy, to venerate, to honour, to bow down. You know what Jesus is saying here? 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 it’s 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.

For me, you know what happened? It got the ‘me’ out of the road. I was this tough hard nose businessman with an ego the size of a small planet and always trying to feed that. Always trying to impress people. Constantly peddling harder and faster to be the me I thought other people wanted me to be.

And when I worship God I lose sight of myself. I don’t have to do that anymore, it get’s the ‘me’ out of the road and I worship God and that’s an awesome thing.

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, yippee 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.

I did, I used to go to God and just start with my shopping list. I don’t do that anymore. I have needs and I ask God for things in prayer. But now, whenever I sit down, I just sit down and grab a cup of tea and begin my day, begin my prayer by worshipping God.

“Lord, I praise you, I thank you, I worship you.” I think through all the things Gods done in the last day and the last week and in my life and I give Him thanks for that and praise and honour and glory 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 out on the most powerful thing of all, getting the ‘me’ out of the road. First, God wants us to behold Him, to experience Him and the way that we do that is by worshipping Him. I tell you, 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 and instead of focusing on us, focusing on Him.

I just want to encourage you to listen to how Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Why did it take me so long to figure this out I wonder?

A recent survey among young people showed that most of them saw God as someone who was there to help them when they needed something. So where does “your Kingdom come, your will be done” fit with that exactly?

‘Kingdom Come’ is one of those common expressions that gets bandied around from time to time. Not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean. I guess it’s kind of used to mean something ‘a long way in the future’ but you know, for Jesus, it had a very special meaning. And when He used the term, He wasn’t talking about a long way in the future. He was talking about here and now.

A kingdom is the rule or the reign of a king and Jesus used this term ‘Kingdom come’ specifically when he was teaching people to pray. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come….” We pretty well all know these words but it’s easy to gloss over them. Here’s Jesus teaching people to pray and He says, “Your Kingdom come.” So what exactly did He mean?

In a democracy the reign or the rule of the leader of a country is established through an election. The people decide. They go and vote, they choose a party or they choose a President or whatever it is and they vote him or her into office.

In a dictatorship power is often taken and held by force. You don’t have to look very far to see that that’s still happening around the world. And in the kingdoms of old they were sometimes were established through conquest, other times through family succession.

Irrespective of the model, the notion of a kingdom is about the exercising of authority. We all have to submit to authority, to governments, to leaders, to laws. And the most powerful form of that is a democracy. Why? Well, it may not be perfect but it’s where the people get to choose.

People go to an election, they go into a polling booth, they cast their vote, they elect a government and they invite that government to exercise authority over the country. It’s a personal mandate to lead and to rule.

So what’s that got to do with this ‘Kingdom come’ thing and what’s more what’s it got to do with the power of prayer which is what we’re talking about this week on the program? Yesterday on the program we started, I guess, looking our way through how Jesus taught the disciples to pray through what we commonly refer to as The Lord’s Prayer.

And it begins, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” It’s about worshipping God first is how Jesus taught to pray, it’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s not about us in the centre of the universe. Jesus taught people to pray by saying prayer is about God first. Now, have a listen to that verse plus the second verse:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer is not just about worshipping God, it’s an invitation for His will to be done in our lives, for His kingdom to reign in our lives. The first verse, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,” is about worshipping God. It’s about losing ourselves in God, about adoring Him. And that’s awesome because you know what it does? It gets the focus off us and onto Him.

The second verse, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done…” is kind of, well now that I’ve lost myself in you Lord, come and reign in my heart, be my king. That’s what Jesus meant by, “Your kingdom come.” The reign, the rule, the kingship of God in our hearts. It’s an invitation for God to rule. It’s an invitation for Jesus to be our Lord and it’s a powerful invitation.

“God, I just don’t want to worship you now; I want to live out that worship. I want your kingdom to come in me, in those around me, in every situation and circumstance and trial and temptation. Every time I want to act up or criticize or malign or argue or be dishonest. Lord, I want to hallow Your name, I want Your Kingdom to come, in fact I want your will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Not my will, not me. NO! Your will, you”.

I think so often we can skim over these words ‘Your Kingdom come’ because a lot of people know the Lord’s Prayer really well, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done…” and people sort of say it casually and skim over what this really means.

And sometimes when we pray this I think we hope that Gods Kingdom comes in someone else’s life, ‘in that person they definitely need it. In fact, God that one over there too and that one over yonder there too. If only Gods Kingdom would come into their lives, ah they’d get sorted out and my life would be much better’.

You see what we do; we put ‘me’ back in the centre of the universe again. NO! God’s Kingdom coming is seeing His will being done, including in me, including when it’s not particularly convenient, including when it hurts, including when I’d rather have my life on a padded sofa than on a hard cross.

The power of prayer that Jesus is teaching here us that it’s not about me, it’s about Him. And if we want power in our prayer that’s where it comes from, from laying our lives down. Why is there such power in this prayer? Because it’s about you and me surrendering ourselves to God’s will.

So many people are trying to be their own God or to reconstruct God in their own image and they’re wondering why it’s such hard work. They’re wondering why it never meets their expectations. They’re wondering why they don’t have any power in their prayer.

‘Your Kingdom come..’ is you and me resigning from a position of god or dictator in our lives and inviting God, His kingship and His rule into that place. Jesus said, “You try and save your life you’ll lose it but if you lay down your life, if you lose your life for my sake then and only then you will find it”.

‘Your Kingdom come…’ is putting God in the driver seat of our lives.

‘Your Kingdom come…’ is saying, “I want to live life your way Lord, no matter what”.

‘Your Kingdom come…’ is the practical laying down of our lives at His feet no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much people laugh at us, no matter how much we’d rather go our own way.

The power of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray was putting God first, not ourselves. And you know, when we live out ‘Your Kingdom come, Your will be done’ we end up stopping trying to control everything and instead we hand it over to Him. And we begin to experience the power of prayer in our lives.

Now, I was able to achieve some things in my life before I did this ‘Your Kingdom come’ thing. Can I tell you something honestly? I have achieved immeasurably more after than before because I’m living in His power and His strength, not mine. And not only have I been able to achieve more but I’ve been doing it with a piece and a joy and holy ease that I just never had before.

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done here on earth, here in my life, just as it is in heaven. What a powerful prayer.

For someone who can’t put food on the table for their children tonight – I’m sure that Jesus’ prayer “give us this day our daily bread” has a powerful meaning.  What does it mean to you?

I truly believe – with all that I am – that there’s power in prayer.  In fact, I know it! And one of the things that Jesus taught us to pray for was forgiveness – God’s forgiveness and our unforgiveness.  It’s powerful stuff!

It’s easy to imagine that admitting that we need help in dealing with some of our bad habits is somehow a sign of weakness.  But if we’re really honest with ourselves – there are things about ourselves that we’d like to change, but just can’t.

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. You know, that sort of thing. And there’s no doubt that we do reap what we sow.

But for years I tried to rely completely on myself. Asking for help was a sign of weakness. But actually there are a lot of things in our lives that we can’t control. Even things we think we should be able to control. 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.

We’ve been talking the last couple of weeks about the power of prayer. And if prayer means anything, if there’s any power at all in prayer then surely this is one of those areas where prayer should make a difference.

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. Not just on planet earth but specifically in our lives here and now.

Over the course of this week we’ve been looking at how Jesus taught us to pray through what we sometimes refer to as, ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. Not as some formula that we learn by rote but he said, “Pray like this, pray in this manner.” He was giving us like a framework, an approach, a guidance, a direction for how to pray.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed by Your name.” That first verse 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; ask for Him to meet our needs. You know when we do that, “Give us this day our daily bread” it’s acknowledging that all good things, all provisions, every need is met through God.

“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiveness in Gods book is a big deal. Now the last part of that prayer is in a sense forward looking and acknowledges our bad habits. It goes like this,

“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”

You know something, as you look at each part of that model prayer it kind of gets the Creator/creature relationship back in order. Instead of putting us first, it puts God first. Even, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ acknowledges that all those good things come from God as I just said.

My father, when he was growing up as a boy in Romania many years ago now, as a tradition before they sliced a loaf of bread, his father and his uncle and all the fathers would pick up the loaf of bread, turn it upside down and kind of just draw a little cross on the back of the loaf of bread with a knife and then they’d slice it.

My Dad did it all of my childhood years. And Dad tells this story about his cousin who said, “Dad, why do you do that? Why do you draw this cross on the back of the bread? And Dad’s uncle explained that it acknowledges Gods provision. It acknowledges that God provides our bread and will continue to provide our bread. And his cousin said, “But there’s another 3 loaves in the pantry.” And promptly got a clip behind the ears.

You know all good things come from God. And this last one is kind of the same. It acknowledges the reality that we need God, that we need his help. “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”

Now conventional wisdom, the wisdom of this world says we have complete control over ourselves. The notion that there’s a devil and that we get tempted and that we can’t control ourselves and we need Gods help – that is a cop out. It’s a sign of weakness. It’s all part of this religious guilt trip thing that these Christians go on with. Okay, who’s right? Jesus here, when He’s teaching us how to pray or the world?

As I look at my own life, for years I laboured under perfectionism and anger and impatience. They’re all things that afflicted me and robbed me of life for many, many years. Ego and superiority. I knew they were impacting my life, I knew they were robbing me of peace and joy and a quiet delight in life but I was addicted.

When there was a stimulus I’d respond and truly I was powerless to break it. And I’m not some 90 pound emotional weakling, I’m not someone who doesn’t take responsibility, to the contrary. I used to pride myself in my abilities and I’m someone who doesn’t just sit around. I drive things forward.

But it doesn’t matter who we are or how strong we think we are. These things, sin and temptation, are things that I was powerless to do anything over. And as long as we deny that, as long as our own pride gets in the road and says, “it’s all up to me, I can do this”, it stops us from ever actually being healed.

And you know something, it’s exactly what the devil wants. These things aren’t just bad habits, they’re sin and the devil is a wily old sort. He’s been around the block a whole bunch more times than you and I. He wants to keep us bound up in those things so that they can ruin our lives and the lives of all the people around us.

You know what this prayer is, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”? You know what it’s all about? It’s about acknowledging that we are powerless in our own strength to make ourselves perfect. To do anything about the addictions and the bad habits and the things that afflicts us.

You know, 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.

It is time 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, 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.

‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.’ We can go on, on our own 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. There’s power in 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 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. I can talk about this stuff but I can’t make the decisions for you.

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.