Prayer: Seeking The God who Seeks Us
Mt. 6:9-13
We are continuing our series entitled Pathways of Grace where we are learning about the various key means of grace by which we walk with God. We spend some time first looking at the essential means of grace of the word of God and this Sunday we are going to start talking about prayer. So you can be turning in your bibles to Matthew chapter 6 to the Lord’s prayer.
As we prepare to spend some time learning about prayer I am filled with mixed emotions and mixed thoughts. The topic of prayer hits at the very foundations of our relationship with God. I can come to prayer with a sense of joyful anticipation as well as woeful inadequacy. I can come knowing that I am accepted and welcomed into the throne room of God but I can also come aware that I am soiled with sin and a failure in my rightful duties. So as we come to this topic today I need to confess to you my profound sense of inadequacy and my desperate need of God’s strength in my weakness. I don’t feel like I have anything to give when it comes to the topic of prayer – but that indeed might be the very place God wants all of us to be in order to learn to pray. So, with this in mind, let’s pray and then read.
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this: “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 this day 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 evil. Matthew 6:5-13 (ESV)
The scriptures are full of teaching and examples of
prayer. It is a book full of prayer from
beginning to end. Adam was the first to
pray and his prayer was with God face to face as he walked in the garden in the
cool of the day. The line of Seth was a
godly line because his descendants called upon the name of the Lord, that is,
they prayed. Noah prayed as a man who
walked with God. God called Abraham and
Abraham prayed to God for an son and heir and on behalf of the righteous in
Now, I imagine a thousand different messages can be preached from this wonderful segment of scripture, not because there are a thousand different meanings but because there are thousands of implications from what our Lord says in this short passage. That is the nature of the eternal word of the infinite God – it is living and active and applicable to all of creation. I want to focus on one aspect today that is evident in this text and is a fundamental backdrop of prayer throughout the whole bible. That is this point, that prayer is seeking the God who seeks us. It is seeking his presence and his will and his blessing and his glory because and ultimately only because he is a God who seeks us. Prayer is seeking the God who seeks us.
1.
His seeking of us
1.1.
Our Father, Through the Son, By the Spirit
Notice how the Savior starts off this prayer. What does it say? That’s right – Our Father, who is in heaven. Those first few words of this prayer though small in number are huge in meaning. Before there is any other interchange in prayer with God there is first the title, Our Father.
Now, we can, if we are not careful, move on very quickly thinking, so what’s the big deal? Sure, God is our father, why make a fuss of that? But we would be missing oh so much! You see, we would not be able to pray if we didn’t know God as our father. All of prayer is predicated on the reality of who God is. If God were any different than who he is than all of prayer changes. Everything about prayer comes from who he is.
And first for us to know is that God is a God who has
revealed himself to us. Yes, prayer is
seeking after God but it is seeking after a God who seeks us. Who made Adam in His own image and put him in
the royal garden in order to walk with God?
God did! Who initiated dealing
with the sin in the garden, who sought out whom after Adam and Eve had
fallen? God did! Who called Abram out of generations of idol
worshippers to receive all the promises?
God did! Who encountered a
duplicitous conniving young man named deceiver or Jacob in the midst of his
intrigue and called him to himself? God
did! Who called Moses out of his
self-imposed exile to deliver his people from slavery? God did!
And who constantly called
We come to the Father through the Son. We ultimately can say “Our Father” because we
are united by faith with the true Son.
And this true Son has made a way for us to come before the Father as our
Father. Folks, we must be ever careful
that we not misunderstand the term “Our Father”. God is not some Santa Clause waiting for us
to sit on his knee and give our wish list.
This is the great I AM whom the mighty seraphim, the great six winged
angels that stand in the throne, can not look upon because of his awesome
holiness. When Isaiah was in his
presence he cried “woe is me”, that is, I am in trouble – I am unclean and condemned
in his presence – judgment on me – for I am sinful man! This is no Santa Claus with a jolly smile –
this is the one who was and is and is to come – without beginning, without end,
without sin or imperfection or limitation – the eternal one who has made the
entire universe yet the universe can not contain him. Were we to look upon the fullness of his
glory we would be destroyed for his greatness and infinite beauty. His presence was so overwhelming for the people
of
Yet, amazingly, he is a God of mercy and love and
self-revelation and he came to us and dwelt among us and we see his glory in
the Son, Jesus Christ. And this all
glorious Son, worthy of a billion universes of praise and obedience gave his
life that we might not get what we deserve but what he deserves. He took the penalty for your sin upon himself
and died bearing the holy wrath of God that your sins might be atoned for. And the Father received his payment and
raised him from the dead for your sake.
Before you were born, before you had any thought of God, His Son died
for your sins that you had not yet committed.
And in time, at some point in your life, God the Holy Spirit breathed on
you and gave you new life, that you might understand this wonderful gift, turn
from lesser things and sin and receive forgiveness and new life.
He has sought you out. I know many of your stories! From beginning to end he has sought you and
he has gone to amazing lengths to seek you.
That you might seek him and know him as your Father. The Son died for you and the Spirit brought
you life that you might seek him who has sought you. And now we can call him “our father”.
We tell the story in the Alpha course of a civil war
soldier. As the result of
a family tragedy he had been granted permission to go and see the President, he
was going to request an exemption from military service. When he arrived in
Jesus is the Son whom makes a way for us to come to the Father as Our Father who is in heaven. Yet, it was the Father who sent the son, who gave his son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The Father sought us and sent the Son and sent the Spirit that we might in turn seek him. And that is what prayer is – seeking the God who seeks and has sought and found us. We only seek because he seeks us – oh this is so important to understand as we approach prayer. And so Jesus starts out this prayer, the Lord’s prayer with “Our Father.”
2.
Our seeking of him.
Notice how the rest of the prayer goes. It is all based on his already seeking us but it goes onto our seeking of him. The natural response of one who has been sought and found is in turn to seek the seeker and love the lover. We love because he first loved us. And in this new state of being new creations in the Holy Spirit we have a love for God and his ways. And so the first thing we pray is “hallowed be thy name.
2.1.
His Glory
Now, we don’t use the word hallow that much any more. It means holy or revered or worshipped be your name. And that doesn’t mean that people will think the letters G-O-D in succession like that are so cool that they want to tell others – to hallow God’s name is to hallow God himself. So as we pray at the heart of our prayers in seeking God is that he will be worshipped and lifted up and loved and honored and obeyed. At the core of our prayer to God is the desire that all might find him most worthy, most satisfying, most exciting, most worthwhile, most trustworthy, most interesting, most of all mosts. Hallowed be your name is an essential element of our prayers – we pray that God might be most glorified and most enjoyed of all things.
Now the wonderful thing about the Lord’s prayer is that it is not only an example of a short prayer to God that the Lord recommends but it is also a wonderful template of prayer for us. So as we go through these different items understand that we might spend 5-50 minutes or more in prayer under each of these phrases. I almost daily use the Lord’s prayer as my template for prayer and I will spend time thinking about how God can be hallowed in my own life, my marriage, my family, my church, my extended family, neighborhood etc. and I pray specifically through these different areas. Hallowed be your name God in all these peoples lives in these specific ways and in these specific situations.
2.2.
His Kingdom
Next it says, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. The response of being sought by God is to seek God by asking for his kingdom to expand and his moral will to be obeyed as it is in his presence. Ultimately this request is for the return of the messiah and the culmination of everything God has on his heart to do with his creation – to set Jesus upon the throne and shine his glory in unhindered magnificence for all to see and cherish forever. Yet, when the disciples in Acts chapter 1 asked Jesus after he had risen if he was going at that time to restore the kingdom Jesus told them to be that the time for that was hidden and that they were to be his witnesses – that is to share the good news of him as Savior and Lord. And the same applies now – the kingdom is not only coming in the future but it is ever expanding as the truth of the good news of Jesus Christ goes forward and has its way. So when we pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done we are asking for him to expand his active reign and presence through the proclamation and obedience to the gospel. Oh, and how we hunger for this!
Our national divorce rate is over 1 million marriages per
year[1], over
50% of American women conceive first child out or wedlock[2], we
are the world’s largest consumer of cocaine, sixty percent of Americans can’t
name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think
May his kingdom come and his will be done! May his reign extend to dramatically affect our culture that lives are swept up in his redemptive purposes in Christ and the statistics all point to the reality of his reign and his glory! Thy kingdom come!
2.3.
His Provision
Next we pray, “give us this day our daily bread.” We recognize that we are made by God and can
not live a single day without his provision.
James speaks of the boastful man who says, 13 “Today or tomorrow we will go into
such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” and then says “14 yet you do not know what tomorrow
will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little
time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord
wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Similarly, we are to pray, grant us our daily bread. God is our God and we are made for him. We depend entirely on him for everything and we must continually remember this and seek him. He wants us to walk with him and ask him for our every daily need, waiting on him day by day to provide even as he provided the daily bread of manna to the Israelites in the desert. This daily bread can mean more than just the physical food we eat but all the necessities of life. Luther said, "for everything necessary for the preservation of this life, like food, a healthy body, weather, house, home, wife [or husband], children, good government and peace" [7] We are dependant on him for our daily bread and he is faithful to provide it as we seek him, the one who seeks us.
So we pray for our needs – our personal needs, our family needs, the needs of our church and community – give us this day Lord our daily bread – we depend on you and thank you! And oh how he loves to provide for us! When we moved up here to start the church we didn’t know how we were going to afford a home – the only home that came close was a fixer upper for $260K. We really didn’t have the money and certainly didn’t have the income to afford very much. So we prayed, we sought and the God who seeks us moved and provided the home of our dreams, with an acre of land in a beautiful neighborhood with a large living room for church gatherings and even space for my home office. God is more than able to provide all our needs – he asks that we ask him – we seek him because he has first sought us!
2.4.
His Forgiveness
Jesus continues with the instruction to pray for the forgiveness of our debts even as we forgive our debtors. It does not take us long in the presence of God to recognize our bankruptcy and sin. So any seeking of God comes with confession of sin and the seeking of forgiveness. In Christ this forgiveness is ours from the moment we believed yet we are still to walk out regular reconciliation with God as we are aware of our sins. It is not about casually regarding our sins and saying, oh, I’m forgiven already, I don’t need to be forgiven again. That would be like me sinning against Peg and then in front of her saying, oh, I know she forgives me, I don’t have to ask. Now, I know she will forgive me and we live before one another with that commitment but it is important to both of our souls that when I am aware of my sin I confess and ask forgiveness. Similarly, as we are aware of our sin it is important for our relationship with God to ask for forgiveness and receive the forgiveness assured to us in Christ. So as we seek him we seek forgiveness. And as we genuinely receive forgiveness we must extend that forgiveness to those who have sinned against us. If we continue to refuse to forgive others than we have not known his forgiveness and therefore we are not his and therefore we are still in our sins. So seeking forgiveness means forgiving others, even as we pray.
2.5.
His Holiness
Finally, as we seek him we are aware of our need for
protection from sin. If we are to follow
him, if we are to respond to his wonderful seeking of us by seeking of him,
than we need protection and deliverance from sin. We need protection from evil. We need protection from evil within and evil
without. For temptation is something
that comes from the evil within. What
causes temptation? It is the evil
desires within us. James says, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and
enticed by his own desire.” James 1:14 (ESV) We know these desires dwell within
us so our daily prayer is to be that God would lead us not into temptation.
Notice that it says us not me. For a
matter of fact, all of the Lord’s prayer is a corporate prayer – so as we ask
the Lord for these things we are asking for them together for all our
needs. And so we pray for one another –
lead us from temptation! Do you know
your friends temptations? Does your
friend know your temptations? I hope so,
for that will help us pray for one another as we ask the Lord to help us.
And we also ask the Lord to deliver us from evil without. This certainly includes the evil one and all his minions, that is the devil, but also the evil of the world all around us. If we are to seek God and see his purposes fulfilled in and through us than we need him to mightily work and deliver us from evil. This is a wonderful way to pray – it says in 1 John 3:8 "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8, ESV) And so we pray for deliverance from evil one. We are to have an appropriate knowledge of the devil and his plans and schemes. He is active and plotting against God and his people.
I have experienced a level of spiritual attack since being a pastor that I never really experienced before. It was very difficult the first year or two as I struggled to deal with it. It usually came on a Monday morning or sometimes before some important event like an outreach week or some season of blessing God was bringing. I can remember waking up with this inexplicable sense of doom and dread that seemed to blot out the sun and make everything dark and hopeless. I have found that simply proclaiming the truth and goodness of the gospel to my own soul will lift the darkness. I also believe the faithful prayers of my wife and other saints for our protection has a lot to do with these victories.
So we pray, deliver us from evil as we seek God. We ask God to deliver us and our community from evil. Oh, that we would continue to stand in the gap for one another and for our community. The devil would want us to care less for his activity around us but he knows that a people who pray are a great threat to his schemes, and I believe that as long as God’s people refuse to pray, God will allow Satan to continue to have his sway. May we pray like the early church did in the face of evil, when they were threatened by the devil and the ruling authorities, “29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” Acts 4:29-31 (ESV) May we pray fervently like that as we ask God to deliver us from evil!
Folks, we are called to seek God diligently in prayer, to long for him, to desire his glory to be known and most treasured, to yearn for his kingdom to expand greatly, to humbly depend on for our every need, to come before him for forgiveness and to intercede for holiness and victory over sin and Satan and the corruption of the world. We do all this seeking earnestly and continually but we do only because he has first sought us!
Let’s pray!
[1] http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml
[2] http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0020/twps0020.html
[3] http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17671/americans-get-an-f-in-religion
[4] http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=267
[5]
Kosmin, B. & S. Lachman. One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary
American Society; Harmony Books:
[6]
Andrew E. Kim , History of Christianity in
[7] Luthers Works, vol. 21, p. 147