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Prayer Mt 6:5 “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 men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. Mt 6:6 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. Mt 6:7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Mt 6:8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Mt 6:9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, Mt 6:10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Mt 6:11 Give us today our daily bread. Mt 6:12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Mt 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ Mt 6:14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Mt 6:15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. IntroductionSlide - 1Holy Willie's Prayer is a poem that was written about a certain Willie Fisher…who was an elder in the Parish church of Mauchline, in Ayrshire…Fisher …was himself a sinner yet he spied on people and reported them to the minister and the presbytery…if he thought they were doing wrong. The poem is a satire based on Fisher's sickly self-righteousness…The phrase "Holy Willie" have become part of the Scots language for describing someone that is humourless…and ultra religious….And…if you are familiar with Burn’s work you will realise that everyone assumes that such a person…who does not live up to the standards of those he is criticising…is in fact… a hypocrite…Slide – 1x2But, Lord, remember me and mine,With mercies temporal and divine,So that I for grace and wealth may shine,Excelled by none,And all the glory shall be ThineAmen, Amen!(A translation by Ashleigh Hogg)A fine example then…of what Jesus here taught us not to be…like the hypocrites…those who wore a false face…a mask…as the Greek’s did for their plays…Because there was no point…as Jesus reminds us here that…God SeesVerse 5 follows on as from previous 4 verses where Jesus tells his listeners to ‘not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret’. Slide - 2But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, Mt 6:4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you… (Matthew 6:3-4)Sincere secret giving…is preferable to that which the hypocrites do…because it is authentic giving…It is not done so as to draw attention to yourself…but because you want to please God…and because you are genuinely glad to be able to help that person…I have…as you will have seen also…many times in my life people have given a donation…because they wanted to genuinely help…No doubt some of us here will have given away money…or goods…without anyone else knowing…This is quite contrary to the way of the world…which uses advertising to make known the generosity of big celebrity donors…who…although we can never say that they do so specifically for the wrong reasons…t is generally understood that they may get a healthy return for their actions…But Jesus says to his followers…don’t do it for the publicity…do it because you care…and your Heavenly Father watches this…and he sees this…and he is pleased with this…And so…also then…the same applies when you pray…Do it in secret…go into your room…close the door…and keep it succinct…For…Slide – 3x1…your Father knows what you need before you ask him… (Matthew 6:8)We may wonder why bother…but the wonder is that God is bothered…and invites us to pray…therefore we become participators in his will…Dietrich Bonhoeffer says…Slide 3x2The disciples are permitted to pray because Jesus tells them they may – and he knows the Father. He promises that God will hear them…(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, P109)We may pray because Jesus invites us to…and without him…the Father will not hear us…therefore we are privileged…As the song says…What a privilege to carry…everything to God in prayer… And…God sees our weakness and heavy ladeness…and invites us to offload on him and take upon ourselves his light yoke…yet…so often we carry our burdens around ourselves…forgetting His invitation……and…it is secret prayer which Jesus encourages us to develop…In actual fact…according to R.T. France…the command by Jesus is to pray…and to pray in secret…but the wording of the prayer is plural…therefore…it is not to prohibit audible prayer…as Jesus himself prayed privately and audibly, Slide 4x1Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed… (Mark 1:35)Slide 4x2One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”… (Luke 11:1)It’s the motive for prayer which is important here…and God knows it…no matter how grand our public prayers…it is that which we bring to God from our hearts in sincerity…that he sees…How to PraySlide 5And in Luke’s account…the disciples asked Jesus…what we may also ask of him…When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray… (Luke 11:1)Of course…prayer was nothing new to the followers of Jesus who were Jewish…Synagogue prayers were said 3 times a day…and Jesus early followers…after his ascension…may have used this prayer as a guide…3 times a day in private…The Didache is a very early Christian document…giving us insight into how the first followers of Jesus…practiced their discipleship…it tells us how they prepared for baptism……and how they prayed…in private and in public…and Jesus prayer template…if we could think of it as that…was used…Most of us who have not been brought up in a liturgical tradition…e.g. Anglican…Catholic…or Orthodox…are unfamiliar with Prayer Books…In fact…the imposition of prayer books and set patterns was a major bone of contention for Scots after the Reformation…But…there is always more to a story than meets the eye…Yes…perhaps set patterns of prayer…can become mundane and meaningless if not taken sincerely…but equally…to no to pray at all…cannot be right…I personally find great value in using set prayers as part of my daily devotions…because I know that…without them…sometimes. I struggle to find the concentration required to pray…And…once we get praying…all sorts of things and situations come to mind…which we then can include in our prayers…Having said that…there was the matter of who imposed the prayer book upon you…in the sense that you had to choose to whom you submitted to rule over you…The Lord’s Prayer…as we call it…can be seen as in two parts: Slide 69-10 ‘you… (Him)To You – submitting to His RuleAcknowledging his parenthood…we are his heirs…children of the Kingdom…and seek to bring glory to his name…hallowed be your name, your kingdom comeyour will be doneIllustration – Ian Birch’s Book… early Baptists…in the mid 1600’s who started a new movement…and coined the phrase of Living Under Christ’s Rule…not as a catchy mission statement or buzz words…Rather…it was there way of saying that…they were living under Christ’s rule and not the King of England’s…as the King…it was claimed…had divine rights…Not so…said they…and although they thought it right to obey the authorities in power at the time…their spiritual allegiance…was to Christ…and on spiritual and moral matters…he trumped the earthly King…every time…And so it was for Jesus followers…who in submitting to Jesus Rule were also denying the divine rule of the Emperor…This prayer starts with our lifting up the name of God our Heavenly Father…submitting to His Rule over our lives and praying for His Kingdom to come…his will to be done…Here on earth as in Heaven…and as we live in an increasingly secular world…we may well find in the days ahead that these two kingdoms are opposite in many respects…Which one then…will we choose to submit to?The rule of Christ of the Rule of the World…but in actual fact we are called to live in the world…not retreat from it…but live in it under His Rule…That’s why then…Slide - 7For We – Living under His RuleVerses 11-13 (Us)We acknowledge our dependence on him for…our daily breadour debtsus not into temptationdeliver us from the evil oneThe us’s in the second part of the prayer show us what we…us…receive from him…Perhaps in a day and age where everything…or most things are bought from the supermarket…or clicked and collected…it is easy to forget our dependence on God for all of our needs…We only need to look at the amount of environmental issues that make it onto our news headlines to see that for too long mankind has exploited the earth…and it is now showing signs of our over consumption…Scientists are talking of the need to look at the chances of survival on other planets…Stephen Hawking has said that…The search for other planets to colonise should start now, he believes…(The Independent, 20th May 2017)It’s just a pity that such a modern-day prophet does not point us towards God…who has provided all that we need…and taught…as by example with the Israelites in the wilderness to just take what we need…As he taught them regards the crops to…leave some for the poor to glean…and to provide for the stranger and outsider…As we pray for our daily bread then…that which comes to us so easily…perhaps we should be praying that God would help us to share the excesses that we do not need…outwith our daily bread…That way…we would have less problems…and so would those in the world in need…And...as we ask God for forgiveness we also we also ask for the ability to forgive…We have here the word debt…but the petition is for God to forgive us…our debts…for that which we are endebted to him…for forgiveness of our sins…all the more applicable to the situation of praying privately…And as we are forgiven…we are to forgive those who would be endebted to us for our forgiveness…why…if we are forgiven…should we dey such privilege to others…Jesus picks up on this…as if to strengthen the argument…in the closing verse of this passage…We also ask God to keep us from temptation…so it is a prayer of asking forgiveness for past sins…with a request for protection from future sins…And testing…is not to be understood as God leading us astray…but it is in keeping with Jesus being tempted in the wilderness…He…unlike to Israelites…did not give into temptation…If we are tempted and we fail…we are delivered by God by His forgiveness…but if we ask…he will also help us to find a way out…It’s the devil who tempts…but is God who tests…according to France…and in that testing…when we come through…he is Glorified…Which is a lot to do with what this prayer is about…We Rule with HimSlide - 8Finally, then…can we see this prayer as our invitation to rule with him…For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Mt 6:15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins… (Matthew 6:14-15)Perhaps these verses are amongst the most tricky to understand in the bible…for they seem to imply that our forgiveness is conditional…You will only be forgiven if you are gracious enough to forgive others… Only the forgivers will be forgiven…I guess there is the temptation to dilute these words into something more easily to understand…something more palatable to our sensitivities…But…when we think about it…this sums up well what Jesus has been saying all along in this sermon on the mount…If…God had not granted forgiveness for all of the sin of the world that Jesus bore on the Cross…Jesus could not have transferred that forgiveness onto us…We…could not be forgiven…So…in closing this series…it would do us good to focus on the positive side of that…in that…as we are forgiven…we can forgive others…As we receive from God…we can freely give…As we live under His gracious Rule…we can apply it to our life and the lives of those we rub shoulders with…This then…is God’s ethic…that which we see in Jesus and he teaches us here in the Sermon on the Mount…Slide - 9Bonhoeffer says…As a summing up Jesus emphasizes once more that everything depends on forgiveness of sin of which the disciples may only partake within the fellowship of sinners. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, P114)To be like him…and to give him the glory…as the King James version and some others based on later manuscripts puts it…For…yours is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory…It’s all His…for ever and ever…Amen ................
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