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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

This is how you should Pray - Matthew 6:0

Preached 9 September 2012 for Come Together ( a monthly less formal evening service)

Introduction

The passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Having already told the crowd how not to pray “Don't be like the hypocrites” in verse 5, and where to pray in verse 6 “go into your room and close the door”, he then moves on to tell them not to babble like the pagans in verse 7. He reminds them that God already knows their needs in verse 8 and them starts a template for prayer in verse 9.

Template for Prayer

That's right it's a template, it just provides a form, it wasn't meant to be recited every week, or every night, its a format for private prayer – not a corporate recital to be said together in church, or with the family at bed time. It's supposed to be “Subject headings”, if you like.
Commentaries will tell you that the Lord's Prayer has six petitions – 3 about God and 3 about us. We will be looking at the first of these today.
“Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name” or as the Amplified version says:
“Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your name.”

Translations

We should remember that we are reading English translations of a Greek document that is almost certainly written from hearing words spoken in Aramaic. Getting to the real meaning may not be that easy.
I'm going to look at the two phrases separately, almost word by word, so that we can see the ideas that Jesus is trying to communicate.

Our father in heaven

Our father in Heaven

We start by acknowledging who God is. When we pray, how often do we get straight into the list of wants and needs and forget to acknowledge God.

Our

Although the Greek word could be just as easily translated “My”, it never is. So I cannot suggest that God is in any way exclusive to me. And “our” in this sense does not imply that we can own God. It would imply ownership if I said “our house”, or “our car”, or even “our children” - depending on the context. Here though it's meaning is more like “our town”, or “our church”, or “our family” - it implies our belonging, rather than our possession.

Father

It's easy to say “God is my father”, but the experience we have of what a father is like, may not be that good. Many people will have had experiences of absentee fathers, angry or violent fathers, or just dis-engaged, uncaring fathers, or perhaps no experience of a father at all.
What ever your experience of your father as you were growing up, no-one's experience of their own father can match up to the perfect role that God takes on when He accepts us into His family.
Once we accept Jesus we become adopted children of God and are granted the privilege of calling him father. It shows us the type of relationship God wants with each of us.
This is what God says about his role as Father:
Psalm 68:5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
Psalm 103:13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
Is 63:16 But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.
To us Father is a formal word, I don't expect my children to call me “father” (unless they're annoyed with me!), I expect them to call me “dad”. In Mark 14:36 Jesus addresses God as “Abba”, and the text tells us it means father. Father in that verse is the same word used in our passage today. 'Abba' is Aramaic and means dad, that would have been a revolutionary way of speaking to God. If I were to say “Our dad in heaven” you might not think of the Lords Prayer immediately, but you should. This is the way we should address God – using the familiar term, not the formal term father. We can see from both Romans (8:15) and Galatians (4:6) that early Christians used this form of address.

in heaven

In the same phrase we move from the Immanent – the God who lives with us – to the transcendent – God outside the universe – in heaven. Heaven simply means where God is, or sometimes is is shorthand for God. Heaven is clearly not on Earth, it's 'out there' somewhere, but there are places and people that can help connect us to heaven.
For us the difficulty is to hold both ideas together and bring some meaning to the phrase “Father in heaven” - it's not easy, and each of us will make sense of it our own way.
Once we have achieved that, there are further challenges in this passage.

Hallowed be your Name

Hallowed

So what does hallowed mean? Its a word we rarely hear outside of church. Perhaps you've heard people speak of the 'hallowed turf (or ground)' when talking about a football or cricket pitch. It means that the place is set aside and treated with special respect.
In religious terms Hollowed means 'made holy' – set aside for God – and therefore it will be treated with special respect – we call that reverence.
How can God's name be made holy?
Well, obviously it can't – it is already holy, so why is this line right at the start of the Lords Prayer?
We are simply asking that God's name is treated with the respect and reverence it deserves. Even a glance at popular culture will tell you that God is treated as an after thought. God's name is treated as an exclamation of surprise - “Oh, my God!”, or disappointment, or disapproval - “God!” or sometimes “good God!”, or “Jesus Christ”.
How do you react when you hear these phrases. When someone says “Oh my God!” I always want to reply “So long as it's your God and not mine.” - but I haven't yet. And for “Jesus Christ” I've occasionally said the persons name with the same inflexion – which usually gets a reaction.
We are to participate in the job of making God's name holy. Something that God is passionate about.
Here's one place where we can live our lives distinctively, so it may not be said of us as it was said of the Romans “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Romans 2:24.

Name

God's name is important because it speaks of His Character. What do you call God? Yahweh, God, Jesus, Lord, Father, Creator, Lord Almighty, Good Lord – there are many more descriptive titles in the Old Testament. God told Moses to tell the Egyptians that “I AM” had sent him. Its that question “Who sent you?” and the response of the name that shows what the prayer is trying to get at.
If God is properly respected his message will be properly respected (and by extension his messenger, although that is less important). It means our job of telling others about Him and His love for us becomes easier too.

Conclusion

Our dad in heaven, hallowed be your name.
So teaching the Lord's prayer is like teaching the A, B, C. It is a fundamental part of understanding the language that you are going to use, but it is not the language itself.
Today we have looked at the first phrase of the prayer – the “A” of the A, B, C.
When you go into your room and shut the door, so that you are alone with God, how will you start your prayer? What will go in the template where it says “Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name”?
How will you tell God what He means to you?
How will you express yourself and make use of the privilege of being allowed to call God dad?
Saying the prayer as we do in church and at bedtime with the children is good teaching, but it is not good praying. To pray properly we must first have a personal relationship with our dad in heaven, then we can talk with Him in our own language in our own way, not by reciting a formula.
Go on, give it a try. Trying things out is after all the way children learn.

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