Well, do you know why you're here this morning? Do you really understand what this service represents? You may be thinking, "Paul, those are strange questions. Of course, I do, that's why I'm here." Let me tell you a bit of my own story. I was raised in a Christian home. I was raised by a family that ostensibly took its faith seriously. I was raised hearing my dad read the Bible every morning. He was zealous to do that. I remember when my brother Ted got a job where he had to be there at 6:00 in the morning, my dad would awaken the whole family at 4:30 in the morning, so that we could read the Bible before Ted went off to work.
Raised in a Vibrant Church
I enjoyed that. I was raised in Sunday school and Daily Vacation Bible School and Christian summer camps. I was raised in a very vibrant church. My parents participated in ministry there. My family loved to open their home to missionaries who would be back home for a few months, and my mom loved cooking a great home-cooked meal. I went to a Christian college. And yet with all of that, it's amazing to me, as I look back on my own experience, how I did not understand the core of what God had called me to.
I did not understand the essence, the expansiveness of the thing that I had been connected to by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right now, there are around the world, millions and millions of people who are in some kind of service of Christian worship. And there are millions of those people who although they're there and they're sort of doing the right thing, don't understand what actually they've been connected to. And so I want to turn you to the Lord's prayer this morning. It is a dangerous prayer because if you pray these words, if you understand these words, if you pray these words with integrity of heart, your life will not be the same again because these words connect you to something that's vastly bigger than the size of your own life.
These are dangerous words. I'd like you to turn, if you would, in your Bibles, first to the 25th verse of chapter 4, I want to place the Lord's Prayer in its historical context because I think that will be helpful for you. Matthew 4:25. 4:25And great crowds followed him [that's the Lord Jesus] from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. 5:1Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. The word had gotten out that Jesus was doing things that people have never seen done before.
He was teaching in a way that they'd never heard someone teach before. And the crowds began to follow the Lord Jesus Christ around to see those miracles and to hear that teaching. And in the middle of this high moment of ministry, the Lord Jesus withdraws Himself and separates Himself with His closest followers, and He begins to teach them. We find that teaching in Matthew 5-7. It's the longest single teaching of the Lord that's recorded in scripture and it's called the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus withdrew Himself on this mountaintop to talk to His disciples.
As you read the Sermon on the Mount, it becomes was very clear that Jesus isn't giving His disciples sort of a list of the rules of a follower of Christ. No, there's something more beautiful that's happening in this portion of Christ teaching. With skill, Jesus is painting a portrait of what the heart and life of a true follower of the Lord Jesus looks like. It's a portrait painted by a great redemptive Artist. It's painted with beautiful detail and the high point, the center of that painting is found in the Lord's Prayer.
It really is a moment where the teaching of Christ reaches its highest point. And I'd like you to turn there with me, Matthew 6, beginning with verse 5 and follow as I 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. 10Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Turning Intimacy Into Performance
The minute Christ's mind turns to prayer, He begins to think of a problem that all of us have. Our problem of our heart is so deep, the struggle of our heart is so deep that we are able to turn intimate moments of worship into something that they were never intended to be. That's how great our struggle of heart is. And Christ looks on one side at the Pharisees for an illustration and one side to the Gentiles. Look at verse 5. He says, 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. To stand in the synagogue and pray was a position of particular prominence. The Pharisees would fight for that place of prominence. There was no tradition for praying in the streets, but Pharisees were known to time their travels, so at the hour of the prayer, they would find themselves in some public place and they would make a big display of praying so they'd be seen by the people around us. Now, what is Christ's point? Christ's point is something that's scary and important.
We, as sinners, have a unique ability to turn the worship of God into self-worship. What is meant to be for God and for God alone becomes something that's for us. And we can take ministry and service and even prayer, and use it as a means of building ourselves in the eyes of others. I wish that I could say to you this morning that I have no love for prominence. I wish I could say to you that I'm totally unattracted to power, that I would never do anything for the approval of people. I would like to say that, but I can't because I see the seeds of what Christ is warning against here.
I know that for me, too, there are moments where I am called by God to serve or minister or worship to God that become kidnapped by the desire of my heart to love me and to serve me. I was a young pastor learning to preach. I think I was quite happy with my preaching, actually. I remember preaching the sermon on pride that was a case study in the same. And a man came to me and said he wanted to talk to me about my preaching. I was quite glad to make that appointment. I thought I'd touched a heart.
And he met me in my office and I said, "You wanted to talk to me about my preaching?" He said, "Yes, Paul, you're killing us." Not the words I wanted to hear and he very harshly talked to me about my preaching. At the end of the conversation, devastated, I said, "Well, what would you like me to do?" And he pulled out a set of cassette tapes and said, "This is a great preacher. I would suggest you just mimic him." Now, something very interesting happened the next Sunday. I stood up to preach, I looked out of the congregation, and everybody had a normal size head except for this man.
His head looked like this big globe to me. And he had the eyes of the Mona Lisa, you know, wherever you look, they seem to be on you. And it was as if he had a great clipboard and he was marking "no, no, not yet". I was utterly captivated and controlled. I was convinced I was going to preach a sermon that this man would approve of. What a sad thing. I became tongue-tied. I stammered through sermons. I was so conscious of this man, I couldn't preach. By God's grace, one Sunday, I think it was probably the oldest woman in our congregation, I could tell that she was hanging around the front where I was and she waited for everybody to leave.
And she said, "I don't know if you're supposed to talk to your pastor this way, but I'm going to. I think somebody has gotten to you and you're preaching for somebody's approval, and you're falling apart up there, Paul." And then she put her finger up toward me and she said, "Tomorrow, you start your week by confessing that to the Lord and then you determine you're going to preach the Word of God to the people of God or we're all in trouble. It's been nice talking to you." And she walked out. You see, I needed to hear those words because in ways I hadn't understood, the worship of God had degenerated into the worship of self.
Do Not Heap Up Empty Phrases
But Christ isn't done. He looks over at the Gentiles and He says this. 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. You see, the Gentiles really believed by their long and detailed sort of mysterious incantations repeated over and over again, that they could somehow get the ear of the gods. And Jesus says don't be like them. Don't ever fall into the mistake of thinking that somehow some way, you can do something that would achieve acceptance with God.
Listen, hear this truth. If for but a brief moment, the Lord ever listens to one word that comes out of your mouth, you have just experienced wonderful, glorious, sovereign grace because there's no way that I could ever, ever earn the attention of the Lord of lords and the King of kings. What do theologians call that? Theologians call that self-righteousness, when I've come to the place where I really believe that in and of myself, I'm acceptable to God. Brothers and sisters, hear this. The longer you walk with the Lord, the more tempting selfrighteousness becomes because it's tempting now to think, "I'm one of the good guys.
I'm faithful in attendance to church. I'm involved in ministry. I don't do those bad things that people do out there." And you begin to suddenly trust yourself rather than the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear this, if you serve Him faithfully for a thousand years, your acceptance is still based on one thing - His grace. And here's what Jesus is saying to us. It's self-worship and self-righteousness that destroys true prayer because when I'm praying, but it's a heart full of self-worship, and when I'm praying and my heart is motivated by self-righteousness, God is out of the picture.
It's only when that prayer is the result of a heartfelt worship of Him and a deep sense of personal need that I'm actually opening my heart to Him, that's what prayer is about. Now, hear this. As your pastor, I have to say this. Tenth Church is not free yet of self-worship. Tenth Church is not free yet of self-righteousness. There are strains of this still in our hearts and we need to receive the warning of our Lord. Where does your worship of God disintegrate into self-worship? Where are you all too secure with where you are, able to be judgmental of others who have not arrived at the plateau that you've arrived at, all too aware of your own righteousness?
Self-worship and self-righteousness [destroy] intimacy with God. Now that's just the setup to the prayer. And then Christ says this. 9 Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. 10Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. You can't hear these words without immediately concluding that God has designed human beings to be connected to something that's hugely bigger than their own lives. God has designed for human beings to be connected to something that's expansive and glorious and transcendent.
You have been created for transcendency. And when you live for something smaller than that, you not only deny your spirituality, you deny your very humanity. And so, Christ says, "Pray this. Pray this prayer that fits with the design I had for you in the beginning. 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.'" As you pray, first, affirm the wonder that you have the right by the grace of Christ to address the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Creator of the universe as your Father. Is that not amazing?
I probably couldn't get an audience with the mayor. I can call God my father. Amazing! But then immediately pray, "Hallowed be Your name. May Your name be held up as holy. May Your name be viewed as great. May Your name be exalted. May everyone know Your name and serve Your name. Our Father, hallowed be Your name. Holy, exalted, be Your name." Now, hear this. You cannot pray that prayer with integrity unless you're willing to accept the commitment and the demands it makes on your personal life because what Christ is saying, pray this.
Driven by Your Name, Not Mine
"Lord, may everything I do be driven by Your name and not mine. May I do what I do at my job because of Your name. May I do what I do in my neighborhood because of Your name. May I treat my wife or my husband the way I treat them because of Your name. May I parent my kids the way I parent them because of Your name. "May I spend my personal time and energy in the way that I do because of Your name. May I use the resources that You've given me in the way that I use them because of Your name. May my life be driven and motivated by Your name."
Now, I wish, again, I could say that every moment of my life is driven by a name that's bigger than mine, but I can't. There are moments where I still want to be the center of attention. There are moments where I'm working more for my name than the Lord's name. You see, when I do that, I am a glory thief. You see, you can only live for two types of glory because there's only two. You're living either for divine glory or you're living for created glory, and every decision you make is driven by the pursuit of one or other of those kinds of glory.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we would be a group of people who would make small and large life decisions on the basis of the name of the Lord? You say, "Paul, I don't know what that means." Imagine a man who's in a very exciting career, who has an offer for the promotion of his dreams that's going to take him to a different place, but who says, "I have developed a web of relationships at work where I'm able to represent the name of my Lord. I'm connected to a neighborhood where I've met people and know people, and I'm incarnating the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in that neighborhood.
I'm involved in ministries in my church that are vibrant and important. "I'm connected to relationships with brothers and sisters who know me, who can speak into my life. And so, I'm not just going to take the next step of the ladder of success. I'm going to say, 'I would rather live for the name of my Lord than for the power and prominence of that position.'" Now, I want you to hear me say this. I would never judge a person who takes a promotion and moves to another place. I would never judge the size of that person's house or the quality of their car, but I would ask what drives those kinds of decisions that we make?
Whose name? Whose name? Whose name forms the way that you live your life? Father, may Your name be the reason for the way that I live. But Christ goes on. 10Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. For all the future that is packed into those words, it is really a request for the here and now. It looks at this moment and it says, "Father, may everything be under the rule of Your kingdom. May everything that is operate according to Your will." Now again, you can't pray that expansive prayer with integrity unless you're willing to apply it to your own life.
Are you willing to say to your Father, "Father, do anything You will with me and mine? Father, I rest in Your will. May I be a person that spends my time building Your kingdom and not mine?" Now I don't know about you, but I still like my will to be done. Isn't that why you'll get upset in traffic because gridlock never is according to your will? You actually want to construct a kingdom where citizens choose to pay for roads that they never drive on because you want your will to be done. A while back, I was sitting in traffic and I had this "kingdom" sort of thought.
"Don't they know that I have somewhere to go?" I did want people to look back in their mirror and say, "Paul's behind us," and sort of part like the waters of the Red Sea and I could drive through and say, "I'll be by here tomorrow at the same time. If you could do the same thing that would be helpful to my kingdom." You see, you laugh because you get the illustration. If you're a parent and you're now with red face and angry eyes and inflammatory language, pointing the finger at your child and saying things you should probably not say all in the name of Christian parenting, of course, you're not doing that because that child has broken God's will.
Zeal for God's Will
You're doing that because they've gotten in the way of your will. Because zeal for God's will goes in a very different direction. You see, are you ready to say this morning, "God, I open up my hands. I quit holding on to my life as if it belongs to me. I quit dreaming of what my kingdom could be like and I offer my life to You, and I say, 'You take me. You take my strength. You take my vitality. You take my life and You do with my life what You will.' I rest in Your kingdom. I rest in Your will."
Or are you anxious, fearful, worrisome because you're struggling still to have your will done and it just doesn't work because you aren't sovereign? This is a dangerous prayer because if you pray these words with integrity and humility of heart, your life will turn upside down. And you see, it's only when you've said, "Lord, I want my life to be driven by Your name. I want it to be shaped by Your kingdom. I want it to rest in Your will," it's only when you say that that you're able to be content with your daily bread.
It's only then that you will seek God's forgiveness and you'll want to be one who forgives. It's only then that you'll get serious about the sin that's inside of you and you'll long for the protecting mercies of your Lord against temptation. You see, we'll never pray the second half of that prayer with openness of heart until we've prayed the first part first. I would ask you this morning, where is the war in your life? Whose name are you serving? Whose kingdom do you love? Whose will do you want to be done?
You say, "Paul, I'm not there yet. I would love to be able to say it's God and God's glory that shapes my life, but I can't." Hear these words. This prayer is given to you by your Redeemer. He is full of love and mercy and grace. He meets you at your moment of need. He is there to forgive and to give you the power to live in a new way. Start this way. Start by saying to him, "Father, I would love to be able to pray these words. I would love with a singleness of heart to say, 'My Father in heaven, Holy be Your name.' I want to live for Your name.
I would love to be able to say, 'Yours be the kingdom.' I would love to say, 'Not my will, but Yours be done,' but there's still struggle inside of me. "Oh, Father, won't You meet me at my point of need and won't You open up my hands? Won't You help me to know the rest and the joy, the bounty that can only be found when You and Your glory become the reason for my living? "May we become people who are able to say, 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'"
And may we humbly admit the places where we're not there yet and receive His forgiveness and claim His power. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for these dangerous words. Thank You that they explode the small confines of our living and they blow us out to the big sky country of Your kingdom and Your will and Your glory. There are moments when we are glory thieves. There are moments when we are more driven by our name than Yours, our will than Yours, our kingdoms than Yours. And so, we come to You as needy people.
We would pray that You would forgive us and that You would give us a growing ability to say no, to open our hands and to find a rest in Your glory, in Your kingdom, and Your will. We pray these things for Your glory and we pray them in the sweet and strong name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the suffering Lamb, Immanuel. Amen.
