As we continue to plumb the riches of the model prayer that Jesus gave his disciples we read:
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
His words give us pause, because there is so much in our world that is wrong and we are tempted to doubt the power of a God who is truly kind and compassionate.
As a side note, it is worth considering the question of doubt. In recent weeks the Archbishop of Canterbury has been taken to task because he says there are times when he has doubts about his faith. But when we think about it, doubt is not the opposite of faith. It is something we may well experience because we have faith.
YOUR KINGDOM COME
To return to Jesus’ prayer,
Father… Your kingdom come, your will be done,
Anyone of us with an ounce of intelligence can see there is much in life that appears to contradict an unquestioning confidence in God. Famines and earthquakes, terrorism and conflict, sickness and suffering, all prompt us to ask the same silent question: ‘How can a good God allow it?’
Surely the only sort of faith that is immune to this question is a blind faith, a faith that closes its mind to reality. This kind of faith is irrational, even cowardly. It is the kind of faith that deserves the contempt of the skeptic, for it only confirms the suspicion that believers are pathetic weaklings who need the crutch of faith to limp through life. Real faith has to confront the evil and suffering of the world.
The apostle Paul sought to address these kinds of questions in his Letter to the Colossians. His readers were under pressure from their neighbors. They were also under pressure from teachers who were attempting to turn Christianity from a faith that was grounded in a person who lived and died and rose again, into a system of works and mystical experiences.
To counter these problematic teachings Paul wrote one of the great statements found in the New Testament concerning the majesty of Christ and the supremacy of his rule over all things. Undergirding this are his opening words in 1: 15:
He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;…
With these words Paul is telling us that Jesus is the projection into our world of the God who exists beyond space and time.
So, how has God in Christ used his position of power? In Colossians 1:20, Paul continues:
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him,…
What we see happening on that cross is God, finding a way whereby he can absorb within himself the pain, the injury and the anger, that is rightly within him, when he looks at people like us who have hurt him and sinned against him. We see there a passionate collision of pain and fury, of love and mercy. He reconciled to himself all things, through the blood Jesus shed on the cross.
And, says Paul, the church is the evidence that God succeeded. The church is the nucleus of that reconciled community of men and women who have made peace with God and who now stand in his sight holy, without blemish, and free from accusation.
This is how our majestic, all holy God has used his vast power – to serve us in our greatest need. What’s more he plans to make a new heaven and a new earth where goodness and truth reign for ever. Let’s remember this when we pray,
What’s in a name? According to Shakespeare’s Juliet in Romeo and Juliet “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The names of things don’t matter, only what they are.
But when we turn to the pages of the Bible we discover that nameis closely aligned with the essence of the person named. This is especially true for the name of God. In the model prayer Jesus gave his disciples, he taught, “Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…” – ‘may your name be honored’. Yet how often do we forget the honor of God’s name in our prayers.
The honor of God’s name. In the great prayers in the Old Testament we see how jealous for the honor of God’s name men like Moses and Daniel were. For example, in Daniel 9:15f, in a prayer where Daniel freely acknowledged the failure of his fellow Israelites, he pleaded for God’s mercy for the sake of his (God’s) name. We read: Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand…You made your name renowned even to this day—
God’s name. Daniel is bold to pray for God to rescue his people because he wanted to see God’s name honored. Because God freed the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, his name was revered in Moses’ day. People came to know you didn’t mess with this God – He did what he said he would do! That is why Daniel prayed: Lord, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
Today. We live in a society that gives little thought to God, let alone the honor of God’s name. Our society has concluded that God is not there. Yet the reality is, the evidence for his existence has not changed. Many scientists agree that we are not here by chance, and historians consistently acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth existed. The truth is, we have attempted to put ourselves in God’s place.
Arguably, the economic problems we face are often a result of our insatiable demand for the immediate gratification. The social problems that concern us are typically the outcome of our collective repudiation of the law of God that we’ve known for centuries. We do not deserve any good thing from God.
Consider how Daniel continued his prayer: Lord, in view of all your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath, we pray, turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain (9:16). He didn’t ask God to put aside his righteousness and overlook the faults and failings of Israel. Instead he asked God to act because of his righteousness. This was Israel’s only hope. Daniel knew his Bible and understood that the Exodus from Egypt took place, not because God’s people were worthy of God’s intervention, but because God had made a promise.
Daniel knew that because God is righteous he keeps his promises. Like Moses, he appealed to the honor or name of God: ‘Lord, you promised; We don’t deserve mercy, but you promised’ Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his supplication, and for your own sake, Lord, let your face shine upon your desolated sanctuary. Incline your ear, O my God, and hear. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name (Daniel 9:17-18).
Daniel was humble and contrite about his own and Israel’s sin. But this did not prevent him from praying on the basis of God’s character and God’s promises. One of the great encouragements of Daniel’s prayer is that God is a God of mercy. The glorious thing about God is that he is always willing to receive us back on the basis of our repentance and our willingness to start anew.
We live on the other side of the cross of Jesus Christ where God demonstrated his perfect righteousness and mercy. We have greater reason to pray with confidence for God’s mercy for our world today – including our loved ones, our friends and work colleagues – so that God’s name might be honored.
In times when you feel your prayers are not being answered have you ever wondered whether you are praying correctly? How encouraging it is to discover that Jesus’ disciples were aware of their need to know how to pray. Without their request we might not have the model prayer that Jesus gave them!
‘When you pray’ we read in Luke 11:1, ‘say, “Our Father in heaven”.’
The words “in heaven” are striking. They remind us of the understanding of God that we find in the great prayers of the Old Testament, for example, those of Moses, Isaiah, Job and Daniel. All of them understood God’s awesome holiness and majestic power. So, when Isaiah saw the vision of God in the temple, high and lifted up, his first response was “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” Jesus’ opening words in the prayer he gave his disciples, remind us of God’s awesome majesty.
But there is a breath-taking new dimension that Jesus introduced with his first two words:
“Our Father…” For his first followers these words would have been electrifying. While the Jewish people understood the notion of the fatherhood of God and had heard prophets like Hosea speak of God’s people being his sons and daughters, the idea of calling God, ‘Father’ was quite unknown. Nowhere is this found in the Old Testament.
When we think about it, the idea of calling God ‘Father’ is one of the surprising distinctions between the Old and New Testaments.
In his, Knowing God,Dr J.I. Packer asks the question, ‘How would you define a Christian?’ He answers with, ‘Someone who knows God as ‘Father’.
To know God as Father is an even more important and richer idea than our being justified! Yes, justification is essential to our relationship with God – we can’t reconcile ourselves with God by our own efforts, church-going or charitable-giving. But, as Packer rightly notes, it is not the highest idea of Christian teaching. What is most important is our being adopted by God as his sons and daughters.
Through his death on the cross Jesus has provided the legal and just way for God to adopt us. That is our highest privilege. And in this model prayer Jesus tells us what this meant when it came to speaking with God. It is the greatest privilege of all, to be able to call him, ‘Father’. From now we can approach the great, majestic God of the universe in a very personal way.
These first words of the Lord’s Prayer encourage us to see that this big, exciting God delights in us knowing him personally and intimately as his children. When I think of this, I for one, want to pray, “Our Father in heaven…”
A friend of mine here in New York once asked me why it was that some Australian friends of his hadn’t expressed thanks following an event to which he had invited them at some cost to himself and his wife. I assured him that most Australians are not like this.
However, in not expressing gratitude, these Australians not only revealed a lack of gratitude for what they had received, but gave the impression that what they had received came as of right. Were they selfish, arrogant or simply bad mannered?
Now, I have to be the first to admit that I don’t always write a formal note of thanks using pen and paper, as has been my past practice, to express my thanks for someone’s kindness. I tend to write my thanks these days via email. But expressing our thanks to others for their generosity or kindness to us is important, isn’t it. In giving thanks we recognize someone’s thoughtfulness and generosity, often at cost to themselves – their gift to us.
When we think about this, isn’t it all too true that we often fail to thank God?
In Psalm 103 David lists the goodness of God, setting out in some detail the ways God had blessed him. David may have done this, not only to express his thanks to God, but also to protect himself from the temptation to be depressed (something which he experienced). He may also have decided to reflect on God’s goodness to prevent himself from forgetting the source of his success and prosperity. He did not want to take God’s grace for granted.
This is an exhortation we need to hear. Consider for a moment the way we tend to treat God. He has been good to us in so many ways – he is never over-indulgent; he disciplines us when we need it; he doesn’t give us everything we want when we want it; and yet his kindness is great. He often gives us unexpected and good things – far more than we deserve (see Ephesians 3:21).
The sad reality is, most of us simply forget to thank God for all his goodness. We take it for granted.
And if we think about it, people who are often ungrateful are, underneath it all, thoughtless, selfish or even discontented. In their eyes, other people who receive good things don’t deserve them. A discontented spirit is simply an ungrateful spirit. To be thankful is to accept the situation you are in – to accept it as part of the loving providence of God. A thankful heart trusts God in every situation and thankful people are happy people and contented.
When we turn to the New Testament we read in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians that as God’s people we need to be grateful to God:
Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).
In response to a talk I gave at a Men’s Breakfast in the North-West of England a little over a week ago, one man commented on the explosive spiritual power that must have been at work when the gospel was first preached. He is a nuclear engineer and was using nuclear energy as a metaphor for the work of God in people’s lives. So many people positively responded on the Day of Pentecost and in the succeeding weeks when the Apostles preached God’s Word.
His comment reminded me of the work of God in creating everything that exists, through the explosive moment of the Big Bang. God perfectly brought together the materials, the power, and the timing that were necessary to bring into existence the universe as we know it.
God at work in creation and re-creation. God’s work of creation is a helpful metaphor for his work of re-creation, or salvation. As we have been seeing, God has done everything necessary to address our deepest human need – namely, to rescue us from death, the consequence of our failure to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
God’s Spirit. As Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:5-8) and as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, God’s Spirit needs to be at work opening blind eyes and softening hard hearts to the truth of the gospel. But there is something else: God wants to involve us in this work of salvation, not just by telling his words of forgiveness and hope to others, but by speaking to him about others. God wants us to pray. In fact, effective outreach always begins with prayer.
Prayer. The French philosopher, Pascal observed,
“God instituted prayer in order to allow his creatures the dignity of causality.”
And C.S. Lewis commented,
“It is probably truer to say that God invented both prayer and work for that purpose. God gave us, small creatures that we are, the dignity of being able to contribute to the course of events in two different ways.”
God made the universe in such a way that we can do things to it – within certain limits, of course. This is both an amazing and perplexing idea. But the Bible shows us that God has given himself the discretion to be able to act within his overall plan according to our prayers. Prayer is not just a means of keeping the lines of communication open with God, or even bringing our minds and hearts into line with his will. Yes, that is part of its purpose, but not the whole. God listens to our prayers and, when he considers something is for the best, he will act on it. Prayer to the Almighty Lord is a very powerful tool, a potent force.
‘Never give up’. We often lose sight of this truth when it comes to outreach. In Colossians 4:2, Paul urged his readers to be steadfast in prayer. He understood that effective outreach begins with persevering prayer. Both Paul and Epaphras, the evangelist in Colossae, prayed.
The first Christians were committed and enthusiastic in their prayers; it is one of the reasons for their terrific evangelistic success. It may have been that the Christians in Colossae had become apathetic – they didn’t see the urgency or the need for prayer. And that’s why Paul insists, Continue steadfastly in prayer… ‘Don’t give up’.
Will you join me on Wednesdays in praying for people who do not yet know God’s good news – friends and family, work colleagues and fellow students. In particular pray that in his great mercy, God’s Spirit will be powerfully at work in their lives.
God’s joy. Jesus tells us that heaven rejoices when people turn to the Lord. It is one of the prayers that we can be assured God will answer.
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