Lord's Prayer - part 1

(Sermon notes by Howard Taylor).

A few years ago I was watching Newsnight. (a late evening British Television News program). 
Its first item was about the state on Religious knowledge among British children.
It told the story of a young boy whose parents had had a very serious accident.
The boy told the police: "I wanted to pray but didn't know any prayers."
Haven't we deprived our childen?

Yet the Apostle Paul tells us:

We do not know how to pray as we should.
That is why we pray:`Through Jesus Christ our Lord'
It is Jesus who intercedes for us.
We can never praise God as we should nor can we adequately confess our sins. 
But Christ, in our place, makes our proper human response to God, and takes our imperfect words and feelings and brings them before God.

Sometimes we only pray in trouble:
The writer Charles C. West said:
We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.

Recently newspapers have reported scientific research showing that, on average, people who pray live healthier lives.
If it is true it could be that it is good psychology to pray.
Perhaps it could be more than that.
Prayer puts us in the presence of Spirit of Life who, ultimately, is the source of all life.
[Humans cannot yet make anything that is alive - (so life cannot have got started by accident.)]

Dr. Alexis Carrel (brilliant French Doctor and 1912 Nobel Prize winner expert of blood vessels said:
The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. Its results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigour, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationships.

But how should we pray?
Matt 6:9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Duke of Wellington:
The Lord's prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.

Our Father.

Take for Granted?
Only in Bible are we invited to address our Creator and Judege as Father.

Not: 
• Our boss - for that would imply we could earn God's favour.
• Our Prime Minister or President - we don't elect which God we want.

  • There is only one Creator and Judge.
  • Laws of nature same throughout universe. 
• Our dictator 
  • we are not slaves - not knowing anything about God.
Father - authority - yes, 
but also love, wants to be known.
Personal relationships.
Purpose of life - to know God - from that all other relationships, life and love come.
Father is a family word.
Human families created to reflect something of life of God.
Paul tell us God is the Father from whom all fatherhood is derived. (Ep 3)
All of us something of family life
Married, Single, Divorced, Have children, Are children, Don't have children.

Many or most know something of brokenness of family life.
None of our families are perfect.
All part of brokenness of humankind.

Saddham Hussain - was beaten as child.
Stalin - same.

Elder in my former Church was also beaten as a child
As a teenager he decided to pray the Lord's Prayer - the only prayer he knew.
Power of love of God like warm electricity flowing through him.


Heart of Gospel: 
God our Father makes a great sacrifice for His children.
Imagine soemone you love is suffering - even if it is their own fault - you wish you could take his/her place and suffer for him/her.
• That is part of the meaning of the Cross.
• For a moment Jesus was cut off from His Father.
• As if the Family of God broken
• And then He said: `Into Thy hands I commit my Spirit'.
Remaking of our relationship with God and with one-another.

For us it is to confess our part in brokenness of humankind.

All been hurt and given hurt.


Where is God our Father?
In heaven!

Where is that?

Can't see beyond space.
Yuri Gagarin the first man in space said he couldn't see God.
If you read Shakespeare would you expect to find Shakespeare as one of the characters? He is not there.
But in a deeper sense Shakespeare is everywhere in his plays.
So God is not an object in the Universe. In a deeper sense He is everywhere in nature for He is its Creator and Sustainer.

Not far but near.
In greater dimensions.
Jesus ascended beyond the skies into heaven itself.

We can only imagine 3 and 1
In fact at least 11 that science knows about.

Imagine our dimensions of space and time - X axis and greater dimensions of God - Y axis.
They meet at the zero point.

When someone I knew well was at the point of death - the zero point he saw both heaven and earth - just for a moment.

Heaven - highly exalted.
Therefore reverence.
but near and dear - therefore Father.

Near in another sense: 
Eternity is only a heart beat away.
=====================================
Easy to repeat Lord's Prayer like a parrot.
Sincerity - life changing and world changing.

3 Petitions: Name, Kingdom, Will.
Often our concern is our name, our kingdom, our will.

1.  Hallowed by Thy Name.
Many long to see their name embossed on Headed note paper.
Fame.

God's name is misused.

Our ardent desire that true honour be given to name of God.
May you name be honoured in:
• my life today.
• life of my family
• life of Church
• in nation
• in world.

Is there any petition you might want to make that cannot be fitted into that?

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