A Different Way to Pray

Landon Pickering | October 27, 2024

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Transcription

Well, you can go ahead and be seated. I've been watching the last couple weekends here. Anybody bring their Bible? Oh yeah, the word of God. We're going to get into it this morning. I am excited to be here today. I'm honored to be here. There is obviously a God's Hand is upon this place. It is apparent in worship. It's apparent when you walk through the doors and I believe God is just beginning to do what He wants to do here at Embassy and it's been my prayer all week. It's my prayer this morning that what we talk about today would only further that would only deepen that both in a very personal way but also in a collective way as Embassy City. And so today what we're going to be talking about is prayer. Specifically we're going to be talking about the Lord's Prayer, maybe at a Catholic upbringing to you it might be known as the Our Father.

You can find the Lord's Prayer or our Father in two sections of scripture, Matthew five, in Luke chapter 11. We're going to spend the bulk of our time in Luke chapter 11. So if you want to go ahead and begin finding Luke chapter 11, Matthew five is probably the more familiar longer version of the Lord's Prayer, but Luke 11 unpacks what Jesus is trying to relay to us in a little bit more depth. I want to give you some book suggestions as well. I believe in equipping the people of God and so I want to preface what we're going to talk about today concerning prayer. With the journey that I've been on, really it's been the last nine years of my life that God has been doing some pretty incredible things and really the last two when it comes to prayer that has profoundly affected me and there's been some resources along the way that have been helpful.

So they're going to come up on the screen if you want to take a picture of 'em might be helpful. If you want to pick up any of these books, I'll just run through 'em very quickly. There's a book called Praying Like Monks, living Like Fools. That's a very insightful book. There's a book that radically rocked my world when it comes to prayer called Dirty Glory. There's a book called God has a Name, and there's a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son. And all four of these books have shaped my perspective of God. They've shaped the way that I've approached prayer, and I believe that they strongly support what Jesus talks to us about in the Lord's Prayer. And so if you've got your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter 11. We're going to read 13 verses, so it may take just a second, but I want you to have the whole context.

Scripture tells us one 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, he said to them, when you pray, say, father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we also forgive everyone who sins against us and lead us not into temptation. Now the one that you've probably recited is found in Matthew chapter five. Then Jesus said to them, suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say, friend lend me three loaves of bread. A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have no food to offer him. And suppose the one inside answers don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your listen to this shameless audacity, he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives to the one who seeks, finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be open. Which of you as fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion. If you then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give you the Holy Spirit to those who ask him

The title of today's message? Is this a different way to pray? Let's pray and we'll get into it. God, I just thank you so much for your word. I pray that today that these would not be my words, but they would be yours. I pray God, as the seed of your word is scattered here at Embassy City this morning, it would take deep root. Holy Spirit, would you speak to us? You are welcome in this place. Thank you for giving us the word of God. May it change us and transform us this morning. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You know the older I get, I have become painfully aware that with each age, with each decade, I get less cool.

I don't know if anybody's over 40 in this place. Come on. Yeah, come on. Something changes. I don't know where exactly it happens. I came across something recently that said at 18, you are very concerned about what everybody thinks. At 40, you don't care what anybody thinks. At 60, what you realize is ain't nobody thinking about you at all. The older I've got, I just feel less cool, especially when it comes to language and vocabulary. I can't keep up changes all the time. Slang, we got young people in here. I need a translator. When I'm talking to some young people, I discovered this week I didn't know this. This is how disconnected I am from certain things. But we got any TikTok users in the house, you like to waste hours just watching people dance.

I don't understand it, but what I discovered today, you can Google this. There is an entire TikTok language. There is a digital social media language. The words are not the same. You need a translator for this stuff. But it wasn't too long ago, there was a term that was used to describe something that was cool or better or something that stood out. And I don't know if this is popular anymore. I might be dating myself with this, but it was the word different. Anybody remember that you would be watching somebody or you would see something unfold and you would just be like, they different. Right? You had to say it a certain way. It wasn't like they're different. They're different. I'll give you some examples for those of you that don't know, right? I'm a big NBA guy. NBA just started. We got any basketball fans in the house, right? So listen, here's how this word would work. And Edwards just pull up a highlight reel on YouTube of this guy Duncan. And you realize really quick you'd be like that boy different. He's just different. These other dunks. But he different. Back in the day, any tennis fans, Serena Williams, she different watching the Olympics recently I get into the sprinting, but I just wasn't as into it this year. A little disappointing. If you're going to talk that much,

You got to show up. But years ago, Usain Bolt,

That boy different, right? Talk about church. My world. You come to embassy that worship different. Yeah, pastor Tim's preaching different. Okay, so you're vibing with me now you understand. Luke chapter 11 verse one. One day Jesus was praying, it doesn't tell us where it just says a certain place, but he was obviously in a certain place where his disciples could see him praying. When he finished, one of his disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. Now, this is an interesting question because if you know anything about Jesus disciples, they were Jewish. And if you study Jewish culture, you study Jewish history, especially in Jesus day and biblical times. This was a group of people that knew how to pray, right?

If there is any group of people in all of history that knew how to pray, it was the Jewish people.

This guy, this disciple would have grown up in a home where he saw his mother and father pray at a minimum three times a day, morning, noon, evening. He would've been taught at a very young age. These are the prayers that we pray. These are our family prayers. These are our people's prayers. There would be celebrations, there would be festivals, there would be all sorts of things he would've been exposed to over the totality of his life that revolved around prayer. Then he would've gone to church. This was a church kid. Anybody grow up in church? Oh yeah, right? Back then it was for me, church wasn't an option. There was no, maybe once a month, maybe if something else ain't going on. We were at church for these people in scripture. This disciple, it wasn't an option. So he would sit in these church services in the synagogue and he would see very holy anointed men pray. The custom of the Jewish men would be three times a day to pray no matter where they were at. And they would pray with their hands lifted up like this, it was obvious they were engaging with God. So why does he ask this question? He's been exposed to prayer. He grew up with prayer. He practiced prayer on a regular and routine basis.

There had to have been a reason. The reason was because there was something so radically different about the way Jesus prayed that to a man who understood prayer, who was immersed in prayer, who grew up around prayer one day, saw Jesus praying in whatever that certain place was, and in his mind he said He's different.

There is something different about the way he prays. Essentially, here's what he's saying. He's saying, listen, I've seen mom and dad pray. I've prayed. I've seen religious men at the highest level pray, but they don't pray like he prays. And I want to know how to pray like he prays and in desperation he comes to Jesus and he says, Jesus, teach us how to pray. I got to know how you connect with God, the way you connect with God because it's different. It's different. And in my opinion, as you study the whole of scripture, this is one of the, might even be the greatest request in all of scripture, the best question that maybe has ever been asked is, Jesus, teach us to pray the way that you pray. And lemme tell you why, because prayer is the key to intimacy with God. Yes, very good. Prayer is the key to intimacy with God. I've been walking with Jesus since I was 23 years old. I grew up in a Christian home, didn't give my life to the Lord until I was 23. And since that time I have been on a journey trying to know God.

I've known a lot about God. But to know God, to experience intimacy with God, a closeness like we all desire to experience I believe is impossible to have until you begin to grasp and understand how to connect with God the way Jesus connected with God. And it's this beautiful thing called prayer. I would suggest though that most people's experience with prayer has not been one of deep intimacy with God, but most likely one of either obligation or desperation that either there is this obligation, this spiritual routine, this I grew up and I know I got to have my 15 minutes of quiet time in the morning and check that box off or I might not go to heaven. Sometimes depending on your upbringing, that's kind of been cultured in to you. And I'm not saying throw out the morning quiet time. I'm just saying sometimes we can get so systematic in things, we forget why we're doing it. We do it as an obligation. We have all of these routines and rituals. Sometimes even when it comes to the Lord's Prayer, it's just something you recite before the football game as if God cares who wins, sorry, probably offended somebody.

We get in these routines even within our family where it's like you didn't pray over the mill, okay, I know we're supposed to do that and to give gratitude, but it becomes so systematic, it loses its meaning. So a lot of times prayer becomes an obligation or for the vast majority of people, even those that are unchurched, all the statistics would suggest that nearly 85% of people even claiming atheists, pray, they pray. Because what happens when you get to the end of the rope? What happens when you've tried everything else? What happens in that moment of desperation? What do you do? The Bible tells us that eternity has been placed in the heart of all men. And so there is something inside of us regardless of what we think or believe, that longs for something greater than us. So in desperation, you got a diagnosis, you got in a car accident, you went bankrupt. Whatever the situation, there's an issue with a child, right? When you get to the end of your rope, you're like, I've tried everything else. I guess I'll try prayer. Where else will I go? And so this is the routine I believe of most people. It's either obligation or it's desperation.

We pray when we feel like we're supposed to or forced to, but I believe that there's just a deeper experience of prayer that Jesus desires for us to have.

I'm convinced of it. So if we want that, want a deeper intimacy with God, we have to really try and understand what Jesus is teaching us about prayer. Now, there's a lot that we could dissect and unpack with the Lord's prayer. In fact, I spent a lot of time on this. It took me 10 weeks to preach through it just on the Lord's Prayer. And so I would encourage you with some of those resources that we put up there and even on your own to really dive into this because it is very unfortunate that the Lord's prayer has become what it's become. This is where Jesus says, let me show you how to pray. And what we've done is we have made that a routine prayer that we just recite. And so what I would like to do today is just at the very beginning of this, be begin to unpack a very, very small section because I believe unless we understand the beginning of the Lord's prayer, the rest of it won't shape us in our prayer life. We have to understand why does Jesus say what he says first? And it's significant. When you look at any of the words of Jesus, Jesus never wastes words.

He's never flippant with his words. He's never like, oh, wish I wouldn't have said that. He is intentional. He is specific with everything that he has said. And so our focus for this morning is one simple phrase, our Father, this disciple awe by the way, Jesus pray, says, teach us to pray. And Jesus says, when you begin to pray, say Our Father,

Now in Jesus' day to a Jew referring to God as father or any other human type terms was equivalent to blasphemy. This was one of the main reasons that the religious leaders of the day wanted to kill Jesus. You are diminishing God's holiness when you refer to him in these human terms. You're saying, father, and what are you doing with that? If you refer to somebody as Father, you are essentially calling them your equal in some degree. Now, for Jesus, Jesus is like, I know who I am. I'm trying to teach you something though about intimacy with God because people, you know a lot about God, but you don't know God. You can recite things about him. You can quote scripture, you can pray the routine prayers and in essence, they are all good, but you have lost the heart of why all of this was put into place. But they were furious with him and they wanted to execute him because of it. But here, when Jesus says our Father, he is not diminishing God's holiness. What he is doing is teaching us about God's character.

He's not saying, I'm just taking this flippantly and I'm trying to just make this like the whole Jesus is my homeboy kind of deal. There was still very much reverence and awe, which you will get to as you study the rest of the Lord's prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Jesus never diminishes the holiness of God, but what he wants to do is make sure we remember that God is a relational God, that there is a character about God that we have to understand if we truly want intimacy with God in prayer, Jesus understands that until you really know someone, meaning you know what they are really like, you will never be able to have intimacy with them. I know my wife much better now over seven years of marriage than I did on our first date because I know more about who she is.

It's true in any relationship. And so Jesus knew this. If you are going to get to the core of prayer and really experience what you see me experience because Jesus is like I know intimacy with God, I am God, he is in me, I in him, there is a closeness that no one will ever truly understand, but I want you to get as close as you possibly can. And so let me teach you about God. When you pray, say our Father, a w Tozer in his book, the Knowledge of the Holy, which is an incredible book says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God as people. If we can just be really real today in a room this size with this number of people, there's a lot of different perspectives on God. When you close your eyes for just a minute and you think about God, there's a whole bunch of different visuals that come into our mind, thoughts, understandings, perspectives, insights. A lot of times people have a hard time being close to God because they view God maybe as distant. They view God maybe as angry. They view God maybe as aloof, just kind of uninterested in what's going on. Sometimes we view God as a God. He's just got way bigger things going on. Why would he listen to me?

Right? We have all these different perspectives of God. If you study this, a lot of the perspectives that we have about God and there's a lot of research done on this, really comes back to our perspective of our own father, our earthly father. Now here's the thing. You may have grown up with an amazing dad. You may have grown up without a dad. You may have grown up with an abusive father. There's all sorts of different earthly father experiences in this room. Those have played a role in how you view God. I speak from just personal experience in this. I had a very loving father. My father was a pastor. I love my dad. I'm so thankful for my dad, but as good as my dad is, he is still flawed as a human, and there have been things in my journey of wanting to understand God and to have close and intimacy with him that I've had to work through counseling therapy.

That should be a very common thing for us because what we're doing is we're pulling back the layers of things that have happened to us in this life, things that have played an effect on us so that we can get back to the place of knowing the purity of our heavenly Father because only him is perfect. And so there is grace and there is forgiveness for the failures of our earthly fathers, but that does not negate the fact that it has affected our view of who God is. I believe when we have a skewed view of God, no matter how small or big that may be, it affects the way that we pray.

So one of the most important things that we have to do to unlock intimacy with God through prayer is to have the right understanding of who he is. And the most foundational text for this is actually found all the way back in the Old Testament in Exodus 34. You see, you have this moment where Moses, he's led the people out of Egypt. Many of us know the story. Well, the plagues have happened, these miraculous things have taken place and he leads these people out and they're headed to the promised land and there's been some disruptions along the way and God tells Moses, Hey, listen, I'm going to give you what I promised you, but I'm not going with you.

I'm true to my word, and so I'll give you what I promised you, you and the people, but I'm not going to go with you. And Moses's response is, I don't want the promise because I want your presence. There's something that we've got to understand. You could have a dream, you could have a desire, you could have a place that you want to be. God could have even told you, and you get there. If God's presence isn't with you, the promise will always be disappointing. It's not the promise. It's God's presence in the promise. And so Moses says, I don't want to go if you're not going to go, and he says, I want to see your glory. Show me who you are. I've seen you do all of these miraculous things. I have an understanding of who you are and it's deepening, but I want to know you. And so he climbs a mountain and in Exodus 34, it's the first time in scripture that God tells us about his character. He says to Moses, let me tell you what I'm like,

You have seen my power. You have seen my working, but let me tell you now who I am. So Moses is on this hill, this mountain. It says, God comes down and in Exodus 34, which just a side note, Exodus 34 is the most quoted scripture throughout all of scripture. Read through the Psalms and you'll see Exodus 34 over and over and over and over again, read through scripture, read things that Jesus said. So much of scripture goes back to Exodus 34 because if you've ever wondered what God is like, if you ever wanted to tear down the walls that you might have in your mind and in your life of who God is, go back to what God says about himself. If God cannot lie, then what he says about himself is true, and this is what he says. Exodus 34 verse five through seven, I'm reading from the New Living translation. Then the Lord came down in a cloud and he stood there with him. Moses, he called out his own name, Yahweh.

The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out Yahweh, the Lord, Yahweh. Yahweh is what it actually says, the God. This is who I am of compassion and mercy. I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish. Listen to me. This is who I am. I lavish, unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion and sin. I do not excuse the guilty. I am a just God is what he's saying. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren. The entire family is affected, even children in the third and fourth generation. There's a great explanation for that last part. God is not vengeful to the generations. What he is saying is your sins have repercussions.

Generational sin, so God's describing himself and so listen, when Jesus says, when you pray, say, our Father, he is saying, when you approach God in prayer, when you come to him, no matter the situation, the circumstance, the time of day, wherever it's at in your car, in your quiet time, in the office, on that walk with your family, whatever it is, when you come before God and you approach him in prayer, the very first thing you must do is remember who he is, not according to what you think, not according to what you've necessarily been taught, but according to what he says about himself.

When you pray, remember that you are coming to a God who is full of compassion and mercy. When you pray, remember first and foremost, you are coming to a God that is full of unfailing love and faithfulness. When you are coming to God, remember that you are coming to a God that is slow to anchor. That's an interesting word, the original word there, it's literal translation means long and nostrils, and so the visual that we're supposed to have of God, right? Because I don't know about you. I've with this at times, I've believed that God's grace is sufficient. Sometimes I just don't believe it's sufficient for me. I believe God's full of compassion and mercy. Sometimes I just don't believe that's for me, this visual of God being slow to anger is that he sees all of our failures in our shortcomings. He sees all the blemishes of our lives and we think God is quick to like, I'm going to give him a flat tire because of that. I'm going to mess up this situation because that's not the character of God. God sees our mess ups and our failures and the visual is him just taking a deep breath.

You got any parents in the house? I wish I was more long in nostrils. Kids start acting a forthright. It's this, it's okay. He's steady in this. He's not quick to respond. God's not reactionary. He's slow to anger,

Abounding in love, and I don't know about you also as a parent, but the fact that our God wants to pour out his unfailing love on a thousand generations, not just on my kids and my grandkids, but because I begin to understand and know the character of God and walk in that intimacy with him. What he wants to do is from generation to generation generations I will never see His unfailing love remain upon. This is who God is. We're all very familiar probably with the parable of the prodigal son. I don't think that there's a better parable that depicts the nature of God than the parable of the prodigal son.

Often though, when we hear about the prodigal son or many times it's preached, we become the character in the story. We're the lost son. We've been in the pigsty. We've strayed and definitely there's truth in that, but the Son is not the main character of the story. The Father is the Father is, and when Jesus begins to unfold this story of the prodigal son, what he is wanting people to grasp is the visual of who God is. You want to know what our Father means and you need a visual before it. This idea of forgiving sin, rebellion in iniquity that God describes himself as this visual of a father on his porch scouring to find someone to forgive,

And so in the story of the prodigal son, you've got this wayward son, you've got this son that squandered things. You've got this son that runs away and there's so much that I would love to have time to unpack with this, and he comes back, right, and the father has been standing on the porch. I believe he's gone out every morning, every day, every evening, looking out where is my son, and the scripture tells us that when he sees his son in the distance, he hikes up his robe and he runs toward him to embrace him, and the son begins us. I'm sorry, dad, I didn't. He's like nothing of that. I'm slow to anger. I'm full of unfailing love and faithfulness. I'm full of compassion and mercy. I forgive your sin, your rebellion and iniquity. I just want to give you a hug because I'm your dad and I embrace you in this.

We're going to get ready to wrap up. Here's what I want to encourage you to do. I don't know where everybody's at when it comes to where you think about God or where your prayer life is at. I think one of the things that I desire most is to have an ongoing deeper intimacy with God in prayer. Prayer, if I'm just being honest with you, has been a bit of a struggle for me. It's been a bit of a struggle on my journey, man. I can read my word, I can journal, I can worship, I can make sure I'm at church, I can serve, I can give, do all of these things, but there's just been a lot of seasons of my life when I approach God and prayer and it's just like I am doing it, but I don't really know. This is bouncing off the ceiling and I think it's okay to wrestle with that, but over the last couple of years when I've really begun to grasp this deeper understanding of who God is, it's changed the way I pray, and so I've done something and I want to share this with you and my prayer is that it's helpful for you. This morning, I've changed the routine conditioned way that I approach God, the habit of getting in your prayer time and dear God,

Right Lord, these titles, some of these routine things that we do before we pray, I've tried to break all of that down and what I've tried to do is model what Jesus has told us to do, and what I do is I just stop. I try to take a breath and then simply just say the word Father and just try to sit there with it, father, and then either out loud or in my mind, I try to just recall the character of God. Father, you are full of mercy and compassion. Father filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

You are the father that forgives sin, rebellion, and iniquity. Father, that's slow to anger. He's a father that when you look on my children, you want to pour out your love on a thousand generation. This is who you are, and so I come to you with whatever else I have to pray about. It's going to come up on the screen if you want to take a picture of it. That's just my prayer. If it's helpful to you just from a place of vulnerability this morning, this routine has radically transformed my connection with God. Now, when prayer used to feel very routine or almost like an obligation, I now yearn to be with my father.

Now, there's been some counseling and there's been some therapy involved in helping to get to this place, but when I begin to understand the character and nature of God as father, when he describes himself, it has shifted everything about the way that I pray. You know what I'd ask you to do this morning is just maybe just have a moment to be vulnerable with God. A little bit of response time before we wrap up today, I'm just ask everybody to stand if you would. I know we're in all different maybe places in our lives, but I really felt strongly this week as I was preparing and praying even this morning for embassy, and there just might be some people in the room this morning that this just deeply resonates with. You have had a hard time. It has felt like an obstacle to connect with God in prayer.

You have felt a weight of maybe your experience with your earthly father. You have wrestled with wanting to love God and know God, but it just seems like there's this wall up of connection you've wrestled with. Maybe, does God hear me? Does God love me? Does God know me? I hope today that there can be healing, and so we're going to call the prayer team down front. They're going to get in place, and I don't know what typical posture you pray in, but what I would just encourage you this morning, if you need to get into a posture of prayer, maybe it's hands out, maybe you need to step into the aisle and you need to kneel. Maybe you need to kneel at your seat. Maybe you need to experience some healing this morning and you need to come partner with the prayer team up here and be prayed over and be prayed with. I believe the spirit of God wants to help minister to your heart today and renew something within you about who God truly is. One of the practices that I've tried to get in the routine of is trying to help find visuals that help me connect with what I'm reading in scripture or what I'm connecting with, and I recently came across this painting by Vincent Van Gogh. I want to show it to you this morning.

This painting here was of a photograph, a famous photographer at the time. It was just a black and white photo that was taken, and he had said, I want to paint that photo, and the reason I want to show you this this morning is because this is the posture of God towards you, the excitement that we have about our child's first steps, and that's what the painting's called steps toward the Dad. If you could just grasp this, this is how God feels about you, beautiful. He wants you this morning to come into His presence and in his presence there is compassion and mercy In his presence. There is grace and forgiveness in his presence, there is healing in his presence. He just wants to be with you this morning. He wants to heal any brokenness that there is. This is his posture towards you, and so I'm just going to pray that the spirit of God would begin ministering in this place, and then I would just encourage you to come forward or to move around however you need to spend time with the Lord, just asking him to reveal this character of His de you so it becomes real in your heart.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your mercy and your compassion. Thank you for your unfailing love and faithfulness. Thank you that you are the God that is slow to anger rich in mercy. What I pray right now by the power of your Holy Spirit, God, is that you would bring healing in this room, that our eyes of our soul would be awakened to who you are, that there would be a longing and a yearning to know you the way that you've described yourself in scripture, and I pray this morning as we respond that God, there would be great healing and connection with you. In Jesus' name, amen.