Podcast Summaries

Lord, I pray for Don and I pray for the message you've put on his heart today. And Lord, I just pray that you'd bless him and the words coming out of his mouth will be straight from you, Lord, and it will be really powerful and pertinent to us today. Amen. Thanks, John. Daniel is wonderful, isn't he, on so many ways. The way he organises some speaking, he will give us a couple of chapters to look over. So six months ago or so, he said, Don, your passages are going to be somewhere in Luke 11 to 13. And that's fine. I'll see what has been laid on my heart to share with you. So I did something like this. I turned to Luke 11 and I read these verses. And it's Luke 11 begins with a subtitle, Jesus' teaching on prayer. One day, Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. Jesus said to them, when you pray, say this, Father, may your holy name be honoured. May your kingdom come. Give us day by day the food we need. Forgive us our sins and forgive everyone who does us wrong. And do not bring us to hard testing. And I thought, that hit me. I went, oh, no, Lord, don't ask me to speak on praying. I'm rubbish at praying. I'm going to feel like such a hypocrite. So what I do when I have a moment of stress like this is I obtain books that are going to help me to get past this problem. So I obtained some books and I thought, this is going to help me look at the rest of Luke and decide what else I should speak on, clearly. And I just kept getting drawn back, drawn back, and I couldn't get past it to these first few verses in Luke. So this is what we're going to have a look at today. And I really felt quite strongly that the Lord was saying, there are people here, there are people going to be there, who I want to speak to today. And I've got some words for them, and they hopefully can have some words for me. So whether you're familiar with that passage and you have spoken something like those words a thousand times in your life, or whether you've never heard them before and you're brand new to this, I think there's something here for you today. And we're going to spend some time thinking through some of these elements. In so many ways, praying is, it's a real mystery. We're praying to the God of the universe, and yet, as we'll unpack in just a second, the prayer begins, our Father, or dear Father. We're going to have a look at that. It's a really mysterious thing. And yet, there is a real challenge here as well. The disciples were asking Jesus to teach them to pray. It's something that they would do multiple times a day, maybe three, four times a day. And Jesus is giving them just a really short prayer to connect. The Lord's Prayer appears in Luke and Matthew, which are two of the biographies of Jesus. What I'm going to do today kind of borrows from both of those elements. But in both parts, in both sections, there are two halves to this prayer, and both halves have three requests. So what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be looking at the nature of the requests that Jesus has taught us to pray. And you guys are going to be doing much of the hard work. And I'm going to ask you to do some tasks. So five or six times during the next half an hour or so, I'm just going to say something for a couple of minutes, and then I'm going to hand over to you. And I'm going to ask you to pray or prayerfully reflect on the element of the Lord's Prayer that we're going to go through. And I've got some things that I'd kind of like you to write down. I'm going to get you to grab some things in a minute. But there's no particular way that I'm going to demand that you do this. If you just want to sit and pray or close your eyes, then you can do that. What I'm going to ask you to do if you're comfortable is to grab some handouts in a minute and to write some stuff down that I think is going to help us. But you do it in your way and whichever way you think is good for you. So, before we really get started, I'm going to get you to stand up and collect some handouts if you would like to and you think that that would be helpful. So in three places, I've got three stations with some handouts on. There's one at the back there and there's one on the piano at the front. And there's one just over to my left-hand side here. And what you'll find when you go there are three versions of the Lord's Prayer. They look something like this. So they'll have the Lord's Prayer on the left-hand side and some lines on the right-hand side that I'm going to ask you, if you would like to, to make some notes on. There's the traditional version that, for those of you who are familiar with the traditional version, the one I grew up with in church, you'd be going, Our Father, hallowed be... said, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name and has thys and thous in it, etc. If that speaks to you, lovely, have that one. There's a more modern one that perhaps we use more commonly, which begins, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. You'll find that one there. And then if you think, Oh, I could do with something fresh, I've got a different one for you that I found in one of the books that I obtained that I thought was going to help me, which really did. And it begins, Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved. So you'll find three versions. You can take one or three or whatever you think might be helpful. There are some pens there as well. And what I'd love you to do is to grab some handouts now and then return to your seats. There are pens that you can just borrow for the course of this activity. Is that okay? Take a minute or two just to go and grab yourself a handout or two or three. I hope that what we're going to do today is to create something or perhaps evolve something which you can take away and you can use this week or ongoing as something which helps you in your prayer life and helps you with your daily walk with Jesus. Daniel says we've got to have a hook for these things. So I've said, I call it rocket fuel because I thought that sounded exciting. That sounds like a hook to me. But the idea is hopefully we're going to create something which is, for some people it will be a beginning, a beginning of your prayer life with Jesus. But for all, I think it can be such a foundation for our prayer life for Jesus. This is, whilst I said I was rubbish at praying, it's always something that I feel I can come back to. If I ever get caught up in the mystery or the enormity of God and thinking, what do I say to the God of the universe? Just what do I say? I always find I can come back to the Lord's Prayer as a real foundation and a really solid one too. So what we're going to do is we're going to be thinking about the first couple of sections. So the first, obviously, beginning of prayer either begins our Father or dear Father. And as I've already said, it's a strange juxtaposition, isn't it? A strange thing, a mixture between praying to the God of the universe and yet calling him our Father. I appreciate not everybody might have a great relationship with their father, but nonetheless, God wants to have a great relationship with us. One of the great claims and stories of the Bible is God wants a relationship with us and he wants a close and an intimate relationship with us. In order to do this, I think it's really helpful to, when you have time and space, to think about how you prepare yourself as you begin perhaps a time of prayer. What I would love to hear is, does anyone in the room have a particular way of preparing themselves for prayer when you've got time and space that would be, you know, a great story or just something to share that would be a way that you prepare yourself for God either in the quiet or in the busyness of life, how you settle your heart to begin to pray? Thanks, Daniel. I'm coming your way. Get the kids off to school and then have a very big cup of coffee. Nice, thank you. Fabulous. Anybody else? Thanks, Henry. Sometimes I find it quite overwhelming, so I like to sit down on my chair and just breathe out and then ask God to come in and guide the prayer with me. Amazing. Thank you. So you're asking God to give you the words to say. Wonderful. Any others? Thanks, James. I just like the say the line that Samuel says in the Bible, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Thank you. There's no right or wrong way to do this, is there? Sometimes we'll have time and space and other times we won't have time and space. But when you do have, thinking about a way that you can prepare yourself to get yourself in the right mindset, I've found really helpful for the times when prayer goes well to be settled and for me to be quiet and calm and to carve myself out some time that I can either sit or kneel before Jesus and pray. And I find that really helpful. The second part of the prayer is, depending on the version you're looking at, hallowed be your name. And we're going to look at these two pieces together. Then I'm going to set you off for your

very much anyway, but this is kind of a positional statement. It's a positional part of the prayer. By that means we are positioning ourselves before God. In many ways, the story of the Bible is how God sets one people apart, the Israelites, to represent his holiness and to bring glory to him. But as with all humans, they messed up and we continue to mess up all the time. We kind of need to grasp that actually human life is not really about human life. Human life is about bringing glory to God. So the word hallowed is strange, but what it actually means, I think, in this context is, if you're looking at Dallas Willard's version of the prayer, which is the third one I mentioned, he said to use the word to be treasured or to be loved and to put his name high and above all else. So in that vein, what I'd love you to do, and I'm going to give you three minutes to do this, is to think about those first two components of the prayer, one and two, if you're going to write some notes, about the address to our Father or dear Father or however you might want to address that, and then to think of a really, try and think of an expression that best reflects what hallowed be your name might mean for you. So I'm going to let you go for three minutes. And what I'm going to do about two minutes 30 in is I'll just say amen. And that's a 30-second warning that we're going to be moving on to the next bit then. So off you go. You've got three minutes. So we're going to turn to the next request in this prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. And I think what this is really saying is that we want Jesus to come and rule in the cultures in which we reside and in which we try and spread his word and live for him. And we've talked quite a bit from the front here about how the cultural norms of the UK and in so much of the society in which we work run counter to the desires of God's kingdom. I remember talking before about a radical individualism that runs through society, a society that is digitally distracted and permanently in a hurry. And actually, I think what we are asking here is that the desires of God's kingdom should overrule those things. So what I would like you to do is to think specifically about the context in which you are going to find yourself today or this week or wherever you can see yourself saying this prayer and to be thinking specifically about those contexts. Perhaps for me, that might mean I work for a university, so it might mean in that context or another of my jobs. I coach hockey. It might be in that environment where I'm thinking, what specifically am I asking that means God's kingdom might come and be glorified in those places? What I would like you to do now is to think about where are you going to find yourself in the near future and what does this look like for you? What could you specifically ask for as a request that would help the culture of that environment to be overridden, if you like, with the love of Jesus? Take a few minutes, pray, prayerfully reflect. If you would like to, make a line or a note in the third request of Jesus to see what that might be. So you've got three more minutes. So the next section is one that always seemed a little bit strange to me apart from one particular time when I was a postgraduate student and I used to get a quarterly allowance when I was a postgraduate student and obviously I'd spent everything in the last, so that the last two weeks before the allowance dropped, I used to work my way around the big university building in which I was operating trying to find the leftover sandwiches from the executive lunches that they'd have. Apart from that time, it hasn't been my daily reality to think I need to pray for daily bread, although I know many people in the world and in the UK do have that issue. But I think the principle here is actually something slightly different. Jesus is reflecting, I think, in this passage the period of time when the Israelites were walking through the desert and he provided them with manna from heaven on a daily basis in order to help sustain them. One of the challenges I've had in my life, I guess, is to think about letting go, perhaps, of this principle of storing things up in order to make life more comfortable and easy all of the time. Slightly later in Luke, Jesus tells a story, a parable, that helps us perhaps to think about this or position ourselves rightly in this way. And Theo's going to come and just read these five verses that are this parable. Then Jesus told them this parable. There was once a rich man who had land which bore good crops. He began to think to himself, I haven't anywhere to keep all my crops. What can I do? This is what I will do, he told himself. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones where I will store my corn and all my other goods. Then I will say to myself, lucky man, you have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink and enjoy yourself. But God said to him, you fool, this very night you will have to give up your life. Then who will get these things you have kept for yourself? And Jesus concluded, this is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God's sight. Great job, thanks Theo. Life isn't supposed to be a journey towards comfort and easiness. What this element of Jesus' prayer is teaching us is to ask for what we need today, to trust in his provision on a daily basis. So what I'm going to ask you to think about is what is your particularly daily need? If it's not bread, and it might be some other things, is it about stress and time? Is it about some other kind of provision? It's going to be perhaps unique to you. It could be one thing, it could be more than one thing. But the principle here is that we are to ask this on a daily basis and to trust in Jesus' provision today and to release the stress or anxiety that might come with thinking about, well, what happens too much in the future? To trust that he will provide for your need and, in the words of Dallas Willard, to be entirely freed from concerns about the future. I think that's a tough ask, so I think a worthy thing to perhaps reflect on and pray for for another three minutes. Off you go. This is number four. So the meaning of section five, perhaps, is really plain. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. But if the meaning is really plain, that doesn't mean it's easy. Forgiveness is central to Jesus' teaching. We forgive somebody when we decide that we are not going to make them suffer for the wrong that they have done us. It doesn't mean that we need to be best friends with them. It doesn't mean that the due process of law or whatever it might be can take its place. But we release the right to get even or we release the right to, or the perceived right to make them suffer. So this is about grace and it's about mercy. Perhaps it's even about pity. Pity has become perhaps a pitiable word in many senses. But I was struck by this quotation because perhaps it resonates for me. Again, this is from Dallas Willard who said, Therefore I live with my family on the basis of their pity for me. My wife is given the grace to have mercy on me. Likewise, my children. Perhaps that's just in my family, but I suspect that there are lots of people in my position who might think the same. As children also, we have an innate desire in many ways to honour our parents. That doesn't mean that they've always got it right or we think that they've made every decision correctly. But perhaps to live with a perspective of grace and mercy and forgiveness is the right thing to do. I appreciate this might be quite personal for you. But I encourage you again to take now just a couple of minutes to think about what you might write in box five as a response to forgive us our sins. Take a couple of minutes. So section six, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I think what Jesus is asking us to do here is to lean on his protection from the trials that we will all undertake. And to, in some ways, to avoid those trials wherever possible. Nonetheless, we know that trials will come, great or small, at times in our life. And so what we're doing here is we're getting, again, a right position before God. We had an extended discussion in our home group a couple of weeks ago.

weeks ago about this very topic and it is hugely difficult. In 2 Corinthians 12, 9-10, it says, be assured that any trial or evil that comes upon us has a special function in God's plans. That might be really hard to hear sometimes, and we can't necessarily explain or understand exactly everything that goes on in this element of life. But again, what I'm going to encourage you to do is prayerfully put this before God for a couple of minutes and to think about what does this mean to you and how might you word this piece most profoundly as you speak to your Father. So again, take a couple of minutes and think how do you put the confidence in him and not in your own ability to deal with things that are trials set before you. So the final section says, for the kingdom, power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen. And it's, I think, signing off the prayer with a little bit of a flourish. What I'm going to encourage you to do is to now read through your prayer and to pray it and to prayerfully reflect on it and to think how would you finish with a suitable ending that reflects perhaps your relationship with your Father. So now I'm just going to ask you to look back through each of the notes that you've made or each of the things that you've thought about as we've gone through the six or seven sections there and to see if you can bring it to a little bit of a conclusion and say amen. So thank you. I know that was a little bit different. We've talked through some key themes this morning and to reflect on those. We've seen and reflected on God as our Father. We've talked about God's reputation, if you like, as being uniquely loving and good and holy and putting him in the right place in our life. We've talked about the kingdom coming to earth and being duly reflected in the cultures and how we might pray for that. To think about how we can rely on God and not store up provision for the future, to forgive as a principle attitude and something that should be foundational to us all. About the goodness of testing and trials and to pray for the deliverance and protection from those things. I think what we've seen is a really great beginning, but also a foundation of our prayer life and reflection in those. And I hope that what you've done and what you've noted down this morning could be something that you can return to during the week as you pray to God and perhaps refine and pray several times over, maybe, to think through how that might help you in your relationship with God as you move forward.