(Note: from the message given June 20)
How do you connect with someone you are growing in love with? I am not talking about a kind of infatuation, but a deep growing connection. One of the things we can do is try to impress them. We bring them gifts, do things for them, we may act a certain way that we know pleases them. If you watch the commercials and look at the advertisements of today you’ll see an array of different ways to impress someone. Wear this cologne, use this toothpaste, chew this gum, drive this car, take this trip, dye your hair this color, have this tattoo, take this pill, use this cream, listen to this song, drink this beverage, use this fabric softener, spray this gunk, run this fast, have this phone, dance this way, perform-appear, impress.
All of it surface, all of it window dressing. Does this really connect you any closer with the one you are really, I mean really wanting to connect with? Not really. And even more so when it comes to God. God, quite frankly, is not impressed with what car you drive up to church in, or what clothes you wear, or the type of toothpaste you used this morning. He is not overwhelmed by our outward show. He sees through the façade, through the veneer and looks to the heart, looks to the character, looks to the soul.
I believe that each follower of Jesus wants to have that closer, more intimate connection with God. In fact, I believe that it is the deep desire and longing of every person. It is something created in us, that empty space that seeks, needs, to be filled and can only be filled with God himself. Blasé Pascal, Augustine of Hippo, many others through the ages have described it as a God shaped hole in our soul that only God can fill.
We long for that deeper connection, but we get caught up in the veneer. We can dress for success but inside be a mess, we can put on the makeup and look good, but inside we are breaking up and our hearts hurting. We can put on the clothes and wear the popular labels, but inside have a ripped and torn soul. We get caught in the business of life and lose track of the journey of the soul to God.
Jesus, in the sermon on the mount calls us to a life that goes beyond the appearance of religion. He beckons us to a life of rich fertile depth with the eternal God who made us and calls us to be in a relationship with Him. Imagine –being in a relationship with the Creator!
And people saw this in Jesus. They saw the reality of what he was talking about. They saw the saltiness of his soul and the light of his heart shining and they longed for the same thing, they saw the answer to the hole in their hearts lived out in Jesus Christ.
I would like to have us read together a very familiar passage of scripture. In fact it is probably the most well known of passages in our culture.
Read from Matthew 6: 9-13. Let’s finish this off with the rest of what we know from years of hearing and repeating –“For Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen”
It was sometime later, how long we don’t know, but I imagine it happened more than one, when the disciples were watching Jesus. He had just come from a time of prayer and we read in Luke 11, one of the disciples said to Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray…
It is the only time I could find in scripture when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them something. They had been with Jesus for perhaps a year of more. They had seen him heal many people, heal a man with leprosy –but they didn’t ask him to teach them healing or to heal people of leprosy. They had seen him raise children from the dead –but they didn’t say, Lord teach us to raise people from the dead. They had seen Jesus calm a storm with just a word, but they didn’t ask Jesus to teach them to calm storms. They had even seen Jesus cast out a legion of demons from a man but they didn’t ask Jesus to teach them to cast out demons. They had seen Jesus feed 5000 men plus women and children with just a few fish and buns, but they didn’t ask Jesus to teach them to work miracles like that. Oh, Jesus gave them the power to do so, he even sent them out to do these and other things. But when they saw Jesus pray –not a big showy prayer, not a spectacular event like feeding 5000 or casting out demons, but a deep personal heart connection prayer –this, THIS, they asked, “Jesus teach us!”
This they wanted, this they longed for, this they wanted –teach us to pray. Not the words, Jesus, not the appearance, but the heart connection. They saw in Jesus not the shell of religious action but the relationship of adoration.
Let me give you my definition of prayer –prayer is our heart connection with the living God. More than words, more than posture, more than ritual, more than anything it is our heart connection with God.
The Pharisees had the words and the posture down. They had the ritual, they had the outward appearance, but they lacked an essential key –heart. Jesus, when he prayed, when he made this intimate connection with God, and these disciples saw it and wanted it. Lord, teach us to pray like that, like you do!
I can almost see Jesus shake his head and then with gentle patience say, “Don’t you remember, I told you about this before –back on that mountainside. When you pray, pray like this, “Father…”
This intimate name for God, this calling the creator of the universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, the El Shaddia, the calling of God Father was an extremely intimate connection. There are a few times in the OT where God is referred to as Father. One of the most interesting is found in Jeremiah 3:19. This is spoken by God to his people in the last days before Israel was conquered by the Babylonians. We read God declares, “I said to myself, how gladly would I treat you, like sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation. I thought you would call me Father and not turn away from following me.”
Can you hear the longing of God’s heart for us to have that intimate, close relationship with Him? Lord, teach us to pray! When you pray, do not pray like the hypocrites who stand and do it for show, show do t for the praise of men, who do it to look good and be noticed. When you pray to your Father… (6:6).
17 times Jesus in the SOTM refers to God as Father. Over 100 times in the Gospel of John, Jesus refers to God as Father. This term was a reflection of the intimate connection –the heart connection, that Jesus had with God.
This wonder, this passion, this delight in God is anchored in the intimate heart connection we have with God as Father when we become His children. Jesus has already outlined for us how we begin and travel this path of a relationship with God in the first part of the SOTM –the beatitudes. Notice chapter 5 verse 9, “blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God.” The Apostle John, who records Jesus as referring to God as Father more than anyone else, says this in chapter 1 beginning at verse 12. It is through our faith in Christ, our being a follower of Jesus that we have the “right to become the children of God.” WOW! And then the Apostle Paul writes this “those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God, for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of son ship, and by him we cry Abba, Father! (verses 14-15). And then again, the Apostle John in his first letter, I John 3:1, “How great is the love the Father as lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. AND THAT IS WHAT WE ARE!
Our heart speaking to his heart. Child to Father. Lord, teach us to pray like you pray, teach us to be close to God like you are! How do we grow in our closeness to God, how do we grow in our passion for God, how do we delight more and more in God, how do we get that “OH!” for God? When you pray, pray like this “Father…”
When you pray, seek to draw closer to God. It is interesting to see the parallel of this prayer with the earlier words of Jesus, particularly with the beatitudes.
-Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Thy Kingdom come
Blessed are those who mourn
-forgive us
Blessed are the meek
-your will be done
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst…
Give us this day our daily bread
Blessed are the merciful, and the peacemakers
-father forgive us as we forgive others
Blessed are the pure in heart
-lead us not into temptation
Blessed are those who are persecuted
-deliver us from evil (the evil one)
Let men see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven
-yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever!
I don’t want to stretch the parallel too far, but for me it keeps me connected to the spiritual path Jesus lays out in the beatitudes. How do we keep ourselves connected? How do we grow in our spiritual walk, when you pray, pray this…Father
This heart connection, this seeking to grow in a relationship with God gets beneath the veneer, the façade, the show and helps us to draw closer to the eternal lover of our souls, God our Father. This prayer is not to become a rote piece of speech that we sputter out, but a deepening connection with our amazing, saving, graceful Father in Heaven, who loves us and yes, longs for an intimate connection with us.
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