If you would open your bibles to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. We're taking a break from going through our study of 2nd Corinthians, and we're gonna be doing this probably for the next year on the last Sunday of each month. Last Sunday of each month, we're gonna look at a different aspect of the lord's prayer. And tonight, we'll be looking at our father.
Joel Brooks:So Matthew chapter 6, I'll begin reading in verse 5. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to the father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you.
Joel Brooks:And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Joel Brooks:Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Pray with me. Our father, we pray that you would move tonight, that you would send your spirit and that he would be active in our midst, changing hearts, lifting up high the name of Jesus. And I pray that we would see Jesus clearly, and as we see him, we would be transformed to become like him.
Joel Brooks:That's our hope and our prayer. So in this moment, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Being a pastor means a number of things. First, it means nobody wants to sit next to you on a plane. It it means when you go out to eat, nobody is going to order a beer unless you do first. It also means that when somebody in the room lets out a profanity, for some reason, they apologize to you. It also means that apparently, as a pastor, I'm the final judge of somebody's character.
Joel Brooks:Many times, somebody will say, well, you know, so and so is a jerk. Just ask Joel. He even agrees with me. As if the pastor's word is final. It also means that when robbers steal from you, that they feel really bad about it.
Joel Brooks:Because when Lorne and I were robbed, for some reason, they took our cell phone, her cell phone, and used it. And so we tracked the calls, and we called up the first number that the robber had called. We said, hey. You you know the guy who just called you robbed our house. He's like, yeah.
Joel Brooks:And and Lauren goes, my husband's a pastor. He goes, oh, man. Sorry about that. You you don't rob a pastor. You know, you don't and he ended up giving up his friend.
Joel Brooks:But probably the the number one thing that being a pastor means is that at any social gathering where there is food, I will be asked to say the blessing. It it kinda goes without saying, if I'm at a family reunion and I start noticing every eye is upon me, it's because they're hungry and it's time for me to do my work and to bless god's for the food. And then I find it so amusing that after the prayer, people come up to me just to tell me how I did. You know? That was a fine prayer.
Joel Brooks:Fine prayer. That was, Joel, that was a beautiful prayer. Joel, that was poetic. Joel, I love it when you always thank God for the people who prepared the food. It just speaks to my heart.
Joel Brooks:And so, for some reason, people have to do that. When when I go to visit my in laws, Lauren's dad, his name for me is the professional. So anytime we sit down for dinner, he he goes, let's let the professional pray. And he looks at me, and I'm thinking, it's just it's quite funny that that's what I'm known as. I am I am the professional.
Joel Brooks:But I say this because I want you to know you're in good hands. We're talking about prayer tonight, and I'm a professional at this. And, and so I'm not gonna lead you astray. Actually, probably if I say we're gonna speak on prayer, when I look at prayer, the first emotion you have is guilt. That's common.
Joel Brooks:It's it's my first reaction when I think about prayer is, I need to be praying more. I need to be doing a better job of this. So I I don't come to you as a professional. I don't come to you as one who knows all of this, but let's go to the one who does, which is Jesus. Jesus teaches about prayer here, smack dab in the middle of his sermon on the mount.
Joel Brooks:So so the greatest sermon ever preached, in the middle of it, Jesus, he discusses prayer and he gives us what we call the Lord's prayer. As a matter of fact, this prayer could actually be seen as kind of a summary prayer, if you will, of the entire Sermon on the Mount. He's kind of summarizing it in just 61 short words. So when we pray give us this day or late or give us this day our daily bread, this stems from Jesus's words in Matthew 625 when he says, do not be anxious about your life, about what you will eat or what you will drink. Or when Jesus prays thy kingdom come, this is the prayer that stems from Matthew 633, but seek first the kingdom of god.
Joel Brooks:Or the phrase when he says, as we have forgiven our debtors, that's the natural prayer that stems from Matthew 544, which says we should love our enemies, and we should pray for those who persecute us. And so if if you want to really work the sermon of the mount into your heart, you you pray this short prayer. Jesus sets up this prayer by first telling us how we are not to pray. And he says, alright, first thing, when you pray, it's not to be seen by others, okay? So don't you don't want to do all the d's and the dows and try to impress people because prayer is is between you and the Lord.
Joel Brooks:It's done in secret. 2nd, Jesus says that we're not to heap up empty phrases. Perhaps your bible might say we we don't do vain repetitions as the gentiles do who think they're gonna be heard for their many words. Jesus says, don't do that. And I think we've all been a part of prayer times in which that has been done.
Joel Brooks:We can be praying for for somebody who is sick. And so we pray, god, heal this sick person. And that that's a really short prayer. So, you know, you've gotta add something to that. It's so how many different ways can I say that?
Joel Brooks:God, heal this sick person. I pray that you would bring healing into their body. I pray that you would cause this sickness to leave. God, I pray that you would you would nuke this thing that's in there. Use medicine.
Joel Brooks:Use whatever it is. But but I pray that this person would know total health, would not feel bad at all. And you kinda go on and on. And pretty soon you need a the source when the person is praying because they're they're saying the same thing over and over and over. But it's like that one short prayer is not enough.
Joel Brooks:We've got to add to it. God says you don't need to do that. You don't have to say the same thing 10 different ways. In verse 8, Jesus says, we're not to be like the Gentiles who do this because your father knows that you need them, what you need before you ask him. Let that just sink in in how you think about prayer.
Joel Brooks:Prayer is not done to inform God about a situation. It's not, God, we need to have a little briefing here. And let me kinda tell you all the information that's going on in my life just so so you're aware of the facts. God already knows everything. And this redefines the way we got to think of prayer because for many of us here, that's primarily what we think about prayers.
Joel Brooks:We come to God with lists and we got to explain to him everything. And Jesus says, god already knows all of that. Prayer life is more than just giving requests. Giving requests 10 different ways, but saying the same thing. What Jesus begins to do here in unpacking what prayer should be like is he he's setting up 2 very different systems or ways that we think about God.
Joel Brooks:There's a religious way, which is what Jesus is telling us not to do, and that's when he talks about the Gentiles. They think they're gonna be heard for their many words. In other words, try this, do this, perform this way, and then god will hear you and answer. So you you work, you do a certain work, and then god hears and he answers you. You treat god like he would a businessman.
Joel Brooks:You're you're in a business relationship with him. Or God, I like to think of it as the celestial vending machine. You just put in a few tokens of praise, you say the right things, he gives you what you want. It's a business relationship. And that's how the religions of the world work.
Joel Brooks:That's how they relate to God, and Jesus says, no. Says prayer is not a business transaction. I want you to relate to God through the lens of the gospel. And that is you relate to him as a son does to a father. And that separates Christianity from every other religion, and that we see God as our father.
Joel Brooks:Look at the first couple of words that Jesus teaches us to pray. He says, our father. The rest of the prayer is really built on the foundation of these two words, our father. I was just gonna preach on the word our tonight, but with 61 words, it would it would take us a long 5 years if we only did it once a month to go through the lord's prayer. So I decided we're gonna do 2.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna we're gonna look at our father. Let's look at the first word, our, right now. In in Luke's account of the Lord's supper or the the Lord's prayer, the disciples come to him and say, Jesus, will you teach us to pray? Jesus says, okay. And then he teaches them this, our father, our.
Joel Brooks:And it kinda surprises me when when you read through that because you would suspect that when Jesus is gonna teach somebody to pray, he would go to their prayer book because the Jewish prayer book is the psalter, the book of Psalms. That's how they prayed. 1st century Jews did not pray like we pray, with spontaneous prayers, saying, you know, whatever comes to us in the moment, they had carefully rehearsed, memorized prayers, they went through liturgy, and the Psalms was the book they went to. But Jesus departs from the Psalms. Matter of fact, he he he does something that's in stark contrast to many of the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:If you read through the Psalms, you're gonna find an abundance of I's or my. You're gonna find a lot of first person in how God is addressed. You're gonna find very few we's, very few hours. They're, they're mostly personal prayers, not corporate. And so you get God, answer me.
Joel Brooks:God heal me. God, be a shield about me. I cried out to you, lord. Listen to me. Those are the types of psalms that you get.
Joel Brooks:They're very personal. But but here, Jesus is inviting us to something else by saying the word our. He's saying that this is more than just a personal relationship with god. You're invited to be part of a community. You don't pray alone.
Joel Brooks:Now, of course, you do pray alone at times. I mean, Jesus just talked about that, praying in secret. So there are times that you pray alone, but you don't only pray alone. We pray with the family of God. And for some of us here, this is quite a challenge.
Joel Brooks:Confession, you don't have to raise hands. Raise hands in your heart. But have any of you ever thought that it would actually be a lot easier to love and to follow Jesus and to have his character if you just didn't have to do it with other people? Love would be a whole lot easier if people weren't involved. I I I have often thought that.
Joel Brooks:But God is calling us to pray our our father next to people who have possibly wounded us, people who have angered us, people who have disappointed us. And he is saying we get next to them, and we say our. We seek God together. This is why almost all of Paul's letters, it doesn't come through in your English translation, but almost all of the you's, you you read in Paul's letters, almost all of them are plural. They really should be translated y'all.
Joel Brooks:If it if he was a Southerner, it would have said y'all. And when you when you through your, you know, individualistic American mindset, which, of course, we're always gonna read these things through. When when you read a text and immediately think, what is the individual application to me me me first? You skew the meaning of what Paul is saying. So for instance, when you go to 1st Corinthians 4 and he says, you are a temple of the holy spirit.
Joel Brooks:You're God's temple and his holy spirit dwells in you. Immediately. We jumped to the personal individual application of that and we think, yes, we are a little temple that the holy spirit dwells in. But Paul is saying, y'all are the temple of the holy spirit who dwells in you. Which doesn't mean you individual, but it means as you gather together as the church, you become the temple of god, and his holy spirit moves through our midst.
Joel Brooks:It was the corporate idea of this. That's why Paul says you, because Jesus said our, our father. So in this very first word that Jesus gives here, he's redefining how we are supposed to relate to God. He says, it's not just as individuals, but I've called you to be part of a community that seeks him together. This is why if you look at 2000 years of church history, there has never been a time in church history where Christians have not gathered in groups to pray.
Joel Brooks:Never. It's essential to our DNA, what God has called us to do. The next word is father. Now there's a lot of words that Jesus could have drawn from here. He could have said, our creator, our Lord, our judge, our king.
Joel Brooks:There there's a lot that he could have drawn from, But instead, he uses the term father, and that term defines both god and us. Def defines both of us. He is our father, therefore, we are his children. Actually, him being our father is the only way that we can have the our because we are his family, his children. That's the our right there.
Joel Brooks:Now, calling god by such an intimate term and this is an intimate term, don't don't think of it as not it's not daddy. It's not like a little kid saying daddy. It's not that I don't want to use the word irreverent because it but it isn't. I was praying sometime with a with a group of college students, and the girl next to me, her opening prayer was, daddy, you rock. I was like, wow.
Joel Brooks:That's that's that's informal. Yeah, that's okay. That's not what what this means here. It's more like, dear father, it's there's there's intimacy, but there's a reverence. So there's both.
Joel Brooks:Now, there are only 14 references in all of the old testament to God as father. That's it, only 14. And they are never said by an individual in the context of prayer. So the Jewish people simply did not relate to God this way. They they didn't address him as our father.
Joel Brooks:A matter fact, that the thought would have never crossed their mind because during the 1st century, they're setting up barriers between their relationship with God. You know, God revealed his personal name as Yahweh. But the Israelites in the 1st century were not even using the word Yahweh because it was too personal for them, and they were scared of taking the Lord's name in vain. So so they decided to make up the word Jehovah. Jehovah is just a made up word, a combination of Yahweh and Adonai together.
Joel Brooks:And you would come up with Jehovah. And that was a way of keeping this distance between the one that they were addressing. So when Jesus uses the word father and addressing god, people like, you're blaspheming. No. Nobody talks to god like that.
Joel Brooks:And so you simply didn't come across prayers like this. So when Jesus teaches his disciples that we come to him and we pray our father, he is launching all of us here into new territory. He's defining a new relationship, a relationship that is intimately close. Now, I'm the father of 3 little girls, age 10, 8, 5. I think the reason god gave me these children is because I was running out of illustrations.
Joel Brooks:Now I have a well that will never run dry. Early every morning, Lauren and I, we we're up before the kids. We come down the steps. We get a cup of coffee, and we sit out on the front porch, and, we read and drink our coffee. It's pretty much every morning.
Joel Brooks:The first child who always comes down is our 5 year old, Georgia. We can always hear her coming down, and she always comes down with 3 books every time. Three books. And she'll sit in one of her laps, and we're supposed to read the 3 books. Usually, we negotiate.
Joel Brooks:I was like, can can I just do 1? How about 2? Okay. Fine. A couple of months ago, she came down and she sat down next to me.
Joel Brooks:She looks at me and she goes, hey, Joel. What do you have going on today? I was like, who the heck are you? And she's like, Joel, would would you like to read me a book? Joel, I brought 3, but she kept saying my name over and over and over.
Joel Brooks:And it just, it really creeped me out. Now, she wasn't being disrespectful. She wasn't being rude. My name is in fact, Joel. Okay?
Joel Brooks:I think she was just probably probably trying to act grown up, trying to be like mom. But the reason it was so funny, and it just kind of rubs you the wrong way, is because she has access to a word that only 2 other people on the entire planet have access to. She alone, with with her sisters, can call me daddy, can call me father. She's privileged to do that. She she's in a unique relationship to do that, so so why would she ever want to call me Joel?
Joel Brooks:And distance herself. The the cashier at Publix calls me Joel. Okay? My daughters have a special relationship. And when Jesus tells us that we are to address God as our father, he is saying, he's declaring, you have a intimate access to god.
Joel Brooks:You have a privileged access to him. When you think of a father, and I mean a good father, I know some of you had had horrible fathers, and it's harder for you to relate, but think of a good father. And even if he had the best father, he doesn't compare it to our heavenly father. But it's the imagery we have, and so I want you to think of a good father. And you're going to think of one who provides for you, one who protects you.
Joel Brooks:You're you're gonna think one who who would love to have you come and to sit in his lap. You're gonna think of one who's going to nourish you. Jesus is saying, when we come to God, that is how I want you to think of him. Don't come to him in some kind of business transaction. He's your father.
Joel Brooks:Think of Jesus's most famous illustration of God, his father. The story of the prodigal son. You know, the son goes off and squanders all of his inheritance, and he he comes home. I mean, what what an image of the father who who runs out to greet him, and embraces him, and gives him a ring, and throws him a party. Jesus is saying, that is how I want you to think of god.
Joel Brooks:Don't don't relate to him like the older brother who wants the business transaction. Dad, after all these years, all these things I did for you, I did all this and you never gave me this. He wants a very business transaction, but you should never do that with god because you'll always be the debtor. But that's what the older son wanted, not realizing that the reward was actually the presence of God himself, the presence of the father. The older son was denying himself of that because he wanted a business transaction.
Joel Brooks:But the son who just came to his dad was rewarded with that relationship. You know, when one of my children does something wrong, you know, or fails at something, maybe fails at a test, or just does a really big sin, You know, I'm not going to, like, say, hey, get in a car. I'm going to drop you off 20 miles from here. I'm I'm you know, I've had it. You don't do that to a child, to to your child.
Joel Brooks:If she fails, she does something horrible, she is still family, and I am still going to love her. Now, a judge might do that. A king might do that to a traitor, but a father would never do that to his children. God is our heavenly father. The apostle Paul explains this relationship this way in Galatians 4.
Joel Brooks:Says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you were sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying Abba father, You are no longer a slave, but a son. And so we have been adopted into God's family. We're adopted as as sons of God. And and women, I'm gonna say you're sons of God too.
Joel Brooks:If I could be the bride of Christ, you could be a son of God. Okay? Just, just work with me on this. And this being adopted means that all of the privileges that God, the father gives to Jesus, he now grants to us also as a son. Just as God treats Jesus, he now treats us because Jesus's spirit is living inside of us.
Joel Brooks:It's astounding. I feel like I probably should address just a couple of things before we we move on. Some of you are hearing this, and you're like, I'm I'm I'm with you. I'm understanding this intellectually. But, I mean, I look at my life and I look at all the sin in my life, and I'll just keep falling and falling, and I really don't feel like a son of god.
Joel Brooks:Let me let me just encourage you with a couple of things. When when you are called to be god's child or when you are adopted, that is purely an act of grace. Anybody who's gone through adoption realizes that the child has nothing to do with it. No work does the child do to earn it. It's completely God's grace that pulls you into his family.
Joel Brooks:2nd, just because you're a child, it doesn't mean that your behavior changes immediately. Your status changes immediately, but your behavior might not change immediately. At one point, you were an orphan, but now you are a son. Your status has changed. But it is going to take living in that household, living in the presence of God for time in order for his character to become your own.
Joel Brooks:So don't be discouraged if you're looking at, I just I just don't. I look at all the sin. I just don't feel like I'm really a child. We need to ask the question in closing of what gives us the right to call god father. We've looked at the privileges.
Joel Brooks:It's it's amazing, but what gives us the right to do this? I mean, no other religion has the right to call God in this intimate term that we have, our father. Every other religion says, scratch God's back, he scratches yours. Try to live a good life, maybe God will reward you. And Jesus says, no, you don't do any of that.
Joel Brooks:You were his child, and he will never cast you out. It's unconditional love for you. But how can God treat us this way, not just in kindness, but treat us as a son? And of course, for the answer to this, we have to look at his son, Jesus. Jesus who lived the perfect life that you were supposed to live and who died the death that you were to die.
Joel Brooks:You know, all through Jesus' life, and if you read through the new testament, 61 times he addressed sorry, over 60. Over 60 times, he addresses, God as father, as father. Every time he he prays to God, he prays to God as father. Every time except for 1. When Jesus was on the cross dying, he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Joel Brooks:And so he addresses his father as my god. He he's going actually against 2 things in this prayer that he already taught the disciples. He doesn't say our, and he doesn't say father. Instead, he says my, and he says god. And the reason he couldn't say he couldn't say our in this moment is because everybody had abandoned him.
Joel Brooks:Where exactly is the hour? All of his disciples had fled. There was no commune he could not pray with a community. They were all gone. It was my And he couldn't pray father.
Joel Brooks:He couldn't pray father. Because here at this moment, he is not being treated as a son. He's being treated as a criminal. He's he's not feeling the love and the acceptance of God, the father. He's feeling the wrath and the judgment of God as judge.
Joel Brooks:So in these moments on the cross, we see this this beautiful, great exchange in which Jesus is treated as we deserve as transgressors of the law, and we are treated as he deserves, as sons of God. That's what gives us the right to call God father. And I love how we see this new relationship explained in John chapter 20 after the resurrection. When Jesus rises from the dead, the first person he appears to is Mary. And in John 20, we we we read this.
Joel Brooks:It says, do not cling to me. I've not yet ascended to the father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and to your father. Love that. He says, go and get my brothers.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't say, go and get those scoundrels who left me. Where were they? They should have been encouraging me on the cross. They should have been praying for me. Go get those, and I'm gonna give it to them.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't say that. He says, go get my brothers. There's a community that he has bought. He says, go tell them that I'm about to ascend to my father and to your father. This community now has the same privileges and the same access as he does as the resurrected son.
Joel Brooks:There's our hope. Let me ask you, are you taking advantage of that in prayer? Is is that what you feel when you pray, or do you feel like you always have to get your act completely together and make sure the business transactions are right before you can just go to God with a bunch of requests? Or do you come to Him as a child resting fully in the work of Jesus, and then just enjoying the intimacy with him. I pray that you would do that.