Talking to Dad

Raise your hand if you resonate with this statement – I wish I had a deeper prayer life.

You’re not alone. In a recent survey 94% of respondents said that they had prayed at least once in the last 3 months. In another survey, 2% said they were satisfied with their prayer life. Prayer is something almost all of us do and something all of us wish was better.

I like to imagine this was where the disciples were at when they looked at Jesus praying and asked – Lord, teach us to pray. They saw something powerful in the prayer life of Jesus. They saw a deep connection with God. They saw a life rooted in peace and grace. They saw God do amazing things through Jesus. And they saw that the key to it all was prayer.

If you want the key to life it is very simple – prayer. Prayer is the key to everything we should do or be in life. The start of it all, the foundation of it all is prayer. We like to think that maybe the key to a deeper life with God is service. If we just do good things then we will have a better relationship with God. But service without prayer is just a transaction – we do good things in hopes that God will return the favor. Well then, maybe the key is study. If we just read and study God’s word then we come to a deeper understanding of God. But knowing about God is much different than knowing God personally. That personal knowledge is only found in prayer. What about giving? Would giving of our money or our time deepen our walk with God? Absolutely, but not without prayer. Without prayer that is nothing more than buying favors. Worship? We can sing praise to God, but if it isn’t bathed in prayer than its nothing more than a performance.

Prayer is the key. It is the foundation. And our lives, not just our faith lives but our full and complete lives, are dependent on our life of prayer.

And 94% of us say we pray, yet only 2% of us say that we are satisfied with our prayer life. And in case you are feeling a bit left out, I’m part of that 98% that wishes more in my prayer time. I too feel my prayer life is inadequate. I too feel like I need more.

So where do we go to learn more? Right here, in this model prayer. This is where Jesus teaches us to find more in prayer. This is where we learn and, if we put what we learn into practice, this is where we grow.

Let’s look together at what Jesus teaches –

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.”
Luke 11:1-2

We’re about halfway into the gospel of Luke at this point, and the disciples had watched over and over this pattern – Jesus would go off to pray. This was his practice. Luke even notes it early on:

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Luke 5:16

This was his practice. And now, after 10 chapters telling of Jesus teachings and miracles and his practice of prayer, the disciples finally get to the request – teach us how to pray.

And here is the most hopeful of responses – Jesus gives them a model of prayer. He doesn’t say to them, “You guys can’t pray like me. I’m filled with the righteousness of God. I am God incarnate, fully God, fully man. You’re prayer life will never be like mine. You can’t have the deep, intimate connection with God that I have.” He doesn’t tell them, “It takes years of study to pray like me. If you guys want to pray like me, it has to start with learning Hebrew and Greek and studying all of the scriptures until you understand. If you start now, then maybe in 10-15 years you’ll be able to pray in a way that truly connects with God.” The prayer life of Jesus is not unattainable. It’s not a special gift given to a unique few whom God has chosen for a deep life of prayer. It’s not some intellectual pursuit that comes with years of hard study. No, Jesus tells them simply – pray like this – Father, hallowed be your name.

Now it is very easy for us to rush past this line and on to the ‘good parts’ of prayer. “Our Father” seems like just a way for us to start by identifying whom we are talking with in prayer. It’s like dialing a phone – “Our Father” seems like just a way to make sure we have God’s attention, making sure that he knows that what we are going to say next is addressed to Him. We rush on past to the parts that seem to matter – praying about God’s kingdom, praying about God’s provision for us, for forgiveness, for protection. In our desire to tell God about all our needs we rush past the “Our Father” and rush right on to the parts that seem the most impactful. But here’s where we need to slow down, because the basis for all of our prayer – for our petitions and requests, for our praises and confession – is our true understanding that God is our Father.

Our relationship with God is a family relationship not a religious one. Other religions, both past and present, rely on a religious relationship with God. A religious relationship is built on performance – if we do or say the right thing at the right time and in the right way, then God will reward us. If not, then God will punish us. This is the core of religion without personal relationship. It is like a border renting a room in a house. As long as you are keeping clean and paying your bills, you’ll have a nice relationship with the home owner. They’ll be friendly and you might even consider them to be a close friend. But stop paying your rent and disobey the agreed upon rules of the house and you’ll find that your ‘friend’ isn’t nearly as friendly as you thought.

But our relationship with God, isn’t one of impersonal religion but one of adoption. Through Jesus we are made part of the family of God, we are restored as God’s children. John sums up our relationship well:

Yet to all who did receive him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
John 1:12-13

In Jesus we are adopted into God’s family. God chooses us as His children. And its not something that comes because we were born into the right family who took us to church and had a preacher sprinkle some water on us. It’s not because we decided that our life would be better if we lived by God’s rules. It is because Jesus came to overcome our sin, to set us free from our bondage, and to give us the grace to accept the gift of salvation. God chooses to save us, to give us the opportunity to respond to His grace. And through faith in Jesus we are made right with God and we are adopted by God.
Some of us are frustrated in our prayer life because we are trying to live in a religious relationship with God when He wants to be our Father. We’ve been paying the rent, we been obeying the rules, and we’ve come to expect God to respond in kind. And when we don’t get what we expect, if God doesn’t deliver what we ask, we get frustrated. We’ve been doing the right things, so we deserve the blessing, right? Or maybe we turn the other way – we aren’t getting the blessing, so maybe we need to try harder. A religious life either ends us in frustration over our expectation of what we feel we deserve or a guilt in feeling we haven’t done enough to earn God’s favor.

But God isn’t looking for us for religion, he is offering to us relationship.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t start, “Our King” or “Our Creator” or “Our Friend” God is certainly all those things. He starts out his model prayer reminding us, “Our Father.”
It’s an intimate, loving relationship, not a cold, calculating transaction.
John writes about it again in his 1st letter:

See what great the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3:1

Prayer begins with a reminder that we are God’s chosen children. That when we turn our lives over to Jesus we are adopted into God’s family and restored as God’s children. And that is what we give praise for – the gift of God’s gracious adoption. And that’s a personal relationship. It’s a gracious gift. Given not earned. We don’t work hard all week at a job and at the end of the week when we get our paycheck say, “What a great gift my employer has lavished on me.” No, we earned that. But our sonship, our daughter-ship, that is a gift. It is a gift that we could never earn and greater than we could ever imagine. That we, sinners we are, fallen and broken as we are, rebellious as we are, defiant to God’s will as we are, fallible and unholy – we are chosen by God. He choses us and, through the grace of the cross of Jesus, he adopts us as His children.
And that is why we say, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Your name, O God, is to be praised. It is a sacred name, a holy and set apart name. You are unlike us – loving and graceful, truthful and righteous, and we are not. Yet you chose us. You adopt us. And our relationship is holy – it is a special and unique, supernatural relationship. The God of Heaven choses the sons and daughters of the earth, his creation, as His family. And by adoption we take on His name, we begin to live by His identity.

That means we live by and for His name. And name means reputation – when we do something in the name of another when we are living under another’s name – we are given their reputation. When we come in the name of another we come with their authority. We come as their representative. And what we do reflects their name. People begin to associate what we say and do with the name that we claim. Advertisers have figured this out – that’s why they try and find spokespeople who reflect positively on their brands. Sports stars who are successful and living altruistic lives have no problem finding brands that want their name associated with them. But once their performance begins to wane or their actions turn selfish and destructive and they suddenly find themselves a brand pariah.

So Jesus teaches us to pray, “Father, may your name be holy.” May we live and know that you don’t want a religious, transactional relationship with us, but you want a personal, loving relationship. You choose us as your children, and you adopt us as your sons and daughters because of the grace of your Son Jesus. You are our father, and we are your children. And may we live in such as way that others see the sacredness of you in us. May we live in a way that honors your name. That shows the special and unique love that you have for not just us, but all who believe in your Son.

Father, make your name holy in us. Help us to live as your sons and daughters. May we know you in a personal way, as a child knows a parent. May we know that you love us and you choose us. You are our Father, and we love you. We seek to please you not as a way to earn your blessing or to escape your wrath, but as a way to show our love and thanks for your gracious love towards us. Thank you that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us that we may be adopted into your eternal family, that we may be restored as your sons and daughters.

Help us, Lord, to live in holiness – that what we do honors the name that you have given to us. Help us to live to reflect your love and grace. You are our father, may your name, may who you are, be reflected in our lives. May your name be hallowed, set apart, made sacred, by our lives. Help us to live in a way that glorifies you, God.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Amen.