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Minister: Kirsten Barlow

April 19 & 20, 2008

Matthew 6:5-10 (Today's New International Version)
5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.     9 "This, then, is how you should pray:
       " 'Our Father in heaven,
       hallowed be your name,
    10 your kingdom come,
       your will be done,
       on earth as it is in heaven.

They were each 85 years old and had been married for 60 years.  Though they were far from rich, they managed to get by because they watched their pennies.

Though not young, they were both in very good health, largely due to the wife's insistence on healthy foods and exercise for the last decade.

One day, their good health didn't help when they were on a rare vacation and their plane crashed, sending them off to heaven.

They reached the pearly gates, and St. Peter escorted them inside.  He took them to a beautiful mansion, furnished in gold and fine silks, with a full stocked kitchen and a waterfall in the master bath.  A maid could be seen hanging their favorite clothes in the closet.

They gasped in astonishment when St. Peter said, "Welcome to Heaven.  This will be your new home now."

The man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost, "Why nothing,"  Peter replied, "remember, this is your reward in heaven."

The man looked out the window and right there he saw a championship golf course, finer and more beautiful than any ever built on earth.

"What are the greens fees?" grumbled the man.

"This is heaven," St, Peter replied, "You can play for free, every day."

Next they went to the clubhouse and saw the lavish buffet lunch, with every imaginable cuisine laid out before them, from seafood to steaks to exotic desserts, free flowing beverages.

"Don't even ask," said St. Peter to the man.  "This is heaven, it is all free for you to enjoy."

The man looked around and glanced nervously at his wife.  "Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol foods, and the decaffeinated tea?" he asked.

"That's the best part," St. Peter replied.  "You can eat and drink as much as you like of whatever you like, and you will never get fat or sick.  This is heaven!"

The man pushed, "No gym to work out in?"  "Not unless you want to," St. Peter answered.  "No testing my blood sugar or blood pressure or cholesterol or...?"
"Never again.   All you do here is enjoy yourself."  St. Peter said.
The man glared at his wife and said, "You and your bran muffins!  We could have been here 10 years ago!"  From the Internet.

Heaven, that's all where we'd like to end up, isn't it?  Over the last several weeks we have been talking about eternity:  where we'll spend it; whether we'll like it; whether it really even exists.  We've been looking at what Jesus has to say about our eternity.

Today, we want to talk more about how our daily lives here on earth intersect with our hopes and our dreams for eternity.

In today's passage we are looking at how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.  What he was teaching them was to somehow pray differently than their fellow Jewish believers had prayed.  Many of them had been quite faithful in prayer.  They had memorized many prayers that they said on a daily basis.  They were good at praying the right words at the right time, but Jesus told his disciples that they were praying them for the wrong reason.  They were praying so that people could know and see that they were faithful.

Jesus countered this by telling his disciples that prayer was between them and God...not to impress others.  To Jesus, prayer was relational.

Prayer is opening one's life to God.  It is inviting Him to act in our lives.  It is not overcoming God's reluctance to act on our behalf.  It is not convincing him to do something for us that he really doesn't want to do.  It is asking God to do for us that which he is longing to do.  It is being willing to accept His will in our lives.  "Your kingdom come, your will be done".  God doesn't impose his will on us.  He has given us free will.  God can only act in our lived to the degree that we surrender to Him.  In prayer, we freely invite God to share with us.  It is relational.  Not like this person thought.

The Lord's Prayer - From the InternetOur Father Who Art in Heaven
Yes?
Don't interrupt me while I am praying.
But, you called ME!
Called you?  No, I didn't call you.  I'm praying.
Our Father who art in heaven.
There - you did it again!
Did what?
Called ME.  You said, "Our Father who art in heaven"  Well, here I am.  What's on your mind?
But, I didn't mean anything by it.  I was, you know, just saying my prayers for the day.  I always say the Lord's Prayer.  It makes me feel good, kind of like fulfilling a duty.
Well, all right.  Go on.
Okay, hallowed be thy name..
Hold it right there.  What do you mean by that?
By what?
By, "Hallowed be thy name?"
It means, it means...good grief.  I don't know what it means.  How in the world should I know?  It's just a part of the prayer.  By the way, what does it mean?
It means honored, holy, wonderful.
Hey, that makes sense.  I never thought about what "hallowed" meant before.  Thanks.  Thy kingdom come thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Do you really mean that?
Sure, why not?
What are you doing about it?
Doing?  Why nothing, I guess.  I just think it would be kind of neat if you got control of everything down here like you have up there.  We're kinda in a mess down here you know.
Yes, I know, but have I got control of you?
Well...I go to church.
That isn't what I asked you.  What about your bad temper? You've really got a problem there you know.  And then there is the way you spend your money....all on yourself.  And what about the books your read?
Now hold on a minute!  Stop picking on me!  I'm just as good as some of the rest of those people at church!
Excuse ME.  I thought you were praying for my will to be done. If that is to happen, it will have to start with the ones who are praying for it.  Like you for example.
Oh, all right.  I guess I do have some hang ups.  Now that you mention it, I could probably name some others.
So could I.
I haven't thought about it very much until now, but I really would like to cut out some of those things.  I would like, you know to be really free.
Good. Now we're getting somewhere.  We'll work together...you and ME.  I'm proud of you.
Look Lord, if you don't mind, I need to finish up here.  This is taking a lot longer than it usually does....

I have to admit that I've prayed like that.  I think we all have.  "Oh, ya.  I should talk to God."  But we think of prayer as a one way street.  We talk, God listens, then God gives us what we want!

We don't think of prayer as a conversation...as a conversation that we would have in a relationship that we have with someone.         

Are we really asking God what he wants us to do?  Are we asking him what He thinks we should do?

 Do we really want God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven?  Heaven:  that blissful place that the 85-year old married couple found that they got spend eternity in?

Jesus told his disciples that this is what they were supposed to ask God for.  We are to pray for that kingdom to come....that kingdom that it says in John's Gospel that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  (John 3:16)  Eternal life in the kingdom of God....

We are to pray for that kingdom where we have eternal life and to pray that God would be with us that we might receive that gift.

But, we are also to pray that God's kingdom might come here on earth!  That means that there is something about God's kingdom that is supposed to happen in this life.  God's kingdom:  that place where God will is perfectly done.  Let's see that's where we all love each other.  Where there is no war, no hunger, no poverty.  It's that place like the Garden of Eden was in the beginning where we walk and talk with God, where all is at peace.

But, how do we bring heaven to earth?  How does God work through us to make earth more like heaven?

Well, I think that it has to do with living out the teachings of Jesus here on earth. It has something to do with seeking God's will for our lives here on earth as well as God's will for our lives in eternity.  We know that God wants us to spend eternity with him in paradise, but what does he want us to do here on earth?

Does he want us to earn our way into heaven by doing good works?  Like the man that Marv talked about last week, do we add up the amount of money that we have given to the church, the frequency of our worship attendance, the number of church activities that we are a part of, the number of mission partners that we support, the Bible studies that we have been a part of and then by some formula figure out how much more we need to do to get to heaven?

Jesus did say that when we feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty and care for the sick that we are doing it for Jesus, but how much of that do we need to do to earn eternity with God?

Well...first of all, we can never really earn it.  Remember the prayer...it's not about just doing...it is about connecting...it is about developing a relationship with God.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, found this whole issue to be very challenging.  I mean just look at the name Methodist!  It was the name that the classmates of John and Charles Wesley gave to their Holy Club.  They were so methodical, so ritualized in their prayer and in their study and in their good works that they were nicknamed the "Methodists" by those around them.  It wasn't a compliment.

John was a devoted follower of Jesus.  He did everything that he was supposed to do and yet felt mired in a "spiritual wilderness".  He came from England to the new colony of Georgia in 1735 as a chaplain for the English colonists and as a missionary to the American Indians in the region.  John and his brother Charles were disappointed when the Indians didn't embrace Christianity as they had fantasized they would.

Wesley said in going to Georgia that he hoped to save his own soul.  His diligence in practicing his faith made him seem dogmatic and intolerant.  It was his way or the highway.

It was after returning to London one night in 1738 that John Wesley finally felt "his heart strangely warmed" at a prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street.  What he had been missing was the connection of his heart to God's.

Wesley realized that while what he had been doing was good stuff, that it wasn't enough.  He was missing the relationship with God.  Prior to that time it had all been rituals.

Do you want to get to heaven?  Do you want the eternity that God offers to all who believe?  Well, you can't earn it.  You can't get there by doing more.

Doing is important, don't get me wrong.  Part of building God's kingdom here on earth comes in acting like Jesus:  feeding the poor, healing the sick, giving to those in need.

But doing doesn't get us there.  Remember the two most important commandments that Jesus told us, "Love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."

If we love God and love our neighbor, then we are doing things for God and for people around us.  It is what John Wesley calls the "Fruit of the Spirit".  The good works that we do for others, the study, the prayer, the worship that we do are all a result of loving God and our neighbor.

If you do good things, but harbor ill will for those you do them for, then you have a problem.  Just like the guy who prayed the Lord's Prayer because it was a part of his routine and it made him feel good.

We need to act out of love for God with that love flowing out of us to others.  You can't really love God if you don't have a relationship with God.  As John Wesley discovered, it is not just about doing.  It is about allowing God to warm your heart and to direct you.

If we want God's will to come on earth as it is in heaven, we've got to let God have control.

Our eternity in God's kingdom depends on how we live out our lives in God's earthly kingdom.  If we allow his will to be done in us and through us, we get to see glimpses of God's kingdom here and we get to see his heavenly kingdom come.

How are you living out your lives?  Are you trying to earn your way into heaven by doing more and more and more?  Or are you bowing your head in prayer, in the quiet where no one else can see and saying thy will be done?  Allow God to speak to you, to guide your heart and your actions that you might be living your life for him....that you might be allowing God's kingdom to come here on earth.

Let's pray...God, help us.  Help us to get out of the habit of just doing things because we think we should and get us into the habit of doing things because they fall within your will.  Help us to build our relationship with you that we might know your will.  When we pray, help us to take time to stop and to listen to you.  May our lives be about bringing your kingdom to earth, just as it is in heaven.  Help us.  In Jesus' name we pray.  Amen.