Here are the sermon notes from week 3 of our series called: Talking to God.  Click here to listen to the podcast of this message.

Jesus showed us how to talk to God: LET’S READ THIS TOGETHER:

Matthew 6:9 … “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

The last two weeks, we covered verse 9. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Our Father in Heaven, may your name be kept holy! Today, let’s talk about that one line:  “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Those of you who were with us in the summer know that I had severe pain in my back and right arm in association with herniated discs in my lower neck. I had tremendous pain in the middle of the night. Couldn’t sleep. I lost about 30-50% of muscle in my right arm. We prayed, I went to a chiropractor and PT and took some ipubrofen. All of it. Over time, the pain went away in my back. My arm is getting stronger. I did a lot of research. Talked to doctors. Go an MRI. Talked to doctors and therapists.  Here is one fact that I learned in all of this process:

You can have a problem before you have a symptom.

We spend most of our life trying to get rid of a symptom and we think if we have no symptoms that we are all good.  The truth is that the problem begins to root itself in before you ever know it. My physical therapist told me that around 70% of people have herniated discs and don’t even know it because they don’t have any symptoms yet. The disc is bulging but not pressing on a nerve.  Basically, your spine can be misaligned before you ever see a symptom. We need to strengthen the muscles and realign. When it comes to our spiritual life. The principle is the same thing! Our spirit needs realignment. Our thinking needs adjustment. This is the whole meaning of : “Your kingdom come, your Will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.”  This part of the prayer is called the “Lordship petition”

This Part of the conversation Realigns our Desires and Adjusts our Thoughts

This is the realignment of our heart. This is the re-centering of our mind. Augustine was a 4^th century church father. He said “God is reigning now, but just as a light is absent to those refusing to open their eyes, so it is possible to refuse God’s rule.” This is the cause of all our human stress, anxiety, fear and anger. We naturally get out of alignment with God. We have placed other people or things in a place where only God deserves to be. We have given other things or people lordship over our life. Therefore, we need his kingdom to “come”. This is a VITAL part of talking to God. Before we get to any of the other parts of the conversation, we need to make sure that we are centered around His Kingdom and His Will. This is like a mini-communion service you are having in your house or prayer time. Communion is when we eat of the bread and drink the Lord’s supper and re-center our life and this is the gist of this part of the prayer. Just the other day I was speaking to a friend and she talked about how she goes through difficult times and in time realizes that she needs to trust in God for each step that she is taking. God gives her clarity, it makes sense, and she finds peace, but then she said, “it is so easy to forget and I get lost in cycle of life and doubt again.”  YES, exactly! That is why we pray! That is why we daily re-center around the Kingdom. This part of Prayer is all about maintaining the right focus and vision of your life. This is why Jesus included this part of the prayer. IF we talk to God everyday AND include this section, “Thy Kingdom Come”, we have a daily realignment until we are aligned permanently with his Will.  I don’t know when that happens, but we keep praying until…

We ask God to so fully rule us that we WANT to obey him with all our hearts and with joy.

One well known prayer says it like this: “Grant us grace to bear willingly all sorts of sickness, poverty, disgrace, suffering, and adversity and to recognize that in this (difficulty) your divine will is crucifying our will.”  We don’t understand it, but we trust. Jesus prayed this exact prayer in garden of gethsemane. This is why we trust him. Jesus doesn’t ask us to do anything that he hasn’t already done for us. Without trusting God, we try to take God’s place and seek revenge on those who have harmed us. However, We are protected from character assassination, slander, backbiting only if we lwarn to commit ourselves to God. Thy Will Be Done gives us peace. If not, we feel compelled to try to control people and control our environment and make things the way we believe they ought to be. Thomas Cranmer(burned at the stake) said, “May we obtain all you have promised  May we love all you have commanded” Martin Luther, “May your future kingdom be the consummation of what you have begun in us.” The beginning of prayer is all about God. We are not to let our own needs and issues dominate prayer, rather, we are to give pride of place to praising and honoring him, to yearning to see his greatness and to see it acknowledged everywhere, and to aspiring to full love and obedience. God centeredness comes first because it heals the heart of its self-centerness, which curves us in on ourselves and distorts all our vision.