Dear Heavenly Father, we bow our hearts before Thee once again in thanksgiving for the great love with which You have loved us. We have heard that all this morning, dear Lord, and it has been our experience of Thy faithfulness and Thy mercy, and the kindness and patience that You have had with each of us, Lord.
And we just want to tell You once again that we love You. And, Lord, we are looking to You now, Lord, that by Your Spirit You would speak to us. Lord, You would open up our ears, dear Lord, that we might be able to hear You, Lord, and that there would be words of life that would change us and continue to transform us ever more into the image and likeness of Thy wonderful Son, the Lord Jesus.
We ask this all in His name. We trust You for it. Amen.
Many years ago, I had been invited out on a boat trip by my cousin Tom, and he invited myself and my brother Stephen out to go fishing. I was very excited. We got to the dock, got in the boat, had the cooler filled with lunch—all the sandwiches and beverages—and got into that boat and headed out.
We were excited: excited to be in the boat, excited to be on this adventure. Like, I guess, many of us were when we came to know the Lord Jesus—that wonderful day that we sort of entered into the boat of His life. You know, taken off of this land that we had been journeying in, this land of darkness, and got into this boat with the Lord. We were taking off very excited. I remember how it was.
So I got into the boat with my cousin, and we headed out. We pulled off from the dock, went through the bay, and entered all of a sudden into the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We got out there, tooling along and bouncing around. It was great. The sun was shining down in Florida, expecting a wonderful day ahead.
And then all of a sudden, we got to our destination and stopped the boat. Almost immediately, I was in big trouble. Now, I do not know if you have ever experienced seasickness, but let me tell you, it is something you do not want to experience.
Now, it was interesting. That water was rolling all over the place, and the boat was rolling, and I just wanted someone to shoot me. You know, please put me out of my misery—slit my wrists, throw me overboard—anything had to be better than what I was experiencing. It was the most terrible thing in my life.
But you know what? That water was just like that out there. That turbulence, that rolling of the seas, that disturbance, was out there even before I got out there. Nothing had really changed. The boat had stopped.
Something like that happens sometimes with us when we are not moving on in the Lord, and we sort of get dead in the water. We begin to wonder, “What is going on? Why do I feel so miserable? Why do I just want to die?”
Now, the boat stopped. Looking off unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. My cousin says to me, “All right, all right already.” You know, they were eating sandwiches, they were drinking, and I could not even move. He says, “Look off to the horizon. Look off to the horizon. Look off unto Jesus.”
Brethren, one thing I must tell you: not that I have already apprehended it, but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
There are going to be tribulations and difficulties and troubles in this life. All we have to do is wake up in the morning; they are there. You understand? But are we looking off unto Jesus, off to the horizon, looking off into our hope that we find in Christ and in Him alone? The troubles are going to be there. The tribulation is going to be there. Are we looking off unto Jesus? Do we have that living hope within us?
You know, they could not take me anymore, being so miserable. They started the boat up, and as soon as the boat started going, I was better. I was moving. I was going toward the horizon.
Now, last week we began to look at this issue of prayer, and very quickly and succinctly, I hope, I just want to review a little bit about it. We were looking at what we might refer to as the model prayer. I almost hate to use that term. You know, the Lord was wanting to teach His disciples, wanting to give them a perspective on life.
So, like we did last week, let us once again recite that prayer, to get some thoughts in our heads about this:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
And again, in review, we said last week that prayer is not so much a thing you do. It is not that we set aside these little cubicles of time to pray. The Lord is not interested in that, but He is interested in a life that is a prayer.
So prayer is not so much a thing that we do, but it is the outcome and result of relationship. I had said last week that, if nothing else, we would just leave with that: prayer has everything to do with relationship. That is why He starts out by saying that when you pray, you pray, “Our Father.”
Do we have the right relationship with Him? Do we understand that He is a Father who loves us, who calls us to Himself, that He separated us? He translated us from this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love, and set us free from the slavery of sin and death. He not only made us children, but heirs of the throne with Christ.
Our prayers are heard not because of how we pray or the words we use, but our prayers are heard because we come into an understanding of Whom we are praying to and who we are. He is sovereign. He sits on the throne, and we are His children. He loves us dearly.
We said, you know, if God had a refrigerator, your picture and my picture would be on it. Yeah. He loves us, and He has so much for us.
We said that the point of prayer is not just getting answers from God. The point of prayer—the bottom line—is that we be completely identified with Him, become one with Him. That is really what this whole issue of prayer is about: relationship with Him.
And we ask the question: How is your relationship with the Father? Is He still just some sort of spiritual being up in the sky, or have you come into an understanding that He is a loving Father?
And then, in this relationship, how is your relationship with your Father? Is there something there? Are you at odds with Him over something? It has to be straightened out. Are you avoiding Him because there is something in your life, some hidden sin, something you just do not want to talk with Him about? So you try to avoid Him?
We spoke about that. Then we said again, because the prayer says, “Our Father,” it implies that we are in a relationship with one another. You are my brother. You are my sister. Once again, take a look: how is your relationship with your brothers and sisters?
Is there any bitterness? Is there any judgmental spirit? Any criticalness, anything at odds with them? If so, it has to be cleared up. Otherwise, you do not have a prayer life. Otherwise, your life in the Lord is hindered. It has to be taken care of immediately, because prayer has everything to do with relationship.
And as a child, are you walking before Him in the spirit of repentance? Are you walking before Him, listening to Him, talking to Him, asking Him? In other words, a living relationship. It is an ongoing relationship. These are some of the things that we spoke about.
He says that part of the prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven,” speaks of position: that we come to understand that, yes, He is the One who is seated on the throne of heaven, but that we are also seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus and are actually invited into the throne room.
So we can actually partake in the work of God and be involved in His purpose. He wants to get us away from our self-absorbed interests, where our prayers are not just, “I need this, I want that. I, I, I, I.” The Father wants to reveal His heart to us and bring us into the things that He is most interested in. It is a growing up in Christ.
It has everything to do with relationship, where the Father says to us, “Now, son, daughter, this is what I am interested in. This thing which you see here, complete in heaven, I want translated into the earth,” where He says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth.”
He says, “Now, this is what I want you involved in.” He says that He has created good works for us to walk in. These are some of the things that we spoke about last week, and He wants us to know what those good works are and walk in them, that we might be joined with Him, of the same heart and mind as Him.
Do we pray from that ascended position, that position of authority that we have in Christ?
And now we come to that part of the prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” What does that mean? What does it mean to hallow the Lord’s name?
Well, the word hallowed there means the same as sanctified. The word in Greek is—correct me if I am wrong, Greek scholars amongst us—hagiazo. Thank you, Alan. That means to sanctify: “Hallowed be Thy name.” “Sanctified be Thy name.”
So we know that sanctified means to set apart, to hold apart, to revere. If you read in 1 Peter 3:15, it says:
Sanctify the Lord in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.
So how is it that we sanctify the Lord in our hearts? How do we hallow the name of the Lord in our hearts? How does that become reality to us, and not just some words in a prayer that we have learned?
Well, this is how it is done: it is through revelation and realization. The two have to go together. It is not enough just to have revelation, because the Lord wants our revelation to become realized in our lives.
I am going to read a number of Scriptures here, just to get a grasp on a couple of words. In Ephesians 1:17-21:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
And what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power,
Which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places,
Far above principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come.
In verse 17, the word knowledge there means being fully acquainted with, to have full discernment, having a greater participation by the knower in the object known, thus more powerfully influencing him. Hear what that is saying? It is having full discernment, being fully acquainted.
So the verse says that you might be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. In verse 18, the word know there is to know experientially, not just have a theoretical idea of it—not having it just up here in our head, but that we would have the actual experience of it.
Where it says that the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His glory in the inheritance in the saints, it would be our experience, my dear brothers and sisters—not just something that we read on the pages of this Book.
Somehow, we can actually come into the experience of it. This is what God is after in your life and my life, and it comes through revelation and realization.
Now, in Ephesians 3:16-21, similarly it says:
That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love