Upside Down Kingdom: Mission & Message | Week 9 | Calling The King | Matthew 6:5-18

Week 9 | Calling The King

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." - Matthew 7:7-9

Matthew 6:5-18
 
We need help to make sure our hearts and our actions are in line with the radical obedience being a citizen of the kingdom of God requires. Jesus shifts from teaching about God’s Law to instructing the crowd and his disciples on prayer, how, what, and why we call out to the King.

Prayer is both incredibly natural for us because we were made to commune with God, and yet it is incredibly difficult because sin has distorted our relationship with him.  There is a right way and a wrong way to pray. Jesus talks about the wrong ways before laying out the right way. Who are our prayers focused on, the one who is praying or the one who is being prayed too. When we are overly demonstrative in our prayers, we must ask ourselves who are we speaking too, God or those around us. We do not heap up empty phrases believing God desires incantations or a specific formula for us to communicate and commune with Him.
 
Pray to the King, who is Our Father - Instead, we pray to God as we should talk to a loving father. The Lord Prayer is given to disciples to have a template to help us form our thoughts and words around who God is and how He wants to shape our hearts. We may be entering the throne room of the King, so we show proper reverence, but we come with humble confidence because the King is also our Father. Our prayers include longing for a different and better kingdom. In saying “Your kingdom come” we are both pledging allegiance to His kingdom and renouncing our own. In essence we are saying: “God expand your kingdom and start with me!” Our pledge of allegiance moves to a call to mission.

We easily pray for our will to be done in our lives and world. Jesus tells us to desire God’s will to be done to shape our hearts as we set aside our agendas for His.

Prayer can shift from focusing on God’s glory to our needs. Prayer includes petitions for provision, forgiveness, and protection. We need daily bread, a posture of forgiveness as we have been forgiven, and protection from the evils of the world and those which tempt our hearts. God is a Father who cares about His children. He gives us good gifts and responds to our cares and concerns we bring to Him.

QUESTIONS: 

1. What part of the text or sermon had the greatest impact on you? Did you learn anything new about Jesus, God, or Prayer?
2. What does Jesus teach are wrong ways or motivations for prayer and fasting? How is it comforting to know we can go to God “in secret”?
3. How does the Lord’s Prayer intentionally reshape our attitudes and reorient our hearts toward God’s glory while caring for our needs?
4. Why is important to both relate to God as the Holy King and Loving Father? What happens when we forget one of these attributes or over emphasize the other?

PRAY – “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 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. For yours in the Kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen”