To God be the glory! Great things He hath done;
so loved He the world that He gave us His Son; who yielded His life
an atonement for sin, and opened the life gate that all may go in.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord! let the earth hear His voice
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord! let the people rejoice: O come to the Father,
through Jesus the Son and give Him the glory, great things He hath done!
(Frances van Alstyne (Fanny J Crosby) 1820-1915)
Praise God for his majestic magnificence – his power and glory.
We continue to look at Jesus’ Sermon on the mount.
Read the familiar words of Matthew 6: 5-14
In these verses we see Jesus continuing to describe God to us - His love and care for each of us, but this description is brought to us as a description of the conversations we should be having with God.
Any sort relationship involves lots of different types of conversation. Over the past four months’ conversations with family and friends has been difficult & then different. Conversations have undoubtedly become more precious as we have recognised how important they are and our conversations with God, our father in heaven are also vitally important to our well-being to building that strong relationship with God. Pete Grieg’s books on prayer are really helpful and in one of them he gives an acrostic for PRAY: Pause – Rejoice – Ask - Yield (say ‘Yes’)
Throughout the week we have lots of conversations, in all sorts of situations - some where we not particularly focused on what we are saying - we chat about this and that. This is fine with acquaintances and it is part of our relationship with family and friends, but for us to have a deeper relationship with them – there also needs to be more intentional conversations where we talk about things that are really important to us – the same is true about our conversations with God. It is important at least once a day to put everything on PAUSE and remember the privilege of being able to speak to the creator of everything in a personal, friendly, even intimate way.
Then, as we PAUSE and recognise this immense privilege, it should move us into REJOICING - thanking God for who he is - and for our salvation – over half the words Jesus saying in this passage are words acknowledging who God is and saying that we want his Kingdom to increase on earth.
Only after PAUSING and REJOICING does Jesus start to mention ASKING for our needs to be met – and ASKING for forgiveness. Only after acknowledging God’s love for us and the goodness of his reign are we in a position to start sharing with him the things that concern us and asking for him to help us. We do this - safe in the knowledge that because of his love for us, he is just as concerned as we are about the things that are important to us. As we bring to him these needs and worries we will also realise that we can never just pray for our own daily bread but we will also want to pray for the needs of others.
Then we will also begin to realise that our own lives have failed to show the same love and concern that our Father in heaven has shown us and so we also need to ASK for forgiveness. Here in these verses about the sort of conversations we ought to be having with God, Jesus takes us to the essence of the Good News that he came to bring – forgiveness. His comments also show that he is expecting us to be needing to ask for forgiveness regularly – every day - and we will need to give forgiveness on the same regular basis. The reasons we will continue to need to ask for forgiveness and offer forgiveness is because we fail to live lives which glorify God.
Then as we end our conversation – we YIELD to God’s greatness – We say ‘YES’ to his greater love, greater wisdom - greater everything. We echo the prayer Jesus prayed just before his arrest and crucifixion - “not my will, but yours”
So I hope as we’ve looked at these familiar verses we see again what a wonderful gift prayer is. Conversation with God is the key to knowing the reality of God’s promises in our lives. Prayer doesn’t need to be a task – shouldn’t be a task - it should be like that long anticipated conversation with your best friend – or favourite relative
Communion at 11:20am and 7:20pm
Those gathered at church will be considering these words:
We come to this meal, not because we are strong, but because we are weak;
We come, not because of any goodness of our own gives us a right to come.
but because we need mercy and grace
We come because we love the Lord yet want to love him more
We come because Jesus loves us and gave himself for us.
Read these lyrics about the cross as you eat bread remembering that Jesus said
‘This is my body given for you;
How can I be free from sin? Lead me to the cross of Jesus
From the guilt, the power, the pain? Lead me to the cross of Jesus
How can I know peace within? Lead me to the cross of Jesus
Sing a song of joy again! Lead me to the cross of Jesus
There’s no other way – No price that I could pay - Simply to the cross I cling
This is all I need - This is all I plead - That his blood was shed for me
(Graham Kendrick © 1991 Make Way Music)
Scripture goes on to tell us that this wine is to remind us of a promise from God, a promise made possible through Jesus. Jesus said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. ‘
Drink your wine and thank God for your salvation. Say the tradition words of the Lord’s Prayer.
I will write again on Wednesday - Stephen