Transcription
Well, does anybody at Passion City Church today need a shift to make shifts in our own lives, and your thinking, and your heart, and your attitudes, and your emotions, and your relationships, and your family, in your business, and your future, and the direction that you're going in, in your community, and your city, and your town, in the atmosphere of Atlanta, Georgia, in the nation, in the world? God is giving you the opportunity to be a shifter. And today, maybe what God wants to do is to change our perspective slightly so that we can see prayer in a whole new light.
During the US conference earlier this year for our door holders, there was a really amazing installation out in our oval. And it was made of these columns that were standing or freestanding in the oval. And as you walked in, depending on what angle you were at, you could or couldn't tell what was going on. But as you got to a certain point, you could see that what had been painted on each column actually came together and made an image, or made a word. In this case, the name of Jesus. And so as you're coming down, you're like, "I don't know what those columns are. It just looks like abstract art." But when you got to the right spot, your perspective changed. And God is wanting to get us to the spot today where our perspective changes, especially as it relates to prayer.
God wants to move us from the place where prayer is an emergency response in the face of loss or need, although that's a good thing to do in the face of loss and need, but where we move way beyond that into something more. So that we're not just praying because there's a need. We're not just praying because we don't know what to do. We're not just praying it because there's loss. We're constantly in the perspective of a relationship with God who brings shifts to life.
I'm not trying to redefine or define prayer today, but just so we can get our arms around a working definition: Prayer is steady-state awareness of Father, Son, and Spirit, creating a constant and seamless union of heart and mind with the Almighty, that shifts earthly perspectives, plans, and purposes, as heaven becomes visible on Earth. You're like, "Man, I thought just prayers talking to God." But it's more than that. It's a steady-state awareness of Father, Son, and Spirit. It's not reactionary. "Oh my goodness, did you hear what happened? We should pray!" "Dear God, no." It's moving through the day, no matter what's happening, with an awareness of Father, Son, and Spirit, which is bringing us into an inseparable and constant union of our heart and mind with the Almighty, such that it shifts things, namely earthly things, like earthly perspective, and earthly plans, and earthly purpose, so that ultimately heaven is seen on Earth.
We see this in the epicenter of teaching on prayer, a passage that almost everyone in the house today could probably quote. And that is Jesus' teaching on prayer in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 6, verse 9. And I just want us to look at a portion of this prayer today and see three major shifts of perspective. It says in verse 9, as Jesus is talking, he says this: "Then is how you should pray." Now, earlier in verse 5, he said, "And when you pray, here's a few things to think about." When do you pray? And then he says, "And now, as you're praying, here's how you need to pray." So Jesus is assuming that we're going to live in a lifestyle of prayer. And as obvious as that is, we've all heard the statistics: the average person who goes to church doesn't pray very much every day. But yet, we have this possibility to be in this steady-state relationship of prayer with God. And Jesus is inviting us into that and giving us some perspective shifts as we do. He said, "As you pray, this is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven." Can I get an amen?
So let's look at these perspective shifts. Shift number one is this: that you and I move today until we can get into the place where we can see and fully understand that there is a mind-blowing relationship on the table today. He said, "When you pray, the first thing that should come out of your mouth is 'Our Father.'" You begin this perspective shift of prayer, the kind of prayer that moves the heart of God by understanding that you are in a mind-blowing relationship. And where these people understood, and you can read all through the Gospels, there's dialogue with Jesus and these people. They understood that they were sons of Abraham. But now Jesus is saying, "A big shift is coming. And though you are sons of Abraham, you're about to be sons and daughters of Yahweh with a direct connection through birth to the Almighty." See, the power and the miracle of the Gospel is new birth. And the downstream of new birth is an unthinkable position whereby we are in an intimate relationship with the God of the universe. And so, as we pray, we come through relationship to the point where we can call the Almighty "Our Father." "Abba." Not quite "Daddy," but real close to that. I'm coming not just to talk to some supernatural being. I'm coming to speak with my Dad.
And Jesus said this is the way of the Kingdom. Matthew 18: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position" – that's not talking about a backwards or a downgraded position, just that humility of being a child – "takes the lowly position of this child." He brought a child and put in the middle of the people he was talking to. "Is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." In other words, he's applauding the mindset of a child. A child who starts a lot of phrases by saying, "Daddy, fill in the blank. Daddy, can you put me on your shoulders? Daddy, will you come and turn on the light? Daddy, could you get me something to eat? Daddy, will you please stay home? Daddy, can you hold me tight?" That phrase penetrates the heart of a father and moves the heart of a father into motion. And that phrase, when you are in that position and in that relationship, and you understand it, and it's not a formality, "Our Father in Heaven," it's not a formality, "Oh, our Heavenly Father," no. It's a position. It's a relationship. It's intimacy. It's you knowing the miracle of the relationship that you are in and saying, "Daddy, Father," and knowing that that pierces the heart of Yahweh. And it puts you in the beginning mentality where you know you're moving, and he's moving out of love. He's moving out of purpose for you. He's moving out of the best for you. He's moving out of a desire to bless you. He is not against you. He is for you.
Now, we talk about this all the time. And maybe for you to hear, I'm beginning with "Our Father" is not a really encouraging thing for you because your relationship with your earthly father wasn't everything that you had hoped it would be. But I say again today, God is not a bigger version of your earthly dad. He is not the reflection of your earthly dad. He's the perfection of your earthly dad. He's everything you ever dreamed your earthly dad would be and more. So if you've had a great earthly dad, that's amazing. We celebrate him. But God is exponentially greater. And if you've had no earthly dad, then the Heavenly Father wants to teach you what it is to have the blessing of a father on your life and to bring you into a new perspective shift where you're not just somebody standing in a line, taking a ticket, emailing a request, texting a hope. That you are a son or a daughter of God. And when you come to Him, He says, "Come first as my child."
The second big shift, though, and it's amazing to see these two things sitting side by side, is that not only is there a mind-blowing relationship in the equation, but there is a glorious reframing of every moment in the equation. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name." So we quickly moved from "Daddy, Father" to "Oh my word." Hallowed means holy. Holy means set apart. In other words, there's no one like my Father. And so I'm holding two things together at the same time. One is called intimacy and the hug. And the other is called awe because He's holy. It's the holy and the hug at the same time as I come to God in prayer. And this is how He says the prayer begins. Notice we haven't asked for anything. We haven't given any specific instructions to God. We haven't given God any advice or offered Him any assistance. We haven't given Him an ultimatum. We've just come to Him and said, "I am Your child, and You are holy." And that's where we begin in this mindset, this shifting power of prayer.
A few places in Scripture that we know well, but I want to just lead us to really quickly. Second Chronicles chapter 20. Everyone probably has heard this story of Jehoshaphat and the armies coming against him. But eventually, in verse 5, Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the Temple of the Lord in the front of the new courtyard. And he said, or he prayed. And you would think right away he would say, "Dear God, help us. Dear God, stop these armies. Save us." But look what he does. He says, "Oh, Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven?" Oh, that makes God happy right there, by the way. You start in your prayer that way. And it's not, "Hey God, where are you?" He's like, "Oh, God, I know where you are. You are in the heavens. Our Father who is in heaven. I know where you are. And I know you're the God of our fathers. And I know what you do. You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. Oh, our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend? They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, 'If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this Temple that bears your name, and we will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and you will save us.' But now, here are men from Ammon, Moab, Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt. So they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possessions you gave us as an inheritance? Oh, our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do. But our eyes are upon you." That, my friends, is a glorious reframing of a really, really sticky situation.
Acts chapter 4. The same thing happened. Peter and John have been detained. They finally are released. They come back to the people, the believers. And as they come back to the believers, they begin to pray. And this is what it says. I love this. All kinds of pressure, persecutions already coming against the people of God. But verse 23: "On the release, Peter and John went back to their own people, reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them, namely, 'Stop talking about Jesus, or we're going to make it worse for you.'" And when they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God: "Sovereign Lord," they said, "that's a good place to start. You made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David, saying, 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one.' Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. But they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness." That, my friends, when the rulers are plotting to snuff you out, is a glorious reframing. "Our Father is in heaven, hallowed be His name. Our God is sovereign and running the affairs of the universe. Hallowed be His name."
One last reframing. God has been gracious to us and given us the book and the prophecy of Revelation. Did you know that you have in your hands, as you're moving into shifting prayers, the unfolding of what is actually going to happen at the end of time and what is happening in heaven right now? God gave you that. Talk about shifting perspective. You say, "Well, would you like to know what's going on in heaven?" "Here, I'm going to send a guy up there, and he's going to look around and write stuff down, and I want to give it to you." "Would you like to know how this all plays out at the end of it?" "Great. I would too, if I were you, because it looks pretty bleak. But I want to let you know how it all ends. I'm going to send a guy up there, he's going to look around, write stuff down, and I'm going to give it to you." You're like, "Yeah, but it's scary and complicated and I don't know." "Well, you go up there and look around and you write down what you see, and then you send it to us." It's crazy being in the presence of the Almighty. But look at what he says. One of the things that he sees in Revelation 19, verse 11: "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He's dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords." That is a glorious reframing of the chaos on planet Earth. And that's your Father. That's your brother, your Savior. That's who you're in and who's in you, riding on a white horse named Word of God, a name that no one knows as well, and written on his thigh, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. We haven't asked for anything yet. We haven't even made our requests known to God. We're just standing in awe of the fact that we are sons and daughters of Yahweh, and Yahweh is hallowed.
I would encourage us to take one minute before we speak in prayer and just consider who He is. We were watching a lot of the coverage of the Queen's funeral and stunned by the pageantry of her death. And it just made me think, what must it be like to see the pageantry of everlasting victory and life? This is our God. And this is His throne, and His crown, and the trumpet blasts. Can you imagine them? And we're just like, "Oh my word." And He's like, "Yes, son." How would we speak differently if we just took a moment to think of His majesty?
And then that leads us to the last shift in perspective. And this is the biggest shift of all. And it is the divine exchange of wills. The prayer Jesus said that we should be thinking about is, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven." Now, sometimes this can become the sum total of Christian faith on Earth as it is in heaven. But I must remember today, and you must remember today, that there's going to be a new Earth and a new Heaven. So we're not waiting for streets of gold here in Lindbergh. We're looking for a new and glorious city. But as we do, we have the opportunity to be visible carriers of Heaven on a broken planet. So I want to make sure we're not just looking for an external atmospheric change, "on Earth as it is in heaven," but we're saying, "God, I want an internal change in here, as it is in heaven." And this is where He's leading us. Of course, we want to see our neighborhood change. We want to see Lindbergh change. We're praying our side of the freeway will be set free. We're praying that this corridor will be redeemed for the glory of God. We're praying that. But we also, with that, are saying, "If that is going to happen, it can't just be an external atmospheric change. God, You put us here to be salt and light. So what do You want to do in me to be a part of that change?" And that is called the exchange of wills.
When Jesus said, "And this is how you should pray," that word "pray" is a beautiful word in the Greek language. I'm going to put it up on the screen so you can see it. And this is from a Helps Word Study. It's easy to find if you want to go online and notice what it says about this word. It comes from "pros," you see that opening, which means "towards" or "to exchange," and then this latter part of the word, which means "to wish" or "to pray." So, properly, this word can be defined as to exchange wishes. To pray is literally to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes and ideas for His wishes, as He imparts faith, divine persuasion. So when I pray, "Your kingdom come, and Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven," what I'm doing is saying, "I want to exchange my kingdom and my will for Your kingdom and Your will." Isn't that powerful? The exchange of wishes.
And then Jesus not only teaches us to pray this way, He models this for us in Luke 22. A text that we all know. When He says that He had withdrawn about a stone's throw beyond the disciples, He knelt down and He prayed, using the exact same word as in Matthew 6. "This is how you pray." Same Greek word. And what does the word mean? To interact with the Lord by switching human wishes and ideas for His wishes, as He imparts faith or divine persuasion. He prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
Prayer, therefore, this steady-state awareness of Father, Son, and Spirit, which results in this constant sense of union of heart and mind with the Almighty, which shifts earthly perspectives, plans, and purpose, so that heaven may be seen on Earth. This attitude of prayer is the process by which the "my" in "my will" is transformed into the "Thy" in "Thy will." "My will" becomes "Thy will." In my heart and my mind, as I seek to be an agent of Heaven on Earth. So I'm not saying to God, "Here's what I need you to do." I'm more saying to God, "What do You want me to do?" And I can do that and have extraordinary peace because I'm the son of God. I'm a daughter of God who is hallowed.
So in the process of this constant steady state, it's a process of the "my" continually being refined to the "Thy." "Thy will be done, not my will." Oh, I know what my will is in this situation, but Your will be done. I know what my kingdom would look like if You came through the way I want You to, but I want Your kingdom to come through and to be established because in this relationship, I'm blown away that I can be a part of Heaven coming to Earth.
I love that prayer in Acts 4. We've got these rulers. They're threatening. They threaten Peter and John. "They're on our trail right now. They're trying to shut us down. They're going to kill Stephen." So we're going to pray. "Let's pray, people. Dear God Almighty, shut these people down. Dear God Almighty, wipe them all out." No. Their prayer, when they got down to the supplication part, was a simple line: "Consider their threats, and enable your servants." Consider their threats. Look at them threatening us, dear God. Enable your servants. A whole mindset had changed. And now we're looking back through the lens of history, and we understand that God used their threats and their fists to propel the gospel into the known world. Thank you very much for your threats and your fists, because you projected the grace story of Jesus into the ancient world. And thank God their prayer of "enable your servants" was fully answered, and they moved forth in power and did miracles and signs and wonders by the power of God as they proclaimed the word of truth.
Do you see the mindset was so radically different in the shadow of the empty tomb? "Consider their threats, enable your servants." It's you and I saying today, "God, you see the circumstance. Enable your son. You see the situation. Enable your daughter. You see the landscape. Enable your son. You see the challenge. Enable your daughter. If you change the circumstance, God, in my mind, that would be a good idea. That would be the right outcome in my mind." But no matter what happens, enable your son. Enable your daughter so that You can accomplish Kingdom purposes and plans in this moment through me. I'm not just asking You to change the situation. I'm asking You to change me.
So you might want to just take a snapshot of this last little concluding bit. I want to be, therefore, constantly aware that my Father is the Sovereign King, and He looks after me. Amen. Anybody just want to take hold of that today? Anybody down at Trillith or Cumberland here online? Do you just want to take hold of that today? My Father is the Sovereign King, and He looks after me. "Yeah, but it doesn't look like He's looking after you. Look what's happening to you." I know. It rarely looks like anything on Earth. That's what we want by faith and not by sight. But I know my God is a sovereign King, and I know He's looking after me right now. So this is a trying situation, and God knows that this trying situation is going to result in the best outcome for me because my God looks after me. But He's also ruling everything. I don't give Him directives. I ask Him to direct me.
And more than asking for answers, it's okay to ask for answers. It's okay to ask God to move. It's okay to ask God to heal. It is great to ask God to deliver. It is great to ask God to bring salvation. It is great to ask God to bring peace. It is great to ask God to bring light and to break chains and to open doors and to break strongholds and to release Kingdom truths and power and love. It is good to do that. But more than to ask for answers, I'm asking to be the answer. God, my neighbors are going through a trying time. I told them that I would pray for them, and I sort of kind of did. But for us, a lot of time, telling people, "I'm praying for you," is actually the prayer we're praying. Are we praying, or did we just say we were praying? But oftentimes, the prayer is not, "God, help them." The prayer is, "What do You want me to do?" I ask to be the answer so that Earth, my co-worker, my neighbor, my family member, can see Heaven in me.
Three perspective shifts: Are you praying as a loved child? Are you pausing to remember who He is? And in the process, are you being molded from a "my" to a "Thy will be done"?