The Lord's Prayer

Series: Sermon on the Mount
July 25, 2021 - Jeff Gokee

Thank you, thank you. I’m actually having a really hard time. That song, you know, Jesus we love you, Jesus we love you. I’m really struggling in a beautiful way. I do love him. I do sense his presence. I don’t even want to transition. I just want to sit in that moment for a second and just feel it. Do you know how much he loves you? Do you know how much he loves us? Do you? He loves you so much. 

I can’t even imagine what so many of you are going through in this time of your life. But just know he loves you. Please know he loves you. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves me. I sense it. I feel it. For so much of my life just longing to find other loves that only he can give me. And man, that messed me up. I hope it messed you up. I hope the love of Jesus messes you up, because it’s messing me up right now. I’m like, Dude, I’ve got to preach. What am I doing?

Matthew 6:7-13 

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“This, then, 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.
Give us today 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 the evil one.’

Eight years ago my son was diagnosed with leukemia. Thankfully, last week we celebrated six years off of chemotherapy, which was like a huge celebration for our family. He’s healthy and doing great. Seventeen years old. He’ll be eighteen in a couple of months.

For the first three months his protocol was a certain chemo and that chemo set him into anaphylactic shock. It was very painful, very hard, very scary. So they draw us into this back room and they say, “Hey, without this chemo his chances of surviving drop dramatically. But we have another option and that other option is not approved by the FDA. It’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. It’s going to be very, very expensive, but we think it will save his life.”

Basically, the option was, for three times a week for about six months they had to give him leg shots, deep tissue leg shots right in the muscle. Very painful. So we brought him in for that first one and that happened and it’s so painful, so overwhelming. Now we’ve got to do this three times a week for the next six months. How do we do this?

What ended up happening was, I would show up to the hospital with him and he would start freaking out because he’s thinking about the pain.  He’s thinking about the hurt. So I ended up taking laps with him on the inner part of the hospital and just talking to him. “Buddy, you’ve got this. You’ve got this. Come on. Stay focused.”

One of the things Cooper said to us early on in his diagnosis was, “God and I have got this.” Right? So I was like, “You and Jesus. You and God. You’ve got this. Just stay focused in on him. You’ve got to stay loose.” Because if he didn’t stay loose, his muscles would get tight and it would be even more painful. So I’m talking through him, kind of rallying him toward this thing that he has to go through, this difficult thing. Then he’d go in the room and try to calm his heart and get the shots.

I realized something this week as I was thinking about all the study I’ve done around the Lord’s Prayer over the last month or so, and actually diving in deep into the Lord’s prayer is this: I  used to think of the Lord’s Prayer kind of like this very somber, quiet thing. I realized this week it’s a rally cry. It’s like a war cry. It’s this anthem that we are in the kingdom of God right now. We are his children. He is our Father and we are coming up against all that our culture is deeming appropriate. When he’s going, “It’s not. That’s the kingdom of this world. I want to invite you into kingdom mentality, kingdom thinking.”

So it reframed the way I was reading and praying through the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a rally cry. Culture shaping, life shaping, day shaping, mind shaping, spirit shaping prayer that Jesus is inviting us into.

I want to tell you this, it’s going to radically change your life, if you don’t just say these words, but really apply them to the way you live your life. This is the kingdom of God life, the kingdom of God prayer that he’s inviting us into. 

And much like me taking Cooper around the inside of the hospital going, You’ve got this,” Jesus is going, “I’ve got you. Stay focused. My kingdom’s here. I’m your Father. I’m hallowed. I’m going to take care of your needs. I’m going to provide for you. I’ve got you.” 

And it’s a rally cry. So I hope as we go through this together that it is this very personal, somber thing, but it’s also this rally cry that’s coming up against the kingdom of this earth. He is introducing us once again to his kingdom and what exists there. 

The Lord’s Prayer is a framework not just for prayer, but for life. I don’t know if you know this but so often we get caught up into the idea that this is a prayer. This is a framework for life and the way that we are to live this life. 

Over the last couple of months we’ve been trying to learn what it looks like to live in the kingdom of God. Once again Jesus is providing us a framework through prayer that is actually a wholistic, a whole life thing that he’s inviting us into. 

Before we move on, kind of the background of the Lord’s prayer, and we see it all throughout this passage in Matthew 6 — and we talked about it a few weeks ago — what happened is the Gentiles had all these complex prayers to the gods. Basically those complex prayers were filled with uncertainties. So they used all these words more and more, because they’re trying to get the gods to interact with their lives. And of course Jesus says, “Don’t be like that.”

In my mind I had this image of Elijah on top of the mountain, and the prophets of Baal, all day long cutting themselves and saying tons of words. That’s the image that comes to my mind. And Elijah’s kind of mocking them, “What? Is he going to the bathroom? Eh - I guess your god’s asleep.”

This is what Jesus is trying to help his disciples understand. “Don’t be like them. Don’t just continue babbling on and babbling on with this level of uncertainty. I’m here in your presence. I’m Emmanuel, God with You right now. You don’t have to be babbling on. I know what you need. Because I know what you need and I know how I want to love you, I want to present for you a structure in the way that you can live your life and a framework in which you can pray.” 

William Barclay, he is a commentator, he says this, and then we’ll move forward. He says:

We need to bring our whole life to the whole of God and bring the whole fo God to the whole of life.

This is so important as we move forward in understand the Lord’s Prayer and what he’s actually inviting us into. It’s all of him. It’s all of him. But it takes all of us. Are we willing to be obedient to who he’s called us to be because of who he is? 

So he starts off by saying, “Our Father in heaven…” Right there we have these two beautiful things. “Our Father.” This is love. Then “in heaven.” Power. He is loving. He is our Father. But he is above it all. He is both far away and very near. And we live in that tension. Right? He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the beginning and the end. But he is so near to us right now.

He starts off with our “Our Father in heaven,” and you’ll see this word occur all through this prayer: our. Because I think what happens so often in the Christian life is, it doesn’t say “My Father,” it says, “Our Father.” Jesus is inviting us into the Ecclesia, the Body. This is why Church is so important. Church is not just something you attend on Sunday. It’s who we are because of who he is. And Jesus is trying to help us understand that this myopic way in which we approach him is misguided. 

So he starts off by going, “No, this is a corporate declaration, not just an individual declaration.” It’s a corporate declaration. Why? Because it’s resisting and revolting about what Satan wants to do to you and me. And what he wants to do is have it all be about you. He wants the individualism that our culture loves to seep into your mind. 

I find it so interesting that the pieces of technology we have in our life are literally drawing us away from one another. We have an iPhone. Right? An iPhone. When I grew up, we had our phone. We only had one phone in the house. How many only had one phone in the house? Now y’all got a phone, individually, in your hand. It’s your phone. It has your preferences. You call whoever you want.

What we don’t realize is that we’ve applied that to our understanding of who God is. And it’s false. He’s our Father. All Satan wants to do is pull you away from the flock, pull you away from the body, because there you are most vulnerable. All throughout Scripture it’s talking about a body with many parts: “A three cord strand cannot be easily broken,” “Where two or more are gathered In his name there’s — what? There’s much power.” Because there’s power in the Body, in the Ecclesia. This is what he’s inviting us into.

The power of the Lord’s Prayer is not just in personal petition, but corporate declaration. This is who we are. This is what we’re praying. This is what we believe.

He then says, “Our Father.” Everything starts here. For over two decades my father and I have been kind of on the outs. I love my father. He’s a good man. But there’s been a lot of hurt. There’s been a lot of pain. What I realized was my view of my heavenly Father has been dramatically impacted by my experience with my earthly father. This is where, for a lot of you, it breaks down. 

This is why you struggle with prayer. This is why we continue to struggle to live and be obedient, because we don’t really know him as Father. I know for so many of you, you’ve had really painful experiences with your earthly fathers. They’ve not set a great example of heavenly Father. We know that most of the social problems in our world are as a direct result of fathers who have abandoned families. Fathers who have hurt and abused and all these different things.What we end up doing, whether we know it or not, is start applying that. So this term, “Our Father,” we sort of struggle with. But everything starts there.

 A.W. Tozer, a great theologian, says this:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The Lord’s Prayer starts here. It has to start here. Because if we don’t know him as Father, the rest of it’s not going to follow. The rest of it’s not going to make sense. We’re going to continue to battle in this world. So we really do have to get honest with how do I believe? Who do I believe God to be? Do I believe him to be this distant diety who’s sitting on a rocking chair up in heaven? Or is he my — our — Father?

We have to deal with that. Otherwise the rest of the prayer we’re going to continue to struggle with. Otherwise I’m going to continue as a pastor to hear over and over, “I just don’t feel God. I don’t sense God. I don’t see God. I don’t hear God. I don’t feel God.” Because we’re struggling with who he is as Father. 

So the question is do you really believe he is your Father? When we sing, Jesus, we love you, there’s something inside of you that just longs. That’s who he is to us. And it starts here. You have to start here. 

And then you have to transition into this next part, which is “hallowed be your name.” Holy is who God is. It’s who he is. Holy is who God is. Isaiah is having a vision of the throne room of God, where the angels are falling on their faces and they say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” And as a result of that, Isaiah says, “I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people in the same way.” As a result of understanding that God our Father is holy, holy, holy. 

But I think where we’ve moved as a culture is we’ve moved away from that vision, that very sacred vision that Isaiah is inviting us into. We’ve moved to a very sacreligious vision of the holiness of God, where we’ve made him our home boy — like, “Jesus is my home boy,” — where we use the name of God as if it doesn’t have any reverence behind it. As if it isn’t holy. We use it in common phrases. 

I think there’s something about us that needs to back up. We need to back up, back into that sacred space. Not a legalistic place, but a sacred place to go, “God is holy.” Our Father, yes, he’s loving, but he is holy. Jesus wants us to pray in a way that says, “Our Father is hallowed. He’s holy.”

R.C. Sproul, another theologian, says:

If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead…

And I believe that to be true because I’ve experienced it in my life.

…You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don’t know God. You don’t love God. You’re out of touch with God. You’re asleep to his character. 

Like smelling salts, Jesus is trying to awake our souls, that God is our Father and he is holy, holy, holy. And that should bring a reverence. It should draw our hearts into who he is, his whole character, and that we would desire him deeply in that way; because hallowed, as it’s translated in the Greek, isn’t just about knowing the name of God. Satan knows the name of God. The demons know the name of God. Hallowed is, at least in the Greek, it’s pulling us in. It’s for those who intimately want to know the character and the nature of God and they trust him. This is what it means to live into the holiness, the hallowed ness of God.

Here’s the reality: The holiness of God does not keep us at an arm’s distance. Because who is teaching us to pray this way? Jesus. And where is Jesus? Emmanual, God with Us come to earth. How beautiful! And then Jesus dies and resurrects and who does he send? The Spirit of God who is here right now, near to us. This holy, holy, holy God is not keeping us at an arm’s distance, but drawing us near. But do you want to experience the holiness of God? Because we see, even in Old Testament and New Testament, he’s inviting us into this. But we have to be available to deal with who God is in the invitation that he’s provided for us.

Psalm 9:10 was really helpful for me this week in trying to work through this. It says this:

    Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.

How beautiful. How beautiful for you and me to have this understanding that he is our Father and he is holy, but he loves us and cares for us and Jesus is inviting us in, to the point where now he transitions and he says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Whose kingdom? His kingdom. Whose will? His will. Not our kingdom, not our will. His kingdom. His will. We want it to be done. As we read through this we find out something really interesting. We find out there’s something very right that’s happening. We find out also that there’s something very wrong. 

I hate that I love McDonald’s. I hate that I love their French fries. Because there’s something so good about it and there’s something that’s so, so very bad about it. Do you know they put sugar in their salt on the fries? Right? To just draw us in. “Come, come, have my magical, delicious brownness in your belly.” But it’s so bad for us. It’s going to clog up our arteries and give us heart attacks. But we’re like, “Arrrh..” Because there’s something very nostalgic about it, at least for me, right?

There’s something very, very wrong that Jesus is exposing, but he’s also talking about what’s right. What’s right is we’ve neglected the kingdom of God. We’ve pushed it away. That’s why we have to invite it in. Our sin nature, our depravity is continuing to push against God’s plan, his kingdom come, his will be done. It’s pushing up against it. 

Jesus is like, “We need to invite it in.” So there’s both a negative and a positive here. It’s a problem for so many of us. We talk like this, but we don’t really want it. It’s a very dangerous thing to invite into your life because it’s going to transform you. It’s going to help you and open your eyes to the holiness of your heavenly Father. This is what it means to pray for this. 

Here’s the other thing. I find this so interesting. And you’re going to have to allow me to rant for just a little second, okay? I find that, especially during the last eighteen months, honestly, for most of my life, any time when stuff gets hard, everybody’s like, “It’s our time to get out of here.” Our ecclesiology gets all crazy, right? Our end times stuff. We go, “He’s coming back! He’s coming back! He’s coming back!”

And that may be the case. But sometimes we’re so busy trying to get out of here instead of inviting him here. He’s here. This is his kingdom come and his will be done on earth — not get out of here — as it is in heaven. And sometimes we’re too busy trying to get out of here when he’s inviting us to be here with him.

All right. Rant’s over. I feel so much better. Thank you.

The other thing I’ll say around this that I think is really important — Peter’s going to draw this out for us. We tend to always think about the negative things that are going to get us out of here, right? Peter goes, “Do you know what hastens the day of Christ? When believers in Jesus Christ choose to be obedient to the call of Christ.” That’s what hastens the day of Christ. That’s a positive thing. We’re always looking at all the negative. I want you to look at the positive. 

As we move forward in this way of thinking, we’re hastening the day of Christ. Instead of going, “Hey, God, get me out of here,” we’re going, “I’m here, baby. I’m going to be obedient to what you’ve called me to do and where you’ve called me to go.” That’s empowering. Do you feel empowered by that this morning? You should be. You should be. 

You matter in the kingdom of God and we should be saying, “Please come. Please come. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth. We want to bring heaven here. Not get out of here. We want heaven here. We want more people to come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior through the way that we obey and follow after him.” So maybe this would shift the way we start thinking about “kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

So the question that arises, Are we living in a way that says kingdom come? Are we living that way? Is it impacting every part of your life? The way I’ll describe it is, do we live in a participatory lifestyle? Which simply means this: I know some of you in here are teachers. You start school tomorrow. Glory be to God. God bless you, okay? You start school tomorrow. What would it look like to invite the kingdom of God into your classroom? Come on! What would it look like for us to realize there’s a bunch of kids in there that desperately need to see Jesus through the way we live this out.

You know all these prayers are a daily thing. He’s going to move on to Matthew 6 and he’s going to talk about, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” This is how we need to live today. So what does it look like to anticipate the kingdom of God today? This has been so convicting to me this week. I’m always thinking about tomorrow, when he’s like, “I’ve only given you today.”

And what does it look like to invite the kingdom of God into your workplace, into your family, into your finances? Get micro on this. We’re always thinking of it on a macro scale. “Come on. Rain it down.” And he’s like, ‘What about your finances? What about your marriage? What about your parenting? What about your job?” Invite the kingdom of God into that to redeem that as it is in heaven. This is what we’re being invited into. This is a declaration to get earth out of us. To get earth out of us.

Paul says, “I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I but who lives in me? Christ! He lives in me.” 

This is what it is to invite the kingdom of God, his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what he’s wanting us to do.

So now we transition into this other part. But these are more little practical things. But actually, they’re very important things, wholistic things. He says, “Give us today our daily bread.” I find something really interesting. Costco is like Disneyland for adults, right? You walk into Costco and you watch a bunch of adults go, “Whoo! I didn’t know I needed four thousand batteries. I didn’t know I needed six toothbrushes.” And there’s a guy in there selling knives. And you go, “I didn’t know I needed Ginsu knives. I didn’t know I needed that. I do need that.” “I need four trillion bagels for my family.”

All of a sudden we get all — I call it the Costco complex. We get in there and we go, “Whoo!” Right? Nothing against Costco but I think it’s actually framing up for us this very consumeristic thing. It’s exposing something in us. “I want all this.” 

How many of you have filled up your Costco cart, paid for it, got in the cart and go, “I over-bought. I overdid that.” How many of you? Be honest before the Lord. All of us have. If you’ve been to Costco, you’ve over-bought. 

He’s revolting against this. Why? Because, remember in alms giving, he’s like, “Don’t be like everybody else.” And he says, “Our daily bread.” Which I find again is very interesting. What does it look like for us to simplify our lives. Because there’s a bunch of people in the world that don’t have. What does it look like to remind ourselves to be mercy-minded. That’s what it means to be an alms giver. To go like, “Do you know what’s been done for us? Now I just want to do that.”

See, something like Costco is going to bring that into conflict because all we can think of is more, more, more, more, more. And who is it that’s providing our daily bread? God is providing our daily bread.

This word daily in the Greek is actually one of the most complicated words in the Bible to translate. It’s one of the most complicated words. The reason is because it’s not found anywhere else in Greek literature. So recently they found a shopping list on a piece of papyrus and the shopping list was basically things to do. This word occurred. 

Here’s what’s really interesting about this word daily. It literally means, help me get the things that are on my shopping list daily. That’s what he’s inviting us into. It’s a daily reminder that he is the one that provides for us. He is the one that cares. 

And it cannot only be preached once or prayed once to yourself. You don’t just pray it once and go, “Hey, once and done.” This is a daily thing.

I went to Kenya three years ago. I go in this dung hut. We walk in and the lady is so excited to see us. So she invites us outside and we walk outside and I was asking about her daily life. “Tell me about your daily life.” She goes, “Well, I get up and I pray every morning, ‘God I need food. I don’t have any food.’ And do you know, some days he does it and some days he doesn’t. And he’s so faithful.” 

And she was so happy and we were just so humbled that this connection that she had with her heavenly Father that he was the one that provided for her. She found so much peace in it. I find it so bizarre that, as it relates to our daily needs — and by the way, this is not just about bread. This is about all our needs in our lives — when we bring those before the Lord, this is a submission. This is as humble declaration that, “God, you’re the one who cares for me. You’re the one who loves me. You’re the one who sees me. You’re the one who provides for me.”

We’ve seen God do this all throughout scripture. Manna. A cloud by day. Fire by night. Water. He’s providing for the Israelites to say to us, are we living our lives in a participatory way of going, “You take care of me. You love me. You see me.” 

Here’s the thing. God doesn’t need to be reminded to care for you, but we need to be reminded who’s caring for us. God doesn’t need you to go, “Don’t forget to take care of me!” What we need to do is remind ourselves who’s taking care of us. Isn’t that so important. 

So as you come to this particular place in the Lord’s prayer, remind yourself he’s the one who’s doing it. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. He is doing it.

Transitions into “forgive our debt as we also have forgiven our debtors.” So convicting. We need to practice what we preach. Remember, this is what Jesus is saying all throughout this. “Don’t be like the hypocrites. Don’t be like the hypocrites. Stop acting.” Remember this from last time? “Stop acting.” We’re acting. Many of us are acting, pretending. He’s like, “Stop. stop. Stop.” We need to practice what we preach because we do for others what has been done for us. Jesus is inviting this into our lives, that we would confess this out loud.

In fact, the literal translation of this, according to William Barclay — this was so convicting for me this week — forgive us our sins in proportion as we forgive those who sin against us. In proportion.

And we would say, “Oh, oh, hold on. Hold on.” Because this is what I did this week. “ Wait. Wait. He’s already paid our sins.” Right? He died and our sins are washed away. We’re white as snow. Right? Yes! Except that he also says, “To whom much is given, much is required.” That those of us who have received that redemption have an expectation to live that out in the spaces and places that he’s called us to. “To whom much is given, much is required.”

We should be known for forgiveness. Is the local church, is the ecclesia, known for forgiveness because of what’s been done for us? I don’t believe so. In fact, Keith Green, many of you might know who Keith Green was. Back in the ’70’s he was this kind of prophetic worship leader. He had a song called Asleep in the Light. I grew up listening to Keith Green and he says this in this line in the song, it always gets me.

O Bless me, Lord, bless me, Lord.
That’s all I ever hear.
No one aches. No one hurts.
No one even sheds a tear.
But He cries. He weeps. He bleeds.
And He cares for your needs.
And you just lay back and keep soaking it in.
Can’t you see it’s such sin?

That’s super convicting. Because “to whom much is given, much is required.” So what does it look like to live like people who are forgiven? That the death and resurrection of Jesus has covered a multitude of sins? Therefore, now, we go out. I wonder what this would look like for you this week. What would it look like — because what I know about the last eighteen months is there’s been lots of division, lots of pain — what would it look like to go on social media and say, “I’m so sorry about the divisive comments I’ve made over the last eighteen months. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

And then, what about forgiving people who have an opposing view to what you believe, and forgiving them for the way that they’ve maybe treated you? Can you see how beautiful that would be? That’s redemption! That’s redemptive because we know what’s been done for us. We know that there’s a people out there watching the body of Christ and saying, “Will they actually do and be who he’s called them to be? They speak the Lord’s Prayer but do they really live it out in their lives?” 

So this was really convicting for me. And I hope it’s convicting for you. But it’s also beautiful and liberating and freeing. And that’s what he’s inviting us into.

So he ends with this part, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” People get hung up on the word tempt. Test is probably a better word, because people are like, “Well, wait. Can God tempt me into sin?” No. But if you remind yourself when Jesus was baptized, he was baptized, Father God said, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” And then it says this in the passage, “And then immediately the Spirit of God took him to the desert to be tempted (or to be tested).”

Really, what this prayer is saying is this. It is a humble declaration of our vulnerability. We see how Jesus was tested, how overwhelming and hard that is. What we’re saying is, “Hey, God, “I’m not Job! Please don’t test me. God, I’m not like Elijah. I’m not like Moses. Please. I need your help! Because that overwhelming testing, I need your help.” 

This isn’t about winning. This is about God sparing us and asking him to spare us from that testing. And ultimately what this passage is about, what this declaration is about is about rescue. “Deliver us from the evil one. Rescue me from Satan.” That would be a cry of your heart. “Rescue me from my depravity. Rescue me from my sin. I’m not the one who can do it. Only you can do it. I can’t do it on my own. I need you.”

What I love about the Lord’s Prayer is that it starts with a focus on a holy Father who is in heaven and it ends with Emmanuel, God with Us, and inviting us to beg him to free us from evil, which by the way, Jesus would say, “I’m going to defeat evil. I’m going to do that. I have the kingdom of God. I have brought the kingdom of God to earth. I am going to die for the sins of the world because my Father is holy. And because he’s holy he needs a perfect sacrifice and I am going to be that perfect sacrifice for all who are not willing and cannot make it on their own, I am going to be the propitiation for your sins. And I do all of this because he is my Father. And I will do the will of my Father.”

This is a prayer of redemption and rescue, but the posture of our heart should be, “Come, Lord, Jesus, come.  I’m a man of unclean lips and I live among a people that are unclean. And we need you. We need you.” This prayer is, “We need you.” It’s inviting us into a right understanding of the kingdom of God and who we are in that kingdom. 

Twelve years ago — I told you a little about this a few weeks ago — I went to India FOR the first time. I told you I talked to a bunch of pastors there. And that was a deeply impactful thing. But the other thing that was really impactful is I met a little girl. That little girl, we were going to sponsor. But what transpired as a result of that is we started an adoption process. Her name is Wasunta. Wasunta is a true orphan, abandoned by her mother and father. And she, as a four-year-old, lived on the streets with her younger brother.

The place where I went actually brought her in. So, again, I was just going to sponsor her, but then what happened was we began a two-year process to adopt her. It was a really crazy process. But every year I would go back to India and I would bring people with me because I wanted to be with the pastors and I also wanted a bunch of other people to see and experience what I had experienced in India. The other reason I would go was to spend time with Wasunta. She’s going to be in our home someday so we want to figure out what this looks like. I want to learn more about her.

That second trip I came back, she’s sitting on my lap and we’re eating chicken. If you know anything about the Indian culture that should not be surprising at all. They eat a lot of chick. So she’s sitting on my lap and we’re eating chicken. We get through eating the chicken and she starts eating the chicken bones. I’m like, “Whoa, whoa! Don’t do that.” And she gets angry at me. She takes the chicken bones. She eats them all and leaves.

I look to the guy she’s living with, because we’re paying for somebody to take care of her. And I’m going, “Hold on. What’s going on here? I’m taking care of this little one. I’m sending you money to take care of her and make sure she goes to school. And she’s eating chicken bones. What’s going on?”

And said this. “My friend, this little girl still thinks she’s an orphan. She’s not come to understand that she’s a daughter.”

That just broke my heart. He said, “She’s stealing mangos. She eats so much she gets sick and throws up, because she’s nervous.”

It just broke my heart because there’s no words I can say, nothing I can do. So I come back the next year and Wasunta’s getting older. And she sits on my lap again. And we start eating chicken. I’m like, “Here we go.” You know? And she eats the chicken, she leaves the bone and she runs away. I’m like, “Huh. What happened?” He goes, “Oh, my friend. Your daughter has finally understood she’s not an orphan, that she’s a daughter, and it’s changed the way she’s lived her life.”

Here’s the interesting thing, I think, that applies for us. So many of us are still living like orphans, when this prayer starts off with saying you’ve got a Father and he’s in heaven and his name is holy. And you can pray that his kingdom is come and his will would be done on earth as in heaven. And guess what? He’s got you. He sees you. He knows you. You can pray for your daily bread. You can pray for your sins to be forgiven, and you can pray that you will not be tempted and that the evil one will leave. Because we have the Spirit of God and he lives into us because he is our Father. You are loved.

My question for us, and I would love to end here with this: Do you know Jesus? Do you know him as your heavenly Father? The King of kings and Lord of lords. Because this prayer will transform your life. It is a framework for life but you have to understand who he is and who you are in order to really allow it to be transformational.

So what I want to do is slow down in this prayer. And I want to say this with you. So we’re going to corporately go through the Lord’s Prayer. So say this with me and we’re going to go slow:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed by your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today 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 the evil one.

And I’ll end as we have historically ended for so many years, all these years of church history:

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,
Forever and ever.

And God’s Church said: Amen.

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Giving and Prayer

Series: Sermon on the Mount
July 11, 2021 - Jeff Gokee

Hey, hey! Morning! Today is the day the that Lord has made, let’s rejoice and be glad in it! Are you with me?

I was reminded in the first service, and even right now as I was listening to worship, how special it is that we’re together. You know, it wasn’t so long ago that we weren’t together and we felt the desire to be together and worship together. Now we’re here and so here’s what I want to say: let us not ever forget there was a time that we couldn’t gather. So when we gather, it’s just really exciting.

For those of you who are watching online, if you’re in proximity, come on! Now, I know there’s some health stuff. I get it. But if you’re in proximity to this church, this body, come. Be a part of the local church. It’s special. And I don’t ever want to forget how good it is to be together. Are you with me? Good.

My name is Jeff. I’m the Executive Director of Phoenix One. At Phoenix One our job is really just to care for the local church both internally and externally. We just want to serve the local body. We believe in not just this church — and this happens to be my church, my family’s church — but we believe in the Church as a whole, that when we come together as one that people are going to come together and see Jesus through the way we love one another. 

Isn’t that a beautiful vision that Jesus gave to us, that we would be one so people will see Jesus— so people will see Jesus through the way we love and care for one another. So I love to do that. But today I love that I’m here. I love that I’m at my church and I get to teach here and I’m so excited to walk through what we’re going to go through. 

So if you have your bibles, we’re going to be in Matthew 6 today. 

I got married when I was 21 years old, my junior year in college, which I suggest for everyone because it was so easy. I got married at 21, my second semester of my junior year. In the brochure they said that there was something called the honeymoon period and I bought into it hook, line and sinker. I was like, “Oh, man, give me the honeymoon period. Give me all the ‘I love yous’ and all the stuff that comes on the brochure.” I’m sure you know what all that stuff is on the brochure. 

So I was like fully into whatever that was. So I was like, “I love you,” all over the place. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And my wife would always say, “Okay.” Or, “Thank you.” And I’m like, ‘Wait a second. That’s not what the brochure says. You’re supposed to reciprocate that.” Right?

So every time I talked to her on the phone, “I love you,” and she’d say, “Thank you. See you later tonight.” And I’m like, “Man, what is going on?”

Like most men, I came up with a strategy. I decided one night I’m going to just dial it in really good. I’m going do a really good I love you, because we’re in our honeymoon period. It’s in the brochure. So we’re ready to go to sleep and I go, “Hey, listen, you’re the moon to my ocean.” No, I never said that. But I was like, “I love you so much and I’m so glad that God gave you to me. He saw you and he saw me and he put us together. It’s so beautiful. I’m so grateful for you and I love you so much.”

And she said, “Thank you. Good night.” And I was like, “What’s your deal? Honestly! What’s your deal? Why won’t you reciprocate this? What is going on? Am I doing something wrong? I’m putting a lot of stuff out there. I’m putting a lot of ‘I love you’ out there and not getting a lot back.”

She said, “Yeah. That’s the problem. Because your ‘I love you’ is not for me. It’s for you. Your ‘I love you’ is for you because you’re insecure because your mom left when you were twelve years old and you’re worried that I’m going to do the same thing. So you’re going to try to manipulate the system to manufacture some form of love to try to tamper down some deep   level of insecurity in your life. And I won’t have it.”

She was pointing me to Jesus. She was saying, “I can’t be Jesus in your life and you want me to be Jesus in your life. You want me to fill up all that love bucket and I won’t do it and I can’t do it.”

That’s why I said it’s good to not be alone. Man, thank goodness that God created a wife and that wife convicted my heart and showed me there’s something deeper going on inside of me. I wonder for you, I wonder if there’s something deeper going on inside of you. David’s been taking us through the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus is exposing these things in us. We all tend to deal with the Christian life on the outside and Jesus is trying to get deep on the inside. What is really going on inside of us? 

That’s why I think one of the great passages in Scripture is Proverbs 4:23. It’s an umbrella passage over all of our lives. Solomon’s writing Proverbs and there’s so much wisdom. It’s the book of wisdom. There’s so much wisdom in there and yet he says this:

Above all else…

Which means this. I’m about to tell you a bunch of really good, wise, wisdom things that you can go live your life for the Lord. But above all else…

guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it.

There is something inside of us, deep inside of us, that is impacting the way we relate with the Lord and relate with the world that’s around us. And Jesus is coming after our hearts because he loves you. He loves me. He wants to go, “No, can we just be honest? Can we just be real?”

So this is my encouragement this morning. Can we just be honest? Can we just be real? Can we deal with the conviction that the Spirit of God is going to bring to the teaching of Jesus? He’s going to do a much better job of teaching than I am. The Spirit of God is the Helper, so he’s going to open your hearts to what Jesus is about to take us through. 

It’s really important, I would say this morning, it’s really important to feel the feels. Allow yourself to deal with the weight of what’s going on. Because what you do in secret will impact who you are in public. And what you do in public will impact how you connect with God in the secret. This is what this passage is coming after. This is what Jesus has been doing all throughout the Sermon on the Mount. This is a vision of the righteousness of God to the people that are supposed to be righteously following after him.

What Pastor David’s been taking us through the last few months is the vision of the righteousness of God. He’s challenging us to shift the way we think. The upside down reality of the way that the God of the Universe, Emmanuel With Us, is living and acting. To the point like as radical — as David brought to us last week — love your enemies. Love your enemies. I know the world says to hate them. But love them. That’s radical. And what he’s going to invite us into in this next section is no less radical.

He’s starting to get into the disciplines that maybe you and I as Christians have followed. And he’s going to come after those because there’s something deeper that’s going on inside of you and me. 

Matthew 6:1-18 is where we’re going to go. 

Before I move on, I want to say this. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about what the problem is. Why is it that we struggle to connect with God through these things that he’s talking to us about? Next week the worship team is putting on a time of prayer and worship. It’s just going to be prayer and worship. You’re going to love it. It’s going to convict you. It’s going to bless you. It’s going to be a beautiful time next week. 

Then on the 25th I’m going to come back and teach on the Lord’s Prayer. I’m going to teach the Lord’s Prayer, which is essentially what we do. But today is going to be what the problem is, what the struggle is. I want to help you understand that. Then, as we go through this passage, I want you to start looking for the common themes that you see all throughout this passage.

Matthew 6:1 says this: 

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven…”

If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. If you practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. I want you to feel the weight of that as we go into this. I want you to feel the weight of that. And now he goes on…

“…So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray…

Listen to the personal pronouns. 

“…go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

So the question is, what do we need? Well, Jesus is like, “Let me tell you what you need. You need to learn how to pray. And this is how you pray.”

“This, then, 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.
Give us today 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 the evil one.’

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

This is the word of the Lord. And everybody said – Amen! 

When I was a kid, I grew up in the church my whole life. In the tradition that I grew up in, they would bring the children up front and they would pray over them and then kind of dismiss them to Sunday school. Anybody grow up in a tradition like that or experience anything like that? Okay. That’s how I grew up. And every once in a while, the pastor would invite one of the kids up to like pray. 

And I was the kid that was like, “Put me in, Coach. I am ready. I am a warrior. I’m ready to pray this house down.” I was always waiting for my opportunity to pray, because I was going to crush, okay? So one day I was sitting there and Pastor Roger Curson (sp), he was my pastor, I grew up in the same church my whole life. He said, “Jeff Gokee is going to come up and pray for us.” And I was like, “Whew! Now it’s time! Let’s go! I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been preparing for this. I’m ready to go.” 

I don’t know what happened, but my seven-year-old self turned into a sixteen hundreds English preacher. I started talking about eschatology, ecclesiology, soteriology, right? I’m talking about the propitiation of Jesus’ death and resurrection in the name of the Father, the Son and Spirit, amen. And I sat down next to my mom and I looked at her and I said, “That was a good prayer.”

She smacked me. Whack! She said, “Don’t you ever talk about prayer that way. You are praying to God Almighty. He gets all the glory. Not you.”

And I thought, “Wow!” 

But isn’t that true? No different than what Patty was trying to teach me. I take a long time to learn lessons. You with me? It took a long time to understand there’s a deep rooted thing inside of us, a deep rooted insecurity. We just want to be known. We just want to be known for the wrong things. We don’t want to be known by the King of kings and the Lord of lords who knit us together in our mother’s womb. We want to be known by the masses. We want to be affirmed by them to make sure that we feel okay.

What I find really interesting is that Jesus is talking about three really good things here. These aren’t bad things. These are good things. Right? These were the pillars of what it meant to be a good Jew in that time. He talks about alms giving. A lot of times when we think about alms giving, we think about doling out cash to really poor people. That’s what we think. But actually, in the Greek, the way it’s translated is mercy mindedness. It’s this right here: In the secret place I know how merciful God has been to me and I find this deep level of gratitude in my soul so that when I awaken and open my eyes and go out in the public place I can’t help but be giving mercy wherever I go. Which means, sometimes there’s people who have financial needs. I can’t wait to meet that need because I just sense the mercy of God in my own life and it has changed my perspective on the world. The mercy mindedness is what alms giving really meant.

Praying. The Jews were prayers. In fact to be Jewish was to be a prayer. They prayed a pray called the Shema that roots all the way back to Moses. The Shema. They prayed it every day. They also had a section of eighteen prayers that they would pray every single day. The Jewish culture was a praying culture. So they were known for their prayers. They were known to be a praying people. To connect with the God of the Universe, to connect with Yahweh they would pray. 

And they would also fast. Fasting was interesting because these people were used to going to the temple and making a sacrifice. Fasting was very much a very personal sacrifice. It was sacrificing some aspect of their life to focus in on God. So it became a personal sacrifice. It was a good thing. It was what they were known for.

What Jesus is saying is these are good things that you’ve turned bad, that are now, instead of allowing you to connect with the God of the Universe, it’s creating a disonnance between you and him because it’s no longer about God. It’s about everybody else. 

It’s interesting. Sometimes good things can be really bad. Did you know this? Did you know that drinking too much water can kill you? That’s why I drink coffee, okay? I’m going to avoid that altogether and go straight to coffee. No, but water, if you drink too much water, it can kill you. Now, we all know that if you don’t drink water it will kill you. But did you know that drinking too much water can kill you? 

If your intentions around alms giving, around prayer and fasting is wrong, it can kill you, spiritually speaking. And it can kill others. This is what Jesus is trying to get at. He’s trying to get to the heart of things and going, “The things I’ve given you to connect with me are there to bring you life and life to the full. To allow you to be a light unto the nations for the world” to see, who? Me? No! To see God. To bring glory to him! We’ve come up against those good things and we’ve made them me things. When it’s all about him. This is where the problem starts. 

Psalm 51 has been a really important Psalm to me. Verses 16 and 17. I want you to hear this. It’s so important.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.

See we’re all in the marketplace going, “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” And he’s going, “I don’t need you to do that. I just want you to be broken. I want a broken and contrite heart that goes, ‘I just want you. I just want to bring you bring you glory. I just want to know you intimately in the innermost being of my life.’”

Jesus, knowing this, is saying, “We have a problem and we need to talk about it.” 

The thing we need to talk about is this thing he repeats over and over and over, which is this, “Do not be like the hypocrites. Do not be like the hypocrites.” And what are the hypocrites? Well, in the Greek, the word literally means actors. The actors. 

You know, I’ve grown up in the church my whole life. I went to church. I went to Christian school. I went to Bible college. In high school, I won the Best Christian in the school. That’s a real thing. I have a plaque. I have two of them. I have two plaques that said… do you know what that does for a teenager’s heart? Right? It’s no different than pouring fuel on the fire of that seven-year-old that got in front of that church and said, “I’m a somebody!” So I know the game. I played the game. 

In fact, let me just tell you this — maybe you don’t know this about people who come up here and teach. It’s hard because I’m doing everything I can not to get your affirmation, that you would think of me as a good teacher. Now, I’m going to serve the Lord to the best of my ability, that he gets all the glory. But it’s painful for me. I have to pray and ask for God to sanctify my heart as I come up here and bring his word. Because I feel unworthy. That I might receive something from you that he wants to give me. It’s hard and it’s heavy. 

Because, what I find so often in the local churches is that I’ve got to come into these spaces and places where it feels at times like we’re just acting. Like we’re playing the part that you play in the church. Do you know the local church is the easiest place to fake it. You say the right words and do the right things and everyone assumes that you are just a solid believer in Jesus Christ. It’s easy to fake it here.

Jesus knows it. He’s exposing that in you and me. He’s like, “Stop acting. Stop pretending to be something. Come before me. Repent before me but don’t act.”

I’ve realized in my own life, would I give? Would I be generous if I didn’t get a writeoff from the government? We get rewarded from our government for giving money away. Would I do it if I did not get that reward? Man! 

I think one of the prayers that I feel are some of the most sacrilegious prayers are mealtime prayers. Because we’re not thinking about God. We’re thinking about, “How do I get into this burrito as fast I can? I’ve got to get through this Christian pageantry so I can get to the good stuff.” He’s the good stuff! He’s provided this. He’s given us the provision. And all we can think about is, “Let’s get through the routine so I can get to my burrito.” When in reality, we should be like, “Oh my gosh! I have a burrito. Oh my gosh! You love me and you care for me and you see me. And there’s people all around the world that don’t have — and I do.” But we’re trying to rush through that because it’s a part of the pageantry that we’ve become accustomed to. 

We have Christian idioms like, “I’ll pray for you.” Think of how often we say that to people or that’s being said to us. Are we really praying for people? Do we not wear the weight of what those words mean? Are we just acting and pretending here and playing a game? Like in a Christian drama? Like it’s like church as a theater, Christianity as a theater. And Jesus is like, “Don’t do it. It’s killing you. Not only that, but it’s killing your witness in this world.”

Here’s the scary thing. Here’s the real scary thing. The consequences, we receive the fullness of that reward in other people’s view of us, not Jesus, which means we don’t get Jesus. We don’t sense his pleasure. We don’t sense his peace. We don’t sense his joy. No, because we’re doling out all of this stuff and hoping to get something in return that only he can give us, and it’s killing us. That should feel weighty. Like Romans 1 says, He releases us, listen to this. It’s so heavy. He releases us to the desires of our hearts.

If the desire of your heart is to be known by the masses, he will release you to that desire and you miss out on the presence of God that is nearer to you than your own heartbeat. And he desperately wants to connect with you in that way. 

So often what we’re trying to look for is an ROI on our righteousness. ROI on our righteous deeds, right? “Oh, God, I’m going to pray to you, but you’d better answer that prayer.” 

“Oh, God, I’m going to give, but you’d better hook a brother up if I give. Right? I want an ROI on that righteousness.”

“I’ll fast. I’ll lay something down. But you’d better honor me and reward me for that.”

And it’s killing us. Do you know this generation is the most depressed, medicated generation of all time? Suicide is at an all-time high. Why? Because we’re trying to get filled up in all the wrong places. We’re trying and begging and hoping that something else will feed us up. 

I find this so interesting. You see this right here? (Indicates taking a selfie.) You ever see this? Maybe you’re one of these people. I’m sorry, but I’m going to go after it a little bit. Just hang with me, all right? You’re one of these people, and God’s like this, “Stop it!” You’re trying to put something out there that’s not real in hopes that you get a Like or a Comment back that will affirm you, when he’s like, “I want to do that for you. I want to fill that desire in you. I want you to sense my presence. I want you to feel my love, but you’re so busy getting it from others.” You get your reward there and it’s crushing you. 

Remember the story in the scriptures of the Pharisee and the tax collector? The Pharisee stands in the temple like so many of us do. “Thank you that I’m not like them. Thank you I’m not a sinner like them. I give my money. I pray. I’m faithful. I stick by all 613 laws and follow the sacrificial system to the 9’s. God you’re so blessed to have me in your kingdom.” And he points to the tax collector and says, “Thank you I’m not like him.” 

Then all of a sudden it transitions to the tax collector and he says, “Have mercy on me, oh God. I’m a sinner.” That’s soul talk. That’s heart talk. That’s conviction talk. This is what Jesus is trying to get after with you and me. But we’ve got to listen to the word of God, to the teaching of Jesus that he has given to don’t be like the hypocrites. Don’t get your reward from the world, from the kingdom of the world, get it from the kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. All these things will be added to you.

Ten years ago I started Phoenix One. The reason why we started it is because the largest generation of our time, the Millennials, all the research was coming out and they were called Nones. It means they grew up around the church and they got tired of the drama. They got tired of the acting. Because moms and dads would come to church and raise their hands and pray and then come home and fake it. And the kids of that generation said, “I’m out. I’m done.” 

So we were doing everything we could to reconnect them back to the local church, reconnect them back to Jesus. What I want to say is this has to stop. We are at a crossroads in Church history, where we need to stop faking it. What we do in here matters. But what you do out there, it matters. We have got to stop faking it. We have got to stop being a part of this drama and allow the Lord to meet us and convict us and to use us once again. He will if we allow ourselves to slow down to meet him in the secret place. That’s the solution. It runs contrary to the way we process through things. He wants to meet you in that secret place. 

This quote has been so helpful for me. It says this:

I must turn my attention away from a group-consciousness as a ruling norm of my actions and fasten my glance on the source, rather than the impact, of my actions, and this in the sight of God, who is in heaven.” –Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

It’s going like this, “It’s all about Jesus.” Let him do the ministry. He will. And he will use you as a result of you coming to rest in the secret place with him. All throughout this place. It’s in the secret in your heart. Why? Because it runs your whole life. That’s why you need to guard your heart. It affects everything you do. It directs your life and he wants to meet you there and minister to you there. Why? So you can go out and be a ministry to other people. 

This is what he’s inviting us into. He wants you to come in the secret place. He wants you to be silent. He wants you to be ministered to by him because he loves you. That’s why he sent the Helper. That’s why his death and resurrection made possible the release of the Spirit of God. You are the temple of God. And the Spirit of God — if you’ve made a commitment to follow after Jesus is in you. He’s nearer to you than your own heartbeat. But do you know him? Where is God? God is in the secret and he’s meeting you there, maybe right now he is meeting you there. And the weight of conviction you’re feeling, I hope you are. I am. I am.

He loves you and he sees you and he wants you to know him intimately the way he knows you. I’ll tell you where he’s not. God is not on the street corners blowing trumpets and trying to get all the attention. He’s not in the contorted face in fasting. He’s not in hypocrisy. He’s not in self-promotion. He’s not in religious devotion who steals for himself or herself the glory of God. He’s not in glory thieving. That’s what a lot of us are. We’re glory thieves. 

He’s in the place that he see you. In the secret place. In the place where you first met him and you felt the conviction that allowed you to make your life right before the God of the Universe as a result of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

I was trying to think, “How do we move forward from here?” The best passage I can give you is John 12:25:

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

That is a paradox. The paradox is a part of what it means to follow after Jesus. A paradox is like two illogical turns that come together and we’re like, “That doesn’t make sense.” Welcome to the Christian life. If you lost your life, if you lay it down, if you lay down all this public affirmation, all this stuff that we’re putting out there, if you lay that down you get Jesus. You sense his presence. You move forward in holiness and righteousness. You receive peace and joy. Not in the things of this world but in him. This is what Jesus is getting after.

And the Christian life is a paradox. I want you to listen to this: 

As Christians we see unseen things. We conquer by yielding. We find rest under a yoke. We reign by serving. We are made great by becoming small. We are exalted when we are humble. We become wise by being fools for Christ’s sake. We are made free by becoming bond servants. We gain strength when we are weak. We triumph through defeat. We find victory by glorifying God in our infirmities. We live by dying.  

This is what it means to be a Christian. This is what it means to follow after Jesus. We live in these paradoxical, upside down, kingdom-come-will-be-done realities here on earth. The problem for so many of us is we’re resisting that. We’ve created a counter strategy that’s not only killing us but it’s killing the gospel message that we’re called to give in his world. 

Jesus is like, “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop faking. Stop acting. Stop it. Repent. Return to the Lord.”

Hosea 6:1 says this: 

Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.

Right now some of us need some wounded-ness so that we can be healed by the Spirit of God and remind us who we are in him so we can go out in this world and be the presentation that only he can give. We’re just clay. He’s the one who molds us and puts us together. 

I’ve spent a good portion of my life in India. I love India. India is kind of like my home away from home. I love it there. Twelve years ago I got to lead a pastors conference for seven hundred Indian pastors. I thought I was just going to go there and bless their socks off. They rocked me. You know why? Because those paradoxical statements I just read you, they live those out. That’s who they are. That’s what they were doing. It was costly for them to follow after Jesus. 

Here I was, this American pastor, and it really hasn’t cost me much to follow Jesus. And they taught me and I was humbled. And I was convicted. And I repented because I was like, “Oh my gosh. I’ve just gone astray.” 

There’s a picture that’s going to come up. This is Pastor Abraham. I was in his village a couple of years ago, in a village outside of Padafrom (sp), which is in Southern India. It’s the second largest red light district in the country. I was meeting with him and I asked him some simple questions. “Why? Why did you choose to be a pastor?” Because if you choose to be a pastor in India, you’re choosing to be abused. You’re choosing abject poverty. You’re choosing to be mocked. You’re choosing to be flogged. Not only you, but your wife and your children. You’re choosing to have your house be burnt to the ground. You’re choosing that. And I said, “Why? Why would you do that? Why would you pick that?” 

And he says, “Because Jesus loves me. Because Jesus loves me.”

And I wanted to argue with him. “No, no. It’s far more complex than that. There’s way more to it than that.”

And he was like, “I love Jesus. I want other people to see Jesus.”

We need to learn to love Jesus. We need to learn to live for Jesus. This is what it means to be a body of Christ, coming together as one. We’ve got to stop faking it and start sacrificing in order that others may see this gospel, this good news that Jesus loves them and died for them and cares for them. But we’re glory thieves. We’re trying to rob that to fill our own insecurities. We need to stop.

I’m telling you, I stand before you the chief of all sinners. I feel so unworthy to preach this. I’m so unworthy, as I’ve gone through this week, I’m going to tell you, it’s been heavy. I’ve been excited to bring God’s word. I’ve been really excited to bring this word from Jesus. But I feel so unworthy. I feel so challenged by this passage, so convicted by it because what I realize is this. The statement that I made:

What you do in secret will impact who you are in public, and what you do in public will impact how you connect with God in secret. 

I want us to wear that. I want us to feel that. I want us to be convicted by Jesus’ word, the best teacher of all time. He says this in 6:1: 

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven…

That’s weighty. I feel convicted by that. I don’t know about you. But I hope this morning you’re convicted by the word of God; but I hope that conviction doesn’t leave you in despair, but pushes you toward the hope that we find in the resurrected Jesus. He didn’t leave us in hopelessness. He became that hope for us, so that we can bring hope into the spaces and places that he’s called us to. This is what it means to be the Church. This is what Jesus was trying to help people understand what it meant to be a part of the kingdom. 

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