You are invited to join the September fast and explore the Lord's Prayer as a living template for your relationship with God. Take time this week to walk through the prayer notes with your family, focusing on connection rather than just recitation. As you pray, remember that God desires to know you deeply, not just hear your words.
My name is David John Phillips. I have the honor of getting to be the pastor here at Real Church. There is nothing that I would rather be doing and I'm thankful that God asked me to play this role and thankful that you are a part of the Real Church family and I'm excited because the best is absolutely yet to come. Okay, so without further ado, I want to get started in this season of transition in September. I just really felt that God was leading us to a month of prayer and fasting.
So you're invited to fast with us. I'm fasting breakfast and lunch on Sundays. You're invited to do that with me. I'm doing kind of a a liquid fast. And at fasting, we're saying no to what our body or mind usually craves in order to focus on hearing His Spirit.
So whether you fast food with me or you fast something else throughout the month of September or you fast more, that's between you and God. But we want to follow and hear His spirit to "walk by faith", which is vital and important because the Bible says, it's not by power nor by might, but by my spirit says the Lord. And before God does anything great throughout the world, before He does some revival, major movement, He always waits for His people to pray. It always comes on the back of prayer and fasting and real church is built and will be built on prayer and fasting. We are a **house of prayer**.
*Amen*? So for the month of September, we're gonna be going through different prayers that the Bible teaches to inform how we pray and to learn how to pray together. And today we're going to be talking about, get ready, we're gonna be talking about the **Lord's prayer**. Now I don't know about you, but when I think about the Lord's prayer, I think back to middle school, I think back to high school, you know, being on the football team or the baseball team, a lot of times before game or after practice, we'd all gather together and put our hands in and somebody would say, Our Father, and we'd all say,
who art in heaven, hallowed be the name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And it was just like saying this, the Lord's prayer as fast as we can, as loud as we can. It was this kind of like "team ritual" that we had, which was cool and maybe it sowed some seeds into some people's lives, but it's probably wasn't what Jesus had intended when He was teaching us to pray. So let's actually look at it in Luke-11. For those of you that want to follow along in the notes, the notes are in the description below. You can open it up in a new window, pull it up on your phone, so you can do that too.
So *Luke-11*, it says, 1 day Jesus was praying in a certain place. Now that's important. Jesus was intentional about his prayer time. When he finished, 1 of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples to pray. That's interesting that they would ask him that because they're they were Jewish.
Growing up, they went to school for a while memorizing a lot of prayer in the Old Testament, in the Torah. They memorized prayers from that. They memorized prayers from their tradition. They would have seen the teachers praying, their parents praying, they would have known how to pray and they probably did pray every day at the certain times that they were said to pray. So it's interesting that they're asking Jesus this when they already know how to pray.
What that means is probably they saw Jesus praying in his certain place and it looked different from how they were taught. It looked different from what they were used to. I imagine Jesus praying with a deep passion and it's showing a deep connection with the heavenly Father, something that they weren't used to and they're like, Jesus, come here. We were taught how to pray and it didn't look like that, so would you teach us how to pray like that? And so Jesus then says, okay, I will.
And he began to teach them the Lord's prayer. I just don't think that it was meant just to be recited exactly. Let's look at it. Luke-11:2, he said to them, when you pray, say. Now that might seem as if it's supposed to be recited, but if we look at Matthew's version in Matthew-6:9, Jesus said, this then is how you should pray.
Like other versions say, this is the manner in which you should pray. So he's not saying you should follow this exactly. This is a template. Hey guys, this is a template that I use. These are the 7 topics that I go through when I pray and it's very important.
See, ritual, The Us learning to recite the Lord's prayer exactly, it's not a bad thing. Ritual is a good thing if it pushes you forward in relationship. If ritual doesn't push you forward in relationship, then it's dead religion. So we need to make sure that in any rituals that we do in our Christianity, it's always pushing us forward in relationship. So I just imagine Jesus pulling the disciples over and first thing he says, alright guys, when you're praying, first you say, our Father, something you know, our Father who art in heaven.
So he's teaching them that relationship, we're supposed to connect with the Father relationally first. Not formally first, but relationally first. I remember growing up in a lot of churches, the pastor would call on somebody to pray, they'd stand up in a loud booming deep voice. They'd say, Oh heavenly Father, thou art thee, thine, those. I mean, they they would use all of these 1,600 style words and language to it sounded like, you know, making their prayer quote unquote sound more spiritual and holy, but it didn't cause me to want to pray like that.
It made me want it made me think I could never pray like that and that doesn't seem real. Jesus didn't say that. He said, number 1, our father, he wants you to connect with him closely and relationally. I think about my kids. I love snuggling.
I just do. I love calling, you know, Selah in Eden or trip over and just getting a good snuggle and even River, my little baby, a 6 week old, I think she's 6 weeks, 7 weeks, something like that, but just getting a good snuggle in. It's awesome. A lot of times when I'm snuggling trip, he thinks I'm wrestling and I let him think that, but really I'm just getting a good "daddy snuggle" in. But you know what's even better?
It's even better when my little Selah or Eden will come up to me and say, you know, at the end of the day they'll say, daddy, I need a snuggle and they'll crawl into my lap and I'll hold them close and as I do, my heart melts and I'm just so thankful for them and really it's like, baby, anything you ask for, it's yours. You want a snack, I'll give you a snack, baby. What do you want?
You want to go
on a daddy daughter date? We'll do that. You know, it melts my heart because I love the connection and I know that our heavenly Father is the same. He wants us to connect close with Him relationally, spiritually. It's important and it's vital.
So that's the first way. Then Matthew-6, he says, alright, after that, guys, after I do that, I connect with God or our heavenly father relationally, then I say hallowed be your name. Right? What is he saying? I I worship his name.
God's name, it shows who he is and what he does. That's what it is. And so we take some time to recognize how we've seen him move in our life before, but also what scripture says about who he is. So if I haven't seen Him move in that way, but scripture says that's who He is, then by faith I'm gonna proclaim that and worship Him for that so I can see Him move in my life that way and I can know Him even deeper. Some of the ways that I worship His name in prayer is I first say, Father, you for who you are.
I say that all the time first. Lord God, I thank you that you are my healer. You're my deliverer. I thank you that you're my salvation. You're my help in time of need.
You're my, you're there when I need you. You're my comfort. You're the God who comforts me in the midst of my trials. You're my peace. You're my joy.
And I can think back in all of those words that I just said of specific times when I've experienced Him in my life supernaturally in those ways. But maybe you don't have that experience with some of those. Well, that means you can still worship Him because the word says that's who He is. You worship Him in that way by faith knowing that He will reveal Himself to you in that way. So Jesus says, first we approach him relationally, then we worship him, who he is.
And there's another part that goes along with that. Like if I tell my kiddos, you know, I tell, let's say I tell Eden Rose to go and tell her older brother and sister to clean their room. And she goes and she says, alright, Tripp and Selah, go clean your room. They're going to look at her and kind of laugh. They're not going to do it.
But when she says, alright Tripp and Selah, daddy said, go clean your room. They get up and they start moving. Why? Because it's the power of the name. It's the same way when we know who he is and we act in that authority, there's power in the name.
It's a big deal. So then Jesus says, alright, our father in heaven worship him for his name. Then he says this, next thing guys, next next topic, next thing we go to God with is your kingdom come, your will be done. Now that's important. Notice the pronouns in that?
It's not my but it's your. So before we approach him with our needs, we go to him with his heart. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. See the Bible says seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these other things will be added to you.
When you really deeply love someone in relationship, you care about their needs first and we love God in relationships. So we we wanna say, God, what do you want to happen throughout the world? What is your will first? Now you know what his will is? Bible says, for God so loved the world, the world.
For God so loved the world. It's not his will that any should perish. He wants the world to come to know him. So really in that moment, we should say that but when we should begin to pray for others because it's his will that they come to know him. Begin to pray for Pakistan, what God's doing in there through real church.
He's doing a lot guys. For Afghanistan, for Burundi where Olivier is right now, for our nation, for our leaders because the Bible says to pray for that, to begin to pray for our neighbors and people around, begin to pray God's will. And the Bible says, what you do for the least of these, you do for me. So as we're praying for others, we're loving others in prayer, but we're also loving God in prayer. That's a big deal.
So after we connect relationally, after we worship His name, after we pray His will, then it says, give us this day our daily bread. So then we get to our needs and we have needs in the day. We need food. We need finances. We need, you know, relationships.
We there's all kinds of emotional and physical needs. But really also we need spiritually, need bread. His bread is the word of life. Jesus said, man shall not live by physical bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So God, as I spend time here, would you speak to me and give me that "spiritual food" that will sustain me for the rest of this day?
I need it daily. And also God, I trust you with my needs. I need this promotion and my job is a desire of my heart. God, I give it to you. This *relationship*, Lord, I'm concerned about this or I have these fears.
Give me what I trust you God. See first we sought Him, His righteousness, and then we're presenting our needs to Him. That's important because that way we're not taking control, but we're inviting Him in to every aspect of our heart's desires. That's a big deal. It's important.
See the Bible says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you your heart's desires. So we delight our self in his will first and then we present our desires to Him and watch and see what happens. It's pretty awesome. So then after Jesus is explaining, probably explaining all this to them, then He says, alright, and then we go, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Now this is a big 1.
It's a part of the prayer that is repentance. Right? What this looks like in my life, in my own prayer time. See, I don't go on this sin search. I don't try to dig out sin in my own heart and look around for where I've messed up, you know, so much and this filthy rotten thing.
That's not what the Bible says about me. I'm forgiven, I'm loved, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of Jesus. But what I do is what David did. David said, search my heart, oh God. See if there's anything that's not right within me.
So I I just asked the father or I asked Holy Spirit, hey, would you search my heart and see? See my focus is the Holy Spirit. My focus is God, not me. But I'm asking Him to bring to the surface what needs to be dealt with. Holy Spirit, would you search my heart and bring that to the surface?
And if anything in that moment comes to mind, I repent. Oh, I don't want, Father, I don't want that as a part of my heart, my life, if that's not in your heart, if that's not your kingdom. Lord God, would you help me to, I turn from that, I present this from you. I can't not do that in and of myself, but Lord I trust you to do this in me. My eyes are on you.
Thank you Lord God that I'm forgiven. Thank you that I'm loved and thank you that that is not who I am because I am who you say that I am. But then it says, as we forgive those that have sinned against us. So this is very important because verse 14, I don't have it in the notes, but it says, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. Think about this.
To the extent that you understand that you're forgiven, you will forgive. So if you have trouble forgiving someone, it's probably because you're having trouble receiving the forgiveness of God. So if you can't forgive someone, you probably don't really believe that you're forgiven. That's why it says that. So wait a second.
We we go to God. God, thank you that I'm forgiven. What right do I have to not forgive others in this area? So therefore I release I'm not saying what they did was okay, but I'm releasing it to you, Lord God, so that I can love them despite their failures. I'm releasing all bitterness.
I'm releasing all that Father. Thank you. Help me by your grace. My focus is on you and on you and them. They're your creation.
Come on, that's powerful. It's amazing. It's part of the Lord's prayer. So then we can continue. Verse 13 it says, and lead us not into *temptation* but deliver us from the evil 1.
Now this is interesting, you know Jesus is pulling his guys over and it's interesting because the Bible says that God doesn't tempt anyone with evil. See the same Greek word here for temptation is the same word for test. See, God doesn't tempt you with evil, but he does test you. He'll test your character. He'll test you to see if you're ready for the next blessing he wants to give you.
He'll test and see if you're ready for the next level of influence that he wants to bring into your life. And if you're not, then He'll continue to to teach you where you are. I see Jesus praying this exact prayer the night before the crucifixion. The crucifixion was the Father's will for the Son, to die for you so that you could live. And Jesus the night before says, Father, if there's any other way, God, there's any other way, let this responsibility pass from me.
This cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. See in our flesh, we don't wanna go through the tests and the trials and all those kind of things. I'd rather learn it from listening to somebody else's testimony. So father, if there's any other way.
But nevertheless, your will be done. I know that in this test, whether the whatever the enemy tries to defeat me with, I've overcome in Christ. So you have delivered me from the evil 1. Lord, help me to keep my focus on you no matter how hard it gets because I'm gonna trust you and rejoice through the trial. That's amen.
And then Jesus caps it off with how he started. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. I know in the NIV that, you know, it it says it at the bottom, you know, as if it's not really there. It is there. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen. So what we're doing in that moment is we're saying, father, all this blessing, all of the victory, all of the things that I go through, everything that I recognize in my life and the things that you've called me to, I give you the glory. Lord God, it's not about me, it's about your kingdom. It's about your glory and I choose to live for you. And we just begin to worship Him just like we started at the end of the prayer.
So we kind of begin with recognizing Him and worshiping Him and end with recognizing Him and worshiping Him. And then we say, Amen. What does Amen mean? "Let it be". I receive this by faith in you and I wanna "walk forward in you".
It's a big big deal. Now, I'm excited because in the notes that I said that we have on the phone, you'll go if you're on YouTube, you go click on the notes part at the bottom, you'll see all these notes that are are there. But at the bottom of it, there's an example of how to "walk through this" prayer together as a group at the houses of prayer. Maybe you didn't make it to a house of prayer today. Well, would encourage you to walk through this yourself.
Maybe take 10, 15, 20 minutes to walk through this and pray in this way. If you have your family around you, I dare you to be bold enough to bring them in and invite them to pray with you in this way and walk through it together in community. If you're a father spiritually leads your family in doing this, I challenge you. If you're a son and your father's not willing, as a son, "lead up" and lead your family in this. As a wife, if your husband's not willing, go lead, ask him, draw him in, and if he's not, go do it yourself with your kids.
God is with you and he will impact your lives forever. Those of you in the home groups, I'm excited about what God is going to do in and through this. Make sure to discuss, see what God said to each person through the message because maybe he said something to them that he didn't say to you and then be led by the Holy Spirit as you enter into prayer time. God bless you. We love you.
Don't forget to join in for a house of prayer for next week in the descriptions below. Click on that and you are invited to be a part of Real Church. Let me pray for you as we as we close. Father, bless this time of prayer. I pray they experience you like never before, Lord God, and this revolutionizes the way that they pray.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you. If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you.
You can go to www.realchurch.us/connect. And then also, if you would like to give to what God is doing in and through our ministry, you can do so at www.realchurch.us/giving or you can text any amount to 84321 and then just search in the link that comes up. Search for Real Church Clearwater. God bless you and the "best is yet to come".