01-18-2026 -HEAVENLY DIRECTED -PRAYFULLY VICTORIOUS - Mtt. 6:5-14

MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

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I invite you to pray together: O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servants for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon them with the eyes of thy mercy ( Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Margarita G,   Rosy Ch, Patricia L. Lina J.  Magda- Laci M.  Gloria F, Miguel A H. Silvia H, Brianda M, Alejandro M, Natalia M, Oscar N. Laci N. )   Comfort them with a sense of thy goodness; preserve them from the temptations of the enemy; and give them patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore them to health, and enable them to lead the residue of their life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally they may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can add names from family and friends who need prayer

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This morning we are concluding our short series on prayer we stepped into at the start of 2026.  asking God to move in our lives, both personally and corporately.  In ending our series, I want to step into a well-known passage, briefly beginning with the warning Jesus gave prior to Him giving us a model of how we are to pray: 

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 

The warning short but important - don’t play the religious game.  Don’t pray to be seen, don’t pray to be heard, don’t pray to impress. If you are praying - don’t act the part.  Strip away those things that have distanced you from the real.  Being honest with where we are and whether our hearts are disengaged and distant from any words that are said - Jesus describing hearts like that as hypocrites, the word describing an actor who played the role hiding behind a mask.  Instead come back to the genuine, speaking one on one with God with an honest heart, Jesus saying,    

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.   :5-7.

In this manner, therefore, pray:  Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And do not lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from from evil (the evil one).  For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.   :8-13

Let’s take a look: Our Father in heaven.

Beginning with these first 2 words, we are introduced to a completely different paradigm than would have the case for the disciples who’ve grown up in their Jewish world.  Those words, familiar to us, were anything but to the God fearing Jew.  Hearing God referenced as Our Father would have been jarring because referring to God in such a way was considered too intimate.  Other religions saw their god as one to be feared, the Jews knowing their God as the God to be revered and obeyed but related to like this?  Had this prayer begun with the more familiar, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob they could have settled into a pattern they knew, a pattern they could have joined in with. But Father - who invites us into relationship, a Father that wants to hear our voice, want us to tell Him  our joys and concerns, wants us to tell Him our certainties and doubts, our victories and defeats - defeats so many and so large?  And yet, that is what God wants to hear - not because He doesn’t know but because He does know and loves us even in those things that cause us to want to hide and shy away.  God wanting us to know that as our Father, He can deal with and transform what we can’t.  To forgive when we ask.

Still for some hearing God as Father isn’t easy - that reference having baggage.  Their human father, perhaps yours, not one to come close to, not one to admire, not one having much as far as positives.  That father whose greatest contribution to your life was disappointment and pain.  For others, far worse.  The adage true, What you are speaks so loud, I cannot hear what you have to say.  But our understanding of Father God bears no similarity to human fathers like these.  Who He is - is revealed to us in Jesus - Jesus the revelation of the Father.  He telling us, The one who has seen Me has seen the Father Jn 14:9.

Our Heavenly Father, not who affirms when we do well but withdraws when we don’t.  His love not contingent on performance or appearance.  His love not held back when we go astray but His love pursuing us even when we have made ourselves so lost.  The hymnwriter captured it well, How deep the Father’s love for us, How vast beyond all measure, that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure. 

God’s invitation to us is to know Him as Father who IS unlimited in His love for us, unlimited in what He can do, unlimited in what obstacles He can move out of the way, unlimited in what inescapable He can change with a word.

And this Father is ‘in heaven’.  The expression ‘In Heaven’ is far more than description - it is a reminder, conveying that our Father has perspective we do not have  ‘In Heaven’ conveying He has wisdom we do not have. ‘In Heaven’ conveying He has resources we do not have.  ‘In Heaven’ conveying He has power I do not have.  When my eyes so easily fix on the immediate - where I understand my situation to be inescapable, my pain to be immovable, the outcome to be undeniable, God knowing and working in ways I do not know.

Our Father God in Heaven telling us that He gives a way of escape for temptations that come our way, our God in Heaven telling us that His heart is to set the prisoner free, our God in Heaven telling us He does the unfathomable to rescue the lost, forgive the prodigal and love who we think is the unlovable - even the unlovable we may think ourselves to be.  Our God in Heaven doing the incomprehensible to invite us into, The joy of the Lord Mtt 25:23.  All this because of His great love lavished upon those who are called His children  1 Jn 3:1.  All this in our Heavenly Father who is wanting to set us free from tears of anguish, despair, sorrow and regret.

It is this One we are directed, Hallowed be Your name. Jesus knowing more than any, how worthy He is of all the praise we can give.    

When we think of the name of God so much can come to mind.  There are the names that capture who He is YHWH, the Great I Am, our covenant  God of Presence.  There is Elohim - Mighty God - present at Creation.  There is El Shaddai - Lord God Almighty - the All Sufficient One, God of Promise.  There is Adonai - Lord Master - before Whom we bow.

These names fitting with what we are told in Deuteronomy, For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome  Deut 10:17  or, The LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him.  The LORD Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth.   Psalm 95:3-5, Psalm 47:2.

But with these names, we are also told of names that capture what in His love, He does, where He meets us in our ups and downs of life.  That is He is Jehovah Raah - God our Shepherd or Jehovah Jireh - God our Provider or Jehovah Rapha - God our Healer.

This God, making it clear as He says of Himself, I am God - I alone! I am God, and there is no one else like Me. Only I can tell you what is going to happen even before it happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. I will call a swift bird of prey from the east - a leader from a distant land who will come and do My bidding.  I have said I would do it, and I will. Is 46:9-11.

All of these telling us of God’s power - that He is the center of all that exists.  That He alone is the One to Whom we must come for our needs, our direction, our strength.

But it His character and love that allow me to draw close, the One I can come to without  fear, who I can call upon Him for what I truly need.  He is, The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them   Ex 34:6-7, 1 Jn 4:16.

While we may praise Him for the compassion He gives and honour Him for the faithfulness He shows, we love Him for who He is - not JHWH, EL Shaddai but Father.  Because it is in that Name that we are drawn in where we can experience the full understanding of who this mighty God is to us.  The love He has for us not sparsely doled out but extravagantly poured out upon His children whom He loves.  Poured out upon the Cross in sacrificial love.  It’s why He is to be praised for everything He is, greatly loved for the child He’s made us to be.  He our Father.

It’s for that name we praise.  In that name we worship.  In that name we are held.  In that name we have relationship.  But here, Jesus wanting us to truly know - it is to this God we pray.

We having what even the angels will never have - we made God’s children because of Jesus’ sacrificial love.

Our beginning point of praise is not because of His attributes, as great as they are, as glorious as we will one day see Him to be.  No, our beginning point of praise is that it is this One who is beyond any one we have ever seen, is Abba our daddy.  Because of that we enter in to where He is.  I love the song by Mercy Me, I Can Only Imagine:   

I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by Your sideI can only imagine what my eyes would see when Your face is before meI can only imagine

Surrounded by Your glory what will my heart feel?Will I dance for You Jesus or in awe of You be still?Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees, will I fall?Will I sing hallelujah?  Will I be able to speak at all?I can only imagine

It’s a fabulous picture but actually there’s no imagination needed to put in play - we do know what we will do - we will bow, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father  Phil 2:9-11.

And the hallowing we will do based on who He is - our God Mighty Creator - King of kings and Lord of lords - unending praise - celebrated, honoured, revered.  His glory beyond description.  His majesty exceeding anything that can be said about Him. The angels singing: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come  Rev 4:8 and the seraphim, One calling to another saying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!'  Is 6:3  This One so beyond that when John saw Him in His glorified state, fell down before Him as dead.

And one more from Revelation, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! Rev 5:12    Our Hallowed be’s, declaring Worthy, Worthy, Worthy.

The most hyped up Taylor Swift extravaganza, not even heard as whispers alongside the praise we and all creation will give the King of kings.

This is the One we are told, Hallowed be Your name.  God’s name isn’t hallowed because of what we say and the praise we give, it’s hallowed because of who God is.  Whether we enter into the praise that’s due His name is up to us.  He isn’t less because we don’t, we are less because we don’t.  Our relationship with God so much less, our knowledge of His power so much less.  Our vision of His glory so much less.  Our experience of His love so much less.

We need ‘this’ heavenly look into the response of heaven to better understand to Whom it is we pray and to understand what it is He has in store for we who believe in Him - a kingdom.

Your kingdom come.

Kingdom is a recurring theme of Jesus - it is referenced 126 times in the Gospels but only 34 times in the rest of the New Testament.  When we pray for His kingdom to come, we are stepping into what He has promised to us.  In small measure we experience it now but in a time to come we will experience His kingdom in a way that will far exceed everything we might think it to be.  It will be far more than just those things that won’t be seen, like no death, no pain, no sickness but will be experienced by everything that will be seen.    

So when we ask for His kingdom to come, we are asking for those things we don’t yet see but also for God to shine His light into our world now so others will respond and accept Him as King.

Your kingdom come is to pray for God’s kingdom to come now, first and foremost as King of our life, where He is given first worship of our heart and our actions.  Where we have more clear understanding of Who Jesus wants to be in our life now.  When Jesus confronted the Pharisees, He speaking of Himself, made it clear, The kingdom of God is in the midst of you Lk 17:21. Jesus present then, Jesus present in us now and to be present in a time to come.  For now everything He is and has for us is hidden from us, as we are told, We see in a mirror darkly 1 Cor 13:12.  The kingdom as we know it now, only hinted at, only available to us with indistinct, black and white representations.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven

So how is God’s will played out in heaven?  Isn’t it that what God asks for is done?  Isn’t it that Jesus is praised as He deserves to be praised?  Isn’t it that God’s glory fills everything?

But the prayer we are to ask is that we see on earth what is already present in heaven.  That to say, that everything that has become spoiled, that has become smeared by sin - the actions done, the ruin caused, the oppression felt will be done away as God intends.

God’s will done that His kingdom ‘there’, will be celebrated as His kingdom ‘here’. God’s will that  repentant and redeemed people here will know what it means to live in the joy of the Lord that is experienced ‘there’.  God’s will that people who have come to saving faith in Jesus here, will know what it means to live surrounded in a glimpse of God’s glory that’s experienced ‘there’.  That people will be transformed from the kingdom of darkness to His kingdom of glorious light.  Our experience of that kingdom now known in part, to be fully known in a time to come.  But praying that His light and the glory of His kingdom will spread so more and more will see.  That His light will spread dispelling darkness causing His enemies to flee.

In our now we are told that we are to live as Kingdom children now, His will for us is to, Not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind and This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality  Rom 12:2, 1 Thess 4:3.  Other things are said, but in short, His will be done is for His children to live out the new life we’ve been given, the life to which we’ve been called in our here and now.  Where we walk humbly with our God, where we are imitators of Christ, filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control Gal 5:22,23.

All these understood within the context of what Jesus is telling us we are to pray, remembering to Whom we pray - our God who is supreme over all, who can be compared to no other.

One more thing to notice, Darrell Johnson points out that in Greek you never use the imperative voice when speaking with one who is your superior.  Makes sense.  Who would dare tell a king what He must do?  What employee walks into the corporate office and dictates to the boss the conditions under which he or she eill work?

And yet, as we looked at last week, you and I are told we’ve been given, Boldness to enter the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith Heb 10:19-22.  To come boldly into the presence of a far Superior.

Now here Jesus tells us to, in prayer, come before our Father and boldly, use the imperative. In the Greek, verbs come first, and the subject follows.  Here the verbs, Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done are in the imperative tense.  Instead of Hallowed be Your name, it is far more accurate to say, Be hallowed Your name.  Instead of Your kingdom come it is, Come Your kingdom.  Instead of Your will be done, it is Be done Your will.   

That is to say, these words aren’t asked as a wish, they aren’t spoken as something hoped for, they are imperatives: Be hallowed Your name, Be done Your will, Come Your kingdom.

First in us, then through us as we His disciples, live out His truth.  We living out what He has called us into.  He doing in us by His Spirit what He wants to do through us.  We calling on our Father to do, what only He can do. Because all of this is about YOUR kingdom, YOUR will, the glory of YOUR Name - YOU knowing what we don’t.

You providing for our every need - the daily bread we need, the supply for the things that come in the course of the day, the money that’s needed, the things that concern, the anxieties that threaten.  You, God not removed from these.  Not distant.  Not unaware.

You our Father also knowing the debts we carry.  The guilt we have, the shame we feel, the wrongs we’ve done, the hiding we do.  None of that hidden from You, who in your love forgives us when we come to You in honest repentance.  Thank you God that in Jesus You have made us new.  And as people forgiven and new, we not withholding forgiveness from those who have wronged us.   

Everything we need given to us by Our Father, who in the power of His Spirit guides us, protects us, empowers us - against temptation, against evil, against self-dependence and misguided, wilful choice

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

www.bethanybaptist.bc.ca