This week, Pastor Mark preached on the Lord's Prayer out of Luke 11:1-4: Prayer is simply communicating with God. Jesus is the perfect prayer, so he teaches his followers how to pray. First, Jesus teaches that God is our Father. If you want to grow in prayer, don’t focus on prayer. Get to know the Father. If you want to learn how to pray, don’t look at religious people. Look at children with a father who adores them. Through Jesus’ prayer we also learn that our Father is holy, our Father is a king, our Father is generous, our Father forgives sins, and our Father leads well. Our Father hears and answers every prayer.

Some of you struggle in prayer because you’re too focused on prayer. If you want to grow in prayer, don’t focus on prayer. Get to know the Father. In the same way, if you’re focused on the windshield, you will not drive well. Amen? The goal is you look through the windshield to see where you’re going. You don’t focus on prayer, you focus on the Father. It is through prayer that we connect with the Father, but our focus should not be prayer. It should be Father. … Up until this point in the world’s history, God was not commonly referred to as Father. … From the 39 books in the Old Testament that covered, let’s say, a few thousand, roughly, years of human history, on only 14 occasions do we find that God is called "Father" by his people. Every time it is national, not individual. There was not a concept of God being our personal Father. Jesus comes along, and on 60 occasions says, "Father." And they actually realize the magnitude of this statement and they seek to put him to death, saying, "You keep calling God your Father. You’re making yourself equal with God." Which, as the second member of the Trinity, he was and is. And so Jesus teaches us, "Hey, don’t just listen to me pray to the Father. You can do it, too." This is a great invitation. And of all the words that could have been chosen to reveal to us who God is, "Father" is the one that was chosen. And so let me explain this to you. The more you get to know God as Father, the easier it will be to talk to your Dad.

Why politicians are not functional saviors, and other obvious lessons that bear repeating, after the jump:

How’s your generosity, Mars Hill? How’s your generosity? Because what he’s asking us to do here is to bring our needs to the Father. But let me distinguish this. He is asking us to bring our needs to the Father, not our greeds. Not our greeds, but our needs. And we find ourselves economically as a nation in what has been called the Great Recession. People are struggling and even today on the front page of the newspaper, the lead story is, as we head into election season, Americans are struggling financially, they have grave concern about their future, they don’t know who to blame, they don’t know who to trust, the Democrats or the Republicans. I’ll tell you who we can blame: Ourselves. And it doesn’t matter who we elect—Democrat or Republican. If we don’t repent of our sin and pursue our needs instead of our greeds, then no functional savior will save us from ourselves. No functional savior in the form of a politician can save us from ourselves. As a people who have lived beyond our means, pursued our greeds not our needs, we have to acknowledge that repentance is the only way to make change in life. But see, this is not politically expedient. There is no politician running for office who would get on television and say, "America, you’re all greedy. You worship mammon, most of you are fat as well. You’re not generous, you’ve lived beyond your means, your credit cards are racked up, and as a people you all need to repent," and then win an election. That’s not much of a sales pitch for a politician. The Democrats will say, "You’re victims. The Republicans ruin everything." The Republicans will say, "The Democrats ruin everything. You’re victims." And everybody has to lie so that we’ll vote for them because otherwise we’d need to repent. And the truth is, as Christians, we’ve got to look at our finances and ask, "Are we stewarding the resources that the Father has entrusted to us in a way that shows that we believe that the kingdom starts coming in our lives by our obedience and stewardship?" How’s it going? How’s it going? And it allows us to live simply and generously, helping others get their daily bread.