Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. It's good to see everyone
this morning. Matthew 6. Let's begin in verse
5. This is the Lord preaching in
His sermon on the mount. He says, And when thou prayest,
Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they
may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret. and thy father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly. But when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they should
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto
them, for your father knoweth what things you have need of
before you ask him. After this manner therefore pray
ye. Our father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if
you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses. Our intercessor, one who prays
on our behalf before the Father, is teaching you and me how to
pray. Teaching his people how to pray.
He said, when thou prayest, it's a given that those born in the
Spirit of God shall pray. Prayer is a life of a believer. We're utterly dependent on God,
so we pray. By the Spirit of God, we pray.
And what a blessing that we can pray. You think about that. Holy God has opened the door
and given us entrance into the holiest of holies. Sinners like
you and me can come into the holiest of holies because the
Spirit of God has given us a holy heart and the Spirit of God leads
us to pray. And we have Christ, our high
priest, interceding with the Father on our behalf and by His
blood We're welcome. We're welcome. We have boldness,
liberty to enter in by the blood of Jesus. He's consecrated the
way for us through His flesh. His flesh, the veil represented
His flesh. He's consecrated the way for
us. And what a blessing that we can pray, that we can pray. But the issue here in this prayer,
and the Lord is not just teaching us something to pray in these
exact words. The issue here that he's teaching
us is the heart. Prayer is, everything the believer
does is in spirit. We worship God in spirit. And
we pray in spirit. And that's what true prayer is.
is, and it's the heart that the Lord looks on. And the issue
here in everything He's teaching us is to pray from the heart,
and that is the true issue. I've titled this Heart Prayer,
and I just want to go through this. First of all, our Savior
teaches us how not to pray. There's no heart in the prayer
of a vain religionist. There is no heart in it. He's
not born of the spirit. There's no spiritual worship.
There's no heart in it. He says in verse 5, he says,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray in
public that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you,
they have their reward. The self-made religion and the
doctrine they teach And in their own way of doing everything,
it promotes doing things to be seen of men, and they love to
do everything to be seen of men. And that is the reward, is men
got to see it, men got to praise them, that's it. That's the reward. But our Lord's teaching us here
to pray from the heart. He says, enter into your closet
and shut the door. And it's a secret place. You go somewhere where you're
not seen, if you're praying privately, you go somewhere where you're
not seen. But regardless of if you're in public or if you're
in private, the heart is the secret place, the heart. praying
from the heart. Our Lord's teaching is the heart
that's important in prayer. The Lord sees in secret. He sees
the heart. The Lord looks on the heart.
He doesn't see like man sees. He looks on the heart. He knows
what the heart is. We can pray in public without
anybody seeing us. You don't have to bow your head
and close your eyes and hold hands to pray. And the Lord tells
us not to pray like that in public, to be seen of men. You can pray
to God from the heart and nobody even knows you did it. And that's
what the Lord's teaching us to do. not to pray to be seen of
men. Our Savior teaches us not to
use vain repetitions. He said, when you pray, use not
vain repetition as the heathen do. They think they should be
heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto
them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before
ye ask him. You see men at the wall and they're
kneeling and they're rocking back and forth and they're saying
the same words over and over and over and over again. And the Lord says, they think
they'll be heard for saying a lot of words. Now think about this. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
intercessor. He's the only one that can present
us to God holy and acceptable. Any prayer that you pray has
got to come through Christ's name because he's the only one
that can present you to God unblameable. And he knows what's in the heart
of the heathen that just repeating words and thinking he'll be heard
for much speaking. And he says that's what he's
thinking in his heart. See, God's looking on the heart.
The Lord looks on the heart. He knows what the heart is. And
he commands us, be not ye therefore like them. Your father knoweth
what things you have needeth before you ask him. In Ezekiel
36, you can read it sometime later, the Lord declared what
He would do for His people. Declared exactly what His purpose
was, what He was going to work for His people. That will never
be undone, it shall come to pass. But then the Lord said, but I
will yet be inquired of by the children of Israel to do this
for them. The Lord will have us ask Him to do what He's already
purposed to do. Now you think about that. But
you hear people say prayer changes things, you know, people think
that if they pray they can get God to do what they want God
to do. That's not what's happening in
prayer. Not true prayer. True prayer
is the Spirit of God teaching us what to pray, leading us to
pray. Read that in Romans 8, we don't
even know what to pray for as we are. The Spirit of God leads
us to pray and intercedes for us and Christ intercedes for
us, but prayer is the Lord bringing
you and me to submit to Him, to ask Him to do what He already
purposed to do. Prayer changes some things, all
right. It changes you and me. It brings us into submission
to God to trust His will be done, not our own. That's what prayer
is, being brought to submit to God. And the Lord said in Isaiah
65, 24, and it shall come to pass that before they call, I
will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Before
they call, I'll answer. He's already answered you before
you call because He's the one who puts the prayer in the heart.
And so when His child prays from the heart to Him, He answers. Sometimes He answers by not doing
what you've asked. But He always answers. Now next
the Lord teaches us how to pray. And now we know that we don't
recite these exact words like so many do. The ironic thing
is he's teaching us here to pray from the heart. And yet folks
just recite this prayer with no heart in it whatsoever. And
that's the very opposite of what he's teaching here. He's teaching
us to pray from the heart. He says, after this manner, therefore
pray ye. This is a model. That's what
this is, just a model of how to pray. But it's the heart,
and I want you to see it's the heart. This is instructed for
us if we're praying publicly, like right here in the services.
It's instructed for us if we're praying in private. When we're
praying privately, It's just between you and God, and you
use more personal pronouns, I and me, and use a few pronouns to
speak of your brethren, but in public, It's a picture of one
man is representing the whole congregation and that's a picture
of Christ our intercessor at God's right hand representing
his people before the Father. And so we're not using personal
pronouns. We're saying we and us and our. You see how he says that here.
It's okay to use some personal pronouns, but we're representing
the whole congregation. So we're praying we and our and
us. Is this important? If it wasn't
important, the Lord wouldn't be teaching us this. It's very
important. He's teaching you how to approach
God, how to come into God's presence. That's the most important thing.
you and I could ever be taught is how to approach God. And he's
teaching us here, it's from the heart. Now the first thing he
says is pray with a reverent heart. A reverent heart. He says, verse 9, Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Pray after this
manner. Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Child of God, think about that. God is our Father. Holy God is
our Father. You're His child. Holy God is
our Father. He chose us to be His children
by His grace according to His will. Ephesians 1.5 says He predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. When the time has come that the
Father predestinated, that's when He sends the Spirit, and
that's when His child is given faith to believe Him, because
He predestinated it. That's what we're told over in
Galatians 4.4, when the fullness of time was come, we were the
servants of sin, we didn't know God, maybe you were religious,
but you didn't know God. You were under the law. And when
the fullness of time was come, God does everything, actually
it says when the fullness of the time was come. God does everything
according to purpose. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law. That tells you
that what Christ came to do, he did it. He redeemed everybody
that He died for from the curse. That means they can't be condemned.
He redeemed them. He redeemed them. But see, salvation
doesn't stop there. Salvation doesn't stop with just
what Christ did. That's what religion preaches.
Religion says He did that. He came and redeemed. They say
He redeemed all people. Now it's up to you. Will you
receive it? Will you make it effectual for
you? That's not what the scripture says. Listen, Christ came and
he redeemed the children. And then it says, he did it that
we might receive the adoption of sons. That word receive means
that we might be given freely, that it might be given to us,
that it might be just for God to call us and save us. That's why he did it, that predestinated
hour was set when we would be given the adoption of children.
And he came and he had to redeem us first and justify us. And
it says, and because you are sons, this is before you're ever
called, before he's ever sent the spirit, before you ever believed. He said, and because you are
sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father, Father, Father. for the first time you
called on God in spirit from the heart. Say out of God, how
do you speak to your earthly father? How do you speak to your
earthly father? I've had folks speak to me as
a pastor in ways I know they wouldn't speak to their earthly
father. How do we speak to our earthly
father? How do we speak to our heavenly father? How are we going
to speak to our Heavenly Father? We acknowledge His authority
and we submit to Him. He's our Father. We're the children.
He's in heaven. We're in the earth. And He's
holy. Hallowed be thy name. He's holy. Everything He does in salvation,
at the heading of everything He does, everything is in accordance
with God's holiness. He loves with a holy love. He chose his people in holiness.
He redeemed his people because he's holy. He calls and regenerates
his people because he's holy. Christ justified us. They must
be called. He does it because he's holy.
He preserves us and won't lose us because he's holy. Everything
about salvation declares God is holy. That's the difference
between the truth of the gospel and the lie that's being taught
that puts it in man's hand. That God's not holy. This God
we're talking about from the scripture is holy. Everything
he does is holy. And he brings us to submit to
him as our father and pray for his name to be hallowed. Hallowed
be thy name. He said, I will be sanctified
in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will
be glorified. That's what it is. And the heart,
you see him high and lifted up. You see him holy. You see him
as your father and as your God. And you come to him with a submissive,
reverent heart. Godly fear. Owning Him to be
holy. He's not the man upstairs. He's
holy God. He's not Jesus. He's the holy
Lord Jesus. Holy and reverend is His name. Christ teaches us here to pray
with a submissive heart. Not only with a heart of reverence,
but with a submissive heart. He said, verse 10, Pray this,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. You know what's being done in
this world in everything that's coming to pass? God's will. Nothing
is coming to pass that is not God's will. He said the wrath
of man shall praise him. That means if man is permitted
to vent his wrath and do some wickedness, It's going to praise
God. God's going to work it where
it praises God. And the remainder, there's a
whole lot more that could be vented from us. You're not nearly
as bad as you could be. He prevents us from being as
bad as we could be. He does that with all men. The
remainder He will restrain. The only evil that comes to pass
is what's going to glorify Him. That right there, that's a sovereign
God. And that's who God is. It's God
the Father's will that Christ be exalted as the King of kings
and Lord of lords. He's come and fulfilled the Father's
will. He was born King of the Jews.
He established His kingdom when He said it is finished. He established
His kingdom and He arose now and all power in heaven and earth
is given to the God-man mediator. He's King of kings and Lord of
lords. He's bringing it to pass. If it comes to pass, He's bringing
it to pass. It's His will and it's His purpose
to glorify His name and to save His people from our sins. And
it's all being worked together by Him for the good of His people. And we pray for His kingdom to
come. You know, His kingdom comes in
the heart. Whenever the Pharisees demanded
of him, Scripture says, of when the kingdom of God should come,
they had no idea what they were asking for. They were looking
for an earthly, physical kingdom, political kingdom in the world.
They had no idea. And they demand the king of glory,
tell us when your kingdom is coming. And this was his answer,
the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Men don't see
it come. Neither shall they say, lo here,
lo there, for behold, the kingdom of God's within you. Man can
be sitting in a congregation full of people and the Spirit
of God enters into his heart and gives him life and gives
him faith and the kingdom of God has come to that man. And
nobody observed it. Nobody even saw it happen. This
is how he's saving his people. This is how he's saying, that's
what we're praying for. We're praying for Christ to be exalted in the
hearts of his people in regeneration. The kingdom of our Lord Jesus
to be set up in the heart of those he redeemed. Christ told
Nicodemus, except you be born from above, you can't see the
kingdom of God. It's a spiritual kingdom. It's
a kingdom that you're born into it, born again into it by the
Spirit of God, and you see it only by faith. And Christ is
the King that sends the Spirit and works that work. Except you're
born from above, you can't see the Kingdom of God. When Christ
cried, it's finished, He established His kingdom in righteousness. We saw that last week from Isaiah
42. He established it in righteousness
and He established His judgment in the heart. I've set my King upon my holy
hill of Zion, God said. That's where Christ is seated
right now. on the day of Pentecost when they preached in His name
in languages they'd never learned. Listen, they weren't preaching
some gobbledygook language that nobody could understand. They
were preaching in languages they'd never learned. The Spirit of
God gave them the ability to speak, you know, a man that's
English, he could speak Spanish that day. And so, because there's
all these different languages there, and so they're preaching
to every man in his own language. And the Lord saved a multitude
that day, and Peter said, learn by this, that God has exalted
the Lord Jesus who you crucified, made him Lord in Christ, and
he's the one that did this. He said, this is his kingdom
coming right here. That's what we're praying for.
And we're praying for Him to return. We pray, we want Him
to return. We're praying for Him to return
and in that day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess
that He's King of kings and Lord of lords. And that's when His
people will enter into the joy that He's established for us
and we will be with Him forever. That's what we're praying for.
We're praying, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. That's what's gonna be done.
He's gonna bring His child to submit to Him and ask Him, Lord,
Thy will be done. That's what He said in Ezekiel
36. He said, here's my will, here's what I will do. He said,
now you're gonna be brought to ask me to do my will. That's
what we're praying. You know, you get to where, do
you find this to be so, brethren, you get to the point where You
stop asking so much for particular things. I really don't know what
I need. I really don't. And you find
yourself more and more asking the Lord, Lord, work your will. Whatever your will is, work your
will. That's all I want to say. I want to see your will be done. And I tell you, as John said,
if you ask anything according to His will, it shall be done.
You ask for His will to be done, you're going to get what you
ask for every time. Because that's what's going to
be done is His will. Our God's in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. That's the true God. That's the true God. This God
that men are preaching, I think it was Arthur Pink who said,
this God men are preaching, He no more resembles the true God
of the Bible than a candle resembles the sun. Then our Master instructs us
to pray in faith with a dependent heart. A dependent heart. He says in verse 11, give us
this day our daily bread. Not bread for tomorrow, give
us this day our daily bread." Christ is the true bread from
heaven. He said in John 6, He said that's what the man in the
wilderness pictured. And He said, my Father's given
you the true bread from heaven. And He said, I'm that true bread.
And He said, except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you
have no life in you. And He said, and you can't eat
my flesh and drink my blood, except my Father draw you and
give you faith. But all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. That's what he said. But he's
the bread, and I tell you what he's given us as the bread, he's
given us eternal life. He's all to us. He's given us life. He's given
us life eternal. He's our wisdom and our righteousness,
our sanctification, our redemption. He's our preservation. We're
going to see in the second hour, He's the covenant. He's everything
that you need to be accepted of holy God. Man's got this thing
backwards. It's not will you accept Jesus,
it's will He accept you. Will God accept you? And the
only way that God will accept a sinner is in His Son, in the
righteousness and holiness and perfection of His dear Son. He's
the bread and He's given us life. And so you can be sure of this,
if He came and laid down His life to give you this eternal
life and did everything necessary, dying under the wrath of God,
you can be certain He will give His people this day our daily
bread. That's right. David said, I've
been young, and now I'm old. And yet I have not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful and
lendeth, and his seed is blessed. But do you see here, he's teaching
us to pray from the heart with a dependent heart. absolutely dependent on the Lord
Jesus, on God our Father, to give us this day our daily bread. And then our Master commands
us to pray with a heart that needs forgiveness, and that forgives. This is preached with a repentant
heart and a merciful heart. He says in verse 12, Pray this
and pray to the Father and forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And in case anyone misunderstands
what the word debts mean, Luke 11.4 says, and forgive us our
sins. Forgive us our sins. Now again,
I remind you, when we pray publicly, we're representing the whole
congregation. Picture Christ interceding on behalf of his
people. Christ, our high priest, is the only one that you pray
to and confess your personal sins to. He's the only high priest
that we confess our sins to. No man. Him. But when we're praying
in public, we pray, Lord, forgive us our sins. Forgive us our sins. We're representing the whole
congregation. Sin is a debt. Sin is a debt. Sin makes it so that we owe God
eternal death. We owe Him justice. Hell will
be a never-ending display of God's justice. We owe Him justice. We can't pay that. We can't die
eternal death and yet live. We owe God a debt of perfect
righteousness, perfect obedience. But God sent His only begotten
Son to pay Him what He is owed by His people. That's why God
sent His Son. And our Lord Jesus came forth
and He gave God perfect obedience. Absolutely perfect obedience.
I always do that which pleases the Father. That's what he said.
And when he said that, it was no exaggeration. And then the
sinless God-man, who knew no sin on behalf of his people,
went to the garden And the Father laid on Him the iniquity of all
His people. He made Him sin for us who knew
no sin. And He was made a curse for us. God poured out justice on Him
because He became the one guilty person before the justice of
God with the sin of His people laid on Him. God's taken it all
off His people and put it on Him so that, here's the reason,
in righteousness, God would be righteous to pour out judgment
on Him because God, that's the whole purpose of the cross is
to display God's righteousness. Christ did not sin. Christ was
never made a sinner. He knew no sin. But brethren,
he bore our sins so that it was just for God to pour out judgment
upon him in the room instead of his people. And Christ paid
that debt we owe to justice and satisfied it. And God is satisfied
with him. It pleased God to bruise him. That means God's satisfied. He
shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. My righteous
servant shall justify many. That's what Christ accomplished.
That's why we say He died for a particular people. Because
He got the job done. He justified them. And if God
turned around and poured out justice on one that Christ justified,
that wouldn't be justice. This whole thing of salvation
is about the righteousness of God. It's about God being holy. I know I preach on that every
time I stand here. And God helping me, I'm going
to keep doing it. Because that's the gospel, brethren. It's all
about manifesting God's holy, righteous character in the salvation
of sinners. Therefore, for the sake of Christ
Jesus, our righteousness, God our Father has forgiven every
sinner that he's given faith in Christ. He's forgiven us being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus through faith in his blood. We've been justified.
He said, I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgression
for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins. It's done. It's finished. But you and me have a sin nature
that is only sin. And we sin on a daily basis. I heard some preacher the other
day say, let's pray today for a day without sin. It ain't going
to happen. It ain't going to happen. That's
not what Christ said pray for. He said pray and ask God, forgive
us our sin. Forgive us our sin. God will
have us to be ever mindful of His Son. He'll have us to be
ever mindful that He alone is our righteousness, that He alone
justified us, and that we need Him daily. We need Him daily. We need Him continually. We need
Him to cleanse us. We need to be forgiven for His
sake, and we need to remember we're being forgiven for His
sake daily. And so he says, you come to me
and you pray, forgive us our sins. Listen to this now, 1 John
1.8, if we say we have no sin, that's singular, that means if
you say you don't have a sin nature, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just. Faithful and just because of
Christ to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say we have not sinned, that's the act, thought, word,
and deed. We say we haven't sinned. That's all that comes from the
sin nature. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar
and His word's not in us. My little children, these things
I write unto you that you sin not. And isn't it amazing, this
is how he encourages us not to sin, right here. He does just
the opposite of what men in pulpits do today. Men say, you can't
preach that or men will sin. He said, I'm encouraging you
to sin not, brethren, and here's the encouragement. And when any
man sin, We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous, and He's the propitiation for our sin, and it's so for
His people all over this world. That's the motivation and the
constraint not to sin, is knowing when you do sin, we have an advocate
with the Father. And to keep us ever mindful that
we're to forgive all who sin against us, to keep us mindful
of that, Christ teaches us to ask forgiveness in this way,
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Christ said there
in verse 14, if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Christ is not saying that we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving
others. And he's not saying that any
one of God's saints will perish and be condemned by God the Father. He's not saying that. He's declaring
that by God's grace, God's saints certainly, surely forgive others. They certainly do. By the Spirit
of God, believer and unbeliever. I heard something the other day
where somebody was saying, you don't forgive unbelievers. No. He said, pray for your enemies.
Pray for them that hate you. God's people forgive believers
and unbelievers. When God's child tries to harbor
an unforgiving spirit, and we will, we have a sin nature, so
we'll try to harbor an unforgiving spirit. And when we do, if we're
God's child, He'll chasten us, and He'll make us see how great
our sins are, and how greatly He has forgiven our sins for
Christ's sake, and He'll bring us to forgive. He always does. He always does. The sinner saved
by mercy is made merciful by God. The sinner made to see God's
forgiven him for Christ's sake forgives any and all sin against
him for Christ's sake. But any who go on refusing to
forgive others? They just prove better than that
they don't know anything about God's forgiveness. They just
prove that they've never known what a sinner they are. They've
never known anything about what Christ has done for his people
and how God forgives his people. They've never experienced it.
That's all that a man approved by not forgiving another. But
to keep us forgiving, our Lord teaches us to ask forgiveness
from God. by saying, forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors. You don't have to pray those
exact words, but the spirit of it is, is that remember, remember
the great sins God's forgiven you for Christ's sake. That's
what's going to keep us in our heart, forgiving those who trespass
against us. Who am I? Sins against God, who
am I? And so what if somebody sinned
against me? Am I so special that I'm going to be offended and
not forgive somebody's sin against me? No. Read that article. When you go home, read the article
in the Bulletin. We don't have a paper copy this
morning. Read the article in the Bulletin. Brother Scott Richardson
wrote, whatever men say against me, they can't, I'm paraphrasing,
they can't put me as low as I really am. They can't say it in such
a debasing way that I truly am. They can't speak of me as the
sinner I am. And then he says, pray with a
heart of need. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. We're saying what we're saying.
Lord, I need Thee every hour. Lead us not into temptation,
deliver us from evil. He leadeth me, he leadeth me,
he leadeth me. He's our shepherd. And pray with
a heart of praise, for thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. When do we say that in our prayer?
When you say, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's,
you might as well, he's the amen, that's his name. We're saying,
thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. You see the heart issue, pray
with a reverent heart. Our Father which is in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Pray with a submissive heart,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. A dependent heart of faith, give
us this day our daily bread. A forgiving heart, forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors. A heart of need, lead us not
into temptation. Deliver us from evil. and a heart
of praise. Thine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever. Amen. That's the heart God gives
his people. That's true prayer from the Spirit. Our Father, we thank you for
this word. You're holy. Everything you do is done in
holiness. We thank You, Father, that You've given Your Son our
life, that You've provided our righteousness and holiness and
all we need to come into Your presence. Lord, we pray You'd
be pleased to save us and keep saving us and deliver us and
keep delivering us. And we pray, Lord, that You would
do this in the heart of each of Your people. We need You to
hedge us about. We need You to protect us, Lord.
all the evils of this world. We need you to feed us like a
little bird. Lord, we pray that you'd be pleased
to save your people. We pray that you'd be pleased
to exalt Christ our King in the heart of your people. And we
ask, Lord, that you please forgive us for his sake, for his righteousness,
for the finished work Christ has accomplished. We ask you,
Lord, forgive us. Make us willing, more willing
to forgive those that sinned against us. We've never been
sinned against like we've sinned against you. Lord, lead us, provide for us,
protect us. We praise You, we honor You,
we glorify You. We pray, Lord, You bring that
glory to Your name. Thank You, Lord, for giving us
Your Son and saving us by Your Son. We ask, Lord, You'd bless
us today with Your Word. What a sovereign, saving, effectual
Redeemer we have. How we do thank you, Lord, in
Christ's name, amen.