I'd like to ask you to turn in
your Bibles if you would, to the 17th chapter of John. We're continuing in our series
of messages from the book of Luke, and last week we began
this 11th chapter of Luke. Luke chapter 11, where we read,
and it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place,
when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us
to pray as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them,
when ye pray, say our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven,
so in earth. Give us day by day our daily
bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Now, we spent some time last
week considering this. What is it to pray? We're going
to come back to that text in a moment, but I want to begin
in reading scriptures along with you in John chapter 17. What is it to pray? It's to speak
verbally or in thought from the soul, the heart, towards the
divine. In these few short statements,
our Lord Jesus teaches us the vital aspects of prayer. Our
prayer should be simple, sincere, spiritual, and short, avoiding
everything like pretense, formality, and show. In prayer, we simply
spread before God, our Heavenly Father, the great desires, the
needs of our hearts, trusting Him to fulfill those desires
and meet those needs by His grace for the glory of His name. We
spent our time last week examining the grace that we can boldly
call Him Father. You'll recall, those of you who
were able to join us, If you weren't able to join us, this
is Part B, so I invite you to go to Sermon Audio, or if you'd
like, you can ask Kathy to download, or if she has time, to burn a
CD for you, because it really goes together, last week's and
this week's. We spend our time talking about
going to the throne of grace boldly. Folks, we call The One who is more majestic
than words can even describe. We call this One the same Father
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We call Him Father. We
have the right to go before Him and say, Father, hear my voice. Why? How do we, sinners, have
the right to do that in our Savior, the Lord Jesus. The very one
who took every sin that we have, the ones that we've done, the
ones that we will do, as his own. And went to the cross and
died. Sacrificed himself, the lamb
slain from before the foundation of the world. That's what Revelation
tells us about him. As a lamb slain. from before
the foundation of the world, we can go to him who created
everything and call him father. I know it's difficult to understand
this from some who may have not had a very good father in this
world. But even when we were little, did we not look up to
somebody as our father? Here in this world, we look up
to the one who loved us, and gave Himself for us. And we call
Him boldly, My Father. That's what we looked at last
week in a nutshell. I made this statement last week. This is not the Lord's Prayer
that we see in the book of Luke. And I wanted to show that to
you. I know some of you know this. You know, if we were going
to teach our kids the Lord's Prayer, It's good to teach our
kids how to pray. And that's what it is at Luke.
It's teaching us how to pray. But if we were going to teach
something and call it the Lord's Prayer, when the Son of God prays
to His Father for His people, that's the Lord's Prayer. And
I want to read that for you this morning. The Lord prayed to His
Father many times, but for the most part, John 17 is the only
place where we get such great detail, and I want to read it.
I want you to read it along with me. These words spake Jesus and
lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father! How are we
supposed to pray? Father! O great and majestic
One! glorify thy son, that thy son
also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him, given
his son, power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given him. You talk about election,
that's pure election right there. How many people? Who are the
ones that are saved of God? All as many as thou hast given
Him. Those are the saved of God. Those
are the elect. And this, verse 3, and this is
life eternal, that they might know. They might know who you
are. That you will be their God. We don't have a God who is full
of maybes and possibilities. We have a God who is yay and
amen. That means yes, positively. When He says something, it's
for sure. And this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. Oh, we know that that man who
walked this earth just over 2,000 years ago, His name was Jesus. The folks hung him on a cross
and killed him. We know that he was God in the
flesh, don't we? We believe God. That's what it
says about him and his word. In the beginning was the word
and the word was made flesh. Remember that, John 1? We believe
that, don't we? There you go, right there. We
believe and we know. We know the only true God in
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee, verse
4 it says, I have glorified thee on the earth. Folks, everything
Christ did glorified the Father. Everything He did was in perfection.
God the Father, did He not look down and everybody hear these
words? This is my Son in whom I am well
pleased. Did He not say that? According
to His Word He did. I believe it. I have glorified
thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do, and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self,
with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Now,
wait a minute. Wasn't he only 33 years old?
How could he be with God the Father before the world was?
I don't know, but it's true. How can we explain God manifesting
Himself in the flesh? How can that be explained? Oh,
we get, you know, you can get a little picture of it here and
there. You get a little bit of picture of, you know, He was
born of a virgin. He was a young man. He grew up. At 33 years of age, they killed
Him. We get those kinds of pictures of Him. We can see that. But
how can we explain God, the infinite God? manifesting himself in flesh. That's a mystery that no man
can explain. He says, I have manifested thy
name in verse six unto the men which thou gavest me out of the
world. Those for, there we go, the elect
again. Thine they were. They belonged
to God before the foundation of the world, did they not? They
were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. When I think of those words right
there, I think, well, how can I be that? I've never kept God's
word. Even what I think is keeping
His word is a failure. How can that be? Folks, if we're in Christ, we're
as perfect as He is. And that deserves to be told
to me over and over and over again, because I have to walk
in this flesh. Don't you? I have to walk in this body of
death until the Lord has deemed it worthy for me to leave this
world. And for me to walk in this body of death, I need to
hear about how I have kept Thy Word in Him. I need to hear about how I'm
in Christ. And His Word tells us that. In
Christ. In Christ. Verse 7, now they
have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the
words which thou hast gavest me, and they have received them,
and have known surely that I came out of thee, and they have believed
that thou didst send me. I pray for them. I pray not for
the world, but for them which thou gavest me. For they are
thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am
glorified in them." Do you catch the oneness Christ is portraying
you and I with Him in God the Father? We call this very one
that Christ calls our Father. Our Father who art in heaven. Verse 11, Now I am no more in
the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee, Holy
Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given
me, that they may be one, as we are one. Wow, there's the
oneness right there. While I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I
have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition,
that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. And now come I to
thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might
have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and
the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth. as now has sent me into the world,
even so I have also sent them into the world. And for their
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified
through the truth, set apart, made holy through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them which also, them also which shall believe on me
through their Word, through the preaching of the Word. Oh, the preaching of God's Word,
the power unto salvation for those who believe. Verse 21,
that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and
I in thee, that they also may be one in us. That the world
may believe that thou hast sent and the glory which thou gavest
me, I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. I and them, thou and me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also
whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me
before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world
hath not known me, but I have known thee, and these have known
that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them
thy name, and will declare that the love wherewith thou hast
loved me may be in them, and I in them. Now turn over to your
text in Luke chapter 11. Did you catch the oneness? Everything
about you and I was what? In Christ. We are one with Him
because of what He's done. We are one with Him because who
He is. And we are one with Him because
of where He is right now, sitting on His throne, working everything
out. As our mediator, our high priest,
our intercessor, we are one with Christ. And being one with Christ
makes us one with God Almighty. We call upon Him as our Father,
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We see this prayer
in instruction form. He said, when ye pray, pray like
this, our Father which art in heaven. And then we read, hallowed
be thy name. The word hallowed in the Old
Testament language means to be sanctified, holy. It means dedicated, to be set
apart, to be consecrated, to be pure, to be holy. In Exodus 20, verse 11, we read
these words, For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day, the seventh day, and hallowed it. Hallowed it. Made it pure. Made it holy. Not just holy as in perfect and
righteous, but holy as in H-O-L-L-Y. And I bring that out because
all the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in our Savior. If you
don't worship the Son of God, you don't worship the Father.
We worship a triune God. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. All three. One God. Three different,
distinct persons. Distinct persons. Three separate
persons, but one God. All the fullness of the Godhead
dwelleth in the Lord Jesus Christ. We worship one God. In Leviticus
22, verse 32, we read these words. Neither shall ye profane my holy
name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel.
I am the Lord which hallowed you. Do you see the oneness there?
Hallowed be Thy name. Thy name is holiness, purity,
whole in all ways. The name of God represents all
of His attributes by which He reveals Himself to you and I.
He reveals us as the whole thing, the whole picture. He says, I
and my Father are one. That's revealing us. We still
can't explain that either. But it's true. It's God's Word.
And His people believe it. He reveals himself as one with
the Father. His name represents His being.
It represents all that He is. When we say, Hallowed be thy
name, we're simply praying like the Lord Jesus did. He said,
Father, glorify thy name over in John chapter 12. He said that
back in John chapter 17 verse 1 or verse 2. Hallowed be thy
name. Father, glorify thy name. After declaring who we are, Petitioning,
our Lord instructs us in the manner in which we are to approach
Him. It says, Thy kingdom come. Our concern is and must be the
glory of our Savior. Ask yourself this question whenever
you get ready to do anything, no matter what it is. You're
going to sit down and eat. You're going to go out and rake. You're
going to hammer some nails in the roof somewhere. Whatever
it is, you're going to get up and put your feet on the floor
in the morning. Lord, Thy kingdom come. Glorify Your name. Whatever it takes, Lord, to use
me today, glorify Your name. That's my concern. We want God
to have all the glory for everything. There's no glory for John to
say, I've decided to do this. The glory is all His. Lord, what
will You have me to do today? Will I stub my toe? Glorify the
Lord! Will I put a nail through my
finger today? Glorify the Lord! My pastor. You all know him and his wife,
Jeanne and Judy. My pastor. You know, at 82 years
old, some of you, some of you might be close to understanding
this. At 82 years old, it gets pretty
tough when you're not feeling well. It gets tough to put your
feet on the floor in the morning. At 82 years old, Gene has days
like that. It just was tough for me to get
up today. I did it. I'm sitting here in
the front room, John. I'm having coffee with you on
the phone, but I'm telling you, it's been a tough morning. My
Lord be glorified for it, though. This is what he's purposed for
me to be in right now. That's his words. No natural
man's going to say it like that. Only God's people think of things
like that. We've got some trials going on
in our lives. Praise the Lord. Those guys are
crazy. There's some weird people over
in that church over there. We've got some stuff going on
in our country that just, oh, I cannot believe people are that
stupid. But praise the Lord that we're
here. Thy kingdom come. We want the glory of everything
to go to our Father who art in heaven. When we think this thought,
thy kingdom come, it's like David wrote in the Psalms. He says,
pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love
thee. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. Thy kingdom come. May somebody
come through that door. Okay, not today because it's
kind of late, but next Sunday. Remember the day when Edward
and his wife Carissa came in here? Maybe the Lord is bringing in
new people into the church. May your word, when we heard
about Kevin Thacker down there in San Diego, were you as happy
about that as I was? I was ecstatic. Not just because
I got to meet somebody else out here on the West Coast, but because
God's kingdom was coming. His kingdom was continuing to
grow. Is that not our heart's desire,
Lord? May some more of your people
hear your word today. It's simply praying this, Lord,
save your people. Establish your kingdom in the
world. That's all that's saying. Thy kingdom, thy kingdom come. And we pray for the kingdom of
glory to be established, like it says in 2 Peter 3.13. Nevertheless,
we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. That's coming, folks. If our
heart's concern is for the kingdom of God, His sheep, His people,
His elect, His church, then let us ever pray, Thy kingdom come. Then we see the words, Thy will
be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Prayer, folks, is not
us trying to get God to do our will. Lord, if Your will could
just be as mine, That's not prayer. We know that if we had control,
we'd probably mess it up pretty good, wouldn't we? As God, He
doesn't mess anything up. Prayer is not trying to get God
to do our will, rather it is a voluntary leaving our will
to Him. You know, Lord, my will's gonna
make a mistake here. You know, we're supposed to pray
this if it be the Lord's will when we go shopping. We're making
plans. I'm hoping to go down to San
Diego on the 15th and preach for our brother Kevin while he
travels, if it be the Lord's will. That's the way we're supposed
to pray. Don't we do that in our hearts?
I know, I tell you, I'm gonna go camping tomorrow. But in my
heart, I know this. You may not hear it coming from
my voice, but in my heart, I know who's in control. In your heart,
if you know who He is, remember what it said in the verses that
we read in John 17? That you would know Me. That your people,
those that you gave Me, would know who I am and that you sent
Me. Well, we do know who He is. And we do know that all things
are purposed by Him. So I may not say, Thy will be
done if I go camping tomorrow, but I know this, that if I do
go camping, it's His will, and if I don't, that's His will too.
You remember a day when you didn't know the Lord, and you never
even thought about it being His will? Never even crossed your
mind. We can think that thought, Lord,
thy will be done, without ever even speaking a word, just because
we know who He is. Thy will be done, as in heaven,
so in earth. J.C. Ryle wrote this, he said,
our true happiness is in perfect submission to God's will. When
I'm doing something that I know it's God's will for me to be
doing, that's when I'm happiest. We want to obey God's revealed
will. We want men and women everywhere
to surrender to and obey His revealed will, don't we? But
here our Lord is teaching us to sincerely and heartily surrender
everything to and earnestly desire that God's will be done. Oh Lord,
don't leave me to my own will. Because I know what will happen
if you do. He left Jonah to his own will one time. And what was it Jonah did? He
ran from God, didn't he? Folks, we all see that we would
do exactly the same thing, don't we? Bill and I were talking one
time about the folks there that cried out this, crucify him,
crucify him. Bill had a friend who said, oh,
I'd have never done that. I know who the Lord Jesus is.
I'd have never done that. And we were talking about Peter.
Remember what Peter did? Peter had the Lord Jesus himself
tell him what he was going to do. You're going to deny me three
times. No. No. I would never do that. I know who the Lord is. Oh, look
what he did. Lord, don't leave me to my will.
Do not leave me to my will, because I know what my will can do. The fact is, we simply don't
know what to pray most of the time. In Romans 8, verses 26
and 27, we read these words. Now, we're all thinking right
off the bat when I said that. You're thinking, Romans 8, 28,
we know all things are for our good, right? What about those
two verses right before? Listen to this. Likewise, the
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought. See how the Lord works everything? I did this picture in our Bible
study, and I want to repeat it. It goes from this, and the arrow
goes around the picture, to the Spirit of God. And then it comes
back around to the results of that. But the Spirit itself maketh
the intercession for us with groaning, which cannot be uttered.
So we see ourselves there going to the Spirit. The Spirit making
intercession for us, which cannot be uttered. And He that searches
the souls, the very one God Himself, knoweth what is the mind of the
Spirit, because He maketh the intercession for the saints according
to the will of God. See how it glorifies our Savior?
See how it keeps bringing her eye back around and giving Him
the glory every time? I love that. Most of our prayers,
our fear, are accurately described by James over in chapter 4, verse
3. He says, "...Ye ask and receive
not, because ye ask amiss." I ask, O Lord, to save my two children,
if it be Thy will. And I know that if it's His will,
He will. If He has purposed it, so shall
He not do it. In all that we have seen thus
far concerning a true prayer, it is altogether spiritual. Our
Lord Jesus is teaching us to pray for the glory of God, the
people of God, and the will of God. He teaches us to submit
all other matters to those greater far more important matters. He
says, give us day by day our daily bread. What an instructive
word that is to you and I. Again, we need food every day,
don't we? I can't imagine what it's like
to wake up and do nothing but thinking about how I'm going
to feed myself today. I can't even imagine that. We've
been blessed in this world, this time of the world, in this country
that we live in. All we gotta do is go down here
a half a mile down the street and buy what we need to eat this
afternoon. I can't even imagine. But I can imagine this. I need
Thee every hour. Lord, I need Thee. That's a bread
that I need to pray the one who says, I am the bread
of life. Forgive us of our sins, he says. Are you one of those who, Lord,
I'm glad you saved me. Now that I'm a better person,
I thank you that I'm not like that person over there. Folks,
there's a lot. There's a lot of people in this
world who are just like that. Some of us were just like that
at one time ourselves. Aren't you thankful God has mercy?
So when we cry out, Lord have mercy on me, he looks down with
love and joy in his heart, and he grabs ahold of us by our arms
and holds us up. I have had mercy on you. I will
have mercy on you, and you will be with me throughout eternity. Lord, forgive us our sins. Now
we come to the last part here that I want to be very clear.
Forgive us of our sins, for we forgive everyone that is indebted
to us. This is the only line in this
passage that our Lord expands on and explains. And he does so because this is
part that most of us will overlook. Let me read for you where the
same, not the same teaching, it's a different time, a different
group of people, but back in the book of Matthew, our Lord
is on the Sermon on the Mount, and he's teaching his disciples
and a great bunch of people at the same time. And he says these
words, he says, In Matthew 16, verse 14-15, 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 yours. Our Lord teaches us that if we
are unforgiving, we are yet unforgiving. If we are not gracious, it's
because we have not experienced grace. He's not suggesting that
forgiveness of sin is conditioned upon sinners forgiving one another.
He's simply declaring that grace experienced in the soul makes
saved sinners gracious to another. Now you may say to yourself,
now wait a minute. I'm not a very forgiving person.
Now wait a minute. Does that mean I'm still lost?
Our Lord is simply declaring that grace experienced in the
soul makes saved sinners gracious one to another. Our Lord performed
these things just as everything else perfectly for us, but that
does not excuse us to not be forgiven. And it's a battle that's going
to take us all the way through to that door marked death. And
it may seem to you that this battle is kind of personal to
me, because it is. I'm not a very forgiving person
at times. That woman with the dogs that
come over to my yard when we were living down there in North
Island, I didn't like that. It's very difficult for me to
say I'm a forgiving person when I just got angry as all get-out
about dogs coming over in my yard. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm trying to tell you this is
serious stuff of not being forgiving, folks. But we've got to remember
it's our Savior who has taken our sins upon Himself, and that
includes our forgiveness. Am I a forgiving person? Not
very good in this flesh, just like everything else. I'm not
very good at any of it in this flesh. But in my Savior, I'm
perfect. And if you're in Him, in that
very One who prayed to His Father for you, you're as perfect as
He is. And that's grace. That's mercy. Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us. Deliver us from evil. I'll say
this quickly. Lord is never the cause of our
temptation. That's us. That's ours to own. You cannot say the devil made
me do it. I did it. And if you're a child
of God, you know it's you. I know why I couldn't be forgiven,
because I'm wicked in the heart. Don't let me, Lord, go into my
temptations. Give me an out. In John 17, 15,
we read this, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out
of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Isn't that what we read in John
17, verse 15? So let us ever pray that God our Father may
be in his unceasing, abundant, and loving grace deliver us from
evil. From the evil that is in the
world, the evil that is in our hearts, the evil one who seeks
to destroy us, from the evil that is the result of sin, blessed
be his name, our God, who will deliver us from all evil, as
we read in Jude 1, 24 and 25. He will deliver us from all evil
while we live in this evil world, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. When He
takes us out of the world in death, He will be delivering
us from evil, as we read in John 14, 1-3. And in the great and
glorious resurrection day, our God will completely deliver us
from all evil in resurrection glory. when he presents us before
himself in the spotless perfection and beauty of his Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
5 and we'll close with that. Chapter 5. We read in verse 25,
husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church
and gave himself for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of the water by the word, that he might present
it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any other such thing, but that it should be holy and without
blemish. Folks, we come to our great and
holy Father, and we cry unto the throne of grace, Because
our God has been gracious in giving us that desire to do so.
I pray this message. Bless you.