Luke chapter 11. And now this
evening I'm going to speak to you on the pattern prayer or
the model prayer by which our Lord instructed his disciples
to pray. But Luke chapter 11 begins by
setting the stage for this. It tells us the The reason that
our Lord on this occasion instructed his disciples what to pray for
and how to pray, Luke 11, 1 and 2. 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 you
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. And then Matthew gives us this,
his rendering of that which our Lord taught his disciples, back
over here in Matthew chapter six. Now, our Lord did not teach
them to pray, but rather he taught them the things that they should
pray for and the way they should pray. For you see, every child
of God knows to pray. When Saul of Tarsus was on his
way to Damascus He was ready to arrest and imprison anybody
who believed in the way of Christ, in the way of grace. He was taking
them captive and then he had the authority from the high priest
to put those people in prison. You remember how the Lord arrested
him by his grace. And the scripture says that After
he was knocked off his high horse, after he was blinded, God told
him to go into Damascus to a certain place. Then the Lord spoke in
a vision to a man by the name of Ananias. He said, you go to
a certain place in Damascus. There's a man there that I want
you to preach to. His name is Saul. And then the
Lord said, behold, he prayeth. You see, for a believer, praying
is as necessary as breathing is to us. We don't think about breathing. You just do it. And for the child
of God, indeed we do think about praying, but really a child of
God can't help but pray. Because our God has created within
us spiritual life. That spiritual life, that is
Christ being formed in us, we must speak to our Heavenly Father. We don't have a pre-set time
when we intend to pray. Through the day, the Spirit of
God reminds you and you just call upon your Heavenly Father
to pray. You know, as for Saul, I thought
about him. Did he say his prayers before? I'm sure he did. Because he was a Pharisee. But
you see, saying prayers is not the same as praying. And there
are a lot of people who know this pattern prayer, this model
prayer. There are a lot of people who
know it in the letter, but don't know it in the spirit. I want God to teach us, teach
me, and teach you of the spirit of prayer. And I do not say,
and it would be wrong for us to just recite this and say,
well, we've recited the Lord's Prayer, because first of all,
this isn't the Lord's Prayer. That's found in John 17, but
this is our Lord teaching us the way to pray and how to pray. So we don't recite this. But it does give us Maybe I'll
put it this way, like a road map for prayer. A road map. Because all of us need to be
instructed in the right way to approach God and the right things
for which we are to pray about. In verses five and six, our Lord
teaches His disciples not to pray to be seen of men. This
is so vital. Remember this, our prayers are
not for the benefit of our hearers right here. Our prayer is to
God. And as Brother Ron led us in
prayer a while ago, we should be praying also As we approach God, this is a
time of worship. We should be asking Him to give
us grace to worship Him rightly and to worship Him through our
Lord Jesus, the Savior. You see, speaking to God is just
speaking from your heart in faith as a believing child of God. I shouldn't be talking to you
in prayer. The prayer is not for you. The
prayer is for God. It's to honor Him. It's to exalt
Him. It's to worship Him. It isn't
to be a recitation of doctrine as if God doesn't already know. It's just a believer pouring
out his heart, her heart to God, out of your neediness speaking
to him in his fullness. And as much as is possible, especially
when it comes to public prayer, don't kind of set your words to the
understanding of people. And it's hard not to do that
in public prayer because we're very much aware that others are
listening. But we're here through the preaching
of the Word, through the prayer, and through the singing to honor
God. That's the goal. That's our motivation. And anything less than that is
a wrong motivation. As much as possible, let our
prayers be unobserved by and unheard by men. I find it very difficult to pray
in public. And I've done that thousands
of times. But I find myself so often speaking
so as to help and bless people rather than praying to glorify
God. As much as possible, try to blot
out your hearers when you're praying in public. I know there
are some people who pray Like they go out to a restaurant and
they say, well, somebody needs to say the blessing. I prayed that the Lord would
bless the food to our bodies, but I don't have to bow my head
to do that. And even when you choose to pray
in public like that, Don't change the tone of your voice. Don't
try to put on piety or a holy attitude. I remember years ago,
we were at a Bible conference. Brother Fortner and I were at
a Bible conference in another state. At that time, I was pastoring
in Virginia. preachers gathered together to
eat, and somebody said, this food needs to be blessed. I wish
one of you people would bless this so we can go ahead and eat.
Well, that's foolishness. Because the attitude was foolishness. And then the guy who said the
blessing, and I've talked to him lots of times, all of a sudden,
he bowed his head. Let's everybody bow our heads,
close our eyes. He said, our father, and that's
the way it began. Don't do that. God's not impressed
with the tone of your voice. Be yourself. What are you? You're a blood washed child of
God. Speak to him in a reverential way, but speak to him as one
of his children. You're not impressing God with
your words. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
that when you speak with God, don't be rash with your mouth,
don't run off with your words. He said, God's in heaven, you're
on earth, let your words be few. He's not impressed by the multitude
of your words. The reason why we pray in a service
is to exalt our God. That's what it's about. We come
together to honor Him. We honor Him through the preaching
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We honor Him by reading
His Word. We honor Him by praying. This
is serious business. So we must remember, especially in public prayer, we need to speak simply. Honestly, to our Heavenly Father, asking
Him to do for us according to His will. Let me speak as one
of His children when I pray. Let me speak humbly to Him, but
also let me speak with great confidence, because the God to
whom I pray The one before whom I bow my head and my heart is
my heavenly Father. He adopted me into His family. He sent His Son to redeem me,
to purge me of all of my sins. God has, through Jesus Christ,
declared me to be righteous. And all of my sins have been
purged. Hebrews tells us that. So let
me come to God with confidence. and with a loving heart. Now
let me give you several points here tonight. And they all start
with P. Let me talk to you about, first
of all, the paternity of God. To whom do we pray? In verse
six, he says, pray to thy father. Pray to thy father, which is
in secret. Look at verse eight. Be not ye
therefore like them, for your father, your father knows what
things ye have need of before ye ask him. And then here's the
model prayer. It's the way it begins. Our father,
our father, which art in heaven. And remember this, He is our
Father and we have access to Him, but only by one way. We have access to our Father
through the Lord Jesus, our Savior and our King. Our God is to be
approached with a single heart that is one purpose, to honor
Him. Coming to Him in faith and in
reverential fear. through His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the only mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus. Christ is the image of the invisible
God, in whom and by whom God is pleased to manifest Himself
to us poor sinners. You remember our Lord Jesus in
John chapter 14, He said to His disciples, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me. You cannot come to God, the Father,
except through the Lord Jesus Christ, your intercessor, your
great high priest, that sacrifice appointed by God who put away
the sins of His people, we have access to God only through Him. So when we say, Our Father, Our
Father, we're recognizing the fact that He's our Father by
adopting grace, by regeneration, And He's our approachable Father
through the bloody death of our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember
in John 15, our Savior said to His disciples, You have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you and ordained you. that you should
go forth and bear fruit, and your fruit should remain, and
that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father, whatsoever you
shall ask of the Father, Christ said, in my name, not in the
name of Mary, not in the name of a dead saint, but in my name,
he said. This is the key to doing business
with God. If you wanna do serious, true
spiritual business with our Heavenly Father, you must come to Him
through the only means that God Himself has ordained and appointed,
the Lord Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death upon the
cross of Calvary. You remember after our Lord rose
from the dead, He told Mary, touch me not, stop clinging to
me. For I'm not yet ascended to my
Father. But go to my brethren, and you say unto them, I ascend
unto my Father. Now that doesn't surprise me. But it's that next part that's
so full of grace. And your Father. My Father and
your Father. And to my God and your God. You remember the fact that in
Hebrews it says that Christ is the author and the finisher of
our faith. And the Father chose the Son
first. Christ is God's first elect and
then He chose us in Him. He's the firstborn of God. And we're born again by the power
of the Spirit being predestinated unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ unto himself. We have been adopted into God's
family. We have the privilege of addressing
him as our heavenly father. He's the one who gave us life.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. We're his
offspring. We're members of his family.
Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren. We're the children
of God. We, we have the privilege of
addressing God, our creator and sustainer, as our Father. What a great privilege. And then
here's the palace of God. The palace of God. What is the
palace of God? Heaven. God said, heaven is my
throne. The earth is my footstool. God's in heaven. And from heaven,
he rules all things. This reminds us of the sovereignty
of God, the reign of God over all things. Our heavenly Father
cannot be moved around by our whims and wishes or by our prayer
requests. We don't pray for God to change
His will. We can't do that anyway. What we're praying for and about
is the exaltation of God, the glory of God. Where is God? He's
in heaven. He's upon His throne. You read
in the book of Revelation, the Father is on the throne and so
is the Lamb. So when we remember that He is
in heaven, we are remembering the fact that He is the Great
and Almighty One. He has authority over all creatures. He reigns in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay
His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? Angelina's car down at Starbucks. That's where she works, and I
stopped to get Nancy, take Nancy home, a latte. And so I went
in, and of course Angelina was working, and I said, get your
grandmother a hot latte. And she did. And I paid for it. And while I was being prepared,
there was a fellow sitting over to the side and said, hey, are
you a priest or something? I started saying, I'm something.
I said, no, I'm not a priest. He said, well, do you know Jesus? And I said, which one? He said,
well, there's only one. I said, I agree with you on that.
I said, the one I worship and the one I believe is the one
who rules over all things in heaven. And I quoted that passage
I just quoted to you. He ruleth among the inhabitants
of heaven and the people on earth and none can stay his hand or
say unto him, what doest thou? He said, what in the world are
you talking about? I said, I'm talking about that one who's
the Lord. And then my coffee was ready and I was done talking
to him anyway. That one whom we worship is sovereign
over all. And as the Father sets upon the
throne, so also does the Lamb of God. You see, our destination is the
Father's house. Isn't that right? That's what
the Savior said there in John 14. In my Father's house are
many mansions, many dwelling places. If it were not so, I
would have told you. That's our destination. You see,
our home is where the Father is. Our home is where the Son
is. It's paradise. To be in the presence
of God and to be welcomed there through the blood and righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's heaven. And that's our predestinated
inheritance, to go to be with the Father. and with the Son. Home, that's where millions of
our brothers and sisters are. And we shall go and join them
in worship. So we have the paternity of God,
our Father. We have the palace of God, which
art in heaven. Now true, He's everywhere. God's
everywhere. David said, if I ascend into
heaven, thou art there. If I descend to the lowest hell,
behold, because this is startling, he's there too. There's nowhere
you can go where God isn't there. But as children of God, we recognize
the fact that he sets upon his regal royal throne. He has his
way over all people. and over all things. And then
here's the purity of God. He says, hallowed be thy name. As God is hallowed in heaven,
as God is hallowed in his palace, we pray for him to be hallowed
on this earth that is sanctified and honored. We worship God upon his throne,
and oh, how we pray that others would worship him too. I hear people so often, just
in their casual conversations, think absolutely nothing about
taking the Lord's name in vain. That just crawls all over me.
I mean, some of them are old. You say, don't you know any better
than that? Hallowed be thy name. He's seated in heaven. He's exalted
there. Oh, how we pray he'd be exalted
here. How we pray that men and women
and young people will worship our God through the Lord Jesus
Christ and his glorious sacrifice. Not just give lip service to
God, but really from the heart, bow down and truly honor Him
and worship Him as the God that He is. Infinite in mercy, infinite
in grace, infinite in holiness. This is our God. And as He is
adored in heaven, so we look forward to the day when He will
be adored on earth. When every tongue shall speak
of His greatness and of His glory. When people will not be going
around speaking of the inabilities of God and what God can't do.
How much God needs us. Oh, it will be a blessed day
when all that foolish talk will be ended forever. We pray for
God. God's name to be hallowed. in
this world. His name is holy. And when we say God is holy,
that's kind of including every one of his attributes. Because
really the holiness of God is the very basis of God. This is
his glory. and we honor Him as the Holy
God. Why did Christ have to come and
die and lay down His life for sinners? Why did He have to shed
His blood to wash away our sins? Because God is holy. Why did
God forsake His Son when He hung on the cross with the sins of
His people charged unto Him? Because God is holy. Hallowed
be thy name. It's hallowed in heaven. May
it be hallowed on this earth and may it be hallowed in this
building every time we gather together. His name is holy. Our Lord said nobody can come
to God except through Him. and in Christ we're holy. Who
of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification,
which is holiness and redemption. And then there's the purpose
of God. The next one is, thy kingdom come. The prayer begin by praying about
the glory of God and the worship of God, the magnificence of God. But this has to do with the advancement
of his spiritual kingdom. This is simply a request from
the people of God that his gospel spread effectually. As the message of our Lord Jesus
Christ and His incarnation and His work of redemption is proclaimed,
we pray that others will believe this message. One of the things
I pray about for myself and for all of you and for our church
as a whole is that we would be concerned about lost people.
Let us pray for the advancement of the kingdom of God. Boys and
girls, men and women listen to us who have no saving knowledge
of God through Christ. They don't know Him. Let us pray
that God would be pleased to do something for them like He's
done something for us. Where is the burden? Where is
the burden upon the hearts of God's people that we would pray,
Lord, advance your kingdom, spread your kingdom. We know your gospel
is going to be successful. Make it successful to the hearts
of people whom we love and care about. Let us have a burden for lost
folks. We compel God, bring the wanderers
in. Oh God, find the lost sheep. Isn't that your prayer? That's what I pray for. Lord,
find your lost sheep as the gospel goes forth, both in here and
by way of the internet. Lord, use the word preached from
this pulpit to go out And the gospel, if it's pleasing to God,
will seek and find those sheep that are wandering on the mountains
and on the steeps and on the hills and so forth. Find the
lost sheep and bring them to the Savior. That's what we pray.
That's what this is here. Thy kingdom comes. Spread the
kingdom of grace. Spread the kingdom of salvation. conquer souls. And there's only
one message that will conquer people's hearts and souls for
the glory of God and it's the blessed gospel of His free grace
to sinners through Christ. And that's the message we've
got to keep on preaching. Because it's the only message
that glorifies God. It's the only message that does
the saints good. And it's the only message God
will use to bring in the wanderers, to find the prodigals and bring
them safely home. Oh God, save the ruined, save
the lost, rescue the perishing. You've got family members, I've
got family members, we've got friends, we've got neighbors,
people that we love and care about. Pray for them. Pray for them. The only hope
they've got is the only hope you have. Is that God, by the
Spirit, will do a work of grace in their hearts. Otherwise, they're
gonna perish. You're gonna perish. The disciples asked our Lord
or prayed to the Lord when they were on the Sea of Galilee. They
said, carest thou not that we perish? Well, don't we care about
those who are perishing? I mentioned that to a person
one time. They said, well, if God's gonna
save them, they'll be saved. I said, well, you're right about
that. But don't take such a hard approach. Shouldn't our hearts be touched
with compassion? Touched with love? Knowing that
the only one who can do anything about our children our brothers
and sisters, our family members. The only one who can do anything
is God Almighty. If the work is to be done, he'll
have to do it. So we pray, Lord, Lord, thy kingdom
comes. Spread your kingdom. Spread your
kingdom. He's able. Scripture says, he's
plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon him. Lord, extend
thy kingdom. Call sinners to bow at the feet
of King Jesus. Oh, that more people would fill
these pews, not for the sake of just filling them, but fill
these pews and sing his praise and gather together to honor
God. Where are those who will honor
God? Where are those who will speak
of the greatness of our Lord? Where are the preachers? Where
are the voices? Who are not ashamed to lift up
their voice and say, our God reigns. Our God saves. Oh Lord, if it's your will, advance
your kingdom, spread the kingdom of grace. He's able. He conquered you, didn't he? I bet there's some people that
gave up on you. But our God was on your trail. The shepherd was seeking you,
the lost sheep. And the message he uses is the
message of redeeming grace through the doing and the dying of the
dear Redeemer. And then here's the purpose of
God. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. When we pray,
we're not making an attempt to change the will or the purpose
of God. Can't do that. What we're praying
about is the success of His eternal purpose, the fulfillment of His
program, And his program, his purpose
is that which he eternally set out to do. The will of God is
just. The will of God is right. The
will of God is good. And so we pray, Lord, that which
you have purpose to do from old eternity, do it. And whatever means you see fit
to use to bring about your purpose, so be it. We'll praise thee for
it. You see, all things fulfill the
will and purpose of God. And in the fulfillment of His
will and purpose, it may mean pain to us. It might even mean
our death. It may be that the words that
are spoken tonight will not be used by God till months or years
go by. We don't know. Lord, fulfill your will. Fulfill your purpose. You fulfill
your purpose in heaven, fulfill your purpose, your will on earth. and give me grace to submissively
bow to you and to rejoice in your perfect will. Can we rejoice
in the will of God? Well, when the temperature's
about zero, it's kind of hard to do that, isn't it? Huh? Because we want to be honest,
don't we? But Lord, Whatever you want to
do, I bow to you. Whatever you want to do with
me, hey, I'm allergic to pain just like everybody else is.
I don't like hurting. I don't like being sick. But
I know it's the will of God for me, thy will be done on earth,
down here with me, with me, as it is in heaven. And then there's the provision
of God. Give us this day our daily bread. That is, give us the bread of
necessity. That's what one translation has,
that's how it reads. Give us the bread of necessity. I ask you, what is or who is
the bread of necessity? That's our Lord Jesus. He's the
bread of necessity. I must have Him. Perhaps I won't
have food to eat, bread to eat, but if I have Him, I'm ready
for eternity. The bread which we seek a daily
supply of is not simply the bread of the body that perishes, but
the bread of the soul that endures to life everlasting. The Lord Jesus said, I'm the
living bread that came down from heaven. He that eateth of this
bread shall live forever. And the cry of the hungry soul
is, Lord evermore give us this bread, with a capital B. This is the bread we need. Well,
that's the best meal you could ever dine on is our Lord Jesus
Christ. Feed on him. He talked about
eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Let us feast on the
gospel banquet of redeeming grace and redeeming mercy through the
doing and the dying of Christ. We need and feed on Him. And then of course it is physical
bread, physical sustenance that we need. Lord, give us day by
day. The food that we need, things
to preserve the body as long as you're pleased to preserve
it. Give us those things which we physically require. But he
knows what you need before you even acknowledge your need. And
he will give us according to that provision which he deems
necessary. And then there's the pardon of
God. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Sins
are debts. We're in debt to God. I know our sins, that is our
indebtedness, has already been paid for. And we've already been forgiven.
For our indebtedness was retired by our Lord Jesus Christ through
his substitutionary death. But such is the weakness of our
faith that I fear, more often than
not, we do not enjoy the sweetness of full forgiveness of our sins. Our sins sometimes, they haunt
us. And we worry about them. You need not worry about your
debts to God. Your indebtedness has been paid.
And somebody might say, well, You preach like that, then people
are gonna just, hey, throw caution to the wind and live any kind
of way they wanna live. Let me tell you something, for
a child of God, I wish we could live the way that we truly want
to live. I wish our attitude would always
be the attitude that would be honoring to God. I wish our faith
was always keen and sharp and full and complete. I wish I could
believe God like I want to believe him and like I'm going to believe
him. But I must confess, just like
you, my faith so often is weak. But God's salvation is full. Let's not wallow around in our
sinfulness and talk more about how sinful we are than talking
about how forgiven we are. Does that make sense? I wish we could enjoy this salvation
more. Where is the joy? Where is the
happiness? Where is the soothing blessing
we have as God assures us all is well. You're righteous in
my sight. You're righteous in my Son. Enjoy
salvation. It's the pardon of God. I know this, none can grant pardon
except the one against whom we've sinned. And He pardoned sin one
way. by punishing his son who bore
our debts, who took our indebtedness and then satisfied his justice. Justice has been honored. Debts
have been paid. God's mercy to his children is
real. It is complete. It is forever. And it is to be enjoyed by faith. by faith. And then we get to
the protection of God and lead us not into temptation but deliver
us from evil. Deliver us from the evil one.
Aren't you thankful we're kept by the power of God? If any one of his sheep could
wander off and stay gone, it would have been me. It would
have been you. But he keeps us. He holds us
in the palm of his hand. We cannot perish. We cannot leave
him and he will not leave us. Why? Because he holds us. The shepherd holds us in the
palm of his hand, and then we're both in the palm of the Father. Only God can keep us. Yes, I'm a child of God, but
never let me forget. Oh God, don't let me forget.
I'm just a poor sinner and nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my
all in all. You ever heard that saying, don't
forget your upbringing? God, don't let me forget where
you brought me out of. The dungeon of sin. The black
prison of darkness being held by that roaring lion who goes
about seeking whom he may devour. Let me never forget. I've been
rescued. I've been lifted up from the
miry clay. My feet have been set on a rock. The rock is Christ Jesus. And
then lastly, here's the preeminence of God. For thine is the kingdom. What is the key? It's the kingdom
of grace. It's the kingdom of salvation and the power. The power to raise us from the
dead. The power to bring light to where
once there was just darkness. The power to bring life where
there was once just death. And thine is the glory forever. And then the last word, and I've
got to spend a couple of minutes on this. Amen. Let me tell you something. That
doesn't mean it's the end of the prayer. That's not what amen
means. It doesn't mean, well, my prayer
has come to a conclusion. And it doesn't mean so be it. I want you to, you won't need
to come back to Matthew now, but look with me in Revelation
chapter three. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. That's more than so be it. That's
a name. That's our Lord's name. Revelation 3 and 14. And unto the angel of the church
of the lay of sins write, These things saith the Amen. The Amen. the faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the creation of God. The reason we end our
prayers, the reason our Lord instructed us to end our prayers
with amen is because everything we have asked is in His name,
in the name of the amen. That's a proper name for our
Savior. We desire to come into the Father's
presence. We have the ability to come into
the Father's presence. We have the righteousness to
come into the Father's presence. Our sins have been forgiven.
We can come into the Father's presence. And it's all because
of Him whose name is Amen. Amen. So you remember when you
end your prayers with Amen, That just doesn't mean, well, I've
finished now. That means I've come to God through
His name. And the basis for God receiving
me is because of the amen, is because of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's sing the closing song. 290, 290,