Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 37 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns Hymnbook,
a familiar tune. We'll use a different tune to
it this morning, but this is a familiar hymn. Let's all stand
together. Number 37 in the Spiral Hymnbook. my soul the throne of grace in
every time of need. There's mercy for the needy one
whom Jesus' name shall The blood, the precious blood
of Christ has opened a new way. Though Satan tempts my heart
to sin, I'll call upon my God. And if I call, He'll lift me
up and cleanse me God will hear my groans and cries
of grief. Nothing can keep me from His
throne, but my home, Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be in Colossians
chapter four. Well, we're gonna begin in Colossians
chapter four, but we'll spend most of our time in Matthew chapter
six this morning, this first hour. So if you'd like to find
both of those passages, Colossians four and Matthew six. Let's pray together. our merciful heavenly father.
Thank you for the understanding that you've given that we might
offer to you that him knowing Lord that you must compel us
to come before thy throne of grace. You must enable us to
worship the Lord, we are completely dependent upon you to do a work
of grace in our hearts. We know that. Except you build
the house. They labor in vain that build
it. Lord, we pray that. That our time here today will
not be in vain. Lord, that you'd be pleased to. Manifest your grace and your
glory. in the person of thy dear son,
that Christ would be lifted up, that we would be drawn in faith
to him, that you would cause your face to shine upon us, that
we might be saved, Lord, that we might know the hope of our
salvation in his accomplished work, in his glorious and perfect
person. Lord, that he would, that he
would receive all the glory and that we would leave here with
hope and rest, peace, forgiveness. We ask it in the name of thy
dear son, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. We've been in the book of Colossians
now for a few months, and in all of Paul's letters, he closes
out his letters with some admonitions, some encouragements, and they
always involved the importance of prayer, and Colossians is
no exception to that. Notice in verse 2 of Colossians
chapter 4 where the Lord speaking to us says continue in prayer.
Continue in prayer. Prayer is a work of grace that
the Lord does in the hearts of his children. Prayer is the first
experience that we have when the Lord is pleased to regenerate
us, to give us new life in Christ. We find ourselves praying. We find ourselves asking the
Lord for his mercy and for his grace. Our salvation is not the
result of our prayer. Praying is the result of our
salvation. And so when the Lord says, continue
in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving, speaking to
believers who have, though, I've been thinking about this message
on prayer and how little I know about prayer. And yet the Lord
says that we watch in prayer, with thanksgiving and faith prays
and faith is thankful. And he goes on to say in verse
three, with all praying also for us that God would open unto
us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which
I am in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. As simple as the gospel is, to
speak of it properly is impossible. apart from God enabling us. And so Paul is saying, pray for
me, pray for me that the Lord would open doors of opportunity
and pray for me that when those doors are opened that he would
enable me to speak as I ought to speak. I'm very mindful in light of this
of how All the preparations that we
make to be here this morning, the preparations that I've made,
the preparations that you've made, the preparations that Tom
has made, are all in vain except the Lord meet with us, except
he enable us to worship. And so therein we have the necessity
of prayer. when the Lord called Ezekiel
to preach the gospel to that valley of dry bones, the bones
started coming together, but there was, the scripture says
there was yet no life in them. And so he commanded the prophet
to prophesy to the wind. In other words, pray, pray that
the spirit of God will come and breathe life on his word and
cause it to be effectual. because nothing we say or nothing
we do is, as I said in our prayer, except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain to build it. Everything we do here would be
empty. It would be of no benefit to
our souls if the Lord's not pleased to meet with us. And is this
not what prayer is? Our complete admission and confession
and dependence upon the Lord to enable us and to meet with
us and to bless us with his presence. Otherwise, all the preparations
are vain, empty. It would be not proper for us to
consider the subject of prayer without first considering our
Lord's prayer. and how often times we find him
in a spirit of prayer going to his Heavenly Father. We see that
in John chapter 17. We're going to be going to the
model prayer that the Lord gave in Matthew chapter 6, which is
also repeated in Luke chapter 11, which men will often call
the Lord's Prayer. It's not the Lord's Prayer. It's
a model prayer. And the Lord's Prayer is John
chapter 17. That's where he prayed for his
church. And he makes it clear in that
prayer. He said, Father, I pray not for the world. I pray for
them which thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they
were, and thou hast given them unto me. And what comfort we
have in knowing that the Lord has prayed. As weak and feeble
as our prayers are, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus
Christ the righteous one who ever lives to make intercession
for us. So we can't discuss the importance
of prayer without pausing for a moment to rejoice in the fact
that we have a savior. who is always praying for us. He's always interceding on our
behalf. And as feeble and fickle and
inconsistent as our prayers are, his are perfect. His are perfect. We find great comfort in what
the Lord said to Peter. When he said to him, he said,
Peter, Satan has asked to sift thee, but be of good cheer. I've prayed for thee that your
faith fail not. And that's the result of our
Lord continuing to intercede for us in prayer that our faith
would not fail, that we would remain believers to the very
end. And the hope of that is that
our Lord keeps us and that he has prayed for us. If any part
of our salvation is dependent upon our prayers, How shaky ground
we're on. We do pray. We wish the Lord
would teach us to pray. more fervently, but we have,
when James said, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much, we understand that as the believer praying,
he was talking about Elijah, who prayed for it not to rain
and the Lord held off the rain. as the prophet of God and the
prayers of God's people are precious in his sight and they are effectual
and by the power of his spirit he makes them fervent. The real meaning of that passage
in James when he said the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much, who is the righteous man? It's the Lord
Jesus Christ and his prayers were perfectly effectual. They accomplished the purpose
for which he prayed them. And when he prayed from the cross,
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. We learned
two things about that prayer that our Lord sent to the Father.
Number one, we don't understand the real evil of our sin. We know not what we do. We sin
against God. We have such a light view of
our sin. but the Lord's prayed for us. And there's our hope that we
have the assurance of forgiveness because of his prayer for us. So when we consider this subject
of prayer, we must begin by being reminded
of our righteous Savior, our intercessor, our advocate with
the Father, whose prayers are always answered. Another thing that James tells
us about prayer, he said that we often pray amiss, that we
may consume it upon our own lust. We too often pray about temporal
things rather than eternal things don't we. It seems like that. We are oftentimes more bothered
by our temporal circumstances than we are by the needs that
we have spiritually. And so we find ourselves praying
for things that we may consume them upon our own lust rather
than praying as we ought for for the Lord. I mentioned last
Sunday, I think that there's an article in your bulletin today
that Frank Tate wrote, which is what got me to thinking about
it. Frank and Janet just had their first grandchild and he
was holding that baby and the baby began to cry and he realized
that that baby doesn't have the ability to express to its parents
what its needs are. That's completely on the parents
to figure that out. Generally speaking, it's because
the baby has a dirty diaper or it's because he's hungry. And
that's the motivation behind our prayer, isn't it? We've messed
ourselves up with our own sin. And we need Christ to feed our
souls with himself as the bread of life. But we don't have the
ability to really know what we need. We just come before our
Heavenly Father and we pray, Lord, help us. We know we need
Christ. We know we need grace. Whether
we need this other thing that we seem to be so concerned about
and so bothered by that is temporal and fleshly, we don't know if
we need that or not. Maybe the Lord's gonna say, no,
you don't need that as much as we might think we do. We know
there's spiritual things that we need. And so we hope that
the Lord will enable us to pray more for those things. The more
we grow in grace, the older we get, the more we grow in the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, the less confident we become
in ourselves, the more dependent we become upon the Lord. the more we see of our need for
him. And is that not what prayer is? An expression of our need,
our dependence, like that baby, except you become as a little
child, you should not enter the kingdom of heaven, suffer the
little children coming to me, for such is the kingdom of God.
And so it's an expression. Prayer is the believer's heart
of faith pouring out its soul in need that the Lord would would
feed us and forgive us and help us. If you have the opportunity to
spend time with a dying believer, I highly recommend you do it. And find out from your conversations
with them what's important to them. Because that's what ought to
be important to us, who aren't necessarily looking at death's
door right in front of us. And I found two things about
dying believers. Two things they want to talk
about. They want to talk about the love of God in Christ, forgiving
them, and they want to talk about the necessity of prayer. There's
nothing more important to a dying believer than prayer and love. And so it's a testimony of our
sinfulness that we're not as needy as we ought to be until
we get to that place. But it's a great encouragement
to to talk to and spend time with believers that are about
to depart this world and see what it is that's important to
them. Because we sure put a lot of importance on things that
aren't important, don't we? We really do. Paul's telling us here, the Lord's
telling us here in our text, that which is important to continue
in prayer and watch, watching and waiting for the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we're doing in prayer.
With thanksgiving, thanking him. for what he's done in putting
away our sin by the sacrifice of himself, thanking him for
causing us to want to come before the throne of grace and find
help in our time of need. Lord, I wouldn't have any interest
in this had you not done a work of grace in my heart. And thanking
him for the hope that we have of knowing that one day, one
day this old man's gonna go back where he came from. And the corruptible is going
to be made incorruptible, and the mortal is going to be made
immortal, and we're going to see him in the fullness of his
glory and be made like him without sin. And believers have every
reason to be thankful, don't they? It's a shame that we're
not more thankful than we ought to be. Lord, teach us to pray. It's
what the disciples ask in Luke chapter 11. Turn with me to Matthew
chapter six, Matthew six. And I hope that we can deal with
this model prayer instructively, because that's how the Lord gave
it. A matter of fact, in Matthew chapter 6, before he gives the
model prayer, he says, don't pray vain repetition. Don't think
that this is a prayer that is to be repeated over and over
again verbatim. I grew up doing that. We called
it the Our Father, and we prayed it verbatim, thinking that somehow
that was going to be helpful. And the Lord introduces this
prayer with that warning. Don't pray vain repetition. Don't just say words. This is
not given as an hour, Father, or as a prayer that's to be repeated
verbatim. It is a model of the things that
ought to be in our prayers. And he begins by telling us who
our prayers are to be addressed to. This is important. I had a young believer ask me
just recently, who do we pray to? You know, I think I'm supposed
to just pray to Jesus. Is that right? And I said, Noel,
that's not what the Lord said. We pray through the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one that makes
us acceptable in the presence of God. But our prayers are offered
up to our heavenly father. I talked to someone else recently
who was having a very difficult time with the Trinity and they
learned that the Bible doesn't use the word Trinity and they
were beginning to question this aspect of God's nature. Though
the Bible does not mention the word Trinity, The Bible does
teach that our one God is in three persons. And understanding
that, if we had a God that we could comprehend, he wouldn't
be much of a God, would he? We have a God that is beyond
our understanding, but we believe what he's revealed about himself
in his word. And he's revealed himself in
three separate persons. And each person of the triune
godhead, each of them possess the attributes that can only
be contributed to deity. And so what would those attributes
be? Well, eternality, self-existence, one who never had a beginning,
One who exists within himself. That's what I am means when Moses
asked the Lord for his name and the Lord told him at the burning
bush that his name is I am. I am that I am. And the Lord
Jesus Christ takes on that name when he reveals himself as the
son of God. And so The God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all three the eternal, glorious
Jehovah. That's the word for I am. They are self-existent, all three
of them are. One did not create the other.
And the importance of this is that every heresy that's ever
crept into the church has come as a result of an improper understanding
of the nature of God. An improper understanding of
the nature of God has opened the door for every error that
has ever come into the church. And so, the Lord tells us, let's
read this model prayer before we continue this thought. In Matthew chapter 6, in verse
5, 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 your 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. And when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto
them, for your father knoweth what needs you have, what things
you have need of, before you ask him. Oh, in Romans chapter eight,
the Lord tells us that we have the spirit of God, the unction
of the Holy Spirit, who often causes us to just moan and cry
with words unspeakable. And sometimes that's all our
prayers are. Lord, I don't know how to, I don't know what to
say, but just to bear my soul to you as a child, who's dirty
and hungry and in need of your grace, in need of your presence.
That's what our Lord's saying. He knows what you have need of.
After this manner, therefore, pray ye. After this pattern,
it is a model. It is not the Lord's prayer.
It is a model prayer. 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 temptations, but deliver us from the evil or from
evil. The actual definite article, the, is there
in the original language. And so I actually read it properly. The evil one is really not just
deliver us from evil, but deliver us from the temptations of the
devil. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever. So back to the triune Godhead,
the Trinity, the three distinct persons that make up the one
God. God is eternal. God is self-existent. God is sovereign. Eternality
can only apply to deity, and it applies to God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Sovereignty, I mean,
we call nations sovereign. They're not sovereign. Sovereignty
in its ultimate meaning, in its perfect meaning, is absolute
control. And so only one has that absolute
control, and that is God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Spirit. And they are all three in agreement
as to what their purpose is. I remind you that the word plan,
I was talking to somebody this week and they kept talking about
the plan of salvation. The word plan is nowhere to be
found in the Bible. Our God doesn't have plans. He's
a God of purpose. And whatever He purposes, that
He will do. And that's true of God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Immutability, the inability
to change. I am the Lord and I change not,
and therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. That only can
apply to deity. It only can apply to God. Everything
else changes. You change, I change, the world
changes. Everything changes. God is the
only one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And immutability
is true of the Father, is true of the Son, and is true of the
Holy Spirit. Omnipotence, that can only be applied to God. All
power. And it applies to God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so they are all three
God in three distinct separate persons. Omniscience, God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit have never learned
anything. They've never changed their mind. They've never needed
an instructor. They've never come to a different
conclusion about anything. They possess perfect knowledge. And that can only be applied
to deity. And so, as we think about our God, we know that our
prayers, according to what the Lord's telling us here, are to
be addressed to the Father. The only way that we will be
able to pray is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Had a dying
brother say to me one time recently, he said, He said, you know, I
know when I'm praying in the spirit and when I'm just saying
words. I thought, yeah, that you know
that, don't you? God enable us to pray in the
power of his spirit. And there's no coming before
the throne of grace apart, apart from the accomplished work of
the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from his righteousness, apart
from being accepted before God in the beloved. So all three
persons of the triune Godhead are, how do I say, they're all in
this thing that we call prayer. There's three verses I want to,
I'm going to read two of them, or I may have you turn to one. Matthew chapter 28, the Lord
said, go ye therefore into all the world and make disciples
of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, in
the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. Three
distinct persons. Somebody told me recently they
thought the Holy Spirit was just the energy of God and that Jesus
was just the he was the God who he was the father who came in
the flesh and and they were also confused about the Trinity. That's not what God says. It's
not what the word teaches. Another verse is John chapter
15, when the Lord Jesus Christ said, it's expedient for you
that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not
come. But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you
from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from
the Father, he shall testify of me. So the Lord Jesus Christ,
referring to the Holy Spirit as a person, he shall testify
of me. he's going to be sent after I
send into glory, he's talking about Pentecost, from my father. So it's very important for us
to believe what the Lord has revealed about himself. How do
we understand this triune Godhead who is three distinct individual
persons and yet one God? I don't know. except to say what
I've already said, and that is the attributes that apply only
to deity apply to all three persons of the Godhead. Turn with me, hold your finger
there in Matthew chapter six, and turn with me to first Peter.
We've been in first Peter on Wednesday nights. Turn with me
to first Peter chapter one. And look with me at verse 2.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God. That's a reference to
the Father. It's the Father who has chosen
us according to his foreknowledge,
his love that he placed on us in the covenant of grace in eternity
past. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through the setting apart, the sanctification
of the Holy Spirit, there's the second, there's the third person
of the triune Godhead, unto, now this preposition can also
be understood and most often time is translated for. He's not saying that this is
not our obedience, this is for the obedience or because of the
obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. So in this one verse, we have
all three persons of the Godhead, God the Father, who has elected
a particular people, sanctified them by his spirit, by the obedience
and the sprinkling of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
we come to the father through the blood of Christ based on
his perfect obedience. All right, quickly we'll go through
this model prayer in Matthew chapter six. The scriptures, the Lord Jesus
Christ, when he spoke of his father, he referred to his father
as my father. my father. His union with the
father, his sonship in the father is not dependent upon anything. It is his by nature. It is his
by right. When the father is spoken to
in relationship to the church, he's spoken of as our father. We have no right to call God
our father, except by virtue of our union with Christ. So
we're dependent upon our union with Christ in order to call
God our father. We could say that God is the
father of all men by creation, but by adoption and regeneration
and salvation, he is only the father of those who are united
in Christ. And so when we address God, we
come before him as our father, our father, acknowledging the
fact that the only way we can address him as our father is
because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done to make him our
father. Can't think about our heavenly
father without thinking about that prodigal coming home And
the father was there waiting for him. And the father put a
ring on his finger. And the father shod his feet
with the preparation of the gospel. And the father put the robe of
righteousness upon him. And the father said to the servant,
kill the fatted calf, for my son, which was lost, is now found. Here's the heavenly father making
us acceptable in his sight. by virtue of the righteousness
of Christ and the work of the gospel and the shedding of the
blood of the fatted lamb. And so, our father, God, I cannot
come into thy holy presence. Thou art in the heavens and I
am upon the earth. Therefore, let thy words be few.
Lord, there's no way I can approach your throne of grace apart from
thy son. And so he's always our father. He's in the heavens and we're
upon the earth. That's important for us to remember,
isn't it? Isaiah chapter 45, verse seven,
God says, I form the light. I create darkness. I make evil. Or, I make peace and I create
evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.
I, the Lord, do all these things. He is in the heavens and we are
upon the earth. Let me ask you to turn with me
to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Ecclesiastes chapter 7. We're gonna look at two verses
in Ecclesiastes. The first one's in Ecclesiastes
chapter seven, and look with me at verse 14. In the day of
prosperity, be joyful. But in the day of adversity,
consider. Consider. Be reflective. Don't be angry and rebellious
and object to God. Be consider, consider the things
that God may be doing. God also has set the one over
against the other. God sends prosperity and God
sends adversity. I create light. I make darkness. I make peace. I create evil.
I, the Lord, do all these things. I am in the heavens and you're
upon the earth and all things that are happening in time. I
have purposed in eternity. I do these things. So when we
come to the Father in prayer, we're to be mindful of that.
That we really don't know what's going on. Look at the rest of
that verse says, he has set one against the other, to the end
that man shall find nothing after him. In other words, we can't
figure out. what the prosperity and adversity,
how that fits into God's purpose. We're looking through the glass
darkly, but God sees it perfectly. We're on the backside of things
and God, we don't, well, turn back just a couple of pages to
Ecclesiastes chapter three. Ecclesiastes chapter three. Verse
11, he hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also he has set
the world in their hearts so that no man can find out the
work that God maketh from beginning to the end. Now that's exactly
what Ecclesiastes 7.14 is saying. He makes everything beautiful
in his time. He works all things together for good for them that
love him, those that are called according to his purpose. He's
working it all together for his glory and for our good and we
can't figure it out. Why? Because we're on the earth
and he's in the heavens. And so when we come to him in
prayer, we address him as our father and we confess that we
don't know what's happening, but he does. You've heard it
said, we don't know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds
tomorrow. And that's true. That's true. Hallowed. We're remembering what the Lord told
us in Colossians chapter four, continue in prayer and with thanksgiving. Pray for the preaching of the
gospel, because that's the salvation of our souls. And And so the Lord's telling us
how to pray. We come before our father. We
confess that he's in the heavens and we're upon the earth and
that he's holy, hallowed be thy name. And brethren, let us be
very careful. Let us be very careful about
how we speak the name of God. And be very reverent about it.
I hear people sometimes who say they're believers and they throw
Lord around as if it's just, you know, he is the Lord. He's
the Lord over the living and the dead. Let's don't use that
title in a sentence and make it seem to be vain or empty or
they throw the name God around. You know, you hear the world. using that phrase that we can't
even repeat when they speak those three words with God at the end
of it. You know, it's just a byword.
It's just an expression of speech. No, it's using the Lord's name
in vain. They speak of the Lord Jesus
Christ and they throw around his first name as if he's the
neighbor across the street. You know, let us be very careful. Hallowed be thy name. His name is holy. His name is to be spoken with
the utmost reference. And if we can't speak of him
referently, then let's not speak of him at all. Let us hold our
tongues. The world can take the name of
the Lord thy God. To take God's name in vain, which
is the third commandment, doesn't mean that you're using him as
a curse word. People do that. And that's, you
know, very, very offensive. to us and can only imagine how
offensive it is to God. But the word vain means empty
and just so to throw his name or title around without any meaning
is to use his name in vain. His name is Jesus for he shall
save his people from their sins. His name means that he is the
successful, sovereign savior of sinners, that he accomplished
the purpose for which he came. We speak of his name, let us
be mindful of how holy that name is. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done. This book, the Word of God, the
Bible, ends with the Lord Jesus Christ saying to his church,
behold, I come quickly. And John responds to that by
saying, come, Lord Jesus, even now come. Oh, child of God, what
a glorious day it'll be when the eastern sky splits and the
trump of God sounds and the dead in Christ will be raised and
those of us which remain will be caught up together with them
in the air. We wait and long for that day. Thy kingdom come,
Lord. Thy will be done. Now let me
make a couple statements about thy will be done. Sometimes you
hear people talk about the permissive will of God. The Bible doesn't
speak of the permissive will of God. It's not like God said,
okay, I'll let that, it really wasn't part of my plan, but I'll
let that happen and I'll permit it to be. No. The Bible speaks
of God's will in two ways. It speaks of his secret will,
and it speaks of his revealed will. Deuteronomy 29, 29, the
secret things belong to the Lord our God, but that's his overall
purpose. In other words, everything that's
happening is happening according to God's secret will, which we
can't understand. We don't know how that's all
working together, but we know he's working it together. and
we're able to rest in that truth. Thy will be done, Lord, on earth
even as it is in heaven. Lord, give me the grace to rest
in knowing that all things that are happening are happening according
to your secret will. And then the scripture speaks
of his revealed will. The secret things belong to the
Lord our God, but those things which have been revealed belong
to us and to our children. In other words, the Lord has
revealed to us his will in terms of how we ought to conduct ourselves. We love one another, we worship,
we obey God. Lord, give me the grace. Our obedience doesn't have anything
to do with our salvation, but he's revealed in his word what
his will is for his children. Lord, give me the grace to have
your will. done in my life and in my heart
as it is in heaven. So these are the references that
the Lord's making here in the model prayer. Give us this day
our daily bread. We know what that means. We can't
live off of yesterday's manna. However much the Lord blesses
us with his presence today, it won't be sufficient for tomorrow.
And how unhealthy we would be Physically speaking, if we ate
once a week or once every other week, or, you know, you go to
the doctor and you got all sorts of physical problems, then the
doctor asks you a few questions and he finds out, well, you're
only eating a couple times a month. Well, no wonder you're having
problems. Give us this day our daily bread. We've got to come
back. When they tried to eat, when
they tried to save the manna, it rotted and it had worms. Lord,
I can't live off of yesterday's manna. And tomorrow we're gonna
have to come before the throne of grace in prayer and call upon
our father, which is in the heavens, whose name is holy, and ask him
again, Lord, give us today a fresh measure of thy dear son to sustain
us and enable us today. Forgive us our debts as we, forgive
us what we, Lord, we have a debt that we cannot pay. I've heard
people say, Well, you know, we've already been forgiven. Our sins
have been put away. And yes, they have. So why do we ask God
to forgive us? Don't think like that. That's
not right. If we confess our sins, we're
constantly coming before the throne of grace. Lord, forgive
me. Forgive me, for Christ's sake,
forgive me. Yes, my sins have been put away,
but we never presume upon that. We never are beyond asking God,
Lord, forgive us our debts. Again and again, this is the
fresh measure of Christ forgiving us again, even as we forgive
those who have sinned against us. Lord, we, forgiving, being
able to forgive, is a result of being forgiven. And we don't
have time this morning, but just turn to Matthew chapter 18 and
read the message that the Lord gave about forgiveness and the
master who had two servants and one owed him millions and millions
of dollars and the other owed him a few dollars. And he forgave
them both. You know the story. And that's
the one who had been forgiven the most, tried to hold the other
one and ended up in prison, didn't he? An unforgiving spirit is
such bondage, is such bondage. You need to forgive somebody?
Don't concentrate your efforts on trying to figure out if they're
sorry or what they've done to deserve forgiveness. Just look
to how much God's forgiven you. And forgiving will be will be
easy. Letting it go will be easy if
the Lord's pleased to show you what he's done in forgiving you. Lead us not into temptation.
Lord, if you allow the devil to sift me like you did Peter,
I will do just what Peter did. Lord, I don't need your help
in temptation. I know that when I'm tempted,
I'm going to sin. Lead me not into temptation.
Lord, order my steps so that I'm not confronted with the devil.
He's beyond my ability to handle. I can't stand up to him. Lord,
set a hedge around me and lead me away from temptation. I'm
too weak to deal with it. For thine is the kingdom. And
so this prayer ends up the same way it begins. It begins praising
and adoring God for his grace and for his glory. And I'm sorry
I went way over, but what an important thing this thing of
prayer is. And God teach us to pray. Amen? All right, let's take a
break. A brief break. We'll come back
quickly.