Turn with me to Luke chapter
11. And we're going to read the first
four verses. 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. This morning I want to look together
at this prayer by which our Lord taught his disciples to pray. Now we're told in verse one that
it was at the conclusion of Christ's prayer that one of his disciples,
an unnamed disciple, asked him to teach them how to pray, how
we are to pray. And so I wanna look as we begin,
I just wanna give you a few observations about prayer. In Matthew's gospel,
Our Lord taught this prayer, but there was a few differences
from what is said here. It goes on a little further,
I believe saying, for thine is the kingdom and the power and
the glory forever, amen. But here, and that was spoken
in the midst of him teaching the sermon on the mountain. But
here, he was asked by a disciple to teach them how to pray. And
it is the desire of every child of God to want that fellowship
with our God, to know Him, to be able to come to Him in prayer
and to know that He hears us, that He hears us and receives
us into His presence. where we may lay out our cares
and our burdens and that which is concerning us. And so we desire this, but we
know that by nature we're quite ignorant. And the longer you
live and the more you talk to people or hear people, you discover
that there's a great deal of ignorance that we have about
prayer. how to pray, when to pray, what
we are to say when we pray. I was speaking to my daughter
the other day about this text here, letting her know that I
was gonna be looking at this prayer which
our Lord taught us. And she was telling me, she was
remembering that she once was speaking to a man And they were
talking about prayer and he was amazed. He was surprised to learn
that she could just pray any time that she wanted. And he
said, I don't know if he was amazed in a negative sense or
just truly amazed because he said, I can't pray unless a man,
unless a priest gives me permission to pray. And I would assume that
means he told him, you know, say, you know, 20 Our Fathers
and, you know, which he would have gotten out of confession
when he went to the confession booth, he would say, well, you
know, say 20 Our Fathers and 50 Hail Marys or something like
that, you know, and Our Fathers would be this, this prayer here
is what the Catholics say for example. And so he was amazed
and it's true. We hear things and see things
and wonder, like, where do people come up with this? But we even
know our own hearts. What do we know? What do we know
except God teach us? So I hope that today's message
will be a help. Whether you have no idea how
to pray or you've been praying for a long time and you just
want to draw near to your God. Now, notice here that we're told
that our Lord was praying. He was praying. He had just finished
praying when the disciple asked him to teach them how to pray. And I don't think this is a coincidence
at all, that the Lord had just finished praying. In fact, I
believe that all our desires for the Lord. Anytime we desire
to draw near to the Lord, it's because of the intercession of
our God, first doing this for us. He's the first cause of all
things. And just as this disciple was
moved to petition his Lord to teach them to pray, it was when
Christ concluded his prayer. I have no doubt Christ was praying
about this when this disciple was burdened to ask him, Lord,
teach us to pray. I'm certain Christ prayed for
that, that he was the cause of that very desire in this disciple. And that's true of all things. We only have an interest and
a desire of the true and living God because of Christ's intercession,
because of Christ's redemption for us because of His life which
He's accomplished. That's the only reason why we
even care about God, have any desire or interest to know Him. Even in Providence, the things
that He allows to come and permits to come in Providence that happen
to us, that bring us to our knees, it's all because He's allowed
that. He's brought that. He's purposed
that. for our good. It's because of
Him. It just reminds me of what our
Lord said of other sheep. He said, other sheep I have to
the Jews. Speaking of us Gentiles, which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear me, they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. In other words, He's going to
bring to pass whatever is necessary to bring His sheep in to His
fold and to feed you and to nourish you and to provide for you and
protect you because you are His sheep. And though we wander and
though we go astray, if you're His, you're not, praise God,
not going to get away. You won't fall into a ditch and
be lost forever. He'll find you and take you out
of that ditch and bring you into his fold, carry you on his shoulder,
bless you, bring you into good pastors. And so we're bought
with the blood of Christ and we shall know him. It pleases
God to make us to know him and what he's accomplished for us,
to give us love and faith and hope in our hearts, to give us
a burning and a yearning in our hearts to know the true and living
God. Now all these verses, going down
to verse 13, concerns the teaching of our Lord when he's teaching
his disciples how to pray. But I just want to focus on the
first four verses with you today. Now, Brother Gary mentioned to
you in the middle of December, he noted that many, this is often
called the Lord's Prayer, but it's not the Lord's Prayer. This
is the disciples' prayer. This is what he taught us to
pray. His prayer is in John 17. John
17 there, when he prayed. And, you know, many people memorize
these words, the words of this scripture, and they come thinking
that this is how they are to pray, right? That in the Catholic
Church, they say, our fathers, meaning they pray this exact,
these exact words. Now, I'm not opposed to you memorizing
Scripture. I would never discourage you
from memorizing Scripture. I think memorizing Scripture,
remembering Scripture will serve you well in many times in your
life when His Word is brought back to your remembrance. He does that. He lays things
on your hearts. Perhaps you teach your children
to memorize scripture. That's good. That's good to do
that because in the day of His grace, He stirs up the heart,
brings to your mind things that you have memorized. And to make you think, why do
I say that? What does that word mean? What
does this mean in this context? What does He mean there? And
that's good to be stirred up and to think more deeply, to
seek your God to know what are you saying? Why do you say that?
And why do you use those words? What does this mean, Lord, and
cause you to seek Him? And so if you've memorized this
prayer, you've taught your children to say this prayer. I was taught this prayer. But it's good to then stir up
the heart, stir up the mind to seek to know what it means, what
it means. And that's why it is good to
memorize scripture, because you dwell on it, you meditate on
it, you think upon it on your bed, you think upon it during
the day. And when it pleases the Lord,
he stirs you up and brings that word to your remembrance again. And so it is good to memorize
scripture. And additionally, Though understand
that this is a model. It's a model of a prayer. It's how we are to pray. It brings out what we're seeking
of the Lord, how we come to the Lord in prayer, and what's on
our hearts and burdening us. Now you'll notice that this is
a short prayer. It's a very simple prayer. It's not long and illustrious. It's not lots of words or repetition
or anything like that. You know, there's no pitch or
harmonic frequency that we have to find to come to God. He doesn't even talk about the
position that we take in prayer. He doesn't tell us which way
to face in prayer. He really doesn't add that much
detail about it. Because when the heart is stirred
and burdened, we may go to our God and lay our concern out to
Him. We don't need to wait to get
away to pray. If you're in the kitchen right
there and something comes to your mind, you may pray to the
Lord. Because I know by the time you get to the bedroom, you've
already forgotten or your heart's been taken away with something
else. And so we forget so quickly and willfully sometimes forget
so quickly. You know, prayer is coming to
our God with the outpouring of our hearts, believing that He
is and that He hears us, that He rewards us. He's a rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him. It says, He hears us. That's
the reward. And he's brought us into his
presence. And we lay before him the needs
we have, the cares we have, which are the burdens that we have
and those things which concern us and cause us to fear him. And I know that we ought not
to fear. or be afraid that we ought to
trust God, but we do get fearful. We're lying if we say that we
don't get afraid and worried about things. And God knows the
heart. To pretend, I mean, if you can't
be honest with God, then who are you going to be honest with?
Because He knows the heart. I was thinking in Genesis 32, Jacob, we have one of Jacob's
prayers recorded there for us, and it's so honest. In verse
9 it begins, Genesis 32, 9, Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham,
and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which said unto me, return
unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well
with thee. Right, he's remembering God's
God's word to him. And he confesses his sin, he's
saying, I'm not worthy of the least of all the mercies and
of all the truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant. For
with my staff I passed over this Jordan and now I'm become two
bands, right? I went out alone with only my
staff and now I've come back a troop, many people, all because
of your blessings. And he says, deliver me, I pray
thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I
fear him. He confessed, I'm afraid. I'm
afraid of him, Lord, I fear him, lest he will come and smite me
and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, he's leaning
on the word of his God. This is why we memorize scripture,
He's leaning on the word of his God. Thou said, I will surely
do thee good and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which
cannot be numbered for multitude. And so we see there's a prayer
and we're to be honest with the Lord and come to him with our
cares that we be careful for nothing, that we don't hold on
to our cares and burdens and carry them about as though we're
to do that. If the Lord is able, And he calls
us to himself. And then lastly, before we look
at what our Lord says in this prayer, I want you to understand
that it's not the words of this prayer that have power. And that's
why it's used as like our fathers. That's why it's memorized. And
these words recited because people think that This is the magical
word to open the door and to get me what I want with God.
There's no power in these words. The power is in the one to whom
we're coming, and by whom, and the one by whom we're coming,
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where all the power, the
glory, the honor, and the praise is. It's in Him. The power is
of Him. And so, Remember Him, we're coming
as beggars, and as beggars we come humbly before Him, to Him
alone who's able to do justly that which is needed in heaven
and in earth. All right now, so let's look
at what He teaches us to pray, this form of the prayer, all
right, this form. Verse two, when He said unto
them, this is Luke 11 too, He said unto them, when ye pray,
say, our Father which art in heaven. He's teaching us who
we pray to. We're not praying to Mary. We're
not praying to saints. We're not praying to some other
deity. We're praying to the true and
living God. Our Father, he says. Our Father which art in heaven. There's a great tenderness in
that. There's a great tenderness, even
familiarity, to call God your Father, to be brought that near
to the true and living God through Christ. In Ephesians 1, verses
4 and 5, we're told that it's according as he hath chosen us
in Christ before the foundation of the world. He knew you. He loved you before the foundation
of the world and chose you to this salvation, putting you in
the hands of His darling Son because He could swear by no
greater. He could do it by no greater
but to put us in the care of Christ to accomplish our salvation,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will." We're
in the family of God, and there's great familiarity. I would imagine
when you come to your father's house, you don't knock and wait
for him to come to the door. You probably have a key, or you
can just enter right on in. He's family. All right? They just come in. You let your
kids. Your kids have keys. They just come right on into
your house. because they're family and they can come in whenever
they want. They're family. Our adoption is through the redemption
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 1, 20 through 22,
who having made peace through the blood of his cross by him
to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven. or you and you that
were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. Therefore, brethren, we come
boldly to the throne of our father through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Next, he says, hallowed be thy name When this speaks, the name
is how God reveals himself to us. He gives us his name, and
it's not just one name, but many names in scriptures to describe
to us the magnitude, the beauty, the awesomeness of our God. When he revealed himself, when
he gave the promises to Abraham, he said to him, I am God Almighty. El Shaddai, I am God Almighty. In other words, I'm giving you
this promise and I'm able to bring it to pass because I'm
Almighty. No one can stop me. No one can
say to me, what doest thou? I'm able to do it because I am
God Almighty. You can rest on these promises.
That's the name of God, El Shaddai. That's one of his names. we're
told in the New Testament, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for
he shall save his people from their sins. You can depend upon
it that you for whom Christ has died and shed his blood, your
sins are put away. And though we see ourselves,
like Brother Joe read in Romans 7 this morning, as doing that
which we would not do, because of sin in our members, yet we
know that this wretched man, this old man of flesh, is freed
and delivered and is not going to bear that punishment because
Christ bore it in our place and put away our sin. He's the Lord
our righteousness. The Lord our righteousness. That's
the name whereby we are called. He's the Lord our righteousness.
And we are called by His name, the Lord our righteousness. That's
how we come into the presence of God. He's Jehovah God. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
is Jehovah God. Our Father is how Christ now
reveals God in heaven to us. We come to Him in worship, in
praise, falling on our faces because He receives us for Christ's
sake. We glory in the name and the
names of our God. We give him thanks for Christ
Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Now, with God's glory, first
and foremost, our second concern is for his kingdom, and this
is what is meant by thy kingdom come. Lord, establish thy kingdom
in my heart. Lord, establish thy kingdom in
Nixa, Missouri. Lord, expand thy kingdom to all
your people. Brother Joe and I were just talking
about that this morning and how thankful we are for this body
here. And pray that the Lord establish
it, which he has done to gather his people here, to give us his
word, to feed you and to nourish you. He's not forgotten you.
He's not left you alone. He's brought you together. and
giving you a pastor to declare this word, to proclaim this word
to you, to feed you and nourish you in the green pastures where
he leads you as our shepherd. Another example of this prayer
is found in Psalm 122, verses six and seven. Psalm 122, six
and seven. There it says, pray for the peace
of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love
thee. Peace be within thy walls and
prosperity within thy palaces." Sadly, many think that that's
talking about a natural city over there in that area of the
world, right? They think that that's the city
that we're to pray for. We're children of God through
Jesus Christ. Our interest is the church of
God. It's the church that heavenly
Jerusalem. Paul speaks of this. He tells
us of which Jerusalem is here in view. He's not speaking of
that Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children,
right? We're not going back to the Pharisaical
worship of God under the law with that priesthood, the Aaronic
priesthood. We have a high priest which is
Melchizedek, after Melchizedek, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. Spirit is
life, and he gives us life and turns our focus on that Jerusalem
which is above, which is free, which is the mother of us all. We're praying that the Lord bless
his church. When we pray for Jerusalem as
described there in Psalm 122.6, we're praying for the peace of
God's church, of his church. and that peace be within thy
walls." What does that mean? Isaiah 26, 1. Isaiah 26, 1. In
that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah. We have
a strong city. Saying salvation will God appoint
for walls and bulwarks. Salvation. You that are saved
by the blood of Christ are in those walls right now. In the
walls of salvation. That's your protection. That's
your bulwark. That's the Jerusalem we're praying
for, brethren. And so we're asking the Lord,
cause your light to shine upon this land, upon us here to bless
us and search out your people that are here, Lord. Find them
that are sitting in couches, in their living rooms, that are
in goat barns and false churches and bring them, draw them out
to hear your gospel and to be fed and nourished with your people
in your flock here in Nixa, Missouri. So that's our great interest,
brethren. Next he says, thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth. There's submission of our will
in those words. Lord, you do your will. As you
do in heaven, do it here on earth. Thy will be done. Prayer is not
us saying the right sequence of words or figuring out how
to twist God's sovereign arm to get him to do what we want
him to do. It's not an art. Our prayer is
our will submitting, consenting to the will of God. I mean, how
often have we gone to prayer with something on our heart? I've gone to prayer many times
with something on my heart only to lay it down and say, Lord,
not my will, but thy will be done. My heart's changed in prayer. I'm not changing God's heart.
It's not God's mind. It's me that needs to be corrected.
And it's me that goes sometimes with the wrong attitude. and
the Lord turns my heart and says, don't, no, no. And he resigns me to his will. Likewise, Paul said in Romans
8, 26, the spirit also helpeth our infirmities. When we go thinking
we're gonna, with one thing on our mind that is not according
to the will of God, the spirit helpeth our infirmities, our
foolishness. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. I'm thankful. It's
just like a little child saying to their parent or grandparent,
I want this. And they know what you need.
And they give you what you need, not what you're asking for, but
what you need. And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are thee called according to his purpose. And so that's, we have the grace
of God helping us in our prayers. And we even see Christ setting
that example when he from Gethsemane cried, Father, Thou be willing,
remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
Thy will be done. Thank God that His will was done
there. And I believe Christ prayed that
not only to show us that our will is to be as His will, but
also that there is no other way. He had to die. He had to lay
down His life for our salvation. And so our prayers are first
and foremost for the glory of God. Our prayers are then for
his kingdom, for his people, to establish his word in our
hearts. Now, following that, right, that
model, now we have concerns and needs ourself. And that's what
we come into here when he says, give us day by day our daily
bread. God is the giver of all things
that we need. We're told that every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the
Father of lights. Again, there's great humility
and submission in this. And this thing has a depth of
meanings. I mean, this whole prayer has
a depth of meanings. We're just covering it lightly,
but you can drill down even further, but there is great humility in
trusting God for daily provisions, right? To trust Him. Now, most
of us, I don't think, have to depend on Him from day to day,
not knowing where our next meal is coming. If that's your situation,
let me know, because I don't want you to have to be in that
kind of fear. But if we are, there is an amazing
comfort and power that God is able to do to provide for you.
There's a great submission and humility in that. And so it's
in that sense of our daily bread, just like he says, of our clothing,
of our needs, of our job, whatever it is, the day by day, trust
the Lord that we not become cocky and arrogant and thinking too
highly of ourselves because it could all be taken away just
like that. And then it also means our daily
need, because you may not at this time need or worry about
where your next meal's coming from, even though we never know
when that's gonna change. But one thing is certain, day
by day, we need that heavenly bread. We need fresh, fresh givings
of His Spirit, of His grace, of His forgiveness, of His mercy
for us day by day. Then he says here, pray forgive
us of our sins. In other words, the true and
living God makes us to confess our sins, to know, to acknowledge
that we are sinners. There's a great reluctance in
what is called Christendom, I guess, to admit that we're sinners.
So they come up with, well, I made a mistake. I didn't sin, I made
a mistake. Wasn't thinking at that moment. I made a mistake.
No, you sinned. I sinned. We're sinners. We are. We see sin in our members. And so the Lord makes us to acknowledge
our sin and to confess our sin and to ask him for forgiveness. We come seeking that forgiveness
on the merit of Christ, not on our goodness, not because of
how good we are or how good we've been. We come always on the merit
of Christ's blood. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so we're freely forgiven,
freely justified of all our sins in Christ. But it is the life
of the believer. It is our blessing to come to
God and to seek Him for fresh renewals of His grace, of His
forgiveness to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of
our sins. It's not, we don't just live
in presumption and just carelessness and say, well, you know, that's
what Christ died for. No, we don't talk like that and
we don't think like that. We come asking for His forgiveness
humbly. It's as the washing of our feet.
for you that are clean every way by Christ. It's as a washing
of the feet, which get filthy in this world, as he told Peter. And so he ministers this, his
grace to our hearts and keeps us looking to him. We are forgiven. We are cleansed. We are holy
and unblameable, but he keeps us humble, ever looking to him
for fresh renewals of his grace and forgiveness. And our Lord
explains this, but this is the only one that he actually explained
further. He said, forgive us of our sins
for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. Now,
he's not conditioning your forgiveness on whether or not you forgive
another, right? The mercies of God are never
a condition. Well, if you do this, then I'll
do that. It's not a condition here. What
he's teaching is that you, child of God, forgive because you've
been forgiven. Those fruits of righteousness
are wrought in the children of God. Think about faith. Faith is a manifestation of the
spirit in you that you've been washed by the blood of Christ. It's because you are redeemed
by the blood of Christ that you are called out of darkness and
confess Christ with your mouth and believe in your heart that
God has raised him from the dead. Faith is the evidence that God
has redeemed you, purchased you with the blood of his son. So
it is that forgiveness of your brethren and a desire and a willingness
to forgive those who sin against you is an evidence that you have
been forgiven. And it's a manifestation of that. That one who does not forgive
and is unwilling to forgive and says, well, I ain't doing that.
It's because they've not been forgiven. They've never been
touched by the grace of God. They don't know what sinners
they are. They haven't been forgiven. Just as one who believes not,
you can't comfort that one. If someone says, I don't believe
that, can you comfort them? Would you comfort them that they
are a child of God? No, you keep declaring the truth
until they tell you to be quiet, get lost, or until they confess. In the same way, that one who
does not forgive, it's because they've not been forgiven. They've not yet experienced that
grace in their hearts because where they've experienced that
forgiveness in their soul, they're gracious and willing to forgive
others. That doesn't mean you won't seek
God for it. That doesn't mean that it's not
hard and in the flesh that you don't struggle with it, but there's
a willingness. Lord, help me to forgive them. Help me to move on from this.
Lord, I don't want to hold this bitterness in my heart against
them. I want to let that go. Lord,
help me. We seek Him for that grace and
mercy. One of the most tender verses
in all of Scripture, I find, is in Ephesians 4.32. And it
goes into Ephesians 5, 2, which says, and be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved
us and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet smelling savor. And so this is a blessing which
he calls us to. He forgives us and he fills our
hearts with the knowledge of his grace. He makes us to know
what he's done for us and gives us a heart of love toward others
and makes us willing to forgive and to seek him for that forgiveness
when we don't want to let it go. and we want to hold something
against somebody, but he has a way of softening the heart,
of making us tender-hearted toward others and willing to forgive
even as God has forgiven us for Christ's sake. If we cannot forgive,
it's only because we've not been forgiven or experienced that,
or he's going to break us if we're his and turn us from it.
Furthermore, he says, and lead us not into temptation, right? we're made constantly aware from
things going on outside and things going on inside our hearts of
our weaknesses, of our helplessness, of our need of God. And so prayer
really is a confession of my helplessness. And that's why
we do often get cold and forgetful because we're not thinking of
our helplessness. We're thinking we got this. And
that tends to be when prayer begins to get hard and stiff
and contrived and just cold and whatnot. When we're shown what
we are, that's where prayer usually pours forth and is more real
and living. I mean, there's only a few times
probably most of us in our lives feel like we've ever really prayed.
Just a few times. And we've prayed a lot, but there's
just a few times where the Lord really breaks us and makes us
to confess and pour out our hearts to Him. And so we're confessing
to God our helplessness. A prudent man foreseeth evil
and hideth himself. Right? And going to the Lord
and asking him to deliver us from temptation is prudent and
it's hiding yourself. Lord, deliver me from temptation
before it even comes. That I don't even face it. Lord,
you know. I don't want to face that and
go through that. Lord, save me. And he says, but
deliver us from evil. Believers acknowledge this, that
evil is all about us, and it's in my own heart, too. We're the
wretched man that must be saved, else we cannot be saved. We're
the ones who need the blood of Christ. And so we go to Him because
He's overcome the evil. He's our Savior. He's our God
and Savior, our Lord, our Savior, our all. And whatsoever is born
of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith, which is the gift of God
for us. And so we look to Him. We keep
coming to Him. We're going to and praying to
Him alone who is able to do exceedingly above all that we can ask or
think. He's able. So Lord, teach us
to pray is our prayer. And so go to Him. in prayer according
to the spirit of his word. I pray that that be a help. And next time, Lord willing,
we'll come back and look at the rest of his instruction, because
it's beautiful. It's beautiful.