All right, turn with me, if you
would, to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. As I mentioned
to you last Wednesday night, This Bible study will go hand
in hand with the message that we had on pressing toward the
mark. That was our message last Wednesday
night. And that message, the two points of that message were
this. Number one, we are saved by grace
and not works. That was point number one. Therefore, point number two was,
let's press toward the mark. We're not saved by anything we
do. So, let's press toward the mark. Now, I have been looking at and
thinking about this passage of scripture for a little while.
And as I have thought on it, and I wanna speak candidly to
us today. Very candidly, but everything
that, that I feel led to say, it became very clear to me that
I was not going to have enough time in this Bible study to get
it done. And I was trying to rush through
and rush through. And I finally realized I need
to break this up into two parts. So this Bible study will be an
intro. to what our Lord has to say to
us. We're gonna look at the reason
why we need to heed what our Lord has to say to us. Our Lord
gave us some very clear instruction right here on how to pray and
in what manner to pray, what to pray, how to pray, what manner
to pray in. And I want us to see the reason
why we need desperately to heed what He has said to us. And then
if the Lord is willing, tonight we'll do part two. tonight in
tonight's message, we'll look more deeply at what he has to
say to us and the manner itself. Now, this is something that has
been weighing on my heart very heavily for this congregation. I truly do want for us to enter
into this. I am begging the Lord to tune
us into this. I have been honestly burdened
about very, very heavy for this congregation. And this is what
my prayer is. My prayer is that the Lord will
burden all of us, all of us, every single one of us. With
this desire. and with this prayer and with
this manner. I pray the Lord will deeply,
deeply burden us. And that's the point of the lesson. What we see as an intro this
morning and physically get into tonight, this is the point and
this is the message of the lesson here. I pray the Lord will very
deeply burden us. with this desire and this prayer
in this manner. Now let's see what our Lord has
to say to us in verses five to 13. Matthew chapter six, verse
five. Our Lord said, and when thou
prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, For they
love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners
of the streets that they may be seen of men. Verily I say
unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, And he means your, your private place,
that secret place. And when now has shut that door,
pray to that father, which is in secret and that father, which
seeth in secret shall reward the openly. But 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 things you have
need of before you ask him." Now, what he said so far is,
this is not about you. That's what he has said so far.
This is not about us. This is about him. Prayer is not about our glory. It's not about our glory at all. Prayer is about his glory. Prayer is not about our desire. Which if we really get ahold
of this is a, is a shocking thing to understand. Prayer is not
about what we want. Prayer is about what he wants.
Prayer is about his desire. Prayer is not about us notifying
Him of what we need. Well, we need some things, so
let's all go to Him in prayer. That's not what prayer is about.
It's not about us notifying Him of what we need. Verse eight
says, your Father knows what things you have need of before
you even ask Him. He already knows everything we
have need of. So all we're doing in prayer
is acknowledging Him in these things. That's all we're doing
in prayer is acknowledging Him in these things. True prayer
is acknowledging His glory in whatever we're praying for.
That's what true prayer is. True prayer is acknowledging
his desire and his will and his purpose and his all knowing,
all controlling hand in whatever we're praying for. There's nothing
we could say to him, but he doesn't know. There's no request we could
make that he has not already determined the outcome of it.
He will not change. He is the Lord. That's the only
reason we're not consumed. We cannot influence him. So all we're doing in prayer
is acknowledging him and acknowledging that. And what we're saying is
we willingly bow to you. That's what we're saying when
we pray. We bow to your control over whatever the situation is
we're praying for. We acknowledge you in it. We
bow to you. Therefore, all right, therefore,
verse nine, Matthew six, verse nine, our Lord said, after this
manner, therefore, pray ye, our father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. He said, when you pray, you pray
after this manner, you pray in this way. And what a prayer that
is. Now, let me say again, that the
point of this Bible study is, may God give us a burden. I don't
have, I'll confess to you, I don't have enough of a burden to pray. The apostle said, Lord, teach
us to pray. Not just how to pray, how to
pray, yes, but Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to come to
you. And my prayer is that the Lord
will give us a burden to pray. A desire and an understanding
of the need to pray and a heart to pray this prayer in this manner. Now we just read verses five
to 13 in five to eight. Our Lord said, don't do this.
That's what he said. Don't do this in versus five
to eight. He said. Don't go out into public
and make a scene with your prayer. And we all need to learn this.
This is something that many, many people do. They, they want
to be seen in prayer. They want to be seen in prayer.
I don't have. Prayer is a wonderful thing.
Our Lord said, pray without ceasing. Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray,
but. You know, if I'm going to gather
at a restaurant with a group of people and announce, well,
let's all bow our heads. We're going to have prayer. We
don't have to all do that for me to pray. If I want to pray
to him, I can go to my secret place. I don't have to be seen
of men in doing it because whenever you're seen of men in doing it,
you know, you're seen of men in doing it. I just prayed for
us. And my great desire and prayer
to the Lord is that he will let me forget that there's anybody
else in the room. Because I don't need to, we're not putting on
a show, we're not. Our Lord said, when you pray,
don't do these things. Don't go out into public and
make a scene with your prayer. Don't try to attract attention
to yourself. That's what He's saying. Don't
use prayer for your glory. Don't use prayer for your glory. And don't look to your own effort
in prayer. And, and, you know, I call on
you men to pray and, and I only call on the ones who just hate
themselves when they pray. Uh, if I'm proud of myself in
prayer, then I don't need to be praying, but it's not about my job and
how I'm doing in prayer. Prayer is all about Him. It doesn't
matter what I, how I fumble. It doesn't, none of those things
matter. None of those things matter. He's saying, don't look
to your own effort in the prayer. Don't look to other men seeing
your effort and don't look to your own effort. Don't look to
the length of your prayer. Well, I don't, you know, I don't
pray as long as somebody else does. I got to pray these long
prayers. He said, it's not in the length of your prayer. Our Lord said, I look on the
heart of the matter. I think about when Peter prayed as he
was sinking down into the sea, you remember Peter walked on
the water and all of a sudden he stopped looking to Christ
and he started looking to himself and as he had as much time as
it takes for your feet to go under till his mouth went under
and all he could get out was Lord saved me. And immediately
it was an effectual prayer, three words. So our Lord said, when
you pray from the heart, pray in this way. Don't say these
words. vainly repeat them over and over
again. Let's not teach our children
these vain repetition prayers that everybody knows. You know,
before we go to bed, it's now I lay me down to sleep. Or we sit down at a meal and
we say, whatever that one is, you know what I'm talking about. God is good. God is great. Let
us thank him for our food. That's not prayer. That is vain
repetition. Let's not use hail Mary, full
of grace. That's not even praying to God,
that's praying to Mary, but you understand what I'm saying. Let's
not, let's not use vain repetitions. And then after this manner, he
said, without using these words, pray in this way. Now he mentions
four things concerning God, Father, Son, and Spirit. In verse 9 he
said, after this manner therefore pray ye our Father which art
in heaven. Oh, the reverence and the fear
and the... Many people lose that and they
get very casual and very common with it. And it's not a good
thing. He said, our father, which are
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Holy, holy. So that's the first thing, our
father, which are in heaven. Second thing, hallowed be thy
name. Third thing, thy kingdom come. We want you to come and
you're coming. And then the fourth thing is
he said, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Just
like you're doing your will in heaven. Do it in earth, you are
going to do it in earth. And then he mentions four things
concerning us. He said in verse 11, give us
this day our daily bread. And I'm gonna expound on a little
bit of this tonight. The second thing is he said,
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And then he said, lead us not
into temptation, Don't let us go into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. And then he mentions four more
things concerning the Lord God. He said, for thine is the kingdom
and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Now I pray the Lord will
cause us to enter into this instruction, enter into this burden. I pray
He'll burden our hearts to do what He's telling us to do and
cause us to pray and pray these things and pray with this heart
in this manner. And here's the reason why. All
right, I told you I was going to get candid with you. Here's
the reason why. We are right now a young congregation. We are young in the average age
of our members. And we are young in the amount
of time that the Lord has allowed us to be together. This congregation
formed in 2006, 14 years ago. But that doesn't mean that we
were all here 14 years ago, all here together 14 years ago. It is a young amount of time
that the Lord has allowed us to be together as a congregation. And everything is very fervent
right now. There's a lot going on here. This is a moment in time where
the Lord is building the ministry here. Every ministry that he's
ever raised up has had a moment in time of building. And for this ministry, we are
in it. We're in it. He is adding such
as should be saved. He's given us a building to work
on and Lord willing, we're gonna move into it. To me, this is a very exciting
time. I believe it's a very exciting
time. It's a moment where we as a congregation are very focused
on the ministry. We're having all these work days.
It's like everything in our lives are revolving around the ministry
here. We're very focused on it. We
have no choice but to be focused on it. There's too much to do.
Our hearts are dwelling on and they are committed to the ministry
of the gospel right here in Kingsport. It's a very fervent time and
I'm glad to be part of it. And I'm glad you're a part of
it. I'm very glad. But if we are not careful, we will lose this. And I mean it, we will. It's just a lot going on and
just, oh yeah, so exciting. And yeah, moving, you know, we
got the little building and we're going to the big building. And
if we are not careful, We will lose this if we are not vigilant. And as the scripture says, sober
about these things, we will lose what God has given to us here.
Now, Gabe, are you saying we'll all lose our salvation? Never,
never, never, never. If I saved myself, I can lose
my salvation. But if God saved me, what God
does is forever. Never. Our Lord Jesus Christ
said, I've kept them in the blood that I shed on the cross of Calvary
for them. And none of them is lost. None
of the elect sinners that were given to me by my father and
I specifically shed my blood for, none of them have ever been
and will ever be lost, never. He said, I've given unto them
eternal life. That's what he gave to us on
the cross of Calvary. I've given unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand, no matter what. Our salvation is not dependent
on us. It's not dependent on what we
do. It's not dependent on what we don't do. Salvation is of
the Lord. It's of the Lord. And the word
of God says, nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. If he loved us and gave himself
for us, we are as eternally secure right now as we will ever be.
Complete in Him, the scripture says. Salvation's of the Lord.
He started the work, He finished the work. All of God's elect
are forever secure. All right, then what am I talking
about? You say, Gabe, what are we gonna lose? You say, we're
gonna lose what we have. What are we gonna lose? Here's
what it is. We will lose the blessed privilege of having a
fervent heart for these matters. That is a privilege from God. We will lose the joy that comes
from having a fervent heart for these matters. It's a gift. It's a present from God. And
when he gives it, it brings so much joy, just so much joy. We will become complacent. We will be, we will become lukewarm
as our Lord warned us about. And we'll lose our heart for
the ministry. And you don't know it when it happens. Our Lord
said, I would rather you were hot or cold. I'd rather you were
hot or cold, but when you're lukewarm, you don't care. You
just lulled. It's just. You just don't care. We'll lose our heart for the
ministry. We'll lose our heart for the gospel and we'll lose
our heart for each other. The Lord has given us a heart
for each other. I believe you are for me and
I believe I'm for you and I believe y'all are for each other. And here's the point. Here's
the point. Here's my burden. This is the
reason for the whole thing. I don't want that. I don't want
that. I don't want that to happen.
I don't believe you do either. So I pray the Lord will teach
us something right here and allow us to take this to heart. This
is what he said. If you ask, you shall receive. He said, if you ask a good thing
in my name, you'll receive it. And a fervent heart for the ministry
of the gospel of God's people is a good thing. It's a good
thing. He said the effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And it's all because the
effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man, Christ the Lord,
his prayer availed much. What was his prayer? He said,
father, forgive them. because his prayer availed much. He said the prayer of the ones
that he prayed for will avail much. So let's take this to heart. May God put this effectual, fervent
prayer in our hearts. What we just read in Matthew
6. Now, We're going to read it again,
and I pray the Lord will let us enter into it again, and if
He's willing, we'll go more deeply into what He's saying and the
manner He's telling us to pray tonight. But I want to read something
to you that Brother Henry Mahan gave to me many years ago, and
this is in his handwriting, so hopefully I'll be able to read
it clearly. He gave this to me right after
I started preaching. It impacted me greatly. It still
does. But the reason I want to read
this to you is because this is about preaching, but the same
thing applies to hearing and every aspect of being a member
of God's congregation. All right. So he gave me something
that Charles Spurgeon wrote. Charles Spurgeon wrote, for many
years, my own preaching was exceedingly painful to me. And I can enter
into that. And he said, it's because of
the fear and trembling, which beset me before entering the
pulpit. And I can enter into that. He said, often the dread of facing
my hearers has been overwhelming. I wrote to my grandfather who
was a minister of God, and I told him of the overwhelming mental
emotion, sickness of body, and trembling fears which gripped
my heart when I preached the word. The old gentleman wrote
back, his grandfather, who was a preacher of the gospel, wrote
back, my son, I have been preaching the gospel 60 years, and I still
feel the same trembling and fears you feel. Be content to have it so. For when these emotions go away,
your strength will be gone. When you are able to preach and
think nothing of it, and I'll add to this, when we are all
able to hear and think nothing of it, and gather and think nothing
of it, and whatever that pertains to God's ministry, and think
nothing of it. He said, when you are able to
preach and think nothing of it, When you are able to teach God's
Word and think nothing of it, people will think nothing of
it and God will think nothing of it. Here's a reason to be burdened
over this. There is a reason to cry out for this fervency
and a little light to be shed on what we're gonna look at tonight
is, he said, this is what you need to pray. You need to pray
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors. Lead us not into temptation and
deliver us from evil. That's the part he gave concerning
us. So I pray the Lord will burden our hearts with this and the
Lord willing, we'll continue it tonight. All right, you're
dismissed.