Come back to Matthew chapter
6. We looked at a little bit of
this last week. I want us to look a little bit closer, verses
9 through 15. Over in Luke chapter 11, the
disciples ask the Lord to teach them to
pray. Now, whether Luke is just repeating
this, or whether the disciples ask at this time, and it's just
not recorded, I don't know. But I know over in Luke 11, the
disciples, after hearing the Lord pray, ask, teach us to pray. That's a good
prayer, isn't it? That's a good prayer. I don't
know a better prayer than that one. Lord, teach me to pray is
written over in Romans 8, 26 that we don't know what to pray
for as we ought to. I don't know. But it's a good prayer to ask
the Lord to teach us to pray. And no doubt, after hearing him
pray, hearing the God of heaven and earth pray, after hearing
him make intercession, as opposed to hearing the Pharisees, who
loved to stand in the marketplace and on the street corners so
that they could be heard by men to pray. Their whole motive for
praying was that the person sitting beside them would hear them. And after hearing him pray though,
they knew there was a great difference. There's a great difference when
they heard him pray and when they heard them pray. They knew,
they knew when they heard him that he was talking to God and
not men. Big difference, big difference. So our Lord gives us here a pattern
for prayer. As Billy and I was talking in
this study before coming out here, prayer is so difficult. It is one of the most difficult
things you can do. I find it that way. When I was
sitting under Henry, I wouldn't even look at him because I did
not want him to call on me to pray. I would just look down. And then when he'd call on me,
it would just, I'm like, Lord, I'd always pray. Lord, help me
pray. Lord, help me pray, because I don't know how to do this.
You would think, as Billy said, you'd think it'd be easy talking
to God, talking to our Father. But as he said, unbelief keeps
us from doing that and makes it so hard. Unbelief makes it
so hard. But our Lord gives us here a
pattern for prayer, and he says in verse 9, after this manner,
therefore pray ye. He's given us a pattern for when
we pray, because God's children pray. They live in an attitude
of prayer. That's what, you know, prayer
is not just saying words, prayer is also an attitude. It's living,
pray ye always, the scripture says, pray always. and faint
not. It's an attitude. And He's given
us a pattern here, and He's not telling us that we have to use
these exact words, although. I was thinking about this earlier. If we did use these
exact words, and we really meant it, that's all we'd need to pray.
That's all we'd need to pray. He's given it right here. But
He's not telling us that we have to use these exact words, that
we are to follow this pattern. Now, you'll notice in this prayer,
the first three petitions has to do with God's glory. Not me
first. Not me first. I can say guilty
for starting my prayers too many times with me. Our first prayer,
our first petition, our first request is that God's name be
glorified, that God be honored in this prayer. In this prayer,
I'm about to pray that God Almighty would receive the honor. These
first three petitions has to do with our Father, His glory,
His honor. He says, our Father, what comfort
This ought to make us, this ought to make the tension just, this
ought to make us relax. We should feel our body just
relax when we're able, sincerely, to say, Father, Father, Father,
Papa, Papa, Abba, Abba, Father, Papa, Papa, our Father. We acknowledge God as our Father. And that is so, that to me is
so sobering because God is not the father of every person. He's not the father of all men
and women. He's God, He's creator. Remember now, that creator, He's
creator of all. He's judge of all. But He's the
father of them that are in Christ. He said to the Pharisee, he said
to the Pharisee, you are of your father, the devil. Now God can't
be my father and the devil be my father. That doesn't work. We acknowledge God as our father. And that being so, he deserves
the respect. Now listen, he deserves the respect
of the father. He deserves that. You know, the
scripture says, honor thy father and thy mother. You honor them
in your speech, you honor them in your conduct, you honor them
in the way you treat them. Honor your father and your mother. It's one of the commandments.
How much more? How much more does our Heavenly
Father deserve respect and honor in our thoughts, in our hearts,
in our prayers, in our conduct? How much more? When I think of
my Father, my Heavenly Father, my thoughts of Him should be
thoughts of just awe. Just stand in awe of Him. The
God who's so immense, He can't even be comprehended. A light in which no man can approach. He's my father. How much more
honor does he deserve? And then we recognize our father
to be above all earthly fathers. You know, my father, He wasn't crazy about me moving
down here. He wasn't crazy about me. He said, you going to sell
your house? You going to sell out and move down there? He told
me, he said, I don't think you're doing the right thing. I thought,
that's all right. That's all right, because my
Heavenly Father, He's the one I got to pay attention to. First. First. First. He's the one I follow first.
He's the one I obey first, my heavenly Father. We recognize Him to be above
all earthly fathers. Then we recognize His position
above all in heaven. My, what does that say? That
should lift our thoughts of Him so high. Our Father, my Father,
your Father, is in heaven. In heaven, let me say it this
way, heaven is in Him. In Him we live and move and have
our being. The heaven of heavens can't contain
our Father. But we might have some understanding
of His glory and His majesty. He's in heaven. He's above all. None are to be compared to Him.
And we recognize His power and authority over all. Being in
heaven, He's above all in His power and authority over all. He does not ask for permission. The Scripture says over in Job,
He gives no account of any of His matters. He's not going to
tell me why He does what He does. You know, if you go to Job, I
think it's chapter 37, when he tells Job to stand up, dirt up
his lungs like a man. He doesn't explain to Job why
he did what he did. Why he allowed what he allowed.
He doesn't do that at all, does he? Our Heavenly Father does not
have to explain Himself to us. He's holy. He can make no mistakes. He's good. No good thing will
he withhold from his children. No good thing will he withhold
from his children. And he says here, Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. The word hallowed
means sanctified, holy. He's not the man upstairs. He's not a co-pilot. He is our Father, He's in heaven,
and His name is Holy. They cry right now, even as I
stand here and preach, and you listen, right now, right now,
the seraphims are crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. Our Father is being praised right
now in His holiness. The Holy Father is in heaven,
not in Rome. I promise you, not in Rome. He's
in heaven. He is our Holy Father. And our Father's name is to be
kept holy in our hearts and in our speech. When we speak of
Him, we speak of Him with reverence. We speak of Him with such respect,
not flippantly. Not flippantly. We never use
his name in vain. And then we pray, we pray. Here's
another petition we pray for. Thy kingdom come. Whose kingdom
are we most interested in? Our fathers or the kingdoms of
this world? The kingdom of men. Whose are
we most interested in? I know the children of God are
interested in his kingdom. Thy kingdom come. Don't you want
that? Oh, that God's kingdom would
come and be finally established and sin and corruption and all
that comes with it would be finally gone. Gone. God's children pray for the advancement
of their father's kingdom. I wonder, God, he'd fill this
place up with sheep, not goats. Goats, no, but sheep, yes, sheep. And like the kingdom of men,
our Father's kingdom is one of righteousness, it's one of love,
it's one of peace, it's one of joy, it's one of light, it's
one of life. That's the kingdom we want to
be established. That's the kingdom. No better
kingdom than this. No better kingdom. And thy will be done in earth
as it is in heaven. Whose will do you really want
to be done? Our father's or ours? Then I would get this. This says
a whole lot about my relationship with God. whether God is my father
or not, on whose will I want to be done, whether it's mine
or his. Thy will be done. Thy will be
done. Our Father's will is the best
will. Isn't it? It's the best will. It's the
wisest will. It's the wisest. And thy will
be done in earth as it is in heaven. It's one thing to say
thy will be done, That's easy to say. But it's
another thing to say, thou will be done in my house, in my life. Lord, if it's your will for me
to have this job or not have it, thou will be done. If it's
your will for me to be healthy or sick, thou will be done. That's a whole different matter,
isn't it? That's bowing to the sovereign will of our Father.
It's the wisest, it's the best. And now we come, and after this,
we come to the part of the prayer that concerns us, our physical
needs and our spiritual needs. In verse 11, give us this day
our daily bread. I wrote in this morning when
I came over to my study, I wrote this in because it just struck
me. Give me Christ, the heavenly
bread today first. Give me the heavenly bread this
morning first. I need Christ, the true bread
from heaven, daily. I need him daily. This body is not nearly as important
as my soul is. It's not nearly as important.
My physical health is not. It's not that important compared
to my spiritual health. I've always had Mike Bartram
sing a song whenever I had the power to tell him what to sing.
Give me Christ or else I die. That song just speaks my heart. Give me Christ or else I die. Give us the true manna from heaven
this morning. And then give us this day our
daily bread which shows our dependence on our Father for our daily care. He does not tell us to ask for
our monthly bread or our yearly bread. But our daily bread. Because you know why? Today is
what we have, today. Daily bread, when we ask for
daily bread, that's faith. Asking for monthly bread or yearly
bread, that's not faith. That's not faith. That's like
making my bank account fat enough to where if something goes downhill,
I can do okay for a while, until something else comes along. No,
give me my daily bread. That's what we need. We show
our dependence on our Father daily. What we have our Father's
given to us, our daily bread. Then daily bread, now listen,
daily bread is whatever I need today. What do you need today? Whether it's spiritual or physical,
what do you need? That's your daily bread. Ask
for it. Ask for it. And when you ask
for it, ask for it in faith. I heard a story, I think this
came from Spurgeon, I'm not positive, I'll have to paraphrase it, talking
about believing God when we go in prayer. There was a group,
a church group, a group of believers, that were getting together to
pray for rain. It had not rained for a long
time. And they were going to get together to pray that the
Lord would give them rain. And so on their way to the meeting,
his father, little girl was with him, his little daughter was
with him. She's carrying an umbrella. And the father said, why do you
have your umbrella? She said, well, we go pray for rain. Believe what you're praying for.
or don't pray for it. And I'm talking to myself here
too. When we come to God, we must come to God and think, he
that cometh to God must believe that he is, that he is what?
A rewarder of them that diligently seek him. There's a scripture that just
came to my mind, I don't know if I can find where it's at or
not. All right, I found it. Turn over
to Matthew 7. Ask in verse 7. 7, verse 7. Ask and it shall be given you.
You believe that? You say, ah, he won't give that
to me. Well, then don't ask for it. James said, you know, if
it's not of faith, don't ask. Double-minded man, you're not
going to get anything. Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek,
and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh
findeth, and him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Now listen. What man is there of you whom,
if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask
a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then be an evil, That's powerful language there.
If you then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven
give good things to them than ask him? When we ask, ask in prayer, when
we ask for daily bread, whatever the need is, ask in faith, knowing
he wants to supply according to his will. James said this in the book of
James, you have not because you ask not. Ask. And asking, going to God
in prayer, is a demonstration of faith. It's a demonstration
of genuine faith, if you're asking in faith. that God has given
you the... He's impressed you to pray. You
know, true prayer comes from God. It's God moving me to pray. It's moving me to pray for what
He's going to give me and for what I need. That's what really
true prayer is. It's God moving me to pray. And that's which brings out faith.
Now we come to our spiritual needs. In verse 12, as we pray
for our daily bread, our daily food, our daily spiritual needs
as well as physical, we pray this also, and forgive us our
debts as we forgive our debtors. We need daily forgiveness as
well as daily food, don't we? I do. You do too. Sins are like
debts we can't pay. But in Christ, there's daily
forgiveness. Forgive us our debts. And you
know, another probably better translation of this particular
verse is this. Having forgiven, forgive us our
debts, having forgiven, having forgiven our debtors. We've already,
that matter's already been taken care of. Remember the Lord said,
if you have aught against your brother, you come to the altar.
He said, leave your gift there, and you go get that matter straightened
out. Then you come back and offer
your gift, or you come back and worship, is what he's talking
about. And here he says, and forgive
us our sins. Debts, sins here are spoken of
as debts, and it's debts we can't pay. as we have forgiven others. Ooh, that puts a whole new light
on, doesn't it? That puts a whole new... If I'm harboring any malice,
and this is something we need to really pay attention to, because
this is the Lord of Heaven giving us this message. If I'm harboring
any malice whatsoever against anyone, Forget about praying. Forget about asking God to forgive. It's not gonna happen. It's not
gonna happen. That's what he says. God deals
with us as we deal with others. That's how he deals with us,
the way we deal with others. And then he speaks of trials. Verse 13, and lead us not into
temptation. Trials here are spoken of as
temptation. This is not talking about sin.
God never leads us to sin. James told us that in the book
of James. But lead us not into temptation
trials. First of all, I don't need to
pray for trials. I don't need to pray and ask
God to trial me today. Send me a trial today. God's gonna try me according
to His purpose and wisdom and my need. I don't need to ask
for it. It's not like I'm gonna, you
know, growing up, I never walked in the house and said, Dad, give
me a whipping today. I feel like I need one. God sends trials as He sees fit. as he sees fit. And then this,
keep us in the right way so we don't need to be tried severely
in order to be corrected. Keep me in the right way so I don't have to be so severely
tried, chastened in order to be corrected. or lead us not into temptation.
Don't let Satan get a hold of me like he did Job. I don't want,
I can say, I don't want what Job went through. I don't want
that. I don't desire that. If it's
necessary, God will give it to me. But deliver us from evil. Deliver
us from the evil within. Deliver me from that indwelling
sin that's ever present with me. Deliver us from evil within and
without. Keep us safe. My prayer every
night is, Lord, keep us safe. Keep us safe. Just take a big
old strong man, he can kick that door in. He can kick that, and
he can kick my doors in. He can kick them in over there,
it wouldn't be that difficult. But Lord, keep us safe. You're
my safety. You're my refuge. While I live
in this world of corruption and sin, man, with the stuff that
goes on out there, keep us safe. and delivers from the evil one.
You know the gospel being preached here. If it's being preached
here in the power of God, there's nothing Satan would desire any
more than to destroy this place. One way or another, whether it
be through conflict or however he could get a cheek in the armor,
he'd do it just so he could destroy the gospel. Deliver us from the
evil one. Satan goes about, the scripture
said, as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We, I know we can't comprehend. We can't comprehend that unseen
world. And we can't comprehend the force
of evil. that would snuff you out like
that if God allowed it, if he allows it. Keep us from the evil
one. And then he says here in this
prayer, he acknowledges and we are to acknowledge
our father's ownership and complete sovereignty over all things. For thine is the kingdom, it's
his kingdom. It's his kingdom. The man, when I went and talked
to him about the radio program, he asked me, one of the questions
he asked me was if I was trying to build a church. I said, no,
I'm just trying to preach the gospel. And surprisingly, he
said, I'm glad to hear you say that. He said, because so many
of them are wanting to build a church. I said, no, I just want to get
the message out, the gospel. Not our brand, get you. Not our brand of it, but the
only one there is. Paul said there's only one gospel.
It's the gospel of God's glory, and it concerns His Son, Jesus
Christ. His person, His work, who He is, what He did, who He
did it for, where He is now. Thine's the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. Actually, the word amen is one
of the translations, so be it. But also that's his name. That's
ending the prayer word, God's name. Amen. Now, you say that's the end of
the prayer. Well, we got two more verses
here. Got two more verses here that he attaches. He said, if
you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will forgive
you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will
your father forgive your trespasses. You remember the parable of the
servant whom his master forgave everything because he couldn't
afford to pay it? So he just frankly forgave him all of it.
And then he went out and he found somebody owed him and he grabbed
him by the throat and he said, you pay me everything you owe.
He had no mercy on him whatsoever. And he's given us a lesson here
in forgiveness at the end of this prayer. If you want forgiveness, if you
desire forgiveness, You forgive. He said, you forgive. Because if you don't, he said,
your father will not forgive you. And it's evident. I'll tell
you this, if I can't forgive, it's evident who my father is,
the devil, and not God. And not God. Prayer. Really, when it comes
down to it, it's that simple. Prayer is not
a sermon. It's really that simple. Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. He has given us a pattern for
prayer and it do us well to ask the Lord to give us an understanding
and enable us to follow in spirit that pattern. Okay.