So let's read together in Matthew
chapter 6, starting at verse 5. The Lord is teaching, in the
Sermon on the Mount, many things. And in this setting, He's teaching
us how to pray. Most of the time, the people
were not praying correctly, and especially the scribes and Pharisees
would pray, for this motive, to be seen of men. Look at verse
5 of Matthew 6. And when thou prayest, when thou
prayest, do you see that? There's an assumption here that
you do pray, if you're the Lord's disciples. And he says, when
thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. A hypocrite is someone who pretends
to be good, but's not. For they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets. Why? That they may be seen of men. That's why they pray. Verily,
Jesus said, very truly, I say unto you, they have their reward. They have from men what they
wanted. They wanted the praise of men.
Men watched them and heard them pray. And they commented on it. They thought well of them. And
so they have all the reward they're going to get. But they have nothing
from God. Verse 6. But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy 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 but when you pray use not vain
repetitions don't say the same thing over and over again as
if God can't hear you as the heathen do for they think they
shall be heard for their much speaking Be not ye therefore
like to them, for your father knoweth what things you have
need of before you ask him." Isn't that interesting? God knows
everything you need before you ask him. You might ask, then,
why should we pray? We'll talk about that. Verse
9, "...after this manner therefore pray ye." Do you see the words,
after this manner? It means don't take this prayer
and read it and memorize it and say it yourself just like it's
written. That would be to do like the
heathen do. To say it as a recipe or in the
same words. But say it understanding the
meaning of it. So let's read it together. 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 Now I want to spend the bulk of our time today on verses
9 through 13, which is often called the Lord's Prayer. But
it's not the Lord's Prayer that he prayed, but it's the prayer
the Lord gave the manner of this prayer that he gave to his disciples.
So if we understand it that way, then it's proper to call it the
Lord's Prayer. But more accurately, we might
call it the disciple's prayer, because it's the prayer God gave
to his people to pray. But the important thing is first
the negative. Don't pray to be heard and seen
of men. Now when we think about prayer, When we think about the teaching
of what it means to pray, first thing we want to understand is
that a pastor should be able, you would think of all people,
to teach others how to pray. But there's no area, I think,
where I feel more inadequate than in this area. But at the
same time, I know that God has used his disciples, his ministers,
to teach people how to pray. As I was studying for this sermon,
I thought about how I would learn to pray, and I thought I would
read the prayers of men like Elijah, or Daniel, or David,
or Moses, or Paul, or all these men who prayed. Remember what
it says in the book of James? Elijah was a man of like passions
like we are. And he prayed that the Lord would
withhold rain and God withheld rain for three years. And then
he prayed again and God sent the rain. And so he's teaching
us there something about the effectiveness of Elijah's prayers
because he prayed in faith. And when we read through the
scripture, and I would love to be able to do this, but in this
sermon we certainly don't have time. Go back and read the prayers,
for example, of Daniel in the book of Daniel, chapter 9. I
did that this last week. What a prayer. What a prayer. And think about all of the things
that he said there, confessing his sin and asking God to do
what he promised. And one of the questions that
comes to our mind when we think about prayer is, how can I know
that my prayers are heard? And how can I pray so that my
prayers will be answered? How do I know what to pray? And I hope to be able to answer
those questions in this sermon. So I've entitled this sermon,
Lord teach us to pray. That's what the disciples asked
Jesus in Luke chapter 11 in the same context here. They said,
Lord, after hearing the Lord himself pray, and you know when
the Lord Jesus prayed, that had to be a phenomenal thing. That the God of glory in human
flesh, who had been for eternity face to face with his Father,
In the body and soul, in the mind of a man, would enter into
prayer with his father on earth. And his disciples even would
hear what he had to say. There's nothing I would want
to hear more, would you? Than the Lord Jesus Christ praying
to His Father. You are experiencing, you are
witnessing, you are hearing the intercourse between God the Son
and God the Father. that he's praying by the Spirit
of God, the triune God, communicating regarding the will of God, and
the glory of God, and the people of God, and all the things that
the Lord Jesus prayed for. That had to be something that
just would astound and amaze the disciples that he would be
able to pray so. And so they prayed. They asked
him, Lord, teach us to pray. And when I say to pray, it can
be understood two ways. Number one, we need to pray. But we also need to know how
to pray. So I think when they asked him,
teach us to pray, they were really asking him, Lord, teach us how
to pray. But we also must pray. Paul, in Ephesians chapter 1,
verse 16, he said to the Ephesians, Don't cease to pray for you.
He always prayed for them. And he even said, Paul himself
said, pray without ceasing. All the time, pray. When you
rise in the morning, when you go about your day, when you lie
down on your pillow at night, there's nothing that is a greater
gift from God to us than that we could approach the holy, eternal,
all-wise, all-powerful, ruling God in prayer and speak to Him
as His children. Nothing is of a greater privilege
than that. And God Himself tells us to pray. And so Jesus admonishes us in
chapter 6. He says, when you pray, Go into
your closet and shut the door. Prayer is a very private matter. Because we pray from our heart. And you can't pray from your
heart unless you know there's no one who hears you unless except
God. And so it's difficult for us
to pray in public because of that. It's difficult. Because
when we pray to our Father, we can go to Him and tell Him what
we're thinking. what we're thinking about, what
we've done, why we did it, and all the sorrow that comes with
that. That's part of our prayer, confessing
our sins and making our supplication before the Lord. And those are
intimate thoughts. We should pray with our mouth,
from our heart, with our spirit. Remember what Jesus told the
woman at the well? You worship, you know not what.
We know what we worship for salvation is of the Lord. And the Father
seeks such to worship Him, that worship Him in spirit and in
truth. So our prayers must be in the
Spirit of God, enabled by the Spirit of God, and in truth,
according to God's Word. We must pray, and we must pray
according to God's instruction, how He teaches us to pray. So,
that's the first thing. Don't pray the prayer exactly
as it's written. If you do, it's not a problem. I often, I've recited this when
I was a kid. We would meet together as a family
and my father would have us all kneel down together and in unison
recite the Lord's Prayer. That was just what we did as
I was growing up. I remember doing that when we were just
little bitty kids. So I learned the Lord's Prayer
by memorizing it through that process. And of course there
are songs You know, that have the Lord's Prayer. But this,
and it's called the Lord's Prayer, as I said, it's perhaps a misunderstood
meaning to that. But I want you to look at this
with me. Phrase by phrase, as we look
at this prayer, that our Lord Jesus Christ gave us to teach
us how to pray. To teach His disciples how to
pray. The first thing, look at it with me, in verse 9. He says,
Our Father, which art in heaven." Now, when you read through this
prayer, do you see Jesus' name in here? When you read through
it at first glance, you don't, do you? And you might wonder,
where is the Lord Jesus Christ in this prayer? Well, the fact
of the matter is, That's part of the understanding we need
when we look at this prayer, when we read this prayer, and
when we pray according to what our Lord taught us. Often it
was the case that when Jesus taught his disciples, he would
not refer directly to himself, but he was teaching them about
himself. And so when he says this first phrase, our Father,
in this prayer. He's teaching us something very
significant. Just in that one phrase. In our
prayers, the first thing we are to do is to have an understanding
of our relationship to God our Father as Father, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that relationship through the Lord
Jesus Christ and our prayers heard by the Spirit of God. And this is something that's
fundamental. In other words, when the Lord Jesus tells us
to pray after this manner, our Father, He's teaching us that
we are in relationship to God, His Father, as He is in relationship
to Him. He is our Father. And the way
that He is our Father is by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the way
we are able to approach Him as our Father is through the Spirit
of God. And so in this one phrase, our
Father, we see the triune God God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit, enabling us to approach God as His sons,
through the Lord Jesus Christ, and call God our Father. Now, there are several ways in
which we are able to understand, we're able to be called the children
of God. The children of God. And I don't
have time to develop this all the way through, but I'm going
to cover it in a quick way. First of all, God teaches us
that we're God's sons by His choice. Election. That's what election means. It
means His choice. In Ephesians chapter 1, In fact,
turn with me to Ephesians chapter 1. This is a significant verse.
I'll read a few of these to you. Ephesians chapter 1, so that
you see this. How are we the sons of God? How can we call
God our Father? In understanding this, then we
understand in our prayers how we can approach God and how we
ought to speak to God as our Father. and be thanking Him that
this is how we are His sons. In Ephesians chapter 1, He says,
verse 3, This is God Our Father. In God, there are
three persons revealed. God the Father, God the Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit. And here, He
says that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
According as He has chosen us, him in Christ before the foundation
of the world 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
you see that we are adopted the word adopt is made up of two
parts, ad and opto. It means to choose. So when God
says that he has predestinated us unto the adoption of children,
it means that God the Father chose his sons out of all of
the people in the world, before the world began. Now, when I
have a child, when I have a son, or when anyone on earth, any
human father has a son or a daughter, they can't choose who their son
or daughter is. Their son or daughter is given
to them in birth. And when they're born, there
they are. They have a son or a daughter.
But when God has sons or daughters, they're not born first to become
his sons. He actually chose them before
they were born to be his sons. This is amazing, isn't it? That
God chose his sons and his daughters. And then it says here that he
predestinated them unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. Do you see that? We are first
of all chosen by God. That's what adoption means. It
means two things. God chose us and He put us among
the children. Jeremiah 3.19. It says, He put
us among the children. And so God the Father did that.
But He predestinated us. To choose, to elect, means He
chose persons. To predestinate means that He
chose the means by which we would become His children. To elect
us means He chose who He would make His sons. And to predestinate
means He chose how He would make us His sons. And how He made
us His sons was by Jesus Christ. But how did Jesus Christ make
us God's sons? Well, there's two ways in scripture
that it reveals this. The first one is that He reconciled
us to God. Look over at Ephesians chapter
2 and verse 4. I'm sorry, verse 3, Ephesians
2, 3, "...among whom we also had our conversation in time
past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others." So our nature, what we thought about, what we
did, was, in our nature, was just like everyone else. By nature,
We were the children, not of God, but of wrath. Our nature,
our mind, what we think about, what we want to do, and what
we actually practiced and did, our wicked works, was the same
things everybody else is doing. And so by nature, in God's justice,
His wrath would have to be sent against us, punish us for our
sins, And yet, keep reading, it says in verse 4, but God who
is rich in mercy, notice, for His great love, wherewith He
loved us, When did God love His people? He loved them before
the foundation of the world. It says in 1 John 3, verse 1,
"...Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon
us that we should be called the children of God, the sons of
God." And we just read in Ephesians 1 and verse 5 that he predestinated
us unto the adoption of children. And in verse 4 he says we were
chosen in Christ to be holy and without blame before him in love. So it was love that motivated
God to choose us. That love was in himself, not
something he found in us. God's love is a love that doesn't
depend on what he finds in us. Not what He finds in us when
He first loves us. Not what He's expecting to find
later. His love is independent of us. It comes from Him. He loves because He will love. It says in Hosea 14, I will love
them freely. And in Deuteronomy 7 He says,
I loved you because the Lord would love you. There was no
reason found in us. God just loved us in Christ.
The love, the reason for his love is found in himself. But
having loved us and having chosen us, he chose us unto the adoption
of children to be holy and without blame before him in love. So
that when we were even as others in our minds and by our wicked
works, His love was still unchanged. His love toward us, which He
had for us in Christ before the foundation of the world, was
the same love He had for us when we had fallen in our own sin.
Fallen in Adam and in our own sin. And so He loved us eternally. His love never changes. And He
will love us to eternity in the same way that He loved us then.
His love never ends. And it never goes up. It never
goes down. And because of His great love
wherewith He loved us, it says, even when we were dead in sins,
He quickened us together with Christ. Now this has referring
again here to raising us up with Christ. Because we were chosen
in Christ. By Jesus Christ we were adopted. And go on in verse 13, it says,
Ephesians 2, but now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were
far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. You were far
off by your works and in your mind, and outwardly there was
no evidence that you were the sons of God. When God sent forth his son to
do what he's describing next, then he reconciles. He says,
For he is our peace, Christ is our peace, who has made both
one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between
us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, the hostility, even
the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in
himself of twain one new man, so making peace, that he might
reconcile both unto God, in one body, by the cross, having slain
the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you, which
were afar off, and to them that were nigh." He's talking about
the Jews and the Gentiles, but he's speaking specifically of
those who were saved out of the Jews and Gentiles. But notice
verse 18. For through Him, through Christ, we both, both Jews and
Gentiles, have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore you are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints
and of the household of God. You see that? You were far off
in your nature and by your works and in your mind. But God has
brought you nigh. How did he bring us nigh? What
were we? We were the children of wrath.
God's justice demanded our punishment. But God in His justice provided
the Lord Jesus Christ to endure the punishment our sins deserved,
and satisfied His justice, and fulfilled all the requirements
of His law. And having done that, He made
peace with us. And having made peace, He lavished
the blessings that He predestined to come upon us in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and He sent His Spirit to quicken us and make us alive,
to point us to Christ, give us faith in Him, And then He taught
us that now you are of the household of God. He reconciled us to God. He removed the cause of His wrath,
and He reconciled us to God, and God therefore poured out
the blessings He determined upon us. Look at Galatians chapter
4. Another case, this is how Jesus Christ made us the sons
of God. Remember, we're adopted by Jesus
Christ. Chapter 4, verse 4 of Galatians. But when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that
we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are
sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. So these verses describe the
second way in which Jesus made us the sons of God. We, because
of our sins, were in debt to God. We were not only in debt,
but we were slaves. We were enslaved. We were under
the condemnation of the law and the curse of the law. The law
called for our punishment. The Lord Jesus Christ, as our
Redeemer, took our cause as our Redeemer. He assumed our debt
and paid the ransom price that God's law demanded so that we
might be set free, made sons. We were slaves, we were the children
of wrath like others in the prison house of our debt. and bondage to sin, and to Satan,
and to the law. And the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law, because He was cursed for us.
He paid the debt. And having paid the debt, He
set us free. And having set us free, we then
received the inheritance He earned for us. And God blessed us as
sons. He received us as sons. So He
had chosen us to sonship. He reconciled us by Jesus Christ. He redeemed us from the debt
of our sins and the curse of the law. And He gave to us the
freedom and the access of sons. Access because reconciliation
was made. Inheritance because our redemption
was paid. All by Jesus Christ. So you see,
in Ephesians 2, verse 18, it says, through Him, through Christ,
we both, both Jews and Gentiles, all the elect of God, have access
through Him by one Spirit, by the Spirit of God. And so because
the Lord Jesus Christ did this, we see that we're adopted by
election, and we're adopted by reconciliation, and through redemption. God sent the Spirit of His Son
into our hearts because we were sons. Did you notice that? Look
at Galatians 4 and verse 6. Because you are sons, God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. When were you sons? Well, you
were sons before he sent the spirit of his son into your heart.
How were you sons before God's spirit came into your heart?
You were sons by adoption. You were sons by purchase. You
were sons by reconciliation. Remember the prodigal? The father
of the prodigal stood and waited for his son. His son was out,
had spent all he had given to his son. Given him all his living. He wasted it on riotous living
in harlots. And he had found himself working
for a swine farmer, a man of the world, a religious man. And
he was there with the pigs, and the pigs were eating the husks
of the swine. Now the swine were not sheep.
Swine represented the religious of this world who can live off
of their own good works. But the son couldn't live off
the husk that the swine fed. And so his father used this to
drive him from his bondage to the world, and he couldn't live
off of the works of the flesh. And so he was driven back to
his father and all the time his father's waiting for him, patiently
waiting for his providence to work to bring him to himself. And he sees him coming according
to his purpose of grace. That's our father. He reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ. And so we see that, and we see
that the Lord Jesus Christ has done this. Now, because we were
redeemed, that's why we were redeemed, see it? To redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. We couldn't receive adoption
from God unless He first redeemed us by Christ. But once we were
redeemed, and because we were chosen as the redeemed sons of
God set free from all the curse of the law, then God sent His
Spirit into our hearts. So the third way we were made
sons of God, first by choice, then by adoption, and then by
regeneration. God's Spirit comes into our hearts,
and having come into our hearts, what does He do? How do we know
that we are the redeemed of the Lord? How do we know that we're
the sons of God? The Spirit of God points us to
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in pointing us to the Lord
Jesus Christ, He shows us what Christ has done for us. He teaches
us that all of our salvation depends on what He did alone. He has worked it out. He redeemed
us. He reconciled us. He paid every
Everything that God required and fulfilled every requirement.
So in John 3, 14 and 15, when Nicodemus asks Jesus, How can
these things be? How can someone be born again?
I don't understand it. And Jesus says, As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him
Just like the Israelites bitten in the wilderness, look to the
serpent on the cross, whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Looking to Him as the one God
cursed, who bore our sin. And looking to Him, we find that
all that God requires, He found in His Son. The answer He sought
was given by Christ. The payment that He needed was
made by Him. And He looked to His Son for
everything. And in saving His people, the Spirit of God is
sent into our hearts. He causes us to look to Christ
for everything. So back in John chapter 1, take
a look at it again in John 1. Verse 12, "...but as many as
received Him..." Let me read verse 11 of John 1. "...Jesus came to His own, and
His own received Him not. But as many as received Him..."
He came to the Jews, but the Jews didn't receive Him. But
as many as received him out of Jews and Gentiles, to them gave
he authority or power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. Do you see that? Receiving Christ
means to believe him. Believing Christ means God has
given you the authority to call God your Father. And so God has
made us His sons by adoption, by redemption, by reconciliation,
and by regeneration, and then by faith. In God sending His
Spirit into our hearts, He gives us faith in Christ. We see in
Christ everything God requires of us. We see that God gave us
to Christ. He put us in Christ, His only
begotten Son. And in His only begotten Son,
He brought many sons to glory. He's conforming them to His image. He will bring them to glory,
and He will have His children, His prodigal children, and He
will have His sons that He loved, and they will be holy, and they
will be blameless before Him in love. That eternal love that
began before the world began is the same eternal love that
they experience in eternity. And everything in between is
the same with God. God has made us His sons. And
so when Jesus teaches us, He says, Pray this way, Our Father. The Lord Jesus Christ is everywhere
in that phrase. Do you see that? Jesus said to
His own disciples in John 20. Let me see if I can find it. Turn to John 20, and we'll look
at this verse together. I look at this often. He says in verse 17, Mary wanted
to touch him. She turned, in verse 16, Jesus
said to her, Mary, and she turned herself, and she saith to him,
Rabboni, which is to say, Master, And Jesus in verse 17 said to
her, touch me not, for I'm not yet ascended to my father. But
go to my brethren, do you see that? And say unto them, I ascend
unto my father, and to your father, and to my God, and your God. Whoa! This is saying that the
Lord Jesus Christ, by His death, had made His disciples, His people,
the sons of God. Now they have the right to call
God, My Father. They have the right to say, My
God. Just like in the New Covenant,
God said, I will be a God to them, and they shall be My people. My people. Chosen. Loved. Redeemed. A precious people. A special people. A people made
for the Lord. A holy people. These are all
the things that God made His people. And God is their God.
A God to save. A God to comfort. A God to do everything for them. their God, my Father, your Father. So when the Lord Jesus Christ
says, pray like after this manner, our Father, He wants us to draw
from all of the Gospel, the riches of the instruction that comes,
that we're the sons of God, by God's eternal choice, and His
eternal love, and His redemption which He performed, and the reconciliation
by Christ. And the Spirit of God Himself
would come and dwell within us and give us this life and faith
that we might look to Christ only and see in Him all that
God requires of us. And learn, even by looking to
Him, who our Father is. Because we can't know God except
what we see in Christ. And then the next part of the
Lord's Prayer back in Matthew chapter 6 is this, which art
in heaven, which art in heaven. Now we have fathers on earth.
And we learn, by God's good purpose, what our Father in Heaven is
like, in some part, by what our Father on Earth is like. Remember,
our family on Earth is just a prototype, a shadow, a template, a teaching
tool, if you will, of what our eternal family is like in Heaven. God is in heaven. And so he says,
pray this way, our father which art in heaven. We are to understand
that our father is in heaven. His family is a heavenly family. Our home is in heaven. Where do you feel the most comfortable?
Where do you receive the most comfort? Where do you feel like
you're completely accepted? Where do you feel the most loved? Where do you feel like the way
that you can live most naturally is that environment in which
you can most naturally live is? Where is all that? It's your
home, isn't it? And where is our home? It's with
our Father. It's in heaven. That's why he
says that we're the household of God. And in other cases, which
I'm going to read to you in a minute, it says in 2 Corinthians 5 that
now we are at home in the body. But we're willing to be, and
while we're at home in the body, we're absent from the Lord in
our body. But we're willing to be absent
from our body that we might be present with the Lord. And when
we're present with the Lord, where is the Lord? He's in heaven.
Where will we be when we're present with the Lord? We'll be with
Him in heaven. And so we long to be with Him
in Heaven. So we're saying our Father, which
art in Heaven, that's where our family is. That's where our home
is. That's where we belong. That's where our citizenship
is. That's where all of the love that we need, and our comfort,
and our provision, and our security is. How do we know we're loved? It says in Revelation 3.19, As
many as I love, I rebuke. Because God disciplines His sons. And so He corrects us. And what
form does that correction take? It takes the form of the gospel
coming to us, showing us our sinfulness, our weakness, our
helplessness, and driving us to Christ. So we cry out to God. We call upon Him. We seek the
Lord. We knock. We ask. We do all these
things. We come to Him. And that correction
causes us, like the prodigal, to be driven back to our father.
And God says, as many as I rebuke, I love. Because He doesn't love
everybody, but He does love His sons. I don't discipline those
who aren't my children. If I did, I would be facing a
law problem. But I discipline my own children
because I love them and I want them to grow up according to
the way God would have them to be. And that's the way God is. And so we learn, again, this
way. Our citizenship is in heaven. Philippians 3.20. And in Ephesians
3.14 and 15 it says, The whole family in heaven and earth bears
the name of God our Father, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Heaven is our home, our Father is there, we're welcome there,
accepted there, and we're safe there. And we rejoice, we rejoice
as those who are brought to... Can you imagine what the prodigal
felt like when he was brought home? And his father said, go
kill the fatted calf. He put the ring on his finger.
He put the robe on his son. He put shoes on his feet. He
says, go kill the fatted calf, and let us make merry. And there
was dancing, and there was merriment, and there was singing, and they
were so happy. And I can imagine what the son
felt like. He was probably like a limp rag
with his arms hanging loose and his head somewhat lowered and
wondering, I don't feel quite right. Everyone is so happy to
see me. I was the one that did wrong.
Because He wants us to shift. God wants us to shift all of
the focus of our attention on His goodness. The largeness of
His heart in Christ for having saved us. We could never bring
anything to God. We can never do anything to merit
His love toward us. We could never do something to
make us feel like we earned God's love. It takes God dragging us
through the mire and setting us in glory, robed in the righteousness
of Christ, forgiving us all of our sins, and lavishing all of
the blessings He intended for us from eternity to teach us.
God blesses out of His goodness for Christ's sake alone. It doesn't
come from you." And we stand there, open mouth, and we're
wondering, how could God be so good to us? How could He be so
great, His name so holy? And so our Father is in heaven.
He's a Father to the fatherless, He says in Psalm 68, 5. In Hosea
14, 3, He says, That he is a father to the fatherless
again. And we know that. We feel that
we were the fatherless ones. We were alienated, far off, children
of wrath, even as others. But he chose us when we were
in the prison and bonded as slaves. Had no right to approach him.
Only sons can approach the throne where their father sits as king.
But now we're made sons in Christ. And he says, come to him, our
father which art in heaven. Come this way. Come on the basis
of what Christ has done. And then he says this in this
prayer. He says, Hallowed be thy name. Hallowed be thy name. What does this mean? Well, it
means that our Father is holy. It means He's holy. He is holy
in His person. He is holy in His name. He's
holy in His will. He's holy in His word. He's holy
in His works. His people are holy. His habitation
is holy. His temple is holy. His throne
is holy. Everything connected to God is
holy. And therefore everything He does
is holy. Everything. Now if He is holy,
If He is holy, and He only is holy, remember what Hannah said
in 1 Samuel chapter 2? There's none holy as the Lord. There's none holy but God. Jesus
said there's none good but God. He is holy. And when we say He's
holy, we're saying that all that we know about God, all that we've
learned from Christ, is that He only does what's right and
pure and perfect and wonderful. And as we're praying this prayer,
and as we pray to God, and as we're acknowledging that we have
this relationship with God as sons, because Christ has made
us his sons, and we have a home in heaven, and we have one in
heaven who is for us, we know that all that he does is holy.
We want God to be glorified in everything. And so, another way
of saying this is we're saying, Lord, glorify yourself. Glorify yourself. First and foremost, in our prayer,
we're asking that God would take glory to Himself for all that
He is, and all that He does, and all that's connected to Him.
His people are holy. His church is holy. His salvation
is holy. And what does God want more than
anything? He wants to make His name known. Making God's name
known is making His holiness known. And how does He do that?
Remember how King Ahasuerus did it in the book of Esther? When
the king asks Haman, what shall be done to the man whom the king
delights to honor? And Haman said, oh, well you
should take your own robe and put it on him, and your own crown
and put it on him. Put him on your own horse and have the best
man in the country lead the horse through the streets and say,
this is what shall be done to the man whom the king delights
to honor. This is the way God glorifies his name. He bestows
glory on his son. And putting glory on his son,
he magnifies his son. He lifts him up before our eyes
and shows how great he is. How righteous He is. How loving
He is. How good He is. How faithful
He is. How powerful He is. How truthful
he is, how faithful, and all the things that our Lord Jesus
Christ is. And when we see him in God, and then he tells us,
when you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and we understand.
Hallowed be thy name. Lord, glorify yourself. Take glory to your Son. Glorify
yourself before us. Make your name great. That's
our first priority in praying. Lord, be glorified in all that
you do. And the next part naturally follows
then. He says, Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come. What is God's
kingdom? Well, it's the place where God
rules. It's His dominion. Thine is the kingdom and the
dominion and the power and the glory. The Kingdom of God is
the people of God gathered together in Christ. It's the Church of
God. It's where He rules. He rules
over all things. He rules over the wicked as well
as the righteous. But His Kingdom is the place. It's the domain, the dominion
that He gives to His people. In Matthew 25 and 34. Let me
read this to you. And you probably know this, he
says this, Jesus separates the sheep from the goats and he puts
the sheep on the right hand. And he says, he says after having
set the sheep on the right hand, in verse 34, Then shall the king
say unto them on his right hand, Come ye, blessed of my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you. from the foundation
of the world. To inherit means you have the
right of sons. Who inherits but a son? And what
was given us? All spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world.
That's the Kingdom. Everything in Christ. The Church
of God is in Christ. The people of God were given
to Him. The Bride of Christ. The City. What is the Church
called? The City. The New Jerusalem.
And in Hebrews chapter 12, he says this, in Hebrews chapter
12, we're not coming to the mount that might be touched with fire
and that burned and quaked and all these things, but we're coming
to Mount Zion. And then in verse 28 of the same
chapter, just a little further down, Hebrews 12, 28, he says,
Wherefore, we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us
have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence
and godly fear." So God has given us a kingdom, and when we say,
thy kingdom come, what we're saying is, Lord, save your people,
bring sinners through Christ to yourself. Those you made one
with Him in eternity, bring them by His blood and His righteousness. Perfect them, bring them Lord. We're just simply praying that
God would complete the building of His city, His kingdom, where
He rules. And that's what it is. His kingdom
is an everlasting kingdom. And His dominion is everlasting
because the church was always in His heart and He will rule
over it throughout eternity. For their good. And His people
will rule with Him. And then notice He says in the
next part of Matthew 6, Thy will be done in earth as it is in
heaven. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven. God's will is always done. Not
one part of His will goes undone. And nothing is done that's not
God's will. Everything is God's will. It
says in Ephesians 1.11, He works all things after the counsel
of His own will. What does God do? How does God
know what to do? He looks at His will. What does
His will say? That's what I'm going to do. It's not like...
We think of it like that, perhaps, but that's what... There's only
one thing that drives what God does. It's His will. His will
never changes. His will is always the same.
We don't change His will. What we pray in this prayer is,
Thy will be done. Jesus prayed in the garden, Father,
if it be possible, take this cup from me, but nevertheless,
not my will, but Thy will be done. And so we pray the same
way as the sons of God. Thy will be done. thy will be
done." Whatever God has done in heaven is what is done on
earth. His will has already been done
in heaven, but it has yet to be done on earth in time. And
so we pray, Lord, what your will is, that's what we want. We want
your will done because what else is holy but your will? What else
is right and good? We want your kingdom to come.
That's all of our salvation. All of our desire. That's what David said, this
is all my desire and all my hope. And so we say, Lord, Thy will
be done in everything. What do you want done? Do you
want something less than the best? Do you want something less
than what God wants? Can't you say with confidence,
even though you don't know what God's will is, Thy will be done? Can't you say that? Don't you
know that's what you really want? Lord, I would never have even
imagined that you would save me from my sins in the way that
you have by Jesus Christ, by your omnipotent saving grace. I would never have thought of
that. No one ever would have. So your will be done. If I can
trust you for that, my eternal soul, then I can trust you for
everything. Thy will be done. And then he
says this, give us this day our daily bread, our daily bread. Now here, this is an amazing
thing, and I want you to think back with me of what we read
in Psalm 145. It says in verse 15 through 20,
the eyes of all wait upon thee. In Psalm 145, verse 15, he says,
Doesn't that sound like this? Give us this day our daily bread.
Do you realize that when God created all the animals, that
the animals, I thought about this, Have you ever noticed what animals
do? What are they doing almost all the time? They're looking
for something to eat. Flying around looking for things.
Chicken scratching for bugs. Lions looking to eat some meat. Monkeys eating fruit. Cows eating
grass. They're all eating all the time.
Where does this food come from? How do they have so much to eat?
God opens his hand and he satisfies the desire of every living thing.
And God says in this same thing that God is the one who gives
them their meat in due season. We don't just get to eat. We don't just get to live. We
don't have rights to live. Have you ever thought about that? All men are entitled to these
certain inalienable rights given to them by their creator. Where
does it say that in the Bible? The right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness? You have no right to life. It's
a sovereign prerogative of God to give you life. When will we
wake up and acknowledge God's holiness and His sovereignty
and say, I have no rights but what you give me. And you give
me life today, my daily bread. James said it this way, we ought
to say, if the Lord will, we will live and do this or that.
There's no rights, there's no right thing. There's no rights
thing with people. We take rights to ourselves and
we demand our rights, but that's an arrogance that God never supports. So God opens His hand out of
His goodness. If we would just understand that.
That God gives us what we have. And not only does He give it
to us, but what is He teaching us in this prayer? To ask. What He gives. What do we do
when we ask? If you didn't have something
and you came to my house and said, you know, I need a car
or I need some money and I don't have it. And let's say that I
happen to have it and I gave it to you. You would feel like,
okay, I'm going to pay you back. I'm going to pay you back. But
when you come to God and ask for something, you can't pay
Him back. You can never bargain with God. You can never say,
well if you give me this, then I'll make it up somehow to you.
Forget it! That's not the way... First of
all, what could you ever give to God that He hasn't given to
you? What could you ever earn from God? By asking, we're acknowledging
that God is the only one who is good and self-sufficient and
has all things. And so we come to him with our
open hands and we ask, I'm an empty-handed, poor beggar. I have nothing unless you give
it to me. I need bread. I need this. I need breath. I need life. I
need everything. He opens his hand and satisfies
the desire of every living thing. And when it says that the eyes
of all wait upon thee, it means that they trust. They're looking
to God to provide everything. And so we come in prayer and
we say, give us this day our daily bread. We're saying in
words, I am trusting my Father in heaven. to know and to provide
out of His goodness and His care and His love, for Christ's sake,
everything I need. Not only my physical life, but
especially all of my spiritual needs. The bread of life is the
Lord Jesus Christ, and we can only eat of Him by faith. So
how do we consume the bread God gives? Lord, give me faith to
look to Christ only. Never let me trust or lean on
something of myself, but come to you acknowledging that I need
everything. In Matthew 5, the Christian is
first described not by what he has, but by what he doesn't have.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. So we need everything. Lord,
I need this, I need that, I need everything. I need even the most
basic things to live. In Daniel chapter 5, verse 23,
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar's son, God, in whose hand your
breath is and whose are all your ways, everything about us is
in the hand of God. And so we say, Lord, my father,
I need everything. Give me this day." We don't ask
for riches, just the bread we need to live. And why do we ask
for this? Just so we can go off and live our... If God made everything
for himself, don't you know what that means? It means that you
were made for God. You were not made for yourself.
You didn't make yourself and you weren't made for yourself.
Therefore when we ask for bread we're saying Lord give me the
bread I need to do your will that you might be glorified in
the life you've given to me. I can only do, I can only fulfill
your will as you give me strength to do it. I look to you for everything. And how much more in our spiritual
life? Our Heavenly Father has to give
us faith and repentance and forgiveness and justification and sanctification
and everything we need. Sonship, all these things, Lord,
give it to me. And don't you love what it says
in, look at this in Revelation 20, I think it's 22 or 21. This word seems like too big
a word to me to even use it in prayer, but this is what we're
supposed to do. God is the one who provides everything. He says in chapter 22, verse 17, in the
spirit and the bride say, come. and let him that heareth say,
Come, and let him that is athirst say, Come, and whosoever will,
let him take of the water of life freely." Do you see that
word, take? Lord give, and in asking we're
saying, I need you to give. And when He gives it, what do
we do? We take it. We receive it by faith. I lay hold on eternal
life. I lay hold on Jesus Christ. And
then He says in the next part, forgive us our debts. What does
that mean? It means that we're sinners.
And our sins are debts. We've incurred debt against God.
And God has to forgive us our sins. We come to Him who alone
forgives us of our sins. And we come for forgiveness by
Jesus Christ. Here again, the Lord Jesus Christ
is throughout this prayer, isn't He? He's the one by whom God
forgives sins. There's no remission of sins
without the shedding of blood. And it's Christ's blood that
was shed. The reason that God says in the New Covenant that
He will remember their sins and iniquities no more and forgive
us our sins is for Christ's sake. So what we're saying here is,
Lord, give me what Christ has purchased. Give me what you've
told me in the Gospel is in Christ. Let me take from you what this
sinner needs and I don't have. And then he says, lead us, I'm
sorry, and then as we forgive our debtors, because all that
we need, all that we need from God, I mean all the forgiveness
that God gives us, we have to forgive as He's forgiven us.
Think about it. Why did God forgive you one sin,
or all your sins? Why did He forgive you? Wasn't
it for Christ's sake alone? He looked at what Christ had
done, and He says, I forgive you all your sins. He has taken
them all. He bore them all away. He paid
the punishment for every one of them. If God looks at Christ
and forgives you all your sins, and now someone has come and
sinned against you, what are you going to look for in order
to forgive that one? Is not the blood of Christ that
God looked at to forgive you inadequate? to forgive your brother? Isn't it enough for the Lord
Jesus Christ to forgive them? Wouldn't it be enough? If God
has forgiven you for Christ's sake, can't you forgive for Christ's
sake? Can't you forgive because God
has forgiven you? What he's saying here is that
we can only forgive if God has forgiven us, but having been
forgiven, we will By faith, we will be forgiving to others.
So we pray that way. That's the attitude in our prayer.
Spurgeon said this, I'm happy when people offend me, because
it gives me an opportunity to forgive them. And by forgiving
them, I can show that I've been forgiven. Here he says, and lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Don't you need
that? Don't you need to be kept back from temptation? I like
what Pastor Nybert has said. If I'm tempted, I'm going to
fall, so Lord, don't let me be tempted. I know that's true of
me. But save me from evil. And where is evil found? He says,
Jesus says in one place, He says, Out of the heart of man proceeds
evil thoughts, fornication, murders, adulteries, and all these things.
Where is evil? It's in me. Lord, save me from
myself. Don't leave me to myself. Don't
leave me in unbelief. Don't leave me with this heart
of mine. Convert me. Change me. Give me a heart to see the Lord
Jesus Christ. To love you as I ought to love.
Give me dominion. by your grace over sin. Lord, fulfill your will." And
I want to take you to one more scripture because we're out of
time. And I know it's late, but I want to take you to this. Look
at 2 Samuel. And I've shown you this before, but I want to remind
you of it again. How do we know our prayers are
heard? How do we know God will answer our prayers? I want to
look at three verses with you real quickly. How do you know? Let me tell you how you know.
You can be confident. You can be confident that God
hears you and that your prayers are heard and that God is going
to answer your prayers. Because He says so. First of
all, it has to be according to His will. Secondly, you only
know God's will from His word, and so this is the way we pray.
2 Samuel 7, verse 25. God sent the prophet Nathan to
tell David all that God was going to do for him. And David is completely
swept off his feet. And he says in verse 25, And
now, O LORD, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant
and concerning his house, establish it forever, and do as thou hast
said. That's the only way we can pray.
Lord, do what you have said. You said it. Establish your word. Do your will. Do what you've
told me you're going to do. Look at Ezekiel 36, same thing. I'm just going to take you to
three verses here because they're all together. Ezekiel 36 and verse
37. He's going through and lists
all the blessings. God is going to do unconditional
blessings on our part, fulfilled by God Himself. In verse 37,
He says in Ezekiel 36, Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet, for
all the things He just mentioned, I will yet, for this, be inquired
of by the house of Israel to do it for them. You see that? Why? What is God saying? If God
is going to bless you with the new covenant blessings, He's
going to put it in your heart to ask. I will yet be inquired
of by the house of Israel to do it for them." And what did
he say? That's what he's going to do.
He's going to do what he said. One more verse in John 15. Jesus
says, John 15 verse 7, He says, If you abide in Me, that means
if you're in Christ and by faith you remain in Him. You don't
seek salvation outside of Christ. You're looking only to Christ.
You're not looking beyond Him as if you needed to add to it
or someone had a better scheme than His. If you abide in Me,
just stay there. And My words abide in you. That's
his promise in the gospel. You shall ask what you will,
and it shall be done to you. Ask what God has said. What he
said is his will. And what is his will? Salvation. His will is the forgiveness of
sins. It's justification. It's repentance. It's faith.
All the blessings, all spiritual blessings. What do you really
need? Life. I need life. I need to know God. I need to come to God. I need
to be brought. I need to be given all these
things. I need to be taught. I'm poor and I'm needy. I need
everything. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would teach us to pray as our Lord taught his disciples.
Give us your word. and help us to stand upon it,
help us to abide and stay in the Lord Jesus Christ and to
go no further, and to see all that he's purchased with his
own blood and earned by his righteousness, an inheritance as sons, access
to the Father, Help us to come to you by the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ in faith. Give us this faith we need, oh
Lord, to come. And help us, Lord, give to us
what you've promised in your word. Let us take freely of what
you've given. Let us drink freely from the
waters of life. Lord, give us your spirit as
you promised to give to those that ask you. We pray you do
all these things in the name of your dear son, for his glory,
that your kingdom would be established on earth as it is in heaven.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.