Well, beginning at verse five,
as we look at this lesson on how to pray, the Lord showed
his disciples how not to pray. Let's just read these few verses
here. Verse five, he says, when you pray, 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. And that's the key. They wanna
be seen of men. They're hypocrites. And they
have their reward. Barely, I say in you, they have
their reward. They want the judgments of men.
That's why people do that. They want men and women to validate
their religion. Somebody would come and say,
well, I know you're a Christian because you do this or you do
that. And they think that's their witness, and they think that
sets them apart. But he says in verse six, but
thou, when thou prayest entering into thy closet, 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. Openly meaning it
is the clear, open testimony of God that he receives us and
receives our prayer by his grace through Christ. It glorifies
him. It honors him. And then he says in verse seven,
but when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do,
for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Verse eight, but be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father
knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him. God
knows our hearts, our minds, knows our needs, knows our wants. And you know what people do,
they say to them, why pray? Well, we've already dealt with
that. But we pray because God commanded us to pray. We pray
because it's an act of worship and faith. And over in Luke chapter
11, the disciples ask the Lord this
question. Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. as John also
taught his disciples. And so the Lord answered, when
you pray, when you pray, pray this way. And that's what he's
doing here. He says in verse nine, after this manner, therefore
pray you. And also as we said, a lot of
people call this the Lord's Prayer, and I think that's confusing.
It's misleading actually. The Lord's Prayer is when the
Lord himself prayed unto the Father, Himself for himself and
as our intercessor John chapter 17 Christ in the garden of Gethsemane
when he prayed to the father all of these things that's the
Lord's prayer his prayers this is the model prayer and he says
after this manner pray and So what we'll do let's just look
at each phrase in this because it's so important that we understand
this and the very first words Show us the very nature of prayer. He says, our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That shows us that prayer is
an act of worship. If you say why should we pray
since God knows this or God knows that, would you say why should
we worship? Prayer is an act of worship. Recognizing who God is. He's our heavenly Father. He's
the sovereign of the universe. Our Father, which art in heaven,
high above us. That's the indication here. It's
not just looking up in the sky, but it's recognizing that God
is the sovereign, the governor, as well as the creator of this
universe. He's not like what some of the I can't think of the term now,
what they called him, a deist. You might have heard that in
the deist. Some of our forefathers were deists, and they had a theory
about God. They said, well, God created
the world, and he wound it up like a clock, and then he went
away and just let it wind down. And they call that the watchmaker
God theory. But that's not so. Our Father,
which art in heaven. And then he says, hallowed be
thy name. That's holy. That's what that
means. Holy is your name. What that
is is a recognition that our God is the one true and living
God and there's none other like him. There's no one who can compare
with our God. There's no one like our God.
There's no one equal with our God. Our God in the three persons
of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our Father which
art in heaven. Now, false religion loves to
speak of the universal fatherhood of God. Well, let's say God is
everybody's father. And the fact is, he's not everybody's
father. Now, Paul, the apostle, in Acts
chapter 17, when he was speaking to the Athenian religionists
and philosophers, he recognized that God created everything.
He created all people. And in that sense, in the sense
of creation, you could say he's the father of everybody by creation. But what he's talking about here
is that special relationship that only true children of God,
sinners saved by grace, have with God as our heavenly father. When we fell in Adam, we alienated
ourselves from God. When we fell in Adam, we followed
Satan. Remember what Christ told the
Pharisees in John 8, 44, you're of your father, the devil. And
we alienated ourselves. And so this relationship of a
spiritual father to a spiritual family is a matter of God's grace
and the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ. And it's not
applied to everybody. Look over at John chapter one
with me. In John chapter one, verse 11.
We've read this verse so many times. It says, he came unto
his own, and his own received him not. Now, a lot of commentators
say, well that means his own nation, meaning the Jewish nation.
And he did come to the Jewish nation, and the Jewish nation
on the whole received him not. But really, that applies to everybody
by nature. all people by nature, because
we're all sinners. And left to ourselves, we will
not receive him. That means we will not believe
in him. We will not rest in him for salvation, forgiveness, for
righteousness, for life. We'll always go somewhere or
to someone else. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're
foolishness to him. They're spiritually discerned. But he makes it clear
in verse 12 that there are some who received him. Well, what
made the difference between those who received him not and those
who receive him? Well, God made the difference.
He said, I'll have mercy on whom I will. I'll be gracious to whom
I will. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. But
look at verse 12. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power. Now that word power doesn't mean
ability there. It means the right, the privilege. If you follow this prayer that
the Lord is teaching us, our Father which art in heaven, our
heavenly Father, what gives you or me the right to say God is
my Father? I'm a sinner. And we know that
no sinner can approach God on his own or on her own. So what
gives you that right or that privilege? Well, it says, but
as many as received Him, Christ. There's no spiritual fatherhood
from God apart from God the Son incarnate and based upon His
righteousness alone. Done deal. How are we God's children? Well, we're children by the election
of grace God chose us before the foundation of the world in
Christ We're children by the adoption of grace We talk about
adoption. That's what God did. He adopted
us into his family on a just ground having paid in Christ
who paid all of our debt and then We're children of God by
redemptive grace. Christ redeemed us from our sins
by his blood. And then we're, eventually we
become his children by regenerating grace. We're born again, look
at what this is talking about. To them gave he the right or
the privilege to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name, believe in Christ, which were born. This is regeneration
and conversion. This is the new birth, not of
blood, not of our physical birth, nor the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but are born of God. And how do we know we've
been born of God? We receive him. We believe in
Christ. The gift of faith has been given
to us by which we lay hold of Christ. And then look over at
John chapter six. John chapter six. And look at verse 44. He says, no man can come to me
except the Father which has sent me draw him. Now again, he's
talking about the new birth. He's talking about a sinner being
brought to Christ under the drawing power of God, who is that sinner's
father. And he says, and I will raise
him up at the last day. And here's the process. Here's
the divine process. It is written in the prophets,
they shall be all taught of God. God's gonna teach you who you
are, who he is, who Christ is. He's gonna teach us how he can
be our heavenly father, not just a righteous judge. You see, God
must be both. And he says, every man therefore
that hath heard, there's a hearing here. You know what that hearing
is, that's the gospel. wherein Christ is revealed as
the Lord our righteousness, and hath learned of the Father. We've
got to learn this through the preaching of the gospel, how
God can be both a righteous, just judge, as well as a merciful,
gracious, loving Father. And that's what we learn through
the preaching of the gospel, wherein God saves us by his grace,
his mercy, And if we learn that from the Father through the preaching
of the gospel and the power of the Spirit, what do we do? He
says, cometh unto me. Cometh unto Christ. One more
verse, turn to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. Our Father,
think about that. Sometimes we as believers, we
take it for granted. But we shouldn't. It's an awesome
thing. to call God our Father and to
be able to do a right, not be wrong. And look at what he says
here. He says in verse 14 of Romans
8. Now listen to this. He says, for as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now where does
the Spirit of God lead you? He leads you to Christ. And he
doesn't lead you anywhere else. He leads a sinner, having convinced
that sinner of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, he leads that
sinner to Christ. For all salvation, all forgiveness,
all righteousness and all life, they are the sons of God. For
you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, that's
that legal fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption whereby
we cry, Abba, Father. And that word Abba, it's a Hebrew
word, or it's transliterated from a Hebrew word that shows
the closeness. One old writer said it's like
Papa, Papa. It's not with disrespect now.
It's not calling God the old granddaddy or old daddy upstairs
or anything like that. But it's a respectful understanding
that he is our heavenly father, and it says in verse 16, the
spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God. And then how does that work?
Verse 17, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint
heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified together. That's the love relationship. Love based on justice satisfied
in the person and work of Christ. Propitiation, herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and sent his son to be our propitiation. So God
is both our righteous judge, who judged our sins in the person
of Christ on the cross as they were imputed to him, and he judges
us righteous in Christ. He's our heavenly Father. So
go back to Matthew 6. Our Father, which art in heaven,
and he says, hallowed be thy name. Now again, that word hallowed
means holy. It's one of the forms of that
word that is translated in various forms, holy, holiness, sanctify,
sanctified, sanctification. And it shows how our God is so
unique and separate from all others. Who can you compare God
to? You can't compare Him to anything.
I was looking on the internet. And you know, you see these pictures
of Jesus, they say. These Renaissance pictures that
paint Him in a certain way. And there was a preacher who
had one of those pictures up on the platform. And he said,
now that's not Jesus. And I really thought that he
was gonna tell the truth, how Jesus is described in the Bible. That's Jesus, we don't have any
pictures of him, but he unveiled another picture where he had
darker skin and a beard like a Jew. He said, now that's Jesus. And I said, I'd like to have
been there, I think I would have stood up and said, let me tell
you something, son, neither one of them is Jesus. Jesus is the
Lord of glory. We're gonna talk about the glorified
Savior in a few minutes here in Revelation. And it uses such
symbolic language to describe the effulgent glory of Christ. You can't paint a picture of
him. He's the Lord of glory. Well, this is the way it is with
God. You can't paint a picture of God, the Godhead. He reveals
his holiness in his name. Hallowed be thy name. He has
many names because it takes many names to describe him. One name
won't do it. You can say, well, he's the sovereign
creator. Yes, he is. He's the justifier
of the ungodly. Yes, he is. The Jehovah words,
Jehovah Sid Canu, the Lord our righteousness, Jehovah Rapha,
all of those. Godanthor, he is such a multifaceted,
unique God that there's no way to imagine his likeness. He's
the invisible God. He reveals himself through his
word and his name distinguishes him and identifies him from all
idols. Sovereign, merciful, loving,
gracious God who delights to show mercy but will not show
mercy apart from just to satisfy it. That's who this God is, hallowed
be thy name. And it's in Christ that we see
the glory of our Father. The Bible talks about how Satan,
his goal is to hide that glory, but Christ overcomes Satan and
he reveals that glory in the face of Jesus Christ. And it's
through Christ that we approach God based upon his righteousness
imputed. And if you know his name, you
know that that's the only way you're gonna be accepted with
God as a child of God. There's no other way. And I know
people hate that, but that's the way it is. We love it. Because
we realize that if it weren't that way, we would have no familial
relationship with God at all. We know that if it wasn't that
way, when we stand before God, It would only be as a righteous
judge having our sins imputed to us and we'd be doomed. But
thank God our heavenly father does not impute iniquity to us.
He imputes Christ's righteousness. Well, look at verse 10. Thy kingdom
come. Now this is the key, or one of
the keys rather. John the Baptist preached this.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Christ preached this. The kingdom
of heaven is at hand. You look in the Beatitudes that
we just studied at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. It
describes the citizens of this kingdom. And he went on in the
sermon to describe the righteousness that is required for a citizen
of this kingdom. And it's not a righteousness
that man can attain. It's totally the righteousness
of the king. the scepter of righteousness
that he holds, which is the merit of his whole obedience unto death
as our substitute, our surety, our substitute, our redeemer.
And so we see the glory of that kingdom, the establishment of
that kingdom. And as we look at the kingdoms
of the world, which are fading and doomed to perish, our hope
is in a heavenly kingdom. And so we say, Thy kingdom come. And then he says, Thy will be
done. Now this is another key. Prayers, as I said, it's an act
of worship. It's an act of faith. It's an
act of submission. God's will be done. I know what
I want. And you know what you want. Now
we understand that if we pray for things that are just totally
against God's revealed will by way of commandment, Like I told
you last week, somebody, a thief prays, Lord, please help me to
rob this bank and not get caught. Well, that's crazy. That's going
against God's revealed will by way of commandment. But things
that we don't know that we desire. Healing, for example. We all
pray for healing, don't you? I pray for, Lord, heal me. Heal
me of this heart disease. Heal me of this diabetes. Heal
me of this arthritis. And he either will or he won't.
That's what I want. You all want to be healed from
all your ailments, all your troubles. I know. I'm there. I'm right
with you. We're just weak human beings,
aren't we? We have such a great treasure, but we have it in earthen
vessels. And we see our bodies deteriorating. We try to do hope. Well, we try
to do our best. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we
don't. But here's the key, thy will be done. We need to recognize
that the will of God is the right way, it's the wise way, it's
the just way, and really it's the only good way. It's hard
to do, isn't it? It's real hard to do. And why
is it hard to do? It's because we're so selfish.
I know that too, I've been there, I am there. Somebody said, well, if we knew
what God knew, we wouldn't change a thing. Well, that's probably
true because if we knew what God knew. But in these areas
of providence, we know what God knows in his word as he reveals
it to us. We know how God saves sinners.
There's no use us praying that God would save any sinner in
a way that would deny his glory. Because God's not gonna do that.
If you know a loved one, for example, who's sitting under
a false gospel, what do you need to pray? Lord, get them out of
there. Bring them under the truth. Because
if you pray God save them while they're there, they're hearing
a false gospel, a false God. And God's not gonna do that.
He doesn't do that. However he saves any of his people,
it's gonna glorify him. That's true. So what I pray is,
Lord, get him out of there. Like he got me out of there.
Like he got you out of there. That's his will because he said
it in his word. But what's gonna happen tomorrow?
Am I gonna feel good? Or am I gonna feel terrible? I hope I feel good. Lord, let
me have a great day tomorrow. Lord, let me have a day like
no other day that I've ever had. The best day of my life. That's
what I want. No pain. Let me get eight hours
sleep tonight, uninterrupted sleep. But here's the key. Thy will be done. I'm totally
dependent upon him. That's what a child is. Children
of God, we're totally dependent upon our Heavenly Father for
all things good and all things right. So thy will be done. He says thy will be done in earth
as it is in heaven. I believe the distinction that
he's making here is the distinction between God's revealed will by
way of command in providence, or God's revealed will, which
we know, and God's providence here on earth. Because as I said,
we don't know what tomorrow's gonna hold. You know, God identifies
himself as the God who declares the end from the beginning. Now
that's, you know what that is, don't you? That's predestination.
He declares the end from the beginning. I was, I heard a, a Muslim philosopher
talking about kismet. You know what kismet is? You
ever heard that term? That's fate, F-A-T-E. And they're very fatalistic.
And they'll always go around saying, it is written, it is
written. And they don't know really what's
been written. And this Muslim philosopher, he said this, he
said, the destination is written. The way you get there is not
written. Well, I got news for you. Not only is the destination written,
everything in between is written. God declares the end from the
beginning. Each day of our lives here on
this earth is mapped out by the God of heaven. And just as he's
sovereign in heaven and over heaven, and his will be done
in heaven, it's gonna be done here on earth too. And I've been
thinking about that a lot in looking through the book of Revelation,
because every generation, we've seen nations rise and fall. And if you live in a nation,
you see that nation rise, and then you see it fall, and you
might think, well, the Lord's coming soon. We say that today.
I don't know what God has in store for our nation. I'm not
optimistic about it. But I know it's already been
said, don't you? Whatever's gonna happen. Now
that doesn't make us fatalists. You know, we don't say que sera
sera, whatever will be, will be. Somebody asked Brother Mahan
one time, said, do you believe whatever will be, will be? And
Brother Mahan said, well, I don't believe whatever will be, won't
be. It's thy will be done. And the
only way we know God's sovereign will and providence is after
the fact. I know how today started. You know how today has started,
don't you? But you don't know how it's gonna end up tonight.
You can't even tell the future for the next second. But here's
what we know. It's in the hands of our Heavenly
Father and we pray thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. He's the God of heaven and earth.
He's not some kind of aloof deity who's waiting out there for things
to wind down. And our prayers will not change
his mind. That's not what we want. Well,
I don't want God to change his mind, do you? Because if God
can change his mind, he's not God. And if he's not God, he can't
save. And if he can't save, where does that leave me and you? To perish. So prayer doesn't
change God's mind, but it's a privilege, it's a means by which God blesses
us. Prayer doesn't change God, it
changes us sometimes, doesn't it? So think about this, and
then look at the next line. He says in verse 11, give us
this day our daily bread. Now the daily bread there, I
believe, is symbolic. And it certainly does include
our daily sustenance of food, things like that. But it's symbolic
of the necessities of life, both physical and spiritual. We understand
that spiritual life, that God is the source of it, the creator
of it, the giver of it, the sustainer of it. Isn't that right? He saves
us by his grace, he keeps us by his grace, and he'll bring
us to glory by his grace. But even life on this earth in
the physical realm, God's sovereign over it too. How many times have
I said, take the next breath, that's a gift from God. Whatever intelligence he's given
us, whatever opportunities he's given us, doors he's opened,
I often say, you know, you may have a really good idea and invent
something, and it may take off like gangbusters and you make
a million dollars. And you might work hard, and
you should. But it's God who gives the increase. Don't ever forget it. Farmer
plows, he plants, he waters, but it's God who gives the increase. If you had that great idea, who
gave you that ability to have that idea? Who gave you that
kind of brain? Did you work on that with somebody
and stick it in your head? No, God gave it to you. That
opportunity, that time, Think about it. Would it work today
like it worked back then? Who gave you the time period?
Who opened the door? Who sent you to the right people
for you to be successful? God did. So don't ever stand up on your
hind legs and crow about what all you've done unless you understand. that the Lord made the difference.
That's the truth. He gives life, he takes life,
he makes rich, he makes poor. It's all up to him. So what do
we pray? Give us this day our daily bread.
You're gonna go out and go to work, or you have worked and
you're retired and you're receiving a pension, whatever, and you
know you've worked hard, and that's okay, you earned it. But
God is the one who can give it or take it away. I've seen people work a job that
they hated for years and look forward to nothing but retirement.
They retire and they're dead in six months. What was it all
for? You know, the whole book of Ecclesiastes
is about that. That we should work hard and
enjoy the fruits of our labor. Nothing wrong with that. As long
as we keep in perspective who's in control, what it's all about,
and use our lives and our fruits to glorify him and to do good
to others. Give us this day our daily bread. Christ is the bread of life and
spiritual things. And there's no other way to look
at it, is there? Well, I'm gonna stop there and we'll pick up
next week with the rest of this prayer on how to pray part two.