Good to see everyone here. If
you would be turning to Matthew chapter 6 in your Bible, this
is a continuation of the study of Christ's Sermon on the Mount.
And we're currently in chapter 6. We've already covered verses
1 through 6, and we skipped over and covered verses 16 through
23. So today we'll go back and we'll
examine separately those verses that we skipped over. And so
our text for today is Matthew 6, verses 7 through 15. And here we find Christ's instructions
regarding the issue of prayer. And beginning in verse nine,
we find what is commonly referred to as the Lord's prayer. Now,
I think that's a misnomer and it's an unfortunate title and
really inappropriate when you consider that it would make no
sense whatsoever for our Lord to have prayed a prayer in which
he would ask for the forgiveness of sins, for he had no sin. The scriptures plainly declare
that he knew no sin, 2 Corinthians 5.21, that he was holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners, Hebrews 7.26. He's described
as a lamb without spot who offered himself without spot. So, no,
he didn't pray these words as a prayer. But rather, if you
look at verse 9, it says there he was providing instruction
regarding the manner of prayer. And that's the title of my message
today, the manner of prayer. You may recall in the verses
that were leading up to this, verses 5 and 6, that Christ dealt
with the motive of prayer, pointing out that if one prays to be seen
of men, then the applause and the esteem of other men shall
constitute their reward. That's it. They have their reward,
he says. But he commands that we're to
pray to God in secret, not to be seen of men. And then in verses
7 and 8, which is our text for today, we're going to pick up
there and see a transition, I believe, from his discussion on the motive
for prayer to the subject of the manner of prayer set forth
in verses 9 through 15. So look with me quickly at the
beginning of verse 9 first. There Christ states, after this
manner, therefore pray ye. He does not say, look, this is
my prayer and pray like me. He does not say, repeat these
words exactly by praying them over and over again, but rather
he commands them. He says, after this manner, therefore
pray ye. Well, as you've often heard,
when we see a therefore in the scripture, it behooves us to
see what the therefore is therefore. So with that in mind, let's go
back and begin today in verse seven. There Christ says, But
when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do. For they think
they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore
like unto them. For your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of before ye ask him. Christ says do not
use vain repetitions, that is, Do not mechanically repeat meaningless
or mindless recitations. And I believe that's properly
directed, really, at those who would mindlessly repeat chants,
Hail Marys, memorized prayers. And I believe we can even include
here the words of our Lord. repeating them mindlessly here,
these words that were given as an instruction on the manner
of prayer. Now, look, don't don't mistake me. There's absolutely
nothing wrong with quoting God's word. We know God's word is the
instrument of regeneration in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
We value God's word. And there's nothing wrong with
quoting it. In fact, it is his power that
he uses the word to regenerate man yet. When men mechanically,
without thought, vainly repeat even the words of our Lord given
here to describe the manner in which we should pray, what many
call the Lord's Prayer here, then they're missing the whole
purpose of what Christ is teaching. There are religious denominations
that make a practice to regularly and methodically repeat verbatim
over and over again These words of Christ that begin with our
Father who art in heaven. And even though they do so, even
though these words were given to instruct men on the proper
manner of prayer, because men are prone to vain repetitions. You see, that's what the therefore
was there for when he said after this manner, therefore pray ye. It's it's ironic and it's sad,
but it's but it's true when you consider this, he said, Don't
repeat these vain repetitions, but instead pray after this manner.
And confused and fallen sinners, hey look, such as we all are
by nature, we do just the opposite and we take his very words of
instruction here and given our sinful tendencies, we make them
nothing more than a vain repetition, or at least that's the tendency.
He goes on there in verse 8, you'll see, he says, don't be
like that, thinking you'll be heard for your much speaking,
for your ritualistic endeavors, to chalk up some air time with
God. The gist of this is, if your prayers are directed to
the true and living God, they're directed at one who already knows
everything you need before you ever ask him. He doesn't need
to hear your voice over and over again. So we learn from this,
see, that in addressing the manner in which we should pray, it's
to be Godward-directed. As we reviewed in the last message,
you may remember, this is those duties. This duty of prayer is
one that's Godward-directed. And so when we sincerely direct
our prayers to God, we're directing them to a sovereign, omniscient,
all-knowing God who knows your needs before you're even aware
of your needs. And you know, some would say,
well, if he already knows what I need, why should I go to God
in prayer? But actually, if you'll think,
this should be the greatest encouragement in the world for us to pray,
because we're praying to an all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God who
knows what's best for us, and He's able to deliver accordingly.
And secondly, the prayer is directed to a God whose hearing of those
prayers is not at all conditional on how often we pray, how long
we pray, or how eloquently, how well we pray. So certainly by
considering here in the context, and we should pray often, we're
to pray without ceasing, but his hearing of it is all conditioned
on our standing in Christ. It has nothing to do with Anything
that's proceeding from us are in our prayers. So in the context
here if you'll keep those things in mind I think it'll help us
to better understand the manner after which we should approach
God in prayer So let's look at it beginning in verse 9 where
it reads After this manner therefore pray
ye Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom
come Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Give us this
day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever. Amen. In Luke chapter 11, it
was recorded that one of the disciples approached Christ and
they said, Lord, teach us to pray. And he answered them and
he said, he said, well, when you pray, say, our Father who
art in heaven, And he goes on with the same words we have here
in Matthew 6, only a condensed version of that. And I believe
that many use that version where Christ says, say our father who
art in heaven to justify the compulsion of religious folks
to publicly and frequently recite this is a word for word prayer.
But I want to just drive home again, the gist of both of these
passages. is that we're to pray in this
way, in this manner. When he told them in Luke, he
said, pray, he said, say, our Father, who art in heaven. We
know from the account here in Matthew 6, when he says, after
this manner, pray, that what we have here is the gist of both
of them. It's as if he was saying, well,
when you pray, say something like this, OK? Because we know,
again, as the lead into Matthew 6 says, it wasn't intended to
be some mindless, vain repetition of words that be totally contrary
to our context. So let's just look at it phrase
by phrase. He begins, our Father which art
in heaven. And here we see the object to
whom we're to pray. It's one with whom we have this
enduring relationship, our Father, one who has our best interest
at heart. He's the Father, see, He's the Father of all by creation.
But the ones that have access to this throne of grace, oh,
He's more than just the Father by creation. Those who discover
their oneness in Christ, He's far more. Consider in John chapter
20, when Christ appeared after His resurrection to Mary Magdalene,
this was right after His resurrection, in fact, and He said these words,
He said, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.
But he says, but go to my brethren. He's talking about going to the
disciples there. Brethren. Now that's where we want to be.
We want to be called a brethren. The brethren of Jesus Christ.
He says, go to them and say unto them, I send unto my Father and
your Father. And to my God and your God. See, it's not just my Father.
It's our Father. In our oneness with Christ, He's
as much our Father. And that's something to rejoice
in. He's emphasizing here that all
those for whom Christ lived and died and arose, they're equally
blessed and forgiven based upon the one righteousness that he
established in his obedience unto death. We see in the Old
Testament this reliance on the relationship with God as the
Father. Really, we see it often among
the Old Testament scriptures and for the Old Testament saints.
And that was the case, and it's the case with all of God's spiritual
children. Listen to what was written in
Isaiah 64, beginning in verse 6. This is what they admitted
there. They said, But we are all as
an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. And we all do fade as a leaf,
and all our iniquities, like the wind, they've taken us away. And there is none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.
For thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because
of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, thou art our
Father, and we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all
are the work of thy hand." You see, that's the mindset of one
who sees that God would be just to condemn us. based upon anything
that proceeds from ourselves, the filthy rags of our own righteousnesses. Yet these that know, these here,
they also know that God is just to save them and justify them
based solely upon the merit of their substitute, the one sent
by our Father, the righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ established
and charged to their account on that basis alone. So they
find their relief in our Father, the Potter, as he was described
there in Isaiah, who alone chose us unto salvation in Christ to
be a joint heir with the firstborn, as sons and daughters, see, of
the living God, with an inheritance, not one earned by us, but one
earned for us. And notice Christ also here,
He directs His prayer toward our Father, which art in heaven. Psalms 103, 19 says, The Lord
hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth
over all." Now, in studying this, I was reminded again of the broader
context of this entire sermon on the mount that we've been
studying, whose theme, remember, is the gospel of the kingdom,
a kingdom, a dominion, a reign, a rule or reign of grace, Romans
5, 21, grace reigning through righteousness. And we approach
God as, in prayer, as one who's on His throne, a throne of grace. And this God who reigns by grace
through righteousness, that is, based upon, say, finding nothing
meritorious outside of a perfect righteousness that was established
by Christ and His satisfaction to law and justice, that God
is the one to whom we're to pray. With an eye, see, toward this
God in heaven, ruling from the throne of grace, where Christ,
it says, sits at His right hand. He sits. Work's done. It's finished. He's resting, and there He's
reigning and ruling and interceding for all of His people. And we're
to approach that God, see, in contrast to the false God that's
concocted in the imaginations of all of us by nature. Look,
all of us who, every one, begins their quest for heaven. Down
what we'll see later in the Sermon on the Mount is a broad way that
leads to destruction. It's a construction. They're
approaching their concept of God, a throne, but it's not one
constructed by the potter who's molding the clay, but it's one
that's in the natural minds of fallen sinners. And so that's
a position we can all identify with if God has shown us If God
has shown us anything, that's what repentance is all about.
If you can't identify with that, then you could never have left
it and turned to the true and living God. We are to pray to
our father in heaven where he has prepared a throne of grace
by which his kingdom reigns and rules. So we pray unto our father
in heaven and our own desires and needs we see are secondary
now, because look at the first consideration. Hallowed be thy
name. This should take precedence in
our prayers, in our thoughts. For the glory of God's name sees
its first design and cause in all things. Look, it's the reason
you and I even exist. All that God does is ultimately
for His glory. For of Him and through Him and
to Him are all things to whom be glory forever, the Scriptures
say. So every other request that we
may make in prayer, and look, our understanding of the rest
of this model of prayer are subordinate to and consistent with this overriding
desire and aim. This reflects a God-given respect
for the honor of the Heavenly Father above all. And even look
at the expense of all our earthly relations, if it must be so. Now consider that we're identified
by our name. He says, hallowed be thy name.
Likewise, his name refers to the true and living God, then,
as he is identified, as he's revealed. We know from 2 Corinthians
4, 6, God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
has shined in our hearts to what give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
That means in his person and in his work. See, it's only under
the sound of God's true gospel that any receive an understanding
Of something that's only manifested in the work of Christ. OK, they
can know a lot about God, but they can't. They can't know God
is a just God and a Savior. They can't see how God just God
can pour out his wrath on sin. Yet. Not, but yet somehow show
mercy to the center. They know nothing of how it's
poured poured out on the center substitute. Christ on the cross,
and yet this God can show mercy. He shows mercy to who? To a sinner. To one who deserves the very
wrath of God if he's judged on even his very best efforts. And
as we're brought to see in the value of how God can and does
bestow his mercy without denying his justice based solely on the
person and work of Christ, Then God's name, see, is hallowed,
it's sanctified, it's set apart, it's distinguished in the hearts
and the minds of sinners. He is beheld there, see, that's
when we look to him and we behold him as a just God and a Savior,
not a divided God, not one who must show mercy at the expense
of justice, but rather We see that only in the impeccable spotless
Lamb of God, the sinless Christ, we see law and justice satisfied
there. And based upon his substitutionary
work, that is the sins of his people being charged to him and
the merits of his life and death being charged to all of those
for whom he lived and died as a substitute. We see he was doing
for sinners what they were hopeless to do for themselves, and thereby
God gets all the glory. Hallowed be thy name." Consider
that our Savior suffered, and He died for the glory of His
Father's name. In John 12, verses 27 and 28,
as Christ faced the sufferings He would endure on the cross,
He said, Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause
came I unto this hour. Now, what's He talking about?
He's talking about the cross. And what does He say? Father, glorify
thy name. You see, everything, and I hope
you'll see this today, everything in this prayer is pointing to
the same place, to the cross. God's glory was first and foremost,
see, even in the face of the suffering that Christ was to
endure. And here is where His glory was going to be manifested
in the high. So we know the picture in the Old Testament, the highest
manifestation of His glory being the Shekinah glory of God that
sat upon the mercy seat, and that was typifying Christ, our
mercy seat. Be thankful if in spite of all
our natural selfish desires. Here was Christ about to face
untold suffering on the cross. And you know, we don't want that.
I don't. I don't want any suffering. I want everything to go my way.
I don't want trials and difficulties. But in the face of them, if the
Holy Spirit grants unto us just some measure of this God-given
respect for the honor of His name above all else, Then we
should, we should, it's an act of mercy and grace. We couldn't
conjure that up within ourselves. And then our sincere prayerful
thoughts can be, and should be, hallowed be thy name in all circumstances. Now we see next the phrase, thy
kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Again, consider the broader context of the whole Sermon on the Mount,
the theme, the gospel of the kingdom. Good news, see, of how
God saves sinners based upon the establishment of righteousness,
a reign of righteousness. Now, Christ has already set forth
in the Sermon on the Mount, in the verses preceding this, that
he set forth that righteousness that was needed. He said, this
is why he came. He said, I didn't come to destroy
law and prophets, but I came to fulfill it. He's telling them
that you need a righteousness you cannot produce. And he proceeded
in the verses after that, if you recall, to show the folly
of imagining that you could produce righteousness. And he summarized
it by telling us that this is what it requires. Be ye therefore
perfect. See, it takes no less than the perfection that he himself
came to render in obedience to the law of God, even in his death.
And there in chapter 5, verse 20, we saw he said, except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, the best of the best put together. Ye shall in
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. My point in reviewing
that is to say this, I believe Christ is staying right on subject
right here in these words. He's keeping us focused upon
the establishment of this kingdom. Thy kingdom come. Now I know
that many people believe that this speaks to the kingdom that
when it coming into the minds and consciences of sinners when
God the Holy Spirit gives them life and that does take place.
But I think here he's really continuing to point to the work
that he had come to complete. You know the literal Greek reading
of that is let thy kingdom come. I believe Christ is telling this
multitude, see, that they are to be looking to him and to that
which he came to accomplish on the cross. In essence, he's saying,
look, let it happen. Pray, let it happen. I desire
the success, the certain success of the Savior, because that's
what I need. That's where my hope is. Now, based upon that
interpretation, again, a verbatim reading of these exact words
is a prayer. In our day, saying, let this
kingdom come, you can see, would make no sense. And actually,
if you understood it that way, you'd be denying the work he's
already completed and finished in establishing the kingdom,
that reign of righteousness that was established at the cross.
So why would any today pray for the establishment of his kingdom,
the establishment of this reign of righteousness? Well, they
won't, knowingly, If they are trusting in the one righteousness
that meets this requirement of a holy God, that is the perfect
satisfaction made by Christ in his life and death. Yeah, he
really did mean it when he was hanging on the cross and he said,
it is finished. That kingdom, see that throne
is established and he sits, as I said, even now at the right
hand of the father reigning and ruling over this kingdom. His
kingdom has already come. Well, does this suggest that
these words of instruction are not useful to us today? No. This
manner of praying with a focus on the cross, on that which establishes
the kingdom is no less important in our day here, in our current
day on this side of the cross. That mindless repetition, while
that repeating of those exact words over and over wouldn't
make sense in our day, still this does. The hearts of the
citizens of His kingdom, see, are always drawn back to this
same place, to His finished work. As Paul said, God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross. Now note that it reads, Thy will
be done in earth as it is in heaven. Turn over to Matthew
chapter 26 real quickly. Jesus here In Matthew 26, he
had gone into the garden of Gethsemane and in contemplation of the suffering
he was about to endure on the cross. This is what we read in
verse 20, excuse me, verse 36. It says, and he went a little
further and he fell on his face and prayed, saying, Oh, my father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not
as I will, but as thou wilt. And then look down at verse 42
in the verses in between here. You know, he went back, I think,
to the disciples and they fell asleep on the watch there. He said, you couldn't stay awake
an hour. And he said, well, the spirit is willing, but the flesh
is weak. And he says these words in 42.
It says he went away again the second time and prayed, saying,
oh, my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except
I drink it. And listen, the Spirit's willing,
but flesh is weak. He's got to drink this cup. He
says, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it,
what does he say? Thy will be done. The same phrase. You see, it had to be done in
earth as it is in heaven. In heaven, in the presence of
God, there's no sin. The Father's will is perfectly
and completely complied with by the angels and the glorified
saints. And listen, it must be accounted for so for any inhabitant
of this earth. They must, if they're going to
enter into the kingdom, they have to possess a righteousness
that was established in their name and nature. It must be done
on earth. Look with me in Galatians 4 real
quickly. This was a passage that was reviewed back in the 10 o'clock
hour. But we'll look at it again there
beginning in verse 4 of Galatians 4. It reads, 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.
His will, see, had to be done in the earth that we might receive
the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God
hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. Our Father who art in heaven.
Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son. And if a son, then
an heir of God through Christ. You know, Paul said in 2 Corinthians
2, 2, For I determined not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ and him crucified. And this is what struck me in
my study of these words here. This whole book This whole Sermon
on the Mount, this text here on the manner of prayer, and
even this phrase here, Thy will be done in earth as it is in
heaven, it's all about Christ. It's all about Christ and the
accomplishment of that work He finished on the cross. Thy will
be done in earth. Now let's consider the next phrase.
Give us this day our daily bread. I believe that's a proper acknowledgment
that our sovereign God, see, is a source of all things that
we need. And that we are to recognize,
acknowledge that, and we're to depend upon it. You know, we
often think, well, this world's economy that we live in, it teaches
us, go to school and study hard and you'll make good grades.
Work hard on your job and you'll get a raise. You'll progress
in your career. And those things are true in our realm. But I've
known men who were doing that, and I had a good friend who was
working hard and doing very well in his career, found out he had
cancer, and eight weeks later, he was gone. This life, God's
in control here. Listen, we need him to give us
our daily bread, and we fool ourselves into thinking that
we're having something to do with all our circumstances, and
we do in fact. I'm not suggesting we all quit
working or anything, but I'm just telling you, God's in control. We need a daily application of
bread, both for the body and for the soul. In particular,
we need to be constantly aware of what sustains our eternal
life, the living word, the bread of life, Jesus Christ. And in
this petition, if you think about it, he's saying, pray to God,
give us our daily bread. So there's a tacit acknowledgment,
see, that as fallen sinners, we have no inherent right to
all of these outward blessings, even our daily food. We don't
have a right. That's why we ask God for it.
And we don't have a right based on anything proceeding from us,
see, to spiritual blessings, eternal blessings, life hereafter. We only have a right for that
based on that mercy and grace that we find in Christ. It's
not our right. It's all based on something we
have no part in meriting. So we rely upon the providence
of God and of our blessings in Christ day by day. The reading
of this phrase in the original has a connotation of a request
for daily bread that was needful. So we bow to the fact, see, when
we approach God that he knows our needs better than we. So
He might not give us all the desires of our hearts, but He
knows better. He will give His sheep exactly what they need.
And He knows them better than we, and we trust that He, our
loving Father, shall do as He says in His words, that He shall
supply all your needs according to His riches in glory. So look
now at the next phrase in verse 12, where it reads like this,
it says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now,
to understand this, Christ elaborates on this if you just skip down
to verse 14 himself. So look at that. He says, For
if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now, I think that's
to be understood much like those of you who heard the Beatitudes,
the series we did there in Matthew 5-7 when he said, Blessed are
the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. We spent a lot
of time studying that in the light of the whole of Scripture.
And just as we saw there, those eternally blessed of God, they
do not obtain His mercy because they are merciful. Likewise,
there's no suggestion here that we are forgiven because we forgive
others. We would have to throw away the
rest of Scripture to draw that conclusion. That's why you can't
take a verse out of context. We interpret Scripture with Scripture. If you'll recall, we reviewed
passages like Colossians 1, 13. It speaks of God the Father as
He who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath
translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have
redemption, how through His blood even the forgiveness of sins.
There's where forgiveness comes from. That's the cause of forgiveness.
Later in Matthew 26, you know Christ when he was doing with
his disciples at the Last Supper, and he described the wine, he
said it represented his blood that was shed for what? The remission
of sins. 1 John 1-7 tells us, the blood
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. So he doesn't
forgive us of our sins because we forgive others. That's clear.
We should never place anything in rivalry. with the precious
blood of Jesus Christ and that which only it can and did produce. It was interesting in studying
this to see that in Jewish writings, sins were commonly called debts. And that's the words used by
our Lord here, debts. They're called debts because
on account of sins, satisfaction, see, to the law and justice of
God was owed. A debt, see, that we as sinners
are just totally incapable of paying. So great are our sins
before an infinite God. He's so holy, it took the payment
of the blood of the impeccable, sinless God-man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And as such, to pray after this
manner, as instructed, presupposes that inability on our part. You see that? It's amazing. For
years and years before I'd ever heard the gospel, I'd repeat
these words. I never even had a clue as to what this means. But you think about it. Forgive
us. I'm asking God to forgive our debts. That excludes me having
any part in contributing toward the satisfaction that's needed
for forgiveness. For me, look, contributing, making
it, it's just a total inability to pay the debt. And that's what
praying to the true and living God involves. It's an acknowledgment
that only God can forgive sins. And he can only do so on one
basis, that is, that bloody, satisfying sacrifice of Christ. If you think your forgiveness
is conditioned then on your repentance or on your willingness to tell
God you're sorry, your concept of God, And asking him, you think
that the reason you're forgiven is you just asked for it, then
think again. If that's the case, you don't
need forgiveness from this God of the Bible, you see, because
that's not the basis upon which he'll give forgiveness. It took
the doing and dying of Christ. How dare we? How dare we think
as we all did? It took His holiness, His justice,
see, it required the life and the death of His dear Son. So
you don't need mercy. Your forgiveness, to believe
that is to believe that your forgiveness, see, is in your
own hands. It's in the asking, OK? And this true and living
God, He's not going to forgive based on that. So you might as
well ask that wall for forgiveness and you're going to get the same
result. If you think you can meet the condition, then you're
not praying after this manner of prayer here. It took the shedding
of His infinitely valuable blood. And where and for whom it was
shed, there is forgiveness. There's remission of sins, and
they were put away then and there. And this request for forgiveness
that we need to daily ask for, that God is that God would continually
manifest and apply His pardons to the consciences of His sheep. You notice it says we're to pray,
forgive us. That is His sheep. That is everyone
for whom His precious blood was shed for the remission of sins.
Those who are translated into His kingdom. So we know in verse
14 there, Christ is not speaking, see, about the basis upon which
God forgives us. That's God's mercy and grace
alone in Christ. He's describing those who have
been forgiven as evidenced by their willingness to forgive
accordingly. In verse 15, it's like he's posing the question
to those who refuse to forgive others. Well, what kind of a
sense of pardon can they have? Have they experienced the forgiveness
of sin, which would influence them to forgive those who have
offended them? Well, if not, they would be fooling
themselves. See, believers are to cultivate
a spirit of forgiveness. Now, how do we do that? We do
it by being ever mindful of God's love and forgiveness in Christ.
When our thoughts concerning someone who has done us wrong,
when they are that we will forgive them if... if... If they say
they're sorry, or if they clean up this part of their act, or
they do this, then I'll forgive them. When we say it's because
they meet certain conditions, we should stop. And that's a
tendency of us all, but we ought to stop, and we ought to think
of God's forgiveness of our sins. It was Christ who met the conditions,
not us. The conditions of our forgiveness.
It was Christ who satisfied law and justice, not us. And it's
Christ having met all the conditions of our forgiveness that produces
godly sorrow and ashamedness over sin. And we might be sorry
for our sins, but many people regret things they do that are
wrong. But if they regret that in hopes
of that God will somehow be pleased with their sorrow, okay? That's not godly sorrow of sin.
Godly sorrow springs from having been forgiven. So when anyone
offends us now, if you want to link these two, as Christ has
done here, our forgiveness of them ought to produce their sorrow
and their ashamedness. rather than us requiring their
being sorry, their ashamedness to merit our forgiveness. It
should be unconditional. Now, that establishes the attitude
that we ought to have towards ourselves and toward one another.
Our desire to forgive others is a mark, is what I believe
Christ is teaching here. It's an indicator that we ourselves
have been pardoned by God. And so his connecting together
here, our forgiving others with God's forgiving of us, is to
show that this spirit of forgiveness is not something that may be
found in a believer, but rather that this spirit will necessarily
manifest itself, at least to some degree, and I believe that's
a grace that grows, but it will manifest itself in those who
have come to see their complete forgiveness and pardon in Christ. The next phrase in verse 13 reads,
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Just
as we need our daily bread, we know that we daily need his grace
to keep us, to keep us from the power of temptation that would
cause us to be overcome by it. There are all sorts of temptations
that appeal to us as sinners. We could spend all day naming
them, but just consider this. Christ prayed this in John 17,
15. He said, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out
of the world. We're not going to be removed
from the temptations, trials, and afflictions of this world.
But he says, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. You see, all temptations, trials,
troubles, they're not all evil in their design or outcome. Consider
how God loosed Satan on Job and all the sufferings and temptations.
that he was confronted with as a result of that. Such trials,
see, are used by God to humble us and to strengthen our patience
and strengthen our faith. And I believe that's why this
request here is linked. He doesn't just say, lead us
not into temptations, but deliver us from evil. This being understood
by most, and I tend to agree, he's saying from the evil one,
Satan himself. And that's consistent with what
Christ prayed there when he said, Thou keep them from the evil,
I think. And as such, I think our prayers
offered in accordance, in submission to God's will, are not to be
for a total exemption from temptations. Now, I desire to be totally removed
from that. That's a natural desire we have.
But that's not in accordance with God's will. But it is for
a removal of the judgment of them. that we be kept from the
evil one, the accuser. Where is that judgment removed?
You see how every phrase of this thing is pointing back to the
cross, I believe. You see how even in the instruction on this
manner of prayer and in this specific petition, how it's all
pointed toward the cross where Christ receives all the preeminence. You know, if not, what do we
do? We take pride in, I pray God wouldn't lead me into temptation.
I mean, this just really strikes at the contrast between those
who have been given a spirit that's so contrary to our natural
being. Lastly, in the latter part of
verse 13, it says, For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen. This ascribes everlasting
kingdom, power and glory to God, and that should be the attitude
and that which we acknowledge in approaching the throne of
grace. We should be ascribing to God, see, the glory that's
due unto Him. He has all power, see, to give
us our daily bread, to keep us mindful, never looking to the
forgiveness that's in Christ, the forgiveness of our sins,
to preserve us and deliver us out of temptations, to keep us
from judgment and accusation of Satan, and all of this forever. for the ages, is what that means. Amen. Now this amen expresses
that fervent desire, so be it. It expresses our focus, see,
that our focus is on Christ's fulfillment of his will in the
earth. And I think also this Amen is
a manifestation of God-given faith and confidence in our Father
who art in heaven. It's an acknowledgment, an Amen,
as in not only so be it, but it shall be so. We approach God
with that certainty, boldness to enter into the very holiest
of all. And I hope you've seen today
that it's all about the one whose name is sometimes called the
Amen, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. we should ever look to
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. God's name, see,
is hallowed in our hearts when we see and we value with the
eyes of God-given faith how it was that in Christ God's perfect
will was done in the earth. So let's always pray after this
matter.