All right, Matthew chapter six.
I titled the lesson this morning, teach us to pray. And the last
class, when I was here two weeks ago, we looked at the first 18
verses of this chapter. Look what the Lord is teaching
us, the believers motivation to good works, our motivation
in praying and fasting, denying the flesh. This morning, I want
to go back, though, look at more detail and Lord's instruction
on prayer. I think it'll be something that
we'll enjoy. Every believer prays. They pray,
just naturally, just like living flesh breathes, a believer prays. You know, as soon as Saul of
Tarsus was converted and the Lord told Ananias to go down
there to him, and Ananias said, ah, now wait a minute, you sure
about this? And the Lord said, you go to him. He prayed. Behold, he prayed. He's a believer.
He prayed. Every believer prays. In Psalm
32, verse 6, David said, everyone that's godly prays. So we all
pray. Every believer does. But every
believer seems to find prayer to be difficult. None of us are
satisfied with our prayer, our private prayer, our public prayer.
The disciples weren't. Our Lord was a man of prayer. They saw him praying many times.
In Luke chapter 11, the disciples asked the Lord, teach us to pray.
They weren't satisfied with their prayer either. I believe the
Lord's given me something that will be helpful in this regard
of prayer. And we got to, I think, look
at these verses, remembering that the Lord is teaching us
the motivation of the heart in these matters of fasting and
praying and good words. He's teaching us the motivation
of prayer, the motivation of the heart. is more important
than the words that we use. I believe if we really got a
hold of that, that would help us in our prayer, that the motivation
of the heart is more important than the words that we use. So
first here, the Lord teaches us in Matthew chapter six, beginning
in verse five, he teaches us how not to pray. Verse five,
he says, and when thou prayest, thou should not be as the hypocrites
are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the
corners of the streets that they might be seen of men. Verily
I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou has 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, as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto
them, for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before
ye ask him. Now, you know, the master here
is not condemning public prayer in any way. What he's condemning
is praying in public so that other people see us praying.
That's our motivation. Other people see us praying so
that they'll be impressed with how religious we are. And he
warns them about that because that's the motivation of the
Pharisees. Don't be like that. You remember
the Pharisee in the temple who prayed thus with himself? Well,
he is praying to other people. and see him praying. He was praying
thus with himself and God didn't hear that prayer. And why would
he? He wasn't praying to God, he
was talking to himself. But if we pray from the heart, God will
hear that prayer. Now prayer is an act of faith. It's an act of faith towards
God. That's why we're praying to him, we believe him. Prayer
is talking to our Heavenly Father. Children don't talk to their
father so other people see them talking to their father. We talk
to our father out of love and out of respect and out of need
because we have a relationship with him. And Lord tells us he's
teaching us here on not to pray. He says, don't use vain repetition. That includes so many things.
Don't use them, you know, just to keep repeating a bunch of
religious jargon. The Lord's not going to be impressed
with our much speaking. Some of the shortest prayers in Scripture
were highly effectual. Lord, save me. Lord, have mercy
on me. When we pray, we ought not to
use a memorized prayer, the words of someone else. When we pray,
they ought to be the words of our heart. You know, we ought not
be repeating, you know, Hail Mary's, like, you know, you repeat,
how many of them they tell you to repeat, you know, like that's
going to impress God. And I tell you how that applies to our text
this morning. We ought not repeat this prayer
verbatim either. Lord didn't teach us this prayer
that we're just to repeat this prayer verbatim. I remember when
I was in, well, it started in seventh grade, after every basketball
practice and before every game, we recited the Lord's Prayer.
Like that was going to help us win games. I doubt very seriously
that it ever did. That's not what the Lord's teaching
us here. There's a big difference between saying your prayers and
praying. Big difference. And so the Savior
tells us after this manner, pray, pray. Don't just use these words,
memorize them and repeat them. But after this manner, pray.
After this pattern, pray from your heart. So second, the Lord
teaches us how to pray. Like I said, he's not teaching
us words that we're supposed to repeat verbatim. He's teaching
us what is the heart of prayer. It's the motivation. It's the
cry of our heart. If the Lord will give us the
right motivation in prayer, whatever you words we use will be just
fine. I believe I can show you that
in a few different places in our text this morning. Our words
will be just fine because the Lord knows what we have need
of before we ask. If the motivation of our heart
is right, our words will be just fine, because He already knows
what's in our heart. And if the words don't come out
just right, and it seems like they never do, do they? That's
all right, because the Lord knows our heart. That's what's important. So hopefully that'll take some
of the pressure off of us when we pray. and enable us to truly
pray from the heart. Just lay your heart out open
before the Lord. Why wouldn't you? He already
knows it. Might as well lay it out open to him, hadn't we? Now
let me give you from our text this morning, eight points on
our motivation of prayer. I believe this will be helpful
and a blessing. Number one, pray. Because you're
a child of God. Verse nine, our Lord says, after
this manner therefore pray thee, our Father, which are in heaven. Now, when you pray, pray like
you talk to your father. Your fathers don't listen to
their children because their children have such intelligent,
well thought out things to say. Fathers listen to their children
because they love them and they do for them. Fathers listen to
their children out of love. And it is a delight for fathers
and hear the words of their children. And even when they don't say
their aw's and their S's just right, I would love them. Matter of fact, we might kind
of like it when they don't. I hated it when my children started
learning to say their aw's just right. They didn't need to say
their aw's just right for me to love listening to them. They
were my children. And they just talked to me like
I was their daddy. Now, we ought to grow in grace. A believer ought to grow in grace.
We ought not be bathed in Christ forever. We ought to grow and
mature, but I've not yet met a single believer that is happy
with their level of maturity, but that's all right. We can
still talk to our heavenly father as his children. And if the motivation
of our prayer is to talk to our father, our words are going to
just be just fine, aren't they? Because if our motivation is
to talk to our heavenly father, our words are going to be words
of respect. They're going to be words of honor. They're going
to be words of trust because we're talking to our father.
Our words will naturally bless his holy name because we're talking
to our father. You know, we do not speak to
or about our fathers as equal, do we? Our fathers are not our
equals. They're our fathers. Well, when
we speak to our heavenly father, understanding that the motivation
of our heart is to talk to our father, we're just, we know he's
not our equal. Our words are going to be words
of humility. They're going to be words of
honor and respect because we're talking to our father as a child.
And this will give you boldness in prayer. If your motivation
is to talk to your father. What an honor. What a privilege
that people like us would be a child of the king. That we
could talk to our heavenly father as his child anytime we want. And that he'll listen as a wise,
loving father listens to his children. That's a mighty good
reason to pray, isn't it? A mighty good motivation. Pray
like as a child of God. Number two, pray because you're
a worshiper of God. Verse nine says, hallowed be
thy name. You know when we pray, you know
what we're doing? We're worshiping. Prayer is worship. We sanctify
and honor the name of God when we pray. That's what hallowed
be thy name means. It means to sanctify and honor
the name of the Lord. Well, I want to be a worshiper,
don't you? I know this, the Lord's worthy
of our worship. And the Lord is worshiped. In
our prayer, we acknowledge how great He is, how high above us
He is. That's why we're praying in the
first place, isn't it? Because of how high above us He is. The
Lord is worshipped when we thank Him for everything that He's
given us. And He's worshipped when we thank
Him for everything He hadn't given us. The Lord is worshipped
when we ask Him for what we need. When we ask the Lord for the
things that we need, you know what that is? That's acknowledging
we need Him. That He's the only one who can
give us everything we need. And when we pray with that attitude,
the Lord is worshiped. And you'll hear that prayer.
Look over at John chapter 4. The Lord will hear the prayer
of those who worship Him. John chapter 4. In verse 23, but the hour cometh and now is
when the true worshipers shall worship the father in spirit
and in truth for the father seeketh such to worship him. God is spirit
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. And the father seeks those people
to work those worshipers. He seeks them. Well, then he'll
hear their prayer. Pray as a worshiper of God. Number
three, pray, because you're a subject of the king. Back in our text,
Matthew chapter six, verse 10 says, thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom
come. Well, we're talking about somebody
that's got a kingdom, we're speaking to the king, aren't we? And this
is our prayer. Lord, let your kingdom grow.
Let your kingdom be set and established forever. The Jew, this was a
phrase that the Jews commonly used, thy kingdom come. They
meant that, they used that to mean, Lord, send the Messiah
like you promised. Send the Savior like you promised.
And today we could use this, Lord, thy kingdom come, to mean,
Lord, come again. Come again, come again, take
me out of this place of sin, out of this body of sin. Come
again and let us see you with nothing between us. Let us see
you, not by our weak faith, but by sight, let your kingdom come,
Lord, come again. And when that's the motivation
of our prayer, to speak to the king, to honor the king, when
we recognize him as king who rules over everything, we're
worshiping him. When we recognize that the Lord
is the first cause of everything, he's the king, nothing happens. I mean, the slightest, most insignificant
thing you'd never notice in your day did not happen without his
express will. He purposed it to happen for
the foundation of the world. And when we pray that way to
the king, who's the sovereign, we worship him. And part of talking
to the king is, Lord, this is my desire. Rule your kingdom,
rule it by your will, and give me the grace to want it that
way, to bow to it willingly. And when the motivation of our
heart is to speak to the King, your words will be just fine.
So you don't have to worry as much about the words if your
heart's motivation is to speak to the King. Because if we're
speaking to the King, our words will naturally be words of respect
and honor. He's on the throne and I'm down
here in the dust. They just come naturally. When
we pray, you think about this, we're having an audience with
the King. The King has agreed to have an
audience with us and hear our words. Well, if that's our motivation,
our words will come out just fine, won't they? Because we're
speaking to the Sovereign. And again, just like being a
child of God, what an honor it is for people like Yunmei to
be subjects of the King. I mean, you think of that. That's
a great honor. He has delivered us from the
power of darkness and he's translated us into the kingdom of his dear
son. God has enabled us to come before
his throne, his throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. I want to pray that way,
don't you? To the king. And if we're coming
to the king to find mercy and grace from the king, It's his
to give, it's his to withhold. If we're coming to find mercy
and grace from the King, our words will be just fine, because
they'll be words of a beggar to the King. If we're coming
with a heartfelt desire to speak to the King, our words will naturally
show the proper relationship between the King and the public.
So pray like you're talking to the King. Fourthly, pray, because
you're the servant and the Lord your master. Verse 10 is, let
thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Now, the Lord is king. He is
sovereign over all. He has subjects in his kingdom.
He has subjects, ambassadors, and we are to pray to be in submission
to his will. Lord, use me in your service. And it's not because we're coming
to the king because we have to bow to him, like he'll break
our knees, you know, and force us to bow to him if we don't.
No, we're coming as a loving servant to our master. Lord,
your will be done because I love your will. And I know this, your
will is best. Even when I don't understand
what you're accomplishing in your will, I know your will is
best. And that's the way I want it.
Well, Lord's going to do his will, isn't he? We know that. Then let's pray that the Lord
would be pleased to save us. Lord, your will be done. I know
it is your will to save your people. Lord, would you save
us? Would you save us here? Would
you have mercy on us? Lord, use us in your service
to preach your gospel. Use us in your kingdom as your
servant. And you know, when we have sick
loved ones, loved ones who know the Lord, have a good hope, And
sometimes it's hard for us to know how to pray. Sometimes it's
not, sometimes it is, and sometimes, but we don't know sometimes.
You know, should we pray that the Lord heal him and raise him
up? Should we pray that the Lord take him home? Sometimes we don't
know. But I tell you what, we can always
pray. Lord, thy will be done. In this matter, thy will be done. Give me the grace to be happy
about it. We can pray that way in any matter
that you come across in your life. I don't know what's best
about this situation, but Lord, thy will be done. You know, the
Lord will hear that prayer. He will. If our motivation is
that the Lord's will be done, not my will be done, the Lord
will hear that prayer. I'm afraid so often we're not
satisfied with our prayer because our prayer is pounding home how
much we want our will, not His will. Could be we'll have a whole
lot better attitude if our desire is to see the Lord's will be
done. All right, fifthly, pray because you're a beggar. Verse
11, give us this day our daily bread. Now, God has given us
everything we have, everything you have, your talents physically,
mentally, your every possession you have. God's given it to you. And you think, well, I go out
and work for everything I have. That's true. Who gave you the ability
to go work? Who gave you a job? Who put in
somebody's heart to hire you, give you a job? Everything we
have, God's given us. Well, then our prayer is, Lord,
give us this day our daily bread. We live in utter dependence upon
the Lord every day. Just took a breath. I'm gonna
need another one in a second. We're depending on Him to give
us breath. We're depending on Him to give us life and food
and water and clothing and housing, just everything we have. Lord,
give us what I need today. And again, well, I think we'd
be a whole lot happier with our prayers if we were not praying
so much for excess and this excess of all this world's good. And
Lord, just give me today what I need. You know what I need. Give it, just give me that today.
And you know, when we pray, Lord, give me what I need. Give me
my daily bread. When we pray that way, we're
showing the right relationship between God and us. He's the
giver of every good and perfect gift, and we're the beggar. And
if that's the motivation of our heart, the words will be just
fine. I promise you they will. Now
that's true naturally, but true spiritually. Let's not forget
this. You know, in our prayer, we're
not just asking for physical things. This is true spiritually. Lord, give me this day, my daily
bread. Well, who's our daily bread? Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
bread of life. So our prayer is, Lord, evermore
give us this bread. Give me Christ today. Let me feed on Christ today. Let me today feed on his righteousness,
his obedience and not mine. I'm gonna starve to death if
I gotta feed on mine. Let me feed on his. Lord, feed me today. Let me be forgiven. Let me feed
on Christ today and be forgiven of my sin and his blood. Let me be washed today in his
blood. Let me today be seen and heard
in Christ alone. Let me feed on him. That's giving
us this day our daily bread. And you, the Lord, will hear
that prayer, for Christ's sake. Because that, doesn't that prayer
honor the Savior? It honors God's Son to say, let
me feed on Him, be seen in Him. Let me feed on His righteousness.
Let me feed on His blood. The Father will hear that prayer,
because that prayer honors His Son. All right, sixthly, pray
because you're a sinner who needs forgiveness. Verse 12. and forgive
us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now there's countless
many things that we need in this life. And like I said, our daily
bread includes those physical things. But let's remember the
most important need we have is the spiritual bread, the spiritual
needs that we have. Of everything we think we need,
and we really need them. I'm not saying we don't need
those things, but of everything we really need, None of them
compare to the need that our sin be forgiven. And if the motivation
of our prayer, the cry of our heart, is the cry of a guilty
sinner that needs forgiveness, the Lord will hear that prayer. He will. We've got the authority
of God's Word to say that. If the cry of our heart is the
cry of a guilty sinner who needs forgiveness, I cannot live without
it. The Lord will hear that prayer
every time. You go through this book, and I promise you this
is what you'll find. You'll find that the Lord always,
in every situation, turned away the self-righteous that didn't
need him. Oh, they thought they might need
a little help, you know, but they still had some things in
themselves, you know, and if they didn't need him, they had
some self-righteousness, they had some down payment they could
make on this thing. They just needed the Lord to
finish it up for them every time he turned them away. But not
one time ever did he turn away a sinner who needed forgiveness. You won't find a place in this
book where somebody cried for mercy that the Lord didn't give
it. Well, then I believe we'd be
mighty wise to pray as a sinner that needs forgiveness, wouldn't
you? Because that's what we are. This week in Bible school, one
of our little boys, not yet four years old, we all gather out
here in the morning and have a lesson for them. And then they
go back to their class and I was teaching the lesson. He raised
his hand and just busted out. I was talking about how we don't
understand the things of the Lord. He said, we don't understand
because we're sinners. You're exactly right. That is
exactly right. We need the Lord because we're
sinners. Oh, how we need him, how we need
him. In a minute, I thought, that
wasn't in my notes, but I thought, I like that. I'm going to work
with this. And so I took, and buddy, he knew right where I
was going. And then he raised his hand again. And he said, we're sinners
and we need the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, we need, he couldn't
say his R's and S's just right either, but I'm telling you that
thrilled me. How much more doctrine do we
need? It don't really ever get much
deeper than that. Everything we believe hinges
on those two statements. We need God because I'm a sinner
and I need the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if we pray that way, I'm
telling you this, the Father will hear us. He will. Praying
as a sinner who needs forgiveness, you know what that is? That's
honoring Christ the Savior. I need his righteousness. I must have his blood. And the
Lord will hear that prayer because it honors his son. The Apostle
John said in 1 John 1 verse 9, If we confess our sins and you're
saying, Lord, forgive me, that's confessing our sins. It's what
I've done. It's what I am. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Then pray as a sinner that needs
forgiveness. Seventh, pray because you're
dependent upon the Lord. Verse 13, he says, and lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. You know, we are
so dependent on the Lord, our shepherd, to lead us and to guide
us. Well, then we should pray that
way, shouldn't we? That we need him to lead us. God does not
help those who help themselves. God helps those who are dependent,
who need him, who cannot help themselves. And we need the Lord
to lead us because we'll go the wrong way every time if you don't.
We need the Lord to give us wisdom because we're so ignorant. We
need the Lord to show us the way and to keep us in the way
or we'll fall into the ditch every time. And when he talks
about the evil here, deliver us from evil, several things
he's talking about there. Could be talking about the evil
one, Satan, couldn't he? Or we need the Lord to deliver
us from him because we got no strength against him. We need
the Lord to protect us. We need the Lord to pray for
us. Satan will sift us like wheat is easy, he did Peter. But I
tell you the other evil, you know, don't always think about
evil being out there. You know, that evil Satan, evil is everybody
else. What about the evil of our own heart? I need the Lord
to deliver me from the evil of my own nature. Lord, don't let
me go my way. Don't let me have what I think
is right. Lord, lead me, guide me, protect
me. I'm dependent on you. The Lord
will deliver people who pray with that attitude. He will.
Dependence on you. And then lastly, pray with this
motivation to glorify the Lord, not to get something from him.
The rest of verse 13 says, for thine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever. Now the chief end of man is to
glorify God. Then that ought to be our motivation
in prayer, to glorify him. Not to get something from him,
but to glorify him. And if we'd pray with this heart's
motivation to glorify the character of God. That God is both holy
and He's merciful. He's just and He's gracious. There's nobody like Him. Oh,
the character of God. If we pray to glorify His wisdom,
God found a way to save a sinner like me and not violate His justice. If we pray to glorify God's wisdom
in saying, Lord, thy will be done. I don't need to be the
one in control of this thing. I'm glad you are. You've got
the wisdom to govern all things well. That's glorifying God.
If the prayer of our heart, the motivation of our heart is the
glory of God in saving sinners. Wayne prayed this morning that
the Lord save our children and we It's our constant prayer,
isn't it? The Lord save our loved ones.
The Lord save people that will come here to hear us preach.
If the motivation of our heart is to see God save sinners so
that he'd get to glory, he'll do it. He'll do it for somebody. If our prayers would be with
a heartfelt desire to glorify His mercy and His grace, the
only way I can come before God and be heard is His mercy and
His grace, that's the only way He could possibly condescend
to hear me. That glorifies God and God will
hear that prayer. And if the motivation, the heart's
motivation really is to seek God's glory, not my glory, but
to seek God's glory, You know, the word that we use will naturally
be just fine. They come from our heart's motivation,
don't they? And then we'll end our prayer with this. Amen. So be it. This is the desire
of my heart. This is the motivation of my
heart. So be it. All right. Oh, glory
bless that too.