Our lesson this morning found
in the first four verses of Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11 and the first four verses. Let's read these verses together.
Luke 11 verse 1. And it came to pass that as he
was praying in a certain place When he ceased, one of his disciples
said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his
disciples. And he said unto them, when ye
pray, say, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily
bread, and forgive us our sins, as we also forgive everyone that
is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil, And to which Matthew adds this in
Matthew chapter 6, for thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen. Now I titled the lesson
this morning, A Teaching Prayer. This prayer so often referred
to as the Lord's Prayer is actually the disciple's prayer. It's not
the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is in John
17, and He goes to some length to give us that prayer. But this
prayer is an outline for prayer and was given in response to
their asking the Lord to teach them to pray. The Lord teach
us to pray. They heard Him pray. Wouldn't
you like to have sat in the shadow of an olive tree and listened
to our Lord pray? You've heard people in the past.
We've had visitors come here, and every now and then one of
them has a gift of prayer. And I just love to listen to
them. I love to listen to them pray. But can you imagine the
Lord Jesus Christ, God, come into the flesh as He prays to
the Father? And what an inspiration it was
to His disciples, those who are apostles, as they heard him pray. And when he finished prayer,
they said, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. And this is
not a prayer to be memorized and quoted repetitiously throughout
our lives. It's a teaching prayer. It's
a model of sorts or a pattern, if you will, to teach us something
about prayer. We're ignorant of prayer. Scripture
tells us that. You don't know what to pray for
with your eyes. That's what the Scripture says.
We need to be taught. Actually, we need to be taught
everything concerning the worship of God, approaching God, the
way God saves sin. We have to be taught. We don't
know these things. There's none that understand
it. He tells us that. All of us natural men are born
with a nature of sin. We're under sin. And being under
sin, there's none that understand it. So this is a model, this is a
pattern, if you will, and he's going to teach us something about
prayer. And other than here in their
inspired gospels, no apostle or disciple is ever recorded
reciting this prayer. If it were to be recited, they
would have recited it. They never did. No writer of
scriptures ever recorded instructing their readers to recite this
prayer. Rather, they were inspired to
give us what was given to them, an outline for prayer. All right, let's look at this
outline one line at a time and see if the Lord will teach us
something about prayer. I want to know. I'm serious as
I can be. I want to know how to approach
God in prayer. Don't you? I've spent my young
life uttering words that I heard somebody else utter. Almost mimicking God using the
old English words and pronunciations when I pray. That's fictitious,
isn't it? We need to learn how to pray.
How to pray. And he's teaching us here. And
here's the first thing he tells us. When you approach God, you
approach Him this way. Our Father. Our Father which
art in heaven. Now you think about that. You
think about the implications of that. Our Father which art
in heaven. We have a heavenly father. What is a father? What is that
relationship here on this earth? What is a father? What does he
do? He plans for his whole family. That's his responsibility as
a father. He takes care of his bride. He
loves her. He makes plans for his children,
his heirs. He's the provider. He's the one
who sits down and purposes provision for this whole family. When we pray our Father, that's
what we're talking about. We have an eternal Father in
the heaven that's made eternal provision for us. He's made eternal
provision for us. Believers don't pray to heavenly
saints. That's an abomination to God.
Praying to Saint James or Saint John or Saint anybody. Believers
don't pray to heavenly saints. They don't pray to angels. And
they especially do not pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus. That's
an abomination. Believers pray to their Heavenly
Father. If you're going to pray at all,
that's who you're going to pray to. Your Heavenly Father. Now there's a sense in which
God is the father of all men as their creator. In Acts 17,
Paul tells those Greek idol worshippers something about the living God.
He said whom they ignorantly worshipped. They didn't know
him. In verse 25 of Acts 17, he said
he's not worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything. seeing he giveth to all life
and breath and all things, made of one blood all nations of men,
for to dwell on all the face of the earth, hath determined
the times before appointed, and set the bounds of their habitation,
that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after
him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of
us." Now watch this. For in him we live and move and
have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said,
for we are also his offspring." So there's a sense in which all
men are the offspring of God as he is God the eternal creator. He created them. But he's the
believer's father in a very special and particular way. We're His
children in four distinct ways. Now, I want you to pay attention
to me. We don't want to just go into
prayer and just pray in words that, well, I heard this one
or that one say that, so I can say it and we mimic. We don't
want to do that. Prayer is not a pretense. It's
a real thing. It's a real thing. He's our Father in four very
special and distinct ways. We're His children, first of
all, by election and predestination. We're His children. He said in
Ephesians 1-3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly
places in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love, having predestinated us to what? The adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. He's our Father by an act of
eternal predestination and election. Secondly, He's our Heavenly Father
by adoption. By adoption. In Galatians 4.4,
He said, 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. Now watch this. That we might
receive the adoption of sons. And then thirdly, He's our Heavenly
Father by regeneration. Galatians 4, 6. Because you are
sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His sons into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. In John 1.12, he
said, But as many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God. He gave them the ability to actually
become the sons of God. Even to them that believe on
his name, which were born, not of blood, not of the will of
the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God, were his sons
by regeneration. And then fourthly, we're His
sons by the gift of faith. Listen to this, Galatians 3.26.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. How are we His sons? By faith.
To whom does God give faith? By grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Who does
He give this gift of faith to? His sons. His sons. that they might know that they're
sons. Huh? His Spirit bears witness with
our spirit that we are the children of God. So when we pray, we pray
to our Father. Our Father. We have a Father,
a heavenly Father in glory. In glory. It's all His act. It's all His purpose. It's all
His grace that we're sons. He's the source of all these
things. And then we're to pray this,
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Be warned, our whole generation
has a familiarity with God that's ungodly. singing Psalm, me and
Jesus got a good thing going. How ungodly is that? And talking
to God like He was your next door neighbor. You talking to
Him over the fence. That's ungodly. I can't imagine
if it seems so ungodly to me, how must this seem to God when
He looks down on men and sees them that way? The name of God
represents all the glorious attributes of God. And the revelation of
this name is the reason for creation. God's going to manifest His glory. That's the whole reason for creation. All creation groaneth in pain
until now. Well, they're waiting on it.
They're waiting on the children of God to be revealed, be manifested. His name is what constitutes
His Godhead. And God has not, will not, and
cannot compromise His holy name, even to spare His own Son. God spared not His own Son. How many times does He tell us? The object of Christ's death,
more than anything else, was to honor and declare the name
of God. And to manifest that name in
its glorious harmony and perfection to men, to chosen sinners. There is none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That name,
that name has to be declared. Has to be some understanding
of that name. Because that name is the whole
purpose for everything. And I'll tell you this. It is the desire of every believer
to honor his father's name in all that he does. Every aspect
of his life. Does anybody here do that to
perfection? But we're striving for it. We're
striving for it. Nothing broke my heart as a child
more than when I become of age and realize that all my youthful
rebellion It was dishonoring to my earthly
father. I was dragging his name through
the mud. And I didn't realize it. And
when I did, it broke my heart. How much more our Heavenly Father. That prodigal son down there
in the hog pen, he was a son. His father was somebody. And
here he is, he's in a hog pen, an old sloppy, stinky hog pen,
and he's down there and fang would have eat the husks after
the hogs got done with the corn. And here he is, he's down there
doing that. Wasted everything that his father gave him, just
wasted it. Used it for his own pleasure. And then it came to him. Even
the servants in my father's house had it better than me. I think
I'll just go back and see if he'll just accept me as a servant. But somebody's been watching
for him. How long? His whole life. Somebody's been
watching for him. Who's he watching for? That old
rebellious senior. Why would he be watching for
him? Because he's his son. And you know what happened when
he saw him? The Father ran to greet him. Can you imagine? Can you imagine God the Father
running to receive a sinner? But that's what that teaches. That's exactly what it's telling
you. He loves us. Christ said he loves us as he
loved him. Wow. That's His name. And the object
of Christ's death more than anything else was to honor and declare
that name. One name given under heaven whereby
we must be saved. And Paul said, whether therefore
you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of
God. We're to begin our prayers calling
upon our Heavenly Father with a special reverence concerning
His glorious name. When we come in here to meet,
we need to be reverent. There needs to be a reverence.
We need to prepare our hearts for worship. We're coming in
here to worship the Living God. You don't just turn things off
and turn things on. It takes preparation, it takes
prayer. And this is what he's telling us in this. We're to
reverence his holy name. And then thirdly, we should first
and foremost acknowledge our concern for his kingdom. His
kingdom. Why would God leave his signs? I'm not getting any better. I'm
not getting one whit better. I'm still old wretched man that
I am, Paul said. He said, this is a faithful saying
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. The sinner knows what
he is. And when God begins to pour light
into him, he sees more of what he is, not less. He understands
what he is. He sees more sin. He sees sin
that he didn't see before. And as time goes on, he sees
more and more and more. Until finally he cries out with
Paul, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the
body of this dead? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So why would God leave us? He's
made provision for us. He saved us in His Son. He's
given us the light of revelation of the glory of God. He's given
to us all these things. Why would He leave us in this
world? One reason, His Kingdom. You see what I'm saying? When
we pray and we talk to our Heavenly Father, and we do so in reverence
to His Name, the very next thing on our mind ought to be the Kingdom
of God. How helpless am I in this thing
of His Kingdom? How helpless are we? You see
what He's saying here? Thy Kingdom come. God's kingdom
is in the hearts of His people. Salvation is a heart work. His
kingdom cometh, He said in Luke 17, 20, without observation.
I can't see it. I can see what you say, I can
hear what you say, I can see what you do, but I can't see
your heart. But God can. And when God establishes
His kingdom, He does it in the heart. Give me thine heart. I can't see it, but it's a heart
work, and when he establishes his loving rule in your heart,
you'll lovingly and willingly submit to it. You'll bow to his
rule. Actually, this is what our service
to God, what our works, if you will, in this world, they're
all because we love Christ. But you have to submit to that. No pastor has the whip of the
law, and I'm sitting here cracking the whip to get you to do something.
If you're waiting on me to pressure you to do something, it ain't
going to happen. If God don't set up his kingdom in your heart
and lay it on your heart to do something, you'll never do it.
That's just how it is. That's how it is. But boy, when
he sets that rule in the heart, you have to slow him down. Do
you know when they built the tabernacle back under the law
that they were to give free will offerings? That doesn't mean
a man has a free will. It's just saying he wasn't forced
to do it. They said just bring what you
want to give. Whatever you want to give, bring
it. Do you know God had to tell them that's enough? They just
kept giving. They had more money than it took
to do the art. The Lord said that's enough.
That's enough, Moses. Tell them that's enough. Well,
that's the way it is. I don't believe in tithing. If
you want to tithe, tithe. But I'm telling you, we're not
under the law. So that means we don't give anything. Oh, no.
True faith will outdo the law. It'll go way past the law. Way
past the law. Love will... How much do you
give your family, David? Huh? You give them all? Give
them everything you got. Any law making you do that? No. No, you love for your family.
It's the same thing with Christ. Same thing with His kingdom.
Thy kingdom come. God has to set up a kingdom.
And He does so. He said, if my kingdom was earthly,
He told Pilate face to face, nose to nose. They said, are
you a king? He said, well, that's what you're
telling me. But he said, I'll tell you this,
if my kingdom was of this world, I'd call on my armies and they'd
come. And they'd establish it. But
my kingdom's not of this world. My kingdom's in the heart. It's
in the heart. Listen to this over in Romans
6. He said, know you not that to whom you yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants are to whom you obey? Whether it be of sin under death
or obedience under righteousness, but God be thanked, you were
the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. And you become free from sin.
And then fourthly, he teaches us to pray that the will of God
be done. Why do believers pray for God's
will to be done here in this world? as it is in heaven. We all think of ourselves as
logical. So, I'm thinking with what I
know about heaven, there's no sin in heaven. There's no controversy
in heaven. They're all the willing servants
of God in heaven, so His will is done there. But He says here,
you pray that His will be done here. In this, he calls this,
this present evil world. His will's done here. Oh my soul. Not only is it done here, but
it's done here exactly as it's done there. Without resistance. Who's gonna resist God? Nebuchadnezzar, after he'd been
made to go out and eat grass with the oxen for a while, God
returned his reasoning to him and he said, and he said, I'll
tell you this, he ruleth in the armies of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth. He doeth according to his will,
he said, in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand or question what he
does. Why do believers pray for God's
will to be done here in this world? The redemptive will of
God is the whole reason for your being. Did you know that? It's the whole reason for your
being. It's the reason behind creation. And especially in this thing
of salvation. It's the will of God. When Christ suffered at the hands
of men and endured their mock trials and their kangaroo courts,
the Bible said all these evil men did what God's hand and God's
counsel determined before to be done. When Christ came into this world,
it said, I come to do thy will, O God. In the volume of the book it's
written of me, I come to do thy will, O God. This is God's will
for a Savior to appear in this world and save sinners. This
is the will of God. And to obey that will, and to
accomplish that will, and to reveal that will, and to secure
that will forever. I'm not come to do my own will,
I come to do the will of my Father. And this is the Father's will
which sent me, that of all which He has given me, I should lose
nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. It's by this
will that we're sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Read it over in Hebrews 10. And
when God calls us out of darkness, He makes known unto us what?
The mystery of His will. according to His good pleasure,
which He has purposed in Himself. And He shows to us that eternal
stewardship of Christ in all things, and what a calming effect
this has on the believer's heart and mind, to know that He worketh
all things after the counsel of His own will. Oh God, teach
this sinner to pray, Thy will be done. And pray it with all
my heart, Thy will be done. Oh, but this is going to ruin
me. God's will ain't going to ruin
me. God's will is going to save you. It's going to save you. Our Lord created this world to
manifest His glory. And it says He worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will. And then fifthly, our prayers
Having acknowledged God's relationship to us and our reverence for His
name and great work, now He turns and tells us about some requests. Prayer is not a shopping list. God give me this, give me that,
give me, give me, give me, give me. No, that's not what it is. We have requests, but our requests
should have some priorities. He said, first of all, He said,
give us this day, or give us day by day, our daily bread. Now those of us that God has
begun a good work in, we've been reconciled to the will of God
and we understand something about the spiritual supply that He
gives us, something about His grace, we understand that. But
do we understand that He's the supplier of our everyday meals,
our jobs, our cars, everything that we have? We have by the
will of God. It's the gift of God. There's a few things we need
to examine. First, we're praying. We're not
praying, give me this day my daily bread. We're saying, give
us. Give us? Who's us? That's God's
children. That's God's children. If He
gives you something, He's gonna give every one of His children
the same. Huh? We're to ask for our daily provision,
understanding that we're fed by the hand of God. Israel's
journey through the wilderness was a picture of our journey
through this present world. And we live in a spiritual wilderness. And God gave them manna to eat,
and quail, and water from the stricken rock. He took care of
them all through the wilderness. And give is the first word in
this sentence. It must be given because it comes
from Him. Every good and perfect gift cometh
down from above, comes down from the Father of lights, with whom
is no variance, neither shadow of turning. And we pray give
us day by day. Oh my! How we like to calculate
on an unpromised future. You know what our Lord said? Well, proportion your thoughts
a little bit for tomorrow, but no. He said, take no thought
for tomorrow. Well, what am I thinking about? today. That's all I have. That's all I have. Oh my. I have what I have here and now.
And I might live a long while yet. I may die in the next few
seconds. I don't know. But I do know this,
learn to live in the present and hope for the future. I don't have need of next week's
bread today. I just need today's. I'll never
forget one old fella told Spurgeon he was just weeping and called
Spurgeon up and told him he had to talk to him. So Spurgeon invited
him over and this man was just weeping and weeping and weeping
and he said, brothers, what's your problem? He said, I don't
have dying grace. He said, are you dying? Well,
no. You don't need dying grace, you
need living grace. You need dying grace when you're
dying, not while you're living. Quit worrying about tomorrow,
worry about today. And don't worry about years gone
by. There's no need to go back there,
you can't change back there. Worry about today. Well, I remember when I first
believed. I don't care about that. What do you believe right
now? Right now. Our Heavenly Father supplies
all our spiritual needs, and even so we look to Him for our
daily provisions. And then, sixthly, forgive us
our sins. In 1 John 2, verse 1, He said,
My little children, These things write I unto you, that you sin
not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's the
propitiation for our sins. Not just for the sins of the
Jews or apostles, but the sins of the whole world, Gentile believers
as well. And he knows like none other
that God will not and cannot tolerate sin, but he also knows
that he's a sinner and he can do nothing without sin. It says just above there in chapter
1, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us. And if we say we have not sinned,
we make God a liar. So what do we do? We confess our sin. To who? The Pope? Father somebody or
other? No. No. To God. If we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to what? To cleanse us from all our sins. Think about that. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The one thing that enables God
to be just and righteous in the remission of our sins is Christ. It's Christ. In John 13.10, He said, He that
is washed needeth not save to wash his feet. That's all. He just got dirty feet in this
world. He's already clean. He cleaned ever wet, Christ said. And then in Ephesians 4, he gives
us the pattern, be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you. And he tells us to deliver us
from evil. What's he talking about? He's
talking about the evil woman. The evil woman. Satan can take
men captive at his will. Don't you ever underestimate
the subtlety of Satan. Adam was a man created in the
image of God. And his wife, his helpmate. And
in one confrontation, that woman gave in to his subtlety. You
think about that. By one man, sin entered into
the world. And think about what that man
was and who he was. Don't you find that amazing?
Oh, teach me to pray. Teach me the priorities of prayer. Teach me what I need to ask for. And then give me the ability
to do it from my heart.