open your Bibles with me to Matthew
chapter 6, the sixth chapter of Matthew. The title of the message this
morning is Our Lord's Teaching on Prayer. Our Lord's Teaching
on Prayer. And just by way of introduction,
I don't believe that there's any believer that would say,
I'm satisfied with my prayer life. I've arrived. Maybe there's
someone here who would say that, not the one standing up here
in the pulpit would not say that. I know even the apostles of the
Lord said, Lord, teach us to pray. as they observed the Lord
Jesus and they saw just how important prayer was in the life of the
God man. They saw what it meant to him
in his life and they knew they fell so far short as I do. And they said, Lord, teach us
to pray. So I'm going to try to bring
this message on prayer this morning, but I don't pretend to be a master. In this grace of prayer, I don't
pretend to have even reached the level of novice as of yet. But thank the Lord we have the
teaching of our master, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he not only
teaches us the importance of prayer, but he teaches us how
to pray. And so let's study that this
morning. Matthew chapter six, and we'll
begin in verse number five. The Lord Jesus said, and 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. Verily I say
unto you, they have their reward. You see, he says, don't be as
the hypocrites. They want to appear to be very,
very spiritual. And so they'll, you know, make
a big to do about their prayers out in public. And the Lord Jesus
said they have their reward. They want to look very spiritual
and they do. And so they have their reward.
Verse six, but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in
secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly. The NIV translation of the scripture
translates this verse this way, and I really like it, but when
you pray, Go into your room, close the door, and pray to your
father, who is unseen. Then your father, who sees what
is done in secret, will reward you. Verse number seven. But when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Now, the Lord Jesus in this verse,
he's not prohibiting long prayers. And he's not. He's not prohibiting
long prayers, but what he is prohibiting is believing that
we're going to be heard because we pray a long time. Well, if
I pray a short prayer, then, you know, maybe the Lord will
hear me a little bit. But if I pray a long time, then
definitely, you know, he'll hear me more. So he doesn't prohibit
long prayer, but he prohibits us believing that somehow through
whether our prayers are short, that that's going to impact whether
or not the Lord answers our prayers or hears us. Now notice verse number eight,
and I'm gonna, once we get here into verse number nine, I'll
slow down a little bit, but verse number eight. The Lord said,
be not you therefore like unto them. For your father knoweth
what things you have need of before you ask him." Now, when you think about that,
Your Father knows what you have need of even before you ask Him,
so why pray? Have you ever heard that before?
I've had someone tell me that before, where if you believe
that all things that known unto God are all His works from the
foundation of the world and that He's ordained all that shall
ever come to pass in this world, then, you know, why should we
pray? Well, I'll give you a couple reasons here and maybe a few
more later on. Prayer, as we're going to go
on to see, is just as much about worship, or maybe even more about
worship than it is about asking for things. Prayer is about worship. Secondly, because our Lord and
Master, our King here, commands us to pray. Isn't that what he
says? Notice verse nine. After this
manner, therefore, pray ye. That's a command, isn't it? After this manner, pray ye. Notice,
our father. I'm so thankful that the Lord
Jesus taught us how to pray here. When you pray, when I pray, we
pray Our father. For the believer, God is our
father in at least three ways. He's our father by creation. He created us and he's everyone's
father by creation. But he is our father. Secondly,
as a child of God, by regeneration, that is through the new birth,
when the Holy Spirit and his mercy and grace came. When we
were dead in trespasses and sins, and he gave us spiritual life
so that we might see the kingdom of God, so that we might believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. We are his children. He's our
father by regeneration. And he's our father by adoption. He's adopted us. Today, you know, I believe today
we celebrate Father's Day. Right? There's a day that it's
father's day today. Our father. Our father. The eternal God. Our father. You know what? If
the Lord Jesus wouldn't have taught us to say our father,
we wouldn't have dared, would we? To call God. And and to be able under the
instruction and command of our Lord Jesus Christ to call him
our father. That's amazing, isn't it? We
say our father, first of all, because when we pray, we pray
cognizant that we're part of a very large family of brothers
and sisters in Christ. Right. So that's what he taught
us to say, our father. Why? Because when we pray, we
need to remember it's not just us. We're part of a very large
family of God. I look out on this audience here
this morning and I look at my brothers and sisters in Christ
and we have one father. We're part of the same family,
the family of God. And secondly, we pray cognizant
that it's only through the Lord Jesus Christ, our elder brother,
that God hears our prayers. When we say our father, we pray
thinking, yes, he's our father, but he's our father because he's
the father of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he hears and accepts
us through him. You remember the Lord Jesus told
Mary Magdalene after he rose from the dead. Remember these
words. He says, touch me not for I have
not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren, go to
my brothers and say unto them, I ascend unto my father and to
your father and to my God and your God. Now, why would he say
that? Why wouldn't he just say, I send
unto the Father? I believe he makes a special
point here. So that he might teach them and
teach us that God is our father, just as he's the father of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I go to my father and your father. These apostles who had abandoned
him, these apostles who had forsook him. The apostle Peter, who had
denied even knowing Him, the Lord Jesus said, You go tell
my brothers. Go tell my brothers that I sinned
to my father and to your father. You see, when we pray, we pray
cognizant. When we say our father, we say
our father why? Because we are one with the Lord
Jesus Christ and God hears us and accepts us through him. We are sons and daughters and
joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at what's going
on here in verse nine. After this manner, therefore,
pray you. Our Father, notice, which art
in heaven. Our Father which art in heaven. You know, our Father in his mercy
and grace has chosen to manifest himself in a place called heaven. You see, to our weak understanding,
he said to dwell in heaven, but strictly speaking, God is everywhere. The heavens of heavens cannot
contain him. God says in Jeremiah, he said,
I am, am I a God at hand and not a God afar off? Can any hide
himself in secret places that I will not see him? Do not I
feel heaven and earth, saith the Lord? God feels all things,
doesn't he? The theologians talk about he's
omnipresent. But you know, my mind, this little
mind of mine, I can't wrap my mind around that. Can you? I can't wrap my mind that God
is everywhere equally at all times. I can't wrap my mind around
that. I'm a finite creature. And so
God in his mercy and grace has chosen to manifest himself in
a special way in a place called heaven. There's no point of space,
whether within or without the bounds of creation, where God
is not. You read Psalm 139, and we don't
have time this morning. Read Psalm 139, and the psalmist,
as he thinks about that, this knowledge is just too wonderful
for him. He said, I can't even speak a
word, and you already knew what I was going to say long before
I said it. God, an amazing God. an awesome God from the scripture. And yet, in His mercy, He speaks
and allows us to speak to Him as our Father which is in heaven.
I hope that, I hope that that makes sense. Our minds just can't,
God is so great that, especially in the state we're in today,
we can't begin to even understand the smallest amount about Him. And you know, we are never going
to be made gods. We're never going to be made
gods. When we are taken to be in heaven, we're not going to
be little gods. No. And so even in eternity,
God will manifest himself because he is a gracious and merciful
God to us in a place called heaven. I can't explain everything that
there is there, but I wonder at it. I wonder, and I thank
the Lord for his mercy and his grace. Now, heaven for the believer
is the throne of grace, isn't it? As we think of heaven where
our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and
man, the risen Christ Jesus, where he sits today at the right
hand of God, sits in heaven. And heaven is a throne of grace
for us. And so as we say our Father which
art in heaven, we do that always considering and remembering that
we can do that because our Savior sits at his right hand there
making intercession for us. And we go that we may obtain
mercy and grace to help in the time of need. So I want to now
transition to six petitions. Six petitions. Some of you here
who've preached before and some of you who have maybe spoken
at work and other places, have you ever known when you go into
something that you have way too much for the time that you have?
That's kind of how I came up here this morning. There's so
much I'd like to share with you, and I know I won't get to everything
that I want to say, and I hope that I don't try to say so much
that I'm unclear in the things that I do try to say. But I do
want us to look at these six petitions. Our Lord teaches us
here how to pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, He says, first of all, here's
the first petition. Hallowed be thy name. So when
we go to the Lord in prayer, how should we start our prayers? Our prayers, first of all, are
to be worship. Lord, hallowed be thy name. Father, may your name And the
name stands for God, right, for his person. May your name, may
your majestic person be honored and glorified. That should be
our greatest desire as children of God, that our Father, that
he be magnified. Hallowed be thy name. As the
psalmist said, you get the sense that the psalmist was feeling
this way when he wrote this verse. He said, not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for your mercy and
for your truth's sake. What was he saying? He was saying
nothing more than, Hallowed be your name. May your person be
sanctified. I have written in my Bible here
that this word, hallowed, if you go into the divine's definition
of words, what it actually means is may your name be opposite
of common. God's name has become so common,
hasn't it? People take his name in vain,
and they don't even begin to think the first thing about it. And what's even worse, that as
a believer, I'm so used to hearing it that it doesn't even offend
me as it used to. But we should pray, God, give
me a heart. Hallowed be thy name. May the almighty, all-sovereign
God be seen as who he really is. Our God is in the heavens. He's so great, he has done whatsoever
he has pleased. May God make him hallowed, first
of all, in my heart. That's where the greatest need
is. The greatest need is in my heart. God, give me a heart.
Father, give me a heart where I can worship you, where I do
worship you. Hallowed be your name. Hallowed
be your name in your church. If God cannot be honored and
worshiped in the church, then where? Where is he to be worshiped? And I think it's good to even
pray, Lord, even in this world, hallowed be your name. Now notice
petition number two. Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Secondly, thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come. Now what's
that speaking of here? There's a sense in which the
kingdom of God has already come. I listened in. A lot of times,
y'all don't know that I'm with you, but I tune in almost every
service online. And I'm able to join in in the
worship, even though I'm not here with you in person. I'm
so thankful, so thankful for that means of hearing the gospel. But I heard Brother Fred preach
on Wednesday night, and he spent quite a bit of time talking about
the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. Such a wonderful message
there that he brought. But there's a sense in which
the kingdom of God has already come. The Pharisees asked the
Lord when the kingdom of God was going to come. And this is
what Brother Fred mentioned on Wednesday night. And the Lord
said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. That is,
it's not with outward show. Behold, the kingdom of God is
within you. So there's a sense in which the
kingdom of God has already come. Every time a sinner is converted,
every time a sinner comes to trust and believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God comes. And we are to pray,
thy kingdom come. That is, Lord, save your people. Lord, save all. Save your people, thy kingdom
come. And someone may be thinking,
well, hasn't God elected a people unto salvation? Yes, absolutely. Isn't it sure because the Lord
Jesus lived and died for them that they shall be saved? Yes.
And yet the Lord teaches us to pray, thy kingdom come. God will be sought for that which
he will give. It's the same argument that people
might have around preaching. Well, if I believe that God is
sovereign and that God elected a people and he's going to save
those people, then why preach? Why go? You know, why leave your
family and your friends and go off and be missionaries in other
places and preach the gospel? The same God that ordained Salvation,
he ordained the means by which people would be saved and God
ordained that by the foolishness of preaching, he would save those
that believe in that salvation is by grace through faith and
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And it's
the same thing with prayer. Yes, God is sovereign and he's
decreed all things. And yet you look over in the
book of Ezekiel, God talks about the things that he's going to
do for Israel. And then at the end of saying
all of those things that we're sure he says yet he would be
inquired of Israel for those things. The same God who ordained
is the same God who's ordained that we pray, that we beseech
him, Lord, your kingdom come. Thank you, all of you this morning
who prayed that the Lord would bless as I try to preach. Oh,
unless the Lord bless this word, you'll leave here just as empty
as can be. We need the Lord's blessings,
don't we? Lord, your kingdom come. Pray for the success of
the gospel that many, that many will believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and be saved. But there's a sense in which
the kingdom of God is yet to come. Right? So there's a sense
in which it has already come. Oh, may it come today. The kingdom,
the kingdom of grace. But there is a kingdom of glory
still coming. And that's also the kingdom of
God. That kingdom of glory. We like to think about that,
don't we? That's going to be ushered in when the Lord Jesus
Christ comes with the, with the trump and the shout of the archangel. And he comes with all the believers
who've died already and ascended on high and are with him this
morning. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes
again and brings them and he raises their bodies from the
graves and reunites them with their spirits and those who are
alive and remain, our bodies are changed and we're ever to
be with the Lord in glory. Lord, thy kingdom come. The Lord Jesus said, behold,
I come quickly. And what did John said? Even
so, Lord Jesus, come. What was he doing? He was praying,
thy kingdom come. Well, isn't that day when the
Lord Jesus is going to return set in stone? Yes, it is. Pray for it. You say, well, explain. I don't even try to explain it
to myself. I just know that that's what
the Lord has taught us. Pray. Pray for these things. Don't be discouraged from prayer. Scripture says that we are always
to pray. The Lord Jesus taught that we
should pray in his messages. He taught that we should pray
in his parables. He taught that we should pray
in his life. Do you think that if the Son
of God needed to pray, you think that we might need to pray? When I try to preach, I'm preaching
to me. I hope you know that. I pray the Lord will make it
a blessing to you. But I try to preach what I need.
So easy to become cold and indifferent. in prayer, and as goes prayer,
so goes our worship. Because prayer is first and foremost
worship of God. I need to move on here. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom
come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. How is God's
will done in heaven? How is his will done in heaven?
It's done swiftly, right? It's done cheerfully. You think
there's any murmuring in heaven? No, there's not any murmuring
in heaven. God's will is done swiftly. It's done cheerfully. We were
taught to pray, thou will be done in earth as it is in heaven. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he revealed a lot about God's will when it comes to salvation
in his preaching. Let me just remind you of a couple
of things that he said. He said, For I came down from
heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all which
he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it
up again at the last day. That's a wonderful will, isn't
it? Lord, thou will be done. Call every last one of your sheep. He went on to say, and this is
the will of him that sent me, that everyone which sees the
sun and believes on him may have everlasting life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. Lord, thou will be done. That's
a wonderful will, isn't it? The salvation of sinners and
the gift of eternal life. God, the Lord, he taught us so
much about God's will and salvation. But you know, there's very little
that God has revealed to us concerning what his will is for us as we
walk through this world. You say, what do I mean by that?
I don't want to be misunderstood. You know, will we walk through
this world rich or poor? Will we be healthy or sick? Will we have family and friends
around us, or will we be alone? There's so much that God hasn't
revealed to us about what our life is going to be like in this
world. Isn't that true? Lord, thou will be done. on earth as it is in heaven.
And here, as in all portions of this message, I have to ask
the Lord God, my Father, to forgive me. But forgive me, because I
can say those words, but to have a heart that really mean those
words, Lord, your will be done. And my experience, which is worth
nothing, but what I've experienced in life when it comes to this
as a believer, I think it's almost easier to pray, Thy will be done. Talking about the Lord's will,
about what life will be like walking through this world as
we pray about ourselves, but much harder about those that
we love. And that's sinful. I don't excuse it. But I do. I have found that to be my experience. We want those that we love. We
want them to have an easy life, don't we? We want them to have
a healthy life. We want them to have everything
that they need, to never do without, to never know loneliness, to
never suffer. That's what I want. That's what
I want. But I have to pray, Lord, thy
will be done. And it's as we worship God in
prayer and we seek, we seek his grace and mercy, it's a throne
of grace to shape our hearts, to shape my heart, that I could
really say this and pray it in earnestness and in truth. Lord,
you will be done. fall so, so far short. But you know what? I think if
we were any good at this, the Lord wouldn't have had to spend
so much time teaching about prayer. I need to try to finish up here. Just real quickly, notice these
three petitions. The prayer shifts here from worship
to praying for our physical and our spiritual needs. You see
verse number 11. Give us this day our daily bread. Lord, provide for us the things
that we need, our food, shelter, clothing, It's right. It's right to pray. You know,
prayer is worship in the sense that it puts us in the frame
of what's really true. That we are totally dependent
upon God for every breath that we take. And you know, when it
comes to bread, we may have a bank full of money. But unless God
give us the grace and the strength and the health today to be able
to swallow, it won't do us a bit of good. Lord, we are totally
dependent upon you. Give us this day. So this bread
is more than just bread. It's confessing that, Lord, we
totally depend on you for everything. Verse number 12, and forgive
us our debts as we forgive our debtors. You think about all
the debt of sin that we accumulate every single day of our life. Is there ever a day, is there
ever a moment where I don't need to pray, Lord, forgive me. Forgive
me, Lord, for my sins and give me a spirit of meekness to forgive
others, to walk at peace with others. Lord, you've forgiven
me. in so many ways, counting ways
that I don't even know. Lord, help me to be forgiven,
to have a heart of forgiveness. And then notice verse number
13. It says, and lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil. Lord, we are a perfect weakness. That's what the Lord teaches
us to pray here, right? We are a perfect weakness. Unless
you help us to stand, we're going to fall. Lord, keep us from sin,
keep us from temptation, keep us from the evil one. Why? Because if we're tempted, we
will sin. You know, the scripture says
that the Lord Jesus Christ, when Satan came and tried to tempt
him, there was nothing within him. that Satan was able to be
successful tempting him. Why? Because he's holy, harmless,
undefiled, everything that I'm not. When Satan comes to tempt
me, unless God help me stand, I know one thing for sure, I'm
gonna fall 100% of the time. That's what the Lord Jesus is
teaching us to pray here. Lord, without you, I can't do
anything. Without you keeping me, I'm gonna fall, and I'm gonna
fall, and I'm gonna fall, and I'm gonna fall. Help me, Lord. And notice the prayer ends by
shifting back to worship. He says, and the glory forever. Amen. You see, it starts with worship
and it ends with worship. Lord, you're sovereign. This
is your kingdom. This is your world. All things
are yours and rightfully so. Thine is the power and the glory
forever and ever. Amen. So prayer is not so much
an act as an attitude, an attitude of dependency upon God, a confession
of our weakness, yea, of our helplessness, our dependency
for daily bread, from protection from sin, from the evil one. We need our God, don't we? Why should we pray? Is there
any doubt why we should pray? The prayer is coming to God,
telling Him our need, committing our way to our Father, and then
by His grace, leaving with Him, to deal with the case that seems
Him best. Thy will be done. May God bless
this word to us this morning. And my prayer for me and for
you is, Lord, teach us to pray. Teach me to pray. May the Lord
bless his word. Let's be dismissed in a song.