Praying in the Kingdom
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Well, good morning, church. My name is Mike Laramee. If you have not met me, I’m sure most of you have, but there are some that might not have met me. I am not Pastor Gary. Pastor Gary is actually at a family reunion this weekend.
So it is my honor and privilege to bring you the Word this morning. And I’m part of the preaching team. I’m also the director of discipleship, which means I do all the small group stuff and life on life, discipleship, stuff like that. So if you’re really interested in that, come see me. I’d love to talk to you about that.
Now, I’d like to greet you on this Memorial Day. Notice I don’t say Happy Memorial Day because Memorial Day was set aside as a remembrance for all of those men and women in uniform that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. And so it is a day of memorial, but it has become more of a day of thankfulness and gratefulness for those who’ve given the ultimate sacrifice, including friends of mine who have gone on. And so I do set that aside, and I do wish the best for you on Memorial Day weekend. And as we think about being thankful, I would like to quickly also mention something else.
And you might see this in the lobby. There’s a table for Compassion International out there. And that’s an opportunity for us to pass on that thankfulness. It’s a way to sponsor a child who is in a country far from here who could use the blessings that we have. And let me just share a quick anecdote about compassion.
Several years ago, I was at a concert and my wife was actually at home, and there was a compassion, and they were making a push for compassion just like this. And I really felt the stirring in my heart that I need to sponsor a couple children. Now, we’ve done World Vision, and we had another Compassion child at the time. But at the time I figured, you know, I’ve got some more margin. Let me sponsor a couple more kids.
And we were going to do this in the name of my wife and I. And so we’re going to get two. And so I went back to the table and I grabbed two cards and I brought those two cards home. And I was amazed to find that since we were going to sponsor these two in form of my wife and I, that both of the kids birthdays are written on the card. And their birthdays were both the 11th of November, which is my wife and I’s anniversary.
And I thought, that can’t be a coincidence. Okay, so please stop by the table and pass on your thankfulness to those who need it. Now we’re continuing our sermon series today entitled Kingdom Living. It’s an expositional study of Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount that’s found in Matthew 5, 7. And we’re in stop nine of our expositional service.
And many people have described this, and you’ve heard this from the stage, that the Sermon on the Mount was the greatest sermon preached by the greatest preacher who’d ever lived. And today we’re going to pick up on that section that we deviated around last week because we, you know, we actually took out this section so that we could speak about it specifically this week. So we talked about the stuff before and after last week. And so now we’re going to deal with the Lord’s practical teaching on prayer that he gives us in the Lord’s Prayer. Now, prayer is a topic that most of us have had to wrestle with in some capacity.
As someone who has discipled people, many of you have done the same thing. If you’ve discipled others or you have been discipled yourself, you know that prayer is one of the hardest fought disciplines in the Christian’s life. There’s a reason for this. I think there’s a reason for this because if God’s people are intimately fellowshipping with their Heavenly Father, then they become a powerful force for good and for the gospel in this life. See, every evil adversary, whether human or supernatural, would love to oppose this.
They had to love to oppose this good force, this good force for the gospel. So it’s no surprise that prayer can be a very hard fought discipline. Are you fighting a battle in your prayer life? Is it hard to make time to pray? Is it hard to know how to pray?
Maybe you have a struggle with quieting your mind and actually being able to listen to the Lord. Is it hard to talk to God? What are you battling in your prayer life? See, every one of us wages war with evil when we pray. So don’t be surprised when there’s a fight for your prayer life, friend.
Be assured that the God who speaks to you in secret has overcome the world. The tomb is empty. He has overcome. So if there are a hundred obstacles to you and to your prayer life, keep at it because it’s worth it. It is absolutely worth it to be in the presence of the King.
So Jesus, with the crowds on the mountainside, all these people watching the Sermon on the Mount, began to remove some of those obstacles and guide them to a more intimate and purposeful fellowship with the Father in our prayer life. And Jesus guides us through his word today as well. In Matthew, chapter six, as Jesus continues his sermon, he taught the crowd how to pray as citizens of God’s kingdom. See, we, as citizens of God’s kingdom today, we can pray that way as well. See?
How are we going to do that as citizens? How are we going to pray to the kingdom? Well, the text is going to give us three ways to pray as kingdom citizens in Matthew, chapter six. And if you have your Bibles, turn with me to chapter six of Matthew starting in verse seven. And if you want to cheat, you can look up on the.
On the screen as well. I’m okay with that. So Matthew, chapter six, starting in verse seven. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard. For their many words do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be youe name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now, may God bless the reading of His Word. Amen. We’re looking for three ways to pray as citizens in God’s kingdom.
Here’s the first one. Pray with thoughtfulness. Pray with thoughtfulness. Now, notice in verse seven, one of the first things that Jesus does is he starts with a negative command. This is hard to preach.
Sometimes he says, don’t be like them. Okay, so if I’m not going to be like them, I need to do something in the opposite direction. So don’t be like them. He’s teaching us that the word world tends to pray with lots of empty words that actually don’t move God at all, right? Instead, what Jesus is seeking is a heartfelt, thoughtful, meaningful prayer.
And if you’re new, what is prayer? Prayer is just speaking to God. Okay? We can speak audibly. We can speak very quietly.
You can think in your mind because God can read your thoughts, right? You can. You can do it with other people. You can do it in public. You can do it in private.
Prayer is merely communicating with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Now, one thing I want to point out. Most of you know that I’m Kind of a history kind of dude. I love to delve deep into what happened back in the day and in the first century. The audience that Jesus is speaking to, this is mostly a Jewish audience.
And in the first century Jewish mind, they had a very different, different idea of prayer than we might have today. Their prayer was very structured, and most of their prayers were memorized and said from memory by rote. That was the norm. See, they were expected to pray the Shema a couple times a day. That’s Deuteronomy 6.
4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind every morning and every evening. But it didn’t end there. Okay? They would pray before every meal, right?
And not only did they pray before every meal, but the prayer changed based upon what you were eating. So and it had to be memorized. And you had. If you had this thing, then you prayed this prayer. If you had this thing, you prayed that prayer.
And the Jewish scholars at the time, you know, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they had determined, they looked through and they decided that if you had something the size of an olive, you needed to say one of these prayers. So again, very regimented, very memorized, but it didn’t end there. Okay. There were particular prayers that were called for for occasions such as perhaps you approached the site of an ancient miracle, there was a prayer that you had to say. Then what if you had.
There was an earthquake, which was very common in ancient Israel. There was a prayer for that. You saw a shooting star, there was a prayer for that. Okay, you heard thunder or you saw lightning, there were prayers for those things. One prayer was for receiving good news and another prayer was for receiving bad news.
Again, a recited prayer. If you walked into a town, there were two prayers there that you had to say, and when you left that town, there were two more. You might think that’s a lot, but there’s even more. But wait, there’s more. The observant Jew was required to pray the tefillah, which is 8, 18 benedictions, the tefillah.
And this was a series of memorized prayers that started with adoration for the Father and went through a whole manner of different things and would end with a prayer for the dispersed tribes of Israel throughout the world. 18 different things. This had to be done three times a day at prescribed times during the day. So you see this first century Jewish audience as they’re listening to Jesus Christ sermon on the Mount when he begins to speak about prayer. They thought they knew what prayer was all about.
And Jesus is going to change this a little bit. See, think about how we do today. Today we struggle just to pray in the first place, right? Sometimes we pray or we struggle to pray over our meals. We don’t want to pray in a restaurant.
Somebody might think we’re a little odd, okay? And I don’t want to pray out loud because I’m not as good as that person or I don’t say things like they do. You know, even those people that I have spoken to that I would consider have a healthy prayer life, most of them will say, oh man, I really struggle in this area and I could use some help. We tend to have a very different idea of what prayer looks like today than that first century audience. You see, one of the things that that first century audience was doing, Jesus calls them out here in verse seven is they heap up empty phrases.
This is a fun Greek word. We had fun with this this week called barelageo.
This is a combination of two Greek words, Batus, which was a proper name, and then logos or logeo. You know the word, the words of Batus, Batus. They have two different people. They think he might have been. There was a king of Cyrene whose name was Batus.
But there was also this poet that was famous in the first century. Both of these men were famous for being verbose. They like to talk a lot. They like to hear themselves talk. And I don’t know why anybody would pay this poet to listen to just words and words and words, but that’s what they did, okay?
And so bottle of was kind of this idea of just babbling, right? Just, just hearing themselves talk, okay? And that’s what Jesus is calling these people out. He says, no, no, no, no. That’s what’s happening here.
You guys are doing this battle of Gael stuff. You guys are just talking to hear words. And he says that’s what the Gentiles do. And he’s not just pointing out these gentiles as non Jews, but these were pagans. These were heathens.
These people were trying to pray to their heathen gods with many, many words. And we see this, there’s a good example of this in the Old Testament. How many of you all remember that? The battle of the prophets on Mount Carmel with Elijah and the prophets of Baal. You’ve got the single prophet of God Elijah against 500 prophets of Baal.
And Elijah says, hey, I tell you what, I’ll do one bull you guys do the other bull and you guys have all morning to call upon Baal. What happens? Right? First Kings 18:26, it says, and they took the bull that was given them. These are the prophets of baal.
And they prepared it and called upon the name of BAAL from morning until noon, saying, o baal, answer us. But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. If you read that story a little bit more, you know that they would cut themselves and they would repeat, BAAL answered us over and over and over again, and nothing happened. If you read it really carefully, you’ll see Elijah actually pokes at them a little bit.
He says, why don’t you call louder? Maybe he doesn’t hear you. You know, maybe he’s resting. And if you read it really carefully, it actually says, maybe he’s going to the restroom. You know, he’s relieving himself in the cool of the day.
So he’s poking at. He’s poking at them because he knows that these prophets of BAAL are just shouting these words into the air, doing nothing. Jesus says in verse eight, don’t be like them. Don’t do that. Okay?
Because in verse 8 it says, Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Romans 8, 26, 27 says, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. See, God knows what you need before you even bring it up.
So you don’t need to bring it up and bring it up and bring it up and over and over. Or practice some of that Eastern mantra kind of things where you’re just saying words into the air. That’s what Jesus is saying. No, don’t do that. Let’s think thoughtfully.
You’re speaking to a person, you’re speaking to the Father. You wouldn’t like it if somebody just talked to you and just said words over and over and over again. There’d be no message, right? So talk to the Father thoughtfully, meaningfully. See, Jesus may be touching on a passage from Ecclesiastes, as Solomon writes this, where our hearts can sometimes be irreverent towards God and our prayers can lack the thoughtfulness that our Creator deserves.
Like I said, you wouldn’t talk to a good friend of yours or your husband. Or wife. With just empty words, you actually are trying to convey a meaning. So look at Ecclesiastes 5, 2, 3. Solomon writes, Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God.
For God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. For a dream comes with much busyness and a fool’s voice with many words. So it’s pretty consistent. Let’s not just babble, let’s be meaningful.
But then you would ask, well, why do we pray? Why then do we pray? Let’s remember that prayer is our need and not his. See, God exists in perfect communion. Father, Son and Spirit, they already have perfect communion.
He does not need to hear us, we need to hear from Him. Look at what John Calvin says, that the theologian John Calvin says, but if God knows what things we have need of before we ask him, where lies the advantage of prayer? Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. You catch that? We’re not telling God, hey, by the way, here’s this thing going on that you’ve not heard about, or hey, why don’t you do your job?
God, he finishes, he says, on the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom. Our job to pray is not to inform God, but to be in the presence of God. That is the purpose behind prayer. That is why we need to be thoughtful and meaningful when we are conversing with our Father, Adam Clark, who was an 18th century theologian as well. He said, this prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery, to humble his heart, to excite his desire to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven.
So all of these people are saying prayer is not about what God needs, it’s about what you need. You need to pray. We can learn a lot about prayer by watching young children who has a daddy that loves them, right? Young children don’t come up to their father and say, oh dear, most glorious Father, might I beseech thee to grant me a delicious vessel of frozen chocolate treats. No, they don’t say that.
They say, dad, dad, can we have ice cream? And I go, yes, because I always want ice cream. So yes, the answer is yes, do you struggle to pray. It’s one of the most common things we hear, man. I don’t know what to say or I can’t pray like those people, man.
They got the right hat on and everything. They obviously know how to pray. No, see, God wants to engage with you. He wants to talk to one of his kids. We’re one of those kids that want ice cream.
And God wants to give you ice cream. He wants to hear from you. Start the conversation with him. See, the first step at being better at praying is to actually do it. Okay?
Actually do it. Don’t tell me, man. I have a hard time praying. Well, when’s the last time you prayed? Yeah, exactly.
So do it. Okay? Just start, you know, at a stoplight, you know, pray. Please watch the stoplight, though. That annoys me.
You know, right when shopping at the store, working in the yard, you know, as we grow in prayer, you will find that daily quiet time, that daily time with the Lord gets easier and easier. So we want to pray with thoughtfulness, right? But the next way we can pray as Kingdom citizens is to pray with a purpose. Pray with purpose. Now, here we’re going to talk through Jesus.
Model prayer, the one that we commonly call the Lord’s Prayer. Starting in verse nine, Jesus then tells the crowd how to pray. He says, pray then like this. Notice he doesn’t say pray using these exact words and don’t skip any. Right?
He says, pray then like this. It’s a model prayer. You can certainly use the words of the Lord and pray it back to him. Praying back. Scripture is a good thing, okay?
But this is not the only way to prayer. But this is a model. Let’s look at some of the things that Jesus points out. First, verse nine, Father in heaven. Who are we addressing?
We’re praying to the Father. Where is he? He’s in heaven, right? He’s at the seat of all things eternal, which is consummately perfect. This is where God dwells.
This is in the highest heaven. Let’s begin our prayer. Knowing who it is that we’re speaking to, who you’re speaking to in the first place, where is he positionally compared to us? Right? Let’s think about who it is that we’re raising these prayers to.
1 Kings 8 kind of points this out, but will indeed dwell on the earth. Behold heaven. And the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built. Let’s recognize that we’re speaking to the King of heaven.
And the very next thing Jesus gives us to do to Say is to hallowed be your name. He says, hallowed be your name. Make your name holy. Let’s revere, reverence, the name of God. Let’s realize that we are talking to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, that he is holy, he is sanctified, he is the fountain of all holiness.
And that’s who we get to talk to. Now, there’s a little bit of a balancing act here to be done between reverence for the Lord and intimacy with Him. Okay. I’ve seen some Christian circles sometimes where Jesus refers to the Father as Abba. And Abba in ancient Aramaic and in ancient Hebrew was a familiar name for Father.
And some people have translated it as Daddy. I’m a little uncomfortable with approaching the Father and calling him Daddy. And some people, that may be a good thing. But you know what? A better translation of Abba is probably Dearest Father.
Dearest Father. Why? Because there’s still intimacy there. But you need to recognize who it is that you’re speaking to. Okay.
You’re still speaking to the King of Kings. He’s still intimate. See, God the Father is still the King of the universe, creator of all and almighty God sitting on a throne, but he’s also the personal Father who is loving, approachable, and attentive. Let’s remember who we’re talking to. What does Jesus ask us to do as we approach that Father?
See, the first thing that he wants us to do is provide adoration and recognize who God is. The next thing He. He says is your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Where is God’s kingdom?
Wherever Jesus reigns. Right in you. In you, in this place, in your house, in your place of work, in your car. That’s where the kingdom of God is, right? Your kingdom come.
But the kicker here is that we want his kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, as completely, as perfectly, as immediately as it’s done in heaven. We’re praying that his will be done. Okay, so we pray in this manner then, to figure out what God’s will is for our life and for the life of the church, for the life around us. Right?
We’re praying to figure out what his will is. And we’re also praying to be used by the Father. Use me to fulfill your will. Use me to. To bring your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
Verse 11. Jesus says, Give us this day our daily bread. This is the part that we’re really good at. Right. We’re really good at asking God.
Hey, can you help me with this? Or can I have that? Can I have ice cream? Right? We’re great at that, man.
Hey, Father man, I’ve got this health concern. Would you help me with this? Or, hey, I got this future job thing. Or, hey, who am I going to marry? Where am I going to go to college?
All that kind of stuff. We’re great at asking God questions like that or asking for things. Right? But notice that Jesus gets to that third. Right?
We generally start there. Okay. Oh, yeah, God, you’re great. Please give me all this stuff. You know, we’re pretty good at that usually.
So Jesus is not saying not to ask for that stuff, but just recognize that that’s one of the priorities, one of the things that we pray about. He’s going to get harder. Okay. Verse 13, lead us not into temptation. Well, what’s temptation?
Hmm. Well, temptation is anything that would lead us astray, Right? It could be something that comes internally, or it could be something that’s external, something that might be a test of my character, it might be a test of my faith, might be a test of my holiness, something that troubles me. Right? And he’s saying, lead us not into temptation.
Well, that’s weird. Why would he say that? Look at what James 1:James says, the brother of Jesus in James 1:13, he says, Let no one say, when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. So what is it that Jesus means here when he says, lead us not into temptation? Is it like, I’m following him and God’s kind of like, hey, here’s this thing that you like, you know?
Psych. No, he’s not doing that. I think what Jesus is saying is, as we continue with that intimate prayer life, as we are getting to know the Father more and more, we’re holding onto him so much that I’m looking up and I’m not looking at that thing that tempts me, right? Lead us not into temptation. In other words, lead me, Lord.
And I won’t see this other stuff now. It might still be there, but you know what? I found something to be very true. It’s very hard to be tempted when you’re praying. Very hard to be tempted when you’re praying.
So that’s a pretty good alternative, right? When you start seeing that thing and it’s different for many of us, that one thing that tempts us, that would be a good time to talk with your father, Right? Let’s spend some time in prayer right now and figure out what God has got for me other than this thing that I don’t want to be led to. And then it says, deliver us from evil in verse 13. Deliver us from evil.
Right? And actually in the Greek, the article is there. It actually says, deliver us from the evil. So your translation may say, deliver us from evil. It may say, deliver us from the evil one.
Okay, and that’s an interesting. We call that a textual variant. It’s very small. It doesn’t substantially change the meaning of the passage. But I think there’s a shade of meaning here that we miss when we look at this.
Okay? Because if we’re just merely thinking, deliver us from the evil one, many of us are thinking Satan, right? Well, guess what? Satan probably doesn’t have time to bother with you. He’s one being right now.
It is true we wage against powers and principalities and those. Those forces, you know, there are demonic forces out there. There’s evil in the world. That’s human as well, right? So there’s evil out in the world.
Okay? There’s evil, absolutely. But Satan is probably not tempting you. He’s probably got somebody else in mind. That’s probably a bigger fish to fry, right, that he’s chasing after.
So it may not be the evil one, but you know what I think it really means? There’s an evil that each one of us tends towards. And it might be different. It might be very similar to this temptation. There might be some evil that is in your life or that you kind of tend to walk towards.
And I think that’s what Jesus is getting at. Deliver us from the evil. I think it’s the evil that so easily entraps me. Deliver us from the evil. See, again, it’s that same idea.
The closer I walk with the Lord, the closer I’m in fellowship with him, the less I want that evil that so easily ensnares me. Deliver us from the evil.
We are to purposefully pray as children of God. Romans 8:15 says, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption to sonship. By whom we cry. Abba. Father, all of you who call Jesus Christ as Lord are so sons.
It doesn’t matter if you’re men or women. You are in that first position of priority. You’ve been adopted into the family. You have that position. So we can purposefully pray to the Lord because of that.
And we should pray for the kingdom to Come for the advancement of the gospel. This is what we’ve been after for the last six months as we’ve been talking about its time and as we brought this process to bear. Mark 1:14 and 15 reminds you that Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. That is what we should be all about.
As we think about temptation as well. First Corinthians is very instructive in that we should pray for God’s protection and deliverance. And it says in 1 Corinthians, As Paul writes, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may not be able to.
That you may be able to endure it. Excuse me. So, yes, temptation is real, okay? But that is not what God. God’s not in the temptation business business.
He’s in the prayer business. Can I ask you some questions right now? Let’s do a comprehension check. You don’t have to answer these out loud, but I want you to think about some of these things that you might find very concerning about this prayer thing so far. If I don’t pray for God’s kingdom to come, will it not come already?
Will his will not be done if I don’t pray for it? If I don’t pray for my daily bread, am I going to starve?
Will he lead me into temptation? If I don’t ask him not to do that, will he not deliver me from evil? Isn’t God’s kingdom going to come no matter what I pray? And his will is going to be done no matter what I think about? See, Daniel 7:27 says, his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
So God’s kingdom is coming whether we pray for it or not. Indeed, that is the purpose of my prayer. It’s for my heart to get in line with his. It’s for my heart to be like God’s heart, for my will to be subordinated to his will, my thoughts to be like his thoughts. That’s what prayer is all about.
God’s doing his business. God is moving his kingdom. He’s doing it all around us. Let’s get on board, y’ all. This is what we’re doing.
What is the purpose behind your prayers? Is it self or is it God? Is it all about? Please help. Please Help.
Please help. Can I have this? Can I have this? Can I have this? Again, those are good prayers, but that’s not the only purpose, right?
Jesus makes room for praying for that kind of stuff. But again, that’s not the only one. The purpose is alignment with the Father. Remember, we could say that Lord’s Prayer in slightly different words if we said it this way. You are holy.
Your kingdom come, your will be done. You give the bread that you think I need, right? You forgive and make me a forgiver like you. You lead me. You deliver me.
See, prayer is about him. Prayer is all about him. So we want to pray with purpose. Here’s the third way. Pray with forgiveness, Pray with forgiveness.
We’re in verse 12, and then 14 and 15 here as we talk about forgiveness. And let’s talk about what that forgiving is, right? Forgiveness, basically, if I were to put it in other words, is to let it go, right? Is to let it go and not let that thing continue to eat me up. See, we have already been forgiven.
So as Christians, we should understand what forgiveness really is. In First John 1, it says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. See, God has already forgiven us. So we understand.
We should understand what it means to be forgiven. So Jesus then takes that and says, forgive us our debts. Notice, Jesus doesn’t say, forgive our sins. He says, forgive our debts. Almost like an accounting term.
Okay, I had a couple accountants in the first service, and I was struggling with this concept. Now I took accounting. I should know this, but I’ve forgotten it. But you know, every time we sin, it’s a debt, right? It goes on the ledger.
Boop. There’s a sin, there’s a sin, there’s a sin. But we know. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That’s past sins.
That’s today’s sins. That’s tomorrow’s sins, right? Those sins keep. They show up on the ledger, right? Liabilities.
Bing, bing, bing, bing. Remember, Pastor Gary likes to say, keep short accounts with God. Confess our sins. As First John says, confess our sins and wipe that clean. Now, your sins have already been paid for, but let’s deal with those sins, because we understand that God forgives us, and we see that.
But now Jesus turns that in verse 12, forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. Uh. Oh, that just got hard, right? It’s easy for us to ask for forgiveness, right? Hey, Jesus, here’s my list.
You know, you said you’d pay for it. Cool. And he says, wait, wait a minute. You need to forgive your debtors too. Ooh, that just got a lot harder.
See, he pairs these things together. See, those of us who’ve received forgiveness should be experts at forgiving. We should be good at that. Now, let me share something with you. Nowhere in the Bible does it say forgive and forget.
It doesn’t say that. Forgive and forget. That’s not a thing. That’s something I learned as a kid. Forgive and forget, right?
No. What does Christian forgiveness look like then? Now, there’s a lot of ways we could talk about this. And I’m just going to leave you with this one way here. According to the association of Certified Biblical Counselors, forgiveness is a series of four promises.
There’s four promises. Here’s the first one. It’s a promise not to dwell on the incident mentally. A promise not to dwell on that incident mentally. Now, that does not mean, okay, if someone sins against you, okay.
Doesn’t mean that you can’t process that it’s going to hurt. You need to acknowledge the fact that it hurts. You’re not going to minimize it and say, oh, no, it was nothing. You still have to go through a process of grieving through that sin, okay? But you don’t want to go over and over and continue to dwell on it and have it completely dominate who you are.
The second promise is a promise not to bring up that sin again and use it against that other person. You promise not to bring it up and use it against that other person. Now let me tell you a quick story to illustrate this, okay? A long, long time ago, back when I was just engaged and not been married forever, my fiance, my now wife came to visit me. I was in Northern California at the time doing training in the Air Force, and she came to visit me.
My roommate had a ruse. He said, hey, we got to go to the airport and pick up a friend of mine. Which was true. But he didn’t say who it was. Right?
And so we drove to the airport and out walks my wife. Fiance, sorry at the time. And I was confused. I was looking for his friend. I’m like, what are you doing here?
Well, I’m glad to see you, but what are you doing here? And I was still so kind of taken out of sorts that we started walking out of the airport and I never grabbed her bag, which is what I did every time. And we walked out and she was lugging her bag all the way to my car. You know, well, 10 years later, we’re in a fight, okay? Because married people fight.
And shocker for you guys in the front, it does happen, right? We were in a fight. And she said, and there was that time that I came to the airport and you didn’t grab my bag. Right? So, yeah, she was using that against me.
And yes, I am also aware of the irony of me now saying the same thing in history and talking about the same thing. So I get that. But it’s a promise not to use it again against the other person. Here’s the third promise. A promise not to talk to others about the sin.
Okay? Now, a promise not to talk to others about the sin. Now, this can be difficult because there’s a line between gossip and seeking godly counsel. Okay? It is okay for you to seek godly counsel.
You’ve been hurt, you’ve been sinned against. You need to talk to someone. You need to process it. How do I deal with this person? How can I move beyond this?
That’s legit. As opposed to, do you know what this person did to me? That’s gossip. That’s not what we’re trying to do. So it’s a promise not to talk to others about that.
Here’s the fourth one. A promise not to let the incident hinder your relationship with a sinner. It’s a promise not to let that relationship be hindered. Okay? So what that means is I’m going to let it go.
I need to process it and let it go. I need to forgive that person. Notice that doesn’t mean that there’s reconciliation necessarily, but I’m gonna let it go. Cause what happens with unresolved forgiveness, unresolved forgiveness can lead to a root of bitterness. And bitterness can interfere with our prayer life.
And that, I think, is what Jesus is getting at. Okay? You need to forgive your debtors because you’ve already been forgiven. Forgive our trespasses, as our Heavenly Father neither will forgive them. Look at verses 14 and 15.
This is the most difficult part of this passage, right? It says that our Heavenly Father will not forgive us unless we have forgiven. That is tough teaching right there. What does that mean? Well, J.I.
packer has a really good book on prayer, and he said this. He said, the Lord’s Prayer is the family prayer in which God’s adopted children address their Father. And though their daily failures do not overthrow their justification, things will not be right between Them and their father, till they’ve said, I’m sorry and asked him to overlook the ways they’ve let him down. So you can see that when you have unresolved forgiveness in your life, your prayer life may be bouncing off the ceiling. Have you ever felt that?
You feel like, man, these prayers are just not effective. Maybe there’s some unresolved forgiveness in your life. Maybe there’s something that you’re just holding onto and it’s creating a root of bitterness inside. And I know that this is something that affects us all. It happens.
We need to deal with that. See, if you look at your children, those of you who have kids, your children may offend you, they may do something against you, but they don’t stop being your kids. Right? You may break fellowship with them for a time, but the objective is to forgive and to move on and to always be family. We as Christians are called to be bountiful in forgiveness.
We’re supposed to have a deep well of forgiveness from Christ for others. Matthew 18:21 says this famous story. Remember, Peter came up to him and said, lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. And Jesus said to him, I did not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven.
Is Jesus saying, keep an exact count. When you hit 490, you’re done? No, he’s basically saying, keep on going. You have an unlimited well of forgiveness. Mark 11:25.
Jesus links this very clearly that forgiveness and prayer are connected. It says, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father, who is also in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. You have unresolved forgiveness, and you might have some problems in your prayer life. See, we forgive every time because we have been forgiven from everything. Ephesians 4:32 says, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
We as Christians should be forgiven forgivers go. And since we know what forgiveness looks like, we should be forgiving. CS Lewis put it this way. He said, to be a Christian means to forgive the inexpensive inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us. So you may have noticed something interesting.
I used to plant a garden. I had a garden in my house. And when my wife and I first moved to North Carolina, way back when, we lived in a little apartment in Goldsboro, right off Caswell. It’s still there. It’s kind of dumpy now, but, you know, it’s been a long time the back porch had a little dirt area.
It was probably two by eight. And I was thinking, you know what? I’m gonna have couple a garden two by eight, little plot of dirt. So we got some tomato plants and some cucumbers. And if you ever planted cucumbers, you know, they run.
So I put them up the fence, and they crawled up the fence and had these gargantuan cucumbers and, you know, tomatoes grew. And I was pretty happy about that. You know, there’s one thing I noticed, though. I never saw broccoli grow out of a tomato plant, right? You plant tomato seeds, you get tomatoes, you plant cucumber seeds, you.
You get cucumbers, okay? Why is it then that we should be shocked by what Jesus is saying here? By his expectation that those who have been forgiven would then forgive? See, Jesus Christ planted that seed of forgiveness in you. Why is bitterness popping out?
Why is anger coming out? Why is revenge or hostility the fruit of that seed that he planted in you? Did you forget to water it? See, a lack of forgiveness does not condemn us to hell. You’re not going to lose your salvation by not forgiving, but it does hinder your fellowship with the Father.
See, one of his key attributes is forgiveness. In Jesus Christ, his attributes are planted, cultivated, and produce the fruit in our lives. When we withhold that forgiveness, we reject that fruit that he gave us. We offend Him. See, we have been forgiven for a lifetime of lies and addiction and adultery and lust and murder and all of these things that we couldn’t forgive in others.
We reject that fruit so many times when we hold on to that seed of bitterness. Don’t reject that fruit, please. God has forgiven you. Forgive it. Cultivate it.
Practice forgiveness. Let that fruit free flow of prayer continue. Let you and your life be a beacon of forgiveness because you know what Jesus paid for to forgive you. Jesus desires for us to have a consistent, intimate and purposeful relationship with each one of us. He’s also given us guidance here on how to make this relationship with Him.
See, our Father is not this from us. He’s not hiding from us when we pray. But he is deeply engaged and he wants relationship with you. He wants you to pray with thoughtfulness, with purpose, and with forgiveness. So let’s pray now to our Father, Heavenly Father, as I approach you and I get to come to you as one of your kids, yes, I want ice cream all the time, too.
But Father, I want to acknowledge just who you are. You’re the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and you are great and mighty to be praised. And so Father, I pray for your will to be done in this church, in these people, to go and do great things for Jesus and make him famous here in eastern North Carolina. Father, I also acknowledge that there may be some that are here within the sound of my voice that have never accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life. And friend, if that’s you, would you just pray with me right now?
And you don’t have to use these words, but pray in your heart along with me. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would forgive me of my sins as you have that infinite well of forgiveness as you paid for my sins on the cross. I pray that you would accept me, Father, that I invite you into my life as Lord and Savior. Forgive me friend, if you prayed something as simple as that you have been forgiven. Jesus forgives you.
It’s not me, it’s Jesus that forgives you. And the Holy Spirit’s working in you. There may be others that have heard the message today and have heard what the Father has got for you, that the Spirit’s been working. And maybe you feel convicted about your prayer life. But let me offer encouragement to you, Father.
Come into these, these friends of mine, come into their hearts, come into their lives, make yourself real to them. I pray for their prayer lives that it would be real, that you would be present in their lives. That if there’s a root of bitterness or there’s undealt with forgiveness, that needs to happen. Father, I pray that you would seek that out and that you would work in their lives. That that, Father, that we would not use meaningless words.
That we would pray with purpose. That we would reenergize our prayer life. And although most of us feel like we will never be great at prayer, Father, I pray that you would help us in this. And I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
Read transcript
Good morning. How’s everybody this morning? Y’ all doing well? So thankful you’re here. You’ve arrived in the middle of a series, but I have good news for you.
This is Jesus just going from topic to topic in a series that we’ve entitled the Sermon on the Mount. But our sermon series here at the church is Kingdom Living. Because the Sermon on the Mount is all about what it looks like to be Kingdom citizens, be a part of what God’s up to, even on this earth. And so we find this scripture in Matthew chapter 5 through chapter 7, where Jesus preaches one of the most powerful sermons ever preached. And in today’s Scripture, we’re gonna be studying some very practical teachings on prayer.
This might be one of the passages in scripture that you’re more familiar with than just about any other of any scripture in the text. In fact, I remember growing up for football games, even wrestling, stuff like. Like all the sports we did. For some reason, we would drop the Lord’s Prayer in the midst of all that. I, to this day, don’t know exactly why we did that, but it would really get people pumped up.
And thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, and then let’s go tackle people. I don’t know. Never made a lot of sense, but it did get us fired up. And so you may have heard this text before, but I bet today you’re gonna have that. The Lord’s gonna reveal something new.
I pray as I studied it this week, I saw some new things, in fact, asked some new questions that I think is very helpful as you study the Word of God. Because this idea of prayer, this topic is one of the biggest maybe wrestling points in your life that in some way the idea of prayer or the attitude of prayer, even the activity of prayer, is kind of difficult at times. As someone who’s been discipled by others and has discipled other people, I know that prayer is one of perhaps the hardest fault disciplines in a person’s life. It just is. And let me just say I believe there’s a reason for this.
There’s a reason. It’s one of the hardest fault disciplines. It’s because if God’s people are intimately fellowshipping with their heavenly Father, that would be an extremely powerful force for the Gospel, a very powerful force for good. And I can promise you this. Any evil adversary would certainly oppose that.
Your discipline of prayer. The better you get to know God and are in relationship with him, the more dangerous you are. And that’s a thing I can guarantee you. You will always find is hard fought. Are you fighting a battle in your prayer life?
I bet a lot of you are. Sometimes it can be hard just to make time to pray. It just seems like you’re too busy. It can be hard to know what to pray, how to pray. It can be difficult for some of us just to be quiet for a while and to be quiet with our own thoughts.
There’s a place that some of you really don’t want to go is to just get silent with yourself. It can be difficult to talk to God. Are you battling in your prayer life? I think every single one of us in the room is waging war right here, this fight in our prayer life. But I want to assure you of something, that God speaks in those secret places and the God who speaks there has overcome the world.
It would be worth it for you to overcome a hundred obstacles to get into the throne room of God again and press in and be in the presence of the King of the universe. It’s worth it. Here’s the good news though. The study we’re going to have today as we dig into this passage from Jesus is here. Christ is here removing some of those obstacles, and he’s guiding us right there into the throne room.
So I pray you can walk in with me today as we dig into Matthew chapter six, that we can walk into the throne room of God together. In Matthew 6, Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount here. He taught the crowd how to pray as citizens of the kingdom of God. And we can learn this too. We can learn from what Christ told them 2,000 years ago.
The text gives three ways to pray as kingdom citizens. So here we go. Let’s read together these few verses. Matthew, chapter 6, verse 7 through 15.
But when you pray. Excuse me, I picked up at 6. Let’s pick up at 7. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard. For their many words, do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need.
Before you ask him, Pray then, like this. This part might be familiar to you. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. This is God’s word. Amen.
Glad you can say amen to that last little nugget. That last little piece was a little scary, a little spooky, and we’re going to deal with that together. Don’t worry. So how do we pray as citizens of God’s kingdom? What does it look like to pray as God has instructed?
What does it look like to pray like Jesus? Well, first off, we ought to pray with thoughtfulness, that our prayers should be meaningful, they should be mindful, they should be thoughtful. This is where Jesus begins. I think this is important. All right, let me just say the fact that Jesus starts with what not to do before he tells us what to do is a good father.
All right, just for a moment as a parent, those parents in the room, you know, there are certain times where you just have to tell them the things not to do first. All right, hey, we’re about to go mow together. Here’s what you ought not to do, my son, right? You’re about to weed eat for the first time. You don’t do this, this, and this, or it’s gonna hurt a lot.
Hey, we’re gonna cook together. Daughter, son, we’re gonna cook together. Don’t touch this. Don’t put this and this. Otherwise you’re gonna ruin the food.
This is good. This is good parenting. Let’s start with what not to do and then get into the fun stuff about what to do. So he begins this section with literally, do not do this and do not be like this, them. He begins with prayer.
This idea of praying earnestly and for the first century Jew. I just want to give you a little bit of background about what they may be dealing with when they’re hearing this from Jesus. The first century Jewish man or woman was expected to pray the Shema each morning and evening. They had a habit, a ritual of praying every morning and evening. This specific prayer.
There were prayers for each meal. There were prayers at the site of a miracle. There were prayers when you received good news and another one when you receive bad news. There were two prayers you were supposed to pray when you enter a town and two prayers when leaving the town. They were expected to pray this thing called the tefillah.
These are these 18 benedictions. They were supposed to do that three times a day at prescribed times. So just know that these people, if they were really being obedient to their faith, they were praying a lot. And some of it was very repetitive. Now, I’m not knocking the repetition of certain prayers.
That can be very helpful. At times. But Jesus is looking at this going, I want you all to be aware there’s some problems here. There’s some problems in vain repetition. He says, I don’t want you to be like the Gentiles.
What he means, this is the word ethnos. It’s where we get ethnic. It means literally nations. But what he’s speaking of here is, I don’t want you to be like those outside of the faith of God. I don’t want you to be like those outside of our faith who pray to all kinds of gods and pray non stop, pointless.
Countless prayers with many words. He says in verse seven, verse seven, he says, you’re heaping up empty phrases with many words. In fact, the word here in the Greek is hilarious. The word for heap up empty phrases is just one word. It’s the word.
You can keep this if you want to sound smart at your workplace. It’s batalageo. Batalageo. That’s fun to say. I like words.
I’m weird. But anyway, this comes from the combination of two words, batus and logeo. Logos. You may have heard logos before. It means word.
It’s thought. Logos is a very common word in the Greek, but batus is actually a name. So this word actually comes from some guy’s name that had a stuttering problem. This is awesome, y’ all. Like, they’re picking on people right here in the first century.
This is fun. So Batala Gago is about this poor king of Cyrene who is said to have stuttered. So they made a whole word about him. Or it possibly could have been about this author, also named Batus, who was known for making tedious and wordy poems. So it’s either a guy who stutters a lot or a guy who writes way too many words for poetry.
Either way, the meaning is this, that you just are just praying. A bunch of nonsense, lots of words. Maybe stammering. He says, don’t be like the nations who do this. Okay, so maybe right now you’re feeling a certain way about this.
You’re like, I’m thinking about my prayer life. And sometimes, sometimes I’m a little long winded. Look, just wrestle with this for a minute, okay? Don’t check out on me. He says, don’t pray like the nations who pray with many words.
They think, but by being prolific, by saying a lot, that God will hear them. This is how the world acts when they think about God. If I say enough, if I say it loud enough, if I scream it, if I cut Myself, if I do this kind of stuff, God or gods will hear me. This is what Jesus is speaking to. In fact, I thought of this story and I want to share it just a moment with you.
1 Kings, chapter 18, it says, the prophets of Baal here have gathered around an altar. This is a great story. Go back and read it. In First Kings, chapter 18, the prophets of Baal, they are many, and they’ve gathered around the altar and they’re trying to get God, or in this case baal, to call down fire on the altar. And here’s what it says in chapter 18, verse 26.
It says, they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of BAAL from morning until noon, so many hours, saying, o baal, answer us. But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped around the altar they had made. It goes on. It says they cut themselves and poured out blood on it, thinking that that would make him move.
And Elijah here is a comedian. This is why this passage is so fun. He says to them something along these lines, well, maybe your God’s asleep, or maybe he’s relieving himself, your God. Y’ all thought the Bible was just PG all the time. It’s wild, it’s wild.
He says. Maybe he’s not. Maybe if you pray a little harder, he’ll start listening. I mean, Elijah starts tossing some stuff their way. And then if you read this story, you’ll find Elijah does a simple prayer because he knows the real, one true God.
And God just absolutely shows up. Go back and read that story. But this is, I think, part of what Christ is talking about here, that you can pray, pray, pray. But the question is, do you know the Father? Don’t pray like the nations who do not know Him.
Pray to the Father who knows. Now, this brings up an interesting thought, because he goes on to say in this passage, in fact, I just read this, that your Father already knows what you need before you even ask him. And so what’s the question that you might ask of that then? Why do I have to ask him at all? What is the game we’re playing here, God?
In fact, if he knows already, why am I struggling so much to try to figure out how to clarify this? In fact, Paul writes to the Roman Church in chapter eight. He says, likewise, the very Holy Spirit help helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who Searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
So this wild thing is occurring where? In Christ Jesus. I don’t always know what to pray, but the Holy Spirit within me is helping and interceding for me, and God already knows what I need.
This is kind of fascinating and confusing. It seems like to some degree Jesus is quoting. I found this passage this week. I had never made the connection before here, but I think there’s a connection here with Ecclesiastes chapter 5, where the prophet here writes, be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few, for a dream comes with busyness and a fool’s voice with many words.
So, okay, so the way I’m supposed to pray, if I understand this right, Jonathan, what you’re trying to say is I’m supposed to pray in such a way that I know the Father and I believe that he already knows when I’m praying. Yes, you’re getting there. In fact, prayer, this is an important thing to know. When you pray, you’re not the first one to inform God of something.
It’s not like God’s up there going, you’re kidding me. You’re kidding me. Your daughter’s not feeling well. I had no idea. This is not the God of the universe, the omniscient, omnipresent, all powerful God.
That’s not the God we serve. He already knows. So what’s the point? Why do I pray if God’s not up there going, holy cow, you’re kidding me. No, I like what a couple of commentators write on this.
This one’s quite an old commentator here, John Calvin writes, if God knows what things we have need of before we ask him, where lies the advantage of prayer? Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary. Then we pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom. So what we’re actually doing then is getting to know the Father and getting on the same page.
I like what this other writer says a little more succinctly. He says, prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery, to Humble his heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, and to raise his soul from earth to heaven. So what’s Jesus on about here then? He’s teaching us something very important about prayer here. Prayer is getting to know the Father’s heart.
Prayer isn’t about informing him of something as if he didn’t know he knows. It’s getting on the same page with him. It’s about getting excited about what God’s excited about already. It’s about understanding God’s purpose for your life that you’re not close enough to to see yet. But then you begin to see it as you spend time in prayer with him.
All of a sudden a revelation begins in prayer. It’s not designed to inform him. It’s designed to inflame our faith. I love that language. Now it’s interesting as we struggle to pray, that maybe this very first part is pretty helpful, that I don’t have to come into this conversation with a holy, perfect God knowing all the right things to say.
That’s not the point of our relationship. The point is God. Hey, what are you up to today? Help me to know how I fit into that puzzle. You’ve got a plan for me today?
Thankfully for you, part of that plan today was, come sit in here and let’s hang out and fellowship with the people of God. What a fun day. What a beautiful day it is too. God said, I’ve got a plan for you in this moment. I’ve got a plan for you tomorrow.
Even on a Monday morning, believe it or not, I have a plan. And prayer begins the process. Not of me. God, you wouldn’t believe what’s happened to me. Yeah, I would.
I knew it. I knew way before it ever happened. Will you get on the same page with me? Because I’ve got a plan and I love you. I heard a preacher recently say, first of all, God is listening.
The difference between the gods that these prophets of BAAL and various old and the nations and these people were praying for. The difference is our God is listening because our God is real for one, and he’s all powerful. He’s listening. And not only that, he’s loving. I love to hear that.
And not only that, he’s actually powerful, he’s actually capable. So he’s listening, he loves you and he’s powerful. So I don’t have to have it perfected. Jesus is not here saying, hey, don’t pray to me anymore. If you’re going to come in with all the wrong Words.
It’s not what he said at all. He says, I want you to know who the Father is and come praying, knowing who he is. And then he’s going to give us more about what that actually might look like. This made me think of this idea that sometimes I think we get confused in our prayer life about how to approach the Father. I’ve noticed something with my kids.
Maybe your kids are a lot better than mine. I’ve never had any of my children come up to me and say something like this. Oh, dear Father, might I beseech thee to grant me a little bit of a delicious vessel of frozen chocolate treats. You ever had a kid tell you that? Oh, Father, I beseech thee.
Not once. Not once has my kids done that. No, I’ve had plenty of my kids say, hey, dad, can I get some ice cream? I just said the same thing. I want a vessel of chocolate treats.
Never had that happen. Not once. My father was on this kick. My dad was on this kick when we were little. I think he had watched way too much Bruce Lee or kung fu or something.
We used to bow, and he liked it when we would say, my father, my father. And we would bow, you know, or. No, at the time, it wasn’t this. We had to, like, bow like this and not take our eyes off each other because there’s some movie where Bruce Lee, hey, don’t take your eyes off me or you’ll miss all the heavenly glory. And say, my dad’s kind of weird and so am I.
I got it from him.
But my kids don’t do this, right? They just say, dad, can I have.
Hey, dad, when are we gonna get there? Hey, dad. Hey, dad. Some of you moms in the room, I know you got it worse. I know you do.
Mom, Mom, Mom. I heard recently from. I may have seen this on Instagram or something. This mom, every time she heard her name called, she’d do like, five squats. Apparently, she got fit.
So just an idea. Every time you hear mom, you’ll probably do a thousand squats that day.
But prayer is not designed to have it all perfected, and it’s not designed to inform God. What’s different about the way my kids talk to me than sometimes the way I talk to the Father is they know me. They can come into the room with me and say, dad, I need help.
And in the person of Jesus Christ, we have that same access. Do you understand this? Do you know the Father? He loves you. He’s listening, and he’s all powerful.
Engage with him, he wants to talk with you like one of his children. So that’s the first. Pray with thoughtfulness. The thoughtfulness of, I’m mindful of who God is to me. He is my Father, and in the person of Jesus Christ, I am now his Son.
The second is this. And this is where Jesus leans in. He says, all right, don’t do this. Don’t pray. These vain repetitions, heaping up all this nonsense.
Don’t pray like the nations who do not know me. Instead, listen to what he says. Don’t miss this. Verse 9. He says, Pray then like this.
When Christ Jesus the Savior and Lord says, pray like this, you ought to listen and you ought to take, take notes, and you ought to try to figure out how to do this, because the Savior of the world said, pray like this. So the second then is pray with thoughtfulness. And now pray with purpose. Pray with purpose. Now, he’s doing something interesting here in verse nine, something that I kind of observed.
I don’t know if I’d ever wrestled with it kind of this way until my study this week, but he’s in the very first verse, he says, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. He does two almost competitive things. In this one line, he says, our Father. This is news. I mean, sure, you can look through the Old Testament and find prayer after prayer about how he’s a heavenly Father and how he’s Adonai and he’s Yahweh and this holy name of God, and they get the holiness of the name of God.
But Jesus is now saying, our Father. There’s an intimate relationship here. And then in the very same line, he says, hallowed be your name. This is a difficult word. The reason it’s still this way in a lot of your modern translations is because it literally would mean holy be made the name of God.
It’s kind of hard to phrase it. So we still have words like hallowed, which I would guess from. Y’ all have probably never said hallowed in a conversation ever, unless you’re quoting the Lord’s Prayer.
Hallowed. Okay, wait a minute, God, I understand you’re my father, and there’s an intimacy there. What does it mean that your name be made holy? Isn’t it already holy? Well, yes.
Yes. The name of God is already holy, and it’s not lacking of any glory, of any holiness. The name of God, the person of God is completely perfect and holy. So then why am I praying it? This is the great thing about this whole prayer to me.
You start to ask this line of question, you go, okay. So the reason I’m praying it is because I need the reminder. I need to remind myself, he’s my father and he’s in heaven, which means he’s in control, he’s above it, he’s superior, and he’s in charge, and he can actually handle my mess. And his name is holy.
I need to start there. Every time. Every single time I’m in prayer, I remembered it kind of this way. I was trained this way growing up. It’s the word acts.
You’ve probably heard ACTS before. It’s an acronym. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, essentially, that breaks down the Lord’s Prayer. And it always begins with Adoration. Who is God?
Jesus says we ought to start there. Why should we start there? Because that goes ahead and sets the framework of your whole day. Wake up tomorrow. And before you even put your feet on the ground and just begin saying, God, you are good, you are holy, you are perfect.
You have a plan for me that’s better than I could even imagine. You are a merciful, gracious God, and I want your kingdom come and not my own. That’s where he goes next that starts the day in a whole new way. There’s this wonderful balance between reverence and intimacy. We are indeed sons and daughters of a holy God.
He is both. Abba, Father. Abba means dad. And he is also Yahweh, a name so holy that they wouldn’t write it down or say it. This is the God you serve.
Isn’t this incredible? You are kids. A holy God. I’m thankful for that church. I really am.
That I’m not just the son of some schmuck. I’m the son of a holy king, and his will be done and his kingdom come. This idea now, as I begin in prayer, my prayer purpose. Now do you see it? My purpose is first I’m gonna lift up my eyes.
I’m gonna get a holy perspective. I’m gonna start to see my day as bigger than I imagined it. I thought I was just going to work. I thought I was just going to go deal with some co workers today I didn’t want to deal with. I thought I was just going to have to pay some bills today.
I was not looking forward to making the commute today to work. But when I began my prayer with, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Then I began to think, what are you up to today, God? How is it possible your kingdom might come today? And your will be done in my life today because I had it kind of looking this way.
I had some conversations to have today I wasn’t looking forward to. But your will be done. Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. So I’m inviting the throne room of God down into my life that he might fully reign not just there, but here. And the reason I’m praying it is because I want him to fully reign here.
I get it, man. People are going to do some crazy stuff around me. Guess what’s going to happen today. Church. Guess what’s going to happen.
You’re going to leave church here in a little while, and there’s crazy stuff going on out there. There might be some crazy stuff going on in here today. Who knows? The moment you receive your kids from that hallway down there, they might show up and just start acting a fool. But you’re going to go to lunch, you’re going to go out there, and guess what?
There’s going to be chaos.
God, would you fully reign here so that the way I respond is different, that your kingdom has come in my life. Your will is being done in me and through me. Do you understand this prayer? This is the power of it. It begins to move me.
And then he says, give us this day our daily bread. This means I’ve gotten to such a place of trust that I can begin to ask for some very small stuff. I mean, there’s nothing wrong. Church. Hear me say this, all right?
There’s nothing wrong with you having a prayer list of things that are hard, that are difficult, such and such is sick. I’m mourning the loss of. I’m dealing with this. I hate my job and I want something better. My neighbor’s having this problem, like, you fill in the blank.
And some of us are in community groups together, and you’re hearing a lot of these. There’s nothing wrong with this. God hears you and he loves you and he’s listening and he’s active. But Jesus says, get to a place where you’re praying daily bread. I need the little stuff, God.
Hey, today, Lord, can you just help my car to get where it’s supposed to go? Some of y’ all need to pray that for real. Just help me to get from point A to point B today, Lord. But if not, hey, your kingdom come, your will be done. If I’m on the side of the road, show me why.
You see that peace and joy there. It’s hard to get angry when you’re going, man, God’s up to something. I don’t know what? This is real confusing. Give me my daily bread.
I get now to a place of trust where I don’t have to ask for tomorrow, I don’t have to worry and look at tomorrow and go, I don’t know how I’m going to deal with tomorrow. He says, just pray for today. Help me with today’s conversations, with today’s food. I love this relationship that we can have with a holy God. And then he says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
This one I found very troubling as I studied it again this week, partially because look at what James writes. In James, chapter 1, verse 13, it says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. Okay, so why do I need to pray then? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
I think something wild is going on here in this text because when I begin the process of praying about the areas I struggle, when I begin to pray about the processes where I’m led to do something I don’t want to do, I have a tendency to not go to that place anymore. When I wake up tomorrow and say, hey, God, help me to not be given over to anger. When I have conversations today, guess what’s on my mind now? The conversations I’m having today and the anger that I would normally well up with, I just prayed about it. I’ve just been thoughtful about that.
Now all of a sudden, I’m on high alert.
That’s not to say you might not still fail. Some of you have really, perhaps in conversations like this, have struggled for a long time just being lashing out at people. Or maybe you struggle with telling lies or gossiping or, I don’t know, you fill in the blank, you know? But the moment you start your day in prayer saying, hey, God, I recognize this is an area of struggle for me. Lead me not into that temptation.
Deliver me from that evil. Now I’m on high alert. So now when that juicy piece of information comes up at the water cooler, I’m thinking about the prayer I had with the Lord this morning and on the way to work. And I go, I don’t really want to partake in this.
Are those late nights where I do stupid stuff. Now I’m not even going to go there anymore because I’ve been praying about this all. Do you understand? It’s not so much that the Lord himself leads us into temptation because it says in scriptures that he does not tempt us purposely. Pray instead as children of God.
Romans chapter 8. It says, you did not receive the spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption to sonship. By whom we cry. What Abba, Daddy, Father, this is your relationship now be in prayer with him as his kids pray for the advancement of the kingdom of God. This is powerful pieces of scripture.
Mark chapter one. It says, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Be in prayer about this and praying for his protection.
Paul writes to the Corinthian Church, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
If I don’t pray for God’s kingdom to come, will it not come If I don’t pray for his will to be done, will it not be done? Will I starve if I don’t pray for daily bread?
Will God lead me into temptation if I don’t ask him not to?
Well, the answer to all of that is a resounding well, no. No matter Church, listen to me. No matter what you pray, guess what? God’s kingdom is coming. And his will is and will be done.
I have no doubt about this. Whether or not you starve has a lot more to do with whether or not you decide to work.
Whether or not you find yourself in temptation doesn’t have to do with a God who does not tempt. So what is the point of these prayers? If God’s kingdom will come, if his will will be done, then this prayer that Christ himself has given us is about the alignment of my heart.
Jesus says, pray like this. Why? Because my heart is misguided. The way that I think my day should go, the way that I think I should direct my life is confused When I pray these prayers. All of a sudden I hear the voice of God in my life.
I understand the mind of Christ. My heart is aligned with Him. It’s a reorientation. A reorientation of my thoughts with his thoughts. So what’s the purpose underneath my prayers then?
You thought this whole time prayer was about you? I have great news. It’s not. This is the good news about your prayer life. It’s about God and about you aligning yourself with him.
And guess why that’s good news? Because his plan is perfect. His love for you is Flawless. And he wants something better for you than you could imagine. The third and final way is perhaps the hardest way of all.
Pray with thoughtfulness. Pray with purpose. I could see that Jesus says, pray like this. Okay, God, I can do this. Lastly, pray with forgiveness.
This was the part of the sermon that I think I was the most afraid of, because the way it ends is so just in your face. But he begins in the prayer itself by saying, hey, pray in such a way that you forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. This kind of resounds throughout the whole of Scripture. John writes this in 1 John, chapter 1. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
But if we confess our sins, guess what, church? If we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is done. This means when you pray this, you can know. This is what’s happening constantly in the throne room of God.
I have forgiven you. I have forgiven you. I have forgiven you. When we confess, he is faithful.
Then having forgiven our debtors. The reason that the text has it as debt and debtors is on purpose. This isn’t accidental. We owed a debt we could not pay. Some of you are thinking about that, going, what do you mean by that?
Some of you have experienced perhaps financial debt in your life, and you know just how painful that can be. When you’re at a place in your life where you’re getting phone calls constantly from people wanting money, you just stop answering your phone after a while. You stop answering your door. If they come knocking, boy, that’s really spooky when that starts happening. When you’re getting letters in the mail, you don’t even want to check your mail anymore.
You ever been there? I’ve been there. All of a sudden, my phone feels like something I desperately want to throw into some water. All right? And the mailbox becomes an actual demon that I’m afraid of.
That’s the kind of debt that Jesus is speaking of here. This kind of debt that’s like a noose around your neck and it’s hard to see how to get out of it. And everybody around you, every show you watch on TV says, hey, if you’ll borrow some more money from us, we’ll help you get out of debt. Which makes no sense. Hey, if I spend more money, maybe somehow I’ll have more.
I don’t get that. But some of us will get real desperate in a time like that it’s that kind of debt. But worse, it’s the kind of debt you’ve been accruing your whole life. From the moment you first said no to your mom and dad. From the moment that you begin to be just a terror as like a three year old.
Hey, yeah, you were too. You weren’t the perfect kid. I know you’ve had some lately and went, there’s no way I was this bad. You. Yes, you were.
You probably were worse.
You’ve been accruing this debt your whole life. And I know that sounds scary, but we just read he is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse, that is to wipe it white as snow. How does he do this? Because he took the debt himself. The God of the universe has said, there’s nothing these people can do to ever be made right, ever be made.
Just. I’m going to have to deal with it. So he sacrifices himself, Jesus himself on the cross. Our debt is paid. Our debt is paid in full because a sinless one paid it.
Do you get this? It was an incredible debt, but it is fully forgiven.
And because of this, now guess what the nature of the gospel is like in your life. This is the part I know you don’t like. Oh, I love that last part. Jonathan. I’m forgiven.
And Jesus did it. And I know I couldn’t do it, but I’m so thankful he did it. Me too. Me too. Now forgive.
To whom? Much. You’ve been forgiven. Much. Forgive much.
I don’t want to. You don’t know what he or she said or did. You don’t know what I’ve been through. I know what he went through. And it was worse.
Even when you were enemies of God, he did this when you were still just saying, hey, I don’t need, I don’t need that. He did this long before you were even born, my friend. He paid a debt, a future debt of your entire lifespan of guilt and shame and brokenness. He paid. Now what has he called you to?
This is in another passage. It says, those who have received reconciliation have been made ambassadors of reconciliation. I didn’t sign up for that. Yes, you did. When you said, yes, I believe and I need, and this is the cross of Christ that I need in my life.
I have now become a forgiven forgiver. You get it?
And Jesus, when asked in another place, he said, well, okay, but what if somebody’s been real terrible to us? How many times should we forgive them? And Jesus throws this at them. And you might think, and do the math here and think, well, it’s only gonna have to be this. He says, make it 7 times 70.
You’re thinking, well, that’s only 490 times. I’ve got some people that have offended me. 500. It’s not what Jesus is saying there. He uses two numbers of perfection together.
He’s basically saying, forgive an infinite amount of times. I don’t like this. I don’t like this. Jesus. I gotta forgive permanently, forever, infinitely.
Are you kidding me? No. No, I’m not. Jesus is not mincing words here. The cross cost a lot.
You’ve been forgiven an eternity of debt. Now, here’s a couple of things to consider. Cause I wanted to just give you a little relief here. Although I don’t wanna give you much, because some of us in the room, we’ve been very unforgiving with people, and we try to find loopholes all the time. And Jesus says, if you’ve been forgiven, you ought to be forgiving people.
And if you don’t understand your forgiveness, then that’s a clear sign as to why you’re not a very forgiving person.
The association of Biblical Counselors. I found this this week because I just wanted to help you a little bit, okay? Because Jesus doesn’t say anything here about forgive and forget. Okay? That’s important, because this is difficult for us in our forgiveness.
When we forgive others, we’re making a series of promises. Not that we’ll forget, because that’s actually impossible. Some things are so hard in your life, you wouldn’t forget them even if you had dementia, you know?
So what do we do with that? Well, we make some promises like this. I promise not to dwell on the incident anymore. I’m not going to dwell on it. That’s forgiveness.
Number two, I promise not to bring up the sin again and use it against that person. When you said, hey, I forgive you, that means you’ve relinquished your right to keep bringing it up. Now when they do the same offense again, you got to talk about it again and you got to forgive it again. But hopefully, significant offenses only happen once. You pray, you hope, but you don’t bring it back up.
Because that’s not forgiveness at all. That’s grudges and guilt. Number three, it’s a promise not to talk to others about that sin. And then number four, it’s a promise to not let the incident hinder your relationship with that person. So forgiven forgiveness is not forgetfulness, but it is relinquishing a few rights to just keep digging it up over and over again.
You’ll never have trust with that person again if you keep digging it back up. He says, forgiven much. Be forgiving others. And then he gets into this final sentence, and I do want to spend a moment on it. Can it be possible that Jesus has just said, if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses?
Can it be possible? Well, yeah, it’s there. He definitely said it. But what does it mean? Is Jesus here saying that there’s certain parts about our faith that we actually have to earn our salvation?
Just ask yourself that question for a second. Are there some things I have to do in order to earn salvation? What do y’ all think it should be a resounding no. Guess what you cannot do. Earn your salvation.
It is a free gift of God by grace and mercy on the cross. So then what is this about? This isn’t about our relationship with the Heavenly Father. It’s about our fellowship. And there is a difference.
My friends. I like what JI Packer, when writing on this, says, and this will begin to help us with the conversation. He says, the Lord’s Prayer is the family prayer in which God’s adopted children address their father. And though their daily failures do not overthrow their justification, things that will not be right between them and their father till they have said sorry and asked him to overlook the ways they have let him down. So when we do not forgive others, guess what it does.
It breaks our fellowship with a heavenly God, doesn’t break our relationship. We are still sons and daughters of the King, saved by grace that we could not earn and we did not deserve. But we’re going to struggle in this place. We’re going to live in a place of bitterness that he does not desire for us. Guess what?
Not forgiving others does. It doesn’t do anything to them. Have you noticed this yet? I just can’t let this go. I’m just not going to forgive them.
They just keep on going about their life. I’m just offending everybody while you sit over here and go, I can’t stand such and such. And you’re just taking years off of your life and your bitterness, what’s that about? I think that’s part of what God is talking about here. He has given you an opportunity to reconcile in a powerful way that the world just does not understand that you can say, all right, God, you have forgiven me much.
I will forgive, too. Now, that doesn’t mean I become a knucklehead and a doormat and I’m just going to Let this person ruin my life again and again. You may decide at this point, I’ve got a kid to keep them at a distance a little bit because this person is dangerous. That’s fine. But you can forgive.
You can decide, hey, I’m not going to let this continue to make me have broken fellowship with my Father, who has forgiven me so much. The longer I stay in this bitterness, the less I feel peace and joy that God can give.
Although your children. This is the way in which Christ has talked here. Although your children may offend you, and I bet they have, and if they haven’t yet, it’s coming. Your kids will hurt your feelings sometimes. They’ll offend you, but they’ll continue to be your children.
Your fellowship will often be affected by their wrongdoings, especially when they don’t confess, especially when they don’t say they’re sorry. And you, being an imperfect parent, understand this. Your Father in heaven, who is perfect, understands it all the more. That coldness that you start to have for your kids, why? Why do you do it?
Because you’re trying. You’re hoping that they’ll be observant enough to say, sorry, I’m sorry, Mom, Sorry, dad, that I did that. Can we be. Can we be one again? This is the kind of thing I think Christ is saying here until you come back and say, lord, I know I’ve been forgiven much.
Help me to forgive. Help me to forgive. Matthew 18, it says, then Peter came up and said to him, lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times. Jesus said, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven.
Mark 11, it says, Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. We forgive every time because we’re forgiven. From everything Paul writes to the Ephesians, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. I want to end with this story that I hope will help your heart. I’ve noticed something particularly interesting when I’ve planted little gardens in my backyard.
Now, let me just preface this by saying I’m not particularly good at this. I have what you might call a black thumb. I’m pretty good with tomatoes, though. That might be because tomatoes are just easy to plant. They’re pretty good on their own.
I’ve noticed something, though. When I plant a tomato seed, I always get tomatoes. Rocket science, right? It’s just so amazing. You plant the Thing, you start to see it grow.
Suddenly, tomatoes. Holy moly. I couldn’t have seen that coming. Never once have I ever seen a broccoli grow on my tomato vine. It’s never happened.
Some of you may have had this happen. I would call you probably a false. I wouldn’t call you a liar, because that would be mean. You’re saying things that are just simply not true. Never once have I seen a zucchini or anything grow on my tomatoes.
Every time I plant tomatoes, it’s tomatoes. I bring that up to tell you this. When you came to Christ Jesus Church, Christian, when you came to Christ Jesus, he planted something.
A lot of things, but something in particular was planted. Do you know what it was? Forgiveness. You planted it the moment you said, I desperately need you, Jesus. I’m not enough.
I’m a broken man and I need a savior. I believe I have faith. Something was planted called forgiveness.
And what’s confusing about that is that instead of forgiveness being the fruit that just keeps coming up for some reason, bitterness and anger and revenge and hostility keep being the fruit. And I can tell you right now, that’s confusing to the Lord. Jesus.
What I planted in you, I was expecting to bear fruit. I planted forgiveness. Why is it bearing bitterness? Perhaps because we forgot to water it.
Perhaps because we. Yeah, we received this fire insurance, if you will. But we didn’t understand it was so much bigger than that. When we withhold forgiveness. This is why this is offensive to God.
When we withhold forgiveness, we reject the fruit of his forgiveness. And this offends God, who loves you and has forgiven you much and will continue to do so. Don’t reject that fruit anymore, friends. This eternal forgiveness you’ve been giving, this is going to last forever for you. This is how good this is what Jesus has done.
It goes on forever. Don’t reject the fruit. Cultivate it. Produce it. This means prayer time.
Forgive us as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. He desires to have a consistent, intimate, purposeful relationship with you, my friend. And he’s given us guidance about how to do it.
He told us. The Savior of the world told us how to pray. Thank you. It’s not a mystery. Pray like this with forgiveness in your heart.
Pray now to the Father.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us. And, Lord, lead us not into Temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for that prayer. Help it to guide us. You didn’t give us this prayer just simply as a model. Hey, this is cool. This looks neat.
This was an opportunity for us to understand how to approach the throne room of God. Help us to get with this. We don’t have to say these words verbatim every day. That wasn’t the point of the exercise. It was to get us to begin to understand how to communicate with you in a way that would give us purpose and meaning and mindfulness and forgiveness.
God, I first just come before you praying for your people that Lord, you would help them in their prayer life. I recognize something very true, that if we would be a people in prayer, we would be a powerful people for the gospel. If we would be a people devoted to you in relationship, in prayer, in intimacy and purposeful relationship with a heavenly Father. If we had that as a church, we would be highly effective in this city. For the name of Jesus.
God, I pray for your people right now that you would build discipline in their life for this, that they would take time daily, several times a day to talk to you. Not in some kind of road or confusing or some kind of elaborate kind of speech. No, as a father to a child.
God, would you do this in your people, encourage us in this? I do pray boldly. Lord, would you show up in a powerful way in their lives when they pray, that they would begin to see the move of God in their life and that would drive them even further to their knees in prayer again? God, would you show up in such a powerful way in the church that people would come to faith because of the work you’re doing? Dear friend, I recognize that some of you may have come today and this whole idea of prayer is tough because you don’t know the Father.
He comes out saying, hey, don’t pray like the nations. Pray like one who knows the Father and knows that the Father knows what they need. Perhaps that’s you today, and you’ve shown up and said, I don’t know him. You don’t have to stay there any longer, my friend. I pray the Lord is leading you to himself right now.
And if that’s you, pray a simple prayer of confession with us. The word of God says in Romans 10. Nine, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Your relationship at that point will change forever. To a son or daughter of the King Sons and daughters of a holy God if that’s you my friend pray simply with me this prayer Jesus I believe that you are Lord and savior of my life Jesus I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and God I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead and Lord believing these things now I put my faith in you as Lord and savior of my life and I’m asking God would you teach me how to pray Would you help me to walk with you help me to understand my relationship with you all the more every day and walk with me dear friend if you prayed that prayer with me welcome to the family of God where we all say as one family Father in heaven hallowed be your name guide us in this life help us to be a forgiving people and may your kingdom come in our lives and in the lives of those around us we pray in Jesus name amen.
