Let's turn in our Bibles tonight to Matthew chapter 6 and our text tonight is verses 7 to 15 Matthew chapter 6 verses 7 to 15 as We continue to think about Jesus teaching in the sermon on the Mount Jesus turns our attention tonight to prayer Particularly the Lord's prayer Matthew chapter 6 verses 7 to 15 as we read remember that this is God's Holy Word Jesus said and when you pray Do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do Where 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 How would 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 Let's pray together
God as you teach us tonight about prayer how we are to go about praying We pray father that you will strengthen our prayer life that you'll help us to heed your word Father the way that our prayer life is reformed is By no other means than by the word of God and so father is we sit at your feet and as we listen to your word We pray Lord that you'll help us to be faithful disciples Who listen to what Jesus says and to put it into practice? We pray these things in Christ's name Amen With your people of God we've been making our way through the sermon of the Mount as you know and Jesus has been teaching us about life in his kingdom. That's what the sermon on the Mount is all about and so Jesus has been teaching us about kingdom character as he has led us through the Beatitudes He's been teaching us about kingdom obedience and what our relationship to the law is to look like and Last Sunday Jesus began to teach us about kingdom piety So teaching us about giving teaching us about fasting and then giving us a bit of an introduction about prayer and Jesus leads us tonight Into a deeper teaching about prayer And I would guess that no matter how long we have been a Christian many of us feel like we are still in the kindergarten a prayer That we have so much to learn about prayer and Prayer for us doesn't come easy, but often is a struggle Think about some of the struggles that we have in prayer a many of us probably tonight would say I Wish that my prayer life were far more consistent than what it is We feel that our prayer sometimes are Roads or repetition Repetitious. They they sometimes feel kind of empty We might feel distant from God in prayer And we wondered does prayer really make a difference All kinds of things that keep our prayer lives from being as vibrant as we would want them to be My friends. I think Jesus understood that Jesus knew that prayer would not come easy for us Even though it's something that is part and parcel of the Christian life Jesus understood that many of us would wish that our prayer life was stronger The disciples of course they lived with a master teacher They heard Jesus teaching on prayer They listened in on Jesus praying But you remember that they still came to Christ and they said to Jesus Lord teach us to pray Jesus we know all about prayer, but Jesus we need you to teach us more about prayer We want to grow in our prayer life And and that's something that I desire don't you desire that same thing Lord, I need you to teach me about prayer And how gracious of Jesus then to give us In the Lord's prayer what we might call a primer On prayer You know the primer is a primer is a book of first things When you're learning how to read you start with a primer when you're learning some other kind of skill You might start with the most basic book or the first things that's what a primer is And that's what Jesus gives us here as he teaches us the Lord's prayer His teaching tonight is not a command to pray But rather it is a lesson on how to pray Jesus is giving us the very basics of what our what our prayer lives ought to consist of It's the fundamentals on prayer And Jesus takes us then tonight as it were to the school of prayer And gives us a basic lesson on three different things Of what the posture of our prayers ought to be like On what the petitions of our prayers ought to be And then finally giving us a pattern for our prayers So first of all Jesus teaches us about the posture of our prayers And when we're thinking about posture we're not thinking tonight about what our physical posture ought to be Now we could debate that for a long time. Should we kneel? Should we stand? Should there be some other kind of posture in our prayers? But Jesus here is talking about our heart posture How we go about approaching prayer And Jesus as he has done already with giving and fasting and even prayer Jesus says our prayers are not to be like this but instead we ought to pray like this Jesus last Sunday night Begin to teach us how we ought not to pray We are not to pray Jesus said with showy hypocritical prayers praying to be seen or noticed by men And Jesus carries that along in our text tonight So verse seven he adds when you pray Do not heap up empty phrases that the Gentiles do for they think They will be heard for their many words The key thought from Christ is do not heap up empty phrases When you pray The Greek word here is bottle of ghetto A word that means and sounds like babble And Jesus says to us tonight don't babble when you pray He's speaking here about prayers That are all lips and little mind and heart Prayers in which we just sort of keep on speaking. We're not thinking about Where's what we're saying where our mind is not engaged our heart is not there But prayers that they're just a lot of words Some translation you'll remember put it like this vain repetition do not Pray with vain repetition. It's not repetition that Jesus is concerned about In fact, we often repeat our prayers. That's that's what we do when we pray the Lord's prayer We pray that prayer we we repeat those words Jesus is more concerned about vain repetition praying that doesn't engage the mind praying that simply falls on our lips but doesn't grab hold of our hearts You see an example of this kind of prayer in the Old Testament It first kings 18 as Elijah engages with the prophets of bail there. They are on the mountain and the prophets of bail prayed a vain repetitious prayer So the Bible says that from morning to noon They kept praying the same thing. O bail hear us O bail hear us. So bail hear us and kept repeating this over and over and over again so that Their gods might eventually hear them But for morning to noon they kept up this prayer Friends we can have our own empty phrases and prayer can't we? praying that Engages our lips, but doesn't engage our heart or our mind When I think about my own prayer life. I often catch myself opening my prayer With the same line. God, thank you for this day And that's thought here and there Time you don't even have to think about that It just comes off my lips. It's just it's just what I do in prayer That's my self here and there
Think about God think about his character think about his nature But but engage the mind As you're praying it You know, it's one of the dangers of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray the Lord's prayer Is that we haven't memorized most of us at least Right, we we don't even have to think about what we're saying When we pray the prayer and it's this very thing that Jesus is warning against
vain repetitions empty prayers empty phrases It's that Jesus says that the way we ought to go about praying is with a simple child like expression To God Jesus encourages us tonight to pray like little children This is to be the posture of our prayers Direct straight forward plain honest Simple communication with God how does Jesus encourage us in this Well, he says in verse 8 he says don't be like the Gentiles With these empty phrases heaping them up Don't be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him What Jesus does here is he simply reminds us of who God is He takes us to the character to the nature of God to Encourage us in the right posture of praying And people look God I think this points something out to us that one of the greatest problems To a vibrant prayer life is a mistaken view of God That how we think about God often determines how we go about praying It isn't the words that we use it It isn't so many other things about prayer, but what we think about God shapes and influences how we go about speaking to God And you see what Jesus does here Jesus reminds us of who God is and reminds us of this one thing particularly That God is our Father
Fathers know Fathers know things about their children That is what they are like they know the needs of their family they look ahead and see what is coming for their household And that's what Jesus says about God here He says your father knows what you need before you ask him
People look God that doesn't make prayer unnecessary that doesn't make prayer obsolete We could draw the conclusion say well if God knows what I need before I ask him why pray
But the knowledge that God has of our needs doesn't make prayer unnecessary instead it ought to make prayer uncomplicated
Jesus is reminding us here that we don't need to pray to impress God And we don't pray to inform God It isn't as if God is ignorant and we need to tell God everything that's happening in our life You see that's what leads to vain repetition or to empty phrases Is when we think that our prayers are informational to God and we go on and we go on and on and tell God this and tell God that
What is striking about most biblical prayers as you study them in the Bible Is their brevity Is how direct and brief they are It's in fact pagan prayers That are long and verbose And so what is Jesus for minus love he reminds us that God is our father that the father knows And also that the father loves That our father loves to hear from his children a couple of weekends ago Sharon I watched our two grandchildren that live here in Matthews had them from Friday Until Sunday afternoon And I was just talking to somebody else who Who's been doing the same thing and you know how exhausted you are at the end of a weekend like that when you're not used to having a little kids around But our granddaughter she's going to be three tomorrow Um at the end of her time at our house she said to Sherry Ask her question two questions She said do you love having me at your house
Do you love playing with me
Now that's how right when children ask that right But as adults we would never ask something like that. I mean I would never walk to over to Jenny my assistant say Jenny Do you love working with me I mean we don't do that But from the heart of a child We said that's okay Because it's not arising from a sinful heart. It's rising from a sincere heart And it's that simple childlike trust and language that Jesus is calling us to pray with Our own pastor put it like this as he preached to us about the Lord's prayer some months ago our God is neither hard of hearing Nor hard-hearted You see if you think God is hard of hearing or God is hard-hearted Then you're going to spend a lot of time informing God or trying to convince God to hear you And Jesus is that is not the way to pray God is your father he knows and he loves Is one other author put it our prayer should be fervent and frequent But they do not need to be fancy They ought to be fervent they ought to be frequent but they do not need to be fancy It comes as a child or father. That's the posture of prayer What about the petitions Well, this is where Jesus gets into the Lord's prayer and since we had a whole series on this is the year or so ago We're going to make our way quickly through the Lord's prayer tonight But you recall that Jesus opens with an address as he teaches us to pray gives us an address then six only six Simple petitions and then a conclusion very brief prayer In the address Jesus of course teaches us this is verse nine to pray to God as our father in heaven God is our father. This is something new in the New Testament Would not find Old Testament Christians talking to God as their father But this is true for us all because of Christ and not only is God our father he is our heavenly father He is a God who is intimate with us, but he is also a God who is powerful who reigns in glory Before we even get to one petition Jesus reminds us that we are to think about who God is this is the way to lead into prayer Reflecting upon God thinking about his character thinking about his nature And what a transformation this would bring to our prayers if we thought more about the near nature and character of God Martin Lloyd Jones said that as we pray this address we are to put our hands over our mouths And what Lloyd Jones was really saying is that as we address God put your hand over your mouth so that you don't say anything else too quickly Stop here linger here think about God reflect upon him before you drive headlong into the petitions of your prayers say no more Until you reflect on who God is As our father in heaven the petitions Jesus taught that we are to pray that his name Would be hallowed if the name of our father would be hallowed Simply a prayer that we in the whole world would praise God And see God for who he really is that he is the God who is holy and set apart From all of his creation It makes sense doesn't it that this would be our primary and first petition in prayer Because this is our chief end in life We're called to glorify God To enjoy him forever that is our chief mission in life that is what we are to be about primarily If that is our chief end in life then this ought to be our chief prayer If the name of our God would be hallowed Thomas Watson said when all other petitions shall be useless and out of date As we shall not need to pray in heaven the hallowing of God's name Will be of great use and request in heaven we shall ever be singing hallelujahs which is nothing else But the hallowing of God's name In other words, this is a petition that we're going to pray on and on and on and on God may your name be hallowed May it be praised God we want you to be glorified forever We pray your kingdom come This is all about God's reign and his rule And when we pray this petition we are not praying That God's reign would come into existence, but rather that his reign and rule would be dominant We're praying for God's reign and rule to grow We want to see God's reign expand And we pray this petition in regards to ourselves Lord may your kingdom come in me May I more and more submit to your reign and rule so that more of my heart more of my life would be your throne The places where that's not happening it would be crowded out by your rule We pray this for the church So this is a prayer that the church would grow And that the church would be preserved It's a prayer for evangelism. It's a prayer for missions. It's a prayer that the loss would be found It's a prayer that The church of our Lord Jesus Christ would expand from country to country and city to city and place to place And it's also a prayer for the world It's a prayer for the work and the wiles of the devil to be destroyed as we see them operating out in a world And we pray this all until Christ kingdom fully comes In other words, it's a prayer for Jesus to return. We should long for that We should pray for that We ought to be like the early church and praying Maranatha come Lord Jesus come Expand your kingdom until You are all in all We move on to pray for God's will to be done A prayer that God's will as revealed in his word Would be done by us just as it is done in heaven So this is not a prayer that God would let us into his mysteries or secrets God show me what I don't know but rather this is a prayer that God would show us His will and that we would do his will And so this is a prayer for submission For yielded hearts to God's commands This is a prayer for humility that we would bow to the will of God in our lives Even when his will is difficult So this is a prayer that we would submit to God in times of suffering and trial and difficulty And that we would accept the will of God That we would abide by the will of God
Jesus shifts us in this prayer in the next petition Is we move into things that are very earthly Is Jesus taught us that we ought to ask God for our daily bread this day Again a very physical earthly prayer When Jesus taught us to pray for bread he's simply teaching us to pray for everything that we need for body and soul for healing for employment for a spouse for entrance into college for comfort and sorrow for friendships You name it Whatever we need Jesus says pray And of course he teaches us to pray for daily bread not weekly bread or monthly bread or yearly bread We're to pray for what we need in the moment And then we come back tomorrow and ask God again So just as with the Israelites and mana and the wilderness we're to pray for enough for today in order to keep us dependent on God Not too much Not too little Refer our daily bread and and and and this is our daily bread We pray give us this day our daily bread in other words. This is not a selfish prayer for me and mine But this is a corporate prayer For our needs and the needs of others Friends here's the model for intercessory prayer For prayer on behalf of others as we take their needs and bring them before God This prayer reminds us that No matter how much work or worry We put into things those things cannot do us any good We need the blessing of God We move on to pray that God would forgive us our deaths as we forgive our debtors A prayer for forgiveness of course from God for others Just as our daily bread is fundamental for our bodies. So praying this prayer for forgiveness is a daily need of our souls Jesus praise teaches us to pray for the forgiveness of our debts Not for the forgiveness of our debts But I'll take our sins and sort of lump them all in one big batch and say God would you just cover all of these sins and one fell swoop But rather praying for the forgiveness of our debts reminds us that our debts are many And very there are debts of omission and commission and secret sins and willful sins and indwelling sin and actual sins and We need God's forgiveness For each and every kind And then we turn and pray for give us as we forgive others Forgiving others not the ground of God's forgiveness of us, but rather the evidence That we have been forgiven for given people Forgive We see how critical this is is Jesus reiterates this at the very end of the prayer and verses 14 and 15 if you forgive others The trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you But if you do not forgive others there trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses And then we come to that last petition lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil Lead does not mean entice God never entices us to sin but this is a prayer That God would keep us far from anything That would draw us to sin It's a prayer that God would spiritually protect us And preserve us in this prayer. We are saying we know something about ourselves We know how weak we are spiritually How vulnerable we are to sin and to temptation We're also praying that we know something about our enemies We know that we have sworn enemies that are trying to defeat us all the time Our own flesh the world and the devil And in this prayer we're also saying we know something about God That God you were the one who was the power to shield And to keep us and so preserve us and protect us And lead us not into temptation deliver us from evil
And as we pray this prayer then we come to the conclusion, don't we For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever Amen you notice that it is not found here in our text And yet this is a very biblical Doxology you can find parts of this doxology and other parts of the scripture It's also a doxology that the early church often used But it's a doxology that takes us big right back to the very beginning of the prayer A note of praise a note of trust in God so that the very beginning and at the very end of our prayers Our focus is upon God and who he is for us in Christ Jesus And we end with that word a man not a throw away word Not a word that says oh finally prayer is over Or sometimes as we're used to in church right the sermon is over right amen But rather this is a statement of confidence in God What we're saying by that very simple word is so shall it be oh God This is our prayer and we mean it with all of our hearts A high note not a whimper as we end our prayers
Well friends Jesus finally I think has something to say for us about the pattern for prayer Jesus gave us this prayer to pray But I think Jesus also gave us this prayer so that we would simply learn a pattern For all of our prayers In other words that the Lord's prayer would shape Every prayer that we pray in some way This is where Jesus takes us to the school of prayer So to give you this prayer so that you will learn how to pray so that This will shape the other prayers that you pray This is why Jesus said in verse 9 pray then like this he he doesn't say pray this Oh, yes, we pray it But pray then like this learn from this prayer how you ought to go about praying Tim Keller puts it like this the Lord's prayer does not bind us to its particular form of words But rather its content and basic pattern the Lord's prayer must stamp itself on our prayers shaping them all the way down So whether you're praying the Lord's prayer or not let the Lord's prayer teach you how to pray And I want to give you as we close tonight for continuance of prayer For kind of polls that ought to guide our prayer life as we think about the Lord's prayer and the rest of our prayers First continuum is that we ought to learn to pray with confidence and humility From the Lord's prayer Confidence and humility see the two polls Holding them in tension confidence and humility Isn't that what Jesus teaches us at the beginning and end of this prayer our father in heaven Dine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever Jesus is reminding us simply of the fact that God is both our father and our king The kingdom is his the power is his The glory is his In all of this because of Christ and what a difference Keeping that in mind makes for our prayers To not to give us confidence Our father he knows what is best for us Our father is able to provide what is best for us And our father desires to do what is best for us He is knows what his best he is able to give us what is best any desires To do what is best for us I guess confidence doesn't as we pray We're up praying to some kind of fickle God But we're praying to our father who is the king and there's also humility For he is the fountain from which our prayers are answered And his glory is the goal to which our prayers are made The beginning and the end of the Lord's prayer as it were sets the compass of our hearts on true north upon God And then guides the rest of our prayers so That they don't veer off in the wrong direction, but stay focused upon our God Our father our king confidence and humility the second continuum Glory and good Our prayers should aim for the glory of God And our prayers also are aimed at what is good for us and in this order God's glory and then are good Some of you have learned to use that simple acronym acts as you pray Adoration confession Thanksgiving Supplication What is really good of course about that acronym is it begins with a letter A it begins with adoration Just as the Lord's prayer teaches us to do So often isn't it true that in our own prayers we make a direct line to the S Skip over A C and T get right onto the S's right I need this I want this God would you do this for me and so on and so forth But Jesus is teaching us to begin with the advancement of God's name his kingdom and his will To begin there in prayer To start with the glory of God and then to come to our personal needs And this ought to be the ideal order for all of our prayers God first in us seconds God getting the first and last word of our prayers So what is most dominant in your prayers? Is it you or is it God? Is it me? Is it we or is it the what takes dominant position Someone said we can Learn most about other people by listening to their prayers. I wonder what people learn about us When they listen to our prayers Glory and good number three physical and spiritual Jesus is teaching us that well-balanced prayers Should mark our prayer life even when we pray for our own needs So we're taught to pray for our daily bread But just as much Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness and spiritual protection physical and spiritual So how balanced are your prayers when it comes to these things? I think all of us realize that so often in our prayer life It is a daily bread bread prayers that dominate things And so we ask for prayer in a group What are our prayer requests tonight and it's for healing and it's for a job and Maybe for a relationship repair All things that are wonderful and fine for us to pray about daily bread prayers But let's hear what Jesus says here as he teaches us about prayer that it's not just daily bread prayers But it's also praying for forgiveness of our sins and spiritual protection that we need to be praying And so Jesus is teaching us to balance those things that we're to pray for our physical needs We're also to pray for our spiritual needs just as much And then final continuum is personal and public As Jesus teaches us to pray both for our needs and for the needs of others Give us our daily bread forgive us our debts lead us Not into temptation We're to make this prayer our own but Jesus is also teaching us that prayer is to be done with and for others Prayer is not just an individual activity where we're focused all on ourselves But he's teaching us to look outside of ourselves to those around us You know friends, this is a prayer that Jesus taught us to pray But this is also a prayer that Jesus himself prayed Not just giving it here in Matthew chapter 6 But we actually see it throughout the life and ministry of Christ Then when he prayed he prayed to his father And he prayed to his holy father Which is nothing less than the hallowing of God's name And he prayed for the kingdom. It's what he preached This message was a message of the kingdom and as he preached about the kingdom no doubt Jesus also prayed about the kingdom He prayed for the father's will To be done We're going to think about that aren't we this coming week as Jesus found himself for example in the garden of guests Father not my will but your will be done right out of the Lord's prayer Daily Brad he prayed as he broke the loads And divided the fish feeding the hungry crowds You prayed about forgiveness of course having no need to pray for forgiveness of his own debts But he prayed for ours Even as he hung upon the cross father forgive them for they do not know what they do He resisted temptation and prayed for his disciples We think about Peter in those dark hours the night before he was crucified praying for Peter that his faith would not fail That he would be protected and preserved And you see people have got if the father answers Jesus prayers Answer Jesus prayers when he prayed the will he not answer us When we did pray this prayer or it's pattern From his own school prayer posture a prayer petitions for prayer In the pattern for prayer as we end tonight. Let's pray this prayer together Maybe we could stand as we do it and then we'll be led into a him following this We make this prayer our own tonight
As we pray you see the words in your bulletins if you need them Let's say together our father Who art in heaven hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen