A Blueprint To Follow 03/21/21

Well, good morning and welcome to New Grace Baptist Church and we are so glad that you could be here today on this Sunday morning, March 21st. Tried to get this out a little earlier, but it's been a busy week. So you going to hear this all almost live to tell you if if you listen to it on Sunday. So it's a little after 8 a.m. On Sunday morning, but we are certainly glad that you are here and we are we have come to the last day of our messages on the Lord's Prayer. Remember our series is called Power praying a study of the Lord's Prayer and we've been looking at this since sci-fi guess the first of the year. So Scott always sad when I come to the end of the series since you spend so much time studying and you enjoy it and and then you come to the end. Sometimes it can kind of be Sad, so what I want to do today is I just want to do a recap kind of the Lord's Prayer and kinda put put it all together force in a neat package. And so the title of today's sermon is a blueprint to follow and we're going to look at some of the principles that we learn from The Lord's Prayer and kind of put them in order and look at the pattern or the blueprint that he has given us now modern-day Christians. We have become great at collecting information. We have notebooks and tablets and computers and books of all time. And more information than ever before and I was just thinking about myself. I probably got over a thousand bucks on my bookshelves and I've got over 5,000 in my Bible software. So I'm really good at collecting information. But I hope in the midst of all that information that we can make sure to take God's truth and we need to put it into practice throughout our daily lives. And this is what this sermon is going to be kind of a practical Guide to the Lord's Prayer you say that Jesus didn't give us a Lord's Prayer as a piece of art just to be admired. We are to follow his example and pray in a similar fashion. And the point of the Lord's Prayers that we can communicate with God. We have been offered a process or pattern or blueprint for prayer that we are to follow on after you go to the beginning of the Bible. You'll see evidence that God answers prayer. We know that just by reading the Bible we see See what God has done for his people who have prayed remember prayer one victories over fire and the air and earth and water it open the Red Sea prayer brought water out of a rock prayer made the sun stand still it brought fire on The Lodges sacrifice. If you remember that the Army's we know prayers in the Bible have healed the sick even brought the dead back to life and has brought about the conversion of many people who were spiritually dead. So you see when we pray we are lying what kind of aligning ourselves with God and he's able to do things through us that we and our own strength would never be able to do so, I think God has left some things to prayer in other words. I think the only way some things will get done is if people pray and No. He can do whatever he wants to he wants to do with our prayers cuz he's Sovereign but he has determined that he will use prayer to accomplish his purposes on Earth. So basically when we fail to pray what we're doing is we're limiting God and what he can do in our lives. So most Christians know they should pray and probably most of you this listen to this. I've heard plenty of sermons on prayer, but the fact is that prayer is not something we learn by listening to sermons. There's a lot of good books on prayer and I have them here in my library, but prayer praying is not something that we learn by reading books. You see you learn about Prayer by praying and I've talked to many Christians over the years and I found that there's a lot of frustration among God's people when it comes to prayer and some will just say, you know prayers always been a struggle. For me. Well, there's been times in my life when it's been a struggle for me to even though I'm a pastor of a church, you know sometime it's just hard to find significant time that you need, you know to pray and a lot of people struggle with prayer and I think it's always been a problem and I think that's why the disciples asked Jesus here in Matthew Lord teach us to pray they didn't ask him to teach teach them to preach. They didn't ask him to teach them to cast out demons and perform miracles. The one thing that they had trouble with is they said Lord teach us to pray now. I don't think that we have to recite the Lord's Prayer word for word when we pray now you can do that and it's a wonderful example, but I think what he's asking us to do he's telling us to follow his example and to say our words with meaning understand what his words mean. They're the best example that we had but we all live in it. We have different lives and in different locations and different stages in life. So our prayers were going to be different from each other but we have in Matthew 6 9 through 13 is God's blueprint for prayer. So what we want to do it one more time and let's read The Lord's Prayer together verses 9 through 13, and this is what Jesus says in this manner therefore pray, so he's getting ready to go. Blueprint 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 forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation. But Deliver Us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. So the outline with in the Lord's Prayer offers, I think a wonderful tool for us as Christians. It's easy to follow it makes sense and it puts power into our prayers. Just think about the Lord's Prayer think of it like this it deals with every relationship that will ever have with God when we say our father. We remember the father child relationship we have with him when we say Hallowed be your name. We're reminded me. We are worshipping deity. When we say thy kingdom come where we remember his Sovereign relationship over us when we say thy will be done. Well, it kind of brings to mind the master and servant relationship not my will Lord but your will be done and then we asked him for Daily Bread. Well, we remember he's The Giver of all good things and we are the beneficiaries of everything that he gives when we say forgive us of our debts. That's that is the savior Center relationship if he had not died on the cross we would not be saved from our sins and we would not have the relationship that we have him today when we say lead us not to Temptation. Well that showing that he is the god and we all know that we make misstep sometimes and we do things probably that we shouldn't go places we shouldn't and look at things that we shouldn't so when we say Just not into temptation Lord guide me. I know that you know the way and I don't you guide me so it's kind of a guide Pilgrim relationship and see those are the relationships we have with the Lord and the Lord's Prayer in 4 sizes them all. So let's look today and let's recap this Lord's Prayer and say a few words about this blueprint. So number one when we think about the Lord's Prayer we want to start with praise. We start with phrase. Remember Jesus told his disciples that we're not to pray like to Hypocrites because they love standing and being noticed and then he said you're not afraid like the Heathen who they just love to use vain repetition. Just say the same thing over and over and over again, but instead we are begin praying simply by praising God. He says Our Father which art in heaven Hallowed be thy name. So when we come to God we come first and foremost. With hearts filled with praise the attitude of Praise should start our prayers. It's funny but it seems that Mankind's natural self-centeredness has no boundaries. A lot of Christians have never prayed the way God taught them because as soon as they say our father in Heaven, they start something I think you talkin about all the things that they want. So what we need to do as soon as we open our hearts to God, we need to be overwhelmed with praises toward him. There's nothing wrong with knowing our needs but we just don't want to rush in his presence with a list of requests before we recognize his greatness. You see when we begin to pray the Bible says to take a little time to worship Him hallow his name reverence His Name by recalling a remember we talked about his biblical names. He's our peace. He's our righteousness. He's our hope. He's our healer. He's our provider. He's a banner designer Shepherd. Bible says see all those old testament names describe God and help us to remember who he is and what he has done for us. So as you come to him in the morning be honest praise His name tell him good morning and thank him for another night sleeping another day to live admit that you feel blessed to be his child and other words allow yourself to be overwhelmed with thankfulness at his righteousness because you know, the Bible says we have none of our own without God's righteousness imputed righteousness. We would just be merely loss centers on our own way to hell. So start your prayers by praising God for making you holy and for making you his child. I look what Psalm 100 verse 4 says it says enter into his So when we come to him in the morning afternoon whenever it is enter into his gates with Thanksgiving be thankful and into his courts with praise be thankful to him and bless his name. That's how you hallow the name of God. You start your prayers with praise. You see everyday, there's something for which we can Praise Him. Just think about the attributes of God praise him that he's Eternal. We talked about that last week that he's immutable or unchangeable that he's omnipresent ever present everywhere all the time. He's omniscient all knowing. He's omnipotent all-powerful. Just think of all those big theological words and what they mean and praise him for that. You see when you become consumed with the greatness of God, you'll start to lose track of everything else and his greatness will make your problems and your struggles seem small. You see get up in the morning and praise God worship him for his greatness and you will soon be on track to developing a powerful prayer life. So here's what we do. We start our prayer time with praise. Well next number 2 we come to this. We start with praise and number two, we pray your priorities and we see that from from the words your kingdom. Come your will be done. So think about this, what are your priorities? Well think about them and pray over them by telling God Lord. I Want Your Will and my life today. That's a perfect prayer that we can start with to him that you don't want to be in charge, you know, most of us want to be in charge of our life. We want to we wanted our like to be all about our plans and my purpose is in my things that I want to do. Whatever the Lord that you don't want to be that way. Do you want his purposes you want his priorities to be first and foremost in your life. You want him to take control of your life submit yourself to his leadership at the start of every day at the beginning of our prayer time so that you will be under his command you say what what are my priorities I mean, Priorities for the life of a Christian. Well, I can tell you what I priorities are and this is a good verse to remember Matthew 6:33. This is a verb for the priority of every Christian but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. You see if you start by praising the Lord you'll remember that he's great and that he loves you and after praising him offer him your life say Lord. I want to seek your kingdom. I want to live for your kingdom today. Not my kingdom your plans not my plans your purposes not my purposes and then offer him your life because we know that he's smarter than we are and he knows what's good for us. And let's tell Laura said Lord allow my priorities to be your priorities and what I want more than anything in life is I want you to live your life through me. I want you to Sovereign over my life my marriage my children my job everything I do today. And here's my life. Show me what you want me to do friends. When you do that, you're living first for the kingdom of God. You see we've all been given a number of responsibilities in this world many of you may be married. You may be a grandparent. You may be a parent. So you have a partner you have children maybe and so you want to make sure that you pray for your relationship with your wife and kids. He's called me to to be a pastor. So I need to make sure that I'm where I need to be as far as you know, the leading the church every day there specific things that we need to do to maintain the relationships in our life and the lives of our children in the people in the church are constantly changing and there's new needs each day. So when I pray for my priority xyrem Ember the people in my life who important and who need prayer so we need to come to the Lord and we need to say Lord. I want your priorities to be mine. Whatever you value on this Earth and most of them are always Eternal things and not temporal. Let me value those things in my life as well. So that's why we say Lord your kingdom come your will be done not my will today but your will you see we pray that we would have he has pry Artis. Well, so we start with praise and then we pray then we pray our priorities well, and then thirdly we need to learn to ask you see the acronym there a s k A for ass ask for seat and K for not. So after praising God and giving him our priorities. The next thing to pray about is our own needs. Now Jesus showed us how to pray that God would provide us give us this day our daily bread. So we are to go to him praying for the needs of our lives and one simple way to do that is just the acronym asked and I know many of you know where this comes from is Matthew 7. I think it's also in Luke chapter 11 verse 9 we need to learn to ask. Well, here's Matthew 7:7 and I know this is familiar to most of you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be opened to you. You see when we pray about our needs. We are literally coming to God. Who is high and lifted up in our hearts? He's the one that we worship. He's the one that we submit to and we are revealing what is in our hearts. You see God already knows our needs but we ask for them because he's instructed us to do. So, he said pray like this give us this day our daily bread. So he wants to be in constant communication with us. He desires to spend time with us because we are his children and I have noticed that many times God will not do the things that we don't ask about and if you don't ask we have no room to complain. So James said we have not because we ask not and if we don't ask we don't have God hasn't promised to give us everything that we want but he has promised to give us everything we need so we should ask him for those things that we need and depend on him to supply. Well, there's three basic needs that most of us. App. We need something on us. We need something in us and we need something over us. In other words. We need close to where we need food to eat. And we need shelter to covers. Those are the things that we should ask for many people think. Well, I supply all that because I work with a friend who get who gave you to help to work who gave you the ability to do your job. Who is it that gave you the gifts in the talent that you can use to make money? I mean all of us can find ourselves on our back in bed for an extended time beginning tomorrow. You see all those things come from God those basic needs. Sometimes we think that we get those on her own know all those are from God all of that your paycheck comes from God. Your job is from God your family comes from God your help comes from got everything comes from God. These are basic needs but it's because of his goodness and graciousness and mercy that he has given us all them things. We can't take even the basic needs for granted. You see those are the things we ask for now. You may say well I asked for Cadillac instead of Cadillac. He gave me a Hyundai or something like that. Well, that's because God provides what we need not exactly what we want and remember what Paul said to Timothy in 1st Timothy Chapter 6 verse 8, he says and having food and clothing. You see that's the Necessities that's the things that we should pray for having food and clothing with these we shall be content. He said just be content with the things that you need not this big long wish list. I think people in our culture have developed such huge wish list that sometimes they're not even thankful for the things. We've already received. You see God meets our daily needs so thank him for his provision of shelter and food and everything that we need and close thank him for that and I tell you something when we pray like that it will do away with worry. If we really get hold of prayer. It will drive out worry. If God is who he claims to be which he is and he provides us and things that we need then there's no sense in US worrying about anything because he will provide all we need to do is to trust him. Things may not be happening the way you want them to in the exact time frame that you want them to happen, but that's no need to worry. God is still in control. He doesn't always show us his agenda for what lies ahead but he has promised not to allow his children to beg. For bread. So God always takes care of his own you see if we were holy self-dependent on ourselves. Our lives our lives would be selfish. They be shallow. They would be meaningless. But instead we are wholly dependent upon God and that gives meaning and purpose in life and we can trust him to take care of us the friends what we need to do. We need to start a praying with praise. Thank him for who he is. We need to pray the priorities which are Eternal and not temporal pray that his will would be done in my life. Not my own wheel and then we just need to learn to ask ask seek and not well now we come to number four. and we see this in the phrase forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and that is simply this that we need to Value personal relationships you If there is a real relationship in our life, that isn't right when we begin to pray God's usually going to bring that to our mind and when he does we need to deal with you see Christians are to be men and women boys and girls of forgiveness and we need to learn to keep short accounts. If we're going to live like Jesus in this world. That means simply this that we need to forgive because we have been forgiven. We need to forgive just as we have been forgiven and we need to forgive before we need to be forgiven. You see Christians, we are to forgive always no matter who started argument. We need to take the initiative to forgive. If if you said or did something to someone you need to humble yourself. You need to go seek them out and you need to ask their forgiveness. If someone did or said something to you and they haven't come to you within you need to humble yourself seek them out and go and confront them in a spirit of love with what happened. You see we need to be seat to be a seat to be reconciled with everyone. Jesus said that if we are praying and suddenly start thinking about an unresolved relationship. He said we bout to go and take care of her to meet Lee. He said if you're bringing your money to The Altar and all the sudden you remember you're not right with song He said leave your money there go just leave the church and go and make that relationship, right? Doesn't matter whose fault it is we are to try and restore the relationship because Christ wants us to be at peace when we come to him in prayer. Now. Look what the Bible says in Matthew 6 14 and 15. He says for if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive me and their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses friends we need to forgive because we have been forgiven. That's why we need to forgive and many times. I've run into people who had long periods of anger and resentment and unforgiveness. And what you'll find out is there the most unhappy people in the world are waiting around for someone else to take the initiative friend for the Christian forgiveness. God says it is always our turn don't matter who stars. It doesn't matter who's who's at fault the most it is always our turn to forgive. You see every morning as you pray reflect on your personal relationships and make sure that they are right as you go into prayer. So we start with praise. We didn't pray the priorities we learn to ask for our petitions and we value personal relationships. Well number 5 and you can probably remember going over this one a couple of weeks ago. We need to pray for protection pray for protection. All of us need protection. Jesus instructs us to pray that we would not be led into temptation lead us not into temptation. But Deliver Us from Evil what would happen each day if we pray that God would not allow us to be led toward evil. Do you ever pray that prayer God before you go to work? Do you ever pray God don't allow me to fall into temptation today because we also come to that. Sometimes we all do things that we know probably not right go places look at things whatever it is you ever pray that God would stop you from Doing that before you do it how many times if we prayed from God's plan because you know strayed from God's plan because we thought we had a better idea only to find that his plan offered better protection. You see a lot of people who fall in trouble here is those people who are solution-oriented so that what they'll do is they'll jump ahead of God and think of an answer to a problem before asking God for guidance and then they'll jump and do something and really is something that should not be done. You see if I stop and ask God to take control. I find that he always has my protection in my he will always deliver me I think in my own life back when I was working in software engineering at Nortel and it was a point when God Who was I found his calling me into the ministry and I was just to the point where I was about to walk into the office and then tell him that I was going to resign, you know, and I was going to go into the ministry and I prayed about that but it's like just God would never allow me to quit and I didn't understand that. I mean I was just actually just miserable. I was getting kind of sick and I had a lot of headaches in and I knew what he wanted me to do and I knew that in the end what I was going to have to do is quit my job, but I just I never had peace about walking in and and telling them that I was going to quit. Well one day I went to work and the boss man called me inside and said well the company is laying off people and Mike use the last one hired in this department and we're going to have to lay you off and boy I thought to myself why in the world why didn't I quit now, they're laying me off there getting the better of me. So the only thing I can think That was I should have quit and now they're trying to lay me off. Well, what I didn't understand was if I would have walked in there and told them that I was going to quit I would have never gotten a nice ever pay you see God knew how to take care of me. And when I was laid off they paid me 18 months. Salary of severance pay will that money came in real Handy is we were planning on what we were going to do and going to Fruitland and moving and things like that. So I had a year-and-a-half pay that I would have never had if I've walked in that office and quit on my own you see God knows the right path for us to take and even though we may not like them sometime. He knows exactly God will take care of his own as you see we need to pray for protection not only from protection from the world and and the devil we need to pray for protection from ourselves. So sometimes we just make The wrong decisions. Well, there's one more that I want us to look at. I want to show you one passage here. I don't think we've looked at this one yet. As far as Temptation goes. Look what the Bible says here in 2nd Peter 2:9. It says then the Lord knows how to deliver The Godly out of Temptations and that good to know the Lord knows how to deliver us out of temptation's and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgement. Well, we have one more to go and let's recap a little bit but we said so far. So when we come to the Lord in prayer we start with praise we Halo his name then we pray for his priorities to be done in our life. Kingdom come thy will be done. And then we learn how to ask for our own petitions. Give us this day our daily bread. Then he says I value personal relationships and make sure they are right forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and then he says pray for protection lead us not into temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil and then finally six Lee we finish with praise again will hear in his again at the end of the prayer at the end of Christ prayer. He returned to praise it's as though praise opens his prayer and it also closes the prayer. So we booked in our prayers with praise. It's a seal we put on every prayer. It reminds us again, if his sovereignty and his power and we submit to his Justice and Majesty. So this week I want to say to you that I want you to commit yourself to prayer and I want you to make sure that you start with praise and you end with praise remember what Paul said to Timothy now to the king Eternal. He's the Eternal God. He's the immortal God invisible God is Spirit to God who alone is wise he is all wise. He's on the honor and Glory forever and ever amen. So this week commit yourself to prayer take a few moments each morning where it doesn't matter whether you feel like it or not. You may feel Victorious or you may feel defeated and pray through this outline that we have been given and if you miss a day, don't don't worry about it. Just move on. The prayer on the next day and if you'll do what you'll find is you'll soon have a list of things that God has done in your life and you will know him better than ever remember prayer is not some obligation or Duty some legalistic church or that we do prayer is a relationship. We are building a relationship with God and don't allow yourself just to read about prayer or just to hear sermons about prayer start spending time praying and see if God doesn't do something remarkable in your life. Well, I hope this has been a good series for you. I know it has for me and Wednesday night. We're going to finish up our series on developing a powerful prayer life cuz we kind of book in Sunday and Wednesday night and I'm going to try to come up with a couple of outlines one that goes with the the Sunday Morning series on the Lord's Prayer and then one on Wednesday night and so we'll kind of have an outline that we can go by well, I hope everyone has a great week and I hope you'll use this blueprint to follow in your own prayer life as well. So let's pray father we do. Thank you and praise you for this wonderful Lord's Prayer and Lord. I know that many of us struggle to pray many of a struggle to find the time and some of us we just don't know where to start Lord. Thank you for giving us a blueprint. Thank you for giving us a pattern that we can follow may we use this and made me draw closer to you? And Lord way may we make the priorities of our life your priorities help us to seek you first seek the kingdom of God first in your righteousness, and we know if we'll do that then all of our other needs that we have in life that you will provide it for. So thank you for each one that was able to attend today. And lure. We just thank you for Jesus for salvation, and for calvary's cross force in Christ's name. I do pray. Amen. All right, well, I hope everyone has a great week, and we will see you Wednesday night and until then stay safe, and we will begin a new series probably next Sunday. Not sure yet, but I think we're going to start talking about the death and resurrection of Jesus well until then have a great week and we will see you again next time.