The Instructions
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Read Matthew 6:9-13- 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.
Please open your Bibles to Matthew 6.
Thanks for last week.
New sermon series- 7 weeks.
Began the year with prayer- Monthly prayer meetings- Next one is Wednesday, July 27.
Adding to that first sermon series with some instruction of how not to pray, how to pray, and what to pray for.
Read Matthew 6:5-15.
Pray.
Let’s understand context, both general and immediate.
General Context:
Part of the Sermon on the Mount. How do we think about such a sermon?
For many, nice ideas that lead to a moral life.
Let’s look at the end- Matthew 7:28-29- And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
What stood out to people is the authority with which Jesus preached.
This is not a moral sermon- it is a call to life everlasting. Jesus preaches the life of one who is a part of the Kingdom of God. Notice some of what He says.
Matthew 5:11-12- “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:17-18- “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Matthew 5:21-22- “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 7:21-23- “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Matthew 7:24-27-“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Jesus preaches as one with authority- meaning He speaks AS the authority on what it means to live according to God’s Kingdom.
He defines rightly not only how we should pray (or not pray), but the content of our prayers.
This had better be the very core of my prayer life.
Now, looking at the immediate context- Jesus is teaching on prayer, and preaches negatively to give warning. Do not pray this way.
Fasting, praying, giving- There is a right and wrong way for these disciplines.
They can be done in a way that is destructive of our spiritual life and faith. They are meant to grow our faith, to grow our intimacy with God, but can be done in a way that instead hinders and builds walls.
Do not pray for all to see and reward.
We often forfeit what is better for what is much less. Nate and the pink ipod.
Don’t settle for the lesser reward.
Do not pray without sincerity.
Praying is a serious matter- coming into the very presence of God. Would we enter His presence flippantly? Yet, for many, this might be how we view prayer?
Consider how we might pray for VBS today. Consider how we might pray AT VBS tonight.
What does the Lord’s Prayer provide for us today?
1. An example of how Jesus prayed.
1. An example of how Jesus prayed.
For many, we feel lost when it comes to prayer. So we latch on to what others do.
Have you considered that in giving the instruction of the Lord’s prayer, that Jesus was likely giving a window into how He talked to the Father.
Jesus prayed often. We know this in the big moments- Gethsemane, or even on the cross calling out to the Father.
But also in the little moments- He would withdraw by Himself.
Luke 5:15-16- But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
This was the routine, and the disciples would have noticed. It was anti everything that they thought He should do.
Disciples asked- Teach us to pray (Luke 11).
They wanted to pray the way that Jesus prayed. When Jesus gives this instruction, he isn’t giving something impersonal, he is likely giving an example from His own prayer life.
The prayer that is given is this very same Lord’s prayer.
So we would do well to consider the author.
Thomas Watson- “As the moral law was written with the finger of God, so this prayer was dropped from the lips of the Son of God.”
What does this mean for us? That there is nothing better for us to pray!
I’d like for us to consider the magnitude of the prayer that is given by Jesus here.
Martyn Lloyd Jones- “Let us rather realized that our Lord here was really telling these people how He Himself prayed, that that was His own method, that these were the things He always had in mind, and that therefore we can never do anything greater or higher than to pray along the lines of the Lord’s Prayer.”
When we find ourselves lost, not knowing how to pray, or what to say, or what to ask for, or how to address God, we turn to the very example of how Jesus prayed.
2. A pattern for all of our prayers.
2. A pattern for all of our prayers.
Here, I’d like to simply put forward that every prayer that we ever pray should be rooted in the content of Jesus’ prayer.
John Calvin- “We ought to examine our prayers by this rule.”
The Lord’s prayer is meant to be a measuring stick. When our prayers venture outside of what is offered in the prayer of Jesus, we have wandered into dangerous territory.
Dangerous in that we are calling something prayer that is not endorsed and blessed by God Himself.
Ainesis- hand sanitizer
Does not mean that this is the only thing that we pray, but instead that this is the skeleton of all of our prayers.
Consider it to be like sermon notes.
It is the outline upon which we are to expand.
Forgive us our debts- spend time in repentance. What are our debts?
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done- consider the promises of God.
What Jesus has given to His disciples is the pattern, and such a pattern should always be before us in our times of prayer.
3. The gospel in prayer form.
3. The gospel in prayer form.
Tertullian- Called the Lord’s prayer “a breviary and compendium of the gospel.”
Let’s run through this using a passage that Greg read last week- Ephesians 2.
First three verses- dead in our trespasses and sins.
Boiled down- we find ourselves in the greatest possible need.
What do we find in the Lord’s Prayer? Forgive us our debts.
Not help me overcome, but forgive them.
Next- v. 4-9- God, rich in mercy, makes us alive, gives life where there was only death. By grace we have been saved.
If we are saved by God’s grace, then we should not be surprised by the nature of our dependence in the prayer of Jesus.
Give us this day. Forgive us our debts. Deliver us from evil.
Everything depends upon God for our good.
v. 10- Created for good works, to walk in them. The theme in this one verse is holiness.
To be in Christ means to live in Christ.
Matthew 6- Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.
The prayer requires something of those who would pray it.
Deliver us from evil. This concerns our walk. Bring me from the areas of danger.
When we pray the Lord’s prayer, and we ought to do so often, we ought to be reminded of the very nature of the gospel that makes it possible for us to pray in this manner.
Why is it that we can come to God with the words, “Our Father in heaven”?
Martyn Lloyd Jones- “We become the children of God only by adoption. We are born ‘the children of wrath’, ‘the children of the devil’, ‘the children of this world’; and we have to be taken out of that realm and translated into another realm before we become the children of God.”
Point being- the very first words of the prayer, the address to God as Father, is meant to remind us of the saving that was necessary.
Can we pray to God as Father?
If not, why? What keeps us from it?
Thomas Watson- “Though thou has been a prodigal, and almost spent all upon thy lusts, yet if thou wilt give a bill of divorce to thy sins, and flee to God by repentance, know that he has the bowels (heart) of a Father; he will embrace thee in the arms of his mercy and seal thy pardon with a kiss. What though thy sins have been heinous? The wound is not so broad as the plaster of Christ’s blood. The sea covers great rocks; the sea of God’s compassion can drown thy great sins; therefore be not discouraged, go to God, resolve to cast thyself upon his Fatherly compassion.”
Sinners, flee to the one who can mend our brokenness, who can give life where there is none, who can create where there is nothing.
God is able to go from enemy to Father, from stranger to Father. Will you enter His presence in humility and repentance?