Matthew 6:7-15

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		$Matthew 28:1-20$

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Matthew 6:7-15

“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in 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 [i.e. the evil one]: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

The Lord’s Prayer is an outline for prayer

“Good morning. So, this morning as you head out when we’re done, if you have a few moments there’s food downstairs, chili and hot dogs and whatever else. I’d just like to spend a little time fellowshipping with you before we head out. So if it’s your first time here, it’s your lucky Sunday, man, you came on the right one, we got some food downstairs. And there’s no charge. We like to do it now and then, just stop before we run out the door. We are in Matthew chapter 6. Last week I know a lot of you folks weren’t here because of the snow storm, and we still had our second service, and many folks listening through the radio. And so what we did last week is we actually went through the first eleven verses of chapter 6 [verses 1-8, 16-18], but we skipped over a section. You know as Jesus has been dealing with the fact that this is all about an issue of heart here. He’s showing us what a real Christian is, a blessed life, the Spirit filled life, somebody who knows God and walks with God. And then he’s talking to different hearts gathered around him that one particular day. Of course with us even here today there’s this real deal, and then there’s this religious whatever that isn’t real, that’s just this religious experience where the heart isn’t there. And so we were at the beginning of the chapter, and we then skipped to verses 16-18, we followed this thread of hypocrisy where he was dealing there just with hypocrisy. And in that he also went into the element of prayer, as far as people who pray publicly but not necessarily privately. And if you’re somebody whose given to a lot of public prayer, but there’s never any private prayer in your life, you’re probably guilty of hypocritical prayer. Because if you’re not praying in private there probably isn’t much of a heart when you pray publicly. But dealing with these religious leaders and folks that, man, when they pray they want to look good to you, so they make sure in the prayer-meetings and out in public they’re praying. But if you were to go by their house and ever be there with a camera to see if they’re a people of prayer, you know, you’d never find them in prayer. It’s a public deal, it’s hypocrisy. While he’s speaking about hypocrisy, and then in the midst of all this, he gives us a teaching on prayer. And it’s just a wonderful teaching about prayer. There’s a mother that was listening to the evening prayers of her sleepy little daughter, astonished and amazed to hear the following, and this isn’t unlike some of our prayers. “Now I lay me down to sleep, pray the Lord my soul to keep, and when he hollers let him go, eenie, meenie, miney mo.” Little girl dozing off, mind just kind of twirling and, and I wonder how effective that prayer was. Probably wasn’t too effective. Although I’m sure God got a chuckle out of it as he listened to that prayer. But you know, thinking of effective prayer and what it is and what it isn’t. You know there are people that I know, where I can even think of some people that don’t even go to church, even question the existence of God, yet will tell me at times, maybe I’m in a difficult season, and they’ll say ‘You’re in my prayers.’ And when they say that, I really wonder what it means. And I wonder how effective it is. I’m not finding comfort in that. You don’t really believe in the existence of God, but I’m in you’re prayers. I guess you’re saying you’ve got this warm feeling in your heart toward me, your heart of compassion, you hear it on the TV sometimes. You know, there’ll be a tragedy and ‘They’re in our prayers’ and you really wonder ‘Does that guy even pray?’. Based upon what I know about his life, I wonder. And so, in Matthew chapter 6 Jesus shows there’s prayer that’s effective, and there’s prayer that isn’t. Somebody can say ‘I said a prayer’ and maybe they did, and there are cases as far as God is concerned, it meant nothing to him whatsoever. They’ve prayed, sure, at least they had this thing of prayer, but it wasn’t something that he responded to. Their voice, their petition, their quest, man, he didn’t respond to it. Of course, again, the prayers of religious hypocrites, as you study the verses we did last week, God even indicates that these prayers are an offense to him. They may sound good, man, they may go on, and your emotion may be stirred as you hear these prayers, but yet God sits on his throne and he says ‘I’m offended by this, this is offensive to me man, the heart is not there. There’s no walk, there’s no relationship with me, they’re putting on a show. So there’s very clearly effective prayer and non-effective prayer. Jesus goes on to say ‘Don’t pray like that, but when you pray, you go into the secret place, you go in and be alone, audience of one, you and me, and you talk to me. You open your heart to me. Now that’s what I respond to.’ Of course as we studied last week, it isn’t that Jesus is saying we should not have public prayer, but again the order is, if you were listening on the radio or here, there needs to be private prayer. And when there’s private prayer, now we can pray publicly. And the Church [body of Christ] more than anything needs private prayer, you and I, in our prayer-closets at home. That says that we have a heart that beseeches God and seeks the face of God. And so now when we come together and pray corporately, there’s something going on in our prayers, because we truly are people who have a heart for prayer. You can tell in our houses and in our homes scattered around the North County. Well, effective prayer, prayer that God hears, non-effective prayer that God doesn’t hear, it’s important that you and I understand the difference. And so, now we’re going to look at that as Jesus now just for a moment in the midst of all this dealing with hypocrisy comes out and shares about the manner and motive in which you and I should pray. A number of times we see in the Gospels Jesus says things like this, John chapter 14, verse 14 he says “If any of you ask anything in my name I will do it.” Now you can just sit and ponder that one for a little while, but that says to me, if I ask anything in his name he will do it. Of course there’s parameters to that, we’ll get to that as we get into the description of what a proper prayer is here. But when that is true in my life, man, when the parameters are right, that’s amazing, if you ask anything in my name I will do it. That tells me that I need to discern and understand a lot about prayer, what effective prayer is, because prayer is incredibly powerful. Well let’s say a word of prayer, and we’ll dig in here starting with verse 7 of Matthew chapter 6. ‘Lord, we just thank you that we can at this time turn our hearts toward you, Lord, and just together congregationally, as a community, and turn our hearts toward you and just consider your Word. It’s just cool that as you gave this sermon, of coarse you repeat these very words, most of these very words later to your disciples, a few years later, and we can read these things. Just as you gave them a Bible study we can get it together here today, you instructing us. It is amazing that you would say that if we ask anything in your name it will be done. That is incredible because of who you are, Creator of the heavens and the earth. And so it’s imperative that we learn what prayer is and what prayer isn’t. We just ask so simply Lord as we spend this time that you’d increase our understanding of prayer, and all the more as men and women there would be that proper motive and manner to our prayers, and that we would be more effective in our prayers. So move our hearts Lord, and speak to us. Holy Spirit be upon all of us, and upon even myself now as we go through your Word, in Jesus name, amen.’

Don’t pray using vain repetitions

So verses 7-13, “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

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, ‘When you pray’, multiple times, three times in just a couple verses Jesus says “When you pray”, and you get the sense, I mean, prayer is part of the Christian life, should be part of it, it’s pretty important. It should be an important part of our life. The more we understand about it, the more you do it. You hear that phrase, I think it’s true, “The more you pray, the more you want to pray, the less you pray, the harder it is to pray.” There’s something about it, and I think it even comes through in these verses that are here. Now Jesus, as I noted, he says, verses 9 to 13 we’re going to get there, he gives what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” Although some have said maybe it should be called the disciple’s prayer, or the model prayer, it’s an example for us. And we’ll get into that. It isn’t necessarily “the Lord’s prayer.” But it’s teaching for you and I, giving us a manner in which to pray. But two years later, Jesus is praying, and he’s having a time there before the Father, and one of the disciples, in Luke chapter 11, sees Jesus praying. And based on the way he’s praying and whatever’s going on, it clearly touches this disciple’s heart, it moves his heart. So he then comes to Jesus and he says “Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray.” It’s interesting in the Greek, the way he says that, it isn’t so much to teach us how to pray, but the Greek is “teach us to be prayers, teach us to be prayers”, or “teach us to be people of prayer.” ‘I’ve seen what you just did, and I want that in my life. Teach me how to be a person like that, that comes to the Father, and has that manner and way of life. Teach me to be a man of prayer.’ That’s essentially what the disciple asked. And so Jesus then in Luke chapter 11, just a few years later says the exact same prayer that we have in verses 9 to 13, there’s just some minor variations. And so this [in Matthew 6] is two years earlier. And it’s repeated a couple times, even for us it’s been recorded, certainly, there’s something here that we should know and understand and consider. So he says “when you pray”, prayer is important. Initially, when he said that, when you pray, don’t pray like the hypocrites, man, they’ve got this show, you know. Don’t pray like that, make sure it’s something that is real in your heart and sincere in your heart. And now he says “When you pray”, verses 7, “don’t use the vain repetitions that the heathen do.” Don’t be like the hypocrites when you pray, and now he says, “Don’t pray like the heathen do, and they just go on and on and on”, they’ll have this little chant, maybe, you can think of the different religions and groups, maybe this rote little liturgical prayer, and they will go over and over and over and over and over, and he says “don’t do that.” [In one of the religions in India and that region, they would write their prayer on this little wheel and spin the wheel, and the prayer was supposed to go to their god each time the wheel went around. And one time I heard of this humorous story of how some enterprising Indian put an electric motor on his prayer-wheel, think he even started to sell them, can’t remember. But you can just imagine, and yet at the same time, see the foolishness of the whole deal.] Don’t do that. In fact, he gives the reason why, too. Don’t pray like that. They think they need to do that in order to get God’s attention, but you don’t need to do that, you’re a child of God. And when you come to the Lord, and you draw near to him, by the very nature that you’re a child of God, you have his attention. I mean, you’ve got this one-on-one audience, you’ve got his focus, his eyes, he’s listening, attentive to your prayer. So you don’t have to go on and on and on and on, like you’ve got to impress him with all your words. When I read this I think of the stock market, you know, the floor there down at Wall Street, just that craziness, and when the deals are going on these guys are trying to be heard, they’re yelling and screaming, and they’re making sure that they can be heard at the right moment to get the deal, and it’s sort of like that with the heathen, they’re trying to do things so that God would hear them. He says, ‘You don’t have to pray like that, just come, be confident, you’re a child of God, and by the very nature of being a child of God, he hears your prayers.’ So, don’t use the vain repetition that goes on and on and on and on, over and over and over, that’s not the way, just come. You know, I think of cell-phones, and it’s not like cell-phones with God, it happens all the time with me this week, and I think of that commercial, but you’re going ‘Can you hear me?, can you hear me now?’. You think of this commercial, right, every time somebody hears somebody doing that, ‘Can you hear me now, can you hear me now?’, and it’s not like that with God, ‘Can you hear me now God? Can you hear me now? Come on, Lord, come on.’ It’s just, I come, I approach him, and he says ‘In fact, your Father even knows what you have need of before you even ask’, it’s like he already knows what’s on your heart, or he knows the burden, or he knows the emotion, he even knows what you’re going to say before you say it. So just come, and come with confidence. You’ve got a one-on-one audience. Now I don’t know how he does it, it’s amazing, all the people on the earth, Christians that are coming to God and praying. With me, I’ve got three kids, and they’ve realized, that when they come to me, if there’s anything else going on, it’s hard to get Dad’s attention. I don’t know what it is with my brain, I guess I’m a nerd, when I used to be into the nerdy stuff. I can focus, and I can’t do anything else. You get me talking when I drive, I’ll just follow the car in front of me, you know what I mean [laughter], I just tune out, and wherever they go is where we’re going. I just focus, and I can only do one thing at a time. And my kids have to do what the heathen do, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, come on, come on’, and then my wife will go “Steve! Can you hear?!” My daughter’s sitting there, ‘tuned in, now I hear’, you know. But, when I come to God, he’s there, man, and I open my heart. I can whisper, and he hears me, I can just think it, and he knows what I’m thinking. I have this incredible thing of prayer as a child of God. So don’t be like the heathen, you don’t have to go over and over and over, and try to get his attention, you’ve got his attention by the very nature that you are a child of God. As he says, he already knows everything about you, he’s your Creator, he knows what you’re going through, he even knows it better than you do, and he knows what’s on your heart, he knows your need before you even ask. You know, I think of a story I’ve shared at times in the past, maybe you’ve heard it, maybe you haven’t. But I think of it right here, this happened in my life, at different times and maybe you have stories too, but there’s one particular time where I think of this verse here. Where my wife and I, we were just getting started here so early on in ministry, there’s not a whole lot of finances, and there wasn’t in this phase of our life. And so we were having one of these seasons, and it was a particular day where the refrigerator was essentially empty and there is no food and we’re not sure what we’re going to do here. Because we’re working full-time to do this radio thing, and there’s a little church going, and there’s no money. And my wife was struggling with it that particular day, and then I was struggling, and so it wasn’t a really pretty day in our house. Hope our neighbors didn’t hear, just struggling. Well, as the afternoon wore on, and I was feeling convicted about our attitudes, mumbling and grumbling because the refrigerator’s empty, and this isn’t very pretty. And I was realizing, God is good to me, it’s a faith issue I’m struggling with right now. So we had an office up in the front of our house, by the front door, and I said to my wife, ‘Let’s go pray, what we need to do is just pray, OK, enough of this.’ So we went up into the office, and we have a futon couch, a little deal, and so we got on our knees, and I couldn’t even ask for food, I needed to get my heart right, so I began to pray, ‘Lord’, I even mentioned it to my wife as we were getting ready to pray, this is it, ‘Lord, what we need is faith, and we know, forgive us, it’s a faith thing right now, we’re just not trusting you’, and I’m just starting to pray and there’s a knock on the door, and I actually got irritated, you know, I’m trying to get my heart right, and now God’s letting me be interrupted, you know what I mean [laughter]. I finally got to this point. So, I’m irritated, I walk over to the door, open the door, there’s this guy standing there with a box on his shoulder, I’ve never seen the guy before. He hands me the box, I take this big box, he says ‘I got to go, van’s waiting.’ ‘OK, see yah.’ Got a box. I now go back to the office, I lay this box on the floor, and there’s my wife, and we open it up, and it’s filled with food. Didn’t even know who the guy was. Well that man was Ron Millet, and later, probably a year or two later he started to come to our church, and then I learned his side of the story. What happened was he was at another church at the time, and they were putting together boxes of food and just being a blessing for people in their church who were in need. And they put these boxes together, got the van loaded, but then there was still stuff left over sitting on the floor, and he says ‘What shall I do with this, Lord?’ So he decided ‘I’m just going to put it in a box, and who knows, God will just lead us.’ So he puts it in the box, puts it in the van, they go around, they do all these deliveries, blessing different families in their church, get done. I guess they were probably listening to the radio station at the time, and he’s talking to his wife ‘What should we do with this?’. Well, here’s the radio, let’s figure out who these people are and let’s go bless them, why not. I don’t know how they got our address, but at the very moment I’m down on me knees, we’ve got this issue of food, that very instant, God already knows what I was going to ask, they knocked on the door right at that instant. And all the way God orchestrated that. You have stories I’m sure. But you know that’s God, that’s who we’re going up before when we’re coming to him to pray. He just knows, he loves you so much, you know, he wants you to draw near to him, and here he is. You’ve got his attention as a child of God. So, when you pray, you don’t need to do all the repetitive stuff, just come, come sincerely.

Balance Scripture, it’s OK to repeat a prayer

Although we need to balance Scripture too. He’s not saying that you should never repeat a prayer either. Some will read this text and say ‘You know, you say it once, say it in faith. If you come back and say it again, you’re not praying in faith, clearly. You’ve said it once, you’re done.’ That may be true in some instances, you may feel led, ‘I’ve already prayed, and I just feel peace at that.’ But there is a place to repeat prayers. Jesus did it in the Garden of Gethsemane, he says the same prayer over again three times, or a couple times. [And that was an hour-long prayer each time he prayed it.] Paul said to the church of God in Corinth, he says “Three times I asked God to take away this thorn.” I mean three times he repeated the prayer. You can repeat prayers. But he’s speaking of the heart. There’s the vain repetition where you’re just trying to get God’s attention. There’s then the other prayer where you’re like ‘Lord’, and you’re back the next day ‘Lord, I have this burden’, and you’re just drawing near to him, and sincerely laying your heart before him. And that’s beautiful. In fact, later when Jesus teaches this very same prayer we’re going to look at, you know, the Lord’s prayer, to the disciples two years later, in Luke chapter 11 he shares this prayer, and the very next point he makes, is that story, the parable of the man with the persistent neighbor. He says, going on about prayer, you know ‘If you’re in your house, your neighbor comes over, knocks on the door in the middle of the night and he needed some bread, you know, you’re probably going to go ‘Leave me alone, dude.’ But, if the guy keeps knocking and banging on the door, you’re eventually, you want to go to sleep, you’re gonna get some bread and go ‘Here! Here’s the bread!’. And then Jesus says, ‘When you’re persistent in prayer, God responds.’ So he’s not saying not to repeat a prayer. There may be prayers you’ve been praying about for a long time, I’ve been praying for certain members of my family to come to Christ forever. You know, it seems like forever, but kind of an exaggeration, but over and over, I’ve prayed it so many times, and I’m not going to stop. And that’s not what he’s referring to here. But it’s the vain repetition. What’s amazing to me, is we’re going to come to the Lord’s prayer, is there are some who will take this prayer, and they’ll do exactly what Jesus is saying here in Matthew not to do. They’ll repeat it over and over, over and over and over. You know, I got the deal, I’m going to do it twenty times [like doing the Rosary], and they’ll say it twenty times, and they may throw in another thing, and they’ll come back twenty times. And that’s not what it’s about, it’s about a heart that draws near to God, and talks to God. And so it’s not the vain repetition, it’s the sincere prayer.

“Pray in this manner”---this is a template for prayer

Now, you can pray this word for word, but as we go on it’s not that he’s saying you need to pray this word for word, although you can pray this word for word, but in verse 9 he says “In this manner”, “In this manner therefore pray…”, so it’s the manner, it’s a sense of, this is the heart, this is the spirit, these are the things to consider, this is the way you approach your Father, the way you approach God. [What the Lord’s Prayer really is, is it’s an outline for prayer, giving specific subjects to pray about when you pray.] It isn’t so much ‘Ok, I’ve given you a liturgical prayer, and it’s so imperative that you say this very prayer.’ Although in Luke, in Luke when the disciple asks Jesus how to pray, Jesus does come and say ‘Say this’, that’s all he says, ‘Say this.’ So there’s a sense, you can pray this just as it is. And I do that on occasion. There are some that every day they’ll do that. But they don’t pray it again, and again, they don’t do that. Maybe they’ll start the day with the Lord’s prayer. And that’s beautiful to do too. [Although there’s a tendency to use these exact words in a vain repetitive way, it can devolve into that, and that’s what Jesus does not want. But to use your own words when you pray, and not some set form or arrangements of words. Best to steer way clear of doing so.] But it’s this manner, there’s more to it than just praying this word for word here. It’s the way we’re to come to God, not in a liturgical sense, but in a certain heart and attitude.

God is our Father, Abba, Daddy

So he says “In this manner therefore: Our Father…” Now that, as we’ve noted before, in the Sermon on the Mount with Jesus, he continues to communicate that you, when you come to God, Father, Abba, your Father. And the Jew would not think that way, he would just view God as the Father of Israel, but never as his personal Father. So he says ‘When you pray, say Abba, Daddy.’ And that says this is a personal deal. This is person to person communication. You know, when I come to my Dad, it’s that way, I say ‘Dad…it’s you and me man, got to talk to you.’ My kids come to me, ‘Daddy, Daddy’, it’s this one-on-one thing, person-to-person communication. I mean this is this beautiful thing we get to be part of. He says “Our Father, our Abba, our Dad.” Maybe prayer hasn’t been like that for you, you know, maybe for different reasons it’s been more of a ‘I do this because there’s this guy up there I need to please.’ And the Lord wants to show you that ‘no it isn’t that, it’s this relationship, and you come and you say ‘My Dad, Daddy, here’s the thing, here’s my heart, and I want to talk to you.’ And just as I want to hear my kids, I could be downstairs, and I am really focused, but if somehow my brain unfocuses for a moment, I can be downstairs and there’d be all these kids running around, and if my kids say “Daddy, Daddy” in the midst of that, down the hall, and if I’m not focused on something else and I hear that, I know it’s my child, they’re my children, in the midst of all the noise, I’ll tune in right there. I love them and I want to listen to them, and they have my attention. So he says ‘in this manner come and say our Father, our Father’.

We’re part of a heavenly family

So, another thing to note there is the word “our”. And in fact, throughout this prayer, everything is in the plural, the pronouns are plural, not singular. Now there is I believe a purpose in that, when you and I pray, too, no doubt about it, when I come to God there should be a sense in my heart that I am part of a heavenly family, I’m not just the only child of God, that we’re part of a family, the Church [the body of Christ], incredible thing that God is doing, Church, all kinds of churches around here with Christian believers, we’re part of this family. And true then, when I pray, and I’m approaching him, I’m not going to pray selfishly, in the sense that I might pray something that may actually in the end take away from another part of the body of Christ, another believer, and I might to be prospered in a way that maybe hinders somebody else in the Church, you know, another child of God. So, Our Father, there’s that sense of ‘We are part of a family.’ And my prayers are going to be prayed in that sense, that yes, I have personal needs, and we’ll get to that, and I’ll lift my very personal needs to the Lord, but I’m praying in a way that, ‘Lord, bless my life, but in a way that others get blessed too, and do good to me so that I can be a blessing to others.’ That’s the sense, our Father, our, us, all the way through it. There is this family that we are a part of, our Father in heaven, in heaven, he’s my Daddy, but he’s in heaven, and I’m not quite sure what heaven is like, I get a little bit of a picture in the Bible, and where it’s at, in heaven, that’s who he is and where he’s at right there. He’s saying “our Father”, personal, but heaven, he’s God, he’s so far beyond me, he’s so awesome, he’s so great. [One of the main purposes of this site is to promote the understanding that no matter what part of the body of Christ you hail from, we’re part of one body of believers, with One Spirit who indwells us, making us part and parcel with God, part of his family.]

1. First thing when we start our prayer is praise

And so when I begin my prayer, right here, we’ll see it starts, he says “Start your prayer”, the pattern here is praise. Include praise and worship in your prayer. When you come to God, I don’t know if you do this, but just come and praise him a little bit, before you even go on. Just praise him for who he is, praise him for what he does, not just thanksgiving for things he’s done for you in particular, but just for his very character and his very nature. That’s what he’s saying. “Our Father in heaven, hollowed by your name”, which is certainly a statement of praise too. We were just singing in a song “Holy is the Lord”, and “Hallowed be your name” is essentially the same thing. So effective prayer includes praise for the Creator of the heaven and the earth. I should understand who I am drawing before. Yes he speaks to me and I speak to him, but he’s incredible. You know, I’ve had times, I think of one time, thinking about this year. I was just ‘Praise the Lord,’ I want to praise you Lord, and I’m just praising him, and I’m thinking ‘Creator of the heavens and the earth’, and in the Bible, God you say you actually made light, you just spoke it. And then you said you spoke, and the stars were there. Now I totally believe that you did that Lord. In fact, I believe the one who thinks is the one who believes, and if you’re really logical, you’ll come to the conclusion that God created the heavens and the earth. It’s illogical to say that it just happened by accident, it’s so designed. [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/dinosaurs/dinosaurs.htm.] ‘So, Lord, you did it, and Lord it blows me away, thinking about it right now, that you actually spoke. How did you do that, Lord? How did you speak, and I’m thinking of Jupiter right now, that’s a big thing out there [one tenth solar mass], and you just spoke, you blow my mind, Lord. And you know I look through my window, that tree’s so tall, and how’d you come up with that idea, a tree, what made you think of it? Water, I’m mostly made of water, water is a different deal, how’d you think of water?’ I can swim in it, I can drink it, I’ve been made of water. And when you do, when you begin to praise him and consider our Father in heaven, it’s very easy to pray for the things that follow in this outline for prayer Jesus is giving us. He’s so awesome. He’s mind-boggling awesome, infinite and great in power. And so Jesus is saying, when you approach the Father in prayer, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name”, you know, “hallowed be thy name”, that word “hallow” means “make holy or treat as holy”, it’s a sense of reverence. He’s my Daddy, but there’s a sense of reverence, he’s Holy, he’s Holy. And he’s not like in the Wizard of Oz, you know, where you’ve got this big thundery scary noise and big angry god. That’s not Holy. He’s my Dad, but he’s Holy in that he’s a consuming fire, and he’s so pure. And when I draw near to him, I acknowledge, ‘Oh, Lord Father, I praise you, man, you’re incredible.’ And there’s that sense of his Holiness. And that’s good to have that sense of his Holiness, because it has an effect upon me. Because I’m not very holy. And man, that’s just a motivator right there. But he’s Holy, and if there’s something about me and my life right now that’s definitely not holy, there’s now this sense that I need to have a heart-change there, you know, he’s Holy. He’s a consuming fire. [It is said in the Bible that ordinary man cannot look upon God in all his glory, ie in his glorified state, and live. God radiates light, brighter than the sun. The Bible says Jesus on his return will shine brighter than the sun. Well here’s a little solar physics for you. When photons of light originate in the center or core of the sun’s thermonuclear furnace, those photons are at the energy level that makes them photons of gamma rays, the brightest and most intense rays of the light spectrum. A person exposed to a lot of gamma rays would melt from the intensity of them. God’s light is like or even more intense than gamma rays. But a gamma ray may take thousands of years to work its way to the sun’s surface, shedding a lot of its energy, so it emerges at the sun’s surface as ordinary visible light. God’s radiance is more intense than gamma rays, just imagine, a consuming fire.] There is then too that statement, I mean, you draw near to the Lord in prayer, people of prayer are people who are growing in holiness. If you’re really a person that’s true in heart about prayer, you’re going to grow in the Lord. If you find in your life, if there’s a lot of sin that just keeps mastering you and you haven’t grown much in the Lord, it’s probably because you haven’t been seeking the Lord in secret in prayer. But when you grow in prayer, ‘Hollowed be your name’, and that has an effect upon me. There is a statement there of saying ‘Your name be hallowed in my duties, you’re name be hallowed in my thoughts, be holy in me in every way.’ I mean, my conversations, my thoughts, as I start this day ‘let me be holy, you are Holy.’ And that holiness, I want that more in my life, Lord, I want to be more like you.

2. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done”

Verse 10, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So, acknowledge the Father in praise, and then we acknowledge his purpose, “Your kingdom come, your will be done”. You know, he said ask in my name, and it will be done. But we balance that against other Scriptures. And we see here what Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray, he says ‘You pray that God’s kingdom come.’ And Jesus is the King, he’s the King of kings. God is a King in that sense, and he has a kingdom, and I’m part of that kingdom. But it’s all about his kingdom. It’s all about his purposes and plan. It’s all about his intent, his interests, his will, it’s not mine. [Comment: Praying “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is none other than praying for God’s kingdom to be brought to this earth. But Jesus gave his disciples, us believers in Jesus a mammoth job to do before his kingdom can be brought to this earth. He stated in Matthew 24:14 “And this gospel [ie, the Gospel of salvation] shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Taken in context with the entire text of Matthew 24, that end culminates in the 2^nd coming of Jesus Christ and the end to man’s and Satan’s rule over the earth. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/kingdomofgod/mkg1.htm for a more complete description of that coming kingdom which Jesus told us to be praying for its arrival on earth. So praying for “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” also, by extrapolation, includes praying for worldwide evangelism. It would be praying for the discipling of more people who come to Christ, so that they in turn will go out and evangelize more. For an explanation of this logic, log onto http://www.unityinchrist.com/missionstatement.htm. What’s described there is what we ought to be praying, so that the coming of Jesus’ kingdom to earth can be brought about in a timely manner. We, unlike any other generation of man, live in a time that is very close to “the gospel going to the entire world as a witness”. This commission Jesus gave the Church is being fulfilled as it never has been before. (see http://www.unityinchrist.com/evangelism/whyjesus.htm and just read through those links. Also log onto and read http://www.unityinchrist.com/evangelism/excerpts_isawjesus.htm.) Therefore we live right before the time of the end Jesus described in Matthew 24. So praying for God’s kingdom to come involves some knowledge of what we must do, in God’s power, before that kingdom will and can come to earth. We don’t have the power of ourselves, therefore we must pray with intelligence for those things so that we might finish fulfilling Matthew 24:14. A lot to grasp there, but it’s important.] So when I come to him, and I realize who he is, and he’s so perfect, why would I want it my way and not his way. But I come to him and I say ‘Your kingdom come’. Of course I’m also saying, there’s that eschatological statement there that I want his kingdom to come, too, to be fully realized, I long for that. I long for him to return. But on a personal spiritual level, ‘Your kingdom come’, Lord I want you to rule in my life, Lord I want your will, principles, your kingdom, all that goes on, the laws of that kingdom, I want them to be true and real in me today, your kingdom come.’ And in saying that too, I mean, the kingdom, the kingdom of God, the Gospel goes out and the kingdom grows and is expanded [as far as receiving more born-again members into it, those who will qualify for positions of rulership in the coming Kingdom of God when it arrives on earth at the 2^nd coming]. And I realize “your kingdom come”, there’s a statement about the Gospel too, ‘Oh Lord, use me today, you know, your kingdom come, use me today as an instrument of sharing the Gospel and leading others to you. [Importance of doing that, again, Matthew 24:14] “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” When I pray, I don’t pray to bend his will towards mine, ‘your will be done’, when I am praying in true prayer, my will is being bent, I’m being shaped into his will. I mean, it’s bending me. When I go to southern California, which I usually do once or twice a year because of conferences, my wife’s family lives there, in Paris, Maine and Marietta, California and places like that there’s a ministry called U-Turn which we send people to up in Maine and out in California. And what they do is they park these trucks, they’re usually in areas that aren’t very populated, these ministries, and they’ve done it in a couple locations, but they’ll park their trucks, U-Turn trucks right next to the highway. And on the side of the truck is painted “Prayer Changes Things”. So you’ll be driving near Paris and look up and there’s a truck that says “Prayer Changes Things”. I was going out to Palm Desert last time, and right there, “Prayer Changes Things”, I knew it was a U-Turn truck. And it’s true, prayer is very powerful, but I think it could be even better than saying “Prayer Changes Things”, if it could say “Prayer Changes You”. That’s what it really changes, it changes me into a person who is conforming and bending to his will, and when you delight yourself in the Lord he’ll give you the desires of your heart. Prayer changes you. And so, prayer, man, a disciple, if you want to grow as a disciple, you grow in prayer, because, I mean, ‘Your will be done’, that’s a disciple. You’re growing in following him and wanting his will, he’s your master and you’re the servant [not always so, for Jesus said ‘I call you no more servants, but friends, if you do whatsoever I command you, for a servant doesn’t know what the master is going to do, but I have told you…’ And God the Father and Jesus have told us what is to come, through prophecy, which is mainly for the believer]. ‘Your kingdom, your will be done’, so we praise him, we acknowledge his purpose and his plan, and we’re saying ‘Your will be done today, I’m a pastor, Lord, and your will be done right now as I study, your will be done as I counsel today, you’re will be done as I teach this Sunday morning, your will be done as I go to spend time with my kids, your will be done as I go to be with my wife, your will be done in my life today---your will be done, that’s what I want, Lord. ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done.’

3. “Give us this day our daily bread”

Then, with that heart, now we come to the next verse, our personal needs. And so we pray for his provision, we acknowledge it, “Give us this day our daily bread” (verse 11). But then notice, it’s been preceded by a lot of things. It’s preceded by praise, it’s preceded by acknowledging his purpose and plan [and by praying for the very things that will help bring his kingdom to earth, our part of the job, which we cannot do by ourselves without his help---local, national and world evangelism], desiring his will. So then, “Give us this day our daily bread.” In Luke when Jesus shares this same prayer, he words it slightly differently, different tense. Here its “give us this day our daily bread”, so that is in the sense of the aris tense, so it’s in the sense of giving it now, meaning, right now instantly. In Luke he says “give us day by day our daily bread”, the continual sense present tense. So, ‘give me Lord, provision, it’s all about you. Everything I have in my life is all about you, I have needs, I come to you Lord, I don’t call my Grandma, I don’t go looking at the church down the road, I seek you, I just say, Lord, God please, here’s my need. And that’s what I do first, and if you lead me to do something after that, that’s what I do. But I go to you first, I come to you first, give us this day our daily bread.’ So there’s an understanding, he’s ultimately my provider. I have people in my family, you do too, I have people like my in-laws, they are such giving people. And once I married into this family, I get blessed a lot. My father and mother-in-law are that way, they look at their daughter as a little princess even to this day, they just treat her like one. And so man, we get boxes all the time even now, we’ve been married now for 14 years, we get boxes and we get blessings. They come out, it’s like, we look forward to it. Man, all this stuff’s going to get fixed in the house, praise God. We got the list, you know, [laughter] and the refrigerator, it’s filled with the best goodies, and they even leave a whole nuther refrigerator full of stuff, they just bless our life, man. And I’m married to a princess I guess. So I’m a little prince, I feel like one when I’m around my in-laws, they’re just that way. But when I’m in my journal, we just get blessed with this thing, something we were praying about. I don’t go on and on about my in-laws in my journal, my journal says “Thank you Lord for providing this...thank you Lord for blessing us with that…” God uses people to accomplish his purposes. But I look to God, I say ‘God, thank you for being so kind to us. Thank you for blessing our life, we don’t deserve that Lord. You are soo good. I can’t believe my kids pray that, and look at that Lord, man, you’re so good to us.’ “Give us this day our daily bread”, we are to pray for our personal needs, not in a selfish way, very clearly as we started. Not to my own gain, but I come honestly ‘Lord, this is the deal, I need a job, Lord’, ‘Oh Lord, rent needs to be paid, Lord, the electric bill needs to be paid’, whatever it is, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But it’s not just the physical, too, it’s ‘Lord, the daily bread’ in the sense ‘I need strength, oh man, I have to sit down and have a meeting today, oh Lord I need your strength, oh Lord I need the wisdom for what I’m going to encounter today, I need to know what to do.’ All of that, ‘Give us our needs, I have these needs, I come to you, and you are the provider in every sense of that word. I don’t look anywhere else, I look to you.’ And you know, there may be a loan I’ll go for, car loan or whatever, sit down and apply for some funds or whatever, that happens, but yet I’m looking to God ultimately, and allowing him to lead me. So, his provision.

4. “Forgive us our debts”

Next, when we pray, he says ‘Praise him, pray considering his plan, bringing his kingdom to the earth, his purpose, acknowledge that forefront, pray for his provision, and also now, pray for his pardon. You know, that’s a beautiful thing. Right here he says, when the disciples say in Luke 11, “Teach us how to pray”, this is what he says, but right in the midst of it he says “When you pray, come to your Father and say ‘Father, forgive me of my sin.’” That’s actually very beautiful that he has that there, because what that says right there, is anybody in this room can come to God and pray, anybody, right off. This is the way you pray, when you pray you need to understand who you are, you need to come and get your heart right with God that you’re a sinner, and you need to ask God to forgive you. He’s saying, as Christians and Messianic Jewish believers in Jesus it’s important that we are concerned about our sin and that we need to do something about it, so we need to confess it, and then our lives need to show that we’ve repented of it, and turned the other way. But you may be here this morning, and you’re a Christian, and even the last service, we did an altar call, some people gave their hearts to Christ, and we even called some forward and they rededicated their hearts too, some have been way off for awhile, Christians way out there, gotten off from following God, and today was the day, ‘OK Lord, I’m coming back to you, and I’m going to follow you.’ And that’s what the Lord’s Prayer is saying here, in the midst of it, ‘Forgive me of my sin.’ That’s beautiful, that he would say ‘Here’s how you pray, come and ask God to forgive you of your sin.’ And so there’s hope, I mean, with any of us. You may have had the worst deal, man, you may not have been in church for twenty years, and here you are this morning. And you’ve been way out there, and you know you’ve gone way out there, and right here he says, ‘This is how I want you to pray.’ Meaning ‘Come and get right with me right now. Father…’ we acknowledge his pardon, ‘Lord, forgive me of my sins.’ That’s a beautiful thing, that’s a powerful statement. I was meeting with somebody this week, and they were telling me how early on in their Christian life they had a lot of peace, they became Christians, never experienced anything like that in their lives, and they were telling people, ‘I’ve got this peace, I’ve got this peace, I never felt anything like that, there’s this incredible peace in my heart.’ And for various reasons they’ve gone on, and now it’s years later, and they don’t have that peace. And so we’re sitting down and talking, and as we’re talking about this, they bring out other things they’re struggling with in their life, and they don’t have the peace. And there was this sense, as I was talking with this person, that, ‘Boy, that’s the old days.’ And I said to them, “You can have that peace tonight, you can have that peace tonight, and this is what you do, right here, this is a part of the prayer. You go home, go home and get right with the Lord, and you start confessing your sin, and you ask God to reveal your sin to you in areas where its maybe a lack of trust, or a thing of unforgiveness, you just get your heart right with God and confess your sin and be willing to repent of your sin. I guarantee you, you will have the peace of God tonight, because the fruit of the Spirit is peace.” Man, I know when I don’t have the peace, that’s where I go, and you’ve probably heard me say it before, I go and I say “Lord, forgive me, what is hindering my fellowship with you, Lord, and the work of the Spirit? Show me Lord.” And I go through and I start to confess my sin. And I don’t leave until I know that I have that peace, and it is great, the peace of God, isn’t it? To have the peace of God in your life. There’s nothing like it, is there? The peace of God. If you don’t have that peace of God this morning, you can have that peace of God. And it comes by drawing near to the Lord. Maybe you’ve never drawn near to him before, and if that’s the case, then you need to be born-again. But maybe you have been a Christian, you lack that peace, you can get there by getting your heart right. And that’s what he’s saying, “Forgive me of my sin, here’s my sins, I confess them to you Lord. I acknowledge them and I repent.” So, his pardon, and wonderfully, it doesn’t matter who you are, you have the right to do that today. There’s a story, before a full-time chaplain was engaged, individual Congressmen took turns opening Congress with prayers. Finally a permanent chaplain was appointed. One day he was late in arriving, and when the time came for the session to begin he was not there to pray. An older Congressman stepped to the front and prepared to pray. Well the speaker of the House hit the desk with the gavel and asked “By what right does this gentleman pray?” when he’s not the chaplain. Well a volunteer answered the Speaker, “The right of any sinner, Sir”, and so he was permitted to pray. But that Congressman had a right. I have a right to pray, because I am a sinner. And I don’t know about you, I qualify for that one, so I can pray man. I’ve got that one taken care of in my life.

5. “Forgive us of our debts, as we forgive our debtors”

Now, “Forgive us of our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (verse 12), and go to verses 14 and 15, because they connect right there. “Forgive us of our debts, as we forgive our debtors” and then he says “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” “But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (verses 14-15). He’s saying that if you have unforgiveness in your life and you’re a Christian [or Messianic Jewish believer in Jesus] you will not be forgiven. Is that what he’s saying? Well when you balance all the Scriptures [adding like Scriptural passage to like Scriptural passage] I understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross, and I’m going to be with the Lord when I die, because I’m saved. And I’ve got all kinds of issues. So I have to put all the Scriptures together, but there’s clearly a statement he’s making about fellowship. And my prayer-life is hindered if I don’t have communion with the Lord. And sin is the deal that hinders my communion with the Lord. In Isaiah 59 God says, ‘I can’t hear because there’s sin. My ears work great, but I’m a Holy God and you’re not.’ And so if there is a lifestyle of sin, habitual sin, and here I am a Christian, it’s really hindering my fellowship with God. And so I believe that statement is about fellowship, and if I get my heart right with the Lord, that’s going to include, if I want to be able to have really effective prayer, man, what’s also hindering my walk with God at times is issues that I have horizontally with other people. I mean, I’ve got this issue here, this guy’s done something to me and I’m angry and now I have got this terrible heart. And then I come to God, and God’s like ‘I’m a Holy God, we’ve got a problem here.’ [Comment: Jesus talked about this earlier in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:21-24, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar [and this could be the gift of the sweet incense of prayer], and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”] You think of the parable in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus gave the parable of the unmerciful servant, here’s this guy, he’s got a master, he owes this guy a ton of loot, and the master, it’s payday time, and the master comes to the servant and says ‘You owe me a ton of loot, and you’re gonna pay.’ And he says ‘I can’t do it’, and he says ‘Well you’re going to jail, you can’t pay, you go to jail.’ And then the servant says ‘Oh, please, please, just be gracious to me, man. I don’t have it.’ And the master, Jesus says in the parable, had compassion for his servant, he said ‘Alright, I forgive you the debt, you don’t have to pay me.’ The story goes on, that servant goes out the door, walks down the street, here’s a little guy friend he sees, the guy owes him like two bucks, and he sees him and says ‘Hey you owe me two dollars, man, pay up.’ And the guy says ‘I don’t have the two dollars with me.’ And this servant who was just forgiven of a big debt, grabs his friend and says ‘You better pay me’, and drags him off to the jail to make sure he gets his two bucks. Well word gets out, back to the master, and you know the story, the master gets pretty angry and deals with that situation, and says “I forgave you of so much, and you can’t forgive that little deal?” And that’s the principle here, is if I really am seeking forgiveness, and I know the grace of God, man, my heart is going to be changed, and I should be ‘Oh man, I forgive you, I forgive you, no sweat, man. Hey man, that hurt, but I forgive you, I have the grace of God in my life. I have been forgiven of so much. Well, as you forgive me Lord, I also have forgiven others.’ Effective prayer acknowledges his pardon by our forgiveness of others.

6. Do not lead us into temptation”

“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (verse 13a). He says in verse 13 to pray that, I don’t know if you pray that. That’s a good one, I like it man. ‘Do not lead me into temptation, Lord.’ Man, I like that. ‘I need help, Lord’, that’s what that prayer says to me. That prayer says to me ‘I am weak, I am feeble, and man, I don’t stand a chance.’ In fact, he goes on to say, “but deliver us from the evil one.” Depending on the Greek you might get “evil”, “evil one”, same thing. ‘There is a lot of evil out there, there’s a devil, he’s after me, and Lord, I want your protection, Lord, I’m just acknowledging now in my prayer, I know I can’t do this alone. If I’m left alone I’m in trouble Lord. I need your grace, I need your Spirit, I need your protection, lead me not into temptation.’ That’s the heart of what he’s saying, there’s a prayer there for protection, you know, ‘Don’t let me be overwhelmed, Lord. Help me to stand, help me to walk in that victory, help me to just walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. I acknowledge that there’s this battle.’ I’m not just this foolish guy that thinks there’s no battle, there’s a battle and I know it, and I want to be equipped. [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/memphisbelle.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/ephesians/eph6armour.htm for some enlightening studies about the spiritual warfare that exists between believers and Satan and his demonic realm. Know your enemy, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/Satan/satan.htm.] ‘I want to be equipped, I can’t stand apart from your grace.’ You know Jesus told his disciples later, Luke 22, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” In other words, temptation speaks especially of trial. God does not tempt us, but he allows temptations and trials into our lives. And so I’m praying here for his protection and his grace to stand, and for protection from whatever it might be, there’s all this stuff going on. “Oh Lord, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one.”

7. Closing with praise and worship

And lastly, as he shows us here in concluding the prayer, it’s a statement to me of worship. I start in worship and praise, I come to the end of my prayer, I worship and praise and I thank him for all the great things he does. “But yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever, Amen” (verse 13b). So I just worship him, and I praise him again, there’s a statement about his power there. ‘I recognize, Lord, your sovereign control over my life, your kingdom. Lord I recognize your ability to do anything in my life, your power. And Lord, man, I give you all the credit, it’s all about you, your glory. Everything good comes from you, Lord. Your kingdom, Lord, I want it to rule in my life. Your power, Lord, I can do anything, I want it to just abound in my life. And your glory, I want it to shine through and through forever and ever in my life, Lord, your kingdom, your power, your glory, it’s all about you.’ That’s that statement. Now that doxology there, if you have the NIV or the American Standard, it’s not there. And that is just because of some of the old transcripts, there are many of the old ones that have it, but the most reliable ones, the ones that people tend to look to, the scholars, in a good many instances it’s absent in those. And so many scholars have concluded that this little doxology maybe was added, something that was part of the Church and they just added in there. But maybe it is part of the original thing that Jesus taught, it certainly fits, because Solomon when he prayed in Chronicles for the Temple, he has a very similar statement here, as he says in his prayer there. Well, “Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever”, I think it’s beautiful. So, pray, prayer is important. Effective prayer, when we pray effectively, we come acknowledging God as our Father, and that we are his children, when we pray this way we come and we state to him that he is our God, and as worshippers we say hollowed be your name, you are my God, I am a worshipper of you. When I come in prayer, I acknowledge his, you know, ‘Your kingdom come, you are my King and I am the subject, Lord. Your will be done, you are my master and I am your servant. Lord, give us our bread, you are my provider, we are the recipients. Lord, forgive me, you are my Savior, I’m a sinner Lord. Lead us Lord, lead us, you are my guide, I am the follower. Oh Lord, protect us. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, you are sovereign and I am one of your citizens, it’s all about you. That’s what that prayer is, and that’s effective prayer. That’s what prayer’s all about. Let’s stand together…[transcript of an expository sermon on Matthew 6:7-15, given somewhere in New England.]