Liberty Baptist Church
April 28, 2024 - Matthew 6:5-15 Prayer Pt 2 MM

      • 1 Chronicles 16:8–16ESV

  • Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing
  • Before The Throne Of God Above
  • In The Garden

      • Psalm 139:7–10ESV

  • He Will Hold Me Fast
  • If you have your Bible’s go ahead and flip them on over to Matthew 6. Today we’re going to be looking at what is probably the most widely quoted passage of Scripture outside of John 3:16: The Lord’s Prayer.
    I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those days where you show up to work and you know that you’ve got a mountain to climb, but you’ve also got this mindset that today’s the day that we crush it. That’s how I feel about this morning. This is probably one of the most intimidating passages to preach on, but we’re going to tackle it today. It’s a big mountain, with a lot to it, but by God’s grace we’ll make it to the top today.
    If you weren’t with us last week you missed out. Last week really set up this week, but even if you were with us last week, you might not remember what we looked at. So before we jump into the Lord’s prayer I’m actually going to back us up and pick up in v5 and just really quickly do a recap. If you don’t have your Bible’s I’ll go ahead and throw the words on the screen. Matthew 6:5-8
    Matthew 6:5–8 ESV
    “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
    Now remember last week we looked at both the personal prayers of the hypocrites and the Gentiles. One group prays to be seen—the hypocrites, and the other prays to be heard. We saw that we pray to be seen when we only desire to pray in front of others, but what really what’s at the heart of that condemnation is me! So our context appears to show that we’re less likely to desire being seen praying, rather we’re more concerned about someone seeing us praying. We like to run and hide and not pray because of whatever excuse, but even then the heart of the excuse is the same: me. We pray to be heard like the Gentiles when we think we can earn God’s attention or blessing though the way in which we pray. Whether that’s saying the right words, or saying a lot of words, we think it’s how or what we pray that finally gets God’s to listen.
    But both of those views are faulty. Instead Jesus instructs his followers to pray by going into their room and closing the door. Really, what he’s calling his people to do is to engage their Father when they pray. Don’t be concerned about how you might look or sound or what’s going on around you. We are to be singularly minded when we pray. We are to be engaged with the Father. With that background let’s jump into Matthew 6:9-15 and see what Jesus has next for us when it comes to prayer.
    Matthew 6:9–15 ESV
    Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
    This is the Word of the Lord. Let’s pray.
    Have you ever felt like when you go to pray sometimes that you just don’t know what to pray? Or how to pray? Anybody else relate to that? Well my goal this morning, and the purpose of the Lord’s Prayer, is to give you a framework through which to pray. Having looked at what our heart’s disposition is supposed to be like, Jesus now turns and then gives us a model for us to think through when we pray. Jesus says, “Pray then like this.” He doesn’t say pray this, it’s pray like this. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t supposed to pray just the Lord’s Prayer, which as one commentator said, should really be called the Disciple’s Prayer. We can pray this prayer, but really, Jesus’ intent for us in these 4 verses is to give us a model.
    Now you can take this model and cut it right in half. V9-10 are the first half and they show us that Kingdom People prayers are rooted in worship.. V11-5 make up the second half of this passage and they are built around the petitions that we are to give to our Father. Again, since this is a model it’s not all encompassing, but it does help us have a way forward. If we take those two points and combine we see that the main point of the sermon today, and I think the main point of the passage is that Kingdom people model their prayers in a way that worships & petitions their Father. Alright? Let’s jump into the first half of The Lord’s Prayer

    Kingdom People prayers are rooted in worship

    Now we could easily spend a week per line of this prayer. I really think there’s that much to be said about each phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, but we’re going to try to get across it all today. So there will be somethings that we don’t cover. The first line of this prayer, “Our Father in heaven,” contains some really important, rich, helpful theological content. Last week we spent a little bit of time of what it looks like for God to be our Father and showed what kind of Father he is. You helped me list some of his characteristics up on the white board and Krista was kind enough to make that into a slide for us today. So with God as our Father the characteristics that you came up with were loving, present, kind, forgiving, unchanging, wise, patient, merciful, corrective, selfless, provider, humble, approachable, leader, dependable, healer, etc. You don’t need me to read all of these to you, but in them what we find is a perfectly good Father who draws near to us. Who cares for us. Who loves us.
    But while he is completely and entirely and fully those things he is simultaneously in heaven. Last week we saw that he is the omniscient—all knowing God. He knows what we need even before we ask it. He is omnipresent—even when we hide in the secret place he is there. There is no where we can flee from his presence. He’s omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. He is the all powerful God who is sovereign over all things. He is the one who grants rewards. He is the one who answers prayers. He is the one who has the power to do all things. With a word he created the universe. He upholds the universe by his right hand. He is Our Father in heaven.
    But he’s not just in heaven. This year was the 38th anniversary of my grandfather’s passing. He is in heaven and I look forward to the day when I get to be with him and meet him! But God is not in heaven as my grandfather is in heaven. God is the king of heaven. He is the one who rules it. He is heaven. His presence is the perfection that our hearts long for. Since our hearts long for it do you know what our desire is? There’s really three desires that we see that describe the prayers of Kingdom People.
    The first is that God’s name would be holy. “Hallowed be your name.” I find this to be an interesting statement. Can you make God’s name holy? No. God is holy. We don’t make his name holy, but we can profane his name. Think about the context of this model for a second. Jesus has just warned that you don’t heap up empty phrases to earn or get God’s attention as the Gentiles do. You don’t avoid prayer because you’re afraid of what people might think, and you don’t rush to prayer so that people will see how wonderful you are like the hypocrites do. When you pray like the hypocrites & the Gentiles you are profaning the name of God. You are not honoring or recognizing it as holy.
    So then the question remains, how do we make God’s name holy when we pray versus profaning his name? When we begin our prayers in a posture in which we recognize who God is—Our Father in heaven—then we aren’t treating God as some slot machine in which we pull the handle in which we hope that we win the grand prize. When we begin our prayers in the right posture we are beginning our prayers in worship. We are beginning them in reverence and in awe. We are beginning our prayers with a sense of trust knowing that he is the good Father who is sovereign.
    The “hallowing of God’s name” however doesn’t relate to just our prayer lives. It relates to every aspect of our lives. The fact that this statement in here implies that we are personally responsible for glorifying the name of God by not just how we pray, but also how we live. However, since we are praying this it is proof that we can’t just do it on our own. There is a sense of humility to this as well. As Chuck Quarles says, “The disciple cannot honor God’s name in his own power. He can do so only as God graciously enables him.”
    So church the the question then for us is this: Does your life declare “hallowed be your name”? Do your prayers declare his holiness? Or are you living in a way that says the holiness of God just isn’t that important to you? Do your prayers proclaim how great you are and show how you’ve earned what your desires are? Do your prayers treat God as the genie in the bottle who grants wishes or do they show actual communion to him?
    The first desire is that his name would be holy and the second desire is that his kingdom would come. There’s been a lot of discussion over this phrase. Is Jesus here looking towards the end days when his Kingdom comes in full, or is this a view of the here and now? Most scholars today tend to think that the first part of verse 10 is referring to the days when Christ will return and his kingdom will be fully realized. Our series is entitled Kingdom People because of the frequent use of the kingdom references found throughout the sermon on the Mount. We can look back to Matthew 4:17 and see that John the Baptist was making the way for Jesus declaring, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” While the inauguration of Christ’s kingdom came really when Jesus began his ministry, it won’t be consummated until he returns for eternity.
    So what then does this mean for us and why would Jesus want our prayers to begin with a focus towards his coming kingdom? Well, I think this forces us to ask the question has his kingdom been inaugurated in your life? We pray with eyes looking for the consummation of his kingdom, but what about now. Has it even begun in your life? Are you living a life in submission to and dependence upon the king of kings seeking to make his name holy? Are you living for your own kingdom seeking to accomplish your will and making your name be seen for all that it is? Can you call God Father or is he someone who is far off? Here’s the thing, if Christ isn’t your king, if God isn’t your Father, if your desire isn’t that his kingdom would come and his name be seen as holy, then you are not a part of his kingdom and really, this prayer is not for you to pray. Now I’ll come back to this point in a minute, but if you are a part of Christ’s kingdom and you have submitted to him then praying for the coming kingdom does three things. “It prevents the disciple from being so focused on this present life that he neglects to prepare for the next. It empowers him to live selflessly now with the awareness that enormous reward awaits Him in the future. And it reminds you that God’s work is not finished and that the best is yet to come.”
    We desire that his name would be hallowed, we desire that his kingdom will come, and we desire that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Church when you begin your prayers with a focus on your Father who’s in heaven and you have the desire that his name be seen as holy in your life and in your prayers and you desire that his kingdom will be fully seen, how could the next step not be that you desire for his will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven? Now what does that phrase mean? We could spend a whole lot of time talking about the will of God here and all that pertains to it. Books are written on this phrase.
    So then how do we understand it? I think the really the best illustration of this is found in Matthew 26:39. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane cries out this very thing.
    Matthew 26:39 ESV
    And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
    Jesus submitted to the Father’s will. He laid aside his desires and said, not as I will, but as you will. What would it look like for you to truly live your life surrendered to his will? What would it look like for you to fully and completely lay aside your desires and live your life submitting to and seeking to accomplish his will?
    Isn’t that really what the life of the Christian is? To truly be a Christian is to say with Jesus, not my will, but your will be done. My problem is that I tend to say that, but then turn around and do what I want. Jesus causes us here to stop and say, not mine, but yours. You’re the all-wise Father in heaven. You know best. May I do and be a part of all you want to accomplish.
    I was listening to a sermon by Tim Keller on this phrase yesterday and he made the observation that it’s important to see that Jesus said this phrase right before he stepped into the petitions. Jesus said, “your will,” before “I need.” Now we need to recognize this because we tend to think of prayer as bending God’s will to match ours, but really what prayer is is shaping our will to match his. We don’t impose our will on God. Rather we allow God’s will to shape and mold ours. That way when we come to him with our petitions, we’re not coming thinking that we know better. Rather we’re coming to the one who knows all things—is omniscient— and trusting that he is good in however he chooses to respond. We’re coming with a teachable spirit that longs to be conformed into the image of the one who saved us.
    Now, why is this important? Why is it important for our prayers to be rooted in worship? Because that’s all these three desires really are, right? Why is it important? I can think of 3 more reasons, although I don’t think they’re exhaustive. Jesus has us begin our prayers like this to remind us of who we’re speaking to—Our Father, in heaven. It reminds us of who we are. We aren’t holy, he is. We aren’t God, he is. Our will is fallen and in need of help. His is perfect. His kingdom last forever. Ours doesn’t last a lifetime. Having our prayers rooted in the worship of God reminds us of who he is, who we are, and it positions our heart in the right posture to commune with him. I listened to one of the lessons that our women’s bible study was on this past week and the speaker made this statement, “prayer isn’t transactional, it’s communal.” With our hearts rooted in worship we are communing with God. We are meeting him right where we’re at. We aren’t heaving up empty phrases hoping something sticks. We don’t have to dodge it, we don’t have to look perfect in it. We just engage our Father in prayer that’s rooted in worship.
    With as our foundation now we can turn to the second half of this prayer. Let’s reread v11-15 so they’re fresh in our mind. Matthew 6:11-15
    Matthew 6:11–15 ESV
    Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
    With our prayers rooted in worship we then turn to petition our Father. The second point for today is:

    Kingdom people petition their father.

    Petition is kind of a funny word. Kids, the word petition just means asks for stuff. So you could change this point to Kingdom people ask their father for stuff. That just didn’t look good on a slide. So what are we to ask our Father for? Everything? Yes. Ask your Father for everything. But Jesus is actually pretty specific here in his prayer. John Stott breaks it down into three categories: material, spiritual, and moral.
    Let’s look at material first: “Give us this day our daily bread.” I”m not sure if this is supposed to be white bread, or wheat bread, or pita bread, or what? I kid. Virtually all commentators agree that what Jesus is getting at here is the things that are necessary for the sustenance of life. He’s praying for what we need, not to satisfy our greed. Really, the heart of this phrase is one of dependence. It’s to look to God and ask for him to meet the essential needs of our lives.
    The past week or two we’ve talked about giving in Sunday School. Mark is walking us through a series on stewardship. Tying the two of these together it made me begin to wonder, what if we lived off of what was essential—like enough money to cover our essential bills & food to eat—truly essential, and then gave away the rest? Yes there’s wisdom in saving. But if we lived a life content to cover the basics, then I think the level of generosity we see would really increase and our disposition of dependence on God would follow. Are you content with the essentials, or do you need the excess?
    While the overwhelming majority of people live in excess, this prayer for the meeting of material needs addresses those who are lacking too. If you are anxious about where the next meal is coming from or how you’re going to pay those bill, Jesus here is calling you to be dependent on him. As one commentator said, “Praying for daily bread is not an expression of anxiety about tomorrow or undue concern about “what you will eat” (6:25). Proper prayer is the antithesis and corrective to the anxiety discussed later in Matthew 6. Anxiety wrings its hands; faith folds its hands. Anxiety paces the floor; faith kneels on the floor. Prayer is an exercise of faith, not a display of anxiety.” So, “give us this day our daily bread” is a call for all of us to live in dependence on and faith in the one who provides all things.
    ILLUSTRATION—George Muller. 2000 orphans at a tme. Over 10k in his lifetime. “Mueller had over fifty thousand specific recorded answers to prayers in his journals, thirty thousand of which he said were answered the same day or the same hour that he prayed them. Think of it: that’s five hundred definite answers to prayer each year—more than one per day—every single day for sixty years! God funneled over half a billion dollars (in today’s dollars) through his hands in answer to prayer.” This was only possible because Muller was dependent on the Lord for his daily sustenance. And what did the Lord do? He provided. There’s a website dedicated to Muller that has a lot of neat biographical information and quotes of his. Here’s one that I found:
    “Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him, and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.” -George Muller
    We ask God to meet our material needs, and then we ask him to meet our spiritual needs as well: “forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus expounds on this verse in v14-15 later on tying the word debts to the word trespasses. When it comes to having your debts forgiven what comes to mind? That vehicle you owe money on? The farm or equipment payment that’s coming due? I understand what having those debts forgiven means, but what about the debt that we owe God?
    We talked earlier about living in his Kingdom and asking his kingdom to come. IF you’ve been living for your own kingdom and for the glorification of your own name, then you aren’t living for the kingdom of God. And if you aren’t living for the King then you’re an enemy of the king who has given and sustained your life. The debt you owe him is great. You’ve rebelled against him and now you deserve the wrath of the King. You’re in desperate need of forgiveness.
    God in his mercy has given you this through the blood of his own son. Jesus has been the perfect one who lived the life you should’ve live in submission to and dependence on the King. Yet he was sent to the cross and died the death that you deserved to die. When you place your faith in him and his finished work God will forgive you. The wrath that you deserved has now been placed on Jesus. Do you believe that?
    If you do then the you are forgiven. You are given the mercy and grace of God and now you’re no longer rebels, but sons. If you’ve received the forgiveness of God then whatever wrongdoings others have had towards you seem small in comparison to the sin you’ve had towards God. This is why Jesus would say in Matthew 6:14–15“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
    This doesn’t mean that God’s forgiveness of you is dependent on your forgiveness of others. Rather, It is impossible for you to receive the forgiveness of God, and not be able to extend it towards others. For a person to have truly received & understood the magnitude of God’s forgiveness towards them and then hold a grudge toward another person, regardless of how great the sin is, is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. What Jesus is pressing his followers to ask is if you can’t offer forgiveness towards someone else, have you really received the forgiveness of God?
    Look, I get it. It’s really easy to hold a grudge. I’ve been accused of things. I’ve people do things to me that seemed unfair. I’ve done things to people and said things that were hurtful. But if you really desire for the Kingdom to come in your life, if you really desire for the will of God to be done in your life, and in our church, or your business, or your family, can you walk in unforgiveness? I think this is where this prayer really presses us. It seems as if Jesus is saying, don’t pray the first part of this prayer—your kingdom come your will be done—if you aren’t willing to walk in forgiveness.
    So who is it that you need to forgive? Who is it that you need to seek forgiveness from? Where in your life have you decided to hold a grudge or to just be resentful and anger towards? Where have you decided to sweep it under the rug and not be a peacemaker? Your hallowing of his name, you experience of his kingdom here on earth and your submission to and living out of his will all flow out of you being forgiven. If you’ve been forgiven how can you not forgive?
    There’s part of me that just has this feeling that there’s some in this room that might not need to leave this building today until they’ve sought forgiveness for someone they’ve wronged. There’s probably some people in here who need to forgive someone before they leave. To forgive someone doesn’t mean that you just walk up and say I forgive you, you may be the one who’s holding the grudge. It’d be pretty awkward to walk up and say that and the other person be like, what for? Maybe it’s just in your own heart that you need to let it go. You can, because as we saw a few weeks ago, whatever wrong they did towards you has been dealt with by Jesus on the cross.
    We need God to provide for our material needs, to help with our spiritual needs, and deliver us in our moral needs. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It would be easy for us to look at this passage and go, does God lead us into temptation? Like is this a request that God would stop doing that? James 1:13 is clear that is not the case.
    James 1:13 ESV
    Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
    So if God doesn’t tempt us, what is Jesus alluding to here? Jesus’ request here is that God would not lead any of Jesus’ followers into situation in which the evil one would seize as an opportunity for temptation. Just like the previous two petitions, this is one of dependence. It’s one in which we are recognizing, because Jesus recognized, that temptation is going to come at us every day and in every way.
    Just look at the content we covered before prayer. When it comes to giving, are you tempted to withhold your generosity? Or are you tempted to give in a way that others see the level of your generosity? What about going back a little bit further…how are you doing at loving your enemies? Not retaliating? Keeping your word? Ever tempted to cut corners just a little bit? That’s not to speak of being angry or lust. Temptation is everywhere and who is the one who tempts us? It’s not God, it’s Satan. The Prince of the Power of the air. The one who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. Look he hates you. He doesn’t just want to keep you from God, he wants you to die. And he has the ability and the power to tempt you. This is no small thing.
    This is seen in the word “deliver.” “Deliver us from evil” or more accurately put, “Deliver us from the evil one.” That word is used in one other place; when Christ is on the cross and the crowds stand looking at him mocking him. Matt. 27:43
    Matthew 27:43 ESV
    He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”
    “The verb [deliver] means to rescue someone from a fate from which he cannot escape on his own.” A right view of temptation is that we’re in a battle against the Evil One and in and of ourselves we will lose. It’s a recognition of our own weakness and complete dependence on him. As Dr. Quarles said,
    Sermon On The Mount: Restoring Christ's Message to the Modern Church Matthew 6:9–15

    The disciple does not pray that God will assist him in battling the evil one. The disciple is so weak that he is little match for the Devil. He needs a Savior, not an assistant; a Hero, not a helper. He needs a Champion who will fight the evil one for him and who will snatch him from the clutches of the enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. Not surprisingly, Paul used the same verb to describe how God “has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves” (Col 1:13).

    When it comes to dealing with temptation, when it comes to our sin and need for forgiveness, when it comes to the very basic things we need to live, the true follower of Jesus, the Kingdom Person, lives in complete dependence on God. He recognizes that when he tries to do those things on his own, he is building a kingdom that won’t last rather than participating in the Kingdom that is eternal.
    Are you truly living in dependence on him? Is your prayer life marked by a humility and need for the Savior to save? When you go to prayer are you actually communing with the Father who is in heaven desiring to see his name be honored as holy, his kingdom to grow, and his will to be done here and now in your life and the lives of those around you? Is that what your prayers are rooted in, or are they rooted in me getting what I want? Kingdom People model their prayers in a way that worships & petitions their Father.
    Just like last week, the question is how do we wrap up and apply and respond to The Lord’s Prayer? I’ve got two specific steps for you today. This first is pray. Music team come on up and begin to play. Here in just a second we’re going to give you a moment to pause and follow this model and engage your father in prayer rooted in worship and full of petition.
    Second, we’ve got it set up so that if you’re on our hot list—that’s if we have your contact info—every day this week you’re going to get a text message that says a part of the Lord’s Prayer. So tomorrow you’ll get, “Our Father in heaven.” Then Tuesday will be “hallowed be your name.” That’s it. It’s to serve as a reminder to you who you’re engaging in prayer. When you get it will you just make a point to stop right then and commune with him? I sent a text this morning, so if you didn’t get that text this morning and you want to be a part would you fill out the card in the seatback pocket in front of you and drop it on the offering plates on the back table when you leave. That’ll let us know to get you on the list and we’ll do that today.
    But right now, as the music begins to play, I’m going to give you a minute to respond in prayer. I’ll close us and then we’ll stand and sing. Would you respond?
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      • Matthew 6:5–8ESV

      • Matthew 6:9–15ESV

      • Matthew 26:39ESV

      • Matthew 6:11–15ESV

      • James 1:13ESV

      • Matthew 27:43ESV

  • Have Thine Own Way
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