JESUS THE PATTERN OF PRAYER Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Purpose of Prayer

Scripture: Matthew 6:5 Code: 2233

Take you Bible if you will this morning and look with me at Matthew chapter 6. We're going to be beginning a study of the Disciple's Prayer in Matthew 6:9 through 15. Really the prayer it goes through verse 13 and verses 14 and 15 are an addendum to the prayer to explain an element of it. But this is going to be our study for weeks to come, you cannot study this, the Disciple's Prayer commonly known as the Lord's Prayer, in a hurry, you can't possibly deal with it in one week and I'll try this morning to tell you why. For many people this prayer is simply something that they have recited. And in limiting it to that you've missed the whole point because it is infinitely more than that. Normally in a sermon we would take a text of Scripture and develop an outline and preach that text but this morning I want to give you an over view of this, the Disciple's Prayer, and the reason I want to do that is because I think it is so absolutely essential. I really believe that by the time we are done studying this in several weeks it'll be a life changing experience for all of us. It'll do in our prayer life what I believe the Beatitudes do in the area of our commitment and consecration; it is monumental in terms of its instructive capability. Now as we begin the series on the Disciple's Prayer I, I think we need to have it in mind so let me read if I may through verse 13, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." Now we face in facing this tremendous portion of Scripture one of the most vital subjects in all of the Christian life. We face the subject of prayer. Much discussed, much talked about, much taught about and yet none the less vital for all that's been said, and perhaps much misunderstood. The believer must learn how to pray, in order to experience the fullness of communion with God, in order to open the floodgates of heaven to know the fullness of blessing from God we must know how to pray. This marvelous pattern of prayer will teach us that. And of course I think we're all aware of how important prayer is, the Apostle Paul said, "Pray without ceasing." Pray without ceasing, pray and never stop praying.
Now anything that is so consuming in Christian experience must be understood. If we do not know how to pray, if we do not know forwhat to pray then it does us little good to keep on praying. If

however we do know for what to pray and how to pray then praying without ceasing has tremendous import. Now remember that in this particular section of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew is presenting the King as in all of this Gospel and here in chapters 5 to 7 the King is giving the standards of His Kingdom. Now He gives the standards of His Kingdom in contrast to the supposed standards of the day, the Jews of Jesus' day had developed a system they thought was adequate to get them in the Kingdom, but it wasn't. And particularly Jesus is zeroing in in chapter 6 on their religious activities, chapter 5 He said their theology wasn't adequate, later on in chapter 6 their view of the material world isn't adequate, and here He says their religious life isn't adequate, and He picks out three illustrations, their giving, their praying, and their fasting. Your giving is not proper, your praying is not proper and your fasting is not proper. And He uses that as the backdrop to then reaffirm what is God's true standard. So really these are the standards of the Kingdom, these are the conditions of being a child of the King, this is the way a true son of the King lives, not like the Jews of that time but as Jesus points out here the affirming of God's standard. Now let me just say that of the three that He uses here, discussing their religious activity, giving, praying, and fasting, the greater emphasis is placed on praying because prayer is more important. Giving is important, but you're going to give properly only when you give out of constant communion with God, only when you're responding to God, only when your heart is filled with gratitude, only when you are giving out of the living vitality of a personal life communion with God. And fasting is meaningless apart from prayer. So the concept of prayer then is very, very basic to all giving and all fasting, and that's why when the Lord picks out three areas of religious life, praying, giving, and fasting He concentrates most of the, of the things He says on the subject of praying. It is a very essential thing in fact Martyn LloydJones has put it into these words, "Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God." And that is true. Jesus then is challenging the religion of His day, and He is saying in effect your prayers just like your giving and just like your fasting are substandard. Now you say, well that's the Old Testament people, that's the Jews of Jesus' day, what message does this have to us? Listen, in, in the case of today our religion in many, many cases is just as substandard and inadequate as was that of the Jews of Jesus' day. There is plenty of giving going on for self glory, there is plenty of fasting going on to call attention to our supposed holiness, and there is plenty of praying going on that is a pretense, plenty of praying that doesn't recognize the basic Biblical divine standards for true prayer. In fact the Apostle Paul said in Romans 8:26 and he said this about the church, he said this about people on that side of the cross the side we live on, he said, "We know not what to pray for as we ought." He said two things there, we don't know what to pray for and we don't know how we ought to pray for what we don't know to pray for. We don't know how or what in our prayers.

"Therefore the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us." In other words God is ever and always aiding our prayers because we don't know how to pray or for what to pray. So we have the same problem. Many who aren't even Christians pray; that kind of praying is no different than that of the Pharisees and the scribes, inadequate, substandard prayer.So our Lord then in His corrective to giving, in His corrective to fasting hits very specific religious activities but never does He hit so hard as He does in this category of prayer, the most verses in this section are given to the theme of prayer. And what our Lord is doing is affirming the need for proper prayer. He says ah, regarding giving don't do it this way, don't do it this way, don't do it this way. Regarding fasting don't do it this way, don't do it this way and don't do it this way. But regarding prayer He says don't do it this way, don't do it this way, but do it this way. This is the only one where He gives a detailed description of how we are to pray. There's not a lot of discussion about how we're to give in this chapter, there's not a lot of discussion about how we are to fast, just lightly touched, but how we are to pray, listen to me, is totally, generally, specifically and comprehensively covered in this one simple prayer of 66 brief words. It is an absolute masterpiece of the infinite mind of an all wise God who could somehow encompass the totality of every conceivable element in prayer and reduce it to one simple pattern for prayer. It is the economy of words that only God Himself with His infinite mind could ever have come up with. This particular pattern for prayer absolutely staggers my mind and the longer I studied this, this week the more frustrated I became. Usually when I get to a, to a passage I'll pick out a little outline out of there and just go with it. But I studied this one way and then I studied it another way and then another way and another way and it seemed to me that there were infinite numbers of possibilities of ways to view this incredible pattern for prayer. It is an absolute tragedy that people in the church know this only as something you stick on the end of a prayer in a worship service, that's a far cry from its intention. Now I want to go another step in just kind of introducing this thing. I believe there are two ultimate tests of true spirituality, there are two ultimate tests of true spirituality. One is the study of the Word of God and two is prayer. Those are the two ultimate tests of true spirituality. And I personally believe and I think the Bible supportsthis that the study of the Word of God comes first, why? Because we will not even know how to pray unless we know what the Bible teaches about God, about God's will, about our lives and our problems, therefore it is the study of the Word of God that gives birth to a meaningful prayer life. You can't pray in a vacuum. It is not virtuous to say, well so and so never studies the Bible but prays all the time. Well if held study the Bible a little bit he could probably cut down the time he needs to pray, because held eliminate a lot of superfluous stuff. When Jesus gave a pattern for prayer He gave it very, very brief, it isn't how long your prayer is, it's whether your prayer touches on the vital and necessary elements. And frankly you cando it in 66 words or you can do it all night long, as long as it intersects with these elements. But the study of the Word of God comes first. Let me show you what I mean. There are people who plead with God to give them the Holy Spirit; they already have the Holy Spirit. There are people who plead with Christ for strength, the Bible says, "You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." I've heard people stand up and say, Lord

be with us, and the Bible says, "Lo, I am with you always." There are people who plead for love for someone, the Bible says, "The love of Christ is shed abroad in your heart." You don't need it you just need to let it out. What I'm saying is that unless we understand the truth of the Word of God we don't really know how to pray. So that the two ultimate tests for spiritual maturity or spirituality are the study of the Word of God and as a corollary prayer, prayer that is guided by a comprehension of God's truth. And when we study God's Word and discover God's truth we discover also the real condition of our own hearts, the real condition of on own spiritual lives and that drives us into a private personal prayer where we open up our hearts to God. In my life nothing drives me to commune with God as much as the opening up of His Word. Now our Lord knew the place of prayer, the Bible says that Jesus very often would rise a great while before dawn and go into the mountain to pray. The Bible indicates that in the evenings He would go down the slope of the backside of Jerusalem across the Kidron Brook ascend the small slope of the Mount of Olives and there He would take His place to commune with the Father and often praywith the Father all night long. The disciples saw in Jesus a tremendous commitment to prayer, and probably that's what prompted some to say in Luke 11:1, "Lord, teach us to pray." And when that question is asked in Luke 11:1 Jesus repeats to them this very same pattern for prayer that's here in Matthew 6, but that's a different incident but He gives them basically the same pattern. And maybe right here as Jesus is speaking and He says, I don't want you to pray like the Pharisees do, to do it before men, and I don't want you to pray vain repetition like the pagans, and I don't want you to pray thinking you're informing God. You know, hey God, I gotta tell ya some things You really need to know. I don't want you to pray like that. Jesus knows in their minds they're going to be saying, well then teach us how to pray, if we're not to do it like that, how are we to do it? And so the Lord then says to them almost presupposing the, question verse 9, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye:" Here's the way I want you to pray not like that but like this. And so the Lord touches the great need for proper prayer. Beloved, this comes at a marvelous time in the midst of the manifesto of the King, at a great time in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, setting for us f or all time the understanding that prayer is vital to a Kingdom citizen. For those who follow the King prayer has a very essential part. Now I believe this must have hit them very hard, because the Jews had given a priority place to prayer, but in the process of time they had abandoned the purity of genuine prayer and they had forsaken real prayer for the routine and the ritual of their religious exercises. They had their little formulas, their little quote, unquote set prayers that they prayed at set times and all of this had supplanted by Jesus' day the reality of genuine prayer. But, that's a reality they once knew, God had given them that.
Let me share with you then something of the historic Jewish prayer perspective. People say, well this, this prayer is a, is something brand new, not really, not in total it isn't. It's simply a reaffirmation of

something very old, and that fits the Sermon on the Mount, doesn't it? Because in the Sermon on the Mount chapter 5 verse 17 when Jesus first got started in this whole discussion here in 5, 6 and 7 He said, look I didn't come to take anything away from the Old Testament, I'm not coming to add anything to the Old Testament, I am coming to affirm the Old Testament in fact not one jot or tittle shall be removed from that law, I'm here just to remind you of the purity of what God wants, and when it comes to prayer He affirms to them things they well should have known, and should have been incorporating in their prayers. Let me just give you some historic Jewish prayer perspective. The Jews believed that they had a right to pray. The Old Testament Jews believed that they had a right to come to God; this was a major part of their life experience. They continually des red to come to God, listen, because they continually believed God wanted them there. They didn't come to God like pagans do in fear and trembling, they didn't come to God panicking, they came because they really believed God wanted them to come. In fact the rabbis said this, "The Holy One yearns for the prayers of the righteous." Psalm 145:18 said, "The LORD is near to all who call upon him." Psalm 91:15 said, "When he calls to me, I will answer him, says the LORD." In other words the Word of God revealed that God wanted to hear their prayers, that God wanted to hear their hearts cry. And no Jew, no true Jew with a right spirit ever doubted God's priority for prayer. The rabbis believed that prayer was not just communication but that it was a mighty weapon, that in a way it released God's power. In Psalm 65:2 we find an interesting verse it says, "O thou that hearest prayer," and then it goes on to say, "Unto thee shall all flesh come." But the idea there is that the Jew said, "0 thou that hearest prayer." They believed God heard their prayers. Now I'm not sure the people that worshiped Baal believed that, are you? I mean the day when they kept screaming to Baal and nothing ever happened, with Elijah, and Elijah kept saying to them well I think he's asleep, yell louder. No, I know he's on a vacation. And they got out stuff and were ripping their clothes and cutting their bodies and bleeding all over the place. I don't think they really thought their god was that interested, and that's why they had their endless repetition, that's why they had their constant badgering, because they really irritated their gods into a response. But the Jews didn't believe that. "o thou that hearest prayer." The Midrash is a Jewish commentary on the Old Testament, some sections, and the Midrash, the Jewish commentary on that verse in Psalm 65 says this, quote, "A human king can hearken to two or three people at one time, but he cannot hearken to more, God is not so. For all men may pray to Him and He hearkens to them all simultaneously. Men's ears become satisfied with hearing but God's ears are never satisfied, He is never wearied by men's prayers." End quote. Now that's their comment on that very verse, God wants you to come, doesn't matter how many come He can filter you all out and He never gets tired of hearing He eagerly waits for you to come.

Now the Jewish teachers went even a step further, they taught that prayer should be constant, constant, constant. They were trying to teach the people to avoid praying only when you get desperate. Like the people who think prayer is a parachute, you're glad it's there you hope you never have to use it. They wanted people to pray all the time. And so the Talmud says this, listen, this is the Jewish teachings, "Honor the physician before you have need of him." It's a good word. It says, "The Holy One says just as it is my office to cause the rain and the dew to fall and make the plants to grow and sustain man, so art thou bound to pray before me and to praise me in accordance with my works. Thou shalt not say I am in prosperity wherefore shall I pray, but when misfortune befalls me then will I come and supplicate. No, before misfortune comes anticipate and pray." So the Jews are saying prayer is not some kind of an emergency appeal. Prayer is an unbroken conversation built around a living, loving fellowship with God. They were right on, you see? They, they were right on the money, they had the right perspective, prayer was communion, fellowship, unbroken, prayer was to a God who really wanted to hear them, who really cared and whose mind was uncluttered by the multitude of prayers. And that's true. Further, let me tell you some more about the historic perspective on Jewish prayers. They believed that prayers should incorporate certain elements, number one, and I'll give you a list of about eight of these, number one, they thought prayer should incorporate love and praise. That when you go to God there ought to be a, a sense of His worthiness and a loving adoration and praise, and they got this out of the Psalms. The Psalmist says in Psalm 34:2, "1 will bless the LORD at all times; h s praise shall continually be in my mouth. Unceasingly will I offer praise." The loving adoration of God. In Psalm 51:17, "O Lord," it says, "open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise." They believed that love and praise was apart of their expression of prayer. Secondly, they felt that prayer should incorporate gratitude or thanksgiving. In Jonah for example Jonah says, "I will offer sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving." Part of prayer was the offering of thanks, of deep gratitude. In fact there are many verses on this in the Old Testament, but the rabbis summed them up with a most lovely thought. They said this, "All prayers will someday be discontinued, except the prayers of thanksgiving." They were right, weren't they? When the day comes that we have no more to ask for we will have everything to be thankful for. And so their prayers incorporated thanksgiving. Thirdly, the Jewish people believed that their prayers should incorporate a sense of God's holiness, a sense of awe, a sense of reverence. They did not rush into the presence of God flippantly; they did not treat God as if He were a man. They went very reverently, they realized that when they entered into prayer they came face to face with God. I see it with Isaiah in chapter 6 as he comes from the view of God that he has seen, the tremendous picture of "God high and lifted up on his throne, and his train fills the temple." And the angels, the seraphim gathered about Him, and he comes into the presence of God in a holy awe, and all he can say is, "I am a Man of unclean lips, and I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips; and I have seen the LORD." A sense of awe, a sense of holiness. You find

this in many of David's prayers, before he can ever come to the place of, of request he affirms the nature and the character and the majesty and the holiness of God. So it was apart of Jewish prayers that this take place. In fact Rabbi Simon used to teach that in prayer a man must see himself face to face with the Shekinah. Another thing, the Jews felt that in their prayers there should be a patent desire to obey God, that you didn't pray unless your heart was really right. You didn't go to God in some ritualistic form, in some superficial shallow approach where you really weren't committed to respond to that communion with obedience. The whole of Psalm 119 affirms this over and over in all those verses it just keeps saying things like, "My tongue will sing of thy word, for thy commandments are right." In other words there was this affirmation that to respond to God was proper. You didn't go rushing in to God and say, well God, I'm talking to You and if it turns out the way I think I'm going to follow You. There were no conditions in the heart of a true Jew, he went with a spirit of obedience desiring to please God, desiring to say, Oh God, whatever it is that You will in this situation I respond. And so love and praise, gratitude and thanksgiving, a recognition of God's holiness, a desire to please and obey God, all of these were elements of true Jewish prayers. Further, and tying into the concept of holiness Jewish prayers incorporated a sense of confession of sin, confession of sin, when they went to God they knew that they were unclean, and there was this pure purging. There is a sense of going into God's presence as an unclean person like Isaiah said. David so many times had to get his sins straightened out before he could ever get into God's presence. In Psalm 26:6 a wonderful verse, "I will wash my hands in innocence;" listen, "and then go about thine altar, 0 LORD." I'm not coming into Your presence until I've cleaned up my life, until I've dealt with my sin. And that's how prayer is to be, that's right. "Who shall ascend to the presence of the LORD? Who shall ascend into his holy hill? He that has clean hands, and a (what?) pure heart." Who has a right to enter His presence but he who is purged, he who has faced his sin. And the rabbis said, "When you weep over your sin God hears your prayer." The rabbis said, "The gate of tears in never shut." The rabbi says, "If you can bring but nothing else to God bring Him your tears, and He will hear." The Jews believed that the prayer of the righteous would turn the heart of God. And James said it, James said, "The effectual, fervent prayer of a (what?) righteous man availeth much." The Jews used to say that the prayer of a pure heart overturns the wrath of God as a rake overturns the grain. They believed that you could literally turn wrath into mercy with a pure heart. And so confession of sin was part of their prayer. Further they believed that prayer was to be unselfish. The Jews had a sense of community that I don't think that we really understand, they had a sense of the national, they were a theocracy ruled by God, and the nation was essential. I think the very fact that Israel still exists as a nation and that there are still pure Jewish people today shows you how vitally they have clung to the preservation of that national identity. But they believed in the community, theirs were prayers that encompassed the whole, they were not isolated out to the indi-vidual. For example, the rabbis had a very interesting prayer, this is what they prayed, "Hear not 0 Lord the prayer of the traveler." Now that's interesting. "Hear not 0 Lord the prayer of the traveler."

Now what is the one thing you pray for when you go on vacation? Good weather, right? Lord I'm going some ... don't let it rain, or snow or whatever, just give us good weather. I'm on a journey, and in those days they went on foot, and when they'd go on a journey the traveler would pray for good weather, accommodating skies, an easy journey. The rabbis said, Lord don't hear that prayer, because that's one guy on one trip, he may be praying for a fair day and everybody in that part of the world knows their crops need rain. Lord, don't do something for somebody that messes up what needs to be done for the majority. Now that's a great perspective in prayer. Because most of us come to the Lord with a whole lot of personal pronouns, I, I, I, me, me, me, my, my, my. And we pray these isolated prayers, Lord, do this for me, Lord, I have to have this, Lord, my needs are such, Lord, I'm having this problem. And we don't know what it is to encompass the whole thing. And God is in heaven and He's got a master plan for His Kingdom and everything fits together and sometimes folks we have to sacrifice what might in our own minds seem best for us because God has a greater plan for the whole, right? And we don't always have that perspective. And so who when a Jew would go to prayer, a true believing Jew in the Old Testament he would say Lord, You do what advances Your cause among Your people, not what I want personally. We have developed a selfcenteredness in prayer even today in the church that is unbiblical, where we are really preoccupied with ourselves. We have isolated ourselves out, we don't communicate, we don't bear each other's burdens, we don't share the way we should, and consequently our prayers run down this very narrow track. And we need to learn to pray as they prayed in an unselfish manner, do what is best for the whole. And I'll tell ya folks that's why you find no singular personal pronouns in this prayer in Matthew 6, it always says, "Our Father," "our daily bread," "our debts," "our debtors." Why? Because true prayer encompasses the communityof faith it never isolates one individual out to have their needs met no matter how it affects everybody else. Prayer was to be unselfish. Another thought, the Jews believed that elements of their prayer included love and praise, gratitude and thanksgiving, recognition of God's holiness, a desire to please and obey God, confession of sin and a pure heart, unselfishness and then perseverance, they believed you were to just continue to pray, you don't give up, jus hang in there. The Apostle Paul prayed for the Lord to remove a thorn in the flesh, He didn't do it so he prayed again and He didn't do it so he prayed again a third time, perseverance. After the sin of the golden calf Moses, bless his heart after the people had worshiped the golden calf, the Bible tells us, I think it's the 9th chapter of, of Deuteronomy that Moses got down and prayed for his people Israel's sin forty days in a row, that's perseverance. The Jews believed that. Finally, an element of their prayers was humility, humility. A true Jew was coming into prayer; watch this, to submit himself to the will of God. The greatest illustration of this from the heart of the truest Jew that ever lived is the very prayer of the Lord Jesus in the garden when He set aside what seemed to Him to be the most comfortable thing and said, "Nevertheless, not my will, but (what?) thy will, be done." That is the heart of the truest prayer. Lord, I'm here to say do Your will, I want to line myself up with that. Listen, prayer is not asking God to do my will it is bringing myself into conformity

with His will. It is asking Him to do His will and give me the grace to enjoy it. Now all of those elements people were part of the traditional Jewish prayer life of a true Jew. And they were serious about their prayer, in fact the Jews used to describe prayer, they had a word, the word is kawanna, ah, kawanna or something like that in transliterating it but kawanna, and this particular word in the Hebrew is a, is a word that is hard to translate it has to do with the idea of intensity or the idea of great emotion or the idea of great devotion ah, it's the idea of commitment, it is the pure heart that is totally committed to heart rending prayer, and the Jews said all of these elements belong in prayer, but not superficially oh no, with a great commitment and a great intensity and a great concentration and a great devotion. In fact Rabbi Amie said that man cannot come into the presence of God unless he brings his heart in his hands. And so they prayed. And they had a great heritage of prayer, that is the history of the Jewish prayer perspective. But something went wrong, and we come secondly to the hypocrisy of the Jewish prayer perspective. It became hypocritical, and in verse 5 our Lord said, "They prayed to be seen by men." They are phonies, they!, re not talking to Me anymore, and they're selfish, and they're trying to gain things for their own ends, and they're trying to make a public display, and they go on with these vain babblings, and vain repetitionslike pagan people thinking that I'm going to do something just because I'm so sick of hearing them, I'm going to do it to shut them up. And then they have this unimaginable pride, verse 8 to think they need to inform Me about things. Their prayers got all fouled up. And so our Lord then comes in verse 9 and says let Me reaffirm what right praying is. And so what you have in verses 9 to 13 is really Jesus reiterating the ingredients of prayer that I just gave you from the Jewish tradition. He doesn't say anything totally new, although He gives new richness to everything He says. He takes it further than it had ever gone but it's the basic, same, sustained truth, and we need this today beloved, because we don't know how to pray in many cases any better than they did, and so studying this marvelous model of prayer is going to be a great experience. Let me just add another footnote here. We missed the point, you know even though the Lord gives us the instruction how to pray here, you know we goof up on so many obvious things. Instead of taking this prayer and using it to learn to pray we just say it. And I can remember in my life and you can too just blbupblbupblbup, saying this Prayer. That is not the point. People say, well we believe it's a prayer to be recited, no I don't believe that, I think it's fine to recite it, just as it's fine to read any part of the Bible but I don't think it is a prayer to be recited. I'll give you several reasons, number one, this prayer is recorded twice in Scripture one in Matthew 6, once in Luke 11 and it differs in both places. It is substantially the same but the words are different. If the Lord was giving us a prayer to be memorized and recited He wouldn't have given us different words the two times He gave it, right? In one He says, "Forgive us our debts," in the other He says, "Forgive us our trespasses," for an example. In other words if it was wrote, routine prayer to be recited at least He would have given it the same way.

Secondly, in Luke 11 they said, "Teach us to pray." They didn't say teach us a prayer. It's one thing to have a prayer book and open it and read a prayer it's something else to know how to pray. The Lord was not giving them a prayer, He was teaching them to pray. And by the way wouldn't it seem a little silly if verse 7 says, "And when you pray, use not vain repetition, as the pagan, and then immediately follow it by giving us a prayer we're supposed to repeat? That would be totally ridiculous; it is vain repetition that He's trying to avoid. Further let me say this, there is no occasion in the entire New Testament, Gospels, Acts or Epistles where this prayer is ever repeated by anybody. It is not a prayer to be made a ritual. It is a model for every prayer you ever pray about whatever you pray about. It is a skeleton on which you are to put meat and bones and flesh. For example, I have in front of me some sermon notes, now that's not a sermon that's just some notes. And if I came in here and just read you the notes we'd be done in t n minutes and you wouldn't know much. That isn't the point, it's; a skeleton I gotta put flesh and bones on it, I gotta make it live and what Jesus is giving here is a prayer outline, that's all. Here are the basic elements of prayer, it's just like an outline, you have to develop this into its meaningful expression in every different situation. And beloved, this prayer covers everything, it is, it's staggering, it just, the more I studied this the more frustrated I got, I came back here on Saturday because there was so much of this going in my head and I usually try to finish by Friday so that I can have Saturday to mull it over, I was here on Saturday, I went home on Saturday night, I started to get into bed and I went back to this thing and I...it just kept flooding by brain, I got up this morning and again I was at it. I feel like so much is in my head, because there's so many ways to see this prayer, it just got bigger and bigger and more encompassing and more encompassing the moreI studied it. It teaches us so much about prayer. Let me just give you some approaches and what I'm going to do is just like looking at a diamond, I'm gonna hit one facet and another and another and another and another real quick, so hang in there. This is a model for every prayer ever prayed, this is the skeleton on which you can hang every prayer you ever pray, this is the pattern for all praying. If you will memorize this prayer, get it in your head and just work your way through its outline no matter what it is you're praying about you'll have the confidence that you're praying the way Jesus taught you to pray, tremendous. For example, one way that to look at this prayer, it unfolds the relationship that we have with God, and it hits it so many ways it's just staggering. For example, it says, "Our Father," that means that we have a Father-child relationship with God. It says, "Hallowed be thy name," we have a deity and worshiper relationship with God. It says, "Thy kingdom come." We have a sovereign and a subject relationship with God. It says, "Thy will be done," we have a Master and a servant relationship with God. It says, "Give us our daily bread." We have a benefactor and a beneficiary relationship with God. It says, "forgive us our (trespasses or our) debts," we have a Savior sinner relationship with God. It says, "Lead us not into temptation," we have a guide and a pilgrim relationship with God.

We could study this prayer in just that way, how does it show our relationship to God. Let me look at it another way. It defines the spirit in which we're to pray. What is to be our attitude as we pray? First of all it says, "Our," that's an unselfish spirit, then it says, "Father," that's a family spirit, then it says, "Hallowed be thy name." A reverent spirit. "Thy kingdom come." A loyal spirit. "Thy will be done," a submissive spirit. "Give us our daily bread." A dependent spirit. "Forgive us our trespasses," a penitent spirit. "Lead us not into temptation," a humble spirit. "Thine is the kingdom," a confident spirit, "and the power," a triumphant spirit, "and the glory," an exultant spirit. This prayer could be divided simply into three elements, and then three more elements, the first three deal with God, the second three with man, the first three God's glory, the second three man's need. The first three the glory of God, "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." That's the glory of God. The second three man's need, "Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation." Do you see the point is this first when you pray you set God in His rightful place, do you seeit? Then everythingelse flows out of it. All prayer is to begin with the character of God, "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." And then what follows? God is in His supreme place, and when God is first prayer makes sense.
Another way to look at it, the first three show the purpose in prayer, what is the purpose? Number one, to hallow the name of God, number two, to bring in His Kingdom, number three, to do His will.

That's the purpose of prayer. Oh, God, I'm coming to You in order that Your name might be hallowed, in order that Your Kingdom might come, in order that Your will might be done. And what is the means? What is the mean by which His name is hallowed, His Kingdom is lifted up and His will is done? First, by giving us our daily bread, that's provision, second by pardoning our sins, that's pardon, third by leading us not into temptation, that's protection. As God provides, pardons and protects He consequently is exalted in His glory, in His Kingdom and in His will. Another way to look at it, first of all God is a Father, "Our Father, Hallowed be thy name." Then He is a King, "Thy kingdom come." Then He is a Master, "Thy will be done." As a Father, verse 11 He gives us our daily bread, He is the source. As a King, He forgives our debts and pardons us. As a Master, He leads us not into temptation. The elements, the wonders, the beauties of this particular model of prayer are almost infinite. Only the mind of God could have conceived such far reaching incredible thoughts to be compressed into this little tiny section of Scripture. No man could ever have done it. Listen beloved, prayer is never an attempt to bend the will of God to my desire; prayer is to bend me to fit the will of God.And when I acknowledge God as sovereign, and when I say God give me my daily bread only if it gives You Your hallowed name. God may my sins be pardoned only if that exalts Your Kingdom, and God lead me not into temptation if that let's You be the Master in my life. For in all things when it's said and done the purpose of all prayer is at the end of verse 13, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever." That's the point.

Look just at the last three elements. The bread, provision, the forgiveness, pardon, and the leading not into temptation, protection, and you find the three time dimensions of life. Our daily bread, present. Our debts, sins from the past. And lead us not, that's the future. This little prayer encompasses the past, the present and the future provision sustenance of God. Bread, that's physical, forgiveness, that's mental it relieves the anguish of guilt, and leading not into temptation is spiritual, that's the maintenance of spiritual life. Whether you talking about past, present, future, whether you're talking about physical, mental, spiritual, whatever it is you're talking about it's here, it's here. And by the way all of the petitions in this verse are in the imperative mode in the Greek which means there's an intensity to them, a tremendous intensity, there's a fantastic brevity in every phrase, but it's an intense thing, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." There are no qualifying elements. Everything in this prayer beloved seeks to glorify God, seeks to lift up His name, seeks to exalt His holiness. A d I would just tell you right now that's the purpose of all prayer, if you think prayer is for you you've missed the point, you've missed the point. That's why we get so messed up, we're praying for ourselves we don't take into account the whole community of faith and we don't take into account the whole will of God and the perimeters of His own Kingdom. Samuels Wemmer writes about this prayer this word, "Every possible desire of the praying heart is contained in this, it contains a whole world of spiritual requirements, it combines in simple language every divine promise, every human sorrow and want, and every Christian longing for the good of others." End quote. And the prayer focuses on God. Listen, in John 14 Jesus said, "Ask anything in my name, and I will do it, in order that the Father may be glorified in the Son." The reason you pray and the reason God answers is to put Himself on display, to put His glory on display, that's it. When you pray for someone who's not saved and they come to Jesus Christ it isn't for your sake He did it it's to show you the power of salvation. When you have a physical need and you pray and God gives the, the meeting of that need it isn't so you can have what you want it is so that you will know that God meets needs. His glory is the issue. So when you pray, get, get it in mind you're not informing God He already knows everything. You're not forcing God. You're not badgering God, you're not irritating Him, you're not conning Him, what you're doing is submitting to His sovereignty, and that's the affirmation of the Disciple's Prayer. That's the way we want t look at it. It begins with, "Our Father, who art in heaven," adoring God. It ends with, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory, forever." Adoring God again. And in the middle everything in it is about God. "Our Father, who art in heaven," that's God's paternity. "Hallowed be thy name." That's God's priority. 'IT y kingdom come." That's God's program. "Thy will be done," that Is God's purpose. "Give us this day our daily bread." That's God's provision. "And forgive us our debts," that's God's pardon. "And lead us not into temptation," that's God's protection. "And thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever." That's God's Preeminence. And all prayer, Jesus is saying is not to stand in t e streets and the corners of the streets to pray to be heard by man to get glory for yourself, but all prayer is by absolute contrast to bring glory to God. Now beloved if you don't get anything more out of this message than

that, you've got enough to change your prayer life. And if you didn't even get that you weren't listening cause I said it about 50 ways. So let's pray together. Father we didn't have time maybe to get as far as we thought today but we rust we got as far as Your thoughts wanted. Lord we submit to You oh, bless Your holy name Father it's so glorious to dwell with You in Your Kingdom, and to know that someday we'll know the fullness of that Kingdom when we enter Your blessed presence forever. Father we thank You that our prayer life can be unselfish, that it can be humble, that it can be what it ought to be, and that in so doing we can give You the glory You deserve. And we know the Bible has told us that if we glorify You You fill our hearts with joy, that our greatest joy is not in gaining things for ourself but in glorifying You. May we know the heart of David who said, "I have set the LORD always before me. Therefore my heart is glad." Give us the gladness of heart that knows that all our prayers have been for Your glory. May we condition everything we ask in that regard. Do it for Your own glory, do it for the advance of Your Kindgom, do it as an expression of Your own will that Yours may be the kingdom, and the power, and glory forever. Amen. Well, God bless you we've just begun, believe me people this is going to be a very rich study, and I want you to be a part of it, I want God to change your life through this as He will my own life, so I trust you'll be prayerfully anticipating next Lord's Day.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Paternity of Prayer Scripture: Matthew 6:9 Code: 2234

Our Father.... Will you take your Bible with me and look at the 6th chapter of Matthew? Earlier in our worship the choir sang what is known to us as the Lord's Prayer, and that is the theme of our study. We're examining Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 through 15 in these days. And looking particularly this morning at verse 9, the first phrase of this prayer. I want however to read the entire prayer through verse 13 so that you'll have it in mind as we approach it this morning. Matthew 6 beginning in verse 9, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." There are two spiritual activities which are to be unceasingly part of a believer's life. Two great pillars

that hold up the believer in the matter of daily living. One is the study of the Word of God, two, prayer. Thus did the apostles confess in Acts 6:4, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and the ministry of the word." Prayer is our speaking to God. Studying the Word is God speaking to us. Those two things are the composite interchange between man and God. And so the Bible speaks that we are unceasingly to be involved in both. Constantly, daily feeding on the Word of God. Constantly, daily responding in communion with God. Clear back in the Pentateuch the affirmation of God's will, recording His law and giving it to man was that man would talk of the law when he sat down, when he stood up, when he was lying down, and when he was walking in the way. Man was through the Psalmist to meditate on the law of God day and night. The law of God then was to be a matter of his thoughts and a matter of his conversation all the time. So with prayer. The Apostle Paul says, "Pray without ceasing." The Apostle Paul says, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication." The New Testament tells us that we are in everything by prayer, with thanksgiving to make our requests known unto God. We are to be praying at all times, we are to be studying the Word, taking it in, meditating on it, giving it out at all times. Those two things then become the consuming elements of the life of the believer, hearing God as He speaks in His Word and speaking to God in our own prayers. Now we've studied much about the taking in of the Word of God in the past and shall again in the future but for this time we're focusing on prayer. Prayer, one of those two constants in the believer's life. George Muller, that great man of prayer, was asked how much time he spent in prayer, his reply was, "I live in the spirit of prayer, I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I arise, the answers are

always coming." End quote. Prayer for him was a way of life. Our Lord knows that, our Lord knows that prayer is to be a way of life. Our Lord here stops in the midst of His discourse on the Sermon on the Mount which particularly compares the false standard of religion of the Pharisees and the scribes with the true standard of God, and He interjects a word of instruction to all of those who name His name in order that they might know how they are to pray. Prayer is a very important thing. If it is a way of life for us then it's needful for us to understand how to pray. In fact this very same model prayer which He gives here is also given in Luke in response to the question, "Lord, teach us to pray." If prayer is something we are to do unceasingly then best we know how to do it properly, and so our Lord teaches us to pray. Notice what He doesn't teach us, He doesn't teach us about the posture of prayer because any posture will do, in the Bible people prayed standing, lifting up their hands, sitting, kneeling, lifting up their eyes, bowing down, placing their head between their knees, pounding on their breast, facing a temple, etc, etc. There was no specific posture. Notice He doesn't tell us anything about the place of prayer, people in the Bible prayed in battle, in a cave, in a closet, in a garden, on a mountainside, by a river, by the sea, in the street, in God's house. First Timothy says "Let men pray everywhere." In the Bible people prayed in bed, in a home, in a fish even. On a housetop, in a prison, by the sea, in solitude, in the wilderness, on a cross, and so forth. And He doesn't tell us about the times of prayer. I remember a man preaching a sermon to a bunch of ministers and he preached on why the Bible teaches that mornings are for prayer, and we should pray in the morning. And I examined my Bible and in the Bible I find people praying in the early morning, in the morning, three times a day, in the evening, before meals, after meals, at the ninth hour, at bedtime, at midnight, day and night, today, often, when they're young, when they're old, in trouble, everyday and always. Jesus doesn't tell us a specific time, a specific place, a specific posture. There aresome people who when they pray they feel they have to have their prayer shawl on. The Jewish people today, when they pray they have to dress for their prayer, but as you find in the Bible people prayed in all kinds of circumstances and attitudes, sometimes wearing sackcloth, sometimes sitting in ashes, sometimes shaving their heads, smiting their breast, crying out, applying dust to their head, tearing their garments, fasting, sighing, groaning, crying loud, sweating blood, agonizing with broken hearts, broken spirits, pouring our their hearts, rending their hearts the Bible says, making an oath, offering a sacrifice, offering praise, singing songs, etc. Those aren't the issues. In any posture, in anytime, in anyplace, under any circumstance and in any attire prayer is fitting. Because prayer is a total way of life, prayer is an open communion with God that goes on at all times. Sometimes it becomes more concentrated and intense than other times, but prayer is a way of life. And if it is a way of life then we need to understand how to pray and that is precisely why Jesus teaches us here. This is not a prayer to be prayed so much as it is a model for all prayers. I really think the most important message that I will preach to you on this entire series I gave you last Sunday if you didn't get it you need to listen to the tape, because it sets for you the whole purview of this entire concept in this, the Disciple's Prayer.

Notice how the prayer begins or the model prayer begins verse 9, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: "Houtsounin the Greek, which literally says, thus, therefore. Or maybe we could translate it, along these lines pray. It is not saying in these exact words pray. Sometimes in the Book of Acts, I looked up a few times where this occurred the same phrase houtsounis used, it'll say, along these lines the Old Testament says, and then it'll paraphrase the Old Testament. The point being that the phrase houtsoundoes not necessarily mean in these exact words, it can mean that, but in many cases it has reference to the general content, along these lines, in this manner pray, does not necessarily mean in these exact words. And I think people who have just taken this and in its own exactness recited it again and again have lost its meaning, which is to be for us a skeleton outline for a definition for all prayer. All praying is to follow the pattern and the model given here. Now in our last study we noted that the major thrust of this prayer is that it focuses on the glory of God, and that is fitting because that is what all prayer is to do. Prayer is not trying to get God to agree with me, prayer is not trying to line God up with what I need, prayer is myself affirming the sovereignty and majesty of God and taking my will and making it submissive to His, that's true prayer. We know that in John 14:13 and 14 our dear Lord says, "That when we ask anything in his name, he hears us, in order that the Father may be glorified." Prayer is not for you to get what you want or me to get what I want; prayer is to put the majesty of God on display. It is that God may be glorified. All prayer focuses then on God, and this prayer is no different. In studying the prayers of the Old Testament which I've been doing the last couple of weeks to get a feeling for how the Jewish people approached prayer, I was amazed to find that even in the deepest mostsevere circumstance, even in a pit of despair that we couldn't even imagine before a true saint of God would enter in to a prayer most frequently he would worship God. For example, I was reading in Jonah, Jonah was in the belly of a great fish in an unbelievable circumstance that no one could even relate to, talk about fear, talk about misery, there he is in the belly of a great fish, and in chapter 2 of Jonah he begins a prayer and you would think that he would dispense with all of the amenities and just get down to, get me out of here, God. But Jonah begins with a marvelous anthem of worship and praise, because no man can really ask God for something unless he affirms that God has the sovereign right to say yes or no. That's the basis, our will to be brought into submission to Him. And I read Daniel chapter 9 and Daniel is on the precipice of disaster all the time because of the strategic place that he stands in the midst of a pagan Babylonian society, and in the perplexity that was gripping him at that time he bowed to pray, and in the midst of a terrible situation he utters his prayer and the whole prayer opens up almost ignoring the situation with an affirmation of the majesty and the glory and the dignity and the holiness and the almighty character of sovereign God. I got a little further in my study and I came to Jeremiah 32 and dear Jeremiah who spent most of his life in frustration, confusion and perplexity, who spent most of his times weeping because of his broken heart over his people begins to pour out a prayer to God in the midst of his perplexity and it turns out to be nothing but a recitation of God's majesty, attribute after attribute as it begins. Why do they do

that? And why does this begin, "Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done," and why does it end, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."? Because God is the focus of all prayer. Prayer is to give God the privilege of displaying His majesty. It is to bring my life into harmony with His will. May I illustrate that from Psalm 86? And there are many places where we can go to illustrate it, but I love this, this is so specific. Psalm 86 the Psalmist is about to offer a prayer, he is going to pray to God and he is seeking God's mercy and God's love and God's compassion and God's tenderness in his behalf. Beginning in verse 6, "Give ear, 0 Lord, unto my prayer, and attend to the voice of my supplication. In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee; for thou wilt answer me." Now the Psalmist is in the midst of trouble, this is a prayer of David. His heart is burdened, there's tremendous anxiousness in his spirit, and he goes to God to pray, but watch this, first of all he says in verse 8, "Among the gods there is none like unto thee, 0 Lord." He doesn't begin with a petition, he begins with an affirmation of the majesty and the character of God as the only God, "neither are there any works like unto thy works." He extols God for who He is and what He's done. "All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, 0 Lord, and glorify thy name." He says the whole world ought to be bowing their knees in front of You. For thou art great, (verse 10) and doest wondrous things; thou art God alone." Now do you see people this is the typical prayer of the Old Testament saint who knew what prayer was all about, prayer was all about setting God in His rightful place and then bringing my will into submission to His. And that's exactly what he does in verse 11, beautifully, "Teach me thy way, 0 LORD; I will walk in thy truth;" stop there for a minute. Do you notice he doesn't even mention yet the request in his heart? He doesn't even bring that up. He just says first of all I want to acknowledge that You're God and You have a right to do what You want, secondly I want to acknowledge that I submit to Your way and Yourwill, and then this magnificent statement at the end of verse 11, "unite my heart to fear thy name." Make my heart one with Your heart. That's prayer. Prayer is just bending and bowing submissively to the will of God. And then in verse 12 no matter what happens, "I'll praise thee, 0 Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify thy name for evermore." Now that's prayer, that's prayer. And you can't separate it from praise. Setting God in His rightful place as sovereign and bringing our own lives submissively into His will. Now with that in mind go back to Matthew 6, and that was just a brief look at the theme of the prayer as God's character and person, we covered it in great detail last time. But look again at how I've outlined this prayer, would ya? Very, very simply, this prayer, every facet, every short power packed statement in this prayer focuses on God, every one. "Our Father, who art in heaven," that is God's paternity "Hallowed be thy name." That is God's priority. "Thy kingdom come." That is God's program. "Thy will be done," that is God's purpose. "Give us this day our daily bread." That is God's provision. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.'' That is God's pardon. "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That is God's protection. "For thine is the kingdom, and the

power, and the glory, forever. Amen." That is God's preeminence. Every phase speaks of God. Prayer then is to put God in His infinite majestic place. Let's look at the first one, God's paternity. "Our Father, who art in heaven." You know beloved I could spend weeks on this one phrase, it 1iterally opens up to me so much, these are the hardest kinds of sermon's to preach when there is so much that can be said that you don't know what to pick and choose and what to leave out. But just notice that phrase, "Our Father, who art in heaven." That's the invocation that begins the prayer. If you think about it that's probably the most common term we use in our prayers, Father, Father, Father, again and again, rightly so, for this is the pattern that Jesus sets. Prayer begins with a recognition that God is our Father. Tremendous truth, in that thought. God is our Father. Now what does that say to you? Well let me say beginningly that the word our has reference to believing people, and so the negative fact of our Father is that it is a death blow to the liberal teaching of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Liberals for years have taught what is the universal Fatherhood of God, God is everybody's Father, we're all the children of God and we're all brothers. Well, there is only one sense in which that's true, and that's all, just one. And that is in the sense of creation that is in the sense of creation. We are only children of God universally insofar as we have been created by God. Malachi 2:10, "Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us?" In the sense that God has created us we are one. Acts 17 Paul says, "We are all his offspring." And he says that to the philosophers on Mars Hill. In a sense of creation, yes, God is our Father, in a sense of relation, no He is not. Jesus said in John 8:44 to the Jewish leaders, "You are of your father the devil." In First John chapter 3 John very clearly characterizes two families, the children of God and the children of the devil. The children of God do not continue to commit sin, the children of the devil do, and so he makes the clear distinction between the two families. The Apostle Paul makes a clear distinction between children of light and children of darkness. There is not simply one family of mankind under one universal Fatherhood of God; there are two families in the world, the children of God and the children of the devil. Jesus makes that abundantly clear, there's no way around that. Peter says in Second Peter 1:4 that only those who believe "have been made partakers of the divine nature." Only those of us who have been born again have been born in to the family of God. "Only as many as re-ceived him, have the right to be called the sons of God." John 1:12. There are two families. So the very statement of Jesus, "Our Father," eliminates a world of unbelieving people. There's a positive side to this, not just the elimination of that, but the positive is "Our Father," is an affirmation of an intimacy with God that is wondrous. Because you see for most of the world the gods and/or god they wor-shiped was a very distant remote and fearful being. Sadly, there was an amazing remoteness even in the Jewish thinking of Jesus' day. The Old Testament Jew, the saint of God in the Old Testament under-stood something of the Fatherhood of God, there's no question about that. He understood that God was a Father; I think they understood it more in a national sense than they did in a personal sense. I think they understood it more in terms of God's sort of overall care of the nation Israel than they ever understood the intimacy of a relationship

with God as a personal Father. I don't think it was till Jesus came that men really understood the intimacy of God. And I think that's illustrated graphically when Philip says to Jesus, "Show us the Father." And Jesus says, "Have you been so long with me, Philip? 'And you don't know if you've seen me you've seen the Father." I think it was Jesus that brought us the intimacy of that. But in the Old Testament, the Old Testament Jew really did under-stand God as a Father, more in a national sense than in a personal sense. And as time went on and you come to the time of Jesus they lost the Father concept of God, God became more and more remote, and I don't think it was God that moved I think they moved, and as they moved away from true religion, as they moved away from true worship and they redefined their system to tolerate sinfulness they cut them-selves off from God's Fatherly care; therefore they assumed that God was remote and they even stopped using God's names, it became a blasphemous thing even to mention the name of God. They had develop-ed a wide gulf; they had lost the sense of God's Fatherhood even in a national way that they had known it in the past. And so when our dear Lord utters the term, "Our Father," it is a shocking thing to them. It awakens to them something lost long ago in the past, it introduces a new kind of intimacy that they had never even understood. "Our Father." Let me take you back and just show you what the Jews in the Old Testament saw when they thought of that. They knew God was a Father they understood something of what that meant. For example in Isaiah 64 you have a statement by Isaiah regarding the people of God, the people of Israel that they had sinned grossly. In verse 5 he says, "for we have sinned," "for we have sinned," then in verse 6 he describes them in very graphic terms, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Isaiah says, God we're a mess, we are a sinful people, we have drifted way far away from that which is proper behavior. And verse 7 says, "And there's not even any that calls on your name, none that stir up themselves to take hold of you; for you've hidden your face from us, and consumed us, because of our iniquities." God, we feel lost, we feel cut loose, we are so evil, we don't even seek You anymore, we can't even find You anymore. That's a pretty desperate situation and to what does Isaiah then appeal? Verse 8 beautifully he says, "But now, 0 LORD, thou art our father;" stop right there. You see he reaffirms the comforting reality that God is a Father, and Father's take care of their children. You see they understood that, they understood something of the concept of God as a Father; even though we're sinful You're still our Father. Let me just tell ya if I can sum it up in a sense that the Jews in the Old Testament saw in the Fatherhood of God five basic things. Now I don't know if this is a comprehensive five, it's just what I saw. Number one, they realized that God was a Father in terms of His begetting. They saw the begetting of God as an act of a Father. In First Chronicles it says of Him that, "He is the God of Israel, our father." That's a title, the God of Israel, our Father. In other words the one who has begotten the nation.

Secondly, in the concept of Father the Jews saw the nearness of God, a father is one who's in a family relationship. A father's not like an uncle or a cousin or a friend or a neighbor, a father is a filial relation. And so they saw in the term Father something of nearness. And you know to get an illustration of this, I'm not going to take time to turn to it, read Psalm 68 it is really amazing. In Psalm 68 there's this discussion of God and His power, and it talks about God being on a high hill and it talks about God riding the clouds, and it talks about His chariots are 20 thousand and His chariots are angels and God is flying through the sky and ascending great mounts of holiness, and then it's ... comes way off of that and it says, "And he is a father to the fatherless." And He puts us in a family, isn't that great? They knew the majesty of God, they understood something of the remoteness of God, but they also knew that He was a Father to the fatherless, and that God put people in a family. So they saw His nearness. Thirdly, I believe the Jews in seeing the concept of God as a Father saw His loving grace. A father is forgiving, a father is tenderhearted, a father is merciful, a father is gracious to his children and thus did they say in Psalm 103, "As a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him." He is like a merciful Father; He is like a condescending, gracious and gentle kind Father. So thoughtful, so gracious. That's how they saw God. Fourthly, I believe the Jews of the Old Testament saw the Fatherhood of God in terms of His guidance. A father guides his children, doesn't he? He leads them, shows them the direction to go, gives them wisdom and instruction, that's the way they saw it. In Jeremiah 31:9 it says,"They will come with weeping, they will come with supplications and I will lead them; I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, in which they shall not stumble; (why?) for I am a father to Israel." God says, I'll guide them, I'll lead them by the river, I'll lead them in a straight way, I'll make sure they don't fall, why? I'm their Father and a father guides, and a father loves, and a father stays near, and a father begets, you see. But all of that didn't sentimentalize God to them because there was a fifth thing that they saw. They had to see that because God was their Father they were required to obey Him, that was their part. God would beget and God would be near, and God would be gracious, and God would also guide them, and they were to respond to Him in obedience. In Deuteronomy chapter 32 there's a simple statement that reiterates this and we could look at other Scriptures but just this. They corrupted themselves, they were sinful, and the word comes, "Do ye thus requite the LORD, 0 foolish people and unwise? Is not he your father who hath bought you?'' Can you treat your Father with disobedience, disrespect?
So they understood Him as a Father. Perhaps in a more general way, but nonetheless they understood Him as a Father, begetting, loving; living along side, guiding, and training them in obedience and they knew they were responsible to obey. This is a Jewish concept. You know later on

in the Sermon on the Mount, go back to Matthew, Jesus reiterates this concept, in chapter 7 verse 7, He says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asks receives; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Why? Why is God going to do this, why is God going to hear you when you ask, why is God going to open when you knock, why is God going to help you find when you seek, why? Because God is like this, and He goes on in verse 9, "Of what man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? If then, ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your (what?) Father, who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?" They again are introduced to the fact that God is a beneficent, caring, loving, sustaining Father. Just as a father in the world takes care of the needs of his children. But I think they had a remoteness as we go back to what Jesus says in chapter 6, which had caused them to lose this sense of intimacy. I think all they had left was almost the pagan concept. You know the Greeks called Zeus, father Zeus, and in connection with father Zeus the term came to Mean lord or ruler, it lost all of its intimacy. It didn't have any intimacy left, andby the way Zeus was a pretty rotten god, just want you to know that. There was a nice god named Prometheus, and Prometheus looked down on the world according to the Greek legend and Prometheus said that there was no fire in the world. And men were cold at night, and fires are not only good for keeping warm they're good for lots of things, popcorn and marshmallows and fellowship and stuff, and Prometheus looked down on the world and he said it's not good that man doesn't have fire, so Prometheus gave the world fire. And father Zeus got so mad at Prometheus that he took Prometheus in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, found a rock sticking out of the water and he chained Prometheus to that rock an left him there through all of the terrible heat of the day and the thirst of the day and the cold of the night, and constantly tore ... I think it was he sent a, a some kind of a bird with claws that ripped his liver out, and Prometheus according to the legend would always grow a new liver and so always he was having that done to him. And the Greeks said, that's what father Zeus thinks about doing something good for people. Now that's the context of this day. Father didn't mean anything; it had lost its meaning. And to the Pharisees and the scribes to think of God as a Father was a very empty thought, meant no more than a lord or a god, or a ruler or a king. Well Jesus uses it in a new fashion, Jesus injects into it something rich, something special, something intimate. Not just in the word that He says as we shall see but in the way He brought God to men, right? Jesus made that intimacy possible. By the way when Jesus prayed He always used the word Father, over 70 times, the word Father, He always used it, only one prayer did He ever pray and not use the word Father, you know what prayer that was? "My God, my God, why hast thou (what?) forsaken me?" Only in sin bearing was He separated from the Father, and only then did He not say Father. All other times the intimacy of that relationship was expressed, and only in that one temporary moment when it was broken by sin bearing did He ever address God in any other term.

Listen when you go to God and say, Father, you're not talking about father goose or father anybody else. Some beneficent person who wants to drop golden eggs or mother goose or whatever else. And you're not talking about some deity who is totally unconcerned and is a father only in a sense that is leadership or headship, you're talking about somebody beneficently loving, somebody personally involved, somebody absolutely intimate. Let me take it a step further. I studied a little bit this week about the philosophies of that day and I found out some interesting things. There were two major philosophies existing at the time of Christ, in the Greek and Roman world, they are known as the Stoics and the Epicureans, you've read about them, right? The Stoics had one essential attribute for gods, they said the major attribute of a god is apathea; we get the word apathetic from it. Now apatheato the Greek is the essential inability to experience any feeling. Now, the Greeks said this, if a person can feel love he can be hurt, if a, if a person can feel joy he can feel sadness, if a person can feel happy he can feel unhappy, and so therefore the gods do not feel anything or they could be hurt so they choose then to be totally passionless, emotionless, incapable of any feeling they are apathetic and indifferent. That's the Stoic view of gods. Totally emotionless, passionless, indifferent. The Epicureans had a little different idea, they said the supreme quality of the the deities is ataroxia, ataroxiais a term which means complete serenity, complete calm, perfect peace. Now they said, if the gods get involved in human affairs they'll lose their calm, right? They'll lose their cool. If they get the mess in the world they will never be able to maintain their serenity, therefore the gods are detached. And they had what we call today a deistic view that there is a, a power up there that gets it all going and then walks away because it doesn't want to get involved. And so the Stoics said, god is absolutely apathetic and indifferent, and the Epicureans said god is absolutely detached, totally uninterested and isolated from every human condit-ion. Now that's how they thought of their gods, even though they used the term father. Now what about modern day? It's a little different. James Stewart quoted two lines from a poem of Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hardy said this, he said, prayer is useless because there's no one to pray to except, and here's the quote, "That dreaming, dark, dumb thing that turns the handle of this idle show." To Thomas Hardy God was that dreaming, dumb, dark thing. Voltaire said, "Life is a bad joke, ring down the curtain the farce is done." H.G. Wells in one of his novels painted a picture of a man defeated by the stress and strain and tension of modern life, and the man was dying and he was told by somebody who was a very saintly man that his only hope was fellowship in God, and he said, what? That up there having fellowship with me, I would just as soon think of cooling my throat with the Milky Way or shaking hands with a star. The Stoic sees his emotionless god, the Epicurean sees his utterly detached god, the modern philosopher sees God as the dark, dreaming, dumb thing that turns the handle of the idle show, and even the Jew of Jesus' time sees God as a Father only in a remote, distance, faded past sense with little meaning. To all of that confusion Jesus simply utters without explanation two words, "Our Father," "Our Father," and in so doing cracks open a shell that empties upon us marvelous new dimensions of meaning.

The term in the Greek is patr. Jesus didn't use that term. Jesus spoke Aramaic when He talked, though the Bible was written in Greek. There's little doubt in my mind that He used the term Abba, for Abba was the familiar term, Abba was the endearing term used by a little child for its father. In fact uhm, the Talmud says that the first thing a child ever learned was to say, Abba and Ema. That sounds like a little children, doesn't it? I don't know what your kids first started calling you but they came up with some real winners in our house. Just, they almost unstructured meaningless, utterance that a little child gives its parents. In Mark 14:36 it says, "Jesus said, Abba, Father. Take away this cup from me." In the beginning and the end of His ministry and all the way through I think Abba was His term, it means daddy. In Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6 the Bible says that we can cry, Abba, Father, we don't come to God like father in terms of the way the Jews used to think, just some deity responsible for the whole nation, we don't come to God as some indifferent, detached deal, we come to God as an intimate Father, we use the term Abba. By the way the Arabs still use the term jabba, to speak of daddy, papa. This is an answer to modern skepticism, this is the answer to the confusion of the Pharisees, this is the answer to the philosophers.
Let me close our thoughts this morning by summing all this up. What does it mean that God is our Father? What does it mean that we can go to Him as Father? Listen to this, number one, it means the end of fear; it means the end of fear. Missionaries tell us that one of the greatest gifts that Christianity brings to heathen society is the certainty that God is a loving, caring Father because heathen people live under the fear of their gods. If you've read the book "The Lords of the Earth" you know the incredible, unbelievable fear that those people lived under, before they were released by faith in Christ. This has been repeated a, a thousand, thousand times around the world as false religions have lived under absolute fear until coming to know the loving Father through the loving Son. They believe in gods their worlds literally are jammed full of gods that are jealous, hostile, grudging, vengeance prone gods, and whom they live in absolute fear. And that's why it's so wonderful when

Jesus says, "0ur Father." It puts the end to fear, you don't have to fear God, He's your Father through Christ. Secondly, I believe God as a Father settles the matter of hope, hope. You know the world is hostile? There are iron laws in this world and when you break those laws you do it at your own peril. You sin and consequences come, and the wages of sin is death. And no wonder Voltaire said that life is a bad joke, no wonder he said men are fools drowning in a sea of mud. He had no hope, it was all crashing down. That's because he didn't have a loving Father. I remember as a little boy one time my dad set me on a corner and he said, wait for me I'll come back and get you. And he didn't come, and he didn't come and it got dark and it got darker and darker and I was alone on the corner and finally he'd had car trouble and he came back hours and hours after the stores were closed and I was standing in the dark. And of course he hugged me and wondered if I'd been upset and I don't remember all these details, he just told me I said, no I'm not upset because you told me you'd come back and I was just waiting for you. That's the love of a child for a father, that's the hope, that in the midst of a hostile

world that's falling apart God is our Father, and He'll take care of it. Thirdly, I think it settles the matter of loneliness. If God is a Father then that's, that's something lonely people need to know about, right? The heart knows loneliness, the heart knows bitterness, the loss of self worth, an unworthiness, self-despair, we all suffer pity, self pity, we desperately need respect. Where are we going to get that? Is there anybody who knows us for what we are and loves us for that, is there anybody who can lift us up and give us value, is there anybody who can make us feel like we have a friend? God can, He's our Father, He's our Father He said, "Lo, I am with you always." I'm a friend that sticketh closer than brother. The Fatherhood of God settles the matter of loneliness. Fourthly I think this phrase here settles the matter of selfishness, would you look at it again, it says, "Our Father." Not my Father, "Our Father," and Jesus teaches us what I told you last week and I'll just hint at it cause we covered it last week, that prayer is something which isn't selfish; it embraces the community of faith, always. In fact there's no singular personal pronoun in this entire prayer. When you pray don't pray centered on yourself. Pray with your arms around everybody else. Ephesians 6:18 says, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication (listen to this) for all saints." Pray for everybody. You know if you just focus on yourself you've missed the point. He's not your Father, He's not my Father; He's our Father. The very use of the word our ends all claims to exclusiveness. Fifthly, God as a Father settles the matter of resources because it says, "Our Father, who art (where? where?) in heaven." Listen, when you go to your Father for resources you don't say, oh Lord, I know there's not much to draw from in the world. Listen, He's not drawing from the world, He's drawing from heaven. I believe that this adds a dimension that just carries us out of our trouble, "Our Father, who art in heaven," He has all of the supernatural domain at His disposal. All that heaven is, all that it means in Ephesians to be blessed in the heavenlies with all spiritual blessing is available in Him; He is a loving Father who has all the resources of heaven. Arthur Pink says, If God is in heaven then prayer needs to be a thing of the heart and not the lips, for no physical voice on earth can rend the skies. If God is in heaven then our souls must be detached from the earth, if we pray to God in heaven then faith must wing our petitions. You want satisfaction? God has it at His disposal, if you want fairness God has it in the heavenlies, peace, fellowship, knowledge, victory, boldness? It's all there. I pray to a Father who has absolutely eternal resources. Oh what a great thought. Sixthly, seeing God as a Father settles the matter of obedience. There used to be a, a commitment to obey your father and I don't know if it's around anymore. It was so important that in the Old Testament God said if you find a disobedient child stone him, because I want the world to know that you're to obey your father because that's a mirror picture of how you're to respond to God your Father. It settles the matter of obedience. My children are to obey me, and I'm an unworthy father. We are to obey Him and He is an infinitely worthy Father. The whole point of the Fatherhood of god comes down to the fact that we are to obey. Jesus, obeyed the Father, He said, "I didn't come to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." He said, "My meat is to do the Father's will."

"Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done." If He can assign Himself a place of subserviency and perfection, certainly we can be subservient in our imperfection. Finally, it settles the matter of wisdom. If God is a Father then He is infinitely wiser than we are. Do you remember the old television program, Father Knows Best? That'll never play again, that'll never play again, but Father does. And we're right back where we started, submissive to His will because it is the best. Now listen to me, what happens when you know God is your Father? First, it removes fear; secondly, it provides hope; thirdly, it ends loneliness; fourthly, it does away with selfishness because He's our Father. Fifthly, it provides infinite heavenly resources, because He's our Father in heaven. Sixthly it demands obedience, and seventhly it declares wisdom. So to begin a prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven," is to indicate my eagerness to come as a child beloved to a loving Father, to receive all that His love can possibly give me. Now when you pray, will you pray in this matter? Let's bow together. Lord every time I say, our Father I know I'm not lost in the crowd. Every time I say that I know You're there, I know You're there removing my fear, providing hope, taking away loneliness, doing away with selfishness, providing vast and infinite heavenly resources, calling for my obedience and affirming Your absolute wisdom, oh what a thing it is to have You as a Father. In all our prayers dear Lord, may we come with a deep sense of gratitude that Your are a Father to whom we can say daddy, papa, Abba in intimacy, because You care. You didn't just make us subjects of Your Kingdom, You didn't just make us servants to Your will, You didn't just call us friends, You made us sons and daughters, Your children and told us to call You Father, than You. And may we be obedient children, may we who are Your children live and walk as Your children should. For Your glory in Christ's name; Amen.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Priority of Prayer Scripture: Matthew 6:9 Code: 2235

Hallowed be Thy Name What a Joy it is again this morning to draw your attention to Matthew chapter 6 in our study of God's Word. Matthew chapter 6, looking at the Disciple's Prayer in verses 9 through 13, I'd like you to follow along as I read again this wonderful pattern for prayer and as we enter upon our study this morning.

Matthew 6 beginning in verse 9, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."

Most people focus on prayer only in response or reference to how it works, not what it is for. We tend to be very much pragmatists, prayer for us has become a means to an end and that end is usually a selfish one. One person said, "Men usually ply their prayers like sailors do their pumps when the ship leaks." That's generally true. Prayer is sort of a last ditch effort, it's kind of like a spiritual parachute, you're glad it's there; you hope you never have to use it. Prayer has a way of being given the wrong perspective, because we see it our way instead of God's way. But as we've been learning in our study of the Disciple's Prayer given by our Lord here as a model for all prayers, prayer is not primarily for us, it is for God. Prayer is not so much to gain for us what we think we need as it is to give to God an opportunity to manifest His glory. Prayer is for God, only incidentally and as a by-product is it for us. If we never gained anything from prayer but the communion with God that prayer reallyis that should be sufficient to make prayer a constant thing. Imagine the reality when you pray of entering into the very throne room and communing with the living God of the universe, and you have understood some gift so marvelous that if that were all there was to prayer it would be sufficient to draw us to pray constantly.
Chrysostom, the early church father, has beautifully said, "A monarch vested in gorgeous habiliments is far less illustrious than a kneeling supplicant ennobled and adorned by communion with his God. Consider how august a privilege it is when angels are present and archangels throng around where cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne of God, that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence and converse with heaven's dread sovereign, oh what honor was ever conferred like that?" End quote. How inestimable is the privilege of entering into the throne room of

God, surrounded by the hosts of His heavenly angels to commune in simplicity and with rapt attention

with one who is devoted to us. If prayer were nothing more than that it would be sufficient to draw us to it without ceasing. But prayer is more than that, prayer is more than just the privilege of communing with God, prayer is the opportunity for God to display His glory. Prayer gives God a vehicle by which He can demonstrate who He is. An old saint put it something like this, and I think it's beautifully said; True prayer brings the mind to the immediate contemplation of God's character and holds it there until the believer's soul is properly impressed. Let me read it again, True prayer brings the mind into the immediate contemplation of God's character and holds it there until the believer's soul is properly impressed. Prayer is to impress you with God, much more than it is to impress God with you or your needs. You don't pray because you want God to think you're holy, and you don't pray to get what you can get or get God to give you what you want, you pray rather to allow God to be on display. That is why we go back to our key verse in John 14:13 Jesus said, "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it, in order that the Father may be glorified in the Son." Why will God hear your prayer and answer? In order that the Father may be glorified. Prayer is ever and always, first and foremost a recognition of God's majestic glory and an act of submission to it. All our petitions, all our passions, all our supplications, all our requests, all our needs, all our trials, our problems are all subject, look back at the prayer again, to His name verse 9, His kingdom verse 10, and His will verse 10. All prayer begins there, then you have in verse 11 give us, verse 12 forgive us, verse 13 and lead us. But the giving, forgiving and leading of us comes only when God is put in the prior place. True worship begins with God; true worship is forgetting self and glorifying Him. Unfortunately most people think of prayer as an effort to bring God into line with their own desires, and this is a very predominant movement today in the church, people are claiming things on God, staking claims on what God has to do, going into God's presence affirming that God must do this. I've been listening to two, particularly on television and there are many others but these two seem to be leading the parade, they both come out of the same mold they inadequately interpret the Scripture and they tell people to demand things from God, by their faith they are to demand that God does this and demand that God does the other. One of them was saying the other night that if you're a spirit filled Christian you should never knowa day of illness in your entire life. You demand that from God by your faith that He keep you well. This kind of thing is just an extension of what has been a common approach to prayer only now its run rampant that is that prayer is all about demanding things from God on your conditions. And whether we like to admit it or not in many cases that's the way we pray I ... that's not anything new. By the way, I have to show you an illustration from Genesis just to show you how old this kind of praying is. In Genesis 28 verse 20, "And Jacob vowed a vow," he's a patriarch now, "Jacob vowed a vow, saying," and here's his vow, he's talking to the Lord, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go," in other words if God will stick around and go my way, do what I want, "and give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God." Now how do you like that for a conditional prayer? God, do You want me on Your side? Fork over, tie following. "And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house:

and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give a tenth unto thee." I'll even be a tither, I'll even give money if You'll do what I ask You. That wasn't a spirit at vow that was a carnal vow. God You do what I tell You to do and then I'll let You be my God. That isn't how you pray, you're not in the prior place of prayer, you don't go to God in prayer demanding anything, commanding God, affirming that everything you say you have you have, that isn't true. I hear these fella's promise that all the time, if you just believe you have it you have it, that's baloney, that isn't true, that's playing games with people's minds, and playing games worse with God's sovereignty. Prayer has as its purpose the uplifting of God, the setting of God in His rightful place, the manifestation of His majesty, and His sovereign will, and we bring all other items into concourse with that. Prayer is for God, that's why we've outlined the prayer this way, "Our Father, which art in heaven," that's the paternity of God. "Hallowed be thy name," that's the priority of God. "Thy kingdom come," that's the program of God. "Thy will be done," that's the purpose of God. "Give us this day our daily bread,' that's the provision of God. "And forgive us our debts," that's the pardon of God. "And lead us not into temptation," the protection of God. "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." The pre-eminence of God. The whole of the model prayer focuses on God. And precisely does this deal with the issue at hand when Jesus gave it, for the Pharisees and the scribes and the Jewish people who followed their teaching had taken prayer from what God intended it to be, a vehicle for His display and they had make it into a man made perverted traditional exercise by which they drew attention to themselves. They used their prayers hypocritically to show how spiritual they were, they assumed that in their prayers they were informing God of things He didn't know, at least that seems to be implied in the prior text, and they actually went into vain repetition like the heathens did as if they could badger God into giving them what they demanded. They had created a kind of prayer that was illegitimate, perverted, substandard, non-scriptural, and Jesus then in confronting them here sets the record straight. In chapter 6 Jesus said, Your giving is not according to God's standard, He says, Your fasting is not according to God's standard, and here in this section, your praying is not according to God's standard, now let Me set it right, here is how prayer ought to be verse 9, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye:" Not the way You've been doing it, here is the way to pray, not self-centered, self-righteous prayers but prayers that focus on God. And He begins with God's paternity, "Our Father, who art in heaven." Now we saw that last week, didn't we? The first recognition is that God is our Father, Pater, He is our Father. The Aramaic would have been Abba; He is our Daddy a term of great intimacy, a term of personal warmth, a term that belongs in a family. God is not a distant ogre, God is not some kind of a cruel, capricious, immoral being stepping on those who are His opposed subjects, but He is a loving, tender, caring Father. And at His disposal all the treasures of heaven, for the behalf of His saints that His name may be glorified. Our Father then means that God is going to hear because He cares, "Our Father who art in heaven," means that when He cares He can meet the need because He has unlimited eternal resources. God is a loving Father, that's where the prayer begins, and beloved all prayer begins with that, that God does care, when you go to pray you start by the recognition that

God really cares. You don't have to badger God, you don't have to bang away and do something to get Him to respond, you're not like theprophets and priests of Baal who were taunted by the prophet Elijah, maybe your god is asleep or maybe your god is on a vacation or maybe your god doesn't care, your God does care, is not asleep and He's there waiting for you to enter His presence because He's a loving Father, He is best illustrated in that character in Luke 15 verses 11 to 32 where you have the story called the prodigal son, that's a bad title, it is not the story of a prodigal son it is a story about two sons of a loving father. The story is the loving father, who could forgive a son who stayed home and was self-righteous and could also forgive a son who left home and was unrighteous. Who could forgive the one who stayed around the house and tried to do all he could to gain the favor of his father and just as soon as he could forgive the one who was desolate and living in immorality in a pigpen, the loving father, and he forgave them both and he offered them both all that he possessed and that's the story that God is the Father who cares for His sons, be they religious or irreligious, be they moral or immoral, be they self-righteous or unrighteous, He cares, He cares, He's a loving Father. And so that all prayer begins with a recognition that God cares, and this is a model for every prayer, this isn't a prayer to be recited this is a model for every prayer, and you begin with the recognition that God not only cares but because He's in heaven He has the resources to fulfill His care. Paul Tourneay the great Christian doctor tells a lot of stories in his Doctor's Case Book, one little vignette that I thought was interesting says this, Tourneay writes, "There was one patient of mine, the youngest daughter in a large family which the father found it difficult to support. One day she heard her father mutter despairingly, referring to her, we could well have done without that one." Tourneay says, that is precisely what God can never say. He is a loving Father to every one of His children. You know God said to Moses for example, "I know thee by name." "I know thee by name." Do you know that the Bible has genealogy after genealogy after genealogy, and people always wonder why all those list of names, why all those list of names? Names after names after names, why does God bother with all those names? Well whatever His specific purpose in each genealogy the overall purpose I think that comes through to me is that God wants people to know that He knows them, by name. Later on the wonderful statement is made that not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father knowing it. Doctor J.F. McFadden used to say, if you take that out of the Greek and put it in the Aramaic it says not one sparrow hops without your Father knowing it. He doesn't just know when a sparrow dies He knows where a sparrow lands and lights when it hops. He cares about little things, He knows your name, He's a loving Father. So "Our Father," then is God's paternity. Secondly, God's priority and that's what we want to see this morning. God's priority. It's in the phrase in verse 9, "Hallowed be thy name." Now that is the first petition you'll notice, that is the first request, "Hallowed be thy name." And the first request is on God's behalf, before you ever begin to pray for you, you begin by praying on Gods behalf, "Hallowed be thy name." That's the first petition, the second petition is, "Thy kingdom come." The third petition is, "Thy will be done." And then you can say, "Give us," "forgive us,' "lead us," and then you come back full circle, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." Prayer always begins with God's priority. Arthur Pink

says, "How clearly then is the fundamental duty in prayer set forth. Self and all its needs must be given a secondary place, and the Lord freely accorded the pre-eminence in our thoughts and supplications. This petition must take the precedence for the glory of God's great name is the ultimate end of all things." End quote. "Hallowed be thy name," puts God in the prior place. Even though He is my loving Father, even though He cares to meet my needs, and even though He has heavenly resources to do that my first petition is not on my own behalf it's on His, "Hallowed be thy name," is a warning against self seeking prayer, at the very start. God has the priority. Now I suppose if you're like I am you've been raised in a church, you've said, "Hallowed be thy name," a lot of times in your life, you've fumbled through the Lord's Prayer again and again and you've heard the word hallowed and the concept of "Hallowed be thy name," but I wonder if you really know what it means. This is such a phenomenal phrase, "Hallowed be thy name." Do you understand what it is? What is implied in its meaning? Is it sort of an official thing like ah, long live the king, "Hallowed be thy name." Is it just sort of an epithet attached to God as a passing homage? I think not. When Jesus says, 'Hallowed be thy name," here, He says something that's so full and so rich that it's inconceivable that I could ever exhaust what it means in this or any other ministry, because it encompasses all of God's nature, and all of man's response to His nature. It isn't a casual bit of religious routine, it's not just reciting some words that are nice thoughts about God, it is way more than that. It opens up a whole dimension of respect and reverence and awe and appreciation and honor and glory and adoration and worship for God. The concept of name, yousee it there, "thy name?" is not restricted to a title, not restricted to a title. Today we think of somebody's name and that's all it is, a name, and it really doesn't mean much other than a name. We even say, what's in a name? My name is John, John means God's gracious gift, frankly that's debatable to a lot of people. There's really nothing in that name, there are a lot of people named John who could care less about God, we don't have that concept in our minds but we need to, to go back and think through the term name as a Hebrew sees it. Now the Jews had such a sacredness attached to God's name that they had gone overboard, and they were, they were concerned about not saying the word that was the name for God while they dishonored His person, isn't that amazing? They were very busy dishonoring His person, disobeying His Word, destroying His truths but they were trying to hallow His name. Just the name itself, the letters that made up the name. For example, you may remember that in your Old Testament particularly you read the word Jehovah, Jehovah, there's no such word as Jehovah in Hebrew. Although it appears all throughout the Old Testament there's no such word. You say, well where did it come from? Well the name of God in Exodus, He said, "I AM THAT I AM:" is Yahweh, Yahweh. The other familiar name for God is Adonai, which means Lord, the Lord God, Yahweh, Adonai, now the Jew didn't want to say that, he wanted to be holding the name of God sacred but he had reduced it down to just the name not God's person and will, and so a Jew wouldn't say Yahweh. In fact if you go into an orthodox circle today in Hebrew and were to say that word you'd probably get stoned, that's true. They won't say that. So you know what they did? They took the consonants out of Yahweh, they

took the vowels out of Adonai, they put them together and came up with Jehovah, which is a nonword. They made it up so they wouldn't have to say the real word that is God's name, but what superficiality for while they were so careful not to say the name they constantly blasphemed who He was. Now what our Lord is teaching us here in hallowing the name is that we respect God for who He is, not just His name, as a name. It's an all encompassing concept. Now let's look at it for a minute. In biblical times, we'll look first of all at the name and then we'll look at what it meansto hallow, in biblical times the name was more than a title. In First Samuel 18, and there's so many illustrations I'll just give you one so that you can have something to go by, in First Samuel 18 and verse 30 it says, "Then the princes of the Philistines went forth; came to pass, (just listen) after they went forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul," Now David got a good reputation with the people, he behaved himself more wisely than Saul and his servants, "so that his name was much esteemed." Now they weren't esteeming the letters in his name, his name being esteemed meant he himself, his name standing for who he was, his name being esteemed. We say that today, well so and so has made a name for himself, so and so has a good name, we mean there's something about his character that is worthy of our praise. The name then stood for the whole character of the person revealed; the name was the personal and incommunicable character of the individual. I'll give you an illustration of this, if you go back to Exodus chapter 34 you'll find that it's clearly indicated to us. Now Moses is having a little discussion with God about His glory he wants to be sure that God is with him, he wants to be confident that God is' there. And so in verse 18 of 33 he says, Show me Your glory God, don't give me a job that I, I can't do without You here, and I want to know You're here by visibly seeing Your glory. The Lord says okay. Now He shows him His glory, then you come down to 34:5, Exodus 34:5, "The LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD." Now the Lord comes down and proclaims His name, now what did He say? Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord over and over? What do you mean He proclaimed His name? Verse 6, "The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed," now here in verse 5 it says He proclaimed His name, in verse 6 it says He proclaimed this. Therefore whatever He says in verse 6 is the equivalent of His name in verse 5, He proclaims His name here, well look what He says, "The LORD, LORD God," does He stop there? No, "merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, who will by no means clear the guilty," that means He is a holy just God, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children," He's a God of judgment and so forth. Now do you get the picture? God says, I will proclaim My name, here's My name, "merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness, truth, keeping mercy, forgiving iniquity," etc, etc. In other words the name of God is the composite of all of His attributes, do you see? All that God is is embodied in His name. And hallowing His name is not having some kind of a fetish about speaking the word God or Lord; it is hallowing all that God is, in terms of His nature, His attributes. For example in Psalm 9:10

the Bible says, "Those who know thy name put their trust in thee." Did you hear that? "Those who know thy name put their trust in thee." Now if we take the concept of name just to mean the word, does everybody who knows the word God trust in Him? Of course not, that's absurd. But those who know Thy name, those who perceive the fullness of who You are trust in You. Listen beloved when the blinders come off and you see God for who He is you will trust Him. That's the essence of what it means in Psalm 9:10, "Those who know thy name will put their trust in thee." Those who really understand His character will trust Him. If you were to see the Psalms, you could go through the Psalms and chart this all the way through, it's repeated again and again. For example in Psalm 7:17, "I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high." The name being all that He is. In, further in the Psalms just over in Psalm 102 there's a verse, verse 15 it says, "So the nations shall fear the name of the LORD." Well they don't fear the, the letters they fear the embodiment of all that God is. In Psalm 113 verse 1 and following a most helpful passage, "PRAISE ye the LORD. Praise, 0 ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD." Now listen, "Blessed be the name of the LORD." Verse 3, "From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the LORD's name is to be praised. The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the nations. Who is like unto the LORD, our God." In other words all that He is is cause for His praise. This is true in many other passages of the Old Testament, it's characteristic of Isaiah at least three different places to praise the name of the Lord. In Psalm 20 verse 7 it says, "Some boast of chariots, and some boast of horses; but we boast of the name of he LORD our God." But the key verse to understanding the concept of name is John 17:6, John 17:6 Jesus said, listen, "I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou hast given me." Now listen, Jesus said I have manifested Your name, what did He mean? I have revealed who You are. John 1:14, "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, (what) the glory of the only begotten of he Father, full of grace and truth." In other words, He manifested God. "Philip, have you been so long with me. And do you not know if you have seen me you have seen the Father?" Jesus then is the embodiment of the name of God, He is the manifestation, the human disclosure of all that God is. That's what His name means. So a name is not a title, a name is a total; a name is the whole person. Putting it into plain terms we might begin to pray this prayer this way, Our Father, who loves us and cares for us, and who has in heaven supplies to meet our every need, may Your person, Your identity, Your character, Your nature, Your attributes, Your reputation, Your very being itself be hallowed. That's what it's saying. This is not some glib phrase, "Hallowed be thy name," thrown at God periodically in a ritual, this is a way of approaching God continuously, to understand the fullness of who He is and to hallow Him for who He is. Now the very names of God in the Bible, and there are many of them help us to understand this. God is given so many different names, and each of His name's expresses some partof His character, for example, God is in the third word in the Bible called Elohim, "IN the beginning God." Elohim is the Creator God, in the word Elohim we see His creation, He is to be hallowed as a Creator. The song writer has put it so well, "I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains

rise, and that spread the flowing seas abroad and built the lofty skies. I sing the goodness of the Lord that filled the earth with food. He formed the creatures with His word and then pronounced them good. Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed where e'er I turn my eye; if I survey the ground I tread or gaze upon the sky. Creatures as numerous as we are subject to thy care. There's not a place where we can flee but God is present there." Everywhere, He is seen as the Creator. The Bible calls Him El Elyon, in Genesis chapter 14 verse 18 and 19 it says, "Blessed be Abraham of the most high God, (El Elyon) possessor of heaven and earth." He is Creator God, He is possessor God, He is the sovereign ruler over all the universe. The OldTestament calls Him, Jahovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide, Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord our Banner, Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord that healeth, Jehovah-Salaom, the Lord our peace, Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, JehovahSabaoth, the Lord of hosts, Jehovah-Shama, the Lord is near, is present, the Lord JehovahMaqoieshkim, which means the Lord sanctifieth thee. All these names speak of His attributes. The Bible calls Him by so many terms, showing the fullness of who He is. But the greatest name that God ever took, the greatest name by which God has ever been designated in history is the name the Lord Jesus Christ, which means the Lord, Savior, King. That's His greatest name. And as the Lord Jesus Christ He drew to Himself many other names, the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Resurrection, the Good Shepherd, the Branch, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lamb of God, and on and on. All of the names of God touching on variousattributes of His blessed majestic person, so that when we speak of God and His name we are not talking about a title we are talking about the fullness of who He is. As you read Isaiah 9, "A child shall be born; his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Prince of Peace, The Father of Eternity." All designations of His nature. That's why Romans 1:5 says, "We preach the gospel, that nations may believe, for the sake of his name. Third John 7 says, "We sent out preachers to preach for the sake of his name." Not just the title but all that He is. No wonder the hymn writer wrote, "O could I speak the matchless worth, 0 could I sound the glories forth which in my Savior shine. I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings and vie with Gabriel while he sings in notes almost divine. I'd sing the characters He bears and all the forms of love He wears, exalted on His throne in loftiest songs of sweetest praise I would to everlasting days make all His glories known."
So we understand "Thy name," to be as full as God is in His own being, to "Hallow his name," is to perceive Him in the fullness of who He is. But what does it mean to hallow? What does it mean to hallow? We think of the word hallow, what do we think of? Halloween? Somehow it got contracted into that. What do we think of? We think of some cloistered halls, ivy covered walls, long robes, dismal chants, halos, musty dim churches, mournful morbid music, and other tired traditions. Hallowed is an archaic word I grant you, translators of the various versions of the Bible have kept it because of its familiarity, but I wonder if we know what it even means, hallowed. Let me tell you what it means. It comes from a Greek verb hagiaz, that word is a very important word in the Bible and it's used repeatedly, the noun form of the word is hagioswhich means holy. Holy be Your name, that's what hallowed means. Now basically it has two meanings that are possible, it is never used in as far

as I know in secular Greek but has many uses in Biblical Greek so we can fill in its meaning very easily. It has two basic ideas, one, hagiaznor hagioscan mean to make an ordinary thing extraordinary, to make a common thing uncommon by bringing it into contact with something extraordinary and uncommon, now that is its use in First Peter 1:16 where Peter says to you and to me, "Be ye holy." What does that mean? It means that we're unholy to start with but by coming in contact with one who is holy we can be made holy. So hagiaznthen is to make something unholy holy by contact with that which is holy, that's its first meaning. Is that its meaning in this passage? Are we making God holy when in our prayers, are we saying, now God I know You're unholy, I know You're common, ordinarybut by this prayer I want You to be made holy? No. That is not its use here. There's a second way it's used in the Bible, many times this way in fact more times, and that is, it is used in this reference to treat something or someone as sacred, to hold something or someone as set apart and holy, to regard someone as separated. In other words in the case of men it is to make something holy, in the case of God it is to regard Him as holy when you say, holy be Your name you are not saying the same thing as, when I say to you, be ye holy, right? I'm saying to you get your life in line with God and may His righteousness become yours. But when I say to God, holy be Your name, I am saying may Your name be regarded and made manifest as holy, and that is the way it's used here. We don't make God holy, we simply petition that He be revered and regarded as holy. Now the basic idea of hagiazor hagiosis very simple. What does it mean to be holy you're saying. We say hallowed be Thy name, we say, holy be Thy name, what's the difference? Well the idea of holy is different, it's different it means to be different. Now not everybody who's different is holy, but everybody who's holy is different, do you understand that? All right, a lot of different people aren't holy, but holy people are different. The basic idea is different; it means a different sphere, a different quality of being. That is why God is called the Holy One, He is in a different sphere, He has a different quality of being than our life. It's used for example in Exodus 20 verse 8 where it says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." What does that mean? The Sabbath day ought to be different than every other day, there ought to be one day different than the others. In Leviticus 21:8 it tell us that the priests were to be holy, they were to be different than other men, they were set apart to serve God. Holy means to be set apart, to be different, to have another sphere of living, to exist in another quality of being. That's basically what it means to be holy. God lives in another sphere, God exists at a different level, God is separated from us, God is uncommon, extraor-dinary, unearthly, separated from sinners, holy, undefiled the Bible says. He is holy, apart from us. Now out of this comes the idea of reverence, when we pray this first petitions is saying, we are to speak to God in terms of reverence, may Your person be reverenced, is what we're saying. Let me give you an illustration, go back in your Bible to Numbers, the fourth Book in the Bible, Numbers chapter 20, and this is a very, very helpful illustration so that you can see this. In Numbers 20 we find that the children of Israel are in the wilderness and they're getting very thirsty and there isn't any water. Verse 2, "There was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together unto Moses and

against Aaron." Notice that they immediately were against their leaders, they blamed them for their lack of water "And the people strove with Moses, and spoke, saying, Would God we had died when our brethren died before the Lord!" Who wants to die of thirst now?"Why have you brought us into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die here? And wherefore have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us unto this evil place?" Is this the plan? "It's no place of of seed, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink. And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell on their faces; and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Take your rod, and gather you the assembly together, thou, and thy brother, Aaron, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth its water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink." Now God said, Moses you just get that rock get over beside that rock and speak and I'll bring water, well verse 9, "Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice;" What did God tell him to do? Speak. What's he doing here? He's hitting the rock twice. And by the way God didn't make the whole congregation pay for Moses sin, so "water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and the beasts also. And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, (listen to this) Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me" that's the same word in the Septuagint, hagiaz, to see Me as one to be reverenced, to be revered, to be honored, to be glorified, to be set apart, to be obeyed, because you didn't do that, "in the eyes of the children of Israel, you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them." And you know he never entered the Promised Land because he hit that rock. Listen, Moses was saying, well I don't know the last time this deal was done it - I hit the rock; I don't know whether God can do it if I don't hit it. And Moses was also wanting to affirm in the minds of the people that he was the hero, and so just to speak to the rock would so much glorify God, Moses figured he'd hit it a few times so they'd associate the power with his rod and his right arm. He was stealing the glory from God. He was disobeying God's command, he was not reverencing God, he did not, it says in 12 sanctify God, he didn't hallow God, he didn't reverence God, he didn't pay God His due honor, by his unbelief, his disobedience, and his irreverence. To hallow God's name, what does it mean? To hold His matchless being in reverence so that you will believe what He says, so that you will obey what He says. Chrysostom said that the word to hallow is equivalent to doxaznwhich means to glorify and to honor. Origen said it is equivalent to hupsoand which means to exalt or lift on high. Others said it is equivalent to eulognwhich means to bless or to praise. In other words it is to exalt God. John Calvin put it this way, "That God's name should be hallowed is to say that God should have His own honor of which He is so worthy, so that men should never think or speak of Him without the greatest veneration." Now do you get the picture? Hallowing God's name, seeing His name as all that He is, and being reverent in His presence.

Now this I think comes after "Our Father," because it's a protection against something. Too much "Our Father," too much Abba, too much Daddy turns into sentimentalism, and we drag God down and we make God into a nice kind of a, a buddy-buddy, and we've dope that in American Christianity to the point where it's a real problem. People talk to God in such low level concepts and terms that they don't really do justice to His hallowed name.We've got the Daddy part down pretty much, we think God is the big Daddy that we ought to approach and He's going to give us everything. Listen the Jews were very aware of this and so was our Lord, that's why after "Our Father," Abba, He says, hallowed, holy, reverenced is Your name. Jews were conscious of this when a Jew called God Father he almost always immediately added another title after that to balance off his thinking. I read through some of the Jewish prayers this week and over and again I found this, 0 Lord, Father and Ruler of my life. 0 Lord, Father and God of my life. 0 Father, King of great power, Most High and Almighty God. In the Shemonh'esrahwhich is the eighteen prayers a Jew had to pray everyday this is the way they began every one of those prayers, 0 Father, 0 King, 0 Lord. In the ten penitential days at the time of the Day of Atonement the Jews prayed a thing called the Avinumalkaynuand when they prayed through this forty-four times they said this, Our Father, Our King, Our Father, Our King, Out Father, Our King, because they never wanted the concept of God as limited as theirs was of God as a Father to cause them to be sentimental about God who was also a majestic sovereign King. And so they guarded carefully the issue of sentimentalizing God. In First Peter 31:15 Peter says, "Sanctify the Lord God in your heart." He uses the same word hagiazn, reverence God, treat God as holy, treat God as separated, extraordinary, uncommon, worthy to be adored and praised and glorified. What is it to hallow? It is to set apart from everything common and profane, to esteem, to prize, to honor, to reverence, to adore as divinely and infinitely blessed the true and only God, an you cannot speak of God in earthy terms, you cannot drag God down to the street talk, God must have titles that are fitting for His power and His holiness. How easy it is in our lifetime to go through it saying, "Hallowed be thy name," "Hallowed be thy name," and have no idea what we're even saying. The truth of such a petition is that God is to have the rightful priority place, my heart longingly seeks to have Him glorified, honored in every situation, every circumstance and every relationship. Jesus said, "Father, honor your name in me." In John 12, that was His goal. Now, that's what it means to hallow His name. But how do you do that, how do you do that? The most important part of what we want to say comes now so listen. This is the practical. How do we hallow His name? What is this prayer really saying? What are we really asking when we say, "Hallowed be Thy name."? How can I, how can I know that prayer is answered, how can God's name really be hallowed? Because it's a petition that I'm asking for Him, God let Your name be hallowed. And the implication is through me, let Your name be hallowed in my life, let Your name be made holy in my life, in my presence, how? Are we just saying don't use His name in vain? Not just that, that, but not just that. Are we saying be sure you say in your liturgy, your prayer and your acts of worship "Hallowed be thy name."? No. Although it's not wrong to say that, that's not the issue. How do you really reverence God? How can God be hallowed in my life? I'm going to give you four points and I

want you to follow the progres-sion. Number one, we hallow His name when we believe He exists, we hallow His name when we believe He exists. Hebrews 11:6 says, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." You can never honor God, you can never exalt God unless you believe God exists, that's where it all begins. And by the way the Scripture never tries to prove that, do you know why? Because God is self-evident, He is self-evident, God is axiomatic. An axiom is something that doesn't need to be proven, an axiom is what stands against which other things are proven. God is an axiom in the Bible, God is never proven, every-thing else is proven as it relates to God. God is the axiom, God is self-evident. The Bible writers never seek to prove it they just be-lieve it, and you'll never hallow God until you believe that He is. Sir James Jeans the astronomer said, No astronomer could ever be an atheist. Kant, the philosopher who had a lot of strange views at least had this right, "The law within us and the starry heavens above us drive us to God." He said. God is self-evident, in man and around man, and we begin to hallow God when we believe that He exists. But it doesn't stop there. You can believe that God exists and still not hallow His name. There's a second thing, you must hallow His name by not only knowing that He is but by knowing the kind of God that He is, did you get that? Oh, there are many people who say, I believe in God. But they don't hallow His name because it's not the God He really is. True doctrine about God and true teaching from God are reverence for God. False doctrine about God and false teaching about God are irreverence. We think that you take the Lord's name in vain when you say Jesus Christ or God or something like that, you know you take the Lord's name in vain every time you think a thought about God that is not true of Him, did you get that? When you doubt God, when you disbelieve God, when you question God, and why He did something you are taking His name in vain, because that is not true of His character, of His name. So that you can hallow God's name when you believe that He is only if you believe that He is who He really is. Illicit wrong thoughts about God do not hallow His name. Origen the early church father said, "The man who brings into his concept of God ideas that have no place there takes the name of the Lord God in vain." Now I imagine in the Greek period of time they had all these gods that were just really far a field from the true God. They had invented gods and of course their gods had battles and their gods fought wars and they had quarrels and they had lovers coming on and off all the time, they had hatred, they seduced each other, they committed adulteries and immoralities and perversions and atrocities, all of the gods that they capriciously created had these problems because anytime men invent gods, their gods turn out like them, see? And so to say to a Greek, you have to hallow your gods, you have to exalt your gods, you have to reverence your gods would be ridiculous their gods were as vile as they were. But not the true God. So we have tried to do the same thing with the true God, some taking their cues from pagan sources have tried to say that God is cruel, that when God drown Pharaoh's army He was a savage God, that when God did what He did to the Canaanites He was a savage God, that when God punished certain

nations He was very cruel, vindictive and harsh. Why even Job fell into that sin in the 30th chapter of Job and the 21st verse when he was trying to figure out his dilemma he said these words, "Thou art cruel to me." To God. God is accused of being unloving, God is accused of indiscriminately banishing people to an eternal hell, God is seen as a national ally of Israel who goes around slaughtering other people whimsically. Listen; when you think wrong thoughts like that about God, when you don't understand who God really is, you have not hallowed His name. In fact John Wesley listened to a lot of these critics one day and finally said, Your godis my devil. I think you've got them reversed. To allow into your conception of God things that are wrong and unworthy of God is to irreverence His holy name. And you know Christians you can do this not only by thinking wrong thoughts about God but by be-ing ignorant of the right thoughts, because if you're ignorant of what God is like then you're going to doubt Him when He does things, you're going to question Him when He does things, you're not going to trust Him, you're going to be disobedient, and you're going to cause others to be repelled from God and in all of that you are irreverencingGod. In order to hallow His name you must believe that God is, you must be aware that He is who He is. But you want to know something? Even if you believe that God is, and even if you believe that He is who He is, you might still not reverence God. Because there are a lot of people who believe, and a lot of people have a right theology but they don't hallow God. There's a third point. We hallow His name, listen, when we are constantly aware of His presence. Knowing that He is and knowing who He is and bringing that into consciousness, so that we living everyday of our lives give place to God is hallowing His name. In Psalm 16:8 David said it, "I have set the LORD always before me." I see everything through God, God is my vision. That's the key. What about you? To reverence God is to live in His consciousness. For most of us our thoughts of God are spasmodic, would you agree to that? Sometimes very intense sometimes totally absent, somedays, sometimes like now we think about God a lot and you'll go out of the service and think about God for awhile and then you'll go through a long period of time, maybe a whole week and think very little about God, spasmodic. But to really hallow His name is to draw conscious thoughts of God into every daily thought into every daily word, into every daily action. Do you see God everywhere? Do you hallow His name in your living? Is He made manifest constantly, everything you do, everything you say, everywhere you go, do you see God manifest? One of the modern devotional poets is Henry Ernest Hardy and he wrote this called The Mystic Beauty, he touches on the idea. "O London town has many moods, and mingled 'mongst its many broods a leavening of saints. And ever up and down its streets, if one has eyes to see one meets stuff that an artist paints. I've seen a backstreet bathed in blue such as the soul of Whistler knew; A smudge of amber light where some fried-fish shop plied its trade, a perfect note of color made oh, it was exquisite I once came through Saint James' Park betwixed the sunset and the dark, and oh the mystery of gray and green and violet! I would I never might forget that evening harmony. I hold it true that God is there if beauty breaks through anywhere, and His most blessed feet who once life's roughest roadway trod, who came as man to show us God still pass along the street." Saint James Park, a fish shop, a backstreet, an amber light, he sees God. God consciousness, not spasmodic but constant. No, to hallow God means that we must believe that

He is, that we must believe that He is who He is, and that we must be constantly aware of His presence. But, you know something? You could do all three of those things and still not reverence God. If you didn't do a fourth. Here it comes, are you ready, the finale. We hallow God's name when we live a life of obedience to Him. That's the final key. You cannot come to the fullness of hallowing His name unless you obey Him. To say, oh yes I believe that You are, I believe that You are who the Bible says You are, oh yes God, I'm aware of Your presence in my life, and then to disobey cuts off the capability of a person to reverence His name. You see the prayer is not just that God's name be hallowed in heaven, it's not just that God's name be hallowed around the world, it's that God's name be hallowed in me, this is this folks, get it, this is the prayer that says, God may I be a vehicle for Your holiness? That's where prayer begins. Before you start asking for what you should get you need to ask for what you should be, do you see? Luther's catechism, the question was asked, how is God's name hallowed among us? The answer, when both our doctrine and our life are truly Christian. When you have the right thoughts of God and you do the right deeds from God you are hallowing His name. The first part of this prayer is, God, teach me the truth, and help me live it. "Hallowed be thy name," means in me God, manifest Your holiness by my right knowledge of who You are, and my right living in response to it. That's why First Corinthians 10:31 says, "Whatever you do, whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." That's the way we're to live. Matthew 5:16 I already said it, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, who is in heaven." "Hallowed by thy name," means God be on display through me, let the light shine through me so that they may glorify You. How do you do that? How do you obey in that way? How do you really let God be made manifest? By living in obedience to His Word. The Bible says we glorify God by confessing Him as Lord, we glorify God by confessing sin, we glorify God by faith, we glorify God be bearing fruit, we glorify god by praise, we glorify God by contentment, we glorify Him by proclamation of His truth, we glorify God by evangelism, we glorify God by sexual physical purity First Corinthians 6, we glorify God by unity and it goes on and on, all the ways that we can demonstrate the majesty and the glory of god so that others in seeing us will make the right judgment about who God is and be drawn to Him. Gregory of Nisa wrote this, "A man who leads such a life will oppose fortitude to the assaults of the passions, since he partakes of the requirements of life only as far as is necessary he is in no way softened by the luxuries of the body and is an utter stranger to revelry and laziness as well as to boastful conceit. He touches the earth but lightly with the tip of his toes for he is not engulfed by the pleasurable enjoyments in its life but is above all deceit that comes by the senses. And so even although in the flesh he strives after the immaterial life, he counts the possession of virtues the only riches, familiarity with God the only nobility. His only privilege and power is the mastery of self, so as not to be a slave to human passions, he is saddened if his life in this material world is prolonged like

those who are seasick he hastens to reach the port." And then Gregory of Nisa prayed this, "May I become through Thy help blameless, just and holy, may I abstain from every evil, speak the truth and do justly, may I walk in the straight paths shining with temperance, adorned with incorruption, beautiful through wisdom and prudence, may I meditate upon the things that are above and despise what is earthly for a man can glorify God in no other way save by his virtue, which bears witness that the divine power is the cause of his goodness." "Hallowed by thy name." Is His name hallowed in you? That's the beginning of your petitions when you pray. Let's bow together. I'm reminded our Father of the Psalmists words, "Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together." May this congregation oh Lord, hallow Thy name, may they so live that others may see their good works and glorify their Father, who is in heaven. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Program of Prayer Scripture: Matthew 6:10 Code: 2236

Thy Kingdom Come As we've been learning in these Lord's Day mornings recently one very important way in which we serve the Lord is in our prayer life, and Jesus is helping us to see how we should pray. Turn again with me this morning to the 6th chapter of Matthew if you will. If you didn't bring along a Bible there's one in the pew near you and I'd like you to follow along as we look from place to place in God's Word this morning. We serve the Lord in our prayers, but only if our prayers are in accord with His design for prayer, and our dear Lord in this particular passage gives us instruction as to how to pray. That's the intent of this, The Disciple's Prayer or as it's commonly known The Lord's Prayer; it is an instruction for us to know how to pray. Prayer is vital; it's to the Christian what breathing is to the human being. It is the drawing in of the presence of God that gives us life and sustenance, and yet we must know how to pray as we ought to pray. And we have problems with that; according to Romans 8, Paul says, "We do not know how to pray as we ought." And our Lord here is helping to make it right so we will understand, and we've been seeing that this particular prayer that the Lord gives is not a prayer to be recited only although that would certainly be alright, it's not a prayer to be a part of a ritual or a routine or a liturgy, but it is a skeleton for which all prayers are to find their form. In other words these are simply brief concise statements that open up to us incredible unlimited horizons and vistas of comprehension and content in our prayers.We've been learning that as we've been taking them one phrase at a time.

This morning we come to the third phrase in verse 10 it's the first three words, "Thy kingdom come." "Thy kingdom come." Let's read the whole prayer and see it again in its context. "Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." "Thy kingdom come." An incredible statement, three simple words in English, three simple words in Greek, and yet they open up to us something so vastly beyond us that we could never conceive all that's contained in that simple statement. As I even approach this text I feel like a little boy with a pail at the beach standing before the uncharted seas, there's no way I can contain it in my bucket, there's no way I can articulate all that's here, but if I can just begin to wet your appetite you can spend the rest of your life examining all that is beyond this, and someday in eternity understand the measure of what is meant. "Thy kingdom come." Francis Havergall has beautifully

written the following verse to Jesus Christ and I think in that verse expresses something of the meaning of that phrase, "Oh the joy to see Thee reigning, Theemy own beloved Lord. Every tongue Thy name confessing, worship, honor, glory, blessing brought to thee with one accord.Thee my Master and my friend vindicated and enthroned, unto earth's remotest end glorified, adored and owned." The exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ is what that prayer is about. "Thy kingdom come," is expressed to the one who has a right to rule and a right to reign who is none other than the King Himself, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. God the Father seeks this so when you praythis you are praying it in accord with God's will, for in Psalm 2 we read, "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." In other words God says He is exalting His Son the King. "The LORD hath said unto the Son, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession." You see, God wants to give the kingdoms of the world to the Son. God desires to set His Son, His King on the holy hill of Zion to reign on the throne of David. When David wanted to build a temple for the Lord, God said to him through the prophet Nathan, you can't do that because you're a man of blood, I'll not let you do that, and God removed from him one great joy and in return God gave to him one great promise and said in Second Samuel 7, though you will not build My house, through your loins will come a child and of that child shall be built a kingdom which shall never end. And so the promise of the Kingdom to the King, the Son, the eternal Son is given in the Old Testament, not just there but many times. In fact throughout the Old Testament there is a promise of a coming King, one who would be born upon whose shoulders would be the government, says Isaiah. One who would reign and rule and have sway in the earth, a Savior, a Monarch, a King, a Messiah.
The very word Messiah means anointed one, one with a right to rule and reign. You see, and this is so important for you to understand, God's program centers on a person. It is not a plan without a person, it is not a program without a person; history focuses on a person. One who will come again to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Such was the hope of Israel, such is the hope of the church; such is the hope of the world. Jesus Christ the King will consummate history. Someone has well said

history is His story. History is the redemptive unfolding of God's plan in the person of Jesus Christ, we are moving to the place where Christ dominates. In Daniel as we shall see tonight, and I can't help but mingle the two sermons, in Daniel as we see the image smashed by a flying stone coming through the air, that stone is representative of Christ and then the stone fills the whole earth, you see Christ is inseparable from His Kingdom. There is no plan apart from the person, the person is the plan. And to pray, "Thy kingdom come," is nothing more or less nor could it be more or less than Christ reign, here and now that is what that is saying, and we'll see it as we move through it this morning. A true child of God then concerns himself not so much with his own plans and his own desires as he does with the determinate program and plan of God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Praying

right is not letting God in on your plans it is calling for God to fulfill His own. "Thy kingdom come." It takes quite a transformation in the life of a believer to come to the place where instead of saying, my kingdom come he says, "Thy kingdom come." Oh we may say, "Thy kingdom come," in words but I wonder sometimes if our prayers aren't literally filled with our own kingdom, our own plan, our own rule, our own reign; our own causes. And yet all of history, all of redemptive history from the fall in Genesis, where we heard of the seed of the woman to be born to bruise the serpent's head, all of history is moving to the glorification of, of the Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, all of redemptive history, and all history is redemptive history in that sense is moving to the consummation, the return of Christ. His cause and His program and His plan is our preoccupation. But have you noticed how that goes against your human nature, have younoticed that? Have you noticed how much your prayers are filled with yourself? Have you noticed how you rush into God's presence to unload on Him your needs, and your causes, your concerns? I guess it's always that way with human nature because we have a bent towards self. I don't think it's better illustrated anyplace than it's illustrated in the life of a baby, a new born baby knows nothing of the community spirit. A baby knows nothing about letting someone else have their choice, a baby screams and is unable to deal with something like a mother coming in and saying, you know I'm really going to get to that I, I think by about 9:15 but in the meantime I've got a few things to do, no. A baby understands one thing and that's me, me, me, I want, I want, and when they get a little after the stage of even being in the crib, it's that's mine you can't have it. And that's the bent, and as they grow up we continue the same kind of thing, we generate subcultures we appeal to those subcultures through advertising and through the various things in our society, and when they grow up even through the Junior High and the High School age we tell them that they are the king of their own castle, that they are to determine their own destiny, they are the master of their ownfate, they will arrange their own affairs, they are charting their own course, they are to govern their own lives, and so the whole of human society is a selfish, self-centered orientation that knows very little about any other pronouns than me, mine and I. And so when God invades a life and all of a sudden the command of the Word of God is that when you pray it isn't me, mine and I, it's Thy name be hallowed and Thy will be done, and Thy kingdom come, that goes against the grain. And then when you have people coming along telling us that we are to tell God that, ... I hear these preachers saying that we're to go to God and demand certain things, and we're to claim certain things, and affirm certain things, and force God to do certain things, that's a total miscomprehension of all that God has ever designed to do in human history and that is to glorify His own name, His own cause and His own will in His own Son, Jesus Christ. Now when I sincerely believe, and I genuinely confess Christ as Lord and King in my life, and beloved that's what salvation does, salvation isn't anything less than that, it isn't just taking Him as Savior and not as Lord, salvation is to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, Romans 10. And when you have done that you are brought then into a affirmation that the direction of your life is toward the exaltation of the Lord of your life who is Jesus Christ, and your own causes are only valid insofar as they agree

with and are in accord and harmony with the eternal causes of God to be revealed in Christ. When I pray, "Thy kingdom come," I am really in an affirmation of my own will relinquishing the rule of my ownlife, and I am saying to God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ within me, You take control and You do what You will for Your glory. Now when you do that, you bring yourself into an immediate confrontation with your own human nature, because your human nature screams for its own will, and its own way and its own causes. Oh beloved that we could be preoccupied with the things of God, that we could be lost in His Kingdom because if that were true then we would begin to value things that should be valued, and no man could ever take anything away from us. People say to me all the time, what's going to happen to America? Oh we've got this problem over in Iran, we've got the international back mail, we've got all the intrigues in our own country, economically and politically and in education and in the encroaching humanism and morality and all of these things, homosexuality, what's going to happen to our own country? Wh ... is it going to get worse, are we going to get persecuted? Well there are already I think five pastors in America on trial now who could go to jail for things they believe and maybe it's coming, maybe the time is coming when we're not going to be able to say certain things and they're going to put us in jail but if our causes, mark it, are God's causes then we lose nothing. If the investment of our lives are in His Kingdom that cannot be touched.

People say, ar ... aren't you concerned about America, aren't you concerned about where America's going? Well I am in a sense because this is my homeland and I, I'm grateful to God for putting me here, and the freedoms that are here I'm thankful for but frankly folks, my concern is God's Kingdom, not a passing nation in the history of the world, America will go the way of all the rest of the nations, inexorably built into America is the inevitable hour indi-cated by God's Word, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproachto any people." America will not last because no nation ever lasts because built into it are the seeds of its own damnation because of sin. And we can see rapidly that we have abandoned al-ready our causes for God, we have already abandoned our biblical standards and morality and we are on the backside on the way down, we know that but America is not the issue, the issue is the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ and His causes, and if that's our concern then whatever they take they'll never touch the things that really matter. I said to one of the young people at a college Bible study Friday night, somebody said to me, what would happen if you got persecuted for preaching or if these things happen ... and by the way in many generations and many times even in our own day in other countries that's what's happened, and I simply said this, well you know, if they come after me and they take everything I have and put me in jai1 they, they can never touch anything that's valuable to me, right? They can take my car and they can take my house, they can take my clothes, they can take a few trinkets we got lying around, they can take all that stuff, they can't take the love I have for my wife and her love for me, they can't take the love I have for my children and their love for me, they can't take the love I have for God's people and the people's love for me, they can never touch my friendships, they can never touch

Christ in my life, they can never touch anything in the Kingdom. And so I invest my life there, and so my causes become God's causes, and the only issues that the believer should be concerned about are those issues that build His Kingdom. That's why we don't want to get sidetracked into the things of our day and the things of our world, we are in the business of being committed to the Kingdom, and the Kingdom will go on and the gates of hell will never prevail against it. Nations will come and go, our own should Jesus tarry, but that is never the issue with us, the issue with us is the Kingdom, the Kingdom. It doesn't mean we aren't to pray for our leaders, we are, the Bible tells us that. But we're to pray that our leaders would act and speak and think in accord with God's principles. We are Kingdom people, and so for us to pray "Thy kingdom come," is the most basic part of our lives. We are to pray for God's causes. How can we call ourselves Christians, how can we say we have affirmed the Lordship of Christ, how can we say we have crowned Him King of our lives when we are not preoccupied with His causes, but with our own? Now remember the Lord is presenting here the pattern for praying. He is showing us that the standard of religion in His own day among the Jews was inadequate, their fasting was not the kind that they should have done, their giving was not right, their theology was not right; He said that in chapter 5, their relation to material things is not right. He'll say that in the rest of chapter 6, and for here He says your praying isn't right, why? You pray for your own glory. Look back in verse 5, "You do not pray like the hypocrites," He said, "who love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men." Don't pray that way seeing your own gain, your ownends; your own selfish pride. "Thy kingdom come." It's His causes that should be in your heart. And so we have a model prayer. Now remember this, every part of this prayerspeaks of God. "Our Father, who art in heaven," that's God's paternity, as our Father. "Hallowed be thy name." That's God priority. "Thy kingdom come." That's God's program. "Thy will be done," that's God's plan. "Give us this day our daily bread." That's God's provision. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." That's God's pardon. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That's God's protection. "For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever." That's God's pre-eminence. The whole of prayer focuses on Him and thus we've used the verse again and again, and where Jesus said in John 14:13, "Whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." It's the glory of God that is the measure of prayer. The paternity of God, we already studied that, didn't we? It's God who is our loving Father, and we go to Him with no fear, no anxiety but with an eager boldness because we know He loves us. And then we discussed the priority of God, "Hallowed be thy name." And we said that that means that God's name is all that He is, and to hallow His name means to set it apart, to exalt it, to glorify it, to honor it, and we gave you four ways that we do that. We hallow His name when we believe that He is, when we believe that He is who He is, when we completely are committed to His presence, and when we obey His Word. And He is to be hallowed, not in general in the universe but in general in the universe and most importantly through us.

Now we come to the third one. God's paternity, God's priority, and God's program. What is His program?"Thy kingdom come." His program is to exalt Christ; His program is that the consummation of history would be in the reign and the rule of Jesus Christ. The Talmud, which is the Jewish commentary on God and God's Word and God's law said this, "That prayer in which there is no mention of the Kingdom of God is no prayer at all." That prayer in which there is no mention of the Kingdom of God is no prayer at all. The Kingdom is the heart of the matter, the Kingdom is that for which God has planned history, that He may rule and that He may reign, and that He may be supreme. He comes first in our prayers, before you go blurting into His presence with all your petitions stop long enough to consider His causes, His Kingdom, and affirm your yearning that He be glorified in His purposes, and reiterate that your requests are only requests insofar as they're in accord with His purpose. Now why is it so hard to do this? Let me show you, back in verse 9, it says, "Hallowed be thy name." And we talked about that in great detail, there's a logical order in these petitions that really help us to understand. "Hallowed be thy name." We say, oh Lord, I want Your name to be holy, I want Your name to be made holy in my life, I want to adorn the doctrine of God as Paul told Titus, I want to live out the holiness that manifests You to the world, be hallowed in me, let Your name be made hallowed in me, and we say that and yet there's this problem in that. What is the problem? That as soon as we desire to live a holy life, as soon as we desire to live for Him we face the fact that we run right into a kingdom that exists in this world, that the Bible says is the kingdom of darkness, right? And it is the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of Satan that withstands the effort of a believer to live a hallowed life, therefore subsequent to saying, "Hallowed be thy name." We must say, "Thy kingdom come." Because if Satan's kingdom is not withstood there will be no hallowing of His name, unless as Paul says, we are transformed from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son we cannot hallow His name. So that "Thy kingdom come," is the only way that His name will ever be hallowed until His reign is established, until His rule is affirmed, we have no capacity to hallow His name. And you will notice too that the next petition is "Thy will be done." His Kingdom cannot ever come until His will is done, because His Kingdom and His will is one and the same. And so there's a beautiful progression. His will cannot be done until He is acknowledged as King, no one will submit to His will until they submit to His Lordship, and until they submit to His will He can't be Lord, and until He is Lord you have no capacity to hallow His name because He must energize that. And so it wouldn't be enough to say, "Hallowed be thy name," unless we said, "Thy kingdom come," and we can't say, 'Thy kingdom come," apart from saying, "Thy will be done." Because His Kingdom is the right to rule which gives Him the privilege of expressing His will to which we submit. And so it all flows together. Now let' look at the phrase, "Thy kingdom come." It's so exciting to me and I just hope you're as excited about this when I'm done as I am. I just feel thrilled at what the Lord is beginning to open up in my own heart on this. Three words, "Thy kingdom come." The word thy, a simple pronoun, su. The

word kingdom, basileia, I want to talk about it a minute, basileia. The word is translated kingdom but it means rule or reign. I, I just wish I guess personally that everywhere that word appears they had translated it reign, r-e-i-g-n, reign, because I think that says something to us that kingdom doesn't, we think of kingdom, and immediately what do you think of? Henry the Eighth? Castles, forts, knights. Or maybe you think of the magic kingdom, Disneyland? I don't know what you think of, castles there too, Sleeping Beauty, who knows? Kingdom, and we think of when we think of a kingdom we think of all the rami-fications of that, we think of land and we think of people riding horses and pomp and ceremony and maidens and knights and castles and moats and walls and laws and all that stuff. And we can't think of kingdom in - in any other terms because that's the world's perspec-tive. That's why Pilate said to Jesus, Are You a King? And the im-plication was what kind of a King are You? I mean whoever saw such a King as You? What kind of a King are You? And to which Jesus replied, "My kingdom is not of this (what?) world." I, I wish they'd taken the word basileiaand translated it reign. Thy reign come. Because we would understand that. That means Christ rules. He doesn't have to have walls and castles and moats and knights and fair maidens and crowns an d all of that. It's the rule of Christ, it is the reign of Christ; it is the sovereignty of Christ for which we are to pray. And then the verb elthet, which is an aorist active imperative form of erchomaiwhich means to come. It means let it immediately and suddenly come. Let it come and let it come now, and let it come suddenly. Let it come actually and let it come completely. Now then, these three words introduce to us three questions that I'd like to try to answer, and say try because I can't do it in its fullness but I'm going to try to give you something to think about, and I think it's exciting. Three questions, question number one, whose is the king-dom? That's the word, Thy, we'll take each word and make a question, whose is the kingdom? It's Thy kingdom, who is Thy? Go back to the antecedent in verse 9, "Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come." Whose kingdom is this? It's God's kingdom. It's not a human kingdom, it's God's kingdom. We're not involved in a human kingdom, that's not our priority, we are not of this world we have been translated out of this world; our citizenship is not here. We are sojourners and pilgrims, our citizenship is there, we look for a city whose builder and maker is God. I'm amazed how people want to worry about how they can preserve the church through the political entities in society, it can't be done; you can't do it. There is no human institution made that can dovetail with the kingdom, none and that's why when, when Christians get political they find themselves with all kinds of strange bedfellows. Because you can't advance the kingdom through the politics of any society. One of the tragedies in America is in the early years of America when America was Christian in, in a greater sense than it is today by far, and the leaders of the country were Christians the church relinquished to the government certain rights, they let the government take over, taking care of the widows and taking care of the orphans and a welfare system, and they let it go to the government because they were all Christians, now we wake up and find out later that the government has taken over all those social responsibilities that belong to the church and we don't know how to get them back again, and

we don't like what the government's doing with them. And if somebody had of thought long ago that you can't run the kingdom through the government, maybe we wouldn't have gotten into this. This is unique, we're not talking about a man made kingdom, they come and go, Egypt came and went, Syria came and went, Assyria came and went, Babylon came and went, Medo-Persia came and went, Rome came and went, and will come again. Greece, Alexander the Great conquered everything from Europe clear to India, and the Northern of Europe into Egypt and it's gone and nothing is left of that great empire. Historians tell us there have been at least 21 great civilizations all of which are now extinct.

Daniel said it, he said it in reference to Babylon but it could be said in reference to all nations of the world, "God has numbered the kingdom, and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided." And that night the Medes and the Persians came through the gates and wiped out the Babylonian Empire. All kingdoms go the way of all flesh, the descending power of sin is the decay and distress and destruction are inevitable, and it'll happen in America, it is inevitable, it is the inexorable law of God. But we're not talking about that, we never equate the church with America, we ever equate the kingdom of God with America, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of God, and it is bigger than a nation, it is different than a nation. And so our cause is God's cause. I love this country because it's my own home, and because God's given us great freedoms here and I'm grateful to Him for that, and because there are people here I love and people I long for that they should know Christ, but His kingdom is my cause, and this country will only exist and will only be tolerated in His heart and my heart as long as it is in accord with the cause of His kingdom, and when it ceases to do that it has no right to be perpetuated. His kingdom is the issue, not my kingdom but His. And I can stress that as I said earlier, you've got to learn somewhere in your prayer life and somewhere in your commitment to God that it isn't your cause that matters. You see that's what our Lord meant when He said, "You seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," and He will take care of adding all those other things that involve you. Your clothing and your housing and your food, all those things, He'll take care of if you seek His kingdom. And so what are our prayers then? Lord, I pray that You will do whatever advances Your kingdom, whatever brings Your rule and Your reign. Whose is the kingdom? His. Second question, what is the kingdom? And that's an important question. What is it? What are we talking about when we're talking about the rule of Christ, the reign of Christ? Well, we can't cover everything. I would suggest if you want a good book on it get Alva McClain's book on The Greatness of the Kingdom, comprehensive, won-derful book on that subject. But let me just touch on it, all right? And oh, this is exciting. What is the kingdom? When we say, "Thy kingdom come," what are we saying? Well first of all, the kingdom is a phrase, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is a phrase used more than any other by Jesus. Very common phrase, in fact He talks about preaching the Good News of the kingdom, in fact when He came it says that He said, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand." Jesus said, and I think this is very important, He said this in Luke 4:43, "I must preach the kingdom of God; for therefore am I sent." In other words whatever this kingdom is it's the heart of His

message, why? Because it's the heart of the plan, it's the heart of history, it's the heart of everything, the reign and the rule of Christ is the apex of human history. Nothing else matters except for this and those things which do matter, matter because they come into accord with this. Jesus spent all of His years with His disciples, brief as they were teaching them the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom, and then when He died and rose again He had forty more days and in Acts chapter 1 verses 2 and 3 it says, He appeared to His disciples and He gave them commandments pertaining to the kingdom of God. He had only forty days left but it was kingdom message again and He just kept talk-ing about the kingdom, about His rule and His reign. Now Jesus spoke of the kingdom in three ways, past, present and future. He spoke of the kingdom as past for it embodied Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Matthew 8:11, it was already around. He spoke of the kingdom present because in Luke 17:21 He said, "The kingdom of God is in your midst." It' right here He said. And He spoke of the future because here He says pray "Thy kingdom come." Now how can the kingdom be already there in the past, here in the present, and yet need to come in the future? What is this kingdom? This kingdom that's in every tense? This kingdom that is past, present and future all at the same time, this kingdom that already was, already is and needs to be. Well the Jews had an idea they thought the kingdom was political; they thought the kingdom was going to be Jesus coming in and knocking off the Romans, but it wasn't. What is this kingdom? Well, keep in mind this for the first thing, John 18:36 Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world;" keep that in mind, so whatever it is it won't be like you're used to. So when Pilate said, Are You a King? What Pilate was saying was this whole lot of confusion, what - how can You claim to to a King? And they nailed it up on His cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Cynically, mockingly, what kind of a King is this? This is a King? And Jesus said, you see, you don't understand because "My kingdom is not of this world." So if you're looking for the kind of kingdom you see around you you're notgoing to see it in Jesus Christ, it isn't that kind. Well what kind of kingdom is it? Let me make a distinction for you that'll help you to understand that. First of all, there are two elements to the kingdom, there is the universal and the earthly, one covers the whole universe and one is related to the earth. Now let me just talk about the universal kingdom; in a sense God is the King of the whole universe, right? No question about that, I mean He made it, He runs it, He'll bring it to its consummation; He is the universal King. Ah, James Orr says, "There is therefore recognized in Scripture a natural and universal kingdom of dominion o f God embracing all objects, persons and events, all doings of individuals and nations, all operations and changes of nature and history absolutely without exception." End quote. In other words God dominates, and the Bible talks about this, Psalm 145:13 says, Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom." Psalm 103:19, "The Lord ruleth over all." First Chronicles 29, "Thy reignest over all." Jeremiah 10, "Thou art an everlasting King." Psalm 29:10, "The Lord sitteth King forever." First Chronicles 29:11 and 12 sums up God's universal kingdom in absolutely breathtaking words, "Thine, 0 LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in heaven or in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, 0 LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. And thou reignest over all." What great

words. He is the universal King, and He mediates that ruler ship through His Son, by Whom He made the worlds, and of whom is said in Colossians 1, "He is before all things, and by him all things consist." And of whom says Paul to T imothy, He is called the "King eternal, only wise." God is the universal King and He mediates it through His Son, who rules and is given the right to judge and reign. Now listen, that's the universal kingdom. Look at verse 10 for a minute, you see what it says? "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." That's a Hebrew parallelism, and I think we could take the second part and add it to the first part and get the sense of it. Thy kingdom come in earth as it is in heaven. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." We could even say, Hallowed be thy name in earth as it is in heaven, right? Is God's name hallowed in heaven? Yes. Is God's will done in heaven? Yes. Is His reign and rule established in heaven? Yes. Then what is it asking here? That it be established where? On the earth. That's the essence, the point is this beloved, the universal kingdom in heaven is established, the prayer is let it come to this earth. This one little infinitesimal speck of sand in an infinite universe that rebels against holy God, let it be brought into harmony, see with the rest. The universal kingdom is total and uninterrupted and eternal, and we are simply able to acknowledge that, but what we're praying here is, Oh God, stop the rebellion, turn it around, andmay You be reigning here as You're reigning there. It's a great concept. Although His name is hallowed in heaven it isn't always hallowed on earth, although His will is done in heaven it isn't always done on earth, and although His kingdom come in heaven it isn't come in all cases on earth, because there's rebellion. The purpose then of the prayer is to bring His kingdom to earth, that He might put down sin, that He might put down rebellion, that He might put down evil, that He might bring in

God's hallowed name, God's kingdom, God's will. And you know, it's wonderful to think about, that's going to happen by the way, and when it does happen there won't be anymore distinguishing between His uni-versal and His earthly kingdom, they'll blend into His eternal reign, they'll blend into His eternal reign. So the kingdom is Christ's rule on earth, that's what we're praying for, we're not praying "Thy king-dom come, universally, He reigns forever there. We're praying on earth as it is in heaven, that's what we're praying, oh Lord. The earth is our preoccupation, bring the fullness of Your rule here. Let me ask you a question, does this world need the rule of Jesus Christ? Amen. Let me ask you another one, is there coming a day when He's going to rule this world? There is, and He'll rule it with rod of iron. There is coming a day in the future when He will rule, and when He will reign, and when our prayers will ultimately and finally and fully be answered. I believe in that thousand year millennial kingdom the Revelation talks about, and I believe that then we'll move right into the eternal state where the earthly kingdom and eternal universal kingdom are blended into one forever, one which we will occupy with His own blessed presence. Whose kingdom? His. What is the kingdom? The kingdom in mind here is His rule on earth.

Third question, and here's the heart of the matter, how does it come? It says in this verse, Thy kingdom, the Greek says, let it come and let it come now, that would be the way to translate it. How do we let it come? How do we do it? How do we bring the kingdom? How do we get after this? How is this prayer to be answered? We've already hinted at it but let me give you three ways. I think this sums it up, three ways. Number one, conversion. How can you bring the reign of Christ to this earth? First of all, by conversion. I think this is a missionary prayer, I think this is an evangelism prayer. I'll tell you one thing; Christ reigns in my life, does He reign in your life? In that sense He's brought His rule to this earth, is that right? You see in Luke 17 He said don't look for the kingdom here and there. People say, where's the kingdom, where's the kingdom, where's the kingdom, where are the politics of the kingdom? He says, don't look here and there the kingdom of God is in your midst. Where? Here He was standing there, and they didn't even recognize Him. He is His kingdom; you will never separate Him from His kingdom, that's why the stone that smites the image becomes the kingdom that fills the earth. Christ in my life ruling and reigning in my life brings His reign to this earth and He mediates His kingdom through the believer, it's a great concept. That's why the Bible says we are kings and priests. God literally mediates His kingdom through the believer; He reigns in my life and yours. And so to say, "Thy kingdom come," is to pray that He may take up His reigning residence in the hearts and lives of those who yet are in rebellion. It's a prayer for salvation. When you receive Jesus Christ you did essentially what the hymn writer said, King of my life, I crown Thee now, Thine shall the glory be. That's what you said. I believe the Christmas carol had it right, Joy to the world, the Lord is come. We think of Bethlehem, don't we? That isn't what the hymn writer had in mind. Let earth receive her King. How? Let every heart, do what? Prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing. He is King in a heart, that's His kingdom, that's His reign, that's His place of rule, He takes up residence. You are the, you are the only castle this King ever has, you are His holy palace. And so it's a petition for conversion, that He might reign in the hearts of men. Listen beloved, the reason we evangelize, the reason we talk to people about Christ is not so much for their sake but for His because it is wrong that someone should not allow Hi m to reign, because He's worthy. And thus did Paul say in Romans 1 that we go out and we preach, "obedience to the faith among the nations, (why?) for the sake of his name." Third John 7, we went out preaching for the "sake of his name," it says. The reason to become a Christian is in order to glorify and exalt His name and His kingdom. So the kingdom of God then begins with an invitation. If Christ is going to reign in the earth, it begins with an invitation. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like this in Matthew 22, it's like a man having a big feast, it's like a man having a big banquet and he sends out invitations to the guests to come and they can either take the invitation and come or refuse it. Jesus said go into the highways and byways and finally compel them to come in, He said. In other words, there's an invitation here, My kingdom is here and I want you to come.And so to pray, "Thy kingdom come," is to pray an evangeli-stic prayer, a missionary prayer, inviting people to the Gospel of the

kingdom. Secondly, in the conversion aspect the kingdom of God begins with an invitation and it includes repentance. Jesus said, "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand." Repent, in Mark 1:14 and 15 it says, and I think it sums it up so well, that "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom," and what was it? "The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the good news." The kingdom comes when you repent; the kingdom comes when you believe. So it's an invitation that demands repentance. Thirdly, it demands an act of the will. It demands an act of the will. Jesus told the scribe one time, "You're not far from the kingdom." What did He mean? He meant you've got the head knowledge you just haven't made the choice yet. If you want to enter the kingdom you not only have to have the head knowledge you have to make the choice. No one, Jesus said, who puts his hand to the low is a would be follower, who begins to follow and then looks back is fit for My kingdom. In other words, you can know about it, and you can make some effort toward it, but until you make that final complete commitment to a decision you don't enter the kingdom, the rule of Christ is not established in your heart. So remember this, the kingdom is extended as an invitation, it is an invitation that demands repentance from sin, it demands an acceptance by an act of the will of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And may I say lastly in this little thought that the kingdom is internal, "My kingdom is not of this world." It is an internal one; it is in the heart and the life. Such a kingdom, such an internal kingdom offered by an invitation that demands repentance and a choice, turning away from sin, turning toward God is offered to every man. How should we respond, how should you respond? Well, Jesus said this number one, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." You should be seeking it, shouldn't you? If there is a kingdom you ought to seek it, if there is a reign and a rule of Christ you ought to run for it, you ought to seek it with all your heart. You know in Luke 16:16 it says, and this is a remarkable verse, "The law and the prophets were pro-claimed until John;" John the Baptist, "since then," listen to this, "The gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it." There's a lot of ways to interpret that, but I like the one that takes that verb biazetaiwhich really means to enter violently, when people whose hearts are right see the kingdom they are in a hurry to rush into it, they literally seize it like violent things. When they see the value of God's kingdom they are rushing to grasp it, is that your attitude? We ought to pray "Thy kingdom come," in the sense that men be converted, that they be rushing to grasp the reign of Christ in their life. Secondly, we ought to value it. You know in Matthew 13 Jesus says, "the kingdom is like a treasure," in verse 44, then in verse 45 He says, "It's like a pearl of great price.' It is priceless, it is inestimable in its value, and we, because it is worth so much, should run to grasp it. We are to receive the kingdom. By faith we take hold of it, lip service won't do it. Many will say, Lord, Lord, and not enter the kingdom.

Money won't do it; it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a man to buy his way into the kingdom. Self-righteousness won't do it, because "Unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and Pharisees you'll never enter the kingdom." What does it? Faith. Receiving the invitation, repenting of your sin, by an act of the will; affirming the Lordship of Christ. Seeing that internal miracle take place; and you have to seek it with all your heart because you value it. So the kingdom comes by conversion. Secondly, I believe the kingdom comes by commitment. You say, I'm already a Christian, John. When I pray, Oh Lord, mayour program and Your reign and Your rule be in sway in the world, I'm praying that people's hearts will be opened to Your reign and open to Your rule. We ought to say oh, "Your kingdom come," to the hearts of rebel men who are not glorifying You. But what if we're already Christians, how does it apply to us? What can I say to the Lord? Lord, Your rule come in my life, if it's already there? Just this folks, He is Lord, and He is ruling, but I think therein the Christian life is a time daily for us to affirm that we bow the knee to that rule, right? That's commitment, where I say everyday, You are the Lord. And I come to those perennial crossroads in my life where I choose my will or His will, my way or His way and I inevitably pulled both ways. And when I affirm I commit myself to Your causes and Your kingdom I'll go His way. In the heart of the believer we are to submit and commit ourselves constantly to the sub-mission to His Lordship. I call it responding to the royalty resid-ing in us. I think this is what Paul meant in Romans 14:17 he's writing to Christians, you know what he said? He said, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink," the kingdom of God is not on the outside, the kingdom of God is not external, listen to this he said, "The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." And so if the kingdom is to come to my life I can pray as a Christian, Oh Lord, make me more righteous, more like Christ, oh Lord fill me more with Your blessed peace, oh Lord may I know the fullness of the joy of the Holy Spirit. And as I give myself over to the virtues that the Spirit wants to produce in my life, I am asking that the fullness of Christ's reign be made manifest in me. There's a third way the kingdom comes. And I'm amazed you know that some peo-ple have taken these first two and said that's all there is; that's the end. I can't accept that, there's a third way, the kingdom comes in conversion, commitment, and finally and we'll just call it coming again, or consummation. I believe people that one day the heavens will split wide open and Jesus Christ will descend and plant His feet on the Mount of Olives and in this world He will establish His kingdom. I believe that Revelation tells us it'll be a thousand year millennial kingdom in which He will set things right and rule with a rod of iron, and the world will finally hear the answer to the prayer, may the universal kingdom become the earthly kingdom, and for a thousand years He will reign with a rod of iron in righteousness, justice, truth and peace, at the end of which time that kingdom will phase into the universal kingdom and never again will there be a distinction. But I believe this world will see a real reigning of Jesus Christ here, when the curse is reversed and it's like God meant it to be before the fall. There is a coming again. One has written, "Thy kingdom come 0 God Thy rule, 0 Christ begin break with Thine iron rod the tyrannies of sin."

There is coming a day when He will do that. Israel prayed for it, the church prayed for it, the disciples asked, is this the time the kingdom will come? And He said it's not yet for you to know the time and the seasons; you just stay busy till it does. I believe Jesus is coming to set up His kingdom. I believe the hymn writer who said, Jesus shall reign where er' the sun doth its successive journeys run, His kingdom spread from shore to shore till moon shall wax and wane no more. I believe He'll rule, I believe it's the destiny of this earth that Jesus rule on the earth in the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem from His throne, and set right the curses that have been brought to this earth. And like Peter, I look and hasten the day when He comes. I hear John, do you hear him? Saying again and again, Jesus is coming in the, in the Book of Revelation, Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming, and finally you get to the end and he says, "Even so (what?) come Lord Jesus." That's part of our prayer too, isn't it? We're praying not only that His reign would come in the hearts and lives of people who don't know Him, we're praying that His reign would come in our hearts to the fullness He's worthy of but we're praying too that someday He'd come and break the tyranny of sin, set this evil, ugly, cursed world right. It's got to be that way, because that's what the Bible promises. And I believe that we are praying for an instantaneous miracle of salvation in the hearts of people, come to their hearts and come now, and I believe we are asking for a momentary immediate commitment, Lord, You are Lord may I obey You now? Here and now I affirm it, and Lord someday when You come to set up Your kingdom may it be sudden and immediate and instantaneous when You take Your throne. That glorious day is coming beloved and in the meantime the kingdom is in your midst as He reigns and rules in the hearts of His people. Let's pray. Thank You Father for giving us the privilege beyond words, beyond our thoughts of being a part of Your kingdom, oh Lord, beyond us to conceive such grace, to make us part of the plan, and then to make us messengers of the King to this weary sin torn world. Father we do acknowledge You as King as manifest in the eternal Son, Jesus Christ, for His glory we live, for His glory we pray. Amen.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Plan of Prayer, Part 1 Scripture: Matthew 6:10 Code: 2237

Thy Will be Done.... Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 through 13. I want to read again this passage in your hearing as a setting for what the Spirit of God would say to us in this study this morning. Beginning in verse 9 of Matthew 6, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." The Bible teaches us the power of prayer, I really believe that. I believe that prayer makes a difference; I believe that prayer is effective, I believe that prayer works. Abraham's servant prayed and Rebekah appeared, Jacob wrestled and prayed and prevailed with Christ and Esau's mind was turned from twenty years of revenge. Joshua prayed and Akan was discovered. Hannah prayed and Samuel was born. David prayed and Ahithophel hanged himself. Asa prayed and victory was won. Jehoshaphat prayed and God turned away his enemies. Isaiah and Hezekiah prayed and in twelve hours a hundred and eighty five thousand Assyrians were slain. Mordecai and Esther prayed and the plot to destroy the Jews was thwarted and Haman was hanged in his own gallows. Ezra prayed at Haava and God answered. Nehemiah prayed and the king's heart was softened in a moment. Elijah prayed and there were three years of drought and he prayed again and it rained. Elisha prayed and a child was raised from the dead. Believers prayed and Peter was released from jail. And so it goes.
I believe prayer works, I believe prayer is effective because there is a record of its effectiveness revealed in Scripture. But beyond that there is the explicit state-ment of the Word of God itself that prayer is effective. In James chapter 5 and verse 16 it says, "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Further it says, giving illustration of the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availing much. "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit." You say,

ah but that's Elijah, I mean Elijah's a prophet. And so James throws in the little phrase, but Elijah was a man of like passions as we are. If God answered Elijah's prayer God will answer our prayers, we may not be able to pray the same things because we don't have revelation from God that that is His will, we, in agreement with God's will, however, have the same right to expect God to move. "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." We are to pray. Jesus said, we are to

pray always and not to faint. Paul said we are to pray without ceasing. Paul said we are to pray always with all prayer and supplication. I believe God answers prayer, very specifically and very directly, God answers prayer. Now that brings up a very interesting issue. A very interesting issue. The phrase that we want to concentrate on this morning in our study is the phrase, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." An in just saying that phrase you're immediately faced with a dilemma. Do we really need to say, God, Your will be done? Isn't God sovereign anyway? Isn't that a rather useless thing to say? Isn't it apparent that God's will will be done? Now some people have even taken this concept so far that they question the validity of prayer altogether. The question always comes up, is not God absolutely sovereign, doesn't He not only know the beginning and the end but doesn't He determine everything inbetween? Isn't God in charge of everything? And if He is and it's all working according to His plan and it's all flowing down the way He wants it to flow, then why are we praying, "Thy will be done."? Isn't it anyway? And then the question comes, does God change His mind? Are we really praying to get God to do something other than what He had planned to do? Someone else may say, well does our will prevail over God's will? Does God will a certain thing but if we're persistent enough He says, well if you're going to be that persistent about it go ahead and have it. Does God have to answer our prayers at all? Just how does prayer fit in to who God is? I guess you could sum the whole thingup by asking two very simple questions, if God is sovereign why pray? If God is sovereign why pray? Or maybe another question, if prayer is commanded, then how can God be sovereign? Now I believe that there's an answer to this, but I don't know what it is. Because I believe this is one of the great paradoxes of Scripture. That tells me again that the mind of God is infinitely beyond my own mind, for this is an impossible dilemma, for me. But not for God. The majesty of God, the incredible gap between the best of human think-ing and the knowledge of God is illustrated to me in the fact that I have no ability to resolve such an apparent contradiction, which is no contradiction at all in the mind of God. And it can be illustra-ted so many ways. For example if I say to you, who wrote Matthew? I'll probably get two answers; some will say Matthew and some will say the Holy Spirit, which is right? Well, you say, it was Matthew and the Holy Spirit. What do you mean? Did Matthew write a verse and then say all right Holy Spirit Your verse, and back and forth? No. They didn't alternate verses or chapters or sections. Was Matthew nothing but a robot and the Holy Spirit dictated it through him? No. Because it's Matthew's heart and soul, it's Matthew's feelings, it's Matthew's vocabulary, it's Matthew, but it's the Holy Spirit too. You say, you can't be 200% of something, not in your mind. And that's just a good reminder of where you are in comparison to where God is. If I say to you, who lives your Christian life? You say, not I but Christ liveth in me. And yet Paul says, I beat my body to bring it into subjection. Who's doing it, you or Him? Both, its got to be all of you,total commitment, present your body as a living sacrifice, but it's all of Him, not I but Christ. How can it be all of me and all of Him? Well it can't be in our reasoning but that's again to prove that God is infinitely beyond us. If I ask you uhm, was Jesus God or man, what's the answer? Yes. It's like the

old question, is it colder in the mountains or in the winter? Yes. Again you have the paradox. He is God, 100%, He is man, 100%; He can't be 200% of something only in our minds because of the limitations of our conception. That's a paradox. How did you become a Christian? You say, it was settled before the foundation of the world, I was chosen in Him, He wrote my name in the Lamb's book of life, it as all predetermined. But how did you become a Christian? I came because I chose Jesus Christ. Was it you or Him? Both, all you? Yes. With a whole heart. All Him? Yes. Totally designed in sovereignty. Well how can you possibly understand both of those? Listen I believe both of them, and do me a favor when you find those kinds of paradox in Scripture and you'll find them at all the points of great doctrine, don't come up with something in the middle and ruin both of them. That's what the temptation is. It's like the guy who said, salvation is God throws one vote for you, the devil throws a vote against you and you cast the deciding vote. That isn't true. Don't try to find some middle ground, let them exist. Listen, God is sovereign, God has predetermined the flow of the universe, God knows the end from the beginning; God will do what God will do. On the other hand prayer works, if you don't understand how those come together don't let your theology destroy your prayer life. And that happens.That kind of attitude that says, well it's all going to be done His way anyway, so what's the need to pray? Literally denies the Scripture. Now in looking at the phrase "Thy will be done," we open up for ourselves an incredible amount of understanding and you can relax because we're not even going to begin to cover it this morning, it's going to take us awhile. "Thy will be done." Now what about this prayer? Look back at it for a minute, is this a ritual that's to be prayed every Sunday morning? No, it's alright to do that. I, I think sometimes over familiarity can kind of kill the meaning but uhm, it's not wrong. But what is this? Well this is a pattern for every prayer. And the last thing God wants somebody to do is just to recite it as a routine. It must be something which flows out of a truly committed heart. I mean this ought to be a definition of your spirit, your attitude toward God, what's inside of you, and it ought to come out in different terms and different words all centered around these same thoughts. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Some unknown author put it this way, "I cannot say our if I live only for myself in a spiritually watertight compartment, I cannot say Father if I do not endeavor each day to act like His child, I cannot say, who art in heaven if Iam laying up no treasure there, I cannot say hallowed be Thy name if I am not striving for holiness, I cannot say Thy king-dom come if I am not doing all in my power to hasten that wonderful event, I cannot say Thy will be done if I am disobedient to His Word, I cannot say in earth as it is in heaven if I'll not serve Him here and now, I cannot say give us this day our daily breadif I am dis-honest or if I am seeking things by subterfuge, I cannot say forgive us our debts if I harbor a grudge against anyone, I cannot say lead us not into temptation if I deliberately place myself in its path, I cannot say deliver us from evil if I do not put on the whole armor of God, I cannot say Thine is the kingdom if I do not give to the King the loyalty due Him as a faithful subject, I cannot attribute to Him the power if I fear what men may do, I cannot ascribe to Him the

glory if I'm seeking honor only for myself, and I cannot say forever if the horizon of my life is bounded completely by time." What is he saying? He is saying this is an expression of a heart attitude, of a right relationship to God. And it becomes then a pattern of praying that will dominate all our prayers. If the focus of our heart is right this is the way we'll pray. Now what have we seen already? Well the prayer opened with God's paternity, "Our Father who art in heaven," and then God's priority, "Hallowed be thy name." And then God's program, "Thy kingdom come." And now God's plan, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." And again we're focusing on God. We saw God's paternity, when we pray we recognize in the beginning of our prayer that God is a loving Father, that we're not going to a fearful dragon, we're not going to some evil deity, we're not going cowering for fear of what He's going to do to us, but God is our loving Father and He wishes the best for us, and He seeks the best for us. Not only that, He is in heaven it says which means that He has at His disposal all of the resources of eternity to meet the desires of His heart toward His lovebeloved children. So we come to "Our Father who art in heaven." The first petition that we have is "Hallowed be thy name." That's God's priority, we seek that in us and through us His name would be holy, His name would be sanctified. And then we see God's program, "Thy kingdom come." Our desire is for the manifestation of His kingdom on the earth, our desire is that His rule and His reign be seen here, an d we showed you that that comes in three ways first of all in conversion, the kingdom comes to the one who believes as Christ become s ruler of His life, secondly in commitment, as a believer lives by righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14, the kingdom of God is manifest in his life, and thirdly by His coming again, as He returns to set up His earthly and millen-nial kingdom. And now we come to this great thought of God's plan, "Thy will be done," whenever we pray we are to pray in accord with God's will, we are to pray in accord with God's will. Now I want you to think this through because it is a very important statement, all our pray-ers I suppose come down to that bottom line, God, Your will be done. Now taking the literal Greek of this simple statement it says some-thing like this, Your will, whatever You wish to happen, let it hap-pen immediately, and then the Greek says, as in heaven, puts heaven first, so in earth. In other words God, do what You want. That's the bottom line in prayer. Do what You desire, do what's in Your heart to be done. That's the petition. I think David prayed that way in Psalm 4 0 verse 8 when he said, "I delight to do thy will, 0 my God." I love that. "I delight to do thy will, 0 my God." He wanted to know it and he wanted to do it; that was his heart. You see it with Christ, don't you? In John 4:34 He said, "My food is to do the will of him that sent me." In John 6:38 He said, "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me." In 3:3 He says, "Whosoever doeth the will of the Father, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother." In several of the Gospels record Him in the garden praying in agony and saying, "Nevertheless, not my will, but (what?) thine, be done." Jesus always prayed that God's will be done. "Thy will be done."

Now listen, what does that mean to do that? What are we really saying? Today I want to cover the negative and next week the positive and I want you to listen because I think this will give you some fresh insight into prayer. There are people who pray, Thy will be done, but they pray it with the wrong understanding. First of all there are people who say, Thy will be done, in an attitude of bitter resentment, in an attitude of bitter resentment. In other words it is a statement of someone who believes they cannot escape from the inevitable and they're mad about it. Now I believe this is built on a lack of knowledge about God. They think God is an oppressive, dictatorial, overbearing, selfish, cruel individual, and so saying Thy will be done, is a bitter resentment. William Barclay says, "Some people say Thy will be done not because they wish to say it but because they've accepted the fact that they can't possibly say anything else. They have accepted the fact that God is too strong for them, and that it is useless to batter their heads against the walls of the universe." You may have been through that in your life, you may have come to some situation in your life where you say, Thy will be done almost with clenched teeth. Maybe in the loss of a dear precious child, someone you loved, a broken love, physical extremities, and you said, God, Your will be done bitterly. Omar Khayyam had an amazing view of God, listen to what he wrote, "But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays." He saw God as a Checker player with total power over the pieces, moving them at His whims, and when He was done He put them in the closet. He wrote another verse, he sees God as a cricket player with a bat, and man as the ball which has absolutely no choice about where it goes and he writes, "The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; And He that Toss'd you down into the Field, He knows about it all - He knows - HE knows!" Bitter resentment toward the inevitable, "Thy will be done." The first hymn you sung this morning was "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee." The melody was written by Ludwig van Beethoven, but Beethoven didn't understand the English words. By the way, I understand the English translation was very favorable to the original German which didn't express the same thought at all, in fact instead of the love of God the original has the magic of God. The whole idea is humanitarianism and it's talking about the brotherhood of man. The English translation has been given a Christian sense. Beethoven wrote beautiful music but I'm quite sure he wouldn't identify with the Christian and English words, because life was very hard to Beethoven for a man whose entire soul was committed to music it must have been an unbelievable fate to become stone deaf. The biographers tell us that when Beethoven died they found his body, and his fists were clenched, fingernails literally digging into his palms as if he were to strike God, and his lips were drawn back in a snarl as if to spit defiance, bitterness at the God who had made him deaf. You see some people approach life that way, they just become bitter and angry at God. "Thy will be done," it becomes the statement of the inevi-table, of a cruel and uncaring God. Now other people who say, Thy will be done, and they don't necessarily mean bitter resentment they mean what I'll call passive resignation, Thy will be done. Whatever You want to do Lord I can't do

anything about it anyway, Thy will be done. This isn't so much a lack of knowledge about God, the first one I see as a lack of understanding that God is a loving Father, a lack of understanding that God cares, that God's heart breaks over the pain of man, a lack of understanding, that God loves, so much so that He died in the midst of His love, that's a lack of understanding in the bitter resentment perspective, but here it's a lack of faith, the passive resignation that basically feels, you know ah, I just don't get too concerned about the whole thing because prayer doesn't do much anyway. Just resign yourself it's God's will. It's kind of like admitting defeat, sort of passively. I think I personally can identify to that in my own life, After my freshman year of college when some of you know I had a car accident that almost took my life, I was thrown out of a car going 75 miles an hour, slid down a highway about a hundred and ten yards and lost a lot of my backside and friction and 3rd degree burns and the n some, someah, tearing and whatever happens when you slide down a road, I don't advise it. It was an amazing experience I was wide awake the whole time, never lost consciousness, my eyes were wide open, I even stayed in my own lane, but ah, uhm, when it was all said and done I remember very vividly I was still conscious and didn't have any broken bones because of the way I had slid rather than rolled o r tumbled and ah, I, I walked off the highway and I stood on the side and I can remember very vividly among many thoughts that passed through my mind the thought of, all right God, if You're going to fight this way, I give, I mean I can't handle this. I knew God had called me into the ministry but I was starting to chart my life in another direction, and I think God just grabbed me by the nape of the neck and hit me on the pavement a few times and said, now are you willing to listen? And at that point I realized I couldn't fight it. And I, I actually had a passive resignation, I said, okay Lord if it's this big of a deal, You're going to get so excited about it and ah, You'regoing to roll this car over with five other kids in it and chase me half way across the state of Alabama on my back-side, if it's this important to You okay, okay. And it was at that point that I passively resigned myself to the fact that my plans were over. And over the period of the next three months that passive resignation became an active commitment, as God really began to refine my life and d raw me to Himself. But I know there are people who just say, Thy will be done at the end of a prayer, and what they're really saying is God, I don't have any kind of faith at all that my prayer is going to d o a bit of good and so I'm just going to say this cause I know this will cover everything. Is that how you pray? Thy will be done. Just a little thing you tack on to cover the inevitable, because you really don't believe your prayer is going to make a difference anyway. This is accepting that it's all going to turn out the way God wants it to turn out joylessly, in a rather tired, weary, defeated, resigned un-thrilled way. This is what Barclay calls it, and I think this is a great phrase, Prayer with a gray acceptance, prayer with a gray acceptance. The perspective you see is very, very often true of Christians. We manifest this over and over again. The primary reason, I really believe this, the primary reason, I really believe everything I say I just thought I'd throw that in, anyway, the primary reason that I believe our prayer life is as weak as it is is that we don't really believe it'll do anything anyway. We just bail out on the passive resignation. We

talk to the Lord about something and then we just sort of leave it and go on because we really don't think it'll make a difference anyway. We say, "Thy will be done," as if we already know in advance that what we're asking for probably won't happen. Classic illustration, Acts chapter 12, Peter's in prison and the church is concerned, why? Well, you say, Peter's been in prison before what are they so upset about? That's just a new ministry for him. Well they were upset because there was another one of their number who had been in prison just prior to Peter under Herod and he lost his head, and his name was James, the brother of John. And so when Peter was in prison they feared that the same thing would happen to Peter that happened to James, the brother of John, and he would be beheaded or something, and so they got over to Mary the mother of John Mark's house and they started this prayer meeting in Acts 12 and they began to pray, Oh God, release Peter, oh Lord, release Peter, and they were having their little prayer meeting and the angel of the Lord came in and got him out of jail and Peter thought he ought to go across town to the prayer meeting and see the folks, and so he went over and he banged on the door and Rhoda the little maid came to the doorand she didn't even open the door, she just asked who it was and she recognized his voice and she ran in and that's a fast answer folks, they're, they're not even done with the prayer meeting yet and he's knocking on the door, and she ran back in and she said, it's, it's Peter at the door, it's Peter at the door. And they said, oh Rhoda. Don't you know he's in prison that's why we're praying here. We're having this prayer meeting because he's in prison. Now get back on your knees. And she persisted, she said, no, it's Peter! And some astute theologian said, perhaps it's his angel. What a dumb statement, if it's Peter's angel when did Peter ever need his angel more than when he was in prison, what was his angel doing trying to get in the prayer meeting? And finally she persisted and they went out and they brought Peter in and the Bible says, "They were all astonished." Why? Because I think they were like so many other evangelicals, even at that time when they had seen the hand of God they questioned whether their prayers would do any good anyway. How easy it is for us to fall into that passive resignation that makes our prayers insipid. And let me take this from another angle that disturbs me, we want to just classify everything, it, it's Thy will, it's the Lord's will, it's the Lord's ... Now this may shock you but the very statement, "Thy will be done in earth," assumes that that's not always what? True. Did you get that? That is a ... that's so obvious it's silly, but it's profound. To say, "Thy will be done on earth," assumes that it doesn't always happen. We said, "Hallowed be thy name," are there times and places when His name is not hallowed? Yes. "Thy kingdom come," are there hearts that reject is reign? Truly there are. And so when we say, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." We have to say the same thing it isn't always His will, listen not everything that happens in the world is His will in this sense. Now you need to understand that, otherwise the petition is pointless, and the Lord is asking us to mumble things that are meaningless.
You say, what do you mean by that? Very often you know you'll ... you hear of going into a house, someone goes into a house and there's a terrible sorrow in the house because a child has died, maybe the child died of a fatal disease or perhaps the child was killed by an automobile or an awful

accident, and someone says, well it's the Lord's will, it's the Lord's will. Or you go into a house where

a mother who is so needed by the husband and the children is racked with cancer and she's fast fading in this life and somebody says, well it's the Lord's will. Or you hear about a disaster and a flood and an earthquake and a fire and a train wreck and an airplane crash and a famine and a bunch of starving boat people, and you say, well it's the Lord's will. And you know what? If you start looking at things like that it will literally suck the energy right out of your prayer life, it'll make you impotent so fast if that's how you perceive the world. Now this may sound heretical but in this context people, that is not God's will. That is the kind of stuff that Jesus came into the world to stop. Because "God is not willing that any should perish." And believe me there are people perishing all over the place. God who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, and not all men do. God's will is done in heaven but it isn't always done on earth. You say, well now wait a minute, God has to allow it. That's right. But do not make it the expression of His will; that is an expression the thelmathat means a strong desire. It is not God's strong desire that people die, else why would He come to destroy death? It is not God's strong desire that people go to hell, else why would He die and provide the salvation that keeps them from going there? Granted, I'm confident God allowed man the choice to do good or evil. I believe man has a choice, I also believe God is sovereign that's another one of those paradoxes I have to deal with. God has allowed sin; God has allowed the cup of iniquity to be full. It is not the expression of His will, He tolerates it. God is not responsible for sin and He's not responsible for its consequences, it's not His will. Let me show you what I mean by that, there's a tension here I know there's a tension and some of you are fighting it in your mind. In Matthew 10:28 it says, "Fear not those who destroy the body, but fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." That's God, God will destroy soul and body in hell. That's not Satan, that's God, Satan is one of the being destroyed ones he's not the one doing it. God destroys soul and body in hell. You say, well it must be the will of God that they be destroyed. No, Second Peter 3:9, "God is not willing that any should perish." God's holiness and God's justice and God's righteousness must provide for dealing with sin, but that is not God's will. That's not His strong desire, that's within the framework of His tolerance. John 5:40 our dear Lord said, "You will not come unto me, that you might have life." He wept over the city of Jerusalem and said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest those that are sent unto you, how oft I would have gathered you, as a chicken gathereth her brood, but you would not!" You see, the same thing I think in Jeremiah 13 God speaks through Jeremiah and says, You have not heard my Word, you have not obeyed My commandments, He says I will destroy you, I will make you drunk, I will dash you against one another, I will bring upon you the dark-ness of death , and all of this terrible, fearful judgment in Jeremiah 13 and then in the next verse it says, and if you don't obey and you don't turn around and I have to do this, "Then my eye will weep with bitter tears." Why? Because that's never the expression of God's great desire for man. "God so loved the world that he gave his Son." Why? That men might be saved from those judgments. Let me talk a little more about this. You say, well then why did God allow sin? And I'm a father and if I said to

my oldest son, you know Matt ah; you're fifteen in a few years you're going to leave this house. That day will come sooner than I like to think. You're on your own son. And if my son, God forbid should go out and enter a life of sin, is that my will? No, that would break my heart. And yet he lives within the framework of choice. Because I gave him the free-dom doesn't mean what he did with it is my will, and I as a father might have to deal with the consequences and bring them to bear in his life if I still could. God is a loving Father. Mankind in a very general sense and even a believer, you have the right to express your will, don't you? You can choose to sin or to be righteous everyday; you think God wants you to choose sin? God's will is expressed in your sin. I said, I don't see that in the Bible. He says, but that's, that's the logical conclusion necessary if God is sovereign. Then I said, your logic is really in trouble, you better realize that your mind and God's don't work the same way. "God is of purer eyes than to behold evil." God tempts no man to sin. God never brings you into sin as an expression of His will and yet God has given to man the freedom. You say, well why did God allow sin? I don't know. People always say that, I just have one question Pastor, why did God allow sin? Ha-ha, I don't know, but I am going to give a good guess. And this is one that theologians have discussed for a long time. When Lucifer fell, now you're going to ask me, how did that happen? I don't know that either. People say, did pride come from the inside of him? No, cause he was perfect. Did it come from outside of him? No, cause the environment was perfect. Where did it come from? I don't know. God knows. But Lucifer sinned, all right now God had two options, option number one, destroy Lucifer, immediately on the spot destruction. And if He had done that maybe some other angels would have said, You know there must be something about that sin stuff that really upsets God, I wonder if He's afraid of it, I wonder if He's afraid of its potential, I wonder what it is about that? And maybe God would have spent all of history and all of eternity doing nothing but wiping out rebellious angels. On the other hand, When Lucifer sinned God could say, all right I will allow evil to run its full course, so that it will literally spend itself, and if it has a point to prove let it be proven. I believe God chose to do that, rather than have the constant possibility of another rebellion He let the rebellion go full blast and it'll ultimately run itself out, like a comet that fades, forever dead never to rise again. So that all eternity is preserved from ever again a sinful expression. God let it run, He let it gather all of the host of angels who wanted it, He let it gather the hearts of men, all the while in human history providing for every man who would come a way of escape. But He has allowed evil to run its course, because God sees the bigger picture of all eternity, when once and for all it has flamed out and never again to appear. And listen; during this time when evil is running the gamut, beloved that is not by any stretch of the imagination the will of God, that's not His desire, it fits within His tolerance in ... only in order that it may be destroyed. So you can't say, "Thy will be done," in bitter resentment and get the meaning of it, you can't say, "Thy will be done," in passive resignation. Well, everything's God's will. It's not! Thirdly, and we've already hinted at this, there are some people who say, "Thy will be done," with theological reservation, and I've already kind of started in on this point anyway. It ... to them it's

theology, it's just God's going to do what He's going to do and He runs everything and it's all cut and dried and so don't worry about it. No pleading, no intensity, no passion. I can't honestly say that I ever met anybody who really took this hard line who had much of a prayer life at all. Theological reservation says, well I don't really need to pray because after all it's all cut and dried, it's all settled, it's all God's will, everything's God's will. You know this is, well God's up there and He is big and He runs everything. Kind of like Jane Bingham wrote a book called Courage To Changewhich is a study of Rineholt Neiber who was a liberal theologian but it was telling about the fact that one day Neiber said to a little girl, his little girl I guess, Let's take a walk honey, and she said, I don't want to take a walk, and he said oh, he said the birds will sing and the flowers will sway in the breeze and the trees will be there and the sunlight oh, it'll be so lovely, let's take a walk, and finally she took a walk with him and when they had their walk and they came back and he said to this little girl, he said, now didn't you enjoy that, didn't you really love that? And she said, no, I, I really didn't decide, it was just that you were bigger. I guess a lot of little kids do things 'cause we're bigger, don't they? And maybe that's somebody's view of God, God is just the all encompassing overarching individual who is so much bigger than we are that there really is little choice and so we just do it. But I wonder in my heart if that attitude can ever, ever bring about the heart of David who said, "Oh, how I love thy law!" That kind of theological reservation where it's just a matter of a theological definition of God and everything fits under it is so impersonal to me. These are all fatalistic, just fatalistic. But that's not what we're talking about when we say, "Thy will be done," not at all. We're not just fatalistically giving up to God's overarching will and for which we have absolutely no choice or alternative. Listen, there is a choice. Let me show you an illustration and I'm going to close with this, in Luke 18 and I want to just wrap this up, now stay with me I don't want you to turn your mind off at this point cause here's the whole climax to what I've been saying. "He spoke a parable unto them to this end," to this end, what was the purpose of the parable? What was He trying to teach? He was trying to teach "that men ought always to pray, and not to (what?) faint." In other words, you don't want to just stop praying, you don't want to quit, you don't want to become weary, you don't want to file it somewhere, you ought always to pray, and never to stop. You ought to pray and never get weary, never faint. That's the point here. And then He tells a story, "In a certain city there was a judge, who feared not God, or regarded man. And there was a widow in the city; and she came to him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary." She said, I've been wrong, there's an injustice here judge and you make it right. Well he wouldn't do it for awhile, "but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man," in other words I don't have any outside pressure coming from any place. "Because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." In other words I'm so sick of hearing this woman I'm going to do what she asked because I've got to get rid of her. You know that, you've done it with your kids. They ask you, the first time you say, no, about the fifteenth time you say yes, yes, yes, please and do it now. See, well this was the kind of a thing, and so what is this thing trying to teach us? The Lord says here what the unjust judge says. "And

shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and nightunto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you he will avenge them speedily." In other words listen, if an unjust judge will give justice to a badgering woman, what will a just, loving, righteous, caring God our Father give to His children? You see it's fabulous. If they are persistent. The parallel Jesus drew was obviously not between God and the judge there's no parallel at all, but between the widow and the petitioner. Now let me tell you two things, and this is fabulous in this thing, two things that woman brought up. One, she refused to accept an unjust situation, she wouldn't accept it. And number two, she persisted with her case, I will not accept this unjust situation, I will not tolerate this thing and she just kept it up and kept it up., Now listen, this is a good word for us. We have a right beloved, now listen to me, to refuse to accept certain situations in the world, wehave that right. We have a right to refuse to accept the way things are, and to pray persistently that God would do them the way they ought to be done. Now what do you mean here? Well what I'm trying to say is "Thy will be done," is not gray acceptance. I believe praying "Thy will be done," now listen to me, in many cases is nothing less than rebellion. You say, now wait a minute. You mean our prayers are to be rebellion, yeah I believe they're a form of rebellion. You say, what are we rebelling against? Listen to this, I believe prayer in this way is rebellion against the world in its falleness, it is rebellion against accepting as normal what is pervasively abnormal, it is rebelling against the usurper, it is rebelling against every agenda and every scheme and every interpretation and every deed and every word and everymovement that is at odds with the will of God. It is being under the altar in Revelation 6 and crying, How long, 0 Lord, will You tolerate this the way it is, it is with David as he prays, "0 God, do not let your enemies prosper, do not let unrighteous men fare well." Listen, I believe when we pray, "Thy will be done," it is rebellion against the evil of the world, it is rebellion against the inevitability of sin, it is rebellion against the consequence of sin, I believe we literally have to assault the gates of heaven, as it were with our rebellion. We will not stand by and let our theology and our passive resignation or our bitter resentment just say oh well, it's all God's will because it is not. I could say as a Pastor well you know certain families broke up well, it's God's will. It's not God's will, and I rebel against that and I will persist to pray about that. Or a certain church collapses, well it's the Lord's ... it's not God's will. A certain person enters into sin, that's not God's will. We must pray "Thy will be done on earth," because it is not being done on earth, do you see? This is not some passive thing. That's why Jesus said, "At all times pray, and do not lose heart." What do you mean; lose heart? Don't acquiesce to what is. Now you know something? After you've done all that maybe it doesn't turn out the way you want. You know Christians have been praying for Jesus to come a long time, haven't they? "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Come Lord Jesus, You don't deserve this kind of treatment, oh Lord come and set up Your kingdom, come and be glorified, come and be honored. We've been praying for two thousand years and we'll keep praying because why? Because we rebel against the falleness of the world, we rebel against the things that harm and injure the Lord Jesus Christ, we rebel against that which goes

against His precious Word, and we ought to have that spirit. We ought to have that. Jesus, I see Him so magnificently in the garden, and He's praying and beloved, you've got to see it His prayer is a prayer of rebellion. It says He said in Matthew 26:3, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will,but as thou wilt." And He didn't stop here, verse 42, "He went again to the second time, and said, Father if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, thy will be done." And then it says down later, He came to His disciples and He found them sleeping. Now listen, three times the Lord prayed that prayer, and after each time He came down and found them sleeping. You know something? That's sad. Jesus never accepted the status quo, He didn't say, oh well, the cross, the cross, it's Your will, it's Your will. He said, Oh God, does it have to be this way? I rebel against this sinfulness, I rebel against the power of sin to take my life, I rebel against the necessity for bearing sin, I rebel against these things that violate the sanctity of Your holy universe. And He was in the midst of His rebellion against the falleness of the world and the disciples were sacked out. Why? They slept simply because they were indifferent. How about your prayer life? Are you praying "Thy will be done in earth," because it isn't always being done? And are you persisting, not for some private or a personal thing to gain but because you cry out for God to be glorified. "Thy will be done." It's not those things. Next week we'll find out the positive side, let's pray. Father thank You for touching our hearts again with Your truth. Paul sang awhile ago that he touched the heart of God in prayer, and certainly the reverse is true, You touch us through Your Word. Thank You for the dear people that You send to us every week to study, to worship, to praise Your name. Father this has not been a classroom, this is not academics, this is a call to worship, a call to praise and adoration, a call to glorify Your name may we hear it faithfully. Amen.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Plan of Prayer, Part 2 Scripture: Matthew 6:10 Code: 2238

The Plan of Prayer, Pt. 2 Thy Will be Done.... I'd like to invite you as I have for the last six weeks to turn with m to Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 to 13 as we consider the next in our series in the Disciple's Prayer, better known to most of you as the Lord's Prayer. In our study through the Book of Matthew we have come to this particular portion going along verse by verse, paragraph by paragraph, which of course is a very familiar passage, one that

anyone who is at all familiar with the church or been raised in the church or attended has come to know because it is recited so very frequently. And yet as I have begun to study it, having known it so well from my childhood I have discovered insights and truths and thoughts that I never perceived to be here or anywhere else in the Bible for that matter. It has opened up many, many new dimensions for my own understanding, I only wish I could I share with you a tenth of what I'm discovering but time does never permit me to do that so I file it away for some future place where I can inject it in another passage at another time. But I have been so enriched in this study. Let me read to you again verses 9 to 13so that you'll have the prayer in mind. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."
For six weeks we have been learning how to pray. This prayer is recorded in the Gospel of Luke in answer to the question of the disciples, "Lord, teach us to pray." I believe it is the standard for prayer, I believe it is the pattern; it is the framework that gives us insight into how we are to pray. When God told Moses to build a tabernacle, God in Exodus 35 gave him a pattern and I believe when Jesus tells

us to pray here He gives us the pattern. You don't build a house without a plan, you don't put together a design without a blueprint, and I believe this is the blueprint for prayer, this is the pattern, this is the skeleton; this is the structure. I really don't believe that we are tied to the words so much, I don't think the idea is just to recite the words although the words are true and lovely and good, but I think the idea is that this is the structure on which we build our prayer life. Keep in mind that the main thrust that we've been seeing in this prayer is that it focuses on God and not us. Jesus in Matthew 5:6 and 7 is confronting the false religious system of the Pharisees and the scribes.Their praying among other things was inadequate.

And so in chapter 6 beginning at verse 5 He begins to attack their prayer, and He attacks it basically overall on the fact that it is self-centered. They prayed parading before men that men might see how pious they were. They wanted nothing to do with private prayer; they wanted only to be involved in public prayer which put them on display. They made as the very heart of their prayer their own will and their own selfish desires, and thus they engaged in vain repetition, the constant badgering of God that was characteristic of the pagans who were trying to appease or to force their god into response just because of their constant harangue. Their prayers were characterized by a sort of an egoism that says God You'd better listen because I have some interesting information that You could use. As if God was not already omniscient, and so their prayers were self-centered like James says, "They ask to consume it on their own lusts." And so Jesus turns that all around and He says, when you pray yourprayers should be God-centered. And we have learned that the proper way to pray is to begin with a concentration on God, the introduction, "Our Father, who art in heaven," postulates God, it affirms God not only that God is but that God is loving, that God is a Father, and that God as loving Father will have loving desires for His children which He can meet because He is a Father in heaven which means the eternal resources are at His disposal for the granting in behalf of His children. And so we are then coming to a holy God, to an Almighty God, to a righteous God, to a sovereign God, to the great God of the universe and yet He is a loving Father. And so we come not in fear but in joy, we come not wondering whether He can provide what we need but knowing because He's in heaven He has the resources of eter-nity at His disposal. And then as we have introduced ourselves into His presence we begin to be concerned about Him, and so the first three petitions are "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come." And "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Forcing us to see that before we ever get to "Give us, forgive us, and lead us," we must deal with God. Prayer begins with Him, with His holy name, with His kingdom and with His will. We've seen even as we follow through all of the elements of the prayer that they focus on God. Even the petitions that relate to us, "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation," really depend on God, don't they? It is He who must give, it is He who must forgive, and it is He alone who can lead us, in the proper place. The whole prayer focuses on Him. We saw for example, "Our Father, who art in heaven," that's God's paternity, "Hallowed be thy name." That's God's priority. "Thy kingdom come." God's program. "Thy will be done," God's plan. "Give us this day our daily bread." God's provision. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." God's pardon. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." God's protection. And finally God's pre-eminence, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." So that prayer then is primarily an act of worship, it is an engagement in the process of sanctification. Prayer is not to change God, prayer is to change us. That is so important, so very important. Now for our study this morning we come again to the petition, "Thy will be 'done in earth, as it is in heaven." This is the fourth state of the third petition, the first petition, "Hallowed be thy name." And the second petition, "Thy kingdom come." And the third, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

This is essential beloved; that in our prayers the bottom line is God's will be done. We never desire to usurp His will; we never desire to change His will, to force His will, to be conformed to some thought of ours. Amy Carmichael said, "And, shall I pray to change Thy will my Father, until it be according to mine? But no Lord, no. That shall never be, rather I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine." She was right. Prayer is not to bend God to my will but to bend my will to God. And so "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." His will is already done in heaven, isn't it? The angels do His will. In fact this week I had the interesting thought, I think I'll look at my Bible and see how the angels do God's will. "Because if we're going to know how it's to be done on earth we need to know how it's done in heaven. Now without going into all of the verses because that would be a, a series In itself, I came up with about eight words that I see as the way the angels do the will of God. First of all without wavering or unwaveringly, there's never a discussion. It's not the way it is on earth neces-sarily the Lord prods and pokes and maybe we get moving sooner or later but in heaven it's an unwavering commitment to do His will. Another word that characterized the angels doing God's will is com-pletely, completely, there are no other alternatives, there are no gaps, there are no omissions. Another word that I found was sin-cerely, they are eager, they seem to be standing waiting for the next command so that they can hurry to accomplish whatever it is. And I guess that brought me to the word willingly. You know how many will's there are in heaven? One. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is (where?) in heaven." There's only one, there were two once, but that second one got kicked out. There's only one, and so that the angels do it willingly, because it's the only will there is. I believe another word that characterized the way the angels function is fervently. They are very aggressive in doing God's will. And then the word readily, and then the wordswiftly, and then the word constantly. And I guess it could all be summed up in Psalm 103 verse 20 which says, "Ye his angels, that do his commandments." "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," means that in earth it should be done without wavering, completely, sincerely, willingly, fervently, readily, swiftly, and constantly. That's the way the angels do it in heaven. Now, you say, that's well and good I'm committed to that. But what does that mean? What does it really mean? Well it means as we saw last time that the bottom line in your heart is that God's causes are the thing that concern you. Let me give you a little statement you might kind of underline in your thinking, I think it's a key statement. The death of self is the beginning of a true prayer life, the death of self is the beginning of a true prayer life. Only when self dies does true prayer begin, because when self is alive self will dominate and that is not prayer. True prayer is dominated by His name, His kingdom, and His will, not ours. And thus did David say, "I delight to do thy will, 0 my God." And thus did Jesus say, "My food is to do the will of him that sent me." His name, His kingdom, His will, to be done in earth as in heaven. His name is hallowed in heaven. His kingdom is come in heaven, He rules supreme. But not on the earth. And His will is done in heaven, and so should it be done here.

Last week we looked at the negative aspect of this, to say in your prayer "Thy will be done," has a negative connotation and I pointed out three things that it does not mean, number one, it doesn't mean bitter resentment, it doesn't mean that you just say, oh Your will be done I can't fight it, You're too big. I give up, as if God was sort of a cosmic killjoy, goes around saying, there's one having fun, get 'em. That God is committed to raining on everybody's parade. Bitter resentment that the inevitable, fate, is going to take over anyway. Secondly to say "Thy will be done," does not mean passive resignation, that's the sort of indifference that says, well whatever will be will be, there used to be a song called Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be, that's the way it is, you can't fight it. Passive resignation. I think bitter resentment is based on a lack of knowledge; I think passive resignation is built on a lack of faith. You don't really believe God, can change things or will do what you ask Him if according to His will. Thirdly, the negative that sometimes creeps into that is what I call theological reservation, some people just say, "Thy will be done," and they file it in their theological box. Listen, if your theology has caused the elimination of your persistence in prayer you've got a bad theology. I had a fella say to me one time, well I really believe that even your sin is God's will, God is actually involved in causing you to sin, after all He's sovereign. He had such a dominant view of the sovereignty of God that he had, God responsible for everything, in a direct sense. Theological reservation has sucked the life out of a lot of prayer. If you've come to the place: where your theology and your perspective on God has brought you to a point of indifference in prayer then your theology isn't biblical. Now granted, God is sovereign and how your prayer life fits in o that is a very difficult mystery that I can't explain, but the issue is obedience, and that's got to be part of your theology too, and persistence as our dear Lord prayed three times in the garden persistently calling out to God. And as He gave illustration of those who came and prayed with persistence, so are we to-pray that way. So negatively we don't say "Thy will be done," with bitter resentment, we don't say it with passive resignation, and we don't say it with some kind of theological reservation that just sort of categorizes everything in that area. In fact I think we closed last time by saying, when we say "Thy will be done," that that kind of a prayer has at its very heart really an attitude of rebellion, doesn't it? When we say, "Thy will be done," we're not just falling over dead. Like Jesus said in Luke 18:1, "We ought to pray at all times, and not faint." We're not just fainting under that, we are resisting some things, we are rebelling against the world in it's falleness. We are saying, Your will is not being done in this world, Satan has too much power here, Your will is not being done in the hearts of men they are turning their back on You, Your will is not being done in my life and the life of other believers who are living in disobedience. And we are rebelling against the world in its falleness, we are rebelling against the rejection of Christ, we are rebelling against the disobedience of believers.

David Wells said, and I think it's well spoken, "To come to an acceptance of life as it is, to accept it on its own terms which means acknowledging the inevitability of the way it works is to surrender a Christian view of God." God doesn't accept it the way it is or He wouldn't be busy changing it. He wouldn't say that He came into the world to destroy him that had the powerof death if He wanted to tolerate death. He wouldn't make a millennium in which there was the absence of disease if He wanted to tolerate disease. He wouldn't wipe out every tear in eternity if He wanted to tolerate sorrow. No, we will not accept things the way they are. When we say, "Thy will be done," we rebel against the world in all its falleness and the sorrow and the sin and the disease and all the things that come as a result of sin. Now I told you last week, that these are not the specific will of God though He has permitted them to happen in order that sin might run its course in those who desire to see it fulfilled. But that's not the expression of His loving will for man, "Thy will be done," does not accept what is. And I think the classic illustration of this is Jesus, Jesus didn't come into the world and say, when He went into the temple in John 2, Zechariah said He'd come suddenly to His temple, and when He came to the temple at the beginning of His ministry He didn't go in and say, well, look what's going on, well, it's the will of God, it's the will of God and walk away. He rebelled, everything inside of Him rebelled. He was indignant, He was furious, He was angry with righteous wrath, He made a whip, He started flipping over tables, He started chasing people out, He started lashing at people. He not only did it once in His life but He did it twice. They got out of there fast. They were in there to make money and if they left it without any, imagine the fury that Jesus unleashed. Why? Because He wouldn't accept the status quo, because He wouldn't tolerate the way it is. He wouldn't tolerate the way it is in sorrow and sin and sickness either, that's why He died, that's why He healed people, that's why He raised the dead to stop the tears, and to bring Himself glory. He didn't accept the world the way it was, and neither should you and neither should I. Our prayers should be "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Now Jesus was no fatalist even though He knew the end from the beginning, that amazes me, it amazes me, and that's something of the tension that I hold in my own mind that Jesus knew the end from the beginning and yet never accepted the status quo, when it was the manifestation of sin, He fought it, He never resigned to it, He sought God's will. You know I, I have to believe that when He went and communed with the Father night after night in the garden He really believed it would do some good. He really believed there was some benefit.
I think we get so comfort-able in our society, because the status quo as it is is pretty comfortable for us, right? Now it's getting less comfortable in America and it may get less and less comfortable, but for a long time we have been so comfortable and I think in many cases that has really had a tremendous, dramatic effect on the churches prayer life. About 25 Korean pastors walked in the lobby of the office building the other day, and I was coming back from teaching a preaching class at the seminary, and I walked in and here were these 25 or so Korean pastors all sitting there, and the man walked up to me, Mr. Koe and he says, ah, we want to speak with you. And I was kind of surprised,

they want me to come to Korea you know, to do a Pastor's Conference over there, but they said; we want to ask you questions. And I said, okay, go ahead, and so he stood by me and they said to me uhm, how you make church big? And you know, I said, I don't make church big, uhm, and I explained to them that we believe in just teaching the Word of God and not promoting things and we let God grow His own church, and I told them a reporter said to me one time, Don't you have a great desire to build the church? And I said, no I don't because Christ said He'd build the church and I'd rather not compete with Him, an so we're part of what He's doing, see. So, and they went all, o yeah, oh amen, amen, you know, and they liked that, see? So the they said to me, how long, how many hour you study? And I said, well I study and I gave them this hours everyday four, five, six hours a day I study the Word of God. And then one mentioned to me, ahh, your people study? I said, well I hope they study. Then one man said to me, ah, how many hour you pray everyday? He got me, see? Your people, they pray many hour? And I said, we have a sickness in America, it's called comfort. You know the people in Korea have gone through a lot with the encroachment of communism, with the terrible disasters that came when other nations came in and killed them and slaughtered Christians. I told you the story of one man who told me that the Japanese came and cut off the thumbs of his father who was a leader in the church. But you see they've been put in a place where they were forced to pray. And you know I, I kind of feel we've gotten so far away from that in our own culture that sometimes I pray for things that'll come upon us to drive us to that place because ... not because I, I, I feel God needs us to pray but because I feel we need to be more dependent on Him. You know I was thinking about this, I may have mentioned it to you last week but I was thinking, why do we pray so little for the church? You know Grace Church has problems, we've been through a lot of things lately too, a lot of heartache, and we have problems. And uhm, it seems to me that we don't really pray as we should for the church. And somebody might say, well what we need is ... and I ... people have said this, we need a prayer seminar, and I say, it isn't bad technique, it isn't technique. We say well, we need to teach them what the Bible says, and I don't even think it's that. I think we know what the Bible says. Well, people have weak wills. No, because they really get turned on about some things. Well, it's a lack of con-cern; well I don't even think that, you know what I think the bottom line is? I think we don't pray enough because we don't really be-lieve it matters. I don't think we think it'll make a difference anyway. And the point is it's because we perceive it as making a difference in our circumstances rather than making a difference in us, see? Prayer is not to change my circumstances nearly so much as it is to change how I relate to them. And in my prayers I draw nigh to God and in worship to Him as I say, "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done," I am drawn into conformity to His blessed person and then no matter what my circumstances are they be-come different because I bring different attitudes to them. And I do believe that even beyond that God does change circumstances, I've prayed for people and they've been saved, have you had that experience? God not only chooses those to be saved but He chooses the methods that He uses, and sometime we're part of that method. James 5:16 says that, "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Listen, impotence, impotence in prayer leads us however unwillingly to strike a truce with what is wrong. We have lost our anger, we have lost our passion; we've lost our

indignation. We don't storm the throne of God as Beaderwolf used to say, God loves to have a hero come with a heroic faith. We don't storm the gates. And so we saw last time that prayer must be rebellion. Now, when we say, "Thy will be done," in a positive sense, what do we mean? We talked about the negative last time, what about the positive? What are we really saying? When we say, "Thy will be done."? Let me share with you that there are three distinguishing terms of God's will that I think will help you to understand this. When you say, "Thy will be done," what are you saying? Number one, is what I call God's will of purpose, God's will of purpose. And by the way these are my terms, and I just tried to find some handles that you could get a hold of to see some distinctions. Because when we say, God's will, it's such a big blanket and then people say, well His permissive will and ah, His directive will and this and this and this. Let's see if we can get some terms to get a handle on what we mean. Number one is God's will of purpose, I like to use biblical words, God's will of purpose. Now by this mean the vastness of God's all inclusive, comprehensive, tolerating will. This is the consummationof everything, this is the will that absolutely embodies all of the earth, all of heaven, all of hell, and in all of this His will is being done. In other words in this massive concept of His will of purpose is encompassed the allowing of sin and sin running its course, the consummation of the ages, the establishing of the kingdom, the eternal state, and everything encompassed from heaven to hell and everything in-between, this massive comprehension of God's will of purpose. For example Jeremiah 51:29 says, "For every purpose of the LORD shall be performed." There's no question that this is being done, there's no question that the plan of the ages is on its track, there's no question that God is working out His ultimate purposes. For example in Isaiah chapter 14 there are some verses that are just very, very essential verses in understanding the concept of God's will. In Isaiah 14 verse 24 it says, "The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, surely (here it comes, now watch this, it's loaded with rich theological meaning, surely) as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." When God thinks a thought, something is going to happen, when God purposes it'll come to pass. Verse 26, "This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall annul it?" In other words God has these massive purposes that are coming to pass, that do happen. For example, it is not God's directive will for people to be ill but it is within His purpose to allow that illness to accomplish His own ends, it is not God's directive will that death enter the human stream and people die but it is within His comprehensive purpose that He use death for His own end and His own glory. This is the broadest term, God's will of purpose. We know that "All things work together for good to them that love God, and are called according to his (what?) purpose." In other words though

God doesn't will evil, God takes the things that happen in our lives, puts them together for good because that's His purpose. It's the all encompassing concept. In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 9, I want you to think with me now because this is going to help you to have some categories. In Ephesians 1:9, "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good purpose which he purposeth in himself." In other words here he's talking about salvation, the incredible forgiveness, redemption which is in part of God's great encompassing purpose, then be goes on to talk about the Jew and the Gentile being one, "The dispensation of the fullness of time, gathering in all together in one in Christ, in heaven, and earth. Which is according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will." God's great purpose for a redeemed people, for a unified church, for a body of saints for eternity, that's His purpose. And so it refers to the eternal plan. Keep that in mind, God's will of purpose. Now you say, John, do we pray in regard to this "Thy will be done."? Yes, yes. How? Let me give you an illustration, in Revelation 22 verse 7 Jesus says, "Behold, I come quickly." Verse 12 Jesus says, "Behold, I come quickly." Verse 20 Jesus says, "Behold, I come quickly." Now that's His purpose, that's the consummation of His Eternal plan. You know what John's response is in the final verse? "Even so, (what?) come, Lord Jesus." How do we pray in accord with His will of purpose? By joyously getting involved in the anticipation of the accomplishment of His own divine ends, see? That's a great way to pray. Oh Lord, I know someday You're going to call out Your church and You're going to bring back Jesus Christ to take us to be with Him, may it be Lord, may it be. It's going to happen, it's inevitable, He thought it, He purposed it, it's in the plan, it'll happen. And yet we pray about it in the sense that we join in a joyous anticipation of that great hour. Do you ever get tired of living in the flesh? Do you ever get tired of the physical body? Do you ever get tired of the anxiety of this world? Don't you ever long in your heart for the day when you know the freedom of the sons of God, when you're like Christ and you can dwell in eternal glory with Him free from all the things that this earth brings upon us? I do. And so sometimes my prayer will say, Lord, I know You're going to do it and I just want to let You know You get my vote, go ahead, do it. The sooner the better. That's praying according to the will of purpose.

Secondly, God has a will which I'll call the will of desire, His will of desire. Now rather than a, an all encompassing plan we're narrowing down to a heart's desire, a heart's desire. You're like that, you have an overall plan you know you, you work out a plan for your life and a career and you plot it all and you chart it all and you have a wa ... and then it narrows down to those personal desires that you have within that. And not everything that happens in your life is a personal desire, but somehow you try to fit it into the plan, so you stay on track. And so it is with God, He has a will of desire, and you know something? This is not always done, at this point God is in some sense unfulfilled and I hate to use that term because it's a ... it's such a human term and it isn't really true of God but we're tying to use an anthropomorphic statement to give you an understanding. In other words there are things that God wills that just don't seem to happen, they're His desires but men reject them.

For example, Jesus desired that Jerusalem be saved, in Matthew and in Luke 13:34 He said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I want to gather you, but you won't!" And in John 5:40 He said, "You will not come to me, that you might have life." And Jesus wept. He wept. And back in Jeremiah chapter 13 you know ah, God says, I'm going to judge you and when I have to judge you, "Mine eye will run down with tears." You see God desires ... according to Peter it says, "He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." "God, our Savior, Who will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth." I believe it is the heart's desire of God, and yet there are going to many there who say, "Lord, Lord, and he says, depart from me, I never knew you." I believe He desires all to be saved but I don't believe all will be. And that's the mystery folks of how you have an absolutely sovereign God and yet you have volition. I don't understand how that comes together. I believe that God's desire is that people be saved, I believe Jesus even wept over people that He knew would never be redeemed, else why would He weep? And His tears show His desire. And so He has a will of desire. There's a third will, I call it the will of command, the will of command. And I believe this is related to Christians. I believe the will of purpose is related to the whole universe and takes in everything, and that's where you have the trials and the suffering and the sorrows and the sicknesses all blended together and brought out to, to good ends for God's eternal purpose, and in that big will. But that encompasses the universe. Then I have the concept of His will of desire and I'd like to confine that to the unbelievers, I think that the will of desire is that longing in the heart of God that the Gospel be taken to the world, it's the will of desire. And now you come to the will of command and I think that's for Christians, because it doesn't do God any good at all to command unbelievers to do His will, because they have no capacity, right? The will of command, it is the ardent desire of the heart of God that we who are His children obey Him completely and immediately with a willing heart. And so listen beloved, when I say in my prayer, "Thy will be done," what am I saying? I'm saying, oh God, fulfill Your purpose in the world, oh God, bring it to consummation, God take every struggle and trail in my life, every pain and anxiety, every sorrow, every sickness, every death and somehow reverse those things that are the result of sin and fit them into Your eternal plan by Your infinite mind. And when I say, "Thy will be done," I'm also saying, Oh God, there's people in my life and people around this globe that don't know You; I pray that somehow the Gospel would penetrate their hearts. That's His will of desire, and then thirdly I have to say, and Lord about Your will of command I pray that I might be obedient, and I bring it right down to me. Do you remember I told you there were three ways to bring the kingdom? Number one was through conversion, "Thy kingdom come." When Christ comes in to reign in a heart. Number two commitment, when a believer lives according to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit the kingdom comes into his life in fullness. And thirdly in His second coming, the kingdom comes to earth; I see the same three things here. His will of purpose embraces the ultimate end and the coming again and the setting up of an eternal kingdom. His will of desire embraces conversion, and His will of obedience embraces the idea of commitment

in my life. As Peter said so well with John in Acts 5:29, "We ought to obey God rather than men." As Paul said in Romans 6, "Look you've yielded yourselves servants to God now you are to obey the one to whom you yield yourselves as servants." We are to be obedient. In the magnificence of the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, O God, make me to understand the way of thy precepts, I have chosen the way of faithfulness, I set thy ordinances before me, I will run in the way of thy commandments, teach me 0 Lord the way of thy statutes, I will keep them to the end, I will find my delight in thy commandments, Thy statutes have been my songs, I will never forget thy precepts, for by them thou hast given me life, Oh, how I love thy law. The heart of obedience. And so as we pray "Thy will be done," we are embracing conversion, commitment and His coming again. But, you know it's hard to pray this way, did you know that? It's hard to be preoccupied withGod in yourprayers and there's one basic reason because the major sin of the human heart is what? Pride. It was the first sin. Lucifer, Isaiah 14 says five times, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, and that was the fall of Lucifer. For the first time in the history of God there were two wills, two wills. It is multiplied from there, and now there are at least four billion on earth, and still only one in heaven. It was one to one, now it's four billion to one. And you know something? Only one of those wills is righteous, every other one is corrupt, every other one, and that doesn't even include all the angelic fallen host. There's only one will and that will beloved is done in heaven, and it needs to be done on earth but pride always stands in the way, always. You say well, how do you deal with that, how do you get pride out of the way? Well, I guess you have to go to Romans 12, don't you? "I BESEECH you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living (what?) sacrifice." Self--denial, humility. "Which is your reasonable service. And be not con-formed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye might know what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect, (what? will of God." Do you see until you lay your life on the altar, until you're a living sacrifice, until your will is dead, God's will can't be manifest. You say, what's a living sacrifice? Well it's very different than what you might think. Take Abraham, Abraham took Isaac, strapped wood on his back, marched him up to Mount Moriah, all the way up the mountain Abraham must have been say-ing to himself, this is very strange God, You've told me to go up there and slay my son on the altar and yet my son is the fulfillment of Your covenant. You tell me to lie him and thing ... on an altar and kill him, doesn't make sense. But you know it's on of the greatest illustrations of a living sacrifice in the world because Abraham went all the way up there, put Isaac down, strapped him down and lifted the knife and was ready to plunge it into his heart. If he had of done that Isaac would have been a dead sacrifice but Abraham would have been a living one, why? Because Abraham would have crucified all his own dreams, all his own hopes, all his own ambitions, all his own goals, all his own desires. He literally would have died to himself, in obedience to God. The question is not can you die for Christ, the question is can you live selflessly for Him? That's the question. And if you can then you can know His good will.

And so the thing that always stands in the way of praying for God's will is our own will, and when you learn to pray like you should pray in conformity with His will, you'll find you'll change dramatically. Prayer then is a sanctifying grace, it changes us. We don't pray to manipulate God, we don't pray to get God to do what we want, we don't pray with incantations and public demonstration and vain repetition just to try to put on a show, we go into God's presence; we want to hallow His name and bring His kingdom and fulfill His will because in so doing we enter into conformity to His blessed person. I guess I could summarize it all and say this prayer is a means of progressive sanctification. John Hanna says this, and it's great, "The end of prayer is not so much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependency." Isn't that great? That's it. Oh, the answers will come but the dependency is the issue "The call to prayer (he says) is a call to love, submission and obedience. The avenue of sweet intimate and intense fellowship of the soul with the infinite Creator." End quote. And so we are to pray, "Thy will be done in earth," and by the way, the earth is us, right? Is us. Can I illustrate that to you from Philip Keller? Graphic illustration. He lived in Pakistan as a boy, and I'll close with this, but I want you to get it, it's powerful. Philip Keller lived in Pakistan as a boy, and he was reading in Jeremiah 18:2 and he came across a verse that said, "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words." And he got kind of curious about the potter and what lessons the potter had to teach and so he went down to the potter's house in the city in which he lived and this is what he wrote, "In sincerity and earnestness I asked the old master craftsman to show me every step in the creation of masterpiece. On his shelves were gleaming goblets and lovely vases and exquisite bowls of breathtaking beauty. And then crooking a bony finger toward me he led the way to a small dark closed shed at the back of his shop, and when he opened its rickety door a repulsive overpowering stench of decaying matter engulfed me, for a moment I stepped back from the edge of the gaping dark pit in the floor of the shed, this is where the work begins, he said. Kneeling down beside the black nauseating hole, with his long thin arm he reached down into the darkness, his slim skilled finger's felt around amid the lumpy clay searching for a fragment of material exactly suited to his task. I add special kind of grass to the mud he remarked and as it rots and decays its organic content increases the colloidal quality of the clay, and then it sticks together better. Finally his knowing hands brought up a lump of dark smelly mud from the horrible pit where the clay had been trampled and mixed by his hard bony feet. With tremendous impact the first verses of Psalm 40 came to my heart, "He brought me up out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay." As carefully as the potter had selected the clay so God had selected me. "And then the great slab of granite cut from the rough rock of the high Hindu Cush Mountains behind his home began to whirl quietly, it was operated by a very crude treadle like device that was moved by his feet very much like an antique sewing machine, and as the stone gathered momentum I was taken to memory in Jeremiah 18:3, "Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheel. And what stood out most before my mind at this point was the fact that beside the potter's stool, on either side of him stood two basins of water." And then he goes on to tell how

that "all the while that the wheel was turning with the clay he kept dipping his hands in the water and then he would mold the clay and then he would dip them in the water and mold the clay and never could he mold without the water because it would stick to his hands and it would ruin it, and so his hand always had to be wet," and he said, "it was fascinating to see how swiftly but surely the clay responded to the pressure applied through those moistened hands, silently, smoothly the form of a graceful goblet began to take shape between his h ands, and the water was the medium through which the master craftsman's will and wishes were transmitted to the clay, his, (his) will was actually being done in earth through the water and immediately," he says, "I thought of the water of the Word which is God's agency for doing His will in earth. When God touches my life," he said, "He touches me with His Word, it is the water of the Word that expresses the will of the Master and finds fulfillment in fashioning man into His choice.
Suddenly, to his astonishment he noticed the w heel stopped. Gently the man reached in and picked out a piece of stone, and then he began to spin it again and stopped it again, and reached again to pick out a larger piece of stone, and he noticed now t hat with the tenderness of his hand he could feel every rough spot, every stone, every small gain of sand. The two he had taken out were too large and the goblet was marred, and so he reached to it and crushed it in his hands." Keller said to him,

"Oh, that's sad, what will happen to that? Oh, he said, I'll make it into a common finger bowl. He said, it'll never be a goblet? He said, no, it's too scar red. And I thought again of Jeremiah 18:4," says Keller, "And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter." Seldom (says he) did any lesson come home to me with such tremendous clarity and force, why was this rare and beautiful master piece ruined in the master's hands? Because he ran into resistance, it was a thunderclap bursting in my mind, why is my Father's will, His intention to turn out truly beautiful people brought to nought again and again? Because of our resistance, because of our hardness? Despite His best efforts and endless patience with us and besides the water of the Word applied to us we end up nothing but a finger-bowl. The sobering, searching, searing question I had to ask myself in the humble surroundings of that simple potter's shed was this, am I'm going to be a piece of fine china or a fingerbowl? Is my life going to be a gorgeous goblet fit to hold the fine wine of God's very life from which other's can drink and be refreshed, or am I going to be a crude fingerbowl in which passers-by will simply dabble their fingers briefly then pass on and forget about it? It was one of the most solemn moments of all my life, and I prayed, Father, Thy will be done in earth, in clay, in me, as it is in heaven." What about you? Keller goes on to tell that when the potter finishes his work, while its still spinning he takes a long thread and he just pulls it through the bottom and it cuts it, and he says, I thought of being separated unto good works. And then the potter takes it and places it in an oven and through hardship it's finally finished. Beloved, God wants to do His will in you, God wants to make you into that beautiful goblet, but because you resist you're a fingerbowl. And instead of being used for the fine wine of God's great purposes you're something people dabble their fingers in and pass by. And the key thing is are you willing to let Him do His will in the clay of earth, as it is done in heaven?

That's the heart of your prayers. Let's pray. Father you have been good to us through all our 1ives since we have known Christ. We have been the recipient of every good and gracious gift and this morning You have given us another one, the privilege of worshiping You and sharing together in Your precious truth. May we accept this good gift and not misuse it, oh God, drive us to the place of prayer, that we may seek Your coming again, that we may seek conversion in the hearts of the lost, the fulfillment of Your will of purpose and will of desire, and that we may fulfill Your will of obedience, Your will of command as we hear and obey Your precious Word that we might be nonresistant to Your hands, to the water of the Word as they form us for Your use. Make us vessels fit or the Master's use. In Christ's name. Amen.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Provision of Prayer, Part 1 Scripture: Matthew 6:11 Code: 2239

Turn in our Bible to Matthew chapter 6. We're continuing now after a break through the holiday season and the last couple of Sundays, we're continuing in our study of The Disciple's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6, The Disciple's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6. May I read it to you again so that you'll have the setting for our thoughts this morning? Verse 9, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." Now our study this morning is going to concentrate on verse 11, a simple, familiar phrase, the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread." The word bread opens up to us the simplicity, the commonness of this petition, and yet suggests to us a deep and profound meaning that demands our careful study. May I say this at the beginning this morning? I' m constantly being overwhelmed as I study this hour after hour, day after day, week after week, I'm constantly overwhelmed in the, in the depth of this prayer. Never in my life until I've done this series here have I ever really perceived what is in this prayer, in terms of s richness. In fact there was almost a resistance in my heart to ever preach this because it was such a masterpiece in and of itself, I, I didn't want to add any MacArthurism's to this profundity, it would be tantamount to, in my own mind taking a brush and fixing up a Rembrandt or getting a chisel and trying to help Michel- Angelo a little bit with an angel he had carved, I would really be out of my league, and I felt a little bit the same way in wanting to approach an understanding of the Lord's Prayer, I almost felt like all I should do is read it and move on and let it speak in its own majestic simplicity. And yet as I thought about it there is a, there is such a power to it

and such a presence in it and such a breadth that unless we perceive the fullness of what is here we will miss the simplicity of it, an so in a certain amount of ambivalence I have chosen to try to expand and analyze and enforce to your hearts the fullness of what this marvelous prayer really means. And we come here to what perhaps seems like the simplest of all, "Give us this day our daily bread," and we wonder if whether we need any thought about it at all and that only shows that we don't really understand all that's here, so let's approach it. Thinking about bread kind of triggered my thoughts this week, I was reading in the newspaper about the fact that America trying to exert some pressure against Russia for her invasion of ... Afghanistan is deciding now to withhold bil-lions of tons of grain from Russia, grain which was earmarked for the feeding of animals, animals which are earmarked for the feeding of people. And ah, because the grain production in Russia is down at least 20% and maybe more Russia is desperately in need of the

grain that we can provide, not giving them this grain supposedly will have an impact upon them. It was interesting to me that we had that much grain to give away, or to sell, and as I began to examine this thought realized that we, we have more grain than we can pos-sibly use, in fact if we don't unload this grain we don't sell Russia, it will drive the price of grain down so low that all the farmer's will go into a recession, we have so much surplus, and so the government I guess is going to buy the grain. Which means they will print more money and inflate all the rest of the money and we'll be in the same mess anyway but at least it'll spread it around and the farmer's won't have to bear the whole load. But we have so much grain. And as I was thinking about that, and there was an article in Time Magazine that I was given to read, I was aware of the fact that when you come to the statement, "Give us this day our daily bread," it may at first seem a little irrelevant to us. I mean when is the last time you prayed, Lord, I plead with You to provide for me a meal. I dare say your last prayer may have been more like this, Lord, please prevent me from eating another meal. Teach me self-discipline. Lord, I must lose weight. I not only have enough for me but several others. It does seem a little remote, doesn't it? I mean when is thelast time we really got desperate about our food? You say, this, this message ought to be preached in Bangladesh or Cambodia or Sahara or somewhere but not in America ... this is irrelevant. But that only illustrates our lack of understanding of its marvelous truth. Do you know how much we have in America? Well, we have grain in America that is absolutely beyond our power to conceive, because of our technology, because of the richness of the soil, because of the sophistication of the machinery. For example, we, we're not they're not working on uhm, new kinds of corn and grain, they are now tested in Mexico that recycle themselves and regenerate like grass does, that you don't even have to reseed them. Geneticists are now working on corn that will deposit back into the soil its own nitrogen and will save us something like 13 million tons of fertilizer which is made from natural gas and that'll save energy. They have now developed corn that grows with its ears instead of like this, like this and that means you can get them closer together and fields can double or treble their productivity. The equipment that we have, take for example one of the hundred thousand dollar monstrous combines can now spew out a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars worth of soy beans in a day, one of those machines. The U.S. crops, the result of near perfect weather and land and technology are beyond our imagination. Just to give you some idea of it, the corn alone would fill two million jumbo hopper train cars that would stretch thirteen times back and forth across the United States. And we have enough machines now, if they were all lined up wheel to wheel we could harvest Iowa in one day. And by the way, normally to harvest Iowa if you did it by human beings would take thirty one million people using sixty one million horses. Technology has given us incredible amount of productivity in terms of food. And to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," is a little remote, I mean I went shopping with my wife last night, and frankly there was bread adinfinitum adnauseam, in the store I was in, you could get any kind of bread in any color package you wanted. It didn't seem to me a major prayer request at the time. What does this mean to us then? What is this text saying to us? Or should we just preach a sermon and say, well you're going to have to imagine that you didn't have any and then if you can only imagine that you don't have any then imagine that you're desperate and imagine that you're

praying for some. That's too unreal. Does this say anything to us? I think it does. Let's find out. First of all you have to understand the context, the Lord is talking about prayer here because prayer is one of the elements of His kingdom, and Matthew, the whole Book presents Christ as King, all 28 chapters, chapters 5 to 7 present the characteristics of His kingdom or the standards of His kingdom or the principles of His kingdom, and one of those is prayer. And so Christ is presenting here the proper way to pray, the proper pattern for praying, and in this very simple prayer we have all of the necessary ingredients for prayer, if you want to pray accordingto His standard. And one of the elements of praying is to pray for our daily bread. Now that doesn't assume that we have it or don't have it, it's just there and we have to deal with it as it is. We need to know how to pray. Now in this prayer the Lord gives us a model for our prayers that is without equal in the Bible, and we've been through that, we've spent already six weeks on it and I don't want to go over and plow the same soil again but I do want you to know that this is a pattern for all your praying. You know what I found myself doing whenever I pray, whether it's praying with the elders or praying at home or praying in the office' or praying ah, just wherever I am, driving, or with the Lord, or with somebody in a group or two people who are gathered, or whatever I find myself running my prayer along the skeleton of this passage, and touching base with each one of these principles, identifying with them it's ... and this is what I've prayed that God would make this the pattern of my praying so that my prayer would take on the character of Christ's prayer, and I hope that's happening in your prayer as well.But in this prayer we noted first of all two sections, the first one dealing with God, the second one dealing with man. The first one dealing with God's glory, the second one dealing with man's need. First we saw three requests, "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. (And) Thy will be done." And those focused on God and His glory; then we see three other requests focusing on man and his need, "Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." God then is the supreme issue here, and not until God is in the proper perspective can man pray properly about his own needs. Keep that in mind. First we see God's name, God's kingdom, God's will, and then we move to man's need. We cannot pray properly in regard to our own human situation until God is in the proper place. Now may I hasten to add this. That when we get to the second part of the prayer it doesn't set God aside, even though God is primarily exalted in the first half the second half all ... exalts Him also and does not set Him aside. For example, the fact that God gives us our daily bread, forgives our debts, and leads us not into temptation is an expression of His power and His grace. So God is brought to earth as it were, in the second part, now note this, "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done (where?) in earth, as it is in heaven." How does God hallow His name, bring His kingdom, and do His will in the earth? By giving us our daily bread, by forgiving us our debts and by leading us in our lives. In other words it's as if the second half brings God into human life, brings God into the earth, brings God into human existence, so that these two are contiguous. It is not that the first three butter up God, the first three sort of flatter God and then we really lay it out as to what we want for our own sake, no. We are saying, God, glorify Yourself in our daily provision, God, glorify Yourself in our constant forgiveness, God, glorify

Yourself in the leading and the directing of Your Spirit in our lives. God, be on display in Your world, that Your kingdom may come to earth. So it is not a setting aside of God, in any sense. Prayer is not buttering up God and then demanding certain things from Him. My heart is continually grieved today in this movement in Christianity that goes about demanding things from God. A lady sent me a booklet and she said, You don't ... I don't think you understand the true resource we have in prayer, please read this booklet, and the booklet just goes again and again along this line of we have a right to demand things from God, because of who we are. That isn't the point of prayer, at all. We are to give God the privilege and opportunity of revealing His glory through the meeting of the deepest of human needs. But it is because we want God to be on display, not because we make demands on Him for our benefit. If prayer becomes man-centered and prayer becomes selfcentered and prayer becomes selfish in any sense it ceases to be the kind of prayer our Lord said should be characteristic of His kingdom. And yet so many people approach God that way. We approach God in prayer to get something for us rather than to allow Him to glorify His name, and that's where we get confused. We plead with God for what we want, and when we don't get it then we begin to question God, whereas if we just allowed God the right to make the choice as to how He would reveal His glory no matter what He did we would then say, so let it be for Your glory, if that's what You choose as the avenue for Your majesty so let it be. But when we become self-centered in our prayers then we become questioning of God and then that is a serious sin. And we are pragmatists in our society, we, we are vending machine operators, we stick a quarter in and we want a product, for ourselves. And so consequently we treat prayer that way, in fact we treat a lot of things that way. I think about giving so often, some people I know give in order to get, they heard a sermon that if you give to the Lord He'll return, press down, shaken together and running over, if you give to the Lord He'll give you back so many fold, and that's true, that's not why we give though, that's God's choice to do it. Why we give is that so that He can be glorified in His response no ... not so that me can get. It's like the lady who sent $5.00 to Bishop Sheen, and the next day she got a check for a hundred dollars in the mail, she won a contest. She told her young boy, she said, it's so wonderful, giving really works. Ah, to which her son replied, well if it worked so well the first time why don't you put the hundred back on Bishop Sheen and see what happens. It's like betting on a horse. You put a hundred dollars on Bishop Sheen. One writer says, if all the testimonies uttered during annual stewardship drives were to be believed tithing would be commended for its profit and taught as an investment principle in business administration courses. Now I think we do the same thing with prayer a lot of times too we, we use prayer as a way to get rather than an avenue for God to gain glory which is what John 14:13 says it's for. Now let's look at the three petitions that give God opportunity to glorify Himself. First of all "Give us this day our daily bread." Speaks of physical life, physical life. Secondly, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Speaks of the mental life, and we'll get more into that next time. Thirdly, "Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil." Is the spiritual life. Bread, that's our physical life. Forgiveness, that frees our mind from the anxiety and the pain of guilt, and the burden of sin. And

leading us and directing us away from evil is the spiritual direction. By the way, bread takes care of the present, forgiveness takes care of the past, and help takes care of the future. So all the dimensions of life are covered and all the needs of life are covered. It's amazing, the marvel, the, the wonder of how God's infinite mind can reduce all there is of human need to three simple profound statements. Now listen beloved, this whole prayer is set up to glorify God, the whole thing. "Our Father, which art in heaven," that's God's paternity as we have seen. "Hallowed be thy name." God's priority. "Thy kingdom come." God's program. "Thy will be done," God's purpose. "Give us this day our daily bread." God's provision. "Forgive us our debts," God pa ... God's pardon. "Lead us not," God's protection. And finally God's pre-eminence, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." All of it is for God's glory, don't ever forget that if you never learn anything else from this lesson learn that all your prayers are for God's glory, all of them are. Do you know something? Even when you stick food in your face it's for God's glory not for your sustenance primarily, did you know that? That's why it says in First Corinthians 10:31, "Whatever you do, whether, you eat, or drink, do it all (what?) to the glory of God." You say, how can eating food be to the glory of God? It is if you know where it came from, right? It is if you remember the source of your food. It is if you remember the capacity that you have to enjoy the flavor. 'It is if you're thankful to the one who provided the nourishment in it. Every single thing is for the glory of God, everything, and prayer nonetheless is for His glory. And so we come then to this thought that no matter what we ask it is for His glory that we ask it not, for our gain. We're not badgering God to make Him change His mind for us. David Meyers says in a book called The Human Puzzle, "Some petitionary prayers seem not only to lack faith in the inherent goodness of God but also to elevate in human kind to a position of control over God. God, the Scriptures remind us is omniscient and omnipotent, the sovereign ruler of the universe, for Christians to pray as if God were a puppet whose strings they yank with their prayers seems not only potentially superstitious but blasphemous as well. When prayer is sold as a device for eliciting health, success and other favors from a celestial vending machine we may wonder what is really being merchandised, is it faith or is it faith's counterfeit a glib caricature of true Christianity?" Elton Trueblood said, "In some congregations the gospel has been diminished to the mere art of selffulfillment, egocentricity is all that is left. And boy there is so much of that today in Christianity, where prayer is simply an ego centered, self-fulfilling, self indulging exercise to try to elicit from God what I demand. That's not right. All ... these petitions here, though directed at our essential needs are ways in which God's glory comes to earth, and makes itself manifest. And so J. I. Packer says, "The prayer of a Christian is not an attempt to ... force God's hand, but it is a humble acknowledgment of helplessness and dependence." So with the right perspective then let's look at this petition, for God's glory, "Give us this day our daily bread." This is a basic need of man, the term bread beloved means all of man's physical needs, it's a broad term; it is a prayer for the physical need of man to be fulfilled. And that's a, that's a very obvious thing, but in our society it's somewhat remote because we have so much, so much. What does it really say to us? Let's find out. First of all I want to ... we're going to go through five points, two

of them this morning and then three I think next time. But I want you to get these 'cause they're so important. First of all the substance. What is the substance here? It's bread; see it there in verse 11? Bread. But it isn't just talking about bread in terms of a loaf of bread, "Give us this day our daily bread." Is talking about the physical, you see mancan't even be a spiritual being unless he is a physical one, right? God has to begin with the physical. It thrills me to know that God, the God who is the God of infinite celestial epochs, God who is the God of space, God who is the God beyond time, the God of eternity, God who is the infinitely holy God of the universe who holds all the whirling worlds and the spinning stars in the palm of His hand, that same God cares that my physical needs are met, that same God is concerned with the fact that I have a, a meal to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest. It thrills me that that God, that infinite eternal God has come to earth in terms of His caring love, and is concerned that the needs of my life in a physical way and your life be met, and He even sets certain conditions for them being met, we'll get into that next week. But bread is all of that physical area. Martin Luther had it right when he said, "Everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, peace." End quote. He saw all of the physical elements of life, the necessities but not the luxuries of life. I don't think that we can ask God for the luxuries of life based on this verse, but for the necessities. What He chooses to give us by way of luxury is at His gracious hand. But He promises to give us the necessities. You remember back in Proverbs chapter 30? The prop ... the ... the ... ah, Psalm ah, Proverbs 30 written by Agur? And in verses 8 and 9 he says, Lord, don't give me so much that I forget You, and don't give me so little that I steal and dishonor Your name. Just give me food that is convenient for me. I ... think that's the heart of this. It isn't self-seeking, give me more and more and more and more, it's just saying, Lord give me what I need. But you say, John in our life we don't even have need, we don't even need to pray this. Yes we do. Because, now I want you to get this, this petition for us while not the desperate cry of one who's starving, this petition ... by the way I believe there are ... there's a pro ... there are promises in the Bible that indicate if a person is righteous God will feed that person, God is not going to willfully withhold provisions of life from a righteous child, the Bible says. So God is going to provide this for anybody, in whatever situation they are if they're righteous, within the purview of His will. So that anybody really could say, well the Lord's providing for me, I'm righteous, why do I need to pray? So that the essence of the prayer is really an affirmation that all our substance comes from God, it is saying, God, I want to let You know that You I realize are the source of my life, my food, my shelter, my clothing. It is that constant affirmation. It's for example when I ask the Lord to forgive my sin and cleanse my life of something. Well why do I ask Him to do that? Hasn't He already promised to forgive my sin? Yes, but He also said to keep on confessing it. And when I say to the Lord, Lord, lead me and guide me in a certain direction, doesn't the Bible say He will be my guide and He will be my leader and He will guide me in this way and in that way? Yes, but He wants me to affirm that I recognize that leadership in my life. And sometimes when I call out to the Lord I say, Lord, hear my prayer and answer, and don't I know that He will and always has? Yes, but He wants me to affirm that

confidence because that exalts Him. I may not have to say, Oh God, I don't have any food for my family, where is it going to come from? But I will ever and always say, God everything I have and all that I share with those I love comes from Your good and gracious hand. And so for us it is an affirmation of the source of everything. A precious thing it is to know that, that our God cares about our physical needs. So bread is the staple of life. And though we may not always be on the edge of hunger we are always to be thankful for all of it comes from Him. Now that takes us to the second thought, the second feature of this verse. First the substance is bread, and secondly the source is God. And I just want to talk about that for a minute because I think it's important. You know we tend to think that we provide everything for ourselves, I make my living, I earn my wages, I buy my bread, you know, what do I owe God, right I'm carrying my own load frankly. That's the way ... if we don't say that that's kind of the way we operate. For example when is the last time you said, Lord, for my daily bread I thank You, for the fact that I have food to eat and clothes to wear and a shelter over my head, I thank You, that I have a bed to rest in, that I have enough physical strength to know You, to perceive You, to live life, in a way that is rich and meaningful. Well, that's what He's after here. God cares about the little things, God is involved, God knows when a sparrow hops; God knows the number of hairs on your head, and everything there is in this world He knows and controls and orders, for us so that we are always to be thankful. You know we live in a day, it's interesting that it's almost paranoid, people are so fearful that they're going to lose, they're going to lose their existence because of the pollution of the resources, right? We're afraid of, of nuclear reactors messing up our environment, we're afraid f polluting our seas with sewage and our rivers and lakes, we're afraid of overcrowding population, we're afraid of smog and air pollution, we're afraid of breaking up the ozone around the earth, we're afraid of polluting space with all of the garbage and metal that's floating around, we're afraid of polluting our bodies with chemicals, we are afraid of all of this and with all the money we have and all the resources we have man knows that he is the always on the brink of devastating his environment to the point where he has no resources. Which ought to drive him to the recognition that God upholds the whole thing. You know there's going to come a day in the Book of Revelation when God turns out the lights in the heavens, when God turns the rivers to blood, when God has the whole world go crazy, when the sea swallows up all of the ships and kills all the fish, when literal devastation sweeps the, the world. The sun goes black and the moon doesn't give its light, and all the resources are gone and in Revelation 18 the whole economic system collapses and music stops because there's no song to sing, and then it won't matter what you have, it won't be worth a nickel because none of it'll buy anything cause there won't be anything to purchase to preserve life. And man knows the potentiation of that. But man never makes the jump to the fact that if it weren't for the fact that God upholds all things by the word of His power, everything would fall apart. You know that scientists realize that when all their calculations are done, andall of their examinations are done there is an unknown element in the universe that makes it all hang together in constancy and science doesn't even have a name for it. And it's God. Everything we have is from God. It is God

who brings the rain to make things grow, it is God who cycles the seasons, it is God who produces the minerals in the soil to make the earth fertile, it is God who gives us the natural resources to propel ourselves around, it is God who provides for us the animals from which we make our clothing and the synthetics that come from petroleum, etc, etc, that once came from animals. It's God, who made it all. And so my daily bread, the necessities of physical life are all from God and so part of my prayer should ever and always be, "Give us this day our daily bread." God we recognize You as the giver of all physical necessity. You know, just think about it from the food standpoint, we don't have time to go into everything but just think from the food standpoint. Go back to Genesis chapter 1 for a minute and look how God has given us food. Genesis 1:29, "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creeps on the earth,
wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Now listen here, God could have designed that we all just eat mud. Mud for breakfast, mud for lunch, and mud for dinner, all our lives and that everything was grey. But God is a God of marvelous variety, isn't He? I mean look around you there's none two of us alike, and the colors, and you go outside and the world of color is almost unending. And why would there not be the same variety in food? And so He says in 29 and here is the key, "I have given you every (every) herb bearing seed, every tree, every beast, every

fowl, every thing that creepeth, every green herb. And God saw every thing, and said it's good." Good for food, good for men's physical life. God is a God who put into His world such an incalculable world of wonder and variety that ... and of course man corrupts this, doesn't he? And it becomes a fetish for him to eat in a variety of ways, but it's nonetheless the good gift of God to give us an incredible amount of variety in life, and it's all there. And God has wonderfully and graciously provided for us. Now go from there over to First Timothy chapter 4 and I'll show you a comparative Scripture and tie the two together. In spite of what God has given, and by the way God did give special dietary laws to Israel but set them aside in Acts chapter 10 so they're no longer in existence but God did give them special dietary laws for awhile in order to keep them on a certain diet so they couldn't easily intermingle with the pagan nations and corrupt their purity, that was His design. But when Israel ah, stopped obeying and was set aside for the cause of the church then the dietary laws were also set aside according to Acts 10, Colossians also says the same thing, "Let no man judge you in those matters." But there are still people who come along and they want to draw lines and tell you you can't have this or you can't have that and you have that in First Timothy 4, somewho gave seducing spirits, and the doctrines of demons, come along and they say you shouldn't get married and you shouldn't eat certain foods. And we know there are some who believe that it's more holy to be unmarried and not to eat meat on certain days and that, and there are many ways that that has been illustrated in history. But it says, "God has created these foods, to be received with thanks-giving by then who believe and know the truth." God has provided this incredible world of food for us, to express our thanks to Him, we who believe and know the truth. The rest of the world just indulges itself without a

gratitude at all. Now look at verse 4, "For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused, if it is received with thanksgiving; (now watch) For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." Now what does that mean? First of all, how are all these foods sanctified by the Word of God? Very clearly, in Genesis 1:29 to 31 God's Word said, it is all good. That sancti-fied it. Here the Word of God says, verse 4, "Every creature of God is good." And again the Word of God sanctifies it, so it is sancti-fied by the lord of God. Now how is it sanctified by prayer? When it is received (verse 3) with thanksgiving." Verse 4, "When it is received with thanksgiving." The Word of God sanctifies it and you sanctify it when you thank God for it. Do you really thank God for your food? You say, aw, listen we wouldn't have a meal without a prayer. You know those little quick things that are rather unconscious and indifferent and you just rattle them off to make sure the duty's done. Are you really thankful? Do you really see God as the source, of everything? Listen, God has given us a marvelous variety of foods, we should be so thankful, the foods have been sanctified already by the Word of God and they are doubly sanctified when you say thanks to God. When you are saying thanks to God for your provision on a daily basis to meet your physical need you are fulfilling the spirit of "Give us this day our daily bread." Realizing that God is the source of all of that, and beloved that isn't selfish is it, because that gives Him glory, doesn't it? Have you ever stopped to think about everything God's given us to eat? Just, let me talk about that for a minute. Food is close to all of us, and we're all into that, obviously every generation has been it's an absolute necessity. But do you know the variety is amazing even in the Bible. I was just going through some verses to try to put together a little biblical menu for you so here it comes. First of all God has provided plant food. Now under the plant food there are several categories, first, grains, and if you study the Bible you'll find the fields of Palestine for example produced wheat, barley, millet, spelt, those are just different kind of grains, and then there's a term corn, and corn doesn't mean the Indian maize that we call corn it is simply a, a term, a general term for all of that kind of grain that was used ah, because that kind of corn that we have today wasn't even known in those days, it refers to cereal grains. So they had all these grains now according to Isaiah 3:1 and many other passages, they would take the grain, they would crush the grain, and ah, when it was crushed they would then make it into a flour, they would make it into bread and they madeit into all kinds of different breads. This was very much a part of their life. Another thing I found interesting was that they would take the kernels of the grains and they would leave them in the sun on a stone to dry and get them real parched and then they would salt them and that's what they had for snacks, kind of like you go in the health food store, you know, and they have all those little bags of that salted grains, you can buy soy beans or whatever, I don't know all that stuff but, it's ah, it's similar. They had their snack foods, their little crunchy stuff. They also had nuts according to Genesis 43:11 God provided nuts. Ah, also vegetables uhm, I found as I looked through the Scripture cucumbers, leeks, that's some kind of like an onion, melons, onions, garlics, beans, lentils, bitter herbs, mint, dill, cumin and then in Jeremiah 6:20 it talk about sweet cane which is probably sugar cane. And you know how much sugar means to all of us, to flavor everything we eat. That was made by the Lord, you have to remember that, in its natural state. Fruits also are apart of

God's plant foods, we have in the Bible grapes, raisins, olives, figs, pomegranates, apples and then what Jeremiah and Amos call summer fruit and we're not just too sure what it is, and those may only be family names and there may be endless varieties of those. Then you come to animal foods that the Lord provided. And I'm just talking here about the land of Israel to say nothing of going all around the world, but in the animal foods you have first of all the flesh of animals that's provided for us to eat, there's nothing wrong with eating meat folks, it's not spiritual to be vegetarian. If you're a vegetarian and you prefer that, that's wonderful, that's fine. Ah, if you're a meatatarian and you just want to eat that all the time that's okay too, it's not a biblical issue. You're not more spiritual if you don't eat meat, but God has provided oxen, sheep, goats, ah, for Israel and their pork has even been provided though they were restricted from eating it ah, and that restriction has been removed in Acts 10 as I said. They preferred lamb if they had their choice, the Bible talks about the stalled ox, that was the ox they put in the stall and they didn't let them run around to get tough muscle they just wanted them fat and juicy, and that's ah, that's kind of like the fatted calf too, and they also had by the way in Deuteronomy 14:5 there's a list of seven animals that could be hunted for food, interesting. Fish, and they had four types of insects according to ah, Leviticus 11 that they enjoyed. Now I don't know how they served those insects. I've seen chocolate covered ants in a, in a store or something but I don't know maybe they had those real crunchy too and just threw them in with their nuts and stuff, I don't know. But ah, there was also, ha, you know, whatever turns you on, right? They also had fowl, ah, different kinds of fowl that they ate and you can study the Scripture and you'll find in First Samuel 26 they ate partridge, in Exodus 16 they ate quail, in Leviticus 12 they ate pigeons, in Genesis 15 they ate turtledoves and in Matthew you find chickens running around crowing from time to time and I'm sure they had a purpose for them as well. And so there were fowl provided by the Lord in an abundant array. And then you go from animal products in flesh to the animal products that come through the, the dairy process, and you have milk. They actually ate ah, they actually ate byproducts of the milk, they hadwhat was called curds in Genesis 18:8 which is butter, they had cheese Job tells us, ah, they had eggs from chickens, they had honey, they had milk from the cows, from the goats, from the sheep, and they even drank camel milk which doesn't sound too interesting, but they did. I, I was in Egypt once and I know I got a camel burger that wasn't what they said it was but I know that's what it was. And the Lord also provided, the Lord also provided a tremendous amount of condiments to flavor their food. There was as I said the sugar that came from the, the cane, ah, there was salt, mint, anise, all kinds of seeds, mustards, cumin, and all of these kinds of herbs and things that were used to flavor the food. Now it is thrilling to me to see that God has provided such an incredible abundance of all of this for us, in fact when God said to the children of Israel, You're going to go to a certain land; God put his finger on one characteristic of that land and set it apart as a land of what? Milk and Honey, and what God was saying is, It is a land where there will be a physical bounty. And by the way folks, when you go to Israel today you'll be amazed to see that that is true. Israel is fertile, it is one of the most fertile lands in all the world, and God knew that when He sent His people there. God provides an incredible

abundant variety of those things needed to meet our physical life requirements. You know I was thinking of illustrating, I don't have time to illustrate a whole lot of this but you just should study some of the, some of the incidents in the Old Testament where they were eat-ing and see all of the stuff they had, it is amazing. Abigail made haste, just get this, how'd you like to cook this up wives? She took two hundred loaves, that's a good start, now those are probably smaller, two skins of wine, animal skins, big huge things, five sheep dressed, I mean how'd you like to have a ... to cook five sheep, five measures of parched grain, a whole bunch of those little crunchy grain things, a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs packed them on her animals and took off. Now that's, that's kind of exciting. Boy, I don't know what all was going to happen but I know the folks would enjoy all of that. And you can go into Second Samuel, First Kings and all and you can find all these things that were provided for food. Now where did it all come from? God made everything, didn't He? Everything. Every single thing. It's fun when you try to tell your kids that, you know and they don't understand, well, God didn't make hamburgers or God didn't make hot dogs, they don't understand that all the things are made up of the component parts of what God made. Even our clothing, we are de-pendent on the animals for our clothing. We're dependent on the plants for our clothing. And people say, well, I, I have a polyester dress, you know there's no animal or plant. Am, but that's made from I think a petroleum product which is ... comes from the earth and God made that too. You don't have anything, nothing, you don't eat anything, you don't wear anything, and you don't live in anything that didn't come from this earth, and every element of it was coming from the creative hand of God. And it is the height of indifference and ingratitude not to be daily recognizing that, and affirming that God is a God who is active daily in upholding His world so that it supports our physical needs. How grateful we should be for God's gracious daily loving provision. Did you know that God even, this- is amazing, God has set up a network that's so incredible, God has to have in His whole system food for man, but in order to have food for man He has to feed the food that feeds man, do you realize that? And so God has to feed the animals and the plants and there has to be minerals and other animals and other plants and the whole cycle is just to provide for man. The Bible says for the plant eaters there's herbage, for the ox there's grass and straw, for the horses there's barley, for the birds there are seeds, for the locusts there are plants, and God keeps the whole cycle go-ing. And by the way, rain is a gift from God, did you know that? And if God shut off the heavens nothing would grow, and if the grass didn't grow and the plants didn't grow, the animals wouldn't eat and if the animals didn't eat you wouldn't either and we'd all be dead, so if it doesn't rain the whole thing goes down. But God upholds the world and keeps the rain falling. All we have is from God's hand. You say, now wait a minute, I earn my money. Just remember, if you have the ability to bend your back, if you have the ability to open your mouth and talk and make a living, if you have the ability to think and make a living it's God who gave you that capacity and that facility, and by the way the money you got from the bank was made out of stuff that God created. The paper came from trees and the coins camp from minerals. You don't have ... there isn't anything; there is nothing in the world

that God didn't create. Talk about dependence folks, we are dependent on God. First Chronicles 29:14 says, "All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." Anything you ever give God back is something He gave you to start with. Thomas Watson that great Puritan with a heart for God wrote this, "If all is a gift from God, do you see the odious ingratitude of men who sin against their giver, God feeds them and they fight against Him, H e gives them bread andthey give Him affront. How unworthy is this? Should we not cry shame on him who had a friend always feeding him with money and yet he should betray and injure that friend. Thus ungratefully do sinners deal with God, they not only forget His mercies but they abuse them, as Jeremiah 5:7 has said, "When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery." Oh, how horrid is it to sin against a bountiful God, to strike the hand that gives." In Deuteronomy 32:15 it says, "Jeshurun became fat, and rebelled." You know something? The more you have the less grateful you are, true? We need to be careful in our society. You say this verse doesn't apply to us? Maybe it applies to us more than it applies to people who have very little, because they tend to ex-press this gratitude and petition, we don't, we don't. Because we have too much. We are dependent on God beloved for every single thing we have, it is God who gives us our physical supply. Next time you pray, remember to affirm that all your physical needs are met by God, and ask Him humbly to continue to do it that His name may be glorified in your prayer of thanksgiving. Well, I wanted to get a little further but we'll do that next time. Let's pray. Father we've just really introduced the beginning of this won-derful and significant statement but we've certainly touched the most important part, that it is from Your hand that we receive everything. Oh Lord, may we be ever thankful, may all that we possess of the physical be sanctified not only by the Word of God but by thanksgiving in our prayers, as Paul said to Timothy. Lord make us thankful. Lord may we know that we do not do anything of our own selves, that we have absolutely no resources unless You give them to us. May we know that You made everything, You uphold everything. "That every good and perfect gift comes down from you." And Lord may we be the kind of people who stand in the place to receive the promise, and may we return Your gift each day with our gratitude. For Your glory may the world hear us giving thanks and know that we take no credit for ourselves for anything, but give You all the praise, be glorified Father in Your abundant supply of our physical need. We pray in Christ's blessed name. Amen. Well there's some exciting things for you to learn about prac-tical things in regard to this as we study next Lord's Day, and I'll be looking forward to that, I hope you will too. Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Provision of Prayer, Part 2 Scripture: Matthew 6:11 Code: 2240

It's a great joy this morning to come back to Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 to 13, I would draw your

attention to that passage in the Bible. I'd like us to have a word of prayer as we begin. Father we commit the next moments to You and ask that You would be our teacher. We desire to be nothing more than a clear channel through which You speak. May Your truth be uncluttered with human error or embellishment, and may we hear You speak to us, and may we be filled with wonder at Your power and Your grace to us. May we know better how to pray because we've shared this time, in Christ's name. Amen. Learning how to pray is very important. Learning how to pray is learning how to commune with God, I can't think of anything more important than that. In fact it's so important that the Scripture says, "We're to pray without ceasing." "We're to pray always." And if we are to pray always and pray without ceasing, and if prayer is communion with God, and if "the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Then effective prayer is very, very important. How fitting it is that we really know how to pray then. How tragic it would be to spend a lifetime missing the right way to commune with God, and there is that possibility, you know? For according to the Apostle Paul in Romans 8, "The Spirit has to make intercession for us often, because of our infirmity of the flesh, which means that we don't know how to pray as we ought." So here we are with this incredible resource of prayer to commune with God and to tap the divine resource. And we are to be engaged in that at all times, and yet how often the flesh inhibits the legitimacy and the rightness of those prayers. And I dare say that if we could be taught to pray by anyone the one that we would choose would be our Lord who knew best how to commune with the Father; and that is precisely what we have in Matthew 6:9 to 13. We have Jesus instructing us to pray, and giving us the elements and the ingredients in a proper prayer perspective. I don't know how you have responded to this series as we've been involved in it but my own heart has given great attention to it in my study because I, I sense here as you do in the gospel record as you study the words of Christ particularly that you are being taught literally by Christ Himself. If we had announced that Jesus was to be our teacher this morning and He were to stand in this place I dare say we would listen and we would hear with attentive ears that injunction that faces us in verse 11 for this day, "Give us this day our daily bread." And we would want to know all that there was to know about the meaning of that great wonderful statement. Well, He's not here in one sense but in another He is. He's not here in terms of the limits of my flesh but He is here in terms of the unlimited truth of His Word, and so we will be attentive to what His Word has to say for us and to us.

Let's read again verses 9 to 13 so we have the setting. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who 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. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." Now remember will you? As we approach again this passage that Jesus is contrasting His standard of prayer with that of the scribes and the Pharisees. And basically just to sum it up in a simple statement Jesus' standard of prayer focuses on God while their standard of prayer focused on themselves. In verse 5, Jesus said, "You love to pray standing in the corners, and at the wide parts of the street, in order to be seen of men." In verse 7 He says in effect, You use vain repetition like the pagans do, as if you could cajole God or badger God into giving you what you want. Verse 8, You assume that you have some information to give God that is not at His disposal, were it not for your particular involvement. So that your attitude and your action and the very form of your prayer is all focused on you. And in contrast to that Jesus says, when you pray everything is to be focused on Him. "Our Father," is God's paternity. "Hallowed be thy name." Is God's priority. "Thy kingdom come." Is God's program. "Thy will be done," is God's purpose. "Give us this day our daily bread." Is God's provision. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Is God's pardon. And so forth. Everything focuses on God. That's the way prayer ought to be. Prayer is not for me, it's for Him, it's not for my getting it's for His glory. And we've been learning that as we've been moving through this tremendous prayer. In fact the first three petitions, "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."Put the whole prayer in perspective that nothing of petition regarding ourselves is even introduced until God is in the prior place. I ask nothing hat does not hallow His name, I ask nothing that does not bring in His kingdom in some element, I ask nothing that is not the expression of His will. Now, having established that we move then from those elements related specifically and directly to God to those which relate to human need, and we come to verse 11, "Give us this day our daily bread." Now we're going to look at five features, and we've already seen the first two, and just to remind you of them, five features of this simple petition. First of all the substance that is requested, what is it, it's bread, "Give us this day our daily bread." And you'll remember that we suggested to you that the concept of bread here is really a symbol for all of our physical needs. Probably encompassing the three basic needs food, clothing, and shelter. Bread then sums up the physical need, the temporal need; the basic necessities of life were of little use to God in accomplishing His ends and His goals in this life if He does not meet our basic physical needs to keep us alive. And so commensurate with His usefulness of us in this, is kingdom as He brings it into the earth is the necessity to supply our physical need. Now, the second thing we talked about, not only the substance but the source. The assumption of the petition is that the source is God, He's implied behind the verb, "Give us." We look to God as the source of everything. We went into this in great detail three weeks ago in our last study.

In one sense I regret that we've had this interval and in another sense I don't because I've been able to really clear my thinking on this particular verse in the meantime, and so I think maybe there's more to be said now of meaningful truth than would have been two weeks ago. But God is the source of everything. You don't possess anything that He didn't provide, He is the Creator and the Sustainer and the Preserver of the entire universe, everything that we have is from His hand, everything. And so the source is God and the substance is bread. The first petition then that rises from the heart of a child of God to the Father is that petition surrounding physical need, there's nothing wrong with seeking God's face in regard to that, as long as the motive is that through it His name be hallowed and through it His kingdom come and through it His will be done. He is the one w o desires to meet our physical need. And of course we know from James 1:17, "That every good and perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." We know from First Timothy chapter 4, "That all things are to be received with thanksgiving, for the word of God and our prayer of thanks sanctifies them." God has given us everything good to enjoy. We said then last time that the idea of the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread." Is not simply the prayer of a beggar, though it could be a prayer of one who has nothing for the very next meal, but it is also the acknowledgment of all of us that it is God who is the source of every physical provision. For some people it might be, Lord, I don't have something to eat for my next meal I ask You to give me my daily bread that You may be glorified in the provision. For us it may be, Lord, You have supplied so much and I thank You and I acknowledge You as the source and I ask You to continue to provide with such graciousness, that Your name may glorified. So whether you do not have and you ask to receive or whether you have and you ask to continue to receive the petition is the same, it recognizes God as the source. Now what is the supplication? It's the verb, give, "Give us this day our daily bread." This is the heart of the petition and this is kind of what we want to major on this morning. Now what right do we have to ask God for this? Do I have some reason or rhyme to say to God, Give me my daily bread Father. Is there a basis on which that petition is valid? Well the only basis would be that God had promised to do that, right? That God had promised to meet my physical needs. And if He's made that promise then I have a right to ask Him to fulfill it. And that is precisely the promise that He has given us. Turn with me to Psalm 37, and I want to set in your mind a basic consideration that we're going to talk about that I hope will be helpful to you in understanding how God desires to Meet your physical needs. Now I don't believe that God is bound, mark this, to meet the physical needs of everybody. I believe there are some conditions, there are some conditions, and we'll see this repeatedly as we move through this morning. But I don't believe that God is bound to meet everybody's physical needs. Let's look at Psalm 37 beginning at verse 3, "Trust in the LORD, and do good;" now that simple statement is profound folks, because it encompasses the significance of salvation. Salvation is believing God, resulting in good works, right? "Faith without works is dead." So simply saying, "Trust in the LORD, and do good;" is just like summing up soteriology, summing up the doctrine of salvation, believing, and the result of that true faith is good works.

Now then, if you are one who believes and that believing is manifest faith, then you have the promise that "you will dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be (what?) fed." Isn't that great? Now that's pretty practical. I think that some of us feel that most of the promises of the Bible have to do with spiritual truth, and that is true, but never to the exclusion of the physical, we would be little spiritual good to the lord here in the world if He didn't meet our physical need. And by the way if you need a New Testament comparison go to Second Corinthians chapter 9, don't turn to it now but just write it down, Second Corinthians chapter 9 it talks about how we are to give, "Not grudgingly, or of necessity; but because the Lord loves a cheerful giver. We are to sow not sparingly, but bountifully. And God is able to minister bread for your food, and to make your fruits of righteousness abound." In other words when you give to God and invest in God's kingdom God will not only provide spiritual fruit, but He will provide says Second Corinthians 9 bread for your food. The physical provision of God is a biblical promise. Now further on in verse 4 it says, "Delight in the LORD." Then it says, "Commit your way unto the LORD." Then in verse 7 it says, "Rest in the LORD." And then in verse 8 it says, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath." And it goes through this, and it makes a comparison between the righteous person who does this and the unrighteous. "The unrighteous man shall be cut off," verse 9. Shall be cut off. "The wicked," verse 12 is mentioned, and then in verse 13, "The Lord will laugh at him; for he sees that his day is coming." In other words, for the righteous there is promise, for the unrighteous there is judgment. Now go down for a moment to verse 18, "The LORD knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. And they shall not be ashamed in the evil time;" now watch, "and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied." Isn't that great? The promise of the provision of God for His own people in a time of famine, though the unrighteous may perish, the righteous will have provision. Verse 20, "The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD be like the fat of lambs. They shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." That kind of fat really burns, and that's the way it is with the wicked. God has no obligation to provide for them, but for us He does. Now I don't think it's necessarily always going to be a feast, but then after all Proverbs 15:17 says, "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred." When the relationships are right it doesn't have to be fancy. Let me give you an illustration of this if I can, I hadn't really intended to use this but I want to take the time to do it here, First Kings chapter 16, I think this is a graphic illustration of the principle that God provides for His own, in the midst of a famine. The history of Israel in the divided kingdom was a tragic history, they had all bad kings, and it seemed as though they went from bad to worse until finally they culminated in the most wretched of all of them by the name of Ahab who was the son of Omri. And in First Kings 16 verse 25 we find that Ahab takes over for his father Omri when Omri dies, and Ahab takes the throne and reigns in Israel 22 years, and Ahab brought 22 years of problems frankly to that land of Israel, he married that wretched woman Jezebel who worshiped Baal and brought in all the Baal worship and reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal in verse 32. "And Ahab made an idol; and he did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him." And the nation sunk into the pits of

unrighteousness. As, a result of it verse 1 of 17, "and Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." In other words God says that's it for the provision for Israel. No rain, no crops, no crops no food, no food, famine. But in the midst of it, verse 2, "And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, get thee from here, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook, Cherith, which is before the Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there." Isn't that unbelievable? Commanded who to feed him? The ravens. God organized the ravens to bring food to His prophet, why? Because the wicked may perish, but in a famine the righteous will be preserved. For God makes promises of physical provision for His own. "And the ravens (verse 6) brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook." Well the brook eventually dried up, and the prophet needed something to eat and so "The LORD said to him, go to Zarephath, and belongs to Sidon, and dwell there; and I have commanded a widow there to sustain thee. And he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, the widow was gathering sticks. And he called to her, and aid, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink." Now that's coming on pretty strong to the little widow who's picking up the sticks as if she was supposed to know who this was, but apparently the Lord had kind of prepared her heart as verse 9 indicates, "And as she was going to fetch the water, he called to her, and, aid, by the way, Bring me, a morsel of bread in your hand." Now hat introduced a severe problem. "She said, As the LORD, thy God, liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and, I'm gathering two sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die." That's it, we have enough left to make one little cake, my son and I are going to split it and then die of starvation. "And Elijah said into her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said. But make me of it a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and then, afterwards, make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not be used up, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain on the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah; and she, and he, and her house, did eat for many days. And the barrel of meal as not used up, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Elijah." Isn't that tremendous? That barrel just stayed full all the time, and that cruse of oil just stayed full all the time and they just kept eating and God miraculously fed that widow and her son and that prophet in the midst of the famine, why? Because God was bound, by His promise to His people that one who trusts in the Lord and does good will be fed. And I really believe that sometimes we forget that God is concerned for the physical provision, and that we can claim that promise at His good and gracious hand.
Go down in Psalm 37 again if you left there, I wants to kind of climax this wonderful truth, verse 22 says, "For such as are blessed by him shall inherit the earth; and they who are cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and he delighteth in his way. And though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with his hand." The whole idea

here is a righteous man is cared for by the Lord, and then the climax of it is so wonderful in verse 25, and David says this, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed (doing what?) begging bread." David says, I've been around a long time and I have never seen the righteous forsaken and His seed begging bread, why? Verse 26, "Because God is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed." Verse 27, that's good reason to "Depart from evil, and do good." The promise of God for physical supply. God feeds His own beloved. I, I've even read in the Bible about God sheltering His own if He has to grow His own private gourd over his head, just to keep the sun off him. And the Lord said in Luke 18:28 to 30 that none of you has left father, and mother, and houses, and brother to follow Me. But that I'll give all of that stuff to you, manifold times in this life and in the life to come. I believe God has provided houses and lands and fathers and mothers and homes for His own, in this life as well as the life to come. Now, this is a tremendous thing beloved to know that God is a God who has promised to give us physical supply. Imagine if you were outside the knowledge of God and you had no such claim on God. Imagine for Example Irasima DeSilva who lives in a favela in Brazil, favela's that I myself have seen which are indescribable paper, cardboard slums built on the sides of the hills of Rio in Sao Paulo. Sometimes I think, she said, if I die I won't have to see my children suffering like they are. Sometimes I think of killing myself because I see them crying hungry and there I am without a cent to buy them bread. Stan Mooneyham of World Vision tells the heart rending story of a visit to the house of Sebastian and Maria Nociamento, another poor favela family in Brazil. He describes the house as one room lean-to with a thatched roof and sand floor, one stool, a charcoal hibachi and lour cots which were potato sacks filled with straw. He says, "My emotions could scarcely take in what I saw and heard, the three year old twins lying naked and unmoving on a small cot were in the last act of their personal drama, mercifully the curtain was com-ing down on heir brief appearance, malnutrition was the villain, the father is without work and both he and Maria are anguished over their existence but too proud to beg. He tries to shine shoes and Maria can't talk about their existence, she tries but words just will not come. Her mothers love is deep and tender and the daily deteriora-tion of her children is more than she can bear." End quote. And God is not bound to those who do not trust Him and do good. Oh God may in His gracious and sovereign choice feed the unrighteous on occasion, but He's not bound to that. And someday all of those who are wicked will go hungry. Luke 6:25 says, "Woe to you that are full now! For you shall hunger." God is bound only to the physical provision of those who are His own children. In India, men forsake their wives and their children just to find food. Families commit suicide together. Mother's throw their babies into the swirling waters of the Ganges and watch them die as an act of sacrifice to their gods because they're going to die of malnutrition anyway, and if they die of malnutrition there's no religious virtue boundup in that and so they'd rather drown them so at least the gods can be appeased as long as they're going to die they might as well gain some religious end. But you know something? With all of the problems and the struggles and the famines of our world, the

issues beloved are not really the fact that the earth can't provide food, that isn't the case at all. Indira Ghandi herself says, there is enough resource in India to feed that nation entirely and then export two thirds of all that it produces. Some of us think that the world can't produce food for mankind, that isn't true, do you know something? If ... I was reading this week that the more people we have in the world the more productivity we have because man is a productive being. I was reading also this week that you could put the entire population of the world in the state of Montana that leaves a lot of space left. Fifteen % of the harvestable land on the globe is being used for that and only half of that every year. Our problem is not a lack of resources, our problem is not too many people; there are less people per square mile in New York today than there were 50 years ago. The resources are there, but what cuts people off from those resources is a spiritual issue. And I'll get into that in a moment, because if they were brought into the knowledge of God, I believe God has made a world that could provide for them. In Psalm 33 backing up from 37, verse 18 says, "Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon those who fear him, upon those who hope in his mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine." Now it's amazing to me that God would literally, as a general rule sort out His own people in the midst of a famine and preserve them. Now He may not do it with ravens or like Jesus, feeding Him with angels or He may not shelter them with a gourd that grows up over their head, usually He feeds His own people with other of His own people, doesn't He? But God takes care of His own in the midst of a famine. Chapter 34 Verse 10, Psalms, verse 9 says, "Oh, fear the LORD, ye his saints; for there is no lack to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger; but they who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing." They're not going to go hungry. What a wonderful exciting promise from God. In Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." And what is the result of it? Verse 8, "It'll be health to your navel, and marrow to your bones. Honor the LORD with your substance, and your first fruits of all your increase; and your barnswill be filled with plenty, and your presses will burst out with new wine." God makes physical provision, for our needs in His gracious care as a loving Father for His children. Proverbs 10:3, "The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, but he casts away the substance of the wicked." God then, I think makes it abundantly clear in the Scripture that He is committed to the care of His people. You say, well John you're talking about Old Testament principles. No, I'm not, look at Matthew 7:7 and we'll get over into the New Testament for a moment. Matthew 7, then I want to illustrate it to you. And what does it say? "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;" and we usually equate that with spiritual things, in fact that verse is used often of someone coming to Christ and asking for salvation. Then it says in verse 8, "For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened." But just exactly what Christ is referring to is indicated in verse9, "What man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? And if then, you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good

things to them that ask him?" And what is the illustration of the good things? It's bread and meat. God is concerned with giving the very basics of life to His people, just as a father would be to his own. And that follows right on the heel of chapter 6 verse 25 and following, and what a marvelous text that is, which says you don't need to be worrying about what you eat or what you drink or what you wear, God takes care of that, you just seek first the kingdom and everything else will find its rightful place. Now listen, there have been times when feeding and shelter and clothing has been a supernatural act of God, but usually God meets the needs of His people through His other people. So that where you have a Christian community you have that interchange. And also through the fact that a child of God has such a high view of the value of man, that he seeks not only to meet his own needs but the needs of others. In James 2:16 for example it says, if somebody comes in and they're naked and destitute, and you pat them on the back and say, brother, I hope the Lord meets your needs, it's questionable whether you're really regenerated. And in First John 3 it says, that if a brother comes a long, and he has a great need and you close up the bowels of your compassion toward him, how dwelleth the love of God in you? In other words it is almost the, the innate response of one who knows God that he supplies the needs of others. Further, that he will be engaged in work that will supply his own needs. And we'll see more about that in a minute. Now let me spread this out and give you some illustrations of this. God has a ... has given us a, a literal global illustration of this truth. That where in the world you have Christian heritage and Christian roots, you have a high view of human life, and where you have that high view of human life you have a great supply for those people. In the parts of the world where there are no Christian roots you have a low view of human life, and there you have great famine and poverishment. For example, nations that have been under the influence of the gospel, nations that have known Christian teaching have a high respect for the value of man as created in God's image, and the object of divine redemption and they are not as prone to suffer the hunger and the deprivation as are nonChristian nations. Now there may be isolated illustrations where these things are not always the case but in general far and away this is clearly the truth. Take for example America, America is a nation founded upon Christian principles, and Christianity gave to this country a high view of human life so that we were committed from the, from the Bill of Rights right on out to meeting the needs of people, and here we are today in 1980 we're still concerned with the minimum wage law, we're concerned with equality for everybody, equal education, equal pay for equal work, and on and on and on. We've very deeply concerned that everybody have medical care, that everybody be on a welfare system who doesn't work so that their needs are met, where did we get that? Our humanism never gave it to us. Our humanism would obliterate the part of the population that's unneeded. The abortionists, they would just wipe out human beings, the people who advocate euthanasia and the people who want to just shelve the others that are a detriment to our society and control birth and say who gets born to whom. So those people aren't the ones who gave us a high view of man. America, in the midst of its atheism and its humanism and its immorality and its departure from Christian truth still can't shake the residual impact of a high view of man that came from the Word of God even though they'd never

acknowledge that's where they get it. And even the ungodly in our nation, like those in First Corinthians 7 are sanctified by the believers, and receive the benefit. Take on the other hand India, because India is probably the most influential nation in the world because India is the place where Hinduism is born and Hinduism basically spawned all of the network of religions that engulf the entire Orient, the entire East. For example Hinduism is the source of Shintoism, Buddhism, Johneism, Sickism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Tauism, it is the source of all of the guru's and the mystical religions and the Eastern religions and occult, all of that stuff is spawned out of Hinduism which of course is the basic religion of India. And the whole network of religious heritage, the entire legacy of Hinduism in the Orient is deprivation. Because the view of man is so low, they do not believe that man is created in God's image, that that is anything significant at all for ... in the first place they believe their gods are sinful. The natural resources of India can meet the needs of India, there's no limit on their resources, but it is their religion that as trapped them. Let me show you why. Six out of ten people in Calcutta live on the street, six out of ten, without food, without shelter, without clothes. And in India there are six hundred and sixty million people, fifteen million die every year, twenty seven million are born, they just keep getting more and more people and that means more and more people living on the streets. Is it because they don't have any food? No. Let me tell you why. They worship as many as three hundred and thirty million deities. Everybody's got his own. The one supreme deity that sits on the top of the pile is the deity who comes by three names depending on how he manifests himself or she, Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva are the three different names of this supreme deity. But under that come all these plethora of gods. Now the gods are personified in the cows of India, all right? The cows are the incarnations of the gods. That's where we get the phrase sacred cow. They then become the center of worship. Everything which comes from a cow is sacred, including itsdung and its urine, and by the way if you were to see a pious low classed ... low, ah, cast Hindu on the streets catching the urine of a cow in his hands and sipping it you wouldn't be surprised, if you understood the religion, because that's rather common. To kill and eat a cow is worse to a Hindu than cannibalism, because a cow is a deity. And cows eat 20% of the food supply of India. By the way they have rest homes for old cows, who cease to give milk. They don't have rest homes for old people, just old cows. Every cow eats enough for seven people, and the cows in India ah, number two hundred million. That means that they eat enough food to feed one billion four hundred million people. That means that India produced enough food, so that if you just moved the cows out or better ate them you could move everybody into India from the continent ofAntarctica, Australia, Africa and Europe and everybody from most of the other nations of the world and everybody would have more to eat than the people in India have now and they have enough. Fifteen % of all the food supply of India is eaten by mice, and nobody kills mice either, because you might be killing your grandfather. Let me tell you how you've saved in the Hindu system. You're saved by stopping your births, they believe in reincarnation soyou're just born over and over and overand over and over and over. And nirvana, or the state of nothingness that you desire to reach is when you don't get born anymore

because you've gone as high as you can go and you enter into nirvana. And so they are constantly being cycled through these births. Now the ... you can be being born in the animal kingdom or the people kingdom, and that's why they have the cast sys-tem because you keep wanting to get higher and higher in the cast sys-tem. If you drop down into the animal kingdom because you've done some bad things while you were a human, there are eighty four thousand different levels of animal kingdoms that you can go through to get out of them again. And so all of the animals, you see, are somebody re-incarnated o n his way up or down. You don't want to kill an animal, because you might be messing up the cycle of karma, by pushing some-one else into another life that is not intended for them and you'll be in trouble and you'll be a, an animal next time around. Salvation then comes through this endless cycle of births until they reach nirvana. The social effects of this are beyond description. You see a poor, destitute, wretched, individual with nothing and you don't meet his need because the only way that person can get from that lev-el to the next level up is to do penance at that level, and so you leave the person in that situation because that's their karma, and if you relieve their penance, if you relieve their situation then you have taken away the penalty they are supposed paying for, they're not going to get back at the next level, do you see? So there's no regard for human life at all, when you see a beggar a typical Hindu response is, I wonder what he did to deserve that? I hope he can work himself out of it. So you see, what has deprived India is not a lack of food supply, what has deprived India is paganism. Without a Christian heritage, without the, the power of God in that society through the influence of believing people there is no proper view of man as created in the image of God and that is his own damnation God feeds His people. And God also feeds those who aren't even is people when they hang around with His people. Apart from belonging to him there's no guarantee that there's any supply. Now, all I'm trying to get you to see is that the problems in the world are not the problems of a lack of resource, and I'm going to talk more about that when we get to chapter 6 later on, there's plenty available for us in this world. I'm not sure that I believe all of these people who are prophets of doom telling us we're running out of food, and I'll tell you why in a few weeks. But I do know this, there isn't ever going to be enough for the world of people who don't know God because God is the source, you see? Now, look with me for a minute at Matthew 6:25, and I just want to be very specific about this text although we'll cover it in the future in detail. Since God says, look just say, "Give us this day our daily bread." And move on, the idea that we don't need to spend a lot of time on that is really planted in our minds. God, now watch this, God does not want us to preoccupy ourselves with the physical. Physical preoccupation, physical need is the lowest level of human need. The need for physical resource is the lowest level of human need; God does not want us occupied on that level. So He is saying, I will take care of that. "Therefore, (verse 25) I say to you, Don't you worry about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; or what you shall put on." Your health, as such. He takes care of the birds verse 26, He takes care of the lilies verse 28, 29, He takes care of the grass verse 30. "Then why are you

(in verse 31) worrying about what we'll eat? What we'll drink? Or what we'll be clothed with?" Watch verse 32, "For all these things do the pagans seek." You see this is life without God, it is on the physical level and that's all it is. "But your Father knows you have need of these things." God knows that He must supply the physical needs, that's going to be taken care of. Verse 35, "You seek first (what?) the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall (what?) be added." You let God take care of the low level of human need, the physical, He says, you get your mind on the spiritual. God doesn't want us dealing on the low level. Paul says, "Set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth." It's the same idea, I believe that the reason God says, I will take over this area, if you'll just acknowledge that I'm the source of it, I'll take over this area so that you don't have to get stuck at that level, and you invest your life in the kingdom and in the matter of righteous and all the rest of that stuff will take care of itself, as I deal with it. That's a tremendous principle people, the world the pagans seek after the human level the physical level. We don't because God promises to supply that for us. How does He supply it? Well, two ways, basically, one ... and this is the first way, Genesis 3:19 ... "Man is to earn his bread by the sweat of his face." Now we're not supposed to say, Oh, I'm busy being spiritual and I'm waiting for the ravens. See. That's not the idea. Could you grow me a gourd, Lord, it's warm out here, need some shade. No. We have a high enough value of ourselves and of our own life before God to be obedient to Him and to work, do what we need to do, to feed ourselves and to stay healthy. We are to work. We're not just sitting around. In fact, I Timothy 5:8 says, "If a man doesn't provide for his own household he's worse than an infidel." So we are to work. We are to be committed to that kind of involvement. And then, I think Paul really hits the nail on the head in II Thessalonians where he says in chapter 3 and verse 10, this: "For even when we were with you we commanded you this that if any would not work neither should he," what? "Eat, you don't work, you don't eat. We hear that there are some who walk among you disorderly working not at all but are busybodies. Now then, they that are such command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. So there is the commitment, then, that we work and eat our own bread. But there's a beautiful balance to that. There are some who can't work, who are infirmed or who have needs or for whatever reasons and then we also have to meet their needs as well. And so there is almost a balance here. While on the one hand Paul's heart goes out to those who are in need to the point where he'll scour all over Asia Minor collecting money to take back to the poor saints of Jerusalem and he will be involved energetically in the promotion of a collection to meet the needs of poor people but at the same time he has no sympathy for someone who is simply poor because they won't work. So, God will supply our needs through our own efforts and through the generosity and the graciousness and the goodness and the kindness of others around us.
Now, beloved, it's a wonderful thing to know that God is going to supply our physical needs. But I have to add one other footnote. Somebody will invariably say, well, what about in Hebrews 11 when you have all of those people who are the saints of God of the highest order of whom the world was

not worthy and they were persecuted, slaughtered and they went without places to sleep and they had no place to rest and they had no food and they were destitute, forsaken and naked and so forth? Doesn't that contradict the whole deal? No, this is pretty simple really. God only supplies your needs until it's time for you to die. That's all. And then He may choose that the way you go home to Him is through the lack of the sufficiencies. But until that time in His sovereign plan your needs will be met. And only God knows the specific dimension of what those needs are. God takes care of the physical until such a time as the physical life ends. And then we enter into an abundance that's inconceivable. It's very much like Matthew 18 where it talks about little children. And it says, "Their angels do constantly watch over them." Now you know there are some people who think ... Well, you know, every child has a guardian angel. And so mothers will say sometimes to me is it true that my little child has a guardian angel? Well, it may be true based on that passage in Matthew 18. Then the question often comes, well, what about when a child dies? Does that mean the guardian angel was asleep on the job? No, the guardian angel only fulfills his function until the sovereignty of God deems that life should end. You see? In other words, God says, MacArthur, you have so much time in My sovereign plan and you're called to a task. Now if you will set your heart and your mind on My Kingdom and My righteousness and the things above I will meet your physical needs. And I believe that with all my heart. So that the pre-occupation in my life is not the physical. And when the Lord sees fit to remove the physical protection I'm going to go out of existence in this world but I'm going to enter into a fullness of existence in the next world that will give me a supply of eternal resources like I've never dreamed of. And so when we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," what are we saying? We are trusting God as the source to supply all the physical needs of our lives and we are affirming that because we are His children and because we are walking in righteousness and walking in obedience and walking in a willing submission to His will we know that He will take care of all those things. And we lift up our hearts in gratitude while setting our affections on things above. So, what is it that we seek as substance? Bread. And who is the source? God. What is our supplication? Give ... let me give you two other finals. The seekers, who are the seekers? Us I can't help but stress that "give us" not give me my daily bread. Because the church of Christ is not isolated. The use of the plural precludes all selfishness in our prayers. And I really believe the prayer; "Give us" just embodies all the Christian community. It is saying, in effect, that I could never have an abundance while my brother had less than enough. Right? It just encompasses that whole concept of sharing. And so the substance is bread and the source is God and the supplication is give and the seeker is us and finally the schedule. "Give us," how often? "This day," this day. Exact meaning of this concept is simply bread for the coming day. In its simplicity, in its moderation in its very beauty it is an expression that says one day at a time, Father, I accept Your provision. It stresses the contentment that comes when we live with a day by day confidence in God and don't worry about the future.

Let me give you just a little hint. Most Christians who worry, worry about what hasn't happened. That's right. Because they're not too sure God's going to provide their daily bread tomorrow.That's doubting His word. This doesn't mean you don't save. You've got to be like the ant, Proverbs says, plan for the future. This doesn't mean you don't plan. But it does mean you're content to trust God to meet your need in the future. We say Oh, what's going to happen when that comes to pass? Oh, what if this? Oh, what if that? We only ask for physical provisions for this day. Prayer then, beloved, focuses on God as the one who supplies. It acknowledges that He is the source of all our physical needs and it teaches us to live one day at a time in the confidence that He will meet these needs. What a great, great, petition it is. I trust as we pray every day we will pray in confidence that we can focus on the spiritual levels because God is graciously caring for the physical. Oh, don't get bogged down in the physical. Don't get your thought patterns at that level. Don't lose your joy and your opportunity by getting all wrapped up in the mundane. Set your affections on things above. Seek ye first the Kingdom and let God take care of the rest. You know, let me just say this in closing because I think it's so important. A lot of talk today about feeding the hungry and feeding the poor. But you know what I believe? I believe that's good and necessary. But I believe it's better to give someone Jesus Christ than to give them food. If I give a man food he'll be hungry the next day. If I give him Jesus Christ God will take care of him from there on through eternity. That's most needful. And one of the things we can promise to you is thatGod will take you under His watch care as a loving Father when you enter into a relationship with His Son. That's a glorious treat. Let's pray.
Father, we realize our utter dependence on You. We realize that if You so willed it we would have no daily bread. You could withhold the sun and its influence. You could stop the rain. You could make this land absolutely barren so that the farmer with all his modern implements and chemicals couldn't raise a crop. You could blast that crop if You wanted to. We are absolutely in Your hand. And I guess,

Lord, one of the follies of this twentieth century is the stupidity of thinking that we have acquired a certain amount of knowledge and so we're independent of God. Father, we can't live a day without You. Nothing would continue were it not sustained and kept by You. Give us this day our daily bread. Teach us that it's a good thing at least once a day and I guess the oftener the better, to remind ourselves that our times and our health and our home and our clothes and our food are good gifts from Your gracious hand that come constantly to the one who trusts in the Lord and does good. And so teach us to give ourselves to the spiritual and know You'll meet that other dimension. And may we know that even that work that we do is a spiritual offering to You when it's done for Your glory. Thank You, Lord, for all that You've given us and for just opening to us the fullness of these truths, continue to teach us as we search the Scripture in Christ's name. Amen. Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time

The Pardon of Prayer, Part 1 Scripture: Matthew 6:12,14 & 15 Code: 2241

And forgive us our debts... Matthew 6:12,14 & 15 Will you turn in your Bible with me to the sixth chapter of Matthew, Matthew chapter 6? I'm having such a wonderful time in my own life dealing with the Beatitudes, or rather with the Lord's Prayer as did with the Beatitudes. I think you remember back when we covered the Beatitudes how deeply involved we became in them. I'm thrilled to let you know that as of last Friday that series in the Beatitudes became a book entitled KINGDOM LIVING, HERE AND NOW. And we'll have them for you in a matter of a couple of weeks and you can have a copy of all of our studies in the Beatitudes in book form. But I have the same kind of joy as I study through the Lord's Prayer or as we've called it ... The Disciple's Prayer. Just digging as deeply as we can into this mine of treasure that Christ has given us in teaching us how to pray. And again I want to read all of the verses of this majestic prayer in its depth and simplicity so that we'll have a frame of reference as we look particularly at verse 12. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our Father who 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 for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen." Focusing this Lord's day and next for sure and maybe even beyond that, on verse 12. "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And then a footnote on verse 12 in verse 14, "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." Those three verses, the statement in the prayer and then the very, very important footnote and the very much misunderstood footnote that our Lord gives in 14 and 15 are going to be the theme of our study in the days ahead. The focus and the concentration of verse 12 is on the subject of sin and its forgiveness. And that is a petition that every soul needs to face as a part of their prayer life. Surly if you'll think about it you will agree with me that the most essential and the most blessed and the most difficult thing that God ever did was provide man with the forgiveness of sin. It is most essential because it keeps us from eternal hell and gives us joy even in this life. It is most blessed because it introduces us into a fellowship with God that goes on forever and it is most difficult because it cost the Son of God His life, on a cross; but the most essential, the most blessed, and the most difficult thing is the forgiveness of sin. It is the greatest

need of the human heart. Sin has a two-fold effect, generally, and that is that it damns men forever ... that's its future effect ... its present effect is that it robs men of the fullness of life by bringing to bear upon his conscience an unrelieved and unrelenting guilt. And so as we face the problem of sin we face the fact that sin brings immediate consequences, guilt and the loss of meaningfulness, peace and joy and life and the future consequence that sin brings eternal damnation. Sin, then, is unquestionably the major need, or the major problem for which here is a need for solution in the life of man. Just thinking about human life where sin is unforgiven we have to face the fact of what guilt and condemnation in our own conscience does to us. Shakespeare, who claimed to be no theologian, certainly knew at least of the Bible's indication and of the fact of human life that people can become sick in their minds and their bodies over unconfessed and unforgiven sin. I remember as a young boy seeing Macbeth and hearing of the struggle and the anguish and the anxiety in the heart of Lady Macbeth over the murder of Duncan.And she took it on herself all kinds, of psychosomatic disorders as a result of this unconfessed murder. And Macbeth called in a physician and said to him these words: or rather the physician said to Macbeth these words: "Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick coming fancies that keep her from her rest." In other words, the physician told Macbeth that her pro-blem was in her mind. And Macbeth then asked the doctor these words, a classic statement: "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raise out the written troubles of the brain and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that peril of stuff that weighs upon the heart?" And no physician can do that. William Sadler said quote: "A clear conscience is a great step toward barricading the mind against neuroticism." end quote. John R. W. Stott in his little book, CONFESS YOUR SINS quotes the head of a large British hospital as having said and I quote, "I could dismiss half of my patients tomorrow if they assured of forgiveness." end quote. Forgiveness is mans deepest need now and in the future, for health and for heaven. Thus it is the first petition related to man's soul here in this prayer. The first three petitions "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will 'be done in earth as it is in heaven," relate to God. The last three petitions relate to men, "Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil," but the first of the last three is for physical sustenance, "Give us this day our daily bread,. And while there is only one petition for the physical there are two for the spiritual because it is much more important but the physical is first of all necessary, we cannot live out spiritual principles unless we are alive physically. So, first our physical needs are met in verse 11 and then when we come to the spiritual the first and most basic request on the part of the inner man is for the forgiveness of sins. That is man's deepest spiritual need. That is where God and man must, first of all, meet. For before God can ever lead usat all let alone lead us not into temptation, before God can deliver us at all from anything we must have a relationship to Him which is possible only when our sins are dealt with. For God is a holy God as of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look upon iniquity. Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God, said Isaiah. And there is no way that an absolute holy God can possibly entertain in His presence a relationship with unholy, ungodly sinful men. If we are to have any relationship with God, if there is any spiritual thing to be gained it begins with a petition for forgiveness and you will notice that in verse 12, forgive is mentioned twice and in verse 14 forgive is mentioned twice and in verse 15 forgive is mentioned twice again; six times we see the thrust and the theme ... the forgiveness of sins. Now, remember as we've learned that this prayer is basically focused on God. It is a prayer intent on glorifying God. It begins with God's paternity, Our Father who art in heaven. And then God's priority, hallowed be Thy name." And then God's program, "Thy kingdom come." And then God's purpose, "Thy will be done." And then God's provision, "Give us this day our daily bread." And now God's pardon, "Forgive us our debts." Followed by God's protection, "Lead us not." And then God's preeminence, "For Thine is the kingdom." It all focuses on God and we come now to the thrust of God's pardon for our sins. The very nature of prayer, beloved, now mark it, is that we are acknowledging a total dependence on God. We will have no daily bread without God we will have no forgiveness of sin without God, we will have no leading and directing in our lives apart from God. Therefore, His is the preeminence, the power and the glory in the kingdom. We're focusing on God. And so we come in verse 12 in our prayers, routinely, to speak to God about the matter of forgiveness of sin. Now there are four principles I want to give you this morning and four words we'll be discussing, we'll just discuss the first two and next week we'll follow it up from there. But there are four principles that embody these four words, I want to give you the principles and then we'll pull the words out and look at them specifically. Principle number one, these are the four principles that I see germane to he thrust of this text. Number one ... sin makes man guilty and brings judgment. Sin makes man guilty and brings judgment. That's pretty basic; I think any of us who are Christians or who have been involved in the teaching of the word at all know that to be true. Sin makes us guilty and brings judgment. That's really the bottom line, isn't it? That's the human dilemma, man is a sinner and that is his problem. Now the Bible says sin is lawlessness, sin is lawlessness. It is breaking God's law. It is violating God's standard. The Bible says that in 1 John 3:4, sin is lawlessness. In Romans 3:19 it says, "That we are therefore guilty before God." We break His laws, we become guilty. And then Romans 6 says, "Because we are guilty, the wages of our sin, or the penalty or the sentence, is death." So man is a sinner because he is lawless. He breaks God's laws. In breaking God's laws he becomes guilty and the judgment for guilt is death. So, sin makes us guilty and brings judgment. All men across the face of the earth stand in judgment before God for their sin. Second principle, very simple but I want you to understand it, forgiveness is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death. Forgiveness is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death. That's the second simple principle that you have to understand to understand this passage. God is a holy God

and God sees a sinful man, sinful woman, a sinful society but God is also a merciful, loving and forgiving God so forgiveness is offered to sinful man. Though he is guilty and stands in judgment, God is a forgiving God. The Bible says He will remember our sin no more, He will pass by our iniquities, He will bury them in the depths of the sea, He will remove them as far as the east is from the west, all throughout the prophets and the apostles of the Scriptures there is this unceasing promise that God is a God of forgiveness. He wants to forgive us our sins. Now He can't just do that, He has to take the penalty for our sins and bring it to its fullness. Why? Because a just and a righteous and a holy God cannot forgive sin unless sin's penalty is paid, you see? So Christ took our place. Forgiveness then is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death. A third principle, confession of sin is necessary to receive that forgiveness from God. Confession of sin is necessary to receive that forgiveness from God. The forgiveness is available. The penalty has been paid for. The propitiation or the covering has been made. The satisfaction has been accomplished. It is only a matter of receiving the gift. And basic to that reception is a confession of sin. As Paul puts it in Acts 20, "Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ results in salvation." There must then be confession of sin. I John 1:9 in effect says, the ones who are confessing their sins they are the ones giving evidence that they are being forgiven. In other words, confession of sin is a manifestation necessary for forgiveness. It is part and parcel of that. When you come to God you come as a sinner. No man ever receives salvation who isn't repentant for sin. In the beatitudes our Lord says, if you want to enter My kingdom you enter My kingdom like this, first of all you acknowledge that you are a beggar in your spirit, you are abject and destitute and no resources are available to you and in the midst of your beggarly sinfulness with your vile robes of wretchedness, you cry out, it says, mourning over your sin, meek before a holy God and hungerand thirst for righteousness, plead for His mercy and on that basis God received you. In Luke 18 it tells us that the Pharisee went into the temple and said I thank thee that I am not as other men, even as this publican over here, tax collector, but that I fast twice a week and give tithes of all that I possess, etc. etc. and over in the corner was the tax collector and he wouldn't so much as lift up his eyes to heaven but he smote upon his breast, and he cried out ... God, be merciful to me a sinner. And Jesus said, "That man went home justified rather than the other." Why? Because one refused to acknowledge his sinfulness and the other acknowledged it. Basic, then, to receive available forgiveness is the confession of sin. And God is eager and anxiousto forgive the one who confesses. If we confess, He's faithful and still righteous to keep on cleansing us from all sin. There's a fourth principle, and this is kind of the knockout punch in this passage, and the one that confuses most people. Fourthly, forgiving one another is an essential part of receiving forgiveness for ourselves. Forgiving one another is an essential part of receiving forgiveness for ourselves. Now very often when people read the verses, particularly verse 14 and 15, we're only going to get forgiven if we forgive. They get confused because it looks like forgiveness from God requires that we forgive somebody else and they assume then that you've got to start forgiving people before you can get saved. And a lot of people say... Well, we don't understand, you mean, I'm never going to have

forgiveness from God until I forgive somebody else? How can I forgive somebody else if I'm not even a Christian? How can I do a righteous act before I have a righteous nature is the question. But that question presupposes the misunderstanding of the whole concept in verses 1 and 15 and stay with us this morning and we'll start to build toward solving that. Now, I gave you fourprinciples, didn't I? And I hope you remembered them. Principle number one ... sin makes men guilty and brings judgment. Number two ... forgiveness is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death. Number three ... confessing sin is necessary to receive the available forgiveness from God. And number four ... forgiving one another is essential if we are to be forgiven. Now let's take four words out of those four principles. The first one is sin makes us guilty, then forgiveness is offered by God, then confession is necessary and forgiving one another is essential. I want to talk then, today and next time and maybe even the time after that about sin, forgiveness, confession and forgiving. Because those four words, if fully understood, will literally open up the meaning of this often times confusing portion. Let's begin with the first word ... sin. "And forgive us our debts," verse 15 uses the word trespass and trespasses. Now listen, both of those words describe sin. Sin is the problem. Alright, you probably have that on your outline. Sin is the problem. The problem of every man. Man is sinful. Let me show you Romans chapter 3 for a moment and this is very basic but very necessary and I'm going to build on this, I think, some things perhaps you haven't seen before. Romans chapter 3 and verse 10, "As it is written there is none righteous, no not one. And the Lord put the last part there because as sure as you're born if it had said "There is none righteous," somebody would have said "Comma, except me." And so the Lord says there is none righteous, no, not even you. Not one. Verse 12; "They are all gone out of the way," that is they have all departed from the way of righteousness, "They are together become unprofitable," and the Greek word means to go sour like bad milk. "There is none that doeth good, no not you," nobody. Verse 19; "Now we know that whatever things he law saith, it saith to them under the law that every mouth may be stopped," in other words, there's no defense, you have nothing to ay to justify yourself, "and all the world may become guilty before God." Verse 23; "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Chapter 4 goes on to say; "In Adam all have died and sin has passed upon them all." The point is this, people, everybody is confirmed in sin, everybody. Sin disturbs every relationship in the human real Sin stirs up cosmic chaos. Sin waits to attack every baby born into the world. David said, "In sin did my mother conceive me." And the Bible tells us that iniquity begins even from the moment when one is born Sin is the monarch of the world that rules the heart of every man. Sin is the first lord of the soul. Sin's virus has contaminated every living being. Sin is the degenerative power in the human stream that makes man susceptible to disease and illness and death and hell. Sin is the culprit in every broken marriage, every disrupted home, every shattered friendship, every argument, every pain, every sorrow, every anguish and every death. Sin, the common denominator. No wonder

Scripture in Joshua 7:13 says, "Sin is that accursed thing." It is compared to the venom of snake. It is compared to the stench of death. And tragically, from the viewpoint of human resources, absolutely nothing can be done about it. Jeremiah said, "Can the Ethiopian change his color? Can the leopard change his spots? You have just about as much a chance to do good who are accustomed to doing evil." It's hopeless. Sin dominates the mind. Romans 1:21, "Men have a reprobate mind, a mind given over to evil and lust." Sin dominates the will, Jeremiah 44; "Men will to do evil because their will is controlled by sin." Sin dominates the emotions and the affections, John 3, "They love darkness rather than light." The mind, the will, the affections, emotions, all dominated by sin. Sin brings men under the control of Satan. In Ephesians chapter 2 it says, "Men are guided by the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience." Sin brings people under divine wrath, they become children of wrath, says Ephesians 2:3, bulls eyes for the guns of God's judgment. Sin makes man's life utterly miserable, Job says in chapter verse 7; "Man is born unto trouble like the sparks fly upward." Isaiah 54:21 says, "There is no peace to the wicked." Romans 8:20 says, "The creature is subject to emptiness." So man's whole life is color stained with sin. And the fifty million or so that die every year face theultimate consequence of sin. So man has a deep, deep problem. Sin ... is his problem. And it's a deeper problem than his need for bread or anything else and so says our Lord when you pray you must pray relating your petition to your sinfulness. It must be brought before God for it is your deepest need. It must be dealt with. You see? And so as we pray in our prayers there must be this element of a recognition of our sinfulness. That's what He is saying.
Now, you'll notice in verse 12 the word debt. And you'll notice in verse 14 and 15 trespasses or trespass. Now let me show you something, there are five words in the New Testament for sin. A little word study, I'm going to run it by pretty fast so hang on to your seat. First word is harmartia; don't worry about writing it down. For those of you who are Greek scholars you understand that. Harmartia , that word is used probably more than any other in the New Testament for sin and it means to miss the mark, it's an archer's word. You shoot the arrow and miss the target. And generally the idea is that you miss because your arrow falls short, for all have sinned and fall short. All are guilty of harmartiaand fall short. No matter how far you try to shoot it it never quite gets there. You know, some people's arrows go further than others but nobody gets there. It's kind of like jumping to Catalina. You know, we could have a thousand people line up and everybody take one big jump off the Santa Monica beach to Catalina. People would be at all different levels but nobody would land at Catalina. So there are differences on how well we approach the problem but everybody's arrows fall short, we miss the mark. Because what is the mark? Matthew 5:48, our Lord said it earlier in our sermon here, the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is

perfect." And when you're like God you hit the mark and when you're not you don't. Welcome to the fellowship of those who miss the mark. We miss the mark,that's the first word for sin. Second Word is parabasis. It basically means, to step across a line. God draws a line and the line is between right and wrong, when you sin you step across the line. It's kind of like when you go somewhere and the little sign says "Keep off the grass" there's something in you that just wants to

stick your foot over and go like that ... We just ... there's something in our nature that reacts to that. Sin then is stepping across the line which is drawn between right and wrong. It is doing what is a forbidden thing in thought, in word or in act. Thirdly there is the word anomiabased on the word nomoswhich is the word for law in the Greek. It is the idea of lawlessness, like I mentioned earlier. This is a flagrant breaking of God's law, a rebellion against God. And you'll notice a progression in these words. Harmartia, the word which has to do with missing the mark speaks more of our basic incapacity, our nature, we just can't hit it. We just fall short. It speaks of the incapacity of our nature. The second word, parabasis, is kind of the idea that we just kind of step across the line, you know, we just can't restrain ourselves from going into the forbidden area. And that's a little more flagrant than harmartiaseems to be which is just sort of our incapacity, our impotence, our helplessness to hit the mark. Parabasisis a little more self-directed, a little more planned and premeditated. But when you come to anomiathat is open, flagrant rebellion against God. So you see a little progression in these terms. This is the man who wants to kick against the traces, this is the man who doesn't want God making any claim against his life, he wants to go out and do what he wants, I always think about the old soldier in Kipling's MANDOLAY, who said; "Ship me somewhere east of Suez where the best is like the worst, where there 'aint no ten commandments and a man can raise a thirst." He didn't want anything to do with God's standards and he rebelled violently and in a reaction. And so you see an increasing severity in those terms although all sin could be classified with all those terms. But we come then to the two words used here. First is verse 14 and 15, the word trespass, paraptoma. It means to slip or fall. And again it's kind of like harmartia, it seems to sort of emphasize our incapacities. We just sort of slip, we fall, in Galatians 6:1; "If a brother be overtaken in a fault, restore him in love." You just kind of can't help it, I mean, sooner or later you're going to flop over into some sin. Sin is being swept away. And the idea of paraptomais the passion of the moment or the lust of the moment or the loss of self-control in the moment where you're just swept away. That's paraptoma. That's another word for sin. It's not so flagrant maybe as parabasisor anomia... but then finally we come to the word in verse 12, that's the word debt, ophileema. You know, that's a very, very interesting word. It's only used here and I think in Romans 4, the only two times it's ever used as a noun, its- verb form is used many times. It's a word that is not that familiar to us in terms of sin. But I'll tell you something very interesting, its verb form is 30 times used, 25 in a moral sense and it means to owe a debt. Five times in the New Testament it's used of a money debt, 25 times it's used of a moral debt. The idea is that sin is a debt. When you sin you owe to God a consequence for your sin. You owe that debt, you have violated His holiness and you owe Him for that. Kind of like the idea, you tell your kids ... you do that and you'll get one whack. You do it again you'll get two whacks. And they keep doing it and doing it and they've stacked up a few whacks and so they have a debt to be paid. In a sense that's what God is saying

and sin becomes a debt. When you violate God's holiness the record is kept of your debt. And by the way at the end of the age it tells us in Revelation, the great White Throne Judgment, God will judge the ungodly out of the books, have you read that? What books? The books that are all the record of the debt that they owe that is unpaid and they are sentenced to an eternal hell to pay that debt. You see? Sin is a debt. You might to interested to know that among the rabbis and the Jews of Matthews day the most common word used for sin was the word "koba" which is an Aramaic word and they spoke Aramaic in their common day language, not the Greek which this is written. And so "koba" was the most common Jewish term for sin. And "koba" means a debt because to a Jew the primary responsibility in life was to obey God and when you disobeyed God you owed Him a debt for your disobedience. And so the Jew thought in terms of that. Now when you go to Luke and you read about the disciple's prayer, Luke doesn't say, forgive us our debts, he says, forgive us our trespasses or our sins, because he speaks in a maybe more classical manner. But here Matthew, with his Jewish orientation, zeros in on this concept of debt because he knows his Jewish audience will really pick up on that. We owe a debt. Sin, then, is a debt to God. It's all of the things we've said, then. All five words summed up is what really classifies and categorizes sin.
Arthur Pink says, "As it is contrary to the holiness of God, sin is a defilement, a dishonor and a reproach to us as it is a violation of His law it is a crime and as to the guilt which we contact thereby it is a debt, as creatures we owe a debt of obedience unto our maker and governor and through failure to render the same on account of our rank disobedience we have incurred a debt of punishment and it is for this that we implore a divine pardon," end quote. In other words, we owe such a massive debt to God because of our unrelenting sin that we could never pay that debt. Do you know that? Never pay that debt. Like the unfaithful servant who owed so much it never could be paid in his whole

lifetime, we can't pay the debt. We can't pay it. And that is precisely our problem. We are sinners who owe a debt that is so monstrous, it's inconceivable that we could pay it. Never done. And if ever, beloved, you ought to come to God you will come to God on the terms of recognition of that debt. That's right. Even Peter said, "Depart from me for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." Even Paul said, "I am the chief of sinners." Listen, Jesus taught all men everywhere to pray this prayer, "Forgive us our debts," and in so doing He laid out the universality of the problem of sin. If all men are to pray it then all men are to admit it's their problem. And that's why the Holy Spirit came into the world in John 16 to convict the world of sin. Cause we're sinners. Any man who honestly faces the reality of his character cannot be other than conscience of his debt to God and his need to be forgiven. We're sinners. That leads us to the second word. Forgiveness, if sin is the problem forgiveness is the provision.

Aren't you glad for that? Forgiveness is the provision. What does it say in verse 12? "Forgive us our debts," forgive us. And you notice again the collective nature of the prayer, the us rather than the me encompassing all other believers. There's a sense of community here. We're all in the same boat, folks. Forgiveness. Oh, what a marvelous reality! But do you really understand what forgiveness is? Now this is the part we've been kind of building up to. What is forgiveness? You know what it is? What is it for God to forgive you? Remember our second principle, forgiveness is available on the ground of what? Christ's death. Well, let's talk about what forgiveness is. Basically, forgiveness, I'll give you as simplest as I can from a couple of angles, forgiveness is God passing by our sin. It is God wiping our sin off the record. It is God setting us free from punishment and guilt. It is essentially bound up in what Micah 7:18 and 19 says "Who is a God like Thee who pardons iniquity? And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He doesn't retain His anger forever, He delights in unchanging love. Yet He will again have compassion on us, He will tread our iniquities underfoot, yes thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Isn't that great? The Old Testament says "He remembers our sins no more." He passes by our sins. Let me sum it up in four simple statements. Forgiveness is taking away our sin, covering our sin, blotting out our sin and forgetting our sin. Taking away our sin, why? Isaiah 53:6; "He has taken the iniquity of us all and laid it on Him." Right? He's taken away our sin, and then it means He's covered our sin. Psalm 85:2 "Thou hast covered all their sin." And He blotted out our sin. Isaiah 43:25, I love this verse, "I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions." And then He forgets our sins. He remembers no more. God literally eliminates oursin. People, do you understand this? You know, if you ever get to the place in your Christian life where this becomes common place stuff and you have lost that in an estimatible joy of understanding forgiveness then you've hit kind of a dry place in your life. Oh how thankful we should be for such a forgiveness. And, listen, it's only possible because of Christ. God couldn't just pass by your sin unless He placed the punishment for it on someone else and that is exactly why Christ Jesus died. Now, there are two kinds of forgiveness. Now watch this, this is really interesting. Two kinds, number one is judicial forgiveness, number two ... let's call it parental forgiveness; judicial and parental. Now let's start with the first one. Judicial forgiveness, and I think this is all we'll talk about this morning. Judicial forgiveness. What is that? It views God as a judge. God looks down and says, you're guilty, you've broken the law, you're under judgment, condemnation, there's got to be punishment. But then that same judge says, on the basis of Christ's death, He bore your punishment, He took your guilt; He paid for: your sin, the price is accomplished, I declare you to be forgiven. That is a judicial act. Full, complete, positional, I like to use that word because it relates to things we've studied in the past, positional forgiveness granted by God as the moral judge of the universe. And by that act of judicial forgiveness, listen to this, all your sins, past, present, future, committed, being committed, and uncommitted are totally, completely and forever forgiven and you are justified from all things forever.

You say ... wow! When does that happen? It happens the moment you invite Jesus Christ into your life. The moment you are redeemed. The moment you place your faith in Christ, your sin is put on Him, His righteousness is put on you and God judicially declares you to be justified. That's Romans 3. Declared righteous. Positionally and forever all sin covered, passed over, blotted out and forgotten. Oh, what a thought. Isn't that great? And He just keeps on doing it. This is because of Christ, beloved; this is what He did on the cross. In Matthew 26:28 He said as beheld the cup, "This is My blood of the New Testament which is for the forgiveness of sin." You see? In Ephesians 1:7 Paul said, "In Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." In I John 2:12; "I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven for His name sake." Ephesians 4:32, "Even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." In other words, because Christ took all our sins and paid the penalty when we believe in Christ and accept His sacrifice, God appropriates it on our behalf, judicially we are declared righteous and just forever and forgiven. For sins past, present and future. You say, is that just New Testament? Now watch this, I don't believe that, I believe that is Old Testament too. Now some people think that in the Old Testament you were saved until you sinned the next time and then when you made another sacrifice you were saved again. I don't think so. I think you were saved in the Old Testament just like people are in the New Testament by believing God. By submitting yourself to God. I think redemption in the Old Testament was just as momentary and just as instantaneous and just as exact as in the New. For example, you take Abraham in James 2:23, and it says, "Abraham believed God." In other words, Abraham came to a point in his life when he had faith in God and he exercised that faith toward God and believed all that God had revealed to that time and accepted God as his Lord and his Savior and at that point, though he never sawthe cross or perceived all that Christ would be, he believed God and James 2:23 says that, "At that moment it was imputed unto him for righteousness and from then on he was called a friend," of whom? "Of God." He was saved in a moment. In Romans chapter 4 again it says, "Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." And to him that believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness. He believed and it was counted to him for righteousness and from then on it says in that same chapter, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." From the moment that Abraham believed, from then on throughout his life God never imputed sin to him again because his sins were placed on Christ just as much as yours are. We're post-Christ he was pre-Christ but all the sins of all the saints of all those ages at the moment they believed were put on Christ. Christ is the apex of history. Whether you lived on the front side or the back side, He still bore their sins. And by an act of faith at that point, Christ's redemption, the value of Christ's redemption as applied to them. Psalm 103:3 says, that God is the one who forgive: all our iniquities and heals all our diseases. I believe they knew judicial redemption in the Old Testament and I believe their sins were nailed to the cross just as much as ours when they believed God. Listen to this, Colossians 2:13, oh it's a fabulous, fabulous illustration. It's the picture that God has kept these books I told you about. And all through our lives He writes down the record of our sins. And the debt gets worse and worse and

worse and worse and worse and worse. And there is no capacity in our lives to pay the debt at all. And all of this debt is on the sheet. Then all of a sudden Christ goes to the cross and you read in Colossians 2:13, "And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh," that's you, dead, you couldn't do anything about your sins, you're hopeless, you have been made alive with Him. Now watch, "Having forgiven you all trespasses," and then this fabulous imagery, "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against you." Listen, "And nailing it to His cross He took it out of the way." You know, when they crucified a criminal they crucified him with at the top of the cross the record of his crimes, nailed there for the world to see why he was being crucified. The apostle Paul is saying this, great truth, when Jesus died on the cross God pulled all the pages out of the books that belonged to all that would believe throughout history, stacked them all together, nailed them to the cross as if they were the crimes of Jesus and when Jesus died He paid the penalty for every crime that was nailed to His cross and God blotted them out. You see? That's judicial forgiveness. Oh, to know that we are ultimately and forever forgiven in Christ is tremendous joy, isn't it? Richard III Shakespeare, he says, "My conscience has a thousand several tongues and every tongue its several tale and every tale condemns me." If you're a Christian you don't have to say that, do you? You can say with Paul in Romans 8, "Who is he that condemneth?" Where is he? Who condemns me? Shall God the justified? In other words, if God is the highest court in the universe and He declares me just who's going to condemn me? Nobody. Therefore, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ. Nothing at all. I want to close by showing you one other text. Hebrews 10, one of my favorite passages. I hope it's one of yours. In Hebrews 10 the writer is comparing the sacrificial system of Israel with the sacrifice of Christ. And I want you to notice verse 10 of Hebrews 10. He says, "We are sanctified," fourth word there, "We are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Stop right there a minute. Sanctified means to be made pure, be made pure, made holy, set apart, separated. We are made holy, we are set apart by the one sacrifice of Christ. Oh, listen, people, you don't have to repeat it. When He died and we believed, His sacrifice was sufficient. He said on the cross, "It is finished." We are sanctified, set apart unto God which is a perfect participle in the Greek with a finite verb and it is the strongest possible way the Greek language knows to show the permanent, continuous, state of salvation that issues from one great event. And so Christ dies on the cross, the moment we believe that is imputed to us and there is a continuous forgiveness based on that one offering. In contrast to that in verse 11 the priests of the Old Testament were daily ministering and they were standing, see the word standeth, standing and offering the same sacrifices again and again and again, always standing up because the job was never done. Verse 12, "But this man after He offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down." Why? It was over. Priests may be stading walking around doing it over and over again but Christ did it once and sat down. It can't be repeated, it doesn't need

to be. Why? Verse 14, "For by one offering He hath perfected forever and ever them that are sanctified." And if Jesus says in Matthew 5:48, "Be ye perfect" and Christ goes to the cross and perfects us then Christ is the solution to the problem. Right? We're to be perfect and He perfects us, in His one offering. That, beloved, is judicial forgiveness and the result of it is in verse 17, "Their sins and iniquities will I," what? "Remember no more." Oh, what a great thought. Listen beloved, all your sins are forgiven because of Christ if you believe. That is judicial positional forgiveness. Now, go back to Matthew 6 and I'm going to close by introducing one thought. It says, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" and verse 14 says, "And if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Fatherwill forgive you and if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses," and all of a sudden we say, wait a minute. If all my sins are already all forgive in Christ, if all my sins were dealt with in the cross of Christ w y do I need to ask forgiveness and why won't I get it unless I give it to somebody else? That is the question that has confused a lot of people. Some people say, well, this is a prayer for an unbeliever. No, no, it's not a prayer for an unbeliever. Because an unbeliever does not begin his prayer "Our Father", does he? This is a believer's prayer. A disciple's prayer. You're already a Christian before you get to verse 12, folks. You say, well, if I'm already a Christian and all my sins are forgiven what am I doing saying "Forgive us our debts" and what is God doing saying, "And if you don't forgive somebody else I'm not going to forgive you?" If you want to know the answer to that be here next week. And if you don't want to know the answer to that, God have mercy on your sin-sick shriveled up soul. Because that's one of the greatest truths in all the Bible and the basis of it is this, you must understand, I'll give you a hint now, you must understand the difference between judicial forgiveness and parental forgiveness. One deals with your position before God forever, the other deals with the joy of your fellowship day by day. And we'll see that, Lord willing, next week. Let's pray. It's good to be together again, Father and share Your word. We thank You or its richness. Oh, thank You for Your forgiveness. For the provision You've made for every person here. While our heads are bowed and your eyes are closed for a moment may I say this? Some of you don't know Christ and so you've never know His forgiveness. It's available to you today. In your heart right now all you need do is open up and say, "Christ, come in and forgive my sin." I know I'm a sinner, I want Your cleansing, I know You died for me, I know You paid the penalty." That simple prayer will result in judicial forgiveness applied to you and forever and ever you'll be in God's family and you'll enjoy the fullness of His eternal heaven. And He'll never take back His gift. Oh, I hope you won't go away without that forgiveness. Father dismiss us with Your blessing. Thank You for Your forgiveness. Bring us back tonight for a great and glorious evening together and we'll give You praise in Christ's name, and everyone said. Amen. God bless you.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Pardon of Prayer, Part 2 Scripture: Matthew 6:12, 14-15 Code: 2242

We get a lot of mail at Grace Church from people who listen to tapes, radio programs, read books , visit the church and so forth. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters a week. Once in a while one letter just draws everyone's attention. We've had one like that that came just a few weeks ago and I want to share it with you this morning because it ties in so well. It's from a man who is a prisoner in upstate New York in a penitentiary. And he is writing to thank us for the tape ministry which he has received. He's been studying the tapes quite diligently and is expressing his gratitude. This is what it says in part: "Brother, I received your beautiful gift of a set of tapes by John MacArthur your pastor. I'm still listening to them and sharing them with some of the brothers as the Lord leads. I'm taking notes on each tape as I listen. Praise the Lord. I may not only understand His word better but I may be able to teach and lead those whom He has enabled me and placed in my care." I would just add a footnote. Apparently this man has become a pastor of what he calls The Church at Green Haven Prison. He said, "I want to thank you for your fine gift and share a little of what the Lord is doing in my life as I promised in a previous letter. Brother, the Lord saved me seven years ago. At that time I was in a dirty and dark jail cell waiting for the opportunity to finish off what I had begun a few days before, end my worthless and wretched life. My family came to the United States from Puerto Rico when I was nine years old. My dad was killed in an auto accident when I was twelve. We had moved to upstate New York by that time and I as spared growing up in the big city. Mom was pregnant when our father died and she was left with me, my brother Tony and then my sister was born. We were poor from a minority group and living in a small town where not too many people knew us. But none of these things hindered me nor were they any excuse. I grew up in Rockland County in the town of Haverstraw, New York. I went to school there and played all the sports. I really enjoyed school and after graduation I married my childhood sweetheart whom I had known since the sixth grade. We both had good jobs and a couple of years later I became a police officer at the age of 21. By that time God had given us two children and we were prospering materially. I had been born and raised a Catholic but I never heard that being born again was necessary. I hated the dry and dead church scene so I stopped going. I moved into a life of adultery and fornication. God's judgment did not come upon me suddenly though I had plenty of warning. I thought I was something big, nothing or no one could touch

me and God was the furthest thing from my mind. I had plenty of money now that I was working with the District Attorney's office; I was the only Spanish speaking police officer in the county and was in great demand for my interpreting ability. My wife was making good money as a secretary. We had our own home and I was Mr. Respectable Citizen on my way to hell. With all of these material benefits and carnal pleasures a well as the satisfaction of being recognized among my friends in the community I was empty and bored with life. I was always looking for a new adventure and nothing really satisfied me permanently. Finally, as a member of the narcotics bureau I began to use drugs myself. I began with pot and then I used pills and acid. I never shot any drugs because I was afraid of needles but I have eaten, snorted, drunk and smoked everything but hard stuff because I had seen what that did to others. Needless to say my family life as well as my job began to suffer and deteriorate as soon as I began fooling with drugs. And like I said it didn't happen right away but the word of God says that if nothing else we can be sure of one thing and that is that our sins will find us out. It took a period of about ten years but from the moment I began stepping out on my wife until the period when I did three things I never thought I could do, my sins were catching up with me and would eventually take their natural course destruction. "Even though I ran around on my wife I always claimed to love her and I believe I did. Of course I didn't know the love of God so it was mere human love which is just not strong enough. But I did the first thing I never thought I would do I left my wife and children. I took off for California with a young girl and abandoned my family. The drugs, my wounded conscience and the sin made me paranoid. And I was always staying high in San Francisco and always looking over my shoulder. As a police officer before, I would sometimes go on duty with an empty revolver because I could never see myself hurting anyone physically. I was just not a violent person even though I was wicked. I don't think I have ever been involved in more than two fights in my whole life yet I wound up murdering another person. I had done the second thing I never thought I could do. And then I wanted to die. I couldn't live with myself. For three horrorfilled days I tried various ways to end my life in a motel room but God didn't allow it. I tried taking an overdose only to awaken 17 hours later after having vomited the poison and by all rights I should have drowned in my own vomit as is usually the case with overdoses of alcohol and barbituates. And when I awoke I tried to electrocute myself in a bathtub, but as I was about to place the cables in the water the wires touched and I was left in darkness with all the lights in the room going out. But I was too far gone. I was a man possessed. I climbed into the tub and slashed myself up with a blade until I passed out from the loss of blood only to awake to a third day of madness and horror. God had been trying to reach me for a long time; my mom had become a Christian a few months before. Other people had tried to tell me about Jesus but I wouldn't hear them. I finally turned myself into the authorities and confessed to a crime they weren't even aware of. When I was taken to the jail I was kept under observation for a few days because they knew I was suicidal and brother I had all intentions of killing myself. I even took a spoon and was waiting the right moment to sharpen it and stick it in my throat. And then the letter came. It told me about Jesus Christ. Ray, it said, Jesus is real. He loves you and He wants to beyour friend. He can make a way where there is no way. Do it for your family, Ray, come to Jesus. Well, I believed that Jesus was real in her life and

that He was her friend but that He loved me--never. I didn't even like myself how could Jesus love me? What way could He make? I had tried every possible way. What could I do for my family? I had abandoned and scattered them. The answer came. I took it to be my mind. But now I know who it was who put those words there. The best thing you can do is go and kil 1 yourself and get out of everybody's life. But God used that letter to stay my selfdestructive hand and people came and told me more about the love of God for sinners and even murderers like me. They told me about the good news of Jesus Christ and not only did He demand a new life from me but He was the only one who could give me the power to live it. I must be born again they told me. And they said if any man be in Christ old things are passed away. And I needed to have that old life put away. I needed a new life. Finally out of desperation I went down on my knees in my cell. I was contemplating suicide and really being oppressed by the devil. I had been granted a phonecall home. I confided in my mom and told her the devil was there telling me to kill myself. She handed the phone to another new Christian who was there with her and instead of being gentle with me like I expected he said Ray, you must repent before God. You must ask Him to give you a new life and forgive you. Well, that kind of shook me because I expected him to baby me. I realized that even though I had been sorry for the things that I had done I had not asked God to forgive me. I had the sorrow of the world that works death but Godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation. So on my knees I cried to God and I asked Him to forgive me and to take away the burden of guilt which was driving me mad. I asked Him to give me new life. I told Him I didn't even know if He was out there or not but if He heard me please, please forgive me and help me live a new life through Him. "Well, for the first time in my life I knew God heard me and that I had been forgiven. I knew He had forgiven me because the burden I had been carrying, the burden of guilt and shame was lifted off me. I felt a peace I had never experienced before. I sensed a freedom I had never known on the other side of those walls. I could live with myself because I knew that my conscience was clean. I had been forgiven and my conscience was purged. I knew what truth and reality were. I had taken a life and I had to face trial. I had done many things for which I had been ashamed and there were consequences. Men would not forgive nor forget. But I knew that my God had and for once in my life I could be at peace with Him and with myself. From then on I would serve Him and all those who would be of like mind would understand that I had been forgiven--that I was a new man. The old Ray was dead. The Bible came alive to me. I became a fanatic. And the guys warned me not to read the Bible too much or I'd go crazy. Man, I was crazy before. The Bible is the only thing that helps me know the truth. Now I could understand God's spiritual word and it was no longer the giant crossword puzzle it once was to me. I had been born again and now I could see the kingdom of God. I've been sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison. This means I must serve a minimum of fifteen years before I am even considered for parole. And then they don't have to let me go. But, brother, I wouldn't trade the freedom that Jesus Christ has given me behind these prison walls for the prisons which were mine in what the world calls freedom.

"I surely would love to be home with my family some day. But Jesus has given me something in this prison which many on the out-side neither know nor have. My family had been scattered through those years. For two years I cried out to the Lord and claimed the promise that my wife and children would come to Christ. Although I had not heard from my wife for all that time, I continued trusting Him and serving Him. He gave me a ministry. For three years I read nothing but the Bible. No books, no commentaries, no newspapers, no magazines, just the Bible. And His Word became real to me. And finally, God reached out and saved my wife. And she came to see me. Later she brought my daughter Debby and I had the pleasure of leading my own daughter to the Lord. And my nine-year-old Christine received the Lord, too. Brother, what can I say? Forgive my lengthiness but there's so much more that I could say. God has given me a ministry of teaching and preaching His Word. I want to serve Him to the fullest. I've seen manybroken and desperate men come to know our Lord and be transformed. Praise God. Greet the saints. Your brother in Christ, Ray." Well, you're the saints and you've been greeted. It's great isn't it? Can I add a footnote? There used to be a prisoner in Green Haven Prison, he wrote us for some tapes. And when he left, he left them there and asked God to help them to fall into the right hands. They fell into the hands of Ray. He's a second generation tape listener in Green Haven Prison. And through the study of the word of God has become the pastor of the church in the prison. That's what forgive-ness is all about. I don't know what the future has for him in this world but I know what it has in eternity. And for that we can be excited. Let's turn in our Bibles again this morning to the sixth chapter of Matthew as we continue in our series on the disciple's prayer. Today we come to a continuation of what we began last time as we look at verse 12 but we must see it in its context so let's read the prayer and the two verses following. Matthew chapter 6 beginning in verse 9: "After this manner therefore pray ye; Our Father who 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 for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, 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." As you know if you were with us last week we began to look at verse 12 the second of the three petitions related to us. The first of which is one for physical sustenance. The second and the third are those of a spiritual nature. Going back to verse 12 we are reminded again of this petition, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And that petition is footnoted in verses 14 and 15. Now we're endeavoring as we examine this tremendously important petition to really understand this whole matter of dealing with sin in our Christian life. Even though we are believers we still have a sin

problem. And we must face that problem. This petition in verse 12 is prayed by one who already belongs to God. The prayer begins "Our Father," the prayer then affirms that there is a living and vital relationship with God through faith. So that as a believer we are to pray, "forgive us our debts." After we have affirmed that it is God's name that is hallowed, and it is God's kingdom that is to come, andit is God's will that is to be done; and after we have again acknowledge that it is God who is the source of our physical sustenance, we come to our spiritual problem of sin. And there we are to acknowledge again that we need God's forgiveness. We're talking about Christians. I know there are some people who think that when you become a Christian you don't bother with confessing sin anymore or seeking God's cleansing and forgiveness but that's not true. Because here we find as those who can call God Our Father we must also say forgive us our debts. Now in understanding the fullness of meaning in verse 12 and 14 and 15 which footnote it, we had to discover that there are four key words for us to study. And we began that study last time, we won't finish it today but we will next time. And the composite of all three of these Lord's days examining this I think will give us a new and far reaching and broad study of this whole area of sin in the life of a Christian. First of all the problem is sin. We saw that last time. Forgive us implies that we have done something for which we need forgiveness. Debt in verse 12 implies a sin. Trespass in verses 14 and 15 equally implies sin. The problem here is sin. Sin is a reality in the life of a Christian. When you become a Christian you don't all of a sudden stop sinning. You don't all of a sudden lose your sensitivity to sin; in fact, the truth is that when you become a believer you become more sensitive to sin. And as you mature as a Christian and in your maturing experience there is a decreasing frequencyof sin, along with a decreasing frequency of sin is an increasing sensitivity to it when it does occur. We know our sins. That's the problem. Principle number one is sin makes us guilty and brings judgment. Sin makes us guilty and brings judgment. Where there is sin in our life there is judgment. Whom the Lord loves He what? Chastens. And every son He scourges. And part of that is a chastening for our sinfulness. We talked last time about five words used in the New Testament for sin, harmartia, which means to miss the mark. We don't hit the target. We fall short of God's glory. Parabasis is to step across. Go draws a line and says stay here and we step across. Anomia mean lawlessness. We break His laws. Paraptoma which is trespass in verses 14 and 15 means we slip or fall. We can't stay on the straight and narrow. We fall. We're unable to keep erect in righteousness. The fifth word is ophileema, that's the word debt. Because of all these things we have violated God's holiness and we are in debt to Him. And we have to deal with that debt by seeking His forgiveness. So the problem is sin. And if you deny it, that's the biggest problem of all. Because if we say we have no sin we make God a what? A liar. And the truth is not in us.

Secondly, last time, we saw that there is the provision. The pro-blem is sin and the provision is forgiveness. It's six times in the passage. Twice in 12, twice in 14, and twice in 15. Six times the word forgiveness and principle number two is forgiveness is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death. Our problem can be dealt with because there is forgiveness. Must recognize the problem and seek the forgiveness. A Christian who says he doesn't sin is in a desperate situation because he doesn't seek the solution. There are some who teach that a Christian could reach a certain level in his life where he doesn't sin anymore. That isn't true. He'll continue to sin he just won't seek the forgiveness and he'll lose the meaning of his relationship to God. Now how is it possible that God can forgive us? And how does that forgiveness work? Well, it is possible because of the death of Christ. So on the basis of Christ's death forgiveness is available because the price is paid. Now, where we left off last time was this point. We suggested to you that there are two aspects of forgiveness. And that's what I want you to see againthis morning. There are two aspects of forgiveness. This is just thrilling to me. Number one was judicial forgiveness. And we talked about that. Judicial forgiveness. This is the full, complete positional forgiveness granted by God as the moral judge of the universe and by it our sins past, present, and future are totally, completely forever forgiven, we are justified, declared righteous eternally. That happens when you are saved. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ at that moment the righteousness of Christ is imputed to you and you who have sinned and come short of the glory of God are instantly made righteous in Christ, Romans 3. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to you, God drops the gavel of His sovereignty. He hits the table with it and says, "Declared righteous in Christ." That is an absolute; that is a positional truth; that is as eternal as God is eternal. That is inviolable, unchangeable, and forever. The moment I put my faith in Christ God's righteousness is imputed to me. It is granted to me. It is placed upon me. It is put into my account. It is eternal. God is satisfied. That is settled. And that's why Romans 8 says "No one will ever separate us from the love of Christ." That's why Romans 8 says "No one can ever lay any charge to God's elect." That is settled. We saw didn't we when we looked at judicial forgiveness there are many words to describe it. But we said it involves God taking away our sin, God covering our sin, God blotting out our sin, and God forgetting our sin. It is done with. Judicially settled for good. Now, if we have Christians then praying this prayer, "Our Father" and all of their sins forever are forgiven and God has dropped the gavel and declared us righteous then why are we saying "Forgive us our debts?" Why are we asking God for forgiveness? If all of that is a settled matter, what is the point of praying that prayer? The point is answered in a second kind of forgiveness. There is not only judicial forgiveness there is parental forgiveness. And maybe you can come up with a better word than parental but it's one that kind of stuck in my mind based on the fact that the "Our Father" begins the prayer. Parental forgiveness. Now we are not dealing with God as a righteous judge we are dealing here with God as a loving father.

Now listen, even though we have been judicially forgiven and forever that is settled eternally and never changeswe still sin don't we? And when we sin something happens in our relationship to God. The relationship doesn't end but something is lost in the intimacy of it. Right? If my children, my boys or girls, sin against me by disobeying the relationship doesn't end, they're still my children. I'm still their father. And there is a certain forgiveness in my heart that is automatic because they are in my family. But something is in the relationship that causes a loss of intimacy until they come and say, "Daddy, I'm sorry." And then the intimacy is restored. I'm married to my wife, happily. Wouldn't have it any other way. Getting better all the time. And if I should sin against my wife by a thoughtless deed or word or something that was unkind, it doesn't change our relationship. And there is a sense in which I am forgiven just because I'm under the umbrella of her constant love. But there is something lost in the intimacy until I ask her forgiveness that is found again as soon as I do. That's what He is talking about here. This is not someunbeliever praying for salvation. This is not some Christian pleading that God would please forgive his sins. Like the guy I heard on the television and people were asking Bible questions and one person said If I sin a sin and I die before I get it confessed will I go to heaven? And the man said No. You'll go to hell. What a terrible, terrible lie that is to put someone under that kind of fear. We're not talking about that; we're talking here about the forgiveness that gives us the fullness of joy in intimacy with God. It is all that the relationship can be. That's what He is talking about. Let me illustrate it to you from Psalm 51, go back to Psalm 51. Here's David. Now David was redeemed. Mark it, David was saved. David had received Old Testament salvation. Righteousness was imputed to David's account. He believed God. He loved God. He trusted in God. His faith was in God. He had received redemption. The righteousness of Christ as yet future had already been imputed to his account by his faith. He was a regenerated, redeemed man. And he fell into sin. Terrible sin. Sin not unlike our friend Ray that we read about this morning for he committed adultery and then he committed murder. And had he been anybody else but the king he would have probably lost his life. But he was something other than the law, something above the law. And even though the sins were heinous he was spared because of his position. But I want you to notice the nature of his prayer in Psalm 51 because this is the prayer that comes out of his guilt-ridden bloodstained heart as he reflects on his sin. And I want you to notice, first of all, verse 14. "Deliver me from blood guiltiness," now watch, "O God, thou God of my salvation." Listen, David affirms his salvation. David affirms that God is still the God of his salvation. He cries to a God whose presence is there, whose Spirit is there, whose salvation is His yet. No, I believe that David was truly redeemed. He was redeemed. And God was still there in His presence, in His Spirit. And He was still the God of my salvation. But even in affirming that the judicial forgiveness was there David can't help but feel the loss of something intimate in the relationship. And that's what he means when he cries out in verse 2, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me."I can't forget it.

"Against Thee, and Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." Verse 7, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." You see, be a sense in which judicial forgiveness and parental, if you will, forgiveness are so different. David was saved but there was something between he and God that made him lose the meaning of that salvation. That's why he says in verse 8, "Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." He wanted the joy back, didn't he? That's what he wanted. "Create in me a clean heart, O God," verse 10. "Renew a right spirit within me." The capper is in verse 12, "Restore unto me the," what? "the joy of thy salvation." He doesn't say Restore unto me thy salvation. He says restore unto me the what? The joy of it. Now here it is, folks. Judicial forgiveness takes care of the fact of salvation. Parental forgiveness takes care of the joy of it. You see? I can be forgiven, but if I'm sinful and unconfessing and unrepentant in that sinfulness, I forfeit the joy of the fullness of that relationship. That's the issue.

Look with me for a moment at 1 John chapter 1. And John begins this wonderful epistle by saying that he preaches Christ, the word of life, from first hand experience: "That which was from the beginning which we've heard, which we've seen with our hands, or seenwith our eyes, looked upon and our hands have handled." He says we have had personal experience with Christ, in verse 1. "The word of life and the word was manifest. And we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and manifest unto us." In other words, we're preaching Christ. We're preaching the gospel. Why? Verse 3, "That which we have seen and heard declare unto you in order that," here's why: "You also may have," watch it, "fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father with His Son Jesus Christ." Now listen, John says we preach to bring you into the fellowship. See? We want to get you into the fellowship. We want to link you up with God and Christ and everybody else who believes in God and Christ. We want to bring you into the family. That's judicial forgiveness. We want to get you into the fellowship--participating in the common eternal life, to be one in the koinonia. That's why we preach Christ. Then he goes a step further. Verse 4, "And these things," what things? "The things we write unto you," that's the epistle, "we write in order that your," what? "joy may be full." Now on the one hand we preach the gospel so that you'll come into the fellowship and on the other hand we write the epistle so that in the fellowship you will know the fullness of joy. Being saved puts you in the fellowship, being obedient to the standards and the principles we lay out makes you know the joy of that fellowship. You see? On the one hand is judicial for-giveness putting you in the fellowship and there is the parental forgiveness that makes you know the fullness of the joy of being in the fellowship. And right off the bat he says, if you're in the fellowship, verse 9, you'll be confessing your sin and He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to keep on cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

Now look, he says, "I'm writing this unto you that your joy may be full." And the first thing he says if you want full joy, if you want full joy then keep on confessing your what? Sins. That's the point. The gospel brings judicial righteousness, judicial forgiveness, obedience and the obedience of confession to begin with brings you the fullness of joy that comes from parental forgiveness. Look a John 13, 1 hope you're getting this, John 13. One of my very favorite chapters, I've shared it with you many times but I'm going to pu11 a thought out of it that perhaps we haven't covered. John 13, our dear Lord is speaking of His love for the disciples here in this chapter, in spite of their waywardness and sinfulness, in spite of the fact that they were sitting around arguing who'd be the greatest in the kingdom. They were selfcentered, selfish, possessive, indifferent to Christ, unconcerned about His pending death, arguing, proud, egotistical, they were very ugly at this time. In the midst of it all, the dear Lord takes His outer garment off and puts a towel about His waist and starts to wash their feet. Humiliating, to Him and to them, for they should have done it for Him. He should not have needed to do it for them. He comes to Peter in verse 8. Peter says, "You'll never wash my feet." This is not going to happen, I won't allow this. I believe Peter is convicted, I believe he wouldn't let the Lord stoop to do that. I believe he's facing his own sin. The fact that he's been arguing about who is the greatest in the kingdom, that he's been selfish, selfcentered, insensitive to Christ and he just won't allow it. You're not going to wash my feet! Jesus answered him, "If I wash thee not thou hast no part with Me." And He takes that whole physical scene and turns it into tremendous spiritual truth. He says Peter, if you want to really know what it is to fellowship with me, if you want to know what it is to be part and parcel of what I am, if you want the fullness of a relationship, you better let me wash you. Peter says, Lord, don't wash my feet only; wash my hands and my head. Do the whole deal. Again, a dumb statement. Jesus says to him, "He that's washed (He used the word bathed) needs not except to wash his feet." He's already entirely clean, and you're clean. He says Peter, I only want to wash your feet. First he's telling Him what not to do and then he's telling Him what to do. Peter, just be quiet. I'm only interested in your feet because there is a tremendous spiritual truth here. You're sitting around this table sinning, you are already clean, verse 10 says, except for Judas. Not all of you are clean, one of you is not. One of you is not redeemed. But the rest of you are already clean. You've already been redeemed. You've already been made righteous by faith. I'm not talking about bathing you all over again. You only get made righteous how many times? One, you don't need that again. What I'm interested in is keeping the dirt off your feet. Now in those days, of course, you took a bath in the morning as you got up and bathed your entire body and then you started out for the day and wearing sandals in that part of the world the roads would either be muddy or dusty. Muddy when it rained and you can imagine the muck. And when it was dry, dust everywhere, and you're feet would be dirty and every time you would go into a home or into a place of business or commune with people or eat a meal it would be necessary for you to wash your feet just as a matter of very obvious propriety. And the Lord is giving them an incredibly great

spiritual truth. He is saying to them, simply this You've already had judicial forgiveness, you've had your spritual bath when you believed. All that's necessary for Me to do to keep the fullness of our relationship openis to wash your feet. That's parental forgiveness, you see. And daily as we walk through the world we collect the dust of the world and those are the sins we commit. And as we confess those things they're washed. An as we are confessing, 1 John 1:9, He's faithful and still righteous to keep on forgiving and keep on cleansing. What a glorious truth. He's simply saying Once you've been cleaned, bathed in the saving blood of Jesus Christ, you've received judicial forgiveness that doesn't have to be done again but parental forgiveness is something that goes an everyday as we keep the fullness of the communion pen. Positional purging needs no repetition. But practical purging has to be repeated every day. Listen, beloved, when you pray you better pray in accord with Matthew 6. Somewhere in your prayers after you have acknowledged His name be Hallowed and His kingdom come and His will be done and after you have acknowledged that God is the source of your physical and daily sustenance, you need to face the fact that your feet are dirty. And you need to acknowledge the fact that as long as they're dirty and you're unconfessing and unrepenting of that sin, there is a loss in the fullness of joy in the intimacy in the communion that you can have with God. Believers need to open their heart daily for that forgiveness that keeps the feet clean. I think about David. Nathan told David, he says, "David, the Lord has put away your sin." Oh what relief. David had committed the terrible sin of Bathsheba and Uriah and the Lord had put it away and said You've got judicial forgiveness, the umbrella is over you, man, that's done with. And you might today find someone who'd say in the same setting, Well, I realize that but the Lord's already taken care of that, I'm not going to worry about it. Not David. It wasn't long after Nathan had said to him the Lord has put away your sin, God's taken care of that, that's in redemption, that David wrote Psalm 32 and this is what he said: "I acknowledge my sin unto Thee, my iniquity have I not hidden, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord." Do you get that? Listen to me, when he already knew that the judicial element was cared for he still cried out in confession to open the parental channel to keep the intimacy of the relationship. So what is the message of part one of this petition? Forgive us our debts? It is simply a plea that we experience the moment by moment cleansing that comes when we acknowledge our sin to the Lord. Very basic. Very necessary. And you know what thrills me so much is that God is so eager to forgive. You know, you might think that if you were in some pagan religion or something that and you believe the gods to be like men, that God gets so sick of hearing you that one day He just says, - You know, this is the last time I'm listening to you, fellow--from here on out take the consequences. I've given you more forgiveness than any ten people deserve. But that's not the way God is. I think it was Nehemiah who said, "Thou art a God ready to pardon." Thou art a God ready to pardon. And that's right. Eager. I love Micah, "He delights in mercy." You say But I go back everyday and I keep saying Lord I did this again, Lord, I had this problem again and you go back everyday and doesn't God get sick of it? No, because He

delights in mercy because mercy is an act of His nature that gives Him glory for we glorify such a merciful God. That's why in Romans 5 it says, "Where sin abounds grace does," what? "Much more abound." God loves to forgive. And you know you can take all the forgiveness He's got and it won't diminish His resource at all. And you can come back as many times as you want and it will never diminish His love. Never. He'll forgive as often as you come. Somebody said to me last week, You know, your sermon on judicial forgiveness I think ruined my son. I said Why? Well, because you said he could just do just sin and it was covered for eternity, so he just went out and did it. And he said It's all covered anyway. Well, I question whether he knows Christ first of all. Because if I know God has forgiven all my sins and if I know no matter how many times I come back and ask His forgiveness He's eager and anxious to do it, that kind of love retards me from sinning rather than compels me to sin because I can't trade on that love. I can't abuse that. Dr. Barnhouse told a great story to illustrate this. He was talking to a college professor and he told a story about a couple, this is what he said: "The man had lived a life of great sin and immorality but had converted and eventually come to marry a fine Christian woman. He had confided to her the nature of his past life in just a few words as he had told her these things the wife had taken his head in her hands. And she drew him to her shoulder and kissed him gently and said, John, I want you to understand something very plainly. I know my Bible well and therefore I know the subtlety of sin and the devices of sin that work in the human heart. I know you are a thoroughly converted man, John, but I know that you still have a sin nature. And that you are not yet fully instructed in the ways of God that you will be. The devil will do all he can to wreck your Christian life. He will see to it that temptations of every kind are put in your way. And the day might come, John, please God that it never does, but it might come when you succumb to temptation and fall into sin. And, John, immediately the devil will tell you it's no use trying you might as well continue on your way and sin and above all he'll tell you not to tell me because it will hurt me. But, John, I want you to know that there is a home for you in my arms. When I married you I married your old nature as well as your new nature. And I want you to know there is full pardon and full forgiveness in advance for any evil that ever comes into your life." Now that's something like God. Barnhouse finished the story: "The college professor lifted up his eyes reverently, and said, 'My God, if anything could ever keep a man straight, that kind of forgiving love in advance would sure do it.'" That is exactly and precisely the way God perceives His relationship to us.

Listen, we've seen the problem: sin. We've seen the provision: forgiveness. I want to close with the plea: confession. The plea: confession. The third principle is simply that we received His forgiveness by confession of sin. We receive His forgiveness by confession of sin. The whole of this verse implies confession. You can know about sin and know about forgiveness but if you didn't confess your sin you'd never receive it. As long as I harbor my sin and I never confess it and repent of it and turn from it and give it to God and agree with Him about it I'm never free to know the joy that He wants me to

know because a barrier is there that shatters the intimacy of fellowship. And so I must confess, I must open my heart and admit my sin and that is tough, isn't it? It's tough. Just try to get it out of your little kid when they've done something wrong. I remember as a little boy I vandalized a school with another little boy. My father was holding a revival meeting in a small little town in Indiana. In the midst of the week a little boy and I went down and we did some bad things. And they went from house to house in the little town--it was so small--and they came to the house we were staying in and my father and the man that owned the house went to the door and the man said We've had vandalism in the school, would your children know anything about it? And I was holding my father's hand applying my most angelic face, doing everything I could to show that I was as spiritual as my evangelist father, would never be caughtdoing something like that. I hung on and My son would never do anything like that and he patted me on the head Not Johnny, why he's a wonderful boy. And the other man was saying Oh, our boy is a wonderful boy too and I don't understand how this could happen. And he gave them this long thing and my father was expressingsuch love for me and such confidence in my life. That night at the meeting I went forward when he gave the invitation and I said I prayed with him on the steps I said I think I need Jesus in my heart. He never knew why. Ten years later before I told him about it. Ten years, I couldn't get the courage to do it. But I'm not alone. Adam and Eve sinned. And they were used to walking and talking with God in the cool of the day, but the minute they sinned, the next thing they did was what? Hide. It's tough to confess. And as long as you don't you forfeit the joy. Proverbs 28:13 says "Cover your sin, you don't prosper." Cover your sin, you don't prosper. "Whoever confesses and forsakes shall have mercy." Your spiritual prosperity is at stake. That's why he says you better say Forgive us our debts. Confession of sin is vital. It's vital. David said to Nathan, I've sinned against the Lord, 2 Samuel 12:13, David said to Nathan again in 2 Samuel 24:10 - I've sinned against the Lord greatly in what I have done. I have acted very foolishly. In 1 Chronicles 21:7 David said to God, I am the one who has sinned and done very wickedly. Isaiah said, "I am a man of unclean lips and I live amidst a people of unclean lips." Daniel said in chapter 9 verse 20, "I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin." Peter said in Luke chapter 5 verse 8, "Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Paul said, "It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinner among whom I am" what? "chief." Confessing sin isn't easy but it's necessary to appropriate the intended joy that comes with parental forgiveness. Don't conceal your sin. Confess your sin. John Stott says and it's true, "One of the surest antidotes to the process of moral hardening is the disciplined practice of uncovering our sins of thought and outlook as well as word and deed and the repentant forsaking of the same." If you don't do that it will harden. I've seen Christians, judicially forgiven and eternally secure, who are so hardened, so impenitent, so unconfessing, so in-sensitive to sin, and so totally joyless, who didn't even know the meaning of a loving intimate fellowship with God.

They blocked it out with the barricade of their unconfessed sin. Confession. This week I sat in my room back in Indiana and watched the snow fall out the window. I thought to myself the world looks so white. The city I was in has three streets and a stop sign. That was it. And there was just fields of white everywhere. Little paths where people walked and trees were all covered with snow. I thought about sins being as white as snow. And then as I looked at my own life I was reading a little book I have, "The Prayers of Puritans," that sometimes I share with you. I came across one, set my life in stark contrast to the purity I saw out the window. And I thought it might be a fitting thought for us today. Confession is so necessary, people. Or you lose that purity that gives you joy. This is what I read: "God of grace, thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute and has imputed His righteousness to my soul, hast clothed me with a bridegroom's robe, decking me with jewels of holiness but in my Christian walk I am still in rags, my best prayers are stained with sin. My penitential tears are so much impurity; my confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin. My receiving the Spirit is tinctured with selfishness. I need to repent of my repentance. I need my tears to be washed. I have no robe to bring to cover my sins, no loom to weave my own righteousness. I'm always standing clothed in filthy garments and by grace am always receiving change of raiment for thou dost always justify the ungodly. I am always going into the far country and always returning home as a prodigal and always saying, Father forgive me, and Thou art always bringing forth the best robe again. Every morning let me wearit, every evening return it in. Go out to do the day's work in it. Be married in it. Be wound in death in it. Stand before the great white throne in it. Enter heaven in it, shining as the sun. Grant me never t o lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness and the exceeding wonder of grace. I am guilty but pardoned. I am lost but saved. I am wandering but found. I am sinning but cleansed. Give me perpetual broken heartedness. Keep me always clinging to Thy cross. Flood me every moment with descending grace and open to me the springs of divine knowledge sparkling like crystal flowing clear and unsullied through my wilderness of life." Confession, purging of the soul. That's the plea of this petition. Is it part of your prayer life?

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Pardon of Prayer, Part 3 Scripture: Matthew 6:12, 14 & 15 Code: 2243

Matthew 6:12, 14 & 15 Let's look together at Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. We're in our eleventh message from the disciple's prayer. And I want to read the prayer to you and then the two footnote verses, verses 14 and 15 and then we'll go into our study for the morning. Matthew 6 beginning in verse 9: "After this manner, therefore, pray ye; Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed by Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth a it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for Thine is the kingdom ant the power and the glory forever, 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." Verse 12 is the petition to which we draw your attention again this morning for the third time. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The word forgiveness strikes us immediately. Forgiveness may be the most wonderful word in any language. There is nothing more wonderful to know then that your sins are all forgiven by God. There's nothing in a human realm more wonderful to know then that you have been forgiven by someone you grossly wronged or hurt or injured. Forgiveness is a thrilling word. There is an epitaph in a cemetery outside of New York City. It's a large headstone. It doesn't have on the headstone the name of the person who's there in the grave. It doesn't have when he or she was born or when he or she died. It doesn't say beloved mother, father, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter. Just one word stretches from one end of the headstone to the other and it's the word, "Forgiven." Somebody wanted it known that they could die in peace because they were forgiven. And that's all that really matters. Henry Ward Beecher, said, "Let me go and saw off a branch from one of the trees that is now budding in my garden and all summer long there will be an ugly scar where the gash has been made. But by next autumn it will be perfectly covered over by the growing and by the following autumn it will be hidden out of sight and in four or five years there will be but a slight scar whereit has been and in ten or twenty years you will never suspect that there had ever been an amputation."

Now trees know how to overgrow their injuries and hide them. And love doesn't wait as long as trees do. I like that. Peter said love covers a multitude of what? Sin. Love is in a much bigger hurry than trees are. Forgiveness is a vital commodity of love. Now God has said in the Scripture much about this area of forgiveness. Forgiveness, you see, is man's deepest spiritual need. Mark that down. It is man's deepest spiritual need. For apart from forgiveness man neverenters a relationship with God. Apart from forgiveness he pays his own penalty for his sin. Apart from forgiveness he spends eternity in hell. Forgiveness, then, becomes man's deepest spiritual need. That is something he must have if he is to know God, if he is to enjoy heaven. It is man's deepest spiritual need also because it is the only way he's delivered from the anxiety and the pressure that guilt of sin brings to bear upon his life. And so when you come in verse 12 to this the first of two spiritual petitions in this prayer you are touching man at the deepest point of his need. Coming to God for forgiveness is the most vital thing of all. I guess we need to ask ourselves some questionsthis morning. Being that forgiveness is man's deepest spiritual need have you experienced the forgiveness that comes in Christ? That's the first question. If you have then even as a Christian as you walk through the world are you bringing your sins to the Lord on a day to day basis for that cleansing that comes to you day by day as He washes away the dust of the world from your feet as you get them dusty? Are you experiencing the usefulness and the joyfulness and the intimacy with God that comes from daily confession? How about forgiving others? Have you freed others from the bondage of an offense by openly and fullheartedly forgiving them? These are questions, I think, we need to ask ourselves. Forgiveness is a blessed virtue. Now we've talked about God's forgiving us for two weeks now. Today I want to talk about us forgiving others. Because the end of verse 12 says "As we forgive our debtors" and verses 14 and 15 say - If we forgive we get forgiven, if we don't forgive we don't get forgiven. And so I want to go to the concept of us forgiving each other. Now let me begin by saying this and I want you to mark this down. There are several reasons why we are to forgive one another. And I'm going to give you a list. Get them down because I think you need to know them. Number one: We are to forgive one another because such is the character of saints. Such is the character of saints. Christians are characterized as those who forgive. Matthew chapter 5 verse 43, backing up to the fifth chapter we find that the traditional Jewish rabbis taught - thou shalt love thy neighbor hate thine enemy. They taught that the principle was to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But the Lord said, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. That you may manifest that you are the sons of your Father. In other words, forgiving others, blessing those who curse which is tantamount to forgiveness, loving your enemies which is the same idea is all a characteristic that manifests that you are a son of God. It is characteristic of saints to forgive. I mean, we are the

forgiven, are we not? Have we so soon forgotten what has been forgiven us and would we not forgive someone else? You know, as a Christian when you fail to forgive someone else you set yourself up as a higher court than God. For God infinitely forgives. And that's idolatry for you're worshipping yourself as if you were God. You've usurped His place. Secondly, I believe we are to forgive one another because it characterizes saints but it follows the example of Christ. First John 2:6 says, "If we say we abide in Him we ought to walk as He walked." Right? How did He walk? He walked in forgiveness. And that's why in Ephesians 4:32 it says that we are to forgive one another even as God for Christ's sake has what? Forgiven us. Christ has established a model, a pattern that the death of Christ and the forgiveness of God through Christ given to us is not only for its own sake, it is for its own sake and beyond to give to us a pattern for forgiveness. On the cross to the very ones who had driven the nails through His hands, to the very oneswho had spit upon Him and mocked Him and crushed a crown of thorns into His blessed head He said - Father, what? Forgive them. And therein is the model. The severity of any offense toward us cannot match that as the writer of Hebrews says - You have not suffered unto blood. None of us have endured what Christ has endured and He forgave us all and He set the pattern and the example and the model. We are to forgive one another because it is the characteristic of saints to do so and secondly, because it is the following of the pattern of Christ. Thirdly, we are to forgive one another because it expresses the highest virtue of man. The highest virtue of man. I believe men most manifests the majesty of his creation in the image of God when he expresses forgiveness. And I believe that's indicated in Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 11, it says: "The discretion of a man differeth his anger." And listen to this, "And it is his glory to pass over a transgression." The highest exhibiting of a virtue of a man is that he overlooks a transgression. We are to forgive one another because it is characteristic of saints, because of the example of Christ, and because it is the highest virtue of a man. Fourthly, we are to forgive one another because it frees the conscience from guilt. It frees the conscience from guilt. When there is a need to be forgiven and to forgive there is guilt. I think of David who in the midst of an unforgiving situation has all kinds of problems. His life's juices dry up, the lymphatic system, the blood system, the flow in his nervous system, the saliva, everything was wrong, he was sick. His bones were waxing old as it were and his roaring was going on all day long. There is connected with an unforgiving heart an advantage for Satan according to II Corinthians chapter 2, a root of bitterness that creates all kinds of binding of the conscience. So we are to forgive one another, in order to free the conscience. You know, people who carry grudges and bitternesses and who carry an angry attitude toward an individual that goes on and on and on and on unrelieved are literally wounding themselves. Dale Carnegie tells a story about visiting Yellowstone to feed the grizzly bears. I - apparently you feed them from a distance. But they made a clearing when he was there and they piled a bunch of garbage in the clearing and the guide was saying - now the bear will come and eat the garbage. And sure enough the bear came and a grizzly bear is probably the most ferocious

animal on the North American continent. The only animal that can maybe stand off a grizzly bear would be a Kodiak bear or a wild bison that was really infuriated. But a grizzly doesn't have a lot of enemies. It pretty well dominates its own scene. And this grizzly came in and started to eat and they don't like anybody intruding on their territory, the guide was saying. And all at once this little black and white thing came cross the clearing - a skunk. And the skunk just stuck his nose right in there where the bear was, just started eating and enjoying having a wonderful time taking the bear's food. Now Carnegie said that he noticed the skunk was very impudent but the bear didn't do anything. Together they shared the food. Carnegie said - Why? The answer is simple, the high cost of getting even. The bear did not want to pay the price. Smart bear. Smarter than a lot of people I know, who get themselves messed up with toxic goiters, heart attacks, and colitis because they hold a grudge. A father with his 14 year-old marched into the doctor's office one day and he said, to the doctor he said - Doctor, I've come to get some more pills for my wife's colitis. His kid immediately replied what is she colliding with now? Doctor McMillan has written a book in which he has one chapter titled - It's not what you eat it's what eats you. That's the real issue. Why should we forgive one another? First of all because it characterizes saints, secondly, it follows the example of Christ, thirdly, it's the highest expression of the virtue of man, and fourthly, it frees the conscience of guilt and guilt brings many diseases of the mind and the body. Fifthly we should forgive one another because it delivers us from chastening. It delivers us from chastening. Where there is an unforgiving spirit there is sin. And where there is sin there is chastening. And every son that the Lord loves He scourges and chastens, Hebrews 12 says. And in 1 Corinthians there is animosity toward one another and their bitterness and their party spirit and their factions had turned the love feast into something horrible, something very vile. And because of that many of them were weak and sick and some were even dead and the Lord had chastened them to that point for a lack of a proper love relationship to one another. Now all those are important reasons why you should forgive one another. But there's one more that's more important than those five: we are to forgive one another because if we don't we don't get forgiven either. And that's in our passage. Now that's a shocking and startling set of verses, verses 14 and 15. And many people do not understand those verses. And I have to say this to you, you need - for those of you who haven't been here - you need to get the last two messages to have the full meaning of what I have to say today because I can't repeat all that background. But I'll try to give it to you just as briefly as I can.
Now remember this, in this prayer we are focusing on this the first petition regarding man's spiritual need, the first three are regarding God: Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. In other words, before you ever even get to yourself God has to have the rightful place in your prayer.

You will immediately sidestep all of your selfish desires by the time you've filtered through the depth of those first three petitions. Then you acknowledge that God is the sustenance of your daily bread you wouldn't have a spiritual life with needs if you didn't have a life to start with so He has to take care of that. And then you come to the spiritual and here you are dealing immediately with sin. God is in the primary place and then man's need: spiritual and physical. And as we come to this verse we have shared with you there are four things that you need to know: the problem - that's sin expressed by the word debt and in verses 14 and 15 the word trespass, the provision forgiveness, twice in verse 12, twice in verse 14 and twice in verse 15. The problem is we're sinners and sin brings guilt and condemnation. The provision is forgiveness based on the ground of Christ's death. Now what did we say about forgiveness? We told you there were how many kinds of forgiveness? Two. Remember? The first was judicial forgiveness, the second parental forgiveness. If you don't understand this you'll never be able to interpret these verses. Judicial forgiveness is that forgiveness God grants to an unregenerate, unredeemed, unsaved individual who comes, puts faith in Christ, God imputes to him the righteousness of Christ, declares him eternally righteous, drops the gavel, forgiven, declared righteous, justified forever, judicial forgiveness embraces all eternity and it imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. It's a settled act forever. That's once and for all. All your trespasses totally forgiven. We went over that in detail two weeks ago. And the question comes up, then, if I'm judicially forgiven and every sin is under the blood of Christ, past, present, and future and everything is taken care of forever and ever and that can never be altered, what am I doing saying "Forgive us our debts?" You say - Maybe this is a prayer of an unbeliever. No, what are the first two words in the prayer? What are they? "Our Father." You're not talking about an unbeliever here. You have to be in the family to even get into this prayer. This is how you are to pray as a believer. Well, you say, if I'm a believer and all is judicially cared for in the fact of salvation why am I asking forgiveness? And this is what we call parental forgiveness. This has not to do with the fact of salvation it has to do with the joy of it. And we use that very magnificent and comprehensive illustration in John 13 where Jesus says to Peter, - You took one bath you don't need another bath-all you need is your feet cleaned through the day. God has bathed us in the righteousness of Christ. All He wants to do is dust off the dirt on our feet that we collect as we walk through the world. One is a positional forgiveness the other is a practical one. One deals with our standing and our state before God, the other deals with our living in the world. And the Lord dusts off our feet. It's just like John said in 1 John, isn't it? We have fellowship with the Father but I'm writing these things unto you not so you can have the fellowship, you're already in the fellowship by salvation, so that your joy may be what? Full. It is joy and usefulness and productivity and your spiritual welfare that is the issue here. And a believer when he becomes saved judicially redeemed and all is covered

doesn't then stop facing sin, become insensitive to sin, ignores sin but rather keeps on confessing sin, 1 John 1-9. Right? As a way of life. We entered by faith did we stop faith at that point and abandon it? No. We walk by what? Faith. We enter by confessing sin, we don't stop, we continue. It is a way of life. First John 2 says that if we love God and we're in the Lord we will continue to love our brother. We will continue to be obedient to God's laws. You back up into 1 John 1 it's saying the same thing: if you're truly a believer you'll continue confessing your sin because the sensitivity to sin will be far greater than ever it was before you weresaved. For before you were saved you walked in darkness. Right? And nothing was revealed. When you became a Christian you walk in the light and everything is made manifest even your sin. So what he's talking about here is that foot washing that the Lord does as He cleanses us day by day, purging and purifying not to bring us salvation but to make the intimacy of that fellowship all it can be. I used the illustration of my family. If a child of my family sins against me and against the standards I established they're not thrown out of the family, they don't have to do something to get back in the family but they need to come and make so e things right so the intimacy of the family fellowship can be maintained and restored. You see. That's what we're talking about. And so we saw the problem with sin, the provision was forgiveness, and thirdly the plea was confession. The very plea and the petition is that we confess our sins; that we acknowledge it to God. And I'm saying to you, beloved, if you're not doing this you are short circuiting your spiritual effectiveness. It's just that simple. You say - Well, when you say confess what do you mean? Well, I don't want to spend all the time this morning on that but let me just say this. To confess sin, the word confess means to say the same thing, it's homologe, to say the same.It is to agree with God about your sin. It is to acknowledge your sin. It is to repent of your sin. It is to forsake your sin. And it is to thank God for forgiving it and anything less than that is not true confession. I agree with You, God, about my sin. You're right. And as soonas you do that you free God to chasten you without any impunity. You realize that. Because you just admitted that you deserved it. And God has the right for you to admit that because when people don't admit their sin and God chastens they often blame God. That's why Joshua said to Achan in Joshua 7:19, "Give glory to God and confessyour sin." In other words, God is going to judge you, you might as well admit that you deserve it first so God will still be glorified. So when you acknowledge your sin you glorify God when He chastens as One who had the right to do that. And then you are to repent of it, turn from it. And you are to forsake it, and then to thank God for forgiving it. That's the thing God wants you to do aa a daily part of life. First John 1:9, we are the ones continually confessing our sin and we are the ones being forgiven. Present tense, it's a way of life. And yet I find that many Christians never confess their sins as they should. Now and then when you get desperate you do. And the frequency varies. And the intensity varies. And sometimes we kind of throw it to God in a big general ball but we are to be dealing with our sins. I believe this is part and parcel of knowing the fullness of blessing in our lives. And every time you articulate your sin to the Lord and you give it to Him in a very specific manner there is

something very difficult about picking it back up again and doing it. On the converse I think most people don't confess their sins specifically because they want to hold it back in the backwater a little bit in case they want to use it again. Bad enough to be a sinner without being a liar about it so they just don't confess it. Now, what are we going to learn then as we examine the fourth point? We've seen the problem is sin and the provision is forgiveness. And that's only the beginning because the plea is for confession. But there is a prerequisite too. And the prerequisite is forgiving others. Forgiving others--an utterly significant prerequisite. Verses 14 and 15 elucidate the statement at the end of verse 12, "as we forgive our debtors." Now think with me. The prerequisite is to forgive others. I've given you five reasons at the beginning why you should forgive one another--five reasons to be forgiving. The character of saints, the example of Christ, the glory of man, freedom of conscience, deliverance from chastening, and finally and right here, in order to receive forgiveness ourselves we must forgive others. Look at verse 12.Let me start right there. You could translate it, "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven." The idea is before we ever seek forgiveness for our own ophileema, for our ownsin against God for which we are indebted--before we ever do that we already have forgiven those who have sinned against us. That's pretty potent stuff, folks. First we forgive then we are forgiven. That's the order it is right here. Now that's another reason it can't be talking about an unbeliever because an unbeliever has no capacity, no spiritual virtue to do an act of forgiveness by which he would earn forgiveness. It's talking about a believer. Before we come to get our feet washed each day, before we bring our sins to the Lord and say - Lord, cleanse me again and use me - we've got to be sure that we've forgiven others. That's the prerequisite. Trace your steps back for a minute, would you do that? You look at your life and you say - John, I come to church all the time. I read the Bible. I listen to tapes. I go to seminars or whatever. But I don' have the joy that I ought to have. I miss out on being used by God. I feel my life isn't all it could be. I get tired of the routine of trying to get up to a certain spiritual standard. And somebody says - You need to pray more, and so I try that. Or you need to take a class on spiritual growth or you need to read your Bible, you're not reading the word enough or here's a book you've got to read. You go through all this data, go through all of this material and all of these searches to find where the spiritual reality is missing. And maybe the answer is very simple. You're not confessing your sins. You're not going to the Lord and saying - I am a sinner, I acknowledge it. I admit it. And here are the sins, purify me. And you say - Yeah, I'm doing that. John, I've done that. I go to the Lord and I say - Lord, I've got sin in my life and here it is.... Some people I've met even have a list, you know? Write it down. And I still don't have the joy. And I still don't have the fulfillment. And I still don't see what I ought to see in my life. You haven't backed up far enough. One more step. Maybe all that confession isn't cutting it because the Lord isn't giving you release from those sins because you've still got something cooking

with somebody else that you haven't forgiven. And you have short circuited your own spiritual welfare. That's what Jesus is saying. It isn't my word, this is the Lord Jesus Christ and we know that He knows. Begin to examine your life, people, at that level. I know that I'm examining my life there. Oswald Saunders says, "Jesus is here stating a principle and God's dealing with His children." He deals with us as we deal with others. He measures us by the yardstick we use on others. The prayer is not forgive us because we forgive others but forgive us even as we have already forgiven others. That's the idea. He's going to deal with us as we deal with Him. I'll give you another illustration that's very clear. Jesus said this - Give and it what? Shall be given to you. In whatever measure you meet it out that's exactly how God will meet it out to you. Hmmm. Luke 6, how about this one? Sow sparingly reap what? Sparingly. So bountifully what? Reap bountifully. God deals with us the way we deal wit Him. Whatever we invest in His kingdom we receive a return on. If we harbor sins and grudges and so forth we cut ourselves off from the blessedness that can accrue to us because of those things. We have taught you so many times that as you give you invest with God, you receive a return on it. The same thing is true on your confession of sin and seeking forgiveness. God deals with you the way you deal with others. And maybe the short circuit in your spiritual life is just that you have some people that you're holding bitter resentment or a grudge against and it's constant. Even the Jews knew this. In 200 B.C. the Jews said - Forgiveness of your neighbor's wrongdoing means that when you pray your sins will be forgiven too. They knew that. They could understand that spiritual principle. The Talmud, the rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament says, - He who is indulgent toward others faults will be mercifully dealt with by the supreme judge Himself. What about your life? Are you forgiving? Because if you're not God's not going to forgive you and you're going to be going through the world with muddy feet. Oh, judicially you are justified and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to you but the joy is gone and the intimacy isn't there and the usefulness disappears. Now you say - Well, John, if I have a grudge like this with somebody how do I take care of it? Three steps. I think they're practical. Number one: take it to God as a sin. That's where it starts. Take it to God as a sin. Lord, there is this person and this is the way I feel and it's a sin and I admit it and I'm sorry and I acknowledge it and I repent of it and I forsake it. That's where you start. Step two, go to the person. Tough, huh? Well, I'm only telling you this so you can know spiritual joy. You make the decision. What you want to forfeit to harbor your judgment and your grudge. Second, go to the person. You say - I want to seek your forgiveness. You know, I've had people do that to me-many times. And see the freedom that comes. I may have already forgiven them. I may not even have known I did anything for which they were offended. But go to the person.

Third thing, just practical, give the person something you value very highly. It's a very practical approach. Let me tell you why. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is," what? "That's where your heart will be also." You have a grudge against somebody or a bitterness and maybe it's somebody in your family or out of your family or somebody in the church whatever you hold against somebody else is to be dealt with by number one, take it to God, number two, go to the person, and three, give them something of value. And I'll tell you this, you put something of value something that is precious to you in their hand and your heart will go with it and it will change the way you feel about them. I'll give you a true confession at this point. I'm not going to confess everything but just selected things. There have been times in my life when I felt something for someone that I shouldn't have felt, a bitterness, a bad feeling, you've wronged me. And there have been times when I have freed myself from the bondage of that through this process and the key was when I went to them and maybe it was a book that I bought, maybe it was a check that I gave them, it varied. But when I gave them the gift was when I really began to express the liberty in my spirit. There's no joy like, the joy of giving. That's what the Lord is saying to us here. Confess to the Lord all you want but you're not going to get the freedom of forgiveness until you've deal t with the human level first. Now let's see this in several other passages and then I'll be done. Just briefly. Matthew 5:7, just going to pinpoint the principle, we don't have time to go into them in detail and we've covered them in the past. Matthew 5:7, listen to it, "Blessed are the merciful," we have a whole chapter on this in the book, tremendous statement. "Blessed are the merciful for they shall," what? "Obtain mercy." In other words, if you want to receive mercy from God then you must be what? Merciful. It's a principle of spiritual life. People in Christ's kingdom are merciful. They will bear the insults of evil men and their hearts will reach out in compassion. Now in that context that has a much broader meaning and I don't want to get back into that again but just the principle is the same, it can be compared. You want mercy, you give mercy. Let me show you another one, chapter 5 verse 21: "You have heard that it was said by them of old," that is a statement that gives a reference t rabbinic tradition. Your rabbinic tradition says: "You shall not kill and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment." In other words, your teaching is that and it certainly had truth in it but it wasn't all the truth because that's as far as it went. Your tradition says just don't murder and you're okay, murder and you'll be in trouble with the law. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of judgment. Whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, and by the way that is an untranslatable epithet. That's like saying - well I don't know - it's not like saying anything it's more like a tone of voice than it is a word. To them it might be saying - You brainless, stupid idiot, you rarara ... whatever. Have you ever seen a cartoon where Charlie Brown gets mad and you just see stars and squigglies? That's what this is. This whatever, untranslatable. When you say that to someone or you say, "You fool" you have stepped into a very dangerous category, very dangerous. Why? Verse 23, "Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar

and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift, go your way and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift, and agree with youradversary quickly." We'll stop right there. The point is the same. Again, the context is a little different as we saw in our study of it but the point is the same. You cannot come offering to the Lord some sacrifice to deal with your own spiritual life until you've gotten it right with somebody else. Go away and get that right. Now some of you came to worship the Lord this morning but you can't do it, you can receive instruction but you ca't offer God worship because He won't accept it. You have come to offer God worship, you've said, Lord, I want You to know I praise You and I want You to clean me up today and ... you're going to go away just like you came because you've got relationships that are unresolved and you're unforgiving in some situations, therefore, you forfeit true worship, leave the altar, go back, get that straight, and then come back. And so you really can't worship today and you can't have your sinsdealt with but you can be instructed to begin the process that will make that a reality. My, who am I not to forgive somebody else? Who do I think I am? Well, I certainly can't forgive you. God forgave them. Who do I think I am? Psalm 23 says this, "Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." Why? Because I have to have mercy all my life long because I sin. And if God is so merciful without His mercy ever being diminished, who am I to be unmerciful to anyone. No wonder so much of Christianity is short circuited in its power--so many unresolved conflicts with people. So go away from the altar until you get your life right. If you regard iniquity in your heart, Psalm 66 says "The Lord will not," what? "Hear you." If you're harboring something, He won't hear you. James says it again, it just isn't in the gospels, James says it, 2:13, "For he shall have judgment without mercy that has shown no mercy." Don't put yourself in a chastening position. The Lord will really unload His chastening if you're not merciful to others. I mean, everybody is - manifests the same weakness in different ways; let's be forgiving. Robert Louis Stevenson lived in the South Seas and it was his habit with is children to gather them around him every day. At the close o their little discussion together they would say the Lord's Prayer as he calls it. He began to repeat the Lord's Prayer and got half way through it and arose and walked away. At that time of his life his health was rather precarious and so his wife assumed that he was feeling ill and she went to him and she said - Is there anything wrong? Only this, he said, I am not fit to pray this prayer today. Well, I guess that's where it starts, doesn't it? With a recognition that you're not fit. Don't come asking for forgiveness that you're not willing to give.
Matthew chapter 18 will provide us with a final look to illustrate this tremendous truth. Matthew chapter 18, verse 21. The whole text prior to this, by the way, down to verse 15 deals with the same issue but we don t have time to go into it. Where somebody has sinned and you go and seek reconciliation and then you take somebody with you and then tell it to the church and it's dealing all with sin, this whole thing, and forgiveness. And so Peter in response to what the Lord has said about the sinning brother in the church and all, Peter says, - Well, Lord, how often shall my brother sin

against me and I forgive him? Now the rabbis taught three times. Three times you are to forgive. Peter thought he was being magnanimous - seven times? Shall we double the rabbinic tradition plus one? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times but seventy times seven. Indefinitely, infinitely, unendingly. Why? For we are to forgive as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. And how has He forgiven us? Four-hundred and ninety times? Better hope not. If you hit 491 before you die you're in real trouble. He forgives us indefinitely. That's what our Lord is saying. Then He says let me illustrate it to you, verse 23. "Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king who had to take accountof is servants. And when he had begun to reckon one was brought unto him who owed him ten thousand talents." Now stop there for a second. This guy was a real rat, I want you to know: a scum, the worst. Ten thousand talents is so much money that it's very hard for us to conceive. And he owed 10,000 talents. You say, - Well, how could a servant ever owe that much? He probably stole the crown of jewels and hocked them and lost it all on a bad investment. Somehow he was pilfering from the king's treasury. To become indebted to that point is absolutely inconceivable at that time in the history of the world. That 10 million dollars would be beyond anybody's capacity to even understand. The guy has been robbing the king systematically. So, verse 25, he had nothing to which to pay. Huh, he's blown it all, the whole deal. If you think it's inconceivable how he got it, imagine how he got rid of it. What a foolish person. You say, the guy is not only crooked, he's stupid. One thing to steal it, that's being crooked, but it's awful stupid to lose it all. So, he had to liquidate the only assets he had and all he has was his wife and kids. So in verse 25 - you say - well, sell them off as slaves and make a little money and ... that would be about all held get. Look at verse 26, the servant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me and I will pay thee all. Oh that's really stupid. What do you mean? The guy is dumb every way you cut him. And you know your reaction normally would be - you'd be infuriated. You may have somebody holding out a couple of thousand on you and you're a basket case. And look, the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, loosed him and forgave him the debt. Now that is amazing. Guess who this king represents? God. Guess who the servant is? All of us. Did we owe a debt we couldn't pay? Huh? Better believe it. And he forgave. Why? He was compassionate. How could anybody forgive anything as astronomical as that? I want to show you more about this guy. The same servant, verse 28, went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. You know how much that was? Three months work. Peanuts, nothing. The servant went out, the one who had just been forgiven for the 10 million, went out and found a guy who owed him 3 months work. And he grabs him by the neck, it says, takes him by the throat and says - Pay me what you owe me. And the fellow servant fell down on his feet and besought him saying - Have patience with me and I will pay thee all. And he could have. But he would not. Cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. Now he couldn't pay the debt while he was in prison because he couldn't work while he was in prison. But that shows you the evil of the man's heart. So when the fellow servants saw what was done they were sorryand they came and told their lord all that was done. The rest of the servants went and reported back to the king what this guy had done. Then his

lord after he had called him said unto him, "O you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you besought me, should not you also have had compassion on your fellow servant even as I had pity on you? And his lord was angry and delivered him to the inquisitors until he could pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your heart forgive not everyone his brother his trespasses." That's the picture, people, that's the picture of somebody who wants to take all the forgiveness God can give but isn't willing to give it to somebody else. You see yourself there? You hold grudges? Oh, have you so soon forgotten, are you so ill memoried that you can't remember the mercy that you have received? Thomas Manton said, "There is none so tender to others as they which have received mercy themselves for they know how gently God hath dealt with them." Now listen to me, one of the reasons you need to acknowledge your sin as it exists and confess it by name on a constant basis is that you will be constantly reminded what a sinner you are, how constant His forgiveness is and thereby in the midst of that reminder you will be more prone to forgive others. But as you fail to acknowledge your own sin as you cover it up and not deal with it, you not only will lose your intimacy and your joy and the fullness of usefulness, but you will find yourself becoming unforgiving to others because you're not being honest about what God is forgiving in your own life. Lord Herbert, I think, put it very well, he said; "He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass." What have we learned? We have a problem--it's sin. God is the provision, it's forgiveness. Lord makes a plea--confession. There's a prerequisite--forgiving others. An unforgiving Christian is a contradiction, a proud selfish, weak memoried creature who has forgotten that his sins have been washed away. Learn to confess, beloved, and before you confess learn to forgive.

Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time The Protection of Prayer Scripture: Matthew 6:13 Code: 2244

PAY ATTENTION TO TEMPTATION!

Pauls warning to take heed lest [you] fall (1 Cor. 10:12) is as necessary today as it has ever been. For we, like all who have gone before us, are fallen, temptable, and subject to thinking and doing what is wrong. Few teachings of Scripture have more practical implications for day-to-day living.

Opportunities for temptation are almost endless. And since human nature is not getting any better, nor is any of us immune to the corrupted appetites of the flesh, we need to take Pauls warning seriously and watch out for temptation, or we will surely fall. Yet Scripture offers several alternatives for dealing with temptation as we find it: (1) We should avoid temptation whenever possible. Proverbs 4:1415 urges us, Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it, do not travel on it. Often we know beforehand whether a certain set of circumstances is likely to lead to sin. Therefore, the obvious way to AVOID sin is to avoid those circumstances. Paul described a way of escape from temptation (1 Cor. 10:13). Often the escape is to stay away from the place or the people where temptation lurks. As believers, we can help others in this regard. We can avoid setting up situations that encourage people to do wrong. Teachers, for example, can help students avoid cheating by making assignments, giving tests, and communicating expectations in ways that reduce the need or incentive to cheat. Likewise, business owners and managers can devise procedures that dont needlessly place employees in a position where they might be tempted to steal cash, inventory, or equipment. Its not that a teacher or employer cant trust students or employees, but that no one can trust human nature to be immune from temptation. (2) We should FLEE from powerful temptations. Earlier in this letter, Paul warned the Corinthians to flee sexual immorality (6:18). Here he warned them to flee idolatry (10:14). Elsewhere he warned Timothy to flee the lust for material possessions and wealth (1 Tim. 6:9 11), as well as youthful lusts (2 Tim. 2:22). The message is clear: dont toy with temptation. Flee from it! (3) Chronic temptation is something we need to CONFESS and offer to Christ, and ask for His cleansing work. Some temptations are powerful inner struggles, with thoughts and attitudes that graphically remind us of how fallen we really are. What should we do with that kind of temptation? Rather than deny it or try to repress it, we should bring it to Christ. He alone is capable of cleaning up the insides of our minds. (4) Finally, we must RESIST temptation until it leaves us. When Christ was tempted by the devil, He resisted until the devil went away (Matt. 4:111). James encouraged us to do the same (James 4:7). Resistance begins by bathing our minds with the Word of God and standing our ground. We have the promise, after all, that the temptations we experience will never go beyond the common experiences of others, or beyond our ability to deal with them (1 Cor. 10:13). That is great news!
Word in Life Study Bible . electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1996, S. 1 Co 10:12

This morning we come to our last message in the disciple's prayer, Mat hew 6 verses 9 to 13. I say our last message not because I think we'll never talk about it again but the last in our ongoing series in this portion for this time anyway in our study here at Grace. Matthew chapter 6 and I'd like to read and you're hearing, verses 9 to 13 again as a setting for what I want to say to you and then we'll wrap up this final thirteenth verse this morning. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye; Our Father who 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. For Thine is the kingdom and the powerandthe glory forever. Amen." We've been learning to pray. I trust we've been learning our lessons well. Our teacher has been none other than the Lord Jesus Christ who has given us this model for prayer. I dare say it behooves us to listen well and learn well and apply well the things that the dear Lord Himself has taught us. I know in my own life my praying has been reshaped to fit the pattern that the Lord has given us here. For this prayer known asthe Lord's Prayer or the disciple's prayer is a skeleton for all praying; it embodies all prayers in its features. For the ingredients for this prayer touch every area of need and every element of glorifying and praising God. It is a comprehensive masterpiece of all that is necessary and part of true prayer. In bold contrast does Jesus present this prayer. In bold contrast to the substandard, inadequate, unacceptable praying that was common in His time. And if you were with us when we studied the previous portion from verse to 8 of chapter 6, you remember that the Lord first of all pointed out the inadequacy, the failings of the prayer that was going on in the culture of His time. And He divided it really into two groups; there was the praying of the Pharisees and the praying of the pagans. The praying of the Pharisees, you will note in verse 5, was characterized by hypocrisy. They prayed standing in the synagogues and at the widest portions of the intersections of the street in order to be seen by men. They were spiritually phony. They were parading themselves. They were not praying for the glory of God, for the sake of God, or for the expression of true religion but rather they were praying to be seen. It was hypocrisy at its worst.

And then there were in that culture the pagans. And if you'll notice in verse 7 it says the pagans pray using vain repetition thinking they will be heard for their much speaking. The Pharisees then prayed hypocritically and the pagans prayed mechanically. For the Pharisees the prayer was only a pretense of supposed piosity. And for the pagans it was a mindless babbling routine and ritual meant to badger their god into response. And so if the sin of the Pharisees was selfishness, the sin of the pagans was mindlessness. If the sin of the Pharisees was hypocrisy, the sin of the pagans was ritualism, mechanical prayer. And Jesus sets over against that in absolute and direct opposition the proper kind of prayer. And so we learn at the very beginning, then, that our prayer is never to be hypocrisy, it's never to b simply mechanics. We are never to pray as a pretense. We are never to pray as a parade of our supposed spirituality and we are never to pray as a ritual, as a routine, as a form. And yet how amazing it is that this very prayer, the Lord's Prayer, which is set in contrast to that kind of praying, has been used as a vehicle for both hypocritical praying and mechanical praying. How many times have people stood up and muttered the Lord's Prayer hypocritically with their hearts not pure and right before God? How many times have you in your past muttered off the Lord's Prayer mechanically at the end of some ritual or some routine or some other prayer mindlessly muttering words without a thought? And so even though the Lord sets this over against the contrast of hypocrisy and mechanics we find that this even can fall into the category when the heart is not right. You say - Well, how must we focus to make the heart right? Well, if you've studied the prayer with us you know that simply and only we focus on God. For more than anything else this prayer exalts God. It is a prayer that in every phase and every petition beginning and closing and all in between focuses on God, His person, His attributes and His wonderful works, are the thrust of this prayer. And so, in order to prevent this prayer from being hypocritical or mechanical we must come praying with a focus on God so there is the death of self and the end of mindless, contentless non-communion. True prayer then is in humility expressing absolute dependence on God. And that's what our Lord is after. This prayer is God centered not self-centered. It is truth-centered, mind-centered, not mouthcentered, as we think of the thoughts that are true about God we speak a prayer that has as its goal His own glory. John Stott says in summing up the thoughts I've just given you, "When we come to God in a prayer we do not come hypocritically like play actors seeking the applause of men, nor do we come mechanically like pagan babblers whose mind is not in their mutterings, but thoughtfully, humbly and trustfully like little children we come to our Father, and that is the essence of the prayer." The basic, reality of this prayer, then, is the truth about God. For until we know the truth about God we do not really know how we can prayto God and so we must be taught and then pray in response. Hypocrites pray because they have a wrong view of God. They think they're more important than He is. Ritualists pray because they have a wrong view of God--they don't understand that God is a God of love who desires to grant them things and so they badger God with their endless mutterings as if

He had to be intimidated into a response. It is an inadequate theology in both cases, which makes their prayer so substandard and so we when we pray must under gird and under pin our praying with a concept of God that is true and comprehensive. And the more you know about God, the richer and fuller and more meaningful your prayer life will become. So, to pray properly you must allow the Scripture to form your knowledge of God. I dare say that my prayer life today is totally unlike my prayer life fifteen years ago, or ten or five. Because the more I know of God the more my prayer follows the biblical pattern and the more I see the proper expression and the proper response from God in return. Let me add just a footnote to all of this as you look at that prayer. It struck me as I studied this prayer again and again that every petition in this prayer promises us something that God already guarantees. Every single petition already is a gilt-edgedpromise from God so that there's nothing to the fact that we are begging God for what is reluctantly dispensed on our behalf, but rather it is simply claiming or laying claim to what is already ours. For example, God's name will be Hallowed; that's His desire. God's kingdom will come;His will is to be done. He's already promised to give us our daily bread. He has already granted us in Christ absolute and total and complete forgiveness. And He's already promised that He will lead us and guide us and direct us away from evil in the path of righteous-ness. So, when we are praying, beloved, what we are really doing is merely we are claiming what is already promised to us. Therefore, the more we understand about the promises of God the richer our prayers become. We're not begging God for what He reluctantly gives, we're really laying claim to the promise. It's as if we had a policy with God and when we want to lay a claim, we have a right to a claim. The premium has been paid by Christ, the policy is ours, all the benefits are rendered in our behalf, and all we have to do is make the claim. And so we're praying here not in a begging fashion--and I believe that is why the prayer is so short, all we really have to do is register with God the need and having met the conditions He responds. And there are conditions, we've seen that. Right? It's one thing to pray, "Hallowed be Thy name," but if there is impurity in my life and unholiness in my life and a lack of virtue in my life and sin in my life God's name cannot be hallowed through me. But if I meet the conditions and my life is pure, His name is hallowed. And if my life is pure His kingdom is made manifest. And if I submit to His will in obedience His will will be done. And if I'm living as I ought to live before Him, He'll meet my daily needs. And if I have done right with my brothers and sisters and I have forgiven them and taken care of those things, then He will cleanse and forgive me. And if I am desirous to walk in the path of righteousness, then He will lead me away from temptation and into the things that are right and good. In other words, as I meet the condition I lay claim to the promise-- that's what prayer is. That's what prayer is. And beyond that, beloved, beyond that which is promised by God in the word to which we lay claim we have to say Lord, You don't talk about this in Your word but I'm praying it and simply willing to accept Your answer. But in this prayer we lay claim to what is

already guaranteed to us. Now as noted all of the features of this prayer speak of God. Our Father, that's God's paternity. Hallowed be Thy name, that's God's priority. Thy kingdom come, that's God's program. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, that's God's purpose. Give us this day our daily bread, that's God's provision. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, that's God's pardon. And now this morning, "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil," that's God's protection. And then it ends with God's preeminence in that great doxology that closes this prayer. Six petitions: The first three related to God and His glory. The last three related to man and his need. We come then to verse 13, the sixth and final petition. And I believe it's one not two, it's just a continuing thought lead us not into temptation ala the adversative but deliver us from evil, it's tied together as one. This is God's protection. We move then from our physical need to our spiritual need to what you might call our moral need. God takes care of our daily bread, that's physical sustenance. God takes care of the sin of our lives by forgiveness and God takes care of the moral standard of our life by guiding us away from sin. Verse 12 deals with past sins, verse 13 with future ones. Let me just say something here as a footnote. If you're a true Christian, let me tell you this, if you're a true Christian I believe in my heart that you are just as concerned about your future sins being avoided as your past ones being forgiven. Did you get that? I mean, everybody is really happythat the past is forgiven and if that is a genuine expression of saving faith I believe we are just as anxious that we be delivered from the future ones. When somebody comes along and says - Well, I'm so glad my sins of the past are forgiven, it's so wonderful to know that He keeps forgiving everything, I'm just going to go on and do whatever I want and live it up. I'm going to sin so that grace may abound and it's all forgiven anyway.I question the legitimacy of such a claim to salvation. Because a true son of God, this prayer says, not only is anxious that the past be forgiven but that future sins be avoided. Why? Because to be a believer is to have a changed attitude toward sin. It is on the one and - Thank You, God, for forgiveness from the past and please, God deliver me from sins of the future. I am just as concerned about the future and not sinning as I am about the past and what I have done. The sinner whose evil past has been forgiven longs to be delivered from the tyranny of sin in the future. I know what sin does in the past; I don't want to get involved in it again in the future. God has been so gracious to forgive the past, I'm not anxious to tread on His grace in the future. And so the expression of our Lord is this: as we touch the point of human need at its deepest place, we not only need forgiveness we need more than that, we need preservation. We need deliverance. We need to be forgiven when we sin, yes, but we need to be delivered so we don't sin too. And that is the cry of verse 13. The true Christian doesn't seek license, he doesn't find in grace a way to trample on God, a way to abuse His love, a way to force God to constantly forgive, but rather He seeks sanctification.

Now some people have been confused by this petition, look at it in verse 1. At first it seems simple, Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. And we say at first - Oh, that's clear. Keep us out of trouble, God, keep us out of trouble. But as you look at it a little closer several questions are immediately drawn to your attention. Number one, lead us not into temptation. You mean we have to ask God to do that? Does God lead us to temptation if we don't ask Him? Can a holy, righteous, pure, undefiled, blameless, unblemished, virtuous God possibly lead anybody to temptation? And to ask Him to deliver us from evil, I mean, if we don't ask Him is He going to put us into evil? That's the dilemma. People say if it means temptation? Lead us not into temptation--would God do that? On the other hand people say - No, you see the word temptation there means trial and the prayer says - Lead us not into trials. Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. James said - Count it all joy when you fall into trials. Because the trying of your faith brings patience and patience has a perfect work. So if you take it as a temptation you've got a problem because does God tempt us? James 1:13 says, "Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God, for God can neither be tempted nor does God ever tempt any man." So, how in the world can we say - Lord, don't tempt us when the Bible says He never will anyway? On the other hand if we say - Don't lead us into a trial, Lord, then we're denying another verse in James chapter 1 that says "Count it all joy when you enter into a trial." Now you see a little of the problem? No matter how you deal with the word here it seems to leave us with a problem. And let's see if we can't kind of deal with that problem as we go along and I think you'll see the point. Let me say at this point what you have to keep in mind. Basically, and I think Chrysostom, the early church father, is right when he says this, this particular petition is the most natural appeal of human weakness as it faces danger. In other words, it's not so cognitive; it's not so rational as it is emotional. It's the cry of the heart and it may not be the most theologically reasoned statement but it is the issue and the utterance of the heart that despises and hates the potential of sin. And so we really don't look at it in a very precise, theological frame of reference so much as we hear it as the pain of the heart that cries to God for deliverance for encroachingevil. Now realize that Christian character is strengthened by trials. I realize that I grow in my trials. I realize that trials have a perfecting work. I also realize that God doesn't tempt me. God never tempts anybody anytime to do anything wrong. That would be to defy His own nature. You say - Well, what I've got here is a paradox. That's right. But it's not an unknown paradox elsewhere in Scripture. For example, in Matthew chapter 5 you'll remember that the Bible says there, "Rejoice when you're persecuted." But if you go to Matthew chapter 10 verse 23 it says, "Flee persecution." That's a paradox.

Now what are we supposed to do? Stand there and rejoice or run? There's a paradox there. There's a sense in which we run from persecution but when it catches us, we can know joy in the midst of it.

There's a sense in which we resist a trial, nobody likes a trial, nobody seeks a trial, we run from a trial, there's a dread and a fear in our hearts about going through certain trials but we know that even in the midst of those trials there's a working of strength. There's an exercise of spiritual muscle. And we're better for them and stronger for them. It's not unlike our dear Lord who said, "Father, let this cup pass from Me." I mean, there was something in His humanness that didn't want that. And yet it was through that He redeemed the world, you see. And so there is something in the human heart that says, Lord if You can spare me the trial, do it, but if I have to go into the trial, then deliver me from the evil potential that is there. Do you see that's the essence of it? It is a prayer based on self-distrust. It is the humility of self-distrust that grows out of the previous petition. Because I know I'm a sinner. Because I sense my debt. Because I have gone through the pain of confession so many times. Because I am so battered and bruised by a fallen world around me that continues to bump into me I ask - God, deliver me from these things. I don't trust myself, I don't know about you. I have to set a watch-man over my eyes. I have to set a watchman over my ears. I have to set a watchman over my tongue. I have to be careful where I go and what I see and who I talk to about what because I don't trust myself. And when I get into a trying situation it's at that point that I rush into the presence of God like the sentry on duty who doesn't fight the enemyhimself but runs to tell the commander, I retreat to the presence of God and I say - God, I will be overwhelmed in this thing unless You come to my aid. And so it's a prayer based on selfdistrust. The kingdom child realizes he lives in a fallen world and that fallen world pounds against him with temptations of great strength, which he in his own humanness can never resist. This is a fallen world, people. Just look at nature in itself. What do we see? Men face volcanoes and earthquakes, they face fires and floods and pestilences and accidents and disease and death just on the natural level. Look at the intellectual world. How difficult it is for man to find the truth. His judgments are partial and unfair. Man careens on in the chaos of relativistic thinking to a destruction that is inevitable. Propelled by his own self bias and having to determine that he himself is God. Logic is ruled by pride. Intellects are ruled by lust. Material gain makes liars out of men. There is the constant colliding of human opinions. All of these things tell us of the fallenness of the intellectual world. Look at the emotional world. Grief and care and anxiety. The inability to handle attitudes shrivel up man's spirit. His soul is chafed by the rubbing together of life with life; envy stings him, hate embitters him, greed like a canker eats away at him. His affections are misplaced. His love is trampled. His confidence is betrayed. Rich, he steps on the poor. Poor, he seeks to dethrone the rich. Prisons and hospitals and mental institutions, penitentiaries mark the moral emotional upheaval of man. Look at the spiritual world. That's the darkest and thickest blackness of all. Man is out of harmony with God. The machinery of man's moral nature is visibly out of gear. He's running out of sync with

God's divine plan. Evil tendencies dominate man from his tainted fallen ancestry. He may want to do right but he feels pulled down by some irresistible gravity of evil. And it's a fallen world every way you cut it. And man is faced with an overpowering evil. Man is divided. He is a disheveled thing, he is a monster. He is one who is prone to anything evil, conscious of his inability to stand it. And so we live in this knowledge. We live in this fallenness and the cry of the heart of the believer is God, lead me out of the potential of evil that's in my trials. Let's look at the phrase itself. "And lead us not into temptation." Would God deliberately lead us to temptation? Look at James 1 for a minute. Would He do that? James 1:13 says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempted He any man." God never tempts anybody. Now God may allow Satan to bring certain trials into Job's life but Satan does the tempting not God. God may allow, 1 Corinthians 5:5, some evil believer in the church to be turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, but it is Satan who inflicts it not God. God may discipline as in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 20, "Turning one over to Satan to learn not to blaspheme." God may permit Jesus Christ to feel the onslaughts of hell against Him on the cross, but it is not God that does the tempting. Sometimes in His encompassing will He allows that by the way, beloved, you will note that God allows all that is because He is in control of everything. So that's no problem for your theology. God has to allow everything there is or it couldn't be. And there are times when God allows us certain trials. There are times when God allows Satan to have his way in our lives because we've been disobedient and unfaithful. There are times like in Job's case when God allows Satan to do some things to prove how righteous we are. But God is not the tempter. Evil never touches God. Quite on the contrary. James 1 says verse 14, "Every man is tempted not by God but when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed." I think when he's drawn awayof his own lust is that internal drawing of the flesh and enticed, you can add in parenthesis by Satan is that external pull by Satan. Men sin because they are tempted. And they are tempted internally by their lust and externally by the enticement of Satan. Then when lust conceives it brings forth sin. And sin when it's finished brings forth death. But watch this: "Do not err my beloved brethren." Don't make a mistake at this point.When sin comes and lust comes and temptation comes remember this, "every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning." Know this: every gift that God ever gives is a good and a perfect gift. And that will never vary and God will never turn from that so that when evil comes it comes not from God. And it is important to understand this theological truth. People hassle about this all the time. God allows evil. That's in His own choice. And we'll have to wait until eternity if even then to find out why, but God allows evil. God does not do evil or tempt to do evil. Everything that proceeds from God is a good and perfect thing. You have to keep that tension in your mind. God allows certain things but they are not

the expression of His heart, His mind or His will or character. In fact, if you want to know what God feels about temptation simply listen to Jesus in Matthew 26:41, Jesus said to His disciples, "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation." In other words, He wanted them to avoid it. And how does Satan tempt us? Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and what's the third one, 1 John 2? Pride of life. And it says, "These are of the world, they are not of the Father." You see? Those things do not proceed from the Father but from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now the total is within the framework of God's allowance, for He has given men choice. He didn't make us robots, to love Him and to do right because we had no choice. And so God does not tempt us to do evil. Rather God's desire is that we watch and pray and not enter into temptation. Now listen, when you sin don't blame God. Lust comes as the Latin's used to say, "ab intra" from inside or "ab extra" from outside--from Satan but not from God, not from God. So the first thing we want to do then is go back now to Matthew and let's apply what we've just said. "Lead us not into temptation." Now we see the word temptation. Listen, we see the word temptation and it's a very important thing to stop and see what that word means. It's the word pirasmos. It is used over and over in the Scripture. It is a neutral word. It doesn't mean bad, it doesn't mean good, it is simply a test or a trial. That's all it means. Now the English word temptation means seduction to evil. But the word temptation is not always the right translation. Sometimes this word is translated test, sometimes it's translated prove, sometimes it's translated trial, sometimes it's translated temptation and that's because it can be any of those things. It is a test, it is a neutral word. We think of temptation as a seductive act which draws us into sin. But the word pirasmoshere I'm convinced would better be translated trial. Let's read it that way. Lead us not into trials, testings. Now, let me give you a thought here. Anytime there is a legitimate trial or test there is the possibility to pass or to what? Fail or it isn't a test. You have got to have the possibility to pass or fail, succeed or not to succeed. So when God brings a trial, now mark this, there is always the possibility that that trial can be turned into a temptation. Joseph said in Genesis chapter 50 verse 20 regarding his brother selling him into Egypt, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for," what? "For good." In every vicissitude and struggle and trial of life God brings it along to test us, to exercise spiritual muscle, to strengthen us, to grow us to maturity, but in the midst of that if we don't perceive it through the eyes of God, commit it to God, stand in His strength, Satan turns it into a temptation, entices our lust, draws us into sin. So, mark it, the word is a very fitting word. When the prayer says, "Lead us not into trials," I believe the implication of the prayer is - Lord, don't ever lead us into a trial which will present to us such a temptation that we will not be able to resist it. Did you get that? Don't ever lead us into something that we can't handle. Don't give us a trial that is going to become an irresistible temptation

but rather deliver us from any trial that would bring evil on us as a natural consequence. Don't put us into something we can't handle. And you know that's just a claim of a promise as we shall see in a little while. The term implies testing. It implies a process. And by the way, anytime you see a word like pirasmoswith an asmosending on it that is a Greek noun that the asmosending implies a process. Don't put us into any process,any procedure, any series of circumstances, any situation that is going to draw us into irresistible sin. Now James is assuming, and I think that it has to be assumed here, that God is not going to do this. A holy, sinless, absolutely righteous God is not going to incite us to sin; He's not going to allure us into sin. He's not going to tempt us into sin but He will bring things into our lives that become tests for us. You walk along and you pass a certainmagazine, a certain book, a certain movie theater, a certain program on your television, that's a test, that's a test. It can be a test to show you your spiritual strength, cause you to grow or if you fail it turns into a temptation that incites your lust and draws you into sin. You're fired from your job, it might be a test. How you going to handle it? On top, positive, joyous, committing it to the Lord? You passed. But in the midst of it Satan says that dirty guy that's your boss, you ought to do everything you can to ruin his reputation, talk about him, bad mouth him, gripe, complain, say a few words to God, too, for making it tough on you. And Satan's working on the temptation end of the same circumstance while God is working on the trial. It's kind of like Matthew chapter 4, it says; "The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be pirazane"--to be tested. For God it was a test to prove His virtue, for Satan it was a temptation to destroy His virtue, you see? And so that's the way it's going to be in ourtrials. That's why trials are valuable. You have to have them to grow. At the same time they potentiate sin. Job said, "When He has tried me I shall come forth as gold," because he approached his trial the right way. James 1 says, "Count it all joy when you enter in trial because trials have their perfect work." Peter said, "In this you rejoice that now for a little while you have to suffer various (pirasmos) trials so that the genuineness of your faith more precious than gold may rebound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." In other words, the trial is to prove the genuine gold of your faith. Pirasmosis a trial. God's purpose is for good but Satan tries to turn it to evil. Summing up what are we saying? A trial is a test to prove your strength, exercise your spiritual muscle, develop your spiritual strength. Like God tested Abraham in the offering of Isaac, Hebrews 11:17 says. God wanted to show what a virtuous man he was, strengthen his faith but Satan wants to turn it to a temptation. And the cry of the verse is simply this, O God, do not lead us or allow us not to be led, cause us not to be led. Don't permit us to be led into a pirasmoswhich becomes an irresistible temptation that we can't handle.

And you want to know something interesting? This means that the Lord has to work out your whole life because there are certain things that you need to grow. But if they came to you at the wrong time of your life while you were too young in the faith, you wouldn't handle them; instead of growing you'd fall to them. For example, there are certain temptations that come to me now that I never could have dealt with when I was young in the faith. Never. But as I have been strengthened, I am able now to deal with more than I was then. The Lord has to then order our whole life so that at no point in our life will we ever be tempted in a situation where we do not have the strength to resist. So Satan and the flesh enter our trials--trials that God brings to perfect us, trials that God brings to help us to strengthen others, trials that God brings us to teach us to trust Him, trials that God brings to drive us to the word of God and to our knees. And into those trials comes Satan with his temptations. And depending on how you respond the tale will be told. So, this petition, beloved, is a safeguard against presumption and it's a safeguard against false senses of security when you think you stand you better take heed lest you what? Fall. Oh, you think you've arrived spiritually but you haven't. A rich and simple phrase. By the way, the word into - Lead us not into - it's an interesting word, it's sin the Greek and some have compared it to the Hebrew lidah, which means into the power of or into the hands of so that what it's saying is - Do not cause us to be led into the hands of the trial. In other words, if the trial is around us that's one thing, but don't let us get into the hands of that trial, that's when it becomes a temptation. In other words, as long as we're in the boat the sea can churn all it wants, just keep us in the boat. Don't let us get into the sea or we'll drown. Don't let us get caught in the vortex of the trial; keep us in Your hands in the midst of that trial. By the way, our dear Lord prayed the same prayer in John 17:15 when He said to the Father, "Father I ask not that You take them out of the world but that while they're in the world You keep them from the evil one." Don't let them fall into the hands of or into the power of the evil one. Martin Luther said, "We cannot help being exposed to the assaults but we pray that we may not fall and perish under them." end quote. And that's the essence of it. It's a prayer for God to defend us when He tests us so Satan and the flesh do not turn His test into temptation, which become irresistible and draw us into lust, lust into sin. Now, how do we deal with it in the middle of the trial? When we begin to feel temptation coming, here we are in the trial, somebody's died, we've lost a beloved one, lost a job, angry at our wife or kids, conflicts in relationships, upset with the church, whatever it is we're in a trial, financial, emotional, psychological, social, spiritual, we're in this trial and we're saying - Alright, Lord, this is a growing time and Satan begins to hit at us and want to make us bitter and angry and so how do we deal with it? I think James 4:7 gives us a simple word. We don't have time to go into it in detail, I want to wrap up our thoughts, but in James 4:7 it says this; "Submit yourselves, therefore, to God." Submit yourselves

therefore to God. Now how do you do that? What do you mean submit to God? Well, that means get under God's Lordship, would you agree with that? Get under His Lordship. Well, what does that mean? That means if I'm going to submit to God and to His Lordship then that means I'm going to do what He what? Says. What does it mean to submit to God then? It means to live in submission to biblical principles. He's just quoted in verse 5. "Do you think the Scripture saith in vain?" Talking about the Scriptures. Submit yourselves therefore to God. How has God self-disclosed Himself? How has God revealed the principles of His Lordship? How has God manifested that which He wants us to do in His word? And so as we enter into a situation of a trial, what we do then is we begin to order our responses to that trial according to the principles of the word of God. And that's how we submit to God and as we order our life according to the principles of the Word of God we find that in that way we resist the devil and he will what? Flee. That's a great word, isn't it? Submitting to God isn't some esoteric thing, it's not some spaced-out emotional trauma. Submitting to God is ordering my life to respond in accord with the biblical revelation of God's will. And so in the midst of the trial I say - O God, I need Your strength infused in me and I submit to the truths of Your word. And my responses and my attitudes and my actions and my thoughts and my deeds are all in submission to Your word. You can pray to submit to God all you want, but until you get your life ordered it isn't going to do any good to pray that way. You can say - I submit to You, Lord, protect me--and just keep on sinning and just keep on wrongly reacting and you're violating the very thing you're asking for. Submitting to God is to submit to His word. It is His word that proves off the succor branches in John 15. It is His word that is hidden in our hearts that we might not sin. It is His word that is the sword that defends us against the attack, Ephesians 6. And so that's what He is saying. How are we going to be delivered in the midst of the trial? By submitting to God. And as we submit to the truths of His word and take up the sword of God and begin to put it into use in our lives then in that manner we resist the devil and he flees. And that trial stays a trial and it never becomes an irresistible temptation. What is this petition saying, beloved? Listen now, I want you to get it. It faces the danger of living in a cursed world where we are being battered by evil around us. It confesses our inadequacy to deal with that evil. It confesses the weakness of our flesh. It confesses the absolute lack of human resource. It takes into account the fact that we are impotent and it demands the protection of a loving Father as we submit to His word. My heart shrinks from trials, I don't like trials. I don't look for them, I prayed many times in my life, Lord, bring into my life what I need to be the man You want me to be. But every time I say that I think in my mind, - Boy, I don't know what I am asking. And I'm not anxiousto get into trials. As soon as I get into trials I only think of one thing, getting out. I don't think about staying in there, I think about getting out of that thing. And I look back on trials in the past and I actually get happy that they're over.

Nobody likes them. I don't like it when somebody I love dies or somebody is hurt or some problem happens in my life, I don't like that at all. And so I don't say - Lord, I just want You to know that it's so wonderful, just keep bringing them. I don't pray like that. Christ didn't pray like that. He said, "Let this cup pass from Me." But then He turned around and said, "But if this is what's necessary, Lord, then let it be." Let it be. So we cry with Christ, "Father, spare me the trial, but if the trial fits Your wisdom and the trial fits Your way and the trial fits Your will and the trial fits Your plan, then protect me through the trial so that I can come out as Daniel's three friends did without even the smell of smoke." So that I can come out as Daniel did when he walked out of that lion's den untouched. And Daniel needed protection in the lion's den and so do we when we go into that trial. Right? We can't do it on our own. There has to be a divine resource. Well, do you think God will hear this prayer? You think God will protect you from trials that are irresistible temptations that draw you into sin? I do. And it's based on the verse that I want you to see, 1 Corinthians 10:13, one of the great verses in all the Bible. And you knew I was going to get there sooner or later, didn't you? First Corinthians 10:1, what does it say? "Don't do it in your own strength," verse 12, "therefore let him that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall." Then verse 13, "There hath no (pirasmos, no trial and no temptation from Satan) but such as is common to man." You're not going to get one that's sort of super human. You're not going to get one that isn't one that everybody else doesn't have. And in the midst of it God is faithful. Do you know that, in every trial, God is faithful? He has promised never to leave you, never to forsake you and He is faithful. I'm so glad, aren't you glad God didn't say, - You know you're going to have a lot of trials in life and I'm going to try to hit about one out of ten of them for you. That would be pretty bad. He says - I'm faithful; I'll be there in every one of them. God is faithful. He will not allow you to ever be pirazo, tried or tested or tempted, above what you are able. Never. You can never say - Well, it was too much for me. He'll never allow that and He will always with that trial make the way out, ekbasis, the way out. And you know what the way out is? The way out is through. You've got to go through the trial like a tunnel. The way out is through. If you get derailed into a temptation and sin you've missed it. The way out is through, in order that you may be able to endure it. What does that say? God never ever, ever allows a trial that is more than you can handle. That's the answer to the request. Lead us not into trials but deliver us from the evils--or the evil one." The flesh or the devil. And He says--Alright! I will never let you be tempted above your able. In other words, we're only laying claim to a promise and if we meet the condition we have the right to lay claim to the promise. What is the condition? Submit yourself to the Lord and resist the devil. And that sums the prayer up. It closes with a doxology. The doxology is simply this; "For Thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever, Amen." That's a doxology. You just say it, you just think it, you just offer it to God, you don't dissect it. And by the way, there's manuscript evidence that Jesus didn't even saythis, that's why it's not included in some of your versions of the Bible. We don't know whether He said it or not. Some manuscripts have it, some don't. I'll tell you one thing, it's true. Amen? His is the kingdom, the glory and the power forever and ever, amen. That's true and I like it there and it

seems a fitting climax and some commentators say they almost think it would have to have been there because the Jews would never have closed a prayer on anegative note like that. And so because it's there and because it's true we speak it beautifully and wonderfully. It's an echo of 1 Chronicles 29:11, which says essentially the same thing, whether Jesus said it or somebody later added it, it's certainly true. His is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever and forever. What have we learned in this prayer? All that we need is available to us. First God gets the rightful place, the first three petitions and then ourneeds are brought to Him and met in His wonderful eternal supply. Let's pray together. Father, we echo this prayer in our own hearts. Deliver us from evil. Deliver us from sin's penalty, sin's dominion, sin's guilt. Deliver us from sin's consequences as affecting our intellects and our emotion. Deliver our wills from bondage, our judgments from perversion, our imaginations from falsehood. Deliver our memories from bitter reminisces. Deliver our instincts from sinful drifting. Deliver our affections from what is earthly. Deliver us from weakness that we may know the fullness of Your strength. Thank You for this time, Father, this morning. We bless Your name for it. Thank You for this prayer. Your name be Hallowed, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, continue to give us as abundantly You have in the past our daily bread. Help us to be forgiving others that we may know the fullness of Your paternal forgiveness. And thank You for the promise that You'll never lead us into something we can't handle. But, Lord, we can't handle any trial unless we submit to You and resist the devil. Help us meeting the conditions to know the fulfillment of the inestimable promises of this prayer and to pray as we ought for Your glory, for Your's is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.