Prayer Principles (Part 2)

Prayer Principles

Matthew 6:7-15

By Pastor Jordan Hines

If you'll remember, last week we went through verses seven or five through seven. Today we're going to be in verses eight to 15. And you probably know this section as the Lord's prayer.

The Lord's prayer is a very famous prayer, and what it is is a template. It gives us an idea of what we ought to be doing in our prayers. Not exactly the words, but the kinds of prayers that we ought to be praying.

Can you pass those out for me, Ryan, as those go around? You can find that in your bibles. Yeah, the printer's being wonky. It just adds character.

A little character on those sheets right there. Yes, they have. All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer before we study this passage.

God, thank you for giving us a template, a picture of what it looks like to pray to you, what it looks like to go to our heavenly Father to come as children who love you, who love to serve and walk with you. Help us tonight as a church to grow in our understanding of just how important you are in our lives and how important prayer should be in our lives. Help us to quiet the distractions.

Help us to be prepared to learn and grow. In your son's name, we pray. Amen.

That passage. Stand up and read nice and loud, or read nice and loud if you don't want to stand up, therefore do not be like them. For your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him.

In this manner, therefore pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Thank you. Who remembers what we talked about last week? Lynn, we had something to. Not in the corners or family.

Right. What was the label that was given to those people? Hypocrites. Right.

And verse eight kind of points back to that description. It says, therefore, do not be like them, the hypocrites. For your father knows the things that you have need of before you ask him.

So these hypocrites, if you remember, were praying publicly, praying openly, not so they could have sincere conversation with their creator, with God, but so that they could get attention from men. And what is being said here in the book of Matthew is that God already knows the prayer request that we need to ask. So we're not asking so that everyone hears.

We're not asking to remind God of what we need. God already knows. It needs to be us coming to God in a humble way, recognizing who we are before him.

Don't pray publicly to be seen by men, but pray privately so you can be more intimate with God, more sincerely worshiping God. So that's kind of the entry point into this passage, into this very famous prayer. And verse nine kind of gives us that entry point.

It says in this manner, therefore, because this is true, pray this way. So it's a pattern. It's a way that you should pray, not that you should pray these exact words every single time.

Otherwise it would become very liturgical, very not very purposeful. It would become very empty, just empty words. You can't just say the same things, those vain repetitions as the previous passage talks about over and over again.

There's nothing magical about these words in particular. What God cares a lot more about is our heart behind our words. So in this manner, pray, therefore, in this way.

Interestingly enough, before we get into this, it's called the Lord's prayer, but really it's the Lord's desire for how we should pray. Because if you really want the Lord's prayer, you'd go to John 17. This is Jesus speaking with God, his father, before the events of the crucifixion, before his trials, before all these things.

He's talking to God as only Jesus can in John 17, as this great high priest, as this lamb who's about to be sacrificed. So that's an interesting point. If you can research that on the side, that'd be great.

I think we're going to study that in a couple weeks in John 17. But we see in verses nine through ten, in this manner pray. Therefore, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

It's a very God centered opening, which, if you look at your own prayers, this might be a very convicting thought, that when we pray, do we start with God? You are this God. You are so great God. You have been so merciful, so gracious, so kind to me.

Do we start with who God is? Because if we don't start with who God is, I think we fail to see the full weight of what we're doing when we come to God. Us sinful human beings, faulty human beings with sin problems, come before a holy God because we have been saved by Jesus Christ. So who do we pray to? Our heavenly Father says in verse nine.

So the question here is, what does the fact that God is our father change about our prayer life? What does the fact that God is our father change about our prayer life? How does this affect our prayer life? Think about this simple fact that when we pray, we pray to our father. Yes, Lynn? Yes. It's personal.

It's not like going in the street corner and talking to a random person. It's going home and talking to your father. Anything else? Maybe in the way that we can go to this person.

How does that change that? With respect, with honor. I would also add confidently, in truth, our father knows the truth about us. We come to him.

If we lie to our father, it's pretty obvious. It's a stupid idea to lie to God. That's right.

Because he sees us. He knows our heart. I would say we also have special privileges as children.

Not just everyone can go to God. You have to be a child of God. You have to be reconciled back to God as a person who is in the family of God.

And then he gives three requests here. The first one is hallowed be your name. There's some key words here.

The first word is hallowed. It's a pretty simple word. It just means holy, set apart, consecrated.

It's different. It's distinct. So what Jesus is saying here is you come to a God who is holier than you will ever be, or, sorry, I don't want to misspeak holier than we are right now.

We will be glorified, but holier than we could ever hope to be on this earth. He is consecrated. His name is higher than ours.

He is God. He is your God. It's personal.

Hallowed be your name. What do you think Jesus is talking about when he says hallowed be your name? Any ideas on what that might be talking about beyond just the name of God? Yeah, it comes with everything that who God is of his character. Yeah.

Sean. A name is the Bible. A name is something that represents a person who they are.

Right. I would even go as far to say it's his reputation, his testimony. Everything we know about God we're calling upon here.

Hallowed be God. His reputation, his name. Our prayers should note how holy God is, especially in comparison to our humanity.

Psalm 84 says, what is man that you are mindful of him. The son of man that you visit him. What is man, that you are mindful of him.

When God looks at us, it's a miracle that he calls us his children, especially after we have sinned against him, especially after we have rebelled against him. And yet he has reconciled us back. He has bought us back and made us his children.

That's the first request. The first request is, see who you are before God, hallowed be your name. The second request is in verse ten.

Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And it's sort of tied to the third request. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Remember, the context of this passage is the sermon on the mountain. It's talking about the kingdom. It's talking about future hope, future glory.

And obviously we understand that the Jews rejected their savior, rejected their Christ, and now this is a future hope that even we, as believers can look forward to. But as these people are talking about, are looking at the kingdom, they're saying Jesus is saying, pray that God would accomplish his purposes, that God would accomplish his will in a literal, physical kingdom. Why might these Jews want a literal, physical kingdom? Right.

Was that your answer, Thomas? Lynn's taking all the answers over here. Yeah. Sean, that's true.

Yeah. From one Samuel. Yeah.

It's their history. They're looking for this Messiah and this literal physical kingdom. And the well read Jewish people would have been looking for this.

And yet they crucified their savior. They rejected this kingdom. Our prayers should focus on the kingdom of God.

What does that mean for us today? Because we're obviously not Jewish. We're not living in Palestine, we're not living in Israel, we're not living in Judah, we're not living in anything close to Israel here in Des Moines, Iowa. What does that mean for us today, Thomas? People, what do you mean by a presence of God people? Maybe that's not the terminology used at this very point in history where to be taught.

But the idea is that it's not about building a physical kingdom. It's about growing a kingdom of God's people, people who are following God. Right, Nathan? He does, yeah.

These people are looking back at these promises and saying this is what we should be pursuing and praying for and seeing God do. And what's interesting is from their perspective, they didn't know how long it would take because here we are 2000 years later, it still hasn't happened. Yeah.

Ryan, I was having an interesting conversation with doctor and acts, chapter one, verses six through eight. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know. Times the demonstrate by his own authority.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem. Judea and Samaritan from acts, chapter one. I think they were looking for the kingdom, because if you look at the sequence of events in these disciples life, everything was happening right in a row, and Jesus had promised these things.

They had no idea about how big the church would be. If you think of the context of acts, Pentecost hasn't happened. The church has not been established officially, and they had no idea what this would look like.

And so what they're looking forward is to the hope that comes with the kingdom. So I think that there's future hope and glory attached to that, that kingdom. But really, they want to see God work, I think is the underlying idea.

But I believe they're looking for the physical kingdom at that moment, even though it wouldn't come yet. And God had a different plan in mind. Yeah.

So when I talk to you about this passage, kingdom is kind of a difficult word. So I like to use like, God's program culminating in kingdom and lasting stage. So the idea of us praying along this line would be that God would accomplish its purposes, and God would move things closer and closer to when he will come rain, and that he would work out his will in the world in general.

Not only a prayer of hope, but a prayer of trying to understand. Okay, God, what is your program? What are your consultants? Yeah, that's a helpful perspective, because we want to see God working, too. And there are times, even in our lives, we look around and we think, what's God doing? But we want to see that clear direction, that clear purpose.

And especially for these Jews, they would be looking for this clear purpose of God's kingdom to be manifest. And we look forward to that today. And especially, I'll throw around one key big word, dispensational.

God treats people differently. God sovereignly rules over people differently at different times, because he's accomplishing his purpose across history, across time. And God is sovereign, and God is accomplishing those things for the sake of time.

We don't have time to go into that, but we're going to move on and we're going to go through. We're just going to go to the next section here. So that kind of covers the first half.

The first half is really God centered. It's God focused. God, accomplish your will.

God, this is who we're praying to. We are your children. The second thing that we see is personal prayer request.

He starts in verse eleven. Give us this day our daily bread. A couple of things to notice here, that the first thing is a short term request.

It's not give us this year's bread or this decades or this lifetime daily bread. Sustain us today, just today, and we'll trust you for the next day and the next day and the next day. There's a very real spiritual sense.

Jesus proclaims himself, I am the bread of life. In communion, it's pictured his body being broken, sustaining us. He is the one who gives us life.

Right? He is our daily bread. We just talked about that. We kind of skipped ahead.

But that's great. It's not our daily sugar intake, our daily cake. It's what do we need to survive? Give us what we need, not what we want.

What we need, not entertainment, not fun, not pleasure, but God, just sustain us and we trust you for the day. He also here admits that we cannot supply our own needs just by asking for this. He's saying, I need help.

We can't do this without him. The second request is in verse twelve, and then it's later described in verses 14 and 15. For the sake of time, we'll skip reading through those verses.

But the basic idea here is forgive us as we forgive others. Forgive us as we forgive others. And the word that's used is debts.

The word here can be broadly explained as sin. It's not necessarily just debt that we incur, like at a bank or at a loan. It's the sin debt, the sins that we commit against each other forgive us these sins as we are forgiven.

Because as people of God, we look at our lives and we see God forgives us every single day. And God has paid the price for all of our sins. How can we not forgive other people so humbly recognize that we are sinners? We should pray for this as we forgive those who sin against us.

We can do this because we have been shown that forgiveness. This is explained in verse 14 and 15. I want to read this one commentator's note on this.

It's really helpful. One commentator notes, Jesus words in Matthew 614 15 explains his statement about forgiveness in verse twelve. Though God's forgiveness of sin is not based on one's forgiving others, a Christian's forgiveness is based on realizing he has been forgiven.

From Ephesians 432. Personal fellowship with God is in view in these verses, not salvation from sin. One cannot walk in fellowship with God if he refuses to forgive others.

What's in view here? What he's talking about is a a walk with God, a relationship with God. How can I hope to have a close walk with God where he forgives me of my sin, where he listens to my prayers, where he is helping me in my daily life, when I refuse to act the same to others, when I refuse to show christian kindness to others, when I refuse to forgive others? People are going to sit against us, and we have to be gracious and know that we ourselves are sinners. The last request is in verse 13.

Do not lead us into temptation, but instead deliver us from Satan is the main idea. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. Do not lead us into temptation. This temptation is a trial or a test, something that test the quality of our faith.

And this evil one can be understood as evil in general, or Satan, or both. And our prayer should be that we do not walk into this evil, don't allow ourselves to be drawn in or into this snare, the trap of evil. Why? For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

So it's contrasted here, it's very interesting. He says, don't let us be drawn in or walk into this temptation. Why? Because the power and the glory is God's.

Because we don't have to be scared of this temptation. In Matthew, chapter four, what did Jesus use to fight the temptation that was given him? He used scripture. We have the power of God.

The devil believes he has us in his corner, believes he has us cornered, and that he has us as his prey. But the devil's kingdom is not eternal. In fact, he is the prince and power of the air right now.

But we know that one day he will be thrown into the lake of fire. God is the power and the honor and the glory. And this glory especially is interesting.

It's honor, it's praise, it's adoration. He is the one that we ought to be living our lives for. So this prayer is pretty simple.

It's really just broken up into two sections. And as you look at it, just think through. How do you pray? Do you start with a God centered prayer directed to your heavenly Father, directed toward God? Is it about God's purposes on this earth? Is it about God's purposes in your life? Or is it about you getting what you want? And then we go to the man centered portion of this.

This is daily provisions. This is not man centered in the sense that we want everything that our hearts desire. It's, we want God to work in us in specific ways.

That's why we pray through a list of things that are going on in our lives, things that are afflicting our families and the world around us. Daily provisions. And also we seek forgiveness for our sins.

As we are seeking forgiveness for our sins, we help in forgiving others. We forgive other people's sins, other people's sins. As we're forgiven our sins.

We also avoid temptations by walking with God daily. So very simply, you have these two parts of prayer. You can do them in different orders, you can do them in different ways.

Your words are going to sound different than my words, and they should, because that's your prayer and my prayer is different than yours. But the point is that Jesus is telling us, you need to think about who your God is. Before you ask of a personal request.

Come to him humbly, and come to him specifically with your prayer requests because he wants to hear you. He wants to know you, he wants you to walk with him. And we have this great privilege.

I think we take prayer for granted a lot. I know I do. And I get the privilege of sitting in an office studying God's word.

And yet it's easy just to forget, oh, I can go to God right now. It's pretty cool. It's not just pretty cool, it's amazing.

Because I'm a sinner, I shouldn't be able to do that. You read the book of Hebrews. You can find that we can go to him because we have a great high priest who has died for us, who is our sacrifice.

So let's pray. Let's remember why we can pray, and then we'll take prayer requests and pray specifically. God, we're thankful for this template, this picture of what it looks like to have good fellowship with you.

Help us not to forget how amazing it is that you're our father, that you are so separate, you are so holy, and yet you are the one who listens to us, the one who hears our pleas. You even hear the inward groanings that are too deep for us to even comprehend. You know our hearts and you love us.

Help us to go to you tonight. Sincerely, as a church. In your son's name we pray.