Teach us how to Pray part 2

If you have your bible open it up to Matthew 6. I have titled the message this morning. Teach us how to Pray part 2. Pray with me.

Alright so we are back in Matthew 6. looking again at prayer. Specifically the Lord’s Prayer. Last week I started by focusing on the text directly before the Lord’s prayer. Showing you I believe from the text that Christ wants us to direct our prayers towards God and not men. We studied that idea in great depth I believe drawing out of the very text the idea that Christians are to pray with sincerity. To go to God with the right heart. Not making a big deal in public about our very own prayers. That we are to pray secretly. We need to learn how to get away with God alone without any distractions, and when we pray we need to pray specifically. Asking God our very own needs like our children ask us for theirs. Now with that in mind let us again read the Lord’s prayer and then spend some time going through verse 9 this morning.

Matthew 6:9–15 ESV

9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Today as we look at verse 9 what I want you to see is this for our main idea.

Christians pray to God who is their father with adoration.

Now this prayer as I have already said is known as the Lord’s prayer, and its interesting really that it would be named that very thing. Because if there is going to be a true Lord’s prayer from the scriptures it should be John 17, if you dont know that prayer well I would go home and read it its fantastic. But if you think about this prayer that we are in today it does not apply in all ways to Jesus. Most notable Jesus is not a sinner. He does not need forgiveness, but he is teaching us how to pray. Some scholars have called this the disciples prayer.

And many call it that because in another gospel. Luke’s gospel. The disciples in Luke 11:1 ask him how to pray. It says this…

Luke 11:1 ESV

1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

Martyn Lloyd Jones provides us with some great insights to why they would want to know how to pray he says this… They saw how He would arise ‘a great while before dawn’ and go up into the mountains to pray, and how He would spend whole nights in prayer.

And sometimes, I have no doubt, they said to themselves: ‘What does He talk about? What does He do?’ They may also have thought, ‘I find after a few minutes in prayer that I come to the end of my words. What is it that enables Him to be drawn out in prayer? What is it that leads to this ease and abandonment?’ ‘Lord’, they said, ‘teach us how to pray.’

They meant by this that they would like to be able to pray as He prayed. ‘We wish we knew God as You know Him. Teach us how to pray.’ Have you ever felt that? Have you ever felt dissatisfied with your prayer life, and longed to know more and more what it is truly to pray? If you have, it is an encouraging sign.

There is no question but that this is our greatest need. More and more we miss the very greatest blessings in the Christian life because we do not know how to pray right. We need instruction in every respect with regard to this matter. We need to be taught how to pray, and we need to be taught what to pray for. It is because it covers these two things in a most amazing and wonderful manner that we must spend some time in a consideration of what has become known amongst us as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.

I echo what Martyn Lloyd Jones says about this prayer that’s why I want to spend so much time in it. Giving us as many possible points, and applications to improve our prayer life, because like I said last week prayer is the second most spiritual discipline of our faith so lets take it with the utmost seriousness.

1st point this morning is this.

Christians pray to God our Father who is in heaven.

What a wonderful thing that we can call God our Father am I right? This is my first fathers day without my Father, but because I am found in Christ have a real realationship with him I have the privilege of calling out to God my Father anytime, and I can do that anytime because of the work of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins, rising from the dead I can go to him anytime in prayer.

And if you are a church person this might not seem to you a big deal even though it should be, its a great honor to call God our Father to pray to him, and if you study the Scripture from cover to cover you see that this idea of praying to God the Father first with Jesus Christ in fact the Jews never referred to God as the Father. They believed in the God who created all things. But during Jesus time you often would hear the Jewish word for God as Jehovah when they spoke about him. But you only see the word Father and its application of Fatherhood in the Old Testament really representing only the nations. That God is the Father of the Nations.

But Jesus changes that for us. While we see God mentioned as Father in the Old Testament only 14 times the gospels refer to God as Father more than 60 times, and Jesus says when we pray let us pray to God the Father.

And again what makes this so amazing especially during Jesus time is the word Jesus uses for this is Abba an Aramaic word used by Children to call their own dads father. Its an intimate yet simple word. Its not so causal as when a child calls their father daddy, but its more like dearest Father.

It always amazes me of God’s sovereignty when it comes to me preaching through books of the bible and how these texts just tend to fall at the right time more often then I could even plan. And so being Father’s day I know this tough for some.

In fact I was very moved by the words of Martyn Lloyd Jones when he said. But there are many people in this world, alas, to whom the idea of fatherhood is not one of love. Imagine a little boy who is the son of a father who is a drunkard and a wife-beater, and who is nothing but a cruel beast. That little boy knows nothing in life but constant and undeserved thrashings and kickings. He sees his father spend all his money on himself and his lust, while he himself has to starve. That is his idea of fatherhood. If you tell him that God is his Father, and leave it at that, it is not very helpful, and it is not very kind. The poor boy of necessity has a wrong idea of fatherhood. That is his notion of a father, a man who behaves like that. So our human, sinful notions of fatherhood need constant correction.

Thats so good isn’t, and timely maybe for many in the room, and listening to us online.

Jesus took something as personal as Fatherhood though and makes it come alive as a Child of God. We as Christians get to pray to God who is our very own Father. And when we are born again that is how we should address him.

Galatians 4:6 ESV

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

A concept that the Jews could not seem to grasp comes natural to the follower the born again believer of Jesus Christ.

In fact Romans 8:15-16

Romans 8:15–16 ESV

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

So we have the Holy Spirit in us causing us to have this desire to cry out God is our very own father.

John 1:12 ESV

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

the natural result again of being a child of something is having something as your Father, and we when we commit our lives to Jesus Christ we have a heavenly Father who hears our prayers.

Let us take seriously the fact that no matter who our dad is or was we have the right as believers in Christ to call God our very own Father today.

JI Packer says… If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. "Father" is the Christian name for God.

And I will add to Packers quote by saying this not only do we have God who is our our Father because of Jesus , our heavenly father he is in heaven.

And unlike whereever your father may be at today he is om-ni-scient which means what? he knows everything, and he knows what is best for you. He knows all your deepest desires, your hurts, your needs, and he wants you to seek him for those needs. Remember what I said last week something we need to have in our prayer life a simple confidence just like when my daughter comes asking me for all her needs we too can go to God knowing he is our dearest Father who is in heaven ready to hear all our prayers.

Never forget when you pray that you have a heavenly Father who is heaven hearing your very prayers.

Secondly take note of this.

Christians are to pray with adoration.

I think its best that I define what that word is before we move on and why that word specifically is so important in our prayer lives.

Adoration- can mean several things. But to me when we see a phrase like hallowed be your name in the text we must think why does Jesus want us to say this.. Because God is truly Holy. Yes is our Father but you better believe he is not like any of our Fathers. He is Holy, he is to be revered. We love our fathers by the traits they possess, but they don’t hold a candle to the Holy Father who is where in heaven.

I said this last week but I will say it again we often treat prayer like we are talking to a buddy and not God. This is why Jesus is having his disciples truly rethink how they pray. Praying to God who is their Father, but with Adoration with love knowing that he truly one of kind. Because he is God. Our pattern of prayer is to look up, not side to side or below.

I feel like I have said this 100 times preaching and teaching now but what we believe about God will determine how we worship him, and in the case of this text how we pray to him.

In my studies this week I found that Martin Luther asked a interesting question? How is God’s name hallowed amongst us.

When our life and doctrine are truly Christian." God's name as Father is reverenced when we lead lives that reflect his Fatherhood. We cannot truly pray "Hallowed be your name" without dedicating ourselves to him.

If we pray this without commitment, it is just idle talk. Jesus himself is the example par excellence. As the cross grew near, he prayed, "Father, glorify your name" (John 12:28), but he knew what that meant in terms of his own commitment. He gave his own life so the Father's name would be glorified.

One man would add to what Luther said and ill add to it as well. How then do we, God's children, hallow his name in our own lives?

There are at least four ways: and ill through my thoughts in as well. First, negatively, we are careful not to profane God's name with our mouths.

We avoid swearing or taking his name in vain. We speak of him with great reverence, adoration. Don’t mess around with God’s name.

Second, we begin with the positives: We reverence him as Father with acts of public and private worship. We are to live our lives as the fall’s creek youth and sponsors know totally for him.

Third : We reverence God or hallow his name when our beliefs concerning him are worthy of him. We cannot hallow his name if we do not understand it. Specifically, in the Lord's Prayer we must understand his Abba-Fatherhood. The deeper our understanding, the more depth there will be to our reverence. It is all the work of the Holy Spirit, of course, but we must yield to that work. We understand the depth and wonder of saying, "Abba Father" only through the Holy Spirit. Is God your Dearest Father?

Ill add to that. I just briefly said what we believe about God determines how we worship him.

The attributes of God are truly powerful, and cannot be ignored. Especially and I mean especially in prayer. I have already mentioned the fatherhood of God.

But the Bible, speaks to what God is like. Without this book we could not know who God is it would all be just speculation, but he has graciously given us his word, and his word speaks to his glory, and when we pray don’t we want to know who we are praying to?

What do we need to know about God? We need to know he is our Creator.

Genesis 1:1 “1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

I believe church that if we don’t believe Genesis 1:1 then we wont believe anything else this book. Our belief in God starts with knowing he created everything. We pray to a God that shaped this very world.

The Psalmist cries out Psalm 24:1 “1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,”

Even though God created everything we see and hear, he created us humans in his image. Genesis 1:26–28 “26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””

But though we were created in his image. Man sinned against God. Genesis 3:17–18 “17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.” Sinners need help and we often seek that help in our prayer’s?

Studying this week I was reminded of just the names God is known in the scriptures and as and how they show us his all power attributes.

Elohim - strong One, divine (Genesis 1:1) Adonai - Lord, indicating a Master-to-servant relationship (Exodus 4:10, 13) El Elyon - Most High, the strongest One (Genesis 14:20) El Roi - the strong One who sees (Genesis 16:13) El Shaddai - Almighty God (Genesis 17:1) El Olam - Everlasting God (Isaiah 40:28) Yahweh - LORD “I AM,” meaning the eternal, self-existent God (Exodus 3:13, 14).

This is who you are praying to? What else does the scripture teach us about his attributes.

Well unlike you and I God is eternal. He was not created. He always was and will always be. Psalm 90:2 “2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” God never changes. Numbers 23:19 “19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” What a wonderful attribute, because when we pray we know that God never changes.

Another incredible thing about God is he is incomparable. There is no MJ vs Lebron conversation with God. 2 Samuel 7:22 “22 Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”

God is inscrutable, unfathomable, unsearchable, and past finding out as far as understanding Him completely . Romans 11:33–34 “33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?””

God is just. Deuteronomy 32:4 “4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” God is om-nip-o-tent; He is all-powerful and can do anything that pleases Him, but His actions will always be in accord with the rest of His character

Jeremiah 32:17 “17 ‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”

God is omnipresent, meaning He is present everywhere. Great to know you are praying to that kind of God.

God is omniscient, meaning He knows the past, present, and future, including what we are thinking at any given moment.

God is one, but Triune How can we define the Trinity? ​Within the one Being of God there are three co-equal, co-eternal persons, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.  Scripture teaches us that there is only one God.  Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

God is righteous, meaning that God cannot and will not pass over wrongdoing. God is sovereign, meaning He is in total control.

God is holy, separated from all moral defilement and hostile toward it.

God is gracious and loving and we see that most in sending his Son to die on the cross for sinners like you and me. And because of his grace he hears our very own prayers.

These are just a few of his glorious attributes church, and without knowing who you are praying to I am afraid you won’t truly pray like he expects us to. His name is hallowed, and his name is to be adored.

fourth, we hallow his name by living a life that displays that he is our Father.

Its one thing to know who he is, its another thing to take who he is and live out to let it shine amongst the nations.

Do you go to the Lord in adoration when we pray ill while doing that as you seek to live for him.

I told you many months ago now saying if we take the words of sermon of the mount and truly apply them to our lives we will be changed. Different,

As I begin to wind down our time this morning have you met the God personally whom we are to pray to?

Jesus himself says himself in John 14:6

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Having a real realationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to God its the only way to get your prayers heard. See Jesus is the Intermediator ( meaning he is the one who links us God ) and without knowing him our prayers are not truly heard and if you want that realationship with him today you can come to him by faith alone, and you can repent of your sins, and be saved.

If you are a follower of Christ today though ask yourself this as we have been making our way through the text have you been praying to God or man? Have your prayers been with sincerity, in secret with God and specific, and as we learned today are you praying to God the Father who is in heaven with adoration if not you might need to think about the way you are praying.

Let us pray.