Sermon Tone Analysis
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Love Come Down
WELCOME
Good morning family.
Hear the Word of the Lord from Psalm 131
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
We come hear preoccupied with massive things.
Supreme Court hearings and fighting overseas and inflation.
Not to mention all the massive things that loom large in our own lives.
Troubles at work, troubles with family, troubles with health, and more.
One effect of these gatherings is that God calms and quiets our souls.
He reminds us that He’s in control, that He’s good, and that He loves us.
If you don’t know His love our prayer is that you will before you leave here this morning.
In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Matthew 6:9-13.
(Page 964 in black Bibles underneath the chairs)
While you’re turning, 4 quick announcements:
1) A word about PBC.
We are Servants.
Member—serve in area of gifting, area of need
Constant area of need, children’s ministry
Sometimes that just means being a backup, or an extra adult in the room.
2) NextGen Training, tonight at 4:30
3) TableTalk at 5:30, “Be Kind to One Another” (Josh Winchell)
4) Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands class, April 10 at 9:15
Now look in your Bibles at Matthew 6:9 as Josh Laborte comes to read for us.
Scripture Reading (Matthew 6:9-13)
Prayer of Praise (God is imminent), Josh Laborte
I Stand In Awe
Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery
Prayer of Confession (bitterness), Stephen Keatts
Jesus Paid It All
PBC Catechism #13
Pastoral Prayer, Mike Lindell
SERMON
Long ago, in a small town in northeastern Germany lived a beloved barber.
He was such a good barber that the entire town knew him simply as “Master Peter.”
One day as Peter was going about his usual business giving shaves and haircuts, a man entered the shop that Peter recognized.
Peter recognized the man as Germany’s most wanted outlaw.
In fact, the government had promised a handsome reward for anyone who captured the outlaw or put him to death.
When his turn came, the outlaw sat down in front of Peter and asked for a haircut and a shave.
Perhaps someone other than Peter may have been tempted to capture or kill the outlaw right then and there and cash in on the reward.
But Peter wouldn’t dream of harming this man because he was Peter’s hero.
The outlaw was the great preacher and Reformer Martin Luther, who had stood faithfully on the truth of God’s Word against the errors of the pope and the Roman Catholic church.
Now if you had a celebrity like that, one of your heroes, sitting in front of you for twenty minutes or so and you could ask them anything, what would you talk to them about?
If you could ask them anything, what would you ask?
Master Peter asked the great Martin Luther how to pray.
[1]
Luther listened to his barber’s question.
He thought about it carefully.
And then, despite being a husband, a father, a pastor, a professor, a Bible translator, and a prolific author, Martin Luther took time to write a small book dedicated to Peter the barber called A Simple Way to Pray.
In that book, it’s no surprise that one of the first pieces of advice Luther gives on prayer is to learn the Lord’s Prayer and learn to pray through it.
Not repeating the words verbatim, but taking each of the parts of the prayer as themes to guide you in your prayer life.
But the real hero for me in that story isn’t Martin Luther.
It’s a simple barber named Peter who could’ve asked the great Martin Luther anything he wanted, but chose to ask about prayer.
Because he wanted to grow in his prayer life.
That’s what I want for me, and that’s what I want for each of you here this morning.
I want us to want to pray.
Turn to Matthew 6:9
Jesus is teaching His disciples about how to live faithfully as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and He’s reached a section where He too is teaching His disciples how to pray
Four Simple Truths from Jesus’ teaching that should strengthen our desire to pray.
But first, let’s get a quick overview of our passage...
Often called “the Lord’s Prayer”
A better name for it might be “the model prayer” or “the Christian’s prayer” because there is a sense in which this prayer isn’t something that Jesus would’ve prayed
Matthew 6:12—“forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
It’s right and good for you and I to ask the Father to forgive us when we sin, but we know from Scripture that Jesus never sinned, so He wouldn’t have needed to ask for forgiveness
More important than what we call this prayer is what the prayer actually teaches us
Notice the prayer’s structure...
Introduction—“Our Father in heaven”
Six Petitions (requests)
1) Hallowed be your name
2) Your kingdom come
3) Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
4) Give us this day our daily bread,
5) Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
After the prayer in verses 14-15 Jesus teaches us a bit more about the importance of forgiveness
6) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
In some older translations like the KJV there’s a Conclusion
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.
Amen.
Your Bible may reference this in a footnote
Notice also there’s a pattern to these six petitions...
The first three are about God—His name, His kingdom and His will
The second three are about us—our needs, our forgiveness, our holiness
We’re going to take several weeks to slow down and study this prayer.
I want to grow in my prayer life!
I want you to grow in your prayer life!
And there’s no better way to grow than sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to what He has to say about prayer
Four Simple Truths from the first lines of this prayer that should strengthen our desire to pray...
1) God is FATHER.
Matthew 6:9—“Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven...”
We’re so numb to this that it doesn’t stun us the way I think it should.
Think of all the different ways we could rightly address God...
Yahweh, Lord, God, Almighty, Most High, King of the Universe, Master, Creator, Ruler, etc.
Jesus invites us to call this God Father
The significance wouldn’t have been lost on Jesus’ disciples...
Yes, God was sometimes called “Father” in the Old Testament, but it wasn’t a major theme
15 times the OT uses the word “Father” to refer to God, but the NT uses this word 245 times [2]
We know, of course, that God doesn’t change.
He doesn’t all of a sudden become Father in the NT.
In the OT, the Fatherhood of God was visible in seed form, but in the NT it’s here in full bloom.
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