Well, take your Bibles and open up with me to Luke chapter 11. Going to be looking at verses 3 and 4 this morning. Last week we looked at God's priorities in our prayers. This week we're going to look at our needs in our prayers. To start though, I do want to read through a new hymn for us. This is actually a very old hymn. This is taken from Psalm 51, written by Isaac Watts in 1719. And the title of the hymn is, A Penitent Pleading for Pardon. Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive. Let a repenting rebel live. Are not Thy mercies large and free? May not a sinner trust in Thee? My crimes are great, but not surpass the power and glory of Thy grace. Great God, Thy nature hath no bound, so let Thy pardoning love be found. Awash my soul from every sin, and make my guilty conscience clean. Here on my heart the burden lies, and past offenses pain my eyes. My lips with shame my sins confess, against thy law, against thy grace. Lord, should thy judgment grow severe, I am condemned, but thou art clear. Should sudden vengeance seize my breath, I must pronounce thee just in death. And if my soul were sent to hell, thy righteous law proves it well. Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord, whose hope, still hovering round thy word, would light on some sweet promise there, some sure support against despair." Looking at the theme, of course, from Psalm 51 of the confession of sin and forgiveness of sin, that goes along with what we're looking at in the Lord's Prayer. and our needs in prayer this morning. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. Again, I'm using this week, I used this week the expositional commentary on the Sermon on the Mount from James Boyce and studies in the Sermon on the Mount from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. We learned last time that when we pray we start with God. It is His name, His kingdom, His will will actually end the prayer, not here in Luke, but in the account in the Sermon on the Mount, where there are two added phrases, one of them to what we're looking at this morning, and then another regarding the glory and the power of God. So we start with the name, the kingdom, and the will of God. Then we see intercession for our needs and the needs of others. And then we see a prayer for God to be glorified. But here we're looking, verse 3 and 4, what we need to pray for, for us. What are our needs in prayers? And we see first that these needs are both physical and spiritual. We have physical needs and we have spiritual needs, and all of that is contained in just these few words in this prayer. They teach us here, Jesus teaches us here, that we are dependent upon God for everything. for our spiritual needs. And some will say it's either just for physical needs or just for spiritual needs. We can see clearly that they're both. Now, getting into the study and reading some of Spurgeon on this, when we see, give us this day our daily bread, of course, we immediately think physical needs. And then we think, forgive us our sins. Well, there we're dealing with spiritual needs. But I appreciated that both Spurgeon and Boyce and Lloyd-Jones all made the point that give us each day our daily bread is also a prayer for our daily spiritual necessities to be met. It is not just for physical food. There's much more included there. Again, we look and we see in Matthew's account in the Sermon on the Mount, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. So these petitions do all cover everything that we need. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says our whole life is found here and that is what makes this prayer so utterly amazing. In such a small compass, our Lord has covered the whole life of the believer in every respect. The body is remembered, the soul is remembered, and the spirit is remembered. Our daily bread here is understood to be more than bread and even more than just food. It's a reference to all the needs of life. And all of the needs of life are not just physical. We have spiritual needs as well in order to continue to live. These would be physical needs, food, clothing, shelter, provision, praying for good health, etc. We're told to pray for these things because God has said that He will provide them according to His grace and according to His will. Philippians 4.19 reminds us, and my God will fulfill all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now, looking at this lesson especially, and looking at the three or four commentators that I have, something popped out even from Philippians 4.19, because we're familiar with the verse, my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And we think God is so vastly rich that of course He can supply our needs. but that misses what the verse actually says. You see, there's that last prepositional phrase that's going to define for us how God is going to fulfill all of our needs. Yes, it is according to His riches and glory, but it's not that God has vast riches, so He's going to give us vast riches. No, those riches are given to us in Christ Jesus. God supplies all of our needs according to the riches that He's given to us by giving us His Son. We have to look beyond the things, beyond the stuff. Now, there is stuff that we need to live, but even beyond that, there is a person that we need to live. And so God has manifestly given to us all that is His by giving us Himself in the life of His Son. And we also have to note, by the way, that these are needs and not wants. Now, we make that distinction now used to the word want meant need. When we say from the King James, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. That doesn't mean I don't want anything. It means I don't need anything. But now in these days, we need to differentiate between what is a necessity and what is a want, because a lot that we think we need are luxuries as we look around the world. We have definite needs, and we need to be aware of those needs, and we need to be aware that even if our wants are supplied, the source for all of this is coming from God's hand. We ask for these things because God has told us to ask for them, and He's promised to answer. Again, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, starting in verse 7, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?" And that's an exclamation point. That is a declaration. We're told to ask, and it's gonna be given, to seek, and we will find, and to knock, and it will be opened. Our difficulty in asking, seeking, and knocking is that we need to be asking, seeking, and knocking for the right things. And we'll get into that in a lesson here in a couple of weeks as we look at praying according to the will of God. It's not just ask for anything that we want. It is to ask for the things that we need, the things that God has promised to give us. And in the asking, we begin with God so that our asking might be conformed to what His will is for us. There are times that people say that we ask and God doesn't answer. And that's not true. God always answers. He promises that He will, and He always does. Now, the answer is not always yes. Sometimes the answer is no. The most difficult answer to deal with from the hand of God is wait, not yet. Now we also see. As he makes a comparison here, comparing God to sinful men, what man is there among you when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or when he asks for a fish, will he not give him a snake? By the way, my dad did this one time. He went on a fishing trip and came in and wanted to show us what he had caught. And he called us all into the bathroom and we wondered, what's he going to do? And he started to fill the tub up with water. And we thought maybe he had caught us a goldfish. We had no idea. And then he pulled a snake out of his pocket and threw it in, and we watched it swim around the tub. The problem is, is that just before he threw the snake in, he asked my mother to step into the tub to test the temperature, and then threw the snake in with her. He lived. So what father, when asked for a fish, would give a snake? My dad. But no, seriously, what father is not going to provide for his children when they have needs? And the point is, if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? And we're told in James, every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of lights. Now, everything that we have from him is a gift from him. And everything that he gives us then is good because he only gives good gifts because he is good. We also have to understand here. For our prayers to be answered, we must first be God's child. James Boyce makes the point that he's comparing a father and a child with the asking and the giving. We need to understand that where we started in this Lord's prayer, is our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. If we want our prayers to be answered, first, we must be God's child. We're told if we're not, then we're children of wrath, we're wicked. The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to God. So we need to be God's child. Secondly, we need to obey the command and the invitation to come and ask. Now, we know that God knows, and we're told that He knows what we need before we ask. And we know that He's going to provide it. So the question is, then if He knows before we ask, and if He's even going to answer sometimes before we ask, why do we ask? Because He tells us to. Because He tells us to come to Him because He desires that fellowship with us. He deserves that worship from us. And in that expression of our requests, we are expressing dependence upon Him. This is a confession, as much as asking to be forgiven for our sins, this is a confession that we are dependent upon God for everything that we need. We cannot take care of ourselves or provide for ourselves. It all has to come from the hand of God. Third, this teaches us to expect God to be delighted to hear and to answer our prayers. We have to understand prayer is not twisting God's arm to get something from Him that He's reluctant to give. It is seeking to see ourselves bent to His wants for our life. In asking for the daily bread, we notice too that this asking is each day. He says, give us each day our daily bread. That's a reminder that we need to come often and we need to come regularly to God in prayer. The word translated each day is a specific word that only appears here and actually for many years was difficult to translate. but they have found ruins actually in Egypt where this word is used on daily food rations. So this is a specific word for what you need today. This is your ration for today. We come to God and we ask Him for what we need today. Now we are, we're instructed in scripture to be diligent, to plan. We see this especially in the book of Proverbs when we look at the ants versus the sloth and we see we are to be diligent to plan for our future, to plan for our children's future. There is nothing wrong with planning. However, at the same time, we're reminded and especially reminded here that we come to God for what we need today because there is no guarantee of tomorrow. James 3, 13 and 14 makes this clear. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow. We may step into eternity today. So we pray for our needs. Today. Tomorrow has enough worries. Tomorrow will take care of itself. This was demonstrated in the wilderness when God provided the manna and the quail because they were told to collect enough for that day. And if they kept any overnight, it would spoil except for one day. They were to take two days worth on Friday. So they had it for the Sabbath and it was preserved. That was supernatural. But that was God demonstrating to his people that he was going to provide all that they needed every single day. And they still complained and said it wasn't enough. This daily provision demonstrates, too, that God cares about our bodies. And that's an important point to make because many, especially those within thinking that's influenced by Gnosticism, they think that the spirit is good and the body is bad, so they downplay the body. And they believe that the body is to be put into subjection. The Bible does teach we're to put the body into subjection, but that's subjection to the spirit. And it's not because the body is worse than the spirit. Our body and spirit both are fallen. in our sin nature. So we don't separate the spirit and the body. We don't downplay one or elevate the other. The fact is, yes, we are spiritual beings, but we are spiritual beings with physical bodies. Now, as an illustration, C.S. Lewis took this too far. He said that we were spiritual beings and that this body was just like an earth suit that we wore to live in this environment. And that one day we would shed this body and our spirit would go on because we're spiritual beings with a physical body. We are beings comprised of body, soul, and spirit. All of that comprises us as a being. That is why, after the resurrection and our glorification, we will have bodies again. The physical body will be replaced with a glorified body, but it's still a body. We are not just spiritual beings that have a body. We, in all that makes us up, are comprised of both physical material and spiritual immaterial parts. We are spiritual and physical bodies, and both our spirit and our body are going to be glorified in eternity. In our spirit and in our body, then, we need to be living one day at a time, depending upon God for the provision of our needs. That, Boyce says, leaves no room for being anxious or worrying. If God promises to give us everything today that we need and we don't have something, you know what that means? It means we don't need it today. It doesn't mean we don't need it ever because we may ask and it may be a time before there's an answer. You remember Daniel. Daniel was praying to the Lord and Gabriel came to bring him an answer and had to fight the Prince of Persia, the devil, to get here and took 21 days to get here with the answer in that spiritual warfare. Now, that whole time the answer was on its way. but it hadn't arrived yet. Now, what that means is Daniel didn't need that answer yet, because God is sovereign and has promised to provide what we need on a daily basis. To be anxious or to worry is to doubt God's promise, and to doubt God's promise is to doubt His word, and to doubt His word is to doubt His character. To worry is to call God a liar. and to tell him that we think we know better than him because there are things that we need and we're going to throw a temper tantrum because he won't give it to us right now when we feel like we need it. Boyce asked the question, if you're a Christian, have you ever known God to be unfaithful to you? Never. Not once. And if you think you can come up with an account, you're wrong. You're a liar. Repent. God can't be unfaithful to His children. He can't be unfaithful to anyone because He is God. Now, it is true, Spurgeon made the point, that God may at times deprive us of things. And they may be things that we think we need. And they may be things that we need. Why would God deprive us of something that we need? Sometimes that's to teach us. Sometimes it's to grow us, to increase our faith. Sometimes it's to chastise us. What do you do with your children when they're in trouble? Take things away from them. They lose privileges. There are times that to chastise us, God will deprive us of things. And in depriving us of those things, His purpose is not to neglect us, but it's to draw us back to Himself. Many times the things that we lack are things that we think are necessary, but if they were again, we would have them today. We also have to understand that this petition includes asking for spiritual provision. We don't just need physical food. We need spiritual food. Wasn't that Jesus' answer to the devil when he was tempted? Here he is in the wilderness fasting for 40 days. He's a human being. He's hungry. The stones look like loaves of bread. So what does the devil ask him? You're hungry? Turn that stone into a loaf and eat it. You'll be filled. Now, what was the temptation there? The temptation was an appeal to the lust of the flesh. But even more than that, it was a temptation for Christ to provide for his own needs instead of depend upon his father for what he needed. And what was the answer? It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. God's Word is our primary need when it comes to nourishment, even more than spiritual food. That's why there is significance in fasting physically from food, so that we might spend time in the Word. So that when the body wants to be filled, we instead feed the spirit and deny the body. Sometimes we do need to fast just to remind our body who's in charge. And by the way, it's not us. We're never in charge. The Holy Spirit is in charge or sin is in charge. We're serving one of two masters. Sometimes we do need to fast just to be reminded that we can go for a while without food. It is not a daily necessity. but God has promised to give us food, physically and spiritually. Jesus told the disciples in John 6, starting in verse 32, Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. He says, you think Moses gave you bread from heaven with the manna? No, my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, always give us this bread. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst. Jesus himself is the bread of life. While we know that we are not to live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, this opens us up to an even greater picture that Jesus is the living word of God and we feed on him. And the answer is, how do we feed on Jesus? And the first answer would be when you take communion. No, wrong answer. That is not the physical body and blood of Jesus. This is the blasphemy of the mass. The blasphemy of the mass has the priest demanding that Christ be offered again for our sins. And Hebrews says He was offered once for all and it's finished, it's done. No more sacrifice for sin remains. So how do we feed on Christ? We feed on Him by faith, by meditating on His Word, by meditating on who He is and what He's done. Because He alone can satisfy the soul. He is the source of all spiritual life, and we are instructed to feed on Him, to be nourished by Him in our walk with God. This, simply put, Jesus explains in Matthew 5, 6, this is to hunger and thirst after righteousness. What is righteousness? It is being right with God. If we are hungering and thirsting, that is craving to be right with God, There is only one way that we can be right with God, and that is by being united with Christ. He tells us He is the way, the truth, and the life. In being united with Him, we find nourishment. We find the path to righteousness. It's not our righteousness, it's His. It's His work in us and through us. Martin Lloyd-Jones makes the point, too, when we look at fulfilling our spiritual needs by feeding on Christ, we cannot live for a day without Him, physically or spiritually. He is the one who sustains our life. Therefore, we are dependent on Him for everything. Sometimes we do approach God like a child, a proud child who wants to come and show his parent what he's done. Look what I did. Look what I made. We need to go to God and thank Him for what He's done and for what He's made. It's not about what we've made, it's about what He is making of us, and He's conforming us to the image of Christ. We do also find here, by the way, intercessory prayer, because notice, Jesus does not say, give me each day my daily bread. He says, give us each day our daily bread. This is a provision not just for the individual. This is a provision for the body, for the church. We as the body of Christ are told often to pray for one another. And this is another example of our communion within our community. We pray not only for our needs to be met, but literally for all of our needs to be met. Now, as we do, as we are praying daily for one another and praying daily with one another, that's the example we see in Acts chapter two, as we depend upon God for our physical and spiritual necessities, we also find in our prayers together that at times God uses us to provide for what others need. Here is the blessing of praying together with other believers. I might not know what you need until I hear you ask God for it. And then I might realize, I can help. I can help meet that need. God can use me to meet your need because now I've been made aware of it. This is the New Testament church. Acts 2, starting verse 42, they continually were devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common, And they began selling their property and possessions, and were dividing them up withal, as anyone might have need. And daily devoting themselves with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number daily those who were being saved. That daily fellowship and that daily time of prayer together with other believers whenever they gathered gave them an opportunity to meet one another's needs. To the point that if a believer had a need, if I find out that you don't have food and I have food, you know what I can do? I can fast for a day and give you my food. Or if I have more than enough for what I need today, I can share with you and I can give you what I have out of my abundance. The greatest picture of giving that we see that Paul gives us is he points to the church at Philippi and they took up a collection for the church in Jerusalem. And Paul makes the point that that church in Philippi had their own serious needs. And he said they gave out of their lack, they gave sacrificially By the way, you know what verse is included there in that description of what the church at Philippi did? Chapter 4, verse 19. And my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. He goes on then in verse 4 and he says, And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. Just as we do have daily and physical and spiritual needs, we also have need daily for forgiveness. This is not forgiveness in the sense of what occurs at our conversion when we are told we come to Christ and we cry out for salvation and we are given full pardon. This is not that forgiveness. This is forgiveness in the sense of what occurs daily with things that interfere with our relationship with God. Sin that would break our fellowship, that would damage our walk, Just because we're saved doesn't mean we stop sinning. I saw the most astounding post on social media this week. Somebody actually on my friends list was arguing that Christians can't sin. It's like, what? And so the immediate reply from several people was, so if you sin, you're not a Christian. And he said, well, you might be a Christian, but then when you sin, you're not. So then you have to become a Christian again, and you stay a Christian as long as you don't sin, but then if you sin again, you're not a Christian again. And at that point, I started to type. And at that point, I thought about it, and I prayed about it, and I hit that special key. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. This is pearls before swine. This is not worth the argument and the time it's gonna take. That is absolute, idiocy. It flies in the face of everything that the Bible teaches us. just because we're saved does not mean we stop sinning. I love, though, what Paul Washer said. He says, after salvation, our relationship to sin changes. Before salvation, sin is our master. After salvation, sin is our enemy. And we hate it. And even when we fall to that temptation, we hate it even more that we have fallen to that sin. Asking for forgiveness here really is the believer engaged in an act of confession. To ask God to forgive us is to agree with God that we have sinned and that only He can deal with the sin in our lives. This is a realization that as God's child, we've offended Him. Lloyd-Jones notes, the text does not say, forgive us our debts because we forgive our debtors. It says, even as I forgive those who are my debtors. To be aware of our needs for forgiveness also makes us aware of our need to forgive others. God does not forgive us because we forgive. We forgive because we've been forgiven. We're incapable of actual love and forgiveness outside of the love and forgiveness of God. The world can know some of what that love is and can know some of what the release from sin is. But I appreciated that James Boyce said, when you look at it, there was a study done in the 1950s and 60s with the boom in people going to psychiatrists and psychologists for therapy. And the leading psychiatrist in London at the time said that he'd come to the conclusion that what people were looking for in therapy was forgiveness. But because the therapist could not talk to them about spiritual things, they could only remedy what was going on on the surface, the problems that were being manifested, they couldn't deal with the root. Because true forgiveness is only found in Christ. This is where the false notion comes out that you need to forgive yourself. No, you don't. If Christ has forgiven you, you're forgiven. You don't need to forgive yourself. And in fact, if you think Christ has forgiven you, but you still need to forgive yourself, then you value your idea of yourself over what Christ says about you. That's utterly self-righteous. So, to be aware of our need for forgiveness makes us aware of our need to forgive others. If God has forgiven us so much, and even more each day, we cannot hold a grudge or allow bitterness to forbid us forgiving others who sin against us. We do take it so personally and get so offended when somebody sins against us, and our immediate thought should be, when somebody sins against us, we should be reminded, I've sinned against God. There are those who would say that you have to forgive, but you can only forgive if somebody repents and asks you to forgive them. That, by the way, is also not true. You can forgive somebody whether they repent or not, because forgiveness is release. And if you've been released of your sin debt, what right do you have to hold anyone else's sin debt against you, against them? That's sinful. That is a root of bitterness. If they sinned against you, forgive. Peter says, how many times? Now Peter says, my brother comes and asks, how many times? Seven times 70. And what I love about the math there is that Peter didn't count it out and say that many times. No, what you realize is if I've forgiven you the first time you ask, if you come back and ask me again, I already forgave you. This is the first time. Every time somebody asks you for forgiveness, the count is at one. Forgive them. Quit keeping count. Forgive them. Why? Look at how much we've been forgiven. If God does not hold against us what we have done against Him, are we above Him? We think we are if we refuse to forgive others. Just as we're sure that God will give us what we ask, we also have to be sure that this includes asking for forgiveness. If we confess our sins, He will not hold forgiveness. And that gives us assurance. God is both faithful and just in His forgiveness. He's faithful to His promises. And just because Christ has already made an atonement for sins that we confess, that's why this is righteous. 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Knowing then that God will forgive us is not something that should embolden us to sin. I have heard people say this. Why are you sinning? Why are you being bold in your sin against God? You know you shouldn't be doing that. Because I know if I ask him, he will forgive me. That is presumption upon God. The fact that He will forgive us should motivate us to fight sin, not to give in to it. Because when we know that He will forgive us, we must understand then the cost of that forgiveness. And if we know the cost of our sin, that should be an impediment to sinning. If we know what Christ had to pay to secure that forgiveness for us, that should not drive us to think it's okay to sin because we can get forgiven. It should drive us to run from sin because that cost is so horrendous. 1 John 2, 1, John writes, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. The forgiveness that we have been given is ammunition in the fight against sin. This also demonstrates the truth that God has made provision in advance for us in the event that we sin. If we fall into sin, we are not helpless. If we are tempted and we do sin, Look at it. God demonstrated His love for us in Christ dying for us while we were still sinners. Has His love for us diminished now that we're His children? His love and forgiveness are as constant as He is, never changing. The final petition here in Luke is that we would not be led into temptation. In Matthew, it's added there, deliver us from the evil one. But to look at not being led into temptation, this is a prayer for preservation, a prayer for protection against sin. We understand James 1 tells us that God does not tempt anyone. And this is not a demand upon God, thinking that we can tell Him what to do. Martin Lloyd-Jones made that point when we say, do not lead us into temptation. That is not telling God that He can't test us. Because God will test us. He's told us that He will test our faith and He will refine us and He will prune us. We can't tell God what to do. This is a reliance upon Him in the face of temptation. We ask, knowing that He has answered in advance. We will never be tempted in a way in which there is not an escape, and therefore sin is inevitable. It's not. 1 Corinthians 10.13 says, No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. That phrase, way of escape, could be translated, there will be a trap door. There's a picture that you feel cornered. like the Lone Ranger in the back of a canyon. You're there, you've been isolated, and you're under attack, and there's nowhere to go. And suddenly you realize there's a cave over here, and there's a trap door, and there's a way of escape, there's a way out. And guess what that way of escape is? Jesus tells us what? I am the door. He is the door of the sheep. We go in and out through Him. We have a way. We have an example. Look at how Christ dealt with temptation. He was tempted just as we, yet without sin. He is our example. This also tells us, as we pray, we must always be on guard, watching and praying. The world, our flesh, and the devil are our opposition. Praying to be spared from being led into temptation means that we are aware of the spiritual battle that we face each day. And this also shows us how to fight. To fight sin, we have to maintain awareness of its reality. We have to be ready to flee from it. 2 Timothy 2.22, flee youthful lusts. If we can't flee, we must at least resist, submit to God and resist the devil. And he will flee from you. James tells us in chapter four, verse seven, we resist sin. We submit to God. We endure temptation because enduring temptation is a matter of obedience. We also find that we're armed with spiritual weapons that we can and must use to defeat sin. Prayer and the sword of the Spirit are just the beginning of what has been provided for us as a means of defense. We're familiar with this in Ephesians 6, Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, having taken up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, also receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying at all times with all prayer and petition in the spirit, and to this end, being on the alert with all perseverance, any petition for all the saints, as well as on my behalf, that words may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I'm ambassador in chains, so that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." I've taught on this before that what we have here is an explanation of putting on Christ each day. He is the truth. All of these things describe Him, whatever piece of the armor it is. But in order to effectively use the armor, we have to be praying. And this is what Jesus is explaining. He's explaining to us in these just a few words in this prayer, how to fight daily against temptation. We see in this petition a desire to avoid that which would affect our fellowship with God, that which would interrupt our relationship with Him. We see things that would hinder our walk with Him, and we see the remedies that He's provided so that we can have constant communion with Him. And as soon as we become aware that that fellowship has been broken, we should immediately pray, just as Jesus has taught us. We have to remember that we are His, we are bought at a price, and we should want to walk with Him in daily dependence upon Him for everything that we need. He's promised that when we ask these things, He will answer. The question is, do we believe? Here's the proof. If you believe He will answer when you ask, you know what you're going to do? You're going to ask. You're going to pray. That's why prayerlessness is sin. It is to neglect the command of God and the invitation and the blood-bought privilege that we have to come to Him daily in prayer. Next week, we're going to look at verses 5 through 8, looking at persistence in prayer, For this week, remember God has provided today everything that we need. So let's remember to be dependent totally upon Him for those things. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you for your word this morning, for the instruction of Christ in teaching us to pray. And in these very few short words and this brief prayer to demonstrate for us the truth of all that you have provided and will provide for us daily. This is summed up by David in the Psalm, the Lord is my shepherd. So I need nothing because you are ours and we are yours. Every provision for every need has been made for us according to your riches and glory in Christ Jesus. So this morning, even more for the things you have provided. We thank you for the person you have provided. We thank you for giving us your son and we pray these things in his name. Amen.