Today we're going to continue our study on the Sermon on the Mount. We're actually up to that point on the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to be considering the Lord's Prayer today. And for some of you may be thinking, who's going to tell us the entirety of the Lord's Prayer today? Yes, only because I did a really in-depth study which was about eight weeks last spring on the Lord's Prayer where we went through kind of verse by verse. So if you want more detail than you want here last spring, go back and listen to that. But today we're going to provide kind of a bird's-eye view of the summary of what's contained in the Lord's Prayer. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Matthew 6, Matthew 6, verses 5 through 15. Beginning in verse 5, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this, 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 have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." So remember the context. As we began this series on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is on the Mount at the Sea of Galilee. The disciples have gathered around. No doubt there's some scribes and Pharisees and others who have come about as well. And Jesus is saying, hey, this is how you are to pray. But before he tells us how to pray, he actually tells us how not to pray. There's actually two restrictions that are given here. The first we see in verse 5 where he's condemning what we could say hypocritical prayer. He says, and when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. Well, the term hypocrisy, which we actually discussed at length last week, was used in the New Testament to describe one who is engaged in the culture of the day, specifically as it related to drama and theater. In other words, the hypocrite was play-acting, we could say, and pretending to be something that he was not. Jesus is saying in this verse that the Christian should not pretend. In other words, we should not be going on through the motions of prayer. We should not be making an outward show of piety which is not really reflective of who we are on the inside. Jesus is really condemning here the lack of sincerity of the Pharisees. It was a fake form of godliness that wasn't really true or sincere or we could even say genuine. The sin of the Pharisees, you see, was not public prayer, but it was actually a haughty spirit. So when we pray, we should pray with humility and a contrite spirit, submissive. not being proud, not being haughty. Well, the second type of prayer that Jesus condemns is found in verse 7, and when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. Other translations will refer to Gentiles as heathen. So Jesus is saying here that we should not pray as the unbelievers pray, which really provokes the question, do unbelievers really pray? Well, they do at times. They pray to pagan gods or goddesses. They will pray to lost relatives. I had one of my daughters was in a store the other day and she asked the lady, what are you doing for Easter? And the lady said, well, I don't celebrate Easter, I'm a Buddhist. And so Caroline kind of began more of a conversation about it. So the pagans, who do the pagans pray to? Buddha, others, right? Other gods and goddesses that are false gods. In these pagan prayers, certain phrases are often recited over and over again. In this context, The prayers of the unbeliever are almost like mantras. Jesus is saying, don't get caught up in this. Rather, the Christian's prayer should be heartfelt, should be sincere, should not be repeating the same phrases over and over again. And really, our prayers as Christians should have variety. Now, certainly to be sure, recited prayers such as the Lord's Prayer are really good. but they're not our only prayers. And even as we recite the Lord's Prayer, which we do week in and week out in worship service, let us really think through it and let the words of the Lord's Prayers, we're praying it as the saints did years ago, let it penetrate our hearts and our souls and our minds and our spirits that we might, through the Lord's Prayer, be drawn closer to him." So we see Jesus is saying, don't pray like the heathens, don't pray like the hypocrites. So then how do we pray? Well, this is found in verses 9 through 13 of Matthew 6. And really we see three different sections being broken here into the preface is found in verse 9, the petitions are found in verses 10 through 13a, and then we have a benediction in verse 13b. The preface points to the one whom we are addressing. Let's not miss this. It's not something to skip over. This is so important. We are addressing our Father in heaven. So what I want us to notice, first of all, is just the simple three-letter word, our. Notice, first of all, the importance of this word, that Jesus is not just saying that God is His Father, but rather He is our Father. which really points to a covenantal relationship that we have with God. The Lord's Prayer then assumes that we are Christians. Having been saved by the gift of adoption, Paul writes of this in Ephesians 1, 5 through 6, he predestinies for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us and the beloved. God chose you. chose me to be his adopted children and as such to receive every blessing, even being co-heirs with Christ himself. It's written in John 1, 12 through 13, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right. He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So it is the Lord who chose us, and it is the Lord who binds us together as His adopted children. And what draws us together or binds us together is blood. It's not just familial, it's not genetic blood, but it's rather covenantal blood. It's that covenantal blood that was shed on the cross of Calvary, which we are remembering and celebrating even this weekend. Terry Johnson writes, this is a family prayer given by Jesus, the natural son, to all adopted sons and daughters who have been born again into the household of God. By praying our Father, he assumes the whole covenantal structure of the Bible where God makes promises to his people and they in turn make promises to him and to each other. He assumes that they are bound to him by covenant and to each other so that they can say of God, not only is he my God, but that he is our God. He is my God in that I'm in covenant with him and he is our God in that we have together made promises to him and to each other. So brothers and sisters, what I'm saying to you is that you can say that God is your God and I can say that God is my God. What a wonderful blessing it is of the covenantal people of God to come together and say, yes, He's my God, He's your God, but He's our God. He's our God. And He has adopted us as His children by the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. Well, let's go further and let's discuss the petitions. There's really three petitions that we see in verses 10 through 13a. The first we see in verse 9, Hallowed be thy name. The second, thy kingdom come. And the third, thy will be done. Well, the last petition, thy will be done, ends with the phrase, on earth as it is in heaven. One commentator, RT France, suggests that this phrase really could apply to all three petitions such that we read that God's name be hallowed on earth as it is in heaven, His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, and that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So in other words, in our prayers, we long to see We long to see on earth that which will be fully consummated when Christ returns. So let's look at that first petition in verse 9. Hallowed be your name. What does it mean to hallow? Well, it really means to respect or reverence, to treat as holy. It's to pray here that God's name will be held in reverence and with utmost respect on earth as it is in heaven. Pink writes, the first petition signifies our desire that God's matchless name might be reverenced, adored, and glorified, and that God might cause it to be held in the utmost respect and honor, that its fame might spread abroad and be magnified." Notice it's not a statement, but it's rather a petition. So Jesus is saying for the Lord to allow, Lord, please allow your name to be held in high regard, to be reverenced, to be set apart as holy for all the world to hear. And certainly this won't happen again completely until Christ returns, but it should happen more and more by God's grace, more incrementally as the Lord brings people to himself from every tongue, tribe, and nation. Well, the second petition is found in the first part of verse 10, your kingdom come. And we could take this to mean your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. So in this part of the Lord's prayer, we're really praying for two things. One is that Christ rule may be extended more and more, meaning that the loss would be brought in to saving faith. And secondly, that Christ in his second coming will complete his role. So in other words, we're praying that in the coming days, more and more of the elect who have yet to profess faith in Christ will bow the knee, scales will be removed from eyes, hearts will be softened. to the gospel of Jesus Christ, even today as people come to Easter service. As you all know, many people come Christmas and Easter, right? May they come today and may they bow the knee, may they see their sin, may they see their need for a Savior. and give their life to Christ and surrender to His rule. That's part of what this second petition is saying. Your kingdom come, Lord. Your kingdom come. Well, Terry Johnson elaborates on this, and he says in the second petition, we are specifically praying three things. One, that we are praying that God's kingdom of grace will come. Secondly, we're praying that God's rule now will be increasingly acknowledged and obeyed. And thirdly, we're praying that Christ's rule will be completed. The Westminster Shorter Catechism summarizes this second petition so very well. It says this, that Satan's kingdom might be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced. Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened." That's what that second petition is speaking of. What about the third petition? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As I was reading different commentators on this, we could really break the word will down into two different kinds of will. First, we're praying that the preceptive will of God, or we could say the will of command, will be obeyed. This applies to us individually as we seek to love God's law and hide it in our hearts and seek to live it out. We read in 1 John 5, 3, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. It is a real blessing indeed to our lives and the lives of others when we live out the gospel in a way that bears testimony to His faithfulness in our lives. We are praying in this part of the Lord's Prayer with His preceptive will or will of command that we would honor the Lord that we would glorify the Lord in our homes, in our marriages, in our workplaces, in our church. Indeed, wherever we go, J.C. Ryle writes helpfully, we pray that God's laws may be obeyed by men as perfectly, readily, and unceasingly as they are by the angels in heaven. That's part of what the word will is getting at here. But secondly, we're also praying that God's decretive or sovereign will His decreed or sovereign will will be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven. To pray this is to submit, submit our will to the Lord's will. Of course, Jesus Himself, as we've gone through different readings with Easter, is the perfect example of this. You remember as he was in the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will, Matthew 26, 39. We'll go through very difficult trials in this life, won't we? And oftentimes we will pray, Lord, please deliver me from this trial. But what it should always end with is, but not my will, but thine. Not my will, but thine. And that's hard because it becomes particularly palpable when we've lost a loved one that we really wanted to spend more time with. Or maybe your company is downsized and you've lost your job. Or maybe you and your family have been riddled with sickness or one health crisis after another. Many people will ask in the face of tragedy, why did God allow us to go through that? Why does God allow the good person to suffer? What is our answer to that? Our answer to that is a question. Why does God allow any good to happen at all? For His goodness really is a mercy and a gift. His mercy is, His goodness is a mercy and a gift and not deserved. And yet it can be so difficult to receive when it strikes. We must remember the Lord always has a plan. His ways are always higher than our ways. And so what do we do? We submit. We submit to His will. Lord, I don't know what you're doing right now, but I know you're working. And I know your Holy Spirit is always moving in my life and the life of others. Help me to submit to you. See, to understand everything on this side of eternity is to be God, and we're not. But we must trust and we can trust the inner workings of every second of every day to a God that holds the universe with simply His voice. To pray that the Lord's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven requires us to have meekness, humility, faith, and ultimately trust. We've seen the importance of praying the three petitions. Let's move to verse 11 where it says, give us this day our daily bread. So, in this part of the Lord's Prayer, we first of all are acknowledging that God is the giver. We're assuming that He's giving, right? Because we know that He's the giver. He is the one who gives good gifts to His people, not the least of which. was His Son, Jesus Christ. The word translated daily here in verse 11 is only found in the Lord's Prayer and it's not found in other parts of Scripture. What's the point here? That we would daily depend and trust, daily depend and trust upon the Lord and His provision for us and for our lives, which then begs the question, what are we to depend and daily trust the Lord for? Well, certainly, there's a physical or a temporal realm It's good and right and fitting for us to pray for our physical needs to be met. Maybe it's good health. Maybe it's a home. Maybe it's good work to provide for our families. But it's also good and right here, and we could say that this also means that we pray for our spiritual needs. Lord, help me to grow in holiness. Help me to become so weary with my own sin, and help me, Lord, to put it off and to mortify it by the help of your Holy Spirit. Well, in this verse, Jesus is also teaching us, notice, give us this day our daily bread. He's teaching us to pray daily. He could have told us to pray weekly or monthly or even yearly. But no, He says daily. And why does He say daily? Well, there are several reasons. One is that prayer is communing with God. So when we pray, we are communing with God who made the universe, who created us in His image and for His own glory. So we're communing with Him when we bow the knee and when we pray with Him. We should be communing with God on a daily basis, walking with Him, reading His Word, praying to Him. We're to daily and several times daily, right? Go to the throne of grace to find help in our time of need. Paul would say, pray without ceasing. It doesn't mean that all we do is pray, but it means that our posture and our attitude should be one that we are prayerful in our lives and we're continually going to the Lord throughout our day with petitions, yes, but also praising Him for what He's done, for who He is, for what He's doing in our lives. as well as confessing our own sins. Well, secondly, Jesus is teaching us in this verse to live one day at a time, to live one day at a time. I don't know about you all, but I'm a real planner. I like to plan things like weeks and months and years out. I even like to have itineraries for vacations. I know it sounds bad. What's the point here? It's not bad to plan. It's not bad to plan, but you've got to hold those plans loosely Right? Knowing that God ultimately has His plans in mind. So we're not requesting here that God give us what we need for the next month, but rather we pray that He would give us what we need for that particular day. You see, when the Bible was written in that day and time and culture, people received a day's wages and they would take the day's wages and they would go and they would buy what they needed for that day, not for the next day, for that day. We don't necessarily live in that day and time now. So how do we apply it here in this day and time? Well, Jesus is still saying, we live today. So be grateful, be content with what the Lord has given us today and then trust Him for tomorrow. Well, let's move into verse 12, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. You see, we come to the Lord with contrite, humble hearts, knowing that He is willing, He's able to forgive you, forgive me of our trespasses. Brokenness and contrition are further indicated in the section of the Lord's Prayer when it says, as we forgive our debtors. In other words, we are praying that the Lord would forgive us in the same way that we forgive others. Again, it takes humility. You can't come before the Lord in prayer in pride. You come before the Lord in prayer in humility. We can only truly forgive others if we have experienced forgiveness ourselves. Only those who truly see the depravity of their own sin and the severity of their sin can really extend forgiveness to others. Put another way, let's ask the question, how can we forgive others? Well, it's only because we realize that we have sinned far more against the Lord than others will sin against us. And what has God done for you and for me? He has forgiven us. So knowing that, if you've sinned far more against the Lord than others have sinned against you, and He has shown grace and mercy and forgiveness to you, How can we not forgive others? John Stott put it this way, once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. And how many times does Scripture say we're to forgive your brother or sister in the Lord? It's 70 times 7, right? This is one of my favorite implications of the T in TULIP, standing for total depravity, because once we truly understand our depraved nature, forgiving others becomes easier. Our understanding of the gravity and the enormity of our own sin allows us to be more gracious with others and forgiving them in their sin. Well, this leads us to verse 13, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us, deliver us from evil. This is a fitting verse following verse 12 about forgiveness, isn't it? It's almost as if Jesus is saying, pray hard, not only that your sins will be forgiven, but now once they're forgiven, pray really hard that you don't go back there. and be tempted again. Your sins have been forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus at Calvary. You are blessed in that you have been the recipient of the amazing grace that God himself showers you with. You have been redeemed from the bondage of sin, and you're no longer enslaved by it, but you're enslaved to the one who has taken on that sin at the cross of Calvary. And so we're overwhelmed, aren't we at times? Overwhelmed by the sheer love and grace and mercy of our heavenly Father and the gracious sacrifice of our Savior. So then let us, in light of this verse, pray that we will not continue in sin. Lord, help me to put that off. Help me to mortify it. Help me to kill it by the help of your Holy Spirit, because I can't do it on my own, that I might live unto you and for your glory because of what you've done in my life. Terry Johnson writes, so I'm absolutely certain of one thing, that I never want to go back there again. He's talking about, you know, going back to sin again. May I never be like those who are again entangled in the defilements of the world. May I never be like the dog who returns to his vomit or like the sow who returns to wallow in the mire," 2 Peter 2, 20 through 22. I abhor what is evil and I'm clinging for dear life to what is good, Romans 12, 9. Consequently, I beg and plead, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The Christian's desire is to leave the world of temptation more and more, more and more. R.C. Sproul concludes his chapter on this important part of the Lord's Prayer with this. I often ask myself how I would measure up if God allowed me to be severely tested. I honestly don't know, and I don't want to have to find out. So I often pray this petition of the Lord's Prayer asking, oh Lord, please, please keep that hedge. around me. Don't put me in that place of testing. Deliver me from the evil one who goes about like a roaring lion, ready to devour whomever I will." And then he goes on to say, I pray for divine protection from all forces of evil that surround us. And I believe this petition, this petition should be on the believer's lips every day. Lord, protect me with that hedge of protection. with the angel of the Lord and camp around my home and deliver me from evil. Keep the evil one far away, Lord." Well, this brings us to the final two verses today, verses 14 and 15. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Now, some who want to alter the Word of God have said, and it really goes like this, forgive us our debts as we desire to forgive our debtors. It's not right. It doesn't say desire, it speaks of action. Certainly, the desire should be there to forgive others, but we should also be actively forgiving others. John MacArthur writes, for if you forgive men for their trespasses, puts the principle in a positive mode. Believers then should forgive as those who have received judicial forgiveness. When the heart is filled with such a forgiving spirit, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. The other part of that verse states the truth of verse 14 in a negative way for emphasis. The sins of an unforgiving heart and a bitter spirit forfeits blessing and imputes judgment." So, what's he saying there? If we don't forgive others, what happens to us? We become bitter and we become angry, and we forfeit the Lord's forgiveness in our own lives. So, let's be as ones who have received God's forgiveness. Oh, how good He is to us. Let us extend forgiveness to others. In a sermon, as we conclude, in a sermon on the parallel in today's passage in Matthew 6, Augustine of Hippo warns us, lest we forgive only with our mouths and not with our hearts. See, when others ask for our forgiveness, we must not hold a grudge, even though we say we may have forgiven them. As always, God is most concerned with our hearts, and our forgiving hearts indicate that we have seen our sin and have truly cast ourselves on the Lord's mercy. So it kind of brings us back around, doesn't it, to one of the main points in the Sermon on the Mount, one of the things that we keep seeing over and over and over again. Don't be like the scribes. Don't be like the hypocrites who dress really nice on the outside, looks like they're doing the part, they're doing the right thing, but their hearts are evil and they're deceptive. And it's a fault. form of godliness. Jesus is saying, no, don't be like that. And don't be like that in how you pray. Let us come before the Lord in all humility, communing with Him, praying that He would grow us and change us as we commune with Him in prayer. And why do we pray? Because the Lord commanded us to pray. Do we ever pray so that God will change His mind? No, there's no shadow of change, no shadow of turning with Thee. God never changes. That's His immutability. We pray that God would change us and that He would even change us through our prayers, making us more and more like His Son. Let's do that right now. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, our Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, that You are our Father. Lord, and you are our father, not because of what we have done, but because of what you have done for us through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Oh, how we thank you. Oh, how we thank you for your word and for this particular part of your word where Jesus teaches us how to pray. Lord, help us to be fervent in our prayers, zealous, passionate, praising you in our prayers for who you are, confessing our sins to you, petitioning to you, praying for those, Lord, that we know that don't already know you. Help us to have a renewed passion, Lord, for praying. And father, we pray for those that'll be at our service today. We pray Lord that you would build up your saints, that you would grow us in holiness, even through the preach word today. And father, we also would be remiss if we don't pray for those that come that may not know you. Oh Lord, help us to show a Christian hospitality to those that are coming and visiting this Lord's day to this your house. And we pray father that they would see their sin, that you would, through the Holy Spirit, soften hard hearts, remove scales from eyes, that people might be brought to saving faith, even this day, this resurrection Sunday. We thank you, Lord, for who you are. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to live for you. In Jesus' name, amen.