Hello, and welcome to this week's service at Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church. We are located out of Prairie View, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago. We are so glad you decided to join us today. This is our first sermon in the series on the Lord's Prayer by Pastor Brett Malin. Our scripture reading will be 2 Chronicles 7, 12-22, and Luke 11, 1-4. Our sermon text will be Acts 6, 9-13. The subject of prayer is very, very important. In fact, it is one of the most important things in the Christian life. And some would argue that it is the most important thing in the Christian life. The problem is there's a whole lot of confusion. There is a lot of confusion when it comes to the topic, to the issue, of prayer. It's not just a topic of confusion for Christians, but we can notice that many others outside of the Christian faith are very confused about prayer as well. I spend a little bit of time with Muslims. There's a mosque in my town. One time I went to a pastor's breakfast with the mayor of my town. And I sat next to the Muslim, the imam, talked to him and observed him closely, just out of curiosity. I have an interest in other religions in a sense. Obviously Christianity is true, but I'm always kind of fascinated by people, why they do what they do, especially in the man-centered, man-made religions. I watched this man, who I understand, he's a poor, unfaithful Muslim, to pray five times a day, but here's what he was also doing. He had a prayer bead necklace or something, some sort of thing, and I watched him, and this is what he does. He just flicks, flicking his thumb. He has this, like, I don't know, sort of string with little beads on it, and he just goes click, click, flicking a bead, click, click. Why does he do this? because he's praying, and each one of those is a prayer. And once you make it all the way around through this, maybe it's 25 times or so, you come to a major bead that that tells you how many times you've gone around. What's the point? What's the purpose of all this? It's really to keep track of how many times you prayed, just this repetition. One second prayers. Well, I know it's in a sense so that you can say, look, this is how many times I've prayed today. So in addition to his five times a day, spread out throughout the day, he's prayed just multiple times. This is man-centered religion. Oftentimes, we see people who name the name of Christ, and what do they do? They're praying to Mary. They're praying to Mary. Why? They're praying to Mary so that Mary can talk to Jesus. Why? Because someone who has a mother should listen to his mother. And so the son of God has a mother and should listen. He should listen to his mother. So you should pray to her so that she will pray to her son. This is man-made religion. We can point out many types of man-made religion, whether in Islam, which is a total distortion of any sort of religion or Romanism, which is a deep distortion of Christianity in a sense. But I think even among the evangelical Christians and Reformed Christians, oftentimes we have deep confusion about what prayer is and how we ought to do it. And I think sometimes it brings us to great fear and immobility, non-movement in our Christian walk. Why? Because I think we often don't pray. And I think that there are many Christians who don't pray. They might pray at dinner with other people. They might pray over breakfast on their own or something like that. But often they go through their Christian life with no prayer, no private prayer, all alone, when no one is looking but God is looking. They do not go into their secret place, to a private room, into a prayer closet. They do not seek God's glory and seek his face there. And while many times people, creatures, will lay down a guilt trip upon them. And there may be a place for that, in a sense, to encourage people and even to rebuke them for not praying. Before we go there, I think we also need to back up and consider the failures of the Christian church, failures of the Christian church, just in general, but particularly when it comes to prayer. What happens when someone becomes a new believer? What do we do? We're anxious to disciple them. We're anxious to teach them the things of God. So what do we do? We teach them about Bible reading. We teach them how to read the Bible. We might encourage them to come to Bible studies, to come to worship, come to all sorts of things, all things that are good. How often do we say, now that you're a believer, let me teach you how to pray? I think that's one deep failure of the Reformed church. of the evangelical church. We have a sense, almost, that people are just gonna get it. They're just gonna catch it. But these things are caught, not taught. Problem is, I don't think they're caught. They are taught. Jesus does not say, just learn some theology, learn some things about God, learn some Bible, and then prayer is just going to blow out of that. It's not the case. Why do we know this? Because Jesus instructs his disciples how to pray. So I really just want to focus upon the beginning, Matthew 6, 9, just the beginning. After this manner, therefore, pray ye, and ye, understand that's plural. This is after this manner that he's about to say, that he's about to explain, this is how ye, or all of you, should pray. Hopefully we can make up for my failure, for all of our failures in teaching one another to do the most important, or one of the most important things that we do as believers. Understand, we've spent 29 straight weeks, I think, in the Nicene Creed. Why is that? Because we just like heady theological topics? No, no, hopefully it wasn't too heady. Hopefully you listen to these things and you say, this is what the Bible teaches. this is what i believe but having meditated upon what we should believe now we seek to meditate upon how we should respond to it with the first act of faith which is prayer and lord willing maybe after this we'll consider the 10 commandments which is how shall i live right what should i believe How shall we pray and how should we live? Three things that always ought to be before our minds as Christians. So basically, I just give you Jesus, the high priest, teaches us to pray. Jesus, the high priest, teaches us to pray. In his humiliation, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. That's what he's saying when he says, after this manner, therefore praying. In his humiliation, he teaches prayer. But I would say how much more so in his exaltation, his ascension after suffering for your sins and being raised from the dead for your sins and ascending to the right hand of God, the Father. being seated at the right hand of God the Father. And as we read, interceding for us, then teaches us, as the high priest teaches us how we ought to pray. So that we might not go into prayer fearful. I think some people are very scared to pray. They're afraid to say the wrong thing. They're afraid they might not sound holy enough. They're afraid that they might fumble and bumble. He teaches us how to pray. What is prayer? Briefly, we just should ask that, and we understand that we've already answered it, have we not? What is prayer? We read it, Westminster Shorter Catechism 98, before we get into this particular prayer which we're hoping to do over the next couple of weeks, eight weeks or so. We ought to just ask ourselves, what is prayer? We said it, correct, prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will in the name of Christ with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment. of His mercies. Let's just meditate upon that for a moment. Some people say, well, okay, well, that's, that's catechism and that's the works of men. Amen. It is, but I've not found a better definition of prayer than this. Okay, I've not found a better one. If someone has a better one, I'd be happy to hear it. But in the meantime, what is prayer? An offering up of our desires unto God. What do we begin with? We begin in our call to worship with Psalm 62. What does it say? Trust in him at all times, ye people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Pour out your heart to him. God is a refuge for us. It's truly what it means to offer up our desires unto God. You know, sometimes I observe people, I love to watch people. I love to watch people who say that they cannot speak publicly, right? And we understand that one of the greatest fears people have, the greatest fears are death and heights and public speaking oftentimes. And why is it that public speaking is such a fear? Because you can make mistakes and you can fumble and bumble and all sorts of things. But here's what's interesting. You ever watch someone who is afraid to speak publicly, but then introduce a topic where he or she is extremely passionate? That person will speak clearly, crisply, with great intensity. Why is that? Because all the fear goes away, and this person is pouring out their thoughts. You must do this. You must think this. You must believe this. That sort of thing. Same is the case here with prayer and offering up of our desires unto God, pouring out your heart before Him. Why? Because He's a refuge for you. Pour out your heart to Him. And also, we must do so about things agreeable to His will. 1 John 5, 14 says, if I ask anything, If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. That is key. We must ask according to his will. We do not desire things outside of his will. We should not. We must desire things that are according to his will. We must not ask for sin. We must not ask for things which are contrary to his character, we must ask according to his will. How do we know what his will is? Is it some secret thing? Well, we know what the will of God is. The will of God is revealed to us in the Bible. We must do so in the name of Christ. Listen to this, John 16, 23. And in that day, he shall ask me nothing. And Jesus says, verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Very important that we understand the name of Christ. Oftentimes we end our prayers saying, in Jesus' name. And I think it's right for us to do that. It's very good. pray in the name of Christ, but it means more than just something we tack on at the end. To do something in someone's name is to be associated with that person in an intimate way. To insult a person's name is to directly insult that person. in the third commandment makes it very clear that you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. Why? Is it because he's concerned about pronunciation of his name or something like that? No, because biblically speaking, a person and his name are so intimately associated that to bring glory to the name is to bring glory to the person. And to denigrate the name is to denigrate the very person. So we come to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, intimately associated with him because of what he has done by faith in him. And we come with confession of our sins. With confession of our sins. Psalm 32 5 says, I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And Alfred gave us the iniquity of my sin. When we come before our God, we ought to do so. Contressing our many sins. Why? Because we do not come into the name of the Lord Jesus. Entering into prayer with His name and boasting of our own goodness or our supposed self-righteousness. We come into God's presence because of the forgiveness that we have received. We come into God's presence in prayer, confessing our sins. Not boasting of ourselves, but in a sense, accusing ourselves. That is what repentance is, though. That is what confession of faith, rather, is. To confess that we are sinners, and it is to accuse ourselves. Why? So that God may free us. from the guilt of that accusation. We do not seek to cover over our sins and hide them from him and bring them before him. He may take away the burden. Daniel 9, 4, he says, I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession. Goes to the Lord confessing that he is a sinner, confessing his sins. Though his sins may not be great scandal, though his sins may be minor in the eyes of many, Daniel understands that he must go to the Lord, confessing his sins. And also lastly, with thankful acknowledgment of his mercies. Good definition of prayer. Philippians 4, 6 says, be careful for nothing or take no care for anything, I could say, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. So how do we pray? We can meditate just on that. We offer up our desires according to his will in the name of Christ with of sins and we are thankful as we acknowledge the mercies that God has given to us, the daily mercies that he has given. Food, sleep, clothing, shelter, a beating heart, a breathing lungs, ears that hear and eyes that see, hands and feet that move. Constantly we have to praise God and thank him for these daily mercies and take none of them for granted. It's interesting though, as we consider the issue of prayer, it's not interesting to consider how many people are concerned about how Christians should pray. In the early church, The government was very concerned about how Christians pray. The Caesar of the Roman Empire. He said, that's fine. You can pray whatever you want to pray. Here's what you must do. In addition to what you do, you must offer up a little bit of incense to Caesar, the Roman king. Offer up incense to him, and you must say, Jesus is Lord. Excuse me, Caesar is Lord. Getting ahead of myself. Caesar is Lord, you must say. And what do the Christians do? They say, well, we will not burn incense. We'll not go into any temple for any other god or for the Caesar. And we will say, Jesus is Lord. What does that mean when we say that Jesus is Lord? We mean, Jesus is the Lord and Caesar is not. In other words, what we're saying, what they were saying is that you may give some sort of respect to the Caesar, but he has one who is higher than him. There is a king that is far greater than any Caesar and than any king. And that king rules over the nations now. That king is seated, as Psalm 2 says, upon the throne. And he is ruling and reigning from the heavenly Mount Zion. And Caesar needs to repent of his sins. You can understand why this was a great offense to many, those who believed in the religion of Caesar, those who believed in the Greek and Roman gods, but also those who simply wanted national unity, and they thought, well, if we can get people to just confess that Caesar is Lord, then it'll be great, we can just have national unity. That was not what the Christians were aiming for. They were aiming for the glory of God and for the glory of Jesus Christ over all other kings. In the 1500s and the 1600s especially, the 16th and 17th century, there was great concern over how Christians would pray. In fact, the concern was so great that the king and those who worked with him and her, the queen, I mean, this is spanning about two centuries here, there was a great concern for how the people would pray. And here's what they did. They came up with a book in England. They said, listen, This is the book that you're going to use. This is after England cast off the Roman church. They said, we're gonna do it ourselves. We're gonna be without the Church of Rome. Come up with this book. And it's called the Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer. It's still used today. It's been changed and it may updates to it and that sort of thing. Here's what they did. Here's what the king ultimately was responsible for. He said, these are the forms of prayers that you should use. You should use this form of prayers in which you commonly, that is as the people of God, open it together and read and recite these words together as prayer. Now here's the thing. This was not a suggestion. This is a mandate from the king. From the most high up, so they thought, you must pray these prayers on this day, those prayers on that day, okay? Now, there's a lot of other things that come with it as well. The things that a pastor was supposed to wear. A guard that was not like the Roman guard, but not like a commoners guard as well. They also mandated things like kneeling, bowing, when the word supper was raised. A whole bunch of other things come with it. In other words, there were lots of Christians that looked at this and said, so you cast off Rome, but then you bring about a church that looks a lot like it and is mandating all of these things. Many Christians said, this is wrong. This is wrong to impose forms of prayer that must be prayed on certain days. There were many Things that happened, wars came about as a result of it. And many people are martyred. They're martyred because they would not pray these prayers. Well, here's the thing. Are these things so bad? If you look through the Book of Common Prayer, if you could read, just open it up and go to any Anglican church, you could order one for a couple bucks off Amazon. You might read it and you say, This is filled with mostly Bible, lots of Psalms, but also lots of things just taken from all sorts of places in the Bible. And also prayers of saints that have gone before, Chrysostom, prayers of his is in there, Augustine, people like that. For the most part, it's good stuff. For the most part. So why were these Christians, some of these Christians, People look at them and say, you know, these are like hair-splitting Christians. Why are they so obsessed about this? This is why. The reason is this. The reason is that no one has the authority to impose a form of prayer upon the church. except the one who suffered and died for the church. That's why. Woe unto any man who imposes and then enforces prayers upon people. If the president were to suggest, pray for me, I think I would be inclined to take him upon that. Even one who I don't believe is regenerated. Mr. Biden. I'd be inclined to do that. If he says, hey, pray for this. I will take that under consideration. Here's where he crossed the line. If he were to say, you must pray this way or you'll be arrested. Well, now, sorry. That's exactly what was going on. First time you ignored the forms. of prayer in that book of common prayer, you could be fined, and the second time you could be in prison. They laid this sort of law down multiple times, in the 1500s and the 1600s. Why does our confession and our shorter catechism use the words that it does? I want to point you to question answer 99. What rule has God given? for our direction in prayer. The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer. Stop right there. You can, you may use from all portions of the Word of God. You can pray things that are said in Romans and in Genesis and the Psalms and Proverbs. Every single verse of the Bible will be of use to you. if you make it so. But, the special rule of direction is that form of prayer, which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called the work of prayer. Here's the thing, Jesus has the right, the divine right and the power to impose prayer indeed to impose a form of prayer upon the church, and no other man does. We may take suggestions. Indeed, I think if the king had said, hey, here's a book of prayers, consider them, I don't think we would have had such a problem. But once it is mandated that you must pray this way on these particular days, you have overstepped the line. You have, in a sense, sought to knock Jesus off of his royal throne, and you have sought to knock him off of his priestly duties, pray for his church, and to instruct his church how to pray. That is what I want you to see. Not only is every single word of God, every single word of God is what you need and that is what you must delight in. What I want to drive home for you is this, that in God's amazing, wonderful providence, look, the people who put together our confession and our shorter and larger catechism are so careful and not a word is wasted that special rule of direction, it's that form of prayer which Jesus may impose upon the church. I jokingly, though not fully jokingly, tell my Anglican friends, since they're not killing us anymore, I say to my Anglican friends, you have the Book of Common Prayer We need to make better use of the Book of Uncommon Prayer, which is the Psalms. Of course, I equivocate on the meaning of the word common and uncommon. Here's the thing. When you listen to people pray, when you listen to even evangelicals pray, what do you hear? You hear, even among leaders, you ever notice the word justice? Jesus, just do this, and just do that. Even in the like, leaders of massive evangelical churches, with big bands and a full website, and everything like that. Right? What's the Book of Common Prayer seeking to do? To keep you from that sort of stumbling and fumbling, and really to say, at least you're doing it, at least you're praying, even if your heart's not in it, you're just reciting this thing. Where ought to be the model, ultimately, for us to pray? Well, it's the Book of Uncommon Prayer, which is the Psalms. Of course, it is the prayer, the form of prayer, which Jesus imposes upon the church. Indeed, look what God has done through the Psalms. If anyone would say that we have a larger form of prayers, set of forms of prayers to be given to us, guess where we find them? We find them in the Psalms of David and the others. And if you need more to help you in your prayer, then you have the Lord's Prayer itself. Briefly, let me just say a few things because we're simply introducing the Lord's Prayer in Matthew before we meditate upon it in the next two months or so. I'm not sure exactly how long we'll ultimately be on it. Here's what I want you to see. First of all, I want you to see that you may use Matthew's words, which are the Holy Spirit's words quoting Jesus, so it's Jesus' words, Matthew 6, 9 through 13. You may use these as a form of prayer that you pray. You may use them. Now here's the one thing you want to look out for. Make sure that when you do so, make sure that you do not make it into simple vain repetitions. Because if you look at the verses around where this is found, that's exactly what Jesus is criticizing. Vain repetitions, just words you say over and over and over again, and your heart is not in it, and your mind is not engaged. Let's watch out for that. But if you would like to use a form of New Testament prayer, then you may use this. If you meditate upon what you're praying. But also you may use it as a guide. If you ever say, I don't know what to pray when I pray, here's what you do. Open up Matthew. chapter six verse nine and you read a small portion our father which art in heaven and what can you do praise god that he's your father in heaven talk about how you delight that he is your father in heaven and ask forgiveness from your father in heaven etc and then i mean on to the next i will be done meditate upon his will that he has decreed, but also meditate upon what he has commanded. That is, when it's talking about his will, as we'll see in weeks to come, it's his commands of how you should live your life according to the Ten Commandments and according to the Word of God. If you're baffled by prayer, open up this portion of the Word of God, and in a sense, Pray through it. Use it as your guide. And hopefully in the next eight weeks or so, I'll be able to give you more understanding of that. Which hopefully, if I do my job, hopefully I will, if the Spirit gives me help, then you'll receive that. And you will never be without words to pray. Because you'll open up and you'll say, there's so many things I want to say. So many things I want to pray now. Why? Because I have the guide. Jesus is your guide who has given you not only the form but also the guide. Also here's the thing. We don't need to be super rigid about this form which is imposed upon the church. Here's why. Because we read Luke chapter 11, one through four, and what do we have there? We have a different circumstance in which Jesus gives a Lord's Prayer. What do you notice about it? It's very similar, but it also has some differences. In other words, even Jesus himself does not say, you must pray by these words, otherwise you'll be fined and arrested, right? He does not do that. You'll be cast into eternal prison if you don't do that. You see the absurdity of when man seeks to do that? Jesus in his mercy and grace, he doesn't do that. Who is man that we should seek to do that? Who is a king who believes that he stands there by divine right who should be able to tell you what you should pray and impose reforms on you now? Even Jesus, when he gives a form, he gives another form. Why? Because he's not so much concerned about the rigidity, he is concerned about your heart, that your heart would be in it, and that in it you would pour out yourself to him. That's his ultimate concern. Also, understand that you who fear God, And I don't mean fear in the reverence sort of way, but are actually afraid of him in a way that you should not be. You might be afraid to pray because you're afraid that you might mess it up, that you might fumble and fumble. I want to encourage you with the fact that God delights in hearing the prayers of this people delights to hear you pray as well or as poorly as you pray. When a parent begins to hear his or her child speak, the parent is not concerned with perfect sentences. The parent is delighted that this, my child, is beginning to say words and beginning to put words together and speak to me directly. This one that I loved and prayed for, spoken to for all of this time, now is beginning to speak back to me. That's similar to the way that God delights. to hear his people pray, whether they might see their prayers as glorious, or whether they might see their prayers as weak before him. Why? It is because the Holy Spirit takes and sanctifies your weak prayers, and the Holy Spirit brings them up into the divine counsel Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that sanctifies them, and Jesus covers them over with his blood, and the Father receives them. We meditated upon 2 Chronicles, did we not? That's what we had. We had the founding of the temple. Solomon built the temple. God instructs him. that if his sons are faithful, that Solomon is going to have a son to sit on the throne forever. You may know the story, the kings, some of them were all right and some had faith and some were outright wicked. But in the midst of that, God has held out this promise that he delights in the prayers of his people and he said, If my people, who are called by my name, would pray, then I'd heal them, I'd heal their land, and I'd hear them. Now understand that we don't operate under that covenantal structure that they had, where the faithfulness of the king and the faithfulness of the nation brings about material obedience in the nation. Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26. We don't operate under that sort of structure, where God is guaranteeing certain things to the king. However, the principle there is still true, that when we are far from God, He delights to hear us. We come to Him, and as we pray, and understand this, as we close. God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus, when you approach them in prayer, you do not approach some distant person or persons or some distant being. You approach one who knows and has counted the very hairs upon your head who knows your days, and has set his love upon you throughout all of eternity, and that the Father sent his Son to die for you, to redeem you. And so, with God's closeness to you, his intimacy with you, be encouraged to seek him and to love him and to delight in him and do so through the means that he has given, namely prayer. So now let us go to the Lord in prayer, and briefly, let us worship him that way.