The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters five, six, and seven was given early in the ministry of Jesus. His disciples had not yet been well trained in the kingdom of God, and they were uneducated in the matter of prayer. The passage which Nate read this morning is the instruction of Jesus to the apprenticing disciples about prayer. Some weeks ago, we covered verses five through eight, where Jesus began his instruction on prayer by giving two negative examples. Don't be like the hypocrites. Don't be like the heathen. So we'll begin today with a brief review on what prayer should not be. First of all, the hypocrites. When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men." The error of the hypocrites was the desire for their own glory. They didn't have a sincere relationship with God, they just wanted to be seen as devout. So their problem was one of motive. They prayed in order to receive glory. The heathen had a different problem. Their problem was one more of faith, maybe we would say. I'm reading in verses seven and eight. When you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they'll be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them, for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. So the heathen, they perceive that their gods had one of two deficiencies. One deficiency might be that their gods didn't know what they needed. Their gods were ignorant, or they were unobserving. And so the heathen had to constantly tell their gods what they want. The other deficiency is possibly their gods didn't care. And so they had to be badgered into, come on, give us this. Whichever deficit that caused them to pray constantly and repetitiously, whether it was the gods were unaware or they were uncaring, either of those deficiencies caused the heathen to repeat vainly their requests to their God. And Jesus told his disciples, don't lack faith like the heathen do. Don't be like them. Your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. Then in verse nine, Jesus shifted from how not to pray and began instruction on how to pray. In this manner, therefore, pray. Notice the word manner. what Jesus is saying, style your prayer after this model. We sometimes use the Lord's Prayer as directly quoting it, and that is certainly a fine thing to do, but Jesus was not giving a prayer to be endlessly repeated word for word. He was giving a model, which identified some of the key elements. in prayer, and as we study the Lord's Prayer, we can be able to pray more effectively and become better at building on the framework for the prayer that Jesus gave, adding appropriate and meaningful content under each section of the prayer. Now, as he introduced his teaching on prayer, Jesus addressed two fundamental questions. Who is praying? Who is being prayed to? The answers are found in the first two words of the prayer, our Father. Who's praying? The children of God. That narrows down the audience substantially, actually, because not everyone is a child of God in the sense of salvation. Jesus told the hard-hearted Jewish people In John 8, 44, you are of your father the devil. Biblically, the majority of people are not the redeemed children of God. Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Those are the words of Jesus that we'll get to in Matthew 7, 13 and 14. And you can become a child of God, Simply by putting faith in Jesus Christ, we read in John 1, Jesus came to his own and his own did not receive him. In general, the population didn't receive Jesus as the son of God, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God to those who believe in his name. And there is one prayer that God always hears from the unsaved. And that is the prayer of the penitent sinner asking forgiveness through Jesus Christ. But the Lord's prayer was given to his children. It's the prayer of children coming to their father. And notice that it is a prayer for God's children coming to him together. our Father, not my Father. Back in verse six, Jesus commended private prayer. When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place. But here Jesus commends corporate prayer, God's children praying together. And so the actual best application to the Lord's prayer is corporate prayer, a man praying with his wife, a family praying together, men and women from the church getting together for prayer. All right, who is the prayer to? Our Father in heaven. The Jewish people listening, I think, would have had a hard time with the concept of calling God Father. they were used to seeing God in a little bit more of a severe light, and calling God Father would have been a little bit casual for them. And they were used to high reverence for God and calling God father would have seemed maybe impious. And God is holy and sublime and God is filled with awe. But here Jesus chose to emphasize the father as familial and affectionate. and intimate with his children, and we must revere God, he is our father in heaven. And it is possible to be too casual with God, I see it frequently, or feel it frequently. And Solomon warned against this in Ecclesiastes 5, 2. He said, do not be rash with your mouth. Do not let your heart utter anything hastily before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. The need to revere our Father is taken up in the next section of the prayer, the next element of the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed Be Your Name. Hallowed means holy, purified. The Old Testament priests were purified before they could serve, they went through purification procedures, ritual washings, they washed their clothes, they offered sacrifices, sin offerings and burn offerings, they were sprinkled with blood and with anointing oil, all in very prescribed ways to ensure that they were purified because their duties in the temple were sacred. And when we come to our Father in prayer, we also come carefully, Like the Old Testament priests, our first job is to honor and praise the sacredness and the sanctity and the holiness of God. And when we say, Hallowed be your name, it prevents us from being too glib with God. Yes, he's our father, but we respect and fear our earthly fathers, at least we're supposed to, Every one of you shall revere his father and his mother. I am the Lord, Leviticus 19 three. And our heavenly father deserves even more reverence. A God who loves us though, is not at odds with a God that we are to revere. God is holy and God is love. In his perfect character, his love doesn't diminish his holiness. His holiness in no way compromises his love. And we are both to revel in the love of God and hallow the holiness of God. Hallowed be your name. Now, there are times where we must, immediately take our petitions to God. And we may have to skip over this part of hallowing his name. Peter had that kind of prayer after he got out of the boat and walked on the water. Remember that when Peter saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried out saying, Lord, save me. And we may have prayers like that, but our prayers hopefully often include praising his name. We could call it adoration, we could call it praise, we could call it reverence. It's our way of honoring God's character, and notice it occurs earlier in the prayer, before our petitions in this model prayer. The corporate prayer, our father, and in it we seek to hallow God's name when we pray together. Words of praise should be, they should come off of our tongues fairly easily. We speak highly of God in the presence of others, and when we speak highly of God publicly, we hallow his name. Singing to God is another way to hallow his name. And, I say, you sing beautifully, and that's wonderful, but it's wonderful not just because of the beautiful sound, it's wonderful because it venerates. lifts up, uplifts the character and name of God the Father when we sing enthusiastically to God and about God. All right, we move on to verse 10. Your kingdom come. That's an eternal focus. We pray for the kingdom of God to come. But what exactly is the kingdom of God? Well, the kingdom of God is anywhere where God is reigning supreme. In one sense, God is reigning supreme in the universe now, and he always has. God is omnipotent, he's sovereign, he's greater than Satan, but Satan has been given some latitude in this world, and people have been given choice. We say that men and women and children are free moral agents. By that we mean we have the capacity to choose right, we have the capacity to choose wrong. And so God's reign is not yet seen in perfect completion, because the devil's still on the loose, men and women still choose to do wrong, We might understand the kingdom of God then in two ways. We might understand the kingdom of God in his current kingdom or in his future kingdom. The current kingdom of God is where God reigns in the hearts of men and women. His kingdom now is in his church. Now, Jesus referred to this current kingdom when he said, read from Luke 17 20 and 21 Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come he answered them and said the kingdom of God does not come with observation nor will they say see here or see there for indeed the kingdom of God is within you kingdom of God is within you and so in the church we find the kingdom of God as men and women submit to his rule and his reign. The kingdom of God also has a future sense when Jesus returns to the earth and defeats the devil and all his foes, and he sets up his eternal kingdom. That kingdom of Jesus is prophesied, for example, in Revelation 11, 15, the seventh angel sounded and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. So that's the eternal kingdom of God. So the kingdom that we're praying to come, is it the current kingdom of God in the church or is it the eternal kingdom of God at the end time? Well, we can't know for sure, but I think it might refer more to the eternal kingdom of God, because the next phrase in the Lord's prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, addresses the kingdom of God now on earth. So as believers, we're to long for the eternal kingdom of God. His eternal kingdom will be far superior than anything we've known on earth. And that's hard for us to grasp. And so it's not uncommon for people to, when they think about heaven, especially as children, they're worried that it might be boring. Because we're so earthbound, we are unable to comprehend how great heaven will be. By faith, we believe that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you," John 14, 2. Jesus himself has made preparations so we can confidently pray for Jesus to return. In Revelation 22, 20, Jesus said, surely I am coming quickly. And the writer of Revelation responded, amen, even so, come Lord Jesus. So when we pray, we hallow his name, we look forward to his everlasting kingdom, and third, we pray for God's will on earth. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is a statement that puts us in submission to God's will. Our desire is that God's will among us be done as perfectly as it is in heaven. There in heaven, obedience is complete, immediate, perfect. As we pray for God's will to be done among us, we need to realize that we are the agents responsible for obeying his will. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, John 14, 15. And those words of Jesus are inescapable for their implication. The implication is, We have freedom to obey God's commandments. We have the freedom to disobey God's commandments. You have, as an extra reading, 1 John 5, 2-4. If you would turn there with me. 1 John 5, verses 2-4. starting at verse two. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. looking in particular at verse 4. Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. We were born of God when we trusted in Jesus for salvation, and then, after that, we are to overcome the world. The world represents all the sinful temptations, all the sinful lifestyles, which the world tries to sell us, to corrupt us. But we're expected to overcome the sinful temptations of the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Through our faith in Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we obey God's commandments. And when we obey His commandments, we overcome the evil worldly system. That does not mean that we live in sinful perfection. is not possible, I believe, on this side of heaven. But we should be, in general, making progress toward living lives that are less entangled in sin. So if you think back on your life, the past month, the past year, the past five years, you can ask the question, in general, am I more free from sin than I was? And when I get entangled in sin, do I get out of it more quickly than I used to? And if we can't answer yes to that question, we really need to redouble our commitment to prayer. When we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we commit ourselves to obedience. Your will be done, Father, through me and through us. We're advancing the kingdom of God, which is now on the earth. The church is like a mighty army treading down the strongholds of Satan. And God has promised that the powers of evil and hell cannot prevail against the church. And I also say to you, Peter, that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, Matthew 16, 18. And I was reminded of the words of an old hymn this week, Onward, Christian Soldiers. It's in our hymn book, but we don't sing it. very often, onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Christ, the royal master, leads against the foe, forward into battle, see his banners go. like a mighty army, moves the church of God. Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod. We are not divided, all one body we, one in faith and spirit, one eternally. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war with the cross of Jesus, going on before. I would like this church to be that kind of army, treading into, conquering Satan's territory. And when we pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it commits us to that spiritual battle and commits us to Jesus Christ, the Lord of hosts. And a very big part of winning that spiritual battle is prayer. You can know that prayer is spiritual warfare by how hard it is to pray sometimes, right? When you pray, the devil does everything he can to hinder you. That's why your mind wanders when you try to pray. You suddenly get tired when you try to pray. All kinds of interruptions suddenly happen when you try to pray. Prayer is spiritual. warfare, but I'm encouraged by the men and women who get together to pray in this church, and we've seen many answers to the prayers uttered during these prayer times. Oh, the model prayer of Jesus starts with hallowing God's name, prayer calls for the coming of God's eternal kingdom and then submits to God's will in our lives today. And the fourth section moves to request, give us this day our daily bread. One way that you could outline the Lord's prayer is to put the first three elements into the category of paying attention to God's interests. Now, the rest of the elements, starting with give us this day our daily bread, focuses on our needs and our interests. Daily bread, need for forgiveness, deliverance from temptation, deliverance from evil, those four final elements have to do with the needs that we have. First, daily bread. believers have recurring daily needs. The need for bread in the Bible times was a need that was felt more keenly by them typically than we feel it today. The believers in Jesus' time had no guarantee of food. Going hungry was a real concern. Still is in our world today, but more so in poorer countries. And many of us have never known what it's actually like to be hungry and on the path toward starvation. Although during my visit with my siblings in Arizona, they reminded me of a time where we ate nothing but corn mush. for a week until dad had enough money to buy other food. But for many of us, the daily needs are necessities maybe other than food. Money to pay bills, need for a new job, need for improved health, freedom from sickness. costs for medical treatment, the need for sleep and rest, the need for strength to keep up with daily responsibilities and others. And these are legitimate concerns we have in daily life. When these needs are not met, we're unable to function in life or our function is greatly compromised. And the words of Jesus show us that we're dependent on God for these daily needs. We may think we have things covered. We may think that a large bank account or high-paying job insulates us from daily needs. But we would be mistaken. Everything we think we have, which we believe guarantees our daily needs, will be met, can be lost in a moment. And in a sense, that is what happened to My brother, who I went to visit this past week, he was a doctor, not particularly rich because his goal was never to be rich, but he had a good income until an inflammation around his brain caused him to be disabled, and he was unable to work, and he requires 24-hour, round-the-clock care. and suddenly they were dependent on others. Now, the reality is before his illness, they were already dependent on God, but we couldn't see it because they looked so prosperous. Fortunately, their faith in God has held up very well. Whatever our lot in life is right now, we want to acknowledge that that daily sustenance is provided by God. Jesus instructs us to make our daily needs known. But if you look back up at verse eight, we read, therefore, do not be like them. Don't be like the heathen. for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. God knows what you need, so praying for daily needs, it's not to inform him. Praying for our daily needs is, one, a recognition that we're dependent on him, and two, it helps us keep in constant, regular communion with him. And those who do not ask for God's help, will not always receive his help. You do not have because you do not ask, James 4.2. We are invited as the children of God to come with our needs. You may need a new car, a new place to live, a new job. You may need relief from illness. You may need money to pay for school, money to pay off debt, maybe you need food. Don't hesitate to ask God for these needs, and you can come together to ask God for these needs. Married couples praying, families praying, men and women in the church praying together. And remember, God is a father. He's a good father. fathers care for their children. All right, forgiveness. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. So in our prayers, we routinely, maybe daily, ask for forgiveness. And you can see how the need for daily bread funnels right into this need for daily forgiveness. If you read verses 11 and 12 together, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. So it's a constant thing. The word debt here is best understood as a moral debt. It's a moral fault, moral faults that we have. The death that we owe to God, since God is a holy God, what he really deserves from us is holy, sinless living. But of course, we have not lived sinlessly or in the most holy way possible. And so we incur a debt daily as we walk through this life. The only resolution for the moral debt that we owe to God is for Him to forgive us. There's no suggestion here that we work harder or try harder. There's no suggestion that we try to atone for our sins. There's not even a suggestion that we do penance. There's no way for us to atone for our sins. Jesus atoned for our sins in his body on the cross of Calvary. He paid for our sins when we were unable to. And Jesus instructs us to remember that daily. As we pray, we ask for forgiveness for ongoing sins. Now, there is a need for penitence. It's good to be sorry for sins. It's good to redouble efforts to live a holy life. But since the day of our salvation, we have struggled with sin. We come, therefore, regularly asking for forgiveness. We don't lose salvation when we sin. The Bible doesn't teach that. But sin does get between us and God, and it cools off. It impacts negatively the relationship with him. When we ask forgiveness, the slate is cleaned, and we are restored to full fellowship. Now the last part of this verse, as we forgive our debtors, is an immense subject. And we'll have to come back to that later. We'll leave for now and move on to verse 13. And do not lead us into temptation, we'll call it testing. Now this first part of verse 13 is interesting because lead us not into temptation, God has proclaimed that he never tempts anyone. From James 1.13, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God for God cannot be tempted by evil nor to see himself tempt anyone. So God is never behind sin. He's never behind trying to prod you into doing evil. That's the devil's job. It's the devil's job to entice people into evil. It's not what God does. Now the word translated here, temptation, can mean enticement to evil, but often it means testing, proving. proving something through adversity or hardship. A little bit like, you know, a car's safety is tested by sending it through, you know, crash tests. And God allows testing in the life of believers to prove them or to strengthen them. Now think about the trials of Job for a second. So his trials were not specifically temptations for him to do evil. However, in the midst of his trials, Job at times was frustrated and he became vulnerable to saying things that maybe he shouldn't have said. For example, in Job 30, and I'm reading at verse 20, Job says to God, I cry out to you, but you do not answer me. You have become cruel to me. With the strength of your hand, you oppose me. It seems rather forward to accuse God of cruelty. The reason that we pray that God would not lead us into testing is because Testing can leave us vulnerable to sin. Theologian Dick France said this better than I could say it, and he said this, God, while he does not tempt men to do evil, he does allow his children to pass through periods of testing. But disciples, aware of their weakness, should not desire such testing, and should pray to be spared exposure to such situations in which they are vulnerable. And that's the sense that I get from this verse. So when you were in a trial, when you feel like you're wearing out, when you feel like you can't go on, Jesus said, pray. Father, do not lead me into temptation. I can't say with certainty that God will lead you out of your trial, whatever that trial may be. But in all of these light hardships in life, you can pray that God would lead you no farther into the trial, and you can pray that God would deliver you from the trial. I'm sure you already have. But in your prayer, trust God's judgment. He knows what's best for you. He knows when to continue the trial. He knows when to discontinue the trial. Here are two biblical promises to believers in time of testing. 1 Corinthians 10, 13, no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to men, but God's faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. God is always watching and managing your trials and hardships and limiting them. so that you can succeed. The second promise is from Deuteronomy 31 6. Be strong and of good courage. Do not fear nor be afraid of them. For the Lord your God, he is the one who goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. So the Lord is with you through all the trials you face. And he is able to deliver you from overburdening hardships. He's also able to deliver you from flat out evil. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And sometimes the evil in the world, sometimes it just feels like the world is relentlessly evil. Here in the New King James Version, the translation is evil one, the devil. About half of translations use evil one, the other half use evil. There's really not much difference interpretively. Evil ultimately emanates from the devil and it's his desire to kill and steal and destroy. You see it at the cultural level, don't you? in theater, in news, in academia. Righteous living is scorned. But more importantly, we see evil around us and in our lives. We see evil when evil turns our children away from the faith. We see evil and broken marriage vows, we see evil and mental and emotional health problems, we see evil when churches are split by factions and contentions, we see evil and random violence. And Jesus said, as his disciples were to pray to God that he would deliver us, he would deliver this group of people, from the evil one. And there are several implications in the words of Jesus here. One implication, Satan is plotting and pursuing evil against us. He wants to destroy this church. And all the more, because this is a praying church. As we pray and commit ourselves to God, we can expect more and more enemy attacks. What will the attacks look like? Well, Jesus didn't hear, tell us exactly what the evil would look like, but we can imagine The attacks could be on the integrity of marriages. The attacks could be Satan plotting division in families. The attacks could come through divisive people entering the church and destroying the unity. Attacks could be enticements to gross moral failure among members bringing disgrace and shame on our church. Attacks could be health problems or mental health problems like depression. We know and you should know. The devil has many tricks. And he's smarter than you and he's smarter than me. But that brings us to the second implication of Jesus words. The implication is God can deliver us when we cannot deliver ourselves. Deliver us from the evil one. God's greater than the devil, and since God is omniscient, that is, he knows everything, even the future, no trick of the devil can ever take God off his guard. There's a third implication in the words of Jesus. Deliverance from the evil one is contingent, at least partly, on our prayers. Jesus commands that we pray, deliver us from the evil one. If we decline to obey that prayer, do you really believe that we will avoid the evil that the devil plans against us if we neglect to pray? Consider all the churches that have failed in some way. A moral failure in the leadership or a moral failure some kind of false doctrine is adopted and taught, or there's church splits, angry, divisive church splits. Churches close their doors. For any number of reasons, we are no better than any of them, unless we pray. With God's help only, we will be spared evil. Your contribution in prayer matters. And you will never know, friend, how much evil you spare in this church and in the members of this church through your prayers. You won't know until heaven. So take courage. pray, because God is a God who hears and answers prayers. All right, then we have the benediction. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. And the attention is refocused back on God, the Father, the power, God of power and the God of glory. And we can connect with that power and with that glory through prayer. May we be faithful in doing just that. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity and the responsibility of prayer. I ask that you would strengthen us. And since, Father, we struggle, to pray as we should. We ask for your strength. We ask forgiveness for neglecting our duty of prayer, and we commit ourselves, Father, to praying as you taught the disciples to pray here. Be with us as we continue to worship this morning. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.