WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000 I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:23.000 But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:33.000 If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:40.000 But if you don't, I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:51.000 Liam Neeson's character, Brian Mills, in the film Taken. He's on the phone to his daughter's abductor. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:01:00.000 It's a scene that has spun off a thousand memes. And I thought I'd give you a bit of an authentic feel with it this evening. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:12.000 Now it happens very early in the film. And yet, from that very point, you know how the film's going to end. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:19.000 You know that this is a father who will do whatever it takes to rescue his daughter from her slavery. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.000 And you know, we just know at this point in this scene that he will succeed. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:32.000 I think the film has become popular. It has spun out into a trilogy, actually. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:48.000 And I think in part, this moment, as it were, and the way that that all spins out in the film, has captivated us because our culture is crying out for someone who would care about us that much. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.000 Someone who would give us that sense of security. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:02:03.000 Our experience in the world, we might pretend otherwise, but if we're honest with ourselves, when we look ourselves in the eye in the mirror in the morning, we know that our world is an intimidating place. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:08.000 And it often makes us feel small and weak and insignificant. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:10.000 And so we're insecure. 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:27.000 And we saw last week how so much of the insecurity that's all around us, the sort of insecurity that leads us to put on a mask every day and to live our lives for the opinions of others. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:33.000 The mask of the hypocrite, if you remember, and living our lives for the opinion of the choir. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:43.000 How so much of that comes down to the fact that in our experience, we don't know what it means to have God as our Father. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:49.000 I quoted Sinclair Ferguson saying that the person who puts on a mask in life says, quote, he says, 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.000 is insecure before God and therefore seeks security in what his fellow men think about him. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.000 He is unreal in his activities before men. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:08.000 That is, he puts on a mask, he lives his life in a particular way that isn't really who he is, because he has no real relationship with God. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.000 It's a very profound insight, I think. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:19.000 We are unreal in our activities before other people because there is a problem in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:29.000 And the heart of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6 is an emphasis on what it means for God to be a Father to his people. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:34.000 And it centers on this prayer, verses 9 to 13, the so-called Lord's Prayer. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.000 We pray it as a church almost every Lord's Day. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:45.000 It's obvious that the prayer is a pattern for how we should pray, but it's also giving us a pattern for living. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:52.000 The things that are to be our concern in prayer, it obviously follows from that, that they should be our concerns in life. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:55.000 So, when it comes to the Lord's Prayer, we're going to pause. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:58.000 We came across it last week, we're going to pause here this evening. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:06.000 Jesus is teaching us not just how to approach our Father, but what it means to live in his presence. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000 What it means to live in his presence. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:12.000 And this life, life in relationship with the Father, is shaped by five qualities. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Five points this evening. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.000 The first, the Father's worship. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:18.000 The Father's worship. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 Jesus brings together here two ideas. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:26.000 Majesty and intimacy. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:28.000 Majesty and intimacy. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:32.000 When we talk about God's name, we're really at shorthand for who God is. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:37.000 So, our Father in heaven, God is in heaven, we are on earth. 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.000 He is our creator, we are created. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:43.000 He is eternally glorious. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:48.000 We are dependent creatures, dependent on him for everything we have. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:51.000 And that is why we are to hallow his name. 00:04:51.000 --> 00:05:01.000 It's not that we can make God's name more holy than it is, but we need his help to recognize just how other, how different than us he is. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:02.000 He is. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:03.000 God is not like us. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:06.000 He's not a really awesome version of humans. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:12.000 And so, we are to approach God with a sense of awe and wonder at his majesty. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:20.000 And yet, we dare to call him Father. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:25.000 We know that he is near us and he cares for us. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:29.000 That's what Paul was saying to the children only a few moments ago. 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:36.000 Yes, God is glorious and great and majestic and other, but he is also Father. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.000 And in that word, he comes near. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:45.000 To get to call God Father, we lose it in the familiarity of our Christian faith. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.000 To get to call God Father is simply outrageous. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:06:00.000 Sovereign ruler, majestic savior, powerful Lord of all, righteous judge, yes, our Father. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:07.000 The one who made and owns the universe has brought us right into the family. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.000 This is the privilege of a royal child. 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:16.000 Only royalty can know this kind of access and closeness to majesty, to the great king. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:22.000 And it's all ours in Christ. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.000 Our Father. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:29.000 Now, I know not everybody's experience of fathers is positive. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:32.000 Mike Wilkerson has written, quote, 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Tragically, for many of us, the father-child relationship is fraught with fear, shame, dread, disappointment, or absence. 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:45.000 For some of us, he says, the word Father has been darkened by the worst evils. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:48.000 And he's right. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.000 You might know that in your own experience. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:52.000 It is a sad reality of our world. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:58.000 And Wilkerson asks, can you ever hope to know God as your Father if your view of Father is so broken? 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:03.000 I want to acknowledge that. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:06.000 But imagine the Father you wanted. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:17.000 Imagine the Father that you wanted at his most generous, most caring, most compassionate, most attentive best. 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:22.000 The fatherhood of God goes way beyond that. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:27.000 Think of his kindness to us. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:31.000 Think of his kindness to us in bringing us into his family. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:37.000 Has he not demonstrated his generosity such that we know that he wants to bless us? 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.000 Think about your salvation. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:46.000 Think about the way or think about the story of the prodigal son. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:47.000 We could go there for a moment. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:48.000 God is the one. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:49.000 God is the one. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:54.000 Our Father is the one who runs out to us despite our running from him. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:02.000 And through Christ, his empty cross and his empty tomb, he gives us a robe and he puts a ring on our finger and throws a banquet for us. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:16.000 And despite our rebellion, despite all of our disobedience and running from him in the world that he created, taking all of his resources to do this running from him, he comes out and he meets us in our sin. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:23.000 And he clothes us in the righteousness of his son and he brings us in and he celebrates. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:28.000 What an astonishing privilege. 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:30.000 What an astonishing privilege. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:35.000 Knowing that our God is so great and at the same time so welcoming. 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:38.000 That puts joy in our hearts. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:42.000 That puts resolve in our spirits to go and want to live for him. 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:46.000 The Lord's Prayer starts with our Father's worship. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:51.000 We acknowledge him as the Holy One of Heaven who draws us into his royal family. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:56.000 The second element we need to see is the Father's mission. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000 The Father's mission. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:02.000 Jesus began his ministry announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:09.000 And now that we know the one who rules this kingdom is our Father, out of love for our Father, 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:15.000 and out of concern for the glory of our Father, whose name we want to hallow, we pray for his mission in the world. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:16.000 Your kingdom come. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:21.000 Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:26.000 So we now care that our Father's King would be worshipped. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:31.000 When Jesus cried out on the cross, those last words, it is finished. 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:40.000 And then when he rose from the tomb three days later, he signaled his victorious triumph over Satan, sin, and death. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.000 He signaled his victory as God's King. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:45.000 And now he is enthroned in heaven. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:46.000 We are gathered here. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:50.000 He is in the presence of the Father in heaven at his right hand. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.000 And he rose and he reigns his people through his word by his Spirit. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:00.000 So, to pray your kingdom come is to ask God to make us worshippers of this King. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.000 That is what it is first of all. 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:09.000 To change our hearts through the gospel that we would delight to do his will. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:16.000 And it is also to ask him to bring more people into his kingdom, to gather more worshippers through the spread of the gospel. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:22.000 For the Lord's kingdom to come, the gospel needs to take root across cities and across communities. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:32.000 So this becomes a prayer to revive our love for others to the degree that we tell them about the mercy of this King. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:37.000 We think about how difficult it is to share the gospel with other people. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:41.000 Often people say to me, I find it really difficult to talk to others about Jesus. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:45.000 And it is certainly the case that in our culture it is increasingly unpopular to do so. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.000 What will motivate us to share Christ with others? 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:54.000 It is our love for them because we want to get them onto the Father's mission. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.000 What we need is a greater love for others. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:10.000 What we need is to care less about the opinion of the choir, to put less of a mask on, and to love others enough to want to share Christ with them. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:16.000 So we are praying that the Lord would make us those kinds of people. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:19.000 When we pray this prayer each Lord's Day, this is what we are asking. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:23.000 Give me a love for the lost that is expressed in me telling them about Christ. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:27.000 But the mission doesn't stop there. 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.000 Because we also desire to see the will of God lived out. 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:39.000 It is not just that others become worshippers, but it is that worshippers live consistently with who we are as children of the Father in heaven. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:42.000 Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:49.000 Your will be done here in my life, lived out in the present, as it is up there. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:53.000 Now again, this pushes right into the human condition, doesn't it? 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:55.000 Our instinct, what is our instinct? 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.000 To do what we want. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.000 To do it the way we want to. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.000 As often as we want to do it. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.000 But, the follower of Jesus. 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:26.000 The one who is in relationship with the Father in heaven, the one who knows the Father's mission, is to see the worship of heaven, where the Father's name is perfectly honoured, his kingly rule is perfectly acknowledged, and his will is perfectly done, to see that reflected on earth. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:37.000 Put simply, what this means is, we let the Bible set our course, however unpopular it may sound or look to the surrounding culture. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:44.000 We go with what God says, not what anyone else says. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:13:00.000 The Father's mission is that he would have people for himself, living distinctive lives as citizens of his kingdom, doing his will on earth. 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:10.000 And the mention of heaven also means that these petitions come together to focus the Christian's eyes on the future. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:19.000 The followers of Jesus are defined by a future day when God will make all the realities of heaven a reality on earth, this earth. 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:31.000 So, we're not ambivalent about the world, as if God's going to roll all of this up and one day throw it in the bin and pull kind of something new, completely new, out of a wrapper. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:36.000 No, he is renewing this earth. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:53.000 So, if we know the mission of the Father as Creator and Redeemer, and if we know that his goal is to bring the vision of the prophets, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 40, all across the prophets and their promises for the future, 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:59.000 if he's going to bring that to completion in the picture at the end of the book of Revelation, let me remind you what it says there. 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:00.000 John says, 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:30.000 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:44.000 That's what we've got to look forward to. No more crying. No more dying. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:50.000 And to pray in line with the Father's mission means to pray for this to become our experience on earth. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:58.000 As we pray, we submit our lives to his will in faith that this is the glorious future to which we are headed. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:16.000 Now, if you think about it, if that's what lies ahead, if we're headed to glory, if we're headed to no more crying, no more pain, no more suffering, perfect satisfaction, total joy, absolute peace. 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:26.000 If that's the future that we're headed to, it's a future that reaches back and changes how we live now, doesn't it? 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:31.000 If that's what lies ahead, we don't need to live now for the praise of others. 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:37.000 We don't need to live now for the trinkets that our culture pursues and thinks is everything that matters. 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.000 We can set light to those things. 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:45.000 We can order our lives around the Father's mission. 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:48.000 Number two, the Father's mission. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:52.000 At this point, the prayer shifts focus to more personal concerns. 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:55.000 Here we see number three, the Father's provision. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:00.000 The Father's provision, give us this day our daily bread. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:12.000 The levels of consumption that mark everyday life in a city like London are almost unrivaled in the history of civilization. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:24.000 And we have become so accustomed to the availability of everything that we could want or need that we have lost touch with the biblical view of life. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:30.000 So, Jesus wants us to remember our Father is always the provider. 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.000 We depend wholly on our Father for everything. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.000 Without Him, there is nothing. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:39.000 He stands behind every good thing that we enjoy. 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:46.000 Martin Luther talked of the milkmaid and the baker as disguises for God. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:49.000 Commenting on this idea, Michael Horton says this, 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:52.000 In every gift, God is ultimately the giver. 00:16:52.000 --> 00:17:02.000 Yet tenderly, He hides His blinding majesty and otherwise terrifying sovereignty behind the creaturely means that are familiar to us. 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:10.000 However, those of us in technologically developed cultures rarely encounter the milkmaids, the bakers, whose goods we purchase at the supermarket. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:16.000 Our piety, praying for our daily bread, often seems remote from our actual experience. 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.000 It's right, isn't it? Give us this day our daily bread. 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:37.000 When it's possible to buy things from the privacy of your home that arrive the next day or the same day or in an hour, and actually, if it's food, it better be a lot quicker than an hour. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:41.000 It's really difficult to remember that it's God that provides. 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:45.000 That we need to pray, give us today our daily bread. 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:53.000 This convenience that we have, this distance from the source, if you like, can easily make us dependent on the providers. 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:56.000 Tesco, or your supermarket of choice. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:01.000 Amazon, Deliveroo, whatever it is, such that we lose sight of the Lord. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:13.000 So we pray, give us this day our daily bread in order to train our hearts away from their instincts towards self-dependence, towards Tesco dependence, or Deliveroo dependence, or whoever it is, 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:19.000 and to throw us back in dependence every day on our Father's provision. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.000 Martin Luther puts it like this, 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:21.000 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:33.000 Behold, thus God wishes to indicate to us how he cares for us in all our need, and faithfully provides also for our temporal support, day-to-day support. 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:49.000 And although he abundantly grants and preserves these things even to the wicked, yet he wishes that we pray for them in order that we may recognize that we receive them from his hand and may feel his paternal goodness to us therein. 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:56.000 That we may feel God's fatherly goodness to us in those things. 00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:03.000 In Christ we know a Father who provides for our every need. 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:08.000 Every material need is provided by him. 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:11.000 Now this brings assurance. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:14.000 But it also brings liberty. 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:22.000 A bit like what I was saying a moment ago, because it means that we don't actually need half the stuff that our culture tells us are, 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.000 Oh, that's a must-have. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.000 The absolute must-have. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:29.000 Now we don't need those things. 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:32.000 We have a Father who provides. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:35.000 Oh, you really must get the such-and-such. 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.000 No, I really mustn't. 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:42.000 We're going to say more on this next time, Lord willing, about laying up treasures in heaven. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:43.000 Come to that then. 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:45.000 I'll leave that for then. 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.000 Father's provision number three. 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:50.000 It's then followed number four by the Father's grace. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:53.000 The fourth aspect, the Father's grace. 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:58.000 Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:07.000 Just because we know God as our Father, and just because we know our acceptance before him is not based on any merit in us, 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:12.000 doesn't mean that we aren't aware of the reality of ongoing sin in our lives. 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:15.000 We know that conviction, that sense of conviction. 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:20.000 We know that sense of guilt and shame because of things that we think or say or do. 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:27.000 Even as those who have been redeemed, even as those who are in a relationship with our Father in heaven, 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:30.000 our ongoing sin needs to be dealt with. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:35.000 But Jesus teaches here that when we confess, there is forgiveness. 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.000 There really is forgiveness. 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:47.000 I think lots of us live our Christian life understanding the theology, if you like, understanding the concept. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:50.000 I keep sinning, even though I'm redeemed. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:56.000 I say sorry, and then I know it says that I'm forgiven. 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:02.000 But I actually go on living like I'm not. 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:05.000 Like God's really cross with me. 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.000 And he's kind of sucking his teeth when he thinks about me. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:10.000 Not great. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:11.000 Not great. 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:12.000 Not great. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:13.000 Not great. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:14.000 Not great. 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:21.000 When we confess our sins from a sincere heart, we are forgiven. 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:27.000 When we confess the debts that we have before God, when we are honest and we stop hiding them from him, 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.000 when we repent, we experience our Father's grace. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:33.000 Do you know that? 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:35.000 Do you know that? 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:40.000 Do you know that confession in the kingdom isn't becoming a Christian again? 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:47.000 That idea, you know, oh, I fell out of salvation because of my sin and I need to confess and I've become a Christian again. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:50.000 It's not that we fall in and out of salvation, far from it. 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:56.000 It is rather the unburdening that comes when a relationship has got twisted up and is straightened out again. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:58.000 That's why we confess. 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:06.000 We often talk, don't we, about the law court when we describe what it means to be justified before God. 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:09.000 He is the judge who finds in our favor and he justifies us. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.000 He says, not guilty, you are free to go. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:18.000 But we also need to extend that image to see the judge come down from his chair and say, 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:23.000 I've passed my verdict, now I'm going to bring you home and adopt you into my family. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:29.000 That's what happens when we're adopted by God, we're brought into his family, we can call him Father. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:33.000 And whilst we have been acquitted in the declaration of the judge, 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:37.000 we've got to live in relationship with our new father for the rest of our lives. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:41.000 And when you grieve him, you need forgiveness. 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:46.000 When the relationship is out of sync, communion needs to be restored. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:52.000 Now, our instinct is to hide from God. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:57.000 Because of that, Jesus is helping us to see that we shouldn't hide from him, we should go to him. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:02.000 We should go to him because our father is a gracious father. 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:07.000 Because we know that his hands are full of forgiveness. 00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:16.000 And we can go back to him again and again, morning and evening, confessing our wrongdoing and finding grace. 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:23.000 Confessed sin is forgiven sin in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:27.000 And when we receive that grace, it lifts our heads. 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:32.000 It lifts our heads and it enables us and equips us to persevere. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:37.000 Keep short accounts with your father in heaven. 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:43.000 It's so much easier when we live like that. 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:48.000 Jesus includes a qualification as well that provides something of a gauge for how we're doing on this. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:49.000 Verse 14, 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:53.000 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. 00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:58.000 But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. 00:23:58.000 --> 00:23:59.000 Why does he add this in? 00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:03.000 Well, he's not saying, if you do this, then God will do that. 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:05.000 That's not in keeping. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:06.000 It's not a trade. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:09.000 That's out of step with the rest of the New Testament. 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:17.000 He is saying, the way that you will know that you have experienced the Father's grace in your life, 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:22.000 is if you extend grace to others. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:25.000 Can you say this yourself? 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:32.000 Are you a forgiver of other people? 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:44.000 Or, will you confess your sins to God and expect His forgiveness while holding on to resentment and bitterness towards others? 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:53.000 Here's Sinclair Ferguson again. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:59.000 If the words, as we also have forgiven our debtors, sticks in our throats, 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:05.000 if they cannot be spoken without the names and faces of those we have refused to forgive coming into our minds, 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:11.000 then the first part of our prayer, forgive us our debts, falls to the ground. 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:14.000 The two are inseparably linked. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:26.000 For the person who knows their debt before God and turns to Him for forgiveness is the recipient of such grace that they cannot but share it with others. 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:31.000 If you have received the Father's grace, you give grace to others. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:37.000 Life with the Father makes you a forgiver of others. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:46.000 I wonder, do you need to put that right in some relationships? 00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:49.000 Now, it might be complicated. I realize that. 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:54.000 If it's complicated, get someone to help you. 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:59.000 But the desire to extend grace must be there. 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:03.000 Those who are forgiven much, forgive much. 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:08.000 And in the gospel, you have the resources to be able to do that. 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:11.000 Because of the Father's grace. 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:20.000 And it is those who know our need of the Father's grace who then pray the final petition. 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.000 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:29.000 This highlights the fifth element, and it is this, the Father's protection. 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:33.000 The Father's protection. 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:39.000 When our indwelling sin is stirred up by the temptations that surround us, 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:44.000 when the evil one prowls in our direction seeking to devour us, 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:48.000 Jesus tells us to pray to be delivered. 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:56.000 And the fact that He does this assures us that our Father is both willing and able to do so. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:03.000 When you can pray our Father in heaven, 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:11.000 you know that you have one to whom you can go and ask for protection. 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:18.000 Father, I know the contrary nature of my heart. 00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:23.000 I know how fickle it is and how much I find that sin attractive. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.000 Keep me from it. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:30.000 Lead me not into temptation. 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:33.000 And in fact, deliver me from it completely. 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:40.000 Take away the desire altogether. 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:45.000 The Father's protection brings us full circle. 00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.000 You see, we know that Brian Mills was willing and able to rescue his daughter, 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.000 to say to her abductors, 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:56.000 I will find you and I will kill you. 00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:01.000 Now, we feel when you watch that scene or you hear those words, 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:06.000 you viscerally feel the protective nature of his love for his child. 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:10.000 So how much more can we speak of the protective love of our Father in heaven 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:13.000 who loves perfectly with a holy love? 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:21.000 The King of glory came from heaven to earth in the person of his Son 00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.000 to defeat Satan and deal with sin on our behalf 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.000 so that we might know that love. 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:30.000 And he will keep us to the end. 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:33.000 We can live in relationship with the Father 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:36.000 because we know that we are secure. 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:39.000 So in all our weakness, we know that he is strong. 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:42.000 In all our need, he provides. 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:45.000 In all our sin, he forgives. 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:50.000 That is what it means to live in the love of our Father. 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.000 Let's pray together. 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:55.000 Let's pray together. 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:55.000