And if everyone would open up their Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, we're looking at 10 verses this morning, verses 5 through 15.
Jesus addresses this matter of prayer.
Here is the word of the Lord, the very words of our Lord Jesus.
And 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 heap 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 also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Verse 14, 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.
Well, this morning, Jesus is going to put a prayer clinic on for us.
And it's aimed at us, His disciples, followers of Jesus.
He wants us praying, and He wants us to pray well.
And so we are in the Sermon on the Mount.
And if this is your first time with us this morning,
the Sermon on the Mount is a sermon really early on in the Gospel of Matthew.
And so it's the inaugural address of King Jesus.
Out of the gate, He says,
Hey, followers of mine, this is how you live.
It's all about following Jesus.
Learning His commands.
Learning His person.
And obeying Him.
Two weeks ago, Billy and I, our dear brother, opened up God's Word.
And he introduced this new section we're in starting in Matthew 6.
But I just remind you of Matthew 5.48.
Jesus says,
Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
And then in chapter 6, 1 and 2, you can look there right now.
There's a warning.
Jesus warns us not to practice our righteousness to be seen by others.
He says,
Be perfect.
Live holy lives.
But don't showboat it.
Don't do it so others can see it.
When we showcase our devotion to God to others, it no longer becomes an act of devotion to God.
It's an attempt to impress others.
Jesus knows us really well.
He knows our hearts.
He knows how we roll.
And so He also knows what we can do to prayer.
Prayer very simply is talking with God.
It's communing with God.
It's going to Him with hard things.
It's going to Him with wonderful things.
It's about your relationship with Him.
Ultimately, your praying is all about your God.
And so what Jesus is very aware of is our sinful tendency to make acts of demotion about us.
He knows that even when it comes to this act of devotion to God, this thing called prayer,
prayer, we can twist it into an attempt to impress others.
Essentially, prayer is an act of humility in which we voice our dependence on God for His glory.
So let me ask you some questions about your personal prayer life.
First question is this.
Do you pray?
You might be thinking, yes, I pray.
In fact, I pray before every meal.
In fact, my family and I pray even before meals at Red Robin.
Well, that's great.
I'm glad.
Good to hear that.
Well, do you pray more than thanking God before your daily meals?
Well, yes, in fact, I do.
I pray every Sunday morning with our church.
We pray together.
And then at our life group during the week, we pray there, too.
Well, that's great to hear.
Do you pray more often than on Sunday mornings and at your life group?
Well, in fact, I do.
Thank you very much.
I find myself praying when my life goes crazy and I'm really stressed out, which ends up being a lot.
So I pray a lot.
Thank you very much.
Well, I'm glad to hear you're pleased with your prayer life.
The question is, is God pleased with your prayer life?
Your private prayer life?
Here, let me ask this question.
Do you find yourself praying more often in public contexts than in private contexts?
Do you find yourself praying more often with others, which is fine, than when it's just you and God alone in your prayer closet?
This morning, Jesus puts on a prayer clinic for us.
You could title the prayer clinic if he was going to have it over at, like, the hotel over here.
He was like, purposeful, God-centered praying.
Motivations and practices.
Now, if you have room to grow in your prayer life, your private prayer life, and we all do, then give ear.
Listen carefully.
What Jesus says in these ten verses will help you pray with greater humility and greater confidence and greater God-glorifying effectiveness.
So you can split these ten verses, this prayer clinic, into two sections.
Motivations and practice.
Verses 5-8, Jesus help us to see that what pleases God when it comes to our praying is a humble and confident heart.
And then when he turns to the practice in verses 9-15, it's that very familiar Lord's Prayer, which is actually a Lord's Model Prayer.
The bottom line is this.
Your Heavenly Father wants you to pray to Him.
He wants you to come to Him with the right motives and addressing the right stuff when you pray.
And Jesus puts on a clinic for us here.
So let's look at this first area of the clinic, this first issue of motivation to God-centered praying in verses 5-8.
Do you know what a motive is?
A motivation is this internal impulse that compels us to do something.
For example, my internal love for chocolate compels me to go great lengths to satisfy my desire for it.
Do I have an amen?
But what motivates us to pray?
What compels us to pray?
What drives you into your prayer closet?
Well, that's what Jesus puts His finger on in verses 5-8.
It all starts in your heart.
It all starts inside you.
It all starts from within.
And Jesus uses two contrasts to instruct us on right motives for praying.
And they start with negatives.
The first one is this.
We see that in verse 5.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.
The issue here is one of pride.
In their pride, there were religious people in Jesus' day who were twisting prayer into a public, self-serving spectacle.
It was all about self-promotion for them.
Now, originally that word hypocrite was used of stage actors who would put on different masks to portray different characters in a play.
And so, the hypocrisy that Jesus is addressing here is using prayer for the wrong reason.
Where prayer is meant ultimately to be about God, these hypocrites were making prayer about them.
Look at me.
Look how good I can pray.
But what we know is that prayer is not meant to be done for man.
Prayer is an act, a humble act of devotion to God.
Prayer is a means by which we live for God, not ourselves.
And so, what we see in verses 5 and 6 is a contrast between the prideful and the humble.
Between public, self-promoting prayers that have a short-lived promise and private, humble, Father-rewarding prayers.
So, let me just point you to some things in verses 5 and 6.
The contrast of venue.
There is the public versus the private contrast.
Did you notice?
Pray in the synagogues and on the street corners.
What do they have in common?
Those are places where your praying would be seen by men.
By the way, a good Jew at the time, it was very common for Jews to be praying at least three times a day.
Called to prayer each time.
So, no matter where you were, you would pray.
Whether in a synagogue or a street corner.
That's contrasted with verse 6.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, literally unseen.
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
What's interesting is about in the original language, the Greek language, when you get to verse 6, verse 5 is all about this y'all.
It says plural you, you all.
And then when it gets to verse 6, it changes to a very personal, individual you.
When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father.
There's the difference here.
It's a contrast between public and private venues.
There's another contrast.
It's already been hinted at.
The one of audience.
Whose eyes you are most aware of when you pray?
For the hypocrites, they're most concerned about the eyes of men who are seen.
For those humble followers of Jesus, they're most concerned about the eyes of their Father who is unseen.
Gets at the issue of purpose.
I want for the hypocrites, I'm praying to be seen by men.
For the humble, it's I'm praying to my Father who is unseen.
I don't care about anybody else.
It's His eyes I'm most concerned about.
It's a contrast of who you're being seen by.
And then there's the contrast of reward at the end of verse 5.
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.
They got what they wanted.
Oh man, that was an unbelievable prayer, buddy.
Great job.
Man, that was awesome.
That's it.
Just immediate, momentary, done.
That's all.
But the reward from the Father, you see it in verse 6.
And your Father who sees in secret will, future tense, reward you.
The reward of the Father isn't necessarily immediate.
It isn't necessarily momentary.
It's something that's going to be lasting.
It's future oriented.
One is done for the eyes of people.
The one is done by faith to the unseen God.
What these get at is a contrast of devotion.
Who are you praying to?
Who?
Praying to men?
For their approval?
Or praying to your Father in Heaven who will reward your humility?
So all this to say, these contrasts are not there just to be contrasting.
They're there to make a point.
And the point that Jesus is making is don't be prideful in your prayers like the hypocrites
who want to be seen by others in their prayers.
No.
Be humble.
Go private.
Go to your Father.
Where only He can see it.
So the warning is, hey, there's going to be temptation to, when you're given an opportunity
to pray publicly, to do it for others, to be seen by others.
And that's a heart problem.
That's inside of us.
That is where we're more concerned about what others think than what God thinks.
Oftentimes it's this, man, I just want to measure up.
I just want to be accepted by others.
Hey, did that work?
What did you think about that?
Or it goes even further.
Man, I want to be thought of as being off the charts.
I want to be praiseworthy.
I want to be known as the best prayer in Kenosha.
That's the warning.
Don't do that.
Don't make prayer for you.
Christ's solution is this.
Humble yourself.
Pray to your Father alone in secret.
Go unseen.
So here's what this means for us.
In order to say, resist the pride of public self-promotion in prayers,
it happens all over the place.
Do you know what we need to do?
We cultivate a daily time of privately communing with our Father.
Pray privately.
Unseen.
I don't know if you all have something where you can go to go to an unseen place so that
only your Father in Heaven sees you praying to Him.
Find a place.
It might be on your commute in the morning.
It may be in a closet in your house.
It may be somewhere where nobody else comes.
It's just you and your Father.
And the issue there is not so much so you're not distracted.
It's so you're completely focused alone on your Father.
You're not doing it for anybody else.
Find a place that you can go that it's just you and your Father.
You know, this does beg the question, does this mean that Christians should not pray publicly?
Well, I just started this sermon in prayer.
Rick just prayed himself.
Boy, we're doing all that in public.
Did we just sin?
No, we didn't.
Jesus Himself prayed publicly.
But here is what we need to be considering.
If your private prayer life is non-existent,
then I would encourage you to humbly decline any opportunity to pray publicly
until you're consistently praying in the unseen place to your unseen Father.
That will be a protective for you.
And Jesus Himself modeled this over and over again.
He would, very early before the sun would rise,
He would find an isolated place and He would commune with His Father.
So the bottom line is, don't be arrogant like the hypocrites.
Humble yourself.
Find an unseen place where only your Father can see you.
And commune with Him.
That's the first contrast.
The second contrast is picked up in verse 7.
Then when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, as the pagans do.
For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Don't be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
Well again, here we have another contrast set up.
And this contrast is a contrast of confidence.
Of fear versus confidence.
There's a contrast in numbers of words.
We see these Gentiles, these people who don't know God,
they heap up empty phrases.
And there's another word.
They think they'll be heard for their many words.
And so there's a contrast of many versus few words.
There's a great verse in Ecclesiastes that talks about,
hey, when you go to your God, in light of who He is,
let your words be few.
Ecclesiastes 5, verses 2 and 3.
You know, this not only applies to people who don't know God,
but there's this kind of mindless repetition that can take place with all of us.
Have you ever heard this before?
God is great.
God is good.
Let us thank Him for our food.
Amen.
Dig in.
We can do that.
I remember going up as a boar.
Man, that was just kind of a hurdle to jump over so I can dig into the meatloaf.
That's it.
It was mindless.
It became meaningless.
I didn't know who I was praying to.
I wasn't thinking about it.
It's a contrast of the content of words.
Do you see that word in verse 7?
And when you pray, do you not heap up empty phrases, meaningless words?
Back in the day, Gentiles would use many words to pray to many gods in order to keep them all happy.
Do you remember Acts 17?
Paul walks into Rome, and there are all these altars to all these different gods that the Romans apparently were praying to.
And then there was the altar to an unnamed god because they wanted to pray to that god just to make sure they got all their paces covered.
Do you know why?
They were afraid.
They had no confidence in who they were praying to.
And so their words were many and their words were empty.
And it just gets at this contrast of where these words are aimed at.
The very purpose.
Gentiles, those who don't know God, pray aimlessly to many gods.
For they think they will be heard by their many words.
They think that God will hear them if they pray enough.
Not so the child of God.
Verse 8, do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.
He knows.
So you might hear that and you're like, okay, then why pray at all?
I mean, seriously, if he already knows, what's the point of praying?
Relationship.
Dependence.
He wants you to ask him.
He wants you to come to him.
Even though we know that he knows, he welcomes us to come ask him.
Did you see right here?
It's right there.
He says, do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.
And then if you flip over the page, at least this is my page in my Bible,
and turn to chapter 7, verse 7, you have the whole ask, seek, knock thing.
Repeatedly asking God for stuff.
And then what you read in verse 7, where is that?
Verse 11.
If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
Not only does our father have deep pockets, he has a heart that's postured towards us.
And he's like, just ask me.
I will give you what you need, child.
It's a very different approach than the Gentiles.
It's a contrast of confidence.
If I know my father in heaven is eager for me to ask, welcome me to ask for any need I have,
and he's going to answer it and give to me according to father knows best,
I'm going to ask him.
There's no need to hold back.
So, these Gentiles, those who don't know God, they pray out of ignorance, out of a fear.
They're just trying to have their bases covered.
Not us.
Not children of God.
We don't need to pray like that.
Because we know that our God is for us.
He's our father.
We've been adopted.
And check this out.
Our adoption has been finalized and financed by the blood of Jesus.
He's made open a way for us to approach the throne of grace with confidence.
Hebrews 4, Hebrews 10.
You want some more confidence?
Think about it this way.
Right now, Romans chapter 8,
Jesus is making intercession for you at the right hand of the Father.
And so is the Holy Spirit.
Both are interceding.
The triune God is interceding for you.
Say, come.
Come.
Your heavenly Father.
The triune God even wants you to pray.
He desires to give good things to those who ask him.
So what we see here Jesus doing in his brilliant prayer clinic kind of way is getting at our motives.
What's going on in your heart?
You say, don't be prideful.
Come to your Father humbly, privately, secretly.
He sees it all.
And don't come in fear.
Come in confidence.
Your Father is postured towards you through the blood of Jesus to give you what you need.
He's given you Jesus.
How much more along with him will he give you all things?
He'll provide for your needs.
Motives.
Your heart.
God wants your heart when you pray.
He wants all of it.
And now we turn from motives in verses 5 through 8 to now the practice.
The practice of God-centered praying.
Verses 9 through 15.
One might say, the Prince of Peace provides a practical pattern of purposeful God-centered praying.
Here.
Like a wise teacher, Jesus moves from motives to the actual pattern of praying.
And now I just want to make sure that you understand this.
That this Lord's Prayer that we're about to read, it's actually a model prayer for us.
A sample.
Something to take our cues from.
I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, I was an athlete.
And every time before we took the football field, we would pray the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father who art in heaven.
Ho, ho, ho.
I hear.
Ho.
Out.
We weren't.
We didn't know what we were talking about.
We're just, this is some kind of ritual that we do together.
I don't know if we're praying for safety or what.
Ironically, the Lord's Prayer became mindless.
Well, we just have this unique knack for doing this kind of stuff.
But this is a model prayer that Jesus gives to us for our good.
And what you need to also notice is there's six petitions in this prayer.
Six petitions.
And they're not questions.
Lord, will you help me hallow your name?
Lord, will you give me my daily bread?
No, they're imperatives.
Lord, hallowed be your name.
Lord, Father, provide our daily bread.
God, it's much more direct.
And you know what's driving that?
A humble confidence.
It's a humble confidence.
There's one more thing I want you to see before we actually get into it.
And that's this.
This is very informative.
And I think will help you in your private praying.
If you look at the Lord's Prayer, starting in verse 9, you'll notice that there's an invocation,
our Father in heaven.
I'll come back to that.
But then you'll notice, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is heaven.
Do you see where the focus is?
On your.
God.
God first.
And then in verse 11, us.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts.
Verse 13, and lead us not into temptation.
And so it starts off with God.
Your.
And then moves towards us.
It's a very important way to pray.
Because it puts our daily needs in perspective.
So let's get into this prayer.
And just to warn you, I'm going to spend most of my time on verse 9.
Hallowed be your name.
There's this invocation.
Our Father in heaven.
Father is a unique title in relationship to Jesus.
Jesus is the unique son.
God's the unique father.
And if we look throughout the gospels, virtually every prayer Jesus prays begins with father.
And what he is saying is he's saying Abba, father.
It's like saying dad.
And so what Jesus is doing here is something that was unique to history at this time.
Jesus is calling God dad.
God.
It's a familiar address.
It's an intimate address that is unique between a child and their dad.
And it unifies the whole sermon on the mount.
You see the word father all the way through.
Be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.
It's a term of endearment.
He's speaking about his God.
And then he says, our father.
This is shocking.
It would have been shocking to his disciples.
You want us to call the God of everything our daddy?
Yes.
What's amazing about this is Jesus is inviting us, his disciples, to pray to his father as our father.
How did he do that?
On what basis can we call God our father?
Well, it's what Jesus did.
He shed his blood for us, allowing us to come into the very throne room of grace with confidence.
Our adoption has been financed and finalized by the blood of Jesus.
And so we can pray.
We can call God our father.
And he's in heaven.
He's sovereign over all.
That's our daddy.
Sovereign over all.
And welcoming us in as a dad.
Jesus is saying, when you pray in your closet, pray that way.
Go to your father who reigns over all.
Now, this first petition.
Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Hallowed be your name.
The word name, when speaking about God, there's a lot to it.
Name, a name in this time, back in the Bible time, carried a lot of significance.
It said something about the one that they're named by.
So, for example, when God in Exodus 3 says, I am who I am, Yahweh.
He's making a statement about his very character, the ever-existent one.
I am who I am.
If I said to you, Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provides.
It says something about who God is.
Jehovah Shalom, the God of peace.
El Shaddai, God Almighty.
Jehovah Nisi, our banner over us.
Jehovah Raphae, God our healer.
It says something about our God.
And so, when he says, hallowed be your name, what he's talking about, Father, Father, let your character be put on display.
And so, that word hallowed, we don't use that nowadays.
We don't talk about hallowed often.
And what it really means is it means to set apart, to sanctify, to glorify, to make much of, to exalt.
I've been looking forward to this part in the sermon for the last several days.
Because I think if we begin praying this way as a church, something's going to happen to us.
So, here's what I'd like to do for you now.
If you have a pen handy, I'm going to give you a bunch of verses that I titled, hallowed be God's name verses.
Hold on to this, because I think this will serve your praying tomorrow morning.
What does it mean to hallowed be your name?
What does it mean to set apart God's name?
Well, let me give you some examples from the Bible.
Psalm 115.1
Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name, give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.
That is, hallowed be your name.
Psalm 48.10
As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.
Hallowed be your name.
As God's name is exalted, His praise is soon to follow.
That's what's being said there.
Malachi 1.11
For from the rising of the sun to its setting, that's over all creation, my name will be great among the nations.
And in every place, incense will be offered to my name in a pure offering.
For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
Hallowed be your name.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, His name, as the waters cover the sea.
Remember, if you look at one of those space pictures of the earth, you see all that blue covering this planet.
As the waters cover the sea.
God's name be praised.
Isaiah 11.9
Very similar to Habakkuk 2.14
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the water covers the sea.
Isaiah 6.3
Remember that moment in Isaiah 6?
The seraphim are covering their eyes and their feet and they're calling out to one another with a loud voice.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
The whole earth is full of His glory.
John Piper talked about God's glory as His holiness gone public.
Isaiah 48.10
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
For my own sake, for my own sake I do it.
For how should my name be profaned?
My glory I will not give to another.
Hallowed be your name.
Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Hallowed be your name.
And then there's the name that is above every name.
Therefore God has highly exalted to Him, Jesus, and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
The name person of Jesus, He does something that no one else can.
Listen to this.
And there is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Hallowed be your name.
Could you imagine?
You wake up tomorrow morning, you roll out, get your coffee,
you find your secret spot,
and where you start,
you don't go any further.
You just, Lord Jesus, God, would you help me to hallow the name of God today
in my life,
every little nook and cranny,
God, your name be exalted,
your glory be manifest.
Make it go out in power from me in my family.
God, would your name be exalted in my spouse.
God, would your name be exalted in each of my kids.
God, would your name be exalted in my life group,
in our church,
in our neighborhood,
in this city,
in this state,
nation,
and world,
like the waters cover the sea.
What would happen
if we as a people
start praying this way
in our prayer closets?
We don't care about ourselves.
We want your glory above all else.
God's,
hallowed be your name.
How does that happen?
Well, let's look at the next petition.
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
The kingdom that Jesus is talking about
is God's saving reign.
The saving reign of Jesus.
His kingdom.
God sent His Son to establish a kingdom
that one day Jesus will give back to the Father.
So here's the deal.
We're not born hallowing God's name.
We are born more like those hypocrites
who use prayer for their own self-glory.
Do you see how ridiculous that is now
in light of this?
In light of God's great name
and the spreading of His name among the nations.
See how ridiculous that is?
To use prayer for your own namesake?
Well, here's what God does
through the saving reign of Jesus.
God takes someone who is using prayer
for their own self-glory
and through the name of Jesus
they transform that person
from a worshiper of self
to a worshiper of God
and now that person
wants to exalt the name of God.
Let your kingdom come.
Let your saving reign take over.
Would you transfer people
from the kingdom of darkness
into the kingdom of your beloved Son
so that the name of God would be exalted?
Let your kingdom come.
And when Jesus came the first time
He inaugurated His kingdom.
But when He comes the second time
He's going to consummate it.
And so do you know what the last prayer
of your Bible is?
Come Lord Jesus, come.
Come my King, come.
Let your kingdom come.
Let your kingdom spread.
God, would your name be hallowed
and the gospel needs to go out
to transform sinners
so that your name will be hallowed.
And what will the result be?
Your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
When you hear the word will
you need to think
you think God's revealed will
in the scriptures,
in the Bible.
Remember the Great Commission.
We are to teach them
to observe all that
Jesus commanded.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Right now,
our God is in heaven
and what He says
gets done.
Not so much on earth right now.
But as God's kingdom,
the kingdom of Jesus
spreads,
as His saving reign
takes over,
people's hearts are transformed
and we want to exalt
the name of God Himself,
we're going to want
to obey Him.
We're going to do
what He says
in every area
of our life.
Our prayer will be
the Psalm 119.36 prayer.
Incline my heart
to your testimonies
and not to selfish gain.
I want to do
what you want to do.
Your commandments
are not burdensome.
First John.
Your will be done.
So these first three petitions,
do you see what
they all have in common?
Your name.
Your kingdom.
Your will.
It's all about Him.
Pray to Him.
For Him.
To His glory.
And then we turn
to our daily needs.
We pray for our daily bread.
And if God has provided
your daily bread,
give Him thanks daily
for your bread.
If you need rent,
ask your God.
If you need transportation,
ask Him.
If you need health care
or a safe place,
ask Him.
Ask Him.
Ask your Father.
He knows
He's the Lord
of all creation.
and then our sin.
forgive us our debts.
You know,
when Jesus
starts this,
He says,
pray to your Father.
That's secured in Christ.
And when we say,
hallowed be your name,
you know what's going to happen?
Holy be your name.
You know what's going to happen in us?
We're going to become
more and more aware
of our sin.
That's what He's going to do.
He's going to show us our need.
And so we confess
our sin to Him.
We tell Him our debts.
And He,
1 John 1, 9,
will forgive them.
We don't lose our salvation
every time we sin.
No,
we're justified.
But there's a real relationship
with a real Father
and when we sin,
we grieve Him.
And so we're just acknowledging that
and He freely forgives.
The last petition
is that
He lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
And that is
we're just asking God daily,
our Father,
God,
direct me in the path of holiness
in light of who You are,
in light of Your kingdom,
in light of Your will.
God,
would You lead me in a way
that pleases You today?
And if I find myself tempted,
I'm going to trust
that You're going to deliver me.
1 Corinthians 10, 13.
Well,
let me close with this.
Are you praying God-centered prayers?
Are you going to Your Father
as Jesus has called us to here?
what could happen
among us
and through us
if we start praying
and asking God
and depending on Him
like this?
I've got one
application point for you.
Tomorrow morning
when you go to your private place
and pray to your unseen Father,
would you start
by saying,
Oh, our Father,
hallowed be Your name
today
in me
and through me.
let's pray.
Father in Heaven,
thank You so much
for
this passage.
Lord,
would You grow us
in our praying
for Your name's sake.
Amen.
God bless you,
Lord.
Amen.
Thank you.