I wanted to tell you something about the fossil. You know, there's a fossil out there. It's rare, I don't know how many people have seen it, but it's pretty big. You know, there's a lot of fossils and stuff. Or, I can walk out of the store with three boxes of peanuts. Two boxes of peanuts. I can shoot lots of boxes of peanuts. Oh, yeah. He would change the batteries. So I remember those battery nights. I remember everything that happened to me. And there's one thing that really got me. I got a congratulatory call from the graduation center. And they said, hey, I have a connection to batteries. And down. Great. Close. Up. um so Oh. We almost forgot this. We're going to be sliding her on the way. We're going to be sliding her on the way. um Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so so so the the the StSq3 3.30 (-0.99)" Yeah. Yeah. StSq2 2.60 Try G1. It's there. Yeah. Good evening. Welcome to worship here at Community Presbyterian Church. It's wonderful to see all of you. Do remember that everybody here is invited tonight to the Cruz household just off of Nichols Road and after worship for a time of good fellowship and lots and lots and lots of food. We have walking tacos prepared and we timed it well that there was a A wedding in the church family yesterday, and the Vanderbands have brought all the leftover food from the reception. So I hope you come hungry. Please join us for that. Again, a reminder to the women of the church that tomorrow at 10 a.m. is the Monday meetup at Ashtamo Park. Note that there is a session meeting Tuesday here at the church. If you have any needs that you would like us to take up, please email me or your elder and we'll be certain to. to take that into account. Make sure you look at the other announcements. Of course, music camp is coming up. We're still in need of, Mary, I want to make sure I get this right, older volunteers is something we're in need of, adult volunteers or older teens. So if you're available that week and you could help out in any way, maybe even for a day or two, we'll take the help. So please keep that in mind. I'm not sure if you have Seeing the news, my wife alerted me this morning when we woke up that there was another. Mass shooting in Philadelphia late last night in one of our old hangout spots, actually, for me and my wife on the street that I took her on our first date. She didn't know it was a date when I took her, but. And so there are three deaths and 12 people have been shot and this is the third or fourth within, as you know, two weeks. We look around at so many other things in the world and it's discouraging and it's depressing and we have to ask why. What is going on? What is this that's taking place where it seems the wicked is prevailing, that evil is winning out? The psalmist had that same question in Psalm 73. Has these questions for God, why evil seems to succeed, And then he said that he found the answers to the troubles of life when he went into the sanctuary of God. That's where we are tonight. We come to seek the Lord, the sovereign Lord, the one who preserves all of his creatures and all of their actions. Let's stand and hear the call to worship from Psalm 73. For me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge. that I may tell of all your works. Let's pray. Almighty God, we call upon you now. We acknowledge that we have no other help save that help which comes from you. The world is a place of trouble. It's a wilderness of woe. We suffer under the effects of sin here, and we see it not only in our lives, in our families. We see it on the news, and it seems like we cannot escape it. We see so much evil and wickedness. But truly, God, you are good to your people, to those who are pure in heart. And we would almost stumble, we would almost slip if we had not come now into your sanctuary to be set straight, to be reminded that you are in control, that nothing can thwart your almighty plan. And your plan is to do all things well for the good of those who love you. And so we would seek you tonight, that you would show us this wonderful truth. that you would comfort our hearts, that you would be our refuge, and that we, together, corporately, would tell of your works one to another. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen. Receive now God's greeting. Grace to you and peace from God the Father, from Jesus Christ his Son, and from the Holy Spirit. To God, Son, and to the Holy Ghost, As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen. Let's continue worshiping God with our psalm of praise tonight, which is Psalter number 73, setting D. Psalter 73, setting D. In sweet communion, Lord, with thee. In sweet communion, Lord, with Thee, I constantly abide. Your hand, Thou boldest in Thine own, to keep me near Thy side. Thy counsel through my earthly way shall guide me and control, and then to glory and afterbirth Thou wilt receive my soul. Whom have I, Lord, in heaven but Thee? ♪ To whom my thoughts aspire ♪ ♪ And having been honored is not ♪ ♪ That I can ever desire ♪ ♪ Though flesh and heart should mate and pair ♪ ♪ The Lord will ever be mine ♪ ♪ My God eternally ♪ ♪ To live apart from God is death ♪ ♪ Tis good it's face to see ♪ ♪ My refuge is the living God ♪ ♪ His praise I long to hear ♪ For our confession of faith this evening, we will recite the Westminster Larger Catechism. Question and answers 185 through 187, which is found on page 965 in the back of your psalter hymnal. Page 965, questions 185 through 187. I will read the question and please recite together the answer. Question 185, how are we to pray? We are to pray with an awful apprehension of the majesty of God and deep sense of our own unworthiness, necessities, and sins, with penitent, thankful, and enlarged hearts, with understanding, faith, sincerity, fervency, love, and perseverance, waiting upon Him with humble submission to His will. Question 186, what rule hath God given for our direction in the duty of prayer? The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in the duty of prayer, but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which our Savior Christ taught his disciples, commonly called the Lord's Prayer. And question 187, how is the Lord's Prayer to be used? The Lord's Prayer is not only for direction as a pattern according to which we are to make other prayers, but may also be used as a prayer so that it be done with understanding, faith, reverence, and other graces necessary to the right performance of the duty of prayer. You may be seated. For our response of Psalm this evening, we will be reading from Psalm 11. Just a reminder, we use the ESV. So if that's not the version you have with you, I'd encourage you to use the Pew Bible. Psalm 11 is found on page 452 in the Pew Bible. So I will read the odd number, and please respond back with the even number verses. But I'm going to take liberties for my first time and say, I'd like us all to join together in the final verse, which is verse 7. It's a lovely conclusion to the psalm, so I think it would be good that we unite in our voices in that. So page 452 in your pew Bible, Psalm 11. In the Lord, I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, flee like a bird to your mountain? for behold the wicked and the bold. They have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright and hard. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes see. His eyelids test the children of man. The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let him rain coals on the wicked. Fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face. For our corresponding psalm, we'll sing again from the Psalter hymnal, Psalm 11, setting B. The Lord is my refuge. Please remain seated to sing. The Lord is my refuge. When the evil prevails, the nations remove. Oh, what then, O God, can righteous men do? Be sure that the Lord, in His temple on high, In heaven and earth, over man casts His eye. His eyelids observe and their conduct he tries, The Lord's as the righteous walks in his ways, His soul waits the way through terror and grace. The Lord will send judgment and poor apocryphals, For all the ungodly is scorching with rose. The Lord, ever righteous, His justice portrays, It is nice to hear the congregation from this perspective. Let's unite our hearts together in believing prayer and go to the Lord. O Lord our God, How excellent is your name in all the earth. Lord, all of creation declares your greatness and your glory. The stars on high speak of your power, and they declare to us of your care. For you call them each out by name, and you've numbered them, and not one is missing apart from your will. Lord, the mountains in grandeur rise up around, and they speak of your great creative power. They declare your eternality. They speak to us of your might and of your strength. The very oceans, Lord, declare to us your greatness. The ocean is something which we cannot tame. It is something that is full of life. Indeed, your word says it is teeming with life. And yet you, God in power, set a boundary for the waves and said, this far and no farther may you go. Lord, we stand in awe of you. Your faithfulness is declared and demonstrated to us as season follows season. You are a God who is faithful to the uttermost, and we are in complete reliance upon you. And yet, Lord, as we consider the reality of the greatness of your name, the wonders of your glory, we would take up the words of the psalmist on our lips as we enter here tonight. And we would ask, who may ascend the hill of the Lord and who can stand in his holy presence? And the answer would cause us great alarm. It is he who has clean hands and a pure heart. Father, this is not us. We do not meet these requirements. And yet, in grace and mercy, you have called us into your presence here again tonight. And you have not called us in to judge. but to delight, to inhabit the praises of your people. For this we bless you. We thank you that though we hear these words that might cause us concern, that you do not leave us there, but you call us to cast our gaze upward, where we behold Jesus Christ, who even now is seated at your right hand, there in our flesh and blood, appearing before the throne. So it is in Him, Lord, that we come. And because it is in Him, we come boldly, not as servants who have failed and are fearful, but as adopted children who are beloved in Jesus Christ, loved by our Father, and kept for your own glory. How we praise you for this amazing truth, Lord. And we pray that in the remainder of this evening, that this would be the worship that ascends to you in the name of Jesus. Father, as a congregation, we would bring our praises before you. You are a good God. You are overflowing with good. And we thank you for that. Lord, we thank you for the sheep that you have gathered here in this place, the souls that meet here week by week to praise your great name. We thank you for the way that you have united us together in Christ Jesus so that we who would have so little in common, potentially, have such great things in common. We thank you for this grace, Lord. We pray that you would unite our hearts together more and more, that our fellowship would be with each other and with you. Father, we thank you for the building that you have blessed us with. We thank you that at times that building feels that it is bursting at the seams. And yet, what a blessing that is. As we meet in our homes for celebrations, we feel the blessing of not having enough space to contain our family members. And so Lord, let that be our joy here as we search for parking places or room to move about. Let us recognize your goodness in this and bless you and praise you for it. Father, we thank you for the way that you add to your family here. We thank you for the little babies born in recent weeks and months. We thank you for the pregnancies that you have blessed us with currently. And we ask your grace upon these mothers that you would be with them and that you would bless those children that are in the womb. That you would cause them to grow well and to full term and come to healthy delivery. Lord, we bless you. are a blessing and a heritage from the Lord. They are a reward from you. And we give you thanks for them. And we pray that you would be glorified, Lord, as we serve together in the raising of these children. We thank you for Pastor Cruz and for Carrie Ann and for their children. We thank you for their work among us. Father, we ask that you would bless them, that you would care for them, that you would protect them, especially as Pastor Jonathan prepares your word each week. Father, fill him with your spirit and cause your word to go forth boldly here from this pulpit week by week, that the gospel would go out, that people would be converted, that saints would be encouraged, and that your name would be glorified. Lord, to that end also we thank you for The power and the work of sanctification that you work in us through your spirit. How we confess to you that at times it is so difficult. Lord, it is the refining and the burning away of dross so that gold may be purified. And that is so often for us painful. And yet we thank you that you do not leave this to us, but that you have promised. that you are working these things out in us. And that the good work that you have begun, you will be faithful to complete. Lord, that is of great hope for us. And we pray that on the difficult days and in the low times that you would encourage our hearts with these truths. Father, we confess we have weaknesses. We have struggles. And in the midst here tonight, we know that there are Sicknesses that are dealt with, there are those who are mourning the loss of loved ones. There are trials, Lord, strained relationships that are difficult to know how to deal with. We know that there are financial strains in a difficult time. Father, we know that there are possibly even children who have wandered from the faith. or those who are questioning. And for all of these things and so many more heartaches and concerns, we lift them to you and we ask that you would be the God who hears, that you would be the God who comforts, that you would be the God who is near to the brokenhearted. We thank you that we have your sure promise that you are indeed the God who hears. And so we pray that you would cause us all the more to bring these things to you, Father. Not to hide them, not to seek to bring about the remedies ourselves, but to cast them at your feet, knowing that you care for us. Lord, as we consider the nations around, the turmoil in the world and here in our own nation, How we cry out for mercy, even again today as we hear of another shooting. Father, our hearts break. There is so much brokenness. There is so much hurt. We ask, Heavenly Father, that you would be near. Please work for your glory in the midst of things that in our feeble minds we could never imagine how your glory could come from it. And yet we trust you. And so we lift up so many families that are hurting in these circumstances and we pray your mercy. And in the midst of that, O Lord, as we As we bemoan evilness and wickedness all around us, we pray that you would give us humble hearts, remembering that we are no better or different, but your sovereign grace and the working of your spirit, which has brought us out of darkness and into your glorious light. Father, may we remember that. And may we praise you for your wondrous love shown to us in Christ. And now, Lord, as we continue through the remainder of this service, we pray that your word indeed would go forth. That it would not return void, but that it would accomplish all the purpose that you have sent it for. That it would be, indeed, as the very rain which waters the earth, that it would cause seed to sprout, and blossoms to open, and fruit to flourish. Be glorified, Lord, here in our midst in this evening. And as we go out again into our week ahead, we pray that we would leave this place changed because we have been able to meet with Jesus. And that as we go out, the world would know that we are your disciples because of our love, and that they would have a great desire to see what this thing is, and that through our interactions on a day-by-day basis, that you would win people to yourself. Lord, we ask big requests, but they are nothing to you, for you are the almighty God and the creator of heaven and earth. And we pray in the blessed name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen. At this time, we have the opportunity to worship God through the giving of our tithes and offerings. Would the deacons please come forward? so so For our hymn of preparation this evening, please turn in the bulletin to the insert, the song titled, Teach Us to Pray. It's found on page six in your bulletin, the insert in your bulletin. Page six, Teach Us to Pray. Please stand to sing. In mercy, Lord, draw near. Incline our hearts to pray. Poster our souls to seek your face and live by what you say. Create true thirst for you. and strong desire to glorify your holy name and to your will aspire. Lord, teach us how to pray, not just with lips alone. Let heart and soul and mind and strength Bring us before your throne. Pour out your spirit, Lord, upon your church today. Show us the Savior's glorious work, that new and living way. Revive your cause, O Lord, the honor of your name, the glory of your only Son, who bore our utmost shame. Grant us a childlike trust, in your sufficient grace. Teach us to pray through all our days until we see your face. Indeed, Lord, we continue to pray now as we have just sung in prayer that you would stir within us a desire for your Word, just as we know that your word provides your grace and your grace is all sufficient. So teach us not only to pray, to speak to you, but teach us now to listen and to hear from you, for you have the words of life. We pray this for Jesus' sake, amen. Please be seated. Let's turn in our scriptures to Matthew chapter 6. We'll have two scripture readings, and then we'll head over to Luke chapter 11. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, speaking specifically to his disciples, says, 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. I'm turning to Luke chapter 11 now. Luke 11 and verse 2, the second instance where Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord's Prayer, what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer, verse two. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. Thus far, the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving word for us this evening. And we're coming now to the actual how-to of prayer. You have all been very patient. As you recall, we started this series on the Lord's Prayer a few weeks ago with this petition, teach us to pray, period. Just help us to start praying. And then we moved to what we find at the introduction in Matthew chapter 6. Teach us how not to pray. Don't pray like the hypocrites. Don't pray like the heathens. Well, now finally, teach us how to pray. And we look at the Lord's Prayer itself. As we do in our morning services, it's good and right to use these words exactly in prayer. When we don't know what to pray for, this is a good general rule. When you don't know how you should pray, what to pray, you turn to the Bible and you use God's words and you pray them back to Him. That's true for all of Scripture, but then it's especially true in those portions of Scripture which are actual prayers, as this one is. And Jesus even prefaces it in Luke when he says, when you pray, say this. Say these words. Pray these words. This is what John Calvin said. Jesus prescribed a form for us in which he set forth as though at a table all that he would allow for us to seek of him, all that is of benefit to us, all that we need to ask. From this kindness, the kindness of giving us the Lord's Prayer, we receive great fruit of consolation that we know we are requesting nothing absurd, nothing strange or unseemly, in short, nothing unacceptable to him since we're asking almost in his own words. There's assurance, there's comfort in praying the words of the Lord's prayer. Of course, that's if they come from the heart, as one theologian reminds us. This prayer is perfect in and of itself. However, he who prays has not prayed perfectly by merely having recited the words. We need to believe them. But the Lord's prayer is not just a model for us to use, a form for us to use. securing our confidence that God hears us when we recite it. It is more than that. It provides a wonderful pattern for prayer. In Luke, Jesus says, when you pray, say this. In Matthew, he says, pray then like this. Use words like this. Look at the shape and the structure of this prayer. Learn from that, and let that inform and shape and structure your own prayers. And that's what we are focusing on tonight, how the Lord's Prayer teaches us how to pray, generally speaking. In the following weeks, we're going to break down each petition line by line as we find it in Matthew chapter 6. But tonight, we're zooming out. this look at its overall content, and we want to ask how that can inform our personal prayers. How does it teach us to pray? And I think it teaches us to pray in at least five ways. And I recognized this morning I had a five-point sermon. This is pretty rare. Ten points today for you. Aren't you glad? First, how does this prayer teach us to pray? It teaches us to pray like a child. Or if you want, for alliteration's sake, it teaches us how to pray like a son. Because the second thing is it's like a sibling, and then like a servant, like a sinner, and like a saint. We'll get to those soon enough. But this teaches us how to pray like a true child of God, a son of God. Perhaps there's nothing more fundamental to real discipleship and nothing more fundamental in unlocking the secret of true prayer, fervent prayer, persistent prayer, than learning how to be a child again. Matthew chapter 6, there in the Sermon on the Mount, the section that we find it here, verses 1 through 18, Jesus refers to God as Father 10 times. And on numerous occasions in his ministry, he instructed the disciples, you need to be like a child. The kingdom of God is for children. You need to get back into that world of being a child to inherit the kingdom of God. And he's teaching that same lesson as we look at the structure of prayer. He wants us, first and foremost, to acknowledge God as our Father. He wants us to pray as children. And if we think about how children interact with their parents, well, that's really informative for us in how we should pray. What does that mean? What's that look like? To pray like a child. Well, for one thing, it means you come as you are. Children come to their parents exactly as they are. They have the security that they belong to their parents. We come with the security that we belong to God as his children, that nothing can turn us away from him. And so we just come as we are. We've been joking lately, now with summer and everything, that Evie has become our feral child because she loves to run out in her bare feet and get in the mud and eat the dirt and her hair's all frizzy. And she comes to us oftentimes like that after playing outside. Usually there's some chocolate or food caked into her hair or something like that too. She wants to be picked up. And we say, no, no, no, you need to go get a bath first. No, of course we don't say that. We pick her up. She comes as she is, and she knows that she'll get the embrace of her mother and her father. We don't tell her to change her clothes first. We don't tell her to wash her hands. Though admittedly, I'll admit, sometimes I do kind of hold her at arm's length just to get the chocolate wiped off from her hands. Little children know they belong in the arms of their parents, and so they come as they are. And that's how we're to pray. Not putting on airs. That's what the hypocrites did. No, we just come as we are because we know God will accept us that way. Come ye sinners poor and weary, weak and wounded by the fall. If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. So you come as you are. Praying like a child means that you come as you are. It also means that you ask like a child. What do children ask for? They ask for anything and everything. The sky's the limit. It's not till they're older that realism sets in. And so the Lord's Prayer models for us the wide range of petitions that a child should bring to their heavenly Father. We ask for something as great as God's divine will to be done, to be accomplished. The whole world over, is there a more massive or a more comprehensive ask than that? Your will be done on earth as it's done perfectly in heaven. We ask that the Lord would, by His Holy Spirit, protect us from the assaults of Satan, keep us from temptation. These are big Ask, forgive us for our sins. What did that take? That took the bloodshed of His Son on the cross. These are not small requests. But then we say, just enough bread for today. We ask anything and everything. The biggest petition and yet the smallest request. Praying like a child means And we come as we are, we ask for anything and everything, but it also means we ask believingly. There isn't anything that a dad can't do in the eyes of his child. There's that wonderful age where children look up to their fathers and they're the world to them and they're unstoppable and they believe it so much they get in fights with other kids about it. Well, yeah, my dad can do this. Well, no, my dad can do this. Well, my dad. They just believe the world of their fathers. It's that childlike faith that can attain the promise of Jesus in Mark 11, 24. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Children ask believingly. My dad and I now can joke about this. But when I was younger, I asked my dad to, and be careful, young parents or young fathers out there, I asked my dad to build me a car. He's an accountant, by the way. He's not mechanically minded in any sense of the term. He said, of course, I'll build you a car. I said, I want it to have buttons. I mean, I remember this so vividly. The yellow button, that would be a triangle, and the green button would be a circle, and the blue button would be a square. And when you push the yellow button, the car would turn into a hovercraft. I'll do it. And when you push the green button, it would turn into a helicopter. And the blue button, it would turn into an airplane. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, I'll do that for you. And then, you know, Dad, where's that car? Oh, working on that still? He's told me years later, I really thought you would forget about it. You know, I mean, and now I'm 30 years old and I still will tease him, where's that car? There's nothing that you could ask your Heavenly Father that's too great for Him to do. And here's the other thing. When your Heavenly Father says, I'll do it, He will do it. If, in faith, believing you ask it, you will receive it. That's what it is to pray as a child, to pray as the Son of God. The prayer also teaches us to pray like a sibling, though. That is, friends, you are not the only person who can call God Father. Isn't that fascinating? Consider the pronouns in this prayer. Our Father, give us our bread. Forgive us our debts. We forgive our debtors. Lead us not. Deliver us from evil. The prayer really doesn't make sense if you remove it from the Christian community, the context of the Christian family. There's a clever little poem that draws this out. You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say, I. You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and ever once say, my. Nor can you pray the Lord's Prayer and not pray for another. And when you ask for daily bread, you must include your brother. For others are included in each and every plea. From beginning to the end, it never once says me." It's a prayer for siblings. We're reminded to pray for others in this prayer that Jesus has given us. It is good and right for me always to pray that the Lord would give us our daily bread. For even if there's no risk of me not having food on the table, I'm praying for my brothers and sisters for whom that might not be such a sure thing. The Westminster Larger Catechism, which we looked at last week, Question 183, for whom are we to pray? Answer, we're to pray for the whole Church of Christ upon earth, for magistrates and ministers, for ourselves, our brethren, yes, even our enemies, and for all sorts of men living or that would live hereafter. Likewise, we're told in the shorter catechism that the preface of the Lord's Prayer, our Father, who art in heaven, teaches us that we should pray with and for others, because he's not just my father, he's our father. In our parental vows at baptism, the parents must take a vow that they would pray with and for the child that they're bringing to be baptized. When we receive new members, as we did this morning with the Butchers, Vanderoos, and Wanzers, I turn to the congregation and I say, now you must vow that you would encourage them through godly example and prayer. That you promise, that's what you did this morning, you promised to pray with and for these new members. So praying for others is expected of us, do we do it though, is the question. It's such an easy thing, and often we rely on this little phrase in conversation, somebody sharing a struggle, and you just don't know what to say, and so you say, well, I'll be praying for you. And that's a good thing to say, and it's a better thing to do, but how often do we just say it and not do it? It's kind of part of our Christianese, our Christian speak. I'll be praying for you, and I'm so convicted of how often I've thrown that promise out to people and then have never followed through on it. And I try to do better on that. people share things, I'll say, well, I will try to remember to pray for you. Or even better, let's pray about that right now. That's something I would encourage you to do. If somebody's sharing with you, what's wrong to just stop at that moment and say, let's pray about this real quick. Let's just do it. You can be on the phone with them. Let's pray about this. Takes 30 seconds. We should pray, not just for others, but with others. Parents, do you pray with your children? Husbands, do you pray with your wives? And vice versa. It surprises me how many couples struggle to share that moment of intimacy before one another. If that's you, I'm not saying this to beat you up. Don't get down about it. But you can start even tonight. You can go home tonight and pray, even on the car ride home, with and for one another. If you think about it, is there anything more loving we could do for anyone else in the world, certainly if we think about our spouses, but for anybody, than to intercede to the almighty throne of God on their behalf? We are to pray with and for others because we are part of a family This prayer holds in tension several things. We see that we come to God as members of this family, we're sons, we're siblings with one another. But we also see, thirdly, that this prayer teaches us to come as servants of God. There's still a posture of reverence, a posture of respect, and this prayer teaches us how to pray in that way too. Because notice how it's structured. The first half of the prayer, it's all about God. It's all about Him. It's all about a desire that He would be glorified, that He would get what He wants, so to speak. Your will be done. We talk about His name and His attributes. You're our father. You have a name that's to be hallowed. You're our transcendent father in heaven. You are the sovereign king. Your kingdom come. You are the one who predestines all things on earth and in heaven. It's a prayer that is first and foremost concerned that God gets what he deserves, not that we get what we want. It's a prayer that, first and foremost, It's about God getting what he deserves, not you and I getting what we want. And so the Lord's prayer teaches us to pray as those who bow before the Lord, who wait upon the Lord, who want to serve the Lord. We're his servants. But then we move on and we realize we're not just his servants, we're sinners too. We're unworthy servants. And so this prayer teaches us how to pray like sinners too. That's the fourth thing. Forgive us our debts. Some versions are trespasses. This goes hand in hand with the previous point of recognizing that we come as servants, right? When we acknowledge our sin before the Lord, what we're acknowledging is that He's the one who calls the shots, isn't He? Not us. We saw a little bit of that in Psalm 100, right? We are His. We are His people. It is He who made us. Not we ourselves. He's the sovereign king. We come as servants, but we come acknowledging that we are unworthy servants. He is holy and we are not. You know, the Westminster Shorter Catechism question 98 asks, what is prayer? And it includes in the answer true prayer. It includes in that answer the confession of sin. As though to say, if you're not coming to God confessing your sin, you're not praying. What is prayer? Answer prayers and 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. Do you do that in your prayer? Is your prayer life marked by contrition, confession? If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. We must take our cue from From Abraham, when he came before the Lord, he bound together perfectly this idea of coming as a servant and as a sinner. When he calls upon God, this is in that scene where the city of Sodom and Gomorrah is threatened and his nephew Lot is there and he wants to plead that Lot would be saved. You remember the scene, he keeps coming back. Well, what if they're 50, okay? What if they're 40, 30, and so forth? And yet he prefaces that entire interchange with this line, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. I'm nothing before God. I'm a sinner before holy God. My prayers must reflect that. And if I'm anything, it's that I am his servant. That's why I'm coming, to do your will. When we make our petitions and when we pray, we are good at making petitions. Oftentimes we forget the praise part. Our brother Brian led us so beautifully earlier in a praise that extolled God as creator. We forget that necessity in prayer of of starting with Him, with who He is. But even when we make petitions and we get to our needs and our wants and our desires, we do so humbly. Our face is in the ground. And we say, I'm daring to speak to the Almighty God, even though I am dust and ashes. Now I want to balance what I've just said with this final point. And that this prayer is instructive for us in learning how to pray like a saint. Prayer is a mystery. How it works is a mystery. So it's not surprising that we can somehow simultaneously come to God both as a son and a servant, and both as a sinner and a saint at the same time, in the same prayer. That happens in this prayer. But what I mean by praying like a saint is this. While we acknowledge our sin before the Lord, we come with the confidence that that sin has been dealt with at the cross of Christ. And that sin doesn't define us. You know what defines you tonight, dear Christian? Not your sin, but His Son. His righteousness. You are clothed in that righteousness. And that's why we can come with boldness. And can it be, that wonderful hymn has that last line, bold I approach the eternal throne. How are we to approach it boldly? Well, we're robed in righteousness, not our own. That's what Wesley reminds us of in that wonderful song. We are acknowledging our sin and yet confident that that sin has been pardoned, that we are claimed as God's holy people because of the holiness of Jesus Christ. We're holy because he is holy. Hebrews 2.11. clearly teaches this, both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. And therefore, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. Isn't that wonderful? The one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. We kind of circle back to where we began, praying like a child. The reason we can do that is because we're united to the Son of God, the Righteous One, and that makes us not just a son, it makes us a saint. That's what defines us. Friends, if you recognize that prayer is a privilege of somebody who has been justified by the free grace of Almighty God, one who is united to Christ, you will not shrink back from prayer. You will pray with confidence. To pray like a saint is to pray with confidence. It's to come boldly before the throne. We pray with our heads bowed low in reverence and awe and humility, but at the same time it's as though we can say we pray with our heads held high because we have nothing to be ashamed of when we come in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. We have already mentioned how the hour in Our Father points to the fact that That prayer, Christian prayer, is meant to include the Christian community. Remember what the shorter catechism taught us? That when we use that preface, our father, it's teaching us that we should pray for others, that we should pray with and for others, because he is not only our, my father, he is your father as well. But more than that, I think that first pronoun, and I would submit to you that that's the most important word, that this is the most important word in the entire prayer, is that three-letter word, our. What that's really getting at is a reminder that the Father that we're praying to is Jesus' Father. He's the one who's bringing us into the family. He's the one who's saying, pray like this. Echo my words, words that I can say. Share my father with me. He's the one inviting and encouraging and even daring us to address God the same way that He addresses God. And so He is our Father, not primarily because He is my Father and He's your Father. He is our Father preeminently because He is my Father and Jesus' Father, because He is your Father and Jesus' Father. What a privilege the Son of God would grant to us. What dignity we can experience in prayer that we come with the same confidence as the righteous Son of God to the Heavenly Father. At the close of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the great Lion King Aslan has returned and he's mustering his troops together to make one final assault against the wicked white witch who has made it always winter and never Christmas. Well, no longer. These are the orders that Aslan shouts to his army. And now those who can't keep up, that is the children, dwarves, and small animals, they must ride on the backs of those who can. That is lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants, and eagles. Those who are good with their noses must come in the front with us lions to smell out where the battle is. Look lively and sort yourselves out. And with a great deal of bustle and cheering, they did. But the most pleased of the lot was the other lion, who kept running about everywhere pretending to be very busy, but really in order to say to everyone that he met, did you hear what he said? Us lions, that means him and me. Us lions. That's why I like Aslan. No side, no standoffishness. Us lions. That means Him and me. Friends, our Father. That means Him and me. That means Him, Jesus Christ. And you, together, can say, Our Father. What a privilege. And what a delight prayer is. So how should you do it? How should you pray? Pray like a child, ask anything and everything and expect it. Pray like a sibling caring for the needs of others, like a servant ready to glorify God, like a sinner humbly confessing before your savior. And pray like a saint, bold before the throne as one who shares all of the blessings of none other than the son of God himself. Let's pray. Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we do come as your blood-bought children. We can call on you as Father because Jesus Christ is so gracious to share you with us. We pray that you would take your word, which we have studied this evening, which has been preached in our midst, and that your truth would be implanted deep within our hearts. and that it would cause us to know better what it means to pray, and how we should do it, what it should look like, the posture we should take in prayer. We've seen tonight that it's a real privilege. Our words are too weak to capture the privilege that it is to access your throne and to have your ear. So let us never waste this gift, but come regularly Come asking anything and everything and expecting all, for you are an amazing God and you do all things well. Amen. In closing, a hymn by John Newton, I believe, who has a number of wonderful hymns on prayer behold the throne of grace that's number five hundred and twenty two. Five two two and we're going to sing the first four stanzas of behold the throne of grace let's stand. and wait to answer prayer which sprinkled round we see, provides for those who come to God an all-fulfilling plea. My soul, ask what thou wilt, thou canst not be too bold. Since his own blood for thee he spilt, what else can he withhold? Beyond thine utmost wants, his love and power can bless. To praying souls he always grants more than they can express. Amen. I do hope to see many of you in a few minutes over at our home. For now, though, receive your Lord's blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. ♪ Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ♪ ♪ Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight ♪ Oh! Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.