Wednesday night, we talked about the fact that we're starting a new year. It's interesting, you go to Walmart or any store, and all of a sudden, we're in the middle of winter, hasn't been much of a winter for us, but we're here, winter, cold weather. You go to the store, and for whatever reason, you start seeing workout equipment being pushed to the middle aisles. You start seeing end caps at Walmart, things on sale. Get your treadmill, get your whatever, all those workout equipments there. And it's like, what is the connection? It was the middle of winter. I think people would be more concerned about buying snow shovels and salts and so on. Why all those workout equipment? You know why. Because they're capitalizing on people's knee-jerk New Year's resolutions. 2019 is going to be the year that I lose 20 pounds. 2019 is going to be the year that I get into shape. And they know that people have made these commitments, and so they push out to capitalize upon those spur-of-the-moment decisions. And you know what? So they buy the treadmill, full well knowing that six months later it's going to be covered in clothing in the basement where you're drying your towels and so on, never to be used again. And that's human nature. Human nature is such that the New Year rolls around and we make commitments, which is a good thing. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. God gave us new starts, as we talked about last week. And so on Wednesday night I took the occasion to talk about Bible reading. Because for Christians, some Christians may have made the decision that you're going to get in shape, but a lot of Christians make the decision at New Year's, I'm going to be more faithful reading my Bible this year. And so we talked about Bible reading. Hey, I'm no better than Walmart. They're capitalizing on the fact. People are saying, I'm going to get in shape. I'm capitalizing on the fact that I know some of you are saying, I want to read through the Bible this year. I'm going to be more consistent with that. So we talked about the essentials of Bible reading on Wednesday night, and we kind of built a case for daily Bible reading, which ought to be an integral part of the Christian life. Today I want to kind of offer the other counterpart to that, which is prayer. And so maybe in 2019 you're saying to yourself, you know what, I gotta get my spiritual life in order, which I know essential to that is reading the Word of God and having a prayer life. And that's exactly right. And so I don't care where we are in the Christian life, you know what it's like. I don't think, very few of us ever feel like, you know, I'm really doing it the way that I ought to. I mean, I'm reading my Bible as much as I ought to, I'm getting as much out of it as I ought to, and so on. Very few of us feel that way. Prayer is the same way, and probably more so with prayer. There's probably very few here this morning that say, you know what, I'm exactly where I ought to be in my prayer life. I'm praying as much as I ought to, I'm praying the way that I ought to, I'm praying for all the people that I should be praying for, and I'm just very content and happy with my prayer life. For the most part, I think believers feel deficient in that area, which isn't a bad thing, because it keeps us striving. And so, this morning I just want to offer some basic encouragement when it comes to prayer. And so, look in Luke chapter 11, verse 1. And we're also going to look at Matthew 6, which I read earlier this morning. In Luke 11, verse 1, now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. 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 as we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. And I want to jump over to Matthew 6 to kind of get the complete picture. He says in Matthew 6 in the parallel passage, 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 their reward. But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, 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. 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. So in our passage here, especially in Luke, we see something interesting. Jesus is away praying. And if he can get rid of the ringing in the sound system, that'd be great. Jesus is praying in a certain place. And the Bible says that when he's done, his disciples come to him with a question. Teach us to pray. We learn something about the disciples. Number one, there is a need. That's the opposite. That's okay. The disciples have a need to be taught how to pray, number one. Two, they have a desire to pray. And so Christ's disciples understand that part of discipleship and part of spirituality, as they learn from Christ's example himself, is to be a praying person. They understood to follow Christ, to be right with God, spirituality, holiness, as modeled by Christ, is a life characterized by prayer. And so they had seen that John the Baptist had taught his disciples how to pray, again showing us the need for prayer, a lesson in prayer. So, John's disciples are being taught, they see Christ praying, and they say, we want this. We want to know this. This is essential to us. We understand this ought to be part of our lives. We need to know this. So, Lord, teach us to pray, as John had taught his disciples. And so, they're watching John's disciples, they're watching Christ. Throughout Christ's life, we find him oftentimes being sequestered away, saying, I need to go to a quiet place to pray, Luke 5.16. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray, it says. And you can see that throughout the Gospels. Going off by himself, away from the crowds, disconnecting from the chaos of life so that he could commune with God. And really, that was what enables him to engage with the chaos of life. And so the disciples saw this, so that spurs their question. They're comparing, our prayer life is not like that. Also, there's a need to be taught, because prayer can easily become corrupted. like all aspects of religion. And so that's exactly what happened in the Jewish faith. And so in the disciples' day, when Christ comes on the scene, the religion was rigid, it was ritualistic, it was hypocritical, as we've seen, and legalistic. Prayer had become ostentatious. Look at me, look at me, look at me. Prayer had become repetitious and really pagan. And so this was true even of the Jewish leadership. And so they'd pray on street corners. Could you imagine? You know, the guy in the street corner raising up his hands so everybody can see, and just lifting up his hands and praying as if he's so holy and so spiritual for the purpose of being seen by others. It was ostentatious. And then you had the Gentiles or the pagans who prayed with their ritualistic prayer, and they would just come to their gods and just repeat the same phrases over and over and over and over and over again, hoping to be heard by their god. And so Jesus says, don't be like them. And so in Matthew 6, don't be like the hypocrites, is what he said. They love for others to see them praying. So don't be ostentatious. Are we guilty of this? I don't know. Not to the degree of the Pharisees, I don't think. We're not standing on street corners praying. I mean, sometimes I guess you could have people bragging of their spirituality and so on. Might not be so much of an issue for us as it was for that religiously oriented society. But he says don't be ostentatious. They have their reward. But, you know, be private with your prayer life. This is you communing with your Father. This is private. So go in your room. Shut the door. Pray to God. This is not for public consumption. You're not doing this for anything else other than to commune with your Father to express your worship and your dependence. So that's private. So do that. We have corporate prayer, yes. But this is private. Shut the door. Don't be ostentatious in your prayer life. And then in Matthew 6, he says, don't be like the Gentiles. Don't repeat over and over and over again. They think they can be heard for their many words. This does not mean to not pray for the same thing over and over again. You can pray for the same thing over and over again. This is talking about vain repetition, right? Ritualistic, I'm going to just pray the same thing, I'm going to count every time that I do it, and if I just pray this same thing so many times, God's going to hear me. That's not how this works. God is not a slot machine. If you pull the arm enough, all of a sudden you hit the jackpot. That's not what this is. You're having a conversation with your Father. He knows what you have need of. It's in the context of loving relationship. So come and talk to Him like a person, like your Father. Not as if you're trying to fit into the mold of some ritualistic system so that you can unlock blessing from the God in heaven. So don't be repetitious. In 1 Kings 18, remember the prophets of Baal? You know, we're having a showdown of the gods here, which is really no contest. So the prophets of Baal are jumping around their altar, and they're crying out, and they're just repeating themselves, and they're cutting themselves, and so on, hoping to receive something from their god. Jesus says, don't be like the pagans. Don't be like the pagans, don't be like the Pharisees, don't be ostentatious, don't be repetitious in your prayer life. But in all of this, we see that there is an assumption that we pray. So Jesus says, but when you pray, don't pray like the religious hypocrites, don't pray like the heathens, but you must pray. That's the point. The fact that prayer is expected and assumed by a follower of Christ is seen in the fact that the disciples ask to be taught, Jesus replies, when you pray, and frankly it's consistent throughout the New Testament. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5.17, pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. The overarching character of a believer ought to be one where you walk through life with a spirit of prayer. If prayer is only locking yourself into a room and praying for a certain amount of time, this doesn't make any sense. God wants us to be of earthly good. He wants us to engage in real life, but He also wants us to pray without ceasing. And so the Christian spirit is one of prayer. And so God should always be a whisper away in prayer. At any moment, at the drop of a hat, you should be able to talk to your spouse and the next moment be whispering to God in prayer. We don't compartmentalize our lives so that we have our prayer time in the morning only and then launch out and do life on our own. We have a significant time of prayer, sure, but we have a spirit of prayer always. And so pray without ceasing. Ephesians 6.18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. Christians are praying people. Romans 12.12, be constant in prayer. Philippians 4.6, don't be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And that spirit of prayer is a cure for anxiety. Anxiety comes when you think that you have to launch out on life on your own and you are responsible for handling whatever invades your life. The unknown, the unexpected, I'm responsible, I have to figure out how to handle this. I've got to figure out how to engage in this stuff that's coming my way. A spirit of prayer says, God's with me. God will enable me, God will give me the ability, He will give me grace, whatever's coming my way. And so it's a cure for anxiety, that constant spirit of prayer. Colossians 4 to continue, steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. And so it's consistent. Christian people ought to be praying people. Christian lifestyle is a lifestyle of prayer. And so Jesus gives us a model. This is a gift. The fact that Jesus Christ himself, the Son of God, says to us, hey, when you pray, pray this way, and gives us ingredients for prayer. But isn't it interesting how stubborn we are as people? The fact that we are so prone to self-righteous religion, that when Jesus just gets done saying, don't pray repetitiously, Don't pray vainly. Don't pray like the hypocrites. Don't pray like the pagans. And then he says, but pray this way. Then what do we do? We say, oh, okay, write that down. We're just going to repeat that prayer over and over and over and over again. Isn't that just like us? What he gives us as an antidote to ritualistic vain repetition, we then use it in a ritualistic vain way. But that's not the intention here. What this is, is a skeleton. He says, here's an outline. There's significance here. Pray this way. This is a skeleton. You put the meat on the bones. Use this as an outline. This is the type of prayer God's people ought to pray. contains all the main principles upon which we build our prayer lives. And so this is healthy. Take this, use it as a skeleton, take a notebook, book, put these headings, and then fill in specifically for you what that looks like when you pray to God. But he gives us this as an antidote to religious vain worship. And so we're going to kind of go through this and outline it a little bit. First of all, what we see in the structure of this model prayer that he gives us is wholehearted worship. Wholehearted worship. There's an order here for a reason. And so he starts out in our passage and says, our Father in heaven, our Father in heaven. You see that in Matthew chapter six, and you see it in Luke 11. In Matthew 6, he says, Our Father in heaven. Luke 11, he says, When you pray, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. And so taking the two together, we can kind of have a complete picture of Jesus teaching here. Our Father in heaven. This speaks of intimate relationship that I've already touched on. What God wants from us when we pray is to understand the context of our prayer life is a context of intimate relationship. And so, 14 times in the Old Testament, God is referred to as Father. You say, okay, so this is universal throughout the scripture, we understand God as Father. Not really. When Jesus says to his disciples, come to God as your Father, that's actually radical teaching. Fourteen times in the Old Testament, God's referred to as Father, but the Jews really saw God as the universal Creator Father. In that sense, He's the Father of us all, they would believe. To them, it was blasphemy to address God as your personal, intimate Father. In fact, in John 5.18, it says, this was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Jesus, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father. And they view that as making himself equal with God. And so, 14 times in the Old Testament God is referred to as Father. You come to the New Testament, 60 times in the New Testament. I mean, the New Testament is shorter than the Old Testament. You've got, what, 12 less books. But 60 times in the New Testament, from the lips of Christ alone, he refers to God as Father. Part of the Christian life is the reality that Jesus Christ has brought us to God. I remember talking to somebody once about salvation, and they were emphasizing Christ, which is good. Emphasize Christ. But it almost, it was a strange concept for this person to understand that Jesus is significant to salvation because he brings us to God the Father. I mean, it is all Christ. I mean, we worship Christ, we exalt Christ, because Christ is the one who's made it all possible. But what has he made possible? He's brought us to the Father. So salvation is a matter of reconciling us to the Father. Adam and Eve sinned against God so that the fellowship with God was broken. Christ comes to reconcile that. So He's the mediator between God and man, bringing us together once again. And so prayer is the living out of that reconciliation. We now have relationship with the Father. And so, how do you pray? You say, do you pray to the Spirit? Do you pray to Jesus? Do you pray to the Father? Well, I think you can pray to... God is God. I mean, you could pray to each member of the Trinity, I suppose, but the model we see in Scripture is praying to the Father in the name of Christ by the Spirit of God. And so Jesus Christ is our mediator, and we pray in His name to the Father. So He brings us to the Father. So the context of all of this is intimate relationship with God. If you are a Christian, you're saved, you've embraced Christ as Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit's in you, you have an intimate relationship with the God of Heaven. And that is most, and I think best, manifest and expressed through the act of prayer. So you can approach Him. Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Romans 8.15 says, You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. By the Spirit of God we cry, Dad. Abba, Father. Galatians 4.6 Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, so that you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. This is the product of salvation. Christ brings us to God, He sends the Spirit, the Spirit is inside of us, and the Spirit inside of us enables us to come to the Father and to worship and have a relationship with Him, so it's by the Spirit that we cry, Abba. This is intimate relationship. We can come to God boldly, as his children, because we've given those promises, but we still come reverently. We can come intimately, crying, Abba, Father, but we still come with trepidation and fear, understanding who God is. That's the privilege that we have. So you have relationship with God. like a father. Don't allow your messed-up childhood and your messed-up relationship with your own father to cause you to misunderstand what it is that relationship with God. He is the perfect father. He welcomes you into His presence. He delights in the prayers of His people, and He wants you to come to Him and pray. So we see that here, our Father in heaven. That's the context, approaching your heavenly Father. So we see intimate relationship, next of all we see adoring worship. You come to God and say, our Father, and so you're taking the step and saying intimacy, you're approaching your Heavenly Father, that's intimacy. There's a tenderness here. There's not a rigid formality, there's a tenderness. You come to the Father, intimate relationship, but lest we think that means flippancy or irreverence, the next thing we see is, hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name. He is our Heavenly Father, yes, we have access to Him through Christ. He has adopted us, made us joint heirs together with Christ. We now have access to all the privileges of the children of God. We have such relationship that He knows us intimately. He values us exceedingly. He keeps us eternally. He provides for us faithfully. He hears us delightfully, right? This is all benefits of our relationship with Him as Father. And we can come boldly to the throne of grace, yes. Not flippantly, however, or irreverently. Why? Because his name is holy. It ought to evoke reverence and awe from his children. God is almighty and transcendent, so let's not overlook what it means to come into his presence. Intimate relationship, wonderful privilege, we can come boldly, but you're treading on holy ground. To hallow his name is to say, let your name be exalted. Let your name be lifted up. Let your name be magnified. Let your name be set apart as revered and holy and sacred and holy other. We rush into prayer sometimes, don't we? We rush into prayer. Sometimes that's fine, that's all you can do. A drowning man, all he can scream out is, you know, save me! No, it's, oh, holy and reverend is your name. Save me! There's times where you come to God and just, first thing off your lips, you request to God, and that's wonderful, that's fine, that's like a child with their father, that's great. When we pray to God, however, this skeleton, this model, is to come into intimate communion with him, but to come reverently, prioritizing worship of his name. And so, as a model, it's not a rule, as a model, we come to God and we exalt His name before we ever utter a request to Him. So you exalt His name. What? What does that mean, to exalt His name? Does it mean to exalt the name Jehovah? To exalt the name Yahweh? That's not what it means, to exalt the name of God. When Moses was in the presence of God in Exodus chapter 34, the Lord descended in a cloud, and the Bible says that He proclaimed His name. God the Father proclaimed His name. And then the Bible says this. He proclaimed the name of the Lord, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, what did he proclaim? A proper name? That's not what he proclaimed. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression in sin, who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. What does it mean to speak the name of God? It's to exalt his character. And so when you come to God and say, Hallowed be your name, you know, I know I've said this before, but you ever get in a prayer meeting with somebody and they're praying, and they're praying and say, Lord, I pray for my sister. And, Lord, I pray for my father. And, Lord, I pray for all the unsaved people. And, Lord, I pray for world peace. Why not? And, okay, so when are you going to start? praying for your sister and praying for your father. Don't tell me you pray for them. Just pray for them. What does it mean to pray? You're actually asking God for specific things for that person, right? Don't tell me, what does that even mean? We come And we don't just say, Lord, I hallowed be your name. We actually hallow his name. That's what we do. We hallow his name. And so what do we do? We magnify him. We lift up his character. Lord, thank you. Lord, you are merciful and you are gracious and you're so good to me and I thank you that you've looked upon me and you see my weak state and you've been so merciful on me and so good to me. Thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ that you've sent for me. You're magnifying all of who he is and what he's done for you. That's hallowing his name. That's speaking to God in worship. And so I'm concerned sometimes when it comes to believers, like, when do you worship? You say, Sunday morning, 945. Come for equip, and I come for 11 o'clock for the service. That's when I worship. No, yes, but no. When do you worship? In your personal spiritual life, when do you worship? And what does that look like for you? Well, At a very basic level, it ought to look like when you approach God in prayer, you hallow His name. You exalt His name. You lift Him up. You magnify His name. What are you doing? You're worshiping. And so, immediately when we come to God, we're coming on the right terms. We're not rushing into His presence, just vomiting out our desires. We're coming. It's like we're taking off our shoes, walking on holy ground, and saying, Lord, this is a holy place, communing with You. And so we exalt His name, His mercy, His grace, the fact He's slow to anger, He's abounding in steadfast love, He's faithful, and so on, He's forgiving, and we exalt His name as we worship Him. You know what's happening? Why pray? Well, when you do this, God knows who He is, but you're preparing your own heart. You're tenderizing your own heart. You're preparing your own heart. What you're going to find is what you expected to pray for and how you expected to pray changes as you enter into his presence and begin first and foremost to worship him. And so, Hallowed be your name. Next of all, your kingdom come. Such wisdom here. Well, what is God doing? He's saying, you're not coming on your terms. I want you to orient yourself exactly how I want you to be oriented before you come to me in prayer. And so, you're going to prioritize, first of all, worship of God. Hallowed be your name. I know who you are, and it deeply affects me. And then, you're going to express who you are. Your kingdom come. What are you saying? You're saying, I belong. to that kingdom. My citizenship belongs there. And so, this is who you are, this is who I know I am. I don't belong here, I belong there, in the kingdom that's coming. And so we pray and we say, Lord, I want you to come. I want your righteousness to rule. I want your justice to rule. I want you to set things right. It's an acknowledgment that this is not all there is. I'm not content with this life. I'm convinced that I'm not living this life for my best life now. I'm not living this life to get as much as I can out of this culture. No, I belong somewhere else. I'm a sojourner. I'm a pilgrim. I'm passing through. I belong to a different kingdom, and I want it to come. You see what God's doing? Orient yourself right. Who am I? Hallowed be your name. Exalt Him. And who are you? I'm a citizen of your kingdom, and I want it to come. How is His kingdom coming? Well, His kingdom is coming here to a certain degree. It's here. It's expanding. Right? It is. His kingdom is here and it's expanding. We say we want to see that more and more and more and more, so Your kingdom come. On one hand, Jesus said that the kingdom of God is not going to come with signs and so on, but it's in the midst of you. On the other hand, He talks to His disciples who ask when the kingdom is going to come, and He says it's not for you to know the times or the seasons, but God has kept that as His own prerogative. So, on one hand, He says the kingdom of God is not coming with signs. On the other hand, He's saying, well, the kingdom is still coming. In what way? Well, you can either take that as Christ's literal millennial rule on earth, you can look at that as the eternal kingdom that's coming. Either way, we long for Him to rule and reign. For Him to set everything right. For His righteousness to rule. So, we worship. Intimate relationship, yes. Adoring worship. We express our heavenly citizenship. You're discontented in this life. So you know what that's going to do for you? If you are going to pray for that new car, at this point you're thinking that's kind of petty. If you're praying for some earthly acclaim, or you're praying for some earthly advancement, your problems that you thought were so dominant and so needful, you come and you exalt Him, and then you express your discontentment with this life, and you know this is not all there is, and your citizenship is somewhere else, and you're waiting for that to come, that's your priority, now all of a sudden you're starting to see clearly some of those things that you're going to come to Him and pray about. Your kingdom come. And continue, Your will be done as it is in heaven. These things are related. With the coming of His kingdom is the coming of His will. But this is a statement of submission. This is a statement of submission. I want Your will to be done. This is like Christ. John 6.38, For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. That's what characterized him doing the will of the Father. And so you come to the Father and you're praying, and look at how much you're laying down when you approach him. First of all, you're worshiping. That's humble submission. You're proclaiming you want his kingdom to come. And so that's a statement of discontentment with this world. And then you humbly say, it's not about me and my will. So it's not about this earth, and it's not even about what I want. How many of your prayer desires are going to survive this? So you know what? Yeah, it's not about me. It's not about me getting everything I need out of this life. I'm reminded that God is holy, and that ought to be my desire. I'm reminded that His kingdom's coming, and that ought to be my priority. I'm reminded that it's not what I want, it's what He wants. And then it's kind of like, Hallowed be your name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Now to think about it, Lord, just thank you. Right? I think much of what I was going to ask was misguided. So we come to him with an intimate relationship and with wholehearted worship. And next of all, there's a shift here in kind of the outline of the Lord's Prayer. We go from, Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth. That's worship and submission. Now we come to desperate dependence. Having prioritized properly, now we can come with some requests. And what does it look like? Give us this day our daily bread. It's an expression of, Lord, you're my provider. I'm dependent upon you. I understand where my bread comes from. And this is just a phrase referring to all your basic daily needs. Give us this day our daily bread. And notice that it says, give us this day our daily bread. We have the luxury in the West. I am stunned sometimes. You walk through the grocery store and it's overwhelming. Who needs, you know, a dozen selections of ketchup and who needs, you know, 50 different types of ice cream? Well, I need that. But, you know, you walk through and you say, this is over the top. I mean, this is absurd. And you can load up your carts. You load up your carts. And what is that? That's your week's supply of groceries. You see some families going by and there's two carts, right? You don't have to worry about daily needs. You really don't. This is a foreign concept to us, to have to daily depend on anybody for anything. God wants us to learn daily dependence. We are daily dependent upon Him. It's a daily prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. God wants us coming back and coming back and coming back, expressing our dependence upon Him every single day. The picture of that in the Old Testament is manna. The manna came, God provided, but they had to go out and collect, and he was saying to them daily, you're dependent upon me. So, saying, hallowed be your name. Identify who God is and worship Him for that. Come to Him as Father, express your affection. Have the right priority. Your kingdom come, your will be done. And now submit. I'm dependent upon you for my daily needs. God is interested in our material needs, by the way. He's not at all interested in you being rich. In fact, He's probably going to protect you from being rich, because He knows human nature. He's not at all interested in you being rich, but He is interested in providing your daily needs. Do not be anxious about your life, what you'll eat or what you'll drink, nor about your body, what you'll put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather in the barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? God provides. He is interested in providing your daily needs. He says, depend upon me, don't be caught up in where your provision is going to come from, but depend upon me, then you can seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all those things will be added to you. Don't be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Depend on me daily. Listen, can we extrapolate this out a little bit? This is not, yes, daily provision, but there's spiritual need here as well, because he goes on to talk about forgiveness. We need God's daily grace and his daily provision. Part of prayer is coming to God and expressing our daily dependence. Lord, I need you. I can't make it through this life without you. I need you. The idea that we can just launch out into life prayerlessly is folly. You can only go so far, and then some trial or turmoil is going to happen in your life, and you're going to desperately clamor to reinvigorate your prayer life, finding yourself having become distant from God. And so many people avoid prayer because they have become distant from God, and they understand, they feel as if it's not so quick as to just go to God and pray, because you know what? You've got a whole host of things. You need to confess, you need to get right, you need to get your heart right, because you've been neglecting prayer, and so then you avoid prayer even further. We need to have the daily spirit of prayer where we keep short accounts with God and we can pray at any moment. And we see that this is His desire because He expects that we can approach Him on a daily basis seeking provision. And so, He wants to provide for your physical needs. He also wants to provide for your spiritual needs and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Daily we're dependent upon Him for provision. We're also dependent upon Him for forgiveness. Is it strange that God would say, daily pray to me and ask for forgiveness? No. You know, we talked about this a few weeks ago in 1 John. We're sinners, we sin. And we're deeply moved by the reality that we sin consistently. And so part of our daily prayer is daily forgiveness. Forgive us our debts if we confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins that cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And let me just note here, This is forgiveness from your Father. It's not begging a judge for a reprieve. He's already set the context. Our Father who is in heaven. You're coming to your Father and asking for forgiveness in the context of a loving intimate relationship. And He will forgive. But notice, there seems to be a condition. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. He goes on to say in Matthew 6, "...but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." What can you say? There it is. God says, come to me for provision, daily physical provision. Express your utter dependence upon me on a daily basis. You need to know that for yourself and your own good. Ask for my forgiveness, but... He's already said don't be a hypocrite when you pray. How can you ask God for forgiveness while you're harboring bitterness towards others? Part of the Christian life, part of Christian character, is if you have been forgiven, forgive. Forgiven people forgive. Forgiven people are forgivers. And so, God has forgiven us much so that we can never have a justification for not forgiving others less. Nobody is ever going to offend you to the degree that we have forgiven God. And so, His forgiveness of us is so paramount. so insurmountable that we can never ever justify withholding forgiveness from others in light of what he's done for us. So, Lord, forgive me for my trespasses. I need that daily cleansing. And I have forgiven others as well. You can't ask God for forgiveness while you're purposely harboring sin in your heart. Matthew 18 gives a wonderful parable of that in Matthew 18, 32 through 35. You wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you pleaded with me, should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you. And so we need daily provision of needs. We need daily forgiveness of sins. And then lastly, we need daily protection from sin. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This phrase indicates that we, number one, have a sinful tendency, and two, we have a tremendous resource against sin. We have a sinful tendency, but we also have a tremendous resource against sin. The Bible says that we can fulfill the righteous requirement of the law when we walk in the Spirit. It is possible to abstain from sin, not to perfection. If we say that we have no sin, we make him a liar and truth is not in us. But it is possible to walk in righteousness by the Holy Spirit. He's given us all the provision we need in this life to not succumb to temptation. So that sin does not have to have dominion over us. Sin does not have to reign over us anymore. That's a product of salvation in Christ's victory. And so we have the means. And so we pray, Lord, I recognize my sinful tendency, right? You're going to launch out onto your day. You're going to go to work. And there's that one coworker, the just most irritating personality. And just every time you're there, they get you. They know how to get you. You can't stand that person. What's your temptation? Your temptation, number one, is just to be bitter internally. Worse than that, your temptation is to act out and say something, right? And you know that's coming. You're going to be faced with temptation. Men, struggle with lust. You're going out into the world. Well, there's no... The world doesn't have any standard. The world's mentality is overly sexualized and women feel like it's their feminist priority to be able to expose any part of their body and then condemn anybody who looks at them. That's just the world that we live in. So, men go out into the world. You know that lust is a struggle for you. You know you're going to face temptation. Lord, I need your protection. Lord, help me. Help me by your Holy Spirit to not succumb to my own lusts, right? And by the way, just as a side note, Christian men don't deal with their lust by demanding that women cover themselves head to toe, because we understand that God gives us the means for internal control, and so we don't feel like we need to externally control, right? And so God's given us the means to overcome these lusts on the inside by the Holy Spirit of God. It's only spiritually dead people who deal with the temptation for sin that way. Right? I'm just going to remove the temptation by shrouding it and pushing it off to the side. Now I don't have to deal with the temptation. That's not how we operate. The Holy Spirit's inside of us. So, Lord, help me to have internal control. And you can apply that to any situation. It's your attitude. It's your relationship with your spouse. It's the things that you face in the workplace, in your school, your relationship, whatever it is. Lord, I need your help. I know I'm susceptible because of my very nature. And so, Lord, you know that I'm weak. You know that I'm dust. You know this is a weak earthen vessel. Help me. Don't lead me into temptation. Again, it's desperate dependence. I need your provision. I need your forgiveness. I need your protection. And so this whole prayer is a prayer of humility. We exalt Him, not ourselves. We exalt His kingdom, not our world. We exalt His will, not our will. And then we express our dependence. I need your provision. I'm not responsible for all that I have. It's a product of your providence. And then, Lord, I'm desperately dependent upon you for forgiveness. And I'm desperately dependent upon you for protection. And so, the whole act... You wonder why God wants us to pray regularly? Because our temptation is autonomy and pride. Forget what He's done for us. Every day He wants us to orient ourselves toward worship and humility. And this prayer does it perfectly. And so, Christ, in this model prayer, says, you know, when you pray, there ought to be wholehearted worship there. There ought to be personal worship time. What does that look like? Understanding you have an intimate relationship with the Father. And so you enter into that intimate relationship as you approach Him and call Him Father. Call Him Lord? Sure. Call Him God? Sure. But don't forget that He's Father. And the fact that Jesus, in the accounts that we have of the Lord's Prayer, says, Our Father. So approach Him as Father. Intimate relationship. and also offer adoring worship, exalting His name, which is His character, which is going to include who He is, but also what He's done and what He's done for us. And so, we exalt His name. We don't just say we're doing it, Hallowed be Your name, we actually do it, we actually worship. And then, as part of that adoring worship, we say, Your Kingdom come. I'm not content in this world. This is not my home. I'm passing through. That's going to help you to not hold tightly to the things in this life. It's going to help you not to hold tightly to possessions and to prominence and so on. This is not my world. Your will be done, not my own. That's part of worship. I lay my will at your feet and say, I want your will to be done in my life. Submission. So, intimate relationship, adoring worship. And then we go from wholehearted worship to desperate dependence, daily needs, daily forgiveness, and daily deliverance from sin. And so let me encourage you just in closing. Some of you this morning, your prayer life, you say, yeah, that's it. That's how I understand the Lord's Prayer. That's how I pray. Wonderful. Keep at it. There's others of you who have not, you feel your prayer life's deficient. I mean, you know it's deficient. Listen, you have the wonderful gift. Jesus Christ Himself gave us the outline. He gave us the skeleton. Take this, write it in your prayer journal, and there you have it. You have divine direction and instruction on how to pray, thanks to Christ's disciples. And so, use it. You have it. There's no real excuse there, is there? And so, use this as the outline to go forward. Realize the nature of the prayer indicates prayer ought to be daily. And so maybe you pray, and you pray intelligently, you pray this way, but you're not consistent. Well, that violates the spirit of the prayer. This is a daily prayer, daily dependence, daily forgiveness, daily protection. And so, 2019, let it be a year of increased Bible reading, submission to the Word of God. I want the Word of God as a mirror. I need to know who I am. Expose me, Lord, through your Word, and then change me. It's like a sword, right, that pierces and exposes our motives and our thoughts. So let that happen in my life, Lord, and use the Word of God that way. Couple that with this approach to prayer, and you and I are on our way to wonderful spiritual growth in 2019. So let's encourage each other that way. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for the privilege of prayer. Once again, we pray that all of us I think can take something from this message because we all so often fall short when it comes to prayer. And so Lord, help us to implement these things. Help us to have vibrant, worshipful prayer lives. We pray that we'd only increase the frequency of our prayer and the depth of our prayer and the sincerity of our prayer. Pray you'd help us to improve and increase. Lord, I pray you'd help us to relate to the Word of God as you've designed. You said that the Word goes forth and it accomplishes all of your purposes, and it is the means by which you make us like Christ. You sanctify us through your Word. So help us to check our lives to see what kind of role the Word of God has in our daily life. Help us to love it, and to read it, and submit to it, to look at it as practical instruction for daily life, to implement the wisdom that we find there, and help us to submit to the Holy Spirit as He convicts us through the words of Scripture. And then, Lord, help us to encourage each other to that end, to love Your Word and to pray. Help us also as a church to pray corporately, together, and to use this model as our guide. We thank you for this and then lastly Lord. We just pray for anybody this morning who is not yet a believer All may be somewhat new to them because they actually don't have an intimate relationship with you because they have not been reconciled to you They are separate from you. They're separated from from you by their own sin They have not yet Embraced Christ is the only Savior from sin. They have not submitted to Christ as Lord And so they have not been reconciled to you. They don't have this intimate relationship Lord, I pray that you would just convict them, help them see their need in their own heart for salvation, their own need to be made new by Christ, to be brought to the Father, to be brought to you, to have reconciled relationships so that they too can benefit from this intimacy. So Lord, I pray for those who may not be saved, that you will work in their own hearts and save them. Lord, we thank you for this, and we do praise you. We thank you that you remember our weakness, We're never going to pray perfectly. We're always going to fall short. It's our nature, but we thank you that you're merciful towards us and that you delight in our prayers as imperfect as they are. So help us not to put faith in our prayers, but to put faith in you, recognizing that even in our weakness, you're gracious to us and you hear an answer. And Lord, help us to keep track of what we pray for and to acknowledge answers to prayer when we receive them, knowing that that increases our faith. Lord, we thank you for all of this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.