Amen, amen. Would you please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter six. As you do that, we're talking about prayer today, and I just want to take an opportunity to remind you that as we sing together, we are praying. I don't know if you think about your singing in that way, but if you weren't, I hope that you will. We're offering up these prayers together as a congregation in song, and that last song, it's just a beautiful prayer. I hope that you prayed that in faith. Because I know, I know, because I've walked with many of you through this week, this has been a really terrible week for a lot of us. It's just been a really rotten week. And maybe you're hearing it wasn't a rotten week. That's fantastic. But for many in this congregation, it's just been really tough. Yet it is well and as we pull our eyes back and we look at the bigger picture and we look at what God is doing We're able to say in faith. It is well with my soul, even though it is not well with my circumstances It's not well with all of these things that are causing me anxiety and stress in this world But I'm looking beyond those I'm seeing him and I'm praying in faith with my brothers and sisters in Christ It is well. So if that was you today and you were taking that step of faith and praying that prayer, I just wanna encourage you. We're blessed hearing you sing these songs and trusting the Lord. And it's a blessing to be able to sing them over one another. So God is good. That's unrelated to my introduction. But I'll be quick with the introduction. As you look to Matthew 6, we are just coming out of our break through Advent. In Advent, we went to Luke's gospel. We looked at his Advent, his telling of the Advent story. But before we stopped, at the end of November, Wondering if you can remember, the last thing that we looked at in the Sermon on the Mount was really a part one of a two-part teaching on prayer. Jesus in part one, what we looked at before we stopped for the break, he warned us against the ways that we can poison our prayer lives. You remember that? And so he pulled out two in particular. He warned us that we should not allow our prayer to become a performance. meaning sometimes we all fall into this trap at times, that as we're praying to God, we begin to think less about him and we start to think more about the people who are listening to us pray, and we want to impress them, and we start using some language that we wouldn't normally use, and maybe we start doing like a little inductive Bible study through our prayer, and we're just trying to impress people around us. And I will confess, I do this, I've done this, I will do this. It's a temptation that I will face. We will all face it and Jesus corrects us. He says don't fall into that trap. It's going to poison your prayer life. And then second he reminds us that prayer is not a magic formula. And so he points to the pagans of the day who think that if they multiply their words that then God will hear them. Or sometimes we think if I get the right emotion stirred up, then God will hear me. Or if I adopt the right bodily posture, God will hear me. And of course, words matter, and emotion matters, and posture matters. But Jesus reminds us that the Father knows what you need even before you ask Him. So don't be thinking like the pagans, that if you can stir up the right thing or say enough words, that then you'll have His attention. He's like, brothers, sisters, you have His attention. You can come. So it's not a performance and it's not a magic formula. How then should we pray? That leads us into part two, what we're looking at today. Jesus teaches us when you pray, pray like this. And before I read it, I want to just highlight for your attention, you know, a big picture observation. This is stunning in its simplicity. It's so simple. Brothers and sisters, someday our kids or a young believer will come to us and they'll say, can you teach me to pray? Let's remember and let's point them to this model. Let's point them to Jesus' example. Because sometimes if we were to set an example, we might leave people feeling like they'll never be able to pray. Jesus schools it right back in this stunning simplicity. He says, pray then like this. Look with me now to Matthew chapter six. We're gonna read verses nine to 13. Hear now God's holy, inspired, inerrant, living, and active word to us today. 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. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Now before we go any further, I do want to just kind of put one fence around this. I want to make it clear that Jesus here is giving us a model prayer, but he's not giving us a formula. And let me explain the difference. If this were a formula, then the only appropriate takeaway from this message would be that we must pray verbatim the words that are on this page. Every time we pray, we need to pray exactly these words and nothing else. But it's not a formula. I know this because as we read the New Testament, we find all kinds of prayers from God's people, and none of them are verbatim praying what we find right here. So it's not a formula. What is it? It's a model. It's a skeleton. It's a structure that Jesus is using to reorient our priorities and our desires. He gives us this structure and says, if you pray like this, this is gonna point you in the right direction. And so that being said, we're gonna look at this structure. We're finding there are six petitions in this structure. And this morning, because Jesus teaches this wonderfully simple prayer, I'm gonna bring forward a wonderfully simple outline and just walk through these six petitions and learn from Jesus how to pray. Pray them like this. Now before I look at the first of the six petitions, I wanna address the opening words. Before he makes any petitions, he tells us to pray like this. Our Father in heaven. I am mindful as a preacher that there are some of you in this room who you have enough attention span for one thing, and I can see it when it glazes over and you're out. I see that happen. So if that's you and you're like, I slept two hours last night, I got time for one thing, let it be this. You will never pray rightly until you know who you are praying to. If you have a wrong view of him who you are praying to, then you won't pray the way that you should. So for example, if you think that he is a cold, disinterested God, if you think that he is a God who doesn't care at all about your circumstances and that you have to appease him and try and muster something up in him to make him want to bless you, that's going to change the way you pray. Or if you think that he is a sleepy, distracted God, who requires you to use loud voice and try to grab hold of his attention, and after you're done praying, you think, like, did that have any effect on him at all? Did he hear it? Did he not? That's gonna change the way you pray. Or if you think that he's an angry, vindictive God, and he's looking at you, and he's thinking, how dare you come and talk to me, you sinner, you loser, you have been so rotten this week, I don't wanna hear from you. P.S. I know many of us in this room often feel like that when we come to Him in prayer. And it will change the way you pray. In fact, it will end your prayer, won't it? If you think that's who He is. And so Jesus, He brings us right back to the basics. And He says, when you pray, you are praying to your Father in heaven. Your father. Zion told us last week, he did a great job explaining that this is a new development. This isn't the way that they prayed to God in the Old Testament. From time to time, the language of father would come up, but this wasn't something for all of us, and this wasn't the way that we approached him. Jesus says, this is how you approach him, our father who art in heaven. Listen, one of the things we do as Christians is we remind each other of things that you already know. This week I've had some things where I just needed people to remind me of truths I already know. Because if we're honest, sometimes there's a voice inside of us, and even though we know true things, we tell ourselves true things, there's another voice and he's really mean, or she's really mean, and tells you all kinds of rotten things, and can become really loud and distracting. And by God's grace, we have these external voices, we have friends in our lives, we have mentors and parents, and they then can remind us of the truth. And even though they're not telling us anything novel at all, as they remind us of the truth, it just adds volume to this voice and it subdues this deceiving voice inside of us. So maybe you're here today and that loud voice has been so loud this week. and telling you all kinds of falsehoods about who God is and who you are. Can I just remind you this morning, God is your father and he loves you. He is transcendent and seated on his throne. He's the maker of heaven and earth. He's holy, holy, holy. But if you are in Christ and you have surrendered your life to Jesus and you've been washed with the blood of Jesus, you have become a child of God. And your relationship with God has become that of a child with their father and you get to come to him. In fact, he wants to hear from you. He invites you to come. It's like a parent, you can picture a parent like stooping down on the carpet to kind of come down to eye level with their child to say like, come and bring it to me. Like God stoops to us. On your best day, when you feel most holy, he stoops to you, right? He is God, and who are we? Well, Jesus says you are a child of God. And so we come to the one who has power to meet us in our needs, the one who has the ability to overcome every obstacle, the one who loves us, and as we sang, and as we heard in Romans 8, 28, we know that in all things, God is working for the good of those who love them and are called according to his purpose. We come to him as our father. Martin Lloyd-Jones says it so well, he says, and this is why I said if you can take one thing, let it be this, he says, I suggest that if you can say from your heart, whatever your condition, my father, in a sense your prayer is already answered. Sometimes isn't that all we need to see? Man, what a mess, but you are my father. So that's where we're starting this morning and we wanna see that. Again, take that away, hide that in your heart, let that truth change you in the way you pray. But now let's look at these six petitions and think about how we then come to him in prayer. First, Jesus teaches us to pray, hallowed be your name. And right off the top we have a challenge because if you didn't grow up in the church, what on earth does that mean? I was thinking about, is there any context in our culture where we use the language of hallowed? And I don't know, maybe if you read like horror books about like the hallowed grounds, and then I'm not even sure you know what it means. What does it mean? Well, the Christian standard Bible takes that word, and instead of using the exact word, it gives it more of a, it translates it in a way that helps us to understand what the word means, and I like this. It says, our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. I think that's a very helpful translation. That's what we're praying for. Would you be seen as holy? Would you be treated as holy, revered as holy, obeyed as the holy one? That's what we're praying in that first petition. One commentator explains that this prayer is not so much a petition that God will do some great act that will show everyone who and what he is, as a prayer that he will bring people to a proper attitude toward him. It expresses an aspiration that he who is holy will be seen to be holy and treated throughout his creation as holy. Here's an illustration in case you're not tracking yet. I looked up some YouTube clips to try and find something that would relate, and I found a YouTube clip of Paul McCartney, and he was busking on a dark street corner. Now, in case you don't know, Paul McCartney was on The Beatles, and for some of you younger ones, The Beatles were a band. They were very popular. They were One Direction before One Direction. Some of you don't know One Direction, but Paul McCartney, so he's on the street corner, and this is the guy. He is arguably one of the greatest contemporary songwriters that we've ever seen. And he's playing a rendition of Yesterday, and if you know Paul McCartney, that's the song. And he's playing it on this street corner, but it's dark and it's cold, and so people are rushing past him. And they just walk right by. And if they had stopped, if they had taken two seconds just to slow down, they would have recognized, I'm walking past Paul McCartney, and they would have stopped and enjoyed this incredible solo concert, but they didn't. And I think that's a beautiful illustration of what we're praying for here because day after day, this world, men, women, boys, and girls live their lives in the presence of our holy and majestic and amazing God with complete indifference. We wake up and we bask in the sun that he made and set in its place. And we look around at this beautiful creation and the white snow hanging on the trees and we're in awe of it, but he made it. And we spend our day enjoying art and song and dance. And yet, we give no attention to the great artist. All of these things are just a glimpse, a reflection of the creator. And we get up out of bed and walk on these legs that he made and breathe air into our lungs. And he causes our hearts to beat. And when he's done, he'll cause them to cease. All of this exists because of him. And yet, treat him with complete indifference. And to be clear, by they, I'm referring to all of humanity, which includes you and it includes me. How often are we guilty of this indifference? He deserves our love, but we give it to lesser things. He deserves our attention. We give it to Netflix or sports. Listen, I'll be frank, like right now, isn't it true? Some of us are struggling to give him our attention right now. And granted, some of that might be because of my communication skills, but we're looking to the Word of God, and yet there's a battle that we're waging even now. I want to give you my attention, but there's a gravitational pull to all these distractions. Why does that happen? He deserves our obedience, our adoration, our affection, but not a single day has gone by when any one of us in this room has given Him all that He deserves. And so Jesus reminds us here that as we come in prayer, as we see the Father rightly, that should be our first and foremost priority, that he would receive what he deserves, the glory, the honor, the reverence, the obedience, the joy, that it would be his. This is the primary request. He put this in first position, meaning when you start your day in prayer, if you put this first, if you say the most important thing to me today is your glory, boy, if you pray that and mean that, that will change your life. If you put first things first, that will change your life. Listen, and this might, I'm, yeah, I don't want to step on toes. This could potentially sound legalistic, so don't hear it that way. Just hear this as an overflow of this principle. Like, we've got a young congregation, and so we've got, like, our kids are coming into ages where they're being pulled into dance and sport and all these different things, and isn't it true? Haven't you already felt the pull? That their coaches and their teachers and everybody else wants you and wants your kid to say, this is my first priority. Put this first in your life and build everything else around it. And pulling us out of church and pulling us out of time praying at the table and having dinner together. And we feel this gravitational pull all of the time. And Jesus is telling us here, as you pray, every day, reorient yourself with this principle. God first. You are first, your glory first. You in my life, more than anything, that's what I need. Later in this sermon, Jesus will go on to say, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things will be added to you. put the biggest thing in the right place. That's where he begins and that leads us naturally to the second petition where Jesus teaches us to pray, your kingdom come. Now what does it mean when we pray your kingdom come? In a way we're helped that we took that break for Advent because we spent a lot of time talking about the longing of the Jewish people for the Messiah. Remember they were longing for the promised king. So they were waiting for the kingdom. Now, if we could go back in time, and we've seen this as we walk through the Advent series, the longing of most of the faithful Jewish people was for a kingdom that would resemble something like what they saw under Solomon's reign. They were longing for a time when they would have peace from all of their physical opponents, when they would have security in their land, when their king would be revered around the world. They were longing for that kingdom. And so then Jesus comes onto the scene and people start to get excited because as Luke tells us, Jesus' preaching and teaching could be summarized as proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. So Jesus comes and he's saying, the kingdom is coming. In fact, not only is the kingdom coming, Jesus went a step further and he made this incredible announcement. He said, behold, talking about himself, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. So not only, Jesus says, not only am I ushering in the kingdom, I am the kingdom. And people were really excited until they weren't. If you've read the gospels, you remember there's a time where all of a sudden the public opinion towards Jesus, it shifts. Because as they see him coming in and ushering in this kingdom, they want to grab hold of him and set him on the throne. They want to thrust him in a position of political authority and power, but Jesus doesn't want any of that. And they quickly realize what they thought they needed as a kingdom was not what Jesus was ushering in. They wanted a bully who would come along and punch Caesar in the nose and take back the lunch money and put them back in a position of prominence. And Jesus says, I'm not here to do that. In fact, he says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. So Jesus didn't come to fight Caesar and give Israel back their freedom. What did he come to do? He came to conquer our spiritual enemy. He came to do something bigger than what anyone was anticipating. He came not just to restore the nation of Israel, but to restore the world. He came to reverse the curse. He's the promised child from Genesis 3, who's gonna crush the serpent's head. He came so that we could be essentially returned back to Eden. That's what we needed. That's the king that we need. That's the kingdom to get us back there. And to be there, what needs to be dealt with is not Caesar, but sin. And so Jesus came to deal with that. So when we are praying, let your kingdom come, One of the things that we're praying for is that boys and girls and men and women, and us included, that we would fall under obedience and submission to the rule of the king. that we would surrender our lives to follow His lead, which means that for others, that they would be converted, that they would turn away from their sin, and that that sin would be nailed to the cross, and we would see baptisms in this place. That's what we're praying for. We're praying in our own lives that we would see sin that we've wrestled with and struggled with for years slowly and surely subdued and set aside, His kingdom in our lives. We're praying that His name, His renown would advance across the world. And with one eye to the future, we're praying and longing for the day when once and for all he will come and sin and death and Satan will be cast into the lake of fire. And he will restore this world to what it was meant to be. And we'll be in the new Eden. And in a way there is a physical kingdom. There's the now and not yet. We see glimpses of it now and the day is coming when we will see it in all of its fullness. And we'll pray for that. Lord haste the day, we prayed, when my faith shall be sight. And the clouds be rolled back as a scroll and the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend We wait for that even so it is well with my soul That's what it means to pray your kingdom come And then third, he teaches us to pray, your will be done, which in one sense is really the logical conclusion of these first two petitions. Think about it. If you are earnestly praying, I want you to be seen as holy in my life, in this world, and I want your kingdom to advance in my life and in this world, then the logical conclusion is I want your will to be done. But if you think about it, that's a tough prayer to pray. Because when I say, your will be done, I am also saying, if I'm saying it honestly, and in whatever ways my way is not in alignment with your way, my will not be done. Your will be done. That's a tough prayer, right? Because we got a lot of things that we are longing for, desiring for. And we can and should bring them to God. That's what's going to come up in the fourth petition. So he wants us to bring them. But before we bring our wants and our desires, we say, your will is what we need. Your will first. Sometimes his will is that we go through some really difficult seasons. Sometimes His will is that we suffer for a long time. Now again, as we mentioned earlier, we know that whatever suffering we face if we're in Christ is working for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8.28 is a promise we can hang our hat on in our suffering. We know that no matter what, His will is for our good, but sometimes that good brings us through a long season of adversity. And so we come to Petition 4 and we're going to say, could you bring me out of this adversity? Even still, your will be done. It's like Jesus in the garden, right? Let this cup be taken from me, yet not my will, but your will be done. We want that, we want to be obedient to his command. If you pray, your will be done, boy, it's hard to step up and then move back into that pattern of sin you've been living in if you just prayed, your will be done. We're praying obedience in my life, obedience in the life of my family, obedience in our congregation. We want to be shaped by your desires. We want to live in a world where people take their marching orders from you, God. Imagine beginning every day with this prayer in earnest. Imagine if all of us began our day with this kind of prayer in earnest. So many of the battles we face, like how many of us are just like bump, crashing heads, just fighting, fighting, fighting. If we could both say, your will be done. He's gonna make peace. He has to. He can do that, right? How many marriages could be restored if we could just pray this prayer and walk this out with the help of the Spirit? How many grudges would be laid down? How many of our unbelieving neighbors would finally hear the gospel? Taken together in these first three petitions, Jesus begins, he teaches us to begin our prayers by reorienting our desires to conform with God's desires. And P.S., that's what you and I need. We need that. Before we turn to our wants and needs, which we're gonna get to, before we even turn to our confession of our sin, P.S., how many of us start there? There have been seasons where you just come to God and the first thing you can say is, oh, I'm such a mess. You don't even want to hear from me. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And that's like the extent of our prayer. Jesus says, before you even get there, let's deal with the heart problem that got you there in the first place. Let's reorient your desires. Reorient your focus. That's what you need. When we pray like Jesus, one of the effects it will have on us is it will begin to pull the focus off of ourselves. Now, I don't pretend to have the ability to see into your hearts, which is good, right? I'm thankful for that. The more I see into my own heart, the less I wanna see into yours. But I can speak for myself, and I'll say, I'll confess, it is a challenge, it's hard work in prayer to take the focus off of me. And I'm gonna assume that that's a struggle we share, though I might just be crazy. But I'm gonna assume that that is a universal problem that we face. It is hard work for me to earnestly seek His glory when there's a little part of me that wants glory. wants my agenda. It's hard work for me to earnestly pray about his kingdom advancing without wanting to focus on all the different ways that I get to be a part of that. I want to be talking all about this. It's hard for me to step back and look at the big picture. It's hard for me to pray your will be done. When I have a lot of desires and wills that I want to be done in my life, it takes discipline, and it's good work. It's hard work, and it's good work. We need it. It shapes us and molds us. So I play music, and if you, anybody, raise your hand if you play guitar. This is your chance. We're all proud of you. That's awesome. Good for you. It's tough to play guitar. It might be the hardest thing. I'm kidding, it's not. But if you do play guitar, you know that you play that thing and it's sounding great, you put it down, and it only takes five minutes in this cold environment we live in with air conditioners or heat. It's terrible. It dries out, and it shifts out a tune. Sometimes not in a dramatic way, but just subtly it shifts out of tune. And sometimes it can almost be indiscernible. So you pick it up and you play, and you put it down again, it shifts a little further out. And then one day, if you've ever played with a keyboard, which never shifts out of tune, and you play a C chord, and they play a C chord, and all of a sudden you realize, this sounds awful, and the problem is me. Because I've been shifting out of tune, and it was almost indiscernible. I didn't even notice until I actually hold it up with the standard, and I realize I'm out. I'm way out. So every time I pick up a guitar, and every time a guitarist picks up a guitar, the first thing you do is you turn on that tuner, and you tune the strings, and you get them just back into the place where they need to be. And I would argue that the Lord's Prayer is an awful lot like a tuner for our hearts. It's like we, again, we don't need to pray this verbatim. This isn't a formula, but this structure wonderfully realigns us with where we ought to be. It helps me to see, oh yeah, look at that. The first thing I wanted to do was talk about me. First thing I wanted to do was grumble about my problems. First thing I wanted to do was grovel about how rotten I am, rather than just coming and adoring my father and realigning myself with his priorities in the world. And so put the tuner back on. In a way, these first three petitions can be summarized in John the Baptist's prayer. He must increase, but I must decrease. That's it. Now Jesus teaches us to begin our prayers by taking our eyes off of ourselves, but now I want you to hear this. Then, and this is beautiful, he leans in and he tells us that we are to bring our cares and concerns to God. So I don't want you to hear from this that while we are just to forget self entirely and just suffer through whatever comes our way, no, fourth petition, give us this day our daily bread. We are needy people. We need him. Now, I'll just step aside and just, we think daily bread, and of course the first thing that would have come to anyone's mind, like Jesus first hearers, our ears now, is we think of the food that we eat. And that's true, and we're gonna talk about that. But if I could just broaden your scope here, just think of our daily needs. Like what I need. So for some of you, you're battling with like discouragement, depression. Give me my daily bread is just like, God, give me joy to get out of my chair this morning and out into the world. Daily bread might, you got discouraging circumstances in your life. And it's like, just give me that daily hope that I need to believe that you're working. or you've got aches and pains in your bodies and daily bread might be just, Lord would you just give me the ability to step through this pain that I'm working through and give me enough to get through the tasks of the day. So we're acknowledging before him our need. Now again, as I said, for most of the people, most of the Christians who've prayed this in the history of the world, they're thinking about bread for real, right? Because most of the people who prayed this prayer are living hand-to-mouth and don't know where their sustenance will come from, but here you and I are and we've got our daily bread, right? We've got our weekly bread, our monthly bread, we got yearly bread, some of us got so much bread we never have to work again, we got so much bread, right? And so if we're not careful, we can fall into a trap of thinking that well this part I mean I say this but this isn't really for me like I don't really need him and if I could just encourage you today like I would argue that people who like us who are inclined to think that we are self-sufficient we need this petition more than anybody Like, we need to be reminded on the daily that we are needy creatures and we need Him. We need Him. I need Him to give me strength in my body to get out of bed to work today. I need Him to keep my heart pumping if I'm going to get through this day. Whatever money I've got saved up, it's entirely dependent on stocks and markets and economies that I have no control over. I'm not nearly as secure as the world tells me that I am. I'm not, and things can change real fast. If that is my security, that money in the bank, I'm building a house on shifting sand. And if you read history, man, sometimes that house comes crashing down. It's a wake-up call. I'm not telling you now you should go and live in anxiety. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that real security, like the real peace that God has for you is not found in the big bank account that you're trusting in. The real security comes from recognizing that my Father in heaven invites me to come and ask him for daily bread and I need it. I need it. I can't do this day without you God. I can't live for you today without you. My faith is so frail. It feels like it's gonna shatter to pieces. I need you to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus. We need our daily bread. And before I move on, I want to make a big picture observation now about this prayer. Did you notice that all the pronouns in this prayer are in the plural? It's all us, our, it's not just about me, it's about, it's a wider picture. Which means, as we're praying for our daily bread, and as you find yourself, you know, and you're saying like, yeah, I mean, Lord, sustain me through this day. You've provided already for me. I'm so thankful. It is very appropriate for you to broaden your gaze and start thinking about the people around you in need. Maybe brothers and sisters in the congregation who don't know where they're gonna be living a week from now, be praying for them. Or broadening out even farther and thinking about our partners at Kingsview in the Dominican Republic and some of these kids in the orphanage that need daily bread. Or broadening it out even further and thinking about our partner Paul Nassie and the work he's doing with Uttermost. Lots of people in his congregation in his ministry that don't know where they're gonna find their next meal and so we start to pray for one another and And it builds this community and it reminds us that it's not all about me. Can I tell you something? We need that reminder if we pray the way that Jesus taught us to pray It's gonna do two things. Well, it's gonna do a lot of things, but it's also gonna do these two things. It's gonna put to death my self-sufficiency. It's gonna challenge it on the daily. And it's also gonna put to death my self-absorption. And it's gonna call me to think about you and to think about them, which is good because if I'm left to myself, I'm gonna think about me all day long. Fifth, Jesus teaches us to pray. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Now, if you got your Bible open, I hope you do, look now, follow the Lord's Prayer, and what comes right after the Lord's Prayer? 14.15 says, for, and right there, that's a connecting word, which means this isn't just like some new idea. This is flowing out of connected to what just came. 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 just ask a question now, looking at this text. He lays out six petitions, but there's only one that he reverts back to. Six petitions, but there's one that he comes back, he highlights it, he underlines it, and he says, just in case you didn't hear me the first time, let me spell this out. Remember, Jesus is looking out at his disciples, he's teaching. And I feel this sometimes as a pastor, you look out and you can see when the room is like glazed over and you can see when the room is like, I'm not so sure about that. And you know, I can't help but wonder if Jesus looked out and as he said that, you know, the disciples are like, oh man, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and then he leans in and he's like, listen, if you get this, then it's gonna change your relationships with one another. This is a hard word. It was then, and I would argue it's a particularly hard word today. I don't pretend to understand all of the different cultures that have existed. But I'll tell you, I've got a bit of a handle on our culture, and this culture, more than ever, views unforgiveness as a virtue. It's like how many wrongs can you accumulate? How much of a victim can you be? How many people have wronged you? If you can hold on to all that hurt, it makes you powerful. It brings honor in our culture. The more hurt you are, the more honored you are in our world. And so there's this strong undercurrent that keeps us from forgiving, that questions the goodness of what Jesus is teaching here. And Jesus says, listen, if you go down that road, if you hold on to that bitterness and harbor that unforgiveness, it actually gives every evidence that you have not received this forgiveness. Now, because Jesus leans into this and fleshes this out, because he identifies this as something that we need to be thinking more about, we're gonna follow his lead and next Sunday, we're gonna look at verses 14 to 15 and devote an entire sermon to this question of forgiveness received and forgiveness extended. But for now, I just want to make sure that we're feeling the weight of this. First of all, it's encouragement. He's saying, come and just ask for forgiveness. And we know that we have forgiveness in Christ. We know that He's absorbed the debt. Let's talk about, you know, that language of debt for a moment. Think about, I owe, Keith lent me $500. You're right there. Keith lends me $500. Something comes up in my life, I'm just not able to pay Keith back the $500. I come to him and I'm like, Keith, I'm just, I'm so sorry. I can't, I cannot, repay these $500 and Keith is so great and Keith's like, I forgive you. Man, that's great. What happens though to the $500? Does like some outside source just like, here Keith, here's $500. Thanks for forgiving Levi. They don't do that, do they? What happens to the 500, that debt? He absorbs it now. Instead of him looking at me and being like, listen, you owe me 500 bucks and you're gonna get me 500 bucks. If it takes a day, a week, a month, a year, I expect those $500. Well, then I'm carrying the debt. But if he says, I forgive you, immediately that $500 debt is absorbed by Keith and he's out 500 bucks. That's what forgiveness looks like. And again, sometimes we are so eager to just get everything exactly right. But if we understand the forgiveness we've received, then this will begin to change in us because remember, what happens when we look to the Lord in faith? What happens when we confess our sins and repent and put our trust in Jesus? Where does our sin go? That debt, it's laid on the cross, right? It's laid on the cross he absorbs our debt everything that we owe to God everything that we have done wrong that we should have done right all of our sin that deserves death and the wrath of God and Separation forever all of that debt laid on him and Jesus says I'll take it It doesn't just disappear He owns it. He says, I'm gonna take it and I'm going to pay it. We just sang, my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, not like my sin yesterday that I named in my prayer, but you know, no, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross, which means I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, we say. We delight in that forgiveness and Jesus tells us here, if you are delighting in that and receiving that and loving that, then it changes this. Because now she owes you a debt. She did wrong. And how's this going to work? In the world's eyes, somebody's got to pay now. And it's sure going to be her or him. Right? Someone's got to pay. Forgiveness says, you know what? No. Absorbed. Taken in the debt. I forgive you. Now, is there stuff to flesh out? Sure. Probably a whole sermon's worth. So come back next week, and we're going to wrestle through that. But let's take him at what he says. And it's a strong, powerful, frightening teaching, right? Forgiveness received means that forgiveness will be extended, which means if you live in bitterness and unforgiveness and you hold on to every single debt and you hold everybody to pay the last penny, that actually gives evidence that you're not a Christian at all. And that should rattle you. And I'm not trying to send you into despair, but I'd say if you're not in Christ, then you need to be in Christ. And if there's evidence that you're not, then you need to deal with that very honestly. And so Jesus teaches us to pray that every day. Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. Now, sixth, finally, last petition in this prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Does anybody in this room, is anybody holding in their hands right now the NIV version of the Bible? Anybody got NIV? One, all right, Lawrence, this is for you. Yes, and you love that I named you too, I bet. Isn't that great? The NIV is great. And the NIV translates a slightly different reading. So if you're reading along there, Lauren, you would see verse 13, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Whereas in the ESV, it says from evil. So that actually, that's a difference that's worth thinking through. If you looked at it in the Greek, the actual Greek says deliver us from the evil. And that's why you've got kind of these two different takes. Is this evil in general? Is this like the evil one, Satan? What are we talking about here? I would lean towards the translation in the ESV. I think it's helpful to think about evil in general. Deliver us from evil. But in saying that, let me be clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't be praying for deliverance from Satan himself. I would argue that Christians in North America, this is something we don't think about nearly enough. And the New Testament is clear, we ought to think about it. There is a spiritual enemy that wants to bring you down. He wants to render you ineffective. He wants you to spend your life living in indulgence or living in despair, or he's gonna lie to you, he's going to deceive you, he's going to accuse you. We see this all over the New Testament. Peter warns us, he says, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. And I could tell stories from this past year where I've never been more alert to this in my life. I see it. There is a spiritual fight that we are waged in. Now, I'm not gonna give more credit to the devil than is due. We are in Christ. We have all the resources we need to stand. And Ephesians talks about how we put on the full armor of God, right? And we need to do that. But I would say while we need to recognize that, and as Christians in North America, we need to be more alert to that. I do think it's helpful to broaden out and look at evil in general, because evil isn't just about Satan. I like what Martin Lloyd-Jones says here. He says it certainly includes Satan. We need to be delivered from him and his wiles, but there is evil also in our hearts. So we need to be delivered from that. And from the evil in the world as well. We need to be delivered from it all. It is a great request, a comprehensive petition. So, you know, to put feet to this, Satan isn't the reason why you choose to live in pride. And Satan isn't the reason why you refuse to receive correction. Satan isn't the reason why you harbor unforgiveness in your heart. Satan isn't the reason why you objectify women and your thoughts. Satan isn't the reason why you lie awake at night coveting your friend's finances. All of that sin, whatever sin you struggle with, all that evil comes from within. Now, we are a new creation if we're in Christ. Do you know that? Like we come out of the waters and we say, raised to walk in newness of life. And we don't just mean like in heaven one day, you'll have newness of life. Of course we do mean that. But we also mean right now, like you are a new creation in Christ. There is a new you, Christ in you. But of course there's that old man, that old woman, who's nailed to the cross, and sometimes that old man, that old woman, shouts at us from the grave and calls us to pursue these old passions, these old desires, calls us to wander off of the path. We need deliverance from all the evil that we face. We need to be praying about that day after day. And once again, let me just remind you that this is in the plural. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. Could I just challenge you, brothers and sisters? Think about this. When is the last time that you earnestly stopped and intentionally prayed for some of our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been delivered out of addiction in this place? Or our young people in this place who are growing up in a culture that is just saturated with pornography and lust. Or the marriages in this place that are waging war daily with bitterness and hurt. Like, when is the last time that you really stopped and you prayed, Lord, would you deliver us? Would you lead us? lead us out of temptation, deliver us from evil, protect us from the schemes of the evil one who wants to bring families down. He's got a targeted approach for each of us, right? If you've read C.S. Lewis, what's it called? Somebody shouted out... You see, I looked right at you, Gary, because I knew you would know. Screw tape letters. One of the things that's helpful in this little book by C.S. Lewis is it's like these demons talking about how they're gonna try and shipwreck the faith of people, how they're gonna try and render them useless or bring them down. And I think what's helpful in the book is it just reminds us that the enemy of our souls is not naive to the temptations that work. The enemy knows what is gonna render me useless and what's gonna render you useless, and it's gonna be different for each one of us. And so we need to be praying actively for one another, praying for new believers in our midst. Like when somebody comes out of the waters of baptism, man, you should be praying for that brother, that sister for a year, just continuing to lift them up in prayer. Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. You're not an island. You're not a lone wolf. We're brothers and sisters in arms, engaged in a spiritual battle. And we know how this story ends, as we often sing. But we need each other, and God has given us the gift of one another. So let's walk together, and let's pray together. As we conclude, I want to ask you one closing question. And we're concluding, this is my last paragraph on the sheet. If I were to take, oh, you're laughing. I should've ended a long time ago is what I'm hearing. You know what, let's close now. No, I'm kidding. If I were to take your last 10 prayers, the last 10 prayers that you prayed, and I transcribed them and put them up on this screen, and we were to walk through them in the same way that we did today, and talk about the structure of these prayers, the petitions, and say, now, what do we learn about the priorities of this prayer? What would your priorities be? If your last 10 prayers are shown up on the screen, just think about that for a second. Would it reveal an absolute all-consuming focus on self? Would it reveal a lack of faith in the forgiveness that we've received in Christ and a self-loathing, a self-hatred? Would it reveal unforgiveness, bitterness? Would it reveal being consumed with finances and always thinking about money? What would it reveal? And my challenge is, if you're thinking through that and you're realizing that it would reveal that my priorities are out of alignment, my challenge is Jesus Your King, who loves you, who is so wise, has taught you to pray. He's given you this structure. And so my challenge would be, just, why don't you sit at the teacher's feet, and this week, every morning, why don't you turn to Matthew 6, and why don't you just work through these petitions in the Lord's Prayer, and let them shape your prayer? Maybe set aside five minutes, can you do that? Five minutes in your morning? And just walk through, and day after day, invite Him to shape your focus. Run your wants and your needs and your problems through the grid of the Lord's Prayer. And just watch how He changes you. It's a powerful thing. I felt it when we were praying for the service this morning in the kitchen. And just running, like we got a lot of challenges in our congregation. A lot of people are hurting right now. And just running it through the grid and inviting God to shape our priority. It'll change you. It will change you. Don't take my word for it. Jesus said, pray then like this. So to that end, I want to invite you to pray with me. I'm going to shape this prayer through the Lord's Prayer. Jesus, you taught us to pray our Father who art in heaven, and we just want to remember right now and invite you to reveal to us right now that that is who God is, that He is a Father to us. Help us to see Him and to respect Him and love Him and honor Him and help us to recognize that we can come. We pray, hallowed be thy name. I pray that God would be seen as holy in our lives. I pray that for each and every one of us in this room, maybe we feel conviction today from what we've heard in your word. Maybe we feel conviction from things that had nothing to do with your word, but we're just recognizing that we've put other things first. I pray that you would be put first in our lives today. And I pray that you'd be put first in this world. I pray that across the globe, we would see men and women, boys and girls surrendering to you, putting you first, that your kingdom would come. Oh, I pray that this city would just be transformed by the gospel. Thank you for all the good work you're doing in churches across this city. Thank you that they are growing and thriving. Thank you for the work you're doing at the lighthouse, God. Would your kingdom come, would you dispel the darkness, I pray. And I pray that we would just see increasingly, day by day, more and more men and women, boys and girls, coming under the loving rule and reign of Jesus. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We surrender to your will. You know best. And God, for some of us in this room, it hurts to even say that right now because we're looking at our circumstances and we're wondering, how could this possibly be best? God, and you tell us we can be honest with you, God, so we bring those pains, but we say in faith, let your will be done. We surrender to your will. Would you give us our daily bread? God, if your will for us is to walk through a challenging season, give us strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Lord, help us with our physical afflictions, bodies that ache, weaknesses that that we keep asking you to take away like that thorn in the flesh that Paul prayed about, and it doesn't go. Lord, would you give us the strength we need for this day? Give us the joy we need for this day, the hope we need for this day. Lord, would you provide for our physical needs? People in this room don't know where they're going to live a week from now. God, would you meet them in their need? We trust you with this. Give us our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Thank You, Lord, for forgiveness for sin. We all need it. Lord, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. I have sinned against You, and I am so thankful that You sent Your Son to pay for our sin. And so we look to Him in faith. Help us to see in faith today that our sin has been removed from us as far as the east is from the west. Pray if there's anyone here today who is not surrendered to Jesus that today that that would happen right now that right now They would be saying God. I need a Savior. I need Jesus. I'm turning away from my old life I want you and God you meet us in that And as we delight in that reality, Lord, would you bring conviction in our hearts to see right now the forgiveness that we have withheld from others. Lord, and I pray that by the power of your spirit, the floodgates would be opened of forgiveness in this place. That we would not be at war with one another, but Lord, that we would absolve and absorb the debt in the way that you have for us. And lead us not into temptation, God, but deliver us from evil. God, you know that every one of us in this room has weak areas. There are different temptations that will be particularly effective for each of us. God, would you deliver us? Lead us away from those temptations. Lord, you test us, but you don't tempt us. You are not the one who tempts. And so God, I pray that you would protect us and that you'd give us the wisdom to, like the young man in Proverbs who stays away from the prostitute's house who calls out to him. Lord, some of us need to stay away from the phone. We need to stay away from the, maybe the, I won't list them off. God, you know, protect us. Lead us away and deliver us from evil. Help us to see that there is a spiritual battle we're waged in. Lord, help us to see that there is one who wants to render us incapacitated. Help us to see that he is crafty. He's not a fool, that he's got schemes. Help us to see that if we are in Christ, we have all the resources we need to stand. So stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and with the shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And with the helmet of the salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, Lord, you've given us everything we need to stand. So deliver us for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Worship team, would you lead us?