to our unison reading, Matthew chapter 6. This is an undertaking. We've got a lot to cover in a short amount of time, and so there's only so much that I can cover here in a meditation, and so bear with me. It is rich, it is beautiful and wonderful, but let's direct our attention to it. Beginning in verse 8, Matthew chapter six, for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. In this manner therefore pray, 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 forgive our debtors. and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's pray. Gracious and Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time. We thank you for this day. We thank you, Lord, for the many provisions that you give us, and in particular, the means of grace. And so bless this day. May we come with hearts of worship. And we ask now that you would instruct us even in this meditation by your word and your spirit. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen. This section that we are looking at this morning in which Matthew gives us the Lord's prayer is where the Lord warns us. He warns us as God's people against practicing righteousness to be seen by others. In fact, do me a favor, Note verse 1 of chapter 6. It says, take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. The ESV says it this way, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. And regarding prayer, Our Lord goes on to give two negative examples that we are to avoid. First, the hypocrites, those who pray merely to be seen by other people. And second, the pagans, those who engage in vain repetition, attempting to manipulate Then the Lord offers us a model prayer, one that teaches us how we should pray. He gives us this prayer, the Lord's Prayer, and at the heart of this prayer, brothers and sisters, is the gospel itself. Praying in faith to our Father presupposes that we are resting in the person and work of Christ for our salvation. which gives us access to the Father. Additionally, because prayer is the act of offering up our desires to God, the Lord's prayer reveals what our desires, listen to me, should be. And so Christ is reorienting us. It does this by vividly reminding us of the time in which we live. We pray to our Father And where is he at who is in heaven? Yet we are still on earth, a place plagued by sin, by temptation, by the evil one. Thus we long for God's reign to fully come, for His kingdom to come, for His will to be done, and that His name would be glorified perfectly. In fact, the Lord's Prayer stirs within us, if you think about it, a deep yearning for heaven, for our home. This is our pilgrim life, and this is our prayer. It is to be with our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so your desires and your prayers should be for the coming of heaven. Now, reorienting us, like I mentioned, our Lord is putting heaven before us and the Father's perfect glory and reign. The Lord's prayer directs our attention. It redirects our attention upon God. And how instructive this is for our prayers. Dear brothers and sisters, may all of our prayers be focused on the glory of God. May the reciting of the Lord's Prayer remind us to do this. May our prayers be the denying of ourselves and the seeking of God's kingdom, his righteousness and his glory first and foremost. In fact, when you think about it this way, Christian prayer is looking outside of ourselves to the glory of our triune God. Now, just because the Lord's Prayer focuses our attention upon the Lord does not mean that prayer does not reveal something about ourselves. In fact, this prayer gives us a very succinct and profound image of who we are as citizens of the kingdom of Christ. You may be asking, how? Well, it does this by the use of personal pronouns. In the Lord's Prayer, we address it to God as our father. It does not say my father. It does not say your father. It says our father. Why is this important? Well, think about this with me quickly. If your spouse comes to you with a piece of pie and says, this is our piece, what does he or she mean? Well, it means that we're sharing, at least for some of us. So, also when we say, our Father, it means that we all belong to Him. It means if you are in Christ, you are in the same family. It means that we are the corporate body. You see, your identity as a Christian is not just about you and God. Rather, it is about us as a member of the body of Christ, the church expressed in this local congregation and a local expression. There shouldn't be a maverick Christian. There are no long rangers in the body of Christ. You belong to a body. In fact, we will make this statement at the very end in our creed. We are the one apostolic and Catholic church and we confess this regularly. My point is this, never forget the corporate aspect of your identity of the church. All of you have in common with other saints. This is important for us to consider. Now that is you belong body and soul to the one and the same father, the God of heaven and earth. This is who you are, who we are as Christians. And may our prayers always have this corporate awareness, which means that you aren't just praying for other people or other churches, although we should be doing that. This corporate awareness does not mean that you cannot pray for yourself. You can certainly do that as well. Primarily, it means that your desire in prayer is first for the good of the body, for the congregation, and free from any selfishness. Your well-being is intimately connected to the well-being of our church. Just as your identity is tied to the body of the church, which is united Additionally, this use of our and us in the Lord's Prayer not only shows us that we are a corporate body, but it distinguishes us from those that reject Christ. You see, the corporate language here shows us to be a distinct community. We would say it this way, a covenant community in Christ's blood. And so it distinguishes us from the world that hates God and sees the gospel as a stumbling block. We are one body, the body of Christ, and we belong to a different realm when you really think about it, the realm of our Lord, the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, when you pray, modeled on the Lord's prayer, you are showing yourself to belong to our shepherd king, The Lord Jesus Christ, you belong body and soul, life and in death to Jesus Christ and to his heavenly kingdom. This is what our prayers should reveal about us. In fact, As we recite the Lord's Prayer, we testify to this evil age that we are pilgrims, that this is not our home, for we belong to the kingdom of heaven. This prayer strengthens them. It establishes us as the covenant community of our Savior by reminding us of our pilgrim identity in Christ, apart from this world. Every time we pray this, we testify that we belong to Christ and to his kingdom, to his community. And with that, it should give us this longing for heaven. Now, let me ask you, who are we as this community? Who are we as this community? Well, we are children of our heavenly father. You see, this personal pronoun also is possessive We possess the Father, and the Father possesses us. He is our Father, we are His children, and as children, listen to me, it makes us dependent upon Him. We are needful of our Father. Notice the humble dependence on our Father's love and His strength in the Lord's Prayer. No one wants to admit it, but we are weak and we are needy. I know the American rugged independence thing is strong, but we cannot in ourselves provide for ourselves, neither can the pagans. And the issue is this, who's going to thank God for the provisions that he gives us? Even at the common grace level, we should acknowledge on a regular basis our need Thus we pray, give us this day our daily bread. Bread is a symbol of all that is necessary for daily life, and so we confess that we need everything, and that it comes from the Lord, and it comes from Him alone. Not only do we need Him to keep us alive through bread, shelter, and clothing, but we need Him to forgive us our sins. How feeble are we? For without God's grace and His strength, we would fall, listen to me, into every single temptation that would come our way. One theologian says it this way, quote, we have no strength to live a holy life except for that strength which comes from the Father in Christ and through the Holy Spirit." May all of our prayers be done out of a humble spirit, confessing our utter dependence upon the Heavenly Father for all things. May this prayer remind you, but for the grace of God in Jesus Christ, each and every one of us would still be lost, dead in our sins, Well, this utter dependence on the Father that this prayer impresses upon us should not cause us to doubt or be dismayed in any way. Rather, it should move us in the opposite direction toward the one with confidence, the one that provides confidence and gives us peace. Think about it this way, okay? Back when we were kids, You were dependent upon your parents, right? All of a sudden, let's say that they were gone, it would be very difficult as a small child to make a living, to get a job, to provide food and housing. It'd be tough to be on your own. Think of someone, you know, back in the day that was, say, seven, eight, nine years old. However, your need of your parents doesn't cause you to doubt that they're going to sustain you. Rather, you're at peace, for you know your parents will take care of you, and this is the way in which the Lord does it. Even though we are weak, even though we are feeble, completely dependent, we are children of our heavenly Father, and our identity as children is not unstable. In fact, Christ, When we believe in Him, He is our pledge. He is our guarantee of our adoption as children. If you believe in Christ alone for salvation, then you are a child of God, a co-heir with Christ, and all the blessings of heaven as a result of that relationship, of which we'll see in Ephesians 1. Therefore, when we pray this prayer, when we pray according to this prayer, we are removed from the everyday order of this present age. And think of it this way, positionally, we are like being taken up in heaven with equal standing with all the saints before God. This prayer gives us a vision of the heavenly order, and it gives us confidence and peace in our humble and feeble state, that God will hear our prayers and answer them accordingly for His glory and for our good. Listen, this prayer not only instructs us how to pray, but it impresses upon us who we are in Christ as the body of Christ. May it create in us a desire to pray in confidence in Christ for the glory of God. May it move us to pray for fatherly care and his daily nourishment of us. This prayer doesn't just instruct us, it does something. When prayed in faith, it establishes and strengthens us as children of our heavenly father so that we might grow in maturity in faith and all for his glory. I have so much more, but brothers and sisters, that's enough for this morning. We wanna direct our time in prayer, in the particular prayer that's been reoriented, our desires. And so let's do that. Let's take a moment and let's pray to our heavenly father in Christ by the spirit.