If you have a copy of the Word of God, I invite you to turn to Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six, where we're talking about prayer, and of course, what better place to go than the Lord's Prayer. What we've been doing in recent Sunday schools is we've been going through Don Whitney's book on spiritual disciplines. The Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. And this book covers the necessity and the benefits of developing and maintaining devotional habits in your daily life. And so this is sometimes called by different names. Sometimes it's called doing your devotions, or your daily Bible reading, or your quiet time. We are in chapter four of this book, and the way that Don Whitney has titled it is Prayer for the Purpose of Godliness. In our previous two chapters, we covered the topics of Bible intake. And Pastor Derek and Pastor Charlie covered how our regular Bible reading, the necessity of regular Bible reading, and also practical advice on how to hide God's word in your heart. And today is going to be on prayer. Now, I don't want us to think that we are now on a radically different topic. As if we have Bible reading in this category and entirely separate to that as another devotional exercise, we have prayer over here. In everything that we do, as God's people, we are people of the book. We are people of the Bible. Most especially in worship. Whenever we commune with God, we must always do so based upon his revelation in Jesus Christ. Therefore, even our prayers are to be regulated by the word of God. So with the Bible as our standard for truth and righteousness, I want to expound upon three truths. First of all, prayer is expected. Second, prayer is learned. And third, prayer is answered. So first of all, prayer is expected. One of the commonalities in all of the religions of the world is prayer. Look at quite literally any religion, Islam, Buddhism, Old Testament Baal worship, everyone prays. It's really only in a post-Christian secular nation like America where we find rampant prayerlessness. These prayers and false religions, they might be filled with repulsive idolatry and they might be filled with superstition, but the point I'm trying to make in bringing this up is that the natural man has engraved upon his heart that he ought to pray. And this is confirmed for us in Romans 2, verses 14 and 15, which says, for the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature they do the things in the law. These, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts. One aspect of the law that's written in our hearts is that prayer is due to God. In the gospel, as the people of God who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, not only has it been revealed to us who the one true and living God is, and not only have we been given a new heart that desires to worship him, but we also have a perfect mediator for our prayers, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, the natural rhythm of the Christian life should be a life of prayer. Prayer was an assumption that Jesus held of his followers. If we were to look in Matthew 6, in the verses that precede the Lord's Prayer, in verses 5, 6, and 7, Jesus says in each one of these verses, when you pray. So Jesus believes that his disciples will be constant in prayer, just as we are constant in other daily activities, like eating and sleeping. Nobody needs to poke us, usually, about eating. Nobody usually needs to remind us, hey, you need to sleep today. But we do need prodding sometimes when it comes to prayer. And so my question for you is, fellow Christian, are you living up to this expectation of Jesus? And I think for most of us, the answer would be, yes, I pray, I even pray often, but I don't pray as much as I should. And if that's where you're at, I wanna give you a twofold response. First of all, we do need to recognize that we have been influenced by our culture. America, in the West in general, is godless. And there are very few occasions where America invokes religion on the public stage. And even when it is invoked, say at the national prayer breakfast, it's often accompanied by various blasphemies. Therefore, there is greater need now, more than ever, to commit yourself to a greater prayer life. Commit yourself to a greater prayer life. Now, I don't mean to become perfect overnight. I don't mean go from zero to a hundred. If you try to become Superman instantly in your prayer life, you'll just burn yourself out. But take small steps. God doesn't work perfect sanctification on us overnight. It's a process. Commit yourself to praying more, to praying more often, to pray more deeply. Commit yourself to praying with your family. Try to regularly prioritize meeting at Wednesday night prayer. Give small praises to God throughout the day. The second response, if we say, yes, I pray, but maybe not as much as I should, is you need to remember that the Father has grace prepared for you in prayer. When you come to God and say, Lord, I do not pray as I ought, help me to pray, you won't be met with condemnation. You won't be met with God reminding you, yep, you are a sinner. But He has love prepared for you. The same love that sent Jesus to the cross, the same love that chose you for salvation before the foundations of the world, is the same love that commands you to pray. And it is a command, and we need a command. We need a command, something firm and strong, because we're often weak in the flesh, and we need strong reminders to look after our own soul and to seek God. Because again, this isn't a, command that grips us to the point of condemnation, but it's as a loving father chastising his son. Colossians 4.2 tells us, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. So you should think of prayer not as a divine summons, not as a sort of chore or a new burden that comes bundled with the gospel, but you should think of it as a royal invitation. The Lord of Lords and the King of Kings desires to have private dealings with you. Will you answer his call? Jesus himself, he understood the necessity of prayer in his life. He was always praying. He was praying for his followers. He was praising God in his prayers. Now if God incarnate, if the sinless son of God who obeyed the father in all that he did, if he understood his own need for prayer, how much should you, a sinful fallen man who needs forgiveness? We ought to pray as Jesus prayed. A second point is that prayer is learned. If you could go back in time to the earthly ministry of Jesus, and if you could ask him one question, what would that question be? I think a lot of people would ask something along the lines of, you know, why does a good God allow evil? Or when will you return, Jesus? Or what should I do in this very important and pressing life situation? And certainly the Bible records some really interesting questions that he was sometimes asked, perhaps even to just the purpose of tripping Jesus up. But one of the most noble petitions proposed to Jesus is recorded in Luke chapter 11. And Luke chapter 11 is Luke's recording of the Lord's Prayer. And Jesus begins his Lord's Prayer as a result of one of his disciples asking him, Lord, teach us to pray. And in Luke's account, Jesus immediately leads into the Lord's Prayer after this. Now he doesn't answer by saying, well, you know, prayer is a spiritual exercise. So I can't really tell you anything about prayer but to rely on the impulses of the Holy Spirit. And I think that's an answer that a lot of us give is it's just a spiritual exercise, rely on the Spirit. If you try to make anything more out of it, you're being a legalist or something. That's not Jesus' response. He gives us a detailed answer. And the fact that he gives us an answer demonstrates that we can grow in the gift of prayer through scriptural meditation. A great exercise that every Christian, and I mean that, I believe every Christian should do this, is to commit ourselves to memorizing and studying the Lord's Prayer. Historic Protestant confessions often go through, when I say confessions, I meant catechisms. Historic Protestant catechisms often go through the Lord's Prayer. And I'm gonna read the Lord's Prayer, And I'm going to go through what the Baptist catechism has to say about this Lord's Prayer, because I don't want to just give my thoughts, but a little bit of historical theology I think would be healthy for us. Jesus says, 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. So I'm gonna read a couple questions from the catechism and this is actually the last, I have to do math real quick, eight questions of the catechism. Questions 107 to 114. It's a little bit long, but I hope it's not too long. I want this to be edifying for us. What does the preface, question, what does the preface of the Lord's Prayer teach us? The preface of the Lord's Prayer, which is, Our Father, which art in heaven, teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence as children to a Father, able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others. Question, what do we pray for in the first petition? Answer, in the first petition, which is, Hallowed be thy name, we pray that God will enable us and others to glorify him in all that whereby he makes himself known, and that he would dispose all things to his own glory. Question, what do we pray for in the second petition? Answer, in the second petition, which is that kingdom come, we pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed, and that the kingdom of grace may advance, ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened. Question, what do we pray for in the third petition? In the third petition, which is, that will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray that God, by his grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, as the angels do in heaven. Question, what do we pray for in the fourth petition? Answer, in the fourth petition, which is, give us this day our daily bread. We pray that of God's free gift, we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his blessing with them. Question, what do we pray for in the fifth petition? Answer, in the fifth petition, which is, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins, which we are rather encouraged to ask because of his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others. Question, what do we pray for in petition six? Answer, in petition six, which is, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, We pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted. Final question, what does the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer teach? Answer, the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer, which is, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen, teaches us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only. And in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to him, and in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say amen. When we say amen, it's from the Hebrew, which means let it stand, or may it be. I hope that reading all that was beneficial to us. Again, I believe it's quite imperative that we become masters of the Lord's Prayer, because when Jesus is asked, Lord, teach us to pray, these are the words that he gives us. If we want to have a robust and vivid prayer life, we ought to listen to Jesus. Another great way that we can learn to pray, and this is going to be a tough one, the way we can learn to pray is by praying. The language of prayer is much like a foreign language in this concept, in this respect. You grow more comfortable and you grow more confident in prayer the more you do it. If you were to think back on your own life as a Christian, has it been your experience that today you are wiser in prayer than when you were earlier on? I'm willing to bet that the answer is yes. And I want to say that it's not simply because it's a skill that you've honed just like any other skill. It's not like you've mastered driving your car and you're a lot better at driving your car than you were when you were 16. But you've gotten better at it because of God's work of sanctification in your life. The Holy Spirit is the one who gets credit for growing you in this grace. But perhaps the best way to learn to pray is to meditate on scripture. Meditation is the link between Bible intake and prayer. And this is why it's not a totally separate exercise. It's because of the link of meditation. It is fitting that our meditations on scripture should inform the matter and the form of our prayers. Now, when I say meditation, perhaps several different concepts or conflicting ideas might come to mind. And of course, I don't mean it in the sense where we might imagine a Buddhist monk who's just lost in the nothingness of his thought and just trying to be at one with nature. That's obviously not what I mean. We are here today in a self-consciously Christian context. This is church. And we're not just church in a general sense, but we are a Reformed Baptist church. We represent Western and Reformed Christianity. Now both of these modifiers, Western and Reformed, I believe are important for us to understand and maintain a biblical and theological prayer life. And I am departing a little bit from where Don Whitney goes, but I think I'm going in a direction that will help us see the importance of the word in our prayer. So first of all, we represent Western Christianity. If y'all are familiar at all with church history, you will know that in 1054, the Pope and the Archbishop of Constantinople excommunicated each other, leading to a major division in Christendom. And the West became known as Roman Catholicism, and the East became known as Eastern Orthodoxy. And there were several issues that led to this split. One of the major theological issues involved in this dealt with the Holy Spirit. Now, the West confessed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, while the East confessed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. Now, we here are Protestants. We are not Roman Catholics. But historically, we know that we broke off of medieval Catholicism. We know that that is where our roots are. And not just historically, because that's where we came from, therefore we affirm the West's understanding, but because we believe that's what the Bible teaches, we affirm that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And I'm not going to go into a huge defense of that right now, but I will say that it makes sense that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, because Jesus promises that He will send His Holy Spirit to His disciples after His ascension. And secondly, the Spirit is sometimes called, in the Bible, the Spirit of Christ. I don't want you to dismiss these theological thoughts as speculative or esoteric, there's important implications to getting this wrong. And the reason I'm bringing all this up is it affects our theology of prayer. We understand, typically, that we pray to the Father through the Son. We pray to the Father in the name of the Son through the Holy Spirit. And so there's an orderliness to our prayer because of the Word. Eastern Orthodoxy, on the other hand, offers a connection straight to the Father by the Spirit apart from the Son. Now the result of this is mysticism. And it's a sort of, I'm going to offer a definition even though it's somewhat undefinable, it's a sort of undefinable union and communion with God relying heavily on spiritual experience. Our worship, our prayer is unlike this, because Christ's intercession is definitional to our prayer life. We worship, yes, in spirit, but we also worship in spirit and truth. And when Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me, we affirm that in prayer. We contemplate not just God's essence, but we also contemplate his revealed word in prayer. So the second thing I want to bring up is that we represent Reformed Christianity. I want to briefly read Matthew 6-7. This is two verses before he gets into the Lord's Prayer. Jesus says, and when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Now when I say we represent Reformed Christianity, what I mean to contrast this with today is not Arminianism, but against Catholicism and against Pentecostalism. Do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, Jesus says. And the text also tells us exactly why they do this. They think they will be heard for their many words. There are pagan religions, both ancient and modern, like Hinduism that have their Hare Krishna mantra, that they are pretty open about why they use repetition. And part of it is they think that they will be heard for their many words. But there's also another reason that they offer for why they use repetition. There's a sense in which extreme repetition dissociates your mind and opens you up to higher spiritual influences. Think of it like this, for example. If you take any sentence in English, and if you say it enough times, it'll start not making sense. It's like that with these repetitions. But note well, Christian, there is no greater spiritual blessing above that which the Holy Spirit offers in his word. And to engage in other experimental practices such as this opens you up to demonic influence. The droning of repetition disengages your mind, and if your mind is disengaged, what are you going to do to combat the devil? When Jesus was in the wilderness, what did he do? He didn't turn off his mind. He quoted scripture right back at him. Pentecostal and Roman Catholic worship makes use of repetition in their prayer life. And there's no way not to be polemic here. Jesus calls this heathen worship. So Pentecostal worship, whether that's in music or in prayer, It is extremely repetitive. And I think it's no mistake that this naturally leads into tongue speaking, which is divorced from an intellectual grasp of the word of God. They often pray and will readily admit, I don't know what I was praying to. Or they know who that they were praying to, but they don't know the words that they were saying. Their mind has been disengaged. Roman Catholic worship and praying the rosary, which consists of 50 Hail Mary prayers, is likewise anti-Christian in the way that it's done. I don't know which is worse, the way Roman Catholics do it or Pentecostals. Because Pentecostals will recognize, I am praying to God, even though I don't know what I'm saying. Roman Catholics will say, I know exactly what I'm saying, but I'm not praying to God. I'm praying to Mary, or I'm praying to a saint, or something other than the one whom we are commanded to pray to. And so in the context of prayer, they have exchanged the creator for the creature. And so as Western and Reformed Christians, we must meditate not by emptying our minds, but by filling them. And we do this by meditating upon scripture, by thinking upon scripture, by asking questions. What does this tell me about God? What does this tell me about my duties towards him? What does this tell me about how I can love him and love my neighbor? And a great place for us to go to for a biblical grounding of this truth is Psalm 19. And in verse 14 of the psalm, which I believe is the last verse, it reads, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. So he mentions about his meditation being acceptable to the Lord Almighty. The content of his meditation are listed in the preceding verses. And it is no less than the law of God that the psalmist is meditating upon, is the Old Testament scriptures. Verses seven through 10 tells us what this is. And I'll read those verses. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter than honey and honeycomb. There is nothing better that we can think about and meditate upon and dwell on than the word of God. And God delights it when we do exactly this, to meditate upon what he says, to think his thoughts after him. Don Whitney says this, When we pray about what we've encountered in the Bible, now personalized through meditation, not only do we have something substantial to say in prayer, as well as the confidence that we are praying God's thoughts to him, but we transition smoothly into prayer and with more passion for what we're praying about. So if prayer is ever difficult because perhaps It's difficult to get our heart in the right place, or we're not sure exactly what to say. Bible intake is the key. Pray as the Bible speaks to you. As God speaks to you, speak those things back to God. It's not a one-way monologue. Prayer is, in a sense, a conversation. Our devotional life is not to a God who is silent, and we are not to be silent in our prayerlessness. So the third thing I want to talk about is that prayer is answered. God answers prayer. And I believe that one of the chief reasons that God's people often don't pray is because, frankly, we don't sometimes believe that prayer works. Now, of course, we've never admit this intellectually. We know what the Bible says, prayer does work. But sometimes our heart is prone to wander in this respect. Our Lord teaches us the following in Matthew 7, and I'll begin reading at verse 7. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? God wants to give you good things in prayer. We need to believe what Jesus says here because God is not a liar. He does not mock us with His promises to answer prayer. When God leaves you to pray to Him, it's not to ignore you, it's not to act as if you did nothing, but he means for you to receive from him. When you doubt, when we doubt about the effectiveness of prayer, we need to consider God's past faithfulness. How has he dealt faithfully with you in your past prayers? Since Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, he remains faithful to bless your future prayers just as he has blessed your prayers in the past. You know, if you were to go around and ask the members of this congregation, how has God answered your prayers in the past, you would get innumerable testimonies of God's faithfulness to save family members, to heal disease, to do all sorts of things that can be called nothing less than miracles. And we are cessationists here. We don't believe in charismatic gifts and all those things, but we do believe that God answers prayer and that he does so in absolutely miraculous ways that defy often human reason and expectation. We ought to be bold in our prayer. And one of the reasons I think we're sometimes slow to pray is because of our own sin. And if you feel unworthy to approach God in prayer because of your sin, maybe you did something extra terrible this week and you feel unworthy to enter his presence, well, I won't say that you're not wrong to feel guilty. You should feel bad for your sin. You should feel the shame and everything like that. But I will say you are wrong if you do not come to God in prayer and confess your sin to Him. Do not rob God of the glory of lifting you out of that pit. It is your Christian duty and it's your Christian joy to claim the righteousness of Jesus. Sin should not be an occasion to cease prayer. It should be an occasion to all the more seek the Father's face. Again, He loves you and there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. You approach him based on the merits of Christ's blood, on his merits, not on your own. So do not be discouraged in prayer. In conclusion, I wanna say, just leave you all with a few questions. Since prayer is expected, will you pray? And since prayer is learned, will you learn to pray? And since prayer is answered, will you persistently pray? And so I hope everything we talked about today was an encouragement. I do want you to prioritize prayer in light of your Bible intake and the promises from God that you will be spiritually blessed. I don't know if y'all keep up with the Christian news from this week, but some of us have posted this on Facebook even, that there is a revival going on at Asbury University. And I believe that there was a weekly chapel on Thursday that they had, and when it ended, some of the students decided to stay and pray. And this revival's been going on for a few days. People have not left the chapel. And the reports are this isn't any kind of manipulation tactic. This isn't the professors poking the students and asking them to stay. They're not doing this for show. It seems to have all the genuine signs of revival. And what it's all founded upon is students just staying and praying together. It's as simple as that. They've been praying. And there's been reports that this has affected other colleges as well. Other colleges have really very much increased their prayer life. And so we shouldn't look at a story like that and say, good for them. We should say, Lord, if you're pouring out revival upon this land, can we get in on that? Can that be for us? And so I intentionally ended a little bit early so that we could spend some time in prayer, that God would bless us as a congregation, that he would pour out revival upon us. If it's truly through prayer that God answers prayer, let's pray for the edification of this congregation. Let's pray that sinners would be saved. Let's pray for the sermon.