If you heard him, Pastor Thomas Brooks wrote this, the power of religion and godliness lives, thrives, or dies as private prayer lives, thrives, or dies. I think many of us, especially those of us who have been Christians for quite some time now, recognize the truth of this statement. We recognize the importance of prayer and the emphasis that Scripture puts on prayer, but we also recognize something else. Prayer is really hard. It's very hard. I think a non-believer would think prayer would be pretty easy. It's like daydreaming to God, but that's part of the problem. Sometimes it is like daydreaming to God. So we struggle to pray accordingly. And my hope is that in our text today, in Luke chapter 11, verses 1 through 4, as the Lord gives us the pattern of the Lord's prayer, that like the disciples, you'll be taught how to pray by the Lord himself. As Cyprian said this, said, what prayer can give greater power with the father than that which came from the lips of his very son? Let's go to the Lord in prayer now and see if he might use this text to teach us how to pray. Father, we do come before you with a recognition of the fact that we are a distracted people. We are a people who have a difficulty paying attention in our prayer and even knowing what to pray for. And we recognize the fact that you're a sovereign God and you afford us whatsoever comes to pass. And we might even question why do we need to pray? So I pray, Lord God, that you as you give us this wonderful pattern of prayer, the same training that you gave to your apostles, to your disciples some 2000 years ago, that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that you would teach us to pray. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Again, please turn to Luke chapter 11. We're looking at verses 1 through 4, and I will read that text to us, and then we'll talk about how we're going to break it down to its component parts. Luke 11, beginning in verse 1, God says, Luke writes, 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, And when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. As we look at this, you're going to see that the prayer, Luke's version of the prayer in particular, is organized into five different petitions. You can see God's glorious name in verses 2a. God's glorious kingdom in verse 2b, man's need for sustenance verse 3, man's need for forgiveness in verse 4a, and man's need of spiritual strength in verse 4b. That outline is available for you as an insert in your bulletin on your home group's help. You might want to consider looking at that as we go through these particular four verses on the Lord's Prayer. So, as often is the case, especially in Luke, Jesus is found spending the time in prayer. Jesus had a dynamic prayer life, and that was one of the motivators for us, right? If the Son of God had to pray, we certainly need to pray, right? And I think that's one thing that Luke is constantly pointing out. He records something like a dozen different prayer times that the Lord spends time in prayer, often before some big event was going to happen, the choosing of his disciples, that kind of thing. And often the ones that Luke points out are not in the other gospels. So Luke had a passion for this idea of prayer, and so did his followers. So did the apostles that are present right there. And apparently John the Baptist had been very effective at teaching prayer. You will recall that some of John the Baptist's apostles were now following Jesus Christ. So they remembered how John taught them to pray, and now they're looking for the Lord to do something similar. So they say, teach us to pray, teach us to pray. Again, prayer seems to be one of the simplest things you could possibly do that a child can do. How do you need to be taught? But if you've tried it, you know you really need some help on how to pray. What do you pray for? How do you pray? What are the programs, the methods, the forms that we are to use? And it's interesting because this is falling right on the heels of that precious episode where Jesus and the apostles were there with Mary and Martha in the house of Mary and Martha. You remember Martha was scurrying around with all of her business and all her distraction, and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to the Word of God being taught, then Jesus affirmed Mary. She had the good portion there. We are to take the time to listen to the Lord. So, what this text is telling us, we also need to take the time to talk to the Lord. listening and talking. That's the disciplines really of the Christian life in so many ways here. So basically they're asking him to pray, to teach him to pray. And again, you think that's something so simple, but frankly, they were probably raised in this degraded form of legalistic Judaism that they may never have actually learned how to pray. The examples were very often stiff, rote prayers that were really didn't come from the heart. they came from an attitude of trying to maybe even get attention or praise from men, because you see Jesus constantly rebuking the religious establishment for their method. I'm sure that method also affected the way they prayed. So basically, the prayer that Jesus is offering is radically different from the traditional customs of that time, perhaps. And he says, when you pray, and so normally the This is called the Lord's Prayer, but really it could be called the Disciple's Prayer. And what he's going to give us here is a pattern for prayer. You've got to be very careful. This is not a form that has to be said in wrote every single time you pray. And that's actually perhaps one of the dangers of us including the Lord's Prayer. Most of our services of worship, our desire is to reintroduce you to that pattern, for you to memorize that pattern, to become very familiar with it. You know, your children will grow up just knowing the Lord's Prayer. You won't have to sit around the dinner table getting them to recite it. They'll hear it so many times, they'll just know it. But if it never moves into your heart, If you don't see it as a pattern of the kinds of things we ought to pray about, you're going to miss half of that lesson. So like anything, like listening to the Word of God, like singing our hymns, like any of the prayers that we offer, you need to really engage your heart. And that takes work. It takes work, especially after half of you woke up at five o'clock in the morning to a tornado alert, right? You've got to put in some effort here. So we hope to do that and to kind of introduce you to some of the reasons why we pray that Lord's Prayer this morning. Now, you'll notice here, this is different from the version of Matthew, chapter six. That's the more common prayer that we use in church services. It's a little bit more complete, a little bit more rhythmic. But that prayer was different. That was offered during the Sermon on the Mount in Galilee. This is being taught, Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray that prayer again here on the way to Jerusalem. So while that's the more common one, we'll point out some of the differences and that kind of thing. Now notice this too, is that famous doxology of the early church, which we include in our Lord's Prayer, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Is actually not included in this version or in Matthew's version. So in a sense, the Lord didn't teach that. But in a sense, he really did, because that is a quote from David from the Old Testament. So they attach that to the end because it's a wonderful way to close up on the Lord's prayer. So Luke is going to give us this pattern. which includes these five petitions. The first two of the petitions are towards God and His glory. The next three are towards the man and his needs. But of course, when man comes to God and prays that God meets his needs, he's glorifying God as well. So really, you kind of can't separate the two. But first of all, we first of all see that we are to pray for God's glorious name. Verse 2a, we start off with the word Father. Now here's the problem. It would be our desire for the children of this church just to always have known Jesus, not to have one of those dramatic kind of experiences. I used to be in charge of a biker gang in California and I was on a drug run and all of a sudden an angel appeared. Those are interesting testimonies, but we don't want that for you. We want you just to have always known Jesus. Here's the danger. The danger of those of us who've been in church for a long, long time. We've gotten so used to calling God Father, we just don't realize how radical this is. If Jesus stopped right there, His apostles would be awestruck. They would be amazed that you would use that term Father to address Yahweh. that it's just unheard of. In the Old Testament, there's 14 references where they call God Father, but it's always in regard to corporate Israel. God the Father over all of his chosen children, Israel. Abraham, David, and Moses would never have got on their knees and said, Father. They would never have done that. Abraham, Moses, David, they were used to write the Bible. They started this whole problem. They wouldn't have used that term. Too familiar. They would be uncomfortable with that. They didn't have permission to use that term. But you, the youngest among you, the newest Christian among you, God has given you the privilege to call God Father. There's a relational quality there that comes with the fact that the Son came to the earth and fills us with the Holy Spirit. So we've been adopted into the family of God. Frankly, even in this text, it's probably the familiar Aramaic term Abba, which is even less formal than the term O Father. It's more of a term of endearment and of intimacy. Paul encourages this kind of attitude towards God. Romans chapter 8 verse 15 in Galatians 4, 6, you receive the spirit of adoption. as sons by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. Galatians 4, 6. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of a son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. So a good rendering of this, combining the idea of Abba with this term Father might be dearest Father. Dearest Father. That's a good way to start off your prayers. Dearest Father. It sort of sets the stage of your relationship with God Almighty at the beginning of your prayers. You were remembering that He is your Father, that He has adopted you because of the blood of Jesus Christ, that you're sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that you have a home waiting for you, an inheritance that cannot be taken away. And in a sense, you're reminding Him, even though you've been like an idiot all day long, you're still their child. Father, Father. What father amongst us would reject a child that comes to us and pleads, Father? Father." This is such a sweet term of endearment. I love our confession of faith, the basis of the Constitution of our church and so many other Bible-believing churches. Question number 100 of the Shorter Catechism answers the reason why we use this preface to the Lord's Prayer. 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. It's just beautiful. Here he is, sits on the throne of heaven. He is the creator and sustainer of the whole universe. But you can come up to him and say, dearest father, dearest father, all of a sudden, all of this plan is focused upon you. Yes, my child. Yes, my dear son. Yes, my wonderful daughter. What is it that you what do you want in that precious? We sort of see God in his awesome glory, but in this in this farness away from us. But look at the tenderness of his. Don't let that be lost on you. Look at the tenderness. And yet our great desire is this name be hallowed. that it be that it be venerated, that it be honored. So hallowed be your name. Now, one of the interesting thing, this isn't a reminder of God that his name is hallowed. This is actually a petition. The first thing we want to ask God is that your name be venerated, that that the world know who is our God, that all the things you've done, that we're aware that you've done, that your name be hallowed as a result of that. Your name is above all names. Psalm 20, verse 7 says this, some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord, our God. We want to create it, create it, treat it as sacred, something holy. This is one reason why we don't ever want to take it in vain. It's not something, it's not a cuss word to be thrown out at when you miss a tennis shot or a wiffle ball shot or wherever there's that game they play now. You hollow that name, that name is precious to you. It is a name of power and of tenderness and of love. Thomas Brooks. It goes on to say, such prayers never reach the ear of God, nor delight the heart of God, nor shall ever be lodged in the bosom of God that are not directed to the glory of God. So when we get in a position of prayer, we remember God, our father, our dearest father. And we want all of these prayers and all of the answers and all of the yeses and all of the no's to be directed towards the glory of God. And because of that, we don't want to be hypocritical. We want to live a life that's representative of the fact that we hallowed his name, that we recognize him as father, and we recognize him as the answerer of prayers. So as Martin Luther said in his greater catechism, how is it that God's name is hallowed among us? The answer is when our life and doctrine are truly Christian. Boy, the world can smell a hypocrite. They can smell a hypocrite. You can smell a hypocrite. Don't be one. Don't be one. Don't go around telling everybody, oh, let me tell you how the Lord's Prayer works. I learned it on Sunday. And then then just be a jerk. You need to live your life in reference to God's hallowed name. And then you see God's glorious kingdom. He says, your kingdom come here. This this is basically that idea of it coming here is a decisive time in the future when the kingdom will be here. Now, it's interesting because Jesus is teaching the disciples. He's standing right there. He's the king. So it's like, it's like what Elder Routsong said earlier. This refers to what theologians call the already and the not yet. So the king is present. The king came to earth. So he has started to establish his kingdom. And yet he's gone back for a time. But when he comes back, it will be the not yet. The not yet will be fulfilled. His kingdom will be established. The kingdom was there in Eden. It had two subjects, Adam and Eve, and they blew it. So in a sense, that kingdom is now hidden from us in its full glory. But there's going to come a time, could be tomorrow, could be a thousand years from now, don't know when, when Jesus is going to come back with the shout of the archangel and the sound of the trumpet and the current heaven and the current earth is going to be burned up. And it's going to be replaced by the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells. And you will be subject of that thing. You already are subjects of the king, but you will see it then what you have to believe in. Faith will be seen before your eyes and we will live under the reign of that king forever and ever and ever and ever. And chapter one of our life will be so much more glorious that we won't even recognize or remember hardly the life here on this earth. And chapter one will last about 45 billion years. And then we'll turn the page and then we'll start chapter two. That's the kingdom that we're ready. So we but we want to see that now. Right. You want to see it now. You read the news and say, Jesus, come back. But I need you to save a few people first. Right. And and I just bought a new lawnmower. So if you could listen to that, listen to this description of some of the kingdom from Revelation. Chapter 11, then the seventh angel blew his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. He shall reign forever and ever. Heaven and earth joined together as one at the return of Christ. Revelation 12. And the great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, that his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now is the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down. He accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of his testimony, for they love not their lives even to death. You know, Christianity is not dull. Talk about your epic adventures. We need to we need to know that is going to happen and it's happening now in a certain degree. And every time we obey the Lord, every time we share the gospel, every time we live like the children of God are supposed to live in a sense, we poke Satan in the eye every time, every time. And we restore a little bit of that Eden. We restore a little bit of what life was supposed to be like before Abba and Eve committed the sin that they committed. Now, Matthew includes your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Of course, that's what subjects want. They want their king's will to be done. He's a righteous king. We want that to happen. So he's so he's basically talking about he wants to see God's reign manifested on earth. How can we see that we want that kingdom to come and then we commit ourselves to the king, don't we? You can't say that without saying, OK, and therefore I'm your subject. Command me. I'll do whatever you do. I will do whatever you want me to do with no explanation on your part and no complaining on my part. You might want to tell him that because it's awful hard to do. And then man's needs assistance, we get into the needs of man here. Give us this day our daily bread. You know, it's fine for us to make petitions to God. Actually, God loves that expression of faith. So we go to him, we ask him for bread. Now, notice this. We ain't asking him for cake. It's just bread. We're asking Him to provide for us what we need to be able to come and we'll be content with the rest. This idea of daily confuses translators because the word that's used there is not found in Homer or any of the other classic Greek. And it's an unusual word, so they think what it actually means is give us our bread tomorrow, give us today. So in a sense, if you pray this prayer or this, you know, use this form of prayer in that morning and you pray in the morning, you're praying for that day's bread. If you pray it at night, you're praying for tomorrow's bread as well. I mean, you're showing God, I'm going to count you for the most basic of my physical needs, the most basic things that I actually need. And I'm trusting you for my ultimate bread of the ultimate tomorrow that comes when your kingdom comes back on. You're showing dependence on God. You're showing dependence on God. If you've prayed that, why would you be anxious about your bread? If you've prayed any of this and recognize God as your father and that he loves you, why would you be anxious about anything? Well, Jesus says you shouldn't be. Matthew, chapter six, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. For what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, about what you will put on is not life more than food in the body, more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow or reap or gather in barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more value than they? And which of you, being anxious, can add a single hour to his lifespan? Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, how they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory has not arrayed like one of these. But if God so close the grass of the field, which is today alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. That's a rebuke. It's a little rebuke. Therefore, do not be anxious. That's a command saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things. And your heavenly father knows that you need them all. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Boy, wouldn't that be something to keep in mind all the time. But it's this gobbled focus that Jesus is calling us to do here, this gobbled focus that he's training us in this Lord's Prayer to do that just gets us off of these concerns and these burdens that really diminish our witness, but also tarnish our relationship with God. Why are we so uptight all the time? And, you know, I think Americans are more uptight than a lot of people. And we got so much stuff. But there's a covetous desire that we have where we're just not satisfied with what God gives us. We want to look at what everybody else is getting. How come I'm not getting that? And there's no end to it. I think what he had in mind here, too, was also how Yahweh provided for bread for the children of God in the wilderness. That's a miracle, isn't it? For 40 years, there's nothing to eat out there. And God himself provided. And they would wake up in the morning, there would be bread on the ground. And of course, I pick up here with Exodus chapter 16. They would look and they say, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, it's the bread of the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord commanded, gather each one of you as much as he can eat it. So they would come out every morning, didn't have to worry about the plan, didn't have to worry about refrigeration, didn't have to worry about anything. They would come out and they would just pick it up. And if their family needed a lot of it, they'd eat it all day. And then on the, say he didn't want them to have to labor to do that the day before the Lord's Day on Friday, he'd give them two days worth so they could save it for Saturday. It's just amazing. Now, y'all, that's the same God. The same God that took up Israel for 40 years where they could pick up bread in their backyard is the same God that tells you to trust him for your daily bread. Can we not? We can rest on that. The problem is we lust for more than what's really good for us. First Timothy six, eight says this, if we have food and clothing for these, we'll be content. There's not there's nothing. There's nothing that can harm you, nothing that can get you down, nothing that can overwhelm you if you walk in a spirit of contentment. Because you recognize whatever happens to me, good or bad, from my opinion, comes from the hand of a loving father. Let it come. Let it come. Confession of faith, question number 104. The answer says this. And we pray that the that of God's free gift may be received. We may receive a competent portion. I like that competent portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his blessings with them and how good he is. That's one of the things every time we sit and we have a meal and we stop to pray. I'm just thinking I didn't I don't deserve this food. It's just another example of God's grace. God's taking care of us in so many wonderful ways. But then what we need more than bread is forgiveness. Because our sins cause a separate between us and God and forgiveness of our sins as we forgive everyone who is indebted to us, this is our greatest need. Martin Luther frequently and famously said, the whole Christian life is one of repentance. Isn't that true? You're always repenting because you're always monkeying up things. You know, you're always going back and forth. You're always going back to God. Forgive me. I did it again. For we ourselves forgive everyone who's indebted to us. Notice this, that sin, the implication here is that sin creates a debt, that if you've sinned against someone, you've actually owe them a debt in a sense. So basically, what he's saying is you've got to be able to forgive somebody else. Otherwise, there's a standard of measure here. You're not willing to forgive. And yet you're asking God for forgiveness here. So we're going to be in this continual spirit of forgiveness. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. The Puritans were a little bit more negative than that. Thomas Watson, Puritan pastor, said this, a man can go to hell for not forgiving as much as not believing. If you're holding on to bitterness and forgiveness, you need to be aware there's a warning here for you. You need to be able to forgive people. Charles Spurgeon said, unless you have forgiven others, you read your own death warrant when you pray the Lord's Prayer. It's pretty heavy. So let us be those people who forgive because God's forgiven us so much. My goodness, the person who sinned again, I know a lot of you been really hurt, and I'm not trying to make light of that. But if the person that you, that has hurt you, knew all of the evil thoughts you have and all of the evil words that you've had, and just for that one week, I think you would get the point. Man's need for spiritual strength here comes in 4B. And lead us not in temptation. Now again, there's confusion here. Remember, God does not tempt you. The devil tempts you. James tells us in chapter one, let no one say when he's tempted, I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he's lured, enticed and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it conceives, gives birth to sin and sin, when it's fully grown, bring forth death. Do not be deceived, my brothers, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights. with whom there is no variation or shifting of shadows. So this word temptation can mean trial or testing, depending on whether or not the trial or testing is trying to get you to do something bad or whatever it might be. But here's the here's the point. Temptation is actually good for you. Temptation is good for you. It's where you it's where you build muscle. I mean, if you go to a gym, they have millions of dollars worth of equipment, or my gym, hundreds of dollars worth of equipment, for resistance training, right? You resist, you resist. If you're in there pushing styrofoam, you're gonna look flabby. It's not gonna work. You gotta have resistance. Life is the same way. See, we had this idea, if God would just give me everything I want, and quit letting all this other stuff in the world bother me, I mean, I would serve Him and I would be like the poster child Christian guy. No, you wouldn't. Have you ever known poster child Christian guys? Poster child Christian girls? Well, not many. Men? Women? Let me tell you, if they are poster child examples of Christianity, they got there with incredible amounts of pain. and failing constantly and being pressed by temptation and trials and difficulties. I like what Kent Hughes says. If temptations help shape the life and ministry of Christ, how much more will they do for us? Temptation, when resisted, develops our moral character. Temptation is not so much the penalty of manhood as the glory of manhood. It is that by which a man is made an athlete of God. Temptation conquered, knits the fibers of our souls into muscular cords. So temptation is not something to be dread, dreaded. It's the come on, come on, give me the ball, coach. Put me in the game, coach. Let me lead the force, coach or colonel. That's what temptation is. Now, we don't go hunting for it, right? You go hunting from you can violate a bunch of other stuff. By the way, you don't have to hunt for it. It's going to find you. But think about Jesus, 40 days in the wilderness fasting and the devil showed up to tempt him. And that was the beginning of his earthly ministry. The devil failed. The devil failed. James 1 says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For, you know, the test of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its effect that you may be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing. Matthew adds, deliver us from evil. So when you pray this prayer, you pray, I know temptation is going to come. Just let me pass him. Let me see him coming. Let me be wise. Too often we get over the temptation by just giving into it. I'm just done with this. I'm tired. I'm just going to go ahead and sin. That makes you flabby. That does not make you to be a spiritual athlete for Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, no temptation has overtaken you, but such is common to man. God is faithful and will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide for you a way of escape that you may be able to endure it. That's a promise to Campbell. Thomas Watson says there's a double benefit arising here about the framing our petitions here that we are that this form of prayer that God Christ is teaching here keeps us from going and having an error, but also recognizes the mercies we're under when he answers our prayers. So as James chapter five says, the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. You can accomplish much by using this Lord's prayer as a form to frame your own prayers to your father. who loves you and is waiting for you to pray and is waiting to answer your prayers. So this is a prayer borrowed from the New Testament. Let me close us with a prayer that's borrowed from heaven itself in Revelation chapter four, because whenever I'm wallowing in self-pity or I'm struggling with life, I start reading Revelation. And I'm telling you, I'm not one page in before I'm realizing what an idiot I am. that we got this glorious kingdom, it's waiting for us. There is this trial is nothing compared to what we have waiting for us. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings and full of eyes all around and with within and day and night, they would never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, and the 24 elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him, who lives forever and ever, and they cast their crowns before the throne saying, this is what the this is what the it's a Presbyterian situation. Got four bunch of elders here, 24 elders. What this is what they pray. Worthy are you, O Lord God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by you they all exist and were created. Amen and amen. Father, help us, please. If we would stop at hallowed be your name, it would be enough to encourage us to the rest of the prayer, to the rest of life. But we get so consumed with our needs, we get so discouraged, we can't understand why you've chosen not to answer prayer at times. Lord, if we could see all of the no's lined up and why you said no, we would praise you for every single one of them. Let us be confident. That because we are covered with the blood of Christ, because we are dwelt with the Holy Spirit, That we can approach the throne of grace with a holy confidence. And we can pray to our dearest father, bless us, we pray with this thought in Christ's name, amen.