This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. If you have your Bibles, we are in Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. This is the reading of God's word. We are in Luke chapter 11, picking up in verse 1. Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. This is the reading of God's word. All across the gospels, all across the gospels, you have this familiar scene and it is, what do you know, Jesus is praying again. Jesus was so devoted to prayer. And what a lesson we learned that the son of God felt the need to pray. And he's praying constantly. And here we are again, Jesus is praying. And now we get another side of this experience. When you think about what would it have been like to be his disciple? What would it have been like to be the disciple of the praying son of God. I can only imagine the conviction and the inspiration alike that would come from comparing your prayer life to that of Jesus. Am I right? You just imagine seeing him day in and day out and what he does, and then you compare it to how you spend your time, the things you would pray for, that would have to hit you right in the heart. I have no doubt that compared to his disciples, Jesus prayed more regularly and more fervently. When others chose to relax, you know, it's been a long day, Jesus, let's take a load off. I can imagine him saying, it has been a long day, I'm going to pray. You have these times when Jesus would choose prayer instead of sleep. How many of us would be willing to make that? choice. Actually, a lot of us use prayer as our means to go to sleep. I think Jesus's example would be so convicting and so inspiring. And after some point, after some stretch of time where the disciples have been comparing their prayer life to Jesus's prayer life, at some point they would come to him and say, you know what? I need to learn to pray like this. I don't pray like this. I need to learn. One day that request would arise so naturally. And here it is, right? He finishes praying and they're thinking, Lord, we see you praying all the time. We want to grow in the way we pray. We want to learn to pray like you pray. And so Lord, will you teach us to pray? And what follows, it's a perfect prayer. Truly a perfect prayer. And the son of God crafted it. He tailored it. He customized it. to perfectly meet the needs of the disciple of Jesus Christ. Now this prayer in Luke's gospel, it's sort of the lesser known Lord's prayer, because we have a longer version that's recorded in Matthew's gospel, and that tends to be the one that we know. Carolyn and I were talking about it this week. It's not just the Matthew one, it's the King James version of the Matthew one, right? Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, right? That's the one we tend to know. It's not like I've actually spent much time in the King James Bible, but that is the Bible. That is the version I grew up with. It's just famous. It's timeless. But there's also this version in Luke's gospel, and it's not the lesser version. It's not the sub Lord's Prayer. He gave this prayer as well as a model to teach us how to pray. And the reason that this prayer exists here and also in Matthew's gospel has to do with the nature of Jesus's ministry. Jesus was a traveling preacher. He did not just sit in one place and let people come to him. He did not have this steady congregation all the time. He traveled. And as he traveled, he preached and undoubtedly he preached on many of the same topics and undoubtedly He repeated himself a good deal. And so it's no surprise that here he's giving the same prayer, though just a little bit different. And this prayer in Luke's gospel, it's not identical to the one in Matthew's gospel because there's actually no reason it needs to be. There's no reason it has to be identical because Jesus is not giving us a magical prayer. He's not saying, if you say these exact words in the original language, then you shall trigger divine blessing from heaven. He's not saying anything like that. This is not a magic prayer. It is a model prayer, a model prayer. In this prayer, Jesus is teaching us how to pray. And he's not so concerned with what we say. So our goal today is to walk through this perfect prayer, line by line. And our prayer, our prayer in this very room, as we begin, it's just like where the disciples started. We say, Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. The prayer begins with such a simple word. It's simply Father. Father, we should never, ever take for granted the intimate way that we get to approach God. Because when you believe the gospel and believe it for salvation, not just something you've heard and maybe you kind of agree with, when it is your confession, when you believe it in faith, what happens then is that you are brought into the family with however young you are, however much baggage you are, wherever you've come from, you are now brought into the family and you are given on that day, the right to call God your father. And see, this is a right that was bought by the blood of Jesus. Make no mistake about it. It's not casually handed out. It was bought by the blood of Jesus. I've made this point before, but any one of you, if you just felt like it, you could call me dad. But in the truest sense, that privilege only belongs to my kids. Am I right? You can call me whatever you want, it doesn't make it true. And so it is with when people call God father, a lot of people call God father. But that privilege only really belongs to those who have repented of their sins and believed in Jesus Christ for their salvation. This Lord's prayer begins with a reminder of who we are in Christ. Christians are praying to their loving Father. The prayer continues, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. And with these first petitions, there's this special emphasis on God's glory and on God's plans. Let's start with the first, hallowed be your name. And now if you're like many people, let's just be honest. This is the part of the prayer that makes the least amount of sense to you. This is not a word we use often, hallowed. It's not a concept we deal with often. Really the only way I can think of people using the word hallowed has to do with like famous sports programs or famous universities, right? We say, oh, you're walking in these hallowed halls, right? Something like that. That's the only time it really comes up, it seems. And so it's no wonder that we get to this opening petition and we're actually not sure what we are praying. So you have to start with God's name. In the Bible, God's name actually stands for God himself. So I'll give you a really clear example. It's Psalm 20, verse seven. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we, we trust. Now, clearly this Psalm isn't just talking about some word we attach to God, some label that we use for God. This Psalm is declaring a trust in God himself. God's name, it's not merely about what we call him. God's name is about who he is. And so when we pray, hallowed be your name, It's actually about wanting God to be treated as holy. Wanting him to be revered for who he really is. When we pray this prayer, you maybe haven't realized it, but we are asking that God would bring about a universal reverence for who he really is. And this is supposed to echo our heart because the Christian's heart is supposed to be burdened by the lack of reverence for God out in the world. And actually not even just out in the world, we start with ourselves. Christians are burdened by our own lack of reverence for God. I mean, so many times we'd rather be comfortable with God than in awe of God. We're far too casual to be reverent. But praying for God's name to be hallowed, that's not a casual prayer. That is not a casual prayer. And this opening petition, this very first thing that Jesus teaches us to pray, it calls so many of us to repent of the attitude that we've had towards God. When we pray this prayer, We are committing to treating God as the holy God that he is. And just because he's our father doesn't mean for one second he stops being holy. And so we pray, may God's name be kept holy among his people. Now, Christians are also burdened for the lack of reverence out among the church at large. Because what we find is that our individual attitude is multiplied and magnified as it's repeated in our brothers and in our sisters. And so as a result, we get together and we gather casually. And we spur each other on to, you know, casual good works and casual devotion, if there is such a thing. far from being known for bowing down to the Lord, we would just sort of prefer to comfortably recline. And where we've lost sight of the holiness of God, it's no wonder that in our testimony, in our churches, that we have lost the holiness of our testimony too. We stop even seeking to be known as holy. I mean, let's again, let's be honest. How many of us can truthfully say that one of our recent goals has been to grow in holiness? I have no doubt that some of you are tracking with holiness and that you've been pursuing a bit. Let's be honest. It's not the most popular goal among Christians. We seek to be brave, we seek to be loving, we seek to be compassionate, we seek to be faithful, all good things. But I don't tend to find that holiness is too high up on our list. It's just not that popular among us. We forget our call to be holy where God's name is not hallowed. So if we're not hallowing his name, it's no wonder that we're not concerned with being holy. And the believer is also burdened by the lack of reverence just across the world at large. We have this great commission given to us by Jesus Christ himself saying, go therefore into all the nations, making disciples of them, right? So as to make disciples of all the nations and that commission only exists because God's name is not hallowed out in the world. You see how those things are connected. We could describe the world in so many ways, but the truth is we would never describe the world as reverent of the one true God. It's just not what they're doing out there. And that wrong idea of God, that lack of esteem, that lack of reverence for God, brothers and sisters, it should be heavy on our hearts. When we pray this prayer, even just the beginning of this prayer, we are reminded where our heart should be. Maybe it's not right now, but we know this is where it should be. Christians are supposed to long for our God to be rightly esteemed, to be rightly understood, to be rightly worshiped, to be rightly revered. So we pray, may the name of God be held as holy in me, in you, in Grace Community Church, in our country, in the whole world. That is our opening prayer. We pray, Father, hallowed be your name. The second petition is your kingdom come. And in this part, the believer is praying for God to manifest his power and his goodness. The believer prays that God would visibly and fully exert his sovereignty. And the reason this prayer is so pressing, it's because it's obvious. It's obvious when you look out in the world that this world is not all that it's meant to be. You see it in all of our brokenness. You see it in the violence. You see it in the poverty. You see it in the hatred. You see it in the immorality. You see it in the continuing presence of sin and evil out in the world. See the climactic hope of the Christian. is the Lord's promise that it will not always be this way. It will not. And so we are supposed to pray constantly, Lord, come. Lord, come, please come. Finish what you have begun. Fulfill your promise. Transform faith into sight. Lord, Father, may your kingdom come. One of the most fitting characteristics of a Christian is a deep sense of longing, a sense of yearning, of desperately, desperately wanting what God has promised. In these first two petitions, you actually see how Jesus is teaching his disciples to look ahead. Don't just look at today, look ahead. You see, because these are not prayers that have everyday kinds of answers, not ultimately. These are prayers for the last day to arrive. Because when will all creation revere its creator? When will God fully exert his sovereign rule? On the last day, that's when. It turns out the Lord's prayer is an end times prayer. The first things Jesus teaches his disciples to pray about are the last things. He's teaching us to look ahead. Eschatology was on Jesus's heart. Every time you pray the Lord's prayer, you are praying, come Lord Jesus, come quickly. In verse three, we get our next petition. Give us each day our daily bread. This next part is as practical as it gets. Give us each day our daily bread. In other words, Lord, feed me. Lord, feed me. This is a prayer of total dependence. And an understanding of that dependence It's saying that if I am going to eat today, Lord, you must provide. And very naturally this prayer recognizes that God is not just the one who provides bread, but he's the one who provides for all our needs. If I am to have energy, if I am to have health, sleep, ability, so on down the line, God, you must provide. God's people are also meant to be a dependent people. The problem, however, is that so many of us don't feel much particular need for God. And that's because we feel like we're taking care of things on our own. There's no divine hand that seems to drop breakfast into the frying pan in the morning. There's no divine hand that clocks in at work. There's no divine hand that seems to drive the car or fill out the paperwork or anything, right? And so we look at things and we think, we're taking care of it on our own. So why then would I pray when I can take care of it? Why would I do that? See, this is the question. Can you really take care of it? Can you really take care of it? See, I'm not gonna tell you that, hey, you shouldn't go to work, you should just pray for the paycheck to hit. That's not what I mean at all. But true autonomy, true independence, it's an illusion. It is a total illusion that we think we can guarantee anything getting done. We're not in control and there are no guarantees we can make. Our powerlessness, it's made obvious the moment our health gives out or when the job falls through. Our powerlessness is so obvious when the crops fail or the market falls, whatever it is. Our powerlessness is so obvious when tragedy strikes. No, we are far more dependent than we like to let on. And this petition here for daily bread, it is a confession of daily need. And our daily need can only be met by God's daily provision. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. So let's start with the first half. Forgive us our sins. You know that assumes, of course, that you've got sins to forgive. And actually I would hold that the Bible, the testimony of the Bible would say, it's not just, you've got a few sins to forgive. You've got an uncountable number of sins that need to be forgiven. Jesus in his prayer designed for disciples assumes that we are sinning all the time. And thus we have a constant need for forgiveness. If you don't believe me, just think about all the ways that we sin. See, it's not just in like murder and theft and the public facing sins. It is any time we violate the law of God, any time we fall short of that perfect law. It's the bitterness that goes with us for that thing that happened years ago. It's anxiety, that constant fear that everything's going to unravel. It is a lack of neighbor where we think, I just don't really care about that person over there. It's the way we speak to each other at work, at home. It's the very thoughts of our heart. We are sinning constantly in what we do. And it turns out we're sinning constantly in what we do not do. If our sins could be measured truly, they would pile up on each other all the way to the heavens. Do we need forgiveness constantly? Oh, you bet we do. So get rid of the idea, if any of you were humoring it, that we only sin once in a while. Or that maybe our sins are just not that bad. No, no. Christ calls us to make the confession of our sin a centerpiece of our prayer. We are constantly coming to God and crying out for forgiveness from the sins that plague us. But we also come convinced that we're praying to the one who forgives. We're praying to the one who pours out grace on the undeserving. We pray to the one full of mercy, full of compassion for his children. I encourage you to hold on to attention. On the one hand, don't lose sight of your sinfulness. But on the other, Don't lose sight of your savior's desire and ability to forgive you your sins. Don't lose sight of the gospel is really what we're talking about. Our Lord will not make you grovel. Our Lord will not be stingy with his grace. Where we are dirty, He will wash us clean. And where we stand guilty, he can pardon. Never lose sight of that. But that's not the only thing Jesus says about forgiveness. Because as we seek forgiveness, it is actually expected that we forgive others. As we have a debt of sin against God for our sins, that desperately needs forgiving, there are others who have sinned against us, and now we must forgive them. We really just don't always do justice to God's command to grant forgiveness. I think we do much more justice to the idea of confessing our sin than we do to forgiving others. And you can tell because we start treating forgiveness as if it's something we can be slow with. As if it's something we can get to when it's convenient for us. But Jesus Jesus makes more than one strong statement about the need to grant forgiveness. He'll say in Matthew 6, that if we do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. In Matthew 18 verse 35, Jesus says that we should expect judgment if we do not forgive our brother or our sister from our hearts. And in this exact same theme, Jesus says here that we ask for forgiveness with the understanding that we have forgiven others. And now there's a wrong way to understand this, and it goes something like, oh, I earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others, but that really just makes no sense when you start thinking about it. Break it down to its very basic layers. The gospel, we believe that we are sinned because Jesus died on the cross for us, right? At the absolute basics. So, can we possibly think that when a sinner forgives another sinner of an offense that somehow we've earned the Son of God dying on a cross? Doesn't sound like a fair trade to me. No, it doesn't make sense when you take it that direction. So what does Jesus mean? Jesus means that the forgiven one is expected to forgive others. The forgiven one is expected to forgive others. There is a gross incompatibility between asking God for forgiveness and refusing to forgive someone else at the same time. Right? I mean, we can say, Lord, Lord, forgive me for my cosmic treason against the almighty and holy God of creation. But I just really can't bring myself to forgive my brother or sister right now. We say, father, forgive me for my wicked and repeated betrayals, but my brother or sister just doesn't deserve another chance. You can't have those two ideas in the same place at the same time. You can, you see how that attitude just totally undermines the gospel. A forgiven person must, hear that word, must be a forgiving person. If you have received forgiveness without measure, how can you possibly withhold forgiveness from others? Now, you hear me saying that and don't think for a minute I'm saying forgiveness is easy as long as you believe right. No, forgiveness isn't easy. Was forgiveness easy for Jesus? He gave everything so that we might be forgiven. Forgiveness was not easy in the slightest and forgiveness won't be easy for us. Forgiveness will not be easy and we will not forgive perfectly. We don't do anything perfectly. If there was just one rule and we had to keep it perfectly and that was what our salvation depended on, we would all be going to hell. It's not about perfection, but Christians must be devoted to forgiving others. There is no grudge that you get to hold onto. There is no special category of sin that you're not expected to forgive. There is no offense to great. We have no choice but to be forgiving. And as we seek to obey God in this way, just in passing, don't ever lose sight of what Paul would later say in Ephesians chapter four, verse 32. He said, be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. That basically says it all. That basically says it all. Why should you forgive? Because God in Christ forgave you. How should you forgive? As God in Christ forgave you. Which is to say freely, fully, abundantly, generously, graciously. In the way you have been forgiven, Forgive others. And when you don't want to forgive, seriously, spend some serious time on how you have been forgiven in Christ. I want you to think about in those hard times, because we know they're coming. When those hard times come and you find, I don't want to forgive this person, you stop. And you think about all of your offenses. Think about that mountain of sin piling up to the heavens. That's just your sin. And it's pardoned. Think about all your stains. And we've known those stains. When we sin and we know we've sinned, we know what it is to feel like your very soul is stained and there's nothing that will wash it out. Think of those stains and then remember that you have been washed clean. All your crimes were paid for because Jesus gave it all for you. Meditate on that. Meditate on that until your cold heart starts to thaw. Until you start finding that spark of motivation to say, I can forgive again. I can forgive this person again. Forgiven people must be forgiving people. And the final petition is this, and lead us not into temptation. The last petition of the prayer is now for spiritual protection. The idea is not wanting to fall into sin. And man, this is a prayer that we've prayed a lot, haven't we? This is such a common prayer. It's a prayer that so many of our hearts have ached and cried out to heaven with. Because when we are thinking clearly, which tends to be after we have fallen into our sins, when we're feeling that remorse and that pain and that grief and that moment of clarity, we know, we know that we don't want to fall again. Most of us know exactly what this prayer is about. We know what it is to cry out to God and say, we don't want to sin anymore. And therefore we don't want to go anywhere near where we might sin again. We don't want to fall ever again. We don't want to be in situations that lead us near those temptations ever again. And this is a good prayer. I heartily encourage this prayer, it is a right prayer. But unfortunately, we also know what it is to foolishly walk right back into temptation even when we know better. Even when we've been praying this very prayer. You can imagine saying, Lord, lead us not into temptation as you are walking straight toward temptation. As you're picking up the phone to call that person again, as you're isolating yourself where you know you're weak, we can picture it because we've done it. We know certain people are bad for us and yet we keep spending time with them. We know that certain places just expose our weaknesses and yet we keep going back. We know that in certain situations with certain circumstances, it's like a, it's like a certain recipe for us to fall into our sins. And yet we return to those too. We go back to those compromising situations. It's good to pray. It is very good to pray and it's good to pray for spiritual protection. It's good to pray that the Lord would deliver you from your sin. But brothers and sisters, we have to actually live in light of our prayers. We have to actually live in light of our prayers. If you find yourself plagued by a repeated sin, by a besetting sin, yes, pray fervently. and then let your prayers start becoming actions. The Lord is faithful and he is faithful to deliver his children from temptation. But if the child of God won't receive that help, if the child of God won't take the way of escape, really what hope is there? If you are struggling with your sin, I want you to have hope. Have hope that the Lord does bring change. And the Lord brings victory. And the Lord brings transformation that you can't even imagine while you're going through things. I can't give you a timeline and say, Hey, if you wait this long, that will be the point that you're totally sanctified and you'll have conquered your temptations. I can't do that for you. But what I can do is I can promise that the Lord will be faithful to you as you fight your sin. Absolutely. He will. And if our savior is powerful enough to conquer death. Don't you think he can also deliver you from the sin that plagues you? He can. He can. Believe in your heart. He most certainly can. This prayer, it is a perfect prayer. And it is a prayer that Jesus gave to us because he wanted us to build our prayer life upon this prayer. It's a prayer that you can go to to make sure that your prayers are whole and not lopsided where you only pray about certain things, but not others. When Jesus began this prayer, he said, when you pray, or perhaps better translating it this way, saying whenever you pray. And that just to say, Jesus wanted this prayer to be a regular pillar of your prayer life. And in it, Jesus taught his disciples to regularly pray about the glory of God and the completion of his plans. And Jesus taught his disciples to regularly pray in a spirit of dependence for the provision of their every need. And Jesus taught his disciples to regularly pray for forgiveness in light of their own forgiveness of others. And Jesus taught his disciples to regularly pray for spiritual protection from the sin that so easily ensnares us. Child of God, are these prayers your prayers? Are the principles, are the building blocks of this perfect prayer, are they a regular part of your life? You see, these prayers, as a disciple of the Lord, these prayers are your right, and they are your duty, and they are your privilege, and they are your urgent need. You heard me praying this and I just can't help reflecting, we Christians are so funny. We just don't make sense. We have the devoted ear of the almighty God of creation and we can't be bothered to take him up on it. We make no sense at all. Brothers and sisters, don't forsake your privileges and don't neglect your duty. I would urge you Commit today to a life of prayer. Commit today to a life of prayer. Let us be a praying people. Across the board, let us be a praying people. And the other thing to point out here is that the people of God are meant to pray together. We are meant to pray together. Did you notice that throughout the prayer? It says, give us our daily bread. It says, forgive us our sins. It says, lead us not into temptation. That's actually a funny prayer if you're just doing it by yourself in your prayer closet. We are meant to be praying together. Jesus gave us this model prayer. And in it, he reminds us that prayer is not only about the individual going to God, it's about Christians going to God together, which may weird some of you out. I have no doubt. I won't make you raise your hands. But if I said who enjoys praying with groups of people, there'd be like seven of you. I have no doubt that this might not be easy for us, but Jesus wants it for you. Jesus designed this prayer so that we would pray together. And so together we go to God and we seek each other's provision. I don't just want my daily bread. I want our daily bread. May the Lord provide for all of us. We go to God and we pray for each other's forgiveness, not just our own. We go to God and we pray for each other's deliverance from temptation and not just our own. You'll notice that when we pray from this pulpit, we try very hard. We try very hard. We make a very purposeful effort to make it about we, and not just me. So what I mean by that is I try very hard up here to not say, God, I pray, God, I ask, God, I seek. And the reason is, is because we're praying together. You're not just here to say, wow, that Jason can sure pray up a storm. At the end, you're supposed to be able to say amen because that prayer represented you. And so up here, we try and say, we pray, we ask, we seek, whatever it is, it's we. And so in the end, when we say the amen, we are testifying, yes, this Lord is our prayer. On Wednesdays, we pray together. There's a public church meeting. You don't need a special invite. And we get together and we pray together. On Fridays, there are prayer groups that the men have both here and up north in Reno. And we get together and we pray. Across the week, the women will gather in groups and they will pray. And many of us don't pray with fellow believers. But prayer is not just about the individual. Prayer is something that we are meant to do together. We really are. As the family of God, we go before the throne of grace and we seek the one who hears our prayers. And so in this vein, we're actually gonna close this sermon in a different way. We're going to pray together. And we're going to pray this Lord's Prayer together. Now, knowing some of the division that exists between our Bible translations, I had the quote this week simply be the Lord's Prayer. And I won't tell you which version it is. If you want to follow along, you can read simply from the quote in your bulletin. If you like, you can follow along just straight from your Bible. And if you happen to have that one Bible, only one word is different. And so we'll barely notice that we're not reading exactly the same version, but together we are going to pray the Lord's prayer. And as we pray this prayer together, I want you to keep in mind that we are following on a path that was trailblazed by Jesus himself. Jesus designed the prayer we are about to pray. And as we pray this prayer, we echo the prayers of untold numbers of Christians going back all the way to the days of Christ. I mean, think about that. Think about how many times this prayer has been prayed. Think about in how many languages this prayer has been prayed. Think of how many saints, past and present, have prayed this prayer. It is a marvelous reminder that even in our prayer life, the people of God stand united. So we're going to read this prayer, but not just as a reading, I encourage you. We are going to pray this prayer together. So if you look either your scriptures or your bulletins, would you pick up with me in Luke chapter 11, verse two, beginning with father. 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. And all God's people said, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.