Lord God, your word is wholesome, renewing our spiritual strength. It's also clear, pointing out the way in which we can glorify you. As we turn to your word now, may your Holy Spirit open our eyes so that we will see wonderful things in your law. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing in your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. 1 Corinthians, or sorry, 1 Chronicles rather, 1 Chronicles chapter 29 and verse 10. David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, Praise be to you, O Lord, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. For yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendour for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is a kingdom. You are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honour come from you. You are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks and praise your glorious name. But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you and we have given only what comes from your hand. We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow without hope. O Lord our God, as for all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your holy name, it comes from your hand and all of it belongs to you. I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willing your people who are here have given to you. O Lord, God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever and keep their hearts loyal to you. And give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, the requirements and decrees to do whatever, to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided. Then David said to the whole assembly, Praise the Lord your God. So they all praised the Lord, the God of their fathers. They bowed low and fell prostrate before the Lord and the King. Amen. Now, over the past few months as I've preached on the Lord's Prayer, I'm sure that you've noticed that In our sermons, for the most part, I focused on what we are to pray for, how Jesus tells us to pray for the hallowing of God's name, for the coming of God's kingdom, for the doing of God's will, praying that God would give us our daily bread, that he would forgive our debts and failures, that he would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Yes, it is important that we pray for the right things, but there's much more to prayer than simply praying for the right things. There's also the whole matter of how we pray. And so today, in a case of better late than never, as we come to take our last look at the Lord's Prayer, I want to put right that imbalance. You see in the phrase, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen, what I'm calling the praise ending to the Lord's Prayer, we come across Jesus teaching us four right attitudes we should have when we pray. You remember what it was like to be a teenager. I know for all of us, it wasn't the last millennium, but a long time ago, and I think my grandchildren think I was a teenager when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But you remember what it was like to be a teenager. Very often, we did the right things. but we maybe did it very reluctantly and certainly with the wrong attitude. You know, maybe when we were told to tidy up our room or do our homework or stop annoying our siblings. We did the right thing, but we did it with the wrong attitude. And we can do the same thing when we pray. We can say the right words, but from the wrong attitude. And that's why Jesus teaches us to pray for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Because he's focusing here on not what we pray for, but our attitude when we pray for these right things. But before I jump into what Jesus is saying, I want you to be aware of something. There is a debate about this phrase, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen. Some translations include the praise ending within the main text of the Lord's Prayer. But some translations, such as the NIV, and even the ESV, some translations don't include it in the main text, but they put it down in the footnotes. There are reasons why they do that. Some churches will say, for yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever, amen, at the end, when they say the Lord's Prayer. But some churches don't say it. The Catholic Church don't say it, for example. because there's debate about where to locate this praise ending. Should it be up with the main text or should it be down in the footnotes? Now, without going into all the ins and outs, because we don't have time to do that. And if we did have time and I did it, you would probably lose the will to live halfway through what I would say. And you probably guess what my view is by now. I think that for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory has a legitimate place in the main text and we should say it. I just want to flag that up because some people notice that and ask me questions about it, but for reasons you can ask me later, it's up there. So what is Jesus saying about praying with the right attitude? What right attitudes does Jesus want us to have when we pray for the right things? Well, here's the first one. Be confident. Be confident. The opening word of the praise ending is the little word, the little connecting word, for. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. And it's there for a reason. It's there to link the praise ending with all the six requests that have come before it. The link is designed to generate within us a confidence when we pray. I want you to cast your mind back to the very first sermon that I preached on the Lord's Prayer, and in it I suggested that one of the ways in which we can see the Lord's Prayer is by seeing it as a conversation between God and us. God asks us questions about prayer, and we use the Lord's Prayer to answer those prayers, answer those questions. That's what's going on here with the praise ending. We've just prayed that God would provide for our physical needs and pardon our sins and protect us spiritually from Satan. And the reason we have prayed for that is so that God's name might be hallowed and his kingdom come and his will done. And it's now as if, at the end, God turns to us and says, look, okay, you prayed for all these things, but how can you be sure that I'm going to give you what you've asked for? Have you ever thought that when you prayed? Of course you have. Every Christian has. Every Christian has. You're not weird if you've thought to yourself, well, how do I know God is going to answer these prayers I've prayed? We know that our prayer request is in line with God's will as revealed in the Bible, but still we've wondered if God will answer our prayer. So God gets us to say in reply, our Father in heaven, we have confidence because yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Now, because you were listening to the Bible reading a few moments ago, you know that Jesus didn't pluck that phrase, the kingdom and the power and the glory, out of thin air. He was clearly plugging into the language of David's prayer of praise to God in 1 Chronicles 29 verses 10 to 16. The immediate context of this prayer of praise was a big sort of going to say festival they had to bring gifts to so that the temple could be constructed and David had wanted you remember to build a temple to God but God had said no you're not going to build it but Solomon your son is going to build it. So what David did, even though he wasn't actually going to, he would be dead by the time it was built, he knew that, he made preparations for it. He got people to bring lots of money and he got people to bring lots of material and he drew up the plan. So you can imagine when Solomon wanted to start the building, there was this big, huge bank account full of money and there was huge warehouses and resource areas full of resources to build it there. So David put that all in place and this is his prayer at the end of this time of generous giving by himself and God's people. But he's also thinking as well about how God had blessed him over the 40 plus years of the time he was king over Israel. And David is looking back at all that God has done for him and he praises God for for taking him from obscurity to become Israel's greatest king. He praises God for keeping him safe from and giving him victory over all his enemies. He praises God for enabling him to unite the usually fragmented and often fighting 12 tribes into one nation under his leadership. He praises God for helping him to capture Jerusalem, so that it might be the nation's capital and the location of the temple where God would be worshipped. And as he praises God, David is showing himself not just to be thinking about himself as a fine administrator and a courageous soldier and a skilled military tactician, but his praise is in the form of a song. He's a fine musician and composer. God's given him that gift as well. But most of all, the reason why David praises God is because God promised to him that one of his descendants would be king over God's people forever. David wanted to build a house for God. A building. But God came to him and made a promise and said, David, I'm going to build a house for you, a dynasty. And one of your descendants is going to rule over my people forever. And we know that that promise was fulfilled in Jesus. whose birth we are beginning to think about, particularly at this time of the year. So David's praising God for all that God has done for him. And how does he express his praise to God? Well, 1 Chronicles 29, verse 11. Yours, O Lord, is the power and the glory. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom. He's confidence in God, and he expresses his confidence that God has answered his prayers in that expression, yours is the kingdom and the glory and the power. And so when Jesus, plugging into what David prayed, teaches us to finish off our prayers, yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Jesus wants us to have similar confidence in God You see, the God to whom we pray listens to us. Isn't that staggering? Now, most of us are very familiar with that, but think about what it says to us. that this God, this creator, king of the universe, this God who is the almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, this God listens to us as we pray. This God listens to you and this God listens to me. We're in this small room. There's not very many of us. Most people out there, are not worshipping God or thinking about God. Most of us don't feel very important. We're not the shakers and movers of our community. But isn't it amazing that when we pray, the God of heaven and earth listens to us? That when you go home and pray by yourself, the God of heaven and earth listens to you. That's why we should have confidence when we pray, because Lord, yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. So be confident. Secondly, second right attitude, be positive, be positive. When we pray, Satan will bombard us with negative thoughts. And one of the negative thoughts he bombards us with is this. He'd say to us, well, you know, yes, it's true that God answers people's prayers. God answers other people's prayers, but will he answer your prayer? He said to us, you know, God does give his people daily bread, but will he give you your daily bread? God forgives people's failures, but will he forgive your failure? God delivers his people from Satan's temptation, but will he deliver you from your temptation? Do you see what he's up to? He's getting you to doubt God's willingness to listen to you. Have you ever had those thoughts as you've prayed? Well, if you have, you're not alone. Every Christian is those. Every Christian has experienced Satan coming to them and saying, yeah, God answers prayers, but will he answer your prayers? Is God willing to do that? Now, how do we dispel and get rid of these negative Satan's suggestive thoughts about God's willingness? How do we kick them into the long grass? Well, we do so by thinking about Jesus' statement here, the kingdom and the power. Those two words, kingdom and power, They go together to form one idea that has two aspects to it. Think of a coin with two sides on it. Now, there's a technical grammatical term for it, which I can't pronounce, so just take my word that that's the way it is. Now, the kingdom side of this coin points to God's willingness to listen to your prayers. He's willing to listen. He wants to listen. Now, it's true that God is the creator, king of the universe. But Jesus has reminded us at the start of the Lord's Prayer that he is also our heavenly father. And as our heavenly father, he hears us because we are his children. And remember, we are God's children, not because we have earned it by being wonderful and great people. We're God's children because on the basis of Jesus' death on the cross for us, in an act of his grace, God has adopted us into his family. And it is who God is and what Jesus has done for us that enables us to banish all negative, Satan-suggested thoughts of God's unwillingness to listen to us and to instead replace them with positive, spirit-generated thoughts. that God is always willing to listen to us. Why is God always willing to listen to us? And the reason is this, because he's always willing to listen to Jesus, his son. Remember Jesus said, once praying in public, Father, I know that you always hear me. God, the Father always hears Jesus' prayers. He's pleased with him, he listens to him, he's willing to hear his prayer. Now remember, and we've been doing this at the Midweek Fellowships, remember who we are as Christians. We are united to Jesus. And by faith, this faith union to Jesus, the father treats us, his children, in exactly the same way as he treats his son, because we're in Christ. So how does he treat Jesus when he prays? He's willing to listen to him. How does he treat us who are in Christ? He's willing to listen to us. You see, folks, the better we understand who God is, the better we get our heads around Jesus' past, present, and future activity for us, the more positive we will be about God's willingness to listen to us when we pray. Some people say, Roger, your preaching's very doctrinal. and heavy going. You know, just tell people what to do and how to do it. That's all they need to do. No, we need doctrine. We need to understand who God is. We need to know about union with Christ because it will make us positive when we pray. We can't be positive when we pray about God. We can't be positive understand who God is, our Heavenly Father, and if we don't understand what Jesus has done in uniting us to Him, we need to know these things so that we can pray and be positive when we pray. Then thirdly, the right attitude. Be expectant, be expectant. The story is told of a minister who when he was in conversation with Spurgeon, remarked that only a few people, as far as he knew, had become Christians through his preaching. Did you pray that many people would be converted, Spurgeon asked, and yes came the reply. But Spurgeon probes a wee bit deeper, and he says, do you expect God to answer your prayers for many conversions? No, the other man replied, I wouldn't be so presumptuous with God. That's your problems, Virgin said, lack of expectation. Now, why many people are not becoming Christians after listening to clear, faithful gospel preaching is a complex issue and it shouldn't be reduced as sadly and discouragingly it often is to one single factor, you know, if you were only more expectant, you know, that kind of thing. Nevertheless, to broaden things out a bit, a lack of expectation that God is able to answer our prayers is often one of the issues we struggle with when we pray. You see, if he can't get us to doubt God's willingness, Satan switches his point of attack and tries to get us to doubt God's ability to answer our prayers. That's a big ask, you're looking from God, he'll whisper. Do you think that God can deliver on something as heavy duty as that? And we begin to doubt God's ability. Again, let me ask you, have those thoughts ever popped into your head as you have been praying? Well, if they have, you're not alone. They happen to every Christian. we begin to doubt that God is able to answer our prayers. And so we have little sense of expectancy when we pray. And Jesus seeks to up our expectancy levels by reminding us in the Lord's prayers praise ending that God's is not only the kingdom, but it's also the power. Remember that kingdom and power are the two complementary sides of the same coin. Kingdom points to God's willingness to hear us. Power flags up God's ability to answer us. Although God reserves the right to answer our prayers when and when he chooses, when we pray, Jesus wants us to be expectant, to believe that God is the power to answer our prayers. Think of how God has displayed his power. Think of God's power in creation. How he called this world out of nothing into existence in the space of six days by the sheer power of his word. And very often in the Old Testament, the people will go back to God's power and creation as an encouragement for them to pray. Remember, Jeremiah prayed, Sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth by your mighty power. Nothing is too hard for you. We need to remind ourselves of God's power when we pray. But the greatest display of God's power is raising Jesus from the dead. And if we know that to be true, and if we've experienced the resurrection power in our lives, we know that God is a powerful God. And we know that God is not only able to grant us what we've asked for, but as Paul puts it at the end of Ephesians 3, God is also able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine because of his great power. We're to be expectant when we pray. We all come to church today with our needs. What's your need? Do you need God's forgiveness because you're not a Christian or because your Christian life has failed in some way? Maybe you need God's power to overcome a temptation that you've struggled with and gets you down. Perhaps you need God's wisdom to be able to know how to glorify him in some situation you find yourself in. Maybe you need God's guidance because you've got a big decision to make. Perhaps you need God's patience so that you might keep on witnessing to a friend or family member who's very resistant to the gospel. Perhaps you need God's encouragement because you're the only Christian in your circle of friends or family or workplace. And maybe we do need God's hope because of what's going on in our world and the announcements that were made yesterday and we just, ugh. Whatever your need is, bring it to God in prayer. And as you do so, be expectant that he's not only willing to listen to your requests, but he's able to answer you when you pray, because his is the kingdom and the power forever. So be confident, be positive, be expectant. Those are right attitudes. Here's a fourth right attitude. Be careful. I'm sure you know the old bit of Christian dog roll that goes like this, Satan trembles when he sees the humblest Christian on his knees. That's true, but like all sound bites, it doesn't tell the whole story because Satan also gets very, very busy when he sees the humblest Christian on her knees. and we've already thought of some ways in which he is actively trying to stymie our prayers by getting us to doubt God's willingness and God's ability. But another way in which Satan is very busy is to get us to pray for the right things for the wrong motives. Jesus flags up this trap into which Satan attempts to lure us when, in the praise ending of the Lord's Prayer, he tells us to pray for yours is the glory. He's telling us that God's glory is the best motive in asking what we ask for. He tells us to be careful when we pray. to make sure that our supreme motive for making a request to God is His glory. Now, using this benchmark of God's glory to test the motives for our prayers will rule out something that is tragically too common among Christians. It's all too easy for us to try to justify a course of action that is contrary to the Bible's teaching by saying, well, I prayed about it. I can think of numerous occasions when I've spoken to people as a minister about a course of action they're planning that is clearly contrary to God's word, and their response to me was, I prayed about it. As if praying about it was the complete definitive answer to every objection as to what they were behaving, how they were behaving, and we can do that. But if we're using the benchmark of God's glory to test the motives for our prayers, finishing off our praying, for yours is the glory, we would never act in a way that goes against the Bible's teaching because disobedience to God's word never, ever glorifies God. Praying for yours is the glory forces us to be careful when we pray. Asking the question, why did I pray what I prayed for? What was my motive? And yet, we also need to realise that our motives are not simply either good or bad. Our motives are not either horribly, terribly bad, or wonderfully, brilliantly good, with nothing in between. Even when our motives are good, there are levels within good motives. Some are good motives, and other are better motives, and some are the best motives. So take, for example, praying for someone who isn't a Christian, maybe a member of your family, a friend, a neighbour, people in our community, people in the world, praying that they'll become Christians. Why do we do that? Why do you pray that? Why do I pray that? Why do we as a church pray that? Well, we were talking about this in the car coming over from Tarbert, Like Joan said, one reason why we could pray for people to become Christians is so that our church would grow and we would have a big church that people could talk about. I'm not sure if that motive scores many out of 10. We do want people in our church to grow and we want to see people come into our church because they've been converted But it's not so that people can talk about how good our church is and how many people we have and I can do a bit of bragging up at Presbytery or something like that. That's yuck. We don't do that. There are better reasons. We want people to become Christians to escape hell. to experience life in its fullness and to go to heaven when they die. And that is a good motive. That's a good motive. We pray that way because we love those people and that's a great motive. But is it the best motive? Where does God's glory come in? What about for yours is the glory? You see, it is God who is glorified. when people experience his salvation. It is God who is glorified when Jesus receives the reward of his suffering on the cross and people become Christians. It is God who is glorified when Jesus is given his rightful place as Lord in people's lives when they become Christians. And it is God who is glorified when people become Christians and join our church. Because what has happened? They've stopped worshipping idols, substitute for God, usually themselves. They've stopped doing that and they're now beginning to worship God, the true and living God. So when we pray for our church to grow, God will be glorified. We can do it for the best of motives, so that people will stop refusing to give their worship to God, and will begin to worship Him as the living and true God. That's how we test our motives behind our prayers. That's how we're careful when we pray, and so don't fall into Satan's temptation to pray for the right things, but for the wrong reasons. However, the praise ending is not quite finished, so I'm not quite finished talking about it. I want to end where Jesus ends the Lord's Prayer, and that's with the word Amen. Amen is a double-meaning word, two aspects to it meaning, first of all, it points puts into words a desire that we have. When we say amen, what we're saying is, so let it be. With all my heart, I want this to happen. And secondly, it puts into words a conviction that we have. So will it be. I'm sure that this is going to happen. The word amen carries within both those meanings and as it often does, the Shorter Catechism nails it. Here's what it says about the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer. To show that we want to be heard and have the assurance that we are heard, desire conviction, the Shorter Catechism says we say amen. And every time we finish off our praying by saying Amen, we're saying to God, because I believe my request is supremely for your glory, I long that what I've asked for to happen, and I'm certain that it will happen. In our thinking, don't we usually think of Amen as that spoken marker that says we've finished praying? We're not even close in His Bible meaning. It's expressing that desire, that conviction, that we want to be heard and we have the assurance that we are heard. I long for what I've asked for to happen, and I'm certain that it will. That's why we say amen at the end of the prayer. So let's, when we finish off praying, use Amen, because finishing off with Amen shows us that we have been confident and positive and expectant and careful as we've been praying. We've not only prayed for the right things, but we've prayed for them with the right attitude. Let's pray for a moment. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for all that we've learned about prayer from Jesus as your spirit has guided us through the teaching of the Lord's Prayer. As a result of understanding and practising Jesus' instruction, may we become better men and women of prayer. In the light of the fact that yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, may we learn to pray only for that which in your presence we can legitimately desire, and for that which, because of your promise, we can assuredly expect. Hear us and bless us for the sake of Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.