Good morning church. It is such a privilege to be able to gather with you this morning
and to worship our Lord and to be able to serve you now in the preaching of his word.
And it has been a little while since I've last been with you, so if I haven't met you
before, yes, my name is Justin. I'm from Gosnell's Baptist Church, just 10 minutes up Albany
Highway. I'm a student pastor there and also about to enter my final semester at Trinity
Theological College. And you know, us down at GBC, we're so encouraged to partner with
you guys in the gospel, even as Baptists and Presbyterians, being able to come together.
Because we know that the most important thing is the biblically faithful preaching of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead for the forgiveness of our sins. And
so it is really just so exciting to think what it is that we might actually be able
to do together over the next 30 years or more, God willing. At least that's how long I plan
to be around for.
Funnily enough, at Gosnell's we've just finished a series in Matthew's gospel earlier on this
year and we're now about halfway through a series in Ephesians, which I think is kind
of the exact opposite to where you guys have been now. So that's pretty cool. And while
I didn't have the opportunity to preach on this passage at Gosnell's during our series,
yeah, it has been such a blessing to be able to prepare this for you this week. God has
been particularly kind as we too have had the flu in our household and I actually had
pharyngitis this week, which is not so good for a preacher to not be able to talk much
and to have much pain in your throat. And so the Lord really has been kind to strengthen
me and to have me here this morning, especially in Michael's absence as well, being able to
give him a break.
The Lord's Prayer, perhaps one of the most well-known passages of scripture in the Bible,
one which will be so familiar to many of us here this morning. But as with every single
part of scripture, we must come to it with unstopped ears and with opened eyes and soft
hearts, ready to hear again from God so that we might see Jesus more clearly and that we
might live for him more faithfully. So please, would you join me now in prayer as we ask
our Father to do that very thing for us this morning.
Our Father in heaven, how great and holy and majestic and wonderful you are. How precious
is the gift of salvation which you have won for us through your Son Jesus. Would you please
speak to us through the preaching of your word this morning? Would you please open our
eyes and our ears? Would you please soften our hearts so that we might know the loveliness
of our Lord Jesus and that we might love him all the more and that we might live for him
all the more faithfully. We need your Spirit to do this work amongst us, Father. So please
send him to do your work amongst us this morning, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Well just a few weeks ago, in light of one of Paul's great pastoral prayers in the book
of Ephesians, one of our pastors greatly challenged our church about the severe lack of numbers
at our quarterly corporate prayer meetings. In a church of almost 300 people, we would
have no more than 20 on any given gathering. And it's always the same people, isn't it?
It's always the same faithful few. Now there are good and legitimate reasons to not make
a prayer meeting. But there is one reason which a humble, faithful, elderly Christian
lady, which confessed this after the service, which was somewhat striking. She said, the
truth is, I just don't really know how to pray. And perhaps this statement is something
that you can relate to this morning. Maybe you have been following Jesus for a couple
of years or a couple of decades, but the task of consistent, genuine, faithful prayer seems
somewhat daunting and out of reach. Never mind praying in public, right? That might
seem impossible. But many of us, when we come to our Father in prayer, can often find it
so difficult to pull much more than a few sentences together. And so we dare not attend
a prayer meeting out of fear of not knowing how to pray. Alternatively, maybe you can
pull off a really great prayer in front of people, but a log book of your private prayer
times wouldn't have more than a few entries in it. Maybe you know how to pray. And although
you really do want to be praying more earnestly, more faithfully, more regularly, for one reason
or another that may not even be known to you, your prayer life is missing something that
will give you a deep-seated conviction that produces this healthy habit. Or maybe I'm
not describing you, but I think that if we're all truly honest with ourselves, we wish that
we could be more faithful in prayer. Prayerlessness surely is a great problem which plagues all
of the Christian church. The Sermon on the Mount comes to us from Jesus, the greater
than Moses, Son of God, who is speaking the words of God to the new people of God. And
these words are to be as defining for us as the words from Mount Sinai were for the people
of Israel. In these chapters, Jesus answers for us the question, what does it look like
to be one of God's people? And among many other things, what we have seen in our passage
this morning is that it is to be one who is in the habit of coming to the heavenly Father
in prayer. And in light of Jesus' words to us, I think that the sense of inadequacy that
comes when we are challenged to grow in our prayer life is good and right. Holiness must
mark the people of God. As Jesus just said a few verses earlier, you therefore must be
perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect. We must be a people who practice our righteousness.
And as we know from these verses in chapter six, the way which we give, the way which
we pray, the way which we fast is actually really, really important. So I want to help
us to see two things this morning, which I think Jesus is saying to us. Firstly, it'll
be how we should pray, and then we'll see why we should pray, the how and why of prayer.
So the how of prayer. Jesus, he's very, very practical in these verses, isn't he? He pulls
no punches as he warns against practicing our righteousness to be seen by others. And
first, Jesus, he actually tells us how we shouldn't pray. He says in verse five that
we are to not be like the hypocrites. These hypocrites, and perhaps he maybe had the Pharisees
of the day in mind, but it could have been anyone who prayed like this. They were indeed
praying to be seen by others, weren't they? I mean, why else would you love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the street corners? There's this certain arrogance to this kind
of person, isn't there? That instead of loving to just be able to have the ear of your heavenly
Father, they instead love all the more the admiration, the status, the veneration, the
approval of those who are watching on. And these words of Jesus, they can really cut
us to the heart, can't they? In a simple verse with this simple illustration, the thoughts
and intentions of our own hearts are laid bare. When I read these words, it always makes
me think, is this why I find it easier to pray in front of people than in private? Because
it's true, I do. But Jesus says that we must not pray like these hypocrites. We must not
pray to be seen by others. And he gives us good reason for it, because hypocrites who
love to pray to be seen by others will get what they're asking for. Not what they're
asking for in their prayers, but what they're asking for in their corrupt act of prayer.
Jesus says that they have received their reward in full. If you pray to be seen by others,
then the approval that you may or may not get is as good as it gets for you. But there
is actually something far, far greater that we can hold out for if we pray in the right
way. If we pray to be seen and to be heard by our heavenly Father and nobody else, there
is a vast and rich treasure waiting for us. A treasure that cannot be compared with even
the greatest admiration and fame that this world could possibly bring. A reward that
comes not from the lips of men, but a reward which comes from the creator and sustainer
of all things. Jesus, he does not tell us exactly what this reward is, but make no mistake,
on that day that we receive it in full, will be a great day indeed. You might have heard
about the social experiments going around where parents sit their toddlers down, they
place a cookie in front of them and say, alright, if you don't eat this cookie until I come
back in a few minutes, then I'll give you two cookies. And it's really a fascinating
thing to see these kids' different reactions in this moment. And Jesus says to us, you
could be like the hypocrites and receive this reward now, but if you pray how I tell you
you should pray, there is something far, far greater to come. So instead of being like
the hypocrites who love to pray to be seen, we ought to instead make it a habit to go
to our rooms, to close the door, to love to pray where we cannot be seen. It's about as
private as it can get, doesn't it? The picture that Jesus paints for us. And this habit of
private prayer is a mark of the new people of God who practice their righteousness not
to be seen by anybody else except for their heavenly father. Did you catch that little
phrase in verse six where Jesus says that we pray to our father who is unseen? More
literally this phrase is your father who is in secret. And this clever little turn of
phrase shows us that when we pray how Jesus wants us to pray, that is when we pray in
secret, we have a far greater audience than any number or any quality of person watching
on. We have the audience of the almighty God church. Almighty God who holds all things
in his hands, who is sovereign and is powerful over all creation, who is loving and kind
and generous and strong and gentle. Almighty God whom we can come to as our heavenly father.
There's so little to be gained by loving to pray to be seen by others, friends. So, so
little in comparison to being in the presence of our Lord and King. Like any one of my children
can come to me at any time and can be heard by me. So we can come to our heavenly father.
And just as readily, even far more so, will he give us his ear. So we don't pray like
the hypocrites. Instead we make our practice, our regular habit to pray in secret to our
heavenly father who is also in secret. That we might be seen by him and receive our great
reward from him. Now Jesus, he also tells us how to pray by telling us not to pray like
the pagans do. We see this in verses 7 and 8 and I wonder if maybe Jesus is stopping
us from over correcting here. So we know that we pray to be heard by God and not by others,
right? We aren't to be like the hypocrites. But now what if we were to start instead running
off and praying like irrational people to somehow get the attention of our God. Now
the warning comes to us in verse 7 where it says, and when you pray, do not keep on babbling
like pagans for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do we
need to pray on and on and ramble on with the great many words to be heard by God? Jesus
clearly says no. Another helpful translation of this word babbling is to heap up empty
phrases. This apparently is what the pagans would be known for as they prayed to their
gods. They didn't seem to have much confidence that they would be heard in the simplicity
of their words. So they felt they needed to babble on to heap up these empty phrases so
that they could be heard by their gods and their gods would be persuaded to meet their
needs. But not so for us church. Jesus says that we are not to pray like this. We are
instead to be clear and coherent and simple and dare I even say it, we can pray short
prayers. Why? Because our Father already knows what we need. He already knows what we need.
An emphasis on that word need. When we come to our Father in prayer with our needs, we
can do so in confidence knowing that he hears us for we are his children and knowing that
he is not unaware of the need that we are bringing to him. If he sees what is in secret
then he sees everything and he is well aware of any need or any situation that we can bring
before him. And so we can come to him in simplicity and coherence even in brevity because our
God sees and he knows and more than that he cares. He cares so deeply for you friend and
so you can come to him with what you need. Now you may not always get the answer that
you are looking for but remember that you do always get an answer from God. Sometimes
it is yes, sometimes it is no but in my experience and I imagine many of us here this morning
so much of the time the answer is wait. God often answers our prayers by saying to us
wait and the really hard thing about this is so often it feels like he isn't responding
to us. Wait so often feels like silence and silence feels like God doesn't know and he
doesn't care. But let me encourage us church that wait means so much more than that. Nearly
12 years ago my wife's sister Zoe she passed away at the age of 22 with cystic fibrosis.
It's a truly awful disease where your lungs basically suffocate themselves as they produce
this thick sticky mucus from the inside of themselves and over the course of Zoe's life
I would have imagined that thousands of people would have prayed for her to be healed. And
in the days leading up to her death hundreds of them would have been praying for her healing
too and that her days with us would be extended. But when she wasn't it left many of us wondering
why God hadn't answered our prayers. But one of Zoe's closest friends he said something
to me which I will never forget. He said God did answer our prayers but just not in the
way that we expected him to. Don't you think Zoe is healed and whole in his presence right
now? No amount of babbling or heaping up of empty phrases would have given Zoe another
second of life. Even prayers with the purest of intentions and desires for good things
might not be what God considers best in his infinite wisdom. He might not deem it to be
what we actually need. And so we can take confidence that he hears us and that he already
knows what we need and that must shape the way that we pray. So Jesus he has told us
how not to pray, that we shouldn't pray like the hypocrites and like the pagans. But now
as we come to verse 9 he tells us how we should pray. Let me read it again for us. Our Father
in heaven hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven
our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Now we could
spend a sermon on its own unpacking this prayer but let me take us through it just briefly.
Obviously I think we would do well to note that Jesus does not say that this is what
we should pray but rather this is how we should pray. Meaning we do not only say these exact
words every time that we pray. Maybe sometimes we do say these exact words and that's been
a very helpful thing for many Christians throughout church history. But it is not a prayer just
to churn out to tick a box. Rather Jesus I think intended this to be something that we
can model our prayers off. For when we see these individual petitions we too can follow
them and we can tailor the specifics of our situation and our needs to this model. It's
so practical and hugely helpful from Jesus if you're feeling like you don't know how
to pray. This is so helpful for us. Another interesting note is that Jesus teaches us
to pray to our Father in heaven. This is something Eric picked up on earlier. After telling us
to pray in our rooms with the doors closed Jesus is now teaching us how to pray corporately.
No doubt he's also teaching us how to pray privately here but whatever warnings there
were about praying to be seen by people do not undo the vital importance of us praying
together. So with that being said let us briefly unpack these six petitions in the Lord's prayer
and let us learn from Jesus himself how we must pray. First hallowed be your name. Hallowed
it can be quite an old timey word can't it? We might use the word hallowed maybe of the
MCG turf and not much else these days I think. But the word just means to sanctify or to
set apart as special or to be holy. And this petition is asking that God that he would
make his name that is his entire being who he is more holy and more special than anything
else. And of course because he already is we pray this prayer because what we need more
than anything else in our prayers is a grand and glorious vision of who our God is. As
we heap praise on our God as we seek his glory and his fame and his honour it frames anything
else that we could pray in light of who he is. And that is a good place to start. If
you're struggling to pray if you just spend the first few minutes praising God for all
his goodness and pleading with him that he would make himself more glorious to you and
to the world around you I have no doubt that it will quickly warm your heart to keep on
praying. The second petition your kingdom come and the third your will be done are very
similar to the first. While we pray that God would be known and would be more holy and
more glorious than anything else we also pray that his kingdom would come that is his rule
and his reign would be extended and established over everything else especially including
our own lives. It is his will that we are to seek to be done because he knows what's
best because his plan is perfect because his ways are good. We want things to be done on
earth as it is in heaven. In heaven right now his rule is total and complete nothing
in rebellion apart from it. But here on earth while we are waiting for his rule to be established
fully and finally we'd long and to pray for that day to come that he would continue to
extend his rule and reign in the hearts and lives of his people and within his church
and within this world. Now these first three petitions they are entirely God centered aren't
they? They make God the most important reality and anything else that we could possibly pray
for ought to only be in light of seeking God's glory his rule and his will. These petitions
they surely ought to rightly order our own hearts shouldn't they? Before we bring him
our own needs, before we confess our own sins, before we ask for strength and guidance from
him. I mean can you really pray for the latest land cruiser or for a bigger house in light
of these petitions? I mean I suppose you could but I just don't see how you would even want
to. And it most certainly seems to shape the things that we are to ask for. The fourth
petition give us today our daily bread it more literally says give us today our bread
which is necessary for existence. Which is a far cry from asking for the latest land
cruiser model. But of course because this is a model of prayer not exactly what we need
to ask. We aren't just praying for the food that we need to eat for the day but we pray
for every need that we have both physical and spiritual. We pray that God would sustain
us in every way by providing what we need. Today it could be patience towards your kids
or it could be strength to keep loving that difficult family member or good sleep because
your work has been really demanding lately. Or for God to provide your financial means
so that you can pay that bill. Our needs in any given day could be endless. And Jesus
he is commanding us to bring our daily needs before our Father and ask that he would grant
them to us. The fifth petition forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.
Has some great complexity to it which I'll come back to in just a few moments. But as
we pray we must confess our sins before God. And we must also bring our grievances to him
of those who have sinned against us. Did you know that prayer it is actually one of the
most important means that you have of coming to a place where you can actually forgive
someone who has deeply hurt you. We can and we ought to come to a heavenly Father with
these burdens of hurt and we bring them to him and we ask him that he would help us to
forgive them. These are the prayers that our Father loves to answer friends. And I'll come
back to this petition again in light of verses 14 and 15. So we'll just move on to the sixth
and final petition for now and that is lead us not into temptation but deliver us from
the evil one. Now we can know that Jesus does not mean for us to pray that we would never
be tested right. In James 1 we are told to rejoice when we are tested because these trials
actually refine our faith. Trials and temptations they are God's given means of making us more
like Christ. But we can rightly understand this petition to mean that we pray that the
Lord would not allow us to fall away completely because of a particular temptation or test.
Prayer is this greatly important means of us holding fast to God in faithfulness and
also God holding onto us and never letting us fall. More and more I'm finding in my own
prayers that it includes something to this effect saying, Lord help me to love you more
and my sin less. Church if you took this prayer as a model, if you went into your room and
you closed your door and you spent just two or three minutes praying and expanding on
each one of these six petitions, I can imagine that would just be such a wonderful time of
prayer with your heavenly Father. You could know that you are praying prayers that the
Lord loves to answer. You could know that he has truly heard you not because you twisted
his arm with your many words but because you are faithful in obedience to praying as your
Lord commanded you to. You could know that your Father who is in secret has heard what
you have said in secret and that he has a far greater reward awaiting you than anyone
else could ever give. This is how our Lord taught us to pray. Practical, simple but profoundly
deep and brilliant. And then comes these curly couple of verses at the end. Verses 14 and
15. Jesus says, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive
your sins. Jesus, what happened to justification by faith alone? What about if you believe
in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord you will be saved?
What about whoever believes in the Son will not perish but have eternal life? Are you
now saying that we must believe in you and forgive others to be saved? As he concludes
this section on praying, Jesus seems to expand this fifth petition and forgive us our debts
as we have also forgiven our debtors. But Jesus, couldn't you have just left it at
verse 13? What is going on here? Well lest we begin to believe that a quality prayer
life is what will make us right with God, Jesus actually ups the ante here. Which is
quite typical of him in this Sermon on the Mount. And he shows that something far more
than just being good at prayer is needed to be one of God's people. Something more than
just being good at prayer. What is needed is actually a completely renewed and transformed
heart. So renewed and so transformed that we would be perfect like our Heavenly Father
is perfect. Even in the ability to forgive people of their sins. Now please don't mishear
me. I don't want to take any force away from Jesus words here. I don't want to sidestep
these verses and just make this dogleg back to justification by faith. But I really do
believe that this is what Jesus is showing us here. By using this fifth petition and
connecting these verses to prayer, Jesus is showing us that why we pray is not so that
we will achieve our salvation or merit our redemption or make us right before God. But
that it is only a heart that it has been truly renewed by the grace of God so that prayer
is an overflow. So that the forgiveness of others who sin against us is an overflow
of what God has done inside of us. And so Jesus can say, if you don't forgive others
their sins, then it is evidence that you have not experienced the grace of God in your own
life. And therefore he has not and will not forgive your sins. It's such strong words
from Jesus, isn't it? But oh how we have sinned far greater against God than what anyone else
has ever sinned against us. Without the renewing grace of God, our hearts are dead in sin.
We are haters of God and lovers of evil, rejecting the very one who has created us and sustains
us and gives us life and breath and every good thing. While God deserves all the praise
and all the glory, we rob it from him by giving it to created things. But when we've been
forgiven of that, when we have been given new hearts, ones that are filled with the
Holy Spirit, we can love God truly and we can long to live more faithfully in the ways
which he has created us for. And that means forgiving others just as we have been forgiven.
John Stott, he really helpfully puts it in this way. Once our eyes have been opened to
see the enormity of our offence against God, the injuries which others have done to us
appear by comparison extremely trifling. If on the other hand, we have an exaggerated
view of the offences of others, it proves that we have minimised our own. Therefore
may I be so bold as to put it before you that your prayers are ineffective if you are harbouring
bitterness and unforgiveness. Why? Because you have not seen your great need for forgiveness
from God. And because you are not truly practising your righteousness, which needs to be received
from Christ alone and cannot be found even in the best of giving or praying or fasting.
This is why we come to pray to our heavenly Father. Not as a way to earn our righteousness,
but to practise the righteousness which has been won for us on the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ and has been freely given to His people who come to believe in Him. This is the great
reward from our heavenly Father, isn't it? That we would be granted life with the Son,
that we would sit with Him at His right hand and that we would be in His presence and rule
and reign with Him for all of eternity. All because of what Christ has won for us on the
cross. Full forgiveness, full pardon, full assurance that we have been made children
of God. And so we come to pray to our heavenly Father because Jesus has won full access for
us. So church, may we be a people who are humble and earnest and dependent children
of God, who are resolved on practising our righteousness, which has been freely given
to us. Coming to our heavenly Father in prayer, not to earn our righteousness, nor to receive
the praise of men, but in light of all that our Saviour has done for us. Let's come to
Him now in prayer. Gracious Father, thank you for how beautiful and how wonderful and
how glorious the things that you have done for us. Thank you that in the fullness of
your mercy and your love and your compassion for your people, you have rescued us through
the work of your Son. And thank you that He has won full access to you for us. Thank you
that we can come freely to you and that you have not only opened up that way, but here
in this passage, you've taught us so clearly how to come to you in prayer. That we can
pray things that please you Lord, that you want to hear, that you want to answer for
us. So we pray Lord, would you give us confidence to pray to you in light of all that you've
done for us? Would you help us to grasp these words, to put them into practice, to live
as people that belong to you? And as we do so Lord, would you give us joy as we have
intimacy and fellowship with you in prayer? Father, would you help us to see all that
it is that you have forgiven us? And so that Lord, we would forgive others and that that
would be a clear marker that we do belong to you. That we are your people, that you
have renewed our hearts and that you have given us full salvation. Strengthen us Lord,
to love you, to walk more faithfully in our prayer lives, for your glory Lord and for
our good. In Jesus name, Amen.