It's another great day to be gathered in the Lord's house
together. So thank you guys for being
here. If you have your Bible, you can
open it to Matthew chapter 6. That's where we'll begin this
morning. We'll be in six verses, 5
through 15 today. So if you're visiting today,
we're continuing in a sermon series that we began several
weeks ago in which we've called the King and his Kingdom.
It's a study of the book of Matthew.
And so Matthew 6, five through 15 is our text this morning.
Now we're in the middle of the sermon on the mounts, right?
This is Jesus's teaching, and what he's doing is he's showing
his disciples, teaching his disciples and those who have
gathered around what it looks like to live under his gracious
rule. All right, He's not merely
concerned. One of the things he's going to
show us throughout the sermon is he's not merely concerned with
outward morality, all right? Some of those things we deeply
concern ourselves with is how do I look outwardly?
Do I appear righteous? Do I appear religious?
Right. But he's, he's not concerned
about outward morality. He's not concerned about your
religious appearance. He's not even concerned about
external conformity, right? Again, do I, do I go to church?
Do I sing the songs? Do I pray the prayers, do I
participate? Do I identify myself as a
Christian or as someone who believes in God?
Those outward, those external conformities are not what's most
important to Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, right?
What he is after, He's made that very clear so far.
He is after the heart, right? He's after the heart of the man.
He's after the heart of the woman, right?
He's describing in the Sermon on the Mount the kind of
righteousness that belongs to those who belong to the Kingdom
of heaven, right? He's describing the
righteousness of his people. And so as we come to chapter 6,
Jesus turns now to acts of devotion, right?
He we're going to see today, we're going to look at prayer,
but in these acts of devotion, we'll see giving prayer,
fasting. And in each case he is warning
very, very bluntly. He's warning about the danger of
hypocrisy. All right?
He shows us that it's possible to do religious things while
having a heart that is actually far from God.
It's possible to do things for the praise of men rather than
for the glory of the Lord. And so in our passage today,
we're focusing on prayer and on Easter, right?
That that idea of prayer and the teaching on prayer here could
hardly be more fitting. But because the resurrection of
Jesus Christ is not merely proof that he conquered death, it is
that. But it's not merely that.
It's not only that. It's the triumphant declaration
that Christ's saving work has been accepted and his sin, and
our sin has been paid for, that righteousness has been secured,
and that through Christ sinners may be brought near to God.
Amen. That's why we can sing a song so
loudly. I know that my Redeemer.
Lives. It's redeemed us.
And so prayer is the privilege of those who have been welcomed
into fellowship with the Father through the Son.
It's a privilege of ours that the risen Christ opens the way
to the Father. And so because he lives, because
Christ lives, you and I may come, Amen, when they come.
So with that in mind, would you please stand and honor the
reading of God's Word? If you're able, we're going to
read Matthew 6 again, verses 5 through 15.
That's Christ speaking, Christ says.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they
love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street
corners that they may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray
to your Father who is in secrets, and your Father who
sees in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap
up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they
will be heard for their many words.
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need
before you ask him. Pray to Him like this.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses. This is the word of the Lord.
Thank you be to God. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of prayer, God.
We thank you that because Christ died and rose again, we have
been welcomed. We have been reconciled to you.
Oh God. Many of us in here have the
story of redemption as our own, that we were once far from you,
we were once rebels to your cause, and yet in your grace and
your mercy, your love, you have brought us near through Christ.
And so, Father, we, it is a joy to join with the Saints this
morning, to worship your great name, to exalt your name above
all. And Father, we ask that you
would help us as we walk through the sermon today, that you would
help us not be like hypocrites, not not be the kind of people
who want to practice righteousness that we may be
seen, but rather. Help us to be sincere in our
devotion to You, O Lord, would you make us holy where we are
not holy? Would you call us to repentance
where we need to repent? God, would you save anyone here
today who does not know you? Lord, we pray that your word
would go forth, that it would bear good fruit in our hearts
today. Would you do this by your
spirits? It's in the name of Christ I
pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So growing up in the Bible Belt, living in the Bible Belt, you
know some of these things to be true, right?
Like there is a kind of religion that looks alive, but it's
actually dead, right? It it says the right words.
It, it knows the right moments. It, it can perform in public,
right? It can show up in public worship
and and look like all the other worshippers.
It can impress a crowd, right? Others around you may say it's a
really good person. It can even sound spiritual.
It can know the jargon and the lingo, but but it has no real
communion with God. The heart is wayward.
It's desperately seeking its own way.
And Jesus is exposing that kind of religious practice.
In this text today, He shows us that prayer is not to be used as
a stage for human applause. We don't pray before others.
We don't stand on the street corners and utter our prayers.
We don't stand in church and utter our prayers that others
might see us right. He shows us also that prayer is
not a string of empty words designed to impress, right.
We're not. We're not just muttering a bunch
of things to the Lord trying to impress those around us.
What Christ shows us here is that prayer is communion with
God. It's fellowship with.
God. Prayer is the language of
children who have been welcomed by grace.
It's the way we relate to God. And so if Christ were still in
the grave, then there would be no welcome into the Father's
presence, right? We would still stand on our own.
We would stand on our own unrighteousness.
We would stand apart from God, far from Him, unsaved,
unredeemed, unreconciled. If Christ had not risen, there
would be no access to the Lord. There would be no peace.
There would be no reconciliation, no confidence to
draw near, as Hebrews says. But that's not the case, is it?
Christ has risen. That the tomb is empty, the
sacrifice has been accepted, the Son has conquered death.
And now all who trust in Christ may come to the Father.
They're welcome to him. And that's the heart of this
passage. That's the heart of Easter
celebrations, right? That.
And so here's kind of the the main point of the passage this
morning. If you're taking notes, you can
write this down. It's in your worship.
God is a fill in the blank. If you want to take it there,
you can. The risen Christ opens the way
to the Father, teaching his people to pray with sincerity,
Kingdom focus, and forgiving hearts.
The risen Christ opens the way to the Father teaching His
people to pray with sincerity, Kingdom focus, and forgiving
hearts. And we're going to see this
movement in three parts. So #1 pray to the Father not for
the praise of men. Pray to the Father not for the
praise of men. Jesus begins this passage with
this warning. And when you pray, you must not
be like the hypocrites. Now, now, immediately we should
notice not the word hypocrites, but the word win, right?
Hypocrites probably jumps off the page, but you should see the
word when when you pray. He does not say if you pray.
Jesus is assuming here that his people will be the kind of
people who pray, right, who practice prayer, right?
He says when you pray. So prayer is not optional for
the disciple. It's not optional for the
Christian life. It's not an extra thing for
those who are especially mature, those prayer warriors, as you
may have heard them called at some point in your life.
Prayer is not even reserved only for pastors or missionaries or
those especially disciplined believers.
Prayer is basic to the life of a disciple, right?
It's an invitation for. US.
But it's also a. Command when you pray.
So to belong to Christ is to be taught to pray.
It's to learn to pray, it's to have a life of prayer.
But but Jesus is concerned not only that his people pray, but
that they pray rightly. There is a right way to pray.
There's a wrong way to pray, right?
He, he says you must not be like the hypocrites when you pray.
So the issue here is not public prayer itself.
It's we know that the Bible contains public prayers.
Jesus himself prayed publicly, right?
We see public prayers throughout the Scriptures.
We've experienced public prayers throughout our lives.
If you've been in church. So the problem is not where they
are praying. The problem is why they are
praying, right? The the the hypocrites were
those who love to stand in the way of the largest crowds.
They they love to pray in the synagogues and on the street
corners. Their their audience was not
God. Their audience was man.
Now, you may already know this, but if you don't hear something
to know the word hypocrite originally refers to someone
who's an actor, right? It it's someone particularly
who's. Wearing a mask all.
Right. Somebody who's put on a mask,
you may think of theater, right? And having to wear a mask or
wear certain makeup to make you look a certain way.
That's the idea of a hypocrite. It's not who you are, but you're
made to look that way. And in hypocrisy, what we're
doing is we're showing that it's not really who we are inside,
but outwardly we're trying to appear a certain way, right?
We're playing a role, and that's exactly what these men were
guilty of doing. They were performing their
spirituality to be seen. They were acting out devotion.
They weren't truly devoted, right?
They were putting on a public show of godliness.
And so prayer had become religious theater for them.
And so Jesus says something very sobering about that.
He says, truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
So in other words, the applause of man, the people who look at
them and say, look how spiritual they are, look how religious
they are, look how dutiful they are, that that was all they were
ever going to get right. They, they wanted to be seen.
And so they were seen. They they wanted the admiration
and they probably received admiration, but but that was the
full extent of their reward. And when the God of heaven and
earth offers to you heaven and earth and all that's therein in
Christ, why would we settle merely for the applause of man?
CS Lewis would say that's like eating mud plot mud pies.
It's like playing with mud pies when you're offered a holiday.
At the sea. And so they may gain the praise
of men, but they do not have the reward of the Father.
And so that's a frightening thing for us to consider, But
because it means you can do what appears to be a godly act, right
and still have no pleasure from God in it because the heart was
aimed the wrong direction. Then Jesus gives this contrast
in verse 6. He says, but when you pray, go
into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is
in secret. Now Jesus is not laying an
absolute law that all prayer must happen in private and
indoors. Rather, he's teaching that real
prayer is concerned with God, not display right, that the
point is secrets. The point is sincerity, the
point is godwardness, right? So shut the door, strip away the
audience, remove the platform, come before God himself.
And when Jesus says pray to your Father who is in secret and your
Father who sees in secret will reward you, well, that little
phrase, your father should be full of comfort for us, right?
Brothers and sisters, this is not natural language for
sinners, right? By nature God is our creator,
and by nature God is our judge. But because of our sin, we are
estranged from him. We're estranged because we are
rebels, not sons, right? We are guilty of sin, and so we
are not welcome. Sin has separated us from God.
Our guilt cries out against us. Our consciences condemn us.
Our mouths ought to be stopped before the holy throne.
And yet Jesus says. Your Father, Your father.
Now how can that be? That's only because of Christ.
You see Jesus Christ live the righteous life that we have not
lived. He died the death that we
deserve to die. He bore the wrath of God against
sin in the place of sinners, and on the third day he rose from
the dead in power and victory. And so his resurrection declares
that the payment for sin has been fully accepted.
The debt has been cancelled, but the curse has been broken.
That the risen Christ opens the way to the Father.
And So what that means is that those of you who are in Christ,
you are Christians. You're believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You've repented of your sins and
placed your faith in Him, and you're you're walking with the
Lord. What this means for you is that
you don't come to the Father as a stranger seeking an audience.
You you do not pray as a condemned criminal trying to
talk your way into mercy. You did not even pray as an
orphan, right? Hoping that someone might hear
you, Someone might recognize. You.
Christians pray as a child, a child who's been brought near
through the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, a
child who is now a son. And we cry ABBA.
Father Hebrews says that we have confidence to enter the holy
places by the blood of Jesus. Paul says that through Christ we
have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now
stand. And in Galatians, Paul says
again that we are sons, but God has sent his Spirit, sorry, the
Spirit of his Son, into our hearts, crying ABBA Father.
So prayer is a resurrection grounded privilege.
Then Jesus offers another warning in verse 7.
And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles
do. Of the Gentiles were godless
people, I shouldn't necessarily say they were godless.
They had many gods was the problem.
But they did not know the true God.
And some of the Gentiles would call out to their God.
They would use as many words as they could.
They thought that their God would hear them for their many
words. They they treated prayer as if
it were a magical formula. They they thought quantity.
Would produce power. They thought repetition created
effectiveness. We'll just say the same thing
over and over and over, and this will make it effective.
You see, they thought they could manipulate their gods somehow
into action. But the true and living God is
not like a dead Pagan God. Amen.
Our God is not ignorant. Our God is not distant from us.
He's not reluctant to hear you. He's not moved by verbal
manipulation either. And so Jesus says, do not be
like them. And then he says, for your
Father knows what you need before you ask him.
And that might make some of you think, well, why pray?
Well, Christ says when you pray, don't think you would say when
you pray and then later say, the Father knows what you need
before you ask as a reason not to pray.
All right, so we understand, we should pray.
We understand that this phrase here, that the Father knows what
you need before you ask Him, cannot make, cannot be making
prayer unnecessary. But what it does is it makes
prayer glorious. It makes it glorious, it makes
it high, it makes it unlike any other thing on earth that we can
do. You see, prayer is not about
informing God of what He does not know.
He knows all things. Prayer is not about convincing
God to care for you. He sent his son to die for you
because of his great love for you.
Prayer is not about. Pressuring God to listen as if
he's busy with other knees. No, God is omnipotence.
He's all powerful. He's sovereign.
He's not distracted. He's not away on a vacation.
Prayer is becoming the child who draws near to the Father, who
already knows, who already sees, who already cares, who already.
Invites us to come as a. Father if you are a father.
Is it not one of the most humbling, beautiful things when
your child comes to you in need of something, knowing that you
can provide it is. It's a humbling thing.
It's a it's a precious thing to know that your child loves you
enough, trust you enough, knows that you care enough to want to
hear their need, that you might answer it.
And so you might. See why John Calvin called
prayer the chief exercise of faith and prayer.
We're not performing for men. We are depending on God.
We, we are expressing trust in our Father through the son.
And that means that prayer must never become a matter of
religious image management, right?
We, we, we must not use prayer to look spiritual.
We, we must not use prayer to cultivate a reputation.
I'll ask brother so and so to pray.
He he does really great. You and I as Christians must not
measure prayerfulness by eloquence or Polish or length.
Some of the most genuine prayers on earth are tearful, broken,
and simple. Let you into my life for just a
second. After Winnie passed in 2022, I
was just. Grief stricken my my heart ached
in a way that I had never felt. I felt I, I, I knew an ache in
my chest that I thought would never leave me.
And and and there would be times in the weeks after, months after
where that. Ache would go.
Away. And then it would rush on in a
moment. It's a thought, a missing you
kind of thing, replaying the images and the events of what
happened that night. And I remember in those moments
that. All I could get out.
Was Lord help me. Through tears, through
brokenness, through pain, it was all I could muster, Lord.
Help me. You want to know how helpful my
conscience was in that moment, how helpful all my knowledge of
prayer was in that moment. It was not helpful at all.
The enemy came to me and accused me in those prayers that those
aren't good enough. That's not deep enough, that's
not strong enough, it's not wordy enough.
How's that going to help you? That led me into a study of
prayer in the Scriptures. Where are all the times we see
men praying to God? Lord, help me.
Or something similar. It's a lot.
I found great comfort in that. It was all I could muster,
right? So it's about the heart that the
Father is not impressed by polished phrases if the heart is
cold, right? He, he delights in truth, in the
inward being. And so when you pray, you have
to consider, who is my audience? Who am I talking to?
Even even in public prayer? Are you speaking to God or are
you speaking to the room right? Even in private prayer?
Are you sincere from the hearts or are you merely going through
the motions right? Are are your prayers living
communion with the Lord or are they dead religious habits?
We can press that even further and, and we should, right?
Some believers struggle to pray, not because they do not know
they should, but because they feel unworthy to come to God,
right? They know their sin, they know
their offenses against the Lord. They feel the dullness of their
hearts. They see their own
inconsistencies, and so they shrink.
Back. From God the enemy is accusing
them as well, is he not? And so I want to speak to you.
If that's you, I want you to know this.
You're welcome with the Father does not rest on the strength of
your prayer life. It doesn't rest on the words
that you mutter doesn't rest on how often you pray.
It doesn't rest on any of those things.
Your performance at all, right, you're welcome to the Father,
rest only on the work of the risen Christ.
The same Savior who died for sinners now lives for sinners.
The same one who opened the way to God has not now closed it
against weak Saints, right? So we come to the Father through
Christ. He's the one mediator between
God and man. And if you do not know Christ
today, then I want you to understand this your your
greatest need is not to learn a better prayer technique.
I've not come to show you 3 steps on how to pray better.
Not at all. And the Lord didn't have you
here this morning to hear how you might pray better either
your your greatest need is not mere religious words or works
it. It's not even to show up at
church on Easter. I do not mean that offensively.
I'm glad you're here. Right, your your greatest need
is reconciliation with God, and that reconciliation is found
only in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Apart from him. If you are apart from Christ,
then God is your judge, He is not your Father.
But in Christ God becomes your Father.
So I urge you today to flee to Christ.
So Jesus teaches us to reject prayer for the praise of men,
but then he teaches us what prayer should seek point #2 pray
for the Father's glory, rule, and care.
Pray for the Father's glory, rule, and care.
Jesus says in verse 9. Pray then like this.
That. That means that he's not merely
giving us words to recite. He's giving us a pattern for
shaping our prayers. I want you to know there's
nothing wrong with praying these exact words, right?
The Church has rightly treasured the Lord's Prayer for centuries.
But Jesus is teaching us more than a formula.
He's giving us a model. He's providing A framework for
how to pray. He's giving, giving us a set of
Kingdom priorities. And notice where the prayer
begins. Our Father in heaven, hallowed
be your name. What a beautiful opening.
He is our Father. What does it mean that he's our
father? Well, one, it's, it's a personal
declaration. It's a covenantal declaration
that he's the God of covenant. He's faithful always.
He never leaves, He never forsakes.
When you say our Father, you're declaring that he is near to
you. When you say our Father, you're
declaring He's compassionate, that he's attentive.
And so we start with our Father, and then we say in heaven.
In heaven, think about what it means for God to be in heaven.
It means that he's holy, He's high and lifted up.
He's exalted. He's sovereign over the affairs
of the world. He's the creator of heaven and
earth. He's perfect.
He's transcendent, meaning he's outside space and time.
He's infinitely above us. And so biblical prayer, what
Christ is teaching is that biblical prayer holds both those
things together. Intimacy without irreverence and
reverence without distance. He's not a buddy in the sky.
He's not your homeboy. Maybe you grew up in the air
where that shirt was famous, right?
He's not the big man upstairs. He's not a cold Force that's far
away like something off Star Wars.
Right. He's our Father in heaven, our
Father in heaven. And then the first request comes
to us this way. Hallowed be your name.
Our Father in heaven. We've said some things about
you. We have this personal
relationship to you, but you're in heaven.
You're transcendent, yet you're intimate.
Hallowed be your name. That simply just means Father.
Let your name be regarded as holy, let let it be revered, let
it be honored, let it be worshipped among the nations.
Let your character, your glory, Your words, Your majesty be
treasured and displayed in all the earth and in all my life.
Hallowed be your name. Jesus teaches us that true
prayer begins with God our Father in heaven.
Hallowed be your name before our needs, before our daily
concerns, before our burdens, before any of those things.
Prayer begins with the glory of God, and it must You tell me
what will silence your anxiety, like seeing that God is glorious
and powerful and sovereign. And all his work.
So we come to the Lord, His name, His honor, His worship,
and then comes the second request, Your Kingdom come, your
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Again, you must notice how God centered this is your Kingdom,
your will, right? And Jesus is teaching us to seek
the Father's glory, to seek the Father's reign, to seek the
Father's will. And so this line shines with
particular brightness if you look at it closely, Right?
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the triumphant declaration
that the Kingdom of God has broken into history in power,
that the King who was crucified is now risen.
Death has not defeated him. The grave could not hold him.
Satan had not overcome him, though he thought he did.
Christ won. Amen.
So when you pray your Kingdom come, you're not uttering some
wishful language here. You're not just wishing your
Kingdom would come. You're not looking at the world
and all of its problems and saying, Oh Lord, your Kingdom
come like some hopeful wish. Now you're making a declaration.
You're you're praying in line with a Kingdom that has already
been inaugurated through the life and death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. And that Kingdom will one day be
consummated when he returns in all his.
Glory. When you pray your Kingdom come,
you're praying for the spread of the gospel that we go forth to
the ends of the earth, that if it save those in your household
and those in the households hundreds of thousands of miles
away. We're praying for the salvation
of sinners. We're praying for the growth of
Christ Church. We're praying for holiness in
our own lives. Your Kingdom come in my heart,
right? We're praying for the day when
every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord. And when you pray, your will be
done. It's not like you're asking God
to accomplish his plans out there over there somewhere,
right? Oh, we're praying your will be
done. What?
We're asking God to bend our hearts into submission to His
will. Your will be done in my life.
Sometimes we go to God in prayer, as though he's Santa
Claus, and then if we'll ask nice things of him, he'll grant
them to us. Sometimes we'll go to him like
we might have gone to our parents when we sought something
we really wanted. And we thought if we just said
it the right way, if we said it the nice way, if that didn't
work, we might try some manipulation.
OK, if you'll get this for me, I'll clean my room.
It's like, well, you should already be cleaning your room.
All right. No, prayer is not mainly a way
of pulling God down into our agenda.
It's one of God's means for bowing our hearts beneath His.
It's where we take what we're. Learning in the Word of God, and
we bring it to the Lord in prayer.
And He bends our will to His. He bends our desires to His, not
the other way around. And so some of you don't pray
much because when you've prayed, God is not answered.
In the book of James we have an answer for that.
James says you ask and do not receive because you ask with
selfish ambition in your heart. Just like your child, you will
say no sometimes. Because it's good for them, it's
better. For them, all right.
We also see in James that you have not because you asked not,
so we should be asking. I wish we should.
Trust that the Lord is going to bend our will to His, and so
therefore we say, your will be done, your will be done.
Morton Lowe Jones pointed out that this prayer is not first
about us, but about God and His. Glory.
Jesus teaches us to start where our our hearts often do not
start. Our natural instinct is to begin
with ourselves. Our problems, our schedules, our
anxieties, our plans, our desires, our.
So on and so forth. But Jesus in this prayer lifts
our eyes far above this world, far above our own anxieties, far
above our own cares and our own problems, far above those
things. And he draws us back to the
Father. We begin with the Father's name.
We look to the Father's Kingdom. We desire the Father's will.
Then in verse 11, Jesus says, give us this day, Our Daily
Bread. Now the prayer turns to our
needs. But even here you're remaining
in a posture of dependence. Aren't you?
Our Father in heaven, give us today Our Daily Bread
dependence. Daily bread speaks of ordinary
needs, daily provisions, the necessities of life, food, work,
strength, help, provision, wisdom, endurance, Jesus.
Teaches us to live one day at a time under the Father's care.
If you're unsure about that, just hold on for a couple more
weeks and he'll make it really clear for you later in Matthew
6. He does not train us to be
self-sufficient. He he's training us to be
dependent. He does not train us to live
anxiously in the future, Rather he trains us to live trustingly
in the Presence. He teaches us to ask for today's
bread today, not tomorrow's bread, today's bread today.
And so this is humbling. Prayer.
It teaches us that we are not self-made people, we are not
independent creatures though we might think we are.
We are upheld every day by the hand of God.
Every meal, every breath, every sunrise, every bit of strength,
every answered need comes from the good Father's hand.
And that too is resurrection grounded, the Father who did not
spare his own Son. But.
Gave him up for all. Will also with Him graciously
give us all things that we truly need.
So the empty tomb tells us that the Father is for his people in.
Christ. He's for you.
Then in verse 12, Jesus says and forgive us our debts as we also
have forgiven our debtors. So sin is pictured here as a
debt we owe, a debt that we cannot pay.
We've violated God's law. We have fallen short of his
glory. We have accumulated a record of
guilt that no amount of moral effort could erase.
And yet the Christian is taught to pray.
Forgive. Us Why?
Because forgiveness is only found in.
Christ at the Cross. He bore your debts.
He bore your transgressions. At the resurrection, Christ
stands vindicated, and all who are united to Him are declared
righteous. The same Christ who died for our
sins was raised for our justification that that means
the believer lives in a continual posture of confession
and cleansing, not because Christ's work is insufficient,
but because our fellowship with the Father is real and our need
for ongoing cleansing in the Christian life is real.
Then Jesus says and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil. It's just a confession of
weakness. The prayer is a whole confession
of weakness. It's a confession that we're not
strong enough in ourselves. Lead us not into temptation.
Deliver us from evil. It's a mission that we need the
Father to preserve us, to guard us, to keep us, to rescue us.
You're not asking that because you think you're strong.
You're asking that because you know you're weak.
You know your vulnerabilities, you know your sins.
You know your temptations. You know your failings.
You know the malice of the evil and against you.
And so we cry out to God for preserving grace.
How different is this whole thing from self confident
religion? How different from the man who
thinks he can stand on his own. Jesus is teaching us here to
pray as needy children, dependent in every way on the
Father's glory and on His rule and on his care.
Brothers and sisters, I bag you to let this pattern of praying
reshape the way you approach God in prayer.
How often do your prayers begin and end with yourself?
How often are your prayers dominated by immediate
discomforts and personal preferences or earthly concerns?
You see, Jesus is teaching us to pray bigger than that.
He teaches us to pray Godward prayers.
Father, let your name be hallowed in me.
Father, to advance your Kingdom in this world.
Father, bend my heart to your will.
Father, provide what I need today.
Father, forgive my sin. Father, keep me from temptation.
Father, deliver me from evil. That's Kingdom prayer.
What confidence do we have to pray this way?
If you haven't seen it yet, hopefully you'll see it now.
The the one who is teaching you to pray this way is not dead.
He he, he is risen. He's alive.
He reigns, He intercedes always. He has all authority in heaven
and on earth. So when you pray, you're not
praying into the dark. The enemy would want you to
think that your prayers might rise to the ceiling and then
fall down. And when you pray, you're
praying through the Son who lives forever.
But Jesus isn't done. Having included forgiveness in
the prayer, He now presses that issue with particular force #3
pray as those changed by the Father's forgiveness, verses 14
and 15. In these verses, Jesus is
circling back to one part of the prayer and he expands it.
He says, For if you forgive others their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will
your Father forgive your trespasses.
If you're reading along in your daily Bible reading and you come
to that those verses and you do not drop your pen or your pencil
or you do not stop in your tracks, then you should check
your heartbeat because that's really strong language and it
should arrest our attention. And so we, we ought to
understand this carefully. One, Jesus is not teaching
salvation by works here. He he never did.
He's not starting now. He's not saying that you're
going to earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others, that the
whole testimony of Scriptures, that our forgiveness rests
entirely upon the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Yet we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, full stop.
Amen. So what is Jesus saying that
He's saying that a forgiven heart becomes a forgiving heart.
Those who have truly received the mercy of God are changed by
the mercy of God. Refusal then to forgive others
reveals a heart that is not rightly grasped, the forgiveness
it claims to have received. And that's the point of what
Jesus is saying. If someone says I have been
forgiven an infinite debt by a holy God, and yet clings
bitterly to the sins of others, cherishes resentments, nourishes
grudges, refuses mercy, then there is a deep contradiction
there. Something's terribly wrong.
This is exactly what Jesus is going to later teach in the
parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18.
There we have a man forgiven an enormous debt who refuses to
forgive a much smaller one that's owed to him.
And the point becomes plain. Those who are overwhelmed by
grace ought to become gracious people.
I also want to be clear on this line.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending sin was no big deal,
right? It does not mean denying real
pain. It does not mean erasing all
consequences. It does not mean automatic
restoration of trust and every circumstance right.
There may still be a need for boundaries and wisdom and
repentance and in some cases a long road to healing.
But what it does mean is that the Christian cannot cherish an
unforgiving spirit. You cannot adore that
unforgiving spirit in your heart.
We cannot clean the bitterness and walk in fellowship with the.
God of all grace. We cannot praise the one who
cancelled our debt while refusing to release others from
theirs. We cannot celebrate the
resurrection and remain content to live in the tomb of
resentment ourselves. So why should we forgive?
Because in Christ we've been forgiven.
At the cross, our sins were paid for.
At the empty tomb, Christ victory over sin and death was
publicly declared. The resurrection is God's Amen
to the saving. Work of his son.
So when Jesus calls you to forgive, He's not demanding that
we produce mercy out of thin air.
He's calling us to live out the mercy that you have received
from Him. He's calling you to walk in the
power of His own grace. Paul writes clearly about this
in Ephesians 4. He says be kind to one another,
tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave
you. In Colossians 3 says something
very similar. As the Lord has forgiven you, so
you must also forgive. That means the measure and the
motive of our forgiveness are not first about the offenders
deserving this. It is the graciousness of God in
Christ that is the measure and the motive.
Now that's difficult. In some cases it's painfully
difficult. Some of you have been deeply
sinned against the the. Wound is not small, the offence
is not a light offence, and so the pain is real, it's deep, and
Jesus is not minimizing that. But he does call his people to
be marked by the same grace by which they have been saved, the
resurrection. Then one of the truths that we
see about the resurrection is that it means that bitterness
does not have to reign over us. Sin does not have to reign any
longer in our mortal bodies. The risen Christ can soften what
has become hard. He can heal what has been
poisoned. He can teach wounded hearts to
forgive others. So let me ask you plainly, just
to make Easter especially uncomfortable.
Is there someone you refuse to? Forgive.
Is there a trespass against you that you keep rehearsing in your
mind and in your heart? Is there a a wound?
You keep poking it. Is there a grievance that you
have allowed to settle in and define you?
Have you become a collector of wrongs rather than a dispenser
of grace? Jesus is pressing on that today.
He's not calling you to call evil good.
Please don't misunderstand him. He's not calling you to approve
of sin. He's not even calling you to
ignore justice. But He is calling you to
surrender bitterness. He's calling you to release
vengeance into. God's hands.
He's calling you to be a person who is shaped by mercy.
Now here's the really tough part of all of this.
Perhaps the reason that some believers are spiritually cold
or prayerless or joyless or restless is that they're.
Trying to live in communion with the Father while cherishing a
spirit that is altogether unlike his own grace.
You see, forgiven people forgive.
If you're a believer, you should take your bitterness to the
risen Christ. Bring your grudges to the One
who left the grave behind. Ask Him to make your heart soft
again. Ask Him to make you tender
again. Ask Him to help you forgive as
you have been forgiven. And if you're not a Christian,
and the deepest issue, though it's a deep issue, but the
deepest issue for you is not whether you have forgiven
others. The deepest issue is whether you
have been forgiven by God. Your sins stand against you.
Your guilt is real. Your dead is more than you can
bear. But Christ died for sinners, and
he rose again, and all who will repent of their sins and cast
their belief on Him will be fully and freely forgiven.
So as we come to the end of this passage, Jesus has shown us what
prayer really is. It's not performance.
It's not religious theater. It's not empty repetition.
It's not an attempt to impress man or manipulate God.
Prayer is the privilege of those whom the risen Christ has
brought near to the Father. The risen Christ opens the way
to the Father, and He teaches His people to pray with
sincerity and Kingdom focus and forgiving hearts.
So what should you do in response?
Number one, pray sincerely. Pray sincerely.
Reject the temptation to perform your prayers.
Refuse dead religious showmanship.
Come honestly before the Father through the risen Christ.
Secondly, pray with Kingdom focus.
Seek the Father's name, Seek the Father's Kingdom, Seek the
Father's will. Bring him your daily needs.
Bring him your daily temptations.
Bring him your daily burdens, Bring him your sins.
Seek the Father. Pray with Kingdom focus and #3
pray as those changed by grace. Do not cling to bitterness while
claiming the mercy of God. Live as one who has been
forgiven by the crucified and risen Lord this day and one more
time. If you do not know Christ this
morning I want you to hear the good news.
The way to God is open, but only through Jesus Christ.
You cannot come by your moral efforts, you cannot come by more
religious language, you cannot come by sincerity alone.
You must come through the cross of the crucified and risen
Savior. Turn from your sin.
Trust in Christ. And you will find.
That the God. Who was once your judge becomes
your Father. Because Christ is risen, sinners
can draw near. Because Christ is risen, prayer
is possible. Because Christ has risen,
forgiveness is offered. Because Christ has risen, the
children of God may come home to the Father.
Amen. Amen.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for the word that. You have given us today.
We thank you, Lord, for the words of your son.
We exalt Him this morning, high and lifted up.
He is the only one who can save us from our sins.
He's the only One who's opened the way to you, to where we are
now told in Hebrews 4 to come boldly before Your throne, that
we might find mercy and grace in our time of need.
He is the one in Hebrew seven who is able to save to the
uttermost all of those who draw near to the Father through Him.
He is the one in first John two who is called an advocate for
sinners. He is the one who Paul calls a
mediator between God and man and Father.
I just ask that you would help. The truths that we've seen in
the passage today sink deep into our hearts.
May this not be simply an Easter Sunday where we pass into church
and pass back out, having not been affected by Your Word, by
your Spirit. So God, I pray that you would
continue your kind, gracious work of transforming our hearts
and our minds to love and to know You more fully.
May you increase our dependence upon You.
Forgive us, Lord of our independence.
And Father, I pray for those who may not know you.
I ask humbly that you would save them from their sins.
I asked You would call them to yourself, You withdraw them and
that nothing would hinder them from coming to Christ today.
May they repent of their sins. May they place their faith in
Christ today. May they call upon the name of
the Lord and be saved this morning.
I'm going to give you a moment. Now they're in your seat.
Just a time of reflection. To think on the text, to think
on the sermon, to think on your. Life.
Not the life of that person next to you or somewhere in your
life, but on your heart, your mind, your spirit, your
devotion. If you need to repent of some
things today, take this time to do so.
If you need to confess some things today, do that.
If there's something in the text that you have not seen that you
need to believe today, would you respond in belief this morning?
Heavenly Father, we confess with the Apostle Paul today that it
is your kindness that leads us to repentance.
God, we thank you that you are ever faithful, that you're
abounding and steadfast. Love that you're good to every
generation. God, would you help us to live a
Godward life, a life that honors you, that glorifies your great
name. Help us to do so as men and
women and boys and girls in the the state of life that you've
placed us in. Husbands and fathers, wives and
mothers, children, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, Co
workers, members of your church or whatever.
Remember The thing is that you've given us.
Would you help us to walk with integrity, to honor you in those
things that your name might be glorified, that your Kingdom
might come, that your will may be done on this earth and in our
lives? We thank you for your, your
kindness and your love and your mercy, Your grace toward us.
It's in the name of Christ we pray.
Amen.