THE SERMON - The Lord's Prayer
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1 hour and 14 minutes
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1
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11
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24
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Summary
When you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking, but not; therefore, therefore, like unto them, for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him; therefore pray ye our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name Thy kingdom come; Thy kingdom shall be done, in earth as it is in heaven; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debts; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Transcript
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review yet, take a moment and help us achieve our goal. Amen. Please join me in standing for
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the reading of God's word. This morning we continue our series through the gospel according
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to matthew our particular text is matthew chapter 6 verses 7 through 15 again that's matthew chapter
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6 verses 7 through 15 i'll read our text for us in its entirety when i finish reading the text
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i'm going to say this is the word of the lord at which point i would appreciate very much if you
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would respond by saying thanks be to god one final time our text again is the gospel according to
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Matthew chapter 6 verses 7 through 15 the Bible says this but when you pray use not vain repetitions
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as the heathen do for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking but not ye
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therefore like unto them for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him
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after this manner therefore pray you our father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name
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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
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Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
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For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
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But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
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All right, please be seated. We'll go ahead and dive right in.
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The first thing that we want to address is verses 7 and 8 of our text,
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where before Jesus gives us a particular instruction
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and more than merely instruction but also a case study
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the heathen or some translations say the hypocrite
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predominantly who he has in mind are the religious
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Jewish rulers of that day. He condemns them
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for the ways that they pray. Chiefly what he has in mind
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is their aim or their purpose or their motive in prayer.
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That when the heathen prays, and again, who Jesus has in mind,
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it's not necessarily the pagan who is irreligious,
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who has no concept or custom or practice of religion to be mentioned whatsoever.
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But ironically, the party that Jesus chiefly has in mind
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are those who are redeemed and considered by the culture of the day
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and those particularly who were leaders of religion.
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It is they that Jesus refers to as the hypocrite,
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and particularly in this translation, namely the King James,
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And the primary problem when it came to their prayers
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Their goal in prayer was not to honor their Father in heaven.
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their goal in prayer was not to petition and make requests humbly of their Father in heaven,
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but rather their goal was to utilize prayer as a cheap opportunity to impress men.
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When they prayed, the language was addressed to God,
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but the purpose and motive of the prayers was to be seen in a more honorable light,
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not by God but merely by men. It was to pray lofty prayers in public spaces to be heard by men
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rather than by God and Jesus tells them that you have received your reward your temporal and merely
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earthly reward in full. In other words you should expect no future final eternal reward from God
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You did not pray in your hearts in a true sense toward God.
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not to be like the religious rulers of his day,
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our honor, praise, and thanksgiving would be to God,
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but that the bulk of our prayers in our personal Christian lives
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would be private, praying to an audience of one, to God
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and also that our prayers in a certain sense would be brief
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that even in this, with the brevity of our prayers
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what we're doing is acknowledging the omniscience of God
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and more than merely his omniscience that God knows all things
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He knows every need that we have before we even make it known.
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We're not only acknowledging the omniscience of God,
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but we are, in a sense, acknowledging the omnibenevolence of God.
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Not merely that he's all-knowing, but that he is all-good,
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that we don't have to somehow win him over to our cause.
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But if we have union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit,
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by grace through faith, then all the blessings that God has that rightly belong and are bestowed
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upon his son Jesus, they trickle down from the head to the body. Christ is the head of the church
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and the church is his body. In the same way that Aaron was anointed by oil as a priest, a high
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priest and the head of the people of Israel, the oil would trickle down off of the head and
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eventually begin to saturate and soak the whole body. So too it is with us that God has anointed
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his son Jesus and bestowed upon him every spiritual blessing. And those who have union with him by the
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spirit and through faith become the proper recipients of all of those blessings. Put another
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way by Jesus himself, he is the vine and we are the branches. So long as we are connected and have
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union with him, all of God's goodwill is directed toward us. If you are in Christ, you are the object
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of God's goodwill. Goodwill on earth, goodwill toward men, goodwill toward Israel. That is true
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Israel, not according to the flesh, but according to the promise. Those who have union and are rooted
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in Christ who is the root he's the root of David the root of Jesse if you are in Christ you have
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God's benevolence so when we pray our prayers should have genuine right motives not to be
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praised by men but rather to be accepted and pleasing and praised in a proper sense by God
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offering praise to God but also knowing that if we do what is right by grace that we too will
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receive commendation and praise from God I mean that's what we're all looking for at the end of
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the day is that we would stand before God on that final day in eternity and receive from him praise
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well done good and faithful servant is a commendation it is praise from God I'm reminded
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of the Lord of the Rings, I believe it was the two towers, where I think it's Aragorn who says
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that the praise of the praiseworthy is the highest or chief award. More than gold, more than silver,
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more than anything else that we could accommodate or that we could gather. The greatest reward is
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It's one thing to be praised by the peanut gallery.
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It's another to be praised even by someone that you admire
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But even when we receive praise from our spouse,
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we know that our spouse, as much as we love them,
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But to receive praise from the one who is infallible, from the one who is truly praiseworthy, is the highest reward.
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Well, from the first two verses of our text, namely verses 7 and verses 8,
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we see that right prayer, proper prayer that's pleasing to God
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is the opposite of what Christ is condemning
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namely the fear of man rather than the fear of God.
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long prayers. So prayers that have right motives, prayers that are private, prayers that are secret,
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prayers that are offered exclusively to an audience of one, to God in heaven and not to be
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praised or seen by men, are prayers that are pleasing to God. And likewise, prayers that are
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not only private and secret, but also prayers that are brief, are also pleasing to God. Because when
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we pray brief prayers, there's a sense in which we're acknowledging who God truly is. One, that
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he's omniscient, that he knows everything before we even ask, but two, that he's omnibenevolent,
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that he is all good, that we, by virtue of union with Christ, are the recipients and the proper
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object of his love, of his goodwill, of his kindness, and that we don't have to talk him
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into being kind to us but that we can come boldly before his throne of grace recognizing that he is
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ready and eager to be kind to his people for christ's sake and in that regard trusting that
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he is good that his heart is already geared up toward us with goodness we can pray short prayers
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To put it simply, there's another text where Jesus is giving a parable to serve as an example
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of how we should go to God in prayer. And he describes a widow who is seeking justice.
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And in this particular parable, the judge that she's appealing to is a wicked judge. He's not
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a just judge but the widow is incessant in her appeals to the judge she goes to this wicked judge
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again and again and again and the judge ultimately he responds by saying although i am a wicked judge
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and i have no desire to do justice on the earth this widow is starting to annoy me getting on my
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last nerve. And so I'm going to give her the justice that she's asking for simply so that
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she will leave me alone. And then Jesus makes this argument from the lesser to the greater. He says,
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how much more your father in heaven, who is just and who also loves you and desires to do
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good and justice towards those who are his children by virtue of their union with Christ.
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In other words, if I was to say, how should we pray?
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Using that parable, and then again the first two verses of our text today.
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Well, in a nutshell, our prayers should be private, for the most part.
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But our daily prayer life, for the most part, should be private.
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it should also be frequent the widow goes to the judge not once but i believe it's 10 times
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in the course of a day in this particular parable so frequent prayers but then also
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coupling that with our text that we have here and what we saw last week when we skipped ahead we
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looked at matthew chapter 6 verses 16 and 17 and i believe 18 as well that our words should be few
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in prayer because God is already geared in kindness towards us and he's omniscient and
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already knows our needs before we even make them known. So our prayers should be repetitive,
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frequent, but brief. And our prayers should be private to be seen and heard by God rather than
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be seen and heard by men. So three components of proper Christian prayer, private prayers,
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short prayers but frequent prayers private prayers short prayers but frequent prayers
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i remember hearing from pastors and missionaries different older christians when i was younger
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and there was a sense of truth in what they were saying i don't use this example to disparage them
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There's worse advice that you could get than people telling you you should spend time in prayer, right?
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I mean, out of all the bad advice that there might be out in the world,
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older Christians telling, you know, a young man to spend lots of time in prayer is probably not going to ruin your life.
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That's probably not the worst example of, you know, bad advice that you could get.
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So I don't want to use this example to disparage believers who gave this advice.
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But I remember, you know, some of the advice that would be given is it was all about your quiet time.
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And I think that in a general sense, that was a good bent, a good instinct, right?
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Because some of the implications of a quiet time, one characteristic would be that it's private, secret, right?
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It's everything that I've been espousing thus far.
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But in addition to that, it seemed as though the impetus was on long, quiet times, that it was deemed as more sanctified, more holy, more admirable if a person had a three-hour quiet time in the morning.
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And the earlier you woke up, for whatever reason, that would be impressive.
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If you had your quiet time at night, God was less pleased.
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There's just something about 4 a.m. that just really lays hold of the heart of God,
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which I was never persuaded of that, and still am not.
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I'm a dad now with five young children, so I start the day pretty early,
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but I don't think God's particularly impressed by that.
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But that was kind of the general sentiment, was have a quiet time, right?
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But in that, the quiet time would be marked by reading scripture, which is good.
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But there was kind of a propensity or an urgency that the prayer needed to be really long.
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You needed to be praying, you know, in prayer for an hour.
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And it wasn't until I was older and had learned more from the scripture that I realized that there is something to be said, of course, when the Apostle Paul, underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Holy Scripture, says, pray without ceasing.
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but I think that these incessant prayers in many ways are more characterized,
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can be more accurately described as the incessant appeals of the poor widow
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who's not sitting in front of the judge's house necessarily for five hours straight.
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But the impression of that parable that Jesus tells us,
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especially when cross-referenced and coupled with Matthew chapter 6, verses 16 and 17.
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It seems as though, it says, let your words be few when you pray.
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It seems as though incessant prayers, unceasing prayers, prayer that is proper and pleasing to the Lord
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is not necessarily an hour or two hour or three hour uninterrupted prayer session that begins at 4 a.m.
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but more likened to quick short prayers that happen again and again and again throughout the
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day and so that became more and more of how i learned to pray as i got older that in many ways
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i probably pray as much as i ever did but the prayers are broken up they're short prayers
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There's been moments where, again, as a father,
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and the Bible tells me to be anxious for nothing
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to make my request known to God and I'm failing in that in that particular moment. I am giving way
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to worry and anxiety. And so I find myself as often as I'm anxious, that's the same frequency
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that I go to the Lord in prayer. But each time it's a short prayer. It's maybe a minute and a
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half. But I find myself praying for a minute and a half 20 times in a day. And for the most part,
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it's the same prayer. There's nothing novel. There's nothing new. There's nothing lofty. It's
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not long or verbose. It's not necessarily on a mountaintop in front of people. It might be in
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front of my wife or with the kids. But I'm praying again and again for the most part, privately,
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secretly, but also with brevity, short, simple, but with a high degree of frequency, going before
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the judge of all the earth, who is a just and good judge, and appealing to his mercy and not
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his justice, which that's another pointer. When we go to the Lord in prayer, when I'm asking for
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healing for my kids, I don't go to the Lord and say, God, you owe me the healing of my children
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because you are a just judge. I'm asking you for justice. My children, they deserve healing on the
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basis of your justice. That's a bad prayer. All right. If anything, that's putting the Lord to
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the test. If I'm appealing for justice from God for my children, I might as well just be asking
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God to send my kids to hell. Probably not the best strategy in prayer. And for the record,
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if anyone, you know, for the Presbyterian in the room who's thinking, oh, that, I hate that.
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That's his Baptist inclinations coming out. You know, no, it's the same thing for me. If I ask
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God for justice towards me, it's hell for me too, even after baptism and a profession of faith.
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That's justice for all people, all people. Salvation is mercy. And it is fair to say that
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in the gospel, this is a mercy that doesn't come at the expense of justice. It's not at odds with
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justice because the penalty for our sin was justly paid by Jesus Christ. The cross, Calvary, is the
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place where both mercy and justice meet without contradicting one another. Yes and amen a thousand
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times, but you get my point. I'm praying privately. I'm praying shortly, concisely. I'm praying
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frequently, and I'm appealing. I'm appealing to God's mercy predominantly rather than his
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justice. These are some of the elements or characteristics of prayer. We can glean all this
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from the parable of the widow who goes before the judge, but we can also glean all this from verses
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seven and eight of our text by simply assuming the opposite of what Jesus is condemning as bad
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prayer. So he's condemning bad prayer. So to try to pursue good and proper prayer, we want to do
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the opposite. Well, what's one characteristic of bad prayer in verse seven and eight of our text
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today? Praying to be seen by men. So prayer should be secret. What's another characteristic of bad
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prayer that we saw last week when we skipped ahead and looked at verses 16 and 17 of Matthew
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chapter 6? Well, long and lofty prayers, wordy prayers. Okay, so prayer that's good and proper
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should be private, secret, should also be brief, concise, acknowledging that God is omniscient
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and omnibenevolent. And then lastly, looking over and cross-referencing the example that I already
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gave, the parable of the widow who goes before the judge. Prayer should also be incessant
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in the sense that not necessarily it's an uninterrupted prayer session from 4 a.m. to 7
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a.m. without one moment of pause, but no, it's incessant like the widow, meaning that it's
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frequent. It's going before God again and again and again. Good prayer, proper prayer,
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new testament christian prayer if we were to say it that way would be many short private prayers
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say that again christian prayer is many short private prayers and this is really important
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it's the reason why we haven't even gotten to the lord's prayer yet but the reason i
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wanted to take some time on this is because i think there's a lot of wrong ideas about prayer
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There are many, but here's just one very practical application about these New Testament, very biblical characteristics of good and proper, pleasing prayer.
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Here's one application that I think is incredibly hopeful.
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if you're a young mother um and all of a sudden you know you remember when you were you know
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getting your degree in biblical studies you know and you're 19 and 20 and you and your college
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roommates would wake up early and spend an hour in prayer it would be out loud and it would be
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uninterrupted and and now you're a mom and that pretty much never happens
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Well, the good news is that biblically speaking, it doesn't have to happen.
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And you could maybe even argue that it's not supposed to happen.
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And isn't it encouraging that that's literally exactly what the Bible tells us to do?
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that Jesus literally tells you to pray in a way that is perfectly conducive
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to being a mom with a bunch of young children who will not let you have an hour of uninterrupted
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prayer. What a great mercy. What a great kindness from the Lord. Jesus has
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mom-appropriate prayer in mind. Turns out that the mom who only gets to pray for
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90 seconds every 30 minutes or hour and a half in spurts sporadically throughout the day in between
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nursing and discipline and crafts and cleaning and fits that it turns out that that actually
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perfectly parallels Matthew chapter 6 far more than the lofty long uninterrupted prayer times
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that many of us were convinced were more pleasing to God.
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Okay, so now that we have a better idea of prayer,
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So prayers should be frequent, for the most part, private,
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okay but in that vein of lots of you know many short private prayers okay that's great but
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but what should they be about okay so it's a short prayer it's a prayer i'm offering frequently
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and for the most part privately but still i need to know what do i pray what do i pray so now
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getting into the contents that's kind of the method that we just covered the method of prayer
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the strategy of prayer well now what is the content of christian prayer jesus provides for us
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an example a case study and i would argue that this is it's a summary so it's not that we have
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to pray these exact words although they're exact words that jesus gives us so it wouldn't be a bad
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idea i think praying the lord's prayer verb verbatim is a great way to pray but each of these
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things these tenets of the lord's prayer i think serve as headlines as as a summary of the different
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the different components that make up the overall content of christian prayer and that's what we
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want to look at now. Let me read the Lord's Prayer one more time, just so that it's fresh
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in our minds. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will
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be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as
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we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine
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is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. You'll notice I went with the
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King James this week because how could you not with the Lord's Prayer? I just, to read the Lord's
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Prayer in any other version of the Bible just feels like a loss, at least at some degree. That's
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not to say that the other versions are terrible or bad. A lot of times I use the ESV. I think
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that's fine um but the king james is fantastic in this regard even the 1689 london baptist
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confession of faith uh on its chapter that talks about the doctrine of the word of god
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it seeks to make arguments for validating how we know the word of god is in fact the word of god
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and the ultimate way of knowing that the word of god is in fact god's infallible word
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And that's what, you know, the 1689 eventually culminates to
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but at the end of the day, we know that we know that we know
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because the spirit who inspired the writing of the word of God
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illuminates the reading and bears witness within us
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So that's the ultimate reason that the 1689 offers.
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But it also offers some other practical reasons before that.
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And one of the practical reasons that the confession provides for knowing that this is the word of God is it actually says the majesty of the language.
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Now, you have to keep in mind that the 1689 at the time of the writing of that confession, when it's talking about the word of God, it's not talking about the message version.
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and it's not talking about the ESV either, or that, you know, the whatever, any, you know,
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NASB or what, you know, your, your choice, you know, the NIV. No, it's, it's talking about the
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King Jimmy. It's talking about the King James. So when it says one of the ways that we know that
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the word of God is in fact the word of God, it doesn't say the only way we know is the majesty
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of the language, because if that were the case, then, you know, maybe you could try to convince
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someone that some Shakespearean plays are the Word of God, you know, because Shakespeare used
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majestic language as well around that same period of time. So it's not the only reason that the 1689
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and the Westminster site for knowing that the Bible is, in fact, God's holy Word. The chief
00:31:38.680
reason, again, is the Spirit of God who inspired the writing also illuminates within our hearts
00:31:44.460
the understanding and the proper reading of the scripture so that's at the end of the day the
00:31:50.880
the biggest reason why we know the word is the word we know the word of god is in fact the word
00:31:55.640
of god because the spirit of god tells us so but there are also practical characteristics
00:32:02.280
and one of those is the majesty of the language and there's a point to be made there i don't think
00:32:10.360
that we should be so hard-lined as to say, and therefore any other translation of the Bible is
00:32:15.660
sinful or wrong and cannot be used. I'm not, you know, if you've been to this church even once
00:32:22.580
before, then you're probably aware of this. I'm not a King James only-ist. But I do like the King
00:32:29.840
James. And I do think that there is not so much a theological argument to be made, but a practical
00:32:36.100
argument to be made to simply say that that the word of God should be written with a majestic
00:32:43.660
style and I think that the 1600s and that time period within the Anglo-British English tradition
00:32:55.100
Christianity and Christendom there and that style of writing is kind of a high watermark
00:33:03.380
so far. Eventually, one day, if we have a generation of Christians that aren't as dumb
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00:33:12.000
as we are, myself included, if we have like titans again, like Calvin and like Luther,
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then I think that they could use the original manuscripts and text and write in majestic
00:33:28.860
language, a translation that might even be better than the King James. For anyone who thinks I'm
00:33:35.700
going to attempt that, don't. Feel free not to because you'll spend your entire life and the
00:33:44.800
final product will be something radically inferior to the King James version of the Bible that we
00:33:50.360
already have. We are not the generation for this task. We're not because we are the lesser sons
00:33:58.780
of former sires and that's sad and you've heard me say that again and again but it needs to be said
00:34:05.540
it needs to be we need to understand that we are currently the lesser sons of former sires
00:34:13.560
not because that's how it always is meant to be i'm post-millennial so i believe long term
00:34:38.500
its theological minds will increase and improve.
00:34:48.800
it's not just a perfect line you know steadily up it's an overall up trajectory but it depends
00:34:57.960
what year we're in you know there's a lot of guys who are near retirement and if you're near
00:35:04.340
retirement there's a really good argument to be made if you're in your last two to five years
00:35:09.360
before retirement the stock market might not be your best bet if you're 30 years old then the
00:35:16.320
stock market might be a good bet, because in 30 years, no guarantee, but in 30 years, there's a
00:35:22.920
strong likelihood that with that much time, the trajectory will be up. But in two years' time,
00:35:30.400
right, I mean, if you were looking to retire in 2012, and it's 2007 and 2008, and you're like,
00:35:38.020
I'm going to stay in the S&P 500 for the next five years, and we'll be good.
00:35:41.420
that one didn't work out well right because we have the housing market crash and all those
00:35:48.080
kinds of things so all that being said long run the trajectory i'm post-millennial i'm hopeful
00:35:52.860
got some positive thinking going but rooted in scripture not just vibes i think that eventually
00:36:00.460
we're going to have better theologians than calvin even better perhaps than augustine or
00:36:05.680
athanasius but we don't have them right now we don't well that's a big claim like what authority
00:36:14.140
do you have like because every the best most brilliant theological minds that we have right
00:36:20.140
now all they're doing is spending their time eroding and trying to destroy calvin that's all
00:36:29.380
they're doing. We like Calvin and his soteriology, doctrine of salvation, and everything else about
00:36:36.800
him was mean. Why? Because it's post-1945, and that's just how we think. So yeah, we don't need
00:36:47.760
somebody to rewrite a new King James version of the Bible. Not right now. We don't have the minds
00:36:52.920
for it. We don't have the hearts for it. And really, if nothing else, we don't have the stomachs
00:36:56.820
for it, because good theology requires good minds, good hearts, and I would argue, iron stomachs.
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00:37:04.180
Pansies are not good theologians. They're just not. And right now, we have some sharp minds,
00:37:12.840
but even the sharp minds that we have within the theological realm,
00:37:17.160
they have sharp minds, but really weak stomachs. And so they're not up for the task.
00:37:21.260
but there is something to be said for that task and until somebody's ready then the high water
00:37:29.660
mark that we currently have is the reformation it's guys like Tyndale it's guys like Luther
00:37:37.100
it's guys like Calvin it's guys like Zwingli and one of their works not just the theological works
00:37:43.060
and the books that they produce and the confessions that were written but also one of their works is
00:38:00.520
is because the same spirit who inspired its writing
00:38:15.480
the majesty of the language i mean even in the great republic of texas with a high school football
00:38:23.940
team if they're going to take a knee and pray the lord's prayer before the game they're not going to
00:38:31.560
be using the niv it's going to be the king james right that texas football team even they know
00:38:38.500
that when we say the lord's prayer we say it the way king jimmy would have said it because that's
00:38:44.240
the thing to do. It's the right thing to do. There's an argument to be made. So that's why
00:38:49.100
we're using the King James today. If you're preaching on the Lord's Prayer, you don't have
00:38:53.060
to be a King James only-ist, but you do have to be a King James only-ist when you come to Matthew
00:38:57.640
chapter 6, verses 7 through 15. So here we are. All right. Three parts of the Lord's Prayer.
00:39:04.060
Obviously, different theologians have made different arguments. I think this is a generalization. It's
00:39:09.660
it's simple but i think it's helpful and it's generally true matthew henry he says this
00:39:15.600
um three different parts of the lord's prayer one being the preface two being the petitions
00:39:21.140
that's the request the things that we're asking for and then lastly thirdly the conclusion so
00:39:26.780
the preface how do we enter in to the lord's presence when we go to him in prayer what what
00:39:32.900
should our introduction of prayer be the introduction of our prayer is is essentially
00:39:38.040
it's us entering into the throne room. It's us coming before God. It's us coming into his
00:39:44.480
presence. And one of the things that we see elsewhere in the scripture is that we enter
00:39:48.320
into his presence with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. So we don't immediately
00:39:56.660
enter into the courtroom of God, the throne room of God, with our petitions, especially
00:40:04.280
our temporal and earthly petitions, which are not sinful, they're not wrong, give us this day our
00:40:09.760
daily bread, is an earthly petition. It's temporal, it's physical. It's not deeply spiritual, although
00:40:17.160
there are spiritual implications, but it is predominantly a practical need. One component
00:40:23.600
of prayer is asking God to meet our practical daily needs, and God delights for us to come
00:40:59.620
again and again and ask him would you continue to provide for us so that we can make the mortgage
00:41:04.280
so that we can purchase groceries so that we can do these things so that we can feed our children
00:41:10.760
these are good prayers your heavenly father knows that you need them not one sparrow falls to the
00:41:18.060
ground without him seeing you are of much more value than sparrows he feeds the sparrows he
00:41:25.780
clothes the lilies of the field. He knows you have these needs, and he delights in obliging
00:41:33.300
these requests. But they're not the first thing that we say to the Lord in prayer.
00:41:38.760
So it's a part of our prayer. It's a component of prayer. Practical requests. Petitions that are
00:41:44.560
physical. That's part of prayer. Also petitions, requests that are spiritual. That's also a part
00:41:52.160
of prayer so it's not the physical at the expense of the spiritual it's not saying lord i pray that
00:41:57.520
you would help me to feed my children and i do not pray whatsoever for their salvation nobody's
00:42:04.680
advocating for that but what is being advocated for in the scripture by jesus himself no less
00:42:23.420
the eternal marriage that exists between Jesus Christ
00:42:40.860
that many might hear the gospel and come to saving faith in Jesus Christ and pray for cash.
00:42:48.020
It's okay. It's okay. It really is. The love of money is the root of not all evil. That's not
00:42:56.480
what the text technically says. It's the root of all kinds of evil. Money is not the root of all
00:43:03.500
evil. The love of money and even the love of money is not the root of all evil but the root of all
00:43:10.300
different kinds of evil. So there are various expressions and types of sin that can all find
00:43:19.200
their root in greed. Greed, not money in and of itself, but greed, the love of money, idolatry
00:43:28.940
of money over and against love and affection for God, that is a sin. And it's a particular
00:43:35.900
sin that like Augustine would say of pride. Augustine said that pride is the pregnant
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womb that gives birth to all other kinds of sin. Likewise, love of money, not money in and of itself,
00:43:49.660
but greed is also a kind of sin that is a birthplace, an origin place, a pregnant womb
00:43:56.900
that gives birth not to all evil, but it can be the fountainhead that ultimately trickles down
00:44:05.000
into multiple different streams of different kinds of evil.
00:44:25.000
to spiritually protect and provide for my family?
00:44:31.200
to physically protect and provide my family for my family and in the realm of provision would you
00:44:39.080
help me to provide for my family physically practically in such a way that like the proverb
00:44:45.520
say like you told me in your words a good man or a wise man leaves an inheritance not only for his
00:44:52.120
children but his children's children would you help me lord would you empower me and give me the
00:44:57.700
grace, give me the diligence and the vigilance to be able to leave not only for my children,
00:45:03.460
but for my grandchildren, first and foremost, a spiritual inheritance, a gospel inheritance,
00:45:10.020
catechesis, sanctification, discipleship, that I would be able to leave that for my grandchildren
00:45:15.800
and cash. I would like my grandchildren to be spiritually mature and have some money.
00:45:27.700
and maybe a property or two, so that maybe, for once, the enemies of God wouldn't be the ones
00:45:36.780
who own everything. Is that such a bad idea? Wouldn't it be nice if the righteous were the
00:45:45.000
employers? If the righteous owned the media companies? If the righteous were doctors in the
00:45:51.360
medical sphere? If the righteous were Christian princes and politicians in the realm of politics?
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Wouldn't it be nice if the righteous, if the Christians didn't just have our little holdouts,
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our little boroughs of our churches, while the wicked own everything else?
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I want my grandchildren to have a spiritual inheritance first, but not replacing that,
00:46:20.680
but in addition to that, to also have a physical inheritance.
00:46:24.920
and that physical inheritance one aspect would be monetary and i hope they have that not merely for
00:46:33.780
their comfort and ease because money does provide comfort and ease all right this is a bible verse
00:46:42.200
that sometimes you're like is that really a verse in scripture it seems so vain but there's literally
00:46:48.740
in the book of ecclesiastes there is a verse and i'm not exegeting or interpreting i quote
00:46:54.780
and money is the answer to everything this is the word of the lord thanks be to god like it's
00:47:03.360
literally a verse in the bible and the author of course the human author inspired by the holy
00:47:09.740
spirit is not saying that money is the answer to the problem of sin he's not saying that money is
00:47:15.240
the savior in an eternal spiritual sense but what he is saying is that in general in the practical
00:47:22.780
physical realm this temporal life things are a lot easier if you have money
00:47:28.900
you you know that that there are plenty of people who die all around the world
00:47:37.000
from disease and plague and sickness that is preventable and if they had more money
00:47:43.900
they'd still be alive you know that happens right money doesn't just afford vacations
00:48:06.440
And good, healthy food happens to be expensive.
00:48:10.740
Are there immoral, corrupt reasons behind that?
00:48:16.100
But it still doesn't change the practical reality that for the time being,
00:48:20.160
Even if good, healthy food doesn't have to be expensive, currently it is.
00:48:31.560
So, making practical petitions for practical things is absolutely not only permissible.
00:48:39.920
Jesus isn't just saying, this is how you could pray.
00:48:49.720
So it doesn't always have to be verbatim, reciting the Lord's Prayer every time you pray.
00:48:54.120
But this is the direction of how we should pray.
00:48:58.640
These are the components that should make up our prayers multiple times throughout the day.
00:49:07.580
Christ is not merely saying it's God will allow you, when you pray, to make petitions for practical things.
00:49:27.220
To do otherwise, because Jesus knows it's an assumed.
00:49:35.840
It is assumed that you and I, as physical finite creatures,
00:49:40.380
we require physical resources in order to live.
00:49:44.220
you must eat you must sleep you must drink so to not make your physical request
00:49:52.540
ultimately what it does is it's not saying oh i'm just not a vain shallow worldly person i'm
00:50:00.220
very spiritual no no no because the very spiritual person still eats so to not make the physical
00:50:06.600
petitions for physical things is to do this it's assuming that you need those things assuming that
00:50:13.980
you will work to therefore acquire those things and also assuming that those things don't come
00:50:19.620
from God. That they can be acquired apart from him. That you actually don't need to pray to God
00:50:27.060
for physical resources because you've got that covered yourself. No, no. We ask God with all
00:50:35.900
our spiritual petitions for spiritual things because he's the only one who can answer those
00:50:40.280
prayers. He's the only one who can provide sanctification and protection from being led
00:50:45.220
into temptation and keeping us from sin and salvation and forgiveness of sins. He's the
00:50:49.740
only one who can provide those things. And guess what? He's also the only one who can provide
00:50:53.880
food and water and shelter and clothes. It's all Him. It's all Him. He is the source,
00:51:04.200
the exclusive source of all of our needs, both spiritual and physical.
00:51:11.820
And so when we pray, we go to the Lord and we make petitions for spiritual needs and for physical needs.
00:51:19.540
But all the way back to my first point here, the first words of the Lord's Prayer are not petitions for physical needs,
00:51:44.600
as we seek to forget those who have sinned against us.
00:51:58.340
It is still a petition, but it's not a petition for us.
00:52:02.860
It's not a petition for meeting our physical needs,
00:52:06.240
nor is it a petition for meeting our spiritual needs.
00:52:11.460
For God to perform for himself something that is ultimately for him.
00:52:20.880
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
00:52:24.500
it's a petition a request but the first request is that God would hallow his own name
00:52:32.900
to hallow something is to make it holy to make it revered and so the first thing that we do in
00:52:42.560
prayer is we enter with praise and thanksgiving but even this praise and thanksgiving can be
00:52:48.260
presented to God in the form of a petition, a request, but it's a request that God would
00:52:54.280
garner for himself the optimal amount of reverence and praise possible. So the first thing that we do,
00:53:03.880
dear God, make yourself awesome. You are awesome. Make it known. Make it more known.
00:53:12.100
more awesome and the true sense of the word awesome not just the way that some 1990s southern
00:53:18.660
california surfer would have used the term righteous gnarly but no awesome in the sense
00:53:23.260
that it is it inspires awe god make your name inspire awe wonder reverence praise glory
00:53:37.760
Lord would you make yourself who is already awesome would you make your name notice that
00:53:44.680
the petition is not God would you make yourself holy behold I am the Lord I changeth not so that
00:53:51.100
you the sons of Jacob are not consumed I'm the same yesterday today and forevermore God ontologically
00:53:56.180
speaking of his perfections his attributes as it were he's always the same God can't become
00:54:03.640
any more holy than he already is so we're not praying for God to become something we're praying
00:54:09.540
not uh hallow be you hallow be your character hallow be your nature make your nature make
00:54:16.300
yourself more holy we're not praying that hallow be thy name make the knowledge of the glory of
00:54:23.980
God cover the whole earth as the waters cover the sea we're talking about not God ontologically in
00:54:30.340
who he is. We're talking about God in terms of the optic and how he is known. Hallowed be thy name.
00:54:38.480
Let the name of God be hallowed, be made more reverent, more awesome, more holy, more wondrous
00:54:48.020
in the hearts and minds of men all over the earth. God, would you reveal yourself,
00:54:56.120
demonstrate yourself prove yourself to be glorious
00:55:00.420
not that you would become another degree of glory
00:55:05.180
than you already are and always will be and always
00:55:08.780
were but that you would make the knowledge of your name
00:55:12.500
yourself that glory would you make your glory not greater
00:55:19.540
the knowledge of your glory greater in all the earth
00:55:25.300
that's how we enter so the first is the preface henry says oh father who art in heaven before we
00:55:32.880
come to our business there must be a solemn address to him with whom our business lies
00:55:37.880
our father even that we could just say oh god or oh righteous judge but we're commanded by christ
00:55:46.040
again all this is a command it's not just what's permissible or what what is allowable in the mind
00:55:51.520
of God when it comes to prayer but this is what Jesus is saying we must do Jesus is saying when
00:55:57.480
you pray address God as your father even as we teach my wife and I our children to pray we teach
00:56:07.080
them to pray our father our father we do not teach our children even our young children who have not
00:56:14.740
been baptized yet much to the dismay of the presbyterian i get it i understand but you will
00:56:23.460
be at least somewhat consoled by what i'm about to say next although my youngest children are not
00:56:28.820
baptized yet i do not teach them to pray mom and dad's father who art in heaven hallowed be thy
00:56:36.000
name i also do not teach them to pray oh great enemy who art in heaven of which i am a child of
00:56:43.780
your wrath now that would be in the theological technically uh technical sense true assuming
00:56:51.000
here's a caveat assuming that my younger children are not regenerate and i don't know i don't have
00:56:58.120
election goggles i don't have a regeneration goggles so my youngest children i don't because
00:57:04.000
here's the deal i think it's rare i don't think we should make it a normative principle
00:57:08.080
but there are cases when children are regenerated by God's grace not by anything that they did but
00:57:14.900
by God's grace very young John the Baptist leaped in his mother's womb
00:57:19.420
so John the Baptist from the womb that dude was a Christian
00:57:24.860
also very masculine his diet was very masculine although today you got to give caveats because
00:57:34.980
now you know you know the the liberal theologians would be that's right you want to be a masculine
00:57:39.940
christian you will eat the bugs locusts um and i'd be like no no that was that one was unique
00:57:46.260
that's that's just that's just john we will eat the steak um but anyways but but the point is he
00:57:51.960
was regenerated in his mother's womb so it's possible that baby mabel over there strapped
00:57:55.940
on on mama's chest right now she could be regenerate if i if i'm betting i i would say
00:58:02.660
probably not um but i believe all my children are elect you guys have heard me make that argument
00:58:08.940
in the past and i always get grief for it from baptist which makes no sense i i don't i don't
00:58:15.240
get it i'm not saying that all my children are beginning you know in utero 100 you know regenerate
00:58:22.540
all every single i'm not saying that but i am saying that i i believe that when two christian
00:58:27.200
parents who fear the lord and love him god gives them children the assumption we recognize there
00:58:33.120
are exceptions of course there are exceptions i'm not saying god owes it to us it's not presumption
00:58:37.160
but i'm saying in terms of assumption how what direction should we lean it's not a guarantee
00:58:43.720
but what direction should we lean should we assume that that if god is giving us children
00:58:52.800
should we assume that God is giving us children
00:59:00.720
but that it's a matter of simply when rather than if,
00:59:19.940
is Christian parenting. Look at the statistics.
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I mean, we can look at Islamic nations, and we can say, you know what? Most of the kids here,
00:59:32.300
they're going to grow up, and guess what they're going to be? Muslims.
1.00
00:59:37.380
Well, wait a second. You're not, the Spirit blows where He wills, John chapter 3. Yeah, uh-huh.
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00:59:42.280
And as it turns out, historically and statistically, it seems as though the Spirit who blows where He
00:59:48.440
wills has historically willed to blow towards salvation of children born in christian homes
00:59:55.240
and we should just acknowledge that we should acknowledge that so when we teach our kids how
01:00:02.740
to pray it's not a statement of saying um i know for a fact definitively that you are regenerate
01:00:09.260
right now two-year-old i know it because chances are looking at the evidence and some of the fruit
01:00:17.740
especially if you're doing you know your family worship right after dinner time
01:00:22.340
with that two-year-old then you probably you know if anything you're thinking ah
01:00:27.260
we're pretty sure the two-year-old's not regenerate pretty sure no guarantee but pretty sure and yet
01:00:35.280
even with the unregenerate two-year-old right after dinner who is disobeyed like 47 times
01:01:12.540
intimating that we must pray not only alone and for ourselves but with and for others so there is
01:01:19.360
prayer the bulk of it will be private but there is a place for public prayer which is why we say
01:01:24.020
our father and not merely my father now even privately you can still say our father because
01:01:29.920
even when you're privately praying to the lord it's still acknowledging that salvation the spirit
01:01:34.600
of adoption does not just bring you into your own private honeymoon with the lord
01:01:39.300
When you're adopted into the family of God by grace and faith in Jesus Christ,
01:01:48.600
And you also gain a tremendous number of brothers and sisters.
01:01:56.660
When you're brought into the body of Christ, you don't merely gain.
01:02:02.340
But you definitely gain something more than God as your father.
01:02:18.880
And yet they're still brothers and sisters in Christ.
01:02:31.780
and are called into fellowship with each other.
01:02:34.260
We are here also taught to whom to pray, to God only, not to saints and angels,
01:02:42.860
for they are not to have the high honors that we give in prayer, nor can they give favors we expect.
01:02:51.280
We are taught how to address ourselves to God and what title to give him,
01:02:57.020
that which speaks of him rather beneficent than magnificent. That's key.
01:03:02.620
for we are to come boldly to the throne of grace. What Matthew Henry is saying there
01:03:07.240
is that on the one hand, the first petition, so the first two words, our father, right after that,
01:03:14.000
that's the address. And then the first petition is that God would hallow his name,
01:03:18.860
hallowing his name, making his name more reverent, more wondrous, more glorious, more holy.
01:03:24.380
And yet the two words that precede that first petition that God would further hallow his name
01:03:30.020
is the address, and it's our father, which is in some sense more of a descriptor, a more accurate
01:03:37.380
descriptor that highlights his beneficent rather than him being magnificent. He is magnificent,
01:03:45.800
and we pray that he would make his magnificence more known by hallowing his name
01:03:51.440
in the minds and hearts of men all over the earth. But the way we address him that even
01:03:57.180
precedes the first petition that God would make himself known as more magnificent. The way we
01:04:02.700
address him is not as magnificent, but as benevolent. It's an intimate address rather
01:04:10.060
than a formal one. Our Father. Both are in mind. Our Father. He is benevolent. He belongs to us.
01:04:30.620
also make your name known as more reverent and more holy in all the earth.
01:04:49.400
That's a petition, but on behalf of God, for God to do something for God, for his own sake.
01:04:56.040
The first three relating to God and his honor, the last three to our own concerns, both temporal and spiritual, physical and spiritual, as I've already espoused.
01:05:06.760
As in the Ten Commandments, it's following, Jesus is following in prayer the same pattern as in the law, the Ten Commandments.
01:05:14.740
So as in the Ten Commandments, the first four of the Ten Commandments teach us our duty toward God.
01:05:19.980
And the last six of the Ten Commandments, our duty toward our fellow man, our neighbor.
01:05:25.720
The method of this prayer teaches us to seek first by making our first three petitions about God.
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It teaches us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
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that all these other things might be added unto us.
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Forgive me of my sins as I seek to forgive others who have sinned against me.
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And then lastly, also help me not to acquire and rack up more sins
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by leading me not into temptation but delivering me from evil.
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For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
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A form of plea to enforce the foregoing petitions.
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The point of prayer, this is the last point of the sermon, is not to move God.
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But the reason we pray is that we might be moved.
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In prayer, we are not seeking to change the mind of God.
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God is not a man that he should change his mind.
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People will use the example of Abraham, you know, going up on the mountainside,
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praying that God would spare Sodom and that he talks him down, you know,
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if there's 100 righteous or 50 righteous and gets all the way down to 10 righteous. And God says,
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yes, for the sake of 10 righteous, I would spare the city. And people are like, there you have it.
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Abraham is talking to God, aka prayer. That's what prayer is, talking to God. And he's changing
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God's mind. God said he'd destroy the city. When Abraham got done talking with God, what did God do?
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He taught him powerful truths about how God is willing to spare even the wicked for the sake of his elect for the righteous.
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the larger picture that Abraham would be from him would come a seed and that through that seed we
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would have the salt of the earth and that God would be slow in his anger and forbearing and
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kind and patient and long-suffering that he would not uproot the weeds and tears in such a way that
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would be premature and damage the wheat the very heart and nature of God in his gospel plan is
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revealed to abraham through prayer so abraham is changing abraham is growing abraham's being
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sanctified but god changes not god does not change
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it is our duty to plead with god in prayer to fill our mouth with arguments not to change god
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or to move him but to affect ourselves to encourage the faith to excite our fervency
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and to evidence both it is also a form of praise and thanksgiving this final
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part of the lord's prayer thy kingdom come thy will be done wait i'm sorry for thine is the
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kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen it's also a form of praise and thanksgiving
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So the prayer begins and ends, the Lord's Prayer,
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as a petition, and then, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, as a statement.
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Both are forms of praise, and yet at the same time, petitions of sorts,
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asking God to accomplish all His will on earth as it is in heaven.
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A request, but also an acknowledgement, and a statement, giving deference to God,
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And all of this is not to change him, but to change us.
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Prayer is not a think tank session between you and the God of the universe
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where you inform him of your brilliant strategies and ideas for how and why
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and what methods he might utilize in order to carry out his glory and his good here on earth.
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you are not God's informant that's precisely why your prayers should be not few many prayers but
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short not few prayers but short prayers why what what is the gospel of Matthew we just went on a
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couple verses what is explicitly said your prayers should be short because there's nothing that you
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know that God doesn't already know himself your prayers are short because God doesn't need you
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counseling him. Who has ever been a counselor to God Almighty? That's the text in Job that's cited.
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You are not God's advisors. You are not God's counselors. He has no need of your counsel.
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He has no need of your advice. He knows all things and he has already determined all that he will do
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before the foundations of the world were ever even laid. So then why pray? Right? That's what
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the arminian would always say well why pray if god's already determined the elect and who he's
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going to say why why evangelize or if god already has determined his will and what he's going to do
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then why pray whereas essentially what what they're implying is that their only purpose in prayer
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is to change god's mind to somehow manipulate the mind of god in order to get stuff that god might
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might actually be persuaded to leave his plan and join them in theirs because they might be smarter
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that's essentially what the arminian is applying implying when he says the calvinist
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has no point in praying because he doesn't believe that the mind of god can be changed
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that's that's silly or the calvinist has no point in doing the work of an evangelist and
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sharing the gospel because you know god has already determined who the elect are and who
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he's going to save. Yeah, but God works through means. The reason we do the work of an evangelist,
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number one, because God commands us and we want to be obedient. Number two, not because he needs
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our help, but because it's our privilege to be used by God in bringing in the elect to salvation.
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And then why do we pray? Not to change the mind of God, but that through prayer, our minds and our
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hearts might be changed. That through prayer, it would be used as one of His instruments to
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sanctify us. Not that God would be changed into our image and our plans, but that through prayer,
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as God's instrument, He might sanctify and change us more and more into the image of His Son.
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That's why we pray. So let's pray now. Father, thank You for Your Word. Blessed to Your people.
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Let us be a church that is known for prayer, marked by prayer, that our prayers would be many, that they would be short, and that they would be prayers that ultimately seek to honor you and not to bring glory and attention to ourselves.