The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - The Lord's Prayer

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00:00:48.260 the reading of God's word. This morning we continue our series through the gospel according

00:00:53.700 to matthew our particular text is matthew chapter 6 verses 7 through 15 again that's matthew chapter

00:00:59.800 6 verses 7 through 15 i'll read our text for us in its entirety when i finish reading the text

00:01:05.620 i'm going to say this is the word of the lord at which point i would appreciate very much if you

00:01:09.860 would respond by saying thanks be to god one final time our text again is the gospel according to

00:01:16.560 Matthew chapter 6 verses 7 through 15 the Bible says this but when you pray use not vain repetitions 0.76

00:01:24.380 as the heathen do for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking but not ye

00:01:31.180 therefore like unto them for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him

00:01:38.920 after this manner therefore pray you our father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name

00:01:46.220 Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

00:01:52.140 Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

00:01:58.860 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

00:02:04.000 For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

00:02:09.680 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

00:02:17.140 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

00:02:24.780 This is the word of the Lord.

00:02:27.480 All right, please be seated. We'll go ahead and dive right in.

00:02:31.360 The first thing that we want to address is verses 7 and 8 of our text,

00:02:37.980 where before Jesus gives us a particular instruction

00:02:41.120 and more than merely instruction but also a case study

00:02:45.300 and example of how to pray, he first condemns

00:02:49.620 the heathen or some translations say the hypocrite

00:02:53.460 predominantly who he has in mind are the religious 0.98

00:02:57.700 Jewish rulers of that day. He condemns them 0.55

00:03:01.580 for the ways that they pray. Chiefly what he has in mind

00:03:05.460 is their aim or their purpose or their motive in prayer.

00:03:09.980 That when the heathen prays, and again, who Jesus has in mind,

00:03:14.700 it's not necessarily the pagan who is irreligious,

00:03:19.440 who has no concept or custom or practice of religion to be mentioned whatsoever.

00:03:25.220 But ironically, the party that Jesus chiefly has in mind

00:03:29.820 are those who are redeemed and considered by the culture of the day

00:03:33.760 as being the most religious.

00:03:35.460 and those particularly who were leaders of religion. 0.98

00:03:39.100 It is they that Jesus refers to as the hypocrite,

00:03:43.240 and particularly in this translation, namely the King James,

00:03:47.700 Jesus regards them as the heathen.

00:03:51.500 And the primary problem when it came to their prayers

00:03:55.260 is their motive and their goal in prayer.

00:03:59.400 Their goal in prayer was not to honor their Father in heaven.

00:04:03.240 their goal in prayer was not to petition and make requests humbly of their Father in heaven,

00:04:10.660 but rather their goal was to utilize prayer as a cheap opportunity to impress men.

00:04:19.420 When they prayed, the language was addressed to God,

00:04:24.340 but the purpose and motive of the prayers was to be seen in a more honorable light,

00:04:30.560 not by God but merely by men. It was to pray lofty prayers in public spaces to be heard by men

00:04:40.040 rather than by God and Jesus tells them that you have received your reward your temporal and merely

00:04:48.520 earthly reward in full. In other words you should expect no future final eternal reward from God

00:04:56.940 because you did not pray for God.

00:05:00.140 You did not pray in your hearts in a true sense toward God.

00:05:04.280 You prayed merely to be seen by men.

00:05:08.060 So Jesus tells us not to be like them, 0.98

00:05:10.820 not to be like the hypocrite, 0.91

00:05:12.800 not to be like the heathen, 0.99

00:05:15.140 not to be like the religious rulers of his day,

00:05:19.080 but rather to pray from true motives

00:05:21.940 for true and righteous purposes

00:05:24.580 that God would be the audience of our prayer,

00:05:28.380 that God would be the source,

00:05:30.680 the only source to which we appeal for help,

00:05:34.300 that our confession would be to God,

00:05:36.560 our petitions would be to God,

00:05:38.400 our honor, praise, and thanksgiving would be to God,

00:05:42.700 and that in that sense, our prayers,

00:05:47.240 many of our prayers would be private.

00:05:49.960 There is a place for public prayer.

00:05:52.100 We do it each Lord's Day.

00:05:53.460 but that the bulk of our prayers in our personal Christian lives

00:05:57.860 would be private, praying to an audience of one, to God

00:06:01.660 and not to be seen by men

00:06:03.620 and also that our prayers in a certain sense would be brief

00:06:08.480 and they would be short

00:06:10.420 that even in this, with the brevity of our prayers

00:06:14.820 what we're doing is acknowledging the omniscience of God

00:06:19.060 and more than merely his omniscience that God knows all things

00:06:23.080 He knows every need that we have before we even make it known.

00:06:27.760 We're not only acknowledging the omniscience of God,

00:06:30.380 but we are, in a sense, acknowledging the omnibenevolence of God.

00:06:35.220 Not merely that he's all-knowing, but that he is all-good,

00:06:38.920 that he's merciful, that he is kind,

00:06:42.480 that we don't have to somehow win him over to our cause.

00:06:47.400 But if we have union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit,

00:06:51.480 by grace through faith, then all the blessings that God has that rightly belong and are bestowed

00:06:58.740 upon his son Jesus, they trickle down from the head to the body. Christ is the head of the church

00:07:05.420 and the church is his body. In the same way that Aaron was anointed by oil as a priest, a high

00:07:13.220 priest and the head of the people of Israel, the oil would trickle down off of the head and

00:07:18.800 eventually begin to saturate and soak the whole body. So too it is with us that God has anointed 0.89

00:07:25.560 his son Jesus and bestowed upon him every spiritual blessing. And those who have union with him by the

00:07:33.160 spirit and through faith become the proper recipients of all of those blessings. Put another

00:07:39.980 way by Jesus himself, he is the vine and we are the branches. So long as we are connected and have

00:07:46.540 union with him, all of God's goodwill is directed toward us. If you are in Christ, you are the object

00:07:55.500 of God's goodwill. Goodwill on earth, goodwill toward men, goodwill toward Israel. That is true

00:08:04.100 Israel, not according to the flesh, but according to the promise. Those who have union and are rooted

00:08:11.240 in Christ who is the root he's the root of David the root of Jesse if you are in Christ you have

00:08:20.300 God's benevolence so when we pray our prayers should have genuine right motives not to be

00:08:27.700 praised by men but rather to be accepted and pleasing and praised in a proper sense by God

00:08:35.340 offering praise to God but also knowing that if we do what is right by grace that we too will

00:08:42.520 receive commendation and praise from God I mean that's what we're all looking for at the end of

00:08:48.820 the day is that we would stand before God on that final day in eternity and receive from him praise

00:08:54.900 well done good and faithful servant is a commendation it is praise from God I'm reminded

00:09:02.100 of the Lord of the Rings, I believe it was the two towers, where I think it's Aragorn who says

00:09:08.220 that the praise of the praiseworthy is the highest or chief award. More than gold, more than silver,

00:09:17.720 more than anything else that we could accommodate or that we could gather. The greatest reward is

00:09:26.000 to receive praise from the praiseworthy.

00:09:29.080 It's one thing to be praised by the peanut gallery.

00:09:34.560 It's another to be praised even by someone that you admire

00:09:37.500 and think highly of perhaps your spouse.

00:09:40.780 But even when we receive praise from our spouse,

00:09:44.580 we know that our spouse, as much as we love them,

00:09:47.500 as highly as we think of them,

00:09:49.300 we know that our spouse is still fallible.

00:09:51.200 But to receive praise from the one who is infallible, from the one who is truly praiseworthy, is the highest reward.

00:10:00.740 To be praised by God himself.

00:10:04.260 So what is right prayer?

00:10:06.580 Well, from the first two verses of our text, namely verses 7 and verses 8,

00:10:11.160 we see that right prayer, proper prayer that's pleasing to God

00:10:15.640 is the opposite of what Christ is condemning 0.94

00:10:19.260 in the religious rulers of his day, 0.99

00:10:21.360 the hypocrites and the heathen. 0.95

00:10:23.060 And what is he condemning? 0.99

00:10:24.540 He's condemning praying from false motives,

00:10:26.920 namely the fear of man rather than the fear of God.

00:10:30.320 And he's also condemning toward that end,

00:10:34.900 praying to be praised by men

00:10:36.880 and praying therefore in lofty ways,

00:10:39.480 long prayers. So prayers that have right motives, prayers that are private, prayers that are secret,

00:10:46.580 prayers that are offered exclusively to an audience of one, to God in heaven and not to be

00:10:52.500 praised or seen by men, are prayers that are pleasing to God. And likewise, prayers that are

00:10:58.800 not only private and secret, but also prayers that are brief, are also pleasing to God. Because when

00:11:06.940 we pray brief prayers, there's a sense in which we're acknowledging who God truly is. One, that

00:11:13.360 he's omniscient, that he knows everything before we even ask, but two, that he's omnibenevolent,

00:11:20.900 that he is all good, that we, by virtue of union with Christ, are the recipients and the proper

00:11:27.580 object of his love, of his goodwill, of his kindness, and that we don't have to talk him

00:11:34.420 into being kind to us but that we can come boldly before his throne of grace recognizing that he is

00:11:42.020 ready and eager to be kind to his people for christ's sake and in that regard trusting that

00:11:50.620 he is good that his heart is already geared up toward us with goodness we can pray short prayers

00:11:58.820 To put it simply, there's another text where Jesus is giving a parable to serve as an example

00:12:09.160 of how we should go to God in prayer. And he describes a widow who is seeking justice.

00:12:16.480 And in this particular parable, the judge that she's appealing to is a wicked judge. He's not

00:12:23.600 a just judge but the widow is incessant in her appeals to the judge she goes to this wicked judge

00:12:31.640 again and again and again and the judge ultimately he responds by saying although i am a wicked judge

00:12:41.620 and i have no desire to do justice on the earth this widow is starting to annoy me getting on my 0.65

00:12:50.920 last nerve. And so I'm going to give her the justice that she's asking for simply so that 0.92

00:12:56.080 she will leave me alone. And then Jesus makes this argument from the lesser to the greater. He says,

00:13:01.160 how much more your father in heaven, who is just and who also loves you and desires to do

00:13:07.100 good and justice towards those who are his children by virtue of their union with Christ.

00:13:13.840 But notice, here's the point.

00:13:17.140 The widow is brief, but repetitive.

00:13:23.380 In other words, if I was to say, how should we pray?

00:13:26.340 Using that parable, and then again the first two verses of our text today.

00:13:30.820 How should we pray?

00:13:32.360 Well, in a nutshell, our prayers should be private, for the most part.

00:13:36.700 Again, there's a place for public prayer.

00:13:39.060 But our daily prayer life, for the most part, should be private.

00:13:42.360 it should also be frequent the widow goes to the judge not once but i believe it's 10 times

00:13:50.320 in the course of a day in this particular parable so frequent prayers but then also

00:13:56.440 coupling that with our text that we have here and what we saw last week when we skipped ahead we

00:14:02.240 looked at matthew chapter 6 verses 16 and 17 and i believe 18 as well that our words should be few

00:14:09.520 in prayer because God is already geared in kindness towards us and he's omniscient and

00:14:15.040 already knows our needs before we even make them known. So our prayers should be repetitive,

00:14:21.160 frequent, but brief. And our prayers should be private to be seen and heard by God rather than

00:14:27.560 be seen and heard by men. So three components of proper Christian prayer, private prayers,

00:14:34.300 short prayers but frequent prayers private prayers short prayers but frequent prayers

00:14:43.880 i remember hearing from pastors and missionaries different older christians when i was younger

00:14:55.240 and there was a sense of truth in what they were saying i don't use this example to disparage them

00:15:01.220 There's worse advice that you could get than people telling you you should spend time in prayer, right?

00:15:07.720 I mean, out of all the bad advice that there might be out in the world,

00:15:11.600 older Christians telling, you know, a young man to spend lots of time in prayer is probably not going to ruin your life.

00:15:18.640 That's probably not the worst example of, you know, bad advice that you could get.

00:15:22.500 So I don't want to use this example to disparage believers who gave this advice.

00:15:28.260 But I remember, you know, some of the advice that would be given is it was all about your quiet time.

00:15:34.180 And I think that in a general sense, that was a good bent, a good instinct, right?

00:15:40.040 Because some of the implications of a quiet time, one characteristic would be that it's private, secret, right?

00:15:47.400 That's quiet time.

00:15:49.160 It's just you and the Lord alone.

00:15:51.580 It's not the worst thing in the world.

00:15:53.340 That's a biblical principle.

00:15:54.880 It's everything that I've been espousing thus far.

00:15:56.800 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.

00:16:20.000 And the earlier you woke up, for whatever reason, that would be impressive.

00:16:26.800 If you had your quiet time at night, God was less pleased.

00:16:32.880 There's just something about 4 a.m. that just really lays hold of the heart of God,

00:16:38.740 which I was never persuaded of that, and still am not.

00:16:41.900 I'm a dad now with five young children, so I start the day pretty early,

00:16:46.240 but I don't think God's particularly impressed by that.

00:16:50.320 But that was kind of the general sentiment, was have a quiet time, right?

00:16:54.300 So it's private. You're alone with God.

00:16:56.620 That's a good sentiment.

00:16:59.840 But in that, the quiet time would be marked by reading scripture, which is good.

00:17:05.080 And then also usually prayer.

00:17:07.680 But there was kind of a propensity or an urgency that the prayer needed to be really long.

00:17:18.020 You needed to be praying, you know, in prayer for an hour.

00:17:21.680 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.

00:17:38.220 So incessant prayers, that's praying long.

00:17:44.440 There's something there.

00:17:45.220 but I think that these incessant prayers in many ways are more characterized,

00:17:53.280 can be more accurately described as the incessant appeals of the poor widow

00:17:58.900 who's not sitting in front of the judge's house necessarily for five hours straight.

00:18:06.000 But the impression of that parable that Jesus tells us,

00:18:10.380 especially when cross-referenced and coupled with Matthew chapter 6, verses 16 and 17.

00:18:18.320 It seems as though, it says, let your words be few when you pray.

00:18:22.120 It seems as though incessant prayers, unceasing prayers, prayer that is proper and pleasing to the Lord

00:18:29.340 is not necessarily an hour or two hour or three hour uninterrupted prayer session that begins at 4 a.m.

00:18:39.160 but more likened to quick short prayers that happen again and again and again throughout the

00:18:49.980 day and so that became more and more of how i learned to pray as i got older that in many ways

00:18:58.000 i probably pray as much as i ever did but the prayers are broken up they're short prayers

00:19:05.720 where I'm going before my Heavenly Father

00:19:08.360 multiple times throughout the day,

00:19:10.260 sometimes on a particular day,

00:19:13.160 given the particular petition,

00:19:14.880 what it is that I'm asking for

00:19:16.420 and how much urgency there is

00:19:18.020 and how much need there is,

00:19:19.220 I might go to the Lord 20, 30 times in prayer.

00:19:22.960 There's been moments where, again, as a father,

00:19:25.580 where all the kids are sick

00:19:27.000 and the Bible tells me to be anxious for nothing

00:19:33.260 but with prayer and supplication

00:19:35.140 to make my request known to God and I'm failing in that in that particular moment. I am giving way

00:19:41.440 to worry and anxiety. And so I find myself as often as I'm anxious, that's the same frequency

00:19:50.240 that I go to the Lord in prayer. But each time it's a short prayer. It's maybe a minute and a

00:19:56.280 half. But I find myself praying for a minute and a half 20 times in a day. And for the most part,

00:20:03.480 it's the same prayer. There's nothing novel. There's nothing new. There's nothing lofty. It's

00:20:07.820 not long or verbose. It's not necessarily on a mountaintop in front of people. It might be in

00:20:14.260 front of my wife or with the kids. But I'm praying again and again for the most part, privately,

00:20:20.180 secretly, but also with brevity, short, simple, but with a high degree of frequency, going before

00:20:28.920 the judge of all the earth, who is a just and good judge, and appealing to his mercy and not

00:20:35.120 his justice, which that's another pointer. When we go to the Lord in prayer, when I'm asking for

00:20:41.240 healing for my kids, I don't go to the Lord and say, God, you owe me the healing of my children

00:20:47.600 because you are a just judge. I'm asking you for justice. My children, they deserve healing on the

00:20:54.800 basis of your justice. That's a bad prayer. All right. If anything, that's putting the Lord to

00:20:59.800 the test. If I'm appealing for justice from God for my children, I might as well just be asking

00:21:05.460 God to send my kids to hell. Probably not the best strategy in prayer. And for the record,

00:21:12.340 if anyone, you know, for the Presbyterian in the room who's thinking, oh, that, I hate that.

00:21:16.900 That's his Baptist inclinations coming out. You know, no, it's the same thing for me. If I ask

00:21:22.640 God for justice towards me, it's hell for me too, even after baptism and a profession of faith.

00:21:28.100 That's justice for all people, all people. Salvation is mercy. And it is fair to say that

00:21:34.960 in the gospel, this is a mercy that doesn't come at the expense of justice. It's not at odds with

00:21:40.100 justice because the penalty for our sin was justly paid by Jesus Christ. The cross, Calvary, is the

00:21:46.500 place where both mercy and justice meet without contradicting one another. Yes and amen a thousand

00:21:52.480 times, but you get my point. I'm praying privately. I'm praying shortly, concisely. I'm praying

00:22:00.600 frequently, and I'm appealing. I'm appealing to God's mercy predominantly rather than his

00:22:07.820 justice. These are some of the elements or characteristics of prayer. We can glean all this

00:22:13.980 from the parable of the widow who goes before the judge, but we can also glean all this from verses

00:22:20.020 seven and eight of our text by simply assuming the opposite of what Jesus is condemning as bad

00:22:27.100 prayer. So he's condemning bad prayer. So to try to pursue good and proper prayer, we want to do

00:22:35.520 the opposite. Well, what's one characteristic of bad prayer in verse seven and eight of our text

00:22:40.200 today? Praying to be seen by men. So prayer should be secret. What's another characteristic of bad

00:22:48.080 prayer that we saw last week when we skipped ahead and looked at verses 16 and 17 of Matthew

00:22:54.740 chapter 6? Well, long and lofty prayers, wordy prayers. Okay, so prayer that's good and proper

00:23:02.240 should be private, secret, should also be brief, concise, acknowledging that God is omniscient

00:23:10.820 and omnibenevolent. And then lastly, looking over and cross-referencing the example that I already

00:23:17.780 gave, the parable of the widow who goes before the judge. Prayer should also be incessant

00:23:22.720 in the sense that not necessarily it's an uninterrupted prayer session from 4 a.m. to 7

00:23:28.860 a.m. without one moment of pause, but no, it's incessant like the widow, meaning that it's

00:23:36.400 frequent. It's going before God again and again and again. Good prayer, proper prayer,

00:23:44.580 new testament christian prayer if we were to say it that way would be many short private prayers

00:23:54.040 say that again christian prayer is many short private prayers and this is really important

00:24:05.180 it's the reason why we haven't even gotten to the lord's prayer yet but the reason i

00:24:08.560 wanted to take some time on this is because i think there's a lot of wrong ideas about prayer

00:24:14.100 within the Christian church today

00:24:16.460 that it needs to be long, 0.93

00:24:19.080 it needs to be very serious,

00:24:22.260 it needs to be lofty and verbose

00:24:25.200 and that three-hour uninterrupted quiet time.

00:24:28.240 So I think there's a lot of misnomers,

00:24:29.920 a lot of misunderstandings about prayer

00:24:31.740 that need to be righted,

00:24:33.040 needed to be corrected.

00:24:34.540 But also, you know that I tend to try

00:24:38.460 to have very practical application.

00:24:41.740 Well, here's one.

00:24:42.720 There are many, but here's just one very practical application about these New Testament, very biblical characteristics of good and proper, pleasing prayer.

00:24:54.460 Here's one application that I think is incredibly hopeful.

00:24:58.620 The application would be for mothers.

00:25:00.620 if you're a young mother um and all of a sudden you know you remember when you were you know 0.64

00:25:10.500 getting your degree in biblical studies you know and you're 19 and 20 and you and your college

00:25:17.540 roommates would wake up early and spend an hour in prayer it would be out loud and it would be

00:25:23.920 uninterrupted and and now you're a mom and that pretty much never happens

00:25:30.480 Well, the good news is that biblically speaking, it doesn't have to happen.

00:25:38.600 And you could maybe even argue that it's not supposed to happen.

00:25:42.720 Because you know what you can do as a mom?

00:25:45.840 You know what kind of prayers you can do?

00:25:47.980 Lots of short prayers throughout the day.

00:25:51.680 And isn't it encouraging that that's literally exactly what the Bible tells us to do?

00:25:56.440 that Jesus literally tells you to pray in a way that is perfectly conducive

00:26:02.720 to being a mom with a bunch of young children who will not let you have an hour of uninterrupted

00:26:07.980 prayer. What a great mercy. What a great kindness from the Lord. Jesus has

00:26:15.380 mom-appropriate prayer in mind. Turns out that the mom who only gets to pray for 0.97

00:26:26.380 90 seconds every 30 minutes or hour and a half in spurts sporadically throughout the day in between

00:26:34.600 nursing and discipline and crafts and cleaning and fits that it turns out that that actually

00:26:43.320 perfectly parallels Matthew chapter 6 far more than the lofty long uninterrupted prayer times

00:26:52.580 that many of us were convinced were more pleasing to God.

00:26:57.320 I think that that's encouraging.

00:27:00.500 Okay, so now that we have a better idea of prayer,

00:27:03.540 how not to pray, and how we should pray,

00:27:06.960 now let's get into the contents of prayer.

00:27:10.880 So prayers should be frequent, for the most part, private,

00:27:13.920 and they should also be brief.

00:27:16.980 okay but in that vein of lots of you know many short private prayers okay that's great but

00:27:28.060 but what should they be about okay so it's a short prayer it's a prayer i'm offering frequently

00:27:34.140 and for the most part privately but still i need to know what do i pray what do i pray so now

00:27:42.240 getting into the contents that's kind of the method that we just covered the method of prayer

00:27:46.280 the strategy of prayer well now what is the content of christian prayer jesus provides for us

00:27:53.760 an example a case study and i would argue that this is it's a summary so it's not that we have

00:28:01.920 to pray these exact words although they're exact words that jesus gives us so it wouldn't be a bad

00:28:08.420 idea i think praying the lord's prayer verb verbatim is a great way to pray but each of these

00:28:16.620 things these tenets of the lord's prayer i think serve as headlines as as a summary of the different

00:28:26.620 the different components that make up the overall content of christian prayer and that's what we

00:28:35.280 want to look at now. Let me read the Lord's Prayer one more time, just so that it's fresh

00:28:39.440 in our minds. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will

00:28:45.780 be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as

00:28:53.120 we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine

00:28:59.780 is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. You'll notice I went with the

00:29:05.420 King James this week because how could you not with the Lord's Prayer? I just, to read the Lord's

00:29:13.340 Prayer in any other version of the Bible just feels like a loss, at least at some degree. That's

00:29:19.460 not to say that the other versions are terrible or bad. A lot of times I use the ESV. I think

00:29:25.860 that's fine um but the king james is fantastic in this regard even the 1689 london baptist

00:29:31.940 confession of faith uh on its chapter that talks about the doctrine of the word of god

00:29:37.600 it seeks to make arguments for validating how we know the word of god is in fact the word of god

00:29:44.400 and the ultimate way of knowing that the word of god is in fact god's infallible word

00:29:49.720 is that the spirit bears witness within us.

00:29:53.960 And that's what, you know, the 1689 eventually culminates to

00:29:56.940 in that particular chapter says, you know,

00:29:58.440 but at the end of the day, we know that we know that we know

00:30:00.500 that this is the word of God

00:30:02.000 because the spirit who inspired the writing of the word of God

00:30:06.120 also illuminates within our own spirits

00:30:08.740 the reading of the word of God.

00:30:10.660 The same spirit who inspired the writing

00:30:12.780 illuminates the reading and bears witness within us

00:30:16.420 that this is, in fact, the word of God.

00:30:18.680 So that's the ultimate reason that the 1689 offers.

00:30:22.320 But it also offers some other practical reasons before that.

00:30:25.960 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.

00:30:37.460 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.

00:30:48.680 and it's not talking about the ESV either, or that, you know, the whatever, any, you know,

00:30:54.800 NASB or what, you know, your, your choice, you know, the NIV. No, it's, it's talking about the

00:31:01.880 King Jimmy. It's talking about the King James. So when it says one of the ways that we know that

00:31:08.140 the word of God is in fact the word of God, it doesn't say the only way we know is the majesty

00:31:13.400 of the language, because if that were the case, then, you know, maybe you could try to convince

00:31:18.180 someone that some Shakespearean plays are the Word of God, you know, because Shakespeare used

00:31:25.320 majestic language as well around that same period of time. So it's not the only reason that the 1689

00:31:32.920 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 1.00

00:33:12.000 as we are, myself included, if we have like titans again, like Calvin and like Luther, 0.97

00:33:21.720 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

00:34:21.160 that the church is going to progress.

00:34:25.860 And I believe that doctrine and theology

00:34:27.860 will not be diluted in the long run,

00:34:31.900 but further sharpened.

00:34:33.840 I think that things will get better,

00:34:36.220 that the church will get better,

00:34:37.360 its doctrine will get better,

00:34:38.500 its theological minds will increase and improve.

00:34:44.160 But just like the stock market,

00:34:47.280 for lack of a better example,

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. 1.00

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

00:37:47.780 that version of the Bible, the King Jimmy.

00:37:53.100 And the confessions when saying,

00:37:55.660 how do we know it's the word of God?

00:37:57.440 Well, at the end of the day,

00:37:59.140 the number one reason we know

00:38:00.520 is because the same spirit who inspired its writing

00:38:03.500 also illuminates its reading

00:38:05.080 and bears witness within us

00:38:06.800 that this is, in fact, God's infallible word.

00:38:09.860 But lesser reasons, still reasons nonetheless,

00:38:13.340 but lesser reasons, practical reasons,

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

00:40:30.180 and make those petitions.

00:40:33.000 God doesn't spurn us.

00:40:35.460 He doesn't lose respect for us.

00:40:39.000 He doesn't keep us at arm's length

00:40:41.620 when we go to Him,

00:40:42.900 even frequently and regularly

00:40:45.380 throughout the day,

00:40:46.520 incessantly again and again and again,

00:40:48.940 asking for practical things.

00:40:51.260 It's okay to go to the Lord

00:40:53.000 and ask Him for provision and protection.

00:40:58.100 It's okay to go to the Lord

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

00:42:12.880 is both, both.

00:42:17.660 Pray for the salvation of your children.

00:42:20.860 Pray that your marriage would exemplify

00:42:23.420 the eternal marriage that exists between Jesus Christ

00:42:26.260 and his bride, the church.

00:42:29.480 Pray that you would be further sanctified

00:42:31.840 even in the midst of suffering and difficulty.

00:42:35.900 Pray that God would use you to be faithful

00:42:38.800 and engaging in the work of an evangelist

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 0.82

00:43:42.040 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.

00:44:09.560 That's what the verse is saying.

00:44:11.760 So don't love money more than God.

00:44:15.320 But you can also pray for cash

00:44:17.320 without loving money more than God.

00:44:20.340 I regularly am praying,

00:44:22.160 Lord, would you help me first and foremost

00:44:25.000 to spiritually protect and provide for my family?

00:44:28.520 But secondarily, would you also help me

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? 0.76

00:45:57.700 Wouldn't it be nice if the righteous, if the Christians didn't just have our little holdouts, 0.99

00:46:05.700 our little boroughs of our churches, while the wicked own everything else? 0.99

00:46:12.400 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

00:47:52.040 Money increases lifespans.

00:47:55.640 Money allows it.

00:47:56.620 You don't want to drink all the seed oils?

00:47:59.480 Good.

00:48:00.700 That's great.

00:48:01.740 But you know what?

00:48:02.380 Seed oils are cheap.

00:48:06.440 And good, healthy food happens to be expensive.

00:48:10.740 Are there immoral, corrupt reasons behind that?

00:48:13.960 I think so.

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.

00:48:27.140 Money helps.

00:48:31.560 So, making practical petitions for practical things is absolutely not only permissible.

00:48:39.180 Here's the deal.

00:48:39.920 Jesus isn't just saying, this is how you could pray.

00:48:43.420 He's saying, this is how you should pray.

00:48:46.660 Again, headlines, like a summary.

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.

00:49:05.380 And it's not just saying it's permissible.

00:49:07.580 Christ is not merely saying it's God will allow you, when you pray, to make petitions for practical things.

00:49:16.800 No, he's actually saying that when you pray,

00:49:21.040 you must make petitions for practical things.

00:49:25.340 Because here's the deal.

00:49:27.220 To do otherwise, because Jesus knows it's an assumed.

00:49:31.940 It's not a question.

00:49:33.260 It's a law of nature.

00:49:35.140 It's a fact.

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,

00:51:28.340 like give us this day our daily bread

00:51:30.380 or even petitions for our own spiritual needs.

00:51:36.200 Lead us not into temptation,

00:51:38.220 but deliver us from the evil one

00:51:40.040 or forgive us our trespasses,

00:51:43.200 our debts, our sins

00:51:44.600 as we seek to forget those who have sinned against us.

00:51:49.020 Now the first way that we enter in

00:51:51.300 to God's court in prayer

00:51:53.900 is with praise and thanksgiving.

00:51:55.960 However, to be fair in the technical sense,

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.

00:52:08.820 It is a petition for God.

00:52:11.460 For God to perform for himself something that is ultimately for him.

00:52:18.640 And what is that?

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

00:55:16.500 but would you make your glory more known

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

00:58:51.140 and we're Christian parents,

00:58:52.800 should we assume that God is giving us children

00:58:55.940 who are elect,

00:58:58.160 meaning not necessarily regenerate,

00:59:00.720 but that it's a matter of simply when rather than if,

00:59:04.840 that they will be saved,

00:59:06.940 that they will be saved

00:59:08.020 because God doesn't sever the means of grace

00:59:11.900 from the ends of grace.

00:59:13.000 If the end is the salvation of his elect,

00:59:17.120 well, one of the chief means

00:59:18.600 of bringing about that salvation

00:59:19.940 is Christian parenting. Look at the statistics. 0.94

00:59:25.760 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. 0.99

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

01:00:43.760 in the last 30 minutes with dinner.

01:00:47.160 When it comes to the prayer portion

01:00:49.360 of our family worship

01:00:50.360 and we're instructing that two-year-old

01:00:52.080 how to pray,

01:00:52.780 we're still going to say,

01:00:54.680 repeat after me,

01:00:56.200 our Father.

01:00:58.700 Our Father.

01:01:00.720 And this is good

01:01:01.780 and this is right.

01:01:04.700 So, before we come to business,

01:01:07.060 we must be a solemn address to Him

01:01:09.900 with whom our business lies.

01:01:11.860 Our Father.

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,

01:01:46.560 you gain God as your father.

01:01:48.600 And you also gain a tremendous number of brothers and sisters.

01:01:54.820 It's not just you.

01:01:56.660 When you're brought into the body of Christ, you don't merely gain.

01:02:00.020 You gain nothing less than God as a father.

01:02:02.340 But you definitely gain something more than God as your father.

01:02:05.820 You also gain siblings.

01:02:07.560 for better and for worse.

01:02:10.760 You gain siblings.

01:02:12.260 You gain a lot of them.

01:02:13.380 Some are great.

01:02:14.460 Some are terrible.

01:02:16.580 Absolutely terrible.

01:02:18.880 And yet they're still brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:02:24.600 Our Father.

01:02:26.560 It's not just for ourselves, but for others.

01:02:29.320 For we are members one of another

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.

01:04:19.400 I am my beloved, and he is mine.

01:04:22.400 He is our Father.

01:04:24.900 It is intimate.

01:04:26.160 It's benevolent.

01:04:27.660 And now, quickly shifting gears,

01:04:30.620 also make your name known as more reverent and more holy in all the earth.

01:04:35.880 So that's the address, the preface.

01:04:38.140 The petitions, using Matthew Henry again.

01:04:41.080 These are six.

01:04:42.640 The first three relating to God and his honor,

01:04:45.560 making petitions on behalf of God.

01:04:47.480 Hallow thy name.

01:04:48.580 That's one of them.

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.

01:05:32.920 It teaches us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

01:05:37.640 and then to hope that all these other things,

01:05:41.540 the next three petitions,

01:05:43.200 spiritual and physical needs for ourselves,

01:05:45.460 that after first seeking his kingdom

01:05:47.260 and his righteousness,

01:05:48.860 that all these other things might be added unto us.

01:05:51.840 And the petitions follow from there.

01:05:54.420 First three petitions about God.

01:05:56.440 Hallow thy name.

01:05:58.680 Thy kingdom come.

01:06:00.100 Thy will be done.

01:06:02.140 Then a prayer for us, petitions for us.

01:06:05.920 Meet my physical needs.

01:06:06.980 Give us this day our daily bread.

01:06:09.100 Also our spiritual needs.

01:06:10.740 Forgive me of my sins as I seek to forgive others who have sinned against me.

01:06:16.300 And then lastly, also help me not to acquire and rack up more sins

01:06:22.680 by leading me not into temptation but delivering me from evil.

01:06:26.820 Or some translations say the evil one.

01:06:30.640 Okay, lastly, we'll be done.

01:06:32.540 I'll make it quick.

01:06:33.680 The conclusion.

01:06:35.220 Using Matthew and Henry one final time.

01:06:37.900 For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

01:06:41.560 Amen.

01:06:42.740 A form of plea.

01:06:44.000 Again, that's request or petition.

01:06:45.600 A form of plea to enforce the foregoing petitions.

01:06:53.680 It is our duty to plead with God in prayer.

01:06:56.040 To fill our mouth with arguments.

01:06:59.160 Not to move God, but to affect ourselves.

01:07:04.360 The point of prayer, this is the last point of the sermon, is not to move God.

01:07:10.000 But the reason we pray is that we might be moved.

01:07:13.880 In prayer, we are not seeking to change the mind of God.

01:07:18.720 God is not a man that he should change his mind.

01:07:21.740 The scripture literally says that.

01:07:25.680 People will use the example of Abraham, you know, going up on the mountainside,

01:07:29.600 praying that God would spare Sodom and that he talks him down, you know, 0.55

01:07:33.340 if there's 100 righteous or 50 righteous and gets all the way down to 10 righteous. And God says, 0.54

01:07:37.840 yes, for the sake of 10 righteous, I would spare the city. And people are like, there you have it.

01:07:43.120 Abraham is talking to God, aka prayer. That's what prayer is, talking to God. And he's changing

01:07:48.660 God's mind. God said he'd destroy the city. When Abraham got done talking with God, what did God do?

01:07:57.120 He destroyed the city.

01:07:59.280 Zero mind being changed.

01:08:02.240 God did not change his mind.

01:08:03.440 But God did, in prayer, change Abraham. 0.56

01:08:09.460 God did change Abraham.

01:08:11.860 He changed his heart.

01:08:13.580 He changed Abraham's mind.

01:08:15.340 He taught him powerful truths about how God is willing to spare even the wicked for the sake of his elect for the righteous.

01:08:23.080 the larger picture that Abraham would be from him would come a seed and that through that seed we

01:08:30.440 would have the salt of the earth and that God would be slow in his anger and forbearing and

01:08:36.320 kind and patient and long-suffering that he would not uproot the weeds and tears in such a way that

01:08:43.960 would be premature and damage the wheat the very heart and nature of God in his gospel plan is

01:08:50.440 revealed to abraham through prayer so abraham is changing abraham is growing abraham's being

01:08:57.500 sanctified but god changes not god does not change

01:09:03.680 it is our duty to plead with god in prayer to fill our mouth with arguments not to change god

01:09:13.360 or to move him but to affect ourselves to encourage the faith to excite our fervency

01:09:20.400 and to evidence both it is also a form of praise and thanksgiving this final

01:09:26.280 part of the lord's prayer thy kingdom come thy will be done wait i'm sorry for thine is the

01:09:32.760 kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen it's also a form of praise and thanksgiving

01:09:39.680 It's like the bookends, if you will.

01:09:43.180 The best pleading with God is praising of Him.

01:09:47.100 I'll say that again.

01:09:47.940 The best pleading with God is praising of Him.

01:09:52.360 It is the way to obtain further mercy

01:09:55.100 as it qualifies us by grace to receive it.

01:10:00.580 So the prayer begins and ends, the Lord's Prayer,

01:10:03.700 with bookends, if you will.

01:10:06.020 Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

01:10:08.780 as a petition, and then, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, as a statement.

01:10:15.560 Both are forms of praise, and yet at the same time, petitions of sorts,

01:10:21.020 asking God to accomplish all His will on earth as it is in heaven.

01:10:25.680 A request, but also an acknowledgement, and a statement, giving deference to God,

01:10:33.920 acknowledging God, praising God, honoring God.

01:10:38.180 And all of this is not to change him, but to change us.

01:10:44.940 Prayer is not a think tank session between you and the God of the universe

01:10:50.160 where you inform him of your brilliant strategies and ideas for how and why

01:10:57.520 and what methods he might utilize in order to carry out his glory and his good here on earth.

01:11:05.940 That's not what prayer is.

01:11:07.200 you are not God's informant that's precisely why your prayers should be not few many prayers but

01:11:16.320 short not few prayers but short prayers why what what is the gospel of Matthew we just went on a

01:11:23.820 couple verses what is explicitly said your prayers should be short because there's nothing that you

01:11:28.780 know that God doesn't already know himself your prayers are short because God doesn't need you

01:11:34.320 counseling him. Who has ever been a counselor to God Almighty? That's the text in Job that's cited.

01:11:42.280 You are not God's advisors. You are not God's counselors. He has no need of your counsel.

01:11:49.580 He has no need of your advice. He knows all things and he has already determined all that he will do

01:11:55.980 before the foundations of the world were ever even laid. So then why pray? Right? That's what

01:12:01.920 the arminian would always say well why pray if god's already determined the elect and who he's

01:12:07.740 going to say why why evangelize or if god already has determined his will and what he's going to do

01:12:13.160 then why pray whereas essentially what what they're implying is that their only purpose in prayer

01:12:21.620 is to change god's mind to somehow manipulate the mind of god in order to get stuff that god might

01:12:29.780 might actually be persuaded to leave his plan and join them in theirs because they might be smarter

01:12:36.740 that's essentially what the arminian is applying implying when he says the calvinist

01:12:43.200 has no point in praying because he doesn't believe that the mind of god can be changed

01:12:46.960 that's that's silly or the calvinist has no point in doing the work of an evangelist and

01:12:53.920 sharing the gospel because you know god has already determined who the elect are and who 0.89

01:12:58.220 he's going to save. Yeah, but God works through means. The reason we do the work of an evangelist,

01:13:04.840 number one, because God commands us and we want to be obedient. Number two, not because he needs

01:13:10.300 our help, but because it's our privilege to be used by God in bringing in the elect to salvation.

01:13:17.420 And then why do we pray? Not to change the mind of God, but that through prayer, our minds and our

01:13:23.440 hearts might be changed. That through prayer, it would be used as one of His instruments to

01:13:28.240 sanctify us. Not that God would be changed into our image and our plans, but that through prayer,

01:13:34.800 as God's instrument, He might sanctify and change us more and more into the image of His Son.

01:13:43.080 That's why we pray. So let's pray now. Father, thank You for Your Word. Blessed to Your people.

01:13:49.900 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.

01:14:06.980 We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The NXR Podcast - December 15, 2024

THE SERMON - The Lord's Prayer

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