A Prayer of Total Devotion, Part 2

Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6. For a time of study in God's word, this morning, we're continuing with our total devotion series and as we continue in this series, we are picking up yet once again for the second Sunday in Matthew chapter 6, where we're looking at the Lord's prayer and the title of the message this morning is a prayer of total devotion Part 2. Last week, we looked at verses 9 and 10 and today we'll be looking at verses 10 through 15.

In Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9, Jesus, introduces the prayer by saying, pray then in this way, and then he gives us the Lord's Prayer as a model. for us to follow in prayer. he doesn't so much command us to recite this prayer even though reciting the Lord's Prayer is a wonderful thing for us to do. He simply tells us to pray in this way.

In verse 9. In other words, pray according to the pattern that you see demonstrated in what I'm about to say. This is why Martin Luther once said that if you want to learn how to pray, start with the Lord's Prayer and pray through this prayer. Letting each statement or request in this prayer service as an outline point upon which you elaborate as you pray before the Lord.

Having said that, I do feel that it's important to At a caution, I wanna put you all at ease and let that you should not feel like you have to slavishly follow the Lord's Prayer, word for word or even necessarily the order of the Lord's Prayer. whenever you approach God in prayer. There are many other prayers in scripture that we find that are worthy models for us to follow. Some of these prayers are long and some are short.

You read through the Psalms and You see that many of the Psalms do start as the Lord's Prayer does, and that is exalting God with the focus on God. But then some of the Psalms which are prayers begin with complaint. Like Psalm 22:1, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And thus the prayer begins.

Thank you. So there's a lot of models that you find in scripture when it comes to approaching God and speaking to him. Just know, guys, that God is your Father and he accepts your prayers, the prayers of his children who voice all varieties of prayers to Him. I think of Richard Wormbrand, who many of was tortured by his communist captors for many years because of his faith and In Jesus Christ, he suffered much for the cause of Christ, together with other saints who suffered much in communist prisons with him.

In his book, Tortured for Christ, Richard Wormbrandt talks about how their suffering actually impacted their ability to pray to God. Listen to what he says. He says in solitary confinement, we could not pray as before. We were unimaginably hungry.

We had been drugged until we acted like idiots. We were weak as skeletons. The Lord's prayer was much too long for us. We could not concentrate enough to say it.

My only prayer repeated again and again was Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you. You think Jesus was OK with that prayer? Absolutely.

Richard Wermbrandt continues. He says one glorious day. I got the answer from Jesus. You love me, he said.

Now I will show you how I love you. And at once I felt a flame in my heart which burned like the coronal streamers of the sun. The disciples on the way to Emmaus said that their hearts burned when Jesus spoke with them and so it was with me. I knew the love of the one who gave his life on the cross for us all.

So take it from Richard Wormbrand, come to God as you are, as a child would approach their father in deep desperation, and God will receive and he will delight in your prayers. Having said that, Do make sure that the Lord's Prayer is one of the prayers in Scripture that you look to for a model of how to pray. After all, it was Jesus himself, the second member of the Trinity. Who gives us this model in his effort to teach us how to pray, and this prayer is for everyone, regardless of where you may be today.

If you're here this morning and you've sinned, The Lord's Prayer is for you. If you've been sinned against and you are feeling the pain of those sins that have been done against you, and you're wondering, what do I do with this, the Lord's prayer is for you. If you love God and you long for his will to be done in your life and in our world today, then this prayer tells you how to give expression to that. If you are feeling claustrophobic, tired of living within the suffocatingly small confines of the kingdom of me.

And you're looking for a more expansive kingdom to live in and to breathe in, then the Lord's Prayer is for you. If you're caught in some sin, And you can't deliver yourself from that sin. Then the Lord's Prayer is for you. So it's a blessing for us to look at this prayer yet again for a second week and to see all that Jesus teaches us here.

The way we're breaking down our study of this prayer is in total, we're observing 8 things that Jesus teaches us to do in his model prayer of total devotion. And the 1st 3 of these things we saw last Sunday. Number 1, he teaches us this, express when you pray to God, express desire that the name of our Heavenly Father be hallowed. In verse 9, Jesus.

teaches us to begin our prayer by saying, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. He's teaching us to come before God as children and to refer to Him as our Father and at the same time to extol his holiness, the holiness of his name, and express the desire that his name be hallowed and seen and spoken of as holy everywhere. There's something else Jesus teaches us to do in this model prayer of total devotion, and that is express desire for God's kingdom to come. In verse 10, Jesus tells us to pray to the Father, saying, Your kingdom come.

Ultimately, this is a prayer for God's kingdom to eventually come over the whole earth in a future day. And it is also a prayer for God's kingdom to come into my own life in full force over every category and arena of my life. And it's a prayer for God's kingdom in the here and now to be advancing one person at a time, one heart at a time as God's kingdom encroaches. Upon any territory that right now belongs to Satan.

Anyone who prays this prayer request, your kingdom come, will rejoice when God's kingdom ever makes an advance against the gates of hell, and they will rejoice to serve. In that kingdom on the leading edge of that advance, serving as a full-time agent for the kingdom of God. They will always be asking how can How might the kingdom of God come to others today through me? Through the words I speak and through the deeds that I do toward them and through the gospel that I declare to them.

Your kingdom come, Jesus teaches us to pray. There's a 3rd thing he teaches us in this prayer of total devotion, and that is express desire for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In verse 10, Jesus teaches us to say to the Father, your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven.

And with that expression, We have the triad of God's name, God's kingdom. And God's will. Completed in the first two verses. Of this wonderful prayer.

It is sometimes said that The 1st 3 petitions in the Lord's Prayer are focused on God, and the rest of the prayer is focused on our needs. I disagree The 1st 3 petitions actually address our greatest and deepest human need. And there's a reason I say that. The reason is that the dial of my heart.

The dial of pretty much every human heart is naturally set. At an orientation in which we are at the center and our life is all about my name and my kingdom and my will. That's the natural setting of my heart that I wake up with most every day. And my greatest need, daily and your greatest need, our greatest need is for the dial of our heart.

To be reset To the orientation that is expressed here in verses 9 and 10 and to join Jesus in his submissive and adoring orbit. Around his father, making our lives all about Him. And not us, with him, God being in control, and not us. This past week, At our Tuesday morning man forum that meets at 6 in the morning, I was talking to A 19 year old young man afterwards.

Who said something to me that I've been chewing on all week, and I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him. Listen to what he said. He said, I'm only 19 years old and I can't believe how many mistakes and foolish choices I've already made. In my life He then said, the thought of a 19 year old being in charge of my life.

Scares me to death. And that's tremendous wisdom. From a 19 year old. And the truth is that that ought to scare you to whatever age.

However old you are. But those who pray this prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray in verses 9 and 10 will not have to worry about that because God will be at the center. God will be in control, and their life will orbit around him and be all about his name and his kingdom and His will. So Jesus is loving us.

He's being very good to us to set the dial of our hearts here in these first two verses and making our orientation all about God's name and God's kingdom and God's will. But there's more that he teaches us to do in this prayer of total devotion, and this is where we pick up with the Lord's prayer today. The 4th thing he teaches us to do is this, ask God. To give us our physical provision for the day.

Ask God to give us our physical provision for the day. Look at what he tells us to pray in verse 11. Give us this day our daily bread. Literally, the way this reads even in the word order of the text, reads this way, the bread of our daily sustaining.

Give to us today. And Jesus isn't just telling us to pray for bread only. The word bread stands for any food item that we need to sustain our existence. So vegetables and fruit and lasagna would be included in what he is teaching us to be asking for here, any food that is necessary for the sustaining of our lives.

Martin Luther goes even beyond this and understands daily bread as a metonym for everything that's necessary for the preservation. Of physical life, which would include food and clothing and even shelter, anything that would be considered a basic necessity of life, and Jesus is teaching us to ask God for these things. We are to pray for God to give us This day, our daily bread. It's interesting in the final verse of Matthew 6, Jesus says in verse 34, do not be anxious for tomorrow.

Each day has enough trouble of its own. In this prayer, Jesus is teaching us to trust God with tomorrow and to be content to simply bring today's needs to Him in prayer. Provide for me this day. My daily bread.

It's fascinating to observe how Jesus goes from the heights of worshiping God in verses 9 and 10, all the way down to this very mundane matter of asking for Daily physical food, but this is actually part of the genius of this beautiful prayer and teaching us to go from the worship of God to our daily food, Jesus is legitimizing the mundane. And the physical as an arena for Legitimate concern in our prayers to God. Remember that this instruction is coming from the one who went about healing people of their physical maladies.

On one occasion he fed over 5000 people miraculously.

On another occasion over 4000 people miraculously. On another occasion we see him making breakfast for his disciples after his resurrection. He cares about such things. And here the same Jesus is teaching us to come to our Heavenly Father.

And ask him to give us our daily bread. He's teaching us that God cares about such matters. He cares about the food that we eat. And if he cares about the food that we eat, then he must be concerned about all matters related to our body's ability to process food and to break it down.

That it might sustain our health, which means that God is concerned. About our physical health. And he cherishes his people bringing matters concerning their health to him. And guys, the basic health request.

That he delights to hear us pray is when we come to him each day and say, Lord, Give us this day our daily bread. Provide for me food. To eat today. All of us need to be, to let ourselves be instructed by this.

be honest, when was the last time That you began your day and just said, Lord, I'm just putting this before you. Provide for me food. To eat Today, most of us live with such abundance. That were it not for the Lord's Prayer, we would never even think to utter this request, right?

But imagine the benefit of making this request. If we uttered this request at the beginning of each day, then we set ourselves up to then see every plate of food set before us as an answer to prayer. And we're able to then say, Lord, I pray for you to provide food for me this day, and behold, this is your answer to my prayer. Thank you.

For answering my prayer. This request that Jesus is teaching us to pray is, is designed to help us to take Something like food to not take something like food for granted. He wants us to see our daily food as something that doesn't simply come from the ground automatically or even from the supermarket, but ultimately, food comes from him. It's something that he provides.

He wants us to look to him for the provision of our daily food, and he wants us to enjoy the food we receive as a part of our relationship with him, seeing it as a gift from him. And then being strengthened by the food that we eat. We then set about to doing his will and hallowing his name and serving his kingdom interest in the world. There's something else that We should be praying when we pray the Lord's Prayer, and this leads us to the 5th action that Jesus teaches us to do in this model prayer of total devotion.

To God, and that is ask God to forgive us of our sins. Ask God to forgive us of our sins. Look at what he tells us to pray in verse 12, and forgive us our debts. Evidently when we pray, Jesus wants us to, to bring our sins to God and confess our sins to Him and to ask Him for the forgiveness of our sins.

So evidently, it's not that we somehow try to take care of our sin problem before we come to God. We're being taught here to bring our sin problem to God, even our sinful history to God and ask Him for forgiveness. This is part of why the 1st 3 requests in verses 9 and 10 are so important. Anyone who is praying for God's name to be hallowed and His kingdom to come and his will to be done, will suddenly become mindful of all the ways that they have dishonored God's name.

Behave contrary to God's kingdom. And resisted his will and done their own will instead. That is sin. And Jesus teaches us to admit those sins and to say to God, forgive us our debts, realizing that our sins create a debt between us and God that we cannot pay, and we need those debts forgiven.

We have a debt problem. With God, as a result of our sins. Another word that Jesus uses in this passage in verses 14 and 15 as a synonym for our debts that need forgiven is the word transgressions. This word means to break any of God's laws that regulate our behavior toward him and toward our fellow man.

Jesus is teaching us to admit and to ask God for his forgiveness for all such sins against him and against others. Notice that Jesus did not teach us to say, Father, understand my sins. And understand all the things from my background and circumstances that have contributed to them. He doesn't teach us to say, Father, excuse my sins.

No, he teaches us to come to God and say, forgive us. Of our sins Our fundamental need with regard to our sins. I forgiveness. And Jesus goes right to the heart of this need and what he teaches us to come to God and ask for from our Heavenly Father.

And Jesus knows his father well enough to tell us to ask him for this. This is the 2nd member of the Trinity come down to earth and he's telling us how to talk to God the Father. He's saying, come to my Father and ask him for forgiveness of the sins that you have committed. He will forgive you, trust me, I know him.

Trust me when I tell you. That this is the father he is. He will forgive you. He will be pleasured.

To forgive you of your sins. He delights in those who cling to His mercy. What should touch all of us deeply. is the fact that Jesus here is instructing us to pray for God's forgiveness of our sins, knowing that the only way that a holy God is going to be able to say yes, and give that forgiveness.

is if Jesus dies and sheds his blood to provide atonement for those sins that need forgiven. So Jesus is basically instructing us to come to the Father and ask the Father to give us something that ultimately is going to cost Jesus his life. That's remarkable. The disciples would not have known this.

In the moment But in asking God to forgive them of their sins, they're asking for something that will ultimately send Jesus to the cross, and Jesus is OK with that and says, ask my Father. For forgiveness, knowing. What that will cost him. Ultimately, what we learn here is that prayer is a time for us to do self-examination.

We search out in prayer and identify our sins and we voice those sins to God and ask Him for forgiveness. Do you do that? When you pray Maybe some of you have never in your life done this, and I urge you to accept Jesus' invitation and this prayer to come to God and ask Him to forgive you of your sins. Call your sins what God calls them.

Make no excuses for them, and ask God to forgive you of your sins. Do this every day. This is one of the most basic practices of the Christian life and it's a life changing practice. Some of you who are Christians and you've known the Lord for any length of time, you may be asking a question at this point.

You may be thinking, I'm a Christian, hasn't God already forgiven me of all of my sins, past, present, and future on the day of my conversion when he saved me and justified me. The answer is yes. However, in 1 John 1:9, The apostle John speaks to Christians and he says, if we are confessing our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John is teaching us that When we commit an act of sin, it's good and it's wholesome for us to come to God and confess that sin to Him so that we can experience the pardon of our conscience.

And so that God can give us the forgiveness that's been in his heart all along since the day that he saved us. This means that when you as a Christian, Come to God on your worst day to confess your sins to Him. God isn't sitting. On his throne with his arms folded and a scowl on his face, waiting to hear your confession before he then decides whether or not to forgive you.

No, if you're a child of God, He's already forgiven you. But when you come to him, confessing your sins to him, you give God the opportunity to give expression to the forgiveness that has been in his heart all along since the day that he saved you. Does that make sense? Actually, it's for this reason that we as Christians should of all people, be the most bold and courageous in admitting our sins and confessing our sins before God and man, because we know That we have a loving heavenly Father who stands ready to forgive us and apply the blood of Jesus to our conscience.

We know this because God sent His Son Jesus into the world to die on the cross, shed his blood, provide atonement for every sin that we have committed. God has gone to amazing lengths. To set things up so that he can answer this request. That we come to him with each day.

When it comes to this matter of forgiveness, there's something else that Jesus Teaches us to do when we pray. This leads us to number 6. And that is when you pray, guys, express, we should express our forgiveness of others who've sinned against us. It turns out that prayer is not simply the context in which we ask for and receive God's forgiveness of our sins, but prayer is also the context, the venue in which we grant forgiveness to other people who have wronged us.

Look at what Jesus teaches us to say. Verse 12, forgive us of our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Evidently, God does not give us His forgiveness so that it can flow into us only, but also so that it can flow through us and out of us toward others, the very people who have wronged us. The verb tense for both of the verbs forgive in this verse is the same and for that reason, I, I prefer the wording that we find in Young's literal translation.

Where it's translated this way and forgive us, heiress tense, our debts as we, as also we forgive our debtors. It's not speaking necessarily of something that happened prior to the time of prayer, but it's something that is happening. This forgiveness we give to others is happening on the same occasion. In the context of that very prayer.

That we ourselves are coming to God and asking for forgiveness of our own sins. We learned something really important here and even elsewhere in the New Testament, and that is the truth that prayer is a wonderful venue. If not the venue. In which we officially grant forgiveness to people who have wronged us.

This is even more clear in Mark 11:25 where Jesus says, listen to this, whenever you stand praying, Forgive If you have anything against anyone. In other words, Jesus is teaching us in Mark 11:25 that prayer is the location where we grant forgiveness to other people officially. And according to our passage today, it is in prayer that we actually vocalize this forgiveness to God saying, we forgive. Our debtors.

In other words, prayer is a time and a place where we before God get to state the offenses that someone has committed against us and where we officially say, God, here is what this person has done against me. Here's their name. This is how their sin has hurt and impacted me. Yet in your presence, Lord, I announce out loud to you that I forgive this person of their sin against me.

How many of you do that? As a normal matter of course in your prayer life. Prayer is the context where we ask for forgiveness of our sins and where we Give forgiveness. Officially grant forgiveness to others from the heart.

We learn here that forgiveness of others is not something that any of us do alone. Forgiveness is something that we do, it's something that we even speak in the presence of the triune God and before His holy angels in prayer. Do you take opportunities to do that? When was the last time you forgave someone?

Out loud in the presence of God. As you were praying. To God. Now we know why Jesus had us start this prayer.

By teaching us to hallow the name. of God and asking for God's kingdom to come and His will to be done because guys, it is impossible to grant true forgiveness. To others when you are living for the kingdom of me. Forgiveness is done truly, only by those who are surrendered to God.

Forgiveness is done by those who understand that the kingdom of God has actually come to earth in the form of a Messiah, who himself suffered unjustly and forgave those who sinned against him. And prayed, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. People who forgive. Others In this way, understand that the whole purpose of history.

is to glorify God's name by showing forth His mercy towards undeserving sinners like themselves. And they understand that when they are wronged by other people, They now have the opportunity to glorify God's name by showing forth. And putting on display that very same mercy of God. They understand, as John MacArthur says, that you are never more like God than when you forgive others.

And realize this guys, when you forgive someone, do part of what you're doing in that moment of forgiveness, you are allowing God's kingdom to come into that person's life in the form of God's mercy that is passing through you to them. Forgiveness is you opening the floodgates of God's kingdom mercy that has come to you. And you're allowing the floodwaters of that kingdom mercy to pass through you. To the person who has sinned against you.

To refuse to forgive someone who has sinned against you is to refuse to allow one of the most important ingredients of God's kingdom to come. Into that person's life. To emphasize how big of a deal this is, Jesus provides some extra instruction for us in verses 14 and 15. This is the only matter from the Lord's Prayer that Jesus immediately then follows up and says, let me just elaborate on this a little bit and explain why this is important.

In verse 14, he says, for if you forgive others for their transgressions, Your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, Then your father will not forgive your transgressions. That's jarring, isn't it? You may say, as Jesus saying here that forgiving others earns us the right to be forgiven by God?

No? But he is saying that there is a powerful, meaningful connection. Between your ability to experience God's forgiveness and your willingness to forgive other people. The point that Jesus is making is this, God's forgiveness only comes to the truly repentant.

And one of the chief manifestations of a truly repentant heart is a forgiving spirit toward other people. Show me a person who holds grudges against others and refuses to forgive them, and I will show you a person who does not understand the gravity of their own sins, nor do they understand the greatness of the mercy that they stand in need of from God for their sins. But show me a person who truly understands the magnitude of their sins against God, and who truly understands the greatness of the grace of God that they require and that God has given to them in Jesus, and I will show you a person who forgives other people.

of their sins against them.

The way Jesus teaches here. There's another thing that we should do when we pray. Yes, we will seek forgiveness from God for our sins, and we will grant forgiveness to other people who have sinned against us, but Our desire at this point of the prayer should be to No longer ever sin again. And to want to seek God's help and walking free of such sins.

We will also look at the wrongs that someone else has done against us that we've forgiven, we'll grieve over their wrongs, we feel the pain of their wrongs and we'll realize, man, I'm just as capable of what they did. As they've obviously shown themselves to be. And I'll be all the more encouraged and reminded to seek help from God to be delivered from such sins. This brings us to the next thing that Jesus teaches us to do in this prayer of total devotion to God, and that is ask.

God to deliver us from temptations. And from evil Ask God to deliver us from temptation. And from evil. Look at what Jesus teaches us to pray in verse 13.

He says, and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil. This is actually two requests. But because, as we'll see, the 2nd 1 helps us to understand the 1st 1, we're gonna treat them under the same heading this morning. The first request is do not.

Lead us into temptation. What specifically does that request mean? To answer this question, I think it's probably helpful for us to Think of Matthew 26:41, when Jesus is speaking to his sleeping disciples who were right on the verge of the greatest temptation of their life, and he says to them, keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. It seems that in the mind of Jesus, to enter into temptation is not simply to experience the temptation.

Or to be tempted. But to enter into temptation means to succumb. To the temptation, to give in to the temptation. And to sin.

So this request that he teaches us to pray, where we're saying to God, do not lead us into temptation. could be understood in this way, where we're saying to our Father, do not let us fall into temptation or succumb to temptation. Or we can word it this way, where we say to our Father, Father, do not lead us into a temptation that is beyond what we can handle through your grace. What we can know for sure is that the promise.

1 Corinthians 10:13 stands as God's permanent, enduring answer to this request. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul says, God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also that you may be able to endure it. Any temptation that you ever encounter, you can always assume that the only reason you are encountering that temptation is because in the mind of God, God knows that with the grace he provides you, you can handle this temptation.

Don't take that to mean Oh, God must think I can handle this on my own.

No. God only allows you to be tempted with temptations that through the grace and the help that he provides, that he knows that you will be able to resist and endure. Probably the best commentary on what Jesus means by this request about temptation is the next request, which is, but deliver us from evil. In other words, we're praying to God and we're saying, Father, if, if you ever do allow us to be confronted with the temptation, deliver us from the evil of it so that we might be victorious.

And even if we have succumbed to a temptation, And have sinned. Lord, do not let our sin be the end of the story. Deliver us even from the evil that we have succumbed to. And teaching us to pray this way.

Guys, Jesus, there, there's tremendous wisdom here. He's teaching us to exercise forethought. Don't just ask God to forgive you after you sin, and that's the first time you pray. Well, I blew that, so I need to pray and ask God to forgive me.

Be praying to God. During the temptation. And be praying to God even before the temptation comes, asking him, do not let me succumb or fall to some temptation today. Jesus is also teaching us to be humble here.

And to realize that we should not come into each day confident in our own strength. He's teaching us to be pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. He wants us to be very, very pessimistic about our own ability to handle temptations and our own strength. He wants us to be pessimistic about our ability to deliver ourselves from evil.

He wants us to know the sin that we're capable of. Were it not for God's help, And at the same time, Jesus is teaching us. To be optimistic about God's ability to help us, to keep us from falling into temptation and to deliver us from evil. He's teaching us to come before God with hope and to open our mouths and to ask Him for this deliverance.

Each day This request, deliver us from evil, is a prayer for deliverance from the clutches of evil. From the committing of evil, from the strategies of the evil one himself. This is also a prayer for those who are right now caught in a trespass. who've given into temptation and they've been captured by evil, such ones can cry out in their distress and say, Father, deliver me from this evil that I might be free.

Those who pray these requests understand that Satan is very good at what he does. And he has a war room himself. And a very well developed strategy of how to bring you down. And it's a multifaceted plan and Satan has been at this for thousands of years, and he's really, really good at what he does.

And you're about to wake up and face a day where you've got him as your enemy. That ought to humble you And before your day even begins. You should be praying, Lord, I know I'm gonna encounter temptations today, please, Lord. I'm asking you, do not let me fall into temptation.

Deliver me from evil. I love this request. Deliver me from evil because this prayer. Is a prayer ultimately for absolute deliverance from evil altogether.

Such that we will never sin again. Complete and utter deliverance from even the presence of evil in our lives and in our hearts. Which means that this prayer request, deliver us from evil is an eschatological prayer for absolute deliverance from evil. And we can know that God is going to answer this prayer.

A day is coming when you and I will be living for eternity in heaven and on the new earth in an existence that will be completely free of evil. Imagine guys, what that's going to be like. To have no indwelling sin, to have no temptations, to ever harass you and wear you down. In fact, I think in heaven.

We're all, I know I'm gonna wanna do this. We're gonna want to have little accountability groups in heaven. Just so we can enjoy saying, hey, how's it going? Well, actually, thanks for asking.

I haven't sinned in 1 trillion years. I've not even been tempted. Wow, thanks for sharing that. Yes, same with me.

I'm just, I'm just gonna love asking people, how you doing? And hearing them say that and being able to say that. Guys, that is our destiny. It's going to be wonderful.

And you can count on the fact that God is right now leading us who are his children on a path that will culminate in a temptation-free existence forever, and absolute and total deliverance from evil and all of its effects. This is the ultimate aim of what we pray for when we make these requests in verse 13. Do you ask God to deliver you from evil? Is there some sin in your life that has you by the throat?

And won't let go. Are you asking God? To deliver you from that evil. Cry out to him daily.

For that deliverance. And don't stop. There's one final thing that Jesus teaches us that we should do in this model prayer of total devotion, and that is surrender all authority and power and glory. To God Look at how the prayer ends.

Verse 13, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. How many of you have on your laps or on your phones a translation of scripture that does not have those words? Raise your hand.

OK. I think the NIV does not have those words and the ESV does not. Others don't have them as well. I should mention this morning, in all fairness that, Some of the, in fact, two of the earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel do not have the words that you see on the screen behind me.

Even the Latin Vulgate of the 4th century does not have these words. Some of the church fathers like origin and Tertullian. Do not include these words when they quote from The Lord's Prayer and this causes a number of translators to view these words that are on the screen behind me as a later addition to the text that was inserted at a later time to bring closure perhaps to this Lord's Prayer. but I should also mention, guys, that there are many later Greek manuscripts that do have these words, and there is a, a Greek manuscript, from the 4th and 5th century.

It's the 3rd oldest Greek manuscript of Mark's Gospel, dating from the 3rd and 4th century. That is actually right now sitting at a Smithsonian gallery in Washington DC. That does have these words and what you see behind me is an actual copy of the page. Of the Greek manuscript.

That features these words and the underline in red, I did that. Those weren't there. By the ancient copyist. So there is a manuscript from the 300s to the 400s AD that does have these words.

Also the church Father John Chrysostom, who lived around from 347 to 407 AD, he wrote a homily on the Lord's Prayer in the late 300s AD and he includes these words and treats them as if they were the very words of Christ and he says not a word about any doubt. Regarding whether they were genuine. So I don't know what to do with all of that. While it's possible that these words were not in the original text of Matthew, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that these are the very words of Jesus, and I'm glad that some of the translations include them.

For us to know that they are here. Whether these words were original with Jesus or not, they do provide a most fitting summation of the basic spirit of the entire prayer. This is not just a pious platitude. It's a person standing before God and saying, yours is the kingdom.

In other words, Lord, you have all rights to rule. The kingdom is not mine, it's yours to have. The person praying this prayer says, yours is the power. This is the word dunamis, which speaks of God's raw power to do anything he pleases and to bring anything to pass that he chooses.

And the person speaking this doxology also says, yours is the glory forever. A person praying this prayer is acknowledging God's right to receive all glory forever. Such a person will not seek glory for himself, but he will live for the glory of God at every turn. This is what Jesus perhaps is teaching us to express to the Father.

The whole vibe of this closing doxology is found throughout the prayer. The prayer begins With us speaking to the Father saying your name, your kingdom, and your will. And it ends with, yours is the kingdom, yours is the power, and yours is the glory. By the end of this prayer, we find ourselves side by side with Jesus.

In the same submissive, adoring orbit around our father that we began with. Real quick as we wrap things up this morning, I want you to notice something about this prayer as a whole. Notice that there is no I or me. Anywhere.

In this prayer. I'll not read through the prayer again, but you see those marked on the screen. As Al Mohler says, the personal pronoun I, my, and me are stunningly absent. From this prayer.

The whole focus of this prayer is on God and the rest of the focus is on us and we. Rather than on I and me. Part of what the language of We and our and us teaches us is that the Lord's Prayer is a prayer that is prayed together with other people. And even when we pray the Lord's Prayer alone, quote unquote, we're always praying, even alone in the knowledge that we are simply one person in a company of thousands of people who are gathered around the throne of God at the same moment that we are.

It's an awareness that even when we pray in the privacy of our prayer closets, it's always a prayer meeting, not just with the Holy Spirit and Jesus present, but even with thousands of brothers and sisters who are before the throne of God at that very moment. And when we pray to God, even in the privacy of our prayer closets, we pray with the mindfulness of these brothers and sisters. And everything we pray in this prayer, we pray not just for ourselves. But for them too.

I don't come to God and say, my Father. I call him our father, knowing that he's a father of millions of other brothers and sisters who are part of my family. I don't just ask God to give me my daily bread, but I pray to God to give me and all of my brothers and sisters our daily bread, especially those brothers and sisters in parts of the world where food is harder to come by than it is here. It means that I don't just ask God to forgive me of my sins, but I pray that others might experience that forgiveness of their sins also.

I forgive my debtors knowing that millions of other Christians are being wronged today also. And they are needing to forgive those who have wronged them. And in many cases, the wrongs being done against my other brothers and sisters are far greater than the wrongs that I'm having to forgive. This means that I don't just ask God to keep me from falling into temptation, but I pray the same for my brothers and sisters, some of them who are being sorely tempted far beyond anything I can even imagine.

And when I pray for deliverance from evil, I don't just pray that for myself, I pray that for others. The Lord's Prayer, even just the pronouns that we see here, delivers us from the kingdom of me. And teaches us to always think in terms of us and we rather than just I. And me Sometimes we talk about people who are self-absorbed and we say, man, that guy's got a big ego.

Actually, the reverse is true. A selfish person actually has a small ego. That is so small that only he himself or she herself can fit inside of it. The unselfish person.

Has the large ego, an ego so large that many other people can fit inside of it. Such a person is always thinking about and praying and working in terms of we and us, and it's always all about God's name and God's kingdom, and God's will. And such a person delights to throw everything back at God and say, your kingdom. Your power And yours is the glory.

Such a person God honors and God exalts to the highest heaven. And if you are wanting To walk a straight course to the glory that belongs to all of God's people in heaven, this Lord's Prayer is your GPS. It's your road map that tells you how to get from where you are now to where God wants to take you. Let's ask God to help us to follow.

This road map that we find in this passage. Lord, I know that it's true that if If you want to take Measure of a person or a church. Or determine the temperature. of a person or a church, listen to their prayers.

We know, Lord, that prayer. In ways mysterious beyond our comprehension, moves the arm of our God to do things. We're told that the effectual prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much. And that you respond to the prayers of your people and the way that you have structured your sovereignty.

We also know that prayer changes us. And that praying is a way of becoming. What we pray today. May be an accurate reflection of what we will become tomorrow.

And so teach us to pray. And thank you for The wonderful instruction that you give us in this model prayer of total devotion. If we pray the gist of this prayer, Lord, Following Jesus' instruction, this is a prayer of total devotion. And our hope would be that in praying this prayer meaningfully through the power of your Holy Spirit.

That we would day by day become more and more in the likeness. Of what we pray here. And so teach us to pray. And change us.

While we pray And make us a church. And brothers and sisters who are wholly devoted to you. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to give our offerings to you. Receive.

These funds and do much with all that is given in this offering for the glory of Jesus. In whose name we pray, and all God's people said,