Tag: Prayer

May 25, 2025

Lessons from the Fig Tree

Lessons from the Fig Tree

Matthew 21:18-22

In Matthew 21, we are following the events of the final week of Jesus’ earthly ministry before He went to the cross. It began in Matthew 21:1-11 with Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey in fulfillment of scripture. Then we saw Jesus go into the temple and cleanse it of the money changers and those who were buying and selling, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” (Matt. 21:13). The temple off God was full of hypocrisy, extortion, greed, and deceit. What should have been a house of prayer had become a den of robbers.

Jesus then healed the blind and the lame and received the praise of the children. thus fulfilling prophecies about His true Messiahship. He then left the temple and spent the night in Bethany near the Mount of Olives.

In Matthew 21:18, Jesus is returning to the city of Jerusalem. He will go back into the temple (Matt. 21:23) where the religious leaders will question His authority (Matt. 21:23-27). Then Jesus will teach two parables: the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:28-32), and the parable of the tenants (Matt. 21:33-46). The first is a man who says he will work and then doesn’t. The second is a group of men who say they will produce fruit from the vineyard and then don’t. The last parable is the climax of the section, illustrating that Christ has been rejected by His own fruitless people, and so the kingdom will be taken from them and given to a people who will bear its fruit.

The issue is fruit that comes from genuine faith in God. Jesus is sick and tired of the fruitless hypocrisy of Israel’s religion. He heard their hypocrisy as He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He saw it in the greedy trampling of the temple courts. He will teach parables about their hypocrisy in the temple. And right between these events, Jesus cursed the fig tree. It’s an unusual incident, and, like the cleansing of the temple, one that seems uncharacteristic of Jesus at first. We don’t normally think of Jesus driving people out of temples or cursing fig trees. But Jesus never does anything without a purpose, and His purpose here is to teach His disciples. The cursing of the fig tree is a parable in action, illustrating the fruitless hypocrisy of Israel’s religion.

Our short passage breaks down into two parts: the withering of the fruitless tree and the word about faith in prayer.

1. The Withering of the Fruitless Tree (Matt. 21:18-19)

Matthew tells us that it was in the morning that Jesus and His disciples were making their way back from Bethany to Jerusalem. And “as He returned to the city, He was hungry” (Matt. 5:18). Since they spent the night at Bethany, it would be safe to assume that Jesus and His disciples stayed at the home of His dear friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus. And from what we know of Martha, she likely would have made sure everyone was well-fed before they left. But for whatever reason, Jesus was hungry. Perhaps, as He had done so often, He rose early to pray and didn’t eat with the others. Perhaps Jesus’ hunger was intentional, so that He could teach this object lesson to His disciples.

As they journeyed along toward the city, Jesus saw a fig tree by the side of the road (Matt. 21:18). This would not be unusual. Remember, we saw in Matthew 21:1 that near Bethany and the Mount of Olives was the village of Bethpage, meaning house of figs. The original language tells us that it was a “single” fig tree—all alone, which is perhaps what made it so easy to see. And what’s more, Jesus could see from a distance that it bore leaves. And if you were hungry, that was a very good sign. Fig trees in that part of the world produced a sort of early fig in the springtime, a small one that came before the leaves began to grow. They weren’t as big and juicy as the later figs would be, but they were still very tasty.

But Matthew tells us that, when Jesus came to the tree, “He found nothing on it but leaves” (Matt. 21:19). Now leaves on a fig tree without any fruit is very unusual. Usually, the leaves and the fruit develop together. So, there is definitely something wrong with this tree. It had all the promise of fruitfulness—all the appearance of bearing something He desired. But on closer examination, it had only the outward appearance of ‘fruitfulness’. It bore none of the fruit.

But then Jesus does something even more unusual. He curses the fig tree. He said, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again“; and we’re told that “immediately the fig tree withered away” (Matt. 21:19). Now from what we have seen about the authority and power of Jesus, He could just as easily have told the fig tree, “May you bear fruit right now!”, and the tree would have been filled with figs. But Jesus cursed the fig tree instead, and immediately the tree withered. Mark tells us that it was “dried up from the roots” (Mark 11:20). This was a big, thriving, healthy tree until Jesus cursed it. And when He did, it never bore fruit again.

“Why did Jesus curse the tree like this?” Was it simply because He was hangry? Was He in a bad mood that morning? Of course not! Jesus is never just impulsive or out of control. Everything He does, He does on purpose. So, what we need to ask is, “What’s His purpose in cursing the fig tree?”

First, let’s find out some things about fig trees in the Bible. In the Old Testament, fig trees were pleasurable things. The fruit of the fig tree was good and sweet. Fig trees were symbolic of prosperity (Deut. 8:8; Hab. 3:17; Hag. 2:19), pleasure (Judges 9:11), and security (1 Kings 4:25; 2 Kings 18:31; Isaiah 36:16; Joel 2:22; Nah. 3:12) in the land of Israel. When the people of Israel would see the fig-trees putting forth the early “green figs”, they looked at it warm-heartedly as a sign that springtime had come (Song 2:13).

It’s not surprising, then, that the Bible uses the fruit of the fig-tree as a symbol of Israel. In Hosea, the LORD says, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its season” (Hosea 9:8). God gave the prophet Jeremiah a vision of the remnant people of Judah as a basket of either good ripe figs, or figs so rotten they couldn’t be eaten (Jer. 24:1-10).

And so, when God warns through His prophets that He is going to strike the fruit of the fig tree, it is a sign of judgment on His people Israel. In Jeremiah 8:13, He says, “‘I will surely consume them’ says the LORD. ‘No grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things I have given them shall pass away from them’” (Jer. 8:13; cf. Joel 1:11-12).

I believe that Jesus, when He cursed the fig tree, was illustrating a prophetic word of judgment. Through the prophet Micah, The LORD indicated what He expected from His people:

With what shall I come before the LORD,
And bow myself before the High God?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
Ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8).

But when the LORD examined His people closely, the prophet writes,

Woe is me!
For I am like those who gather summer fruits,
Like those who glean vintage grapes;
There is no cluster to eat
Of the first-ripe fruit which my soul desires (Micah 7:1).

Think about what Jesus had just done. He came to His temple, expecting to find genuine fruits of faith from His people. Instead, He was greeted with unbelief, opposition, and the abuse of His Father’s house. There were religious practices all over the place—offerings being made, Scriptures being recited, and lots of animals being purchased for sacrifice. It was very, very religious. But all their religion was nothing more than the mere outward “promise” of fruitfulness and nothing more. There was no real spiritual “fruit”. It was all “fig leaves”; but no “figs”.

In his Gospel, Luke doesn’t record this incident. But in Luke 13, after Jesus says to the Jewish people, “unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5). Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree:

⁶ He also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. ⁷ “Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ ⁸ “But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. ⁹ ‘And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’ “ (Luke 13:6-9).

Think about it. Jesus came to the temple and instead of finding the fruit of faith, He was greeted by the religious leaders with opposition and unbelief. Jesus had been among them for more than three years ministering to them. For three years, Jesus had been patient. For three years, Jesus had sought fruit from the Jewish people. His patience was long. Yet finally, there reached a point when His patience would run out. I believe that the cursing of this fig tree was a living parable to indicate that the time for judgment had come.

This is the theme of the rest of the chapter: Israel lacks fruit. Here, the Messiah is entering Jerusalem. The Jewish people ought to receive Him. But, rather than doing so, they reject Him. In verse 23, they question Jesus’ authority. Beginning in Matthew 21:28, Jesus will tell a story of two sons. The first promised his father that he would work in the vineyard. Yet, when it came time to do so, he didn’t go. The second said that he wouldn’t work. But later, he repented and did go to work. The son of empty promises is like the nation of Israel. There is outward talk of righteousness, but no fruit of righteousness. They had leaves, but there were no figs. Beginning in Matthew 21:33, Jesus will talk about the vine-growers who hated the owner of the vineyard. Their hatred reached such a point that they would kill the son of the owner. Jesus made it very clear that the religious leaders were like the vine-growers. They hate the Son and have rejected the chief cornerstone. Israel missed their Messiah! They didn’t believe in Him. Their religion was all show. Their religion was all cultural and external—all leaves and no fruit. In Matthew 21:43, Jesus tells them, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”

So, on one level it’s a story about Israel, but it is also a story about us. It is an acted parable with an intended meaning. Just as Jesus went to the fig tree looking for fruit, God comes looking for fruit in our lives. The prophet Isaiah in sang a parable in song about fruit. We read in Isaiah 5:

¹ Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well-beloved has a vineyard On a very fruitful hill. ² He dug it up and cleared out its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, And also made a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, But it brought forth wild grapes. … ⁷ For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression; For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help. (Isa 5:1-2, 7).

God looks for fruit in our lives, and not just fruit – He is looking for good fruit, not bad fruit. He is looking for real spiritual fruit of righteousness, not merely the leaves of external religion. Mere religiosity without genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ may look good before men, but it greatly displeases the Lord. When God comes looking for fruit in your life, what will he find? Will he find the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23)? Will he find the fruit of righteousness and holiness (Heb. 12:11)? Will He find the fruit of good works that please Him (Col. 1:10)? Will he find the fruit of witnessing as you share with others about Jesus and the gospel (1 Cor. 3:5-6)? Will he find the fruit of praise upon your lips (Heb. 13:15)?

And that leads us to the reaction of the disciples to what they saw; and to the next lesson we’re to learn …

2. The Word about Faith in Prayer (Matt. 21:20-22).

The disciples had a hard time learning the lessons of dependency upon the Lord. They had seen Him perform many miracles. But when they saw Him curse a fig tree, and then saw the fig tree wither and die afterwards, they marveled; saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?” (Matt. 5:20).

It’s interesting that He didn’t answer their question directly. Instead, it seems to me that the Lord told them something that they weren’t expecting.

²¹ So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. ²² “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matt. 21:21-22).

Jesus told the disciples something similar back in Matthew 17:20 when He answered their question about why they could not help the man with the demon possessed son. There He said: “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Remember that these two verses are not just a random insertion by Matthew about faith and prayer. They come in the context of the cursing of the fig tree, directly in answer to Jesus’ disciple’s question about it, and the in the larger context of conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. They come in the context of the fruitlessness of the religious leaders and the Lord’s desire for good fruit.

So let me ask you, based upon what Jesus teaches here, how does one live a fruitful life before God? The answer: FAITH. The problem of no fruit is the problem of no faith. Jesus says “if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done” (Matt. 21:21). Jesus is using hyperbole here to show that there is nothing that faith in Him cannot do. We can’t make fig trees wither or cause mountains to throw themselves into the sea. But nothing is impossible for God. Faith lays hold of God’s power to do things that are impossible for us to do.

And then Jesus goes on to tell us that God answers the prayer of faith. He says, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matt. 21:22) That is an amazing verse. It is a breath-taking promise that God will answer your prayers when you pray in faith believing.

Now I don’t believe that Jesus is giving us some kind of “blank check” to do whatever we want independently from His Lordship. Did you notice that He specifies, “if you have faith and do not doubt . . .”? Who is it we’re to have faith in? Obviously, we’re to have faith in Him! What is it we’re not to doubt? We’re not to doubt His will expressed clearly in His word. It’s all about Jesus—not about what we want. The promise He makes in this passage is NEVER something we’re to try to claim in any other way than with complete, heartfelt, sincere, dependent faith on Him and in obedient trust in His word.

Jesus shows that a lack of fruit is a result of a lack of faith in Him. And a lack of faith in Him is revealed by a lack of prayer to Him. A person who doesn’t pray is a person who wreaks of self-sufficiency. They are a person who is all leaves and no fruit. They are a person who is doing things on their own and in their own strength. And when you do things on your own and in your own strength, do you know what happens? NOTHING. In John 15, Jesus said,

⁴ “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. ⁷ If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. ⁸ By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.“ (John 15:4-8).

The kind of faith our Lord wants from us is characterized by “abiding” in Him. It’s the kind of faith in the Lord Jesus that recognizes that we draw our very life from Him, and cannot do anything apart from Him. And it involves an understanding of His revealed will through the holy Scriptures; and a commitment be completely yielded to that will without doubt or without wavering.

So, here’s two lessons our Lord wants us to learn from the fig tree—and both lessons have to do with a vital faith in Jesus Christ. First, the tree that is covered with leaves but is barren of fruit teaches us the barrenness of mere religion on the outside when there’s unbelief in Jesus on the inside. Is your religion just an outward show, or is it bearing the fruit of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17)?

Second, the promise of the Savior to the disciples teaches us that real fruitfulness is a product of genuine, living, personal, dependency upon Jesus Christ in faith. Such faith in Jesus brings glory to the Father. When your life is full of fruit, your prayers will be filled with faith, and God will accomplish His purposes through your life and in our church. Is your faith demonstrated by believing prayer?

Richard Sipes / Sermons / faith, Jesus Christ, Judgment, Matthew, Prayer / 0

December 15, 2024

A Question of Faith

Matthew 17:14-21

Faith is so vital to the Christian life that Scripture tells us that, without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). The Bible tells us that salvation is the gift of God through faith (Eph. 2:8–9). Paul writes that in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” (Rom. 1:17). In other words, we are not only saved by faith, we live our whole Christian life from beginning to end “from faith to faith.” From day one of our journey of faith until the very last day, the righteous live by faith. Whether we are brand-new followers of Christ or seasoned, mature believers who have walked with the Lord for many years, we must trust God “from start to finish” and rely on His mighty power—the power of the gospel—to change our lives and the lives of those we encounter.

In our passage today, Christ told His disciples that, with just a tiny measure of faith, the size of a mustard seed, they could move mountains and “nothing will be impossible for you” (Matt. 17:20). That word “impossible” means literally “not to have strength, power, or ability.”[1] The root word is the verb δύναμαι (dynamai) meaning “to be able, have power.”[2] We get the English word “dynamic” from this Greek word. Matthew uses this word in Matthew 17:16 when the father of the boy literally says that the disciples “were not able” or “had no power” to heal his son. In Matthew 17:19, the disciples then literally ask Jesus “Why were we not able to cast it out?” using this same verb.[3]

Matthew’s repetition of this word underscores the theme of “ability” or “power” to do something or the lack of it. And Jesus says the difference between being able and being unable is faith. I believe that this is the great lesson this passage is meant to teach us. We are unable to do anything for Jesus apart from an utterly dependent faith in Jesus.

This lesson in faith occurs right after the transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-13). Jesus had taken three of His closest apostles—Peter, James, and John—and led them up a high mountain. There, they got a glimpse of Christ’s glory, a preview of the majesty of the Son of God when He comes again in power to consummate His kingdom. They saw “His face shown like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light” (Matt. 17:2). Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus, and God the Father spoke from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matt. 17:5).

The disciples had confessed their faith in who Jesus is (Matt. 16:16), but they also needed to believe what He said—especially when He told them, “… the Son of Man is also about to suffer …” (Matt. 17:12) and that “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). We most often learn the best lessons on faith in times of suffering, weakness, and even failure. That is exactly where we find the other nine disciples when Jesus and the three descend the Mount of Transfiguration. They are in the midst of a multitude of people and it’s not going well. The first thing we encounter in our text is …

1. A Father’s Request (Matt. 17:14-16)

¹⁴ And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.” (Matt. 17:14-15).

Here was a desperate father, whose son was sick and needed healing. The New King James translation says, “he is an epileptic and suffers severely” (Matt. 17:15). The Greek word translated “epileptic” is more literally “lunatic” or “moon struck”. Many ancient societies believed that that madness was caused by the influence of the moon. So, this term means that the boy was stricken with something that had driven him insane. His condition was quite dangerous, “for he often falls into the fire and often into the water” (Matt. 17:15). In Matthew 17:18 we see that his disorder was not just mental or physical, it was also spiritual. It was caused by a demon who was afflicting him. Not all sickness is caused by demons, but there are several examples in Scripture of demon possession manifesting as mental or physical affliction.

Mark’s Gospel gives us more details about the boy’s suffering saying, “And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid” (Mark 9:18). The symptoms of seizures like this are similar to epilepsy, and that is probably why the translators used that word to describe it. Clearly, not only was the boy suffering, but the father was also himself suffering unspeakably in anxiety over his precious son. You can feel the father’s desperation and helplessness when he says in Matthew 17:16, “So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

We know from Matthew 10, when Jesus sent His disciples out to preach the message of the kingdom, that He gave them authority to heal the sick and cast out demons (Matt. 10:8). Mark records that the disciples had “cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:13). So the disciples were not inexperienced in healing and casting out demons. They expected that they could do it because they had done it before. But now, for some reason, as they tried to cure this boy, they failed. Why? What was the problem?

You can imagine that the disciples, along with the boy’s father, were very frustrated by all of this. And they’re not the only ones who were frustrated. We see that in . . .

2. Jesus’ Response (Matt. 17:17-18)

Jesus Himself is clearly exasperated. Matthew 17:17 says, “Then Jesus answered and said, ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.’” The word “generation” is the general term for the people living in a specific time and in a specific situation. It probably refers to the Jewish people as a whole who could actually see Jesus’ demonstrations of power and authority but for the most part did not believe.

He describes them as “faithless” or unbelieving and “perverse,” meaning twisted, turned away, or distorted. The attitude of unbelief prevailed among many in that generation who witnessed the coming of Christ, saw His power, and heard His teaching. They twisted what Jesus said and distorted what He did. Jesus expressed His frustration with them saying, “how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” They should have believed in Him already.

Is our generation any better? Probably not. Praise God there are many believers today. Praise God we have many fine examples of faith, but we also live in a generation that is mostly characterized by unbelief. Think of the privileges that we have. We have the whole revelation of the word of God in our Bibles. We have churches everywhere. We have access to more teaching, books, and resources than any generation before us. We also have clouds of faithful witnesses from previous generations. And yet unbelief prevails. And how it grieves the Lord.

How about the disciples? Were the faithless multitudes having an effect on them too? Were Jesus’ disciples somehow faithless? Is that why they could not help the boy? They were believers. Hadn’t the disciples believed and confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God? Hadn’t they left everything to follow Him? Yet, they demonstrated unbelief when they tried to do Jesus’ work without depending on Jesus Himself.

Finally, Jesus tells the disciples to do what they should have done all along. He says, “Bring him here to Me.” Matthew 17:18 tells us that, once they did, “… Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.” What the disciples had failed to do, Jesus appeared to do with little effort. With a word, this unclean spirit obeyed Jesus and left the boy (cf. Mark 1:27). How many problems in life would be solved if we first brought them to Jesus? Faith comes to Jesus first, not just when we have exhausted our own efforts.

Finally, we come to the main point of this passage…

3. Faith’s Lesson (Matt. 17:19-21)

What follows the healing of this boy is a discussion between Jesus and His disciples about faith. The discussion is a little confusing at first, because Jesus seems to be saying two things at once. First, He tells them the problem is they have “unbelief” or “little faith.” But then He tells them that if they have faith as small as a mustard seed, they can move mountains. And that’s confusing, because the solution seems to be the same as the problem!

Look at the discussion. Matthew 17:19 tells us, “Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’” When we fail, it is best to do what the disciples did here—get alone with Jesus and ask, “Lord, why did I fail?”

They came to Him, and He showed them where they went wrong. “So Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your unbelief’”—or, other manuscripts read, because of your “little faith”. It was not just that their faith was small. It was because their lack of faith was misplaced, and therefore it was more like unbelief. Jesus shows them that they had been acting in their own strength and not with a conviction of their dependence upon the Lord. They had faith in their ability to use Jesus’ authority and power apart from an utter dependency upon Him. They had faith that they could do it without Jesus. They had forgotten that it was His power and that their only access to that power was by a living confidence in a present Lord, in an active dependence upon what He and He alone could do. That is faith, and in that moment, that is what they lacked.

And isn’t it the same way with us sometimes? We believe, we really do. But far too many times we think, speak, and act as if we do not believe, not really. We find ourselves simply going through the motions of the Christian faith and life, content with an outward conformity, but not living in the active conviction of the Lord’s presence, not looking to Jesus, personally, for life, godliness, and fruitfulness. C.S. Lewis admitted how often he struggled with precisely that failure, writing,

The trouble with me is lack of faith. I have no rational ground for going back on the arguments that convinced me of God’s existence: but the irrational deadweight of my own skeptical habits, and the spirit of this age, and the cares of the day, steal away all my lively feeling of the truth, and often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address. Mind you, I don’t think so – the whole of my reasonable mind is convinced: but I often feel so.”[4]

Luther said, “Faith is nothing else but a sure and steadfast looking to Christ,”[5] How often during a typical day do you look to Christ? Probably, most of us would have to admit, not often enough. Perhaps that is why God allows us to get into frustrating circumstances and afflictions. Because it is in these times that we come to the end of ourselves, stop depending on our strength, and begin to really trust the Lord. Faith is looking to Christ.

Look carefully at what Jesus goes on to say. “… for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt. 17:20). The mustard seed was the smallest seed that the Jewish people of that culture could know about. It was proverbially the smallest seed planted. It represents a very “small” quantity of faith, but with it they can move mountains. In other words, it is not the amount of faith that is significant, it is the object of faith. If their faith is in the right One, if they have an utter confidence in the power and authority of Jesus; and if the operate in utter dependency upon Him, then how much faith they have doesn’t matter. If Jesus commands us to order a mountain to be moved and we act in dependence on Him, it will move!

We often think about faith as an intellectual conviction or spiritual commitment, and, yes, it is that. The disciples had that. But faith is also and always must be a daily, hourly dependence on Christ, reliance upon Him, looking to Him, living in Him. When we fail to do that, we are people of little faith. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5).

Before we close this lesson, look carefully at Matthew 17:21 where Jesus says, “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” Some translations put this verse in a footnote because many of the early manuscripts do not include it. Mark’s account does have it in Mark 9:29. So, it definitely represents what Jesus said about casting our this demon. And it emphasizes the point Jesus has made about faith, doesn’t it? What is “prayer” but a matter of turning to God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, with utter dependency upon Him? What is “fasting” but a matter of turning away from a reliance upon ourselves? There is a connection between prayer and faith. Faith drives us to pray, and prayer builds faith. Do you want to be a person of great faith? Pray to our great God. Call on our great Savior. Do you want to be a person of prayer? Believe in Jesus. Trust in Him. Depend on Him for everything. Do you see how faith and prayer go hand-in-hand?

Why do we not see mountains move or people set free from spiritual bondage? Because of our lack of faith exercised by prayer. It reminds me of the great hymn by Joseph Scriven,

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Ev’rything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Ev’rything to God in prayer!

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our ev’ry weakness,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge;
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee;
Thou wilt find a solace there.

Praying is to actions of faith what exercising is to an athlete, what studying is to a student, what training is to a soldier, or what practicing is to a musician. True prayer expresses our utter dependence on the Lord. Prayer fits us for the spiritual battle. It equips us to do what Christ commands. Faith is a gift from God, but it is those who pray who receive what God gives. Listen, I know the difficulty with prayer and fasting. Prayer takes time. Fasting gives me headaches. It’s not easy. Of all the things that I do as a pastor each week, I find that my time spent in prayer to be as difficult as anything that I do.

Which brings me back to our main point: we are only able to do anything for Jesus when we have an utterly dependent faith in Jesus.

How’s your faith this morning? Is it weak and feeble? I exhort: pray. Faith doesn’t simply happen. It comes through your constant pleading to God for faith. God will give you faith if you ask. Do you ask? In Mark’s account of this story, there was a point where the boy’s father says, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Is this your prayer?

This is how we put our faith in Jesus. He is the Son of God who died for our sins and was raised to life again. It is only in His name, by faith in His name, that we can be saved (Acts 3:16; 4:12). It is only in His name, by faith in His name, that we can do anything—anything that matters for eternity. Have you believed in Jesus?

————————————————————–

[1] Outline of Biblical Usage, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g101/nkjv/tr/0-1/

[2] Outline of Biblical Usage, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1410/nkjv/tr/0-1/

[3] Greg Allen, Bring Him Here to Me, https://bethanybible.org/archive/2007/081907.htm. Allen pointed out this key word and its significance in his sermon.

[4] C. S. Lewis, Letters to Arthur Greeves, 398-399. Quoted by Robert Rayburn, A Puzzling Saying, Matthew 17:14-23, https://www.faithtacoma.org/matthew/a-puzzling-saying.

[5] Martin Luther, Cited in Whyte, Bunyan Characters, iv, 238. Quoted by Robert Rayburn, A Puzzling Saying, Matthew 17:14-23, https://www.faithtacoma.org/matthew/a-puzzling-saying.

Richard Sipes / Uncategorized / faith, Jesus Christ, Matthew, Prayer / 0

June 18, 2023

Ask, Seek, and Knock

God Wants Us to Ask, Seek, and Knock

Matthew 7:7-12

We are nearing the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and if we’re honest with ourselves, this has been a challenging journey. Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount tests us and confronts us at every turn. Jesus calls His disciples to a life that is so breathtakingly beautiful, and yet at the same time so difficult to live out.[1]

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Christ has been teaching about the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). In Matthew 5, He examined God’s righteousness. He began with the beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12), the characteristics of those who belong to the Kingdom. Contrary to the ways of the world, they are poor in spirit, mourn over sin, are meek, hunger and thirst for righteousness, are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and they rejoice in the face of persecution. They are salt and light in the world, glorifying God in their good works (Matt. 5:13-16).

Then Christ contrasted the outward righteousness of the Pharisees with the inward righteousness of God’s kingdom (Matt 5:20). Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn’t satisfied with superficial, external righteousness, He keeps exposing our very hearts, insisting on an inward purity.

In Matthew 6 Jesus exposed false righteousness. He showed that even the good religious things we do are often tainted by self-promotion and hypocrisy—giving, fasting, and praying to be seen by others, rather than to honor God. Instead, the child of God is to do these things out of the sight of others to please God. He taught that rather than seeking and storing up the things of this world and worrying about this life, we are to seek first His kingdom and righteousness.

In the first part of Matthew 7, Jesus commanded His disciples not to judge others condemningly or hypocritically. Instead, before we help others take specks out of their eyes (referring to personal sin), we must first get rid of the log in our own eye and be discerning about those with whom we share the precious things of God.

This has all been challenging. If we take these things seriously and evaluate our lives by Jesus’ standard of righteousness, we are bound to fall short. We are crushed by Christ’s commands. How can we rejoice in persecution (Matt. 5:12)? How can we love and bless those who hate us (Matt 5:44)? How can we always guard our eyes from lust (Matt 5:28)? How can we be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48)? How can we keep from seeking the approval of men (Matt. 6:1-18)? How can we not worry and seek first God’s kingdom (Matt. 6:33)? How can we judge ourselves more than others (Matt. 7:1-6)? This is hard to live out. Jesus’ teaching has nailed me to the floor.[2]

And then we come to today’s passage and it’s like an oasis in the desert. It is sweet relief; it’s comfort to the soul. It’s as if Jesus knew how hard these teachings have been for us, and so He stops to give us encouragement.[3] Christ realizes the difficulty of the kingdom’s standards and therefore teaches the disciples the secret to developing and maintaining them. Simply said, they must ask, seek, and knock.[4] Jesus knows that what He has taught is impossible to live on our own, so He invites us to pray.

So we see first,

1. The petition (Matt. 7:7)

Jesus, the Son of God, gives His disciples here a remarkable and authoritative invitation relating to His Father. He teaches, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” The verbs ask, seek, and knock grammatically are imperatives. That means that Jesus is commanding us to ask, seek, and knock. They are also in the present tense, which means that they are a command to be obeyed continually or habitually. They have the force of: Keep on asking! Keep on seeking! Keep on knocking! This is an invitation, but it is also a command to take up a regular habit of life.[5]

And notice the progression in our petitions. First Jesus says, “Ask”. Asking is simply expressing your need to God. The word “seek” intensifies the process. We seek when we know what we need, but we can’t easily find it. Seeking takes concentrated time and effort. So yes, prayer is asking, but it is not a hit-and-run. We spend time seeking God in prayer and in His word. Seeking is a process, and it doesn’t happen all at once. The word “knock” intensifies the process even further. Knocking implies that what you seek is behind a closed door that stands in your way.

Any of us who have children knows what this is like. Little children ask something from their mother or father. They will ask; but if they don’t get the answer, they will get up from where they are and seek their mother or father so they can ask again. And if they seek their parents, but are met by a closed door, they will knock so they can ask yet again. Children are persistent! Jesus is not only inviting us to ask the Father as His beloved children, but He’s urging us to be like children and be persistent in our pursuit of what we ask.

So, we know that Jesus is teaching us to always ask, seek, and knock. But what are we asking for? Is Jesus telling us that all we ask for will be given to us? Will we find everything we seek? Will every door be opened if we just keep on knocking? When Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you,” what is the “it”? Does “it” refer to everything you might ask for?

Certainly, from the context of the Sermon on the Mount we would have to say “No, that’s not what it means.” Just a few verses before Jesus warned us about the danger of greed. He told us not to seek and store up treasures on earth. Obviously, God is not promising to be a genie that grants all our wishes. Prayer is not a blank check to pray selfishly for whatever you want. We read in the book of James: “… you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:2-3).

I believe that Jesus is chiefly wanting us to ask, seek, and knock for something specific that He has already emphasized throughout the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes he taught us: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3). The poor in spirit desperately know their need for God and so they are not afraid to ask. He said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” (Matt. 5:6). What Jesus has been teaching about is the Kingdom of Heaven, the righteousness of God. Jesus has shown us how far we fall below God’s standards, and so we ask, seek, and knock for righteousness that we may be filled. Jesus said, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:20). On our own we could never produce this kind of righteousness.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we learned that we are to pray for God’s concerns first, and then for our own needs. So, we ask, seek, and knock concerning God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, and then we pray for our three main human needs: physical provision, forgiveness for our sins, and spiritual protection.

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus taught us, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt. 6:33). So, we are to seek God and His kingdom, trusting that God will provide everything else that we need.

In the parallel passage in the Gospel of Luke Jesus says,

⁹ “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:9-13).

The good that God gives to those who ask, seek, and knock is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 14:17 Paul writes, “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

That’s the petition. Next, let’s consider,

2. The promise (Matt. 7:8)

Look at how, in Matthew 7:8, Jesus affirms the invitation He just gave in Matthew 7:7. First, He stressed the command: “Ask, seek, knock”. But now in Matthew 7:8, He stresses the results: “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.“

I love the word “everyone”! There are no exceptions. Salvation is open to all who come to Christ, and He has never turned anyone away. If you seek God, you will find Him. Romans 10:13 says, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” I know it sounds too good to be true, but straight from the mouth of Jesus, if you have recognized your sinful state before God, and yet desire to be righteous, then ask Him for it. If you want to be a child of God, seek Him. If you want to be in the Kingdom of Heaven, knock on the door. He will answer. You will find a Heavenly Father who loves you. You will be welcomed into the Kingdom by God’s grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. We come to salvation by asking in faith.

In the original language, our Lord uses three present tense participles to describe a kind of person, literally calling such a person: “the ‘always-asking’ one; or the ‘always-seeking’ one; or the ‘always-knocking’ one”. And when He stresses the results of these actions, He again uses the present tense of the verb to describe an ongoing, habitual result. The sense of Jesus’ words could be translated this way: “For every ‘always-asking’ person keeps on receiving, and every ‘always-seeking’ person keeps on finding, and every ‘always-knocking’ person keeps on finding the door opened to them.”

If we came to salvation by asking in faith, then we grow in our salvation the same way. If we are going to grow in kingdom character, we must pray with persistence. God wants us to come after Him and His kingdom with all our heart and soul—to pursue Him and His righteousness with prayerful persistence. The person who asks, seeks, and knocks like this God will work mightily through them for His purposes (2 Chr. 16:9). Will you be that person?

We have seen the petition and the promise. Now we see,

3. The provider (Matt. 7:9-11)

Jesus moves from God’s promise to answer prayer to God’s principle in answering prayer. Here we see why righteousness is promised to those who ask, seek, and knock.

⁹ “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:9-11).

Jesus makes a comparison. He says that human fathers give good things to their children. If your child is hungry and asks you for bread, you wouldn’t give him a stone instead. If they asked for some fish, you wouldn’t give them a snake. If your child asks you for something good, you’re not going to give them something bad instead. You wouldn’t do that because you love your child. Human fathers and mothers give good gifts to their children.

But Jesus goes one step further in this illustration. He says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.” Human fathers are sinful, and yet they still give good gifts to their children. Suppose one of your kids comes up and asks for something to eat. How might you respond? You might say, “In a minute” (which communicates that my time is more important than your hunger). You might say, “Get it yourself” (which communicates, I don’t want to be bothered). You might say, “Ask your mother” (which just passes the buck). Why do we respond like that? Because we are selfish, lazy, and greedy. Man is evil. Yet even an evil man will eventually give what is good when the child keeps asking.

The point is that if even sinful, evil fathers will give good things to their children, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:11). God is perfect, loving, and righteous. If our sinfulness doesn’t get in the way of giving good gifts to our children, then “how much more” will God who is perfect, loving, and righteous give good gifts to those who ask Him?

God is your heavenly Father. You are His precious child, and He loves you! He will not leave you knocking at the door like the traveling salesman. God is good and so He gives. Our receiving is not based on how well we ask, seek, or knock. God does not give righteousness based on your ability to ask for it. Righteousness is guaranteed because the God who gives it is good. We don’t earn it. We don’t achieve it. We don’t deserve it. God gives it because God is good. God gives it because, in His great love, He sent His only begotten Son into the world to atone for our sins through His death on the cross. That is why everyone who asks receives.

So, we have seen the petition, the promise, and the provider. Finally we see,

4. The proof (Matt. 7:12)

This is where Matthew 7:12 comes in. “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12). This saying of Jesus is what many have called, “The Golden Rule”. We must treat others as we would want them to treat us. It is another way of saying the simple commandment that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev. 19:18). When someone asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment in the law, He said,

“… ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40).

Jesus taught that the first great command is to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. To treat others as ourselves, we don’t start with looking at our neighbor, and we certainly don’t start with looking at ourselves! Instead, we look to God. Only when we first love God with all our being will we be able to look to ourselves and ask what we would want done to us and get a holy answer! Only then can we truly love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving others in this way is a fruit of loving God. And loving God is a fruit of salvation.

The conjunction “Therefore” at the beginning of this verse tells us that this Golden Rule does not stand alone. It connects to what Jesus has just taught. He has just taught that God is a good Father who gives good gifts to His children when they ask Him. God gives righteousness to those who ask, seek, and knock. He gives us the kingdom. The proof that we have received His righteousness is that we do good to others just as God has been good to us.

Selfishness is the opposite of righteousness. That’s why if we desire to follow Jesus we are told to “deny self” (Matt. 16:24). That’s what makes treating others the way you want to be treated a fruit of genuine righteousness. In fact, Jesus says, “for this is the Law and the Prophets.” All the righteousness that the law commands, all the righteousness that the prophets preach, all the righteousness that the scriptures describe, can be summed up in this phrase treat others as you want to be treated or love your neighbor as yourself. That is the essence of righteousness.

The word “whatever” means it is a comprehensive command. In the original language, the way Jesus puts this almost strains at being as all-encompassing as it can be. A literal way to translate it might be, “All things therefore, as much as it ever occurs, that you may wish that people may do to you . . .”[6] This rule is binding on your behavior towards all people at all times under all circumstances. God expects you to display and use the righteousness He freely gives.

Think about what we have learned today. God is willing to give righteousness to an evil sinner like me. And the only thing He requires as a result is that I put it to use. Because I am justified in Christ, God pours out His love into my heart through His Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:1-5). Then He expects me to love others as He has loved me (1 Pet. 1:22).

That is like someone giving a glass of water to a man who is dying of thirst, expecting that the thirsty man will drink it. Or it’s like giving a steak to a starving man, expecting the starving man to eat it. God will gladly give us righteousness if we ask. He has provided it in Jesus Christ our Lord. He only desires that we put it to use. This is what it looks like to be in God’s Kingdom. This is how children of God live—they imitate their Father. In Ephesians 5, Paul writes, “¹ Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. ² And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Eph. 5:1-2).

God is good and will give righteousness to all who ask in faith in the name of Jesus Christ. He will make you a child of God who walks in self-sacrificing love even as our Savior Jesus did. And this morning that is what I encourage you to do. Ask, seek, knock. Come to God who loves you and wants to give you His gift of righteousness through His Son. Let God give what you cannot earn or receive anywhere else. Let Him give you His perfect righteousness made possible through the death of His Son. Then live that life of righteousness by loving God and others. It’s what His children do.

[1] Ray Fowler, God Wants You to Ask. https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/god-wants-you-to-ask/

[2] Rory Mosley, How to Be Righteous. https://fbcspur.org/righteous-matthew-77-12/

[3] Ray Fowler, God Wants You to Ask. https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/god-wants-you-to-ask/

[4] Gregory Brown, Growing In Kingdom Character (Matthew 7:7-12). https://bible.org/seriespage/31-growing-kingdom-character-matthew-77-12

Richard Sipes / Uncategorized / Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

April 2, 2023

Yours Is the Kingdom, Power, Glory

Yours Is the Kingdom, Power, Glory

Matthew 6:13

Today is Palm Sunday. Listen to what Matthew records happened on that day that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem just a few days before He would be crucified:

¹ Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ² saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. ³ And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” ⁴ All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: ⁵ “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, Lowly, and sitting on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.’ “ ⁶ So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. ⁸ And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!” ¹⁰ And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” ¹¹ So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” (Matthew 21:1-11).

And in the Gospel of John, the apostle adds that the people “… took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ The King of Israel!” (John 12:13).

On that Palm Sunday almost two thousand years ago, Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the city of the great King (Ps. 48:2; Matt. 5:35). The People Proclaimed Him to be the Son of David (Matt. 21:9) and the King of Israel (John 12:13). The inspired apostles wrote that, “All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet” (Matt. 21:4), Zechariah, who prophesied, “Behold, your King is coming to you!” (Zech. 9:9).

All the praise given to Jesus on that Palm Sunday was just a foretaste and preview of the praise that will be His as King when He returns in glory—when “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (Rev. 11:15). When, as Jesus prophesied, “³⁰ Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matt. 24:30-31).

As we have seen in our study of the Gospel of Matthew, he presents Jesus as the promised Messiah-King of Israel. Jesus is the Son of David, the king. The citizens of His kingdom are His disciples, those who have believed in Him, learn from Him, and submit to Him as Lord and King. To them—to us—King Jesus has been teaching the nature and principles of His kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount. As we have studied the Lord’s Prayer over the last few weeks, Jesus has taught us to pray.

Our text today is the doxology which closes the Lord’s Prayer, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” (Matthew 6:13). A doxology is a word of praise to God, a word of glory to God. This prayer has been a petition all the way through, but when it comes to this point, it is an affirmation of praise. It is a grand crescendo of praise that closes this prayer in which the Lord taught His disciples to pray.

The Lord’s Prayer begins on a high note, with its foundation on our relationship with God as our heavenly Father. We saw that our petitions are to be, first of all, for God’s name to be hallowed, His Kingdom to come, and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Then based on those God-centered petitions, we are to ask for our daily bread, forgiveness for our debt of sin, and deliverance from the evil one.

If we were to stop our prayer at the end of the sixth petition, it would seem a rather abrupt and sobering ending. Perhaps that is why the church, from its beginnings, prayed this doxology at the end of the prayer in both public worship and private devotion.[1]

Should the doxology be included in Matthew 6:13?

Now, if you are reading Matthew 6 from just about any modern translation except the King James or New King James Version, you have probably noticed that the text either puts this doxology in brackets or omits it from the text and may put it in a footnote. Your Bible may have an explanation in the footnote that says something like, “Late manuscripts add [this]” (NASB, NIV) or “Early manuscripts omit [this]” (LSB). How many of you have wondered what is going on here? What happened to this part of the Lord’s Prayer?

Most of you know that for fourteen centuries, before the invention of the printing press, the Bible was copied by hand. These handwritten copies are called manuscripts. There are over 5800 complete or partial Greek manuscripts dating anywhere from about 125 A.D. to the 15^th century.[2] As with all hand-copied documents, the Bible manuscripts vary a little from one another. Copyists are not perfect. The doxology is one of these variants.

About 98 percent of the Greek manuscripts that contain Matthew 6:13 have some form of the doxology in the text or in the margin of the text.[3] The problem is that the very earliest manuscripts that we have (which ought to contain the fewest copy errors) do not contain the doxology at all.[4] Many are convinced that this doxology was added to the text of Matthew later. Thus, scholars are divided about whether this ending of the Lord’s Prayer is actually supposed to be part of the text of Matthew or not. The earliest evidence of the Greek New Testament manuscripts supports the exclusion of the doxology, while its widespread presence in later manuscripts means that it cannot be discarded lightly.[5]

After all is said and done, no one can say with 100 percent certainty that Jesus did or did not say these words, or that Matthew did or did not include them in his Gospel when he wrote it. I have chosen to include this doxology in my teaching on the Lord’s Prayer for three reasons:[6]

1) It is true and biblical. We heard almost the exact same doxology prayed by David in 1 Chronicles 29:11, “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.” Paul gives a similar doxology in Philippians 4:20, “Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”; and again in 1 Timothy 1:17, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”; and John in Revelation 1:6 praises the Lord Jesus Christ who “… has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”[7] It is true and it is biblical.

2) It is ancient. We have copies of an ancient Christian document called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (or the Didache) originally written at the end of the first century which shows that the church used this doxology when they prayed the Lord’s Prayer. (See endnote 1 below). Christians have prayed this doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer from the beginnings of the church in both public worship and private devotions.

3) It is familiar. Most of us have memorized the Lord’s Prayer this way and its doxology is meaningful to us. They form a fitting end to the Lord’s Prayer. Notice how perfectly the benediction brings the whole prayer together: Jesus taught us to pray, “Hallowed be Your name,” for “Yours is the glory.” He taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come,” for “Yours is the kingdom.” He taught us to pray “Your will be done” because “Yours is the power.” It would be difficult to compose a more fitting conclusion to this prayer. If we remember that the Lord’s Prayer is not a form for repetition but a pattern for prayer, we are quite justified in extending that pattern by any additions which harmonize with its spirit.[8]

Therefore, for the purpose of our study today, we will consider these concluding words to the Lord’s Prayer as a part of the biblical text and seek to learn what they teach us.

What does the doxology teach us?

I want to follow a simple outline for this text by highlighting the keywords: kingdom, power, and glory.

1. Yours is the Kingdom – an affirmation of God’s preeminence

This climactic doxology begins with a passionate declaration of God’s sovereignty, “For Yours is the kingdom.” God is sovereign. He is over and above all the nations of this world. Dominion rightly belongs to God. In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon, the greatest empire the world had ever seen at that time. When in his pride and arrogance, Nebuchadnezzar lifted himself above every authority, God took away his mind and for seven years the formerly great King ate hay like an ox in the field. Then God had mercy on the king and restored to him not only his sanity but his kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar responded by saying,

³⁴ And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever: For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom is from generation to generation. ³⁵ All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, “What have You done?” (Daniel 4:34-35).

God both possesses and presides over His kingdom. He has supreme authority and unrestricted dominion. And though this world often seems out of control and in rebellion to God’s authority, it is still true, “Yours is the kingdom.” Jesus is the truly great King who will return and reign over heaven and earth. Listen to the words of Martin Luther,

And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us:
The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure:
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers,
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through Him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill;
God’s truth abideth still:
His kingdom is forever.

So we praise God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ saying, “Yours is the kingdom.”

2. Yours is the Power – an affirmation of God’s power

Second, we pray, “Yours is … the power.” We affirm God’s strength and might. The definite article defines the infinite scope of His power. He possesses not a mere portion of some power, but the power. He has all power in heaven and earth. All that God’s supreme will chooses to do, He has the omnipotence to execute fully. We do not serve some anemic, weak God. We serve a God of power and ability.

The Lord challenged Abraham and Sarah, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Gen. 18:14). He issued the same challenge to Jeremiah the prophet, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?” (Jer 32:27). There is no promise too hard for God to fulfill, no problem too hard for God to solve, no prayer too hard for God to answer, and no person too hard for God to save. Some of us have loved ones for whom we have been praying and we’ve wondered if it’s possible for God to save them. Is it? Absolutely. “For Yours is the kingdom and the power!”

3. Yours is the Glory – an affirmation of God’s purpose

We praise God for His kingdom and His power, and third, we pray, “For Yours is … the glory.” This is an affirmation of God’s purpose. What is God’s ultimate goal in all things? The glory of His name. As our Lord Jesus Christ thought about His approaching crucifixion, He prayed, “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” (John 12:27-28). We are never more like Christ than when we pray for God to be glorified. And we are never more sure of the Father’s answer, for as soon as our Savior had offered that prayer, “Then a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.’ “. (John 12:28).

In direct response to God’s vast sovereignty and unlimited power, all glory must be rendered to Him. Because the kingdom is His and the power is His, the glory must be His alone. God is glorious; therefore He must be glorified. He must be praised. We must give Him the glory due His Holy name.

When we think about God sending His only begotten Son into this world to seek and to save the lost—to God be the glory!
When we see our loving Savior lifted up on the cross, dying for our sins—to God be the glory!
When we hear Jesus cry out at His death, “It is finished!”—to God be the glory!
When His body is laid cold and lifeless in the tomb—to God be the glory!
When He rose from the grave, victorious over death—to God be the glory!
When He ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father—to God be the glory!
When sinners repent and believe and He saves them from sin and death—to God be the glory!
And when Jesus Christ returns to consummate His heavenly Kingdom on earth—to God be the glory!

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son
and give him the glory, great things he has done![9]

“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

————————————————————————

[1] The oldest mention of the doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer is actually not a Biblical manuscript, but what may be one of the oldest Christian documents we still have, called “The Teaching of the Twelve” or “The Didache.” The Didache dates to around 100 A.D. and possibly earlier (although our earliest full copies are dated centuries later), which puts its writing within reach of the apostolic age and the earliest Christian churches that they founded. It mentions baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the Lord’s Prayer. It concludes the prayer by saying, “but deliver us from evil. For yours is the power and the glory forever, Amen.” For further reading see: James Snapp, How Does the Lord’s Prayer End?, https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2018/11/matthew-613-how-does-lords-prayer-end.html; Bill Wangelin, How Does the Lord’s Prayer End? https://www.oursaviorlansing.org/how-does-the-lords-prayer-end/; and Got Questions: Should “for thine is the kingdom…” be included in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:13)?, https://www.gotquestions.org/for-thine-is-the-kingdom.html; Jonathan C. Borland, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, https://tcgnt.blogspot.com/2013/09/matt-613.html

[2] Biblical manuscript. (2023, March 20). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

[3] James Snapp, How Does the Lord’s Prayer End?, https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2018/11/matthew-613-how-does-lords-prayer-end.html. There are about 1500 manuscripts that have Matthew 6:13.

[4] Snapp, ibid. These include Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text, 4^th century); Codex Bezae (the flagship MS of the Western Text, 5^th century), and Codex Dublinensis Z (035, 6^th century). In addition, most Old Latin copies do not include the doxology; nor do the Middle Egyptian version and the earliest strata of the Bohairic version. It is also absent in the writings of early theologians like Tertullian (2nd—3rd centuries), Origen (3rd century), Cyprian (3rd century), Ambrose (4th century), and Augustine (4th—5th centuries).

[5] Got Questions, https://www.gotquestions.org/for-thine-is-the-kingdom.html

[6] Philip Miller, Kingdom, Power, Glory, notes from the sermon on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrzZ3EUEEQM&ab_channel=FoundersMinistries

[7] Paul, when alluding to the final request of the Lord’s Prayer for deliverance from “evil,” himself moves immediately into a doxology, “to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen!” (Gal 1:4; cf. also 2 Tim 4:18).

[8] Alexander MacLaren, THINE IS THE KINGDOM, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/maclaren/ezek_matt1.iii.xl.html

[9] Fanny Crosby, To God Be the Glory, https://hymnary.org/text/to_god_be_the_glory_great_things_he_hath

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Lord's Prayer, Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

March 5, 2023

Our Daily Bread

Matthew 6:11

“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11)

Remember that in his Gospel, Matthew is presenting Jesus as the Messiah-King. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord, the King, is teaching His disciples characteristics and principles of the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus teaches about true piety, illustrated by three righteous actions: giving, praying, and fasting. We have seen that our motives for doing these things are all important. God knows our hearts. Our Father sees in secret. He rewards the unpretentious and unselfish. He knows what we need before we ask.

So, Jesus teaches us to pray by giving us a model, a template for prayer. Prayer begins with a relationship with our Heavenly Father who is both near to us and transcendent over us. Because He is our Father, He cares for us and has compassion on us. Because He is in heaven, He has all authority and power to hear and answer our prayers. Prayer is all about God. It begins with Him, ends with Him, and concerns His name, His kingdom, and His will before it is concerned with our needs.

Jesus teaches us to begin with God and His glory, and then in the light of that to come to ourselves and our needs. What are our needs? We need to be sustained –– fed and clothed. We need to be forgiven because our sins are many. Then we need to be strengthened against the temptations that lurk within us and delivered from the evil that is all around us.

As we turn from God’s name, His Kingdom, and His will to man’s need, we don’t leave God’s glory behind. We pray recognizing that if our needs are to be met, God must be the provider. We are not trying to manipulate God—buttering Him up in the first three requests so that we can now ask Him for what we want. This prayer does not become selfish when we begin to ask for ourselves. This prayer is not at all man-centered or self-indulgent.

In a sense, even though we’re turning to man in his needs from God and His glory, God is still the focus because this is not just a petition, it is an affirmation. What we’re really saying is, “You must provide what we need for physical life; You must pardon our sins; You must protect us from evil.” There is a sense of humility here. There’s an attitude of total dependence but there is nothing demanding about it.

So today, we come to the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). In this prayer for “daily bread,” what do we mean by “bread”? Do we mean actual literal bread and only that?

Bread was a staple in the diet of the Jews and most other ancient cultures. It had been so since the beginning. The first place we find bread in the Bible is after Adam and Eve had sinned in the garden. In cursing the ground because of Adam’s sin, God said (Gen 3:19), “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread; Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” Bread was a category for all that people would eat to sustain themselves.

Also, bread was a powerful symbol of God’s provision for His people in the Old Testament. God cared for the Israelites in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. Life in the wilderness was hard, and soon the people began to complain that it would be better to be back in Egypt, where they had wonderful food to eat. In response to these complaints, God promised (Ex. 16:4), “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.” The next morning (Exo. 16:14-15), “… when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.” The phrase “what is it?” in Hebrew sounds like “manna.” So that’s what they called it (Exo. 16:31), “And the house of Israel called its name Manna. And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” When God miraculously fed His people from heaven, he did so by giving them bread.

And notice that it was “daily bread.” The people were to go out and gather it every day (Exo. 16:4). Moses instructed them (Exo. 16:19), “Let no one leave any of it till morning.” If they tried to keep it overnight for tomorrow (Exo. 16:20), “it bred worms and stank.” The only exception to this was that manna would not be found in the fields on the Sabbath day (Exo. 16:25-26). They were to gather enough for two days on the sixth day, and it would not spoil overnight for the Sabbath day (Exo. 16:22-24).

So “daily bread” represents what God provides to sustain our physical life. Jesus teaches us to pray for this. “Give us this day our daily bread.” This means that there is nothing unspiritual about praying for food, or clothes, or whatever else we may need in order to live our lives here in this world. Our bodies matter to God. So we can pray about the body and its needs.

When you’re saying, “Give us this day our daily bread,” you’re really saying, “God, we confess that if we live it is because You provide what we need, You sustain us.” We are praying for God to meet our basic daily needs. Martin Luther said, “everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, and peace.”[1]

Notice also that the manna was a test to prove Israel’s obedience to God’s law (Exo. 16:4) even though some of them failed the test (Exo. 16:27-28). It was a test of faith. Would they believe God and trust in Him?

How is praying for “our daily bread” a test of faith? Are we trusting in God to provide our daily necessities? Remember, prayer is not us getting God to do our will, but us submitting to His will. Prayer is not about changing God but changing us. With that in mind, here are,

Four things this prayer will do in us:

1. Encourage Us to Depend on God

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

The imperative, “Give us,” is directed to God. So, the source of our daily bread is implied. God is the source of everything. He is the creator and sustainer of all things, the God who is forming His eternal kingdom, the God who is infinitely holy and perfect, the God who knows everything that can be known, the God to whom the nations of the earth are as dust. Thus, He is able to meet every single need of all of His beloved children. Jesus says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:29-31; cf. Luke 12:6-7). You can cast all your care on Him, Peter says, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).

When we ask Our Father to “Give us this day our daily bread,” it suggests our absolute dependence on God for all our material needs. God made us with needs so that we would have to look to Him to supply them. The Bible teaches that all things come from God.

In the classic movie, Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart plays the part of the father, Charlie Anderson. He prays at breakfast, “Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eating it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you Lord just the same for the food we’re about to eat, amen.”[2]

Charlie Anderson was right in saying that he had worked hard to provide for his family, but the scriptures remind us that we depend on God at every stage of the process by which our food comes to us. We depend on God when our food is in the field, in the barn, on the plate, and in our stomach.[3]

When the grain is in the field it is at risk of being destroyed by wind, rain, drought, or disease. God can take it back before it ever gets to us. When Israel forgot that it was God who gave them all their provisions, God warned Israel through the prophet Hosea, “Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And will take back My wool and My linen …” (Hos. 2:9).

When the grain is in the barn it can easily be destroyed by fire. One blaze and the whole harvest is gone. Again Hosea sounds the alarm, “The threshing floor and the winepress Shall not feed them, And the new wine shall fail in her.” (Hos. 9:2).

Even when our food is on the plate, we need God. What use is food on your plate if you do not have an appetite to eat it? The psalmist wrote about fools who did not give thanks to God, “Their soul abhorred all manner of food, And they drew near to the gates of death.” (Psa. 107:18).

Even when the food is in your stomach, it will be of no use to you if it makes you sick. From the growing of our food to the nourishing of our bodies, we depend on God to supply all of our needs.

Next time you sit down to eat a meal, just look around the table. Every spec of food and all that goes into it being yours is as much a gift from God as the manna in the wilderness. This prayer is the acknowledgment of our hearts that all that we have that sustains our physical life comes from God.

Psalm 104 reminds us that God’s providence sustains all living creatures, animals and mankind alike:

²⁷ These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.

²⁸ What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good.

²⁹ You hide Your face, they are troubled;
You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. (Psalm 104:27-29).

If for one moment God closes His hand or for one instant doesn’t provide, we’re all in trouble. The problem with our understanding of this is that most of us have never had one single day in our whole life without food. The major concern for most Americans is not whether we are going to eat today but what we are going to eat and how not to eat too much.

So we desperately need the lesson of this prayer. This petition of the Lord’s Prayer, then, teaches us to come to God in a spirit of humble dependence, asking Him to provide what we need and to sustain us from day to day. We are not given the license to ask for great riches. It is a prayer for bread, not triple chocolate praline cheesecake. The invitation to pray “give us this day our daily bread,” is not carte blanche to pray for everything we see in TV ads or on Amazon. Jesus didn’t teach us to pray, “Give us this day our daily steak and lobster.” He says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The attitude of the prayer isn’t, “Give me all I want,” but “give us what we need.”

This prayer will encourage our dependence on God. Second, this prayer will,

2. Examine the Discipline of Our Lives.

Jesus teaches us to pray for God to give us “this day” our “daily” bread. God wants us to have a daily discipline in our lives of looking to Him in faith and trust. God has not promised us anything for tomorrow. But He instructed us to ask Him to meet our daily needs.

The writer of Proverbs 30 made this request,

⁷ Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die): ⁸ Remove falsehood and lies far from me; Give me neither poverty nor riches–Feed me with the food allotted to me; ⁹ Lest I be full and deny You, And say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be poor and steal, And profane the name of my God. (Pro. 30:7-9)

It reminds me of what Paul wrote to Timothy, “Now godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6). And he goes on to write, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” (1 Tim 6:7).

The truth is that God often blesses most of us with far more than we need. God has created everything for you to eat and enjoy. Our bodies do matter and, for children of God, eating should be a spiritual act. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 Paul writes, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” How do you eat to the glory of God? By recognizing the source of everything you eat. By giving thanks (Rom. 14:6), “… He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks.”

Praying for daily bread forces us to be disciplined about examining what the Lord has provided—and how He would have us use it for His glory.

This prayer will encourage our dependence on God, examine the discipline of our lives, and third, it will,

3. Eliminate the Disease of Worry.

Praying for daily bread removes worry. Jesus did not say to pray for next week’s bread or next month’s bread. He said to pray for today’s bread. When we focus on today, we will not worry about tomorrow. Jesus taught later in this chapter, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” And again, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matt. 6:25, 34).

To trust Him daily means I must pray daily. As believers, we need daily renewal of God’s grace. We often get stressed out with anxiety because we try to face the problems of tomorrow today. Yesterday’s strength is absolutely useless to fight today’s battles. We need a fresh touch of God in our lives every day. God never gives us a reservoir of grace in our lives but expects us to turn to Him every day for the grace sufficient to meet the challenges of that day. D. L. Moody once said, “A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God’s boundless store of grace from day to day as we need it.”

It’s not wrong to prayerfully plan for tomorrow or to make provision for tomorrow, but it is wrong to worry about tomorrow. God has ordained that life moves at the pace of one day at a time. God wants us to trust Him for today.

In teaching us to pray for daily supply, the Lord is not encouraging laziness or irresponsibility. We can’t have the attitude, “I’m going to quit my job and go into deep prayer and ask God to provide everything.” That goes against other principles of scripture. You earn your bread by the sweat of your brow (Gen. 3:19). If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat (2 Thess. 3:10). “The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.” (Pro. 13:4). God has called us to work and seek the kingdom and God has promised to graciously provide.

Do you have a need in your life? The Lord Jesus teaches you to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He is saying “I will meet your needs.”

This prayer will encourage our dependence, examine our discipline, eliminate the disease of worry, and it will,

4. Enlarge Our Duty to Pray.

Notice that Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” not “Give me this day my daily bread.” This whole prayer is concerned not just about my own needs—but also the needs of others. This prayer is an antidote to pride, materialism, and selfishness. We are to pray, “Lord as You meet my needs, also meet their needs.”

This is where we intercede for the practical needs of others. This is where we pray for a hungry world. This is where we ask God to bring to our minds the needs of others we can help. And if God has given you what you need for today, this prayer may prompt you to be the means by which God provides for someone else.

Finally, let me just point out that in the Bible, bread can also represent provision for our spiritual life. Jesus likened the life-sustaining word of God to bread when Satan tempted Him to make stones into bread because He was hungry. He responded, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4 quoting Deut. 8:3, “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.”) Bread is a symbol for the word of God, which is our spiritual food.

The ultimate bread is Jesus Christ himself. The only bread that will satisfy completely and forever is the provision of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Jesus said to those who had eaten the miraculous meal of bread and fish (John 6:27) “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”

Then He told them that He Himself is that food: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51)

That is what we remember when we come to the Lord’s table. Jesus is the bread of life. We need Him desperately. We need Him daily, moment by moment. He is our life. We have died with Him and are raised to walk in newness of life as He lives through us. Daily.

———————————————————

[1] Martin Luther, quoted in MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1985). Matthew (p. 388). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2] Donald Cantrell, The Model Prayer – Our Request, http://sermons.pastorlife.com/members/sermon.asp?USERID=&SERMON_ID=6583

[3] Colin Smith, God’s Provision, https://openthebible.org/sermon/gods-provision/

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Lord's Prayer, Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

February 26, 2023

Your Will Be Done

Matthew 6:10

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

In Matthew 6:5-15, Jesus teaches His disciples about prayer. We are not to pray to be seen by others like the hypocrites; nor are we to pray with empty, repetitive words like the heathen. Instead, His disciples are to pray to their heavenly Father in secret knowing that our Father knows what we need even before we ask. Then, in Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus gives us a pattern, a model prayer, that we often call the Lord’s Prayer. It is meant to be the Christian’s primer and pattern for prayer.

The invocation of the prayer, “Our Father in heaven” sets the atmosphere. We are praying to our all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful Father. We pray based on a love relationship with our Father; we are trusting His goodness, His power, and His love. This intimate relationship that we have as the children of God was purchased by Christ on the cross—therefore, we can come boldly before the throne of God as His dearly loved children.

We have seen that the first three petitions of this prayer concern the Father’s name, kingdom, and will. Perhaps too often, we mistakenly enter prayer selfishly—as though the priority is our name, kingdom, and will. It is not. In fact, when we truly pray, prayer conforms our desires to the Father’s. Therefore, prayer is an important part of our sanctification process. True prayer delivers us from our sinful selfishness.

The petition that probably delivers us most from the rule of self is “oYour will be done.” As we pray through this petition, we bend our desires to that of our Father. It is here where we choose to trust the goodness of God, to know the wisdom of God, and to obey the commands of God—even when circumstances are difficult and don’t make sense.

What does it mean to pray “Your will be done”?

Many Christians are confused about the will of God, maybe you are also. You may have questions like: “What is God’s will? How do I find it?” There is good reason for this confusion: When considering Scripture’s teaching on God’s will, it is clear that there are different aspects of it. Many Bible scholars observe three aspects of God’s will. The thought is not that God has more than one will, but that we can see God’s aims and purposes of God’s one will from three perspectives. There is:

1. God’s sovereign will.

Some theologians call this God’s secret will or God’s will of decree. God’s sovereign will is the aspect of God’s will that is always done. It is what God has sovereignly decreed will take place. Paul writes in Ephesians 1 about “the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,” (Eph. 1:11). This corresponds to what we said last time about the kingdom of God. There is a sense in which God rules over everything in creation and providence as the King. God’s sovereign, eternal purposes will be accomplished for the glory of His name.

We are able to know some of God’s sovereign will because He has revealed it in His word. We know that God has decreed that certain things will take place. Nothing and no one can change that. For instance, God spoke through Isaiah about the destruction of Assyria and Babylon, “The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, ‘Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, And as I have purposed, so it shall stand.’” (Isa. 14:24). To Jeremiah He said, “For every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon, To make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant.” (Jer. 51:29). God has revealed to us in the scriptures that His eternal plan of salvation will be accomplish. Satan, sin and death will be judged and done away with forever. The redeemed saints of God will go to Heaven. Things will go just as God has determined they will, and nothing will derail His purposes!

Some of God’s sovereign will is a mystery to us. Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 29, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deut. 29:29). Notice the important distinction that is made here between what is secret and what is revealed. What is revealed belongs to us and our calling is to do it, but that which is secret belongs to God, and we cannot know it. This would include God’s allowing sin and evil to take place. This is a mysterious aspect of God’s will because, at the same time, Scripture says that God does not commit evil, nor can He be blamed for evil. God allowed Satan to afflict Job (Job 1:12); to tempt David (1 Chr. 21:1); and to test Peter (Luke 22:31).

Again, this is a mystery to us, but it is not a mystery to God. Finite creatures cannot fully comprehend an infinite God. What he has revealed about Himself, we must believe even if we do not fully understand it. The doctrine of God’s sovereign will is always taught in such a way as to give believers comfort. Evil people are not in control; Satan is not in control, and neither are we. God is in control, and he works all events, even the sins of his creatures, for the good of his people and in accordance with his sovereign will (cf. Rom 8:28, Eph 1:11). Nothing in your life is outside of God’s purpose or beyond His control.

Exactly how the events of our lives are woven into the Father’s plan we cannot always tell because God has kept that to Himself and not revealed it to us, “The secret things belong to the LORD.”

How should we respond to God’s sovereign will? We must trust God both in what He has revealed and what He has kept secret. We walk by faith and not by sight, until the day when we are in His presence in heaven. Then what was kept secret will be revealed, and what was a mystery to us, we will see with new eyes. So, here’s how you pray when you are staring into a mystery that you do not understand, when you cannot see what God is doing: “Lord, strengthen my faith, and may Your will be done.”

2. God’s prescriptive will.

This might also be called the ethical will of God or God’s will of command. God has clearly revealed how we are to live according to the commands of scripture. God’s prescriptive will for us includes things like the Great Commandment, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind … And … You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt. 22:37-39). The will of God for us today is also revealed in the Great Commission: It is God’s will that we “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The Bible is full of direct commands to God’s people regarding their relationship with Him and with other people. God has not been ambiguous when it comes to ethics. He has clearly revealed His will in this area. This is God’s prescriptive will. He has revealed it clearly, prescribed it to us, and commanded us to obey it.

You and I know that this aspect of God’s will is not always done, even by those of us who are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. So, when we pray “Your will be done,” we are asking that God’s prescriptive will would be known and obeyed. Of course, a prayer like that has to begin with us. We must pray that we would obey God’s commands. Kent Hughes said this about praying “Your will be done,”:

In praying this we invite God to conquer us, and that is why this petition is so scary. When we pray this prayer, we are asking God to do what is necessary to make his will prevail in our lives. And God then comes with gracious, kind violence to root out all impediments to our obedience. To pray this prayer may terrify us, but it will also deliver us from ourselves. It can truly be said that we have not learned to pray at all until every request in our prayers is made subject to this one.[1]

Therefore, to pray “Your will be done,” we cannot pray for anything that clearly goes against God’s commands. We cannot pray for grace to cheat on a test or not to get caught in a lie. Prayer is about God’s will, and therefore, true prayer is always moral and conforms to God’s will. James 4:3 says, 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” 1 John 5:14 says, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” That’s really what Christ meant when he called us to pray in His name (John 14:13-14). It doesn’t mean to tack His name on the end of our prayers. It means that we pray in line with His character and purpose. Therefore, to pray outside of God’s prescribed will is to pray amiss.[2]

So, we pray, “Father cause me to live in obedience to your commands and bring others in conformity to Your commands as well.”

When we pray, “Your will be done,” we are praying for God’s sovereign will to be accomplished and for faith to trust Him in it. We are praying for God’s prescriptive will to be done as people obey God’s commands. And third, we are praying for,

3. The discerned will of God.

Paul writes in Romans 12, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Rom. 12:1-2). When he writes that we may “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God,” the word “prove” means to test, examine, scrutinize, discern as genuine.

There is a will of God that can be discerned. This is neither secret nor revealed, but somewhere in between. It is discerned. All of us make life-changing decisions and we wrestle with life-changing questions. What college should I attend? Where should I live? Should I marry and if so, who should I marry? What work should I pursue? What money should I spend, what should I save, and what should I give? What church should I join? What responsibility should I take on my shoulders? Every time you come to a fork in the road of your life, you will find yourself asking, “What is God’s will?” but there isn’t a verse in the Bible that tells you a detailed answer to any of these questions.[3]

How do we pray for God’s discerned will to be done? How do we discern God’s will in these things? Paul gave us the answer right there in Romans 12: by surrendering ourselves to God as living sacrifices; by not conforming to this evil world; by being transformed by the renewing of our minds with the word of God. God’s word may not tell me what car to drive—but as I surrender my life as a living sacrifice I discern that I must have a car that reflects that surrender and sacrifice to the Lord. God’s word may not tell me where I am to live—but as I refuse to be conformed to this world, I discern that where I live cannot be determined by a desire for earthly wealth, fame, or sin. God’s word may not tell me what church to join—but as I renew my mind with the word of God, I discern the characteristics of a healthy church are to be and I can look for one that is like that.

So here’s how you pray when you are faced with a major decision: “Lord give me discernment; cause me to be wise, to live according to the principles in Your word, and may Your will be done.”

When we pray “Your will be done,” we are asking for faith in what God has kept secret, obedience in what God has prescribed, and wisdom in what God calls us to discern.

How is God’s will to be done?

Our Lord gives a model of how God’s will is to be done. “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.” How is God’s will done in heaven? Psalm 103 says,

¹⁹ The LORD has established His throne in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all. ²⁰ Bless the LORD, you His angels, Who excel in strength, who do His word, Heeding the voice of His word. ²¹ Bless the LORD, all you His hosts, You ministers of His, who do His pleasure. (Psa. 103:19-21).

In heaven, God’s will is done completely, consistently and constantly. It is done without complaint, without murmuring, without discussion and it is done quickly. It is done with joy and excitement. In the Lord’s Prayer we are asking we may do the will of God as the angels do in heaven: “Lord, let us do your will, fully, gladly and immediately.”

But, as Colin Smith points out, angels don’t know the realities of life in the body. They don’t experience temptation to sin. They don’t know what it is to suffer. So God has given us a closer model. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Has God’s will ever been done on earth as it is in heaven?[4]

It has in the life and ministry of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38). Jesus loved doing the Father’s will. He said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34). Jesus did nothing on His own. He said, “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” (John 5:30).

Paul writes about Jesus, “For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.’” (Rom 15:3). Hebrews says about Jesus, “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” (Heb. 5:8) and quoting Psalm 40, “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come–In the volume of the book it is written of Me–To do Your will, O God.’” (Heb. 10:7).

Jesus embraced God’s commands and obeyed them completely even through suffering. He did it to please His heavenly Father, not Himself. Jesus specifically prayed this request, “Your will be done,” as He faced His death on the cross. In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed, Matthew records, “He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.’” (Matt. 26:39) and again “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” (Matt. 26:42).

Spurgeon writes,

He that taught us this prayer used it himself in the most unrestricted sense. When the bloody sweat stood on His face, and all the fear and trembling of a man in anguish were upon Him, He did not dispute the decree of the Father, but bowed His head and cried, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”[5]

Here’s what it looks like for God’s will to be done on earth. Jesus submitted to the Father’s will because of His love relationship with the Father. He submitted to God’s will because the Father had clearly revealed His purpose. He submitted to God’s will confident in the eternal joy that it would bring. Gethsemane shows us that this third petition is the hardest of all to pray, and it will change the way you think about prayer. Our first thought about prayer may be that prayer is a way to get God to do our will, but Jesus makes it very clear that it is completely the other way round. The purpose of prayer is not that God should do our will, but that we should do God’s will, “Your will be done.”

————————————-

[1] Hughes, R. K. (2001). The sermon on the mount: the message of the kingdom (p. 177). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

[2] Gregory Brown, 23. May Your Will Be Done (Matthew 6:10b), https://bible.org/seriespage/23-may-your-will-be-done-matthew-610b#_ftn2

[3] Colin Smith, God’s Will, https://openthebible.org/sermon/gods-will/#:~:text=Our%20Father%2C%20we%20bow%20before,and%20to%20do%20Your%20will.

[4] Smith, ibid.

[5] Charles Spurgeon, A Heavenly Pattern for Our Earthly Life, https://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/HEAVPAT.TXT

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Lord's Prayer, Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

February 12, 2023

Hallowed Be Your Name

Matthew 6:9

We are learning to pray from Jesus. Here in His Sermon on the Mount Jesus is teaching us how to pray. In Matthew 6:9 Jesus says, “In this manner, therefore, pray…” And Jesus then gives us a model prayer, a pattern for prayer—what we traditionally have called the Lord’s Prayer because He taught it to His disciples.

Last time we learned that Prayer is based on a personal relationship with God the Father. So Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). Prayer is an expression of the relationship we have with Him as children of God. Jesus opened the way for us to become children of God through His death and resurrection. Now “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19).

The address, “Our Father,” reminds us of God’s approachability. When we begin our prayer, “Our Father,” we begin to pray based on an intimate relationship with God – that of a father and child. God is not an angry judge looking for an opportunity to condemn us, nor is aloof and distant, too busy to hear you. He is our Father and can be approached on an intimate basis.

It is also important to remember that our Father is “in heaven.” The Father sits on the throne of majesty and at His right hand shines His Son, Jesus Christ. God is “in heaven.” He is God of majesty and might. He is the glorious King, surrounded by the angelic host, sovereign over all things in heaven and on earth. God is above all. He has all authority and all power. He is heavenly. He is separated from sinners. He is undefiled. He is holy. He is “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).

On the one hand, our Father is easy to approach because we are His beloved children; on the other hand, He is the King of the universe, clothed in heavenly glory.

These two attributes of God come together wonderfully in the next part of the prayer, “Hallowed be Your Name.” This, by the way, is the first petition. This is the first prayer request, “Hallowed be Your name.” And it’s on God’s behalf. “Hallowed be Your name” is a request, not a declaration. We are not saying, “Lord, your name is hallowed!” We are saying, “Lord, cause your name to be hallowed!”[1] This is then the fundamental duty in prayer. “Self is immediately removed and God is the priority. The glory of God, the hallowing of His great name, is the beginning of all prayer.”[2]

The first thing we do when we come to God in prayer, acknowledging Him as the Father who cares about us and who has all the resources we need, is to confess that the priority is not us but God, because the first thing we pray is, “Hallowed be Your name.” When we pray “Hallowed be Your name,” we climb to a new level of respect for God and reverence for His person. When we begin our prayers “Hallowed be Your name,” we are not rushing into the presence of God to demand something, we come into His presence recognizing who God is and honoring Him with our praise. Jesus teaches us the pattern to start our prayers with “Hallowed be Your name”. We must not wait until we have said everything we wanted to say and then tack on at the end, “Oh, by the way, God, You’re pretty great too.”

This is an expression of worship, of reverence, of praise. The verb, “Hallowed”, comes from the word for “holy.” It means to be holy, set apart, sanctified. When we pray “hallowed be Your Name,” we are not praying that God would be made holy. God is already holy, set apart, by His very nature. God is supremely holy—separate from us. He absolutely belongs to a different sphere of life and being. Rather, we are praying that God would be acknowledged as holy, known as the holy God who He is. We are praying that God be set apart in our minds and hearts to be worshipped, praised, honored, and adored. To hallow the name of God is to hold His matchless being in reverence, utter awe, to hold Him as unique, above and beyond everyone else.

The object of all prayer is that God be glorified. Jesus gives this great promise about prayer in John 14:13. “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” That verse tells us the purpose of prayer—God’s glory, “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” God’s glory was the constant focus of the Lord Jesus Christ. In His high priestly prayer (John 17), Jesus declared, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, … I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do, … I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world,” (John 17:1, 4, 6).

All of Jesus’ life fulfilled this prayer to hallow the Father’s name. Prayer is first and foremost a recognition of God’s majestic glory, a submission to that glory[3], and a petition for God’s name to be glorified. John MacArthur wrote, “True prayer brings the mind into immediate contemplation of God’s glory, and true prayer should hold it there until the believer’s soul is properly impressed.”[4]

This is why the model prayer that Jesus teaches begins with three petitions concerning God. “Hallowed be Your Name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done” and for all these requests we are asking that God’s name be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done, “On earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:9-10).

How is God’s name hallowed in heaven? Angelic creatures cry out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isa. 6:3). The worship in heaven never ends: “they do not rest day or night, saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8). Every creature in heaven joins in saying: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13). That’s the scene in heaven. God’s name is honored and adored in unceasing worship.

What about the scene on earth? Listen to what God says through the prophet Isaiah,“And My name is blasphemed continually every day” (Isa. 52:5). The scene on earth could not be more different from the scene in heaven. In heaven, God’s name is honored as the angels worship without ceasing. On earth, God’s name is despised, blasphemed all day long.

And into that chasm, we pray the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer. To pray ‘Hallowed be Your name’ means to ask God to let His name be worshipped, exalted, honored, and adored on earth as it is in heaven. It is to ask God to so move and act in the world, that people will worship and treasure Him above all else.[5]

How do we “Hallow” God’s Name?[6]

1. We hallow God’s name by reverencing His person.

Praying “Hallowed be Your name” is not a passing homage. It is not a casual bit of religious routine. It is really a recognition of a whole sphere of respect and reverence, of awe and appreciation for who God Our Father is.

“Your name” stands for far more than a title, far more than a word. The name of God is always an expression of His person and His character. It means all that God is. To hallow God’s name means more than just thinking of His name in an adoring way. To hallow His name is to go beyond the name itself to set apart and magnify the One who stands behind the name.

We learn much about God from His names in the Bible. He is God the Father; He is Adonai the sovereign; He is Yahweh the covenant Lord, the one who is “I am that I am”; He is Elohim the mighty creator; and El Elyon—God Most High. There are dozens of names and titles by which God is called in the Bible. Maybe the reason God is known by so many names is that one name or title could never express His eternal nature and infinite perfections. Each name reveals to us an essential aspect of God’s nature and character.

In Exodus 33:18 Moses prayed, “Please, show me Your glory.” Then the Lord answered (Exo. 33:19), “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you …” (“the Lord” is Yahweh, the covenant name of God). After putting Moses in a cleft of the rock because as God says, “for no man shall see Me, and live” (Exo. 33:20), then the Lord, “descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord,” (Exo. 34:5). Look at how the Lord proclaims His name (Exo. 34:6): “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.’”

When the Lord proclaimed His name He was not just stating His title, He was showing His glory by expounding His character. He proclaimed His mercy, grace, patience, goodness, truth, forgiveness, and justice. This is God’s glory. This is His holiness.

During the wilderness wandering of the people of Israel, they came to a place called Kadesh (which by the way is related to the Hebrew word qâdash, meaning to be holy, set apart). At Kadesh they had no water (Num. 20:1-2). And the people grumbled against Moses (Num. 20:3). But the Lord told Moses to speak to the rock and to bring forth water for the people (Num. 20:8). But Moses’ spirit was angry, and he spoke rashly (Num. 20:10) and struck the rock twice with his rod (Num. 20:11). The water came, but so did the stinging word of God to Moses: “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” (Num. 20:12).

Notice what God said to Moses: “you did not believe Me, to hallow Me.” We hallow God by believing Him, trusting in His word. God is not hallowed when we do not have a spirit of faith and trust in His word.

John said, “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son” (1 John 5:10). When we disbelieve God, we make Him our to be a liar and we profane His name. Not trusting God is the exact opposite of hallowing His name. When we pray, “Hallowed be Your name“, we are asking that God would cause His name to be reverenced by people trusting in His word and believing in His Son.[7]

In John 17:6, when Jesus prayed, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world,” what did He mean by “I have manifested Your name”? Did He mean, “I’ve told them Your name?” No, He meant, “I’ve revealed who You are.” Remember Jesus said (John 14:9), “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Jesus showed who God is—His true nature, His true person, His name. The name of God is supremely and fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus was the Father’s glory incarnate, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). As John MacArthur says, “’Name’ is not a title, it’s a total”[8]; it’s the whole being of God.

Psalm 99 says, “³ Let them praise Your great and awesome name; He is holy … ⁵ Exalt the LORD our God, And worship at His footstool–He is holy … ⁹ Exalt the LORD our God, And worship at His holy hill; For the LORD our God is holy.” (Psa. 99:3, 5, 9).

In Isaiah 8, the Lord God warned the prophet not to be like the people of Israel. “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, Nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. The LORD of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread.” (Isa. 8:12-13).

How do you hallow God? You hallow Him by not fearing what men fear but fearing God. Very practically it means that when God commands you to take your stand for Him in this hostile world, you fear displeasing God more than you fear the hostility of man. When we pray, “Hallowed be Your name,” we are praying, “Father, cause people to reverence You so much that it is more dreadful to lose your approval than to lose anything the world can offer.”[9]

We hallow God’s name by reverencing His person.

2. We hallow His name by rehearsing God’s works.

Several of the Psalms give us an example of this kind of praise.

² Sing out the honor of His name; Make His praise glorious. ³ Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. ⁴ All the earth shall worship You And sing praises to You; They shall sing praises [to] Your name.” Selah (Psa. 66:2-4)

Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD! (Psa. 105:1-3)

The works of His hands are verity and justice; All His precepts are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, And are done in truth and uprightness. He has sent redemption to His people; He has commanded His covenant forever: Holy and awesome is His name. (Psa. 111:7-9)

For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name. (Luke 1:49)

Paul hallows the name of the Father in his letter to the Ephesians. He praise or “blesses” “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Eph. 1:3). Then he goes on to rehearse the ways that God “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” He writes about how God chose us (Eph. 1:4); adopted us (Eph. 1:5); made us accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:6); redeemed us through Christ’s blood (Eph. 1:7); made known to us His will (Eph. 1:9); given us an inheritance (Eph. 1:11); and sealed us with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13)—all “to the praise of His glory,” (Eph. 1:14; also Eph. 1:6, 12).

We hallow the name of the Lord our God with acts of public and private worship. Our hymns often help us to rehearse the saving works of the Lord. We hallow His name by remembering and rehearsing what God has done in Christ.

3. We hallow His name by relinquishing control over our lives.

³¹ “Therefore you shall keep My commandments, and perform them: I am the LORD. ³² You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you,” (Lev. 22:31-32)

We hallow the name of God when we keep His commandments. We profane the name of God when we break His commandments. So, when we pray, “Hallowed be Your name,” we are praying, “Father, cause your word to be obeyed.”

To obey the Lord, we must trust in the Lord and in His sovereign will for our lives.

Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name. Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us, Just as we hope in You. (Psa. 33:20-22)

Jesus prayed this kind of prayer submitting to the will of the Father:

²⁷ “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ²⁸ “Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” (John 12:27-28).

When He prays “Father, glorify Your name” it is essentially the same as “hallowed be Your name.” Jesus illustrates perfectly what it means to pray this way. He submitted His will to the Father’s will for God’s glory. That is hallowing the name of God.

Paul encourages the Roman Christians to submit themselves to God as an act of worship:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom. 12:1)

Paul warned the Jews in the church at Rome, “…. the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,…” (Rom. 2:24). It is a solemn thought to realize that failure on our part to hallow the name of the Lord has disastrous consequences, in causing that name to be blasphemed by the world. When we pray each day “Hallowed be Your name,’ we are saying, “Father Your reputation is at stake in me today. May I live in such a way as to be a credit to Your person. My others see Your character through my behavior and honor Your name because of what they see of You in me.”

Hallowing His name means living in such a way that I increase His reputation in the world. When you pray, “Hallowed be your name,” you are both the voice and the feet of that petition. As the very words leave your lips, your life is part of the answer. When you pray that God’s name be hallowed, your first obligation is to live in such a way that God can answer your prayer through your life.

We hallow the name of God by relinquishing control over our lives, submitting ourselves to obey Him.

4. We hallow His name by recognizing His presence in our lives.

For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (Isa. 57:15)

I have set the LORD always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. (Psa. 16:8)

That’s what it means. The Lord is before us, near us. “God, it’s Your purpose, it’s Your kingdom, it’s Your will, Your glory.” That’s where all prayer starts. Hallowing His name means I have set the Lord always before me, praying, “Oh God, before I ever talk about my bread, my sin, my life—know this: I desire Your name to be hallowed, Your glory to be displayed.”

Will this prayer be answered?

Our Lord did not teach us to offer futile prayers. Every petition of the Lord’s Prayer will be answered. When we frame our prayers around the Lord’s Prayer we can always pray with confidence. Each of the six petitions will be answered when our Lord returns and each has an answer that we can experience here and now. There’s a ‘now’ answer and a ‘then’ answer.

When Christ returns in power and glory, God’s name will be hallowed, honored, glorified, and exalted.

“For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
As the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14)

Paul declares “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phl. 2:10-11).

This world will be the home of righteousness. Never again will God’s name be blasphemed. God’s name will be honored on earth as it is in heaven. And all of God’s people will worship Him, love Him, and adore Him forever.

But how can this prayer be answered here and now in this world that despises God’s name? What is God’s answer to His name being blasphemed all day long? Immediately after God says through Isaiah that His name is blasphemed continually every day, the Lord says, “Therefore my people shall know my name.” (Isa 52:6). God’s answer to a world that despises His name is a people who know His name.

When we pray ‘Hallowed be Your name,’ we are asking God to raise up here on earth, people who know Him, love Him, and treasure Him. We pray so that in a world that despises and blasphemes God’s name, His name may be honored.[10]

God wants His name to be hallowed in us—that we would be His children by faith in Jesus Christ so that we would reverence His person in Christ, rehearse His mighty works in Christ, relinquish control to Jesus Christ, and recognize the presence of Jesus Christ in us—all for His glory!

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[1] John Piper, Hallowed Be Thy Name in All the Earth, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/hallowed-be-thy-name-in-all-the-earth

[2] John MacArthur, Hallowed Be Thy Name, https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-148/hallowed-be-thy-name

[3] John MacArthur, Hallowed Be Thy Name, ibid.

[4] John MacArthur, Hallowed Be Thy Name, ibid.

[5] Colin Smith, What Does It Mean to Pray ‘Hallowed Be Your Name’? https://openthebible.org/article/what-does-it-mean-to-pray-hallowed-be-your-name/

[6] David Jeremiah, Prayer the Great Adventure, Multnomah Publishers, Sisters OR, 1997. pp. 92-95. I adapted Jeremiah’s outline from chapter 5 for this sermon.

[7] John Piper, ibid.

[8] John MacArthur, The Priority of Prayer, https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2235/the-priority-of-prayer

[9] Piper, ibid.

[10] Colin Smith, ibid.

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Lord's Prayer, Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

February 5, 2023

Our Father in Heaven

Matthew 6:9

“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” (Matthew 6:9)

The words of Christ, like the works of God, are inexhaustible.[1] We have barely scratched the surface of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and yet we have already received more divine truth than we could ever fully comprehend or keep. Last time, we began looking into the model prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples here in Matthew 6—the prayer often called the Lord’s Prayer. J. C. Ryle comments about the Lord’s Prayer,

No part of Scripture is so full and so simple at the same time as this. It is the first prayer we learn to offer up when we are little children: here is its simplicity. It contains the germ of everything which the most advanced saint can desire: here is its fullness. The more we ponder every word it contains, the more we shall feel this prayer is of God.[2]

This is one reason why I want us to slow down in our verse-by-verse study of the Gospel of Matthew to concentrate our exposition phrase-by-phrase on this prayer. The other reason I want us to dig deeply into its truths is that I want us to truly learn to pray. God calls us to pray. He invites us to pray. He commands us to pray. He exhorts us to seek His face every day. Through Christ Jesus, we have been given unlimited access to the throne room of heaven.[3] Yet, many of us still find it difficult to pray and don’t know how to pray as we ought. My hope is that a detailed study of this model prayer that Jesus taught will help us to be a praying people.

Jesus has already taught us that to come to God in prayer, we must take off any spiritual mask. The Lord taught, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites …” (Matt. 5:5). Instead, we are to “pray to your Father who is in the secret place” (Matt. 5:6). The real you has to meet the real God. He is a person.^[4] That is why when we pray we “do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do” (Matt. 6:7), because “your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matt. 6:8). Prayer is not ritual, it is relational.

The heart of this relationship can be found in the opening phrase, “Our Father in heaven …” (Matthew 6:9). In those first words Jesus establishes the foundation for our prayers: a relationship with God as our heavenly Father. God wants us to relate to Him as children to a Father.

What does it mean to address God as “Our Father”?

First, there is a general sense in which God is a Father of all people, since they are His offspring as Creator. Speaking to the pagans at Athens, Paul says,

²⁶ “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, ²⁷ so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (Acts 17:26-28)

But the Bible also teaches that ever since the human race rebelled against God, sinning in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3), all of us enter life alienated from God. In fact, Jesus told the unbelieving Jews that they were of their father, the devil (John 8:44). It is only when a person is born spiritually by God’s will and power that one becomes a child of God in the true sense. Speaking about Jesus, John 1:11-13 says,

¹¹ He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. ¹² But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: ¹³ who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:11-13).

Only those who have received Jesus Christ, who have believed in His name, are born again as children of God. Only they have the true privilege of calling God, “Our Father.” This is a prayer for those who know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Thus, if you want to truly pray to God as your Father in Heaven, the first step is to repent of your sins and receive Jesus Christ, believing in His name as your Savior and Lord. Then and only then can you have access through Christ in the Holy Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18). Remember that Jesus is teaching disciples here (Matt. 5:1-2), those who will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. They are the ones who pray like this.

I want to focus our thoughts today on three truths about God revealed at the beginning of this prayer: the person of the Father, the place of the Father, and the people of the Father.

1. The Person of the Father — “Our Father”

“Father” as a title for God was rarely used in the Old Testament (only 14 times) and it was always used with reference to the nation of Israel, not to individuals. Thus where “father” does occur with respect to God, it is commonly by way of analogy, and not used to directly address Him (Deut 32:6; Ps 103:13; Isa 63:16; Mal 2:10). For instance,

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Israel is My son, My firstborn.”’ (Exo. 4:22).
Do you thus deal with the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established you? (Deut. 32:6)
Doubtless You are our Father, Though Abraham was ignorant of us, And Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name. (Isa. 63:16)
But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. (Isa. 64:8)
They shall come with weeping, And with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, In a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn. (Jer. 31:9)

What a great difference in the New Testament! You cannot get past the first few chapters of Matthew before you are introduced to a whole new concept of the Fatherhood of God. In the Gospels, Jesus speaks of God as Father more than 70 times. Jesus addressed God as Father in all of His prayers, except for the prayer on the cross as He bore our sin, where He quoted Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Here in Matthew 6, Jesus refers to God as Father 12 times. Look at how Jesus teaches about the Father in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 5:16 – We glorify our Father in heaven by our good works that demonstrate His light in us.
Matthew 5:44-45 – God our Father in heaven is good to all, even those who hate Him, curse Him and do evil against Him. As His children, we do the same.
Matthew 5:48 – God our heavenly Father is perfect, so as His children we should be perfect also.
Matthew 6:4 – Our Father sees in secret and rewards us for secret giving.
Matthew 6:6-7 – Our Father is unseen, and sees us when we pray in secret.
Matthew 6:8 – Our Father knows what we need before we ask.
Matthew 6:14-15 – Our heavenly Father forgives those who forgive.
Matthew 6:18 – Same idea for fasting – Our Father sees in secret and rewards us.
Matthew 6:26 – Our heavenly Father cares about birds, and cares even more for us.
Matthew 6:32 – Our heavenly Father knows the things we need.
Matthew 7:11 – Our Father in heaven will give good gifts to those who ask Him.
Matthew 7:21 – Those who do the heavenly Father’s will enter into the kingdom.

This is a huge change from the Old Testament understanding of God as Father. What made the difference?

Jesus made the difference. We can address God in our prayers with a word of intimacy, Father. In the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, that would be ‘Abba’, Jesus’ own characteristic address to God. Nobody had ever addressed God like that. The whole gospel is contained in that one little word, Abba—as Paul well understood.^[5] Paul summarizes the change that took place when Jesus came in Galatians 4:4-7:

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Because God has sent His Son Jesus into the world, our relationship with Him has changed. When Jesus Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead, He redeemed us. He purchased for us our freedom from sin and death. Those things that kept us from a personal relationship with God have been removed. We receive this redemption by faith, trusting in Jesus Christ—His death and resurrection—calling on Him as Lord.

God has now adopted those He redeemed into His family. He is truly our Father now. We can have an intimate personal love relationship with God because He is our loving Father and we are His adopted children. Sons and daughters have family rights that guarantee them access to their fathers. That’s a big part of what being a father is all about. My children don’t need an appointment to see me, and I don’t need an appointment to see my Heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit compels me to cry out “Abba, Father!”

In Romans 8 Paul writes about us as children of God in a similar way:

¹⁴ For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

As children of God we have:

A new relationship (Rom. 8:15) – adopted as God’s children
A new resource (Rom. 8:16) – the Holy Spirit of God who dwells in us
A new reward (Rom. 8:17; Gal. 3:29) – an inheritance with Christ
A new responsibility (Rom. 8:17-18) – suffering with Him, glorifying God

Jesus transferred the Fatherhood of God from a theological doctrine into an intimate relationship, and He taught his disciples to pray with the same intimacy. And that is what He does for us. “Our Father”—“Our Abba”—“Our dearest Father”—this is to be the foundational awareness of all our prayers. Does it undergird your prayer life? Is a sense of God’s intimate Fatherhood profound and growing in your life? [6]

J.I. Packer in his excellent book, Knowing God, wrote,

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.[7]

The Fatherhood of God speaks of this intimate relationship. It also speaks of a loving relationship, a transforming relationship, and a purifying relationship. John writes,

¹ Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. ² Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. ³ And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

You are the center of your heavenly Father’s affection. That is where you find rest for your soul. If you remove prayer from the welcoming heart of our loving Father, prayer becomes a legalistic chore. We do the duty but miss touching the heart of God. By coming to God as needy children, “weary and heavy-laden,” we discover His heart—heaven touches earth and His will is done.^[8]

Octavius Winslow wrote,

You may have been a foolish and a sinful child; you may be poor and needy, little and despicable, deeming yourself unworthy to be called a son; nevertheless, the mercy-seat is your Father’s meeting-place; and every atoning drop that sprinkles it, and every golden beam that bathes it, and every accent of love that breathes from it, bids and encourages your approach to God, and cry, “My Father!”[9]

How great is our Father’s love to His children! They are His offspring, He must bless them; they are His children, He must show Himself strong in their defense. Later in His Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:11). If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father?”[10]

This opening address reminds us of the person of the Father and secondly,

2. The Place of the Father — “Our Father in heaven”

We pray to our Father “in heaven.” If “Father” reminds us of intimacy with God, “in heaven” reminds us of His transcendence. The phrase “in heaven” refers to heaven not just as the abode of God, but especially as the seat of all authority, power, dominion, and greatness. “Father in heaven” implies the respect and authority of a submissive relationship.

Don Carson points out how the ancient Jew had such lofty views of God’s transcendence that he often had no concept of His personhood, and could certainly not think of Him in terms of relationship. On the other hand, our modern way of thinking puts such emphasis on God’s nearness that transcendence and sovereignty have almost disappeared from our thoughts of God.[11]

The Jews of Jesus’ day tended to view God as so awesome and holy that they dared not be too intimate with Him. They dared not utter the name of God, because it was too sacred. They kept their proper distance in the temple, because if they touched any of the sacred objects, they might drop dead. They needed to learn that they could approach God as a merciful and loving Father.

In our day, it seems that the reverse is true. Many American Christians think of God as their Good Buddy in the Sky. They don’t talk much about His consuming holiness and His blinding splendor. They don’t fear His chastening hand. We can be too casual about the Holy One. We need to think with the biblical writers as they pondered the enormity of our Father in heaven:

Psalm 11:4 – The LORD is in His holy temple, The LORD’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.

Psalm 103:19 – The LORD has established His throne in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all.

Psalm 115:3 – But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.

Because “Our Father” is “in heaven”, it should cause us to respect His authority and to submit to Him in godly fear. As the author of Hebrews puts it (Heb. 12:9), “Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?” Thus, while we can draw near to the Father as His beloved children, we must always do so with reverence, respect, and submission to His sovereign authority.

Therefore, when you say, “Our father in heaven,” you are proclaiming that He has the authority and power to hear you and to help you when you pray. It is precisely because God is in heaven that He has the power to help you. Because Our Father loves His children and controls everything, we can ask, and He will listen and act. Since He is in heaven with all authority and power, change is possible —and hope is born.^[12]

We have seen the person of the Father, the place of the Father, and thirdly we see in this opening address,

3. The People of the Father – “OUR Father”

One last thing: when you pray, “Our Father in heaven,” you are admitting that you do not pray alone. As I said last time, the Lord’s Prayer is not just a “private” prayer. The words “I” and “me” are nowhere to be found. To begin with the word “our” means that you are in a fellowship and a community of God’s children. This is an important insight because it is very easy to become me-oriented when we pray. But when you pray “Our Father,” you are extending your prayers beyond yourself and your needs to include others.

To pray like this imparts a bigness and expansiveness to your prayer because it includes all of God’s children everywhere. When we pray “Our Father” as a congregation, we cease merely to be individuals coming to church with our own particular burdens. Instead, we become part of a family with a common heritage and with shared values. And that family of brothers and sisters is even more decisive than a biological family. It is a family created by the new birth and made possible by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ for our redemption.

To sum up our thoughts today, think of it this way:^[13]

“Our Father” –   that speaks of Community.
“Our Father” –     that speaks of Family.
“In heaven“    –   that speaks of Authority.

Or to say it another way:

Our means I do not pray alone.
Father means I am not left alone.
In heaven means I do not struggle alone.

Or from a third perspective:

Our reveals I pray with others.
Our Father reveals I pray to One who loves me and has mercy on me.
Our Father in heaven reveals I pray to one who has the power to answer and help me.

Every single word is important. Every word communicates the heart of God and our relationship to Him. “Our“ opens you up to a big view of the universe. “Father“ encourages you to believe that He cares. “In heaven“ means that you don’t have a problem that He can’t handle.

Can you call on God as Father? If so, come boldly to our Father in heaven to find mercy and grace to help in your time of need. If not, come to Jesus. Repent of your sin. Believe on Him. Become a child of God through union with the only begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

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[1] Alexander Maclaren, Our Father, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/maclaren/ezek_matt1.iii.xxxii.html

[2] J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Matthew, https://ccel.org/ccel/ryle/matthew/matthew.vii.ii.html

[3] Ray Pritchard, If God is Sovereign, Why Pray?. http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/2012-06-21-If-God-is-Sovereign-Why-Pray/

^[4] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

^[5] Michael Green, The Message of Matthew: The Kingdom of Heaven, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 100.

[6] R. Kent Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount- The Message of the Kingdom – Preaching the Word

[7] J. I. Packer, Knowing God, Inter Varsity Press Il. 1993, P. 201. Quoting Packer from Evangelical Magazine 7, pp. 19-20.

^[8] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

[9] Octavius Winslow, The FILIAL Spirit of the Lords Prayer. https://www.gracegems.org/Winslows/lp01.htm

[10] Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, January 26. https://www.blueletterbible.org/devotionals/me/view.cfm?Date=01/26&Time=am

[11] Don Carson, Sermon on the Mount, 63-64. Quoted by Phil Newton, https://archive.southwoodsbc.org/sermons/matthew_06.09.php

^[12] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

[13] Ray Pritchard, God Our Father, https://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/god-our-father/

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

January 22, 2023

The Model Prayer

Matthew 6:9-13

Today we come to one of the most well-known sections of the whole Sermon on the Mount: the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). It is a beautifully brief and simple prayer, one that many people know by heart. It only takes a minute to pray, and yet it contains all the requests that Jesus wants us to make. Songs have been written based on this prayer; books and commentaries have been written about this prayer.[1] Many churches use it weekly in their worship.

Prayer is at the heart of the Christian life, and yet many of us still struggle with prayer. Isn’t it ironic that one of the most beautiful things we experience in this life, talking with our heavenly Father, can also be one of the most elusive? There is nothing in the Christian life that makes me know my own sinfulness, my own weakness, my dependency, my inadequacy, my need for growth, more than prayer. I confess: It is easier to read my Bible than to pray; it is easier to preach than to pray; it is easier to talk to fellow believers than it is to talk to God; it is easier to busy myself with activity than to pray.[2] As a child of God, I have a supernatural instinct to pray. Yet prayer is also a spiritual discipline that my flesh would avoid. I am certain that I am not alone in this struggle. The great pastor and expositor Martin Lloyd-Jones said, “If you have never had difficulty in prayer, it is absolutely certain that you have never prayed.”[3]

As we come to the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had been warning us as His disciples about the danger of hypocrisy. His main concern was to teach us not to do our acts of spiritual devotion before God with the evil motive of being seen by others. He teaches in Matthew 6:1, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds [or more accurately, “righteousness”] before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” He then gives three specific examples that touch on every possible expression of our spiritual devotion: giving, praying, and fasting.

Last time we saw from Matthew 6:5-8 how not to pray. Prayer must not be a public show before others, nor should it be an attempt to manipulate God with many words. God sees what we do in secret, and he knows what you need before you ask him.

Now here in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us how to pray. Jesus begins by saying, “In this manner, therefore, pray . . .” (Matt. 6:9). He didn’t say, “In these exact words pray.” I don’t think that Jesus meant for us to pray only these words. When the church prays individually and corporately in Acts and the Epistles, we never find them praying these exact words. Simply repeating these words in a rote manner would contradict the teaching about prayer that Jesus gave in Matthew 6:7-8. This prayer is to be a model, not a mantra. In fact, on another occasion, in the Gospel of Luke Jesus taught His disciples to pray in this same pattern but not in precisely the same words (Luke 11:2-4). “He didn’t give it to us as a script of what we should pray, but rather as an example of how we should pray.”[4]

This is a model prayer. It’s a pattern for prayer. It teaches us how to pray. Although I don’t think it is wrong to memorize this prayer or pray it word-for-word, it is meant to be so much more than that. It becomes even more important to us as a guide to prayer.

The Model Prayer is given in contrast to the hypocrite’s prayer. Against the self-glorifying prayer that manipulates God, Jesus calls for a God-glorifying prayer that trusts Him.^[5] This prayer is meant to have a total, shaping effect on our hearts, helping us to see and yearn for the very things that God himself desires — most centrally, to see and experience more of God himself in our hearts and lives.[6] Paul Miller, in his excellent book, A Praying Life, writes:

Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God. Making prayer the center is like making conversation the center of a family mealtime. In prayer, focusing on the conversation is like trying to drive while looking at the windshield instead of through it. It freezes us, making us unsure of where to go. Conversation is only the vehicle through which we experience one another. Consequently, prayer is not the center … Getting to know a person, God, is the center.^[7]

David Jeremiah shows how the Lord’s Prayer covers every relationship with have with God:[8]

Father/Child – “Our Father which art in heaven”
Deity/Worshipper – “Hallowed be Thy Name”
King/Kingdom – “Thy Kingdom come”
Master/Servant – “Thy will be done”
Creator/Creation – “on Earth as it is in heaven”
Provider/Receiver – “Give us this day our daily bread”
Savior/Sinner – “Forgive us our debts”
Guide/Pilgrim – “Lead us not into temptation”
Deliverer/Captive – “Deliver us from evil”
Sovereign/Subject – “Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen”

When we pray according to the model of this prayer, we are emphasizing our relationship to God through Jesus Christ. This prayer does not exhaust everything we might say about God or to God, but it does underscore the relationship we are to have with God.

Jesus isn’t just telling us what to pray for but He is showing us the heart of a righteous man as he prays. John MacArthur points out how this prayer defines the spirit in which we are to pray:

First of all, it says, “our.” That’s an unselfish spirit.
Then it says, “Father,” that’s a family spirit.
Then it says, “hallowed be thy name,” a reverent spirit.
“Thy kingdom come,” a loyal spirit.
“Thy will be done,” a submissive spirit.
“Give us our daily bread,” a dependent spirit.
“Forgive us our trespasses,” a penitent spirit.
“Lead us not into temptation,” a humble spirit.
“Thine is the kingdom,” a confident spirit.
“And the power,” a triumphant spirit.
“And the glory,” an exultant spirit.[9]

There are few things more revealing about a man than His prayer life. Jesus shows us how a righteous man prays. Jesus is addressing the heart and motives of a man as He teaches us how a righteous man prays. He is intending to reveal to you who you should be as a child of God, a disciple of Jesus.

This is a model for every true prayer ever prayed. This is the hook on which you can hang every prayer you ever pray. This is the pattern for all praying. If you will memorize this prayer, get it in your head, and work your way through its outline—no matter what you’re praying about, you’ll have the confidence of praying the way Jesus taught you to pray.

The prayer itself is easy to outline. It begins by addressing God as “Our Father in heaven.” Next time we will focus on this phrase specifically to see how this relationship with God as our Father helps us to pray.

The meat of the prayer is contained in six petitions, each of which employs an imperative verb which means there’s an intensity to them. In each of them, we are imploring God to do something: 1) “Hallowed be Your name”; 2) “Your Kingdom come”; 3) “Your will be done”; 4) “Give us this day our daily bread”; 5) “Forgive us our debts”; 6) “Deliver us from the evil one.”

You will notice that the first three petitions focus on God. They are requests regarding God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will. The focus is not on us but on God, praying for His concerns: Your name, Your Kingdom, Your will. We are praying for the honor of God’s person, “Hallowed be Your name”; for the fulfillment of God’s program, “Your Kingdom come”; and for the completion of God’s purpose, “Your will be done”. This last phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven” actually applies to all three prayer requests relating to God’s concerns. We pray that God’s name would be honored on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that God’s rule would come on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The next three petitions focus on our needs. Here we find the pronoun us with each request: “Give us”; “Forgive us”; “Deliver us”. We are praying for God’s provision, God’s pardon, and God’s protection. God wants us to bring our needs, our concerns to Him. “A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.”^[10] John Stott writes,

Thus the three petitions which Jesus puts upon our lips are beautifully comprehensive. They cover, in principle, all our human need—material (daily bread), spiritual (forgiveness of sins) and moral (deliverance from evil). What we are doing whenever we pray this prayer is to express our dependence upon God in every area of our human life.^[11]

But notice this: His concerns should come before ours in prayer. If you think that prayer is primarily for you, you have missed the point. Prayer is for God. What a revolution that would bring about in our prayer life! Three “Your” petitions come before three “our” petitions. How often it is that we come running into God’s throne room in prayer, hastily bringing our concerns before Him but without first thinking of what He is concerned about! May this model prayer help teach us to place His concerns before our own!

Notice also that this prayer is not a solitary prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father,” not “my Father”. The pronouns are always “we”, “our”, and “us”. There is no “I”, “me”, or “my”. I may pray by myself, in my room, to the Father in secret—and according to Matthew 6:5-6 I should—but I do not pray only for myself. I never pray alone. I pray remembering that I am part of the church. I am in the community of faith. I am part of the family of God. So even when I am on my knees all by myself in my room with the door closed, I should still be praying, “Our Father in heaven.” I should still be praying with an awareness that I am part of something much bigger than myself. More about that next time.

In Matthew, this prayer ends with a doxology, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” (Matt. 6:13). This is a worshipful threefold expression of praise. Some of your Bibles have the second half of Matthew 6:13 and some have it in a footnote. It is likely that this doxology was added to the text later than the original Gospel penned by Matthew. The words are very similar to what King David prayed in 1 Chronicles 29 under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

“Blessed are You, LORD God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.” (1 Chron. 29:10-11).

When we pray, “Yours is the kingdom,” we affirm that God alone rules over all creation. When we pray, “Yours … is the power,” we affirm that God alone has the power to answer our prayers. When we pray, “Yours … is the glory,” we affirm that God alone is worthy of all praise and honor. And when we pray, “forever,” we affirm that these things will always be true of our God.[12]

And when you put it all together you see how the prayer of a righteous man is far different from the prayer of a hypocrite or a manipulative Gentile. This pray isn’t given to impress God or other people. It isn’t prayed to manipulate God into giving us some selfish desire. It’s the prayer of a man who loves God, who needs God, and who wants to see God glorified.

So, how is your prayer life? Is it more about magnifying self? Is it more about manipulating God? Or is it all about coming to God our Father in humility, simply praying that:

God will be glorified
God’s kingdom will come
God’s will be done
God will provide
God will forgive
God will guide

That is the prayer of a righteous man. It is the model for our prayers. Use it to help you pray. Use it to evaluate your prayer life. If this prayer does not describe the attitude you have in prayer, then the answer to your prayer problem is Jesus—not just what He taught about prayer but what He did on the cross to make you righteous. If you have never trusted Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, then cry out to Him today. A perfect prayer for you is, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Paul wrote about trusting Christ in Romans 10,

⁹ that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. … ¹³ For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” (Rom. 10:9-10, 13)

If God is calling you today, come to Jesus. He will make you a child of God who cries out, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). Then you can truly pray the prayer of the righteous man because you have been given the righteousness of God in Christ.

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[1] Ray Fowler, Talking to Your Heavenly Father. http://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/talking-to-your-heavenly-father/ I drew ideas for this introduction from Fowler’s sermon.

[2] Richard Caldwell, The Model Prayer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kos__2N5pk&t=16s&ab_channel=FoundersBaptist. My experience with prayer is very similar to what Caldwell describes and his confession in his sermon helped me voice my own confession of the difficulty of praying.

[3] Martin Llyod-Jones, Banner of Truth. Issue 275. Quoted by Richard Caldwell ibid.

[4] Lewis B. Bell III, The Paternoster – A Model Prayer (Matthew 6:9-15). https://bible.org/seriespage/paternoster-model-prayer-matthew-69-15#P76_10820

[5] Rory Mosley, The Model Prayer (Matthew 6:9-15). https://fbcspur.org/model-prayer-matthew-69-15/

[6] Nick Aufenkamp, A Simple Way to Pray Every Day, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-simple-way-to-pray-every-day

^[7] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

[8] David Jeremiah, Prayer: the Great Adventure. Multnomah Publishers, Sisters OR, 1997. p. 74-75

[9] John MacArthur, The Purpose of Prayer. https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2233

^[10] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

^[11] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 150–151.

[12] Ray Fowler. Ibid.

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 2

January 15, 2023

Prayer Without Pretense

Matthew 6:5-8

Of all the privileges the child of God enjoys, perhaps the greatest is the privilege of prayer. True prayer is the act of talking to our Heavenly Father in the name of His Son Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.[1] Think about what a great honor it is that God invites us to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16). To be able to come directly into the presence of God and to speak with Him Who created and controls the universe, and to know that He has promised to hear us and to answer us, is an unfathomable blessing. When we consider that real prayer is not just sending words out into thin air, but that real prayer is used by God to accomplish His purposes on the earth, it is overwhelming! What a privilege is ours, to be able to speak to God; knowing He will hear and He will answer; knowing that He has invited us to be involved with Him in the work He is doing![2]

In this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:5-15), Jesus teaches on prayer. Remember from last time that Jesus gave the general principle regarding the practice of religious righteousness in Matthew 6:1, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds [or a better translation would be ‘righteousnesses’] before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Jesus is contrasting the false righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees with the true righteousness that must characterize His disciples, the people who belong to the Kingdom of Heaven.

In Matthew 5, Jesus corrected the scribes’ and Pharisees’ distorted teaching of the law. Jesus showed that just because you don’t break the external commandment, it doesn’t mean you aren’t sinning. God intended His law to promote an internal righteousness from the heart. Now in Matthew 6, Jesus shows that just because you do a good religious deed, that doesn’t mean that you are righteous. Again, God is concerned more about the motives of your heart than your religious performance.

Here in Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus gives us three examples concerning three very important areas of spiritual life: giving (Matt. 6:2-4), praying (Matt. 6:5-15), and fasting (Matt. 6:16-18). Our Lord is warning us against doing our acts of righteousness out of an unrighteous motive—so that others will see us do them, applaud us for them, and think well of us. Jesus teaches that if we give, pray, or fast for that reason, we may receive our temporal reward, the approval of men, but we will not receive any eternal reward from the Father.

The structure of these four verses is indicated by the repeated phrase “when you pray” (Matt. 6:5, 6, 7). Jesus emphasizes that we should not pray “like the hypocrites,” to be seen by others (Matt. 6:5); instead we should pray privately (Matt. 6:6). Next, He emphasizes that we should not pray “as the heathen,” that is, Gentiles, expecting to manipulate an answer from their deities (Matt. 6:7); instead, we should pray a simple prayer to our Heavenly Father (Matt. 6:8–13).^[3]

⁵ “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ⁶ But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. ⁷ And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. ⁸ Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:5-8).

1. The wrong way to pray: to be seen by other people (Matt. 6:5).

Jesus taught a similar thing about prayer as He did about giving. The wrong way to pray is to pray to be seen by other people: “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” (Matt. 6:5).

It is significant that Jesus begins, “And when you pray . . .” Jesus does not command us to pray but He assumes that we will pray. Jesus is our example. Luke 11 records a time when Jesus “was praying in a certain place” and “when He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’” (Luke 11:1). It was perfectly natural for Jesus to speak as a Son to His Father. And once we become children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, it’s perfectly natural for us to pray to our Father as well. Matthew Henry comments, “You may as soon find a living man that does not breathe, as a living Christian that does not pray.”^[4]

Is prayer to your Heavenly Father a significant part of your life? If we can go through the day without talking to the Father at all, or speaking to Him very little, and find that it really doesn’t make that much difference to how we live, what does that say about our relationship with God?

Here, Jesus teaches that the wrong way to pray is “like the hypocrites.” This word occurs here for the first time in Matthew (see also Matt. 6:5, 16; 7:5; 15:7; 22:18; 23:13–15, 27; 24:51.).^[5] The word “hypocrite” came from the stage. It referred to a play-actor. An actor in a Greek play often played several parts and wore masks to indicate the different characters. So, to be a hypocrite is to put on a mask, to pretend to be someone you are not.

Jesus says the hypocrites “love to pray.” That sounds good on the surface. We should all love to pray. But look at why they loved to pray: “that they may be seen by men.” They didn’t love prayer because they loved God. No, they loved to pray in public for public acclaim. That is why they made sure that at the time of prayer they would be “standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets.” The synagogue was the place of public religious worship, and the corner of the street was a public spot by which people passed as they hurried along on their business. The point that Jesus made is that, when the hypocrites found themselves in such a public place at the time of prayer, they “loved” it! And the reason they loved it was because they could then be seen and admired by men for the fact that they prayed.

It’s important that we not misunderstand what Jesus is trying to tell here about public prayer. Some people have taken Jesus to be saying that we should never pray in public or with other people. And of course, if that’s the case, then we should never have public prayers in our worship services or as an invocation at important events; and we should never have prayer meetings.

Plainly, though, Jesus is not speaking against all forms of public prayer. There are several times in the Bible in which it’s assumed that we will pray together. In Matthew 18 for example, in the context of confronting and disciplining another professing believer in the church for sin, Jesus says, “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:19-20). When He was in the garden awaiting His betrayal, He told His gathered disciples, “Watch and pray . . .” (Matthew 26:41). Clearly, Jesus assumes that His followers would pray together and in front of each other in such cases.

In the book of Acts, the believers regularly gathered together to pray with one another. After Jesus had ascended to the Father, we find that all the disciples “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). And after the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and Peter had preached and more than 3,000 believed, we find that they all “continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Peter and John even attended the regularly appointed times of prayer in the temple (Acts 3:1); and in times of persecution, the church gathered together to raise their voices to God in with one accord (Acts 4:34-30).

The apostle Paul commands us to pray together. Paul writes to Timothy and the church, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men . . .” (1 Tim. 2:1); and “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting . . .” (1 Tim. 2:8). Obviously, Jesus is not teaching us to refrain from praying together, lest we might be heard by one another. In fact, our Lord Jesus even once prayed with the specific intention that other people hear what He prayed. Just before He raised Lazarus from the dead—with all the people gathered around Him—He prayed, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me” (John 11:41-42).

Jesus is not discouraging us from praying in public, or in praying together in earshot of one another. There’s no sin in doing that in and of itself. In fact, it is assumed by Him that we will pray together and before one another. It’s all a matter of motives. We are not to do any of our righteous deeds before men with that one, specific, sinful motive: “to be seen by them.“

Consider these questions to examine your motive in prayer: Do I pray more in public than I do in private? Am I more concerned with others hearing my prayer than with God hearing my prayer? Do I critique the prayers of others, thinking that I could do better? Do I often tell people about my prayers? Do I pray in public with carefully chosen words that demonstrate to others the greatness of my faith? Do I expect people to thank me for my prayers?

That’s the danger we face in praying. It’s the most profound act that any child of God can ever engage in; and yet, we can so easily taint it with sin when we seek to pray in such a way as to be seen and admired by others.

Now Jesus gives,

2. The right way to pray: to your Father in secret (Matt. 6:6).

Jesus places the emphasis on the phrase, “But you . . .” As He did in Matthew 6:2, Jesus addresses His disciples individually. He’s not speaking to us in the plural; because that’s the context within which we would be seeking to be seen by one another. Instead, He draws us out of the crowd and deals with us as individuals.

“But you, when you pray, go into your room . . .” The word that Jesus uses, that’s here translated “room”, is one that refers to a “storage room” or “closet”. It’s a room that was usually separated from everything else; and because it contained valuables or grain or goods, it was usually locked. It wasn’t a room that people spent time in. It was certainly not the place someone would expect to find someone else praying—which, of course, is the point.

Jesus goes to great lengths to express the seclusion we should seek in getting away to pray. Not only does He say, “go into your room,” He tells us that “when you have shut your door,” then you are to “pray to your Father who is in the secret place.” Now praying in a private place with the door closed is great for privacy and to cut down distractions, but Jesus has a different reason in mind here. He wants to remove the temptation of praying in order to be seen by others. It doesn’t do any good to go into your room to pray if you hang a big sign on the door saying, “Do not disturb. I am busy praying!”

Jesus doesn’t want us to lose our Father’s favor in our prayers. And so, He urges us to find a place of seclusion in our lives, get completely away from the eyesight of other people, and away from the temptation to make ourselves seen by them in our praying. There we are to pray to our Father in secret. We should place a greater emphasis on secret prayer than on public prayer. As someone said, “In public – pray short; In private – pray long.”[6] There are no secrets with God. He sees the prayer that no one else can see. And He will reward you because He is your gracious Heavenly Father by Christ’s death and resurrection.

Next, Jesus turns to another problem in prayer:

3. The wrong way to pray: meaningless repetition (Matt. 6:7).

Look at verse 7: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matt. 6:7). Here Jesus moves from the Pharisees to the pagans, from the wrong motivation for prayer to the wrong manner of praying.

Jesus says that the heathen “use vain repetitions” in their prayers. The pagans babble repeatedly in prayer because they think the more words they use, the more likely their gods will hear. We read in the Old Testament how the prophets of Baal danced around the altar and cried out to Baal from morning to noon. But no one answered. There was no response. (1 Kings 18:26) Some pagans ran through a rapid-fire list of all their different gods’ names when they prayed in hopes that one of them might pick up on the request. John Broadus comments,

“Many Buddhists spin wheels containing written prayers, believing that each turn of the wheel sends that prayer to their god. Roman Catholics light prayer candles in the belief that their requests will continue to ascend repetitiously to God as long as the candle is lit. Rosaries are used to count off repeated prayers of Hail Mary and Our Father, the rosary itself coming to Catholicism from Buddhism by way of the Spanish Muslims during the Middle Ages. Certain charismatic groups in our own day repeat the same words or phrases over and over until the speaking degenerates to unintelligible confusion.”[7]

Jesus says that the reason they pray this way is “they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Jesus says this is the wrong way to pray. God cannot be manipulated by our many words, by our sincerity, or by our ceremony. But, if we are not careful, that is exactly what we will do. We will pray the same prayer over every meal. We say the same phrases morning and night when we pray. We use the name of God, or Father, or Lord, over and over when we pray. God, save us from pretentious, manipulative prayer!

Finally, that brings us to what Jesus taught about,

4. The right way to pray: with simple direct petitions (Matt. 6:8-13).

Pagan prayer is about the manipulation of spiritual forces and entities that do not generally care about you as an individual. But Jesus shows that the Lord our God is a Heavenly Father who cares deeply for us. He says, “For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” God is not some distant, distracted deity that you need to yell at to get his attention. He is your heavenly Father who loves you and loves it when you ask. God is not reluctant to hear and answer your prayers. He is your heavenly Father!

As God says in Isaiah 65:24: “It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24) This is the beauty of prayer. God knows what you need, but He still wants you to ask. God is good, and He is aware of your needs long before you ask. Just trust Him, speak to Him, and seek His face. As Jesus will teach later in the Sermon on the Mount, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matt. 7:7). Jesus goes on in Matthew 6:9-13 to give us a pattern, a model prayer. Notice how short and simple it is. We simply come to our Heavenly Father in praise and petition, knowing that He cares for us and answers our prayers.

Some might say, “If God already knows what we need, then what is the point in praying?” Prayer gives God the opportunity to hear His children express their love for Him, their thanks to Him, their dependence upon Him, and their faith in Him. Pray affords God the opportunity to demonstrate His love, power, glory, providence, sovereignty, and provision for His children. Our Father sees in secret, He knows our needs, and this motivates us to go to Him.[8]

Do you know the joy of praying to the heavenly Father like that? Are you confident that the Father loves and cares for you in that way? Do you long to speak with Him? If not, Christ is calling you today by grace to embrace the Heavenly Father and see that He is the one who longs to be your God and to make you His people. You can have that kind of relationship as a child of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for your sins. He was raised to life for your justification. He saves completely everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord.

[1] Greg Allen, Prayer in the Secret Place, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2005/010905.htm (I drew from several points that Allen makes in his sermon).

[2] Alan Carr, Praying without Pretense, http://www.sermonnotebook.org/new%20testament/Matt%206_5-8.htm#_edn1

^[3] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 210.

^[4] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 1636.

^[5] David Turner and Darrell L. Bock, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 11: Matthew and Mark (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2005), 99.

[6] John G. Mitchell, Matthew (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1974), p. 19. Cited by Greg Allen, ibid.

[7] John A. Broadus, Matthew [Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1886], p. 130. Cited by Alan Carr, ibid.

[8] Ligon Duncan, True Religion, Part 2: Praying. http://fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/true-religion-part-2-praying/

Richard Sipes / Sermons / Matthew, Prayer, Sermon on the Mount / 0

Tag: Prayer

Lessons from the Fig Tree

Matthew 21:18-22

1. The Withering of the Fruitless Tree (Matt. 21:18-19)

2. The Word about Faith in Prayer (Matt. 21:20-22).

A Question of Faith

Matthew 17:14-21

1. A Father’s Request (Matt. 17:14-16)

2. Jesus’ Response (Matt. 17:17-18)

3. Faith’s Lesson (Matt. 17:19-21)

God Wants Us to Ask, Seek, and Knock

Matthew 7:7-12

1. The petition (Matt. 7:7)

2. The promise (Matt. 7:8)

3. The provider (Matt. 7:9-11)

4. The proof (Matt. 7:12)

Yours Is the Kingdom, Power, Glory

Matthew 6:13

1. Yours is the Kingdom – an affirmation of God’s preeminence

2. Yours is the Power – an affirmation of God’s power

3. Yours is the Glory – an affirmation of God’s purpose

Our Daily Bread

Matthew 6:11

Four things this prayer will do in us: 1. Encourage Us to Depend on God

2. Examine the Discipline of Our Lives.

3. Eliminate the Disease of Worry.

4. Enlarge Our Duty to Pray.

Your Will Be Done

Matthew 6:10

1. God’s sovereign will.

2. God’s prescriptive will.

3. The discerned will of God.

Hallowed Be Your Name

Matthew 6:9

1. We hallow God’s name by reverencing His person.

2. We hallow His name by rehearsing God’s works.

3. We hallow His name by relinquishing control over our lives.

4. We hallow His name by recognizing His presence in our lives.

Our Father in Heaven

Matthew 6:9

1. The Person of the Father — “Our Father”

2. The Place of the Father — “Our Father in heaven”

3. The People of the Father – “OUR Father”

The Model Prayer

Matthew 6:9-13

Prayer Without Pretense

Matthew 6:5-8

1. The wrong way to pray: to be seen by other people (Matt. 6:5).

2. The right way to pray: to your Father in secret (Matt. 6:6).

3. The wrong way to pray: meaningless repetition (Matt. 6:7).

4. The right way to pray: with simple direct petitions (Matt. 6:8-13).

Plan Your Visit

Four things this prayer will do in us:

1. Encourage Us to Depend on God