Today I am going to continue on the subject of prayer, which we started last week.

Transcription

1 The Model Prayer Part 2 Peter Lim Intro: Good morning everyone. I remember when my kids were young, I was looking to buy a house. My wife and I had always rented before but we just felt it was better stewardship of God's resources to build equity in a house. We had moved back to the SF bay area. We had been living with relatives for several months. A month with this relative, then another month with another relative, and it was tough on us. Of course, we had been praying for the right house. Well, we found one that we liked but we were not sure if we would get it. So one afternoon, I drove my family to the house that we had looked at before. I parked the car in the driveway of this house. We just decided to pray for this. I was not sure if I would qualify for the mortgage, I had recently started a new job, there might be other offers on the house, and who knows what else. But God knew our need and we wanted to bring this need to him. So I remember, sitting in the minivan and praying together. It was just a simple time of prayer and I knew God would provide one way or another for our needs. If we didn't get the house, and even if we had to rent again, that would be fine, God was in control. I believe that time of prayer that afternoon changed my life and my family's life in so many ways. We were able get that house and it became a huge blessing to us over the years in so many ways. God answered that prayer beyond what I could imagine that he would. Today I am going to continue on the subject of prayer, which we started last week. We looked at the first part of the Model prayer or pattern that Jesus gave his disciples to pray and follow. Today we are going to look at the second half of that prayer. I will read the whole section again. Matt 6: And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread.

2 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. We will look at the last 5 verses. Here Jesus tell us to pray for our needs. This is the the type of prayer that most of us are familar with. And there is nothing wrong in praying for our needs, Jesus tells us to do this. But let me review a few things from last week. Jesus puts praying for our needs in a certain place in this model prayer. He puts it after we remember God is our heavenly Father. And after we consider this relationship with our heavenly father as holy, as the most important relationship to develop and nourish in our life. And after we pray God's will be done, above our own will. So with all these things in mind, he tells us to pray for our needs. In the bible, there are so many fantastic verses about praying for our needs. In the very next chapter of matt, matt 7, Jesus says Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Without having a relationship with our heavenly father, such statements seem too good to be true. But when you get to know this God of the Bible is, it makes sense, it is very believable. I want to just mention 3 attributes or characteristics about God, which help us when we see statements like this. First God is all-knowing. He has all wisdom and knows everything. So God will give you everything you ask him ---- OR would have asked him IF you knew everything that he knows. But even if God knows it all, does he have the power to give us want we ask for? Is he able to give us what we ask? Second, God is all-powerful. He is the creator of all things. Jesus performed many miracles and most importantly, was raised to life after he was crucified, and never died again. But even if God knows it all and has the power, the ability to give what we ask, does he want to do it? Will he do it, even though he can? Third, God is all-loving. We talked last week about how our heavenly father loves us as much as he loves Jesus. God is love the bible says.

3 All-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving. This is the God who has revealed himself in the Bible. When we know this God of the Bible, when we grow in our relationship with our heavenly father, we can ask him for all our needs. In this model prayer that Jesus gives, he breaks these needs into two types. The physical needs and the spiritual needs. So let's look at these needs 1. Our Physical Needs Jesus says to pray: Give Us this Day our daily bread. Jesus tells us to pray for our physical needs. He says "bread", which is something basic. He doesn't say give us our "satueed lobster", or "serloin steak" but just "bread". God provides for our "needs", but not always all our "wants". This petition begins with GIVE. This prayer implies something. It tells us that all that we have comes from our heavenly father. I was talking to a non-christian relative of mine once about this. She have given me some money as a gift. I told her thank you and that I was so thankful to God for providing this gift. She was confused, she said God didn't give you that, I gave that to you. It was really hard for her to understand but people without life of the HS in them, cannot understand such spiritual truths. Our provisions ultimately comes from the Lord. The Lord is the one who gave you the health to work at your job. He gave you the abilities to work at a job. He gave you the opportunity to get a job. If you don't have a job, he will provide for you one way or another. Or if you are retired, He has provided you the ability to work in the past and save for your retirement. But Lord provides one way or another. At the malecon, I see a lot of birds flying around, they are beautiful. pelicans, sea gulls, the really cool black ones, I think they are called man-o-war birds. Jesus say look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. The Lord takes care of them. So seek first the KG and God's righteousness all that you will need will be provided for you. Jesus also says "this day" and "Daily" bread. This is very much like when the people of Israel were wandering through the desert and God provide manna EACH day. In the same way, Jesus says "daily" bread. He does not say give us our bread for the next month, or for the next year. Why not? wouldn't that be much easier? But the Lord knows our hearts. He knows that it is so easy to forget to come to the Lord on a daily basis if he did that. And we are to pray "this day". The Lord wants us to focus on the now. Of course, we should also plan for the future but we must remember to live in the present. When we focus too much on the future, we can become anxious, and worry but it is useless to do that.

4 But instead he says give us this day, what we need this day. Not what we needed yesterday, or tomorrow. What our needs are today. 2. Besides our physical needs, Jesus also say to pray for Our Spiritual Needs A. The first spiritual need he tells us to pray for --- is for our sins to be forgiven. But I thought my sins was forgiven when I first became a Christian. Why do I need to pray for that again? To understand how we relate to sin, you can think of it this way. For believers, in the past we have been freed from the penalty of sin. That is what we call salvation. In the present, we are being freed from the Power of sin. That is what is known as sanctification, where the HS helps us to become more like Jesus. In the future, we will be freed from the very Presence of Sin. That is known as glorification. That is when we see the Lord face to face and receive our new, glorified bodies. So we see these different aspects of sin: the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and the presence of sin. And only in the future will we be totally freed from the presence of sin. So now we need to continue to ask our heavenly father for forgiveness when we sin. Think of a child who gets new formal black dress shoes. The shoes look shiny and great. But the child has to walk to school and it was raining earlier outside. So the ground is wet and muddy. So the child tries to walk about the puddles and the muddy areas. He wants to keep his new shoes looking clean and shiny. But even though he tries, some water does get on them. And a little bit of mud get on them. So we quickly wipes off the water and mud. That's is what a Christian is like --- living in this world. We try to keep our lives and souls pure and clean. But like this child with new shoes, we will get a little mud and dirt on us. So we clean it up right away. We confess our sins right away to the Lord. And the Lord forgives. Then there is another child. He gets new shoes too. But what does he do when he walks down the wet and muddy street? He jumps in every puddle he sees. He splashes the water around, he thinks that is fun, he steps in the mud and doesn't think anything of it, it is fine with him. He is the person who does not know Jesus, he thinks there is nothing wrong with sin, he gets his life as dirty as possible. As Christians, we hold on tighty to 1 john 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. When Jesus tell us ask for forgiveness of our sins, Jesus tells us we must forgive others, or our

5 own sins will not be forgiven. In Col 3:13, it says Forgive, as the Lord forgave you. We are to forgive others, because we have experienced God's forgiveness. And in fact, if we don't forgive others, perhaps we really haven't experienced God's forgiveness or perhaps we don't really understand how much God has forgiven us. Jesus alludes to this at the end of today's passage in Matt, in verses 14 and 15, where he says, if you don't forgive, God won't forgive you. When we experience God's grace, his grace overflows out of our lives into the lives of others. And we forgive others. Although we are to forgive others, that does not mean we are to be unwise or to do foolish things. I knew a woman whose older brother picked on her and scared her and was always mean to her as they grew up. Her brother had a very mean temper. When this woman became a Christian, she forgave her brother for all the mean things he did. But she would still not trust him. She would never be alone with him because of his tempter and sometimes he was high on drugs. He was just person not to be trusted. And that was wise of her. But the Lord does want us to forgive others. That keeps us from being bitter, hating others, building up bad things in our heart. When we don't forgive, we are in a prison. But forgiving others through Christ's forgiveness that set us free. B. In this model prayer, Jesus also tell us to pray "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil". This is the other spiritual need he tells us to pray for. Now temptation is not the same as sin. Jesus was tempted for 40 days in the wilderness, but he never sinned. But we have to be careful when we face temptations. And if we know we will be tempted, if possible, we should avoid the temptation altogether. If there are situations in your life that you know you will be tempted to sin, don't even put yourself in those situations. Don't even start down that path. james 4:13-15 tells us the danger of temptation. It shows us the process of how it leads to sin and death. James 4: When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James says God does not tempt us to sin. Jesus say to pray not to lead us into temptation. At first, that sounds like a contradiction. But "tempt" in James is a verb. And James say Satan is the one who actually does the tempting. In the model prayer, Jesus uses the word "Temptation" which is a noun. Temptation is a situation where we could be tempted by Satan to sin. So we pray, Lord, don't allow situations to come into my life where I will be tempted by Satan to sin.

6 But if God does allow those situations, there is the last part of this, "Deliver us from Evil one" or some translations it is just "evil". Both versions are correct and refer to evil. You see, in this section, Jesus is referring to spiritual warfare. There is a spiritual battle going on all around us. Jesus wants us to know that and to be prepared for that spiritual battle. I remember when I went to Alaska on a missions trip for a couple of weeks. I visited a place where they had all these wildlife animals: bears, eagles, caribou, and moose. The male Alaskan bull moose fight each other in the fall breeding season. They fight with their antlers, going headto-head, crunching their antlers as they collide with each other. When their antlers get broken, that male bull moose has lost. The moose with the strongest and largest antlers will win. The battle is really won even before they in the fall. The battle is won during the summer, when the moose eat continually. The one that consumes the best diet for growing antlers and gaining weight will win the fight in the Fall. The ones that eat poorly develop weak antlers and less weight. Satan often attacks us in our spiritual battles. He will tempt us. Will we withstand what he does, or will we fail and fall? That depends how will be prepare ourselves now before the fight. We put on the full armor of God, as it say in Eph 6, and we pray, as Jesus says, the God will deliver us. It is not a question if spiritual battles will come. The Bible makes it clear that they will come. So do not be surprised. Also the enemy is not pain or suffering. But is it the evil one, the one who wants to lead us away from following the Lord. Concl. So, as we close out this model prayer this morning, Jesus get to the part where we are to pray for our needs. First, our physical needs. Our daily bread Second, our spiritual needs. Forgiveness. Temptation. Deliverance from Evil. We will continue on this subject of prayer next week. But throughout this week, pray each day not just for your daily needs but also for forgiveness and spiritual protection. And as we pray for our daily bread, remember who the bread of our life is. Jesus is the one we need to have on a daily basis. He gave his life for us, so we can have spiritual life. As you pray for your daily bread, look to the Jesus ---- the bread of life who will fill your life with his abundance. Let us pray. Lord praise you and thank you that you provide for us. Help us to come to you first with every need we have. Forgive us for when we sin against you. And by your grace, help us to forgive

7 others. Prepare for the spiritual battles that we will face in this upcoming week. Deliver us from anything that will draw us away from you. In Jesus's Name. Amen.