Matthew 6:9-10 - Part 2

[0:00] Last week, I purposed to preach verses 9 and 10 of Matthew 6.! However, I only managed to cover the first two intended points which we saw in verse 9, which were pray like Jesus, our Father in heaven.

[0:17] And secondly, pray like Jesus, hallowed be your name. So, our text this morning again, once again, is Matthew chapter 6, verse 9 and verse 10, with an emphasis on verse 10.

[0:34] In order for us to gain the broader context of Jesus' teaching on prayer, we're going to read, though, a larger portion of Matthew 6. I'll begin in verse 5 and read through verse 13.

[0:48] Before I lead us in a reading, let me remind you, beloved, that this is God's word to us. It was written for His glory and our good.

[0:59] And we would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands. Jesus said, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others.

[1:16] Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.

[1:28] And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

[1:40] Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

[1:54] Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

[2:07] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Last week I posited many people pray.

[2:21] Look at a moment of crisis in our community or our broader nation. And so many run to prayer. Our thoughts and prayers are with you as commonly said.

[2:34] But we must understand that not all prayer is the same. Many pray to gods that are not gods at all. And it is very possible, even very plausible, to pray to the right God, but to pray wrongly.

[2:54] I then showed you that the Scripture has much to say about prayers offered in vain. In fact, I gave you 12 examples, which I don't think was exhaustive at all.

[3:08] But here's a few of them, such as, God does not answer the prayer of those who have personal and selfish motives. James chapter 4 and verse 3, James writes, You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

[3:29] And God does not answer the prayer of those who remain in sin. Isaiah chapter 59 and verse 2, But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

[3:48] So we must be concerned about praying to the right God, but also praying to the right God rightly. I would encourage you, if you weren't here last week, to go and listen to those other things the Scripture has to say concerning wrong prayer.

[4:07] So a careful consideration of how we ought to pray is of great importance for us. In this text, Jesus is modeling a pattern for us to pray by.

[4:24] Note that He does not say, pray this. He says, pray then like this. He's showing us. He's informing us about how our prayers should be formed.

[4:39] What should be motivating our praying. And He begins, our first point last week, was saying, pray this way.

[4:51] Our Father in Heaven. So we should pray like Jesus. Our Father in Heaven. Jesus tells us that our prayers should begin with the recognition that God is our Father.

[5:08] And so this becomes the beginning point for God to hear our prayers and to answer our prayers is that He is in fact our Father. That you have been adopted into His family by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

[5:23] That you have seen that there's no amount of labor on your part in keeping the laws. Previously sung songs stated so well that could ever have earned us a place in God's family.

[5:37] But rather because of the perfect Son. The second Adam. The one who came and lived a sinless life and grants us that sinless life by faith in Him.

[5:50] That we can call God our Father. We want to cry out to God and ask things of Him. Flee to Him in Christ.

[6:03] When we call God our Father, we are recognizing His boundless mercy and grace to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

[6:14] So having been found in Christ, adopted into His family, we begin our prayers recognizing this. Starting with the confidence of saying, this God of heaven and earth is my dad.

[6:31] And so I can ask things of Him. This is a profound title to utter to God in our prayers. And it is the absolute basis for our confidence in approaching Him.

[6:46] Jesus also teaches us that we are to pray not only our Father, but our Father in heaven. And I believe we're to do this lest we become too chummy with the One who created heaven and earth and all that is in them.

[7:03] We're meant to remember who this Father is. Lest we forget that He is God and we are not.

[7:15] We should be careful that we do not become overly casual in our prayer. We ought to approach God with boldness as His children, but also with reverence and awe.

[7:28] I also pointed out that Jesus in teaching us how to pray tells us that we should begin our prayers with our Father.

[7:41] He uses a plural pronoun there. And we could be very quick to say, this is just an instruction for corporate prayer, how we should pray then together. And I do think it informs our corporate praying.

[7:54] But just before that, even in the text I read for us this morning, Jesus has been talking about private prayer. So I think He means for us in the opening of our praying to recognize that God has saved a people.

[8:11] He has a people. And we collectively have a Father. That we are a family. Both local and global and throughout all of redemptive history.

[8:24] That we are a people for God's possession. So we should pray like Jesus, our Father in heaven. The second point from last week was, we should pray like Jesus, hallowed be Your name.

[8:41] So the first petition of Jesus' model prayer for us is not for Himself. It's not aimed at Him in any way whatsoever. But that God's name would be hallowed.

[8:56] This is not a word that we use in our day. But to hallow something is to honor it as holy. It's to put it in its proper place as holy.

[9:08] So Jesus asks, first and foremost, that God's glory would be known in the world. Beloved, if only we would begin our prayers in this way, I believe that we would pray much differently.

[9:26] If our prayers began with, how is God praised in what I'm going to now ask of Him? Our minds should go immediately to the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, anticipating the great physical suffering, but more than that, I believe the great spiritual suffering that He was going to experience.

[9:49] The text says for us that He was sweating blood. Any of us will ever be in that depth of anguish in our lives, that we sweat blood.

[10:00] And He said, if there's any way, God of Heaven, my Father, for this cup to pass from me, let it pass from me. Spare me from the suffering I'm about to experience.

[10:12] But yet, not my will, but Yours be done. Jesus in one of His darkest moments had this attitude as He came to prayer.

[10:25] How is it that God's name will be best praised in the world? I concluded last week with an exercise, which I want to repeat it.

[10:37] I'm going to repeat it verbatim from last week. Because my time was running short and notes were long, I actually skipped to the bottom of notes to have you take a moment to consider how it is that you pray.

[10:51] To just take a moment with me to consider your prayer life. And I want us to do this and then we'll get to the second two points from verse 10.

[11:02] So, think with me for a moment about the specific things that you tend to pray for. Maybe it's possible that you can recall some over the past week.

[11:15] Maybe this morning or even yesterday you prayed. If not, think in generalities. What types of things do you tend to pray for?

[11:28] If we could take a summary of your prayer life and jot down some basic notes, summary statements of what you tend to pray for, what would those things tend to be?

[11:43] Now, I hope you have some semblance in your head of what that would look like. So, let me ask this. if all of your prayers were to be answered, what would the outcome be?

[11:56] What would the outcome be? Would you be living in greater ease? Would you have more money, more success at work, more free time, fewer relational challenges, better health?

[12:10] None of these things are bad things. None of them are things that we couldn't ask God for. But would that be the end result? Would that be all that would happen if your prayers were all answered?

[12:24] Or, would God be more known and worshipped by you, your family, your neighbors, your classmates, and your coworkers?

[12:39] Jesus aims his prayer at the glory of God, and so should we. You see, beloved, God has many good purposes in the world.

[12:54] He desires that your marriage and your parenting and your schooling and your employment go well with you and for you. He desires that we don't have to battle with sickness and depression.

[13:08] He cares about the health of our relationships and the unity of our church. These things are important to our God. He is our Father and He cares about the very minutia of our days.

[13:25] He desires that we would walk well in this world, but this is to fulfill a greater purpose. His purposes are to fulfill a greater purpose, an overarching purpose, an all encompassing purpose.

[13:42] purpose, that His name would be praised amongst all peoples, that His glory would be known and shared everywhere.

[13:54] Psalm 67 verses 1 through 3 say this, May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us.

[14:09] Wonderful prayer. Why? How does Psalm 67 come up underneath what Jesus is teaching us to pray here?

[14:20] Here's this prayer for us. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us. Verse 2, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power amongst all nations.

[14:37] Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Hallowed be your name.

[14:49] This should be the driving force of our lives. If we are disciples of Jesus Christ, we must see how Jesus walked.

[14:59] We're to be following in His way. And He placed the glory of God above all else, as should we. And Jesus' next two model petitions are an expansion of this very idea of hallowed be your name.

[15:20] And so third, we see in the beginning of verse 10 that we should pray like Jesus, your kingdom come. Pray like Jesus, your kingdom come.

[15:34] Jesus began His earthly ministry preaching about the arrival of the kingdom. We can read of Matthew chapter 4 and verse 17 before the Sermon on the Mount is recorded by Matthew.

[15:48] From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, this is the beginning of His ministry, and here is the theme of His sermons. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

[16:02] Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When we speak of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, we are speaking of God's good rule and His praise being established on the earth.

[16:17] And when we talk about this, there is both a here and a here-to-come aspect of God's kingdom. For example, Psalm 103 verse 19 reads, the Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His kingdom rules over all.

[16:38] And so, God reigns. God reigns. He is sovereign over all things that are happening in the world. And yet, He is patiently allowing the rejection of His reign as He works His mercy and grace toward mankind.

[17:00] He is graciously allowing all of the rebellion that's happening in the world about Him as He's patiently awaiting the bringing about of His praise.

[17:14] 2 Peter 3 9 speaks of God's patience in bringing all those that would belong to Him to repentance. God's purpose is that people from every tribe, nation, and tongue be praisers of His glorious grace and mercy.

[17:32] Jesus, speaking to His disciples in some of His last days, we can read in Matthew chapter 24, tells them about things that will come.

[17:43] And in verse 14, He says, and this gospel of the kingdom, this good news of grace and mercy towards mankind, will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.

[18:01] A gospel proclamation is aimed at bringing about the consummation of the kingdom of God, a people living gratefully under His rule and giving Him all the glory that is due Him.

[18:16] This is the very reason that God called a people. And I find too often as God's church that we are just too content with the state of the world in which we live.

[18:31] We would have things be a little better for our sake. But we're not nearly as concerned as we ought to be about people coming under the good rule of God, Christ, our Savior, and our King.

[18:48] That we are not so concerned as we should be about our neighbor and our co-worker and the person checking us out at the grocery store. We just don't seem to care that our God would be known amongst all peoples.

[19:03] We seem just a little too satisfied to gather together and theorize about this God and not then go out and tell our neighbor about Him.

[19:13] to not be mobilized for the purpose, this grand purpose of His name being praised amongst all peoples.

[19:26] I want to show you how aimed God is at His own glory because if we as people are to be concerned about the things that He's concerned about, this is the thing.

[19:39] The overarching, the large purpose, which all of the purposes serve. And I want to show you this from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. So if you'll turn with me please to Isaiah and we'll begin in chapter 43.

[20:06] While you're doing that, I'm going to do something off script. get to Isaiah 43. In some recent days across the past couple of months, a pastor of a large megachurch in our area has said that in order to bring people to faith in Christ, we should, unhitch Jesus from the Old Testament.

[20:43] And this is a deeply concerning thing that he is saying. Now I believe that this man is a brother, and I believe that we should be in prayer for him, and for those under his leadership.

[20:54] I also believe we should warn those who are under his leadership. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you can ask me later, and I will tell you. He has said we should unhitch the Old Testament from Jesus because people have a problem with the God of the Old Testament, or they might see some inconsistencies in the Old Testament, and therefore we shouldn't be so concerned about that.

[21:17] I think the motivation is good. I think what he's saying is let's be concerned primarily. Let's invest our faith primarily in the fact that Jesus was a real man. He was in fact the Son of God.

[21:29] He did die, and he was raised. I get that, and I think there's some good intention in that, but Romans 10-17, faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of Christ.

[21:43] What is the word of Christ but the scripture? What was the Bible of Jesus' day? If we want to just look to the New Testament, or look just to the red letters as some would say, the words of Jesus, he was constantly using the Bible of his day, which we call our Old Testament.

[22:03] He was constantly looking to it. When people have a problem with the Old Testament, the answer is not to disregard the Old Testament, the answer is to explain the Old Testament, to be a student of the Scripture and to help others come to understand the Scripture.

[22:19] The greater portion, the first two-thirds of our Bibles are precious to us. And they speak of a God who is full of grace and mercy, steadfast love to his people.

[22:34] It's an astounding work and should never be disconnected from the personal work of Jesus Christ. All that's promised in the Old Testament finds its yes in Jesus, finds its affirmation in Jesus.

[22:55] So should we want to know the promises of God that find their yes in Jesus? And the answer is absolutely we should. What a dangerous thing to say that we could just disregard, disconnect, unhitch it.

[23:10] What a dangerous, dangerous place to be. So let's look in the book of Isaiah chapter 43.

[23:22] I want to show you that God called a people and is calling a people. We are part of that people if we are part of the church for his glory.

[23:36] This is the purpose, the overarching purpose, that his name would be hallowed, that his kingdom would come, that his will would be done. Hear that as I'm talking about God's glory.

[23:49] So Isaiah chapter 43 beginning in verse 1, I'll read through 7. But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

[24:04] I have called you by my name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you.

[24:20] For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Saba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

[24:40] Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold.

[24:51] Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth. That's the nations, everyone. That's us, right? Being included in spiritual Israel.

[25:03] Verse 7, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.

[25:15] So you see some of the purposes, all of the goodness to this people being worked out. God will be with us. God will be our protector. He's going to sustain us.

[25:26] But why? His glory. This great purpose. His glory. Look on later in Isaiah chapter 43, verse 20 and 21.

[25:39] Here God says, the wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches. For I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.

[26:00] Again, a people for the praise of God. Turn a little bit to Isaiah chapter 44 and verse 23. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it.

[26:17] Shout, O depths of the earth. Break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and will be glorified in Israel.

[26:32] The Lord will be glorified because He has redeemed a people for His possession. And those of us who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ are those who are meant to sing the praise of His name.

[26:50] And we want that to be, we ought to want that to be a song that gets louder and louder and louder and take places in languages other than English and is sung by people who don't look like us, who don't gather the same way we gather.

[27:06] We should desire this because our God is worthy of all praise. One more reference from Isaiah. Chapter 48 verses 9 through 11.

[27:32] In verse 9 He talks about deferring His anger. So this is anger against His people. Wicked people. He says, For my name's sake I defer my anger.

[27:43] For the sake of my praise I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you but not a silver.

[27:54] I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it. for how should my name be profaned.

[28:05] My glory I will not give to another. Even the suffering of God's people, the working of righteousness in us is aimed at this higher purpose.

[28:21] You pick up the gospel of Jesus Christ and begin to apply it to your own living. It is so good that it brings about betterment of us. Walking in the light is so much better than walking in the dark.

[28:36] Our relationships with creation and with each other being redeemed is such a good thing. It is so good but it is not high enough.

[28:48] Your pursuit of holiness is not ultimately about you, it is ultimately about the glory of God. So we are to pray like Jesus.

[28:59] Your kingdom come. Your kingdom come. And I think even sometimes in our longing for a better place, we don't aim high enough.

[29:12] If you could even just dip your toe in the water of our modern politics, you will find yourself wherever you are on the political spectrum so incredibly frustrated. The state of our nation right now, the way that those who are meant to lead us act like children in their leadership of us.

[29:33] We should want that to improve but if we don't go above that then we aim too low. We want a kingdom, a theocracy ruled by an almighty God who never fails in the way that he leads.

[29:49] We want God's praise and his rule everywhere in the world and we want to see that full consummation of the kingdom come. So we pray like Jesus, your kingdom come.

[30:02] Fourthly, we pray like Jesus, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And this is just elaborating once again on this.

[30:13] I think the thing of note here is that this is an ask of obedience. So that we would praise the name of God, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, and that we would be obedient to God.

[30:28] More specifically, that we would be arranging ourselves as God's people underneath his reign for his glory. Let me show you this from 1 Peter chapter 2.

[30:47] Peter writes, but you, you may be familiar with this text, are a chosen race. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

[31:00] It would seem that Peter is very familiar with his Old Testament. He is almost directly citing from the book of Hosea here. Almost word for word citing from the book of Hosea.

[31:13] We would be this people, that what, verse 9, we may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[31:24] God's redeemed people praising his name, giving him glory as we should. Verse 10, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

[31:35] Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Again, Hosea. Verse 11, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles living in a place that's not our home.

[31:52] Sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

[32:03] So as these people called apart for this praise, living as strangers in a land, Peter says, abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

[32:17] And then he says, why? Keep your conduct among the Gentiles. Peter here is writing to a largely Jewish population church. So those outside of that, the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

[32:41] That we would be a people set apart in language as well as in activity. That God's will being done on the earth starts with us, his church, submitting ourselves to his lordship over our lives, recognizing him as our good king, our father in heaven.

[33:08] A desire for God's name to be honored amongst all people should drive everything that we do. It should be the undercurrent that carries everything that we do along.

[33:23] And I think we should ask the question of the homes we buy, and the people that we marry, and our choices to have children, and where we decide to go to school, and what we major in, and what job we take.

[33:36] I think we should ask the question of all of these things, how does this bring God glory? How am I meant to walk in the simple and the seemingly mundane things of my life for the sake of his name?

[33:54] Students, how do you go to class to the glory of God? Those in the full-time workforce, how do you get in there and grind day in and day out to the glory of God?

[34:07] Stay at home moms, how do you do it? How do you work day in and day out? Raising little ones, those of you who homeschool, trying to train them to the glory of God, how do we get in every single thing?

[34:24] How do we take vacations to the glory of God? And I fear that we do far too much without giving any thought to the glory of God, whatsoever. And in our praying, we rush right to the God do for me part of our praying.

[34:41] And we're not at all concerned about how those prayers answered would affect the fame of His name. This is the purpose of God in the world, and it should be ours too.

[34:55] It should inform every fiber of our being. Every part of us should be aimed at the glory of God.

[35:07] And so we're to pray like Jesus, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[35:19] Now, beloved, let's be very clear. God does not need your prayers. God will have His glory. He will act.

[35:30] He will accomplish His fame spreading across the earth. Acts 17, 24 and 25, says, The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

[35:56] But here's the incredible thing that God does. God could save the world. God could have His praise apart from the church. But He graciously invites us into His work in the world.

[36:11] He draws us into His work in the world because it's in His working in the world that we experience life with Him. Not as this obscure philosophical God, but as a God who is at work in the world, accomplishing His goals even now.

[36:33] And we're invited to be the means to be used by Him to that great end. And I can promise you this, if you decide to sit on your hands, He will use someone else to do this work.

[36:45] He will. If our church decides to, He will go to another church. He will accomplish His fame in this place and to the ends of the earth.

[36:57] I hope we're not a church that sits idly by when we could be finding ourselves right in the middle of the will of God, His fame being spread where we are and beyond.

[37:10] He graciously invites us. He beckons us to lose our lives that we might gain them, to sacrifice everything for the sake of knowing Him more, to count it all rubbish as Paul did.

[37:29] And, He graciously invites us into prayer. We get to participate in His working to the ends of the earth in prayer, to our neighbor and beyond and beyond and beyond, that we would plead, God's name be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done, and God picks up the prayers of His people and He uses them mightily in His purpose.

[37:59] And, being drawn into prayer conforms our wills to His. So, even when we don't feel this, we don't always feel the prayer of Matthew chapter 6, we should approach prayer in this way.

[38:20] and you can pray in the way, God, help me, help me to see You as my Father. Because, sometimes I don't see You as my Father.

[38:31] Sometimes I see You as distant and obscure, and I want to have a fatherly relationship with You. Father, help me, because I've sinned and I feel guilty before You.

[38:45] Help me to place my confidence in the perfect work of Jesus Christ and boldly approach You clinging to the cross. Father, help me to reverence Your name in my life the way I should, so that others would reverence Your name in theirs.

[39:04] Help me to so value what You've done for me that I want to praise You with every fiber of my being and I want everyone else to do the same.

[39:14] Help me to be so unsatisfied with the state of this world that I am just longing for Your kingdom to be consummated. I want Jesus' return more than I want anything else and I know He won't come back until the Gospels are claimed to the very ends of the earth and let's get busy.

[39:35] Right? You can pray through this in this way even when you don't feel this way. that Your will would be aligned with the will of the Father.

[39:47] And so we should pray like Jesus instructs us to pray. In closing I want to read the John Owen quote.

[39:58] Not John Owen's as I said earlier. The John Owen quote which is on your bulletin if you have one. Puritan pastor and author John Owen.

[40:09] He said if I have observed anything by experience it is this and man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ and the glory of Christ's kingdom and of his love.

[40:33] Let's pray together.