This Present Kingdom Week 7 - Kingdom Prayer

Matthew 6:9-15

“God who ordained the end, ordained the means to the end. That means: prayer” (N. T. Wright, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 209).

I. Christ’s Prerequisite for Prayer – Matthew 6:5-8

A. Don’t be a hypocrite – “play actor”
Praying to be seen by others is indicative of the fact that you do not pray in secret. Anyone who prays privately will not boast publicly.

If you don’t pray in secret, but only in front of others, you don’t love Christ supremely. The Greatest Command is for our greatest good. Healing, wholeness, and purpose are found in absolute abandonment to the Lord as you set your affections upon Him.

What you do in secret reveals what you adore the most. What you adore most will cause you to pray only when that thing is at stake. The consistency of your prayer life will tell you who your God is. (Tim Keller, Adoration: Hallowed Be Thy Name, April 30, 1995)

B. Don’t pray to be seen by others

C. Pray in the Secret Place

D. Don’t use meaningless repetitions as the pagans do

II. Christ’s Model for Prayer – Matthew 6:9-13

Adoration

A. Our Father, Who art in heaven

Are you able to call God, Father?

B. Hallowed be Thy name
Hallowed – “greatly revered and honored” (Dictionary.com)

What you do in secret reveals what you value.

“There is a sense in which we should take our shoes off our feet whenever we use the Name” (D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 335).

The Names of God:

Elohim – “Almighty”
Yahweh, Jehovah – “Self-existent One, I Am, that I Am” Jehovah Jireh – “The Lord our Provider”
Jehovah Rapha – “The Lord our Healer”
Jehovah Nissi – “The Lord our Banner”
Jehovah Shalom – “The Lord our Peace”
Jehovah Ra’ah – “The Lord our Shepherd”
Jehovah Tsidkenu – “The Lord our Righteousness” Jehovah Shammah – “The Lord Who is Present”

Jesus is saying the most unmistakable way to tell that your Christianity is real, not just external, is to look at your secret prayer life. Do you praise God in secret? Do you enjoy Him?

Go to praise before petitions and before confession. First because praise is supposed to frame the others. It is to dominate and saturate the others. All the problems you have in relating to the world or yourself are really problems of adoration. If you don’t hallow God, the problems will show up in petition and confession.

Submission

C. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven

“You notice there is a logical order in these petitions. They follow one another by a kind of inevitable divine necessity” (D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 336).

“Lay down the burden that you believe you know what’s best” (Tim Keller, Our Father, Sermon April 23, 1995).

Petition

D. Give us this day our daily bread

“God not only wants what is best for us by asking us to focus first on Him; He shows He cares about our daily struggles by focusing on our daily needs. We are now given the green light to give attention to ourselves when we pray” (N. T. Wright, The Sermon on the Mount, p. 239).

Confession

E. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

“This petition was the only one of the six to be explained in the immediate context...Jesus was thus teaching that if one is so hypocritical as to seek forgiveness from God and to refuse to express that same forgiveness to others, God will refuse to forgive him in the final judgment”. (Charles Quarles, Sermon on the Mount, Loc. 4251, Kindle).

Spiritual Warfare

F. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

“Since Jesus’ disciples cannot completely escape temptation in this life, Jesus taught them to pray not only for protection from temptation but also for protection in temptation: ‘But deliver us from the evil one’...one petition with two elements. Each clause helps in interpreting the other” (Charles Quarles, Sermon on the Mount, Loc. 4397, Kindle).

Close with praise – For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

III. Christ’s Requirement for Forgiveness – Matthew 6:14-15

Resource – Total Forgiveness by R. T. Kendall

"We must believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth."
Andrew Murray

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