R456 What Can We Say to God?

Would it surprise you to know that God wants to talk to you?

Let's go to the Bible itself. God's encouraging word and see what I'm talking about. God wants to talk to you. God wants to hear from you. This point of connection is what Dr. Wilton is going to share with us in the message today called What Can We Say to God? Now, this is not a God wants to see you in the principal's office.

No, this is a loving God that created you for fellowship, created you to be a part of his family. And in these next few moments, as we open Matthew Chapter six together with Dr. Don Wilton, we'll gain insight from the Bible itself. As we do this, we're available for you to talk on the phones. Pray on the phones at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Or let's connect online at www.tewonline.org.

That's www.tewonline.org. Now, Dr. Don Wilton. There seems to be a missing element in the scheme of things. It's not a matter of just coming to pray, but there is an important question that I think all of us struggle with, and it's this. What do we say to God when we do pray? What do we talk to him about? How do we say what we need to say?

Is anything okay? What do you talk to God about? I want to speak to you this morning on the subject of what can we say to God. Now, I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew Chapter six. Great passage of Scripture.

We know this so well. Matthew Chapter six, otherwise known as the Lord's Prayer. I want to read it for you, Matthew Chapter six and verse nine. This is what Jesus said. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Why? Because yours is the power and the glory, forever and forever. Amen.

It seems to me that there is a missing link in our scheme of things and it's simply this. What can we say to God? What does God permit us to say to him? Now, this prayer is a remarkable prayer, the Lord's Prayer.

We know it well. Most of us have grown up reciting this prayer. There's nothing wrong with reciting the Lord's Prayer. But folks, I want to show you something this morning that it runs contrary to the will of God to worship God and to talk to God by reciting prayers. If you are in the habit of just repeating prayers, the same prayers over and over again, you are doing something that God expressly says we must not do. There may be someone this morning worshipping with us who say, well, we can only worship God if we repeat the Lord's Prayer every Sunday.

No, sir. If we do that every Sunday, we are running foul of what Jesus Christ teaches. Now, that may shock you. In fact, there are whole denominations that are built around repetitious prayers saying the same thing over and over again. There are some denominations, if you want to be forgiven of your sin, you can go and talk to the preacher. The preacher will not only tell you what you need to do, but he will say if you want to be forgiven of your sin, you must also pray certain prayers one after the other. That is in violation of what Jesus Christ has commanded us to do.

Jesus had a real problem with that. And I want you to know as long as we are a Bible-believing church, we will not allow this church to get into the habit of reciting prayers. Now, we will say the Lord's Prayer together. I think it's the most beautiful prayer that Jesus ever gave to us. We will repeat it. We will have opportunities to do that. There is nothing wrong with that, but it cannot become the hallmark of what we say to God.

So what is it then? You see, beloved friends, Jesus had a real problem with formalized, mechanical, repetitious praying. And here in the Lord's Prayer, what we find for us is an incredible mandate of Jesus Christ.

The disciples came to the Lord Jesus and basically they said to Him, if I can summarize it, they said to Him, Lord Jesus, we have walked with You. We have seen You heal. We've watched You teach. We've been amongst You.

We've been in the hills. We've ridden in boats on the Sea of Galilee with You, but we don't know what to say to God when we talk to Him. How do we speak to You? You are so wonderful. You are so awesome. You are so mighty.

You are so magnificent. How can we speak to You in a manner that will be well pleasing in God's sight? And Jesus Christ gave to His disciples this divine pattern by which God's people can pray in a way that is pleasing to God. You see, friends, this morning, the Lord's Prayer is the mastermind of Jesus Christ. And by virtue of the Lord's Prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ was laying for us the theological foundation out of which our conversation with God can be constructed. I've said many times that I believe that the Lord's Prayer is one of the most incredible doctrinal statements of all time.

Anything you want to know about God in His relationship with man, you're going to find it right here in the Lord's Prayer. You see, when Jesus said in verse 9, this then is how you should pray, what He was saying to them was this. You see, the disciples were not asking for a prayer to pray. What the disciples were asking was, how should we pray? What can we say to our Heavenly Father? And so what Jesus was saying by saying, this then is how you should pray, He was literally saying to them, you need to be praying along these lines or in the following manner. You need to use this as the framework of your pronouncement to God. This is your foundation upon which you stand when you converse and when you dialogue with God.

In fact, if you go back to verse 7 of chapter 6, look at it with me. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Jesus told us not to pray with meaningless repetition. And in fact, beloved friends, this morning, I'm going to tell you that there is not one instance in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation where we have any prayers that are written in order to teach us to pray repetitiously. There's not one in Scripture.

Jesus never did that. This prayer, the Lord's Prayer, is the skeleton, if you please, on which to place the meat of prayer. It is God's guidebook for the prayer life of those who love the Lord Jesus Christ. This prayer is in no uncertain terms the masterpiece of the mind of Christ. And every conceivable matter and issue important to man is compressed into these verses. Remarkable. It's absolutely mind-boggling. In fact, I'm going to say to you this morning that endless sermons and monumental mountains of substance pertaining to the heart of God in His relationship with man can be weaned and gleaned from the Lord's Prayer.

Ha ha ha! I'm going to tell you something staggering this morning. There is literally a sense in which you and I could preach and study the Lord's Prayer until this time next year. This particular prayer is so action-packed.

I want to give you a couple of examples just to whet your appetite. Consider first of all as an example our relationship to God. This prayer is about man's relationship with God.

Remember now, the disciples came to Jesus and said, Lord, teach us how to pray. We don't know what to say. We don't know how to talk to God. This is about man's relationship to God.

Consider it. Our Father, on the one side you have Father, and on the other side you have the child. This prayer is about hallowed. Consider the statement hallowed be thy name. On the one side you have deity. On the other side you have the worshiper.

Thy kingdom come. On the one side you have the sovereign, and on the other side you have his subjects. Consider the phrase thy will be done. On one side you have master, and on the other side you have the servant. Consider the phrase give us this day our daily bread. On one side you have the benefactor, and on the other side you have the beneficiary.

Consider the phrase forgive us our debts. On one side you have the Savior, on the other side you have the sinner. Consider the phrase and do not lead us into temptation.

On one side you have the guide, and on the other side you have the pilgrim. Oh, we could camp there for years on end, our relationship to God. We could consider, for example, attitude and our spirit of prayer. How do we come into the presence of God?

Well, consider it. Our, the phrase our, deals with selfishness, doesn't it? It gets rid of all our selfishness because there is no exclusivity as far as God is concerned. Our Father, consider the word Father.

Talking about attitude, it deals with family devotion. Hallowed be thy name, deals with reverence. Thy kingdom come, loyalty. Thy will be done, submission, give our bread, dependence, forgive us for our sin, penitence and penance.

How do we come about that? How do we get around this issue of telling God that we're sorry for what we've done? Do not lead us into temptation, deals with the attitude of humility. Thine is the kingdom, deals with triumph and the glory, exaltation forever and forever, deals with the hope that we have in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder what Jesus had in mind when he shared the Lord's prayer with his disciples. You see, it's in this prayer that we see the wonderful balance between God's glory and our need.

Perhaps what Jesus was saying is I want to give you an insight into the threefold purpose for prayer. You see, friends, a people without a purpose are going to be an aimless people. A church without purpose is going to be visionless. A church that has no purpose is not going to know where they're going because they don't know where they've come from.

They don't understand why they exist. And so people begin to run off in all kinds of tangents. That's what happens today in churches that have no biblical basis for their purpose. They begin to run off in this tangent and that tangent and personal preferences and personal convictions begin to get in the way and they begin to move away from the centrality of absolute truth which is in Christ Jesus.

What is he saying? Maybe the Lord Jesus Christ was trying to teach his disciples that as all believers the threefold purpose for prayer. Number one, to hallow God's name. That's the first purpose for prayer. Number two, to bring in his kingdom.

We're going to talk about that later on. And number three, to do his will. That's the three purposes of prayer. Well, perhaps what Jesus was saying is, listen, I want to show you how to cope.

Forgive the interruption. There's more great insight and Bible teaching from Dr. Wilton in just a moment. Oh, but how I pray we realize that Jesus is reaching out to us to help us cope with anything that's coming our way.

Today, nothing is going to take God by surprise. We're here to pray with you, pray for you at 866-899. Word and online at tewonline.org every single day. More and more friends are signing up for the daily encouraging word email.

If you haven't, you can do it right now on our website at tewonline.org. Again, sign up today. Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. You know, if I was to take a survey here this morning, we'll all talk about what it means to try and cope, to try and deal with life. We all go through different phases of life. We all hurt. We experience joy. We're raising our children. We're going about business. We're being diagnosed with diseases. We're going to the hospital.

We're going through school. How do we cope with all of this? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ shared the Lord's Prayer because he told us if we want to be able to understand how to cope, we need to know how to talk to God. And so he deals with what it means to cope.

First of all, how to cope with the present. I'm going to ask a real dumb question here. Nobody respond this morning. I wonder if there's anybody who right now in this place has got a need that you need to talk to God about. You've got something going on today. Well, what did Jesus say? Give us this day.

Did you get, can I run that by again? Give us this day, our daily bread. He shows us how to cope with the present.

But then he doesn't leave it there. Jesus also showed his disciples how to cope with the past. All of us have got a past. Forgive us for our debts. Forgive us for our sin.

Most of us are carrying huge baggage loads of junk. Most of us are struggling through life, straining under the stress and strain of accumulated sin in the past. Most of us are dealing with failed marriages and with sharp tongues and with character assassination and things said and unsaid and broken this and broken that and physical problems and sin against God and we walk through life. And Jesus said, listen, when I show you my prayer, when you talk to God, I'm not only going to show you how to cope with today, but I'm going to show you how to cope with tomorrow and with yesterday. You can let it go.

You can let it go. Forgive us for our debts. You see, he shows us not only to cope with the present and with the past, but he shows us how to cope with the future. He says, and please, prevent us from being led into temptation.

That's future tense. I haven't yet been tempted. I am at this moment in time, but I know that tomorrow I am going to be tempted.

Do you know why? Because the devil is as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He is waiting out here and he's watching me and he's on the prowl and he's going to get me, boom, and he's going to grab me and he's going to chew me up and spit me out and the only hope that I have for tomorrow is to say, Lord Jesus, please, would you prevent me from being led into temptation? What hope? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that we can leave here today knowing that today is taken care of, tomorrow has been put behind us, and our future is in the hands of a loving God. Who's going to say amen to that? That's what it's all about, folks.

There is incredible hope. This is what Jesus was doing here in the Lord's Prayer. This wasn't some little itty-bitty little song that he was giving to them to chant every time they came to church.

When I went to a British boarding school, it was like clockwork. We'd stand up in the morning, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, and then we'd sit down. Our graces were the same.

We just went over. Listen, folks, I was one of those very proud. I could recite it backwards at one time. I learned the Lord's Prayer in Greek.

I mean, you can do it upside down any which way you want to. Listen, we did the whole nine yards. We have taken the Lord's Prayer, and we have abused it.

Do you know why? Because Jesus Christ took something from the very heart of our Savior, and he said to his disciples, My beloved, this, this is how you should pray. I want you to know that when you talk to my Father, which is in heaven, that you have such a vast, endless well of endless joy, you are able to tap into the sovereign grace of an unbelievable God. And I want you to know that when you talk to him, here are some of the things that will be well pleasing to God when you talk to him about them.

Well, let's look at them. Number one, we must affirm his paternity. P-A-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y. That is the first thing God tells us that we can do and that we must do when we talk to him. We must affirm God's paternity. That means that we must affirm his fatherhood over us.

Are you with me? A paternal instinct is a father's instinct, like a maternal instinct is a mother's instinct. Hear the Word of God. Jesus Christ says, when we talk to God, it is imperative that in the scheme of things, we need to affirm his role as our father over us. Now, what does this mean? You see, to the unbeliever, God is creator, but he is only father to the believer.

Now, I'm going to answer a very difficult question here. If the President of the United States called this country to prayer, there was a disaster. We were going to war or the hurricane or nuclear attack, and the President said, I want all our people to go. We have a national day of prayer. Who does God listen to? God listened to everybody.

No, sir. Does God listen to someone down the road here who rejects the name of Jesus Christ or someone who's never trusted Jesus? God cannot hear that prayer.

Listen to what the Bible says. The Bible says that God's ears are not stopped up, that he cannot hear. His eyes are not blinded, that he cannot see. His mouth is not shut up, that he cannot speak.

His arms haven't been amputated, that he cannot embrace. His heart hasn't been plucked out, that it cannot beat for us, but it is our sin which has separated us from God. Sin has formed a dividing wall. We are all conceived in sin, and the only way for us to have access to the Father is through Jesus Christ. The death of Jesus upon the cross has done away with that barrier because Jesus Christ has paid the price for us, and the Word of God says that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, the access, the life, the means by which we are able to come into direct communication, talk to and be heard of by our Heavenly Father.

Now, folks, listen to me. I believe one of the reasons in America today why there's so much problems in America is that Christians have quit talking to their Heavenly Father. God is not going to listen to those that he cannot hear. God will only hear those that he is able to hear. Jesus begins this prayer to his disciples. He says, I want you to begin by affirming the paternity of your Heavenly Father. Do you know what Jesus said to those Sadducees and Pharisees? He said this, and I quote, John chapter 8 and verse 44, if you want to see it for yourself, he said, listen, you are of your Father the devil, but to his own in Acts chapter 17 and verse 28, he said, you are my offspring. You have been adopted to be joint heirs with the Son.

You've been adopted into the family of God, but those of you who are outside of God, you are of the devil, and he is your Father. Now, folks, that's not popular. No, sir. There are some people who get awfully upset about that.

Say, what do you mean? If I want to talk to God, anybody can talk to God, no. The first and only prayer that God must hear from anybody is the prayer of a repentant sinner, and once he has heard the prayer of a repentant sinner, you can talk to God.

In other words, you must give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know right throughout Scripture Jesus used that word abba? A-B-B-A. Sounds like a sonnet, doesn't it?

A sonnet is a 14-line poem. Young people, A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D-E-F-E-F-G-G. You remember all that stuff, huh? Well, Jesus called his Father abba, A-B-B-A. I always remembered it from the sonnets, A-B-B-A, A-B-B-A, C-D-E, C-D-E, and I would always think of God, our Heavenly Father, when Shakespeare wrote these sonnets about the magnificence of mankind and the metric pressure and all the different kinds of things that we study, the genre of literature, but I'm going to say to you that God, our Heavenly Father, has taken us way beyond the rhythm of a mere mortal poem written by a mere mortal man, and he's placed us headlong into the very bosom of an almighty and a loving God.

You know what he said? Abba. You know what the word abba means? It means daddy, daddy. Jesus said to his disciples, when you talk to me, you need to affirm God's fathership, his fatherhood. He is your daddy.

Is there anything more special? What a privilege to be daddy. Do you know that when Jesus spoke to his disciples, he said, I want you to begin by affirming the paternity of your Heavenly Father. When you talk to him, Jesus said, I want you to remember that he is your daddy, and because he's your daddy, he is going to help you to absorb pain. He's going to help you to have security. He's going to be a provider for you. He's going to be a strong arm for you. He's going to listen to you. He's going to just love you.

It really is that simple. God is using even this broadcast to let you know he loves you. Would you take a moment and hear as Dr. Wilton comes in the studio, perhaps the most important thoughts of his heart today. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today, I repent of my sin, and by faith, I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name, my friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. Well, if God stirred your heart, if you've been praying with Dr. Wilton right now, and you want to start a new life with Christ, boy, we'd love to put some resources in your hands that will help you do that. They're absolutely free.

Give us a call at 866-899-WORD and tell us about your decision for Christ. That's 866-899-9673, or meet us online at tewonline.org. That's tewonline.org.

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What happens when I sin? Call us at 866-899-WORD to request The Confident Assurance of Salvation, along with his book, Totally Secure. You can find peace, protection, and assurance in the arms of God. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener-supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. Well, I hope you'll join us on tomorrow's edition of The Encouraging Word with Dr. Don Wilton, we'll continue in Matthew chapter 6. Join us and invite a friend. Till then, let's stay connected online at TEWOnline.org. ... ...