The Gospel Makes Prayer Possible

Hi, this is the Human Proclaim podcast, The Messages of John Fawnville. You're listening to season 4 called Pray This Way: The Divine Pattern of Righteous Prayer. Here's message number one in the series called The Gospel Makes Prayer Possible. We are going to be looking at Jesus is teaching to us on prayer. From his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6, and we're going to be looking at verses 5 through 15.

So let's just take a moment and let's read verses five. Through 15.

Now, every time God's word is read in the church, we stand.

So, guess what? I'm going to ask you to go ahead and stand back up. Because let's stand in honor of the one who is addressing us, which is God, as we read his word. And this is what Jesus, from the very lips of Jesus, this is how he instructs us on prayer. Jesus says, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. And lead us not into temptation. but deliver us literally from the evil one. For if you forgive their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive.

Your trespasses. This is the word of the Lord. Do you know why we say thanks be to God? Because we are so thankful that the living God. Has addressed us because if he had not addressed us, we would never know him.

That's why we say thanks be to God.

So this is the word of the Lord. That's great.

So you're thankful you can have a seat. As we begin our study on prayer, It needs to be stated from the outset that our study on prayer is not intended to leave you with a sense of guilt. Because you know that your prayer life is not what it should be. The reality is this: that if we are being honest, we know that we're not good at prayer. And we are acutely aware of that on a daily basis.

And too often the approach that many preachers and Bible teachers and Christian authors take to help believers grow in prayer only adds to our painful awareness of what is actually true about ourselves.

So, I want to discuss with you a popular approach. It is really one of the most. used approaches in seeking to encourage believers to be more faithful in prayer. It's called exemplary preaching or exemplary teaching. What is that?

It's very simple. Exemplary preaching or teaching takes Bible characters and situations And uses them as moral examples that you are to imitate.

So I'm going to give you a couple of examples. Often Bible teachers like to use biblical, quote, heroes of the faith. Of people who prayed, for example, Daniel and especially Jesus, Mark 1:35 is a favorite proof text for the exemplary preaching teaching. It says, Rising very early in the morning while it was still dark. He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

The idea is Jesus got up early to pray, therefore you should do. Daniel chapter 6 verse 10 is another favorite proof text. This is what Daniel chapter 6 verse 10 says. It says, He, Daniel, went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees.

three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.

So here's how one author Takes Daniel chapter 6 verse 10. His teaching goes like this. Daniel was a great man of prayer. We learn this from Daniel chapter 6, verse 10. Daniel prayed morning, noon, and night.

Everyone knew that Daniel was a man of prayer. What were the characteristics of Daniel's prayer life? Then he gives five characteristics from Daniel's prayer life, and then after listing the characteristics, here's the question. Daniel was a man of prayer. Are you a man or woman of prayer?

Do you have daily set prayer times like Daniel? And then he concludes: people look around and they ask, Where is the God of Daniel? But God looks around and asks, Where are the Daniels of God? Dare to be a Daniel Dare to be a person. Of prayer That's the lesson.

That's the sermon. That's the exegesis of Daniel 6.10. Daniel was a person of prayer. You be dare to be a Daniel and pray like Daniel three times a day. There's a famous bluegrass gospel song entitled Daniel Prayed.

And it was performed live by Ricky Skaggs and Patty Lovelace. And it perfectly illustrates this exemplary approach to prayer. Listen, here's how Daniel prayed song goes. I heard about a man one day who wasted not his time away. He prayed to God every morning, moon, and ni noon and night.

He cared not for the things of man. He trusted one who would not fail. Oh, Daniel prayed every morning, noon, and night. They cast him in the lion's den because he would not honor men. He prayed to God every morning, noon, and night.

The jaws were locked and it made him shout. And God soon got them safely out. O Daniel prayed every morning, noon, and night.

Now, brother, here comes the therefore.

Now, brother, let us watch and pray like Daniel did from day to day. He prayed to God every morning, noon, and night. We too can gladly daring do the things that God will take us through. Oh, Daniel prayed every morning, noon. And nine.

That's exemplary teaching. In addition to the biblical heroes and exemplary teaching, Bible teachers often like to draw upon examples from Christian biography. Christian mystics monastic ascetic practices to encourage us to be more faithful believers in prayer. One of their favorites to go to was a man named Andrew Bonar. He was one of the leaders of the great Kilseth revival in the 19th century in Scotland.

And so here's how it goes. Bonar, they remind us, rose every day at 4 o'clock in the morning to seek the Lord by his bedside. And when he died, it's said that his elders found two deep indentations worn into the wood floor where he knelt to pray. You need to be like Andrew Bonar and wear out the floor next to your bed. and I rise every day at four AM to pray.

Lastly, I'd like to point out the examples of faithful. They call them prayer warriors. And they like to give us a healthy dose of memorable quotes about the importance of prayer so that that will motivate us to pray.

So, for example, coming from Andrew Bonar, they say things like, quote, Andrew Bonar said, I have been endeavoring to keep up prayer every hour of the day, stopping my occupation, whatever it is, to pray a little. I seek to keep my soul within the shadow of the throne of grace and him that sits thereon. And can you be like that every day? Because the intention of exemplary preaching, like these examples I've just given, is intended. To convict us and then motivate us as we hear the life stories of the spiritual giants and the faithful prayer warriors.

So that when we see and when you hear these examples, we will be as concerned about growing in grace as praying as often as they were. And so we hear these examples, and we hear these quotes, and it's like: Are you growing in grace? Andrew Bonard learned the value of prayer. Have you learned this lesson as well? Let me tell you how Graham Goldsworthy interacts with this exemplary approach to teaching people to pray.

This is what he says: he says, unfortunately, Being told that Jesus got up a great while before sunrise in order to pray, or that Martin Luther, John Wesley, and C.H. Spurgeon. All regarded two hours a day spent in prayer as normal. does not seem to help most of us. On the contrary, it often tends to make us want to give up altogether.

We simply find it too hard to even contemplate such discipline in the midst of our modern busy lives. ⁇ And I think he's exactly right. There are many problems with urging believers to follow the example of spiritual giants in the faith for prayer. Let me give you the first one. Here's the first problem.

If you refer to biblical characters, whether it be Jesus, Daniel, or whoever in the Bible, is you're lifting all those biographical examples out of the historical context of scripture. You just completely have taken the whole thing out of context. And so Graham Goldsworthy, he cautions, he says, a biblical description is not a prescription. And so great care is needed so that we don't simply argue that since what a certain biblical character did was good, we must do the same in every detail. He's exactly right.

Second, but here's a more important reason it's wrong: this exemplary approach to sanctification. Because listen, prayer is an aspect of your sanctification. Applying a purely exemplary approach to your sanctification, to your prayer life. is Pelagianism. What is Pelagianism?

Glad you asked. It is only the most condemned heresy in the history of the church. More than any other theological heresy, Pelagianism is the most condemned by every branch of the church. whether it be Protestant, Orthodox, or Roman Catholicism. Pelagianism.

What was Pelagianism?

Well, let me just give you a quick history lesson because this makes perfect sense once you understand. Pelagius was a fifth century British monk And he argued, in contrast to Augustine in the early church, that Adam was simply a bad example for us. But not the father of our sinful condition.

So the prayer of confession that we prayed this morning from Psalm 51.5, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and sinned, and my mother conceived me. Oh, no, no, no, you weren't born a sinner. You just had a bad example from Adam.

So we are sinners. Listen, he said that we are sinners because we sin following bad examples. We do not sin because we are innately sinners. Big difference. And so what happened was he said the last atom, Jesus, was merely a good example as well.

And salvation, according to Belagius, was simply following the example of Christ instead of following the example of Adam. And what fallen men and women need is not a new birth, not a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings your life, raises you from the dead. What you need to do is just follow good moral direction. You need a good example. Salvation, holiness, growth and sanctification, he says, is rooted in following good example.

This type of system of religion is naturalistic. It doesn't need any supernatural work of God. Progress from sinful behavior to holy behavior simply comes by following the example of Christ.

So, appealing to godly examples wrongly assumes that all you need to grow in your prayer life, that is, grow in your sanctification, is the right example. And you get the right example set before you, and you're going to grow. But you know what it does? This exemplary approach fails to understand and take into account the depth of our human sin. It completely ignores the utter necessity of a mediator between us and a holy God so that our prayers can even be heard to begin with.

It completely ignores the imperative work of the Holy Spirit in our life, whom Paul says in Galatians is praying for us on our behalf. In a word, the exemplary approach to motivating believers to pray is human-centered, it is not gospel-centered. Urging believers to follow the examples of the quote heroes of the faith focuses people. You and me on other people and their works rather than on Christ and his works. Graham Goldsworthy says this: He says, if the sole motive to pray is Jesus got up early to pray, so how much more do we need to get up early to pray?

It is missing the grace of God in the gospel. Jesus did it, so we ought to do it, is not the perspective of the gospel. And then Goldsworthy says this. He says, one of the most sinned against biblical principles in regard to prayer. Is that of the grace of God and the gospel as the pattern, motive, and power for Christian living?

The duty of Christian living, which includes prayer, is to be grounded in, nurtured by, and flow from the gospel that has been given to us. It's vital to understand that prayer is an aspect of our sanctification, which this side of the resurrection is quite messy. I don't know about you, but my life of sanctification is quite messy. Is yours messy? I hope.

I hope so, because if you're perfect, wow. Believers burdened by the reality of their continual struggle with sin and their lagging prayer life are not helped by continual exhortations to follow the example of Daniel, follow the example of Jesus, follow the example of Martin Luther, follow the example of Andrew Bonnard. Rather The exemplary approach, Jesus did it so we ought to. kills all genuine desire and motivation to pray. What I want you to learn in this series from the Lord's Prayer.

It's the growth in prayer, growth in godliness, growth in sanctification, however you want to say it. As all other aspects of our sanctification have to be rooted in. The gospel and guided by the wisdom of God's law. Because what you have in the Lord's Prayer. Is prayer that is rooted in the rich, deep relationship with your Father, which only is possible through the Son because of His mediating, saving, redeeming work that makes you an adopted child, Son of God.

The gospel makes prayer possible, the Gospel makes prayer desirable, and God's law is what gives us the wisdom to know how and what to pray for. That's the Lord's Prayer in a nutshell. And so, problems with prayer arise just as problems with all of our sanctification arise when the duty. Of prayer is urged and taught apart from the gospel and divorced from God's wisdom and his law. When the gospel isn't paramount in your life, in your prayer life, it becomes a legalistic burden that does not promote godliness.

Prayer that is not a grateful response of a justified sinner just degenerates into attempts to gain acceptance and blessing from God. For example, How often have you been tempted to think this? God will be more favorably disposed to hear me and to bless me today because of the amount of time I spend in prayer this morning. God will be more eager to hear me because of the sincerity and the zeal of my daily devotion to prayer. That kind of thinking undermines justification by grace through faith alone.

What is justification? Just as if I've never sinned and just as if I have always obeyed God's law perfectly my whole life. That's justification. And so I want you to listen very carefully to the wisdom that Graham Goldsworthy gives to us connecting the heart of the gospel of justification to our prayer life. And this is what he says.

It is crucial that we understand what our justification in Christ means, particularly for our failures. How many of you have failures this morning? We all have failures.

So it's particularly important that you understand how to connect your justification in Christ to those failures. Jesus justifies our humanness by being for us, on our account, the true human Son of God. The only reason he left his glory in heaven and took upon himself human flesh and the role of a servant was to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. There is no aspect of our humanity that he has not dealt with. Aren't you happy for that?

No aspect, including your prayer life. Whenever and however we fail, we have an advocate to take our place and to plead our cause. He does this on the basis of his own righteousness, not on the basis of our fervor or piety. And then he says, it's worth noting that Jesus has justified our prayer. In other words, as with every aspect of our humanness in which we fall short of the glory of God, He provides for us the basis of full acceptance.

In Christ, we listen carefully. Please listen to this. In Christ. We cannot be condemned as inadequate or failed prayers. Do you care that?

In Christ, because of our justification. We cannot be condemned. As inadequate or failed prayers. I should not think because I don't pray as I ought that God is less inclined to listen to me than he is to listen to some great. Prayer warrior.

That's freedom. And that just makes me want to pray all the time. That is good news. to my heart. Jesus not only justifies me, he justifies my prayers.

He justifies not only my standing before God, but all of my good works are justified before him as well. Because Calvin says, whatever impurity is in my good work is buried in the purity of Christ. Including my failed prayers on a daily basis.

So what does this all come down to? It comes down to the avoidance of legalism. Attempting to achieve a righteousness, a right standing with God, favor with God, blessing from God by my own efforts in fulfilling the requirements of God's law. It comes down to avoiding that. And that brings us to the Lord's Prayer, because the Lord's Prayer teaches us how to avoid legalism and how to grow in prayer based on the gospel and the wisdom of God's law.

So let's just look at it this morning just by way of introduction. In Matthew chapter 6, verses 5 through 15, what Jesus is doing is he is contrasting two fundamentally different ways to pray. The first way you can pray is you can give up to God unrighteous prayer. The second way that you can pray, he says, is you can give him righteous prayer.

So he's comparing and contrasting unrighteous prayer with righteous prayer. And so, to have a proper understanding of Jesus' teaching on prayer, you have to understand that Jesus' teaching on prayer is in the context of his entire sermon on the mount. It is a part of his sermon on the mount. And in this sermon, Jesus directly addresses the Jews of his day who abandoned God's law and had come to rely upon themselves and their religious traditions and practices for their righteousness before God. And one of the key passages in this sermon is in Matthew chapter 5, verse 20.

Jesus says, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter. The Kingdom of Heaven And then in chapter 5, verses 21 through 48, Jesus contrasts. True belief. True fair Eve. With the unrighteous teaching of the scribes and Pharisees.

And he gives you six illustrations of the unrighteous teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. And he shows you how they did not teach correctly on murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, revenge, and love of neighbor and God. And he says this all throughout that teaching, the wrong and righteous teaching of Matthew 5. He says to them, You have heard it was said, but I say to you. That was a powerful statement because the Jews that looked at Jesus said, who do you think you are?

God gave the law on Mount Sinai. Are you claiming to be God? And Jesus is saying, I wrote the law on Mount Sinai and I gave it and I'm telling you exactly what it means right now. has a lot of authority. He's saying that the teaching of the law by the scribes and Pharisees was woefully inadequate.

It didn't nearly go far enough. Mere outward conformity. Listen, which lacked a genuine relationship with the father. Did not result in love of God or love of neighbor. It resulted in legalism.

And so Jesus condemns the legalistic theology teaching of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew chapter 5. Then you come to Matthew chapter 6. And in Matthew chapter 6, he is contrasting true religious practice. With the unrighteous practice of the scribes and Pharisees.

So, chapter five. He's taught you true belief, true theology versus legalistic, unrighteous teaching. And now he's left the teaching and he's going to the practice that comes out of the teaching.

So he's connecting theology and practice. What you believe determines how you practice the Christian life. And so he gives us three examples of religious activity that was practiced by the scribes and Pharisees. Almsgiving, verses 2 through 4. Praying verses 5 through 15, which we're looking at.

And then fasting verses 16 through 18. And so look at chapter 6, verse 1. Jesus gives us this general principle. He begins with a general rule, principle. When he's talking about religious practice.

He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. In brief, the scribes and Pharisees had built their theology and their whole religious practice around works-based righteousness. Do this and live. Consequently, they had exchanged an inward genuine righteousness for outward shows of piety. And it's instructive to note that what they believe, their theology of legalism, translated and influenced their practice, their works righteousness, their showy religion.

The religiosity. And so Jesus literally cuts to the heart here. In regards both to their theology and practice, and he corrects their hypocritical prayers. These scribes and Pharisees parading their practice of praying before men, he says, to be seen and praised by them. Jesus just pulls the whole rug out from underneath their feet.

And what he does in the Lord's Prayer is by pulling the whole religious rug out from underneath their feet, he is anticipating and preparing the way for you and I to come into the full expression of the grace of God and the gospel as what is the key to true prayer. And verses 5 through 8, he teaches us how not to pray. This unrighteous prayer lacks faith. It lacks a relationship with the Father. It is unrighteousness.

Look at verses 5 and 6. In verses 5 and 6, Jesus condemns pompous prayer. Ostentatious prayer, pompous prayer. Look what he says in verses five and six. 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. Truly I say to you, They have received their reward. The emphasis that Jesus is giving here in this condemnation of this pompous prayer. The emphasis, not on the posture, that is standing on street corners, that's not the emphasis.

It's not the place of prayer, public versus private, because he says in verse 6: you know, go into the privacy of your room and pray. The emphasis not on praying publicly versus private, because if it was, we couldn't pray in church every week. The emphasis is on the manner and motive for why these scribes and Pharisees were praying. Jesus is condemning and objecting to the scribes and Pharisees' motive of praying publicly. They want to be seen by other people to gain human approval.

Ostentatious prayer, pompous prayer. Jesus in Matthew chapter 23 verse 5 he offers the same scathing criticism of the scribes and Pharisees listen he says to them they do all their deeds to be seen by others And so such a display of religious ostentation, showy religion. Pompous prayer. It's done for a reward. And Jesus says that reward is human praise, human approval.

And listen to what Jesus says. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. They have received human praise and approval. And that's all they're going to get. You've gotten your reward.

And it doesn't benefit you because unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, Matthew 5, 20, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. In contrast, look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 16. Jesus has already told us the kind of religious practice that glorifies God and benefits others. He says in chapter 5, verse 16, listen, he says in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Jesus says that righteous living, good works, righteous prayer, this includes prayer.

Leads others not to praise you, but to praise the living God. And then look at verses 7 and 8. Jesus not only condemns pompous prayer, but in verses 7 and 8, he condemns purposeless prayer, meaningless prayer. Look what he says in verses 7 and 8. He says, and when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases.

Purposeless prayer, meaningless words, as the Gentiles do. Why? Because they think that they will be heard, for there are many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

Again, the issue here is not the length of prayers. It's not the frequency or the number of words in prayer. Because first of all, that position would condemn many lengthy prayers found in the scriptures. Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 14 verses 23 through 25 it appears spent a whole night in prayer So obviously, Jesus isn't condemning lengthy prayers, or else he would condemn his own prayer life. Further, Jesus is not condemning repetition in prayer.

Because in Matthew chapter 26, verse 44 and following, you see in the Garden of Gethsemane, he repeated his prayer to his father three times in a row. Take this cup, take this cup, take this cup. And then he tells his disciples in Luke 18, verse 1: he says, keep on being persistent in prayer, keep repeating your prayer.

So he's not condemning repetition in prayer. He's not condemning the length of prayers. Again, you have to keep the context of the Sermon on the Mount in view. Jesus is condemning the motive. of why they were praying.

The basis or reason. The idea is this. The notion is that the longer and more repetitive I pray, the greater will be my chance of success in receiving what I'm pleading for. A perfect example of this comes from 1 Kings chapter 18 with the priests of Baal. Remember the priests of Baal and Elijah?

They were up on the mountain, and Elijah is taunting the priests of Baal. It's really funny if you read this particular section of scripture. And it says in verse 26 that the priests of Baal called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no voice. And no one answered.

And they limped around the altar that they had made. They cut themselves, and Elijah taught him that maybe he's gone to relieve himself. He went to the boys' room. And so what Jesus is condemning is this misguided notion that my prayers are acceptable and heard and answered. Depending upon the length and amount of words that I utter, do this and live, and I'll get a blessing.

That's what he's condemning. This wordy, purposeless praying is based on a misunderstanding of how God the Father expects to be approached by his people. You see, these scribes and Pharisees weren't trusting God to be their heavenly Father. He was more like this big, Ogre. who was a reluctant deity.

Who, after continual harassment and pleading, and badgering, he would take notice of them and go, okay, they're serious. Here's your blessing. Jesus says, That is not how my Heavenly Father is. That is not how you relate to the Father. Why?

Because that is not how I relate. To the Father. Jesus, as a perfect man, is teaching us how to pray as he prayed in relation to his Father. And so the issue is not the length of the amount of words, the issue is a lack of faith. These scribes and Pharisees did not have trust in God as their father.

Because the purpose of prayer, they believed, is to demand from a reluctant God his attention to inform him because he's not aware that they have needs. And if they plead enough, he'll go, wow, they're really serious. They can have that. And so the idea is this, is that the more time and words you put in, the more results you get out. And Jesus says in contrast, prayer is not a technique to get things from God.

He's teaching us that true righteous prayer is an expression of gospel-saturated faith in the Father. It is an expression of a relationship of trust which flows from knowing God as Father. That's what he says in verse 8 when he says, Do not be like them, for your father, your father, knows what you need before you even ask him. He cares for you. And so this gospel-centered prayer is rooted in sonship.

It stands in stark contrast to the hypocritical, pompous, purposeless prayers of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus says, don't pray like that. He says, look at verse 9. But when you pray, pray like this. He says in contrast to the unrighteous prayers of the Pharisees, Here's how I pray.

I'm going to teach you the model so you can know how to pray, like I pray. He says in chapter 6, verse 9: this righteous prayer. He says, Pray like this. Pray in this manner. This is how you pray.

So, traditionally, the Lord's Prayer, as it's been called, is really the disciples' prayer. Because what follows in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 through 13, listen, is a divine, that means it comes from outside of you. You didn't come up with it. It comes from God himself, a divine model of righteous prayer that is rooted in the gospel and intended to guide you in your life of faith. And we say that it is to guide disciples, believers, because it is immediately clear from the opening invocation, Our Father, that prayer is exclusively the privilege of those who have God as their Father.

And that was exactly what the scribes and Pharisees did not possess and that Jesus is indicting. He's not giving us a legalistic, stale, cold, ritualistic pattern that if we just utter these words some kind of magically, it's going to work. This is rooted in a relationship with God his Father that comes through the Son and is applied by the Holy Spirit. Jesus in his divine wisdom is giving and revealing to us a living, dynamic, breathing relationship with the Heavenly Father. It is rooted in the gospel of grace, and it is guided by the wisdom of God's law.

So, at root, the Lord's Prayer, the disciples' prayer, Jesus is teaching that righteous prayer stems from the grace of God in the gospel. This model prayer, listen carefully, given by Jesus. is not simply a command. It is an invitation. It is an invitation.

It is an invitation to belong to the father as an adopted son and to enjoy this relationship. It's not just outward religious activity done to get a reluctant deity to do something for you. It is rather an expression of true gospel-based faith, trust in the Heavenly Father. This is why Calvin describes, as he opens up his discussion of the Lord's Prayer in His Institutes, he describes prayer, listen, as the chief exercise of faith. Righteous prayer belongs to the sons of God, Jesus says.

And Jesus is indicting these scribes and Pharisees in the context of his teaching on prayer because they did not have a relationship with the Father. They had empty Religion. Purposeless, pompous activity that was done to gain the approval and praise of man, but not to enter into fellowship and relationship with the living God. And so for prayer to be righteous, Jesus says prayer, authentic, righteous prayer is based in relationship with the Father. These scribes and Pharisees said, Oh, we're sons of God, and Jesus says, No, actually, in John chapter 8, you are son.

Your father is the devil. What an indictment! They said, we're offspring of Abraham, we're the sons of God, we are in the covenant community, and we're a part of the family. And Jesus says, by the way, scribes and Pharisees. God is not your Father.

When God is not your father through the Son, you cannot pray righteous prayer. This is what Jesus is teaching. These scribes and Pharisees practiced the empty religious activity because they didn't possess true sonship. No authentic relationship with the father. They had lost their sonship.

Their pompous and purposeless prayers were not evidence of seeking God. You need to understand that. False world religion is not evidence of peoples whose hearts are desperately seeking the truth of the real God. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, the scribes and Pharisees, by their unrighteousness, were not seeking the Father, they were suppressing relationship with the Father.

Religion, apart from the intercession and work of Jesus, is not seeking the Father, it is suppression. There's one final introductory point that I want you to recognize about this model of righteous prayer that Jesus reveals to us. He not only roots this prayer in the gospel of grace in contrast to just pompous outward show religiosity. But he gives us the model in terms of how to pray. Again, John Calvin is very helpful.

He says that this divine model, this righteous prayer model that Jesus gives, his pattern, is the teaching of divine wisdom. The Sermon on the Mount ends like the book of Proverbs. The wise man built his house upon the rock, the foolish man built his house upon the sand, the storms came. And the man who built his house upon the sand was washed away, but the man who built his house upon the rock, he survived it. The rock is Jesus and his righteousness, and the sand is the unrighteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.

And Jesus said to us in Matthew 5, 20, If your righteousness doesn't surpass that, You'll be washed away in the judgment. But the one he says in Matthew chapter 5, who has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it on your behalf, that perfect righteousness that you're basing your faith on, when the judgment comes, you'll remain secure. And so Jesus is not only, he's showing us what a true wise person is. He's showing us the fulfillment of the book of Proverbs. The truly wise prayer is the person who prays in accordance with what God wills, what God gives, that is needful and necessary for both body and soul.

Why is this important to understand? Why is it important that Jesus is giving to us the perfect pattern of a wise man, the fulfillment of the book of Proverbs here in the Sermon on the Mount? Here's why. Due to the fall and subsequently the entrance of sin into God's good world, there is a barrier between all men. And which means you need a savior and a mediator to deal with this barrier so that your prayers can be heard and accepted.

Not only that, but also due to the fall, the Bible says our minds have become not wise but foolish, and darkened, not enlightened. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk. In the futility of their minds, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of their heart.

So the point is this, because of the fall, we come into this world curved in on ourselves. We come into this world self-centered, self-absorbed. We are not like Jesus who said, quote, in John 6, 38, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. We come into this world saying, I have come into this world to do my own will, not the will of him who came to save me. And consequently, what we lack for prayer is a proper understanding of the will of God revealed to us in His law, which is filled with wisdom.

We don't know how to pray and we do not know what to pray for because we are completely self-centered rather than God-centered like Jesus was.

So we pray for the wrong things. And without the gospel, Jesus teaches us prayer is impossible. And without the wisdom of God's law serving as our guide, we don't know how to pray and we do not know what to pray for. And this is what Jesus is giving to us in the Lord's Prayer.

So he is teaching us how to avoid legalism, unrighteous prayer. How to grow in genuine prayer, righteous prayer, and he does it by rooting us in the gospel of grace and guiding us by the wisdom of God's law. This prayer obviously can be used as a personal prayer. Chapter 6, verse 6: When you pray, go in secret and pray. It's a great pattern for a model for prayer.

But also, listen. It is important to understand that this prayer is addressed in the plural. It's intended to be a corporate prayer in addition to an individual act of personal devotion in your prayer time. The Lord's prayer is for the church to pray as a gathered community of adopted sons of the Father. This is why the church has used this prayer liturgically throughout the history of the church in more formal prayers, and we should, because this prayer came from the lips of Jesus himself.

And so, since this is the case, and because this is a corporate prayer for the whole church, I thought it would be fitting this morning for us to stand and conclude. By praying this prayer as an expression of faith to our Heavenly Father.

So let's all stand together. And let's pray this prayer of faith, this expression of faith. It's not a legalistic pattern. It is an expression of faith to our Heavenly Father.

So let's pray this together. Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. 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. and lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from the evil one. Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fonville. Him we proclaim as a ministry of John Fondill of Paramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.