Pray Then Like This

It's common to feel frustrated about prayer.

When we feel like God isn't answering, or we don't feel heard, many of us just give up. But what if we're using prayer the wrong way? Today we'll hear Jesus talk about prayer from the famous Sermon on the Mount.

We'll explore three ways of praying, two that never work and one way that always will. From Chicago, welcome to The Moody Church Hour with Pastor Philip Miller. Stay with us for a time of worship and teaching as we continue a series on the Upside Down Kingdom.

From the book of Matthew, we'll heed the words of Jesus, Pray Then Like This. Here now is Pastor Philip and worship leader Tim Stafford. Well, good morning everybody and welcome to The Moody Church. We're so glad you're here.

If you're right here in the room or joining us online or by radio, boy, we're so glad that you've chosen to carve out a bit of your morning to spend with us. We have an exciting service ahead of us. We're going to be learning about prayer from the ultimate master of prayer himself, Jesus. He's going to teach us to pray and prayer is something we all struggle with and so we are all in for a treat this morning. And speaking of prayer, let's give this service to the Lord this morning.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you don't leave us to just sort of find our way in the dark toward you, but you've given us a way. That way is Jesus and Jesus shows us the way of prayer. So Father, help us to learn from him how we are to come to you the way you want us to come. We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. Good morning. Great to see you. Are you ready to worship the Lord with us today? Would you stand and join me as we begin to come into his presence.

He's the one we're here to see. He's the one we come to adore, praise and exalt this morning, not ourselves. This is service of prayer. We begin with prayer.

We pray throughout the service and we'll pray at the end as well because we're talking and hearing God today as we meet. So as we begin, let's also pray with this song. As morning dawns and evening fades, you inspire songs of praise that rise from earth to touch your heart and glorify your name. Your name is a strong abiding tower. Your name is a shelter like the one in your name. Let the nations sing it louder cause nothing has the power to say your name. Jesus, in your name we pray.

Come and fill our hearts today. For if a stranger is for you, may glorify your name. Your name is a strong abiding tower. Your name is a shelter like the one in your name.

Let the nations sing it louder cause nothing has the power to say your name. Your name is a strong and mighty tower. Your name is a shelter like no other.

Your name. Let the nations sing it louder cause nothing has the power to say. Your name is a strong and mighty tower. Your name is a shelter like the one in your name. Let the nations sing it louder cause nothing has the power to say your name.

It's a strong and mighty tower. Your name is a shelter like the one in your name. Let the nations sing it louder cause nothing has the power to say your name. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is the Lord, who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is grave and one is last. My name is written on his heart. I know that while in him he stands, no tongue can beneath it depart.

No tongue can beneath it depart. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, from where I look and see him there, who made an end to all my sin. Because a sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied to the God-given harmony. To the God-given harmony. Behold in me the risen man, my perfect spot for his righteousness.

The great unchangeable I am, the King of glory and the greatest. One with himself I may not die, my soul is purchased with his blood. My life is here with Christ on high, with Christ my Savior my God.

With Christ my Savior and my God. Precious cornerstone, sure foundation. You are faithful to the end. We are waiting for you, Jesus. We believe you're all to us.

Precious cornerstone, sure foundation. You are faithful to the end. We are waiting for you, Jesus. We believe you're all to us. We believe you're all to us. Let the glory of your name be the passion of the church.

Let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns. Let the singing love of Christ be the measure of our lives. We believe you're all to us.

Holy Son of God, sent from earth, hope and mercy at the cross. To our everything, you're our Father. Jesus, you are all to us. Let the glory of your name be the passion of the church.

Let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns. Let the singing love of Christ be the measure of our lives. We believe you're all to us.

When this passing world is over, we will see you face to face. And forever, we will worship you. Jesus, you are all to us.

Jesus, you are all to us. Let the glory of your name be the passion of the church. Let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns. Let the singing love of Christ be the measure of our lives. We believe you're all to us. Let the glory of your name be the passion of the church.

Let the righteousness of God be the holy flame that burns. Let the singing love of Christ be the measure of our lives. We believe you're all to us. We believe you're all to us.

We believe you're all to us. On another day, when I was a kid, my siblings and I decided we wanted some hot chocolate. And typically what we would do is we would fill the mugs with hot water, put them in the, well, cold water, put them in the microwave, and we'd heat them up, and then we'd add the powder and all that kind of stuff. But we all wanted hot chocolate together, and there were six of us, and so we thought, there's got to be an easier, better way to make hot chocolate.

But since we weren't allowed to use the stove, we were in a conundrum. And so with a great deal of self-confidence and my own ingenuity, I concocted a plan to make hot cocoa in bulk using my dad's drip coffee maker. And so I filled the reservoir. It's hot liquid. I don't drink coffee.

This will work, right? So I fill the reservoir with water. I empty something like ten packets of hot cocoa powder into the filter basket, and I press brew, and off I go to go do some things. And patting myself on my back for the brilliance of such a plan, I return.

What happens next is the stuff of Miller family legend, okay? So I return to the kitchen with yelling and screaming as hot pooling across the countertops, running down the face of the cabinets, sprayed up all over the wall in the window, is piping hot cocoa as it exploded out of the coffee maker. And I learned that day that you have to use things the way they were designed to work. There was nothing wrong with my dad's coffee maker, as long as you chose to make coffee in the coffee maker. But if you tried to make hot cocoa, it just wouldn't work for you. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how sincere I was, it would not make hot cocoa.

It was designed for another purpose. Sometimes people will come into my office for some pastoral counseling. They'll have a situation they're working through, and they want to talk about it, and they want to get my advice or whatever. Sometimes I'll ask them how they're praying through their situation. And more than once, people have said to me, well, I tried that. It's just prayer doesn't work. Just prayer doesn't work. And they described to me how they prayed for whatever it was their situation was. They prayed for change, for healing, for a change in circumstances, for somebody to change their attitude or heart or whatever. And then they realized after a while that wasn't happening, and so it felt like God was unresponsive. Their prayers were just bouncing off the ceiling, disappearing into the void. And maybe they kept at it for a while, but when nothing really changed, they figured the problem was prayer. And so they just sort of gave up. Oh, they might pray at meals or in their small group of their Sunday community or when somebody calls them up front to pray.

But not much beyond that. They just sort of gave up on prayer. And to which I would then respond to this person in my office, what if you're actually using prayer the wrong way? What if there's actually nothing wrong with prayer? Maybe you're not using prayer the way it was intended to work, not the way it's designed to work.

What if you're trying to make hot cocoa in a coffee maker? See, friends, we have to use prayer the way it was designed to work. It will never work if we try to force it into our own use and just use it the way we want to. We need to pray the way God designed prayer to work. Well, what is that? Well, welcome to class. Jesus is our teacher, and he's going to teach us today how to pray, how to pray God's way. So grab your Bibles. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 6 verses 5 to 13 this morning.

You'll find our reading on page 811 in the Pew Bible by your niece, 811. Matthew 6 verses 5 to 13. And in this passage, Jesus is going to walk us through two ways of praying that never work and the one way of praying that always will. There's a world of difference between these three modes of prayer, prayer that's looking to others, prayer that's looking to ourselves, or prayer that's looking to our Father. And so we're going to look at these each in turn as we walk through the passage today.

Would you bow your heads? Let's pray as we step in to God's word. Heavenly Father, we ask today that through the guidance of Jesus, our Master and Lord, that we would learn to pray.

Jesus prayed differently than anybody else in his day or age, and he intends to teach us to pray like he prays. And so help us to learn what Jesus wants today, the secret to prayer that matters, that works. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Amen. First of all, prayer that is looking to others, looking to others. Look at Jesus' words here in Matthew 6 verse 5. 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. They may 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. So the first way to pray that doesn't work, according to Jesus, is religious hypocrisy, prayer that is full of religious hypocrisy.

Now we talked about this at great length last week, and so I don't want to repeat everything that we talked about last time. But what Jesus is doing here is once again, he's calling out religious people who always seem to find a way to get their piety into the spotlight. They give with fanfare and flourish so that people will see.

They fast in order to be noticed and they pray so people will see them. Jesus calls this kind of religious performance, he labels it hypocrisy. He says they're hypocrites. And we said last week that Jesus is the first person in all of world history to use the word hypocrite with moral overtones.

He coined the term. It was a term from the Greek theater that simply meant actor or the people who wore the masks in the Greek theater. They were playing a part. And Jesus says religious people can wear a mask.

They can play a part. They can pretend they are something they're not. They're hypocrites. And he's saying that when we were actors, when we use prayer not to seek the face of God, but in order to impress the faces of other people. In other words, when we use prayer, not as a means of relationship with God, but as a strategy to sort of show off, gain prestige, fit in, develop some social cache, that's when this goes wrong. Now, some of us who grew up in traditional cultures where religion was a dominant social feature, we understand what this is like, the pressure of religious performance. When public participation in religious activities earns you a place in the community, this can easily happen.

Religious communities in particular tend to exert a kind of pressure on their people to sort of dress a certain way, speak a certain way, act a certain way, behave a certain way, even pray a certain way. And it can lead to what Jesus is talking about here, sort of religious play acting, wearing the mask, performing for what's expected, putting on a show. But then when we do that, then our prayer is not about seeking the face of God. It's about seeking the approval of other people.

You see that. We've twisted prayer. We're praying not with our eyes for God, but our eyes on others. And Jesus shows us the way we can tell if this is happening.

How do we know if we've fallen into this trap? He says, look, the problem is there's no secret prayer in your life. That's the problem. It's one thing to stand up in front and pray and use all kinds of fancy theological words when other people call upon you and when it's socially expected, but if there's no private prayer, if there's no seeking of the Lord when no one else is looking, then that helps you see that you're doing it for others and not for Him. When it's just you and God, prayer evaporates.

Jesus is warning us, beware. Beware of the kind of prayer that is eager to pray in public, but is unmotivated in private. It might just be a religious mask and nothing more. Prayer that uses God, friends, to look good will never work.

That's the bottom line. Prayer that uses God to look good will never work. God doesn't respond to this kind of hypocritical prayer. Jesus says they have received their reward in full.

That's it. Because using prayer this way, this hypocritical way, is not the way prayer was designed to work. Prayer, friends, is about seeking God. It's about relationship with Him. It's about cultivating our relationship with the Most High God and opening our hearts to Him so that we can connect with Him.

That's what prayer is for. But when we twist it and turn it into a thing that is simply religious performance to try to look good in front of the eyes of other people, it's no longer about pursuing God. It's about pursuing popularity. Imagine, if you will, imagine you're a young lady in high school and the guy of your dreams invites you to a dance. And you think he's really into you, so you say yes. And he says, oh, I'm so glad you said yes because I really didn't want to go alone.

I didn't want anyone to think I was a loser and all the other girls turned me down. How would you feel? You'd be offended, right? You'd be offended because he's not into you.

He's just using you to look good in front of his friends. You're just arm candy, right? There's a phrase you probably never thought you'd hear from the pulpit of Moody Church.

You're just arm candy, right? And look, we can do the same thing with God. God says, look, I'm not going to let you use me so you can look good in front of your friends. If it's me you want, I'm all in, but I'm not going to let you just use me.

You don't want to be used like that. God doesn't want to be used like that either. Prayer like that will never work. That's the first way prayer doesn't work.

It's when we have our eyes on others, when we're looking to others. The second way prayer doesn't work is when we're looking to ourselves, looking to ourselves. Look at verse seven. 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. It says the second way I don't want you to pray is like the Gentiles, the Gentiles.

That won't work either. The Gentiles, the word here is the ethne, the nations, the pagans, the non-Jewish people. People who are obviously far from God because they don't follow the Jewish way of life in the first century. Their prayers, Jesus says, are full of repetition and pleading and flattery and well oiled phrases, rehearsed in order to try to get something through to God. They have many words, literally a torrent of words the torrent, the magic formulas, the secret incantations, the shamanistic rituals, torrential prayer, a deluge that even God can't resist.

That's the idea. If we could just find the right combination of magic words, if we could just crack the code, press the right buttons, you know. It's like God is a giant vending machine in the sky and you want the candy and so you're like what's the combination of buttons and money I have to put into the machine so I can get my little treat to come out the slot. This kind of prayer aims to manipulate God, to win him over so that you get his blessings. To do whatever it takes to get through, beg, plead, bargain, flatter, swear, whatever it takes. I'll say anything if I could just get God to give in to what I want. And Jesus says beware. Beware of this kind of prayer that tries to manipulate God in order to get his blessings because it is a prayer that aims not to get more of God, it's just it aims to get more of God's stuff.

That's what we're after. And prayer, friends, that uses God to get his stuff will never work. Prayer that uses God to get his stuff will never work because we're not using prayer the way it's designed to work. Prayer is about God. It's about relationship with him. It's about bringing my heart and my life and exposing it to him so that his grace and relationship might make me holy and transform and change me. But when I twist prayer into a mechanical magical incantation formula so that I can manipulate God to get his blessings and his stuff, it's not about getting more of God.

It's about just getting more of his stuff. Imagine if you were a guy and you were madly in love with a young lady and you decide to get engaged and you're all excited about planning your wedding and you have some significant family wealth. And during the planning process of the wedding, your fiancé, she learns that your family's wealth is structured in a trust in such a way that she'll never actually have access to money and so she dumps you.

How do you feel? You feel used and dirty, right? Because she wasn't after you. She was after your stuff.

She didn't love you. She's just a gold digger, right? Another phrase you probably thought you would never hear from the pulpit of Moody Church. And look, God says, look, I'm not going to let you use me just to get my stuff. I can tell when what you really want is my blessings, not me.

You just want health and wealth and comfort and ease and happiness and healing. But you're not that into me. And if it's me you want, I'm all in, but I'm not going to let you just use me.

You don't like to be used. God doesn't either. Prayer doesn't work like that. Prayer doesn't work when we're looking to others. It doesn't work when we're looking to ourselves.

Well, how does it work? It works like this when we're looking to our Father. Look at this beautiful prayer Jesus gives us. Verse nine, 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 from evil. Now we're going to have a chance to walk through the Lord's prayer over the next coming talks.

We're going to do a mini sub-series. We're going to walk through the Lord's prayer phrase by phrase. But for now what I want you to see is how Jesus is giving us a third way to pray. Jesus is giving us a third way to pray.

He's contrasting it with the hypocrites and the Gentiles. This prayer is the prayer of a child. It's the prayer of a child. It is prayer that pursues our Father with childlike trust, intimacy and surrender which will always be answered. It is prayer that pursues our Father with childlike trust, intimacy and surrender which will always be answered.

Look at these phrases. Our Father in heaven. Did you know that Jesus is the first person in the Bible or in all of history to address God in prayer as Father?

It's the first one. This is a radical breakthrough of relational closeness in the Bible. And it's not just Jesus the Son of God who prays this way.

That shouldn't surprise us. But Jesus is teaching us to pray this way. His disciples to pray our Father.

How can He do that? Because to all who received Him, Jesus, to all who believed in His name, He gives the right to become children of God. John 1-12. In the coming of Jesus, friends, it's as if Jesus is saying my coming has ushered in a whole new dynamic of relational closeness between you and God and it's all happening because I came here which is exactly right. Just think of how different this prayer would read if it started with our Creator who is in heaven or our Master who is in heaven, our Lord who is in heaven. All of those things would be true, right?

It'd all be true. But Jesus is intentionally shocking His audience and saying our Father. The picture is of a child running into the arms of her father. Pray like that, Jesus says. Pray looking to our Father as a child. Not looking to others in order to use God to look good so people will accept you. Not looking to yourself, using God to get His stuff so you can be happy and use it in life but looking to our Father, pursuing Him with childlike trust, intimacy and surrender.

Friends, this is a big difference. The heart of the orphan uses prayer, misuses prayer in all kinds of ways to self-aggrandize and build an ego so that you can fit in in the world. The heart of the orphan uses prayer in order to self-serve and take care of his needs, fending for himself but this is different. This is the heart of a child who knows that he has a loving father and he simply wants to be close, full of trust, surrender to the love of his Father.

It's a different picture. Look at how the prayer unfolds. Hallowed be your name. Father, may your name be exalted and honored everywhere as holy and in my life too, would you be seen as holy in me, holy in my life. May I be holy devoted to you full of trust and obedience and worship.

You see this? It's a beautiful picture. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May your kingly reign preside over all things in creation, including this life, my own life because you are my king and I am here at your service. And oh, that everything might be brought under your rule and your will would be done. That the whole earth would be made right and new and whole on earth as it is in heaven. That there would be justice and peace and equity and wholeness and blessing from every place and every time. Have your way in this world and in me too. Not my will but yours be done. This is not, there's no image bolstering here.

There's no torrent of manipulative words. Just simple childlike trust, intimacy and surrender. See prayer in this mode is less about conforming God to what I want and it's more about me conforming to what he wants. Give us this day our daily bread. Father we're needy, we're desperate and you're the one who provides. Please give us what we need when we need it. After all, our father knows exactly what we need before we even ask. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Every relationship needs regular forgiveness, doesn't it? And none more so than our relationship with our father. As we daily, hourly, minute by minute fall short of the glory of God because we cherish our relationship with him, we keep short accounts with him and with others because you cannot love God and hate your brother.

We know this. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. This world is full of temptation, tests, traps, things that can take us down.

And we know we're weak, we know we're frail. And so we ask God to protect us from the things that could wreck our lives. But if they do come, we pray that he would preserve us safely to the other side. That evil would not take us down. See it's such a simple prayer, isn't it?

There's no guile, no magic words or formulas here. In fact, one of the abuses of the Lord's prayer is that we turn it into ritual and formula. That's the opposite of what Jesus is trying to do here. This is the prayer rising from the heart of a child who simply knows that his good father is watching over him. Our eyes are not on others trying to look good in front of them. Our eyes are not on ourselves just trying to get God's stuff so we can get by. Our eyes are on our father and we're using prayer to pursue him with childlike trust, intimacy, and surrender.

How is this possible? It would be a huge error for us to think, oh, well, we just got to learn to pray rightly and then it'll work. The reason you can pray as a child is because Jesus made you a child of God.

Amen? The only reason we can come before our father with confidence and intimacy and closeness like this is because Jesus alone has made us right with God. He has taken away our sin and shame on the cross. He has reconciled us to the father, filled us with his spirit that cries out, Abba, father, this is the only reason we are children of God and that is who we are. And so we come to a father who loves us and who loves to answer the prayers of his children when we come without pretense, without manipulation, without guile, but simply climb up in the lap of our father with childlike faith and trust.

Unless you become like a little child, Jesus will say, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 7, later in the Sermon on the Mount, verses 7 through 11 say this, it's relevant to prayer so we'll deal with it later but I'm going to drag it back here. This is what Jesus says, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which of you if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone.

If he asks for a fish would give him a serpent. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him. Prayer, when it's looking to others, aims to simply find honor and popularity before others, right? But friends, in Jesus Christ you have been honored to the skies. You have been made a son, a daughter of the most high God. You are an adopted heir of heaven with rights and honor and privileges thereof.

It is who you are as a son or daughter of God. So pray like it. Pray like a son or a daughter.

Prayer that looks to ourselves aims to convince God to bless us. But friends, if it's true that you're a son or daughter of God in Jesus Christ you are already blessed more than you could ever imagine. God gave his son for you and how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things. What more can the father give us?

That's Romans 832 by the way. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things. Friends, we have a father and he loves us and he loves to give good gifts to his kids. Now notice however that Jesus does not say the father will give us everything we ask for every time.

It's not a blanket automatic. No father worth his salt gives his kids everything they want. My kids will ask me for all of their Easter candy on Easter and no father worth his salt will just say here you go. Here's the whole truck of candy. Just eat it until you're good.

No no no. Our father loves to give good gifts to his kids. Your father knows what's good. He knows what you need and so we trust him. Everything we ask is with the caveat not my will but yours be done and we trust in the goodness of our father that he is watching over us. Prayer that pursues our father with childlike trust, intimacy and surrender will always be answered but it doesn't mean it gets answered exactly the way we want it. Sometimes God says yes.

Yay! Sometimes God says no. That's harder but I have to trust my good father that he knows something I don't. Sometimes God says wait.

Wait. I'll give it to you later. Sometimes God says yes but I'm going to answer this in a way that's so much better than you could ever ask or imagine. Timothy Keller says this God always gives you what you would have asked for if you knew everything that he knows. God always gives you what you would have asked for if you knew everything that he knows.

He knows more than us. This is the thing about prayer friends. Prayer never works when it's about our agenda. When it's about our ego. When it's about our control.

It's not designed for that. Prayer is designed to draw us close to our father in childlike trust, intimacy and surrender. And so God says look if it's me you want I'm all in. If it's me you want I'm all in. Just ask, seek, knock. I'm here. So what do we do with this?

Three takeaway ideas all from this passage. First pray when no one is looking. Pray when no one is looking. One of the ways you can know that your heart is in the right place is if you can just go into your closet and pray. Go into your bedroom and pray. Just go somewhere nobody notices and pray. It purifies your motives a little bit doesn't it? Just you and God.

Nobody else watching. Just pray to be with him. It's what a child does. Secondly pray to waste time with God. Pray to waste time with God. What do you do with people you like?

You just go hang out with them. What's the plan? We don't have a plan. We're just getting together.

We'll make something up. That's what you do when you love someone. You just want to be together. Friends God wants to waste time with you because he loves you and he wants you to just want to waste time with him too. No agenda. Not trying to get something from him.

Just be with him. Thirdly pray as adopted heirs of our father. Pray as adopted heirs of our father. If you have come to believe in Jesus Christ. If you've admitted you're a sinner. If you believe that Jesus has done everything to make you right with God.

If you've committed your life to him. Say be my Lord. Be my savior.

Be my everything. It means you are now in the family of God. You're a child of God by grace through faith in Jesus alone and that means you're an adopted heir of heaven. You're an heir of God.

You're a son or a daughter of the king. You are called by his name. And so pray like it. Hebrews 4 16. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. God wants you to come.

God loves to give good gifts to the children he loves. So let's pursue him with childlike trust intimacy and surrender. Let's ask seek and knock. Amen. Let's pray. Father help us to pray in a way that honors you. Forgive us for making prayer about us.

About what other people think. About trying to bend you to what we need or think we need. Help us to realize that the most important things have already been given to us in Jesus Christ. We are yours forever. We are your sons your daughters. That you delight in us. That you love us. That your will is for us.

You're on our team. And so all we have to do is ask. That who you are is more important than what you give us. Help us to seek your face. Help us to want to be near. Help us to open our hearts to you and hold nothing back. And to come with simple childlike faith. Surrendering everything to your perfect judgment and will.

We know you're good. Help us to believe it when you say no. Or when you say wait. Or when you call us to do hard things.

Like pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Help us to believe in your goodness. Even when things are tough. Because you will never leave us. You will never forsake us.

And you are in every moment of every day. Working your perfect will to conform us to the image of Christ. So that we might be like him. Help us to pray like Jesus. Not my will but yours be done. To invite ourselves into alignment with your plan and your purposes.

Help us to trust you. Our father. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Our benediction today is going to be from Romans chapter 8. I just want to read.

I said it before. It's such a good verse. Romans 8 32. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things.

Friends this is your father. He has given you. He has reconciled you in Jesus Christ to himself. Filled you with his spirit that cries out Abba father you are destined to be revealed in glory one day as the sons and daughters of the most high God. You will shine like the sun in the kingdom of heaven. Is this not beautiful. This is who you are. Don't forget it.

Because you're loved more than you know. Now let's go and be the church. Have a great Sunday everybody. On today's Moody Church hour we heard pastor Philip Miller telling us about Christ's command to pray then like this. The 11th in a 24 part series from the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Matthew. For many of us prayer raises more questions than answers. Does it even work.

Am I doing it right. No God is even listening. In the Lord's prayer Jesus gave his disciples a way of praying that turned the world upside down. And it might turn our lives upside down too.

If only we will let it. Join us next week for our father in heaven. The Moody Church hour is a listener supported ministry.

We count on the ongoing financial support of listeners like you. Together we share solid biblical teaching that transforms lives across America and around the world. You can call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. Online you'll find us at moodychurchhour.com that's moodychurchhour.com or write to us at Moody Church media 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. This broadcast is a ministry of The Moody Church.