And uh but we are starting a new series entitled The Blueprint. of prayer. The blueprint. Of prayer. And so it's always good to show up on the beginning of a series so that you kind of get a little bit of an idea of where we're going to be over the next several weeks.
And uh here in Matthew chapter number six. Jesus himself is teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. And in fact, he gives us an actual blueprint of how to pray. And you know, his disciples have asked questions and things like that about prayer. And here in Matthew 6, Jesus, he's talking about prayer, he's talking about a bunch of different spiritual disciplines here in this chapter.
And he actually gives us this model for how we are to pray. And if you're like me, you've been around church for a good part of your life, for me, it's my entire life. Prayer has always kind of been around my family. It's always been something that you do. And here's what I will say, though: is a lot of times I think our prayers differ than.
than the way that God taught us to pray. Right? If you're like me, I mean, think about your times in your life. When do you pray? You pray maybe those prayers before you go to bed, you pray before you eat.
But is that really all of what our prayer life should look like? And for most of us, if we're honest. with ourselves. And by the way, Christ sees where we all are today. And if we're honest with ourselves, we can see that we probably all fall short.
When comparing ourselves to the Lord's blueprint. for how we are are to pray. And so over the next several weeks, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take each. Um phrase of what we call the Lord's Prayer.
We're going to take each phrase and just break them down one at a time as we work through this together on how we are to. We are to pray. And so Matthew chapter number six. We're going to read verses 5 through verse 13 here today. Let's read these together.
It says, verse 5, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be. As the hypocrites are. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues. and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Now, here's what I will say. I know that this is a cultural thing, you know, praying in the streets and stuff. You might not feel like that's an issue here, but what Christ is saying is this: that real prayer starts in private.
Okay. Real, genuine prayer starts in private. It's always a public thing. And I know when I was growing up, we would have these big prayer meetings, and I love prayer meetings and stuff. But I felt like a lot of times in these big old prayer meetings that we would do, you try to outpray one another.
You know what I'm talking about? It's like, I got to be the loudest, I got to be the most energetic, I got to do all these different things. And what I'll say, there's nothing wrong with prayer meetings, and we should have them, we should have them way more than we do. But what I'm saying is, is real prayer, according to Christ, it starts in our private life. Starts in our private life first, and it's not one of these things that we try to impress people with.
And we're guilty of that. Every single one of us, we're guilty. We kind of are guilty of trying to impress people with our prayer. And what Christ says right off the jump here is this: that real prayer starts in. Private.
And then he goes on in verse 6, But thou when thou prayest, He says, Enter into thy closet. In other words, go into your room in private, and when thou hast shut the door, Pray to thy father, which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret, he shall reward thee openly.
So in other words, he says in. Verse 5. Those that pray standing in the streets and they want to be seen by men and they want to impress other people with their prayers. Those people have their reward. You say, what is that reward?
That reward is the attention that they're seeking from people. And then he says in verse 6, though, he changes it and he says, But here's what I'm telling you, Christ's follower. Here's what I'm telling you: is to go into your closet and pray privately. And if you do that, your Father that seeth you in secret is going to reward you. Openly.
Verse 7. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions. That just means babbling. As the heathen or pagans do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. In other words, they feel God is going to hear their prayer if they can try to impress him with big words.
Right. They feel that, man, if I can really pray with a lot of energy, or if I can use these big words or these elaborate phrases in my prayer life, that then God's going to hear me. more uh if I do those Those things. Verse 8: Be not ye therefore like unto them. For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him.
So then he goes on in verse 9, and this is where we find the blueprint. how we are to pray. He says, After this manner, therefore pray ye, Our Father. which are in heaven. Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. In earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power. And the glory. Forever. Amen.
So here we really have here God's blueprint for how we are to pray. And today, in week one of our series, we are going to look at the phrase, what he says we start our prayer with, our Father. In heaven. Our Father in heaven. In verses 5 through 8.
Jesus Is introducing really two different ways. that we approach God. He's mentioning these two ways in which we approach God. And the basis, and don't miss this, because this is going to really set the foundation for how we are to pray, and it's going to set the foundation for every week of this series, and it sets the foundation for the remainder of the Lord's Prayer that we're going to look at. But the basis.
by which you approach God. determines the level of exchange you have with God. I'm going to explain that a little bit, but the basis. By which we approach God. In other words, that foundation.
by which you approach God. is really going to determine the level of exchange that you're looking for from him. And I'm going to explain this because this is nothing new to us. The basis. In a relationship.
Is always, it always determines the exchange you have with somebody. Think about it this way. If I was to um Go down here to 150.
Okay. And I was to stand on the side of the road. And start asking people, say, for directions for where I'm supposed to go or where I'm supposed to be, and just ask them how to get there. Here's what I will tell you. Is that there's a basis for me asking and wanting something from them.
And here's what I will say: is that the basis of human decency. And just people wanting to be good human beings, they might give me directions, right? Most people will if they know, and most people can empathize because they've probably been in that situation where, hey, here's a guy on the side of the road. He doesn't know where he's at. He doesn't know how to get to where he's going.
I've been lost before, and so therefore, the basis of just being a good human being, I'm going to stop and I'm going to tell him exactly how he's supposed to go. Or where he's supposed to go. But let's say this, I'm standing on the side of the road. And I need directions and then so complete stranger. And I asked the complete stranger if I, who I've never met before, If I could Borrow their car.
to get to where I'm going. Do you think that a complete stranger is going to say sure? I'll just stand right here in this same spot. On the side of the road, go take my car to wherever it is that you're going, and everything will be fine. Absolutely not.
Why is that? Why are they quick to give me directions but not quick to let me borrow their car? It's because of the basis of our relationship. It doesn't take a whole lot for them to give me directions, right? I can expect an exchange in the relationship for directions because the basis is very minimal.
We have no relationship. We don't know one another. But if I'm asking to borrow their car, Right? Then the basis has to be much different.
So think about it this way: I don't know where I'm going, and I need to borrow somebody's car, so I call up a family member. You understand? The basis is much different, so guess what that family member is probably going to do? They're probably going to, you know, the exchange. Is going to be much different.
They're probably going to allow me to use the car because the exchange is going to be much stronger because the basis. is much You see, the point is: is this Christ Here is giving us really two bases. for how we are to approach God. He's giving us two bases for how we are to approach and go to God. And here's the point that I want you to understand about how we pray.
If we want a deeper exchange, We have to have a deeper basis. If you want a deeper exchange with God. Then you have to have a deeper, stronger. foundation for how you are approaching him. He gives us two bases here.
For how we are to approach God. Basis number one is this: it's found in verse number. Uh verse number seven. And here's what basis number one is. to what I'm going to call a business relationship with God.
That's what he means by vain repetition. Here's what this basis says. It says that I have something for you. Right? You see, vain repetition, here's what that literally means when he says it: it means empty.
It has this idea of babbling. There's no substance with your words. It's these prayers going up to God that are cold, that are very impersonal, that are mechanical. Formality, if you would. It's kind of like what I would call, and something that you would relate with, bedside prayers, right?
The things you're supposed to say: it's the, hey, you know, bless this food, it's the lay me down to sleeps, it's the, you know, all of those different things that we as Christians sometimes struggle with, and that could be the basis of your prayer life. It's a business relationship with God. And so therefore you that are doing that and you're praying that way, you're probably not experiencing the exchange with God that you really desire and want to have. And the reason is because your basis is very superficial with God. You see, the basis here of vain repetition says, I have something for you.
Think of a relationship that you have with like a renter. Right? A renter and a landlord. You know, the relationship and the exchange is dependent upon the renter paying their rent each month, right? Like, that's the relationship that they have.
It's a conditional. Relationship. This basis for approaching God is rooted in what you do, and therefore, if you perform. Then you feel that I'm going to be accepted. That's the Pharisaical way.
Right? That's the Pharisaical way of approaching God. That for them, they felt that if we would pray in the streets, then everybody would see us, and we could wow people with our prayers. And if we pray to God, you know, real intense and have vain repetition, and we babble, and we use fancy terminology and all these different things. We feel that if we go to God and we approach Him that way, that we're going to receive from Him.
And what Christ is saying is there's two basis for how we are to approach God. And this business relationship of vain repetition going up to God. Don't expect much exchange. When the basis is so superficial. The second basis that he gives us is the one we're going to talk about here today.
It's what I'm going to call a family relationship to God. Our father. You see, he gives us these two bases for how we are to approach God: the business relationship, which is vain repetition. or the family relationship. which is our Father.
The basis of the business relationship, it says this: I have something for you. The basis of the family relationship, don't miss this. It says, what I am or who I am to you. Do you understand that? There's a difference.
Vain repetition and trying to be seen of men, it's going to God feeling like I offer it and that I deserve something from you. But this family relationship, that basis for how we are to approach God. It's approaching God with with what I am to you. There's a big difference. And when you approach God with a family relationship.
Our father. It changes the level of exchange that you get to have with your father. And that's the point. It's unconditional. This relationship says who I am, not what I can do.
This relationship is rooted in who you are to him. In other words, the business relationship. It says if I perform. And if I impress others with my prayer, then God's going to accept me. But the family relationship says, I'm already accepted.
Therefore I I'll perform out of my acceptance with him. You see, there's a big difference here. And here, Jesus is right off the jump when he's talking about how we are to pray. And that's why I wanted to spend a moment and park here for just a second, because this is the foundation For your entire prayer life.
So before you can get into the forgiveness, and before you can get into thy kingdom come, thy will be done, before you can get into any of that, my question to you, man, I want you to ask yourself: what is the basis by which you approach God every day? What is the foundation by which you are coming into his presence? Is it A mechanical one? Oh, we're supposed to pray before meals and pray before we go to bed and impress people when they ask me to pray at church, and that is the extent of my prayer life, then you probably are approaching God with a business relationship. And I bet if you're honest with yourself, the exchange you're having with God is not near as deep as you would like for it to have.
Or Are you approaching him with a family relationship where you don't approach him looking for what you can get from him and looking for what you can offer him? You're actually approaching God with who you are to him. and who he is to you. It's a relational aspect, and that's what Jesus is saying when he says, pray like this. Our Father.
Which are in heaven.
So what's the significance of this phrase? Our Father In heaven. I want to show you three things if you take notes. I hope this will help you. Number one, what I want you to understand about your father and this basis of how you approach God.
It's this, the Father knows you. The significance of our Father in heaven, I want you to be reminded today that the Father that you're praying to, He knows you. In Psalm 139. Verses one through three. You'll see it up on the screen.
You can jot this reference down if you want. But the psalmist says this: Lord. Thou hast searched me And known me. He goes on in the next verse to say this: Thou knowest my downsitting. And mine uprising.
Thou understandest my thoughts from afar off. Verse 3, thou compassed or compassed my path. Am I lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways? When we say and when we pray, and this is why the basis by which our prayer life should be. That of a family relationship where he is our father and we are his child.
The significance of that is it reminds us that he knows us. Listen, he knows everything about you. You know, we live in a A day where Uh technology. Is trying its best to know a lot about us, right? Have you ever Had a conversation.
with somebody Maybe a spouse or a friend or your kids. And next thing you know, you open up your phone perhaps to social media, and there is an ad for what you just talked about. Does that creep you out at all? It's a little wild. For some of you, I get it.
You're probably like, the government's watching me, right? And so you're nervous. For us and our generation, it's just part of life. This is what we believe. We believe the government knows everything about us.
But here's what I will tell you: is that it's powered by this. This AI that is kind of entering into the world where it knows everything about us. And so there's algorithms. On our phones, on our social media, on everything we do, your computers, that is really. It gives a good idea of who you are.
What you enjoy. Sports. Right? And all these different things, what you enjoy watching, all this. And so, what happens is, when you go through that, AI kind of takes all of that and says, man, I feel like I know this person really well, so now I'm going to put the content that they like back in front of them because I feel like I know them well.
And here's what I'll tell you. If you were to look at my algorithm. And you were to open up my social media for a moment, you would say, wow. AI is pretty spot on with with knowing who Josh is. But here's what I'll tell you.
AI does not know everything about me. AI can try its best, but at the end of the day, it's always going to fall short in its understanding and its knowledge of everything that I'm into. and everything that I enjoy. But I'll tell you this: here's what I want you to understand: the father that you pray to. knows everything about you.
Much more than your AI algorithm does. He knows everything about you. I mean, he knows your thoughts from what the psalmist says. Every single thought that you have: the good, the bad, the ugly. He knows it all.
He knows if you're ready for the preacher to be done right now, right?
Okay, now that's nobody at Union Grove. I'm talking about all the other churches in town, okay? But he knows that. He knows what you're thinking. He knows your motives.
He knows your emotions. He knows your heart. He knows every single sin that you have committed, some of those that you feel you've gotten away with and that nobody else knows. But you. Here's what I'll tell you.
He knows. He knows your behaviors. He knows what's on your mind. He knows your fears. He knows your struggles.
He knows your grief. He knows your doubts. He knows your dreams. The point that I want you to understand is when we go to God on the basis of being His son and His daughter. When you go to him, I want you to know that when you say our father, it is a reminder that he knows every single thing about you.
And I like what A.W. Tozer said. Tozer said, Jesus knows the worst about us, but nonetheless, he is the one that loves us the most. That's the basis by which we are to approach God. It's on the basis of our Father.
The one that knows us the most and knows every secret detail about our life. And yet nonetheless loves us the most. Our Father knows us, but also our Father. has adopted us. In Romans chapter 8.
Paul writes this. For as many. As are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And he goes on in verse 15 to say, For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of, what's the next word? Adoption.
Everybody say that word out loud: adoption. Whereby we cry, Abba. Father. You see, what Paul is saying Is that as children of God, we have moved from being a slave? Out of fear.
to being free in him. That's the adoption relationship. We moved from being in bondage and in fear to being in rest. And here's what's amazing. When we talk about adoption, and many of you have been impacted in some way by adoption.
It's a beautiful thing, an incredible picture of the gospel. And adoption, what's amazing. is not a result of the child's efforts. Is it not? I mean, most of the time, if we're honest, when we hear of adoption stories, most of the time the child has very little to know with what's going on anyway.
They have very little understanding. Adoption is always the result. of the Father, right? The father and the mother are the ones who initiate, and they are the ones who legally adopt a child. And when they adopt a child, what happens is that legal standing completely.
Changes.
Now, the behavior of the child might not change right away, right? But their legal standing changes. And so when a father initiates adoption with a child, here's what that's literally saying: and this is our relationship with God. Is that the moment that the child misbehaves? The father in adoption is saying, I'm not sending you home the minute that you misbehave.
You're here. In this relationship. Whether you misbehave or not. That That's the the spirit of adoption. And that's the relationship that we have with the Father.
It's this, is that when you trust in Christ as your Savior. You become a child of God. In other words, you are adopted. Engrafted into the family of God. And so therefore, if your basis is like the Pharisees, where you are just trying to impress God and you're trying to bring what you have to offer to God and things like that to gain acceptance, you don't understand the half about the gospel.
Because here's what the gospel literally says: is that when you get adopted into the family of God. It doesn't matter if you misbehave or not, you're still a part of the family of God.
So when you mess up. And when you go astray. There's going to be punishment. There's going to be chastisement from sometimes. But here's what I'm saying: the Father doesn't just disown us and send us back to slavery.
He doesn't send us back to a place where we're bound in fear, like Romans 8 says. No, he says, listen. You're a part of this family. whether you misbehave or not. That's the relationship that we have as an adopt, as being adopted into the family of God.
You say, at the moment of conversion. He becomes your personal father. Which expresses this. And don't miss this because this is so important to the basis that you approach God. It expresses that he God, the Father, your Creator, is as committed to you.
As he is. His own son. Like when somebody adopts. They're saying that we're now committed to this child that. that was an orphan and and now we are bringing this child into our family.
That father and mother are saying, we are bringing this child into our family and now all the rights and privileges that our own biological kids have, we now are giving to these these other this other child. And so when we come into the family of God and we are born into the family of God, the Bible says that we are adopted and engrafted into the family of God. And what he's saying is that the rights and the commitment that he has to his own son. also now applies to you and me. That's why the basis of our relationship has to start before anything else with our Father.
Which art in heaven. The one that knows us The one that has adopted us. And then the Father, also number three, He changes us. He changes this. Listen.
As you Grow in your relationship with God as a part of his family. There's going to be a change in your life. The New Testament says that we're called to be imitators of him. Followers of him. In other words, we should look more like Kim today than we used to, right?
Think about your family life. You probably or at least in my life, here's what this means: is the older I get, The more that I'm starting to act. And look. Like my dad.
Okay. Why did Lomax? You just said, oh my. What does that mean? And so.
And so, isn't that true of all of us? Is that the older that we get, we start looking at our parents. And here's what I will tell you: my son. It's 12 years old. And He's already starting.
I mean, what a gift to him, but he's already... Starting to act like me. Which is really scary. The world doesn't need a whole lot of us, okay? It can't take a whole lot of us.
And here's what I'm telling you: I'm already seeing things in my kid, and you know, the good. Which is very Not a lot. And then there's the bad, and you see it in them. Don't you, parents? You understand what I'm saying?
Right? Don't blame the bad in your kids on your spouse, okay?
Some of it's you?
Some of it is us. And here's what I will say: is that we are already seeing that in my son. Because the more that we're together, he has my DNA as my son. And so, what happens in this relationship, this family relationship? He knows you.
Everything about you, and he loves you.
Okay, he loves you just the way that you are. If you don't know Jesus in here and you came in here, maybe you're invited or whatever, and you slipped in here today and you have that feeling, because I've talked with people like, hey, I don't think the Lord could ever love me because there's so many things that I have done. I want you to know the Lord already knows every single bad thing that you've ever done, and He loves you just the way that you are. But here's the difference about the love of God. He loves you way too much.
to let you stay that way. He loves you way too much to let you stay that way. And so when you come to him. And you trust in Jesus as your Savior. The Bible says you're adopted into his family.
You become a child of God. He's your father, and you are now. His son and or daughter. And after that, the more you grow in that relationship, here's what the scripture says: the more you become like him. The more you should act like him.
The more you should behave. White cam. Not because of anything you've done, but because of everything that transpires at the moment of conversion. He gifts you Jesus Christ righteousness.
So that righteousness is now filling up inside of you as a child of God. And so therefore, you start living like that. That's what having a relationship with God really is. It's the older and more mature that I get as a son of God, the more that I begin to emulate Him. and reflect him.
That's what a relationship with God is like. And so here, what we see is Christ. He's giving us this foundational principle for how you are to pray. We all want to know how to pray, right? What to say?
What we're supposed to pray for. Ever felt guilty about what you pray for? Are you ever Ask somebody to pray for something that you thought might be silly. Like the other day, dead serious? I was leaving a baseball game.
And I was going. This is terrible, okay? But I was going to a basketball game in which we were going to be late for it. And I literally, my last thing I asked two people, that's what I said, pastor of the church. My theology, very shallow according to this, okay?
Here's what I said. Pray. That I don't see any police officers on my drive. That's what I said. Terrible.
Terrible, terrible. And you might say. Pastor, prayer is so much more than that.
Well, yeah, but. All I gotta say is I didn't see any, so I don't know. The point that I'm saying is, we all have these, like, what can I pray for? What's, you know, you know, out there prayer, and how am I supposed to pray? How loud am I supposed to get?
You know, how long am I supposed to pray? And we all have these, all these things. Here's all I'm going to tell you: I don't have the answers for all of that, and I don't think it really matters. But here's what I am going to tell you that does matter. The basis.
by which you approach him. determines the level of exchange that you have. And every one of us were approaching him in one of two ways. like a business relationship where we're just throwing up vain repetition to them. Or the rest of us that really get it?
When we get to go into the presence of God, here's what we do. Our Father. We want We're outside of the family of God, but our Father. Notice Jesus didn't say start every prayer with our king. And he is our king.
He didn't say start every prayer with our Creator. And He is our Creator. He said, Start at our Father. Why is that? Well, perhaps.
The reason why I said we should start our prayer with our Father is because that is the basis. for which every prayer that goes up to him. is founded upon. Our Father. which are in heaven.
Mm-hmm.
