The Greatest Sermon Ever // Prayer // Matthew 6:5-15 // Pastor Josh Evans

Would you pray with me, Father? God, I'm reminded that every single one of us, we need You right now.

God, like the song says, I need Thee every hour. Father, we need You right now at this hour, but every single breath that we take, God, we are in desperate need of You. And God, as we come into Your presence, into Your Word, where we get to learn exactly what You would have for us here today, God, I pray, Lord, that every single person in here would recognize that they are absolutely nothing without You. None of us are.

There's not a person in this room that is. And God, whatever we've come in carrying today, or weight, or sin, or temptation, or whatever we've come into this place today, God, I pray, Lord, that this place would be a place of freedom, a place where chains can be ripped aside, Father, where we can run to You and find the grace and mercy that You are offering us here today. God, speak to our hearts here today. We love You so much, for it's in Your name we pray. And all God's people said, Amen, and Amen.

You can have a seat in the presence of God. Well, listen, it is good to see you, and I am so glad that you are here today, and what a great, great number. We spent, like Pastor David mentioned, I had the opportunity this past week to go to camp with our junior campers. It was a lot of fun, and we had a great time.

I wasn't sure who all was going to show up, because when you come back from camp and all the kids have been together for the entire week, all of them come back sick and carrying all sorts of stuff, so they're dropping like flies from what we're hearing. So I wasn't sure who was going to come here today, but it is so good to see every single one of you. I do want to say a special welcome to our guests. Thank you so much for being here every single week. We appreciate you being a part of our service. If we haven't met before, we would love the opportunity to be able to connect with you. And so take one of those New Here cards in the seat back directly in front of you, and we would love for you to take one of those, fill that out, and you can go right out to our Welcome Center, which is outside that door, and we have a volunteer after the service that would love to get a gift in your hands, just as our way of saying thank you for being a part of the service.

Well, if you have your Bible, you can go to Matthew Chapter 6. Before we kind of jump into that and while you're turning, if you missed this last week, this might be brand new information to you, but we kind of we begin to talk about this fall and what God has for our church as we approach this fall. And we've been coming out of the summer and we're trying to prepare for God to do some special things heading into the fall. And so we are going to add a second morning service, and you say, what's the reason behind that? The reason behind that, the summer kind of is a bad judge, but if you look at our past spring and the past fall, there's a lot of Sundays it's difficult to find seats if you're a newer family. We're all kind of packed in here on a lot of Sundays like sardines. And we as a church, we are committed to the mission that God has called us to, and the mission that he has called us to is to reach as many people as possible with the gospel of Jesus Christ and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus Christ. And in order for us to do that, we felt that it would be necessary to create, so while we're in this space, to create some more room for guests to come in and for guests to be in here and give them a better experience so they're not having to kind of go up to the front row and things like that.

And so in order for us to do that, we are adding a second service. You'll see the schedule on here. This starts on September the 8th.

Let's all say that together. September the 8th, okay? And so this new schedule will be in effect on September the 8th and every Sunday moving forward. And so we will have our first service at 830, and then we'll have Bible fellowship classes at 945, and then our second service at 11. And just for parents to understand that 830 service and the 11 a.m. service, they're going to be identical. So like the same songs, choirs going to sing. If they're singing that day, they'll sing in both on that day.

And it's the same exact programming. We're going to offer kids programming in both of those. So primary church, junior church, all the things that we offer at our 10 a.m. service will be offered to kids at 830 and 11. So if you have children that get up early and you want to come to the 830 service, you can.

And there'll be kids programming for them. And all this will start on September the 8th. In order for us to do that, we got several weeks to get ready for this, to communicate this, put this out and about so that everybody can know. And so in order for us to do this on your way in here today, hopefully everybody got one, you should have received one of these. And just so that I know that you're with me, can you grab this wherever it is?

And if you could just kind of put it in the air, wave it at me like you like you care a little bit, I guess. And so so just make sure you're there. And this for everybody. So if you're a young person, teenager, college student, this is for you as well.

So don't think like this is just for my parents or grandparents, things. In order for us to pull something like this off, we need every single one in here participating in some way. I like to think of it this way. This is an opportunity for you to own the mission that God has called us to.

Here's what I want you to know. The mission of reaching as many people as possible is just not it's not a mission for just the pastoral staff. It's not a mission just for the deacons of our church. It's not a mission just for our Bible fellowship teachers. No, the mission is what Union Grove Baptist Church is called to. So if you are a member at Union Grove Baptist Church, here's what I want you to know. This is for for you.

OK, this is for you because we cannot pull this off without you. If you go on here and I'm going to take just a moment, then we're going to jump into God's word. But I want to say this is priority for me today that I wanted to talk about this with you. If you look on there, you're going to see music. We need help with music. This is a great opportunity if maybe you've been attending for some time in our church and you love to sing. You want to be a part of what God's doing up here.

Maybe in terms you play an instrument or you want to be on the praise team or possibly in our choir, things like that. We can use you. This is the perfect opportunity for you to be on ramped into that. OK. And so what I want you to do is I'm going to work through this. I want you to find out, hey, if you're not serving or you want to do something different or you want to try something new. This is your opportunity. And over the next three weeks, our team leaders are going to reach out to you and plug you in to whatever it is that you feel called and gifted to be a part of. And so music, you got choir, praise team, musicians, our media, our production. Listen, that's something that we could really use you if you're kind of more of a behind the scenes person and you want to serve.

Maybe you're a teenager and you're looking for an opportunity to serve and to be a part of things. Listen, this would be a great opportunity. We need some help running soundboard. We need some help, you know, running screens.

Aren't you thankful for stuff like that? When you're not here and you're sick at home, you get to turn on the YouTube and all that kind of stuff. Facebook, you got to watch the service. There's people that run that. And if you're interested in something like that, we could totally use you.

This would be a great on ramp into that. Our hospitality. That's the third.

That's the third option there. That includes greeters. Kids check in. We do our check in for kids ministry under underneath the breezeway, which is right in between this building and our elementary building. We need some people that will help people for that parking lot security medical.

Our goal is that for both this entire schedule that we can make it the same experience for every guest that comes through. So if they get helped in the parking lot at the 11 a.m. service, we want the same amount of volunteers at the 830 service in order to help them. And so if you're interested in that, listen, I love our hospitality team because they are like the front door of what our church is about to all those guests. And and many of you who have joined our church in the last couple of years, you probably pulled onto our campus. You probably struggled because our parking lots all over the place.

You probably had somebody help you find a parking space. Then you popped over to where guests go and somebody helped you find where your kids go and where the auditorium is and things like that. That's our hospitality team. And they get to be a part of that each and every week.

So that's you. We could use you because we got a staff to services, not just one. Then we have our kids ministry. Lindsay barrier is running our nursery program.

That is a change. Miss Diane has led that so faithfully for so many years. And so Lindsay is kind of taking that over. So if you're interested in serving with infants, toddlers, Lindsay is on here and we will connect you with her. Debbie Hartman oversees our three to five year olds.

And then Grady and Shirley James and then Ryan and Yvette Moon are kind of handling the two services since we are adding that. So if you're interested in our kids ministry, I'm grateful for them. Honestly, they're the real MVPs because, listen, if we need people to sign up for kids ministry, here's probably the best way to do that. Let's just bring every kid in here for one Sunday and let's just have it all in here.

Like all the threes and fours and the babies and everything else. And then we'll probably have enough people saying, yeah, we probably should sign up to serve so that doesn't happen again. Right. And so the point is, is we need them and we need you. So if you're willing to participate and serve and own the mission of reaching as many people, this is an opportunity for you to do that. And then last, but certainly not least, is our ushers. And they're a part of passing things like this out from time to time, passing the offering plates, different things like that. If you want to serve, we got to staff two services. And so we need as many people.

So if you're like not doing a whole lot or not doing anything yet, kind of finding your place in our church, this is the perfect on ramp for you. So here's what you need to do. You need to fill this out today. And then on your way out today at all of our exits, there are going to be baskets that you need to put this in. OK. And and we need you to be a part of it. And I'm excited about it. Listen, anytime I see this, I mean, the quick thing is, man, I got to preach twice along with my class and stuff.

I look at that as like not just an obstacle. It is an opportunity that God has put in front of our church so that we can continue reaching more people. Isn't that good? That's exciting.

That's put a smile on your face and you should be a part of it. And you should want to be a part of what God is doing there. Matthew Chapter six. Matthew Chapter number number six.

We're continuing a series that we started. This is week number seven called The Greatest Sermon Ever. Now, if you're joining us for the very first time, I say this every week, I don't want you to think I think a lot of my preaching and that I think that this is going to be the greatest sermon ever.

It is most certainly not going to be that for you. But we are slowly dissecting Jesus and his famous sermon on the mount. This covers Matthew five through Matthew chapter number seven.

And I say this every week. We probably shouldn't just call it the Sermon on the Mount, which is what all of us refer to it as. We should probably rather call it a mountain of a sermon. And that's because of everything that Jesus brought up in this sermon.

And for all we know, this is one sermon where he had everybody gathered there on the hillside. He sits down and he begins to teach them on things like happiness and and where does joy come from? He tells them what being salt as Christians looks like, what being light and the light of the world, what that looks like. He talks about the law and he brings up like anger, how the law says don't kill.

But he says, if if you have any in your heart towards somebody else, then you're already like a murderer. And he brings up that he brings up divorce. He brings up lust. He brings up money, which we looked at last week. And so he's bringing up all of these what I would consider controversial type of topics here in this this passage. And then today, here in Matthew Chapter six, he begins to talk about prayer.

He begins to talk about prayer and and he's going to address how we should pray. Now, here's what I want you to do. Just full disclosure. Everybody in here. We're all like there's no judgment. There shouldn't be any judgment in our church.

Here's what I want you to know. Every single one of us in here can collectively admit to this, that we all can work on our prayer life. In fact, if you want to just testify and say, yes, I can be a better prayer warrior than I am today.

Would you slip up your hand? My hand is raised every single one of us. And I wanted to do that because here's what I want you to know as we look at prayer and we begin to dissect what Jesus says about prayer. I want all of us to collectively understand today that every single one of us are in the same boat, that we can all learn something from what Jesus has to say about prayer. And when we think about prayer, there's a lot of pressure about prayer because sometimes we don't know how to pray. And if you're like me, sometimes praying and you feel like, you know, you're talking and is it sticking and all these different things. You know, as I was growing up, my parents would take me. We had these prayer meetings and and it was it was so hard for me because I would go into these prayer meetings as a kid and as a teenager with my dad and we would get on our knees. Everybody in like our fellowship hall, the church that I grew up in and and we would all pray. And the way that they did it was they just prayed out loud all at the same same time.

How many of you have ever been a part of one of those? And and and I love those. And it's awesome. But as a kid, I was so confused. I was like, man, I don't know if I'm supposed to listen. And next thing you know, I'm listening to like everybody else's prayer. And I'm thinking I hadn't really prayed a whole lot myself. But these things, they sound really good and they sound really in touch with God. And and I was so confused or or possibly maybe you were you lay down to pray at night before bed and you kind of lay down. And next thing you know, it's like you're like a minute in and you've fallen asleep. How many of you ever done that in your listen?

Don't feel bad. The disciples did it as well. And so they know all about that. Listen, sometimes when we think about praying, there's all these challenges.

And here's what I want you to know. When we think about prayer here. This is probably true of you because it's true of me is here's what we typically pray for.

I was writing down a list. I was like, what do we normally pray for? Traveling mercies. Right. We pray when we're driving.

We pray extra hard if Abby is driving and and we pray. That's a joke. I shouldn't have said that. All right. I need to repent about that. We pray hard, you know, when we're traveling, we pray before we eat.

Right. We pray like somebody calls on you to pray. What's typically the first thing? You know, you say, hey, bless this day. We pray for a hedge of protection around us. You know, you might have had prayers like, you know, that your parents recite before bed, you know, like the famous one.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I shall die, which scares me because you just tell your kid good night and you might see him in the morning.

You don't know. And and so it's kind of like the prayer kind of is all these things. And that might be the extent of you praying. You pray for financial peace. You pray for good health. You pray when you're in an emergency. You pray for healing. There is nothing wrong with praying for that list of things. So I don't want you to think like, wow, I pray for those things. Does that mean I'm wrong?

No, no, no, no. That's fine. And that's good. And they all have their place in our relationship with Jesus. But here's what I want you to know is that Jesus is probably going to show you a completely different way to pray than what you're used to. And he's going to share that with with all of us. So let's talk about prayer.

The first thing I want you to see is this. The motive. Here's what Jesus talks about. The motive of our prayer lives.

The motive of our prayer life. Look at verse number five of Matthew, chapter number six. Now, remember, Jesus was just talking about giving. And he's talking about really spiritual disciplines.

He's talking about giving what we looked at last week. He talks about prayer today. And then he's going to talk about fasting next week. OK. And so he's talking about these spiritual disciplines.

And he's really like he's likening us to like hypocrites in some ways. He's telling us not how not to pray. And then he gives us some instructions on how to pray. So verse number five, he says, and when thou prayest.

Notice this. Here's what I want you to know. Prayer is not something you have to think, should you do or should you not do when thou prayest? You should pray every single one of you.

This needs to be a day. If you're not praying, you're like, man, I haven't really had a time where I've prayed, you know, other than just somebody praying in here, then you're not doing what Jesus is commanding you to do first. You have to pray when you pray.

It's not if you pray, it's when you pray. Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. We don't have any hypocrites, do we, in our churches today?

Is that just kind of back then? And he says, we don't be like the hypocrites for they, the hypocrites, 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, I know what you're thinking. Like when you read a verse like that, you're thinking, OK, we don't really do that. That's not as common. In fact, if you go out here right here on Union Grove Road and you just start shouting your prayer, we're probably not going to immediately think, wow, that's a hypocrite. We're probably going to say that person has lost their mind.

Right. It's not something that we do in our culture today. But back then, it was very common for the the Pharisees and the hypocrites. They would go into the streets where everybody was kind of passing by and they would make sure that they're praying so that everybody could see them.

And that people would give them a pat on the back and people would praise them and tell them what a good Christian they are and things like that. I get it. That's probably not something that you struggle with. But he says this. They have their reward. Here's what it is. Attention. They got their reward. It's the praise of men. But he goes on. He says, But you thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet. And when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy father, which is in secret. And thy father, which seeth in secret, shall, there's that word again, reward thee openly. So Jesus is saying something so different than what we're used to.

What they were used to. They were used to these public prayers in front of crowds and trying to impress people. Jesus says that real prayer is starting in private. Go into private and shut the door just between you and God. And by the way, if you've ever said, man, it's hard to pray because, you know, I don't see God right there next to me or whatever. He says this. In fact, that is part of prayer because you pray to the father, which is in secret.

And here's the good news for you. The father, which seeth in secret, shall reward you. He goes on verse seven, which he's talking more our language here. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the pagans or the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. So this is more in our culture.

This is kind of what he's talking about. When he talks about vain repetitions, he's talking about about babbling and using big words and things like that. This was still common in that day that that a lot of the hypocrites, what they would do is they would pray in front of people. And their their motive behind praying was to impress everybody around them.

OK. And by the way, that's probably happened to you at some point, especially if you're young. When I was, you know, young as a teenager and and then it got real bad when I was called to preach. Now, it's called a preach as a senior in high school. And then everybody just assumed because God called me to preach that I must have been just this great prayer warrior. So in church, when I was growing up, they would start to they would start to just ask me to pray like public prayers in front of the church and stuff like that. And I was always nervous with that because when I would kind of walk up there, I'd be like, OK, I got to I got to pray like that guy. I got to pray like this guy. I got to say this.

I got to impress everybody with them. That's what he's saying, is that those who try to use big words and those two who who, you know, kind of go on and on in front of people. He's saying that for them, he's like, don't pray like that.

And then he says this. They think those who are praying to try to impress everybody around them, they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. In other words, here's what Jesus is saying is like when you try to use big words like the hypocrites and and the pagans, that's the unbelievers. When you try to use big words or use kind of all these repetitious type of things in your prayer time, here's why they would do it.

They felt if we do that, that we're going to be heard. In other words, what Jesus is saying is they were trying to do it in order to get God to bend to what they want to say to him. They want God to adjust his will for them. And they feel like if we use these big words and and we use these phrases and we try to do this in front of people, that in order for that to happen, God is going to hear them for their much speaking. And Jesus is like, listen, don't be like that. Verse eight, be not ye therefore like unto them.

Why? For your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him. So right here, he says, hey, the reason why you don't have to try to impress God or impress those around you with your prayer is because God already knows what you need before you lift your voice up to him. That's the point.

That's what he's trying to do. And so he mentions in these verses our motive behind our prayer life. The first thing is this that I want you to see. And I mentioned this earlier in verse number five. Prayer is expected in the life of a believer. Prayer is expected.

Notice his terminology. Verse number five. When you pray, when you give, when you fast, these disciplines are not optional.

They are expected. In other words, you can't grow out of these things. You don't reach a point in your life as a believer where you don't need to pray anymore. In fact, we know a song and we all sang it as kids, right?

Remember that song? Read your Bible, pray every day and you'll what? Grow, grow, grow. And so the point is, is that we, if we read our Bible and we pray every day, you're going to grow. And so here's what I want you to know. If you're a believer, a follower of Jesus, and you're not daily spending time with God in prayer, you're not growing.

In fact, I think the song is true. You're shrinking. You're shrinking. You're not going to grow in your relationship with God. That's like me saying, Abby and I are going to grow in our marriage relationship, but for the next two months, we're not going to speak to one another.

How many of you think we're going to grow in our relationship? Anybody? No. Okay?

Don't look at your spouse and say, that's a good idea. Okay? But here's what I want you to know. We're not going to grow because we're not communicating with one another. It's the same way with God. We're not going to grow in our relationship with God if we are not praying. Prayer is expected for the life of a believer. The second thing I want you to see about the motive behind prayer is this. Prayer begins in private. Prayer begins in private.

Let me just say this. Motive matters. Your motive matters. There is a Godly way to pray, and then there is a hypocritical way to pray. The hypocritical way to pray is trying to impress everybody around you.

And by the way, that can be used for anything in the Christian life. You can be hypocritical when you stand and sing. You can be hypocritical when you stand and worship.

You can be hypocritical in all of those things. The point is there's a Godly way to do things, and there's a hypocritical way to do them, and the Godly thing is that your motive is there to please God and only Him. The hypocritical way is to try to impress everybody so that everybody looks at you and says, wow, what a great Christian you are. What a super spiritual person you are.

Man, I would love to be like you. Hypocrites have to brag on their spirituality. If you have to go around and brag to other people about how spiritual you are, that is a hypocritical thing to do. And that's what Jesus is trying to do. You don't have to impress God with your words. Go find a place and talk to God in private. That's where real prayer starts. It's in private. And so He goes on, and all this, He's telling them how not to pray.

And the motive matters and all this stuff. And so you can imagine, there's probably confusion, there's probably people like, what in the world? What are we supposed to do? Because that's what we see these Pharisees doing. They go into the streets and they yell their prayers. Everybody looks at them, and I always thought that's what we're striving to do.

So what do we need to do? Jesus begins to talk and explain what prayer really looks like. We know this.

This is familiar to us. But in verse number nine, He gives us the nature of what your prayer life should be like. And I'm going to break this down slowly. The first thing that we see about what your prayer life should be like.

And by the way, if you take notes, it's probably a good thing to write down all of this. Because if you're like me and you struggle sometimes with your prayer life and things like that, Jesus gives us the model of what prayer should look like. The model of what prayer should look like.

And I want to break this down slowly with you. The first thing is this. The first thing about your prayer time should be this. Your prayer time should give praise to the Father.

Look what He says in verse nine. He says, after this manner, okay, we just saw how not to pray. After this manner, therefore pray, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Hallowed be thy name.

Now think about it. This is much different than our prayers, isn't it? Here's how most of our prayers start.

Hey, God, bless me today. And then you just get to what you want, right? Remember, He's talking about the kingdom of heaven. He's talking about the kingdom of heaven. And so He's talking about His kingdom and He's contrasting it with our kingdom. And by the way, every single one of you have a kingdom. Every single one of you have a will.

Every single one of you have what you think your life should look like and the world around you should look like. And Jesus is contrasting His kingdom with that. And most of us, when we pray, if you're honest with yourself and honest before God here today, most of us, what do we do? We jump straight into our kingdom first, don't we? Hey, God, bless me. And here's what I need you to do for me today.

All right, I'll talk to you the next time I need you. And we jump straight into our kingdom. What Jesus starts off with how you should pray before anything is you need to recognize who it is that you're talking to.

In fact, I would go as far to say this. Don't get off your knees in prayer to God until you realize who it is that you're talking to. Our father, think about what what father is that that's a reminder.

It's about a relationship. Fathers should provide comfort to your soul. It is a reminder of his love for you and his forgiveness and grace to you. Father reminds us of his authority over us, our father, which art in heaven so far away. Hallowed be thy name. In other words, like how great is his name?

How powerful is his name? Listen, for you, we need to realize how big God is, how high he is. Before we get into your agenda, before we get into your kingdom, before we get into your to do list and your prayer time and and all the things that we referenced at the beginning. God, provide for me here. God, heal me here. God, work this out. God, change that person's mind at work.

God, help that person to transfer to a different school. Help that whatever you're praying for, whatever you're lifting your voice up to God. He says before any of that, you need to be in your right space before God and recognize who he is and how high and big he is. Listen, I don't think you and I recognize how truly we need God for everything and how good and how he is to us, how he has our best interest in mind, in life. This is why it's important for us each morning, every single day when you get on your knees to pray.

And by the way, you should you need to recognize before anything else who he is and who we are in response to him. Psalm 63, the psalmist says this, Oh God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsted for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is to see thy power and thy glory. So as I have seen thee in thy sanctuary.

When was the last time you prayed not a to do list, but just praised him for being your father? The second thing he says and found in verse 10, we need to align our will and purpose to his. Look what he says in verse 10.

Much different than us, right? Here's what he says. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

In earth as it is in heaven. Isn't that much different than before we get to us? Listen, don't miss this. Before we get to us, we must first surrender to him.

That's the point. Before we get to your to do list and everything that you think, you know, all the things like God changed their mind. God, help this person to see what I see. God, God, fix this relationship.

God, all of the things that we bring to God. God, heal this person. God, do this. God, God, I need you to fix this. I need you to figure this out. God, change that person's heart.

Change that person's mind. We have all these things and they're good. But here's what I want you to know what Jesus is saying. Do not miss this. Do not miss this. Before we get to that, before we get to your needs, you must first surrender yourself to him and his needs.

That's the point. You know what some of us do when we go to pray? God and we jump straight into give us. Give us. God, fix it. Work it. Bless it.

Right? We go straight into that and he's saying, no, no, no, no. There's a right way to pray.

Remember it is who you're talking to. Recognize him for who he is, for how holy, how majestic, how hallowed be his name. And then before you get into yours, you must surrender to him. This is saying in your prayer time, God, I am more committed to your will than my own. Not to get him to bend our way, but for us in our prayer time to bend his way. You see, when you pray, it's not to come out of that and expect God to do everything you want. In fact, don't get up off your knees until you are fully surrendered to do whatever it is that he wants. That's what prayer is.

That's what Jesus is telling us to do. The purpose of our prayer is to surrender our will to him. Our prayer is not this. Father, bless what I want to do today. It's not Father, bless what I have chosen to do with my life. It's not Father, bless what we are planning to do as a church. No, our prayer should be, Father, show us your will and help us obey whatever it is that you ask of us. That's what prayer is. Jesus goes on in verse 11 and he reminds us that in our prayer, we must recognize our total dependence on him.

Now he gets to the part we like, give us. Those are most of our favorite words to use in our prayer time. God, give us this day our daily bread. Now for the Jewish people, this was a reminder of their forefathers who woke up every single day to manna that had fallen from heaven, the provision of God. This was a reminder to them.

And so Jesus is talking about recognizing him and our Father as the provider of all. But here's the thing. I want you to get this. Do not miss this. If you write something down, this is what I would write down. This is not a request.

This is recognition of who is the provider. Don't look at this as, oh, this is the time where I get to just list my to-do list. No, no, no. This is a reminder.

This is deeper for them. Jesus is saying, this is not just God give me this, give me this, give me this. No, it's not just a request. It's us recognizing him as the provider of all things. When was the last time that's what your prayer time turned into? Not a to-do list of everything you want to see done and your will to get done, but actually a time where you just recognize him as the provider for everything he's already provided for you.

That's the point. It's being fully dependent upon him, reminding ourselves that God is not going to give us everything that we want, but he will give us everything that we need. He goes on in verse 12. Jesus says we must beg God for grace and for us to extend grace to others. Look at what he says in verse 12. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, as we forgive our debtors. We miss this a lot because if you're like me, when you have somebody like, it's one thing we want everybody to forgive us, but sometimes we struggle with forgiving them. And here's what Jesus is saying very plainly.

He's saying this. We should ask God to forgive us to the degree that we are forgiving others. And here's what I'll tell you.

For a lot of us, we hold back, don't we? You don't realize, Pastor, what they did to me. You don't realize how they made me feel. You don't realize what they said to me. You don't realize the motive behind what they did.

You don't realize how bad they pierced me, how bad they hurt me. Jesus is saying, listen, if anybody understands any of those things, it's him. And he is saying that we don't get up off of our knees. We don't give up off of our knees until we have forgiven every single person the way that we have been forgiven.

And for some of us, we'll be on our knees for a while, won't we? You see, we push back and say forgiving them helps them get off the hook and get away with their offense towards me. You ever said that to God?

Like, I can't forgive them. God, we're good, so it doesn't matter if I'm good here with these people and stuff. And if I forgive them, it'll help them get away with what they did to me.

And a lot of times that's what we do. And Jesus is saying that's exactly right. Isn't that exactly what Jesus has done for you? You see, receiving grace should compel us to give grace. Stop trying to say, God, if I forgive that person, they're off the hook. Yeah, aren't you thankful you're off the hook with God? That's what Jesus has done for us.

He took away your sin debt and paid it in full on the cross of Calvary. And he says, that's the standard I was willing to go to forgive you. That's the standard that you should go in order to forgive others. Let me just say this, stop harboring things in your heart. As your pastor, it's killing you and it's killing the people around you.

Forgive to the degree that he has forgiven you. It's saying this, Father, you canceled my debt, so of course I'm willing to cancel their debt. That's what Jesus is saying. It goes on in verse number 13, lead us not into temptation. He says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And the reason why he's saying this is because, you know, think about it, we find evil all by ourselves, don't we? I'm thinking that would have been my first response, like we don't need him to lead us there because I'm going to end up through my flesh finding it myself. And here's the point, it is Jesus is saying that we must pray for protection from evil and the evil one.

From evil and the evil one, our enemy. And I don't know about you, but sometimes we use prayer as an opportunity and just be real for a moment. I'm sure you do it. I used to hear, because I'd grown up in church my whole life. And so I would hear preachers at conferences and different things. They would always say stuff like, hey, you can never talk to God if there's sin in your life.

Right? And that's a true statement. And so what I would do is I would just run to the altar and I would almost use prayer as like, I would bring my bucket of sins. And my bucket was bigger than like a five gallon bucket, it was really big of them. And I would bring my bucket of sins and I would almost like use prayer time as my time to dump all my sins on God. But in my heart of hearts, I was using him as a way, OK, I'm good. And then I'm going to go out and do whatever I want and I'm going to live the same way. And I'm going to basically take everything I just dumped on God. I'm going to take back with me and I'm just going to do the exact same thing that I just asked for him to forgive. And the next time he gets a hold of my heart, I'll just bring my bucket again and stuff like that.

Here's what he's saying. When he tells us to deliver us from evil, I think he's going a step further than that. That our hearts, we don't need to get up off of our knees and out of our closet until we are not just praying for God to forgive us, but also that God would give us the power and lead us in a direction that we're not going to try to sin anymore. That we want victory over that.

We want protection from that. It's saying, God, forgive me for what I did, all my sins, the bucket, but protect me so I don't fall into the same traps again. That's what prayer is. That's what Jesus is saying. He's telling us that don't get up off your knees right after God forgives me.

No, stay there as long as you possibly can until you are fully committed and you believe that you're praying. God, don't let me fall into the same trap that I have found myself in. And here's the good news about God is that there's always a place of escape for the temptation that we face.

We just got to find it. We got to ask God for it. God died so that you and I could be delivered by the enemy. You see, he's saying this, that he's making this point that for Christians, stay on your knees in prayer until you realize who it is you're talking to. Stay on your knees in prayer until you have fully laid down your will for his. That's saying, hey, God, if you're not going to heal this person, that's OK, because I'm more committed to your will than mine. God, if you're not going to fix this relationship, that's OK, because I'm more committed to you than mine.

God, if you don't want me to have whatever it is that you're asking for, God, it's OK, because I'm more committed to your will than mine. Stay on your knees until you realize who you're talking to. Stay on your knees until you have fully laid down your will for his. Stay on your knees until you have knowledged him as the provider of all things in your life. Stay on your knees until you have no ought with anyone and that you have forgiven everyone of everything. Stay on your knees until you have asked him to protect you from temptation.

Some of us, though, we can't take no for an answer, can we? We get frustrated when God doesn't do exactly what we want. He says, listen, this is the pattern of prayer. And by the way, if you go through this pattern and God chooses not to do whatever it is, this pattern, if this is your pattern of prayer, it will work every time, because it doesn't mean that God is going to move and do what you want every time. But it is going to move you to align your life to him and to his kingdom every single time. And you know what he says is that if you take this model prayer, it's not that you're going to get everything that you ask for. And by the way, thank God for that.

You would make a mess of your life if you were in charge of it. It doesn't mean that we're going to get everything that we ask for, but the reward that we get is him. It's a relationship with our creator. It's a relationship with our father. It's a relationship with our provider. It's a relationship with our forgiver. It's a relationship with our deliverer.

You see, that's what we get more than anything else. It's not about coming to God and aligning his will with yours. No, it's about aligning our life with him. And you say, what's the reward in that? The reward is that you get to know him. That you get him.

You get a relationship with him. When you pray, say our father, which art 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. Can you bow your heads with me for just a couple of moments? Sarah Grace is going to come and here's what I want to do. I want you to stand with me.

Nobody's looking around. Just stand, heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. I don't know about you, but here's what I'm going to say. My prayer life doesn't look like what Jesus described. If that's you in here today and you say, Pastor, I'm just going to be honest before me and before God today. The way I pray doesn't look like the way Jesus described prayer to look. If that's you in here, how many of you would be honest before God? My hands raise.

Would you raise your hand? That's me. That's me. For some of us, we pray our to do list. And here's what I want to do for just a couple of moments. Listen, we don't always do this.

And in fact, you might have not done this in a while. I don't want you to think about anybody else. I don't want you to think about the fear of praying or coming down front or anything like that.

Listen, don't be like the hypocrites. You don't have to impress anybody. God already knows your heart right now. He knows exactly what's on your heart.

He knows everything about you right now. So we don't impress anybody. But here's what I want to do for just a few moments. I'm just going to let this altar be open.

We're going to take as long as we need today. And if you're in here today and your hand went up saying, God, I'm my prayer life is about my kingdom. My prayer life is not about his kingdom. My prayer life is about me getting forgiveness.

It's surely not about forgiving others. My prayer life is to just, God, to get me out of problems. It's not to deliver me from temptation. And sometimes our prayer life is all about us. If you raised your hand and you said, my prayer life is so different than what Jesus described, here's what I want to invite you to do.

If your hand went up, I want you to join me at the altar. And I would love for us just as a church. Listen, we need to be a praying church. I want to be a praying church.

I want to be a praying pastor. And if that's you, I'm just going to give you a moment. If you want to stay where you are, if you're in the balcony, you say, man, that's a long ways down. Listen, we'll wait for you.

We're going to stay all the time we need. If you're like, man, I want to pray like this. I don't want prayer to be about me. I don't want it to be about my agenda. Maybe that's what you need to do.

Maybe you need to grab your spouse. You've never prayed with them before. Hey, what a great opportunity. You don't have to impress them, impress anybody. Listen, this would be a great opportunity.

Hey, bring them down front and say, I don't really know what to say, but we'll start here. Father, hallowed be to your name. Let's don't get up off of our knees until we realize who it is that we're talking to, who it is that we're addressing. He's our forgiver. He's our father. He's our creator. He's our deliverer. Everything that we have is in him. Hey, everybody, just take their time.

Listen, we don't have, we're in no rush today. Let's don't stop praying until we realize who he is, who it is that we're talking to today. I don't know about you, but wherever you are, I don't know what your relationship was with your earthly father, but just be reminded today, possibly you slipped in here. You don't know Jesus as your savior. Listen, we're all sinful. Every single one of us, the pastor in front of you, the person sitting next to you, we're all sinful. And here's the good news of the gospel is the good news of the gospel is not that that God came to us while we were searching for him. No, the Bible says very simply for you and for me, we're all broken and we all fall short. Our good works could never be worthy, could never be worthy to be enter into a relationship with a God as holy as our creator ever. And so because we all fall short, here's what I want you to know. If you're in here today and you don't know Jesus, God loves you.

In fact, let's all say that together. God loves you. God loves us.

God loves us so much. You say, what did he do? He sent his only begotten son to die for you.

You say, what does that mean? He became your curse. He became your punishment. All of what we deserved, he became.

And he lived a perfect life so that you could have a relationship with him. So like I said before, I don't know what your relationship is with your earthly father. It might not be good.

It might be bad. Here's what I want you to know. You have a heavenly father today that loves you. And if you don't know Jesus as your savior, you can leave here as a child of the king. Knowing that you have a father who is great, who is in heaven, who is mighty. Hallowed be his name.

And he loves you and wants to be your heavenly father. Father, we love you. God, we thank you for your word. God, we thank you how it is alive and it speaks to our hearts.

I thank you so much for saving us. God, I pray, Lord, that every single day that we would come before you and that we would not hold anything against anybody because you have not held or withheld anything against us. God, that we would forgive every single person to the degree that you've forgiven us. God, that you would deliver us. Every single family in this place, God, the enemy is trying to attack us. God, deliver us from evil. Deliver us from the evil enemy that is going about trying to devour families and trying to devour people.