SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Have a copy of God's Word with you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to open it to Matthew's Gospel.
SPEAKER_01: As we continue our study in what Matthew has written about the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We were going to take a break from Matthew's Gospel after this morning's.
SPEAKER_01: This will be the last time we're in this gospel, probably until the first of the year.
SPEAKER_01: First of the new year.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to take a couple of months off, but you're going to have to come back next week to see what we're doing in between now and then.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not going to give you that beforehand.
SPEAKER_01: You'll have to come back next week to see where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: But this morning we're going to finish up the Lord Jesus' teaching on prayer in Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: Now last Sunday I had a little giveaway of a little book by J.C.
SPEAKER_01: Rile, Do You Pray?
SPEAKER_01: And then a couple of weeks before that, I encouraged you to find a biography or even his autobiography by George Mueller.
SPEAKER_01: George Mueller was a man who was so trusting of his God.
SPEAKER_01: He ran orphanages in England during a time when there were hundreds, if not thousands, of orphans in England.
SPEAKER_01: And he ran those orphanages entirely on faith in God, trusting God to provide everything that was needed.
SPEAKER_01: I've got a few illustrations that I'm going to share with you this morning from that, but I really want to encourage you, if you want to be challenged in your faith and your trust of the God who provides, find a biography of George Mueller.
SPEAKER_01: More on that in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 6 is where we are this morning, beginning in verse 11, in the second half of the Lord Jesus' teaching on prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So he says in verse 11 that we are to ask God to give us this day our daily bread, to forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_01: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_01: For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
SPEAKER_01: But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, do we have my slides available up there?
SPEAKER_01: In eighteen forty-two, the orphanage orphanage run by George Mueller in England had run out of resources entirely.
SPEAKER_01: They had no food, they had no funds available.
SPEAKER_01: That was not an uncommon situation.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it was very common.
SPEAKER_01: And George Mueller has always steadfastly refused to ask anyone for money.
SPEAKER_01: He simply prayed.
SPEAKER_01: God had always supplied their needs, and George always believed that God would continue to supply their needs.
SPEAKER_01: Because whenever George Mueller prayed, God supplied.
SPEAKER_01: There had always been enough.
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't often more than enough, but there was always enough.
SPEAKER_01: Except on this particular day in 1842, there was not enough.
SPEAKER_01: So George did what George did best.
SPEAKER_01: He gathered some of his friends together and prayed again.
SPEAKER_01: And he anticipated that when the mail came that morning, that the Lord would provide something in the mail for the orphanage.
SPEAKER_01: When the daily mail came, there was nothing in it to meet the needs of the orphanage.
SPEAKER_01: Then, at the last possible moment, a special delivery letter arrived.
SPEAKER_01: It arrived late because it had originally been delivered to the wrong address.
SPEAKER_01: And that delivery contained a large gift from someone in another city.
SPEAKER_01: The arrival of that letter at that particular time, in a sort of misdirected way, meant that God had begun to answer George Mueller's prayer before George Mueller ever prayed.
SPEAKER_01: Through a series of interwoven events, through different people having different thoughts and convictions and the timing of several different individuals, God provided at a critical moment.
SPEAKER_01: And that sort of event happened over and over and over again in George Mueller's life, some say hundreds of times.
SPEAKER_01: George's biographer writes that George and those who served with him sang this song, and I quote, I believe God answers prayer, answers always, everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: I may cast my anxious care, burdens I could never bear, on the God who hears my prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Never need my soul despair, since he bids me boldly dare to the secret place repair, there to prove he answers prayer.
SPEAKER_01: George Mueller knew his God.
SPEAKER_01: And he knew how to trust his God.
SPEAKER_01: And he knew how to pray as Jesus teaches us to pray in Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: And it's my hope and my prayer that the Lord will give us the grace to learn to pray in that same way.
SPEAKER_01: And as we learn to pray, to learn to trust who our God is, because he is the God who provides.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this pattern for prayer that Jesus gives us here, that we often call the Lord's Prayer, focuses on two distinct aspects of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: The primary area is praying for God's glory through the presentation of his purpose and his plan that we would pray that God would do what God's going to do to bring glory to his name.
SPEAKER_01: We saw that that is driven by the relationship that God has with his children.
SPEAKER_01: As we come to faith in Christ, we are adopted into his family, given his name, and he becomes our Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: There's this assumption then that we have a relationship that gives us direct access to the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Through the finished work of Christ on the cross, we become his children.
SPEAKER_01: And so it takes us back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5 with the Beatitudes where we are the poor in spirit, to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And if we learn anything from this pattern of prayer given to the disciples, we have to learn that prayer begins with God and his glory, with God and his purpose and his plan, not with me, not with my wants and my needs.
SPEAKER_01: I have a book in my library entitled Praying Backwards.
SPEAKER_01: When I first purchased it, I thought, well, that's that's a weird title.
SPEAKER_01: Makes me curious.
SPEAKER_01: I want to know what that's about.
SPEAKER_01: Praying backwards.
SPEAKER_01: Its thesis is that in our culture today, we have it backwards.
SPEAKER_01: That we need to pray the way we often end our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: So we need to have the end of our prayers at the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: How do we often end our prayers?
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_01: He says, we have that backwards.
SPEAKER_01: Let's start in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: If we pray without beginning in Jesus' name, without seeking God's glory through the accomplishment of his plans and his purpose, then we're not following the pattern that the Lord Jesus has given us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, thousands of years ago, God gave the Ten Commandments, or literally the Ten Words, to Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And those Ten Commandments were patterned in this same way.
SPEAKER_01: They start by directing the worshiper to who God is, to his character, to his purpose, to his plan.
SPEAKER_01: They direct the people of God to look to him first, to worship and obey him.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_01: That's how he teaches us to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's not to say that there's no room for our needs.
SPEAKER_01: We just need to make sure that our needs don't surpass the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now we think, oh, I would never do that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I would not do that on purpose.
SPEAKER_01: But too often we participate in idolatry by placing any number of things in our lives before the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: How many times do we pray to God on the very first thing we do is pray something about our wants and our needs and our desires?
SPEAKER_01: If our own needs come before God's purpose and God's plan, if our prayer is self-centered, that is a form of idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: So this pattern given by the Lord Jesus is designed to direct us away from that and to focus first on our Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's the primary focus of this disciple's prayer: God's glory, who he is and what he's done.
SPEAKER_01: But the second half of it is primarily about our condition as human beings.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 11 through 15, we begin to see there's a shift from who God is to who we are.
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, Jesus speaks of three different areas in our lives for which we should pray.
SPEAKER_01: So we find here prayer for our daily needs, prayer for grace and for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: All in this, all found in this blueprint for prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So after focusing our attention on the Father, we are taught to bring our personal needs to him.
SPEAKER_01: And don't miss how astounding that is.
SPEAKER_01: He is the undisputed ruler of this kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Everything answers to him, everything bows to him, everything will bow to him.
SPEAKER_01: By grace through faith, we now have access to that kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And yet that king, that undisputed monarch, cares enough about the Father's children to tell us to come right to the Father's throne to tell him our needs.
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe it?
SPEAKER_01: It's astounding.
SPEAKER_01: And what's more, he has provided a way to do that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Do that through prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And so he begins to tell us now in verse 11 how we ought to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Just right.
SPEAKER_01: Tell God about your daily needs.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty simple, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: But is it is it really that simple?
SPEAKER_01: Notice here that Jesus uses a plural pronoun.
SPEAKER_01: Our.
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day, our daily needs.
SPEAKER_01: There's no instruction here to pray for for me.
SPEAKER_01: There's no I, there's no me in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Singular pronouns aren't used.
SPEAKER_01: That's not to say that we don't bring our personal needs to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: There are other passages of scripture that display praying for personal needs, and we'll look at some of them in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: The focus here, though, is not on who is receiving the daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: The focus is on who is providing the daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: To whom do you go for your daily bread?
SPEAKER_01: On whom do you depend for your daily provisions?
SPEAKER_01: Is your spirit directed toward your father's hand to receive from him your daily provision?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you trust in your weekly paycheck for that?
SPEAKER_01: There's another aspect to this, I think.
SPEAKER_01: The use of plural pronouns is probably intended to be a challenge to us.
SPEAKER_01: Many of you may have a pattern of prayer where you begin each day praying to God and praying that He maybe even would provide for your daily needs.
SPEAKER_01: But how often do we pray for the needs of the rest of our Father's children?
SPEAKER_01: How many times do we pray that the Lord would supply the needs of our fellowship here at Faith Evangelical Free Church?
SPEAKER_01: I think part of the Lord's intent here is to move our focus off of ourselves and onto the body of Christ as a whole.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what happens when we do that?
SPEAKER_01: What happens when we begin to pray for the needs of our Christian brothers and sisters, both in this fellowship, in our community, and across the world?
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you do that, here's what will happen.
SPEAKER_01: You will begin to notice that you're concerned about other people.
SPEAKER_01: You'll begin to wonder, I wonder, I wonder how their needs are being met.
SPEAKER_01: You'll begin to think about other people, have a watchfulness, even a desire to help meet others' needs.
SPEAKER_01: We think a part of what Jesus is doing here is directing our attention off of ourselves first by focusing on our God and then by focusing on other people.
SPEAKER_01: So we should be challenged to not only pray for our own provision, of our own needs on a daily basis, but for the needs of others as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so he tells us to pray for our bread.
SPEAKER_01: Often that was a term used to just refer to physical sustenance, what you need to survive on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_01: But I think Matthew has already told us that there's more to life than just what you eat.
SPEAKER_01: Let's think about this for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: He says, to pray to our Father who is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: So we have a Father who is in heaven, and it's from him that we are to seek our food, right?
SPEAKER_01: Why would we do that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's think about a few passages of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: First from Psalm 104, beginning in verse 14, and then going into the later part of that text.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You, speaking of God, cause the grass to grow for livestock, plants to grow for man to cultivate, so that we have food to eat.
SPEAKER_01: We have wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make your face shine, and bread to strengthen a man's heart.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on in that psalm, you can look at it for yourself, to talk about various aspects of God's creation, kinds of animals, kinds of fish in this world.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says this later on in the Psalm, beginning in verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: All of these things look to you.
SPEAKER_01: To give them their food in due season.
SPEAKER_01: When you give it to them, they gather it up.
SPEAKER_01: They take it in.
SPEAKER_01: When you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
SPEAKER_01: Now that that shouldn't surprise us, even if you don't know your Old Testament, because Jesus says that same thing later on in chapter 6, in verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Look at the birds of the air.
SPEAKER_01: They don't sow seed, they don't reap in the harvest, they don't gather up supplies into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.
SPEAKER_01: See what Jesus is doing?
SPEAKER_01: He's pointing us to the nature of our father.
SPEAKER_01: He's not some guy who has a gambling addiction and doesn't bring home a penny of his paycheck.
SPEAKER_01: He's a father who has endless resources, who loves to provide for his children.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about that, all you have to do is look at the birds.
SPEAKER_01: That's your father.
SPEAKER_01: And so you are to come to him and ask him to open his hand to give to you.
SPEAKER_01: Now we need to we need to be a little careful there because a guy by the name of Agur in Proverbs chapter 30 said this to God.
SPEAKER_01: He said, God, don't give me too little and don't give me too much.
SPEAKER_01: Don't give me poverty and don't give me riches.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, just feed me with the food that I need.
SPEAKER_01: And so come to the point where I say, Well, who's God?
SPEAKER_01: What's he done for me?
SPEAKER_01: He says, I don't want to be so poor that I have to steal and bring dishonor to your name.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus encourages his child to come to your father for today's provision.
SPEAKER_01: Today's provision.
SPEAKER_01: But remember that our daily needs are not just what goes in our mouths.
SPEAKER_01: There's much more that we need for nourishment than food.
SPEAKER_01: We've already heard that from Jesus' own mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Just look back at chapter or two at chapter 4 and verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is out in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights.
SPEAKER_01: He's hungry, he's weak, and Satan comes along and says, You're the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: What's the big deal about turning a few stones into some bread to fill your stomach?
SPEAKER_01: What does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_01: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Listen, there's more to your daily needs than simply physical sustenance.
SPEAKER_01: He's referring back to the Old Testament, to Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 3, where God, through Moses, is reminding Israel of what God did for them.
SPEAKER_01: Moses reminds them of 40 years of wandering in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: And he reminds Israel that God humbled them.
SPEAKER_01: How did he humble them?
SPEAKER_01: By taking them into a desert where there was no food and no water.
SPEAKER_01: And yet what did what did God do?
SPEAKER_01: He fed you with manna.
SPEAKER_01: Manna is a word that simply means, what is it?
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know what it was.
SPEAKER_01: God said, This is bread from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, You take what you need for today, because if you keep any over for tomorrow, it's gonna rot and stink and grow worms.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm only giving you what you need for today.
SPEAKER_01: This is your daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't know anything about it, your fathers didn't know anything about it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why in the world would God do that to them?
SPEAKER_01: Why would God cause them to have to trust him day after day for their daily bread?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he says, I want you to know that you don't live by bread alone.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just about what you take into your body or what you wrap your body with on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_01: For your survival, you need the word of God on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_01: And God has given it to you, He has handed it to you.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, Jesus says, Go to your Father for what you need for today.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, physical sustenance, but don't forget what is even more essential, your spiritual sustenance.
SPEAKER_01: And he tells us to focus on the needs of a single day.
SPEAKER_01: Give us today's bread.
SPEAKER_01: You know, there are many cultures throughout the world, even today, that only prepare as much food as they can eat in a day.
SPEAKER_01: No more.
SPEAKER_01: They just prepare their food, their food, their bread for today.
SPEAKER_01: It's made up and then it's eaten and consumed that day.
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder if there isn't a personal challenge to our faith that is implicit in that prayer lesson.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a time and place where we want to stock up.
SPEAKER_01: We're encouraged to stock up.
SPEAKER_01: All you have to do is go to the grocery store the day before a snowstorm.
SPEAKER_01: And you can see our tendency, right?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you Want to have a week's worth of meals in the freezer.
SPEAKER_01: I've heard of people who prepare a week's a week's meals in advance.
SPEAKER_01: It's comfortable to us to have a fully stocked pantry.
SPEAKER_01: But when Jesus tells us to pray for today's bread, he's telling us to move our focus on trust in our pantry to our father's hand.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't have your trust in your pantry, but your trust in your father because he cares for his children.
SPEAKER_01: By seeking for today's bread from our father, we are acknowledging we depend on him for even our most basic needs, that we're not trusting in our paycheck, we're not trusting in our employer's stability, we're not trusting in what we have stocked up, we are trusting in our Father.
SPEAKER_01: It's the Father's grace that we have such abundance today.
SPEAKER_01: If we really had to, many of us could probably live for days or even weeks just on what we have in our homes today.
SPEAKER_01: But what does that do for our trust in our Father's provision?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying don't stock up.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the point.
SPEAKER_01: The point is that our prayers must be settled, not in our jobs, not in our paychecks or in our pantries, but in our Father who knows what we need and who loves to provide.
SPEAKER_01: In his diary dated on yesterday's date, October 26th.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote, Yesterday morning, when I took my hat from the rail, I found in one of my gloves a note containing a five-pound note.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he's in English, England, so their money's in pounds.
SPEAKER_01: Found in one of my gloves, stuck in my hat, a note containing a five-pound note, and the following words, quote, two pounds for the orphans, the rest for dear brother and sister Mueller.
SPEAKER_01: End quote.
SPEAKER_01: There came in still further yesterday two pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence.
SPEAKER_01: Thus we are again supplied for about three days.
SPEAKER_01: In reference to the note which was put into my hat, containing the five pounds, I just add that I had repeatedly asked the Lord for means for our own personal expenses previous to the reception of it, because we had but very little money for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, the very moment before I took my hat from the rail, I had risen from my knees, having again asked the Lord for means for ourselves and for the orphan.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, to trust our God for daily needs.
SPEAKER_01: As a child who knows and trusts that his father loves him and is going to take care of him.
SPEAKER_01: I was reminded of this just yesterday as I was driving in the car listening to an audio Bible of 1 Kings.
SPEAKER_01: And I was reminded of the accounts of Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah was running for his life from King Ahab and his wonderful wife Jezebel.
SPEAKER_01: And God told him to run out into a place where there was a brook.
SPEAKER_01: He said, You're going to hide by this little brook, and that brook is going to give you the water you need.
SPEAKER_01: And then he tells Elijah just something astounding.
SPEAKER_01: When you get there, I'm going to command the ravens to bring you your food every day.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm going to command the birds to give you your daily bread and your daily meat.
SPEAKER_01: So if we consider that with chapter 6 of Matthew and verse 36, what God is saying is, I'm going to command the birds to get their food, and I'm going to command the birds to get your food and bring it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Not enough for today and tomorrow, but just enough for today.
SPEAKER_01: Then there was a time when the brook ran out of water because that was in the midst of a three-year drought.
SPEAKER_01: So when the water ran dry, God told Elijah, get up and go north.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to go to a community called Zarephath, and in that little community there's a widow there, and she has a son, and she's going to take care of you.
SPEAKER_01: So Elijah goes north and he finds this widow.
SPEAKER_01: And when he finds her, he tells her, please make me a small cake to eat.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, I'm sorry, I can't.
SPEAKER_01: I can't because all I have left is a tiny little bit of flour and a little bit of oil.
SPEAKER_01: She said, I was just coming out to gather some sticks so I could make a fire and mix up my oil and my flour to make a last meal for my son, and then we're going to die.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah said, Don't worry about that.
SPEAKER_01: Go and make it up and make some for yourself and your son, but first give me a little cake from it.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has promised that until it rains, it's never going to run dry.
SPEAKER_01: Your flour and your oil are never going to run dry.
SPEAKER_01: So she did what he said.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: There was always enough.
SPEAKER_01: Your father knows what you need before you ever pray for.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, pray for your daily needs.
SPEAKER_01: If your father can feed Elijah through ravens, and if he can make the widow's oil never run out, then he can provide for you.
SPEAKER_01: If he can provide for George Mueller and hundreds of orphans days in advance, then certainly he can take care of you.
SPEAKER_01: I could give you personal examples from my own life.
SPEAKER_01: One of them will suffice.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know exactly when this was.
SPEAKER_01: We were living in the southwestern corner of the state of North Dakota in Marmoth, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Don't blink while you're driving through or you'll miss it.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was pastoring a church plant there, and I didn't know it at the time, but we were poor.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know we were poor, but we were.
SPEAKER_01: So I was probably sometime between, sometime around the age of six, seven, eight years old, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember very clearly that our mower, our lawnmower broke.
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't running, and my dad could fix anything, right?
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter what it was.
SPEAKER_01: He could fix it, but he couldn't get our lawnmower running at all.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember my dad telling us that we didn't have money for a lawnmower.
SPEAKER_01: There were no funds whatsoever to fix the mower or to get a new mower.
SPEAKER_01: And so he said, all we can do is pray.
SPEAKER_01: Ask the Lord to give us a new mower.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have any idea how long we prayed.
SPEAKER_01: You know, as a little kid, those days seemed long and endless.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was only a week, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But it seemed like forever.
SPEAKER_01: But every single day at lunchtime, I remember we prayed as we asked the Lord to bless our lunch, we prayed that he would provide us with a lawnmower.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that was still in the time of my life where I'm thinking, is this really going to work?
SPEAKER_01: We prayed and we prayed and we prayed.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember one day driving across the state line into Montana to Baker, Montana, and we stopped for gas and fill up the gas and the pickup.
SPEAKER_01: And next to the gas station was this little trash pile, trash heap.
SPEAKER_01: My dad saw a lawnmower sitting there.
SPEAKER_01: And he went over and looked at it, and the the lawnmower deck was just all rusted out and you know, full of holes and useless.
SPEAKER_01: But the engine looked good.
SPEAKER_01: So my dad asked the guy inside, he said, Can I can I have that mower?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I'll sell it to you for five dollars.
SPEAKER_01: My dad gave him five dollars and we loaded the lawnmower up and we took it home.
SPEAKER_01: And my dad took the engine off of that rusted out mower deck and swapped it out for the mower deck that we had on our other one that didn't work anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And it ran.
SPEAKER_01: It was sometime in the mid-1980s.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: I was using that mower until at least 1996.
SPEAKER_01: God provided for the needs of his children.
SPEAKER_01: This is one small example.
SPEAKER_01: If your father can do things like feeding Elijah, then he can take care of your needs.
SPEAKER_01: So come to him with your daily needs.
SPEAKER_01: We have to get moving on here, we have more to cover.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12, he says, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, Come to your father with your daily needs, but also come to him with your petitions for grace.
SPEAKER_01: Because you need to have grace.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this this could be a reference to the release of debts every seven years.
SPEAKER_01: God commanded, people of Israel, that every seven years there was to be a release of debt.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe, maybe that's what Jesus is referring to.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I doubt that that's exactly what he's referring to, because later on in the Gospel of Luke, Luke has this same statement.
SPEAKER_01: But instead of debts, he uses the word sins.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us our sins.
SPEAKER_01: So most likely I would say that these are probably referring to spiritual debts owed to God in the same way that we would owe debts to another person.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we if we have as our purpose as Jesus' disciples to bring about the reconciliation of people to God, of sinful people to God, that's what 2 Corinthians 5.8 says, if that's our purpose, then we cannot hold on to grievances against other people.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, Jesus very clearly says that only the forgiving will be forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: Those who are truly part of Jesus' kingdom, who are the poor in spirit, mourning over their sin, meek in spirit, hungering and thirsting for Jesus' righteousness, those are the people who are merciful to others, who are the pure in heart.
SPEAKER_01: Those kinds of people, Jesus says, will have a forgiving spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And God will in turn forgive them.
SPEAKER_01: See, what it's doing is asking God, asking our Father to be faithful to his word.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has promised to forgive you.
SPEAKER_01: If he forgives you, then you need to forgive others.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has a commentary on this in verses 14 and 15 that's pretty blunt.
SPEAKER_01: We might even say feels kind of harsh.
SPEAKER_01: Forgiveness will not come from God if we have not forgiven others.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to get mad at me for that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said that.
SPEAKER_01: He pulls no punches, does he?
SPEAKER_01: The ones whom God forgives are the poor in spirit mourning over their sins.
SPEAKER_01: And they forgive others because they know how much they have been forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: I'm certain that every single family has experienced something like this story that I'm going to share with you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm certain that somebody's made it up.
SPEAKER_01: Two brothers, Harry and James.
SPEAKER_01: They finished eating their supper and were playing until bedtime, and somehow, as it always happens, Harry hit James over the head with a stick.
SPEAKER_01: Tears and fighting followed.
SPEAKER_01: Charges and accusations were leveled at one another along with all kinds of threats.
SPEAKER_01: Mom instructed James, before you go to bed, you're going to have to forgive your brother.
SPEAKER_01: James thought a few moments and then said, Okay, mom, I'll forgive him tonight.
SPEAKER_01: But if I don't die before I wake up, he'd better look out in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: We laugh.
SPEAKER_01: Rightly so.
SPEAKER_01: But isn't that how we forgive so often?
SPEAKER_01: If we've been hurt, if we've been offended, if we're if we hold a debt that somebody else owes to us, we just can't wait until they pay us back.
SPEAKER_01: Or we take payment.
SPEAKER_01: See, the issue here is whether or not we mirror the forgiveness that God gives us in our relationships with others.
SPEAKER_01: To ask and to receive forgiveness from God while at the same time holding on to something against another person is hypocritical.
SPEAKER_01: That's the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: But those who seek God's grace in the form of forgiveness of their sins must turn and extend that same kind of grace to others by forgiving them.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is going to deal with this in far more detail later on in Matthew chapter 18 in the parable of the unforgiving servant.
SPEAKER_01: He was forgiven much, but he couldn't forgive a little.
SPEAKER_01: And you and I are in desperate need of God's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: Daily.
SPEAKER_01: And as we seek that from him, we must ask ourselves if we have genuinely forgiven those who owe us.
SPEAKER_01: Can we write off their debt and say, it's done, it's over, I'm good?
SPEAKER_01: All because the Father has forgiven me.
SPEAKER_01: Our prayer needs to include prayer for our needs, prayer for grace, and then we see in verse 13 that our prayer should include petitions that rest in Christ's finished work.
SPEAKER_01: Now, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Matthew shows us something here that is really truly special, really unique in this part of Jesus' teaching on prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And it's important that we see this.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to look back with me at chapter 4 again.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 4, the first 11 verses.
SPEAKER_01: What happened there?
SPEAKER_01: Now we know, right, that Jesus was out in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights without any food, so he was hungry, he was likely thirsty, he was physically weak.
SPEAKER_01: Prime opportunity for the enemy to come and offer him the world on a platter.
SPEAKER_01: Say, here you go, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But what really happened in that moment?
SPEAKER_01: It's been a while since we looked at this, so I want to point out some things to you.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 4, verse 1 says, then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
SPEAKER_01: So what happened there?
SPEAKER_01: First, God the Holy Spirit led God the Son out into the desert to be tempted, right?
SPEAKER_01: He was led out for the purpose of being tempted.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, in the Gospel of Mark, it says the Holy Spirit drove him out into the desert.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says the devil tempted him.
SPEAKER_01: He was led by the Spirit and tempted by the devil.
SPEAKER_01: He said that we need to change the way we translate it.
SPEAKER_01: His argument was that do not lead us into temptation was not right.
SPEAKER_01: So he was suggesting that apparently for 2,000 years we've been translating this wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, his argument was do not lead us into temptation is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation.
SPEAKER_01: It's Satan who leads us into temptation.
SPEAKER_01: That's his department.
SPEAKER_01: So the Pope suggested that we translate this differently, that we can have a little bit of liberty there and say that God should not allow us to fall into temptation.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, God can change whether or not he permits us to fall into the devil's arms.
SPEAKER_01: But is that what Matthew is telling us?
SPEAKER_01: Is that proper?
SPEAKER_01: I think the answer to that is no, it's not proper.
SPEAKER_01: And all we need to do is look back in the context to chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: In some way, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert and given over to the devil to be tempted.
SPEAKER_01: He was led, he was driven out by God to be tempted.
SPEAKER_01: But the language that Matthew uses here is quite clear as to who is doing which action.
SPEAKER_01: Greek scholar Dan Wallace writes about the specifics in the language, and then he makes this comment.
SPEAKER_01: I quote, Matthew shows us that the spirit is the agent ultimately responsible for leading Jesus into the wilderness, while the devil is the ultimate agent of the temptation.
SPEAKER_01: The spirit is not responsible for that.
SPEAKER_01: The spirit did not tempt Jesus, but he did lead him to be tempted.
SPEAKER_01: The balance, Dan Wallace says, is intentional.
SPEAKER_01: Leading into temptation is not the same as tempting.
SPEAKER_01: God, the Holy Spirit, led Jesus into temptation, but he did not tempt him.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to notice the difference with Matthew 6, 13.
SPEAKER_01: The one who was led into temptation now tells his followers, pray to the Father, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
SPEAKER_01: I say evil one, most of our Bibles say evil.
SPEAKER_01: I think evil one is probably the better translation.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew uses that phrase over and over and over again to refer to Satan himself.
SPEAKER_01: The one who was led by God the Spirit now tells us to ask God the Father to not lead us into temptation, but instead not deliver us over into the hand of the evil one.
SPEAKER_01: He's praying, telling us to pray for the opposite of what he himself experienced.
SPEAKER_01: We often in our churches focus on what the Lord's death and resurrection mean for us.
SPEAKER_01: And that's good, that's proper, that's appropriate.
SPEAKER_01: But let's not miss what Christ's life did for us.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus lived for us.
SPEAKER_01: His life was lived on our behalf as well.
SPEAKER_01: He was led to be tempted so that we could avoid being led to be tempted.
SPEAKER_01: If we go with the Pope's idea, we would miss that detail from Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: And asking the Lord that we would not be led into temptation reminds us of who we are.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Jesus was offered the world on a platter.
SPEAKER_01: Satan said, Here you go, fall down and worship me, and all of this is yours.
SPEAKER_01: We would fail miserably in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: We would have said, Yes, sir, may I have it now?
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve were offered the world on a platter, and they gladly ate.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the perfect holy one, said no.
SPEAKER_01: He was led into temptation to do what we could not do.
SPEAKER_01: And to do for us what we so regularly failed to do.
SPEAKER_01: So when we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Pray like this, we are reminded of our humanity and the Lord's deity.
SPEAKER_01: We are reminded of our sins and his sinlessness.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what the scriptures say?
SPEAKER_01: He was tempted in all ways like we are, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're reminded then of his substitution in our place.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, he took our place on the cross to atone for our sins, but he also took our place to succeed in temptation where we would fail.
SPEAKER_01: That now helps us transition to verses 14 and 15, to this idea of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' perfect obedience enabled him to be the perfect sacrifice for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, when we come to him as poor in spirit, mourning over our own sin and seeking his righteousness, the father applies the Lord's blood to our account to atone for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not all.
SPEAKER_01: Because he lived life for us too.
SPEAKER_01: So the Father applies the Lord's obedience and temptation to our account as well.
SPEAKER_01: So when we sin, as we all do, and we confess that sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us as his children, and in that forgiveness, he no longer sees our disobedience, but instead he sees our Savior's obedience because he did for us what we could not do.
SPEAKER_01: How then can we not forgive others?
SPEAKER_01: If we do not forgive others, it only shows that we do not know the Father's forgiveness of our own sins.
SPEAKER_01: And if we do not know the Father's forgiveness, then we cannot expect to be delivered from the evil one.
SPEAKER_01: But thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He has provided a way for us not only to be made right with God, but to have the Lord Jesus' obedience applied to our account.
SPEAKER_01: So we have the privilege then of asking the Father, You led Jesus down that road for me.
SPEAKER_01: Do not hand me over to the evil one, but deliver me from temptation.
SPEAKER_01: And the Apostle Paul would append to that.
SPEAKER_01: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Some of your Bibles may contain either in the text or in a footnote that familiar closing to the Lord's Prayer, For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The reason that it's often put in a footnote nowadays or not included at all is because in the oldest copies of the book of Matthew that we have, we don't find that statement.
SPEAKER_01: It's not there.
SPEAKER_01: So it's very likely that Matthew didn't write it.
SPEAKER_01: It's most likely that the early Christians adopted it from a Jewish prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It is found in the Old Testament as a Jewish praise and thanks to God.
SPEAKER_01: So what most likely happened is that as people became familiar with the Lord's Prayer and it became part of their worship services, that they appended that Jewish statement of praise onto the end of it.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing inappropriate with that statement.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's an appropriate declaration of praise, but it's probably not part of Matthew's original writing.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, the Lord ends his teaching on prayer with simply forgiving others as you have been forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: And what a way to end.
SPEAKER_01: The second section here of instruction on prayer is about our condition.
SPEAKER_01: It's about the place that we are in, living in a sin-cursed world.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, there are physical needs that we have.
SPEAKER_01: And the Father is aware of that.
SPEAKER_01: He knows what we need before we ask him.
SPEAKER_01: He's ready to hear.
SPEAKER_01: But don't forget in asking about your physical needs, never forget how he has provided for your greatest need.
SPEAKER_01: Related to the condition that we find ourselves in in Adam.
SPEAKER_01: We're slaves to sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's your greatest need is to be rescued from that and to be found in obedience to him.
SPEAKER_01: And your father is so gracious and loving as to provide for even that.
SPEAKER_01: So if your father can provide for your greatest eternal need, what worry do you have about today's bread?
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: We give you praise that you are the one who rules and who reigns.
SPEAKER_01: And yet who cares for us, who loves us, who meets our needs.
SPEAKER_01: What a God we have.
SPEAKER_01: That you would care for us.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for showing us again and again that you meet our needs, that you are powerful to supply all that we need.
SPEAKER_01: Enable us to be more like George Mueller, who had such an astounding faith in the God who provides.
SPEAKER_01: Enable us, Lord Jesus, to trust, even as He did.
SPEAKER_01: We pray it in the name of our Provider.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.