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©1996-2003 by Claim the Victory Ministries. All rights reserved.
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A Primer on Prayer February 3, 2002 Matthew 6:9-13 Matthew 6:9-13: Today’s
passage of scripture is a very familiar passage of scripture to most of us, even
those of us who may not have a church background.
Even non-Christians are familiar with the words that we have labeled as
the “Lord’s Prayer” Today we are going to look at this prayer and try to decide
exactly what it was that the Lord meant for us to pray for. Many
believe that we must pray this prayer, word for word, and we must all pray in
and identical manner. Others
believe that to do that would be considered vain repetitions, an action that
scripture warns us against. Jesus
gave us this model prayer, and he told us we are to pray in this manner.
So what did he mean by it? It
is your pastor’s opinion that Christ intended for the prayer to be a
“model” to show us the framework of how we should pray, not to be a prayer
to be repeated in its entirety without another thought.
We can see several instructions as we look at the verses. I.
Acknowledge
God for who He is. (V9) We
must pay homage, or tribute, to God because of who He is.
Our God deserves our honor, and our respect.
Jesus uses the image of a father here, and it is the same sort of imagery
that he used in Luke 15:20-24 when He tells the parable of the prodigal son.
In this passage of scripture we see that the father loved his son so much
that he rejoiced when he returned home. This
is the picture of God that Christ painted for us, and the picture that we must
maintain in our mind as we begin our prayers. Though
we can realize that God is a loving father, we must also acknowledge that he is
a Holy God. Isaiah 43: We
are honored to be allowed into his presence, and it is indeed a great privilege
to be able to go to God. Illus: President
Bush visited Daytona Beach last Wednesday, and only 1,000 people were chosen to
be in attendance. In order to see
the President you were required to have a ticket.
Now, your pastor was not one of the ones chosen for this honor, but
Pastor Hargrave at Riverbend was given a ticket. There were many people, even loyal party members like the
former mayor of Daytona Beach, who were not able to attend. They didn’t have the ticket. It
is somewhat similar when approaching God. We
must have the right “ticket”. It
should both humble us and give us great confidence to think that the creator of
our universe loved us so much that he provided for us a way to come to Him.
(Gift of the Savior----) Illus: It’s
said that when President Kennedy was in the White House, often his son would
come running unannounced into the Oval Office to see his “Daddy”, yet even
Kings of other countries were only allowed to call him Mr. President.
We
have the opportunity to call God “Daddy”.
What a blessed opportunity that is. II.
Seek HIS
Will for his Kingdom (v10) ·
This
should be the first request from us after giving God the honor due him. ·
His
answer to this will affect the rest of our prayer. Walter Knight told of an old
Scottish woman who went from home to home across the countryside selling thread,
buttons, and shoestrings. When she came to an unmarked crossroad, she would toss
a stick into the air and go in the direction the stick pointed when it landed.
One day, however, she was seen
tossing the stick up several times. "Why do you toss the stick more than
once?" someone asked. "Because," replied the woman, "it
keeps pointing to the left, and I want to take the road on the right." She
then dutifully kept throwing the stick into the air until it pointed the way she
wanted to go! Today
in the Word, May, 1989. Is
this how we seek God’s Will? Do
we keep trying over and over until we get what we perceive to be the right
answer? ·
We must
understand that He is capable of taking care of our needs. ·
We must
remove distractions from our prayer life. ·
We should
focus on God when we pray, and what God is going to do through us, and ignore
what else is going on. We
let the obstacles become the primary focus of our prayers, and that obscures our
path. We must come to realize that
the temporary setbacks and obstacles that the enemy places in our way will be
overcome, and God will take care of them. I
think it is possible that Jesus is trying to tell us in verse 10 that we
shouldn’t worry, that God will take care of us! III.
Ask Him
to Supply our Daily Needs (V 11) It
is clear from scripture, even within the same chapter we are looking at today,
that God knows our needs before we ask. But
Jesus makes it clear to us that God wants us to ask.
If we ask, God will provide. Missionary statesman Hudson
Taylor had complete trust in God's faithfulness. In his journal he wrote: Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning... He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all... Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. Our Daily Bread, May 16, 1992. Genesis 22: Philippians 4: We
must make faith a part of our prayer life.
Faith in God to supply our needs. IV.
We must
Ask for and Give Forgiveness (v 12) ·
Forgiveness
for us was provided on the cross when Christ became our substitute. ·
Every sin
we have committed, or will commit is covered by this act. ·
This is
God’s Grace. Confessing
our sins, and thanking God for the forgiveness shows our love for Him, but there
is more to it that that. We must
also be willing to forgive others. This
is God’s Love. Thomas A. Edison was working on a crazy contraption called a "light bulb" and it took a whole team of men 24 straight hours to put just one together. The story goes that when Edison was finished with one light bulb, he gave it to a young boy helper, who nervously carried it up the stairs. Step by step he cautiously watched his hands, obviously frightened of dropping such a priceless piece of work. You've probably guessed what happened by now; the poor young fellow dropped the bulb at the top of the stairs. It took the entire team of men twenty-four more hours to make another bulb. Finally, tired and ready for a break, Edison was ready to have his bulb carried up the stairs. He gave it to the same young boy who dropped the first one. That's true forgiveness. James
Newton, Uncommon Friends. Luke 17: How
much does God want us to forgive? How
often, how many times can we offer forgiveness to one who has wronged us.
The idea given to us in scripture is that we are to forgive others just
as God has forgiven us. It is an amount that has no limit, no boundaries.
In his book. Lee: The Last
Years, Charles Bracelen Flood reports that after the Civil War, Robert E.
Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to the remains of a grand old tree in
front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been
destroyed by Federal artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the
North or at least sympathizing with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said,
"Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it." It is better to forgive
the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take
root and poison the rest of our life. V.
We must
pray for God’s Protection (v 13) Our
battle is not a battle against a human enemy, but rather against the temptations
of Satan. Satan can, and will tempt
us, much as he did Jesus. We have
to realize that Satan is a liar, and is crafty, and will use all the tricks in
his bag to cause us to stumble. Many
will object to the idea that we are battling a being that is supernatural, but I
think scripture is quite plain as to who it is that we battle. Ephesians 6: Notice
it doesn’t say to engage Satan directly.
There is a popular movement among many churches to engage Satan in battle
verbally. No where in the model
prayer do we see Jesus telling us to speak to Satan. Instead, we see Him exhorting us to ask God to deliver us
from him. Let God do the work! Writing in Moody Monthly, Carl
Armerding recounted his experience of watching a wildcat in a zoo. "As I
stood there," he said, "an attendant entered the cage through a door
on the opposite side. He had nothing in his hands but a broom. Carefully closing
the door, he proceeded to sweep the floor of the cage." He observed that
the worker had no weapon to ward off an attack by the beast. In fact, when he
got to the corner of the cage where the wildcat was lying, he poked the animal
with the broom. The wildcat hissed at him and then lay down in another corner of
the enclosure. Armerding remarked to the attendant, "You certainly are a
brave man." "No, I ain't brave," he replied as he continued to
sweep. "Well, then, that cat must be tame." "No," came the
reply, "he ain't tame." "If you aren't brave and the wildcat
isn't tame, then I can't understand why he doesn't attack you." Armerding
said the man chuckled, then replied with an air of confidence, "Mister,
he's old -- and he ain't got no teeth." VI.
End by
acknowledging that Everything is God’s a.
For HIS kingdom b.
In His Way. c.
His Power. d.
‘His Glory. Notice
the theme here in this last verse. It’s
all about God. Not about us, not
about our church, not about our family. It’s
all about God. Jesus taught us to
begin our prayers honoring God, and end them honoring God. We
must pray, and we must pray powerfully. This
model, that Christ has given to us, will teach us how to do just that. When we pray, remember: 1. The love of God that wants
the best for us. William
Barclay, Prodigals and Those Who Love.
Copyright ©2002 by Rev. Charles S. Mims , Claim The Victory Ministries |
