Our Father Listens

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees you in secret will reward you.

Jesus is teaching us how to practice right religion. And I believe prayer is so central and important for right religion. He gives us an extra lesson. Jesus teaches us how to pray. Three points. Why the father hears you. Why the father hears you. How do we pray to the father. And the last one is why do we forgive which is tied to one of the prayers. So first, if we look at this versus seven and eight, he, he, he explains again, why does God hear you? He said, do not go out like the hypocrites, but when you pray, do also don't act like the Gentiles. So we have to ask why, why does the father hear us? Well, there's two reasons. The father doesn't hear us. The first is it's not because of your eloquence. The father does not hear you because of how many. or even what kind of words you use. God is not impressed with our words. He's not manipulated. He's not convinced. He's not waiting for you just to put together the right rationale and argument and wise appeal so that he would then give you something good. It's not a matter of begging him enough. If you're a Gentile, you heap up words upon words and empty phrase upon empty phrase because, well, you don't know who God is. So you would pray to regional gods, gods who would have, as I understood it, kind of reign over a certain realm or area, or gods over certain powers and abilities. So you would have to name off different gods and goddesses in different areas for different things. And they believed gods were like us. They needed to be persuaded. they made their gods in their image rather than realizing they had been made in God's image. It's something important to think about the Gentiles who are praying and heaping up words and empty phrases. I'm going to assume they're very sincere. They have a sincere desire for something but they don't know who to pray for. They have an authentic, genuine despair and an approach to a God or gods in prayer, but they do not know who God is. If we're to look at the section above and warning about the hypocrites, well, the Pharisees, they lack faith. The Gentiles, they lack knowledge of God. So a couple of things about prayer is not about how many words we use. Less is sometimes more. It's not about finding just the right words and the right way to be as persuasive as possible. And it's not even about how sincere or strong your faith is. Prayer is about receiving the word from God and responding to God in our circumstance. We think about prayers, knowing who God is because of what he has said to us, and finding us in a certain circumstance, and then seeking to lift our concern and our lives up to God. That's why it's important if you go through the Psalter, there's all different kinds of Psalms. Praise, thanksgiving, confession, supplication. praying for the things we need. We, we, we see those in the Lord's prayer at some level. And we also see those prayers that Lord willing in our own worship service, God speaks to us. So we know how to turn to him in our circumstances. Now, when I think about this, do not use many words. If you turn over to Luke 18, you don't have to turn over there, but there's a parable of a persistent widow. And this widow keeps going to the king for justice. And the principle there is she keeps going every day and pretty much presents a widow who's just annoying the king to the point where he's like, in order for me not to have to hear you anymore, I will give you what you're asking for. The point isn't to just keep trying to annoy God until he gives you something. The point is how much more merciful and kind and good is your father? The lesson is to pray always. We need to understand something. It isn't a matter of how many words are persuasive your words are, but there is something about we're to pray always. Prayer isn't something we just kind of come into and leave. Prayer is a constant life of depending upon God and seeking his will in all matters. A constant appeal to be grateful, to confess sin, The principle there for the persistent widow is we're always praying. That the second parable is right after that. And he, he contrasts the prayer of a Pharisee and a tax collector and the Pharisee approaches God with confidence. And he says, thank you that I'm not like that guy, the tax collector, but the tax collector simply praise God have mercy on me. Jesus says that man left justified. What a simple declaration to God. The effectiveness of prayer is not in how many words it is. It's so few words. But it's coming with that contrition and realizing there's only one who can save him. And he comes with a confession and a prayer that Jesus says is effective. Because it's contrite. It's seeing himself sanely as a sinner who needs mercy from God, and he prays to God as God would invite us. God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Oh, if you're not a Christian this morning, what a prayer. Not just repeat as if it's some secret motto or formula, but a prayer to truly lift up to God that, God, I've sinned against you. I want to believe in your son to be saved. But both of these exemplify, there's a desire that we do need to pray always. And there's a way in which we give them to God in the right way with the right prayer requests. And it's effective. That's over again. It's just trying to heap up extra words and persuade God as if he's like us. The second way God does, or the second reason God does not listen to us is verse eight.

Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask.

God doesn't need our input. God is in not need of information. God doesn't need us to tell him what we need. He knows what we need before we ask him, and he actually knows what we need more than we know. Again, something that's been declared throughout this Sermon on the Mount is your father sees you. He's not distant. He's not passive. He's not disinterested. The father who has loved you and given you his son, the father who's brought you into his kingdom, Jesus is speaking to his disciples. The father, he's paying attention to you. He knows. Now, so some people ask, from verse 8, why do we even pray then? Why do we ask God for stuff if he already knows what we need? There was this doctrine when I was in seminary, this false teaching called open theism. And it was this hyper free will of humans. And, and it ultimately said, God didn't know the future in it. It's most persuasive argument was that this makes prayer effective because God you're speaking to God and there's a real relationship and there's real way in which the future is open because you can talk to God and it affects the future. That pretty much denies everything Jesus just said about verse eight. But I share that because I knew it was wrong, but I really dove in and tried to wrestle with what prayer is from that. How is it that God, who is sovereign and knows all things from beginning to end, would invite me into prayer, and how is my prayer actually effective? And I wrestled with this for months, and I came to no real conclusion except for I had stopped praying while wrestling with this. And so I repented and began praying, And I just praise God, he hears me, he invites me in, and all is blessed. There's a way in which we must, faith must seek understanding. That does not mean we're going to understand everything. But it brings us back here to your father hears you. He doesn't need information. He doesn't need to be persuaded. So why does he hear us? It's because he's your good father who loves you. Our father hears us because he's our good father who loves us and he invites us in and he expects us. We're invited in to call our great creator, to call upon him and speak to him. It's even amazing if you go, and I encourage you to do this, Learn to pray scripture. If you do wrestle with how to pray, pray scripture. Pray this prayer. Model your prayers upon this particular prayer. Or go to the Psalms where you get to confess sin. Go to the Psalms where God invites you to complain well to Him. If you think about how to pray for each other, pray the prayers of Paul in Ephesians 1, Colossians 1, Philippians 1, 1 Thessalonians 1, 2 Thessalonians 1. There's a pattern there. Learn to pray because your God, who is your Father, hears you. Well, Jesus tells us exactly how to pray here. So this is it, the word of God himself telling us how to talk to the Father. The one who we pray to the Father in his name, he's teaching us and telling us how to pray. So we really want to pay close attention. Do not pray like the Pharisees and the hypocrites. Do not pray like the Gentiles. Well, this is how you pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

There are three main parts to this prayer. First, pray for his glory to be spread. Pray for his glory to be spread. That's verses nine. Then verse 10, pray for his good rule to spread. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Pray for his glory to spread, pray for his good rule to spread. And the third one is pray for our needs to be met. And there's three different needs, our daily needs, forgiveness, and temptation. Let's look at those three main sections first, pray for his glory to be spread, pray for his good rule to be spread and pray for our needs to be met. But before we jump into this, I just want to look at that first, those first two words, our father. Uh, this is a new way to pray in the new covenant. Many folks wonder what is so new with the new covenant. This this is one of those new aspects of the new covenant. We we are adopted into the family of god into the uh, The relationship with god that we get to call him father. That is not something the the old testament, uh invites us to in the same way We read from romans 8 The the spirit of adoption has sealed you and and allows you to call god father and that same spirit affirms that you are a child of god That this prayer is radical. Remember when Jesus called God father, what do they want to do to him? Yeah, it, it, it. There's a way in which there's a significance to calling God father, because when Jesus does it, he is saying, I am God like him. He is my father and I am fully God when we're doing it. It isn't a deity, but it's a new identity because you've been adopted. There's, there's four ways. You must always think of God and we can't lose sight of either of them, any of them creator. holy, holy, holy, Yahweh, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Creator, holy, holy, holy, Yahweh, the promise maker, the covenant God. And these most personal, unique names that we know now in the new covenant is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's not a new deity, it's a new identity. We need to be careful of not treating this calling God father as if it's common for all people at all times. It's, it's unique. And it's only in the son. You, you cannot call God father rightly unless you have believed in Jesus, his only son, because the only access we have to know God as father and to call him as father is a son who shares that privilege and benefit with us. Three things we pray for. First, his glory and fame to spread. Hallowed be your name. It begins with praise. And like many of the Psalms, it's an invitation for all the world to praise. May all of Israel praise you. May all of Judah praise you. May all the nations praise you. May your glory be spread abroad. Now the Old Testament, If you read, you can see the significance of there's Elohim and there's Yahweh. And these are not two different gods or two different authors of, of scripture. Yahweh is the name that he gives Israel uniquely as to who he is. He's the God who is with them. There's even times where he says this is a new name, but it's still Yahweh, but there's a new way in which he's revealing himself. That's what the Psalter says, a new song of salvation. There's a new declaration of Yahweh who is saved. We know him more and more and more. Hallowed be your name. May all the heavens and the earth know you and your greatness may may all of creation and humanity and angels proclaim and and praise God may may all bow down to the creator and sustainer of and savior of his people again this is why we must believe in Jesus to truly praise that name father the only way to know him as father the only way to know his forgiveness is believing in Jesus. Now, there's something about this praise that affects us, though. Like most prayers, it begins or ends with praise. The goal is praise, but in order for all the earth to want to praise God, we ourselves are praising God. We must be committed to praising and glorifying God. There is something about Jesus leading us for this prayer. God is for his own glory. He is not promoting any other glories because he is the one and only true glorious God. Some accuse God of being selfish for glorifying it, being about his own glory, but whose glory would he be for if not his own? He does not share his glory with another. He lifts up and gives glory and shines glory and then declares glory for others. But the true glory of God is the only glory. What's amazing about that true God is he brings us into that glory. Believe in Jesus to praise him. Praise him as your father. The second prayer request is verse 10. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This at some levels is getting us back to the creation mandate, to fill the earth with God's image bearers, to spread the garden. God commanded us to rule over his creation and to spread his glory throughout all of creation from the garden. Instead of spreading his glory, we rebelled against him, we refused to glorify him. And so now we've spread our ruin. God sent Jesus to be a new beginning. That's why Matthew begins, the beginning of gospel of Jesus Christ. A new beginning that again is gonna spread the glory and rule and reign of God. Here the king is speaking to the citizens of the kingdom. May your rule be on earth as in heaven. May your kingdom come. It's important we understand what the kingdom of God is. God's righteous rule exercised over his people and his people rightly responded. God is always exercising his righteous rule. The kingdom of God is when we and how we participate fully by obeying and submitting. In order to pray this, we have to believe something. There is such thing as good authority and God is a good king and will rule you well. We have to believe God is good. His authority is good and he will rule you well. If we're praying that his kingdom come and on earth as in heaven, we pray that his rule and reign would expand through all the earth and the heavens. Well, that means we believe it's good. It means we pray that it would be done in our own lives. And we want to be part of that spreading. That all men would hear the gospel and believe. That his church be devoted to him and his glory. God has spoken from heaven. He has made his will known. Because he's a good God who tells us who he is and what he wants and what he's done. If we would only be so heavily minded, we may be earthly good. That we would look up to the heavens and desire to see his will and what he does and want to live that out here on earth. The third section has three parts, verses 11 to 13. Jesus tells us to praise God and to pray that his glory be spread. His glory, not ours. His kingdom and his rule, not ours. And now we come to what we need, and this is important. Jesus is telling us what we need by telling us how to pray for what we need. There's three main parts, our daily bread, our forgiveness, and how we would be led and delivered. Now, remember, God already knows what we need. Here, Jesus is teaching us what we need and how we can be aligned with God in prayer. Ask for your physical life and the sustaining of it. Pray that we would receive mercy to forgive and be forgiven. Pray, pray that we would not be led into evil and temptation and testing, but we would be delivered and know how to walk in grace and obedience. Christian, we should long to live the simple life. We, we, we overcomplicate life regularly by the minute, by the hour, by the day. Longing to live the simple life means we see what God says is good and right and worthy of our time and attention, and we commit ourselves to those things first. Here, it's praying that God would give us our daily bread. We're praying that God would sustain our physical bodies. God created us physically with bodies that are good. We need to be sustained physically. Now, it's hard to feel this one in our context because we have these grocery stores and refrigerators and stores upon stores of food. When you live from getting the grain to go through the whole process in one day for the bread, you feel the need for daily bread more. We're pretty far removed from this immediate feeling. But be sure everything you have is from God. We should never think, no matter what storehouse we have, that we are self-sustaining, that we must always look up and know God is the one who gives us all we need. He is the great provider. And that means we should never stop thanking him for what he provides. Verse 12. forgiveness. Notice it gives two different directions.

Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.

We're, we're going to look more of this in verses 14 and 15. There's more than forgiveness comes from God and forgiveness goes towards others. The first request is that God would forgive us because we've sinned against him. Incredible assumption in that very verse. There's a need for forgiveness. There's a need to confess sin. There's a need to be forgiven because we have sinned. We all need forgiveness. We need God to provide righteousness. We're guilty. And that guilt brings shame. That guilt causes distance. That guilt can only be overcome by God himself. And let's just be clear. God cannot simply declare you're forgiven. That would be unjust. God could not simply say you're forgiven. That means sin goes unpunished. The only way God can say to you or declare sin forgiven is that Jesus came to become like us. He lived a perfectly righteous, sinless life. On the cross, He was punished for the sins we committed. He absorbed the wrath of God for all the sins we need forgiveness for. That is why God can declare you forgiven. It is that clear. God declares us forgiven. But it's only because Christ came to die for us. See, God is both the just. He's perfectly righteous. He will punish every sin. But he's also the justifier. He is able to say we are forgiven because Jesus, his son, took on flesh and paid our debt in full. We need to be careful of cheap forgiveness and cheap grace. Forgiveness is sacred because it is God's and it's from God and what God has done to accomplish our forgiveness. In Christ, when we believe in him, we are forgiven. Again, there is no forgiveness from God, our father, unless we've actually believed in Jesus, his son, who died for our. Forgiveness. Praise God, he forever forgives us. It removes our guilt from us as far as the East is from the West. As he places it on his own son, that is how his wrath is satisfied. Here we come to one of those complications. In Christ, you are declared forever righteous, but you're supposed to keep confessing sin? Well, let's just enjoy that tension again. You're forever declared forgiven and righteous, but you're supposed to keep praying, forgive me. There are people who have actually said, I don't think I should keep saying I'm sorry because Jesus has declared me forever not guilty and forgiven. So why do I need to keep confessing Some might ask, well, I had to keep things simple. Jesus said so. If Jesus says, this is your model prayer, it's your model prayer. You, you haven't stopped sinning. How that works out that you're forever forgiven, but yet you still need to ask forgiveness. There's a way in which you've received the fullness of forgiveness. And there's another way in which you enjoy the fullness of forgiveness. Christian, have you stopped asking for forgiveness? Is it because you stopped sinning or you stopped being sensitive to the spirit's conviction of sin? Now the significant qualifier on this request is one of the most terrifying. It's forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We'll wrestle with this more thoroughly. So you have something to look forward to. God forgive me as I forgive others. The grace of God that comes down to us and blesses us fully, then it's supposed to pour back out. We're, we're, we're, we're forgiven by God. We're showing great mercy from God. We're forgiven much of God so that we can then be his ambassadors of reconciliation, exercising that forgiveness. The life that seeks forgiveness from God seeks to extend that forgiveness to others. The last prayer request we need that Jesus teaches us is in verse 13

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Now this was challenging as well. In light of James one again, Matt Emerson will be teaching on James next week. When we're tempted, it's, it's not from God. God does not tempt you to evil. God does not entice you to evil. God does not ever. allure you into sin. And yet God tests us. The word tempt and test are actually the same root. So there's something challenging here. Lord, there's a way in which the Lord does test us. He brings conflict, difficulty, even allows Satan to test us. We're lured and enticed by our own desires. Here the request is, Lord, lead us not into temptation. Lord, lead us in a way that we're not tested. Lord, we're trusting His goodness. We're trusting that we will not fall into evil. We're praying, really, Psalm 1. Keep me out of the path of scoffers. Keep me out of the way of sinners. Keep me on Your righteous way. And when I fail, deliver us from evil. Lead me on your way. Lead me away from all the sins that would entice me. Lead me and deliver me when I fail. And something Dr. Willem taught us from Hebrews 2, it's important. Christ was tempted in every way like us so that he can sympathize and be our mediator. It's incredible as we think about these three needs. Daily bread, we need numerous things for physical sustenance. We need forgiveness, but we also need leading. We need God to protect us. We need God to guide us in His way. Again, here's where I'm teaching on prayer, but I want to encourage you that the most faithful way to learn prayer is to take these things and practice. and practice with each other. The most helpful way to learn how to pray is to hear what God says to pray and then practice in secret and with others. Our last point, why do we forgive?

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespass.

Key three words to wrestle with this text. First is four. He is grounding our prayer in our active forgiveness. Again, 14 seems to be a grounding for verse 12 specifically, but the whole prayer is in view. And then there's a if-then construction. If you forgive others their trespasses, then assume your heavenly father will forgive you. And then verse 15, if you do not forgive others their trespasses, then neither will your father forgive your trespasses. This if-then construction is pretty tight. And just in case we thought there's some wiggle room, what he's done here in 14 and 15 is he's affirmed and denied, making clear there's no wiggle room here. It's the strongest way to make a statement. He's affirming what is true, and he's denying the lie that we want to figure out how to get around. This is a tight, weighty, challenging teaching. Now, there's a way in which you could take this and say, you need to earn your forgiveness by forgiving others. There is a clear qualification aspect. It's weighty. We can't ignore this. because of how tight Christ has made the logical argument. He's taught us that in prayer, and now he's declared, if you forgive, your father forgives. If you do not forgive, your father will not forgive. It could mean you've got to earn your forgiveness. It could mean you could lose your forgiveness. Concerning Matthew 18, which is where Jesus also teaches on forgiveness. They asked, how many times should we forgive? Seven times? No, 70 times seven. And he teaches a parable. There was a servant who owed a king. His king had great debt. It was lifetimes of debt. He could never pay it. When the king demanded it, he begged for mercy, and the king showed him mercy. Well, that same servant went and found another servant who owed him a couple days' wages and demanded it of him. And when the king found out, he called the original forgiven servant, said, how could you not show mercy when you've been shown such mercy? And he demanded every penny be paid back. And Jesus makes the point clear that. The king is like the father. How could we not forgive? When we've been forgiven. We have to let this fully have all the weight it's supposed to have in this teaching from Christ on forgiveness. Stated here, Matthew 18, it's, it's, it's commanded more, uh, proactively in Ephesians four 32,

forgive one another as cry as God in crisis, forgiving you.

There's a warning about unforgiveness. There's a clear danger regarding unforgiveness. I am convinced that when God forgives us, He makes a promise. That's what forgiveness is. Let me give you assurance now that I've tried to make you squirm underneath that teaching as much as possible. When God declares you forgiven in His eternal court, it is an eternal promise. When God says, I forgive you, it is a forever legal declaration. God's Word does not return void. God cannot lie. God cannot deny himself. If you're looking for the assurance you need that God would forgive you, Jesus is the propitiation for your sin. The wrath of God has forever been satisfied because of his death. All of your sins have been paid for in full. There's a great assurance we have that when God declares we're forgiven, we're truly forgiven and absolutely forgiven because of what Christ has accomplished, because of who God is. And then there's this teaching that is connecting directly. If you are forgiven, you are forgiving. If you are forgiven, You learn to forgive. If you've been shown mercy, you show mercy. There's a principle here. How could we look to the cross and see what forgiveness cost God? And then look to how others have sinned against us and say, we can't forgive them. When we see how much God has forgiven us of, how can we turn to others who've sinned against us in real hard, painful ways? How can we see how much God has forgiven us and then not show forgiveness? It's a much to less argument. How could we see our need for forgiveness and not show it? We're called to forgive because God has forgiven us in Christ. If not, if, when you struggle with forgiveness, you don't look inside that that's where you find bitterness. You don't look outside. That's where you find besides you, you, you, you find, uh, other reasons to keep not forgiving. You have to look up. where Christ is seated at the right hand with wounds still in his hands. If you battle with forgiving others, the only balm for your damaged soul is found in the hands of Christ that were pierced for your transgressions. The only power we have to forgive as God forgave us is first in seeing how Christ absorbed our debt, how Christ suffered to pay for our sin in full. This is especially true when you have a difficult time forgiving a Christian, because if you're wanting them to pay for sin, Christ has already died for it and paid for it. How dare we make someone else pay for sin Christ has already paid for. It's a confusion of the gospel. The thing about what forgiveness is, it is absorbing the offense. That's what the king does when he forgives a debt. He's forever that much poorer. He didn't demand it in some other way. When God forgives us, Christ himself absorbs the wrath of God for us. It's a promise. We will have a right relationship. You can't forget real sin But you can always see it in light of Christ. You can always see it in light of the cross. Forgiveness is a promise. I will move towards you. I will seek to renew the relationship that sin destroyed, but that Christ and his forgiveness can restore. For those who have a difficulty with forgiveness because there's been real damage and destruction done, I understand that sounds dangerous. That's why we have to hear how dangerous it is to withhold forgiveness from what Christ teaches us. It is dangerous to withhold forgiveness. As we look and wrestle with what forgiveness is and how costly it is, again, the balm for your soul to heal and the strength and fuel you need to forgive is found by looking at the cross. It's found in seeing how great a forgiveness you have received. Only then are you able to show that kind of mercy and forgiveness that Christ calls us to here. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you see us and you hear us. And even now, as we feel the guilt and shame of sin, we're amazed that you love us while we're these kinds of sinners. And you sent your son to die for us while still sinning against you. But we thank you that forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel because it is what we need. Lord, I pray we would know how to look up to you in the name of your son and see what a great forgiveness he has provided for us. You would bless us by your spirit to heal from the ways in which we've sinned. I pray for those even wrestling with, could you really forgive them? Oh God, we thank you that you are so much greater than our sin. or may we be more and more fully convinced of how you have forgiven us. May we know how to be ambassadors of reconciliation by being quick to reconcile, being quick to forgive. And may that help us to rejoice all the more in what you have done for us as our father through your son. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.