The Lord's Prayer, A Kingdom Revolution Prayer, Part 2: Matthew 6:9-13, John 17:1-3 - Matthew: Kingdom of God Revolution

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

How many of you pray things that you think you believe, but you probably don't?

Pray it till you believe it.

John Wesley used to say, I preach it till I believe it.

Well, pray it till you believe it.

Pray it, pray it daily.

The names of God, Jehovah Jira, Jehovah Jira, Jehovah Rohe, Jehovah Mekkadash, to begin to pray those things and to believe that God really is our banner.

God really is our provider.

God really is our victory.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

So today we're talking about the Lord's Prayer.

So turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

We started it last week, and so I'm going to sketch through the first part again that we covered last week.

And then we're going to move into the second part.

And here's the way I would frame this.

The way I frame the Lord's Prayer is this men and women, this is not just a prayer that we're studying.

That's easy.

I want to challenge you that this is a prayer that you can use every day.

It can be a template for a kingdom revolution in your life.

And for over 10 years, I used this to learn how to pray an hour a day.

And I use parts of it today, and it's been interesting to come back to it myself and be in that place again of wanting to relearn the Lord's Prayer the way God taught me when I was in the mission field.

And all through the mission field and then into graduate school, I would get up every morning and I'd pray the Lord's Prayer the way I'm teaching it, the way I'm teaching it to you last week and this week.

And if you weren't here last week, then go online and watch it so you can put part A and Part B together.

So let's stand and let's say the Lord's Prayer.

I was noted by my video team that the prayer I used last week was the NIV, and we use the New King James Version.

And by the way, if you don't have a Bible, you didn't come with a Bible and you want a Bible, they're in the backs of the chairs.

You can use those.

And if you don't have a Bible, I say this, I don't say this enough, take it.

We have a study, those Bibles you can just take and we'll replace them.

But let's say the Lord's Prayer, and I believe we got it right.

It's the New King James Version, which is the one I like.

It's one I think most of you grew up with.

King James Version, New King James Version in this particular case, is almost exactly the same.

So let's say it together.

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 forgive our debtors, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

So, Father, we ask you to bless this beautiful prayer to the disciples that is a template for a kingdom revolution in our lives.

God, use me, use the word this morning.

May you prepare our hearts to find good soil in our hearts, that you might elevate our faith to take us to a new level, and that we would be growing and giving in fresh new ways this year and next.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

All right, men and women.

So I talked about last week that very first part, verse 9.

If you have your Bibles, verse 9a says, in this manner, therefore, pray.

Jesus has just told us, don't pray repetitious prayers.

So most of us grew up with the Lord's prayer being repetitious, the very opposite of what he just told us not to do.

And that's we're just repeating that prayer.

Rather, I believe what Jesus' heart was, because of the whole heartbeat of the Sermon on the Mount, was I want to get your heart, and here's a manner, here's a template to use kind of a 21st century word, here's a template of how to pray.

And he starts off by saying this, our Father who art in heaven.

And so 18 times in the Sermon on the Mount, 12 times in Matthew chapter 6, we see this title, Father, our Father.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Now, church, that was so radical at the time.

The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and the lawyers would never say Father for God.

They didn't even say the word God.

It was so holy to them.

And Jesus comes in and he circumvents the entire legal system and he says, Here's how I want you to start off all of your prayers.

Pray to an intimate, loving, caring Father.

Abba, Daddy.

And men and women, that's where all prayer begins.

It all begins with intimacy with God.

That's why we do the worship we do.

That opening song is about intimacy.

We're gonna sing the Lord's Prayer here in a few minutes when we go into worship.

And it's about our Father who art in heaven.

And then we say, hallowed be thy name.

And I talked about the names of God last week.

And I talked about the fact that one of the things that I've done through the years is write down the names of God in my Bible.

I have a Bible where I have all these names of God, and I attached them years ago to five aspects of the covenant, these five kind of promises or these benefits of the covenant.

And so last week I talked about Jehovah Sit Kanu, Jehovah our righteousness, Jehovah Mekkadesh, the Jehovah who sanctifies, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah who is our peace, Jehovah Shammah, the Jehovah, the God who is there, Jehovah Rophi, the God who heals, Jehovah Jira, the God who provides.

Jehovah Nishi, the banner over us.

And Jehovah Rohi, Jehovah or God as our shepherd.

I won't go through those again.

You can go online and you can hear the sermon.

But what I said is, what an awesome way to begin your prayer.

He said, Oh, Father, Father, you're my father.

God, I bless you as my father.

Thank that you want to have a personal, dynamic, growing relationship with you, with me.

I praise you.

I want to have that relationship with you.

That's praise and worship.

And then to start to pray the names of God.

Write them down in your Bible.

You can go to my notes on the app and see all those names and say, God, I just thank you that you're my banner.

I thank you that you're my provider.

I thank you that you're my peace.

Hallowed be thy name.

You're praying the covenant over your life.

I think that should get just a slight amen.

Because when we start to pray the covenant, you start to believe it.

When you pray it, how many of you have prayed things that you think you believe, but you probably don't?

Pray it till you believe it.

John Wesley used to say, I preach it till I believe it.

Well, pray it till you believe it.

Pray it, pray it daily.

The names of God, Jehovah Jirah, Jehovah Jirah, Jehovah Rohe, Jehovah Mekkadesh.

To begin to pray those things and to believe that God really is our banner.

God really is our provider.

God really is our victory.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

To begin to pray, Lord, I pray your kingdom come and your will be done on me today.

What a great prayer.

God, I pray your kingdom come, your will be done on me today.

God, I pray your kingdom come, your will be done on my wife today, or my husband today, or my boyfriend, or my girlfriend, and my roommates.

God, I pray your kingdom come, your will be done on my whole family.

And you pray for the grandchildren, you pray for all the children.

God, I pray your kingdom come and your will be done on my neighbor.

God, I pray your kingdom come, your will be done on my church and my pastor and his staff team.

God, I pray your kingdom come and your will be done on my job and what I'm doing.

Man, I got this transaction coming up.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know how this is gonna go.

This person's about to quit.

This person's gonna resign.

We got this issue over here with uh financing.

God, we got this issue over here relationally.

God, we're not sure about whether we should buy the house or not by it.

I pray your kingdom come, your will be done on this situation, Lord.

You think God's not gonna answer that prayer?

When we're praying a prayer like that and we start praying it every day, God, I wanna know your kingdom come.

That means your rule and reign, your will be done on this area of my life.

God, I pray your kingdom come, your will be done over Colorado Springs.

So I was at this event a few, I guess it's now been about a week and a half ago.

It's a group called Save the Storks.

And this ministry that's a pro-life ministry here in town, and um, Luke, the director, has become a really good friend, and he's Catholic.

And I'm in this room with 10 other pro-life movements, half Catholic, half Protestant.

Probably 80% of the people there are Catholic.

There's priests everywhere.

I thought I was in a Lutheran setting again because everybody had the clerical collar, and it made me so glad that I can wear this.

It looks so uncomfortable, man.

I even said to one of the guys that came to his name, he's a deacon, really cool guy.

We had a blast talking, and he's working at UCCS with college students.

This guy's 65 years old, and he's uh he's a police chaplain, he's a deacon in the Catholic Church, and he's also was a part of this particular meeting we were part of.

And I said, Hey man, I gotta ask you something.

He goes, What?

He says, you know, my dad was a Lutheran pastor, and he had to wear the little stiff clerical collar, too.

I said, How do you swallow?

I'm just curious.

He we were laughing, broke the ice a little bit, but I loved it.

I loved it, you guys.

I love the the ecumenical approach of these, I mean, there were nuns there, there were priests there that have gone down around abortion clinics for 25 years, twice a week, on their knees praying for God to do a mighty work in the lives of these precious young ladies that are in the grips of the biggest decision of their life.

Isn't that beautiful?

That's fruit.

I mean, I don't care if we agree on everything theologically, I care about the fruit, and that fruit loves life.

And I love life.

And so it was a joy to be a part of it, to pray, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Save the Storks and Life Network and all these different ministries in our town.

You see what you can do with the Lord's Prayer?

And you have special areas of your life that you're struggling with.

Maybe somebody's got cancer here.

Maybe some of you have a broken bone, or maybe you're in financial dire straits.

And so you pray it then.

You say, God, I just pray, your kingdom come, your will be done.

And this is my my wife's favorite phrase, and so I've adopted it because I'm her leader.

Um Lord, we want the wind of the spirit on our finances.

That's what Liz always prays.

God, we need the wind of your spirit to blow across our finances.

And whenever she prays that, man, God does something.

It's really cool.

Because we tithe.

See, some of you don't tithe.

You can't even pray the wind of the spirit because you're not even obeying God yet.

But you will.

If you keep hanging out here, you'll get it.

And then you'll watch the blessings come.

And when the blessings come, you go, Pastor Steve was right.

And the only reason I'm right is because he's right.

Right?

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on my school.

God, your kingdom come, your will be done on my athletic career.

God, your kingdom come, your will be done on what college to go to.

That's what we pray.

Man, God's gonna answer that prayer, you guys.

He is.

So our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Then this is where it gets a little, now it's getting into relationships, it's getting into this area of finances.

God, give us our daily bread.

Folks, you can't have bread without money, and you can't have money without a job.

So now you're praying for your job, and you're saying, Lord, I this job is not working out so well, but I've got to provide for my family, so I'm gonna stay in it.

But would you open doors?

Are there other doors you might open for me?

Or I love my job and I want to get better at it, and Lord, I want to be faithful in it, and so, God, thank you for the daily bread you're giving me.

Well, it's more than even just that, right?

Daily bread also speaks of emotional bread and spiritual bread.

How many of you women know that you need emotional and spiritual bread to minister to your husband?

How many of you husbands know you need more emotional and spiritual bread to feed your wife?

How many of you that are single know that God's got you in this place of singleness because he's got a plan for your life that's beautiful, it's powerful, but you're probably running low on bread sometimes.

I'm talking about emotional, mental, spiritual bread.

But I do believe that what Jesus meant here is primarily job and finances, that he wants to meet those needs in your life.

Then he says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Now, I did a lot on forgiveness a couple weeks ago.

You can look back at that message, but here's what the Bible says to all people.

Psalm 34, turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

Seek peace and pursue it.

Hebrews 12, we're told, make every effort to live in peace with all people.

Romans 12 says, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

So we're actually commanded, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of all the exhortations in scripture about living at peace with people.

We as the more mature, we as the spiritual, we as the spirit-filled, should be the first to initiate a peace with other men and women in our lives.

You as parents, if there's if there's issues with your with your kids, you go to them and sit down.

Not in a hurried, hasty way, but just see how you're doing.

Are we doing okay?

Are we doing okay?

I feel a distance.

I feel like there's a distance here.

What's going on?

We had we were, you know, you guys know I do this this elk hunting camp with some guys, and we call it the Roosevelt Elk Camp in honor of Teddy Roosevelt, of which we wouldn't be hunting where we were hunting elk if it hadn't been for Teddy Roosevelt, so we named it uh Roosevelt Elk Camp.

But what we did this year is everybody had their sons with them.

And Andy Thompson, one of the guys in the group, came up with this idea.

Why don't we, why don't we have some really sort of heart-to-heart discussions with our sons around the fire each night?

And so we did, and we asked the kids, one of the questions was what's one thing you wish you know your dad would change in your relationship with him?

Andy.

But it was really good.

It was really good as the kids shared.

And you know what we heard again and again from all the young men was um that you would understand me.

That you listen more and talk less.

Fathers, listen more and talk less.

Steve, looking in the mirror, listen more and talk less.

Now my son didn't say that, but some of the others did.

Jerry White, who spoke at our staff meeting recently, and just so you guys know, you're always welcome to our staff meetings the first Tuesday of every month.

If you want to come to the chapel, anybody, you're this you're the shareholders of this church.

So if you ever want to come to our staff meetings, you can.

But it's for the staff, and but anybody can come, and many of you have come.

Anyway, Jerry, who is a a licensed, um, uh, is licensed with Peacemaker Ministries as one who goes into conflicted situations and tries to bring peace, he said these four things, four promises related to forgiveness.

Let me share these.

Number one, promise not to dwell on the forgiven offense.

Now, now this is going back that you have forgiven and you work things out.

And I talked about the covenant of harmony three weeks ago.

Don't have time to go into it right now, but let's assume that you've had a chance to work things out.

He gave four promises after that.

Promise not to dwell on the forgiven offense.

Number two, promise not to bring up forgiven offenses and use them against the forgiven.

Ooh, that's a hard one.

Ladies.

I'll pay you later.

Number three, promise not to speak of the offense to others.

It's buried and it's remembered no more.

Remember the scripture as far as the east is from the west?

God's forgiven you.

He doesn't bring up your stuff.

You're forgiven, it's done.

So forgive others and let it be done.

I know this is hard.

Nobody said this was easy, but it can be done through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then fourthly, promise not to allow this forgiven offense to hinder your ongoing personal relationship with that person.

Man, that's tough.

Now, let me just say this: forgiveness doesn't mean trust, but it does mean you can have a relationship.

And I've shared with each of you here, if you've been coming, how many times I've had to forgive in some situations that I've been in, and I've told you that I wouldn't necessarily trust my deepest heart to that person.

Because see, trust is earned.

Forgiveness actually can be instantaneous, though it's a process of getting over it, for sure, but it can be instantaneous in the sense of releasing that forgiveness.

But then the process of you feeling it and sensing it sometimes takes time, but trust is always earned.

So you say, well, we ran up, you know, a$10,000 bill on the Visa card and I asked for forgiveness, and you said you forgave me.

Why do you keep bringing it up?

Because you've got to re-earn trust because you are a knucklehead and running up a$10,000 bill on the Visa bill, and so she's got a reason to take the scissors, or he has a reason and cut up your old Visa card.

You heard the story, right, about the guy who had his Visa card stolen, and then he never actually stopped the payments on the Visa card, and someone asked him why, and he says, Because the guy who stole the Visa cards spending less than my wife did.

Gender goes both ways.

Guys, it's usually guns and boats.

And uh for the ladies, it's other things.

But we all struggle with that, right?

So we gotta forgive.

And when we forgive, it doesn't mean we trust.

We earn the trust, but we grant the forgiveness.

But I guarantee you, if we do the promises here, the trust will get earned because they know your unconditional love for them.

Verse 13.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Or some would say, deliver us from the evil one.

Now, what I've done here, and I would encourage this, is put on the armor of God found in Ephesians 6, and I'm going to do it right here before you.

I'm going to show you what I like to do.

And that is to start the day by saying, Lord, I put on the helmet of salvation.

God, I put on the helmet of salvation today.

Renew my mind.

God, I put on the breastplate of righteousness.

The righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness is the heart, is my heart.

That's my motives.

God, would you watch me in my motives?

How many know it's easy to be a poser, pretender, and a faker?

All right?

So motives matter to God.

Now most people don't know your motives, but God does.

So I want pure motives.

So God, I put on the breastplate of righteousness.

I put on the belt of truth.

The belt of truth that I would believe truth and not the fake news.

I would believe truth and not what these, what the enemy says to me about myself, blaming myself or shame in my life.

I'm going to believe truth.

God, I take the shield of faith, which is the word of God.

God, I pray that you would build up my faith with the word of God.

I pray for the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

See how important the Word of God is?

Being in God's word.

And then I shod my feet with the gospel of peace.

That in my relationships, men and women, I might be a peacemaker.

How powerful would it be if in our city each one of us made a vow in 2020 that we'd be peacemakers at our job.

We'd be peacemakers in our marriage.

We'd be peacemakers in the relationships that we have.

We would do everything we can, and it's not always possible, but we do everything we can to bring truth, to bring righteousness, peace, and joy into relationships that we come across.

That's what he's saying.

That's what Jesus is instructing us to do.

He's saying to us that we might be a people delivered from evil, delivered from the evil one.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

What a grand statement to end your prayer time each time.

God, I pray.

God, I pray for your kingdom.

God, I pray for your glory.

God, I pray for your power.

I pray for your joy over everything that I do today.

God, I want your kingdom to come.

I want all of your power.

I want all of your glory.

I want all of your honor.

Amen.

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