Matthew | Praying in the Power of the Risen King

It's another great day to be gathered in the Lord's house

together. So thank you guys for being

here. If you have your Bible, you can

open it to Matthew chapter 6. That's where we'll begin this

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

morning. We'll be in six verses, 5

through 15 today. So if you're visiting today,

we're continuing in a sermon series that we began several

weeks ago in which we've called the King and his Kingdom.

It's a study of the book of Matthew.

And so Matthew 6, five through 15 is our text this morning.

Now we're in the middle of the sermon on the mounts, right?

This is Jesus's teaching, and what he's doing is he's showing

his disciples, teaching his disciples and those who have

gathered around what it looks like to live under his gracious

rule. All right, He's not merely

concerned. One of the things he's going to

show us throughout the sermon is he's not merely concerned with

outward morality, all right? Some of those things we deeply

concern ourselves with is how do I look outwardly?

Do I appear righteous? Do I appear religious?

Right. But he's, he's not concerned

about outward morality. He's not concerned about your

religious appearance. He's not even concerned about

external conformity, right? Again, do I, do I go to church?

Do I sing the songs? Do I pray the prayers, do I

participate? Do I identify myself as a

Christian or as someone who believes in God?

Those outward, those external conformities are not what's most

important to Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, right?

What he is after, He's made that very clear so far.

He is after the heart, right? He's after the heart of the man.

He's after the heart of the woman, right?

He's describing in the Sermon on the Mount the kind of

righteousness that belongs to those who belong to the Kingdom

of heaven, right? He's describing the

righteousness of his people. And so as we come to chapter 6,

Jesus turns now to acts of devotion, right?

He we're going to see today, we're going to look at prayer,

but in these acts of devotion, we'll see giving prayer,

fasting. And in each case he is warning

very, very bluntly. He's warning about the danger of

hypocrisy. All right?

He shows us that it's possible to do religious things while

having a heart that is actually far from God.

It's possible to do things for the praise of men rather than

for the glory of the Lord. And so in our passage today,

we're focusing on prayer and on Easter, right?

That that idea of prayer and the teaching on prayer here could

hardly be more fitting. But because the resurrection of

Jesus Christ is not merely proof that he conquered death, it is

that. But it's not merely that.

It's not only that. It's the triumphant declaration

that Christ's saving work has been accepted and his sin, and

our sin has been paid for, that righteousness has been secured,

and that through Christ sinners may be brought near to God.

Amen. That's why we can sing a song so

loudly. I know that my Redeemer.

Lives. It's redeemed us.

And so prayer is the privilege of those who have been welcomed

into fellowship with the Father through the Son.

It's a privilege of ours that the risen Christ opens the way

to the Father. And so because he lives, because

Christ lives, you and I may come, Amen, when they come.

So with that in mind, would you please stand and honor the

reading of God's Word? If you're able, we're going to

read Matthew 6 again, verses 5 through 15.

That's Christ speaking, Christ says.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they

love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street

corners that they may be seen by others.

Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray

to your Father who is in secrets, and your Father who

sees in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap

up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they

will be heard for their many words.

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need

before you ask him. Pray to Him like this.

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.

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

trespasses. This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you be to God. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of prayer, God.

We thank you that because Christ died and rose again, we have

been welcomed. We have been reconciled to you.

Oh God. Many of us in here have the

story of redemption as our own, that we were once far from you,

we were once rebels to your cause, and yet in your grace and

your mercy, your love, you have brought us near through Christ.

And so, Father, we, it is a joy to join with the Saints this

morning, to worship your great name, to exalt your name above

all. And Father, we ask that you

would help us as we walk through the sermon today, that you would

help us not be like hypocrites, not not be the kind of people

who want to practice righteousness that we may be

seen, but rather. Help us to be sincere in our

devotion to You, O Lord, would you make us holy where we are

not holy? Would you call us to repentance

where we need to repent? God, would you save anyone here

today who does not know you? Lord, we pray that your word

would go forth, that it would bear good fruit in our hearts

today. Would you do this by your

spirits? It's in the name of Christ I

pray. Amen.

Amen. You may be seated.

So growing up in the Bible Belt, living in the Bible Belt, you

know some of these things to be true, right?

Like there is a kind of religion that looks alive, but it's

actually dead, right? It it says the right words.

It, it knows the right moments. It, it can perform in public,

right? It can show up in public worship

and and look like all the other worshippers.

It can impress a crowd, right? Others around you may say it's a

really good person. It can even sound spiritual.

It can know the jargon and the lingo, but but it has no real

communion with God. The heart is wayward.

It's desperately seeking its own way.

And Jesus is exposing that kind of religious practice.

In this text today, He shows us that prayer is not to be used as

a stage for human applause. We don't pray before others.

We don't stand on the street corners and utter our prayers.

We don't stand in church and utter our prayers that others

might see us right. He shows us also that prayer is

not a string of empty words designed to impress, right.

We're not. We're not just muttering a bunch

of things to the Lord trying to impress those around us.

What Christ shows us here is that prayer is communion with

God. It's fellowship with.

God. Prayer is the language of

children who have been welcomed by grace.

It's the way we relate to God. And so if Christ were still in

the grave, then there would be no welcome into the Father's

presence, right? We would still stand on our own.

We would stand on our own unrighteousness.

We would stand apart from God, far from Him, unsaved,

unredeemed, unreconciled. If Christ had not risen, there

would be no access to the Lord. There would be no peace.

There would be no reconciliation, no confidence to

draw near, as Hebrews says. But that's not the case, is it?

Christ has risen. That the tomb is empty, the

sacrifice has been accepted, the Son has conquered death.

And now all who trust in Christ may come to the Father.

They're welcome to him. And that's the heart of this

passage. That's the heart of Easter

celebrations, right? That.

And so here's kind of the the main point of the passage this

morning. If you're taking notes, you can

write this down. It's in your worship.

God is a fill in the blank. If you want to take it there,

you can. The risen Christ opens the way

to the Father, teaching his people to pray with sincerity,

Kingdom focus, and forgiving hearts.

The risen Christ opens the way to the Father teaching His

people to pray with sincerity, Kingdom focus, and forgiving

hearts. And we're going to see this

movement in three parts. So #1 pray to the Father not for

the praise of men. Pray to the Father not for the

praise of men. Jesus begins this passage with

this warning. And when you pray, you must not

be like the hypocrites. Now, now, immediately we should

notice not the word hypocrites, but the word win, right?

Hypocrites probably jumps off the page, but you should see the

word when when you pray. He does not say if you pray.

Jesus is assuming here that his people will be the kind of

people who pray, right, who practice prayer, right?

He says when you pray. So prayer is not optional for

the disciple. It's not optional for the

Christian life. It's not an extra thing for

those who are especially mature, those prayer warriors, as you

may have heard them called at some point in your life.

Prayer is not even reserved only for pastors or missionaries or

those especially disciplined believers.

Prayer is basic to the life of a disciple, right?

It's an invitation for. US.

But it's also a. Command when you pray.

So to belong to Christ is to be taught to pray.

It's to learn to pray, it's to have a life of prayer.

But but Jesus is concerned not only that his people pray, but

that they pray rightly. There is a right way to pray.

There's a wrong way to pray, right?

He, he says you must not be like the hypocrites when you pray.

So the issue here is not public prayer itself.

It's we know that the Bible contains public prayers.

Jesus himself prayed publicly, right?

We see public prayers throughout the Scriptures.

We've experienced public prayers throughout our lives.

If you've been in church. So the problem is not where they

are praying. The problem is why they are

praying, right? The the the hypocrites were

those who love to stand in the way of the largest crowds.

They they love to pray in the synagogues and on the street

corners. Their their audience was not

God. Their audience was man.

Now, you may already know this, but if you don't hear something

to know the word hypocrite originally refers to someone

who's an actor, right? It it's someone particularly

who's. Wearing a mask all.

Right. Somebody who's put on a mask,

you may think of theater, right? And having to wear a mask or

wear certain makeup to make you look a certain way.

That's the idea of a hypocrite. It's not who you are, but you're

made to look that way. And in hypocrisy, what we're

doing is we're showing that it's not really who we are inside,

but outwardly we're trying to appear a certain way, right?

We're playing a role, and that's exactly what these men were

guilty of doing. They were performing their

spirituality to be seen. They were acting out devotion.

They weren't truly devoted, right?

They were putting on a public show of godliness.

And so prayer had become religious theater for them.

And so Jesus says something very sobering about that.

He says, truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

So in other words, the applause of man, the people who look at

them and say, look how spiritual they are, look how religious

they are, look how dutiful they are, that that was all they were

ever going to get right. They, they wanted to be seen.

And so they were seen. They they wanted the admiration

and they probably received admiration, but but that was the

full extent of their reward. And when the God of heaven and

earth offers to you heaven and earth and all that's therein in

Christ, why would we settle merely for the applause of man?

CS Lewis would say that's like eating mud plot mud pies.

It's like playing with mud pies when you're offered a holiday.

At the sea. And so they may gain the praise

of men, but they do not have the reward of the Father.

And so that's a frightening thing for us to consider, But

because it means you can do what appears to be a godly act, right

and still have no pleasure from God in it because the heart was

aimed the wrong direction. Then Jesus gives this contrast

in verse 6. He says, but when you pray, go

into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is

in secret. Now Jesus is not laying an

absolute law that all prayer must happen in private and

indoors. Rather, he's teaching that real

prayer is concerned with God, not display right, that the

point is secrets. The point is sincerity, the

point is godwardness, right? So shut the door, strip away the

audience, remove the platform, come before God himself.

And when Jesus says pray to your Father who is in secret and your

Father who sees in secret will reward you, well, that little

phrase, your father should be full of comfort for us, right?

Brothers and sisters, this is not natural language for

sinners, right? By nature God is our creator,

and by nature God is our judge. But because of our sin, we are

estranged from him. We're estranged because we are

rebels, not sons, right? We are guilty of sin, and so we

are not welcome. Sin has separated us from God.

Our guilt cries out against us. Our consciences condemn us.

Our mouths ought to be stopped before the holy throne.

And yet Jesus says. Your Father, Your father.

Now how can that be? That's only because of Christ.

You see Jesus Christ live the righteous life that we have not

lived. He died the death that we

deserve to die. He bore the wrath of God against

sin in the place of sinners, and on the third day he rose from

the dead in power and victory. And so his resurrection declares

that the payment for sin has been fully accepted.

The debt has been cancelled, but the curse has been broken.

That the risen Christ opens the way to the Father.

And So what that means is that those of you who are in Christ,

you are Christians. You're believers in the Lord

Jesus Christ. You've repented of your sins and

placed your faith in Him, and you're you're walking with the

Lord. What this means for you is that

you don't come to the Father as a stranger seeking an audience.

You you do not pray as a condemned criminal trying to

talk your way into mercy. You did not even pray as an

orphan, right? Hoping that someone might hear

you, Someone might recognize. You.

Christians pray as a child, a child who's been brought near

through the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, a

child who is now a son. And we cry ABBA.

Father Hebrews says that we have confidence to enter the holy

places by the blood of Jesus. Paul says that through Christ we

have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now

stand. And in Galatians, Paul says

again that we are sons, but God has sent his Spirit, sorry, the

Spirit of his Son, into our hearts, crying ABBA Father.

So prayer is a resurrection grounded privilege.

Then Jesus offers another warning in verse 7.

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles

do. Of the Gentiles were godless

people, I shouldn't necessarily say they were godless.

They had many gods was the problem.

But they did not know the true God.

And some of the Gentiles would call out to their God.

They would use as many words as they could.

They thought that their God would hear them for their many

words. They they treated prayer as if

it were a magical formula. They they thought quantity.

Would produce power. They thought repetition created

effectiveness. We'll just say the same thing

over and over and over, and this will make it effective.

You see, they thought they could manipulate their gods somehow

into action. But the true and living God is

not like a dead Pagan God. Amen.

Our God is not ignorant. Our God is not distant from us.

He's not reluctant to hear you. He's not moved by verbal

manipulation either. And so Jesus says, do not be

like them. And then he says, for your

Father knows what you need before you ask him.

And that might make some of you think, well, why pray?

Well, Christ says when you pray, don't think you would say when

you pray and then later say, the Father knows what you need

before you ask as a reason not to pray.

All right, so we understand, we should pray.

We understand that this phrase here, that the Father knows what

you need before you ask Him, cannot make, cannot be making

prayer unnecessary. But what it does is it makes

prayer glorious. It makes it glorious, it makes

it high, it makes it unlike any other thing on earth that we can

do. You see, prayer is not about

informing God of what He does not know.

He knows all things. Prayer is not about convincing

God to care for you. He sent his son to die for you

because of his great love for you.

Prayer is not about. Pressuring God to listen as if

he's busy with other knees. No, God is omnipotence.

He's all powerful. He's sovereign.

He's not distracted. He's not away on a vacation.

Prayer is becoming the child who draws near to the Father, who

already knows, who already sees, who already cares, who already.

Invites us to come as a. Father if you are a father.

Is it not one of the most humbling, beautiful things when

your child comes to you in need of something, knowing that you

can provide it is. It's a humbling thing.

It's a it's a precious thing to know that your child loves you

enough, trust you enough, knows that you care enough to want to

hear their need, that you might answer it.

And so you might. See why John Calvin called

prayer the chief exercise of faith and prayer.

We're not performing for men. We are depending on God.

We, we are expressing trust in our Father through the son.

And that means that prayer must never become a matter of

religious image management, right?

We, we, we must not use prayer to look spiritual.

We, we must not use prayer to cultivate a reputation.

I'll ask brother so and so to pray.

He he does really great. You and I as Christians must not

measure prayerfulness by eloquence or Polish or length.

Some of the most genuine prayers on earth are tearful, broken,

and simple. Let you into my life for just a

second. After Winnie passed in 2022, I

was just. Grief stricken my my heart ached

in a way that I had never felt. I felt I, I, I knew an ache in

my chest that I thought would never leave me.

And and and there would be times in the weeks after, months after

where that. Ache would go.

Away. And then it would rush on in a

moment. It's a thought, a missing you

kind of thing, replaying the images and the events of what

happened that night. And I remember in those moments

that. All I could get out.

Was Lord help me. Through tears, through

brokenness, through pain, it was all I could muster, Lord.

Help me. You want to know how helpful my

conscience was in that moment, how helpful all my knowledge of

prayer was in that moment. It was not helpful at all.

The enemy came to me and accused me in those prayers that those

aren't good enough. That's not deep enough, that's

not strong enough, it's not wordy enough.

How's that going to help you? That led me into a study of

prayer in the Scriptures. Where are all the times we see

men praying to God? Lord, help me.

Or something similar. It's a lot.

I found great comfort in that. It was all I could muster,

right? So it's about the heart that the

Father is not impressed by polished phrases if the heart is

cold, right? He, he delights in truth, in the

inward being. And so when you pray, you have

to consider, who is my audience? Who am I talking to?

Even even in public prayer? Are you speaking to God or are

you speaking to the room right? Even in private prayer?

Are you sincere from the hearts or are you merely going through

the motions right? Are are your prayers living

communion with the Lord or are they dead religious habits?

We can press that even further and, and we should, right?

Some believers struggle to pray, not because they do not know

they should, but because they feel unworthy to come to God,

right? They know their sin, they know

their offenses against the Lord. They feel the dullness of their

hearts. They see their own

inconsistencies, and so they shrink.

Back. From God the enemy is accusing

them as well, is he not? And so I want to speak to you.

If that's you, I want you to know this.

You're welcome with the Father does not rest on the strength of

your prayer life. It doesn't rest on the words

that you mutter doesn't rest on how often you pray.

It doesn't rest on any of those things.

Your performance at all, right, you're welcome to the Father,

rest only on the work of the risen Christ.

The same Savior who died for sinners now lives for sinners.

The same one who opened the way to God has not now closed it

against weak Saints, right? So we come to the Father through

Christ. He's the one mediator between

God and man. And if you do not know Christ

today, then I want you to understand this your your

greatest need is not to learn a better prayer technique.

I've not come to show you 3 steps on how to pray better.

Not at all. And the Lord didn't have you

here this morning to hear how you might pray better either

your your greatest need is not mere religious words or works

it. It's not even to show up at

church on Easter. I do not mean that offensively.

I'm glad you're here. Right, your your greatest need

is reconciliation with God, and that reconciliation is found

only in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Apart from him. If you are apart from Christ,

then God is your judge, He is not your Father.

But in Christ God becomes your Father.

So I urge you today to flee to Christ.

So Jesus teaches us to reject prayer for the praise of men,

but then he teaches us what prayer should seek point #2 pray

for the Father's glory, rule, and care.

Pray for the Father's glory, rule, and care.

Jesus says in verse 9. Pray then like this.

That. That means that he's not merely

giving us words to recite. He's giving us a pattern for

shaping our prayers. I want you to know there's

nothing wrong with praying these exact words, right?

The Church has rightly treasured the Lord's Prayer for centuries.

But Jesus is teaching us more than a formula.

He's giving us a model. He's providing A framework for

how to pray. He's giving, giving us a set of

Kingdom priorities. And notice where the prayer

begins. Our Father in heaven, hallowed

be your name. What a beautiful opening.

He is our Father. What does it mean that he's our

father? Well, one, it's, it's a personal

declaration. It's a covenantal declaration

that he's the God of covenant. He's faithful always.

He never leaves, He never forsakes.

When you say our Father, you're declaring that he is near to

you. When you say our Father, you're

declaring He's compassionate, that he's attentive.

And so we start with our Father, and then we say in heaven.

In heaven, think about what it means for God to be in heaven.

It means that he's holy, He's high and lifted up.

He's exalted. He's sovereign over the affairs

of the world. He's the creator of heaven and

earth. He's perfect.

He's transcendent, meaning he's outside space and time.

He's infinitely above us. And so biblical prayer, what

Christ is teaching is that biblical prayer holds both those

things together. Intimacy without irreverence and

reverence without distance. He's not a buddy in the sky.

He's not your homeboy. Maybe you grew up in the air

where that shirt was famous, right?

He's not the big man upstairs. He's not a cold Force that's far

away like something off Star Wars.

Right. He's our Father in heaven, our

Father in heaven. And then the first request comes

to us this way. Hallowed be your name.

Our Father in heaven. We've said some things about

you. We have this personal

relationship to you, but you're in heaven.

You're transcendent, yet you're intimate.

Hallowed be your name. That simply just means Father.

Let your name be regarded as holy, let let it be revered, let

it be honored, let it be worshipped among the nations.

Let your character, your glory, Your words, Your majesty be

treasured and displayed in all the earth and in all my life.

Hallowed be your name. Jesus teaches us that true

prayer begins with God our Father in heaven.

Hallowed be your name before our needs, before our daily

concerns, before our burdens, before any of those things.

Prayer begins with the glory of God, and it must You tell me

what will silence your anxiety, like seeing that God is glorious

and powerful and sovereign. And all his work.

So we come to the Lord, His name, His honor, His worship,

and then comes the second request, Your Kingdom come, your

will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Again, you must notice how God centered this is your Kingdom,

your will, right? And Jesus is teaching us to seek

the Father's glory, to seek the Father's reign, to seek the

Father's will. And so this line shines with

particular brightness if you look at it closely, Right?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the triumphant declaration

that the Kingdom of God has broken into history in power,

that the King who was crucified is now risen.

Death has not defeated him. The grave could not hold him.

Satan had not overcome him, though he thought he did.

Christ won. Amen.

So when you pray your Kingdom come, you're not uttering some

wishful language here. You're not just wishing your

Kingdom would come. You're not looking at the world

and all of its problems and saying, Oh Lord, your Kingdom

come like some hopeful wish. Now you're making a declaration.

You're you're praying in line with a Kingdom that has already

been inaugurated through the life and death and resurrection

of Jesus Christ. And that Kingdom will one day be

consummated when he returns in all his.

Glory. When you pray your Kingdom come,

you're praying for the spread of the gospel that we go forth to

the ends of the earth, that if it save those in your household

and those in the households hundreds of thousands of miles

away. We're praying for the salvation

of sinners. We're praying for the growth of

Christ Church. We're praying for holiness in

our own lives. Your Kingdom come in my heart,

right? We're praying for the day when

every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus

Christ is Lord. And when you pray, your will be

done. It's not like you're asking God

to accomplish his plans out there over there somewhere,

right? Oh, we're praying your will be

done. What?

We're asking God to bend our hearts into submission to His

will. Your will be done in my life.

Sometimes we go to God in prayer, as though he's Santa

Claus, and then if we'll ask nice things of him, he'll grant

them to us. Sometimes we'll go to him like

we might have gone to our parents when we sought something

we really wanted. And we thought if we just said

it the right way, if we said it the nice way, if that didn't

work, we might try some manipulation.

OK, if you'll get this for me, I'll clean my room.

It's like, well, you should already be cleaning your room.

All right. No, prayer is not mainly a way

of pulling God down into our agenda.

It's one of God's means for bowing our hearts beneath His.

It's where we take what we're. Learning in the Word of God, and

we bring it to the Lord in prayer.

And He bends our will to His. He bends our desires to His, not

the other way around. And so some of you don't pray

much because when you've prayed, God is not answered.

In the book of James we have an answer for that.

James says you ask and do not receive because you ask with

selfish ambition in your heart. Just like your child, you will

say no sometimes. Because it's good for them, it's

better. For them, all right.

We also see in James that you have not because you asked not,

so we should be asking. I wish we should.

Trust that the Lord is going to bend our will to His, and so

therefore we say, your will be done, your will be done.

Morton Lowe Jones pointed out that this prayer is not first

about us, but about God and His. Glory.

Jesus teaches us to start where our our hearts often do not

start. Our natural instinct is to begin

with ourselves. Our problems, our schedules, our

anxieties, our plans, our desires, our.

So on and so forth. But Jesus in this prayer lifts

our eyes far above this world, far above our own anxieties, far

above our own cares and our own problems, far above those

things. And he draws us back to the

Father. We begin with the Father's name.

We look to the Father's Kingdom. We desire the Father's will.

Then in verse 11, Jesus says, give us this day, Our Daily

Bread. Now the prayer turns to our

needs. But even here you're remaining

in a posture of dependence. Aren't you?

Our Father in heaven, give us today Our Daily Bread

dependence. Daily bread speaks of ordinary

needs, daily provisions, the necessities of life, food, work,

strength, help, provision, wisdom, endurance, Jesus.

Teaches us to live one day at a time under the Father's care.

If you're unsure about that, just hold on for a couple more

weeks and he'll make it really clear for you later in Matthew

6. He does not train us to be

self-sufficient. He he's training us to be

dependent. He does not train us to live

anxiously in the future, Rather he trains us to live trustingly

in the Presence. He teaches us to ask for today's

bread today, not tomorrow's bread, today's bread today.

And so this is humbling. Prayer.

It teaches us that we are not self-made people, we are not

independent creatures though we might think we are.

We are upheld every day by the hand of God.

Every meal, every breath, every sunrise, every bit of strength,

every answered need comes from the good Father's hand.

And that too is resurrection grounded, the Father who did not

spare his own Son. But.

Gave him up for all. Will also with Him graciously

give us all things that we truly need.

So the empty tomb tells us that the Father is for his people in.

Christ. He's for you.

Then in verse 12, Jesus says and forgive us our debts as we also

have forgiven our debtors. So sin is pictured here as a

debt we owe, a debt that we cannot pay.

We've violated God's law. We have fallen short of his

glory. We have accumulated a record of

guilt that no amount of moral effort could erase.

And yet the Christian is taught to pray.

Forgive. Us Why?

Because forgiveness is only found in.

Christ at the Cross. He bore your debts.

He bore your transgressions. At the resurrection, Christ

stands vindicated, and all who are united to Him are declared

righteous. The same Christ who died for our

sins was raised for our justification that that means

the believer lives in a continual posture of confession

and cleansing, not because Christ's work is insufficient,

but because our fellowship with the Father is real and our need

for ongoing cleansing in the Christian life is real.

Then Jesus says and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us

from evil. It's just a confession of

weakness. The prayer is a whole confession

of weakness. It's a confession that we're not

strong enough in ourselves. Lead us not into temptation.

Deliver us from evil. It's a mission that we need the

Father to preserve us, to guard us, to keep us, to rescue us.

You're not asking that because you think you're strong.

You're asking that because you know you're weak.

You know your vulnerabilities, you know your sins.

You know your temptations. You know your failings.

You know the malice of the evil and against you.

And so we cry out to God for preserving grace.

How different is this whole thing from self confident

religion? How different from the man who

thinks he can stand on his own. Jesus is teaching us here to

pray as needy children, dependent in every way on the

Father's glory and on His rule and on his care.

Brothers and sisters, I bag you to let this pattern of praying

reshape the way you approach God in prayer.

How often do your prayers begin and end with yourself?

How often are your prayers dominated by immediate

discomforts and personal preferences or earthly concerns?

You see, Jesus is teaching us to pray bigger than that.

He teaches us to pray Godward prayers.

Father, let your name be hallowed in me.

Father, to advance your Kingdom in this world.

Father, bend my heart to your will.

Father, provide what I need today.

Father, forgive my sin. Father, keep me from temptation.

Father, deliver me from evil. That's Kingdom prayer.

What confidence do we have to pray this way?

If you haven't seen it yet, hopefully you'll see it now.

The the one who is teaching you to pray this way is not dead.

He he, he is risen. He's alive.

He reigns, He intercedes always. He has all authority in heaven

and on earth. So when you pray, you're not

praying into the dark. The enemy would want you to

think that your prayers might rise to the ceiling and then

fall down. And when you pray, you're

praying through the Son who lives forever.

But Jesus isn't done. Having included forgiveness in

the prayer, He now presses that issue with particular force #3

pray as those changed by the Father's forgiveness, verses 14

and 15. In these verses, Jesus is

circling back to one part of the prayer and he expands it.

He says, 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 trespasses.

If you're reading along in your daily Bible reading and you come

to that those verses and you do not drop your pen or your pencil

or you do not stop in your tracks, then you should check

your heartbeat because that's really strong language and it

should arrest our attention. And so we, we ought to

understand this carefully. One, Jesus is not teaching

salvation by works here. He he never did.

He's not starting now. He's not saying that you're

going to earn God's forgiveness by forgiving others, that the

whole testimony of Scriptures, that our forgiveness rests

entirely upon the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Yet we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption

that is in Christ Jesus, full stop.

Amen. So what is Jesus saying that

He's saying that a forgiven heart becomes a forgiving heart.

Those who have truly received the mercy of God are changed by

the mercy of God. Refusal then to forgive others

reveals a heart that is not rightly grasped, the forgiveness

it claims to have received. And that's the point of what

Jesus is saying. If someone says I have been

forgiven an infinite debt by a holy God, and yet clings

bitterly to the sins of others, cherishes resentments, nourishes

grudges, refuses mercy, then there is a deep contradiction

there. Something's terribly wrong.

This is exactly what Jesus is going to later teach in the

parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18.

There we have a man forgiven an enormous debt who refuses to

forgive a much smaller one that's owed to him.

And the point becomes plain. Those who are overwhelmed by

grace ought to become gracious people.

I also want to be clear on this line.

Forgiveness does not mean pretending sin was no big deal,

right? It does not mean denying real

pain. It does not mean erasing all

consequences. It does not mean automatic

restoration of trust and every circumstance right.

There may still be a need for boundaries and wisdom and

repentance and in some cases a long road to healing.

But what it does mean is that the Christian cannot cherish an

unforgiving spirit. You cannot adore that

unforgiving spirit in your heart.

We cannot clean the bitterness and walk in fellowship with the.

God of all grace. We cannot praise the one who

cancelled our debt while refusing to release others from

theirs. We cannot celebrate the

resurrection and remain content to live in the tomb of

resentment ourselves. So why should we forgive?

Because in Christ we've been forgiven.

At the cross, our sins were paid for.

At the empty tomb, Christ victory over sin and death was

publicly declared. The resurrection is God's Amen

to the saving. Work of his son.

So when Jesus calls you to forgive, He's not demanding that

we produce mercy out of thin air.

He's calling us to live out the mercy that you have received

from Him. He's calling you to walk in the

power of His own grace. Paul writes clearly about this

in Ephesians 4. He says be kind to one another,

tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave

you. In Colossians 3 says something

very similar. As the Lord has forgiven you, so

you must also forgive. That means the measure and the

motive of our forgiveness are not first about the offenders

deserving this. It is the graciousness of God in

Christ that is the measure and the motive.

Now that's difficult. In some cases it's painfully

difficult. Some of you have been deeply

sinned against the the. Wound is not small, the offence

is not a light offence, and so the pain is real, it's deep, and

Jesus is not minimizing that. But he does call his people to

be marked by the same grace by which they have been saved, the

resurrection. Then one of the truths that we

see about the resurrection is that it means that bitterness

does not have to reign over us. Sin does not have to reign any

longer in our mortal bodies. The risen Christ can soften what

has become hard. He can heal what has been

poisoned. He can teach wounded hearts to

forgive others. So let me ask you plainly, just

to make Easter especially uncomfortable.

Is there someone you refuse to? Forgive.

Is there a trespass against you that you keep rehearsing in your

mind and in your heart? Is there a a wound?

You keep poking it. Is there a grievance that you

have allowed to settle in and define you?

Have you become a collector of wrongs rather than a dispenser

of grace? Jesus is pressing on that today.

He's not calling you to call evil good.

Please don't misunderstand him. He's not calling you to approve

of sin. He's not even calling you to

ignore justice. But He is calling you to

surrender bitterness. He's calling you to release

vengeance into. God's hands.

He's calling you to be a person who is shaped by mercy.

Now here's the really tough part of all of this.

Perhaps the reason that some believers are spiritually cold

or prayerless or joyless or restless is that they're.

Trying to live in communion with the Father while cherishing a

spirit that is altogether unlike his own grace.

You see, forgiven people forgive.

If you're a believer, you should take your bitterness to the

risen Christ. Bring your grudges to the One

who left the grave behind. Ask Him to make your heart soft

again. Ask Him to make you tender

again. Ask Him to help you forgive as

you have been forgiven. And if you're not a Christian,

and the deepest issue, though it's a deep issue, but the

deepest issue for you is not whether you have forgiven

others. The deepest issue is whether you

have been forgiven by God. Your sins stand against you.

Your guilt is real. Your dead is more than you can

bear. But Christ died for sinners, and

he rose again, and all who will repent of their sins and cast

their belief on Him will be fully and freely forgiven.

So as we come to the end of this passage, Jesus has shown us what

prayer really is. It's not performance.

It's not religious theater. It's not empty repetition.

It's not an attempt to impress man or manipulate God.

Prayer is the privilege of those whom the risen Christ has

brought near to the Father. The risen Christ opens the way

to the Father, and He teaches His people to pray with

sincerity and Kingdom focus and forgiving hearts.

So what should you do in response?

Number one, pray sincerely. Pray sincerely.

Reject the temptation to perform your prayers.

Refuse dead religious showmanship.

Come honestly before the Father through the risen Christ.

Secondly, pray with Kingdom focus.

Seek the Father's name, Seek the Father's Kingdom, Seek the

Father's will. Bring him your daily needs.

Bring him your daily temptations.

Bring him your daily burdens, Bring him your sins.

Seek the Father. Pray with Kingdom focus and #3

pray as those changed by grace. Do not cling to bitterness while

claiming the mercy of God. Live as one who has been

forgiven by the crucified and risen Lord this day and one more

time. If you do not know Christ this

morning I want you to hear the good news.

The way to God is open, but only through Jesus Christ.

You cannot come by your moral efforts, you cannot come by more

religious language, you cannot come by sincerity alone.

You must come through the cross of the crucified and risen

Savior. Turn from your sin.

Trust in Christ. And you will find.

That the God. Who was once your judge becomes

your Father. Because Christ is risen, sinners

can draw near. Because Christ is risen, prayer

is possible. Because Christ has risen,

forgiveness is offered. Because Christ has risen, the

children of God may come home to the Father.

Amen. Amen.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you

for the word that. You have given us today.

We thank you, Lord, for the words of your son.

We exalt Him this morning, high and lifted up.

He is the only one who can save us from our sins.

He's the only One who's opened the way to you, to where we are

now told in Hebrews 4 to come boldly before Your throne, that

we might find mercy and grace in our time of need.

He is the one in Hebrew seven who is able to save to the

uttermost all of those who draw near to the Father through Him.

He is the one in first John two who is called an advocate for

sinners. He is the one who Paul calls a

mediator between God and man and Father.

I just ask that you would help. The truths that we've seen in

the passage today sink deep into our hearts.

May this not be simply an Easter Sunday where we pass into church

and pass back out, having not been affected by Your Word, by

your Spirit. So God, I pray that you would

continue your kind, gracious work of transforming our hearts

and our minds to love and to know You more fully.

May you increase our dependence upon You.

Forgive us, Lord of our independence.

And Father, I pray for those who may not know you.

I ask humbly that you would save them from their sins.

I asked You would call them to yourself, You withdraw them and

that nothing would hinder them from coming to Christ today.

May they repent of their sins. May they place their faith in

Christ today. May they call upon the name of

the Lord and be saved this morning.

I'm going to give you a moment. Now they're in your seat.

Just a time of reflection. To think on the text, to think

on the sermon, to think on your. Life.

Not the life of that person next to you or somewhere in your

life, but on your heart, your mind, your spirit, your

devotion. If you need to repent of some

things today, take this time to do so.

If you need to confess some things today, do that.

If there's something in the text that you have not seen that you

need to believe today, would you respond in belief this morning?

Heavenly Father, we confess with the Apostle Paul today that it

is your kindness that leads us to repentance.

God, we thank you that you are ever faithful, that you're

abounding and steadfast. Love that you're good to every

generation. God, would you help us to live a

Godward life, a life that honors you, that glorifies your great

name. Help us to do so as men and

women and boys and girls in the the state of life that you've

placed us in. Husbands and fathers, wives and

mothers, children, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, Co

workers, members of your church or whatever.

Remember The thing is that you've given us.

Would you help us to walk with integrity, to honor you in those

things that your name might be glorified, that your Kingdom

might come, that your will may be done on this earth and in our

lives? We thank you for your, your

kindness and your love and your mercy, Your grace toward us.

It's in the name of Christ we pray.

Amen.