Our Example Prayer | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. For those of you who are here,

thanks for joining this session. For those listening online, as

always, thank you so much and look forward to seeing you soon.

If you couldn't be here tonight. And so we're in the middle of a

series and it's it's almost over, but we're in the middle of

a series called Abiding in Prayer with Dependence and

Anticipation. There are also some parallel

podcasts that are going on that will be popping up.

And we are going to actually record a podcast about podcasts

to help everybody know how to pod their casts or cast their

pods here very soon. So if you're lost in all that,

welcome to the 21st century. So tonight we've talked a little

bit in the past about why do we pray and what is prayer?

Tonight we're going to talk more about how should we pray?

And, and rather than go through some of the generalized

conversations that frankly we've had before and some of our

conversations about the seven essentials of discipleship,

which were important and foundational, I really wanted to

focus in on a singular passage and a singular sample prayer

that you know very well, but maybe you've never discussed it

like we might tonight. So amazingly, the Bible only

records 1 inch instance when the disciples actually asked Jesus

to pray. And it's it's found in Luke

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11, verse one. Now Jesus was praying in a

certain place and when he finished, one of his disciples

said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his

disciples. Now it's interesting because a

lot of we're going to talk about obviously what he teaches, what

Jesus teaches. It's interesting to me how we

very rarely will go back and try to figure out what John taught I

and we don't have a lot of that recorded.

Obviously we glean, we glean a lot about John from his

followers who frankly later became followers of Jesus.

But it's interesting that there's an example that they're

seeing from, from John and it doesn't say which disciple asked

this question. The some of the disciples

followed John before they follow Jesus.

So, so there might have been that connection there.

And then what followed is part of what he taught them.

So I'm going to read the Luke passage, the Lukan passage, and

then we're going to go to Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

So Matthew chapter 6, if you have a Bible is where you want

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

to, where you want to land. But let me read the Lucan

version of this because it's just a it's a it's a part of the

teaching. It says, and he said to them,

when you pray, say, Father hallowed be thy be your name.

It's hard to not do thy in it your Kingdom.

Come give us each day Our Daily Bread and forgive us our sins

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us

and lead us not into temptation. And he said to them, Which of

you has a friend who has a friend will go to him at

midnight and say to him, Friend, lend ME3 loaves.

For a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing

to sit before him, and he will answer from within.

Do not bother me. The doors now shut, my children

are with me in bed. I I cannot get up and give you

anything. And I tell you, though he will

not get up and give him anything, because he is his

friend, yet because of his impotence he will rise and give

him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will

be given to you, seek, and you will find knock, and it will be

open to you, for everyone who asks receives, and the one who

seeks fines and to the one who knocks, it will be open.

What Father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will

instead of a fish give him a serpent?

Or if he asks for an egg, give him a scorpion?

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your

children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy

Spirit to those who ask him? So he's taught this section on

prayer and Luke to his disciples, but there's a more

complete lesson that's recorded in Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

The context of this lesson is actually the Sermon on the

Mount. And so he he's teaching them

again and trying to re emphasize things or emphasize for the

first time. And Luke is the is the

supplement perhaps, but but Jesus is teaching in the Sermon

on the Mount about life in the Kingdom.

That's the whole point of the sermon.

What does it mean to understand the Kingdom of God?

Here's what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.

So be this way. Don't be that way, be this way.

And he's teaching them about life.

And he addresses in this Section 3 major parts of what to the

Jewish hearer would have been a very common thing to think

about. For us, not so much, but for the

Jewish believer, these three things he talks about were a

part of their Judaism. It would be a part of their

normal practice, a part of their normal religious ritual.

And even though we relate to some of these things, he talks

about giving, he talks about prayer and he talks about

fasting, which to them had very not only symbolic but but

significant factors as part of their, their practice of

Judaism. But what Jesus is going to do is

he's not going to talk about the ritual.

He's going to talk about our motives.

He's talking about why do you do this?

What's in your heart? And so do we, do we do these

things? And in other words, do we give

for our own glory and recognition?

Do we want others to see how religious we are so that we can

receive praise? Is that why I give alms to the

poor if I'm a Jewish person? And so then he goes and moves

from that. Then then there's also, is this

why you pray? Is this how you pray?

Is this? Is this what you act like?

So he's going to give us some guidelines and principles.

And often we think of this just as a model prayer, but it's more

than that. It's actually, it's actually

guidelines. It's principles for the way we

ought to live and the way we ought to prayer because the

heart of the matter in the Kingdom is the heart of the

matter. What's in your heart?

Why are you doing what you're doing?

Why do you come to church? Why would you go to a connect

group? Why would you serve?

Why would you do these things? And so he includes how and why

in this process we should actually pray.

So this is often called what? What is this prayer often called

the Lord's Prayer. But every single commentator you

would ever read would all, probably all say it should

actually be called the disciples prayer, because that's really

who this is too. This is a, a lesson to the

disciples of how to pray. And, and next session, by the

way, and, and I hope you'll be back for this, this will be a

very, maybe even emotional session.

I'm not sure how you'll take it. But the next session, I'm going

to be discussing intimate moments of prayer by Jesus,

talking about going to the Garden of Gethsemane, talking

about going to the mountaintops, talking about John 17 and his

high priestly prayer before he's getting ready for the cross.

And so we're actually going to look at these intimate moments

of prayer by Jesus. And, and those are what I would

truly call the Lord's prayers. And so this, this is probably

more the disciples prayer, not not fight the title.

Nothing wrong with calling it that.

But in other words, that's probably who it's more directed

to. So I'm going to break this down

in pieces and I'm going to break it down in pieces out of order

because I want to group these verses in a way that we can

learn from them and I can teach from them because some of these

things go together and they're not necessarily in numerical

order in those ways. So I'm going to, I'm going to

break this down a little bit and talk through this.

In fact, if you, if you were to look at Matthew 6 and beginning

in verse 5, it says and when you pray, then if you go to verse 6,

but when you pray verse 7 and when you pray verse 9, pray then

like this. So, so there's an assumption

here. Now remember He's speaking

primarily even in the Sermon on the Mount, He's speaking in this

part primarily to his disciples and they were Jewish in their

background. So Jesus is assuming prayer

would be a fairly normal part of their life.

So in other words, he's not making the argument so much here

that you need to pray. That's not the context here.

The context here is you don't pray at all and you need to pray

now he the context here is you may not pray the right way.

You need to pray with the right motive, but there's an

assumption of when you pray, not if you pray here.

All right, so let's go into this.

We're going to go verse by verse and I again, again, I'm going to

group these and put them a little out of order.

I hope that confuses you greatly and you don't have any idea what

I'm trying to do. If if that's the case, then it's

been a fitting day because from the beginning of the day till

now, it would all that would all be in order and make sense with

the rest of my day. I think.

So that would be great. And I I'll just pretend like I'm

Amazon AI and lead you here or who knows where.

Nowhere, frankly, nowhere. All right, verse 5.

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.

So part of what Jesus obviously is trying to get across is

don't. Don't pretend like you're

something you're not in prayer. I mean, it's absurd to do that.

It's absurd because God already knows, God already knows who you

are. And so when you act like you're

something else or you're using language you don't normally use,

or you're trying to sound pious or you're trying to get

attention, he knows that you're false spirituality doesn't

impress him at all. I feel like I've been

encountering some false spirituality with some people

here here lately. And it's, it's interesting to me

because it doesn't impress me much either.

And so these prayers don't make it to him.

If you talk about a prayer not getting past the ceiling, here's

a prayer that's not going to get past the ceiling, it's not going

to reach him because he knows he knows better.

This isn't who you are. This isn't, you know, and your

motive for praying is something else.

All this is going to produce is these are the praise or the

condemnation of man because that's what they're trying to

get in the 1st place. This is a show, this is an act,

this is her performance. So you've got sincerity versus

the show here. And so one of the questions is,

is do you pray differently in public than you do in private?

And why you know? And so these hypocrites

obviously are, are seeking the attention of of man, right?

Go to verse 7. And 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. So senseless repetition, these

incantations almost do not equal biblical prayer or power.

And you got to remember that in this context, when he talks

about these Gentiles, most of these Gentiles would have come

out of a Pagan background and part of their Pagan ritual, part

of their Pagan worship, part of their prayers in the Pagan life

would be basically casting spells, reciting incantations,

chanting things over and over again in gibberish or silly

language. It it's a form of magic to where

they're trying to manipulate the forces.

If I say it enough, I'll get what I want.

So don't pray like a Pagan. Don't, don't, don't speak

nonsense or don't just utter gibberish over and over and over

again. God's not impressed, nor can he

be manipulated by silly repetition.

So our hypocrisy, our desire for for praise for man and or just

our senseless repetition reminds us our Jesus reminds US neither

one of those is the way we ought to pray.

Doctor Chuck Quarles, a good friend who actually recorded a

podcast with us not long ago, expert in Bible translation, he

wrote, he wrote this about this passage.

He says although Jesus was devoted to prayer, his prayers

were not memorized recitations given at the whim of the clock.

His prayers were intensely personal, often spontaneous and

an expression of his deep communion with his father.

And we're going to hit that a little bit more in a moment.

So God already knows, but He still wants us to come to Him

sincerely. Even though He knows what's in

our heart, even though He knows what we want, He still wants us

to come to Him. Never forget that prayer is as

much for us or more for us than it is for Him.

He wants us to come. He wants us dependent.

He wants us believing, but He's also listening.

Isaiah 6524, this great verse. If you don't know this verse, it

says before they call, I will answer while they are yet

speaking, I will hear so. So the words that we're uttering

are not as important as what's in our heart and our intention,

our motivation for praying in the 1st place, our desperation,

our sincerity, our urgency for what we're praying for.

Well, look at verse 6. We're not even do the prayer

yet, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door.

And by the way, the room or prayer closet idea would mean an

inner Chamber of some kind. Go into your room and shut the

door and pray to your Father who's in secret and your Father

who sees in secret will reward you.

So this is obviously not a condemnation of public prayer

because there are many passages in the Bible that talk about

public pray, praying together and praying out loud.

You go to the you start talking about the early church and how

they did that together. But that's not the condemnation.

The condemnation is of a public show seeking that human, seeking

the approval of that human audience.

So what are you trying to do? It's better to find that private

place where there's no need for a show and where you seek the

approval not of that human audience, but of that heavenly

1. And, and and that's true of a

lot more than just prayer, but this context is about prayer.

And there was a time that you would well know in our culture

and our history that coming to church was like that, that

people, people went to church to be seen in the community.

They were, if you didn't go to church and you were a

businessman, or if you didn't go to church and you were a leading

lady of the community, or if you didn't go to church and you were

a politician, then you would be looked down upon.

And so the church was as much as social experience or even a

political experience as it was a spiritual one.

There was a time that you may or may not know that that, you

know, we used to have Pew boxes. You can still find churches that

have Pew boxes. Some of the oldest churches in

America, New England, etcetera, still have Pew boxes.

The Chapel that Southern Seminary has Pew boxes.

And families would actually rent the Pew boxes, pay for them, and

it was their responsibility to make sure their Pew box was full

every week. And so they would pay people to

be Pew box fillers. And so Dwight L Moody, one of

the greatest evangelist of human history, his first job in the

church was a Pew box filler for a wealthy family so that it

looked like somebody was in the Pew box every week.

Because if your Pew box was empty, that looked bad.

You know, you didn't have to be there, but your Pew box had to

be full. So I'm thinking about renting

seats. But you are doing so well in

stewardship right now. No joke.

Thank you. I'm going to talk about it again

Sunday that I've decided not to implement that strategy yet.

So let's get into the prayer itself.

Verse 9. So don't pray like this, don't

pray like that. Don't pray like that, but pray

then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed

be your name. Now there's an implied you here,

though it wouldn't appear in the original language.

The way Greek works is it'll often give what we would call an

imperative or a command verb. And you don't actually have to

have the pronoun there because the way that verb is actually

written, the way it's actually spelled implies the you.

So you pray this way, you do this and and it's very much

there here. This is something we must do.

You pray this way. And so this was him talking at

least to his disciples, if not the crowd.

So, so we begin, if you think about this, we begin our prayer.

If we're going to pray the the model prayer, if we're going to

pray the disciples prayer, we're very aware of the fact that

we're starting not seeking our own attention.

This isn't about manipulation. This isn't about me at all.

This isn't about me at all. This is this is me acknowledging

to whom I'm speaking. And in the original language,

this is ABBA. This is ABBA, father.

The word for father is ABBA or ABBA if you listen to the group.

But ABBA and and and notice it's our ABBA.

Don't miss the plural. You need to understand there are

no singular pronouns in this entire prayer.

They're all plural. So this is how we're supposed to

pray. This is part of a larger family

idea. We're in this together.

We share a bond with God. We share an opportunity with God

in prayer. So we're supposed to be in this

together. This is our loving daddy, which

is what that intimate term, ABBA can mean, but it's also a legal

term that often doesn't get discussed.

People like to talk about the daddy part and it's true that

intimate family relationship with your daddy when your daddy

is a good daddy, but it's also an official legal term.

This is also the kind of language that would be used on a

will or for inheritance. So there's a family connection

here. In other words.

In other words, we're, we were, we're part of the official,

we're designated as an official family member.

And he's and, and it's his family now that's pretty

special, especially for these Jewish hearers who would not

have thought of Yahweh that way in the same way.

And so we're part of a, a larger family.

So this is both intimate, but it's also formally relational

because this is also the sovereign Lord of the universe.

That's who you're talking to. And, and, and we, we can never

underestimate the the privilege of speaking to him or who he is.

He is hallowed. He is holy and that word means

to sanctify. It means to make holy.

He's something different. He's set apart, He's unique.

He's not like us. So we're talking to someone not

like us. And sometimes I get a little

worried. Sometimes contemporary music

does this. Sometimes contemporary preachers

do this to where we're we're, we're so much into the ABBA

part. He's just like our buddy.

God's like our buddy. He's like my best friend and I

and I and I, I don't want to dismiss that relationship.

I, I want you to love him and I want you to feel comfortable

with God and I want you to consider him your friend.

But at the same time, this is the Lord of the universe and we

need to always recognize that. I don't deserve to have this

relationship to you. I don't deserve to be a part of

the family. I don't deserve to be able to

talk to you. I just certainly don't deserve

you to listen. Who am I to talk to you?

And in fact, I like the the Christian Standard Version

Bible, the CSB, which is extremely literal.

It says this, Our Father in heaven, your name be honoured as

holy. So we begin by letting God know

how much we value him. Just how much do you value God?

As John Piper writes, you're the supreme and absolute treasure in

all the universe and over all the universe.

So we need to tell him how much we Revere him, how much we

admire him, how much we treasure him, how high we hold him in

esteem. We, we, we can't do this

flippantly. This isn't just about my list of

things I want. I wish we could get that across.

Prayer is indeed an act of worship.

It's an act of recognition, it's an act of submission.

It's an act of dependency. And so in the beginning of this

prayer, it's going to be all about him, not about us, which

is the in opposition to the hypocritical conversation that

he was having before or the Gentile one.

This is not, this is not about the show of the, the, the

religiously pious person in his dress standing on the corner so

that everybody can be so impressed with him.

This is not about the magician who's trying to manipulate the

forces by giving the right incantation.

It's not about us, but it will be about us in a minute.

And that's called grace. Verse 10.

Then your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is

in heaven. This, this just naturally flows

from the last verse. If we, if I'm going to

acknowledge who you are, then I'm also going to acknowledge

what you want and what you're about.

And so there's a healthy balance here between the eternal and the

earthly. I want God's rule.

I want God's reign in my life and I want it right now.

I want his will to control me. I want his will to control,

frankly, this planet. I want, I want his will to

control everything. I want his Kingdom to spread

around the world. With the Gospel.

I also look forward. There's an eschatological idea

here too, to where I look forward to the time at the end

of time, when there is no more time, when that part of the

creation is gone. Because that's all time is.

It's just part of the creation. And when time ends, when he's

honored by those from every tribe, tongue and nation, and

every knee bows and every tongue confesses who he is, I look

forward to that too. But I want now notice whose

Kingdom this is. Whose Kingdom is it?

It's his Kingdom, not my Kingdom, not my will.

I'm not praying that my will be done.

Careful. Because sometimes in prayer,

that's what we're trying to. We're trying to will God into

agreeing with us and to granting us what we will to be done.

Be careful. I want His will to be done now.

If what I want matches with His word, like we've talked in

previous sessions, and his and his word and his will are always

going to match, then I then I then I'm within the framework of

of Orthodoxy. Fine to pray that way.

But I want my life to begin to look like it should look in the

new creation. I want my life now to look like

what it should look like. An eternity when things are

perfect again. So I want his victory to reign

over the flimsy kingdoms of this world and the influence of a

cursed and defeated enemy. As Tony Marita writes in a very

good commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, in the battle for the

souls of men and women, I ask you, Father, to deploy your

troops among the nations, that your will, your reign, that,

that, that bringing my will into line, that says that's what that

means. If I, if I dare pray your will

be done, that means mine can't. I can't.

We can't have both of them unless mine aligns with yours.

So you've got to change my will. You've got to help me believe.

You got to help me see what it is that you want me to see.

So my Bible study, my prayer, these different essentials of

discipleship all have to connect.

They all go together so that I can be who you want me to be.

Not it's no longer mine, it's thine, right?

So again, we're going to visit in the next session.

We're going to go to those moments, those intimate moments

in the life of Jesus Christ, especially in the gardener or

even in the in that John passage as he's heading toward that,

where he's praying for his disciples, he's praying for his

followers. And then then he's in the

garden, in the Garden of Gethsemane where he demonstrates

this very principle. Lord, if this cup can pass from

me, I pray it can. But not my will, but your will,

asking for His sovereign will and putting to get to death our

own will. It's a bold act of faith.

These are words of surrender. These are words of submission.

So hopefully prayer prepares us for His will.

Prayer is the pathway to His will.

Prayer is the a pathway to understanding the purpose of God

in my life. If you want to know what does

God want from me, you need to ask Him.

You need to ask Him. And if you don't hear right

away, ask Him again and then ask Him again and keep asking Him

because it's fascinating. You know, in Romans 12, it'll

talk about submitting our our bodies as living sacrifices.

But then later on, it'll say that for this is a spiritual

worship that we can actually know that we can actually prove

what the will of God is. God's not trying to hide his

will from you. He wants you to know his will.

He wants you to know his word. Now, there might be moments

where you can't handle everything he's got for you

right now. So he may make you wait.

We're great at waiting, aren't we very patient people.

So prayer should prepare us for his answers, his direction.

It's it's not simply the the approval that we seek of of our

own desire. So please reverse that in your

prayer life. God, this is about you.

It's all about you. But then because of who he is,

amazingly verse 11 comes along. Amazingly, verse 11 comes along.

Give us this day every single thing we ever wanted, right?

Everything that I can name and claim, give me an A storehouse

of everything I could ever want. Jesus says now here's the way to

pray. Give us this day or what now it

should it would for them and you really need to make the

connection for the disciples. This would have been a very

significant Old Testament bridge.

When did God provide them daily bread manna in the wilderness.

Don't miss that they would have got that would have been right

there with them. They would that would have been

right there. So just like manna, that's only

good for the day. It's an, it's what I need, not

what I, not what I want necessarily, but I want daily

bread. I mean, I, you know, I want

daily bread. Don't you want daily bread?

I want daily bread. I need daily bread.

I need daily provision. So, so the, the prayer actually

shifts its focus from him to us, sort of.

I mean, it's a very gracious thing.

What a gracious God. The prayer could have stopped at

verse 10. It could have stopped at verse

10 and just been about him and he's within his rights to where

all we're doing is praising him and thinking of him.

But but here we see this provision, this need and a

literal sense for for food each day.

This is a part of the lives of many people around the world

today. I've I've told this story to you

before in some form someplace. I don't know, but Teresa gave me

a little plastic chicken for my office one time and I have a

photograph on my phone right now.

I could show you to where my favorite love offering ever and

preaching in any church I've ever preached in was in a little

red mud dirt tree branch structure with a tin roof and

sun dried bricks in the refugee camps of the South Sudanese.

And at the end of the service, these people who couldn't scrape

2 pennies together to get a scent brought me a chicken, a

live chicken. That was my honorarium.

Some of you know this they, the ladies came dancing.

I, I was standing there with the, the leader who was a dear

friend of mine, Bishop demon, just a dear friend man, a

warrior. You talk about a warrior.

This guy weaves in and out of the world's largest refugee

camps on a little motorbike, starting churches, leading

people to Jesus running, running an entire denomination.

He's the president of the South Sudanese Baptist Convention.

They're sending missionaries that have been for years to some

of the hardest places of North Africa, Muslim, Muslim, Muslim,

radical Muslim, violent Muslim territory.

And we're standing there together and the women start

dancing and, and, and shouting and singing and, and they bring

us both a chicken. I've shared this with some of

you. Sorry, I, I haven't shared this

where it could be recorded. So, so, so I've got this photo

and I get this chicken tucked in my arm like a football.

Nice sermon, pastor. You know, that's, I'm in the

line there and I've shared this too.

We ate that chicken the next day for lunch and that was the

toughest chicken. I don't know what that poor

chicken been through, but I mean, it was like eating chicken

jerky. I mean, it was, I mean, I'm

telling you, you were you're over here on the side, you know,

and just kind of tear it, ripping it off of a piece there.

But I tell you, when I saw that chicken and I saw that plate, I

thought to myself, I could, I mean, I could barely eat it

because of what it meant. That was somebody's chicken that

they had donated to the somebody's tithe and offering to

the church. And for them that meant that

they didn't get to eat that chicken.

And Old Fat Boy from America got it.

So give us Our Daily Bread, our, our daily needs are part of his

willful agenda. You're going to let that

sentence rest a minute. Our daily needs are part of his

willful agenda. This is his will that we do

this. He wants us to come to him with

our, our, our real needs. And so we need to recognize that

and, and, but this is also still about him because it's a

recognition of our absolute dependency upon him to provide

the daily need. I can't do this without you,

God, If you do not provide what I need for today, I can't

survive without you, whether that's physical, emotional,

relational, psychological, If you don't provide for me today

what I need you to provide for me, I will not survive this

fallen creation. It's too hard.

The enemy is too strong. I'm too weak.

I need the daily provision to make it through, and I recognize

that the only place I can get it is from the Lord who has, who is

hallowed, the God, the sovereign ABBA of the universe, who like a

good Father, doesn't want to give me a scorpion.

He doesn't want to give me a snake.

He wants to give me what I need in order to see His Kingdom

come, in order to fulfill His will, in order to understand who

He is, in order to draw closer to Him and to one another, and

to serve Him and to do what He wants me to do.

I need that. That's what I need.

I'm going to want a bunch of junk.

Let me tell you something. When we moved over here, oh,

myself, some of you men, thank you.

God bless you men for putting up with it.

I mean, first of all, we when we finally moved, it was 110° in

the shade last summer when we finally moved everything and I

had stuff in about four different places and we moved

from a house that had this third floor walk up attic and it was

stuffed to the gills. After 18 years in that house, I

found a box with my grade School Report cards in it.

And so Mr. Dumpster and and enjoy ministries benefited a lot

from the move truckload after truckload of junk and we still

have too much still too much. So there has to be this

recognition of dependency. So and and and don't and don't

believe you can avoid don't don't think you can get away

with it. You need what the bread of life.

Think about the irony of this. Here's the bread of life himself

talking about God providing the bread.

And so we have to have faith that God will provide it.

And He might put us into a difficult situation every now

and then, or we might find ourselves and put ourselves in a

difficult situation every now and then where we take our focus

off of this. And we need to enhance our

recognition of Him. Listen to Matthew 619.

He says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and

steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where

neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break

in and steal. For where your treasure is,

there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body.

So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of

light. But if your eye is bad, your

whole body will be full of darkness.

If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the

darkness? No one can serve 2 masters, for

either who hate the one and love the other, or he'll be devoted

to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God in money. Therefore, I tell you, do not be

anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will

drink, nor about your body what you will put on.

Is not life more than food, and body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor

gather into barns. And if your heavenly Father

feeds them, are you not of more value than they?

And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour

to a span of life? And why are you anxious about

clothing? Consider the lilies of the

field. How they grow.

They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon and

all his glory was not a raid like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is

alive, and tomorrow's thrown into the oven, will He not much

more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or

what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly

Father knows that you need them all.

It's not that they don't matter, it's just He knows, and He's

going to help us. But seek first the Kingdom of

God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added

to you. Therefore do not be anxious

about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

And I say Amen to that last part often.

Well, look at verse 12. We're going to Group 3 verses

together now, and we're going to talk about a subject matter.

It's going to take a minute or two.

So I've been trying to get to this point and forgive us our

debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Now look at verse 14. For if you forgive others their

trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Verse 15. But if you do not forgive others

their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your

trespasses. So there's this daily provision

of what we need, our earthly needs, but there's also this

daily provision that we need of forgiveness.

So here's another thing we need to ask God for.

Here's something He needs to help us with.

The word dead here, you know, obviously means sin.

It's actually the only time it appears in the Bible other than

Romans 44, where it's actually talking about a wage and debt

money. So it's not a common word at

all. But our sin places us in debt.

That's the idea. And we're going to study a whole

lot more about this. I'm going to talk about this

Sunday morning. I'm going to give you an

overview of wherever we've been. I've been here a year now,

believe it or not. And so kind of what happened in

a year, what's going to happen in the next year.

I'm going to give you an overview for a few minutes at

the beginning of the sermon Sunday morning as we continue

Nehemiah. But but, but one of the things

we're going to do next after Easter's, we're hitting Romans,

as I've shared with you, and we're going to study a lot more

about this and our study of Romans.

But God justifies us. He does that to the sacrifice of

Jesus and then we're cleansed from our our past sin.

It's because the sin debt had to be paid.

And so because because of the way he pays our sin debt, we get

to be forgiven because that sin debt was insurmountable for us

to pay. We couldn't, could never pay it.

We could never get there. And, and I always want to

emphasize that I'm going to do this again Sunday in a different

way. But if you're here right now or

listening to this right now and you think, man, I'm too far, God

couldn't care about me. I'm too dirty, I'm too bad, I'm

too sinful. I'm too, you need to stop.

There's no insurmountable amount of sin that grace can't

overcome. It's amazing.

So, so just like he provides Our Daily Bread, he's also going to

help us on our on a day by day basis to be forgiven and cleanse

to wash away our sin. See, he he paid that debt and

justification and sanctification is that day-to-day experience of

well, I screwed up, I need to be forgiven again.

I messed up, I need to be forgiven again and he's going to

continue to help us to grow. And continue to wash away our

sin. So we need to be grateful for

his grace. But what Jesus also says, and he

says it in more than one place, the Bible says this in more than

one place, because you've been forgiven.

You've got to learn to forgive other people.

And this is hard. Sometimes it's hard.

It's hard to forgive. And I'm not saying forgive and

forget, by the way, don't, don't add that on there.

I didn't say that you can't forget.

Your memories are biochemically etched into your brain.

You're going to remember. We'll talk more about that in a

minute. But how can I forgive?

How can I move on in grace to where I'm not carrying the load

and I'm not trying to dump the load on somebody else in

judgement or hang on to the sin of others and at the same time

ignore my own? It's kind of like a log in your

eye and the speck in another, right?

So when you be grateful and willing to extend that grace to

others, if we refuse, then we're going to have issues.

But Thomas Watson once said, he says we're not bound to trust in

me, but we are bound to forgive them.

I've said to many, many people, even in the last two weeks,

several people that you need to learn from that.

Learn from it, follow those lessons appropriately, and then

you've got to eventually be able to move forward away from it

because often times when you won't forgive somebody else,

you're not punishing them as much as you're punishing

yourself. You're carrying a backpack full

of rocks and it's and it's preventing you from

understanding the will of God and being a part of the Kingdom

the way you want you to. It doesn't mean that you justify

what happened. It doesn't mean that you think

what they did was right. You're, you're not admitting

that what you're doing is, is you're recognizing that I

deserve to go to hell too. By the way, this is the first

time I've said this out loud. Even the pastors don't know

this. After Easter, we're going to

take a little break from the seven essentials and I'm going

to do a series after Easter on Wednesday nights.

First of all, right after Easter, I'm going to share my

full board testimony, but then we're also going to share in our

midweek, I'm going to do a series called Heaven, Hell and

the Hereafter, because I felt that I need to talk about

Heaven, Hell, what happens the minute we die?

What, what heaven's like, what Hell's like, Who's going to be

there, who's not? We're going to talk a little bit

about spiritual warfare, etcetera.

So that'll be a good study. I'm going to I'm going to draw

you a picture of exactly what heaven looked.

Now I'm not going to here's God, but but remember the context of

this passage. You got to remember that.

Don't ever lose context. Remember our study on a on

engaging the word. We don't gain forgiveness by

forgiving. That's not what these verses are

saying. So so in other words, I'm not

gaining forgiveness by forgiving somebody else.

That would be a work, but but I'm evidencing, I'm testifying,

I'm proving the fact that I have been forgiving, forgiven by

forgiving somebody else. And if I don't do that, if I

hang on to it, it's a problem because Jesus is actually

teaching his disciples who are all in the same family with our

ABBA father. And many would believe that what

we're really talking about here is, is a believer talking to a

believer. Even so, will we forgive one

another as disciples so we might serve well together?

Because if we don't, we're going to eventually face defeat again.

That doesn't that doesn't mean I trust you.

That doesn't mean that we're necessarily going to be best

friends. That doesn't necessarily mean

that that everything that you've ever done is justifiable.

No, Listen, gang. And I was sharing this story

with somebody within the last week or so.

I got to be careful because I, I remember one time when I was a

pastor that we had a, we had Coast Guard families in our

church and they would go out on deployment and often their

spouses were left at home. And there was a young 2021 year

old wife and they had a little house out in the country in the

middle of nowhere. And I get a phone call one night

and somebody had broken in and at weapon pointed had raped her

and stolen things. I was one of the first people

there. Her husband was still out on a

boat and 1st responders were there.

And, and I remember meeting with him later when the husband

obviously came back and working through what do I, what do I do

with this in my life? I mean, those weren't the words.

It was obviously much more emotional and painful than those

words. But what do I do with this?

How do I ever, how do I ever move on from this?

And you can't just compartmentalize it and pretend

like it didn't happen. That's, that's not what you have

to do. You got to work through, you got

to work through a process. You got to work through a cycle.

It's like a grief cycle at death, but at the same time to

get to a place of grace. Not that you're going to forget

ever. Not that you're ever going to

justify ever. Not that you're going to ever

like what happened or that person.

But can I find freedom and grace?

Because if I hang on to everything that's ever happened

to me, and if you hear everything that's ever happened

to me, you'll wonder why I'm still here if you hear my

testimony. But if I hang on to every single

thing that everybody's ever done to me that's mean or wrong, I'm

not going to survive. I've got to let loose of that

bag of rocks. But especially if it's within

the family. Listen to Warren Weirsby, he

writes. If the members of the family are

not getting along with one another, how can they claim to

have a right relationship with the Father?

Will we forgive one another as disciples?

Will we do that? The fellowship I have with my

fellow disciples, it's going to affect my fellowship with God.

So Ephesians 4, Paul writes it similar verse.

He says be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one

another as God in Christ forgave you.

It's that same balanced equation, isn't it?

You, you, you love somebody, you forgive somebody because Christ

has loved you and forgiven you. That's the only strength you

have to do it. And remember that verse is

written to the church. So one another would have been

the church in that context. So extend grace because it has

been extended to you. So this is that's a curative

medicine. That's the idea there.

That's to actually help you heal.

That's to help you cure. It's not so much about relieving

the burden on that other person. It's to relieve the burden on

you. This is what you need to heal.

This is what you need. But you also can't have that

kind of relationship with the other believers.

You can't have that relationship and be able to love one another

and love God and serve him and do the will of God.

But then interesting enough, there's still verse 13.

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

So if one of them is curative medicine, this is preventative

medicine. So we pray about dealing with

past guilt, and now we pray about dealing with future guilt,

'cause I want to be forgiven for everything I want.

I want to be able to be so like Jesus that even if nails are

driven into my wrist, I can say, Father, forgive them for they

know not what they do. Now, I'm not saying I'm that.

I'm not saying I'm there and there's a lot of pain.

But I said to somebody yesterday, and I've probably

said this before too, I say a lot of things over and over

again, sometimes because they're important, sometimes because I

don't remember. I've wasted a lot of pain in my

life. Don't waste pain.

Learn from it, grow from it, be stronger because of it because

I've wasted a lot of pain in my life.

And so here we see that we're dealing with not only the past,

but the future. And don't misunderstand this.

We're not we're not. This verse is not just saying

somehow that God's going to tempt us.

That's not the idea here at all. God does not tempt us.

Read James one sometime It the Bible is very clear God's not

going to tempt you. That's not the prayer.

That's not the way the original wording would have made it made

it work. This is a cry for guidance.

This is a cry for protection. See, please do not lead us into

situations where Satan will have an opportunity to tempt.

Please protect us. Guide us through the minefield

of this thing called life because it's dangerous out

there. And He's very alive and active.

He's been working. First Corinthians 10/13 says no

temptation is overtaking you. That is not common to man.

God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your

ability. But with the temptation, He will

also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure

it. But that verse is conditional.

If if you read that verse all by itself and think that that's all

there is, then you'll never sin. This is conditional upon your

obedience. This is conditional upon your

faithfulness to do what God wants you to do and to listen to

Him and to seek Him. God help me to avoid and

whenever necessary, even to escape.

And so as we mature, maybe we will hopefully need to pray less

and less for forgiveness. But you might not like this or

even understand it. Likely have to pray more and

more for protection. Because as you mature as a

believer, you become a bigger target.

As you mature as a Christian, you become someone that Satan's

going to actually work. Why would Satan work if you're

doing everything Satan wants you to do in the 1st place?

You know what, you're easy. You didn't have to spend much

time on you. Dead churches don't rouse him up

much, but but maturity, Christian maturity, spiritual

maturity, that's a target. I, I, I've had friend after

friend after friend after friend and ministry and academics and

whatever who have had moral failures and fallen.

And I've talked to many of them. They were friends and I've

talked to them and they've confided in me.

In fact, some of for some of them, I was the first one they

called. And it's amazing how consistent

the story becomes. I never planned on this to

happen. I didn't look for this to

happen. I never wanted this to happen.

But then they'll say things like, but I forgot.

I forgot who I really was. I forgot who he really was.

And then the other thing they'll say is I began to believe what

people said to me about myself, that I was above it.

Some of these were celebrity types.

That I was bigger and better than all this, that I

transcended the need for obedience, that I could

basically do whatever I wanted to do and get away with it.

And for some of them, they did it for years, double lives, all

kinds of stuff. So we must constantly be on

guard. Matthew 2641 says watch and pray

that you may not enter into temptation.

The Spirit indeed is willing, but flesh is weak.

We we're fallen and we live in a fallen world still.

And because of that, we're still in the presence of sin.

We're surrounded by the power of sin.

Now, if we've been saved, if you're trusted in Jesus Christ

as your Lord and Savior, you're saved from the penalty of sin,

but you're still in the presence of it.

One day we'll be saved from the presence of it.

We won't, it won't be around anymore.

We'll be in a place of perfection.

Right now we're seeking the Holy Spirit and sanctification and

discipleship to help us fight the power of it, that we don't

fall prey to the temptation and we don't fall prey to how Satan

works. So before we go, I wanted to

share for a few moments some of you or somebody asked Teresa

this. I don't know if anybody asked me

this or not, but said, how do we pray?

And so this is both confession and testimony, because this may

disappoint some of you, probably disappoints Teresa, frankly, but

but we don't have that massively organized prayer time together

like everybody probably thinks I should.

To be honest with you, we've never really operated that way.

And there's some reasons for that.

So let me share what we actually do.

We pray. We, we pray, I promise.

But we're, we've been on such different schedules.

In fact, you, you all need to understand something.

One of the greatest adjustments of me becoming the pastor of

Inglewood Baptist Church in Rocky Mount, NC, United States

of America, is that I am now in Rocky Mount, NC, United States

of America all the time. In these last few years, I was

gone every month overseas. Now, I didn't do that when the

kids were at home. And so we're we've been together

now more this last year then we have probably been together in

at least at least 15 years. At least 15 years.

Yeah. She's, yeah, she's, she's OK

with it. So there's been a massive

adjustment in our personal lives, to be honest with you.

So anyway, the other thing though, that we're still on

different schedules. I get up about an hour and a

half earlier than any of you probably.

I get up pretty early and I do that on purpose.

I told Mark Farrell the other day he was up at 4 something and

I said, well, call me, I'm up. And so I'm up early.

And I like that because I have a place where I sit and I, I study

the Bible right now. I'm, I just finished second

Timothy, I'm in Titus and I'm in numbers.

And this is a personal journaling.

This is my personal Bible study that I share with the staff

sometimes, but it's just what I do.

And I'm, I pray there in that seat.

Then I go exercise. This is almost every single day,

not every day, but almost probably five days a week at

least, if not 6. I have a little home set up and

I go exercise. I need to do that for my own

health, my strength at my age as well as my diabetes.

And so I'm in there exercising and I prayer aside.

OK, so I'm praying when I'm exercising.

Now Teresa's not in there. And so I, and then we have

posted prayer lists in our house.

So there are certain things where you think we should sit

down together, hold hands to look at each other across the

table with wide eyes and pray together over things.

We're praying over those things. We just have them in lists.

And so we have, there's a list back in our bedroom area and

there's a list in my exercise room.

And so every single day I'm praying for my family and

praying for the, you know, there's set things on these

lists. I also have the prayer request

from Wednesday nights that I'm praying for throughout the week.

And so does Teresa. So I'm up early, I'm normally

done with my quiet time. And so our interaction is a

little different, much of our interaction.

And I'm not saying don't, I'm not saying don't sit down

together and have this incredible organized, regularly

scheduled prayer time together. And some of you do that.

That's fantastic. That's wonderful.

It's a testimony. Great.

Keep doing it. I, I, I'm going to, I'm going to

repent and get to there. Maybe we do a lot of spontaneous

praying, praying. So we get text messages, we get

phone calls, we get emails. Somebody's in the hospital,

somebody like, like, I don't know if you know, you all know

Ernestine's in the hospital. A lot of you know Ernestine.

So when we hear that, we, we, we, we're, let's pray for

Ernestine or let's pray for this or let's pray for it.

So we just stop right then because if I'm going to sit

there and say to somebody, I'm praying for you, we're going to,

I usually just stop and pray for him right then.

So we do a lot of spontaneous praying as well.

We pray some before bed. So, you know, we do pray

together. We obviously are praying before

meals and we're not just asking the Lord to bless the food.

They're more extended than that. And at times we have also used

devotional books for couples, even if we're in separate

places. So sometimes I used to do this

at my son's too. I would have a copy of the book

and they would have a copy of the book.

And we might be in totally different parts of the country,

but we're reading the same thing every day and talking about it

later. So this is a new life pattern

for us. So pray for us that I'll get my

act together and that. But I, as I've mentioned to you

before, I am the praying all day long kind of guy.

So I promise you, I am talking to God.

I've been speaking to him about the demonic device called

artificial intelligence in the last several minutes.

So I'm constantly, I'm not, that's no joke.

So I'm in the office, we get stuff and and so we're, we're

constantly, I'm constantly talking to God back in my office

or in the truck. And so I really, I mean, that

really is the truth. I'm arguing with him all day

long, usually. Sometimes I'm a little like

Jacob and I lose, but and then I also prayer walk.

I pray, I prayer walk this room every week.

I pray prayer walk this room before the, the conference with

our students. I come in here all by myself,

especially during the week, and I pray sometimes over every seat

asking God to, to working live. So it's always frustrating when

nobody's in that seat or nothing happens, you know, with people.

My wife is, is a, a very sympathetic, empathetic person

as well. And so she's praying with others

all the time as well and lifting them up.

And you know, we, we pray for our families a lot.

We pray for our grandchildren, obviously a lot like many of you

grandparents do. And so, so for us, this is a,

it's a changing habit right now, I think a little bit for us and

we're going to continue to to grow in that.

And so you all can give us pointers and we would appreciate

that very much. So that's kind of what we're

doing. All right, so before we go,

here's what I want us to do. And I'm hesitant to do this

because of the translation difference.

This is going to be funny. So if you have a Bible or access

to a Bible, and we'll see how many different translations,

hopefully the word sin or debt will be the issue.

You turn to Matthew 6, and I thought we should say the Lord's

Prayer together. There's nothing wrong with

memorizing this prayer. There's nothing wrong with

praying this as long as it's not just ritualistic, as long as

it's not just something you're doing out of habit.

I, I want you to think about these words.

I want you to think about what this prayer really says.

So we're going to begin. We're not going to say pray then

like this, but we'll be in verse 9 and we'll start with our

Father. Are you ready?

Let's say it out loud together, our Father.

And how would be thy name your Kingdom come, your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day and forgive us

as we also, and lead us not. Yeah, some translations as you

all just read, thank you, end, end it differently and have that

that ending part while other other manuscripts did not have

it. And so it's it's interesting.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And it certainly, certainly doesn't take away any of the

theology. It just builds it and the fact

that it is, it is his Kingdom, it is his power and it is his

glory forever. And I hope that when you see the

Lord's Prayer, whether it's in the Bible or you see it along,

you know, it might be on a sign or piece of artwork or somewhere

along the line that you won't pass by it flippantly.

You won't rush by it. Don't, don't say it as fast as

you can. Stay as slowly as you can.

Chew on it, savour it. Recognize what you're doing.

I'm recognizing who God is. I'm recognizing my need, I'm

recognizing my dependency upon Him.

I'm recognizing the kind of person that I need to become

with His help so that I can be a good citizen of His Kingdom and

then to remind myself of who all this belongs to.

So let's pray to him right now and ask Him to help us to pray

as we should. Father, I'm thankful for that

day that your Holy Spirit LED a disciple to ask a question, the

only time in the scriptures. I wonder, Father, I wonder,

Father, as they walked the road together, how many times they

actually asked it. But Father, thank you for

recording it for us here, so that we'd know, so that we would

learn, so that we could grow, so that we could be better.

Father, forgive us when we just come with a shopping list.

Father, we recognize that's not who you are.

Father, One day, one day when we see you and we're there in your

presence and we really understand who you are.

Father, I'm thankful that in that day I won't have to look

back with remorse. I won't have to look back with

guilt. I won't have to look back and

recognize what a silly, silly little man I am.

Because when we're there, we'll have a new mind and a new body,

and we'll see things in a new way.

But Father, for now, even in the fog of the fallen creation, even

in the fog of our sinful nature, Lord, help us to see behind the

veil, to recognize the incredible awesomeness, the

wondrous opportunity we have to approach you.

You are indeed holy by name and by nature.

And so, Father, I pray that as we come to you in our prayer

life, Father, we won't. We won't hesitate to ask you

because you want us to. You won't.

We won't hesitate to bring our greatest needs, our greatest

burdens, our hurts, our anxieties, even things, Father,

that might be silly to somebody else.

Father, they're not going to be silly to you.

You want us to bring you those things.

But Lord, I just pray that we'll remember to start to begin by

thanking you and acknowledging you for listening to us and for

who You are, and then, Father, to recognize that we don't need

everything. We need what we need from you.

And you know exactly what that is.

And help us. Help us, Father, to be joyful in

that. So Father, bless us.

Lord, it's a big week. Father.

We had a lot of folks here last weekend.

We got a lot of folks coming this weekend.

Then we have Easter, a lot going on.

And so, Father, I pray that you'll give us energy and

endurance. Help us, Father, to stay

focused. Lord, we have some incredible

speakers coming this weekend who are going to talk about you and

Father. They're going to share the

gospel very clearly. And Father, I believe with all

my heart, we're going to have men saved.

And so, Father, help us, Lord, to be ready.

Help us to be prepared for that. And Father, I look forward to

Sunday that the family might gather together, all of us.

We might be in our connect groups.

We might be in our family ministries.

And Father, we'll engage in worship so that we can honor you

and actually recognize who you are and say so out loud.

So Father, bless us. Thank you, Father, for this

privilege in Christ's name, Amen.

Thank you so much for listening today.

And I also hope that you'll go to

[email protected] as well as our app and find many

other resources that will bless you and your families.

Thank you once again.