Lord Teach Us to Pray

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Matthew 6:6-9

 Introduction

Pray Like This

Pray - proseuchomai encompasses all the aspects of prayer -- submission, confession, petition, supplication (may concern one's own need), intercession (concerned with the needs of others), praise, and thanksgiving.

“Prayer is weakness leaning on omnipotence.” WS Bowden

1. The Disciple’s Prayer

 Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name – Where Authentic Prayer Begins

“There is no true intimacy with God without prayer.” A. Mohler

Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done – Whose Agenda is Our Concern Anyway?

Praying for His Kingdom to come reflects our allegiance to His sovereign rule over His Kingdom. 

Your kingdom come is related to Your will be done in the sense that a genuine, complete submission to God's will naturally flows out of an undivided, absolute allegiance to His Kingdom.

Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread – God’s Abundant Physical Provision

We are here taught to acknowledge our entire dependence on God for the supply of our daily necessities. 

Not "give me"! Intercede for others as well as ourselves!

Forgive Us Our Debts, As We also have Forgiven Our Debtors – The Prayer of God’s New Covenant People

Debts – that which is owed or obligations we have incurred. Sins are moral and spiritual debts to God that must be paid. 

Forgive –While it is a command to forgive, it is "activated" if you will only as we are willing to forgive those who have sinned against us. And this is turn is possible only as the Spirit energizes us giving us the desire to forgive and the power to forgive 

As - Jesus is setting up a comparison between the way we forgive and the way God forgives us.

If you want to experience God’s forgiveness, you MUST forgive others.

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Matthew 6:14-15      

Lead Us Not into Temptation, but Deliver Us From Evil - Fighting the Enemy Through Prayer

Temptation vs Testing

For Yours is the Kingdom and Power and the Glory Forever Amen!

“It would certainly be wrong to ignore the textual evidence and part of Matthew’s Gospel. We should never say something is part of Scripture that the author never intended. At the same time, it is not wrong to recite the Lord’s Prayer with the concluding doxology or to benefit from this tradition – so long as we understand the words are not themselves Scripture.” Al Mohler

This last line is nothing more than praise to God! These words can be seen throughout Scripture. Look at 1 Chronicles 29:11:

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.”

1. Conclusion

Pray Like This