Pray without Ceasing III Matt 6:9-24; Luke 11:1-4.

Pray Without Ceasing III

Matt 6:9-14; Luke 11:1-4

On two different occasions, the disciples of Jesus asked him how to pray. The presumption is, based on many times when Jesus got away from the disciples and the people in order to pray to his Heavenly Father. They saw Jesus doing this and saw that it was important. If Jesus prayed out loud, they would have heard his prayers, or perhaps, some of them. They wanted to learn how to engage in this grace. Their experiences in Judaism did not fully prepare them for life with Jesus in his kingdom. They wanted to realize all of the benefits, including prayer.

Jesus was fully God as well as fully man. Yet, he prayed to his heavenly Father. Jesus desired this special communion with the Father through prayer. And, he did it regularly. If Jesus needed to pray regularly as the Lord of all, the Son of God and the only perfect man, the conclusion we should draw is that we need to pray even more. That is one of the reasons praying without ceasing or learning to pray continually is of such importance.

God promises to bless his people as they pray and for praying.

In Psalm 145:18 we read: 18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. 19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. 

Those who call on the Lord according to truth, he will hear and act for them. It is not anyone anywhere who calls on some nebulous notion of God that will find the presence of God with them. It is those who know the truth, who live in the light of what prayer really is and pray in submission to God that his will will be done, are those who can expect the be near them. And, the Lord Himself will keep his promise to fulfill the desire of those who have an awesome and reverential awe of who God is, what they deserve, and what God withholds from them. It is to those who are humbled deep in their beings and understand their need to live unto God in humility, who will be heard and delivered. The blessings of prayer do not come upon anyone who calls on any idea of God. It is based on truth. We must not forget that. Remember the Psalmist wrote about regarding sin in his heart? The consequence of that is that the Lord will not hear. And, God's hearing is to hear, take up the concern and answer it according to his will. Being omniscient, God hears all prayers whether or not they are offered in faith according to the truth. This hearing is more than God's bare knowledge of what someone thought they prayed. It is a knowledge that God heard what was offered in faith and in accord with the truth, then he acted. It is prayer offered by those who have not kept sin hissed in their hearts. It is those who have had the sin driven out of them by the Word of God. Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against God. (Psalm 119:105).

The benefits of prayer are wonderful. James 4:8 reminds us if we draw near to God that he will draw near to us. How do we draw near to God? Through the means of grace he has given including worship, which includes prayer and prayer itself. Do you want God to draw close to you? Pray to him in truth and faith. 

The first place the disciples asked Jesus about prayer is near the beginning of his ministry. He called the Twelve, he started teaching them and they asked a most significant question about how to pray. If the Twelve were humble enough to ask, it is alright for us to admit that we need to learn more about prayer that we might be more pleasing to God and that we might know more of his presence. His presence will keep us from the worst of sins. We will know more of his presence. That is always a good thing.

This is that first teaching opportunity about how the disciples were to pray:

Matt 6:9-14 9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 

10 Your kingdom come.

Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 

11 Give us this day our daily bread. 

12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 

13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

The second time they asked was near the end of his ministry as they were travelling to Jerusalem together. This was about three years later. His instruction is almost identical. At the beginning of His ministry to the Twelve and at the end of it, they believed that they needed to learn to pray. It is a wonderful but twisted encouragement to us--if they needed to learn the basics of prayer after being with Jesus for over three years, we should not lose heart when we see ourselves as needing the same basic instruction. All of us need to be reminded of the basics, regularly. We tend to forget in the weakness of our flesh, including our minds. Jesus knows this about the disciples and he knows it about us. A regular prayer can be, Teach me to pray,  or for all of us, Teach us to pray? Perhaps this series is an answer to that prayer offered by one or more. We need to pray regularly, habitually and continually. May the Lord work that into the fiber of who we are and help us to follow through for our good and to see his glory in answered prayers.

In Luke 11:1-4, the disciples asked Jesus how to pray near the end of his ministry. The English translations have sin instead of debt in Luke 11. They are two sides of the same thing. Sin is debt owed to God. The wages of sin is a phrase borrowed from the world of commerce. Back in Matt 6, there are some ideas appended to the end, they are, For yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Those are truths worthy of affirming regularly. Life, all of life is about following God and showing forth his image as faithful believers living in the bright light of God's presence. Those differences are minor.  Since the prayer in Luke 11 is slightly shorter, I am using it for the purpose of teaching us how to use this prayer, committed to memory, to help us to pray without ceasing.

This is how Jesus instructed the disciples on the way to Jerusalem for the last time. Jesus knew he was going to die soon.

Jesus did not teach the disciples to repeat these phrases word by word. But, rather taught them to not pray it repeatedly as the heathen do. But, these are the sorts of things they are to pray.

The language in this passage reads, When you pray, say…. That does not mean that these very words are taught to be recited in Luke but forbidden to be repeated in Matthew. The generic verb for speak means to verbalize in some way: out loud, in the quietness of your mind, in words close to these or words that paraphrase what we find here. Speak what is on your mind. As we saw, do it in faith and in accord with the truth. Don't just sit in stillness--which is another means the heathen used thinking they were emptying themselves in order to be filled with some other power. Jesus refutes that with one word. Speak--prayer is an activity in which the prayers are involved. It is never passive--even if we are listening to others in corporate prayer. We join their concerns to our own as we pray silently while another prays publically. 

Luke gives us the words of Jesus to inform our prayers. I want to read the words and make some observations and give some directions about how to pray. We have been using two or three of these phrases each week in our prayer meeting. But, this can be used personally as well as corporately. In Matt, this instruction comes after Jesus told the Disciples to go into their prayer closets in order to pray undistractedly. Listen to the prayer and then to the suggestions:

THE PRAYER

 “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.^[b]

Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.

 Give us day by day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is sinned against us.

And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”

Amen

THE EXPOSITION REGARDING ITS USE FOR PRAYER

1. Our Father in heaven,

A. Thank God for adopting us as his children that we might know him as Father?

B. Thank God for the grace of adoption when added to justification ought to amaze us?

2. Hallowed be Your name.

Hallowed means to treat the name as special, as sanctified and different than us. God is much greater than anything or anyone is his creation. We should never think of God in Human terms--to remake him in our own image. But, so many in our time are doing this again. I say again, because in the later 19th century and the early 20th century, scholars did this and they were considered unorthodox. In our day, they are often praised as creative or as being a breath of fresh air. New ways of looking at old things have become popular. They are dangerous and many approach what was taught by heretics of old.

There is nothing new to be gleaned from God's truth. What is new is probably not true. We must be discerning and test all things by the Word of God, by the truth, even through prayer.

A. Pray that we would honor and respect the name of God--even more than we do our earthly parents.

B. Pray for the Lord's safekeeping of our tongue lest we use God's name in vain--many professing Christians undermine their testimony by using God's hallowed name in empty and vain ways. How the Spirit must be grieved. Pray for the fruit of the Spirit to help us with self-control. Some children have picked up this sin from their parents and other adults. It is shameful. Pray this would stop and repentance would be given.

C. Pray that we would live with reverence to God in holy fear

Pray 3. Your kingdom come.

A. Pray the kingdom would come in our lives personally as we submit to God's Word, the commands of the God who gave them to us because he loves us and wants to be loved by us.

B. Pray the kingdom would continue to come where we meet corporately as Christ's church and as we minister to one another

C. Pray the kingdom would spread over the whole earth as the gospel goes forth and that we would pray for what we call missions. It is really the outstretched arm of the body of Christ.

D. Pray for holy boldness to be a soldier of the kingdom--ready to go wherever called whether it be close to us or far away.

4. Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.

A. Pray that we would listen to the scriptures in order to know and live God's will

B. Pray the will of God, being known would eclipse our own concerns--that it would renew our minds (Rom 12:1-2)

C. Pray we would speedily do God's will as the inhabitants of heaven, the angels, teach us to do.

5. Give us day by day our daily bread.

A. Pray the Lord would continue to supply all we truly need each day

B. Pray for forgiveness as we have so much yet covet so much more

C. Pray we would be a thankful people for the abundance available to us

6. And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is sinned against us.

A. Pray the Lord for general forgiveness of our sins

B. Take some time to pray quietly confessing your own private sins.

C. Pray for our national sins a our country turns further and further away from God and his Word

7. And do not lead us into temptation,

A. Pray for strength in weakness

B. Pray temptation would be kept far from us

C. And, pray that we might not know the temptations from which we have been kept

8. But deliver us from the evil one.”

A. Pray this knowing it is our good

B. Pray this knowing it is for God's glory

C. Thanks be to God!  Amen

Commit these verses to memory. Use them as you have down time to remind you to pray. Use these words for yourself. Use them as you pray for your family and friends. Use them as you pray for the church in particular here at Heritage and for the church-at-large wherever it may be found.

We do this so that the Glory of God might fill the earth more and more--if it be God's will.

Pray to God that you might know his love Psalm 86:5.

Pray the Lord Jesus would increase your faithfulness to pray as told in Col 4:2--devote yourselves to prayer. Knowing as God was to his ancient people, the Lord is still near to us. What a blessing is ours.

Pray so others would see the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and be drawn to his good news of salvation. For he alone can renew the hearts of men and women so they will give themselves to do what God commands. It is one of the greatest values given to the saints--free access to the eternal, almighty, God who loves us. And, that he might hear us and act for our good and his glory. Oh, to see the brightness of that glory in us, among us and from us to others that they might believe in Jesus. AMEN!