WWUTT 1958 Pray Then Like This (Matthew 6:9-13)

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In Matthew chapter 6 we find what is called the Lord's Prayer. And it's not that this is the highest prayer that has ever been prayed, but it certainly is a lesson that Jesus gives to us, his disciples, on how to pray when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study in the Word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in the Sermon on the

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Mount, and we are up to the Lord's Prayer. So let me begin where I left off yesterday.

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I'll start reading in verse 9. Let's go through verse 15 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the

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Lord. Pray then in this way. Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.

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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.

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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.

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Amen. For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

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But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

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Now, this is considered by many to be the greatest prayer. But I don't really think that we should give it that label.

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There are many other prayers in the Bible. All of the Psalms are prayers, for example.

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Those are prayers that have been given by God. So would this prayer, even though it's the prayer that Jesus used to teach his disciples how to pray, would we consider that to be the greatest prayer?

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It's really not in and of itself a prayer, technically speaking, because Jesus is not praying this.

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He's teaching his disciples how to pray and using this as a blueprint for prayer.

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So that's really the better way to look at the Lord's Prayer. This is a blueprint on how to pray. It's not that it's wrong to pray the

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Lord's Prayer, and it's not that it's wrong that corporately we pray the Lord's Prayer. You've probably been in a church service where everybody recites the prayer together.

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That's a good thing. Everybody has it memorized, so we can all say it together. It's good to do that with the

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Psalms as well, though. Start memorizing Psalms as a congregation and be able to pray those together.

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But Jesus teaches us how to pray here with six petitions. We see six petitions in this prayer, and they're all intended to teach us on how we communicate with God.

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Now, when you read this in the book of Luke, it's as if the disciples have indeed asked him, Lord, teach us to pray.

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And then Jesus shows them how with Luke's rendition of the Lord's Prayer. This one in particular, we have this conclusion in verse 13 that says,

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For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. That's not in every translation.

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In fact, even when you read it in the Legacy Standard Bible, the translation that I read from, you have that conclusion in brackets, which indicates that it was not in the earliest manuscripts from the

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Gospel of Matthew. So what are we to make of that conclusion? Where does it come from? I'll get to that here in just a moment.

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But let's look at the six petitions. And if you have any kind of catechism book, and I'm talking more like the

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Westminster Catechism or the Baptist Catechism, then you will find these six petitions in that catechism.

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For example, in the Baptist Catechism, question 105, the question is, what is prayer?

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Answer, prayer is an offering up of our desires to God by the assistance of the

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Holy Spirit for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ, believing with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgements of His mercies.

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There's a definition of prayer from the Baptist Catechism. Going on to question 106, what rule has

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God given for our direction in prayer? Answer, the whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer.

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But the special rule of direction is that prayer which Christ taught His disciples, commonly called the

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Lord's Prayer. And then you'll have some references underneath that particular question and answer. One of those questions, or one of those references rather, being

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Matthew 6, 9 to 13, which is what we have read here today. So then in the questions following that, it goes through the different petitions.

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And why don't I go ahead and do that for you here? So I'll go through the petitions in the catechism and expound on that a little bit more.

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So question 107, what doth the preface of the Lord's Prayer teach us?

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What is the preface of the Lord's Prayer? Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

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So answer, the preface of the Lord's Prayer, which is Our Father which art in heaven, teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a

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Father, able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others.

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Now consider this, when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, Our Father who is in heaven.

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This is the first time in the Bible that there has ever been an address to the people of God like this, that they can call upon God as Father.

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There are no references in the Old Testament to God being called Father, except for one or two.

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For example, in the Psalms, you have the reference that God is a father to the fatherless, and a keeper of widows is

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God in His holy habitation. But there's nothing in which the people of God really call upon Him or address

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Him as Father. Jesus is teaching us to do that. And He calls

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God Father. The Son calls the Father by that title. And all of us who've been adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ, we are adopted by His blood.

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We become sons and daughters of God. So through Christ, we can call upon Him as our

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Father. This is the first time in Scripture that's been taught. So this was a revolutionary thing at the time that Jesus would have been saying this to His disciples.

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And even the people, the scribes, and the Pharisees would have been listening to this going, because we know by what they say later, this man calls

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God his Father? He does not get to call God Father like that, because that puts

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Him on the same level with God, that the Son can call the Father by that name.

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Jesus is saying, you can call the Father by that name, not because you're God's, but because you are

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God's apostrophe S. You know what I mean? You don't become God's yourselves, but you become

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God's children. And so therefore, you can call upon your Father who is in heaven.

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You can call Him your Father. What an intimate title that is. See, this is an address of intimacy that the people of God have never experienced with God before.

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And so Jesus is bringing His own disciples into the presence of the Lord by these intimate phrases.

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Now, it's not that we think of God as being our cosmic dad. He's like, Daddy, we can wrestle within the grass, or something like that.

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He's still God. He's not the same as your earthly father. He is still judge and ruler over all.

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So just like is said in the answer to this catechism question, we still must have great reverence.

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And that particular title is used in reverence. It's not some, you know, elbow -y, wrestle -with -dad, daddy sort of a title.

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This is a reverent title, just like you might call the king or the head over a kingdom a father.

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So is our heavenly Father. He is our Father who is in heaven.

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Such a reverent title is that because it means He is over all. He's head over all, and there's no one above Him.

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So going on to the next question, question 108, mentions the first petition.

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So that first one was not the petition. It was actually the introduction to the Lord's Prayer, what we call the preface to the prayer, our

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Father who is in heaven. The next one is the first petition. What do we pray for in the first petition?

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Answer? In the first petition, which is, hallowed be your name, we pray that God would enable us and others to glorify

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Him in all that whereby He makes Himself known, and that He would dispose all things to His glory.

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So we recognize that He is holy, and to be holy means to be set apart.

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So even if somebody does not have a knowledge of the Scriptures, they can still recognize that God is set apart from all things, that He is holy and high above all that He has made.

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How do we know that? Because you can look at all of creation, and you see the evidence of His design, but you do not see

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Him Himself present with the design. So He is set apart from that. He is above it.

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He rules and reigns over it. He is holy. We can also look around and perceive that not all things are perfect.

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Everything has been subject to corruption. It's all wasting away and coming to nothing, whereas God will never change.

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He will always be above it. He will always be perfect, and nothing's ever going to bring

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Him down from His position. Just by these natural observations, we can know that God is holy and set above all things.

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What we have said here at the beginning of this prayer is not yet revolutionary, except for the statement, But to say,

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Hallowed be Your name, that's something that even unbelievers can know.

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Even they can recognize without the Scriptures telling them that the name of God is above every name, and that He is holy.

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His name is to be revered. It is not to be misused. I do believe by natural generation that people can come to that understanding without the

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Scriptures having to tell them so. Although it is certainly through the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit convicts the heart, that people recognize they have not used

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God's name in a glorious, hallowed, reverent way. We hear that in the

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Ten Commandments. You will not misuse the name of God. The Third Commandment.

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You will not use the name of the Lord your God in vain. So when we hear that in the Commandments, that's to convict our hearts and recognize,

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I have misused the name of God. When we come to God in prayer, we are to revere

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Him as holy. Don't think of prayer as being some sort of a flippant thing.

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I'm just doing it because I'm a Christian, and everybody else is doing it. Maybe this is the thing I'm supposed to do too. What a privilege it is that we get to talk to the

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Creator who made everything, and He hears us, and listens to us, and even wants to hear from us.

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What a privilege that is. And so every time we come to God in prayer and we bow our heads, we should be recognizing, this is amazing.

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I'm talking to the God who made all. And so therefore, I want to be careful with my words.

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Perhaps you're familiar with the praise and worship song, You are God in heaven, here am I on earth, so let my words be few.

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That's taken from the book of Ecclesiastes anyway. So it's scripture that's been changed into a worship song.

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But I love that song, because surely, you're God in heaven, I'm here on earth. I want the words that I pray to God to be meaningful.

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I don't want to prattle on about whatever. I'm getting to address God. So if you could enter into the throne room of God, you've got five minutes to say whatever you want to say.

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What are the best words you're going to choose for the God who made all things? Now consider, you can enter into the throne room of God, and talk to him whenever you want.

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We have access to God through Jesus Christ. The wonderful, amazing thing about that.

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That we have an advocate before the Father, as I said to you yesterday, quoting from 1 John 2.

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So Jesus speaks favorably of us before the Father, that we may call upon him as Father.

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You have time right now to pray to God. What are you going to say? Make every word count. And may it be worthy of him who sits enthroned above all things.

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Hallowed be your name. That's the first petition. The second petition. So question 109 in the catechism.

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What do we pray for in the second petition? Answer, in the second petition, which is your kingdom come, we pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed, and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced.

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Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened.

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Your kingdom come. We want these things to advance here on the earth, that more people would come into the kingdom, hearing the gospel, turning from sin, turning to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That Satan's advancements would be stymied, even destroyed as the church progresses.

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The gates of hell will not prevail against what God has called the church to do.

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So we pray, humbly before God, your kingdom come. And every time we see somebody come into the kingdom, confess

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Christ is Lord, they're baptized, they're walking with Jesus. When we see that happen, we've got one more person added to the kingdom of God, and God's kingdom continues to advance on this earth.

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Your kingdom come. There may also be behind that the desire that Christ would return.

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Certainly that can be wrapped up in that petition as well. Just as John says at the end of the book of Revelation, Lord Jesus come quickly.

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Maranatha, Jesus come. Next petition, question 110. What do we pray for in the third petition?

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Answer. In the third petition, which is, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray that God, by His grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to His will in all things, as the angels do in heaven.

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Now consider this. From a heavenly vantage point, God's will is known.

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It is seen from a certain vantage point that we don't get to see here. We don't yet see here.

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Things in heaven work differently than they do here on earth. We don't live on some sort of linear timeline in heaven like we do here on earth.

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So what are we able to see in heaven that we can't see from the vantage point that we have on earth? When we ask

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God, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, it's as though we are asking of Him, can we see your will done as you see your will done?

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The way those in heaven see it accomplished, can we see it accomplished here on earth?

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And may your will be done. It's also taking our minds and conforming them to the mind of Christ.

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Not my will, but yours be done. Jesus prayed that very thing in the garden of Gethsemane before he went to the cross.

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Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me. Not my will, not what

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I will, but what you will. If Jesus prayed that to the Father, how much more does it behoove us to pray the same way?

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Didn't think I could pull a word like that. Behoove, right? Question 111, what do we pray for in the fourth petition?

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Answer, in the fourth petition, which is give us this day our daily bread, we pray that of God's free gift, we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life and enjoy

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His blessing with them. I think there's something else to this petition as well.

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The fact that we're saying give us this day our daily bread seems to imply that we're beginning our day with prayer.

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We don't get to the end of the day and ask that God would give us the provisions that we need. We start the day that way.

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So, this prayer appears to imply we should begin by praying. Now, this is a difficult discipline for me because I don't know about you, but the first thing

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I do when I wake up is what? Shirley, you're doing the same thing, right? The first thing you do when you wake up is you grab your phone and you check your messages.

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Be honest. You know you do. Either you're pulling up Facebook or Twitter or your email or your text messages, whatever it is.

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That's the first thing you do when you wake up. I don't want that to be my mindset because then I feel like I'm enslaved to my mobile device for the rest of the day.

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I want the first thought that I have when I wake up to be to thank God for this day. That's the discipline that I'm working on for myself.

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I want to pray the moment my eyes are open and I'm ready to go with the day.

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Then I can check my phone, hop in the shower, whatever else. But I'm beginning the day praying that God would supply for me those things that I need today.

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And not just daily bread in the sense that I need nourishment for my own physical body, but daily bread even in the sense that I need spiritual food.

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That God would provide for me today those spiritual things that I may grow in holiness and righteousness and sanctification before him.

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That's what we desire, we ask for in the fourth petition.

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Question 112, what do we pray for in the fifth petition? Answer, in the fifth petition, which is, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins, which we are rather encouraged to ask because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.

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So we ask that God give us that ability to forgive others.

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We ask that he forgive our debts, and as he has forgiven us, so we pray as he has freely pardoned our sins, we likewise are not holding the sins of others against them.

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Those things they've done against us, what we've done against God is far worse, and yet he forgives us, so may

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I have that same heart to extend that forgiveness to others. Now this verse, this particular petition, also ties in with verses 14 and 15, and I may not get to that today.

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In fact, I tell you what, with regard to that closing to the Lord's Prayer and verses 14 and 15,

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Becky and I will talk about this on Friday. How about that? So that's going to be one of the Q &A questions on Friday as we come back to the closing of the

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Lord's Prayer. We have that next petition in verse 13. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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What is the sixth petition? In the sixth petition, which is, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, we pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

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Now remember that earlier in Matthew, when Jesus went into the wilderness, this was in chapter four, it said that the

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Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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As it said in the book of James, God himself does not tempt. He doesn't tempt us, but he might put us in the way of a trial.

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God said that very thing to Israel, that they are being tested. If a false prophet comes in among you, this is

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Deuteronomy 13 and in chapter 18, if a false prophet comes in and he prophesies all these signs and wonders and they come to pass, but then he tells you, let us fall after other gods.

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Do not listen to that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord is testing you to see if you love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So the Lord will test us.

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He is not the one who tempts, but he will put us in a place of testing.

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And so when we pray this, when we ask this, do not lead us into temptation. It's not that God leads us into temptation.

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We're just asking that God would keep us from those things that would tempt us, guard us and protect us. May we pass the test, deliver us from the schemes of the evil one.

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Jesus didn't fall into the snares of Satan. So may we follow in that same way after Christ.

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And then lastly, we have this conclusion to the Lord's prayer. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

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Amen. Which is not in the original manuscript, by the way, but the catechism says this teaches us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only and in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom power and glory to him.

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And in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say, amen.

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The conclusion to the Lord's prayer is actually taken from first Chronicles. It's first Chronicles 29, 11.

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Yours O Yahweh is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.

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And some overzealous Byzantine scribe grabbed that from first Chronicles 29 and pulled it over into Matthew chapter six.

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But that's something I'm going to talk a little bit more about on Friday when we come to the

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Q &A portion of our podcast. So in the meantime, we have this beautiful prayer that Jesus has taught us how to pray and all of these different petitions, may they become a blueprint for us that we would put into our prayers.

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As said in the catechism, all the scriptures have been given to us to teach us how to pray.

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You can use the scriptures and pray the scriptures to God, but then taking these petitions, even from the

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Lord's prayer and crafting your prayer based on these petitions. May we worship

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God as he has said he is to be worshiped. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you have taught us here in your word today.

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And we ask as we've been taught to pray, your kingdom to come, your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today all the things that we need for this day. Those things you wonderfully provide for us, lovingly, caringly, that we may have sustenance for our day and even the spiritual food that we need, that we may have the mind of Christ and grow all the more in his likeness.

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Let us not be led into temptation. Deliver us from the schemes of the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

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Amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals and other resources online at www .tt