Jeff Durbin:The Lord's Prayer - Part 3

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Calvinism Sermon: God Saves. Not Man. (Part 4 in series)

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We are in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus gives to us, not only in this text, the most popular sermon in the history of the world, but also the most popular prayer in the history of the world.

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And so, Matthew chapter six, we're in the Lord's Prayer, we're going to start at verse seven.

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Hear now the words of the living and true God. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the

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Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your

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Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this, our

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Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly

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Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your

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Father forgive your trespasses. As far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray together and ask for God's blessing.

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God, thank you for you've given your word to us. Father, we love you and we're just so sorry, we're so broken and we ask for your forgiveness,

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God, collectively, for our falling short, for our lack of prayer,

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Lord, thank you so much that you love us with an everlasting love, and that you set that love upon us before the world even began, and thank you that you,

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Father, chose to save, to give us mercy, knowing all about us when you did it, and Lord Jesus, we worship you now.

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Let our prayers rise up to you, God, and be glorifying to you.

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Help, God, me, as I teach your people today, I pray that you would speak through me to your people,

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I pray that you would shape us all by the prayer life of Jesus.

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Help us to know how to pray. I just pray, Lord, as we come out of this text that we have been studying,

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I pray that we would not walk away unchanged. I pray that you, even today, would work in our mind and our hearts,

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Lord, to challenge us, come to you in prayer like you call us to.

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God, that the fact that you even ask us to come to you and to speak to you cannot be fully understood by us,

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I know that, God, but help us, Lord, to see how much you want us to come to you as Father, and to speak, and to ask, and seek,

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God, work, Lord, in this message through a jar of clay. Allow me to get out of the way today, and I pray that you teach by your spirit, in Jesus' name.

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Amen. So, we've talked through this series. I'll give you a little bit of a summary today, since it's the very last one.

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We've talked about the fact that in history, you have so many examples, great examples of people who have been redeemed, people who are sinners, people who are absolutely broken in themselves.

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They've been washed by God, cleansed by God, they've been given mercy by God, written books on prayer, and sometimes really, really amazing books on prayer.

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I mention sort of as a highlight, because I want to kind of nudge you towards it. I don't think that anybody really prayed like the

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Puritans. Their theology was so full, and rich, and deep. For the

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Puritans, theology was not merely about what happened inside of your head, and what you could explain.

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It was really about life, and how really what you believe gets legs on it, and starts walking around in the world.

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And so, if you read things like this little book, it's on my shelf, I encourage you guys to get it on your shelf, The Valley of the

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Vision, and it's the prayers of the Puritans. I mean, it is really, really amazing. It'll make you feel kind of small, because you can see how their theology impacted how they talked to God.

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And I do think that their time in the Psalms definitely impacted their prayer life.

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So here's the thing, if you want to learn how to pray better, and worship God a lot better, I think you need to spend time in the

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Psalms, which I think is what Jesus did a lot of. That's the worship, that's the worship ceremony right there.

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It's just popping off constantly about how great God is, and how much we hurt, and there's so much honesty and integrity in the

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Psalms. Coming to God, not as we're supposed to be, as we often try to do in our prayers, is really try to look like we're supposed to be, but the

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Psalms really is a lot of brokenness, and it's coming to God as we are. We ought to do that, and the prayers of the

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Puritans were just amazing. I think it's important for us to learn, again, from the people that have come before us, and spent time with our

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Savior, to learn from them, to learn from their theology, from their life of prayer, and to be changed by it.

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Of course, I think that's important. Paul basically says, he says, follow me as I follow

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Jesus, and I think we should do that with great saints in history. But there is nobody that has a better prayer life than Jesus, obviously.

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I've talked about something foundational, I wanted us all to grab it, because it is so utterly unique.

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I mean, you have paganism rampant all around us, and there's so many false religions out there that are ultimately just pagan.

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I mean, even Mormonism, that borrows Christian terminology and tries to look Christian as ultimately polytheistic, right, just believes in many gods, is just a typical man -made religion.

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It's pagan, it's many gods, right? But even religions like Islam and Judaism today that are monotheistic, they believe there's only one

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God. Listen, there's a distinction there. People say there are these three great monotheistic faiths in the world.

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There is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Yeah, they're all monotheistic. Islam borrows from Christianity and Judaism.

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Judaism today is not true Jewishness, Christianity is Jewish. It's the true

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Jews, the heirs of Abraham, okay? So they're monotheistic, yes, but listen, Judaism and Islam believe in only one person who is

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God. So one God, one person, just one God. But what's unique and distinct about Christianity, and it really is in the

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Old and New Testaments, it's one unified message, is it's one God who exists eternally as three co -equal and co -eternal persons,

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Trinity is the foundation for so much, and I can't ... I'm resisting talking about what that so much is right now.

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I'd love to do it, but we need to finish the Lord's Prayer at some point in the next 10 years, okay?

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But the Trinity is foundational, but here's what's important about the Lord's Prayer, and I want to make sure that if you get anything from the message in terms of why it's important to listen to Jesus when he tells you how to pray, you have to get the

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Trinity, and how beautiful it is, not simply how heady it is, and grand it is, and how distinct it is from the religions of the world, but you need to really get the beauty of this,

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Jesus teaching you to pray. John chapter 1, verse 1, you know it, right?

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

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Word was God. That one little passage from the

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Gospel according to John, I think is something that you could spend your whole life talking about, diving into, and treasuring, and you will never ever really plumb its depths, you will never really be able to fully understand really the glory of Jesus, how things come into being except through him, and that God became flesh, the

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Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, there's so much there, but in the sense of the Lord's Prayer, and thinking about the

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Lord's Prayer, and Jesus' relationship to the Father, I think this should be something that we really let really connect to us, to our hearts and minds, so I want you to just think about it for a second.

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In the beginning was the Word, enarchein hologos, I want you to memorize that because it's important, let's do it together, enarchein hologos, you do it after me, ready, enarchein hologos, in the

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Greek, enarchein hologos, in the Greek what that really means is, as far back as you want to go to the beginning, push it back as far as you want to go forever, no stopping point, just keep going, the

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Word was already there, Jesus was already there, he's eternal, he's always existed, so John is telling you something that means a lot when you think about the

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Lord's Prayer, Jesus telling you how to talk to the Father, this is important, he's had a really good relationship with him for a long time, you should listen to how he tells you to speak to him, do you get it?

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There's a relationship there, what's a father like? Well, Jesus can tell you, he can explain him to you, which is actually what

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John says further down, listen, John chapter one, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God, all things came into being through him and nothing came into being except through him, the

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Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and then it says this, it says, no one has seen God at any time, but the monogamous theos, the unique and one -of -a -kind

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God, Jesus, who is in the Father's bosom, he has explained him, he has exegeted him, he has told us about the

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Father, he's explained him to us, so watch, Jesus has always existed, and it says, enarchein halagos, kai halagos ein prostom theon, kai halagos ein prostom theon, prostom theon in the

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Greek is toward God, face to face with God, so Jesus, the one telling us how to pray here in the

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Lord's Prayer, is the one that's always existed forever and ever and ever, yeah, but who made him?

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Where'd he come from? Well, he didn't come from anywhere, he's always existed for all eternity, before the mountains brought forth, from everlasting to everlasting, you are

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God, yeah, but really, who made Jesus? No, nobody made Jesus, he's always existed forever and ever and ever, well, what was it like there?

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Was he bored? Was he somehow lacking delight and joy?

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What was it like for God to always exist before he made us? What was it like before God to exist, before there were stars, before there was the

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Milky Way, before there were, like, baboons to look at, which are really crazy creatures, where, where, where was, where, what was

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God doing before there were, like, really crazy, creepy spiders fighting praying mantises, like, before that action was taking place, like, what was it like, what was it like, but when there were no, there was no dancing, what was it like when there was no, like, food, like, beautiful banquet to, like, to eat, like, from where, what was it like when there were no oceans and beaches to hang out on, what was it like before there was

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Guinness? I don't know, like, think about it, like, before all the sensations that we have today, what was it like for God?

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Well, here's what it was like, it was perfection and bliss and delight and fellowship forever between the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, lacking in utterly nothing, perfect intimacy, no sin, no brokenness, nothing was distorted, it was delight and happiness forever, it says in the

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Bible that God is the happy God, do you believe that? Forever, needing nothing from you or from me, he doesn't need your praise, it wasn't like he made people because he was lacking in, like, oh, like, he's just, he really, you know, he does well with me, like,

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I'm hot stuff, like, before the world began, he looked through history and he was, like, trying to wade through, like, people and he was, like, not that one, not that one, oh, you, and you were just standing there, like, he's, like, that one,

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I'm gonna get that one because this one is just amazing and I would be so incomplete if I don't have this one right here, it's nothing like that,

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God really was looking through time and seeing nothing but a graveyard of wicked, dead, hostile rebels, that's what he saw, and so he didn't need you to make him happy, he didn't need you to bring him glory, listen, here's the thing, if he doesn't have you bringing him glory, all of creation would do it anyways, the stars would bring glory to God, rocks would bring glory to God, as a matter of fact, when everyone's shouting and praising,

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Hosanna, Hosanna, when Jesus comes into Jerusalem, as prophesied, by the way, on a donkey, their king coming now, and tell your people to shut up,

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Jesus, and Jesus tells them, like, look, if they stop, the rocks are gonna start screaming, so why don't you let them, like, why don't you let them, like, that's the truth, is that this is this

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God who is so perfect and in need of absolutely nothing, and yet he gives us so much, and you see in John chapter one, he's always existed, he's existed face -to -face with the

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Father in this intimate relationship with the Father, and everything God was, John says, Jesus was

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God, the Word was God, okay, so that's who we have talking to us, no

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Puritan had that intimacy with the Father, nobody, Athanasius didn't have that intimacy with the

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Father, the Westminster divines didn't have that intimacy with the Father, they caught a little glimpse of the

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Father in their relationship with God they had for, like, 60 years on earth, after, by the way, being a rebel against him, and hostile, and at war with him for just a bit, right, but now they're in Christ, and they tell you how to pray, but now

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Jesus comes, and this is like the grandmaster of prayer, he's had this perfect relationship with the

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Father forever, and he can tell you what it's like to talk to him, so we should listen. Now, I want to say this, because I was thinking this week as I was praying about finishing this message up,

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I want to tell you this, this is really important, I was thinking about, okay, like, what have I missed, what have I failed to communicate, and as I was praying about it, and thinking about, like, what maybe have

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I failed to communicate going through the Lord's Prayer, I thought about something that when Jesus gives us a

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Lord's Prayer, it's not meant to be this rote prayer that you just keep reciting over, and over, and over, mindlessly, and it's just stuff that you say,

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I mean, it really, that's really dry if you think about it, and I think one of the things that we all want to get away from is the kind of hypocritical religion that is just merely lip service, where it's not really in the heart, and I think if we turn the

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Lord's Prayer into something we just simply quote, then I think that we're falling into the very thing that Jesus tells us not to do one verse ahead of it, and that's what, he says, when you pray, don't be like the

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Gentiles with empty phrases, where you just babble, so what should you not do with the Lord's Prayer? Turn it into empty phrases, where you're just saying it to say it, like, oh,

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I did my Lord's Prayer, my duty today, right, I said my thing, right, I said what Jesus told me to say, and so it's like a magical prayer, that's like Eastern mysticism, guys, that's not

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Christianity, and Jesus, I think what we, I don't want to fail to communicate to you,

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Jesus gives to you a pattern of prayer, he's telling you prayer is like this, this is how you talk to the

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Father, this is what he wants you to do when you come to him, this is how he wants you to enter into his presence, hey,

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I know the Father, I've known him forever, and when I talk to him, this is how

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I talk to him, you should follow me, this is what he likes to hear from you, this is what he wants to hear from you, and so as you get into the

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Lord's Prayer, you need to recognize that it's a pattern of prayer that Jesus gives to us, and it's really giving you the nuts and bolts of what it's like to have an intimate relationship of conversation with the

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Father, this is what it's like to talk to the Father, the one who made everything, who sustains you even as you sit, the one who actually gives you your heart, said this last, said, you know, it's going super fast, and God's pinning everything together and holding on to you, making sure that your molecules don't blow apart and fly out into space, that God, he wants to talk to you, he's given you his revelation, his word, creation, shouts to you constantly, but there's something else he's given to us, he's given to us his

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Son, who speaks to us, he walks among us, and Jesus has a prayer life that blows yours and mine away, better than that, it's blown away the prayer life of any saint in history, no matter how godly,

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Jesus does something in prayer that I think is hard for us to do, right, like people wake up and they're like, where's

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Jesus, like I got up to use the bathroom, the sun's not up yet, I'm looking around for Jesus, he was just laying over here on this rock, where is he at now, oh, he's gone to that mountain over there before the sun even rose to go and meet with the

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Father, and he didn't ever do it out of like mere obligation, like I'm the

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Messiah, I must do this, right, he did it because he wanted to, like he spent time with the

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Father because he loved being in the Father's presence, he loved to talk to the Father, that's the kind of relationship of prayer that Jesus has with the

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Father, and here's the thing, you might say to yourself, well, here's the thing, I'm not God in the flesh, I'm not perfect, and I don't have a lot of strength like Jesus does, like, and so I don't know that I can have that kind of prayer life, well, here's the point,

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Jesus is the image of God, he's what man, men and women were supposed to be like in God's world, so God creates his image in the garden, and he says, now you're to image me into the world, and so we completely fail at that,

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Israel fails at that, Jesus comes in, and he says, no, it's like this, like Adam didn't do this, this is how you're supposed to live in God's world as his image, he's the perfect image of God, and watch, the

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Father is constantly pointing to Jesus going, it's like this, guys, it's like this, this is how you're supposed to live in my world, this is what

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I made you for, this is the kind of relationship that I intended for my image to give back to me, this is what

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I wanted it to be like, and so Jesus gets up, rises early, early in the morning, my prayer shall rise to thee, right, like it's, that's in the

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Psalms, right, and so Jesus, like, it's so funny, don't you love it, like, it's kind of awkward for me,

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I kind of feel challenged when, like, the Psalm will come up here, and we're singing it together, and it's like,

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Lord, I lift my hands to you, and everyone's in here like, Lord, I lift my hands to you, like, you realize you're lying in worship, right, like, you're sinning right now in worship, right, isn't it crazy, like,

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Lord, we fall to our knees, and everyone's like, like,

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I mean in my heart, God, like, in my heart, I'm on my knees right now, right, or something like, you know what

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I mean, like, but Jesus takes it, like, really serious, like, he's, he's taking the Psalms, like, literal, like, early in the morning, my prayers, my song rises to you,

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Jesus, Jesus doesn't say it with his lips and not really do it, he actually does it, some of you guys are like, oh boy,

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Pastor Jeff's trying to get me up early in the morning to pray, maybe, but Jesus, when he tells us how to pray, and again, this is sort of a summary of, of, of the beginning part of prayer, but before he gets a forgiveness, watch, this is important, again, it's not about just, like, saying a certain prayer, because Jesus says

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Gentiles do that, and it's like, babble, don't do that, don't speak to God in that way, it's a really low way to talk to God, you don't talk to any person like that, so stop doing that to God, what if, what if people did that, right, like, we talked about this, you have a friend who, when they come to you, every time they come to you, they say the same memorized script, how awful would that be to have a relationship with that person, tell the truth, you wouldn't hang out with them, like, ever, right, if every time you walked up to them, when they greeted you, it was the same thing, they were like, y 'all, y 'all, no, no, you would, you'd be like,

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I, that's not a relationship I really, like, care about having, like, this person's kind of weird, or your, your mind is set on what matters to God, your mind is set on the things of God, your mind is set on God, notice how the prayer starts, it says, our

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Father in heaven, first point you have to get is that it's interesting that Jesus calls him Father, in that day, they were very superstitious about the name of God, I mean, we talked about the fact that scribes in history, when they would write down, like, text of the

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Bible, when they got to the name Yahweh, they would stop, wash their hands from fingertip to elbow, they would change the pen or writing device, and they would continue writing, imagine writing

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Isaiah, every time you get to Yahweh, you have to stop and wash your hands, you need, like, a lot of, like, myrrh, and frankincense, and stuff that, you know, some essential oils, got to, you know, whatever you got to do to stop it from being chapped, but that's what they did, and so now

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Jesus says, our Father in heaven, compare that to Gentiles who don't even know

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God, he says, don't be like a Gentile when they pray, it's just meaningless phrase, it's just babble, they don't know God, so of course they talk to God like that, they think they're going to be heard for their many words, they think because they pray a lot and say a lot of stuff, that somehow they're manipulating

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God, like, who's really going to hear me now because I'm saying a lot of stuff to them, he's not fooled by that, and Jesus says he already knows what you need before you even ask him, so you go into his presence, and you're talking to God about things that he already knows about, like, before the world even began, he knew and decreed that you would actually have this moment where things fell apart, he controlled it so much to give himself glory, and he puts you on your knees, and he decrees that you'll talk to him about this certain situation, that he decreed what happened in your life for his purpose and glory, he puts you on your knees, knows exactly the outcome, what's going to happen in the middle of it, behind it, you know, he already has even the end part figured out of, like, how it's going to end up to his glory, he knows everything, and he says, now come talk, and Jesus says, look,

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Gentiles don't even know God, he knows what you need before you ask him, so now you come to his presence, and you say, first and foremost, father in heaven, it's not like you're saying simply, watch, it's not like you're saying simply, father in heaven, like, that's your location, right, like you're saying, oh, father in Las Vegas, like you're saying, like, this is where you're at, it's a recognition about God's position, our father in heaven has to do with God's presence, his power, his position, but notice something really important here, he's your father, and I want to emphasize this, because many of us come from homes with bad and broken family lives, and parents that are just awful, maybe some of you guys came from a single -parent home, maybe you don't even know what it's like to have a father, maybe you have a father who's completely a wreck, maybe you have a father who was abusive, a father who didn't care about you, he didn't listen to you, he never came to you and told you that he loved you, a father who was heavy -handed, and we're all a mess when it comes to being dads,

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I'm a mess, I have a lot of things to make up for as a dad, I have a lot of growth to do as a dad, as a father, but some of us have really, really hard father -son, father -daughter relationships, and when the beauty of the

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Lord's Prayer, I think the opener is just for God's children, you've been adopted into God's family, you've been washed of all your sins,

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God doesn't hold anything against you ever, he has not destined you for any condemnation or wrath ever again, and he says, you come into my presence, and you call me father, and so you go, and you go to this father who is perfect, who loves you with a perfect everlasting love, who will never betray you, who does everything for your good, every little thing in your life, no matter how broken it seems, is for your good, because the father set his love upon you, and so you go into his presence, and you're like, father in heaven,

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Jesus says, you first focus in upon him as father, and your prayer is not leaping into God's presence simply as, well

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God, I need this, and I need that, and you're rubbing God like a genie in a bottle, telling God to be better than he is, or God, let me help you,

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God, with your blueprint of history. John Piper said that for like 20 some odd years as a minister, when he read the

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Lord's Prayer, and even said the Lord's Prayer, he wasn't paying attention to really the details of what it meant.

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Hallowed be thy name is not like Piper said, and I think I believed exactly the same thing, because we don't sometimes dive into it and say, what does it really mean?

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He thought that it meant you were saying like an acclamation, like hallowed be thy name, like you're awesome, you are amazing, hallowed be thy name, like you're shouting it out to God like in praise, right?

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Hallowed be thy name. It's not that. The structure is not that.

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The structure is you're telling God, do it, do this.

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Hallowed, we don't even know what it means, hallowed. It sounds like an uber spiritual thing for Christians, hallowed be thy name, right?

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Hallowed, holy. God, Father, your name, your name, be holy all over the world.

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You're actually telling God, God, did you do this? Would you have your name holied right now in Africa?

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All of Africa, God, may all of Africa holy your name, revere it, see you as holy, separate you from the rest of everything else, and say, this is supreme,

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God. God, your name be holy in all of life. Your name be holy in my life, my children's lives, my family life, my business, my home, my neighborhood, my church, my state, my government.

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God, your name be holy everywhere. You're praying it. I said this to you guys, and I'm going to say it again because I think it's something we need to think about.

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Who cares about the titles? I don't care about Postmill, Aumill, Premill.

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I'm not jealous for the title at all. I'll tell you what I'm jealous for. I'm jealous for us seeing things like this in the

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Lord's Prayer where Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, God in the flesh, teaches us to pray, and he tells us to pray that God's name would be holied in all the earth.

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I think that Jesus told us to pray that because he intends on doing something about it. And so when we see that Jesus comes in proclaiming the kingdom of God, preaching the kingdom of God, and then he tells you to pray towards his name being holied in all the earth,

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I think that he means it. And I think that the father in Psalm chapter 2, when he says to the world, right?

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This is his testimony. He says first to the son, he says, ask of me and I shall give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

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And then the father actually has a message go out to the kings of the earth. He says something to them that he wants everyone to hear, right?

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It's in the word of God. He says to the kings, he says, be warned, be wise, oh kings.

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He says, obey the son or you'll perish when his wrath is kindled, okay?

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And so Jesus comes in as the king of kings bringing the kingdom. What's he tell you to do? He says, okay, pray like this. You pray to your father that his name would be holy everywhere.

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Okay, now stop, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. This is important. Okay, so this is what

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I didn't want you to miss this week, and I don't want to miss it. It's not about just memorizing a prayer and saying,

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God, your name be holy. Do it, God, but you're actually, I think, supposed to be changed by that prayer.

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Is that right? You're supposed to be changed by that prayer. So the question is, how in your life is God calling you to be holied for him?

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Because you're praying for it. Why is it a prayer that means anything? Is it just for somebody else? Is that how you heard it just now?

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Is that how I heard it? Oh, that it's actually us telling God to do something. And so did you do this in your mind?

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Did you think about all the ways that everybody else in the world doesn't holy God's name and they blow it? Because that's good that you did, but it shouldn't stop out there with everybody who doesn't holy

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God's name. How about you're careful what you ask

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God for, right? Hey, do you do this or is it just me?

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Like you'll catch yourself about to ask God for something, and then you go, oh, no.

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Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're like, God, like you realize like you were just like impatient with your kids, and so like you're like, you know, you ask for forgiveness, you ask

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God for forgiveness, and the next thing out of your mouth is about you're about to ask God to give you more patience. You're like, Lord, just give me, praise you,

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Father. I'm good. I'm patient. I'm patient.

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Because you know that if you ask your father, if he's in it, right? He loves you, and he saved you, and God lives in you.

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You know that if you ask God for patience, he's going to give it to you.

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But here's the thing we know about our father. He does not give to us patience by osmosis.

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Like, you're like, give me patience, and he's like, right? And you're like, oh, I'm good, right?

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Like, I'm fine. No, no, no, no, no. No, if you ask God for patience, right? It's time for like stress, and pressure, and hardship, and difficulty.

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So, God teaches you to trust him, and to hold on to him, and to love him, and to believe his promises, and to be spirit led, and to be patient.

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Okay, so ready? Think about that. In light of that, when you ask God, hallowed be thy name,

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God, holy your name in all the earth, everywhere, right? Does God have permission to do it in you?

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Listen, here's the thing. You cannot pray the Lord's prayer, and meet it, and not be changed. You just can't.

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Because if you're asking God to holy his name in all the earth, you're saying to do it, God, then it means it has to start first in you.

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So, how is your life not holy in God's name? How is it not set apart for God? In what way is your life not holiness to the

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Lord, and holy in God's name? So, it's all God centered, right? Focusing it upon God's purposes, not your purposes, but God's.

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Prayer is first on your knees before God, asking God to be glorified, and his purpose is to be done in the world.

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And then Jesus goes into the next part of the prayer, and he says, your kingdom come. Which, by the way, is the substance of the entire story.

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People be like, man, apology of church. Man, you guys are obsessed with the kingdom of God. I'm like, that's a compliment.

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You talk about it all the time. Praise God. We're doing something right. Because you see, watch, if you get the kingdom of Christ, if you get the kingdom of the

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Messiah, if you get that right, when it was supposed to come, first century, the nature of it, and what's supposed to happen in the world, who rules over it, if you get that right, did you know you get everything?

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If you get the fact that Jesus is reigning now, and he's king, and he's seated on his throne, and he's accomplished redemption, do you realize that now you get the whole thing?

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You get sanctification. You get redemption and salvation. You get the world transformation. You get resurrection at the end of history.

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You get a final judgment. You get history under the feet of Jesus. If you get the kingdom of Christ, you get the whole thing.

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You see, listen, the kingdom of Jesus encompasses the whole thing. People are like, oh, it's about the cross.

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Well, that's in the kingdom of Jesus. That's a kingdom issue. Oh, it's about the resurrection. Well, that's in the promise of the kingdom.

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It's about Christ's lordship and authority. Oh, that's because of his kingdom. Well, it's about God's spirit working active in our lives in the world.

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Okay, but that's a promise that God was going to do in his kingdom, do you see? And so watch Jesus saying, you pray, your kingdom come.

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But the kingdom is, watch, his sovereign rule. His sovereign rule.

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That's what it means, kingdom, his sovereign rule. So when we say as Christians, king of kings, lord of lords, it ought not to be a t -shirt only, but king of kings and lord of lords is supposed to mean something.

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It's the rule of the Messiah. God himself taken on flesh, dying and rising again for bows to Jesus Christ.

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Every knee will bow. Every tongue confess what? That Jesus Christ is what?

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Lord. That's his kingship, authority. And so you're praying, watch, in your prayer, your heart set on this.

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Your mind is set on this as you pray before God, Father, I'm your child.

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You're my father. You're above me. You are in heaven, God. You are mighty, powerful

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God. God, your name be holy. God, let it be set apart, God, in all the earth. Let it be done,

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God. Your rule come. I want Jesus' rule in Kauai.

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Do you realize that's what it's about? Like when we talk about planning a church in Kauai, it is not about, hey, there's no reformed churches in Kauai.

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We should get a reformed church there. It's pretty sweet, right? It's about like we say, okay, that's a dark place with like a lot of paganism and a lot of cults, and it needs

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Jesus really, really bad. And it just happens to be like a really awesome opportunity in an island where nobody can escape, and they're all stuck there, and so they have to listen to you.

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And you can bring like the message of Jesus' authority and rule into that island, and everybody knows Jesus.

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And then like peace just washes over the island and righteousness and justice. It's about his rule. What are we doing in Tempe right now?

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We want the rule of Jesus in all of Arizona. In Tempe, I want it in my life, in your life, in my kids' lives, in my wife's life.

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I want it everywhere. I want the rule of Jesus in Kauai. You're praying for Jesus to rule as supremely sovereign in all the earth.

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Where are you at in this prayer? It's all

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God. Now, you're the secondary issue in the prayer, but what's the focus?

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It's worship, right? And watch this. This is big. Watch. When Jesus prays,

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God's not as brosif. People today, modern evangelicalism, are just so flippant about how they talk to Jesus and the

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Father. We're just so cavalier, right? They're like, what's up,

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Dad? First of all, don't ever do that. You know, here's the thing.

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In the book of Revelation, listen. In the book of Revelation, John doesn't, like, see

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Jesus and, like, stand. What does he do when he gets a glimpse of Jesus?

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What does he do? He falls on his face before him.

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He's not cavalier. He's not flippant. He's not in some way like, hey, bud.

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He's meeting with the sovereign king who, watch, is so amazing because when

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John falls to his face, he makes him get up, and he loves him.

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And there is intimacy there. There is personal relationship, but it should be a relationship of reverent awe before God.

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And when Jesus tells you to pray, notice that when he prays to the Father, it is like with this submission and humility, he tells you to pray in the same way.

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Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Now, I want you to see something for a second. We're not going to spend a lot of time on this. We're going to get right to forgiveness after this, but watch.

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I want you to see, like, what did it mean to pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven? So would you do something just real quick?

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Go to Isaiah 42. That's in your Old Testament, Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42.

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Okay, so you prayed for the kingdom, right? You prayed, right?

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Father, your kingdom come, God, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Okay, when

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Jesus, because he's the Messiah, you agree that he's the fulfillment of all the prophecies, amen, right?

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Is he? Yeah. Is he going to accomplish all the Father's will? Yes? Yes? Okay, so Isaiah 42 is one of those texts in the

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Old Testament that will not really make any sense to you if you don't get the timing and nature of Christ's kingdom right.

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So here's the text. Isaiah 42. He will bring forth justice to the nations.

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He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

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He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he's established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his what?

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Law. That's part of the kingdom of the Messiah. You have these coastlands waiting, right?

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Bring us, bring us the law, bring us justice, bring us righteousness. So Jesus says, our

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Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Jesus seems awfully concerned with this world. Like, how concerned is

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Jesus with the world today? Like, is it just about heaven one day? Sure, if you're a dualist.

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Sure, if you want to adopt Greek pagan thought, that somehow the spiritual is the greater and the heaven, that that's the part you want to get to while the earth is really like, meh, in God's plan.

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It's like a throwaway, right? He made it, he called it good, but now that sin has entered, God's like, meh. Like, we'll, we'll, we'll destroy that.

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We'll get rid of that. But Jesus, oh, he's awfully concerned with the world, isn't he? He says, your will be done on where?

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Earth as it is in heaven. And don't you love it? Watch, Jesus, if he's really the

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Messiah, he ought to look like the Messiah, right? And when we create a

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Messiah in Jesus, who does not care about the world, we are creating a false portrait of the

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Messiah. Because you see, the Messiah had to care about the world because he had to care about justice.

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But it said this, watch, is that it says that he would not stop, he would not grow weary until he had established justice in the earth, in the earth.

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And don't you love it? Here comes Jesus. He's the king proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. He says, hey, pray for my father's kingdom.

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And he says what? He says, pray that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. It looks just like the

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Messiah, because that's what he's supposed to look like. Okay, now watch. So what? So what?

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Okay, how can you be a part of that? Because you can't be the kind of Christian that retreats from everything and says, watch, oh

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God, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and you don't do a dang thing about it.

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You do nothing. You do nothing. This prayer is, this prayer is a joke.

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It's one of those times where you sing that, that prayer to God, and you're like, I lift my hands to thee, and it's not even happening.

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Or we're on our knees before you, God, and it's not even happening. This prayer is an utter joke, and it's hypocrisy coming out of your mouth if you pray for it, and you do nothing at all to be a part of that means of God's grace to bring it into the world.

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So what are we doing? I'm not giving you a motivational speech. I'm not a motivational speaker. I don't even think that stuff lasts more than two days.

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Motivational speeches, like, you know, like Christian youth camp experiences oftentimes, right? The kids come back, and they're like,

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I'm fired up for Jesus. I'll lay my life down for the Lord and the gospel. Two days later, they're like, it's a mountaintop experience, right?

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It's a mountaintop experience. Motivational speeches do absolutely nothing. The Word of God changes you. Okay, so here's the question.

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How is God using your life to bring about His will being done on earth as it is in heaven?

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Can you think about this for a second? Let's put it in these terms. Really think about this.

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God creates Adam in the garden. He gives him a little patch of land.

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He says, now cultivate it. Protect it. Cultivate it.

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Take care of it. Go name the animals. Take dominion. Be fruitful.

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Multiply. This is your little thing. Make it beautiful. Adam fails, sins against God, breaks covenant with God, and now he gets kicked out of the garden, goes off into the wilderness.

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But then Jesus comes in as the perfect image of God. I think that means a lot, but watch this.

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You're in the image of God, and God has given you the same task as Adam.

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Be my image in the world. Here's your little garden I've given to you. Protect it.

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Cultivate it. Take dominion. Okay, so what are you doing with your garden?

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Do you realize Jesus won? You know he won, right?

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You know like death is like no longer an issue? No, it's not like a big thing anymore.

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It was like everything to everybody else, and unbelievers today, it's everything. But to Christians, it's like, eh. It's sad when you see a believer go away for a while, but it's more,

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I'll see you in a bit, right? It's like death for us, no big deal. Jesus even says, watch, those who live and believe in me will never die.

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Never. You'll never die. And here's the thing. So now you have this world in front of you.

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God has put you in your little garden. He tells you to, watch, protect it and to cultivate it, to make it beautiful.

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And so the question is this. If you're asking God that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, then it has to start somehow with you.

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So fathers, how are you taking care of your garden that God has given to you? How are you taking care of the, if you're a father and you have a wife next to you, how are you taking care of your wife?

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How are you loving your wife? How are you protecting your wife? Adam is the image of God in God's garden, completely blew it.

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His wife was going to fall into sin while he should have protected her and stood his ground. He went along with her, helped her fall into sin, fell into sin himself.

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He did not do what God called him to do. Fathers, in your little garden that God has called you to work, when you pray this prayer of Jesus, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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How do you treat your wife in your little garden? How do you love your wife? How do you care for your wife and try to wash her with the word?

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How do you try to lift her up? If you have kids and God has told you, be fruitful and multiply, that's God's will in the world.

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How are you taking care of your kids? How are you loving your kids? How are you trying to pour in your kids' lives? I'm not trying to make you feel guilty.

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I'm just telling you to repent. I'm telling you to confess and to rejoice in the salvation you have.

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What's God called you to do in your little garden? Because if you ask God that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven and you want it to be a real prayer that means something and not just hypocrisy, not just babble, then what are you going to do about your garden that God has placed you in?

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What are you going to do? What kind of risks are you going to take to actually do something meaningful for God and have what

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God's will done in your life? What kind of things are you doing when you ask God that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven to actually let it be accomplished in your own life?

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Of course it's God's spirit that does it. Of course it's all God's power, but don't we recognize as believers that God's spirit has already allowed you to be in a position to change if you're listening to this right now and it all matters to you?

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That God's already at work in your life right now if you're hearing this message about God's will being done and you want it done, that means

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God is at work right now in you. So the question is how is it going to happen?

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Man there's some warfare going on, like serious battles. The world is like collapsing around Christians, right?

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Like we gave the world so much blessing, right, as a Christian church in history. It was never perfect, don't get me wrong.

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The Puritan's world was not a utopia. They've made a lot of mistakes. Christians in Geneva made a lot of mistakes.

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Christians have blown it everywhere they've gone. It has been like awesome and that was gross, right?

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It has been like a mess and it's been blessing, but just know this, like the Christian church gave the world so much blessing.

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If you heard Marcus's talk at ReformCon, you know that the reason you have a Christian church is that you're welcome.

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The reason you have the United States right now is because Christians came over here, by the way, to bring the gospel and the biblical worldview to this part of the world.

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So congratulations and praise God, right? It's an amazing thing, but what kind of risks are you taking for the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven?

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Because it seems to me like most of us, hopefully not apology of church, we've pretty much checked out of culture, right?

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Today, let's open our Bibles to the parable of the wicked servant about God saying he will never forgive you if you don't forgive others.

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Be blessed, go home, right? That's like, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought like this was much easier than that.

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You know, this is some serious business. Jesus has said twice now in Matthew that if you don't forgive people, you're not a forgiven person.

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You don't get forgiveness if you're not a forgiving person. Are you getting stretched now?

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Is this stretching your Christianity now, right? To pull on you a little bit now and you start realizing, well, it's some serious business.

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Like, being a Christian, like, is real. Like, it's real stuff. Like, it's a real relationship with God. He's serious about this.

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But here's the thing. One, I don't think unbelievers can ever really understand forgiveness because they haven't experienced it themselves before God.

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Like, had their raw sin exposed, right?

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And then just washed away freely by God's grace. Why do you think you were so excited when you came to Christ?

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When you, when you first came to Christ, were you like me? Did you have that experience when you first came to Christ that for like, for like, it must have been like a year you were like, right?

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And like, I remember Dustin was saying, like, I heard him, I heard his message he gave to the kids. He was talking about how when he first came to Christ, he was just like, he was just smiling all the time.

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You know, just, he just, he just was smiling. He's so happy, right? He's so happy. He's like, I don't even care. I'm forgiven. I don't even care.

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I'm going to heaven. Like, I'm, all my sins are washed away. I'm good. Like, I know God, right? Like, why do you think you're so happy? Why do you think you're so full of joy?

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I don't think, by the way, I don't think we should really lose that ever. I think if we do, we need to start paying more attention to the cross and understanding.

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But watch, why were you so full of joy when you first came to Christ? Because you knew, yeah, your weight was lifted.

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You knew your sins were gone. You knew like, I don't deserve this and I am so foul and guilty because God showed it to me and he's just washed it away.

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You're free. So, I don't think unbelievers can really understand forgiveness because they haven't gone through that, right?

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They haven't had their sins like right in front of them and then God going, gone, free, because I love you, no cost, freely, forever,

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I'll never bring it up again. But, for Christians, how in the world are you going to forgive somebody that's truly sinned against you in an awful, awful way?

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First and foremost, I want to say, safeguard rails. You are not supposed to get walked on, crushed, beat up by somebody.

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If somebody is sinning against you over and over and over and over and over, you are misinterpreting Jesus. If you think he's saying, now go be their carpet, go lay down and let him step on you.

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That's not biblical. Reconciliation, trust, those are biblical concepts too. But the only way you can really forgive anybody, that we can really forgive people who truly sin against us when they come to us and they're like, hey,

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I need to ask for your forgiveness. The only way, watch, is to first focus vertically on what

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God has done in you because of Jesus, freely. Then and only then can you truly extend it to the person next to you.

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Only then. Because this is the last thing I want to say, and I'm done. This is big.

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Okay, in your relationship with God, think for a second, in your relationship with God, who's the holy one?

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In your relationship with God, who's the offender? In your relationship with God, who's the one who daily is unfaithful?

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In your relationship with God, who is the one that's always confessing failure?

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Okay, now in your relationship with God, who was the one who initiated the relationship?

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In your relationship with God, every single day, who was the one that washes? Who was the one who frees?

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Who was the one who died to make it possible? Okay, now, so how in the world could any of us ever hold sins against somebody and act like we have a higher standard than God?

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He's holy, I'm not. He's righteous, I'm not. He initiated the relationship.

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He's accomplished all that was necessary. He's the one who always does too much.

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When we do that, we behave in such a way that testifies to the fact that we think that we have a higher standard than God.

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He's the holy one, and he's the one that chases the rebels. How could you have a higher standard than God? The only way we can forgive others is if we first have been forgiven.

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And so Jesus says, when you pray, you say, forgive me my sin, my debt, as I've forgiven others their debts.

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You come and you clean your heart out before God constantly. And again, I want to say this. I just want to make sure

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I don't forget it as your brother and as your pastor. I don't want to forget. I don't want to have this get missed. It does not mean that if somebody has abused you and hurt you and sinned against you, you need to pretend like it didn't happen and get hurt.

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You can be protected and use biblical standards of reconciliation and regaining trust, but you ought to, as a believer before God, let that person go in your heart.

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Don't hold on to a root of bitterness and hostility and anger. And when someone comes to you and says, please forgive me,

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I've sinned against you, don't be the wicked servant who chokes them and says, pay me what you owe me.

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Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless the message that went out for your glory. Thank you, God, for everyone and their attention and their listening.

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Let's pray that you would set this message on fire in our hearts and minds. And I just pray,

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Father, that through all my shortcomings as a minister, that your message got through, that you would empower it by your spirit into our lives so that our prayer life has changed in such a way that it brings glory to you.

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Let us be a praying church, God, in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to come to the Lord's table now.

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So if you're in Christ, the table is open. If you're not even from Apologia Church, the table is open.

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As often as we come together, we do this in remembrance of Jesus. That's what he told us.

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So we have the cup and the bread. Jesus says that this is his body broken for us in the cup of the new covenant.

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His blood poured out for the remission of sins for the many. So if you are in Christ, if you've turned from your sins to trust in Jesus, if you are saved, if you've been given the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus, the table is open to you.

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Come in a worthy way. Come after confession and joy. And come and receive.

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If you are not in Christ today, if you have not repented and believed the gospel, I'm going to invite you to turn to Christ, the one who lived righteously and died and rose again from where you sit.

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Come to Christ for life. Let's pray. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for your work.

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Lord Jesus, thank you that your body was broken for us and your blood was spilled to purchase us.

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Thank you that you have washed us and that you say that you will never hold our sins against us again.

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That you'll never remember them. Thank you that you count us righteous as a gift through faith, that we have a righteousness that comes from you,

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God, that's not according to law. It's the righteousness of Jesus.