Wednesday, April 12, 2023 PM

Apparently, all right.

Good evening everyone Glad to glad to be back.

I got back from Chicago at about 1215 a .m.

Tuesday morning. I spent Tuesday recovering and I'm glad to be with you guys tonight

I did not join you for dinner because my dad and his wife Connie Came into town earlier this afternoon

So that was just really nice and He's watching.

Hey dad Tonight we are doing the second part of this this survey of model prayers that we have from Isaiah 37 and then

Matthew 6 I didn't write those down last time. So I wanted to at least at least put them up Those are just some of the references.

We'll be going over tonight But let's

Let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll dump jump right into our study on prayer

Lord God in heaven. Thank you so much for this day. Thank you for family, thank you for My my side of the family being willing to drive up I -35 and traffic and heat and Expense just to spend time with us and I'm thankful for our

Our church family our brothers and sisters in Christ who gathered together for meals and study and Prayer to encourage one another and learn more about you

And it is in Christ's holy name we pray Amen, so last time we were in primarily in in Isaiah 37

We learned about the prayer of Hezekiah praying for deliverance

And we learned about God's answer We learned about why? so if you remember

Hezekiah prays to the Lord and This is how he ends it So now

O Lord our God Save us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are

God That's how Hezekiah ends his prayer calling upon God to vindicate his name

He said his name on the people Israel. He said his name on Jerusalem and He said his temple and his presence there show yourself to be different so the

Lord through Isaiah answers and he says in the midst of his answer about what's going to happen to Sennacherib what's going to happen to Jerusalem?

Or what's not going to happen to Jerusalem as the case may be He says have you not heard that I determined it from long ago?

I planned it from days of old what I now bring to pass That you should make four to five cities crash into heaps of ruins a talking to Sennacherib I planned this from long ago that you were going to do all these things

Sweep in from the north and show this great power this world power and just smash culture after culture and and and fake

God after fake God but at the very end he also says this is a 26 to 29

I Know that's 28. I know you're sitting down I know you're going out and coming in and you're raging against me because you have raged against me and your

Complacency has come to my ears I will put my hook in your nose my bit in your mouth and I will turn you back from the place where From which you came

God says Hezekiah has prayed it because you have prayed to me. This is what I'm going to do

And by the way, I planned it from long ago Why does the

Lord do this? How did Hezekiah and his prayer for the sake of your own name do this? What does

God do? God says by the way, he came and by the same he shall return and he shall not come to into this city declares

The Lord verse 35 for I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant

David That's why Hezekiah prays within the sovereignty of God and prays within the glory of God God Answers within his own sovereignty and he answers within his own glory.

That's why I call Hezekiah's prayer a model prayer and then we also learned that there's another model prayer if we could use that term

Jesus gives us that in Matthew 6 and on the surface it appears to be a very different character

Let's go ahead and read it anyway In Matthew 6 and my thesis tonight is that Talking about the same things

Because they were written by the same person Jesus says

What he's talking about. This is how you should pray. He starts off with that. Don't be like this.

Don't be like this But be like this Don't be like the hypocrites who stand on the street corners so that everybody sees them

And they get their they get their reward. They get attention and praise.

Don't be like them Pray in secret. Don't be like the

Gentiles who? Multiply their words we talked about the prayer wheels that some cultures have where they go and they spin the wheel

Prayer prayer prayer prayer prayer prayer. It just because it's written as the prayer wheels or you know prayers are written down So you get a lot of prayers in there.

It's actually very efficient Christ says Don't be like them thinking that you're going to be heard because you have a lot of words or frilly words instead

Pray like this and we learned it's not a formula but pray like this

It's 9 through 13 Our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name

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 have forgiven our debtors lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil and as one of our elders

Reminded me just last night a Spirit our spirit of forgiveness towards others comes from the sense of forgiveness that we have

Because God has forgiven us for so much It's easier to be merciful when you have a better understanding of God's mercy

When you've experienced it yourself, and if you don't have a forgiving spirit or a merciful spirit, maybe you don't understand

The mercy and forgiveness of God as well as you think So that's an application and that's 14 through 15

Now This is divinely inspired. It is something that we should memorize

And it is something that we should repeat and that's good. Don't fall in the trap of Having this be your only prayer.

Well, it's the It's the Lord's prayer. It's the Jesus prayer.

I'm good with this one. You've missed the point It's talking to your father.

That was not revolutionary That was not something that was like, oh, let's this is a change

Jesus is saying that we should teach God as our father. This was well -traveled ground and Where were we gonna go to for me to prove that?

We're gonna go back to Isaiah that very thing so our father

Now I've I have I would love to dive into thy kingdom come and what it means

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Talking about the will of God We could spend all night on either of those but I'm just going to focus on our father for tonight

Isaiah 24 5 This is an interesting verse in a sense

All people have God as their father That is true God is greater

He created all of us and all of us are in the image of God in a sense. We are all

God's children in that we owe him our allegiance.

He is our judge. He is our king He is our master whether you follow him or not, whether you believe in him or not

Isaiah 24 verse 5 the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants for they have transgressed the laws

Violated statutes and broke the everlasting covenant. This is judgment on the whole earth

This isn't he isn't talking specifically to Jews here He's talking to all the people of the earth.

All the people of the earth have broken the everlasting covenant All the people of the earth have transgressed the laws of God.

Yes. Yes they have Paul talks about this in Romans 2 that laws of conscience

Gentiles know You know pagans know right and wrong. That's true because we're made in the image of God So in that sense, yes, there's a general sense in which

God is the father of all But there's a particular sense in the book of Isaiah as well

Jews Seeing God as father in a way It's not like the rest of the nations around them.

He had a special relationship which makes their betrayal all the more worse

To all people everywhere. Oh God allegiance. Yes, because they're made in the image of God. Yes, that is true

The Jews at that time Even more so because they had the oracles they had the law they had

God's presence Isaiah 63 16 says

For you are our father Though Abraham does not know us

Israel does not acknowledge us you Lord are our father our Redeemer from old is your name

They've fallen so far It's like Abraham doesn't even recognize him anymore. He doesn't even know his own children

They have fallen away, but they still address God as father and in 64 8

But now Oh Lord, you are our father. We are the clay you are the Potter We are the work of your hand be not so terribly angry.

Oh Lord and remember not iniquity forever Behold, please look We are all your people

They're speaking to God as father in a way that the pagans around the ditches just didn't and couldn't understand

There was a special relationship that the Jews had with the Lord. So when

Jesus prayed prayed like this our father Your father knows what you need

Before you ask it wasn't revolutionary. It was

Isaiah in a sense

They should have known better Okay, so How does that affect us,

I mean, we're not We're not Jewish Maybe some of you are maybe actually some of you have that genetic connection.

I don't my people are Irish and And they were crazy crazy

Celts When they were clothed, I mean, you know just it's just People were wild my dad's people were from the steppes of Russia, you know, we're not

Jewish. We weren't civilized We were the barbarians How does that affect us? Can we call

God father? Yes Where would we go? What are some what are some verses that pop pop to your mind that do we as Christians address

God as father? I mean the one that pops to my mind first is that that Romans 8 15

Let's in fact, let's just let's just read if anybody has another one call it out. It's always fun.

It's more like a dialogue Romans 8 15

This is to us. This is to this to the Romans. This is to a

Gentile Church for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry

Abba Father the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and of children than heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ Provided we suffer with him and or that we also be glorified with him

It has teeth to it You are children of God because you've been adopted.

Oh, okay well Good. All right. So we so we know that we're we're children of God Where does that leave the

Jews then so Romans 9 next chapter over verse 7 verse verse 6, so, you know, they've

Israel's been destroyed essentially Is it all to the

Gentiles now and and and Paul says well not exactly it's not as though the Word of God has failed

For Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel not all who are the children of Abraham Because they are his offspring just because they were genetically connected to Abraham They didn't automatically make them

Israel did not apply make them children of Israel children of Abraham It's through Isaac your offspring shall be named

It's not the children of flesh, but the children of the promise Who are counted as offspring it's always been this way

It's always been by promise not just Flesh it's always been that way

Okay, right Say it, please first Corinthians you said to 12

Spirit of God that we may know those things that are freely given of him

That's what we've been given That's spirit of knowledge spirit of adoption

Those Jews who were of the promise Were part of Israel Paul goes on and He says in 926

Well, let's let's start. Actually, let's start in in 24 even us whom he has called us

Not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles us from the Jews and from the Gentiles Really?

Is this a revolutionary? No, he says it in Hosea those who are not my people I will call my people her who is not beloved

I will call beloved in this very place where it was said to them You are not my people. They shall be called the sons of the

Living God people who were not Jewish God says I'm gonna call them and they're gonna be the sons of the

Living God That was the promise always the children of promise not just the children of Flesh can call

God father verse 27 and Isaiah again

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel though the number of the seas and the number of the sons of Israel be the sand of the sea

Only a remnant is saved that's out of chapter 10 The remnant of Israel was going to be saved

That's who was going to come to faith it was always those who were promised and Gentiles have joined in that promise

Paul repeats some of this in Galatians 3 this idea of sonship how you call

God father on what basis can we as dirty Gentiles as barbarians as The uncircumcised as they as they would call it those who are outside that Covenant, how could they?

37 know then it is those who are of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the

Gentiles by faith preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in You shall all the nations be blessed.

It's Genesis 12. How were all the nations going to be blessed through Christ? They were going to be blessed with sonship because of Christ So have we seen that those who are of the faith of Abraham of sons of Abraham?

Have we seen that this is how all the nations of the world will be blessed Can we see that this is the gospel that was preached to Abraham?

It started in Genesis It's been repeated in Isaiah and and again in Hosea and when

Jesus says our Father and he's speaking to the Jewish people right there the immediate

Jewish vicinity He means all of us

Not because it was just invented in in Romans or in Galatians it was always this way

Chris John 1 That was

John 1 and starting in verse 11 So those who couldn't hear on the recording, you know, that's

Who were the ones that he gave the right to become children of God those who?

Received him received who Christ Was always on the basis of Christ that you become sons of God.

It didn't matter your genetic connection and As Galatians tells us it's always by Faith he called not only

Jews but Gentiles I'll I'll finish with with one more verse out of Out of Romans 10

Because it It references another Old Testament prophet one that we've we've dealt with before Romans 10 12

For there is no distinction between Jew Jew and Greek For the same Lord is

Lord of all bestowing his riches on all who call on him for Everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord will be saved. That's out of Joel 232 so out of the law

Out of the Pentateuch in Genesis. We have the Gentiles coming in out of Isaiah.

We have the Gentiles coming in Out of Romans out of Romans and Galatians and was the prophet

Joel and Hosea We have the Gentiles coming in when

We pray our Father This applies to the faithful Jew and the faithful Gentile It's always by faith.

So when you pray tonight and you pray our Father yes This is the book of Matthew, yes, this is

Jesus the Jew speaking to Jewish people. Yes He's speaking to you and it's always been that way

We have a tendency to see this model prayer and I it has a kaya. It's like beat backs in Akarib deliver us and God says

I will do it and I will do it for the sake of my own name and I'm gonna put a hook in His nose and a bit in his mouth. I'm gonna turn him back and 185 ,000 of them are gonna die the

Same God who said that said Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name

Same author and when we see our Father as The way

The New Testament describes it. It's the same.

It's the same author. It's the same It was always supposed to be Jew and Gentile That's nothing new so Pray tonight pray and pray to your

Father pray in the strength that the Spirit gives you and I hope that this this little survey of how our

Father is treated in Isaiah and how our Father is treated in the New Testament is the exact same

Because the same person wrote it through different human authors granted

But the same divine author so go in confidence as you would approach your father

Asking for what you need So let's pray let's pray to our Father Lord God our

Father in heaven Thank you for this time, thank you for our Thank you for our lesson.

Thank you for the things that taught me Thank you for the reminder that we call you Father because of what

Christ has done That our prayers are to be glorifying to you. We pray in your sovereignty and We can pray for things that we need but most importantly we know we can come to you boldly

We know we can come to you as a father who loves us listens to us and understands our infirmities

One who has made every provision for us All we have to do is ask You are the

God of all comfort and you know what we need even before we ask

Because you are sovereign and you are king and you are Lord And it is in the holy name of Jesus Christ.