How True Prayers Make a Difference: Part II Matthew 6:5-15

Last week we began to look at the section in the Sermon on the Mount on What is famously known as the Lord's Prayer? What I told you is that I planned to take two Sundays to get through this section. Well, well, I was wrong about that as I was preparing for today It occurred to me that there is too much here for us to wrap this up today there's far too much gold here that deserves the time of day so we will give it the time of day that it deserves so today we are going to look at verses 9 and 10 and next Sunday we are going to look at verses 11 through 15 of Matthew chapter 6.

Our big idea for this three-part sermon series is this follow our Lord to know how to communicate to God properly. Jesus is teaching us how to pray and if we are honest prayer does not come natural to us.

What we learn as we go through the life of faith is that we need instruction. It should be the desire of every Christian that our prayers are honoring to God and that he hears our prayers, that they are effective, that they make a difference in this world.

It is hard to understate the importance of prayer. Prayers truly change the world. Think of how wonderful it would be to have a vibrant prayer life where God is honored and our prayers are consistently heard.

We are blessed that what Jesus is doing in this section is teaching us how to pray. He is telling us if you pray like this it is going to make a difference. Last Sunday he gave us two examples to follow.

The first example is to not pray to be seen by others. This was the problem of the Jewish false teachers of the first century. They prayed to be seen. We are to pray as if God is the only one listening.

The second example that Jesus gives to follow is not to pray mindlessly. This is something that we can very easily do. We are tempted to rattle off a string of words thinking that somehow God will hear them and somehow he will be pleased and somehow they will make a difference when in reality mindless prayers fall on deaf ears.

These two ways of praying to be seen and mindlessly throwing out words are examples not to follow. So last Sunday we learned what not to do. But today and next Sunday we are going to learn what to do.

At this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 6. We'll be looking at verses 9 and 10. If you are using a red Bible in the pews it is on page 964. This sermon is once again titled True Prayers Make a Difference and this is part 2.

I'm going to begin by reading verses 9 and 10. This is what Jesus says. He says pray then like this. Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So what we see here is that true prayers make a difference and Jesus is showing us right here. And so we're going to spend this sermon today looking at these two verses. Verses 9 and 10. And the third example that Jesus gives us to follow is this.

Praying for God’s Name to Be Honored

Pray for the Lord's name to be honored on earth. Pray for the Lord's name to be honored on earth. We'll see this in verse 9. Jesus doesn't leave us or any of his disciples hanging. But he tells us how we should pray.

This prayer that Jesus gives that we are about to dig into is a sample prayer. It is not bad to recite the Lord's prayer as long as it is done with sincerity. What Jesus prays for here is the model we should follow and the things we should cover when we pray.

So generally speaking this is where our prayer life should be focused. If we ever wonder Lord how in the world do I pray? Well the place to go to is right here. What Jesus does in this prayer is he gives six petitions.

These are six requests that he makes before the Father. There are three directed toward God and his work on earth and three directed toward human needs that every believer faces in the life of faith. So we will look at these six petitions and like I said at the beginning this is going to take us the next two Sundays to do that.

But before we jump into that let's see how Jesus starts this prayer. Jesus first begins with an address toward God. When you write a letter to someone you say dear John or dear whoever and when we pray we are to address God.

What we see here is that we have the second person of the Trinity Jesus Christ telling us how to pray and what he says is your prayer typically should address the first person of the Trinity who is the Father.

Now it is biblically okay to pray to Jesus and by implication the Holy Spirit. Sometimes people wonder should I pray? Which person of the Trinity should I pray to? At the end of Revelation in chapter 22 verse 20 the Apostle John prays come Lord Jesus.

So he prays directly to Jesus. So there is biblical support for that. But as a general rule most of our prayers should be to the Father. That's how Jesus teaches us how to pray. Think about a child who cries out to their father for help.

This may be why Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father. Since as we go through the life of faith we will cry out to him. I know Mark has shared with me. Both of his sons are in their forties but they're still his children and when they have problems who do they call out to?

They come to their dad and you experience that in your life. And when we have issues who do we go to? Well we might go to our earthly dad yes but first and foremost we should go to our father in heaven.

Go to him because he's always willing and waiting to listen to us. And you will notice that Jesus says here he says our father. He says our father. So when you pray publicly it is good to say that he is the father of every believer present.

So he is addressed as our father. As Jesus begins this prayer he also says where the father dwells. It is true that the father along with the son and the Holy Spirit are present everywhere. God is omnipresent.

But in a very special way God's presence is in heaven. Heaven is the place where a believer goes when they die. And the Bible says and Jesus says right here that this is where the father dwells. This is the holy place where God's presence is most clearly shown in all of existence.

So at this time let's go to the three requests directed to God and his works and like I said two of these we will look at today. The first one is this. Hallowed be your name. Another way to say this is let your name be treated with reverence.

We should pray that God would be treated with the highest honor in our lives and the highest honor in other believers and even that his name would be would not be blasphemed by anyone in the world. Something really bad happened recently in the news media and you might say isn't something really bad always happening with the news and that's true.

But recently a news commentator did something that reached a different level of evil. A news commentator said that Jesus was not perfect. Maybe you heard this and I was thinking is a lightning is going to come and strike.

That's very serious to say such a thing as blasphemy. To say such a thing dishonors the son and the father. The son is the image of the father. As Christians we should be outraged since the name of God was not revered but rather blasphemed.

But as we learned two weeks ago we should also pray for the one who said it. We should pray for our enemies. That's what a true follower of Christ does. It's also interesting that historically nations that were very Christian especially where the nations there was no separation between church and state where Christianity was the state religion.

It was a crime to blaspheme the name of God in public. And so you could you could spend time in jail. You could pay a fine. And it's interesting to think about that. That has been a law in different places on the world even over the last several hundred years.

But we should be those who pray that the Lord's name is honored in our lives and the lives of other believers and even in the world. So this is the third example that Jesus gives. Follow our Lord to know how to communicate to God properly.

And the third example is to pray for the Lord's name to be honored on earth. The second example that Jesus gives is this. As he teaches us how to pray. He tells us here to pray that people live as kingdom citizens on earth.

The Coming Kingdom of God

And we'll see this in verse 10 the first half of verse 10. Jesus says this in the first half of verse 10 he says your kingdom come. And that's all we're gonna look at here. Your kingdom come. What does that mean.

In our sermon series on the end times we looked at what the kingdom of God means. There was a theologian by the name of Graham Goldsworthy. He once wrote that the kingdom of God is God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing.

So let me say that again. God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing. This kingdom will come when Jesus returns and establishes his reign on the earth. This is a certain future time that is unknown to us.

And when Christ reigns the world will be a place of righteousness and peace. Something that we see so little of right now. What Jesus means by praying your kingdom come is that we are to look ahead to that future kingdom.

And as we anticipate this righteous future kingdom where Christ will reign we should live as kingdom citizens now. So we should live like we're already there even though we know that we live in a sinful world.

We are always to keep in mind what Philippians 3 20 says our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the Lord Jesus Christ. We should call the people in the world to live as kingdom citizens by calling them to repent and believe in Jesus.

And we should also pray for other believers to live as kingdom citizens. And we should pray for ourselves to live as kingdom citizens. Think about how great this world would be right if everybody did this.

It would be a wonderful place to live. Kingdom living only happens when people are living out the transformed life that is produced by the Holy Spirit. So you can only do this if you're saved. You can't do it if you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

We already saw in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus call his followers to live out this kingdom life now in the Beatitudes in Chapter 5 verses 3 through 12 which was the opener to the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus called his audience and us to live as kingdom citizens. When he said things like this he said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And then he said blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The people in this world who live this out the true believers who are truly following the will of God are the ones who will dwell in this future kingdom where Christ will rule his people on earth and experience his full blessing.

Very few people in our world are living like kingdom citizens right now. And you wonder why everything is falling apart. Even Christians often don't live like kingdom citizens. We live in a world right now where people are calling for change.

There's a lot of people calling for change. And what is interesting and troubling is that most of our society is desiring to move away from good things where we enjoyed God's blessing to moving toward bad things where we will not experience God's blessing.

So we have to be very careful when people say things need to change. What do they mean by that. Are we going to move away from the good and go jump into the evil. In Romans 1 the apostle Paul explains that God gives people over to their sins.

In other words the blessing that people once experienced is no longer there. He's saying you want this. You have it. But my blessing is removed. And we're seeing that in America right now. I believe as Christian Americans we are living in the downward spiral of society and we need to pray for people.

We need to pray for people to live as kingdom citizens. People everywhere are getting sucked into the new religion of society that has entered the mainstream. The morality of this new secular religion is not God's law found in Holy Scripture but it is the law crafted by society.

And it often it often shows itself as political correctness. OK so you can do something evil and no one will care. But if you violate the new law of political correctness you will hear about it. Think of how backwards everything is.

As we grieve for our country we must pray your kingdom come. We must pray that people are transformed by the gospel of Christ and they truly live as kingdom citizens. And may we set this example by living this ourselves.

May we pray for other Christians to live like this and may we pray for the lost who don't know any better that they would learn a better way that they would see that in Christ they can truly live the life they were called to live and truly live that which is worth living for and truly be a transformed person where they can truly follow their creator.

And personally as I look at our society and I'm sure that many of you are grieving this as well right now. I think I grieve the church more than anything. Pastor John MacArthur he preached a sermon recently where he said if I were a prophet and he said I'm not a prophet but if I were a prophet I would tell the evangelical church that they have gone after bail.

And I don't I don't I don't think that's a stretch to say that in so many ways this is true. Too many Christians are not living as kingdom citizens but they are following aspects of this new secular religion and calling themselves Christians.

God is not fooled as as Second Corinthians 614 says what fellowship does darkness have with light. The Bible is sufficient to handle everything. And I think that's the crisis that we're seeing all over America in the church right now.

People do not believe in the sufficiency of scripture. They will tell you the Bible is the word of God. They will tell you that the Bible is inerrant. They will tell you that is it is inspired. They will even say that Christianity is the only true religion.

But then you see people embrace all these other ideas and then you and then you wonder how much do you really value the Bible. Doesn't scripture tell us that it's everything we need to know for the life of faith.

As you can tell I'm pretty passionate about this. But this is what we see. People are not living as kingdom citizens and we need. This is how we need to pray. We should be praying that people live as kingdom citizens now.

Praying for God’s Will on Earth

So we are to follow our Lord to know how to communicate to God properly. And the fourth example that Jesus gives is to pray that people live as kingdom citizens on earth. And the third example that Jesus gives here and this is the final one that we're going to look at today is this.

We are to pray that God's will be done on earth that God's will be done on earth. We'll see this in the second half of verse 10. The third petition here that Jesus gives the third petition that we're looking at here today.

It's very similar to the one we just looked at. Jesus just said pray that his kingdom would come. And now he's saying your will be done. And he says here your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And when we talk about the will of God there are two biblical understandings of this. One is that everything happens according to the will of God. Ephesians 1 11 says that everything happens according to the counsel of his will which means that there are no random events.

God plans everything and everything happens according to his will. God writes the story of life and everything happens how he wrote it. So as you think about your life you are acting out the story that God has written for you.

That's one of the ways the will of God is used. The second way the Bible talks about the will of God is following his holy will. For example 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 16 and 17 says rejoice always pray without ceasing.

Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. So understanding the will of God this way is obedience to God. Thy will be done. That we would follow his will. So which aspect of God's will is Jesus addressing in this prayer.

In the first two petitions the focus is on God and this piggybacks off the second that his kingdom would come. In other words we are to submit ourselves to his will and pray that many others submit to his holy will also.

So Jesus is speaking both understandings of God's will. We don't need to choose between the two. What Jesus is specifically saying is that we are to pray that the events that happen on planet Earth accord with his commandments.

So in other words we are to pray that the story that he is writing accord with his commandments and we as we pray contribute to that. As one author put it our prayer should be that every person and thing on Earth be brought into conformity with God's perfect will.

It is remarkable to think about this. Your prayers affect the story that God is writing. God planned in eternity past that it would be so. I mentioned earlier that prayers change the world. If fatalism were true fatalism is that everything just happens and we can't do anything about it.

If fatalism were true then we wouldn't have prayer. Right. It is a mystery. How does God will everything that happens and we somehow contribute to things happening in the world. There is a tension there but there's not a contradiction.

That's what that's what the Bible teaches. Sometimes when we pray your will be done. This sometimes means that God's blessings will be poured out. The blessings that we enjoy like saving faith in Christ or enjoying the Lord and growing during the sweet seasons of life.

But praying his will be done sometimes means submitting to difficult things that are also blessings in the big picture but hardships in the presence. Sometimes our obedience to God is in the dark seasons.

God sends us down a difficult path and we cling to him through it. I've been here for three and a half years and I know that I'm officially becoming one of you because I like country gospel. Before I came here I did not.

I used to think the country music was all this new stuff. I used to say I hate country music. And then I realized that's not real country music. The real stuff is the old stuff. Right. So I love country music.

There's a song that Mark introduced to me by Josh Turner called Long Black Train. Mark is able to play this too. In fact we might have him play it here maybe next week. We'll see if you're OK with that.

There's one line in there where he says there's an engineer. So the engineer is Satan. There's an engineer on that long black train making you wonder if your ride is worth the pain. He's saying come on board.

Come on. Come on board this train that leads to destruction. And then he says here he's just a weight in on your heart to say let me ride on that long black train. So the long black train Satan is driving.

He's the engineer and he's telling you your Christian life has gotten hard. Are you sure you want to continue where you promised that it was going to be better than this. I can offer you something better.

Right. Sin offers instant gratification. But this is of course a lie. The pain in your ride through the Christian life is worth it. It is at these times that we are obediently submitting to the will of God.

Jesus sets the greatest example of this in the Garden of Gethsemane when he pleaded with his father that this cup would pass from him. And this is what he says in Matthew 26 30 39. He says not my will but your will be done.

He pleaded with the Lord three times. He said would this cup pass for me. Is there another way that humanity could be redeemed. And God said no. This is the path you have to take. And Jesus obediently submitted to his father's will.

And through his obedience redemption came to the only reason we can have entrance into heaven and have fellowship with God forever. And anyone who believes in Christ is free from sin and Satan and death and given eternal life.

And when you pray thy will be done you are praying that you and everyone joyfully submit to God's holy will by obeying his commandments. And you are also praying that we trust and obey him through difficulties.

OK. So we are praying similar to thy kingdom come. We are praying that people would submit to the will of God that they would not run after the things of this world that they would not follow Satan and his plan that we would submit to God and his understanding that God always means good for his people in the good times and in the bad.

Romans 8 28 says and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. And that's something we must always hold on to. The Lord knows what he's doing.

He knows what he's doing in the small story of our life. And he knows what he's doing in the big story of world history. He's writing a wonderful story but it's only wonderful for us and anyone else if we obey him during our journey.

If you think about every story right there's there's people who triumph and then there's tragedies. And as we pray for God's will to be done we're praying for triumphs to happen in our own lives and in the lives of others.

And mysteriously God planned in his in his will of decree that it would be this way that we would contribute to the story that he is writing. When we are praying for God's will to be done we are praying that his righteousness be shown in a fallen world.

He uses our prayers to change the world. Think about how incredible that is. And what Jesus says in this verse is that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Everyone in heaven obeys God's holy will.

People in heaven don't need to pray for each other because everyone's already fully righteous. And so we are to pray that we reflect what is happening already in heaven. The one author put put it this way.

The believers call is to bring heaven to earth by hollowing the Lord's name as we already saw by letting his kingdom come as we already saw and seeking to do his will that everyone would seek to do his will.

And what we must understand is that we will pray. We will pray for people and not everyone will submit to God's holy will. But if people do submit to God's holy will it is because you prayed. So prayer is important.

Things happen because prayer happens. Everyone here who is a follower of Christ you are here because someone prayed for you. Maybe multiple people prayed for you and God heard those prayers and he worked in your hearts.

And think about what God is going to do through you as you pray for others. So we are to follow our Lord to know how to communicate to God properly. And the fifth example that Jesus gives us is to pray for God's will to be done on earth.

So today we looked at the first three petitions where we are to pray for God his will to be done his kingdom to come in his name to be hollowed. Next week we're going to look at we're going to come more down to earth a little bit and and look at things like physical needs and trials that we go through and and then and then forgiving us our debts as we forgive those who trespass against us.

So we'll look at those three requests next week and you're probably glad that we cut this one short. Think of how long this would be if we had three more to go. But thankfully we are going to wrap it up right here.

And my whole goal in this obviously is that the Holy Spirit would transform us into the image of Christ as we go through the word of God. And so one of the ways that this happens is through prayer. And so my hope is I said earlier in the service is that our prayer lives would get a shot in the arm.

And this is my prayer. And so I hope that that the Lord will do this in your lives. So this time let's bow our heads in prayer as we close. Father in heaven things happen because we pray. As James says you do not receive because you do not ask.

And so Lord may we pray in such a way where we ask and we count on you to answer our prayers. It truly is wonderful Lord that we are in your master's story and we can make a difference in that story by praying.

And so my prayer Lord is that at this church we would see that happen that a fire would be lit in the hearts of everyone here. That there might be people right now in this community Lord. They're sitting at home.

They don't have any plans on following you. But we are praying for them right now that they would follow you. And it's going to be because we prayed that they do. And so we pray for that. And my prayer Lord is that we would live and look like Jesus wherever we go.

That people would see a difference between us and the world. And that everyone would follow after you. We understand Lord that not everyone will be saved. But we pray that there would be many people in this city in St. Croix and in Eureka and Cushing and in the surrounding area Lord that would come to faith in Christ.

And that more and more Christians would grow in such a way where you would be pleased in the way that we live. And I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.