Biblical Prayer: The Doxology

We're continuing in our subject of biblical prayer, and today we come to the doxology of the Lord's Prayer, and this will bring our study in the Lord's Prayer to a close, but we're going to continue on the subject of prayer for some time because there are many other texts, and obviously this prayer alone is not everything that the Word says about it.

So, just a little bit of review. We've seen the prayer in Matthew 6, 5 -13, that it's a model prayer, not so much that you have to say those words exactly, but it is a model prayer. So tonight we're going to examine the doxology of Matthew 6, 13.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Now, a little interesting. There's a question about the doxology since it's not in some of the early manuscripts. So some of your translations might not even have it in there, and most of them it's bracketed with a margin note.

So then why are we doing this? Because the doxology is so theologically correct that it's a fitting close to the prayer, or whether or not Jesus included it here, everything that's in the doxology is elsewhere in the scriptures.

So we just lump it together here, and I'm going to treat it as though it was written here in the earliest manuscripts. So in a real sense, the doxology gives the reason or an explanation for praying in the manner that Jesus taught.

And I'll show you what I mean by that. The doxology tells us that our prayers are not in vain. And here's how it does that. Well, first a review. This is, we're going to do a little review, then we'll get to the doxology.

Verse 9, we open the prayer with our Father who art in heaven. Remember we spent a whole Wednesday evening just on that. Then we went through each petition one by one. First petition, hallowed be thy name.

Second petition, thy kingdom come. And the third petition, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now if you remember, we see that there is somewhat of a priority here. The very first thing we're doing, we're addressing the prayer to our Father who's in heaven.

And what's our first petition? That his name would be hallowed, that his name would be made holy. And then we're praying that his kingdom would come and that his will would be done. Those are the, that's the priority of our prayer.

And this gets back a little bit to what I was talking about on Sunday, about having, there is a priority in prayer. And we need to be praising and thanksgiving as part of our prayer life. And that's clearly indicated in these petitions.

Then we come on to give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we also have been forgiven our debts, our debtors rather. Then do not lead us into temptation. And we saw what that meant. Remember, not that God would ever lead us into temptation, all right?

And, but deliver us from evil. And that's where we left off. So what is a doxology? First and foremost, it's an expression of praise. And thanksgiving and praise are essential elements of biblical prayers.

Philippians 4, 6, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. Notice, there always needs to be this attitude of praise and thanksgiving in our prayers.

Colossians 4, 2, devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. So what we're saying is that biblical praying begins in the heart. It has to be a heart attitude, okay?

And biblical praying is not merely following a pattern, even this pattern. It's much more than that. Remember, this pattern is like a superstructure of a skyscraper. It's there, it's necessary, but you have to add everything else onto it for it to be useful.

So biblical praying comes from a heart of thanksgiving and praise. Psalm 67, 5, let the people praise thee. God, let all the peoples praise thee. So that's what we're saying, is that the doxology itself is an expression of praise.

And the doxology gives us specific reasons to praise him. Here's the first part of the doxology, for thine is the kingdom. All right, now just follow me as we go through here. Arthur Pink, commenting on these verses, said, in this pattern prayer, God has made both the alpha and the omega.

It opens by addressing him as our father in heaven. It ends by lauding him as the glorious king of the universe. The doxology reminds us that God is the supreme sovereign one, for thine is the kingdom.

And then it gives us some specific reasons to praise him, Psalm 115, 3. But our God is in heavens, he does whatever he pleases. It tells you who he is. He answers to no one, because there is none greater than him.

And we see that in Hebrews 6, verses 13 and 14. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply you.

The doxology gives us specific reasons to praise him, for thine is the power. Not only has the authority, the kingdom would give him the authority, but the fact that he has the power gives him the ability to carry out his will on earth.

Same concept, but just a little bit different. So we come to our Lord in praise and thanksgiving, because he has the power to accomplish all that we pray for. Nothing is impossible for him. Is that a question or just stretching?

Just stretching. All right, how many people here have read Jerry Bridges' book, Trusting God? All right, just a couple. I would strongly encourage you to read that book, especially if you have a life that's not perfect.

If you have any kind of struggles in the Christian life, that book is extremely helpful. It's one of the books I give out frequently. The title of the book is Trusting God, and the subtitle of Even When Life Hurts.

And what he does in the book, he gives three, he says, three things are necessary for us to be able to trust God. First is that God is omnipotent. He has the power to do whatever he desires to do. Second thing is, he is all wise.

That means that he knows exactly the right thing to do in every circumstance. You ever come across circumstances of life, and you say, I just don't know what to do, I can do this, or I can do this, and I don't know which one is right.

God always knows what's right. So you have, he has the ability, he knows what is best. He has the power to accomplish that, and then what do you think the third leg of the stool is that's necessary to trust God?

He has all power, he has all wisdom. No, that would kind of be included in what we've talked about already. Love. Why is that important? Because he desires to do what is best for you. He's told us that he will always do what is best for us.

So because of his love, his power, and his wisdom, we can trust him absolutely. There's nothing that escapes him. And that's kind of included in the doxology here as well. Nothing is impossible for him, and he has all the ability to carry it out.

Matthew 19, 26, and looking upon them, Jesus said to them, with men this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. That's why we can trust him. And then, of course, this should be no, you should be no stranger to this verse spoken by King Nebuchadnezzar of all people.

And all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of the heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what hast thou done?

What an amazing confession of faith. And then we come to the last part of the doxology, for thine is the glory. And this is just a little background on it. The Greek word for glory is doxa. So doxa literally means glorious words.

It's from doxa and logos. So doxology, so when we sing the doxology in church frequently, we understand that's a word, singing glorious words. And that is a glorious song, isn't it? So what it means is we come before God in praise and thanksgiving for what purpose to glorify his name.

And we get a glimpse of the glory of God in several places in the scriptures. One of note is found in Revelation 5, and we'll read just a few verses. And I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders.

And the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. Saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

And every created thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them I heard saying, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.

And the four living creatures kept saying amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped. That give you a little glimpse of the glory of God? Reminiscent of another portion of scripture? What's it remind you of?

Philippians 2, nobody else? Come on, I'm not going any further until, how about Isaiah 6? Where Isaiah is given a glimpse of the throne and he sees the seraphim and covering their faces with their wings and covering their feet with another set of wings and saying, holy, holy, holy.

I heard a different take on that. We always think of holy, holy, holy, one for each member of the trinity and all. But E .V. Hill, he was a great preacher from South Central L .A. down in the Watts section.

And he was at a pastor's conference and he was talking about Isaiah 6. And he says, what's going on there? He says, God does something wonderful, something majestic. And all the angels bow before him and go, holy.

He says, and then they get up. And by the time they lifted up their eyes, he's done something else that's magnificent. And they go, holy. He said, and then they picked their eyes back up. And he's done something else, and they're going holy.

And that's what they're doing, they're preoccupied just saying how holy the Lord.

Is.

Good, God rest, he's with the Lord now. Yes, he is. So praise is a measure of spiritual maturity. The heart that recognizes what God has done responds in praise and thanksgiving. Do you see why I said that first, praise is a measure of spiritual maturity?

It's amazing how many people don't praise God in their worship. I touched upon this a little bit on Sunday morning. And here we're making the statement that praise is actually a measure of maturity. The more mature you are, the closer you draw to God, the more you will be praising him and giving him thanksgiving.

Prayers that please God are God-centered prayers. And how can your prayer be God-centered? By praising him, by thanking him. Remember the difference between praise and thanksgiving? Praising thanksgiving is thanking him for something he's done.

Praising him is just for who he is. God loves to hear the praise of his people. He said to inhabit the praise of his people. And this leads to the second function. The first function is that the doxology is an expression of praise.

The second function of the doxology is this. It's a plea to enforce the petitions. I'll show you what I mean. Notice the connecting word, for. For thine is the kingdom, it begins. For acts as a conjunction in this particular grammatical construction, and has the meaning of because or on account of.

So in other words, we pray these petitions, the seven petitions that we've been studying. We pray for them. Why? Because the kingdom is his. What does that mean? Because he has the authority to bring about the petitions.

He has the authority to answer. You can bring all your petitions to me if you'd like. You're just not gonna get the answers to them. You see the point? But see, so that's why it says for thine is the kingdom.

Why pray this? Why pray for thy kingdom to come, thy will be done? Why pray for give us this day our daily bread? Because the kingdom belongs to Christ. And with something that we want to keep in mind too, don't forget that when we bring these petitions, we're not informing him of anything new.

Verse eight, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. And the same is true for the second part of the doxology. For thine is the power. We're reminded that God is the only one with the power to answer all our prayers.

So you can see how the doxology is referring back to the petitions. That's why I think it is a fitting end to the prayer, even though it may not be in all the manuscripts. God is pleased when we acknowledge his power.

And these petitions acknowledge our utter dependence upon God for all things material and spiritual, okay? And the same is true for the third part of the doxology. For thine is the glory. When we pray like this, according to the pattern that Christ has laid down for us, God will rightly receive the glory and not ourselves.

When a craftsman, I know a lot of people here work with their hands, they build things and stuff. Or people write, there's all different kinds of things we do. What do we do when you build something and there it is and it comes out and it's beautiful, it's perfect?

We say, look what my hands have done. What do we say? Thank you, Lord, this is a gift from you. When God answers these prayers, he will receive the glory. And he says in Isaiah 4811, for my own sake, for my own sake, he repeats it.

I will act, for how can my name be profaned? And my glory I will not give to another. God will not share his glory. We're reminded just the other couple of weeks ago what happened to King Herod. When he's the voice of a God, the people said, and he accepted that.

And what happened, God struck him. He will not give his glory to another. And then the next thing is that it's a confirmation, this doxology is a confirmation that prayers will be heard. It confirms that our prayers will be fruitful.

We don't come before God like the pagans who never know if anyone hears their pleas, that's why they pray with vain repetitions. Because they have no guarantee that anybody's gonna hear. They're praying to wood, stone, and precious metals.

And we also don't need a secret formula for our prayers to be heard. Now this I wanna pause on just for a minute. Because this is especially prevalent in the Christian church, in the evangelical church.

Periodically, you'll hear somebody come up with, if you want your prayers to be answered, you have to pray like this. And they're not looking at Matthew 6, a number of years ago. Anybody remember the prayer of Jabez?

All of a sudden, everybody's praying this prayer of Jabez from the Old Testament, that God will expand your borders, as though that was the model prayer. And they actually published books and everything else, and it was coming forth from the pulpits.

If you want your prayers answered, pray like this. And my response was, wait a minute, that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said pray like this. And after that, there was another one that said, if you want your prayers to be answered, not only do you have to say in Jesus' name, but you have to pray according to his blood.

And the wording is extremely precise. That's not what the Bible teaches. We don't need a secret formula for our prayers to be heard. God hears our prayers. The answered prayer is the one that comes from a heart that loves God, has been broken before him, and pleads with God for his prayers to be answered for Christ's sake.

There's not one of us here that deserves our prayers to be answered, except because of what Christ has done in us, for us, and through us. What happens if you don't know the words to say? And this is what really blows away the prayers of Jabez and this meticulous wording of the prayers, Romans 8, 26 and 27.

And in the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. That's the Apostle Paul talking. And he says, we do not know how to pray as we should. If you think you finally got your prayer, you know how to pray, you don't.

But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And that's not speaking in tongues, people. This is the Holy Spirit taking our meager words and bringing them to the throne of God and bringing them perfectly.

That's why our prayers will be answered. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. You know the purpose for that?

Have you ever been in circumstances where you're overwhelmed with grief and you just didn't know how to pray? I don't even know what to say. You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to wax eloquent.

The Holy Spirit is there at that moment and he'll take the thoughts of your heart and bring them before the throne of God. God never leaves you alone. He never leaves you nor forsakes you. We do not know how to pray as we should.

The doxology is also an encouragement. We can pray, deliver us from evil, because God never sleeps on the job. Psalm 121, verse 3, he will not allow your foot to slip. He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper, the Lord is your shade on your right hand. That's comforting to know that he doesn't sleep. He's always there. We can pray that kingdom come because God has promised that it will come.

Matthew 16, 18, and I say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. His kingdom will come in full majesty and glory by the time we're ready to go meet him in the air.

And then the doxology is also a comfort. God answers prayers in a way that we wouldn't even think of. Ephesians 3, 20, now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, for the kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.

It's an unchanging kingdom, and that too is a comfort for us. And then the prayer ends with that little word, amen. So be it or it shall be so. I like it shall be so. And we see that's biblical to use that, Psalm 72.

Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel who alone works wonders. And blessed be his glorious name forever. And may the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen. Questions?