Our Daily Bread - Matthew 6:11 Series

Matthew 6:5-15 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Introduction: Why pray?

If Ephesians 1:11 is really true, and God really does work out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will… - if everything is predetermined - why pray? Last week we talked about God’s will of decision – His unchangeable, perfect, sovereign plan. You can have full confidence that every single thing that has ever happened to you was His perfect plan, because His plan never gets derailed. And inevitably, whenever I preach a sermon like that, questions are going to arise on this whole issue of determinism. If God’s plan cannot be changed, what is the point of praying? What is the point of working? What is the point of doing anything?

I addressed that a few weeks back, but I think I need to talk about it again because this is such a common pitfall. But always remember this rule of thumb: Any time your theology hinders your prayer life, you know you are into error. If your doctrinal system causes you to pray less or pray less fervently – your theology is messed up. Good theology never does anything but intensify prayer.

It is interesting to me that the result of both hyper-Calvinism and hyper-Arminianism is the same – less prayer. A hyper-Calvinist is someone who takes the legitimate aspects of Calvinism about the sovereignty of God and then adds in his own human reasoning to draw conclusions that are unbiblical. And a hyper-Arminian does the same thing with free will. The hyper-Calvinist says, “If God is in full control of everything, that means my decisions must not matter – so why pray?” The hyper-Arminian focuses all his attention on human free will and says, “What happens is determined by what human beings decide. God will not override our free will, therefore – why pray? Why pray for God to do something when it is not really up to Him; it is a matter of what human beings decide to do? I really think the key to harmonizing what Scripture says about God’s sovereign control on one hand and man’s responsibility and free will on the other hand is in prayer. Prayer is the perfect balance because it acknowledges that God is in control, but it also acknowledges that the future can go one way or go another way depending on our prayers.

Scripture is very clear about two things: The future is one hundred percent in God’s hands and He will accomplish His perfect plan. God wants us to think of what is going to happen in the future as undetermined from our perspective. God already knows what is going to happen tomorrow morning. But from our perspective He wants us to think in terms of outcomes depending in significant measure on what we decide. Just look at the life of Jesus. If anyone would become a fatalist and just say, “It doesn’t matter what we do – God’s plan is set in stone” you would think it would be Jesus (since He is the one who came up with the plan and set it in stone). Jesus believed in the sovereignty of God more than any Calvinist, and yet - look at His life. Did Jesus behave as though our actions do not really matter? No! Just the opposite. He worked hard. He got up out of bed early – before the sun was up. He stayed up all night sometimes. He traveled long distances on foot. And He prayed hard, and long, and intensely.