A Pattern for Prayer Part II
Matthew 6:9-15
INTRODUCTION
A. John Hannah said, “The end of prayer is not so much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependency…The call to prayer is a call to love, submission, and obedience…the avenue of sweet, intimate, and intense fellowship of the soul with the infinite Creator.”
B. Review of the first message on prayer.
1. The first part of the Lord’s Prayer, or really the Disciple’s Prayer.
2. Recognize the fatherhood of God, the hallowness of his name, his program and his plan.
3. Contains three petitions of which Dr. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, “Our whole life is found therein those three petitions, and that is what makes this prayer so utterly amazing. In such a small compass our Lord has covered the whole life of the believer in every respect.”
PRAY FOR GOD’S PROVISION
A. “Give us this day our daily bread.”
1. Seems out of place to many today.
2. Most in the Western world don’t have to worry about this.
3. We are aware of hunger in other countries, but it is in ours too.
4. The ghost of Christmas present gave Ebenezer Scrooge a glance of this in Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol.
B. Examples.
1. In 2001 and 2002 we saw it in Afghanistan as a result of the corrupt ruling body and America’s bombing of that country for their participation in the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
2. Saw it in 1993 in Somalia before the intervention of the United Nations.
3. Multitudes were starving and dying every day.
4. News media was filled with pictures of these people, many too weak to get to the food and others covered with flies.
C. What starvation does.
1. Comes a time when the body will begin to feed on itself.
2. Disease is called kwashiorkor and it comes from a protein deficiency.
3. Body feeds on fats and carbohydrates for about 40 days then begins to feed on itself.
4. Disease is common in the third world.
5. Perhaps the reason no one fasts for more than 40 days.
D. Most of us know nothing about praying for our daily bread.
1. I can never remember a time when I had to wonder whether or not we would have food.
2. Most of us have enough in our freezers to last us some time.
3. People that Jesus spoke to did have to worry.
E. What bread refers to.
1. Our daily food but even more than that (all our physical needs).
2. John Stott said that to Martin Luther-leader of the Protestant Reformation, “everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, and peace.”
F. It is wonderful to know that God is concerned about our physical needs.
1. He is the creator and controller and is very busy.
2. He is concerned about us and obligates himself to care for us.
G. This part of prayer is petition and affirmation.
1. We affirm our belief that God will supply our needs.
2. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17)
H. God is the source of all our blessings.
1. We owe everything to him.
2. Example: The colonel on M*A*S*H who didn’t want Hawkeye to operate on him because of Hawkeye’s disrespect. Potter said to him, “Suffering succotash man, you owe your life to that man.”
3. No matter how much we might work for what we have, ultimately we owe God for what we have.
4. No matter how many talents or gifts we have, we owe God for that.
5. God prepared the Garden for humans before they were created.
I. What asking God for our daily bread really means.
1. Recognizing he has supplied our needs in the past, is doing so in the present and will do so in future.
2. We make the request with confidence.
3. God only obligates himself to meet the needs of his children.
4. Even the common grace of God meets many of the needs of unbelievers.
J. We also have a part in meeting our daily needs.
1. God usually supplies through our part in working.
2. If a person does not work (not referring to those who want to work but cannot find word), they should not eat. (II Thessalonians 3:10)
3. God and we both have a responsibility.
4. God made the earth to produce, but we have abilities to start that process.
K. How do we make this petition?
1. One day at a time.
2. Be content with his goodness and faithfulness of today with confidence that he will repeat it tomorrow.
3. Doesn’t mean we don’t prepare for the future (savings, retirement).
L. The prayer is not just for us.
1. We are to pray that all people will have their daily bread.
2. This involves praying for their salvation.
M. Example of some who do not have needs met because of unbelief.
1. To the Hindus, people are incarnations of souls on their way to emancipation through a process of reincarnation.
2. Starvation is seen as divine punishment.
3. Penance must be done to be born into a higher form.
4. Interfering with this process does a person spiritual harm.
5. Cows are sacred because they are incarnated deities.
6. Rats and other animals are not eaten because they might be a relative.
7. Food supply is not properly used and many starve.
PRAY FOR GOD’S PARDON
A. “Forgive us our sins, just as we forgive those who have sinned against us.”
B. Debt is one of five words used for sin.
1. Missing the mark, slipping or falling, stepping across the line and lawlessness.
2. We have a spiritual debt to God for our sins.
3. Sin makes us susceptible to disease, illness, evil, unhappiness, now and in eternity.
4. Sin is the common denominator of the many manifestations or acts of sin we see daily.
C. Our predicament as Christians.
1. We have been given a new nature but we struggle with the temptations of our humanness.
2. God takes care of forgiving all our sins at salvation.
3. Still need daily assurance from God that our sins are forgiven.
4. We need to daily confess and agree with God about our failures.
5. Dr. John Stott, one time pastor of All Souls Church in London, said, “One of the surest antidotes to the process of moral hardening is the disciplined practice of uncovering our sins of thought and outlook, as well as of word and of deed, and the repentant forsaking of them.”
D. As we have been forgiven, we are to forgive.
1. How can we refuse when Christ has forgiven us?
2. Forgiveness demonstrates our relationship with God.
3. Highest virtue we can have.
4. When we don’t forgive, we won’t have happiness or peace.
5. Thomas Manton, Puritan writer, said, “There is none so tender to others as they which have received mercy themselves, for they know how gently God hath dealt with them.”
E. A Christian psychiatrist defended his work as related to forgiveness.
1. People come feeling guilty because of their problems.
2. They confess, he forgives and then shows them ways they can forgive others.
PRAY FOR GOD’S PROTECTION
A. “And don’t let us yield to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
B. Root meaning of temptation.
1. Has to do with testing or proving.
2. God does not tempt neither is he tempted.
C. We must avoid the danger and trouble that sin creates.
1. Desire to escape all prospects of falling into sin.
2. Trials help us grow spiritually, emotionally and mentally.
3. Don’t want to be in position where the possibility of sin is increased.
4. Appeal to God to watch over our eyes, ears, mouth, feet and hands.
5. Paraphrase, “Lord, don’t even lead us into a trial that will present such a temptation that we will not be able to resist it.”
6. Martin Luther said, “We cannot help being exposed to the assaults, but we pray that we may not fall and perish under them.”
CONCLUSION
A. Pray for God’s provision, pardon and protection.
B. Following the Protestant Reformation and the wars that followed, one wrote:
“In all the strife of mortal life
Our feet shall stand securely;
Temptation’s house shall loose its power,
For thou shalt guard us surely.
O God, renew, with heavenly dew,
Our body, soul and spirit,
Until we stand at thy right hand,
Through Jesus’ saving merit.
