“Lord Teach us to Pray”

Nick Bibile

Luke 11:1

Mat 6:5-8

Verse 5) Pharisees and Scribes wanted to be seen by men, show how religious they are, show off, taken notice by others. Seen by men. Pride and self glory

Verse 6) Secretly. Isaac went into the field (Gen. 24:63), Christ to a mountain.

Verse 7) Vain repetition. Repeating the words over and over again. God is not deaf. Some people you have to repeat things so they understand but God is not like a human.

Long prayers so people will notice how religious they are. Long prayers are not prohibited, Christ prayed the whole night. But in Private, in public we are not to show off any pride.

Heathens, unbelievers, lip prayer. Reading and repeating a prayer.

Bishop Richardson came to hear Thomas Watson preaching, he was greatly blessed with his sermon, but especially the way Thomas Watson prayed. He asked Thomas Watson to give a copy of his prayer. Thomas Watson said, “That I cannot do as I don’t use a pen to write my prayers. It is from the abundance of my heart.”

Verse 9) Christ Jesus gives the foundation or the basic of how to pray.

Our Father in heaven. Our Father in heaven. We are not praying to Mary, saints or the Pope, but to our heavenly Father in heaven.

Father is a person who has a family, he is the head, where the children respect. Father’s job is to love, guard, protect and preserve the family. Also the word father means a founder of something.

Before we were enemies of God. Romans 8:7 Mary Magdalene was a prostitute but who knew no God and enemy of God but God brought salvation to her. John 20:15-17

We were enemies of God now God becomes our Father, personal relationship, guard, protect, preserve and love us. He is our Father as he created us, he founded us, he is the Father as salvation is of God, he saved us.

Romans 8:15 “abba” Jewish child is born one of the first words they say is ‘abba’ means father, Dad. Even angels cannot say our Father to God. 1 John 3:1

Intimate fellowship. Only a child away from home can say, our Father in heaven. God doesn’t live in a statue or an image made by man’s hands, God does not live in temples or in a church. You don’t have to go to church to find God, God’s presence is every where but his dwelling place is heaven. Isa 66:1

Hallowed be your name. The word hallo means to holy. There is no darkness or evil in God. He is the most Holy God. Holy is your name.

Thy Kingdom come.

In a kingdom there is a King who rules. Before we became Christians our hearts were ruled according to our own carnal nature. Now we are Christians God rules us. Our prayer is that God will rule our hearts, also his ultimate Kingdom will come in his second coming, we would look forward to the coming of Christ in his ultimate kingdom. Also the gospel of his kingdom shall come, on earth as it is in heaven. This has to do with evangelism, that people would come from Satan’s kingdom to God’s kingdom. (Col 1:13)

THY WILL BE DONE, only a servant can pray thy will be done. God answers prayer in three ways, yes, wait, no.

Give us this day our daily bread. Only a beggar can ask give us our daily bread.

What is daily bread? Is it physical food? Jesus said I am the bread of life. John 6:35, he is talking more on spiritual food. Mat 4:4 Hungering and thirsting for God’s word more than our physical food.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Only a sinner can ask to forgive our debts.

Sin is a debt to God. That is why we see in the scripture that we were poor and in Christ, we are rich, to show that we owed a debt to the Father and we were poor, unable to pay the debt as the debt was an infinite debt against the infinite God. We cannot answer to the justice of God. But Christ in our behalf paid that debt in full.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

We are living in a world that has beautiful colors of temptation, Satan shows us the sweetness of this world. He will tempt us in sexually, worldliness, pride, love of money, drugs, alcohol, worldly entertainment etc., We know how we lived before. No Bible, worldly friends but we need to be watchful and pray that we will not go back to those old ways. Remember how God killed many Israelites in the wilderness? What was their sin? Murmuring, complaining as they wanted to go back to Egypt, which is picture of the world.

Let me tell an old story. There were that two men condemned to die as martyrs in the burning days of Queen Mary. One of them boasted very loudly to his companion of his confidence of his faith in the Lord. He did not mind the suffering, he was so grounded in the gospel that he knew he should never deny it. He said he is looking for that day he would be burnt in the fire. He was not frightened.

His companion in prison in the same prison was a poor trembling soul, who will not deny his Master; but he told his other companion, that he was very much afraid of the fire. He was so much afraid that because of the pain he might deny his Lord. He spent all his time weeping over his weakness and crying to God for strength but the other continually rebuked him for not being strong.

But when the day came for both of them to be burnt at the stake, the man who boasted of his strong faith, denied the Lord when he saw and felt the heat of the fire. He was not burnt but he lived as an apostate. While the poor trembling man whose prayer for “lead me not into temptation that I will not deny you Lord” stood firm like a rock praising and magnifying God as he was burnt to ashes. He went to be with the Lord in heaven and he was comforted. Beloved, Weakness is our strength; and our strength is weakness. Cry unto God pouring your soul out saying, “Lead us not into temptation.” Then if he does lead

you into temptation , his Holy Spirit will strengthen you. 1 Cor 4:10 ; 2 Cor 12:9-10

Every believer is a worshipper, a beggar, servant and a believing sinner

Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen. This is a praise and thanksgiving.

1 Chronicles 29:10-15

David’s Prayer

¹⁰ David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,

“Praise be to you, Lord,
    the God of our father Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting.
¹¹ Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all.
¹² Wealth and honor come from you;
    you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
    to exalt and give strength to all.
¹³ Now, our God, we give you thanks,
    and praise your glorious name.

¹⁴ “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. ¹⁵ We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.