Matthew 6:9-10

Elevating Our Prayers

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Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today and we pray that you’ll be blessed by both hearing God's Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart.

You may be seated. Well this morning, we continue to look at the Lord's Prayer and we look at that this morning from Matthew chapter six. You can find the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter six, beginning at verse nine. And we'll be reading through Matthew chapter six, verse 13. You can find that on page 853 of your pew Bibles. Hear now the reading of God's Word from the New Covenant. “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Well, have you ever met someone, when you get into a conversation with them, that all they talk about is me, me, me. You know that type of person I'm talking about, right? You start talking to them and they don't even let you get a breath in. It doesn't even seem like they care about who you are or your interests or the things are heavy on your heart. All they care about, in that conversation, is themselves. It's more of a monologue about themselves than about a conversation.

Well, sometimes that's how we can be in prayer. Sometimes, when we start praying, it's all about me, me, me. And the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer are not about us, us, us. They are about Him, Him, Him. And so look with me at verses nine and ten, how Jesus teaches us how to pray in these first three petitions. Matthew 6:9, “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

And as we look at those words, Jesus is calling us to elevate our prayers. And that's your call this morning is to elevate your prayers. Not to be looking down here, not to be looking here, but to start your prayers, looking there. Elevate your prayers, and that starts in the first petition. After our Father who is in heaven, the first petition is hallowed be Your name. What does that even mean? Hallowed? That's not a typical word, right? That's not a word that we normally sprinkle into our vocabulary. “Well, yeah, I went to the store. Then later on, I hallowed God's name. And then after that, I went…” We don't normally use the word hallowed. It comes from the Hebrew and the Greek idea of “Holy”, of setting something apart for a reverential use, a special use, an honorable use. And the Lord's Prayer starts with “Holy is to be Your name.”

And we have to ask ourselves, as we read this, is it really that serious that we treat God’s name as Holy? Well, yeah, it really is that serious, it's the third commandment. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name.” The Lord takes His name seriously. The Lord takes His name so seriously that it's the third commandment of the Decalogue, of the 10 words, of the 10 Commandments. It's right there. Number three. Don't have any other Gods. Don't make idols of any other gods. And don't you misuse My name. Why? Why is God's name so Holy? Why is God's name worthy of being set apart? Because when God shows us His name, when He reveals to us His name, He's revealing to us who He is. When God tells us His names, His names show us things about Him. And here, it's singular, His name. Holy, or hallowed, be Your name.

But we know as we go through the Bible, God reveals Himself with a whole bunch of different names. One God, many names. Why? Because all these names teach us different things about who your God is. And so, when you read through the Bible, there's just the generic term that we typically use for God, El. And El just means master. But think about that. God is master. And He's not just master, He's Elohim. He's the master of masters. But God also reveals to us even more with that root word of El for God, or Master, and He calls Himself El Shaddai. The master of war, the master of destruction, the master of making things undone. This is why the angels before God's face, have to cry out, “Holy, holy, holy!”, because if you are a sinful person before a Holy God without Jesus Christ, you are undone. He is El Shaddai, He is the great destroyer.

But He also gives us even more names for Himself. He is the Yud-Hei-Waw-Hei, the tetragrammaton, Yahwheh, or in our Psalters, the old red ones, Jehovah. The God who is. God doesn't have a beginning. God doesn't have an end. The Lord is. Period. You can't say, “Well what happened before God was created.” God was never created. The Lord is. See, as God shows Himself to us in these names, we find out more and more about Him. Jesus teaches us one of His names in the preface, “Our Father.” One of the names of your God is Father. And we spent a whole bunch of times last week on all that that means for us.

But He also reveals Himself in the person who is telling us to pray this. Jesus's name, Yeshua, is God who saves. At the beginning of the Book of Matthew, this is what the angel tells Mary to name Jesus, “God who saves, for He will save His people from their sins.” Even in Jesus’s name, we find out more and more. His name is to be Emmanuel, God with us. And as we continue to look at God's name, we find out the Lord's name is also Alpha and Omega. Beginning and End. You see, the titles and the names show us the attributes, the characteristics, the beauties, the glory, the holiness, who God is. So no wonder why God says, “Hallowed be Your name.” Because if we use that lightly, if we just start throwing in God's name as an adjective, as part of a curse word, it's not holy. You missed the point of who God is and the gravitas of Him revealing Himself to you.

So we start our prayers, recognizing that He is holy. His name is even holy. But recognize something: Hallowed be Your name. God does this. We do it in response to Him. But He has to start this. Because we, by nature, do not hallow His name. We as children of wrath do not naturally want to hold God in high esteem. But it's what God does in our hearts that makes us want to hold His name in high esteem.

There's a reason why, I’m not sure how many of you guys watch streaming videos online, but there's an entire website devoted to taking shows that Christian shouldn't watch, cutting out all the bad parts, so that way, Christians can watch them. And one of the things you can click on there is blasphemies. And one of them is using the name of Jesus Christ as a swear word. And there's lots of shows where there's just huge chunks that are left out because they're using the name of our Lord as a blasphemy, as a curse word, rather than keeping it holy and sacred. Our culture doesn't naturally want to do this, so where do we find that we should keep God's name holy? We find it here in the Lord's Prayer. We find it in the 10 Commandments.

The question is, are you? Do you know God's names? Do you remember who God is? When you read your Bible, are you searching out who God is revealing Himself to be? Now again, Jesus is assuming here, if you're a disciple, you're going to pray. I'm assuming, if you're a Christian, you're not only going to be praying, but you're going to be reading your Bible. When you read your Bible and God reveals Himself as, “I am like this,” or when we sing the Psalms and it says, “from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Do we realize that God has taught us something about Himself? Are we elevating our prayers thinking about Him?

I'm gonna probably guess that this is the most difficult part of most of your prayer lives. This is really hard. God tells us to do this in prayer. God tells us to magnify His name in prayer. But every single person I've ever discipled, every single person I've asked about their prayer life, this is the hardest part. Because the reality is, we don't read the Bible looking for God. Too often, we read the Bible looking for what God has for us. Start reading your Bible to learn about who the Maker and Master of the universe is, and you'll be better equipped to pray this way, like Jesus tells us. Do you see? Jesus tells us, “Don't pray like this, turn your eyes and start up there.”

But that means you need to know who He is. As we continue this pattern that Jesus has told us to enrich our prayer lives with our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. How is God's name hallowed? It's in prayer, yes, but it's also by people actually doing it. And that's where Jesus takes us in verse 10, “Your kingdom come.” Jesus tells us to pray for God's kingdom to come. Pray for His kingdom. Again, you have to ask yourself, “What is God's kingdom?” What is God's kingdom? It’s the reign of His righteousness. It's the rule of His justice. It's Him bringing about all the things which are meant to bring Him glory and to extol His honor. That's what His kingdom is. And we are invited, by our Lord Jesus Christ, to enter into an active participation with that. We get to pray, “Your kingdom come.” This is why we got to read Psalm 67. Whenever you sing Psalm 67, we sing that great missionary song, God is inviting us to sing that His fame would extend across the entire globe, that all nations, all people, all nationalities, all ethnicities, all languages would worship Him. That's what we're praying for when we pray “Your kingdom come.”

Again, we have to ask ourselves if we're praying for something to come, what's here now? If we're praying that something's going to eventually arrive, what is the state in which we live now? Well, Jesus teaches us elsewhere that we live in a real sorry state. We live in an era, in a time, of Satan, of the kingdom of darkness, under the prince of the power of this world. We live in an era where people murder their children and kill people. Where people walk by homeless people and there are people starving in the streets. I remember growing up outside of Los Angeles and seeing millionaires walk by slum alley. Something's not right there. Whether we disagree on the solution or not, having billionaires next to people who don't have food to eat, isn't okay. Now there's lots of people to blame for that, but there's one person who's ruling over all of it. Satan. And we live in that reality surrounded by this cloud of darkness. And we are praying actively, Jesus teaches us, that that kingdom would be done away with and that God's Kingdom would come.

Do you actively pray for God's kingdom to come? But it's easy to look to look to slum alley and the millionaires in Los Angeles, but where does this really start? Where should this praying for God's kingdom, where should it really start? Don't look outside. Look here. Look at yourself. Where does God's kingdom need to start? It needs to start in our own hearts. It needs to start with us humbling ourselves and asking, “What am I doing that's bringing about God's kingdom? Or am I all about my own little kingdom?” Are we praying that God's gospel would be advanced, or do we just worry about having a nice house and good cars and a sweet job? What are our lives focused about? Do we pray that God would orient our lives, our desires, our finances, our energy towards His kingdom, or are we just building up our own empires? These are hard questions and we need to direct them at our own hearts when we pray the Lord's Prayer. “God, am I even keeping this commandment? Am I seeking to bring your Kingdom of God?”

But take hope, Christian, that His kingdom is advancing. That the Lord Jesus Christ is saving sinners today. That in the reign of Jesus Christ at Calvary, the will of heaven has broken through into my life and of your life. And He has begun the good work of bringing in His kingdom. Are you actively praying that His kingdom would keep spreading? It's not good enough for it to be confined within these four walls, within our life and we have a holy huddle. No. Our desire is to see all Southeast Iowa come to Jesus Christ. Our desire is to see all of the Midwest bow the knee to Jesus Christ. Our desire is for all of the United States, all of North America, the entire globe, to be saved. This is what we pray for with, “Thy kingdom come.” Are you praying for it?

Now some of you get to actively be engaged in this. Children, I'm going to address you first. Children, you are going to have an opportunity. Today might be the first day to hear this. The Lord might be calling some of you, children, to go and to share this gospel, to make this the center of your heart’s prayer. Some of you might go as missionaries, to go to the furthest ends of the Earth to share His kingdom. If He's calling you to that, foster that in your heart. For many of us, we are not called to go do that type of work, but we are called to pray for the people every single week, that God would convert sinners in places like Sudan and South Sudan and in Japan and in India and in many other countries that we can't even say because it's being recorded. We need to keep praying that God's kingdom would go out. And I'm gonna challenge some of you. I met a man, recently, who took this call upon himself. He sensed this was the Lord was calling him to do this type of missionary work. He was retired. He was retired. Some of you know this man, Jack Baumgardner, was retired and left to go to another state to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, in Clarinda, Iowa. This is not just work for children, but each one of you should be praying actively, “Thy kingdom come.” This is what Jesus demands of us. This is what Jesus says that we're to be praying. And He uses His church, and He uses His people to do it. But if we're not even thinking about it, if we're not thinking about His kingdom and His holy name, missions will be something way off the radar. Do you see what God is doing elevating our prayers here? None of this is praying about us. All of this is praying about Him: His name, His glory, His kingdom, His power, His righteousness.

And He continues, Jesus pushes us even further in the third petition, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That's the third petition in verse 10. We need to pray for God's will. See, all the angels in heaven, Psalm 103:20, says all the angels in heaven do His will. What we are praying for is that all the sinfulness that we experience in this world, all the darkness that we see in our lives, all the hideous things that the news channels wanna put right in front of you, we're praying that that stops. We're praying that here on earth, His will might be done as it is in heaven.

But again, why do we have to pray this? We often will read these and these are nice cute words that Jesus taught us to pray, and kids will pray them at bedtime, or some people just say them from rote memory. But why do we have to pray this? Let me ask you, do you always do God's will? Do you, when you wake up in the morning, right away, get out of your bed and go, “God, I got it. I know what You have for me to do today. I know Your entire Word. I know Your moral law. I know what I'm supposed to do and I'm doing it all today.” No. No, you know that's not the case, but this is how Jesus is telling us we are to elevate our prayers and incline our hearts, that when we wake up in the morning, when we go to the Lord in prayer, we stop immediately and we think about His will and not ours. And sometimes His will is hard. Often His will is uncomfortable. Often His will is costly and hurts. It looks like giving away things. It looks like forgiving people who have hurt you. It looks like loving people who are unlovable. It looks like caring for people who are just really annoying to you. It looks like stepping out of your comfort zone and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with that coworker. It looks like giving up that pet sin that you've enjoyed just a little bit too much. It looks like praying that God's will would override our desires and we would be consumed by His glory. We are literally praying here that God would take us out of our Ephesians 2:1-2 state and move us into Psalm 51:20 state, that we would no longer be dead in our sin and our trespasses, but that He would create in us a new heart to desire His will. Are you praying that God would give you a heart to do His will? This is a challenge for you in the mornings and in the evenings, when you pray, when you walk about during the day and you have things that you're praying about, are you praying, “God, what is Your will in this situation?”

I was really tempted to change our morning reading to Second Chronicles, where Jehoshaphat makes that very prayer. In Second Chronicles 15, Jehoshaphat finds out that there's an army coming. And he humbles himself before God and he cries out. Jehoshaphat’s got a big old army, but he finds out that the Ammonites, the Moabites, and another nation are coming and they're gonna fight against him. And he immediately humbles himself and he prays, essentially, that God's will would be done in that situation. Wanna know what happens? They go to war, but before they get there, God turns the enemies against each other. The Ammonites fight the Moabites, the Moabites fight the Ammonites. They both fight this other nation that’s with them. And at the end, when they walk up to the battle line, guess what happens? Nobody's there but dead people. And they get all the spoils of war. For three days, they collect all the spoils, all the booty of war, and they get to go back home because God has given them rest.

Are you praying for God's will, even in hard circumstances? Are you praying that God would incline your heart? How do you know, in your daily life, what God's will is? We said that in our catechism question this morning. What is the rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience? The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience was His moral law. Next question is going to tell us it's the Bible summarized in the 10 Commandments. Are you in His Word? Are you going to what His revealed will is that you might do it? Are we praying and seeking and desiring what He wants? Do you see the radical nature of how Jesus starts the Lord's prayer? Jesus starts the Lord's Prayer with saying, “Don't look inward. Look upward!” Jesus says, “Get your eyes off the ground and elevate them up to heaven.” That's where you need to start your prayer. Because when we orient our hearts towards heaven, He changes us and He will do that work in you. This is how he changes us to desire to do His will. Pray. Use God's Word as a model. Use these words here, “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Pick it up. Think on God's Word. Meditate on God's Word and make these prayers the very breath of your heart. God will do a good work in you, if this is the type of heart of prayer that you have. Put on your lips buried in your heart and let's start praying as Jesus taught us to pray.

Let's pray now. “Oh God, you are wonderful. Father, we pray that Your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts. Incline us to Your Word. Turn our hearts away from ourselves. Forgive us for our selfishness. And, Lord, turn us to Your will. Father, please bring Your kingdom. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Thank you for listening to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His Word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.