Romans 5:5-8,
Romans 8:38, 39,
Ephesians 3:17-19,
On Saturday, we had our Men's Conference, and the subject was a Christian worldview. And that's simply “How does a Christian think about all of life?” That language comes from Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970’s or 1980’s. But before anyone was talking about a Christian worldview, you could say that the Puritans were practicing it. Dr. Packer, in a book on the Puritans called A Quest for Godliness, (one of the best books overview in terms of what made the Puritans the Puritans), he says, 

And the Puritan Christian worldview began with the knowledge of God. The Christian Puritan worldview was shaped by the God we worship, the glory of God, the sovereignty of God, and the whole being of God. If we don't start there, if we don't start with a high view of God, then our Christian worldview is going to be rather shaky, like a kite in the wind. And it wasn't just an intellectual view of God, but a saving knowledge of God. So the Puritans always had a Christ-centered focus. A true knowledge of God necessitates the love of God, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son.” Romans 8, it's a love that predestines, calls, redeems, converts, sanctifies, and ultimately will glorify every true saint of God. Quoting from Packer,

Fully, unambiguously revealed at the cross.

And going back to the preaching of Pastor Bart Carlson Sunday morning, he dealt with this matter of loving Jesus. He started off with the fact that Jesus loves us. That's something we need to constantly be thinking about and meditating upon. Romans 5, (he referenced that), the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And we can be wonderfully sure and secure in that love, Romans 8:38, 39, “Nothing can separate us from that love of Christ.” Nothing in this world, nothing in the world to come. We never, ever have to worry that Christ will ever, ever stop loving us from the beginning to the end, from eternity to eternity.

And we should always be praying our love for Him, a felt sense of love for Him. I think that was what Pastor Carlson emphasized, he referred to a fresh, increasing love for our Savior. And let's be honest, that's probably where all of us can struggle, go astray. We can fall into a coldness, a lukewarmness, even a deadness. And you have that strong warning, I think he started the sermon off on that strong warning, in the last days where iniquity abounds, the love of many shall grow cold. Yes, you can have a full head, but you can have a cold heart, disaffected.

So to help us grow in our love for Christ, what do we do? Well, we meditate upon His love for us. That's where we have got to start, it starts with Him. He's the great initiator. We love him because He first loved us. And the more we see His love, the more that will refresh, energize, and compel our love. Why do we come to the Lord's table regularly? Well, to grow in our love for Christ as we contemplate His love for us. In that last text that was read earlier in Ephesians 3:17-19 where Paul talks about Christ's love, he talks about it from four different dimensions; its length, its breadth, its depth, and its height. And then he says, “It passes understanding.” In other words, no matter how much you study the love of Christ, no matter how much you meditate upon the love of Christ, no matter how many sermons you hear about the love of Christ, we will never, ever be able to exhaust its meaning or fully comprehend its breadth, height, depth, or width.

And as we come to prayer tonight, let's even pray for more love to Christ, more love to Christ. That wouldn't be a bad prayer to pray every time you pray, “Lord, give me more love for you, a felt sense of that love.”

Luke 23:46, “He breathed His last.”

Breathing. It is something that everyone understands. It's something everybody realizes is a necessity. We are dependent on breathing to live. As I was thinking about breathing, some of the things we know about breathing, we know that we breathe continually, we breathe every moment of every day. It's not something that we just do occasionally. It's not something that we just do for a brief period intensely and then stop.

We breathe constantly, regularly, steadily. We know that we must breathe to receive oxygen, oxygen that we need to live. We breathe continually. But at times, we might find that we need to breathe more deeply. I think all of us have experienced this perhaps at times after physical exertion or stress. We experience this need to draw in deep breaths, filling our lungs with air. We might breathe intentionally, seeking to bring in as much air as possible. And we do so recognizing that we have a greater need at that moment for oxygen, oxygen that we get only by breathing.

But then there are also other times in life when we might find that our breathing is very difficult. We have difficulty that perhaps comes in response to something that might be restricting us in some way or blocking our ability to breathe. Have you ever found yourself struggling to breathe? You are, in a way at times, almost even needing to gasp for breath. And you find it urgent, a desperate need to breathe. It's not an experience that any of us ever want to have, but at times I think some of us have felt that.

So I suggest that prayer is like breathing. We need to pray continually throughout each and every day of our life. We are absolutely dependent on God, and we demonstrate that dependence on God to sustain our lives as we pray to God. We pray to Him constantly. We pray to Him to receive the help that we need in every aspect of our lives. So certainly we pray continually.

But in addition to having a heart in which we are constant in prayer to God, I think we also find that there are times in which we need to have a more focused, a more extended time of prayer. Life can be busy. At times we feel as though we're running like a mile a minute, going from one task to another task, scrambling as it were, just to keep up. And then another task comes, and it seems that it never ends and the responsibilities just keep coming and coming. It can be overwhelming. And in the midst of a hectic life, we must not neglect to pray, to set aside time when we can slow down, and as it were, take a breath, take a deep breath and pray, pray to God for help.

But there are also times, seasons of life when we may feel our weakness, our helplessness, our inability; or when we might be facing a significant challenge or trial, or when we're praying for others who are facing or suffering through trials. And once again at times like these, we need to set aside time, time to pray to God, pray intentionally, with at times an intensity and a fervency as we acknowledge our complete and our absolute dependence on Him. As we confess our desperate need of Him and His strength in times of need like we might be experiencing. And we pray to God for wisdom. We pray to God for grace. We pray to God for guidance. We pray to God for direction in our lives. And as we do, we pray trusting in God, trusting in Him because of who He is, and trusting in Him because of the promises that He has given us in His Word.

But also I would say as we pray, there's another time, another season, we need to be careful that we must not ever allow any difficulty that we might experience stop us from praying. Although we may feel that our prayers are restricted or somehow blocked, they may seem like they're not getting through to God. Perhaps it may seem that God is not answering our prayers. We continue to pray, but He's not hearing, He's not listening. But in times of these, we need to persevere. We must never give up. We must cry out to God and keep pleading to God, pleading to Him for His mercy and His grace, trusting in Him and knowing that when He answers, the timing of His answers is the right and the most perfect time. But also know that His answer for us is for our good and for His glory, even if that answer is no.

So as we come to pray, I would just suggest that when we breathe, may this be a reminder of our need to pray, to pray to God as we acknowledge our dependence on God in everything in our life. But then coming back to where we started, as we think of where Christ breathed His last; when we pray, may we remember that we only have this privilege, this great and amazing privilege, because Jesus went willingly to the cross where He suffered and He died and He breathed His last, so that we might be forgiven of our sins, so that we might have eternal life, the breath of life as it were, and be adopted into the family of God, so that we might have access through prayer to our great God, our God who provides for our every need. And surely God will grant us peace and help in the midst of our times of distress.

2 Peter 1:3, 4,
When we think of prayer we should always come back to the question, “What makes prayer, prayer?” “What makes Christian prayer different from every other kind of prayer?”
There are three things, that came to my mind today, in terms of why Christians pray differently and what makes our prayer so different. There are three P words: person, promises and perseverance.

The most important word about prayer is the person that we are praying to. Not just the person who is praying, that is us, but the person we are praying to. If we are going to have an attitude of reverence and humility, if we are going to hallow His name, we are going to have to understand who He is. A.W. Tozer had a great emphasis upon worship. Here is what he said, 

I remember Dr. J. I. Packard in that classic book, Knowing God, said,

He said that about 50 or 60 years ago, but we are certainly not the generation of the God magnifiers. That is what we should be, God magnifiers. And to help magnify God in our thinking and our praying here are three more words that are helpful; His sovereignty, how big is God; His majesty; the doctrine of the Trinity. Those are three great doctrines to remind us just how big God is.

Sovereignty means He has absolute, ultimate, unrivaled, universal control or reign over all things. That means there is nothing that happens in your life, in my life, that is not under His sovereign control. Romans 8:28, a very favorite text, “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.” Ephesians 1, “He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church.” So yes, from the littlest of things, to the biggest of things, the greatest of sorrows, the greatest of trials, the greatest of joys and gifts. All of those things come under the sovereign purpose, will and control of God. When we come to God need to remind ourselves of how big He is, that word sovereignty helps us.

Majesty. Psalm 93, “The Lord reigns, He is robed in majesty.” That word majesty comes from the Latin that means greatness. “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.” Majesty has to do with His unrivaled authority. It also has to do with His glorious attributes or excellencies.

Trinity. In a Biblical context we worship a three person God; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So here is the God we come to, a God who is sovereign, a God who is majestic and a God who is triune. There is no one greater than Him, no one to whom we can compare.

In 2 Peter 3, he describes the promises, divine promises here as exceedingly great or precious. The same word precious is used in the book of Hebrews when he talks about marriage as honorable. That word is precious. The marriage is honorable, precious. And these promises are precious, but he also describes them as exceedingly great. How are they great? They apply to everything in your life, any situation you face. Promises when you are awake, when you are afraid, promises when you are suffering from high levels of anxiety, promises when you sin, promises of sanctification, of growth in holiness, promises to strengthen you, promises of the resurrection, promises of Christ coming back again, promises of a new heaven and a new earth. So when we come to prayer we make good use of the promises of God, at least we should.

Jesus makes that point in Matthew 7 when He gives us those imperatives to keep on knocking, to keep on asking and seeking. Then He taught a whole parable in Luke 18 on the persevering widow. She is set before us as a woman who persevered and we are to persevere as well. The Apostle Paul brings that matter of perseverance up in at least four of his epistles.


And what does that mean practically? You are praying all the time. You keep on praying in the midst of trials. When you are in trials it is easy to become disaffected, you have to pray to God to help you, to stay the course, to suffer well. You can be praying in the midst of trials and you could also be praying in everyday life in terms of your graces. You want them to grow, you don’t want them to shrivel. You can be praying in light of your marriages. You can keep on praying if you have had a struggle in your marriage, you can keep on praying that God would make it stronger, that God would make it a Christian marriage, a gospel marriage. You can keep on praying for your neighbors and for your friends. Maybe just in terms of loving your neighbors, loving your wife, loving your husband, loving your children. We can keep on praying for the unconverted. We can keep on praying for those who are dead in trespasses and sins.

So let’s approach God’s throne of grace with these three P words in mind to help us think: what are we doing? why are we coming? The person, the promise and the perseverance.

Matthew 6:5-15,
This is the Sermon on the Mount, and just a little broad overview. Jesus is teaching us about prayer. That's really the great discipline that He focuses upon here more than any other, but he puts it in a contrast, in terms of negatives and positives. Remember, a pastor is saying, “If you're going to preach biblically, you have to preach discriminatory preaching, or you have to preach definitively. If you tell that a cow was black, you also have to tell it's not white. In other words, you have to let people know there's a discrimination. And you see that with Christ. He presses issues by way of negatives and positives.

There was a book that we went through in the Adult Sunday school class, I think it's titled, Eighteen Words by Dr. J.I. Packer. And he focuses on different biblical words and the importance of those individual words. He starts off by saying that, just like keys open doors, or keys open windows, key words open minds, and they can open hearts. So God has what you would call key words, a vocabulary sprinkled throughout His word. And some are more important than others, obviously, but they're like anchor bolts that they can fasten us in terms of our understanding the truth of God, and help stabilize us in terms of thinking and living. There are many, many different key words in our Bibles that you could go back to: the keyword election, for example, justification, sanctification, glorification. Those are key words, key words with respect to who God is, with respect to who Christ is. But if I ask this question, “What are two very key words when it comes to prayer if you're going to pray biblically?” They begin with G. You know what they are? Glory and grace. Think about glory and grace. The Lord's Prayer could be shaped by those two words and concepts.

The first word is Glory. Look again at the first petition Jesus gives us, “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” That's about God's glory. Jesus is telling us that God's glory is to be supreme, or the ultimate aim when we come to pray. The next two petitions fall under that main point, or petition. What are they, in terms of God's glory? “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” God's kingdom displays God's glory, and when God's will is done, God's glory is manifested. And wasn't that the problem with the Pharisees? They got it so wrong when it came to praying. What were they praying for? Not God's glory, for their own glory, self-praise. Jesus says here, “They love to stand and pray that they be seen by others.” They prayed for self-praise, human recognition, personal reputation, and not God's honor and praise. And remember that Pharisee in the parable of Luke 18, Jesus let us hear His prayer when He goes into the temple. What does he pray? Well, He thanks God that "I'm not like other men," but then he begins to really brag on himself: I tithe, I fast. His prayer was self-promotion, self-exaltation. And if we're going to pray how Jesus taught us to pray, then we have to start with God's glory.

And the second word is grace. Grace means I deserve nothing. Everything we receive from God is grace to us, freely given. So when we make petitions or requests asking God for daily bread, for daily forgiveness, for daily protection, lead us not into temptation, we can be assured of answers because of God's grace, God's mercy. Not because we deserve it, it's always grace given. Every gift you receive is grace-given. The ultimate reason why we pray? For His glory. And the reason we pray, receive temporal and spiritual blessing is because of grace, common grace and special grace. Someone put it this way,

John Newton, in that famous hymn, Amazing Grace,

And if there was one man who got it, who got it straight and got it right, it was the Apostle Paul. Think about him. When he thought of God's glory, what do you hear him saying? He never lost sight of God's glory, and never lost sight of God's grace. Romans 11:36, “To Him be glory forever.” That's at the very back end of all of that further exposition of what the gospel is, for God's glory. And then, in 1 Corinthians 10, “Do all for the glory of God.” And think of his letters. Every one of his letters begins, almost every one of them begins and finishes on a note of grace. He never forgot, “I am what I am by the grace of God.”

So as we come to prayer tonight, let's remember The Lord's Prayer, it’s shaped by God's glory and by God's grace. We are to magnify or hallow God's name, realizing whatever gifts we receive, we don't deserve any gift, whatever we receive, it's because of grace, and say, let's look back to the past Lord's Day, think of how we can glorify God in terms of who He is, and what He's done.

Matthew 22:35,
Jesus is asked a question by a lawyer, and it wasn't a sincere question, but an attempt to trap Him or stir up controversy, and Jesus fires back, you can note that very quickly, no hesitation. And He tells us that we are to love God with all our minds, with all our hearts and souls. But clearly, He wants us to make good use of our minds.

And that's something that you find stressed in the Bible. There's no religion like Christianity that puts such a stress upon doctrine and the use of the mind or the intellect like the Christian faith. And you'll find words as you go through, even look at the book of Proverbs, in words like wisdom, knowledge, think, understanding, ponder, meditate. Paul, just in the book of Romans alone uses that word ‘mind’ six times. So God wants us to make good use of our minds.

But God also wants us to make good use of our emotions. We are to love Him with our hearts and our souls. And again, if you read through your Bible, think of the Psalms, all kinds of emotions come to the fore: sorrow, love, delight, grief, joy, gladness, fear, etc. And I was just thinking, if you go back to the Lord's Day past, it struck me that all three messages dealt with some degree with respect to our emotions. Pastor Calvin Walden dealt with those three commands in 1 Thessalonians 5:16,17. What's the very first one? He started with, ‘Rejoice,’ that's an emotional word. Rejoice always, and then he made the point that this rejoicing is anchored in unchanging realities of salvation, it flows from our relationship with Christ, His work and His promises.

And as Christians, we could also put ourselves on the other end of the emotional spectrum. There's joy, but also sorrow, grief, and depression. And that was emphasized loud and clear by our brother Tim Kooy, in the Sunday school hour, as he opened up Psalm 42. Twice in that Psalm he reminded us that question is asked, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” And again, some describe that as a time when he's in a state of spiritual depression. And why is he depressed? Well, it's not the ordinary kind of depression, he's separated from God's presence and also from the worship of God.

And then in the AM service, we dealt with Jesus from a John 11 perspective. And death overshadows, you could say, that whole chapter, the death of Lazarus, and Jesus puts his emotions on display. “He wept,” John 11:35, it's called the shortest verse in the Bible, “He wept.” And then He also expresses a high level of anger. That language there, “He was stirred or groaned within.” Again, different translations, but it could really be translated, “He was angry, intensely angry, ferociously angry.” So you see that emotion coming through with Jesus there as He stands in front of His friend's tomb. And again, you go back to the Psalms and you find all kinds of emotions in the Psalms, in the Gospels, and also the Epistles.

We come face-to-face with emotions on either side of the emotional spectrum, right? Christians can be weeping and rejoicing at one and the same time. The Apostle Paul, a great, profound thinker, but he also expressed deep feelings of sorrow and joy. Listen to what he says in 2 Corinthians 6:10, “Sorrowful, yet rejoicing.” Sorrowful, yet rejoicing. So he had deep sadness over the hardships and trials that he faced. There was a lot of broken relationships in his life, a lot of persecution, a lot of sorrow, it followed him almost everywhere; yet, he's always rejoicing.

A Christian — this might sound a little bit strange to your ears — but a Christian, I think we could argue, should be the happiest and most joyful person on planet Earth. Right? But we could also be the saddest and the most sorrowful people on planet Earth. Rejoicing always, celebrating the mercies of God, the blessings of God, the promises of God, the future hope of resurrection. But like Jesus and like the Apostle Paul and like everyone we know, we never escape the groanings of this present world. We never escape the sorrows of the graveyard or the coffin. And Jesus and the Apostle Paul also wept over lost sinners. And so our prayers should be mixed, right? If they're balanced prayers, they should be mixed with grief, sorrow, lament, you find a lot of those prayers in the Psalms, lament, but also joy and cheerfulness.

As we go to prayer, let's pray that God would help us to grieve over our own sin, to grieve over sin we see in other people; “Blessed are they that mourn;” but also rejoice in the great salvation we have in Christ. And again, let's go back over what we heard in the Sunday School hour, morning and evening worship. There's much to rejoice in and also grieve over in the suffering of loved ones, the loss of loved ones, unconverted friends and family members.

Matthew 6:9-13,Luke chapter 11:1,2,
When we come to prayer meeting, we often focus upon prayer. And we should. Prayer is a great privilege, and just like in every area of our sanctification, we can always grow. I think prayer is one of those disciplines where we can never say we've got it all together, or that we don't need to grow, or that we have arrived. Probably any area that Christians struggle with the most is when it comes to prayer, and I think most Christians would agree that that is the case. That explains, I think to some degree, why there is so much instruction in our Bible and so many encouragements in our Bible when it comes to prayer, even from the book of Acts. We've been going through the book of Acts in the Sunday school hour, and those two great disciplines come through again and again. I don't know how many times, but well over 30, 40, 50 times, the whole matter of praying and preaching. Those are the two great pillars, you could say, of the Christian life and the church life, praying and preaching.

And no doubt the early church learned to pray from our Lord's only example. He was the perfect man of prayer, and even here, they come and ask Him, “Teach us how to pray.” At least eleven different occasions in Luke's Gospel alone we find Jesus praying. But when you come to Matthew 6 and Luke 11, these are two distinct separate occasions. They're not the same occasion, one is earlier than the other. Probably in all likelihood, Matthew 6 comes before Luke 11, and the first time He teaches them how to pray. It's the Sermon on the Mount. We know exactly where it is, it's on the mountainside. But the second time, in a certain place, we don't know exactly where He was, but His disciples come to Him and ask or request, “Teach us how to pray.”

And we should never grow tired of asking Jesus to teach us how to pray. How to pray more fervently, how to pray more boldly, how to pray more faithfully, how to pray more consistently, how to pray more perseveringly; and how to pray more God-centered prayers as opposed to me-centered prayers. It's not wrong to pray for yourself, but there is a difference between a God-centered prayer and a me-centered prayer. And again, to help us how to pray, Jesus is the perfect example. But if you ask Jesus, “What is the greatest, biggest concern or burden when He prayed?” What would He have said? Well, I think the prayers that He teaches tell us. How does He start things off? “Hallowed be your name.”

This is what Jesus desired more than anything else, that God's name be honored, revered, praised, adored. Every time we come to prayer, that should really be on the top of the list, God's glory. Nothing more important than God's glory. More important than our needs, more important than our wants, more important than our cares. We are to bring our cares to Jesus, our needs, our burdens to God. I'm not saying we're not, but this is more important.

And it struck me, even when Jesus prays that last prayer with His disciple friends in the upper room, what is it shaped by more than anything else? God's glory. God's glory. He asked the Father to glorify Him, but He also asked that the Father be glorified. He uses that word, glory, seven times in the upper room discourse. Seven times. Seven is sometimes called the perfect number. Seven times. John 17:1, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.” Same chapter, verse 4, “I glorified You on earth having accomplished the work that You gave me to do.” Verse 5, “Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.” Verse 10, again, John 17, “All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.” Verse 24, “That they might see My glory that You have given Me.”

When I thought of Elijah this past week, why is Elijah on Mount Carmel? And why is Elijah on Mount Sinai? God's glory. God's glory. The worship of God. He climbs two mountains, you could say, because this is his burden, God’s glory. And that should be our greatest burden. Why do we want sinners saved? God’s glory. Why do we want to grow in grace? God's glory. Why do we want our marriages to be strong? God's glory. Why do we preach sermons? Why do we listen to sermons? God's glory. Why do we teach Sunday school classes? God's glory. Why do we take care of our bodies? God’s glory. Remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether we eat or drink, (pretty mundane activities, we do that every day), whether we eat or drink, do to the glory of God.” Think of that. The most mundane activities of everyday life, eating and drinking we are to glorify God. When it comes to prayer that arguably is one of the greatest, greatest activities, the most important activity that we can engage in. And we should have this on our minds more than anything else, “Hallowed be Your Name." Hallowed be Your Name.

And I hope that's why you're here, to glorify God. We want to give Him the attention, give Him the praise. I think you could say this about most people, “Every sinner wants to be famous.” Every sinner says, “Look at me. Aren’t I great? Aren't I wonderful?” But if we're truly Christians, we want to make Him famous. We want to make Him famous. We want the world to see how great our God is, how good He is, how loving He is. There's no one like Him. So let's hallow God's name.

Matthew 24:3-14,
This is part of the Olivet discourse. It is called the Olivet Discourse, because that's where it was taught or preached by the Lord, He is on the Mount of Olives.

Last Sunday night we had our corporate in-house prayer meeting, and Pastor Mark mentioned that we have four upcoming ministries, and the nearest one on the calendar is April the 18th. Pastor Bart Carlson will be with us. He's from New Jersey, one of the pastors who has been a pastor there for 20-plus years. He will be speaking on the subject of the Christian worldview. And what that means is it will start with creation, and then the fall and redemption. Sometimes that's called the biblical plotline, but it's the big story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In creation, we all know that it introduces us to a perfect world and God pronounces it good, and then on the sixth day He pronounces it very good. But it doesn't take very long before the devil and sin enter the picture. And Genesis 3 is the fall, so you go from creation to the fall and in the fall we see a broken world. Romans 8 tells us that creation itself groans, but the fall impacts creation. That's why we have earthquakes and hurricanes and floods. We also have sickness and disease; it impacts our hearts in terms of sin; it impacts our marriages and our callings in life.

But another very sad, grievous effect of the fall is conflict and war. James chapter 4 is a good text to go to. James 4:1, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within?” James is telling us, as one person put it,

External wars grow out of internal wars. It starts with the heart. Personal conflict leads to global war and the Bible is not quiet when it talks about war. There are at least 100-plus references to the fact of war. That word war is used that many times, especially in the Old Testament.

And Jesus also uses that word war, at least on one occasion here in Matthew chapter 24, the Olivet Discourse. It's not the most detailed, but one of the most detailed passages on eschatology, in terms of what's going to happen as we move more and more closer to the end of history. And He tells us what is going to characterize this present age. It gives us a list of calamities or cataclysmic events under the analogy of birth pangs. When a woman is having a baby, her birth pangs increase, it gets progressively more painful, and Jesus is letting us know it will get worse. He mentions here famines and earthquakes and diseases. But notice verse 6 of Matthew 24. He starts off by mentioning that you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. And then Jesus seeks to comfort our hearts by saying, “See that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass, they must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

Every time you hear of a war, or of a rumor of a war, it reminds us that we are living in this present age, waiting for the age to come in its fulfillment and its glorious consummation. And that comes when Jesus comes back again, that's the final day when He comes back. The new age has already been inaugurated when Jesus came, but it will be consummated or fulfilled when He comes back again riding on a chariot of clouds with who knows how many angels; some think all the angels from heaven will accompany him. But until that day, there will be wars. If you study the subject of war over the last 500 years, there is at least 400 to 600 wars. Great Britain had 78 major wars; France, 16; Spain, 64; and the United States back however many years this was written, maybe 18 to 20.

So that means Jesus' prophecy is coming true. What He said is coming true, even as we talk right now. He wasn't exaggerating when He said there will be rumors of wars and wars until He comes back again. But that also means that all the politicians, all the peace treaties in the world have not stopped wars and never will. I remember Dr. John MacArthur saying this,

And you know where He starts, He starts with the heart, right? It has to start here. The Prince of Peace, He will bring universal peace when He comes back again at the end of the age. And that will be the greatest, the most momentous event in human history. The Bible says every eye shall see Him. When He first came, He came very quietly, He came by way of a baby in a manger; but when He comes again as the King of Kings, He will come in full glory and every eye shall see Him. But here's the reason why we should be praying, “Come, Jesus, come.” That's why we should be thinking of the Second Coming, “Come, Jesus, come.” When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we're praying not just that it will continue to come, but it will come in its consummation.

And in the meantime, I thought more about this over the last few years, we should be thankful for a government, a Romans 13 government that carries the sword. The sword is there to protect us. The main duty of a government is to protect its citizens, that's why it’s given a sword. That's why we have police. That's why you have armies. But remember this, it's often in the midst of war that Christians serve to be light and salt. Churches have, for the most part, been quick in their response, even other organizations like Red Cross and Samaritans Purse, they have their feet upon the ground very quickly and they're bringing the gospel to this lost world. It's sad to see people lose their lives, that should always grieve us, but even worse to see men, women, boys, and girls lose their souls.

And while Army generals and war commanders use the greatest of weapons, the greatest of bombs and missiles to destroy, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest of weapons to save. Martin Luther, one of the great reformers, said,

And so, when we hear of wars and rumors of wars, as we are hearing right now, let's keep praying that God would do what only God can do, save lost sinners by His powerful gospel. That could happen in Iran. We should be praying for people in Iran, that God would save them, that they come to know Jesus by faith.

Romans 8 — It's sometimes called the greatest chapter, or certainly the greatest epistle. But even this chapter is probably the high point of Romans, the greatest chapter in the world. It begins on a blessed negative, you could say, and ends on a blessed negative. And in terms of our identity, there are two great doctrines that are highlighted here in Romans chapter 8. The doctrine of our justification, Romans 8:1, “There's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That's one great doctrine that helps us understand who we are in Christ. Then there's the doctrine of adoption. If you drop down to verse 14, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

Most of you probably have read a book by Dr. John MacArthur or have several books of his on your bookshelf. The first time I got exposed to him was when I was in Canada, and the first book I bought was I'm Not Ashamed of the Gospel. In that book, he captures Spurgeon's own dealings with the gospel and what was called the ‘downgrade controversy’, and he was fighting against major denominations that were denying the core truths of the gospel. And Spurgeon said at one point that, 

And so Spurgeon, I think he died maybe 3 or 4 years after what was called the downgrade controversy, was censured by the Baptist Union. But he was always fighting for the gospel, and so did Dr. MacArthur all of his life. And he says in that book, I'm Not Ashamed of the Gospel, that the strongest words of condemnation in our Bibles are against false teachers who corrupt the gospel. You think of Galatians 1, He says, “Let him be accursed anathema,” that's the strongest language you could use to anyone who preaches another gospel. And we can always be sure of this, the devil is always seeking to subvert, manipulate or disguise the gospel in any which way he can or undermine it. And you've probably heard of the identity thieves. Well, he's the greatest of identity thieves and no greater stealer, Jesus called him a thief. And he's constantly employing two great weapons, accusation and condemnation to forget who we are.

Justification protects our legal identity. Justification tells us that we are forgiven of all our sins, past, present and future. And justification should produce a tremendous sense of joy, gratitude, and also should impact our prayer lives. It encourages peace with God, we are at peace with God because of our justification. That should encourage honesty and transparency before God. Hebrews 4 says, “We come boldly to the throne of grace.” That's in light of our justification. Not only that, certainly our adoption, but we come boldly to the throne of grace, not an arrogant boldness, but our boldness and our justified security.
But there's another doctrine that gets emphasized here in Romans 8, and that's the doctrine of what has been called our relational security and freedom, our relational security and freedom. We are the beloved children of God, 1 John 3:1, “Behold what manner of love that we should be called the sons of God.”

And these might be the two greatest doctrines that we should keep in mind when we come to pray, who we are in Christ. We are the justified ones and we are the adopted ones, dressed in the perfect righteousness of Christ, but also welcomed as beloved children of God. I thought of those two parables that were discussed or mentioned last Sunday morning in Luke 18. That parable addresses our justification. Like the tax collector, we come home justified. And then, like that prodigal son, Luke 15, we came home to the Father who accepts us as His sons, and we enjoy the privileges of sonship. Those things that the Father does once the son comes home are really gifts of sonship. Think of what they are, the best robe, the ring of authority, sandals, (slaves went around in sandals; sons had sandals). So another manifestation of a privilege of being a son of God.

Those are the two great realities that we must keep in mind probably every day of our life. Who are we? We are no longer guilty criminals running and hiding from God, but sons who now draw near to God and talk to Him as our Heavenly Father. So as we go to prayer, let's just keep that in mind, brethren, who we are, justified and adopted.

I am going to ask you to turn to Acts 17 to begin our time and prime us as we think about going to prayer. Acts 17 is where the Apostle Paul is in that place called Mars Hill. He's been invited there, and engages in what you could call an apologetic defense of the faith. These are intellectuals of his day, the philosophers, the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophers.  But notice, he doesn't begin preaching Christ. He begins by preaching that God is their creator. Look at Acts 17:24, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.” And then if you look at verse 26, again he goes back to the story of creation, “And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” And he also tells them that this God doesn't need anything or anyone. Look at verse 25, “Nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” 

God is independent, we are dependent, and he reminds them of that reality. Look at verse 28, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” And doesn't Jesus even remind us of our dependency, when you think of the Lord's Prayer. He gives us those three petitions that we are to bring to God, “Give us our daily bread, forgive us our debts, and lead us not in temptation.” So we are dependent creatures. We need food, we certainly need forgiveness because we sin and we need protection from the evil one. We are dependent creatures, God is independent. We are dependent the moment we are born and the moment we die, we're always dependent creatures. I remember someone saying this,

Oftentimes we do. Helpless dependents.

But a great and wonderful way for us to show our dependence is by prayer. Prayer is telling God, we need Him, we can't live without Him. And what makes prayer so special is not simply that we're talking to God, but we are fellowshipping, we are entering into a relationship, a communion with God. By prayer we enter into God's special presence. We draw near to Him. Remember what the writer of Hebrews tells us, “He draws near to us.” I don't know how many of you folk have ever read anything by Dr. John Owen. He was considered to be the greatest of the Puritan theologians, and he has a 16-volume set. In Volume 2 is Communion with God. That's the title, Communion with God, and here is what he says, 

So when we pray those Trinitarian prayers, what are we saying? We are saying we have a unique and special relationship with God. We are going to a three-person God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But what's so sad is that the world we live in doesn't know this God, doesn't love this God, but we do. What a privilege to be able to pray. But here's the great danger, I think, is for all of us as Christians, we want to be so careful that we don't take it for granted. Perhaps there's no greater danger as we live the Christian life then taking prayer for granted.

So we're about to call on God, the Great I AM, the Almighty, the three-person God. We come to our Heavenly Father; we come in the name of His Son; we come with the help or the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And think about this, too. God the Father, just like you as fathers and you as mothers, God the Father loves to hear His children pray. He loves to hear His children pray. What a privilege. He loves to see us come to Him by way of His Son. He loves for us to rely upon the help and comfort of the Holy Spirit. We often think of prayer as a duty. It is a duty, we're commanded to pray, but it's also a gracious gift, and a privilege.

Exodus 20:1-17,
I think everybody would agree that that is one of the most important passages in the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and given by the Lord on Mount Sinai, the giving of the law. According to Romans 2, every one of us has God's law written on our hearts. We're born with a law inscribed upon our hearts. That's why everybody has a sense of what's right and what's wrong. Most people know when they tell a lie, when they cheat, when they kill or murder someone. So Romans 2 reminds us that everyone has that law upon their hearts, and you could say the conscience acts like a little policeman from time to time. When you do something wrong, you hear the whistle telling you, you did what you did, and that it was wrong.

But notice that the Ten Commandments are foundational for worship, especially the first table of the law, the two tables here. But worship is a prominent theme, really, throughout the whole Bible. You have false worship, and you have true worship. True worship is praised and false worship is condemned. Someone has said this, I think it was Dr. Ferguson,

And we might think that's a good thing. But there's a big problem. For the most part, simply put, worship has become very man-centered, or me-centered. We're prone to worship ourselves. That's really what the big problem is. And people often look for churches that simply make them feel good. So we need to understand that true worship is not first about us, or what we like, but it's about God and what God likes. And that explains why Israel, when they come out of Egypt, which was a pluralistic culture, gods galore, hundreds and hundreds of gods; but they almost immediately get a 101 lesson on worship. God gives them clear instructions and directions about worship. The first four commandments have to do with worship.

The first commandment tells us who is the one we worship. It's clear that it is one God, it's monotheism, only one God. Verse 3, “You shall have no other gods before me.” God demands exclusive devotion. And every Jewish boy, I think even from the age of 2 or 3, would memorize what was called the Shema, which was taken from Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul.” And then the second commandment is about hallowed worship. We can't worship God in any way we think or want to. Look at verse 4, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.” The third commandment protects God's name. We are not to take His name in vain or misuse it. We can't throw His name around carelessly, or you could say, ‘loosely.’ Again, if you understand who God is, we fear His name, we revere His name, His name is above every name, it's a majestic name, a holy name, a precious name, a unique name. The fourth commandment also shapes our worship, the when of worship. The Sabbath day is a special day of worship. Old Testament, New Testament, God's people have always had a distinctive worship day. And the first four commandments, again, remind us that we are to worship God, God alone, and that our worship is to be shaped by our Bibles. It was John Calvin who argued this very strongly, and so did the Puritans,

If we don't start with the Ten Commandments we're going to have trouble when it comes to worship.

When you go to the New Testament Bible, I would argue that the ‘who’ of worship is even given greater clarity, beauty and wonder. We worship a three-person God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And again, the greatest question we can ask when it comes to worship, (if you get this right, you generally get the rest of them right), when it comes to worship, who is God? Isn't that what Jesus does when He starts to teach us how to pray, He starts with answering that question, who is God? “Our Father, which art in heaven.” And in the rest of that sermon, it really is about the Father. He mentions the Father 17 times in that Sermon on the Mount. You can shape the Sermon on the Mount by that doctrine, the Fatherhood of God. A personal Father, we call him Father; a transcendent Father, a Father in Heaven; a knowing Father, read on, a listening Father. That's why we can pray to Him, a giving Father, a forgiving Father, and it should never cease to amaze us that we are the sons of God and can call God our Father.

That's what should make prayer such a wonderful thing. We have a God who is our Father, and who loves to hear from His children. We can go to Him anytime, anywhere, with any care, any concern and any burden.

Good evening, Brethren, this is our Wednesday night Zoom prayer meeting. One of the purposes, not the only purpose, but certainly one purpose to come to a prayer meeting, a corporate prayer meeting, is to learn how to pray. We learn by way of principles and precepts, but we also learn from one another and we also learn from men in the Bible who prayed and we're going to focus on Elijah.

1 Kings 18:41-46
I'm going to turn you to another passage of Scripture, James chapter 5. This is where Elijah comes into focus again. He is mentioned several times in the New Testament. But here in James chapter 5, he comes into focus again, this whole answer to prayer with regard to the rain. James 5:17, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.” Notice there are two things that are highlighted here with Elijah, first his humanity, he had a human nature like ours, he was fully human. You might wonder why that's being stressed. Why does he tell us that Elijah was just like us? Well, I think it's because there are times where Elijah doesn't look like us. I mean, on top of Mount Carmel he doesn't look like us. He looks so much greater, he looks almost superhuman. Remember what he did after that fire came down? He slaughtered 450 false prophets. Now, he might have had some help from some of the other folk there, but he certainly had blood dripping from his sword. Soon after that mass slaughter, what happens here, he is back on his knees praying for rain, and again another wonderful answer to his prayer.

But what's so surprising and rather stunning is very soon after this Elijah is found sinking in despair. He runs in fear because of the queen, the queen, Jezebel, threatens to kill him. If you turn to 1 Kings 19, you can pick up how this transpires. 1 Kings 19:1-3, “Ahab, (King Ahab) told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with a sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” And then we're told Elijah's response, “Then he was afraid and he rose and ran for his life."

Clearly there's a big difference, isn't there, between Elijah on the mountaintop and you could say Elijah now in the valley. On top of the mountain, he triumphed by faith; in the valley you could say he's running in fear. How could a man so strong before God, so bold in faith, now seem so broken in fear. I think the answer is very simple. There's some other factors here, I realize that, but Elijah has lost sight of God like those disciples in the boat. Remember, fear takes over and Elijah goes into a sinkhole of discouragement, despair, and even what some call depression.

That can easily, easily happen to any of us when things don't go the way we would like them to go; when things seem to be going backward instead of forward, downward instead of upward; when we easily get focused on ourselves and our circumstances. And Elijah's faith is eclipsed by fear. Fear is a powerful emotion, maybe the most powerful emotion. It explains why the Bible, I think 300 times, says, “Don't be afraid." Don't be afraid, 300 times. And James wants us to know here in James 5, that Elijah is just like us. Fear, discouragement got the better of him. Did that ever happen to you? The best of men are still men. We all have feet of clay. We all get discouraged, weary. When we get real discouraged we want to run, we want to quit. What's the answer? What do we do?

Well, the answer is you pray. Prayer gets your eyes back on God. When Elijah was on that mountaintop, he was thinking of God's glory, wasn't he? He wanted the people to come back to God, he wanted them to know God. But now he has lost sight of God and he goes into a dungeon of despair, or depression. He needs to get his eyes back on God. And he does, he does. If you read on into 1 Kings 18 he comes to another mountain, Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, and that's where he hears the voice. He hears the still, small voice of God. To get him back to where he should be spiritually, he needs to hear God's voice. He needs to learn that the God of the Bible is not just a God of fire, power, justice and judgment like he saw on Mount Carmel; but he's also a God of mercy, a God of grace, a still, small voice. He doesn't just speak by way of the earthquake and by way of thunder, but also by way of a still, small voice. He is the God of gentleness, He is the God of mercy and kindness.And hopefully we are here tonight to get our eyes on God and to get our eyes off ourselves.

Prayer meetings should be faith strengthening exercises to help us run the race. And Christian, you and I have a greater knowledge of God than Elijah had. We have a more full revelation, we have a New Testament revelation. I don't think Elijah knew that God was a three-person God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And we know that there's no one more compassionate, no one more loving. We have the cross to tell us that. Herein is love, no one greater, no one wiser than God, the three-person God. So Elijah is just like us. We get fearful, we get afraid, we get discouraged, we get overwhelmed with life. But we can be like him. Look how we can be like him, by praying, by persevering in prayer. He prayed fervently. That's what he's telling us here, he prayed fervently. You don't have to be a prophet to pray. You don't have to be an elite prophet or Christian to pray, to spiritually lead. All of us can pray. Elijah was just like us and we can pray just like him. So we should pray even tonight, that we would have faith to pray, to take hold of the promise, even like Elijah.

Psalm 90. A prayer of Moses, the Man of God.
This psalm of Moses that starts out the fourth book in the various sections of the Psalms, is a passage I've been meditating on almost all month. It is good for us to use these milestones on the calendar, whether it's Christmas, or New Year, or Easter, that we're reminded of the work of God and the power of God, and the mercy of God to us in our lives. Like the Lord's Day, it causes us in our regular calendar, daily routine, to have exceptional thoughts to pause and reflect on God's goodness to us. This psalm is no different in that time is a key theme.

As I've been reading through and meditating on this Psalm, I noticed, besides the theme of time being dominant in this psalm, there is this great contrast. You see it there in the first six verses between the Lord and us as humans. This great contrast – you see the Lord as eternal and He is timeless; He is all-powerful and He is holy. We are temporal and we are time bound; we have sin, we are not holy and we do not have great power. Our autonomy is very limited. He is perfectly independent; we are woefully dependent.

I notice another theme, and this is a humbling theme, is the fear of the Lord is wisdom. You see it there in verses 11 and 12. This brought back many verses that we have that are fundamental to the beginning of wisdom. Where does wisdom begin, or where does wisdom begin to get established in the heart and mind of mankind? Well, according to Job 28:28, “He said to man, ‘Behold the fear of the Lord.’” That is wisdom. And to turn away from evil is understanding. The fear of the Lord is wisdom. Psalm 111:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding.” Or Proverbs 9:10, which you may have memorized as a young child, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight (or understanding).”

So as we reflect on this year past and the year coming and the fact that we are temporal and evil and subject to the will of the Lord and the power of the Lord, we give thanks, we bow before the Lord, we give thanks for His mercy and blessings over the past year. That is the right outcome and I believe that is really what will make us not only wiser but holier is to grow in our understanding of the Lord; our fear of Him, our honor of Him, our glorifying of Him.

So I was thinking I would pray for more fear of the Lord, greater fear in the year to come, greater love for God, for His Word, for His people and greater honor for the Lord. Pray for His presence and mercy. You see it there in vs 13 as you go through that last section of Psalm 90, all the prayers and petitions that Moses is asking for. Pray for His presence, pray for His mercy, pray for His steadfast love, vs 14. Pray for His joy, for us to have His joy and gladness, vs 15. Pray for His work in our lives, for Him to be active and us to see it and to honor Him in it, vs 16. And pray for His favor and His blessings, vs. 17. These are things that can only be had when we have a right relationship with God, we are His children, we are seeing Him correctly, we are subject to Him, we are growing in fear and the knowledge of the Lord.

My hope is that this is a good meditation for you. It has been excellent for me as I think on how the Lord has blessed us in this year past and what we desire from our God in the year ahead.

Matthew 5:1-12,
These 12 verses really define or give identity to we who are Christians, and that's important to understand our identity in Christ. This past Sunday, our brother Alex Lanes dealt with this section in the morning, and then again in the evening. In the morning, he gave what you could call a broad overview, focused on those nine Beatitudes several times, and then he did give a Four ‘P’ description, one is ‘Pointing’ towards Christ. Christ wonderfully and perfectly models these nine Beatitudes.

And the very last Beatitude certainly helps us understand what the Christian life will be somewhat characterized by, and that's persecution. The Christian life will be shaped by hardship, trial and a unique suffering of persecution. And remember what Paul said to Timothy, “The godly shall suffer persecution.” And Jesus told His disciples on that one occasion, “The world will hate you because it's hated Me.” And you could go almost anywhere across the globe and you will find Christians suffering verbal and also at times, physical persecution. And we are witnessing over the last five or so years, an increase or a more overt attack upon the Christian church in America. And for the Christian, again, life has always been characterized by persecution, or the hatred of the world. And nothing offends the world more than the exclusive gospel of Jesus Christ, a Christ-only gospel.

There is something else we see in this Sermon on the Mount that makes the Christian life difficult, and that's the reality of sin. Not just out there, it's also in our own hearts.
And our brother again, Sunday night, he opened up that second Beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn, they shall be comforted." And Jesus is assuming is He not, that Christians will be grieving over their sin. And that word, mourn, is a very intense word. It's really a word that's used for a funeral kind of mourning, an intense, heart-rending emotion. And if we are Christians, nothing should cause us more grief, more emotional pain and agony than our own sin. Like the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, “Oh wretched man that I am;” or like Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 6, “Woe is me, I am undone.” And again, Jesus, here in the Sermon on the Mount, doesn't want us to ignore sin or sweep it under the carpet, so to speak, because He goes back to that very subject again in that prayer of prayers, the Lord's Prayer, telling us to regularly seek forgiveness.

But coming back again to the question, why is the Christian life so difficult? Why will it never be easy? Sin will always be sin. We'll always struggle with it until the day we die. The world will always be the world, a Christ-hating world. Not only our own sin, right, but we mourn over the sin we see in others. Maybe our family members, our children, maybe men at work, or the world at large. In the words of the psalmist, (I do think Alex quoted that text,) “Rivers of water run down my eyes because they do not keep your law.”

But there's a third big problem, or evil, that constantly makes life difficult, and prayer as well, difficult for the child of God and that's the devil. Jesus references him in that prayer of prayers again, “Deliver us from evil,” or you could translate it “from the evil one.” And remember what Jesus says about the devil in John's gospel, “He's a murderer, but he's also a liar.” And the very first attack, think of the very first attack upon our parents, really was an attempt to discredit God, or put God under a dark lens of lying, “Has God said?”

The devil loves us to question God's goodness. He loves us to question God's love, His kindness, His gentleness, His sovereignty, His omniscience, His omnipotence. And if we do, and we're always tempted, begin to question God and doubt who He is; if we begin to think that God can't handle our problems, that He can't change our circumstances or change men's hearts, or is somehow limited; and there's lots of people who believe that God is limited, less than sovereign; then that will make us more timid, more fearful, more anxious and less bold at the throne of grace. Why is the Christian life so hard? Why is praying to God so hard? Prayer is one of the hardest disciplines in the Christian life for all of us because there's opposition: the world, sin and the devil.

But here's the great comfort, there's forgiveness with God. There's the comfort, right? Those who mourn will be comforted, those who are persecuted, they can rejoice. Great is He that is in me than he that is in the world. And if we understand what Christ accomplished by His death and resurrection, then we have nothing to fear. And the great hope we have is not only in this life, this comfort in this life, but in the future life. When Christ comes back again He will take us into a perfect heaven and a perfect earth. No more tears, no more pain, no more grief. The Christian life is not an easy life, but it is the most blessed life and the best is yet to come.

Exodus 34:6,7,
This was probably one of the most exciting and thrilling, never-forget moments in Moses’ life. In the previous chapter, Exodus 33, remember, he made that request, he asked God if he could see His glory. Now Moses had seen God up close before you could say, in terms of the burning bush. He also had a number of other close-up engagements with God, he was called a friend of God. And so, if you think of Old Testament history, Moses probably more than anybody else had more close-up dealings with God than anybody else. But he still had a hunger and thirst for God. And look at what he says in chapter 33, God answers his prayer. He wants to see His glory and God gives His glorious manifestation.

My first introduction to the Puritans was my third year at Bible college in Toronto. Dr. J.I. Packer showed up on the doorstep, and he gave some instructions about the Puritans. He compared them to the golden redwoods in California in terms of their stature. If you've ever read that book, Quest for Godliness, where he gives a more full presentation of the Puritans, he says they are described by their maturity. And we don't probably realize it to the degree that we should, but we have been influenced by the Puritans in a number of ways.

He said that there were two great gifts that the Puritans gave western civilization, in a way that we didn't appreciate them before. The first gift was marriage. They gave us a better understanding and appreciation of marriage. Going back to the original creation ordinances, marriage is one of them. Here's what one of the Puritans says,

And then Matthew Henry gives that other. You've probably heard that famous graphic he gives of a wife,

Another man who's done a lot of study of the Puritans, a man by the name of Leland Ryken, here's what he says,

But there's something else the Puritans gave us. They gave us a better understanding and appreciation of marriage, but they also gave or recovered and stabilized the Christian doctrine of the Sabbath. They promoted it in terms of spiritual delight, not legalistic doom. Dr. Joel Beeke probably knows the Puritans better than anybody. He said,

The third thing they gave us, I think they did. They gave us a greater understanding of the doctrine of sin. They call it the greatest of evils. But they didn't just preach against sin, they did that. They knew they had to preach against sin, so sinners would be convicted, but they didn't preach it to drive sinners to despair, at least not believing sinners. But they preached it so we would appreciate Christ all the more. Again, quoting one of the Puritans,

And you can say that of all of us, if we are going to be strong, mature Christians, we have to take sin seriously. We should be regularly confessing our sins. Jesus thought we would, didn't He? Matthew chapter 6, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

And the reason I brought this up is I thought back to the past Lord's Day. You had two messages and two great sins came into focus. Right? We dealt with heart sins. The sin of envy, from Psalm 73, Asaph, he's struggling with that particular heart sin of envy, and then he goes into the house of the Lord, into the synagogue, and he understands himself better, but he also appreciates God a lot more, and he also understands the ultimate destiny of the wicked. And then in the evening, Pastor Mark brought us to that passage in Philippians dealing with the sins of the tongue. So we had sins of the heart and sins of the tongue, Philippians 2:14, “Do all things without grumbling, and disputing.” And then he reminded us that we need to guard our hearts, and to guard our tongues if we're going to live the Christian life.

And the good news, going back to where I started things, the good news is that there's always forgiveness with God. That's what makes God so good. He's a God who loves to forgive. Exodus 34:7, “Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” That's why we should never be crippled or paralyzed by our sin. We could always go to the throne of grace. We should as quickly as we sin, don't delay repentance. But no matter what sin you've committed, no matter how frequent, there's always forgiveness with God. That's because of the cross, because of the goodness of God. He's a forgiving God. So let's give thanks for forgiveness. Let's even give thanks to God when He shows us our sins so that we can appreciate more what Christ has done for us.

Psalm 90:1-12,
Psalm 90, it's the only psalm, I believe, written by Moses. It's really kind of a psalm of sobriety, focuses upon death, not just death, but certainly reminds us of that reality.
This is the first Wednesday of the New Year, and whenever I think of the New Year, at least, from a Psalm perspective, Psalm 90 is the psalm that generally comes to mind.

I think it was the first time I ever preached in front of my mom and dad. It was in Canada about 100 miles away from the Yukon border, and there was an Anglican church my mom and dad were attending. And the Anglican minister asked me to preach. He didn't like what I said after the sermon, he came up and told me, but he asked me to preach. I preached from Psalm 90, and I warned all of them about the brevity of life, and also the whole matter of eternity, were they prepared to meet God in eternity. And it was the first Sunday, I believe, of the New Year and this psalm was the psalm I preached. It's about death.

If you look at verse 3, he takes us right back to the Garden of Eden and the thread of God, You return man to dust. There probably was no one who saw death up close as much as Moses. He saw that generation, the wilderness generation perish in the wilderness. Remember, there were only two of them who end up in the Promised Land; probably up to a million, million and a half people he saw die in that wilderness. And seeing that up close I'm sure it impacted his life, even the reality of death, but also the brevity of life. And he picks up four different metaphors to describe the short life that we live here on Earth. Look at verse 5, “You sweep them away as with a flood.” Then again verse 5, “They are like sleep,” verse 6, “Grass that flourishes and withers,” verse 9, “And their image a sigh or fleeting breath.” Then verse 10, he drops into the whole matter of just a cold statistic of years, 70 years and by reason of strength 80 years. Some really think that the wilderness generation was a demarcation; from that point on, people did not live as long as they did prior to that wilderness generation.

Now, I know death is not a pleasant subject for any of us, and it's because life is a wonderful gift. But you can't read your Bible and escape the reality of death. It pops up everywhere. Go right back to Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, we're all heading towards a grave. And the Bible says it's appointed unto men once to die, and then the judgment. But death can also be a benefit for us in this life. And there are at least three things we learn from Psalm 90.

1. God is the one great exception, God doesn't die. Verse 1, God is from everlasting to everlasting, before the mountains were brought forth. He's always been there, and He will always be there.
2. Secondly, death is not an ordinary life event. It's a judgment of God. No matter how many people try to beautify it, it's really ugly. Notice in verse 7 and 8, death is linked to sin and God's anger, “For we are brought to an end by Your anger; by Your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.”
3. The third lesson is what I really have already emphasized, the brevity of life or the reality of death. It should cause all of us to live a holy life, or to be wise. Verse 12 again, “So teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom.” Richard Baxter, one of the Puritans, said,

And what does a wise person look like? Let me give you five things, in terms of if he really applies this to his heart, if he's really living according to wisdom in light of his brevity of life.

1. A wise person will prioritize things that are of eternal value, set his mind upon things above. 
2. A wise person or wisdom seeks to redeem or make the most of our time. Time is precious to the wise man. He doesn't trivialize it, he takes it as precious, more precious than gold or silver.
3. Wisdom should give us an urgency to bring the gospel to the world. Richard Baxter again said to preachers, “We are preaching as dying men to dying men.”
4. Wisdom should sweeten our love and commitment to Christ. You could say that about the Apostle Paul, his great ambition in life was to know Jesus. 
5. Wisdom should keep us on our tiptoes, waiting for the day when Jesus comes back again, or when we go home on that dying day, like that thief on the cross.

So here's the big thing that we can't forget when we think about death as a Christian. We don't look at it through the dark lens of Psalm 90, we can do that, but we look at it through the gospel lens of 1 Corinthians 15, “Death has lost its sting, Christ has conquered death.” And that's why the Apostle Paul could say, “Death is my gain.” I gain, I don't lose when I die. And so, as we face another year, let's pray that God would help us to be wise, to number our days and apply our hearts to wisdom.

Matthew 16:13-18
Different theologians or scholars have made the point that when it comes to the Bible, it's about Christ, first and foremost. Here's a wonderful way it's been described,

That is a nice way to shape your Bible. I have a book on my shelf by Dr. David Murray, it's titled, Christ on Every Page. Martin Luther said,

But not only does the Bible point us to Christ, first and foremost, but every major doctrine, I would argue, was taught by Christ.

The doctrine of Christology, which is the doctrine of Christ, Christ preaches Himself; all of those great ‘I am’ statements He's preaching Himself. The doctrine of Soteriology, or the doctrine of Salvation is taught by Christ. The doctrine of the Trinity, you just go to the upper room, is taught by Christ. The doctrine of Eschatology, the end times, it's taught by Christ. And He also taught the doctrine of Ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church. He taught that doctrine right here. If you look at Matthew 16 again, you have two doctrines here that come together, Christology, and Ecclesiology. And if you have a good Christology, I think you could argue, I think I would always argue, you should have a good ecclesiology. If you have a good understanding of who Christ is, you will also have a good understanding of what the church is. Remember, the church is the body of Christ, the church is the bride of Christ.

And here in Matthew 16, Jesus wants His disciples to grasp both doctrines. And that's why He raises the question. If you look at the text again, “Who do men say that I am?” And His disciples give an answer, it puts Christ in a very unique category. They compare Him to the greatest of prophets, and then Jesus obviously wasn't satisfied with the answer. He fires the question at them, “But who do you say I am?” And Peter being Peter, blurts out an answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And that is the finest, the most definitive Christological statement in the Gospels. You could say that's Christology at its best. He hits a home run, great answer, and I'm sure Jesus was smiling and acknowledges that this was not revealed by flesh and blood, but by the Father in Heaven. But then Jesus begins to talk about the church. He takes on Peter's confession, verse 18, and He says, “I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build My church.” Now, there's all kinds of questions and interpretations as to what that means. I don't believe the rock is Peter, but the rock is Peter's truth confession. And if it's a true church, it will always have a strong, clear, Christological confession.

And then Jesus makes one of the clearest statements right here about the church, and His relationship to the church. Look what He says, “I will build My church and the gates of Hell, or Hades shall not prevail against it.” And then He identifies Himself here as the builder of the church, but also the preserver, and the protector of the church. And it mentions here again the gates of hell, and again, there's interpretation as to what that refers to. Does it refer to the power of the devil? Does it refer to death itself? It could be both. But Jesus knows better than anyone, the church will always be under attack. I think Paul has that in mind when he tells those Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 about savage wolves, or false teachers who will attack the flock, and he also warns about dangers from within their own ranks, men will rise up, speaking perverse things to lead disciples astray.

But we could argue this, as the world becomes more and more anti-God, anti-Christ, it will become more and more anti-church. You can't separate those two things. And without His protection and preservation, the gates of hell will prevail. But Christian be assured, the church is a forever institution. It will never, never cease to be because Christ is the preserver and the keeper and the builder of His church. He never drops the trowel or the sword. The church is the only institution that will be forever. Marriage won't, the nuclear family won't, civil government won't, but the church will. It's His forever family, it's His forever marriage. Christ, the architect and the builder, is going to keep on building, building, building, until He comes back again, and all the while, He'll be protecting, maturing and strengthening the church. And the primary way He builds the church is by the gospel, gospel preaching and gospel praying. And that's why we never, never must stop either one of those corporate disciplines of preaching and praying.

Luke 18:1,
And the Apostle Paul, he picks up that same perspective in Ephesians 6:18,
When we come to prayer meetings on Wednesday night, we do focus most times on the subject of prayer, and the Bible has a lot to say about prayer, and most of it is very, very positive. The promises of prayer, the answers to prayer, encouragements to pray, so that it's just a wonderful, wonderful theology of prayer that, for the most part, is very, very positive. But as wonderful as prayer is, we know it's not easy. Right? Prayer can be very difficult. It might be the easiest thing to talk about, but the hardest thing to do consistently and faithfully.
And I would think that most Christians would say the two biggest challenges that we face as Christians when it comes to prayer, is the challenge of perseverance, not giving up; and the second one may be more common today than it might have been in years past, although the Puritans wrote on this very subject, the second challenge is staying focused, keep ourselves from a wandering mind.

Jesus presses the matter of perseverance in that parable of Luke 18, that widow comes before a wicked judge. And despite all that she's up against, she never gives up, she stays the course. And the Apostle Paul picks up this same perspective on perseverance with prayer in Ephesians chapter 6. It's a wartime context, he tells us to put on the whole armor of God, and then he goes through some of the specific pieces of weaponry that we have, and then he deals at the very back end with prayer, verse 18, persevering prayer. And then he says this, “keep alert with all perseverance.”

I'm sure all of us, all of us have had people in our lives, whether it's a sister, a brother, a parent, children who are unsaved. And I'm sure there have been times where you have prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed; sometimes there's a physical problem, or some other relational problem, and you've committed yourself to a long, protracted time of prayer. But often, often, I think that the matter of the unsaved, our loved ones, is at the top of the list. And you can sense that with the Apostle Paul when he talks in Romans 9. He said, “I'm speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” And he tells us why, “For I could wish that I myself were a curse cut off from Christ, for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

And then the very next chapter, chapter 10, he gives himself to prayer. “Brothers,” he says, “my heart’s desire in prayer to God is for them that they may be saved.” And then again, going back to Jesus, in terms of what He teaches on prayer back in Luke 18, He understood the need for perseverance and so does the Apostle Paul. "Christian, don't give up!” That's what they're saying, “Don't give up.” And just as an encouragement, the conversions of Augustine, John Newton, D.L. Moody, and C.H. Spurgeon, from the human side of things, were in large measure attributed to their praying mothers. So when it comes to prayer, there's the big challenge, persevere, don't give up.

But there's another big challenge when it comes to prayer. It's the challenge with regard to distraction or a wandering mind. Ephesians 6, go back to that text, Paul hits that note here as well, verse 18, “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication to that end.” Look what he says, “Keep alert with all perseverance.” We are living, they say, in the most distracted age in human history. And one of our biggest battles is to have our minds staying focused, keeping alert. Or 2 Corinthians 10, “taking every thought captive.” And yes, probably the hardest time for us to discipline our minds, might be when you are listening to preaching and when you're praying. Listening to preaching and when you're praying. Why is that? Well, sin. Big problem, sin makes us less alert. Worry often takes our minds away from the most important things. Remember anxious Martha, “You are distracted about many things.” So, when you're worrying, you're not generally a good person to be in a state of listening and to preaching, or even praying.

But something else we can't forget when we think of distraction, and that's the devil. He's always active. In the parable of the sower, this has come to my mind many times, Jesus lets us know that the devil operates like the birds of the air. And when the seed is sown, he comes like the birds to pick up the seed. That is, he doesn't want that seed to find a resting place, so he comes as quickly as possible to take away the seed that is sown. So I put it this way, the devil doesn't want us to hear faithful preaching and he doesn't want us to engage in faithful praying. The devil is afraid of two things in terms of taking down his kingdom. It's when Christians and unconverted people are sitting under biblical preaching, and when we are engaged in faithful praying. He's afraid of faithful Holy Ghost owned preaching, and he's afraid of faithful Holy Ghost inspired praying. And he will do whatever he has to do to keep us from both.

And so, when we pray, don’t forget perseverance, and don't forget the danger of distraction or a wandering mind. As we go to prayer let's be on guard, let's be listening to the prayers of the men as they pray, but also to the kingdom concerns that we will hear.

Psalm 145:3, 5, 6,
I would think that every Christian wants to pray better and bigger prayers. And how can we? Well, you have to start with God. To pray bigger prayers, we have to be sure how big our God is. David had it right, if you go back to that Psalm, “Greatly to be praised and His greatness is unsearchable.” Something similar in Paul in Romans chapter 11, you remember when he breaks out in that doxology, “Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments and His ways past finding out.” And the very word that the Lord Jesus uses in the Lord's Prayer is also a word to remind us of how great our God is, “Our Father in heaven.” That little phrase, ‘in heaven,’ points to His transcendent position, His authority and His Majesty. Theologians have used four little letters, so it's even a word you could say, Omni, which means full or complete. And we can speak of His omnipresence, which means He is everywhere present. We can speak of His omnipotence, which means He is all-powerful. And we could also speak of His omniscience, which means He's all-knowing. He knows everything about everything.

And when we come to prayer, we never want to lose sight of His greatness, and we can, we can do that very easily. In fact, we can suffer from little faith like those disciples on the boat on the Sea of Galilee in the midst of that hurricane storm. They didn't see Christ's greatness, His power and His majesty. That's why they were so afraid.

There's actually a book, some of you might even be familiar with it, by J.B. Phillips, it was written back in the 1950’s titled, Your God is Too Small. And the thesis of that book is that Christians can hold an inadequate small view of God. And God even complains to His covenant people that they have wrong thoughts about Him. In Psalm 50 He says, 'You thought that I was altogether like you. I'm not like you, I'm not finite like you, I'm not little, inadequate, frail like you.'

But there's something else we have to remember when we go to prayer. We want to remember the majesty and greatness of our God. But if you go back to the Lord's Prayer again, we also want to remember the intimacy of that new Father/Son relationship by way of the new birth and adoption. He's our Father, and that's not a metaphor. It's not a metaphor, that's reality. We are the sons of the living God. We are the children of God, we can cry, Abba Father. And we could translate that word, it's an Aramaic word, ‘dearest Father’. And our Father wants us to come to Him, He invites us over and over again. Even in the book of Hebrews, you have those three ‘draw near to me’ exhortations. Hebrews 4:6, “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” Again, Hebrews 7:26, “Those who draw near to God through Him.” Then Hebrews chapter 10, “Therefore brothers, let us draw near with a true heart, and full assurance of faith.” 

And we have to remind ourselves, probably regularly, maybe even daily, that there's no one, no one who loves you more than your Heavenly Father. And no one who can take better care of you, because He is an all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere present father. I find it interesting, the longest and the most definitive treatment we have on anxiety is found in the Sermon on the Mount. Right? And in that same sermon, Jesus picks up the word ‘Father’ at least 17 times. See, He wants to remind us again and again who your Father is. He takes care of the little birds of the air, and the lilies of the field. One Scottish Presbyterian put it this way, 

So there's no situation, no situation in life too hard for your Heavenly Father. We go back to the fact that He is our Father in Heaven, the Omni-God.

Relevant Passages: Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17, 18; Colossians 2:6,7

In light of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday I thought it appropriate to come back to the matter of thanksgiving. This is my third time up to the plate. We did last Wednesday and Sunday and we had a Sunday night Thanksgiving service. So I want to come back to it again. It struck me more than it ever has just how prominent it is in our Bibles and should be in our lives. And the Bible clearly mandates it, it is not suggested, it is a command. And not just once in a while, but always and in everything. Those two things are clear in the New Testament, “Always and in everything.” Paul, in Philippians 4, for example, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.” And then 1 Thessalonians 5, “Pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks.” Then you have that Colossians 2 passage, the apostle uses that word abounding, “abounding in thanksgiving.”

Think of that word, abounding. Not like the drip, drip of a leaky faucet, but more like an overflowing river in the midst of springtime. That is what he has in view, abounding in thanksgiving. I do think the best way I could argue from my Bible to maintain a consistent thanksgiving, is by focusing upon the three-person God; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The primary recipient of our thanksgiving is God. It is not that we cannot thank people, but we should be thanking God first and foremost. And we worship a three-person God.

It has always struck me that when Jesus is in the upper room on the last night of His life, His disciples are in a place of troubling and emotional pain. They know that things are not going to go well, they know that one is going to betray Him and they know one is going to deny Him. But do you know what He talks about more than anything else, He broadcasts the Trinity, the three-person God to His disciples. In that same upper room discourse of John 13-17, He also mentions “joy” five times. Joy and thanksgiving almost go hand in hand, don’t they. Joy produces thanksgiving and thanksgiving increases joy.

We start with the Father, the first person of the Trinity. We can thank Him, can’t we? Did you know that every gift you have in Christ is given to you by the Father, He is the ultimate source. The Father, the Father, the Father, He is the great giver. And we can thank the Father. Jesus tells us to pray, “Hallowed be Your Name, Our Father which art in heaven,” for His daily provision, for His daily protection and pardon; provision of food, protection from the evil one and pardon of sin. We are constantly going to the Father for those needs.

When it comes to the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, we can always thank Him. We can thank Him for the life He lived, a life without sin; we can thank Him for the death He died, a substitutionary death; it is a death that procured reconciliation, redemption; it is a death that propitiated the very wrath of God. We can thank Jesus also for conquering death by that third day of resurrection. So we can thank Jesus for His life, for His death, for His resurrection, for His intercession, He is a great high priest.

And what about the third person of the Trinity? He is often forgotten. What do you thank Him for? It is a multi-faceted ministry. I am going to throw out some of the words that are used to describe what the Spirit does: He reveals, He instructs, He convicts, He regenerates, He sanctifies, He guides, He comforts, and He helps. Then you also have the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We can be thanking God the Holy Spirit also for peace, love, gentleness, and kindness.

So when we go to God in prayer, always having our prayer perfumed by thanksgiving, we shouldn’t forget the Triune God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is the best place to start. We start by giving God glory but also thanking God for what He has done. That explains why we can do it always, always in every circumstance and situation. The three-person God is always there to help, to guide, to strengthen and to take care of us.

Philippians 4:4-6,Colossians 4:2,If you examine the prayers of the Apostle Paul, it's very easy to see that thanksgiving was a big part of his praying. I think of the 13 epistles and 9 of the 13 begin with thanksgiving. Just let me point out four simple things about Paul's prayer with regard to thanksgiving.

The first thing I think we can observe, the clearest thing in terms of Pauline perspective and thanksgiving, it was God-ward, not man-ward. It's not wrong to give thanks to men, but Paul never mentions men in the sense that God is the ultimate purpose there in terms of the recipient of our praise and thanksgiving. “I thank my God always,” he writes, “I do not cease to give thanks to my God.” Another letter, “We give thanks to God.” Another letter, “We give thanks to God always.” So that's the great starting point for the Apostle Paul. God is the great recipient. Christian thanksgiving always turns first to God. It begins with God.

Second thing I think we can easily see and observe in thanksgiving in general, but also, I think you could argue from the whole of Scripture, Christian thanksgiving is comprehensive. It's God-ward first in addressing God, but it's comprehensive, and that's easily gleaned from James chapter 1, “Every good gift comes from above.” He's not talking simply about spiritual gifts, but every good gift comes from God. So every good thing you receive in this present life comes from God. That refers to the material, temporal realm, but also the spiritual and the eternal realm. We give thanks for bread, daily bread, we give thanks for health, family, marriage, children, etc.

But Christian thanksgiving, especially Paul's thanksgiving, rarely focuses upon the material. It rarely focuses upon the material, but it focuses upon the spiritual, what we have in Christ, the blessings in Jesus Christ. He focuses on growth in grace; he thanks the Thessalonians; he thanks God for the Thessalonians' growth in grace, their growth in faith, their growth in love. He also thanks God for the ability to serve, to spread the gospel far and wide. He prays to God for the protection of the saints from the evil one. So there's the first two perspectives, as far as Pauline thanksgiving, or Christian thanksgiving. God is the great giver of all gifts and blessings, that's where we begin. Second, Christian thanksgiving is comprehensive.

Third thing we can say about Christian thanksgiving is that it is constant and regular. This coming Sunday night, we will have a special thanksgiving time, and that's a good thing. There's good times to have, special times marked out for thanksgiving, but thanksgiving should be continual and regular. Ephesians 5, “Giving thanks to God always.” Thomas Watts and the Puritans said, “A gracious heart sees mercy in every condition, therefore is always thankful; always thankful.”

One more thing that we need to remember when we think of giving thanks to God, why do we give thanks to God? Well, there might be a number of reasons. One is, it's good for your soul. Believe it or not, it's almost a kind of therapy. When we're depressed, when we're discouraged, it can really help us to get our eyes off ourselves, focus upon God and help relieve some of that discouragement, depression, fear, whatever. But the ultimate reason is God's glory. 1 Corinthians 11, “Whether we eat or drink, we do for the glory of God.” So if we can glorify God in the lesser of things, in eating and drinking, the mundane, how much more when it comes to prayer and thanksgiving and praise. Psalm 50:23, “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me,” that's what God says. And then you could also use 2 Corinthians 4:15, “For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.” To the glory of God. And so when we come to prayer, we should always think of God first, and also think of God in terms of His glory.

Luke 11:1-4,
I think we could say one of the first signs that a Christian is a Christian is that they pray. In that sermon by J.C. Ryle, (If you haven't read anything by J.C. Ryle, I'd recommend him), he had a whole sermon he preached on prayer. He said, 

But Christians must pray, just like a person must breathe to live. And while we should always regard prayer as a great privilege, we also know it can be a great struggle. And Paul mentioned striving several times in Colossians and another place where he's striving in prayer, letting us know that it's difficult, that he's having to wrestle. We all would acknowledge that we struggle when it comes to praying because of our enemies, the devil, and certainly our own sin.

But we also struggle just in terms of prayer itself with regularity, consistency, humility, praying boldly, praying fervently, praying perseveringly, and praying believingly.
We also struggle with full concentration. I remember hearing Dr. Sinclair Ferguson responding when someone asked him to write a book on prayer, and he quickly referenced another pastor, and that pastor quickly referenced another pastor. Dr. Ferguson was making the point that none of us, pastors included, feel proficient enough to write a book on prayer. We can talk about prayer, we can pray, but to actually write a book on prayer - Why not? It wasn't because they were not theologically qualified, they could easily have written the book. But they felt their lack, experientially. They knew they were not where they wanted to be when it came to prayer. Perhaps nowhere else do Christians feel more inadequate than when it comes to prayer; private prayer and corporate prayer.

I think we would all admit that we will always, always be students of prayer until the day we die; always learning, always growing. And I do believe the disciples of the Lord Jesus found themselves facing that dilemma themselves. If you look again at Luke chapter 11, they come to Jesus and ask Him to "teach us how to pray."

Most of us are familiar with Matthew 6, that's the Lord's Prayer, typically where we turn to in terms of its full content. But this prayer in Luke 11 sounds like that prayer too, doesn't it? It's not exactly like it, but it's similar, not the same. Nor is it in the same place, or at the same time. It's a different prayer spoken at a different time. The first prayer of Matthew 6, the Lord's Prayer, takes place on a mountainside in Galilee early in His public ministry. And scholars estimate at least a year, a year and a half, between the prayer of Matthew 6, and the prayer of chapter 11 of Luke. So what does that say about His disciples? Did they forget? Did they need to relearn? I think they did. Even mature disciples need to be taught again and again about prayer. Thomas Manton, the Puritan once said, 

And even seasoned believers will tell you continually they need to relearn how to pray. Just like His disciples, we should never stop trying. “Teach us how to pray,” and who better then Jesus, the perfect preacher, the perfect man of prayer. Every generation struggles with prayer, even the Puritans reflected upon the challenge of having a mind stayed upon Jehovah.

There's a whole book I have on my bookshelf, I forget the name of the Puritan, but it's titled Wandering Thoughts. And maybe one of the biggest reasons why we struggle, not the only reason, but maybe one of the biggest reasons is we don't rely as much upon the Spirit of God. We need His help. In Romans 8 Paul could say, “We know not what to pray as we ought.” And just like Martha we can be distracted by many things. But maybe it would be a good idea if we would start off praying this way, just with a cry for help, “Help me to pray.” Help me to pray with humility, help me to pray with faith, help me to pray believingly, help me to pray with sincerity, help me to pray boldly, help me to pray reverently. And don't forget this, the struggle is worth it, even though it's a struggle to pray. In the words of that hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus. Oh, what peace we often forfeit! Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

So we're going to pray tonight, but as we go to prayer, we can even pray that God would help us to pray. It is a supernatural activity. Just like the preacher has to ask God for help to preach, we have to ask God to help us to pray.

Matthew 6:9, 10,
I think of the Lord’s Prayer like the Grand Canyon. You could never walk that canyon, I don’t think you could get down as deep as that canyon, there is so much in that canyon, you could spend almost a lifetime exploring that canyon. It is the same with the Lord’s Prayer. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson said, 

If you want to know how to pray a great prayer and how to live the Christian life, this can actually structure living the Christian life. Dr. Albert Mohler calls it the prayer that turned the world upside down.

Last Wednesday night we looked at it from a perspective of humility. I brought out at least six points that help us when we think of praying this prayer. It is a prayer that confronts our greatest deepest need, which is forgiveness of sin. It also reminds us of our great weakness in terms of temptation, also God’s greatness and His holiness. Thomas Watson, the Puritan, has written about fifty sermons that were preached on this actual prayer and put into book form. Here is what he said, 

Most commentators divide this prayer into six petitions. Three are directed towards God and three are really for ourselves. It is sort of like the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. The first five commandments are God centered, and then the last five are man-centered. The first petition, “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be your name,” is the focus upon God.

The second petition is what I want to focus on, it highlights God’s greatness as well. Think about it, the key word is kingdom. When you hear that word, kingdom, what do you think of? You could be thinking of rule or reign, God’s authority and God’s sovereignty. Here is a question that I have often asked, “When you come to the Lord’s Prayer, where is Christ?” I think He is here. If I had one place to turn and say, “This is where Christ is,” in the Lord’s Prayer, I would make the choice dealing with the fact of kingdom. Three times in the New Testament Christ is called the King of kings, He is sitting on the throne of God right now and we are praying to the King of kings. Yes, we pray to our Father, but we also pray to God, the three-person God, and the second person is Christ, the King of kings. And when we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we are praying for God to advance Christ’s kingdom, Christ’s rule and reign. When Jesus first appeared on earth, remember He announced, “The kingdom of God is here.”

Why did he say that? Well, because the King is here. The kingdom of God is here and I am the king. And He inaugurated His kingdom by preaching the kingdom, or the gospel of that kingdom. And when Jesus starts off His ministry, what does He do? He exercises His reign, His rule over three big things: demons, disease and death. Three of the things that frighten us all. Every miracle, in a sense, was announcing, “The King is here, I am conquering, I am reigning over everything that frightens you: demons (the devil), disease and death.”

You would have thought that anybody who heard that would have been excited, willing to bow and submit to the gracious all-powerful King. But right from the get-go the King is resisted, attacked and eventually crucified. What is the problem? There are a couple of problems. The devil doesn’t want to give up his territory, he has a kingdom as well. And sinners by nature hate God’s authority and refuse to submit to Him. Read Psalm 2, “We will not have Him rule over us.” They refuse to submit to the King of kings.

But here is the good news, the kingdom has come, past tense; the kingdom is coming, present tense; and the kingdom will come, future tense. It will come in its ultimate consummation when Christ comes back again. Every time a person gets saved, the kingdom comes. Every time you and I grow more in holiness, more like Christ, the kingdom comes. So when we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are praying that the world would change; we are praying that our hearts would change, that we would become more holy; we are praying that the church would change, that it would grow; and we are praying for missionary engagement, we are praying for a world that would be more and more exposed to Christ Jesus and submit to His reign. That means this prayer never loses its relevance until Christ comes back again.

It is also a reminder that we are in a war. I think it is significant that the big graphic picture of the church, we don’t always think of it as a graphic picture of the church, but it is. In the back end of Ephesians it is a picture of the army, it is not individuals. When you look at that passage it is all plural pronouns, you, you, you, you, you are. And we are an army equipped with the whole armor of God. We have weapons that are far greater than any weapons in the world: grenades, bombs, missiles, we have the sword of the Spirit and we also have the great weapon of prayer.

He ends it in terms of praying, He ends that matter of the soldier dressed up in the armor of God focusing on praying, Ephesians 6:18, “Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.” That means every day you and I go out on a battlefield fighting temptation, fighting our pride, our unbelief, even Satan’s lies. So when we come to prayer, we come really to step on a battlefield. We are supposed to be good soldiers of King Jesus. So this is what we want to do, go to the prayer field, battlefield and remember that we are praying in light of the kingdom, “Thy kingdom come.”

Matthew 6:9-13,I think every Christian wants to improve their prayer life, and perhaps there's no better prayer to pray then the Lord's Prayer. The Puritan Thomas Watson has a rather thick volume on this prayer. It is very devotional, so you might want to get it. He said that the believer's lifeline is prayer, and then he calls this the prayer of prayers. Think about it, there's no prayer that has probably been uttered more than this prayer. No prayer has had as much global impact then the Lord's Prayer. Think of it, for 2,000+ years, thousands, maybe millions upon millions of people have prayed this prayer, sometimes every day. And one of the great reasons why we should pray this prayer and keep on praying this prayer is because it does help cultivate humility. Humility. Arguably next to the grace of love, there's no grace more important than humility. Notice how even the Sermon on the Mount begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” St. Augustine said when someone asked him, “What is a Christian?” he said,

And there are six great reasons why this prayer is humbling.

Number one, it begins on a matter of adoption. Only true sons can call God Father. And yes, we are sons, not because we deserve it, but because of grace. Think what John said, “Behold what manner of love that we should be called the sons of God." So we don't boast in the wrong sort of way when we think of ourselves as sons, privileged, but it's because of grace and mercy.

Second reason why this prayer, the Lord's Prayer, is a humbling prayer, it should humble us, is because of adoration. Not only because of adoption, but adoration. “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name.” We come into the presence of God. He's far, far above us. He is in heaven, there's a great distinction between God and us and we are here to worship Him, honor Him, love Him, and adore Him. This prayer forces us to get our eyes off ourselves by way of praise and thanksgiving.

Why is the Lord's Prayer a humble prayer? The blessing of adoption, the duty of adoration, thirdly submission, “Thy kingdom come.” We are submitting to the King of Kings and prioritizing His kingdom, not our kingdom. I remember someone said,

The Lord's Prayer reminds us that there's a sovereign King whose kingdom is a kingdom of grace. It has come, past tense; it is coming, present tense; but it will come. This prayer anticipates the future coming of Christ, the King of Kings. And we also can say it should humble us, it should make us realize that we are to submit to this King when we pray, “Thy will be done and not my will.”

So why is this prayer a humbling prayer? Adoption, adoration, submission. Here's the fourth reason why the Lord's Prayer is a humble prayer, it should help cultivate humility. It's a dependent prayer. “Give us our daily bread.” This prayer reminds us that we are creatures, dependent creatures. That's why we need food, that's why we need sleep. We come into this world dependent and we leave this world dependent.

The fifth thing that is humbling here is the need of confession, “Father, forgive us of our sins.” This is by far the most humbling thing we have to face - the reality that we are sinners, not just once in a while sinners, but everyday sinners. We are forgiven in terms of justification, but there must be a continual seeking forgiveness in terms of sanctification. And just like we need daily bread, we need daily pardon.

The Lord's Prayer is a humble prayer, adoption, adoration, submission, dependency, confession…and then the last petition here is equally humbling, it has to do with temptation. Every day, we are faced with temptation from without and from within; from within, the flesh and from without, the devil and the world. And so we need strengthening, resisting grace. We never fight this fight on our own, do we? Jesus said, “Without me, you can do nothing.” So we go to the throne of grace, realizing, again, how privileged we are, we are sons of God, but also how needy we are, we are still sinners.

Psalm 107:1-3,
In this Psalm, it begins with the call for us to give thanks to the Lord. And the reason that is given is that it's “for He is good.” C.H. Spurgeon writes that,

And as the psalmist has us, “to give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,” he then has us focus our attention on one aspect of the Lord's goodness. It says, “For His steadfast love endures forever.” His steadfast love, His loving kindness, His mercy. And while there are many mercies of the Lord, for we know that His mercies are new every morning, we know that the greatest mercy of the Lord is His mercy to the redeemed. The mercy of the Lord to His redeemed people, to undeserving sinners for whom Christ died; for those whom He paid the costly price, He shed His precious blood to secure our salvation. Spurgeon writes, 

So the psalmist says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from trouble.” As we think of the goodness of the Lord to us, and as we remember that He has redeemed us, we are reminded that He has redeemed us and delivered us from trouble. The greatest of all troubles, the trouble that awaits all sinners, the punishment for our sin, the wrath of God. All who are redeemed, we are told, are gathered in from the lands. It's as though it is God's sovereign act as He is taking lost sinners from this world of sin and darkness from all the ends of the earth, the east, the west, the north, and the south. And we are the ones… we are the ones that are spoken of here. We are the ones who are called to give thanks to the Lord, for we are the ones who have experienced His goodness and His steadfast love as He has delivered us from our trouble.

But this psalm then continues to give four examples of the conditions of sinners from which God has delivered them.
 

• In verse 4, it speaks of some who wandered in deserts, finding no way to a city to dwell in.
• In verse 10, it speaks of some who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons. 
• In verse 17, it speaks of some who were fools through their sinful ways and because of their iniquities, suffered afflictions. 
• And then in verse 23, we read of some who went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters. And in each of these cases, they experienced some form of trouble, trouble that caused them distress, severe distresses. And it was then only at that point, only in the midst of their trouble, in the midst of their distress, that they finally turned to the Lord. 

And we read in each of these cases, “then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them from their distress.” It's when they cried to the Lord and it is then that the Lord heard their cry, and He delivered them. And in each of these cases, then, after having been delivered from their troubles, being delivered from their distress, then the psalmist calls out and calls them to give thanks. He writes, "Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men.”

So as we come together to pray, to worship the Lord, we should remember the goodness of the Lord to us. His steadfast love, His mercy that we have experienced in His saving us and delivering us from the power of sin that caused the greatest of all troubles in our lives. And as we remember the goodness of the Lord, let us give Him thanks for His wondrous work of salvation that we have been redeemed. “Let us extol Him,” as the psalmist says, “let us praise Him.”

So may our prayers even overflow with words of thanksgiving for what God has done, for His goodness and His great mercy to us. Also as we hear of the prayer requests that are being shared, perhaps requests for deliverance in times of trouble or distress of others, let us also cry to the Lord on behalf of those who are in need and pray for the Lord to deliver them, for He alone is the one that is able to deliver from all trouble and distress, “The Lord, the Lord who is good and merciful.” So let us remember, let us give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.

Luke chapter 11:1-4,
Luke's Gospel has been called the Gospel of Prayer, and Jesus teaches us about prayer. Here in Luke 11, you have a shorter version of the Lord's Prayer.

When we think of living the Christian life, I think we could argue there are three essentials in terms of habits of grace, or the disciplines, or the means of grace.  Three essentials, three great disciplines that we need to run the race and to finish it well. What are they? Well, we need the ear of God, prayer; we need the voice of God, the Bible; and then we need the body of God, the church. So we need the ear of God, the voice of God, and the body of God. We need prayer, we need the Bible, and we need the church. And because this is our corporate prayer meeting, we're going to focus on that first habit or discipline of prayer, the ear of God, and who better to help us than Jesus?

Nobody prayed like He prayed, just like He preached perfect sermons He prayed perfect prayers, and that explains why His disciple friends come to Him and ask, “Teach us to pray.” Now, we don't know for sure why they were asking that question. We can surmise, what did they see, what did they hear that provoked that request, “Teach us to pray.” I think they probably heard His fervency. They probably saw something of His endurance at almost every turn, they observed His love and His intimacy, and His closeness to His Father, Abba Father. They also heard His big prayers, not selfish or self-centered prayers, but His prayers were shaped by God's glory, God's will, and God's kingdom.

And Jesus wants us to engage in this worship activity of prayer, privately as well as corporately. In the Sermon on the Mount, if you think of Matthew chapter 6, where we're most familiar with the Lord's Prayer, He assumes that we are praying. Right? Three times: Matthew 6:5, “When you pray,” He's assuming you are praying. Matthew 6:6, “And when you pray.” And then again, Matthew 6:9, “This is how you should pray.” Now, in Luke's Gospel, as I said, it's the gospel sometimes called the gospel of Prayer, we get a fuller picture on prayer. And Jesus impresses upon us, think of that section where He says we are to ask and receive, seek and find, that is also found in Matthew's gospel. But in Luke 18, He devotes a whole parable to prayer, the prayer of that persevering widow essentially saying, “Don't give up, don't give up.”

And there's more if you run through Luke's prayer. This is distinctive from the other synoptic Gospels, including John, but you find Jesus praying at least eleven distinct times. Eleven distinct times. What does that tell us? He practiced what He preached. He practiced what He preached. And He gives us, we could say, a perfect instruction and a perfect example. And if we are determined to learn how to pray, just like His disciples, we have to keep our eyes on Jesus.  Some of you play golf and the simple rule that everybody seems to reiterate when it comes to playing golf, is you keep your eye on the ball. When it comes to living the Christian life, you keep your eye on Christ, the eye of faith on Christ.

And the Apostle Paul, obviously, was someone who kept his eyes on Christ when it came to prayer. I think that is one of the reasons why he said, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.” I think he had that in mind when he said that, he followed in the footsteps of Christ when it came to prayer. Some 40 to 50 times in his epistles he picks up the subject of prayer. Almost every time he starts off a letter or finishes a letter, it begins or ends on prayer. And there are 12 to 14 full-length prayers that have substantive amount of ink to them in those epistles. And here's what he says over and over again when it comes to his praying, and for us, “Continue, be consistent, persevere.” He never stopped praying. He never stopped praying, no matter how hard life got. Romans 1:9, “Without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers.” Ephesians 1:16, “I do not cease to give thanks to you.” Philippians 1:4, “Always in every prayer of mine for you all,” and there's several other texts that he underscores, “I am always, always praying, praying.”

And think about this, both Jesus and the Apostle Paul were some of the busiest men on planet Earth. I'm sure at times they were overwhelmed with their busy, busy schedules, but they always prioritized time with God. And they were not just praying for themselves, we know that they were intercessors, they prayed for others, even the Lord's Prayer assumes that we will pray for others. It's found in plural pronouns, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” And so we see the importance of prayer just by the life example of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. Spurgeon said this about prayer,

You have a lot of churches now that don't have prayer meetings. They've lost that distinctive. And so we have to maintain that should always be a priority, do we have a prayer meeting? And are we consistently praying privately? I say all that to encourage you as far as your faithfulness. We get a good representation on Wednesday night, so we just have to keep on keeping on. Don't pull back. As boring as it might seem, as irrelevant, sometimes it might seem, don't pull back on your private prayer life and our corporate prayer life.