To God Be The Glory by Ed Pruitt

Matthew 6:9-10

To God Be The Glory!
Sunday June 01, 2003 AM
Matthew 6:9-10
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

One night a father heard his young daughter praying.

Her bedroom door was cracked just enough so that he could see that she was kneeling beside her bed in prayer.

Interested to find out what subjects a child would bring before God, he paused and listened.

He was puzzled though to hear her reciting the alphabet:
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G …" She just kept repeating it.

He didn’t want to interrupt her, but soon curiosity got the best of him and he broke into prayer.

"Honey," he asked, "what are you doing?"

"I’m praying, Daddy," she replied.

"Well, why are you praying the alphabet?" he asked.
She explained, "I started my prayers, but I wasn’t sure what to pray.

So I decided to just say all the letters of the alphabet and let God put them together however He thinks best."

Have you ever felt that way?

You knew you needed to pray, but just weren’t sure how.

You didn’t know the right words.

You didn’t know what was acceptable to God.

Don’t feel bad.

Jesus’ best friends and closest followers felt the same way.

They obviously noticed how he spoke to the Father with ease.

He seemed to always have the right words to say and his prayers were always powerfully answered.

So, they asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray."

The writers of the Bible recorded it and today we call it, "The Lord’s Prayer."

A more appropriate title would be "The Disciple’s Prayer".

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Our Father
Our focus in prayer should always be on Our Father.

It is an intimate time of developing our relationship with our loving heavenly Father.

The word "our" is a possessive pronoun.

The fact that Jesus taught us to use it when speaking to God is most astounding!

Ray Pruitt is my father. He could have been your friend.

He might have been, a dear friend to you.

But never the less, he was my father.

I had a closeness of relationship to him that you never could have had.

Jesus is God’s Son, in an absolutely unique sense.

He is a Son by right, not by grace.

So the Word rightly speaks of Jesus as "His only Son, our Lord."

So we shouldn’t take it lightly or thoughtlessly when Jesus actually, in His own words, passes on to us this priceless treasure of calling God "Our Father."

This is how Jesus wants us to think of God when we begin to pray.

In fact, you will never begin to pray on the right foot unless you start here.

Try to imagine how dear this particular truth would be to Jesus as He tries to teach His disciples.

"Say Father when you come in prayer."

Little did they know at this time, that Jesus would lay down His life to afford them that blessed access to the Father in heaven.

That they would become children and heirs and joint-heirs as they stood in His redemptive work on the cross.

Jesus knew what He was talking about when He granted them this directness, this closeness to a God who was merciful, patient and loving.

What a pity if they continued to cower in fear!

If they let their sins and failures keep them from access that had been purchased at such a price!

Now notice that it’s "OUR Father." Not just "MY Father."

Jesus recognizes that while we all long for closeness with our God, we do not always like closeness to each other.

But every time I pray "OUR Father" I’m forced to recognize the fact that I cannot pray alone.

I can’t be related to my earthly father without also being related to my brother and sister.

They are part of the package.

I can’t have a close relationship with my father if I hate the rest of the family.

The family stands or falls as a unit.

Sometimes we allow ourselves luxuries in our words that aren’t really allowed in the Scripture.

True, I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

So far, so good.

It is personal.

It must be.

I must receive Jesus, myself, as my own Saviour and Lord.

But there’s something else I can easily forget with this blessed truth.

My relationship with Jesus is personal.

However, it is not private.

So I can’t say, Father, without remembering the Son who works this miracle of adopting grace.

And I can’t say OUR Father without remembering Our Father has other children also.

And I can’t pray without loving them as much as the Father loves them.

Our prayer life is dependent on the quality of our individual and corporate relationship with the Father.

”Which art in heaven”
The phrase "in heaven" does more than merely locate God.

It helps to define Him.

God is not limited by earthly restraints.

We can communicate directly with the everlasting God who controls all things.

We do not need to wait or rely on any mediator.

God is not limited by human restraints.

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

God’s thoughts are greater than human thoughts.

He is the Lord in the heavens, we need to praise Him and lift Him Name on High.

We need to remember that Prayer is a bridge from our earth bound limits to heaven’s infinite resources.

God can be approached with the intimacy of a father.

But He is not a tame God.

He will never be made over in my image.

He will not be domesticated.

It’s a mistake to fool with God!

God won’t be mocked or bluffed or conned.

It’s a blessing beyond riches to love God.

It’s a bad mistake to get trite or chummy with Him.

He is a Father.

He is rich in mercy to all who would call on Him.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve.

In fact, the Bible says He doesn’t hold our sins against us!

Blessed truth indeed!

But He’s not just our Father.

He’s our Father in heaven.

He’s infinitely Holy!

He is without spot or blemish!

He is infinitely righteous.

The Bible says He’s a consuming fire!

Angels fall on their faces when they’re around His throne!

Moses took his shoes off before he spoke with this God of glory and might!

But there’s more than just warning here.

There’s encouragement and comfort in praying to our Father in heaven.

“Hallowed be thy name”

Hallowed means "holy," "set apart."

We must come to God with a holy reverence.

Only God deserves to be regarded as
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord, God Almighty.”

He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

His name is above every other name in heaven and earth.

We should worship Him with thanksgiving and come into His courts with praise!

We are to exalt Him with all of His attributes not forgetting one aspect of His love!

He is the God who is near.

He is the God who is Most High.

God is totally pure, far wiser than we are, and most powerful!

We must begin in prayer by getting our mind right with regard to whose presence we’re entering into.

God is both our Father and the Lord of glory.

We can approach Him confidently in prayer because we are His dearly beloved children, but we must never forget that He is Sovereign.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

We will only see powerful prayer when we approach God with the right attitude.

Here Jesus calls us to submit ourselves totally to God.

In asking that His kingdom come we’re essentially giving up control of our lives and handing it over to God!

We are asking for His kingdom to come in all of its spiritual qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

In a kingdom, there are only two classes, the ruler and those who are ruled over.

There must be a recognition, of our place within God’s kingdom and a surrender to His rule before He’ll answer our prayers in a powerful way!

He won’t entrust his power to us if we’re going to misuse it for selfish ends.

Our prayer must be, God,

Whatever you want!

Wherever you want it!

Whenever you want it!

That’s what I want!

Does it scare you to pray like that?

Me too, but it all comes down to faith.

If we believe that God is good and on our side, then we understand that He will only tell us to do that which is for our highest good.

Ask for God’s provision.

After we’ve focused on who God is, and submitted to his rule in our lives, then we can go on and ask for His provision.

Jesus said to simply ask.

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