Law & Grace - Matthew 6:1-15 The Secret life & the 'Lord's prayer'

Courtney was reading, you know, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. I do that all the time. Other things too. I don't let my head know what my right foot's doing. You know, things like that. Okay, this passage here, we are starting in the 6th chapter of the middle chapter of 3 in the Sermon on the Mount.

This giving to the poor, giving of alms as it's often called, was by law required to be done generously. You were to be very open-handed. That's what Deuteronomy 15, 7 through 11 instructed the Jews to do. Most certainly to be open-handed in your giving of alms. The rabbis came to place great value in the giving of alms to the poor in Israel.

And there were a great many who were poor. One of the difficulties that they were having was not only did they have all the things to pay for at the temple, as a matter of fact, Jews were required to give as much as somewhere around a third of their income to temple activities. and the various sacrifices and rituals that they would carry out. In addition to that, the Romans, of course, wanted their slice for Rome.

But there was also one other area that they had to give, and that is for Herod's building program. Herod liked to volunteer the Jews to spend lots of money on his projects. Like they rebuilt the temple starting in 20 BC, and that went on until the early 60s AD, just a few years before the whole thing was ruined by the Romans. On top of that, Herod decided in 12 BC that the Jews were going to fund the Olympics. And plus he had other things that he was constructing. So the Jews were committed to a great many expenses and in fact there were about every six years there was a tax revolt centered in Galilee.

There were people that were poor beyond poor. And so Jesus said that the Israelites were to give alms to these many poor and to seek reward from God as they did so, rather than recognition from others. Some of the ideas about sounding a trumpet were the idea that, yes, you would actually have a trumpet. Another idea was that this had to do with a trumpet-like object where they would have a container and you would drop the coin in this trumpet where it would go down into the container for the offerings for the poor and as it did so that you'd have a coin rolling around and making a lot of noise.

Some other ideas that people are just blowing their own horn but at any rate that's what Jesus was pointing to and also in this passage one through four Blessed and rewarded, how and from where? This is a key point when we look at the Sermon on the Mount.

The people of Israel were all blessed in earthly ways if they obeyed the law of Moses. Deuteronomy 28, 1-14 is one of several passages that in fact lay that out. And you are blessed in earthly ways if you obey the law of Moses. You would be healthy, you would have productive land, you would have plenty of children, your cows would have plenty of calves, etc. We in the church are blessed in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

It is not a conditional blessing, but it is a certain blessing. It is not a blessing that has to do with things here. It's a blessing that has to do with things there in the heavenly places. And rather than being conditional, you are blessed before you do anything.

Ephesians 1.3 is where The Apostle Paul writes to the church at Ephesus and he says, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He waits until the fourth chapter to say, okay, now let's talk about your stealing and lying problem. They were blessed before they did or didn't do anything.

So reward, however, one of the things we find in this chapter, reward for both Israel and the church does come from heaven. God is the source. It does not depend It does depend on what we do, but as God looks on the heart. So reward does depend on what we do, both for Israel and the church. Blessing for us and the church is unconditional.

Now, you would get the impression looking at verses 5 and 6 that perhaps praying in public is sinful, in which case Courtney is in deep trouble. And when I close at the end of the message here, I will be in deep trouble, if that's the case. So, public praying, if it's to be seen with the hope of making a good impression, is not rewardable and is hypocritical. If it's done with the intent of, I want to make sure that I get a lot of attention. People will even pray with special pronunciation. See, it's not God, it's God. See? And so they'll have special pronunciation, and that really gets people's attention. As a matter of fact, the more A's you put in it, the better.

So did Jesus tell them that public praying is off-limits? You can't do that stuff. Jesus himself prayed in public, sometimes in smaller groups, sometimes in larger ones. It seems the problem is not with public praying per se, but with the motive. Example, Jesus was there at the Last Supper, and what did he do? He prayed over the food that they were eating. Was there not a dozen gathered there with him? Yes. Even greater than that, how about praying in front of 5,000 people? That sounds like public praying. Lots of people. So praying in public by itself is not the issue.

The difficulty is what's the motive? Whose attention am I trying to get? And who's getting the credit for this? God knows the motive and He listens to the heart of the believer who is praying. That is, the heart of the believer that's praying to Him and not for attention for everybody else.

Now, he also has a caution here, as the Gentiles do. The Gentiles, as they presumed, understand what influences a god, and I mean a god with lowercase g. It was all the Greek and Roman pantheon, and actually quite popular in the Mediterranean was also the Egyptian pantheon. And there were plenty to choose from, 700 gods in the Egyptian pantheon.

But you prayed to a God in the Gentile system in order to get the God to do something for you, to do you a favor. Because here's the deal. In the Gentile religious system, God doesn't love you. As a matter of fact, if you don't do the right things in the Gentile religious system, God doesn't give a hoot. You have to get His attention.

And so, they would devise various ways of getting the God's attention. And that would include praying something repeatedly, as if that would somehow be the magic trick. In our own era, we don't tend to have that quite as much. Buddhist prayer wheels are for repeating prayers as many times as possible. That started about 400 AD. And the idea is to get as many of those going.

As a matter of fact, Dalai Lama, you heard of him? He said that even these gifts that are on the screen, that that counts. And if you have a prayer on your hard drive, the hard drive goes around really fast, and that makes for even more prayers. Right? Isn't that amazing? That's real spiritual, isn't it? Okay. So Jesus tells them, it's not the number of times that you say something, that'll have an influence, it's prayer from the heart. You're communicating with God.

And we're going to find an example here shortly on what's termed the Lord's Prayer. The Lord doesn't come up with some long, lengthy prayer, right? Nothing to impress God, as if that mattered. But instead, it's prayer from the heart. That's what God looks at. God looks at the heart and He knows. One thing is, we're not praying to make God aware of something as if He doesn't know. And Jesus makes that point, doesn't He? It's not like God doesn't have any idea what I'm going through unless I tell Him. That's not the way it works. God already knows, Jesus says. He already knows what you're going to ask. And don't think that telling Him a gazillion times is going to fix the problem. He already knows all these things. Nor should we harass him. That's not the point either.

Now you have in a poetic form here the Lord's Prayer. And we've kind of highlighted some of the poetic form in phrases or words that are repeated or a repeated pattern. And so you have that on page one of your handout similarly here. What's interesting is the first part of that, verses 9 and 10, talk basically about the Lord and talking about the kingdom coming, and it's focused on the Lord, and it's directed towards Him. And it has to do with the Lord's name. And then the next section talks about, okay, now let's talk about me. And so verses 11 and 12 and 13 begin to address those things.

And then finally, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Interesting, that last part, you may have notes in some of your Bibles that that doesn't show up in some of the texts. We'll show for reasons subsequently here that I don't think it particularly needs to be booted out. It's not inconsistent with scripture or the rest of the prayer.

Interestingly enough, It seems that the Lord's Prayer, as it's been called, the prayer that we just looked at on the screen on your handout, is very similar to two prayers that were said regularly, and it is almost as if Jesus combined them. Two prayers that were said regularly by the Jews. One was the Kaddish prayer, this one means holy prayer, and this was used in the synagogue, and it was Repeated and it reads like this exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world which he created according to his will May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel speedily and soon Praise be his great name from eternity to eternity and to this say amen and this was repeated in the synagogue at regular intervals Similar to that, and you also have this in your handout, the traditional Jewish morning and evening prayer. Similar to kind of the middle portion of what we call the Lord's Prayer.

Bring me not into the power of sin, and not into the power of guilt, and not into the power of temptation, and not into the power of anything shameful. Repeated in the morning and in the evening, both. Now let's take a look at the word, step our way through it. The second page of your handout there, Matthew 6, 9.

The Our Father is a term that would be taken appropriately among the Jews as a way to address God. Very commonly they would have said, that's fine, okay. He's starting it off just right. They would have no difficulty with that. But Jesus, within the next chapter, is going to shock them all. He's going to say something that will be stunning for them to hear. He's going to say about God, My Father. Our Father, that's fine. My Father? How dare He say such a thing.

And He's going to do it again and again and again. He said shocking things. One of the things we've said about the book of Matthew as we go through it, and the Sermon on the Mount in particular, Jesus frequently said shocking things. It was almost as if every other sentence is shocking, and this is one of them.

But no rabbi or Jew would dare refer to God as my father. Not a chance. It implies a special and unique relationship with God the Father. It's reflected when Jesus talks to Mary Magdalene, to your God and to my God. Interesting way to put it, doesn't it?

In Matthew 7.21, He who does the will of My Father, who is in heaven, will enter the kingdom. The Lord's Prayer actually isn't one that the Lord Himself would have prayed, because He would have said, My Father. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'm just saying the Lord Himself would not have prayed it, and we're going to find out further reasons why. The fact is, the prayer that Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane could be aptly titled the Lord's Prayer. It was in fact words that he did pray and did say and they were words that came right out of his own mouth directed to the Father. This Garden of Gethsemane, by the way, the Gethsemane is simply an olive press. That's what the word refers to there. Now, you have this slide here on page two. It's in this form on your handout, and I've done it that way so that it fits nicely and it copies well. I'm going to present it a little differently.

There are three heavens. So when we talk about heaven, as it shows up in the Gospel of Matthew or anywhere else, There are three heavens in scripture. The first one is the atmospheric heaven. It's the one you're breathing right now. Okay? Let the birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.

Genesis 1.20. That's the first heaven where the birds fly and it's the air you breathe and where the planes fly, at least I hope they do, and things of that sort. Right? Second, I will bless you And I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens.

That's the second heaven in the biblical layout of things. This is going above the atmosphere into everywhere from our solar system into distant galaxies. That's the second heaven in scripture. And the third one, which Paul even calls the third heaven, such a man was caught up to the third heaven, paradise. He's referring to himself. So that's the third heaven. So when we see in the Sermon on the Mount, and as we'll see in the rest of Matthew, frequently it's referring to this third heaven, this heaven where God dwells, come to earth. Now, this next slide here says, hallowed be your name.

That is not Halloween's to blame. OK? All right. Not that. This is hallowed be your name. Hallowed means, in this case here, it's a desire or wish that God's name is treated as holy. That's what that's referring to. Treated as holy. Holy means set apart. We are set apart as believers. Set apart for God's specific and holy purpose.

God is set apart and that he's set apart from the rest of his creation. In Eastern religions and more particularly and specifically in Hinduism, God is distributed throughout nature and he's a part of all the things that, you know, like the clothes you're wearing and the seats that you're sitting on and things of that sort. And that's pantheism. But the God of the Bible is a God who is a person and he is apart from his creation.

He created everything. Years ago, I used to sit down with a fellow who used to be a professor, Dr. Banu Dave. He used to be a professor over in India. And he taught religion over there, and he said that in Hinduism, all this material world is a dream of God. And when God wakes up, it'll all go away. That's not the biblical picture. The biblical picture says that there is a God in heaven, and he created everything that is here. And there's no dream, and there's no nightmare, and there's no wake up.

Now, this idea of a name, it's something that comes up repeatedly in scripture. We pray, for example, in Jesus' name. Well, a name in the Hebrew usage is the nature, the character, or the person. It's not just the sound. It's not just the letters that we associate with someone. So it is specific. That's the person. That's the nature. That's the character of God. May your name, which represents you, God, be made holy. May it be kept holy. May it be preserved and regarded as holy. May God's character or essence be treated as holy and set apart with reverence. That's the idea. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Jesus has this prayer here, what we call the Lord's Prayer Express, A wish for the Father's kingdom to come, and the implication is to earth.

You see, as scripture lays it out, there is a time coming, and it's as soon as seven years from now, when Christ will return to earth. And when he does, he will reign as king over the people of Israel, in the land of Israel, and he will reign as king of kings and lord of lords over the entire earth. Revelation 20 says that'll last for a thousand years. And the indication of Daniel and the rest of the book of Revelation says that that's preceded by a seven-year tribulation period, which means that, though we don't know exactly when the Lord's coming, and by the way, I don't believe anybody who says they do, we don't know when the Lord's coming. It is possible that it is as soon as seven years from now.

The prayer likewise expresses a desire, a wish, that the Father's will will be done here. It's not just that Jesus will come, but that the Father's will will be done here. There are a lot of things that happen here on planet earth that aren't the Father's will.

God's kingdom, this kingdom of heaven come to earth, is the coming kingdom reign of Christ. It's Christ coming to earth, reigning upon the earth as King of Israel and the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords over all the Gentiles. It is also Christ's kingdom. It's the Father's kingdom and it's Christ's kingdom.

Many of you will recall this out of the accounts of the Nativity. Here is Mary being informed by Gabriel the angel. The angel says to her, out of Luke 1, 30 and 33, Do not be afraid, Mary. Boy, those are good words, right? Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Now what's she about to hear?

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. And he will be great, and be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And his kingdom, Christ's kingdom, will have no end.

Here's another one, Matthew 13, that we'll be studying some chapters ahead now. 41 and 42 the son of man will send forth his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness and will throw them into the furnace of fire in a place that will be Weeping and gnashing of teeth you see what's going to happen We're talking about grace and law here, right? we live now under the principle of grace when Christ comes again and And we will come with him, but it will be in new bodies. When Christ comes again, do you know how the Father's will will be done here on earth? Law. Yeah, law. This part describes how the law will be implemented.

You see, if somebody wants to be evil, if someone wants to be evil and cruel, they won't be able to hire a good attorney and get off on a technicality. What do you do when the judge knows everything, including what you're thinking? What do you do when his power is unlimited to haul you in? Oh, it's not a question if we can't find the guy. No, that's not a problem at all. Everyone who wishes to do evil and seeks to carry it out will get nailed. I'm speaking figuratively, of course. But the law will be carried out absolutely.

Here's 2 Timothy 4.1 conveys this message here. Speaking to Timothy, Paul writes, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, Christ's kingdom. It will be a kingdom reign. We are not in the kingdom now. This is not the kingdom. The church is not the kingdom.

Since people do generally work for their daily provisions, physical provisions, people can a lot of times get the idea that they're the ones who should get the credit for all that. And part of what this recognizes, this part of the prayer, it puts into perspective the truth that we would have nothing were it not for the Lord's provision. We would have nothing were it not for the Lord's provision. We've been having quite a bit of rain this summer, right? What if we didn't have rain for, say, the next five or ten years? That'd be a little rough, right? It is by the Lord's provision that we have everything. And the Lord provides daily. Ah, yes, here's a good one. Debts and forgiveness. This passage here has, of course, been called the Lord's Prayer.

We have in verse 12 one more reason that Christ would not have prayed this prayer. What do I mean? He was the uniquely born Son of God, born without sin, the one qualified to die for us, to pay the penalty for each one of us, because He was without sin. Therefore, since He didn't sin, He didn't have to ask for forgiveness.

For us, having been already forgiven, we who are in the church, having been already forgiven is to be our motive for forgiving. Our motive. Ephesians 4.32, and we'll look at this in a little more detail in a minute, Paul writes, forgiving each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Are you worried if God's forgiven you for about something? Anybody? I mean, you don't have to raise your hand. I don't need to know. And neither does anybody else. But if you're worried about whether God has forgiven you for something, what does this verse say? It's not in question. It's not in question.

You haven't done anything so bad that Christ didn't handle it on the cross. Now, the next part is prayer for dealing with temptation and deliverance. It was certainly appropriate for the Jews, given who they were, to pray not to be led into any temptation and to be delivered from evil. That wasn't necessarily a given, and they in fact didn't have a great deal of position or means for dealing with those things.

We in the Church do not operate on the same principles. Now, this word principles, It means primarily one of two things, sometimes both. It means either a fundamental truth or the way things work. Fundamental truth or the way things work, sometimes both.

So, here's James 2.1, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. when you encounter various trials, is what some of the more modern translations carried across as. Stuff happens here on Earth, doesn't it? Things happen. Things go wrong. This is Earth. That's why we have insurance. Hopefully it'll cover some things. Stuff happens here on planet Earth. Wow. OK.

Ephesians 6.13 and James 4.7 and 1 Peter 5.9 all say for us to resist the evil one. We don't say, well, I hope he doesn't come around. He probably will. It says resist when he comes because we have, and this is the message of Ephesians chapter 6, we have an equipping to deal with the evil one when he comes. And let me summarize what that is. We won't take the time to study Ephesians chapter 6. Isn't that great? Let me summarize. The equipping that we have to battle Satan has to do with our position that we have in Christ that is untouchable. Satan can't touch it. Can he attack? Yes. He cannot touch our position.

And that's why in Ephesians chapter 6 the exhortation is to stand. Stand. Repeatedly stand. We don't need to go take Satan on aggressively. All you got to do is stand there. Why? Christ already won the ground. He already put you where you need to be. Just stand there and resist Satan. You're equipped with everything you need in who you are in Christ and who Christ is in you. Stand firm. The last part of the passage is for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

We mentioned earlier that some of your Bibles might have a note that that isn't in some of the various texts and versions. What's interesting, though, is I don't find anything unbiblical about it. 1 Chronicles 29, 10-13, I won't read it. You have it on page 3 of your handout. It seems to me like all the things that are there in this prayer of David are summarized in that last part of verse 13. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Amen.

Now, verses 14 and 15 brings us back to this question of forgiveness. It's almost as if Christ wanted to clarify, okay, now we talked about forgiveness. As I forgive others, God will forgive me. And it's almost as if He wants to make it clear in verse 12 Forgiveness came if a believing, ethnic Israelite forgave others. If. You want to be forgiven?

That's what this teaches, and what the Sermon on the Mount teaches. If you want to be forgiven, you're going to have to forgive, and not otherwise. For us in the body of Christ, Christ bought the forgiveness for us at a great price. The price tag is shocking. Forgiveness is one of our unconditional blessings in Christ.

Here you have Ephesians 1.3, which we've referred to earlier. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And then verse 7, in Him we have redemption through His blood that forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Do you have to ask for it? No. You have it. You have it.

Ephesians 4.32. I have this sort of an interesting comparison. This drug, this medicine that you need, it's called forgivenol. Extra strength forgivenol. It's easy to swallow.

Ephesians 4.32, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has already forgiven you. That's the motivation. Rather than having the motive, you'd better forgive or you will not be forgiven. What we're told is forgive. Why? Because you've already been forgiven. It's a grace motivation, not the carrot and the stick. It's all carrot.

Forgive us our debts. Sins in the Jewish tradition were looked upon as spiritual debts. You would, for example, pay a vow. You had an obligation to God. Spiritual debts to God that required payment. So verse 12 here presents sins as debts. If you look at Luke 11 through 4, a similar prayer is outlined there. Sins are presented as debts. You've got to pay it to God. For us in the body of Christ who live under the principle of grace, Romans 5, 17 and 21, our debts as spiritual obligations were nailed to the cross of Christ. Nailed there. It's an IOU that was canceled on the day we died with Christ and the day he died for us. Nailed there.

Boom. Boom. Done. Gone. Paid. Jesus said when he was on the cross, and the way it comes across in English is, it is finished. But you know, he actually said just one word. He was up there, and he said, Tetelestai. And it was an accounting term that means it's all paid. It's all paid. Every little bit. He paid the price for you and for me. Your sins and mine. They're on the cross and it's all done. It's all done. Now, let's talk about the prosecutor's trio. Motive, means, and opportunity. Okay? I'm not trying to convict anybody here, believe me. Okay? Motive, means, and opportunity.

We see those on crime shows and in lawyer shows and things like that. Motive means an opportunity. This is the key for us to understanding the distinction between law and grace. It goes like this. This passage has told us that motive matters. As a matter of fact, we've been seeing that through other portions of the Sermon on the Mount, and we're going to see it some more. Motive matters.

For us in the body of Christ, grace is our motive. Why do you forgive? Not in order to be forgiven, but because you've been forgiven. How about that? Grace is to be our motive. That's a distinction between law and grace. It is not that grace has no obligations. Grace does have obligations. But it's not in order to be blessed. It's not in order to be forgiven. It's because you've been blessed. It's because you've been forgiven. Grace is our motive. So there's motive.

How about the means? God has provided the means for us in the body of Christ to do everything that God desires of us. There are places in scripture where we will find things to do and things not to do. But the difference between what the Jews had under law and what we have under grace is God has provided the means. What am I talking about there? That means the energizing and enabling and empowering by the Holy Spirit and the life of Christ is in and through us. That's the difference there. The opportunity before us who are already blessed is to be used of God.

Ephesians 2.10, He has prepared good works that we should walk in them. Think about this. Is there any good work to be done? He's given you the motive, He's given you the means, and He's given you the opportunity, and He's prepared the good works. That sounds like He's done everything, right? And in fact, He has. We have motive, we have means, and we have opportunity. And there'll never be a conviction.

Isn't that great? Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this amazing grace that you have laid out, we thank you that we have the motive of grace. We thank you that you provided the means to carry these things out. You don't ask us to do anything that you haven't totally provided for. Provided for in who you've made us to be, provided for in who you are in us, and provided for in terms of preparing the opportunities in front of us. We thank you for that. What a wonderful thing you've done. We give you praise. In Jesus' name, Amen.