The Lord's Prayer

In this sermon the speaker explores the Lord’s Prayer as a model for how believers should approach God in prayer. He begins by emphasizing that a good sermon must challenge, encourage, and inspire, then leads the congregation in a brief prayer asking God to teach them how to pray. He explains that prayer is a continual obligation for followers of Jesus, urging believers to pray in both prosperity and sorrow so they remain dependent on God rather than self‑reliant. Using the analogy of a ticking clock, he illustrates the importance of taking life one moment at a time and moving from a habit of complaint to a habit of thanksgiving. The preacher then breaks down the Lord’s Prayer as a “letter” to the heavenly Father, describing each part of the prayer as a structural element of a written correspondence: the address (God as Father), the greeting (hallowed be Thy name), the body (Thy kingdom come, daily bread, forgiveness, etc.), and the complimentary close (For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever). He stresses the need for reverence balanced with intimacy, the universal brotherhood of all believers under one Father, and the ultimate authority and glory of Christ as king. The sermon concludes with a call to respond to God’s invitation, urging listeners to trust in Christ and commit their lives to Him.

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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!

Now, this sermon tonight, I hope, will just be the right words from the Lord. It's going to be a little bit different type of a sermon as we give consideration together to the Lord's Prayer. A good sermon ought to challenge your heart. It ought to encourage you. A preacher has to try to do so many things to meet all of our needs of mind, body, and soul. A good sermon needs to stretch your mind. It needs to instruct you. It needs to warm your soul. A good sermon ought to inspire you. And it ought to tan your heart. It ought to correct you. I think it has to do all of those things. We're going to be talking tonight for a few minutes about prayer, the Lord's Prayer. And I think that we just ought to have a prayer before we begin to study the matter of what the Lord taught us about how to pray. And so let us bow our heads together, if we may please. Our Father in heaven, we invoke thy presence. We beseech thy blessing. We can say the wrong things. And we would learn to pray. We really want to know how to pray. We don't think that the disciples had just the desire and came and said, Lord, teach us to pray. I think they had the desire. They wouldn't have ever come and asked that. They were really saying, teach us what to say. How do you pray? And you've given us a good model, and we want to learn from it. And so if we're going to try to learn about prayer, we're going to pray to you now to teach us how to pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Prayer is the only unending obligation that Jesus gave his followers. He said you ought to work, but he didn't say you ought to work always. It's good for men to learn to play. We have to learn to rest. But he didn't say we ought always to play and endlessly to rest. Jesus did teach us that we ought to pray without ceasing, to pray without ceasing, to always learn to be in an attitude of prayer. We need to pray in prosperity lest we become proud. And we must learn to pray in sorrow, lest we become cynical. In sin, men declare their independence from God. In prayer, they declare their dependence upon God. Of all the colleges and seminaries in the world where you can study homiletics and hermeneutics and Hebrew and apologetics and pastoral psychology, no sermon, no course is taught on how to pray. And that's the most important thing for us to know. Maybe it's because there's only one teacher in the world who can teach you to pray. And that's Jesus Christ himself. Prayer is perplexingly paradoxical because before you can pray, you have to pray in order to be able to pray. The disciples made a prayer when they said, Lord, teach us to pray. So they just jumped in where they were and prayed that they could learn how properly to pray. I think sometimes if we spent more time in prayer, counting our blessings, we would spend less time complaining, counting our bruises. If we learned not to ask so much, maybe we would have more time to rejoice over what he's already done. Maybe instead of lamenting what we've lost, we ought to be thanking him for what we have left. Maybe instead of complaining that we have so many enemies, we ought to spend more time rejoicing in prayer than we have so many friends. I heard not too long ago about a clock. And like any self -respecting clock, he sat on the shelf and ticked. And he ticked on and on and on through the years, and finally he just became tired of ticking. And he was about to have a nervous breakdown. So he sat on the clock and found the shelf and thought about, poor me, I just tick, tick, tick. And he began to think, he said a tick two times every second. that's 120 ticks every minute. Two ticks a second, 7 ,200 ticks an hour, and 173 ,800 ticks a day. And 1 ,209 ,600 ticks a week, and 62 ,899 ,200 ticks a year. And about that time he collapsed. Just thought awful how hard it was. Well, they scooped him up and patched him up and took him off to the clock psychiatrist. And the clock psychiatrist put a couple of patches on him and bandied up his main spring and took him over and laid him down on the couch and said, Now, clock, I want you to just tell me what's bothering you. And the poor old clock started to say, Well, I'm just so tired of ticking. All I do is tick. And he said, I tick two ticks a second, that's 120 ticks a minute, 7 ,200 ticks an hour, and 173 ,000. The clock psychiatrist said, Hang on, wait a minute, clock. He said, Let me ask you a question. He said, How many ticks do you have to tick at one time? And the clock said, Well, all I do is just tick one tick at one time. So, the clock psychiatrist said, Well, you just get yourself home, and you get back on that shelf, and you don't think about ticking your next tick till you get your first tick ticked. And the old clock's been ticking for 20 years. It would do us good to learn to pray and to major on living today one day and one tick at a time. In learning to pray, it helps us to be able to move off of Complaining Avenue to Hallelujah Boulevard. Jesus said, When you pray, pray in this manner. Now, some folks have never learned to pray the Lord's Prayer and to appreciate it and to appropriate it because they have gotten all the theological discussion about what the Lord really meant when he said, In this manner, pray ye. Well, he meant what he said, of course, but that's hard for us to understand. And so, on one hand, you have a camp of folks who say, Well, what the Lord meant was that you're only supposed to pray the Lord's Prayer and never pray anything else. And then over here's a group that says, Well, what he meant was when you pray, you're supposed to pray the Lord's Prayer, but before you say Amen, you're supposed to just add on something of your own that you think of. But I wonder what Jesus really meant. You know, when I was in elementary school, I remember that they said, Now, when you work arithmetic, division, multiplication, and they gave us certain things to learn to do, they said, Work the problem in this manner. And they were telling us that this is the structure by which you work division or multiplication. Now, the manner doesn't change, but they knew that all down through life, the numbers were going to change. And in the same way, I think the words may change, but that Jesus was trying to teach us an outline, a prescription, a formula generally by which to approach God in prayer. And that formula is given to us in Matthew chapter 6. We can look at it there for a moment. Most of us know it. And because I always get the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm mixed up, you didn't know that, did you? I'm going to read it. Matthew chapter 6, verse 9. Amen. I remember also in elementary school that they taught us about a letter. I want us to think tonight about how to write a letter verbally to the Lord. This is a beautiful prayer letter, and it will help us to remember what we used to learn in grade school. Well, for one thing, first of all, when you begin to write a letter, there is the one to whom the letter is addressed, the addressee to whom are you writing. Jesus taught us to address the Lord as our Father. You know, this old world would make a lot of progress if it could learn the simple, basic precept that Jesus came to teach us about God, that He is a loving, heavenly Father. That's our most beautiful thought in the world, that God in heaven is my Father. We spend billions of dollars trying to get men to like each other and get along in this world and treat each other like brothers. But I am impressed that we're never, ever going to get along like brothers until we realize we've got the same Father. Father, that's the only real answer to brotherhood in America and in the world. You know, I really think with all the racial strife that our problem is not a skin problem nearly as much as it is a sin problem. You're walking down the road at night and you hear on the back streets of a dark alley where you're walking some approaching footsteps in the middle of the night. You don't want to know whether that man's got a white skin or a yellow skin or a black skin. What you want to know is what color is his heart. That's what's important, whether he's a friend or whether he's someone to be feared. So he said, understand that through me you are all children and brothers and children of God. Address him as your heavenly Father. Now, when you write someone a letter, you have to address them. You have to know where they live. Jesus said, you address your heavenly Father who is in heaven. Our Father which art in heaven. Now, don't you think that that means that God is so far removed that he's not right down here with us? You know, some folks kind of have an idea that God is kind of, has trouble with his legs. He's getting so old. And he can't get around and come down here and see about us all. And that's why we've got so many problems. No, he said, don't overstate the proximity of God and breed a familiarity with God that he becomes the old boy upstairs of a man in the sky just because he possesses the intimacy of a father -son relationship still he is to be revered as distant though near. He's everywhere. He's everything to me and he is everywhere unto me. He's in the highest heaven and he's in my heart as well. You know, he doesn't have to hurry up and get where he's going. He's already there. You remember, it's that other fellow that walks to and fro up and down the land. He has to catch a ride where he goes. And if he's here tonight, then he came in here with some of y 'all. But the father is already here. He's already everywhere. He's in heaven. That means everywhere. Well, you know, when you write a letter to someone, you want to make a greeting or a salutation. And you write, you know their name, Beatrice or Clarice or Fred or whatever it might be. And so that's no problem. But how are you going to address Beatrice or Fred? And you want to say something to them which says to them how you feel about them. And so you might write dearest Beatrice and scratch that out and put darling Beatrice or beloved Beatrice or beautiful Beatrice and scratch it out maybe for a couple of hours until you finally come up with it because you're trying to express in that opening word something that says to them what you think about them. And so he says when you address your father which is in heaven, address him as hallowed, hallowed, revered, held in awe and esteem. Holy be thy name. Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Jesus is trying to give us a good balance that the proximity and familiarity and the intimacy that the Father concept is ought not to breed an over -familiarity that leads to contempt. You stand in awe of your Heavenly Father and say to Him, Holy Reverend Hallowed be Thy name. Do you know that Orthodox Jews to this day never even speak Jehovah Yahweh, the name of God? So revered is it to them that when they refer to Him, they only call Him the Lord. Jesus said, Hallowed, Reverend, Holy be Thy name. Now when you come to the body of the letter, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. We come to the body of the letter, we learn a very interesting thing. In school they used to tell us that the first part of the body of the letter ought to express an interest in the welfare of the one to whom you're writing the letter. You know, you've been off to college and you're right back home and you say, Dear Mom and Dad, How are the kids? And how's the business? And how's Aunt Lucy? And how's Uncle Fred? You don't give a flip how Aunt Lucy and Uncle Fred in the front yard are, but you see, that's kind of what you're supposed to do and then you get down to it, Could you send me a hundred dollars? Well, he says, you need to express an interest in the one to whom you're writing. And so before you come to it, give us our bread. Give us forgiveness. Give us leadership and give us power. You want to express an interest and say, Lord Jesus, Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth just like it is in heaven. Then just jump right into it and go on and ask Him what's in your heart and what you need. I think that's a very, very wonderful thing for us to do. Then you come down to the complimentary close. And you want to say something that will impress them with your consistent fidelity to them. And you want them to know that you're going to stand by them, that you are their eternal friend. And so you might say, eternally yours. Maybe you'll scratch that out of it. Fraternally yours. Or always yours. Or truly yours. Or sincerely yours. Or everlastingly yours. And then five minutes later, forget all about it. But you know, you've got to sign that letter some way. Well, when we come down to the complimentary close of our prayer letter, Jesus says, here's how you're supposed to pray. For Thine is the kingdom. And Thine is the power. And Thine is the glory. Forever and ever and ever. Amen. And that's a wonderful thought. He says, say to Him, Thine is the kingdom. Now, whoever heard of a kingdom without a king? You see, He's the king. That's what we're saying. Let me ask you a question now. Who's your king? Who's the Lord of your life? Who is the most important power and force in your life? Somebody is. I heard about some kids one time that went around carrying some signs saying, I am a fool for Christ. Whose fool are you? We belong to somebody. We're a fool for somebody. Maybe the devil or ourselves. He's acknowledging that He is the king over the kingdom. Now, I want you to understand that Jesus is the king. He's not king because of your decree. He's just king anyhow. I mean, He's not king because you and I have voted Him into office. I didn't put my king in office. My king puts me in office. I don't vote for my king. My king, by His blood, intercedes and He votes for me. I'm telling you, He's my king. And I am to acknowledge that the kingdom of God over which my king presides is just that, a kingly and stately kingdom. He's a king because He's the only one suitable to be king. He's the only one that's able to be king. He's king because He was born king. And He is a seven -way king. The Bible says that he's the king of the Jews. He's a racial king. He's the king of Israel. He's a national king. He's the king of righteousness. He's a moral king. He's king of the ages. He's an eternal king. He's king of heaven. He's a divine king. He's king of glory. He's a heavenly king. He's the king of kings. He's a royal king. I mean, he's my king. He's the king. And when the king comes back to the earth, the kingdom of God which is in you will be the kingdom of God which is all around you. And the righteousness will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. And this earth shall know that Jesus Christ is king of kings. Address him and understand that he is the king. He's the king that feeds me with his hand. He warms me with his love. My king guides me with his eye. And he saves me by his grace. He's my king. And Jesus said, Pray to your heavenly father. Thine is the kingdom and thine as the power. Now the word power is almost equated with the lordship of Jesus Christ. It means the governor, the one who by authority and power controls everything. The earth is the Lord, says Isaiah, and the fullness thereof. The worlds and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. He walked upon the brow of nothing and created the world by the gesture of his hands. He dug out the gorges and piled up the valleys and scooped out the mountains. Because thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. When he created the world, he didn't have to put his signature in the corner of the sunset because he's the owner. When he built the beautiful meadows, he didn't have to put his laundry mark in the lapel thereof because he's the owner. He didn't have to leave his initials in the mountainside because he's the owner. He didn't have to put his brand on the cattle of a thousand hills because he's the owner. He didn't have to copyright the song of a meadowlark because he is the owner. Back in the 1960s, the theologians trampled around in their subterranean theological playpens and came forth to announce to us that God was dead. God was dead. And the power of God was no longer ephacious and operative. He'd gone out of business. He no longer was. And thine is the kingdom and thine in the power is no more. And him that upholdeth all things by the word of his mouth, he quit talking and he was out of business. And God was dead. God was dead. Well, that leaves us, left me, with some immediate questions and problems. For one thing, I'd like to know what coroner was called to pronounce him dead. I wonder who assassinated God and who was there to sign his death certificate. And I wonder another thing, who was so familiar with the deceased that they identified the corpse? And another problem I've got with that, why wasn't I informed I'm a member of the family? I mean, I'm a child and he's my father. Nobody told me. I wasn't called. Who conducted his funeral? And what paper, what obituary column did his name appear? Well, they didn't get very far with that. And so it wasn't too long ago that they came into the 70s and the biggest problem now is that the theologians are all talking about is where did God come from? If God is God, then there has to be a beginning, they say. Well, there really doesn't. Where did he come from? Well, the prophet answers that. He says very simply, I was in the hills of Burnham and he came from Torah. And that means nowhere. That's where God came from. He came from nowhere. And the reason he came from nowhere is because there wasn't nowhere for him to come from. And coming from nowhere, he stood upon nothing. And he stood upon nothing because there wasn't nothing for him to stand on. And he reached out into nothing where there wasn't nothing there. And struck the anvil of his sovereignty with the hot iron of his omnipotence and created something out of nothing and flung it into space and told it to stay there. And nobody said a thing. And the reason nobody said nothing is because there weren't nobody to say nothing anyhow. Because he came from nowhere. That's in Job. He hangeth the earth upon nothing, and he sitteth upon the circle of the earth. And he says he upholdeth all things by the word of his mouth, and walks on the brow of nothing, and stands there. And the only thing that's necessary for it all to fly apart is for him to stop talking. Well, his is the power. Power of eternity. The power of creation. And Jesus taught us to pray, and the glory. Thine is the kingdom, thine is the power, and thine is the glory. That's a wonderful word. In all things, said Paul, that he might have the glory of preeminence. He's the master of the mighty. He's the leader of the legislators. He's the overseer of the overcomers. He's the captain of conquerors. He's the head of heroes. He's the governor of governors. He's the king of kings. And he's the lord of lords. He performed miracles by the side of the road, a road which he had created. He healed multitudes by the word of his mouth, and never charged for his services. To God be the glory, said the songwriter, great things he hath done. So loved he the world that he gave his own son, and yielded his life and atonement for sin, and opened the floodgates that all might go in. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let the earth hear his voice. Praise the Lord. Oh, praise the Lord. Let the nations rejoice. Come to the Father through the blood -sprinkled way of Jesus Christ the Son, and give unto him the glory, great things he hath done. You know, it's bothered me as I think about the riches of him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who is wealthy, who owes it all up, who owns everything. Why? Jesus Christ had to be borrowed, buried in a borrowed tomb. He has such glory and wealth and honor and power, and the kingdom and the world is all his. But then I got to thinking, you know, Jesus knew before he ever went to that tomb that he wasn't going to need it for very long. And on Sunday morning, when he came forth, I think he went in there with a smile on his face and said to the devil that had a scowl on his lips and thought he had won, you just wait until Sunday morning. I'm going to leave that old tomb behind and come out to God be the glory. And he says, the glory forever, forever. Now, how long is forever? It's forever and ever. And the glory and the hosannas and the power and the kingdom will be forever and ever and ever and ever. That's a long time. And then when he finishes, he's supposed to say, Amen. Amen. Now, don't ever pray and don't say, Amen. Jesus taught us in the framework to pray, Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Now, the word Amen means so be it. It's used 30 times in the Old Testament and 50 in the New. And it has the force of a superlity. It means that there is nothing more than that. It's the ultimate. It's the end. That's why the spiritual, the choir sings, just says, Amen. Amen. Amen. When you've said Amen, there's nothing else you can say. Isaiah said, In the years I had died, I saw the Lord, high and holy, lifted up, and His glory filled the temple. And I saw the six wings, seraphim, one in the north. And he shouted, Amen to the Lord. And the angel, the seraphim in the south, heard the angelic coronation of the angel in the north and tried to outdo him. And he thought and thought and he couldn't think of anything to say. So he just too said, Amen. And the angel in the east thought, What can I say? And the one in the west with nothing more to say, echoed, Amen. Amen. Amen. And His glory filled the temple. It is an indication of solemn assent. It is to be said, when the minister preaches, and before, during, and at the end of the sermon, when the choir sings, when the men and women of God pray, when victory is achieved, when souls are born in the kingdom of God, why? All because of His kingdom, power, and glory. God has answered the prayer of His saints. We are to reverberate verily, verily, with the force of the superlative Soviet. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. It means verily, truly, it is so. Jesus sometimes, when he wanted to emphasize the awesome reality of what he was saying, would say, verily, verily, I say unto you. He could have said, truly, truly, or it is so, it is so, or amen, amen, I say unto you. In Revelation, John calls Jesus Christ the amen of God. In the Old Testament, Ezra stood and read for hours the book of God lost and recovered to the people who renounced their sins. Praise God. And at the end of hours of reading, all the people said, amen, amen, amen. Our sophistication in many churches is sapping the life out of our religion. Now, some people say, well, I don't want to interrupt the preacher. I'm afraid I'll get him mixed up. You couldn't mix me up in a hundred years. I think of something to say, even if it wasn't right. A guy said to me once, doesn't say amen disturb you? I said, yeah, but like saying sicken disturbs a dog. Just, just let it rip. Just let it go. Man said to me one time, well, I don't say amen because I don't know when to say amen. You can say it when you start. You can say it in the middle. You can say it when you, I've got a couple of introductions at a couple of state evangelism conferences. Harry, that were so far better than what I really was. The time I walked up here, they were saying, amen. Boy, I tell you, I was ready to go, man. I just creeped up a storm. Just say amen. Amen. The fellow said sometime, well, I'd say amen, but I don't know whether to say amen or amen. Amen. Well, you're not fooling me. You do too. You got sense enough to know you just do what comes natural. You just kind of say whatever you feel like it. You've got sense enough to know when to say the, when to say the. You know that you're supposed to say the east and the west. You don't say the east or the west. It's the east and the west. It just kind of comes out. Well, you got religion down on the inside. Open it up and just let it go. Say what comes natural. I don't know what we're going to do in heaven, but I'll tell you the everlasting. So be it of the force of amen will wreck echo and reverberate down the streets of glory for centuries. I believe that with all my heart. And some of you down here, you sit and you look. Let me tell you something. You, we're just practicing up for heaven. And if you can't get in on the rehearsal, how do you think you're going to sing in the performance? Man, let's go. Let's go. Come on, Gerald. Let's stand and sing. people said we're going to sing two verses of a hymn of invitation it'll take about a minute and a half just make up your mind now to come to the lord trusting him as your savior joining his church rededicating your life to him confessing him publicly he has loved you he has given himself for you he has established a church for your growth he has established a prayer by which you can approach god he is all the vehicles to change and bless your life at your disposal now he invites you he waits for your surrendered will by an act of your volition to grasp in faith the good things god has for you in christ will you trust him will you respond to his appeal we're going to come to the floor here at the front and wait for you to help you in your decision for christ come just a brief invitation word god bless