Amen

Today we conclude our study on the Lord's Prayer, and we head towards Thanksgiving and Advent. I look forward to the weeks ahead. Thank you for your faithfulness in joining me. Have you ever prayed wrongly?

Right before Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he told them about some people who prayed all wrong. I read from Matthew 6:5. Jesus said, "Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward."

It's likely that Jesus was talking about the Pharisees here. They'd pray wherever they could be seen. It was not the content of their prayers that matter to them; it was the audience. These were spiritual phonies. We're not interested in exalting God; they were interested in exalting themselves. That was true hypocrisy, using prayer for that.

In verse 7, we're shown more wrong praying. Jesus said, "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." So the Pharisees prayed hypocritically, in the heathens prayed mechanically.

What is interesting to me is that if we're not careful, we can take the model prayer of Jesus that we've looked at for the past several weeks, and we can make it hypocritical and mechanical. Let me explain. I conducted a funeral not too long ago of an individual who really had no connection to God that I knew of. The family talked about all of the earthly things the individual had accomplished, and they said he really had no room for spiritual things. However, at the end of the service, they wanted to recite the Lord's Prayer.

How many times have groups prayed this prayer mechanically and mindlessly, without any thoughts of its meaning? John Scott said, "When we come to God in prayer, we do not come hypocritically, like play actors seeking the applause of men, nor to become mechanically, like pagan barbarians whose mind is not in their mutterings, but thoughtfully, humbly, and trustfully, like little children we come to our father." And that is the essence of prayer.

The Lord's Prayer ends with these words: "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." This ending to the prayer is known as a doxology. That's a word that means an expression of praise to God, usually done by a group. The prayer's ending is an echo of First Chronicles 29:11. It says, "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, and the glory, the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in heaven and in earth is yours. Yours it's the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head over all."

In context, those words were spoken by King David near the end of his life. His son Solomon was soon to be king. Arrangements were being made for the temple to finally be built. The plans were coming together, the materials were being collected, the people were giving generously. David so wanted to build the magnificent temple for God, but God had other plans.

David, in his last days, is getting a glimpse of it all coming together, and David says this: "Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, and the glory, the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in heaven and in earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head over all." Does this remind you of the end of the Lord's Prayer? It should: "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

As we get to the end, let me talk about kingdom, power, and glory. Man's kingdoms are temporary. Look back through history. The great kings who once conquered and grew kingdoms are long gone; their reigns were really brief in the history of this world.

Psalms 145:13 says this about God: "For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, your rule throughout all generations." Psalm 103:15 and 16 talks about us: "As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it and it's gone, and its place knows it no more." This world is not man's kingdom; it's the Lord's.

Let's talk about power. It won't take me long there. God spoke this universe into existence; that's the Genesis story. God not only created this world, he sustains it every day with his power. Compared to God, man has no power.

Finally, let's talk about glory. And our world, people become famous and are adored and perhaps receive some glory of their, in their own minds, 15 minutes of fame at least. There are a lot of examples. One is the Beatles. They took this world by storm in 1960s with their music.

In 1966, John Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. 56 years later, a new generation has come, and they have no idea who John Lennon is, but they know Jesus. Scripture teaches us that the glory of God and his son Jesus will be everlasting.

Let me read to you from Philippians 2: "Therefore God elevated him," meaning Jesus, "to the place of the highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, the at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

As we finish the Lord's Prayer, we should take great comfort in these words: "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." That is the truth. It's my prayer that you will be a person of prayer. How's your prayer life?

Pray with me. Lord, thank you for your kingdom, your power, and we give you all of the glory. We ask that you would continue to work in our lives and make us people of prayer. Thank you that we can connect to our father. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless.