Sermon Notes | 1.1.23
Matthew 6:9-13
The Relational Focus
Matthew 6:9
Our
When the disciples considered who all might be included in this “Our,” no doubt they squirmed. Could the “Our” include: Prodigal sons and elder brothers? Tax collectors and prostitutes? Pharisees and Roman soldiers? Rich young rulers and impoverished widows? In our current cultural moment, could the list of deplorables read: Christians of other denominations and tribes? Liberals and conservatives? Activists and passivists? Urbanites and country folk? People who listen to Nickelback? Millennials and Boomers? – D.J. Marotta, Liturgy in the Wilderness
Father
in Heaven
hallowed be your name.
Isaiah 6:1-3 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. [2] Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. [3] And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
Nothing is just ordinary. “The whole earth is full of his glory.” We keep trying to fill it with monuments to our own glory — kingdoms, businesses, hit songs, athletic victories, and other mechanisms of self-salvation. But the truth is better than all that. Created reality is a continuous explosion of the glory of God. And history is the drama of his grace awakening in us dead sinners eyes to see and taste to enjoy and courage to obey.
Do you realize that it is God’s will to make this earth into an extension of his throne room in Heaven? Do you realize that it is God’s will for his kingdom of glory to come into your life and for his will to be done in you as it is done in Heaven? Heaven is expanding, spreading in your direction. That is the meaning of your existence, if you will accept it and enter in. Heaven is taking over. Yield. – Ray Ortlund
The Directional Focus
Matthew 6:10
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
You may have your attention so fixed on things going your way, according to your will (your kingdom), that you are unable to see that in the very midst of things not going your way, or against your will, God is at work, and His kingdom is emerging. One of the best places for me to look for God’s kingdom is where things are not working out the way I want them to. At least, under those conditions, I can rest assured that the shadow of my own little empire has not eclipsed God’s. – D.J. Marotta, Liturgy in the Wilderness
The Provisional Focus
Matthew 6:11-13
Give us this day our daily bread,
Matthew 7:9-11 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Is not this one of the most wonderful things in the whole of Scripture, that the God who is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the God who is forming His eternal kingdom and who will usher it in at the end, the God to whom the nations are but as `the small dust of the balance’- that such a God should be prepared to consider your little needs and mine even down to the minutest details in this matter of daily bread! – Martyn Lloyd-Jones
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Ephesians 4:30-32 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. [31] Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. [32] Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Colossians 1:11-14 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Will you commit to praying the Lord’s Prayer 1x per day in January?
A Prayer for Salvation
“Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through your Son Jesus I can be more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you that he lived the life I should have lived and paid the debt and punishment I owed. Receive me now for his sake. I turn from my sins and receive him as Savior. Amen.”