Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Eight)

Matthew 6:1-9
#BS-MA08
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 04-Nov-81; 69 minutes

listen:

playlist:
Go to the Matthew (Bible study series) playlist

download:

Matthew 6 introduces a subject that I think is exceedingly interesting. I think that before we actually go into a verse-by-verse expounding of the things in there, we are going to first of all cover a question that is brought up several different times in Matthew 6. And that is, What place does reward have in Christian life?

You will see that at the end of verse 4 it says, ". . . and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly." In verse 6, ". . . and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." And in verse 18, ". . . your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

Obviously, from those verses, there is a reward from God for the right kind of service. Some people say that rewards should have no place in Christian life. They follow the line of thinking that we should be good just for the sake of being good. Now that sounds good, it sounds pure that we should be good just for the sake of being good. But Jesus did not think that way, and the offering of rewards to His people for loyal and faithful service—the right kind of service—is something that is very, very prominent in the Scriptures.

Let us go back to Matthew 5. I just want to give you a few.

Matthew 5:11-12 "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven."

Now obviously, for a person who patiently endured the persecution that comes upon him as a result of this way of life, Jesus said there is going to be great reward for that person. It is just not reward. It is great reward. And He actually puts the person on the level of the prophet because they had to go through those things.

Matthew 10:40-42 "He who receives you receives Me [talking to the apostles whom He was going to send out], and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward."

It is very plain that Jesus is offering rewards based upon certain kinds of service. Back in Matthew the 25th chapter almost the entire chapter is about reward. It is the Parable of the Talents. I am not going to go through the whole thing, I just want you to mark it down in your mind that that parable is at least partly about the offering of rewards. And then He got done with that parable and he went right into another one.

Matthew 25:31 "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit upon the throne of His glory."

And He is going to separate the sheep from the goats. Then He is going to tell these people who were involved in loving service for those who were in prison, to those who were naked, to those who were strangers, those who gave a drink to the thirsty and a meal to the hungry, and He is going to give them rewards for that kind of loving service. But because the others did not do those works, then they do not get the reward.

We could go on and on. There are many areas that show very plainly and clearly that reward was definitely a part of this way of life and that we should not neglect that in our thinking, that God is not about to offer us a way of life that does not have reward.

Now, why? Why does God offer rewards? Well, the first reason is because any action that achieves nothing is meaningless. If there is no reward, then why do it? You see, it is meaningless. Life does not have meaning if there is not a system of reward and punishment. Now we are very well well aware of the fact that we get punished for doing wrong, but we do not tend to think positively enough of the fact that we get rewarded for doing well. Yet that is what gives meaning to life. It is a system of rewards. I have a quote here, I do not know who it is, it is anonymous, but it says that, "Unless an action is good for something, it's good for nothing." Simple, easily understandable.

If you apply that principle then to Christianity, that is, that unless an action achieves something it is meaningless, then unless Christianity has an aim or a goal that is a joy to achieve, then it too is meaningless. And so reward actually gives meaning to Christianity.

Let us look at the other side of that point. If we banish every system of either reward or punishment, then the end result of anything is injustice. You see, there is no reason for being either good or bad. There is no reason to life. And so actually a system of rewards gives meaning to life and it is very good that we have that. Because if there was no reward, it would mean, then, that both good and bad were the same thing. They would be equal, there would be no justice. Everything would just be confused. So reward is very definitely a part of God's way of life. And so it gives reason, it gives a point to living, and it gives sense to life. So it is very important that we have it.

It is obvious that reward is a part of God's system of things. But I think we need to understand more clearly what kind of reward or what ought to be our attitude toward reward. Point one under this would be that the Bible shows very clearly in the New Testament, under the New Covenant, that we should not seek material rewards.

Under the Old Covenant things were different, Everything was physical. It was a physical covenant and the rewards for doing well were physical. It was money, position, authority, wealth, power, or whatever. I think that one of the major reasons why the book of Job was written was to help us get this straightened out in our mind about what we, as spiritual Israel under the New Covenant, have to understand about this. Actually, we could go into quite an in-depth study of the book of Job and all the arguments that were going back and forth between Job and these three men. But the basic premise of those three men was, Job, you have done something evil, therefore you are being punished. Job's argument was, no, I have not done anything evil. You people are leaping to conclusions. I have not done anything wrong.

Well, the end result of it was that it was not that Job had done something, it was something that he was that was the problem. He had not done evil. And the argument keeps going back and forth, flowing just like a tide, in and out, and nobody really nailed it down. But it does show very clearly the thinking under the Old Covenant. That there was a definite system of physical rewards or punishments directly related to a person's obedience.

The New Testament makes it very clear that we should not strive for things that are material and we will see this very clearly, I think, as we begin to go through Matthew the sixth chapter. Now turn with me back to Matthew 16. We are going to see as we go through Matthew 6, that the receiving of material rewards is not evil, having the blessings of wealth is not an evil thing, but it should not be the main effort in our life. Beginning in verse 24 is about as clear as a set of scriptures that I think that I can come up with the underlying principle regarding the way of thinking or the attitude that Jesus wants His disciples to have.

Matthew 16:24-25 Then said Jesus to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross [that is, whatever comes upon him as a result of this way of life], and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. . .

You see, life is very physical and He is talking here about a person who makes every effort to pander to himself physically or anybody who is going to turn his attention to physical things, he is going to end up losing his life.

Matthew 16:25-27 ". . . but whoever will loses his life [that is, becomes a living sacrifice, if I can interpret it, gives himself totally and completely to God] for My sake will find it. [He is talking about those two ways of life—the get way and to give way.] For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul [or his own life]? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works."

When Christ comes, to whom is He going to give rewards to? He is going to give rewards to those who are resurrected. He is going to give rewards to those who are spiritual. Now, is it going to be good to give physical rewards to spiritual beings? Of course not! He is talking about that a man should make the main effort in his life to achieve the things which are spiritual rather than physical. And so even though God is very willing to give rewards, we should not ever have the idea that there is a direct connection between wealth and righteousness, between prosperity and righteousness. It does not mean a thing because I am going to show you as we go to the chapter 6, it does not mean a thing as a way of judging a person's character, of judging his spirituality.

An additional thought that we might connect there to Matthew 16 and this whole principle that is involved here is this: the New Testament shows that the reward comes not to those who are seeking it, but rather to those who are giving. Because to seek reward is essentially selfish, it is part of the get way of life. And so even though God is willing to give rewards, 1) we should not think that they are material. And 2) if anybody has the idea that they are going to consciously seek after rewards, they are not going to get it. You see, it is the denial of oneself that is going to lead to the reward. And so the person who is giving is the one who is going to get the reward, not the person who is seeking reward.

So that is two very important principles. 1) we should not connect physical things with it and 2) those who are seeking rewards are really doing so selfishly. Therefore it is not those who are seeking rewards but those who are serving and giving, who are going to receive it.

Go back to Romans the eighth chapter. We will just attach this principle to this and you will see how it fits. To seek rewards in terms of that which is physical is nothing more than carnal. It is carnal thinking. It is physical thinking. That is what the word carnal means, physical. And so Paul said,

Romans 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, . . .

If a person is seeking after material reward, the chances are great that he is going to get them. But he is carnal, he is not thinking spiritually, he is thinking carnally.

Romans 8:5-6 . . . but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. [That is, those who have the mind of Christ are not going to be seeking after material things forever. Paul says] For to be carnally minded [or physically oriented] is death, . . .

That is why Jesus said in Matthew 16 that if a person spends all his time and effort seeking after wealth, all he is going to do is die. What will a man give for his life? I will tell you, some men will give anything for their life, for a sense of physical well being.

Romans 8:6-8 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh [or seeking material things] cannot please God.

Back to Matthew the sixth chapter. With that in mind, what are the rewards that God gives? Now, it is obvious that He does want to reward us in this life. It is not absolutely necessary for Him to do so because we have to approach Him with the idea that God does not owe us a thing. You know, when you were baptized, you should have repented before God unconditionally. You enter into an agreement with Him, but you have nothing to offer except yourself—your life. You have nothing to bargain with because all you have done is sin. You might have had a great number of great magnanimous charitable work that you had done before conversion. Good things. But once we sinned, the wages of sin is death. That is really all that God owes us, is to carry out the death penalty. We have nothing to bargain with at all, nothing to offer Him that is of any value at all.

Remember Mr. Gross' sermon? How can you make a deal with God when you have nothing to bargain with? We have nothing to bargain with so we have nothing to offer Him. All He owes us is the death penalty. And so by His grace, He offers us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

So how can He reward us? Actually, there are many rewards that He can give us. And I really think the two of them, maybe all the three that I have written down here, are really, when we come to understand it, spectacular.

He can of course reward us physically. And some of us He has a tendency to do that with, and that is fine. But He is far more interested in spiritual things, things that have to do with people's attitudes. Things that have to do with people's motivation, with the way they do things, with the way they think, how they feel about themselves, the relationship with Him and with other human beings. Those are the kind of things that He is interested in.

I will tell you the first way that He can reward you. Maybe you do not think this is very much, but it is a great gift. The first thing He can reward you with is satisfaction, or peace of mind, that you know, and you know that you know, that you are on the right track, that you are doing things that are right and approved by the great God, who is the ruler of everything.

You know, this world is in constant turmoil. There is no peace. We just read that in Isaiah 59, there is no peace in the world, there is no justice, there is precious little light or truth, understanding or wisdom. And yet God graciously gave that to you and me. But we know where we are headed. We know why we were created, we know why we were born. We know where we are going. We know how we are going to get there. Our sins are forgiven. We know we are on the right track. We know the purpose of life. Jesus said in one of His parables, "What would a man give for the pearl of great price?" Well, you have got it.

[audience participation]

The way I have it written down, the second way that He can reward you is He gives you more vision. You see, He helps you to understand what He is. Mr. Armstrong has been trumpeting for the last couple of years that one of the major reasons that this world is in such confusion is that they do not know God and they do not know what He is. They do not know what He is doing.

Now what He can do to is give us an understanding of what He is. How does He do this? You see, as we grow and become more like He is, we begin to experience the way He thinks, we begin to experience life the way He experiences it, and we begin to get that general sense of well being, that things are right and good and on the up, and positive, and our lives become filled with what He is. I tell you, that is a tremendous gift and if it is coming to you it ought to make you strive all the more to be more like He is.

What is another reward that He can give?

[audience participation]

What happened in Matthew 25 when the men were given the talent and they did well, what did He give them? More responsibility. You see, that is the reward, more responsibility. As a person grows, it does not get any easier because He keeps adding to your responsibility. Really, that is very wonderful because if you grew only to a certain part, let us say, a certain stage, a certain level, after you reach that part or that stage or level, you know what you would do? You would start treading water. That is the very best you could do. You would probably start slipping backwards. So God ensures that you continue to grow by continually revealing more to you that you need to be responsible for. And so when you do well He heaps responsibility on top of you. If you want to get anything done, what do you do? You give it to a busy man.

God follows the same principle. You know, they do that same thing in business. If a guy does well, they elevate him in the company and give him more responsibility. Well, that is what God does too. He gives more responsibility to those who are doing well.

Let us go back to Matthew 6.

Matthew 6:1-2 "Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Therefore, when you do your charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have the glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward."

First of all, let us understand that charitable deeds, which is something that is done, let us say, with love in mind, with charity in mind, with doing good in mind, but there is nothing wrong with charitable deeds. Jesus is not castigating people for doing wrong, but what He is concerned about for you and me is more that we will do it in the wrong motivation.

Now there is a certain motivation to know that there are rewards and God is willing to give reward. But the person who has the wrong motivation loses most of his rewards. I want you to notice that even though a person has the wrong motivation, it is possible for him to receive reward. We will see that very clearly in just a little bit.

How could a person give with the wrong motivation? Actually, the verses tend to show what they are. First of all, a person may do it in order to demonstrate his generosity and so he blows the trumpet. That might be one reason. He is going to demonstrate it to everybody that I am a giving man. Now, here is a person actually giving. But if he seeks publicity in doing it, the motivation is wrong. But there might be a reward.

Now, what would be the reward? That people would take notice that he was a generous man. You see, he has gotten a physical reward for what he has done. He did get rewarded for his giving. But what Jesus is pointing out to you and me is that he is missing the greater reward. So, I want you to see that there is a distinction here, that a person can give and still be doing it wrongly and he will get a reward, but it will not be the reward that Jesus said that a person really should seek after.

A person may then give just to demonstrate his generosity. He may also give to get the praise of man, to get publicity, advertising, or whatever. He may do it in that attitude (down in verses 5 and 6), He is talking about praying in public and in a case like that, even though the person would be praying, which is something that we ought to do, he may be doing it to demonstrate his piety before men rather than actually praying to God.

Down in verse 16, when He gets to talking about fasting, a person may fast not to really humble himself before God, but to show his fellow man what a disciplined character he is.

And so in every case there is a reward. He may get praised, he may get prestige in what he is doing, but the reward in those cases is physical.

Now there is a big principle that Jesus is talking about here that is kind of hidden. It is implied, it is there, but nonetheless it needs to be brought out, and that is this: if anybody wants to, you can bend your efforts to achieving what this world has to give. You can give your time, your energy, your talent and abilities to achieving money. And all things being equal, if you are willing to pay the price, if you are willing to sacrifice the time and energy and efforts in order to make money, you will be rewarded, you will make money. If it is fame that you want as a rock star, as a singer, movie star, you name it, and you want to bend all your efforts in that direction, you will probably be rewarded. You will achieve some of those things. If you want to turn all your efforts to athletics and become a big star before people and you have the ability to carry those things off, you will be able to do it. You will be rewarded. If you want to be a politician and go that route, spend your time and energy that way, you will be rewarded. You can have those things.

We have a choice. That is what Jesus is pointing out. We have a choice because we can spend our time and effort and energy working for material reward, or we can divide our time rightly, make enough money to get ourselves by, enough to eat on, enough to house ourselves comfortably, enough to clothe ourselves well, you know, work hard enough in that direction and at the same time not lose the spiritual rewards that God can give. Now that is our choice.

Do you realize that we are the only people in the world who can do that? That is another one of those gifts that God has given to us.

Jesus' admonition, of course to us is, that if you decide to go the way of the world, you will probably be rewarded. But it is very shortsighted. You know that some of the men who have left the church, some of the ministers, have done very well in the business world. You know why? Because we taught them how to make money and they are doing very well. So you see, it does not equate with righteousness at all. But God through Mr. Armstrong taught them how to make money and they are making it. We have that choice; they decided to go that way, we still have that choice in front of us. And so what Jesus is pointing out is do not be shortsighted. The Kingdom of God may be invisible to us, but it is right over the horizon and those rewards are going to last for eternity.

Matthew 6:3-4 "But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deeds may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."

Now, how can you give? Give of your time, give them your energies, give of yourself? 1) you can do it out of a sense of duty. Now, doing something out of a sense of doing is a mixed bag, because obviously, Jesus says that we should pay attention to our duties, our responsibilities, our obligations, and whenever you have the opportunity to volunteer or to give of your time, your effort, your energies, or whatever, it is very possible for us to give simply because it is an obligation.

That is not really a good way to do it. It is really very shortsighted because I can guarantee you that if you give with that in mind, that it is merely an obligation or duty, what is going to happen is that the fruit of that is going to be that you are going to feel that your giving is a burden. You are going to feel self-pity, you are going to feel sorry about giving up your time, you are going to grit your teeth and feel somewhat resentful about doing it. If you are doing your giving merely as a result of an obligation or obligatory idea or process, then the fruit is going to be burdensome.

Again, picking up the theme here in the first five or six verses, Jesus shows that we can give from a motive of prestige. Now, we can all see very plainly, I think, that that is not right. But if you do give from a motivation of prestige and you are not recognized for what you did, which very often happens, that somebody may give and give generously and then after they gave of their time or their energies or money, nobody noticed, nobody thanked, nobody announced it from the pulpit, nobody came over and shook their hands. Nobody put their arm around them and said, Boy, what a good job you did! I'm really thankful for the sacrifice.

You know what is going to happen if the person did it to be seen? They are going to get very discouraged, disgruntled, upset, angry. You can feel a great deal of self-pity, Boy, I'll never do that again. You won't catch me volunteering my time. I will tell you, if that is what is produced, be admonished brethren, you are doing it from the wrong attitude. And so if you feel that your giving is a burden, you are doing it out of a sense of obligation and that is not a good way. And if you feel after giving and not receiving praise that you are disgruntled and discouraged, then just know very well that you did it for the wrong reason. You are doing it for the praise of men.

Really, there is only one clearly good way to give, and that is, because you have to. You just cannot help yourself, in other words. You are so generous, so kind, so loving, so giving, that it just bubbles right out of you and you have to do it. You see, that is all the difference in doing it from a sense of obligation. Because, you see, that kind of giving is being driven by an outgoing concern for the other person. That is what love is, it serves. It gives with no thought at all of rewards, no thought of prestige, no thought of all of it being a burden. It just gives. I do not think I have reached that yet. Sometimes I do it when it is real convenient. But then am I really sacrificing in giving?

Back to Matthew.

Matthew 6:5-8 "And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand praying in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. 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. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him."

Again, notice the approach. Just as He expected us to give alms, that is, to be generous in the giving of our time, energies, talents, and abilities, He also expects us to pray. So He does not warn us about the pitfalls of the lack of prayer or neglected prayer. Instead, He warns us of the pitfalls of misdirected or misguided devotion.

We take it for granted that you are devoted to God, that this way of life is the way that you are following. And are there any pitfalls in that? Well, yes, there is. Now perhaps the example that He used here is not one that is as common to us as it would have been to those people there. Because what He did was that He gave, first of all, the example of praying publicly. Now, for the Jews that was something that was reasonably common. And the reason being is that church and state were one, that the only religion that they had basically was Judaism, that every village had its synagogue and anybody that attended church went to the local synagogue. They all shopped at the same market. They all did things that basically the same time. In other words, they were pretty much an enclosed community where everybody was basically doing the same thing.

The church is not the same way. The church is scattered all over the face of the earth. We are surrounded by people who have all kinds of customs and practices that are different than we have. And so we do not have the opportunities to do the same kind of things that they did.

Now, Judaism just seemed to lend itself to what we would call today ritualism, or formalism, where they had ritual prayers. Maybe the one that you hear most often is this one they call the Shema, and that is the one that begins, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!" and they went on with a couple of more verses out of Deuteronomy 6 and then I think there was a verse out of Exodus and a verse out of Numbers. The Jews, the devout Jews, were supposed to say that three times a day.

In addition to that, they had a prayer that they called The Eighteen. Now that is the literal translation. They called it The Eighteen and it consisted of 18 prayers. I have read some of those prayers, they are very beautiful, meaningful prayers. And the devout Jew was supposed to say these 18 prayers three times a day. Morning, noon, and night he was supposed to say these prayers.

In addition to that, you have probably seen in "The Ten Commandments" that the Jew had a little plaque on his doorpost, the mezuzah, and when he went in he would touch the mezuzah that contained the Ten Commandments or whatever.

In addition to that, they had hours of prayer, and those hours of prayer are even mentioned in the book of Acts, that the disciples went up to the Temple at the hour of prayer. I cannot remember the context, whether they actually went up there to pray or whether they were up there simply because they knew that the Jews would be gathering together there and that they would go through certain rituals and that after those rituals were over they would have an audience that they could preach the gospel to those people.

You see, Judaism became made up of all kinds of ritualistic observances that these people went through and they all, as being a part of one community, kind of went through them together. And so when the hour of prayer would come, I think one of them was three o'clock in the afternoon, all business was stopped for a while. If you happened to be in Jerusalem you might be able to make your way to the Temple, but business would stop during that hour.

That was maybe an extreme of formalism, but that was what Jesus was getting at in this thing about vain repetition.

First of all, it was very easy for a Jew to pray in public and attract attention to himself. And they made a big deal out of it. Normally what they would do is walk to the top step of the synagogue, the steps leading up to the synagogue, they get to the top of the steps and they hold their hands outstretched, with their palms up in the air, and bow their heads and talk in a loud voice. Everybody would know that they [unclear].

Now that kind of a prayer dies on the person's lips. That is not what God wants and neither does He want the vain repetition of prayers that are thoughtlessly uttered, you know, just going through a routine, like the Catholic, "Hail Mary, mother of God," or whatever. I do not even remember what it says.

Sometimes I think that you worry about every day you pray basically about the same thing. You ask God to send Jesus Christ to establish His Kingdom on earth. You ask for strength for Mr. Armstrong. You ask Him to heal the people that you know who are sick, you ask Him to supply your daily needs and to forgive your sins. And there is a repetition aspect to the prayer that we give every day. Now that is not the vain repetition that Jesus is talking about. He is talking about the repetition of formalized prayers that have been written by somebody else and are uttered by rote, by memory every day. Like we used to in grade school. Every morning we would salute the flag and say, [spoken very rapidly], "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen." It was just a ritual, a form, that we went through. That is the kind of thing that He was talking about vain repetition.

After all, what is a prayer? it is really nothing more than a thoughtful heartfelt talk with God. That is all. Certainly there is some form to it. It is just a heartfelt and thoughtful talk with God.

Now when a person is making vain repetitions, he is not thinking about what he is saying. His heart is not involved. There is no feeling, no empathy, no sympathy, there is nothing that is intelligent that is involved in what he is saying. His mind is not in gear, he is not really thinking about what he is saying, not really searching his mind for the words to say. That is what God is after. Somebody in prayer who is thinking deeply about what he is saying, and that he feels, and he is using his mind to search about the things that are right and good to be prayed about. And of course, as we will see, that they will fit into a general form.

And so that is what He is worrying about here. That we do not make prayers that are not thoughtful and heartfelt. That is, we begin to say the same thing without any thought involved in it. How would you like it if your child, every day, came to you and said, "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done." and that is the only thing they ever said to you? That be kind of stupid, would it not? Sure it is. Just stupid repetition. It shows no progress, no development of the mind, and no thinking of the way God thinks at all.

Just a couple of principles. One I already began to talk about is, 1) A true prayer must be offered to God. Again, this comes from the context. That when a man is praying in public, I mean the kind of situation that Jesus is describing here, that is not a prayer that is being made to God, that is a prayer that is being spoken for the sake of fellow man.

Now our prayers here at the beginning and end of service, maybe we need a little bit of instruction here. Those prayers really can only be about a minute, a minute and a half long. There is no need in those prayers to give a sermonette. You know, sometimes the prayers almost develop into the first sermonette and the last sermonette. But they are simply to be heartfelt and thoughtful thanksgiving to God for Him giving us the opportunity to be here before Him. Asking His inspiration upon the meeting and the guidance and direction of it, helping us to understand; and just leaving it like that. Certainly there can be some variety, you know, with each man using his personality somewhat, but they should not be in any way ostentatious and turn into sermonettes.

In verse 8 there is a principle that flew out of there. He says, "Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." I think the idea here is that we have to understand we are not before a God who needs to be browbeaten into something, who needs to be battered by many words, who needs to be pestered to death or coaxed.

Now that is not the same as persevering in prayer or coming to God often for the petitions that we desire of Him. There is a difference in attitude between the words that I used: coaxed, pestered, browbeaten, battered. Where the approach is somewhat [unclear] or whining, a murmuring approach, complaining approach. But rather just coming to God knowing that He is very well aware of our needs and just presenting it to Him in a logical and heartfelt way; giving Him your ideas about things. What you think your needs are and what other people's needs are and just asking Him to do it.

Again, try to put yourself in the position of a parent being asked by a child. Is it not far better if a child comes to you and says, "Dad, I'd like to have this, and this is why." Would you rather have it done that way or would you rather have the child coming whining and moaning and complaining? Every few minutes coming back and doing a little bit more of the same thing, and then a little bit more, just coaxing, pulling at your skirt, pulling at your hand. You know, whatever it is.

God does not want that. He wants you to approach Him like a [unclear] and present your idea thoughtfully in a heartfelt way. Not murmuring or complaining or griping. You see, the whole idea is God is willing to give. He is more willing to give us good gifts than we are willing to give to our children. So He certainly wants to give.

Matthew 6:9-11 "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

I want you to see back in Luke 11, just one verse, where it says,

Luke 11:1-2 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." So He said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, . . ."

Remember I told you earlier that the book of Matthew has been grouped topically, according to subject. And that when Matthew arranged this that we call the Sermon on the Mount, it was not a sermon that was given at any one time at any one place, but rather it is a collective, distinct statements of the teachings of Jesus Christ. And so as we see this presented in Matthew, it does not give the same sense as it does in the book of Luke. Because in the book of Luke it is presented as it occurred and it occurred when one of His disciples asked Him a question about how to pray. Matthew arranged this a little bit differently.

Now that has interesting, I think, aspects, because of the way people tend to look at this prayer and some of these things we tend to carry over into our thinking here in the church.

First of all, I do not think that it can honestly be called the Lord's prayer. The Bible never calls it the Lord's prayer. If anything, it is the disciple's prayer because it was one the Lord gave His disciples. There is also a tendency to look upon it as either a child's prayer, something that he kneels down beside the bed and does each night before he goes to bed, something that is uttered before the school day begins. And it can also become to be looked upon as some kind of a family prayer. Have you ever noticed in a movie where there is kind of a religious element in it and there is a little bit of trouble, and the first thing you know, somebody is saying, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name."

Look in verse 9. He said, "In this manner, therefore, pray." He did not say, "Pray this prayer," He said, "In this manner, pray." So what I did is looked up the word "manner" in the dictionary. It is very clear. Manner is a way or style of doing. In other words, what He is giving here is an outline. A style that is not wrong to follow, it is very good to follow. But it is an outline.

Now when you examine the whole thing by itself, you will see that it is even arranged in outline form. You know, you make an outline before you are going to write a story or a report or something for school. You are supposed to make an outline. Roman numeral I and then so many points underneath it. Roman numeral II, and so many points under it. And maybe each one of these points over here will have a couple of subdivisions under them. And so when you go to write out your report, you start out with your name, Roman numeral I, and that will be a paragraph. And you just start writing and connecting the thoughts that are given in the outline.

We have an outline here that has major divisions. Division number one contains three petitions to God. There are three petitions to God and His glory. That is really the way things ought to be because it follows the two great commandments. We have to love God above all things and then we love our neighbor as ourselves. And it is only when God is truly put first that all the rest falls into its right place, the right perspective.

And so the approach here from the very beginning is that we begin by praising and honoring the great God to whom we are praying. In so doing it is implied that the drift of our mind will be that in addressing God and concentrating on His greatness we will make no attempt to try to bend Him to our will. That is very important in how you approach God. You never make an attempt to try to bend Him to your will. It is one thing to present ideas to Him, to use a line of reasoning, but it is never like a lawyer would be. It is never a performance whose object is to bend the judge or the jury to his will.

But rather a prayer can be a petition to God saying, this is the way I think that it ought to be done. With the facts that are at my disposal, I think that this would be a good way to go. And so the proper approach is to first praise God so that we have the right perspective.

Then the second part has to do with our needs and they are very neatly divided. Notice in verse 11, "Give us this day our daily bread." Now verse 11, with that petition, has to do with the present, take care of our present needs. Verse 12, "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." There is an aspect there of the past. If we are in debt or if we have sinned and we are petitioning Him to forgive us, it is obviously something that has already occurred. Therefore it is in the past. And then in verse 13 it says, "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." We are petitioning Him for the future.

Now again, look at it. In verse 11, we are approaching God with the understanding that He is our provider. In verse 12, we are approaching Him that He is our Savior and Redeemer. Verse 11 can have both very obvious physical and spiritual aspects to it, to supply us our needs physically—our bread. And bread of course is used in the Bible as the type of the Word of God. We can be asking Him to supply us with that strength as well to be provided. In verse 12 we are approaching Him as our Redeemer and as our Savior. And in verse 13, we are approaching Him as our guide and our comforter.

Let us go back to verse 9 again and we will concentrate on this for the rest of the Bible study.

I want to concentrate on the words "our Father." I do not know this, but I wonder if there is any other religion that looked upon the Creator God as Father in the same way that we do. Now you have to understand that this prayer was put together by a divine Being. He understood man and what his needs were, or are still. And here He is giving an outline for prayer and He has arranged everything in order of importance.

Now, obviously the most important thing of all is to establish the right relationship between us and the One to whom we are praying. So what word did He choose? Father. That sets the perspective for our relationship with Him and really, our relationship even with ourselves and with others as well. Because, first of all, if He is our Father, then we should begin to understand what our goal is. Other things ought to begin to come to our minds. That we are in the womb of the church, which is our mother. That we are looking forward to being born into His Family by means of a resurrection. That right at this present time that we are begotten by Him.

[John Ritenbaugh later changed his stance on the born again doctrine. Please see: https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/library/sermon/id/2369/born-again.htm].

These are gigantic fundamental principles that ought to be guides to our thinking and really set the tone for your life. Actually set the tone for your entire day if you are beginning every day by establishing your relationship with your God. He is your Father and there just cannot be a closer relationship than that, that one can have with his God.

Now, if we are begotten by His Spirit, we are literally of His Family, of His kind really. That is the implication all the way back in Genesis. You know, the animals reproduce after their kind and the implication in Genesis 1:26 is that God is reproducing after His kind.

And so this has a great deal to do with our thinking about ourselves. Sometimes I will tell you, we get way down in the dumps, thinking that we cannot do a thing. We are so low on the self-esteem chart, that if there is a bottom we must be below it. You know, God does not want you to think about yourself that way. He wants you to be humble. He wants you to be yielded to Him. But you are worth so much He gave His Son for you! And you are of His Family. That is a great thing, awesome thing!

That is why Jesus started this thing off the way He did. I think that He wants us to think, as we are praying, of every good fatherly attribute that we could possibly think of and apply it to this One to whom we are praying. It is terribly unfortunate, but many of us do not know what a good father is. I tell you, your relationship with God is severely stressed and severely damaged because have not had a good father or a good relationship with our father. You have no model by which to go. And as a result we cannot imagine the way God is, really, in a real practical way.

So starting off this way sets the right pace, it sets the tone. We are not talking to somebody who is so far above us that He cannot stoop down to hear us. We are talking to somebody who is in our family. He is the Head of the Family. Sure, He is God, but He is also our Father.

I read a story one time. Again, I do not know whether it is true, but it is a good story and illustrates this point. You know whenever the Romans conquered a country, they would bring their armies back to Rome and the emperor would hold a great big parade and he would have the generals of the army out there with all of their troops and they would go by with the [unclear] and with all of their glittering swords and shields and everything. And at the very head of this great entourage would be the emperor.

Now, whenever we hold a parade, they put policemen along the side of the road in order to keep the people who are watching the parade from coming out into the midst of the parade. Well the Romans were no different. They would have their legionnaires lining the route that the parade was going to take.

The story goes that one time this emperor was leading the triumphant Roman armies with all the slaves that they captured and all the booty and the prizes they brought back from the war that they had just had, going through the streets of Rome and they were approaching the emperor's box. Now the emperor of course, is leading the parade. He was being carried in the canopied carriage. And he was approaching the box where the emperor's wife and his children were sitting. One of his children, a boy, saw his father coming and he jumped down out of the box, and he muscled his way through the crowd and he was just about ready to break through the line of legionnaires and to go out into the parade to get to his dad, and one of the legionnaires grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him back. Of course, the legionnaire did not know who the boy was. He just thought he was somebody who was going to try to break in. And he said to the boy, "Don't you know who that is? That's the emperor." And the boy said, "Well, he may be the emperor to you, but he's my father."

That is the way it is with God and us. He may be the great God who is the Creator of everything that is and He has awesome and majestic power. He has tremendous intelligence. He has lived for all eternity. He is wise beyond belief. He has all insight and understanding. And yet He is so close to us that He is our Father.

We have a guy out in Norwalk, I forget how he said it, but his prayer was addressed to his "dad." You know, like our dad in heaven. I wondered, is that right that he should do that? I understood what the guy was getting at, that he just felt a close relationship that way and that is the way that he expressed it.

But this addressing of God as our Father is intended by Jesus Christ to put everything in its proper perspective. For you to be able to deal with yourself first of all, to deal with your relationship with God and also even to give perspective and sense. It is a very cruel and hostile and painful world that we live in. And really it is only our understanding of God and what He is doing and our relationship with Him and His with us that gives this world [unclear] and perspective. I will tell you, without it, we would just be like the rest of the world, running to and fro, having no aims, no goals, nothing. And this God is so close us that He is our Father.

I think I am going to stop right there and we will pick it up in verse 9 the next time.

But I do have something to read to you. It will just take one more minute. I got this from Mr. Blackwell when we were out on on the [unclear]. It has to do with prayer. Remember we were talking earlier about how the Jews became very formalized and became very concerned, they had to do everything a certain way, very concerned about how they prayed. Listen to this. This is called "The Prayer of Cyrus Brown." It is a poem.

"The proper way for a man to pray," said Deacon Lemuel Keyes, "and the only proper attitude is down upon his knees."

"No, I should say the way to pray," said Rev. Doctor Wise, "is standing straight with outstretched arms, and rapt and upturned eyes."

"Oh, no; no, no," said Elder Slow, "such posture is too proud, a man should pray with eyes fast closed and head contritely bowed."

"It seems to me his hands should be austerely clasped in front, with both thumbs pointing toward the ground," said Rev. Doctor Blunt.

"Las' year I fell in Hodgkin's Well head first," said Cyrus Brown, "with both my heels a-stickin' up, my head a-pinting down; an' I made a prayer right then an' there—best prayer I ever said, the prayingest prayer I ever prayed, a-standing on my head."

JWR/aws/drm