Transcript

Chapter 6. Oh, look at that. It's going to be a blessing if it turns on. Matthew chapter 6. Of course, we don't need the computer or the screens. We'd make it with just the Bible, right? That's hard to believe nowadays. Matthew, chapter 6, expresses Christ's clear expectations for all of us. The operative word in that verse is a present active imperative, which is a big way of saying a command. And it's second person plural, which means it's for all of us. So, Christ clearly has shared His expectations for all of us since He said it, but we're here in 2024, and He tells us exactly what He wants. I'm going to read it to you. Verse 33. Almost all of you have this memorized, I'm sure. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Let's pray, and let me look at the time, 6:49, this is over at 7:30. Seven messages, and then they told me only six, so I'm going to talk at 72 miles an hour. We'll get through all the stuff, but let's pray. Father in Heaven, we bow before You. I pray that Your expectations of us will be really clear to us tonight, the way You left for us to make sure we're staying on target, and on track. That we're doing, that we're being, that we are everything You expect us to be. We labor sometimes thinking we need to do more, or we need to try harder, but You've told us we're just supposed to orient our heart towards seeking You first. I pray You’ll remind us and stir us up and show us even more ways that we can confidently walk In the power of Your Spirit, by Your grace, to please You more and more every day until You come or call us into Your presence. In the name of Jesus, we pray, and all God's people say Amen.

Now, we could go because that's everything I'm going to say tonight, but I'm going to talk really fast and do everything in between. Christ's clear expectations for all of us are laid down in Matthew 6:33, but we need to think about that. I copied it out of my Bible and added big Druk Wide…that's the font, the yellow one there. But, and here's what we're looking at, seek first the kingdom of God, the rule of God, the kingship. Actually, the word is basileia, the kingdom of God, He's the king of it. Seek that first and His righteousness and everything else in life will fall into place. That's my paraphrase.

So, let's look at 2024. I just thought, what's going on in our world? We live in the midst of confusion and deception. Famous pastors are saying bizarre things these days when it comes to this whole gender dysphoria thing when it comes to everything. Some of them are either so political it's terrible, or they're so secular it's terrible. There's just confusion and deception like never before in Christ's Church. Then, the most diagnosed ailment in America right now, do you see it? Depression. The richest country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, the most militarily powerful country. We've got more of everything. In fact, our generation, I guess I'm a boomer, I don't know. But our generation is giving away 90 trillion dollars to our children. That's what Bloomberg announced last week. 90 trillion? That's an incomprehensible amount of money. We're depressed, our country is, our people are.

Then we have the cultural disintegration. Movie stars that transition from male to female, and back and forth, and everything in between. We have cultural disintegration. We have the legalization of drugs. That's gone awry up in, where is it? Portland, Oregon, where it's just destroying so many people. Then we have stress. The New York Times recently wrote a piece, one of their big writers, I don't know which one said it. They asked why are we always in a hurry. I'm in a hurry. They talked about how we live under this compulsive something stress. That's 2024.

Then we have health care fears. We're running out of Adderall. Now, none of you take that, but your grandchildren or children might have. We have health care fears. We're afraid that something's going to happen to our healthcare system. CVS's system was down with the solar flare and people couldn't get their prescriptions. It's just, it's really hard in 2024.

Then we've got this whole saber rattling. It's not a saber. Putin is shaking the Sarmat missile. The Sarmat missile travels six and a half times faster than a bullet, and it goes into multiple independent re-entry vehicles. One Sarmat missile can wipe out the entire country of France, every square inch of it, incinerate it. They've got those Sarmats deployed all the way across the largest country in the world, Russia. Amazing.

Then we've got financial uncertainties. The Bank of New York, or Community Bank of New York, or whichever one it is, is starting to fail. The mid-range banks are starting to fail because of the real estate office vacancy thing, and people aren't paying their bills. That's just starting, and it's going to roll into 2025. All the big banks, even European banks are divesting their real estate holdings. In fact, last week, the Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, sold a 50 million dollar tower for one dollar to the creditors. They sold it back for a dollar. That tidal wave is going to pick up speed.

So, we're facing, in 2024, financial uncertainties, countrywide depression, stress, and healthcare fears. We're all witnessing the cultural disintegration. China is encroaching on America. Russia is rattling their nuclear saber, and we've got the Houthis sinking British boats today. Wow. Then, from the people who are supposed to be talking about the truth, there's confusion and deception. Wow.

The good news is we know what's going to happen. That's what I get to teach. All of April is Revelation month for me. I spend two weeks in New York, going through the book of Revelation, and then I do two weeks back here. I love it. It's the best 40 hours of my whole year. You know, that's the book of Revelation. Revelation is the simplest book in the Bible. The final book. It's the book that God gave us so we would know His plan. He personally delivered it through Jesus Christ, His angel brought it to John on Patmos, and they sent it out.

Look, we're in Revelation 1 to 3, we're the Church on Earth. Soon we're going to be the Church in Heaven when either Christ comes or calls. Then, God is going to pour out His tribulation. The Tribulation ends with Christ's Second Coming. Christ Himself literally rules on Earth for a thousand years. That's what 20 percent of the Old Testament is about. It's amazing. The whole Earth, after Jesus rules over them perfectly for a thousand years, rebels. Almost everybody rebels. You know the ending, the Great White Throne. Then we get to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The good news is, that no matter what's going on in 2024, we know how it ends, and we know God's plan. But this takes us back to our verse. If we're supposed to seek first the kingdom of God, the ultimate expression of the kingdom of God is when the King Himself comes to Earth. That's the Second Coming of Christ. That's the climax of the whole seven-year period. But for us, before that happens, as we await it happening, how are we supposed to constantly seek first God's rule and righteousness? How are we supposed to do that when we live in the most distracted world?

I remember when the iPhones came out. It used to just be the kids that were distracted by it. But now, more people at Barnes and Noble are older than there are younger, and they're all on their iPads. Everybody is, everything is just distracted by this world we live in, electronica. So how do we stay on track? Tonight, how do we stay on track? How do we know that we're seeking first God's rule in our life, God's righteousness through our life to live as the saints of God in this world?

Wouldn't you know it, in the same chapter, comes the most well-known passage in the Bible? In fact, more people have Matthew 6:9-13 memorized than any other verse in the Bible. There are probably two, two billion, maybe, people on Earth that know that. If you put all of the Roman Catholics together, and all the Orthodox together, and all the Evangelicals together, then everybody else that has been Christianized or churchized. Did you know that's the most widely quoted section of the whole Bible? Yet it's the least understood. So, what I say is, we need to unleash the best known, most widely quoted verses in the whole Bible, Matthew 6:9-13.

Now, by the way, I do this with my classes. My Word of Life Bible Institute classes, wherever I am. Bonnie and I were just in the Philippines with Don and May. Of course, we're going to be in New York and Florida, and at Word of Life Hungary, and Word of Life Korea, and on and on and on. I always have them stand and do this, but I'm not going to have you stand because some of you just got comfortable. It wouldn't be kind to do it, but why don't we do this? Let's quote this. There are 73 words that Jesus inspired in the Greek language. Let's say them together. Okay, are you ready?

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who, trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

By the way, how do you like that? Trespass and debts. By the way, why do we even know the Lord's Prayer so well in English? It became part of the Book of Common Prayer. In the English language, way back in the 17th century, right after the King James Version was made. That's how we got the form that we know today, that people, even those who use other versions, know that form we just quoted.

But how do we unleash it? I'd like you to think about the Lord's Prayer. By the way, I've never taught the whole Lord's Prayer as one series. I'm so excited about it. That's why Bonnie is praying for me, because she knows I only have 29 minutes left, I haven't gotten into it yet, but that's why she sits in the front to pray that I stay on track.

Our seven greatest needs that God has determined are our greatest needs are in this prayer. There are seven petitions in that prayer. It's the most fascinating portion of scripture that I know of. God has said, as you await the End of Days, that's when the kingdom of God comes. I'm not talking about the kingdom of God that is within us, and I'm not talking about the fact that we're all in the kingdom of God right now. There's so much about the kingdom of God, and we're not in systematic theology right now. I'm talking about the eschatological kingdom, that's what it's talking about. Thy kingdom come. We're all praying for Christ to return in the Lord's Prayer. But how do we unleash those truths?

First of all, we need to see what our greatest needs are. So, our seven greatest needs are contained right here. So, look back starting in verse 9. This is what Jesus says, In this manner, therefore, pray. So, Jesus is right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. He's already done 48 verses you know, in chapter 5, and he's already done 8 in chapter 6. He's got all of the rest of 6 and 7 ahead and right in the middle, He stops and ties together, as we're going to see at the end, who our Father is. He explains who our Father is, and seven different aspects of our Father in Heaven. We'll see that at the end when we get back to this one.

But the first part of the prayer, our Father, who Jesus constantly reminds us is in Heaven. We're supposed to hallow. Hallow? Now that's not a common English word. I hallow you. It's just like, what? We're supposed to hallowed be Thy name. What does that mean? To put it in 2024 English, I need God to get my focus off of this because I spend so much of my life looking at this. My health, my car, my house, my debts, or my assets, or my kids, or my grandkids, or my schedule, or whatever. We're here, in this world. God said I want you to get focused on Me as your Father. As a human, I need to focus on God. Paul put it this way to the Colossians, chapter 3, remember? Set your affections, what? On things above. Yes. Not what? On things on the Earth. Same thing. That's where Paul got that idea, right from here.

So, number one of our seven greatest needs, my first need is I need God to focus me. Now, what exactly does that mean? Our Father means I need God to focus me because I'm so weak. I'm so fearful. I'm so distracted. I have to pause every day and repoint my life. We need to repoint our life Godward because we need to seek Him. That's what Matthew 6:33 says.

Secondly, I need God to control me. That's what Thy kingdom come means. I need God's rule in my life, but seek ye first the kingdom of God. I need God to control me. I want His kingdom before it comes with Jesus literally ruling on Earth. I need Him to be completely ruling right here. I need to be under His control. Do you know how Paul describes that in the New Testament? As walking in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit. It's when we surrender and submit to His control. So, I need God to focus me, and I need God to control me. Control me means it's because we so easily want our own way. What did Isaiah say? Remember Isaiah 53? All we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone, what? Our own way. I was hard-wired to want my own way. To be self-centered, to be self-seeking, to be self-sufficient, all that stuff. All that self stuff. God says I need you to let Me control you. I do a better job. I know what's best. So, I want you to surrender.

That's the heart of what we do here at Word of Life. That whole idea with the young people is of the commitment and the high point of every week. It's when we're praying for that campfire service. When they come, they make the choice either to come to Christ or to come back to Him and surrender completely. Did you know it's not just for campers? It's built into this prayer. After I focus on God, and after I ponder who He is, all of a sudden, I'm saying, whoa. You would do so much of a better job than me. I want You to control me.

Now, I don't have them in my pocket, but I think about the students all the time. I call them the kids, the young people that I teach. I always pull them out of my pocket, I keep them right down here in this little pocket, my keys. I say this whenever I'm driving, and Bonnie and I, over the last I don't know, we've been on the road for about six or seven years, I can't remember. But traveling around, speaking in all these Bible institutes. A third of our time we spend with Word of Life, and two-thirds with other missions. We've driven in over 30 countries of the world, on both sides of the road. Sometimes we're supposed to be on both sides, sometimes I just wander because there's no line.

We've driven all over the place, and what'll happen is after a few hours of driving wherever we are, Bonnie will say, you want me to drive? And I always say, oh, yeah. But do I really want her to drive? How do you know when I want her to drive? This is what I tell the kids. I say, if someone says they want to drive and you're driving, you put on your blinker, you pull over to the correct side of the road depending on what part of the world you're in, and you pull over and you bring it to a halt. You put it in park, you turn it off, you pull out the keys, you get out of the car, you walk all the way around to the other door, you open the door, and you say, here, honey, here are the keys. You're no longer in the driver's seat. That's what that is. It's a conscious pulling over your life and letting the Lord run it because we so easily want our own way. We need His control.

Thirdly, the third petition is I need God to lead me. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. By the way, how is God's will done in Heaven? How well is it done? Perfectly. That's what I want. I want completely, to use the words of David, with my whole heart to seek You—the 119th Psalm. Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments. I want Your way, not mine.

Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. What does that mean? Your will means I need God to lead me because we're so easily misled. We're so often confused. Remember, we're like sheep. Sheep need help to find where to eat, and where to drink. We really need His daily guidance. We need to focus on God, seek His control, and line up behind Him and say You're the shepherd, you're out front. Remember how Jesus distilled down His call to the disciples? Two words, follow what? Follow me. This is saying, yes. That's the third petition.

The fourth petition. By the way, it's right in the middle. It's so interesting how the Lord's Prayer is designed. This third petition, there are three petitions, this bang one in the middle, supply me, and then there's three more. So right in the middle is the first time I, my needs show up. See, I have a problem. I get distracted and I need focusing. I want my own way, and I need Him to control me. I don't know where to go, I need Him to lead me. But all of a sudden, we get to the supply me part. I need God to supply me.

Do you notice what it says? Give us this day, a 401k that'll last for 30 years, right? Or a 403b, or an investment with passive income. No, no. God says I want to keep you needing Me on a daily basis. So, God only dispenses enough for us to make it this day. That's really hard for us. Do you know what the goal of almost all Americans is? Financial independence! What's the goal of the Lord's Prayer? Daily dependence. Those are really opposites. That's why it's so hard for us to really get into this because we're wired to pile up.

I don't want to get off telling stories, but just having Bonnie sitting there I always remember one of the things that pastors do at least in the circles I ran in. They usually had the pastor and his family sitting in the front. It was just part of the job. I mean from our first church on. John MacArthur sat in the front row, at Quidnessett Baptist Church I had to sit in the front row, at Tulsa Bible Church I had to sit in the front row. You know what I mean? Calvary Bible Church, I sat in the second row. We always sit in the front.

I remember I was sitting in the front, and they pulled me up, the elders, and they said, Hey, we have question and answer time, just like Mike did, Minute with Mike, yeah. They stuck the microphone in front of me, and the elder that was in charge said someone in the audience asked if someone handed you $100,000 today, what would you do with it? I thought for a minute, like I did with all of Mike's questions. I thought what kind of a question is that? I said, I don't know, because I said we don't really have any needs right now. I'd have to think about it. That disappointed everybody. They thought maybe I would say I need a house in northern Michigan or something like that.

Do you know what happened the very next week? Right where I sat, right over there, there was a white envelope. What do you think was in it? Guess. A $100,000 check. They were serious. They wanted to see what we'd do with it. Do you know, it was really a hard choice. The elders helped me, and the church took the money, accepted it from me, and dispensed it to me over seven years. They let me buy a house with it. It was very nice and that way there were no questions. Also, I was under their authority and everything. But let me ask you, do you really want to live on that day-to-day dependence?

What does it mean? I need God to supply me because we're so temporary, we're so frail, we're so insufficient, we're so unable to even last very long without resting. We need a supply. Did you know sleep is a reminder every day that we can't keep ourselves alive? Only God is self-sufficient. Only God is self-existent. Only God doesn't need any supply. Everything else in the universe does. Everything else is kept alive by God. For in Him we live and move and have our being. You all know that. God wants me to get back to acknowledging that. We'll talk about it. By the way, we're going to do a whole day or a whole session on all of these.

I need God to cleanse me. That's the forgive us our trespasses. By the way, that comes from the book of Common Prayers, debts, and trespasses. It's the translation that was used in that day. Forgive those who trespass against us. What is that? We're so prone to relational bumps. By the way, there are 73 Greek words in the Lord's Prayer, 25 of them talk about our sins and our struggles. In all of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, half of them are relational bumps. We are so prone to relational bumps, we scrape each other, we wound each other, and we easily get infected with spiritually deadening bitterness.

Bonnie and I, one of the things that we got to do for four years is we traveled to these huge conferences where doctors from closed countries, limited access countries; these medical missionaries gather outside of their closed countries in this neutral location; Thailand, Greece, places like that. Africa. They come together for two weeks of spiritual nurture. For four years, Bonnie and I got to be their two-week, they called us spiritual mental health care providers. I loved it. In fact, I even have scrubs. I have my name on it and everything. I feel like a doctor of the soul.

Do you know I was teaching, one of the years that I did it, I taught on bitterness. There was a doctor out there who was leaving the jungle hospital that he had built from scratch because he had gotten infected from a bump with bitterness. He'd already exploded, and I didn't know any of this. He was just sitting out there. There were 800 medical missionaries, doctors, and nurses. I said, did you know there are seven evidences of bitterness? I was going through the list. He was sitting like this.

He had to go through the conference. It was his last duty, and then he was going home. He was a six-figure doctor. That's not much anymore, but he made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a doctor before he became a missionary. He got all angry, and he was going to go back to making hundreds of thousands of dollars in America after being a missionary. He was just waiting. His last event was this conference. He was sitting like this, looking at the floor, but he was listening. I was on about the second or third sign of bitterness When he turned and looked at his wife.

Now, the reason I know this is because he told me, wearing his scrubs in the hallway after the session. He said, you know what? I wasn't listening. I was so angry. He told me his whole story and he said at about the third sign of bitterness I started thinking. I looked at my wife and I mouthed to her, is that me? His wife froze. He had already exploded and yelled at her. She thought if I said yes, he’d get even madder at me. Saying, yeah, you're bitter and you're ruining our lives. She said, but if I don't say anything, it could be the moment the Lord gave me to just share the truth with him.

So he looked and said, is that me? And she shook her head yes. Do you know what he told me? He said I didn't hear another word of your sermon. I thought, I've heard that all my life. People fall asleep all the time. I'm like a somnambulist. Do you know what that means? I make people fall asleep, but it's because I'm so soothing. He said, no, no, it wasn't that. He said I looked down at the floor, and I began crying out to God. I said, God, I'm ruining Your reputation in this jungle area. I'm ruining the lives of all the people I'm sending home. I'm ruining the outreach of the Gospel in this place. I'm ruining my own family. I am so bitter. He repented right there. That guy in the hallway, it was instantaneous, he was radiant. Did you know we're all prone to relational bumps, even if we're famous medical missionaries? We get scrapes and wounds, even if we're in the ministry, or if we're in a beautiful setting like this, and we can easily get infected with spiritual deadening bitterness. We constantly need His cleansing.

We need God to protect us. That's the whole lead us not into temptation. We're going to go through that as a whole session because we're so vulnerable with the spirit world around us so filled with enemies and dangers. When Paul rattled off that list in Ephesians 6, it's frightening to think about all those levels of demonic forces that are arrayed against us. They can shoot fiery darts. They can't enter us because the Holy Spirit has sealed us, but they can inflame the lusts of our flesh that are not being mortified by those fiery darts. When that dart hits, it just explodes into anger, or lust, or fear, or whatever, pride. Because we're so vulnerable, and the spirit world around us is so filled with enemies and dangers, we need to pause each day and arm ourselves for victory because greater is He that is in us than he is in the world. We're supposed to put on that armor.

Finally, the seventh petition is, For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. I need God to empty me because I was born full of myself, and so were all of us. We are born proud. The middle letter of pride is P R I D E. The middle letter of sin is S I N. I remember my professor told me this. The middle letter of Lucifer is L U C I F E R. He said, it's so important that we see that at the heart of everything bad, Lucifer, sin, and pride is I. So, I need God to empty me. What that means is because we're so prone to pride, self-sufficiency, and self-focus that we need to pause and ask to be humbled. We need His humility.

Paul put it this way to the Colossians later in chapter 3 verses 12 to 14. Do you know what he said? Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothing yourselves with humility. We are to consciously walk into the closet of life and pull out that garment of humility. Humility is not a fruit of the Spirit. It's chosen, clothing ourselves with humility. How? By asking God to empty us. Remember what John the Baptist said was the quintessential humility expression? He said, He must increase, I must decrease. I'm not worthy to even latch His shoelace.

Okay, so the Lord's Prayer is basically seven simple truths. What I just covered with you is very simple, but they're supposed to be daily renewed in our lives. Now I have nine minutes left to cover the first one. I need God to focus me. On what? I need God to focus me on this truth. Look at this.

We need to understand God as our Father. Looking carefully, you can see in Matthew 5:16 to chapter 6, verse 6, Jesus uses the term, Father, seven times. Before the Lord's Prayer, seven times. He reveals an amazing truth about our Father. Each time describing simply and powerfully who God the Father really is. See, the whole Sermon on the Mount is built around introducing God as Father, inviting them to start focusing on God as Father, and then showing them the results of both doing that and not doing that. So that's basically the longest sermon Jesus gave.

Thus, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus pauses to say, the Father I just described to you completely. What does completely mean? Seven times. Those are sets. That's why the whole book of Revelation is built around that heptadic structure, the sevens. In the seven introductions of God, we have a complete description, seven attributes, of God's character. He's the one I want you to focus on every day. Oh, so what is that? Let me just go through it.

This is Jesus' introduction to His Father. He rules the universe. Look at chapter 5. These are so good I want to read them to you. Look at chapter 5, verse 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father. He's in Heaven. I like that. He's the one that, look at verse 34, 5:34. But I say if you don't swear at all, neither by Heaven, why? It's God's throne. See, the emphasis is, that God is in Heaven sitting on the throne. He's the sovereign, reigning on high, like Daniel talks about. He sits and rules over all the hosts of the Earth.

Secondly, 5:45 adds to it. It says this, That you may be sons of your Father in Heaven, for He makes the sun rise on evil and on the good, and He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. He's all-powerful. He's omnipotent. I know the Chinese are trying to learn how to seed the clouds because they have droughts, but if you really read verse 45, He's the one that sends the rain, and He's the one that makes the sun shine. He's the only one. He's sovereign, He's sitting on that throne, and He's all-powerful. He runs the rain and the sun and everything else.

In verse 48, Jesus introduces another attribute of God. Therefore, you should be perfect just as your Father in Heaven is perfect. Boy, that's a standard that is impossible for us to meet apart from Him. That is the essence of salvation, that we can't get to Heaven until we are perfected by God. We can't perfect ourselves. We are unable to perfect ourselves, so He is willing to treat Christ like He committed all of our sins, erase the record of our sins, and credit the righteousness of God the Son to our account. Wow, He's perfect, He's self-sufficient, He doesn't need anything. He has no flaws, He is absolutely self-existent. God of Gods, Lord of Lords, we know the creeds.

Also, look at verse 1 of chapter 6. Take heed that you do not your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward from your Father in Heaven. Why does He reward? Because he's the real one who is love. Remember John said that, 1 John 4? God is love. Our Father is a sovereign, omnipotent, self-sufficient, loving God, who, verse 4, Jesus tells more to these people.

By the way, the people who listen to Jesus, every day lived a life under the occupation of a foreign power paying exorbitant taxes with very, very unethical rulers. Look at the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Scribes, how wicked they were. They knew Christ did miracles. They were just the worst leaders in the world. Every day, Jesus' audience had these horrible leaders, under the occupation of a foreign army, paying terrible taxation, under a religious system that was burdensome and totally empty of any love and power. Look what the scriptures say, verse 4, He sees in secret, your Father sees in secret, and what He sees in secret, He's going to reward openly. He knows everything. He knows when you've been wronged. He knows when you've been harmed. He knows when you've been mistreated. He sees everything. He doesn't just see it.

Look at verse 8, Do not be like them for your Father knows the things you need of before you ask Him. He's already watching. He's everywhere present. He knows what we're going through. See, Jesus is explaining to agrarian kind of peasant people, fishermen, and farmers, theology proper; God is sovereign, He's omnipotent, He's self-sufficient, He's love, He's omniscient, He's omnipresent. Verse 8, Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows the things you need before you ask them. He doesn't just watch, He knows our needs. He is gracious. He knows what we need before we ask. He wants to give us what we need. Jesus introduces God as the Father.

Basically, God summarizes what we need. What we need is to regularly do this. By the way, I have it right here in my wallet. This is my little card, what's on the screen is this little card. I reduced this whole message down to one little card that you can keep in your wallet. It's the size of a credit card. You can just stick it in your wallet. It's the Lord's Prayer. Focus me on who You are. In this manner, therefore, pray. Focus me on You as Father, that You know everything, that You have all power, that You're gracious and loving, that You're everywhere present, that nothing comes near me that You don't allow. Sometimes we act like God missed it; the cancer, or the grandchild, or our wife, or our husband, or whatever, our job, or our boss, or the person that cheated us out of all that money. He watches over the whole universe, but He missed that one. No, no. Focus me on who You are. You don't miss anything.

Control me, because You have a plan, and I want Your plan. Lead me, so I do Your will in my life. Supply me, so I can see Your hand. Do you know why it's good to need daily bread? So, we can see God supplying. Cleanse me. Why? Because He said, if you don't forgive those that trespass against you, neither will your Father in Heaven give you the benefit. Not, He won't forgive your sins. He won't give you the benefit of those sins forgiven. In other words, you will not have the joy. Jeremiah 15:16 says, Thy words were found, and I did eat them. Thy word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my life. We're supposed to be the most joyful rejoicing people in the world.

What keeps us from that? Not being cleansed. Being bitter like that doctor looking at the floor, mad at the world, and barking at your wife and kids.

Protect me. So, I don't lose Your power in my life. Satan, Peter tells us, can devour us. 1 Peter 5. Beware, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom? What? [audience answers] He may devour. Yeah, there are a lot of devoured Christians. Why? Because they don't focus on God. They don't surrender to His control. They don't allow Him to lead. They don't seek His grace to help in times of need. They don't get cleansed. They're just an open sore of all the bitterness, and they're not protected. They're not wearing the armor. Empty me, so You get all the credit for my life.

If you want one, you can go to our website, dtbm.org, or I just post to all the people who pray for us because we're missionaries. I posted it on Facebook. My name, that's how you find people on Facebook; you type in their names to go to your 50th reunion or whatever. But I just posted this set of cards and another set of cards on Facebook in the picture section, so you can find it there.

Also, while you're online, don't get distracted, but while you're there online, we also have our prayer card right there.

So, this is my challenge to you. We're going to spend all week long, Lord willing, if He gives us this week, looking at the Lord's prayer. This is the overview of it, just the introduction. Starting tomorrow morning we're going to talk about what happens, number one, when we submit His control, and number two, when we don't. What it looks like when we don't seek first the rule of God in our lives.

Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father in Heaven, I pray that You would teach us, through this reminder in the Lord's prayer, that apart from You, we can't do anything. Oh, we do so much, but it doesn't really amount to anything if we don't remind ourselves of Your expectations. You wrote them down. You want us to focus on You and let You control, lead, supply, cleanse, protect, and empty us so that You get the glory for our lives. It's all that matters. Your expectations. You've already told us what happens when we seek Your expectations. You say at the end of our lives, well done, good and faithful servant. I pray that that would be what we focus on, what we seek, what we desire. Thank You for giving us this week to share. In the name of Jesus, we pray, and all of God's people say, Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Brother John. Can we thank John for his ministry tonight? When we're done, you need to come down and say hi to John and meet Bonnie and their daughter and express your appreciation to them.