The Real Lord’s Prayer Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Real Lord’s Prayer Part 2. He will be in John 17:1-7.

I mean, it’s just stunning to me how much the church is trying to be like the world so that they can win the world when what the world is saying, if you’re just like us, why do we need you? And what we ought to do is say, look, here’s the truth.

It’s transformative in our life, and that we need God’s people to have courage to stand up for the truth. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church, and we’re welcoming you to Hope Worth Having Radio broadcast, and we’ve been at it for over 16 years now, broadcasting the gospel, teaching the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter.

We are now in John chapter 17, and we’re learning about prayer, and we’re watching the real Lord’s Prayer. And I want to encourage you to join me now as we go to the Gospel of John, and may we be encouraged in our own prayer life as we study the Lord’s Prayer Life.

But I want to talk to you about the real Lord’s Prayer, because it is a priestly prayer, if you will, in the Old Testaments. The priests interceded on behalf of the people, and in a real way, what you and I are witnessing in John chapter 17 is Christ’s high priestly prayer to His Father on behalf of you, on behalf of me, on behalf of all who would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s an amazing thought to think that Jesus is praying for you. I’m certain that each of us feel very honored and privileged that someone would take time out of their day to pray for you, that perhaps someone might even be telling you that, hey, I’m praying for you.

And I say, praise God, it’s a blessing to be on other people’s prayer lists. But get this, you’re on the Lord’s prayer lists. You are on Jesus’s prayer lists. He is praying for you, and He’s not just praying for you.

He is interceding and advocating for you before the Father. And I think that’s so important as you come. to this chapter to understand that Jesus is praying for you. We know that Jesus is preparing to go to the cross.

We know that he is preparing to help his disciples understand their assignment and their mission. And in order to do that, Jesus is praying. He is fortifying his heart. He is fortifying his ministry through prayer.

And that’s important that each and every one of us recognize that as you and I find ourselves heading into a season of suffering, or going through a season of suffering, or coming out of a season of suffering, that we recognize how important it is to fortify ourselves through the power of prayer.

When there is the absence of prayer in our life, we are weak and vulnerable as Christians, susceptible to all the attacks of the demonic forces that the devil has as he is trying to destroy our walk and our testimony before the Lord Jesus Christ.

But when you and I are fortifying ourselves with prayer, as we’re entering into mission, as we’re going on assignment for God, as we are taking upon the task, the calling that He has for us, that it is the power of prayer that strengthens and empowers us so that we may fulfill all that God has for each one of us in the unique calling that He has upon us.

Jesus Christ wants His disciples to know that even in the midst of this prayer, that He is communicating their responsibility that they have to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, to make Christ known.

And their assignment is our assignment. And that’s why we understand this. Look at verse 18 of chapter 17. The Bible says, as thou has sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

And so His mission is our mission. The platform of God’s glory is the church. Jesus came to bring glory to the Father. Jesus came to bring glory to the Godhead. We learned about that a few weeks ago.

That is the first aspect of this prayer in verses one through five. But we also learn and understand that Jesus came to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, to advance the redemptive story, to advance the forgiveness of sins to all who would repent and believe in Him.

And His assignment is our assignments. His mission is our mission. And so may it be our heart this morning that we are more inspired, more committed than ever before that we might, as we learn about the Lord’s prayer, the real Lord’s prayer, that you and I may be motivated and mobilized like never before to make sure that our lives.

our church family, our personal families are bringing glory to God, and that we are advancing doing all that we can to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. That each of us are willing to give our time, our talents, yes, our treasures, the resources that God has entrusted to us, the finances that he’s given us, that God is gonna use each one of us to make sure that not only is his name lifted up, but that his name is spread into every people group on this planet,

to every home, and to every heart, and until that job is done, we will not take a break, but we will stay on task and on mission for the Lord Jesus Christ. We learned a week ago, as we began to examine this text, the setting of the Lord’s Prayer, we remember that our Savior was sitting at the table with his disciples and that…

that they were very discouraged and troubled in their heart. We know from John 14 that they were overwhelmed with the thought of the departure of Christ. And we understand that as Jesus is praying for his disciples, he recognizes the deep emotions that they are having as disciples about all that they have encountered, but he continues to remind them that they have a hope.

And they have a hope that is rooted in the work of Christ and that this hope is one day they’ll be united together with Jesus again and with all their family and with all their friends that love Christ.

But until then, the Lord has entrusted the Spirit of God to dwell in all who believe in him, that they may be effective, that they may be efficient in accomplishing the work of Jesus Christ of advancing the gospel on this earth.

We also learned the substance of the Lord’s prayer. It’s really simple. The glory of God is the substance of the Lord’s prayer, that when you and I pray, even as we bring our needs, even as we bring our problems, even if we bring our burdens, that we desire more than anything, that God would be glorified.

Think about that. Some of you are walking through deep valleys in your life. You’re struggling, you’re wrestling. Your relationships are messed up. You’re hurting. Someone has shared something with you that’s devastating.

I don’t know where you’re walking, what you’re doing, what you’re going through, but what you’ve got to do is get on your knees and say, Lord, somehow through this time in my life, this season in my life, use it to bring glory to you because that is the substance of prayer.

It is the glory of God. As Jesus taught us in the model prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in what? Heaven, yeah. Is that your heart? Are you there yet? Have you so submitted your life to Christ that even through your trials that you desire the glory of God in your life, and that even if God calls you to suffer, He calls you to walk through the valley, that you are very much like the Apostle Paul who said in 2 Corinthians 12,

when he prayed to the Lord three times, and the Lord’s response to the Apostle was that my grace is what? It’s sufficient. See, God doesn’t always get you out of the mess, does he? Sometimes he says, you know what, I’m gonna leave you in the mess, but I want you to see my grace, I want you to see my strength, and Paul’s response is that he gloried in God.

He gloried in Christ, for he said, when I am weak, I am strong. He was weak humanly, he was weak in his circumstances. but he was strong in Christ, he was strong in the power of Christ that rested upon him because in that moment of weakness in full submission, desiring the glory of God, desiring the will of God for his life, even in suffering, and knowing that the grace of God would be more than sufficient for him,

more than enough for his life, he knew that God would make him strong and he would be honored. We also learned the significance of the Lord’s Prayer. As we continue to dive into verse one through five, the significance of the Lord’s Prayer is the unfolding and revealing of the eternal plan of salvation, the redemptive story of God bringing people to him, calling people to salvation, and you’re a part of that story.

I mean, if you’re here this morning and you don’t know Christ, I want you to know that God is calling you, that he is reaching out to you, that it’s no mistake that you’re here, there’s no accident that Christ is reaching out to you and he is calling you to be a part of this redemptive story of the forgiveness and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that we’re not abandoned by God.

We’re not abandoned by God because unlike any other religion and any other so -called God or idol in this world, we are not distanced. Our God is not distant. He is not far. He is not someone who cannot be reached, but rather the Lord came to this earth, Emmanuel God with us.

He did not leave you. And I want you to understand when you think about the cross, when you think about the suffering of our savior, that it’s not only that he just came and suffered for us on the cross so that we would have eternal life in Jesus Christ when we repent and believe in him, but he suffers with us.

He suffers with us. For he understands suffering, he understands our hearts, he understands our limitations, and he suffers for us, and he suffers with us, and he came to this earth that he might bring eternal life to each of our hearts.

And how blessed is that that you and I get to enjoy that. But let’s learn this morning the scope of the Lord’s Prayer. When we think about the scope of the Lord’s Prayer, what exactly was Jesus praying for when it related to his disciples?

What was Jesus praying for you? What was the prayers that Jesus had? What is so distinct about the Lord’s Prayer is that it is in great contrast to our prayers. I mean, I’m just telling you that some of us are praying harder to keep people out of heaven than praying for getting people to heaven.

Some of us are praying so hard For the health needs, when God is saying, no, I’m not going to change their circumstances, I’m not gonna change their situation, I’m gonna give them the grace to get through it, I’m gonna give them the grace to be able to honor me and glorify me through it, and we need to recognize that we ought to pray like Jesus prayed.

And so that’s why I want you to understand the scope of his prayer this morning. Number one, if you’re taking notes, write this down. When Jesus prayed for you, he prayed that there would be obedience to truth.

When Jesus prayed for you, he prayed that there would be obedience to truth. Think about this, as you’re praying for your children, as you’re praying for your family and your grandchildren. How should I pray that they would obey the truth?

Now, let’s just look at a few passage of scriptures here in relating to John chapter 17. We start in verse six. He says, I’ve manifested thy name unto the men, which thou gave us me, out of the world, thine they were, and thou gave us them me, and they have kept thy word, they have obeyed thy word.

They have followed what I’ve taught them. Jump down to verse eight, for I have given unto them the words which thou gave us me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou did ascend me.

Look at verse 14. I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of this world, and even as I am not of the world. Verse 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is what?

Truth. What Jesus is praying that God would do an effective work in the hearts of the disciples to obey the truth, to obey the word of God. And that might sound too simplistic and you might say, I need something more profound than that, Mike, but you know what?

That is so basic and it is so powerful in our life that if you and I could just get to the point of obeying God and obeying his truth, if we could move forward in our life and that we could say that we are devoted to obeying God, when Jesus was speaking to a large crowd, his family was trying to get his attention.

Now, believe it or not, Jesus’s brothers did not believe that he was the Messiah. As a matter of fact, they thought their brother had kind of gone off the rails and they thought in their minds that somehow he was just kind of wacky and they were trying to get his attention and say, look, get out of here, buddy, and quit saying this stuff, it’s crazy talk.

And so one of the disciples went to Jesus and they said, hey, your family wants to talk to you and Jesus, rather than recognizing his family and giving attention to his family, look out to the crowd and said, who is my family?

And he said, my family is those who obey God. The evidence, the manifestation that your faith is real is that you obey God. Now listen to me, I know that that is a hard pill to swallow, but I want you to understand that God is calling us to a life of obedience, and when we pray, we pray that God would help us obey, and when Jesus prayed, he’s praying that you would obey him.

But listen, nobody’s gonna be perfect. How many perfect people are sitting in this congregation? Please stand up right now, raise your hand. I can’t find any. How many of you know somebody who thinks they’re perfect?

Just put your hand up, amen. I’m not talking about your spouse. I’m just talking about that there are people out there like your teenagers who think they know it all and that they are perfect. Can I get an amen?

I know it’s tough, but listen, nobody’s perfect and this obedience, listen, God is looking for the direction of your heart more than the perfection of your heart. So you say, pastor, are you saying I’m not a believer because I failed?

No, I’m saying that the direction of your heart is that when you do fail, you so are grieved and humbled by it that you repent and wanna make it right with God and make every effort to live in obedience to God.

This is what God wants from us. And so Jesus desires that we would obey his truth. Now, when Jesus lived on this earth, he did not just say it, he lived it. Would you agree with that? Oh yeah, the Bible says in verse nine, John chapter 14, verse nine says, he who has seen me has seen the Father.

Everybody’s running around wanting to see God or tell me that they saw God. I mean, you know how I feel about that. People telling me that they saw God on the back of a billboard. One person said they saw God in a grilled cheese sandwich.

Now, come on, people. But I’m just saying to you. that if you wanna see God, see Jesus. Because when you see Jesus, you see God and you see obedience and you see someone who exemplified obedience to truth.

Jesus said, I have revealed your name. He told the disciples who God was. And throughout his ministry, Jesus made the Father known. And when people saw Jesus, they saw the Father. Even in this prayer, Jesus reveals the Father.

He reveals who he is. Look at verse 11 of John chapter 17. He says, now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world and I come to the holy Father. Jesus in his prayer reveals that the Father is holy.

He reveals that he is righteous. Look at verse 25. Oh, righteous Father. Oh, righteous father, that’s what Jesus did. Now get this, our obedience reveals the character and nature of God to everybody around us.

That just as Jesus revealed who God was, you and I, in the way we live our lives, in obedience to his truth, we are revealing who God is. Someone put it like this, you’re the only Bible people really read, and that is true.

We are his hands, we are his feet, church, and we have to understand that we are called to live in obedience. You say, I wanna do what I want, then don’t be a Christian. You say, I wanna live for self, and I wanna achieve all my dreams, don’t be a Christian.

Because I’m telling you that Jesus said this, if you wanna be my disciple, you have to be willing to deny self, take up the cross, and follow me. And friends, if you’re not willing to do that, then let’s just quit the pretending, and let’s quit the faking, and let’s quit the facade, and let’s just be real with everybody and say, I’m not in to being selfless.

I’m not into denying myself, because you can’t live a selfish life and call yourself a believer in Jesus Christ. Because when you choose to live selfishly, you are not revealing the name of God, and the character of God, and the nature of God to everyone who is watching your life.

You are revealing your human sinfulness and selfishness. Do you understand that? And so what is it that motivates me to be obedient to God is not only that I have this wonderful profound truth that Jesus is praying that I would obey him, and that I love him, and I wanna honor him and glorify him, but I got a lot of people watching me, and I want them to see Christ in me.

And is your family seeing Christ? You know, I don’t get this. People live one way around the church and then go home and live another way. Are you kidding me? You wonder what’s wrong? You wonder why families are in a mess and a disaster?

When they see the duplicity, they see the hypocrisy. In the lives of people, God has called us to obedience. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2 .12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Whatever God has done in you, you need to make sure it is being displayed outside of you. And let me tell you the height of obedience is not that you only obey when the preacher’s around or that you obey when your mom and dad are around or that you obey when somebody you know is a leader in the church is around, but that you obey even in the absence of other people.

Oh. because your true character is revealed when the lights are out. Your true character is revealed when no one is looking in your life. So you might cheat on your taxes, nobody will notice. And you might do something that is unbiblical or dishonoring to your spouse by looking at the wrong website on your phone.

Or you might say something and talk a certain way when your parents aren’t around. And I wanna tell you friends, even though other people are not around, God is always around, amen? And that God is always watching our life and so this obedience to truth and as we are raising our children, our goal should be that they would obey the truth of God even in the absence of my presence.

If your children only obey you when you’re around, I’m telling you it’s gonna be a collision course. It’s gonna be something that’s gonna fail because as soon as they get out from underneath your tutelage and underneath your authority, they are gonna go hog wild.

And we desire and we pray as parents and as grandparents that our children would obey God and his truth even when we’re not around. That, my friend, should be a goal in parenting. J. Wilbur Chapman said this, it’s not the ship in the water, but the water in the ship that sinks it.

And so it’s not the Christian in the world, but the world in the Christian that constitutes the danger, end of quote. And my point is this morning is that you and I are called to be distinct and different than this world.

We’re called to obey God in truth. Now, how do we do that? Well, remember this, that our growth in God’s grace flows from the prayers of our high priest, Jesus Christ. What is it that helps me to obey God?

It’s not that I somehow mustered up the energy or pulled myself up from the bootstraps, but rather that I have a God in heaven, a savior. who intercedes, and he’s praying that today I would obey him.

And that is a powerful motivation in my life. And it brings grace to me, and it brings growth to me and strength as I strive to serve him. Hebrews 7 .25, consequently, he is able to say to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he’s always lives to make intercession for them.

Don’t undervalue the power of prayer in your life, because prayer that is coming down from heaven on behalf of you, and prayer that is going up to heaven on behalf of you, is pouring out grace in you so that you could obey God.

So that you could live effectively for Jesus Christ. If you’re struggling in a particular area, get you some people around you, get you some accountability people, get you some prayer partners in your life, and say I’m wrestling with this, I got this addiction, I got this.

Temptation in my life. I got this problem in my life I’ve got this attitude in my life and I need you to be praying now We run around and we look for all the self -help books that we can and we look for all the 12 steps that we can to figure out this problem when what we really need to do is get on our knees and we need to plead in the throne of grace and we need to ask God to pray for us and we need to ask Jesus to empower us and to change us and to transform us that we might live obedient to his truth You say what does obedience have to do with the mission?

Well because Obedience to God and mission are inseparable and the assignment that God is giving and Jesus says as you sent me I’ve sent them That we understand That we have a mission That we are called To take the truths of God’s Word to a Society that is constantly changing But we have the privilege of taking unchanging truth to God and this in and of itself has an effect that makes us like light and Makes us like salt in that we have a preserving effect our obedience to God not legalism but our obedience to God helps us to be a light and the light of the world that Reflects the love and the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ What else is he praying that there would be courage not just obedience,

but there would be courage for the truth There’d be courage for the truth. Look at verse 11 The Bible says now I am no more in the world But these are in the world referring to you and I and the disciples and I come to the Holy Father Keep through thine own name those whom thou has given me that they may be one as we are Verse 12 while I was with them In the world, I kept them in thy name.

Those that thou gavest me I’ve kept and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.” Jump down to verse 14. I’ve given them thy word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Verse 16, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Now, this is an important truth because Jesus is praying that you and I would have courage for the truth, meaning that Jesus is praying that his disciples and all who would believe in him would not be afraid to stand up for the truth.

We live in a time and age where people are always apologizing for what they said, or they’re always walking back what they said, or they’re always don’t wanna say anything to offend anybody and Jesus is saying, I’m praying that they’ll have courage for the truth, why?

Because when you stand up for Christ, when you live for Jesus, you’re gonna have enemies and when you stand up for Christ, the world’s not gonna like you, did you know that? I mean, it’s just stunning to me how much the church is trying to be like the world and incorporate the world so that they can win the world when what the world is saying, look, if you’re just like us, why do we need you?

And what we ought to do is say, look, here’s the truth, it’s distinct, it’s unique, it’s transformative in our life and we stand up for that truth and that we need God’s people to have courage to stand up for the truth.

This is what Jesus is praying. He understands that you and I live by a higher standard and that the world will hate us for following Christ. But how is it that we can stay on mission when we have so much opposition, when we have those who might hate us?

Now look, sometimes many Christians have failed in understanding what they’re to do when the world opposes them. And so what they do is they say, you know, we’re just gonna separate from them, we’re gonna isolate from them, we’re just not gonna have anything to do with the world and so we sometimes have Christians who are hermits and when we do that, we become ineffective in reaching the world.

Now Jesus never prayed that you’d be isolated. Jesus never prayed that you’d be taken out of the world. Jesus never prayed that somehow you would not have any worldly friends. But what he did pray is that you’d be insulated from the world.

If you’re a parent, I want you to take note of this, that your responsibility is not to isolate your kids from the world, but it is to insulate them. It is to insulate them from the world and the key to insulating your kids from the world begins with prayer and continues with His Word, the Word of God which sanctifies their hearts.

Well this is Pastor Mike Sanders and I want to take this opportunity to remind you that we are very thankful for all of you who pray for us and many of you who send in gifts. We thank you so much. We want you to know that your gifts are making a difference and helping us to stay on the air and we want to encourage you to make sure that you check out our website and let us know some of your prayer requests.

Just hit that contact button. We want to pray for you. We want to be able to lift your situation up to the Lord because we are confident that God uses prayer to change things and we are excited for the opportunity to minister through prayer.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope. worth having.