Matthew 6:10
For What Should We Pray?
The Bible gives to us clear teaching about prayer.
1. We know that we should to pray.
2. \\#5\\ We know that we should not pray for show.
3. \\#6\\ We are encouraged to pray secretly and unseen.
4. \\#7\\ We are not to pray vain repetitions (like a Rosery).
5. And the Bible gives us other truths about HOW To pray.
Yet some in trying to pray, seem to run out of things to pray about.
Let it never be said that the child of God runs out of things of
which to pray. We may run out of desire. We may run out of time. We
may run out of willingness, but never let us run out of requests.
I. \\#Matt 6:10\\ We should be praying that the Lord’s will would
be done on earth.
Matt 6:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in
earth, as it is in heaven.
A. This lesson on what to pray for is not as much about the
things we pray for, but the direction we pray in.
B. We do not pray AGAINST the will of God.
1. I do not mean we do not pray OUT of the will of God. I
mean we do not pray AGAINST the will of God.
a. Even good Christians can pray out of the will of God.
b. Our spirits and understanding are limited.
c. Sometimes we pray thinking we are in the will of God,
but we aren’t.
d. In those cases, we will not get what we pray for but
God is not angry with us.
e. He may be frustrated with us but not angry.
f. What I am speaking about is that we dare not pray
AGAINST the will of God.
2. That is a wind that you dare not fight against.
a. Jim Croce was a very talented song writer and singer
in the 60’s.
b. He was most probably lost and died at the young age of
30 in an air plane crash.
c. In one of his songs, he listed some things you just
don’t do:
You don’t tug on superman’s cape,
You don’t spit into the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Jim.
d. If you think spitting into the wind has negative
consequences, you should see what praying AGAINST the
will of God will do to you.
C. Yet many are doing just that:
1. Praying for and supporting homosexual rights.
2. Praying for and supporting women preachers.
3. Praying for and supporting ungodly alliances, false
gospels, and fake churches.
4. When we pray must pray:
a. …anchored in truth
b. …balanced between justice and mercy
c. …advancing toward holiness, righteousness, and
purity.
5. Any other way and we risk praying AGAINST the will of God.
D. Read Deutronomy28.
1. \\#Deut 28:1-14\\ contains a list of blessings God will
bring upon those who listen to and obey the voice of God.
(Neither the world, America, or the church is at the
place of God’s blessings.)
2. \\#Deut 24:15-68\\ contains a list of curses God will
bring upon those who reject and disobey the voice of
God. These are the things coming upon both America
and God’s church.
3. We, like Israel of old, are living out the days of the
prophets of Israel and her judgments all over again!
E. Write it in down in stone!
Ga 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
1. The world, America, and the church will reap the whirlwind
for the decisions they are making!
2. So will every state, community, family, and individual!
II. \\#Matt 6:11\\ We should pray for the food we need today.
Matt 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread.
A. Question: Is this a command for us today?
1. Most of us are not living day by day.
2. Many are not even living week by week or month by month.
3. We are no longer agriculture farmers relying on this
year’s crop to feed us.
4. Most of us have been removed from that for several
generations.
5. Does that mean we no longer need pray for our daily bread?
B. I don’t think so.
1. Living by faith is living in a constant state of depending
upon God.
2. Many have lived by faith because necessity demanded it.
3. Should we.
4. I believe possibly we should.
5. Now before you crank your cars up and drive off, let me
tell you that I am not living like I think this verse
might be telling us we ought to live.
6. This verse might be telling us to live in a constant state
of dependence upon God and when we do not need to live in
a constant state of dependence on God, be a channel of
blessing until you do need to live in a constant state of
dependence on God.
7. George Muller of England was a 17th Century evangelist who
without any state funds or a single earthly appeal, build
the first orphans’ homes in England, let God provide all
of their food, clothing, education, staff, and shelter
until the boys were 14 years of age and the girls 17.
Even then, no child ever left the home until suitable
employment was found for them. In all, George Muller
build and maintained five orphanages which cared for
approximately 2,000 children.
How did he accomplish this feat with no savings, no
annual income, and no modern day outreaches? He prayed
it down one meal, one suit of clothing, one load of
planks, and one bucket of nails at a time!
Everything that he received, he fully used it at that
time or gave it away at the time so that the next
morning he would have to rise and pray it down all over
again.
God never missed a meal in all the years they trusted
Him.
8. We (and I mean me too) know very little of living by
faith, and thus we know ever little of the power of God.
III. \\#Matt 6:12\\ We should pray for forgiveness.
Matt 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors.
A. The Lord’s command to pray for regular forgiveness assumes we
will commit regular offenses.
1. It is shameful but true, we are wretched and sinful
creatures and given adequate time, we live down to lower
expectations.
a. We do not want to lay out on God, but most will.
b. We do not want to take the popular and wide road, but
many do.
c. We do not want to entangle ourselves in sin, but
entangled we are.
d. We do not want our first love to wane, but how hard
our heart can become.
2. And when are our sins are not so outspoken and blatant,
we have a tendency to be filled with pride and arrogance.
a. Well I remember preaching on the altar one Sunday and
a church member came to me afterward to proudly
proclaim, "I haven’t gone to the altar in years."
b. And the man who honestly believed he had arrived at
sinless perfection and declared, "I don’t believe I
have sinned since I was saved."
c. Hearts filled with pride and ignorance are just as
sinful as the liar, thief, and adulterer’s hearts.
d. But they can all be forgiven.
B. This text is not a text of condemnation of sinfulness but of
an encouragement in forgiveness.
1. If a command to pray for daily forgiveness assumes daily
offenses, it must also assume there is daily forgiveness.
2. There is no stain left by sin that the blood rinse cannot
wash it clean. None.
a. What Christian has not failed the Lord?
b. What Christian has not thought thoughts he should not
have?
c. What Christian has not felt emotions he should not
have?
d. What Christian has not said words he should not have?
e. What Christian has not left undone tasks his Lord
commanded to be done and what Christian has not done
tasks that his Lord commanded he not do?
3. But all of them can be washed away with the prayer for
forgiveness!
a. I have taken to listening to my own preaching.
b. Of late, anytime the devil reminds me of my past, I
start praising the powerful forgiveness of Jesus that
has washed that past away.
c. I have been doing that for a couple of weeks now, and
it feels good.
d. I am finding out two things:
(1) I am finding out that praise is better than guilt.
(2) I am finding out that I have much to praise the
Lord about.
e. My paraphrase of Luke 7:47:
To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much!
IV. \\#Matt 6:13\\ We should pray for deliverance.
Matt 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
A. The command to pray for deliverance means several things:
1. It means traps are being set for us.
2. It means we can avoid them.
3. It means the Holy Ghost can show them to us.
4. It means we can hear and understand what the Holy Ghost
says.
B. \\#1Peter 5:8\\ portrays the devil as a roaring lion, lurking
about to devour us.
C. Solomon described us as a bird, the net is sin’s temptation,
and the devil as the hunter.
Pr 1:17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the
sight of any bird.
1. The devil sees every human being as a target, with a large
red bull’s eye drawn on the back of every Christian.
2. For thousands of years the devil has given himself to the
art of destroying people.
3. His traps are subtle and deadly.
4. The Christian who does not pray for guidance and
deliverance will surely fail.
D. When we are praying for deliverance, what are we praying for?
1. We are praying that the Holy Ghost of God would alert us
to dangers and snares that the devil and his accomplices
have set for us.
2. Do you believe you are living in the last times and the
world is going to get worse?
3. Should we not practice listening to the Holy Ghost?
V. We should pray for workers to win the lost to Jesus.
Mt 9:38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the
harvest, that he will send forth labourers into
his harvest.
A. It does not matter the country, the time period, or the
culture in which we live, we should always be praying for
more laborers to win the lost.
B. I do not know but I would suggest to you that we are failing
in this area dramatically.
1. The world is getting more wicked.
2. I am supposing that is because the wicked are increasing
in number and the righteous are decreasing.
a. If that is the case, the most logical and simple
remedy is for us to change that statistic.
b. Win more to Christ and decrease the size of Satan’s
army.
C. The deck is stacked against us. That is why we need to pray.
1. We need to pray for our school teachers and administers to
be soul winners.
a. If God has to save some of them in order to answer
that prayer, that’s okay.
b. Someone says, "These people will lose their jobs if
they start telling people about Jesus."
(1) Do you really want to keep your job in a
Christless school system?
(2) Imagine going to work in a high school two years
after they have defunded the police.
(3) Tell them about Jesus and if you get fired,
consider it to be God moving you to a safer
environment.
2. We need to pray for our coaches and instructors to be
soul winners,
our bus drivers to be soul winners,
our substitute teachers to be soul winners,
our daycare workers to be soul winners.
3. We need to pray for police officers to be soul winners,
our judges to be soul winners,
our prosecuting attorneys to be soul winners,
our defense attorneys to be soul winners,
our parole officers to be soul winners.
4. We need to pray for our President to be a soul winner,
our Vice President to be a soul winner,
our House and Senate leaders to be soul winners.
(If God has to give us some new ones to answer that
prayer, that is okay.)
5. We need to pray for our pastors to be soul winners,
our deacons to be soul winners,
our Sunday school teachers to be soul winners.
VI. We need to pray for our spiritual leaders.
Heb 13:7 Remember them which have the rule over
you, who have spoken unto you the word of God:
whose faith follow, considering the end of their
conversation.
A. Remember them how? I can’t think of a better way to remember
them than in prayer.
B. America has a problem with their spiritual leaders, both the
conservative and liberal ones.
1. Too many are just biding their time.
a. I don’t know what we are waiting on.
(1) It’s not revival.
(2) It’s not the return of Jesus.
b. Maybe they are just holding on to retirement.
2. Whatever it is we are waiting on, we are not doing much of
anything for Jesus while we wait.
a. Some churches have not met with any regularity since
March. Some may not have at all.
b. Even before that, many were down to two or even one
service each week.
3. When they do meet, it is not to preach and teach the Word
of God.
a. When I say that, I don’t mean they are too quite.
b. Volume doesn’t make a sermon good. Content does.
c. Personally, I try to vary my preaching volume because
I would rather listen to a preacher that changes
things up more than I would one who is monotone; but
the volume does not make the sermon good.
d. We need preachers that will take the Word of God and
put it down on the bottom shelf where the simple
minded people can get it.
e. But they need to take all of the Bible and do that,
even the parts our world does not want to hear.
(1) The part that condemns homosexuality…
(2) The part that condemns adultery…
(3) The part that demands work out of able bodied
workers…
(4) The part that commands we love of all people,
regardless of race and color….
(5) The part that commands holy living, sold-out
living, surrendered living….
C. We need to be praying that God would send us these kinds of
preachers, and we need to remind God to take care of them and
to bless them.
VI. We are to pray for our enemies.
Mt 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you;
VII. We are to pray for wisdom.
Jas 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
VIII. We are to pray for those sick and afflicted.
Jas 5:13 Is any among you afflicted? let him
pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the
elders of the church; and let them pray over him,
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord
IX. We are to pray for all people everywhere and for political
leaders which have the rule over us.
1Tim 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all,
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving
of thanks, be made for all men;
2 For kings, and for all that are in authority;
that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in
all godliness and honesty.
Is this list complete? Hardly. Who would not want to pray for their
mates, children, extended family, co-workers, political hot spots,
and regular difficulties of life. This is list is just partial and
just the beginning; but in praying, we definitely should to pray for
these things.
And let us remember, as long as the world has people and needs, there
is always someone or something for which we might pray.
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