For your faithful support of our ministry, and we are privileged to be missionaries that represent you to the Spanish speaking world. God's done some great things at EBI. This isn't the place to tell you all about that today, but God's been doing some amazing things, and our books are getting into more hands than ever before. We've shipped out about 75,000 books already this year and still got several months to go. We will finish publishing 15 new books this year, brand new books in addition to all the other ones that we have done for years, and things are going out all over the world.

Had a little bit of a scare with the supposed port strike because that would have brought up about 80% of our books go through ports that were on strike, but thankfully that was settled at least for now, and so our books still continue to come in from overseas and then to go back out overseas, and so we're blessed in that way. On the family front, I am super happy to tell you that after almost two years, Debbie's wound finally healed up, and she is doing really, really well. Her blood work and her different reports are coming in looking really excellent, so we're thankful for that. I don't know if I look a lot older to you this time, but since our last visit we received the word that we are going to be grandparents. So our daughter Elizabeth Forbes up in Williamsburg, Virginia.

She is expecting our first grandchild. I wouldn't have it any other way. I have two girls. I don't know about boys. I've never raised one.

We're going to have a granddaughter, so I'm super excited about that. She should be making her arrival in early March of next year. Elizabeth continues. She's an ER nurse for now, and her husband's a policeman, so life's always exciting for them. They live in Williamsburg, Virginia.

You know, it's a beautiful, beautiful area. Then our other daughter Olivia is studying to be a speech pathologist. She's doing her first couple of years at a local college right there, South Florida State College in Sebring. Then she's going to transfer over here to USF to finish her studies in speech pathology. She has just started working as a paraprofessional in the public schools, helping special needs children.

She is loving every minute of that, so we feel blessed as a family in those ways. Thank you for your prayers for our family, for EBI, for the ministry. God's doing great things, and we're just super excited about it. When I was thinking about what to speak on today, I think it was Friday that I heard from Pastor Rick, I so didn't have a ton of time to prepare. The first thing that popped into my mind was maybe I could speak on something that's very familiar with me because over the last three months in our church, over in Sebring, I've been teaching our young adults about prayer.

So we have been doing a long study on prayer, and then the thought entered my mind, Wow, since I have been studying prayer, since it is fresh on my mind, what better topic could we study two or three days before a hurricane comes than prayer? And so we have a lot of sadness. We have a lot of grief. We have a lot of loss that's going on here locally, but also all over North Carolina, Tennessee, other places where we've seen devastation like we've never seen before. And I don't know if you happen to have seen it.

I saw a video last night from a news show where a mother, a lady and her sister, they were being interviewed. She had spent five hours in the water overflowing in a river. And she had been on the roof of her house with her parents and with her son. I think he was seven years old. They thought they were safe because they had gotten up on the roof of the house.

The water was literally up to the roof. She took a picture that was quite scary looking to me, but they felt that they were safe up there because they were high enough up. The house began to break apart, and they were washed downstream. Her parents and her seven year old son died. She was being washed through the water, and she said she got caught into some trees.

She was trying to hold onto them, and she said that it was like the Lord spoke to her and said, Just let go, Just let go, and you are going to be safe. And she said, I had so much peace knowing that she had lost her son, didn't know what had happened to him, knowing that her parents had been washed away. She said the last words that she remembered hearing her son saying was he was calling out to Jesus. Then she spoke there and the newscasters, they tend to be super rigid and professional, they just broke down. They could not even hardly finish the interview.

It was a wonderful testimony of God's grace to this family that had lost so much. And so I think those type of things come out of tragedy, come out of sadness. God's name was glorified despite that horrible situation, and she was able to praise the Lord even after losing so much. So as we think about prayer today, I think it's important for us to learn that this is something that we can apply and something that we should have as a vital lifeline in our life. I read some statistics, and I'll skip boring you with them all, but it was overwhelming how many people, Christians, said they were not satisfied with their prayer life.

As a matter of fact, one statistic specifically said only eight percent of Christians felt like that their prayer life was where it should be. So that means the majority of us here today, if that's true, even though we may pray regularly, even though some of you are very fervent prayer warriors, people are not satisfied with their prayer life. To me, that's probably a good thing because that means we're still striving to do better, but it's something that we need to work on. And so we're going to look at a very familiar passage today and to try to make it as easy to remember as possible. If you have a pen, jot these things down.

I want us to look at an acrostic. You're be worried because you're going to hear this. You're to say, oh, no. This guy's long winded as it is. We're going to have six points today.

You're saying, oh my goodness, a six point message. I don't have a poem, though, so it'll be quick. But we're gonna spell out the word prayer, p r a y e r. And we're gonna look at the Lord's prayer today, and I hope that with this acrostic, it can help us to remember the importance of prayer and how we can effectively pray. You know, there's all kinds of things.

We all need prayer. But if you're like me, if we're really, really honest with ourselves, we probably find that it's very hard to pray sometimes. Why? Well, there's all kinds of distractions. You notice there's always noise everywhere we're at.

There's TVs on. There's radio playing. There's traffic. There's busyness all around us. So we have distractions.

We have so many obligations. We're so busy in our world that sometimes it's hard to find time to pray. And then we also sometimes are so discouraged or we're so lost in directionless in times in our lives that we don't even know the words to pray. We don't even know what to say. We're at a loss of words.

I hate to admit it, but sometimes I'll have something that's burdening me. Before I go to bed at night, as I lay down to bed, I'm praying. And you know what? I find myself falling asleep. These things happen to us.

We're praying and there's so much going on that we sometimes have a hard time not daydreaming. We're praying, we're talking to the Lord, and then next thing you know our mind's racing to something else. It's something that we all will struggle with from time to time because we live in a fallen world, and we have a sin nature. But today, I want you to turn with me to Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six, and we're going to look at the Lord's prayer.

It's often called the model prayer. And what better example for us to follow than Jesus, the person of Jesus? Jesus even tells us to follow his prayer almost like a template, a model, an example for our conversation with God. Now Matthew chapter six is part of Jesus' sermon on the mount, and it's some of the most comprehensive teaching that we have recorded in Scripture from Jesus himself. And it's filled with all kinds of examples.

It's filled with illustrations. It's filled with instructions for followers of Christ. And here in chapter six, as part of the Sermon on the Mount, we find these instructions for believers to follow when it comes to how they should pray. And, we're gonna read this in just a second. You are familiar with it.

We probably all have it actually memorized, but yet we may not be using it as the model that we should be. And so look with me, if you would, at Matthew chapter six, and I am going to start reading a little before in verse five. And it says, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.

And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to the father which is in secret, and the and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Verse seven. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him. And now he's telling us here in verse number nine, okay, here's your template because he says, after this manner, in other words, in the way I'm showing you, therefore pray ye, our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in 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 evil For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Verse 14, it it continues.

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Let's remember that Jesus did not give his followers this prayer to be mindlessly repeated. I don't want to sound critical of anyone, but I can tell you we lived in Peru, and culturally, almost all Peruvians have the Lord's Prayer memorized. In Spanish they call it Padre Nuestro, which is just Our Father is what they call it.

They call it the Padre Nuestro. They repeat it and they will have a public event and they will repeat it. It is almost like you could picture a bunch of zombies. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be their name. And they are not even thinking about it.

They are mindlessly repeating it. So there is no magic formula to these words. These are not some kind of sacred words. They're sacred because they came from Christ, but he didn't want them just to mindlessly repeat them without thinking of the significance of them. God is far more concerned with our heart when we pray than with our specific words.

And back in verse five, six, and seven, we can see that because he says to them there, don't pray like the hypocrites. They're standing in synagogues. What are they doing? They wanted people to be impressed with their prayers. So they would get up and they would speak very eloquently.

Maybe they prayed for a really long time. It is said they had vain repetitions. You know, I never thought about this, again, this is not I don't want to criticize somebody, but it's funny because if we are not careful in churches, we tend to repeat things that we hear other people pray. It is almost like Christian poetry or something like that. I had a young person ask me one time.

They said, Every time I hear people in the church pray, they say, God, lead, guide and direct us. Maybe you have heard people pray that. This young person said, What is the difference between lead, guide and direct? Isn't that the same thing? I was like, Well, you know, that is kind of true.

There is nothing wrong with saying lead, guide and direct, but do we really think about the words we are saying? Another thing that we often hearnothing wrong with this. If you say this, I say it too. But we're praying for an offering, and what do we often say? Lord, bless the gift and the giver.

Right? There's nothing wrong with saying that, but are we really thinking about it or have we just heard it so many times? A lot of times I start off praying and I say, Dear Lord, thank you for this day. Right? We thank the Lord for the day that we have.

That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But are we truly thinking about the words? And so he goes on there telling the, in verse five, six, seven, he's talking about how they're they're like hypocrites. They wanna be seen of men.

And and then he says, really, in verse seven, but when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heath heathen do. We wanna make sure that our prayers are heartfelt. God's more concerned with our attitude, than he is our specific words. So I want us to look, and I've tried to pull out from the Lord's prayer, this little acrostic of the word prayer, some things that jump out to me to help us see what was in Jesus' model prayer. Look at verse nine, and it says, our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

The p that I have written down that I want us to remember is praise God's holiness. Praise God's holiness. An important aspect in our prayers should be praise to our father. It should be praise to him. Now, what does it mean to call God father, and how does that relationship influence our prayers?

Well, Jesus is showing us through his prayer who we're addressing our prayers to. So they're going to God the father. Now who's receiving our prayers? What I like to think of it as when we pray, we're praying to God the father. We're praying through Jesus because he's like our lawyer.

He's our intercessor. He's there, he's listening to the prayers. It's almost like playing telephone. We're praying to God the Father, but we we and Jesus intercedes on our behalf. He's representing us at at the right hand of God the Father.

And then the Holy Spirit is helping us. He is enabling us to know what to pray and how to pray. And so when we pray, we should praise God and recognize his holiness. Now, I doubt that most of us use the word hallowed anymore, but that idea that God is holy, that he is sinless, and that he's perfect. He is set apart, that he is different.

And I often like to use the example of set apart or sanctified. We go to a sanctuary, like this is our sanctuary, a place where we gather to study without distractions. And that's why it's kinda nice that this church doesn't have windows. Why? Because we're not distracted looking outside.

We have a quiet environment. Why? So we can concentrate. Because it is a place to be set apart to worship God. Well, is like the idea of special dishes.

So if you come to our house every day, we have these blue plastic dishes that we bought at Walmart. I think they were 25¢ a plate or something like that. We love those things. Why? Because when you're done, can throw them in the sink until you get a chance to put them in the dishwasher.

Nothing's gonna break. Well, they're fine. They're nice, pretty color blue, but they're cheap. I mean, they're cheap. They're just a step above disposable, know, but that's, hey, that's what we eat off most of the time.

And then we decided we don't have fancy China dishes, but we have some Corel ware, plain white Corel dishes, nothing fancy. But if we have company come over, we are not going to serve them on the blue plastic dishes, which by the way, some of them have little melt marks in them from where they have been microwaved, you know? But anyway, we save those for the family, but the nice dishes, or in your case, some of you ladies might have China, that is set apart for a specific purpose. Well, that's that idea of hallowed. The name of God is sanctified.

It's set apart. God is set apart from us. He's hid from our eyes right now physically, but we respect him because of his holiness, his lack of sin. He's set apart, in in purity. And so who do we pray to?

We pray and we praise God because of that. So we shouldn't go into prayer flippantly. We should have this reverence. We shouldn't go praying irreverently to Him. And it really should draw us to reflect on the privilege we have to actually pray, that we get to go into the throne room of the creator God.

We should praise his holiness. I'm going to show my redneck side a little bit, but I'll give you an example of this. Alright, so I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia. I'm a good mountain boy. And most of my Saturday nights in the summer growing up, we went to car races.

I've been to all probably thousands of car races. Used to love car racing. For me, I grew up, I was not a sports fan in any other way. If it had a motor in it, then I was a fan of it. If it didn't, I'm not a sports person.

My dad wasn't either. We went to anything, swamp buggy races and drag races and tractor pulls, and if it had a motor, we've been to it. Anyhow, who were our heroes? Race car drivers. I remember waiting in line to get Dale Earnhardt's signature and autograph, have my picture made with him.

Richard Petty, I got my picture made with Richard Petty and have his autograph. Just about every NASCAR driver I have at one time or another waited in line to get their autographer to shake their hand or have my picture made with them. Now to continue my redneck side, one time Debbie and I were in Nashville, Tennessee, and years ago there used to be the Nashville Network. Some of y'all remember that TV channel. And they had a show called Nashville Now, I think it was.

We were over there, so we went to a taping of Nashville Now, and we were like, Oh, wonder what singer is going to be on here, somebody famous. There wasn't a single good person on there that night. We picked the worst night ever. The host of the show was Gary Chapman, and he was a singer, I think. He was hostingI wish it had been Ralph Emery, the longtime host of the showbut it was this guy, Gary Chapman.

So after the show was taped, they would let you go up on the stage, and they had a little couch where he would interview people and a little set. He would sit down. They would let you go up there and take your picture with him. Well, why do I tell you this? Have you ever noticed if you get the chance to meet somebody that is a celebrity, you almost kind of have this excitement, Oh, get to meet this person.

You almost feel like this reverence, like, Oh, I am getting to go talk to this guy I have seen on TV. It would be like if I got to go meet the President of The United States. I do not like many politicians anymore, but if I got to meet any President, I probably would do it just to say I to meet the president of The United States. What am I going to do? If I am going to go see a celebrity, if I would have been able to meet Billy Graham, if I get to meet the president of The United States, if I got to meet the king of England, am I going to walk in there chewing gum, slapping my lips, Hey, boys, good to see you.

No, I am going to go in. I am going to try to be all prim and proper. I am going to try to be reverent. Well, that is kind of the idea. We have to mix this because we are talking to our heavenly Father.

In scripture sometimes, he is even called Abba Father. It is like daddy, father. So I want to approach God the way I hope my daughters approach me. He is a loving heavenly Father. We do need to look at Him as a mean God that is ready to strike us down in wrath.

But on the other hand, we have to mix that, that we do not go to Him flippantly. We do not go to Him and just say, Yeah, by the way, I want to pray for this, and I'm going go about my busy day. And so I think God is showing us through Jesus that we need to praise his holy name. It's a cheap illustration to say that God is compared to a NASCAR driver or Now star. But if we change our demeanor just when we stand in front of a supposed celebrity, how much more should our attitude change when we get to go before the very creator, God?

We need to go in and praise his name. You don't have to turn there, but this idea of God's holiness is all through scripture. Psalm 30 and verse four says, sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. And then in Isaiah six:three it says, And one cried unto another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

And so we can see that that God the Father is holy. He's set apart from a sinful world. Now let's move on. The second thing I see is in verse 10, and that is the r of prayer. And I'm gonna call that request God's kingdom.

Request God's kingdom. In verse 10, the very first part says, thy kingdom come. Now in Jesus' model prayer, he's saying, thy kingdom come. What do you think it means for God's kingdom to come? Well, me, I want us to realize as believers, the best is yet to come.

Some of you have gone through some very difficult things these weeks, this week. Perhaps we're all gonna go through some very, very difficult things. And if this was all we had to live for, it would be a pretty sad life. It would be pretty difficult. Even on the best days, we all have challenges.

We have financial challenges, we have health challenges, we have relationship challenges, we have sin challenges. But he says here, Thy kingdom come, because I think the best is yet to come for us as Christians. God's kingdom here on earth is not fully established. That's to come in the future when Christ will reign here on earth in a new heaven and a new earth. Is something that we as Christians should look forward to, that his kingdom will come and Jesus requested as we do.

I like what one commentary said. Let me read this. One component of Christ's training in prayer involves understanding that God's kingdom has not yet been wholly fulfilled on this earth. The kingdom come is not just an expectant yearning for the coming of Christ in the future, even though this longing is contained in the plea. But thy kingdom come also expresses the prayerful desire of Christ's service to see God's kingdom broaden and become increasingly established throughout the world in the here and now.

When we pray this, we are really desiring the Lord's dominion or the Lord's control over our life. Lord, let your kingdom come in me. When we pray this, we are asking God to help us to be faithful, to be authentic, to be obedient Christians. As God says, as I am holy, be ye holy. Just as He is holy, may we be holy.

One John three ten says, In this the children of God are manifest in the children of the Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. And then Matthew seven sixteen, just a page or two over, you'll know this, You shall know them by their fruits. And so if God's kingdom has really come, if it is coming in the future, it is going to start in our own lives. May people see that through us. I could ask, and I definitely don't want to get into politics.

I think we are all sick of it, and we have, what, a month left of this until maybe the politics will die down a little bit. It is kind of funny because, again, not talking politics, but let's just imagine, have you noticed how many Trump fans are really big Trump fans? How do you know somebody is a Trump fan? They have flags. They have stickers.

They have banners. They wear shirts. They wear hats. I have a friend that I knew in my youth group growing up, and he actually, his job, he drives this RV around that is full of Trump merchandise, and he goes places. And all he does is sell Trump merchandise.

He stays so busy, he can't hardly keep the thing stocked. Well, anyway, I find that interesting. How do you know somebody is a Florida State fan? They got a bumper sticker. They got a shirt.

They got a banner. They got a flag. How do you know somebody is a Dale Earnhardt fan? They got a shirt, they got a flag, they got a banner. For us, do people even know we are Christians?

Now, can we fly a banner? Sure. Can we put up a Christian flag? Sure. But I think the way the world sees us, when we see thy kingdom come, people should see that banner, that flag, that shirt, that hat is us.

The people in a lost and dying world, they're going to see Christ through us. And so part of our prayer is we praise God and then we request that his kingdom come and it's going to start with us. Another commentary says, as believers in Jesus, we acknowledge God as our king. Praying thy kingdom come means we desire for his sovereign rule over our lives here on earth as we submit to his authority and yield to his control in every aspect of our existence. Likewise, praying thy kingdom come means we earnestly yearn for God's reign to be established through the whole earth and over every human being.

We pray thy kingdom come so that God's sovereign rule will come now and in the future in its fullness and permanence. And so another way I see it, God's kingdom will be established. We are simply confirming our belief in it. We're committing ourselves to it. We're sanctifying ourselves for it.

Thy kingdom come. The A in prayer align with God's will. Look at verse 10 and the second part. It says, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Now this is a tricky thing for us because what is God's will?

Do you ever find yourself doubting God's will, doubting the things that God allows? Wouldn't it be interest not interest wouldn't it be tempting for us to say, How could a loving God, a holy God, a perfect God, an all knowing God, how could he let a hurricane hit my neighborhood? What about the lady that lost her parents and her seven year son? A seven year old son, that could not be God's will. How could a loving God allow that to happen?

Well, God's will will be accomplished, and God's will is always right. And so when we pray, we are helping to conform our mind and accept that God's will is always perfect. He will receive the glory. And in the end, even though we don't see it, God can use it for our good as well. Now, I could spend a whole month of lessons on this.

But let me just really quickly, I just jotted down here some notes on how can we discern God's will in our lives. And I'm just going to basically read this off to us. First thing is we pray for guidance. We should be asking God for clarity, for wisdom in every decision we have in life. James one:five says, 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.

So the first thing, if we want to know God's will, we pray and ask for it, and we ask for guidance, and we pray for wisdom. And I like where it says there, if we ask, God is gonna give it liberally, so he's gonna pass it out just like somebody that wants to be generous. But when we pray for wisdom, it says, upbraideth not. And the idea is he doesn't criticize us. He does not look down on us and say, how foolish you mortals down there.

He is not going to criticize us. He is going to be generous in bestowing wisdom. Pray for it. How else do we discern God's will? We study the Bible.

Psalm one nineteen one zero five says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Heaven forbid. I hope we don't lose power over the next few days, but I think we all know we probably will. So what did we do? Yesterday morning, we got up early.

We went and we made sure we had plenty of candles. We bought some extra candles. We have an oil lamp. We made sure we knew where it was and we made sure we had some batteries. Are charging everything we could possibly think of to charge up in the house and we are trying to make sure we are ready.

Well, this verse, I wears a lamp unto my feet. Why did I get the candles? Why do I check my flashlight? Why do I get batteries? Because I need to have a light to see where I'm going.

I even have one of these little things you could put around your head. You probably see it's like this headlight. And I never thought I'd do something like that till I lived in Florida and found out how dark it can be. When everybody's lights out and I'm looking for something and when I've hidden the candles too well and can't find them, then you need that little headlight, which at least I know where that is. And so when we pray, when we study the Bible, just as effective as that light is to help me see where I'm going, God's Word is a light for me.

This week when our lights go out, think about reading your Bible. How else do we know God's will? We seek wise counsel. This is one of the reasons why God blessed you with a pastor that's been here for nineteen years. If you lack wisdom, if you lack direction, if you need help on something, pray, read God's word, but go to your pastor.

Go to a wise person that you know, someone here or someone that you know in your life that is a godly person that can give wise counsel. Proverbs fifteen twenty two says, without counsel, purposes are disappointed, but in the multitude of counselors, they are established. So go to someone with experience, someone that has got wisdom in spiritual things. How else do we know God's will? We find your gifts.

First Corinthians 12 says, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit and there are differences of administrations, the same Lord and there are diversities of operations, but is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit. So the idea is, if you want to know God's will, have to be actively working to find it. So I probably use this illustration here. Imagine a steering wheel of a car.

If a car is sitting out here in the parking lot, now of course modern cars, they lock when you turn the wheel, but just imagine that you are sitting in a car. My dad has a 'fifty seven Chevrolet. I do not think the wheels locked back then, steering wheels. You can sit in that car, and if you have to turn the steering wheel without the car moving, it is really hard to turn that wheel. You have got the friction of the tires.

But what happens if the car is barely rolling, even if it is just barely creeping rolling, and you turn the wheel, once it is rolling, it is very easy to steer a car. Well, I think of that as how we find God's will and how we work in life. If you say, I want to be used of the Lord in church, but I not know how I could be used. And you just show up and you sit in the pew and you never do anything, it is going to be like that steering wheel. It going be hard to turn.

But if you get actively involved in the church and you say, You know what? I am going to volunteer to help with the children. You show up and you come to the first time, the Vacation Bible School or Joy Club or work in the nursery or whatever. You show up, you volunteer, and the first week it is a disaster. The kids are screaming and hollering.

You feel like you are going to pull your hair out. You know what? That does not mean you are living in sin. Does not mean you are wrong. That means God just did not gift you in that way.

You are going to realize real quick, what? You are going to steer it the other way. Maybe if you say, Man, you know what? I am going to be better to help clean the church. You go to that and you say, Man, I enjoy this.

This is great. God can direct you, But if you just sit there and you do nothing, then it's hard for God. God can do anything, but it's going to be hard for you to discern how God is steering you. Find your gifts. Consider your life circumstances.

Romans eight twenty eight, we heard this morning. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose. I will be honest with you, I would have never dreamed in a million years that I would ever live in the state of Florida. I had only driven through Florida to fly out of Florida to go to South America. I had never been to Florida.

Well, guess I came to Disney World once as a kid. But I had really never been to Florida. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know there were so many cows and farms in Florida until I moved here. But here's the thing.

God used circumstances my life and in Debbie's life to bring us here. We love Florida now. We love it. But we have to have that perspective and look at our life circumstances. God used a terrible disease in Debbie's life to bring us to where we are now.

I would have never dreamed that I would work for a publishing house, and I had to learn skills, and I've had to learn things that I never thought I could do. But instead of looking at as a negative, Oh, we had to leave Peru, if we look at it with the proper perspective, we can see that God works out all these things. And so we need to make sure when we pray that we align, that's the A, align with God's will. Let's move on. The why of prayer.

Yearn for daily provision. Look at verse 11. Yearn for daily provision. Give us this day our daily bread. Now I'm long winded.

I already see it's noon. We've to fly. But because I'm long winded and I say daily bread, what are you all thinking about? Lunch, right? We think about Panera Bread.

Don't you love when somebody's baking fresh bread in the house the way it smells? Oh man, it's fantastic. I saw somebody had a candle once that was supposed to smell like fresh bread, and I was like, Man, if I ate that thing, would want bread all the time. I'd weigh five hundred pounds because it smells so good. Well, daily bread, yes, God provides the food that we need.

That's what we're first going to think of, literally food. But what else could daily bread mean? It is the things that we need for survival. It is our needs. It is our physical needs.

It is our homes. It is our emotional well-being as well. Remember we have this picture of a good shepherd found in scripture, and throughout the Psalms we see this idea of the good shepherd. And what does a good shepherd do? He doesn't just provide food for his sheep, he protects them.

He makes sure they're safe. They used to have big corrals made of stone that had a high enough wall and had one little opening. They would herd the sheep in there at night when it was dangerous out, where they should not be out. And where did the good shepherd sleep? In that little doorway to make sure that no animal, no wolf, no enemy could come in and attack the sheep.

We have a Good Shepherd, God, that wants to provide for all of our needs. Matthew six thirty three, right here at this passage, basically says, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. When we pray, it's okay for us to yearn and ask for God's provision. Look at the e of prayer. Embrace forgiveness.

Now this is where it gets hard. It's not in our human nature to forgive people. Look at verse 12. It says, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Verse 14 says, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if you forgive not men their debts or trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Why do you think it's important for us to, if we ask for forgiveness ourselves, to extend forgiveness to others? Well, first of all, if we are asking forgiveness, we ought to really think about what God the Father has done, how much He forgives us. First John one:nine tells us, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All the sinful things that we do, all the things that led Christ to be hung on the cross and to suffer and to die is because of our sin.

And yet God was willing to forgive us. Matthew five twenty three says, therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there remembers that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, go thy way, First, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. That's an interesting verse because the idea is people come and say, okay, I'm going to worship God. In those days, they worshiped God often by bringing a gift or an animal to sacrifice. And here they come with the sacrifice.

They are doing it. They are bringing gift to God. And it is like God says, Wait. If you have bitterness in your heart, it would be better for you to just kind of lay that aside, go settle it with that person, and then come and offer your sacrifice. Matthew five forty four, oh, this one is hard, especially in our world today, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Is that what we naturally do? Someone pulls up behind you at the stoplight and they blow the horn. Don't we want to bless them? They used to have this I wish this translated better in English. They used to have this sticker on the back of buses all over Peru, and it said something I'll try to translate this it said something along the lines of, Whatever you're asking God for me, may it be duplicated for you.

So really what they're saying is, if you're cursing me before God, may God doubly curse you, is kind of what they're saying. Well, that's kind of this idea here. That is our human nature. Someone cuts us off in traffic. I'm a male.

What's my first instinct? I'm going to pass them, get around them, and I'm going to cut them back off. Does it accomplish anything? No, but boy, I feel a lot better about it. Yesterday, we were running our errands, picking up supplies, this man was on a little motorcycle.

We were at a stoplight, there was a gas station, and there was just this tiny little gap. The light was just getting ready to change. The light changed, I started moving forward. The guy on the motorcycle rips right in front of me. We missed him by inches.

I said, Idiot. Debbie and Olivia were like, Man, that guy is crazy. He doesn't even have a helmet on. We are going down the road and he is cutting in and out of traffic. I am speeding up a little bit, and Olivia says, You want to keep up with him, don't you?

I was like, No, not really. I wanted to keep up with him. I really wanted to run right up on his bumper and be like, blow the horn. But that is not what God wants us to do. We are supposed to forgive people, and it is going to be really hard for us.

Now, it's one thing to talk about somebody in traffic a minute later, I was over, and I forgot about it. But if we hold bitterness in our hearts towards other people, if we're not willing to forgive them, it's going to damage our relationship with God. So make sure that we forgive. And then the r, the final one, request deliverance from evil. Request deliverance from evil.

Verse 13, the first part says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So here we have this idea. Once again, the Good Shepherd, he's protecting. He's providing them food. He's giving them water.

He's giving them the place to roam around and do what they need to do. But he is also protecting them. He is keeping them safe. We can go to our Good Shepherd and ask him to help us to avoid the evil that this world offers. When we are tempted, go to the Lord in prayer.

When we are frustrated, go to the Lord in prayer. When we want to retaliate against someone that has done us wrong, do not go with our natural instinct. Go to God and ask to be delivered from evil. First Corinthians ten thirteen says, there hath no temptation taken you but such is common to man. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that that ye are able, but will with the temptation, the guy on the motorcycle, the person that's frustrating you, make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it.

Request deliverance from evil. There we have six things that I see in Jesus' prayer, the Lord's prayer, the model prayer. I want to encourage us. Let's make sure that we remember that we have an advocate with the Father. Just like we see lawyers advertise nonstop on TV, they're there to represent you.

You can go to that lawyer. They're going help you get the best settlement you can get. We have an advocate with the heavenly Father, and that is Jesus. He goes on our behalf. And so when we pray, our prayers are delivered directly to the Creator God that is holy, that is perfect.

Let's go to Him in reverence with that. Don't look at the Lord's Prayer as something we simply memorize, but use it as a model, to bring God glory and to see success in our life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the wonderful example, the wonderful model, this template that we see of prayer right here in the Lord's Prayer. Father, I know that prayer is hard for us because we are fallen creatures.

We have distractions. We have attitudes. We have difficulties in our life. And Father, yet if we come to you, you can help us to work through these things. Help us to praise your name when we pray.

Help us to be thankful for the provision that you've given us. Help us to look for protection from evil. Help us to be willing to forgive others as you forgive us. Father, thank you for this model prayer. Father, we as a group of people here in Florida are going to face a difficult week.

Some people are still struggling from what they just went through. Help us to be mindful of this special prayer that we find here in Scripture and apply it to our own lives this week. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.