Mat 6:5-9; Seeking, Finding, and Receiving All of Your Needs.

Class Outline:

Sunday August 4, 2024

Title: MAT 6:5-9; Seeking, Finding, and Receiving All of Your Needs.

Idea: God wants you to ask for your needs, of which He is already aware, so that your relationship to Him becomes the ultimate need.

 

MAT 6:5-13.

 

God is invisible (MAT 6:6) therefore we must seek Him beyond whatever surface the unknowing settle for. 

 

“Your Father who is in secret” - He is invisible.

No surface knowledge will do. You have to know His heart.

 

If we saw, for instance, the burning bush or pillar of fire, or even an image of the Lord on His throne like Isaiah did, and we fell down and prostrated before Him, we would not know any more of Him than we did before. Isaiah had to be shown and told that his sin was forgiven.

 

We can lose sight of the Person of God if we become lost in certain attributes.

 

We seek love and somehow miss justice.

 

Prayer with the Invisible is a partnership with God in conversation, seeking to see what our natural eyes cannot see, (1CO 2:9). 

 

Seeking God in this way in prayer eliminates all elevation of method, word choice, publicity - it eliminates all elevation of self.

 

God is your Father and you are to address Him as such in prayer. (6:9; LUK 11:2)

 

Jesus has already assumed this multiple times: MAT 5:45, 48; 6:1, 4, 6 (2x), 8, 9, 14, 15, 18 (2x), 26, 32 (14x total - 2x7).

 

This is for believers, who by the blood of Christ, have been made sons through faith (JOH 1:12-13; ROM 8:15; GAL 3:26; 4:6-7). 

         

Addressing God as Father is not a formality, but a reality. It assumes a relationship that we all have to discover. A Father, as God would define, is a provider, a protector, instructor, and leader. He loves unconditionally, encourages, shares his thoughts, is loyal, forgiving, faithful, inspiring, dutiful, intelligent, courageous, kind, etc., etc.

         

We want to know how having God as your Father should affect your prayers. 

         

PHI 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

 

We get anxious about what we think we need.

 

Jesus was the first Jew to be calling Yahweh His Father.

 

No one in Israel went around calling God His Father until Jesus did. It was naturally seen as blasphemy, JOH 5:18. The position of Jesus to His Father was one of submission, JOH 5:19. So should it be for us all.

 

We don’t want to miss the “therefore” in MAT 6:9. He is referencing this prayer on what He has said about prayer - in secret with your Invisible Father, not occupied with self at all, not meaningless words, and that your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

 

The Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 

 

On the surface it is easy to conclude that there is no point in asking. That looks at prayer like a grocery list. Jesus tells us not to be anxious about the things we need to live physically (MAT 6:25 f.), but yet He still tells us to pray for them (6:11). He wants us to know that they are secured (logistical grace support) but He wants us never to forget where they come from, nor ever take them for granted, but to be grateful. But are these all of our needs? MAT 6:33. 

 

Your Father knows you need the groceries, the gas, the clothes, the rent / mortgage. He also knows that you need much more that is not of this world. The kingdom of God and His righteousness. Yet Jesus wants us to ask for these as well, even though they are going to happen with or without us. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

 

What is in the kingdom of God that has to do with our needs right now? The list is long. Love, joy, peace, truth, goodness, faithfulness, …

 

What is of the will of God that has to do with our needs right now? I think you can all answer that.

 

The Father knows what you need before you ask Him and then He tells you what to ask Him. He takes care of our every need.. 

 

Application: Our invisible Father is in secret (krupto). 

 

All secret lives, hypocritical ways, and hidden intentions are going to be brought to light by God at judgment, 1CO 4:5.

 

We pretended Christianity, and no one knew it. Likely neither did we. A very nice obituary was written and then everyone moved on. Does it matter? 

 

1CO 4:5

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God. 

 

“Things hidden” is the neuter plural adjective kruptos. Juxtaposition between light and darkness. Some day there will be no more darkness. Things that people have hidden will not remain there. (dark is genitive of kruptos = dark hidden things). 

 

God will make manifest (“disclose”) the “motives” (boule - counsel, intensions of the heart), and then every man shall have praise from God. 

 

The only way to be confident in that day is to seek the Lord now. In that day it will not matter what others thought, nor the reputation of your ministry, nor what even you thought of yourself (1CO 4:3). 

 

Now we have the open door to seek the Lord and His will by trust and obedience. By the cross we have complete forgiveness of all sin and revelation of God’s love for you. Jesus Christ has opened the door to you that enters into the audience chamber of the Father. He is teaching us to draw near in the only way proper and to not deceive ourselves into thinking that we are seeking God when we are not. 

 

Communion: Closing hymn: At Calvary by William Newell.

 

Years I spent in vanity and pride,

Caring not my Lord was crucified,

Knowing not it was for me He died

On Calvary.

 

The idea that THE event of the history of all the world happened for a person who went through life having no idea. It was for you He died.

 

In the second verse the man’s faith in the gospel, opens up the Scripture, where he learns the fear of the law. He trembles at the wrath of God that was going to be his, but for Calvary.

 

By God's Word at last my sin I learned;

Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned,

Till my guilty soul imploring turned

To Calvary.

 

Further understanding of the love of God that moved the Father to give His Son for us and joy replaces guilt.

 

Now I've giv'n to Jesus ev'rything,

Now I gladly own Him as my King,

Now my raptured soul can only sing

Of Calvary.

 

When we sit together at this table, our Lord’s Supper, we should remember how all of us were destined for wrath, and we should try to grasp at least a bit of what that may have been like. It will humble us all. No matter how rich, gifted, intelligent, revered you or anyone else was or is, without Christ, you are to be separated from God into the Lake of Fire forever. The façade of greatness or superiority melts before the heat of that sobering truth.

 

Then we should remember that through His cross (death, burial, and resurrection) we have life in Him forever. That should lift our hearts to joyous thanksgiving and further humility that we are nothing without Jesus Christ, and we can do nothing without Him.

 

He gave us a brief but deeply meaningful meal of bread and wine so that we could remember Him and His sacrifice for us together. Like the Lord’s Prayer, it is brief and eternally meaningful. The bread is His body, given for you. The cup is the new covenant in His blood, a death in judgment as a substitute for you so that all your sins would be forgiven and that someday you will enter into the kingdom of heaven.

 

1CO 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."  25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."  26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.