What is the Straightened Way? Part 5

Introduction: The Context of Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday evening, September 4th, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now may I urge you to turn with me to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and follow as I read what to many of you are very familiar words, Matthew chapter 6, and I shall read in your hearing verses 5 through 15, Matthew chapter 6, beginning with verse 5.

0:47 In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, in which our Lord Jesus is dealing with what we might call the external disciplines of the religious life of the sons and daughters of the kingdom, he is contrasting the manner in which the Pharisees performed. He is contrasting these external religious disciplines and duties with the manner in which his own people ought to perform them. And in that setting he says to his people, and when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets.

1:37 If they may be seen of men, verily I say unto you, they have received their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who is in secret shall recompense you. And in praying, do not use, vain repetitions as the Gentiles do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Do not, therefore, be like unto them, for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask him. After this manner, therefore, do you pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors,

2:59 and bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 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. Now let us again pray and ask that God will bless our meditation upon his own holy and infallible word.

3:38 Our Father, we thank you again for the privilege of opening our Bible, Bibles, held in our hands in a language that is our own. Thank you that we have had the privilege of being reared in a culture and in a setting in which being made to read was part of our common experience. We thank you for those who have paid a dear price that we might have the scriptures in our commentaries. We thank you that you have given us this great privilege, and we ask that having given us this great privilege, you would now give us the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds, to move our hearts, to go out to your word in faith and in a disposition of obedience. We would cry with young Samuel, Speak, Lord, for your servant is here. Speak, Lord, for your servant is here. Speak, Lord, for your servant is here.

4:46 Speak, Lord, for your servant is here. In Jesus' name, amen.

The Christian's Responsibility for Self-Examination

4:55 It is both a blessed privilege as well as an awesome responsibility to take upon oneself the name of a Christian. The scriptures clearly teach us that there are many who avail themselves of this privilege and undertake this responsibility who really have no right to do. so because they are strangers to that gracious, powerful work of God's grace, which alone can make a man or woman a Christian in experience as well as in name and profession. Therefore, it should be of concern to each one of us who names the name of Christ to obey the biblical mandate given to us in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, where we are told to examine ourselves, to prove our own selves, to know our own selves whether we are in the faith.

6:09 And for a number of Lord's Days, we have been examining various portions of the Word of God in an effort to help us to examine ourselves. By the way, we have been examining various portions of the Word of God in an effort to examine ourselves by faith. By the objective standard of the Word of God. And in recent weeks, Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14 has been the focal point of our meditation and exposition of the Scriptures.

Defining the Third Aspect of the Restricted Way: Gospel Holiness

6:39 This morning, we began an examination of what we have called the third aspect of this compressed or restricted way, which according to our Lord Jesus in Matthew 7, leads unto life. And I set that description before you in this way. If entering through the narrow door involves renouncing from the heart the mastery and the practice of sin as a pattern of life, then the restricted way in this third aspect is living in the restricted way. It is living in the reality of freedom from the dominion of sin and in the practice of mortifying remaining sin. Or stated positively, it is living under the dominion of righteousness and becoming increasingly conformed to the image of Christ. Or stated most simply, it is being found in the way of gospel holiness. And having given that description of the third aspect of the compressed or the restricted

7:59 way, I then began a demonstration of the biblical basis of that description by directing your attention to the specific teaching of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. And in the opening up of that line of thought, we considered the identity of the inroads, people of god first of all in their fundamental character traits we see those in the beatitudes and in their radical distinction from the rest of the world they are called salt and light and now for our brief meditation this evening in preparation for the lord's table we want to go on from considering as a biblical demonstration of this description of this third aspect of the way what our lord tells us in the sermon on the mount not concerning the identity of the people of god but the activity of the people of god and that in two areas in their prayers and in their overall pattern of life you

Prayer as a Manifestation of Gospel Holiness: Primary Concerns

9:17 here in matthew chapter six we have our lord saying after this manner you shall pray now remember the setting he has said to his own that whatever marks their prayers they are not to be hypocritical prayers they are not to be prayers prayed with a view to the eyes of our fellow men but rather with a with a with a with a view to the eye and to the ear of our father who sees and hears in secret and furthermore they are not to be hypocritical prayers in that they are to be an expression of the true desires of the heart for in other settings such as matthew fifteen our lord flatly condemns the drawing near with the mouth that is not an act of the heart for in and of himself for a wax against the state of the hearth in vain do these people the umblest supplication for an are to me up if you only but their hearts are far are so the it

10:40 the 21 and pattern your prayers should be ordered, it is to be assumed that the petitions that he puts into the lips of his people are indeed resonating with the deepest yearning of the hearts of his people. For Jesus to place petitions on the lips of his people that find no answer in the basic state and condition and longing of the hearts of his people would be to have our Lord formally encourage hypocrisy. That our Lord never did. And so we can see that our description of this third aspect of the narrow, the pressured, the restricted way, is indeed rooted in the teaching of the Word of God. Particularly here in the Sermon on the Mount, not only when we behold the people of God in their identity, as we see them in the Beatitudes, in their character traits, as light and salt in distinction from the rest of the world,

12:07 but in their prayers. And I want to assert that when Jesus said, After this man, No one can pray prayers framed by the perspectives of the words of our Lord Jesus unless he or she is living as one who has embraced the reign of righteousness and yearns for conformity to likeness to Christ. Unless one is living in the liberty of freedom from sins, sins, dominion, and committed to a life of mortifying sins, the vast majority of these prayers are sheer hypocrisy upon his lips. Notice the introductory concerns. We might call them the primary concerns that ought to characterize our prayers. And then the secondary category of concerns.

13:11 What are the primary concerns? What are the primary concerns of our prayers? What ought they to be according to our Lord? Verse 9.

13:21 After this manner, therefore, pray. Our Father who art in the heaven, hallowed, sanctified, may your name, which is the revelation of your person, be set apart as holy and honored, and adored, and revered. O my Father in heaven, may men know something of the glorious God that you are, and give to you the due regard of your glorious being. Hallowed be your name.

14:05 Your kingdom come. Your rule in the hearts of men. Your government established in the hearts, and lives of men. Your throne rights embraced from the heart, and worked out into every facet of life.

14:25 Your kingdom come here and now as the kingdom of grace. Then in the future as the kingdom of glory, in the new heavens, in the new earth, wherein alone will dwell righteousness.

14:46 Then he goes on to say, after this manner, pray. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done as in heaven, so on earth.

15:00 Lord, may men and women individually come to the place where they so love the revelation of your mind and purpose for them, that they do your will with the alacrity of angels and of seraphim, no angel given some physical embodiment to perform a task at the bidding of God our Heavenly Father ever stuck out his lower lip in grudging response to any intimation of the will of God from heaven. Never. With enthusiastic abandonment, with sanctifying, with unified alacrity, they do the will of God with joy. They do it with all of their being. And we pray, may your will be done as in heaven, so upon earth. The prayer is sheer hypocrisy if we're not asking for that first of all in our own hearts, and then in the hearts of those within our families, within our congregations, that the triumphs of the gospel would be such as to make them known to the world, as to bring that to pass in the hearts of multitudes of men and women throughout the world.

16:25 Now I ask you, I ask in the deepest theater of your own conscience, can anyone truly earnestly pray for the sanctifying of God's name as his primary concern in prayer, the advancement of God's kingdom and the doing of God's will, who is still under sin's dominion and committed to the practice of sin as a way of life? It is impossible. For to live under sin's dominion is to be indifferent to the honor of God's name. One of the great indictments of the prophet Nathaniel to David when he sinned so tragically in the case of Bathsheba and of her husband, God says the chastisements that are coming upon you are coming upon you because in these deeds you've given the enemies of Jehovah occasion to blaspheme. You despised me. You despised my name. No one for whom sin is his willingly embraced master and to whom sin is the pattern of life can ever pray from the heart,

17:52 hallowed be your name. For nothing so degrades the name of God when man made in his image to reflect his glory gives himself to that which is the opposite of his glory for all have sinned and come short of what? The glory of God. And so those who pray such a prayer are in the way, the compressed, that pressured, that restricted way that leads to life.

18:26 They are manifesting that they are free from the dominion of sin, that they are committed to the ongoing mortification of sin. They've embraced the reign of righteousness. They long for conformity to God as revealed in Christ. They're in the way of gospel holiness.

18:46 And it is in that way that God's name is hallowed and honored. And they are praying that his name be sanctified. And how can anyone earnestly pray for the advancement of God's kingdom who hates the king? And the disposition of every man, woman, boy or girl by nature is expressed in the language of Luke 19.14.

19:10 We will not have this man to rule over us. Every man's heart by nature is a massive, clenched fist in the face of God. Romans 8.7 Carnal mind is enmity against God.

19:28 It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. When Jesus says, after this manner pray, he's assuming that all the true subjects of his kingdom have come to embrace the sweet sovereignty of the king. They love his scepter. They have kissed the sun.

19:49 They have bowed in homage, in faith and submission. In the language of the hymn we just finished singing, they have offered up themselves to the king. And knowing the blessedness of being within that kingdom and the blessedness of the reign of Christ in their own hearts, they long to see that kingdom extended and that kingdom and that kingdom consummated. You see, no one can truly pray the Lord's prayer who's not in the narrow way that leads unto life, that restricted, that pressured way that leads unto life.

20:33 And likewise with the petition, may your will be done as in heaven, so on earth, whatever God's revealed will is, it is always productive of holiness and of righteousness. Always. Never productive of sin and of unrighteousness. Never.

20:56 And therefore to pray may your will be done as in heaven, so upon earth, is to pray the prayer that only a man or woman who is in the way of gospel holiness can truly pray. And so I would rest my case for this description of the third aspect of the way, not only upon the character description of the sons and daughters of the kingdom in the Beatitudes, and then the description of what they are in relationship to the rest of the world, light and salt, but in their activity, an activity so basic as prayer, they cannot pray the prayers that ought to be their primary concerns, unless they are those in whom the dominion of sin has been broken, and for whom holiness is the conscious and delightful pursuit of the heart. But then what's the second major category of concern? Sandwiched in between the first and the second is one request for personal temporal needs. Verse 11, Give us this day our daily bread.

Prayer as a Manifestation of Gospel Holiness: Secondary Concerns

22:12 If we are to be involved in hallowing your name, in the extension of your kingdom, in the accomplishment of your will, Lord, we are yet creatures in the body. We need bodily nourishment and strength and protection, so Lord, in the pursuit of these things, give us this day our daily bread. And then our Lord launches into the second major category that ought to be the concentration of our prayers. And what is it?

22:43 Look at the petitions. Forgive our debts. In the parallel passage in Luke, forgive our trespasses. It's speaking of our violations of the law of God, which place us in debt to God.

23:02 Forgive us our debt. Forgive us our trespasses. Bring us not into temptation. And here in the context, temptation is not trial in general, which may be the occasion of the sin of murmuring or complaining against God, but it is enticement to sin.

23:32 Lord, do not bring us into circumstances where this tinderbox of the dry leaves of remaining sin within will come into close proximity to live glowing sparks. Bring us not into temptation, but should we, in obedience to your word, be brought into such a situation, deliver us from evil, that is the evil that would come if we succumb to temptation, or the evil one, the devil, who working by and with and behind our temptation would gain an advantage over us. But in any case, it's interesting that these three petitions that follow the transition petition about daily bread all focus on the issue of sin. I didn't put it there. Say in your prayer this manner pray, clearly assuming that among his true subjects

25:00 the sin of their heart next to the honor of God's name, the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will, is the pursuit of personal holiness. Forgive the sins that dishonor you, that would cloud my conscious joyful communion with you. Forgive our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, as forgiven sinners. We are quick and glad to forgive our fellow sinners, but, O Lord, the forgiveness extended to them for their sins will not do to have your forgiveness extended to me for my sins. I would not regard iniquity in my heart and thereby not have my prayers heard, grieve and quench the spirit. He's assuming that those that are in the way, that leads unto life, are very fastidious about keeping short accounts with God about their own sins. Furthermore, he assumes that they are very conscious that they are in dangerous territory.

26:19 Remaining sin is still within them, and they know that every temptation is like a negative polarity to the positive polarity of remaining sin in their hearts. And they know there can be a thrawing and an affinity. They are praying that they may be preserved from any provocation to sin, but, should they come into such a situation, they are praying for grace to discover what Paul calls that way of escape, that we may be enabled by the grace of God to come away victors in the conflict. Now, dear people, I ask you the simple question, would Jesus put these kinds of petitions with these dominant emphases in the mouths of people only to advance them in hypocrisy? Where in the very context, he says, when you pray, don't be hypocrites! Well, you see, he would be promoting hypocrisy if in the heart of every son and daughter of the kingdom, there was not a fundamental disposition that beautifully coalesced and resonates in sympathy

27:47 with the thrust of these petitions. So he is assuming the subjects of his kingdom are a people in whom sin's dominion has been broken at the narrow gate, and they are living in the reality of that breaking of sin's dominion. They are a people determined to mortify sin, to keep short accounts with God, to avoid sin, to pray for grace, to overcome sin. Surely, unless we would say our Lord doesn't know how to train his own followers with regard to the disciplines of their prayer life, we must acknowledge that he is assuming that all of the true subjects of his kingdom are such as we've described them. Those that are in the way that leads to life are in the way in which they love righteousness, and they long for the extension of the rule of righteousness, and they long in themselves to perform righteousness. And all that is contrary to righteousness, they abhor and grieve over it and ask forgiveness for it, and by way of anticipation

29:12 they pray that they may avoid being enticed into it and delivered from it. Do I persuade your conscience and your judgment, perhaps I should say your judgment and your conscience, that when I assert that that narrow way, that constricted, that pressured, that pleboized way, it stands straightened, compressed, and will never be made into anything else, is that way of gospel holiness, consistent with the patterns of prayer enjoined by our Lord Jesus Christ. If I haven't persuaded your judgment, my friend, I have no other ammunition. I believe you won't be persuaded. You refuse to be persuaded.

The Pattern of Life: Righteousness Exceeding the Pharisees

30:16 And if so, the very words of Christ that you've heard tonight shall meet you in the last day. But then, very briefly, not only is this description validated in the activity of the people of God when they pray, but in their pattern of life. And here I just commend to you beginning with verse 20 of chapter 5, a careful study, even a cursory study of the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with the words, I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. Can you imagine the shock effect this must have had upon the masses, trying to think of something that would be akin to it? The only illustration that came to mind was if we were to go down to the outdoor playgrounds in the area of Newark, or some of the boroughs of New York City where inner city kids gather and play ball from morning to night, and they're gathering together out of these playground basketball pickup teams, they're trying to gather together an all-star team in order to play a bunch of kids from other playgrounds in other inner cities, Chicago and Los Angeles, etc.

31:44 And someone comes along whose responsibility is to gather these together, and when he gets the kids together, he says, now look, we're going to talk about who's going to make the team, and except your height and weight and quickness and strength exceeds Shaquille O'Neal, you shall in no wise make the all-star team. Now for those of you who don't know who Shaquille O'Neal is, he's a man who's seven foot one or two. He's still growing. He's a boy.

32:20 He's only 23. He weighs 305 pounds. His ratio of body fat to muscle and bone is an amazing ratio for a man his size, quick as a cat, well coordinated. Now can you imagine what would happen to the spirits of all of these kids in the pickup playground basketball teams, each one of them hoping he might have a place on the team, and the recruiter and organizer says, except your height and weight and strength and skill and quickness exceed Shaq's, you cannot make the team.

33:04 Every kid would say, it's all over. How can I make myself seven one, 305 pounds? Impossible. That's the kind of effect these words would have had upon the original heroes.

33:19 The scribes and the Pharisees promoted themselves as the very pinnacle point of righteousness, conformity to the will of God. And the Lord is saying, except your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll in no wise enter the kingdom. You must have a righteousness that has a different foundation. A totally different framework.

33:45 A totally different point of reference as to standard and motivation. And throughout the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, he expounds in a sense the significance of verse 20. And as he describes the subjects of his kingdom, he describes in this those who are committed in the power of his grace to a pattern of righteousness. The remainder of time in chapter 5, he demonstrates it's a righteousness concerned with the spiritual intention of God's law which touches motives and looks and attitudes and words and not merely gross external deeds. It is a standard that has no less a goal than verse 48, the perfection of the moral character of the Father in heaven. You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Then in chapter 6, in the first half of the chapter, it's a righteousness when applied to religious exercises of giving, of praying, and of fasting, the disciplines of advancement of spiritual life.

35:04 It has primary regard not to the eyes of men but to the eye and to the ear of God. It is not mostly molded by the thinking of pagans but by the realities of the revelation of the largeness of God's heart. In verse 19 to the end of chapter 6, it is a righteousness in which the child of God, the son or daughter of the kingdom living in a world where he needs bread and clothing and a roof on his head does not set his heart upon earthly treasures but he seeks first the kingdom of God and what? And his righteousness. You can't escape it. Everywhere you turn, righteousness, righteousness, righteousness. And in chapter 7, they are described as a people far more concerned with their own personal attainment in righteousness than the failures of others not to attain.

36:11 Concerned far more to pluck out beings in their own eyes before they go speck hunting in the eyes of others. A righteousness that gives moral discernment about the appropriateness of bearing the truth of God to others. Verse 6, a righteousness marked by an earnest seeking from God the things that are promised by God. A righteousness that culminates in the description of chapter 7 in verse 24, everyone that hears these words of mine and does them shall be likened unto a wise man who built his house upon the rock. You see the pattern of life which no man in this life shall perfectly attain. But the pattern of life set forth in the Sermon on the Mount is one which our Lord assumes that the subjects of this kingdom shall pursue with all of their strength with all of their hearts seeking grace from God asking in the confidence that it should be given. Seeking forgiveness daily when they come short of that standard of righteousness but nonetheless pursuing it as the pattern of their lives.

37:36 Well how in the world can anyone do that unless the dominion of sin has been broken and commitment to sin as a pattern of life has been abandoned. And in that restricted way that leads unto life one is living out the blessedness of freedom from sin's dominion in virtue of union with Christ and in the power of His grace and of His Spirit. Seeking continually to put sin to death. Seeking continually to be more and more like our Father in heaven who is perfect.

Application to the Lord's Table: Gratitude and Perseverance

38:21 Now surely as we come to the Lord's table tonight the bridge from this addendum to this morning's ministry into the Lord's table should be clear to every discerning child of God if indeed the language of Matthew 6 in prayer does not stick in our throats. If we can from the heart pray Father hallowed be Your name Your kingdom come Your will be done if we can pray that prayer from the heart we know that it's only because God in grace has taken our natively self-centered God indifferent God defying God dishonoring disposition transformed it by His grace cleansed and washed up cleansed and washed us in the blood of His dear Son and here at the table we can reflect upon the blessed reality that if we can take something many of us heard from infancy the so-called Lord's Prayer and pray it from the heart it's because there was one willing to be immolated hung upon a cross stripped naked spat upon jeered and mocked

39:47 and make His own bosom the receptacle of the unleashed fury of the majesty of God's justice His being offended at a broken law and was willing to bear our sins in His own body upon the tree if we are for real if there is a pattern of life as well as the things we contemplated this morning that the identity of our character is indeed reflected in the Beatitudes then surely we should of all men and women be filled with gratitude saying all to Him I owe sin had left its crimson stain He washed it white as snow and we should take encouragement as we come to the table that in spite of the fact of our having been upon the way and feeling that it is indeed a pressured a restricted way and we'll go into more of that in our subsequent study what is there about this third principle that contributes to the restricted nature of the way but conscious that it is

41:13 and at times dispirited when we feel the power of indwelling sin raging like an inferno within our breasts and we wonder will we make it dear people Christ shed His blood according to Ephesians 5 that He might sanctify us having cleansed us and might present us to Himself He died to sanctify and to present us and the scripture says He shall see the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied in the language of Augustus top lady yea I to the end shall endure as sure as the promise is given and we might say though it doesn't rhyme as sure as the blood of Christ was shed more happy but not more secure the glorified spirits in heaven there are few things Satan hates more than a battle scarred warrior who has the gleam of certainty in his eye endure I shall be a monument in that day of the virtue and power of the blood

Exhortation to Unbelievers and Concluding Prayer

42:39 of the everlasting covenant oh may God give us that gleam in our eye that we may press on in the confidence that though the way is restricted and compressed and pressured that way leads to life and we shall know that life and I say in closing for any who can't pray the so called Lord's prayer you can pray those things from the heart if it said oh father in heaven give me lots of friends make me popular give me a good time make me happy give me a handsome husband give me a good looking wife give me a good job give me this give me that you could pray those prayers if you had warrant too but to pray God's name be hallowed God's kingdom come God's will be done forgive sin don't lead into temptation those are not the things of your concern my friend they better be for unless they are dying in your present state the very one who spoke them will say to you depart from me I never knew you they will cast you into outer darkness go to that one who can give you a heart to pray the very prayers he said his people ought to pray

44:08 and what better place to go to him than when he is set before us in the only physical emblems he warrants to represent that central work of redemptive grace and power bread and the fruit of the vine no crucifixes no stained glass windows no stations of the cross ordinary bread and the fruit of the vine the gospel comes through your eye gate tonight as well as the ear gate go to this Christ who himself can bring you through the gate and with you put you on the way and accompany you until he himself brings you at last into life if you're not for real to use the current terminology get real but not in any strength of your own but in the grace of the Lord Jesus let us pray our father we thank you for your holy word we thank you for its power to sanctify to illuminate to be the instrument in your hands to beget life in dead sinners and to promote and expand and refine and develop the life of your saints

45:35 may it have that blessed effect this night in this place to the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray Amen