Sermon Quotes: "The Masterclass on Prayer"

“How we pray is as important a question as we can ever face. This prayer is a pattern for all Christian praying. Jesus is teaching that prayer will be acceptable when, and only when, the attitudes, thoughts, and desires expressed fit the pattern. That is to say: every prayer of ours should be a praying of the Lord’s Prayer in some shape or form…We never get beyond this prayer; not only is it the Lord’s first lesson in praying, it is all the other lessons too.” J.I. Packer

“When God in the Old Testament reveals that he has this name or that, he is using his name to reveal himself as he is. The names are explanatory, they are revelatory. God’s names include God the Most High, Almighty, I Am…And as we think of the character of God hidden behind these names, we are to pray, ‘Hallowed be your name.’” Don Carson

“Forgive us our debt does not mean that believers need to ask for daily justification, since believers are justified forever from the moment of initial saving faith. This is a prayer for restoration of personal fellowship with God when fellowship has been hindered by sin.” ESB Study Bible

“The idea of God ‘giving’ the food in no way diminishes the responsibility to work, but presupposes not only that Jesus disciples live one day at a time, but that all good things, even our ability to work and earn our food come from God’s hand (James 1:17). It is a lesson easily forgotten when wealth multiplies and absolute self-sufficiency is portrayed as a virtue.” Don Carson

“Some people consider God’s forgiveness to be unconditional, but it is not. Our forgiveness is conditioned upon our forgiving others. It is not a precondition, but it is an after-condition, an evidence, a fruit. It shows we are his. Its presence shows that we are passing on to others what we have received. Its absence calls our salvation into question.” Aaron Sironi

“Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offence against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. If on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offences of others, it proves that we have minimized our own.” John Stott

“Every morning we ought to wake up and say to ourselves, ‘There is a vicious, dark spiritual battle being waged over me today.’ Satan is very busy…” Christopher Ash