Lord's Prayer 6 - Becoming A Discerning Child Of God Series

Becoming a discerning child of God

- Let your name be made holy,

- let your kingdom come,

- let your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

One of the key components of intercession is the recognition that without us God's hands are tied and without God our hands are empty.

Another is the issue of discernment.

The insight that when we pray for the hallowing of God's name, for the coming of God's kingdom and for the furthering of God's will is a lot more than just wishful thinking.

It is so easy to say these words as generalisations unless they can be applied to specific situations and translated into particular courses of action.

Here Jesus was a prophetic genius.

It is the role of the prophet not so much to predict what will happen sometime in the distant future.

But also to interpret the present theologically in terms of where God can be found in the midst of the needs, the aspirations and the predicaments of His people.

To apply God’s word to everyday living, to make it relevant for us today.

The prophet as preacher makes Holy Scripture the living word of God.

In the days of Jesus there was no shortage of prophetic voices filling the airwaves of first-century Palestine.

Some of them the great figures of Israel's past (for example Moses, Isaiah, Elijah), others of contemporary stature (for example John the Baptist, Theudas in Acts 5:36), each offering a diagnosis and cure for Israel's problems.

- Repentance of sins,

- the pursuit of holiness and

- keeping God's commandments were regular themes.

There was the theme and cry for freedom, freedom from the hands of the oppressor, the Romans.

For God to intervene decisively through the agency of His anointed servant, sometimes described as the Messiah.

A deliverer to free God’s people from the hands of the oppressor.

Clearly, the kind of 'deliverer' hoped for was determined by the nature of salvation required-

- whether a kingly messiah to liberate Israel from exile and political domination, or

- a priestly messiah to purify the worship of the Jerusalem temple, or

- a suffering messiah to atone for the sins of God's people.

Each of these prophetic voices would have entertained different agendas when praying these petitions from the Lord's Prayer.

- Let your name be made holy,

- let your kingdom come,

- let your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

But the test of prophecy is its ability to bring God closer to His people - to restore the covenant between God and His people so that they may find the inspiration, resolve and discernment to be about their Father's business and so to bring honour to His name.

This is where Jesus proved Himself to be not only a well-meaning and well-informed prophet, but also a profoundly effective one.

God's people remained under Roman rule long after the death of Jesus, Jesus was NOT the kingly messiah to liberate Israel.

Jesus was NOT the priestly messiah to purify the worship of the Jerusalem temple, this cult was not reformed, rather it was destroyed in AD70 when the temple was ransacked and destroyed by the Romans.

Even then God did not send an angelic warrior to establish heaven on earth.

Rather many found Jesus to be a source of liberation, wholeness and joy because they could identify themselves with Jesus as the suffering messiah to atone for the sins of God's people.

And the communities that made His prayer, the Lord’s prayer their own became beacons of hope and agents of change to this very day.

The Lord’s prayer gives us a challenge to be partners in making the kingdoms of this world the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign for ever and ever.

King of kings and Lord or lords… Hallelujah!!

- Let your name be made holy,

- let your kingdom come,

- let your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.