April, 2007
The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9-15
INTRODUCTION: Every Sunday a part of our worship includes praying, “The Lord’s Prayer.” We would feel that there was something missing in the prayer time if this part were omitted; but do we know what we are praying or are we merely repeating words because it is the accepted thing to do? Is it similar to saying the blessing over our meals, “God is great, God is good, Let us thank Him for our food” or children saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Sometimes these memorized prayers lose their meaning because we have said them so many times. What does it mean to us personally to pray the Lord’s prayer? Does it make a difference in our lives or are we merely going through the motions because it is the “accepted” thing to do?
Story: One evening, a little girl was saying bedtime prayers with her mother.
“Dear Harold, please bless Mother and Daddy and all my friends,” she prayed.
“Wait a minute,” interrupted her Mother. “Who’s Harold?”
“That’s God’s name,” was the answer.
“Who told you that was God’s name?” asked the mother.
“I learned it in Sunday school, Mommy. Our Father, Who art in heaven, Harold be Thy name.”
As I began to think about this prayer, I found some things in it that should make a difference in our lives. Today I would like to focus on some of these things.
The structure of the prayer is divided into two main sections. The first three petitions have to do exclusively with God and the requests are in a descending order from God Himself down to the manifestation of Himself in His kingdom.
For example the first is Thy Name be Hallowed
The Second Thy Kingdom Come
The Third Thy Will be done
You are moving from the center--God in heaven to earth.
The remaining 4 petitions have to do with ourselves but they are in an ascending scale from our human needs to our final deliverance from all evil.
The first here is Give us our bread
Then Forgive us our debts
Third Lead us not into temptation
Fourth Deliver us from evil.
Some people combine lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil as one petition.
So there are 6 or 7 requests that are included in the Lord’s prayer. How do they apply to our lives?
1. Our Father: in the beginning of this prayer we see that God is not only majestic and holy but also Personal and Loving. The prayer Our Father brings about a brightness and warmth over the entire prayer. He is both transcendent over the entire universe, but He is immanent and near to us--a personal God. We must not include one without the other. We need a vast and powerful God who is in control of things, but we also need to know that He is only a prayer away and is close to us as individuals. We say, “Our” Father. Not the father of someone else but OURS. He is distinguished from earthly fathers. He is our Heavenly father. We don’t have to get someone else to do our praying for us. We can do it ourselves. How do we know this?
Psalm 145:18 says, “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." You are a part of the ALL.
Psalm 34:15 says, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry. Are you righteous? This simply means in RIGHT STANDING with God? Then this applies to you.
Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
The fatherhood of God is not a central theme in the Old Testament. Not until Jesus is it characteristic to address God as OUR FATHER. Jesus addressed God as His father and taught His disciples to do the same. (Mark 14:36). People were more used to emphasizing God’s transcendence. In this prayer Jesus is emphasizing that God is personal. There is a relationship that exists between Jesus’ disciples and God--in this sense He is not the father of all people indiscriminately (5:45).
In this verse we are also told who to pray to--Our Father, not to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. But to God the Father. There are other scriptures that tell us to pray in Jesus Name (John 16:23,24). Jesus said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” But we start out Our FATHER because this is how our Lord taught us to pray.
We know where God is when we pray. Our Father which art in Heaven. He is majestic, rules over all things, yet is as near to us as our prayer. A God like this should be able to handle any size prayer we pray, don’t you think? But we limit Him. We make Him too small. We ask, “Can God?” We should be declaring, “God Can!”
2. Hallowed Be (Holy) Thy Name: This is a statement of praise and a commitment to honor God’s Holy Name. We do this by using it respectfully. If we use it lightly, we are forgetting God’s holiness. What about carelessly using God’s name in slang? Many people get into a habit of saying, “Oh, God” or “God” or in taking God’s name in vain. Exodus 20:7 says something about deliberately taking God’s name in vain. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
God’s name is a reflection of who He is. That God be treated as a holy God and that His name should not be despised by the thoughts and conduct of those who have been created in His image is important in this part of the prayer. (See MalachI 1:6).
3. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done: We are not resigning ourselves to fate here--it is not “Que Sera, Sera” whatever will be will be. We are specifically asking for God’s will to be done in our lives and in the world. This applies to our personal lives because scripture says that the “kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
We can ask for this because in Luke 12:32 it tells us “…it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It is the personal reign of Christ in your lives. Many people are writing off the world as a hopeless cause and just waiting to get out of this world and for Jesus to come and take them out of it. But God is not finished here yet. Even though we live here in a state of imperfection, He is not writing it off yet. He still has more work to do. He still has work for you to do here in your church. We are to “occupy until He comes.” Not just “exist.”
What if God takes you seriously in this prayer and works out His will and purpose in your life? Do we want this to happen? What if His will for our lives is different from our will? We are praying every Sunday, “Lord I want YOUR will to be done in my life. I want you to set up your kingdom in my personal life.” A prayer like this would be reason for us to have a lack of anxiety about the future. If we are asking Him to work out His will and purpose in our lives, we can trust Him to do so.
Some people think that God doesn’t want His will to be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven.
Romans 12:2 tells us to “be not conformed to this world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” God’s will is good, and pleasing, and perfect.
1. He wants to bring about certain events in salvation.
2. We ask that His will be fully accomplished on earth as it is now being done in heaven.
3. We pray that God’s will may be ultimately done on the earth in the same way He included this in the prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He is working in our world today and in our lives in spite of the evil that goes on all around us--the terrorism, the sinfulness. He is still at work. He can and will continue to work out His will and purpose in our lives no matter what things happen in the world, or in the church, or anywhere else. We keep our eyes upon the Lord, keep faithful to Him no matter what anyone else does. We know that “Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). As we pray, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, one of these days things will be complete, evil will be destroyed and God will establish the new heaven and earth. Rev. 21:1 tells us this will happen at some time in the future--”And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away…” And as God works out His perfect will in our lives it is up to say, “OK, Lord, your will takes precedence. Not my will but thine be done.” Can we do this?
4. Our Daily Bread: Give us this day our daily bread. Bread is a symbol that all of our physical needs be met--not just food. It goes beyond food to cover other daily needs. We are acknowledging God as the sustainer and provider. We must trust God DAILY to provide what we need. Proverbs 30:8 says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” This doesn’t mean that we can sit down and do nothing. But we can be confident that He is a big enough God to take care of us.
The NIV says, “give me neither poverty nor riches but give me only my daily bread.” If we have God who is the Source of our supply, we don’t have to go from one extreme to the other. We don’t have to say, “the only way I can be truly spiritual is to be in poverty.” A lot of Christians believe this and it is a lie of the devil. Abraham was blessed that he might be a blessing (Genesis 12). We don’t have to spend all of our time trying to be the richest person on earth to the exclusion of all other things. We have God who is our Source. We are asking Him to supply us with what we need today. Can He supply us with what we need today? Then He can and will do the same tomorrow. We don’t just trust God in crises situations--but we trust him daily.
5. Forgive Us our Trespasses (debts) as we forgive those who trespass against us. The word debt means sin or transgressions. Matthew 18:21, 22. How many times do we forgive--as many times as is necessary.
If we refuse to forgive others, God will refuse to forgive us. When we refuse, we are denying our common ground as sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. It is easy to ask God’s forgiveness, but it is difficult to grant it to others. Eph. 4:32 . When we ask God to forgive us, ask yourself, “Have I forgiven other people who wronged me?” An important thing is to have an attitude that makes forgiveness possible. Perhaps a willingness for the Lord to make us willing to forgive.
Scripture says that if someone has something against you to leave your gift at the altar and go and be reconciled to the person first and then come back and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23, 24.
Too often forgiveness is too cheap. People say nonchalantly, “Forgive me” and then continue to do the same thing over and over. Or they say too quickly to a person, “I forgive you” and let the person off the hook too quickly that the person will hurt them over and over again. Too often people say, “Forgive me” and then go right back to doing the same thing over and over again. When we ask for forgiveness it should be with the intention that we would not hurt the person again if we can help it. Teenagers will sass their parents or teachers and then say, “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again” but the next day forget all about it. Forgiveness, whether asking for it or giving it to someone else should not be cheap.
I have a friend who always is quick to tell me, “If you don’t forgive you’ll go to hell. This is the worst thing you can tell someone. It’s like putting a quick band aid on a festering wound. Sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be worked through, talked about, and the anger and pain felt. Then forgiveness and healing begins to take place.
Then don’t reposition yourself to be hurt all over again. Sometimes people allow themselves to be doormats for people.
6 and 7 Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Story: A little girl repeated, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us some e.mail” God doesn’t deliberately lead us into temptation. He allows us to be tested. Here we are asking God to help us to recognize temptation and to give us the strength to overcome it. To steer around it. To recognize the pitfalls for what they are.
How do you know that God doesn’t tempt you? James 1:13, 14 says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempted he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.”
So here we are saying, “God watch out for me so I don’t fall into the traps that Satan sets for me.” I Corinthians 10:13 says, “God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear.” We don’t have to say, “I couldn’t help myself. The devil made we do it.”
We are asking for deliverance from Satan the evil one. Christians struggle with temptation because it is subtle and we don’t even know a lot of times what is happening to us. Let us ask God to open our eyes--to alert us--to put up a red flag.
Have you ever wondered why some people fall into one trap after another? Perhaps they are not sensitive to this one prayer--we need to ask God for help before we get into a mess and then be sensitive and obedient to His leading once He shows us.
The word deliver could mean spare us from evil or it could mean deliver us out of evil. At times we need both. Sometimes we go through problems rather than being spared from them. He gets us out one way or another. The Greek word covers either situation and this is good news for us. Whether we go through the valley or around the valley, we will end up victorious as we allow God to deliver us from the evil one. We may recognize our own helplessness but we know that Jesus has the power to deliver us.
DOXOLOGY: For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever, Amen. The doxology was added and used by the early church in around the 2nd century. This prayer ends triumphantly. Can you say Praise the Lord for this prayer?
