The Lord's Prayer

Series: Sermon on the Mount

Title: The Lord’s Prayer

Author: Dave Carr

Key: Video Scripture Slides Personal Stories

TENSION.

Have you ever wanted something but felt like it would be impossible to get it?

[Sp Note: Tell a short story about something you really wanted but didn’t know how to get]

When I was in middle school, I really wanted a girlfriend. The problem was…I had zero clue how that worked. So, I did what any reasonable middle school boy would do—I started memorizing pickup lines.

Spoiler alert…they did not work.

As we’ve been in our Sermon on the Mount series, it can start to feel a bit like that. Each week we’ve made to sure go back and remind ourselves that the Sermon on the Mount is one sermon with specific point, it comes from Matthew 4:17 where Jesus says:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus’ point is that we all have something that our lives are aimed at – what we would call the “good life.” But He shows us in the sermon is that what we often think will be good often ends up falling short. And so, He invites us to re-aim our lives at something that is ACTUALLY good – what He calls the Kingdom of Heaven – a right relationship with God that leads to a right relationship with everything and everyone else.

Now that all sounds nice in theory, but how do you ACTUALLY re-aim your life? Is that a decision you make? Is there something you have to do?

That’s what we’re talking about tonight – what do you DO to re-aim your life?

TRUTH.

Now as we said, the Sermon on the Mount is a sermon with a specific POINT, but it’s also a sermon with a specific STRUCTURE. And tonight, understanding that structure is going to be the key to helping us understand the point.

[Sermon on the Mount Structure Video] The Sermon on the Mount has three sections: intro, body, and conclusion. In the body, Jesus talks about the law, the disciplines, and relationships. And right in the middle of the disciplines—where He talks about giving, prayer, and fasting is our text for today: Matthew 6:7-14.

Matthew 6:7-14 is in the center of the center of the center of the center of the Sermon on the Mount. Translation: this teaching is at the core of the sermon.

So what’s in Matthew 6:7-14?

The Lord’s Prayer.

Maybe you already know it, but I’m going to put it on the screen and I want us to read through it out loud all together.

7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, s but deliver us from the evil one.’ 14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

This is probably the most well-known teaching that comes out of the Sermon on the Mount. Grandmas have it knitted in a frame on their wall and football teams recite it in the locker room before games. A lot of us are familiar with what it is, but what does it mean and why does it matter? Let’s figure that out.

Remember, this prayer is at the core of the sermon. The surrounding section is about how we aim at the wrong target in our relationship with God—performing for Him on the outside without being changed on the inside. That breaks our relationship with God, and when that’s broken, every other relationship breaks too.

So Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer—a model for prayer that brings us back into a right relationship with God, which flows out into right relationships with everything and everyone else.

So, let’s take a look, line by line, at what Jesus taught and see if we can discover not just what’s there, but what it actually means.

He starts with:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The prayer starts with “our.” There are no self-made Christians. When we belong to Christ, we belong to a family. And while Jesus taught us in the section right before this that we are to pray privately, we are not taught to pray as an isolated individual. We pray with the family in mind.

Then He moves on to “our Father in heaven.” This phrase captures the essence of a what a correct relationship with God looks like. We have been saved and adopted into the family of God. We do not have to beg Him for His attention or care. He is powerful over us (in heaven), but He has a heart that is for us (Father).

“Hallowed be your name” is a classic one to recite and a really hard one to understand. When’s the last time you used the word “hallowed” in a normal conversation, right? I like the CSB translation of this line because it helps me understand it better:

“Your name be honored as holy.’

The idea here is that, while God IS holy, He is not always recognized as such by us in this sinful world. This is a pray that reminds the person praying of who God IS, even if that is not what they currently FEEL or THINK. It also leads the person praying back to the communal language of “our” as they pray for not only themselves to see and recognize God as holy, but for the rest of the world to as well.

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” calls back to our father IN HEAVEN. As our Father who loves us but who is also in heaven and is holy, He knows what’s bests. This is a prayer that leads the person praying to surrender what they want and what they intend to do to God, instead being willing to want what He wants and do what He intends to be done.

If you notice, this first section of the prayer is God-focused. It leads the person praying to re-aim their vision of God so that they see Him for who He really is: a holy and heavenly Father. Once we are aimed at the right target with Him, Jesus moves us into the next section.

11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

“Give us this day our daily bread” is a call back to a story from the Old Testament where, as the Israelites wandered in the desert, God sent manna from heaven each morning to feed them. It’s a reminder of how dependent we are on God to give us what we need just to make it through each day.

“And forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors” is a prayer that deals with our relationships. This one is a bit tricky, because what it seems to be saying is that we are to ask for forgiveness from God AFTER we have given forgiveness to people who have done something to us. And if you skip down to verse 14, this is the only section of the Lord’s prayer that Jesus circles back and explains when He says,

14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

So, what does this mean?

There’s an assumption that is being made that the person praying has ALREADY RECEIVED the ultimate forgiveness of God through Jesus, which is why they’re praying to Him in the first place. Once one has received the forgiveness of God that puts one in a right relationship with God, it should lead to giving forgiveness to the people in one’s life. God initiates, we imitate.

Here's where this gets difficult: Jesus left ZERO room for us to be in a right relationship with God without having an intention of being right with everyone else. Anything another human has done to us that we have the power to forgive will cost SUBTANTIALLY less than what we have done to God that He has forgiven us of and it is the expectation of God that we will give forgiveness to people that we have the power to give it to.

This second section is focused on the things and people in our lives. It leads the person praying to re-aim in their relationship with their stuff and with other people in light of their relationship with God. And that leads us to the last section.

13 And lead us not into temptation, s but deliver us from the evil one.’

Up to this point, we’ve said over and over that Jesus is inviting us into a good life where we’re in a right relationship with God that leads to a right relationship with everything and everyone else. And so, you might be asking, “what’s left to cover in the last section?” That’s a good question. The 2nd section did talk about a right relationship with everything and everyone else on the OUTSIDE. This last section looks on the INSIDE.

“Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We tend to think of ourselves as the main character of our story and that everything in our lives should be as free from pain and resistance as possible. This prayer leads the person praying into a right set of expectations. It leaves no room to believe that we are spiritual heroes or that our lives will be easy. We are in a spiritual battle with tests, temptations, and an enemy. While we pray for it to be “one earth as it is in heaven,” we’re not in heaven just yet. We’re still in the middle of a spiritual war. We still have battles to fight and enemies to overcome – but we’re not alone either. We all still have our Father in heaven who has and will continue to deliver us from our enemy and give us victory.

So the big question is, if that’s what the Lord’s prayer means, why does it matter? What about that is so important that is was placed at the core of the sermon?

It matters, because prayer is the practice that re-aims our life at the kingdom of God.

Up to this point in the sermon, Jesus has told us to re-aim our lives because a better target is possible. But here, for the first time, He shows us how.

I read it put this way:

“Matthew put the Lord’s prayer at the exact center of the Sermon on the Mount…the prayer is the generative nucleus…the powerhouse for living the Sermon’s discipleship.”

APPLICATION.

The question is: how?

As my friend, Chris Morgan, likes to say, “prayer’s not powerful when we talk about it. Prayer’s powerful when we pray.” Prayer re-aims us because it is action-oriented. We pray…by praying!

The good news is that Jesus didn’t just tell us prayer re-aims us—He showed us how do it. And the way He taught us to pray is actually simpler than we tend to make it.

John Calvin describes it like this,

“Prayers should be brief, frequent, and intense.”

Brief, frequent, and intense is an interesting framework for how to pray.

First, brief. The Lord’s Prayer is only about 145 words—you can pray it in under a minute. That’s very different from how many of us picture prayer. But if God is truly our Father, then prayer isn’t a performance. It’s a conversation in a relationship. That means you don’t need certain words or a certain length for it to “count.” Like any real conversation, you can just say what’s on your heart in the moment.

Second, frequent. Short conversations work because they’re not the only conversations. You can’t cover everything with someone in one minute, but you can cover a lot in a dozen one-minute talks throughout the day. Frequency builds intimacy. Think about the people you’re closest to—it’s probably the ones you interact with most. The same is true with God.

Finally, intense. The closer you are to someone, the more honest you are with them. We often avoid prayer because it feels overwhelming—like we need to catch God up on everything. But Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:8 that our Father already knows what we need before we ask. That means we can pray with assumed context. We don’t need to explain everything—He was there. We can just talk, directly and honestly.

The good news is that prayer is the practice that helps us re-aim our life at the kingdom of God. And it’s actually simpler to pray than we think – brief, frequent, and intense.

But prayer isn’t powerful when we talk about it; it’s powerful when we pray. So here’s my invitation for this week: practice praying.

I’m setting two alarms—6:00 AM and 8:00 PM. When they go off, I’ll pray the Lord’s Prayer—one minute each time. I’ll remember who God is, surrender my stuff and my relationships, and remember I’m in a battle He’s already winning.

If you’re new to prayer, a reminder on your phone might feel…fake. Like it “doesn’t count.” That’s a lie. Reminders aren’t proof your faith is weak; they’re tools your faith uses.

[SP Note: Tell a short story of how you started doing something INTENTIONALLY that turned into something you now do NATURALLY]

I used to think the same thing until I started getting close with my father-in-law. When I first got married, my father-in-law and I wanted to talk more, but life got busy. So we set a standing call every Wednesday morning. At first I only remembered because my calendar reminded me. Now, five years later, I call him without even thinking. What started as something I had to do INTENTIONALLY has become something I do NATURALLY.

Prayer works the same way. Start intentional, and it becomes natural.

So this week: set the alarm, pray through the Lord’s prayer, and watch God re-aim your life.

In fact, let’s just have a minute a pray right now, and then we’ll head to groups.

[Prayer]