The Lord's Prayer

Vision Moment:

Introduction:

The Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preached, has been one confrontation to another. And Jesus has taken it to the third level now with HOW disciples of Jesus were to practice their righteousness (spiritual disciplines).

Jesus covered practicing generosity, prayer, and the third discipline Jesus teaches about it fasting.

With all three of these disciplines or habits, Jesus confronts the heart attitude as those disciplines are practiced.

We’re going to look at the Lord’s Prayer this morning, but before we do, I am going to say a word about the discipline of fasting.

Matthew 6:16–18 ESV

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matt 6:

So just like the other two, Jesus confronts the hypocrisy of practicing righteousness just so others would see and praise you. That is dead religious practice.

What Jesus teaches instead is that WHEN you fast (the intentional and habitual practice of skipping food in order to pray) you should also be intentional about keeping yourself visibly refreshed so not to bring attention to your hunger.

So, WHY is fasting a spiritual discipline that Jesus fully expected His disciples to continue?

I think out of the three, this discipline is the least practiced, and the least understood. And it is totally worth it to do a study on fasting throughout the Scriptures.

But before we step back and walk through the Lord’s prayer, I want to urge to not to miss the point of what Jesus is saying. As with each of these habits, Jesus is saying that

“The disciples of Jesus practice their devotion and allegiance to Christ and His kingdom not so others would be impressed, but to experience God’s grace and presence so that we can effectively be salt and light in the world.”

What a dramatic shift that is. It’s moving away from thinking “What can I get out of this?” to “I must have His grace and presence so I can give.” We develop habits so we can be effective conduits of His mercy and grace.

OK. Now, quick reminder… Jesus pauses in the midst of the talk on these practices to teach His disciples HOW and WHAT to pray.

Don’t be like the hypocrites who pray for the applause.

And don’t be like the Gentile who prays long and eloquently so he can get God’s attention.

Instead of the two pointless approaches, the disciple, knowing he has the ear and the eye of the Father, prays with humility and simplicity these very words:

​ ESVPray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Matt 6:39-

Matthew 6:9–13 ESV

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

This brief poem has served the Church so well for over 2000 years. I will not try to mine every little nugget found in this little prayer, but I do want to say a few things that might help us to be more aligned with the way Jesus intended for His disciples to pray.

The first is that Jesus could have said virtually anything here, but He chooses these words and there was nothing that Jesus said or did that lacked intentionality.

But if I’m a traditional Second Temple Jew this prayer, at first glance, sounds almost exactly like one of the other traditional prayers of the time. This prayer was called the “Kaddish.”

“Exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world, which he created according to his will. May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the whole household of Israel, speedily and at a near time.”

The prayer contains two main sections:

The address to the Father (God)

The acknowledgement of the Community(Others)

This clues us in on what Jesus is doing, right?

Matthew 22:37–39 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

​ ESVAnd he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

This back and forth of loving God and loving others is in the Beatitudes, it’s in the section on inner righteousness, and now we find it in the middle of the section on spiritual disciplines. I think Jesus was really serious about “The Great Commandment.”

And there is no reason to think that Jesus didn’t mean it when he said, “When you pray, pray like this...”

The Address to the Father

Our Father in heaven… Father is an important address (Jesus more than likely going off the Psalms) because it bypasses any bit of confusion about how God feels about you, whether or not you’re welcome to come to him, or how he’ll respond to your prayers.

Hallowed by your name… hallowed is rooted in the word holy. And the word holy means unique or completely set apart from all other things. Now, I think the most popular explanation of this phrase is that we’re sort of hopping up on the lap of God the Father and putting our arm around Him and telling Him how wonderful and good He is.

And while he is wonderful and good… that’s not probably what Jesus has in mind. It seems more probable that Jesus is praying for God’s character, which has been completely misunderstood by both Jew and Gentile, to be revealed and known for who He really is.

In other words, “Father, please show the world who you really are. Squash all of the lies and misunderstandings of who you are, and show them the real you.”

​ ESVWhen Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 17:1–4 ESV

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

​ ESVI glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

Your Kingdom come… Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven… the prayer is for the full realization of God’s Kingdom to come on earth; the full realization of God’s will to be done on earth the way it is done in heaven.

This prayer acknowledges that the world in a state of brokenness and asks for that full range of God’s will to be done. And while Jesus doesn’t really go in to the various view points of the last days, he expects His disciples to be concerned and praying for one thing; God’s Kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So we look at this in the macro and the micro - what would it look like for God’s will to be done in my heart? My job? My money? My family? And the macro - this city? This country? The world? We long for God’s Kingdom and will to come.

That’s the address to the Father, now briefly a look at the acknowledgement of the Community

The Acknowledgement of Others

​ ESVGive us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Matthew 6:11–13 ESV

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

This might be new for some of you, because the general way in which we interpret this prayer is not the way Jesus does. We replace us and our with ME and MINE, right?

And if we do extend me and mine we do to basically my family, but Jesus (I’m almost positive of this) was able to make a distinction between the pronouns. And the ones he chose were US and OURS.

This is interesting to me. Jesus definitely prayed by himself and he also prayed with others and in front of others (feeding of the 5,000). But when Jesus prayed, He was not focused on personal need even though He most certainly prayed for himself.

“There may be religions that come to you through quiet walks in the woods, or by sitting quietly in the library with a book, or rummaging around in the recesses of you psyche. Christianity is not one of them. Christianity is inherently communal, a matter of life in the Body, the church. Jesus did not call isolated individuals to follow him. He called a group of disciples.”

So we’re praying with an eye on our needs and an eye on the needs of others.

Jesus mentions three areas of need:

1. Give us this day our daily bread… This clues us in on the regularity of this specific prayer - this day, daily bread. It also clues us in on a storyline… the wondering in the wilderness. Every day except the Sabbath, they were to go out and collect the manna that God provided for them. God said, don’t worry about tomorrow, I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure that you have more than enough. Interestingly, Jesus intended for His disciples to function with a certain mentality. I think it would be taking this too far to say that Jesus was against savings or any types of investments (we’ll talk about that in a couple of weeks.) But the life of a disciple is a life lived in exile that is traveling through the wilderness until the return of the King.

It’s the mentality of a day laborer who wakes up and goes out to find work so he can eat, feed his family, and share with others for a day.

So, we fight against the temptation to trust in what we have accomplished with our own hands in exchange for total allegiance and trust for what Jesus has accomplished with His hands.

How did the disciples understand this prayer?

​ ESVAnd all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

Acts 2:44–45 ESV

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

So when we pray this prayer it’s a prayer that God would provide for personal needs and a prayer for those who have need and then it’s an action to help meet those very needs.

We tend to see prayer as some sort of spell that we throw out there and then hope that God sends a mystical response. That’s just not how it works. We pray for God to meet needs and it’s simultaneously a loosening of those things that we can share. Those prayers are a means of grace.

2. and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors… the term Jesus uses is a financial term and he uses it intentionally to help his disciples to see the transactional nature of sinning against someone. If you mistreat someone else, you are indebted to that person. That person is now forced into a decision of how to respond.

Jesus is making the point that we are to routinely confess our sin to our Father and receive the forgiveness that He is faithful and just to remind us of.

But Jesus quickly connects the phrase, “As we also have forgiven our debtors.”This creates a problem and a solution — the problem is that we can’t pray this prayer every day with any sort of inner integrity if we are withholding forgiveness from someone else.

Forgiveness is the releasing of a debt. In this case, forgiveness is the releasing of a moral debt that someone else has incurred due to an offense against you.

Don’t confuse forgiveness with reconciliation (which is the repairing of a relationship) because reconciliation requires two people. One who commits an offense, but then humbly confess wrong, admits it was wrong, and seeks the forgiveness of the person they wronged.

And then the other who acknowledges the wrong, and releases the other person of that wrong and is willing to work at regaining the trust that is necessary for a functioning relationship.

3. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I don’t particularly love this translation of that phrase because it almost makes it sound as if the Father might try to lead us into temptation if we’re not praying that he won’t. I think the NLT gets closer to what Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray, “And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.”

James 1:13–15 ESV

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

If you remember, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness temptation immediately after his baptism. And he was led into the Garden temptation before his crucifixion.

The trials and test we enter into are God ordained and they are for the purpose of testing our allegiance to Christ and His Kingdom.

And the goal in them as it was with Jesus is that we would be able to resist the evil one with accurate portraits of God’s goodness. Jesus answered all of Satan’s temptations with Scripture from Deuteronomy (man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.) In the Garden Jesus prayed that He would not have to endure the cross, but ultimately Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but thine be done.”

So, The goal of God’s testing is for us to come out of it with a renewed sense of trust and resolve in the faithfulness and steadfast love of God.

So whatever you’re experiencing that feels unbearably difficult and trying, you must know, there is a spiritual battle that is happening all around us and if we have no habits formed to resist, we’ve already lost that battle.

That’s the Lord’s prayer...

And just in case we thought that the words of Jesus about forgiveness were not strong enough, he ends this paragraph with a little footnote:

​ ESVFor if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

You can look at this passage two ways, one way is to look at it as if Jesus is saying, “Your salvation depends on your ability to forgive others” and in one sense that seems to be what he’s saying. And if this were the only bit of Scripture we had about how a person becomes a Christian, I would have to agree.

But it’s not the only Scripture about salvation, so what I think Jesus is saying is that the person who is unwilling to forgive cannot possibly be a Christian. Because the Cross of Jesus Christ became the once and for all retaliation-cycle breaker.

Forgiveness reached a new height on the Cross, for God willingly sent His Son to be the substitute for enemies. And Jesus willingly laid down His life to show the world just how merciful and forgiving God really is.

So obviously, a person who refused to forgive another person hadn’t yet experienced the full weight of their own sinfulness, and hadn’t yet acknowledged that they don’t deserve to be forgiven for if they had, they would be quick to release any person they had come in contact with that wronged them.

Pastor Jason, you don’t know the stuff I’ve been through. You don’t know the way I’ve been treated. You’re absolutely right and I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through.

But the worse the offense, the closer we get to seeing the depths of grace and forgiveness that God willingly pours out on us when he forgave the vilest offender.

Pastor Ajai Lall

“I believe that Jesus wants each of his followers to be Christian extremists, but of a different type. Not one who uses explosions or violence, but someone who shows an extreme love and compassion to enemies and prays for those who persecute us.

If I don’t have a heart of forgiveness, I am lost.

When my wife and I started our ministry thirty-five years ago, we wanted to be among people who have never heard about Jesus Christ. I had prayed to be in a situation that’s challenging, where there’s not enough vision of evangelizing and where baptisms happen only rarely.

So we started in a difficult area of central India, one where less than 1% of the inhabitants are Christians. We wanted to preach and demonstrate Jesus’ love and forgiveness.”

“Through those years, more than twenty-five hundred churches have been planted through the ministry of CICM, which now oversees a full-time staff of more than eleven hundred people serving more than five hundred thousand believers who are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ all over India and the surrounding countries. We have also started three regional centers in strategic areas, each offering full-time training to workers reaching out to the most unreached people groups.

These church planters regularly risk their lives among terrorists and other violent extremists, where evangelists have been killed but people have not yet heard of Jesus.”“India has the world’s fastest-growing number of people. We add one “Australia” to our population every year. With such a great task, and so many open doors even through the persecution, how could we not develop the kind of churches that multiply?”“One of our preachers was tied up, and his attackers made him watch as they raped his wife. Some while later, this pastor told me about their most recent baptisms, which included the people who had brutalized them. This pastor and his wife had visited their attackers, prayed for them, and forgiven them. Only the love of Christ could motivate their actions.”

Ferguson, Dave. Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders (Exponential Series) (pp. 173-174). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

So let’s just take a few moments to reflect on how we might respond to this...

Last week we focused on developing the habit and discipline of daily (multiple times a day) prayer.

This week, we’ve focused more on the content of our prayers. If we understand this prayer correctly, it should guide not only how but what we pray.

Imagine what it would look like if we all believed in praying God-sized prayers. Think about this, Jesus literally said these words:

John 14:

John 14:12–14 ESV

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Let’s be a people who are praying for the “greater things” to happen in our midst. I’m talking about seeing a multi-ethnic, multi-generation movement of people who are willing to risk living out what it means to love God and love others.

I’m talking about seeing God do a disciple making movement through us that doesn’t just build Redemption Church up, but where the Church is spreading to the places where Christ is not yet worshiped.

That’s a “Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done” type of prayer.