Sermon Tone Analysis

Setting

We haven’t changed all that much since we were children.

Believing we know best what is good for us, we are not very willing to have others tell us what is best.

In our study today, we are reminded to trust God and His will for our lives.

This is not always easy, as giving up control does not come natural.

Yet, God wants us to trust in His perfect will and surrender our own in order to accomplish His purposes.

Let’s look at - a prayer of submission

What is the kingdom of God?

6:9–15.

An important point to be made about the “Lord’s Prayer” is that Jesus intended it to be a pattern for the servant of his kingdom, just as he intended much of his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.

It is not a magical formula.

The specific words he used are not any more sacred than requests we might make expressing the same kinds of desires to the Father.

We should seek to learn how to pray like Jesus prayed, not merely what Jesus prayed.

That was his point when he said, This, then, is how you should pray (6:9).

The pattern of meaningful prayer is to begin by majoring on the person and nature of God and his kingdom interests, coming to personal requests and needs only secondarily.

Broadly speaking, the kingdom of God is the rule of an eternal, sovereign God over all the universe.

More narrowly, the kingdom of God is a spiritual rule over the hearts and lives of those who willingly submit to God’s authority.

Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world (), and He preached that repentance is necessary to be a part of the kingdom of God ()

There is another sense in which the kingdom of God is used in Scripture: the literal rule of Christ on the earth during the millennium.

There is another sense in which the kingdom of God is used in Scripture: the literal rule of Christ on the earth during the millennium.

Daniel said that “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed” ()

Christ has set up His spiritual reign in the church on earth, and He will one day set up His physical reign in Jerusalem.

The kingdom of God involves repentance and the new birth, as God rules in the hearts of His children in this world in preparation for the next.

The work begun on earth will find its consummation in heaven (see ).

Your kingdom come.

The kingdom servant sees God’s kingdom as not yet completely fulfilled on earth.

Our Father in heaven.

The plural pronoun our indicates that prayer should be an expression of corporate desires to God, and should often be prayed in fellowship with other believers.

The words Father and heaven together demonstrate the loving closeness and awesome transcendence of God to his child.

The presence of God’s kingdom in this age refers to the reign of Christ in the hearts and lives of believers, and to the reigning presence of Christ in his body, the church

Hallowed be your name.

The verb hallowed means “to sanctify, make holy.”

Because the grammatic form here is unknown in English, we tend to take this line in Jesus’ prayer as a statement of fact, when, in fact, it is a request.

Jesus was teaching us to make the request, “Lord, may your name be sanctified.”

Why should we pray to God that he would sanctify his own name?

Probably as a reminder to ourselves to live a life that advertises a holy God.

Also, this kind of greeting was a form of blessing on the one addressed.

The kingdom has present manifestations (see ) and a future cataclysmic coming (; );

In both Old and New Testament thinking, a person’s name was equivalent to his or her very person (thus the careful choice in those days of children’s names for their meaning, not just their sound).

For this reason, it is not important to know what name of God Jesus may have meant.

To say that the word by which God is called is to be holy falls far short of Jesus’ meaning.

Jesus was asking that God himself be set apart as holy, and so Jesus also modeled the attitude we should have toward God during prayer.

Is God’s will being done on earth?

What about what happened in Pittsburgh yesterday?

Hallowed has to do with something or someone being different or set apart.

We must come before God with an attitude of reverence for God’s perfection (in contrast to our imperfection), his wisdom (in contrast to our foolishness), his power (in contrast to our impotence), and his love (in contrast to our selfishness).

God’s holiness is everything that sets him apart from us and all the rest of his creation.

Addressing such a being should never be done casually or flippantly.

Your kingdom come.

The kingdom servant sees God’s kingdom as not yet completely fulfilled on earth.

This prayer is not only for the future coming of Christ (although this can be included), but it is also for the spreading of God’s kingdom around the world through his kingdom servants.

Therefore, it is a prayer that we, his servants, would be faithfully obedient and effective in living his kingdom principles in our own lives and then spreading the kingdom through our actions and words.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This request assumes that God’s will is done in heaven, but not yet on earth (in the same full way).

Sin and rebellion are absent in heaven, but hindrances are present on earth.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

The Greek word for debts in the New Testament appears only here and .

It is clear that Jesus and Matthew intended the word to mean “sins” here ().

The choice of this word reflects the fact that all sins place us in debt to God.

In a more extended treatment and parable on this same concept in 18:21–35, Jesus used the idea of debt to teach about sin and forgiveness.

This is the only petition that seems to have a condition prerequisite to its fulfillment and two full verses of explanation following (6:14–15).

The context is the relationship of a child to a father.

This is “family forgiveness,” not forensic or judicial forgiveness.

Jesus is not saying that our forgiving is a necessary means to earning God’s forgiveness.

The Bible makes it clear that there is nothing we can do to merit God’s judicial forgiveness, but that it is given freely (e.g., ; ).

One does not gain forgiveness by forgiving.

But a person evidences his or her own forgiveness by forgiving others.

Since this is family forgiveness, our sense of forgiveness is denied us when we deny forgiveness to others.

As God’s children, we are commanded to be forgiving.

When we fail to forgive, we reap the consequences of spiritual and moral defeat.

The will of God will be expressed in its fullness only when God’s kingdom comes in its final form, when Christ returns in power and great glory (see ; cf. ;

Let’s go to : Humble Surrender to the Lord

6:9–10.

Pray, then, in this way (ESV, “like this”) indicates that this prayer provides a pattern to follow rather than a prayer to recite (though see ).

Verses 9–10 focus upon matters related to God’s program, while vv.

11–13 focus upon people’s needs.

Father probably reflects an Aramaic word Abba, which was used both during childhood and adulthood and could be used for respected men outside of one’s family.

“Daddy” is not quite the best English equivalent.

This intimate Father is also in heaven, emphasizing His transcendence and divinity.

Hallowed is not a call to worship but is an imperative of request or entreaty for God to cause His name (His “fame”) to be revered.

The kingdom has present manifestations (see ) and a future cataclysmic coming (; ); this petition may incorporate both a request for more people to experience the present form of the kingdom (i.e., find salvation) and for the kingdom to come soon in its full eschatological form.

6:11–13.

Daily bread probably means “bread for the coming day.”

On forgiveness, see 6:14–15.

Temptation refers to solicitations to moral infractions, and Do not lead us into temptation is informed by the second positive part—deliver [“rescue”] us from evil or better “the evil one.”

It is the Devil, not God (Jms 1:13), who initiates the temptation, but God rescues us from his evil designs.

6:11 The people of rural Galilee were poor and oppressed, and resources such as food were scarce.

This prayer reflects the real needs of people living in difficult times.

6:11 The fourth petition (see note on vv.

9–13) focuses on the disciples’ daily bread, a necessity of life which by implication includes all of the believer’s daily physical needs.

What is grace?

How is it different from mercy?

| Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!

| Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me,

| “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

mercy is God not punishing us as our sins deserve, and grace is God blessing us despite the fact that we do not deserve it.

Mercy is deliverance from judgment.

Grace is extending kindness to the unworthy.

Grace: being kind to someone who cuts you off in traffic

| Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

Mercy: not killing someone deserving of death

How does what James writes here have any bearing on doing God’s will and not your own?

| And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”