Sermon Tone Analysis

Reflection Text

Scripture Reading

Pastoral Prayer

Key Text Matthew 6.13b

For many of us, this prayer is so engrained in our minds…such a mundane part of a bygone liturgy that while our familiarity may not have bread contempt; it has at least relegated it to something less than what it is!

We’ve taken this short thing and made it a long thing…I hope that’s not your view.

This study has altered my prayer life - it’s made it messier when I ask for “stuff”.

I find myself holding my requests to the standard of God’s Word - that’s a REALLY REALLY GOOD THING.

The Doxology Text

We know this as the traditional doxology of the Lord’s Prayer…the proper finish.

I’ve joked in recent days with some of you about the reading of this text from the King James Version…joking that some readings just fall short of their poetic and authoritative tone in some of the more updated and (yes) measurably more accurate and readable translations.

You’ll note, however, in our pew Bibles - the English Standard Version - and many other translations that the phrase is absent or appears as a footnote reference.

Why is that?

Many of the ancient manuscripts include this text in the prayer, but some do not, among them the Codex Vaticanus, which is one of the most important of the ancient texts.

As a result, some scholars believe that this ending was not in the original prayer but was added very soon afterward.

It was customary among the Jews to conclude their prayers with a doxology.

RC Sproul writes, “But even the scholars who are convinced that this line was in the original prayer give little or no attention to it.

Instead, they treat it as something of a postscript, sort of a throwaway line that isn't all that important, particularly in light of the significant petitions that precede it.”

Is this a problem?

We can’t ignore that these words do not appear in the original manuscripts of Matthew.

It would be wrong to aggressively assert that these words are indeed a part of the original text.

We should never say something is part of Scripture that the author never intended.

At the same time, it is not wrong to recite the Lord’s Prayer with the concluding doxology or to benefit from this tradition—so long as we understand the words are not themselves Scripture.

The reasons for this are numerous.

First: Doxologies are found all throughout the Scripture.

They were likely added later to the Lord’s Prayer.

One of the earliest Christian documents outside the NT dating back to the first century, The Didache had this doxology included in the Lord’s Prayer.

This one is lifted from 1 Chronicles 29.

Our reflective verse today.

Second they are appropriate responses to God and his glory.

JI Packer writes, “Prayer and praise are like a bird’s two wings: with both working, you soar; with one out of action, you are earthbound.

But birds should not be earthbound, nor Christians praiseless.”

Third all the elements of this doxology are present in the components of the prayer.

It perfectly and succinctly sums up the character of God as revealed in the Lord’s Prayer and does so in the posture of praise.

That is, if it weren’t here, any good preacher/teacher would have cross referenced to any number of doxologies in the Bible to tie the elements of the prayer together in memorable way.

There is no hint of error or erosion of Biblical inerrancy here.

One writer writes, “…if this closing doxology is not from Jesus’ lips it certainly reflects His mind.”

back to the text

Let’s unpack this doxology with the elements of the prayer:

FOR THINE...

The reminder that it’s all HIS!

His Kingdom, His Power, His Glory.

The word for is the hinge that connects the rest of the Lord’s Prayer and this lovely doxology.

“FOR” grounds our petitions in our praise.

First comes our long list of requests.

How can we can expect God to grant them in accordance with His will?

“For thine is the power.”

This is a statement of our faith.

HIS KINGDOM

Back in the second petition we prayed for the kingdom to come.

We pray, “Thy kingdom come,” trusting that through the preaching of the Gospel and the conversion of sinners, God’s Spirit will spread God’s rule through all the earth.

In the doxology we acknowledge that God is already the King.

Jesus is the King; where he is, the kingdom is.

Kingdom and power, as ascribed to God in this doxology, are two words expressing a single composite thought.

(Grammarians call this idiom hendiadys: it is common in ancient literature.)

[Late Latin hendiadys, hendiadyoin, modification of Greek hen dia dyoin, literally, one through two] circa 1577: the expression of an idea by the use of usually two independent words connected by and (as nice and warm) instead of the usual combination of independent word and its modifier (as nicely warm)

The thought is of omnipotent control.

Kingdom is used as in Psalm 103:19 pointing to God’s all-embracing mastery of the order of creation - so the order of redemption touches everything.

HIS POWER

This power is actual mastery that God’s rule and reign shows.

This is not like an unchecked arbitrary power, like a devastatingly unpredictable tornado, or a rogue elephant, or a Fascist totalitarian dictator.

No, this is our God and King as the unconquerable beneficence, victoriously fulfilling His purposes of mercy and loving-kindness “to us and to all men.”

This is the power by which God is good to all, and rescued Israel from Egypt, and raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Not every king has as much power as he would like.

The kingdoms of this world have always been limited monarchies.

But the King who reigns above is the Lord God Almighty.

His power is absolute:

HIS GLORY!

It was the habit of Johann Sebastian Bach to write, at the bottom tom of each of his musical compositions, the initials "S.D.G." to remind himself and everyone who played his compositions that the glory was God's alone.

"S.D.G.," of course, stands for the Latin phrase Soli Deo gloria, which means "Glory to God alone."

Bach didn't write simply "D.G."-"Glory to God."

It always had to be "S.D.G."-"Glory to God alone."

That's what we’re doing here near the end of this model prayer from our Lord.

We acknowledge that we have no glory in us, that God is glorious beyond our ability to express, and that He is never required to share His glory with men.

DEFINED: Once we have been brought into God’s kingdom and have seen his power, the only appropriate way for us to respond is by giving him the glory.

The word glory comes from the Hebrew term for “heavy,” and thus “signifies gravity, heaviness, greatness, and abundance.”

OUR GLORY?

The principle of human sin (which is the devil’s image in man) is this: glory is not God’s, but mine.

So, we parade what we think of as our glory, so that admiring watchers will give us likes, and shares, and “attaboys”, and…well, glory!

In our vanity, we put on a show with our features: physical shape, clothes, skills, position, influence, homes, brains, relationships (name dropping), or whatever they are most proud of, expect applause, and feel resentful and hurt if people do not play up to them and act impressed.

But Christians know that this facet of pride is a lie!

It puts us at the center of attention.

It assumes that we should be praised and admired for what we are; and that is not so.

Biblical Christians know, not indeed to pretend that we lack qualities that we know very well that we have, but to acknowledge that all we have is God’s gift to us, so that he alone should be praised and admired and glorified.

The song is not, “It’s all about “me””

“Glory,” wrote Jonathan Edwards, “is also the outshining of the internal greatness or excellence.

The word glory is used in Scripture often to express the exhibition, emanation, or communication of the internal glory.

Hence it often signifies an effulgence, or shining brightness, by an emanation of beams of light.”3

The most spectacular display of God’s glory is through his Son Jesus Christ.

God the Son became a man so that we could see the glory of God.

He revealed God’s glory in many ways, but especially by suffering and dying on the cross for our sins.

In his death and resurrection, Jesus made the most amazing display of God’s love and justice, demonstrating the glory of God in the salvation of sinners.

The reason Jesus saved us was so that we would glorify God.

This is the third way the Bible speaks of glory:

First, glory is the inward majesty of God;

second, it is the brightness God sometimes shines out into the world;

third, it is the worship we offer to God.

When we see God’s glory, the proper way for us to respond is to give him the glory—to offer him all the honor and praise he deserves.

To God alone be the glory!

Even within the church…it’s all His!