The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:5–15 ESV

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 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. 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.

A Change of Priority

The Lord’s Prayer is designed to help us make this change: a change of priority, not a change of content. This prayer doesn’t pretend that pain and hunger aren’t real. Some religions say that; Jesus didn’t. This prayer doesn’t use the greatness and majesty of God to belittle the human plight. Some religions do that; Jesus didn’t. This prayer starts by addressing God intimately and lovingly, as “Father”—and by bowing before his greatness and majesty. If you can hold those two together, You’re already on the way to understanding what Christianity is all about…“The danger with the prayer for bread is we get there too soon.

N.T. Wright, The Lord, and His Prayer, Eerdmans, 1997.

Prayer is a precious thing. It is so precious, Jesus felt the need to explain our heavenly Father looks at prayer. Jesus makes it very clear that prayer is personal. It is not flowing with articulate words but from the heart. There are Christians today who look at God as their personal Genie in a bottle.

Jesus is going to be merging the old covenant with what soon will become the new covenant. In the old covenant, God was unapproachable by prophets and priests.

[It is like you see someone over there. You would like to get to know them. Be friends or maybe even have a relationship with them, but you know they are way out of your class.] This is how it was with God. You did not just approach God in the holiest of holies. This is God in His pure and holy form and if you had any sin in your life, then the holiness of God would kill you. The priests would go through a sin purification process. When it was time to go into the holiest of holies, they would wear this beautiful robe with little bells along the hem and a rope tied around their waist. If the bells stopped ringing, then they would pull them out because they would have some sin in their life and be dead.

This is where Jesus comes in. He is our covering. He is our mediator. He is our great high priest. It is because of Jesus the Christ, the curtain between the holiest of holies and the everyone else was torn and now we can boldly approach the throne of grace.

Jesus, here in Matthew, is laying the foundation for the new covenant and our ability to approach God. Jesus changed everything.

Jesus goes on to give us an example on how to pray. The first part of the prayer is acknowledgement. Acknowledge the Holiness of God.

In verse 9, we the see the word sanctified or hallowed or Holy is the name of our heavenly father.

A name is very important. As parents, we ponder over names for our children. They will have these names for their entire life. We want these names to be names of strength and honor to the Lord.

Elizabeth - God is my oath or worshipper of God

Christine - feminine form of the word Christian, to be a follower of Christ

Gabriel - God is my strength

Michael - Who is as great as God?

Andrew - strong and manly. Introduced Peter to Jesus.

Picture

What about the name of God? When we look back through the old testament, there are over 76 names for God. Some are nouns (El which means most high God or El-Shaddai which means most high God which completes promises of blessing or prosperity), adjectives (El-Kanna means most high God is jealous), adverbs (El-Olam means most high God is everlasting) and verbs (Jehovah-Bara means the Lord Creator). There is no name given to mankind to completely understand who God is. He is El (Most High God) and Jehovah-Eli (personal, my God who is concerned about me on a personal level).

What about the name of God? Do we respect it? Do we revere it? Or is it a curse word when we lose our temper?

Exodus 20:7 ESV

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (8736 שָׁוְא)

8736 שָׁוְא (šāwe(ʾ)): n.[masc.]; ≡ Str 7723;

1. vanity, futility, worthlessness, i.e., that which has no result or use and so worthless nothing,

2. a negative reference to an entity, event, or state

3. falseness, i.e., that content which is not true, with a special focus that this content is worthless for ascertaining the truth

4. idol, formally, vanity, i.e., an image of a pagan god, with a special reference to its worthlessness

What are we confessing with our mouth? Or what are listening to? Is the name of God really to be revered or used as slang?

What about the name of Jesus the Christ? The name given under heaven that everyone would be saved.

Do we every treat the holy name that rescued us from hell frivolously?

We have been so conditioned to this by our culture and heard it so many times on TV.

My daughter’s name is Elizabeth. She is sometimes nicknamed Liz. She is fine with it but I do not care for it. Liz is the first three letters of lizard and she is not a reptile. She is my beautiful daughter.

There are nicknames for our children or abbreviations we do not like, why are we more particular of the names for our children then the name of God, the Father, or Jesus the Christ?

Our Father in Heaven, sanctified and holy is your name.

Conclusion:

A - Acknowledge

Romans 3:23 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

B - Believe

Acts 16:31 (ESV)

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

C - Confess

Romans 10:9–10 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.