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#3 The Lord's Prayer

Gold from God

Jan 23, 2022


by: Jack Lash Series: Gold from God | Category: Prayer | Scripture: Matthew 6:5–15

I. Introduction
A. Series: Gold from God
B. Matthew 6:5–15 “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. 6 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. 7 “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. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this: “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 this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
C. Lord's prayer:
1. It is the most prayed prayer in the history of mankind
2. It’s been used in Christian worship since the time of the apostles.
3. It’s found in the gospel of Matthew, in the middle of Jesus’ sermon on the mount (Matt.5-7), in the middle of a section on prayer. (Though it’s also found in an abbreviated form in Luke 11:1-4.)
II. There are six petitions in the Lord’s prayer. But first let’s talk about the introduction and the address of the Lord’s Prayer. I’m talking about how the prayer starts in v.9, “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven...’”
A. “Pray like this”
1. We see here that Jesus assumes that His followers are people of prayer. The issue is not so much WHETHER they are going to pray but HOW.
2. Jesus here also assumes that His people struggle with prayer, and need His help and His guidance.
3. But it’s important to notice also that Jesus is ready and willing to help — and that Jesus is confident His precious people can learn to pray.
4. But Jesus doesn’t say, “Pray like this,” He says, “Pray THEN like this.”
B. “then” – Why does He say, “Pray THEN like this”? He’s referring back to what He’s been saying about prayer in v.7-8.
1. Matthew 6:7–8 “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. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
2. So, before Jesus begins to tell us how to pray, He tells us how NOT to pray.
3. There are many people who pray, but their prayers are meaningless and useless.
4. They’re just saying words, and God doesn’t listen to mere words, no matter how many there are.
5. Real prayer is not a form of superstition, whereby you try to get what you want by means of certain words or objects or ceremonies.
6. And this actually teaches us about the use of the Lord’s Prayer.
a. Many pray the Lord’s Prayer by rote without any understanding or concern as to its meaning.
b. But it is not a magical formula. It’s an inspired guide to teach us how to pray.
c. But some people take what Jesus says in v.7-8 too far, and feel that prayer can only be authentic if it is spontaneous.
d. But the Lord’s Prayer teaches us that prayer does not need to be spontaneous to be real.
e. I don’t mean to say that we should only pray written, prepared prayers like the Lord’s prayer. Spontaneous prayers are also good and helpful and legitimate.
7. Real prayer is communication from the heart of a believer to the ears of God.
a. You can use someone else’s words and still pray it from the heart.
b. But just saying words isn’t Christian prayer — so God doesn’t listen when we just say words.
c. Of course, in one sense, God knows and hears everything, but that’s not what I mean.
d. I mean that mere words don’t get to God’s heart, they don’t weigh on Him like the cries of a needy child weigh on the heart of an earthly parent.
e. Prayers which are just words ring God’s phone, but He knows it’s only a spam call.
f. BUT, when God’s child cries out to Him from the heart, God not only hears, He actually hears before the prayer is even uttered, as Jesus said in v.8.
g. We don't have to try to get God's attention, He's listening before we're even talking, He's listening even to our needs and desires.
h. “Do not be like those outside of Christ when they pray, but rather, pray like this...”
C. Now, let’s look at the address: “Our Father in heaven.”
1. The first thing about prayer is to recognize who you are praying to, because you can only approach God properly when you know who He is.
2. And, as we learned in the Beatitudes, we need to approach God in humility, in repentance, in purity of heart.
3. Prayer is not trying to work a deal with God. It is not trying to manipulate God into doing what you want Him to do. It is the cry of a child on earth to His Father in heaven.
4. Some perceive God as a close friend who’s right there with us all the time, who is always available, with whom we have a special, intimate, personal, individual relationship.
a. Others perceive God as so completely different than man, so completely other and so holy that we can't even survive in His presence, beyond our ability to comprehend, He cannot be fathomed, so big that man in comparison is infinitely small.
5. Which is the correct perception of God? Well, of course, both are correct and need to be understood together.
a. And these two are brought together in the idea of God as heavenly Father. It implies both intimacy and reverence. It maintains a sense of God's closeness without losing a sense of His otherness. He's our Daddy, but He sits on the throne of heaven.
b. Intimacy and reverence. Closeness and distance. "Our Father" indicates His nearness. "Who art in heaven" speaks to His transcendence, holiness, majesty.
c. “Our Father” speaks to the familistic relationship we have with God; “Who is in heaven” is an expression of exaltation, attributing honor to God by recognizing who He is and where He is.
6. One of the primary postures of prayer in the Bible is that of lifting our hands up to heaven.
a. This is a gesture of a child towards his father. It is not the gesture of a servant to his master or a soldier to his commander. If He was not our Father we could not do this.
b. And if God were not in heaven we could not do this. If he were merely in our hearts, we’d have to put our hands on our hearts instead of raising them to heaven. “Our Father in heaven...”
III. The Lord’s Prayer has six petitions: 1- Hallowed be Your name, 2- Your kingdom come, 3- Your will be done, 4- Give us this day our daily bread, 5- Forgive us our debts, 6- Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” In the six petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, there are some very expected things included in the Lord’s prayer, and I think there are some very unexpected things included.
A. Expected
1. ask for our needs (Give us this day our daily bread.)
2. ask for forgiveness (Forgive us our debts.)
3. pray that His will would be done
B. But there are several unexpected and surprising petitions:
1. The prayer starts with a prayer for the hearts of mankind to realize who God is. This is basically what “Hallowed be Your name” is all about. God already knows He’s holy. And so do the angels.
a. It’s MANKIND which fails to grasp who God is and what He’s like in His holiness.
b. But there’s no indication of which particular part of mankind we’re supposed to pray that for, meaning that the prayer is meant to be broad and have a number of applications.
(1) It’s a prayer for ourselves, that we grasp God’s holiness.
(2) It’s a prayer for our loves ones, that they would grasp God’s holiness.
(3) It’s a prayer for Christ’s people. It’s a prayer for the whole world.
c. The Lord’s Prayer does not include a request for world peace. It does not include a request to find a cure for cancer. It doesn’t include a request that God would solve human hunger and poverty.
d. But at the top of the list of petitions is a prayer that the name of God would be holy in the minds and hearts of people.
e. I know that for some people this is not only surprising but disturbing — it seems messed up.
f. But according to Jesus, and according to the Bible, mankind grasping who God is is the most important thing.
g. This doesn’t make sense if this life is all there is. And it doesn’t make sense if this world is our true home. And it doesn’t make sense if dying is the end of our story.
h. But this life isn’t all there is, and this world is not our true home, and dying isn’t the end of life.
i. What happens in eternity is all-important. And what God says is the ultimate truth.
j. But this petition shows us that as human beings we are profoundly blind, that our deepest problem is not anxiety or poverty or injustice, it is blindness.
k. We go around dusting and rearranging knick-knacks, but miss the elephant in the room! And that elephant is God!
l. And the thing we need most of all is not to be healthy or prosperous or have our earthly needs met, but to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see Him as the holy God!
m. Our disposition toward Him and toward His Son makes all the difference in the world!
n. That’s the one things that really matters!
o. And so we pray, “Make Your name holy, O Father.”
2. The second surprising thing about these six petitions is how God’s forgiveness is tied to our forgiveness of others.
a. Praying for God’s forgiveness is the only conditional prayer Jesus teaches in the Lord’s prayer.
(1) “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” — this implies that we can’t pray this prayer if we haven’t forgiven those who have sinned against us.
(2) And then to reinforce this point, Jesus makes it explicit in v.14-15 “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
(3) In the slightly abridged version of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11, the petition goes like this, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” – Luke 11:4
(4) And Jesus reinforced this powerfully in the parable of the unmerciful servant: “The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. 26 But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. 28 But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. 29 His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. 31 When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. 35 That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” – Matthew 18:21-35
(5) It’s clear as day! God won’t forgive us if we won’t forgive others!
b. We need to realize how unique this is! The Bible strongly and repeatedly condemns murder and sexual sin. But the Bible never says that if someone commits those sins he won’t be forgiven. And we have examples of both murderers and people who commit sexual immorality being forgiven by God — David did both and was very much forgiven.
c. What’s going on here? Does Jesus just really, really want us to be forgiving? It sounds like salvation by works: If we forgive, God will forgive us, if we don’t forgive, God will not forgive us. And it sounds like forgiving others is the only work that really matters. Well, obviously Jesus does care a lot about forgiveness. But this is bigger than that. So, how do we explain this?
(1) The point is this: If we can’t forgive someone who sins against us, it means we have not yet grasped the depths of our sins against God. If we are unaware that our sins against God are vastly greater than anyone’s sin against us, then we don’t understand grace.
(a) We think God forgives us because our sins are modest, plain, understandable — not over-the-top, not blazing, not Hitleresque.
(b) We think forgiveness is for misdemeanors, not for felonies.
(c) He can forgive us because our sins are forgivable,
(2) And the way we view our own sin is reflected in how we view our neighbor’s sin against us.
(3) So, if we can’t forgive, how can we expect God to forgive us?
3. The third surprising thing about this prayer is that it includes a strong repudiation of the status quo: “Thy kingdom come!”
a. Far from praying that God would maintain our lives and our homes as they are, Jesus urges us to pray that God would radically disrupt our world, and bring His kingdom in its place.
b. What is the Kingdom of God? Well, a kingdom is a nation that has a king! God's kingdom is that nation where Christ is King. All of us who belong to Christ are citizens of God's kingdom & every thing we own & have authority over is part of His kingdom.
(1) And His kingdom extends as far as His rule is honored.
c. So, there are at least four ways we want His kingdom to come.
(1) We want His kingdom to come more fully in our own hearts.
(2) We want His kingdom to come more profoundly to His church.
(3) We want His kingdom to come to this world in the sense of more people coming to honor Him as their king.
(4) And we want the King to return to set up His kingdom in its ultimate form.
(5) All of these are wrapped up in this one petition, Your kingdom come!
d. But in all four we’re asking that the status quo be disrupted.
e. Now, obviously, disruptions of the status aren’t the same thing as His kingdom coming. But His kingdom coming always involves the disruption of the status quo.
f. So, why am I making a big deal about the disruption of the status quo?
(1) Well, we don’t like change. And it’s very easy to want this world to be our home.
(2) It seems to me that a lot of the prayer of Christians is basically prayer for God to maintain the status quo.
(3) We want our lives to stay the way they are. We want our church to stay the way it is. We want our country to stay the way it is. We want to remain young.
(4) But God’s kingdom doesn’t come to keep everything the same. And God’s kingdom doesn’t come by everything staying the same.
(5) I think one example of this is how we’ve reacted to the COVID pandemic over the last two years. I have heard very little thought among Christians about how the Lord might use this to bring His kingdom, only the desire to be done with it.
(6) “Thy kingdom come” is a recognition of the mess this world is in, and how desperate it is for a radical change, a change only God can bring!
(7) And the mess isn’t COVID, and it isn’t climate change, and it isn’t war, and it isn’t politics, and it isn’t culture. The mess the world is in comes from a mess in every human heart.
(a) Each of us – in our hearts – has dethroned the King of the universe.
(8) And until that king is properly put back where He belongs – on the throne of our hearts – not only will the mess continue, but it will become messier.
(9) And when we cry out to God, “Thy kingdom come!,” we are praying that our knees and the knees of others would bow before Jesus Christ, and that He would be enthroned as king.
IV. Conclusion
A. The Lord’s Prayer is much more than a nice, useful tool to use to help us to pray. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us about God and about ourselves. The Lord’s Prayer shouts the glory of God and man’s desperate need for Him.
B. But the Lord’s Prayer also drips with the love and kindness of God, and of His readiness to help us, protect us, and forgive us when we humble ourselves before Him.