Sermon on the Lord’s Prayer

When I was growing up, but a mere lad, my family attended the local Presbyterian church.  I sadly remember only a few things I learned there.

• That the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament did not have spaces between words. So, for example (a bad example, I should say) the phrase Godisnowhere could be translated “God is now here” or, “God is nowhere.” By the way, that is true about the Greek manuscripts, but no such problem exists in translation.
• That the Messiah Israel was expecting was to be a conquering king, and when Jesus did not come that way it made it difficult for Israelites to accept him.
• Finally, I learned a creed and a prayer.  The creed was the apostles’ creed:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell.  The third day he rose again from the dead.  He ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

And the Prayer I learned was:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.  Amen.

When you learn something by rote, there is often an understanding component that is missing.  You don’t delve into the meaning as you should.  Did Jesus really give us this prayer to simply say by rote every Sunday?  Are we to suppose that by saying this prayer we get some special blessing?  It seems rather that the consistent testimony of Scripture is that form without personal commitment to the meaning leads more to magical thinking than to true spirituality.

I want to suggest that this prayer was meant more as a template, not a spiritual chant, a guide, not a substitute for our actual praying.  If we fail to recognize that we are actually talking to God, we have missed the whole point.  This fits the context of Jesus’ teaching us about prayer.  Let’s read the passage in context:

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. (Matthew 6:5-15 ESV)

In the context, Jesus is exposing hypocritical religion, that has a form without the inward reality of godliness, the form without the power.  Prayer is not praying to be seen, it is not trying to manipulate God.  Prayer is communication with God that is between you and Him, and that believes that God already wants to hear and respond to us and meet our needs.

There is funny but instructive use of the Lord’s prayer in this regard. It begins with the petitioner saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven,”  but he is then interrupted by God saying, “Yes, what is it?,” throwing him off completely.  If we pray and talk to God as if He is not really there, we are not really praying.

But let’s assume that when you use the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern for your own prayer, that you are really praying.  How should it work?  Let’s take it phrase by phrase, adding understanding to our memory of this prayer.

We start with, “Our Father in heaven”

This is the context for all our conversation with God.  He is not the impersonal power we invoke, nor even the angry judge we tiptoe around.  He is our loving Father who longs to bless us, who wants to meet our needs, who enjoys our fellowship and delights in us as His children.

I hope you remember wonderful conversations with your human father and can draw upon that as you enter into conversation with your heavenly Father. You can talk about anything with Him, things about your personal life, questions you have about life in general, and certainly request things from Him.

And then, “hallowed be your name”

We are asking God to make His name to be acknowledged as the greatest name ever named.  We are asking Him to make His glory known among all peoples.  This is a great missionary prayer, reflecting God’s desire to bring all nations to Himself in faith.  To ask God’s name to be hallowed is to ask God to make all people submit to His praise, to cause all peoples to worship Him. To ask this is to place myself at God’s disposal and use as a witness to His name. It is not unlike Jesus commanding his disciples to pray for workers for the harvest, immediately followed by him calling twelve of his disciples to be apostles.

How do you ask God to make His name a cause for worship and not see yourself as proclaiming His name to everyone who will listen?  When we pray this prayer, we are asking God to make us more effective missionaries.  When I pray this prayer, I might as well ask God who I can make His name known to today?  To whom can I bear witness just how wonderful God is?  I should be thinking of my personal mission field as I follow the pattern of this prayer.

Next, “Thy kingdom come”

This may seem confusing. Isn’t God ruling over the earth now?  Isn’t His kingdom wherever He is?  Yes and yes, but He cannot be happy with partial obedience because we cannot be happy without full obedience.  Every disobedience we commit is a failure to live as we were created to live, full of love and joy, basking in the favor and praise of our Creator.

So when we pray this prayer, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are claiming our own childlike loyalty to God’s kingdom and seeking to be exemplary members of His kingdom in every respect.  It is a prayer to God to make us amazing and outstanding employees, to make us the best neighbors, to make us extraordinary parents and children and aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws, to make us perfect in our love for others.  And we are acknowledging that there is a lot of work for Him to do in us.

We represent the King of kings.  We are temples of the Holy Spirit who are to faithfully reflect God’s dwelling in our bodies.  Are you that person who has the smell of God’s mercy and grace all over you, or are you that person who reeks of judgmentalism and/or the aroma of hell?  Do people say, “If I were to become a Christian I would want to be like him or her?”  If not, praying this prayer is repenting and admitting to God that you don’t know how to be that kind of person.  Praying this prayer is asking God to do in you what He saved you for, drawing you into His intimate confidentiality and infusing you with His life, which life cannot help but ooze out on those around you.

Now, after such praying, we are ready to ask for something just for ourselves.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

In some ways, this is the least compelling aspect of the Lord’s prayer for prosperous Americans, and at the same time the most needed.  Our American stores are lined with shelf after shelf of food and many of us are able to afford more than enough.  I rarely ever have to think whether or not I will be able to eat today.  My own pantry and refrigerator are already stuffed with food to last me for weeks.  Daily bread seems like a non-issue.

But when I was in seminary and with very little income, it was a different story. Getting our daily bread for me, my wife, and our daughter, was a challenge. We ate very inexpensive meals and sometimes were helped with groceries from anonymous donors. This part of the prayer was quite relevant.

All the bounty we have is from God and even the power to earn the money we need to purchase food is a gift from God.  If I really mean it, prayer at every meal goes a long way to satisfying the sentiment of this prayer, that I need God’s daily blessing in order to eat.

I need ask only for what I need today to curb my yearning for security about tomorrow, as if I cannot trust God to care for me each day.  And this is not confined to food only.  I daily need sleep, daily need rest, daily need companionship, daily need encouragement, and daily need many things that God is concerned to provide for me.  And He wants me to ask because He wants me to experience the joy of seeing Him provide.

We also ask, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”

Do you need forgiveness every day? The implication from the previous petition is that Jesus’ paradigm for prayer is for a daily prayer. If I need daily bread and other needs, I also need daily forgiveness.

But am I not already forgiven? Yes, of course, in Jesus we have received all forgiveness for all sins, past, present, and future. But we still have infractions in our relationship with God, and it is the relational forgiveness that Jesus is talking about here. So praying this paradigm prayer would lead me to considering the ways I have failed to live the life of love God has called me to, and to list or confess to Him my infractions of that law of love.

This is the only petition that Jesus gives explanation for and emphasis to after he teaches the model for prayer.  He specifically singles out this petition saying, “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.”

This could smack of a works oriented approach to us.  I only get forgiven to the degree I forgive.  But I think what is more to the point here is that having been forgiven results in a spirit of grace being born in us that sees the need of others for that same forgiveness. If I am unforgiving it must be because I have not experienced forgiveness, haven’t seen myself in such dire need and helpless to deal with my sin and yet found mercy from God and relief for my guilt.  How could I not extend that to someone else?  So instead of forgiving being a work that merits God’s forgiveness, it is an evidence that I have been forgiven.  If I don’t forgive others, it is highly questionable whether I have genuinely experienced God’s forgiveness.

The next petition is “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”

We’re not saying that God is going to tempt us to sin.  James makes it clear that He does not tempt us (James 1:13). But we are asking Him to help us not to sin so that there is no need of forgiveness as we just asked for.

There are situations you know that are a temptation for you to sin.  You are asking God to help you steer clear of those.  You know there are interactions you have that tempt you to sin and you are asking God to help you see what is taking place in those interactions from His perspective.  This request is an encouragement to anticipate the issues you struggle with.

I have tried to make it a habit whenever I am facing an upcoming meeting with someone or about to engage in an activity to ask God for His help to act in a way that is not sinful but that is loving and in line with His perfect will.

We close our prayer with, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever”

This brings us back from our own healthy and appropriate self-focus to the ultimate focus we need, God and His kingdom.  We begin with God, and we end with God.  We start with praise and desiring to see His kingdom come and we end with an acknowledgment of just how primary He is.  Everything we do should be for His kingdom, even if it is the meeting of our needs for sustenance or recreation.  This aspect of the prayer keeps us centered there.

So what do we do with the paradigm?  We practice using it and letting it form our prayers.  Would you like to do an experiment with me this week?  Let’s spend 10 minutes each day this coming week to use this paradigm to guide our praying.

Here is how I might do it:

Our Father who art in heaven…

I am so thankful that you are my loving Father and that nothing I need escapes your notice, that you are for me and will never desert me.

Hallowed by your name…

Help me to make your name known today.  I have to go to the store today.  Help me make your name known there.  I have to meet with some church members about a project.  Help me make your name known among them.  I need to meet some of my neighbors.  Help me make your name known to them.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

And make me an obedient subject of your kingdom in its present form this day.  Use me to live out the values of the kingdom at work today.  Help me to do the very best job I could do and so represent You in my workplace.  Help me to seek justice for those in my community today wherever I see injustice.  And use me to interest others in living for your kingdom.

Give me this day my daily bread…

Thank you for your provision for my food and shelter and clothing.  Give me also this day the strength I need to face the physical issues I suffer with.  Give me energy to do your will today.  My daily concerns for others lead me to ask specific things for them today to meet their needs.

And forgive me my debts and I forgive my debtors…

Forgive me for my apathy about the needs of those around me.  Forgive me for failing to look to you for help concerning the interaction I had yesterday.  Forgive me for those angry and hateful thoughts I had toward my brother in Christ.

Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from the evil one…

I am in a position today to be quiet when I should speak.  Help me Lord.  I might also be tempted to say things or use my position to take advantage of someone beneath me in power.  The evil one would love to encourage me to sin and see me fail, ruin my testimony and nullify what You have called me to do.

For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever…

Everything is about You, Lord, not me.  Your kingdom is the priority for my life and the life of every other believer.  I am looking for your kingdom to come.  I long to see your power and glory displayed so that every wrong is righted, and your rule is absolute over all the earth.  Amen.