The Lord's Prayer

A question I want to ask you is "what is prayer?" For many of us prayer is a reactive habit following the lines of "thank you, thank you, help me, help me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, or the stream of consciousness and getting lost in prayer."[1] Raise your hand if you have prayed like what I just described above.

“According to Dr. John MacArthur, the former President of Master's Seminary, "Prayer is the highest form of worship that an individual can participate in.”

Prayer is essentially saying, God, Your name, Your kingdom, Your will be elevated. Not my will. Not my kingdom. But You be gloried in all and through all. So, let me reiterate again, what is prayer?

In God’s word, prayer can be found to contain elements of speaking, waiting, and listening. These elements suggest a tone of conversation. For example, in Abraham’s prayer for Sodom. He uses common speech and adopts a persuasive tone when praying to God. In Psalm 37:4 King David notes the need to wait for God in prayer. The nature of prayer conversation is essential to intimacy with God.

Furthermore, prayer is not only for conversation, worship, and intimacy with God but its supreme goal is for the glory of God. Jesus affirms the purpose of prayer in John 14:13, “And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified.”Contrary to mainstream Christianity, true prayer is focused on God’s glory and not on man’s needs.[2]

So, for my lesson, we are going to explore The Disciples Prayer, more commonly known as The Lord’s Prayer, and understand why Jesus taught his disciples this prayer. If you have your Bible, please go to Matthew 6:9-13. Let us read together.

“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.”

In this passage, Jesus provides his disciples not a set of words to repeat nor a substitute for their own prayers but a guide for them. Jesus provides his disciples and us, with a structure on which we can build our prayers on.[3] The sad irony of the fate of this prayer is that for many of us, it has become a dead ritual. The problem is not the prayer. The problem is us.

Jesus gave this prayer as a gift to us. In it, it contains the highest values of his kingdom which is to love God and love others. While Jesus was here, he focused on redefining God to us.

The Jews had a strained relationship with God because of their unfaithfulness and idolatry.

By the time Jesus arrived, the Jews viewed God as a distant,"faded character who once helped their ancestors."[4]

By emphasizing in his teachings that He is the Son of the Living God and that if you see Him, you see God the Father. He was changing their perception of God, to the way God wanted us to actually understand Him and relate to Him. The point that I’m trying to make is that God is inviting us to His kingdom. He is inviting us to be part of the restoration of His kingdom. God wants us to know Him. God is not some angry absentee landlord but a father who wants to restore us to him.

When we look at the prayer we can see the genius of Jesus. He sums up God’s kingdom in less than 70 words, giving us the essential elements of righteous prayer.[5] Every one of these centers on God acknowledging "His paternity, priority, program, plan, provision, pardon, protection, and preeminence."[6]

So, when Jesus begins by saying, “pray then like this.” In modern English, Jesus is saying, “This is a skeleton that you are going to hang all your prayers on.” This is the framework for all your prayers. This is what it means to pray in the Spirit and pray consistently in the Spirit. The Disciples Prayer is divided into two parts. The first half of the prayer is focused on God and the second half is about us.

For our lesson, let's do a breakdown of the prayer, "Our Father in heaven."

Jesus is not giving a new set of instructions that the Jews have never known before. All the elements we find in proper Jewish prayers are emphasized and refined by our Lord in his instruction. This illustrates again, that he came not to overturn anything or replace anything but to fulfill. And he begins with, “Father.” Jesus used the Aramaic word Abba when he said this prayer. Abba translates as Daddy in the English language. The use of this word carries an intimate and personal connotation.

“Recognizing God as Our Father absolves us of our insecurities and provides us with a future hope.”

We know that if our earthly fathers loved and protected us, how much more will our heavenly Father care for us. We have no reason to be lonely with God as our Father, even if we are rejected by our family and friends. God will always be with us. Jesus taught us how to pray with, “Our Father,” to remind us that we are fellow children with the rest of God’s household and that all resources in heaven are available to us when we trust God as our heavenly supplier. As it states in Ephesians 1:3 “Our Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

And finally, knowing God settles our matter of obedience. If Jesus, as God’s true Son, came down from heaven, not to do His own will but His Father’s. How much more are we as adopted children to do His will? Obedience to God is one of the supreme marks of our relationship to Him as His children. In Matthew 12:50, Jesus says, “For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.” And in His grace, God loves and cares for His disobedient children. [7]

Our next verse is “Hallowed be Your Name." Let’s zoom in on the word hallowed. How many of you know what hallowed means?

Hallowed is an archaic word. It is the root word for holy. Holy means consecrated, sanctified, unique, one of a kind, set apart. Nobody says hallowed anymore If you were to modernize this verse, it would read “Holy be your Name.”

And so you might be wondering, how can God’s name be recognized as Holy? This is where Jesus invites us into His story. As some of you may be aware, we human beings are God’s image bearers. Meaning we are like mini copies of God in his character and personality. The prayer that Jesus is teaching us is a prayer for restoration and connecting us to our creator as Father.

Children of God, this prayer represents Heaven invading earth. This is getting the hell out of earth and repositioning ourselves to God. This is God’s name being made Holy when we are restored to him.

Our next verse is "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."

Our greatest desire should be to see Jesus reigning as King in His kingdom. And for Jesus to have the honor and authority that has always been His. To pray Your Kingdom come is for God’s program to be fulfilled. For Christ to reign should be the preoccupation of our lives and prayers.

But Christian, how often our prayers are selfish! Focused on our needs, our plans, and our dreams. We are like tiny infants concerned only for our feelings and wants. One of our greatest struggles in the Christian life is to go back to our old sinful life and focus on ourselves. Let us not be like this anymore. Let us repent.

The next point I want to focus on is, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

When we pray this, we are first praying that God’s will become our own will and that His will prevail over all the earth as it is in heaven. Many people, including believers, wrongly understand this part of the Disciples Prayer. People see God’s sovereignty as a dictator’s rule.

Others pray because they believe His will is inevitable. They pray out of passive resignation.

They pray for God’s will to be done because that is what the Lord tells them to do. According to The MacArthur New Testament Commentary on Matthew, it says "they try not to put their wills in accord with the divine will but rather shift their own wills into neutral. Letting God’s will run its course."[8] That’s not how we should think of prayer. Jesus saying "Your will be done on earth," shows that God's will is not done on earth and that we need to pray for God's will to be done. Our lack of prayer hinders God's will from being done. "God is sovereign but He is not independently deterministic."[9]

It is not God’s will that people die. It is not God’s will that people go to hell. It is for this reason that God sent his Son to die for us to stop the effects of sin and restore the world to its original order before Adam and Eve sinned.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the overemphasis on man’s will bending God’s will, where they turn God into a "cosmic vending machine."[10] Through the Disciple’s Prayer, Jesus models for us that true prayer focuses on His name, His Kingdom, and His will. God is sovereign but He gives us choices. God is sovereign but He tells us to pray.

As Dr. John MacArthur states, “I think the greatest hindrance to prayer is not the lack of technique, lack of biblical knowledge, or even lack of enthusiasm for the Lord’s work, but the lack of faith. We simply do not pray with the expectation that our prayers will make a difference in our lives, in other people’s lives, in the church, or in the world.”[11]

My next point is “Give us this day our daily bread.”

We live in a society where if you don’t work for it, you will have nothing. Nothing comes for free in this world. The high work ethic of our society tells us that if we work hard, we can have a good life. However, that story can be very deceiving. We believe we have everything because we worked for it.

As we look at this verse we need to understand that the audience that Jesus was talking to, is the sick and poor. And you may be thinking to yourself, well I’m not sick and I’m not poor. So how does this apply to me?

Jesus wants all his disciples, whether you know where your next meal is coming from, to cultivate the mindset of a beggar or day laborer and see that the basics of food, clothing, and the necessities of life are a gift you don’t deserve.

“And forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.” This next verse deals with our daily need to be forgiven and forgive.

“Forgiveness is at the heart of God's kingdom.”

We are forgiven and yet we keep asserting our right to get even. This is where Jesus comes in. He takes our punishment and absorbs the sin on the cross. Jesus's view of forgiveness is fully naming the wrong committed and then choosing the release your right for revenge and recompense.[12]

Tim Mackie, of the Bible Project, says "Certainly, that doesn’t mean there is no consequence for what they did to you. It doesn’t mean your best friends again but if the appeal for forgiveness doesn’t workout and they reject you. You go back with a few others and you go back with some more. But you’re never alone with that person again. You create these barriers and safety in the community."[13]

It’s not the same as reconciliation, where it takes two to fix the problem. Forgiveness takes one, not two. And if you’re thinking this is hard Jesus’s following words to the Disciples Prayer is even harder.

“For if you forgive other their trespasses,

your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

but if you do not forgive their trespasses,

neither will your Father forgive you.”

In this verse, Jesus is not talking about if you struggle to forgive or if you need time to forgive. But it’s when you refuse to forgive, that is what this verse is referring to. Jesus knows it is hard that’s why he wants you to internalize this every day. The heart of God’s kingdom is forgiveness.[14]

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

So, you’re thinking okay what’s up with this verse "Lead us not into temptation."Does this mean God plans traps for us?

In James 1:13-14 it says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted by evil and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires.”

So NO! God does not tempt us but we are led astray by our evil desires. The apostle James goes on to say, “Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

So here is a paradox of scripture. You can think of verse 13 in these terms, God tests us and Satan tempts us. God tests us to filter out sin in our lives and to strengthen our faith in Him. Whereas, Satan tempts us so we can sin and die. A good example of God testing and Satan tempting is Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness. He was led by the Spirit to test his loyalty and allegiance to the Father and to see if he would be the humble, self-giving, and loving Savior. Or would he choose to take the easy path, worship Satan, and receive power and authority over all people?

Do you think Jesus had a great time in the wilderness? No way! He had a horrible experience. He was starving. He was exhausted. He was possibly on the brink of death. However, he remained faithful through it.

"When we sincerely pray, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil, we also declare that we submit to His Word, which is our protection from sin."[15]

So, we can say to God “Help me to resist" or "Deliver me from temptation that will destroy my faith.” We need to pray in this manner every day to remind ourselves that following Jesus is hard. Great tests and trials are not signs that God has abandoned us but signs that God is with us every step of the way. This may include giving up our lives as Jesus did.

***This lesson was originally taught as a workshop for Living Water Conference***

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Footnotes:

[1] Tim Mackie, "The Lord's Prayer [Matthew]." The Bible Project, August 19. 2017, YouTube video, 49:55, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmN8Ablo5s&t=802s.

[2] John MacArthur, Matthew 1-7, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), 372.

[3] MacArthur, Matthew, 374.

[4] MacArthur, Matthew, 376.

[5] MacArthur, Matthew, 374.

[6] MacArthur, Matthew, 375.

[7] MacArthur, Matthew, 376.

[8] MacArthur, Matthew, 382.

[9] MacArthur, Matthew, 383.

[10] MacArthur, Matthew, 383.

[11] MacArthur, Matthew, 385.

[12] Mackie, "The Lord's Prayer."

[13] Mackie, "The Lord's Prayer."

[14] Mackie, "The Lord's Prayer."

[15] MacArthur, Matthew, 396.

Resources:

MacArthur, John. Matthew 1-7. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1985.

Mackie, Tim. "The Lord's Prayer [Matthew]." The Bible Project. August 19. 2017. YouTube video, 49:55. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmN8Ablo5s&t=8

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Bao Vang is a wife and mom of two amazing daughters. When Bao's not serving her local church, she likes to write and spend time with her family. Bao received her MA in Theological Studies from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and she is currently working on a PhD in Bible Exposition at John W. Rawlings School of Divinity at Liberty University. Bao is also a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Biblical Literature.