HG054.4 Matthew 6:1-18
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1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘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 today 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 the evil one.’
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Introduction
Introduction
This passage should be familiar to us as this is what we pray every Sunday and perhaps also in our daily prayers. We will come across it again in Luke 11 in about a year’s time where the Lord teaches it again but with slightly different language.
Pride
Pride
The prayer, though, is encompassed by not doing deeds in public to gain attention to get some kind of recognition for ourselves. I think that we’ll all agree that we hate it when people draw attention to their great deeds that they have done. They are all ‘me, me, me’. I don’t know about you but I can’t abide it though I am not sure whether it is because I am a Christian or there is an inbuilt dislike in us. I think that if people are too much about themselves everyone hates it but that’s perhaps because they also want a bit of the action. Today there are so many popular songs are about ‘it is all about me’ breeding a selfishness not seen before.
Of course, I find that this is true of some Christian choruses too. We should be all about Jesus but it is all about us. I am not saying that we should not recognise what Jesus has done for us so that it spawns gratefulness to Him as long as that is what happens. Our eyes are to be upon Him rather than ourselves.
In this passage Jesus is talking about spiritual pride where prayers are made to draw attention to how great they are with God or they appear to be giving a lot to charity or to the Church so that everyone knows or when doing something that is sacrificial showing just how hard it is for them. Jesus says that such have had their reward but all that kind of thing should be done out of the gaze of others for our right and left hand should not know what it is doing. a kind of deliberate forgetfulness and a deliberate attempt at keeping these kind of things secret.
Disciples’ Prayer Introduction
Disciples’ Prayer Introduction
So, let us look at this prayer colloquially known as the ‘Lord’s prayer’. It isn’t really that though. It is actually the disciple’s prayer or as I often say: The prayer the Lord taught. The Lord’s prayer is actually found in John 17 as the longest recorded prayer of Jesus and even that is not very long at all at 651 words or about 5 minutes.
Jesus prefaces the prayer he taught with saying we should not think that we will be heard for our many words or because of repetition. Long prayers have their place as long as it is about different requests. I have heard many prayers, as I am sure you have too, where some prayers are just too long and have no substance or the same things are asked for over and over again within the same prayer. What is the point of such prayer? We cannot pester God until He answers, prayer does not work like this. The prayer that Jesus teaches the disciples is actually very short at 66 words but very full. It was not meant to be used as repetition word-for-word though there is nothing wrong with that but it was given so that we should know how to pray. This means that this prayer is a template.
Let’s take each of these of these requests in order:
Our Father who art in Heaven
Our Father who art in Heaven
This is a matter of relationship. Only a child of God can pray this. An unbeliever who prays this has to recognise God and His authority over them. We can have a sentimental view of fatherhood but our Dad’s are still our fathers and so there ought to be some respect there. The same with God. He is our Father which means that there is a call to honour and respect and that He has a right to speak into our lives and loves. We are family.
He is also OUR Father which means that this is a prayer that we should pray in community though, of course, we can pray, ‘My Father’ at home and when we do it should not be obvious to anyone we are praying except, perhaps, as an example. But let us caution about over-familiarity; He is still different to us and there is a power difference. We cannot tell Him what to do! But He can tell us!
Hallowed by thy name
Hallowed by thy name
The word ‘hallowed’ is an old-fashioned word which we have heard quite recently with ‘Hallowe’en’ which means ‘holy eve’ though it is anything but. So, ‘hallowed’ means to ‘treat as holy’. We should have concern for God’s name. The request is actually ‘let your name be treated as holy’. Plainly this is a request very needful today. This is true especially in the language of people around us and the popular use of OMG all the time in such a blasphemous way denigrates and disparages the name of God to an acronym.
But the name of God stands for all He is. He is the intelligent Ruler of the universe, glorious and perfect in all His attributes, and blessed in all His ways and works. The result of understanding this is that we adore His greatness, revere His purity, fear His justice, delight in His mercy and grace, are grateful for His goodness, trust in His truth, etc. We hallow His name as He is so other to us and this leads to genuine awe and worship. This is where we can thank Him for our salvation, for His mercy and love despite His sheer awesomeness.
Thy kingdom come
Thy kingdom come
This is concern for God’s rule; for Jesus to rule and reign in our hearts and lives and in the hearts and lives of others. It is what happens when Christ’s people allow God to take charge and where we are yielded to Him. It is to ask for God in Christ to come again and establish His Kingdom on the earth. In a small way this happens when His Church, His people meet together if we are in unity with God and each other. Jesus spoke a great deal about the Kingdom of God and this is also one of the over-arching themes of Scripture. Jesus said His kingdom was coming when people were healed, being released from the power of Satan and coming to faith in Him. This is the business we are in today. To see his Kingdom come. This should reveal what kind of prayers we should pray as well as not pray and this goes for the next part too:
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
This is concern for God’s will which is perfectly obeyed in Heaven to also be perfectly obeyed on earth. When we pray this we are saying: ‘have your way in us, Lord’. I am sure you can remember that this is what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane:
saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
This explains to us why some of our prayers appear to be unanswered prayer, why we do not get the answers we want, why some people will continue to suffer even when we pray for healing. God is God and His ways are past finding out. Sometimes He will reveal why and other times He will not. It is His prerogative. This part of the prayer reveals just how dependant we are upon God for help in all things and also how we have to yield ourselves to His purposes and ways rather than our own. It is also where we can pray for others in intercession.
Give us this day our daily bread
Give us this day our daily bread
Here we come to our petitions. I don’t think many of us literally are praying for bread when we ask this. What we mean is ‘please provide for all our need this day’. This is where we can expand our prayers into all those things that concern us. Again this shows our utter dependence upon God in trusting Him with all humility. Everything we have is a gift from Him and we receive daily gifts from Him in order to live our lives.
On top of this we should be looking to see if we are an answer to someone else’s prayer. Bread is a very basic commodity and anything we have on top of this is excess and perhaps we need to see if we can be generous with our food and money and in hospitality especially to those who cannot return the favour. Let us remember that is ‘our’ bread rather than ‘my’ bread. If God does not give the harvest then we could not have bread - and it is meant to be shared.
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
We all want to be forgiven and we have been; when we were saved and as we go on. But just as we have been shown mercy we need to show mercy to others. Some of our prayers can be hindered if we harbour bitterness or unforgiveness. But, let us remember that God’s grace is not dependent upon us. In another place the Scripture says:
And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
We are not forgiven because we forgive but because we are forgiven we forgive.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
This is a concern for spiritual victory:
1. Over things we can’t help—things that just happen along the course of life
2. Over things we experience—things that come from “the evil one”
This is not deliverance from evil per se but from the works of the evil one in our lives. God does not tempt us however we are already in a world mired by sin and evil - it is a request from God to deliver us from its consequences directly in our lives and to help us when temptation does come and even then we have the promise of Scripture:
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
By praying this prayer we are saying we want no part to do with evil or the evil one and reminds us that we are in a battle and because we are aware of it, it makes us more cautious and careful of those things that come our way. And because we have prayed it we have less willingness to have something to do with it.
For yours is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever
For yours is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever
This is the opposite of the kingdom of darkness that we have just mentioned.
The Kingdom: He already is King, already has the rule, the kingdom is already His and there is no question who is in charge.
The power: He already possesses the power and everything we have asked for is within His ability for nothing is impossible for Him. Indeed this is why we ask Him for He can do all that we think or ask and so much more.
The glory: He already has the glory and this is the end of our prayer is that He continues to receive it through our lives and those we pray for. And this takes us back in a loop to the beginning of this prayer. It begins and ends with Him and all the glory goes to Him.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Notice some things about this prayer:
Its brevity, its focus on God, its coverage of various areas: human need, human relationships, human spiritual development. This should teach us some things about prayer.
What do we pray in your prayers? Do we pray in accordance with this prayer? Do we pray at all when we are on our own? As James says: “… ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.”
Let us use this prayer we were taught by our Lord, Master, Saviour and Friend as a template to pray in accordance to the will of God. Let us make this our daily prayer, not repeating it verbatim though we can do this, but taking time over each line to fill in more.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Augsburger, M. S., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1982). Matthew (Vol. 24). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Betz, H. D. (1995). The Sermon on the mount: a commentary on the Sermon on the mount, including the Sermon on the plain (Matthew 5:3-7:27 and Luke 6:20-49). (A. Y. Collins, Ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Bryant, A. (1992). Sermon outlines on the attributes of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Gospels (Matthew 1-13) (electronic ed., Vol. 34). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Wood, C. R. (1998). Sermon Outlines on Gospel Passages. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.
(2011). The Lexham Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament. Logos Bible Software.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 20:20 26 November 2017.