Sunday, October 13th, 2019 - AM - Therefore Pray Ye: Christ's Pattern for Effective Prayer (Matt. 6:9-15)

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Dr. CJ Walker

Broomfield Baptist

Breaking Bread with Barnabas • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago • Presented 5 years ago • 40:03

Matthew 6:9–15

Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray

Sermon on the Mount

The "Lord's" Prayer

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Jesus’ instruction to His disciples provided a pattern for corporate prayer which helps us to maintain a proper course for effective communication with God.

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Pre-Introduction:

At this time, we invite any children who desire to join my dear wife for a children’s service to follow her where you can hear a wonderful bible lesson and sing some uplifting songs about Jesus.

For those joining us online, you’re listening to the Services of the Broomfield Baptist Church. This is the Pastor bringing the Sunday Morning message entitled "Therefore Pray Ye: Christ’s Pattern for Effective Prayer.” We invite you to follow along with us in your Bible in the Book of Matthew, chapter six, and verses 9-15. At the end of our time in the Bible, I’m going to ask that each of us have a time of prayer together.

Introduction:

Matthew 6:9–15 KJV 1900

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which 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, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

[Start Low]

A. Get Attention- It’s amazing to even think that we can access the presence of God...

Striking Statement-

IF you ask me why God should love us, I cannot tell. I suppose it is because He is a true Father. It is His nature to love; just as it is the nature of the sun to shine.

[D. L. Moody, The D. L. Moody Year Book: A Living Daily Message from the Words of D. L. Moody, ed. Emma Moody Fitt (East Northfield, MA: The Bookstore, 1900), 91.]

B. Raise Need- to make a difference by being different, if we never ask in faith, we will never see the hand of God moving in the affairs of our day.

Illustration-

The single greatest countercultural act Christians perform is to worship together and proclaim that Jesus is Lord. To cease from the constant round of commerce and consumption, to resist the manipulation of media that insists that working and possessing [define] worth, and to proclaim with the body language of communal gathering that Jesus, not any other power, is Lord is to enact the politics of God’s kingdom and to embody the prayer “your kingdom come.”[4 Johnson, Prophetic Jesus, 124.] [Jeannine K. Brown, Matthew, ed. Mark L. Strauss and John H. Walton, Teach the Text Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2015), 68.]

C. State Purpose- to teach our church to be a praying church, together

D. Orient Theme- staying with the pattern, so we protect the integrity of the product of our prayers

Main Thought:

Jesus’ instruction to His disciples provided a pattern for corporate prayer helps us maintain a proper course for effective communication with God. Prayer ought to produce change, foremost in us.

Sub-introduction:

Context - Alms, Private Prayer, now Corporate Prayer

Body:

I. Addressing Our Father (Matt. 6:9-10)

[Go Slow]

A. The Pattern for Our Praying (Matt. 6:9a)

Matthew 6:9 KJV 1900

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Jesus said to pray “after this manner” not “according to this formula”

Illustration:

Food: Some flavors are unmistakable, defining entire kinds of food. For instance, tomato, basil, and garlic might make you think of your favorite Italian restaurant. Cilantro, onion, tomato, and jalapeño are essential for a great salsa. And the smell of white rice, ginger, and tuna makes any true sushi lover’s mouth water. Our prayer life, Jesus teaches, should be defined by a longing for and focus on the kingdom’s arrival. It is the essential ingredient of the church’s life of prayer. [Jeannine K. Brown, Matthew, ed. Mark L. Strauss and John H. Walton, Teach the Text Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2015), 69.]

B. The Person to Whom We Pray (Matt. 6:9b)

Application:

Our Father.

There is one thing more pitiable, almost worse than even cold, black, miserable atheism. To kneel down and say, “Our Father,” and then to get up and live an orphaned life. To stand and say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” and then to go fretting and fearing, saying with a thousand tongues, “I believe in the love of God!—but it is only in heaven. I believe in the power of God!—but it stoppeth short at the stars. I believe in the providence of God!—but it is limited to the saints in Scripture. I believe that ‘the Lord reigneth’—only with reference to some far-off time with which we have nothing to do.” That is more insulting to our heavenly Father, more harmful to the world, more cheating to ourselves, than to have no God at all.

~mark guy pearse.

[D. L. Moody, One Thousand and One Thoughts from My Library (New York; Chicago; Toronto: Fleming H. Revell, 1898), 170–171.]

1. God’s Transcendence

Explanation:

The addition of “in heaven” tells of God’s transcendence and sovereign power (it is found twenty times in Matthew with “Father” and only in Mark 11:25 elsewhere in the Synoptics), so “Father in heaven” means that Almighty God, the omnipotent One, who dwells in heavenly splendor and power, cares deeply for our needs.

[Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, vol. 1, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 228.]

2. God’s Holiness

Explanation:

The first God-oriented petition is that the sacredness of God’s name be magnified in every area of life. In the ancient world a person’s name bespoke the very essence of the person (see on 1:21), so God’s name tells who he is at the core of his being. Since holiness is at the heart of the divine character, that must be made evident in everything the disciple does.

[Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, vol. 1, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 228.]

Illustration:

There is an old Roman story which tells how a Roman emperor was enjoying a triumph. He had the privilege, which Rome gave to her great victors, of marching his troops through the streets of Rome, with all his captured trophies and his prisoners in his train. So the emperor was on the march with his troops. The streets were lined with cheering people. The tall legionaries lined the streets’ edges to keep the people in their places. At one point on the triumphal route, there was a little platform where the empress and her family were sitting to watch the emperor go by in all the pride of his triumph. On the platform with his mother, there was the emperor’s youngest son, a little boy. As the emperor came near, the little boy jumped off the platform, burrowed through the crowd and tried to dodge between the legs of a legionary and to run out on to the road to meet his father’s chariot. The legionary stooped down and stopped him. He swung him up in his arms: ‘You can’t do that, boy,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know who that is in the chariot? That’s the emperor. You can’t run out to his chariot.’ And the little boy laughed down. ‘He may be your emperor,’ he said, ‘but he’s my father.’ That is exactly the way the Christian feels towards God. The might, and the majesty, and the power are the might, and the majesty, and the power of one whom Jesus taught us to call Our Father.

...He can be sure of the love of God. We do not believe in a mocking and a capricious God, or in a blind and iron determinism. Thomas Hardy ﬁnishes his novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles with the grim words: ‘The President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess.’ We believe in a God whose name is love. As J. G. Whittier’s hymn has it:

I know not where His islands lift

Their fronded palms in air.

I only know I cannot drift

Beyond His love and care.

As Robert Browning triumphantly declared his faith in lines from ‘Paracelsus’:

God, Thou art love! I build my faith on that …

I know thee who has kept my path and made

Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow

So that it reached me like a solemn joy.

It were too strange that I should doubt thy love.

And as Paul had it: ‘He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?’ (Romans 8:32). No one can look at the cross and doubt the love of God; and when we are sure of the love of God, it is easy to say: ‘Your will be done.’

[William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Third Ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001),233-234, 247.]

C. God’s Purposes Are Our Priority (Matt. 6:10)

Matthew 6:10 KJV 1900

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

1. For the Acknowledgement of His Kingdom (Matt. 6:10a)

Application:

YEARS AGO, THERE appeared in a popular novel the story of a shepherd boy who grew up in a mountain community called Kingdom Come. I was fascinated by that unusual name.

I am thinking now of a far more wonderful Kingdom come. We are living at present in the kingdom of this world. It began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but sin entered and wrecked that kingdom. It is still a wreck, although some of its beauty lingers. The loveliest natural scene is deceptive because underneath there is bloodshed and terror. The creatures creep about in fear; the birds look nervously in all directions; the snake glides in the grass. The reign of tooth and claw still prevails, and everything is under the curse. The earth is rent by sin and strife, by wars, and rumors of wars. We may send men to the moon, but we cannot solve the problems of earth. The kingdom of this world is a failure because the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked. Science does not have the answer to sin. So-called civilization carries the seeds of moral cancer in its heart. It will never hold out morally and spiritually to do what it hopes to do scientifically. Man is not evolving upward toward God. He started with a knowledge of God, but denied Him, and has been living in rebellion ever since. He tries to build heaven without God but his towers of Babel come crashing around his head for "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it..." (Psalms 127:1). "... the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans 8:22). Any man who is a citizen of this world only, is a citizen of a kingdom doomed to die.

The kingdom of this world is under the power of Satan, the arch rebel who revolted against God and was cast out of heaven. He is the prince of this world and it lies in wickedness. He does not own it for "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof..." (Psalms 24:1). But he does possess it for the time being. He is a usurper, and will be thrown out one day, for the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ.

Long ago, God sent His Son to tell us about the Kingdom of God. First of all, He came to deal with sin, for it was sin that wrecked the first creation. He took our sins upon Him, and died in our stead—as many as receive Him receive power to become sons of God, members of the new race of which He is the new Adam. Here is the greatest of all race issues: whether we belong to the new race or to only the old race of sinful humanity.

...Dr. A. J. Gordon put it this way: "The age to come is the resurrection age, the time of the redemption of the body. We know the powers of that age not simply by prediction and promise but by experience. Every miracle is a foretaste thereof, a sign of its universal healing and restitution. The driftwood and floating vegetation which met the eye of Columbus as he was keeping lookout upon his ship assured him of the proximity of the new world which he was seeking. His study of geography had assured him of the existence of that world. But now he tasted its powers, he saw and handled its actual firstfruits. So it is with us voyagers to the world to come, the millennial age, and the time of the restitution of all things. As those who have known and credited our Lord's miracles while on earth or have experienced the wonders of recovery which He has wrought as He still stretches out His hand to heal, we have tasted the powers of the coming age."

[Vance Havner, Living in Kingdom Come, Vance Havner Bundle (Baker Publishing Group, 2009).]

2. For the Achievement of His Will (Matt. 6:10b)

Illustration:

God’s will for us is always best and always safe. There’re no risks to be run here. Our poor human plans are attended by many risks. Our poor human judgment is so defective, often. There’re no risks here. God’s will for us is always safe and always best. How that ought to anchor us, how that ought to make us trustful and utterly unafraid. God’s will is always right and safe and best. General Jackson dying yonder at Chancellorsville had exactly the right word to say to the surgeon and the others that came around him, wounded, you know, to his death by one of his own men. He was the calmest man in that little group as he laid under the shade of the trees, dying at Chancellorsville. The doctor was greatly disconcerted and nervous, and so were the officers, and General Jackson quietly said, “Why, be calm, men. If I live, it’ll be for the best, and if I die, it’ll be for the best. God knows and directs all things for the best for those who trust him and love him, and I trust him and I love him,” said the great Jackson. And he went on to be with God. That’s the way to die.

[George Washington Truett, Sermons of George W. Truett (Baylor University - The Texas Collection, 2013).]

Application:

Robert Law has said, “Prayer is a mighty instrument, not for getting man’s will done in heaven, but for getting God’s will done in earth.” We have no right to ask God for anything that will dishonor His name, delay His kingdom, or disturb His will on earth.

[Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 26.]

Transition: Having understood better how to address our Father, we now consider...

II. Addressing Our Flesh (Matt. 6:11-13)

[Climb Higher]

A. Our Need for Food (Matt. 6:11)

Matthew 6:11 KJV 1900

Give us this day our daily bread.

Explanation:

“Bread” is an example of synecdoche, a part-whole figure of speech for “food” (4:4), but especially referring to all of the believer’s needs, physical and spiritual.122 The word translated “daily” (epiousios) in connection with “bread” has been broadly debated, but the wording seems to recall Israel’s daily reliance on God for manna in the desert (Ex. 16). In the same way as manna was only given one day at a time, disciples are to rely on daily provision for life from God, helping them to develop a continuing, conscious dependence on him (cf. Matt. 6:34; Phil. 4:6).

122 See Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1991), 100–101, 108.

[Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 45.]

Illustration:

You have heard the old story of the man who met a boy in a village street carrying a loaf of bread. He stopped the boy and asked him where he got the loaf. “From the baker” was the reply. “Yes, that is right, but where did he get it?” “He made it,” said the boy. “How did he make it?” “With flour.” “Where did he get his flour?” “He ground the corn.” “Where did he get his corn from?” “He got it from the farmer.” “Yes, but where did the farmer get his corn?” “Oh, from God,” said the boy. “Then you got your loaf from God!” We have been very much like that boy. We have put God away back, behind the miller and the farmer, and have forgotten Him in the process. While we recognize the need of the intermediation of all these instruments, we are not to forget that it is God who feeds us with food sufficient for body and soul.

Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,

And back of the flour the mill;

And back of the mill is the wheat, and the shower,

And the sun, and the Father’s will.

[G. Campbell Morgan, The Practice of Prayer (New York; Chicago; Toronto; London; Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1906), 92–93.]

B. Our Need of Forgiveness (Matt. 6:12)

Matthew 6:12 KJV 1900

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Illustration:

In some churches today where there is formal religion, liturgy, and ritual, they use “forgive us our debts” while others will use “forgive us our trespasses.” Two little girls were talking about the Lord’s Prayer as repeated in their churches. One said,“We have trespasses in our church,” and the other said, “Well, in our church we have debts.” (Probably they both were right as far as the churches of our day are concerned—they have both debts and trespasses.) So which phrase is accurate? There is no difficulty here at all since all of these words refer to the same thing, and that thing is sin.

[J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Commentary: The Gospels (Matthew 1-13), electronic ed., vol. 34 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 93.]

C. Our Necessary Fight (Matt. 6:13)

Matthew 6:13 KJV 1900

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Illustration:

But temptation comes not only from outside us; it comes from inside us too. If there was nothing in us to which temptation could appeal, then it would be helpless to defeat us. In every one of us, there is some weak spot; and at that weak spot, temptation launches its attack.

The point of vulnerability differs in all of us. What is a violent temptation to one person leaves another quite unmoved; and what leaves one person quite unmoved may be an irresistible temptation to another. J. M. Barrie wrote a play called The Will. Mr Devizes, the lawyer, noticed that an old clerk, who had been in his service for many years, was looking very ill. He asked him if anything was the matter. The old man told him that his doctor had informed him that he was suffering from an incurable and ultimately fatal disease.

Mr Devizes [uncomfortably]: I’m sure it’s not—what you fear. Any specialist would tell you so.

Surtees [without looking up]: I’ve been to one, sir—yesterday.

Mr Devizes: Well?

Surtees: It’s—that, sir.

Mr Devizes: He couldn’t be sure.

Surtees: Yes, sir.

Mr Devizes: An operation—

Surtees: Too late for that, he said. If I had been operated on long ago, I might have had a chance.

Mr Devizes: But you didn’t have it long ago.

Surtees: Not to my knowledge, sir; but he says it was there all the same, always in me, a black spot, not as big as a pin’s head, but waiting to spread and destroy me in the fullness of time.

Mr Devizes [helpless]: It seems damnably unfair.

Surtees [humbly]: I don’t know, sir. He says there is a spot of that kind in pretty nigh all of us, and, if we don’t look out, it does for us in the end.

Mr Devizes: No. No. No.

Surtees: He called it the accursed thing. I think he meant we should know of it, and be on the watch.

In each one of us there is the weak spot, which, if we are not on the watch, can ruin us. Somewhere within us there is the ﬂaw, some fault of temperament which can ruin life, some instinct or passion so strong that it may at any time snap the leash, some quirk in our make-up that makes what is a pleasure to someone else a menace to us. We should realize it, and be on the watch.

[William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Third Ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 264–265.]

Application:

When we pray deliver us from evil, we are again admitting our inability to deal with Satan’s attacks in our own strength (compare 1 Corinthians 10:13). This petition acknowledges not just evil in the abstract but also the evil one himself: the devil, who tempts people to commit sin. Here we see part of the prayer’s assurance. Powerful as he is, Satan is no match for Almighty God (John 17:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; 2 Timothy 4:18). One who is delivered from evil is to produce the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–25). As we do, we constantly wear “the whole armour of God” to “be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).

[Mark S. Krause et al., “Kingdom-Seeking Prayer,” in The KJV Standard Lesson Commentary, 2019–2020, ed. Ronald L. Nickelson et al., vol. 67 (Colorado Springs, CO: Standard Publishing, 2019–2020), 214.]

Transition: Having provided the template for effective corporate prayer, Jesus next gave...

III. Fundamentals of Forgiveness (Matt. 6:14-15)

[Take Fire]

A. Forgiven by Forgiving (Matt. 6:14)

Matthew 6:14 KJV 1900

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Explanation:

The New Testament uses ﬁve different words for sin.

(1) The most common word is hamartia. This was originally a shooting word and means a missing of the target. To fail to hit the target was hamartia. Therefore sin is the failure to be what we might have been and could have been.

The nineteenth-century writer Charles Lamb has a picture of a man named Samuel le Grice. Le Grice was a brilliant youth who never fulﬁlled his promise. Lamb says that there were three stages in his career. There was a time when people said: ‘He will do something.’ There was a time when people said: ‘He could do something if he would.’ There was a time when people said: ‘He might have done something, if he had liked.’ The poet Edwin Muir writes in his Autobiography: ‘After a certain age all of us, good and bad, are grief-stricken because of powers within us which have never been realized: because, in other words, we are not what we should be.’

That precisely is hamartia; and that is precisely the situation in which we are all involved. Are we as good husbands or wives as we could be? Are we as good sons or daughters as we could be? Are we as good workers or employers as we could be? Can any one of us dare to claim that we are all we might have been, and have done all we could have done? When we realize that sin means the failure to hit the target, the failure to be all that we might have been and could have been, then it is clear that every one of us is a sinner.

(2) The second word for sin is parabasis, which literally means a stepping across. Sin is the stepping across the line which is drawn between right and wrong.

Do we always stay on the right side of the line which divides honesty and dishonesty? Is there never any such thing as a petty dishonesty in our lives?

Do we always stay on the right side of the line which divides truth and falsehood? Do we never, by word or by silence, twist or evade or distort the truth?

Do we always stay on the right side of the line which divides kindness and courtesy from selﬁshness and harshness? Is there never an unkind action or a discourteous word in our lives?

When we think of it in this way, there can be none who can claim always to have remained on the right side of the dividing line.

(3) The third word for sin is paraptōma, which means a slipping across. It is the kind of slip which someone might make on a slippery or an icy road. It is not so deliberate as parabasis. Again and again, we speak of words ‘slipping out’; again and again, we are swept away by some impulse or passion which has momentarily gained control of us and which has made us lose our self-control. The best of us can slip into sin when for the moment we are off our guard.

(4) The fourth word for sin is anomia, which means lawlessness. Anomia is the sin of the person who knows the right, and who yet does the wrong; the sin of the one who knows the law, and who yet breaks the law. The ﬁrst of all the human instincts is the instinct to do what we like; and therefore there come into many people’s lives times when they wish to kick over the traces and to defy the law, and to do or to take the forbidden thing. In ‘Mandalay’, Rudyard Kipling makes the old soldier say:

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,

Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, an’ a man can raise a thirst.

Even if there are some who can say that they have never broken any of the Ten Commandments, there are none who can say that they have never wished to break any of them.

(5) The ﬁfth word for sin is the word opheilēma, which is the word used in the body of the Lord’s Prayer; and opheilēma means a debt. It means a failure to pay that which is due, a failure in duty. None of us could ever dare to claim that we have perfectly fulﬁlled our duty to other people and to God: such perfection does not exist in this world.

So, when we come to see what sin really is, we come to see that it is a universal disease in which we are all involved. Outward respectability in the sight of others and inward sinfulness in the sight of God may well go hand in hand. This, in fact, is a petition of the Lord’s Prayer which we all need to pray.

[William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Third Ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 253–256.]

B. Unforgiven Is the Unforgiving (Matt. 6:15)

Matthew 6:15 KJV 1900

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Application:

Christ said, “Forgive to be forgiven.”

Paul said, “Forgive because forgiven.” Eph. 4:32.

[D. L. Moody, Notes from My Bible: From Genesis to Revelation (Chicago; New York; Toronto: Fleming H. Revell, 1895), 101.]

The important thing about prayer is not simply getting an answer, but being the kind of person whom God can trust with an answer.

[Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 26.]

… Next time you have occasion to recite the Lord’s Prayer take a moment to think about the words you’re using. I cannot say “our” if I live only for myself.

I cannot say “Father” if I do not endeavor each day to act like his child.

I cannot say “who art in heaven” if I am laying up no treasure there.

I cannot say “hallowed be thy name” if I am not striving for holiness.

I cannot say “thy Kingdom come” if I am not doing all in my power to hasten that wonderful event.

I cannot say “thy will be done” if I am disobedient to his Word. I cannot say “on earth as it is in heaven” if I’ll not serve Him here and now.

I cannot say “give us this day our daily bread” if I am dishonest or am seeking things by subterfuge.

I cannot say “forgive us our debts” if I harbor a grudge against anyone.

I cannot say “lead us not into temptation” if I deliberately place myself in its path.

I cannot say “deliver us from evil” if I do not put on the whole armor of God.

I cannot say “thine is the kingdom” if I do not give the King the loyalty due Him from a faithful subject.

I cannot attribute to Him “the power” if I fear what men may do.

I cannot ascribe to Him “the glory” if I’m seeking honor only for myself, and I cannot say “forever” if the horizon of my life is bounded completely by time.

[Stephen F. Olford, Institutes of Biblical Preaching, Volume Seven (Memphis, TN: Olford Ministries International, 1988).]

Conclusion:

A. Call to Act/Summary of Message/Application:

Call/Summarize/Apply-

Theology in Application

Prayer is at the heart simple communion with our Father. It is an incredible gift, and perhaps no other religion has ever conceived of so loving a relationship with their god(s) as has the Judeo-Christian one. It must be said at the outset that God loves us far more than we love him, and so prayer is often misused by the Christian. At the heart prayer is simply returning to God the love he has shown us. It is a desire to share every aspect of life with the One who has done so much for us. Yet there are certain responsibilities that we have in prayer, and Jesus here reminds us of several.

1. Not Using Prayer to Get Attention

By definition prayer is a private communion with God, not a public manifestation of piety. To misuse the vertical love relationship with our Lord as a horizontal showcase to impress others is an abomination. There can be no worship where ostentation is in control (see the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee; Luke 18:9–14).

2. Power of Prayer Based on Quality, not Quantity

The Gentiles acted as if their gods were hard of hearing and quite dense. They only heard requests after a great deal of imploring and wheedling. The Jews prayed the Eighteen Benedictions two or three times a day. Jesus does teach persistent prayer (Luke 11:9–13; 18:1–8) and Paul says to “pray continually” (1 Thess 5:17; cf. Rom 1:9–10; Eph 6:18; Col 1:3; 2 Tim 1:3), but these passages refer to regular prayers as much as to lengthy prayers.

This does not mean lengthy times of prayer are in and of themselves wrong. Martin Luther got up well before dawn to spend three hours in prayer. But length must not become a magic formula for getting God to hear, and the use of repetitive phrases and mantras will never be accepted by God. God desires a childlike attitude of loving communication The deepest prayer is often uttered at work in the midst of pressure when one says simply, “Lord, I am in trouble. Give me wisdom, and thank you for being with me right now.” That is a quality prayer! One wonders also whether some types of modern worship with the “7–11” style (seven words repeated eleven times) might fall into the error of needless repetition, which can produce emotional worship but seldom true worship.

3. The Heart of Prayer Is Worship

When we say, “Our Father who is in heaven,” we are not uttering a formal address but celebrating a relationship. We are reminding ourselves of the deep intimacy and incomprehensible love of the One to whom we pray. Moreover, by uttering “our,” we also celebrate the fact that we are “co-heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:17) and share his relationship with the Father. It is Christ’s incredibly deep relationship with his Father that we share. We are part of the family of God and so corporately celebrate this new oneness with him and Christ in an “our” setting. That is the heart of worship—sharing this new intimacy first with Christ and then with “our” brothers and sisters.

4. Corporate, Not Just Individual, Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer, with its plural pronouns and verbs, is meant to be uttered as a community. The NT is clear: every aspect of the Christian life is intended to be lived out together as the family of God. We pray together, grow spiritually together, and stimulate one another in each part of our spiritual growth. We were not made to be rugged individualists, and Christians who do not share with others live a life God never intended. Good examples of the power of corporate prayer are the prayers of Acts 4:24–26; 12:12; 13:1–3.

5. Concern with the Things of God before Our Own Needs

Jesus deliberately placed God-centered issues first, following both the Ten Commandments (Exod 20) and his own summary of the Torah (Matt 22:34–40). Primarily, the three God-centered petitions are concerned with the final coming of his kingdom. Only when his kingdom arrives in power and destroys evil will his name be truly honored and his will be truly done. Yet there are lifestyle issues as well. True prayer means that our greatest priority is to honor God in our lives and do his will. If we truly feel we are citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20) as well as “foreigners” and “exiles” on earth (1 Pet 1:1, 17; 2:11), we will live only to please our heavenly Father by doing his will.

6. Bringing All Our Personal Needs to God in Total Dependence on Him

The final three petitions summarize our earthly (the first petition) and spiritual (the other two) needs. They also show God’s concern for the “little things” in our lives. This is also the message of 6:25–34; God will take care of our daily needs. But will we trust him or spend all our energy trusting only ourselves? There are two aspects of this: (1) there are the individual needs we have, but also (2) we must be corporately concerned for each other’s needs. Still, it is prayer and thus demands that we are trusting God rather than self for our daily requirements.

7. God’s Community Is All about Forgiveness and Reconciliation

We already saw this in 5:21–26, which was about seeking reconciliation when anger has broken the community apart. This tells how reconciliation is accomplished, namely, by the injured party being willing to forgive the hurts caused by others. In fact, Jesus goes further here: our own reconciliation with God is at stake. Bruner says “the unforgiving Christian becomes, by that fact, the unforgiven Christian. Consequently, this reading of the Lord’s prayer teaches that there should be no praying of this prayer at all where there has not first been the attempt of its pray-ers, ‘as far as in you lies’ (Rom 12:18), to be on good speaking terms with everyone else in the community.”38

38 Bruner, Christbook, 257.

[Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, vol. 1, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 232–234.]

B. Gospel Invitation:

In just a moment, we are going to have an invitation for you to respond to what you've heard about the Lord today. Friend, God loves you, but it's not okay for you to leave here today without realizing how much trouble you might be in with God because of your sins if you have never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Why don't you change your mind toward Him? His love sent Jesus Christ, God's only Son, to die on the cross for all your sins. Won't you come and ask Jesus to come into your life and save you?

Friend, if God’s Word has shown you something about yourself, an area where you might be weak in faith, or something that He is wanting you to obey Him in, or just simply if the Lord is working in your life right now, your greatest need is to be right with Him. While the piano plays, don’t wait another moment. Now is the time to acknowledge that God is moving toward you, and you are moving toward Him. Step out, and come and kneel at the front somewhere, pray to God, and tell Him what’s on your heart. If you need to be saved, come and we’ll have someone, men with men and ladies with ladies, show you from the Bible how you can be saved today. If you would step out and decide to follow Jesus today, then why not come and tell Him so?

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