The Lord’s Prayer

Learning By Example

Life would be so much easier if you could teach your child by simply telling them what to do once.

“When you finish eating, put your plate into the dishwasher.” It seems like an easy instruction, but the creative ways kids can put items into a dishwasher are amazing! It’s as if they have no idea how the water cleans anything; so I have to show them exactly HOW we load the dishwasher. I only had to show them once, though. JUST KIDDING!  It never sticks the first time. It’s a journey of showing, correcting, and reminding.

When it comes to cleaning their rooms, I found that they have a very different definition of “clean” than I do. So for each of my sons, I cleaned his room once WITH him. Then, when we were done and the room was actually clean, I said, “This is how your room should look when you finish cleaning it.” I created a model for him to think about in the future when I told him to clean up his room.

This is how we learn: by example, through repetition, from models that clarify.

That’s why, when Jesus wanted to show His disciples how to pray, He gave them a model prayer we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” When you think of this prayer, you likely think of the version found in Matthew chapter 6. There is another very similar version of the prayer in Luke’s Gospel. This demonstrates that Jesus probably taught this model on many different occasions. They didn’t get it all right the first time, so He kept repeating himself. As you would expect, there was some deviation in the exact words He used from time to time, based on the circumstances of the conversation.

As we continue our series on “Profound Prayers” today, we are tackling the most famous of all prayers in all of Holy Scripture. Just as we saw God give us the Priestly Blessing in the Old Testament last week, this week we see the prayer given to us directly from Jesus.

Although I said this is probably the most famous prayer in the Bible, I’ve noticed that this prayer is not as well known today as it used to be. When I was a child, our entire church had The Lord’s Prayer memorized, with the same words, so we could all recite it together in unison as part of a service WITHOUT projecting the words on a screen. Since we are a congregation from various backgrounds, I don’t think we could do that without some guidance. So – as we begin – would you please stand (if you are able), and let’s read this passage together from the screens to keep us all on the same page.

Matthew 6:9-13:
9Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
10Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us this day our daily bread, 
12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Textual Differences

Before I get into what this prayer means for us and how special it is that Jesus shares it with us, I need to discuss some textual issues.

Trespasses vs. Debts
Many of you may have learned this prayer – as I did as a child – using the word “trespasses” instead of “debts.” The first English Bible, the Tyndale Bible from 1526, used the word “trespasses.” This usage was more firmly established in the Book of Common Prayer, published in 1549 and still in use today.

The King James version of the Bible came out in 1611 and switched to the words “debts” and “debtors.” Nearly every translation since has used those words because they more accurately match Jesus’s uses of those words in His parables about forgiving financial debts. However, since the version using “trespasses” was by then firmly cemented in people’s minds, its use has continued for 400 years.

Prayer Ending
The prayer ends quite abruptly! However, if you have a King James Bible open, you will notice it includes “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” And for those who learned it with “trespasses,” it actually ends with “forever and ever.” That’s how I say it to this day.

Either way, all of this was a late addition to the prayer. Based on much older manuscripts and even early commentaries on this prayer, this verse didn’t exist in the original Greek, nor is it included in Luke’s parallel prayer. Many believe it was added because people didn’t want the prayer to end with “evil.”

Although the “forever and ever” ending was not originally in Matthew’s Gospel, it is in line with many other scriptural concepts and probably reflects the early Christian practice of adapting the prayer for liturgical use in the church. Ending the prayer on “evil” does feel super-abrupt!

All this goes to say, while this phrase probably didn’t come from Jesus’s lips, it does create a worshipful conclusion to this beautiful and meaningful prayer. I’ll keep including this line in my prayer.

Jesus teaches much more about prayer before giving us this model, and then He ends with more teaching on our need to forgive. All of that is important and should be included for context; but for the sake of time, this morning we are focusing exclusively on the prayer itself. If you want to learn more about what Jesus says regarding prayer, take the time to read all of Matthew 6 this week.

Breaking Down the Pieces of the Prayer

Let’s now turn our attention back to the prayer itself and walk through it together.

Our Father in heaven,  . . .

It’s not a totally new concept to see God as father, as some people have been taught to believe. In several places in the Old Testament, God is described as the father of Israel, and the rabbis at the time commonly prayed to “Our Father.”

It is important, however, to see the relational nature of the prayer Jesus taught. While the Jews may have prayed to God with “Our father,” that was totally unlike other nations. Yahweh has always presented himself as a relational God, and so Jesus shows us how we should approach Him in a relational context.

Also notice it’s not “MY Father.” We make our faith very private in America, but that’s not the pattern we see in the Bible, where each believer’s faith is linked to the community. This prayer Jesus presents is especially meant to be prayed among the entire congregation.

Next, unlike our earthly parents, our God is in heaven. Now, don’t think of this as God existing in a place far away and totally remote from us, as other deities were viewed. No, when we say God is in heaven, it is a recognition that He exists in a totally different realm than we do. His nature is far above what we can imagine! Yet this heavenly, infinite, eternal being desires for us to call Him “Father” and come to Him as a child comes to his dad.

This is much more than a formal beginning for prayer. It should immediately put us in a position of awe and wonder for a God who has no business stooping to our level, yet here He is, bending down and lending us His ear and His strong arm.

. . . hallowed be your name.

“Hallowed” is not a word we use often. It means to be holy or set apart. This phrase can be simplified to “Let your name be made holy.” The purpose of hallowing the name (remember, in their time the name signified the person as a whole) is to set God apart as holy among all people and all actions and to insure that He will be treated with the highest honor.

Your kingdom come, . . .

When Jesus began His ministry, His primary message was “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.” This was an exciting proclamation because all Jews were waiting for a Messiah to restore God’s kingdom on earth. They wanted to experience the shalom – the peace God had promised to them hundreds of years earlier. They expected deliverance from their subjection to the Romans in much the same way God had set them free from the Egyptians a couple of thousand years earlier.

The problem was, they expected a revolution, while Jesus was unveiling a restoration. Even with their misunderstanding, on the first Easter morning, as the women discovered the tomb empty, the kingdom of God had begun to break forth on this earth. It was the first step in what became a world-changing movement as the Spirit of God takes root in the hearts of people around this entire world.

. . . your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Often our prayers are for our own will, our own wants, our own concerns – and the temptation is to ask God to solve our problems the way WE want them solved. They sound more like “my kingdom come, my will be done.”

However, Jesus teaches us that everything we ask for must be aligned with God’s purposes and desires. After all, that’s how Jesus lived. He said He came to do the will of the One who sent Him. Then, at Gethsemane, when he was facing a torturous death, He said, “Not my will, but yours be done.” God wants your prayer to be for HIS will to be done on earth in every situation, including every action you take this and every day.

Give us this day our daily bread, . . .

This is a request for God to provide. While some people have spiritualized the bread to be Holy Communion or the Word of God, I think it points to God’s care and concern for our immediate physical needs. It harkens back to the time the Israelites wandered in the wilderness after their time in Egypt. During those 40 years, God provided manna (bread from heaven) every single day. He proved He could be trusted to provide. In the same way, He wants us to regularly trust Him to provide everything we need every single day. It’s a call to stop leaning on our own self-reliance and, instead, give Him praise and thanksgiving for everything we have.

Notice that this is a prayer for THIS DAY – not this week or this paycheck. While Jesus doesn’t directly tell us to pray this prayer daily, it certainly seems from His request that He is implying our prayer life should include time daily when we come before God and ask for His provision for THIS DAY.

. . . and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Finally, we get to the part where we are to ask for forgiveness. Each day, you must recognize you have debts you could never repay, just as Jesus taught in the parable of the ungrateful servant. However, because of God’s love and grace, He chooses to wipe the slate clean and cancel our debts.

Those who truly understand what salvation means should be so possessed with gratitude to God that we, in turn, will eagerly forgive those who are “debtors” to us. To be clear, this doesn’t teach that humans must forgive others BEFORE we can receive forgiveness ourselves, as though it is a condition of our salvation. Rather, forgiving others is PROOF that you have received salvation and have had your own sins forgiven by God.

And lead us not into temptation, . . .

Your first take here might be that it says God sometimes leads you into temptation, but the book of James is clear – that is never the case. Instead, you should understand this phrase as a prayer for relief from those times when you are tested. So often we pray for forgiveness AFTER we sin, and Jesus shows us that we are supposed to do that. This, however, is a proactive prayer for God to help you in those moments of testing and temptations. It is asking God to spare you from situations that will break you.

. . . but deliver us from evil.

Here some translations say “deliver us from evil” while the NIV says, “deliver us from the evil one.” This insinuates deliverance from the work of the Devil. The Greek says, basically, “deliver us from THE evil.” That’s why different translations state it differently. Either way, this is a request for God’s protection from the reach of the evil, sickness, and spiritual chaos of this world.

Most importantly, these last two phrases remind us that this world is in a battle for your soul and the soul of everyone around you, and we all need protection! We need strength; we need God to spare us from some of the temptations that might lead us to stumble and sin.

We need to stop thinking we can face each day all on our own, but realize we must prepare for spiritual battle each and every day. With God at our side, we will find victory!

How are We to Use This Prayer?

So what are we supposed to do with this prayer? Is it meant to be recited daily exactly how Jesus taught? The temptation is to take this prayer and turn it into a ritual, but that is exactly opposed to what Jesus was trying to teach His disciples in this chapter. He had just finished telling them they didn’t have to pray with many words, but instead said, “Pray LIKE this. . . .”

As I have already said, this is a model to help teach people to pray. It lays out six parts that we should regularly include in our prayers; AND it orders them in a way opposite to how we often pray.

It begins with God: His Holy Name, His Kingdom, and His Will. When you begin your prayer focused on God first, it tends to give you a very different perspective on your selfish prayer.

We often start with our “mess” – the big thing on our mind, something in which we want God to intervene for us. Then we move to our wants and the things we hope God will straighten out for our family, our friends, and the world at large.

But if we follow this pattern Jesus lays out for us, if we intentionally put God first in our prayers, it will challenge us to pray in alignment with His will rather than our own. I believe this will make it much more likely that you will see God move as your requests line up with what He desires to do for you.

Additionally, as the pastor of this church, I feel this is a reminder that I should build the Lord’s Prayer into our services more regularly. There is power in praying “Our Father” together. It reminds us of the model Jesus gave to teach each of us how to pray.

I know some of you are new to trying to follow Jesus. You are coming here each week to learn, but I know some of you feel you don’t really know what to do. I also know that others of you who may have been following Jesus for years still feel like your prayer life is stuck in a rut.

If you feel you fit in either of these categories, here is a great step: take this model prayer Jesus gave us to learn to pray, and begin to pray it each morning. Memorize it. As I said, we DON’T need to turn it into mere routine; but part of learning from a model is to first memorize the model, and then expand from it.

After growing comfortable with the prayer, begin to focus on each line, each aspect of the prayer to start your day, and add to it:

• When you pray “Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name” focus on God’s closeness and His majesty.
• Then begin to pray for His Kingdom to break into this dark world in specific ways and for His will to be done in the world and through your actions.
• Pray for His provision for all you need in your challenging day and for specific areas in which you need forgiveness.
• Finally, pray for protection from temptation and from the evil in this world.

Conclusion

I hope all of you want to draw closer to God in prayer. Regardless of how mature you are in your faith and how developed your prayer life is, you can always come back to this model to be reminded how Jesus himself taught us to connect with His Heavenly Father.

This week, as you pray, focus on the order of this prayer and the pieces of it. Pay attention to how reordering your prayers might challenge you to think bigger and pray less selfish prayers.

Last week we learned God wants to bless you. Part of that is giving you what you ask of Him, as a loving father would.