"How Jesus Wants you to Pray" (Matthew 6:5-14)
Matthew • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 34 viewsNotes
Transcript
If I was to ask you about prayer, and your prayer life, what would your first reaction be?
Maybe, your immediate response is to hang your head in shame. There's a few things that you always feel guilty about in your walk with God, and your prayer life is near the top of the list. You know you don't pray very often, or very long. You're not even sure about what to pray for, exactly. But you know that a weak prayer life is a signal that something is wrong with your walk with God. And even if you don't think about this very often, it bothers you.
Now, I say this, but all of you probably do pray for some things, almost automatically. If your loved one is sick, you probably pray for them. If your crops need rain, you maybe ask God to send rain. If you're driving down the road in the winter, and start sliding out of control toward the ditch, no one has to tell you to pray.
The bottom line, is that two things have to be present, for you to pray. The first, is that you have to believe God will help you (Heb. 11:6). If someone is sick, and you don't expect God to help, you won't pray. There's no point, right? Or if you do pray, expecting nothing, you won't pray very hard, or very long, or very earnestly. You won't pray with faith.
The second thing that has to be present, for you to pray, is that it has to be about something or someone important to you. My wife means a lot to me. If she got cancer, I would pray for her. Now, if someone else got cancer, I might pray, or I might not. But there are very few people I would pray for, like I'd pray for my wife.
Another example: This is a dry summer, and I think I've prayed for rain 5 times in the last two months. But I maybe don't pray for rain, the way that you do. I'm not a farmer, slowly watching the moisture levels in the soil go down. I don't need rain, the way that you do. If I was a farmer, I'd maybe pray more earnestly, more consistently, for rain.
The bottom line, is that we pray for the things that are important to us. And it's fine that we pray for those things. But few of us ever stop to ask, "What's important to God? What does he think we should pray about?" If God wants us to pray about something, it's because it's important to him. And if something is important to God, it should be important to us.
This morning, we are going to read the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6 together. We are going to ask ourselves, "What does God want us to pray about? What's important to God?" Then, hopefully, we will wrestle with whether or not these things are important to us.
Let's start by reading the whole passage, Matthew 6:5-14:
(5) And whenever you pray, don't be like the hypocrites/actors/pretenders,
because they love, in the synagogues and standing on street corners, to pray,
so that they can be seen by people.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
(6) Now, you, whenever you pray, enter into your inner room,
and, shutting your door, pray to your Father-- The One In The Secret Place--
and your Father-- The One Seeing in the Secret Place-- will reward you.
(7) Now, when you pray, don't [babble/say the same thing over and over] like the Gentiles.
For they think that in using many words they will be heard.
(8) So then, don't be like them.
For your Father knows what need you have, before you ask him.
(9) So then, in this way pray:
Our Father-- The One in Heaven--
May your name be honored,
(10) May your kingdom come,
May your will be done,
as in heaven, (so) also on earth.
(11) The bread we need for today, give us today,
(12) and forgive our debts,
just as we have also forgiven our debtors,
(13) and don't bring us into testing,
but deliver us from the evil one.
(14) For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, He will also forgive you- your Father, The Heavenly One.
(15) Now, if you don't forgive people, neither will your Father forgive your wrongdoing.
Now let's unpack what we've read. Verse 9:
Our Father-- the One in heaven--
Jesus begins his prayer by encouraging us to address God as Father-- the Father we have in heaven.
I'm a dad. I have five kids. My kids have a lot of needs, and they come to me when they know I can meet those needs. Do they worry that I won't help them? Do they worry that I won't provide for them? No. I'm their father, and I love them. I will give them what they need. And my kids know this. They know that I'm a reasonably good father, and I will help.
There are lots of ways that you can think about God. You could think about him as a King, sitting on the throne. You could think about him as Creator of Heaven and Earth. You could think about him as the Judge.
But in the context of prayer, you should think about God as your Father in heaven. Your Father loves you. He cares for you. He enjoys doing good to you.
So if you understand that God is your Father-- Your Father in heaven-- you will pray. You serve a God who likes to say "yes," when his children ask him for stuff.
Jesus then says we should pray for three things. All three of these are parallel to each other, but our English versions sometimes don't show this:
Our Father-- the one in heaven--
(1) May your name be honored,
(2) May your kingdom come,
(3) May your will be done,
as in heaven, also on earth.
Let's take these three, one at a time.
(1) "May your name be honored."
One of God's main concerns in the Bible is for his reputation. God created the world, and he expects people to honor him as Creator. When we praise God for what he has done for us, we bring honor to his name. When we tell others about what God has done for us, we bring honor to his name. When we obey God, not to try to impress others but out of a desire to please him, and people see, we bring glory and honor to God. When we lead people to King Jesus, and they repent of their sins and submit to King Jesus, we increase the glory God receives.
The bottom line is that God's name is supposed to be honored on earth. People are supposed to praise God, obey him, and respect him. But we all know that this doesn't happen as often as it should. God's name isn't honored in the world, or in the church, or in me, the way it should be. And this really, really bothers God, and it should bother us. And so we pray, "Father, may your name be honored. Act in the world in a way that makes people honor and respect you."
There is a catch to this. God is not the only one who can bring honor to his name. We do as well. When we praise God in church, or at home, or when we tell our friends and co-workers about what God has done for us, we bring glory to him. When we obeyGod, it honors Him.
This also works the other way. When we disobeyGod, it dishonors him. When we sin against people, and don't make it right; when we live differently M-S than we do at church, we bring dishonor to God. Everyone at work knows I'm a Christian. Everyone in Gackle knows you are a Christian, and that this is your church. When we live in ways that don't bring glory and honor to God, I promise you that people notice. Every time I sin at work-- with a bad attitude, or gossiping, or anything else-- it doesn't just hurt my reputation. It also hurts God's.
If something you do hurts God's reputation, that should really, really bother you. If God wants us to pray, first for his honor and reputation, then that should be our starting point in life. Let's live in way that brings honor to God. Let's pray that God would bring honor to his name.
And notice this: this is how Jesus' prayer begins. We usually start our prayers with what we think we need. And Jesus will get there eventually. But we are supposed to be concerned first with God's reputation-- with his honor. "Father, may your name be honored."
(2) "Our Father-- the one in the heavens, may your kingdom come."
God has a kingdom. An empire. This empire is rapidly growing, becoming more powerful-- and it has been doing so for centuries. We see evidence of this all around us, if we know what to look for. People are being freed from slavery to Sin and to Satan. People are submitting to Jesus as King and joining God's people. God's kingdom is growing.
But at the same time, God's kingdom isn't yet here in all its glory and power. There is still death. Still sin. Still rebellion. Satan has a kingdom as well, and the fight between these kingdoms isn't over. We see all of this, and we long for the day when God's kingdom will fully come. And so we pray, "Our Father-- the one in the heavens-- may your kingdom come."
Now, when we say this prayer request to God-- "May your kingdom come"-- we should feel the pull of responsibility here a second time. We understand, in praying this, that there are things we can do, that advance God's kingdom. When we see people living outside of God's kingdom-- people who are lost, broken, caught in sin-- we should want something better for them. We should be inviting people to enter God's kingdom. Do you want to be at peace with God? Do you want to be adopted into God's family? Do you want to have your sins against God forgiven? Come to Jesus; submit to him as King."
(3) "Our Father-- the one in the heavens, may your will be done, as it is in heaven, so also on earth."
This prayer is related to the second one. God's will is not always done on earth. I'm just going to say that a second time, to make sure you all heard me. God's will is not always done on earth. It is always done in heaven. Heaven looks exactly how God wants it to look. Everyone in heaven lives in harmony with God, the way God wants. But earth-- no.
Why isn't God's will always done on earth right now? Is it because God is weak? Because he's bored, or doesn't care about us? No. That's not it. Let's turn to Genesis 8:20-22, which is found near the end of the story about Noah and the flood.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, although the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
22 As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease.” (NRSV)
God wants to have a relationship with his creation. But there's a huge problem: people are evil from a very young age. We sin, badly, all the time. We rebel against God; we refuse to obey him. So what is God going to do about it? God COULD keep wiping people out, starting over, in an effort to fight sin. But what we see in these verses, is that God instead decides to allow evil to exist on earth. Verse 21: "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, although the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth."
Why did God do this? Notice when Genesis says God decided to do this-- it was after smelling Noah's burnt offerings. These burnt offerings-- Noah's commitment to him-- pleased God. And if God wants to have a relationship with people on earth--with people like Noah-- he basically has to be willing to take the good with the bad.
So when you look around the world, understand that God's will isn't always done. When you hear stories about women being raped, or someone being murdered, or a marriage falling apart because of unfaithfulness, understand that this is not what God wanted. This was not his will-- his desire. God's will, in that situation, wasn't done on earth as it is in heaven.
Or take something like cancer. In heaven, there is no cancer. There is no sickness. There is no one disabled, or in pain. When someone on earth gets these things, we can pray that God's will would be done, as it is in heaven, also on earth. We don't pray that if it's God's will, that someone be healed. We pray, knowing that it is God's will to heal them. And we ask that God's will would be done.
So we look around the world, and we see that God's will isn't always done. And we understand why it looks that way-- the world is filled with sin, and the demonic, and sickness-- but we long to see God's will done MORE. And so we pray: "May your will be done, as [it is] in heaven, [so] also on earth." May your will be done in my life. May your will be done in the world.
So at this point in the Lord's prayer, we've prayed for three things, and all of them revolve around God and what he wants. Our first concerns are for God's reputation, for his kingdom, and for his will. These things are our main priority in life. We wake up in the morning, and we pray first for this. We interact with people, and in the back of our minds, we are thinking, "God is either being honored or dishonored by how I am acting." We see how the world is, and we know what it could be, and we pray, "God, do MORE to make your name honored. Do MORE to bring your kingdom.
Now-- and only now-- does Jesus teach us how to ask God for what we need.
Verse 11:
Our bread-- the one we need for today-- give to us today."
Recently, I heard a teacher say, "Have you ever noticed how putting the stress on different words in your Bibles, can give a verse a completely different sense? It's true. Take this verse for example-- where do you put the emphasis? GIVE us today our daily bread? Give us TODAY our daily bread?
I don't want to bore you with Greek, but one of the things that Greek does sometimes, is that when someone wants to emphasize some part of a sentence, they put it first. Here, "Our bread-- the one we need for today" is emphasized. What this does is put the focus on WHAT we are supposed to ask for.
All of us have a huge list of things we need, and things that we want. We NEED food, water, clothing, and shelter. We WANT money in our checking account, NICE cars, NICE houses, some way to amuse ourselves in the evening. What does Jesus teach us about how we should view our needs, and how we should pray about them?
I, today, need food. I need a certain number of calories every day, or I will very quickly starve to death. God knows I need that food. What I'd LIKE is a freezer full of food, and enough money in my bank account to buy food for the next six months-- maybe more. If you were to ask me why I want this, I would tell you, "I don't want to have to worry about food." But when I say that to you, I think what God hears is me saying, "I don't want to have to trust God to provide for me."
But what did Jesus say we should pray? Our bread-- the one we need for today-- give to us today."
We say we trust God to take care of us. That God knows what we need, and he provides for us. This prayer is an expression of that trust. I trust God, today, to take care of my needs for today. And I pray that he would do so. I'D LIKE to pray that God would also give me tomorrow's food, as long as he's at it. But I don't need to worry about tomorrow. I trust God, today.
This isn't how we want to pray. We want to pray that God will make us win the lottery. But it's how we should pray. "Our Father-- the one in the heavens-- the bread we need for today, give us today." Pray for what you need.
Verse 12: "Father-- the one in the heavens, "forgive us our debts, just as also we have forgiven our debtors."
All of us sin, and we know the agony of realizing we came up short of what God wants. The idea here, with this language about "debts" and "debtors," is that we have an obligation to live a certain way toward God and others. I'm supposed to love God, and be faithful to him. When I come up short on this, and I don't give him what he is owed, I have a debt toward him. It works this way also for people. I have an obligation to my kids, to treat them in a certain way. I have to love them, be patient with them, discipline them when necessary. When I fail them-- when I lose my temper, or I'm selfish, or whatever-- I have a debt toward them. This gap between how I am supposed to live toward God, and toward others, is sin.
When I sin against God, and I have a debt with him, what should I do? How can that debt be paid off?
My preference, is to pray something like this: "Father, forgive my debt on the basis of what Jesus did on the cross. Or, "Forgive because you are a kind and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in love." These are good prayers. There's nothing wrong with these. But we have to be ABLE to pray what Jesus says. Jesus says, "Father, forgive us our debts against you, just as-- in the exact same way-- we have already forgiven people who have sinned against us-- who are our debtors."
So let's say my wife sinned against me this week. So did a co-worker. So did my boss. Everyone sinned against me. I had a bad week. What did I do? Did I forgive them? I hope I forgave them, because when I pray for forgiveness, I'm supposed to be able to pray, "Father, forgive the debt I have with you because I sinned, in the exact same way I forgave Heidi's debt when she sinned against me." If I didn't forgive Heidi this week, then what? Jesus doesn't yet say-- but we will come back to this in a second.
Verse 14:
"Don't bring us into testing/temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Most of your Bibles translate this verse, "May you not lead us into temptation." Hopefully, your Bibles all have a little footnote by that, and if you follow that footnote down, it says, "can also mean testing." The idea with the Greek word is that's a testing. This testing can be malicious, hoping you'll sin. Or it can be a more simple testing, to see how someone will respond in a situation. For example, in Genesis 22:1 (LXX), God tests Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his son. God did this to test him, to see if Abraham would be faithful. God wasn't being malicious. He didn't want Abraham to kill Isaac. God wanted to know if Abraham would obey God regardless of the cost. And the answer turned out to be yes. We read in Genesis 22:12: "NowI know that you fear God."
In Matthew 4:1, we read this: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit to be tested by the devil." Same word.
Did you ever stop to ask yourself, "Why did the Spirit lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil? What purpose did that serve?" God wanted to know-- would Jesus be faithful? Would he obey? And so he used Satan as like a subcontractor, basically, to test Jesus' faithfulness. And Jesus passed-- he was obedient to God.
If we want to know why God leads us into testing, there seem to be at least two answers. First, God wants to know if we will obey him, and he uses tests to find out. He did this with Abraham, with Job, and with Jesus. Second, God uses these tests to strengthen our faith (James 1).
So does God lead us into testings, and trials? Absolutely. God does.
But let's go back to Matt. 6:13. We are supposed to pray, "Don't lead us into testing." We are supposed to pray that God WOULDN'T do this. We all know how vulnerable we are to sin. We aren't sure we will be faithful like Abraham, or Job, or Jesus. And so we pray for protection. Father, please don't do this to us. Instead, deliver us from the evil one.
I think if we prayed this on a regular basis, it would help us resist sinning. I know how vulnerable how I am, and how much I need God's help when I find myself being tested. I pray that God wouldn't lead me into trials, because I'm not confident I'll be faithful. I'm weak. If I go into trials this way, focused on God-- asking God to keep me out of trials, and then delivering me when I'm in them-- I'm not going to sin. God will rescue me. And so we pray, "Father, don't lead us into testing, but deliver us from the evil one."
This brings us to verses 14-15. What Jesus does here, basically, is go back to the idea of verse 12 to strengthen/explain his argument.
(14) For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, he will also forgive you-- your father, the heavenly one.
Now if you don't forgive people, neither will your father forgive your wrongdoing.
There are going to be times in your life when the last thing you want to pray is, "Father, forgive my debts in the exact same way I forgave my debtors." I want God to forgive me. Absolutely. But do I want to forgive? No. Jesus knows we feel this way, and so he circles back to this in verse 14.
(14) For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, he will also forgive you-- your father, the heavenly one.
Now if you don't forgive people, neither will your father forgive your wrongdoing.
I'm not sure what else Jesus could do to make himself any more clear on this. Listen. Do you want God to forgive you when you sin? YOU HAVE TO FORGIVE PEOPLE WHEN THEY SIN AGAINST YOU. Jesus offers a promise and a threat here. Have you ever sinned against God, and you open your mouth to ask for forgiveness, and there's just no words?
You know, in that moment, that you sinned, very badly. You know you have no excuse. And you know, maybe, that his has been an ongoing area of weakness in your life. And so what you feel, when you lift your eyes to heaven, is overwhelming shame and guilt. And you find that you can't make yourself ask for forgiveness. If this is you, or when this becomes you, read verse 14 as a promise. If you have forgiven people when they sin against you, God WILL forgive you if you repent. This is good news. Claim this as a promise.
Now, if verse 14 is a promise, verse 15 is a threat. Some of you have people in your lives that you've just flat-out refused to forgive. Maybe this is just you being petty. Someone hurt you, and you know it's stupid and unfair to hold a grudge against them, to not forgive them, but you simply don't want to forgive. Or maybe someone did or said truly terrible things to you. They've hurt you very badly, and to this day, you walk around feeling scarred. You hear me tell you, "You have to forgive." And you reject this. You say, "No. You don't understand what they did to me. I can't forgive. I'll forgive everyone else, but not her."
If this is you, I want you to be aware of what you are doing. You are GUARANTEEING that God won't forgive you when you sin against him. You can come to church every Sunday, you can worship, you can pray, you can give, you can do good deeds, but if you don't forgive people when they sin against you, God won't forgive you. Some of you, as soon as church is done, need to go home and make a phone call. There is someone you need to forgive. Do you have a choice? It depends on whether or not you want God to forgive you.
This is what Jesus says: "If you don't forgive people, neither will your Father forgive your wrongdoing."
And it's on this note that Jesus concludes his teaching on prayer. You have to forgive. My guess is that, for at least one of you, this is the one thing you absolutely need to take away from this morning. Go home, and forgive someone.
I said at the beginning this morning that we pray about what's important to us. But we hardly ever think about praying for what's important to God. What does God want us to pray for?
God wants us to pray first for his (1) reputation, (2) his kingdom, and (3) his will.
Then, God wants us to pray for the things we need, and because he is our Father in heaven who loves us, he will give those things to us. What do we most need in life? We need physical things, enough to survive. Food, water, clothes, shelter. We should pray for those-- for what we need. The second thing we need is forgiveness when we sin. We should pray for that. Last, we need to be faithful. And because we need to be faithful, we pray that God wouldn't lead us into testing, and that he would deliver us from the evil one.