What can I learn from the Lord’s Prayer?
Matthew 6:9-10
According to Romans 8:26, a central part of our human weakness is we don’t know what we ought to pray for. The Spirit is given to help us in that weakness, and he does that primarily by the scriptures. The Spirit inspired every word in the Bible. After a man or woman becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit indwells them and guides them into all truth by illuminating the Bible’s words. Central to that are the words of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord. I am not a fan of the “red-letter editions” of the Bible which imply that Jesus’ words are more important or truer than those of Paul or John or Isaiah. However, Jesus spoke like no other man in human history, and there is a unique clarity to his teaching on prayer. In many places in the four gospels, Jesus instructed us what to pray for.
Jesus is handing you prayer requests line by line. The challenge is to hear these timeless words in a new and fresh way.
The most famous of these, of course, is the Lord’s Prayer. As the most repeated prayer in the Christian faith, it is a great place to start in asking the question, “What should I pray for?” Jesus introduces it with the clear words, “This, then, is how you should pray.” All followers of Christ should sit up and take notice: Jesus is handing you prayer requests line by line. The challenge is to hear these timeless words in a new and fresh way.
Before introducing this prayer, he commanded his followers not to pray like pagans, heaping up empty words (Matthew 6:7). Just as the Lord’s Prayer is the world’s most repeated prayer, so it is also tragically the one most mindlessly uttered. People drone on in flat tones with the words heedlessly flowing out of their mouths, the very definition of giving lip service to God.
The prayer begins with the address to God, “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). The fatherhood of God over only true believers in Christ is taught in John 1:12… God is not father to unbelievers. I think it is significant that he says “Our” and not “My.” It is fine to say, “My Father” or “My God,” and feel intensely the truth of that. But it is also valuable to realize that every element of the Lord’s Prayer is common to all the children of God. As we pray, we extend our hearts out to our brothers and sisters worldwide—especially those in our daily lives.
Jesus’ words constantly remind us that our Father has infinite majesty and power in heaven, and that the nations of the earth are like dust on the scales and drops from a bucket (Isaiah 40:15). Having addressed God in this manner, it is reasonable to pray that his name be hallowed all over the world, beginning with us.
God’s name sums up his very being—it represents his person and all his achievements. For his name to be hallowed means that he is respected and honored, set apart as holy, with an infinite gap between him and all creation. The verb is passive, so those who are doing the hallowing are human beings… that people on earth would set God apart in their hearts and minds as sacred.
It is fascinating that Jesus would teach us that we should pray such a prayer to God. Initially it seems that whether God is hallowed or not by human beings is up to humanity, not to God. But nothing could be farther from the truth. In our sin, we are naturally spiritually dead. That is the essence of the heart of stone in each lost person.
At conversion, God by his Spirit removes the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26)—spiritually alive. At the center of that new heart is faith in the true God as he really is… the Sovereign over all the universe. Only God can work this change in our hearts, and he must do that more and more in us, even after we have been converted. “O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together” (Psalm 34:3). God is not made greater when we magnify him—we just increasingly realize how great he really is. So, in the Lord’s Prayer, it is right for us to ask God to magnify his name within sinners all over the earth. God alone can do this.
Next Jesus teaches us to pray for God’s kingdom to come. God’s kingdom is that spiritual realm in which redeemed people freely and gladly submit to his kingly reign. The essence of his kingdom “coming” is his name being hallowed truly by sinners, then his will being done gladly and completely on earth as it is in heaven. God’s kingdom began breaking into the world with the incarnation of Jesus. It is growing more and more through the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, and it will be consummated at the second coming of Jesus Christ. So, these requests are essentially missionary in nature.
As we are praying for the spread of the gospel to more and more people, we are also praying for the Great Commission to be at work, “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). This prayer is for us as well, that we will be more and more obedient to the will of God in every area of our lives.
This, then, is how you should pray!
Next time, God willing, we will look at the rest of the Lord’s Prayer.
