Transcript

Matthew 6:7-13 · NOBA @ Noon

Canon Justin Murff: The Gospel according to Saint Matthew, chapter six, verse seven thirteen And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The Gospel of the Lord. Jesus is teaching his disciples about prayer, and he's just warned against two corruptions. Praying to be seen by others, and piling up empty phrases. Now he offers his disciples a great encouragement. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This statement might seem to undermine the purpose of prayer altogether. I mean, if God already knows, then why must we ask? Thankfully, Jesus gives us this model prayer, the Lord's Prayer, demonstrating that prayer isn't about informing God of our needs. But it's actually about aligning our hearts with his plans and purposes for our lives. Pray like this Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. The prayer begins not with our needs, but with God's nature, our Father. It rightly establishes the relationship that we have with Him. This intimate term Abba made God accessible to all believers, not some Cosmic naysayer finger wagging at humanity, but a loving father, a gentle father. Yet notice the communal nature of the prayer itself. R. Jesus is showing us that the Christian life is not meant to be lived alone. In heaven preserves the Father's transcendent, all seeing, all knowing, all powerful nature. Hallowed be your name. In that very phrase it Orients our hearts towards God's glory, for surely He is worthy of all our honor and all our praise. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. These parallel declarations express the same longing of our hearts, but from different angles. You see, we pray for God's reign to break into human history, for his purposes to be accomplished here on earth with the same a perfect level of completion that characterizes heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Only now do we turn to our own human need, and even here the request is modest, our daily bread, not abundant overflowing, never ending wealth. The word daily emphasizes our need for a daily dependence on God because we are to live in this continual reliance on the Father's provision. And forgive us our debts, as we've also forgiven our debtors. Notice that the prayer for forgiveness is inseparable from our extension of forgiveness and grace to others. Matthew uses debts, emphasizing that our moral failures have created an obligation that we ourselves cannot possibly begin to pay off. We come to God as debtors in need of grace, and so we must treat our fellow debtors With the same mercy and grace and forgiveness that we seek ourselves. For Matthew the tax collector, this prayer was revolutionary in its simplicity and its access. The first followers of Jesus were accustomed to elaborate temple liturgies and lengthy rabbinic prayers, but Jesus offers a model that anyone could pray, brief, direct, yet comprehensive. The structure of the Lord's Prayer reveals that Proper priorities in our own life, God's glory before our needs, community, this R and Us language over our own individualistic faith, and the connection between receiving and extending forgiveness all at the same time. So how does this passage really shape our lives and particularly our prayer lives today? Well, first, it daily reorientates our purpose. So much of our praying begins and ends with our own needs, but we need to reorient our lives to his plan and his purpose. You see, Jesus teaches us to begin with God's concern, his name, his kingdom, his will in our life. Second, the simplicity of this prayer challenges our tendency to overcomplicate spirituality. You see, effective prayer doesn't require special vocabulary or impressive length. Jesus doesn't hear you anymore if you pray in King James English or in modern slang. It simply requires an honest heart that is aligned with God's purpose. Finally, the forgiveness aspect of prayer, man, that confronts us directly. We cannot sincerely pray for forgiveness while harboring unforgiveness, bitterness, or hatred in our heart towards others. These two movements are inseparably linked in the Christian life. So today, Take some time and pray the Lord's Prayer slowly, phrase by phrase. Don't rush through it as some type of spiritual formula, but let each verse, each petition shape your heart as we draw closer to Jesus.