The Lord's Prayer

We walk through the Lord’s Prayer as a living framework for real relationship with God, moving from intention and reverence to kingdom surrender, daily provision, forgiveness, and protection. The heart shifts from performance to presence and from control to trust.

• why intention and heart posture matter in prayer
• what Jesus forbids: attention seeking and empty phrases
• how “Our Father in heaven” holds closeness and awe
• why hallowing God’s name orders worship and honor
• putting God’s kingdom and will before personal requests
• learning contentment by asking for daily bread
• practicing forgiveness received and forgiveness given
• seeking protection from temptation and evil
• blending bold requests with surrendered trust

Let us be a praying church

Chapters

• 1:05 Setting The Stage: Why Pray
• 3:51 What Prayer Is Not
• 5:18 Return To The Theme Of Prayer
• 6:22 Read The Lord’s Prayer
• 7:00 Pray Like This, Not Mad Libs
• 8:56 Our Father: Near And Holy
• 11:29 Hallowed Be Your Name
• 14:37 Kingdom First: Will Over Wants
• 18:27 Daily Bread And Contentment
• 20:36 Forgive Us As We Forgive
• 22:49 Deliver Us From Evil
• 25:44 Recap: Mature Prayer Posture
• 28:24 Closing Prayer And Charge

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:45

Well, hello and good morning again. Glad you're here as always. Uh I just it's a blessing that I get to do this. It's an honor that you guys show up and that we get to listen to God's word together. So hope you're hope you're ready. Of course, we're talking about prayer. Last week we took a brief uh detour, but we're back on track this week. We're talking about the Lord's Prayer, talking about the the this example that he gives us, the standard of prayer and communication that he gives us. And it's a great thing. But before we get to the actual example, we read two weeks ago, Jesus actually gives us some instruction before the instruction. He tells us what not to do in prayer before he tells us what to do in prayer. And the first thing that you've got to get right, and this is as review, has been a little bit, is that in your prayer life, your intention matters, your heart matters. Why you are doing what you are doing matters. In particular, in particular for the crowd and the people that Jesus was talking to, you can't pray in order to gain attention for yourself. Right? So that's not what prayer is. That's not what communication with God is. It's not for you. It's not. It just isn't how it works. The next thing you've got to know is that when you pray, you can't heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, as the pagans do, scripture tells us. And we're going to start all over because this is all over the place. One, two, three. One, two, three. Check, check, check. How are we doing this morning? Good morning. Well, good morning again. Glad you're here. It's a blessing we get to do this. It's awesome. It's a beautiful day. I will say I had a chance to play some golf yesterday, and I'm still horrible. And I might be in more pain now than I was the first two times I played. I think I'm going backwards, getting worse at golf. That being said, we are talking about prayer today. Prayer. We've been talking about prayer. A little bit of a detour last week, but we're back on track. But if you recall correctly, two weeks ago, before Jesus gives us the specific example and structure of what we call the Lord's Prayer, he gives us examples of what prayer should not be. And in particular, the first thing he warns us about is that prayer is not for your attention. For the people that Jesus was preaching to and teaching in this moment, his disciples and the crowd, the Jewish crowd, prayer was not to draw attention to yourself. It was not to get an attaboy or a pat on the back saying that, oh, what a good prayer you gave, or wow, how holy you are. You're praying like you're supposed to be praying. That's not it. Your heart matters. Intention matters in your communication with God. So in your communication with God, it can't be about anything except the fact that you get to talk to God, which is awesome. The next thing that Jesus warns his disciples and the crowd about in their prayer life is that you do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, as the pagans do, as other religions do. The world wants prayer to work like this. That's not how it works. You cannot incite a response from God using many words or some sort of specialized language that's going to make God pay attention. That's not how it works. And it's good news it doesn't work that way because God is already listening to you without the specialized language, without the heaping up of empty phrases, God's already listening to you. The creator of heaven and earth is attentive to your voice. That's awesome. It's awesome. And not only is he listening and paying attention, he knows exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. Now, maybe that doesn't sound like great news to you because you want certain things, but I promise you, if you submit yourself to what Jesus wants for your life, it'll be better than what you want for your life. Take up a prayer life. Talk to God. It's this amazing thing. And now, as we sort of finish out this bit of review, I want you to remember that Jesus said it's when you pray, not if you pray. You've got to pray. You have to talk to God if you want that relationship to thrive, if you want to grow, if you want to stop making the same mistakes over and over again, if you want clarity in your life, if you want to feel something different in your life, well then actually take the time to talk to God. But how do we talk to God? How does that start? What does that look like? And now we are ready to read the Lord's prayer. Matthew chapter 6, verses 8 through 13. Pray then in this way. Our Father who is 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 do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And later, people added, For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. This is the Lord's prayer. This is it. This is the example. This is the standard that we have been given. This is the structure on which we can build healthy communication style prayer life with God. And before we jump into the specifics, I want to point out one little thing that Jesus says before he gets into this. He says, pray like this. Not exactly like this, but pray like this. This is not just a word-for-word command, though, that is appropriate if that's all you've got, if that's all you can muster up in a moment. Saying this word for word is absolutely fine. It's absolutely appropriate. I'm just saying, just saying that Jesus doesn't say pray exactly like this. It just says, really, pray like this or in this manner. Now, this also isn't what I would call a mad lib, right, where you sort of fill in the blanks in these words and in these lines, just replacing certain things. That's not what this is either. This teaches us the thought process, the attitude, the structure of proper communication with God. And if you don't know how to pray, you can fall back on this and of course recite it. But the reality is as we look at these individual lines, each one of these lines is full of meaning. Each one of these lines, you you could pray just one of these lines all day long, and that would be uh appropriate. And so there's just more here than just recital, even though recital is beautiful, and it is a nice tool to have in your back pocket on a rainy day when that's all you know what to do. But in your prayer life, you can use this prayer as your structure, as a guideline to do all sorts of wonderful things in your prayer life. So again, you can recite this, and it is beautiful, it is meaningful, God is listening, and God will respond. But also, as you mature, these this is just a guideline. Just a guideline as you walk into your prayer life, Deb, make sure that you are basically keeping the right attitude and having the right idea about your communication with God. Now, the first part of this prayer as we dive into the specifics of this prayer, it's a recognition, a recognition of who God is to us. When you pray, you've got to recognize who God is. And of course, this prayer starts with saying, Our father, our father, we are praying to our father. And the word here used for father, and we touched on this last week, is Abba, Abba Father, which is actually not just father as some sort of like Victorian title of your dad, but it is like a warm relational dad or daddy as a child to their dad. That's what that word abba is. Dad in heaven. Now, I wouldn't necessarily start my prayer with daddy God or anything like that. I wouldn't do that, but you've got to understand the relational comfort, the relational uh warmth, the relational opening that is represented by Jesus telling us to go to God as our dad.

unknown: 9:40

Our dad.

SPEAKER_00: 9:41

And listen, I know that not every earthly relationship is what it should be, including father relationships. I understand that, but I'm hoping that we are mature enough and intelligent enough to understand the significance, despite anything in our past, to recognize that God is our Father, Abba Father. He is every good thing that a father should be times infinity. And none of the bad stuff, none of the baggage that we might have when it comes to that relationship in our life. It's a beautiful thing. You've been invited to have that level of closeness with your creator and with your maker, and that should inspire some confidence in your prayer life. That should allow for some level of comfort in your communication with God, and it certainly should inspire thankfulness that we get to approach God in this way. So he is our Abba Father, but also the flip side of that is he is also in heaven. So while we are close, there is also a part of our prayer life where we recognize the distinction that we are here and he is there. He's different. He's different than us. There is this father beautiful closeness relationship in our communication, but we have to remember that we are not on equal terms with the Father. And that leads us perfectly into this hallowed be your name part. Hallowed be your name. Took me a little bit in my life to really recognize what that meant. When Moses was shepherding in the desert and he sees the burning bush, and you've probably heard this story before, and you know, out of this burning bush, God speaks to Moses, and God calls Moses and instructs Moses to go get God's people from Egypt. And there's a whole lot there. We'll preach on it one day, I'm sure. But again, I've I'm pretty sure you've heard that story before. The thing that matters for the story, for this hallowed be your name part, is the fact that that ground that was surrounding the burning bush and the presence of God and and God in that moment was called holy ground. In other words, it was hallowed ground. It was different, it was distinct. The presence of God was so palpable in that place that Moses was called to take off his sandals because he was walking on holy ground. It was distinct, it was different. There's a level of awe and wonder associated with holy ground. That's what that was. Part of what it means to hallow God's name is connected to this. It's connected to this heaven part of God that is separate from us. It's it his name, just the mention of his name, who God is, everything God is, and everything that he does deserves complete and total awesome respect. In our prayer life, in our communication, not only do we have to recognize everything God is, we pray that other people recognize it as well. Because we live in a society that doesn't hallow anything. Nothing is holy, nothing is sacred, nothing is above critique, nothing is deserving of honor. Everything gets made fun of. And there's this nothing worthy. You see this in every form of media there is. Whether it's something like a book or it's a comedian on the stage, nothing is taken seriously. Nothing. Our prayer life should include this desire to recognize the holiness and the hallowedness of God's very name. And we desire that name to incite feelings of awe and respect and reverence for everybody. A world that respects God and just the mention of his name is a world I want to live in. It's a world of set up for stability and set up for blessings in both circumstances. This goes a bit hand in hand with the commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain because his name means something. It's not because God is selfish or because God uh uh uh is some sort of uh arrogant freak. Like, how dare you say this or say that about my name? It's because God is different, holy, special. We gotta recognize that in our life, and we got to have other people recognize that as well. Then after we talk about the relational part of who God is to us, there comes the first request or petition in this prayer. And let me pause here for a second. When I think about my own prayer life sometimes, how often do I go straight, straight to the petitions, the request before I talk to Father, before I acknowledge the heaven part, before I hallow his name, I'm jumping straight into asking for stuff. No, let's get our communication more than transactional with God. Let's make sure that we are giving God proper honor in our communication before we even bring anything to the table in request. And when we do have requests, then when we do bring something to the table for God to do something about, let's pay attention to how Jesus tells us our petitions start. He doesn't start with asking for healing as great as that is. He doesn't start for asking for a loved one to get saved as great as that is, and he certainly doesn't start with asking for a brand new car that you own in your driveway. It starts with what's called a kingdom request. Kingdom request. It starts with a request that God's perfect will be done here on earth as it's done in heaven. It's an invitation for the kingdom of God to have total control in your life, but also in the world around you. If you recall correctly, part of the entire purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to teach his followers about the kingdom of heaven and what it means to be living in the kingdom of heaven. And whenever you call yourself a disciple, whenever you are a follower of Jesus, you are submitting yourself to the kingdom of heaven, and there is a mission and a calling attached to that kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. And that attitude of submission, that attitude of wanting God's kingdom to reign like a king reigns over our land, that attitude has to be evident in your life and in your existence, and especially even in your prayer life. I promise you that if in your prayer life you start submitting first to the will of God and to his purpose for your life and for the world, that it will change the way that you experience the letdowns and the failures and the hurts and the pains and defeats that you will live through in this life. But if you are committed, if your mind is connected to the will of God, it changes those things. Trust is a beautiful thing, and trusting God is a powerful thing. God, I prayed for this, whatever this is, but first, I prayed for your will to be done. So even though what I prayed for is not happening right now the way I want it to happen, because I am submitting myself to your will and to your purpose, I believe I'm still walking in your blessing. I'm still walking in your purpose for the kingdom. God, what's the kingdom purpose for my life right now? First, and then everything else second. Help me to live in your perfect will. I'm convinced that many of our failures and disappointments spiritually come from a place, come from a place of misplaced priorities and a bit of selfishness in our prayer life with God. Your kingdom, God, let your will be done here on earth as it's done in heaven. And then from there we get a little more specific to what we might be going through, what we actually might need in our petitions and our requests with God. And again, Jesus teaches us the proper attitude to have. Give me my daily bread. This is significant for several reasons. And it's difficult to wrap your head around this in our society. I think this is one of the challenges in every society, but especially ours right now, because we are so blessed with everything. First and foremost, how often in our lives do we get fixated on the future? Listen, I get caught daydreaming all the time. I'm not saying that's a sin, but the danger is, the danger is that it might distract me from recognizing the right now blessings. It might distract me from recognizing the right now good things that I am experiencing.

unknown: 18:52

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 18:53

That's the danger of daydreaming. That's the danger of looking too far. That's the danger of fixating on what you don't have and what might be. Give me my daily bread, my today bread, my right now bread, my right now provision. Right? That's what this partially means. Second, daily bread signifies this appreciation and understanding for being content with having what you need and not just everything that you want. There's a difference. If our focus is on eternity and the kingdom and his will being done, then joy and peace does not come from having a plethora of bread. Daily bread's enough. Random thing here in my notes, I have uh daily banana bread. I must have been hungry when I wrote this note, wrote this out. It doesn't matter though. Today's bread's enough. Don't worry about tomorrow necessarily. Don't worry about what you don't have. Today's bread is enough. And trust me, I know that this is challenging because it challenges me every time I read and every time I think about it. I want good things for my family, and I work hard for good things for my family, but ultimately what I've got to know and understand, and what my family has to understand, and what you have to understand, and it will help us in our lives, is that today is enough. Today is a blessing. This, right here, right now. And then from there, from there, Jesus wants us to include forgiveness in our prayer life. First, forgiveness for our own stupidity, for our own failures, before our own things that we are dealing with. Before I get angry at somebody else for something they did to me, I ought to remember I've got to ask for forgiveness for my own stuff, for my own issues. Self-examination before external examination. One pastor said it this way: the first step step of conquering the world is conquering yourself. Starting with yourself gives you the grace, gives you the grace that you need and reminds you of the grace that you ought to extend to others, right? The same grace that you receive that sets you free ought to be extended to other people in your own life. Again, this is not an invitation to be ran over, right? It's not, that's not what this is, but forgiveness is powerful. Forgiveness is healing. When you take care of your own stuff, and you recognize your own failures and your own mistakes, then it gives you the liberty and the freedom to extend that same thing, that beautiful thing, to others. Jesus forgave us, we forgive others. One of the more striking things in recent memory, very recent memory, about forgiveness comes from the memorial service of Charlie Kirk and when his wife got up and she said many things. A lot of people said many things over many, many hours, but she forgave the killer of her husband. And that forgiveness struck a chord, not just with other Christians. Right? It struck the cord with all Christians because everybody tries to imagine how they were going to forgive others who have sinned against them. If you've been in church a while, you ought to know that that's the expectation, but how do you do it when it happens? And she did it, and it makes you recognize and realize what a powerful thing it is. And then for other people who aren't Christian, who aren't saved, who experienced and saw that word of forgiveness doesn't mean that Erica wanted this murderer to go free or that she didn't have um hurt feelings or negative feelings directed towards this person. I'm sure she's still dealing with that, but she actively forgave that person and it shook people inside them to make them recognize this is different. When you forgive people, maybe you don't have the same forgiveness that Jesus gave you, but you've got something like it. And when you offer forgiveness to others, don't you for a second think that God can't use that forgiveness to shake people loose and to open up doors for the gospel to enter into their hearts and into their mind. Finally, and we're almost finished. Jesus calls our attention that our prayer life should properly include prayers for protection, prayers for avoidance from temptation. There is an enemy who hates you. The devil hates you. He wants to destroy you, and he wants to lay out all sorts of stuff in front of you that's going to trip you up and mess you up and hurt you and hurt your family. And Jesus says, pray for protection. Right? There's only one person who can protect us from that kind of thing on multiple levels. It's it's God. Pray to God for protection so that He can do what only He can do. Protect you from the seen and the unseen. Jesus understands and knows there's temptations. Now, sometimes those temptations are unavoidable, but sometimes those temptations are well within our control to do something about it on our own. And all we just need is a little kick from Jesus or the Holy Spirit to help us avoid these temptations that we place in front of ourselves. You know exactly what I'm talking about. The Holy Spirit, God, common sense is speaking in you right now, and you know there are things that you tempt yourself with that you have every bit of control over that you need to take action about. Sometimes, when you pray this prayer, though, there's no telling what God is saving you from that you haven't even seen. You don't even get a glimpse of the trouble that's in front of you, and God wipes it away for you and for your family and for your loved ones. God is guarding your heart and mind from certain things, and you don't even know it when you pray this prayer. That's the beautiful thing about this prayer. Pray for help. Don't do this on your own. Lean not into your own understanding. Ride with God. Let God do the work for you and let God help you. Let's end this thing. Let's take a bit of a review. When you pray, start with the relational your dad. Your dad. But your dad happens to be perfect and holy and righteous and good and powerful and mighty, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the beginning and the end, the Alpha, the Omega. He is everything. He's holy, he is righteous. And at the mention of his name, all of those things should flood into our mind, and we have to stop and worship. Stop and worship. We're gonna stop and in awe and in wonder and gaze and realize how holy and righteous and and hallowed his name is, and yet we get to talk to him. We get to talk to him. What a beautiful thing. And we start when we start getting into the nitty-gritty of our prayer life, don't start with yourself. Start with a declaration that you want his will to be done. Your kingdom come, your will be done here on earth as is done in heaven. I'm not saying that God's not going to be moved by your request. I'm not saying that God doesn't see what we're going through. And when we offer him a prayer, that he does not move on our behalf for certain things. But what I am saying, and this is what Christian maturity brings us to, is that we first submit ourselves to his will and to his mission. God, my hand hurts, my head hurts, God, this is happening. I'm praying for you to deliver me from this. But, but if the pain in my hand somehow is an open door for you to get people saved, for your name to be glorified, for your kingdom to come, if my pain can be used, your will be done, God. I'll deal with a little bit of pain if it brings you glory and honor and it gets people saved. Do that first. And when we pray, pray with faith. Pray that God's gonna take care of us, pray that God is hearing us, that God is listening to us, and pray and remember in your prayers that the daily bread is enough. The daily bread is a beautiful miracle. Right? It's a beautiful thing. You don't have to be distracted or discouraged whenever it seems like you have material lack because we know that's not even what this life is all about. It's not even what this relationship with God is all about. He will give you daily bread. Be thankful for that daily bread, pray for that daily bread, and let it carry you and sustain you and keep your mind right. And then, Lord, forgive me. You know my mistakes, you know my problems. Forgive me, Lord, as I forgive anybody who's done something to me. And that same grace you gave me, that same grace that transformed me, that same grace that set me free, that same grace that set my course, set my path in a different way, go heading the right direction, and let a little bit of that grace that you gave me be extended to others so that I may be a part of the story of the gospel in their life. And protect me from the temptations that want to derail my relationship with you, the obvious and not so obvious things. Don't let the enemy of my soul touch me and harm me. Help put me in the right positions, help place me on the right road. Help keep my foot on the right path, Lord. Because you're great and you're awesome and you're mighty.

SPEAKER_01: 29:05

You have to pray. You have to pray. You have to pray.

SPEAKER_00: 29:12

You've got to understand and recognize that you are talking to your dad. You're talking to the person who can do anything. But let the challenge this morning be two things. To first and foremost, as you come to God, to recognize who he is and to recognize what really matters. His perfect will being done. If you submit yourself to his perfect will, it will change your prayer life. It will change the way that you do life and existence. It will change the way how you handle failure and letdown and challenges in front of you. Everything becomes an opportunity for glory and honor when you submit yourself to his will. But at the same time, when we believe that he hears us, let that inspire our faith to pray for big, crazy, amazing, radical things. No prayers too big or too small for God to handle. And I'm not saying he will answer every one of your prayers exactly the way you want, but sometimes he will. And I'd rather give God the option of doing something radical than never ask him for anything. Two sides of the same coin perfect, harmonious trust in God's perfect will in our life that carries us and sustains us. And a bold, radical faith to pray for things. That seemed kind of crazy. Let's pray ourselves this morning. Heavenly Father, You're good. You're great. You're awesome. You're mighty. And Lord, we just want your will to be done in our lives. That your will be done in our lives. Help us. Help us to be secure in you. In every sort of way, God. And I pray right now for every person in this room, for every person who hears this. Inspire them to trust in you and inspire them to understand and know that you hear them and that you're listening to them. And that should inspire some faith in their prayer life, Lord. Help us all to pray more to you. Help us to feel your presence. Help us, Holy Spirit, to sense you in our hearts and in our minds in a way that comforts us and in a way that encourages us and in a way that inspires us to press in in our communication with you on a regular basis. Strengthen our prayer life as individuals, as fathers, as mothers, as a church. Let us be a praying church. We love you, Lord. We thank you for everything you do. In Jesus' mighty name we pray, and we all said, Amen.