– Matthew 6.7-15 –

The Sermon on the Mount 10: When You Pray

Text

Matthew 6.7 “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not unto temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’ 14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Introduction

We come now to what many consider the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer.

Lesson

Our tendency is to focus right in on the elements of the Lord’s Prayer so we can use it as a framework for our prayers. While that is legitimate, it overlooks the main point of the passage.

Pray as though God was your Father, because He is. The pivotal verse in this passage is 8b: “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” It explains why we are not to pray like the heathen and why we are to pray like Jesus. The key reality behind this verse is that God is our Father. Thus, he knows what we need before we ask. The point is not that God is omniscient (though He is of course), but that He loves us as His children, and therefore He cares about and watches over every detail of our lives. This truth lies behind the broader context of the passage where Jesus keeps telling the disciples, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly (4, 6, 18).”

The astounding truth that the God of heaven and earth is our Father should shape and govern everything we do. Indeed, that is perhaps the central point of the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon, note the contrast and connection between that which is not hidden and what is. The light of our righteousness is not to be hidden but shown for men to see. But the source of our light is hidden. The source of our righteousness and light is our relationship with the God of heaven and earth, who is our Father. For our light to shine on men, our focus must not be men, but God.

Heathen gods are either demons or else the psychological projections of fallen men. Heathen gods do not care for anyone but themselves. To help you or at least to forebear from hurting you, they must be bribed, cajoled, or pestered. Hence the “vain repetitions” of heathen prayers.

What should strike us first about the Lord’s Prayer are its scope, brevity, and intimacy. It covers a vast amount of ground in the space of only 66 words. It is a prayer that could only be offered to the God of heaven and earth. It is a prayer that could only be offered by a child of God. We need to learn to pray this way.

The point is how we approach God. God wants us to approach Him in Spirit and in truth (Jn 4.23). We must come to God as He really is, the God of heaven and earth and our Father. We must come to God as we really are in Christ, God’s own children.

Our prayers are often long and complex not because they need to be, but because we have forgotten who God is and who we are in Christ. It is better to settle our hearts by meditating on the truth that God is our Father, and then come to Him in faith with a few well chosen words (Ecc 5.1-2).

The entire Lord’s Prayer is explained by its first six words: “Our Father who art in heaven.” If we get that, the rest just flows. We will naturally want first and foremost for His name to be revered, for His kingdom to cover the earth, and for His will to be done perfectly. We will naturally ask Him and trust Him to give us what we need to live and serve Him. We will naturally be aware of His holiness and our sin. We will naturally rush to confess our sins, being assured of how He loves us and loves to forgive us. As those who have been forgiven so much so freely, we will naturally forgive those who owe us so much less. We will naturally ask Him to watch over us and to protect us from the full onslaught of the Evil One.

This is hard because, like the older brother in the Prodical Son parable, we draw away from our Father as though He were an employer and we were wage earners. God is our Father, and what we receive is an inheritance, not wages. The more we trend toward an arm’s length relationship with God, the harder it will be to approach God in Spirit and in truth. The harder it will be to forgive our debtors. We must continually return to the truth: Our God is the God of heaven and earth, and He is our Father.