Matthew 6:7-13 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today 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 the evil one’”
We who are in the Lord should be confident that God hears us at all times. In our attempt to know God, we often treat him as if He is not near us. Cavalierly, we behave as if He is deaf or diminished in his thinking, in need of many words to hear and understand our petitions. Of course, this is untrue of God. Christians should accept our position in Christ as firm and intimate: we died with him and are raised with him. He is always with us, even when we are not thinking or doing the right things. Christ and his work are embedded in our souls; therefore, He helps us when we speak a word of faith. Paul reminds the church of the Old Testament promise, The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. (Romans 10:8) We are people with faith that unlocks the door to God’s heart, not our many words or desperate pleas. Some religions favor the repetition of prayers as if by doing so, they can demand God’s attention or please him by their repeated words and phrases. But Christians are the temple of God, cleansed by the blood of Christ. God is not far away from them in another heavenly sphere or dimension where we must call him down. He is in our mouths and our hearts, ready to hear us, ready to respond to our needs and requests. He knows us—knows whether we are asking amiss, seeking our own desires or asking in earnest for God’s will in our lives. We do not always believe everything that happens to us is in God’s plan for us. But God can take the most difficult and damaging experiences in our lives and bring good out of them. We might feel as if a sword has pierced our hearts because of some horrific experience, but as with Jesus, bearing the hurt and shame of the cross, God is preparing us for eternal life. Often we feel a life of ease and pleasure would be best for us as Christians, but God’s greater plan of eternal life and imaging him overrides everything in our lives. We must live by faith, believing the work of Jesus Christ of more importance than anything else in our lives. Paul expresses clearly our need for God’s intervention when we are experiencing the caldron of fear, difficulties, and confusion. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27) The Spirit INTERCEDES for GOD’S PEOPLE. He expresses our deepest needs and our pain to God; He also expresses our thankfulness and joy to God. The Spirit intercedes for us, asking for God’s perfect will in our lives: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If the Spirit does so much better than we can, should we stop petitioning God for help? No, God has given us words to communicate with him. He desires to hear our voices asking him to be the good Father that we know He is. Jesus wants believers to seek God, realizing He hears our words. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-12) We are God’s children; He is our Abba Father. The originator of all life: He made us in his image with a plan for us to communicate with him. Our experiences on Earth, the good and bad, are worked out by him for our eternal good because of his love for us.
Christians know we are not to pray to false gods that come from man’s imaginations. We are not to be like the pagans for they pray to powerless manmade gods, deities without ears, eyes or feelings. In the Old Testament people prayed to sculptured idols made from various materials such as wood, stone, precious metals or gems. The adulterous behavior of the Israelites with these gods brought damming judgment on them, even their removal from Canaan, the Promised Land. God will have no other deity or man replace him in man’s worship. He alone is to be honored, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. He is to be honored, worshipped; his name should be glorified. Religious activity such as the Old Testament act of sacrificing animals or the perfunctory repetition of words will never please God. He looks at the heart and its earnestness. His desire is for intimacy with his creation. He reciprocates our love toward him, saying, “I will never leave you; I will always be with you; you are my lovely ones.” As faithful believers we communicate with God often, beseeching him to help us live successful, godly lives. We pray for others as well, for we want God’s will to be fulfilled in everyone’s lives. We never give up on our prayers for others: our leaders, friends, Christian brethren, families, and for ourselves. We follow Jesus’ advice. Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.” (Luke 11:5-9) We do not need to be audacious, for we are known by God as his lovely ones, his children. He always hears our knock; he always responds to us in the context of his will; and his will is for us to be eternal beings, never to experience eternal death. The Father knows what we need from him most: eternity with him. This is his will for us, so the Father knows what you need before you ask him. He knows our lives, the holy and the evil, the great and the terrible. But the power of the Spirit has resurrected us into eternal life. The Spirit’s assignment in us is to present all our needs before God, often with a deeper understanding of what we as humans can know or express. God leads us in a path of righteousness, of holiness; helping us to navigate successfully through this world of pain and suffering. He gives us what we need for strength: Give us today our daily bread.
We have a debt that we owe to God and that debt is to love him with our whole being. Why a debt? When Adam sinned, he placed his will before God’s will. He gave himself preeminence over God’s way of life. Jesus asks us to pray that God’s will be done on Earth, not Adam’s will, not his sinful legacy. So we all have a debt to pay, the debt is sin. In Jesus’ prayer, He prays, And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. He is asking God to give us mercy, to forgive us of our debt to him, to forgive us of our waywardness. Of course in Jesus Christ, we have found mercy, for He paid that debt completely for us on the cross, but we still have an obligation to God and that is to express his mercy and grace to people around us. We are to forgive our debtors. When we take communion at the Lord’s table, we are to cleanse the air of any animosity that we have for our fellow brethren or clear up any animosity that someone has against us. Jesus said if we want to offer a gift at the altar and we know someone has something against us, First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:24) We are to forgive people and to ask people for forgiveness if they feel we have wronged them or abused them in some way. If we covet God’s forgiveness, we must reveal the attitude of Christ toward the world: He died to save the sinners, even the ones who hate him, despise his goodness. We are to be like him. Jesus prays that God should help us resist the temptation that the evil one constructs. The devil wants people to hate each other. He says we should be rational beings, taking an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. His world is constructed in this violent way. Evil and hurt exist around us; it is the way the world has been since the fall of mankind. In his prayer, Jesus asks God to keep us from the innate condition of man, his natural way of living without God. Loving God with our whole heart and loving others as ourselves is the opposite of sin and our selfish wills. By living for God, we will be delivered from Satan’s plan for our lives. Our lifestyle is to image God to the world as we comfort people in distress, care for the disadvantaged, house and feed the poor, lift up the broken hearted, make straight the crooked paths in wounded people’s lives. In other words, we are to be like Jesus. We are the salt of the world, the light in dark places. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16) In the Lord’s prayer, God’s will is to be done on Earth as it is in heaven. This is the Spirit’s prayer for us who are around this morning’s breakfast table.
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