THE LORD’S PRAYER -Part I
Matthew
6:5-13, 4/8/2018
Two
men were drinking in a bar when the topic of conversation got around to
religion. One man turned to his friend and said; “I bet you don't even know the
Lord's Prayer." "Wait a minute," said his friend, "I do know
the Lord's Prayer." So, his friend pulled out a $ 20 and said, "I bet
you can't say the Lord's Prayer." His mate confidently replied: "Now,
I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..." At that his friend interrupted him.
"Here’s your money" he said, "I didn't think you knew it."
One evening, a little girl was saying
bedtime prayers with her mother. “Dear Harold, please bless Mother and Daddy
and all my friends,” she prayed. “Wait a minute,” interrupted her Mother.
“Who’s Harold?” “That’s God’s name,” was the answer. “Who told you that was
God’s name?” asked the mother. “I learned it in Sunday school, Mommy. Our
Father, Who art in heaven, Harold be Thy name.” Sadly, there is great
ignorance when it comes to the Bible.
Growing
up in a Lutheran Church I had to memorize, “The Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles
Creed inorder to be confirmed. From that point on I joined the rest of the
congregation in simply repeating the prayer at the end of each Sunday service.
Though I preached a phrase here and a phrase there from the Lord’s Prayer, I haven’t
heard a full series of messages on the subject and I myself haven’t studied it
in depth. You might be aware, that this simple and short prayer is widely used
in many churches, Christian gatherings including the Alcohol Anonymous group, that
closes their meetings with the Lord’s prayer.
As
I sought the Lord what he would have me preach after Easter, he led me to the
prayer that Jesus actually taught his disciples to pray It is a short prayer, with
a lot of meaning and practical implications. So, let’s begin our journey to
discover its powerful meaning and life altering principles. “THE LORD’S PRAYER.” Matthew 6:5-13
I. CONTEXT
AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND:
In
Matthew, we see Jesus delivering a powerful message on, “The Beatitudes.” Somewhere
towards the end of his teaching he touches on the subject of prayer to address
the hypocrisy of some people who were drawing attention to themselves through
their generous offerings and loud public prayers in the street corners. Jesus,
being the man of prayer, himself may have been embarrassed by these heartless
prayers. He told his disciples not be like them in their prayers, showing off
in public, instead they were to go into a room and pray to their father in
secret, who knows their needs even before they ask him. Then he lays out a
model prayer.
Culturally
speaking, “The Lord’s Prayer” was a very common prayer for the first-century
Jews who prayed three times a day, either privately or in a group. It is often
called a minyan in Hebrew. By the end of the first century, Christians had also
adopted daily prayer practice using the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus drew on phrases
already in use during his day when he instructed his disciples: “Our Father”
was used in a prayer called the Eighteen Benedictions, which was almost
certainly being prayed in the synagogues of Galilee.
Another
Jewish prayer that Jesus likely drew from was called the Qaddish, an Aramaic
prayer for mourning the dead. It begins, “Exalted and sanctified [hallowed] be
his great name in the world he has created by his own will. May he establish
his kingdom.” Teaching the disciples what to pray, Jesus was not inventing
something new but reinterpreting the common experience of disciples. Jesus
devoted much of his energy to defining what he meant by his kingdom rather than
creating totally new prayer practices.”[1]
The
Lord’s prayer is notable for its brevity, simplicity and comprehensiveness. It
contains six different petitions, the first three were directed towards God (Vs
9-10) and the rest of the three directed towards human needs (Vs11-13)
We
will begin our learning with the first petition of the prayer. Vs 9,
This, then, is how you should pray: “Our father in heaven, hallowed be your
name.” NASB, “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.” This
first petition explains the kind of relationship that God would like to have
with us and also shows us the essence of God’s character which is Holiness.
II.
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN.
The
biblical authors have used several metaphors to describe the relationship that
exists between God and his people. Among them, the most affectionate one is the
“father and son” relationship. Ever since losing my own father I have come to
appreciate and cherish my relationship with my heavenly father more. Unfortunately,
in America the father heart of God is badly misrepresented due to the abuse by earthly
fathers, and fatherlessness.
Many
children are growing up these days without fathers for them it would be hard to
understand when we say God is your loving father. Consider these scriptures
that denote God (Jehovah) as the father of Israel: Moses reminds the nation of
Israel that God who was their Father, Deut 32:6,18 “Is he not your Father, your
Creator, (who brought you) who made you and formed you? You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you
forgot the God who gave you birth.”
Another beautiful passage where God tenderly expresses his
fatherly love and care to a fledgling nation of Israel. Here we see God
personifies himself as a Jewish father. Hosea 11:1-4 “When Israel was a child, I
loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more they
were called, the more they went away from me. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led
them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was
like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.”
Not only then, even now many people grow up not knowing this wonderful,
affectionate, kind, forgiving and all loving God as their heavenly father.
In the N.T,
Jesus cherished this loving relationship with his heavenly father. He often
publicly affirmed his relationship with His father and wanted his disciples to
have such loving relationship so he taught them this prayer that began
addressing God, “Our father in heaven.” In verse 8 Jesus said, “your Father
knows what you need before you ask him.” In Jewish culture, a father was
normally someone loving and trustworthy, on whom a child could depend for needs.
Playing into their cultural norm, Jesus wanted them to come to God like a child
confidently and expectantly to their father. Let’s move on to see how this
loving father wants to be revered.
III. HALLOWED BE YOUR
NAME
Several
scriptures tell us that God is Holy, for example, Leviticus 11:44, “I am the
Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.”
I Peter 1:15, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you
do.” Holiness is the essence of God’s character. So, what do we mean when we
say, “hallowed be your name? The word hallowed means holy, are we then saying
that God be made holy when He is already Holy? No! we are saying, let God be
regarded and worshipped as holy. We need to grasp this attribute of God’s
Holiness, once we understand how Holy our God is only then can we have the fear
of God.
Consider
this biblical illustration on how people react when they encounter a Holy God. Moses
& the Burning bush: Remember, the story of Moses, when he saw a
bush that was burning but not consumed by the fire? When he came close to the
sight, he heard these words of God. Exodus 3:5-6 “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said,
“Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for
the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
Then he
said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and
the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look
at God.” There are other incidents where people, either ran away, or fell as dead
when they encountered a Holy God. This Holy and awesome God is giving an
invitation for all of us to become his children. John 1:12, “Yet to all who did
receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become
children of God.” When you accept Jesus as your savior and Lord then you will
become a son or a daughter of God. You will become God’s child and God becomes
your father. God is Holy and we need to regard him as Holy, so is His name. Is
it wrong then to say “Oh my God” or type OMG as countless people (including
many Christians) use this phrase as an exclamation of surprise or disbelief? I want to you to consider the following and
decide.
In the Ten
Commandments, God commanded Israel, “You shall not take the name of the Lord
your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name
in vain” (Exodus 20:7). To Israel, God wasn’t just a generic or impersonal god.
He had revealed Himself to them through the covenant. He had revealed His name
to them, “YHWH.” It is pronounced
Yaweh in Hebrew, Jehovah in English. In order to avoid breaking this commandment, pious Jews in
the time of Jesus would not speak of God directly at all.
Even in
modern Jewish culture, it is forbidden to pronounce the name the way that it is
spelled. In discussions it is usually said as HaShem, meaning, “The Name” This
tells us how the Jewish people revered the name of God. Keeping
that same tradition in mind, Jesus is telling His disciples to pray that our
Father’s name be “honored” on earth as it is in heaven.
In other words, we need to pray that God’s name is
revered and respected across the globe. That needs to be the prayer and the
longing of every disciple of Jesus. If
others use the phrase “Oh My God or OMG” flippantly, we Christians should use
the name of God reverently. As we close, let’s remember what our Lord has
taught us to pray, “Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” My prayer is
that we will honor God as our heavenly father, regard Him as Holy and have the
fear of God not to use the Lord’s name in vain. Amen!
