The Lord’s Prayer as Discipleship Building Blocks
This past Sunday Nick began his sermon pointing out that God works when His people pray. Looking at the disciples in Acts 1 and 2 we see 120 people gathered praying before the Holy Spirit descended and they went out and miraculously proclaimed the Gospel, Peter preached, and they baptized 3,000 people.
Turning our attention to the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-15), we see Jesus has given us a prayer example that has been revered as highly important in many ways through the millennia for the Christian Church. It functions as passages any believer should memorize and to be used as corporate liturgy, as a model for prayer structure and content, as an oath of fealty to the King of Kings, and even as an example of a prayer of salvation when a person is professing faith in Christ.
Matthew 6:9–15 (ESV)
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come, your 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 also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
I want to encourage you to look at the Lord’s Prayer through these lenses for your own personal study and discipleship if you haven’t engaged it in such ways before or recently. I also want to lay out another idea for understanding the Lord’s prayer, that the phrases it contains are elements that intentionally build on the ones that come before it.
Through these phrases Jesus is revealing a glimpse into the life of a disciple walking with God.
The first phrase “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (6:9) shows the glorious reality that God, who is revealed as holy and other (hallowed), desires to have a relationship with us like a loving Father. With that in mind, surrendering our will, wants, and desires for His doesn’t seem like a terrifying move, so we can say with peace in our hearts “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10). Then in living out that peace we can give up tomorrow’s worries (Matthew 6:33-34) and worldly fears and humbly say “Give us this day our daily bread” (6:11). With that clearer God centered, cruciform mindset, we will have the spiritual clarity and character needed to best see our own sins and seek reconciliation with God and with neighbor, saying “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (6:12). And all of this builds to v6:13 “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” which is a plea to be kept safe from sin and temptation, which so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1-2), through a willing surrender to God’s direction, like the end of King Jehoshaphat’s prayer when a massive army was coming against Judah, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12b).
Spend some time this week revisiting and meditating on the Lord’s Prayer, letting the instructive words of Jesus Christ draw you into a deeper relationship with the Father made possible through the redemption found in His sacrifice. May we as the church say “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Extra Resource: What if Jesus Was Serious