‘Pray in this way’ (Mt. 6:9-13)

‘Pray in this way’

[Matthew 6:9-13]

We were taught by Jesus about prayer by focusing on Matthew 6:5-8 under the title ‘when you pray.’ We received three lessons from Jesus about prayer: (1) When we pray we must not be like hypocrites. Jesus was pointing out the wrong public prayers of the Jews (Seyoon Kim). Jesus is telling us not to pray hypocritically like the Pharisees and the scribes. (2) When we pray we should pray to our Father in secret. This is the lesson that Jesus taught the Jews to pray right after pointing out their wrong public prayers. We must pray to our Heavenly Father in secret. (3) When we pray we must not keep on babbling. This lesson Jesus pointed out to the wrong prayers of the Gentiles. In this way, after pointing out the wrong prayers of the Gentiles, Jesus comes to verse 8 and teaches the correct prayer: “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” In other words, Jesus is telling us not to repeat our prayers like the Gentiles, because God the Father knows what we need. Therefore, when we pray like the Gentiles, we should not pray by repeating meaningless words over and over again. After all, when Jesus came to verse 8 and said, “do not be like them,” he is teaching the lesson not to imitate the hypocritical public prayers of the Jews or the babbling prayers of the Gentiles. After that, Jesus is teaching us the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “Pray, then in this way” in today’s text, Matthew 6:9. This prayer is the Lord’s Prayer that we often offer to God.

I would like to meditate on the Lord's Prayer that Jesus teaches us, focusing on Matthew 6:9-13. As we meditate on the Lord's Prayer in four ways, I hope and pray that we will receive the lessons the Lord is teaching us so that we can all pray right in the Lord's sight.

The first thing we need to think about is to whom we should pray. We must pray to our Father in heaven.

Look at Matthew 6:9 – “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, ….” Who is the God in heaven, the object of our prayer? It is our ‘Father’, our ‘Dad’. Last Monday, a holiday commemorating Pastor Martin Luther King. I was driving to a restaurant with my family to eat. My youngest daughter, Karis, saw a donut shop on the way and said to me, 'Dad, can you buy me donuts?' So I told Karis that we should have dinner first and then talk. However, I heard Karis talking about donuts several times during dinner, and this thought occurred to me: ‘When we pray to our Heavenly Father, we need to pray and be patience until He answers our prayer.’ Then I said this in front of my family members while eating: ‘Are you sure I will buy Karis donuts?’ After all, I went to the donut shop near the restaurant and bought 12 donuts with drive thru. Then, as I drove home, I asked Karis, 'How many times did you say donuts to your father?' The child was quiet. I noticed that she was counting with her head. Haha. And she said later was ‘8’. Haha. If we look at Luke 11:11-13, Jesus is saying this: “Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Which father will give his child a snake when he asks for fish? Even though we are evil, if we know how to give good things to our children, won't our heavenly Father give good things to us who ask for it? Do you have assurance in answering this prayer while praying to Heavenly Father? In today's text, Matthew 6:9, in the prayer Jesus teaches, what is the expression of ‘Abba’ (“Father”), the object of our prayer? That expression is the language in which a child calls his father in a friendly way, and in the Bible, it is an expression of covenant theology (Kim). The Bible describes the relationship between God and Israel in several ways. For example, the Bible describes God as a King and Israel as God's people. The Bible also describes God as a shepherd and Israel as a flock. However, in Matthew 6:9, the expression of God as 'Father' or 'Abba' is referring to Israel as the sons of God. In other words, God, the object of our prayers, is our Father, and we are His sons and daughters (children). We are children of God. And God is our Father. This unique relationship is that we become God's adoptees through the death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus, the only begotten Son of God. So the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:15-16 and Galatians 4:6: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:15-16), “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal. 4:6). What does it mean to be children of God? That means we are the heirs. By heir we mean we can inherit all of our Father's wealth. Dr. Seyoon Kim says: ‘Inheriting means that we can draw upon God's riches that are never lacking. The act of us as creatures trying to draw upon the riches of God the Creator, that is prayer’ (Kim).

As we pray to our Heavenly Father, we must keep in mind that the Heavenly Father, the object of our prayers, is our Father who are in heaven. What this emphasizes is that it emphasizes the transcendence of God. In other words, praying while calling the God to whom we pray ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’ emphasizes intimacy. But when we pray “Our Father who is in heaven” emphasizes the transcendence of God (Kim). In other words, our Heavenly Father, the object of our prayers, is a God whom we can pray with intimacy, but at the same time He is also a God whom we should revere. Because that God is our Father, we must pray to our Heavenly Father with an attitude of dependence and obedience. Also, we must pray to Heavenly Father with confident of His love (Kim). This loving Heavenly Father is the Heavenly Father who knows everything we need, according to Matthew 6:8. Also, our Heavenly Father feeds us (v. 26). He is our nurturer. And He is the Heavenly Father who knows everything we need, including food, drink, and clothing (v. 32). We are praying to our Father who is in heaven.

Second, what we need to consider in the Lord's Prayer is the three 'your' petitions.

If we look at the Lord's Prayer in today's text, there are three 'Your' petitions in verses 9 and 10: (1) “Hallowed be Your name” (v. 9), (2) “Your kingdom come” (v. 10) and (3) “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (v. 10).

The first petition is “Hallowed by Your name.”

The “name” here refers to God Himself. In other words, as God revealed Himself in His name (Exod. 3:13), to know God’s name is to know God. Therefore, the name of God is God Himself (Kim). Jesus is teaching us that we should pray to God that His name be hallowed. Because we are on earth and our Father is in heaven, to pray that the name of our Heavenly Father, who is the Transcendent, be hallowed means that we should pray to God in reverence for our Heavenly Father. And when we pray in reverence to our Heavenly Father, we must commit ourselves to living a holy life on earth as God is holy. But if we do not have the fear of God, we will not live holy lives on this earth. Furthermore, we will fall into the folly of committing the sin of idolatry by glorifying ourselves rather than glorifying God (Kim). Our prayers to our Heavenly Father, “Hallowed be thy name,” mean that we pray to our Heavenly Father in humility and reverence, acknowledging that our Heavenly Father is the holy God in heaven. This prayer also instructs us to live as Heavenly Father's holy people, exalting God's holy name on this earth. D

But now, when I think about how God is speaking to us, I remembered Ezekiel 36:20- “"When they came to the nations where they went, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD; yet they have come out of His land.’” As we do not fear God like the Israelites in Ezekiel's time, we commit the sin of idolatry, so we not only defile ourselves, but also defile God's holy name in the world. But we have the hope. Look at Ezekiel 36:21-23: “But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went. Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst Then the nations will know that I am the LORD,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight.’” God cleansed us by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, cleansing us from all our filthiness and from all idolatry. Therefore, we have become God's holy people. As a result, under the guidance of God the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can pray to our Holy Father, “Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”

The second petition is “Your kingdom come” (Mt. 6:10).

Among the prayers offered by the Jews at the time of Jesus, it is said that there were a shorter brother's prayer called “Kaddish” and a long-shaped prayer called ‘18th blessing prayer,’ that is, “Shemone Esre” (Kim). If we look at the 18th blessing prayer, we can see how the Jews at the time of Jesus thought of the kingdom of God, which they prayed and waited for. They believed that when the Messiah comes, He would set the Jewish people free from the slavery of the Roman Empire, and would restore the Jewish nation. In addition, Jews believed that the coming of the Messiah would restore the golden age of the past Jewish history, restore the righteous judgment system of Judea, and lead to the reign of the wise sage. And they believed that the Messiah would come and sustain them as a community of pure faith that would not be mixed or denied by heretics, that is, the community of the people of God's righteous kingdom. In a word, the Jews at the time of Jesus viewed the restoration of Israel as the reign of God (Kim). Did Jesus Christ, the Messiah, come to this earth to restore Jewish nationalism, just as the Jews thought? Did Jesus really come to this earth for the political liberation, social justice, and economic prosperity of the Jewish people, as they thought? Among the prayers Jesus taught in the first half of Matthew 6:10, the prayer “Thy kingdom come” is a prayer for God’s reign to come. In other words, this prayer is ‘Let it come. Thy reign come’ (Kim). However, the reign of God that Jesus is talking about here was by no means the nationalistic restoration that the Jews at that time had been praying and waiting for. It is a community of God’s eschatological people under God’s personal rule, not liberation from the slavery of the Roman Empire, but liberation from sin, eternal death, and Satan, and the glory of the eternal kingdom while enjoying all the rich spiritual blessings that come in Jesus Christ. The church of God ruled by God where righteousness is practiced is the kingdom of God. That is why Jesus is telling us this in Matthew 6:33 – “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” As we pray to our Father in heaven, “Your kingdom come”, the prayer Jesus taught us, we must first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

The third petition is “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (v. 10).

This prayer teaches us that when we pray to our Heavenly Father, we must seek God's will completely. In this way, Jesus opened his mouth in today's text to teach us that we should seek God's will. In fact, the night before he died, when he prayed in a place called Gethsemane, he asked for God's will. Look at Matthew 26:39 – “And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.’” I was listening to the Gospel of John last week and noticed a bit of John 12:27-28: “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ‘Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Jesus, who had asked Heavenly Father to spare him from this time, knew that he had come to this earth for this purpose, so he obeyed Heavenly Father's will until he died on the cross for the glory of Heavenly Father (Phil. 2:8). In this way, Jesus Himself not only gave us the example of praying for God's will, but also fulfilled His will even by dying on the cross. Shouldn't we also pray for God's will like Jesus did? Just like the Lord's Prayer that Jesus is teaching in today's text, we should pray, 'God, Father, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. To do that, we have to let go of our own will. And we must seek God's will by discerning what God's good, pleasing, and perfect will is. To do this, as the Bible says in Romans 12:2, we must not be conformed to this generation, but we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2). Then we will be able to pray to Heavenly Father that the will of God in heaven be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Third, what we need to consider in the Lord's Prayer is the three 'us' petitions.

In today's text, Matthew 6:11-13, there are three 'our' petitions: (1) “Give us this day our daily bread” (v. 11), (2) “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (v. 12), and (3) “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (v. 13).

The first ‘us’ petition is “Give us this day our daily bread” (v. 11).

This prayer is a petition to ‘Give us food today’ and is set in the story of manna in Exodus chapter 16 (Kim). Look at Exodus 16:4 – “Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.” The background of this word is that Moses said this (v. 4) when the Israelites who were in the wilderness at the time of the Exodus grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “Would that we had died by the LORD'S hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (vv. 2-3). In other words, God listened to the complaints of the people of Israel (vv. 8, 9, 12) and rained down food for them from heaven. God commanded them to gather only what each person could eat each day (v. 16). And Moses commanded the Israelites not to leave any of them until morning (v. 19). But they disobeyed Moses, and some kept the food until morning, and there were worms and became foul (v. 20). And God gave the heavenly food, but on the sixth day, so that each person could reap twice as much bread (vv. 5, 22). The reason God did this was that the seventh day after that was a holy Sabbath to the Lord (v. 23). So, the people of Israel gathered manna, the heavenly food, for six days, but on the seventh day they shouldn’t have gone out to gather because God gave them twice as much bread on the sixth day. But in Exodus 16:27, the Bible says, “It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.” Some of the Israelites disobeyed God's word.

When you pray to God, do you say, 'Thank you God for giving us (me) our daily bread today'? Or have any of you ever complained in front of the table, like a child, complaining about food, saying, ‘Why is there nothing to eat?’ As I meditated on Exodus 16 at the Morning Prayer meeting, I was amazed and thankful that God heard the complaints of the Israelites who complained that they were dying of hunger. And they were amazed and thankful that God had provided them with manna, the heavenly food, while they were in the wilderness for 40 years (v. 35). Is it really that the Israelites, who had tested God and resented God countless times during those 40 years, did something well, so that God continued to provide their daily bread for 40 years? Rather, the Israelites sought food according to their greed and put God to the test in their hearts (Ps. 78:18). Nevertheless, God continued to give them their daily bread. If this is not God's grace, what is it? Are we not that different from the Israelites? Rather than giving thanks to God for giving us our daily bread, don't we complain out of dissatisfaction out of greed while living in this world? Furthermore, aren't there countless times when we do not keep and obey commandment of God who gives us our daily bread? Aren't we worried about what we will eat, especially as Jesus says in Matthew 6:25 and 31? Clearly, Jesus is saying that “’What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’” worrying is what the Gentiles eagerly seek (vv. 31-32). But aren’t we, in fact, anxious and seeking these things, like the non-believers in this world? Why are we seeking these things in worries? The reason is because we do not believe that our Heavenly Father knows that we need all these things (v. 32). It is this unbelief that ultimately leads us to complain to God in dissatisfaction and even disobey God's commandments.

What should we do? First, we must know and believe who our Heavenly Father is. Our Heavenly Father is a God who knows all our needs, including food, drink, and clothing. By believing in this God, we must pray to God, “Give us this day our daily bread” (v. 11). We should also pray because we thank God for giving us food today. We should never blame God because of greed in our hearts like the Israelites. Rather, we should pray with gratitude to God, who preserves our lives by giving us our daily bread. And we must first live a life that seeks the kingdom of God and His righteousness (v. 33). Then God will add all these things to us.

The second ‘us’ petition is “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (v. 12).

If we pay close attention to this prayer, in Gospel of Matthew, the author Matthew says, "forgive us our debts" and in Luke 11:4, the author Luke says, "forgive us our sins." So how do we know if Jesus was speaking of “debts” or “sins” when he taught the Lord’s Prayer? According to Dr. Seyoon Kim, a New Testament professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, Jesus originally said “debts” as the author Matthew said in Matthew 6:12. How to know this is because in the original Greek, in the second half of Luke 11:4, the author Luke also says, “For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” Then why did the author Luke say of “our sins” in Luke 11:4, first half, when Jesus’ original term was ‘debts’? The reason is because Luke reflects this because the Jews viewed sin as a ‘debt to God’ and a ‘debt to a neighbor’. In other words, the author Luke said, “Forgive us our sins” rather than saying, “Forgive us our debts,” as the Jews thought sin was a debt to God (v. 4). The reason he wrote so to Gentiles who are not familiar with Jewish idioms is to make the issue of sin against God and neighbor fundamentally clear (Kim).

We are indebted to God. In other words, we are sinners against God. However, through the atoning death of Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, on the cross, all of our sins who believe in Jesus were forgiven. Therefore, now we are debtors of love to God. How are we to live as we are indebted to God? As the commandment of Jesus, we must live loving our neighbors. What is life of loving our neighbors? It is to forgive our neighbors when they sin against us, just as our heavenly Father forgave our sins. So, after teaching the Lord's Prayer to Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus is saying this in verses 14-15: “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” What does it mean? Jesus actually commands us to forgive those who have offended us in our lives after we say the Lord's Prayer as He taught us. When we do this, God promises to forgive our sins. But in reality, it seems that when we offer the Lord's Prayer to God, we do not forgive a person who has wronged us or sinned against us. Jesus is saying that if we do, our Heavenly Father will not forgive us our transgressions. What should we do? We must forgive those who have sinned against us. Then God's forgiveness of sins will be revealed through us to our neighbors. As Jesus said in Luke 7:47, he who is forgiven little, loves little. But he he whose many sins are forgiven by God, he loves God much. If we truly love God much, we will forgive much when our neighbor sins against us. But if we love God little, we will forgive little the sins our neighbors have committed against us. I hope and pray that all of us are full of God's love and love much, so that we can sincerely forgive those who have sinned against us.

The third ‘us’ petition is “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Mt. 6:13).

This prayer is a prayer to not allow us to fall into temptation and to deliver (save) us from Satan (evil) (Kim). Why do we keep falling into temptation? The apostle James says in James 1:14-15: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” What does it mean? We fall into temptation because we are drawn to our own lust. If we continue to be led by lust, we have no choice but to live in our former manner of life, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit (Eph. 4:22). Therefore, Satan continues to provoke our lust and tempt us today to make us sin against God. In particular, he is tempting us in three areas. The apostle John speaks of these three areas in 1 John 2:16 – “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” Satan not only stimulates and tempts us with the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, so that we cannot live a life that seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. But rather he makes us to seek the things of the world so that when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings froth death (Jam. 1:15). A good example is the scene in Genesis 3 where the woman eats the forbidden fruit. The Bible says in Genesis 3:6 – “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” When Eve saw the forbidden fruit, it was good for food (the lust of the flesh), was pleasant to the eyes (the lust of the eyes), and to be desired to make one wise (the pride of life). So she disobeyed God's command because she fell into the lust of the eyes, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

The world we live in is a world ruled by Satan. Therefore, even now, Satan is constantly tempting the church, the children of God. The reason is that although we live in a world ruled by Satan, we are a church under the control of God. We who believe in Jesus have already been delivered from the kingdom of Satan and entered the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is ruled by God. Now that we are living in the kingdom of God ruled by this God, we must first live a life that seeks the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Mt. 6:33). We should never live like the people of the world ruled by Satan, worrying about what we will eat, what we will drink, and what we will wear. We must watch and pray to Heavenly Father that we will not fall into Satan's temptations (26:41). We must ask our Heavenly Father to deliver us here and now from Satan's sin and the reign of death. And with longing for God's rule, we must ask Heavenly Father for the kingdom of God to be completed quickly (Kim).

Fourth and last, what we need to think about in the Lord's Prayer is the doxology.

Look at the second half of Matthew 6:13 in today's text: “… For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” This last part of the Lord's Prayer, as taught by Jesus, is what we usually refer to as the doxology. What is the doxology? The doxology literally means a song to be sung by memorization, and it is mainly a prayer-type ode to the beginning or end of a worship service (Kim). The literal meaning of this doxology is 'For the kingdom and the power and the glory are Yours' (Kim). Here, the conjunction “for” explains the reason for the prayer “And do not lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” in the first half of verse 13. In other words, the reason why we pray “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” is because the kingdom and the power and the glory belong to God the Father. Regarding this doxology, there is a Bible verse that can help us understand. That is 2 Timothy 4:17-18: “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” Verse 18 says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom.” Isn't this similar to the last part of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:13 in today's text? The reason we pray, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever,” is because God the Father has already delivered us to the kingdom of Satan and enable us to enter the kingdom of heaven through the death and resurrection of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ on the cross. Therefore, we sing the kingdom of God, the power of God, and the glory of God.

Let's all get up and sing the Lord's Prayer that the Lord taught us, Korean Hymn 635: “Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil; For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”