How are we to Pray? A Look at the Lord’s Prayer Part I

In this post, I want to take a look at the model prayer that Jesus gives us in The Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The prayer is as recorded in both:

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day 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 evil. [For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen] Matthew 6:9-13

And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.” Luke 11.2-4

The bracketed part of Matthew 6.13 is not found in the earliest manuscripts, nor in Luke’s record, but I have included here because of how well known it is. we will give it more consideration later. The earliest use of it is in the Didache, an early Christian writing with no conclusive date of writing outside of sometime between 70AD to the 3rd century AD. The first mentions of the Didache is by Eusebius (324 AD), Athanasius (367 AD), and Rufinus (c. 380 AD). We will look at the prayer line by line.

Our Father in heaven
In opening the prayer, Jesus, in speaking to God, makes reference to who and the place of Him who He makes petition. “Our Father,” a title given to God throughout the scriptures. It harkens the theological idea of being sons and daughters of God. Though some give this title as a qualification for everyone due to their creation being from God, and thus He is the father of all, the Bible makes a definite dichotomy. Those who are joined to Christ are adopted as sons and daughters (Ephesians 1.4-5), while those who are in disbelief belong to “[their] father, the devil” (John 8.44). Also God disciplines the ones He loves and accepts as a father does His children (Hebrews 12.5ff), as contrasted to those who are under his wrath, which believers are no longer under (Ephesians 2.3, Romans 8.1).

God is in heaven. This speaks to us the majesty, glory, power, and dominion of God. When we come to Him in prayer, we are entering the very throne room of the sovereign King of the universe.As such, we should enter with dignity, respectfulness, worship, and reverence. This does not take away the fact that we enter boldly (Hebrews 10.19, the ESV renders this word “confidently,” which is a great translation), nor can we not enter as a child would petition his father. With confidence in the work of Christ, as both the propitiation of our sin and the mediator between us and the Father. As a child to a father, in child-like awe and wonder. With the veil to the holy of holies torn, let us not fear God’s presence as the high priest must have, but enter confidently under the righteousness of Christ.

Hallowed be Your name
“Hallowed” means to be holiness and sacred. We must consider the name of God, and therefore God Himself as the upmost of holiness and sacredness. In the Bible, a name was not just a name, but spoke of the very essence or nature of a person. The covenant name of God was Yahweh, a name that the Jews considered so holy, they would not even say it in fear of profaning it. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, he responds simply “I am that I am” and that “I will show mercy to whom I show mercy.” His nature, His continual, eternal, self esixtence is linked to His nature of free grace and mercy. It is a name to be shown the upmost reverence, love, and glory. It is holy and sacred. This part of the prayer petitions the holiness of God, in the sense that hallowing the name of God is to hallow God Himself. In prayer, we should glorify God and exalt Him. What grace and mercy is shed upon us that sinners can give God praise, honor, and glory! In such petition, we exalt God over ourselves, or as John the Baptist says we increase God as we decrease ourselves (John 3.30).

Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
In this, the prayer requests the fullness of the kingdom of God. It speaks of the “now and not yet” aspect of the Kingdom. We know that the Kingdom was established and granted to Jesus (Daniel 7.13-14; Mark 1.15; Luke 11.20; Luke 17.20-21) but is also progressing, bringing all things under it’s subjection which will find its consummation at the second-coming (1 Corinthians 15:24-27). Matthew furthers the idea of God’s kingdom by referring to the soveriegnty of God and His reign. The one praying to God prays that God’s will would be on earth as it is in heaven, that is, absolute. It is eschatological in nature and refers back to the subjugation of all things. It is true that God is absolutely sovereign, and nothing happens outside of his design and allowance, and in this sense, God’s will is on earth as it is in heaven. When we pray in this regard, of God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, we are also asking that our wills would become uniform with God’s. We are asking God to conform us to His will, and to the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8.29). As long as there are sinful men who rebel against God and prefer to be self-autonomous, this prayer must be prayed earnestly. The kingdom comes in fulness as the Gospel spreads throughout the earth, as the elect are called into fellowship with God, and as we are sanctified. As such, it should be our desire to see the Gospel proclaimed, sinners saved, and our own holiness increased through the grace of God.

Give us this day our daily bread,
When we ask this of God, we show our absolute reliance on God’s provision. We are like the Israelites in the desert of Sinai who had to rely on God giving manna to them each morning. They were to take only what they needed in trust that God would continue to provide for them (Exodus 16:15-21). Later in Matthew 6, Jesus tells us not to fear or be anxious, as God provides all that the birds of the air and the lilies of the field need, yet we are of more worth to God than these. Will He not also provide for us? As we are provided for physically, we are also in reliance of being provided spiritually. Jesus is the bread of life and the living water, through which we will never hunger or thirst (John 4.13,14;John 6.35). As we must rely daily on God for provision for our needs, we must also rely daily on God for grace. As Jesus met the needs of the 5,000 by fish and loaves of bread, He meets our needs daily. By asking this of God, we must realize that we do not deserve to have our needs met, nor have any right to such, but God graciously gives what is needed. By petitioning God for such things, we rely on His sole and sovereign grace in even the basic necessities, a thought that should drive us to prayer daily, glorifying God in even the most basic of things. Truly we depend upon God from the least to the greatest for the least to the greatest!

We will continue our look at the Lord’s prayer, as well as how we should pray in part II.