Why We
Pray the Lord’s Prayer Every Week
Larry Thorson
May 20, 2007
Matthew
6:5-15
5
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.
Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray,
go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then
your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you
pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard
because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what
you need before you ask him.
9 "This,
then, is how you should pray:
" '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
today 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 the evil one.'
14 For if you
forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will
not forgive your sins.
Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International
Bible Society
Everyday in every place you can pray to God and God
will hear you. I’ve talked to Buddhists
about this, I’ve talked to Hindus, I’ve talked to Muslims, I’ve talked to
Catholics, Lutherans, non-denominationals, I’ve even talked to a few
Presbyterians over the years and they all, and I repeat all believe they can
pray to God and God will hear them. Then
why don’t we pray more? Benjamin
Franklin used to say "Work as if you were to live a hundred
years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow."
As a church we pray together every
Sunday. When someone is diagnosed with
cancer we pray for them. When someone is
suffering depression. We pray for
them. When someone is going in for
surgery we pray for them. We pray for
our troops, our President, our Congress.
We will pray for you because we believe that God hears us and does
something with our prayers.
Every Sunday we conclude our prayers
with the Lord’s Prayer. Every
Sunday. Not just when we feel like it
but every Sunday. Not just on the first
Sunday of the month but every Sunday. We
don’t think about it. We don’t rehearse
it. We don’t vary how it’s prayed. We just do it. How often do we do it? Every Sunday!
What would happen if we didn’t pray the
Lord’s Prayer one Sunday? Jesus said
about this prayer in verse 9 "This, then, is how you
should pray…” He didn’t say “This, then, is what you should pray” but how you should pray…”
Because of that statement a lot of churches won’t pray the Lord’s Prayer
at all. I once belonged to such a
church.
As a
teenager and college student I was spiritually raised, nurtured, discipled and
sent into the ministry from the Los Gatos Christian Church in
But the
practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer didn’t come from the Roman Catholic
Church. It didn’t even come originally
from Jesus Christ. Jesus learned it from
the Jewish Talmud. Those were the
prayers and teachings that supplemented the Bible.
The
prayer that Jesus based what we now call the Lord’s Prayer on was called the
“Kadish” which goes like this…
"Our Parent which art in heaven, be
gracious to us, O Lord, our God; hallowed be thy name, and let the remembrance
of thee be glorified in heaven above and in the earth here below. Let thy
kingdom reign over us now and forever. The holy men of old said, Remit and
forgive unto all men whatsoever they have done against me. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from the evil thing. For thine is the kingdom, and
thou shalt reign in glory for ever and for evermore."
This was originally a prayer the Jewish
teachers prayed at the conclusion of a sermon.
Eventually it came to be used as a mourners prayer for those who had
lost a loved one. It was really just a
benediction.
A benediction is a little prayer said at
the end of religious ceremony. Almost
every Sunday I conclude our worship services with this benediction “Now may the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of the Father and the fellowship
of his Holy Spirit be with you now and forever.
Amen.” That’s a little prayer
that I send us off with. That’s what a
benediction is, a little prayer of departure like saying “May God’s peace go
with you”.
That’s what the Lord’s Prayer is at the
end of our prayer time. It’s a
benediction to close our prayer time.
What it does is summarize all the things that we need to be praying for on
a regular basis.
When
Jesus was teaching how to pray using the Kadesh he left off the benediction at
the end, the part that goes For thine is the kingdom, and thou shalt reign
in glory for ever and for evermore."
That’s because he was probably using it then as a model for teaching
and not as a benediction.
So
technically the independent Christian churches are right in saying that Jesus
didn’t intend for those listening to his Sermon on the Mount on that day to
pray this prayer word for word then. He
was trying to teach content, what it means and how as a guide it can help them
pray. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t pray it.
As a Jewish rabbi I suspect he used the Kaddish on a regular basis.
As a model for praying there are seven
petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. If you
pray in these seven areas you’ll never have a problem praying again.
1. Hallowed be Your Name – not my
name
All of us have a need to be known. We want people to at least know us by our
name. Nobody likes to be called
“Hey”. I think of some churches that are
known more for their pastor’s name than Jesus’ name. Promoting their own name is a huge temptation
for leaders. Every time we pray we need
to remember that God knows our name and all that really matters is that God’s
name be known. That’s what this petition
asks for.
2. Your
kingdom come – not my kingdom
Kingdom means the same thing as influence. When we say that someone is building his own
kingdom like a Bill Gates at Microsoft we mean he’s expanding his area of
influence. But all of us have the need
to know we have the ability to influence or order someone even if it’s just the
clerk at Arbys. The temptation of humans
is to continue to expand that influence as far as we can get away with. I think of Saddam Hussein invading
3. Thy will be done – not my will
Recently I watched the 1970 film Patton, the
story of Gen. George Patton, one of the great WWII generals. At one point in the film Patton is taking out
his frustrations because Dwight Eisenhower had pulled him out leading troops to
battle. “War is my destiny” he
yelled. He sounded liked he was going to
do something violent, even anarchic and then he turns away and says “Thy will
be done” and submits to Eisenhower’s orders.
At least half our battles in life are over getting our own way.
4. Give us each day our daily bread – I
need help
Never forget that at a
minimum we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. This is the most difficult thing to do for
people who work hard to successfully provide for themselves. But we’ve got to acknowledge that we have
what we have because of opportunities God has opened up for us.
5. Forgive us as we forgive others – I am
a debtor
We covered this several weeks ago. If we don’t see ourselves as being debtors
we’ll have a hard time seeing that we’re in debt to God.
6. And lead us not into
temptation – I can be tempted
Basically we’re all susceptible
to temptation whether we feel like it right now or not. One of the only reasons you’re not giving in
to some temptation is because it’s not right in front of you.
7. But deliver us from evil – I
have evil in me
Some people don’t think
they have any evil in them. That’s
especially true of church people who have been following Christ for a long
time. Anyone, anytime is capable of
being taken over by and committing evil.
These are seven petitions that pray against the
seven biggest hindrances to our existence.
Those biggest hindrances are summed up by the term self reliance. The day that the First Presbyterian Church of
Hemet believes because it owns its own building debt free, and pays its own
bills without outside aid that it doesn’t need to pray is the day God leaves
the building.
The greatest sin that a church can commit is
not denying the reliability of the Scriptures or forbidding women to have
abortions. One of the greatest sins a
church can commit is showing God by prayerlessness that it can do its ministry
on its own.
That’s
why we pray. That’s why we pray the
Lord’s Prayer every week. If we’re going
to minister to hurting people in our community we’ve got to start on our
knees. As a church we’ve got to pray
together. We can’t be afraid of what the
person next to us is going to think of our little prayer. We’ve got to pour out our hearts to God and
just allow God to pray through us.
Sunday morning June 10 I want to dedicate our
church worship services to prayer. Using
the Lord’s Prayer as a guide I will guide us through an all church prayer
meeting. We need to show God that we
believe only God is capable of growing this church.
If you’re not a very religious person and don’t
know much about prayer, that’s ok because God will hear your prayers. The most important prayer God is looking for
is probably the simplest prayer, the sinners’ prayer. “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner in need of forgiveness. I open my life to you, come in and be my
savior.” At that very prayer Christ will
come in and begin to change you.
For the rest of you try praying the Lord’s
Prayer out loud in the morning when you get up and the evening when you get
ready to go to sleep. Try praying it
slowly pausing after each petition. You
will be moved.