How Should We Pray?

By Pastor Ethan, January 02, 2022

Matthew 6:9-15

Pray then like this

  • Do I pray “like this”?
  • Have I integrated the Lord's Prayer into my own prayers?

Our Father in heaven

  • Prayer paradox - relational, yet completely set-apart
  • Who is the Father?
  • Jesus said: “I and the Father are one”

Hallowed be your name

  • The word hallow belongs to set of Bible words related to “holiness” –which means unique, set-apart
  • We are praying that God’s name would be set-apart, that it would be valued, treasured, and recognized as superior to every other worldly pretender

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

  • The kingdom language was at the center of Jesus’s gospel message
  • The Jesus movement is not about escaping our physical existence for some non-physical reality. God is in the business of transforming our lives presently, here and now

Give us this day our daily bread

  • For Jesus’s immediate audience, bread was a basic survival need—not guaranteed
  • Jesus doesn’t try to shift our attention away from earthly needs to more “spiritual” things

And forgive us as debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors

  • A debtor is someone who is clearly in the wrong—absolutely. And it is within in my right to demand recompense. And Jesus’s prayer for us is that in that situation, I receive an infinitely greater forgiveness through the channel of God’s grace which I then send out through that same pipeline

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

  • God gives us the wisdom and self-control to avoid going into situations where we will be tempted
  • Nothing about this prayer is safe
  • We are way too comfortable when we say, “Your kingdom come, your will be done”
  • It is no longer about my will, my wants, my desire. I am saying Yes to the call to follow Jesus to Gethsemane, even when I don’t understand why.