The Lord’s Prayer in Context Notes for December 5, 2011

THE LORD’S PRAYER IN CONTEXT

NOTES FOR December 5, 2011

ISOM NEW LIFE RESTORATION CHURCH P.J.

PRAYER IS INTIMACY AND NOT TECHNIQUE

The Lord’s Prayer contains six petitions (some divide the last one (Matthew 6:13) into two thus making it seven.  This provides the subject matter of true Christian prayer.

 

1. Jesus is praying WITH His disciples, He is not giving them a pattern to slavishly follow.
2. These are the burdens and attitudes of disciple/sons.
3. Avoid making these a technique and methodology to be repetitively used.
4. There is no manipulation of God the Father in true prayer.  The idea that by much prayer we can bring revival down from heaven or twist God’s arm to bring blessing upon us turns prayer into a utilitarian tool and it ceases to be the sons sharing with their Father in His eternal purposes.
5. Prayer is the communing intimacy of sons with their Father, participating with Him in the purposes and activities of His heart.

 

THE PARAMOUNT CONCERN OF THE SONS

Note how Jesus the Son shows His brothers first things first!  In each of the opening three petitions His Father’s Name, Kingdom and Will are paramount.

 

1. YOUR, YOUR, YOUR (Matthew 6:9,10).
2. Absence of ME, MINE is of profound importance for us who live in a time when all things are regarded as of value only as they please the all pervasive ‘I” of the human ego.
3. The church must examine the songs it sings carefully in the light of this matter.
4. Preachers and pastors must get these priorities right in the totality of their ministry.  Unfortunately God can so easily become the Father who is at the beck and call of the individual person, their wants and likes and dislikes defile the churches true life and ministry.

 

THE DAILY BREAD PETITION

These three petitions, focusing entirely upon God as our Father and His Being and Kingdom, mean that our living and our needs are placed into proper perspective.  We are humbled to dependence upon our Father for all things.  We are not the center of the universe!

 

1. To become involved in the Father’s Kingdom work we must be alive.
2. This will require bread for the day.  We must be alive in order to participate with Him in what He is doing.
3. GIVE is the first word.  He is the supplier.  If we gain our bread by the wages of earning a living, Who GAVE us our brain to think with, or physical strength to labor with?
4. All is gift from Him.  Dependency upon Him is implicit in this prayer.
5. The independent attitude that says me and mine and I can do what a like with it is completely absent.
6. “Bread for the day” (Matthew 6:11) could be the translation. Not preoccupation with providing for future, pensions and the like.
7. Technology and consumerism detach us from dependence on our Father and fosters self, self and more self.
8. “OUR” daily bread, not “my” reminds us that we are part of a great community of persons set in the Father’s world and not selfish independent persons who are consuming, exhausting the world’s resources, careless of others needs and ‘doing our own thing.’
9. The ‘work’ and earning mentality that implies a right to use our time, money and energies as we please is given a deathblow by the realization that all is ‘gift’ from the Father (James 1:17).
10. This petition expresses, reminds and nourishes dependency upon our Father.  These are “Kingdom words” indeed, and express the delightful dependency sons should experience as they look to their caring Father.

 

FORGIVENESS AND FORGIVING

The fifth petition contains the word ‘give’ again but it has a prefix this time, ‘for-give.’  We are now reaching the real ‘kingdom’ word and work.  Here is the heart of God’s kingdom, without forgiveness there can be no real kingdom of God come on earth.

 

1. What debt do we owe the Father?
2. What debts do we owe to others?
3. What debts do others owe to us?
4. Everything is personal and not abstract.  We do not sin primarily against law or justice, these are abstracts, our sin is against people, against persons.  First the person of God, secondarily against human beings, in fact, sin affects the whole creation.  Sin dislocates, divorces, divides and destroys the relationship that all things ought to have each with and for the other.
5. Forgiveness is the bedrock of the Kingdom of God.  If we do not have a sense of the personal nature of sin and the way it is a manifestation of opposition to God first and people second, the ‘kingdom’ will be an impersonal one of religious rites and correct beliefs.
6. Forgiveness is kingdom work (John 20:23).
7. Note that Jesus does not say that we pray for the cleansing of our sin but that we are forgiven and the outcome is that we are to be forgiving.  Cleansing is a fruit of forgiveness, deliverance is a fruit of forgiveness and the freedom from continuing in sin is a fruit of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is the fountain of cleansing.  We need to think this through.  We cease from conscious sinning against God and people, as the wonder of His for-GIVE-ness becomes a reality in our lives.
8. We are purified and purify ourselves because of His kiss of forgiveness.
9. Our forgiveness of others will be thus a strong testimony encouraging them to forgiveness and cleansing also.  The restoration of relationships cannot take place without forgiveness.  The life of the kingdom can only flourish where unforgiving attitudes are no more.
10. Our Father forgave us BEFORE we repented.  His forgiveness is not earned by our repentance but we begin to experience the power of His loving forgiveness as we become increasingly repentant.
11. Churches are ravaged by unforgiving attitudes being retained in the midst.
12. Jesus on Calvary broke the cycle of revenge and payback.  His first word is “Father, forgive.”  If we refuse to walk in this way then the outcome is a terrible one (Matthew 6:14,15).
13. The petition of forgiveness is modeled upon the year of Jubilee God instituted in Israel (Leviticus 25).  This was a year when debt was remitted and inheritance returned to the owner who had let it go.  Those fallen upon bad time were re-instated in their proper place.  It was the ‘acceptable year of the Lord” which the Lord Jesus came to bring (Luke 4:19. Isaiah 61:1&2).
14. This was the year of God’s favor and the greatest favor God bestows upon us and we can bestow upon others is forgiveness.  Our Father does not hold against us what we did in the past.

 

AND WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

This final petition concerns our way ahead, the path that the disciple/sons must walk.

 

1. “Lead us” and “deliver us” imply movement, a going forward.  It also suggests uncertainty concerning the future, that there will be things to face.
2. Temptations will abound and deliverance from our Father will be our great need as we engage in kingdom work.
3. It could be translated “the evil” or “the evil one.”  The evil kingdom is all around us; we in the kingdom of God are surrounded by it.  It is headed by the evil one himself.
4. There are particular temptations that come to ‘kingdom people’, those who are His sons.  Pride in being ‘kingdom sons’ is itself an attitude more common than we appreciate and makes us vulnerable to great temptation.  Remember how Jesus was tempted of the evil one in the wilderness.
5. He was tempted that ‘IF’ He was the Son then use some of His ‘good’ powers to bring the kingdom in.
6. The purpose of evil is to deflect us from dwelling in God’s Kingdom and living and serving in His kingdom ways.  At the heart of these kingdom ways is loves forgiveness in the midst of enemies who abuse us.
7. Lead us not into the temptation of holding things against others or using the world’s ways to attempt to bring God’s kingdom in.
8. Jesus rebuked Peter, calling him Simon, his old name.  This was when his words were satanic and Jesus said to His unwary disciple “get behind Me Satan.”  Peter’s words expressed the satanic mindset at the heart of which is ‘avoid the cross’ (Matthew 16:23-28).
9. Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.  Let the churches watch and pray lest they fall foul of the world’s ways.  Jesus prayed in the garden, it concerned the cup the Father wanted Him to drink, the way that He was to go.  Was He being tempted to go another way, to avoid the kingdom way, the way of Calvary?  Certainly this was part of the temptation.  Remember His words to Peter, James and John (Luke 22:39-46).
10. There are times when not only apostles, but also a whole church is sifted like wheat (Luke 22:31-34).
11. We all know Peter failed in the time of temptation just a few hours later.  He was vulnerable because of his lack of understanding of the power of evil and also the fact that his self-assurance was in fact weakness.   He caved in under the pressure to deny the Lord.
12. The church must walk humbly into the future, in every decade, as it faces those forms of evil developing and being adapted by the enemy to trip it up.
13. Different churches are faced with differing forms of the evil.  Spiritual priggishness, exclusivity and doctrinal arrogance are but a few of the more subtle temptations.
14. The temptations to utilize the ways of the world to build the Lord’s kingdom are ever present too, especially in our technologically savvy age.  The glitz and glitter does not belong in the Kingdom of God.

 

WHAT IS PRESENT AND WHAT IS ABSENT

Finally, as we consider this prayer, note again the order of the six petitions.  Note the absence of preoccupation with self.  Note the presence of dependence upon the Father throughout.  Note the intimacy of relationship implied.  Note the central realities that should occupy the thoughts and prayerful desires of the children of God.  Their Father’s Name, His kingdom and will, their dependency upon Him as the Great Giver of all they need day by day and that they be kept from the evil that is ever at work to waylay and destroy them as they walk with Him.