August 06, 2023
Matthew 6:9-15 (Read later)

Note: The KJV, NKJV, et al. have the doxology added, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” NASB 1977 placed these words in in brackets noting that those words do not appear in the earliest manuscripts. Most modern translations have omitted these words for the same reason. This ending appears in many ancient manuscripts, but it is “not original.” (Utley, et al.) “Evidently, pious scribes added it later to make the prayer more suitable for use in public worship. They apparently adapted the wording of David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:11.” (Constable, cf. Blomberg, 120, et al.)

The title of the sermon is “Kingdom Priorities: The Pattern Prayer.” ¹ We know that because of the Model Prayer, we are coming to the end of the illustrations, instructions and applications that Jesus used to teach His disciples and audience against literally acting out righteousness before people and how to instead do rewardable righteous acts. While doing so, Jesus addressed three core elements of “Jewish piety” in this passage we have been studying, fasting, praying, and giving.² These acts were not --nor are they now-- suggestions, but instead are assumed to be a part of the community of God. Do these things of righteousness, but --Jesus warned-- “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” (6:1) The Model Prayer is meant to be an applicational guide for people of faith so that we do not succumb to varying our behavior due to an audience being nearby. ¶ The value of learning these warnings in invaluable. Responding to Jesus’ cautions, as people of faith, protects our rewards that Jesus offers for getting things right.

Let’s do a quick overview of the prayer:

• We will be cover the first half of the Prayer this morning.
• You may have noticed that I used “Model Prayer” and “Pattern Prayer” in my introduction. More commonly it is called the “The Lord’s Prayer” of course. >>
• Why do I typically not use the name, The Lord’s Prayer? Two reasons:
  • First Jesus uses the phrase, “Pray then like this.”
  • But the more important reason I don’t use the title of “The Lord’s Prayer” is that forgiveness is asked for in the prayer. Jesus never needed forgiveness, He had no personal sin. Therefore, I believe Pattern Prayer or Model Prayer should be used as a title. This is not the prayer the Lord needed to pray. This is an example of how our prayers should be prayed.
  • I’m not going to die on this hill however.
• Mechanics of the prayer:
  • This model prayer resembles written prayers of the Jews in the first century.⁴
  • The overview of the prayer is striking: the first three petitions in the Model Prayer deal with God, and the last three deal with people of faith. “Notice the “Your,” " Your,” and " Your" in verses 9 and 10, and the “us,” “us,” and “us” in verses 11 through 13." (Constable, cf. et al.)
  • “This pattern indicates that disciples should have more concern for God than we do for ourselves. We should put His interests first in our praying, as in all our living.” For God is first in all things. [623, Toussaint, Behold the …, 107] (et al.)⁷
• The use of the prayer is interesting throughout history.
  • There is some irony here in light of what Jesus taught directly before the Model Prayer, in that, some Christian traditions have called for this prayer to be repeated three times a day. And the Prayer has been repeated more than any other prayer. (Blomberg, 118)
  • But other Christian traditions have “carefully avoided its use or recitation.” (Blomberg, 118) These traditions key in on the phrase we talked about, “pray like this” and they note the absence of “pray this.” >>
  • Generally, I am in the latter crowd. Although, I will add that for myself, an occasional recitation is not something I find troubling in any way any more than repeating any other part of Scripture.
  • When I pray the prayer now, I try to remember what my prayers should look like.

Matthew 6:9-15
9 Pray then like this: “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 this day 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 evil.

We see the first phrase: 9 Pray then like this:

• again: “like this” is telling. “like this” instead of “this”
• Again, let us not incorrectly think and say, “There is no wrong way to pray.” There are many ways to get prayer wrong. That is the main point of this passage regarding prayer.
• Prayer is something that needs to be a discipleship point.
• We are to teach all Jesus commanded via the Great Commission. But prayer is often overlook in Christian education.
  • We must remind ourselves constantly how to pray --yes, us-- for we are a forgetful people.
  • Jesus wants our words to approach the Father in certain ways.
  • Jesus wants are time in prayer to be rewarded.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

• Our Father in the heavens is positional.
  • We are in a family forever if we have trusted Jesus as Savior.
  • Another way God is positional is that He chooses to reside “in heaven” in Creation with us.
  • He Resides in creation but is separate from it.
• “Our Father” is possessive
  • “Our Father…” This prayer is for God’s people.
  • It’s for us. We see the emphasis on people of faith --as a group. We live in community. The prayer emphasizes this. (cf. France, The Gospel According …, 133)
  • The model prayer is not just a “private utterance.” (Blomberg, 119)
  • Relational, God cares for you, He has concern for us, He loves us and has compassion on us, He also disciplines, corrects, and rebukes us. He does these things perfectly in our lives.
  • Earthly fathers range --from humanistic standpoint-- from great to the biggest failures a person could know. As we know well, earthy fathers can error on being overbearing, too neglectful, and even monstrously abusive.
  • But God is not like our earthly fathers; He is perfect.
  • Our heavenly Father has our good in mind and He knows how to get it.

#1 Petition: hallowed be your name

• “hallowed” = “make sacred” (LSJ); “render or declare … holy, consecrate. Hence, it denotes: to render or acknowledge” as holy. (Thayer)
  • = may your name be uncommon, therefore holy, hallowed.
  • May your name be associated with your character. >>
  • May your name be revered and sacred.⁵
  • In our prayers, when using God’s names, we should be thinking about His perfection, reputation, power, authority, goodness, holiness, everything about Him.
  • We are to never use God’s name in a casual, common way.
  • Psalm 138:2b reminds us, “for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” We are to join God in exalting His name in all the earth. Holy, revered be your name O God!
• Hallowed be your name, should also remind us that we can defame God through fleshly, worldly actions.
  • Romans 2:24, "For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
  • Our actions speak loudly.

#2 Petition: 10 Your kingdom come,

• There are several approaches to interpret this phrase. Some I reject.⁶ You can see footnote 6 in my outline notes for an example if you wish.
• I will cover the two prominent views.
• According to France and others, It has become more common to interpret the entire Model Prayer with a looking to the end times and the renewal of all things in God’s kingdom. In other words, from an eschatological viewpoint.³ This phrase “Your kingdom come,” would obviously compliment this approach.
  • This phrase most certainly could be a prayer of our future as a resurrected people of God. For it seems that the NT writers were consistently looking forward to God setting up His full system of His kigdom. >>
  • For example, you might remember 2 Peter 3:13, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” >>
  • Peter the Apostle of Hope longer for the place where righteousness prevailed. While Peter speaks in a context of persecution. He consistently reminds the Church on where it is going.
  • We too long for justice to be served.
  • We long for the down trodden to be uplifted.
  • We are also looking forward to the time where God’s will will be done on earth completely. Where we, His people are freed from our sin natures and God finishes His work in us.
  • We are looking forward to the time where we love easily all people. The time where we make Christ like decisions and react the ways our Lord does.
  • Another common interpretation has been to petition for a daily fulfillment, God’s sanctifying work in us.
  • What does this look like? When we act in love and faith, we become clear agents of God’s kingdom. Therefore God’s kingdom comes in those moments.
  • In other words, God’s kingdom comes through the daily holiness of God’s people.
  • In this view, it is a prayer of submission as we look for the Spirit’s work in our life.
• We cannot be too dogmatic here. The phrase, “Your kingdom come” is broad in scope in the NT.
  • There is a consistent error in the comments and interpretations of the Saints: often, we hold narrow opinions on broad topics. If we are not careful, we can fall into logical problems called a False Dilemma. >>
  • That is, Christians often argue for one of two alternative states as the only possibilities when more possibilities may exist and two or more views may be true at the same time.
  • “Your kingdom come” is a broad petition that has many NT truths tied to it. >>
  • Where our context has not narrowed, ideas cannot be made precise. Our context has not narrowed here. We must remain flexible.

ILLUSTRATION

• Mechanical drawing of a quarter.

So what the APPLICATION?

• First: We need to desire God’s kingdom in all aspects of our lives.
  • Christ is the first in all things. As our Savior, His earthly ministry namely His death and resurrection made the possibility of all humans to be saved and begin their journeys in the kingdom of God. An eternal kingdom that starts at the moment of conversion for each one.
  • We then become part of The Church, the one Church, the kingdom.
• Second: “Your kingdom come” may mean that we should ask for, long for, and pray for our completed state in God’s kingdom apart from the flesh that Paul called fittingly, his prison.
  • Peter speaks of the constant, daily hope he should carry to have the right outlook. We are headed home!
  • Today, death of a loved one? Where are we going?
  • Health problems? Where are we going?
• Third: “Your kingdom come” may mean we align our lives according to the Spirit’s work in us. We are to be God’s image bearers putting the light of God’s kingdom into the world of darkness.

#3 Petition: your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

• Just a reminder, in the oldest Greek New Testament manuscripts, there are no periods, commas, or any punctuation of any kind. There are no chapter or verse markers or paragraph breaks. In fact, there are not even spaces between the words.
  • So we must keep this in mind when studying the Scriptures.
  • Therefore, the phrase “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” could be tightly joined part of the previous petition, “Your kingdom come”.
• A futuristic interpretation of “your will be done on earth” could be looking to the Millennial Kingdom (the thousand year physical rein of Jesus on the earth. Where Jesus rules with His iron rod.
• If taken more as an independent clause: it would mean that people of faith should ask for more of God’s will to happen on the earth through and around His people.

Let me talk about God’s will being done on earth.

• Firstly, we should always remember the first three keys to Bible study. What are they? Context, context, context.
  • So we should remember here that, God the Son has already called us to perfection. This is God’s will literally being done on earth; where we act like the Father as Jesus instructed us.
    • That is His will for us while on earth --perfection.
    • This could be at least part of the petition: a prayer us submission to what God wants here and now.
    • We need WILL REPLACEMENT
• But wait, isn’t God’s will always done?
  • Yes and no.
  • God has more than one type of will. See footnote number 9 to read a short selection on God’s wills.⁹ The only one I will cover here is God’s “permitting will.”
  • God permits and allows sinful possibilities to humankind—including Christians. God does not condone sinfulness when it is chosen by humans.
  • God’s does not condone or excuse evil, but has allowed for the choice of it.
  • The Garden is the first example of God’s will involving the possibility of sinful choice.
  • Unfortunately, we choose sin too as the First Adam.
  • It is helpful here also to remember Christ’s rebuke in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?"
  • Again, when we choose to sin as God’s people it goes against what we pray and hope for. That is" your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
  • Again, responding more to Christ’s call to perfection is doing God’s will on earth. We do this as we know by falling more in love with Jesus.

In CONCLUSION

• A beautiful Lloyd-Jones, wrote, “The sum of it all is that ultimately there is nothing in the whole realm of Scripture which so plainly shows us our entire dependence upon God as does this prayer, and especially these three petitions.”[648, Lloyd-Jones, Studies in …, 2:69]
• Praying for God’s will to be done on earth may look to that blissful future where God has completed is complete salvation of our souls and the resurrections of our bodies as His people.
• Praying for God’s will to be done denotes that we can do nothing apart from God. We must rely on Him. He does the work but we participate.
• How? Change more of our minds and responses to God and what He commands us to do. When God’s will is being done in our lives, there is beauty comprised of faith, hope and love and it has an impact on the earth.

Notes

^{Notes from above may not be in numerical order.}

¹ The sub-title of the sermon taken from France, The Gospel of Matthew, 241.
² Evans, 121; cf. Carson, The Sermon …, 56, Plumptre & France, 130.
³ See The Gospel According… 133. Toussaint agreed somewhat, but seemed to limit this futurist interpretation to the first three petitions. He saw “The last three are for the needs of the disciples in the interim preceding the establishment of the kingdom.”[652, Toussaint, Behold the …, p. 112] See also Thomas L. Constable, “The Lord’s Prayer,” in Giving Ourselves to Prayer, pp. 70-75, for another exposition of this prayer.
⁴ See Blomberg, 118 f and France, The Gospel According … 134.
⁵ Constable; edited for clarity.
⁶ Some see the phase 10 Your kingdom come, as having been fulfilled already. They base this on Matthew 12:28. Listen to it, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” But, if “the kingdom of God” --in this context-- was fulfilled with Jesus earthly work and ministry, why would Jesus have people of faith pray for it? I reject this interpretation. See Burrows’ rebuke in Constable’s notes here: https://www.planobiblechapel.org/tcon/notes/html/nt/matthew/matthew.htm#_ftnref629. (Millar Burrows, “Thy Kingdom Come,” Journal of Biblical Literature 74 (January 1955): 4-5.)
⁷ Jamieson had a wonderful point when he noted that, “The first three petitions have to do exclusively with God … And they occur in a descending scale—from Himself down to the manifestation of Himself in His kingdom, and from His kingdom to the entire subjection of its subjects, or the complete doing of His will. The remaining four petitions have to do with OURSELVES: … But these latter petitions occur in an ascending scale—from the bodily wants of every day up to our final deliverance from all evil.” [632, et al., p. 905]
⁸ Allen wrote, “In one respect His name is profaned when His people are illtreated. The sin of the nation which brought about the captivity had caused a profanation of the Name, Is. 43:25; 49:11; Ezk. 36:20-23. By their restoration His name was to be sanctified. But this sanctification was only a foreshadowing of a still future consummation. [Allen believed that,] Only when the ‘kingdom’ came would God’s name be wholly sanctified in the final redemption of His people from reproach.”[627, Allen, p 58]
⁹ See Monte Robinson, The Way of Discipleship, 167 ff. (https://aimdiscipleship.org/book-chapters/chap-23.pdf).

Works Cited

Scripture quotations [unless otherwise noted] are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Click here to access the works cited web-page for this document, save those marked as “Notes” or “Other Works Cited”–if any. Most of these cited works correspond to the verses they are outlined with. In the case of general background information and references, one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with. ¶ Furthermore, there may be numbered notes that are URL linked; these are usually retained numbered notes from Thomas Constable’s, “Dr. Constable’s Expository (Bible Study) Notes.” These links are preserved “as is” at the time of this work’s formation and I usually include other citation information from Constable as well (e.g. authors’ names).

Other Works Cited

Note: Not all of the resources below were used in this particular sermon outline.

Augsburger, David. Dissident Discipleship. Brazos Press, 2006.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary, vol. 22, ed. David S. Dockery, et al., Broadman Press, 1992. May be sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/matthew0000blom

________. Preaching the Parables: From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation. Baker Academic, 2004. Sourced from archive.org.
(https://archive.org/details/preachingparable0000blom/page/82/mode/1up)

Bruce, Alexander Balmain. The Training of the Twelve. Ed., A.C. Armstrong and Son, reprint 1984, Kregel Publications, 1971 edition.

Carson, D. A. The Sermon on the Mount : an Evangelical of Matthew 5-7 Exposition. 1978, Baker Book House, fifth printing, 1989. Sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/sermononmounteva0000cars/page/54/mode/1up

_______. When Jesus confronts the world : an exposition of Matthew 8-10. Originally published by Inter-Varsity Press in 1988, Paternoster, 1995. Sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/whenjesusconfron0000cars/page/n3/mode/1up

Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Our Daily Bread Publishing, web ver.

Davies, W. D. and Dale C. Allison, Jr. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. T. & T. Clark, 1988. Sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic0001davi/page/n7/mode/1up

Evans, Craig A. The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary: Matthew-Luke. Victor, 2003. Sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/bibleknowledgeba00crai/mode/1up

France, R. T. The Gospel According to Matthew. W. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1985.

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. W. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007. Sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/gospelofmatthew0000fran/page/n6/mode/1up

Harrington, Daniel J . The Gospel of Matthew. Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 1, A Michael Glazier Book, Liturgical Press (publ.), 1991. Sourced from archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/gospelofmatthew0000harr/mode/1up

Hendriksen, William. New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke. Baker Book House, 1984.

Phillips, John. Exploring the Gospels: John. Loizeaux Brothers, 1988.

Plumptre, E. H. “Matthew.” Commentary for English Readers, Charles John Ellicott, Compiler/Editor, Lord Bishop of Gloucester Cassell and Company, Limited, 1905. Sourced from BiblePortal.com. Click here for a list of the authors of the CER.

Yancey, Philip. The Jesus I Never Knew. Zondervan, 1995.

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