The Lord’s Prayer - Part 1
Passage: Matthew 6:9-15 Preacher: Melissa Lochhead
QUICK RECAP
This was the first half of a two-part study on The Lord’s Prayer, the centrepoint of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. With Jesus’ disciples, we asked Jesus to teach us to pray like Jesus prayed, so that we might live like Jesus lived.
We began by recognizing the communal nature of our faith signified in “Our Father.” We do not pray alone; we belong to each other, and we are invited by Jesus to share in his unique relationship with His Father. We are invited to know ourselves as Jesus’ brothers and sisters, and to know the Father as Jesus knows the Father. This invitation to let God redefine fatherhood is an invitation to the healing of any broken images of fathers and mothers that we might have, and to a deepening of trust in the God that Jesus called Abba, Father.
As we focused on the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, we noticed the bold use of the imperative verb form- a commanding verb! And how it is softened by the passive tense, recognizing that we are calling out to God to do what only God can do.
We thought about what it actually means for God’s Name to be hallowed. For God’s Name– representing all that God is– to truly be revered and valued above all else in the world, it must be made known. And so when we pray for God to hallow His Name, we are asking God to reveal Himself, to show Himself, to make Himself real. We looked at some of the names of God, the acts in history by which God has made Himself known, culminating in the person and life of Jesus, and we tried Darrell Johnson’s practice of “praying back” to God the names and revelatory acts of God, for ourselves and the people around us.
In the bold petition, ‘Thy kingdom come,” we thought about the already, not-yet nature of God’s kingdom, which broke into this world in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and which is making inroads at all times, like yeast working through dough, even though it is veiled and we look forward to its full coming. In this prayer, we are asking God to bring His kingdom more fully in this moment, and also to do all that needs to be done before His kingdom can come in fullness. What does it mean to stand with the true King who goes about His world now somewhat hidden now, fighting against the forces of darkness with the light of goodness and love?
After focusing on the true nature of the God Jesus invites us to know and trust as a good Father, after considering the goodness of His kingdom, we reflected on how much easier it becomes to pray with full joyful confidence, “Your will be done!” What a gift to be able to surrender our incomplete understandings of reality and to pray “the prayer that never fails” for all the needs that surround us.
Questions for further study and reflection
Where do you see gaps in your biological family- for connection with your kids, support from parents or grandparents- that you need the family of God to help fill in? What resources do YOU have to offer others who might be struggling with loneliness or the desire for encouragement and love from ‘spiritual parents’ or spiritual ‘aunties and uncles’ and even ‘spiritual grandparents’?
When you pray, do you generally perceive God to be distant, far off? Or near? How does the idea that “heaven” refers to the spiritual realm that is all around us affect your understanding of prayer?
Is it easy or difficult for you to think of God as Father? What is your instinctive emotional response to the word ‘father’? How do you see Jesus relating to God as Father? What does his relationship with the Father show us about how God wants to be understood?
How does knowing that Jesus is teaching us to use a (passive) imperative verb form in addressing God, affect the way you think about prayer?
What are some of the names of God, or revelatory acts of God in Scripture, that are really meaningful for you right now? How could you “pray these back” to God as a way of asking God to ‘hallow His Name’, make Himself real, for yourself or those around you? What passage of Scripture could you read over and meditate on this week, that would help you enter into this petition, help you ‘pray back to God’ His nature and character as you implore Him to make Himself known?
How do you see God’s reign and kingdom breaking into your own life? Where do you see the need for it to come more fully around you?
Is there a difficult situation in your life that you have been wrestling with what to ask God for? How does “thy will be done” affect your praying about that scenario or relationship?
