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When
you pray, do your prayers sound like you are talking to a friend or to
a wall? Let me illustrate. When you talk to God, do you sound like this, “I
pray that you will give me this . . .” or “I ask that you
will give me this . . .?” That is the usual wording. But if you
were talking to a friend would you not ask like this, “Is it possible
that I could have . . .” “Could you do this for me?” One
is distant and the other is personal.
Our Needs. In Jesus next statement in the
prayer He shows us how to ask for our needs. When you ask the Father
to meet your needs, how long is your list? How many wants and desires
do you have for yourself? It is amazing to me that Jesus only includes
one non-spiritual request in the prayer. There is no request for physical
healing. Jesus does not include a request for the synagogue or the nation’s
leaders. It is amazing that in verse 8 He says,
Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him. (NASB) Matt. 6:8 His prayer is simple - only one request! Why?
Spiritual Life. The next two lines and verses
14 and 15 are the heart of this section. It is about forgiveness. Our
Lord is very concerned about the evil attitude we have towards others.
Since this is a major point with our Lord we will devote the entire next
study to this topic.
Next, Jesus tells us to ask the Father to keep us from testing
and “to rescue” us from evil. Have you ever been in a situation
where you had a strong desire to sin? You knew it was sin; yet the urge
to sin was great? I have been there! I have asked the Father to rescue
me. That is what Jesus is talking about - being rescued by the Father
through the Holy Spirit. We need the help of the Holy Spirit to escape
temptation (Gal. 5:16-21). Are you trying to flee sin all by yourself?
If so, why? Ask for help!
Conclusion. Jesus’ prayers are almost
like “Our Prayer.” If we look at the prayers of our Lord,
as recorded in the gospels, we find three important things. First, His
prayers were always short. “Our Prayer” is a short one -
68 English words. It takes less than 30 seconds to say. Now that is short!
Second, Jesus starts His prayers with “Father,” and
then talks about the Father’s will (Matt. 11:25-26; Matt. 26:39;
John 12:27-28; John 17:1-15). As far as we know, Jesus never asked for
any of His daily needs to be supplied. But Jesus did have personal requests
(Matt. 26:39) and He prayed for others (John 12:27-28).
Finally, “Our Prayer’ is really about our holiness.
It starts with the Father and His holiness and concludes with requests
for forgiveness and being rescued from evil. The Greek word for evil
has the idea of passion, lust and desire. Evil in the heart! The Pharisee
did not pray like this. How often we forget God sees right through us
with “x-ray vision.” He sees our sin. He is holy and we are
not. He is the one who is in the heavens and we are on earth. He is the
Holy Father and we are the sinful creature. There is no escape. How much
of your prayer life is about holiness?
If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear. (NASB) Ps 66:18 The majority of “Our Prayer” should be about our spiritual
condition and a desire to be like Jesus - to be holy! |
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| Sermon on the Mount | |||||
