Matthew 6:5-15 (ESV) The Lord's Prayer

⁵ “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁷ “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.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.

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Welcome to Jesus Speaks. This is Pastor Chris Chia and it has been a delight, a joy, a privilege to share with you God’s words.

Today I will share with you from Matthew Chapter 6 on the most famous passage on prayer by Jesus himself. Allow me to read Matthew 5: 5-15.

As we saw the last time when you heard this broadcast, Jesus is addressing the three main acts of righteousness in the life of God's people – the Jews, the Israelites. But by the time Jesus came to announce God's kingdom to His people two thousand years ago, things had become so spiritually and morally bankrupt in Israel. Even these spiritual acts were not done properly. There were done in the wrong way!

How we are not to pray?

And so we see here in Jesus teaching, in chapter 6 verse 5, this is how we are not to pray. We are not to pray like hypocrites. Who are hypocrites and why is hypocrisy so wrong? The hypocrites would be the religious leaders who would prayed in the synagogues and pray at set times on the streets of Jerusalem. And why was their prayer not acceptable to God? Their prayer was not acceptable to God because they prayed to be seen and to be heard by man. In other words, they were praying to impress man, not to please God; they were praying to please man and to please themselves, not to glorify God.

What do we call that? We call that cross-purposes or cross-eyed spirituality. One eye on self, one eye on God – surely will stumble! And Jesus says this is how we are not to pray, this is how we are not to live! Delivered cross-purposes in our hearts, never sorting out whether it's for our glory or God's glory, whether it for our name or God's name. So, we mustn’t pray prayers in that way.

 “Our Father” – A term of intimacy

How then should we pray? Jesus begins “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”. The first thing that needs explanation is “Our father”. “Our father” is a radical exceptional term and word to call God. The Jews were given many terms and names to call God: Almighty, Majestic, Yahweh, Refuge, Rock, Salvation… very lofty terms. So for the believers following Jesus, the first thing to realize is that now thru His teaching, His ministry, when He dies on the cross and rises from the dead, we, beginning with the Israelites, will be given the right, the license for a radical relationship, a radical closeness to God, a radical intimacy with God. And that is why we are allowed to call our great God, the Almighty God, the Creator God, the Sustainer God of the universe, our father! We always need to understand, ponder and treasure this beautiful truth that is now come true in and through the work of Jesus. We are given the honor and privilege of intimacy with God our Heavenly Father.

Let me ask you: What are some of the most private places and spaces to you? For many of us we think it would be our bedrooms, our personal office (not cubicle). There are only four people who can storm into my bedroom or walk into my office without knocking and unannounced. I remember when my kids were very young especially my daughter, whenever she comes back from school from the morning session, she would just open my office door, and before I could turn around, she would run in and jumped on my lap and said “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” She doesn’t have to knock; she didn't say “Can I come in?” If you try doing that with me, – if you just click on my doorknob and walk in, and I’m sure you don't want to jump in my lap! You get the point? The only reason my daughter, my son, my wife and sometimes my late-mother who lives with us, could walk into my office or my bedroom most of the time, unannounced, without knocking, without asking for permission was because they were so radically close to me. And they still are! So this is the unimaginable closeness and intimacy that God has given to us. Then He, the Mighty Creator, our ever powerful protector, our gracious provider, can now be known as our Father, a term of intimacy, but only through the finish work of Jesus.

“Our Father” – The Transcendence of God

Immediately as we say this, this needs, as it were a corrective or balance. We must always remember that our Father is in heaven. And Christian scholars who write about this are so right to caution us to balance what we call in Theological terms - the Eminence, which means the closeness of God versus the transcendence or the separateness of God. In plain language, the bigness of God must never be forgotten, even as we are offered the buddyness or the friendship of God through Jesus Christ. Our God will always remain God, He is creator I am creature, He is maker I am only a mere man or woman. And so there must be that distance between us.

And scholars and Theologian call this “The Transcendence of God”. We got to keep our holy distance from this God. if you get to play basketball with Kobe Bryan, a round of tennis with Rodger Federer or Serena Williams, or a round of golf with Tiger Woods. You may call them friends for that 30 minutes or an hour, it doesn't mean the gap in you and them, as superstars in their sports, will be cancelled. There is always that transcendence or that distance from them. And so, our Father in Heaven, both the closeness and intimacy of God and yet the distance and the Holiness of God.
 

Hallowed be Your Name!  Be serious of His name, His kingdom, His will!

Then the prayer goes on – Hallowed be Your Name! God's name Yahweh was first given to Israel. This name actually reviews a character, meaning “He is the one and only God”. As Yahweh is the one and the only, the true and the only God, our right response is not “none like Him”, but “none but Him”. Jesus is actually saying that the only God, and the only thing we can do in response to God is to make sure His name, His kingdom and His will must be the disciples first concern and indeed our dying commitment. When Jesus says “Hallowed be Your Name”, He is simply teaching us, beginning with the disciples – to think, to say, and to live – be serious about God. And be serious about what aspects of God?  His name, His kingdom, His will!
 

The Kingdom of Heaven is the inauguration and establishment of God's rightful rule over our whole life

By the time you arrive in Matthew chapter 6, “Kingdom” has been used 5 times. And Jesus is going around preaching the Kingdom of Heaven. And so we need to understand, what is the meaning of “the Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew's gospel? And what is the meaning of the kingdom of God in the other Gospels. Matthew uses “Heaven” instead of “God”. Maybe in all likelihood, indicating that his main audience, always first audience were mainly Jewish believers. And he was teaching them that Jesus was no less than God's promised end time anointed King, Messiah, and through His finished work on the cross, will be God's eternal anointed King.

“Your kingdom come” – What is that means for us?  The Kingdom of Heaven is the beginning of the rightful rule of God over us. How? Through King Jesus! And if the Kingdom of Heaven means the inaugurations of the beginning of God’s rightful rule over us, it must also means it is the end of the wrongful rule of two elicits, illegitimate rulers, the wrongful rule of Satan and the wrongful rule of self under Satan.

How does this work out? I was preaching in the conference overseas, a man came to me - he was really angry, he was sad yet he was tearful, all rolled up. I guess you could say he was in a mess. He told me that he had just discovered over the weekend that all this time when he dropped his children at his brother-in-law’s place, for them to be looked after, his brother-in-law had been systematically molesting his children. And right now even as this man was sharing with me, that he was listening to God's words, everything within him wanted to actually, nothing less nothing short, of killing his brother-in-law. That was his true, honest opinion. And he said to me “You asked me to forgive… You ask me to love… all pastors who do so, but I tell you honestly, just a thought of this man molesting my young, innocent children all this years, there is enough anger in my heart to kill him.”
 

When we live in the world where everybody is king, some people like children, some people like sex with children, we called them pedophiles. If we live in the world that convinces ourselves that there is no God, there is no creator, there is no ruler, there is no rights, there is no end, there is no black and white, there is no beginning and no end, if a man or woman wants to have sex with children, who are you and I to tell them they are wrong?

So, this is the mad world in which we say to God - get lost and yet we still want some sense of self-imposed morality? It is not possible, my friends! The Kingdom of Heaven is the inauguration and establishment of God's rightful rule over your mind, your tongue, your heart, yours and my relationships, over my life and your life, for apart from Jesus, gate crashing our life so graciously, you and I will go forth and live our life with all our passions and preferences that are firstly dishonoring to God and destructive to others. One man’s need is another man's poison.

How long more are we going to live like that? Not much more time! The coming of Jesus into the world, sent by God, is to put the whole world, you and I, on notice that our days, our living, our own way without God has come to an end. Jesus has come to forgive, He has come to save, He has come to offer you and me a new way of living. No longer our name, our kingdom and our will be done, but God's name, God’s kingdom and God's will be glorified and be done.

Prayers

Father, forgive us, for we are so prone to self-pleasing and to self-glory. Even in our own spirituality and our own religiosity, we have one eye on self and one eye on you. We are at cross-purposes! Forgive us! Lord Jesus, You came to love us, You came to save us and You continue to offer us that salvation and that love. May we turn to you and learn how to live, learn how to pray. Teach us again and again, the great honor of calling God our Heavenly Father, and now to be serious about hallowing His name, about His kingdom and about accomplishing His will. In your Almighty name we pray,