The Model Prayer
6:9-15
Instead of praying like the pagans with vain repetitions (empty phrases v.7; “babble repetitiously” NET), Jesus tells us how to pray simply and directly. Prayer is not seeing how many phrases we can string together. It is about meaningful communication with God.
Jesus does not want us to speak words without our minds being engaged. That is the problem with reciting prayers someone else has written. You certainly can pray with those, as long as you are actually praying, communing with God. But, just reciting the words without engaging your mind to communicate with God is heaping up empty phrases.
The Lord’s Prayer is rightly understood to be the most important prayer for Christians, but it’s more than that. J. I. Packer cites Tertullian, who called it a “summary of the gospel,” and Thomas Watson, who called it a “body of divinity.” Packer himself said the Lord’s Prayer is “a key to the whole business of living,” adding, “What it means to be a Christian is nowhere clearer than here.”
Notice Jesus did not say this is “what” to pray, but how to pray. (9) So, he evidently did not intend for this prayer to be liturgical. However, it is often employed that way. It often becomes a kind of chant.
Jesus said prayer was addressed to the Father, our Father in heaven. The Jews addressed God in prayer, but Jesus referred to God as “Father” and is the first to do so. Now tells us to do the same.
This tells us that God is personal. He is not the impersonal power or spirit of the universe. And he is in heaven. He is the sovereign who rules over the universe.
He relates to us as a “father”, establishing the relationship between him and Jesus’ disciples, who are his children. 1 John 3:2 says “Beloved, we are God’s children now”.
He is also a loving father who wants to provide for his children. God is love. He loved us before we loved him. (1 John 4:16-19)
So we address our prayers to the sovereign ruler of the universe who cares for us as a loving father cares for his children. Addressing him as our Father in Heaven reminds us of who he is, giving us the right state of mind to pray.
To do so reflects the great blessing believers have of being brought in to the family of God as his child. This makes us brothers and sisters of Jesus and fellow heirs with him.
However, this address also recognizes that each believer has an intimate relationship with God and speaks to him out of that relationship.
As God’s children, we want God to be praised and recognized as holy. His name should be revered, especially among his children. God is holy. Therefore, his name is holy. And so we pray “hallowed be your name”. (9) "Hallowed" translates the Greek word hagiazō, meaning to treat as holy, sanctify, revere, or honor. We pray that God would make his name holy on this earth.
We should cringe when we hear God’s name taken in vain. It violates the second commandment. (Exodus 20:7) And it it derogatory of the name of the one who made us, loves us, saves us, and provides for us. The Lord will not hold one guiltless who uses his name in vain. (Exodus 20:7) So we care about the holiness of God’s name and we are concerned about the consequences for those who defame his name in anyway.
The second petition in the prayer is related to the first. We pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. (10)
God is already the sovereign king of the universe. But he began a special work of building the kingdom on earth through Jesus Christ his son. Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark are: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel”. (Mark 1:15) So we know that the kingdom has been inaugurated by the coming of Christ. Or we might say it has broken in. It will be consummated when Christ returns.
Therefore, when we pray “your kingdom come”, we are praying that God’s kingdom will be extended as he saves people. At the same time we are praying that the consummation of the kingdom will arrive.
As God’s kingdom expands on earth, his will is done on earth as in heaven. But we also pray that God’s will be done now in the sense that our world will observe and obey God’s standards.
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