The Lord's Prayer

R T Kendall Ministries Inc., R.T. Kendall

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780340964149
• eBook ISBN:
  9781444702835
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Bringing his insightful and down-to-earth approach to bear on the topic of The Lord's Prayer, R.T. Kendall opens up new depths in this short prayer, exploring the full range of meaning in each line to establish firm principles for all our prayer. Starting from the initial focus on God, through asking for what God wants in our world, then on to our needs, and so finally on to the benediction with which the prayer closes, he unpacks the meaning of each line, brings personal challenges to bear on our own lives, and gives us the reassurance of God's love and care for us.

PART ONE
Focusing on God

1
The Perfect Prayer

When you pray, say …

(Luke 11:2)

The Lord’s Prayer is verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore perfectly worded. It is a revelation of how we should pray because it mirrors God’s will for his people. It cannot be stressed too much that Jesus himself is the formulator of it, every single word, and if you want to know–at least once–that you prayed in God’s will, the Lord’s Prayer is for you.

I would hope that God would certainly not answer my prayer when I ask for things outside his will. I cherish the knowledge that Jesus my High Priest and Intercessor is seated at God’s right hand, putting through to the Father only what is his will. I always want the Lord Jesus to filter my praying and not let wrong requests be passed on to the Father. I therefore want Jesus not only to intercede for me, but also to intercept my ill-posed requests. Jesus knows what is best for us.

The worst thing that could happen to us is for a wrong request to be put through to the Father and then be answered. Getting all you want would bring incalculable damage and grief to you. Be thankful for unanswered prayer. It may be a sign of God’s favour.

One of the most frightful verses in the Bible is this: ‘So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease upon them’ (Ps. 106:15; ‘sent leanness into their soul’, AV). This is when God’s people persist in asking for what God has clearly shown to be out of his will–and God finally acquiesces, to their sorrow.

There are some lessons for us as we approach the Lord’s Prayer. First, there is a kind of praying that does not please God. It is praying that profanes his name and his nature. Second, there is a kind of praying that does more harm than good. This happens when a prayer shows contempt for God’s glory and encourages people to do the same thing. Third, there is a kind of praying that does not get God’s attention. For example, when praying is done to impress others, or when praying focuses on our greed or carnal desires, as warned by James (4:2–3).

We therefore should never want what God is against. After all, as the late Cardinal Basil Hume put it, ‘God only wants what is best for us.’ God did not want Israel to have a king, for example. ‘I am the LORD, your Holy One, Israel’s Creator, your King’ (Isa. 43:15). God himself was already Israel’s king. Samuel warned the people against having a king like other nations, but they persisted. God said to Samuel, ‘Listen to them and give them a king’ (1 Sam. 8:22). God thus granted their request, but sent leanness to their soul. It was a pivotal and bad moment for Israel. The day would come when a prophet would say, ‘So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away’ (Hos. 13:11).

We should always aim to pray in God’s will. Praying the Lord’s Prayer is to pray perfectly in his will.

Misusing the Lord’s Prayer

However, we could pray the Lord’s Prayer with a wrong motive. The NIV translates the Greek word kakos (often translated ‘sick’ or ‘evil’) in James 4:3 as asking with ‘wrong motives’. The truth is, although praying the Lord’s Prayer is certainly praying in the will of God, one could use the prayer wrongly. How? By believing that the very praying of the Lord’s Prayer is a worthy act in itself that makes you righteous before God merely because you pray the prayer. If we repeatedly pray the Lord’s Prayer over and over again–thinking that merely praying it counts for righteousness before God and scores points in heaven–I would regard this as praying it with a wrong motive. That is hardly the point of the Lord’s Prayer.

You could also misuse this prayer by praying it from the head and not the heart. In other words, repeating the Lord’s Prayer from memory and not praying it from your heart of hearts could be much the same as the vain repetition for which Jesus rebuked the Pharisees (Matt. 6:7). The Lord’s Prayer should be prayed in faith from the heart. In other words, you should mean what you say when you utter these words.

To be fair, I suspect that we’ve all used the Lord’s Prayer inappropriately at times. I would not have wanted you to read my mind every time I led Westminster Chapel in praying the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday morning. I tried to pray it from my heart each time, but I know that I did not always do this. There were times when my mind was on the sermon that would be preached later on, or I would be distracted by someone in the congregation. When you know the Lord’s Prayer so well from memory, it is easy to repeat the words without faith or feeling.

Two New Testament accounts

The Lord’s Prayer is mentioned twice in the New Testament. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7) the Lord’s Prayer comes in the context of Jesus telling his disciples how not to pray–and how to pray (Matt. 6:9–13). He spoon-feeds them, giving them a prayer to pray, line for line, word for word. The other place the Lord’s Prayer is mentioned is when one of his disciples asked him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ Jesus then gave them virtually the same prayer as before (Luke 11:2–4).

As I said, we call it the Lord’s Prayer because Jesus himself was the author of it and also because it was he who told us to pray it. Some think it should be called ‘the disciples’ prayer’, since the Lord Jesus himself would not need to pray it–we do. Some would also point out that Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in John 17 deserves the title ‘the Lord’s Prayer’. But we will not be pedantic; the Lord’s Prayer is the common title to this magnificent word we are given by Jesus, and we should be very, very thankful indeed for it.

Whereas Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer came as a result of the disciples’ request, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’ (Luke 11:1), Matthew’s account came in the context of Jesus’ observations of the way Pharisees prayed. My book is not a scholarly treatise, so I will not highlight the small differences between Luke’s account and that which comes in the Sermon on the Mount. The interesting point is, Luke reveals that John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray. Two of Jesus’ own disciples had been followers of John (John 1:35–7). We have no idea what John’s prayer was like–or where he got it. What we do know is that Jesus was not threatened by the disciples’ request. He merely complied and said, ‘When you pray, say …’ and gave virtually the same prayer as we have in the Sermon on the Mount.

When to pray the Lord’s Prayer

It is good to pray the Lord’s Prayer both publicly and privately. I certainly recommend it publicly. Even if it is sometimes used inappropriately, it still finds its way into one’s memory. You never know when you will be glad you have it memorised. Some churches regularly make it a liturgical part of their services. Why not? After all, it was originally addressed to the corporate body of Christ. I realise there are churches that react negatively to anything that smacks of liturgy, but Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones went as far as to suggest that it is spiritual pride, if not arrogance, to refuse to pray the Lord’s Prayer with others. Like it or not, all churches have their own form of liturgy in any case. I would personally urge every church leader to find a place in a service once a week to insert the Lord’s Prayer. It will do no harm–only good.

However, there is a fairly strong hint in Matthew’s account that Jesus could have meant the prayer to be prayed privately and behind closed doors. The context of Jesus inserting this prayer in the Sermon on the Mount was his caution that we should not be like those who ‘love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men’. He said that when you pray, ‘Go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’ (Matt. 6:5–6). He concluded this section by introducing the Lord’s Prayer.

I would therefore urge that the Lord’s Prayer be prayed with other believers and also that you pray this alone in your quiet time. Include it in your family devotions. Pray it with your room-mate. Pray it on your way to work. Pray it at work. Pray it with friends. Pray it at Bible studies. Pray it in small groups. Pray it as often as you feel like it–but do so from your heart.

The purpose of the Lord’s Prayer

Jesus showed us how not to pray (like the hypocrites who want to be seen by everybody) and how to pray (with believers and behind closed doors), then indicated the very reason for praying–namely, to be ‘heard’ and ‘rewarded’ by the Father. Does this surprise you? The purpose of praying is that the Father ‘will reward you’ (Matt. 6:6). God himself loves to appeal to our self-interest, hence he encourages us to pray in order to be heard and rewarded–on these conditions: (1) we pray to be seen only by him, and (2) we put requests that are in his will.

To put it another way: the aim of prayer is to be heard by the Father. This is Hebraic thinking that goes back to the Hebrew word shemar. Every Jew knows about the Shemar:‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Deut. 6:4). Shemar means to hear but also to obey. You may have said to your child, ‘Did you hear me?’, implying that they must not have heard because they did not obey. That is the idea with shemar: when God hears us in the shemar sense it means he will obey our request. ‘Your prayer has been heard,’ the angel said to Zechariah (Luke 1:13). ‘If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us’ (1 John 5:14). Some thought they were ‘heard because of their many words’ (Matt. 6:7). The aim of prayer, then, is to be heard by the Father.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are assured of being heard by our heavenly Father. I have been struck by a statement that Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones made in this connection. He said:

I have always been comforted by this thought, that whatever I may forget in my own private prayers, as long as I pray the Lord’s Prayer I have at any rate covered all the principles, the condition, of course, that I am not merely mechanically repeating the words, but am really praying from my heart and with my mind and with my whole being.

Why pray?

Just before introducing this prayer, Jesus added a word: ‘Your Father knows what you need before you ask him’ (Matt. 6:8). It should not surprise us that God knows what we need before we ask him, because he knows everything. Essential to his very character is his omniscience (he is all-wise, all-knowing). ‘Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD’ (Ps. 139:4). It may be surprising to some that Jesus says God knows what we need before we ask him–and then urges us to pray! But it is thrilling that God would remind us of this just before we pray. Why does he do this? Would this not be a deterrent to praying if God already knows what we need and always wants what is best for us? Then why pray? Here is my answer.

First, because he invites us–even commands us–to pray. The same God who knows in advance who will be saved equally tells us to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). We merely obey him. When I was at Westminster Chapel we had our Pilot Light ministry. Twenty or thirty of us were out on the streets of Victoria every Saturday morning within the shadow of Buckingham Palace doing one thing: presenting the gospel to passers-by. I urged the Pilot Lights not only to present the gospel to people but to do all they could do to convert them. ‘Treat each person as though their destiny were in your hands,’ I urged. And yet all this was done with a theological underpinning: namely, that God knew in advance who would receive the gospel. This made no sense to some people. ‘If God already knows who will be converted, why try to convert them?’ Answer: because God told us to present the gospel to every creature and commands everyone to repent (Acts 17:30). As a matter of fact, Paul stated that God even determined where each person should be born and live in order that they should seek God (Acts 17:26–7). It is our job to make sure they hear the gospel.

So in a similar way, the same God who knows the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10) invites us to pray even though he knows what we need before we ask him. We are instructing ourselves, not God, when we pray, said Martin Luther. We do not pray with the view of informing God, said John Calvin, but in order that we may arouse ourselves to seek him. John Wesley said that God does nothing but in answer to prayer. By the way, do not worry about asking God for small things; with God everything is small. It is we who need to pray, not God, said Michael Eaton.

Second, God who ordained the end ordained the means to the end. That means prayer. ‘Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession’ (Ps. 2:8). ‘So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened’ (Luke 11:9–11). Jesus told his disciples a parable ‘to show them that they should always pray and not give up’ (Luke 18:1). Granted that prayer is an unfathomable mystery, only a fool will refuse to pray. It drives pride away; it brings us to our knees, remembering who God is. For prayer reveals the nature of God; not only his unsearchable wisdom, but his sovereignty: what he is pleased to do and not to do.

Third, God chooses to honour our obedience. He wants us to obey without having to figure everything out first. It is not unlike Moses, who wanted to see why the burning bush was not consumed. Moses had been looking at this extraordinary sight and he said to himself, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight–why the bush does not burn up’ (Exod. 3:3). God told Moses to stop.‘Do not come any closer … the place where you are standing is holy ground’ (Exod. 3:5). So it is with us. Logic would dictate that since God knows our need and promised to supply it, there is no need to pray. God does not honour our logic but our childlike obedience. ‘You do not have, because you do not ask God’ (Jas 4:2). Charles H. Spurgeon used to say, ‘When I don’t pray, coincidences don’t happen; when I pray, coincidences happen.’

Fourth, God knows our need but dignifies us by letting our praying make a difference. It is an old truism: prayer changes things. Some Christians may object to the idea that prayer has power. I can understand that. Prayer in itself has no power; it is the person whose prayer is applied by the Spirit that makes the difference. And yet God stoops to our weakness, making us feel affirmed. Like a wise, loving parent, God could do a thousand things on our behalf without letting us lift a little finger, but he lets us participate in the Divine scheme of things, giving us dignity, joy and a feeling of being needed. He gives us the privilege of changing things through prayer. We can have a hand in diverting disaster. We can have a hand in moving God’s heart, following Jacob: ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me’ (Gen. 32:26).

Fifth, God promises to answer prayer. That is a good enough reason for me! If God promises to answer prayer, I am going to pray. I cannot guarantee that John Wesley was absolutely right when he said that God ‘does nothing’ but in answer to prayer, but God does not promise to act unless we seek him first. He wants us involved in all he does. For that reason, to be candid, I pray about everything. Everything.‘In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight’ (Prov. 3:6; ‘direct your paths’, AV). ‘All your ways’ means everything. I would say this covers a lot! I pray about a grocery list before I go into town. Louise and I prayed for our cat Gizmo when we feared she was dying. She died. I started praying for Billy Graham every day in 1981. I ask God to help me know when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no’–in all that pertains to us. You may be sure I pray about every sentence I write in this book. I take Proverbs 3:6 seriously and literally. This means he will act when we pray. It probably also means he will not act until we pray. Why? I reckon it is because God gets our attention this way. As we observed above, we are the ones who need prayer, not God. Prayer is for us, not for him. He promises to answer prayer that we might spend more time with him. What is more, he likes our company, as I said in Did You Think to Pray?

Having said that our heavenly Father knows our need before we ask him, Jesus proceeded to tell us what to pray; hence the Lord’s Prayer.

A pattern prayer

What, then, is the point of the Lord’s Prayer? Although it is a prayer to be prayed by all of us, it is a pattern prayer. For example, it begins with acknowledging God, worshipping him and focusing on his interests. Then come the petitions that pertain to us. This pattern is designed to show that we are not to rush into the presence of God, snap our finger...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One Focusing on God
• Part Two God’s Prayer List
• Part Three God’s Prayer List for Us
• Part Four A Chosen Benediction
• Part Five A Further Reason for the Lord’s Prayer
• Appendix How to Become a Christian
• Footnotes