How We Should Pray
TRANSLATION
(9) “Pray then like this: our Father in heaven, holy is your name. (10) May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (11) Give to us today the bread we need. (12) And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. (13) And lead us not into temptation but rather deliver us from the evil one.
(14) “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (15) But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
OBSERVATIONS
Jesus’ opening command, “pray then like this,” established the theme of this segment. In the following verses, several important repetitions help us discern the message and structuring of this brief but vitally important portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. “Father” is found three times indicating that when we come to God in prayer, we are to come as part of his eternal family because of our Savior’s atoning death (vss. 9, 14, & 15). “Heaven” and “heavenly” (vss. 9, 10, & 14) indicate the sphere in which the Father dwells.
“Forgive(n)” occurred five times in three verses (vss. 12, 14, & 15) while “debts/debtors” (twice in vs. 12) and “sins” (three times in vss. 14 & 15) emphasized that our releasing others from their sins against us will determine how God will deal with us in our need for his forgiveness. We must not miss the cause/effect relationship between these two paragraphs. If we expect God to hear us and forgive our sins (effect), we must be willing to forgive those who have sinned against us (cause).
OUTLINE
I. We are to pray to the Father as members of his eternal family. (9-13)
II. We cannot expect to be forgiven if we are unwilling to forgive. (14 & 15)
IDEA STATEMENT
Knowing how to pray and how we must forgive others should enable and energize our praying.
APPLICATION
Forgiveness is never an option for those who are committed to following Jesus. There is no place among his disciples for harboring resentments, contemplating retaliation, or seeking revenge. Jesus’ words here and elsewhere could hardly be clearer. We who enjoy the forgiveness that our relationship with God in Christ grants us must treat those who sin against us with the same grace and mercy that God has shown to us. The “as” in verse 11, a short word we easily overlook, should be translated “in the same way that.” This emphasizes the point that God’s forgiving our sins obligates us in turn to forgive those who have sinned against us.
This is a hard truth that many of us find difficult to accept. All kinds of excuses come to mind when our responsibility to forgive as we have been forgiven is at issue. We may feel like protesting, “You don’t know how deeply I have been hurt,” or “My enemies deserve to experience the pain and agony they have inflicted on me and others.” The problem with our becoming arbiters of justice is our limited perspective. We simply do not have enough insight, information, or experience to function in a role which Scripture has uniquely reserved for our omniscient God. While leaving things in God’s hands may not seem satisfying to us in our desire for immediate reparation, we should remember that Abraham’s rhetorical question, “Will not the judge of all the earth do what is right?” (Gen. 18:25), holds just as true for us today as it did for him three thousand years ago.