“Lord, Teach us How to Pray” (Matthew 6:7-15)

Prayer can drift into noise: repeated lines, rushed words, and a subtle attempt to impress God or ourselves. We slow down in Matthew 6 and let Jesus correct that instinct, starting where he starts: God is our Father, not an audience. When Jesus warns against “empty phrases,” he’s not attacking persistence, he’s exposing mindless repetition and the belief that many words earn a response. Real prayer begins with relationship and reverence, where God’s name is treated as holy and our lives reflect the family name we carry as Christians.

From there, the disciples’ prayer reshapes our priorities. We explore what “Your kingdom come” means both for the future return of Christ and for the present rule of God in our hearts. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” becomes a bold request for immediate obedience, not delayed compliance, and it challenges the way we often pray for our plans to win. The model keeps us grounded, too: “Give us this day our daily bread” invites daily dependence for real needs, not just spiritual ones, and it trains us to trust God one day at a time.

We also tackle the hard, freeing line about forgiveness, clarifying why forgiving others doesn’t earn salvation, but does protect fellowship with God and restore relationships with people who wrong us. Finally, we ask God for practical help against temptation and for deliverance from evil, ending with a closing that puts the spotlight back where it belongs: God’s kingdom, power, and glory. If you want a clearer, calmer, more biblical approach to Christian prayer, listen through and then subscribe, share, and leave a review so more people can find the series.

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Transcript

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As we've been sailing along in our wisdom journey through the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord has just exposed the Pharisees' hypocrisy in the areas of giving, fasting, and praying. Frankly, he said they were religious actors putting on a little theater, performing a three-ring circus, so to speak, and Jesus condemned all three activities as nothing but a religious show. Now Jesus has told them the prayer was not to be a performance. Now, having told uh his disciples and that

From Religious Theater To Real Prayer

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audience listening of Pharisees how not to pray, Jesus now begins to teach them how to pray. In fact, this passage here in Matthew chapter six is traditionally called the Lord's prayer, but it really isn't the Lord's prayer. Jesus would never pray some of this. He'd never need to pray for forgiveness of sin. I think it's better to call this the disciples' prayer. Now the Lord introduces his teaching by saying here in verse seven, 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. Do not do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Don't pile up empty phrases. That empty phrases refers to thoughtless repetition. One scholar made the note that the Pharisees had been impacted by pagan prayer practices, and they they felt that endless repetition endeared them to God. Listen, beloved, God doesn't keep count. He isn't saying to the angel Gabriel, you know, if that man or woman down there prays that prayer fifty more times, I want you to go answer them. No, we already have God's attention. In fact, later in Luke chapter 11, Jesus presents this same prayer in response to his disciples' request where they ask him, Lord, teach us how to pray. By the way, that's the only time the disciples ever asked Jesus to teach them how to do something. Not how to walk on water or heal the sick or raise the dead. Teach us how to pray. So this prayer then is not necessarily a prayer they had to memorize. Jesus is giving them a prayer they can model after. In fact, he doesn't say here in Matthew chapter six, verse nine, pray this. He says, Pray then like this. And here's the model, here's how you can begin. Our Father. In the Greek language, this is Pater, the equivalent in Aramaic spoken by many at this time was Abba. Abba Father. What this means is when you pray, you're talking to a family member. You see, when you asked his son to become your Savior, God became your heavenly father. John's gospel told us to all who received him, that is Jesus, those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Our Father And The Holy Name

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John chapter one, verse twelve. So prayer isn't a ritual, it's a relationship. He goes on, our father in heaven. Now you might have learned it, our father who art in heaven. I love the way little boy said it, our father who does art in heaven. Well, God certainly is a magnificent artist. Our Father in heaven. Now, this phrase isn't so much about God's address as it is about his attributes. He is the heavenly, majestic, sovereign creator God. And that's why we're we're taught to pray here at the end of verse nine. Hallow would be your name. To hallow means to make holy, to set it apart as sacred, to honor it. Listen, if we're followers of Jesus Christ, we we bear his name, don't we? We're Christians. So are we protecting that name? Many times as a young person before my three brothers and I left the house to go to school or to go out to a ball game or some other activity, just before we got out the front door, our mother would say those familiar words don't forget your last name. Now that was a warning, but it also gave us a sense of belonging. We had our Father's name, and we needed to be careful with it. Well now with that Jesus gives us the first prayer request here in verse ten. Your kingdom come. Now there are two aspects to this prayer request. First, this is a prayer for the coming kingdom when Christ returns and reigns upon the earth as he promised. We want that kingdom to come. But we're also asking here and now, Lord, make my heart your palace grounds, where you rule and reign today. The next prayer request in verse ten is even more specific and convicting. Your will be done on earth as

Kingdom Hope And Daily Obedience

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it is in heaven. See, we can pray about the coming kingdom, but what about our cooperation with the king here and now? You know, too often we pray to get our will done in heaven rather than God's will done here on earth. So here's the correct pattern of prayer, Lord, I want your will to be done on earth like it's done in heaven. If you ever wondered how the will of God is done in heaven, I'll tell you, it's done immediately. Those angels, you know, they never ask God why me? Why now? They just obey. So we should pray, Lord, let me live down here like they're living up there. Let me respond to your will on earth, like the angels are responding to your will in heaven. Well, with that, here's another prayer request, verse eleven. Give us this day our daily bread. Now I gotta tell you, early church fathers had a problem with this phrase, so they they spiritualized the bread to refer to communion bread. They just couldn't believe that Jesus would have us start praying about lunch or the groceries. Well, archaeologists have discovered a small little piece of papyrus fragment that happened to be somebody's shopping list. And beside a few of those items was written this word here for daily.

Daily Bread And Daily Dependence

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This discovery brought new light to the meaning of the word. Daily means just enough for one day. So praying for daily bread really represents the daily needs of life, and and that includes lunch. That includes a bag of groceries. But it also means on a deeper level that we are depending upon the Lord one day at a time for his provision. Well now the Lord moves on here in verse twelve to say, Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. He adds this down in verse fourteen. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now let's be careful here. This is a prayer for disciples, not unbelievers. No matter how many people you forgive, that ain't going to get you into heaven. Only faith in Christ alone gets you into heaven. This is not a prayer for

Forgiveness That Restores Fellowship

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salvation. This is a prayer to protect your relationships with people who do you wrong. And let me tell you, if it's not your salvation, but your fellowship with God that gets lost here when you withhold forgiveness from others. There's an idea here, there's a nuance here that you can't go to God's throne of grace and at the same time refuse to give grace to others. You can't be bitter and resentful toward others and experience the joy of Christ in your heart. So perhaps what you need to do today to experience fellowship with God is to restore fellowship with somebody else. This prayer reminds us that we've been forgiven. And because we've been forgiven, we ought to be forgiving. I read about a little girl who was trying to repeat this prayer here in verse 12 down to verse 14 and 15. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, her translation read. Trespasses wasn't a word she was familiar with, and she confused the quote a bit, but she actually got the right idea when she prayed, and forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets. That's exactly the idea here. Well, now in verse thirteen, you got another prayer request. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now this sort of sounds like God might at times tempt us to sin, but that would contradict God's word. Over in the book of James we read that God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. That's James 113. Jesus is simply teaching us here that we need to acknowledge that we need God's help in steering us away from temptation. So we're being taught to effectively pray. Father, protect us

Help Against Temptation And Evil

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from the tempting power of sin. We can't handle temptation. So we're praying here, Lord, lead us away from it, please. See, this is a daily admission of weakness. Now some translations end this wonderful prayer model with some additional words which I personally think ought to be included. As we read it in the King James Version, the prayer ends with these wonderful words, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. This prayer is wrapping up with a declaration of the power and the permanence and the priority of God's kingdom. It's as if Jesus is teaching us to end this prayer by saying, Long live the King. Well, this is a great model to follow as you pray. With that, we're out of time for today.

Ending With God’s Kingdom And Glory

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Until our next wisdom journey, beloved, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.