Many apologies for the late upload!! May God anoint your lips to speak His Word by the power of His Spirit to accomplish His will in both the hearts of the youth and your own hearts. (:

The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:5-15

5 And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. 7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, pray:

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 forgive our debtors.

13 And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

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

The following consists of excerpts from John Piper’s Sermon on the Lord’s Prayer. (For further reading and/or reference, http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/our-deepest-prayer-hallowed-be-your-name)

Probably, what we notice the most clearly is the two parts to the prayer. The first part has three petitions:  hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The second part has three petitions: give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. The first part is heavenly, lofty, majestic, wondrous. The second part seems to be more earthly, more mundane, more lowly. The first part is about who God’s greatness. The second part is about our needs.

What do these have to do with each other? How do they link, connect or interact? How does the one point to the other?

Our Father—In Heaven

And I think these two halves correspond to the two things said about God in the way Jesus tells us to address him at the beginning in verse 9: “Our Father—in heaven.” First, God is a father to us. And second, he is infinitely above us and over all—in heaven. His fatherhood corresponds to his readiness to meet our earthly needs. His heavenliness corresponds to his supreme right to be given worship and allegiance and obedience.

For example, in Matthew 6:32, Jesus tells us not to be anxious about food and drink and clothing because “your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” In other words, Jesus wants us to feel the fatherhood of God as an expression of his readiness to meet our most basic needs.

And then consider Matthew 5:34, where Jesus says, “Do not take an oath . . . by heaven, for it is the throne of God.” In other words, when you think of heaven, think of God’s throne, his kingly majesty and power and authority.

...it seems to me that the great designs of God are first and mainly about God. His name being hallowed, his will being done, his kingdom coming. And the rest of the prayer is how I can be fitted to serve those great designs. My bread, my forgiveness, my deliverance—my health, my hope, my holiness—are for the purpose of being part of God’s great purposes to glorify his name and exalt his rule and complete his will.

The Unique First Petition

There is something unique about the first petition, “Hallowed be your name.” It’s not just one of three. In this petition, we hear the one specific subjective response of the human heart that God expects us to give—the hallowing, reverencing, honoring, esteeming, admiring, valuing, treasuring of God’s name above all things.

In other words, the structure of the prayer is not merely that the last three petitions serve the first three, but that the last five serve the first.

Attacking Indirectly

God made you be a part of hallowing his name, extending his kingdom, and seeing his will done on the earth the way the angels do it in heaven. In other words, he made you for something magnificent and for something mundane. He made you for something spectacular and for something simple. He loves both. He honors both. But what we fail to see often is that when we lose our grip on the greatness of God and his name and his kingdom and his global will, we lose our divine equilibrium in life, and we are far more easily overwhelmed by the problems of the mundane.

In other words, I am pleading with you not to lose your grip on the supremacy and centrality of hallowing the name of God in your life. I am urging you from the Lord’s prayer that you go to God for bread, and for healing of relationships, and for the overcoming of besetting sins, and for the doing of God’s will, and for the seeking of God’s kingdom—all of it, all the time for the sake of knowing and hallowing, reverencing, honoring, valuing, treasuring God’s name (God’s being, God himself) above all things.

What follows now is a bit more detail into the contents of the prayer, what certain terms mean, specifically “Your kingdom come” and “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”, partly because I personally had difficulty understanding these, and partly because there is no time to cover the whole prayer in detail.

What are we praying for when we pray for God’s kingdom to come?

To refer to God’s kingdom seems to quite naturally refer to His kingly rule. Yet, what does this look like?

Luke 17:20-21 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Matthew 12:28 “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

The Pharisees and the disciples thought that the kingdom of God would come immediately (Luke19:11) and Jesus corrected this misunderstanding: the kingdom of God does not come with the kind of signs and wonders that you seek, you will not be able to say ‘see, it is here!’, because the kingdom of God is within you.

And in Matthew 12:28, we see that when Jesus battles with Satan by the Spirit of God, binding and plundering the strong man of the house (v.29), the power of God can be clearly seen, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

1 Corinthians 4:20-21 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

Thus far, we have established that 1) the kingdom of God does not come as we might have first expected, even as our King arrived humbly on a colt, and 2) that the kingdom of God can be seen at work when the devil is fought against and overcome by the power of the Spirit of God. This leads us to...

Romans 14:16-17 Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

So then, the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In the kingdom of God, Jesus our Lord is King. What, I believe, this partly* means is summarised below:

1) We have sinned. Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way;” We have usurped the throne of God, claiming to be our own kings and denying God’s sovereignty and dominion in our lives.

2) Jesus, risen and conquering Son, when we put our faith in Him and give our life to Him, frees us from slavery to sin and death, and takes His rightful place as King.

Therefore, when we pray for His kingdom to come, this consists of asking for Jesus to be King of our hearts, and, as we let His light shine through us, that we may be His hands and feet and be used by God to bring kingdom values forth into this world. *I do not, however, believe that this is an exhaustive description, but rather, an important point to note. (For the kingdom of God is a great many things.)

Optional: If there is time, it might be useful to discuss the following with the youth. If not, then it is for your own reference (: I find it useful because there are many theories that suggest that there is, at the present moment, already no more sickness, or sorrow, or pain, only blessings of the material kind (eg wealth, health, excluding spiritual blessings/growth, that can and do come in the midst of pain/sickness/poverty). We are indeed already saved, but we are still being sanctified, and we have not yet been glorified.

The kingdom of God is both present and future. The diagram below is useful to visualise this. The ‘old age’ is the age of darkness, the fallen nature of the world, depravity of man, existence of sin. When Christ came, the ‘new age’, ie the age to come, began. He began to bring the kingdom of God upon the earth, through His life, death and resurrection.  At present, we are living in between Jesus’ first coming and His second coming. You can see that while the kingdom of God has begun, it is not fully come. We are still living in a fallen world. There is still sin, there is still sorrow, hurt and pain. When Jesus comes again, the old will completely pass away with a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1) and the kingdom of God will fully come. There will be no more sin, no more sorrow, no more pain. (v.4)

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

If we are not saved by works, but by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), why is it that the forgiveness of our sins seems to depend so heavily on whether we forgive others?

James 2:13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, in dead.

22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?

The reason why our forgiveness of our debtors seems so important is because faith without works is dead. If we profess Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, it follows that we proclaim Him to be our Lord. This means His sovereignty in our lives. This means His transformative work in our hearts. This means the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1) and the living in the Spirit, crucifying ‘the flesh with its passions and desires.’ (Galatians 5:24-25) If we have placed our faith in Jesus, let our faith be made perfect by working out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), obeying Christ.

Read James 1:19-25, 2:12.

1 John 2:3-6 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

Read 1 John 2:9-11, 4:20-21.

If we withhold forgiveness from our debtors, we are still walking in darkness, and we do not love God as we claim. This is why “if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:15) See that our forgiveness of others' sins is inseparable from our proclamation of faith in and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Without Christ, therefore, the Father cannot forgive your sins.

Let us remember what Christ has done for us, that by His death, there may be forgiveness of sins, and retain that memory, forgiving others just as in Christ, God forgave us. (Ephesians 4:32) Let us step out of the darkness, and walk in the light, and love one another.