This is week 2 in our series Daily Bread. We are taking about six weeks to examine what we should learn from Jesus when He teaches the disciples how to pray.
Jesus shows the disciples, and us, a blueprint or a model for prayer. Many of your Bibles probably title this section of Matthew 6 as The Lord’s Prayer. A better title is The Lord’s Model Prayer. Jesus is not giving us a special mantra to chant, and He certainly isn’t telling us that if we just say this prayer often enough or with just the right amount of conviction, God will hear our prayers. No, He is showing us an example of the way to pray.
Matt 6:9-10 (CSB)—Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Last week we talked about praying with the right posture towards God. When you pray, address God as Our Father. Father reminds us that God is our Father who loves us, and we are His children.
Your name be honored as holy reminds us of God’s separateness and greatness and our need to reorder and reorient our hearts, which are more often focused on self-worship than on worshiping our Father in heaven.
Now that you are praying with the right posture and from the right perspective, Jesus says this: Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
What does Jesus mean when He says, Your kingdom come?
In a broad sense, everything in the universe is under the authority of God. He is the ultimate Ruler and King of all. The universe is the kingdom of God, but what is Jesus referring to here?
We see Jesus talking frequently about the kingdom of God throughout the gospels. Places like:
Matt 6:33 (CSB)—But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
In several of the parables, Jesus says, “Do you want to know what the kingdom of God is like? Let me tell you a story to illustrate it.”
Luke 13:18-19 (CSB)—He said, therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like, and what can I compare it to? It’s like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the sky nested in its branches.”
Jesus told the Pharisee, Nicodemus, how to enter the kingdom of God.
Jn 3:3 (CSB)—Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
When Jesus says to pray for the kingdom of God to come, what is He referring to? The kingdom of God, referenced in these and many more times throughout the Gospels, is not the physical kingdom of God, but the spiritual kingdom. He is referring to the rule and authority of God over the hearts of men.
If you want to avoid anxiety over what you eat or drink, seek God’s rule over your heart and life. It will dispel the anxiety. It doesn’t take bucketloads of faith to invite God’s rule over your heart, only a mustard seed amount. If you really want to find these things, it requires that we release our way of life, our sin, and the identity that this world has given us, and we need to be born again by being adopted into God’s forever family and assuming our new identity as children of the King of the Universe.
Jesus says to pray for God’s rule over your hearts. Why? Because this is what we were made for. We were made to walk with God and to partner with God. This was God’s original plan for His human family. Genesis 1, beginning in vs. 26, it says that we were created to be imagers of God and to partner with God, as his representatives on the Earth, ruling and managing the Earth.
Of course, something interrupted that original design. The enemy, the snake, deceived Adam and Eve into betraying their loyalty to God and instead trusted the snake. Because of their betrayal and sin, the communication between God and His human family was interrupted.
I’m used to being able to call my daughter and ask her how she’s doing. How’d you sleep? Did you get some good food for breakfast? Did you remember to put gas in your car? All the things protective dads want to know. But right now, Olivia is somewhere in the wilderness in the middle of Mongolia. As much as I’d like to know how she’s doing, if she is getting good rest and eating well, I can’t. I can’t just call. There is no cell service in the middle of the Mongolian wilderness. There is a disconnect or a break in our communication.
The same thing happened in the garden when Adam and Eve chose the snake over their Father. At that moment, communication was interrupted. The connection between the Father and His human family was broken, and His human family could no longer fulfill their design as imagers of God, partnering with Him to rule the Earth.
This is what Jesus came to restore. He bridged the gap between our Father and His children.
Pray, Jesus says, that God’s kingdom comes to rule over the hearts of men (and women), so that we can partner once again with our Father to see His will done on the Earth like it is in Heaven.
Jn 16:23-24 (CSB)—In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
Jesus says that up to this point, you have come to me with your questions and complaints and requests. But now I’m going away and you won’t need to ask me; you can go directly the Father. The gap in communication has been repaired. By the broken body and shed blood of Jesus we can now go directly to the Father, in Jesus name and make our requests.
The kind of prayer that accomplishes God’s will on Earth as it is in heaven is called
Intercessory Prayer.
This is the act of praying on behalf of others, essentially lifting up their needs and concerns to God. Going to the Father and asking that His will be done in the world and in the lives of the people around us, interceding on their behalf, this is our role and our privilege as followers of Jesus.
The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer.
—Oswald Chambers
Does God know what we need before we pray? Yes, Jesus established that fact in Matthew 6:8, but He still chooses to work through our prayers. He partners with us to see His will accomplished, and Jesus frequently reminded His disciples, and us, that God works through those prayers.
Lk 11:9 (CSB)—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.
Mk 11:24 (CSB)—Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for—believe that you have received, it and it will be yours.
Jn 14:13-14 (CSB)—Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
Jn 15:7 (CSB)—If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.
Matt 21:22 (CSB)—And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
Matt 7:11 (CSB)—If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.
This is how Jesus talks about intercessory prayer.
Tyler Stanton, in his book, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, poses a great question. He says:
As a thought experiment, try to recall everything you’ve prayed for in the last week. If God answered every last one of your prayers, what would happen? With the exception of one or two particularly bold or naive people, the answer is usually very little.
—Tyler Stanton
My experience is that we often pray prayers that, if they were answered or weren’t answered, you’d never know. We don’t pray prayers that require much faith or trust on our part.
Why? What keeps us from praying bold prayers? What keeps us from calling on heaven’s resources to affect the world around us? Are we too busy? Are we too self-sufficient? Are we afraid of being disappointed that God may not answer our prayers the way we pray they will?
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Whose will be done? His will be done.
On the night Jesus is going to be arrested and then crucified, He is in the Garden of Gethsemene, and He prayed this prayer:
Lk 22:42 (CSB)—“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me—nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
Jesus knew the suffering that awaited Him and wasn’t looking forward to it. “Father, if there is another way, let’s do that.” He says. “If not, I’m good because I know your will, not mine, is what matters.”
George Müller, who died in 1898, was a Christian evangelist and director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. Müller, cared for over 10,000 orphans and built five large orphanages without ever seeking financial support from people.
He simply prayed and God supplied. He was a man of prayer. When he died he had written down, in his personal journal, over 3,000 anserws to prayer.
There are many stories about how God worked through Müller’s prayers. One of the best-loved stories comes from Abigail Townsend Luffe. When she was a child, her father assisted Müller, and she spent time at Ashley Down. Early one morning Müller led her into the long dining room set for breakfast but without food, praying, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.” There was a knock at the door; it was the baker, unable to sleep because he was sure the Lord wanted him to bake bread for Müller. “Children,” Müller said, ”we not only have bread, but fresh bread.” Almost immediately they heard a second knock. It was the milkman; the milk cart had broken down outside the orphanage, and he offered the milk to the children, completing their meal.
Müller had lots of other similar stories of God answering prayer.
If God gave you everything you’ve prayed for in the last week, what would happen?
What is keeping us from praying bold prayers like Müller? What is keeping us from stepping into our status as God’s sons and daughters, heirs of the King of the Universe? What is keeping us from praying for things that can only be answered by an all powerful God whose resources are limitless?
What would happen in you? What would happen in Hermiston? Isn’t it worth finding out?
God doesn’t need us to help manage His creation. It’s not like the job is too big for Him. God chooses to work through us and work through our prayer. God doesn’t need intercessors, He chooses intercessors.
“There is nothing that intercessory prayer cannot do. Believer, you have a mighty engine in your hand—use it well, use it constantly, use it now with faith, and you shall surely prevail.”
—Charles Spurgeon
What does practicing intercession look like? Tyler Stanton identifies two parts.
1. Releasing (Your will be done.)
Think of something in your life you’ve insisted you have control over. What is something you’ve never released to God, or maybe you have released it in the past but now you are trying to grab it back. When you think of what that might be, release it. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill the anxiety you felt by holding onto that thing, with peace. Where there was fear ask him to give you trust. Whatever it might be ask the Holy Spirit to replace what you have released control over with His presence.
2. Asking (On Earth as it is in heaven.)
Now that we have released what we claimed as ours, we can pray from a right perspective and pray His will be done in our lives, our relationships, our community, and our world.
“Simply and clearly ask that God’s kingdom will come where it is absent—friends outside of a relationship with Jesus, needs in our city and world, troubling or challenging circumstances, physical or mental illnesses. Ask for Jesus to come—anywhere and everywhere you know God’s kingdom of love and peace is lacking.”
—Tyler Stanton
Chris Hankel 
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