The Model Prayer

Matthew 6:9-13

Today we come to one of the most well-known sections of the whole Sermon on the Mount: the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). It is a beautifully brief and simple prayer, one that many people know by heart. It only takes a minute to pray, and yet it contains all the requests that Jesus wants us to make. Songs have been written based on this prayer; books and commentaries have been written about this prayer.[1] Many churches use it weekly in their worship.

Prayer is at the heart of the Christian life, and yet many of us still struggle with prayer. Isn’t it ironic that one of the most beautiful things we experience in this life, talking with our heavenly Father, can also be one of the most elusive? There is nothing in the Christian life that makes me know my own sinfulness, my own weakness, my dependency, my inadequacy, my need for growth, more than prayer. I confess: It is easier to read my Bible than to pray; it is easier to preach than to pray; it is easier to talk to fellow believers than it is to talk to God; it is easier to busy myself with activity than to pray.[2] As a child of God, I have a supernatural instinct to pray. Yet prayer is also a spiritual discipline that my flesh would avoid. I am certain that I am not alone in this struggle. The great pastor and expositor Martin Lloyd-Jones said, “If you have never had difficulty in prayer, it is absolutely certain that you have never prayed.”[3]

As we come to the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had been warning us as His disciples about the danger of hypocrisy. His main concern was to teach us not to do our acts of spiritual devotion before God with the evil motive of being seen by others. He teaches in Matthew 6:1, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds [or more accurately, “righteousness”] before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” He then gives three specific examples that touch on every possible expression of our spiritual devotion: giving, praying, and fasting.

Last time we saw from Matthew 6:5-8 how not to pray. Prayer must not be a public show before others, nor should it be an attempt to manipulate God with many words. God sees what we do in secret, and he knows what you need before you ask him.

Now here in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us how to pray. Jesus begins by saying, “In this manner, therefore, pray . . .” (Matt. 6:9). He didn’t say, “In these exact words pray.” I don’t think that Jesus meant for us to pray only these words. When the church prays individually and corporately in Acts and the Epistles, we never find them praying these exact words. Simply repeating these words in a rote manner would contradict the teaching about prayer that Jesus gave in Matthew 6:7-8. This prayer is to be a model, not a mantra. In fact, on another occasion, in the Gospel of Luke Jesus taught His disciples to pray in this same pattern but not in precisely the same words (Luke 11:2-4). “He didn’t give it to us as a script of what we should pray, but rather as an example of how we should pray.”[4]

This is a model prayer. It’s a pattern for prayer. It teaches us how to pray. Although I don’t think it is wrong to memorize this prayer or pray it word-for-word, it is meant to be so much more than that. It becomes even more important to us as a guide to prayer.

The Model Prayer is given in contrast to the hypocrite’s prayer. Against the self-glorifying prayer that manipulates God, Jesus calls for a God-glorifying prayer that trusts Him.^[5] This prayer is meant to have a total, shaping effect on our hearts, helping us to see and yearn for the very things that God himself desires — most centrally, to see and experience more of God himself in our hearts and lives.[6] Paul Miller, in his excellent book, A Praying Life, writes:

Oddly enough, many people struggle to learn how to pray because they are focusing on praying, not on God. Making prayer the center is like making conversation the center of a family mealtime. In prayer, focusing on the conversation is like trying to drive while looking at the windshield instead of through it. It freezes us, making us unsure of where to go. Conversation is only the vehicle through which we experience one another. Consequently, prayer is not the center … Getting to know a person, God, is the center.^[7]

David Jeremiah shows how the Lord’s Prayer covers every relationship with have with God:[8]

Father/Child – “Our Father which art in heaven”
Deity/Worshipper – “Hallowed be Thy Name”
King/Kingdom – “Thy Kingdom come”
Master/Servant – “Thy will be done”
Creator/Creation – “on Earth as it is in heaven”
Provider/Receiver – “Give us this day our daily bread”
Savior/Sinner – “Forgive us our debts”
Guide/Pilgrim – “Lead us not into temptation”
Deliverer/Captive – “Deliver us from evil”
Sovereign/Subject – “Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen”

When we pray according to the model of this prayer, we are emphasizing our relationship to God through Jesus Christ. This prayer does not exhaust everything we might say about God or to God, but it does underscore the relationship we are to have with God.

Jesus isn’t just telling us what to pray for but He is showing us the heart of a righteous man as he prays. John MacArthur points out how this prayer defines the spirit in which we are to pray:

First of all, it says, “our.” That’s an unselfish spirit.
Then it says, “Father,” that’s a family spirit.
Then it says, “hallowed be thy name,” a reverent spirit.
“Thy kingdom come,” a loyal spirit.
“Thy will be done,” a submissive spirit.
“Give us our daily bread,” a dependent spirit.
“Forgive us our trespasses,” a penitent spirit.
“Lead us not into temptation,” a humble spirit.
“Thine is the kingdom,” a confident spirit.
“And the power,” a triumphant spirit.
“And the glory,” an exultant spirit.[9]

There are few things more revealing about a man than His prayer life. Jesus shows us how a righteous man prays. Jesus is addressing the heart and motives of a man as He teaches us how a righteous man prays. He is intending to reveal to you who you should be as a child of God, a disciple of Jesus.

This is a model for every true prayer ever prayed. This is the hook on which you can hang every prayer you ever pray. This is the pattern for all praying. If you will memorize this prayer, get it in your head, and work your way through its outline—no matter what you’re praying about, you’ll have the confidence of praying the way Jesus taught you to pray.

The prayer itself is easy to outline. It begins by addressing God as “Our Father in heaven.” Next time we will focus on this phrase specifically to see how this relationship with God as our Father helps us to pray.

The meat of the prayer is contained in six petitions, each of which employs an imperative verb which means there’s an intensity to them. In each of them, we are imploring God to do something: 1) “Hallowed be Your name”; 2) “Your Kingdom come”; 3) “Your will be done”; 4) “Give us this day our daily bread”; 5) “Forgive us our debts”; 6) “Deliver us from the evil one.”

You will notice that the first three petitions focus on God. They are requests regarding God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will. The focus is not on us but on God, praying for His concerns: Your name, Your Kingdom, Your will. We are praying for the honor of God’s person, “Hallowed be Your name”; for the fulfillment of God’s program, “Your Kingdom come”; and for the completion of God’s purpose, “Your will be done”. This last phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven” actually applies to all three prayer requests relating to God’s concerns. We pray that God’s name would be honored on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that God’s rule would come on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The next three petitions focus on our needs. Here we find the pronoun us with each request: “Give us”; “Forgive us”; “Deliver us”. We are praying for God’s provision, God’s pardon, and God’s protection. God wants us to bring our needs, our concerns to Him. “A needy heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.”^[10] John Stott writes,

Thus the three petitions which Jesus puts upon our lips are beautifully comprehensive. They cover, in principle, all our human need—material (daily bread), spiritual (forgiveness of sins) and moral (deliverance from evil). What we are doing whenever we pray this prayer is to express our dependence upon God in every area of our human life.^[11]

But notice this: His concerns should come before ours in prayer. If you think that prayer is primarily for you, you have missed the point. Prayer is for God. What a revolution that would bring about in our prayer life! Three “Your” petitions come before three “our” petitions. How often it is that we come running into God’s throne room in prayer, hastily bringing our concerns before Him but without first thinking of what He is concerned about! May this model prayer help teach us to place His concerns before our own!

Notice also that this prayer is not a solitary prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father,” not “my Father”. The pronouns are always “we”, “our”, and “us”. There is no “I”, “me”, or “my”. I may pray by myself, in my room, to the Father in secret—and according to Matthew 6:5-6 I should—but I do not pray only for myself. I never pray alone. I pray remembering that I am part of the church. I am in the community of faith. I am part of the family of God. So even when I am on my knees all by myself in my room with the door closed, I should still be praying, “Our Father in heaven.” I should still be praying with an awareness that I am part of something much bigger than myself. More about that next time.

In Matthew, this prayer ends with a doxology, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” (Matt. 6:13). This is a worshipful threefold expression of praise. Some of your Bibles have the second half of Matthew 6:13 and some have it in a footnote. It is likely that this doxology was added to the text later than the original Gospel penned by Matthew. The words are very similar to what King David prayed in 1 Chronicles 29 under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

“Blessed are You, LORD God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, The power and the glory, The victory and the majesty; For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, And You are exalted as head over all.” (1 Chron. 29:10-11).

When we pray, “Yours is the kingdom,” we affirm that God alone rules over all creation. When we pray, “Yours … is the power,” we affirm that God alone has the power to answer our prayers. When we pray, “Yours … is the glory,” we affirm that God alone is worthy of all praise and honor. And when we pray, “forever,” we affirm that these things will always be true of our God.[12]

And when you put it all together you see how the prayer of a righteous man is far different from the prayer of a hypocrite or a manipulative Gentile. This pray isn’t given to impress God or other people. It isn’t prayed to manipulate God into giving us some selfish desire. It’s the prayer of a man who loves God, who needs God, and who wants to see God glorified.

So, how is your prayer life? Is it more about magnifying self? Is it more about manipulating God? Or is it all about coming to God our Father in humility, simply praying that:

God will be glorified
God’s kingdom will come
God’s will be done
God will provide
God will forgive
God will guide

That is the prayer of a righteous man. It is the model for our prayers. Use it to help you pray. Use it to evaluate your prayer life. If this prayer does not describe the attitude you have in prayer, then the answer to your prayer problem is Jesus—not just what He taught about prayer but what He did on the cross to make you righteous. If you have never trusted Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, then cry out to Him today. A perfect prayer for you is, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Paul wrote about trusting Christ in Romans 10,

⁹ that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. … ¹³ For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” (Rom. 10:9-10, 13)

If God is calling you today, come to Jesus. He will make you a child of God who cries out, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). Then you can truly pray the prayer of the righteous man because you have been given the righteousness of God in Christ.

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[1] Ray Fowler, Talking to Your Heavenly Father. http://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/talking-to-your-heavenly-father/ I drew ideas for this introduction from Fowler’s sermon.

[2] Richard Caldwell, The Model Prayer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kos__2N5pk&t=16s&ab_channel=FoundersBaptist. My experience with prayer is very similar to what Caldwell describes and his confession in his sermon helped me voice my own confession of the difficulty of praying.

[3] Martin Llyod-Jones, Banner of Truth. Issue 275. Quoted by Richard Caldwell ibid.

[4] Lewis B. Bell III, The Paternoster – A Model Prayer (Matthew 6:9-15). https://bible.org/seriespage/paternoster-model-prayer-matthew-69-15#P76_10820

[5] Rory Mosley, The Model Prayer (Matthew 6:9-15). https://fbcspur.org/model-prayer-matthew-69-15/

[6] Nick Aufenkamp, A Simple Way to Pray Every Day, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-simple-way-to-pray-every-day

^[7] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

[8] David Jeremiah, Prayer: the Great Adventure. Multnomah Publishers, Sisters OR, 1997. p. 74-75

[9] John MacArthur, The Purpose of Prayer. https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2233

^[10] Paul E. Miller and David Powlison, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2017).

^[11] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 150–151.

[12] Ray Fowler. Ibid.