Hey, I'm Matt Brownell.
And I'm Van Owens.
And I'm Tim Adams.
Welcome to Climbing the Mountain, where we dive into the scriptures and discuss themes,
connections, and real life application.
We're kicking off a series here where we're going to examine the Sermon on the Mount and
discuss implications for this teaching for Christians today.
All right, we are back discussing the Lord's Prayer.
And last time, as you might expect, we got through about two sentences or two phrases.
We talked about our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
And we sat a lot on this idea of calling God.
Another of there's an intimacy here that we can't ignore that is a beautiful gift.
But there's also this reverence.
This is a Father in the heavens.
This is a Father who we're saying your name, your very being is holy and hallowed and set
apart.
And we talked a lot about different ways of thinking about that.
But there's this great mystery and beauty and tension in that phrase.
And it can be a great reminder as we start our prayers that this is who we're talking
to.
And there's so much more to say about the Lord's Prayer.
So I expect we'll be here for a while.
But let's dive in again.
Ryan, do you want to pray or to read?
However you want to call it?
The Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6.
So in Matthew 6.9, Jesus says, Pray then like this.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also forgive in our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
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.
Thanks.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Makes for two dense requests.
First, it's important to note that Jesus is focused still on God in this prayer.
Three out of the six requests are directly about God.
And Jesus puts those requests first.
How many of us start our prayers anxious and just start blurting out all our needs before
we take time to remember the God of the universe to whom we speak, of whom nothing is too small
and nothing is too difficult.
How do you relate to that dynamic and how do you find that Jesus' focus and prayer
changes your heart and mind?
I think it's really important.
I think it's very easy, particularly when there's something really heavy pressing on
me, I'm concerned about something, whatever it is, some, some sin of my own or some situation
that I'm going to pray about when and I'm, I'm admit to my shame that a lot of times
I do start my prayers this way.
Oh, heavenly Father, I come to you asking you to help me with this situation.
And I start blurting out about the situation.
That can sometimes for me produce more anxiety.
It makes me feel worse.
Somehow at the end of that prayer, I, I know that if I get to the end of the prayer and
I feel worse than I felt when I started it, or I feel the same that something didn't happen.
And I think that oftentimes what doesn't happen is this pausing to acknowledge what's going
on here and with whom I am communicating and the wonder of being able to communicate with
him.
And if I don't pause and do that first, the, the, the ensuing stuff sometimes doesn't feel
like prayer to me.
It'll, it'll, and it can end up for me just trailing off into stream of consciousness
anxiety.
Yeah.
And that's my natural.
Relate to that.
It's that's, that's how, that's how my mind works.
And if I trail off into just being what's in my mind, then somewhere along the way I
lost track, it's not praying anymore.
And I think that this, the, the focusing in on God helps to avoid that.
Yeah.
Totally.
Yeah.
So there's a, a line in John 12 where Jesus is, he's talking about to go to the cross and
he says, now my soul is troubled in which I say, Father, save me from this hour.
No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
Father glorify your name.
And Jesus demonstrates this very often, his whole life that he, he exists to glorify God.
He exists to, to be in relationship with him, to bring him, bring him praise.
And that, that's the posture he brings into his prayer life.
You know, it's not asking, you know, God's not like a genie that exists for his, his
benefit, but Jesus is modeling for us that, you know, we exist to worship God and that
God's purposes and desires are our purposes and desires.
So when we pray like your kingdom come, you will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
That's what it, it does for me.
Just like you were saying then, you know, and instead of coming to God and my anxiety
or with my own desires and requests, you're like, well, those are all, those are still
here.
And, you know, I still am feeling those things in this moment, but I'm re-centering on what
my ultimate purpose is, which is to be in submission to God and who he is.
Yeah.
There's, it's a, yes, it's faith building instead of faith sapping.
When we're focused on ourselves, our own, Jesus isn't saying my will, he's saying your
will be done.
And I don't know how many times I've started a prayer with my kingdom, you know, like,
yeah, you know, what's interesting about this prayer doesn't even say I or my once,
right?
Like that.
That's so rough, right?
I mean, it literally doesn't say I and all my prayers are right, you know, very self-focused.
And so just to like, you guys know, I love to go back to the Old Testament, but when
I think about this prayer, if you break it down, like it's simplified as much as you
possibly can into like part one, part two, it starts with God and then it's about us.
That's the Shema.
Like the most sacred prayer in Judaism is the Shema, hero Israel, Lord our God, the
Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you know, like that, that
first thing and then love God, love God first and love other second.
You know?
Yeah.
You start with God and then through that you flows the love for everyone else.
When I get to this part, if I'm ever praying this prayer and I'm like just blowing through,
this stops me right away, dead in my tracks.
Whoa, whoa, stop now.
I got to get my heart right here.
It is difficult.
What does Jesus mean by your kingdom come?
This is something that he prays for here.
What do you think that means?
I think it gets right into the gospel message.
I mean, how many times did Jesus say the word kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God, depending
on which gospel account you're reading?
Yeah.
I mean, that is like central to the gospel message and the idea of the good news, you
on Galeon and Greek.
I mean, that is like a proclamation of a new king.
Yeah.
I mean, that's that's central point of the kingship of Jesus as taking dominion over
the world and taking it from the powers and principalities is like when I learn more about
the gospel message and the good news, I just continually become more convinced that it's
about kingship of Jesus and like the idea of Jesus's Lord, our good confession.
I mean, Jesus is the king and he's bringing a new kingdom now and eventually bringing
the kingdom here back to earth.
Yeah.
Creating the heavens and the earth and the new garden as our final resting place after
the whole thing is over.
And that's exactly.
I love that.
It's so comforting and like it's easy to get distracted when you're in the moment thinking
about the kingdom, but with all the mess of the world right now.
But like it's almost like a practice round of learning how to operate now and the king
kingdom life.
So our final final place.
So it's like he's praying for God's kingdom to come in the sense that he wants the kingdom
to spread over the face of the earth and maybe even hasten the day when he'll return and.
Yeah.
I mean, he's taking it back, man.
Yeah.
Like a new kings in town.
Like it's time to win it with love rather than like the domination of all the empires.
I mean, it's kind of the same idea, but you're just flipping it on its head and the method
of actually bringing that kingdom to the earth is way different than people expect.
Jesus had a mission when he came and then he has us join him in that mission when he
leaves, right?
Now the great commission now go out and do this, you know, just as the father sent me,
I'm sending you.
This is one of the things we should be praying about all the time.
Yeah.
I mean, we're taking it back and like the expectations for the Messiah to be this like this ruler
that was just going to overthrow Rome and right was just going to come and, you know,
bring war basically and his war is through love and self sacrifice.
It's just flipped upside down.
Yeah.
I love that.
I think it's like really succinct summary of like what Jesus is talking about.
And one of the things I think is threading through a couple of these verses that we've
been mentioning, you know, we're praying for God's name to be holy.
And in the back of our minds, we should be remembering, you know, the phrase, be holy
because I am holy, right?
And we're praying your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And there's, we remember that, you know, Jesus says like the kingdom of God is like
within us or among us that there's a very real sense in which the world will be more
under the control of God is through us submitting ourselves to his will.
And so when I pray this prayer, many of these reminders about, you know, I'm praying to
God for his glory and his will, it's also like a, you know, that's not necessarily something
that's just like really far out there in the future or somewhere on a different continent.
That's like right here in my day, in my life, you know, I'm praying for the things that
I don't have control over, but I'm also praying to submit my control to that will.
That's a good, that, I mean, that's actually a question I want to ask about and pull on
that thread of will that you're describing here.
Because I think God, God has an overall will that can't be broken.
We see in Job at the end of that, he's like, no, no plan of yours can be thwarted.
And at the beginning we know that Satan couldn't just go torment him.
He had to ask God for permission.
And it's kind of same idea with Peter, right?
When Jesus tells him, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, God is in ultimate control.
So he has this ultimate will, right, that can't be broken, but then Jesus is praying
about God's will here and that it would be done, right?
So he's got this ultimate will that will be done, but then what do you think he means
by this?
I think you're getting at this, right?
Like the will that he makes commands, right?
And we can, we have free will so we can choose to ignore him.
But I think there's a wonderful qualifier here.
It says on earth as it is in heaven.
So what does that tell us about this?
Well, I think that when you think about God's will in heaven, God's will is done perfectly
in heaven.
There is no competing will there.
Yeah, there's no influence of Satan in God's case.
There's no Satan and there's no us because we all have our own individual wills.
And I think that when he says, you will be done on earth as it is in heaven, these statements
to me are things that they're true about God and I should think about them as I enter into
prayer.
So there's that.
There's also that there's something in these statements that I need to implement that I
need to realize when I say your kingdom come.
What I need to also say to myself is I want God's kingdom here now.
I want God's kingship in my life.
So I'm acknowledging by saying that statement, God is my king.
And with all the implications of what a king is, his will is what I do.
Because he is the king.
And with all the implications about the kind of king that God is, a king that was willing
to die for me.
And it's all there's so many layers to it that you can spend a lot of time just praying
this and thinking about and what happens to me when I get in this place.
And I so often do not.
But when I get in this place, the things that I'm anxious about, some of them just melt
because they're not that big a deal when I think about the fact of God as my king, of
his will being sovereign in my life and of there being no real choice.
I need to do his will.
It reminds me of the Great Commission again where you've got this piece where it's evangelism,
you're going out and you're baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But then he's also saying teach them to obey.
So there's like these two where you're spreading the good news and people are coming into the
family and they're a bank, but then you're teaching them to obey.
And it's that turning over of your will to his will as your king.
The other thing I think though is on earth as it is in heaven makes me think of the angels
and like joyous assembly proclaiming the good news to shepherds and how they obey him.
Where they're in a place where there is no sin and they're full of joy to like, this
is the most important.
Yes, we're we get to do that.
I feel like I need to have that heart a lot more.
I think we'll get into this more like just with the next few sentences, but the idea
of like testing and temptation, like God isn't tempted in heaven.
Like the heavenly hosts aren't being tempted by Satan up there.
Like they are in a different situation in the heavenly realm than we are here on earth.
And like I think the on earth part matters a lot because we just like it's a reality.
I mean, we have to deal with the physical and like the flesh is weak.
We have different, we have actual real temptation in this world and the physical has to do with
it.
Well, speaking of this, the physical, I think that's a good segue into verse 11.
After praying for God's will to be done, he shifts to praying for our needs.
We're human.
We have practical needs.
Can we focus a little, I guess, on what Jesus is and is not praying though when he prays,
give us this day our daily bread?
How does this language influence our view of what our quote unquote needs are, especially
with respect to our current society of where we are in the United States, convenience,
abundance.
Although, I guess during COVID we got to taste a little bit of, oh, this didn't come when
I wanted it.
Like the very next day, but that aside, what would someone in Jesus's day think when they
heard daily bread?
Well, you can go to the next chunk of Matthew 6 because he's talking about not worrying
and that God's going to take care of you.
The things he assumes people are worrying about are, am I going to have enough to eat?
Am I going to have clothes on my back?
That kind of tells you a lot about the standard.
I mean, especially the clothing for me.
I mean, clothing is just so, they're so cheap.
Maybe we just throw away clothes.
So if you pretty much always get some sort of clothing here, like even if you only have
a couple bucks, but that's the level of simplicity that Jesus is saying God's going to take care
of you.
He's going to provide you what you need, but those needs are very different from our
wants.
Yeah.
I think when I read this, and because it's such a familiar passage, it's one you can
read over and not really read.
When I read, give us this day, our daily bread.
What I read when I'm reading over it is, give me bread.
Meaning take care of me.
Give me what I want.
Give me what I think I need.
Give me, I need security.
I need to know that I'm going to be okay when I retire.
I need to know that I'm going to get this house.
I need to know that this is going to happen.
Can you just make that happen for me now?
That's what I read when I read over it.
But when I actually look at it, it's very emphatic.
Today, give us what we need today.
When you think about it, that's really all that we've got.
I don't know if I'm going to be here tomorrow.
I don't know if I'm going to live long enough to retire, but I'm here right now and I have
certain things that God can give me right now that I need to make it right now.
That's what I'm asking God for.
I'm not asking him for security or wealth or future prosperity or a sense that everything's
going to be okay in the next week, month, year, decade.
I'm saying God sustain me right now, right here where I am, which is a very simple prayer,
but also a deeply faithful thing to say.
Yeah.
We're not praying for bigger barns, right?
Right.
We're praying for today.
Give me what I need today.
I think we break it down.
The way I view this little section here is, I think we have the modern view, which is
like daily needs because bread isn't something that we're obsessed about right now.
And then we have the ancient Jewish view of it that we have at the time Jesus is saying
this prayer.
And then I think the best way to explain this is through God providing manna in the wilderness.
I think he's getting at it.
That was what I was thinking of too.
I go back to Matthew 4 when Jesus is being tempted by Satan and the wilderness, again,
wilderness and 40 days and nights theme there.
And the tempter approached and said to him, if you are the son of God, order that these
stones become bread.
But he answered and said, it is written man will not live on bread alone, but on every
word that comes out of the mouth of God.
Harkening back to Deuteronomy and that phrase, I mean, he's quoting it.
And in that section, it's talking about how Israel was provided by manna.
They had to live off the manna.
There was no, oh, well, do I want to go to Panera or can I go to Chipotle?
What do I want today?
Do I want pizza?
Am I going to get groceries?
They had to eat manna so much so that they got upset about it.
And they couldn't store it.
They were totally reliant.
It was only good for that day.
They were completely reliant on God for all their sustenance, for their livelihood.
And I think the heart of that is what we're supposed to have, but it's just so hard to
have that now.
Yeah, I know.
I was thinking of that too.
In chapter four, he's talking about he's, man does not live on bread alone.
In John six, he calls himself the bread of life.
And that our reliance, so there's an aspect to this that, yes, there's a spiritual food
that we need that only Jesus can give us and we can pray for that.
We can also pray for our, I do think there's an aspect to this where we pray for our physical
needs too, because we're going to be able to glorify God very much if we're starving.
And God does want to provide for us to meet our basic needs, I think.
I mean, but I don't think that a lot of, I love the manna.
I just think it's perfect.
I wasn't really thinking about it when I thought about the Lord's prayer originally,
but the more I dove in, the more I'm like, wow, this is like, it's manna.
That's our heart.
The heart is the desperation for the food of God in spirit and in physical needs.
Without that, it's really easy to get off track.
And when Jesus compares himself to that manna, so it all kind of comes full circle.
Right.
And I think it's weird for maybe listeners today who their bread has a lot of preservatives
in it, you know, like it could just sit out there for a while.
I remember buying some really fresh, organic, just big bread and I was like, ooh, this is
the best bread I've ever had.
And I left it out and then the next day I'm like, oh, this is the worst bread.
I can't even look at it.
Yeah.
I do think it's important, like we kind of jumped over this with the first line.
But he says, give us our daily bread, right?
Us.
And our Father in heaven.
And so you said, or I realized there's no eyes, but there are hours and there's a lot
of hours and that helps a lot to regulate the selfishness and to remember my brother
who maybe I am being provided for here in this moment, but someone else is not.
And so if I'm praying this, right, then I am called to also be a vessel to help, you
know, meet that need.
So that feels very important as we're reading through this to remember how communal this
prayer is.
This is community.
I love that.
Yes.
But I've just paused as I'm praying this prayer and thought, give us this day.
Oh, am I, I'm praying for all of my brothers and sisters right now.
And oh, let me think about what's going on in their lives and pray for them, you know,
like, or, oh, what could I do to help them?
Maybe I'm being called to do that, right?
That's a great, great point.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's we've, okay, we made it through one more piece.
All right, we're going to have to come back to this.
It just shows you how loaded this, this prayer is.
I mean, it's like, we talk about the grace of all time.
Yeah.
This is awesome.
To be continued.
Thanks.
That is such a good point too.
Yeah, it really is.
Like you're praying for other people as you're praying it, but you might not have even gone
in thinking that.
Yeah.
And you're like, oh, crap, I should really think about when I am reciting this.
Sometimes I just say father in heaven and then I'm like, oh, snap.
Yeah, that's not what he says.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, it is like, you're like, it makes me think I'm like, oh yeah, I should be praying
about people and like, mm hmm.
Like other countries or people that are really struggling, not just like my neighbors or
the people I know in real life.
It's like, wow.
It sort of addresses that age old thing, do I act or do I pray?
This prayer is like, yes.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
As you pray it, you're realizing how you need to act.
Isn't it wonderful how it kind of just moves your heart?
Mm hmm.
Jesus is genius.
All right.
I mean, he boils it down, like to get that much meaning out of just such a short prayer
is like, wow.