Marco Ambriz

March 9, 2025

Matthew 6:9–13

9 “Pray then in this way: 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 also have forgiven our debtors. 

13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

CONSIDER (VV. 9–15): How does this prayer express truths about God? How does this prayer express truths about our needs? Should we follow this prayer word for word, or should we use it as an example on how to structure our prayer lives? Explain.

WORSHIP (VV. 9–15): Read these verses out loud several times. Read them slowly and concentrate on each phrase, allowing God’s Spirit to speak with you as you meditate on his Word (Coleman, 1539).

Sermon Points

1. The Lord’s Prayer reveals our communal relationship to God as our heavenly parent (“Abba”).

2. The Lord’s Prayer is a yearning for God’s reign to be fully realized here on earth.

3. The Lord’s Prayer is needed as long as there is a denial of resources for all people. 

4. The Lord’s Prayer reveals our need for reconciled relationships. 

5. The Lord’s Prayer acknowledges our frailty and susceptibility to evil. 

9 “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 

6:9 PRAY THEN IN THIS WAY. Jesus instructed his disciples to focus upward first, with its first three requests having to do with God’s glory. The remaining three requests are for our well-being. God first, humanity second—that is the ideal order of prayer. God's glory before our wants (Hughes, 153-154). How do you typically order your prayer?

6:9 OUR FATHER. Of course, Jesus' own relationship with God was unique. But Jesus raws His disciples into that relationship (Lawson, 87). The fact that He instructs His followers to address God this same way means that a similar relationship with God is possible for us (Hahn, 100). How do you envision God when you pray? What does God's parenthood signify for you?

The Israelites did not use “Father” as a common address in prayer and never employed it with the sense of intimacy that Jesus gives it. The Hebrews clothed the word with the authority and love of the Creator for His creation, but not with the patience of the forgiving father of a prodigal son (Luke 15) (Lawson, 87). 

As a member of the family, the Christian prays with brothers and sisters in mind. The Christian never prays just “My God.” We always pray “Our God.” John Donne, the famous seventeenth-century English poet, was right: “No man is an island, entire to himself.” We can never pray as if we were the only ones in the universe. There is no hint of exclusiveness in this prayer (Lawson, 87). What is the ratio of your prayers, in terms of God's glory, your own security, and the security of others?

6:9 HALLOWED. To pray that God’s name be hallowed or sanctified is to pray that God’s people will bring honor to His name by living holy lives (Hahn, 100). What does your everyday behavior and speech say about your worship of God? 

10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

6:10 YOUR KINGDOM COME. When I pray these words, I mean, “You, Lord, are sovereign in my life. As You rule Heaven, I want You to rule earth, especially me. I pray these words as a Christian and a member of Your church. Take control of the church, Lord” (Lawson, 91). 

6:10 YOUR WILL BE DONE. This means “Take over here. If I want the world to obey You, then I must be the first to obey. If I ask You to reform the world, then You must start by reforming me” (Lawson, 92). In what ways does God's present reign change the way you live?

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

Jesus shifts abruptly from spiritual to physical concerns. We have bodies that need nourishment. Without embarrassment, Jesus teaches us to ask God to take care of these bodies (Lawson, 93).

6:11 DAILY. This verse alludes to God’s provision of “daily bread” (manna) for his people in the wilderness after he first delivered them from slavery in Egypt (Keener).  The prayer suggests that one must trust God day by day for the necessities of life. Jesus’ inclusion of this petition shows that His followers should bring their material needs to God in prayer (Hahn, 100-101). What sorts of things do you depend upon God daily?

6:11 BREAD. Bread was the normal and often only form of sustenance for the poor. It was the main course for the two meals eaten each day by Jews (Hahn, 100).

12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Which is more challenging for you: acknowledging your need for forgiveness, or forgiving someone who has hurt you?

6:11 DEBTS. Jews often described the commandments as obligations owed to God. This led them to speak of sins as debts (6:12) accruing by failure to meet their obligations to God (Hahn, 101). Should we understand this debt as economic or spiritual or both?

6:11 FORGIVE. The Greek word literally means to let go of or release. Forgiveness is letting go of obligations owed in a relationship. AS WE ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN OUR DEBTORS. The condition for receiving forgiveness from God is granting forgiveness to our debtors: those who have sinned against us. Verses 14–15 amplify this point and make it clear that forgiveness from God will be forfeited if we refuse to forgive those who have offended us (Hahn, 101). How does Jesus' teaching here -- that your forgiveness of others impacts God's forgiveness of you -- challenge you?

6:11 FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS. This makes us wonder if we really do want to pray that our debts be forgiven as we have forgiven our debtors. In truth we find it easier to forgive than to be forgiven. We do so because so much of life is spent trying to avoid acknowledging we owe anyone anything. Yet to be a follower of Jesus, to learn to pray this prayer, means that we must first learn that we are the forgiven. To learn to be forgiven is no easy lesson, desiring as we do to be our own master—if not creator. But to be a disciple of Jesus demands that we recognize that our life is a gift that requires, if we are to live in a manner appropriate to our being a creature, our willingness to accept forgiveness with joy (Hauerwas, 79). What helps you remember your need for forgiveness? How might the acceptance of forgiveness make you more human?

A Political Prayer

The forgiveness of debts signals that nothing is quite so political as the prayer that Jesus teaches us. To have debts forgiven certainly challenges our normal economic and political assumption. But the forgiveness of debts is also at the heart of truthful memory. No people are free from a past or present that is not constituted by injustices so horrific nothing can be done to make them right. There is, for example, nothing that can be done to “redeem” the slavery that defined early America. Faced with the tragedy of slavery, the temptation is simply to forget that America is a country of slavery or to assume that the wound of slavery has been healed by African Americans being given the opportunity to become as well-off as white Americans. But the forgetfulness that money names cannot forever suppress the wound of slavery (Hauerwas, 79). What are some ways that Christians have overlooked or suppressed the tragedies in which the church has been complicit?

The willingness to be forgiven, which may require that I have my “enemy” tell me who I am, is the only way that reconciliation can begin. To pray in this way, therefore, is to become a citizen of God’s kingdom of forgiveness. There is no more fundamental political act than to learn to pray this prayer. To learn to have our sins forgiven, indeed to learn that we are sinners needing forgiveness, is to become part of the kingdom of God. If we do not learn to forgive then we will not be forgiven, we will not be part of the new reality, the new people, brought into existence by Jesus (Hauerwas, 79). Which voices or groups of people do might you need to prophetically speak into your life? 

13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

6:13 TRIAL. Two problems confront us. First, the Bible says that God does not (indeed cannot) tempt us with evil. So what is the sense of praying that he will not do what he has promised never to do? Some answer this question by interpreting ‘tempting’ as ‘testing’, explaining that though God never entices us to sin he does test our faith and character. This is possible. A better explanation seems to me to be that ‘lead us not’ must be understood in the light of its counterpart ‘but deliver us’, and that ‘evil’ should be rendered ‘evil one’ (as in 13:19). In other words, it is the devil who is in view, who tempts God’s people to sin, and from whom we need to be ‘rescued’ (rusai) (Stott, 150).

The second problem concerns the fact that the Bible says temptation and trial are good for us: ‘Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials’ or ‘various temptations’. So, if temptation/trial are beneficial, why should we pray not to be led into them? The probable answer is that the prayer is more that we may overcome temptation, than that we may avoid it. Perhaps we could paraphrase the whole request as ‘Do not allow us so to be led into temptation that it overwhelms us, but rescue us from the evil one’. So behind these words that Jesus gave us to pray are the implications that the devil is too strong for us, that we are too weak to stand up to him, but that our heavenly Father will deliver us if we call upon him  (Stott, 150). How do you resolve these two problems concerning temptations/trials?

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Readers of most modern versions who are familiar with the traditional form of the Lord’s Prayer notice that those versions lack the final benediction: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” These words are missing in the oldest and best manuscripts of Matthew. This does not mean we are in error to pray them. All Jewish prayers concluded with a benediction like that. It would not have been necessary for Jesus to have told the disciples to use such a benediction, nor for Matthew to have written it. From earliest times the benediction would have been part of the Lord’s Prayer. Eventually, when Matthew was being copied in the Gentile world, a scribe added the conclusion that the Church had always used (Hahn, 101).

Summary

Jesus' three final petitions are beautifully comprehensive. They cover 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 (Stott, 150-151). Say a prayer now, expressing your dependence on God in every way.

Works Cited

Lyman Coleman, ed., Life Connections Study Bible. Nashville, TN: Holman Bibles, 2019.

Roger L. Hahn. Matthew: A Commentary for Bible Students. Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2007.

Stanley Hauerwas. Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006.

R. Kent Hughes. The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom. Preaching the Word. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001.

Craig S. Keener. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

LeRoy Lawson. Matthew: Unlocking the Scriptures for You. Standard Bible Studies. Cincinnati, OH: Standard, 1986).

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.