Title Matthew 6:5-10
Contents
“Pray like this”
May 13, 2007
6th Sunday of Easter
Matthew 6:5-10
“[5] “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners to pray to be seen by people. [6] When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is hiding, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
[7] When you pray, do not repeat empty words like the nations They think that you have to talk a lot to be heard. [8] Therefore, do not imitate them. God your Father knows what you need before you ask.
[9] Therefore, pray in this way. Our Father in heaven, sanctify his name, [10] make his kingdom come, and do your will on earth as it is in heaven.”
Last week, we shared God's Word about a connected family and a connected church. He said that in order for our words to communicate and our hearts to work, we must first look at what our heart looks like and where it is.
To start the nonviolent communication method, you must carefully examine what your state of mind is like - angry, depressed, or scared, and know the reason and what your heart wants, that is, where your heart is. .
We always have to keep an eye on where our heart is. And I have to study and practice where I should put my mind and where it should be directed. This is a very important part of prayer.
As we continue our study of the Lord's prayer today, let's think together about where to place our hearts.
1. erroneous prayer
Until Matthew 6:5-9, he first reveals the wrong prayer.
The first is a warning about the attitude of wanting to look good and being accepted by people.
There are times when we lose ourselves and are shaken by others. There are times when a desire to be liked and accepted by others fills my heart and takes precedence over all my choices. Worrying about what that person/friend will think of me makes me not ‘my master’.
This attitude causes me to lose myself and God as well.
A life of faith, especially prayer, is a process of peeling off the painful memories, wounds, the thickness of habits, and fear of the future, and meeting the true self, the “real self,” who rejoices over how good God created it. That process is also the process of meeting God. This can only be done in an intimate relationship with God.
The second is not to repeat over and over again.
Why do we keep repeating empty words? It is because they misunderstood that it will be fulfilled only if you talk a lot and insist on it as in the main text. There are many such aspects in the attitude of prayer emphasized in the Korean church. These prayers, commonly referred to as ‘listening prayers,’ can be a distorted form of supplication that projects my desires. This is a form of idolatry of superstition or false worship.
This attitude toward prayer is that the prayer's attention is not on God, but on the outcome of prayer. This attitude, too, disappears from me and God, and the result is everything. It is my heart to acknowledge God as God only when I get the results I want.
It is also caused by fear of the future. At this time, God becomes the servant who carries out my orders, and I too enjoy joy and peace only with the results I want, so that desire becomes my master as a result.
Prayer is not one-sidedly repeating only my requests. Because God not only hears our prayers, he already knows our needs. Jesus tells us to leave the realm of the future to God. Don't let your worries and fears control you. I also need to know that the visions of the future I have drawn do not make me peaceful.
2. Prayer is the process of becoming the 'master of my life' and the process of becoming the 'true me'.
The purpose of true prayer is to become the master of my life by not being engrossed in past memories, wounds, and previous understandings, not resting on any future results, and relying on other people's evaluations. And to enjoy the feast of God's creation by realizing the real me that God said was good. So, prayer is not a request for what I want, but a process of finding and fulfilling my true self.
Prayer is our human entry into the realm of God. Being on earth is entering the realm of heaven, the kingdom of God.
In this realm we commune with God, learn his will, and gloriously cooperate with him. In this process, I am transformed into the holiness of God.
3. Through the prayer the Lord is teaching today, we must learn where to put our hearts and what to pray and how to pray.
Without learning and understanding, Christianity was very often the wrong way.
In order for Korean Christianity to be renewed, Christians must rethink and realize what they must believe before unconditionally believing and what it means to believe.
Like the theologians and the controversial Dowle story, we are at a time when we need a faith based on understanding and enlightenment. We need the <aha experience> of understanding and realization, not blind faith unconditionally. The Buddhist sutra is also known as the Thunderbolt Sutra. In Sanskrit, Geumgang means thunderbolt. So, the Golden Sutra refers to wisdom that strikes like lightning. I have to experience the experience of breaking my false self when lightning strikes me, my hard shell breaking at the words of Christ, and getting out of the “false me” I knew as myself.
Prayer is the channel through which we hear the word of lightning. It is the path to enlightenment. In particular, the Lord's prayer can be said to be the core.
4. supplication
Last time we thought about 'to whom' we pray.
Then the second part is the prayer of supplication.
But this supplication is not simply the weak begging for the strong or servile begging.
Our everyday speech usually takes three forms. Indicative, subjunctive, and imperative, among them, this supplication uses imperative speech. So, the Lord's Prayer is a divine command, a petition to God, in the name of God toward a false reality.
This part of the supplication consists of two sentences.
You are the subject of these two petitions. That is, our Father in heaven, what will you do or what you will is a (declarative) structure of the active imperative.
Let's read the first sentence together.
<Make holy his name, grant his kingdom to come, and do his will on earth as it is in heaven.>
The beginning of this supplication does not begin with our needs, but lifts our hearts to heaven. This is the <Raising our hearts to the Lord> that we perform at the feast of sharing. The starting point of our interest and prayer is heaven.
The content of the supplication in this sentence is connected by -and, -and. The original text is connected by dots (commas, or semicolons). This is not a chronological arrangement of the three petitions, but rather a simultaneous connection.
4-1 Sanctify His Name
A name is closely related to a way of being or an attribute.
So, starting with that name is starting from remembering and embracing who He is.
Who is God to you? Other than just listening and learning about God for a long time, what name does God have in your life? Also, what kind of God do you expect to meet?
Peace to the weary, healing to the sick, justice to unjust relationships, father to orphaned me, guide on my way, wise man, preparer to fill my lack...
Jehoah Nissi (flag, victory) who made me rise again from despair and made me victorious; Jehoah Jire (preparation) who prepared a way for me to escape from the dead end of a dilemma; Jehovah who sheds the light of healing on the wounds of the mind and body Rapha (healing), Jehoah Shammah (together) with you in a lonely life, Jehoah Raha (leader) who leads the foggy road by hand, etc..
4-2 Come to that country
He teaches that we do not go to that country, but ask that the country come to this place.
No matter how many sins I have committed, no matter how weak and weak I am, do not give up on me, and no matter how injustice and tyranny may be perpetrated, do not give up on this land and heal this land.
This is a revolutionary prayer to overthrow this country, this authority, and this order into the Kingdom of God.
Not the Egyptian pharaoh's sun god, the Canaanite god of fertility, the Canaanite god of fertility, or the Canaanite god of fertility, or Marduk, the great empire of Babylon, and the Roman emperor Rather, it is the God who saves the weak and suffering, and you are the only true God of this earth. This is that all power and money by oppression and exploitation cannot be justified before God.
So Karl Barth said, "Putting your hands together to pray is the beginning of resistance against a chaotic world." said. To offer the Lord's prayer is to participate in the struggle for the kingdom of God, the movement for the kingdom of God.
And I am determined to submit myself to the will of heaven. To have God in me, to acknowledge God's rule, and to live in him.
4-3 As your will is done in heaven
The Lord always tells us that tomorrow is God's realm. So don't worry about tomorrow.
In the Lord's prayer, we see that 'the will is already done in heaven'. This means that our future is not a future shrouded in shaky fears. The conviction that the future is “already” in it. This is the eschatological prayer.
And God wants to accomplish with us what has already been accomplished. So the realm of the future becomes God's realm and ours. So we are living in the future now. This is the apocalyptic reality.
We are worried and afraid of tomorrow as we can't see even an inch ahead. Also, you are engrossed in the dream of tomorrow and cannot serve your country now. Our supplications are always only for tomorrow and tomorrow.
But the Lord is telling us to have fun with God here and now. Don't get ahead of God, and enjoy the many gifts that the Lord gives you now. He will accomplish in our lives the good will he has already done in his kingdom.
Through the prayer the Lord taught,
sanctify the name of God and bring his kingdom,
I believe and declare that the will that has already been accomplished in heaven will be accomplished on this earth and in my life as well. Amen.
<Dispatcher>
Therefore, pray like this. Our Father in heaven, sanctify his name and bring his kingdom, and do your will on earth as it is in heaven.
<Congratulations>
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
Learn to pray to the Lord and pray to the Lord
Throw off the fake me through that prayer
Above all those who are determined to participate in God's work of spreading joy and peace on this earth, and above all those in the world who are walking in peace
I sincerely pray that you will be with us from now on to eternity. Amen.