Hope by Asking in Prayer

⁹ “Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

Your name be honored as holy.

¹⁰ Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.

¹² And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

¹³ And do not bring us into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

[For Yours is the kingdom and the power

and the glory forever. Amen.]” (Matthew 6:9-13).

After focusing our attention on God, offering Him praise and seeking His will to be done, we can now place some requests before Him. Notice in verses eleven through thirteen, we have one petition for physical needs and two for spiritual ones.

Some needs are openly physical in nature, but might be the result of an underlying spiritual issue that needs to be addressed. An addiction to food or alcohol can lead to all sorts of health problems. Healing a physical consequence of the addiction will not solve the real problem. And the addiction itself is often the result of a deeper spiritual issue. When we pray, we should ask God to get to the heart of the problem, at its deepest level.

I heard a speaker make a suggestion about prayer requests that is much needed in the church today. When someone requests prayer, we should ask, “so that what will happen?” Or ask, “toward what end?” In other words, what is it that we are really asking God to do? If we are praying for healing, why? Do we just want the physical problem to go away? We should want God to answer in a way that brings Him glory and the petitioner genuine good—that which truly the best for them.

The Apostle Paul prayed for a thorn in his flesh to be removed. He requested three times for relief, but God refused to remove the thorn. He said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Paul learned that in his weakness he would need to trust in God’s strength. And when we learn to depend upon God, great things can happen—God orchestrated things—God empowered things.

The persecuted church does not ask for the oppression to stop. Quite honestly, it would stop if they just hid their belief or denied Christ. Neither of those are acceptable options. So, what do they ask for? They petition the Lord for the same things that Paul prayed for while he was in chains in prison—boldness, an open door of opportunity to speak, and the wisdom to speak rightly (Colossians 4:2-4; Ephesians 6:19).

You may ask how they could pray so selflessly. Besides their love for the Lord, the persecuted church has a heavenly mindset rather than an earthly one. In other words, they realize that this world is not our real home. Our primary citizenship is in heaven. We are strangers and sojourners here. Peter made that clear in his first epistle. And as such, we should pray for God’s kingdom, not our comfort, to come.

Our hope is not tied to this world or the things of this world. Our hope is not tied to our health or wealth or earthly accomplishments. Our hope is in Christ and the life that we now enjoy in Him. Our hope is tied to our heavenly citizenship and the glory that we will enjoy when we meet Christ face to face.

What are the spiritual requests listed in the Lord’s model prayer? Verses twelve and thirteen provide the answer. Jesus addresses our relationships first. We should assess our relationship with God and then with others.

If we are a follower of Jesus, then our sins—past, present, and future—are completely forgiven and forgotten. Jesus paid the full price of our debt and nailed it to the cross. If we are in Christ, then He has taken away our sin and given us His righteousness. And we have been given new life, His life, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately we still sin. And although we are fully forgiven, our sin does have negative consequences. Not loss of forgiveness. Not God’s anger. Not loss of salvation. But, our sin can quench the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). It can grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). It can hinder our prayers (1 Peter 3:7). And I think most importantly, our sin tells a lie about who God is and hinders our testimony for Christ.

God created us in His image, and placed His Spirit in our spirit, so that we would be a visible physical display of the invisible God. As crazy and unrealistic as this sounds, when people look at us and our lives they should get a glimpse of what God is like. Now, we cannot imitate God. But we can display the fruit of the Spirit, which are Christlike characteristics. And the way we do that is to abide in Christ, as a branch abides in the vine (John 15:1-8). Apart from Christ we can do nothing, but by abiding in Him we can bear much fruit and thereby glorify God.

I realize that I am clueless about most of my sinful attitudes and behavior. So, I often pray Psalm 139:23-24—“Search me O God and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” If He brings something to mind, then I confess that. I agree with Him about my sin and ask Him to replace my wrong ________ with His righteous _________ (you can fill in the blanks). I can come to Him in confession because God is so merciful. In fact, His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Verse twelve goes beyond our relationship with God and also addresses our relationship with other people. If we are at enmity with someone, it might be that we have offended them in some way, and we need to go to them and ask for forgiveness. We should do whatever we can to make things right between us.

When I was preaching a series on the Sermon on the Mount, before I ever got to the passage that I am going to quote here, the Lord spoke to my heart for several evenings during my time of prayer. He brought back to my mind an incident that had occurred over six years earlier. We had offended one of our best friends over something pretty benign. But it led to our friendship being strained. God was impressing upon me to go to this couple and apologize and make amends. He used the following passage to make His wishes known: “ ²³ Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering” (Matthew 5:23-24).

Sometimes, the other person has wronged us. Verse twelve makes it clear that we are to forgive others in the same way that God forgives us. And God forgives us unconditionally. To forgive means to send away, as in a debt. That is difficult sometimes. We may have been hurt badly by someone. Let me clarify that forgiveness does not mean that we say what they did was right or ok. We just turn the wrong over to God and let Him deal with that person. We forgive, like Jesus forgave those pounding the nails in His hands and feet. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). If we are slandered or reviled in some way, we do not retaliate or hold a grudge, but instead entrust ourselves to our faithful heavenly Father. We let Him bring justice in His time and His way. “and while being reviled, He (Jesus) did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously (1 Peter 2:23). “Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19).

We will look at the final request in the Lord’s Prayer next week. May you cherish your time with the Lord this week. May your hope increase as you spend more time seeking Him.