[And He Walks With Me] Matthew 6
1-4 Jesus is not calling us to avoid practicing righteousness in front of others. Rather, his concern is that many people will practice righteousness to be seen by those others. We should be practicing righteousness where others can see, but if your primary motivation for living righteously is to garner the attention of others, then you have no reward with your Father in heaven.
5-6 Again, Jesus’ concern is not that people pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, but that they pray to be seen by people. If we pray primarily so people will see and think us to be spiritual, then that will be the extent of our reward. That is, there will be no heavenly reward waiting for us for grandstanding prayers.
7-8 In many pagan sects, prayers had to be long and filled with ornate speech. Often, prayers were formulaic: if you say this and this and this, then the god will have to do that. Indeed, the objective of these prayers was to say the right things which would force the deity to comply with the pray-ers’ demands. In contrast, Christ-followers are promised that God designs for the relationship between us and him to be as a loving father with his children. This means that he is paying attention to what is going on with us, knows the things [we] need before [we] ask him, and is already inclined to respond to those needs. This is not to say that we cannot spend hours in prayer rambling as we struggle to express our needs and desires. Indeed, as our ideal heavenly Father, God treasures such conversations and longs for us to pray constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
9-13 The prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples is not about establishing the exact wording necessary to obtain what we want from God. Rather, it presents a pattern that we can follow as we formulate our own prayers. The pattern includes adoration (9), supplication (10-11), confession and repentance (12), and spiritual guidance and strength (13).
9 Our stands as a subtle reminder that faith is not an individual sport. God’s people will live in community with other believers, supporting each other and praying with each other.
Father expresses God’s preferred relationship with his people. Namely, he would prefer that we relate to him as the ideal father. This is challenging for people who never had a father, or whose father was abusive or neglectful. Yet, the ideal father is one who is tender and loving toward his children, compassionate when they are hurt, and unswervingly committed to providing what they need.
In heaven suggests that God is transcendent. He would relate to us as a father, but that father is Creator and Sustainer of all that is.
In ancient cultures, one’s name was generally seen as synonymous with one’s self. It represented their actual character and extended to their reputation among others. In the case of God, Christ’s followers should pray that people would recognize and honor God as holy. Of course, because most people’s experience of God is through his people, this demands that those who are called by his name should also be characterized by holiness.
10 A kingdom is a region and people who are ruled by a king. The king is in charge. By praying Your kingdom come, the Christ-follower is calling for God’s kingdom, including his rule, to be fully realized.
Your will be done is essentially a restatement of Your kingdom come. If God is king, then that will translate to his will being done.
On earth as it is in heaven is a painful reminder that, while God’s kingdom is fully realized in the heavenly realms, it remains nascent on earth. There are still bad people, and bad things still happen on earth. This prayer, then, is that the earth, broken as it is by sin, would be transformed until it is congruent with the perfection of heaven. It is easy to recognize things that require change when they are far off, in other people and places of the world. Yet, realizing God’s kingdom and will on earth will begin within those who follow Christ. When we pray Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then, we are praying that our actions, attitudes, and motivations become aligned with his. What does that look like? See Matthew 22:34-40 to Jesus’ synopsis.
11 Only after honoring God and calling for his will to be realized does Jesus pray for our daily bread. God’s people will see what they need as less important than honoring God’s name and doing God’s will.
Two things to notice about this portion of the Lord’s prayer. First, Jesus prayed for our daily bread. This was not a prayer for extravagance. If it were, Jesus would have prayed for steak or wine. Rather, it was a prayer for what was needed for today. Bread was the staple of virtually every meal in the Ancient Near East (ANE), with wheat comprising approximately 50% of a typical person’s diet.[149] Second, notice the focus on one day’s needs. By using the two complementary terms, rendered today and daily in the CSB, Jesus emphasized that we should be content with what we need for today. This is not to exclude planning and preparing for the future; there is plenty of biblical support for these things. Yet, it is to say that we need not worry excessively about the future.
12 It was not uncommon for first-century Jews to think of sin as a debt they owed to God. Each time they transgressed his law, that debt deepened. Because there was no way they could fully rectify things that happened in the past, the only way to escape the debt of sin was through forgiveness. Thus, this portion of the Lord’s prayer stands as a statement of confession. We are the ones responsible for our sins and, thus, for incurring our debts.
It is imperative to notice that God’s forgiveness of our debts is here related to our forgiveness of our debtors. That is, we cannot expect God to forgive our sin against him unless we are willing to forgive those who have sinned against us.
13 Many who call themselves Christians continue to flirt with temptation and even indulge in sin. There is a tendency to try to walk as close to that line as possible. Jesus, however, advised his followers to pray that God would help them to steer as far away from these things as possible. Indeed, we as Christ-follower should long for God to deliver us completely from Satan’s power and influence and to help us avoid unnecessary temptation.
14-15 Jesus returns to the subject of forgiveness to reinforce a key point that his listeners and we may have missed: God’s forgiveness of our offenses is directly related to our forgiveness of others. This is not to say that we must forgive others so that God will forgive us. Rather, we must forgive others because God forgave us. Put another way, we should be people of grace because we serve a God who is characterized by grace, and if we are not going to have grace on others who hurt us, then we are not going to be consistent with God’s character and command. Therefore, we will be unwelcome in his kingdom, which will be filled with all kinds of people who have been forgiven of their sins.
16-18 In the first century, Pharisees typically fasted at least one day per week. This act of piety, however, was generally accompanied by different clothing and grandiose displays designed to draw attention to their great piety and sacrifice. As he did in vss 1-8, Jesus exhorts his listeners and us to ensure that our piety is not a ploy to get the attention of people. Honoring God does not require a show.
19-21 Jesus was not advising people to eschew responsible planning. Rather, he was calling his followers to worry less about accumulating treasures on earth in the form of money and possessions than about being the sort of person and doing the sort of things that will ensure we have a part in the inheritance of heaven.
23 First-century Jews commonly equated a healthy eye with generosity and a bad eye with one that was miserly.[150] In this metaphor, the evil eye “enviously covets what belongs to another” while a good eye is undivided in its loyalty to God and therefore “is fixed on good treasure, the things of God.”[151]
24 The relationship between undivided loyalty and generosity (see note on verse 23) is now explained. If we are constantly pursuing more money and stuff, and then hoarding it for ourselves, we are effectively raising money to the level of God. Indeed, we are trusting money to provide what we need and get us out of trouble as much as – or even more than – we trust God. This is unacceptable and impossible.
25-34 Jesus summarizes his teachings on money with what the CSB subtitles “The Cure for Anxiety.” The key avoiding worry is simply keeping your priorities straight. Namely, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. If we will make this the absolutely most important thing in our lives, then we can trust that he will provide for us as he has the birds of the sky and grass of the field.