I recently heard a sermon that truly changed my life. The sermon, by Tim Mackie, the founder of The Bible Project, was called Praying and Acting. His message changed the way I pray one of the most famous prayers in the New Testament. You know it as The Lord’s Prayer.
We find this famous prayer starting in Matthew 6:9, where Jesus is teaching his followers how to pray.
9 Pray like this:
Our Father who is in heaven,
uphold the holiness of your name.
10 Bring in your kingdom
so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
11 Give us the bread we need for today.
12 Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
13 And don’t lead us into temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.
It was here in these verses that someone was made clear to me that I’d never noticed before. If you look closely at the words of Jesus, you’ll see that Jesus’ prayer is actually divided into two distinct halves. Verses 9-10 focus exclusively on honoring God: our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
But what about the second half? Who or what is the focus of those next three verses?
If we skip ahead a few chapters, to Matthew 22, we find another famous passage from the New Testament. In verse 36, Jesus is asked by an expert in the Law which commandment is the greatest. And as is often the case, Jesus doesn’t give a simple answer.
In Matt. 22:37 Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
And then he continues.
“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
These commands can be boiled down to four simple words: Love God. Love others.
Like the expert in the law, we have a tendency to want to figure out what is the most important. We assume that what Jesus means here is that love of God comes first, and then we love others as we have the time to or when we get around to it. But that is not what Jesus is saying.
Jesus says, yes, love God, but the second command is like it! The two are equal. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t say you love God and yet continue to mistreat your neighbors. And you can’t claim to be Christian by loving people but not honoring God.
Clearly, Jesus sees our relationship with God as completely connected to and absolutely inseparable from our relationship with others.
Love God, Love others.
Look again at the words of the second half of The Lord’s Prayer:
11 Give us the bread we need for today.
12 Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
13 And don’t lead us into temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.
Our temptation when reciting this prayer is often to think inwardly. We think of our needs, our daily bread, and all of the things for which we need to be forgiven. But notice the language Jesus actually uses: “give us our daily bread,
forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation."
My friends, the second half of the Lord’s Prayer are none other than a reminder to love others. It’s a reminder to love our neighbors, just as Jesus called us to do in Matthew 22 when he set out the two Greatest Commandments.
Love God, Love Others. The two are completely connected and absolutely inseparable.
Instead of thinking of our own needs, The Lord’s Prayer should be a constant reminder to think of the needs of those around us.
- “Give us this day our daily bread.” You may have enough to eat today, but chances are you know someone who doesn’t.
- “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Look around you, is there someone you need to forgive today?
- “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” You may not be facing temptation, you may not be going through hard times at the moment, but you may know someone who is. What can you do to help them?
You see the Lord’s Prayer is not about you or me at all. It’s about us.
We are called to be the answer to the very prayer we are praying. We are called to partner with God in establishing God’s kingdom here on earth. And isn’t that exactly how God works throughout Scripture? Over and over we see God use the most unlikely people to accomplish his mighty plans.
This message moved me so much that I now carry the Lord’s Prayer with me. I wear it around my neck engraved in a small charm as a reminder to pray it throughout the day as the early disciples would have done in Jesus’ time.
When I’m driving to work in the morning and I see our neighbors on the side of the road, it reminds me to be the hands and feet of Jesus. To pray for them, yes, but then to actually reach out and offer help and hope as well.
When I find myself upset with a family member or coworker, the Lord’s Prayer reminds me to forgive others, just as I, too, have been forgiven.
What might this prayer call you to do if you take it seriously?
The Rev. Jeremiah Booker once wrote, “Action is not separated from prayer. The question is not whether our prayers matter. The question is if we pray without action, are we really even praying at all?”
Love God. Love Others.
Jesus believed in prayer, of that much we can be certain. But our prayers should call us to action. The two are completely connected and absolutely inseparable. My hope for each of us is that we will respond to God’s call with, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”