We long for revolution. Something within us cries out that the world is horribly broken and must be fixed. For centuries, the word revolution was scarcely heard, buried under ages of oppression. The word itself was feared and speaking it was treason. And then, revolutions seemed to appear almost everywhere.
Some historians have gone so far as to identify our modern epoch as “The Age of Revolution.” Is it? Perhaps it is more accurate to refer to our times as “The Age of Failed Revolution.” Looking across the landscape it becomes clear that very few revolutions produce what they promise. Arguably, most revolutions lead to a worse set of conditions than they replaced.
And yet, we still yearn for radical change, for things to be made right. We rightly long to see righteousness and truth and justice prevail. We are actually desperate for what no earthly revolution can produce. We long for the Kingdom of God, and for Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We are looking for a kingdom that will never end and a King whose rule is perfect.
This is why Christian’s pray the Lord’s Prayer. This is the very prayer that Jesus taught his own disciples to pray. So Christians pray this prayer as a way of learning how to pray and what to pray – as Jesus teaches us to pray.
The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer that turns the world upside down. Are you looking for revolution? There is no clearer call to revolution than when we pray “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But this is a revolution only God can bring … and He will.
This short prayer turns the world upside down. Principalities and powers hear their fall. Dictators are told their time is up. Might will indeed be made right and truth and justice will prevail. The kingdoms of this world will all pass, giving way to the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.
It all comes down to one of the shortest prayers found in the Bible. The Lord’s Prayer takes less than 20 seconds to read aloud, but it takes a lifetime to learn. Sadly, most Christians rush through the prayer without learning it – but that is to miss the point completely.
Perhaps this is part of a larger problem. Gary Millar, who has written some enormously helpful resources on prayer, goes so far as to argue that “the evangelical church is slowly but surely giving up on prayer.”[i] The statement is shocking, but the truth of his assessment is even more shocking. Why are evangelicals giving up on prayer?
Millar suggests that life is easy for most evangelicals – perhaps too easy. Some of us lack the desperation that most Christians have experienced throughout church history. Desperation leads to prayer. We are also incredibly distracted and busy. Both are enemies of prayer. But giving up on prayer is not only a sign of evangelical weakness. It is disobedience.
Jesus did not only teach his disciples to pray – he commanded us to pray.
I think there is another big reason behind the fact that so many Christians do not pray. Many Christians simply do not know how to pray.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us how to pray.
We remember Martin Luther as the great Reformer, nailing his famous 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517 and leading the Reformation of the church. What we do not so often remember is that Martin Luther was also a man who regularly needed a haircut. We should be very glad that he did.
Luther’s barber, Peter Beskendorf once asked Luther for advice on how to pray. Luther responded by writing instructions on prayer he called “A Simple Way to Pray, for Master Peter the Barber.”
Luther pointed his barber to the Lord’s Prayer, and he offered this incredibly helpful advice:
“So, as a diligent and good barber, you must keep your thoughts, senses, and eyes precisely on the hair and scissors or razor and not forget where you trimmed or shaved, for, if you want to talk a lot or become distracted thinking about something else, you might well cut someone’s nose or mouth or even his throat.”[ii]
We get Luther’s point immediately. We must learn to pray, and to resist distractions in prayer. Advice about cutting hair or shaving is easy to understand. A distracted barber is a dangerous barber. Luther applied the lesson well: “How much more does a prayer need to have the undivided attention of the whole heart alone, if it is to be a good prayer!”[iii]
We have much to learn about prayer, and the Lord’s Prayer is the right place to start. This is no tame prayer for safe times. This is the prayer that turns the world upside down.
So, let’s learn to pray, taught by Jesus.
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This article is an excerpt from Mohler’s book , The Prayer that Turns the World Upside Down: The Lord’s Prayer as a Manifesto for Revolution .
[i] Gary Millar, Calling on the Name of the Lord: A Biblical Theology of Prayer, New Studies in Biblical Theology , ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press/Apollos, 2016), 231.
[ii] Martin Luther, “A Simple Way to Pray, to Master Peter the Barber,” in Luther’s Spirituality , eds. Philip D. W. Krey and Peter D. S. Krey, Library of Christian Classics (New York: Paulist Press, 2007), 222.
[iii] Ibid .
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A Baptist Press article with a similar theme:
“Lord’s Prayer is ‘revolutionary’ manifesto,” by Andrew J.W. Smith, Baptist Press, February 27, 2018
The Lord’s Prayer is a revolutionary manifesto for God’s eternal reign in heaven and earth, R. Albert Mohler Jr. writes in his new book, “The Prayer That Turns the World Upside Down.”
Photo by Emil Handke/SBTS
Most people recognize the familiar refrains of the prayer Jesus taught to His disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. It’s recited at graveside services and before many high school football games. But people often don’t understand the words they’re saying, Mohler writes.
Mohler hopes readers will see the large-scale purpose of this famous prayer: The Lord alone reigns.
The words in the prayer are the “most revolutionary words human beings could imagine” in calling for God’s Kingdom to come and for His will to be done on earth as in heaven, he writes.
“With those words every empire falls, every throne other than the throne of Christ is shattered. With those words, the world is turned upside down,” Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in an interview. “That relativizes every earthly allegiance. It puts into context every political power and promises the doom of every political power.
“What we’re saying [when we pray] is, ‘I’m praying that Christ’s reign will be visible on earth right now, that the Kingdom of God will show up right now,’ Mohler said. “So take that, Moscow, Beijing, Washington, Ivy League or NCAA. There is no kingdom that can withstand His Kingdom.”
Mohler notes in the book that the church has historically stood on a three-footed stool of instruction: the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed. This book is the second in a trilogy exploring the three foundational texts, with his 2009 book, “Words From the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the Ten Commandments,” being the first installment.
The book opens with an overview of the discipline of prayer in Chapter 1, then moves to a line-by-line exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in subsequent chapters. It concludes with an epilogue about the doxology (“For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen”), which is likely not original to the text of Matthew but is still right for worshipping Christians to pray, Mohler writes in the book.
Commonly, evangelicals resist formulaic or premeditated prayers, but Mohler sees the Lord’s Prayer as providing a model for all believers to follow, just as the disciples did. Not all prayer has to be spontaneous, he said, nor is it helpful to approach God in a conversational or relaxed way. Rather, Mohler believes the church should embrace established forms of prayer like those found throughout the Scriptures — the kind of prayer that recognizes God’s reign over all things and submits to Him as both Lord and Father.
Prayer is one of the means by which Christians can commune with the living God, with the Lord’s Prayer encouraging the follower of Christ to come to God as Father and giving them a unique and intimate relationship with their Creator, according to Mohler.
“This is not an artificial kind of chatty sentimentality in which we insinuate that God is our buddy,” Mohler said. “This is the kind of communion that an earthly citizen would have perhaps with an earthly king. There is always a distinction between the king and the subject. The relationship is no less real — just now the relationship is all the more precious. Who are we that the Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth, would care about us or know us, much less want to hear from us?”
Western Christians will recite one of the central ideas of the Lord’s Prayer — “give us this day our daily bread” — without the daily uncertainty where their meals will come from, Mohler said. But when they read the Bible, Christians need to remember how most fellow believers have read it throughout the 2,000 years of church history, Mohler argued, along with recognizing that even most 21st-century Christians worldwide go hungry.
Still, “daily bread” is a metaphor for God’s provision, according to Mohler, so American believers should always rely on the Father for their daily spiritual sustenance.
One of the dominant forms of prayer in American culture, Mohler noted, is that of supplication and intercession — asking God to use His power on behalf of believers. Many Wednesday night prayer meetings become a laundry list of requests regarding the health of family members or for wisdom in decision-making. That way of praying is not wrong, Mohler said. God commands Christians to bring their concerns before the Father. But prayer is more than that, he said. Prayer is oriented toward the Kingdom of God. It is not merely supplicational; it is eschatological. It is motivated by a desire to see the world made right through the spread of the Gospel, Mohler writes.
“We are praying that we want to see persons come to know the one true and living God,” he said. “We want to see Jesus made famous. We want to see the poor taken care of. We want to see the hungry fed. We want to see righteousness prevail. We want to see mercy demonstrated.”