ACT 7: CHRIST - SCENE 5: PRAYER

BASIS

PATERNAL

Our Father informs our access.

When you approach anyone, whether you know it or not (and most of the time we don’t know it), you make implicit assumptions about the basis on which you’re approaching that person. When you approach anyone for an exchange, anyone for an interaction, anyone for a give and take, you have to have some basis on which you’re approaching that person. Intuitively, the basis determines the level of the exchange.

Jesus Christ is showing us here that fundamentally there are only two basic ways you go to God. When we think about this, these are the same two basic ways we deal with each other. What are those two ways? Most relationship can be categorized as business or blood. In a business relationship, the basis is “I have something for you.” In a family relationship, the basis is “What I am to you.” In a business relationship, the basis is performance. You perform for me; I perform for you. In a family relationship, the basis is a commitment.

There are two different ways you can live in somebody’s house. You can live in somebody’s house as a boarder or as blood. A business relationship is a conditional one. A family relationship is unconditional. The business relationship is based on what you have … performance. A family relationship is based on what I am. One is conditional; one is unconditional. One has to do with your doing; one has to do with your being. The business relationship says “if you perform you’ll be accepted”. The family relationship says “since you’re accepted you should perform”.

Jesus says, “You can either approach God on a business or blood basis.” The words of Jesus prior to the Lord’s prayer teach us how to know if our approach is business or blood. Business prayers or pagan prayers are filled with many empty phrases.

How do you know whether your prayers are pagan or Christian? How do you response when your prayers are not answered? Pagan respond with anger or anxiety. Anger says; “I’ve upheld my part now give me what I requested.” Anxiety say; “I’ve not upheld my part therefore I’m getting what I deserve.” Either response proves that your relationship with God is the business/boarder kind. At a fundamental level your relationship with God is a business one. It’s based on your performance and his. You have your duties; he has his duties. Don’t you see the difference? A religious person says, “God, come into my life. Be my landlord. I’ll do my part and you do yours.” A Christian is someone who says, “God, come into my life. Be my Father. I am not worthy of your favor, but Jesus Christ has lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died, and as a result, on the basis of what he has done, be my Father.”

Babbling is a word that means empty, cold, impersonal, mechanical. We’re not talking about eloquence here or articulation. Is your prayer life anxious, cold, impersonal, mechanical, or warm, confident, loving, and personal? Is your relationship with God that of a boarder or that of blood? Do you see why this is so absolutely critical? Jesus does not start the Lord’s Prayer, “Our King,” though he is. He doesn’t start the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Creator,” though he is. In fact, he doesn’t even start the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Friend.” Do you know why? Because even friendship is a hybrid of business and family. When you get to a friend, even friendship is based to a great degree on your performance.

“Our Father,” those two little words control your relationship with God. Jesus use of “Our Father” is emphasizing the essences of what it means to be a Christian. Jesus teaches us the process of salvation; “you must be born again”. Paul teaches us the position of salvation; “you have been adopted”. We are born again because we are in need of a new nature. We are adopted because we are in need of a new name. We are brought in through the new birth. We are kept through adoption.

Our Father instructs our attitude.

Prayer is about asking not acquisition.

Matthew 6:8 ESV

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Jesus knows what we need therefore prayer must not be about acquisition. I know what you Bible readers are thinking. Doesn’t James say

James 4:2 ESV

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

If Jesus teaches us that prayer is about asking not acquisition and James tells us that we have not acquired because we have not asked. God has ordained the end; “I know what you need” and he has ordained the means “you must ask to acquire”. Acquisition is the response of our asking not the reason for our asking. Asking Our Father for what he knows we need stirs our affection for Him.

It was your Lord who put an end to long-windedness, so that you would not pray as if you wanted to teach God by your many words. Piety, not verbosity, is in order when you pray, since He knows your needs. Now someone perhaps will say: ‘But if He knows our needs, why should we sate our requests even in a few words? Why should we pray at all? Since He knows, let Him give what He deems necessary for us.’ Even so, He wants you to pray so that He may confer His gifts on one who really desires them and will not regard them lightly. - Saint Augustine

Our Father knows that pagan prayers pursue possessions while the prayers of His people are a pursuit to possess Him. True prayer is not asking the Father for what we want but asking Him what He wants. Prayers primary purpose is not to get from Our Father but to get more of Our Father.

Prayer’s aim is not acquisition it’s dependence.

At the end of verse seven Jesus uses the phrase “many words” to speak of anxiety. Anxious prayers are devoid of dependence. They reveal a heart not resting in the Fatherhood of God. Prayer strips anxiety of its power because it is an act of weakness. If Scripture had not commanded us to pray our very weakness would have suggested it. If you believe you are too strong to pray then consider Jesus. No one was stronger and yet no one prayed more. Prayer is our declaration of dependence!

Prayer is not so much submitting our needs to Our Father but submitting ourselves to Him. Prayer is the most tangible expression of trust in God. Prayer puts Our Father’s work in his hands and keeps it there.

Father, what you will, where you will, when you will.

Lord, we know not what is good for us. You know what it is. For it we pray.

BEGINNING

PRAISE

John 12:28 ESV

Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

We hallow his name by living a life that displays that he is our Father... Luther was right. We best hallow God's name when our life and our doctrine are truly Christian. When we pray, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name," we are dedicating ourselves to lead lives that reverence all that he is.

There is nothing insufficient in God that he needs our worship. Rather, he wants it; he wants us. The command is an invitation. The duty exists for the delight. We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.

Praise produces proclaimers.

BACKBONE

PLAN

The orientation of “The Lord’s Prayer” reveals to us its objective, reorientation. Our hearts are bent inward and not upward. It is not natural to turn our eyes toward Jesus but ourselves.

The opening words of “The Lord’s Prayer” are tone setting. There is nothing that reinforces our humanity more than prayer. You typically don’t find atheists in foxholes because life has a way of reminding us of our humanity.

Prayer is a natural response to an experience that reminds us of our humanity. Most people pray 911 prayers . We don’t pray more than we do because we don’t believe we are as human as we are. God’s don’t pray. They’re too powerful. They’re too wise. Only humans pray because they are too weak and also foolish.

Jesus, in Gethsemane’s Garden, prayed, “not as I will, but as you will.” If God the Son prayed this way, how much more do we? Jesus was a man of prayer. He did not need any experience to press Him into prayer. He never ceased to pray. Gethsemane’s Garden shows us a clear picture of His humanity. Matthew’s first-hand account paints a compelling composition of His humanity using powerful adverbial and adjectival strokes. Jesus, fully God and man, is experiencing the depths of His humanity and His response, prayer. Not just any prayer but a prayer which he had prayed every day of His life, “not as I will, but as you will.”

If Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, lived a life of submission, how necessary is it that we live in like manner. The Son was equal in all respects to the Father. Yet He willingly submitted to His Father.

Jesus never used prayer as a means to get His Father to submit to His will but a means by which He submitted to His Father’s will. Prayer is the mechanism that bends our knee and will to the Father.

This line of The Lord’s Prayer concludes the opening half which orients itself around the word “your”. You must be centered on “your” before you can ask for “our”.

PROVISION

What does it mean to ask for daily bread? Whatever is necessary to sustain physical life.

The Greek word order of “give us this day our daily bread” reads like a line Yoda would say to Luke Skywalker, “Our daily bread us give this day.”

Jesus, the wise master, has designed His model prayer to lay waste to all our selfish schemes. His objective in His orientation is a reorientation.

Each section of this prayer turns our hearts toward “Our Father.” Every syllable targeted to weaken our knees — everything specialized, weaponized, toward dependence.

Only God is self-sustaining, and when we attempt to live in such a manner, we rob Him of His glory. Weakness is strength in the kingdom of God.

Only God is self-sustaining, and when we attempt to live in such a manner, we rob Him of His glory. Weakness is strength in the kingdom of God.

It is the object of one’s trust that determines its strength. Our object is “Our Father.”

Psalm 33:20–22 ESV

Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

Nothing is more beautiful than a child fully trusting in their Father’s word. A child trusting in their Father’s name brings glory to him and their highest good. Most children never worry about their daily needs. Why? Their experience has taught them day in and day out their parent(s) place clothes on their back and food on their table. Children rest as children should in their parent(s) goodness and greatness.

In this prayer, God is fostering in us a daily dependence upon himself. No other line in the Lord’s Prayer so sharply challenges the direction of today’s world. Our world teaches us to pursue financial security and independence. Scripture encourages us in Proverbs 6 to pay attention to the ant. She prepares for the future as an expression of trust in God, not to the exclusion of trust in God. The Lord spoke to Joseph about storing up for a future famine that would strike Egypt. There is nothing wrong with planning for the future, but it is wrong to make total independence your consuming goal. Christians should live in prepared dependence. We should be like the ant, prepared while living like birds, dependent. Whether we are rich or poor, God wants us to depend upon him “daily.” He wants us all to pray for our daily needs, and he wants us to daily thank him.

Beginning in verse 19 of this chapter, Jesus further elaborates on our need to pray for daily bread. Our bent is toward accumulation and anxiety. Jesus' teaching is bending us towards trust and tranquility.

Jesus has provided us with weaponized words designed to destroy our anxiety, unhappiness, and depression. His words pave a path that leads our souls into prosperity. “Give us our daily bread” is the language of rest. We work, like the ant, with a light burden, and we trust, like the bird, for He has taken our heavy yoke.

PARDON

Jesus oriented “The Lord’s Prayer” to reorient our hearts because our hearts fluctuate between order and disorder. We need daily ordering, and this is the Lord’s design for prayer.

In this section, Jesus wants to reorient our relationship with Our Father and fellow man.

Forgive is a word used to indicate the sending away of an object or person. The Old Testament provides a clear picture of this action in Leviticus 16:20. On the Day of Atonement, one goat was offered as a sin offering, while a second goat would symbolically have the sins of the people placed on him and then released into the wilderness.

Forgiveness is a voluntary release of a person or thing over which one has legal or actual control. It means to abandon, to leave behind, to be done with to go on to other things.

Forgive is a verb in the aorist active imperative signifying that the action to be carried out effectively and with urgency. Forgiveness carries an expectation of exhaustive and expediency.

In preparing for this sermon, I came across a story concerning TV personality Erin Andrews. A man named, Michael Barrett, secretly filmed Andrews in her Nashville Marriott hotel room in 2008. He went on to post his inappropriate video online. Barrett was arrested, plead guilty and in 2009 began serving time in prison. In a 2017 interview, Meagan Kelly asked Andrews if she could ever forgive Barrett for his actions. Without hesitation, Andrews replied, “No, never! I have to relieve it all the time. It has shaped who I am as a person. It messed with my family, and you don’t get any pass for doing that.”

Medical science tells us that forgiveness is necessary for mental and physical well being — all types of health issues such as heart attack, blood pressure, and depression are associated with unforgiveness. Forgiveness weakens our immune system’s ability to fight off disease.

Later in her interview, Andrews revealed a recent diagnosis of cervical cancer. Consider but don’t conclude that Andrews's cancer could be related to her now almost decade long unwillingness to forgive.

Jesus teaching on forgiveness is not directed toward physical but spiritual health, though our obedience does provide an indirect benefit. Jesus does not want us to forgive for the sake of our endocrine or lymphatic system but our soul. Forgiveness is not a matter of health but heaven and hell.

Jesus designed this section of the Lord’s Prayer to preserve our salvation and to prove our salvation.

PRESERVES OUR SALVATION

Praying “forgive us our debts,” reinforces a dominant design in the Lord’s prayer, dependence. We are incapable of paying off an incalculable debt.

Many have asked, “why must Christians continually ask for forgiveness when they are completely forgiven?” Our initial request is to the Judge of the universe, asking him to reconcile us to himself. Our subsequent request is to Our Father, asking for restoration. Sin causes relational issues. In Psalm 51, David candidly shares sin’s relational impact. In verse 2, he says that it soils the saint. In verse 3, it saturates the mind. In verse 8,12, it saddens the heart. In verse 8, it sickens the body. In verse 10, it sours the spirit. In verse 13-15, it seals the lips.

Jesus demonstrated the answer to this question when he washed his disciple's feet.

John 13:5–10 ESV

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”

Jesus teaches us to daily petition the Father for He is forgiving. You are never closer to the grace of Jesus Christ than when you confess your sins to him. As Judge, God is eager to forgive sinners, and as Father, He is even more zealous to keep on forgiving His children. “Thou art a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness.”

The Lord’s Prayer is a daily reminder confirming our Father’s commitment to us. A prayer designed to anchor a heart that is prone to drift. A prayer purposed to preserve our salvation — a petition of preservation.

PROVES OUR SALVATION

Our new birth experience establishes an expectation of forgiveness towards our fellow man. When we ask God to forgive us, we declare to him that we have forgiven those who are indebted to us. Furthermore, we say to God that there is no bitterness, no spirit of unforgiveness, in our hearts.

Matthew 6:11 sets the forgiveness standard, which God follows. We establish the pattern in how God deals with us. When you pray this prayer, you are saying, “O God, deal with me as I deal with other people. Deal with me as I have dealt with others.”

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

While a missionary in Georgia, John Wesley met General Oglethorpe. In one conversation, Oglethorpe informed Wesley, “I never forgive.” To which Wesley replied, “Then, sir, I hope you never sin.”

The basis of forgiveness is the truth that God in Christ has forgiven us, not on what is fair. You cannot reconcile the words forgiveness and fairness.

Once our eyes see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. Jesus taught us in Matthew 18 that to withhold forgiveness proves that we are not of his kingdom.

You are never closer to the grace of Jesus Christ than when you confess your sins to him. You are never more like Jesus than when you forgive those who have sinned against you. To err is human, to forgive is divine.

Jesus commands all those who follow him to forgive because sin is natural; forgiveness is not. A non-christian can forgive for they bear God the Father's image. Yet their forgiveness doesn’t make them a Christian. However, a true follower of Christ can't withhold forgiveness. It is impossible. If your life has experienced forgiveness, then your lifestyle is forgiveness.

Two truths are evident in Scripture for those who claim Heavenly citizenship; the forgiveness of personal sin and the forgiveness of those who sin against you.

You can forgive others and not be forgiven, but you cannot be forgiven and not forgive others.

"Forgive us our debts AS we forgive our debtors." A completely forgiven sinner must completely forgive.

When we forgive, we enter into a small experience of Jesus' life. Jesus absorbed all the punishment due our sin. When we forgive, we abandon our rights to punish those who sinned against us. Jesus does not forget our sin for he is omniscient. He no longer holds our sin against us and we should treat others likewise.

PROTECTION

PROACTIVE PRAYING

Do not lead us into the place of testing where a solicitation to do evil would tempt us to sin, but deliver us from the Pernicious One.

The Greek language uses one word interchangeably for testing and temptation. Such variables often confuse students in their understanding of a particular text. In his paraphrase, Wuest is extremely helpful in enabling us to see this variance.

he book of Job and the life of Jesus will clarify this murky message. Is Job being tested by the Lord? Yes, “have you considered my servant Job.” Is Job being tempted by Satan? Yes, “curse God and die.” Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Jesus had to be tested and tempted as we are to substantiate his claim as Savior.

Testing and temptation are not in contradiction; they are concurrent, most often happening simultaneously.

Trials or tests are necessary to prove what is in us and to show us how far we have come and yet to go. Our Father’s purpose in testing is wholly constructive, to strengthen us and help us move forward.

If testing is good for us, then why are we taught to pray, “Lead us not into testing.” Why petition for protection from something beneficial? I will provide three reasons as an answer.

First, whenever God tests us for our good, Satan, “the tempter,” tries to exploit the situation for our ruin.

Why should we petition Our Father for protection from testing? The pressure we experienced can be so great that we flee from our circumstances. Jesus began His Gethsemane prayer with “Father, remove this cup.” Yet He endured under pressure so intense that blood seeped through his pores onto the surface of His skin. Testing/temptation is no picnic!

We should petition Our Father for protection because we are weak and vulnerable in spiritual matters. The sneaky snake is far to willy for fallible followers of Christ. Those spokespersons of Christ who have fallen from great heights serve to remind us to pray, “Lord, if possible, no testing or temptation!” Trial/temptation may be our lot, but only a fool will make it his preference.

Praying, “lead us not into temptation,” isn’t a request for the removal but the reduction of temptation in our lives.

How many of us daily ask our Lord to keep us from trial and temptation? How many trials and temptations have we endured that were avoidable had we need Christ teaching on prayer.

POWERFUL PRAYING

The word evil can mean evil or evil one. It reminds us that evil that lurks on the outside as well as within.

Jesus knew from his wilderness experience how mean and cunning Satan is and wished no one to underestimate him. Christ's victory in the wilderness does not deputize Christians to live as spiritual vigilantes. Christ never commanded His Disciples to seek spiritual confrontation for their adversary continuously prowled seeking consumption not confrontation. Our prayer should be defensive, “lead us not into temptation,” or delivering, “but deliver us from evil.”

As we live for Christ, our lives will experience sufficient encounters with the devil and his demons; thus, another compelling reason to pray.

Christian, you have an adversary who is always prowling, so make your petition for deliverance to your advocate who is always praying.

Jesus prayed for us concerning this very need in

John 17:15 ESV

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

Paul affirms Jesus prayer in

2 Thessalonians 3:3 ESV

But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

Our deliverance from the evil one comes from the power of petition, not in the power of our person.

While we need deliverance from Satanic assaults, our greater need is deliverance from the evil that remains in us. It is remaining sin that forms favorable conditions for Satanic attacks.

Remaining sin spawns all kinds of inclinations to do something other than Our Father’s will and to love something or someone more than Him. Always and everywhere, remaining sin seeks to lead us astray.

The Anglican Prayer Book reveals the graveness of our danger in its cataloged prayers concerning temptation.

Lord, deliver us from all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil. From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy. From envy, hatred, and malice, and all unkindness. From fornication, and all other deadly sin; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

All the evils listed, in the Anglican Prayer Book, flow spontaneously from the fallen human heart. Satan may be their ringmaster, deciding in what order they shall come on for their performance, but he does not have to inject them into our system; they are already there. Sin, for the most part, works by deceit. Blindness, deceits, and hardness of heart are keywords describing sin’s methods. Envy, hatred, and malice are keywords describing sin’s manifestations.

Let us heed Christ’s Gethsemane admonition,

Matthew 26:41 ESV

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

We use Scripture to kill sin, and we use prayer to keep us from situations where we are prone to sin.

Praying comes with an advisory label; The answer to this prayer will come at a time and in a manner that I deem to be most prudent.

Ask anything

Answered prayer is not an indication of our merit but Our Father’s mercy. Don’t you dare limit your Father in your asking or His answering. Our Father answers prayer in the best way—not just sometimes, but every time. Things happen which would not happen without prayer.

The richness of God’s Word ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.

Believe boldly

Prayer can do anything that God can do. There is nothing to big to ask of him. It is God’s business to decide if it is good for me. It is my business to obey him. Prayer does not enable us to do a greater work for God. Prayer is a greater work for God. Believe boldly but never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer.

God has declared the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). Our Father commands us to pray for it is the means which brings about the end. Prayer is a partnership with God in His planet-sized purposes.

Continue Contently

God's silences are His answers. If we only take as answers those that are visible to our senses, we are in a very elementary condition of grace. Keep praying, but be thankful that God’s answers are wiser than your prayers!

Rest yourself in the Fatherhood of God.

Remember, if you knew everything that your Heavenly Father knows you would answer your prayers as He does.

Luke 11:9–13 ESV

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”