Praying as Adopted Children: Asking for the Ordinary
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 45:20
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· 9 viewsAdopted children pray for the ordinary: provision, pardon, and protection; thus, the kingdom of God is manifested in the world.
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Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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.
Adopted children of God pray with awe by being aware of God’s nearness and greatness, while seeking His glory and kingdom.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World: An Exposition of Matthew 5–10 The Lord’s Model Prayer, 6:9–15
The primary concerns and delights of Jesus’ follower will be God’s glory, God’s reign, and God’s will.
Notice the shift in Matthew 6:11-15 to the “earthly” realities.
The kingdom of heaven doesn’t simply have to do with “heavenly” realities.
This prayer takes us to a point of seeing all of life underneath God’s rule and reign and authority.
Praying as Adopted Children: Asking for the Ordinary
Praying as Adopted Children: Asking for the Ordinary
It changes the way we pray for dinner, family, friends, and even the way we conceive around us.
It is no small issue the ordering of our prayer lives.
If we get this backward, we rush into prayer like a frenzy.
If we get this backward, we pray more trusting ourselves then trusting our Father.
If we get this backward, we end up
Praying for the ordinary in Fatherly provision.
Praying for the ordinary in Fatherly provision.
Give us this day our daily bread,
Praying for the ordinary in Fatherly provision.
Praying for the ordinary in Fatherly provision.
Nothing in Life is Ordinary
There is nothing in this life that is ordinary.
How foolish of Creatures to think of the ordinary?
Think about an Apple for a minute.
Every apple that is made begins when a seed is placed into the ground.
It grows because a BURNING STAR in the sky gives it what it needs to grow.
It grows because the seed gets the exact amount of water needed to thrive.
It grows because it’s whole life nothing destroyed the tree as a sapling.
How foolish for Creatures to look at this object and say, “It’s ordinary”?
“I felt in my bones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false.” — G.K. Chesterton
A Deist believes God is sovereign & disengaged
A Deist believes God is sovereign & disengaged
A deist is someone that holds to the view that God exists but he does not desire to interact with humanity.
They say that,
“Sure, God exists, I know as much.”
“I am sure that God exists, but I don’t think he cares to much about people.”
They hold to a view that knows God exist’s somewhere out in the cosmos.
But they don’t really think he cares about people and especially about the intimate affairs of his creatures.
I want us to pause to consider how different the “god” of the deist is compared to what Jesus just said.
The deist thinks that god is somehow uninvolved, detached, far off, distant from his creation.
Our “detail oriented” Heavenly Father.
Our “detail oriented” Heavenly Father.
Our heavenly Father is so remarkably different from the “god” of the deist.
The God of Scripture cares about the minutia.
He cares about the details.
Laborers in Jesus Day
The way our economy works we forget that we have never lived in a society like this before.
In our day, most people get paid every or every other week.
We have laws that protect laborers.
We have a society that gives money, food, and incentives.
But in Jesus’ day, laborers were paid that day.
A person would get paid for that day and what was paid for was used for food.
Money was not generally stored up for tomorrow.
What was paid today was used to purchase for today.
Everyday you were paid, you would take your money home and use it for food THAT day.
Also, they lived in an agricultural society.
Everyone grew their own crops and they didn’t have the kind of agrarian structures we have in place today.
If there was a drought like we are in right now, then we would be in major disasters.
The request in this prayer is the word “give.”
Asking for the Lord to provide us with “daily bread” which is literally the word for
“necessary for existence”
“for today”
“for the coming day.”
The request is simply asking for the bread necessary for existence today.
It seems best to take it as it is and understand it as a request for daily bread.
We need to be provided for today, so give us the necessary provision according to Your Sovereign hand.
Give us exactly what we need to fulfill your purposes and kingdom coming by living in step with Your will.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
1 Corinthians 4:7 (NET 2nd ed.)
What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not?
Have you ever worked with someone who is extremely detail oriented?
They can be challenging for me to work with because I am always thinking big picture.
But what’s amazing about our God is He not only thinks big picture, He also rejoices in the minutia.
He cares so intimately for His creatures that He delights in hearing the minutia.
He delights in hearing the details.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World: An Exposition of Matthew 5–10 The Lord’s Model Prayer, 6:9–15
We have taken his gifts for granted; and then when they begin to dry up we complain and, call into question the very existence of this beneficent God.
Christian — There are no ordinary gifts from the hand of our heavenly Father.
Praying for the ordinary in restored relationship.
Praying for the ordinary in restored relationship.
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Praying for the ordinary in restored relationship.
Praying for the ordinary in restored relationship.
The request is simple enough, “forgive me my debts.”
The idea of forgiveness though it is at the center of Christianity is often muddled in our mind.
Take something like debt forgiveness which Jesus gives an example of in Matthew 18:21-35.
The lender gives our money.
The person uses the money but cannot pay it back.
Judicial vs. Relational forgiveness
Judicial vs. Relational forgiveness
Before we get into the request we need to make a distinction without a separation here.
We need to distinguish between “judicial forgiveness” and “relational forgiveness.”
Judicial forgiveness would be the kind of forgiveness that has been accomplished in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
A believer who has been justified or declared righteous by faith has already been justified.
Their forgiveness is not more justification.
Rather it should be understood as a relational forgiveness.
We need daily relational forgiveness from our Heavenly Father.
What has to happen then?
In our society we have weird things like “debt-forgiveness” which is really debt transfer.
Or bankruptcy which means you cannot pay what you owe.
But in a society without all of these structures, what would be required is repayment or forgiveness.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Repayment is simple enough.
If you cannot pay what you owe, then you are now that person’s slave to work off your debt.
So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
But forgiveness is unique and amazing.
And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
It means that the person who gave the money will absorb the loss.
Forgiveness is absorbing the wrong done.
Repayment or forgiveness, those are the two options.
And Jesus makes clear here that each of us our debtors.
We are debtors to our Heavenly Father.
We have wronged and offended the God of Heaven.
When we act contrary to the way God made us, we don’t wrong each other directly.
We wrong our Heavenly Father because we lie about His character.
We were made in His image and ever sin we ever commit is a lie of what He is like.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
So one of the central things in the Lord’s prayer is forgiveness.
It’s as common as eating.
I don’t often think about it but I know that tomorrow I will need food.
I also know just as much that I will need forgiveness.
I need relational forgiveness as much as I need food.
Nobody could wrong you as much as you have wronged God.
Nobody could wrong you as much as you have wronged God.
You have never met someone that you yourself would not become just like them apart from the grace of God.
Apart from the grace of God, you fall into any number of sins.
Apart from the forgiving and empowering grace of God, you have more in common with a prisoner on death row than any ideal version of yourself in your mind.
But notice the second part of this prayer request.
It’s a request but there is also an implied expectation here.
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
This request for forgiveness in Matthew 6:12 takes on both a request and a implied expectation.
The implied expectation is that I will forgive my debtors, or those who wrong me, in the same way I have been forgiven.
Matthew Structure
“forgive us like we forgave”
Forgive me as I extend forgiveness.
Forgive me as I extend forgiveness.
The posture of heart of the Christian is that the forgiveness has already been granted.
We should treat one another as though the forgiveness has already been extended.
There is a request in this just like there is an implied action.
“Help me forgive others who have wronged me, like I have been forgiven.”
“I need your help to enable me to forgive as I have been forgiven.”
Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Do you see how contrary unforgiveness is in the Christian community?
I always remember my mom would say things to us children growing up,
“I hate that you kids don’t get along.”
And I wonder how much more grieved our Heavenly Father is by his blood bought adopted children that do not get along.
They share the same Spirit within them.
They have been adopted into the same family.
No longer enemies with God or one another.
But yet continue to hold resentment and unforgiveness toward each other.
We cannot earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving others.
Quite the opposite.
We forgive others because we ourselves have first received it.
Just like love, we love because we have first been loved.
So also we forgive because we have first received forgiveness.
Refusing to come for forgiveness and Fatherly Discipline.
One of the Fatherly disciplines that God does to His children that are walking in sin is to remove a sense of His presence from them.
If there is a truly justified individual that refuses to forgive another, the reality is that the relational nature of God is withheld from them as a discipline.
God does not punish His children in the same way that say unbelievers will be punished.
Unbelievers are punished under the just wrath of God.
Whereas believers may experience for a time a lack of fellowship with the Father.
And for some this feels like a forsaking of their relationship entirely.
It’s helpful at this point to jump down to the further explanation that Jesus gives regarding forgiveness.
One of the reasons this may have been there is because of the confusing nature judicial vs. relational forgiveness.
So Jesus clarifies what He means.
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.
The one who forgives his brother is the one who has been forgiven.
The one who refuses to forgive a brother reveals that he has never truly been forgiven.
We don’t earn our forgiveness with God by forgiving others.
We forgive others because we have been forgiven.
Matthew–Luke Comment
After disciples experience grace, they manifest grace. But those who show no grace demonstrate that they have never tasted it.
Isn’t it interesting that Matthew 6:13 is between two sections on forgiveness?
“[T]he temptation primarily in view is the temptation to be bitter, the temptation to maintain a veneer of true religion even while one’s secret attitudes are bursting with the corruption of grapes gone sour.” —D.A. Carson
But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
The same servant who was forgiven the large sum (10 K talents, 200,000 years of work) went after the person who owed him (100 denarius, 20 weeks of work) and choked him to get his money back.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Praying for the ordinary in protection from the evil one.
Praying for the ordinary in protection from the evil one.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Praying for the ordinary in protection from the evil one.
Praying for the ordinary in protection from the evil one.
The request here is to be protected from temptation.
The kind of temptation that Jesus is likely referring to here is a temptation similar to what He experienced earlier in Matthew 4:1-11.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
The Lord Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil.
The Father did not tempt the Lord Jesus of evil here.
That was squarely on the shoulders of the evil one.
Yet the Lord was sovereignly over the temptation that even Jesus experienced in his earthly life.
“Allow us to be spared circumstances that would tempt us to sin” —ESV Footnote
“Lead us, not into temptation, but away from it, into righteousness, into situations where, far from being tempted, we will be protected and therefore kept righteous.” —D.A. Carson
There is a war right now that is raging.
There is a war that we are often oblivious to, but Jesus promises is happening as we speak.
You have an enemy right now that would like nothing more than your destruction.
1 Peter 5:8 (ESV)
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Your “accuser” or “enemy” stalks around like a lion seeking to devour.
And he is seeking to devour you.
This is not some abstract theological truth.
This is a real, serious as a heart-attack reality.
But Jesus doesn’t tell us,
“Oh no, you should be shaking in your boots.”
There is a scene in Pilgrims progress.
Christian is going on his journey to and arrives at the Porter’s house.
Outside the house there are two fierce lion’s that sent men like “Mistrust and Timorous (Cowardly)” running in fear.
But when Christian got to the bridge the lions stood on, the man Watchful told Christian…
The Pilgrim’s Progress The Third Stage
Fear not the lions, for they are chained, and are placed there for trial of faith where it is, and for discovery of those that have none: keep in the midst of the path, and no hurt shall come unto thee.
The lions were chained and Christian could not see the chains but only the ferocious teeth.
The Christian prays in a similar way.
Knowing full well the danger.
But even more so remembering the gracious and Sovereign hand of our Heavenly Father.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
Christian, your ability to be kept from the evil one doesn’t depend upon you.
Our Lord Jesus prayed for it as much.
Matthew 6:13 (ESV)
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Again we see the request that Jesus tells us to pray for mingled with the warning.
The warning is,
“Don’t be tempted by sin!”
The request here is simply that God would rescue us from literally “the evil.”
Protect us from the evil one.
Excellent Example in the Book of Job
Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
Satan accuses God of playing divine favorites with Job.
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?
Job feels like he has some kind of unwanted confinement from God.
He feels like he has a confinement that makes him regret his whole life.
“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?
God’s description of the situation is remarkable different than Satan’s assessment which is that of an accuser.
It’s even different than Job’s understanding of it.
God describes that He is always hedging in the “proud waves” that represent this archetypal image of evil.
He hedges but in the way that God hedges in for the purpose of life and order in the created world.
“[T]here are no belligerent cosmic forces beyond Yahweh’s authority.”
Now in some of your Bible’s it needs to be noted that there is a longer ending to the end of Matthew’s Gospel.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Now you may be think,
“Oh no, they’re changing the Bible!”
But we need to realize that anytime we see a change like this we need to recognize why it is there.
Changes like this are never done lightly.
Internal manuscripts as well as external sources from as early as we have show that this ending did not exist.
Arguably why this ending was added is to make this prayer flow better for Sunday morning gatherings.
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
Adopted children pray for the ordinary: provision, pardon, and protection; thus, the kingdom of God is manifested in the world.
Adopted children pray for the ordinary: provision, pardon, and protection; thus, the kingdom of God is manifested in the world.