The Lord's Prayer (Week 3)

This morning, I want to share some thanks publicly for someone who keeps things running behind the scenes for us. They stepped up to the plate when I asked them to serve and have done way more than I could have expected. When others schedule can’t make it they come to our rescue and fill in.

I want to acknowledge and thank Crystal Jullierat this morning for her gracious service and express my gratitude for what she does each and ever week helping our Pre-Quest run smoothly.

Crystal would you come and join me to receive this token of my appreciation.

So many of you serve so diligently, with grace and humility, and for all you I am so grateful. We could not serve our church the way we do without you. Thank you!

THANK YOU FOR PASTOR’S APPRECIATION

Last week, Candi and I were both so blessed and surprised with the kind words of encouragement and gifts so many of you lavished on us. It was refreshing to our faith and love and devotion with you guys. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to worship with you all and be leaders in this place at this time.

And today as we talk about being thankful and continuing our series on The Lord’s Prayer with Thanksgiving just around the corner, I can’t help but wonder if you have experienced what I have. I can’t help but wonder if you have ever been at the table with friends or family when someone begins to bless the meal, thanking God but does it like this...

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Today, we are going to continue our series on the Lord’s Prayer. We have seen that when Jesus sat down to teach us on prayer, He didn’t give us WHAT to pray but HOW to pray. He didn’t gives exact words to recite. Instead, he warns us regarding the heart with which we come to God in prayer.

PARAPHRASE

Jesus says that when we pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, praying in places and in ways to simply be seen by others. We will have received our reward. But instead, allow your motives to be sifted by finding a secret place where no one will see you, except God your Father.

And when you pray don’t keep rambling thinking the more words you use the more God will hear you. God knows what you need before you even ask.

TRANSITION

Jesus reminds us that God is a rewarder. He rewards those who seek Him honestly and diligently. Those who ask will receive; those who seek will find; those who knock will have the door opened to them. He is not looking to withhold from us, but instead is inviting us into a journey, a lifestyle if you will. He is inviting us into His family, adopting us as His own, that we might join in the fellowship of all believers saying

Matthew 6:9–13 ESV

Matthew 6:9–15 ESV

9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

These first three petitions, though they focus on God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, are nevertheless prayers that he may act in such a way that his people will hallow his name, submit to his reign, and do his will. It is therefore impossible to pray this prayer in sincerity without humbly committing oneself to such a course.

We are reminded that we are a part of something, something HUGE. We are a part of a family, and our Father is God Himself, who is in heaven, but has for us a very special purpose while we are here on earth (bring God’s kingdom, God’s will to where are at).

Will you join me in letting your life be a prayer to see these words fulfilled? To see God’s kingdom come, God’s will come to earth in heavenly perfection.

This morning, we will add to the first two verses of Jesus’ teaching on prayer. We pick up at verse 11:

Matthew 6:11 ESV

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

There is a shift in the prayer where our own personal needs are addressed. It starts with a recognition of daily dependance upon God for all sustenance. The word used here can refer to actual bread as well as to any kind of food or nourishment.

Jesus has already told us that our Father in heaven already knows what we need even before we ask.

So, why do we ask for daily provision?

Why do we ask forgiveness?

Why do we ask for the removal of temptation or testing?

It is not because God didn’t know we needed these things, but rather it must be for us. God is asking us to follow this model so that we remember who is our Provider, our great Pardoner, and Deliverer.

First, we ask God for what we need right now. We recognize our complete and utter dependance on Him as the sustainer of our lives. “Give us today everything we need for the day in front of us.”

The idea of God “giving” the food in no way diminishes responsibility to work but presupposes not only that Jesus’ disciples live one day at a time (cf. v. 34) but that all good things, even our ability to work and earn our food, come from God’s hand (cf. ; ; ). It is a lesson easily forgotten when wealth multiplies and absolute self-sufficiency is portrayed as a virtue.

Carson, D. A. (2010). Matthew. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) (Vol. 9, p. 206). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Listen to what was found among the belonging of Martin Luther just after his passing:

After the Reformer Martin Luther died, his friends who came to his room to remove his corpse found a note he had scrawled sometime in his final days: “We are beggars, that is true.”

With those scribbled phrases, Luther summed up his own hard-won theological perspective on what it means to be a human being: we are all utterly dependent on divine grace alone. Our supposed merits are insufficient to win us any favor with God.

But Luther’s final sentence also expresses one of the chief themes of the Lord’s Prayer: far from being self-sustaining, we are needy creatures, reliant on energy from a source outside ourselves if we are to go on living.

We are like beggars, whose only hope for food and shelter is the compassion of Another.

When Jesus teaches us to pray “Give us today our daily bread,” He is first of all training us to see ourselves in a certain way in relation to God.

He is the Giver. We are in need of His gift and dependent upon Him in every way.

STORY: Trusting God for provision and to take care of me and my family has not always been easy for me. I remember…

Candi working an insurance job when we got married, plans were for me to work a little while going to seminary full-time until I completed graduate school. Then we would start a family and the transitions would be obvious. But when we got to that point, it wasn’t as clear as we had expected. Candi was still working, I wasn’t in a ministry at all, instead I was managing a branch for a local credit union on the university campus. And when Ellie was born there was a lot of stress because Candi deeply desired to be able to stay home and care for Ellie. We looked for so many options that we thought made sense to us on paper. Schedule wise they weren’t really going to give us that much in return. Financially it wasn’t really a landfall answer. God was walking us through trusting Him as our Provider. KICKO had approached me to work full-time as the middle and high school coordinator, but I just wasn’t feeling it. In fact, we were really involved or connected very deeply in any type of ministry anywhere. I was becoming more focused on how do I provide for my family and allow my wife to work that I was on following the call God had place on my life.

Finally, my brother approached me about a middle school pastor position at a large church in Knoxville where I had grown up and his family still attended. I applied, and in the 4 month hiring process they were down to the final 2 candidates. In the end, I didn’t get the job, but God was using those months to stir up the desires for ministry that were deep inside now covered by concern for tomorrow and how provision was going to be manifested in my life.

One thing led to another, where God released us to come on board at KICKO (which I couldn’t see myself anywhere else right now). This wasn’t the opportunity that allowed Candi to become a stay at home mom though. It was a lateral move at best, and her desire hadn’t gone away. She was reluctant to talk about having any more children because of the situation. She became pregnant with Judah, and the search only heightened for an opportunity for her to work part-time or stay at home and work.

Some of my roles began to change at KICKO, a small increase occured, but in the end we added up things on paper and it was going to be tight. But we felt peace to take the leap of faith and trust God with our provision. In those weeks, during those conversations, it was a lot to process and take in. We weren’t sure how it was going to work out, but we took that step and God knew not only the desires of our hearts but what we needed before we asked. And He allowed this process to occur the way it did when it did because He was more concerned about our hearts being fully His, relying on Him than anything else.

TRANSITION: So, God takes us on journeys to trust Him for His provision in all areas of our lives: financially, emotionally, in relationships, with our mental health, our physical health. We have to continue to walk down that path towards Him trusting that He is making something beautiful out of us and our journey.

Jesus continues teaching...

Matthew 6:12 ESV

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

“and”…the first three petitions stand alone, while the last three are linked in by “ands,” as if to say that God is our sustainer in all things. He provides in all areas of our lives. He provides provisions, forgiveness, as well as deliverance.

“and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

The word used here for debts is, ὀφείλημα, which is only used twice in the NT.

The word traditionally means debts owed or incurred, an obligation. In the OT, God used the concept of debt to debtor relationship to remind them of the slavery that had been delivered from in Egypt. The reason God insisted that no interest be gained from a debt within the community of His people was so that they wouldn’t exchange one form of slavery for another, economic slavery instead of physical.

ὀφείλημα

STORY: I don’t know if you have ever been in debt or had someone owe you, but isn’t a comfortable or fun place to be in. It is not a relationship that bears life and fruit typically especially when terms or expectations aren’t met.

The other place in the NT this word is used is:

Romans 4:4 NIV

4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation.

Abraham was justified by his faith not his works, but if he had expected righteousness because of his works it would not have been a gift but rather an obligation, something due, a debt that was given to him.

The Lord’s Prayer is the pinnacle of Jesus Sermon on the Mount. We see Him setting up the principles of the Kingdom in preparation for how we are to approach this King. Then in the sections that follow, I see correlations to these verses in the Lord’s Prayer.

“and forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.”

Forgive us God of our moral obligations, our debt that we have accrued as a result of our sin and offense because we owe you God. And in light of what God has done for us and the massive debt we owed, given forgiveness, we also forgive those who owe us, who have obligations or debt to us.

This is less of a quid pro quo, I get forgiveness because I give it (though Matthew seems to place more of weight on our receiving with our giving of the same). Instead, it is a sine qua non saying, “Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. If, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offenses of others, it proves that we have minimized our own.”

Once our eyes have been opened to see the enormity of our offense against God, the injuries which others have done to us appear by comparison extremely trifling. If, on the other hand, we have an exaggerated view of the offenses of others, it proves that we have minimized our own

You know that I see our encounter with God leading towards connecting us to one another not dividing us.

Carson, D. A. (2010). Matthew. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) (Vol. 9, p. 207). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Here, our encounter with God for forgiveness is hallmarked by how we can extend it to those around us. Our connection and interaction to God cannot be disconnected from our connection and interaction with those in His family and even those outside. Throughout this teaching on prayer, Jesus is directing us toward congruency within our life.

I sense Him saying, “Let it all add up to the same thing. Let what your heart motive add up to what you are seeking. It will certainly equal what you get out of it.”

And so it is with forgiveness, in light of what we have received we also give. From this great capacity of God passed down to us we become channels to extend grace and mercy to those in debt around us.

Matthew 6:13 ESV

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

There are a few ways this verse is traditionally understood. I will share them briefly and then tell you what I think.

First, we might see Jesus teaching us to pray that we might not be led into a temptation to sin, and asking that we be delivered from any such evil or the plans of the evil one for us to fall into the traps of sin.

Second, the word translated temptation here was almost always used as testing. Previously, in Matthew’s Gospel, we see that Jesus was tested or tempted by the devil at the end of His 40 days in the wilderness. He was both tested and tempted, but relied on God and His Word to overcome and deliver Him.

A MERGE OF THE TWO:

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 9: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) Commentary

But testing can have various purposes (e.g., refinement, ascertaining the strength of character, enticement to sin) and diverse results (greater purity, self-confidence, growth in faith, sin); as a result, the word can slide over into the entirely negative sense of “temptation.”

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 9: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) Commentary

testing can have various purposes (e.g., refinement, ascertaining the strength of character, enticement to sin) and diverse results (greater purity, self-confidence, growth in faith, sin); as a result, the word can slide over into the entirely negative sense of “temptation.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 9: Matthew–Mark (Revised Edition) Commentary

PIANO MAN

TRANSITION (to another view):

I can’t help but look at the end of these verses with a hint of attachment to what precedes and follows it in this passage.

“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where it really matter, where it really counts. Don’t get distracted by the shiny, glittery things of this life. You can only have one true love. “Seek first His kingdom.”

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Don’t be anxious about where your provisions are going to come from. Look at the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. How much more will your Father in heaven not take care of you.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we also have forgiven those who have trespassed against us.”

Judgement is not yours to give. Only God can pass judgement. And you need forgiveness yourself. Why don’t you make it your business to pass on what you need most, forgiveness. Don’t you see it (log in your eye)?

“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

I believe this very well could be attached to the forgiveness we just asked for and extended to others. There is a temptation to fall into judgment and our of walking in love, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Keep us from fall falling into judgement and living with bitterness in our hearts. Keep us from not recognizing the forgiveness that we have received and so deeply needed. Keep us from not extending to others what we ourselves have so desperately needed.

CLOSING:

God desires us to walk in complete dependance upon Him that we may see that without Him we are nothing but with Him all things are possible. He is our Provider, Forgiver, and Deliverer. And what He does for us and in us He also wants to do through us. The litmus for the reality of His work in us is how out of gratitude we are not only transformed but extend what He has given and done for us.

PRAYER

Actual Provision

Financial, Health, Opportunity/Favor,

Forgiveness

Relationships, Restoration, Self

Temptations/Testing

Help in the Difficulties of Life

Where is Judah? He is using the bathroom.

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