A Workshop on the Bible and Jesus' Workshop on Prayer
Notes
Transcript
The Bible and prayer—two of the most important tenets of Christianity.
And I want to present some insight about them by God’s power.
And I might push some buttons in both the area of the Bible and prayer.
But I want to be somewhat clear in some things,
especially since it’s my first time speaking directly to prayer
Let’s upon up our Bibles to Luke 11:1-4.
I will be reading from the NIV,
and it’s important to note that I would be reading from the NIV,
since different versions have different readings,
especially if you read the KJV.
So, Luke 11:1-4.
Remember, this book was written as Christian curriculum to help Theophilus what he has learned.
Theophilus probably learned some stuff about prayer,
and Luke is trying to help him learn about prayer,
so Luke included this story.
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“ ‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’ ”
The disciples had seen Jesus’ prayer life and were impressed.
And they also heard about how John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, had taught his disciples how to pray.
So, the disciples of Jesus asked Jesus if he could teach them how to pray.
If you ask, you will receive.
Jesus began to teach them how to pray,
And he began by saying “say”
He didn’t say,
“Oh you first need to turn off the lights,
have the worship team playing,
have a good day,
spend several minutes in the altar shouting.”
And I am not against any of these things—these things may help.
Jesus just said, “say.”
You can say this prayer, and you will be learning how to pray, according to what Jesus taught.
What are we supposed to say?
‘Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’
This sounds familiar, but it’s also different.
We know this prayer as the Lord’s prayer.
But this Lord’s prayer is different from how we probably learned the prayer.
We probably pray,
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hollowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done, here on earth as in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.
Don’t let us fall into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
That’s a bit different from the prayer we read in Luke.
Well, the prayer we read in Luke is a different from the prayer in Matthew.
The prayer from the gospel of Matthew is probably the one we learned.
As we could see in the slide, the prayers are slightly different.
There are differences.
There are several explanations why there are differences between the two gospels.
One is that these are two different times when Jesus taught how people ought to pray.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus taught about prayer during the Sermon on the Mount,
but in Luke’s gospel, Jesus taught about prayer after the disciples asked him.
Another possibility is that the authors, Luke and Matthew, took liberty in their translation and summaries.
To be honest, the authors of the Bible probably summarized much of the speeches.
And authors summarize things differently.
Also, Jesus spoke in Aramaic.
The authors wrote in Greek.
So in translation, the authors have some liberty in translating things a certain way.
So, we get why Matthew and Luke have different renditions.
It could be different prayers and different times,
and it could be due to the nature of translation and summaries.
But things get kinda weird when we look at the same passage in Luke,
but in different versions, and it says different things.
Look at the KJV translation:
The KJV’s translation is similar to Matthew's prayer.
Why does the NIV, and other translations have a different rendering from the KJV?
The answer is malicious.
The answer is not because modern translators are evil and want to distort God’s word.
No,
The answer is more technical and academic.
The answer revolves around something that I am geek about.
It revolves around textual criticism.
Who hear knew that we don’t have the original writings of the biblical authors?
We don’t have the actual scroll that Luke wrote.
We don’t have the actual document that Luke delivered to Theophilus.
But what we do have are copies.
We call these copies manuscripts, and we have thousands of them.
There’s actually this website called the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts
Or, CSNTM for short.
You can digitally see the manuscript.
Here’s one of the earliest manuscripts. This is from the book of John.
It contains John 18:26-19:1.
And through carbon dating, scholars have determined that this papyri document is from the 100s.
Just a few years after John wrote his gospel.
It’s kinda neat that we live in a world where we can access this manuscript via the webs.
It’s currently located in Oxford; I would love to go see it but it’s still cool that we could see a good photo of it online.
It’s neat that we have copies that reach all the way back then.
Papyri, the type of paper of the scribes used to copy, was commonly used back then.
We don’t have much data from then, since as you could see, the paper would not be persevered.
But anyways,
Concerning our text… What manuscripts do we have.
The most important one is the P75.
It’s papyrus, that’s why we call it P, and it’s the 75th one.
It’s pretty close to the date of composition.
This copy comes from the 3rd century
So here are some things to note.
As you could see up here, the number one says PATER, in Gk,
which is similar to the Spanish way of saying dad.
The earliest manuscript does not say Our Father.
It just say - Pater - thus, the NIV and other manuscripts just have Father,
instead of our Father.
Second, immediately after saying, your kingdom come,
the Greek goes on to say, give us our daily bread.
There is no, your kingdom come, your will be done.
And third, after saying forgive us our sins,
it immediately goes to for we also forgive, instead of as we forgive.
It’s kinda hard to read this stuff...
There are no spaces, and everything is capitalized, but I find this fascinating.
Here’s another example.
This is a century later—the 4th century.
So in the three hundreds.
And same idea.
Father-not our father.
immediately going to our daily bread, instead of saying your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And “for we also forgive” instead of “as we forgive.”
So, a hundred years passed, and the text remains the same.
This should give us confidence in the copying skills that the human scribes had.
but let’s remember, despite how smart they were, they were still human.
As you could see in the blue,
the scribe had forgotten to add “to” to the text, so he added it on the top.
“To” is the neutral definite article.
We would translate it as “the.”
So the scribe, as he was copying forgot to write it down at first,
and then added it later, when he realized he had forgotten it.
I’m sure it’s happened to us.
We wrote something and forgot to add something.
Thank God for erasers and backspace.
But back in the day, they didn’t have such things.
Let’s fast forward to the tenth century.
In this copy of the same passage, it say PATER
Father,
not just father,
it now say PATER HAMON
Which means, Our Father, not just Father.
So there is this addition in the tenth century.
And, the manuscript also added genathato to thelama sou,
which means, your will be done.
The 3rd century manuscript did not have this.
But this tenth century manuscript did.
I couldn’t fit the third point.
But here is a comparison of both of the manuscripts.
The 3rd century one, which is closer to the original composition,
and the 10th century one, which is hundreds of years after the composition.
So why is there any errors?
Well, the copying process was not inspired as the writing of the Bible was.
Translation and copying—the transmission of Scripture is a human task.
And humans err, without Holy Spirit power that was present when the Bible was written.
We mess up.
So what probably happened was that
Sometime between the fourth century and the tenth century,
a scribe inserted the other parts—the “our father” part
and the “your will be done.”
He probably had inserted it because he remembered the prayer that is in Matthew.
In the Matthew, the earliest manuscripts do include our Father.
Maybe the scribe wanted to harmonize.
We cannot be certain why the scribe inserted the “Our” to Father,
but we can speculate.
The KJV includes the Our Father and the Thy will be done,
because when they wrote the KJV, they used the manuscripts that were available and known.
And the ones that they had discovered had “Our” father.
But the NIV and other manuscripts do not include all the insertions,
because since the time of the KJV, since the 1600s, there have been discoveries of other manuscripts which are closer to the original documents.
And modern translators, committees of these Bible translations,
look and analyze all of the manuscripts
and recognize what text is closer to what the original authors wrote.
All that to say—This is why I prefer the NIV reading of the text over the KJV.
I still like the KJV.
It can be beautiful at times.
But it does fail to recognize the historical discoveries we have made in the area of biblical manuscripts.
I do my research.
If you were to ask me what version I read and study,
I would say the original Greek version.
I also look at the footnotes.
Like why we have this reading over another reading.
The critical apparatus is on the right.
And it tells me why the reading we have in the text is the chosen one.
For example, in verse two, the apparatus tells me that all of the read read
our Father who are in heaven.
But we have chosen the txt —the underlined blue—because of these manuscripts.
The Papyri 75 is a big deal since it’s pretty close to the original writings.
Now this could seem complex.
You might think that you now have to get a degree in Greek to actually know what the Bible says.
But I wouldn’t say so.
We have been blessed by God to have tremendous scholars who have worked diligently to produce the versions we have.
I look at the Greek and look at the NIV, and I feel confident in preaching the NIV, believing that you are hearing the Word of God.
So, you don’t have to read Greek to know God’s word.
The Bible that you read is the best Bible, even if it’s KJV.
I think it’s even better to a plethora of versions.
But whatever you read, is good.
Right now, the most important thing is that you start reading the Bible.
Anyways, so we are confident that the rendering the NIV has provided is what the Luke wrote.
Now that we had a small workshop on the Bible and Textual criticism (we will have a small group/class about it more and how to read the Bible during the summer hopefully),
but now that we are done with this, let’s see Jesus’ workshop on prayer.
Jesus was asked how to pray by his disciples.
There is are a lot of definitions concerning prayer.
But I think this one is pretty good.
I heard it from Ps. Eli Lopez when I went to CLC.
He said,
Prayer is the channel that God has created for people to talk with him.
I like that.
God made prayer.
And now we can talk to him.
We should not take for granted that we are allowed to pray.
---
We need prayer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor who stood up for the Jews while he lived in Nazi Germany,
He said,
Prayer is the natural need of the human heart.
Bonhoeffer also said that
Prayer is childlike communication to our heavenly father (look it up).
This brings humility. We are children.
We need our heavenly father.
And prayer is just asking him what we need.
And it’s okay to ask him.
So the disciples saw Jesus, and wanted to know about prayer.
They wanted to know how Jesus had such a good communication with the Father.
As Luke presents throughout his writings,
prayer is central to Jesus’ life
So the disciples asked,
And it’s amazing to see that the disciples had the opportunity to ask the Son of God how to pray.
Quite amazing that we have been blessed to get answer.
And to be honest, only through Jesus can we connect with the Father--
so thank God the disciples asked.
And Jesus answered them by saying when you pray, say.
I really like what N. T. Wright said on this.
And this might challenge us, but that’s okay.
It’s good to be challenged, if it has the potential to help us.
N. T. Wright, one of the most prominent scholars of our time said in his book, Simply Christian
When Jesus’s followers asked him to teach them to pray, he didn’t tell them to divide into focus groups and look deep within their own hearts. He didn’t begin by getting them to think slowly through their life experiences to discover what types of personality each of them had, to spend time getting in touch with their buried feelings. He and [the disciples] both understood the question had asked: they wanted, and needed, a form of words which they could learn and use.
Let’s be honest.
I think we are scared of saying the Lord’s prayer, and seeing it as a form of prayer.
Maybe it’s a response to religiosity and ritualism that we experienced when we were younger or the ritualism of our parents.
But Jesus believed that saying this prayer was a good way to pray.
Let me push a little bit more.
According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Jesus told his disciples not only how they should pray, but what they should pray. The Lord’s prayer is not an example for the prayer of the disciples. Rather, it is what should be prayed as Jesus taught them.
Wow.
Wow.
wow.
I just find this fascinating because this kinda goes contrary to some stuff I’ve heard.
wow.
Sadly, some of us have gone to the extreme to think that if it’s not our own words in the prayer, then the prayer is not genuine.
But man, Jesus and the early Christians didn’t think that was the case.
In the Didache, one of the earliest Christian writings, maybe even written before the first century ended,
it taught that Christians ought to say this prayer three times every day.
I am not saying that we need to be legalistic and pray the Lord’s prayer three times every day, ritualistic.
But I am saying that early Christians thought it was okay to pray the Lord’s prayer, in its exact form as Jesus presented it.
And Jesus, as a Jew, probably prayed set up prayers as well.
Within Judaism, it was a very common practice, and it still is, to pray the Psalms.
They would just pray the Psalms to God.
--
Even if we look at the Greek, one scholar said
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke 3. Teaching on Prayer (11:1–13)
The words “when [or ‘whenever,’ hotan] you pray” (v. 2) imply frequent repetition of the actual prayer.
I typically pray the Lord’s prayer twice a day (And I’ll share towards the end how I pray):
Once I wake up, and before I go to sleep.
The Lord’s prayer is actual one of the first things I can remember my mom teaching me.
I remember living on south church street.
And before I would go to sleep, my mom would come to pray El Padre Nuestro with me.
And that helped significantly.
It’s amazing what Jesus taught.
It actually works.
You do learn to pray by following what Jesus teaches us.
But it’s hard to talk about.
It might be hard to think of the Lord’s prayer as a form that we could pray, word for word.
One of the reasons is that many of us grew up in a tradition that teaches that
you need to be emotional for it to be real
that you need to shout for it to be real
that you need stand for it to be real
that you need someone “holy” put his hands on you
that you need some anointed music to properly pray.
Jesus didn’t say you needed music playing.
Jesus didn’t say you need to stand.
All he said,
When you pray, say.
Look I’m not against these things.
We all have different personalities and these things could help.
Maybe sitting down, you don’t pay attention in your prayers.
So get up.
But the issue occurs when we say that we need all of these things to pray effectively,
and then we eclipse what Jesus actually said.
Imagine if I got up and taught in one of these hyper-energy places and taught about prayer,
as Jesus taught about prayer.
People might be looking at me like low-energy or spiritually dead.
But all I’m saying is what Jesus taught.
When you pray, say.
I’m not trying to disparage other churches.
We need to be united.
But I do want to make sure that we are clear on what Jesus taught on prayer,
rather than putting our presuppositions first.
And look, I am not saying that we all pray the same.
We all have different personalities,
even churches have different cultures.
And sometimes we might have music playing and altar call/response to message of some sort when COVID stuff is lessened.
Wright said,
It’s of course true that different people will find different patterns and pathways helpful, and there are plenty of teachers who can point out the way forward for particular people and particular situations.
I actually encourage you to find biblical teachers who can help you pray better.
Feel free to look them up.
There are times when we need to hear from somebody who can speak our language,
especially in times of emotional distress.
But at the same time, I think the best way we can pray is to pray as Jesus taught us.
To say this prayer.
But just reciting this prayer feels bad,
why is that?
Believe or not, part of the reason is that culturally we have been influenced by Romanticism and Existentialism.
We need to make things ours for it be real.
We need to feel it, for it be authentic.
But that kinda create unnecessary anxiety.
The early Christians Jews didn’t feel that way.
And when you begin to think of it, it is a kind of weird thinking.
N. T. Wright said,
Part of our difficulty [with prayer] is that we moderns are so anxious to do things our own way, so concerned that if we get help from anyone else our prayer won’t be “authentic” and come from our own heart, that we are instantly suspicious about using anyone else’s prayers.
I am sure we can relate to this.
N. T. Wright continued:
We are like someone who doesn’t feel she’s properly dressed unless she has personally designed and made all her own clothes, or like someone who feels it’s artificial to drive a car he hasn’t built all by himself.
Ouch.
Imagine if we thought that someone wasn’t dressed properly because she used designer clothes that somebody else had picked.
Imagine if we thought that a guy wasn’t really driving since he hadn’t built a car by himself.
It’s ridiculous to think that.
But yet, we think we aren’t actually praying until we form every word ourselves.
It’s ludicrous.
It’s fine to pray this prayer.
It’s fine to pray this one or the one in Matthew.
It’s fine to get on your knees and say,
Father,
Hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.
It’s totally fine to pray this.
Actually, it’s more than fine.
If you pray this, you are doing great.
You are following the teachings of Jesus.
Now Jesus didn’t say how to exactly say this
Like how many times do we say the prayer.
Or how slow or fast do we say it.
Fortunately, the church has experienced different modes.
Some people pray the Lord’s prayer over and over and over,
until the prayer becomes one with their soul.
Others use it to start off their prayers.
They say the Lord’s prayer then, they pray about other stuff.
I usually say the Lord’s prayer somewhere in the middle of my prayers.
It helps gather my thoughts in words.
Others say the prayer very slowly.
They say,
Father,
breathe,
Hallowed by your name
breathe,
and so on and so forth.
I do not want you get the idea that while we are saying this prayer, our minds are elsewhere.
No, our minds should be present.
As I was preparing for this message,
I looked at what Theresa de Avila had to say.
She was a Christian who was known for her prayers.
She was a catholic nun who wanted to reform the Catholic church.
She saw the corruption that was taking place back then, the selling of indulgences and
the immorality of the priesthood.
Who knows where the church would be if Martin Luther didn’t arise but a renewal took place within the Catholic church through Teresa and her, John of the Cross.
I like reading her works because she was from Spain and wrote in Spanish.
I like reading works in their original languages.
And it’s neat to see how things developed.
Her writings are an integral part of Spanish Renaissance literature.
And she was known for prayer.
She part of Spanish Christian mysticism
I know you might think of bad stuff when you think of mystics—maybe of witch stuff.
But that is not what is meant here.
Spanish Christian mystics believed that they could experience God.
A lot of people back then didn’t think that was possible.
But Spanish mystics believed that they could experience God through careful direction,
through prayer.
Teresa was known for her metaphors of watering a garden and walking through the rooms of a castle
to explain how meditation leads to union with God.
I haven’t had the chance to read of all of her writings,
—she was super prolific.
but I found her teaching on mental prayers to be insightful.
Sometimes we pray, and our minds are elsewhere.
We shout, we blabber, and our mind is who knows where.
When we pray, our mind should be engaged with the prayer.
In fact, Teresa taught that even before praying,
our mind needs to realize who we are speaking to.
Sometimes we pray, and we act nonchalant.
But when we pray, we are speaking to the heaven almighty.
The one who created everything,
the one who loves us,
and who has saved us.
When we pray, our hearts and our minds need to be aware of this.
Mental prayer is understanding [the truths you pray]. Don’t be speaking with God and thinking about other things.
However you pray the Lord’s prayer
However you pray,
make sure you are thinking about the things at hand.
When somebody talks to you,
and their mind is elsewhere,
you could tell
and you don’t like it.
It is disrespectful.
It is disrespectful when someone comes to you and asks how you are doing but you could that his or her mind is somewhere else.
Similarly, it’s not right to have our minds be somewhere else when we are praying to God.
--
Look at the actual prayer.
N. T. Wright wrote on this prayer and said,
Like Jesus’s parables, it is small in scale but huge in coverage.
Last week, we went over a parable—the parable of the soil, or of the sower.
It was simple.
A seed falling at different spots.
But it is also complex.
The more you think about it, the more you realize that there is a lot to learn.
This prayer is the same.
The more you pray it, the more you realize there is so much we can learn from this one prayer.
Through this one pray, people had their hearts consider things that they didn’t consider.
Some people have felt that saying this prayer, slowly, and over and over, they feel like they fell into the love and presence of God,
into the place where heaven and earth meet,
into the power of the gospel to bring bread and forgiveness and rescue.
This prayer requires mental activity.
With first word,
Father
We need to think, who is this person we call father.
We’re referring to God.
I know that we might struggle with the word dad,
especially if you had a distant dad.
If you had a distant dad, I hope we can to a degree, through the love of our heavenly father,
help you be re-parented
and recognize that calling God father is saying that he is close.
It’s kinda crazy to think that we could call the creator of the heavens, father.
Like, who are we to call him father, to assert that we have a close sense of relationship.
But this is exactly what Jesus told us to say.
Through this prayer, Jesus invited his disciple to begin to look at God as Father
and themselves as children of God.
He is Father.
Together, as disciples of Jesus, we can confidently all upon God as Father.
God knows us as his children.
He knows what we need,
and like any good Father, he wants to bless us.
Don’t be afraid to pray.
Don’t think that your prayers are inadequate.
A father just wants to hear his children speak.
Pray with confidence
Before Jesus, no one person referred to God as father.
But because of Jesus, we can confidently pray to God, to our Father.
And also know that we are made into a family:
Any disciple of Jesus is a child of God.
And as a child of God, you are a brother or sister to somebody who is also a child of God.
Father.
Then Jesus said,
Hallowed be your name.
Before asking God anything, we hollowed be thy name.
Basically, that you name may be holy.
It is a praise.
Before anything else, we praise God for who he is.
Chrysostom said,
The person who would offer a worthy prayer to god should ask for nothing before the Father’s glory, but should make everything come after the praise of Him.
We first praise God for who he is.
And I think this is part of the mental prayer part that Teresa spoke about.
When you actually think through the prayer,
when you actual think about God being your father,
when you turn your attention to God,
the first thing you are going to want to do is praise him--
thus we say,
Hallowed be your name.
Then Jesus said,
Your kingdom come,
I feel like I’ve become a little expert on the kingdom.
Like whenever I have to write about the kingdom within the school,
I have plenty in the bank to write about the kingdom.
And we’ve talked about the kingdom.
You know, we have looked at the entire biblical narrative and seen the kingdom theme develop.
God wants to rule with humans, peacefully upon this world.
But humans went on bringing chaos and futility—tohu vabohu.
But God promised that he would make way to restore the kingdom of peace.
And he does through Jesus.
And Jesus invites us to pray that the kingdom would come.
It has begun to arrive on this earth,
but there is still a lot that is missing.
Praying that the kingdom comes really influences how we prayer.
In our prayers, we live in the overlap of both heaven and earth.
We are caught in between—speaking to God while we are on this earth.
There are different views on prayer.
We have pantheists—like Buddhists or Hindus— on one side of the spectrum.
They think the divine and the earth are the same.
Divinity is everywhere, including myself.
So prayer isn’t so much addressing someone else,
but rather,
praying for the pantheist is getting in tune with an inner truth and life that are found deep within your heart and the silent rhythms of the world.
This might sound nice, but this is not Christian prayer.
Then on the other side of the spectrum we have Deists.
Deist see that God is distant, he doesn’t care about us, and doesn’t listen to us.
So for the deist, prayer is sending a message that will probably might not be read.
Then we have Christian prayer.
And it’s that there is distinction between the earth, self, and heaven,
but yet, heaven and earth are coming together, through Jesus.
And as those who are in Christ, we stand in between.
When we pray, we are standing at the fault line.
Christian prayer is about being shaped by Jesus, who held heaven and earth together.
When we pray, your kingdom come,
we’re saying, mold us like Jesus, so that we can show the kingdom on earth as Jesus did.
So we can show the kingdom as ambassadors of Jesus.
We’re also praying that just as the disciples experienced God’s kingdom, by experiencing Jesus,
that we would likewise experience the kingdom.
That as many people as possible could experience victory over Satan and his kingdom,
over the power of the world,
over sin, and death, and brokenness.
And there is also an end-times type of thing that we’re hoping for as we pray, your kingdom come.
We are praying that the beautiful picture of Revelation, a time of no more tears,
that it would finally come.
that all the destructive kingdoms would be dealt with,
and that the perfect man, the son of Man, Jesus Christ would rule hear on the earth.
Your kingdom come.
Then Jesus said,
Give us each day our daily bread.
I remember one time.
I was part of a prayer meeting.
And the pastor was asking for prayer requests.
I lifted my hand and said,
I need energy.
The pastor looked at me,
didn’t like my prayer request.
Told me to go buy an energy drink,
And he went to the next prayer request.
And I get it,
my prayer request wasn’t that important.
But God still wants to hear me ask him for energy.
Asking for energy may appear to be a small request.
But give us each day our daily bread,
could also be interpreted as a small request.
Yet, God wants us to ask him to fulfill this request.
Sometimes we think that we only speak to God for the big things.
That we only ask from him things that appear to be impossible.
But no, God also wants us to pray for the small things.
Like food.
Or energy in my case.
Bonhoeffer taught,
As long as the disciples are on earth, they should not be ashamed of asking their heavenly Father for the things they need for their bodily life.
I had a great relationship with my parents.
And I know that they would want me to let them know if I needed anything.
You would want your children to tell you whatever they need.
You want to help them, regardless of how insignificant may appear.
God likewise wants to help us.
God created humans.
He knows what they need.
And he wants to provide for us.
God even provides for things that we don’t ask, out of his generosity.
Just like parents who provides a whole bunch of things the kids don’t ask for.
But parents and God likes when children recognize that only them could provide.
It feels nice to be asked.
And it’s essential that we recognize that we depend on God for daily sustenance,
just as children depend on their parents.
And it’s also important to note that Jesus taught that we should ask
for our daily bread.
In this prayer, we’re not just asking for our own bread.
For our own provision.
But we’re asking God to give daily bread to all of his children upon this earth.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Then Jesus said,
forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
We’ve been talking about discipleship often in the last couple of weeks.
It’s a big theme within Luke, and within the teachings of Jesus.
Next week, we’ll look at the cost of discipleship.
But we hear all these things about discipleship.
We need to leave the old things to follow Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus, we need love as he did.
But note in this prayer what Jesus asked his disciples to pray.
Forgive us our sins.
The only reason we would pray, forgive us our sins is if we sin.
Disciples sin.
Disciples are not perfect.
The disciples’ daily sorrow is the recognition of their guilt.
said Bonhoeffer
They, who could live without sin in community with Jesus, sin daily in all sorts of ways: they lack faith, are lethargic at prayer, lack bodily discipline, and give in to self-indulgence, envy, hatred, and ambition. So they must pray daily for God’s forgiveness.
Disciples leave everything for Jesus.
But they still fall as they follow Jesus.
Yet, disciples don’t stay down.
They pray for forgiveness.
And they will only receive forgiveness when they forgive each other’s guilt in a loving and willing way.
As one scholar said,
Jesus grounds the disciples’ request for divine forgiveness in their own practices of extending forgiveness.
To any extent, we are saying that look you have filled us with forgiveness to forgive the sins of others,
now forgive our sins.
forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And then Jesus said,
And lead us not into temptation.
Disciples of Jesus don’t just want to be forgiven.
They don’t just keep on sinning with the recognition that God would forgive them.
No, disciples also want to stop sinning.
Thus, they pray,
and lead us not into temptation.
They’re not saying that God tempts us to do evil.
God can’t lead us to evil.
But we are tempted by the flesh, by the devil, and the world.
The temptations we face as disciples of Jesus varies.
Satan knows us and knows how to get us.
He knows our weakness.
But we don’t want to fall pry to the serpent.
Thus, we ask God, that we would not be led into temptation.
This is the Lord’s prayer according to Luke.
I hope you get a sense of relief.
There is a way that Jesus has set up for us to pray.
It’s not a mysterious thing.
It’s something we can all do.
And this prayer is awesome.
It’s great.
It’s perfect.
So I how I usually pray,
well I’ve included it in your notes.
I first pray this Psalm when I wake up.
Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
Then I pray another Psalm,
Typically it’s
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
Then, I pray the Benedictus as I welcome Jesus to my prayer.
The Benedictus is Lk 1:68-79
We won’t read it, but it is a way to welcome Jesus.
Now in God’s presence, I think through the day ahead:
The work I will do, the people I will encounter,
the dangers or uncertainties I face,
the possibilities for joy and acts of kindness,
any particular resolutions I need to renew,
consider what draw me from the love of God and neighbor,
the opportunities I will have to know and serve God and to grow in view,
remember those closest to me and all for whom I have agreed to pray,
ask God’s blessings, guidance, and strength in all that lies before me.
This is where it gets personal.
Then after praying these things with God,
I collect my thoughts and pray the Lord’s prayer.
I usually pray Matthew’s version.
Then I end with this prayer that I really like from a book of prayers.
Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: we humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then I conclude with Paul’s last words to the Corinthians.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Instead of say you, I say me.
And that’s my morning prayer.
I have prayers that I pray throughout the day.
One prayer that I prayed on a very busy day was
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
Like I was extremely busy that day,
And I just needed to pray, that I need be still, and know that god is in control.
And when I prayed this,
I felt a sense of relief.
A big sense of relief.
At night, my prayer is shorter, typically.
I pray this wonderful prayer.
The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. Amen.
Our help in the Name of the Lord;
The make of heaven and earth.
You are in the midst of us, O Lord, and we called by your Name: Do not forsake us.
Then I pause in silence.
And I pray for God’s mercy,
and I collect my thoughts,
and again say the Lord’s prayer.
Then I say this cool phrase
Guide walking, O Lord and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.
And that’s that.
I don’t always follow this template.
Sometimes, I might be more impromptu.
But I do like this format.
It has worked for me.
And I learned it from somebody else.
Maybe it could help you get started.
Maybe you could find some other ways to pray.
But I hope you feel some sense of direction.
You don’t always have to be so hard on yourself.
There’s nothing wrong with borrowing stuff from other people help you pray.
In fact, there might be something wrong if you want to do it all by yourself.
I think it would be fitting today if our closing prayer is the prayer Jesus prayed.
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“ ‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’ ”