Focus: Prayer
Function: To Help the Congregation See
how important prayer is to worship.|
Form:
Intro:
Let us pray together the Lord's prayer.
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. Forgive us our sins, as
we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us
from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
Amen.
How do we say those words? I
was a young minister, and I was concerned about how well the worship flowed, I
was concerned about how many esses were spoken together, so I always instructed
the congregation to use the words debts and debtors. One person questioned me
about the use of the word debts. He said “it sounds like you're going to the
bank.”
Several people ask me about the proper words for the phrase. Do you
know what? God doesn't care! It isn't about the words and the forms, it's about
the heart.
This is a prayer about God's honor and glory. It's a prayer about
God's kingdom coming on the Earth as in heaven.
It was, after all, Jesus who is going around saying it was time for
the Father's name to be honored, for his kingdom to be on earth as in heaven.
Jesus came to bring good news. God's kingdom on earth is good
news for the world! There is healing for this sick, grace for the sinner, hope
for the widow and the orphan, freedom for prisoners, and the promise of
salvation for everyone who believes.
God's kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven, is a kingdom where every
one is brought back into God's family. This is also pretty much what
Christianity is all about.
Therefore, the prayer is a way of saying to the Father: Jesus has
caught me in the net of his good news. The prayer says: I want to be part of
His Kingdom movement.
I want to be part of his bread for the world agenda, for myself and
for others. I need forgiveness for myself, from sin, from debt, from every
weight around my neck and I intend to live with forgiveness in my heart and in
my own dealings with others.
Now notice something. In this prayer, at the heart of this prayer, we
commit ourselves to live in a particular way, a way we find difficult.
And because we live in the real world, where evil is still powerful,
we need protecting and rescuing. And, in and through it all, I acknowledge and
celebrate the Father's power and glory.
Prayer is submission to God. An important act of submission. Prayer is
us telling God that we need Him. It is us reminding ourselves that we are not
independent. It is us telling God that we believe.
And the Lord's prayer is us, committing ourselves to live different
than the world around us.
This prayer is a prayer of ultimate trust.
In it, we make the request of, and promise to, God that we will not
live in fear. We tell him that we trust him. We trust Him with everything. His
promise is to make sure that today, we have what we need. Living by faith is
trusting Him for TODAY and not letting fear grip our possibilities of tomorrow.
I remember, 25 years ago, living as a traveling salesman. I covered
Southern Indiana, Kentucky, and parts of Tennessee. Most of the time, I was
able to receive 700, WLW. I loved the shenanigans of Gary Burbank in the
afternoons. And I listened to the morning guy, he didn't seem as extreme as he
is now. Anyway, one day he was talking about personal finances and savings.
A woman who sounded like she was still in her 20's called in and told
the man that she felt insecure because all though their $250,000 house was paid
off, they had $600,000 stashed away already for their 3 kids college funds and
they had over $500,000 in emergency cash in case of a rainy day, she still
didn't think they had enough to feel secure. She said she would not be happy
until they had saved $2,000,000.
I am not exaggerating her numbers. I was appalled.
This prayer, the Lord's prayer says: “give us today our daily bread.”
It is a confession that we live by faith. It is an act of trust for us
to say to God: “we will let you care for the future.”
It changes us. When John the Baptist began to preach the people were
convicted by his messages. They came to him. John said: “if you have 2 coats,
give one to someone who has none.”
But our culture says, you better hang on to that second coat, you may
find yourself in trouble and need it.
The prayer “Give us this day our daily bread” is a prayer of trust
that today, we will live in the moment with God and rest in Him. Today. We will
not let fear of the future grip us.
You all should sit with our deacons when we discuss giving away our
love fund money. There is no hoarding it for a rainy day. They are quick to
give, because they know that God will supply the needs that we have for
tomorrow.
This prayer is a commitment to another way of living. It is a
commitment to trusting God for the future.
And of course, there is the whole question of forgiveness. Since we,
in the affluent culture of North America are pretty sure that we are not going
to starve to death, most of us have that security for today's bread. So for
us, forgiveness becomes one of our
bigger issues.
I am not going to pick on the rich. God loves everyone. God still
loves the rich, the powerful, the beautiful and the wealthy. But the poor and
the oppressed have always been close to His heart. God says that whoever mocks
the poor, mocks God (Proverbs 17:5).
Because God is love, He promises to stick up for the powerless. God promises to
judge people who harm other people. Because the Bible calls hell a place of
utter darkness and loneliness, and at another time, a burning fire pit, I don't
know what hell is exactly. But I know that God loves justice and
hell is God's loving and fair judgment on behalf of all the oppressed.
We have promises from God that first, He knows how to avenge evil and
second, He will (Romans 12:9).
He promises it. And, at the same time, He commands us to let Him do the job of
revenge. As Christians, vengeance belongs in the hand of God alone. Not us.
That is why forgiveness can be hard. What if we forgive someone and
God does the same thing? What if God's concept of justice for us is much more
merciful than ours?
What if, instead of getting revenge on our enemies, God chooses to
bless them?
If we let go the idea of vengeance, what guarantee do we have that they
get their punishment?
Don't beat yourself up if you are feeling this way. I am not going to
shame you for having those feelings.
I have three boys. And the older two were always trying to strengthen
the metal of the youngest, to toughen him up. And, I know that they did it
because they loved him. I know that because I am the youngest of 4 brothers and
there were a lot of things that happened that my mom never saw.
But there were times when I as dad had to step in and discipline the
older two because they may have gone to far. If I never stood up for the
youngest, who at the time was the weakest, then the youngest child would have
reason to believe that I did not love him. The younger child would have felt
like he was Cinderella with wicked older siblings.
But that isn't God. And because God loves the oppressed and the
oppressor, he does fair punishment.
God loves our enemies. God loves them as much as He loves us.
God never gets revenge. When I punished the older boys, it wasn't
because I loved the younger more than them. Nope, protecting the one while
punishing the other was an act of love toward both of them.
When we let God deal with our enemies, then God does what is best,
sometimes with punishment, for them.
But we don't see as God sees.
We are hurting. We want to see God punish them, because we want to
know that God loves us. So don't beat yourself up about needing vindication. We
all need to know that God loves us enough to protect us.
Now this gets deep. Because sometimes God is dealing with whole
nations, and sometimes God lets evil go in order to prove to a nation, or a
person, that they are indeed wicked. God proves Himself right in all of that.
And sometimes we believers are the recipients of that evil. We do not know the
cosmic struggle. Job had no idea of what was going on in heaven when Satan
attacked him.
How do we trust that God is doing the right thing? For us? For our
enemies?
He is.
This part of the prayer is important. It is a way of life. This whole
prayer is a way of life. Jesus says: “if you want to be forgiven, then
forgive.” He makes it simple. And in Matthew, this is the only part of the
prayer that Jesus chooses to explain. Jesus wanted to make sure that he wasn't
speaking in some sort of metaphor when He made that claim.
Prayer is indeed an act of submission. Because in that prayer of
forgiveness, we say to God: “God we trust you to vindicate us, forgive us and
deal with our enemies.” We trust you to do it with love.
We pray: “Your Kingdom come.” Here is the big difference between being
a part of God's Kingdom and the World's kingdom.
The members of the worlds Kingdoms seek revenge. The members of God's
kingdom seek what is best, both for themselves, for their neighbors and for
their enemies.
What is best for our enemies.
This prayer. This prayer where we are asking God to let the events in
our lives transpire according to the heavenly plan instead of the worldly plan
is a way for us to submit to God.
We pray: Your will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
We are not praying, your will be done as long as it fits with my
plans, goals and dreams. In this prayer, we are submitting to God's plan.
Period.
This prayer teaches us how to be Christians.
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