C, Maundy Thursday - The Lord's Prayer #7 - Matthew 6:11 "Give us today our Daily Bread"

This is the last sermon in the Lenten series and as you can see by the diagram, we come to the crux of the Lord’s Prayer.

From the outset, theological language scholars struggle to know what the Greek adjective “daily” actually is.  There are several possibilities such as: give us this day the bread of existence; give us this day the bread for today; give us this day the bread for tomorrow; or give us this day the bread for the future.

Within the context of the Sermon on the mount, Jesus talks about the things we need for survival, saying…

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Matthew 6:19–21 ESV)

And, “…if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”  (Matthew 6:30–34 ESV)

Every day has enough of its own trouble, so we pray to our Father, “give us what we need every day.”  So, what do we need every day from our Father who is in heaven?  Or put better, “What does God require of us every day?”  What does God require of you if every day has enough of its own troubles and deceptive treasures?

Jesus highlights the troubles of the day, as working for treasures that leads your heart away from the true treasures of heaven, as well as being anxious and distracted in one’s desire to have what one decides to be enough of these treasures.

It’s here you’re called out of trusting yourself, back to trusting OUR father in heaven.  You are called to know that Jesus not only teaches God’s children to pray this prayer, but has been praying these petitions for you, and on your behalf before the Father.  He has proven himself 100% faithful to the Father, even unto death, and is now raised in victory over death, and intercedes on your behalf, before the Father, for your victory over death.

Our Father in heaven, Jesus the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit want God’s kingdom, power, and glory, to be your eternal reality in community with them.

For this to happen, God gives us access to him through his holy name, to call on him, to deliver us from every evil within and from without.   Having begun the work of moving us from evil to holiness, he continually seeks to lead us away from all kingdoms, which lead to evil and death, to his kingdom.  This is a kingdom of holiness and peace, set apart for you to be with him in all his power and glory.

While we are here on earth, he forgives us our sin.  It is his responsibility and pleasure to do so!  Because he is a steadfast loving God, we have a right to receive his forgiveness and a right to be able to forgive others.  He gives us the freedom and the will to accept that responsibility of passing his forgiveness onto others. 

As Christians, or, children of a loving God, we give the right to others to receive our forgiveness.  When we struggle to forgive, God gives us the responsibility to ask him to help us forgive as he has forgiven us.

If these are not enough troubles for each day, then we can add on what we need to eat, wear, and sleep.  But as we have heard he wants us to seek first his kingdom and the treasure of his holy righteousness and will.

Each day it pleases God that we ask him for the bread to sustain us now, tomorrow, and forever!

In fact, when we pray for our daily bread, the Lord’s Prayer names the treasure or bread of eternal life in our praying for deliverance from evil into the holiness of God’s name.  The Lord’s Prayer names the treasure or bread of eternal life which leads us from the temptation of building our own kingdoms into his kingdom of peace and sabbath.  The Lord’s Prayer names the treasure or bread of eternal life which restores in us the will of God, so, in prayer we can confess our sin, praise him for our forgiveness, forgive others, and confess our unity as his children through our common forgiveness of sins.  These are our daily bread. 

Therefore, our daily bread and true treasure of the heart is Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ gives us himself in this prayer when he gives us the words to pray it.  Jesus’ prayer, our Lord’s Prayer to his Father and our Father, is the word of God given to us from he who is the Word made flesh.  The Lord’s Prayer is taught by Jesus, the source of grace, who fulfils grace, at the cross!  The Lord’s prayer is both treasure from the mouth of God, and treasure in the ear of God, for all who receive it from Jesus, believe it in the heart, and pray it to the Father with the mouth.

If it’s our Father in heaven’s good pleasure to give us eternal rest in his kingdom of power and glory, how much more will he give us our daily bread each day of our troubled life on earth?  Therefore, Jesus tells us to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and his righteousness, his treasures, and everything we need for this life, like, food, clothing, and shelter will be supplied by our Father who loves us.

If God would go to such lengths to provide for your salvation, by having his Son die for you, and raise him, why would he then not provide the lesser things for you? 

Furthermore, why would Jesus, who faithfully died for you, mandate for humanity on Maundy Thursday, a new covenant to receive his body and blood for the forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation?  As well as command us to do this eating and drinking of his body and blood in remembrance of his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, if he would then go on to not give us the things we need for this life? 

Also, why would Jesus tell his disciples and then after his resurrection and ascension, send the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth, give us understanding in his word, engage faith within us, creating the will in us to do the greater work of confessing our sins, now that he has gone to the Father and prays ceaselessly for us, if he wasn’t sustaining us in this life? 

And why would the Holy Spirit move us to baptise in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and believe in our baptism into God’s kingdom, if he weren’t going to lead us through this kingdom of life, and away from all its troubles that end in death?  Only then not to raise us from death into his kingdom of eternal life, peace, and holy community!

Every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer you are in community with the Triune God, glorifying him in his presence and fulfilling your function in creation with all others who believe and pray.

Every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer you pray a Holy Spirited lifegiving prayer, because you are allowing God the Holy Spirit, to turn you from your helplessness, and place you in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and he in you.

Every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer you are forgiven and fed on God’s holy eternal living bread. 

Jesus Christ is our most treasured and holy daily bread.  Amen.   

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, let all your gifts to us be blessed, blessed are you our daily bread, may the world be clothed and fed.   Amen.

C, Midweek Lent 5 - The Lord's Prayer #6 - Matthew 6:10b,12 "Forgiving them on Earth"

Your will be done on earth – as we forgive those who sin against us.

Part two of God’s will is for his will to be done on earth.  This is his horizontal will.  We covered his vertical will, in part one last week.

God’s vertical will, is done in heaven when he forgives us our sin.  Put another way, God the Father makes himself responsible to humanity, by finding a way that all might be restored to a right relationship with him.  This is God and humanity, coexisting in peace with each other, in a community of tranquillity and peace, as there was before the fall in the Garden of Eden.

For God’s will to be fulfilled in heaven he sent Jesus Christ to live the perfect life as a human being.  Despite bearing the nature of God the Son, he put his rights aside as the Son of God, and faithfully lived under the responsibility of God the Father as a created Son of Man.  He was faithful to the Father, even unto death.  Never losing faith, never losing hope in God who would redeem him.

God raised Jesus to his right hand in victory over sin and death.  In his faithful death,  he bore our guilt and sin, in his innocent loss of all human rights, when he was nailed to the cross.

It was Jesus’ right to suffer for our sin!  It was his right to be lifted up in love for you.  In doing so he not only gave us the right to become children of God, through the forgiveness of sin, but he died sharing the responsibility of the Father.

God the Father at the fall made himself responsible for the salvation of humankind.  He promised to send a Saviour, who would crush the head of the snake under his heel.  Saint Paul speaks of this verse in Genesis three when he says to the Romans, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”  (Romans 16:20 ESV)

We are children of God because of Jesus’ joy in putting aside his human rights, for yours and my eternal rights as holy adopted Sons of God.  Jesus made himself responsible to you in this life, by also sending the Holy Spirit to walk with you.  He does this to uphold your rights as children, so you and I don’t slip back into demanding the rights of self-righteousness.  But rather as God’s children we carry our crosses, bearing the rights of others, as it was Jesus’ right to die for us.

What are these rights?  These are the rights to forgive others, as we have been forgiven. 

Jesus takes our rights seriously, and we know this because he has given us the Holy Spirit, to be our helper. 

This right to forgive each other, is the will of God on earth.   Our right to forgive, is the responsibility lived and written in the Word of the Gospel, the good news of God’s responsibility, and our rights!

Our right to forgive has got nothing to do with a higher power born of our own doing!  Rather, it is solely based on forgiveness given to us as pure gift.  Likewise, our right to forgive others, has nothing to do with them showing some sort of better inclination towards us, to receive our forgiveness.  Our forgiving others is our right, born in the responsibility, good pleasure, and love of God, flowing through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God knows how to forgive sin!  It’s his will on earth for us to know how and why we forgive sin too!  Jesus joins the vertical with the horizontal, being the Son of God and the Son of Man.  He serves God as his faithful Son, by living as a faithful servant of humanity.

We too, being adopted as Sons of God, now function as types of Jesus Christ.  But you and I do so in a way that is greater than Jesus Christ.  We not only can forgive as he forgives, but we must continue to be forgiven, unless God ceases to function as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Recorded in Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus himself says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”  (John 14:12 ESV)

Here we have the two sides of the coin of being a Christian,  “Confession of Sin, and forgiveness of sin!”  Jesus gives you the right to confess your sin and the right to forgive others their sins!  Or put another way, the Holy Spirit bears the responsibility of working confession within you, and your forgiveness of others.

But, if you are like most other Christians, you struggle with confessing your sin and forgiving others.  For the most, we don’t even see a fraction of what we do as being sinful, let alone confess it.  But when we come to seeing the sin of others, we easily see sin, but find it very difficult to forgive it. 

But our right to forgive, in the horizontal sense, is bound to the vertical direction of God’s love and forgiveness.  God the Father comes down in his providence of humanity, God the Son comes down in his redemption of humanity, and God the Holy Spirit comes down in his help of humanity. 

God comes down and finds us helpless!  But he comes down because he knows we are helpless!  Therefore, he comes down to take you by the hand and help you.

Returning to John 14 again, Jesus tells us how we are able to do greater things once he goes to the Father, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.  If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.”  (John 14:12–19 ESV)

As children of God, we live as Jesus lives, because he lives.  As Jesus forgives, we forgive!  We also confess because Jesus now lives to forgive! 

When Jesus finishes teaching the Lord’s Prayer in his Sermon on the Mount, he goes onto give a footnote regarding forgiveness saying, “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.” (Matthew 6:14–15 ESV)

Jesus hits home with the full force of the Law here, and it sounds frightening.  What is Jesus saying to us?

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was preached and recorded for the Jews.  Matthew’s Gospel is a catechism for Jewish believers, teaching them that through the Law no one can achieve righteousness.  If one thought they could, here Jesus extends the Law, making it obvious that no one will ever achieve righteousness under the Law.  That is, except him!

Jesus alone fulfilled all righteousness required from the Law, having every right to accuse us, but instead he champions the right to forgive, so we can live.  He neither accuses us or excuses our sin, he binds the sin and sets the sinner free.

You now have that freedom, and with it comes your right to forgive others.  We like Jesus, neither excuse the sin, nor accuse the sinner.  We pray to God the Father, for the Holy Spirit to give us the will on earth, to forgive as we have been forgiven.

After the cross, we, together with believing Jews, look at the Sermon on the Mount and cry out to God, naming his responsibility to help us forgive as we have been forgiven.

Therefore, we pray and demand, with the very demand he has given us to pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” “You have forgiven us Heavenly Father, now give us the will to forgive others!”  

God will give you the will to do so!  Why?  Because he sent Jesus to die for your sin, and the Holy Spirit to make you holy in his forgiveness!  And because he would fail to be God, if he did not fulfil his promises made through sending Jesus and the Holy Spirit!

Let us live in peace, knowing you neither have to accuse others, nor excuse their sin.  It’s God’s good pleasure, that we pray individually, and, as the body of Christ, his church on earth, to bind each other’s sin to the cross and loose the sinner. 

It is God’s responsibility to bind our sin and loose us!  And it is our right to loose other sinners and bind their sin, as Jesus has bound our sin and set us free.  Pray to your Father in heaven to give you and me the will to joyfully do this.  Amen.

On Maundy Thursday we conclude the series on the Lord’s Prayer with the centre kernel of the prayer.  We learn what the Holy Spirit does in us when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread." 

C, Midweek Lent 4 - The Lord's Prayer #5 - Matthew 6:10b,12 "Forgiving us in Heaven"

 Your will be done in heaven – Forgive us our sins

Tonight, and next week we focus on the petitions “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.

We will split these petitions into two parts, as we peel off another layer of the Lord’s Prayer, to see how the Holy Spirit brings us to the Father, through Jesus Christ, as the gap is bridged between our evil and the Father’s holiness.  And next week, we will examine God’s will on earth being done when we forgive each other.

But first a clarification in the word order of the text.   The English translation does not help us much with the progression of the Greek text, which actually reads, “Let become the will of you, as is in heaven also on earth.”  In the English text, God’s will on earth comes before his will in heaven.

However, the Greek version of the forgiveness petition reads much the same as the English, reading, “And send off (or forgive) to us the debts (or sins) of us, as also we have sent off (forgiven) the debtors (sinners) of us.” 

Therefore, tonight we focus on God’s relationship with us.  Theologically speaking, here we are dealing with God’s will being done in the vertical.  This is how he repairs the breach between himself and us, so we can have a relationship with him as our loving Father.

In our society today everything is geared to encourage us to follow what’s pleasing to us.   God’s will is what pleases him.  So, what does God want from us?  Or better asked, why are we here on earth?  What is our purpose, why do we exist? 

Today we have a society in deep depression over these very questions.  Left to our own efforts, understanding and feelings, we look into ourselves and see foolishness and despair.  Society lives not knowing what or why it lives.  It also dies not knowing why it dies, where it’s going, or why it’s going to experience death.  Faithlessness and hopelessness, is leaving many to question their purpose, leading to fatalistic living and chaotic dying, in the darkest possible way.

When one looks into their heart, they see what Jesus says comes out of the heart, and they see they are defiled by the commonality of their humanity. 

Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20–23 ESV)

Many are pleased with these things in their lives.  But when the things that please, no longer please, many lose hope rather than turn to what pleases God the Father.

So, what pleases our Father?  Last week we heard that his kingdom is coming, and we need to be led away from all kingdoms that tempt us away from his kingdom coming to us.

It pleases God when his kingdom comes to us, and we are not tempted to believe otherwise.  When we come into his kingdom, we get back what humanity lost in the garden of Eden.  We get our relationship with God, so we can once again receive from him and worship him for doing so.

In our humanity there is no way we will ever come to the decision that we need to receive from God and glorify him and worship him to fulfil our function or purpose as humans living on this earth.  Rather we are without fear in God, without trust in God, and are overcome by desires to please ourselves.  However, God the Father is pleased to come to us and implement his will of forgiveness amongst us.

It pleases God to come to us through the perfection of Jesus Christ who completes the fulfilment of the Law.  Not only does it please the father but it also pleases Jesus Christ, whom we are told in the book of Hebrews, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God”.  (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

Jesus’ joy was to please his Father.  We hear testimony of this when, in the Garden of Gethsemene, he prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.  Remove this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will.”  (Mark 14:36 ESV)

It was Jesus’ joy to take the blame for that which is our shame.  Likewise, even while suffering horrendous pain from the injuries that would lead him to suffocate and die a torturous death, Jesus said to his accusers and killers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34 ESV)

And to the criminal who rightly was suffering for his crime, and said to the other crucified criminal who railed at Jesus, “‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’  And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’  And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”  (Luke 23:40–43 ESV)

Jesus came to fulfil the will of God.  As the Apostle John says, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:11–14 ESV)

God’s will is to forgive us through Jesus Christ.  When he does this the vertical relationship is restored.  Jesus fulfils the first table of the Law, the first three commandments from the Ten Commandments. 

It was Jesus’ pleasure to have no other Gods than our Father in heaven.  It was Jesus’ pleasure to glorify God’s name and not use it in vain.  Instead, he was faithful unto death.  And Jesus kept the Sabbath holy in his life and in his death.  Jesus did this in joy, it was our Father’s will, and this pleased our Father in heaven!

God is pleased to forgive.   God the Father does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. 

 Through the prophet Ezekiel, God tells the exiled Jews three times, he hates death, saying, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23 ESV)

“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:32 ESV)

“Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)

God wants nothing more than to forgive you and bless you with his presence.  Jesus has come down Jacob’s ladder and gives us access to God, by being lifted up on the cross.  This is the vertical reconciliation and God calls you to believe it.

He does not want us to try building towers to him.  Humanity has tried this before and still God had to come down and see what was going on at Babel.

Now we are reunited as one language in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit showers us with Pentecostal blessings.  Now, you and I, can stand together, before God the Father believing, and receiving from him, the forgiveness of our sin.

We can ask our Abba, Father, praying, “Your will be done, not my will!  Forgive me my sin, help me to believe I am forgiven, and need not try to earn my forgiveness.”

We now live in the knowledge of Jesus Christ! Our purpose is restored.  We can praise our Father in his kingdom, for his power and glory!

This is God’s good and gracious will and it pleases him when we know who we were created to be and do, what he created us to do.  Amen.

Next week we focus on our horizontal relationships when we forgive each other through the freedom given in Jesus’ forgiveness of us and how the Holy Spirit makes the Father’s will, our will.

C, Midweek Lent 3 - The Lord's Prayer #4 - Matthew 6:10a,13a "Lead us into Your Coming Kingdom"

Matthew 6:10a,13a   Your kingdom come … Lead us not into temptation.

After our Father in heaven has shown us his holiness, made us holy, and sent us back out into his world, having been made holy by the blood of Jesus, we go with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming. 

What a beautiful promise we have, despite all the transient kingdoms of this world, an eternal imperishable kingdom that’s coming by God’s gracious mercy and will, to all who believe in him.

In actual fact, his kingdom has already come to us, it is coming to us, and it will come to us as promised. 

Our Father’s heavenly kingdom has come to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  His kingdom has come to us, through the water and the word of our baptism into Christ the King’s death and resurrection.

The kingdom daily comes to us through the word of God as the Holy Spirit deposits the kingdom within us and guards it for Jesus’ and our sake.  And because we have received the kingdom by the work of Jesus at the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to Jesus, we can call on our Father, just like a little child runs with open trusting arms, to his or her daddy.

Because the kingdom of God is with us, in us, and eternally around us, we can tell our Father all things with which we need help, both good and bad.  We have no need of fear of rejection when we confess to him all our failures, looking for forgiveness for all disasters we have brought on ourselves and others.

The kingdom of God will also come to us in the future.  We live with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming, despite having to travel the way of death, as a result of sin.  But the promise for us, is that the death we will experience, won’t be a death of eternal separation from God, but one in which we will be transformed into holy heavenly beings. 

What that is we do not exactly know.  But we wait with eager expectations knowing that the old, will be done away with and finished.  We will see Jesus in all his glory, and we will see ourselves for whom God originally intended us to be.  You will see the new you, that which for now, God has hidden within the sinfulness of your human flesh.  All who have died trusting in Christ will see their completion in Christ, which even now the Holy Spirit is depositing within.

Our Father’s kingdom is holy.  He is holy in his kingdom.  We are made holy for his kingdom, we are being made holy for his kingdom, and we will be made holy for his kingdom.  At this point in time, we know and live in holiness by faith, and in hope we look forward to our holiness being revealed, once our earthly death strips us of our sinful nature.

Coupled within the Lord’s prayer, place alongside the promise of the heavenly Father’s coming kingdom, is the plea for us not to be led into temptation.  These temptations are temptations to seek, find, or build for ourselves different kingdoms as well as being deceived into believing God’s kingdom is not for us, or not coming for us.

The petitions, “your kingdom come” and, “lead us not into temptation”, are petitions for the working week. 

As we go to work on Monday we pray “your kingdom come”.  We go to work each new week with the will, not to work for ourselves a contrary kingdom, to the kingdom of God.   But we go bearing the kingdom of God, so others might see something different in us, and we might be given the opportunity to be the conduit, through which God’s kingdom can come to them.

But we also go, knowing because God is giving us his kingdom,  he also sends the Holy Spirit with us, to lead us.  We go out from God’s house each week with faith.  Not our faith!  But faith given by the Holy Spirit, faith in Jesus Christ having been raised from the dead, who now sits at the right hand of God the Father in his kingdom.  This faith comes from hearing the word of God.  Therefore, the kingdom also comes when we hear the word of God!

We go out into the kingdoms of this world knowing, like Jesus, we will encounter many trials and temptations.  But as we go, we do so, praying for him to lead us.  We are being led out from God’s house in faith, knowing our destination is back in God’s house next week, where we once again will be rested and restored, fed, and forgiven.

There is a temptation that God’s kingdom is not coming which lead many to live a fast life of working for the weekend.  This kingdom usually ends in hangover, but worse it also leads to fatalism, violence both sexual and physical, depression, self-destruction, community chaos, emptiness, and hopelessness.

The faith with which we go out, is also intertwined with hope, because of the father’s love for us.  Faith gives us the means to live with Christ in our day to day lives.  Likewise, hope helps us to die with Jesus, in our day to day lives. 

When there is no hope in Jesus, humanity is ultimately overcome with the hopelessness of death.  But the sinful self, seeks to trust in its own blind principles, and impotent powers.  The old Adam is constantly wooed and seduced by the powers and principles of the world.  Behind this is the devil with all his powers and principalities.

So, when God seeks to kill things in us like pride, self-righteousness, vain glory from our goodness, lust, jealousy, hatred, greed, and other passions of the flesh, the old Adam within, the human spirit, fights against God killing these things. 

The old Adam is overcome by temptations of the things God seeks to kill within us.  Through enticement by the world, and the devil, the old Adam is led to choose kingdoms of its own doing, while rejecting the one holy kingdom of God.

However, all contrary kingdoms to God’s coming kingdom, are houses of cards.  They are thinly veiled kingdoms of hopelessness.  But the devil knows, if he keeps us in the darkness of this deception, our hopelessness will become eternal.  Our hope in false kings and fake kingdoms will take us to death but not through it!

For us, though, we go out into the kingdoms of this world in faith, bearing Christ to a world that’s losing its hope.  You and I are a “faithful presence” of God’s kingdom coming to those who need God’s kingdom, but for whatever reason are not receiving it. 

We are those who are being led from temptation, into repentance, through forgiveness, and into the coming kingdom.  We are witnesses of weakness, demonstrating the hope we have, through the daily deaths we suffer, where we allow ourselves to die, day by day, for Jesus to live in us, and through us.

We endure deaths like, aging, loss of abilities and confidences, bearing of false witness against us, slander, bullying, rejection, loss of property, depression, and destitution.  We also suffer when we recognise the poverty of our spirit, so we can confess our sin.  All kingdoms must die so we can see God’s kingdom coming in all its power and glory.

Finally, our physical death comes too.  But this is the final glorious coming of the Father’s kingdom for those who have allowed the Holy Spirit to drown them in the death of Jesus Christ and raise them to a new life in Jesus Christ’s resurrection over death. 

Faith will lead us out into this last week here on earth, just like all the other weeks.  However, this week will end, once and for all, having had our faith and hope realised when we open our eyes to the eternal house of God the Father, and see Jesus seated at his right hand.  We will see God’s glory streaming with pure unadulterated love, from the throne of his kingdom having come.

Then we will worship forever, that our Father’s kingdom has come, and we have been led by the Lamb of God and the Holy Spirit, into the power and glory of our Father’s kingdom.  A kingdom of eternal peace, joy, and love.  Amen.

Next week we hear our Father’s will in heaven is to forgive us our sins, and we will hear how he does this and continues to do this.

C, Midweek Lent 2 - The Lord's Prayer #3 - Matthew 6:9b,13b Luke 11:13 "Deliver us from Evil into Holiness"

“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!” (Luke 11:13 ESV)

Hallowed be your name… But deliver us from evil.

We have an Almighty God, who is our Father in heaven.  He transcends all of creation and the earth.  He is more powerful than the power humanity can collectively muster on earth.  Those who have had opportunity to see his glory, and that of his risen Son, fall down in reverence and fear in his presence.  Yet he wants nothing more than to be in fellowship with us.  He has created us out of his power and glory, to join him in his kingdom, and worship him in his power and glory.

But how can we who are evil come into his glorious kingdom without repercussions?   This Almighty God—who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, present everywhere, inside and outside of time, perfect in every way, in patience, generosity, and sinlessness—is holy.

Jesus died to bridge the gap between evil and holy; he is the Christ, the Messiah who redeems us through his death.  But how can he deliver us into the Father’s holy kingdom and presence when our being is embedded in evil? 

When the disciples got a glimpse of the glorified Son of God at transfiguration, they were afraid and perplexed; they did not understand or know how to approach Jesus’ holiness. 

When Saul was confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus, he too recoiled and was blinded by the glory of the risen Christ. 

So too was the Apostle John.  He shared a special relationship with Jesus in his ministry and is call “the one whom Jesus loved”.  But we hear in Revelation, he fell at the feet of Jesus as though dead when Jesus appeared to him on the island of Patmos.

If Paul and the Apostles react this way, those who knew and walked with the man from Nazareth, how are we to come into God’s presence?

The Introduction of the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father and the doxology form the outer layer of Jesus’ prayer.  The Holy Spirit teaches us that God the Father is transcendent and present inside and outside of time.

Now the Holy Spirit leads us from this heavenly eternal transcendent reality and teaches us how Jesus joins the great divide between his holiness and our sinful nature and deeds, which Jesus rightly says, “makes us evil”

The essential nature of God’s Spirit is holy, so the Holy Spirit works to bring us to the glorified holy Son of God and our holy heavenly Father.  This work is spelt out by Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer and fulfilled in his death and resurrection.

The Holy Spirit makes us holy, by delivering us from evil into the holiness of Jesus.  Like a courier the Holy Spirit delivers us.

Martin Luther says it best in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed.  He says, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church day after day he fully forgives my sins and the sins of all believers. On the last day he will raise me and all the dead, and give me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.” 

The Holy Spirit is the great doer and shaker of the Trinity.  He has been sent by God the Father and God the Son, to bring us to the Son so we can receive and believe the Gospel.  This gift makes you and me holy and keeps us, keeping on in Jesus. This gift is God’s Holy Word and hearing it creates faith.  In Romans ten we learn, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  (Romans 10:17 ESV)

The Holy Spirit works faith so we as individuals and as the collective body of Christ remain in Jesus, pray his prayer and other prayers in his name.  The Holy Spirit also fights against all evil within us, and that which works from outside us tempting us to reject God and his holy gifts and live without him.

Living without God or making ourselves God is the evil that leads to all evils.  And the Holy Spirit works tirelessly to deliver us into the bosom of God’s mercy and the holiness of Jesus.  

Jesus was clothed in the weak flesh of humanity with all its desires, he resisted the devil, and pressure from those around him to please them rather than the Father.  He was weak as we are weak, yet without sin.  But despite his perfect life, bore the evil of our flesh on the cross, and was delivered into death.

So, the Holy Spirit leads us to pray, “deliver us from evil”.  We can be reassured we are being delivered from the evil of ourselves into the holiness of God’s kingdom, power, and glory.  We are being delivered from the powers and principles that demonise us within from day to day.

We are being delivered from the evil of this world that comes to us through others, and the many gods we have created for ourselves. These are the evils to which our sinful selves naturally gravitate towards because of the Old Adam within.

And we are being delivered from the devil and his entourage of powers and principalities, that are overcome and completely powerless to the name of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in which we pray, deliver us from evil, into the holiness of Jesus’ name.

After Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray the Lord’s Prayer, he continues encouraging them to be consistent in the power of prayer.  He says, “…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.” (Luke 11:9–10 ESV)

Then he says, “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!” (Luke 11:13 ESV)

If God the Father would send his Son to die for you on the cross, and he wants you to be with him in his kingdom, so you can worship him and glorify him, he will certainly give you all the assistance your need to be delivered from all evil into the holiness of Jesus’ name! 

Pray for the Holy Spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to deliver us from all evil. Amen.

Next week we continue the series on the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come… Lead us not into temptation”.

C, Midweek Lent 1 - The Lord's Prayer #2 - Matthew 6:9, 1 Chronicles 29:10b-13, Psalm 145:10-13 "We join with Jesus in his Prayer"

Our Father in Heaven… for the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever.  Amen. 

Last week at the Ash Wednesday service, we began learning about Prayer.  Throughout this Lenten Season and on Maundy Thursday we look at the Lord’s Prayer and its petitions.

While Jesus was on earth, he spent much of his private time in prayer.  Full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was led out to quite places to pray.  When we peruse the Gospels, we hear that he prayed.  Sometimes, he prayed in public, to demonstrate it was not his power healing the person, but rather he was submitting to the power of God.

We too can submit to the power of God in prayer.  And when we do, we judge correctly the three realities of prayer…

1) We were originally created to be in fellowship with God.

2) Since the fall we are weak and helpless.  But, because of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father, we are now “blessedly helpless”.  

3) All our right prayers are Holy Spirited prayers. 

Although Jesus was the Son of God, he gave up his authority as the Son and took on the weakness of humanity.  In doing so, he became the archetypal Son of all humanity, the Son of Man.

Jesus glorified God in his fellowship with God the Father in prayer.  In his healings, those around him also glorified the Heavenly Father.  And, when others sought to glorify him, he avoided the opportunity for them to do so, not letting it happen.

But Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit throughout his ministry.  He joyfully praises God when the seventy-two disciples returned praying, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.  (Luke 10:21ESV)

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10: 22 ESV)

Hear how this prayer of praise becomes teaching.  A little later on he teaches about the Holy Spirit and how he teaches, saying, “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say,  for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”(Luke 12:11–12 ESV)

The Holy Spirit teaches us what to say and what to pray.  Jesus full of the Holy Spirit taught the disciples what to pray.  Through his word to the Apostles, in the Written Word of God, he teaches us who have been filled with the Holy Spirit what to pray.  In our weakness we need the Holy Spirit to lead us in what to say and what to pray.

Today, we focus on the first thing and the last things the Holy Spirit teaches us and leads us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer.

Our Father in Heaven… for the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever.  Amen. 

The introduction comes straight to us from Matthew 6:9.  The Lukan equivalent begins simply with, “Father”, in Luke 11:2.  However, the doxology of the prayer is nowhere to be seen in the prayer that Jesus gives. 

Before we go discarding it from the prayer, we need to realise, what this doxology is, and from where it comes.  We must first return to Jesus’ prayers and ponder the heart of Jesus.  It has long been held that the Lord’s Prayer summarises the entire Psalter of the one-hundred and fifty Psalms.  The psalms that were written down by Kings David and Solomon, other temple authors, and the prophets, are the prayers of Jesus inspired in these men and written down long before Jesus was incarnate in flesh.  But once in the flesh he prayed the very prayers he inspired them to write.

Prayer fulfills God’s desire to be in fellowship with humanity, and we glorify him in that fellowship.  The Holy Spirit leads us in glorifying the fellowship of Trinitarian love with us, and within us.  We glorify God with praise and thanksgiving. 

We find this language of glorification right the way through the Psalms, and we find it in the words that come from Jesus’ lips.  We also hear it come from the lips of those who praise God, when they witness the acts of Jesus, while he moves amongst the people of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, as well as the gentile surrounds, he visited.

To narrow the doxology to one place in the Psalms, we hear the Lord’s Prayer doxology, most clearly in Psalm 145:10-13…

All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you!  They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power,  to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendour of your kingdom.  Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.  The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.  (Psalm 145:10–13 ESV)

Outside of the Psalms we also hear a similar doxology recorded in First Chronicles chapter twenty-nine.  First and Second Chronicles are the historical record of worship events including the building of the Temple, so it is no surprise to see a similar doxology here.   King David prays these similar words, when he charges the assembly prior, to Solomon’s anointing as king, and his death.

“Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our Father, forever and ever.  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 honour 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.  And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.” (1 Chronicles 29:10b–13 ESV)

These words of glorification are prayed by an assembly.  Even if Jesus is to pray by himself it is within the assembly of the Triune God.  He prays in a Trinity of Love, together with angels and archangels.  But even on earth King David leads the congregation before God and calls on his name in prayer.

So we come the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer.  We pray “our” Father not “my” Father.  Why?

Firstly, because Jesus teaches us to do so.  But he does so because of the greater reality of what we are called into.  This greater reality is not just the hidden reality of the Trinity, the angels ands archangels, but also the whole company of heaven. 

Secondly, this reality is a catholic reality.  Lutherans tend to recoil when we hear the word catholic, thinking we mean Roman Catholic.  But believing Romans like us who believe in the Lutheran Church are all a part of the catholic church.  As we confess in our creeds, we are apostolic and catholic in faith.

Thirdly, we adhere to the words of the apostles, and therefore we are gathered by the Holy Spirit into one holy congregation around Jesus Christ. 

This includes those who have gone before us, and now worship in the company of heaven. 

And it includes all who worship in the realm of time on earth, in our congregation, parish, denomination with others around the world. 

It also includes those still yet to be born, baptised, and abide in the faith given to them.  These are our unborn children, and the generations to come.  All these are the catholic church gathered by the Holy Spirit before Jesus, inside and outside of time.

When we say, “Our Father”, we pray as the body of Christ, and we join in the fellowship of God’s kingdom, glorifying him for his power and his kingdom, which is a kingdom of love that extends to us here on earth through forgiveness.

This introduction can be prayed as a perfectly succinct prayer in itself, “Our Father, the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever.  Amen.”  This prayer stands on its own and honours God in his eternal realm. 

But we are given petitions to pray here on earth by Jesus.  And these petitions teach us how the Holy Spirit moves us from evil to holiness.  The Holy Spirit does this so we might join Jesus, our ascended Great High Priest, in his petitioning the Father of love in heaven.

Next week, we continue on our journey of joyful discovery, examining the Lord’s Prayer and its petitions as prayer worked in us by the Holy Spirit.  But also, as a teaching or doctrine of the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit practically bridges the divide between evil and holiness.  Amen.

C, Ash Wednesday - The Lord's Prayer #1, Matthew 6:1-21 "Prayer Introduction - What, Why, & How"

Matthew 6:1–21 (ESV)  “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.  “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,  so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  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.  “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,  that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

During the midweek Lenten services we will be examining prayer. 

Why do we pray?  Why did the disciples asked Jesus how to pray?

What is prayer and why would we want to pray? 

There are different kinds of prayer, but all prayers begin deep within the human heart.  Prayer begins with a deep yearning for something.  What puts the deep yearning in the heart will determine what kind of a prayer it is!

For a Christ-centred understanding of prayer, we examine what Jesus says about prayer.  That is, to put forward a wish or make a plea that glorifies and justifies our Father in heaven.  If we do not do this, prayer would simply be human coveting, and not prayer as God would have us understand it.

The Gospel reading for Ash Wednesday, does not specifically give us the Lord’s Prayer, but the text before and after it.  Nevertheless, the Lord’s Prayer is taught by Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount, but what he says before and after it, on giving and fasting, also applies to prayer.

He warns, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.  Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.”  (Matthew 6:1,2 ESV)

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.  For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.  Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you pray, go into your room, and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5–6 ESV)

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.  Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,  that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:16–18 ESV)

So, we get the picture!  Prayer is not done as a work of righteousness, to be seen, to get acknowledgement, to be a hypocrite.  “Hypocrite” is an interesting word biblically when it is broken down, as a hypocrite is a hypo-critic.  In Greek, hypo means under, by, or with; and critic is from krino, to judge or decide.

Understanding this, makes Jesus’ words stand out for us, where he says to those criticizing him for healing on the Sabbath, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24 ESV)

Surprisingly perhaps, the Old Testament word for prayer, is from a word meaning, to judge – (פָּלַל) pâlal, and it functions as making a judgement to ask or intercede.  Another word commonly used in the Old Testament, to judge, is shâphaṭ (שָׁפַט), but it functions as judgement to vindicate or punish.

One who prays to justify themselves or to punish others would be one who hypocritically judges or prays. The truth is we probably wouldn’t even recognise this as prayer, but rather as coveting or bearing false witness.  Whereas one who judges with a right judgement, prays also with a judgment that pleases our Heavenly Father.

So, prayer is judgement, but right prayer is right judgement which makes a judgement that justifies and glorifies God. 

But why would we want to pray?  Even if we wanted to pray, how can we pray with a right judgement?

We need to be taught how to pray.  The disciples became increasingly aware of this the longer they spent with Jesus.  Why?

We hear from Luke eleven, Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1 ESV)

Their request demonstrates one very simple point.  There is nothing or no one in all of creation that can help us to pray.  We are helpless and cannot come to God in prayer unless he first comes to us.  As is written in one of the liturgical orders of absolution and confession, the pastor sings or says,  “Our help is in the name of the Lord.” And the congregation responds, “He made heaven and earth”.  This is from a Psalm of David, Psalm 124:8. 

The King leads the congregation of Israel in declaring he and his congregation needs help from the maker of heaven and earth.  And we too are the same, regardless of our status in this world as princes and princesses or paupers.

If God did not exist, we would be completely helpless.  However, because God does exist, we are blessedly helpless.  “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 124:8 ESV)

So blessedly helpless, we are taught how to pray.  Before Jesus was on earth, the job of teaching was through the priests, the prophets, and the family.  The last in the old era was John the Baptist who taught his disciples how to pray.

But Jesus teaches a new and right way to pray which truly acknowledges the help we need, and we get the help to pray from the Holy Spirit who proceeds from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, God the Son.  

Just as Jesus bore the weakness and the helplessness of human flesh and perfectly relied on his Father through the Holy Spirit, to pray, we too are given the Holy Spirit to help us pray.  We are also encouraged to continue asking for the Holy Spirit in prayer, reminding us it is he who guides us in right judgement and right prayer.

Jesus teaches us in Luke eleven, “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!” (Luke 11:13 ESV)

Therefore, we want to pray because the Holy Spirit has been given to us.  The Holy Spirit uses both, guilt produced by the Law to make us flee to God in prayers of confession, and also, the Gospel to reassure us we have the invitation as adopted Sons to join our prayers with Jesus’ prayers, the petitions of our great high priest.  This is all because, Jesus has been raised to the right hand of the Father.

The Holy Spirit gives us the will and heart to love God and pray to him calling him Abba, Father.  This is not an official title of fatherhood, but a personal loving title of Daddy.  Just as a baby learns to say, dad-da  or mum-ma, the Holy Spirit, teaches us in God’s Word to say, “Our Abba.”

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”  (Romans 8:14 ESV)

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26 ESV)

Jesus teaches us to pray because he wants us to have the right relationship with our Father in heaven.  This is a restored relationship that was lost; impossible to reconcile ourselves to God, and come to him in complete confidence.

Therefore, three things we are taught about prayer are…

1) We are created to be in fellowship with God.

2) Since the fall we are helpless.  But, because of Jesus, we are now “blessedly helpless”.  

3) All right prayers are Holy Spirited prayers. 

We the blessedly helpless are blessedly helped both by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  We now have the freedom of loved children to call on our Father in prayer. Amen.

Next Wednesday we will look at the oneship Jesus teaches us when we pray his prayer, the Lord’s Prayer to our Father, and what this does for us.  

B, Palm/Passion Sunday - Philippians 2:5-11 "Seven Days of Holy Week"

On Palm Sunday Jesus was glorified by the crowd but just five days later they screamed for his crucifixion.  What happened in this week changed the course of humanity forever. 

On the surface it looks like chaos and a complete miscarriage of justice, but those who received the Holy Spirit and believed the resurrection testify to the crowd,

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—  this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.  God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:22–24 ESV)

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart. (Acts 2:36–37a ESV)

Now we who have been baptised and received the Holy Spirit submit to God’s Word, dwelling on it as we carry our crosses on the road to eternity with Jesus.  But what can we take away from this Lenten season, from this Palm Passion Sunday and our Saviour’s death on Good Friday?

Yes we know the eighth day is coming! The day of Jesus’ resurrection!  And we know in trusting God and his word we will be raised too.  But how can we reflect on these seven days of Holy Week, and every seven day week in which we live until our final week here is replaced and we’re resurrected into the eternal eighth day of God’s heavenly reality?

It is very easy for us to hear of the events of Jesus’ passion and ponder that we are people like the Palm Sunday crowd, and that maybe so!  But what was the motive of the crowd on Palm Sunday, especially after Jesus enters the temple and upturns the tables when they hoped for him to overturn the Roman government and throw them out of Jerusalem.  Had Jesus wronged them? 

Maybe Jesus is not living up to your expectations!  Perhaps he is not giving you what you want, seemingly wronging you, letting you suffer like a slave rather than letting you kickback like a king.

Saint Paul tells us, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11ESV)

Here we are told we’re given the gift of this mind amongst ourselves from Jesus himself.  Jesus did not see himself as God.  He emptied himself!  He became a servant!  A slave! He was truly they Son of Man, the servant of man!  Even though Jesus is not only the Messiah, the Anointed King, he is the Son of God.  But he humbled himself to be the Servant Son or Slave of Man.  In short he became nothing.

But in the horror of being made nothing he has made us something.  He has made us someone before God!  Unfortunately, more often than not, we take this someone to be something other than the humble creature servant kings and children of God, and once again take our being liked by God, recreated in the likeness of God, and seek to usurp him by being like God.

Jesus knew we would continue to struggle in this old creation of seven days.  This is why he lay down his life for us, and why he sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in his Word through this life until he ends the old seven day creation once and for all and carries us into the eighth day of his eternal kingdom at our resurrection.

So Jesus gave us a prayer in which the Holy Spirit helps us to pray and we can use its petitions this week to reflect on our sinful condition and why Jesus had to die for me, you and all people.  This prayer is the Lord’s Prayer and it can help those who believe to look deeply into the loving heart of God and our hearts that need this steadfast, constant, merciful and generous love.

In fact this pray and its seven petitions is a perfect mirror of reflection on the seven days of Holy Week, and for that matter any seven day week made holy for those who believe as they wait for the kingdom, power and glory to be made manifest for them at their resurrection.  Ironically, each petition reflects the actions of the crowd as they descend from Palm Sunday’s “Hosanna” to “Crucify him” on Good Friday.

In Luther’s explanation of the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven”, he writes, “Here God encourages us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are his children”.  In other words, this prayer is a recognisation of our restored creatureliness in the presence of God.  We receive the gift of Jesus’ kingship and it’s a kingship of servanthood.  We live in a relationship with God similar to that of God and Adam before the fall, but now after the fall we live it in the reality of sin, death, and evil.  We pray to our Father in heaven, in the hope of our restoration through the perfect creaturely New Adam, Jesus Christ.

Let’s now look at the seven days of Holy Week and see how they sit with the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

Sunday’s petition, Hallowed by your name.  It appears the crowd were hallowing God’s name with shouts of Hosanna!  But were they hallowing it to glorify God or were they worshipping what they wanted Jesus to be for them.  Here we can reflect on our motivation and confess that we so often seek to use God for our own benefit.  This is using God to justify our own godliness.  A godliness that is not sacrificial like Jesus. A godliness that sits in judgement over God and his Word rather than one that sits in submission and servanthood!  

Monday, Your kingdom come.  As we go off and pick up the regular beat of the week, have you taken God with you?  In other words, are you still the creaturely servant God has called you to be?  Or have you put God back in his Sunday box and picked up pursuing your kingdom?  Are you 100% for God as Jesus was?  Are you carrying your cross or are you tempted to put off the cross to keep face with the world?  God’s kingdom comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to turn over the tables of our human spirit so we believe that God’s kingdom has come in baptism, is coming despite the crosses we bear, and will come at the resurrection.  Let us confess Jesus in the kingdom of this world through our confession of sin and Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins.

Tuesday, Your will be done on earth as in heaven.  What is God’s will for you?  Firstly, it is his will to forgive us our sins, for we know not what we do.  He doesn’t just forgive us for what we do, he forgives us for who we are.  In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39 ESV)  God’s will is to forgive sin.  This is the steadfast love of God for we who struggle with a steadfast natures of sin. 

And God’s will for us on earth is to be the new Adams and the new Eves as fulfilled in Jesus.  As kings and servants in the kingdom of God on earth we forgive as God has forgiven us.

Wednesday, Give us this day our daily bread.  Hear God gives us a petition of prayer showing us the reality of our need.  As creatures we ask for all we need.  The going is tough so we are reminded to turn to God just as Jesus did.  We pray, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let this food to us be blessed.”  But there is a second more important part that points us to Maundy Thursday which the church can pray, “blessed be God who is our bread may the world be clothed and fed!” 

Thursday, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  The first three petitions encourage us to look to God in his holiness and love, now after the fourth, we can reflect on why he has to be gracious with us. 

Our creatureliness is fallen but our sin is covered by Jesus’ body and blood, given and she for forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  If we change this petition to first person it reads, “forgive me my sin as I forgive those who sin against me.”  This is the only active part of the Lord’s Prayer attributed to us, to me, all other actions are attributed to God. 

Our lives in Christ are a calling to forgive others as Jesus forgives us.  But notice how the petition is worded in reverse. We ask God to forgive us the same way we forgive others.  How do you forgive others?  If you are anything like me you will be made humble by just how gracious God is despite our ongoing struggle to forgive others.  The cross we bear in forgiving others requires the death of our pride and all that our human nature and spirit trusts other than God.

Friday, Lead us not into temptation.  Good Friday is the day of the great exchange.  Crucify him, Crucify him. God crucifies your kingdom and gives you his when you were baptised into his death and resurrection.  When you are tempted to not believe God’s work in your baptism, see that God did not send his only Son to his cross for nothing.  His blood covers you sin, don’t be tempted you are now no longer in need of forgiveness as if you now no longer need his crucifixion. 

Our temptation is also to crucify others with our accusations. This is a temptation back into the kingdom of darkness.  We now live in the kingdom of light and it’s a kingdom of forgiveness. Do not be tempted to toss away and crucify God’s eternal kingdom.

Saturday, But deliver us from evil.  This is the final and seventh petition.  On Holy Saturday Jesus showed his sinlessness to those in hell.  Now that Jesus has been crucified his death crucifies all unholiness. You are delivered from evil into holiness. 

But just as Jesus remembered the Sabbath and made it holy with his perfect sinless rest in the grave and descent into hell we are called to ponder the holiness we have received in baptism. No longer are we commanded "be holy for the Lord is holy" as a work with which to busy ourselves. Rather our being is holy because the Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. 

We can now do the work of bringing our evil into the light through confession of sin, which might seem to be the wrong thing to do but it pleases God because it shows trust in the good work Jesus did at the cross and the good work the Holy Spirit continues us to do by bring us to Jesus every day in repentance.

As you go from here into this week walk the Holy Week with Jesus. Walk with Jesus to the cross and in carrying your cross know it is Jesus who truly bears your load of sin and death, and it is he who carries you through to the resurrection.

Our Father in heaven, the kingdom, and the power and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen.