When I go out at night in the back yard, I can see a slice of the sky. I can look above the trees and in between the houses and see the night-time sky.
But, I wish I could take you to New Mexico, driving south of Albuquerque on I-25. On that road, you don’t just see a slice of the sky. You get a full, 360 degree look all around you; front, sides, rear. There is nothing to obstruct the view. It’s a low horizon all around and the sky extends all the way up and over and back down again, a full 180 degrees. There were times driving on that interstate when, way off to the left, I could see a thunderstorm, with jagged bolts of lightening piercing the clouds. At the same time, way off to the right, I could see a separate storm and flashes of lighting as well. It was an immense view!
When Jesus invites us to pray the Lord’s prayer – the prayer he prays! – he opens up an immense view to everything. With just these few words, he covers all of living. It’s a 360 degree view of life. The sheer scope of these words can take our breath away.
Let’s uncover the scope of the Lord’s Prayer by reminding ourselves that we are on a hunt. Last month – before all the snow – we started the hunt for how to pray. We want to know specifically how to pray. Jesus gives us a model, not of what to pray, but how to pray.
When we pray, we start with adoration. We start by praising God for who he is. Jesus gives us one characteristic of God when he prays, “Father… hallowed be your name.” He praises his Heavenly Father for his holiness. If we ask, “how are we supposed to pray,” well, we start by adoring God for some characteristic. We pick a book of the Bible, read through it a paragraph or two at a time and find in each reading something to praise God or Jesus about. That’s how we start praying.
Next, we come to confessing. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Jesus tells us that we must confess to God the ways we have fallen short of his will. Every day, we tell God, “I am sorry.” “Forgive us our debts….” We ask God, and we ask the same of others we have harmed. Last month, one of my children phoned, upset that I hadn’t called to ask about a best friend who was on a church mission trip to Haiti. For 24 hours, we didn’t know if the friend was alive or dead after the earthquake. That was not the time to say, “you and mom had been talking so I knew what was going on.” There was a hurt between us. This was the time to say, “I am sorry.” As hurts arise, as barriers come up between people, we ask for forgiveness. We say, “I am sorry” to clear the block between us and God, between us and others and re-set our relationships. We do this because we have first been forgiven by God through Jesus Christ. We practice forgiveness, because we have experienced the sheer volume of God’s forgiveness over and over.
In these few words of confession and forgiveness, Jesus has included the whole part of life that deals with others; relationships. Those close to us and those we bump into getting out of an elevator. “Forgive me.” “You are forgiven.”
Next, Jesus covers the spiritual side of life. We start with adoration when we pray. We move to confession. Then we come to asking, otherwise known as supplication. Jesus prays, “Lead us not into temptation….” Does this sounds like an unusual request to make? Does God tempt us? James 1:13 says, “Let no one say, when he is tempted, that he is tempted by God, for God does not tempt anyone.”
The problem arises in translating the word, “temptation.” It can be translated as “temptation,” or “trial.” The request to lead us not into temptation seems to be to keep us from situations that would overwhelm our capacity to trust God. Think of Peter on the night when Jesus was betrayed and arrested. Peter boldly said that he would never leave Jesus, never, never, never. But, after denying he even knew Jesus three times, the cock crowed and Peter, with a sudden rush of a flashback, remembered what he had said before to Jesus and how his courage had now melted in fear. If there ever was a prescription for Peter’s faith to fail and for him to spiral into the deep darkness of shame and guilt and giving up all hope, that was it. However, Luke tells us that beforehand, Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Simon, Simon, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, and when you have turned, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22:31, 32) Even though the situation seemed to be a faith crushing experience, Peter came back. Jesus had prayed for him and did not allow him to come into a situation where his faith would fail, unless he so chose. When we ask not to be led into temptation, we are asking that God recognize our limits and ability to hold on and not place us in a situation where we give up, if we so choose. The old saying, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” might better be said, “God won’t give you more than your faith can handle, if we so choose.” As Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “God will not lead us into a situation where the (trial) will cause us to fall.”
The Lord’s Prayer continues to uncover the spiritual side of life. Jesus goes on to pray, “Deliver us from evil.” We have asked God to keep us from being overwhelmed. Now we pray God to keep us from the destroying power of Satan and of all evil. I Peter 5:8 tells us that “Satan is a prowling lion, seeking someone to devour.” There is a power that is intent on destroying and tearing down and obliterating particularly the people of God. When we pray, “Deliver us from evil,” we are asking for God’s protective help.
I remember Corrie Ten Boom writing in her book, The Hiding Place, about the night the Germans barged into her house, looking for the Jews they were hiding upstairs. The officer screamed right at her to tell them where she was hiding the Jews. She said nothing. He struck her hard in the face. She cried out in pain and then, “Lord Jesus, cover me.” It was a cry for protection from evil. He did not strike her again. We can ask for the spiritual side of life, as well as the relational side of life.
And, then, we come to the well-known request, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The phrase ‘daily bread’ is a hard phrase to understand. The word, ‘daily’ is used no where else except in the Lord’s prayer. It sounds like Jesus is saying the same thing twice: “Give us this day our daily bread” – which is this day again. Surely he is not simply repeating himself. Perhaps a more accurate way to understand this request is in the Hebrew sense. When the Hebrews came out of Egypt and wandered in the desert, God gave them each day something to eat. Every day, a thin like substance appeared on the ground. It could be collected and cooked up. They called it, “manna.” Some people had trouble collecting enough for themselves and for their family for the day. Yet, when they cooked it up, it always seemed to be just enough. Others figured they would over-collect and save it for a day when they didn’t collect as much. But, when they cooked it up, it turned out they had to cook it all to give them what they needed. Those who didn’t collect enough and those who over-collected both ended up having what they needed. God was intent on providing the needs of his people and teaching them to depend on him, day by day, what they truly needed.
So when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are asking God to give us what we need physically for our existence. We can ask for everything that is in our physical world. Food, of course, but also a job, the results of a meeting, finding a parking place, patience in raising our children, help on a test or with a friend, healing. On and on the list goes. On and on the list grows as we take more and more to God in prayer. All that is relational, all that is spiritual, all that is physical, we bring before God; and here’s the thing: humbly, gratefully, expectantly.
I have to smile when I see a child melt-down in the middle of a grocery store aisle. Every parent experiences it. I’ve experienced it, too. It’s not fun, but it’s a part of being a parent. There’s the child, on the floor, thrashing about and kicking, screaming out, “I want candy. I want candy.” This is not how we come to God, demanding, begging hoping that if we make enough noise, we’ll get what we want. Instead, when we pray, we are like children tucked in at night, a time when bed stories are read and children’s lips whisper what they are truly thinking, because they are snuggly and protected in their parents’ care. And, so we come to our Heavenly Father like such children. We do not demand. We simply ask, trusting our Heavenly Father to give as He knows best. We pray. We leave the results to God. This is what it means to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Let me repeat a story from last month’s sermon, from Dr. James Boice who quotes a story by Ralph Keiper:
Ralph suffered from limited vision. What we can see at 100 feet he could see at 10. So obviously there were many times in his early life when he complained to God of his affliction. “Why should I suffer from this limitation? God could do something about it if he wanted to,” he reasoned. He prayed about his problem and got nowhere. Moreover, he could not even see the reason for God’s delay. He had tried to please the Lord as best he knew how. Why was God silent?
Then, one Saturday afternoon… the Holy Spirit began to speak to him and ask several questions: “What is the chief end of man?” “To glorify God and to enjoy him forever!” Ralph replied. “Do you wish to glorify God?” the Holy Spirit countered. “Of course!” the young man hastened to assure him. “If you had the choice, what would you rather do, glorify God or have perfect vision?”
Ralph paused for a long while. His “of course” began to weaken. For, as he points out, sight is a very precious commodity, especially to those who do not have it. He had to be honest because the Holy Spirit was watching and knew his heart. He knew that sight was far more precious to Ralph than God’s glory. The struggle within was bitter, but Ralph was a victim of grace.
“There is only one answer,” he said finally, “and that choice is to glorify God.” The Holy Spirit insisted on continuing his probe. “Do you really believe that God’s glory is more important than your vision?” He did not push for an answer, but waited quietly. At last Ralph surrendered. “My vision, or lack of it, is not worthy to be compared to the glory of God!” “Do you really wish to glorify God?” the Holy Spirit asked again. “Yes, I do!” “If you do, why worry about the method which God chooses for you to glorify him?”
Boice says, “The goal of prayer is not the fulfilling of our own requests: it is God’s glory.” (The Gospel of John, Dr. James M. Boice)
Jesus has given us a magnificent prayer to pray that covers all of life. We begin by praising God, then confessing our sins, then we ask – for all things. The relational part of life, the spiritual, the physical, not only now, but in the future, when on that final Day, we are accused by the Great Accuser himself, Satan, before the throne of God, Jesus will stand in our place, our sins washed away and we are saved us from the power of evil. There we will sit down to enjoy table fellowship with God, eating, not daily bread but a banquet meal with our Lord. All of life is in view here, past and present and future. In all things, we pray that even more than what we want, that God’s will shall be done.