The Lord's Prayer - Haddon Robinson

0:11 It would certainly be amiss if I did not spend the moment to thank members of the administration and faculty and students for their warm welcome to me and to my wife, Bonnie, this week. I would hope that you would be able to come out to Denver and we could return the hospitality. Probably wouldn't be wise to have you come all at one time. Maybe if you came alphabetically over a period of years, we could handle you. But if you should ever get to Denver and find yourself needing a place to stay or a meal, by all means, give us a ring. Our name is in the phone book, and Bonnie and I will pray for you.

0:58 The devil made me say that, he say, you say that. I appreciate immensely the eloquent introduction this morning because frankly there are times when I feel like Rodney Dangerfield, I don't get no respect. I have a friend who likes to call me in the middle of the morning, in the middle of the week when I'm home studying And he'll say, you know, I hope I didn't get you out of bed. I realize this isn't Sunday. I have another friend who likes to put in the old needle and he says, you know, you ministers have it made. If it's a good day, you can get up, do a little studying, make a few calls. And if it's a bad day, just turn over in bed and say your prayers. Now, I know I'm a bit defensive about all of that, but I said to my friend, you know, you've told me two things by your comment.

1:58 Told me, first of all, you don't know much about the ministry, and secondly, you know even less about prayer. Because of all of the responsibilities that fall to me, visiting people is one of the most delightful. It takes a bit more to run a theological seminary, and even more to prepare lectures and to prepare sermons. But the most difficult and challenging task I have is to have a fervent and vibrant prayer life. Over the years, my success in prayer has been more intermittent than persistent. There have been times when I've gotten hold of the hem of the garment, but I have not always been able to sustain the grasp. And one thing I know for certain, you don't turn over in bed and say your prayers. To confess to you that I have had a lifelong struggle sitting at the feet of Jesus is something I do with a great deal of embarrassment.

3:00 Because when I read the New Testament, I discover that in the ministry of our Lord, prayer was absolutely crucial. For me, prayer is preparation for the battle. For Jesus, it seemed to be the battle itself. For Jesus, prayer was like running the marathon, and ministry was like going to receive the gold medal. Prayer was like taking the final examinations, and ministry was like going to receive the diploma. Where was it that he shed great drops of blood? Was not in Pilate's Hall. was not as he staggered under the load of the cross up Golgotha's hill. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane. And there the writer to the Hebrews tells us that with strong cryings and tears, he made his petitions to God.

3:55 I think that if I had been there in that hour of his agony and watched the way he suffered, I think I would have despaired of the future. I think I would have said if he's behaving this way, when all he's doing is praying, what in the world is he going to do when he faces a crisis? It's too bad he can't be like his three sleeping friends. I mean, they found spiritual peace in the midst of the storm. But when the crisis came, Jesus went to the cross in triumph. It was his three friends who fell back and fell away. that's why i think it's significant when you turn to luke chapter 11 verse 1 we are told that after jesus completed a period of prayer one of his disciples evidently a spokesman for the group came to him and said lord teach us to pray as john taught his disciples to pray in that request i find at least two things one is that john in his discipleship program put a strong focus on prayer.

5:05 And secondly, it was what Jesus' disciples asked him to do for them. They'd been with him now almost two years. They had a front seat when he stood to preach. They had watched him minister. And yet, as far as we know, they never came to him and said, Lord, teach us to preach. They did come and say, teach us to pray. we usually ask of someone else the best that that person can give us. We ask of a banker, teach us to invest. We ask of a professional golfer, teach us to putt. We ask of a scholar, teach us to do research. And when Jesus' disciples came to him, they said, Lord, teach us to pray. and because prayer was crucial in his ministry he wanted it to be vital in theirs and so he responded to the request by giving them what we call the Lord's Prayer.

6:07 There's a way in which I guess this prayer is misnamed because it is after all a prayer that Jesus himself could not have prayed. One of its major petitions is forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And Jesus Christ, Son of God without sin, could never with integrity have made that request. Instead, I think we might call it the Disciples' Prayer. It is a model of prayer. It serves us in prayer in the same way that an outline serves a preacher as he prepares to preach. It tells us what we are to pray for, and it gives us the order of the requests.

6:54 Jesus says, when you come to pray, you are to say, Father. That single word sums up the entire basic relationship of the Christian faith. That is, that when we come to the creator of the universe, we are to address him as father. It is also the answer to lessening the philosopher's question, is the universe friendly? What we are affirming when we say father is that at the heart of the universe, there is not only ultimate power, but there is ultimate love. but of course not everyone can honestly address God as father we are only able to do it because of Jesus who taught us to pray this way he is the one who assures us that there is a father and that we can come to him as a child comes to a father in the family We, as Christians, can call God Father.

8:03 But not all of God's people had that privilege. Back in the Old Testament, God is addressed as Father only seven times. And in every case, it is the entire nation of Israel speaking to God that way. As far as we know, there was never a time when Abraham or Moses or David or Daniel went to the quietness of their room, fell on their knees, and dared to speak to God that way. When you turn to the New Testament, however, 275 times or more, we are told, directly or indirectly, that when we bow before the sovereign majesty of the universe, The word that should come easily to our lips is to speak to him as father.

8:54 A few years ago, it was on display in the town hall in Copenhagen, Denmark, what was the world's most complicated clock. It took 40 years to construct. It cost a million dollars to build. The clock was accurate to two-fifths of a second every 300 years. The ten faces of that clock told the time of the day, the day of the week, the week of the month, the month of the year, the year of the century, and tracked the movements of planets and suns for 2,500 years. In fact, there are parts in that clock that will not move until 2,500 years have passed. There is something disturbing about the clock, and that is that it's not accurate. It loses two-fifths of a second every 300 years. How do they know that?

9:48 Well, that clock in the town hall in Copenhagen, Denmark, was measured against another clock, the clock of the universe, with all of its myriad parts, from atoms to suns to planets to stars, and that clock is so accurate that every clock on Earth is measured against it. 300 years ago, the deists looked up at that clock and were overwhelmed by what they saw. They were so in awe of the mechanism that they lost the God who had put it together. God became a soulless face to them. And you do not pray to a soulless face. You do not have communion with the law. You do not sit at the feet of a first principle. You do not say, O ground of being, hallowed be thy name. You do not say, oh ultimate source, give us this day our daily bread.

10:48 Jesus says that when you come to pray, the word that should come easily to your lips is to speak to God as Father. And as you are addressing your Heavenly Father, you will notice that the prayer divides into two parts. First of all, Jesus says, when you talk to the Father, then you ought to talk to the Father about the Father. First of all, talk to him about him, and then talk to him about the family. When you talk to the Father about the Father, you ought to say, Father, hallowed be your name. In the ancient Near East, and in the Near East today, names have a great deal of significance. When a parent names his child, he doesn't name the child after a rich Aunt Agnes. I wonder if the initials look good on the luggage or whether or not the first name rhymes with the last name.

11:58 Usually a child is named after a certain virtue with the hope that the child will grow up to her name. In fact, sometimes when a person goes through a crisis experience, the name is changed. You see a reflection of that in the New Testament. When Jesus first came to Cephas, he found him a pretty shifty, sandy fellow. But he saw in Cephas what others may not have seen, and so Jesus changed his name to Rocky. Because he knew that Peter would be like granite. In our own day, when Cardinal Vatiwa became the current pope, he changed his name. He chose the name of John and Paul, two of his predecessors, hoping to embody in himself the virtue of those two men. So when we pray, hallowed be thy name, we are speaking about God's character.

12:57 and we are asking that in our prayers, in our lives, God will be God to us, that we will not try to whittle him down to size, that we will not try to manipulate him. In the way we pray, in the way we live, God's name will be honored and he will not be embarrassed.

13:20 Sometimes when you stop to listen to the babblings we address to heaven in the name of prayer, Some of them very close to blasphemy. We sometimes pray as though God were deaf, or as though God was stupid, or as though God had to be motivated in order to come to the side of the angels. They're on our knees praying that God will understand. Sometimes if you listen to the way you pray, you discover that there are other names on earth that you respect more than his. Names of friends or family or names that you fear more than his, names of political leaders who seem to hold destiny in their hands. But Jesus says when you pray first say, Father, hallowed be your name. in my prayers and in my living God will be God to me. I'll not whittle him down to size.

14:26 I've often been impressed as I have looked at the Lord's Prayer that if this is to be an outline of prayer, to speak of the things we are to pray for, it's significant that there is no prayer request here for our own personal spiritual lives. Something that I pray for most often doesn't seem to be here. I think the answer to that is that when you look at the scriptures, the focus of the spiritual life is not inward. It is not the probing around your soul to try to get yourself to be more dedicated. The focus of the spiritual life in the scripture focuses on God. And that when it is the desire of your life that God will really be God to you. That God will be honored and reverenced and respected in your life.

15:22 When that becomes the center of your life, that's where the spiritual life begins. So when you go to pray, you talk to the father about the father. Talk to him about his person. Say, Lord, in my prayers and in my life, may you be God to me.

15:43 And then Jesus says, having talked to the Father about his person, speak to him about his program. Pray, Father, your kingdom come. Joseph Wittig once said that if you are writing a biography, you really ought to start with a person's death, not a person's birth. Everybody is born and didn't really have much to do with that. The question is not how you began. The question is how you end. That's true in the life of an individual. It's certainly a question that we must ask about history. It is a fundamental question. Is history going anyplace? Or is it a tale told by an idiot scrawled on the walls of an insane asylum? A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

16:38 Emerson said it was just the biography of a few well-known men. Henry Ford called it bunk. Is history going anyplace? And the answer of the Bible is that history is his story. And it is moving towards that great far-off event towards which all history moves. I take it that here he is talking about that great messianic kingdom that has been promised throughout the Old Testament. It is that kingdom when Christ shall come back and rule. It is that kingdom which shall move on to eternity. That time when men and angels shall join to sing his praises. And that time when every knee on earth shall bow. and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's where history is going. And all of the Bible points forward to that great far-off event.

17:34 You open the pages of the scripture and you read that in the evening and the morning there was the first day. Not the morning and the evening, but out of the darkness there comes the light. Out of the wanderings there comes the promised land. Out of bad Friday there comes resurrection Sunday. After the tribulation, there comes millennium. And often and always in the darkness, when we are most filled with fear, we look forward to that day. We pray, your kingdom come.

18:09 But if you pray in honesty, your kingdom come. And you pray for that day when every man or woman will bow to him. Then it follows logically that if I pray that for all people everywhere, then I must pray that for myself now. That is what uses it to talk and pray about God's kingdom, glorious triumph, if today in the small two feet of earth I occupy, Jesus Christ does not rule in my life. If I am really sincere about wanting God's kingdom to come, then it seems to me that I will do everything I can to bring everyone I touch into glad submission to his rule and reign. And I'll be willing, if necessary, that all of these little kingdoms that mean so much to me, all of these little structures that I worry about and am concerned about. All of those little kingdoms, if necessary, will be torn down, that Jesus Christ shall reign. So when you pray, Jesus says, before you pray for anything else, talk to the Father about the Father. Talk to him about his person, hallowed be thy name, and about his program, your kingdom come.

19:39 But then having spoken to the Father about the Father, Jesus says you can talk to the Father about the family, about all of us together. Because, he says, you can pray, give us each day our daily bread. You talk to the Father about the family, you can ask him for provision. Obviously, when Jesus talks about daily bread, he's talking about the basic necessities of life. If Jesus had been speaking to a group of people in the Orient, he probably would have said, give us this day our bowl of rice. If we've been talking to Italians, it would have been, give us this day our pasta. Give us this day our daily bread speaks of the basic things that you and I need. It's interesting that the word that's translated daily or each day is a word that is used only in the Bible in connection with the Lord's Prayer.

20:46 And it is not used outside the scripture in classical Greek literature. The word epiusios was a mystery and translators guessed that. They usually guess right. but then several years ago on a piece of papyri they found a a woman's grocery list out of the ancient world on that list there were several things that were perishable and next to each item she had epiusias enough for the day so if you pray this prayer at night you're praying for the day to come that god will provide your needs as you serve his kingdom and honor his name or if you pray it in the morning, you're praying for supply for the day ahead.

21:32 In our culture where we have freezers full of food, we hardly take this seriously, but in most of the world, it's a basic request. And what you are acknowledging is that for your bread, for your threads, for the things you need, you will turn to God and he will supply. but notice that it's in the plural give us this day our daily bread we have in our American culture a great emphasis on individualism when we pray we often pray for me, my wife, my son John his wife, us four no more but if you pray this in the community of Christians and you pray together with other brothers and sisters give us this day our daily bread and God gives you two loaves and your brother none.

22:29 You cannot assume that you have one loaf for eating and the other loaf for storing. If you have prayed together for daily bread, then if you have two and he has none, you have one for eating and the other for sharing. When you talk to the father about the family, pray, give us this day. our daily bread. But not only can you ask the father for provision, you're able to ask him for pardon. For he says, forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. I think those two requests are linked. Give us and forgive. I don't have any problem remembering to pray for daily bread. My stomach rumbles. I know I'm hungry.

23:30 It is, however, very easily forgotten that I also need daily pardon. pardon. When I think of hunger, I ought to think of forgiveness. Augustine called this the terrible petition. For it's not just forgive us our sins, but forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. there is a link between the way I am willing to forgive others and the forgiveness I ask of the Father in heaven.

24:07 You see, if you really pray, forgive us our sins and forgive me my sins, if you really pray that in sincerity, then what you are doing is revising your estimate of yourself downward. You're admitting that you are a sinful person. You're admitting that there is a pollution in your life.

24:33 And so when you admit that about yourself, you're better able to understand the foibles and sins of others. do you see how close to blasphemy it is to come to God and say God you are holiness forgive me my sins but this person has offended me and I am so holy and I am so righteous that it is unthinkable that I will extend forgiveness to that person people who do that are self-righteous and you can no more get self-righteous no more get forgiveness from a self-righteous person than you can get apple juice from a stone slab no what I am saying Lord is deal with me as I have dealt with others She has offended me.

25:34 She's hurt me badly. And Lord, I just don't want to put up with it. Lord, deal with me as I dealt with her. Lord, he's betrayed my trust. He's gone back on a commitment that he had made to me. I find I am wounded by that. But Lord, it's not nearly the commitments that I have gone back on compared to you and with you.

26:13 But Lord, you deal with me as I deal with him. This is not saying that God forgives you because you forgive. He forgives as you forgive because you are a member of the family. and part of being in the family is that you are part of a forgiven fellowship. And if you are really part of a forgiven fellowship, you become part of a forgiving fellowship.

26:38 Because knowing the forgiveness of God gives you an opportunity and a motivation to forgive others. So when you talk to the father about the family, ask him for forgiveness. us. Forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others. And finally, Jesus says when you talk to the Father about the family, ask him for protection. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil and the evil one, as Matthew says. That's an interesting request. Sometimes, as people wrestle with the words for lead us not into temptation, the question is, are we implying that if we don't ask for this, God is going to lead us into temptation?

27:38 Is he going to be the one who is the author of temptation? It's a difficult question, not easily answered. I take it though that what you have here is what grammarians call a litotes. And that is that you state something negatively in order to say something positive. A couple of months ago I was in New York City and I was in one of those New York delicatessens. They don't have them out there in Colorado so you get as much as you can when you go back to New York. And I was sitting in a booth and right next to me there were two women, evidently Jewish, And one was talking to the other about an upcoming son-in-law. And she was describing this young man that her daughter was going to marry. He completed medical school. He had a good practice.

28:33 He came from a very good family. And just as soon as she married him, she would marry into prestige and wealth. And the other woman who was listening to all of this said, he's not objectionable, is he? No, he wasn't objectionable. Stating negatively, she was saying positively, boy, she's got a good catch. Get in the New Testament. He who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. State the negative, emphasize the positive. And so when we pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation, we are saying, Lord, you have the power to take us past the traps that Satan has placed in our way.

29:21 We depend upon you to do that. But let's face it. If it weren't here in the Lord's Prayer, very few of us would pray, lead us not into temptation. A young woman walking through a shopping mall in Denver had a sweatshirt on and said, Lead me not into temptation. I can find the way myself.

29:42 Now, we don't pray that because we rather like temptation. I mean, temptation stirs the blood and stimulates the imagination. Somebody said, if you pray, lead us not into temptation, God might answer your prayer and then make life a drab and dull affair. No, you like temptation. You like to play with it. You like to fantasize about it. That's why we read the books we read. That's why we watch the films we watch. No, what we would like is to dance to dance and not have to pay the orchestra. We usually don't want the consequences, but you know, temptation, I mean, that's the stuff of life. But when you pray, lead us not into temptation. What you must recognize is that behind the temptation there is the tempter.

30:38 Behind the lie there is the liar. Behind the deception there is the deceiver. This is not just a prayer, Lord, to keep us from being naughty girls and boys. This is to recognize that the enemy of our soul will destroy us if he could. And what he wants to do is to separate us from God, to become convinced that God is not a father, but that God is an enemy. That it is our little kingdoms that matter and our name that has to be established. And you have to go out and hustle to get your daily bread and forget about the sins. don't worry about temptation. That's the stuff of life. Doing that, the enemy separates us from God. The temptation is to the alienation of our souls.

31:31 When you pray to the Father for the family, pray that we will be delivered from temptation. What you're really praying is, Lord, when I've got the inclination to sin, keep me from the opportunity. And when I have the opportunity to sin, keep me from the inclination. Behind the temptation, there is the tempter, a grim and evil force, a personality whose aim is to destroy you. When you talk to the Father about the Father, talk to him about his program, his person.

32:12 And when you talk to him about the family, talk to him about provision and pardon and protection. When you pray, say Father. When our children were small, we used to play a game. I'd take some coins and put them in my hand and then I'd close my hand and they'd sit on my lap and then they would work to get my fingers open. According to the international rules of finger opening, once the finger was open you couldn't close it again. They would work at it and then they would get those pennies in my hand and they would jump down and run away, filled with glee and delight. just kids just a game but sometimes when we come to God we come interested in the pennies in his hand Lord I've got to get a passing grade in that course help me to study Lord I need a job got to get some money Lord I I have a mother who is ill.

33:31 She needs health again. We reach for the pennies. When God grants the request, we push the hand away. More important than the pennies in God's hand is the hand of God himself. And that is what prayer is about. when you go to God in prayer. The name that should come easily to your lips.