The Sermon on the Mount: The Lord's Prayer | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

2:21 and we come to Matthew chapter 6. We're going to be focused on the Lord's Prayer. This is right in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount and such an important part of Jesus' teaching. He's going to teach us a pattern for prayer. We're going to go through it line by line today. If you have pen and paper, you might want to have that ready so you can take some notes along the way. Today's sermon is going to be coming to you from a book I wrote several years ago called The Lord's Prayer, The Meaning and Power of the Prayer Jesus Taught Us. And I'm going to give you just a synopsis of that as we think about the Lord's Prayer. But I want to begin with a little humor. And this humor ties together some things that have happened this week. So there was a county fair, and there was a debate between two politicians at the county fair. They were each running for state office. One was a Republican, one was a Democrat. The Republicans said to the Democrat as the debate began, you know, I doubt you even go to church. I mean, what kind of person are you? Do you even go to church? And the Democrat said, of course I go to church. The Republicans said, oh, come on. I bet you don't.

3:12 I bet you don't even know the Lord's Prayer. And the Democrat said, of course I know the Lord's Prayer. And the Republican said, well, I'll give you 20 bucks if you can recite the Lord's Prayer. And the Democrat smiled and he said, well, that'll be super easy. And said, okay, go for it. And the Democrat begins, now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. And the Republican reaches for his billfold. And he said, doggone it, I didn't think there was any way you knew the Lord's Prayer. Well, I'm pretty sure you know the Lord's Prayer. Almost everybody knows the Lord's Prayer. They've heard it somewhere along the way. My Jewish friends know the Lord's Prayer. It actually is rooted in their own faith, in the Hath Kaddish, which was a prayer that was prayed even in the time of Jesus. And Jesus seems to have taken that as a starting point and given us a really powerful prayer in the Lord's Prayer. Now, there's a couple of things I want to teach you before we jump into going line by line through the prayer. The first is a Latin phrase that was made famous by a man named Saint Benedict.

4:04 It's Saint Benedict, excuse me, the founder of the Benedictine order. And in the sixth century, he spoke about ora et labora. It's a Latin phrase, ora et labora. It means pray and work, pray and work. And the idea was that the monks in the monastery were not simply to pray, they were to pray and they were to do work. They weren't just praying all the time. But the idea behind it for me is that, and for many other people, is that we pray and we also get to work doing the things we've been praying for, right? And so when I pray for Sally, who is coming home from the hospital, I don't just pray for her, I'm gonna take a meal to her. Or when John is struggling, and he's not feeling well, maybe I'm gonna go mow his yard. We're gonna look to see, I'm gonna pray, Lord, bless her, bless him, bless these people in my life and use me to get to work to serve them. That's how prayer works actually. In prayer, we're not asking God to miraculously, you know, circumvent the laws of nature and send the angels down to take care of things.

4:59 We are fixing our heart on the thing that we're praying. We're laying it before God, but we're also offering ourselves to God and saying, use me, oh Lord, to accomplish this prayer, to answer this prayer. And so God answers prayers. sometimes miraculously, often through people. And when I think of the Lord's Prayer, it's much the same way. When we read the Lord's Prayer, when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we're actually opening ourselves to God and saying, use me to do these things. We're fixing our hearts on the things that are in the Lord's Prayer. And so again, we're asking God to do something in and through us when we pray the Lord's Prayer. So ora et labora. And in the Lord's Prayer, I just make this really clear. In the Lord's Prayer, we're not extracting God on what to do. We are inviting God to use us to accomplish these things. We are fixing our hearts upon these things that we're praying for. That's really, really important. So as we get to the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives us a pattern to pray. And I'll tell you, there was a book that was written a long time ago called Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

5:56 I think almost everything we need to know about the kingdom of God and how we're meant to live it is gonna be found in the Lord's Prayer. We pray this prayer, we make it our own prayer, and it begins to shape our lives. I wanna mention too that in the early church, so in the first century in Judaism, and actually this goes all the way back to King David, people would pray three times a day. And they'd pray more than that, but they had three hours of prayer. And this comes from Psalm, I think it was Psalm 55, 17, where David says, at evening, morning, and midday, I complain and moan so that God will hear my voice. And so that became the pattern for prayer. Remember the Jewish day starts the night before. So in the evening I pray, and then I pray when I wake up in the morning, and then I pray at midday. and those became the three hours of prayer. By the book of Acts, by the New Testament period, there was some question as to whether that was nine and noon and three or whether it was other times, but we had three hours of prayer, we know that. And so by the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century, there was a document that was written called the Didache.

6:54 It was the teaching of the 12 apostles. And it sort of took what was in the gospels and applied it into sort of the daily rhythms of the spiritual life. And in the Didache, so this is a very early document, you know, about the same time the New Testament was being written, the last books of the New Testament, the Didache was written. And in there we have the Lord's Prayer. And at the end of the Lord's Prayer, it says, pray this three times every day. Pray this three times daily. And so on those three hours of prayer, the early Christians, at least according to the Didache, were praying the Lord's Prayer. Often we pray it every Sunday in worship, but then we sort of let it sit there. We don't really think about it throughout the week. And what I would encourage you to do is to allow this pattern of prayer to be a part of your daily spiritual life to pray. I'm gonna just suggest at least once a day that you pray the Lord's Prayer. And this week you have a chance, if you don't know the Lord's Prayer, I know many people have it memorized, but if you don't, you can go to core.org slash next.

7:49 You're gonna see there's a, the Lord's Prayer is there in a graphic. You can download that and then make it your wallpaper. And then every time you look at your phone, maybe every time you look at it, you might stop and pray that prayer briefly. All right, so for me, when I pray the Lord's Prayer, I don't, you know, I time myself this week. I could actually pray it in under 15 seconds. But when I pray it that fast, I'm not really thinking about the words. When I go out for a morning walk, often I'll take the Lord's Prayer as my focus during that morning walk. And I found I can pray the Lord's Prayer over the course of 30 minutes, praying it through only one time, just pondering each phrase. So in the time that remains, I'm going to encourage you to think about every one of those phrases there, pregnant with meaning, and exactly how they speak to us. So we're going to start with the first two words. And if you'd say them out loud with me, our father, our father. So we talk about God as father. Now we recognize, I recognize there are people who had terrible relationships with their dads, or maybe your dads were non-existent.

8:44 Maybe they were abusive. Maybe they were emotionally harmful. And so when we think about calling God father, and we think about what our earthly fathers were like, that may not be very helpful. I know one theologian who said, you know, I just have to say our parent, because our father is just a hard thing because of the experience I had as a child. You know, for me, I think about this and I think God is defining for me what father means, not my earthly father. And I love my earthly dad, but I've tried to think as a dad, what I wanna do is so love my children that I'm modeling for them in a very imperfect way, the love of their heavenly father. So God has defined for me what father means. But if it's parent, it's better for you than parent. But as we read this, I think about in Jesus' time, you know, what the father did and a really good father like today, love their children tenderly and fiercely. They protected them. They provided for them. You know, they taught them. They nurtured them. They were, you know, they enveloped them in their love. And I think that's what Jesus is saying when he's talking about calling God or starting this prayer, our Father.

9:41 And when I think about Father, I think about a grandfather. So I have the joy of being a grandfather. And my granddaughter, Stella, a few years ago, she'd spent the night, it's probably seven or eight years ago, she'd spent the night. And she'd been struggling a little bit getting to sleep. And I went up and I laid by her on the bed and we prayed the Lord's Prayer together. and then before I got up, she said, Papa, could you just lay here and hold me for a while? And trying to choke back the tears, you know, I just held her and I sang to her and then, you know, pretty soon she was sound asleep and I didn't really wanna get up. I just wanted to treasure that moment because I knew, you know, she was gonna grow up and, you know, she may never want me to do that again, but just to hold her in my arms and just to love her tenderly and to care for her. And that's the kind of picture I have when I think of our praying our father, that God is like that for us. And when we say our, it's really important because we tend to think, well, and by the way, the entire Lord's Prayer is prayed in the second person plural.

10:37 So it's our Father, not just my Father. He's our Father. And you know, He's our Father. He's Father to the entire world. God is the creator of all things, the protector, the provider, the lover of our souls, even if somebody doesn't acknowledge it. So I think about for the atheist, He's still our Father. They don't understand it or maybe don't believe it, but He's still our Father. When I walk down the street, to have neighbors who are Muslims. And when I see them walking along, if I happen to think about them or I'm walking by them, I think he's their father too. And he's my father and the Buddhist and the Hindu and the Muslim, the Jew, the atheist, agnostic, the people in other parts of the world. He is our father. He's our father to the people in Iran and Israel and Iraq and South America. He's our father. He's our father to all of our neighbors. He is our father, our protector. And what that means is that all of those other people are my brothers and sisters, right? Maybe they don't acknowledge God. Maybe they're not followers of Jesus.

11:30 But still, God looks at them as his children. So our father, let's continue. Our father who art in heaven. Our father who art in heaven. I love this line. So heaven, in the Greek, it's Uranus is the word, Uranus, from which we have the planet Uranus, or Uranus, we have the God Uranus. Well, Uranus literally meant two things. It meant, well, it could mean several things, but it meant the heavens, or really heaven in this case, singular, meant heaven. It meant the air. So the birds of the air, Jesus talks about the birds of the Uranus, the birds of the air. And it also meant the air as in what we breathe. So sky, heaven, or air could mean any of those things. And I love this because when I think of heaven, they were thinking they would look up at the stars at night and as far as the eye could see, what they could see in the darkness in Palestine, like God was in heaven, and it was all part of God's creation. And I think about an image that I saw several years ago. Maybe you've seen this.

12:25 This image, I saw it in Time Magazine. And it captures, there were two telescopes that from, so you can see right in the center, this is the Milky Way. We're somewhere actually out here in this area, if I remember correctly. And they were aiming their telescopes to the sky. And every dot that you see is a galaxy. Every dot is a galaxy. And this is just, this image is 1 billion light years across. Now our universe is 93 billion light years across. So this is just one 90 third of the entire universe as we understand it. And every one of those dots was a galaxy. And remember the Milky Way galaxy has over a hundred billion with a B stars like our star. And there's 50,000 of those galaxies in just that one image you saw, which is one 90 third of the entire universe. And when we say our father who art in heaven, like your glory fills the entire cosmos. And however the edge of the universe is, God is outside of that too.

13:20 So God's glory fills the cosmos. But I love the fact that it's also, urnos means air. You fill the cosmos. Your glory fills the cosmos and you're as near as the air that I breathe. And see, when I say this prayer, when I'm out taking a morning walk and I'm saying this prayer, I just pause and I breathe. You're as near as the air that I breathe. And yet your glory fills the entire cosmos. How cool is that? To think about the greatness and vastness of God and yet the closeness and intimacy of God with us. now I mentioned the Jewish prayer that's behind the Lord's Prayer is called the half Kaddish so the next phrase kind of encompasses the idea of Kaddish Kaddish means holy Kaddish or Kaddish means holy and refers to the holiness of God and so this is our next phrase let's say it together our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name hallowed or holy hallowed or holy Halloween is a word that comes from this all saints day all holy people's day So hallowed, hallowed be thy name.

14:18 Now remember, we're not praying for God to do something in this prayer. We're praying for God. Well, we have a few moments we're praying for God to do something, but we're also praying for God to use us. So we don't need to ask God to make his name holy. God's name is holy. It's revered. It's held in awe and high esteem. God is awesome. So we don't need to ask God to make his name holy. Here's what we're praying. Remember, ora et labora. I'm praying, Lord, as I live my life, as I talk to people, as I go about my business today, Help me to hallow your name. Help me by my living to bring glory to your name. Help me to revere your name. Help me to help people see your goodness and mercy by the way that I live my life. Isn't that powerful to stop and say, just in this opening phrase, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Help me to hallow your name in my daily life. That's what I've been thinking about the last few weeks. You know, be salt and light and all these other things that we do. Hallowed be thy name. All right, I was speaking to somebody recently and they said, you know, I don't attend your church, but I think your church is awesome.

15:17 I'm not a Christian, but I think your church is awesome. All of the ways that you do things to make a difference in the world. Man, I'm just so glad your church is in Kansas City. I just think you all are amazing. Well, we're not the ones who are amazing, but you know what we're trying to do in the things that we do together? Remember this prayer is prayed in the plural? You know, hallowed be thy name. May we together hallow your name by the way that we love, the way that we serve, so that when people think of church and they think of God, God's name is held in high esteem because of the way that we have demonstrated God's love for the world around us. That leads to the next line. Thy kingdom come. Let's say this together. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, when I pray this portion of the prayer, when I get to the thys, and I appreciate, you know, we're praying kind of the old King James English here. We could say your will be done, but I like the thy because it rhymes with my. And when I come to this portion, I really punch the thy.

16:14 I mean, anytime I say it, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Why do I punch it? Because my basic orientation in life, and so is yours, is my kingdom come. My will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so Jesus is upending what's going on inside my heart. He's turning me inside out and he's calling me to pray. And when I pray this, remember, or I'm praying, in essence, I'm praying, Lord, help this be the desire of my heart. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I love that. So when God looks at the earth and he sees what's broken in our world, again, he doesn't send angels, he sends people. But the people he's gonna use to do this are the kind of people who are regularly saying, thy kingdom come, not my kingdom come. Thy will be done, not my will be done. And I have to remind myself of it daily. This is why I appreciate in the Didache, the Christians praying three times a day, evening, morning, and noonday.

17:09 or in the afternoon to pray this, thy kingdom come, not mine. Thy kingdom come, not mine. Thy kingdom come, not mine. Thy will be done, not mine. And bring this on earth as it is in heaven. I read a book several years ago by Will Williman and Stanley Howrouse. Stanley Howrouse and Will both taught at Duke Divinity School. Stanley was one of the best Christian ethicists in the last century. And Bishop Will Williman, he's preached here. And in their book on the Lord's Prayer, they said, you get to this phrase, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And they say, unexpectedly, quite surprisingly, politics has crept into our Christian praying at this point. And they noted at this point, we were praying for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. The God's will concerning, you know, whatever it is, war, peace, concerns for the vulnerable and the poor, the God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

18:07 And so we pray this, we say, and I'm gonna get to work for that. I'm gonna work in our community to see this happen. Again, we're not asking angels to come. We're saying, here am I, Lord. Use me, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I had a chance this week to go to a gala for Operation Breakthrough, one of my favorite partners in ministry here in Kansas City. And you may remember it was started by two sisters, Sister Corita and Sister Berta. And they, in the urban core, they felt compelled to start. this is back 50 years ago, they felt compelled to start a ministry to provide daycare for low-income moms so that they could go to work and be able to afford to have their children in care and then to surround those little ones with love and care and then to focus on creating a great preschool environment and then to focus on how do we get these kids ready for preschool? And I was talking to Mary Esselman this week. She's the director and I just love her.

18:58 She's actually going on one of our mission trips to South Africa coming up in a couple of weeks. And she said, they have 782 children in their preschool. You've helped provide classrooms there. You provide support for what's going on there. It's just awesome. But 782 children there every single day. These are low-income children who wouldn't have had a chance at a preschool without Operation Breakthrough. And there are a total of 1,400 children who are there every week. So there's 782. And then there's the after-school program and some of the day programs in partnership with the local public schools where they're having a chance to come and learn and do amazing and cool things. And now they're starting a school, 150 elementary school kids in the next year. Part of your Christmas grant was going to help that new elementary school get started. But I asked her, I said, tell me again, what happens to those kids in the preschool? And she said, well, without our preschool, the estimate is that only 10% of these children would get to kindergarten ready for elementary school, only 10%. But the kids who've come through our program, 85% of them are ready for preschool. I want you to hear this. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is aura at Labora. That's exactly what's happening at Operation Breakthrough and in so many other ministries here in Kansas City, our partnerships in Kansas City, and what you do. I just love this. God's kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. So that leads to the next phrase. Let's say it together. Give us this day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread. I don't know about you, but I don't really need God to give me my daily bread because I have it. Like our pantry, we have enough food in the pantry.

20:30 We're doing fine. The other day I was sitting working on this sermon, went over, made two pieces of toast and peanut butter and jelly on them and some potato chips. And I, you know, I thank God for my food, but you know, I didn't really need God to miraculously put it on my table. But there are people in Kansas City who actually need that kind of help. And not just in Kansas City. We know, of course, we've got a team in Malawi right now. We've got, I mean, there are just people who are in need of God's help in providing their daily bread. And so I think about this and the data that we have, you know, the last data we have from the USDA goes to 2024, because after 2024, starting in 2025, they no longer report on the number of people who are food insecure. But in 2024, it was 18.3 million Americans who were food insecure, 13.7% of the population. And you know, in our country today, there's just a lot of people who are struggling. There's a lot of people doing fine. You might be doing great, you know, but if you're on the lower income level and you're struggling with gas prices that are up 35 or 40%, or if you're, you know, you're not working poor, but you're financially, you're doing okay, but you're not well off and you find you can't, you know, your health insurance is the same price as your mortgage payment.

21:36 I mean, it's just hard for a lot of people. And so for some people, their daily bread needs to come through friends and family members and programs with social service agencies and churches. And yes, even from the government, there's places where we all need to play some role in helping to close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it's supposed to be. To be able to give us this day, our daily bread is praying for us to look around and see who needs some help. with their daily bread. You may know somebody in your neighborhood or in your community who needs some help. I remember one woman who she knew of a friend who was struggling and she said, I don't wanna give her this directly, but is there any way that you could just give her this envelope? And it had, I don't know how much it was in it. It had a whole wad of $20 bills. She didn't wanna be known for what she was doing, but she wanted to make sure her friend had the help she needed at that time. Ora et labora. God doesn't send manna rain down from heaven. He sends people like you and me.

22:31 to answer this prayer. Now, for many of us, it's not bread like that. For me, it's not, you know, the food I'm going to eat. But our daily bread represents all of our needs. There are spiritual needs. There are needs for hope and joy and peace and strength and meaning and purpose. Give us today the food that we need, Lord, whatever that might be. And again, as we pray that, we begin searching for it and we begin to find it. By the way, I'm reminded in Deuteronomy 15, 10, it says this. Give generously to needy persons. Don't resent giving to them because it is the very thing that will lead to the Lord your God's blessings on all that you do. I mean, isn't that interesting how this works? That when you give, you find the blessing comes back to you. And that's exactly what Jesus is teaching here. As we pray this, we're inviting God to use us to give others their daily bread. Let's continue. Let's say this together, if you would. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Now, I want us to look at this.

23:32 Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Now, the word forgiveness, you may remember, is ephiomi in Greek. Ephiomi means to release or let go. And I've sometimes illustrated this by carrying a backpack around with me during a sermon on forgiveness, and it's filled with heavy rocks. And at some point, you decide, am I going to carry those things around with me forever, or I'm going to let them go? And I'll just drop that backpack with a thud. and there's just relief when you finally forgive, when you finally release your right to retribution, you release your right to vengeance or to bitterness or to anger towards other people. You just release it and let it go and it's for you. Now, ultimately, hopefully it moves them to, maybe it moves them to repentance, maybe it moves them to healing, but you start doing this for you. But I love this. Jesus says, forgive, this is how you're to pray. Forgive us, so we're talking to God. Release us, oh God, from our trespasses. We'll talk more about that word in a moment.

24:24 Release us from our trespass. Forgive us. Let go of your right to retribution against us or to hold this against us. Forgive us our trespasses. What? As we forgive those who trespass against us. Right? And so when I'm praying this prayer, when I'm walking, I'm thinking, who are the people that I haven't yet forgiven, that I'm holding onto some bitterness or some irritation or frustration with? Oh God, please help me to let that go. And you know, this is a dangerous prayer because you're praying, forgive me, Lord, to the degree that I forgive those who have trespassed against me. So if I'm holding on to bitterness, I'm saying, Lord, forgive me to the same degree I'm holding on to bitterness towards them. And it's a challenging portion of this prayer. Forgive as I forgive, right? As I forgive. When I think about this forgiveness, I think about the word trespasses. So we say trespasses in the Anglican tradition, the Methodist tradition. There's a number of us that come out of the Church of England and we typically, Catholics, I think say trespasses.

25:20 It's actually more accurately deaths here. Now, Luke has the Lord's Prayer also. It's in a different place. It's not in the middle of the Sermon on the Plain in Luke's Gospel. It's in Luke chapter 11, where one of the disciples comes and says, Jesus, teach us how to pray. And he gives a sort of abbreviated, slightly, you know, worded, slightly different version of the Lord's Prayer. But there it's forgive us our sins. Sin, hamartia, means to stray from the path. Like, here's the path I should walk. And I've gone this direction. Lord, release me from the guilt I have and help me to get back on the right path. And help me to forgive those who've gotten on the wrong path with me and help them get back on the right path. Okay, so, but in Matthew's gospel, Matthew 6, it's forgive us our, actually literally, it's the Greek word for debt. Forgive us our debts. So in the first century, people got into debt. They had to borrow money to pay for seed. The peasants borrowed money to pay for it, but they borrowed the seed.

26:11 They planted the seed. Then they had to pay the debt back. Now, if you couldn't pay the debt back, then the farmer's gonna come, or not the farmer, the owner of the seed is gonna come. He's gonna take part of your property. if you ultimately can't pay the debt again and again and again, you're going to be put in jail. This is how things worked in the ancient world all the way into the 1900s in various places in the world, debtors' prisons. And what Jesus is saying is, forgive us, Lord, the debts that we owe you. All the times we should have been kind and we weren't kind. All the times we should have said the right thing and we didn't do it. All the ways we should have given glory to you and we didn't do it. Forgive us our debts as we forgive the people who are indebted to us, who blew it or who borrowed something who didn't pay it back or who said something and they never thought to ask for forgiveness. I mean, we have all these debts and we're gonna let them go. We're gonna release the debt. We're gonna say, don't worry about it, it's paid off. It's a very powerful picture.

27:04 Now the word trespasses comes in because right after the Lord's Prayer, we read these words in Matthew 6, 14 and 15. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly father forgive your trespasses. So trespass happens there. And the word trespass in Greek means to slip off the path. So to sin means to stray or to miss the mark. To trespass means to stray from the path. It's just get off track. And so every time I've gotten off track, Lord, please bring me back on track, forgive me. And when somebody has gotten off track in my life and my relationships, you know, help me, oh Lord, to forgive their trespasses. And you know the word, no trespassing. Like you, you know, you see the sign, but then if you actually wander onto that property, you're on somebody's property, you shouldn't have been there. And in forgiving your trespasses, I forgive you for the times you stepped in places, did things that you shouldn't have done.

27:58 I just wanna ask this question. As you think about the Lord's Prayer today, I asked this last week too, or the week before. I wonder, is there anybody you need to forgive today? Is there somebody for whom in your heart you need to release and let go? Because you're gonna find it brings joy to you and you're gonna find it's easier to ask God for forgiveness when you've been willing to forgive. All right, let's go to the next phrase. Let's say it together. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, if you've worshiped with us any period of time, you have heard us pray this prayer, and it's probably tripped you up a little bit because the way most of us learn to pray the prayer was like this. Lead us not into temptation, just like one phrase. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, in Greek, which New Testament was written in Greek, there are no commas. And so what you have to do is guess.

28:50 When you're looking at the Greek, it all runs together. And so when you see it, you have to ask the question, where does the pause come? So typically, I don't know how this got started, but lead us not into temptation is essentially saying, God, don't lead me into temptation. Like we're asking God not to lead us into temptation. That's really interesting. Do you think God wants to lead you into temptation? Now, sometimes it's easier when we think of temptation and other translations as testing. So maybe God tests us sometimes, but only for our good to strengthen us. But you go to school, you get tested. Those tests help you to prepare and get ready. So maybe, some people say it that way. But if you think about temptation, the book of James says this, no one when tempted should say, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. So if that's true and God doesn't tempt us, then we don't need to ask God not to tempt us, not to lead us into temptation.

29:43 I think we have the comma in the wrong place. And I learned this from a commentary. I've never even been able to find that commentary again, but I was in seminary 40 years ago. And I learned this, that the comma really needs to go, lead us, comma. And I found it interesting a few years back, St. Francis, Pope Francis wrote a book on the Lord's Prayer. And he said, you know, I think we have the comma in the wrong place. And I'm like, Pope Francis, I've been saying that for decades, thank you. But lead us, comma. And so that's how we pray. Lead us, not into temptation. Here's what we're saying. Lord, lead me, lead us, lead us as a people, lead us as a church, lead us as your people, lead us as a community, lead us as human beings, lead us as a nation, lead us, comma, lead me, comma, not into temptation the way I would lead myself. You see, when you separate it that way, you realize I tend to lead myself into temptation.

30:37 I don't know what that looks like for you, but there are times, you know, I have thoughts that come into my brain or ideas or something I wanna do, and I know I shouldn't do it, but then I go ahead and do it. and a really simple one that's not that embarrassing to tell you about, is the other day I was working on this sermon, and I've done this on a number of occasions, and I keep, and some of you actually keep me supplied in these sometimes. One of you sends me dark chocolate peanut M&Ms on a regular basis, and this is a 9.4 ounce package of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms, and it is, you know, I'm working on my sermon. I'm full. I'm not hungry, and it's, you know, midnight, but I think, well, you know what? A little dark chocolate might keep me going for a while longer, so I go to the pantry, and I pull out one of these bags. Now, they're 9.4 ounces, In this bag is 1,350 calories, right? The average daily calories I'm supposed to take are about 2,000. I've already had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and now it's midnight, and I'm getting ready to eat these things. This has something like 250% of the sugar I'm supposed to take in in a given day right here, and about 150% of the fat I'm supposed to take in.

31:35 In this one package, you know what I do? I open it up, not this one, but another one like it. I open it up, and I just start eating. I'm just gonna have four. I even count them out. I end up four. Then I'm gonna have six, then I'm gonna have eight, And then I have 10. And then pretty soon, guess what happened to the package? This package was entirely gone, right? Now, this is a simple, silly example. And I'm guessing you have the same thing. It happens with chocolate chip cookies around my house sometimes, or, you know, all kinds of snacks. And I gotta go, so on that, lead me, Lord. Because here's what happened. The next morning, I woke up with a tummy ache and my ears were ringing and I had a headache from having so much sugar so late at night. It is not healthy for me. Lead us not into temptation. All right, but you know, things can be a lot more serious than that. We can find much more serious ways in which we find ourselves tempted to hate or to violate our oaths or to violate our marriages or a whole host of other things. And we lead ourselves into temptation. And so what I'm praying is lead me, Lord. And I love this again, praying three times a day, evening, morning, afternoon, lead us.

32:35 I think about a nation, the nation we are. Lead us as a nation. Lead us as a species, as humans. Lead us, not into temptation the way we lead ourselves, but deliver us from evil. All right, and interestingly enough, when it comes to evil, it's the evil in Greek.