Luther’s Catechism Lord’s Prayer 2
Luke 11:1-4 August 16, 2015
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: “ ‘Father,
hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.3Give us each day our daily bread. 4Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.’ ”
Dear friends in Christ,
As we draw near to the end of our study of Luther’s catechism for our summer sermons, we’ve also come to the end of our look at the Lord’s Prayer. If you are able to join us last week, you know that we started looking at the Lord’s prayer, which is the model prayer which our Lord and Savior has taught us. In giving this prayer to the church, Jesus is making it clear that even as God speaks to us through his written inspired word, we have a chance to respond to him. For that is what prayer truly is. It is God’s gift to his chosen people so that in any words and at any time we can speak to him letting him know what we need, what we want or simply to thank him for all that he has done for us. This means that prayer is truly a great blessing which God has given to those who love and trust in him.
But even though prayer is something that really has almost no restrictions to it, we can speak in any words, we can ask God for anything and we can do it at any time we want there are some guidelines which Christ gives to us. For as we looked at the first part of the Lord’s prayer we see that Jesus makes it clear that prayer is only to be addressed to the one true God. We are to use words or ideas that express our God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is not merely one God, but he is one God in three persons. This is the God we are to pray to as we seek the things we want for our lives and the lives of those around us. For praying to any other “god” is no better than praying to a lifeless rock.
But even as we properly address our prayers to the only true God, the one true God who can answer our prayers, Jesus first of all directs us to ask for the things that God wants. For when we think of God’s name being holy or his kingdom coming into the hearts of sinful men or even that his will would be done on earth, these are all things that God wants. Since God wants them we as his children should want them as well. As Jesus begins this model prayer with those words, he is teaching us to understand how to put God’s desires first in our lives.
Even though this aspect of prayer, the idea of putting others before ourselves, is something that God wants us to do, it is often very hard. It is often hard because we don’t always understand the needs of others as well as we understand our own needs. The prayers that are most common to us are ones in which we ask God to help us in our times of need. They are prayers whose petitions are aimed at the distresses which we are facing. We pray that our health would improve and we pray that our finances would be better. We pray for our happiness, our comfort and our peace. And most certainly once we have prayed for those around us and for the good of God’s church here on earth, it is fitting for us to pray for the things that we need in our lives. It is fitting that we pray for things that we need and even want.
And that is the point we have reached in this model prayer of our Lord and Savior. For after we address our prayer to God our father and after we seek his holiness and mercy in the lives of all, asking that all who trust in him would gladly do his will, it is then that we turn to our own needs. It is then that we turn to the things that are just for us. For the fourth petition, the request that God would “give us this day our daily bread,” is a request that we are making in a very personal level.
Now I’m guessing that as you hear the term “daily bread,” especially as we use it in the Lord’s Prayer, you are most likely thinking of bread. Yes, most people who pray the Lord’s prayer think of this petition is one that is referring simply to that wheat-based product that we use for sandwiches, toast or dinner rolls. And in one way this is true. For thousands of years bread is the staple of many cultures. For Jesus to speak of “daily bread” was to remind people of their main source of food, sustenance and life itself.
Yet the idea of “daily bread” is also a much broader topic. Even though we may expand the idea of daily bread to being all the food that we eat, the meats, the dairy, vegetables, desserts and whatever else we might consume, our daily bread is even more than that.
Luther’s explanation to this petition is one that reminds us that even as in the first three, God surely gives this blessing of daily bread even without our asking. To the believer and unbeliever alike God bestows daily bread as being “food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, land and cattle, money and goods, a godly spouse, godly children, godly workers, godly and faithful leaders, good government, good weather, peace and order, health, a good name, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
Though there may be some things that are missing from this list, it is clear that “daily bread” really means everything we have in this life that we can see, touch, taste or feel. It is all that God has bestowed upon us so that we might live and prosper. And as Luther points out this is done even without our asking for both the wicked and the righteous. It is simply the reminder that our heavenly Father uses his Almighty power to preserve his creation.
But even as we begin to comprehend this aspect of God’s work and how God takes care of us, the way in which he bestows upon every living thing what it is we need to survive, the next petition takes this care of God for his people just one step further. For the words “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” remind us of two very important facts. The first is that we are indeed sinners, people who rebel against God in our thoughts, words and actions on a daily basis and that secondly we cannot pay for the sins ourselves. We need God to take care of them. We need God through the working of Jesus Christ to forgive us our sins so that we might stand before him righteous and free from sin.
And though our sinful nature will try to convince us that there are many things we need to do to pay for our sins, God is clear this forgiveness is a gift from him. It is a gift that he gives to us by grace alone and he expects us to use it with others in the same way. For the message of this petition is one that says we seek God’s forgiveness in the same way we show it to others. If we really want God to overlook our sins against him, we should also overlook the sins of others against us.
But the fact that we do not always do this is what led Jesus to also give us the sixth and seventh petitions which speak to us of temptation and evil. For in addition to the sinful nature which we all possess there is also a great deal of temptation from the devil and the world around us. All three of these work together to lead us away from God into all kinds of sins for which we do not want to be forgiven. They lead us into all kinds of sins which can take from us the eternal life which Christ has won and freely given.
So as Jesus speaks this message of temptation and evil, it is clear that God would never lead us into such a dangerous situation. He would never replace us in a position which would take from us our faith and eternal life.
Yet there are many times when God allows us to be in these situations which serve as a test for our faith. The temptations that surround us and the evil that would assail us are permitted in our lives by God so that we might rely on him to stand firm against them. Though God protects us from much of the evil of this world he always allows some in our lives so that we recognize its danger and turn from it. It is as Luther said concerning temptations and the evil around us, “they are like the birds of the air. You cannot stop them from flying overhead you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”
Certainly the petitions of this model prayer are given to us so that we might earnestly pray them. They are given to us so that we might eagerly and joyfully look to God for all that we need in this life as well as seeking his strength to avoid the temptations and evil which might take our eternal life from us. But as Jesus said, this is merely a model prayer. This is merely an example of how we should pray to God for all that we want, and all that we need. The encouragement of this prayer is also that we would pray to God in every situation. We should use words that come to us by the Holy Spirit. We should be bold and confident that even our own prayers are heard the same way this prayer is heard. For God truly hears the prayers of his faithful people and answers them in ways that are far greater than we might ever imagine.
Let us use this message of Christ as a starting point of our daily prayers. Let us always pray for God’s kingdom to come in God’s will to be done. Let us always seek the holiness of his name and let us always ask for his blessing in our daily lives. In the words of Christ during our own words of us pray for that is God’s blessing to us that we might speak to him. Amen.