Lent 2021 - Lord\'s Prayer (Belt)

Week 4 – Lord’s Prayer

March 8 – Pastor Belt

Because we learned in the Creed that God gives and does everything, we need to learn how to ask him to give those things.  Prayer is us learning to ask what God has promised to give.  Prayer is only done by beggars and children.  Well off or satisfied people do not pray, they are just blind to their own need.  So prayer is the result of people who know what they need from God.

            Each petition in the Lord’s prayer is God telling us what we need to ask from him.  We begin by noting that He wants us to call him our Father.  This makes us children before him.  Children are needy and need to ask in confidence for God to give.

            We ask God to make us Holy.  God doesn’t need to be holy, we don’t ask for his name to be holy for himself but for us. We keep God’s name holy by what we say and how we live.  So we petition God to make us holy.

            When God’s kingdom comes then, we are made holy.  God’s kingdom is coming, he is not waiting for you to pray for it to come.  We are praying that God will send his kingdom to us and make us citizens of it.  God’s kingdom comes when we receive God’s Holy Spirit.  When does this happen?  This is answered in the rest of the Catechism but we will say it here: The Sacraments.  God has to give you his kingdom and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper is where it happens.

            We also then ask for God’s will to be done to us.  Crazy prayer to pray right?!  You are asking for God to have his way with you.  We drone through this prayer too often but should recognize what we are asking for here.  You are asking that someone would exercise their will upon you, namely God.  What is God’s will?  To break evil that manifests from the devil, the world, and you.  Yes.  God is looking to break you and conform you to His will.  God grant it to us!

            Daily bread.  We then ask for this.  This follows naturally from what we have heard thus far. Seek first the kingdom and all these things will be given to you.  Here in Daily bread, we learn that daily bread includes everything needed for the body that the Creed told you that God gives.  And here we learn that God gives daily bread to everyone, even evil people.  So what is the prayer here?  If God is already giving daily bread why ask?  Because we are asking for us to realize this!  People have no idea when daily bread happens.  I woke up this morning.  Daily bread. I breathed this morning.  Daily bread.  I didn’t float away because God has gravity working.  Thanks be to God.  My legs worked.  Thanks be to God.  The lights turned on.  Thanks be to God.  That is 5 things right off the bat and I am only about a minute into my day.  Don’t be a brute or an unbeliever, realize when God gives!

            Then we ask God to forgive us our trespasses.  I don’t deserve for God to hear my prayer.  The things we are asking for here, we are just asking that God will give them to us by grace, not because we are entitled to receive a single good thing.  So note how much he does give and forgive!  Shouldn’t this be enough that even if we only received one good thing all of our lives that we would do good to others.  If even one sin is forgiven us by God, is that not enough to look at my neighbor and release him from all his? God grant that as we pray this petition.

            The devil, the world, and your sinful flesh are always leading you astray and into temptation.  As we are dragged off, there is only one place where we can look to in order to be saved: God.  So we cry out to him that he would not lead us into temptation.  This is saying more about God and his work then it is about us.  This is letting God be the only savior.  God does not tempt, but Jesus is Lord over temptation because he beat it.  We could even say that we are asking that God would not treat us as he did Jesus when the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

            Deliver us then from evil!  The Greek here says, “deliver us from the evil one.”  All prayer is directed against the devil, and this final petition asks God to bring us to himself.  Because where God is, there His name is holy.  There his kingdom comes.  There his will is done.  There he supplies daily bread.  There he forgives sins and keeps us from temptation.  This is all done when he delivers us from evil and to himself.  God grant it!

            Amen!  This word is said with confidence.  The word literally means: Yes!  Truly!  It will happen!  This is not a doubt kind of word.  It is a certain and bold word that only children can say who have just talked with their heavenly Dad.

March 9
Read Mark 7

March 10
Read the Lord’s Prayer in the Catechism and the following readings. Attend Divine Service.

Daniel 6:1-28
Psalm 102
Philippians 4:4-9
Matthew 6:5-14