Sermon-Sunday-July 29, 2007
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you know how to pray? It seems simple enough right? You just bow your head and tell God what you want right? And yet even the disciples had to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. And Jesus does not seem surprised or put off by the request. This is not one of those ‘When will you ever learn?’ moments that seemed to happen fairly often between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus offers no scolding or condemnation at their request, but rather He goes right into providing the disciples with an answer. In fact, by Jesus’ seamless response, I would even say that it seems like this is something that Jesus has just been waiting for the right moment to share with the disciples.
And the first thing that Jesus tells the disciples and us to do in prayer is to address God as Father. Right from the beginning Jesus reminds us of who we are; children of God, and as such when we pray, we pray to our Father. So from the beginning, prayer is established as a relational act. But when we say these words ‘Our Father,’ in all honesty do we really think about just what that means to us; that God sees us not as pawns that He manipulates at His will, but as His children? In the small catechism, Martin Luther writes that this essentially means that we can pray to God with complete confidence.
And then Jesus tells us that we are to pray for God’s name to be hallowed. Why does God need to glorify His name? Isn’t His name holy in and of itself? Yes, but the problem is not with God’s name, it is with us. God’s name is to be hallowed because we profane it ourselves. When you curse you profane God’s name. When you seek your own glory before God’s you profane God’s name. Even when you doubt that God hears your prayers you profane God’s name.
But through His Word and sacrament, our Lord re-establishes the holiness of His name and thus our sin is exposed to us and we are driven to the foot of the cross in repentance.
And then Jesus tells us that we are to ask God in prayer to provide for our daily bread. Now of course by ‘daily bread’ Jesus means our daily needs. Again the Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes that ‘daily bread’ here refers to everything needed for our daily life; food, clothing, home, and property, work, income, a devoted family, orderly community, good government, favorable weather, peace and health, a good name, true friends, and neighbors.
Luther also writes that God provides these things for us without our prayer, but that taking our needs to God in prayer reminds us of everything that God provides us with. There is a scene in an episode of the long-running animated show ‘The Simpsons’ where the Simpsons are sitting down to supper one night and they ask Bart to say grace. Bart’s prayer goes something like this "Dear God, we paid for all this food, so thanks for nothing."
Whether intentionally or un-intentionally, there is actually a lot of truth in that scene. By that I mean, that is what we would actually like to believe. We would like to believe that we earn the comforts and luxuries that we enjoy, and let’s be honest, take for granted. We would like to believe that we earn them everyday by our hard work and our own efforts.
But as Luther reminds us in the catechism, God doesn’t just provide the opportunity to provide for ourselves, He provides us with the talents and the work and the income that we need to provide for ourselves. And this petition to God to provide for our ‘daily bread’ is a reminder of everything that our Lord provides us with on a daily basis.
And it is in the same Spirit that we are encouraged to pray for our forgiveness. The promise of forgiveness is given to us from the moment that we are claimed by Christ in the waters of baptism and it is an eternal promise, and yet we are told to continually pray for that forgiveness. In the same way that the previous petition reminds us of everything that our Lord provides for us in terms of our daily needs, this petition reminds us of the most gracious gift that our Lord provides for us; forgiveness of all of our sins through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus.
And you need to constantly hear that promise of forgiveness proclaimed to you because sin, death, and the devil are constantly trying to convince you that the promise of forgiveness is not for you. Until Christ returns we will not move beyond the need to hear the glorious promise of forgiveness contained in God’s Word.
When Jesus teaches us how to pray, He is not just teaching us how to be in relationship with our Father in heaven, He is telling us about the very nature of the One to whom we pray, and it comes to us straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Hear the words of Paul from our lesson from Colossians who reminds us today that in Christ Jesus, the fullness of deity dwells bodily.
For that reason, it is immensely important that Jesus is the one telling us how to pray because Jesus is Immanuel, which means "God with us." God is indeed our heavenly and eternal Father and through the words of Christ Jesus He tells us how it is that we can continue to be in relationship with Him. He is our Father. He wants to hear from us, and like a faithful father, He doesn’t wait to hear from His children to speak to them. He continually comes to you in His word and the sacraments and in each other.
And like a Father, He doesn’t always give us the answer we want. Often, the job of a parent might be to recognize that it isn’t in their child’s best interest to receive something that they desire; such as a toy they may not be quite mature enough for or a movie they may not be mature enough to see. Unfortunately the logic and the rationale behind God not always giving us what we want might not always be so clear, such as when we lose a loved one, or we get sick, or we lose a job.
But we know that God does hear us even when it might not seem like He does. You see there is a point where the parallel between God as our heavenly Father and the role of earthly fathers ends. Earthly fathers are human, sinful, imperfect beings who are not always able to make the right decisions and unfortunately sometimes fail to put their child’s interests before their own. But God’s goodness and faithfulness are greater than that of any human, earthly father. And we know this because of the very One who tells us that when we pray we are able to address our Lord as Father.
We know this because the One who tells us to do this is the very One whom our Lord sent to make this possible. He is the very one whom our Father in heaven sent to break down the barriers that we place between ourselves and our Lord. He is the very One, Christ Jesus, with Whom we were buried in baptism and through whom we are raised through faith in the power of God.
We did not ask our Lord to come to us in the flesh in the form of His incarnate Son Christ Jesus, and yet He did. We did not ask Christ Jesus to live the perfect, sinless life for us and yet He did. We did not ask Him to pay the price on the cross that would erase the record that stood against us with all it’s legal demands, and yet He did. That is how faithful our Father in heaven is; providing for us, even when we don’t ask, faithful to us in the midst of our unfaithfulness.
And today, He has done it once again. He comes to you today in His word telling you how to pray when you didn’t ask Him to. He tells you to pray that His name be hallowed and sanctified, to pray for your daily needs and to pray for your forgiveness, not because He needs you to. He gives these things whether you ask Him to or not. And as if that weren’t enough, we don’t even have to worry about getting the words right or remembering to pray for the right thing, because we read in Romans 8 that the Spirit intercedes for you.
He gives this gift of prayer so that in the midst of a world that will try to take you captive through philosophy, empty deceit, and human traditions, you are reminded that God will not allow that to happen. You’re a child of God, and nothing but nothing can change that, and nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus your Lord.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you know how to pray? It seems simple enough right? You just bow your head and tell God what you want right? And yet even the disciples had to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. And Jesus does not seem surprised or put off by the request. This is not one of those ‘When will you ever learn?’ moments that seemed to happen fairly often between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus offers no scolding or condemnation at their request, but rather He goes right into providing the disciples with an answer. In fact, by Jesus’ seamless response, I would even say that it seems like this is something that Jesus has just been waiting for the right moment to share with the disciples.
And the first thing that Jesus tells the disciples and us to do in prayer is to address God as Father. Right from the beginning Jesus reminds us of who we are; children of God, and as such when we pray, we pray to our Father. So from the beginning, prayer is established as a relational act. But when we say these words ‘Our Father,’ in all honesty do we really think about just what that means to us; that God sees us not as pawns that He manipulates at His will, but as His children? In the small catechism, Martin Luther writes that this essentially means that we can pray to God with complete confidence.
And then Jesus tells us that we are to pray for God’s name to be hallowed. Why does God need to glorify His name? Isn’t His name holy in and of itself? Yes, but the problem is not with God’s name, it is with us. God’s name is to be hallowed because we profane it ourselves. When you curse you profane God’s name. When you seek your own glory before God’s you profane God’s name. Even when you doubt that God hears your prayers you profane God’s name.
But through His Word and sacrament, our Lord re-establishes the holiness of His name and thus our sin is exposed to us and we are driven to the foot of the cross in repentance.
And then Jesus tells us that we are to ask God in prayer to provide for our daily bread. Now of course by ‘daily bread’ Jesus means our daily needs. Again the Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes that ‘daily bread’ here refers to everything needed for our daily life; food, clothing, home, and property, work, income, a devoted family, orderly community, good government, favorable weather, peace and health, a good name, true friends, and neighbors.
Luther also writes that God provides these things for us without our prayer, but that taking our needs to God in prayer reminds us of everything that God provides us with. There is a scene in an episode of the long-running animated show ‘The Simpsons’ where the Simpsons are sitting down to supper one night and they ask Bart to say grace. Bart’s prayer goes something like this "Dear God, we paid for all this food, so thanks for nothing."
Whether intentionally or un-intentionally, there is actually a lot of truth in that scene. By that I mean, that is what we would actually like to believe. We would like to believe that we earn the comforts and luxuries that we enjoy, and let’s be honest, take for granted. We would like to believe that we earn them everyday by our hard work and our own efforts.
But as Luther reminds us in the catechism, God doesn’t just provide the opportunity to provide for ourselves, He provides us with the talents and the work and the income that we need to provide for ourselves. And this petition to God to provide for our ‘daily bread’ is a reminder of everything that our Lord provides us with on a daily basis.
And it is in the same Spirit that we are encouraged to pray for our forgiveness. The promise of forgiveness is given to us from the moment that we are claimed by Christ in the waters of baptism and it is an eternal promise, and yet we are told to continually pray for that forgiveness. In the same way that the previous petition reminds us of everything that our Lord provides for us in terms of our daily needs, this petition reminds us of the most gracious gift that our Lord provides for us; forgiveness of all of our sins through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus.
And you need to constantly hear that promise of forgiveness proclaimed to you because sin, death, and the devil are constantly trying to convince you that the promise of forgiveness is not for you. Until Christ returns we will not move beyond the need to hear the glorious promise of forgiveness contained in God’s Word.
When Jesus teaches us how to pray, He is not just teaching us how to be in relationship with our Father in heaven, He is telling us about the very nature of the One to whom we pray, and it comes to us straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Hear the words of Paul from our lesson from Colossians who reminds us today that in Christ Jesus, the fullness of deity dwells bodily.
For that reason, it is immensely important that Jesus is the one telling us how to pray because Jesus is Immanuel, which means "God with us." God is indeed our heavenly and eternal Father and through the words of Christ Jesus He tells us how it is that we can continue to be in relationship with Him. He is our Father. He wants to hear from us, and like a faithful father, He doesn’t wait to hear from His children to speak to them. He continually comes to you in His word and the sacraments and in each other.
And like a Father, He doesn’t always give us the answer we want. Often, the job of a parent might be to recognize that it isn’t in their child’s best interest to receive something that they desire; such as a toy they may not be quite mature enough for or a movie they may not be mature enough to see. Unfortunately the logic and the rationale behind God not always giving us what we want might not always be so clear, such as when we lose a loved one, or we get sick, or we lose a job.
But we know that God does hear us even when it might not seem like He does. You see there is a point where the parallel between God as our heavenly Father and the role of earthly fathers ends. Earthly fathers are human, sinful, imperfect beings who are not always able to make the right decisions and unfortunately sometimes fail to put their child’s interests before their own. But God’s goodness and faithfulness are greater than that of any human, earthly father. And we know this because of the very One who tells us that when we pray we are able to address our Lord as Father.
We know this because the One who tells us to do this is the very One whom our Lord sent to make this possible. He is the very one whom our Father in heaven sent to break down the barriers that we place between ourselves and our Lord. He is the very One, Christ Jesus, with Whom we were buried in baptism and through whom we are raised through faith in the power of God.
We did not ask our Lord to come to us in the flesh in the form of His incarnate Son Christ Jesus, and yet He did. We did not ask Christ Jesus to live the perfect, sinless life for us and yet He did. We did not ask Him to pay the price on the cross that would erase the record that stood against us with all it’s legal demands, and yet He did. That is how faithful our Father in heaven is; providing for us, even when we don’t ask, faithful to us in the midst of our unfaithfulness.
And today, He has done it once again. He comes to you today in His word telling you how to pray when you didn’t ask Him to. He tells you to pray that His name be hallowed and sanctified, to pray for your daily needs and to pray for your forgiveness, not because He needs you to. He gives these things whether you ask Him to or not. And as if that weren’t enough, we don’t even have to worry about getting the words right or remembering to pray for the right thing, because we read in Romans 8 that the Spirit intercedes for you.
He gives this gift of prayer so that in the midst of a world that will try to take you captive through philosophy, empty deceit, and human traditions, you are reminded that God will not allow that to happen. You’re a child of God, and nothing but nothing can change that, and nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus your Lord.
Amen
posted by Steve at 3:25 PM
1 Comments:
Not bad. Good teaching sermon on the LP.
However, I think you missed the sermon you could have given. In fact, you said it yourself:
"When Jesus teaches us how to pray, He is not just teaching us how to be in relationship with our Father in heaven, He is telling us about the very nature of the One to whom we pray, and it comes to us straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. "
All you had to do is to "do" that to the people. Tell them who this God is-plainly. You spent alot of time talking about the petitions without actually doing the petitions to them. That is why I urged my brother to focus on the Genesis text. That is how and why we are to pray-talk about balls! Would anyone pray like that to God today in church? Telling God who He is and what He is suppose to be doing? But yet, that is exactly what Jesus said to do. You starting getting there at the end, but it got lost.
Yes, I worked with my brother on what the texts were talking about, but he wrote the sermon. I don't think it was too bad and there wasn't any too overtly works righteousness or free will in it.
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