Justification in the Lord’s Prayer - December 20, 2017 - Third Advent Midweek - Text: The Lord’s Prayer

This year, in keeping with the celebration of the 500 anniversary of the Reformation, for the Advent through New Year’s Eve services we are looking at the main emphasis of the Reformation, which is the authority of the Word of God and the article of the confessions on which the church stands or falls, the article on justification by grace through faith in Jesus alone. We are looking at justification in the way of the six chief parts of Luther’s Small Catechism and prayerfully we are connecting this justification to our Christmas, birth of Jesus celebration and our New Year’s celebration as well.
 

Last week we looked at justification in the Apostles’ Creed. Today we are looking at the greatest prayer we have and I say the greatest because it was given to us by Jesus and we certainly cannot make up a better prayer than Him. Today we focus our attention on the Lord’s Prayer and the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. We begin by looking at the petitions given for spiritual blessings, the first three petitions. In the first three petitions we pray that God’s name is kept holy, that His kingdom of power, grace and glory may come and that His will is done. We pray that God’s name is kept holy because His name is holy in and of itself and because we cannot make it holy. We pray that God’s kingdom may come which means that we are praying for the mission work of the Church and our congregation in particular, that is that we may live lives of faith, giving an answer for the hope that we have when we are asked, and share God’s love and Word so that His Church on earth might grow and increase. We are also praying for the Lord to hasten His coming on the last day when He will judge the world and take us to be with Himself in heaven. And we are praying that God’s will be done here on earth. Certainly we cannot oppose God’s will, although as we see daily in our world there are those who continually attempt to oppose God and His Word and will. God’s will is that, as we live lives as priests in the priesthood of all believers and as we have opportunity as He gives us His authority to speak and His promise to be with us and give us the words to speak so others may come to faith and be a part of His kingdom.
 

In the fourth petition, although we often say that this petition is for bodily blessings and we will speak of that in a moment, when we pray for daily bread, we are also praying for spiritual blessings as we are praying for spiritual bread through the means of grace. In other words, just as we eat food to sustain our bodies so we eat the Lord’s spiritual food of His Word and Sacraments to nourish our souls.
 

In the final three petitions we pray for more spiritual blessings in our prayer as we pray for our turning from evil, that we forgive as we are forgiven, that we are not lead into temptation and that we are delivered from evil. Our prayer that we are forgiven as we forgive others is not so much a deal we are making with God nor is it a condition for our forgiveness rather it is an acknowledgment that we are to forgive others as we have been forgiven. How can we expect forgiveness except that we also forgive others. Yet, we are reminded that it is God who forgives us first and moves and stirs in us to forgive those who have sinned against us. We pray that God would not allow us to be lead into temptation because we know our sinful nature and the fact that we are so easily lead into temptation and sin. Yet we focus on Jesus who was tempted yet never sinned and we pray that as He has overcome temptation and sin that He would help us as well in our time of need. And we pray for deliverance from evil and the evil one, Satan himself. We cannot stand the attacks of the devil by ourselves, but we know that Jesus has defeated the devil and so we pray that He might deliver us as He has on the cross. So, as we see, all seven petitions do indeed speak of our need for spiritual blessings.
 

Getting back to the fourth petition, this petition is the one that also speaks of our bodily blessings. This petition reminds us that we do have bodily needs and that it is okay to express ourselves and to pray for our bodily needs. We pray this petition not because God needs us to list those things which we need to support our body and life, indeed He is God and He already knows what we need even before we ask. Rather than praying because God needs to hear from us, we pray because of our need to pray. We pray this fourth petition as a recognition of God’s gift of physical blessings. We pray this petition as a way of expressing our thanks and praise to God for providing us with all that we need even when we fail to express our need.
 

What does this mean? So far we have been reminded of our sin through the Ten Commandments. We have been reminded of God’s gifts of this world, of life, of salvation and faith through the work of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Apostles’ Creed. In this third chief article, the Lord’s Prayer, we are given words of response to all that God has done, all that He is doing and all that He continues to do for us. In this prayer we pray because we need to pray and because we need to acknowledge that God provides.
 

As we have said, God is omniscient, all knowing. He knows what we need even before we know what we need and even before we ask. God does not necessarily wait until we ask to provide for our needs, indeed, even the wicked who do not pray have their needs met and often before they realize their needs as well.  We pray because of our need to prayer, because of our need recognize and verbalize our needs.
 

In the beginning God created all things out of nothing. At our conception God gave each one of us life, physical life, a body and a soul. God created us in order to love us. Indeed, just as parents have children to love not so that they might be served by their children, so God has created us in order to love us. God created us and He gives to us because of our need and because of His need and desire to give to us, because of His great love for us. We are born with nothing and we will leave this world with nothing. All that we have is God’s and is on loan to us from God to use for our own purposes but even more to use in service to Him while we are in this world.
 

Our greatest need is the need we fail to recognize the most. Our greatest need and the need we most especially pray for is forgiveness of sins. Without forgiveness we would remain in our sin and in our sin we would be eternally condemned, but with forgiveness is life and salvation. Thus, in recognizing God’s forgiveness we forgive others as He forgives us.
 

The Lord’s prayer reminds us that God is the prime mover, God gives and we are given to. As we cannot make ourselves just and right in God’s eyes, so it is God who comes to us to do for us and give to us. It is God who makes us just and right in His own eyes. We love because He first loved us. We have no love of our own, but only reflect the love with which He first loves us. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us of our greatest need for spiritual blessings and gives us the very Words of Jesus to speak back to Him recognizing and praying for those blessings we need the most.
 

During the season of advent we are especially reminded of that part of our prayer of the Lord’s prayer that we call the second petition, “thy kingdom come,” which includes the celebration of God’s Son, the King of all, born to save us from our sins. As we have heard time and again, the Kingdom of God is here. We are living in the last days of this world as ushered in by the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world. Yes, God waited some four to six thousand years before fulfilling His first promise to send a Savior, but that does not mean that He will wait that long before fulfilling His promise to return to take us to be with Himself in heaven for eternity. He has waited almost two thousand years, but what is that to Him. Certainly we understand that God is not slow in His return rather He is patient wanting as many people as possible to come to faith and to be saved before His return.
 

Thy kingdom come, Come Lord Jesus, this is our prayer and especially during the season of Advent as we prepare for our celebration of the birth of the One promised, the One who lived for us, who took our sins and suffered and died to pay the price for our sins, the one who justifies us, that is the one who makes us just and right in God’s eyes, and who has made us just and right in His eyes, so we continue to pray that He might come again in all glory to take us to be with Himself in heaven for all eternity. Thus, we rejoice and say, to Him be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.