The Lord's Prayer
Series: Sermon on the Mount
July 25, 2021 - Jeff Gokee
Thank you, thank you. I’m actually having a really hard time. That song, you know, Jesus we love you, Jesus we love you. I’m really struggling in a beautiful way. I do love him. I do sense his presence. I don’t even want to transition. I just want to sit in that moment for a second and just feel it. Do you know how much he loves you? Do you know how much he loves us? Do you? He loves you so much.
I can’t even imagine what so many of you are going through in this time of your life. But just know he loves you. Please know he loves you. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves me. I sense it. I feel it. For so much of my life just longing to find other loves that only he can give me. And man, that messed me up. I hope it messed you up. I hope the love of Jesus messes you up, because it’s messing me up right now. I’m like, Dude, I’ve got to preach. What am I doing?
Matthew 6:7-13
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
Eight years ago my son was diagnosed with leukemia. Thankfully, last week we celebrated six years off of chemotherapy, which was like a huge celebration for our family. He’s healthy and doing great. Seventeen years old. He’ll be eighteen in a couple of months.
For the first three months his protocol was a certain chemo and that chemo set him into anaphylactic shock. It was very painful, very hard, very scary. So they draw us into this back room and they say, “Hey, without this chemo his chances of surviving drop dramatically. But we have another option and that other option is not approved by the FDA. It’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. It’s going to be very, very expensive, but we think it will save his life.”
Basically, the option was, for three times a week for about six months they had to give him leg shots, deep tissue leg shots right in the muscle. Very painful. So we brought him in for that first one and that happened and it’s so painful, so overwhelming. Now we’ve got to do this three times a week for the next six months. How do we do this?
What ended up happening was, I would show up to the hospital with him and he would start freaking out because he’s thinking about the pain. He’s thinking about the hurt. So I ended up taking laps with him on the inner part of the hospital and just talking to him. “Buddy, you’ve got this. You’ve got this. Come on. Stay focused.”
One of the things Cooper said to us early on in his diagnosis was, “God and I have got this.” Right? So I was like, “You and Jesus. You and God. You’ve got this. Just stay focused in on him. You’ve got to stay loose.” Because if he didn’t stay loose, his muscles would get tight and it would be even more painful. So I’m talking through him, kind of rallying him toward this thing that he has to go through, this difficult thing. Then he’d go in the room and try to calm his heart and get the shots.
I realized something this week as I was thinking about all the study I’ve done around the Lord’s Prayer over the last month or so, and actually diving in deep into the Lord’s prayer is this: I used to think of the Lord’s Prayer kind of like this very somber, quiet thing. I realized this week it’s a rally cry. It’s like a war cry. It’s this anthem that we are in the kingdom of God right now. We are his children. He is our Father and we are coming up against all that our culture is deeming appropriate. When he’s going, “It’s not. That’s the kingdom of this world. I want to invite you into kingdom mentality, kingdom thinking.”
So it reframed the way I was reading and praying through the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a rally cry. Culture shaping, life shaping, day shaping, mind shaping, spirit shaping prayer that Jesus is inviting us into.
I want to tell you this, it’s going to radically change your life, if you don’t just say these words, but really apply them to the way you live your life. This is the kingdom of God life, the kingdom of God prayer that he’s inviting us into.
And much like me taking Cooper around the inside of the hospital going, You’ve got this,” Jesus is going, “I’ve got you. Stay focused. My kingdom’s here. I’m your Father. I’m hallowed. I’m going to take care of your needs. I’m going to provide for you. I’ve got you.”
And it’s a rally cry. So I hope as we go through this together that it is this very personal, somber thing, but it’s also this rally cry that’s coming up against the kingdom of this earth. He is introducing us once again to his kingdom and what exists there.
The Lord’s Prayer is a framework not just for prayer, but for life. I don’t know if you know this but so often we get caught up into the idea that this is a prayer. This is a framework for life and the way that we are to live this life.
Over the last couple of months we’ve been trying to learn what it looks like to live in the kingdom of God. Once again Jesus is providing us a framework through prayer that is actually a wholistic, a whole life thing that he’s inviting us into.
Before we move on, kind of the background of the Lord’s prayer, and we see it all throughout this passage in Matthew 6 — and we talked about it a few weeks ago — what happened is the Gentiles had all these complex prayers to the gods. Basically those complex prayers were filled with uncertainties. So they used all these words more and more, because they’re trying to get the gods to interact with their lives. And of course Jesus says, “Don’t be like that.”
In my mind I had this image of Elijah on top of the mountain, and the prophets of Baal, all day long cutting themselves and saying tons of words. That’s the image that comes to my mind. And Elijah’s kind of mocking them, “What? Is he going to the bathroom? Eh - I guess your god’s asleep.”
This is what Jesus is trying to help his disciples understand. “Don’t be like them. Don’t just continue babbling on and babbling on with this level of uncertainty. I’m here in your presence. I’m Emmanuel, God with You right now. You don’t have to be babbling on. I know what you need. Because I know what you need and I know how I want to love you, I want to present for you a structure in the way that you can live your life and a framework in which you can pray.”
William Barclay, he is a commentator, he says this, and then we’ll move forward. He says:
We need to bring our whole life to the whole of God and bring the whole fo God to the whole of life.
This is so important as we move forward in understand the Lord’s Prayer and what he’s actually inviting us into. It’s all of him. It’s all of him. But it takes all of us. Are we willing to be obedient to who he’s called us to be because of who he is?
So he starts off by saying, “Our Father in heaven…” Right there we have these two beautiful things. “Our Father.” This is love. Then “in heaven.” Power. He is loving. He is our Father. But he is above it all. He is both far away and very near. And we live in that tension. Right? He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the beginning and the end. But he is so near to us right now.
He starts off with our “Our Father in heaven,” and you’ll see this word occur all through this prayer: our. Because I think what happens so often in the Christian life is, it doesn’t say “My Father,” it says, “Our Father.” Jesus is inviting us into the Ecclesia, the Body. This is why Church is so important. Church is not just something you attend on Sunday. It’s who we are because of who he is. And Jesus is trying to help us understand that this myopic way in which we approach him is misguided.
So he starts off by going, “No, this is a corporate declaration, not just an individual declaration.” It’s a corporate declaration. Why? Because it’s resisting and revolting about what Satan wants to do to you and me. And what he wants to do is have it all be about you. He wants the individualism that our culture loves to seep into your mind.
I find it so interesting that the pieces of technology we have in our life are literally drawing us away from one another. We have an iPhone. Right? An iPhone. When I grew up, we had our phone. We only had one phone in the house. How many only had one phone in the house? Now y’all got a phone, individually, in your hand. It’s your phone. It has your preferences. You call whoever you want.
What we don’t realize is that we’ve applied that to our understanding of who God is. And it’s false. He’s our Father. All Satan wants to do is pull you away from the flock, pull you away from the body, because there you are most vulnerable. All throughout Scripture it’s talking about a body with many parts: “A three cord strand cannot be easily broken,” “Where two or more are gathered In his name there’s — what? There’s much power.” Because there’s power in the Body, in the Ecclesia. This is what he’s inviting us into.
The power of the Lord’s Prayer is not just in personal petition, but corporate declaration. This is who we are. This is what we’re praying. This is what we believe.
He then says, “Our Father.” Everything starts here. For over two decades my father and I have been kind of on the outs. I love my father. He’s a good man. But there’s been a lot of hurt. There’s been a lot of pain. What I realized was my view of my heavenly Father has been dramatically impacted by my experience with my earthly father. This is where, for a lot of you, it breaks down.
This is why you struggle with prayer. This is why we continue to struggle to live and be obedient, because we don’t really know him as Father. I know for so many of you, you’ve had really painful experiences with your earthly fathers. They’ve not set a great example of heavenly Father. We know that most of the social problems in our world are as a direct result of fathers who have abandoned families. Fathers who have hurt and abused and all these different things.What we end up doing, whether we know it or not, is start applying that. So this term, “Our Father,” we sort of struggle with. But everything starts there.
A.W. Tozer, a great theologian, says this:
What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
The Lord’s Prayer starts here. It has to start here. Because if we don’t know him as Father, the rest of it’s not going to follow. The rest of it’s not going to make sense. We’re going to continue to battle in this world. So we really do have to get honest with how do I believe? Who do I believe God to be? Do I believe him to be this distant diety who’s sitting on a rocking chair up in heaven? Or is he my — our — Father?
We have to deal with that. Otherwise the rest of the prayer we’re going to continue to struggle with. Otherwise I’m going to continue as a pastor to hear over and over, “I just don’t feel God. I don’t sense God. I don’t see God. I don’t hear God. I don’t feel God.” Because we’re struggling with who he is as Father.
So the question is do you really believe he is your Father? When we sing, Jesus, we love you, there’s something inside of you that just longs. That’s who he is to us. And it starts here. You have to start here.
And then you have to transition into this next part, which is “hallowed be your name.” Holy is who God is. It’s who he is. Holy is who God is. Isaiah is having a vision of the throne room of God, where the angels are falling on their faces and they say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” And as a result of that, Isaiah says, “I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people in the same way.” As a result of understanding that God our Father is holy, holy, holy.
But I think where we’ve moved as a culture is we’ve moved away from that vision, that very sacred vision that Isaiah is inviting us into. We’ve moved to a very sacreligious vision of the holiness of God, where we’ve made him our home boy — like, “Jesus is my home boy,” — where we use the name of God as if it doesn’t have any reverence behind it. As if it isn’t holy. We use it in common phrases.
I think there’s something about us that needs to back up. We need to back up, back into that sacred space. Not a legalistic place, but a sacred place to go, “God is holy.” Our Father, yes, he’s loving, but he is holy. Jesus wants us to pray in a way that says, “Our Father is hallowed. He’s holy.”
R.C. Sproul, another theologian, says:
If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead…
And I believe that to be true because I’ve experienced it in my life.
…You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don’t know God. You don’t love God. You’re out of touch with God. You’re asleep to his character.
Like smelling salts, Jesus is trying to awake our souls, that God is our Father and he is holy, holy, holy. And that should bring a reverence. It should draw our hearts into who he is, his whole character, and that we would desire him deeply in that way; because hallowed, as it’s translated in the Greek, isn’t just about knowing the name of God. Satan knows the name of God. The demons know the name of God. Hallowed is, at least in the Greek, it’s pulling us in. It’s for those who intimately want to know the character and the nature of God and they trust him. This is what it means to live into the holiness, the hallowed ness of God.
Here’s the reality: The holiness of God does not keep us at an arm’s distance. Because who is teaching us to pray this way? Jesus. And where is Jesus? Emmanual, God with Us come to earth. How beautiful! And then Jesus dies and resurrects and who does he send? The Spirit of God who is here right now, near to us. This holy, holy, holy God is not keeping us at an arm’s distance, but drawing us near. But do you want to experience the holiness of God? Because we see, even in Old Testament and New Testament, he’s inviting us into this. But we have to be available to deal with who God is in the invitation that he’s provided for us.
Psalm 9:10 was really helpful for me this week in trying to work through this. It says this:
Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
How beautiful. How beautiful for you and me to have this understanding that he is our Father and he is holy, but he loves us and cares for us and Jesus is inviting us in, to the point where now he transitions and he says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Whose kingdom? His kingdom. Whose will? His will. Not our kingdom, not our will. His kingdom. His will. We want it to be done. As we read through this we find out something really interesting. We find out there’s something very right that’s happening. We find out also that there’s something very wrong.
I hate that I love McDonald’s. I hate that I love their French fries. Because there’s something so good about it and there’s something that’s so, so very bad about it. Do you know they put sugar in their salt on the fries? Right? To just draw us in. “Come, come, have my magical, delicious brownness in your belly.” But it’s so bad for us. It’s going to clog up our arteries and give us heart attacks. But we’re like, “Arrrh..” Because there’s something very nostalgic about it, at least for me, right?
There’s something very, very wrong that Jesus is exposing, but he’s also talking about what’s right. What’s right is we’ve neglected the kingdom of God. We’ve pushed it away. That’s why we have to invite it in. Our sin nature, our depravity is continuing to push against God’s plan, his kingdom come, his will be done. It’s pushing up against it.
Jesus is like, “We need to invite it in.” So there’s both a negative and a positive here. It’s a problem for so many of us. We talk like this, but we don’t really want it. It’s a very dangerous thing to invite into your life because it’s going to transform you. It’s going to help you and open your eyes to the holiness of your heavenly Father. This is what it means to pray for this.
Here’s the other thing. I find this so interesting. And you’re going to have to allow me to rant for just a little second, okay? I find that, especially during the last eighteen months, honestly, for most of my life, any time when stuff gets hard, everybody’s like, “It’s our time to get out of here.” Our ecclesiology gets all crazy, right? Our end times stuff. We go, “He’s coming back! He’s coming back! He’s coming back!”
And that may be the case. But sometimes we’re so busy trying to get out of here instead of inviting him here. He’s here. This is his kingdom come and his will be done on earth — not get out of here — as it is in heaven. And sometimes we’re too busy trying to get out of here when he’s inviting us to be here with him.
All right. Rant’s over. I feel so much better. Thank you.
The other thing I’ll say around this that I think is really important — Peter’s going to draw this out for us. We tend to always think about the negative things that are going to get us out of here, right? Peter goes, “Do you know what hastens the day of Christ? When believers in Jesus Christ choose to be obedient to the call of Christ.” That’s what hastens the day of Christ. That’s a positive thing. We’re always looking at all the negative. I want you to look at the positive.
As we move forward in this way of thinking, we’re hastening the day of Christ. Instead of going, “Hey, God, get me out of here,” we’re going, “I’m here, baby. I’m going to be obedient to what you’ve called me to do and where you’ve called me to go.” That’s empowering. Do you feel empowered by that this morning? You should be. You should be.
You matter in the kingdom of God and we should be saying, “Please come. Please come. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth. We want to bring heaven here. Not get out of here. We want heaven here. We want more people to come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior through the way that we obey and follow after him.” So maybe this would shift the way we start thinking about “kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
So the question that arises, Are we living in a way that says kingdom come? Are we living that way? Is it impacting every part of your life? The way I’ll describe it is, do we live in a participatory lifestyle? Which simply means this: I know some of you in here are teachers. You start school tomorrow. Glory be to God. God bless you, okay? You start school tomorrow. What would it look like to invite the kingdom of God into your classroom? Come on! What would it look like for us to realize there’s a bunch of kids in there that desperately need to see Jesus through the way we live this out.
You know all these prayers are a daily thing. He’s going to move on to Matthew 6 and he’s going to talk about, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” This is how we need to live today. So what does it look like to anticipate the kingdom of God today? This has been so convicting to me this week. I’m always thinking about tomorrow, when he’s like, “I’ve only given you today.”
And what does it look like to invite the kingdom of God into your workplace, into your family, into your finances? Get micro on this. We’re always thinking of it on a macro scale. “Come on. Rain it down.” And he’s like, ‘What about your finances? What about your marriage? What about your parenting? What about your job?” Invite the kingdom of God into that to redeem that as it is in heaven. This is what we’re being invited into. This is a declaration to get earth out of us. To get earth out of us.
Paul says, “I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I but who lives in me? Christ! He lives in me.”
This is what it is to invite the kingdom of God, his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what he’s wanting us to do.
So now we transition into this other part. But these are more little practical things. But actually, they’re very important things, wholistic things. He says, “Give us today our daily bread.” I find something really interesting. Costco is like Disneyland for adults, right? You walk into Costco and you watch a bunch of adults go, “Whoo! I didn’t know I needed four thousand batteries. I didn’t know I needed six toothbrushes.” And there’s a guy in there selling knives. And you go, “I didn’t know I needed Ginsu knives. I didn’t know I needed that. I do need that.” “I need four trillion bagels for my family.”
All of a sudden we get all — I call it the Costco complex. We get in there and we go, “Whoo!” Right? Nothing against Costco but I think it’s actually framing up for us this very consumeristic thing. It’s exposing something in us. “I want all this.”
How many of you have filled up your Costco cart, paid for it, got in the cart and go, “I over-bought. I overdid that.” How many of you? Be honest before the Lord. All of us have. If you’ve been to Costco, you’ve over-bought.
He’s revolting against this. Why? Because, remember in alms giving, he’s like, “Don’t be like everybody else.” And he says, “Our daily bread.” Which I find again is very interesting. What does it look like for us to simplify our lives. Because there’s a bunch of people in the world that don’t have. What does it look like to remind ourselves to be mercy-minded. That’s what it means to be an alms giver. To go like, “Do you know what’s been done for us? Now I just want to do that.”
See, something like Costco is going to bring that into conflict because all we can think of is more, more, more, more, more. And who is it that’s providing our daily bread? God is providing our daily bread.
This word daily in the Greek is actually one of the most complicated words in the Bible to translate. It’s one of the most complicated words. The reason is because it’s not found anywhere else in Greek literature. So recently they found a shopping list on a piece of papyrus and the shopping list was basically things to do. This word occurred.
Here’s what’s really interesting about this word daily. It literally means, help me get the things that are on my shopping list daily. That’s what he’s inviting us into. It’s a daily reminder that he is the one that provides for us. He is the one that cares.
And it cannot only be preached once or prayed once to yourself. You don’t just pray it once and go, “Hey, once and done.” This is a daily thing.
I went to Kenya three years ago. I go in this dung hut. We walk in and the lady is so excited to see us. So she invites us outside and we walk outside and I was asking about her daily life. “Tell me about your daily life.” She goes, “Well, I get up and I pray every morning, ‘God I need food. I don’t have any food.’ And do you know, some days he does it and some days he doesn’t. And he’s so faithful.”
And she was so happy and we were just so humbled that this connection that she had with her heavenly Father that he was the one that provided for her. She found so much peace in it. I find it so bizarre that, as it relates to our daily needs — and by the way, this is not just about bread. This is about all our needs in our lives — when we bring those before the Lord, this is a submission. This is as humble declaration that, “God, you’re the one who cares for me. You’re the one who loves me. You’re the one who sees me. You’re the one who provides for me.”
We’ve seen God do this all throughout scripture. Manna. A cloud by day. Fire by night. Water. He’s providing for the Israelites to say to us, are we living our lives in a participatory way of going, “You take care of me. You love me. You see me.”
Here’s the thing. God doesn’t need to be reminded to care for you, but we need to be reminded who’s caring for us. God doesn’t need you to go, “Don’t forget to take care of me!” What we need to do is remind ourselves who’s taking care of us. Isn’t that so important.
So as you come to this particular place in the Lord’s prayer, remind yourself he’s the one who’s doing it. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. He is doing it.
Transitions into “forgive our debt as we also have forgiven our debtors.” So convicting. We need to practice what we preach. Remember, this is what Jesus is saying all throughout this. “Don’t be like the hypocrites. Don’t be like the hypocrites. Stop acting.” Remember this from last time? “Stop acting.” We’re acting. Many of us are acting, pretending. He’s like, “Stop. stop. Stop.” We need to practice what we preach because we do for others what has been done for us. Jesus is inviting this into our lives, that we would confess this out loud.
In fact, the literal translation of this, according to William Barclay — this was so convicting for me this week — forgive us our sins in proportion as we forgive those who sin against us. In proportion.
And we would say, “Oh, oh, hold on. Hold on.” Because this is what I did this week. “ Wait. Wait. He’s already paid our sins.” Right? He died and our sins are washed away. We’re white as snow. Right? Yes! Except that he also says, “To whom much is given, much is required.” That those of us who have received that redemption have an expectation to live that out in the spaces and places that he’s called us to. “To whom much is given, much is required.”
We should be known for forgiveness. Is the local church, is the ecclesia, known for forgiveness because of what’s been done for us? I don’t believe so. In fact, Keith Green, many of you might know who Keith Green was. Back in the ’70’s he was this kind of prophetic worship leader. He had a song called Asleep in the Light. I grew up listening to Keith Green and he says this in this line in the song, it always gets me.
O Bless me, Lord, bless me, Lord.
That’s all I ever hear.
No one aches. No one hurts.
No one even sheds a tear.
But He cries. He weeps. He bleeds.
And He cares for your needs.
And you just lay back and keep soaking it in.
Can’t you see it’s such sin?
That’s super convicting. Because “to whom much is given, much is required.” So what does it look like to live like people who are forgiven? That the death and resurrection of Jesus has covered a multitude of sins? Therefore, now, we go out. I wonder what this would look like for you this week. What would it look like — because what I know about the last eighteen months is there’s been lots of division, lots of pain — what would it look like to go on social media and say, “I’m so sorry about the divisive comments I’ve made over the last eighteen months. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
And then, what about forgiving people who have an opposing view to what you believe, and forgiving them for the way that they’ve maybe treated you? Can you see how beautiful that would be? That’s redemption! That’s redemptive because we know what’s been done for us. We know that there’s a people out there watching the body of Christ and saying, “Will they actually do and be who he’s called them to be? They speak the Lord’s Prayer but do they really live it out in their lives?”
So this was really convicting for me. And I hope it’s convicting for you. But it’s also beautiful and liberating and freeing. And that’s what he’s inviting us into.
So he ends with this part, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” People get hung up on the word tempt. Test is probably a better word, because people are like, “Well, wait. Can God tempt me into sin?” No. But if you remind yourself when Jesus was baptized, he was baptized, Father God said, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” And then it says this in the passage, “And then immediately the Spirit of God took him to the desert to be tempted (or to be tested).”
Really, what this prayer is saying is this. It is a humble declaration of our vulnerability. We see how Jesus was tested, how overwhelming and hard that is. What we’re saying is, “Hey, God, “I’m not Job! Please don’t test me. God, I’m not like Elijah. I’m not like Moses. Please. I need your help! Because that overwhelming testing, I need your help.”
This isn’t about winning. This is about God sparing us and asking him to spare us from that testing. And ultimately what this passage is about, what this declaration is about is about rescue. “Deliver us from the evil one. Rescue me from Satan.” That would be a cry of your heart. “Rescue me from my depravity. Rescue me from my sin. I’m not the one who can do it. Only you can do it. I can’t do it on my own. I need you.”
What I love about the Lord’s Prayer is that it starts with a focus on a holy Father who is in heaven and it ends with Emmanuel, God with Us, and inviting us to beg him to free us from evil, which by the way, Jesus would say, “I’m going to defeat evil. I’m going to do that. I have the kingdom of God. I have brought the kingdom of God to earth. I am going to die for the sins of the world because my Father is holy. And because he’s holy he needs a perfect sacrifice and I am going to be that perfect sacrifice for all who are not willing and cannot make it on their own, I am going to be the propitiation for your sins. And I do all of this because he is my Father. And I will do the will of my Father.”
This is a prayer of redemption and rescue, but the posture of our heart should be, “Come, Lord, Jesus, come. I’m a man of unclean lips and I live among a people that are unclean. And we need you. We need you.” This prayer is, “We need you.” It’s inviting us into a right understanding of the kingdom of God and who we are in that kingdom.
Twelve years ago — I told you a little about this a few weeks ago — I went to India FOR the first time. I told you I talked to a bunch of pastors there. And that was a deeply impactful thing. But the other thing that was really impactful is I met a little girl. That little girl, we were going to sponsor. But what transpired as a result of that is we started an adoption process. Her name is Wasunta. Wasunta is a true orphan, abandoned by her mother and father. And she, as a four-year-old, lived on the streets with her younger brother.
The place where I went actually brought her in. So, again, I was just going to sponsor her, but then what happened was we began a two-year process to adopt her. It was a really crazy process. But every year I would go back to India and I would bring people with me because I wanted to be with the pastors and I also wanted a bunch of other people to see and experience what I had experienced in India. The other reason I would go was to spend time with Wasunta. She’s going to be in our home someday so we want to figure out what this looks like. I want to learn more about her.
That second trip I came back, she’s sitting on my lap and we’re eating chicken. If you know anything about the Indian culture that should not be surprising at all. They eat a lot of chick. So she’s sitting on my lap and we’re eating chicken. We get through eating the chicken and she starts eating the chicken bones. I’m like, “Whoa, whoa! Don’t do that.” And she gets angry at me. She takes the chicken bones. She eats them all and leaves.
I look to the guy she’s living with, because we’re paying for somebody to take care of her. And I’m going, “Hold on. What’s going on here? I’m taking care of this little one. I’m sending you money to take care of her and make sure she goes to school. And she’s eating chicken bones. What’s going on?”
And said this. “My friend, this little girl still thinks she’s an orphan. She’s not come to understand that she’s a daughter.”
That just broke my heart. He said, “She’s stealing mangos. She eats so much she gets sick and throws up, because she’s nervous.”
It just broke my heart because there’s no words I can say, nothing I can do. So I come back the next year and Wasunta’s getting older. And she sits on my lap again. And we start eating chicken. I’m like, “Here we go.” You know? And she eats the chicken, she leaves the bone and she runs away. I’m like, “Huh. What happened?” He goes, “Oh, my friend. Your daughter has finally understood she’s not an orphan, that she’s a daughter, and it’s changed the way she’s lived her life.”
Here’s the interesting thing, I think, that applies for us. So many of us are still living like orphans, when this prayer starts off with saying you’ve got a Father and he’s in heaven and his name is holy. And you can pray that his kingdom is come and his will would be done on earth as in heaven. And guess what? He’s got you. He sees you. He knows you. You can pray for your daily bread. You can pray for your sins to be forgiven, and you can pray that you will not be tempted and that the evil one will leave. Because we have the Spirit of God and he lives into us because he is our Father. You are loved.
My question for us, and I would love to end here with this: Do you know Jesus? Do you know him as your heavenly Father? The King of kings and Lord of lords. Because this prayer will transform your life. It is a framework for life but you have to understand who he is and who you are in order to really allow it to be transformational.
So what I want to do is slow down in this prayer. And I want to say this with you. So we’re going to corporately go through the Lord’s Prayer. So say this with me and we’re going to go slow:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed by your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
And I’ll end as we have historically ended for so many years, all these years of church history:
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,
Forever and ever.
And God’s Church said: Amen.
Unless otherwise marked, scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.The "NIV" and "New International Version" trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica.