The Lord's Prayer

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Matthew, chapter 6, verses 5 -13. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.

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I tell you the truth. They have received their full reward. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your

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Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, He will reward you.

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And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans. They think they will be heard because of their many words.

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Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This then is how you should pray.

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Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. In the name of Jesus.

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Now tonight, for our midweek Lenten service, we'll be looking at the Lord's Prayer.

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And I want to point something out from our Epistle text before we dive into it. There's a lot of talk today about taking up the armor of God and doing spiritual warfare.

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And there's a lot of, how will I put this, talk that kind of over exaggerates it.

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And what I mean by that, it's not that the devil isn't real, he truly is. But there are people out there who think that spiritual warfare means them somehow going out and decreeing and declaring and claiming territory and all this kind of stuff.

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And you'll notice that the way in which we fight is to pray. We pray.

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So many times, people kind of have two different ideas about prayer. Prayer is kind of like the last resort.

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You know, somebody has taken ill and it's gotten really bad and somebody calls up, we'd better pray.

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And somebody says, oh no, has it really come to that? Right? We're to the prayer stage.

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That's one error. But then the other error is this idea that somehow prayer really doesn't do anything.

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You tell somebody or they come to you with a problem and they say something is going wrong. And you say, well,

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I think we should pray about this. I need something that works. We need results right now.

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This is an emergency. We don't got time for this prayer stuff. Both of those are grievous errors.

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Grievous. True spiritual warfare is waged on your knees. It really is.

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And it's not waged against people. Because Scripture says our battle is not against flesh and blood.

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This is why we can pray for our enemies. And we ought to pray for our enemies. This is why we can even pray for terrorists who are lopping off the heads of Christians.

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Because our battle is not against them. They are only doing the bidding of the one who we are really battling with.

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The forces of evil. The true evil one. So keep that in mind. That makes it so that we can humbly pray for them knowing that if it were not for the grace of God, we could be the terrorists.

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Could we not? So I wanted to frame tonight's look at the small catechism and the

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Our Father with spiritual warfare in mind. Because I think we've experienced some of that here in the months.

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Past months. But prayer really is the only way through. It really is. So we read in the

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New Testament that Christ has taught us to pray Our Father who art in heaven. I could probably preach a whole sermon just on those words.

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And there's a reason for that. Because if you think about it what an amazing thing that we are told by Jesus to pray as if God is our

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Father. And not as if. This is not some imagination type of thing. Because it really is the truth.

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You see all of this is in light of the Gospel. You Christians, you're baptized, washed, forgiven, redeemed, regenerated.

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God has given you all of these great gifts. He's taken you off the slave block and made you a son or a daughter.

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And so when we pray the Our Father, it assumes the Gospel. It assumes that you're saved by grace.

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Because truly only one who is saved by grace would dare to address

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God as Father. And we are not doing this on a dare. We're invited to do so because of the love of Christ.

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Right? So let us always remember when we pray the Our Father, when we say Our Father that is explosive.

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You see I remember back when I was in legalistic churches and I would always hope that I could be a

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Christian someday because I surely didn't measure up. But see by saying that we are to pray

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Our Father who art in Heaven, it's telling us that Christ has measured up for us. Let us always remember the

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Gospel and the words of the beginning of the Lord's Prayer. So Luther in the small catechism asked, well what does this mean,

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Our Father who art in Heaven? With these words God tenderly, what a great word, tenderly, invites us to believe that He is our true

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Father and that we are His true children. So that with all boldness and confidence we may ask

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Him as dear children ask their Father. Now I'm a dad. There's dads in the room here.

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We all have daughters and sons and they get to that particular age where they sure are comfortable being your son or daughter and they never really come cowering in fear.

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Hey dad, can I borrow the car? That's their confidence. It's never Father, may

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I borrow the car? It's never like that, right? So this is the idea here.

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God is our Father and so we don't cower in His presence because of what Christ has done for us.

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We can boldly and confidently the way a teenager approaches Father and says

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I need help with this dad. I need this or I need that. This is the invitation that is given to us and all of this is because of the gospel.

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Hallowed be your name. What does this mean? God's name, listen to this, it certainly is holy all by itself.

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But when we pray in this petition, hallowed be your name, we're praying that it may be kept holy among us also.

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See that's the idea. God's name is holy. It's been holy for an eternity. You can't make it any more holy.

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So when we say hallowed be your name, we're praying even then for us that God's name is exalted, that God's name is holy among us.

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That we don't blaspheme Him. That we don't take Him for granted. That we truly honor

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Him and want His name to be holy and kept holy among us as a church. So how is

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God's name kept holy? Well God's name is kept holy when the word of God is taught in its truth and its purity.

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In fact, when it's not taught in its truth and purity, God's name is blasphemed. That's what it means to take

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God's name in vain. And we as children of God, we also lead holy lives according to the word of God.

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Help us to this end, dear Father in heaven. But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God's word profanes the name of God among us.

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Protect us from this heavenly Father. So when we pray for God's name to be holy, we're praying for sound doctrine and true, true sanctification through the

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Holy Spirit. Doctrine and life. And we're praying that that would be in and among us here in this congregation and that what

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God would graciously protect us by sending only people who are teaching the truth.

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That we would believe the truth about God and then live holy lives in light of the gospel as those who've been set free from sin, death, and the devil.

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Your kingdom come. What does this mean? Well, the kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.

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You see, Jesus said the kingdom of his kingdom is not of this world. You can't point somewhere on a globe and say, ah, right here, this spot right here, this is the kingdom of God.

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Can you? No, the kingdom of God is among us. So listen to this.

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God's kingdom comes when our heavenly father gives us his Holy Spirit so that by his grace we believe his holy word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.

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See, the kingdom of God is a little tricky to see. I can see it right now, but in just a few minutes, it's going to disappear outside of this building, and you won't be able to make it out much.

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You can see individual people who are citizens of it, and you can see them doing their good works and praising their father in heaven.

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But we're out then in the world doing our vocations at work and our families, right?

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But see, right now we can kind of get a glimpse of it and then it'll disappear. So God's kingdom comes when we believe, when we're baptized.

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God's kingdom is acting when we are at the altar here receiving Christ's body and blood.

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Next petition. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So what does this mean?

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Well, listen to this. The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer. It is. God's will is done.

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But when we pray this in this petition, we're praying that God's will will be done among us also.

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So how is God's will done? God's will is done when he breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow

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God's name or to let his kingdom come. Yeah, we've got, well, let's put it this way.

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God has enemies. God has enemies. That would be the devil, the world, and even our own sinful natures, right?

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And so all of these three have conspired to make it so that God's will is not done.

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But we pray that God would break and hinder all of the evil plans of the world, the devil, and even our sinful nature, and that his kingdom would come, and that he would strengthen us and keep us firm in his word and in the faith until we die.

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This is his good and gracious will. So we talk about, you know, numbers that matter in church, if you would.

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Some churches, they count nickels. Some churches, they count noses. We need to count how many people die in the faith, how many people have been buried trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

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That's the number that counts, right? Fourth petition. Give us this day our daily bread.

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Now notice we've gone from this to this, right? Give us this day our daily bread.

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Oh, and that's the hint, by the way, that this prayer should be prayed daily because if you pray for bread today and you say,

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Lord, give us today our daily bread, well, you're going to have to pray this again tomorrow, aren't you? Yeah?

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Yeah? And it's important that this is a daily prayer because there's a little thing going on here as well. So what does this mean?

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Well, God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers. Yes, he does. He does.

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You think of all of the pagans and the rank idolaters and evil adulterers and sinful all kinds of caboodle -aters out there, right?

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And what about the sinners in here, right? And God feeds them all.

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He truly does. There isn't a single person who can eat a small morsel of bread or any kind of food that God has not provided.

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And the reason for that is that all the things we eat are grown. All the things we eat come from either plants or animals.

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And did we make those? No. God did. So all of these things come from his hand already.

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So if God's feeding all the pagans out there and he's feeding the Christians too, then why do we pray give us this day our daily bread?

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Well, I'm glad you asked the question. See? Here's what it says. And we pray in this petition that God would realize or help us to realize that this is all from his hand and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

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So the idea is that everybody has these things. But by praying give us this day our daily bread, we are praying that we receive our daily bread

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We're praying that we would acknowledge that all of these things come from God. They didn't happen by chance.

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They're all truly from him. What great gifts God has given us. And good food and good friends with a good reputation.

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Good spouse. All of these are wonderful gifts from our Heavenly Father. And now the next part.

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And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Now remember, this is a daily prayer.

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Daily. So daily Christ knows that you're sinning.

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He knows this. And daily he invites you to pray to God your

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Heavenly Father. Notice you prayed our Father who art in heaven long before you got down to this part.

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So many times we're tempted to believe the lies of the devil. When the devil comes and whispers in our ear and says, you know, you're not really measuring up.

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I know what you did. I know what you said about that person. I know and I know and he just reminds and reminds and reminds you about all of the sins that you've committed.

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Right? And so you are shamed. And so shamed that you feel like you cannot address

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God as Father. And so you kind of put some distance between you and God.

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Right? But notice it's you putting the distance between you and God, not God. Because when you opened up this prayer, our

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Father who art in heaven, God already knew that you needed to ask him for forgiveness. He did.

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And yet you were invited to pray to him as our Father who art in heaven. Not as my potential

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Father once I get things reconciled with you. No. Because Christ has done all the reconciling for you.

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You're in him. You're forgiven. You're part of the family. And so now we pray after praying all for these other things daily, we now pray this.

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Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So we pray in this petition that our

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Father in heaven would not look at our sins or deny our prayer because of them.

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We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them.

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Oh, no truer words have ever been written. The air that you're breathing, you're not worthy to breathe.

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The ground that you're walking on, you are not worthy to walk on. The food you are eating, you are not worthy to eat.

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None of it. And see, we don't receive any of these things from our Heavenly Father because we've earned them.

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We've been given them as a gift, truly. So we ask that he would give all of these things to us by grace for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.

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So we too also will sincerely forgive and gladly do to those who sin against us.

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That's the other piece of this. Remember Jesus' one commandment. It's Maundy Thursday, the night that he's going to be betrayed.

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It's the night when he institutes the Lord's Supper. And he says, and here's the one commandment.

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As I have loved you, love one another. As I have loved you, love one another.

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How has Christ loved us? By taking all of our sin and dying for it and forgiving it.

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So because of the great mercy of God to us, we now having been set free from bondage to sin, death and the devil and given eternal life purely as a gift by grace.

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Having been set free from all of this, we are to live as free people. And free people, you know what they do?

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They forgive. They forgive because they're forgiven. How could you not forgive somebody who sins against you?

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Compared to the sin that you've committed against God, those little measly sins that people commit against you, even though they get under your skin and get your ire up and make you upset and mad and make you want to tell everybody about it, alright?

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They're mosquitoes compared to the sins you've committed. Forgive because you are forgiven.

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This is what we are to do. Christians love because they are loved by God.

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We don't love God or love others in order to be loved by God, but because God in his mercy has loved us, now we love other people.

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This is what it means to live under the cross. And lead us not into temptation. What does this mean?

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Well, God tempts no one. So we pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, the unholy trinity, if you would, that they may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.

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Although we are attacked by these things, and I would add daily, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory, because Christ has won the victory for us.

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But deliver us from evil. Now I'm going to read the explanation from the Catechism and I want to take it up a notch.

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Here's what the Catechism says. What does this mean? We pray in this petition, in summary, that our

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Father in Heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possession and reputation, and finally when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in Heaven.

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Now this is most certainly true. Now in the text that I read today from the Gospel of Matthew, the

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Greek is a little bit stronger than deliver us from evil. Evil is kind of a general thing, but the text itself actually says the evil one.

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The evil one. He is the source of all of our misery. He is the one who we read in Ephesians.

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Him and His dominion of darkness are the ones that we're truly battling against. And so all of the misery of body, soul, possession, reputation and all these things that He sends our way, those all come from the evil one.

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So when we pray, deliver us from evil, we're talking about the effects of evil as well as the one who is sending all of that evil.

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Right? So the conclusion, for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.

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What does this mean? It means that I should be certain that these petitions are pleasing to our

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Father in heaven. So when you say amen, amen, you're saying that I believe these petitions are pleasing to our

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Father in heaven and are heard by Him. That's the important part.

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See, the psalmist said that my prayers rise before you as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

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The one who truly believes and trusts in Christ for the forgiveness of sins knows that when we pray as Christ has taught us to pray, that these are not some vain babblings, that we're not just talking to hear ourselves talk.

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But instead, we know and believe that God truly hears our prayers.

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And there's so much that we're praying for even in these brief words. And it's important for us to realize, just in saying certain sentences, it means so much more than just that one sentence.

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And God hears. God truly hears. You think about it. If you've ever seen a model of the universe, the earth is not even a pinpoint.

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And our sun is just barely even visible at all when you look at the vastness of space.

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And God is so much bigger than all of that. And yet, He knows the very number of the hairs on your head.

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He knows every single one of them. And He cares for you so much that He sent His son to die and bleed for your sins.

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So when you pray to Him, He hears you. He does hear you.

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And you're not some small voice off in the distance. You know, you remember Horton Hears a

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Who or that Who in Whoville could barely get his voice out so that Horton can hear it. It's not like that at all.

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Because you've been invited to pray to God, our Father who art in heaven. Every single time you pray, you might as well be sitting on His lap and speaking right into His face or into His ear.

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That's the kind of loving Father that He is. He hears your voice. He hears your prayers.

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And He truly cares for you. And there is nothing that is good that He would withhold from you.

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He cares more for you than you even care for yourself. So much so that He sent

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His son to earth to be born of the Virgin Mary and suffer and bleed and die a shameful death in your place so that you can be clothed in His righteousness.

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So when we pray, Our Father who art in heaven, these are not just some rote words.

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This is a powerful prayer. And the prayer of a righteous person availeth much,

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Scripture says. And you say, but I'm not really that righteous. Were you not here a couple of weeks ago when

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I told you about the fact that you were covered in Christ's righteousness? That wedding gown of Christ's perfect white righteousness is covering you all by faith.

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So He hears you. He loves you. He's died for you. He sustains you.

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And He invites you to pray to Him and trust and believe.

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These words are not vain words. But they have the ability to tear down strongholds.

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And we wage war against the devil through these words as Ephesians 6 says.

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Making all kinds of prayers and supplications to God. Believing that He hears us and He will act on our behalf.

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What a great God we have. In the name of Jesus, Amen. We thank you for your support.

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