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In the name of T
Jesus.
Jesus is
your brother. Now, Jesus is the Father’s
Son from eternity, and you were adopted into the family through the waters of
Holy Baptism, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less a part of the family. You and Jesus are brothers. In fact, because Jesus’ blood has been poured
out on you, and covered you, you are the only adopted siblings in all the world
who also share the blood of the family, as you share in the blood of
Jesus. Jesus is your brother. You and He are members of the same eternal
family. And that means, you and Jesus
have the same Father.
Now,
typically, in a family, while the younger siblings learn quite a bit from mom
and dad about how to talk, when it comes to talking to mom and dad, the younger siblings learn that from their older
siblings. If the older children talk
back to mom and dad, what do the younger siblings do? They talk back. If the older children are respectful, and
answer mom and dad’s commands with a “Yes, ma’am,” or a “Yes, sir,” the younger
siblings will begin to do the same. They’re
brothers and sisters, after all. They’re
part of the same family. When they speak
to mom or dad, they’re going to sound alike.
And so will you. Jesus is your brother, after all. He’s your older, from eternity brother. You are part of the same family. You have the same Father. And so today, as you listen to Jesus, you
will learn how it is that you might speak to your Father. And you will learn from Jesus, your brother,
how to pray. But even more, you will
learn from Jesus how to believe.
Lex orandi, lex credendi: It’s
an old Latin phrase that comes from the 5th Century, and woodenly
translated, it means, “law of praying, law of believing.” Roughly translated, or should I say,
translated so we can make sense of it, Lex
orandi, lex credendi means, “How you believe, is how you pray.” Or, in other words, what you believe about
yourself, and about God, will determine whether or not you pray, and how you
pray.
If you believe God the Father to
be unapproachable, for example, or picture Him sitting on His thrown, batting
down prayers that are beneath him and unacceptable, for example, well, then
that is going to influence how you pray.
And if that is your view of the Father, chances are, you won’t be doing
much of it.
If, however, you have learned that
your Father loves you, and has shown you His great love through the sacrifice of
His one-and-only-Son. If, you have
learned that the same Son who died in your place is serving as a mediator
between you and the Father, delivering your prayers like a son delivering the
phone to Dad, and asking Dad to take the call.
If, you have learned through the comforting work of the Holy Spirit that
the Father is not sitting on His thrown waiting to reject your prayers, but
that He delights in seeing the faith of His children who call upon His name in
every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks, well, then, that will also
influence how you pray. And if that is
what you believe, by faith, you will pray.
Lex orandi, lex credendi: how
you believe, is how you pray.
And so, in learning from Jesus how
to pray, we also learn from Him, how to believe, and what to believe, regarding
our Father, and our Father’s name. We
learn from Jesus how to believe, and what to believe about our Father’s
kingdom, and what our Father desires to give to His children. So that when we ask, we will seek the gifts
for which our brother, Jesus, has taught us to ask and seek; the very gifts the
Father has promised to give; the gifts the Father loves to give to you, His
children.
Even Jesus begins with a reminder
of who it is that you’re talking to when you pray. And it isn’t some nameless god, who is
unknown and remains a mystery. It’s your
Father. It’s our Father. The one who created you, even before your
earthly mother and father had ever even thought of you. It’s the one who sent His Son into the world
to redeem you from your sin, so that you would not die eternally, but in order
to give you life with Him forever. It’s
your Father, who desires for you to live with Him, and who delights in hearing
His children’s voice. Our Father—mine,
yours, even Jesus’ own Father.
Luther reminds us, “With these words God tenderly invites us
to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so
that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their
dear father (SC, p. 19). Those of
you who have had children, or grandchildren, or have been children yourselves,
you know that children who are loved by their parents aren’t afraid to ask them
for anything. They’ll come to mom or dad
five minutes before bedtime, and ask to have some of their Easter candy. But they’ll also come to mom or dad and ask
if they can go to Sunday School. They
don’t know if it’s good for them, or bad for them, but they do know who it is
that they need to ask. They ask their
parents, because they are loved by their parents and they know that their parents
are there to give them what they need…even if they don’t always know—or
agree—with what they need.
If children can approach their
earthly parents with all boldness and confidence, not knowing, and not even
caring if what they’re asking for is good or bad, but not afraid to ask their
parents, who themselves Jesus tells us, are evil but know how to give good
gifts, how much more, will the heavenly Father delight to hear the requests of
His own precious children, whether they are the right requests or not. Because simply to ask the Father—to go to Him
with your requests, regardless of your requests—is to show the Father that you
know it is from the Father that all your blessings flow.
And by asking the Father, we are
hallowing the Father’s name. By calling
upon the name of the Father in every trouble, by praying, praising, and giving
thanks, we are holding His name high above all other names. We won’t rely on luck. We won’t place all trust in our
government. We will refuse to believe
that all of our blessings, be they spiritual or having to do with our body,
come from anyone other than our heavenly Father. And while His name is certainly holy by
itself, as you, His children, call upon His name, you keep it holy, and high,
and sanctified among us also. And so,
from Jesus, we learn to hallow the Father’s name, by using the Father’s name,
so that Our Father would be held high, and Our Father would be set apart as the
one from whom we expect that all our blessings will be given to us, His dear
children.
And one of those blessings being
given to us is the blessing of His kingdom, and so Jesus teaches us to pray: Your kingdom come. Of course, His kingdom is a kingdom like no
other. Sure, there are enemies to His
kingdom. There are many that would see
His kingdom destroyed and put to shame.
Sin, death, and the Devil will not stop in their attempts to keep the
Kingdom of God from coming to you, the Father’s children. But we pray, as Jesus teaches us, that
through the Father’s Word—we pray that through the preaching of Christ
crucified for sinners—the Kingdom of God would come and the Lord Jesus would
reign by having the Holy Spirit call, and gather, and sanctify us to believe
His holy Word and lead godly lives here on earth and there with the Father for
all eternity.
When we pray, Thy Kingdom come, we are not praying for some army of Christians to
purify our government, or to rid the city of crime, or even to reclaim a proper
understanding of marriage, although all of those things would be extraordinary
blessings from the Father. When we pray,
Thy Kingdom come, we are praying that
the Father would be pleased, through the preaching of His Son, to have the Holy
Spirit change the hearts of a lost and condemned people, one person at a time,
to believe in Jesus, and to trust in His forgiveness, and to praise the Father,
for sending the Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. Because when the Holy Spirit has called you to
believe, and has gathered you into the family of faith, and enlightened you to
see Jesus as your Savior, then the Kingdom of God has come even to you. And Jesus teaches us to pray, that the
Kingdom might come not only among us, but among all of us, in this world, so
that the plans and purposes of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh might
be undone, and Jesus would find us holding firm to the faith, and calling on
the Father’s name, until we die, or until He comes again.
And until He comes again, Jesus
teaches us to ask the Father to Give us
each day our daily bread. You see,
God the Father certainly gives daily bread to everyone even withour our
prayers—even to all evil people. He
sends rains on the just and the unjust.
He puts food on tables, and clothes on bodies, and houses over heads,
and gives husbands and wives, children, workers, and good government to all
people, whether a person be Christian, or Atheist, Muslim, Jew, or Hindu. The Father, who created us all, will sustain
His whole creation, even if His creatures have no idea from whom these
blessings flow, or even reject the One who gives these gifts altogether.
And so, if a person does not know
who it is that gives these gifts, that person will not receive them with
thanks, or praise the Father for them.
But in learning from Jesus to pray each day for daily bread, we are
reminded once again of the Father who delights in giving to His children what
they need to make it through the day. So
that when everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body is
given to us, and often times in great abundance, we might receive it with
thanksgiving, and give praise to our Father in heaven.
And even then, in addition to all
the material blessings the Father bestows on us, and all people, so that we
have all that we need for the support and needs of the body, Jesus teaches us
that there is even something more important for which to pray. Even if our bank accounts are full, and are
tables are loaded, and our families are healthy, and our jobs are secure, if we
do not have the forgiveness of sins, then we would remain in our sins, and the
Father would be grieved.
But thanks be to God, that in
Jesus we have the forgiveness of sins.
And we have it freely, so that no matter what you have done or left
undone, and even though you deserve temporal and eternal punishment, the Father
teaches His children through His one-and-only-Son to simply ask for
forgiveness, and it is already theirs.
Because of Jesus, whose blood was
shed, and whose body was pierced, you whose sins once alienated you from the
Father, have been made one with the Father.
Your sins have been atoned for in the death of Jesus. They are forgiven. And where there is forgiveness of sins, there
is also life and salvation, and so Jesus teaches us to ask for what the Father
has promised to give. Like a child who
is told by her father that she can have chocolate milk for dinner, when the
child asks for what the Father has promised to give, the answer is always the same:
“Yes, you can have it. Yes, it is yours.
Yes, yes, yes.”
And so, you see, above all, that
the Father desires His children to have the forgiveness of sins. He desires You to have, and be certain, of
the forgiveness of sins. In fact, the
Father gives the forgiveness of sin to all who ask their sins to be
forgiven. And He gives it so freely,
that His children become so certain of it, that they cannot keep it to
themselves.
Sinful children, who are forgiven
children, will forgive those who sin against them, because they have learned
from Jesus what the Father intends to give.
And so you, the Father’s children, go into your homes, and your jobs,
and your schools, and throughout the world, having confessed your sin, and
hearing forgiveness, so that when someone has a sin they have committed against
you, you will know what it is that the Father intends to give them, as you yourselves forgive everyone who is
indebted to you.
And Jesus knows this isn’t
easy. He knows that the Father’s enemies
are the children’s enemies. He knows
that those enemies will be working to lead you into temptation. He knows they will be working to deceive you
and to mislead you into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. And although those enemies will daily attack
you, Jesus, your brother, teaches you to pray that by the power of the Holy
Spirit, working to strengthen you with God’s Word and Promise, you might
overcome them all, and win the victory.
You see, Jesus is your brother. By His blood, you’ve been adopted into the
family of faith, and you have the same Father.
If children can learn to talk to their earthly parents by listening to
their siblings, maybe we will learn to pray by listening to Jesus, our brother. And by listening to our brother, not only will
we learn how to pray, but we’ll know what to believe, and how to believe, about
our Father. For everyone who asks the
Father for what the Son has taught them to ask, will receive it. And everyone who seeks from the Father, what
the Father desires to give, will find it.
So if Jesus is the One who is teaching you how to pray, then you will
pray, and you will do it with all the confidence of a child, who knows his
Father well.
In the name of T Jesus. Amen.
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