Our Father
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
What joy is ours in being able to talk freely and openly to the almighty God of heaven and earth and know that He hears us. Simply enough, that privilege is ours because we are His children. We are constantly reminded of this blessed fact as we begin our mornings and end our days with the words, “Our Father who art in heaven . . .” Our Savior gave this prayer to us as a keepsake of His love and a key to access the very treasures of heaven. He taught us this prayer to keep us anchored in Him, reminding us who we are in Him (children and co-heirs of His Father), what we are about with Him in this world (the salvation of all), and that all of our needs for life and service in this world will be completely supplied (His promise). Over the next several weeks’ e-news I intend to reflect devotionally on this prayer in the hope that it increases your understanding of the incredible love our Father has for you and encourages you in your faith and service in God’s Kingdom.
Today we simply look at the first two words Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father.” They are the Gospel in a nutshell. Jesus could have begun praying by saying, “My Father,” because, in point of fact God was at one point only His Father. By virtue of our willful sin and rebellion we were not His children; we were His enemies. St. Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” It is while we were still enemies of God, that Jesus claimed us as His own. These words, “Our Father,” are not simply words that He wanted us to pray, they are words that He first (and still) prayed Himself. Jesus began His prayer to His Father with the word “Our, ” meaning to say, “Father, I am here before you with my brothers and sisters.. These are the ones that You sent Me to find and bring back to You. Father, it is My heart’s desire that My brothers and sisters spend eternity with Us. Take My life as fair payment for their sins and know them no longer as Our enemies, but as Our family. Thank you Father. Amen.”
That little word “Our” says everything. It says everything to our Lord Jesus as He first uses it in His prayer. It says everything to us as when we use it in our prayers too. When you pray “Our Father” today, think “Father I am here before you with your Son Jesus. He invited me to join Him to speak to You and promised me that You would listen to what we have to say. I almost don’t know what to say. I once was your sworn enemy and still sinfully and willfully rebel against you and your love. Yet your Son tenderly invited me to join Him in talking to you and by that reminds me that your love is greater than my sin and because of Him I will always be your dear child. Father, thank you. Thank you. Amen.”
In Christ’s name,
Bob Newton
Thy Kingdom Come
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
This petition is one of the most important prayers we can speak to our heavenly Father. It’s like the prayer of all prayers. Our Lord summed up the priorities of our lives with these words, “Don’t be anxious, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” He’s telling us that pursuing His Father’s Kingdom is more important than any other pursuit we make in this life. That’s why praying “Thy Kingdom come” is so important.
Someone might ask, “What is the Kingdom?” Most simply put, it is the rule of the King. It assumes three things: the King, His people, and their relationship. This week’s Notes focus briefly on the King and His rule.
First and foremost, there can be no kingdom without a king. We could just as easily pray, “Thy King come,” as “The Kingdom come.” The center of our faith is the fact that the King has come, born as a little baby in a stable. The King coming into the world in this way underscores His desire to be intimately connected with us. There is nothing more inviting than a little baby. Upon seeing a little one, we immediately ask, “May I hold him? ” It may be hard to imagine holding the King of the universe in our arms, but it’s good to think of how personal He intended to be by coming to us in this way. When we pray, “Thy King(dom) come” we are really praying, “Lord Jesus come to us, stay with us, and rule over us always.”
The rule of the King is also essential. The issue here is not that Jesus rules, but how He rules. He once told His disciples, “And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The King understands ruling over His people as serving them with every fiber of His being, even to the point of laying His life down for them in order to make them His own and keep them forever. His rule over us is best understood from the cross. It’s a rule of unconditional and unlimited love.
His rule also means that He speaks the authoritative word on our lives. I once asked a group of 10th graders what it means that Jesus is Lord. A young man in the back of the class responded. “It means that He has the last word on everything.” That was a good answer. As King, Jesus has the last word on everything, especially the last word on us. He intends that word to be one of grace. It’s a word that changes everything in our lives. In the words of St. Paul , “it makes everything new.” Martin Franzmann penned:
Thy strong Word bespeaks us righteous,
Bright with thine own holiness,
Glorious now, we press toward glory,
And our lives our hopes confess.
As King He declared us right with Him, true and loyal citizens of His Kingdom. His rule over our lives keeps us that way. So we pray in this petition, “Thy Kingdom come,” “Lord come to us, stay with us, and rule over us always. Amen.”
In Christ’s name,
Bob Newton
The Father’s Heart (Thy Will be done?)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Two events filled me with wonderful joy this weekend – - so much joy, that it seemed appropriate to pause briefly on our devotional walk through the Lord’s Prayer to take them in. To be sure they’re not a departure from the prayer our Lord taught us. If anything, they are a fulfillment, an answer.
Saturday, the Pacific Mission Action Counsel hosted a Missions Fair, bringing together the congregations and missions in their region for six hours of Harvest festivity. The Master of Ceremonies, Pastor Ted Zimmerman, likened it to a carnival, real merry making, with lots of fun and food from around the world. It was like the party the Father threw for his friends to celebrate the return of His lost son. Joyous gratitude punctuated the hymns and prayers offered to Our Father by Chinese, Hispanic, Burmese, and Liberian choirs. Six hours gave us but a taste of what awaits us in eternity, hymns of praise sung in the music and words of every tribe, people, and tongue, all with the same refrain, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” Our hearts overflowed with joy as we celebrated with the very angels of heaven. Our joy, however, could not have exceeded that of the Father’s at the gathering of the nations in His Son.
It’s that gathering in Christ upon which Pastor Tom Zelt, our keynote speaker, focused: the Father’s “plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.” “More than a plan,” he told us, “it’s the Father’s very heart to seek and to save every one.” It’s the Father’s heart to leave the 99 to find the wandering, to sweep every nook and cranny until he finds the lost, to run with all haste to embrace the rebellious, and to leave his home to woo the arrogant. In each and every case it is the Father who seeks. It’s the Father who rejoices at finding. That is His heart.
Joy was ours again on Sunday as our congregation joined our LWML ladies in pledging ourselves to the same heart’s pursuit.
In fervent gratitude for the Savior’s dying love and His blood-bought gift of redemption, we dedicate ourselves to Him with all that we are and have; and in obedience to His call for workers in the harvest fields, we pledge Him our willing service wherever and whenever He has need for us. We consecrate to our Savior our hands to work for Him, our feet to go on His errands, our voice to sing His praises, our lips to proclaim His redeeming love, our silver and our gold to extend His Kingdom, our will to do His will, and every power of our life to the great task of bringing the lost and the erring into eternal fellowship with Him. Amen.
I cannot help but think that the Father also rejoiced in hearing these words. They told Him that not only do we know His heart; we want it as our own. He rejoices in our salvation, knowing that we are His own dear children forever. As He clearly promised, “Child, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” But His rejoicing is made complete when we join Him in His pursuit of our brothers and sisters and with Him welcome them home: It’s fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.
In Christ’s name,
Bob Newton
Deliver Us From Evil
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
We’ve arrived at the seventh, the last petition our Lord taught us to pray. Here the saying is particularly true, “Last is not least,” for this petition plays a role more critical than we may comprehend in our life and work as God’s children. Luther pegged it: In the Greek this petition reads, “Deliver or keep us from the Evil One, or the Wicked One.” This petition seems to be speaking of the devil as the sum of all evil in order that the entire substance of our prayer may be directed against our arch-enemy (LC, Lord’s Prayer). Don’t be misled. Luther was not suggesting that the devil is some amorphous banner under which we locate all of the bad things that happen to us. The devil was only too real and personal to Luther for him to think or speak in generality. With St. Peter he confessed, “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.”
The devil’s “seeking” to devour (completely consume with relish) you and me is as personal and deliberate as our beloved Savior’s “seeking” to find and to keep us. Not that we are that important to Satan and his minions. We’re not. It’s not our pain and demise that most interests him. His target is our Father. How else do you break the heart and soul of a father or mother than to threaten or harm their children. Satan’s sheer hatred and contempt for God fuels his lethal pursuit of people. A war wages for the present and eternal wellbeing of every man, woman, and child given life: For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6).
For too long we have enjoyed a respite of sorts from the war over the souls of men. The evil one has played sweet and intoxicating music while we, Christ’s church, slept peacefully. “All’s well,” we thought. “Our world has for the most part been won by Christ and His Gospel. The evil one has been banished from our borders. We do well to take our rest.” In our post-Christian day, however, and by His diligent grace, Christ’s church is awakening to the fight. Know for certain, therefore, that the evil one is unmasking himself for what he is—a murderer and a liar—baring his claws and fangs for all to see and feel. We are no match for this monster; “on earth is not his equal,” penned the good doctor.
The hymn continues,
But for us fights the valiant One,
Whom God Himself elected.
Ask ye, Who is this?
Jesus Christ it is,
Of Sabaoth Lord,
And there’s none other God;
He holds the field forever.
Praise God for this Champion, who took on our flesh and blood, “that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage“. He died – He rose – He crushed the serpent’s head, and He is the One who taught us to pray, “But deliver us from evil.”
It is right and necessary that we invest our time and energy pushing back the effects of the devil—curbing evil doers through law and enforcement, curing diseases through advances in health and medicine, responding to horrific disasters with sacrificial generosity. We must, at the same time, not grow lax in prayer. On the contrary, we need to pray this petition—deliver us from the evil one—with even greater deliberation than we work in its behalf, knowing that the One who taught us to ask is the One who promises to answer. That is why we speak the “Amen” with a shout.
In Christ’s Name:
Bob Newton
