Praying the Jesus Creed
Dr. Larry Thorson
February 28, 2010
Luke 11:1-4
1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When
he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray,
just as John taught his disciples."
2 He said to them, "When you
pray, say:
" 'Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins
against us.
And lead us not into temptation' "
Today’s New
International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
How many of you watched
some or a lot of the Winter Olympics these last two weeks? I don’t have a lot of time to watch sports
but I’ll peruse the internet reading the results of events and the interesting
stories that emerge about the athletes and coaches.
I liked the story of Billy Demong who hours after
becoming the first American ever to win gold in a Nordic combined event at the
Olympics, proposed to his long-time girl friend in front of teammates and
coaches at his team's headquarters. Lucky for him she said yes. I wonder had he communicated earlier with her
about what he was going to do? A no
answer could have been a little devastating there.
I cringed over the story of Sven Kramer, the overwhelming favourite to win the men's 10,000 meter
long track skate event from the Netherlands, who was disqualified for crossing
into the wrong lane, the inner lane on the advice of his coach.
"In
a split second I had to take a decision and I took it," Kramer said about
his reaction to shouts from his coach to change to the inner lane. "I
cannot explain it. At the end of the day it is the skater who is on the ice.
Maybe we have to say we got it wrong. This has never happened to me
before." Kramer's coach, Gerard Kemkers, was devastated. "It was my
mistake, my responsibility," said Kemkers, who has coached the world
champion and world record holder since he left the juniors five years ago.
"It is a disaster. My world has collapsed. "It is the worst thing
that has happened in my life."
The article I read in Yahoo estimated
that Kramer could lose as much as $500,000 in endorsements for that mistake
because speed skating is such big a thing in the Netherlands. But he’ll be alright. It’s his coach and his coach’s reputation
that may never recover from such a mistake.
I feel for him.
But what that coach did was not a
sin. He didn’t willfully set out to
destroy his athlete’s chances for a gold medal.
He didn’t do anything that broke the Ten Commandments. What he did was a mistake. There’s a huge difference. We often get that mixed up. I’ve heard guys say after they got caught
having an affair that they made a big mistake with the affair. No it wasn’t just a mistake. They sinned against God and against their
family. Let’s call it what it is. It
wasn’t a mistake it was a sin and sin separates us from God.
That only matters to you if you have a
relationship with God where you even notice that the sin is separating you from
God. For a lot of us our relationship
with God is sometimes like when we’re on the cell phone talking away thinking
the other person is listening but then our own phone rings and we realize that
the person we were talking to got cut off and they’re calling us back.
Lent, the season that we’re in now, is God calling
us back every year. God is calling us
into a deeper relationship with him where there won’t be as many
miscommunications. God is calling us
back to a relationship where we can share everything with him.
To help us
with that this year for Lent we’re studying the Jesus Creed that I introduced
last week. It goes like this: 'Hear, O
Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no
commandment greater than these."
This was the creed that shaped everything Jesus
did. Everybody has a creed or a motto
that influences how they act. Last week
in one of the small groups one of the guys said he was once told by a wise man
never to say anything negative about another person and he’s followed that
advice ever since. The Jesus Creed was
like that for Jesus. Once we come to
know it and commit it to heart the rest of Jesus’ teachings and what he was
like start to make better sense. Then
once we understand him better we’ll be able to communicate with him
better.
The
Lord's Prayer – A Guide for Prayer
That’s what prayer is, communication with
God. But the problem with prayer is that
as Scott McKnight says it’s sometimes as dry as dry lima beans in a dry mouth
on a dry night.”[1] Even Brother Lawrence who influenced more
people to pray than probably anyone else ever sometimes found prayer dry and
dull.
It was this struggle with prayer that motivated
Jesus to give us what we call the Lord’s Prayer that we pray every week in our
worship services. The Lord’s
Prayer is the Jesus Creed prayed. It’s a guide to praying how Jesus
prayed.
As I said last week, Jesus took an Old Testament
creed that all Jews would recite when they got up in the morning. When Jesus came along he added the love your
neighbor as yourself part from Leviticus.
In the same way the Lord’s Prayer was a popular Jewish prayer that Jesus
modified according to the Jesus Creed.
The
Kaddish – A Prayer Jesus Modified
This Jewish prayer was called the Kaddish and it
went like this: “Magnified and sanctified be his great name in the world he
created according to his will. May he
establish his kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the
life of all the house of Israel, speedily and in the near future. And say Amen.”
Jesus amended that prayer in two ways: he added
“Our Father” at the beginning plus three lines involving petition for bread,
forgiveness and help against temptation.
These additional lines shift the prayer from “you” or God to “us”. As a result of these changes, the Lord’s
Prayer has two parts: the “You” petitions and the “We/Us” petitions.[2]
The “You” petitions are “May your Name be
hallowed”…”May your kingdom come…” “May your will be done on earth…” The “We/Us” petitions are “Give us our daily
bread” “Forgive us our sins as we forgive others” “Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.”
What Jesus did was take the Jewish Kaddish prayer
where there was a concern for God in the prayer and nothing else and added a
concern both for God and for others. So
the Lord’s Prayer is an ancient Jewish prayer that he morphed into a prayer of
love of God and love of others to fit his creed of loving God with all our
heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as our self. We love God and we love others. Not the other way around. We pray to God and we pray to God for others
including ourselves. Not the other way
around. Can you see that?
Debts
Versus Trespasses
Whenever a
discussion about the Lord’s Prayer comes up someone will ask why most churches
say “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our trespassers” while we say
“forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
It mostly has to do with an Englishman by the
name of Thomas Cranmer in the middle of the 16th century. As a Roman Catholic from England, Cranmer
rewrote and modernized many of the popular prayers of the day including the
Lord’s Prayer and included them in something called the Book of Common Prayer
which was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.
But Cranmer
really worked for King Henry of England and in the middle of the 16th century
when King Henry wanted to break away from the Roman Catholic Church he made
Cranmer his archbishop to annul his various marriages.
Cranmer’s
Book of Common Prayer became very popular as the Church of England spread to
the Colonies as the Episcopal Church.
Eventually Methodism broke off from the Episcopal Church and really
popularized trespasses as it spread like fire planting churches across the
plains and mountains of America.
Meanwhile back in Scotland,
the Christians there also broke away from the Roman Catholic Church but didn’t
want to be under the English and follow their Book of Common Prayer. So they formed the Church of Scotland and
kept the word “debts” which was the original translation from Jesus’ Aramaic
language. When the Scottish came to the
colonies the Church of Scotland came to be known as Presbyterians. So that’s why we still say debts. The reading
today was from Today’s New International Version and it translates “debts” as
“sins”.
All
of that is an aside to what’s really important and that is the Jesus Creed, to
love the Lord your God with all your heart, that’s your passion, all your soul,
that’s the seat of your spiritual life – put no other gods there, all your mind
and all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
The
Lord's Prayer as a Pattern
The pattern for praying that creed is the Lord’s
Prayer. As a model for praying there are
seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer – three to God and four for ourselves and
others. If you pray in these seven areas
it’ll help you through your dry moments.
1. Your Name be hallowed
– not my name
All of us have a
need to be known. We want people to at
least know us by our name. Nobody likes
to be called “Hey”. I think of some
churches that are known more for their pastor’s name than Jesus’ name. Promoting their own name is a huge temptation
for leaders. Every time we pray we need
to remember that God knows our name and all that really matters is that God’s
name be known. That’s what this petition
asks for.
2. Your kingdom come – not my kingdom
Kingdom means the
same thing as influence. When we say
that someone is building his own kingdom like a Bill Gates at Microsoft we mean
he’s expanding his area of influence.
But all of us have the need to know we have the ability to influence or
order someone even if it’s just the clerk at Arbys. The temptation of humans is to continue to
expand that influence as far as we can get away with. I think of Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait to
expand his influence over that country.
What this petition is asking for is that God’s influence would grow
rather than our own. Another way to put
that would be more of Christ and less of me in my life.
3. Your will be done – not my will
In the 1970 film
Patton, Gen. George Patton; one of the great WWII generals was taking out his
frustrations because Dwight Eisenhower had pulled him out leading troops to
battle. “War is my destiny” he
yelled. He sounded liked he was going to
do something violent, even anarchic and then he turns away and says “Thy will
be done” and submits to Eisenhower’s orders.
At least half our battles in life are over getting our own way.
4. Give us each day our daily bread – I need help
Never
forget that at a minimum we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone
before us. This is the most difficult
thing to do for people who work hard to successfully provide for
themselves. But we’ve got to acknowledge
that we have what we have because of opportunities God has opened up for
us.
5. Forgive us
as we forgive others – I am a debtor
Every time we sin against someone or God, we
put ourselves in debt to them. That’s
what sins does. But if we don’t see
ourselves as being debtors we’ll have a hard time seeing that we’re in debt to
God.
6. And lead us not into
temptation – I can be tempted
Basically
we’re all susceptible to temptation whether we feel like it right now or
not. One of the only reasons you’re not
giving in to some temptation is because it’s not right in front of you.
7. But deliver us from
evil – I have evil in me
Some
people don’t think they have any evil in them.
That’s especially true of church people who have been following Christ
for a long time. Anyone, anytime is
capable of being taken over by and committing evil.
Concluding Assignment for the Week
This week continue
reciting the Jesus Creed as you get up in the morning, as you go throughout
your day and as you close your eyes at night.
'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and
with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as
yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Then sometime during the day pause and slowly,
line by line pray in those seven areas the Jesus Creed in the Lord’s
Prayer. Even 5 minutes a day will make a
huge difference in your life.
William
Temple in his book The Book of a Thousand Prayers wrote this fitting
prayer that we close with today “O God of love, we ask you to give us love;
love in our thinking, love in our speaking, love in our doing, and love in the
hidden places of our souls; Love of those with whom we find it hard to bear,
and love of those who find it hard to bear with us; Love of those with whom we
work, and love of those with whom we take our ease; that so, at length, we may
be worthy to dwell with you, who are eternal love.” Amen.
Ice Breaker
Questions
1.
What sport would you say you
know the most about and why?
2.
Guess the name and birthday of
the person next to you(unless that person is your spouse or close friend).
(Hint: the person can give you three hints without giving too much away)
Recite the Jesus Creed as a Group – any living out the Jesus Creed requires prayer in some fashion or
another.
Discussion Questions
1.
What are some factors that make
prayer a dull or dry experience for you from time to time?
Suggestions:
a. nothing on our minds
b. angry about a situation
c. disappointed about something that happened
d. others?_____________________________
2.
In what ways are the Jesus
Creed and the Lord's Prayer similar?
3.
What are the first three
petitions of the Lord's Prayer? How would they impact your day to day life?
4.
What are the next four
petitions of the Lord's Prayer?
Which ones do you have the most trouble
with?
Guide to
Prayer
1. Hallowed be Your Name – not my name
2 Your kingdom come – not my kingdom
3. Your will be
done – not my will
4. Give us each
day our daily bread – I need help
5. Forgive us as we
forgive others – I am a debtor
6. And lead us not into temptation – I can be tempted
7. But deliver us
from evil – I have evil in me
Study Luke 18:1-14
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show
them that they should always pray and not give up. 2
He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor
cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in
that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my
adversary.'