"Our Father"

“Our Father” The Lord’s Prayer Sermon

Aug 3, 2025

The title of my sermon is “Our Father”. I am going to talk about something
we all know, The Lord’s Prayer.
Just to start, raise your hand if you know the Lord’s Prayer by heart.
Raise your hand if you learned it saying trespasses & trespassers.
Raise your hand if you know the prayer as “The Our Father”.
Many of us came from different backgrounds and we have different ways we
learned and use the prayer. As in the debts and trespasses - Presbyterian
and some reformed churches use debts & debtors. I once went to a
Presbyterian funeral and when it came to the prayer the minster said, we
will use trespasses. It was nice to have the heads up but I was surprised
that was the choice. The difference is due to how some denominations
translate and interpret scripture to mean either debts, trespasses or even
sin.
Only just recently did I hear someone call it “The Our Father” and then I
realized that is what it is often called in the Catholic church
I may have mentioned this sometime before but when I was growing up, my
sister, who is 4 years older than me, and I shared a room. There was a time
when our twin beds sat parallel to each other and when we went to bed, we
said the Lord’s Prayer together before going to sleep. It is a fond memory of
mine. And to this day, I start my bedtime prayer with it.
I decided to look into the prayer because I was finding that I was saying the
prayer and not really praying it. So, I wanted to think about what am I really
saying when I use the prayer. I thought I would share what I found anyway.
The prayer is a great prayer, rather short, meaningful and it covers
everything but it was really meant to be a template or a model for praying,
not necessarily a prayer itself. We find the prayer in the gospels of Matthew
and Luke. The scripture in which it appears is during the time of the Sermon on the Mount. Remember the disciples have grown up in the temples and have watched and listened to religious leaders praying in the temples and in the open and some even worn prayer boxes on their heads, and I guess
some Jewish men still do, but now that they have been with Jesus for quite
some time and they see that he takes time away to pray and to connect with
God. So, they come to him and ask him to teach them how to pray like he
does so they can be can be more like him and connect with God the way he
does. The scripture says, “You should pray like this”, not pray this prayer.
So, what is the template. We will take a look at that. There are many
templates and acronyms developed about it.
One is Adoration, Consecration, Supplication, Intercession and Protection.
They are pretty big words for me and beyond my usual vocabulary but let’s
see.
How about Adoration-
The prayer starts our – Our Father who art in heaven
Jesus tells them to say, our father – not Lord or even God – but father.
Something intimate, a loving relationship, one who cares for them, someone
they can turn to, someone who wants the best for them. It reminds us that
God is our father and that he loves us. In the Message by Eugene Peterson,
which is a contemporary interpretation of the scriptures, he interprets this
section to say “This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better
than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very
simply, like this:” and then goes on with the prayer.

Also note, that it says “our” father, not my father. The whole prayer is in
plural, not singular. We are a community of faith.
Who art in heaven – so the father is identified as the one heavenly father,
not earthly.

Hallowed be thy name or in the translation in the scripture reading today
“help us to honor your name.” And as such, not just call Him holy but we
should act in a way that honors and praises God.
We should never want to bring dishonor to God instead we should be
living examples honoring him.

Next is Consecration-
Thy Kingdom come – what does that mean anyway. This is really the part I
was puzzled by and wanted to understand more fully.
According to one source, God’s kingdom is not a place but a relationship.
That when we make Jesus the master of our lives we are in the kingdom
and the kingdom is in us. So, by making Jesus the master of our lives we
intend to surrender ourselves to God. Just as Mike Conklin’s favorite hymn
says, “I Surrender All”
To “consecrate” is to set apart anything - body, mind, spirit, career, finances,
family, etc. to God’s exclusive use.

Thy will be done – we want to live and do what we can to advance the
kingdom as God wants us to, just as Jesus said in Gethsemane: “Not my
will, but yours be done.”
Maybe it should “light a fire in our soul” as one of the songs the choir sings
or make it a passion in our hearts.
The choir also sings a contemporary version of The Lord’s Prayer and in it
we sing,
“Father, let your kingdom come. Father let Your will be done, On earth as in
heaven, Right here in my heart”. Isn’t that what it is all about. Having Jesus
in our hearts and living in the way he leads us.
Thy Kingdom come can also refer to Revelations 11:15 – as in when the
king comes, he will judge the world when Jesus returns and we will be ready
if we are kingdom people.

Supplication -
Give Us Today Our Daily Bread – this could be related back to the
Israelites in the desert receiving the manna daily, even so, it means asking
for everything we need – food, work, shelter, clothing, stability for us, for our
church, country, and the world. Not necessarily what we want but what we
need, especially to fulfill God’s purposes. “Supplication” is to express a
need to God. He provided for all those Israelites in the desert!  He WANTS
YOU to have whatever you need to move the kingdom forward.  And, to
give thanks for it. As one source said, we ask God to write us checks, but
we don’t check out the stubs to see what he has already provided.
We are so very blessed.

Intercession
Remember again, the prayer says “us” & “our” – This is where we can ask
for help for others as well. Our church is well known for praying for others. I
truly think our prayer of joys and concerns is one of the most favorite
parts of our service and many outside this church know we will pray for
them as well so they ask for prayers. God providing for us, deepens our
compassion for those whose needs are greater than our own.
Forgive Us Our Debts As We Forgive Our Debtors - (Intercession)
Just as we need daily bread or provision, we need daily forgiveness for our
sins. Some people might think that they have no sin that they need
forgiveness from, but trust me, we all sin. 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves”. Thoughts, attitudes, actions. . .
somehow, we sin. This is not to make us feel bad, but to point out we must
ask for forgiveness on a regular basis.

We might also wonder why we need to ask for forgiveness when Christ has
already sacrificed himself on the cross so that we may be forgiven for our
sins. We do it because we want to walk closely with God.

It says Forgive “us”, so we are asking God to not only forgive our own sins
but sins of others. And, as we receive God’s forgiveness, we should also
extend it to others. Simply put, forgiven people should be forgiving
people.
Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, as God in Christ has forgiven you”.
Protection-
  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Here we pray that temptations of this world will not overwhelm us and there
are many.
Proverbs 28:26 says “He who trusts his own heart is a fool.” So, we must
rely on God to guard us and help us watch out for temptation. We need the
full armor of God to guard our thoughts and heart.

I hope this makes you think a little more when using the Lord’s Prayer
whether you just say it as it is or use it as a template for your own prayer
with adoration, consecration, supplication, intercession and protection or
saying the prayer along with addition thoughts.
But wait you say, that is not all of the prayer. That is where the most
scripture ends in how Jesus told his disciples to pray.

The rest - For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever
was added later in the first century as a conclusion. Some refer to it as
David’s doxology or concluding hymn. Perhaps, you recognized some of it
in the scripture reading from 1 Chronicles. Later it became common practice

in the early church, especially in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. It
does appear in the King James Version of scripture which is how we say it.
You may notice that some Catholics, and others do not say this part.
I will say, as a choir member, it is such a privilege to sing the two renditions
of “The Lord’s Prayer” that we do. The one we did a month ago is so
powerful especially this part when we sing of the power and the glory
forever. It becomes emotional. It makes your heart beat faster singing it.
Also, the contemporary version when we sing, “It’s yours, it’s yours, all
yours, all yours, the power, the glory are yours. Forever and ever the
kingdom is yours.”
Let us pray. Thank you, dear Lord, for providing this scripture which teaches us how to pray.

Amen.