please. A little bit more volume, Judy. Thank you. Saves me screaming. Ah, very good. Thank you. I can hear me now. Good. Well, good morning, everybody. And welcome to the Cove this morning. We're happy to have you all here. It's kind of a gray day, but it's a good day. We won't have to worry about getting sunburned on the way up to the church service, its second service. But really appreciate that. Just a couple of comments here and a couple of questions that they've been asked for me. Many of you have known about the class. I also teach up at the main campus. We're doing that again starting tomorrow night. If you have somebody who's a new Christian, not into the Bible, wants to find out about the Bible, send them on up there seven o'clock in the conference room at the up on the second story. Also, next Saturday night, if you want to come back to the Cove, sometime other than Sunday morning, the drama team at the church is doing a comedy night here in the Cove next Saturday night. Come on back and enjoy the drama team. I think they're doing a drama this morning, in fact. Yeah, those of you who were here last night know that there's a drama this morning. I'm going to see it next service. But that's a very active group. And so you want to come up and join them. That we saw some of their comedy one time. It was really good. They do a lot of extemporaneous kind of comedy also. So I appreciate you all being here. Getting into Luke chapter 11. Welcome to chapter 11. We're making progress. I mean, this is an amazing story, an amazing process as we're going along. And in the book of Luke, and we're so happy to have Mark here this morning. Let's have a word of prayer and we'll get right into it. Gracious Father, thank you so much for having an opportunity for us to see your word. Talk about your word. Here it's spoken and here it taught by a really excellent teacher, Lord. We thank you for the preparation that Mark has done for the preparation you've done for him all of his life, Lord, to get him here. And we just are glorifying you for that. We ask a blessing on the people that are here this morning, Lord, either the ones that are serving in some capacity or here as students, Lord, we're all going to learn together this morning and we just praise you for that. Thank you for our church as it provides opportunities for learning and for service. We thank you for that great experience we had with them. The million meal event just a few weeks ago, Lord. We're still excited about that. And the terrific Easter experience we had. Thank you so much. We're going to thank you now, Lord, for the salvation you've given to us and praise you for it. In Jesus name, Amen. It's on. Okay, great. Oh, it's off. All right. Thank you, Dennis. Good morning, everybody. It's great to be back. Hope you had a wonderful Easter. And as Dennis said, we're continuing in Luke's gospel, we're in Luke chapter 11. And we come today to the most famous prayer in the Bible. What we sometimes refer to as the Lord's prayer, Luke's version, actually, of the Lord's prayer. There's a saying in English like Father like Son. In fact, I still remember, I was a little kid at time, I still remember commercial. Do you remember the anti-smoking commercial where the little boy and the father are doing all kinds of things together. And there's a there's a like Father like Son motif all the way through. And then it gets to the end. And the father picks up the pack of cigarettes. And the narrator says like Father like Son, I think I actually found that commercial. Let me see if I can do it here. We're going to try to give you sound. It may not work. Do you remember this? Okay, we're back. Like Father like Son, where do we get most of our values? Am I a little loud? Am I? Yeah. Sorry, we were trying to get the sound from the thing. Where do we get our values? We tend to get them from those we honor the most, those we admire the most, especially from our parents. And remember, once I used to take my kids for a walk when they were little, we had a nice little neighborhood called a sack. And I go out walking. And one of them would be in the stroller and the other would walk along the side when they were about five and two respectively. And one day I had just gotten a nice cup of coffee in my little insulated mug there. And I started out the door and my son, who was about five at the time, looked up and he said, I want one of those. So of course, he wants a coffee. He doesn't want a coffee. He wants a coffee mug. So he can carry it just like Dad carries it. So sure enough, I went in there and I got another one of those. I filled with some water juice. I don't even remember. And I gave it to him and we started out the door and I'm walking in my daughter, who's about three, looks up and says, I want one of those. So if Dad's going to walk with an insulated coffee mug, then the others have to as well. So I went back in there and got another one. And here we are now. And we're walking up the street and I'm carrying my coffee and my son is carrying his coffee. And I wondered what people thought as they walked by and passed by and saw the three of us all sipping our Starbucks on the way. But why did they want to cup a coffee? Because Dad had a cup of coffee and we model after we follow the pattern of those we admire, especially those we want to be like in some way. It's by far the best way to teach anyone anything, isn't it, to model that before them. Jesus knew that, the Apostle Paul knew that. And so in the gospels, we see Jesus modeling things for his disciples. It's very interesting. Jesus doesn't just tell them to do things. He shows them. He wants to teach them compassion. So what does he do? He demonstrates compassion. When he sees the multitude's hungry, he feeds them. When he wants to demonstrate his authority, he shows them his authority. When he wants to demonstrate servant leadership, what does he do? Do you tell Peter, go get a bowl and fill it with water. And I want you to wash this disciples and I want you to wash. No, he doesn't tell them what to do. What does he do? He does it himself. He models discipleship. He models servant leadership. Jesus knew that the best way to teach others was not to tell them, but to show them, to live it out with his life. And we see that in the passage that we're going to look at today. Jesus never gave a seminar on prayer as far as we know. He never organized a convention and brought people in from all over Galilee and Judea to teach them about prayer. He never wrote a book on prayer. He never wrote a book period, right? But what he did was, he illustrated through his life. His life was one characterized by prayer. And the disciples saw that and in this passage, the disciples asked him, teach us to pray. We see how you pray, teach us to pray. And Luke's gospel, of course, Jesus is constantly praying. I've shown you this slide before and he's always praying when, do you remember? When does he pray? At critical points in his life and ministry, at key decision points, at key points of ultimate stress, at his baptism. What's so significant about his baptism? Do you remember the beginning of his ministry when he's empowered by the Holy Spirit to begin his messianic ministry, his ministry as the Messiah? Before appointing the 12, there's a pretty important decision, right? These 12 are going to carry on his message after him. They're going to be the ones to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Right before Peter's confession, Jesus is seeing praying. Of course, Peter's confession, the first human to truly recognize that Jesus is the Messiah. And then Jesus was going to, what, redefine that Messiah's ship in terms of the suffering role. The Messiah was not going to conquer, as was expected, on his first coming, he was going to suffer and die. And so Jesus is praying about that message that he's going to communicate to the disciples. At his transfiguration, Luke tells us, Luke's the only author that tells us that Jesus was praying when he was manifested, his glory was revealed, the glory that he had before coming to the earth, the glory that he would have at his second coming. Of course, in the garden guests of Gethsemane, as Jesus is facing the most traumatic moment of his life, he is at prayer, calling the disciples to pray as well. On the cross, he prays several times, but with his last breath, he says, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. So what is Jesus doing? He is depending on the Father at key points in his ministry. He's offering prayers to the Father, asking for his guidance. And so sure enough, in this passage, Luke chapter 11, what do we see one day, once again, Jesus was praying in a certain place. Jesus himself needed guidance. Now, sometimes we stress the deity of Christ and Jesus was fully divine, fully God. But remember, he set aside that deity, he emptied it himself, Paul tells us in Philippians. So he did not depend on that deity during his earthly ministry. He depended fully on the Father. This is what he says. He says, I do nothing on my own, but speak just what the Father has taught me. He depended on the Father, like Father, like Son. And the disciples saw that pattern and they learned from it. They saw that he was living a life of dependence. In John's Gospel, later on, he's going to say, it's good that I go to the Father. Why? Because I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and you will do even greater works than me because I go to the Father. And in other words, he lived independence on the Father and he was calling his disciples to do the same thing, to depend on the Father, like Father, like Son. We learn by following the example of others. So the disciples see this. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples to pray. They want the same intimacy and fellowship with the Father. They see the relationship that Jesus has with the Father and they want the same thing. Now, some of you will probably ask this question later, so I answer it now. Just as John taught his disciples to pray, this is John the Baptist, of course. And no, we don't know anything about John teaching his disciples to pray. There's no record of that specifically in the Gospel. But we do know that John had disciples, John the Baptist, the four runner of the Messiah, the one that came proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. He had followers, he had disciples and he taught them all kinds of things. Things like Jesus taught them about the coming of the kingdom of God, about the need for repentance, ethical imperatives to live by. All of these are part of John's teaching. Luke chapter three, we won't go back there. We see a lot of John's teaching in Luke chapter three. But in this context, we learn that John taught his disciples to pray, but it doesn't, but we don't have any specific teaching by John on that. But now they see that pattern and they want Jesus to teach them to pray because they have seen Jesus, they have seen Jesus pray again and again. And so Jesus gives them what we call the Lord's Prayer. Now, it's not really a good title for it because it's not the Lord's Prayer, it's not a prayer for Jesus to pray, it's a prayer for the disciples, a model, a pattern. Now, there's nothing wrong with praying the Lord's Prayer. I grew up in a context where we were kind of Roman Catholic phobic, you know, I don't know if you, and we were afraid, we were sort of afraid of, we talked about vain repetition. You don't want to repeat vain repetition. You don't want to say the same thing over and over again. And when you hear the Roman Catholics talk about saying our fathers, that sounds a lot from the context I grew up on. And as vain repetition, so we're not talking about necessary, now there's nothing wrong with repeating the Lord's Prayer. Let me just say that right away. But you say it with meaning, right? You recognize the meaning of the Lord's Prayer. It's not about saying seven our fathers, it's about recognizing what the prayer is all about. So Jesus is not teaching a prayer to pray so much. He's teaching a model, he's teaching a pattern of how we ought to pray. So the Lord's Prayer is really the disciples prayer, and it's a model of how to pray. Now I mentioned this is Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer. Matthew also has a version. Matthew's version occurs in the sermon on the mount. Jesus is teaching and he says, and when you pray, say so as part of his teaching to the disciples and the crowd, he teaches them this model prayer. Now we talked about this a little bit when he did Luke's version of that sermon. Matthew's sermon may be sort of a collection of Jesus' teaching brought together as sort of an epitome of his teaching. It's not necessarily something he taught on a single occasion. It may well have been, and Jesus may have taught people how to pray on more than one occasion. But there's some slight differences between Matthew's version and Luke's version. Luke's is shorter. Let me just show you the two parallel. You know me, the academic, right? The professor, I have to show you all the details here. They're essentially the same, but Luke's is shorter, and it essentially says the same thing. You can see the Matthew starts our father in heaven. Luke just simply has father, same thing. Of course, we're talking about God in both cases. How would be your name is the same? Your kingdom come in Matthew and your will be done. Those are parallel phrases, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. Those actually mean essentially the same thing. That sounds interesting to say, but your kingdom come and your will be done mean essentially the same thing. Give us today our daily bread. That's the same for give us our debts or for give us our sins. That's the same. Lead us not in temptation, and then Matthew adds but deliver us from evil. And then the last phrase for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Interesting. That phrase doesn't even occur in Matthew in our oldest manuscripts. So most scholars think that last phrase was added by a scribe to round out the prayer to give it a nice conclusion for use in church context. In other words, the church was using the prayer and so that last phrase, that's why I put it in italics there, was maybe not part of Jesus's original prayer, but certainly was picked up by the apostles as sort of an appropriate ending to the prayer. Again, in our time you know that we're getting a more detailed study of scripture, and sometimes a phrase or word occurs in some manuscripts, but not in the older manuscripts. We've talked about that. It's called textual criticism. And I'm going to introduce that to you. And we see a phrase that may or may not have been original to what the author wrote. Well, I'll just I'll just point that out. Now I'm not telling you to stop right there, evil one, right, and don't end your Lord's prayer. This is an important part of church tradition. It's been a great prayer throughout the ages. God is honored and glorified certainly when you say, for yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. So I would strongly encourage you to keep saying the Lord's prayer as we have it there. I better shut up before I get in the more trouble here. Okay, so the Lord's prayer is a model prayer. And so let's go through the various phrases in it and look at each of them as we go through. Now your outline is a little bit different. You can see that the takeaways are sort of the outline for the passage until we get to the second part. There was in a sense that the prayer is so significant and each phrase is so significant. I just treated the outline as your takeaway. So that's what we're going to do this time. Okay, the first statement in the prayer isn't dressed to God as Father. What does that mean? What does it mean to recognize God as Father? I think this is especially what it means. It recognizes God as our provider and protector. The one who gives us provision and protection. Look it later on in this passage in verse 11. Jesus is teaching about prayer after he gives the Lord's prayer. And he says, which of you fathers, okay, picking up this Father image, if your son asks for a fish will give him a snake instead. That would not be very nice. Now, where do those two come in? Well, a fish has a scaly scales on it and snakes have scaly looks. And so they look a lot alike. And so Jesus says, you're not as a father. What, you want to give your children the best? Do you want to give your children good things? Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake? Or if asked for an egg, will give him a scorpion? Again, a scorpion is shiny and smooth like an egg and rolls up in a ball like that. So the two things that look similar, you would never do that. You would never do anything. If you then evil or evil or to hurt your children, if you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So see, that sort of explains, I think, that statement, father, in the Lord's prayer. It's to call God our fathers to say, we are utterly dependent on him. Because a father, a good father, of course, and God is the model father, loves to take care of his children. I love to take care of my kids. I mentioned I just went to recent Turkey with my daughter. And it was just so enjoyable to be with her and to meet her needs to make sure that all her needs to provide provision, to provide protection. Right now, my family is scattered all around the world. Well, sort of all around the world. This Palm Springs fart. My son, well, he is. My son is in China. He's flying home today, so he's not in China anymore. He's been in China for a week with Habitat for Humanity building a house with his, he's a high schooler, a junior high school, and so proud of him. He's doing that. So he's there. My wife has my daughter and they're in Palm Springs right now at a soccer tournament at the state cup of soccer right there. So I have my 11-year-old and Luke is my youngest and he's kind of mama's boy. The last child is always the favorite I think. No, actually the third in my case, right mom? The third was the, I always say that. I'm the favorite. I know I'm the favorite, but yeah. And so Luke and my wife are really really close, but it was just so great this weekend. We went out to soup plantation last night and that's his favorite restaurant. He loves soup plantation. We went home and we watched a movie together and I just, it was just so, I don't get that much time with my youngest especially because he always, you know, he's always wants to be with his mom. So it was just such a great time and I could so relate to this prayer on this weekend. What a great time to do this because father for him to call me dad and for him to just enjoy the provision and the protection of his father is just, just a wonderful thing. So, so we can relate to God as the one we totally depend on, the one we totally trust in for our provision. Also for our protection, when there's a little sound in the middle of the night, who gets up, you know, who keeps the baseball bat under the, the bad? Who's the one? That's a father generally, okay, I know, generally provides protection. I don't know about your fathers or your husbands or, but I'm the spider slayer in our house. I am. I mean, I have children and a wife who is a racoon of phobic to the max. I mean, over the top. It's like, I'll hit this blood-curdling scream in the other room and I'll run in and I go spider, spider, and I run in and it'll be like, you know, I'll be down. I don't, I still don't see it, you know, but I'm the one who has to come and kill the spiders. Why? Because the father, okay, traditionally the father is the one who provides provision or at least makes sure provision is provided. I'm not against working mothers early, but makes sure provision is provided and protection for the family. Now, that's the ideal father, right? Praying to God as father means acknowledging our complete dependence on him for needs and direction, for needs and direction. I lost my father 16 years ago to cancer and it's traumatic. Of course, we all know we lose someone close to us. We lose the love one how traumatic, how painful that is. But I have to tell you, about a year later, I was offered a position. I was moving on in my career and I had to make just one of the most difficult decisions of my life at that time and I was just agonizing over this decision and I said to a friend, I said, you know, I think I missed my dad more now than ever because he was the one that I could go to to get that guidance, to get that clarity, someone who a wise guide, not a wise guide, a wise guide who would guide me along the way. Now, of course, for many, God becomes the true father they never had, right? He was talking a woman some time ago and she was raised in a very difficult situation, raised by her grandmother, actually, her mother was invalid. She didn't meet her father until she was 14 years old and at that point, she found out her father was an angry and abusive man and she said, I never really had a father until I met God. And then as I felt God's provision, as I felt God's love and God's guidance, I finally had the father that I never had. And so for her, God became the ideal father for her, the father that she never had. There's a movement today and you probably have heard of it or seen it in some ways, to take father language out of the Bible. It's part of a radical, and I don't use feminist in a negative term at all, but it's part of a radical feminist movement to remove all father language, or at least to say father, mother, every time, or heavenly parent, or something, or something like that. And some of you might know, if you look on the internet, you know, I'm a controversial person. I've written on gender language, actually, in the Bible. And I've written support of what we call gender-accurate language. And by gender-accurate language, I mean, when a Greek word means person, we don't need to translate it man, as often did in Old English. We can translate it person. This has been part of my research. So I'm a little controversial because I've defended using that kind of language in our Bible translations. But I'm not for very strongly against removing father language from the Bible, because it's so powerful in terms of what an ideal father, we need our father, Edith Humphries, who's a great Christian theologian and biblical scholar, wrote this. She was writing about this very issue of trying to move father language from the Bible. And she says, in this time of all times, this time of the absent father and the overburdened super women, we need, and she means by that women need, we need men need, families need, the corrective image of the father. I thought that that's a beautiful statement because God created man and women, and God created parents to fulfill specific roles and to nurture, to gather, to nurture and encourage and raise up children. So when we pray our father in heaven, what do we pray? We're praying to the one who guides us, the one who protects us, the one who provides for us. Now there's actually a whole another dimension to this as well, theologically, the issue of God as father. And that is that Jesus actually, when he prayed to God as father, we don't think of this now, but he was doing something that was practically unprecedented. You ever heard this unprecedented and unique? How many of you have heard the word Abba? You ever heard the word Abba? Not the Swedish rock group. Not that Abba, right? But Abba is an Aramaic term. Aramaic, we might have talked about this before. Aramaic is the language Jesus originally taught. And so this is Jesus' actual word he used. When you see the word father English in the New Testament, that's the Greek word patear. It's a Greek translation that also means father. When you see Abba, that's a transliteration, just Greek letters, but spelling out an Aramaic word. Does that make sense? In other words, Jesus actually said Abba but then the Greek, the gospel writers translated that into patear and to father so that the readers could understand. But to address directly address God as father was almost unprecedented. They would refer to God as the father of all humanity, the father, the sovereign father over the universe, but to pray to God as father was highly, highly unusual. And Jesus, by doing that, demonstrated that he had a unique relationship. What do we call Jesus? What's one of his main titles in the New Testament? Son of God, son of God, a unique and unprecedented relationship with the father, like no one else before him. But then amazing, what did Jesus then teach his disciples to do? Now think about this. He taught his disciples to pray to God as father, the same way he prayed to God as father. You see, he brought them into the family relationship with God by dying and rising from the dead. What did Jesus do for us? He saved us. He brought us into the family of God so that now we can be children of God. Not in the same sense as Jesus, of course, not divine, but we can be related to God in the sense of once again in positive, reconciled relationship with him. When we talk about in the New Testament, you see the phrase, in Christ, if anyone is in Christ, to be in Christ means to be identified with Christ in his life, in his death and his resurrection. And by that identification, we then are adopted as children. So this, this Abba language is extremely powerful. In Mark chapter 14, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see that Abba language. Paul uses it also in Romans 8.15. Look at this. The spirit you receive, here's the Holy Spirit. The spirit you receive does not make you slaves in a Greco-Roman household. There would be children and there would be slaves. And they both seem to have basically the same status. Children and slaves. We've talked about children in the ancient Near East, right? They were just irrelevant, no social status. But those children, those slaves would eventually move into very different positions when they, and so you are no longer slaves, metaphorically speaking, you're no longer slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him, we cry, Abba, Father. We can have a relationship with God where we come into a restored family relationship, reconciled relationship with God. I love this path, this verse. When I favorite in the New Testament, John is writing about the same thing about our sonship, our relationship to God by virtue of our relationship with Jesus Christ. And he just gets overwhelmed. So see what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. He says, it's amazing that God has done this for us, that he's done so much to make us children of God. And then he just says children of God. And that is what we are. He just can't believe it. You see? That is what we are. We are children of God. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. The world doesn't recognize us because it doesn't have the same family relationship. It hasn't been yet reconciled with God. So our Father, a lot there, isn't it? Just to say Father, means that we depend on God for our salvation. We depend on God for our provision. We depend on God for our protection. Let's go on to the next phrase in the prayer, hallowed be your name. Oh, that should be hallowed be your name, not hallowed by your name, hallowed be your name. Now that itself, even if it says B, but it's a strange expression, isn't it? It's funny. I think they keep it in our modern, many of our modern translations because it's so traditional. Everyone knows most people know the Lord's prayer. And so they want to keep it. But what does that mean? I'm sure you heard the story of the child who was writing letter to God. And he said, dear Harold. And his son, his school teacher said, dear Harold, who's Harold? He says, that's God. Like it says, our Father and Heaven, Harold, be your name, right? Okay. What does that mean? hallowed be your name? Here's a couple of things. The name first of all, hallowed be your name. The name represents the person. And of course, we know there are many, many dozens of names for God in the Bible. The name represents the person. So basically, you're you're praying that God's God himself would be hallowed. Well, what does hallowed mean? hallowed actually comes from the word to make holy or to keep holy. And holy, as you probably know, means set apart, set apart. Now that can mean two different things. If you think about it, to be set apart can mean either completely separate or different. And God is completely separate or different than us. He is absolutely pure. He is pure perfection. We are flawed. So, so set apart in that sense can mean completely, completely, wholly, completely perfect. But it also means absolutely sovereign, absolutely all powerful. So it's both purity and power. Those would be two of the key things related to that. So what does this request mean? To say hallowed be your name means may we acknowledge who you are the perfection and sovereignty of God. I want you to notice something about the first half of this prayer. She just gives us a model prayer. And it's not about us. It's all about God. God is our father. God is to be made holy or declared to be holy or be to be acknowledged as holy. Here's the third request in the prayer. Your kingdom come. Now as I mentioned before, Matthew has a second phrase, he has your kingdom come, your will be done. Your kingdom come, your will be done. But those are actually really almost synonymous. Let's think back because we've been talking about the kingdom of God a lot. Haven't we in this? What's the central theme of the gospel of Luke? The kingdom of God. What's the central theme of Jesus' message, I should say? The kingdom of God. And what does the kingdom of God mean? Remember the kingdom of God means God sovereign authority overall things. God is king of the universe. God is sovereign lord of all things. But God lost that sovereign lordship over human beings at least temporarily when human beings rejected his authority. They refused to acknowledge him as the sovereign lord. And from that moment on all of creation entered a fallen state. And we've said this before, all disease, all evil, all death is because we have rejected God's kingship. We have rejected his sovereign lordship overall things. So right from the moment that happened, the fall of Adam and Eve, God started a plan, put in progress a plan. All of those messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. We've looked at them again and again. All of those prophecies are looking forward to what? To when God is going to step in and restore creation to that reconciled relationship that he had before. That's the key, right? So when Jesus comes on the scene, Jesus comes on the scene and what does he say? The kingdom of God is at hand. God is stepping into human history once again to reconcile creation to himself. The most important event in human history, second to the creation, right? We've got the creation of the fall and the whole rest of the Bible is about God's restoration of us to himself. And the center point of that is the coming of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the kingdom of God. You see how significant this is? Your kingdom means God, I place myself under your sovereignty now. Your will be done. What does that mean? That means God, I place myself under your sovereignty now. You see how they're really synonymous or near synonymous expressions. I went your will not mine to be done. And so when Jesus came on the scene, what did he do? What are some of the deeds that he did? Miracles, okay? He cast out demons. What is he demonstrating? That Satan's grip on the world is no longer holding. He healed the sick. He demonstrated that he was overcoming the sickness. He raised the dead, right? Illustrating that in fact death was now being defeated. So all that Jesus did was symbolically demonstrating that the kingdom of God is at hand. So we pray I'm willing, God, to submit myself to your kingdom. Oh, there's the question right there, I just answered. What has Jesus been doing in his ministry to reveal the nature of the kingdom of God? So praying your kingdom come means what? It means submitting our will to His. Your will be done. It means I want to be on board with what you're accomplishing in the world. I remember traveling in Europe some years ago we were traveling, we'd get and it's the metro systems, the train systems in Europe are so amazing and really can get you almost anywhere you want to go. And so we were traveling by trains at the time and we would oftentimes be running late and we'd get to the train track and others of us would be behind us on the group. And the train would be just about to leave and we would just we'd hop on the train just as it was leaving and others in our group were behind us but we found that if even if they were way down the track all they had to do was hop on the train and we would eventually meet because all of that train was going in the same direction. See? Now there was a problem though if you looked across the way and they were on another track you know you were here and you know all of these stairwells come down and sometimes they come down to different tracks and you get there and and there you go and you go yes the train oh no it's not my train and you turn around and you see on the next platform and you dare not cross over you know the next platform your your friends are over over there if you're on the same platform you're fine get on anywhere the train you want to get on because that train is going to want the same destination you can work your way through the cars and and meet each other but if you're on different platforms you're in trouble so what is what does this prayer mean it means I'm going to be on God's platform right here it is right there getting off our track and on to God's track getting following his perspective instead of ours some of you probably read a great book by Henry Blackabee and Claude King called Experiencing God anyone read that book experiencing God now I've sometimes done a little bit of a critique on that book because of the way it handles how we study the Bible that's a whole different issue I love experiencing God because of its presentation and its basic thesis the basic thesis of experiencing God is that it's not about us it's about God it's not about us it's about God God is doing something in this world and he calls us to joyfully get on his train see a lot of us in this world what we're trying to do we're trying to create the perfect train experience ourselves right we know where we want to go okay I want happiness I want friendship I want all of these things and so we're going to create our experience we're going to get on our train and go where our destination is but you see it's not about us it's about God God has a purpose in this world and he has invited us he's given us the sovereign privilege the responsibility to get on his train and to be all that God wants us to be to fulfill his purpose in the world and that's what it means to pray your kingdom come it means God I'm not in charge of this life anymore I want to follow your will and your purpose and your life why should we pray though that the sovereign gods will be done isn't that a given think about this God is sovereign okay God is sovereign and so your will be done well yeah it's going to be done if God is absolutely sovereign I interned um in it with a college pastor and we'd have a staff meeting and we'd come together and he'd say okay what do you guys want to do at this next event and we knew what was going to happen in the next half an hour we would share our ideas and then we do what he wanted to do that was you know so it was it was his will was going to be done it was it always worked out that way you know but but we were supposed to give give input well sometimes people would think it's the same with God right God God is is absolutely sovereign so why should we pray that God's will be done why should we pray that God's will be done well we've just answered that question really haven't we what does prayer do prayer doesn't just change us I just I said backwards prayer doesn't just change things does it prayer changes us and I think that's even more critical a more critical part of prayer is prayer gets us in touch with God's purpose it enables us to develop a kingdom my mindset to focus on his will not ours prayer is an ongoing relationship right what is prayer prayer is just a conversation with God it's an ongoing relationship that constantly keeps us in touch so our prayer should be what are you doing in the world right now God how am I put how can I play a role in that how can I accomplish your purpose and your will it's not God it's God not prayer that changes things my grandfather used to tell a story he wrote a book called Sense and Nonsense about prayer and he tells a story in that book he went to see a family of a man who was dying and the man was 89 years old and his his daughter came to my my grandfather who was a pastor at the time and said would you please pray we want him to reach a hundred we just we would love him to reach a hundred we so would you pray for 11 more years 11 more years and my grandfather said I just don't feel led to pray to pray it in that way we don't we don't tell God right we don't tell God we we we ask for God's will to be done prayer changes things true but it's it's it's God who ultimately changes things it's not in cantations the changes it's not repetition it's not by pleading and pleading and pleading pleading eventually we force God's hand right God is our father he wants to give us everything we need but see there's the problem because what we think we need is usually not what we really need we see that again God wants to give us as is as our father wants to give us everything we need but so often what we think we need is what is not what God knows we need because God is not just keeping us happy and safe and secure in this life God is shaping our souls for eternity you realize that and sometimes shaping the soul is hard business and we have to go through trials and challenges and difficulties because God is shaping us for an eternal relationship with him so it's best not to pray God give me this and give me this and give me this and give me this it's best to pray your will be done Father and I think this is your will so I'm praying for this but if it's not guide me differently that sounds a little bit familiar Father take this cup from me even Jesus what did he want what did he want you know Jesus God I really need to be taken out of the situation I really need to be taken out but take this cup from me but what's the next part the most important part not my will but yours be done the hardest prayer I think for us when we face family tragedy we face job loss when we face difficulty not my will but yours be done okay those three can we hold the questions or is it okay let's wait till the end for questions because I've got a lot more to come actually okay three more requests only now only now halfway through the prayer do we turn from God to us and I'm convinced that the last three requests in the Lord's Prayer are so that we can accomplish the first three requests let me say that again the last three requests the requests for our needs are so that we can accomplish the first three that is we can pray your will be done we can accomplish God's purpose and will if what if God provides us so we pray for provisions give us each day our daily bread now what does that mean and what does how does this relate to a culture of over stock refrigerators freezers and warehouse stores you ever wonder what archaeologists are going to think of Costco you know you know were they hoarding you know I know they had secret chambers where they were taking all of this cases they were all concerned about nuclear holocaust so everyone walking out of Costco with these massive you know grocery carts is going to go and store it somewhere or they think they must have been feeding secret children or something that we that we don't have any archaeological record of right yeah now we have to understand in the first century most of Jesus listeners were subsistence farmers and poor craftsmen and when they said give us today enough to survive they meant give us today enough to survive and so how how do we relate this passage to us in a period of such incredible abundance at time of abundance let me just give you two applications one is that to those much have been given what does you say much will be required and we need to take that very seriously we are responsible for all that God has given us all of the wealth that we have and we do have wealth if you've ever been to a third world country you suddenly are shocked and amazed at how rich the poorest Americans are or middle class Americans are at least and so we need to recognize that God has given us so much not so we can have such a wonderful lifestyle be the greatest country in the world but so that we can share with others so I think one key application is that God has given us the resources to meet the needs of the poor to meet the needs of the sick to meet the the needs of those who have less it is better more blessed to give than to receive right but there's a second thing and that is that none of us really has stability if you think about it how much security do you have how much security real security do you have any one of us could drive home today and get in the car accident be dead right any one of us could drop dead from a heart attack right now any one of us could find out tomorrow that we have a terminal disease we are all life life is very fragile and we live every day and every breath we take is ultimately independence on God and so essentially what what is this prayer this prayer is God meet my needs because I need to live in absolute and full dependence on you for one day each day yeah for everything every single day absolutely yeah and that's it right living day to day is critical in this prayer I think we need to give it's not about saving enough for tomorrow I mean you know we want to be responsible with what has God has given us but it's about God give me this day to honor you and to serve you okay here's the fifth request in the prayer forgive us forgive us our sins now this is not a prayer for salvation because Jesus is teaching the disciples who already have faith in God already have faith in him this is a prayer for forgiveness to maintain relationships this is all about fellowship it's like in first John where John says if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins that is to restore our relationship relationship restoration of relationships requires asking for forgiveness that's how we become reconciled I was teaching my class the other day I was teaching a course in pause letters in first Corinthians we're teaching about divorce and one of the things interesting about the whole Christian divorce discussion is how much it focuses around what are called grounds for divorce if you've heard that terminology because the Bible seems to set out certain things that are considered to be grounds for divorce in other words legitimate reasons that you can go ahead and divorce someone don't I'm not gonna go there that's way too controversial but what's interesting is is what bothers me is when someone comes to me and I edited a book on the various reasons these various grounds but when someone comes to me and talks about this and they're looking for grounds it usually means they're looking for a way out of the relationship so they can say they didn't sin in the relationship right okay that's what grounds many people you're looking for grounds for divorce you're looking for a way out of the relationship so you can say that you didn't sin in the relationship have a confession to make I sin every day in my relationship you know I speak cross lead in my wife I forget to do something she asked me to do I do you know it's like I'm sorry it's a very important part of my relationship with my wife and my kids those terms are very important because I have to ask forgiveness all the time so so what is this prayer this prayer is God forgive us our sins so we can maintain that relationship what's the biggest roadblock to reconciliation I think it's pride and stubbornness right it's an unwillingness to say I'm sorry even if it was 90% your fault you don't say that part by the way you you you might think it but you don't say it you say I'm really sorry for the part that I've played in this asking forgiveness what does it do it restores that relationship those two words are amazingly powerful if you don't say them every you know if it's not a constant thing they continue to continue you have to change be transformed over time but to say I'm sorry build reconciliation so so this is a prayer to be restored to be reconciled back to God we need to constantly ask forgiveness for our sins or daily ask for forgiveness for our sins so that God will we can be restored to that right relationship to him relationships need constant maintenance our relationship with God is no exception our relationship with God needs constant maintenance as well here's our final request prayer for God's protection lead us not into temptation now this is probably the most puzzling of the requests of the Lord's prayer lead us not into temptation because does God sometimes lead us into temptation couple of thoughts first of all this Greek word can mean testing as well as temptation it's often used to mean testing and so it could mean don't let us lead us into the kind of testing in which we would fall anything that would cause us to stumble anything that would cause us to be ineffective for what for advancing your kingdom for the first three requests right so don't don't allow me to enter into things that could cause that now God does not tempt us let me just give you a verse James 113 when tempted no one should say God is tempting me for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone so really this is a prayer for protection in the inevitability of testing and temptation lead us not into temptation is almost a misleading translation the new living says it this way don't let us yield to translate to temptation I like that in other words protect me in the midst of the inevitability of tempting and of testing in my life because we need that protection we are in a dangerous world in terms of testing in terms of temptation when I was in seminary I might have told you this in the past I don't know I worked for a laboratory in Los Angeles I was a courier for laboratory it was before that I would go and let me explain first of all I would go and I would pick up specimens taken from blood samples and things taken from patients and take them to the lab to be tested so I'd go I took a route I went to all these different hospitals picked up these specimens and brought them them back to the lab and it was called immunology consultants and I this was before AIDS it was before AIDS but it was the herpes scare back in the herpes scare so I would dry and I would pick up these specimens so I told everyone I carried herpes that's what I did for a living I would drive around picking up herpes samples at these hospitals and bring they didn't they always give me a funny look when I told them that I carried herpes for for let me but I forgot where I was going with that oh yeah one day I was having a conversation with a doctor and and he's he's talking when the doctors in the lab the PhDs in the lab and he said to me he said you know the amazing thing isn't that we die of disease it's that we don't die of disease he said there are enough viruses and germs in this room to kill everyone in every room you walk into there are enough to kill everyone but but your body builds these antibodies it provides the protection against those diseases that will could would destroy you and so really what is what is this this prayer this prayer is for protection in the context in the inevitable context in which the world could destroy you in testing and in temptation okay so there's the Lord's prayer at least Luke's version of it and we have about seven verses to do left in four minutes so let me let me just let me just read the parable real quick okay that follows Jesus teaches a parable about prayer then Jesus said to them suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say friend lend me three loaves of bread a friend of mine is on a journey has a friend on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him suppose the one inside answers don't bother me the door is already locked and my children are in bed I can't get up and give you anything I tell you even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship yet because I'm reading the revision of the NIV because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need okay now there's an interesting parable here I want to give you first of all the cultural context right this is a village setting and someone a friend comes to another friend he knocks on the door and he says I've just had a friend arrive at night I need food and it says you're already in bed and I think in in Matthew's gospel it says in bed with my kid with my family there so I found a picture actually of this is probably remember that we're talking about a Palestinian culture in which you had basically one room family houses and everyone would sleep in the same house most life was outdoors the the animals would be kept in a lower level in fact this is probably this maybe where Joseph and Mary were in an area like that that's what the word for in actually means it can mean they couldn't stay in the guest room so they had to go to the place where animals were in the in the fat in the home of family that's don't go there let's stay with this okay now think of think of a whole family they're all there and they're on concert on their bed and so the father the father says I don't want to get up the doors closed the doors locked I'm not going to get up and and and let you in I can't I can't do that and so what does it say he says he's persistent right here will teach his persistence with prayer so and in fact what follows asking it will be given to you seek and you will find so God wants us to be persistent in prayer now now that's that's an interesting issue why does God want us to be persistent doesn't that kind of go against the idea of a loving father doesn't he want to give it to us right away why does he want to keep asking well pause and hold that for a Q&A time in a second while I get through a couple a couple of more notes here why why would God I think a simple answer is that God wants us to connect to him right God wants us to be stay focused on him okay now I want I want to I want to in two minutes I want to give you another possible interpretation there's there's a guy named Kenneth Bailey and I think in your in your bibliography there's on the back of the page there's in it there's Kenneth Bailey potent peasant you see that let me give you this other just because we have to go a bit further in this in this class let me give you a little bit more about the cultural context he says we're completely misreading this parable if we think it's just about persistence he says in the cultural context first of all hospitality is the highest possible value that exists hospitality and so when someone came to your home to feed them was was the most important thing in life it doesn't matter what time of day or night it would be you would have to take care of them but hospitality wasn't just a family thing it was a community thing so that the whole village if you did not if the whole village did not take up the whole Billy Village would be shamed there's also a culture of honor and shame of honor and shame and so so this is what Bailey says it means I'm just going to give it to you and you can you can think through it he says this guy comes at night and he knocks on the door and the the friend who's who's the offender in our culture who's the one that's causing the offense the guy is knock on on the door he's the offender Bailey says no you're totally missing it you're totally missing he says in that cultural context the moment the man inside said no he became the gross offender because he was a fusing hospitality and therefore he was shaming the entire not just his family he was shaming the entire community if he didn't if he didn't get up that's a slightly different take on the parable isn't so Bailey says and Bailey lived for years and years in the Middle East among peasant cultures and he's he's got these these ideas he says basically here's the point of the parable god will get up right because god will not be shamed okay now actually there's a translation that I will that this says this because the shameless audacity literally it says because of shamefulness he will surely get up and give you as much as you need because of shamefulness because of the fear of shame or because he would be shamed if he didn't he will get up and so Bailey says the point is our our father will not be shamed right he will take care of his children because he is their father and you know what god always maintains his honor right now look at now we go to the verse 11 which of your fathers if the son asked for official give him a snake instead you see how those verses would suggest that idea that you would never do that that would be shame so so no you will god will restore his honor god will not be shamed he will get up so I just had to throw that interesting cultural possibility we read the Bible through our cultural lens right and so we try to enter into the world of the first century all right in closing before and we will take a few questions um why don't we stand and say the Lord's prayer or do you want to wait till after you do quit let okay I've got it right here oh yeah yeah here's okay it's up on there it's up on the wall we'll we'll read so that we do the same version let's stand together and then if people do need to slip out they can but we will stay for as many questions as you need okay let's say the Lord's prayer and say it with meaning now this is Martha's version just we'll say the whole Lord's prayer okay ready our father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever you can be seated and we will take a few oh I'm sorry I've got your mic we will take some questions now we had a lot to cover and so that's why I held off the questions I answered all the questions I've never done oh no yes mark when you said that a scribe changed that one portion of the scripture was added or something how does that fit into that the Holy Spirit authored every word right in the scriptures for our instruction okay that's a that's a great question and the problem is even though God divinely gave scripture inspired scripture and God I believe God divinely preserved scripture God did not perfectly preserve scripture and we know that for a fact because we have five thousand manuscripts that's the best by the way that the new testament is the best attested document in the ancient world nothing is even close but we have five thousand manuscripts no two are exactly alike because in the period of B you've heard of BC well this is BX before Xerox right before something could reproduce exactly everything was hand copy and so when you hand copy anything you make mistakes so our manuscripts today do have mistakes there's no doubt about that so we we have God's word to us and we have it clearly inaccurate but we don't have it perfectly in the sense of perfect perfect copies so when we say we believe in the in-erency of scripture the in-erency it's without error the next phrase that if you look at all the all the statements of that it says in the original manuscripts you see in the original so we so we have God's word in the original manuscripts but having said that let me now reassure you is that we have something extremely extremely close to the originals and we use what's called textual criticism to compare the various manuscripts and try to decide which one was the original that's one thing the other thing is no point of Christian doctrine no point of Christian doctrine of truth in other words is it all contingent on these small what we call textual differences okay so there are different manuscripts but we we know the message see it's not like oh suddenly you say well I guess God's is not the kingdom if that phrase is not there right God does not have the power in the glory forever if that phrase is not there well of course he does he does because in 10,000 other plays in the Bible it teaches that you see so no point of doctrine is endowed because of these these few textual questions and issues if you look at the footnotes of your Bibles all modern translations will have alternate renderings they'll say something like some manuscripts say this some manuscripts say this they give that to you when it's really a difficult call look at mark one one sometime marks gospel one one you'll see the phrase son of God is in some manuscripts and not in others of course that doesn't mean Jesus not the son of God if that phrase is out there he's called the son of God hundreds and hundreds of times but in that particular instance did mark right that or did a later scribe at it that's the the question scribes are trying to correct and smooth over things to it because they thought mistakes maybe had been made earlier sorry that's a brief little course on textual criticism mark let me as an elder at CRB yes we're familiar with the statement of faith of our church it says exactly what you said okay we believe that the Bible is the inherent word of God in the original manuscripts right if we had them we'd be very happy right right and here's what I tell my students we can know God's word truly even if we don't know every word perfectly you see how many of you live your life in perfect knowledge at any moment right we we are humans and Paul says that we know in part so we all live with probability every moment of the day but with God's word it's such a high priority we can assure be sure that it's true any other question yes yes I'm gonna Dennis run he's gonna get his exercise today I'm running around yes yes okay the question was am I part of the team the committee for the new international version and the answer is yes I'm on the it's a 15 person committee that oversees the new international version and we've been revising it since it came out in the 1970s in other words every year we meet and we examine some people will say we think you've missed it here it should be it could be clear this way or sometimes there's archeological discoveries so we're constantly trying to improve the text to make it closer to what the original author now the changes are so small and minor you'll never notice them for the most part but yeah we meet each year I had Dr. McCommisky yeah yeah very good I think was there another hand back here no I thought I saw another one any more before we close great thanks Mark okay and we've already oh yeah let me talk to you afterwards on that because that's more technical okay we already said the Lord's Prayer so I'll just dismiss you thanks