The Lord’s Prayer, Part 5 | How to Pray Well

Luke 11:4

In Luke 11:2 to 4, Jesus gave his disciples a pattern for prayer. Teaching them how to pray in response to the request of one of his disciples. And so, Jesus taught them to pray this way, “Father, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for,” we also, “we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

There are five petitions there. The first two sympathize with God’s interest. They put God, God’s name, God’s will ahead of our own interest; even before we make one petition about our daily lives. But then, the last three petitions, after we framed our prayer in God’s name, and in his will, in his interests. The last three petitions are about our interests and about the regular concerns of our daily lives. But even, as we speak of our interests and we speak of our concerns, it’s important to point out that, the Lord’s prayer and all true prayer, really, this prayer is about lining up our hearts with God’s heart. Prayer is not about God considering, us and our wills. Doing what we want. It’s not about conforming God to us. Making the, the, creator bow to the creature. Prayer is about us being conformed to him. It’s about us learning to sympathize with his thinking and learning to want what he wants, in order, that we might do what he wants us to do.

And that’s abundantly clear in the first two petitions: Hallowed be your name, and your kingdom come. To see God’s name, exalted, and glorified, and hollowed, and to see his will accomplished on earth to see the extension of his kingdom, to see the spread of his dominion over the entire earth, that is what we want more than anything else. And even as we transition, in our prayer time, into more mundane matters of daily life, like our daily need for bread. The point of praying is to line our hearts up with Gods.

 We conform our expectations to God’s promise. To his stated intention to provide for us and care for us, according to his will. In prayer, we make a practice of accepting whatever comes from God’s hand for that day. Never demanding more, but always receiving everything that he gives us with gratitude. We come daily to our father. Always mindful, always grateful that he never tires of us, but that he receives us, gladly, as a father who loves to hear the voices of his children. And as the days and the weeks, the months, the years go by, in our Christian lives, we are drawn by his loving ways. All the more learning to trust in his goodness. Drawn ever deeper into a more intimate communion with him. So that we are conformed to his perfect image.

 So, the Lord’s prayer, like all true prayer, it’s about intimate communion with our father in heaven. It’s, it’s how we learn to partake of the divine nature that he might conform us more and more into his image and that couldn’t be more evident, as we come into this fourth and fifth petition.

What does Jesus mean by describing our offenses in the way he’s described them here, in verse 4? Notice, when they are between us and God, our offenses, Jesus refers to them as sins and then, when they are between ourselves and others, he describes them as debts, indebtedness.

 The first term sin, that’s a general term. It’s a large, comprehensive term. It’s a word hamartia. Translates the Hebrew word khata, which means to miss the mark. So, a sin is an infraction. A sin is a violation. It’s a transgression, and a transgression always points to a standard. Which is the holy law of God. So, sin, hamartia, this is the broadest, most comprehensive New Testament term to speak of anything that is opposed to God whatsoever, a violation of his revealed law. Second term there, debt. Debt means, what we are used to thinking it means, here on our own language and our own cultural societal usage.

We are indebted to others or others are indebted to us, as Jesus acknowledges here. We’re also, though, debtors to God. We’re debtors before God. Whether we violate our duty to love God or our duty to love man. We become debtors to God, if we violate any of those commandments. For the same God who commanded love for God, also commanded love for man. When we break God’s law, we are debtors to God’s law. Debtors to God, because we’ve committed sins against God.

 Just to illustrate this, remember David’s incident of adultery with Bathsheba. That one sin, you need to realize it involved a whole host of sins, didn’t it? God sent Nathan to David to confront him and tell him, David, you’re the man. You’re the man who has violated, who’s stolen the little lamb from your neighbor, when you have, you have flocks upon flocks of sheep. You went to your neighbor and stole his wife. You’re the man.

2 Samuel 12:7, you remember David’s reply. David said to Nathan very simply, “I have sinned against the Lord.” It’s what he said. I sinned against the Lord. Against the Lord. Okay, certainly, but what, what are you talking about, David, didn’t you, didn’t you sin against your servants? I mean, sending them on evil errands, to go and grab that woman and bring her to your palace.

 Didn’t you sin against Uriah. I mean you, you deceived him, got him drunk, and then you sent him out to the battlefront and murdered him. Not only that, but didn’t you sin against Joab? And didn’t you sin against many other servants, by involving all of them in a murderous plot? A national cover up to avoid an embarrassing scandal of injustice, and greed, and covetousness, and murder, and adultery.

 Oh, David was a debtor all right. He was a debtor. He was a debtor to the entire kingdom. He owed a debt of love to his neighbor and he violated that debt, but technically speaking, his sins, his actual transgressions, they were against the one who commanded him, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal. Driving it all home, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

 Uriah didn’t give those commandments, God did. Joab didn’t give any of those commandments. Bathsheba didn’t give any of those commandments. God gave the commandments and so, his transgression, technically speaking, his sin is against God. His sin started with a covetous heart, and it only ended after he broke nearly all the commandments of the second table; murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, covetousness, and in covetousness he’d forsaken the worship of God, God himself.

 He committed idolatry against God. Paul makes that connection very clear, in Colossians 3:5, calling covetousness, idolatry. So, when David, when he answered Nathan, and he said, I’ve sinned against the Lord. He wasn’t being cavalier. He wasn’t being callous. He wasn’t being coldly technical, ignoring all the deadly repercussions of the sin, of his sin. He wasn’t ignoring the, the, hurt and the pain that he’d inflicted upon other people. He wasn’t ignoring the guilt that he brought on other people in the entire kingdom. Of course, he recognized the debts that he’d piled up against his neighbors. He failed in his moral and his ethical duty to all of them and mark this, his kingdom paid for it from then on.

 But David did give precise answer to Nathan. A theologically informed answer to Nathan. He said, “I have sinned against Yahweh. I’ve sinned against the Lord.” Same thing in Psalm 51:4, the poetic reflection on all of that terrible sin, he says, “Against you, and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”

Folks, David is there as an example for us, isn’t he? He’s there as an example. Which one of us can say I have made my heart pure. I’m clean from my sin. No one can, right? “The heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately sick,” Jeremiah 17:9. “For all have sinned,” Romans 3:23, all “fall short of the glory of God.” Sins, debts, that is what stands between us and God.

In Isaiah 1:18, God describes our sins there as scarlet. They’re like dark crimson stains. Our sins are like blood stains that cannot be removed. They are there as permanent evidence of our guilt and shame before an all knowing, all seeing, omnipotent, omniscient God. Our debts against God, they’re, also, described in terms of great weight, crushing burden.

Matthew 18:24, the king, there in that parable represents God. He’s like the divine lien holder. He’s the divine benefactor, and we’re like the servant who owes that lien holder 10,000 talents. A talent, if you’re not aware of this, is a measurement of weight. That measurement of weight is a unit that’s equal to about 100 pounds. So, whether that’s 100 pounds of gold or silver, 100 pounds is 100 pounds. 100 pounds of feathers is 100 pounds. So, if you owe 10,000 units to somebody at 100 pounds each, 100 times 10,000, if my math is right, that’s a million. That is one million pounds. That pictures our sins against God as this incredible debt, this unbearable weight.

To forgive. What a word. To forgive is, it’s such a relief. It’s like turning a relief valve on a, on a canister that’s about to explode with pressure. Aphiemi is to, to let go. All the, all the ways this is translated, just such a relief from this stain and crushing weight of the burden of sin. Aphiemi means to let go. It means to, to, send away. It means to cancel. It means to pardon. It means to release and that, all of that, is what God does when he forgives us. Out of his pity, in his mercy, in his compassion, God releases us from the debt. He removes the crushing weight of the guilt of our sins and he casts it away. When he forgives, Isaiah 1:18, “Though our sins are like scarlet”, he removes the stain from that fabric and we become, as white as snow. Though our sins are red like crimson, though we’re shown to be in the evidence of the stain on our garments, we’re shown to be murderers. All those sins become white as wool and that is great news.

 That’s the news we call the gospel, isn’t it? That whoever believes that gospel will not perish, but have everlasting life: If they repent of their sins, and forsake their sins, and put their faith in Christ, who paid for all their sins.That’s the good news, the gospel.

 And that brings us to our second question. Why do we need forgiveness of our sins, when we’ve already been justified by God? I mean, why are we praying this prayer, in the first place? I remember back in the nineties, there was a popular radio teacher named Bob George. He wrote a book called Classic Christianity.

 And among a number of dispensational errors, in that book, he taught this, that 1 John 1:9, that is, that precious promise, “that if we confess our sins.” Notice the term, we, there? That’s John the Apostle writing, and he’s writing to his beloved; his children, fathers, and children, and young men in the faith. All these are, this, he’s writing to a church. If we confess our sins, he, God’ is faithful. That is, he will not change his character and he’s just. That is every sin gets its due punishment.

 So, God, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful.” That is, he always keeps his promises. He always does what he says. He will always fulfill his word. He’s also just: Meaning every sin gets its due punishment. Every crime gets its penalty. He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to “cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” What a promise. If we confess the sins that we know. Well, God is faithful and just, not only to cleanse us from those sins, but also from all other unrighteousness. Things that we don’t know. That we’re not aware of. You gotta realize how deep your sin goes. How many times in a day you sin and you’re completely unaware, you’re oblivious to it. Because you’re not mature enough to see it. You don’t see things the way God does.

Well, this teacher Bob George, he taught that, that precious promise of 1 John 1:9, doesn’t apply to us as believers. He said that, if we, as Christians, if we do what 1 John 1:9 says to do, we’re essentially rejecting the atoning cross work of Jesus Christ. Now, most of us can’t understand why anybody would say that. We, we, recognize that’s an error, but not everyone can explain, why that is.

 If Bob George is consistent, he’d have to recommend that Jesus disciples should not pray the Lord’s prayer. At least this particular petition in the Lord’s prayer: Forgive us our sins. We recognize that’s ridiculous. Why would Jesus tell his disciples to pray this, if he didn’t want them to pray that petition? But why is it ridiculous? What’s wrong with it? Well, for those of us who are in Christ, we have, in fact, been freed from the penalty of sin by the perfect, once for all, atoning work of Christ and his death for sins. That is what the Bible refers to as the basis of our justification, that God declares us righteous, and that’s where we received a full and free pardon from God, for all of our sins, past, present and future.

 And by the way, we standing here today. For us, all of our sins, from the standpoint of the cross, all of our sins were future. So, he gave us a full and free pardon for all of our sins. Sins of thought, word, and deed, sins of omission, commission, all of it. And, in addition to that forgiveness, in God’s justification, we’ve, also, received from God the perfect righteousness of Christ himself. Jesus Christ, our representative head. He is the second Adam. He’s the progenitor of a new race of people. He fulfilled all that the law required for his chosen people and in him, in Christ, we stand before God, as righteous as Christ himself, by his grace, that happens by the means of imputation.

 Imputation is an accounting term used in Scripture. It means reckoning. It means accounting. Imputation means that God reckons our, our accounts, our sins to Christ and he punishes Christ for our sins, instead of us. So, he takes the debt column, in our, in our ledger on himself, Christ does and he receives the full weight of the wrath of God, for all those sins. And then, imputation also means that God reckons, rewards us with the glory, and the honor, and the blessing that Christ deserves. He reckons or accounts Christs’ righteousness to us and then he treats us, rewards us as if we were Christ himself. You want a text for that, it’s very simple, 2 Corinthians 5:21. You should definitely have this in your memory it’s such a good verse for evangelizing the lost.

 Paul puts this succinctly, there, he says, “God made him who knew no sin.” Only one qualifies. It’s Jesus. “God made him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” That tells us how justification can happen legally. How God can justify the ungodly and still remain just. Still remain a just judge. It happens by this gracious work of imputation as he reckons our sins to Christ and he maintains his justice, because every sin gets punished. He doesn’t let one sin go. And then he reckons Christ righteousness to us. That’s an act of grace. He’s not obligated in his grace. He can give freely and willingly, and he does. He treats each of us according to that manner of reckoning, of reckoning, Christ righteousness to us, and rewarding us.

 So, if that’s the case with us, if everything is forgiven, if we have a full and free pardon, then why do we still need to confess our sins? As John tells us in 1 John 1:9, why do we still need to pray, as Jesus tells us to pray, in Luke 11:4, forgive us our sins. We pray that petition. We seek forgiveness, because although we’ve been freed from the eternal penalty of sin, we still live in the reality of the presence of sin.

 This, here what’s described here, what’s described in the 1 John 1:9, what’s described in other text as well. This is for the one who has already counted a child of God by adoption. This is, this is for that child of God who has violated the relational rules of the family. This is, this is about someone who’s in the family, yes, but they’ve disobeyed the rules of the house.

This is about a fatherly pardon, not a judicial pardon. Judicial pardon has already been granted, and “There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1. We no longer stand before God, the judge. Because, because of Christ, we stand in Christ, and we are related to God as our father. We are in the family now. So, Luke 11:4, has to do with the gracious privilege of family membership. It has to do with the offer of our loving father to reconcile us back to himself, as his erring children, he’s going to bring us back into his bosom.

 This is, this is our way back into the loving arms of the father that we’ve offended. And beloved, this should, it must promote humility in us, whenever we pray. Whenever we offer this petition to God. Does anyone, does anyone not imagine he doesn’t sin daily against God in some way. Anyone imagine she has no sins in her day in thought, or word, or deed; sins of omission, Commission.

 You need to realize this as Christians. Our sins are worse, because when we sin, we sin against the light of truth that we know. We sin against the one that we now call father. So when we sin, we’re sinning against our own nature. As born-again children of God, we were sinning against the indwelling Holy Spirit. We’re sinning against the Christ who died for our sins. We’re sinning against the father in his paternal love for us. We’re spurning his fatherly compassion. We desperately need to be restored. And it’s not for God’s sake. He sees everything clearly. It’s for our sake. Praise be to God that when we do come to him and we ask for his forgiveness, our father offers to forgive us. He offers to forgive us from a fatherly heart of compassion.

Listen, this is no minor issue. Our continued growth in holiness, our pursuit of sanctification depends on us having a right relationship with our father. If we’re not forgiven in this way, if we’re not restored back into fellowship, then we are stunting our own growth. We’re throwing a huge stumbling block in our path as we move forward.

 Imagine a runner competing. He’s running in a race on a track, around a track, and instead of staying in his lane, instead of running on the path of least resistance, on the smooth concrete path, he veers off course and he runs on uneven grass. He, run, his running spikes are getting all gummed up in, the, the grass and the mud, his ankles get twisted, his knees buckle, his legs twisted. And, eventually, he keeps doing that, putting out that effort, he’s going to fall down flat, isn’t he? He has to run that race again. He’s got to get up, he’s got to unclog the spikes, he’s got to move back into his lane, and he’s got to start running again, and beloved, that is the fatherly pardon: To run again, to be cleaned off.

 When Jesus came in the upper room to his disciples. He told them, “I wanna wash your feet.” Peter said, “Oh no. No Lord, you’re never gonna wash my feet.” He said, “Peter, if I don’t wash your feet you have no part in me.” He said, well, okay, then wash my, give me a bath. I mean, give me a shower. Cover the whole thing. He says, No. No, I’ve already made you clean, by the word I’ve spoken to you. It’s your feet that are the problem. They continue to go out and get dirty, as you walk around the world. Let me wash your feet.

That’s what this is, it’s fatherly pardon. The restoration that he gives us to come back to the family table; to participate in family worship and fellowship and this is the restoration that Jesus is talking about here. This is the loving compassion that he wants us to know, that he wants us to experience, when he tells us to petition the father for forgiveness, in this verse and this is a special grace and it’s one that’s for family members only. This is what restores us back to full fellowship. This is what clears our consciences. This is what settles our hearts in his love and fills us with peace and contentment. We truly belong to him.