LD 52: The Sixth Petition and Amen!

Merry Christmas All!  To the catechism of comfort we go…

There’s much here in the final week (as there is every week) of the Heidelberg calendar as we close off not only the Lord’s Prayer, but the entire catechism too.  I’m excited that this completes the teaching section on prayer but even more thrilled to get to the beginning of the Heidelberg Catechism.  Lord willing, I’ll make my way through the whole catechism this year.

I’m encouraged by how significant the theme of gratitude has been throughout the HC’s teaching on the Lord’s Prayer.  I do hope that my life will become an overflow of thankfulness to Him, so much so, that if an epitaph were written, it would simply say, “He was thankful to his Father.”

Anyway, I’m unsure of how to synthesize these three final questions (#’s 128, 128, and 129), so I’ll give separate (but brief) attention to each of them.

#127
The sixth request is so significant.  Just praying for this petition is a reminder that all of life is spiritual warfare.  I don’t think of life in this way enough.  What I think of is merely the daily American life; go to work, take care of the family, and play.  It’s very shortsighted and consequently, my attention is often misdirected.  Rather life is a fight against the flesh and our wills, the world, and the devil.  If we don’t specifically petition for God’s help to keep us from temptation and evil, then our silence is suggesting that we believe ourselves to be superior to these spiritual struggles or worse yet, we fail to acknowledge the actual existence of these realities.  I fall into both the former and the latter.  Yet everything Scripture teaches regarding our natures is the opposite–that we are in desperate need of the Spirit’s work.  The sixth petition, then, is a plea for help and a sober reminder of our weakness in this ongoing spiritual fight.  Our weakness in ourselves, while our strength is in the Spirit.  This is the essence of biblical prayer and the point of the sixth petition, realizing and proclaiming your desperate need for your Father in Christ by the Spirit’s work.

#128
Although it seems as if, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever,” may not have been in some of the original manuscripts as a conclusion to the Lord’s Prayer, attributing this to God as a final statement in prayer is fitting and proper.  In this conclusion, we explicitly affirm:

• God is our King and we live under His reign.
• God is all-powerful and we live by His strength.
• God is all glorious and we live for His glory.

Attributing this threefold praise to God is a natural response to the six petitions the Lord’s Prayer teaches to its prayerful recipients.  When the Lord taught His disciples to pray this prayer, these three praises had already implicitly made their way into the six original requests.  With that in mind, this is a great way to conclude and provide summary to the petitions.

#129
More certain than the desires of my heart is the comforting fact that God hears my prayers.  No matter how much I may want something, what is more sure than those wants is God’s complete understanding and knowledge of those desires.  A God who hears me and knows me in Christ is the ultimate comfort.  As surely as He hears His Son, He hears me.  That little word “amen” attests to this.

We say “amen” because the Spirit’s work in prayer is a true work.  Hopefully, by the time we have gotten to the end of our pray, the Spirit has already so worked in our hearts that our wills have changed according to His.  In this way, praying “amen” is a way of acknowledging what is true of God’s will (and hopefully not our wills).  Though this is not always the case, and our prayers may often be wrong, the ongoing act of prayer will ultimately conform our wills to His.

Finally, “amen” is the first word Jacob has learned to pray.  I hope it’s the first of many words he uses in prayer.  I love saying “amen” with him after every prayer.

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Lord’s Day 52

Q & A 127

Q. What does the sixth request mean?
A. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” means,
By ourselves we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment.  And our sworn enemies—the devil, the world, and our own flesh—never stop attacking us.  And so, Lord, uphold us and make us strong with the strength of your Holy Spirit, so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory.

Q & A 128

Q. What does your conclusion to this prayer mean?
A. “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” means,
We have made all these requests of you because, as our all-powerful king, you not only want to, but are able to give us all that is good; and because your holy name, and not we ourselves, should receive all the praise, forever.

Q & A 129

Q. What does that little word “Amen” express?
A. “Amen” means,
This is sure to be! It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer, than that I really desire what I pray for.

LD 50: The Fouth Petition

“Give us today our daily bread,” is so comprehensive.

DeYoung’s title for Lord’s Day 50 is Prayerlessness is Unbelief. I’ve thought this for a long time now, and when I saw his title for HC#125 I couldn’t have agreed more.  I’ve thought much about this, because over the years, my prayer life has not kept pace with my increased understanding of the faith.  Consequently, I’ve also been increasingly bothered by my growing sinful negligence in prayer.

Prayerlessness is Unbelief really is a perfectly stated title for Lord’s 50.  Prayer is the clearest, most immediate fruit of your faith.  If faith is an absolute dependence upon the object of your faith (Jesus), then prayer is the rightful expression of that dependence.  In faith, you realize your utter sinfulness before God and cling on to Christ’s perfect righteousness.  You look away from your sinful self to Christ’s obedience.  Prayer is the same: after looking at yourself, you express your total dependence upon Jesus, looking to Him alone for all things.

HC #125 gets into some of these things…

Necessity, dependence, and gratitude sum up of the fourth request of the Lord’s Prayer.  With the fourth petition, “Give us today our daily bread,” our Lord teaches us that we should be prayerfully dependent about all that which we need.  Roughly paraphrased, this request means: give us food consistently and often.  I don’t pray for basic needs much at all, much less consistently and often.  A quick example…

Health.  I can’t ever remember praying thanks for the breaths I take or the relative good health I’ve had all these years.  Few things are more consistent and often than breathing itself.  Maybe a beating heart too.  I just assume that I’ll breathe. Without giving it a second thought, I assume that my heart will keep beating.  And assumption misses the point entirely, because assuming these things just are translates into self-dependence and praylessness.  Exactly, what Jesus teaches us not to do.

There are so many more examples I could discuss, but the point has been made (to me).  The sum total of the content of my prayers tells me that I am not dependent upon Christ for “daily bread”.  You would think as a created being I would cling on to my Creator in dependence of all things, that I would, “give up my trust in creatures and to put trust in God alone.”  It should be a given, but it’s not.  Even more convicting is the converse.  You would think the Creator would not display a prayerful dependence, but Jesus does exactly that.

Paul Miller writes in A Praying Life that Jesus was the most dependent person ever to walk this earth.  Jesus depended upon His Father for everything.   John 5:19 says,

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

My Savior was completely dependent upon His Father for everything.  Likewise, Jesus is the one who teaches me to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”  Necessity, dependence, and gratitude is what the Father desires of me in the fourth petition.  Why?  Because I need God for everything, every single second of my life, and that makes for a comprehensive petition.

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Lord’s Day 50

Q & A 125

Q. What does the fourth request mean?

A. “Give us today our daily bread” means,

Do take care of all our physical needs so that we come to know that you are the only source of everything good, and that neither our work and worry nor your gifts can do us any good without your blessing.  And so help us to give up our trust in creatures and to put trust in you alone.

LD 46: My Father

There are few things stronger than the bond I have with my son. Actually a real part of me wants to say nothing is stronger than the love I have for my son, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. It boggles my mind that there could actually be a greater bond…

The union I have in Christ is eternally grounded in Jesus’ historical, meritorious, and perfect obedience to his heavenly Father. It’s a bond of love that is second to none and equal to the very bond that the Father has with his only begotten Son. My union in Christ is of Trinitarian proportions; what unites the Father and the Son is exactly what binds me to my Father in Christ.

You just can’t beat that. Body and soul, I am and will always be… His.

QA #120 says, “that God has become our Father through Christ.” Expressing God as Father at the outset of my prayer is no small thing. At the opening of my prayer, I come with all the redemptive historical work that Christ has accomplished and now applied to me in the Spirit. The totality of His work which I have embraced in faith by the gift of God’s saving grace enables me to call God my Father. To me, he is both God the Creator and God the Redeemer.

Thinking about LD 46 might make it a bit difficult to get very far in my next prayer. Often I begin with, “Dear Heavenly Father,” and perhaps next time I might just want to thank him for all the reasons I’m able to address him as my Father. Again, it’s all about gratitude at this point in the HC. Until I breathe my last breath, it will continue to be about thankfulness.

Knowing how much I love my son (how much I love him depending on me and needing me) is blown out of the water when compared to how much God the Father delights in me turning to Him. Hopefully, my son will soon find his ultimate delight in turning to his Heavenly Father rather than his earthly father.

I’ll leave you with Paul from Romans 8:12-17…

12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

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LORD’S DAY 46

Q. Why has Christ commanded us to address God: “Our Father”?
A. That at the very beginning of our prayer he may awaken in us the childlike reverence and trust toward God which should be basic to our prayer, which is that God has become our Father through Christ and will much less deny us what we ask in faith than our human fathers and mothers will refuse us earthly things.

Q. Why the words “in heaven”?
A. These words teach us not to think of God’s heavenly majesty as something earthly, and to expect everything for body and soul from God’s almighty power.

LD 45: Prayer

The why, the how, and the what. These summarize what Lord’s Day (LD) 45 is all about. LD 45 begins the HC’s next major section of instruction on the Lord’s Prayer (after the Apostles’ Creed and the Ten Commandments respectively).

Prayer is the foremost response of gratitude. There is no greater act of thankfulness than prayer. If my Christian life is essentially one continuous “Thank you” to my Father, then it must be saturated with prayer. QA #118 get right to the point. I need to pray for everything, absolutely everything. And the last time I checked, I was pretty sure I hadn’t done this. My need is total and must be directed to the only One who can perfectly answer these persistent needs.

It really is much like faith. My depravity is total, and hopefully in faith I look away from myself to Him whose righteousness is perfect. I need to rest on His merits, not mine. This is why the Apostle continuously writes that there is no room for boasting; I have nothing to offer and everything to receive. This leaves no room to boast, except to say, “Thank you.” Prayer is the same way: my need is total and only my God can answer (just as his righteousness is perfect so are His answers). And so, the fruit of my faith better be prayer.

LD 45 in a nutshell:

The why: Prayer is the most important part of our gratitude and a means of grace.

The how: Prayer is from the heart to God as he reveals Himself in His Word, as we acknowledge our sin and misery, resting on the promise that God will always hear us in Christ.

The what: The remainder of the HC will cover the content expressed in the Lord’s Prayer.

Now if I can only pray more.

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LORD’S DAY 45

Q. Why do Christians need to pray?
A. Because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And also because God gives divine grace and the Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for these gifts and thanking God for them.

Q. What is in a prayer which pleases and is heard by God?
A. First, that we sincerely call upon the one true God, who is self-revealed to us in the Word, for all that we are commanded to ask of God. Second, that we truly acknowledge our need and misery, and humble ourselves in God’s majestic presence. Third, that we rest assured that, even though we don’t deserve it, God will certainly hear our prayer because of Christ our Lord, as God has promised in the Word.

Q. What has God commanded us to request?
A. All things necessary for soul and body which Christ the Lord has included in the prayer which he himself taught us.

DeYoung’s The Good News We Almost Forgot

Week by week, I’ve been reading DeYoung’s The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16^th Century Catechism.  And it’s not that I ever forgot the Heidelberg Catechism as the title suggests.  Actually if you pinned me against a wall and asked me to choose between the Heidelberg or Westminster Catechisms, I’d choose Ursinus & Olevianus’ work.  Not a very good Presbyterian answer, I know.  You just can’t take the German out of me.

But back to the book… It’s a simple read, super introductory which makes it very accessible and worth a try if you’ve never read anything on the Heidelberg.  Each chapter is short and divided by Lord’s Days, which I appreciate because I use it as a Sunday night read, a perfect way to end the day.

I haven’t finished it yet, so reviewing the content will have to wait for another day, but so far so good.  Here’s the book cover: