WEBVTT
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Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and from our Lord and
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Savior, Jesus Christ.
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Amen.
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The text for our meditation this morning is the introduction to the
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Lord's Prayer.
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Our Father who art in heaven with Luther's explanation. In his
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discussion of the Lord's Prayer in the Large Catechism, Luther
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includes an introduction to the topic of prayer.
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He explains how to pray.
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He explains what to pray.
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Prayer is necessary, he says.
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God has invited us to pray to Him.
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But more than that, God has commanded prayer and He has promised to
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hear us.
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His commandment and His promise are certain and cannot fail or deceive
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us.
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Now, Luther has been building up to this point in his teaching on the
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catechism.
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In the Ten Commandments, we see how God instructs us what to do.
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He sets down the requirements of life as his creatures.
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The commandments are inscribed on the hearts of all human beings.
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The Creed tells us what God does for us and what He gives to us.
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But no human wisdom can comprehend the Creed
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it must be taught by the Holy Spirit alone, Luther says.
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In this life, we are still sinners.
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No one can keep the commandments perfectly, even though we have faith.
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We live in the world of the law, which demands obedience and is
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unrelenting, and yet we have the hope of the gospel.
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We are under the assault from the powers of this age, the devil, our
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sinful flesh and the world around us.
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And still we are gripped by faith in Christ and in His Gospel.
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This faith prays. Luther says in the Large catechism.
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Consequently, nothing is so necessary as to call upon God incessantly
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and drum into his ears our prayer that he may give, preserve and
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increase in us faith and obedience to the Ten Commandments. And remove
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all that stands in our way and hinders us from fulfilling them. Luther
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explains, so that we may know what and how to pray
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our Lord Christ Himself has taught us both the way and the words in
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the Lord's Prayer.
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And of course, Luther
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encourages us to pray with boldness and confidence.
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We are to pray constantly and with urgency.
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So prayer is something that we must learn to do.
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And this is why Luther explains the Lord's Prayer and in doing so,
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instructs us how to pray. With the words our Father who art in heaven
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he says, as God tenderly invites us to believe that he is our true
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father and that we are his true children, so that with all boldness
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and confidence we may ask him, as dear children ask their dear father.
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Luther himself practice boldness and confidence in prayer as he said
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he would rub God's ears with his prayers.
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In 1540, Luther's friend and colleague Philipp Melanchthon fell
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seriously ill.
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Philip was in Weimar and was not able to return to Wittenberg. With
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Justice
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Jonas and Melanchthon's son Luther rushed to Melanchthon's bedside, praying
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all the way. When they walked in, it was clear the situation was
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grave.
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Luther went to the window and started to pray.
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He prayed for days.
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Philip was failing. Three times
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they thought he had died.
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Later, Luther said to a friend there the Lord God had to stretch out
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his hand to me for I threw the entire sack, the whole thing in front
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of God's door and rubbed his ears with all of his promises to hear
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prayer that I was able to recall from the Holy Scriptures so that he
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had to hear me were I to believe all those other promises.
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And Melanchthon was restored to health, and Luther praised God for his
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mercy.
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Prayer like this arises from a life of faith, a life that is often
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tested and tried, that struggles with the cares and the anxieties of
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daily existence in this world.
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We suffer from every trouble and heartache.
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We mourn at loss, at destruction, at every effect of sin. And we cry
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out to God. But how is it that we can cry
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Our Father?
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We can only speak the words Our Father because the Father has first
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spoken to us.
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He has called out to us so that we may call out to Him.
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God, our Heavenly Father, has promised that our prayer will be
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answered, as he says in Psalm 50. Call upon me in the day of
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trouble and I will deliver you.
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God wants us to call Him Father because he has made promises to us.
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And God keeps his promises, not because of our own merit or
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worthiness, because of anything that we do.
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But rather God keeps his promises because he is a merciful Father.
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Because he sent his own Son, Jesus Christ to us and for us.
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And as his brothers and sisters, our Lord invites us to pray with Him
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to our Father in heaven. Through his saving work for us with his life
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and on his cross, our Lord Jesus gives us to pray.
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The Holy Spirit gives us the faith to pray and nourishes us in that
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faith by prayer recalling us to God and the promises in his word.
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And as dear children, we hang on to our dear Father with all boldness
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and confidence.
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Through all the sorrows of this life and through all the joys of this
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life.
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God gives us the way to pray throughout our days, and he goes along
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with us.
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Each day we die with Christ under the force of the law.
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Each day we are raised with Him under the power of the Gospel.
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And in the Lord's Prayer, we are given to pray each day with the most
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basic requirements of this Christian life of faith.
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We pray for God to be our Father and to keep his promises to us, his
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children.
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It goes like this. Father according to Your promise, keep Your name
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holy.
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Have your kingdom come.
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Let Your will be done among us also.
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Father, as you have promised, give us today our daily bread.
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Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
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Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.
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For the kingdom, the power, the glory are yours forever and ever.
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Father, as you have promised.
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As you have promised, so shall it be.
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Luther says in the Large catechism that there is no nobler prayer to
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be found on earth than the Lord's Prayer.
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And it has the excellent testimony that God loves to hear it
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he adds, The Lord's Prayer
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he says we should not trade for all the riches in the world. With the
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words of our Lord's Prayer.
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We pray for all that we, as his children, need from our Father each
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day.
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He has commanded us to pray.
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He has promised to hear us and to answer us. In prayer
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God strengthens our faith, bringing us to Him each day, each time of
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prayer. From under the sign of the cross, we pray to Him in the
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certain hope of His salvation, His resurrection, His life.
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We call upon our Father who art in heaven, and he makes his promise
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gifts our very own.
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Amen.
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Peace of God, which passes all understanding.
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Keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
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Amen.