6 September 2026

6 September 2026 - Our Father 5

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Write:  

“…Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Reflect:   

We are down to the last three petitions – or parts – of Jesus’ Our Father prayer. And they are very important petitions. There are classically defined seven different petitions in the Lord’s Prayer: 1) hallowed be thy name; 2) thy kingdom come; 3) thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; 4) give us this day our daily bread; 5) forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; 6) lead us not into temptation; 7) but deliver us from evil. There is that number seven again! Are you surprised that there are seven petitions when there are seven Sacraments? You should not be.

So we will look at petitions five six and seven this weekend.

Apply:   

These last three are not that easy for us to deal with. The first of the final three is all about forgiveness. Of course, the first and probably most damaging question to ask is: are you willing to allow God to forgive you as you forgive others? Gulp! I think that ought to make all of us tremble just a little bit – or maybe a lot. It is far too easy to hold onto grudges – to believe that we have been wronged and we have the right to be upset. Yes, injustice is rampant in our world because of sin. But how much does our unforgiveness contribute to that? And the challenge that Jesus puts before us in his prayer can – and should – shake us into a desire to forgive everyone… for everything.

Have you ever heard the phrase: “once burned, twice shy?” That seems to go against what Jesus is calling us to do. I understand there are people that we just cannot… excuse… because of their bad behavior. And there are some people that we just cannot allow to continue to influence, or disrupt, our lives. That is why we need to be – at times – twice shy. But that definitely does not include failing forgiving them! I know it is very hard. I have family members that have made it very hard for me – and I’m a priest! When I have not been able to forgive – especially within my own family – the only way I can deal with it is to put it in the hands of God. And I think that is another side to this petition.

Do you remember Jesus’ parable of the servant who was forgiven a huge debt and who went out and throttled a fellow servant because he owed just a small amount in comparison to the debt he had been forgiven? I have another take on this parable. What if this first servant, instead of insisting the other servant pay him back, said to him: “look, the King just forgive me my big debt. So now you no longer owe me, you owe the king.” And then, in a hushed tone, what if he said something like this: “the king forgave me, maybe he will forgive you too!”

Do you see what just happened there? Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Debt: gone. Anger: diffused. Lifelong friend: gained. To say nothing of what the king would think now about this first servant. He had been forgiven his debt, but yet he was trying to pay back some of it! Actually, you could see this as a form of intercessory prayer for those that we need to forgive. And – be honest – who doesn’t have someone they still need to forgive?

I heard this put another way one time – or something like: harboring unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die!😊 I think that is a great description of what happens when we fail to live the ideal of forgiveness. It is never easy – but it is necessary.

Now let’s move on to petitions six and seven. They go together. And, to be honest, the sixth one, lead us not into temptation, has confused me for years. Is God going to lead us into temptation? Isn't that like saying God is leading us into sin? There has to be something else – some other way to explain this.

You better believe it! And when I discovered this, it made a big difference in my approach to the entire prayer. By the way, this is the reason why I wanted to do a series on the Our Father. If I had this problem, I doubt I am the only one.

It is not that God is going to lead us into a sin through temptation. Rather – and I think this is a great insight, and it is not mine originally – rather it is that we are in combat. A war for our souls. It is absolutely necessary that we understand that there is this fight going on for our souls. But it is also not wrong for us to ask God to get us past having to face the combat. Jesus is the Commander of the Army of God. And all of us, because we follow Jesus, face the combats that cause us problems. This is called temptation. So what these last two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are urging us to pray for is that we be protected from the kinds of warfare that could… spiritually destroy us.

If we are going to be in the service of the King, we are going to face spiritual warfare. Sometimes that is easy to overcome – sometimes it is hard. I said enough about that just a couple weeks ago.

But because those temptations – those battles – are around us, we are going to face them. But Jesus tells us that it is not wrong to ask God to keep us from them. When they come our way – and they inevitably will – we can turn to God and return to one of the beginning petitions of his prayer: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done!” If we pray for the coming of his kingdom, the problems of temptations – of the combat for our souls – is diminished – if not removed. We have a responsibility to fight for the kingdom of God! We cannot be just mild bystanders who come to church and expect to be blessed but not enter the battle.

The Our Father has been called both the-complete-prayer and the-perfect-prayer. Think about the prayers that Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. Especially his line: “not my will, but yours be done!” This is what the Lord’s prayer teaches us. As I said at the very beginning of this series with the letter that I wrote while in seminary, it is too easy for us to take this prayer for granted. We have said it too many times! These last three petitions that I have described today – in my opinion – are the core of what it means to want to follow Jesus. Forgiveness and combat. 😉 God made it easy for us. It is the devil who made it hard.

Pray/Praise:   

So let us pray his prayer together now.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

+++++