Too many Christians don’t pray because they feel like they don’t know how. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he taught them. Today, join the Pastors as they explore the Lord’s Prayer through the lens of the Westminster Catechism. Together, we will find the prayer means so much more than we had ever imagined and yet also so much easier to pray than we might expect.
You can also download a PDF version of the Shorter Catechism here: https://bit.ly/3Bf072r.
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Transcript
00:00:29:10 – 00:00:54:56
Michael Gewecke
Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Pastor Talk podcast. It is a joy to have you here to our penultimate conversation as we come to end our series here. Penultimate panel. Yeah, I’m with the word penultimate. We’re coming up. They’ll be our second to last conversation. We’re going to finish out the Westminster shoulder catechism here today, of course, rooted in the Westminster confession.
00:00:54:56 – 00:01:15:24
Michael Gewecke
We’re going to hear the reformers teaching on prayer pretty much through this whole section here. And we’re going to find in it, I think, some good things, and then we’re going to follow that up with our final conversation, maybe just a short little summarizing kind of conversation. But the meat of this study we’re going to be finishing here today.
00:01:15:24 – 00:01:53:46
Michael Gewecke
And I think what’s interesting is in all of the options for what we might teach about prayer and there are many there’s a very long history in the scriptural tradition. Look at like the Psalms, which is both the people of Israel’s prayer book, but the Christian prayer book for all of the generations of the church, you find a primer in Psalms and prayers of lament, of repentance, of Thanksgiving, and you could see how that might be an important part of the reformed tradition and its teaching on prayer.
00:01:54:04 – 00:02:17:48
Michael Gewecke
That certainly was in their conversation. But instead, here today, we’re going to really take a deep dive and look at the Lord’s Prayer in just a moment. I think there’s something deeply instructive about that. Clint, if I’m going to be honest, I think there’s some beauty in turning directly to Jesus teaching prayer. And it’s no accident that it’s that prayer that’s been chosen for our conversation today.
00:02:18:06 – 00:02:41:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think even in the bigger sense, Michael, for those men who worked on this to think, what do we want our last word to be? And, you know, they could have they could have made that a theological word. They could have made it a Presbyterian word. And and yet to end with prayer, I think, is to conclude this catechism with a spiritual word.
00:02:41:03 – 00:03:16:01
Clint Loveall
And in maybe the best way to connect the idea of study with faith, with discipleship, because prayer is really that that in between of yes, we learn about prayer, but we learn prayer by praying. And it is it is I think it has an arrow at both ends. In other words, it points to, yes, this is something that we learned that that is part of the life of the mind, but it is also part of the life of the spirit.
00:03:16:01 – 00:03:35:19
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, looking back, I would have to say that I think, though I don’t know if instinctively I would have gotten to the same place and ended in the same way that they do. I think it’s a masterful way to end the creed because it both finishes it and doesn’t finish it at all. Leaves it open ended.
00:03:35:19 – 00:03:38:33
Clint Loveall
And I think that’s beautifully well done on their part.
00:03:38:37 – 00:04:03:04
Michael Gewecke
Well, I don’t want to get ahead of us, so let’s get into this. But I just want to point out, as we begin with question number 98 here, I want you to pay attention to the answer because it frames prayer is the thing that we offer to God. And there is a beautiful invitation, a kind of sending nature to It’s not just what we believe, but it’s how we take our physical lives.
00:04:03:04 – 00:04:13:03
Michael Gewecke
And our spiritual lives are our actual lived actions in the world and how we direct them towards the God who’s called us is is it’s purposely chosen. It’s masterfully done.
00:04:13:14 – 00:04:46:05
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Let’s jump in. Michael. So, question 98, what is prayer? Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies. We’ve said this many times, but the one thing you have to give the authors of this catechism is that they get a lot of meaning into a short, short paragraphs and sentences, prayers and offering up our desires unto God.
00:04:46:28 – 00:05:19:50
Clint Loveall
Prayer is the filter by which we address our own desires, our own wants and needs. And we subject them to the will and the teaching of God for things agreeable to His will. So prayer itself teaches us to pray for things that are acceptable to God. And as we do that in the name of Christ, we then also confront our own shortcomings with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercy.
00:05:20:08 – 00:05:50:33
Clint Loveall
So what do we have here? We have obedience, we have confession, we have gratitude. And and we have grace. We have mercy. So, again, wonderfully written. I think this is a fantastic answer, both theologically, but just spiritually. This is a wonderful statement about as well-crafted a brief statement as I think you will find on the reality of prayer.
00:05:50:51 – 00:06:27:09
Michael Gewecke
And by the way, it is a contradiction to that very flat stereotype that the reformed family of faith is somehow anti action, as if we’ve gone all the way in on grace and we don’t believe that there’s any thing that a Christian should do or that a Christian can do. I think this is just a thoroughgoing rejection of that kind of very, very surface level belief, because what’s clear here is there’s a lot of require the boss in prayer offering up our desires to God that the learning, the being instructed by what is agreeable to his will.
00:06:27:31 – 00:07:06:22
Michael Gewecke
The confession is an active giving up of our brokenness to whatever extent we can see it and name it. And then this thankfulness, this gratitude, acknowledgment of the gift that’s been given by all of this. Clint, if if you made that a checklist for every day and you could do those things, if at some point you offered up your desires to God, if at some point you acknowledge with thankfulness the mercies of God, if at some point you recognized where you went wrong and you were able to confess that if that was our every day, this would form us as people in the exact image of the one who lived, died and rose again.
00:07:06:22 – 00:07:14:40
Michael Gewecke
For us, this is a beautiful summary. It’s hard, like you said, to do better than what they’ve done with their economy of words.
00:07:14:46 – 00:07:48:40
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and notice what it doesn’t say. And I think that’s important because the glib answer that you would get in a question like this is prayers talking to God. But Westminster finds that too shallow. Westminster knows that prayer is deeper than that. Prayer is talking with God. And even that doesn’t go far enough. Prayer is to offer ourselves to be remade by the will of God in the name of Christ, by confessing our sins and gratefully acknowledging God’s mercy.
00:07:48:40 – 00:08:12:31
Clint Loveall
So prayer is the anvil on which the Christian is formed. And again, I don’t want to overdo it, Michael, but I think I, I just don’t think they could have done much better in this answer. This is a masterfully phrased answer to the question, what is prayer? So then we move on. What rule does God give us in direction in prayer?
00:08:13:59 – 00:08:35:51
Clint Loveall
The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer. But the special rule of direction is that form of prayer, which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called the Lord’s Prayer. The Divines aren’t unique here. The Lord’s Prayer has always been singled out as a particularly masterful example of prayer for its brevity, its simplicity, its depth.
00:08:37:14 – 00:08:52:41
Clint Loveall
You know that there are lots of ways we could pray through the Psalms. You mention that, Michael. There there is a great deal we can learn throughout all of Scripture, but the Divines here say if you really want to get to the heart, if you want to get to the best of the best, go to the Lord’s Prayer.
00:08:52:41 – 00:08:54:31
Clint Loveall
And I don’t think that’s surprising.
00:08:54:33 – 00:09:28:43
Michael Gewecke
No, it’s not surprising. And I think it’s very wise. I want to just quickly look at this from a different perspective before we shift into that prayer, because some might be a little surprised by that language here of the word of God being useful to direct us in prayer as especially if you grew up in a Christian tradition that really emphasizes extemporaneous prayer, you know, that kind of prayer that is offer the offer, the tough, you know, you will have lots of different family traditions in the Christian family who will do that very differently.
00:09:28:43 – 00:09:59:16
Michael Gewecke
Some are very conversational in their prayer, some are very expressive in their prayer, some even change their vocabulary. You would never hear that person speak that way outside of prayer as they’re addressing God. And I’m only bringing up what might on their surface just be called stylistic differences. But if that’s what you grew up with, you might have this belief that prayer is somehow directly connected to its style, that there’s a good prayer and a bad prayer.
00:09:59:16 – 00:10:29:30
Michael Gewecke
And then what might be surprising for you, looking at a historical document hundreds of years old, is really no concern for that. Whether you’re good at your diction, whether you are great at conversing with God, whether you have the style or vocabulary for for the Divines, for the reformed pastors and elders and those who are thinking and writing this, the chief source of prayer is the Scriptures, the chief place.
00:10:29:30 – 00:10:50:17
Michael Gewecke
We find the words to express our hearts to God is actually in the book. So that’s a long diversion. Sorry, but just to make the point, if you don’t consider yourself a good prayer by whatever definition or metric you bring to that, I want to just encourage you that actually there’s a long historical precedent that is going to say you don’t need to be.
00:10:50:17 – 00:11:09:27
Michael Gewecke
In fact, innovating on prayer is unnecessary. Instead, what we do is we come to the words that we’ve been given. We come to the prayer book, the Bible, and we find in it the words that both teach us and describe and then lead us forward. I think that there’s actually something freeing in that realization.
00:11:09:54 – 00:11:38:40
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And keep in mind, this is catechism. This is a teaching document. And I think it matters, Michael, that this is going to be eight questions that cover the entire Lord’s Prayer. And I think at least from my just personal opinion, based on only that, I think this is one of the strongest sections of the entire catechism. You know, our our people aren’t often known for sort of poetic depth.
00:11:38:42 – 00:12:04:59
Clint Loveall
I mean, we’re analytical, we’re good with words. But there is a there is a wonder and a beauty to some of these words that I wish showed through for Presbyterians and showed through Presbyterians more often. So let’s let’s move into this as we break down the Lord’s Prayer line by line. So Question 100 What is the preface of the Lord’s Prayer?
00:12:04:59 – 00:12:33:25
Clint Loveall
Teach us the preface of the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence as children to a father able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others. So I think the greatest connection of words here is all holy reverence and confidence.
00:12:33:56 – 00:13:05:12
Clint Loveall
How do we as people, fallen sinful people, we’ve covered that well in this document. How do we approach God with reverence, of course, but with confidence? That is an amazingly important word and an easily missed idea in prayer that in Jesus Christ we have permission to address the Creator, the ruler, the sovereign over the universe. We approach God.
00:13:05:12 – 00:13:34:10
Clint Loveall
We draw near to God with holy reverence and confidence as children to a father who is able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others. Notice that the prayer doesn’t start my Father, which art in heaven. The prayer is intensely and intentionally communal from the very first word. And I think it’s helpful that the Divines, the authors of this catechism, pick up on that for us.
00:13:34:23 – 00:13:57:40
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I’m not going to beat that down too much, but I just want to emphasize I was going to say that same exact thing. I think that we, especially in a rather individualistic Western culture, should focus on the wisdom that they’re showing us here that we should pray with and for others when it says we they are not reading we to be a bunch of eyes or a bunch of mes.
00:13:57:40 – 00:14:37:05
Michael Gewecke
They’re reading it to be a common people, a nation, a one body grafted into one branch or one living organism. When they read we they mean and they have made it explicit here that this includes Christian community. And I think what we are already seeing fleshed out in a statement like that. Small I know, and I’m emphasizing it greatly, but I think we’re seeing an immediate corrective to that idea of prayer as the individual task that can be done outside of Christian community.
00:14:37:05 – 00:15:02:46
Michael Gewecke
There is no individual prayer warrior that doesn’t have around them a whole chorus of prayer, brothers and sisters. I mean, we are ultimately doing this as a community. And I think it’s it’s a really important distinctive to really focus on for a moment, because I do think it cuts against the grain of our culture large our larger culture.
00:15:02:58 – 00:15:10:09
Michael Gewecke
I also think it cuts against the grain, against some of our even Christian traditions. There’s a real and a reformed emphasis in that.
00:15:10:21 – 00:15:30:22
Clint Loveall
It’s a unique place to go to be asked what is prayer and speak about it in plural. And almost no one would do that instinctively. Right? That is significant. You’re right to pick up on that for sure. So then we go on to one on one. What do we pray in the first petition? The first petition, Hollywood, be thy name.
00:15:30:45 – 00:15:58:45
Clint Loveall
We pray that God would enable us and others to glorify by Him in all the ways He makes himself known, and that he would dispose all things to his own glory. So this is the section of reverence of lifting Hollywood. We pray that God will enable us and notice and others plural again, to glorify him in all the ways he makes himself known.
00:15:59:08 – 00:16:28:05
Clint Loveall
So again, it is that when we hallow God’s name, God’s name is not holy because we say it is, we recognize the Holiness in the ways He makes himself known. So that is a revealed reality. And it is through prayer that we celebrate what we learn when we see and when we encounter and experience God. We lift gratitude for that in prayer.
00:16:28:36 – 00:16:41:42
Clint Loveall
And as we encounter God, we are again more fully all the time convinced and able to grasp God’s holiness which we then lift up in praise.
00:16:42:07 – 00:17:16:01
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think what is really striking to me in this exact answer here actually is this very, very small and impactful word enable that he enables us. Ultimately, it is not the ability of the person who prays. It’s not in their eloquence, it’s not in their collection or selection of words. No, it is actually in God’s own power enabling us to even get close to lifting up and recognizing this glory.
00:17:16:19 – 00:17:55:28
Michael Gewecke
That’s the amazing distinction, Clint, that these reformers make consistently. And I think we’re still a little slippery about when they talk about God’s glory. They’re talking about the thing that we as humans cannot behold alone. I mean, they’re literally talking about this thing that they do not think that we can stand in the face of. So to go back to our previous question, this idea of, you know, coming before God confidently, that is completely rather than this idea that it can only be done under the sheltering of God’s hand, that God can only be the one who enables us because we can’t enable ourselves to do it by ourselves.
00:17:55:28 – 00:18:18:22
Michael Gewecke
It is a small thing, but if you watch that throughout this entire catechism, if you listen through this whole series, you’ve seen by now that they will repeatedly come back to this assertion that if we in some way see God, if we in some way participate in God’s plan, if we in some way do what is right and pleasing in God’s eyes is because God gets credit for it.
00:18:18:29 – 00:18:35:44
Michael Gewecke
And that’s what they mean by this word glory. They mean reflecting back to God. Much like the moon reflects the light from the sun, we’re reflecting back the light that comes from God’s own nature. This, this inherent glory bounces off of us back to God.
00:18:35:55 – 00:19:01:00
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’s well said, Michael. If you ask people who hollows God’s name, they would be tempted to say that we do. But notice the question that He would dispose all things to his own glory. God Hollows his own name. And as we see that, as it is revealed to it, we respond in prayer. We respond in faith.
00:19:01:00 – 00:19:28:57
Clint Loveall
And so this first petition, again, we cover a lot of ground moving on. Then that takes us to the second petition, one or two. What do we pray for in the second petition? In the second petition, which is thy kingdom come, we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened again.
00:19:28:57 – 00:20:02:42
Clint Loveall
My God, this is a tremendous answer. Thy kingdom come. What does it mean? It means everything. Not of thy kingdom fall away. Thy kingdom replace everything that stands against it that ourselves and others may be brought into it. And I can’t. I don’t want to gush here, but it is so important that the authors of this catechism understand that when we pray for people to come into the kingdom, we always include ourselves.
00:20:02:57 – 00:20:33:00
Clint Loveall
We never pray from the position of an insider caring about outsiders. We always include ourself among those who need to be drawn to God’s kingdom. We always, as we plea for people to leave the kingdom of the world and come into the kingdom of faith, we always include ourself. And I think this is this is an outstanding way for us to get there and to see that in this part of the prayer.
00:20:33:38 – 00:21:04:19
Michael Gewecke
This is essential and it depends upon how you look at it. I think how you interpret what they’re doing here. One way that I see happen very often is people will interpret this idea of praying for others, including themselves, in this position of fear. Like, if I don’t pray for myself, maybe I’ll backslide, or maybe I’ll find myself waking up one day outside of the circle or, you know, something tragic will happen to me and I’ll suddenly discover that I wasn’t right with God.
00:21:04:50 – 00:21:24:34
Michael Gewecke
I don’t think that a fair reading of this is that they are including this out of some deep sense of fear that they’re going to lose their place in the kingdom. I think rather that this is a full throated awareness look at this ourselves and others brought into it, kept in it, and at the kingdom of Glory may be hastened.
00:21:24:34 – 00:21:52:48
Michael Gewecke
I think there’s a beautiful, positive force here. There’s this desire, this looking forward, then yearning to say, God, continue to make your goodness more and more precious and more and more up this RC And it’s I’m making up words but in its appearance so that we might as your people and as those people who are yet to be or people might experience that goodness and be drawn into the kingdom.
00:21:52:48 – 00:22:14:46
Michael Gewecke
I actually think that instead of reading this with maybe fearing or anxiety, we should read it with gratitude and expectation because ultimately it’s inviting us to see that yes, we make mistakes. Yes, we said yes, we have in our hearts sinfulness, but we have a savior who has conquered the evil. We have a savior who proclaimed the new kingdom.
00:22:15:02 – 00:22:23:40
Michael Gewecke
And so the best we could ask for is, Lord, may your kingdom come and may it come quicker than it could, than anything else.
00:22:24:07 – 00:22:47:24
Clint Loveall
Yet, you know, sometimes we don’t want to admit this, and sometimes it doesn’t feel true when we’re grateful for those times. But I also think, Michael, there’s a recognition here that faith is hard for faith is difficult. And we pray that we may be people of the kingdom, that we may be in it, and that we may be kept in it.
00:22:47:24 – 00:23:18:13
Clint Loveall
And again, notice we’re not praying to keep ourselves in it. We’re praying the protection of grace. We’re praying the protection of God over us, that that ourselves and others may be drawn to the gospel and that we may be kept in it. Because I think underneath this is a recognition that it is difficult. We live between those two kingdoms, the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of grace, and it is easy to get on the wrong path.
00:23:18:13 – 00:23:45:00
Clint Loveall
And so we go again and again and again by prayer to the one who helps us live into and out of the the good news of Jesus Christ. And I think that’s, you know, it’s not explicitly stated, but I do think it’s in here. So then we move on. What do we pray for in the third petition? In the third petition, which is thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
00:23:45:29 – 00:24:14:12
Clint Loveall
We pray that God, by His grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey and submit to His will in all things as the angels do in heaven. So that one’s interesting, Michael, because I think when we hear those words as Earth, as it is in heaven, we think, Well, wouldn’t that be nice if Earth was made like heaven, if there, you know, we had all the good things we didn’t have suffering.
00:24:14:12 – 00:24:50:51
Clint Loveall
I think what this says is much harder for us to hear. Make us like those who are and will be in heaven, in our obedience, in our knowledge, in our submission, in our willingness. I think that is a very different way to hear the prayer. I think in some ways a more profound way, a more a more challenging way, because we’re not simply asking God to do something to the world.
00:24:51:25 – 00:24:58:27
Clint Loveall
We’re asking God to do something to us. And I think, you know, this is this is really good.
00:24:58:30 – 00:25:28:43
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. And I could not agree more and in danger of just repeating in different words. I think it’s worth noting that if you conceive of heaven as a place that’s up above and when you say the prayer, you think of Lord make this place a lot more like that place. What you may be missing is that in many ways this is calling us to reflect in our own lives what it looks like to be a citizen of that place.
00:25:28:59 – 00:25:57:04
Michael Gewecke
This is about the on Earth. This reflecting the heavenly ness, as opposed to hoping and projecting that our earthiness is somehow moving up to that. It’s not importing heaven into our life, it’s us being transformed so that we obey that. That’s a entirely different matter and it is challenging. But in some ways I also think it has a beautiful kind of earthly spirituality.
00:25:57:24 – 00:26:21:58
Michael Gewecke
And what I mean by that is it actually invites us in this language of knowing, obeying and submitting. When you pray that the earth is as it is in heaven, you can live that today. You can seek to know, you can study, you can practice obedience to that thing that you study. You can’t live out with this willing gratefulness that God might be at work in your life.
00:26:21:58 – 00:26:46:48
Michael Gewecke
And in doing so, your heart and your soul is going to get weeded. That stuff that shouldn’t be there is going to get pulled out. The stuff that is more of hell than it is of heaven gets pulled out. And then that creates an environment in which heaven can grow in you. And that then is the prayer itself, opening you to the possibility that this day you might have a foretaste of what is heaven.
00:26:46:48 – 00:26:49:23
Michael Gewecke
And that is, I think, a compelling vision.
00:26:50:12 – 00:27:17:46
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think I think the divine stewards of service here by personalizing this, making it less about the idea of remaking the world, though that’s there, but connecting that bigger idea of remaking the world to remaking each one of us as followers. And I think they do us a favor in helping us see that move. Then to the fourth petition, what do we pray for in this fourth petition?
00:27:17:46 – 00:27:59:57
Clint Loveall
In the fourth petition, which is give us this day our daily bread. We pray that of God’s free gift, we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his blessings with them. This one makes me smile. Michael. I think we see a little bit of the guarded ness of our ancestors whenever we want to talk about blessings, a competent portion of the good things of this life, which is an interesting way to skin that cat, but not more than we need, but enough to enjoy.
00:27:59:57 – 00:28:30:06
Clint Loveall
And the Divines are cautious in in that. But the idea here really is, I think, very well-stated that we receive a portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his blessing with them. So whatever it is that we receive is coupled with enjoying them as the blessings from God’s hand. And that’s really good that that’s important to connect those themes, I think matters.
00:28:30:06 – 00:28:53:51
Clint Loveall
You know, we’ve been teaching through the the Book of Exodus, and we’re just not not too long ago did the Manna section, the literally the daily bread and that idea that we wake each day with a reliance and trust upon God for the grace that we need in that particular day and the blessings that we need in that particular day.
00:28:54:04 – 00:28:55:23
Clint Loveall
This is a nice summary of that.
00:28:56:10 – 00:29:16:14
Michael Gewecke
You know, I think a thing that we might miss and I just want to illustrate this just brief briefly. We have this idea of the competent portion and then enjoy his blessing with them. Blessing with them is the competent portion. I think that there’s a firm line between these two things that we don’t always have in our culture.
00:29:16:14 – 00:29:53:17
Michael Gewecke
I think we need to recognize that your happiness and enjoyment of God’s blessings does not go up with the amount of stuff that you have. The picking of bread in that prayer is the daily living kind of stuff of life. And so the invitation through the prayer is to teach us that the daily living stuff you have today is enough to see God, that if you’re about willing to look at the things that you have needed this day in those, you have enough to point you to the one who’s the author perfector of your faith.
00:29:53:17 – 00:30:31:55
Michael Gewecke
And I think there’s just some deep wisdom in the insight when we live in a culture that is very much driven by the next thing off the assembly line, the next thing marketed on TV, that the next thing that you could have, we’re so easily wrapped up and sucked into this tractor beam of more and more and more where the prayer here and they’re clear teaching in the catechism is that your enjoyment of these things is is enough in the small things, enough in the daily things and and yes, competent portion.
00:30:32:21 – 00:30:37:12
Michael Gewecke
They’re hedging, but maybe that’s the thing that we should listen to. There may be something for us to learn in that.
00:30:37:31 – 00:31:02:48
Clint Loveall
I think there definitely is, Michael. You know, by the time our friends are listening to this will be not far from Christmas. And imagine the child that sits on Santa Clauses lap and said I I’d like a competent portion of toys, please, Mr. Santa Claus. Right. There’s something that we there’s something in us that doesn’t want competent. We want it all.
00:31:02:48 – 00:31:28:55
Clint Loveall
We want more. We want with the idea of enough is not very compelling to a people who have spent their whole life being marketed. The idea of more than enough of as much as you can get. And so that restraint is I think it’s obvious. I think, you know, our people are restrained people, but it’s not unimportant and and it’s not unwise.
00:31:28:55 – 00:31:57:38
Clint Loveall
And so I do I think it’s helpful. Competent portion is in a phrase we would use. But the idea of when we pray daily bread, we’re not only asking for enough, we’re asking God to keep us from caring too much about more than enough to be content to be satisfied. That is one of the struggles that I think we bump into in this portion of the prayer.
00:31:57:38 – 00:32:29:58
Clint Loveall
All right. So that leads us then to the next petition. What is the fifth petition? The fifth petition, which is and forgive us, our debt as we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins, which we are, the rather which we are then rather encouraged to ask. Because by His grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.
00:32:30:18 – 00:32:57:33
Clint Loveall
So a little bit of clunky language here. We pray that God will forgive us and that in that we are encourage to ask the grace and be enabled. There’s that word again to forgive others. I think the most I think the most terrifying word in the Lord’s Prayer, Michael, is is one that most people read over as we forgive our debtors.
00:32:57:33 – 00:33:24:58
Clint Loveall
And we tend to read that in the American church. I think we tend to read that as while or is a time word. In other words, forgive us while we’re forgiving others. It literally reads intent and the intention is for it to read as like, forgive us, like we forgive others. In other words, use the pattern of my forgiveness to forgive me.
00:33:25:14 – 00:33:50:35
Clint Loveall
And that’s a scary that is a terrifying prayer. I, I do not want God to forgive me based on the way that I have forgiven those who have offended me or hurt me. I hope God is much more gracious than I am. So this is a sobering part of the prayer. And I think that it it should stun us a little and give us pause.
00:33:51:24 – 00:34:03:42
Clint Loveall
And the idea of connecting our sins, being pardoned with the grace to forgive others is really at the heart of Christian life. And I would say at the heart of Christian struggle.
00:34:04:22 – 00:34:37:07
Michael Gewecke
I think you could argue that there’s two stunning statements. I think that is one of them. I think another here is this what might be a very short phrase, but for Christ’s sake, why do we pray that our sins might be forgiven? Is because Jesus Christ and his sake, his desire, his sacrifice might be applied to us. It is a request of a superior to a superior in every way.
00:34:37:21 – 00:35:05:49
Michael Gewecke
And I think sometimes Christians really make a mistake, especially as it relates to tricky conversations, like forgiveness and sin. No, Christian probably knowingly says I deserve salvation more than someone else. I mean, that’s probably a Sunday school thing. But functionally, we often find ourselves in ways of thinking where we pull ourselves far ahead. Other people where we think, well, my sins aren’t that bad, or I’ve served God this amount of time.
00:35:05:49 – 00:35:30:16
Michael Gewecke
Or if you would look at their life, you would know how much the moment that we get on that track as Christians, we have left far, far from the center of this prayer. And I think that the Divines are right to point out that when we come to and we brazenly ask for our sins to be forgiven, it is has nothing to do with what we bring.
00:35:30:29 – 00:35:57:07
Michael Gewecke
In fact, that’s all the problem. What we bring is the problem. No, it’s for Christ’s sake, as you see here in the catechism. That is why we have called for this to go to God. That is the grounds upon which we stand, and it is upon that ground that we stand confidently. Right. But it is not on any way related to any sort of prerequisite or even life choice that we’ve made.
00:35:57:40 – 00:36:06:11
Michael Gewecke
There’s no amount of personal holiness which gets Christ’s sake out of the way in this prayer. And I think that’s a beautifully said and also a brazen statement.
00:36:06:29 – 00:36:40:48
Clint Loveall
It is. I read a pastor once who wrote a Our Own The sins of Others shock us while our own seem explainable or rational. In other words, we do have an innate, sinful tendency to treat other people’s sins as somehow worse than our own. Many of us have struggled with that, and so the reminder that we should see the sins of others through the lens of our own forgiveness is, you know, and this is straight out of the New Testament.
00:36:40:48 – 00:36:54:54
Clint Loveall
I mean, the speck in someone else’s eye, the log in our own eye. This is this is not new, but it is difficult. And the prayer, not surprisingly, points us in that direction.
00:36:55:03 – 00:37:22:18
Michael Gewecke
I’m only comment. There is no it’s not new. And yes, it’s written throughout the New Testament and it should be shocking to us, I think how often we emphasize the opposite of that. I think it is just so innate to our human sinfulness that we find prayer to be an opportunity to pray for others sin. And we are convicted by our own sinfulness.
00:37:22:18 – 00:37:53:55
Michael Gewecke
We feel convicted to pray, help them forgive so and so instead of Lord, help me to forgive. So that is a natural human proportion. I think we go in on the other and we look past ourself. But if we are to hear these words and quite frankly, the whole of Jesus is teaching on prayer, it is a very convicting reminder, I think, to Christians, that ultimately we are all standing in need of a savior.
00:37:54:00 – 00:38:11:21
Michael Gewecke
And so coming in prayer is a way of admitting that all prayer. A Yes to frame it in a different way. All prayer is on some level confession. Whether you think of it as confession or not, it’s confessing the truth of who we are and asking for the truth of Jesus Christ to be made real in us.
00:38:11:39 – 00:38:35:08
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And there you know, there is a flipside to that. I think. Michael, there there are people who hold on to their own sin and I think struggle to forgive themselves, to trust that forgiveness applies to them. There are moments, it feels like other people can be forgiven, but I’m probably not. Yeah, and I think this speaks to that, too.
00:38:35:10 – 00:38:38:39
Clint Loveall
You know, for Christ’s sake, his grace covers us all.
00:38:39:11 – 00:39:03:43
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. I’ve literally had conversations with folks who have had experiences in their life or things that they’ve done that they have said, you know, I think God’s paying me back for this, or I think that what I did is unforgivable. And in the midst of that, as a pastor, certainly you’re walking a line between hearing a person’s doubts and fears and struggles, and you don’t deny that reality.
00:39:03:43 – 00:39:28:57
Michael Gewecke
They’ve thought this, they’ve worried about this. They’ve even brought this to God in prayer. But then there’s another part of the pastoral task or role where as one who has been given this prayer, as one who comes to this and knows that Jesus called us to ask that we might not, that we might be forgiven. And knowing the contents which we should enter that conversation.
00:39:29:06 – 00:39:50:22
Michael Gewecke
There is also another word that says that if we might, but have the strength and the courage to pray this prayer, that we might also have the strength and courage to believe that it will be answered. And that is a kind of word of hope that sometimes can be difficult in the midst of self-doubt and anxiety. Fear.
00:39:50:22 – 00:40:15:09
Clint Loveall
Yeah, it matters. There’s no if in this part of the prayer, there’s no if in this question, it is not you know, this is a reliance upon God’s grace. And as we rely upon grace, we are then compelled, invited, called to be more gracious. And, you know, it’s wonderfully written part of the prayer. And I think a very good answer to that part of the prayer as well.
00:40:15:29 – 00:40:35:04
Clint Loveall
So we’ll move on to questions left here. 106 What do we pray for in the sixth petition? In the sixth petition, which is in lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted. A simple an answer as you can have.
00:40:35:04 – 00:41:01:19
Clint Loveall
Michael, A great answer. What do we pray? God keep us from temptation. And when we’re tempted, help us through it. Deliver us through it. Help us not give in to it. Help us not go the wrong direction. If ever there was a pretty good summary of one of the major tasks of the Christian walk, you know, this is it, Lord, keep my steps from wandering.
00:41:01:19 – 00:41:14:31
Clint Loveall
And when they do wander, bring me back to the path. Help me, help me turn away from the things that don’t help me of this is I think this is just inherent in every single person’s walk.
00:41:14:31 – 00:41:41:10
Michael Gewecke
Faith Clint, I think that this is a helpful, though, short interpretation to help us see this part of the prayer differently, because I do think some people struggle with this idea Why would God lead me into temptation? Why would God lead me straight? Can’t I trust God? And I think what we see being done here in this answer is God would keep us from being tempted.
00:41:41:10 – 00:42:09:34
Michael Gewecke
Not that God would lead you into the thing or that God would make this bad thing happen to you, but that God would, by God’s agency, keep our brokenness from ruling our decision making that that God would be at work by His grace, helping to nudge us away from the path that we would pick for ourselves. But being from the reformed family, there’s also an open eyed awareness that we’re going to make a mistake.
00:42:09:34 – 00:42:35:46
Michael Gewecke
We’re going to our brokenness is sometimes going to override rule even our best intention. And then from that, you know, deliver us when we’re, you know, at the point at which we are finding ourselves struggling with this reality. And they are very clear that will happen. This is an end, right, That in that moment, God, then by your strength and will do the delivering work, we need to be delivered.
00:42:35:55 – 00:42:47:53
Michael Gewecke
Another word that we would use is saved. We need to be moved from our own personal propensity into a divine saved order. And we can’t do it by ourselves.
00:42:48:07 – 00:43:22:46
Clint Loveall
There’s almost and I’m pushing this a little, Michael, but there’s almost a sense of stage one and stage two here. Lead us around temptation. Lead us away from temptation, but deliver us from evil When we don’t go around it, when we take the wrong path, it keep us away from the wrong path whenever possible. But when we insist on it, deliver us from ourselves, deliver us from our sin, deliver us from that that path that leads us away from you.
00:43:23:33 – 00:43:33:56
Clint Loveall
We pray that God either keeps us from being tempted to send or supports and delivers us when we are tempted. That’s a great short answer, but a really good one.
00:43:34:18 – 00:44:03:13
Michael Gewecke
Clint I also think it’s somewhat laughable though really sad when we interpret an answer like this as permission, right? Well, if I’m going to sin anyways, I might as well sin really well, or I might sin effectively. And you know, Paul answers that clearly in Romans. And I think that we find the heart of it here, too, is that ultimately sin is destructive and the out flow of our heart, if not change, is to destruction.
00:44:03:36 – 00:44:41:30
Michael Gewecke
That if we don’t know and see God as the one of light of love, of transformation, and we are instead compelled by the things of the earth and we find ourselves drawn towards that which is destructive to our self and to others, to whatever extent we participate in that. It mars our soul, it transforms our identities. And so, you know, there’s just so many times when people come to this and they say, well, if God doesn’t lead me into temptation, or if God’s going to deliver me from evil, then I might as well get to work because God’s going to get the job done.
00:44:41:30 – 00:45:05:15
Michael Gewecke
And that’s such a and a very preschool interpretation of what you know, of certainly the scriptures, but also the reformers are saying here we should be people compelled to be driven towards the light. We might not always see the light, and we desperately pray that God would lead us in that direction. But there’s never a moment which we revel in the thing that God is working to save us from.
00:45:05:28 – 00:45:34:37
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and I think maybe what gets us there, Michael, is the idea that this is a two part that we try to avoid temptation. You know, if you’ve raised children who were moving toward adulthood, teenagers and older, there is that sense in which you try to convince them that good decisions avoid bad circumstances. It’s not that you just make a good decision when you have to.
00:45:34:54 – 00:46:11:15
Clint Loveall
It’s that hopefully making good decisions completely avoids the place where you find yourself with a good or bad option. That if you can not be there in the first place, you significantly increase the chances that you’ll make a good choice. And I think, you know, that’s here. Lead us away from temptation, keep us from being tempted. But when we are when we slip into that moment, deliver us from evil, deliver us and support us when we are tempted is really good.
00:46:11:44 – 00:46:45:54
Clint Loveall
And that brings us to the last word here of both the prayer and the catechism. What does the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer teach us? The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer for thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen teaches us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only and in our prayers to praise Him ascribing kingdom power and glory to Him, and in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say amen.
00:46:46:27 – 00:47:22:25
Clint Loveall
So a really interesting way, I think a beautiful way to end the catechism, the kingdom, the power, the glory forever teaches us to take encouragement in prayer from God only. No one else, not people tell us we pray. Great. We think that’s a good prayer. We get attention. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. We take encouragement and prayer from God alone and in our prayers to praise Him ascribing kingdom power and glory to Him and the testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard assured.
00:47:22:25 – 00:47:37:30
Clint Loveall
It’s to be heard. We say amen, which means let it be so. So I think, Mark, this is a really good culmination, not only of a discussion on prayer, but but I think a very appropriate way to end the document.
00:47:37:45 – 00:48:00:51
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, it is. And this is an odd way to read the Westminster cavities, but if you allow me for just a moment to read it a little poetically clean, I find it striking that in teaching that we say amen, which you said, you know, means let it be so or let it be that that is in some way instructing as to why Jesus ended the prayer that way.
00:48:00:51 – 00:48:27:38
Michael Gewecke
But in another way, as an interesting way of ending this document by saying and we say amen. And I think that that is the spirit in which this catechism ends, is it moves far away from what you might think. Statements of faith are all about, like heady knowledge, getting your doctrine right, you know, dotting the I’s, crossing the T’s.
00:48:28:19 – 00:48:54:27
Michael Gewecke
If you thought that this was chiefly what this document was about, we now come to the end and we realize that it has been always seeking to transform and reorder our lives, that the stuff that we do, the things that we say, the people that we have relationship with, are the ordering of our values in the world. All of this has been in play the whole time.
00:48:54:58 – 00:49:35:21
Michael Gewecke
And at the end of the day, the goal here is simply to end both the catechism, but also this prayer with a recognition that the best thing that a human can do is to see the truth of God’s greatness and glory and love, to ascribe that that kingdom power, that that greatness, that Lordship to see it, to speak to it, to offer thanks for it, and to hope and pray that we might be included in that forever, to let it be that, I might be part of this eternal salvific plan.
00:49:35:37 – 00:49:43:16
Michael Gewecke
It is. It’s a flourish that is simple as is fitting in the reform tradition. But It’s beautiful and I think artistic.
00:49:43:25 – 00:50:11:48
Clint Loveall
Yeah, it’s a wonderfully offered last word. And if you’ve been with us through the catechism, I think you cannot be surprised that the last word is a word of the word is God for thine, for yours is the kingdom, the power, the glory. It’s all of that. It’s everything. And it’s not that just now or in the past, It is that forever.
00:50:12:16 – 00:50:31:34
Clint Loveall
Let it be so. Amen. I think, you know, we see the character of the authors of this catechism in the way that they framed this last question and the way they leave the amen as the last word. And I think it’s a very fitting ending.
00:50:33:06 – 00:51:29:46
Michael Gewecke
One thing that I think you have to give to the framers of this is the recognition of their consistency. They began with God. They end with God. And by the way, God was the through line, through the entire thing. And I think in our current moment of social media and sort of the the realities of polarization and the possibilities of hyperbole that so quickly get unhinged from our conversations, I think it’s important to recognize the just aged wisdom of ruling everything deeply in the foundation of who God is and recognizing that it is God himself who is the foundation, the the core of what we believe and know to be true.
00:51:29:46 – 00:51:52:32
Michael Gewecke
And to their credit, they believe that knowing God is sufficient, they don’t get hung up on external details. They go through some thorny subjects. If you’ve been with us, they’ve dealt with some messy stuff, the center of the human heart. But friends, they were never fixated on the brokenness. They were never fixated on the darkness. They never got bogged down in some ways.
00:51:52:32 – 00:52:20:04
Michael Gewecke
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself moving to conclusion here. But I do think that we should recognize that in this particular ending, God is once again the sole focus and the ultimate landing point. So if God is the beginning point and God is the ending point, and then God is, oh, you know, chief throughout, it has something to say to us about what our value as a Christian should be.
00:52:20:58 – 00:52:43:50
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think there’s a lot we could say and will say when we do the final session, Michael, about kind of the pervasive wisdom or character of this document. I think for now I would only say that, you know, in this last section on the Lord’s Prayer, we were barely a page. And you know that that’s not even a letter sized page.
00:52:43:50 – 00:53:15:47
Clint Loveall
That’s a book sized page. And I would be hard pressed to think of anything that I’ve read that is a deeper, more profound teaching on what prayer is. And our our role in it then we’ve just covered. I think this is masterful. I think you could make a case that this is the strongest part of the catechism. Certainly, you know, this is so far, as you just said, this is so far beyond knowledge or answering questions on a test.
00:53:15:47 – 00:53:30:15
Clint Loveall
It is question and answer format. But as you read through this, it quickly it quickly takes you beyond the idea that I’m writing answers. This is really, really good stuff. I don’t know of anything better.
00:53:30:31 – 00:53:53:22
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, many of us learned the Westminster Catechism as part of our adolescent growing up in the church. And if you had ever made the mistake of thinking that this is a document for children or for teenagers, we now come to this point and realize that this is an instruction for the master level course. This is an invitation to see God in all of God’s greatness and grandeur.
00:53:53:51 – 00:54:11:39
Michael Gewecke
And maybe we just leave the rest for our next conversation. I’ll thanks for joining us here as we jump through this conversation in prayer, tried to lift out the gem that it is. Hope that you have been encouraged and challenged by it. And we will turn to some of those concluding summary thoughts on our next cover, our last conversation of the series.
00:54:11:44 – 00:54:13:14
Clint Loveall
Yeah, Thanks for joining us, everybody.