Part 2 of an Interview with Adriel Sanchez, Author of Praying with Jesus

 

Part 2 of an Interview with Adriel Sanchez, Author of Praying with Jesus The prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer, shared by Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount is less than one hundred words long, yet it not only encapsulates the gospel, but the entirety of heavenly doctrine. In Praying with Jesus: Getting to the Heart of the Lord’s Prayer, Adriel Sanchez explores the most famous prayer in history and gets to the heart of each thing Jesus told his disciples to pray for. Q: Part Two of Praying with Jesus delves into each of the six petitions made in the Lord’s Prayer. Is there a portion of the prayer you think we skate over more than others? Yes! While I think there’s a lot we don’t fully understand about the Lord’s Prayer, we tend to skip over the first words, “Our Father,” and the petition on daily bread. The first words really presuppose the gospel. In identifying God as our Father, they remind us of the great work of the Holy Trinity in redeeming humanity. Jesus, the eternal Son of the Father by nature, has made us sons and daughters of God by grace through the adopting work of the Holy Spirit. The first two words of the prayer bring us into contact with the gospel, and the Trinity! The petition for daily bread is also one I think that we skate over. We have to admit that while most of us think we depend on God for the “big” stuff (physical healing, forgiveness, etc.), we trust that we can handle the rest (like breakfast). In reality, even our most basic needs are provided for us by God. One of the reasons we fail to pray and give thanks is because we’ve forgotten that we’re that dependent. Q: As modern-day Christians, we don’t necessarily think about the meaning behind our children’s names when they are born like the parents of the Bible did. Talk to us a little about the significance of names back then, and especially of God’s name so that we can better understand what we are saying when we pray, “Hallowed by thy name.” Now, I do have to object here because we gave a lot of thought to our kids’ names! You’re right, though, in biblical times this seemed like it was more significant or meaningful than it is today. The name communicated something about the person or of their character. In the Bible, the revelation of God’s name is a significant event. At the burning bush, the Lord reveals himself to Moses as “The One Who Is” or the self-existent one. One of the things I unpack in the book is how this idea of God’s self-existence, or aseity (to use the theological word), is a great comfort to us in prayer. Because God is self-existent, he doesn’t need me, but that also means that everything he gives is unselfish. God is the most generous giver, and this is an important truth to believe when it comes to prayer! When we ask God to hallow his name, we’re praying for something very interesting. God can’t become more holy. He’s already “maxed out.” Here we’re asking God to make his name holy in us, and in the world. We’re praying that the holy one would be glorified by all creation, and that he would receive the honor and glory due to him. The prayer begins with a doxological plea! Q: Where does the confusion often come in when praying, “Thy kingdom come”? The kingdom has already come, hasn’t it? The kingdom confusion comes when we fail to define the kingdom rightly, or when we come to believe that we build the kingdom rather than receiving it as a gift. Confusion also comes when we fail to distinguish God’s universal rule from his mediatorial rule. According to the Bible, God is a great king who rules over everything right now. There isn’t one thing that’s outside of his control, and yet in another sense, his kingdom isn’t fully here. God’s mediatorial rule is focused on bringing about the new creation, and that’s precisely what we pray for when we say, “Thy kingdom come.” In my chapter on this petition, I highlight how this prayer is really answered in three ways: The kingdom’s advancement within us, around us, and ahead of us (in the future).

Q: Why is “Thy will be done” considered by many to be the hardest petition of the Lord’s Prayer? This petition exposes our selfishness. Often our propensity is to pray for our wills to be accomplished, and not God’s. If we aren’t careful, we can begin to see prayer as a way of getting God to obey us! But the prayer for God’s will to be done entails the mortification of our own desires. The greatest example of this is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. In this chapter I unpack some of the rich historical theology related to Christ’s wills, and why that discussion is significant for us as we think about prayer. I also distinguish between God’s hidden and revealed will and talk about how the will of God that we pray for is the same as his revealed will in Scripture. For those concerned about their own failures to obey God’s will, I draw on the wisdom of Luther who made the case that believers fulfill God’s will in two ways: 1) through Jesus Christ and the gift of his perfect righteousness and 2) through the Spirit’s work in us leading up to our glorification. This second way is imperfect in that we will never obey God flawlessly while sin still clings to us. Nevertheless, when we pray for God’s will to be done in and around us, we’re asking that by the Spirit, God would help us to follow his word. Q: The Lord’s Prayer seems so simple, but we really do have to consider it in the context of it in the times in which Jesus taught it to realize how deep it was. For example, praying for our daily bread. How different would our prayer lives be if we really believed God was the source of our most basic daily needs?  Yes, you know, in Jesus’ day the majority of the population worked in food production. Your crop or your fish were very important, and it was a fragile industry. You depended on God for rain or a good fishing haul. I think today we’ve lost sight of this basic dependence. I call it common-grace Pelagianism. Pelagianism was the ancient heresy that we could save ourselves. Common-grace Pelagianism sees us as capable of providing for our basic needs, but I don’t think that’s entirely right. God is the source of every gift, we just don’t always realize it. Once we start understanding that our most basic needs are given to us from heaven, then even the very breath in our lungs because a cause for thanksgiving. We take a lot less for granted when we realize how little we control. Q: The prayer then moves into forgiveness. Is God’s forgiveness of me dependent on my forgiveness of others? That’s a great question—and you know one that terrifies many people. There was a study some years back that said something like one-in-four practicing Christians has someone in their life that they simply can’t forgive. Of course, this question is raised by Jesus’ statement in the Lord’s Prayer, if you don’t forgive, neither will your heavenly father forgive you. The short answer I’ll give is this: No, it’s not that our forgiving others earns us forgiveness. Rather, God’s forgiveness is the source of our ability to be forgiving. Jesus makes this point in a parable later in Matthew’s gospel, so I think the way to see this is that Jesus is making an argument from lesser to greater. If we can forgive those who sin against us, how much should we rest assured that God whose mercy is so much greater than our own is eager to forgive us when we go to him? Q: The final petition is “Lead us not into temptation.” Does God lead us into temptation, or do we wander there on our own? In the New Testament, the word that’s used for temptation can also refer to a test, or trial. Sometimes the word is used in the context of enticing someone to sin, but James makes it clear that God never does this (see James 1:13). God doesn’t ever tempt us to sin, but he is sovereign over the avenues through which we experience temptation. Temptations arise from our own sinful desires, or external forces that try to lead us astray. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that God is for our deliverance. He never allows us to be tempted beyond our ability, but even with the temptation provides the way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). I think that this is really important because if you think God is against you, you’ll have a really difficult time praying to him confidently. Men and women who struggle with temptation can also experience a great sense of shame, and guilt. Getting out of the rut begins with recognizing that we aren’t alone, but that God himself is for us. Paul told the Thessalonians that God’s will is our sanctification. We can confidently pray that God would sanctify us and keep us from temptation.

Praying with Jesus: Getting to the Heart of the Lord’s Prayer By Adriel Sanchez Print ISBN: 978-1-64507-339-0 April 8, 2024 / Retail Price: $16.99 RELIGION / Christian Living / Prayer