2 Timothy 4:1-18/Our Father: Conclusion
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is in His fatherly divine goodness and mercy toward you, because He knows that in the very midst of life snares of death surround you, that the Lord your God has invited you to pray, taught and given you the very words with which to call upon His Name. Such prayer is not by your own design. It is not a matter of sincerity or cleverness. Prayer is a good and perfect gift from the Father of Light who speaks to you by His Son in order to bestow His divine Wisdom and Reign upon you in fulfillment of His good and gracious will for your life and salvation. So does He teach you to come to Him as your own dear Father, boldly and confidently, through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord.
For by sharing in His Cross and Resurrection by your Holy Baptism in His Name, your life is hidden with Christ in God. In His Body and with His Blood you enter the Holy of Holies in the midst of HIs true Jerusalem, eternal in the heavens, and you stand before the true Ark of the Covenant to pray, praise, and give thanks to your God and Father in the confidence of His Word and promises. That is where you stand at all times and in all places by faith in His Gospel, as a beloved child of God.
Because you pray to the Father in virtue of your Baptism into Christ Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer - like all Christian prayer, properly understood - is never a private prayer. There is no such thing as a private Christian or private Christianity. St Paul makes this plain writing to Timothy. Even as he, or you, take it to the Lord in prayer in the solitude of your own home or your prison cell, you do so in every place as a member of the one Body of Christ, as a member of His holy, catholic Church in heaven and on earth. It is always our Father and never simply my Father.
The use of the Our Father, in particular, along with all other standard prayer, such as those in the Catechism and in the historic rites of the Liturgy, is a confession of the Church’s catholicity and of your connection to it. The Our Father is, as St Paul exhorted St Timothy, part of our common language as Christians, part of the sound doctrine, that the special language we all speak as fellow citizens of our Father’s Kingdom. For the words we use, even before we begin to understand them intellectually, are the very Word that God has spoken to you by His Son and given to you to pray and confess. They are the words that every Christian has received and speaks, a confession of the one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all.
Indeed the Our Father is truly an all encompassing prayer. Along with the daily forgiveness of sins, which you need the most, it includes everything you need for this body and life and for the life everlasting. Nothing is excluded. There is no situation or circumstance for which the Our Father is not ideally suited. Noting that you might face which is not addresses in these seven petitions and the great and glorious doxological conclusion and Amen.
Whenever you find yourself at a loss for words, and to be sure, you do not know of yourself how to pray as you should, still you have the divine wisdom of this prayer that your Lord Jesus Christ Himself has given you. And though your heart and mind are never as pious or as focused as they should be in this life on earth, your lips are here guided by the Word of God Himself, which is indeed the origin and impetus for all prayer. O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall declare Your praise.
Thus the Our Father is, as I said before, a kind of discipline, a prayer against not only the devil and the world, but also in opposition and rebuke to your own flesh. It is an on-going catechesis and Christian discipleship by which you crucify the old Adam as your heart and mind are lifted above and beyond your own selfish cares and concerns to intercede for the whole Church, for all the baptized children of God, for all your brothers and sisters in Christ, wherever they may be in His vast Kingdom. Everything for which you pray in the Lord’s Prayer you pray not only for yourself, but for all who call upon God as their Father, and truly for all whom He would call to be His children.
Thus even when you intercede for others - your family and friends, the Church, for those who are sick, for your pastor, and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ - the Lord’s Prayer is always appropriate, a prayer at the ready in season and out of season. Do not suppose that you have nothing to say to your Father in heaven, nor worry that you aren’t creative or clever enough to pray to Him. Rather, in the humility of repentance and in the confidence of faith, pray and speak as the Lord Jesus taught you: Our Father who art in heaven.
For in this way, as God’s own child, baptized into Christ, you cry out “Abba! Father!” to your God and Father in heaven. Do not take offense at the comparison, but you are as little children or toddlers learning to speak, babbling “Dadda, Dadda, Dadda” over and over with the affection of a little child for the dear Father who loves and cares for you. Has He not actually called you to become like a little child and as such receive and enter His Kingdom by His grace alone through faith in His Gospel?
So then does He teach you to pray, no doubt as St Paul taught, who became a father in the faith, and taught his son, St Timothy. So too in praying the Our Father with your sons and daughters, and by teaching them to pray in this way, do you pass on more than just a single prayer. You actually teach them how to speak the Word of God with the language of faith. You teach them the most basic pattern of true worship.
In a way the Our Father encompasses the entire scope of Christian worship. It is the gracious Word of Christ to you and His Church on earth. It is His good work and gracious gift. For this precious thing is not your own fabrication or design, nor is it like anything you could have thought up or imagined. And like all Divine Service, it comes to you from God. And when you pray in this manner it does not cease to be His Word and His work in you.
Do not misunderstand me: your praying is not the Gospel or a means of grace, but the Word itself, by which the Lord Jesus opens your lips to call upon the Father in His Name - it is a gift of His pure Gospel and grace. Your praying of the Our Father, in turn, is therefore a genuine good work of faith, a sacrifice of repentance and thanksgiving, an act of worship in Spirit and Truth. For there is nothing in all the world as important or as great as the Our Father!
Therefore you can be certain that these petitions are a pleasing incense to your Father in heaven and are heard by Him. He Himself has commanded you to pray in this way, has promised to hear you, delights in your calling upon His Name, and seeks through His Word and Spirit to accomplish His will and bring His Kingdom among you by the power of His self-same Word preached in its truth and purity for the forgiveness of your sins. For His great glory is shown chiefly in showing mercy and having compassion upon you for the sake of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, in whom He has already answered your prayer with a resounding “Yes” and “Amen.”
To Him be the glory forever and ever; in the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is in His fatherly divine goodness and mercy toward you, because He knows that in the very midst of life snares of death surround you, that the Lord your God has invited you to pray, taught and given you the very words with which to call upon His Name. Such prayer is not by your own design. It is not a matter of sincerity or cleverness. Prayer is a good and perfect gift from the Father of Light who speaks to you by His Son in order to bestow His divine Wisdom and Reign upon you in fulfillment of His good and gracious will for your life and salvation. So does He teach you to come to Him as your own dear Father, boldly and confidently, through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord.
For by sharing in His Cross and Resurrection by your Holy Baptism in His Name, your life is hidden with Christ in God. In His Body and with His Blood you enter the Holy of Holies in the midst of HIs true Jerusalem, eternal in the heavens, and you stand before the true Ark of the Covenant to pray, praise, and give thanks to your God and Father in the confidence of His Word and promises. That is where you stand at all times and in all places by faith in His Gospel, as a beloved child of God.
Because you pray to the Father in virtue of your Baptism into Christ Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer - like all Christian prayer, properly understood - is never a private prayer. There is no such thing as a private Christian or private Christianity. St Paul makes this plain writing to Timothy. Even as he, or you, take it to the Lord in prayer in the solitude of your own home or your prison cell, you do so in every place as a member of the one Body of Christ, as a member of His holy, catholic Church in heaven and on earth. It is always our Father and never simply my Father.
The use of the Our Father, in particular, along with all other standard prayer, such as those in the Catechism and in the historic rites of the Liturgy, is a confession of the Church’s catholicity and of your connection to it. The Our Father is, as St Paul exhorted St Timothy, part of our common language as Christians, part of the sound doctrine, that the special language we all speak as fellow citizens of our Father’s Kingdom. For the words we use, even before we begin to understand them intellectually, are the very Word that God has spoken to you by His Son and given to you to pray and confess. They are the words that every Christian has received and speaks, a confession of the one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all.
Indeed the Our Father is truly an all encompassing prayer. Along with the daily forgiveness of sins, which you need the most, it includes everything you need for this body and life and for the life everlasting. Nothing is excluded. There is no situation or circumstance for which the Our Father is not ideally suited. Noting that you might face which is not addresses in these seven petitions and the great and glorious doxological conclusion and Amen.
Whenever you find yourself at a loss for words, and to be sure, you do not know of yourself how to pray as you should, still you have the divine wisdom of this prayer that your Lord Jesus Christ Himself has given you. And though your heart and mind are never as pious or as focused as they should be in this life on earth, your lips are here guided by the Word of God Himself, which is indeed the origin and impetus for all prayer. O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall declare Your praise.
Thus the Our Father is, as I said before, a kind of discipline, a prayer against not only the devil and the world, but also in opposition and rebuke to your own flesh. It is an on-going catechesis and Christian discipleship by which you crucify the old Adam as your heart and mind are lifted above and beyond your own selfish cares and concerns to intercede for the whole Church, for all the baptized children of God, for all your brothers and sisters in Christ, wherever they may be in His vast Kingdom. Everything for which you pray in the Lord’s Prayer you pray not only for yourself, but for all who call upon God as their Father, and truly for all whom He would call to be His children.
Thus even when you intercede for others - your family and friends, the Church, for those who are sick, for your pastor, and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ - the Lord’s Prayer is always appropriate, a prayer at the ready in season and out of season. Do not suppose that you have nothing to say to your Father in heaven, nor worry that you aren’t creative or clever enough to pray to Him. Rather, in the humility of repentance and in the confidence of faith, pray and speak as the Lord Jesus taught you: Our Father who art in heaven.
For in this way, as God’s own child, baptized into Christ, you cry out “Abba! Father!” to your God and Father in heaven. Do not take offense at the comparison, but you are as little children or toddlers learning to speak, babbling “Dadda, Dadda, Dadda” over and over with the affection of a little child for the dear Father who loves and cares for you. Has He not actually called you to become like a little child and as such receive and enter His Kingdom by His grace alone through faith in His Gospel?
So then does He teach you to pray, no doubt as St Paul taught, who became a father in the faith, and taught his son, St Timothy. So too in praying the Our Father with your sons and daughters, and by teaching them to pray in this way, do you pass on more than just a single prayer. You actually teach them how to speak the Word of God with the language of faith. You teach them the most basic pattern of true worship.
In a way the Our Father encompasses the entire scope of Christian worship. It is the gracious Word of Christ to you and His Church on earth. It is His good work and gracious gift. For this precious thing is not your own fabrication or design, nor is it like anything you could have thought up or imagined. And like all Divine Service, it comes to you from God. And when you pray in this manner it does not cease to be His Word and His work in you.
Do not misunderstand me: your praying is not the Gospel or a means of grace, but the Word itself, by which the Lord Jesus opens your lips to call upon the Father in His Name - it is a gift of His pure Gospel and grace. Your praying of the Our Father, in turn, is therefore a genuine good work of faith, a sacrifice of repentance and thanksgiving, an act of worship in Spirit and Truth. For there is nothing in all the world as important or as great as the Our Father!
Therefore you can be certain that these petitions are a pleasing incense to your Father in heaven and are heard by Him. He Himself has commanded you to pray in this way, has promised to hear you, delights in your calling upon His Name, and seeks through His Word and Spirit to accomplish His will and bring His Kingdom among you by the power of His self-same Word preached in its truth and purity for the forgiveness of your sins. For His great glory is shown chiefly in showing mercy and having compassion upon you for the sake of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, in whom He has already answered your prayer with a resounding “Yes” and “Amen.”
To Him be the glory forever and ever; in the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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