Recalibrating Our Life with the Lord's Prayer

[00:00:01] So this morning we're talking about the Lord's Prayer as a whole, right? And it's a prayer. And while we pray, we pray before meals, right? [00:00:13] We thank God for food and for all of his blessings. Sometimes we pray for people, right? If somebody's in need of healing or in any other kind of need, we can pray for them and then we can just pray for people in general. Right? You can always be praying for your parents or your grandparents or your teachers or your friends or yourself. [00:00:41] Ask God for help with things, right? So there are lots of reasons that we pray. [00:00:47] The Lord's Prayer is special in this way. [00:00:54] It's a pattern. [00:00:56] It's a pattern that is shaping us, shaping our hearts to be in the right pattern. [00:01:05] Alright? [00:01:08] So the Lord's Prayer, it's kind of reshaping our hearts so that our hearts are shaped the right way so that they're the right pattern. Alright? [00:01:21] So I want to talk about things that need to be brought back into the proper pattern, Alright? A fancy word for that would be recalibrated. Okay. Calibrated means brought into the proper pattern. If you have to recalibrate something, it means that it's gotten out of sync, it's no longer in the right pattern and so it doesn't work. Right. Has anybody ever had a car problem? Like their car stopped working? [00:01:50] Yeah. Has anybody seen under the hood of a car? You know, you pull it in a. And you'll, you're like, whoa, there's a lot of stuff in there. [00:01:59] Right. [00:02:01] Do you guys understand what's in there? I, I understand like a couple little things about what's in there. Okay. I've done it. I've worked on a car just a tiny bit. But you take it to the shop and they just know everything about what's in there. And they're able to figure out, you know, usually it's like the car doesn't start and you might say like, it's broken and throw it away. Right? Get a new one. Right? Okay. [00:02:26] Yeah. But we don't throw cars away just because it has a problem and it doesn't work anymore. Even if it, like, even if you can't even start it, it doesn't go. Like, not only does it not drive, you can't even turn it on. It's just sitting there, nothing's happening. [00:02:41] The thing is, usually one thing's not working and the whole car doesn't work. Isn't that interesting? It just takes one thing. So the mechanic has to figure out, ok, what's wrong with It. And so because one thing is off, well, now the whole thing's not working. [00:03:03] The same kind of thing might happen if you're in an argument with somebody. [00:03:10] Let's say you're on the playground and there's an argument. [00:03:14] Now all of a sudden two of you are against each other and fighting. [00:03:21] But if we just stop and think about it, like, for the most part, you guys are probably on the same page. You probably agree about most things. [00:03:31] Like, we're students at Trinity Lutheran School and we're glad to be. We're in the same class and we're learning the same things and we share a lot of the same values, right? We love our family and we think that we should be friends and we think that things should be fair and right. Like, there are lots of things that you guys share, okay? But in this argument, it's like, ah, we're against each other. [00:03:55] It just takes like one thing being off. [00:03:59] So maybe you think that the rules weren't fair or somebody wasn't playing according to the rules, and all of a sudden that one thing, boom. And it's not even maybe that it's unfair. [00:04:12] Maybe it's just an attitude problem. [00:04:17] A lot of times when I find myself, well, angry or something's not right, a lot of times it's because I was thinking about myself and I was just wanting good things for myself and I need to think about other people, right? Or I ultimately, okay, I forgot about God. It's like if we remember God, oh yeah, God made me and he has things to say to me about how things should be. And the proper pattern of life is to be listening to God and looking to him and trusting in Him. Then it's like everything else kind of recalibrates. It takes shape, the proper shape, right? My heart suddenly is brought back into order, back into the proper pattern. [00:05:12] So that's what God does for us through faith. As we look to him, he brings our hearts back into the proper pattern. And if you want to know what that looks like, just look at Jesus. [00:05:23] Jesus is like us in every way, but without sin. [00:05:29] Jesus, boy, he is the pattern. [00:05:33] In fact, he's the image of God. And we were made according to the image of God. He. He literally is the pattern for proper human being. [00:05:43] He's the pattern for our lives. And by faith in Jesus, as we look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, as we look to Jesus, God is conforming us to his image. It means he's bringing us into the same pattern as Jesus Christ. Okay, so The Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is a tool for doing that. God works through the Lord's Prayer to do just that. So we've talked about all the petitions, but let's run through some of them again. All right, so our Father. Okay, Our Father. It's like if we forget that we're God's children and we just think about our own desires and whatnot, right? Well, then now we say our Father and we remember that God made us more than that. He brought us into his family through Jesus Christ and He loves us and we have that kind of relationship with him. [00:06:44] Just remembering that God turning us back to himself through his word, through his prayer, the Lord's Prayer. [00:06:51] What a gift that we remember who we are in Jesus who art in heaven. Oh, yeah, God, you're in heaven and I'm on earth and I should listen to you. You are lifted up and worthy of my attention and nothing else. Hallowed be thy name. Oh, yeah. Like, let your name be holy among us. Remember, because we have God's name. We're part of his family. [00:07:17] And so when we. When we look to him in faith and receive from him what he wants to give us through Jesus Christ, now we're. Now God makes his name hallowed, honored among us, holy among us. Thy kingdom come. [00:07:35] We face great challenges and difficulties daily as we're tempted to sin, as we deal with concerns and worries, right? Whatever it might be. [00:07:50] And we say, thy kingdom come, right? Your kingdom come. Like, come and rule me, rule my heart, and bring all your power to this battle, all the power that comes with the king overall, the King of kings, the Lord of Lords. [00:08:09] Your will be done, God, whatever you want. Make that happen in my life. Do you see how this is a recalibration? [00:08:19] It's a bringing. We're asking God, we're using his own word that he's given to us. We're saying it back to him and asking that he would bring our life, bring our thoughts and desires, our minds and our hearts back into the proper pattern. [00:08:35] The pattern of Jesus Christ. Jesus in his prayer is giving us his own pattern of being, which becomes our pattern of being by his grace, just because he loves us. [00:08:48] So I think that's enough for now. Okay? But think of the Lord's Prayer as a pattern and as a gift. And as you say it, ask God that He would bring you into the proper pattern of being, that he would conform you to Jesus Christ, that He would make you into the same pattern. Thank God. In Jesus name, amen.