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The Lord_s Prayer Explained _ Every Word_ Every Sentence_ What It Really Means · truthunedited

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Speaker 1: I want you to picture something with me. It is
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Speaker 1: Sunday morning. You are in church. The service is winding down,
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Speaker 1: and the pastor bows his head and starts, Our Father,
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Speaker 1: who art in heaven. And something happens in that moment
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Speaker 1: that most people never say out loud. You look over
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Speaker 1: at your mom, or your grandma, or your wife, whoever
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Speaker 1: it is that has been in church longer than you
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Speaker 1: can remember. and her eyes are closed. Her lips barely move,
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Speaker 1: but there is something on her face, a settled peace,
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Speaker 1: a reverence, that you can feel from where you are standing.
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Speaker 1: She knows every word. She has said this prayer a
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Speaker 1: thousand times, and she means every syllable. And you try
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Speaker 1: to go along. You say the words, Our Father who
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Speaker 1: art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. but somewhere between
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Speaker 1: hallowed and thy kingdom come, something quietly starts pulling at you,
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Speaker 1: a question you have never fully admitted out loud. Do
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Speaker 1: they actually know what this means? Does she? Do I?
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Speaker 1: Or are we just reciting something, something beautiful that we inherited,
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Speaker 1: like a family heirloom we polish but have never actually opened?
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Speaker 1: And then, almost like the Holy Spirit taps you on
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Speaker 1: the shoulder, you start actually listening instead of just saying,
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Speaker 1: Our Father. You pause. What does that actually mean, Father?
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Speaker 1: Not just a polite way to address God. Hallowed be
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Speaker 1: thy name. You pause again. Hallowed. What does that word
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Speaker 1: even mean in real life? Thy kingdom come. What kingdom? Where? When?
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Speaker 1: Give us this day our daily bread. Is that just
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Speaker 1: about food? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those
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Speaker 1: who trespass against us. Wait. As we forgive? Is that
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Speaker 1: a condition? Lead us not into temptation. Does God lead
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Speaker 1: people into temptation? And by the time you reach for
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Speaker 1: thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. The
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Speaker 1: prayer is over. The pastor says amen. People lift their heads.
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Speaker 1: And you are standing there with a mind full of
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Speaker 1: questions nobody answered. If that is you, if any of
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Speaker 1: those pauses felt familiar, I want you to know something.
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Speaker 1: You are not alone. And you are not disrespectful for asking.
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Speaker 1: You are exactly the kind of person this teaching was
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Speaker 1: made for. Today we are going in. Every sentence. every word,
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Speaker 1: what it meant 2,000 years ago when Jesus first said it,
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Speaker 1: and what it means for your actual life in 2026.
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Speaker 1: And by the time we are done, I promise you,
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Speaker 1: you will never say those words the same way again.
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Speaker 1: You will not recite them. You will mean them. Let
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Speaker 1: us start at the very beginning. Before we go in,
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Speaker 1: if you have been carrying questions about prayer, about what
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Speaker 1: these words really mean, about how to actually connect with
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Speaker 1: God and not just perform for Him, we have something
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Speaker 1: for you. Our Lord's Prayer. eBook Explainer goes even deeper
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Speaker 1: into every sentence, every word, every layer of meaning. And
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Speaker 1: if you want to go even deeper into everything Jesus
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Speaker 1: ever taught, we have a video lessons, all 15 hours
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Speaker 1: of it. The links are in the descriptions. Thousands of
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Speaker 1: people have gone through these and said they changed how
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Speaker 1: they relate to God forever. It is our prayer they
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Speaker 1: will do the same for you. If you are watching
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Speaker 1: on your TV, scan the barcode on your screen right
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Speaker 1: now and come find us in the Acts 2 community
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Speaker 1: where we go through all of this together. Now, let's
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Speaker 1: go into the prayer. Our Father, two words. And they
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Speaker 1: are already a revolution that most people have completely missed.
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Speaker 1: Here is something nobody told you. In the world where
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Speaker 1: Jesus grew up, in the Greek world, the Roman world,
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Speaker 1: in almost every religion that existed in the first century,
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Speaker 1: gods were not called father. They were powers. They were forces.
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Speaker 1: Unpredictable beings that needed to be managed, appeased, performed for.
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Speaker 1: You brought your sacrifice to the temple and you hoped
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Speaker 1: it was enough. You worshipped so that God would not
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Speaker 1: destroy your crops or sink your ships. The whole relationship
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Speaker 1: was built on fear and transaction. You gave. You hoped
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Speaker 1: for the best. You were never quite sure where you stood.
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Speaker 1: Even in Jewish faith, which was more personal than anything
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Speaker 1: else in the ancient world, calling God Abba calling him
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Speaker 1: father the way a child calls their dad, that was
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Speaker 1: almost unheard of in prayer. It was considered too intimate,
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Speaker 1: too presumptuous. The high priest could only enter the innermost
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Speaker 1: presence of God once a year. Once. With blood and
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Speaker 1: incense and trembling. And here comes Jesus, on a hillside
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Speaker 1: in Galilee, surrounded by fishermen and farmers and women and
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Speaker 1: tax collectors and ordinary confused human beings. And he says,
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Speaker 1: when you pray, start with Father. That is not a
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Speaker 1: warm spiritual greeting. That is a theological earthquake. That one
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Speaker 1: word rewrote everything about who God is and how you
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Speaker 1: are allowed to approach him. Now think about what Father
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Speaker 1: meant in that culture. In the first century, your father
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Speaker 1: was your entire world. He was your provider, your protector,
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Speaker 1: the one whose name you carried. the one whose authority
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Speaker 1: stood between you and everything that could harm you. If
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Speaker 1: your father was a man of influence, his power was
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Speaker 1: your covering. His name was your identity. His resources were
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Speaker 1: your inheritance. You were not alone in the world because
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Speaker 1: of whose child you were. And Jesus looks at you
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Speaker 1: and says, That is how God relates to you. That
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Speaker 1: is the posture from which every single prayer begins. not
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Speaker 1: as a beggar at a distance hoping to get lucky,
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Speaker 1: not as a religious performer trying to impress someone, as
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Speaker 1: a child, known, named, wanted, covered, coming to a father
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Speaker 1: who was expecting you. But here is the detail I
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Speaker 1: want you to notice. He did not say my father.
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Speaker 1: He said our father. That one word our is quietly
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Speaker 1: doing enormous work. Because the moment you say our, You
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Speaker 1: are praying with every single person who has ever said
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Speaker 1: this prayer, every grandmother who ever whispered it at a bedside,
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Speaker 1: every prisoner who ever said it in a cell, every
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Speaker 1: child who ever stumbled through it at a church pew.
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Speaker 1: You are not alone when you pray. You are part
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Speaker 1: of a family, and that family is enormous. And who
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Speaker 1: art in heaven? In Hebrew thought, heaven was not a
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Speaker 1: distant galaxy millions of light years away, Heaven was the
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Speaker 1: dimension of God's complete presence, the realm where His will
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Speaker 1: operates perfectly. And Jesus is saying, The Father you are
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Speaker 1: speaking to right now exists in a dimension where nothing
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Speaker 1: is outside His authority. Nothing that threatens you is beyond
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Speaker 1: His reach. Nothing that concerns you is beyond His care.
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Speaker 1: So the next time you say those two words, Our Father,
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Speaker 1: do not rush past them. Let them land. because you
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Speaker 1: just told the God of the universe that he is yours,
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Speaker 1: and he already knew. Hallowed be thy name. Can I
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Speaker 1: ask you something honest? When you say the word hallowed,
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Speaker 1: do you actually know what you are saying? Because I
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Speaker 1: think most people who have grown up in church have
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Speaker 1: been saying this word their entire lives without ever stopping
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Speaker 1: to unpack it. And this is the very first thing
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Speaker 1: Jesus tells you to ask for. Before provisions, before forgiveness,
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Speaker 1: before protection. The first petition in the entire prayer is
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Speaker 1: this one. That tells you something. Hallowed comes from the
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Speaker 1: Greek word hagiazo. It means to treat as holy, to
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Speaker 1: set apart, to recognize that something belongs in a completely
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Speaker 1: different category from everything else. When you hallow something, you
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Speaker 1: are saying it is not just important. It is not
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Speaker 1: just impressive or meaningful. It is holy. It occupies a
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Speaker 1: category by itself. So hallowed be thy name means God
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Speaker 1: let your name be treated the way it actually deserves
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Speaker 1: to be treated, by me, by this household, by the world.
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Speaker 1: Now here is the thing that hits different when you
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Speaker 1: understand the ancient world. Jewish scribes who were copying Scripture
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Speaker 1: would stop before writing the four Hebrew letters of God's
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Speaker 1: name YHWH, wash their hands, use a special pen, and
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Speaker 1: write those four letters with a reverence they gave nothing else.
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Speaker 1: And when they read the text aloud, they would not
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Speaker 1: say the name at all. They would substitute the word
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Speaker 1: Adam Lord, rather than risk treating the sacred name carelessly.
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Speaker 1: That is not superstition. That is a people who understood
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Speaker 1: something we have largely lost. How you speak of God
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Speaker 1: reveals what you actually think of God. And in 2026,
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Speaker 1: let's be honest, God's name appears in song lyrics that
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Speaker 1: have nothing to do with God. It is used as
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Speaker 1: punctuation in moments of frustration. It is thrown into sentences
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Speaker 1: to add emotional weight, and most of us have said
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Speaker 1: it that way ourselves at some point without even thinking twice.
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Speaker 1: Hallowed be thy name is a correction, a reorientation. Every
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Speaker 1: time you say it, you are saying, I want to
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Speaker 1: be someone who treats your name differently. I want your
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Speaker 1: name to be honored in my mouth. in my conversations,
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Speaker 1: in how I represent you to the people who are
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Speaker 1: watching my life. And here is the part that most
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Speaker 1: people completely miss about this petition. The word be and
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Speaker 1: hallowed be thy name is actually a request. Let it
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Speaker 1: become so. You are not just declaring something. You are
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Speaker 1: praying for it. You are saying, God, let the whole
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Speaker 1: world come to recognize who you actually are. Let what
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Speaker 1: is true about you become undeniable. Let the day come,
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Speaker 1: which Revelation 15 says is coming, when every nation stands
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Speaker 1: before you and worships because your righteousness has been made plain.
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Speaker 1: Every time you say, Hallowed be thy name, you are
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Speaker 1: participating in that prayer. You are agreeing with the ending
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Speaker 1: of history. That is not a small thing to say
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Speaker 1: before breakfast on a Sunday morning. Thy kingdom come. Most
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Speaker 1: people think this is a prayer about the future, that
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Speaker 1: when you say, Thy kingdom come, you are praying for
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Speaker 1: Jesus to return, for the end of the age, for
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Speaker 1: something that has not started yet to eventually arrive. And
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Speaker 1: there is truth in that. But if that is all
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Speaker 1: you think this line means, you have been missing about
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Speaker 1: 90% of what Jesus intended, and that missing 90% changes
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Speaker 1: how you live today. Here is what most people never
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Speaker 1: heard in Sunday school. When Jesus began His public ministry,
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Speaker 1: His very first sentence in Mark 1.15 was this, The
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Speaker 1: time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand.
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Speaker 1: Repent and believe the gospel. The kingdom is at hand.
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Speaker 1: Not on its way eventually. Not arriving in the future.
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Speaker 1: At hand. Here. Now. Breaking in. Right now in the
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Speaker 1: person of Jesus Himself. Think about what a kingdom actually is.
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Speaker 1: We picture thrones and castles and geography. But a kingdom
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Speaker 1: is not fundamentally a place. A kingdom is a rule.
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Speaker 1: It is the active reign of a king expressed in
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Speaker 1: everything under his authority. The kingdom of God means the active, present,
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Speaker 1: transforming reign of God wherever it is welcomed and submitted to.
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Speaker 1: And Jesus was saying, I am the king. The rule
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Speaker 1: has begun. Wherever I go, healing the sick. raising the dead,
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Speaker 1: setting the captives free. That is the kingdom arriving, not
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Speaker 1: in a military form, as a new order of reality
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Speaker 1: invading the old one. So when you pray thy kingdom come,
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Speaker 1: you are not just praying for the second coming. You
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Speaker 1: are praying for the expansion of God's reign into every
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Speaker 1: area that has not yet submitted to it. You are praying, God,
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Speaker 1: let your rule come into my marriage. into my thought life,
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Speaker 1: into my workplace, into my neighborhood, into the nation that
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Speaker 1: is increasingly forgetting you. Let the order of heaven, the
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Speaker 1: order where your will operates perfectly, invade the disorder in
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Speaker 1: front of me. And here is the part that should
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Speaker 1: sit uncomfortably in a good way. Every time you pray
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Speaker 1: thy kingdom come, you are implicitly making yourself available to
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Speaker 1: be part of the answer. because God's kingdom does not
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Speaker 1: advance by itself. It advances through people who pray it
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Speaker 1: and then get up and move. Jesus did not pray,
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Speaker 1: Thy kingdom come, and then sit down. He sent his
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Speaker 1: disciples out as ambassadors of that kingdom. Matthew 28. Go,
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Speaker 1: make disciples. The prayer and the mission are the same thing.
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Speaker 1: So the next time you say, Thy kingdom come, pause
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Speaker 1: after it. Ask yourself, where specifically do I need His
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Speaker 1: reign to advance in my life this week? And then
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Speaker 1: ask the harder question, what would it look like for
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Speaker 1: me to be part of that answer, I will be
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Speaker 1: done on earth as it is in heaven? I want
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Speaker 1: to be honest with you about this one. Because this
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Speaker 1: sentence is the one that most of us say the fastest,
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Speaker 1: we rush through it like it is just the continuation
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Speaker 1: of the previous line. But if you actually slow down
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Speaker 1: and hear what you are saying, this might be the
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Speaker 1: most costly prayer in the entire Lord's Prayer. You are saying,
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Speaker 1: Not my plan. Yours. Not my timeline. Yours. Not the
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Speaker 1: version of this situation that I have been hoping and
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Speaker 1: praying and bargaining for. Your version. The version you have
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Speaker 1: already established. Now before we go further, I need to
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Speaker 1: show you that Jesus did not just teach this prayer.
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Speaker 1: He lived it, and he lived it in the hardest
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Speaker 1: way possible. Matthew 26, the Garden of Gethsemane, the night
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Speaker 1: before the crucifixion. Jesus is on his face in the dirt,
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Speaker 1: and if you read the text carefully, he is sweating
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Speaker 1: drops of blood. That is not poetry. That is a
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Speaker 1: medical condition called hematidrosis. where extreme stress causes the capillaries
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Speaker 1: under the skin to burst. He is in physical agony
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Speaker 1: from what he knows is coming. And he prays, Father,
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Speaker 1: if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.
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Speaker 1: Jesus asked God for a different outcome. He was honest
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Speaker 1: about what he wanted. He did not pretend the suffering
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Speaker 1: was acceptable to his human nature. And then he said, Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: not my will but yours be done. that nevertheless. That
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Speaker 1: is the hinge of the entire prayer. That is the
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Speaker 1: sentence that separates trust from performance, because Jesus was not saying,
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Speaker 1: I do not care what happens to me. He was saying,
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Speaker 1: I care deeply, and I choose your will anyway. Here
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Speaker 1: is what nobody tells you about the phrase as it
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Speaker 1: is in heaven. How is God's will done in heaven? Perfectly. Immediately. Completely.
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Speaker 1: without resistance, without negotiation, without asking for a timeline or
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Speaker 1: a detailed explanation first. The seraphim in Isaiah 6 do
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Speaker 1: not debate. They do not ask for a second opinion.
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Speaker 1: They respond to His presence with worship and to His
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Speaker 1: word with immediate, joyful, complete obedience. As it is in
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Speaker 1: heaven means with that quality of surrender, that depth of trust.
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Speaker 1: And I want to ask you something personal. Is there
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Speaker 1: an area of your life right now where you have
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Speaker 1: been praying thy will be done, but you have actually
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Speaker 1: been hoping God would eventually agree with your will? A relationship,
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Speaker 1: a health situation, a career decision, a prayer you have
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Speaker 1: been waiting years for an answer to, because that is
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Speaker 1: not thy will be done. That is thy will be
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Speaker 1: done as long as it matches mine. The invitation of
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Speaker 1: this sentence is not passive resignation. It is the most active,
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Speaker 1: courageous thing a human being can do. To trust a
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Speaker 1: God you cannot fully see, toward an outcome you cannot
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Speaker 1: fully predict, through a path you cannot fully control. Every
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Speaker 1: time you say it and mean it, you are doing
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Speaker 1: what Jesus did in Gethsemane. And that is not a
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Speaker 1: small thing. If this is already changing something in how
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Speaker 1: you hear this prayer, we want to go even deeper
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Speaker 1: with you. Our Lord's Prayer e-book explainer was built for
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Speaker 1: exactly this. Every sentence unpacked, every historical layer explored, every
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Speaker 1: application brought into your real life, and our 15 hours
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Speaker 1: of Jesus teaching video lessons cover everything he ever said,
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Speaker 1: all of it in full. Find the link in the
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Speaker 1: description or scan the barcode on your screen. And if
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Speaker 1: you want to study all of this alongside a community
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Speaker 1: of believers growing together the way the early church did
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Speaker 1: in Acts 2, come find us. Give us this day
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Speaker 1: our daily bread. Here is where the prayer shifts. We
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Speaker 1: just asked for God's name to be honored, His kingdom
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Speaker 1: to come, His will to be done, and now we
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Speaker 1: are asking for bread. It almost feels like a letdown,
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Speaker 1: like we went from cosmic to grocery list. But stay
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Speaker 1: with me. because this sentence is far deeper than it looks.
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Speaker 1: I want to take you somewhere first. A desert. Exodus 16.
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Speaker 1: The Israelites have left Egypt. There is no food, no farms,
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Speaker 1: no supply chain. Two million people in the middle of
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Speaker 1: nowhere with nothing. And God says, I will rain bread
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Speaker 1: from heaven for you. But here is the detail that
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Speaker 1: is easy to miss. He said, Each person shall gather
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Speaker 1: a day's portion every day, not a week's supply. Not
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Speaker 1: enough to fill the storage room and relax. One day.
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Speaker 1: Every day. And when people tried to gather extra and
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Speaker 1: keep it for tomorrow, it went rotten. Worms. Stench. God
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Speaker 1: built expiration into the provision on purpose. Because he was
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Speaker 1: teaching them something they desperately needed to learn. He wanted
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Speaker 1: them to need him every single morning. He wanted them
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Speaker 1: to wake up and have to come back to him again.
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Speaker 1: And every morning... Every morning for forty years in a desert,
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Speaker 1: He showed up, bread from heaven, every day. When Jesus says,
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Speaker 1: Give us this day our daily bread, He is pointing
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Speaker 1: directly at that story. He is invoking the manna. He
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Speaker 1: is saying, The same God who rained bread from the
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Speaker 1: sky for forty years in a wilderness is the Father
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Speaker 1: you are speaking to, and the posture He wants from
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Speaker 1: you is the same posture He built into Israel in
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Speaker 1: that desert. Daily dependency. Not annual dependency when life gets hard.
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Speaker 1: Not crisis dependency when everything falls apart. Daily. Every morning.
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Speaker 1: Come back. Need me again. And here is the thing
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Speaker 1: about living in 2026 with a refrigerator and a bank
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Speaker 1: account and a delivery app on your phone. We have
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Speaker 1: engineered our entire lives around not needing God daily. We
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Speaker 1: have built systems to reduce dependency. and none of that
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Speaker 1: is wrong. But this prayer insists, gently, consistently, that behind
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Speaker 1: the job that produces the income that fills the refrigerator,
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Speaker 1: that is God's hand. The health that lets you work
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Speaker 1: is God's gift. The mind that solves the problem is
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Speaker 1: His design. Daily bread is about recognizing the source of
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Speaker 1: every good thing you have, And then Jesus says something
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Speaker 1: in John 6.35 that reframes this entire line permanently. I
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Speaker 1: am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will
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Speaker 1: never hunger. He is the daily bread. And just as
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Speaker 1: your body cannot survive on last week's meal, your soul
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Speaker 1: cannot survive on last year's encounter with God. You need
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Speaker 1: him today, not the memory of him, not the experience
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Speaker 1: you had at a conference three years ago, Him. Today.
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Speaker 1: Give us this day. Forgive us our trespasses as we
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Speaker 1: forgive those who trespass against us. I want you to
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Speaker 1: stop right there for a moment. Because if you have
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Speaker 1: been saying this prayer your whole life without really thinking
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Speaker 1: about it, you just asked God to forgive you in
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Speaker 1: the same way you forgive the people who have hurt you.
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Speaker 1: And when that actually lands, it should make your breath
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Speaker 1: catch a little. The word trespasses in the original Greek
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Speaker 1: is ophilema, and it means a debt, not a moral
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Speaker 1: failing in the abstract. A debt. Something owed. Something taken
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Speaker 1: that was not freely given. And what Jesus is painting
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Speaker 1: here is a picture most of us have never quite seen.
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Speaker 1: When you sin, when you fall short of God's glory,
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Speaker 1: when you choose yourself over Him, when you do the
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Speaker 1: thing you knew you should not do. You are not
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Speaker 1: just breaking a rule. You are incurring a debt. Something
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Speaker 1: is owed that you cannot pay. And you are coming
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Speaker 1: to the Father and saying, cancel it. Not because I
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Speaker 1: earned it. Not because I have been good enough lately
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Speaker 1: to deserve it. But because you are that kind of Father.
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Speaker 1: And then immediately, in the same breath, Jesus ties your
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Speaker 1: receiving of that forgiveness to your extending of it. As
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Speaker 1: we forgive those who trespass against us, not after we
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Speaker 1: forgive them, not when we feel ready to forgive them,
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Speaker 1: as same moment, same motion. And in case anyone thought
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Speaker 1: that was optional, Jesus makes it unmissable in Matthew 6, 14-15,
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Speaker 1: immediately after the prayer. If you forgive others, your Father
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Speaker 1: will forgive you. If you do not forgive others, neither
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Speaker 1: will your father forgive you. Now I know how that sounds,
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Speaker 1: and I know some of you have been hurt in
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Speaker 1: ways that make forgiveness feel impossible, or even unfair. Someone
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Speaker 1: betrayed you. Someone took something that was not theirs to take.
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Speaker 1: Someone did real damage to your life or your family,
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Speaker 1: and you have every right to say, that was wrong.
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Speaker 1: It was. You are not required to pretend it was not.
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Speaker 1: But here is the thing about unforgiveness that nobody talks about.
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Speaker 1: The person you have not forgiven is not carrying the
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Speaker 1: weight of it. You are. You are the one who
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Speaker 1: wakes up with it. You are the one who rehearses it.
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Speaker 1: You are the one whose chest tightens when you hear
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Speaker 1: their name. The prison of unforgiveness is one you are
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Speaker 1: locked inside and they handed you the key. And here
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Speaker 1: is the theological depth underneath the surface. Jesus ties receiving
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Speaker 1: forgiveness to giving it not because they are a transaction,
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Speaker 1: but because they grow from the same soil. The person
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Speaker 1: who has genuinely stood before God with the full weight
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Speaker 1: of their own debt and heard the words, it is cancelled.
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Speaker 1: That person becomes capable of something they were not capable
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Speaker 1: of before. They can extend what they have received. Not
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Speaker 1: because they feel like it. Because they have tasted it.
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Speaker 1: And you cannot genuinely taste grace and keep a closed
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Speaker 1: fist at the same time. Not permanently. Those two postures
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Speaker 1: cannot live in the same heart. Who do you need
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Speaker 1: to forgive right now? Not for their sake. For yours.
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Speaker 1: and for the sake of the prayer you have been saying,
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Speaker 1: lead us not into temptation. Okay. I need to address
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Speaker 1: the confusion head on, because this sentence has been bothering
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Speaker 1: people for centuries, and the confusion makes complete sense, because
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Speaker 1: on the surface it sounds like you are asking God
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Speaker 1: not to do something he might otherwise do. Lead you
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Speaker 1: into temptation. And that raises a question that deserves a
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Speaker 1: real answer. Does God tempt people? James 1.13 settles it.
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Speaker 1: Let no one say when he is tempted, I am
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Speaker 1: being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil,
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Speaker 1: and He Himself tempts no one. God does not tempt.
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Speaker 1: He never has. He never will. So what is Jesus
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Speaker 1: asking for here? The Greek word translated temptation is peirasmos.
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Speaker 1: And here is what nobody told you. That same word
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Speaker 1: also means trial, test, or difficulty. It is the same
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Speaker 1: word used in both situations depending on the context. And
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Speaker 1: scholars have wrestled with this line for 2,000 years. But
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Speaker 1: the most helpful way I have found to understand it
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Speaker 1: is this. Jesus is not asking God to put you
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Speaker 1: in a padded room where nothing difficult ever happens. He
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Speaker 1: is asking God to keep you from being led into
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Speaker 1: a situation where that is beyond what you can currently
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Speaker 1: handle without falling. Think about Peter. Jesus said to him
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Speaker 1: directly in Luke 22.31, Satan has asked to sift you
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Speaker 1: like wheat. He did not say. And I am going
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Speaker 1: to prevent that, he said. But I have prayed for
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Speaker 1: you that your faith will not fail. The trial came.
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Speaker 1: Peter denied Jesus three times that very night. He failed spectacularly.
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Speaker 1: but Jesus had already prayed for what mattered most, that
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Speaker 1: the failure would not be final. And it was not.
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Speaker 1: Peter was restored, and he became the rock the early
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Speaker 1: church was built on. Lead us not into temptation is
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Speaker 1: a prayer of self-awareness. You are saying, God, I know myself.
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Speaker 1: I know where I am weak. I know the patterns
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Speaker 1: I fall into when pressure comes. Keep my feet away
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Speaker 1: from the edge I know I should not be near.
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Speaker 1: Guide me away from situations that will expose my weaknesses
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Speaker 1: in ways I am not yet equipped to handle. And
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Speaker 1: then 1 Corinthians 10.13 gives you the promise underneath it.
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Speaker 1: No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
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Speaker 1: God is faithful, and He will not let you be
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Speaker 1: tempted beyond what you can bear. But He will also
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Speaker 1: with the temptation provide the way of escape, so that
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Speaker 1: you may be able to endure it. Lead us not
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Speaker 1: into temptation is asking God to be the one who
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Speaker 1: manages your exposure to what can destroy you, and to always,
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Speaker 1: always provide the door out, but deliver us from evil.
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Speaker 1: Some translations say, deliver us from the evil one. and
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Speaker 1: that difference is actually important, because the original Greek word, poneros,
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Speaker 1: can mean evil as a force or the evil one
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Speaker 1: as a person. And most scholars believe Jesus intended both
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Speaker 1: at the same time, deliver us from evil as a
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Speaker 1: reality in the world, and deliver us from the one
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Speaker 1: who personally orchestrates it. Now I know that in 2026,
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Speaker 1: in a Western, educated, modern world, talking about a personal
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Speaker 1: devil feels uncomfortable. It sounds medieval. It sounds like something
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Speaker 1: that belongs in old Gothic churches and not in the rational,
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Speaker 1: evidence-based world most of us inhabit during the week. And
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Speaker 1: maybe you have been quietly skeptical about it for years
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Speaker 1: while saying this line every Sunday. But Jesus was not skeptical.
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Speaker 1: He cast out demons publicly and matter-of-factly. He called Satan
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Speaker 1: by name. He described him as the father of lies,
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Speaker 1: the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy.
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Speaker 1: And he taught his disciples, ordinary people, not theologians, to
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Speaker 1: pray daily. Deliver us from the evil one. That was
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Speaker 1: not an accident. 1 Peter 5.8 Be sober-minded, be watchful.
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Speaker 1: Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion
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Speaker 1: seeking someone to devour. Here is what is interesting about
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Speaker 1: that image. A lion does not roar right before it pounces.
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Speaker 1: It roars to create panic, to scatter the herd, to
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Speaker 1: isolate the one it has chosen from the protection of
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Speaker 1: the group. The person who does not believe in the
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Speaker 1: lion does not watch for the lion. And the lion
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Speaker 1: counts on that. Deliver us from evil is a prayer
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Speaker 1: of spiritual clarity. You are saying, God, I am not
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Speaker 1: naive about the world I am navigating. I live in
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Speaker 1: a place where evil is real, not just as bad
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Speaker 1: decisions and social dysfunction, but as a spiritual force that
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Speaker 1: is actively working against my flourishing, my family, my peace,
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Speaker 1: my calling. Protect me from what I cannot protect myself from.
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Speaker 1: And Psalm 34 7 gives you the foundation under this petition.
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Speaker 1: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear
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Speaker 1: him and delivers them. This is not a fearful prayer.
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Speaker 1: It is a confident one. You are asking a God
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Speaker 1: who has already defeated the enemy through the cross. Colossians
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Speaker 1: 2 15 says he disarmed the rulers and authorities and
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Speaker 1: put them to open shame by triumphing over them. to
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Speaker 1: extend the coverage of that victory over your life. Every
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Speaker 1: single day. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and
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Speaker 1: the glory. Forever. Amen. Notice where the prayer ends. Not
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Speaker 1: with you. Not with your needs. Not with your requests
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Speaker 1: or your circumstances. It ends where it began. With God.
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Speaker 1: Who He is. What belongs to Him. And how long
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Speaker 1: it will last. here is something that might surprise you.
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Speaker 1: This closing line, For thine is the kingdom, the power,
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Speaker 1: and the glory, is not in the earliest manuscripts of
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Speaker 1: Matthew 6. It was added by the early church in
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Speaker 1: their worship, drawn almost word for word from 1 Chronicles 29,
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Speaker 1: where David prays to God the night before his son
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Speaker 1: Solomon will be crowned king. David has just witnessed his
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Speaker 1: people give their wealth generously for the building of the temple,
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Speaker 1: and he is overwhelmed. And he says, Yours, O Lord,
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Speaker 1: is the greatness and the power and the glory and
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Speaker 1: the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and
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Speaker 1: earth is Yours. The early church recognized that a prayer
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Speaker 1: which begins in the presence of God should end there too.
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Speaker 1: And they were right. Because this closing is not decoration.
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Speaker 1: It is the theological anchor of everything that came before it.
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Speaker 1: For thine is the kingdom, not mine, not the government's,
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Speaker 1: not the culture's, not the enemy's. Though he acts like
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Speaker 1: it sometimes, the kingdom belongs to the Father. Every power
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Speaker 1: that currently stands against his purposes is already under his
34:13
Speaker 1: authority whether it knows it or not. The power, not yours.
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Speaker 1: not human strategy or military force or economic systems. The
34:22
Speaker 1: power that holds atoms together, that raised Jesus from the dead,
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Speaker 1: that turned a murderer named Saul into the most prolific
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Speaker 1: writer in the New Testament. That power. When you pray,
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Speaker 1: you are not generating spiritual energy from within yourself. You
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Speaker 1: are connecting to a power that existed before the universe did.
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Speaker 1: The glory forever. that word forever is doing something important.
34:51
Speaker 1: It is the foundation under everything. In a world where
34:54
Speaker 1: everything is temporary, relationships shift, health declines, empires fall, certainties dissolve,
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Speaker 1: forever is the most stabilizing word in the prayer. You
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Speaker 1: are speaking to the one unchangeable reality in the universe,
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Speaker 1: and you are closing by declaring that He will still
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Speaker 1: be that long after everything you can currently see has
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Speaker 1: passed away. Amen. Let it be so. I agree with
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Speaker 1: all of it. So be it. So now what? You
35:27
Speaker 1: know what every line means. You understand the history, the depth,
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Speaker 1: the layers. And the real question is, how do you
35:37
Speaker 1: actually pray it now? Because there is a danger here
35:41
Speaker 1: that I want to address honestly. The danger is that
35:46
Speaker 1: you just upgraded your recitation. Instead of saying the words
35:50
Speaker 1: on autopilot, you now say them with more information on autopilot.
35:55
Speaker 1: And that is better. But it is not the transformation
35:59
Speaker 1: Jesus intended. Here is what I want to suggest. The
36:04
Speaker 1: next time you pray the Lord's Prayer, try this. Pray
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Speaker 1: it one sentence at a time. And after each sentence, stop.
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Speaker 1: Do not rush to the next one. Let that sentence
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Speaker 1: sit with you for a moment. Let it ask its question.
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Speaker 1: Our Father, pause. Who is he to you right now, today,
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Speaker 1: in the specific situation you are carrying into this prayer?
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Speaker 1: Is he distant? Is he close? Is he real to
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Speaker 1: you this morning, or are you just going through the motions?
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Speaker 1: Hallowed be thy name. Pause. Where have you been careless
36:44
Speaker 1: with his name this week? Where have you allowed what
36:48
Speaker 1: is sacred to become casual in your life? Thy kingdom come. Pause.
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Speaker 1: Where specifically do you need his reign to advance? Name it.
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Speaker 1: Be specific. Your marriage? Your anxiety? That relationship that is breaking?
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Speaker 1: That habit that is winning? Name the place where you
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Speaker 1: need the king to show up. Thy will be done. Pause.
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Speaker 1: Is there something you have been holding on to that
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Speaker 1: you have not fully surrendered yet? Something you keep bringing
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Speaker 1: to God but pulling back when you do not like
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Speaker 1: the answer? Give us this day our daily bread. Pause.
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Speaker 1: What do you actually need from God today? Not in general.
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Speaker 1: Today specifically. Say it. Forgive us our trespasses. Pause. What
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Speaker 1: do you need to confess? And then, as we forgive,
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Speaker 1: Name the person. Speak their name. Choose to release it.
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Speaker 1: Not because you feel like it. Because you have been forgiven.
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Speaker 1: Lead us not into temptation. Pause. Where are you walking
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Speaker 1: close to an edge you know you should not be near?
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Speaker 1: Ask God to redirect your steps. Deliver us from evil. Pause.
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Speaker 1: Where do you need God's covering today? Over your home,
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Speaker 1: your children, your mind. Ask specifically. For thine is the kingdom,
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Speaker 1: the power, and the glory forever. Let that land. Not
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Speaker 1: as a formula ending, as a declaration of trust. You
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Speaker 1: are saying, whatever happens after this prayer, it is all
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Speaker 1: in your hands. And your hands are the safest place
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Speaker 1: anything has ever been. That prayer will take longer. It
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Speaker 1: will cost something. It will not be a ritual It
38:45
Speaker 1: will be a conversation. And that is exactly what Jesus
38:49
Speaker 1: intended when he sat on that hillside and said, When
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Speaker 1: you pray, pray like this. Let us close the way
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Speaker 1: Jesus taught us to close. Together. But this time, slowly.
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Speaker 1: With everything we now know. Our Father, not a distant force,
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Speaker 1: not an unpredictable power to be appeased, but a Father
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Speaker 1: who knows our name, who was expecting us to come,
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Speaker 1: who covers us with authority we did not earn and
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Speaker 1: cannot lose, who art in heaven, whose presence fills a
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Speaker 1: dimension where nothing is outside his reach, nothing that threatens
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Speaker 1: us is beyond his authority hallowed be thy name let
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Speaker 1: your name be treated as holy in my mouth in
39:37
Speaker 1: my household in how I represent you to the people
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Speaker 1: watching my life and let the day come Lord when
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Speaker 1: every nation and every tongue recognizes who you actually are
39:50
Speaker 1: Thy kingdom come. Advance your reign into everything in my
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Speaker 1: life that does not yet reflect you. My relationships, my fear,
40:00
Speaker 1: my pride, my hesitation. Use me as a carrier of
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Speaker 1: your kingdom today in the specific places you have placed me.
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Speaker 1: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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Speaker 1: Not my plan, Father. Not the version I have been
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Speaker 1: rehearsing and hoping you would agree with. Your will. completely,
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Speaker 1: even in the places where I cannot see what you
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Speaker 1: are doing yet, even in the hard thing, your will.
40:31
Speaker 1: Give us this day our daily bread. Meet our needs today, Lord,
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Speaker 1: the physical ones, the emotional ones, and the deepest one,
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Speaker 1: the hunger for you that nothing else can fill. Remind
40:44
Speaker 1: us that every good thing we have came from your hand.
40:48
Speaker 1: Forgive us our trespasses, Cancel the debt, Father. All of it.
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Speaker 1: We receive it. And as we receive it, we release.
40:59
Speaker 1: We name the people we have been holding. We open
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Speaker 1: the fist. We let it go. Not because we feel ready.
41:07
Speaker 1: Because you forgave us first. Lead us not into temptation.
41:12
Speaker 1: Keep our feet from the paths that will expose our
41:14
Speaker 1: weakness beyond what we can bear. And when the trial
41:18
Speaker 1: comes— be the door of escape. But deliver us from evil.
41:24
Speaker 1: Cover us. Everything that belongs to you. Cover it. We
41:29
Speaker 1: are not unaware of what we are navigating. But we
41:33
Speaker 1: trust the God who has already won. For thine is
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Speaker 1: the kingdom. Yours, not ours. The power. Yours, not ours.
41:45
Speaker 1: The glory. Forever. Amen. Every time you say it, mean it.
41:52
Speaker 1: From now on, you just prayed the Lord's Prayer with
41:55
Speaker 1: full understanding, maybe for the first time, and something may
41:59
Speaker 1: have shifted in you during that. If it did, do
42:03
Speaker 1: not let it settle back down. The Lord's Prayer e-book
42:07
Speaker 1: explainer on our website was built to go even deeper
42:10
Speaker 1: into everything we covered today. The kind of depth that
42:14
Speaker 1: changes not just how you pray, but how you live
42:18
Speaker 1: the rest of the day after you pray. And if
42:21
Speaker 1: what you felt during this teaching has awakened a hunger
42:25
Speaker 1: for more of what Jesus actually taught, our 15 hours
42:29
Speaker 1: of Jesus' teaching lessons are waiting for you, not to
42:32
Speaker 1: make you a better Bible student, to bring you closer
42:36
Speaker 1: to the person of Jesus. There is a difference, and
42:39
Speaker 1: that difference is what we are after. Find the link
42:43
Speaker 1: in the description. If you are on your television, Scan
42:48
Speaker 1: the barcode on your screen right now. And if you
42:51
Speaker 1: do not want to do any of this alone, come
42:55
Speaker 1: into the Acts 2 community we are building. People from
42:59
Speaker 1: around the world who are serious about their faith, who
43:02
Speaker 1: pray together, who study together, who hold each other to
43:07
Speaker 1: what they said they believed. The link is in the description.
43:13
Speaker 1: Come find your people. This is Deep Bible Stories. where
43:18
Speaker 1: the Word speaks deeper. Stay rooted. Stay blessed.