A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed (2004)

The Lord’s Prayer helps us to be the best friends of God that we can be. In John 15:14, Jesus tells His disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (RSV). When we do what Jesus tells us, we are able to worship in “spirit and truth” (John 4:24) and we will also pray with the right motives (James 4:3). Jesus’ disciples wanted Him to teach them to pray. That is when Jesus gave us this model---this template (Aycock, p. 279) prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. From the Lord’s Prayer that we pray in church today, Jesus teaches us how we are to pray. Jesus teaches us to understand Adoration and to be Inclusive: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name … ” (Luke 11:2 KJV). Jesus teaches us about God’s will and our role in it as citizens of His kingdom here on earth: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven … ” (Matthew 6:10b). Jesus teaches us about our Dependence on God and how He provides for our “total welfare”: “Give us this day, our daily bread … ” (Luke 11:3 NIV). Jesus teaches us about God’s forgiveness and how to forgive: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us…” (Luke 11:4 NIV). Jesus teaches us about how to handle temptation: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ….” (Matthew 6:13 KJV). Jesus teaches us that God’s kingdom shall always prevail and will never fail: “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever”. Amen. (Matthew 6: 13b KJV).

The Lord’s Prayer is not something that we are to recite, it is something that we must live out! We cannot rely on our own strength or our own resources if we want to succeed. We have to accomplish living out the Lord’s prayer with the help of the Good Lord! One of our biggest struggles will be in the area of our pride. Our biggest weaknesses will be in the way try to face daily life without relying on God’s help to get us through those things that will cause us to stumble. When Jesus said, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, He means as someone (Don M. Aycock) has said “do not let us fall into a trial so difficult that we will fail” (Aycock, p. 279). We often fail to realize one of the biggest temptations of all is the failure to forgive as God has forgiven us. The failure to forgive is a temptation that is designed to make us fall. “ … many people are stingy with the grace of forgiveness. They assume that forgiveness is to be granted only when it is merited [deserved]. They fail to recognize that forgiveness is always a gift. To neglect, to refuse, or to fail to forgive is to open the door for our satanic enemy to come in and destroy that which is very precious in family relationships” [and relationships in general]. (T. T. Crabtree. ed. The Zondervan 2002 Pastor’s Annual. David Jenkins. “The Pratcice Of Forgiveness In The Family”. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2001, p. 176). The failure to forgive makes us stumble and fall because the failure to forgive someone who has sinned against us allows the devil the opportunity to get a foothold and drives wedges in both our relationship with God and other people!