You know what I-me-my praying is? I, I, I, I, I. Me, me, me, me, me. My, my, my, my, my. "God give this to me, me, me." You see, our prayer should be singular and it also should be plural. Notice Jesus said, "Our Father." See it there? Forgive us our sins, our debts, our trespasses. That's what Christ talked about.
Now, The Lord's Prayer can be broken up into two sections with three elements each. We say this, "Our Father who art in heaven"~number one--"hallowed be thy name." What is "hallowed"? Hallowed means we should reverence, we should honor the name of God. A couple of days ago I was playing basketball with a bunch of people who did not know Christ, and this particular man said, over and over, "Oh, God. Oh, God." He even said the word, "Jesus Christ" in a slang term. I said, "Do you know what you're saying? Do you know what you're doing when you take the name of the Lord in vain? You're cussing, you're using a swear word and centering it around God, the living Lord, who loved us so much He sent
Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, to rise again. The one who's full of grace, whose love, whose mercy abounds, and you're talking about Him in that kind of manner." Back in Jesus Christ's time, the people wouldn't even utter the name of God. They wouldn't even mention the name of God. That's how reverent it was.
So, the three sections, the three elements in the first part of The Lord's Prayer is this: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done." Those three statements are centered around God's glory. You could fill in the blank there-right there-God's glory. We are to glorify the name of the Lord when we pray. That's the first section of The Lord's Prayer.
Now, the last three phrases have to do with man's need, because we all have needs. Every person in here has needsphysical, spiritual, relational. "Give us this day our daily bread." That's our present needs. Hey, we have present needs.
So, see over here on the left-hand column, "Hallowed be thy name"? We're to honor the name of the Lord. Why? Because he provides and he meets our needs.
Now,
Ed Young wants us to look at the second aspect. It says, "Forgive us our debts." We've said this over and over again. What are debts? They're trespasses, they are sins. That's the past. You see that? The presentthe daily bread; the pastour debts.
