Enter your best email below so I can keep you updated on my missionary journey and share more resources with you.
Your information is safe with me and subject to my Privacy Policy.
Ethan Tripodi - Life On Mission Blog
Discover the "Our Father" as a guide to effective prayer. Learn to approach God with reverence and address various aspects in prayer. Seek His will, ask for provision, forgiveness, and protection.
Ethan Tripodi
Saturday, January 01, 2022
[[Audio Unavailable]]
Start praying through the "Our Father" using the "10 Yeses Guide". It expands on each part of the Lord's prayer so that you can pray through it more deeply.
0:00
Be here, guys, I have we just arrived, not yesterday, but the day before. And I don't know how much James has shared in the past, but we are. We work with a ministry, we travel around helping people read the Bible more deeply. And that's exactly what we are looking forward to doing this. I want to thank its genre. John, you brought up the scripture in Second Timothy three, and you're bringing up eating manner. And so we're talking about today, eating the very words of Scripture, making them become part of us so that, you know, we actually actually changes us. And the words of that song were very special, because I haven't actually heard that one before. And so the ancient word they've always been, they've always been there, now we get to listen to them today. And so the sermon today, which I hope I hope many of you stay for, we're going to be looking at Second Corinthians 10. And it's going to be about confronting the things in ourselves, changing what we do, and it's New Year's. So Happy New Year, everyone. And most people are thinking about New Year's resolutions, things they're gonna do differently this year, they're thinking about ways they can change themselves. And God's word is really the only way we can change ourselves. So I wanted to target this morning, because I heard this is more of a study session almost rather than so it's a bit different to the sermon that's preached in a little bit. Just quickly, James, how much time? Is it? 10 o'clock the next. Okay, very good. So I'm going to reference this in the coming sermon. But we wanted to talk to you today about Holy habits, things that we do consistently. I don't know if you use the word statutes. But that's a word in the Bible that comes up a lot, especially in Psalm 119. And statutes are things we do on a consistent basis. They help us stay on God's track. And many of us have our own little things that we do Bible reading in the morning Bible reading in the evening, different prayers. But we wanted to share with you one particular devotional practice that's actually commanded for us to do in Scripture. Many people like to read devotional books, and they, they're nice things, you know. But Jesus himself has actually given us a guide. And it's something many of us are familiar with the Lord's Prayer, the alpha, and many of us when we hear everything, I've heard that before, I know that. But do we realise that's the only prayer in the Bible that we are explicitly commanded to pray? It actually Jesus says, Pray in this way the disciples come to him saying, the John, John the Baptist taught his disciples how to pray, can you teach us instead, Jesus, the Son of God, while on teaches us how to pray. And so this is thought it's mentioned in multiple gospels. But the passage we'll be looking at is Matthew, not six, verses nine to 13. And we actually have a handout as well, because we, we want this to become something you guys do each day. And notice that when you get to the passage, or just go to here
3:40
there's something very important with the way this is written. We don't need to hand out those just yet because I want to know what we'll get around to that. But there's something very important with the way Jesus has said this. I'm sure some of you have heard this prayer recited in different churches, Catholics do it a lot. But Jesus doesn't say pray this prayer. Just pray. And he's not saying it in such a way where you recite it as a script. He actually says, Pray then in this way. So he's very particular with those words. And what that means is, rather than giving us a script, something that we just copy wrote, it's actually a diet. It's actually a map of prayer. points for us to think about, as we're praying. So we're not just reading our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name. But we're actually thinking about what each of those things do. And I've really enjoyed getting to do this for the past few years every night as a way of preparing for becoming that. I mean, Jesus himself has commanded us and given us 10 things. So we're going to break the bar down into 10 points and different parts. And each of those points that God Himself wants us To be thinking about, so that we can better obey Him. So we can better do His will. So we can better fellowship with one another. And so I don't know how many, I'm still getting used to Uganda and how things work with that technology and what people have access to. So if you have a smartphone, we actually have a handout that you can just type into Google and download, and use. So this is actually a prayer guide, we use all around the world to go through with people. I don't know if you want to write it down or look it up on your phone, right now. But for those of you who don't have smartphones, because I understand, we have got some printouts of it. And so, James, if you want to hand them out, we don't have how many do we have? Eight, okay, we've got eight, and that's about the number of people here. But if you don't need it, we're going to try and use it on Thursday, because we're going to go into these things a little bit more. So, James, if you can hand those out, or John, if you can help out handing them. So anyone who doesn't have a smartphone, who needs a physical handout, please do it. If you do have a smartphone type in this into Google, but the URL spot tdb. So that's the abbreviation for our ministry that discovery Bible Tgb dot link, the word link, forward slash, our father. That's all there is. And you're welcome to share that. On the handout you see there. On the handout, you see that there is an explanation of Matthew nine, and Matthew six, verses nine to 13. And this is something that we use with so many people, not only, there are three things that we see as completely vital to every Christian life, there's Bible reading, we can't know God understands him live his ways, if we're not reading his work, there's prayer, which is actually talking with him getting to know him personally, and hearing his voice. And those are two that most people do talk about. Everyone here, I imagine, is aware unless you're new. But the third thing that is just you can't do without this fellowship is actually doing with the body of Christ with fellow believers in this passage, hits on all three of those. It is scripture, we're actually meditating on the words of Scripture. And if we understand each one of these points, you will be able to understand, like, it'll help you in all your other Bible reading, because it gives you so many different things to think about. It is a prayer also. So it is scripture, we're meditating on the verses of the Bible, there is a prayer that Jesus commands us to brain. So we exchange with God, we speak his words back to him, and we enjoy thinking about these things. And then the way it helps with fellowship is that we encourage you, when it becomes something you do daily, when it becomes something, you know, it's, it's an amazing way of something you can do with your brothers and sisters. And so, similarly, I do a lot of travelling together, and different people in the US that that we spend time with. And when. And when we come to the end of the day, rather than just praying it by ourselves like we do unknown, we will actually pray with one another. And because we've broken it down into parts, we'll share the path. And so similar, we'll break through the first five, I pray through the last five, we switch it around, if there's three people, you divide it by three and four, it just becomes something that all of you have in common. And that's what fellowship is, the actual meaning of the word is sharing something in common. And what we share in common is Christ himself. The Holy Spirit is in us. And that's why we can connect with one another in the way that we do. But sometimes it's a bit kind of out there in the air, we don't really have specific things on how we're connecting, we just arrive at the same place and worship and sing the same songs. But this is a really specific thing that you can learn to do. Make it part of your Bible, really make it part of your prayer life. And then if everyone if each of you at least two of you understand it in the same way, then finishing off your evenings, husbands and wives, we know husbands and wives, they do it together. Other friends, family members, my dad used to do it with me and my whole family. So there's five of us, and he would, each of us would pray through two parts. And that's how we did it. That's what really got me on the right track because I kept thinking about the things God himself commanded us. So we're gonna read this passage, and we're gonna go through just these few verses. And we're not going to break it down too much, because there is a lot we could go into. But you've got the handouts, you've got the online version, if that worked out you, and we're going to see how far we can get. And I'm going to try and cover it all basically pray through it. And an example of how I hope you guys can benefit from it as well. So Matthew, six verse does that mean? Wake up, wake up. Matthew six, verse nine says this, pray then in this way. And it's actually one of the few times that Jesus uses the word pray in such a way that says, Never stop. Keep on doing it. There's actually different ways you can write it. Sometimes there's a there's an urgency, sometimes there's different things Jesus is trying to emphasise. But here he's saying, make this part of your lifestyle, literally, it's actually in the text inspired by the Holy Spirit. So I'm quite surprised actually is how do people we find, think about this passage in this way. So pray, then in this way now. Who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil in some versions will say for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. All right. So what you see there on that handout, is, the first page is an explanation of the passage, giving you a bit of setup. And then on each page, there are two points of the bar that we've broken it down into 10 points. It's a very nice round number. And each point, it just states at the top. So the first point is to flip over to the next page, it's double sided. So make sure you look on the page behind. The first one is our father. And then on the second half of the page, it says, who are in the head. And then you'll see lots of dot points after that, then expand on that point. This is what we use to get people into into the groove of thinking about what these things mean. Because there's so much let's take the first one, for instance, our Father, we come to our Father, and what do you think about when we think about God being our father, I mean, there's many different ways we relate to God, he talks about us being he's our Saviour, he's our friend. He's our bridegroom. He's our master. Now, Jesus didn't say our master. Jesus didn't say, all the other possibilities out there, but he chose. And so what comes to your mind, just think for a moment of what it means for God to be a father, think about how Father raises his child, wanting them to grow into a person. You know, in the ideal scenario, I know not all of us have very good fathers, it's very possible that you don't. But God example, at God is an example of what a true father is in the Bible. Instead, the ideal of what a father should be doing, growing his child to be like himself.
13:38
transforming them as He loves them. Count puts them when they do the wrong thing, sometimes heavy hand is needed. But that's out of love, because He wants him to not make the same mistake in the future. So these are the things we think about. And if you look at the point is there's there's several there. I can't remember exactly what they say. But they expand on the things I just said. And so how we get people to start off with this is actually just reading it word for word. So I started off as a young still, but I'm a young 13 year old, I think 12 year old when my dad first started getting asked to do this. And I wasn't really into it at first. I wasn't. I wasn't very spiritual as a young person. But he still got us to do it. And I would read it word for word, I would. I would be forced almost to think about those things. But as I grew to love God more. As I grew to understand what these things really mean, I was able to actually understand it. And now I don't use the piece of paper. I just know what these things are. I know what it means for God to be our father and every night before bed. I go. I go to bed thinking about that. Because not because it's some nice devotional thing that we've come up with. It's actually He was scripture commands. And so we keep going through that. The second point is who are in the heavens. And so we begin to think about how, how high god is how great he is how different he is everything in this earth, we begin to admire it and actually want to be different, like, I mean, when you look at this world, and then you compare it to how the Bible describes have, think about the difference. Think about how glorious that will be when he returns when we're taken home, whichever one comes first. And God wants us to think about that each and every day, to say yes, to his invitation. And on the handout, I think you'll even see, we might have put the word yesterday, can you remind me to look at it as I say the word? Yes, so I affirm. So what we've broken it down into is, is not just 10, things to think about, but 10, affirmations, 10 things for you to earn 10 things for you to agree with. So rather than prayer being is many teacher just about asking for stuff, or just about, you know, commanding healing, or whatever else is involved in many people's prayer life. This here is all about affirming who God is what He wants us to be, and choosing to be to become that in the coming day. And so we keep going, we say yes, his invitation to be with him in the heavens. And there's an explanation there on the second page. And we say hallowed be your name, where we absolutely treasure him. As the most important thing, you know, the name a name in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, it's a very personal thing. When you know someone's name, you have access to who they are, you actually become near them. And so when God revealed his name, to Moses, and to the Israelite people, it was a statement that said, I want to know, I want to join you to you. And so we, at this point, are saying, hallowed be thy name. And we can think about his name, I think we might have written it there as well. Yahweh is his name, and he's the one who is was and always will be. And so we think about how he's present right here right now with us. And because he is we need to treat this moment as eternally special. Now, that verse that says a day is like 1000 years, doesn't use as like a day. And so that means that because God is right here with us, he can cram the value of 1000 years, you think about how much you could learn 1000 years. Every day, I choose to learn a new instrument every year. And then when I learned to finish the instruments, I learned a new language. You think about how much you'd know and understand by the end, God wants to cram the value of that time into this day because he's with us. And we continue so your kingdom come is the next one. And we're not just thinking about the kingdom to come in the future where Jesus reigns, are we thinking about the kingdom that reigns in our hearts? Right here right now. So many people are just waiting for Christ to return and missing what's going around. Your kingdom come is an immediate now experience. Jesus wants to be Lord over every part of our lives. And I believe we say there we talk about the heart, soul, mind and strength, the greatest command, these are the things that we offer up to God, we commit to loving Him with our heart, soul, mind and strength. And so here, we say that we want him to be king over all those parts. And then we continue with your will be done. Each moment is about doing His will. I'm sure James has explained the idea of faith about how we are living. Faith is not just a one time thing that you had faith, and now you're safe. But it's a day by day thing. Faith is God speaking to us about how to live specifically and He does it through the written word. And he does it through the living word. The scriptures you brought up today they speak to us, the ancient days, the ancient words that we understand here now and God enables us to apply to our situations to our relationships. And so we're committing here affirming that all we want is his will to be done. And then it continues. This is this is all one point. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so we're thinking about how we said before how great heaven was and how different it was the desert but when we do the Lord's will we get to experience heaven. We actually get to experience with one another in our fellowship and our phrase in our Bible reading it. And that's what I hope that you guys and those are the first five points. And so if you're sharing it with a spouse, with a partner or with a family member or a friend, you if you're one of us, we break through those first five, and the other ones agreeing like normally do when you're when you're doing group press, and then the other person picks up on the last five. And the last five, like first, the sixth one starts off with, Give us this day, our daily bread. And I've heard others explain this is where we begin to ask ourselves, give me my bread God. But that's actually not the point. It's not about us asking for what is ours. But it's us asking for what God wants to give us. It's his bread, and each day has its own bread. You know, there were offerings in the Old Testament. And you would, they would bring offerings every day. And it was actually command for some of these offerings, you were not allowed to eat them on the second day. If you left anything behind after the first day, it had to be burned, it had to be left behind. And so what that points to is similar to his name being fully present, God has bred for this day that he wants us to enjoy the specific tasks we need to do. And he gives us the grace to be able to achieve them, to be able to overcome them. And so we're asking, bring it in the night. For the coming day. We're saying, God, whatever comes this day, I know that you're going to provide and I want to lay hold of his breath. We don't want to ask for any more, because he's if we're asking for more than he's giving, then we're going against what he he hasn't given us more. And if we're choosing to take less than what he's given, then we won't be able to achieve the faith tasks of that day. So we continue, after having thought about the daily bread that God so desires to give us. He says, and forgive us our debts. This is the moment where we reflect. So often we late relief is too long, we don't get around to the reflection stage of our of our faith books.
22:20
But forgive us our debts we reflect on the day, all that we've done. And maybe there are some moments where we actually missed gods. We didn't actually live by faith in a moment. And at this time, it expanded there in the handout. But at this point in the prayer, we're saying, God, deliver us from keep us from doing it again. Thank you for revealing to us the things we've missed. Thank you for revealing by your brightness. I mean, it's a gracious thing to know the wrong things we do. Some people are so oblivious that maybe you've met them. They don't know when they do wrong things. They're not even aware that it's a sin. But to know, is the greatest thing, it's also a hard thing, we kind of get a bit uncomfortable sometimes or we feel when sin is pointed out we will get bad and don't know what to do. But knowing knowing the same means we can overcome. That's why God opens their eyes to it. And we need to be doing this every day. We don't want to ask for forgiveness to things for a week ago, a month ago, but we should have we should have done it at the time. We don't want to leave things and leave a building out because it's not a burden we meant to bear Christ died not just so that we would be free from the penalty of sin where we get to be saved and not go to hell and actually enjoy heaven with Him. But He died so that we will be free from the power of sin daily, becoming more like Him. And so this point is where we choose to forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. You can't separate these two. Forgiveness is such a major topic in the Bible because it explains it there. It's quite condensed thoughts.
24:12
But have you ever thought about what unforgiveness actually does? Think about a former. What are you doing when you don't forgive someone? If you look at some of the points there are no one of
24:28
them will say that we actually put ourselves in the position of God. Who are we to hold that anger against someone? Who are we to you know, the parable of the servant who was forgiven, forgiven a little bit forgiven much and then didn't forgive a little bit. And so that's written there as one of the points. Another thing is we actually make the other person got because rather than us listen meaning to God and forgiving them, we're allowing them to dictate our decisions. If they're the ones causing us to be unforgiveness to be unfair, and forgiving, then we're letting them have more say in our lives and God Himself. And so this is an important part because if you don't do this, then nothing else is working. You can't be, you're not going to feel the release and freedom from the other debt because you're holding on to the unforgiveness as the as a key major debt. And so we need to send those people away, we need to not let them have that same as we want to forgive them, release them, where they don't latch on to our hearts in those people that you can, at times, maybe you've just felt so angry at breweries. And sometimes you may not even fully understand it. But that keeps us back from being who Jesus wants us to be. He keeps us back from being like him. And so we want to send those people away. And this next part is caused. Because a lot of controversy lead us not into temptation, because there's the other verses that say God doesn't think he's in James one. And so how do you understand this is actually, this one word temptation is used for tests as well. So in the original, there's only one word for temptation and test. And so we don't have time to go into it now. But there are positive tests that God sends us when we're in his world. We're not promised the, you know, some supernaturally perfect life that doesn't have any struggle. God sends us trials like he did with bow, and then preaching the gospel, dedicating his whole life to the kingdom of God. And later on in Second Corinthians, he goes through all the things that he has found difficult. The ship breaks, the lashes, the beatings, stoning, we're not promised, we're not promised an easy life. But those are positive tests, then there are also negative ones. When we sin and come off of God's path, those situations, we're not necessarily. And there are tests that come as a result of the wrong things that we do. And what we're saying here is God, I don't want to experience those negative tests, I don't want to come off your part, you've given me the grace to stay on it. And that's what I'm choosing to do now. And I and we're affirming as well, that we want to experience all his positive tests. I say no, this one is a yes or no firm, have burned to a yes to a no. I'm saying yes God to not enter in all the negative tests that I could enter, enter into. And then finally, is the deliver us from evil. God wants to snatch us away from all the pain in his life. So much of it coming out of sending out a way to sin, actually, especially in the Old Testament, is directly connected to pain. And not that all pain is sin. But all sin results in pain. And we don't need to experience any of that pain as a result of our sin, God has sent His Son so that we could be free from it. So that we could be on the right path. And so we're saying to liberate us from any of the pain that we all need to experience there are positive ones that go since so that we can become more likely. There are things we are meant to learn to bear up under. But this year is saying God, we know that you are the only one that can snatch us away. So we make ourselves available to that and that it's what you already want to do. When I'm telling God, come on, and then deliver us deliver us like, this is something you only, but it's affirming that he already wants to deliver us in his own way. And whatever that way looks like we're glad for Amen. And that's the the Alpha burner went a little bit over time, but a real it's a real specific way to end your day to prepare for the next one. And being the only prayer in the Bible that we are commanded to pray. I think we should put a little weight on that. And there are other devotional things that we can go through as the as the weeks go by other things commanded in Scripture. They're not commanded prayers, but things for us to think about. And so I found nothing else to be more powerful and keeping my life on the right track. Then this prayer, and I hope it is the same for you so Amen. Thank you guys for Do that. And I hope you enjoy the handouts. If you didn't get one and you wanted one, we can we can arrange that just come up and talk to us afterwards. We'll maybe go through more of it on Thursday as well. So, bless you guys
30:21
we appreciate God for using our brother Ethan to share that. Have we been blessed? Are you sure? Thank you. I know this resonates with your spirits. I know you're excited. I know you're hotter like, Yes, this one we wanted. And we praise the Lord for that. I'll be talking to you about them in the next service because we have longer time there, because of our time. But thank you, Ethan, for being a blessing to us this morning. May the Lord greatly bless you. They are here with us for a very long time as the Lord wields. And I believe that this is just the beginning of what God is going to do in us through this wonderful man. They are young in age, but spiritually, they are very old. You can be sure, you can be sure, praise the Lord. And so thank you so much for sharing about your father. And I believe that some of us maybe you're trying to grasp the concept there. But don't worry. Within one week, two weeks you will be right in and you will be enjoying. He'll be praying without those outlines and that will be a great lesson. Hallelujah. Good want to say.
Ethan Tripodi is a missionary with Youth for Christ Australia and his mission role is made possible through the prayer and financial support from individuals and organisations just like you.
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. Colossians 1:28-29, ESV.
EthanOnMission.com - ©2023 - All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions
Web design and strategy by Grow With Partners.
EthanOnMission.com - ©2023 - All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy - Terms & Conditions
Web design and strategy
by Grow With Partners.