1 Chronicles 29:10-13

THE LORD’S PRAYER DOXOLOGY Our reading this morning is from 1 Chronicles 29 when proclaims as king, tasks him with the building of the Temple and commits finance to build it. This reading is part of David’s prayer as he thanks God for the provision of the resources needed to build the Temple and worships Him

1 Chronicles 29:10 “Praise be to you, LORD, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11 Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendour, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honour come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.

TITLE PAGE > RED LETTERS Have you ever had a Red Letter ? The idea of it is that every word attributed to Jesus is highlighted in red so you could see what Jesus said. The principle is the same as red letter days – important days in the calendar which were marked in red, hence red letter days. These had their origins in the Christian calendar, but some bright spark promoted a red-letter Bible where all the important words – Jesus words – were marked in red. The danger of a red letter Bible is then that we don’t take the rest of the Bible as seriously – but the understanding is that all scripture is God-breathed.

KJV RED LETTER BIBLE OF LORD’S PRAYER Here’s a few verses from a red letter online edition (most red-letter were Authorised King James versions). It indicates another weakness, this time of translation. As you can see, Matthew 6;13 in the KJV includes what is known as the Lord’s Prayer Doxology – the prayer’s ending which is portrayed in red.

DOXOLOGY These words for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen are familiar to us the prayer’s climax and close it on a high note. DOXOLOGY: A GLORY SAYING You’ve heard the word doxology before and the word itself is basically a virtually untranslated Greek word which in rough English means “glory saying”. It’s a form of words, usually part of a formal liturgy which is used in worship, usually giving God high praise. They are used considerably in the Bible and in both Jewish and Christian worship.

NOT IN THE EARLY MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT The problem is that these words do not appear in most modern translations of the New Testament. You’ve just seen how the KJV puts the verses and you are also familiar with this slide:

BOTH VERSIONS OF THE LORD’S PRAYER Which is how the Lord’s Prayer is expressed by modern translations in both Matthew and Luke and the doxology appears in neither. Why? Because it’s absent in all the earliest manuscripts of the NT, which has led translators to the inevitable conclusion which is much to the disappointment I’m sure of red letter Bible publishers that the doxology is not the original words of Jesus. As a devout Jew and would have used doxologies as part of worship, but these words were not attributed to Him by Matthew or Luke.

FIRST RECORDED IN THE FORM WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH IN THE DIDACHE As I mentioned in the first sermon that we had in the series, the doxology came into use in the latter part of the first century as Christians began to use the Lord’s Prayer in worship and a formal liturgy was arising and the first written version of it of any authority that we have is in a book of Christian teaching called the Didache which was probably written some time around when Revelation was written, so it’s really early.

The Lord’s Prayer as it stands in Matthew and Luke does not have an ending – because it was a model prayer and the two different forms suggest that Jesus wanted us to use it to understand what we should pray about and why. But it was a taught prayer and the early Christians wanted to pray it by rote so it needed and ending that would tie it up and bring it to a close, hence the doxology.

One of the things that later manuscripts of the NT show is that the doxology was added to Matthew’s Gospel and in many later manuscripts of Luke, the Matthew prayer was substituted for the one there; it was an attempt to “harmonise” scripture which actually concealed why the versions were different: because Jesus wanted our prayer to be something that was about our relationship with our heavenly Father, so understanding the words and using them was part of our personal prayers was what was actually what was intended, not using a set form as rote that then becomes a talisman, or a form of public worship which was definitely not intended if we remember the early part of Matthew 6 preceding the Lord’s Prayer.

SHOULD WE USE IT IF JESUS DIDN’T TEACH IT? So if these aren’t in the originals of Matthew and Luke, should we use this form of words at all? I might add that they are in the KJV because the Greek Text it was translated from was based on a much more limited range of texts that are now available and we’re now much closer to knowing what was written in the original than they did 400 years ago.

Actually, even back in the seventeenth century they were aware that there was a problem and I’ve seen the Matthew version of the Lord’s Prayer in the art of some Anglican churches minus the doxology. So is the doxology a set of valid words to use when we recite the Lord’s Prayer? If you get over the issue of whether it should be recited at all, then there is the issue of how it ends, as Jesus leaves it in space as it were in both gospels. In biblical times, prayer and significant statements were often ended or emphasised using a glory saying - a doxology – something worshipful after something significant.

DOXOLOGES ARE COMMON IN BOTH TESTAMENTS If we consider the passage we read this morning then straight away we see some familiar words, uttered by David as he praises God for all that He had done thus far.

VERSES 1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendour, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

That was early in David’s prayer. The same sentiments are found in Jude’s letter, this time at the end.

Jude 1:25 to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forever more! Amen.

You’ll notice that the same sentiments are expressed in relation to God – kingdom, power, glory. Right back into the , these attributes were always associated with the absolute power of the monarch. Here’s an interesting contrast from Daniel where King Nebuchadnezzar says this of himself:

Dan 4:30 Nebuchadnezzar said, "Is not this the great I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?"

That was the nature of monarchy in Bible times and is still the nature of absolute monarchy, or absolute leadership today. The king had authority and power and he was to be revered and honoured. Monarchs in those days underlined their authority through prestige projects, like Nebuchadnezzar did. Modern absolute leaders do exactly the same; consider the Kim family in North Korea – spending vast quantities of money on prestige projects whilst their people starve in poverty.

In both testaments the same reverence and praise is given to God, but with creation given as His statement of glory. It’s typical to find glory sayings in the Psalms:

Psalm 115: 15 May you be blessed by the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. 16 The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to man. 17 It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to silence; 18 it is we who extol the LORD, both now and forever more.

Rev 5:12 In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!" The main difference between God and a human despot is also clear in the Bible; we have a God who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love (Psalm 148:5). He seeks to bless His people and not harm them. But He also judges those who rebel against Him.

CHRISTIANS HAVE USED DOXOLOGIES DOWN THE AGES IN WORSHIP Needless to say, apart from the New Testament, doxologies are also common throughout Christian worship down the ages. Some are strongly Biblical, such as this one:

DOXOLOGIES Gloria in excelsis deo “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests. ” (Luke 2:14)

When they were not directly scriptural, they strongly resonate with what we find in scripture. Here’s one that has been in common use down the centuries.

Gloria Patri Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

There is even The Doxology which is completely of Protestant, post-Reformation origin. SLIDE 2 The Doxology

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. (Thomas Ken 1674)

DOXOLOGIES HELP US TO FOCUS ON THE POWER AND GREATNESS OF GOD Of course, because doxologies are a liturgy; a form a words we say or sing to glorify God, they are a significant part of Christian worship and focuses our minds on the power and greatness of God, and as I have suggested to you are based on a formula of God’s kingdom, power and glory which comes right through the Bible.

THE LORD’S PRAYER DOXOLOGY REINFORCES THE PURPOSE OF THE PRAYER So let’s come back to the Lord’s Prayer doxology. You will now gather that it’s probably one of the earliest Christian doxologies and is firmly anchored in scripture even if it wasn’t uttered by Jesus. It was put there to tie up the recitation of the Lord’s prayer, and rather than detracting from it has been designed to reinforce the purpose of the prayer as it brings it to the climax. This is quite helpful to us as we close our series on it as it neatly draws the themes of the prayer together.

Jesus taught us His prayer because if we want prayer that builds our relationship with our heavenly Father, then it should be characterised by the themes of kingdom, power and glory as we pray with Him. Anything else is likely to not be prayer that is meaningful, rather like the hypocrites or pagans of Matthew 6. So let’s look at these ingredients and sum them up. FOR YOURS – the prayer starts with the Father, and it ends with Him too. I started the series by saying that Jesus teaches us that prayer is not focussed on us but the Father. He is the one with the majesty, the authority. He is the one who is holy. He’s our Father. True prayer for us as God’s people, starts with Him, ends with Him and serves His will and purposes in the middle. As we recognise who He truly is, we pray that our ways are conformed to His. Think on your prayers as you pray them; are they focussed on you and what you want – or on God and what He wants to do in your life?

KINGDOM – For Yours is the kingdom. All prayer focussed on God concerns what He wants: what His purposes are in this world and in our lives. And what does God want; to extend His kingdom, His rule in people’s lives. And in our lives too. Is our determination to do His will and His way? Is our passion for others to know Him? And to know Him more ourselves? We know that we often fall short of this one ourselves. We know what the world and our society say our priorities should be: but what does God want?

POWER – Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts/sins. God is immensely powerful. He is able to change lives. He is a God we can pray to and who can change us and situations we pray about. But we also pray Your will be done. He is the God who gives us everything we need, but not what we want. How often are our prayers focussed on our wants, our emotions, our prejudices? If we start to reflect we will soon have an answer to that and a reason why prayers are often not answered.

The great thing about the power of God is that in Christ He has the power to forgive, but we were reminded of how we need to be forgivers. How often have we asked God for forgiveness when we were not prepared to forgive?

GLORY – And lead us into temptation (keep us clear of temptation) but deliver us from evil. What glorifies God most? That we live lives honouring Him, that we are a holy people, that we do not sin. How much do we desire to keep our lives holy? How often it is that we equivocate on sin. We say “but I’m only human” so we don’t stop doing things that dishonour Him. TITLE And if the kingdom the power and the glory are going to be His, now and forever more, then we need to reflect on the words of Jesus, and come before Him open and honestly. We need to be honest because He knows the truth anyway, and to be holy, it’s got to be us that admits to that truth and own it – and ask for the Holy Spirit to shape us and change us, so that we may draw closer to our Father in heaven. And we’re going to do that now.

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CONFESSION

LORD’S PRAYER

Preached by Mark Reid MRBC Felixstowe 30th July 2017 © Mark Reid 2017