Amen

1. 0:00*Music* Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 52: "What does the sixth petition mean?
2. 0:14And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," means: "We are so weak that we can't be in evil."
3. 0:20cannot stand on our own for a moment, and our sworn enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh, never stop attacking us. And so, Lord, uphold us and make us strong by
4. 0:33the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we may not be defeated in this spiritual fight, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory.
5. 0:45How do you conclude this prayer?
6. 0:47For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
7. 0:51This means we have made all these petitions of you because as our all-powerful King, you are both willing and able to give us all that is good, and because your holy name and not we ourselves
8. 1:05should receive all the praise forever.
9. 1:09What does that little word, "amen" express?
10. 1:12Amen means, "This shall truly and surely be, for it is much more certain that God has heard my prayer then I feel in my heart that I desire such things from him."
11. 1:25The catechism begins with comfort and it ends with confidence.
12. 1:29And our confidence is this, that our sovereign king will give us the complete victory.
13. 1:36And as long as we are fighting the spiritual battle, we can be assured that he'll hear us when we pray.
14. 1:44In the sixth petition, we're praying that our good father would grant us spiritual victory through the Holy Spirit's blessing.
15. 1:52And it starts with an important reminder that's a dose of realism for us.
16. 1:57It reminds us that we all are engaged engaged in a war. Though we might not have bullets flying past our head or bombs exploding
17. 2:05nearby, we are all fighting a fierce war. And our catechism is surprising because it reminds us that we are weak. We are so weak, in fact, that we cannot stand on our own for a moment.
18. 2:19moment. And the reason is we have these three great and terrible enemies. Of course, first of all, there's the devil, that roaring lion, and the one who appears as the angel of light.
19. 2:33Jesus referred to him as the liar and murderer from the beginning. But not only is there that fierce adversary of God, we have the world, the second great enemy. The world is
20. 2:46all that is in opposition to Christ, temptations and false ideologies that oppose Christ.
21. 2:54But not only do we have these external enemies, we have an internal traitor.
22. 2:59called our own sinful flesh. And it's for this reason that our catechism says we cannot stand on our own for a moment. And so we need to begin by drinking in
23. 3:13that dose of realism. We are weak and our enemies will never stop attacking So what should we do in a situation like this?
24. 3:22It's a surprising place to find confidence, actually.
25. 3:25I said we end the catechism with confidence, but our situation is one in which we're in the battlefield, and the bullets are flying, and we're in the smog of war, and we can't see which way to go, and we're confused.
26. 3:37And our catechism is not a place to go.
27. 3:39Anarchism directs us to the one solution, that is, soldier, pick up your radio and call the Lord of hosts.
28. 3:48That's what prayer is.
29. 3:50We are calling the commander of the Lord's army.
30. 3:53And in doing so, we're acknowledging our weakness, we're acknowledging our enemy's strength, but we're also acknowledging that the battle is the Lord's.
31. 4:03The sixth petition says, "We pray, Lord, uphold us and make us strong by the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we may not be defeated in the spiritual fight, but may firmly resist our enemies
32. 4:16until we finally win the complete battle complete victory.
33. 4:21And so again, notice that note of confidence.
34. 4:24As we conclude our prayer, the final petition awakes us to the war that we're in, but it directs our eyes to our strong, almighty captain of salvation.
35. 4:35From there, we climax with the doxology.
36. 4:39"For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever."
37. 4:45Once again, our eyes are back on our almighty King, who is willing and able to give us all that we need for our true ultimate good.
38. 4:55But we're also praying this because he deserves the glory.
39. 4:59this is our purpose in life, to live for the glory of God.
40. 5:03And so this is how we end our prayers, with our eyes once again fixed on the glory of our great triune God.
41. 5:10But then we end with that little word, "Amen."
42. 5:13Often we think that's just how we signal we're done praying.
43. 5:17But this word is packed full of significance.
44. 5:19and confidence again.
45. 5:22Amen means this shall truly and surely be.
46. 5:26It means that as we speak to our good Father in heaven, we can be assured that he is more eager to hear us and to answer us for our good than we are eager to pray to him.
47. 5:39And so, dear Christian, have confidence.
48. 5:44Confidence as you walk through this world that's filled with the spiritual warfare, and have confidence that the victory will be yours and that your King hears you when you pray.
49. 5:59Thank you.

Made automatically from the audio, so a word here or there may be wrong. Tap any line to play from there.