When George R.R. Martin wrote his series of books that eventually would be adapted into the Game of Thrones series on HBO, one of the things that he did that was brilliant in the world building phase is he took a map of Great Britain and he flipped it upside down, and then he threw a bunch of towns and provinces and regions and stuff all over that map and started building that way. And hidden in the map is one of the thematic ciphers to understanding the whole world. Because what Martin really did is he took all the juiciest, most grotesque, shocking, outlandish stuff from Western history, not just English history, but from Western history. And he found ways to weave it into his own narrative. And so as a result, I think part of the popularity of that program, in addition to interesting characters and shocking images, is that you really do get a mirror held up to our own history, religiously, philosophically, and politically. And one of the things that I thought he did a great job of emulating is the idea of feudalism and the relationship between peasants and lower-ranking lords and their regional lords or even kings. And so in the whole Game of Thrones universe, one of the things that big-time high-ranking lords might do from time to time would be to call in their bannermen. These are people who had sworn loyalty to that leading house and who would need to show up and provide men and provide support to support the vision for the kingdom or the region held forth by the king or the highest ranking nobleman. And the idea of being a bannerman is that you take an oath to this other house, and it's not really up to you whether you agree with what they're doing or not, or whether it fits your vision or not, if that house to whom you have sworn an oath calls in their banners, you show up and you are on the side of their agenda. Are you waiting for it? Are you expecting it now? Are you waiting for it? Ready? Three, two, one. Likewise, when we're in Matthew chapter six and we're looking at what Jesus has to say about prayer, the language and the relationship being described sure looks like an oath of fealty, a feudal oath. In other words, the person who prays the Lord's prayer is effectively becoming a bannerman in the kingdom of God that Jesus is talking about. And that sounds a little overly dramatic. You may have a point in pushing back on me this way, but I don't know, maybe I have a point, because I do think it smacks of this level of loyalty and devotion. The bottom line is we're looking at the Lord's Prayer in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. It is kind of the middle point, not quite mathematically the middle point, but I view it as the high point of the whole thing and kind of as the cipher for the whole thing. The second time I've used the word cipher in one 10-minute segment. That's incredible. I don't do that very often. But I think it's important because it answers the key question that everybody's going to be asking. Whether you're talking about Jesus' beautiful value statement and the Beatitudes, his somewhat cryptic statements about who can be in the kingdom and how does that even work, his statements about you've heard it said, but I tell you that, his statements about what it looks like to engage in religious practice and religious drills, his statements that call people toward dependence on God and a humility around their peers. No matter what you're looking at, the central question is how do I sign up? What do I do? What does it actually look like for me to be a part of the kingdom of God and to be a part of this thing? And that is why I think this is situated so decidedly in the middle of all of the action in Jesus' speech here. So let's just break it down. He says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. So it starts off not by saying, My king, my lord, my prince, but rather my father. So the language here is more intimate and more loyal than it might be to even the most admired lord or king or regional monarch or whatever. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. So what you're saying right up front, if you take this oath of fealty, is that my agenda is now the glory of God. My agenda would be to exalt the name of God. All of that is very Christian-y sounding language, but I just can't think of another way to say it. And so our statement on the servant side of this oath of loyalty, right from the beginning, acknowledges the authority of the king, the role of the king, the position of the king, and my only wish is to serve. Like you hear people say that in movies and stuff, and usually it means my only wish is to poison you because I'm evil. But here I really know it is the truest servant vow sense of saying, my only wish is to serve and be on board with your authority. I want the stuff you want. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. I want your kingdom. Do you see how that's an implicit rejection of I want my kingdom? Do you see how that's an implicit rejection of I want my stuff? So the opening lines here are shockingly reorienting from what we're used to with the world system, where it really is about get what we can before we die. And as if that wasn't enough, it goes on to the next line: your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We know that you are king in this exalted way in this other place that we might not get or understand or see with our eyes or experience with our five senses right now. But we know that you're master of that as the being that called existence out of non-existence. And even though there looks like there's a pretty deeply entrenched world kingdom here, we want you to be in charge of this too. In other words, we are on board with your subversive long-term plan for redemption that echoes through the past and what we call the Old Testament and moves forward just begging for a completion, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. We're on board with the dot dot. So at this point in the prayer or the oath of fealty, the human side has been covered, just saying here's everything. I am completely on board with your authority and your kingship and your kingdom and your agenda. I'm an agent, I'm an heir, I'm a child, I'm in, let's do this thing. But then it flips around. Remember how last time around I was saying that these oaths of fealty had two sides to them? Here's what I do for you, my Lord. Here's what the Lord provides for the vassal. And here we go. Uh, give us today our daily bread. Huh. Remember before when it was like, uh, do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. And it made us wrestle with the whole question of how prayer works and what's the relationship between God and people and time and space and foreknowledge, and that's very, very confusing. Well, that kind of simplifies things. Your father knows what you need before you ask him, so he will provide, and the provision will be appropriate because we've already acknowledged you're king of everything, you're in charge of everything. I want your will to be done, which means that what you think is provision for me is provision for me. Verse 32 of chapter six, which we're going to look at in just a little bit, is dealing with the same stuff. What am I going to eat? What am I going to drink? What am I going to do? And then the correction here from Jesus says, pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. And that's Jesus rounding out this thought in really the third movement of this thought, of his provision as providing king, and the servant who takes this oath of loyalty, getting to a place where they sow trust in the character and provision and vision of this king, even though we might not see or get all of that, that we put upon him our trust, saying, Okay, you're in charge of the kingdom, which means I'm not, which means provision is, I guess it's your thing. And if you provide and how you provide is something that I submit to. Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. Remember when William the Conqueror made everybody take that oath at Old Serum, and again, I'm not saying God is like William the Conqueror, this is a little different, but the overlap here I think does work. Part of what he was saying he would provide to all the lower-ranking lords of the realm is justice. I will adjudicate your disputes, I will resolve these things, I will bring about forgiveness, I will bring about justice, I will bring about correction. Generally speaking, even for those of us who lean a little bit libertarian, there needs to be somebody in society with whom the buck stops to sort out the arbitration of disputes and to make the justice thing happen. And you just hope that they actually care about things like justice. Well, here, the idea is this king is the author of justice, and he actually knows all the details and isn't going to be tricked or deceived into doing something that isn't just at all using the power that he has as king. He gets it all, he sees it all, he cuts all the way to the soul of every person so he knows. So, okay, well, we can trust this king then to be the arbiter of justice and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Remember when we were talking about that oath at Old Serum again yesterday, I think it was yesterday, we were talking about the idea that part of what the Lord provides is protection, is order, is structure, protection from enemies. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. It really neatly follows all the structure. But here's what's crazy: if you take this oath, this changes the way you live. It isn't the trifling little thing that a lot of us saw when we were younger regarding how to sign up for Christianity, where you're like, oh, I got told there was a lot of things that I get. I don't have to worry about being dead anymore. And if I pray and everything, then God has to give me things because I got told that's how the deal works. Like I give him participation and some donations, and then I get stuff when I need it. Uh, that doesn't really change the way you live very much. You were already pursuing stuff for yourself and building your own kingdom, and now God is your uh, you know, your wingman, your sidekick, and all of that. But this is an overhaul to the priorities and the order of life the same way the kingdom values are an overhaul of flipping over of the world kingdom values. What this means is not just that you are a passive recipient in what Jesus is saying of the values of the kingdom or of salvation or connection with God, you are an active participant in this redemption. You have a job, you have a purpose, you have a role in this thing, you're vested, you have ownership. If this is the initiation prayer for someone who wants to be a part of this kingdom, well, this isn't a passive initiation. This is I'm on board with what you're doing. Use me the way you need to use me. In other words, you become a bannerman, not some passive peasant out in a field hoping that the affairs of these more powerful and noble men and women shake out in a way that you like. You're not sitting around waiting on the world to change. You are actively participating in the unfolding of the redemptive plan of God. And you're taking your cues for how to do that and how to conduct yourself and how to function in this kingdom from the king to whom you've sworn allegiance. Why am I spelling all of this out? It could just sound like, oh, well, here it is. Finally, here comes the sales pitch. Like I knew you were trying to get us to sign up for a thing. Look, I'd love if everybody was a Christian, but you got to just figure it out and work this out on your own. I'm not gonna do the thing where I twist your arm into believing something or signing up to be just another version of me. You process it the way you need to process it. No, this is not the closing argument where I try to get you to sign up for the thing. What I'm trying to do is put on the front end of our conversation relatively the reality of what I think the invitation is. Because if we sign up for a version of Christianity that is less than this, then we're signing up for something fake that I don't believe is real, and I don't think that Jesus ever held out at all. And I think when we do that, it lights a fuse on a faith time bomb that's gonna go off when the false expectations of what we signed up for crash against the reality of what Jesus actually said. No, I think the coolest thing that Jesus does, I don't know, he did a lot of cool things, is he just closes that he's not afraid to put this thing in front of people and be like, you might not like this. In fact, he tells a parable where he's like three quarters of types of people are gonna ultimately reject this or move on from it. Not everyone is going to be down for this, but that doesn't turn Jesus into some kind of salesman who covers over the stuff that won't be very attractive and that won't sell. No, he discloses, he turns over his cards because you get the impression he thinks this is real and true and legitimate. And so, what is the invitation? Wow, it sure sounds to me like the kingdom citizen is one who says, God, you're in charge of everything, you're king of everything. I want everything that you want to be how things are. I want you to be master of everything and for that to be evident. And I'm gonna depend on you to provide for my stuff that I just need to get through the day, for justice and mercy and protection from stuff that I can't beat and that I can't handle on my own. That's what it sounds like. And when stuff's transparent and I can look at it and read it with my own eyes, then I can decide with eyes wide open what I'm gonna do with it or not do with it. Seems like a good place to wrap it up. I'm Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.