The Pattern of Prayer

Matthew 6:9-12 / Luke 11:2-4

The larger passage before us, the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), is probably the most famous sermon in the history of the world. And the smaller passage before us (Matt 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) is probably the most famous prayer in the history of the world. So, what does this passage teach us about prayer?

Let’s make a simple but insightful observation about the words which are used to frame up this teaching by Christ about prayer. This teaching begins with the prefatory comment, “when you pray” (Matt 6:5; Luke 11:2). When tells us that Christ was providing this teaching not to encourage more prayer but to encourage better prayer.

Since he was speaking to a primarily Jewish audience, he knew that the people prayed frequently. For the centuries which had followed the return to their land after Babylonian captivity, Jewish people followed a schedule of daily prayers – at evening, morning, and afternoon. These prayers followed the content and order set by rabbis, including the recitation of certain Old Testament passages as well as pre-scripted statements of doctrinal belief, request, and worship.

So, Christ here taught his followers a new way to pray, a way that differed from the traditional, pre-scripted prayers they were accustomed to praying. And though he gave them words to say, he also said to pray “in this manner” (or “in this way”), indicating that though we can in prayer repeat the words he provided verbatim, we can and should also not limit our prayers to these words alone but should view this teaching as a template or model after which we should pattern the content and focus of our prayers.

Before moving on, let me ask you to name some topics which you should never talk about with people whom you don’t know well. Then let me ask you to name some topics which you can discuss with people you don’t know well.

In conversations with people whom you don’t know well, topics such as finances, physical health, politics, and other people in your social circles are generally unwise. But topics like food, traffic, weather, and neutral details about your immediate shared situation and surroundings are generally appropriate and safe.

In talking with a man whom you don’t know well – as another man, it’s safe to talk about a specific shared interest or activity, while when talking with a woman – as another woman - it can be more acceptable and safer to discuss personal events and feelings.

With these generalizations in mind, what do you normally talk about with other people? Do you naturally gravitate towards conversing about whatever is important or interesting to you at the moment? Or do you seek to understand what interests the other person and what they may want to talk about instead?

For the purposes of our current preaching series, we’ve defined prayer as “speaking deliberately to God.” But when you speak to God in prayer, do you enter into that conversation to speak about whatever is most interesting and pressing to you at the moment, like that person in a conversation who is obsessed with talking about himself? Or do you enter into prayer asking what God wants to talk about. What he wants to hear you talk about with him when you pray?

If you like to take notes in your Bible, then you can draw an arrow to this teaching of Christ on prayer and write something like this: “What God wants to talk about.” How easily and naturally we hijack our conversations with God, giving little attention to what he actually wants to hear us say when we pray.

From this prayer, we can see eight elements or qualities which God desires to have when we speak to him in prayer.

Talk about your close relationship with him.

Our Father in heaven.

By addressing or viewing God as Father, with both serious respect and relational closeness. As a father, he desires to hear from us, spend time with us, and care for us. By using the word “our,” Christ points out that we enjoy the same familial closeness and care from the Father as he enjoys as the Son of God. What a special relationship this is! This closeness to God is only possible because of Christ’s death for our sins on the cross.

As our Father, though, God also deserves our serious respect. We should avoid speaking to him flippantly, irreverently, or in a slang or casual manner. “In heaven” brings this out, emphasizing not his personal distance or location, but his high position of authority over all things. He is not some limited God with authority over a limited region or location. He is the supreme God who is exalted and reigns over everything.

Despite his exalted and transcendent status, though, God is intensely interested in hearing from us and in having a close relationship with us.

Talk about his majestic name.

Hallowed be your name.

This statement means something like, “Let your name be regarded as holy.” It exhibits both a mindset for the one who is praying as well as a desire for the world at large.

For the one who is praying, this exhibits an awareness of and focus on the holiness of God. Just as the prophet Isaiah prostrated himself before God and declared himself to be unclean as angels declared that God is “holy, holy, holy” (Isa 6:3-5), so we should acknowledge the majesty, perfection, righteousness, justice, purity, goodness, holiness, and judgment of God.

Name refers not only to a particular name or title of God but to God’s complete reputation – his identity, who he truly is in essence and nature, his honor. When I say a name, a face may come to mind. But even more than a face, a set of personal attributes, qualities, and perhaps key behaviors, actions, and accomplishments will come to mind. What qualities and accomplishments come to mind when I say: (a) Abraham Lincoln, (b) Adolf Hitler, (c) Michael Jordan, (d) Oprah Winfrey, (e) Josephine Sechrist?

You probably have an impression of the first four people, positive or negative, and these impressions are largely based upon what other people have told you. But who is the fifth person? She is my grandma who passed away when I was a freshman in college. She was a fun, energetic person who loved to hide snacks and treats around the house for her grandkids. She loved her family deeply, suffered a lot of pain physically, and love Jesus most of all.

To so many people, God is no more familiar to them than my grandma is to you. People either have a wrong view of God or an ignorant view of God. When we talk to God, talk to him about your desires and intentions to make his name known more accurately and widely in the world.

Talk about your anticipation of his kingdom.

Your kingdom come.

When we pray this way, we let God know how strongly we desire him to come again. We let him know that we are neither obsessed nor preoccupied with the world as it is and our present earthly life, goals, and pursuits. We are letting God know and reminding ourselves that we must “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt 6:33). We let him know that the coming of his future kingdom truly is our dearest hope and our strongest expectation.

“If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!” (1 Cor 16:22)

“Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Rev 22:20)

When reading this part of Christ’s teaching on prayer, perhaps you’ve wondered why we should pray this way when Christ’s future coming is inevitable and certain – Christ is coming back to judge mankind, punish all wickedness, reward the faithful, and establish his everlasting kingdom on earth. The answer to this question, at least in part, is that we are to pray this way not so much to bring Christ’s kingdom into fruition but instead so that we might learn to talk with God deliberately about what he truly wants to talk about.

Not everything we pray about needs to be a request. In fact, much of our prayers should be nothing more than us talking to God about our own mutual, shared interests, letting him know that we desire the same thing that he desires – his coming kingdom. And talking to God about this shared interest frequently in prayer repeatedly reminds us to look forward to this future day no matter what is going on in the world today.

Talk about doing his will.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

To tell God how greatly you look forward to his coming kingdom, though, can seem escapist if we’re not cautious, a way of avoiding our present responsibility to live in a godly way right now, today. If all we do is look ahead to the future, what use are we in the present? We can be so heavenly minded (and we can certainly stand to be much more of this) that we are no earthly good. As we wait for God’s future heavenly kingdom to come, what should we be doing right now on this earth?

By “your will” here, we should focus specifically on God’s revealed will in Scripture. This here is praying according to those specific things which God’s Word clearly teaches and says for us today. How frequently we pray asking God to reveal to us interesting things like what occupation to choose, who to marry, where to live, what car to buy, and so on.

While such things are not unimportant, we should be far more frequently and intensely focused instead on seeking God’s help and guidance in actually being and doing what the Bible clearly teaches us to do and be: as followers of Christ, as church members, as husbands, wives, parents, and children, and as increasingly marginalized, misunderstood, and uncomfortable members of society.

This is not only a prayer for “everyone else” to do God’s will, but for us to do God’s will and to become agents and instruments for the influence of God’s will to spread through our lifestyles and actions. How can we honestly talk to God about his will and purposes being done “out there” and “in other people’s lives,” when we aren’t willing to submit to and do ourselves what his Word clearly teaches?

At this point it is good to pause and consider how many of our prayers are motivated by and marked by God's desires and passions and how many are geared, instead, towards promoting our own name and reputation rather than his, our own kingdom and interests rather than his, and the accomplishment and pursuit of our own will rather than his?

Talk about your daily needs.

Give us day by day our daily bread.

Here Christ teaches us to talk with God about our daily needs. The phrase “day by day” refers to recurring needs and “daily” refers to things which are necessary for life. Bread, then, refers not only to bread but to all food, whatever is necessary for daily life and health.

Talking to God this way exhibits a heart of dependence upon him, one that does not take for granted even the daily, basic necessities of life. This also exhibits a mindset of satisfaction that does not demand or insist on luxuries, anything more than is needed.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. (Jam 4:3)

So much of our dissatisfaction in prayer, in life, and with God himself comes as a result of misguided, misplaced expectations. We ask “amiss,” as James says, which means to ask “badly” or “wrongly.” How do we ask wrongly? When we ask for things that indulge our desire for selfish pleasure, enjoyment, and delight. In your prayers of dependence on God, do you talk to him about things which are truly needs for life, or do you demand from him things which are luxuries and extravagant desires camouflaged as needs?

Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food allotted to me. (Prov 30:8)

How often falsehoods and lies deceive us – through peer pressure, advertisements, and the illusion of the American Dream – into thinking that riches equals is our need, or that we need to be rich. May we learn through prayer to adjust our expectations and reduce our demands of God, finding our satisfaction in him alone and being better able to properly evaluate the true nature of our needs so that we can focus instead on doing his will and seeking his kingdom.

Talk about confessing your sins.

And forgive us our sins…

Since Christ has already taught the person praying to address or view God as Father, we know that this person is already a believer, a follower of Christ. Such a person’s record of sin before God has been covered over by the blood of Christ and such forgiveness is not only complete but permanent, never needed to be repeated again.

Therefore, Christ is not referring here to the prayer for salvation and once-for-all forgiveness of sins. He is referring instead to the prayer for cleansing, for maintaining a close, healthy relationship with God, one which is not burdened down or clouded over by ongoing, unresolved sins towards him and other people.

The scene is not a courtroom where the final judgment is being pronounced (as in Rom 8:31–34) but a family setting in which a son or daughter confesses his or her sins (Luke 11:2), not to become or to remain part of the family but in order that nothing should spoil the relationship. (Robert H. Stein)

This regular confession of sin is something God desires us to speak with him about regularly, for it is our regular need. If we never have anything to confess, then we are deceive ourselves.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-9)

To “confess” our sin to God means to “same the same thing about our sin that God says.” We don’t call sin a mistake or “messing up.” We agree with God and call it whatever he calls it – lying, adultery, stealing, coveting, etc. When we confess our sin this way, he readily and completely forgives it, ensuring that we should feel no guilt or hypocrisy in approaching him in prayer.

Talk about forgiving the sins of others.

For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

Here we find a condition, marked by the word for, which qualifies what was previously said about confessing our sins to God. This condition is very important to God. We know this because in Matthew’s record of this prayer (a parallel passage to Luke 11), we see that Christ singled out this particular part of his teaching on prayer in a way that he didn’t single out any other. Before teaching other things, he went back to this point and said this to emphasize just how important this is to him:

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

From this we see just how important this matter is to God. He is not interested or willing to talk with you about your own requests for forgiveness when you have outstanding, unresolved opportunities to forgive anyone else.

Forgive means to “let go” or “release,” and this refers to not holding onto people’s sins or offenses against us as a banker holds onto a person’s pasts debts. When you take out a loan or owe money to a bank or lender of some kind, then you must report that loan in future transactions and whatever you own will be held against you in future business transactions. To forgive that loan is to release that person from the loan’s obligations (future payments, interest, fees and fines, etc.).

We are to treat one another the same way, and by “one another,” I mean “everyone,” for Christ himself deliberately said “everyone” (Luke 11:4). We should either (1) forgive a person when they admit their sin and request forgiveness or (2) be ready to forgive people who offend or sin against us, waiting for them to ask (since we cannot properly forgive someone who does not ask or want to be forgiven).

You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You. (Psa 86:5)

To be this way towards people who’ve sinned against or offended us is to reflect the nature of God, to do his will on earth as in heaven, and to expand the awareness of his name!

The hand that reaches out to God for forgiveness cannot withhold forgiveness to others. (Robert H. Stein)

When we come to God in prayer, this is something he wants to talk about, yet this is something we often prefer to avoid. Is there anyone you know who has asked for your forgiveness and is waiting to hear those words, “I forgive you?” Is there anyone who has hurt you whom you are holding onto hurt about, unready to forgive them – unwanting to forgive them if they seek your forgiveness?

When you speak to God in prayer, talk about these situations. Talk to God about the people you’ve most recently forgiven. Pray for those whom you wish to forgive if they will only ask. And talk to him also about those whom you know you must forgive but are reluctant to do so. Ask him for his grace to do his will.

If you are unwilling to forgive anyone, then you are unable to talk honestly and genuinely with God in prayer in any other way that Christ teaches here. You are praying instead as a hypocrite, someone who wants one thing from God which you are unwilling to provide to others.

Talk about avoiding future sins.

And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.

As we reach this final element of prayer, we find something else about which God wants us to talk with him. First, we know that Christ is not referring to God somehow tempting us with sin, since we know that God never does this:

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. (Jam 1:13)

Also, we know that God permits us to be tested in order to show the genuineness of our faith, to strengthen our faith, to magnify himself through us, and to draw other people who see us to him. About this kind of testing, Paul says these things:

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. (1 Cor 10:12-13)

In hearing this, we may wonder why we should even pray about temptation at all, since God will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to handle, right? But the answer and reason for prayer here is very clear. It is not so that we will not face temptation, or that God will remain true to his commitment to us not to test us beyond our capabilities.

The reason for prayer here is so that we are completely and confidently trusting in God when we are tempted. We know that God cannot tempt us with evil. We know that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our capabilities in Christ. We should talk to God about these things that we already know, and we should also talk deliberately to him about helping us (a) not to fail when difficult temptations come our way and (b) not to remain under the guilt and power of sin whenever we do fail.

By the way that Christ doubles down, then, on forgiving other people who sin against us (Matt 6:14-15), he indicates that among all the other temptations and sins which may undermine our effectiveness and satisfaction in prayer, this may be the one about which he was most concerned. This may be a distinctly powerful hold that Satan may seek to enforce upon us – that we would remain in the clutches of unforgiveness, thus preventing us from enjoying a vibrant, deliberate, fruitful conversation with God in prayer.

In conclusion, this prayer provides a pattern not only for our words in prayer but for our attitudes in prayer. It tells us not only the kind of things God wants to talk about in prayer, but the kind of attitudes that he desires for his children to exhibit when they are speaking with him. This prayer teaches us how to set aside our personal wants and whims to focus instead on those things which truly matter to God.

“When our petitions align squarely with God's passions, we know he hears and answers.” (Sam Horn)