What Do Disciples Do - 4 - Pray

Scripture: Luke 11:1-13

Luke 11:1–13 NIV

1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: “ ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ ” 5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. 9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

7/27/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Standard

Opening Prayer:

Father in heaven,

in your goodness

you pour out on your people all that they need,

and satisfy those who persist in prayer.

Make us bold in asking,

thankful in receiving,

tireless in seeking,

and joyful in finding,

that we may always proclaim your coming kingdom

and do your will on earth as in heaven. Amen.

Pray

Teach Us to Pray

Disciples of Jesus pray, trusting in God's wisdom, power, and love.

Over the past three weeks, we’ve learned the basics of what disciples of Jesus do. Disciples go. They move with Jesus and go where and when He sends them. Disciples see. They watch Jesus, learning not just where to go, but how to see the world through his eyes of mercy. Disciples listen. They stay attuned to his voice, and prioritize time learning from Him.

Today, we come to one final practice: Disciples pray.

In Luke 11, Jesus’ disciples approach him with a longing every disciple still carries: “Lord, teach us to pray.” Prayer can simply be a conversation with the Father. But it is also deep. It begins in words and grows into an act that shapes every other thing we do.

Jesus prayed in the wilderness for 40 days—waiting, listening, fasting, being still, and opening Himself up to what God desired in His life. Following his example, sometimes we pray to slow down, to focus on the work of the Spirit that is already moving within us. Other times, we pray to catch up with the work God is doing around us. Eventually, prayer becomes less about what we say and more about who we are becoming in God’s presence. It becomes like breathing.

Do you pray like that? Do you pray as naturally as you breathe? If not, today we join every disciple who has ever lived and ask him again:

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

And Jesus does teach us to pray: trusting in God's wisdom, power, and love.

Your Kingdom Come

You can learn a lot about someone by listening to how they pray. In the ancient world, one of the most important ways a rabbi shaped his disciples was by teaching them how to pray. Rabbis would craft prayers from everything they had learned from Scripture and their own teachers. These weren’t just repeated phrases. They were distilled expressions of wisdom, relationship, and reverence. They, in turn, gave these prayers to their students as a gift—a window into their souls.

Each disciple might change a word here or there, adapting the prayer to their own experience. But the essence of the prayers remained, passed from generation to generation, preserving the heart and spirit of the teacher's faith.

The disciples of Jesus had seen this before. They knew that John the Baptist taught his followers to pray. So they asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” What they received was more than a method. Jesus gave them an invitation to hold their His faith in their own hands. To speak it. To live it.

This prayer—what we call the Lord’s Prayer—isn’t the only way to pray. But it is the prayer Jesus gave us. And because of that, it holds a special place in our faith.

It shows us what Jesus believed about God:

That God is holy.

That God hears us.

That God is a Father we can trust.

And that God’s kingdom is worth praying for, with our words and with our lives.

Before asking for anything, Jesus begins with surrender. “Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.” The first line of any prayer sets the direction for the rest. And in this case, it sets the direction for our lives. This prayer begins by putting God in charge. That’s something we often say—but don’t always do.

Handing over authority is never easy. We do it at the hospital when we sign papers and entrust our lives to others. We do it when we ask a family member to make decisions on our behalf. But it’s uncomfortable and makes us feel vulnerable.

So what does it mean to give God that kind of authority—not just over us, but over everyone and everything? That’s how the prayer Jesus gives us begins—with a surrender that shapes the rest of the prayer and the rest of our lives.

What do Disciples ask for?

What do disciples ask for?

The rest of this prayer is very simple:

We ask for bread.

We ask for forgiveness.

We ask for protection.

These prayers shape who we’re becoming, and each line of this prayer chips away at our old selves and rebuilds us in Christ’s image.

Take daily bread, for example. That is an odd phrase if you really think about it. Most of us don’t pray for food each day. We open the fridge, scroll through a menu, or grab a snack without a second thought. We are used to choices, abundance, and leftovers. I have seen people who have known real poverty and hunger become just like us, responding with passion and joy when invited to a buffet. They can change in an instant. Some may work to carefully pack leftovers to make the moment last, while others think to share with the extravagance with friends and family.

But in the wilderness, Israel had none of that. Just manna. One day at a time. Anything extra spoiled. The lesson wasn’t just about food—it was about trust. When we pray for daily bread, we surrender our hungers to God. Not just our physical need, but our impulse to control, hoard, or fear that there won’t be enough. It's a hard prayer. Because it means letting go of our backup plans and asking God to be enough for Today. And then again tomorrow.

Forgive Us... As We Forgive Others

Right after praying for provision, we pray for forgiveness. We recognize we have more than physical needs. And we know sin affects the relationships we have with each other, just just our relationships with God. But Jesus doesn’t say, “God, help us forgive others.” Instead, he tells us to say: “Forgive us as we forgive.” That’s bold. We're not bargaining with God. We are aligning ourselves with his values. We're saying: “As your grace flows to me, let it flow through me.” We reject any sense of entitlement and embrace the grace we know we do not deserve, just as we share it with those who do not deserve grace from us. That’s how the kingdom works.

But what if we don’t forgive others? What if we don’t forgive ourselves? If we build walls instead of bridges between others and ourselves? Then, by our own example, we are asking God to do the same. That’s us refusing to live by the same grace we expect and it makes us the place where God’s grace stops flowing any further. It tells God His Kingdom will go no further than us.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

This final line shifts from provision and forgiveness to protection. Jesus has already dealt with our sin on the cross. But temptation is still with us every day.

Temptation pulls us away from this whole prayer. It tempts us to hoard bread, to nurse grudges, and to build kingdoms of our own. It isolates us from God and others—until we’re spiritually starving in our self-made prisons. It leads us to "unpray" this prayer, one line at a time, until we are not inviting God's Kingdom into our lives — we are making ourselves enemies of Him and His Kingdom.

So Jesus invites us to pray: “Don’t let us go there. Keep our feet away from those traps.” It’s not a prayer of fear. It is the prayer of a disciple who knows their weakness and also knows Jesus is greater than it. It is a prayer of a disciple who wants to stay close to the Father, who trusts him not just to forgive, but to lead.

And so we pray:

“Give us what we need today.

Help us forgive like you do.

And don’t let us fall into temptation.”

Because disciples of Jesus pray—trusting in the wisdom, power, and love of God.

God Gives the Holy Spirit

We pray this prayer every week as the church, the family of Jesus. But it’s more than a ritual. It’s more than words to say just to make God happy or get what we want. The Lord’s Prayer comes from Jesus: the Son of God, the Word made flesh. This prayer has been prayed for over two thousand years. It is Scripture, and its power lies not in the exact wording, but in the surrender it invites us into. The phrasing may shift from language to language, version to version—but the meaning has never changed. Whenever we pray this prayer—whether in the King James Version, the New Living Translation, or our own words—we are stepping into a stream of faith that flows through Jesus and reshapes us from the inside out.

This prayer draws us into the presence of God. It realigns our desires with His kingdom. It opens us up to His grace, working in us and through us, even when we lack the courage or faith to pray for the things God really wants us to pray about.

After giving us the prayer, Jesus offers a final teaching. He says: if broken people like us are willing to help a friend or care for a child, how much more will God, who is our very definition of love, provide for us? You’d expect him to say, “So your Father will give you daily bread, forgiveness, and protection.” But he doesn’t.

Jesus ends by saying, “How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

The Holy Spirit.

The disciples didn’t fully understand what that meant yet. The Spirit had only come in moments—descending on prophets or giving visions. But Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit, as if receiving it were as simple as receiving daily bread or going and getting a glass of water. No, even more than that. He invites us to receive the Spirit of God as often as we breathe.

The Lord’s Prayer reminds us:

God will provide.

God will forgive.

God will protect.

And even more than that... God will be with us.

He will give us His Spirit to live in us, guide us, and mark our lives with His love.

So we pray.

We surrender.

We receive.

What begins as words we learn and say changes our postures and attitudes until it becomes a prayer we pray with our very lives, the kind of prayer we pray constantly, as Paul taught. We let the Spirit of God shape us through this prayer—until it becomes not just something we say, but something we live.

How close are you willing to get to God when you pray?

Where do you struggle to trust God’s provision in your life?

Who are the people or places that need to be washed in forgiveness and grace?

What distractions, fears, or habits are keeping you from receiving the Spirit of God as freely as breathing?

Closing Prayer

Lord, You are Holy and You are Good. You give us the honor and blessing of calling You our Father. We pray today that Your Kingdom would come into our lives, among all Your people, and across the entire world. We ask only for what we need for today, trusting that You hold our futures and know them better than us. We pray for forgiveness and ask that You teach us to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Indeed, teach us to forgive others in anticipation of the forgiveness we know we will need from You. And keep us from temptation. Save us from sin. Do not let us become a stumbling block that stops the flow of grace, love, blessing, and the power of Your Kingdom as You redeem our world until every knee bows and every tongue confesses You as Savior and Lord. Until that day comes, Lord, we will continue to surrender and pray, and invite You to start with us. In Jesus' name. Amen.