Prayer

Spiritual Rhythms

Means of Grace

God’s Blessings

Metaphor

Jesus valued intimacy with god more than success.

Jesus valued quiet and solitude.

Title Slide

Luke 11:1–4 ESV

1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

Luke 11:1–4 ESV

2 And 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 and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

The request

As per usual, Jesus was nowhere to be found. Three years into their walk with Jesus, they had learned not to worry when Jesus disappeared.

They understood that solitude and prayer were more important to him than productivity. However, seeing that the day was passing them by, the disciples went looking for him and found him praying in a quiet place.

Not wanting to disturb him, the disciples sat a short distance away and studied him. They studied his devotion, his focus, his passion. Their search had become a lesson.

When Jesus finished his time of prayer, he looked up and saw the disciples looking at him as if he had just finished giving a lesson. The disciples had seen and heard Jesus pray before, but there was something about this encounter that planted a curiosity in their hearts. One of the disciples came beside him, and said,

Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Understanding The Request

This is a strange request.

Not strange because it is a bad request, but strange because Jesus had already taught his disciples how to pray.

By this point, the disciples had already spent three years with Jesus.

For three years, he had modeled prayer for them in the morning, midday, and evening; at mealtimes, on the road, and at home.[1]

They had heard the Sermon on the Mount many times, meaning they had heard his instruction on prayer and the Lord’s Prayer many times. We can assume that if Jesus taught it publicly, then he also taught it to them privately.

We also need to consider the customs of the time, that students learned from BOTH their rabbi’s teaching (Spoken word) AND their actions (unspoken words). Jesus’ escape to the wilderness to pray was just as much a moment of teaching as were his classroom lectures.

In addition to their education with Jesus, there was also their Jewish education to consider. They were pious Jews who had been taught to pray from a young age and had prayed their whole lives. In other words, even before they met Jesus, they were not novices to prayer.

But in this moment, despite a lifetime of experience and three years of education, there was something about the quality and quantity of Jesus' prayer life that made them question if they really knew how to pray.

Prayer a Learning Process

We might lose interest once we hear that the pastor is going to speak on prayer because… well… What more is there to say?

Seasoned Christians have heard hundreds of sermons on prayer and are familiar with platitudes such as, “more prayer, more power. Less prayer, less power.” We lose interest because prayer is so elementary that even a simple child can do it. Prayer is speaking to God… it is that simple.

Yet, in the presence of Jesus, the disciples, who were far better experts on prayer than we are, realized something we must also come to realize: that prayer involves a learning process.[2]

Ellen White famously wrote, “Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.” [3] That is beautifully true. Jesus himself calls us his friends—but prayer does not stop there.  

Scripture also tells us that he is also Lord (1 Cor 8:6), judge (2 Cor 5:10), king (Rev 19:13, 16), and high priest (Heb 4:14-16).

The disciple's question to Jesus teaches us that prayer is never less than opening our hearts to God as to a friend, but it is always more.

We may begin our prayer journey talking to God as a friend, but as we continue to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), we learn how to speak and commune with God in deeper and more mysterious ways that reflect his character and majesty.

If the first challenge of the Christian life is to discipline our souls to love prayer, the second challenge is to continue learning how to pray.

In his commentary on Luke, regarding the prayer in verses 2-4, Grant Osborne states that “He [Jesus] is not just providing the model prayer; he is the model pray-er for his followers.” [4]

We can be certain that for the rest of their lives, every day as they themselves prayed, they had a picture in their mind of Jesus standing and bowing or prostrate as he spoke to his Father.

Christ is the model “pray-er” in not only his earthly ministry, but also in his heavenly ministry as high priest.

The book of Hebrews tells us that Christ is able to save to the “uttermost” because “always lives to make intercession” for his people (Hebrews 7:25).[5]

Hebrews 7:25 ESV

25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

In other words, even in his heavenly ministry, Jesus continues to pray!

If Christ is the model pray-er not only in his earthly ministry but also in his heavenly ministry, then it should not surprise us that prayer filled every stage of his life.

In his book The Prayers of Jesus, Mark Jones identifies twenty-six different prayers of Jesus in the Gospels, not even including the times Jesus taught about prayer. When you begin to look at those prayers, something becomes clear: Jesus prayed in every circumstance of life.

He prayed in solitude before major decisions.

He prayed in public before miracles.

He prayed in gratitude when God provided.

He prayed in sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And he prayed in suffering while hanging on the cross.

In other words, prayer was not an occasional activity for Jesus—it was the atmosphere of his life.

Christ exercised faith, love, reverence, and delight toward God, showing us that true and proper humanity is realized in communion with God.[6]

In other words, Jesus prayed deeply because this is what human life is meant to be.

They had prayed their whole lives.

They had walked with Jesus for three years.

They had heard him teach on prayer many times.

But when they watched him pray…

they realized something. [Pause]

They were still beginners.

And so one of them came to him and said,

“Lord… teach us to pray.”

BULLET: Prayer is something we never master; we must continually learn it by watching Jesus.

Despite how much experience you may have and how much you know, in our witness of Jesus, there must be a stirring in our hearts that says, “Lord, teach me to pray!”

My goal for today is not to teach you how to pray, but to challenge you to pray more passionately and consistently. But more specifically, to look at Jesus prayer life and become a student again in Christ's school of prayer.

But as a preacher, it would be amiss if I did not give a good place to start:

Three Components of Prayer

Prayer ideally is three things: Words, Presence, and awareness.

Praying with words is what we are all familiar with. It is what we do before every meal, before every Bible study, and before every sermon. Words are what we use to make our wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings known.

Words are important in prayer because they allow us to be specific about things and put words (or at least try) to feelings and thoughts that often remain undefined and ambiguous in our minds.

Presence is the ability to mentally be where you are. It is being ‘present’ in the moment, embracing where you are, with who you are with, and what you are doing. This is difficult because our minds are often meditating on the past, daydreaming about the future, or longing to be somewhere else.

Have you ever been with a person whose mind was somewhere else? They are physically with you but they are unavailable. Becoming present makes us available to God.

Awareness is the ability to perceive a situation differently based on the knowledge that God is close. Imagine you are playing a game, and no one you know is in the stands. A quarter through the game you look over to the stands and see them there.

Although their presence does not give you more stamina or make you a better player, your awareness of their presence improves your game. It is the same with God. God is always there, but becoming aware of God in our prayer helps us perceive the world around us differently for the better.

When Three Aren’t Possible

Ideally, prayer should always have these three components. But that is not always possible. Sometimes words are hard because we do not have them or do not want to speak.

Sometimes, presence is hard because our anxiety is stronger than our will, and we cannot ground ourselves in where we are.

Sometimes, awareness is hard because it feels like God is not there. These are real struggles that no one should feel guilty about; they are part of the human experience.

When it is not possible to have all three, try to at least have two.

If you don’t have words: Be present and aware.

If you cannot be present: Speak words and be aware.

If you cannot be aware: Speak words and be present.

Prayer is Hard

What if you can’t even do one, let alone two? My answer is: try. Prayer is not easy; prayer is hard. When I was younger, I used to think that the closer I got to God, the easier prayer would become. But I have discovered that the more I pray, the closer I become to God. But prayer remains just as difficult.

Prayer is the mountain we climb to see great heights. It is the labor in the field to feast on the harvest. It is the mining of the earth to take hold of its hidden treasure.

No one climbs a mountain expecting it to be easy. No one plants seeds expecting there to be no work to be done. No one searches for treasure without anticipating having to mine stone. In the same way, no one should expect to search for God through prayer to be easy.

But why doesn’t God make prayer easy? Because prayer is soul work. Prayer is not what God does; it is what we do.

This is how God molds our character, makes us wise, and opens our eyes to wonder and mystery. Surely no one matures through easy paths. An easy faith is an immature faith. In the end, what is rewarded is not success but persistence (Lk 18:1-8). Within a prayer habit lies character, wisdom, mystery, faith, hope, and love.

And this is not to make prayer more difficult. Or to make prayer a work of righteousness. Or to make us feel like God will shame us if our prayer life does not evolve past the elementary level. Rather, it is an invitationinto deeper communion with God.

BULLET: Prayer is something we never master; we must continually learn it by watching Jesus.

The disciples could have withheld the question. They already knew how to pray. Why make their lives more difficult? They asked so that Jesus could enrich their lives.

God will always meet us where we are.

But he also rewards our desire to know him by giving us more of himself. And it all begins with a simple request:

Lord, teach me to pray.

[1] While there are no geographical references in our text, scholars agree that Jesus’ was on his way to Jerusalem before his death.—Grant R. Osborne, Luke: Verse by Verse, ed. Jeffrey Reimer, Elliot Ritzema, and Danielle Thevenaz, Awa Sarah, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 295.

[2] In the Western world, our hyper individualism and spiritual apathy blinds us to the need we have to continue growing and learning the most basic and central aspects of our faith.  We treat prayer as if it were a simple math equation rather than a biological ecosystem that continues to change. The disciples had experience and education, yet they still felt the need ask Jesus “Lord teach us to pray.”

[3]White, Ellen. Steps to Christ (p. 93).

[4]Grant R. Osborne, Luke: Verse by Verse, ed. Jeffrey Reimer, Elliot Ritzema, and Danielle Thevenaz, Awa Sarah, Osborne New Testament Commentaries(Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 296.

[5] Murray, Andrew. With Christ in the School of Prayer: A 31-Day Study . Aneko Press. Kindle Edition.

[6]Jones, Mark

. The Prayers of Jesus (p. 26). Crossway. Kindle Edition.