How to Pray

Thank you, Brad. I promise to try to keep the sermon to less than forty minutes. Today, we are continuing our teaching series from Luke's gospel, looking at some life lessons from Jesus. It's hard to believe, but we are already at the halfway mark in our series, which means we have 6 Sundays before Good Friday. That means Lent starts on Wednesday.

Lent is a season of reflection and preparation that lasts 40 days leading up to Easter. In that season, Christians often give something up as a sacrifice to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Not everyone practices Lent, and there is no compulsion to, but just as Advent is a good practice to keep to prepare us to celebrate the first coming of Jesus with an eye to his second coming, so Lent is a good practice to help us draw closer to Jesus in remembrance of his death and in celebration of his resurrection.

In today's teaching, we will look at what Jesus teaches on prayer in the book of Luke, specifically chapter 11: 1-13. My hope would be that we as a church would commit to praying what is often called "the Lord's Prayer" every day for the season of Lent. I must confess, I am more partial to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew's book than I am here in Luke's gospel, but whichever one you want to, let's use this prayer as a means to drawing closer to Jesus throughout the season of Lent.

So, let’s look at what Jesus teaches on prayer in this passage in Luke. Let’s read Luke 11:1-13.

Luke 11:1–13 NIV

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.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: “ ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ ” 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; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 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.’ 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. “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. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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!”

Pray.

What is prayer like for you? Sometimes, prayer is the best moment of my day - I feel energized and excited, and it feels like, through prayer, I have accomplished something. But other times, prayer feels like nothing. Like talking to the air. What has your experience been like lately? Has prayer been powerful and life-giving to you? Has it been a slog to get through? Has it even been part of your life in a significant way lately?

If you follow along with us weekly here at North Park Stratford, you may remember that I mentioned how much of Jesus' life was shaped by prayer in my sermon last week. Prayer is a significant theme in Luke's gospel, and more than in the other gospels, it shows us how important prayer was to Jesus. In our passage today, we see that it once again begins with Jesus in prayer.

There was something about the way that Jesus prayed that sparked curiosity in the disciples. They had all been taught to pray since they were children and probably practiced it often, but it was different with Jesus.

I find it interesting that by the time we get to chapter 11, Jesus has already had a spiritual showdown with Satan in the desert, and yet the disciples don't ask how to defeat the devil. Jesus has taught wisely and powerfully in many synagogues, and the disciples don't ask him to teach them how to communicate effectively. Jesus has healed loads of people, and they haven't come to him and said, "teach us how to heal the sick." Jesus resurrected a young man who had died, yet the disciples didn't ask him to show the secrets to immortality.

They don't ask how to do ministry, build churches, raise money or govern a church. They ask him to teach them to pray. There was something about Jesus' prayers that invited curiosity. Let me give you three things that I think made Jesus' prayers so compelling to the disciples.

1. Intimacy with God

When most Jews prayed, if they referred to God as "Father," it was with the Aramaic word "abinu," which meant "Our Father" and usually followed with "in Heaven." They did this to show the distance between God and man. He is up there; we are down here. He is far away; he's removed from us.

But when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray here, he uses the word, Abba, which is what a child would call his or her father. There is an intimacy and closeness that the word invokes. It’s like how little kids here would say “Daddy” or “Mommy” instead of “Father” and “Mother.”

When Jesus prayed, he prayed with an unusual intimacy with God. Because the Jews had such a high and holy view of God, they were often emotionally distant from him. They related to him, not by faith or love, but by duty and works. Jesus connected, and he invites us to connect to God with intimacy and closeness.

So, how do we develop intimacy? We do life with Jesus. We spend time with him in prayer and the word. We consider Jesus and his will for our lives when we are spending money, watching Netflix, playing video games. We don't just add him to the end of our day; we enjoy his presence with us throughout the day.

It’s the same as my marriage. I develop intimacy with my wife by spending time talking to her and listening to her. I consider her when I am spending money, and choosing what to watch on Netflix and how much time I spend playing video games. I don’t just say, “Today was good. Hope it was for you too. Goodnight” at the end of the day. Intimacy comes with time spent, and the more time you spend with God, the deeper your intimacy will be.

In addition to addressing God as Abba, Jesus takes us a little deeper when he says, "hallowed be your name." There are two essential things to know about what Jesus says here: 1) The word hallowed means "made holy" or "revered." 2) A name to a Jewish person was more than just the word people used to call them. A name summed up a person's whole character, all that was known or revealed. So when Jesus says hallowed by your name, he means may God's character and all that is known about him be revered.

Again, Jesus is bringing us into deeper intimacy with God by encouraging us to revere God in all the ways he has revealed himself. Just look at the names of God in the Bible:

Jehovah - I AM WHO I AM - Exodus 3:13-15

Jehovah-M’Kaddesh - the God who sanctifies - Lev. 20:7-8

Jehovah-Jireh = The God who provides - Genesis 22:9-14

Jehovah-Shalom - The God of peace - Judges 6:16-24

Jehovah-Rophe - The God who heals - Exodus 15:22-26

Jehovah -Nissi - God our banner (victory) - Exodus 17:8-15; 1 Corinthians 15:57

El Shaddai - God almighty - Genesis 49:22-26

Adonai - Lord - the one who sovereignly leads us - 2 Samuel 7:18-20

We can also look at his attributes like his love, mercy, holiness, goodness, transcendence, immanence, wrath, grace, faithfulness, wisdom, omnipotence, and omnipotence omniscience, and more.

I think that sometimes when we use the word God, we do our Lord a bit of an injustice because it is too general, too all-encompassing. We have a complex and beautiful God whom we pray to, and when we hallow his name, when we revere our God according to how he has revealed himself, our intimacy with God grows.

The second thing about Jesus’ prayer that he teaches his disciples is dependence on God.

2. Dependence on God

The next line in Jesus’ teaching on prayer is a prayer for the kingdom of God to come. We are called to pray in the kingdom of God - we have to pray for the rule and reign of Jesus to abide in the hearts of everyone we know.

Most people don’t just randomly come to faith. Most people are prayed into the kingdom by parents, grandparents, or friends. But prayer is an act of faith because when we pray that the kingdom of God would come into their hearts, we depend on God to draw them to himself.

John 6:44 NIV

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

So let's be a people of deep faith, praying hard that God will draw unto himself those who haven't yet put their faith in Jesus and that the kingdom of God, the rule and reign of Jesus, would fill their hearts.

Now, Jesus continues the idea of dependence when he says, “Give us each day our daily bread.”

Jesus knew what it was like to depend on the Father. In John’s gospel, there is a story in chapter four of an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. This encounter happens after the disciples left to get some food because Jesus (and they) were hungry. When they got back, they encouraged Jesus to eat, but he said, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Jesus depended on the father to sustain him. Even when Jesus was hungry in the desert after fasting for 40 days, God provided for Jesus through angels. Later in John’s gospel, we see Jesus talk about how he depends on the father.

John 5:19 NIV

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

John 8:27–28 NIV

They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.

Jesus was utterly dependant on the Father and the Holy Spirit, which is why he teaches us to pray for our daily bread.

This phrase, "our daily bread," should bring to mind the story in the old testament about how God provided manna every day for 40 years for the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. The Lord commanded them only to gather what they needed for that day to teach them to depend on God.

Like the ancient Israelites, we are invited to depend on God to provide for us as well. In the Aramaic language, the tense and usage of the word "give" is more like "keep on giving." Add that to the term "daily" that Jesus uses, and it shows us that we need to depend on God for everything we need to live. We are not called to pray for riches, for luxury, for wealth. We are to pray that God provides for us today what we need today because that might lead us to be less anxious for what we don't have and more thankful for what we do have.

When Jesus taught us to pray, he taught us to have intimacy with God and dependence on God. The third thing he teaches us to have humility towards God.

3. Humility towards God

In Luke 18:9-14, Jesus tells a parable.

Luke 18:9–14 NIV

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Humility is an important character trait to God. Jesus’ brother James quotes Proverbs 3:5 when he says that “God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble (James 4:6).”

Psalm 138:6 ESV

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.

Proverbs 11:2 NIV

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

God values humility, and the parable that Jesus tells in Luke 18 contrasts those who pray with pride and arrogance and those who pray with humility. Jesus teaches in that parable that God listens to those who pray in humility.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he told them to say, "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us," and to pray this prayer with honesty and authenticity, you need a double dose of humility. The first dose of humility comes when you recognize that you have sinned.

Nobody likes being wrong. No one enjoys failing at keeping a standard. So what many people do is lower the standard of morality to justify their behaviour. They re-write the laws they live by so that they can always be "right." Changing the standard to justify yourself is a blatant act of pride. It says, "I can't be wrong," and therefore, "I don't have to change."

But Jesus teaches us to embrace humility, to recognize that we sin when our lives go against his will. Well, how can we know God's will? HE WROTE IT DOWN. God gave us the Bible so that we could know what the character and will of God is, and we could use it as a standard by which to judge our lives.

Hebrews 4:12 NIV

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Jesus calls us to ask God to forgive our sins. When we violate the character and will of God, we have sinned. But God is always ready to forgive us. That’s the good news! Forgiveness is available for every and all sin if we would simply bring it to God in prayer. The humble man and the humble woman recognize their sin and confess it to God.

“Forgive us our sins” is the first dose of humility. The second is “we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” Unforgiveness is a sign of pride. If God can forgive all sin that is repented of, no matter how destructive the sin was, then for you to be unforgiving to the people who have hurt says that you know better than God. If God was willing to die for all your sin, but you won’t forgive someone else’s sin, then you set yourself above God as a judge.

For us to develop the prayer habit of forgiving others will help us not only see the grace of God better in our lives, but it will also help us to live our lives free from bitterness.

Hebrews 12:15 NIV

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Bitterness defiles us and stains our hearts and minds. If we acknowledge our sin, pray to be forgiven and offer forgiveness to those who hurt us, we are washed clean, and we walk in the humility of Jesus.

Lastly, in Jesus' teaching on prayer in Luke 11, he invites us to pray "lead us not into temptation." This prayer is another example of the humility towards God that Jesus had and that he calls us to have as well.

Temptation is all around us. Every day, we face some temptation to turn away from God, often in little ways. We get tailgated while driving, and the temptation is to curse the person instead of blessing them. We are tempted to take a little longer of a lunch break because, hey, who would know? We are tempted to click that link or watch that movie or show because it's there, and no one would find out. We are tempted to look at and think about that person at work in a sexual way. We are tempted to think evil thoughts towards or yell at your spouse for doing that thing that you specifically asked them not to do - or for not doing the thing that you specifically asked them to do. You see, temptation is everywhere, and we all experience it every day. And each time we give in to it, we turn away from Jesus a little.

Pride says, "I can handle it all myself." Humility says, "Lead me not into temptation." Pride says, "A little won't hurt." Humility says, "Lead me not into temptation." Pride says, "I have needs." Humility says, "Lead me not into temptation." Pride says, "What's wrong with you?" Humility says, "Lead me not into temptation." Temptations are the manifestation of the spiritual battle that we are in, and the only way to win a spiritual battle is to pray in humility.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he taught them this simple prayer that invites us to experience and express intimacy with God, dependence on God and humility to God.

How to pray is one thing. Why we should pray is another. After teaching the disciples how to pray, Jesus then teaches the why. His reason? Because God is good.

Jesus gives a parable about a man who goes to his friend’s house to ask for bread for a visiting guest. The friend is reluctant to get out of bed because the whole family sleeps together in one room, and getting up means he will disturb and wake the family. But because of this man’s sense of shame, Jesus says the friend will get up and give him what he needs.

So, go ahead and ask, Jesus says. Too many people don't pray for God to help them. Too many people let their pride keep them from going to our loving Father and asking for help. But Jesus says, come. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.

God will answer your prayers because he is good. After all, we know how to be good to people. We know that when our kids ask for things, sometimes we say no because it’s what’s best for them and sometimes we say yes because we love them. Jesus says if we, who are evil, can give good gifts to our kids, then how much better is what God gives us because he is good; he is the definition and the source of all that is good.

And what is the good that God wants to give us? The Holy Spirit. The indwelling presence of God that will provide you with wisdom, illuminate the scriptures, lead you in accordance with the will of God, convict you of your sin so that you may repent and be healed. He will empower you with spiritual gifts and secure your eternal salvation.

The Holy Spirit is the means by which God will answer your prayers. Let me illustrate this with a story.

Dr. Helen Roseveare was a missionary to Zaire. I had the privilege of hearing her speak to us when I was at Bible college. She told the following story. She said, "A mother at our mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. We tried to improvise an incubator to keep the infant alive, but the only hot water bottle we had was beyond repair. So we asked the children to pray for the baby and for her sister. One of the girls responded, 'Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead. And dear Lord, send a doll for the sister so she won't feel so lonely.' 

That afternoon a large package arrived from England. The children watched eagerly as we opened it. Much to their surprise, under some clothing, was a hot water bottle! Immediately the girl who had prayed so earnestly started to dig deeper, exclaiming, 'If God sent that, I'm sure He also sent a doll!' And she was right! The heavenly Father knew in advance of that child's sincere requests, and five months earlier He had led a ladies' group to include both of those specific articles."

The Holy Spirit, the indwelling presence of God who abides in every believer, whispered instructions into the hearts and minds of that Ladies group. He told them to include a hot water bottle and a doll because of a prayer that a little girl of faith would utter in five months. Our Father is so good that he doesn't just leave us alone to fend for ourselves in this world, but he has given us a very present helper in the Holy Spirit.

Our youth group recently did a teaching series called "Awkward," as they had some conversations about sexuality from a Biblical viewpoint. I think that for many Christians, prayer can feel awkward. They don't know what to say, so they don't say anything at all. And while silence is golden and can be an excellent spiritual discipline to practice sometimes, God has created each of us for a unique and personal relationship with him and relationships are built on communication. That means talking to God is a crucial practice for all believers, no matter how awkward you feel. And let me give you some good news: the more you do it, the less awkward it becomes.

So take this prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray and pray it. Pray it word for word if you want or use it as a framework to pray longer prayers. Both are fantastic approaches to prayer. The disciples didn't ask Jesus how to do miracles, evangelize people, or run a church. They asked him how to pray. May prayer become a greater focus in your life.

Pray.