How to Pray

Welcome

Good morning everyone, and to anyone listening online, welcome! Today we are on the second sermon of our “How To Guide” sermon series. Last week we looked at how we can grow closer to God and how if we draw near to God, he will draw near to us. Today, while not necessarily a part two of last week, does tie in with growing closer to God. This morning we are going to talk about prayer, what it is, how to do it, and even why we should do it.

While I feel like I have said this a lot recently, this is not a comprehensive sermon. It would be impossible to cover all aspects of prayer in one sermon. There are hundreds, thousands of resources out there on prayer, countless passages in scripture that help us learn about prayer, so I encourage you to look into prayer more this week and the coming weeks. With that said though, I want to briefly explain what I hope our time this morning in God’s Word does to our hearts. Prayer is something we know is important, we know we should do it, but often it gets neglected. When we look at our passage this morning, I hope the way Jesus teaches his disciples to pray would lodge itself into our hearts and minds, so that praying this way might become a habit, a way of praying that we can just dive into at any point. With that, let’s read our passage from Luke and have a time of prayer and ask God to be our teacher today and show us how we can pray.

Luke 11:1–4 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.’ ”

Prayer

Engage

There’s a story that is told about two lumberjacks, one was older and the other was younger, both were known for their skill and their speed. One day the younger decided to challenge the older lumberjack to a contest to see who could chop down the most trees. As the contest began, the younger man, with his youth and vitality began chopping trees down one after another without stopping at all. As he worked, he noticed that the older lumberjack would work for an hour, then take a fifteen minute break. At the end of the day when the trees were counted, the older lumberjack had cut down about 30% more than the younger lumberjack. The younger lumberjack was confused as to how this was possible and asked him, “How could you, taking a break every hour, cut down more trees than I did cutting nonstop all day?” The older man responded, “Because when I stopped, I sharpened my axe.”

A lot of us are like the younger lumberjack in our lives. We work at things with passion and desire, but we try to accomplish things in our own strength. Essentially, we are trying to chop down trees with a dull axe. If we want to see God’s power at work in our lives, prayer is absolutely essential. It has to be a part of our lives. If we don’t pray, it is like we are trying to chop down trees with a dull axe.

The Desire to Pray

The first thing that we need to know is that we should have this desire to pray. When we recognize the power of prayer and just how amazing it is that God wants us to talk with him, we should have this desire, we want to sharpen our axe. This is something we see in verse one of our passage and comes from one of the disciples.

Luke 11:1 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.”

One thing to note from this is how Jesus begins to teach them. While not the typical Lord’s prayer that we know and repeat, this is very similar and has been called that as well. But really, a more appropriate title would be “the disciple’s prayer.” The disciples knew that Jesus was praying and when he came back they asked him to teach them how to pray, just as John taught his disciples. The reason the disciples asked this was because it was typical for religious leaders to have their kind of unique prayers. The people following them would learn how they prayed and copy it. So here we see the disciples wanting to know how to pray, but the disciples weren’t just asking a regular rabbi or teacher, they were asking the savior, the son of God, how to pray.

But in this interaction, we see that the disciples had a desire to pray. There are times when prayer can almost seem like one of those things that we need to check off our list. But prayer shouldn’t feel like a chore, it should be a joy to partake it. The God of the universe desires to talk with you! It is not a chore to pray, but an absolute blessing. So when we approach prayer, it is good that we recognize what it is and what it isn’t. It isn’t something we do because we are told to do it, not because it earns us salvation. We do it because it is amazing that God desires to hear from us, he longs to have this communication with you. When we know that, then we should have a desire to pray just like the disciple did in this verse.

Having a desire to pray can change your life drastically. One pastor told this story of a young agnostic woman who started to come to his church. She wanted to meet and in their meeting she expressed that is was hard to just accept the whole idea of religion. She asked the pastor what to do, and his response was this, “Start talking to Him. Small talk. Talk about the weather or how you are feeling today.” Begin to cultivate this desire to talk to God. This small action of talking to God changed her life. Not long after this meeting the woman became a Christian.

Having a desire to pray can change your life, so when the disciple asked Jesus to teach them, Jesus agrees and begins to teach them how to pray. As we go through the prayer, you might notice the differences between this prayer and how we repeat the Lord’s prayer, but there are two major sections of the prayer. People refer to these two sections as vertical and horizontal prayers. Vertical prayers deal with God directly. You are praying about him and who he is. Horizontal prayers deal with ourselves and others. Verse two describes the vertical aspects of the prayer.

Vertical Prayer

Luke 11:2 NIV

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: “ ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

Here we see two aspects to vertical prayer. We pray in adoration of who God is, hallowed be your name, and we pray for God’s kingdom to come. Kent Hughes describes “Hallowed be your name”, by saying that it means, “May you be given that unique reverence that your character and nature as Father demand.” God is holy, set apart, and so it is good in our prayers to acknowledge that. To recognize how unique God is and how powerful and holy he is. The second aspect of the vertical part of the prayer, is “your Kingdom come.” This prayer doesn’t include “your will be done” but praying for God’s kingdom to come is the same idea. We don’t pray for our ideas to come to fruition, we don’t pray that God would allow the path we have chosen to prosper. Instead, we pray that God’s kingdom would come, his will be done.

I think that these two aspects of prayer can sometimes be overlooked. Often when we pray we think more about ourselves than we do God. We dive right into our wants and our desires and don’t thank God for who he is. Praying for the Kingdom of God might sound nice, but praying that means that we place God’s will above our own and for many of us (probably all), that is a hard thing to pray! But this has to be an important part of prayer is Jesus is including it when he is teaching the disciples. When we pray that God’s kingdom come we are surrendering our will, we are giving up what we want and instead saying, “God, in all areas of my life, your kingdom come.” We’re able to do this when we really trust God. We trust that God has the best in mind for us and for every aspect of our life, and so we surrender to his will.

Another reason why we can pray this is because of who we are addressing. Jesus tells them to pray, “Father.” This might sound common to us, but back then this was shocking. In the Old Testament God was referred to only fourteen times as Father, and in these settings it was as the Father of Israel, never Father in terms of a personal level. Our relationship with God through Christ is not a corporate experience, but an intensely personal relationship. We adore God and pray that his kingdom come because he is our dearest Father who wants this intimate relationship with us.

A proper motive is absolutely necessary if prayer is to be effective! You see, the proper motive for prayer is not to get our will done in Heaven, but to get God’s will done in the earth, through us. Too often we spend our time in prayer seeking a change in our circumstances. In truth, we need a profound change in character!

Horizontal Prayer

The second part of the prayer is horizontal, it is the part of prayer that deal with us. In this section we find three requests , for our daily bread, our sins, and our temptations.

Luke 11:3–4 NIV

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.’ ”

The first request is for our daily needs. We pray for God to provide our material needs for the day. One author wrote, “Notice that we are invited to pray for bread, not dessert.” One of the realities about prayer is that God cares for the simple, day to day needs of our life. He’s concerned about our well being, whether we have food and shelter. These are always good things to pray for. We pray for others and for their daily bread, perhaps it is medical issues, problems at home, all of these things consist of our daily bread. By praying this, by asking God to provide our daily needs, we are recognizing that God is the one who provides for us. Yes, you might have a job and work hard to earn money to have a home and food, but these things ultimately come from God, not from us. Praying for God to give us our daily bread is a way of demonstrating that we are completely and utterly dependent upon God.

The second request, is to forgive our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. Notice how this part is worded here. Jesus doesn’t say to ask for forgiveness and try to forgive people who have sinned against you. He says, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us! Forgiving those who have sinned against us seems to take place before we ask God for forgiveness. We know that forgiving others is necessary, because we read in

Matthew 6:14–15 NIV

14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Forgiveness is not a “maybe” in the Christian walk. Forgiveness is essential to it. Charles Spurgeon said, “Unless you have forgiven others, you read your own death warrant when you repeat the Lord’s Prayer.” Believers in Christ forgive and are forgiving, it is a part of who we are. And the reason we can forgive is because we know God forgives us. As we look at how messed up we are, at how far we have fallen into our sin, yet recognize that God forgives us, we should be moved to forgive others.

The third request of the horizontal prayer is to keep us away from temptation. Sin is all around us, trying to tempt us to go after it instead of pursuing God. Temptation might be to pursue our career over our family, it might be to lie to get out of a tough spot, to look at someone lustfully, there is not shortage of ways that sin tries to tempt us. That is why it is crucial that we pray and ask God to help keep us from it.

Hopefully as you look at this you see that prayer doesn’t have to be complicated. Not all prayers even have to have this structure and we don’t have to follow it constantly. For example when Peter cried out, “Lord, save me!” when he began to sink (Matthew 14:30). If he had begun first with “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come …” he would have been below the water before he was able to ask Christ to save him! But at the same time, the structre of this prayer is valuable for us. If it wasn’t, Jesus wouldn’t have taught it to the disciples.

Application

This week then, I pray that all of us would have a greater desire to pray. That we would pray vertically, pray about God and who he is, and also horizontally, for ourselves and others. May prayer be a part of who we are, not simply a reaction to danger.

Inspiration

300 Illustrations for Preachers Everyone Starts Praying When the Flames Come

In 1972 Joan Baez was a singer and activist who was always working on a cause. During the Vietnam War she traveled to Hanoi with a peace delegation and was there during an American bombing campaign that lasted 12 days. “We spent the whole time in the basement of our hotel. I have never been so afraid in my life. I thought I was going to die. But I learned something—when the flames start coming towards you everyone starts praying, even the atheists and the agnostics, but when the flames start fading away we all go back to the structures and beliefs that we had before.”

Prayer

The Sermon Notebook: New Testament Our Lord’s Pattern for Prayer (Luke 11:1–13)

Baptist preacher John Bunyan said, “You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Prayer should be our first resort, and our first priority. How we need to beg God for a burden to pray!