4D The Christian Life Means Engaging In Prayer

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.” 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.”

Asking for What We Need

Only after we have properly honored our Father and aligned our hearts to His kingdom purposes do we consider bringing our requests to the Lord in prayer. Christ shows us the framework for our petitions in Luke 11: 3– 4: “Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.” These three short sentences encompass all of man’s fundamental needs.

Although our needs are now in focus, God’s glory is still the ultimate goal. In fact, each of these requests is tied to a promise from God. Their fulfillment meets our needs, but it also displays the mercy, love, and gracious provision of our heavenly Father. Specifically, in the answers we receive to these requests, we see God function as our supporter, our Savior, and our shelter.

Christ begins with the instruction to ask God, “Give us each day our daily bread” (v. 3). This is not merely a request for food— the term extends to all the essentials of everyday life. It’s astounding to think that the immense, transcendent Lord of the universe cares about whether we have enough food or a proper roof over our heads. But that is exactly the point Christ made in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 6:25–33 ESV

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

With God as our gracious, compassionate supporter, there is no need for worry about how our basic needs will be met. In fact, we should treat such fears as a temptation to doubt both the promises and the goodness and faithfulness of our heavenly Father. When we trust in the Lord to meet our needs, we are trusting in His Word and His inexhaustible resources. Proverbs 10: 3 assures us, “The LORD will not allow the righteous to hunger.” Paul echoes that promise: “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 19).

God’s generous supply does not excuse Christians of the duty to work (see 2 Thess. 3: 10– 12), nor does it guarantee that believers won’t face material hardships (see Heb. 11: 37). Instead, it means that God, in His sovereign wisdom, will supply us with everything we need to sustain us for our calling in His kingdom.

Christ gives us a second petition to bring to the Lord: “Forgive us our sins” (Luke 11: 4). Frankly, our physical needs pale in comparison to this category. Humanity’s great need is forgiveness for sin, and that comes through Christ alone. On his own, no person is capable of doing anything to atone for sin and reconcile himself to a holy, righteous God. The prophet Jeremiah vividly illustrated the sinner’s spiritual inability: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil” (Jer. 13: 23). Paul employed a different metaphor, simply referring to the sinful heart as “dead” (Eph. 2: 1). But the glorious news of the gospel is that forgiveness, redemption, and justification are available in our Savior, Jesus Christ. In his epistle to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col. 2: 13– 14). In the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, we now stand before God cloaked in the righteousness of His Son. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5: 21).

As we saw in the previous chapter, believers do not require the full washing of salvation to be repeated every time we sin; we simply need to “wash our feet” (see John 13: 10) through faithful, penitent confession. The Apostle John later promised in his first epistle,

1 John 1:9 ESV

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Christ includes a prerequisite with this second request to the Lord. We are to ask the Lord to forgive our sins, acknowledging, “For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11: 4). Nothing could be more of a blatant contradiction than an unforgiving Christian. Knowing what we have been forgiven in Christ ought to compel us to be gracious and quick to forgive when others sin against us. Rather than cultivating the bitterness and anger that consume this world, we should be grateful for opportunities to dispense the same mercy and forgiveness that our Father has already abundantly poured out on us. That’s the point of the Lord’s parable in Matthew 18: 23– 35:

Matthew 18:23–35 ESV

23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Finally, Jesus teaches us to petition our Father for shelter— specifically, for spiritual protection. He closes His model for prayer with the phrase “and lead us not into temptation” (Luke 11: 4). This prayer can be confusing at first glance. We know from James that God “does not tempt anyone” (James 1: 13). But the concern here is not that God would actually lead us into the snares of the devil.

Rather, this is a means of recognizing the vast array of spiritual threats poised against us and our dependence on the Lord’s power and providence to see us through the minefield of this world. It’s an echo of David’s cry in Psalm 141: 8: “My eyes are toward You, O GOD, the Lord; in You I take refuge; do not leave me defenseless.” Christ made a similar request on behalf of His disciples: “Keep them from the evil one” (John 17: 15).

At the same time, we must acknowledge that the Lord will allow our faith to be tested. In the face of those beneficial trials, we need the steadfast confidence in God’s sovereign purposes that Peter described: “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1: 6– 7). Praying that temptation won’t overtake us in such trials is effectively asking Him to uphold the promise He made through the Apostle Paul: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10: 13). It’s praying for Him to make that way of escape apparent so that we don’t succumb to temptation.

In his Studies on the Sermon on the Mount, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones summed up the significance of these three prayerful petitions:

Our whole life is found there in those three petitions, and that is what makes this prayer so utterly amazing. In such a small compass our Lord has covered the whole life of the believer in every respect. Our physical needs, our mental needs and, of course, our spiritual needs are included. The body is remembered, the soul is remembered, the spirit is remembered. . . . We cannot fail to be impressed by the all-inclusiveness of these petitions. That does not mean that we should never enter into details; we must, we are taught to do so. We are taught to bring our life in detail to God in prayer; but here we have only the great headings. Our Lord gives us these and we fill in the details, but it is important for us to be sure that all our petitions should belong under one or other of the headings.

Under the guidance of Christ, we come to God as our gracious and loving Father. We hallow His Name. We praise His redemptive work and seek His glory. And we humbly ask Him to meet our needs. As with everything else we do (1 Cor. 10: 31), we seek to magnify and glorify our God in the way we commune with Him.