July 29, 2007 Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
Sermon Title: “How to Pray Like Jesus”
Series: Practical Christianity (Prayer)
Text: Luke 11:1-13
Dr. Steve Jackson
Delivered on July 29, 2007
“Lord, teach us to pray...” Luke 11:1
How to Pray Like Jesus
On Thursday,
April 30, 1789 George Washington gave the first inaugural address of a
This morning we’re
going to talk about a speech Jesus gave one day when asked by his disciples to
teach them to pray. Like
Prayer is the second practical issue we’re tackling in our new series of messages called Practical Christianity. In this series we’re looking at some “rubber-hits-the-road” aspects of our Christian walk. And few issues, if any, are more practical, or crucial than prayer.
Prayer, in fact, is often likened to the breath of our Christian life. Scientists say that after about 6 minutes the brain without oxygen begins to die. There are exceptions, of course, but most people can’t survive more than a few minutes without air. It’s that crucial. Just as the body needs air, so too the soul needs prayer. Without prayer we will soon ssuffocate and die spiritually. Still, despite its importance, prayer is one of the most misunderstood, and under or mis-used facets of the Christian life. It’s also one of the few things that the disciples actually asked Jesus to teach them. Thankfully for us, he graciously responded. Since being a Christian is basically about a life of training in how to do what Jesus did, we can be thankful that Jesus didn’t leave us to our own devices when it comes to prayer.
Today we’re
going to look closely at the model of prayer Jesus gave. It would be difficult
for me to overstate the importance of the Lord’s prayer. I read somewhere that
is estimated that on this past Easter Sunday some 2 billion Protestant,
Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians read, recited, or sang the Lord’s
Prayer. That’s a third of the world’s population! The great reformer Martin
Luther called the Lord’s Prayer “a summary of the whole gospel” and made it one
of only six things he felt every believer should know by heart. But some of us
have difficulty learning it, don’t we? We’re like the two guys who were talking
about this very subject when one challenged the other, “If you’re such a great Christian, let's hear you quote the Lord's
Prayer. I bet you $10.00 you can't." The second responded, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the
Lord my soul to keep. And If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to
take." At that the first man reached into his wallet and pulled out a
ten dollar bill, muttering, "I
didn't think you could do it!"
Brief as the Lord's prayer is, it is wonderfully complete. What we find in this prayer are several important principles of prayer. Like any observant Jew, Jesus prayed several times each day. One day, our text says, as Jesus returned from a time of prayer, his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. And that’s when he gave them—and us—the wonderful pattern for prayer known as the Lord’s Prayer.
Before we go too far into the “nuts and bolts” of how to pray like Jesus, let me ask you a few questions to get you thinking about your own prayer life. When you pray, what do you pray for or about? Do you only pray when you have a “need?” Do you ever seek God’s heart when you pray, or it is always just his hand? Is God some kind of “Spiritual Santa Claus” you only go to in prayer when you need something? Do you have the kind of relationship with God where you can go to Him for reasons other than just to ask him for something? Is your prayer life suffering? Are your prayers bouncing off the ceiling?
These are the kinds of questions I’ve been asking myself lately. I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer which is not to say I’ve actually been praying more—I need to confess that to you this morning—but it is to say I’ve been thinking of it more, clarifying what it is, and especially studying this model prayer Jesus gave us. As you can probably tell by now, I’m starting to realize the absolute genius of this prayer. It’s loaded with content and depth unimaginable yet simple enough for even someone new to the faith to understand and grow into.
And so we begin this morning by, first of all, clearing the ground. Sometimes to get a fresh look at something we need to clear away the rubble of preconceived notions about it. And nowhere is that more true than with prayer.
Have you ever
noticed that in church services, or meetings, or other Christian gatherings a
time of prayer is often preceded by a time of “Joys and Concerns?” You’ve
probably been present somewhere when people did that. In most of these “call
out” sessions, the only concerns expressed are problems people are going
through like divorce, grief, cancer, ingrown toenails (don’t laugh, I had that
called out once at a church I was preaching at). Requests for prayer turn into
a depressing lesson in medical procedures. Now I ask you, where on earth did we
get this idea of prayer? Not from Jesus. Granted, Jesus healed people in his
ministry, but he didn’t make healing the focus of his prayers, did he? What did Jesus say to pray for in this
model prayer? He prays for God’s kingdom to come, for our daily provision, for
forgiveness of sins and for deliverance from evil. What happens if prayer
becomes nothing more than praying for people who have problems? It reduces it
to some kind of 911 call – Lord, help us. Perhaps this idea came from
So what can we learn from the Lord’s Prayer by taking a new look at it? Obviously Jesus was offering those words as an example of how to pray and what to pray for. It’s pretty clear that these words were not the same words that Jesus used every time He prayed. In fact, the words are slightly different in the Luke 11 version versus the Matthew 6 version. The pattern was the same, however. I believe there is a three-fold pattern we can learn to help us pray like Jesus taught. There’s a three-step movement to this prayer as it unfolds that should be followed in order if we want to pray like Jesus.
ACKNOWLEDGE GOD’S GREATNESS
(Posture)
The first thing
to do is to Acknowledge God’s Greatness.
That’s how you start. Jesus begins his prayer with the declaration, “Father, hallowed be your name” (v. 2). Hallow
is not a word we use or hear in our every day conversation. Perhaps that’s the
reason for the story about a boy asking his Sunday school teacher one morning
why God’s name was Harold. "What do
you mean?" "Well," said the boy, "every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we say, ‘Harold be thy
name!’"
To hallow is “to make or set apart as holy. To respect or honor greatly; to revere.” Jesus begins his prayer by giving God the glory and honor due his name. When we do that it reminds us of our proper relation to God. It's a reminder, as we pray, that we are meant to be humble, faithful, and in awe at His holiness. That it's not about us. That He is in control, and we are not.
As I see it, acknowledging God’s greatness has to do with the posture of prayer. Although prayer is definitely two-way conversation with God—he definitely wants to listen to us. But when we begin by acknowledging his greatness it puts us in the proper position to continue. God is not our “buddy” – he’s our Lord! He is the potter, we are the clay. Hallowing his name, acknowledging his unsurpassed greatness helps us get in the right posture to pray.
I’ll confess it - beginning our prayers this way is in stark contrast to how my own prayers usually begin. Most of the time, I jump right in with my list of requests and my list of things that I would like God to do, people I’d like him to heal, and needs I have to be filled. But to start my prayers that way is to begin with ME, but Jesus showed us that instead, we should start with GOD. It’s not that God needs our “strokes,” it just opens the door for better communication with him.
Note also in this first clause how Jesus called God “Father.” Father is a title, not only of honor, but also of relationship. God is not only higher than us, he is also in relationship with us. You probably have already heard this, but the Hebrew word there is actually “Abba,” which is like our word “daddy.” He is not only “over” us – he loves us dearly, like a good father loves his children. Acknowledging God’s greatness is about our kingdom relationship with God. He’s the king and we’re in relationship with him.
ALIGN YOUR WILL WITH GOD’S WILL
(Purpose)
The next movement in Jesus’ model prayer is also important. According to Jesus we should Align Our Will With God’s Will. That’s what the second clause of the prayer is about where Jesus says, “Your kingdom come” (v. 2). Matthew makes this a little clearer than Luke does in his version of the prayer. Matthew’s Jesus continues saying, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10 NIV).
To put it another way, prayer is about surrendering to the will of God and cooperation with His will. Evangelist E. Stanley Jones used to say that if you throw line with a boathook on it from a boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, you’re not pulling the shore to you, you’re pulling yourself to the shore. Likewise, prayer is not pulling God’s will over to my will, instead is about aligning my will to His. Prayer is not about convincing God you know better than He does.
This principle of prayer, aligning your will with God’s, is important on two levels.
Not About You
First of all,
notice that this part of the prayer, the first petition really, isn’t a prayer
for anything YOU want—it’s not about you or me, it’s about God’s will being
done on earth. Again, what did Jesus pray for? To be healthy, wealthy or whole?
No. He prayed that God’s will might be done on earth—that his kingdom would
come in all its glory. The goal, in the words of a former generation of
believers, is to “pray heaven down.” Remember,
Jesus isn’t some kind of celestial Santa Claus. He’s not there just to meet
YOUR needs. When Jesus began his ministry he said, “Repent [change], for the
God Knows Better
The second level of this aligning ourselves with God’s will has to do with us personally. Let’s face it, God knows better than us. We all have our ideas about how God “should” answer our prayers and how things “should” work out in our lives. But that isn’t always what God has in mind. When these two “wills” are in contrast—and it seems to me they almost always are—it’s important that we submit our will to God’s will.
Of course the
ultimate example of this was shown by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he
prayed that there be some other way to atone for our sins besides the cruel
death he was about to face on the cross. There we remember his words, “Father, let this cup pass from me, and yet,
not my will, but yours be done.”
Aligning our will with God’s will is easier if we take it as a second step, after acknowledging God’s greatness and his superior insight and wisdom.
Aligning your will with God’s will is all about God’s purposes in the world. How can we know God’s will – his purpose for His world and for us? The way we do that is through Spiritual Formation. We practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible Study, and meeting with others in small groups for Christian conversation and accountability. Aligning your will with God’s will is a matter or maturity—it’s about growing up in Christ—it’s about what we call spiritual formation at NewSong.
ASK FOR OUR NEEDS TO BE MET
(Petition)
The third movement I see in Jesus’ model prayer is to ask for our needs to be met. That comes from the three-fold petition, “Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial” (v. 3-4). Doing this reminds us how dependent we are upon God for our daily provision, for the forgiveness we need, and for and for safety or deliverance from evil.
Like I said, this is the part of prayer I usually rush right into without going through the important steps of acknowledging God’s greatness and aligning my will with God’s will. Because I don’t, I seldom see my selfish prayers answered because they either aren’t what I need (I haven’t aligned myself with his will) or they aren’t the things I need to be praying about to begin with. God already knows all my personal needs—and he knows the difference between my “wants” and my “needs.” Because I haven’t followed the first two steps, I’m not even praying and asking for the right things to begin with.
This movement is
about petition, asking God for
something and notice that this step should always come last. Notice also the use of “we” and “our” throughout the
prayer. That indicates there is to be a missional, or outward, focus to our
prayer. It’s about the
What about you? Do you begin your prayers by Acknowledging God’s Greatness? Do you then try to Align your Will with God’s Will? And finally, what are you asking for? Are you asking for his purposes to be accomplished in you and on earth when you pray? If your prayer life is weak or non-existent, this may be the reason. The Bible says if we pray like Jesus taught us to pray our prayers will be answered. A little further down in the passage we read from this morning Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Luke 11:9-10). That’s a promise you and I can depend on. He said you WILL receive, not you MAY receive. Let’s begin praying with purpose and power as Jesus taught us, for when we do, we’ll begin to change ourselves and the world around us. Let’s Pray.