Scripture Ref: Luke 11:1-13
Matthew 6:7-9a
Other References: The Believer’s Bible Commentary
Based in part on a message by Bob Deffinbaugh
1. Introduction
a. Trinity Baptist Church is taking a bold journey—a journey of faith, a journey of love, and with God’s help, a journey of growth.
b. We can’t, however, take this trip all by ourselves; we need a champion. That champion will willingly come to our aid, but he likes to hear us ask for his help.
c. So, the question I start this message with this morning is, “What is the proper way to ask God for his help? Is there a magic formula?”
d. Over the course of my life, I have attended a number of churches where the “Lord’s Prayer” is often used as a prayer. While I won’t say using it this way is inappropriate, I tend to believe that that wasn’t its intended purpose.
e. In Matthew’s account, the Lord’s Prayer is preceded by these words:
Matthew 6:7-9a: And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. "This, then, is how you should pray:
f. Notice that Christ does not say “This, then is what you should pray…,” but, rather, “This, then, is how you should pray.”
g. I believe the Lord’s prayer is a model for us to follow when we pray.
h. This morning, I am going to focus on how, I believe, the scriptures teach us to pray.
2. The Textual Outline
a. Read Luke 11:1-13
b. Today’s text can be easily outlined.
(1) V1 — The disciple’s request — “Lord, teach us to pray.”
(2) Vv 2-4 —Prayer’s Content
(3) Vv 5-13 — The disciple’s incentive for prayer
3. The Disciple’s Request
a. Re-read Verse 1
b. This is another of the frequent references by Luke to the prayer life Jesus.
c. It fits in with Luke's purpose in presenting Christ as the Son of Man, constantly depending on God His Father.
d. The disciples sensed that prayer was a real and vital force in the life of Jesus, and as they heard Him pray, it made them want to pray too.
e. So one of His disciples asked that He would teach them to pray. He did not say, “Teach us how to pray,” but rather “Teach us to pray.” The request includes both the fact and the method.
(1) Subject of prayer raised by one of the disciples, rather than Jesus. Why? Was it because Jesus wanted the disciples to conclude on their own how important prayer is. Jesus was ready and willing to teach on prayer, but only when His disciples were eager to learn. Motivation cannot be higher for learning when the student asks the teacher to teach.
(2) Jesus knew the power of a good example is greater than that of a long speech. Jesus’ prayer life prompted the disciple to ask Him to teach them to do the same. It is easy to ask someone who has demonstrated expertise to share it with others.
(3) The disciple asked Jesus to teach them to pray because he knew they were ignorant and inexperienced in this area.
(a) I have not seen in the gospels where the disciples were characterized as men of prayer. Even in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus’ prayer life was something which He practiced alone, without the help (at least for very long) of the disciples.
(b) This one disciple’s request was an open admission that not only did they need prayer, but his life and the lives of his fellows were lacking in this area.
4. Prayer’s Content
a. Re-read Verses 2-4
b. Looking at the prayer Jesus gives to His disciples as a pattern prayer, we see right away it is short.
(1) Does not include all of the elements of prayer—focuses on petitions for God to meet certain needs, but does not deal to any great degree with our praise.
(2) The prayer is skeletal, one that can be filled in with greater detail, but one that outlines the essential elements of our prayers.
c. It taught the disciples to address God as Father, an intimate family relationship unknown to believers in the OT. It simply means that believers are now to speak to God as to a loving heavenly Father.
d. A survey of the areas of need the prayer covers.
(1) The Kingdom of God coming.
(a) The coming of God’s kingdom will occur at Jesus’ second coming, when the whole of creation is restored and rid of sin, and when God’s holiness and splendor is revealed in its totality.
(b) The first element of prayer has to do with the God’s authority being fully established on the earth, and for His glory and splendor to be revealed at that time.
(2) The disciples’ physical needs.
(a) Since God is also a provider for His children, the disciples are taught to ask Him for their daily needs.
(b) I believe that bread represents not only “food” in a general sense, but also all the other areas of physical need. So, the disciples are being taught to ask their Father to meet their physical needs.
(3) The disciples’ spiritual needs
(a) Salvation delivers us from the penalty of sin, but only Christ’s return will remove the presence of sin.
(b) Since sin abounds in this life, Jesus taught his disciples to pray for forgiveness for their sins, because even the apostles sinned.
(c) As all creation waits and yearns for the coming of the Kingdom of God, as our body yearns for God to meet its physical needs, so our spirit desperately needs our sins to be forgiven and God to protect us from committing further sin.
(d) To enjoy fellowship with God, the barrier of our sins must be removed by His forgiveness. We need this continually, and that is why Jesus taught us to pray.
(e) When Jesus included the expression “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us…” I believe He was not teaching that we must forgive before God will forgive us (which would mean that forgiveness is conditioned upon our works), but that the two are seen as working hand-in-hand. I also believe this is an acknowledgment that we not only need God’s forgiveness, but that we also need Him to enable us to be able to forgive, to overcome human nature.
(f) I also believe the petition “And lead us not into temptation” is a request for God to empower us to deal with sin at its very roots, rather than waiting for it to bear fruit.
(1) Not a request for God to stop tempting us, because God does not tempt (James 1:13-14).
(2) It is our expression of a desire on our part not to be tempted.
(3) Many of us would like to be tempted and to overcome that temptation, rather than to escape it. Jesus’ taught us we should seek to deal harshly with sin at its very roots.
(4) So, our prayer should acknowledge the reality of our sin and our need for forgiveness, but at the same time should seek to avoid sin altogether by being kept even from the temptation to sin.
5. An Incentive for Prayer
a. Having been taught for what we should consistently pray—the coming of God’s Kingdom, daily physical needs, and God’s provisions for sin Jesus moves to the incentive for our prayers.
b. He does this by telling two parables, the first dealing with a request of a friend (vv. 5-10) and the second with the request made of a father (vv. 11-13).
c. Re-read Verses 5-10
d. With a Friend, Persistence Is Rewarded
(1) The first example is rather funny when you try to visualize it.
(2) A man has an unexpected guest arrive at his home, and he has no bread to give him. Although it is midnight, he goes to the house of a friend to ask to borrow bread.
(3) His friend is already in bed, perhaps in the same bed as his family, kids included. There are likely animals in the room, as there often was (and still is in some parts of the world).
(4) The friend in bed would have quickly given the bread if it wasn’t so late, and if it would not have disturbed the whole house.
(5) But even though man in bed protests, the man in need persisted, which prompted his friend to get up, open the door, and give him what he was seeking, the bread for which he had asked.
(6) In applying this illustration we must be careful to avoid certain conclusions. It doesn't mean that God is annoyed by our persistent requests. And it doesn't suggest that the only way to get our prayers answered is to be persistent.
(7) It does teach, however, if a man is willing to help a friend because of his persistence, God is much more willing to hear the cries of His children.
(8) Verse 9 teaches we should not grow weary or discouraged in our prayer life. “Keep on asking ... keep on seeking ... keep on knocking ... .” Sometimes God answers our prayers the first time we ask, in other cases He answers only after prolonged asking.
(9) Verse 10 reveals the promise that when we pray, God always gives us what we ask or He gives us something better. A “no” answer means He knows our request would not be the best for us; His denial is then better than our request.
e. With a Father, Expect Good Gifts
(1) Re-read Verses 11-13
(2) In this story, Jesus leaves the imagery of a friend and moves to that of a father. If friends can be expected to give us what we ask for when we persist, what can we expect from our father, better yet, from our Heavenly Father?
(3) Jesus taught His disciples to pray to God as their Father.
(a) Earthly fathers love their children and enjoy giving good gifts to them—not “bad” things when they have asked for something good.
(b) Put a little differently, earthly fathers do not give their children gifts which will harm them when they are asked for those things which will help them.
(c) God, as a Heavenly Father, does not give us things harmful to us when we have asked for things beneficial to us.
(d) If you look closely at your personal prayer life, how frequently will you find yourself asking for “snakes and scorpions” rather than “fish and eggs?” That is, how often do you find yourself asking for things that would or could be harmful to your spiritual life?
f. Because God is a good God and a loving Father, we can not only expect Him to answer our prayers, but to do so in a way that is for our ultimate good.
(1) From Jesus’ first story we learn that God answers our prayers.
(2) From the second, we learn that His answers are good ones.
g. The highest good God gives His disciples who ask of Him in prayer is summed up in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
(1) What better gift could He give?
(2) It is likely that when Jesus taught the disciples to ask for the Holy Spirit, He was referring to the power of the Spirit enabling them to live the other-worldly type of discipleship which He had been teaching in the preceding chapters.
(3) By this time, they were probably feeling how utterly impossible it was for them to meet the tests of discipleship in their own strength, which is, of course, true.
(4) The Holy Spirit is the power that enables us to live the Christian life. So Jesus pictured God as anxious to give this power to those who ask.
(5) In the original Greek, verse 13 does not say that God will give “the” Holy Spirit, but rather He will “give Holy Spirit” (without the article). A Biblical Professor has pointed out that when the article is present, it refers to the Person Himself, but when the article is absent, it refers to His gifts or operations on our behalf. So in this passage, it is not so much a prayer for the Person of the Holy Spirit, but rather for His ministries in our lives.
6. Summary and Conclusion
a. The prayer Jesus taught deals both with our future hope, on which our faith is based, and with our present life, which we should live in the light of that hope.
(1) God’s kingdom coming is our hope and our goal, and we should pray for that continually. This should motivate us to live in the certainty of Christ’s return and establishing his kingdom.
(2) Looking to this in the future, we also look to God to meet our present needs—physical sustenance and forgiveness of sins, as well as deliverance from that which might cause us to sin.
(3) Our prayer should include the present and the future.
b. Our prayer should not be individualistic or self-centered.
(1) Throughout Christ’s model we find plural pronouns (“us,” “our,” “we”), rather than singulars.
(2) Our prayers should be intercessory, not just individual. If we need desperately to pray for ourselves, we must also pray for others.
c. It is not so much on how we pray, but on what motivates us to pray. Only three verses deal with the content of prayer, while the rest assure us that God will hear and will answer our prayers with only the best gifts in response to them.
d. In giving us this prayer, and in the words which accompany it, Jesus is telling us that this prayer should be constantly on our lips. There are no excuses for not praying for these things, whether using those exact words or. There are, however, some troubling reasons why we may not pray as Jesus taught us.
(1) Not praying for God’s name be honored, or for His kingdom to come, reveals a love for this world and a reluctance to see it pass, superseded and replaced by the righteous rule of God.
(2) Not praying for God to provide our daily bread reveals either a self-sufficient attitude that does not depend daily on God’s provision, or seeing a life of affluence and laying up earthly treasures as rendering prayer for daily needs unnecessary.
(3) Not praying daily for God to forgive our sins (and giving us the grace to forgive the sins of others) reveals either gullibility about our own daily sinfulness, or a callused conscience toward sin caused by on-going unconfessed and unforgiven sin.
(4) Failing to pray as Jesus teaches us may be because we are Christians, but not disciples.
(a) This prayer which our Lord taught His disciples was a prayer for disciples.
(b) It is possible you might be a true Christian and not a disciple.
(c) A Christian is one who is saved through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
(d) A disciple is one who takes following Christ seriously in his or her life and attempts to emulate Christ daily.
e. If our Lord’s model prayer is indeed the prayer of a true disciple, then let us conclude by praying as our Lord has instructed.
7. Invitation
