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JESUS TEACHES US HOW TO PRAY
Luke 11: 1-13
Key Verse: 2
“He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.”’”
Many of us know the Lord’s Prayer. But some may find that the Lord’s Prayer in today’s passage is different. Why? It is because the Lord’s Prayer is also recorded in Matthew 6:9-15. The Lord’s Prayer in today’s passage isa more succinct summary of the prayer. As we know well, prayer is simply communicating with God. Prayer is one of the great privileges God has given to his children. It is amazing to ponder that we mortal human beings can talk with immortal God. Prayer is the source of power and wisdom to experience victory in our daily lives. Our God primarily speaks to us through his words and we speak to him through prayers. There are numerous Scriptural verses to pray to God. God wants us to pray to him and we can have an intimate relationship with him. In today’s passage, Jesus also teaches us how to pray and how to get our prayer answered. Let’s learn from Jesus how to pray.
As we know well, Jesus always prayedthroughout his life-time. Even on the cross he prayed to God. His strength and courage came from God through his prayer. In today’s passage, we again find that Jesus prayed in a certain place. Until this time, Jesus didn’t forcefully tell his disciples to pray. Instead, Jesus showed the example and waited for them to realize the importance of prayer and to pray to God on their own. But this time, when Jesus finished his prayer one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples”(1). I am amazed by this disciple, because he asked Jesus how to pray, instead of asking him how to perform great miracles or how to give powerful sermons. No doubt, the disciples prayed, but their prayer was very simple and primitive. I bet this disciple recognized the source of Jesus’ joy, peace, love and strength that was his prayer to God. So he said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray…”He really wanted to learn to pray. We all want to pray. But sometimes we don’t know how to pray and what to pray. We alsoneed to learn to pray.
Let’s read verses 2-4. “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.”’”This very succinct Lord’s Prayer teaches us what to pray very clearly.
First, “Father.”When we pray, we should know who we are to pray to. Jesus’ model prayer starts with “Father,” not “God” or “Lord” or “the Mighty and Holy One in heaven.” To Jewish people calling God “Father” was unthinkable. Rather, they made an effort not to mention God’s name in their conversation. When they had to utter God’s name, they vaguely referred to him as “the One Above,” or as “Hashem” which means “the name.” To the Jews, God was unapproachable because he was so holy, pure, righteous and mighty. If we read the Old Testament, we can find that God is called “Father” a very few times by his people but never individually but only nationally (corporately). There was not a concept of God being our personal Father.But Jesus taught us to call God “Father.” Jesus himself on sixty different occasions uttered God as “Father.” So the religious leaders actually realized the magnitude of this statement and they sought to put him to death as a blasphemer.
When we call God “Father” in our prayer, we can see our relationship with God. God is our Father, and we are his beloved children. When we accept Christ as our Savior and Lord, we become God’s beloved children. All fathers love their children. Ask M. Daniel Kim how much he loves his daughter, Sophia and Amy. God is our loving Father who loves his children. Unbelievers are not God’s children. They are illegitimate and not true sons and daughters (Heb 12:8). So calling God, “Father” in our prayer means that we are running into the bosom of our Father God, saying “Daddy” in orderto have intimate fellowship with him as his loving children.
Children come to their loving father for anything they need, anytime they desire. They just walk right up to their dad and ask and talk like Joyce who goes to her daddy Elijah confidently and ask something to her daddy in a meeting. When we pray, therefore, think about children who have a father that adores them. So we come to our Father God and have an intimate talk with him.
Let’s call God “Father” with confidence and with desire to come to him. Let us bring our stress, anxiety, fear, sorrow, pain,or all kinds of requests to our Father God. He will comfort us and renew our body and soul. Our Father God will give us mercy and grace. He will give us wisdom and strength to overcome all kinds of hardships in our time of need. As we approach God to pray, first let us come to God as young children run to their loving father saying, “Daddy, Daddy.” We come to our Father God to be loved, cared and led, and we come to our Father God to love and honor him as our loving Father. “Father!”
Second, “…hollowed be your name.” What should be our prayer topics? Jesus teaches us to say, “Father, hallowed be your name…” Here the word “hallowed” means “to honor as holy.” So “hallowed be your name” means God’s name should be honored as holy. Honored by who? By everyone in the world, particularly by his children—you and me. God is the Creator and Redeemer. God is the author of life. Therefore God is worthy to be honored and worshipped. When people don’t honor God what happens? They become idol-worshippers. God desires honor that comes from our hearts. God said to his people Israel, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Is 29:13). We can honor God by obeying God’s words in our daily life and growing in his image more and more. These days people honor nobody. They do not honor God’s name but honor what is godless, futile and sinful. We should pray, “hallowed be your name” in our country, in our family, in our personal lives.
Third,“…your kingdom come.” Our Father God is a king and his kingdom is where God reigns. God reigns his people with righteousness, love and justice. The Garden of Eden was where God reigned and it was paradise. But after Adam’s fall, Satan began to rule over human beings. Today we see evil everywhere. And it seems that it gets worse. We see evil in us as well. Is there any solution for it? Yes, there is a solution, when God’s kingdom comes to us. When God rules in our hearts, our families, in our country, evil has no place to stand and reign. We must pray for God’s kingdom to come to us. In other words, we accept God and his reign over us. Then we experience God’s kingdom, i.e. God’s peace, joy and life in us. We must also pray for God’s kingdom to come. When Jesus comes again, God’s kingdom will come permanently. “May God’s kingdom come.” “May God’s rule come to me and to the world.”
Fourth, “give us each day our daily bread.”This reminds us of God’s provision for his people in the Old Testament. God cared for the Israelites in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. There was no food in the wilderness where nothing could grow. But God miraculously provided them food from heaven called manna. God knows what we need and he provides us what we need, although we work hard each day. But if God does not give us hearth, wisdom and ability to work, we can do nothing. So we need to pray for God’s daily bread provision daily. We must also thankful to God who provides by giving thanks to God and making an offering to him. We are to pray for the needs of our brothers and sisters as well.
Fifth, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” Sin is by definition doing what is wrong or not doing what is right according to God’s laws. Sin is breaking God’s laws. That is why 1 John 3:4 says, “sin is lawlessness.” God’s law says, “You shall not steal,”but you steal, then you have sinned. Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” but you don’t love your enemies, then you have sinned. People say, “No one is perfect.” They mean that everyone sins. As we need bread daily, we also need God’s forgiveness daily. So Jesus asks us to ask God to forgive us our sins. Amazingly though, God is a forgiving God (Ex 34:7). Jesus came to forgive sinners. When we are in sin without God’s forgiveness, we have broken relationship with God. We become dull and joyless and guilty. But when our sins are forgiven, we can have peace with God. We can think clearly and sleep peacefully.
But to receive God’s forgiveness we must also forgive others. Since everyone is a sinner, we are in need of receiving forgiveness from others as well as in need of giving forgiveness to others. But when others sin against us, we experience pain and bitterness in our hearts. We hold grudge against others. Then our blood pressure goes up, and we get tension and headaches and becomegrumpy. That is sin before God. So we cannot ask God to forgive our other sins before we forgive others. Jesus also said in Mark 11:25, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Let us ask God’s forgiveness as we forgive others from our hearts.
Sixth, “And lead us not into temptation.”Satan tempts us night and day to make us fall and have a broken relationship with God and others. We absolutely need God’s leading and his protection. In order to keep ourselves away from temptation, we need to hold the hand of our Father God and follow his leading. I remember I held my dad’s hand tightly in a busy flee market when I was a little boy, because I was fearful to get lost. My dad knew what I didn’t know. He saw what I didn’t see. So I stuck close to my dad and just followed his leading. Likewise, we must ask God to lead us to his righteous path all the way to heaven. We are weak and vulnerable. We can fall into temptation. And after falling in sin, we cannot escape with our strength and effort. We must admit it and ask God to lead us humbly. So we should pray humbly, “Lead us not into temptation.”
The Lord’s Prayer is very spiritual and powerful. It is a blueprint for prayer. It is not a rigid formula that we recite it when we pray. But it clearly shows what to pray. We are to pray to our Father God for his name to be hallowed and his kingdom to come. We are also ask God for giving us his blessings by providing our daily bread, forgiveness and his righteous leading. Let’s pray the Lord’s Prayer from our hearts.
Verses 5-13 are Jesus’ continual teaching about how to pray. He first told a parable and explained how we should pray to God. Let us look at verses 5-8. There was a man whose close friend made a surprise visit to him at midnight. But his refrigerator was empty and there was no 24 hr Metro grocery store nearby. So he couldn’t serve his guest. So, to borrow three loaves of bread, the man went to another friend living nearby who had already gone to bed with his children. Shamelessly he spoke loudly to the sleepy friend, “Hey friend, please lend me some bread.” His friend in bed heard the man’s loud voice, but pretended to sleep, giving a sign to his children not to make any noiseBut the man didn’t give up. He began knocking the door, bang, bang, bang along with his loud voice, “Please open the door and lend me some bread.” Hekept knocking on the door as if he would break if the door was not opened. With shameless audacity, he pleaded with his friend again and again. His friend finally realized that the only way he was going back to seep was to give the man bread quickly. So he got up from his bed and gave the man bread. Jesus then concluded in verse 8, “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.”What is Jesus’ point here? Prayer is boldly and desperately pleading for what we need. When we pray, we should be shameless before God. Prayer is not diplomatic request. Prayer is shameless pleading and begging for anything and everything. We should be also audacious and bold to ask God for what we need.
That is why Jesus says in verses9-10. “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.” In these verses Jesus stresses persistence and shameless audacity. Our God is not like the sleepy neighbor in bed who was reluctant to give. But our loving Father God wants to give his children what we need. We must ask, seek and knock until the door is open and we get what we request. Here we can see the increasing intensity of the words“ask” “seek” and “knock.” In the parable, the man first asked his neighbor in a loud voice, and then seeking his doors and then banging the door. Jesus really wants us to be persistent with this hunger and thirst when we pray. Prayer also involves active seeking and knocking the door. After learning this teaching of Jesus, a Bible teacher uttered, “If the door is not open after knocking it, then bulldoze and demolish the door.”
Verses 11-13 are Jesus’ conclusion on prayer. As human fathers want to give good gifts to their children God loves his children and wants to give the best gift out of his great love. The best gift that God can give is the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is God himself dwelling within us. The Holy Spirit assures us that we are God’s children, strengthens us when we are weak, leads us into all truth and enables us to bear good fruit. Today, Jesus taught what and how to pray. Let’s pray the Lord’s Prayer persistently with shameless audacity until the door will be opened.