Today’s scripture begins with an interesting event. Jesus is out, away from his disciples, praying in a certain place, the Bible tells us. As we look through the gospels we see that this is a very common thing for Jesus. Jesus had a very real prayer life, one that we all probably would be jealous of. He is constantly going off, away from his followers, away from the crowds, so that he can pray. Whereas we tend to struggle in our lives to grow prayer in our lives, it is something that seems to be a natural part of Jesus and his life. This is true to the point where Jesus would actually sneak away from his followers so that he could go off to pray on his own. And here we see that his disciples, his followers, responded to this. They saw something special in Jesus and his prayer life and they wanted to know more about it. So, Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray. They see that Jesus has something that they want and so they ask for it. And Jesus replies by introducing to them the Lord’s Prayer, he replies by teaching them how to pray, just as they asked.
I. Praying for Ourselves
The Lord’s Prayer has much to it, and I fear that we sometimes take it for granted, praying it each Sunday morning, speaking the words by rote, ignoring the meaning behind them. As the youth reminded us this morning, there is meaning behind the words that we speak, and we should be praying the prayer with the mind that it is not only being heard by God, but that he is answering the prayer that we pray.
But the Lord’s Prayer isn’t the only thing that Jesus had to say about prayer. He had more to tell his disciples, and there is more for us to hear as well. The thing that we often spend the most time in prayer about isn’t even found in the Lord’s Prayer; praying for others. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t pray for others, it just isn’t what Jesus was teaching his disciples about when he taught them the Lord’s Prayer. You’ll discover that he has more to say about praying for others and requesting things farther down in the scripture that was read this morning.
But the Lord’s Prayer, in and of itself, is a prayer about our relationship with God. It begins with relationship, calling to God not in some formal or distant way but instead referring to him as Father. Our Wednesday Night Bible Study spent two weeks looking at the Lord’s Prayer and one thing that we discovered during this time is that the Greek word that is translated as Father isn’t nearly as formal a word as Father is today. When you say “Father”, there is usually some distance there, there is usually some separation. If you had a child come up to you and say, “Hello, father,” you’d probably wonder what was wrong, why they were being so very formal. No, the Greek word that is translated as Father in Jesus’ teaching is not a formal word for father, but a familial one. Growing up, I called my father, “Dad.” And this would actually be a better translation for the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, “our Dad, which art in heaven.” Some of us use the word daddy, others use the word poppa, either of these would work as well. So the Lord’s Prayer is relational. It is saying that God is not distant from us. It is telling us to call out to him in family terms. And the Lord’s Prayer isn’t about asking for things. Instead it begins by praying that God’s name be hallowed, or glorified, or made holy. It continues by praying that God’s kingdom comes to this earth and that God’s will is done on this earth. And when you begin to think about what it is you are praying, you realize that those are things that we, God’s people are responsible for. If God’s will is going to be done on this earth, we are going to be the ones doing it. So, our prayer becomes an active prayer. It hopefully becomes something that we don’t only speak, but that we begin to live out in our lives. When we pray for God’s will to be done, we have to question whether we are going about doing God’s will. How can we ask for that to happen if we aren’t willing to do it ourselves?
Now, after affirming our family relationship with God and praying for his name to be hallowed, his kingdom to come and his will to be done, we finally get to a request. And the request is quite simple, “please meet our daily needs.” Again, not something that we often pray for. We pray for grand and great things, we don’t remember to ask God for the little things. We don’t remember that our very existence is in God’s hands. We think we can handle our daily needs so that all we have to ask God about are the big things in our life. Not so. God wants us to remember that he is the one who meets our daily needs, and we are to turn to him, and ask him to help us.
We then get to the difficult one; forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Matthew’s recording of this event tells us that Jesus, after teaching this prayer to his disciples spent a fair amount of time talking about how important it was that we forgive others if we want God to forgive us. This is a relational prayer and our relationship with God is not going to be what it can or should be as long as we are holding things against others. We won’t be able to receive God’s forgive-ness if we don’t offer that same forgiveness to those around us.
Jesus continues by telling his disciples to ask God to lead them not into temptation. Matthew’s take on this again adds something, “but deliver us from the evil one.” Again, we have a responsibility in this request that we ask of God. We ask him not to lead us into temptation. But we cannot allow ourselves to walk into temptation either. What are the things that tempt you? Learn to avoid them. Learn to stay away from tempting circumstances.
And when we pray for God to deliver us from evil, I again fear that we are hearing it wrong. We aren’t supposed to be asking God to deliver us from difficulty. We aren’t supposed to be asking God to deliver us from pain. We aren’t supposed to be asking God to deliver us from grief. We often lump these things together, thinking that we are asking God to give us smooth sailing ahead. We often think that if we are going through difficult things or living in difficult times, there is something wrong with us, or worse, something wrong with God. But Jesus doesn’t tell his disciples to pray for smooth sailing ahead. Jesus tells his disciples to ask to be delivered from evil. And what, in this case, is evil? It is that which will separate you from God. It is that which pulls you out of that dad-relationship with God that Jesus modeled in his own life. Jesus is telling us to pray that God can keep us on the straight and narrow. Jesus is telling us to ask God to keep us in right relationship with him.
This is the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus gives it to his disciples. Again, as I mentioned, in Matthew, Jesus goes on to talk with his disciples about the importance of forgiveness, both ours and the forgiveness of those around us.
II. Praying for Others
But here, in Luke, Jesus has another important message for us about prayer. And his message is this: be persistent. His message also refers specifically to praying for others. The Lord’s Prayer was all about praying for yourself and your relationship with God. This next section is about praying for those around you. Jesus tells a parable, he uses an example. A man has a friend and goes to him at midnight asking for three loaves of bread. These loaves are not for himself, rather they are for someone else. You see, a traveler has come a great distance and has come to his place to rest, and he doesn’t have anything to feed this traveler. Now the friend in bed, asleep, doesn’t want to help, he wants to be left alone. But Jesus says that because of the boldness of the man doing the asking, because of his persistence, the man asleep will get up and give what is needed.
Jesus is telling us to be persistent. He is telling us that we can come to God with the needs of those around us and leave those needs before God. Jesus tells us these awesome words, “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
So when praying for those around you, be bold. When lifting the needs of others before God, speak with authority and conviction. Be ready to ask. Seek out the Lord and find him and his will. Knock so that the door might be opened for you. This is the God we follow. This is our dad in heaven. He will hear our prayers and answer us, but we need to be willing to be bold. We need to be ready to speak our minds before him. And we need to make sure that our relationship with him and our relationship with those around us are on the right track. Our prayers should begin with a focus not on ourselves but rather on him and we should remember the glory of putting him first. We need to remember that what we speak when we pray are not only words, but that we should be willing to act them out. I remember hearing of a pastor who would pray at each service for God to reach his hands out to the lost, to those who needed him. It was just a part of the prayer that he would regularly say, often without thinking about it, somewhat like the phrase I use every Sunday about making us a light to the people around us, something that just slipped off the tongue. But then, one day, this pastor heard God respond to him, saying, “you are my hands.” This pastor realized that these weren’t just words that he was to say. He needed to live them out. He continued to pray that prayer, but now with new meaning and with new understanding about his own responsibility. Lord, reach your hands out to the lost. Lord, reach us out to the lost.
Let us take our own prayers that seriously. Let us give ourselves to God and his mission with such abandon. Let us learn to be bold in our prayer, especially prayer for those around us in need. And let us learn to call out to God not in some formal way, not by rote memory, but remembering that he wants relationship with each of us. Amen.
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