Dan Herold | Luke 11:1-13 | July 24, 2016
(Sermon begins at 30:01)
Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to be going wrong? You know, one of those days where the stress of life at home, and work, and kids, and everything else seems to be piling up and it feels like if one more thing happens you’re just going to snap? Imagine you’re having one of those days and then you see someone walk by with a big carefree smile on their face…they look like there’s no possible way they could be any happier. How does that make you feel? When that happens to me a couple thoughts cross my mind. I wonder what they have to be so happy about and, I have to admit, I get a little jealous. When my worries and stress are weighing me down, and I see someone that seems to be stress free, I get a little jealous and wish I could be more like them. That usually happens when something is lacking in my life.
In our gospel reading this morning Jesus and his disciples had been under a lot of stress. They had been facing a lot of opposition, the Pharisees had been following them around trying to cause trouble, and the disciples were starting to realize what Jesus meant when he told them about the cost of being his disciple back in Luke 9. All of that stress was starting to pile up and the disciples recognized that something was missing in their lives. They had seen how Jesus prayed and how John the Baptist had taught his followers to pray and they wanted to have that sort of relationship with God as well. They wanted to be able to talk to him and get their troubles off their chest. So, one day they came to Jesus and they said to him,
“Lord, teach us how to pray.”
And Jesus responded by doing just that. He taught them how to pray and for those extra stressful times he even gave them the words to pray so they’d always have a prayer ready to go when they needed one.
Now it might seem strange that these men we think so highly of—the twelve disciples—didn’t know how to pray, but prayer isn’t something that comes naturally to us. We all need to learn to pray. No matter how old you are or what your prayer life is like there’s something for all of us to learn about prayer from the lesson Jesus teaches in the first 13 verses of Luke 11. Let’s take a look at the model prayer Jesus taught us—both at how he teaches us to pray and the words themselves that he gives us to pray.
First of all, Jesus tells us that we can bring all of our prayers, concerns, and requests to God because he is our Heavenly Father. He is the maker of heaven and earth and it is in his power to do and provide everything we could ever need. God listens to our prayers like a father listens to their child. If the child needs something the father provides—and God provides for us eagerly. Whenever my daughter Ellie wakes up and she’s in her crib calling for us or crying my wife and I jokingly say to each other, “Quick! Go rescue the baby!” And then when we open the door to her room there she is—usually holding the rail of her crib and jumping up and down—eager to be picked up and rescued. Almost immediately a big smile comes across her face and if there were any tears they stop quickly as well.
That’s the sort of relationship we can have with our Heavenly Father through prayer. When the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit hear our prayers they cry out to each other, “Quick! Go rescue them!” and they do! When you pray the Trinity springs into action to rescue you from whatever is attacking you and to provide whatever you are lacking. Jesus goes on to explain how God does those things in the prayer that he teaches his disciples.
The first line of the model prayer is,
“Hallowed be thy name…”
When we pray that we aren’t asking that God’s name become holy because it already is in and of itself. When we pray,
“Father, hallowed be thy name,”
we are primarily asking that two things happen. We are asking that God’s name be recognized as holy and that he send his Holy Spirit to guide and empower us to use his name in a way that is fitting and proper. We are asking that God make himself known to the world and that he help us live up to our calling as God’s people.
Each following line of this prayer builds on the one before it, so next Jesus tells us to pray,
“Your kingdom come.”
When we pray those words we are asking that God’s kingdom—his plan and his influence—come and be known in our world. It’s not as though God’d kingdom won’t come if nobody is praying this because ultimately Jesus is going to come back on Judgment Day either way, but when we pray this we are asking that God be known in this sinful world. We are asking that God would work in ways that would increase his influence in this world and diminish the influence of sin. Simply put, we are praying that the gospel be spread further and further.
The next petition—the third thing we ask of God in this prayer—is the first that deals with material things, and that is the request that God,
The parent chemical sildenafil citrate is a phosphodiesterase sort 5 inhibitor and it meets expectations by helping the body’s common instruments to attain and maintain harder erections. buy viagra cheap Lack of sleep levitra sample is also related to the less production of male hormone Testosterone. Obtaining a sensible book is the most cost effective studio equipment followed by eye-opening art news of contour crafting which will enable fabrication of both artwork and houses on distant planets as well! Neither will you want to miss a fascinating levitra 40 mg appalachianmagazine.com piece on how different sculpture tools are manufactured by leading brand Sculpture House or how to make a pressure chamber for that matter. When it involves an issue as uncomfortable as generic viagra sample impotence, the last concern you desire to address is one option when another that will certainly not work.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
In that petition we are asking that God provide, not just bread, but everything we need for our physical body and life. We are asking for things such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, cattle, and all that we own—a faithful spouse and children, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and all such things. We can ask good for every single thing we need and even want in this world. We can trust that, just like a good Father, God will give us more than we truly need and even bless us with some of the extras we want if it is good for us.
So, Jesus gives us words to pray so that we will never be lacking in any of our physical needs and then next he gives us words to pray for our spiritual needs. He tells us to pray,
“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
When we pray those words we aren’t trying to show God that we deserve to be forgiven since we forgive others because even that would not be enough to earn God’s grace. We are simply praying that God continue to forgive our sins and that he would not withhold any blessings from us because of our sins. The evidence of his grace is visible in our lives in the way that we forgive others who do wrong to us and we are simply asking that God would continue to show us that sort of mercy and grace.
And finally, having asked God to continue to forgive us Jesus also teaches us to pray,
“And lead us not into temptation.”
We asked God to keep forgiving our sins, but we also ask that God decrease the number of occasions that we need to ask for his forgiveness by helping us stay away from temptation.
Now, you’ve probably noticed already the striking similarity between this prayer that Jesus teaches his disciple in Luke 11 and the Lord’s prayer that we say in our worship services every Sunday. You probably have also noticed the differences between the two. Those similarities and differences serve as important reminders for us. First of all, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray not to teach them a prayer. So, that is what Jesus did…he provided a model prayer and showed the sort of things we can include in our prayers.
If you look at this as an example prayer, Jesus teaches us some important lessons about prayer. He teaches us to be confident in whom we are praying. He teaches us to call God “Father” because that’s how he answers our prayers. He teaches us to be bold and ask for big things—to ask for all the physical things we need as well as spiritual things. But, he also teaches us how to balance the two…There’s only one part that talks specifically about our physical needs, but our spiritual needs are addressed much more than that. This example prayer reminds us to be at least as concerned, if not more, with our spiritual well-being as our physical needs.
Sometimes, though, it’s okay to just use the same thing that is given as an example. After all, if this is the model prayer then we can be confident using the very same words as our own prayer. You can certainly pray in your own words, and God encourages that kind of conversation prayer as well, but it will never hurt to have a prayer memorized for those times when you feel the stress of the world weighing down on you and just need to cry out for help. At those times when there is already so much stress Satan can whisper in our ears and tell us that coming up with a prayer is too much work and would only add to our stress. Jesus showed us how to make Satan be quiet, though.
When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness he replied to every temptation by quoting Scripture—we can do the same thing. When Satan tells you that praying is too much work, his greatest fear is that you respond with the words,
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
That scares Satan because he knows he has no argument. Our God—our Heavenly Father whose name is Holy—is always ready and eager to come and rescue us when we cry out for help.
What a privilege we have to be able to carry everything to God in prayer. We can come to him with all of our troubles and concerns and he’ll hear us and help us. Even if you feel like the world has turned it’s back on you your Lord never will. You can always find a safe and welcoming place in his arms. Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Yes! We all are in many different ways. But our precious Savior will always be our refuge—the place we can run to for help and the one who will always come to our rescue.
In HIS name,
AMEN.