‘TEACH US TO PRAY’

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 14, 2020 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: October 14, 2020 from Luke 11:1-4

Theme: Jesus has taught us—as His followers—how to pray to the Father.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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This morning, we come to a very important and very wonderful portion of the Gospel of Luke. It’s found in the beginning of Luke 11; and in it, our Lord teaches us—as His followers—about the important subject of prayer.

In this portion of Luke’s Gospel, our Lord taught His disciples about the importance of persistence in prayer; which is the subject of verses 5-8. And then, He speaks of the assurance of the answer to our prayers; which is taken up in verses 9-13. But in verses 1-4, He began by teaching us the very important lesson of ‘how’ to pray.

Luke 11:1-4 tells us;

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one” (Luke 11:1-4).

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Now; perhaps those words sound familiar. You might remember them from the Sermon on The Mount—in Matthew 6—when Jesus taught His disciples to pray. We often hear it called ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.

But this is not the same situation as the one given the Sermon on The Mount. In the case of the Sermon on The Mount, our Lord was teaching His disciples while a great crowd was listening in on the mountainside. That was a very public event. This, however, was a completely different occasion—an occasion that was much more private and intimate. Here, our Lord was answering a specific question after His disciples listened-in as He prayed. Our Lord often repeated His instructions in different situations; and this is an example of that fact.

It’s not really accurate to refer to it as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. It is not a prayer that our Lord would have needed to pray. He would not have had to say, “forgive us our sins”. A prayer that would be better thought of as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ is the one we find in John 17. That was the prayer that Jesus prayed to the Father just before going to the cross for us. It was a prayer that only He could pray as our Redeemer. So; the prayer in the passage before us would be better to call “The Disciples’ Prayer”. It’s the prayer that is appropriate for you and me to pray as followers of Jesus.

Now; back in the Sermon on The Mount, the Lord prefaced His words with this warning:

“And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:7-8).

Many people have taken these words from this prayer and have repeated them over and over in a very ceremonial and almost ritualistic way. It’s not wrong, of course, to repeat them—so long as we don’t do so mindlessly in a vain manner. And it’s certainly not wrong to repeat them in appreciation of their beauty—because they are truly among the greatest words ever spoken on earth. But the real purpose of them is to give us a basic pattern for prayer. In these words, our Lord gives His followers the kinds of subjects we should pray about—and the kind of priorities in which we should pray them. We see this by the way our Lord began this prayer in Matthew 6:9; when He said, “In this manner, therefore, pray …” Not necessarily in these exact words; but in this “manner”.

Think of what it would be like if you or I were ushered into the presence of a great and glorious king. What would we say? If we had a request to bring to this king, would we know the proper protocol to follow? Well; in this passage, our Lord gives us a pattern to follow in coming to His Father to make our requests before Him. What precious information this is!

* * * * * * * * * *

Notice first …

1. THE SITUATION OF THIS INSTRUCTION (v. 1).

We’re told in verse 1 that “it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’” They were thinking back to the ministry of John the Baptist. We’re not told anything of how it was that the disciples of John were taught to pray. But it must have been that John was a remarkable man of prayer; and that he taught his disciples how he had learned to pray.

But the situation here was that they were reminded of this by having listened in to our Lord as He prayed. As great as John’s prayers were, our Lord’s prayers must have been much greater. John prayed as a prophet and as a servant of God. But Jesus prayed as a Son to His Father. The disciples must have been deeply impressed by what they heard. We’re told that they waited until He had ceased praying—perhaps because they were listening with reverent awe. And then they asked that He would teach them to pray—just as John had taught His disciples.

What a profound thing it must have been to listen in to the Lord Jesus—the Son of God in human flesh—as He poured out His requests to His Father, in loving and intimate fellowship with Him. The Bible tells us that there were times when our Lord prayed all through the night. It seems that He prayed before great decisions that He needed to make, or when great events of His life were about to occur. And of course, we have—recorded for us in the Scriptures—the prayers that He prayed on the night in which He was betrayed; or that He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane; or that He even prayed while hanging upon the cross.

Our Lord prayed in deep love to His Father; and the Father, in deep love for His Son, delighted to answer Him. And Jesus even told us of the new situation that He would bring about for us through His cross, and said;

In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God (John 16:26-27).

So then; could we ask for a greater gift of grace than that we may pray to God as our Father—who loves us as much as He loves His Son Jesus? And can we ask for a greater teacher in the school of prayer than our Lord Jesus Himself?

So; the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray; and in verses 2-4 we find …

2. THE PATTERN OF PRAYER THAT HE TAUGHT (vv. 2-4).

The first thing we should notice is how His followers are to address God. Jesus said, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven …” That’s how our Lord’s words are given to us in the King James Version, or in the New King James Version. But if you are using a different translation, you’ll find that the word “our” and the words “in heaven” are not present. This is because the very best copies of the ancient Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke do not include them. According to Luke, Jesus simply said that we are to address God as “Father”.

But what a remarkable thing that is! A Jewish person—living under the Old Covenant realities of the time before Jesus died on the cross for us—would never think of calling God “Father” in that way. But that’s the great reality of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Because He died for our sins, He has removed every barrier that exists between a holy God and sinful human beings. And now, God is free to adopt us as His own children, and we now have the full right to come to Him and speak to Him as our Father. After Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to Mary by the tomb; and He told her,

“… go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Jesus purchased the right for us to approach God in the most intimate and loving terms. We who are in Jesus by faith don’t come trembling before an almighty God in fear and terror to ask something from Him that He would not be willing to give. Instead, we come to Him as His beloved children who ask their Father—freely and in love—for whatever they may need.

And then, notice how—after telling His disciples how they are to approach God with their requests—He then tells them what they are to prioritize in their asking. It is a very easy thing to come running up to God with all of our wish-lists. But our Lord teaches us to stop first and consider what the Father would like for us to ask of Him. These would be the kinds of things that Jesus would ask; and they are the kinds of things that He would want us—as His followers—to prioritize in our asking.

First, He would want us to ask that the Father be honored. Jesus taught us to say to the Father, “Hallowed be Your name.” To speak of the Father’s name is to speak of much more than the mere name itself. It’s to speak of all that He is and all that He does and all that He desires. And to say that His name is “hallowed” is another way of saying, “How holy You are, Father! How sacred! How majestic! How reverent! How set-apart from everything else that is!” We should come to God with a reverent and worshipful awareness of who He is. It will change the nature of our requests to Him if we do so.