“LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY”
Luke 11:1-13
Jesus prayed often. He prayed at His baptism. He offered a table prayer when feeding the five thousand. He prayed at His Transfiguration; when raising Lazarus from the dead; and in the Garden of Gethsemane before His betrayal and arrest. Jesus even prayed while dying on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” Luke 23:34. And again, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’—which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ” Matthew 27:46.
Prayer was such an essential part of Christ’s life that the Gospels often describe Him as withdrawing from the crowds and even His disciples in order to pray. Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.”
However, Jesus not only exemplified prayer; He taught about prayer. He taught that prayer is powerful and effective. Luke 11:9, “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
Jesus taught His disciples to pray in humility—like the Publican who went into the temple to pray; and not the prideful Pharisee who literally prayed to himself and said, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men,” Luke 18:11. That was not praying. That was boasting.
This is also why Jesus taught in Matthew 6:5-6, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Jesus taught His disciples to pray without meaningless repetition, Matthew 6:7; to pray even for their enemies, Matthew 5:44; and to pray in His saving name. “You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it,” John 14:14.
And Jesus taught His disciples to pray with persistence. This is why He told the Parable of the Persistent Widow; a parable which opens with the words, “Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up,” Luke 18:1.
In view of Christ’s many examples and teachings about prayer, it is no surprise that on one occasion, as Jesus was praying, His disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples,” Luke 11:1. The prayer Jesus taught them, of course, was the Lord’s Prayer. A prayer all of us have committed to memory. A prayer all of us have known since childhood. A prayer all of us have said in many places and many situations: at home and church; on battlefields and in fields of endeavor; after devotions and meals; in times of plenty and want; at baptisms and funerals.
“Lord, teach us to pray.” This in itself is a fitting prayer. While prayer is a familiar part of the Christian life, it is this familiarity that may lead us at times to discount the power and efficacy of prayer and to forget what prayer really is. Whether spoken in church or while lying in bed; whether voiced individually or collectively, silently or audibly; whether finely articulated or articulated only through sobs, sighs, and tears; prayer is simply talking with God.
More than this, prayer is talking with God in view of a comforting, special relationship. What is it? “Our Father in heaven,” Luke 11:2. Why would Jesus emphasize this relationship first, before addressing such important needs as daily bread, forgiveness, and protection from evil and temptation? The answer is: Everything about prayer—how we approach God, what we should expect from God; how we are to pray and how we are not to pray—flows from this relationship “Our Father in heaven.”
Jesus saw this relationship as so important to a Christian’s life, behavior, and confidence, and prayer, that He used the phrase “your Father in heaven” no less than twelve times in his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Matthew 5:48. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26. “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them,” Matthew 6:31-32.
“Our Father in heaven.” What was Jesus teaching us with this introduction to the Lord’s Prayer? How did Jesus want these words to impact our praying? As you may remember from confirmation class, Martin Luther explained the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer this way in his Small Catechism: “God would by these words tenderly invite us to believe that He is our true Father, that we are His true children, so that we may with all boldness and confidence as Him as dear children as their dear father.” The relationship we have with God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ should move us to pray with humility, confidence, and hopeful expectation.
First, knowing God as “our Father in heaven” through Jesus Christ should move us to pray with humility. You know the parable Jesus told about the Pharisee and Publican who went into the temple to pray, Luke 18:9-14. You also know the surprising outcome of the parable—how the Publican, not the ultra-religious Pharisee, went home justified before God.
If I asked you to describe the manner in which both men prayed, what would you say? The Pharisee stood in a prominent place and boasted about his religious accomplishments; whereas the Publican kept to the shadows, was unable to even lift his eyes toward heaven, and beat his breast, managing only a brief seven-word prayer: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The Pharisee prayed in self-righteous arrogance. The Publican prayed in utmost humility. Which prayer do you think God listened to? What moved the Publican to pray in humility? The knowledge of his sin. The knowledge that he deserved punishment, not grace. The knowledge that God had no reason to listen to his prayers much less to answer them.
“Our Father in heaven.” These words should move us to pray with humility, because each time we pray them we are praying about a relationship we did not earn and a relationship we did not deserve. You and I could spend our entire lifetime trying to win God’s favor; trying to keep the Ten Commandments perfectly; trying to watch our language; trying to be good husbands, good wives, good children, good employees, good people, and yet failing miserably in thoughts, words, and deeds.
As James wrote in his epistle: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it,” James 2:10. On our own, we could never say, “Our Father in heaven.” On our own we could never know God as our heavenly Father. On our own, God would never recognize us as His redeemed children.
My Grandma Weis developed Alzheimer’s before her death. As her health and memory deteriorated, what hurt me most was the way in she would look at me—this dear, beloved woman who had meant so much to me; who had played baseball with me and gotten down on the floor to wrestle with me; who had always welcomed me home from school with a warm hug and “Well, hello Charlie”—how toward the end of her life, my grandmother would look at me and not know me; not recognize me as her grandson.
That sad, vacant look in my grandmother’s eyes has often reminded me of some of the parables of Jesus. Imagine being the prodigal son of Luke 15, who runs home to his father only to hear the words, “Who are you? I don’ know you. You’re not my son.” Or imagine attending the wedding banquet of Luke 22 and hearing the host say, “Who are you? How did you get in here? I don’t know you.”
Or remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.” I knew of you, but I did not know you personally as My disciple.
“God would by these words tenderly invite us to believe,” said Luther. And that God has invited us to know Him as our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ should move us to pray with humility—should move us to proclaim in wonder with the apostle John: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are,” 1 John 3:1.
Second, knowing God as “our Father in heaven” through Jesus Christ should also move us to pray with boldness and confidence. I can’t help but think that the words, “Our Father in heaven,” must have had special meaning for Martin Luther—as evidenced from his explanation in the Small Catechism. Early in his life, Luther saw God only as an angry Judge, not a loving Father.
Luther did everything he could to win God’s approval, the way some sons do everything they can to win the affection of a harsh, distant, and disapproving earthly father. Luther joined a monastery and became a Roman Catholic monk. He prayed. He fasted. He even beat himself to the point of bleeding and exhaustion, all in the hope of finding peace with God. And he never found it, until he opened the Bible and read these words from Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand,” Romans 5:1-2.
I was blessed with a wonderful father, Paul Weis. My dad loved me unconditionally. He picked me up when I fell—literally and figuratively, and occasionally let me fall so I would learn to pick myself up. He provided for me, protected me, advised me, encouraged and disciplined me. He saw to it that I went to church and learned the Scriptures.
As I’ve said from this pulpit before, without that Christian foundation, I don’t know how I would have survived the various twists and turns of my life. The book of Christian poetry I worked on for more than two decades and finally published—On Wings of Eagles—has this dedication: “For my dad. Sixty-five years ago you gave me a home, name, and family. I’ve never met anyone more selfless or loving. In you I glimpsed the meaning of having a ‘Father’ in heaven.” I’m so grateful dad was able to read that dedication before he died.
To the day of my dad’s death, I knew I could go to him with any problem or need. To the day of his death, even while struggling with a respirator, he insisted on telling me how much he loved me and, as I left the hospital room said, “Be sure and drive safely.” Always thinking of me. Never thinking of himself. If this is true of an earthly father, how much more true is it of our perfect Father in heaven?
I know that some of you may be struggling with problems. I know some of you may be disillusioned with prayer, thinking, “What’s the use in praying? God doesn’t listen. God doesn’t answer. I can only assume, therefore, that God has favorite children and I’m not one of the favorites. God must have better things to do and better places to be.”
I know some of you may be thinking this way, because I’ve thought this way myself at times.” And we’re wrong. When we think of God this way, we’re not viewing Him as our Father in heaven—more like a stranger, more like a God out to hurt us instead of save us, more like a Father we’ve never met and therefore don’t know. But we have met Him and we do know Him. We know Him through the suffering, death, and resurrection of His own Son, Jesus Christ; as Jesus told Philip in John 14:9, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
If we reach a point where we are worried about approaching God with our biggest or smallest problems; if we reach a point where we feel that God is distant, disinterested, and determined not to listen to our prayers, then we need to open our Bibles and turn to Romans 8:32 and read and reread these words: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” If God sacrificed His only Son for you, do you really think He will fail to hear and answer your prayers about sickness, loneliness, unemployment, financial troubles, or loved ones?
Having a Father in heaven, being children of God, are important relationship terms. Long after I reached middle-age my mother would often introduce me to people as “her little boy.” Afterwards I’d say, “Mom, will you please stop that. I’m not your little boy any longer. I’m a middle aged man. You’re embarrassing me.” And mom would smile and say, “To me you’ll always be my little boy.” Isn’t that what our Father in heaven wants from us in terms of trust, reliance, and faith—to be His children? Isn’t that why Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these?” Mark 10:14.
And finally, knowing that God is our true Father through Jesus Christ should move us to pray with hopeful expectation. Why is this? Because our heavenly Father will never confuse what we want with what we need. He will never permit our desires to interfere with His desire to save us. Jesus said in Luke 11:11-13, “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
“Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus taught us to pray in view of having a Father in heaven. And in view of that relationship, He also said this: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Ask. Seek. Knock. Your heavenly Father is listening, and has promised to answer.