1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of
his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his
disciples.”
- Luke 11:1, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
“Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,” writes the hymnist. How true. Where there is life there is breath; where there is faith there is prayer.
Consequently, there is perhaps nothing that more captures the essence of Christian life than God’s people at prayer. Any number of powerful images come to mind...
Think, for example, of the child beside his or her bed, eyes
shut, saying night-time prayers. Or
think of the aged Christian with a well-worn prayer book on their
nightstand. Or think of the picture of
Jesus found in many Christian homes where our Savior is earnestly praying in
the
Related to this, is there a better know or better loved hymn than “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”?
And is there any higher comfort or act of friendship that one Christian can offer to another than the sincere promise: “I’ll keep you in my prayers”?
Reflecting on the words of our text, the very fact that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray indicates they understood the importance and the power and the relevance and the centrality of prayer to the Christian life. But the question goes even farther. It also indicates they were desirous of and open to instruction on how better to strengthen this part of their spiritual life...
So, beginning today and throughout the next few months (with the exception of guest preachers), we will engage ourselves in a summer sermon series on prayer. Using the individual components and petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as the basis for a deeper contemplation on the subject, we’ll be seeking the same instruction and asking the same question as the disciples: “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Today we’ll set the stage for this series by taking a general, panoramic look at what the Bible says about this important topic. In fact, we might regard what we’ll be talking about for the next several minutes as being
A PRACTICAL PRIMER ON PRAYER
As we consider
“What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear; what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” Prayer is a privilege. A great privilege. And a privilege which comes to us at great cost...
Because prayer is intimately linked to the Gospel message. And the Gospel message takes us back to the cross of Jesus Christ. Here’s the connection: We don’t come into this world as blank slates. We are by nature born sinners, estranged from God. Furthermore, the Bible tells us our sins before a Holy God are not just petty annoyances that He overlooks or winks at, but abominations and acts of defiance that call for well-deserved punishment.
That punishment was meted out not to us, but to Jesus. He took it all as our substitute. The Apostle Peter writes: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the
tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds
you have been healed”(1 Peter 3:24).
And in a similar vein
the Apostle Paul writes: “God
made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians
All of which means that for Jesus’ sake and on account of His work we are now in a right relationship with God. We see Him as our Heavenly Father; He sees us as His blood-bought children. For all who know Christ as their Savior, eternal death has been replaced by eternal life.
And one of the present, practical joys of that right relationship is that we can easily, freely and confidently talk to our Heavenly Father. And perhaps that’s the simplest definition of prayer that we might ever come up with: talking to God. Because of the saving work of Jesus – which is what we mean when we talk about “praying in Jesus name” – we can actually speak to God.
Think about this. We have immediate, direct access to the Creator of the Universe – and His line is never busy. Like Hannah in our Old Testament lesson, we can pour out our hearts to God with the assurance that He hears us. As Paul directs us in our second lesson, we can lay before the throne of Grace “anything” and “everything” that concerns us or makes us anxious...
Think about this and we can come to only one reasonable conclusion: What a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer!
Continuing in our Primer on Prayer, Scripture also instructs us on the practice of prayer. Exactly how are we to pray? What forms the component parts for a well-rounded prayer life? Maybe you’ve heard the acronym ACTS applied to prayer. Each letter introduces an important aspect or type of prayer that we will want to include in our personal prayer life...
A is for Adoration. As we think of who God is, what He has done for us, and what He continues to do for us richly and daily, we cannot help but adore Him. Adoration finds its expression in praise. When King David wrote in the opening words of Psalm 103: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name...” he is simply swept up in adoration of our wonderful God.
C is for Confession. Prayer is also a time to recognize our sins and shortcomings, confess them, and ask God for his forgiveness – confident that it is already ours. As we daily confess our sins of weakness (after all, we live to please God – but fail) we are at the same time daily filled with awe at the grace of our forgiving God.
A Bible illustration that comes to mind is the story Jesus
told of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in the
T is for Thanksgiving. This is much like Adoration. When we consider the height and depth of God’s love and provision and kindness for us, we are filled with gratitude. And we express that gratitude through words of thankfulness.
In his various epistles, the Apostle Paul gives us many examples of prayers of thanksgiving. He would often thank God for the faith the Holy Spirit had implanted in the hearts of these new believers or the way in which these believers were conducting themselves before a watching world. At other times Paul breaks into what almost appear to be spontaneous prayers of thanksgiving as he simply contemplates the greatness of God and what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
And you know what? We have every reason to be as thankful to God as Paul was.
Finally, S is for Supplication. These are prayers in which we make requests to God in behalf of ourselves and others. We sometimes refer to these as intercessory prayers. We pray for our own special needs, our own spiritual growth, and for the needs and spiritual growth of others as well.
In an instructional book on prayer I came across this quote on how supplication is not to be carried out, which I’ll share with you...
You are not to pray only for your own family, like this famous prayer, “God bless me and my wife, our John and his wife; us four, and no more. Amen.” Nor are we to pray only for our own country, as the old Socinian hymnal, “Give rain and sunshine to Greiz, Schleiz, and Lobenstein; if others also wish them, let them pray themselves...”
On the other hand, a good example of proper intercession – and the ultimate reason behind it – is found in 1 Timothy 2:1: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
A final consideration for this Practical Primer on Prayer is the Prototype (or model) of Prayer that we find in Scripture. And that takes us back to our text. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He provided them what the Christian Church has ever since commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer.
It is a model for us both in its form and function. Martin Luther referred to it as “a prayer above all prayers” and had this to say about it:
Ah, what an excellent Master has composed these words of the Lord’s Prayer! An inimitable command of language is found in them; it covers all matters and affairs. The first three petitions ask for such grand and heavenly blessings that no heart can ever exhaust their meaning. The Fourth Petition presents, in one little package, all the interests of state and home, all bodily and temporal needs. The Fifth Petition fights against the devil of a bad conscience, aware of sins. Truly, this prayer was made by a wise Man, whom no one can imitate; the Lord has composed the Lord’s Prayer for us in this compact manner and has included in it every need that may arise in our trials...
We won’t say much else about it, other than that its address, seven individual petitions and conclusion will form the framework for our summer sermon series.
What we will say – and the thought we’ll end on – is to simply stress the importance of prayer in our lives. What we have reviewed from Scripture today is that prayer is our high privilege made possible through the saving work of Jesus Christ. We practice prayer through liberally sprinkling them with Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. And we learn about how to form our own prayers through the prototype given to us by Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer.
As we now bring this first sermon on prayer to a close, it would seem quite fitting that we end with one...
O Christ, by whom we come to God
The Life, the Truth, the Way,
The path of prayer Yourself have trod –
Lord, teach us how to pray. Amen.