“Teach Us to Pray”

    “And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil” (Luke 11:1-4).

    Without question, every heaven born soul prays. Prayer is the cry of our hearts to our Father, the breath of the new born child, the panting of the believer’s heart after God, the constant dependence of faith upon the God of all grace. Yet, I have no doubt, every child of God often cries out to the Lord Jesus Christ in his soul, like that unnamed disciple of whom Luke speaks in our text, “Lord, teach us to pray.” That is, unless I am utterly deceived, the cry of my heart. “Lord, teach me to pray”!

    Few passages of scripture are so often quoted and about which men and women are so commonly ignorant as this. Almost any child can recite what is called by most, “The Lord’s Prayer.” The words are memorized early and recited often. Sometimes, the words are even sung. Yet, I do not doubt, there are very few who have any idea what is here taught.

    The Son of God only on two occasions verbally taught us how to pray, here and in Matthew 6. Luke is not simply repeating what Matthew said. These were two distinct occasions. The instruction in Matthew 6 is part of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount in Galilee. Here our Lord was with his disciples in Judea. There, the instruction was part of his sermon. Here his instruction is in response to the request of one of his disciples, after the Saviour himself had been engaged in prayer.

    “One of his disciples” said, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” Verses 2-13 give us our Saviour’s answer to that request. In this study, we will focus of attention on our Lord’s instructions in verses 2-4, line by line. If we can grasp just a portion of what is written in theses three verses, it will be profitable to our souls forever.

    These brief, simple lines are a mine of spiritual treasure. To expound them fully is impossible. Volumes have been written on just these brief lines. Yet, there are treasures in this deep mine that have not yet been brought to the surface. I make no pretence of being able to bring out the richest diamonds or largest nuggets. When I am done there will be much, much more left unsaid than is said. But I want, by the Spirit of God, to show you what I know to be the most prominent and most important things here taught by our Saviour. I want to show you how the Lord Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

    “And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”

    This is not “The Lord’s Prayer”, but “The Disciples’ Prayer”. The Lord’s prayer is found in John 17. Our Lord Jesus did not, should not have, and could not have prayed for divine forgiveness! He had not yet been made sin for us. He had no sin to be forgiven.

    This is not a prayer to be memorized and recited, but a model and representation of how we are to pray and for what. Here our Lord, knowing that we do not know what to pray for as we ought, helps our infirmities. Here he teaches us what we are to pray for and how to do it.

    Never do we find the disciples reciting these words as a prayer. In fact, the only other reference made to them is in Matthew 6. And here our Lord Jesus deliberately avoided giving us an exact replica of what he said in Matthew 6. The first three petitions are the same. The rest is worded very differently, though the meaning is the same. And the doxology found in Matthew 6 is here omitted altogether.

    In these few, short statements, our Lord Jesus teaches us all the vital aspects of prayer. Our prayers should be simple, sincere, spiritual, and short, avoiding everything like pretence, formality, and show. In prayer we simply spread before God, our heavenly Father, the great desires and needs of our hearts, trusting him to fulfil those desires and meet those needs by his grace for the glory of his name.

    What are the great desires of the believer’s heart? What are the great needs we have, which cause us to wait in utter helplessness before God? Let us look at these few verses, by which our Lord teaches us how to pray, line by line.

    We do not pray to saints or angels, but to God our Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of glory, who is in heaven. Our God and Father is the Father of all men as our Creator (Acts 17:28). Because he is the God and Father of all men by creation, it is proper for all men to praise him and pray to him. We must never forbid any to pray, or even discourage prayer by anyone!

    But, God is the Father of his elect in a very distinct and very special sense (Colossians 1:20-22). We are the children of God by adoption, by election, by regeneration, and by faith. Do you trust the Lord Jesus Christ? If you do, it is right for you to call God Almighty your Father, and to come to him as such in prayer (Hebrews 4:16). We have the right, the privilege, the bold freedom and confidence of faith to pray to God Almighty in heaven, as our Father.

    When we pray privately, in our closets or with our families, and when we pray collectively in the house of God, we pray as the children of God, being taught and led by God the Holy Spirit to lift our hearts to heaven and call the God of Glory “our Father”! Nothing unites hearts like mutual prayer, collectively worshipping and praying to God “our Father”!

    The name of God represents all his attributes by which he reveals himself to us. His name represents his Being, all that he is. When we say, “Hallowed be thy name”, we are simply praying, like the Lord Jesus did, “Father, glorify thy name” (John 12:28).

    God created the universe for his glory (Revelation 4:11; Proverbs 16:4). All providence works for his glory (Romans 11:36). God’s object in saving sinners is his glory (Psalm 106:8). The object of Christ in his death was, above all else, the glory of God (John 12:28). It is the heart desire of every believer, above all else, that God’s name be honoured, magnified, and glorified (Psalms 35:27; 40:16; 70:4; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Peter 4:11). Therefore our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”

    Our first concern is and must be the glory of God himself. Our second concern is for the kingdom of God. We seek, in all our prayers, that the Lord God will be pleased to establish and enlarge his church and kingdom in this world. (Psalm 122:6, 7). To pray “thy kingdom come” is simply to pray, “Lord, save your people, establish your kingdom in this world.” We pray for the kingdom of grace to be filled (Romans 11:26). And we pray for the kingdom of glory to be established (2 Peter 3:13). If our hearts’ concern is for the kingdom of God, his sheep, his people, his elect, his church, let us ever pray, “Thy kingdom come”.

    Prayer is not us trying to get God to do our will. Rather it is a voluntary leaving of our will to his will. “Our truest happiness”, wrote J. C. Ryle, “is perfect submission to God’s will.” We want to obey God’s revealed will. We want men and women everywhere to surrender to and obey God’s revealed will. But here, our Lord is teaching us to sincerely and heartily surrender everything to and earnestly desire that God’s will be done in this world exactly as it is in heaven, knowing that it always is (Ephesians 1:11).

    The fact is, we simply don’t know what to pray for as we ought (Romans 8:26). Most of our prayers, I fear, are accurately described by James in James 4:3. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” Let us give thanks to our ever gracious God that, even in our prayers, he overrules the evil that is in us and done by us for our good and his glory (Romans 8:26).

    In all that we have seen thus far, the concern of true prayer is altogether spiritual. Our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray for the glory of God, the people of God, and the will of God. He teaches us to submit all other matters to those greater, far more important matters.

    What an instructive word this is! We are to seek God’s providential supplies for ourselves and our brethren. “Give us.” We seek our daily food as a gift from God, knowing that if we have bread to eat we are fed by the hand of God.

    Here we are taught to seek no more than is needful for us, “bread”, not gold, just bread. And we are taught to seek no more than our “daily” provision of bread. “Give us day by day”, or as our Lord told us in the Sermon on the Mount, “this day our daily bread”.

    As we look to our God, our heavenly Father, to provide the needs of our souls, we must also look to him to give us daily bread for our bodies. We acknowledge our entire dependence upon God for life, and breath, and all things. We ask him to take charge of us, and provide for us in all that concerns this world. Our prayer ought ever to be, “Feed me with food convenient for me” (Proverbs 30:8).

    We must especially remember this. Our Lord here teaches us to constantly acknowledge our sinfulness and constantly seek forgiveness through his blood. We are to confess our sins continually, not in the ear of an earthly priest, but in the ear of our Father in heaven, seeking forgiveness by the merit of our great High Priest who is in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 John 1:9).

    Our sins are here compared to debts, which we have incurred. They have made us debtors to God, who demands of us both righteousness and satisfaction. The Lord Jesus Christ fully paid our debt. He brought in righteousness for his elect by his obedience as our Representative. And he satisfied justice by his death. By the sacrifice of himself, our blessed Saviour obtained eternal redemption with his own blood for his chosen.

    Christ is our atonement! The Triune Jehovah freely forgives our debts through the merits of Christ our Lord.

    Yet, though the work was finished in the purpose of God from the foundation of the world (Hebrews 4:3) and finished in the execution of that purpose at Calvary (John 19:30), we constantly need forgiveness because we constantly sin; and we constantly have it through the infinite, perpetual merit and efficacy of Christ’s blood (1 John 2:1, 2).

    Without question, every child of God is fully justified and forgiven of all sin before God. But it is the life of true faith to apply daily for fresh supplies of all our grace. Though full forgiveness is ours in Christ, we want it constantly, and our Father delights to hear us cry for it, constantly, confessing and acknowledging both our sin and our faith in his dear Son for the forgiveness of our sins. Though washed, we need daily to wash our feet. (John 13:10). We make no excuse for ourselves. We plead nothing in our own behalf. We simply ask for the free, full, grace and mercy of our Father in Christ Jesus.

    We must never forget the next line of this sentence. “Forgive us our sins; for we forgive everyone that is indebted to us.” This is the only line in this passage that our Lord expands and explains. He does so because this is the part we are most apt to overlook (Matthew 6:14, 15). Our Lord here teaches us that if we are unforgiving, we are yet unforgiven. If we are not gracious, it is because we have not yet experienced grace. He is not suggesting that the forgiveness of sin is conditioned upon sinners forgiving one another! He is simply declaring that grace experienced in the soul makes saved sinners gracious to one another.

    There is one great blessing in being wronged by others. Injuries done by others give us opportunities to imitate our great and gracious God in forgiving those who wrong us. “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Ephesians 4:32-5:2). Without this brotherly love our prayers are nothing but noise, the hollow echoes of empty hearts. If we cannot forgive, we have not been forgiven.

    As long as we are in this world we are liable to temptation. As long as we are in this body of flesh, we may be drawn away of our own lust, enticed by our own nature, tempted and overcome by the snare of Satan. Here our Saviour says, “You need to be constantly aware of your weakness and Satan’s strength. You need to be constantly aware of your helplessness, so that you will constantly look to me for help.” Prayer, in its essence, is the conscious spreading out of my helplessness before God! Wise people seek to avoid danger. And we ask God who rules all things to keep us from the danger of temptation. May he who orders our steps order them away from temptation!

    J. C. Ryle wrote, “We include under the word evil, everything that can hurt us, either in body or soul, and especially every weapon of that great author of evil, the devil. We confess that ever since the fall the world ‘lieth in the wicked one’ (1 John 5:19.) We confess that evil is in us, and about us, and near us, and on every side, and that we have no power to deliver ourselves from it. We apply to the strong for strength. We cast ourselves on him for protection. In short, we ask what our Saviour himself asked for us, when he said, ‘I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil’ (John 17:15).”

    Let us ever pray that God our Father may, by his unceasing, abundant grace, “Deliver us from evil”, from the evil that is in the world, the evil that is in our hearts, the evil one who seeks to destroy us, from all the evil that is the result of sin!

    Blessed be his name, our God will deliver us from all evil! (Jude 24, 25). He will deliver us from evil while we live in this evil world (1 Corinthians 10:13). When he takes us out of the world in death, he will be delivering us from evil (John 14:1-3; Isaiah 57:1, 2). And in the great and glorious resurrection day, our great God will completely deliver us from all evil in resurrection glory, when he presents us before himself in the spotless perfection and beauty of Christ (Ephesians 5:25-27; Jude 24, 25).