How To Pray Series

Series: Victory

Message 2: Teach Me How to Pray

Luke 11:1 / Matthew 6:5-15

There is nothing more secure with our salvation in Christ than knowing that we have a Heavenly Father who wants to hear from his children.

Last week, we learned that we have to get “me” out of the way to allow God to be God. Today, we’ll be talking about how we communicate with him.

Prayer is something that everyone does.

The Christian

The non-Christian

There are times in our lives when we all bow our heads and we pray.

Times of death

Times of sickness

Times of tragedy…

We may not have an active prayer life but there just always seems to be a moment when we try our best to get a word to the Lord.

This morning, we are going to look at four people in God’s word that had an active prayer life. They knew how to get prayers answered. They had victory in their lives because of the way that they prayed.

If I am going to pattern my life after someone, I want it to be someone who has been through the trenches and came out on top. Give me someone that knows what I am going through. Let them be my example.

In Luke’s gospel we see a request by one of the disciples to our first example.

Read Luke 11:1

Lord, teach us to pray.

We see you doing it often.

It must be important because you do it.

Some think that praying is just for the pastor or minister. And it’s good when you have someone you can call on in time of need…

But the disciples wanted to be able to pray themselves.

So Jesus, our first example gives us the structure of how our prayers should be.

1. Jesus

Listen to his response to this question from the disciples from Matthew’s point of view.

Read Matthew 6:5-13

Jesus gave some advice in praying before He gave us a sample prayer that is known as the Lord’s Prayer.

Christ says:

· Do not pray one way and live another (hypocrites)

· Do not pray to bee seen (don’t try to impress)

· Go into an inner room (just you and God)

· Do not say things just because you hear others saying them – (use your words from your heart)

Then Christ gave us an example: The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever, Amen.

Ball teams repeat it

Congress repeats it

Other organizations repeat it before entering a meeting…

But what is Jesus trying to teach us with this prayer?

He is showing us what to pray.

a. The first part of the prayer concerns the glory of God.

· We call him “Father” – a term that can only be used by His children that have their faith in Jesus Christ.

· We request that His name be “hallowed” or honored as holy.

Next, we requests God’s Kingdom come. This means that we acknowledge God as ruler of the world and obey His will.

Other requests relating to our own needs:

· Food for each day – recognizing our daily need

· Forgiveness – which includes not holding grudges

· Help in Temptation – keep us from it!

The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer attributes all power and glory to God forever. This part of the prayer should be evident in our lives each day as seek God’s will on earth as His disciples.

So Jesus gives us a great start in understanding how to pray by giving us structure.

But I want to go deeper into what it means to pray. Now that we have structure what else can we learn about praying?

2. Daniel – Daniel 6

Daniel teaches us not only how often we should pray but how prayer can help you in time of trouble.

You may say, “Well the Bible says to pray without ceasing”… So everywhere we go, in everything we do, we should have a prayer on our lips.

But there are times, when you have to go as Christ commanded: “go into an inner room and shut the door”

The bible tells us that Daniel knew that a document had been signed for there to be no prayers offered unless they were being offered to King Darius.

v. 10 – says that when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he entered his house, went to the roof chamber, opened the windows toward Jerusalem.