Lord Teach Us To Pray - Praying With Excellence Series

TEXT: Luke 11:1

TITLE: “Teach us to Pray with EXCELLENCE -- Part 1”

TOPIC: PRAYER

OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, January 6th 2008

PROP.: LORD TEACH US TO PRAY. Each of these 4 key words holds immeasurable meaning! May we be encouraged by each of these words.

INTRODCUTION: Good morning! Please open your Bible up to Luke 11. Today we continue on in our sermon series called BEING THE CHURCH WITH EXCELLENCE.

Our theme verses are on the wall. We are looking at the early church as our model for excellence. The first church was an EXCELLENT church. And the reason it was excellent was because they were devoted to some things. One of those things they were devoted to was PRAYER.

For the next 4 weeks or so, our attention will be turned to the matter of prayer.

Acts 2:42-47

“They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

My desire is for us to be a people that continually devotes ourselves to PRAYER! Prayer needs to be the foundation of everything that happens here at Burnside.

IMAGINE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF GOD’S CHURCH PRAYED? I just want to challenge you to consider the possibilities!

IF YOU GET NOTHING ELSE OUT OF THIS MORNING’S MESSAGE, GET THIS:

I WANT YOU TO GET PASSIONATE ABOUT THE POWER OF PRAYER!

So let’s be clear about what prayer is not:

Prayer is not a genie in a bottle. You know what I mean, right? God is NOT genie that you go to when you want a wish granted…it’s so much more than that! Prayer is our DAILY communication with the creator of the universe! It seems that the only time most people pray (and certainly our country turns to prayer) is in time of crisis. A non-Christian will request prayers when he is sick. Prayer is a privilege that should be utilized at more times than just when you are in trouble!

Prayer is more than a grocery list or wish list that we spew out of things we want. God is so much more than Santa-Clause figure on whose lap we sit only interested in telling him what we want, expecting Him to pay up.

Prayer is more than a good luck charm that we rub or kiss for good luck.

There are so many verses on prayer, but perhaps the best place for us to start is found in Luke 11:1

Let’s read our text:

Luke 11:1

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."

The disciples had been with Christ and seen Him pray. They had learned to understand something of the connection between his wondrous life in public and His secret life of prayer. They had come to believe in Him as Master in the art of prayer - none could pray like him. And so they came to him with the request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And so this is our request today: “Lord, teach us to pray!”

T.S.: To better understand the magnitude of what the disciples were asking, let’s look at each word in the phrase: LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY!

So the first word -

I. “LORD, teach us to pray!”

As the disciples were making their request…they had come to the right place. Have you ever gone to the WRONG person to do a job you asked them to do?

Well, The disciples went to

A. The right guy for the job

They came to Jesus…and they were like: “Can you teach us how to pray?”

It was not unusual, for the disciples to come and ask Jesus to teach them something. They were so blessed! They had JESUS. CHRIST. AS their teacher! They had God in the flesh, teaching them how to do ministry. Wow. And now they were coming to Him and asking Him to teach them to pray? I don’t think the disciples fully understood what they were asking for! We know they don’t know what they are asking for…because they ask Jesus to teach like John taught his disciples…NEWS FLASH…there is a HUGE difference between John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ!