C.L. Null, in Christian Reader says, “My Sunday school class of youngsters had some problems repeating the Lord’s Prayer, but they didn’t lack in imagination. One child prayed, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, how’d you know my name?’” It is a wonderful thing when we realize that God knows our name. But it is better to know God’s name and reverence it. This is only one of the lessons that we learn from Jesus in the school of prayer.
I think the thing that amazes me most as I read the Gospels is how much time Jesus spent in prayer. Over and over again we read about him going to a quiet place for prayer. Sometimes he prayed all night. Luke 6:12 says, “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.” Matthew 14:23 says, “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.” I think of the fact that Jesus was the Son of God and he relied on prayer more than I do. I think about we who are weak and sinful, and how much we need to pray, and how little we pray. I think about the fact that he was perfect and powerful, and yet he spent all night in prayer. Very few of us have ever spent a full hour in prayer at any time of the day, let alone all night. I remember that Jesus was alone praying when the disciples interrupted him to tell him that the crowds were looking for him. I remember that in his final hours he was in the garden praying while his disciples were sleeping — even after he had told them that he needed them to pray with him. They continued to sleep even after he repeatedly awakened them. Jesus’ disciples today continue to sleep when they should be praying.
But how do we pray, and what do we pray for? Jesus explicitly answers that question in the Scripture we have read today. He answers that question by giving a pattern for prayer that we have turned it into an infantile form prayer that we rattle off by rote. This was never meant to be a memorized prayer that we use as a part of religious ritual — either in church or as a part of personal devotion. In fact, Jesus prefaced the prayer with this command: “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (Matthew 6:7). The King James Version translates it: “use not vain repetitions.” Part of the proof that it is not to be repeated as a memorized prayer is that two of the four Gospels do not even include the prayer. Matthew has the most complete form of the prayer, and Luke has only an abbreviated form of it. The ending which we use: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” is a later addition which is not in Scripture. This does not take away from the importance of the prayer — far from it — the prayer was given by Jesus as a pattern for prayer. Not a legalistic list of things to remember to include, but a helpful outline that can serve as a guide. If you want to learn to pray, look no further than this sample prayer of Jesus. It is simple, and yet I think you will be surprised by some of the things it is really teaching us.
Let’s begin with the person to whom the prayer is addressed — our Father. It is possible to pray this prayer and not have God as your heavenly Father. It is possible to use this prayer as some kind of religious magic or ritual, and miss the meaning of it altogether. Jesus said that we were to pray to “our Father.” This is not just any spiritual power that may be floating around in space. This is a particular God — the only God — and this God is personal and relational. If we pray to “the sovereign Power of the universe,” there is an emotional detachment and disconnect. But when we pray to our Father, there is intimacy. Jesus usually used the familiar word for Father in the Aramaic, which was “Abba” or Papa. The Bible often uses very tender language when it describes the Father’s feelings for us. In Zephaniah 3:17 it says, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Isn’t it wonderful to realize that God delights in us? That he loves us and rejoices over us with singing? What a great picture of what God is like And this is the God to whom we pray.
I know what it is like when I am with my grandchildren. I am often overcome with emotion just being with them. We were flying kites in the backyard last Sunday afternoon and it was such a joy. Sometimes we will just eat popcorn together and talk, or play a game. When they come running to me and give me a hug it is the best time of the day. Jesus said, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him ” (Matthew 7:11). So even though I am evil, I am overwhelmed with love for my grandchildren and want to give them good things. If that is true, how much more is our heavenly Father overwhelmed with love for us, his children? He delights in us and rejoices over us with singing. Our prayers are not directed to empty space, or a vague, unfeeling spirit, but to a real person who is intimately related to us and loves us with great passion.
And it is because he is such a great God that we worship him in prayer. We express our love to him and give him the worship that is due him. We acknowledge that he is holy and that his name is sacred — not a name to be used lightly or in cursing. We are in awe of this God. We love him and adore him. He is not just an important part of our life, he IS our life. Jesus’ prayer teaches us that before we come to God with our list of requests, that we are to stop and worship our wonderful God before a word of petition crosses our lips. We acknowledge that we have come into the presence of the Holy. The book of Ecclesiastes says, “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2).
So, after we worship God and express our love to him, for what should we pray? A better salary? A bigger house? Happy children? A good marriage? Jesus teaches us to pray for something bigger than ourselves before we bring our personal requests. We Christians are concerned not just for our own welfare and personal kingdom, we are concerned about the kingdom of God. We are to pray that spiritual renewal comes to the world. We need a great spiritual awakening in every part of the globe, including our own country — not to mention our little community. George Buttrick once wrote: “‘Thy Kingdom come,’ if we only knew, is asking God to conduct a major operation.” We should be concerned that there are people dying all over the world with no knowledge of our great God. They have never heard the Good News. There are children within a few blocks of this building who have never heard of Jesus. They cannot tell you a single Bible story. They have never heard a hymn or worship chorus sung. They do not know that God loves them. So we are to pray for them. More than that, we are to go to them. Whether it is on Saturday evening, or to the Apartments, or the English as a Second Language class, we need to be there to tell them. Our heart should long for people to know and experience the God we know. There should be no greater passion in our lives than the passion that others would come to Christ and find their life in him. We want God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done here and now — just like it is in heaven. Because when that happens, we will have heaven on earth.
We are kingdom people, and we want more people in the kingdom. We want the community of God to grow. This is too good to keep to ourselves. We don’t want to wait until we get to heaven until we see God’s will being done, we want to see it now — on earth. We pray for that day to come. We want to see God’s kingdom lived out in real and practical ways. When that happens, hostilities and wars will end. Unfaithfulness will be a thing of the past. Quarrels will cease. Justice will come. Peace will rule, and love will reign. Are you praying for God’s kingdom to come? Are you longing for God’s will to be done in the world? This is what Jesus taught us to pray for first. This should be the primary concern of our hearts.
But God is not just interested in the world at large, he is intimately interested in our personal lives as well. It is good to know that God is interested in our personal needs. Jesus taught that it was completely appropriate to pray for our personal needs: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Again we do not take this literally, so that we can only pray about our need for bread or food. It means that our daily needs are important to God — all of them. Jesus reminded us of this when he said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 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 6:25-26). We are not to worry about food and clothing, but we are to pray that God would meet our needs. In fact, the very reason we do not worry is because we have prayed, and when we have prayed we have trusted our Father to provide for our needs.
Now we come to the hardest part of the prayer. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Sin creates a debt which we owe to God — a debt we cannot possibly repay — so that forgiveness is the greatest personal need we have. The wages that our sins have earned is death, and unless the debt is forgiven we will reap our wages. The Bible says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Galatians 6:7-8). The good news comes from the book of Romans: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). God is a God of forgiveness.
However, forgiveness is conditional. And here is the condition: If you want to be forgiven you must forgive. If you cannot forgive, you cannot be forgiven. This should give us pause. We want God to be generous with us and have mercy on us, but we want to hold those who have sinned against us in debt to us until they pay the last farthing. Jesus told a story saying that there was a king who had a servant who owed him millions of dollars — an amount he could never repay. The king decided to sell him into slavery, but the servant begged him to be merciful. The king’s heart was softened and he forgave the entire debt. But on his way home the forgiven servant saw a man who owed him only a few dollars. He demanded immediate payment, but his fellow servant begged him to be patient so he could repay the debt. But he refused and threw his fellow servant into prison. Jesus ended the parable by saying, “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’” (Matthew 18:32-33). Immediately following the Lord’s prayer, Jesus said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). The Bible says, “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment ” (James 2:13). Again we are faced with the difficult teaching of Jesus.
The concluding request is something that will keep us from sin. Jesus taught us to pray: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). I want to ask you a question: Is this a prayer that you pray? Many of us secretly wish that we will be tempted. We enjoy temptation. We toss it around in our mind and tease ourselves with it. We want to feel it deeply and at least consider the possibility of giving in. But Jesus says that we are to pray that we will be delivered from temptation. Of course this does not mean that we should expect never to be tempted again. But it does mean that we want God to deliver us from those temptations that would overcome us. We want to be led another way. We want God to change our hearts and take away the desire to sin from our lives — that it will lose its appeal. And when the temptations come, as they will, that we will be given the power to triumph over them. Perhaps we should pray, “Lord help me not want to be tempted. Help me not to invite it.”
God does not lead us into temptation, for the Bible says, “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:13-15). Each of us have experienced what it means to be “dragged away and enticed” by the evil desires living in us. Sometimes we have given in and experienced the devastating consequences of our sin. As we grow spiritually, we find that we do not want that to happen. As we continually pray to be delivered from temptation and, as a result, we find that sin begins to lose its appeal to us. We begin to see it for the illusion it is. But we still need to pray. The Bible says, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:12-13). Pray that God will provide a way, that you will see the way and walk in that way.
But temptation not only comes from within us, it comes from an outside source as well. We pray using the words, “Deliver us from evil.” But the prayer, as Jesus prayed it, says, “Deliver us from the evil one.” This is evil with a plan. It is evil which is specific. It is a reality. And it is personal. Evil has a name: Satan. The Bible says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Jesus said the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). No wonder we need to pray to be delivered from him. This evil is not a vague influence in the world. It is not a nebulous force. It is a person who has your spiritual destruction and ruin as his goal. Only God can deliver you from him, and you must pray with all your heart for him to do so. This is a wake up call from Jesus breaking into our slumber to alert us to a dangerous reality.
Those among us who were alive in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, can tell you exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. I was on the campus of the college I was attending and I can tell you exactly where I was walking when someone told me the news. In the introduction to one of his books, British novelist David Lodge tells where he was — in a theater watching the performance of a satirical revue he had helped to write. In the play there was a sketch where one of the characters was supposed to appear nonchalant and distracted while he was being interviewed. He sat there with a transistor radio held up to his ear. The actor who played the part of the aloof personality always tuned in to an actual radio station. But during the play, an announcer suddenly broke into the regular program and announced, so that everyone in the audience could heart, that President Kennedy had been shot. The actor quickly turned the radio off, but it was too late. Reality had interrupted the play, and they could not continue as though everything was the same.
Many people treat spiritual realities like prayer with a nonchalant attitude. Life is an act that they are a part of. They don’t expect anything significant to happen, but suddenly God’s reality breaks into their lives in some way, and they can no longer go on as though everything is the same. Before this we played more than we prayed. But when God interrupts our drama and forces us to face reality, prayer takes on a whole new meaning and importance in our lives.
My prayer is for that same kind of reality to break through the fog of our mundane existence, and that we might have a great new desire to communicate with our Creator and enjoy an intimate relationship with our Father.
Rodney J. Buchanan
March 13, 2005
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Jesus’ Approach to Prayer
(Questions for March 13, 2005)
1. Why do we need to pray?
2. Why do we pray so little?
3. Jesus tells us to pray to “Our Father.” How is this different from praying to “The Prime Mover,” or “The Ruler of the Universe.”
4. Do we understand the depth of what it means that God is holy? What if he were not?
5. The primary request for which we are to pray is that God’s Kingdom would come. Why do we think and pray about this so little?
6. What does it mean to you that God is interested in your daily needs?
7. We also have a God who freely forgives us. But what happens when we do not freely forgive others, according to Jesus? See Matthew 6:14-15.
8. Do you like temptation, or do you pray to be delivered from it?
9. We pray “Deliver us from evil,” but what does Matthew 6:13 say, and why is this different?
10. Jesus taught that we “should always pray and not give up.” Read Luke 11:5-9 which is Luke’s ending to the Lord’s Prayer. What is this saying?
