The Rest of Prayer

Luke 11:1-4

The necessity of prayer
Pray or faint
Prayer is a command
Prayer is a privilege

The model of prayer

Prayer starts with God (Your)
Faith
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

Prayer includes our needs (Us)
Physical
Spiritual
Prayer is the Christian life

Now it’s personal
The REST of prayer

North American culture has bought into the idea of prayer: literally. At last count, over 9 million copies of the Prayer of Jabez had been sold since it’s publishing in the year 2000. The book has been on top of the best seller’s lists at the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly. The religious editor of Publisher’s Weekly describes the book as a “raging success” calling it “very evangelical and very American, this whole notion that if you know the right technique, the right form, that prayer will be efficient and effective. Kind of like golf.”

It is wonderful that prayer has come to the forefront of American culture, but as a church we must be careful to assure that people are understanding the true nature of prayer. Having read The Prayer of Jabez, I believe some people who read it without being firmly established in the faith could take it the wrong way. Prayer will become a means to an end; a new one stop shop for fast food Christianity.

In the face of new fads of how to pray and what to pray, it is important that we remind ourselves about the fundamentals of prayer. What are these fundamentals of prayer? How should we pray? The disciples asked this same question to Jesus in the eleventh chapter of Luke. Turn with me there, if you would. Luke Chapter 11 verses 1-4. I’ll be reading from the New King James Version:

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be Your name
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our sins
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us
And do not lead us into temptation
But deliver us from the evil one

The disciples watched Jesus as He prayed. It was evident that this was a source of His strength. They knew that He regularly withdrew into the wilderness to pray. Just two chapters earlier in Luke’s Gospel we read of the Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John had witnessed this tremendous event as Jesus prayed on that mountain. The disciples knew His prayer was different that anyone else’s. Knowing Peter to be the most blunt of all the disciples, it was probably him that asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

It is interesting to note that the disciples were most likely already men of prayer at this time. Some of them undoubtedly had been following John the Baptist. John taught his disciples how to pray. Now these men wanted to learn straight from Jesus. They could see that He was truly a master of prayer.

What a privilege it is for us to have a record of what Jesus taught them about prayer. He did not refer them to the prayers of Abraham. He did not remind them of a prayer of King David. He didn’t even point them to the prayer of Jabez. No, Jesus taught them a new prayer. He taught them a prayer that could serve as a model for all other prayers. We can call it the Lord’s prayer, some call it the Disciples Prayer or whatever, but we would be wise to consider what Jesus told His disciples when they questioned Him on the awesome topic of prayer.

The first thing I would like to take note of from this text actually comes before the prayer starts. Jesus began His answer by saying, “when you pray”. I’m sure you’ve heard this point before, but it is so important. Jesus didn’t say “If you pray”. He said “When you pray”. Prayer is not an option for Christians. It is not something we do if we have enough time. Prayer is a command.

Throughout the New Testament we are commanded to pray. One blunt verse of this sort is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 where we are told to “Pray without ceasing”. Now this doesn’t mean pray 24/7. Obviously. In fact, we just read in verse one that Jesus ceased from praying. To pray without ceasing involves not giving up on the practice of prayer. It is common for men to get frustrated with prayer. Men are consistently inconsistent with this practice even though the Scripture is very clear that prayer is a command.

There were many times in the last few weeks when I would have rather picked a different topic to preach about. I wanted to avoid preaching about prayer because it is a place I struggle with. I searched for other sermon ideas, but God brought me back to prayer every time. So I began preparing and I went to Professor Gavel for help on a personal level. I told him that I struggle maintaining a consistent prayer life. His comments were very helpful to me. He reminded me that prayer is a command in Scripture. The issue is not whether we feel like praying, whether we’re having a God moment, or even whether we have something specific to pray about. The issue is obedience.

But beyond obedience, prayer is a wonderful privilege. There will be times when we don’t feel like praying, but those times shouldn’t last long. Prayer is a wonderful privilege for a Christian. To speak to the Lord of the universe, the maker of the heavens and earth is a privilege. We’ve probably heard 834 times throughout this year that Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship. Well, what is more treasured in a relationship than anything else. The communication is. The wonderful privilege of being open with someone else. Hank Hanegraaff, host of the Bible Answer Man radio show, goes as far as to say that “prayer does not simply maintain the Christian life, it is the Christian life”.

Early African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions. Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent one, "Brother, the grass grows on your path."

Has the grass grown on your path? Do you often feel you’re too busy to pray? Or maybe you are not busy at all and you just don’t want to pray. Remember what Jesus said, when you pray. Not if. Prayer is a command and a privilege.

Thus prayer is the very essence of Christianity because it is our most intimate avenue to a relationship with our father. With the necessity of prayer established we will now turn to the model prayer that the Lord provided His disciples with.

Now, I’ve heard many pastors and read many authors who divided this prayer in a sermon series covering one line a week. I think that is a wonderful thing to do, but I’m not going to do that. I want to focus more on the basic principles of this prayer. I have simply divided the prayer into two sections that conveniently serve as my second and third points.

The first point I want to make from the prayer itself is that it starts with God. Unlike so many of today’s prayers, this prayer is God centered. Jesus didn’t begin the prayer saying, Father help me with this or Father help me with that. He began by saying, Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The prayer was God centered.

There is an acrostic that I find very helpful when thinking about prayer. It gets us back to the FACTS of prayer.

Faith in the ultimate object of our prayers
Adoration stemming from that faith
Confession of our dependence on God
Thanksgiving to our God
Supplication for needs and desires

When I think about that acrostic, I am ashamed at how often I skip the fact of prayer and go right to the sssss. How often do we go to prayer just for our own needs? We neglect to consider the attributes of Him that we’re praying to. We refuse to take the time to praise Him for who He is. To adore Him. We skip the part of prayer that calls for us to confess our sins and our dependence on Him for every aspect of life. And we forget to thank Him for all that He has already done for us. We like to skip right to the me part of prayer. What can God do for me today? Even if what we’re asking for is in God’s will, it is not God’s will for us to neglect the rest of what prayer is.

How many of you prefer friends who are always talking about themselves? They never recognize your accomplishments, they never thank you when you help them. They are always just talking about themselves. Are those our best friends? Probably not. It is not proper for us to talk to God only about ourselves. If you want to talk about yourself then talk to yourself. True prayer begins and stays centered on God.


And it is only when prayer is centered on God that we should go to the idea of our needs. The second part of the Lord’s prayer focuses in on those needs. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Now, some people ask if we really need to pray for our daily bread. I mean non-Christians don’t pray that they’ll have food and they still get it. Some commentators have spiritualized this part of the verse and say that daily bread is only talking about our spiritual food, but I don’t think that is necessary. I believe the verse is talking about what we need physically first and foremost

So how come we need to pray for it if non-Christians are usually getting it without praying. I believe that prayer is necessary because it reminds us of our dependence on God. We can stop praying and still be fed. But when we stop praying for our physical needs we also stop remembering who provides them for us and that makes us more likely to be self-dependent and prideful. Non believers have food provided to them by God too, but they don’t recognize it as such and that belief affects there lives. We need to remember who provideds for us.

But the prayer doesn’t ONLY cover our physical needs. It gets into our spiritual needs as well. This prayer included confession of sins and our willingness to forgive others. It included a call for help amidst spiritual warfare. I would love to be able to cover all these topics, but I’ll have to wait till I have my own church.

But what I’m led to tell you today is that prayer itself is our need. Prayer is not a means to an end. It is the end. It is a relationship with God and that is our aim. Prayer is the prize and without it we cannot stand. If you have your Bible’s turn with me a few pages to Luke 18:1. Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. The KJV uses the word faint. We should pray and not faint. This is an amazing verse about prayer.

There are only two options given in this verse. We can pray as we have been commanded and as we have the privilege. Or we can faint, lose heart, give up. When I first read this I thought Jesus was being a little overly dramatic. I mean, there have been many times in my past when I stopped praying consistently and I didn’t pass out. I didn’t give up on my Christian walk completely. I thought this was quite an overstatement by Jesus. But I am beginning to realize that it’s not an overstatement at all. We will either pray our hearts out or our hearts will go out.

What I mean by this is that if we stop praying we will eventually, and usually pretty quickly, become discouraged. As I looked back on my own life with this understanding of the Scriptures it was easy to see. When I stopped praying I stopped feeling optimistic. My faith became weak. I started having all kinds of doubts. I became depressed. Worse still, I stopped confessing my sins. I stopped forgiving others. I fell into temptation. I was defeated by the evil one.

I’ll share with you one specific example. I have a younger brother. His name is Jordan, but he goes by JRO. His AOL screen name is JROFOSHO. He’s 16 now, but back when I was 16 and he was about 12 we would get into the most awful fights. He was an instigator, a troublemaker and he was quite mean.

And I’m sure this will sound familiar to some of you. He would instigate. He would call me a name or hit me or something and I would play it cool and ignore him for a while. But eventually I couldn’t take it any longer and my temper would blow and I’d hit him and he’d cry and I’d get in trouble. I’d tell my mom, he should get in trouble too, he started it. But she would say, you already punished him for what he did. That didn’t make much sense to me, but anyways…Right after I turned 17 I dedicated my life to Christ and God took that bad temper away from me. I seriously stopped erupting at JRO.

But every once in a while before I graduated, I would have times where I would stop praying. And it was these times that I fell back into sin. I stopped confessing my negative feelings toward my brother. I stopped forgiving him for being a jerk. I started falling into temptation and Satan won victory in my life from time to time.


Prayer is vital. We need to pray or we will faint in our Christian walk. We will lose heart. We will give up. We will stop gaining victories. We will begin to coast. And there is only one way to coast: downhill. Prayer is so essential. I’m reminded of a hymn that I don’t recall ever singing. But I read it a few times.

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
the Christian's native air,
his watchword at the gates of death;
he enters heaven with prayer.

O thou, by whom we come to God,
the Life, the Truth, the Way;
the path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!

Last week during missions emphasis week Mr. Guptil invited us to stay for an extra two hours of prayer. What were your thoughts at that time? Were you excited for an opportunity to have time set aside for prayer? Were you glad? Or were you hoping your friends around you would get up so your leaving would be less noticable? Were you glad that you had plans and couldn’t stay? Did you stay, but only because you were ashamed to leave? What were your thoughts at that time?

If you were excited to pray then I am thankful for your commitment and love for the privilege of prayer. But if your thoughts about prayer were negative that night, or are negative from time to time, there is still hope for you. Turn to this prayer and understand the fundamentals of what prayer is. Understand what an honor it is for us to be able to speak with our God. I hope and pray that our generation will go to God with eagerness and without ceasing. I pray that it will be when we pray and not if. I pray that our prayers will be God centered. I pray that we will recognize our dependence on God. I pray that God will change our hearts on the issue of prayer.

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
the Christian's native air,
his watchword at the gates of death;
he enters heaven with prayer.

O thou, by whom we come to God,
the Life, the Truth, the Way;
the path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!