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Exposition of Luke 11:2
On this occasion Jesus was praying in a certain place. The disciples had taken note of His prayer habit and they wanted to know about prayer and so they asked Him: “Lord teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples”. Clearly prayer is not something that comes naturally. Clearly prayer is a spiritual discipline, and the Lord assumes that believers should pray and that they must learn how to pray. We see here also that John taught his disciples to pray.
So, in response to their request, Jesus
gives them this short outline on how to pray. Matthew’s version of the Lord’s
prayer is a little more detailed, and
indicates that this is not a prayer in itself but that this is
a pattern after which to pray. “Pray then like this” (Matt 6:9).
Jesus
probably taught about prayer on many occasions. He may even have taught His own
disciples repeatedly concerning the
nature and the form of biblical prayer. You
know how we are. We learn so slowly. Things take time to sink in! Spiritual
truths do not always sink in the first time. That is why we need to read
and re-read the Bible. That is why we need to be taught its truths repeatedly. For this reason we make time to be reminded concerning on of the core disciplines of the Christian church at every beginning of
the year. Matthew and Luke’s
accounts of Jesus’ teaching on prayer
certainly seem to indicate different occasions
on which He taught principles of praying. In Luke’s account Jesus adds information concerning the necessity of persevering in prayer (Lk
11:5-13). We must learn to be patient. We need to learn to trust
God. We need to trust His timing. We need to learn vital lessons in prayer – in particular that when praying that we
should always seek His glory
and purposes FIRST!
The
Lord’s prayer has a very specific logic or structure and we cannot afford
to ignore this. This is part of
the divine inspiration of the Bible. The order in which things are written are important. There is a clear
order and structure attached to
the Lord’s prayer, and we would be foolish
not to see this and apply this.
Today, we will focus
on the ‘first half’ of the
Lord’s prayer in Luke 11: 2. Here
the Lord Jesus directs His disciples to begin prayer with the request that God’s Name might be
sanctified – that His Name might be
declared holy. Jesus says to them: “Pray like this…start your
praying like this: “Father, hallowed by your name”. Linked
to this is an added request : “your kingdom come”. Luke omits the third part of the petition, mentioned in Matthew’s
account : “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10b). One might argue that the
various components of the first part of the Lord’s prayer are really all variations
of the same theme, namely that the
glory of God might be made visible on
our earth!
This then is the very first thing that ought to occupy our prayers. This is challenging for we know
that very often our prayers
are not structured that way. We
tend to be ‘need focused’ or self-
centered in in prayer.
Prayer
is often considered to be the
last resort - like
the woman who once undertook a sea
journey, and in the midst of a serious storm, she asked
the captain: “Captain what shall
we do?” “Well, you can always pray“, answered the captain. “Oh no!“…
she cried, “Is it as bad as that?” You
may laugh – but that’s how we tend to use prayer - only in real crisis- when it’s really
bad! There is, of course a place for that
sort of prayer, as was the case of
Jonah’s story, where the men in
the ship were praying that the storm might subside[1] ,
and when Jonah was praying to God from within the whale[2] to save him.
The prayer that Jesus is
thinking about here is not
‘emergency prayer’. He is thinking about regular prayer, or routine
prayer. Here we are thinking about
the regular personal quiet time
or the regular church prayer meeting. Jesus
regularly took time out to pray ; John taught his disciples how to conduct their times of prayer. The
early church had regular times of prayer, which followed
the pattern of
temple worship with its regular
times of prayer.[3] We
must make time for prayer – individually
and corporately. It is important that
this discipline should form a part of our
spiritual lives :
“O what peace we
often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear – all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” [4]
How then should
we structure our prayer
time? The structure of the Lord’s
prayer helps us here. We are taught to
begin praying with God and His glory in mind! Let’s try to be practical
about that. How do I do that ? There is
no more practical way to begin
prayer than by reading the Bible. The
Bible in its very essence is God –focused. So, as I read the Bible my thoughts
are directed to God, and immediately I am in the spirit of
prayer.
Let me give you an example how this
works for me. Recently I was
reading through the book of Leviticus.
Now, that book presents a great challenges to many people. The laws for burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace
offerings, sin offerings guilt offerings
(Lev. 1-7), together with the laws of cleansing, and various laws
for guiding human relationships appear
to be tiresome. But I cannot get
away from the fact that all this ordered ritual was designed to bring glory to God and happiness to man. The unblemished,
the very best sacrifices brought by the worshiper to God
were not only designed to provide atonement for the worshiper, but it was also designed
to be a pleasing aroma to the LORD. Does
this not apply to prayer? The goal of
prayer is to offer up time (Yes, it
takes time!) to seek the presence of
God so that I might worship Him, and so that I, a sinful being might find my peace with Him and therefore my joy
in Him through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
And then
there is the story of the death of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron
the high priest in Chapter 10 who offered ‘unauthorized fire‘ . This
story sent cold shivers down my spine, as I realized afresh that
God will not be worshipped
casually.
The
repeated use of the phrase “holy to the Lord” challenged me greatly,
and the Lord used the reading of this
book to cause me to pray for an awareness
of a greater revelation of His
holiness in me and in our church and in our
society. Can you see how that links up
with this part of the Lord’s prayer? I prayed in essence: ”Lord
may your glory be seen in our
society!” May your Name be hallowed
here in my life, and at Eastside,
and in Windhoek, and in Namibia – and indeed in the whole world.“ I would argue that the entire Bible will do
that for you. So, use the Bible to provide you with fuel for this vital part of prayer. It is important that you do, for so the Lord Jesus has taught us to pray: “May
your Name be hallowed. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done.”
Will This Aspect Of Prayer Really Make A Difference ?
Of course it must! Anything that God
commands in His Word, if it is obeyed,
will carry His blessing. I direct your
attention to 1 John 5 :14,15 :
"And
this is the confidence that we have
toward him, that if we ask anything
according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the
requests that we have asked of him.”
If we pray that God’s
Name would be glorified in our lives, our church, our country and our
world then we should expect God to
honour this prayer. Who knows
what God has spared us from in Namibia
as we have often prayed that God’s glory would be seen and felt in every corner and part of our country. Who
knows what God is doing in our country
as He brings men and women
to conviction and repentance
through Christ our Lord. While there are many
things that are not good, we do
need to thank God that there is a
general sense of the fear of the
Lord among us, and I do not want to take
that for granted, and so I would
encourage Christians to earnestly continue
praying that God’s Name would be
honoured in our land. Pray for
visible tokens of the advancement of his
kingdom . I cannot speak for other
churches and Christian organizations,
but I thank God, that the gospel has not stood still among our churches.
So, learn to make the glory of God
central to your praying. The degree
to which God’s Name will be hallowed in the earth; the degree to which
His kingdom advances and the degree
to which His will is done on earth, will ensure
your and my happiness this side of heaven.
Pray therefore brothers and sisters that the glory of the LORD will be seen and felt in these days ! Amen .
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