Luke 11:1-4, Genesis 18:20-32, Psalm 138
Hope International Mission
By Young Kim
Grace and peace to you from the Lord our God who gladly listens to our prayers. Amen.
Is there anyone who has realized that we’ve been walking through the Gospel of Luke for a while in a sequence of stories? I hope that you can see the relevance of the stories as we deal with every chapter in Luke on each Sundays.
Let’s do a quick review. Two weeks ago, we talked about the law which teaches us to inherit the eternal life. There were two parts in the law which are loving God with our heart, soul, strength and mind and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Then, Jesus clarified who our neighbor is using Good Samaritan’s story. And last week, we talked about the importance of building the relationship with God through Mary and Martha’s story. Through the contrasting attitudes of Mary and Martha, the author intended to tell us that helping the neighbors and satisfying the physical needs are important, but first of all, we all need to focus our attention to God. Just like Jesus told Martha, “Mary has chosen the better one. It will not be taken away”, God wants to have a close relationship with each and every one of us. Therefore, the two weeks of messages supplement with each other. Now that we’ve talked about having a close relationship with God, today, we are going to talk about one of the main tools to build and maintain the relationship with God, and that is, prayer.
When we try to make something, we need the right tools. But if you don’t know how to use the tools accordingly, we never know the usefulness of the tools. Here’s a good example. Yes, that’s a smart thing to do if you don’t have any other tools, but that is a temporary solution. When tools are used incorrectly, the tools will soon break and you will soon need to look for another temporary solution. Here’s another picture. This person has the right tool but doesn't have the right knowledge to use it. Do you see that pile of ladders is not helpful at all and is being wasted? We can apply this idea to prayer. God gave us this tool, prayer, to use for the sake of the relationship with God. But have you ever questioned yourself, “Am I praying correctly?” If not, I’d like you to seriously think about the way you pray. Jesus taught us how to pray accordingly in today’s text. Let’s take a close look at this text to learn how to pray and look back on our prayers to see if we’ve ever used the prayer wrongly and inappropriately.
In today’s reading, Jesus was praying at a certain place, and when he finished praying, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John the Baptist taught his disciples.” Luke stressed the importance of prayer in Jesus’ life and his public ministry through many verses. (e.g. 3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28, 10:21-22, 11:1, 22:41-44, 23:46) And Jesus often prayed early in the morning before he started his ministry and at night after finishing his ministry. By observing Jesus’ daily practice of praying and knowing that John the Baptist had also taught his disciples to pray, the disciples asked Jesus to give them instructions on prayer.
But then, did the disciples not know how to pray? Actually, in the Jewish tradition, teachers used to teach their students a certain formula for prayers, and there already was a common form of prayer which was called as ‘eighteen prayers or benedictions’ among the Jews. They cited it while they prayed three times a day: 9am when the temple gates opened, 3pm and 6pm at sundown. So you will know that Jesus’ disciples already knew how to pray according to their tradition. But why did they ask him for another instruction for prayer? Probably, they knew that Jesus’ prayer was different from the ordinary prayers and realized that God the Father always listened to Jesus’ prayer and petition. In the Gospel of John, “Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me.” (John 11:41-42) Hearing Jesus’ prayer, they might have started to wonder what is so special about Jesus’ prayer to which God always responds.
Just like these disciples, you might have thought of why God sometimes seems to ignore my prayers while God answers the others’ prayers. Or maybe you didn’t know how to pray to God, so you just repeated the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. And this was me when I was young. But there is something more to the Lord’s Prayer. It is neither about the repetition nor memorization. Let us all read together what Jesus has taught us: “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 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.” This is a shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer which we use in our worship every Sunday.
For every means of communication, it is important to know to whom it is addressed to, whether it may be a letter, a conversation, or even an announcement. And Jesus taught us to address our prayer to our Father in heaven. It rightly indicates to whom we pray to and reminds us our privileged status as God’s children. Calling God as our Father is not a surprising thing to us, but it was very unusual for the Jews of that day. That word Father was too intimate for them to call God, because they considered God to be too holy and inaccessible to be called by name. Therefore, Jesus’ teaching to call God as our Father in prayer was an astounding and huge encouragement that the almighty God is our Father who loves us unconditionally, is very close to us, listens to our prayers, and does whatever He pleases for us. He is our Father but He is our God the Father in Heaven. When we say “in heaven”, we remember God’s holiness and glory.
After calling unto God, Jesus taught us firstly to pray, “Hallowed be your name.” Hallowed means set apart. It is to say that there is no one like God; He is completely unique. Also, God’s name identifies His whole character, His whole person. Then, what does it mean to pray ‘hallowed be your name’? Even though God is our Father, we should start our prayer by recognizing the nature of God as holy and distinct from us. This recognition will lead us into closer walk with our God and the development of holiness in ourselves, mirroring the nature of the God, and setting ourselves apart from ungodliness and unrighteousness. This will restore our broken relationship with God and lead us to humble ourselves in front of God.
Next, Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come.” Who is the ruler in God’s kingdom? Of course, it is God. Hence, everything in heaven is under God’s ways and order. Everything in Heaven obey God’s Word. So when we say “Your kingdom come”, we are asking that may God’s good and righteous ways happen here, as they are fully happening in Heaven. This is an echo from the proclamation of Jesus in the Gospel. Jesus shouted to the people of Israel from the beginning of his public ministry by saying “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the main theme of John the Baptist’s preaching before Jesus as well and the disciples also proclaimed this after Jesus’ ministry. Hence, God’s kingdom is the main theme in the New Testament and Jesus is teaching us that we should echo this in our prayers, too. By praying this sentence, we ask that may God make his kingdom reign and his redemption flourish in this world. As we pray this and obey God’s Word, we are letting God rule over ourselves, just as God’s kingdom in Heaven is ruled by God’s Word.
Jesus continues on in verse 2 by teaching us the next step of prayer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Through this prayer, we are aligning our will with God's will. We are submitting ourselves to God and asking that His way wins in us. It could be a trustful confession to God by saying, “Do Your will, because I know it is the best. Change me where I don’t understand nor accept Your will.”
There is a good example regarding the prayer, your will be done. Do you know one of the famous hymns, “My Jesus, as Thou wilt.” In Korean, it is translated as, “내 주여 뜻대로” The author of this hymn was a German Lutheran Pastor in 1700s whose name was Benjamin Schmolck. Due to the Catholic majority, the Lutherans were permitted only a “meeting-house” and restricted the number of churches Lutherans could own. This meeting-house was the only Lutheran church for a district comprising about 36 villages. So he had to visit 36 villages to deliver his preaching. One night, after delivering his sermon from a distant village, he found that his house was completely burnt down. He ran in to look for his children. And there he found his two children, burnt in ashes, holding tight unto each other. He fell down on his knees with tears. Surprisingly, the very first prayers that he spoke out to God was “My Jesus, as Thou wilt!”. This later became the famous hymn: “My Jesus, as Thou wilt! Oh, may Thy will be mine! Into Thy hand of love I would my all resign; Through sorrow, or through joy, conduct me as Thine own, And help me still to say, my Lord, Thy will be done!”
When Jesus taught his disciples to start praying with the confession: “Hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdome come, Your Will be done”, Jesus was telling them to let God be in the first place in our every prayer. Famous biblical interpreter, Matthew Henry stated, “We must begin our prayers with praising God, and it is very fit he should be first served, and that we should give glory to God, before we expect to receive mercy and grace from him.” I want all of us to remember that we should stop our tendency to put ourselves before God. Prayer is a tool to have God’s will accomplished in us and all around us.
Then, the next prayer is “Give us day by day our daily bread.” Jesus didn’t forget to pray for our physical needs, but this only comes after God becomes the center of our life. What we should look closely here is “our daily bread”. Daily bread for us is enough. We should remember that Jesus was not asking for the overflowing riches nor for the power and reputation in the society. Have we not filled our prayers with what we want or need, such as money, reputation, and other desires? In the pattern of our regular prayers, have we not put ourselves in the center of our prayers? The way we pray shows us how our daily faith life looks like. Through this teaching of prayer, Jesus wants us to invite Him as the center of our life and exchange my will for His will.
Prayer is a conversation. Simply uttering the things that I need is not a prayer. The biblical definition of praying is to exchange wishes that literally means to interact with the Lord by switching human thoughts or wishes for God’s wishes. As we do so, God imparts faith, and that is God communicating to us faith through the divine persuasion.
There was a time when I had lost all my passion for life. I wandered a long way around and finally decided to give my last chance to God. I headed to a retreat center by myself to meditate and pray to confront God personally. The only thing I prayed for was, “Lord, please answer me if you exist. Please let me know what I should do, and I will do whatever you want me to do!” Weeks have passed solely with praying, meditating, and fasting. One night, while I was praying, I felt like I saw a film of my life. It started from my early childhood. Everything that I saw and remembered was all that I did wrong to my parents, my sisters, friends, and people around me. Detailed and specific memories popped up in my head like a video, and some of the scenes were the memories that I no longer recalled or never even realized. After a while, I realized that I was not only hurting people around me, but at the same time, I was also hurting God with my unbelief and complaints. Then I started to repent everything I recalled at that moment. I prayed to God to prove God’s existence, but God took a step forward and showed me what kind of person I was, a broken sinner who can do nothing but hurting God, and how God accepted me and loved me so. After the prayer that night, I was more certain and confident about God’s forgiveness, and I felt my burden has lightened and my soul healed by God.
When I prayed for my needs and wishes before this experience, I was not able to find the answer. I wasn’t even sure of God’s existence until then. But as I shifted my prayer and my will to know God and dedicated myself to do whatever God wanted me to do, God answered and revealed himself to me.
Lastly, Jesus taught us to pray: “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.” We should remember that just as our need for daily bread is real, our need for daily forgiveness is essential to us. Someone once said, “As bread is the first need of the body, so forgiveness for the soul.” Like my story that I just shared, the more I repented, the more love that I was able to find. As we pray for forgiveness, the Holy Spirit leads us to a realization how bad and weak we are and how great God’s love is. Also, Jesus taught us not to judge others if we don’t want to be judged. The other way around, Jesus is teaching us that we should first forgive others before we ask God for our forgiveness. And don’t forget that repent does not end with forgiveness. Repent is extended to a further step of returning back to the Lord. That is why Jesus goes on with, ‘Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one’. We need to pray for God’s help that we may never return again to silliness, that we may not be tempted to it. This acknowledges our weaknesses and how vulnerable we are to sin. Temptation here could mean how Job went through his tragedy or how Abraham tried to sacrifice his only Son, Isaac according to God’s command. And it is like Pastor Benjamin who couldn’t save his two children from the fire due to his ministry for God. Can we pray the trustful prayer just like our ancestors of faith? Can we say, “Your will be done because you are faithful and I believe in you wherever you lead me!”
Now, you will understand that this Lord’s Prayer is neither a magical formula to cast out the evil nor just a part of ritual which is automatically cited in our worship without our heart. This is the completion and summary of the whole teaching of Jesus. This reminds us how we’ve been praying differently from Jesus’ prayer. Let us ask God to make us humble acknowledging that we are weak, therefore, we desperately need God in our daily life. Let us set our mind and spirit to know more of God, to come close to His presence. Let us make ourselves available to follow God’s will and not live by our own will and our stubbornness. God, come and be the ruler of my kingdom inside me.
Let us pray,
Blessed Lord! Thank you for teaching us to pray tonight. We ask you to stir up a deep sense of our ignorance and realize the wonderful privilege and power of prayer. Please lead us to cast away our thoughts of what we think we know, and make us kneel before you in our hunger and poverty of Spirit. Fill us, Lord, with the confidence once again to boldly come close to you to learn from you. Teach us to be firm and strong in faith in our time of trial and giving glory to God always. We love you, we praise you, and we honor you. In your holy name, we pray. Amen.