Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Should We Pray? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 11.1-4

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're learning what it looks like to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. When Jesus' disciples asked him, how should we pray? He taught them a short prayer. But it's a profound prayer. It's a prayer that we, to this day, call the Lord's Prayer.

Starting point is 00:00:29 Now, the version that we usually say in churches, the one that most of us have memorized, comes from Matthew's Gospel. but there's a version of the Lord's prayer in Luke's gospel. So let me read it to you. Luke 112, He said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation. Christians have been praying the Lord's prayer for 2,000 years. Let that sink in for a second. For 2,000 years, millions of followers of Jesus have prayed this prayer in thousands of different languages. It's been prayed throughout time in countless different circumstances. Closer to the time of Jesus, Christians were persecuted in Rome's Coliseum, and as they were often being torn alive by animals,

Starting point is 00:01:22 they would cry out, deliver me from the evil one. Over the sounds of their rumbling stomachs, there have been refugees and needy people who have cried out to God every day. day, give us today our daily bread. There have been those who've suffered terrible grief, those who've gone through awful things, genocides, who have learned to even love their enemies by praying day in, day out, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us. There have been orphans who've prayed our father. Jesus himself, when he was crying out in agony in the Garden of Githemen, and he's looking forward to the cross. He prays a line from this prayer. He says to God, your will be done. For those of us who are living in difficult circumstances, we understand

Starting point is 00:02:06 the needfulness of the Lord's prayer, because we're people who understand that we really do need God to provide for us. We need God to provide food, God to provide mercy, God to provide justice. We know that the prayer, your kingdom come on earth as in heaven, is the thing for which our heart most longs that Jesus would return, that Jesus would make things right. But for a lot of us, the needfulness of this prayer, it isn't obvious at all. Maybe it's because we live comfortable lives and comfortable homes with steady paychecks. And so as a result, we're pretty self-reliant people. We kind of do what we need to do to get the things on our tables, and we don't really

Starting point is 00:02:46 feel much of a need for God in our life. But that's really just an illusion of privilege. All the bread that we have at the end of the day really does come from God. At the end of the day, the thing that we truly need more than any, anything else is for Jesus to return and make things right. Similar to this, there are those of us who, again, a lot like me, we have a hard time praying, God, your kingdom come on earth is in heaven, because we know that means that God's judgment, God's justice, is going to come on earth. And we don't like the idea of God's judgment or God's justice coming to earth. Why? I think it's kind of a sign of,

Starting point is 00:03:23 again, our Western privilege. You see, if you're like me, and it's not true of everybody in the West, but if you're like me, you can count on the fact that justice will be served on your behalf. If someone hurts you or someone you love or steals from you, you can count on the fact that the system's going to work to set things right. And since you can count on the fact that the system's going to work to set things right, you don't really feel much of a need for God to bring his kingdom on earth as in heaven. We don't really feel much of a need for him to bring his justice and his judgment to set things right. And yet there's lots of people, both living in the West and outside of the West, who don't experience this same reality. They live in places where there's

Starting point is 00:04:02 no justice for wrongs done against them, where they are simply oppressed and condemned. And so they desperately want God's justice. They desperately want God's judgment to come on earth as in heaven. And so they know to pray for it. They know the goodness of it. But this prayer, it's not just about our daily bread. It's not just about justice. It overflows with Jesus's sense of mission. You see, reflected on his calling to act as an apprentice to his father, to honor his family name, to submit to the father's will in all of his life, to construct God's kingdom on earth as in heaven, to forgive sins, to undergo the evil ones' worst trials and temptations. He reflected on all of that. He saw that that was his mission, and he turned it into a prayer. So despite the

Starting point is 00:04:48 deceivingly simple nature of this tiny little prayer, it's not simple at all. This prayer is actually an index of Jesus's entire life. So why did he give this prayer to us? I think he gave it to us, in large part, to make us more like him. He gave us this prayer to invite us to take on his calling, to participate in his life, to participate in his mission, to become apprentices of him and his heavenly father. Jesus wants us to pray this prayer so that we'll learn what it looks like to honor the family name, to submit to God's purposes, to build God's kingdom on earth as in heaven, and to actually change our world through the radical power of forgiveness. And so as a result, this prayer isn't just a prayer for needful things. It's a request

Starting point is 00:05:37 to be conformed into the lightness of our suffering Messiah, Jesus. I think that's why people have been praying the Lord's prayer every day for millennia, because we want to be made like Jesus. Now, of course, there's a problem with that, because the simple truth is that today there are probably fewer people praying the Lord's prayer every day than there was in the past, at least in places like America. And like I already said, this might be a result of our sense of self-reliance. It might show that we have a lack of a sense of need for food and for justice. But I don't think that's the main reason. I think there's an even deeper reason. I think it's simply an expression of the fact that we don't actually see ourselves as apprentices of Jesus. Instead, we tend to

Starting point is 00:06:25 to value prayers that we just improv on the fly. We think that because they come from our hearts, that makes them superior. And I know that Jesus loves and appreciates these prayers, but I don't think that they're superior. In fact, those prayers may even misconstrue one of the main points of praying altogether, because one of the main points of praying was to be transformed. You see, Jesus and his disciples, they were like many Jews who spent more time praying throughout the day than many of us do. They would pray sometimes five times throughout the day, and they would often pray through the Psalms. But did you catch that? The Psalms are pre-written prayers. They're not prayers that they were improvving. So why were they so committed to praying again and again, these pre-written prayers?

Starting point is 00:07:09 Well, I think it's because prayer was designed to change us. Prayer was designed to shape us. Prayer was designed to make us into apprentices of our heavenly father. Prayer was made, so that it could change what we value, what we long for, how we see ourselves, how we see God, how we see others. Ironically, I think that if all of our prayers are just prayers that we are improvving, they're not prayers that are coming from God's word, we won't end up being shaped to God in God's heart, we'll end up being shaped to conform to our own image. We'll end up being shaped to be conformed to our own desires. And we might trick ourselves into thinking that that's what God wants that that's how God wants us to live, but it's far from the truth. I think that if we want to

Starting point is 00:07:53 become apprentices of Jesus, if we're serious about that, we have to look to God's word. We have to let his word actually shape our prayers so that those prayers can shape who we are. So what would it look like for you? Just as a first small step, what would it look like for you to memorize the Lord's prayer? I mean, you can Google search it anywhere, the Lord's Prayer. Just take some time and memorize it. and memorize it so that you can become an apprentice of Jesus so that you can commit yourself to saying this prayer every day until you start seeing it change who you are. Every day, begin to learn to pray to Jesus. Jesus, give me my daily bread. God, you give me everything that I need. God, you have provided all that I have. Learn to pray every day. Jesus, defend me from the evil one.

Starting point is 00:08:42 You're the one who protects me from temptation. You're the one who can guide you. I me through temptations as they come into my life. You're the one who protects me in ways that I can't even see from threats from the unseen realm. We pray every day, Jesus, your kingdom come on earth as in heaven. We ask God to bring his kingdom on earth as in heaven, not just as a future prayer for Jesus's return, but as a present prayer. Through my life, through my family, through my work. Would you bring your kingdom on earth as in heaven? Would you use us as advanced signs of what you're going to do one day? These are the kinds of prayers that if we pray them every day, they will begin to shape our sense of mission, our sense of calling, and how we live. So again, what could you do as a small step

Starting point is 00:09:26 to apprentice yourself to Jesus through prayer? Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Should We Pray? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 11.1-4

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