Pentecost 10, August 8, 2004
 
Text: Luke 11:1-13
 
Learning to Pray with Jesus
 
One day a minister and a taxi driver died and appeared before St. Peter 
in heaven. To the taxi driver, St. Peter said, “because of your 
faithful service you get to drive a nice car here in heaven,” and he gave him 
the keys to a brand new Mercedes. And so the minister began to think: 
“If this is how they treat taxi drivers in heaven, I can’t wait to see 
what I will get.” Turning to the minister, St. Peter said, “and for your 
faithful service you get these,” and he handed him the keys to an old 
Volkswagen. The minister was stunned: “There must be a mistake, how come 
the taxi driver gets such a nice car and I, who have worked in God’s 
kingdom all my life, get this beat up VW?” St. Peter replied: “When this 
taxi driver drove, people who had never prayed before, learned to pray, 
but when you preached, people slept.”
 
How do you teach people to pray? In our Gospel lesson we heard how 
Jesus taught His disciples to pray, giving them His own prayer. You may 
have already noticed from our reading that the prayer Luke records is a 
bit shorter than the version we are familiar with. As we study this 
prayer, may we also ask Jesus to teach us how to pray. After each section we 
will sing a verse from hymn 431, Our Father, Who from Heaven Above.
 
Introduction – Our Father who art in heaven. Luke only records Jesus 
saying “Father.” It is likely that Jesus spoke in Aramaic where He would 
have used the term “Abba,” which in English is “Daddy.” This one word 
is perhaps the most significant or revolutionary part of the whole 
prayer. Jesus taught His disciples to address the almighty and most holy 
Creator as if they were His equals, His own beloved children. How can 
Jesus presume to teach us such a familiar form of address for God? 
 
Of all religious leaders in the world only Jesus taught His disciples 
such a form of address. He alone is able to teach it because God 
presented Him as the atoning sacrifice for our sins (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2). 
Only through Jesus can we address God as “Father.” Through His Son God 
invites us into a new kind of relationship. With this form of address, 
Luther writes in his Small Catechism, “God tenderly invites us to 
believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so 
that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children as 
their dear father.” We sing the first verse of hymn 431,
 
First Petition: Hallowed be your name. Here we ask that God’s name be 
honoured and kept holy among us. This has to do with our attitude 
towards God and His Word. You cannot, for example, say you respect someone if 
you ignore His wishes. To honour God’s name means to desire to know 
what He has to say to me and to obey it. For example, Adam and Eve 
certainly had good intentions when they ate from the forbidden fruit. What 
they desired was to be wise like God. How I wish we all had such a holy 
desire! Their intentions were good, but they disregarded God’s Word. As 
the saying goes: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
 
We also must be careful not to let our own good intentions lead us to 
disregard God’s word in favour of our own understanding of the way 
things ought to be. For example, when it comes to things like pre-marital 
sex, divorce, abortion, gambling, horoscopes, ordination of women, 
pornography, extramarital relations, etc., do our ears not itch to hear the 
serpent’s words: “Did God really say…”? (Genesis 3:1) Lord, teach us to 
truly honour your name and to keep your word. We sing the second verse 
of hymn 431.
 
Second Petition: Your kingdom come. Where is God’s kingdom? It is 
wherever God’s Word is believed and produces a godly life. Lord, teach us to 
believe your word and live according to it that your kingdom may grow 
among us. We sing verse 3 of hymn 431.
 
Third Petition: “Your will be done.” Luke does not mention the third 
petition of the Lord’s Prayer but Matthew does. I believe the reason Luke 
omits it is that God’s will is already expressed in the first two 
petitions, namely, that His name be hallowed and His kingdom come. Now, we 
might ask, “Why is it so important to God that His name be honoured 
among us and His kingdom come to us?” This is a very important question. 
Luther states that God’s name is indeed holy in itself and that God’s 
kingdom is certainly coming, regardless of our prayer. However, the reason 
it is important to God is because He wishes to share the honour of His 
name and the glory of His kingdom with us, and all people of the world. 
God wants all people to know Him as their heavenly Father. Lord, give 
us your Spirit to help us do your will. We sing verse 4 of hymn 431.
 
Fourth Petition: Give us each day our daily bread. In his Small 
Catechism, Luther writes: “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without 
our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that 
God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with 
thanksgiving.” When we pray this petition, we are not just asking for 
bread or food, but for everything else that is needful for our daily 
lives. 
 
When the ten lepers came to Jesus He healed them all. But as you may 
recall, only one came back to thank Jesus. This one leper did not have to 
come back to thank Jesus. He had already received what he 
wanted—healing. But in coming back this leper received something far greater and 
better than healing. He received a spiritual blessing, a relationship with 
God as his heavenly Father. As we receive the physical blessings God 
provides us with thankful hearts, we are blessed even more in the 
spiritual realm as our faith is strengthened and nourished. Lord, help us to 
receive your blessings with thankful hearts. We sing verse 5 of hymn 
431.
 
Fifth petition: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against 
us. This petition contains the only promise we make. The rest of the 
prayer is made up of requests, but here we make a promise. And because it 
is the only promise it must surely be a very important promise. We 
promise to forgive others the wrong things they do to us. Forgiveness is 
very important because it is the key to fulfill God’s commandment to love 
one another. True love proves itself by showing genuine forgiveness. 
God shows us His own love in this: While we were still sinners, Christ 
died for us (Romans 5:8). Having received God’s love and forgiveness we 
are able, by the power of God’s Spirit working in us, to live out that 
love and forgiveness in our relationships with each other. Yes, Lord, 
teach us to know how much you love us and how generously you daily 
forgive us our sins so that we may also love one another and forgive those 
who wrong us. Sing verse 6 of hymn 431.
 
Sixth and seventh petition: And lead us not into temptation but deliver 
us from evil. I have combined the last two petitions because they both 
deal with divine protection, and because Luke does not include the 
seventh petition in his version of the Lord’s Prayer. To understand these 
petitions we need to understand a little about our spiritual enemy. The 
Devil wants to destroy our spiritual life, our trust in God. He does it 
in two ways: He attacks our minds using the vain and empty things of 
the world, like the love of money, knowledge, power, and fame. With these 
the Devil tries to entice us and crowd out our love for God and His 
will. Secondly, the Devil uses the sinful inclinations of our body to try 
to destroy us. Offering sensual pleasures to indulge the appetites of 
the body, the eyes, the stomach and the mind, the Devil wants to make 
our bodies his slaves. Addicted to destructive life patterns, our 
relationships and our own lives can be wasted and ruined.
 
Getting us to ignore God’s will or to make our bodies his slaves is not 
the Devil’s ultimate goal, for God will still rescue those who believe 
in Jesus. Ultimately the Devil wants to lead us into believing that we 
have screwed up so badly that even God cannot forgive us, and so we end 
up in despair and unbelief. Those are the Devil’s true intentions when 
we are tempted. Lord, protect us from this great evil of doubting your 
love and of unbelief that we may not lose our victory in Christ Jesus. 
Sing verses 7 & 8 of hymn 431.
 
Conclusion: Amen. One thing that truly sets this prayer of Jesus apart 
from every other prayer is that it does not ask for “things.” When we 
pray this prayer we are introduced into a relationship with God. Here we 
ask God to show us His own mind so we can learn to pray in the right 
manner. And what is the right manner for praying? To pray with boldness! 
(Luke 11:8) If we know what God’s will is we can pray with boldness, 
expecting God to give us whatever we ask for: Ask and it will be given to 
you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened. (11:9) 
It is that simple. And for starters, Jesus also identifies the greatest 
gift you can ask God for. What is it? …How much more will your Father 
in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? (11:13) That is one 
thing you can begin asking God for right away, a request you can be 
sure He will not deny you. We sing the final verse of hymn 431.
 
May the love of God our heavenly Father keep your hearts and minds in 
true peace that surpasses all understanding. Amen.