July 22, 2009 +“Lord, Teach Us to Pray” (Luke 11: 1-13) + Hayward Fong

I think most of us who are here this morning feel a need of connecting with God in order to truly experience an abundant, fruitful life. Having said that, how often have you asked how do I achieve that connection? Jesus said, “You cannot bear fruit unless you abide in me.” So it seems the first thing we need to do is establish a relationship with Jesus. In order to establish that relationship, we need to overcome the barrier we call sin, that is to say exercising our free will contrary to what God would like us to do. Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” Most of us try to carry out the Ten Commandments, or at least the major ones. And we also try to live by the Golden Rule most the time. It is the subtle ones that we tend to overlook, but they constitute sin nonetheless. We have the community of the church to provide the support and guidance to keep us connected and moving in the right direction. We have the Bible to read and study to provide the road map, or in modern day language, the GP?. And we also have prayer to help us stay connected with God.

You may ask, what is prayer? For most of us here the answer may be obvious but I don’t want to take anything for granted. Biblically speaking, prayer is simply having conversation with God, or spending time in God’s presence. If we are to remain connected to God and enjoy a fruitful life from this relationship with God (in Jesus), we must communicate with him. Can you imagine claiming to have a best friend whom you haven’t communicated with for 20 years? How can someone have a close relationship with you if they don’t know what’s going on in your life, your joys, your hurts, your struggles? Although God knows every detail in our life, he wants to talk with us, and the way we relate to God is through prayer. Typically we think of prayer as asking God to do something, but prayer is first and foremost a conversation with God.
Most of us probably realize the importance of prayer and yet prayer seems to be one of the easiest areas to overlook in our life. I don’t know about you, but even as your Wednesday morning leader I find prayer difficult at times. I can get easily distracted. I find it difficult to make the time. I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it in the right way, am I getting the words right. Perhaps we don’t know what to say (Romans 8:26). Sometimes prayer feels like more of a chore, one more thing on my schedule, than a joy of being with God. Take out the trash, don’t forget the groceries, and oh yeah pray. It is easy to get discouraged with prayer because we have not seen any answers. Perhaps praying feels more like talking to the ceiling than to God.

While preparing for this message, I came across a quote from one of the great writers on prayer in the 20th century, Thomas Merton. He writes: “But let us be convinced of the fact that (when it comes to prayer) we will never be anything else but beginners all our life.” – Thomas Merton

It gives me great comfort in knowing that a person who was considered to be an expert on prayer admitting to being a beginner. Rather than feeling guilty about our inadequacies in prayer, we should be courageous like Jesus’ disciples and boldly ask Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Let us learn from the Master. And being with Jesus and witnessing his prayer life, his disciples realized that they were missing something. Can you imagine being one of Jesus’ disciples and comparing your own prayers with Jesus? Talk of feeling inadequate. On one particular occasion after being with Jesus, while he was praying, one of the disciples finally gathered the courage enough to ask Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John (the Baptist) taught his disciples.”

So, let us start by asking Jesus the same thing, in fact that can be our first prayer to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” We recognize that we are all just beginners in prayer and we need to learn from Jesus how to connect to God in a deeper way through prayer. We need to learn how to delight in spending time with God, so we can see God work in our life and in the lives of those we pray for.

Before we get into what Jesus teaches, let us look at Jesus’ model of prayer. What is it about Jesus’ life of prayer that the disciples needed to learn? First off, notice that Jesus prayed frequently and in solitary places. Luke 5:16 says, “… Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” As busy as Jesus was in his ministry Jesus prayed frequently. Jesus always seemed to have a crowd of people around who needed healing, desired to hear his teaching, and of course there were the disciples he was training too. And yet in the midst of all that need, Jesus frequently got away from it all and spent time in prayer. We don’t know how frequent is frequent, was it every day, twice a day, three times a day? We don’t know; all we know is that Jesus spent significant amounts of time with his Father.

When Jesus prayed he often withdrew to a solitary place, or lonely place. In other words, a place where there was no one but God. Sometimes it was the top of a mountain, or in a garden, but it was away from people. No people begging for healing, not even any disciples. Jesus made it a priority to get away from the hustle and bustle to talk with his Father.

In our fast paced society with cell phones, pagers, wireless email so you can get your email anywhere at anytime; it seems we are available to everyone at almost anytime, everyone that is … except God. How often do you get away from the distractions of the world to be alone with God? No cell phone, pager, no radio or television playing in the background, no family, just you and God. When will you make time to get away to be with God? Jesus created time and space to meet with God.

Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, had something like 14 children. It is said, when she wanted to spend time alone with God, she would literally take her dress and pull it over her head. This was a signal to her children that she was spending time with God, and they better not bother her. Along the same line, she made time to spend with each child exclusively, one hour each week. I guess you can make the time if you want to. Susanna Wesley did; so can we.

There was a second thing we read about which the disciples saw modeled in Jesus prayer life. When Jesus prayed, miraculous things happened. Out of his time with God, things happened. It was during or shortly after times of prayer that some of the most significant events occurred in Jesus’ ministry. At Jesus’ baptism Luke’s gospel account records this: “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3: 21-22).

Notice that it was not only after baptism, but also after his prayer that the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and God the Father spoke from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Later in his ministry a similar thing happened when he was on the mountain with his three closet disciples, Peter, James, and John. “As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning (Luke 9:29).

This change of appearance which we call the transfiguration occurred in response to his prayer. Jesus’ three disciples were able to see him for who he truly was in his full glory.

On yet another occasion Jesus had a crowd of thousands around him; he was given two fish and five loaves of bread by a boy. Jesus prayed by giving thanks to God, and he proceeded to hand out baskets and baskets of food until everyone had their fill.

You may think, “Well, that’s Jesus, of course he can do these things. What do you expect?” Listen to what Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12).”

The power Jesus had came not from within his own human frame but from the presence of the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that is in every believer, and it came from the Father’s answer to prayer.

Many times we underestimate the power of prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit in today’s world. We often get easily discouraged because we do not see any immediate earth shattering miraculous answers. The person with cancer we prayed for isn’t healed. The marriage we prayed for isn’t mended. The people who are far from God don’t seem to return. When we don’t see the results we hope for, it is easy to give up. But as Jesus reminds us that we cannot give up praying, and that we must pray in boldness and persistence. If it is a just cause, we must keep asking because it will be given to you; keep seeking and you will find, and keep knocking because the door will be opened.

The illustration Jesus used was a man getting up at midnight and going to his neighbor, awaking him up to get three loaves of bread because he didn’t have any for his guest. To you and me, this seems pretty rude, but in middle-eastern Jewish culture which prided itself on hospitality, the rudeness was the neighbor who refused to hand over the bread until he persisted. Although the neighbor initially said no, he eventually conceded in order to keep his integrity. Jesus’ point was, if a human neighbor is willing to do that, how much more will God respond to our needs if we ask. Of course God is going to give you good things, if you ask, particularly the gift of the Holy Spirit. We must pray in faith believing God is going to do powerful things if we ask and ask with persistence.

John Wesley once said, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.” Think about that for a second; in fact write that down somewhere. What if God did nothing but in answer to our prayers? How much would God get done? Prayer is essential for God to act in our world today.

Whatever the reason for the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray, Jesus decided to teach them how to pray, and he used a form for prayer which we call the Lord’s Prayer. He gave this model to his disciples and has been handed down through the ages to you and me. It is a powerful personal prayer, but often we just say it without any understanding or meaning. We just say it as our duty. I believe in order for us to be truly connected to God and experience the fullness of life he wants to offer us and our church, we need to be a people of prayer.