He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him,
Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.
2 He said to them, Whenever you pray, say, Father, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us. And do not bring us into temptation.
5 He also said to them: Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ 7 Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9 So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
A great challenge of the Christian life is that we struggle to pray in various ways. We often neglect to request the infinite resources of God in prayer because we look to ourselves and our circumstances as gods, rescuers, or insurmountable obstacles.
By ourselves, we simply don’t know how to pray, and even the redeemed people of God can convince themselves that every undertaking is purely a product of our own wills.
An unnamed disciple politely requests, “teach us to pray.”
Jesus begins with a retelling of the Lord’s Prayer, which might be better called the “model prayer” since Jesus himself never had to pray this. He himself was sinless, and never had to confess sin, but He teaches us what the content of our prayers should be.
Your Kingdom come
Christians are never commanded to build, create, make, or expand the Kingdom of God. Instead we “receive” and “inherit” the Kingdom while it draws near to us. The Kingdom acts upon us and God reveals it to us.
Luke 12:32 says, “Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom.” The Kingdom is both our future hope and our present gift in the church.
In the church, God is displaying His redemptive reign to the world through the preaching of the Gospel and the marking of disciples in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This reign will one day culminate in the return of the One True King. So, when we pray, “your kingdom come” we petition God to order our hearts to desire the coming of Jesus Christ and establishment of His perfect justice and absolute rule.
“His Kingdom will be without end, we will live in eternal peace, and God Himself will be our reward.”
2. And forgive us our sins
In the face of God’s holiness, it is appropriate that mankind become aware of their own sinfulness.
We know that we must go before our Father and be reminded of his forgiveness by confessing our sin. In those moments we often hear the echoes of condemnation and judgement even though they have been sealed behind the door of Christ’s cross.
That brief moment of uncertainty should drive you to your knees. As we confess our sins, the Gospel of Christ washes over us anew, and even though we wandered, our Father assures us of His pardon, and we see that our Shepherd held us fast all along.
3. And do not bring us into temptation
This last petition has caused some Christians to question God’s goodness.
It stresses God’s oversight and allowance of our trials without suggesting that he tempts anyone since we know that God himself tempts no one.
James 1:13 reads, “No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone.”
Israel’s wandering in the wilderness can help us to understand what Jesus means here. When Israel was wandering, it was a test. The test implied an invitation to obedience, but they largely failed. All were tempted, many sinned and died. So, every test is an opportunity to do what is right, and alongside every test there will be a temptation to sin.
So, what is our prayer during testing and temptation? It certainly isn’t that we should never be tested, since we are promised that we will be tested in various ways,
but it is that God will carry us through the testing and that Satan may not ultimately succeed in taking us from His hand.
4. Deliver us from the evil one
Some insist that we should not pray for things that God has already promised that He will do, but that view makes half the prayers of the Bible very difficult to understand.
God will certainly hold us, and yet we ask Him to do so. This is not a contradiction, but Jesus’ instruction to pray this way establishes how God keeps us.
Paul alludes to this same reality when he writes in 1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it.”
Pray that God would not bring you into temptation, pray that the Lord will provide you a way out. Ask another brother or sister to pray that with you and watch how the Lord answers.
5. He also said to them: “Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
This passage shows that believers need shameless boldness in their prayer.
We cannot annoy God nor can we inconvenience Him since His resources and attention span is infinite. “Importunity” captures the character of the late-night bread beggar, and is a kind of shameless boldness when you should be ashamed or embarrassed.
Mere persistence fits well with another parable that Luke tells about a persistent widow, but it doesn’t capture the moral conflict dimension that this parable wants to say.
6. “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
These verbs of asking, seeking, and knocking imply a progression. Asking is when we bring God our desires. Seeking is when our desires meet our actions. Knocking is our ongoing and continuous pursuit of a goal.
God’s sovereignty and our responsibility beautifully overlap. We labor to find, but God plans our steps. We ask, and He gives. We knock and He opens. The Christian is both utterly reliant on God to move and can rest in knowing that our prayers will be answered according to God’s all-powerful means.
Because He is our Father we can pray with expectation.
As His Children we pray knowing that He will give us what we need. However, “don’t fall into the trap of let go and let God.” If you really believe God is going to answer your prayer, give your all to glorify him with an expectant heart.
7. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
Verses 11 and 12 illustrate one final facet of the Father in our prayers. Jesus asks us to imagine some simple requests for provision that a child makes to an earthly father. Earthly fathers don’t willfully harm their children in response to their requests. Rather, if it is in the power of the father to give what the child requests, the father is inclined to give it.
8. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Jesus knows that sin has corrupted all of creation. We live in a world corrupted by death, idolatry, and all kinds of evil.
God will put all sin and evil to an end, but every person is complicit and corrupted by those things. After all, every one of us, at one point or another has spurned His commandments, despised his reign, or even denied His existence! God’s own holy character demands that His judgment fall on us.
All of Jesus’ prayers in the New Testament begin with an address to God as “Father” except one.
Jesus was crucified in the place of sinners under the justice of God, and He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus received the full penalty of death for the sin of God’s people, so that everyone who trusts in His sacrifice and righteous life on their behalf no longer knows God as judge but instead as Father.
So if you believe in Jesus Christ and turn from your sin, eternal judgment is no longer your expectation, but you have the eternal reward of God Himself.
