Lititz Moravian Congregation, Lititz, PA

“Lord, Teach Us To Pray”
Pastor Dean Jurgen
July 25, 2010

Luke 11:1-13

Sometimes it is easy for us to pray.

Three pastors were talking about prayer and the most effective postures for prayer. One pastor said that he felt that the use of one’s hands was the key to effective prayer: sometimes clasping them and pointing them toward heaven; sometimes opening them in surrender and openness. Another pastor said that he felt the key was being on your knees. The third pastor said that they both had it wrong. The most effective way to pray was to lie face down on the ground, prostrate before the Lord, in fear of him.

As they were talking a telephone repairman was working on the telephone lines above them, overhearing them. Well, this telephone repairman couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer.
He spoke up: “Pastors, I don’t pretend to know more about prayer than you do, but I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground.”

Sometimes it is easy for us to pray.

The fireman was telling the kindergarten class what to do in case of a fire. He said, “First, go to the door and feel the door to see if it’s hot. Then, he said, “fall to your knees. Does anyone know why you should fall to your knees?” One of the little tykes said, “Sure: to start praying to God to get us out of this mess!”

Sometimes it is easy for us to pray. There are plenty of other times it isn’t.

Obstacles:
1. Time: we can’t find the time… we don’t take the time… if we don’t make the time to pray, we often don’t and we offer prayers on the run… or prayers as we fall asleep. And so we end up feeling guilty instead of being prayerful.
2. Words: We don’t feel like we know the right words to say… we can’t pray like the pastor prays, and so we don’t pray. And so, once again, we end up feeling guilty.
3. Distractions: We can get so discouraged because we don’t have a quiet place and a quiet time… or because we can’t quiet our minds from racing through the thousands of thoughts and concerns that consume us.
4. Theology: We can be confused because we wonder if our prayers have any influence on God. Prayer raises all kinds of questions of faith like, “Does God really know what we need? If God does know, why pray? Can we change the course of events by praying? If that is true, why do really important requests sometime not get answered?

We learn something very important from this passage in Luke about these obstacles to prayer. What we learn is that none of theme are addressed. Win this passage on prayer, and elsewhere, Jesus doesn’t give us neat, tidy answers to what concerns us about prayer. No, He gives us something better: he gives us himself; he gives himself as our model, our mentor, our best example of what it means to be a praying person.

At this point in the gospel story, the disciples have been with Jesus for a couple of years and one thing they know about Jesus is that he is a man of prayer. Oh, the disciples are good Jewish men, too, and they are men of prayer… but they see something so much more in Jesus’ prayer life than they have ever seen before. And so they make their request: “Lord, teach us how to pray.” They know that compared to Jesus, they are infants in the school of prayer. So are we.

So Jesus mentors us in the school of prayer. And when he invites us to pray, it is not because of the results we might get. We are not invited to pray because we understand how it fits into a neat theological understanding of how God works. We are invited to pray because prayer was a vital, integral part of the relationship Jesus had with God. We, too, can have a vital relationship with our Father God when we have a vital prayer life as Jesus did. Jesus knows that praying is not easy sometimes. He knows it might come naturally when we’re dangling upside down from a power pole forty feet above ground.

But because he knows prayer doesn’t come easy a lot of the time, he gives us what we now call the Lord’s Prayer as a way of praying when we do not know what to say.
It is a model prayer… a pattern for our daily prayer.
It is a prayer that can focus our minds and spirits on God in all circumstances of life.
It is a prayer that opens our awareness to the presence of the Lord with us.
It is a prayer that puts all of life in perspective, helping us to remember who we are and to whom we belong.

The Lord’s prayer calls us to begin our prayers with adoration. It reminds us from the start that we are given life to hallow, or glorify, the name of our father in heaven. It is a prayer that reminds us that life is really about His kingdom and His will, not my kingdom and my will.

As we live within the will of God, he invites us to pray for our daily bread… the needs of life that he gives. The prayer then shifts from our life with God to our life with others. This prayer Jesus gives us reminds us that our relationship with God impacts how we live in the world with each other. For we need forgiveness, and we need to pass that forgiveness on to others. And we need God’s help to resist and get past the times of trial and temptation and evil. And in the end, it is all about the kingdom, the power and the glory of God, forever and ever.

God’s agenda for us is contained in this prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer. When Jesus gave us this prayer, he intended that it be prayed not just for themselves, but for others. It is significant that the prayer uses pronouns like “our” and “us” not “my” and “me.” This reminds us that life with God is lived out in life with each other… life with God is a community life.

A model prayer of intercession. Not reciting it by rote, but praying it for others.

Pray it for a person you want God to bless.

Our father God:
May your name be hallowed/glorified in my friend... my spouse, my child etc.
Reign over her as sovereign Lord; bend her will until it is conformed wholly to your will.
Give her today the gift she needs most from you.
May she know your gift of forgiveness and be forgiving of others.
Lead her not into temptation, but deliver her from the times of trial and set her free from the tyranny of evil.
And lead her to live in your kingdom, by your power, for your glory, now as she will forevermore, Amen.

Date

Previous Sermons

September 7, 2008

Ringing in Harmony With All of Creation, Sermon by Pastor Dean Jurgen

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September 28, 2008

A Christian Heart is Good; A Christian Liver is Better!

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September 21, 2008

Repent and Face God Sermon by Pastor Mark Breland

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September 14, 2008