February 1, 2026: When You Pray, Say - Luke 11:1-2

In 2023 when I became the lead pastor, I set out on a multi

year journey to cover the basics of our faith.

This has included sermon series through Genesis in the fall and

then in the spring, working our way through important summaries

of the Christian faith that have been used to taught to teach

Christians Christianity for thousands of years.

And it's important as I continue into this spring and do another

one of these summaries, which is the Lord's Prayer, that we

understand how it fits within this larger scheme or program.

It's important for growing Christians to be developing

their their minds and their hearts and their hands in these

distinct areas. We need to know our Bibles.

This is the leg of the triangle that has to do with biblical

literacy. Do you know where things are?

Do you, are you familiar with the stories?

But besides this, we also need to be doctrinally wise.

We need to know some things theologically because your Bible

doesn't have a book called first, Trinitarianism or second

Substitutionary Atonement. You, you have to study the whole

counsel of God's Word according to those particular areas to

know what God is like and what is salvation is like.

This is the area of theology. But we also need to be able to

live holy lives. We need to have biblical

disciplines and holy habits in order to shine brightly in the

world in order to indeed live out the things that we've been

learning their Bible and with our doctrines.

Theology is sometimes called doctrine.

Those are synonyms for our purposes.

Also, the practices sometimes are called disciplines.

Perhaps you've heard that word used.

You could also think about theology as the more on the

beliefs side and the practices more on the habits side.

These are all helpful synonyms for our purposes.

The old term and the term I like to continue teaching from this

pulpit for beginning Christianity or the basics.

The fundamentals has to do with catechesis.

Nothing to be afraid of. Catechesis just means the

teaching process and what is taught through the teaching

process. The content of that teaching is

known as catechism and there are many historic summaries of the

faith that you can look up and read through.

Too much edification and growth. Often these historical summaries

are designed, built, explain three main documents.

There may be a couple more, but the three main ones are the

Apostles Creed, the 10 Commandments, and the Lord's

Prayer, the Apostles Creed, the 10 Commandments, and the Lord's

Prayer. So 2 springs ago, we preached

slowly through the 10 commandments, side by side with

our Lord's Sermon on the Mount as he explains those

commandments for us. Last spring we worked our way

line by line, sometimes phrase by phrase through the Apostles

Creed. And this spring, not that much

different. We'll go slowly through the

Lord's Prayer, learning what it is for us.

Jai Packer noted that these three summaries really do

capture kind of the middle or the basics, the the starting

point. And you could think about the

Apostles Creed as laying out the things that we believe, the 10

commandments and the ethic that goes with it, the way we behave,

and the Lord's Prayer giving us a summary, a basis, a foundation

for how we commune with God, communing, believing, behaving,

communing. That's very helpful.

Notice also that it's all profoundly biblical.

The writers of the Apostles Creed weren't making anything

up. They were following the biblical

text and noticing its priorities.

Interesting. As I was studying for this, it's

working in the Taylor Library and I I enjoy pulling off the

shelves in the Taylor library. Luther's commentaries, Luther's

works. It takes up two, like two whole

shelves, not only for his profound and often extremely

helpful biblical insights, but also for the funny parts too.

He's tremendously entertaining and sure enough, he delivered a

real gem. So he'll put his picture up here

and read to you his preface to his Shorter Catechism, how he

explains why he felt the need to write it.

I'm going to read this to you. It's fantastic.

Remember, this guy wrote 500 years ago.

Words are still helpful for us today.

He starts off this way. Grace, mercy and peace in Jesus

Christ our Lord. From Martin Luther to all

faithful, godly pastors and preachers.

So far, so good. The deplorable, miserable

conditions which I discovered during a recent visit has forced

and pressed me to prepare this catechism or statement of

Christian doctrine in very brief and simple terms.

God help us what miseries I beheld.

The ordinary people, especially those who lived in the country,

know nothing at all of Christian doctrine, and alas, many pastors

are all together inept and incompetent to teach them.

Nevertheless, all maintain that they are Christians, have been

baptized and received the holy sacraments, yet they know

neither the Lord's Prayer, nor the Creed nor the 10

Commandments. They live like mere cattle and

irrational hogs. And now that the Gospel has

come, they have finally mastered the abuse of every kind of

freedom. You bishops, how will you answer

to Christ for having neglected the people so shamefully and

never for a moment discharged your office?

At this point I'm looking around.

Is Luther in here? Is he talking to me?

May you avoid all misfortune. You command the sacrament and

insist on your human laws, yet at the same time you do not care

in the least whether the people know the Lord's Prayer, the

Creed, the Commandments, or any part of the Word of God.

Woe to you forever. Therefore, I plead with you all

for God's sake. My dear sirs and brother,

pastors and preachers, devote yourselves wholeheartedly to

your office. Have pity on the people

entrusted to you and help us instill the catechism in the

people and especially in the young.

Wow. I was happy when I moved here in

2012. I have two little kids and we're

checking out the children's ministry to find that the

Wednesday night program called Basics.

It's like Awanas, if you grew up with Awanas was a way to teach

the kids the faith and it was not only a scripture memory

program, but it also had if you wanted to, you could learn your

catechism as well. They use the New City Catechism

modified for UCC. I was excited to know that my

kids would go through through such a program and that the

negligence that Luther is describing in this passage was

not the case here in this community.

And I look forward to going through all of these things with

you to learn what we can together.

We are in the Luke's Gospel, Chapter 11, as was read in the

Scripture reading. I encourage you to follow along

in your Bibles. We're not going to go very far.

And all spring will go slowly through this text because it is

packed full of important wisdom for us.

Let me read it again Luke's Gospel beginning in verse 1 of

Chapter 11. Now Jesus was praying in a

certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples

said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his

disciples. And he said to them, when you

pray, say, Father hallowed, be your name, your Kingdom come.

Give us each day Our Daily Bread and forgive us our sins as we

ourselves forgive any everyone who is indebted to us and lead

us not into temptation for our points.

Today I'm taking some of the contextual things before the

prayer the disciple asks, Lord, teach us to pray.

Lord, teach us to pray. These words are important.

The first thing that you can notice is the word Lord.

This means that the disciples are in relationship with their

Master as his learners, as His followers, as his disciples.

He is the rabbi, He is the teacher.

They submit to him and listen to his authority for their lives.

This is tremendously important because prayer can't exist until

there's relationship. And the big problem with ruined

sinners, which the Bible says is all of us without Christ, is

that our relationship has been fractured with God.

Do you remember the story in Genesis?

The humans are made and the story is of perfect intimacy

says that they walk with God in the cool of the day.

They converse with him, they talk to him, close intimacy.

But but after the sin, after the rebellion, that intimacy is

lost. It's shattered, it's broken.

And instead of walking with God in the cool of the day, instead

you have God crying out to Adam. Where are you and the humans

responding? We were afraid of you, so we

hid. Where is that intimacy, that

closeness, that communion, that conversation when there is now

hiding? So this reminds us, and we

should probably catalog some of the major barriers that sin

brings into our lives. Have you ever wondered why

prayer is hard? Or maybe I'm the only one in the

room that thinks prayer is hard. Prayer is hard.

Why is prayer hard? Because everything within our

fallen nature is bent and dead set against prayer.

Intellectually. Intellectually, we have

problems. Intellectual bearers.

Why? Because we want to do things our

own way. We think we know better than

God. We are tremendously arrogant.

But not only do we have the barrier of arrogance, we also

have ignorance. We don't know what we ought to

pray about. We don't know how to pray.

We don't even know where to begin should we want to in the

1st place, which we don't. So we have intellectual barriers

of arrogance and ignorance, but we also have theological

barriers in our ignorance. We wonder what's prayer even

for, Taught college students for a lot of years.

And that question comes up. You can predict it and every

generation of college students. Dan, what is prayer for?

What does it even do? It's so hard, I don't even know

where to begin. Besides intellectual barriers

and theological barriers, we also have emotional barriers,

don't we? Especially if we've tried prayer

and have been disappointed with our results.

Emotional barriers such as disappointment or anger with

God. Why did he allow this to happen?

Why doesn't he do something? Doesn't he care?

Is he even there? Emotional barriers related to

distrust and doubt, sadness, shame, embarrassment, Powerful

emotions that keep us from crying out to the Lord in our

sinful nature and indwelling sin.

Besides intellectual and emotional and theological

barriers, we also have volitional barriers that that

the barriers that have to do with our own will.

Frankly, to put it simply, why pray?

I'd rather do something else. Again, this is a demonstration

of our pride. But besides all of these

barriers, we also have contextual barriers,

environmental barriers, don't we?

Endless distraction, pointing, pulling us off, surrounded often

by a by prayerless friends, perhaps.

Or maybe your situation is just sleepiness.

I'm up all night, I can't really sleep.

I have insomnia. But in the morning when I try to

pray, I fall right to sleep. Contextual barriers.

All of this sort of builds a case where we just feel and know

intuitively, my friends, prayer is impossible, isn't it?

Let's just be honest, Prayer is impossible.

Sin makes it impossible. So we need a divine intervention

to change us. This is where grace comes in.

This is where the gospel comes in.

This is where the Lord seeks and finds and clothes where he

provides. And we repent of our unbelief

and we give over our intellect and our volition and our

emotions, and we say, Lord, teach me to pray.

And so we have the miracle of redeeming love whereby our

hearts are converted and we, like the disciples, can say,

Lord, this is where it all starts.

And they know that they need to be taught to pray and they need

to be taught by Him to pray. He is their Lord and teacher.

We too must be taught. He is their model.

Did you notice the context in verse one?

It says now Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he

finished, one of his disciples came up and saw him.

So they're observing his prayer life.

They're experiencing Him as a man of prayer.

They also know that his cousin John the Baptist taught his

disciples to pray. So this disciple says, Lord

teach us to pray. He is their model, but not only

is He the model, He is the means for prayer.

We'll get into this more later. But without the redeeming love

of Jesus, without His person and work for us on the cross,

without His ministry as great High Priest interceding and

praying for us, we have no hope, no chance at all.

And it's amazing thought that He's not only the model, but

He's the means of our prayer, that He makes our prayers

powerful and effective through his ministry on our behalf.

You never pray alone. Teach us to pray.

Interesting. Jesus here does not launch into

a long theological digression on what prayer is.

He doesn't start in Genesis and work his way through the Old

Testament building a biblical theology of prayer.

No, he doesn't. We need that.

In fact, we need some definition, some places to

start. So that's what I'm going to do.

First, let's look indeed at the New city.

Catechism actually has a question on this as it

introduces the Lord's Prayer question #38 is what is prayer?

Let's get ready for a definition.

The writers of the New City Catechism pull from the Psalms

and come up with this definition.

Prayer is pouring out our hearts to God in praise, petition,

confession of sin, and Thanksgiving.

Pouring out our hearts to God is a phrase that they get from

Psalm 62 down in verse 8. It says trust in Him at all

times. O people, pour out your hearts

before Him. God is a refuge for us.

It's a beautiful definition. It's a whole person definition,

Mine, heart, hands, all of it. And we can go even further as we

think about that, pouring out our heart as the definition of

prayer, as we consider what Jesus does do, then he doesn't

give him the definition. He just tells them when you

pray, say, which is our second point, when you pray, say, I

love this. I love this because it reminds

me as a parent how I taught my little kids, especially when

they're at table, say please, say thank you.

And parents feel like a broken record as they are constantly

every single day giving them the kids the script.

Again, use your gentle words. Say I'm sorry.

And Jesus in dealing with his disciples gives them a script,

really not an essay or a theological treatise on prayer,

but something to say. Here's the place to start.

You want to learn how to pray, Say these words.

He responds with a prayer that they can pray and they can

literally say the words. But the thing that's so profound

and interesting about the Lord's Prayer is that it's not just an

incantation, a magic words, something to memorize and pair

it out. It's actually an outline.

It's a robust, compact formula of a profoundly flourishing

prayer life. We begin, like children, with

imitation, learning how to talk. But then we can expand and learn

that these are indeed categories, types of prayer, put

in a very specific order that we will explore over the coming

weeks. Ji Packer and his accessible and

short book on the Lord's Prayer. I recommend this to all of you.

It's called praying the Lord's Prayer.

He, like any good preacher who went to alliteration class in

seminary, gives you these 7A's. Isn't that lovely?

I don't know how helpful you find that, but preachers think

it's great approaching approaching God and adoration

and trust. Acknowledging his work and His

worth in praise and worship. Admitting sin and seeking

pardon. Asking that needs be met for

ourselves and others. Arguing with God for blessing.

Like Jacob in Genesis 32, Packer says God loves to be argued

with, accepting from God one's own situation as he has shaped

it. Your will be done.

And finally adhering to God, sticking to him in faithfulness

through thick and thin. It's a beautiful list.

They all start with a it's a little bulky to teach kids.

So this is what we do ACTS, spells, axe.

It's easy to remember adoration, confession, Thanksgiving, and

then we throw the kids a big word because we want to build up

their vocabulary. Supplication, which means

presenting your requests to God, your prayer requests.

All of this is within the Lord's Prayer, and I look forward to

going through it with you in the coming weeks.

What can we say by way of application this morning as we

think this through first? The first thing that I want to

say is that the disciples, they can't learn how to pray.

None of us can learn how to pray until we first can say Lord.

So we must believe. We must believe in the Lord

Jesus Christ, ask Him to save us, submit to His authority and

to His plan. And until that happens, we are

kind of in a situation where He stands at the door knocking,

waiting for us to open it and draw Him into our hearts.

Are you a believer this morning? Have you entered into a

relationship with Jesus? Can you call him Lord Jesus?

Can you ask of him, Lord teach me and actually receive teaching

from him? The first command is to believe.

But that's not just for those who have never said Lord to

Jesus. It's also for the saved, for the

redeemed, for all of us to continue daily to step into

submission with Christ, to say, Lord, teach me to have that

openness of heart to receive from Him what He says, to ask

Him. Even if our faith is weak.

Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief, because prayer is

impossible without his help, without his intervention,

without his grace. Believe #2 plan.

My choir teacher in high school, brilliant lady named Marsha

Yost, she always said make a plan, work a plan.

We're going to make a plan, work a plan.

It's one of her little sayings that we loved.

And you've heard it said other ways or other cliches, right?

If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.

You know this, right? And there are there's a godly

way to make plans and an ungodly way to make plans.

We were supposed to say if the Lord wills and involve the Lord

in our planning. But we do need to plan to pray.

Often people have Bible reading plans that they make as part of

their New Year's resolution. We need, we need prayer plans.

What's your plan? Maybe you need a prayer partner.

Maybe you'd like to go on walks with the Lord.

Maybe you're a journaling type and you're going to ride it out

and make a plan, and hopefully that plan makes it more than a

day or so, makes it more than a couple weeks.

How are your New Year's resolutions doing, by the way?

It's first Sunday of February. Did you know that there's

something called Quitter's Day, National Quitter's Day?

It's the second February every January where most people give

up on their New Year's resolutions.

We would love to make it past Quitters Day, which this year

was only on the 9th of January, in our Bible reading plans and

in our prayer plans, to develop a holy habit where we persevere

with the Lord. But it's going to take a plan

and deliberate action, maybe even accountability, in order to

carry it out. I hope in the weeks to come that

I give very practical ways for us to do this together, make a

plan, work a plan. And finally, if you need a place

to start and all of us do. I think that this is so helpful.

Even now as a pastor, whether I'm praying in public or praying

for my kids, praying with my wife, praying over the dinner

table, we don't always follow this, but it's a good place to

start. It's so easy for our prayers to

just become the supplication part, the prayer requests part.

And we may need practice and expansion and thinking about the

attributes of God to to spend a moment in our prayers praising

Him for his, for his wisdom, for his power, for his, for his

beauty, for his love. We have to know something about

his attributes in order to pray them in praise back to Him.

Confession of sin. It's a good place to say, hey,

you know what, I'm not perfect. I blew it.

And how often we can learn, even through our times of confession

with God, that we need to go have that conversation with

somebody that we really did not speak gently to earlier in the

day. Please forgive me, I'm sorry, I

was wrong. Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is in the very center of the Christian life.

The person who is spiritually mature and full of the Holy

Spirit is a fountain of Thanksgiving.

They can't help it. It just comes flowing out of

them. They can't help it.

It's in the very center of the Christian life.

Now, finally, we're ready. We're ready.

We're primed to give our requests to God, which is a very

important spiritual practice, but not the only one.

And I'm glad that we remember to do that in sequence and in

fullness with the others. And we're going to enjoy going

through the supplications in this prayer over the coming

weeks. I hope that you're excited to

grow in prayer. I know that I am.

We all need this. So whether you're thinking about

Packers 7A's or this Axe model, just think about prayer.

Most is simply being conversation with God made

possible by Jesus. So to conclude, as I said,

prayer is fundamentally conversation with God.

Our sin makes it impossible, but God's grace to us in the gospel

not only makes prayer possible, but makes it beautiful too.

I'll conclude these weeks by praying the Lord's Prayer with

you. And I would invite you over the

coming weeks to pray it along with me.

And if you don't know it, if you've never learned it, that's

OK. Just listen, pray along with the

people around you. I think what will happen though

to you could be what happened to me as a little boy, as I heard

my grandparents pray this prayer repetitively in my life when I

was a little kid. Eventually I could pray along

with them as well. And there are several different

versions. It was hard for me to pick.

And so for today, I may change this up, but for today, I'll

pray the version that my grandparents prayed who are now

with the Lord. And you are invited to join with

me. What that means is when we get

to the sin, debts or trespasses part, I'll say trespasses.

OK, trespasses. All right, let us pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy

Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our

trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.