The Messiah’s Teaching on Prayer • 08.30.26
Nick Lees   -   August 31, 2026

The Messiah’s Teaching on Prayer
Luke 11:1-13

Learning how to pray from the Son of God

  1. Approach God as your Heavenly Father
  2. Desire for God to vindicate his name as holy
  3. Pray that God’s rule and reign would come
  4. Ask God to give you what is needed
  5. Consider God’s willingness to answer and graciousness in giving us the best gift

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Good morning, church family! Welcome guests + introduce self

Dismiss 4th + 5th graders

Ushers + Bibles (Luke 11; page 1033)

Today we are returning to our primary sermon series for the year Luke: The Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ. We began this series back in January and made it through chapter 10 before taking a break for the summer series on our union with Christ. Today we return to where we left off in Jesus’ life and ministry in Luke 11.

But before we do that, I thought it would be helpful to give us a recap of what we’ve learned so far in the Gospel of Luke. After all, it’s been a few months since we’ve been in it and some of you may not have been present for the earlier part of the series.

Let’s start by reflecting on what I shared last week in our study of the final book of the Old Testament – Malachi. These are the final words of God to his people before 400 years of prophetic silence:

Malachi 4:4–6 (ESV)

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

The Old Testament ends with words of warning and a call to repentance. And so, the people were left waiting in anticipation for the promised prophet to come… Yet years passed without any sign of him. Decades passed, which turned into centuries. Entire generations were born and died waiting for this prophet…

And so, when we began the Gospel of Luke, we heard in the very first chapter the surprising announcement that the prophet was finally coming! The next stage of redemptive history was here! And the shocking nature of this announcement is only increased when you remember to whom it was given – a righteous yet barren elderly couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth – and whom it was given by – an angel named Gabriel. Listen to this incredible announcement:

Luke 1:13–17 (ESV)

13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord.

And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Gabriel’s announcement after 400 years of waiting was exactly what God had said through the prophet Malachi. God is still at work to make a people for himself, and the next stage of that work was about to begin! I hope having studied Malachi last week gives you an even greater appreciation for how GOOD this news was.

But we know from our study of Luke that this wasn’t even the BEST news. John was being sent to prepare the way of the LORD. The angel Gabriel also appeared to a virgin named Mary and declared to her that she would miraculously conceive and bear a son to be named Jesus. Let’s hear it again:

Luke 1:28–33 (ESV)

28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Over the following chapters in Luke’s Gospel, he takes great care to show that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was promised as the fulfillment of the covenants to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David. Luke further shows the authority of Jesus through his miracles, his teachings, and his defeat of the devil in the wilderness. We heard about Jesus standing up in the synagogue and reading from the prophet Isaiah and declaring that he was the promised Servant of the Lord.

Unfortunately, the religious leaders and many of the people did not have ears to hear and so they rejected him! In the same ways their ancestors had rejected the prophets, so they rejected Jesus. But this did not stop God’s grand redemption plan. Jesus went to the meek and the lowly – he called fishermen, tax collectors, and other sinners to repent and follow him. And they did.

Through his life and ministry, Jesus has demonstrated that he is the Savior, not of the self-righteous, but of those who recognize their sinfulness and need for salvation. He revealed that he did not come for one single ethnic group but has come to rescue and redeem people from every tongue, tribe, and nation for himself. And, in the process, he has demonstrated his authority over creation, sin, sickness, death, and the Old Testament Law.

Luke wrote his detailed account so that his friend Theophilus would understand the incredible amount of evidence that points to Jesus’ identity! He wants Theophilus to have certainty in his Christian faith. It is a bit ironic that a Gentile had eyes to see, while the Jewish religious leaders did not. The Pharisees and Sadducees were passionate about keeping the law, as God had commanded through Malachi, yet they missed the heart of it. They turned the law into a means of self-righteousness that led them to condemn others and miss the Savior sent by God, rather than a means of pointing them to their need for the Savior!

Through Luke’s Gospel, we have seen that Jesus’ teachings were consistent with the prophets who came before him. He confronts and calls the people to repentance. He reveals their self-righteous hearts. He declares he came to save those who know they are sinners and are ready to repent in faith. In his sermons, he taught the dangers of hearing but not obeying the Word of God. Those who hear and do not obey will be washed away in judgment. But those who hear and believe and obediently build upon their faith in Jesus will stand in that final day.

And we’ve seen examples of such people. Both Jews and Gentiles who hear and believe and follow Jesus. A Roman Centurion. The 12 apostles, minus Judas the Betrayer. The sinful woman at Simon the Pharisee’s dinner. The woman with the bleeding disease. Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. And more…

Jesus has been raising up and calling out disciples to follow him. And he gives them delegated authority for their mission of proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom. The plan and purposes of God continue to be revealed through Jesus as he trains up others to spread the good news. He continues to provide teaching and confrontation, even as he heads to Jerusalem to suffer and die for our sins. That is where we have left off in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem. And as he is going, he instructs those with ears to hear and confronts the self-righteous, religious hypocrites. Through his teaching, he prepares his disciples to faithfully follow him and gives everyone else the opportunity to repent and believe before it is too late.

So, there is our recap of 10 chapters of Luke! Let’s turn our attention now to the study of God’s Word in Luke 11:1-13.

Luke 11:1–13 (ESV)

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.” 2 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,

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And lead us not into temptation.”

5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 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!”

We join Jesus as he is instructing his disciples on how to pray. They had witnessed him praying and recognized their need to grow in this area, so they asked for help! And Jesus delights to answer their request.

Our focus today is on…

Learning how to pray from the Son of God

If you’ve ever struggled to know how to pray or felt like you weren’t “good” at prayer, then listen up! You get to learn from the Son of God on this matter. There is no better teacher.

And from the very first words in Jesus’ reply, there are already important observations for us. In verse 2 he said to them, “When you pray…” When Luke writes this down in the Greek language, his word choice tells us that Jesus expects an ongoing practice of praying. Christians are to be a praying people, not just once but for the rest of their lives!

Already we’re being challenged in our prayer life! Are you faithful to pray? Do you have a pattern of drawing near to the Lord in prayer? The LORD expects his followers to be people who are faithful in prayer.

Moving past our frequency of prayer, you might also notice that this prayer in verses 2-4 is full of plural pronouns. Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray in community. Not all prayers are solitary prayers! Jesus demonstrated both praying alone and with others in his lifetime. Are you faithful to pray in community with other believers? Do you have a pattern of drawing near to the Lord with others? This is a sweet blessing given by God to his people and we should embrace it!

These are two lessons from Jesus’ teaching on prayer that I did not draw out in a bulletin point. But I didn’t want you to miss them. So, now that we’ve covered them, let’s turn our attention to the content of Jesus’ teaching on prayer. What do we learn about how to pray from the Son of God? First…

  1. Approach God as your Heavenly Father

Jesus teaches his disciples to come to God as Father. Which was shockingly different than the formal titles they would have been used to. To call God Father suggests a deep level of familiarity and intimacy with him. It is using familial language for the greatest being in the Universe!

Jesus wants them to understand their incredible access to God. Through faith in Christ, they have been brought into the family of God, and they are able to interact with Him as their Heavenly Father who cares for them. This kind of access was unheard of! Consider their frame of reference with the temple and the many restrictions so that only the approved priests could enter. And even then, only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies behind the curtain, and only once per year after having atoned for their own sins through sacrifice.

Yet now they are told that any one of them, mere fishermen and tax collectors and former prostitutes, could come to God as Father! It was simply unheard of. And who were they that the Creator of the Universe would be mindful of them? They are his precious children. His sons and daughters whom he deeply loves and cares about…

If your faith is in Christ, do you view yourself in that manner? Do you approach God as your Heavenly Father? What an amazing privilege you have in Christ! You do not need to stay silent, as if God were far off and aloof, or as if he has better things to be doing. He invites you to come to him and share your prayers as a child to a patient, loving Father who delights to hear and answer them.

What a difference between our God and every other world religion. We serve a God who is approachable, welcomes us as family, and desires to be near to us. May we not take this lightly and treat prayer as if it were unimportant. This is an incredible privilege to draw near to our Creator and to remember that he cares for us.

Not only should you approach God as your Heavenly Father, but you should also learn to…

  1. Desire for God to vindicate his name as holy

This is what “hallowed be your name” is communicating. It is giving voice to a desire for God to act and vindicate his name as holy. The verb is a divine passive, which tells us that God is the one who accomplishes it. Jesus is instructing the disciples to pray that God would show the world his holy nature. To defend it from those who profane and mock it. And because of the way this is written, it is speaking to God doing this in a final completed manner. This is praying for God’s vindication of his name once and for all at the end of all things.

Unfortunately, we know that there are many who profane the name of God. The world is full of people who hate God. So, it is paramount for God’s people, when they pray, to pray that God would act to show the world just how wrong they are on this matter. He is the HOLY, HOLY, HOLY God.

When you pray is the desire to see God’s name revered on your heart/mind? *pause*

If you were to slow down and evaluate your desires during prayer, what do you think you’d find? *pause*

I personally find that it is so easy to be consumed by thoughts and desires related to self rather than of God. So often we begin with our wants/needs rather than revering God’s holy name. By putting this at the start of a godly pattern of prayer, Jesus is teaching his disciples to have their heart and mind set on God first. One of our greatest desires ought to be to see God’s holiness revealed and known across the earth!

Can you imagine what might change in you if you were to prioritize this desire for God to vindicate his name as holy? *pause*

As I thought about this for my own life, I realized that prioritizing this desire would help me to flee from temptation and sin more quickly and consistently. Because holiness is on my heart and mind! And if this were carried out in our Christian community, the church, I realized that it would create a culture where we prioritize God’s holiness over our desires. Which would make our church one where God is lifted high and we are living in a more selfless manner, thinking of how we can love God and love others.

I believe it would be very hard to be selfish if we were constantly praying in a way that desired God’s name to be revealed as holy. Because this is a prayer for the whole world to know God’s holiness. This has immediate implications for our witness. If we are consistently praying with this focus, then we are going to be more aware of the people around us who don’t yet know God or worship him as holy. And I would hope that this would not remain as mere awareness, but that we would then be driven to talk to them about God’s holiness. To talk of the things of God, so that they might have the opportunity to revere his name rather than profane it. This is a timely matter, because if they do not repent of their rebellion before he returns, then they will only have the expectation of judgment.

This concept is on my mind more readily right now not only because of studying this passage but also because my grandma passed away this past week. She was 97 years old and professed faith in Christ. But my dad and my sister and my nephews and many of my extended family on that side do not know Christ. If I am consistently praying for God’s name to be revered, then that should drive me to share Christ with them. God often uses trials like these to provide Gospel opportunities. Will I take them? Will you when similar opportunities are present in your life?

Make no mistake, when Jesus taught his disciples to pray in this way, he knew that one day God’s name would be vindicated as holy. This is the direction all history is heading towards at Christ’s return. God’s people ought to care deeply about this and allow the certainty of it to drive the way we live – our witness to others, our private and communal walk with God, and our worship of our Holy God. I want to encourage all of us to adopt this focus on God’s name being revered in our prayers.

This emphasis is followed by another declaration in Jesus’ teaching on prayer – “Your kingdom come.” This is again worded in a way that teaches us to seek the decisive realization of God’s reign. It is a prayer focused on the completion of God’s grand redemption plan. From this, we learn to…

  1. Pray that God’s rule and reign would come

God’s kingdom is his rule and reign. It is a prayer that the rightful King of all Creation would make his rule and reign known throughout Creation once more. That we might know and experience the beauty of God’s will and ways in the fullest. Because God’s ways are best and lead to joy and life.

To pray for God’s kingdom to come means that we are praying that all other opposing kingdoms would be defeated. That sin and rebellion would be no more. This includes our own little kingdoms that we have set up and for which we are often tempted to live.

This is a prayer that ought to produce humility and submission in God’s people. By praying this way, we are confessing that our kingdom is not best, God’s is! This is not only beneficial for us individually but also corporately, as the church. We want to be aligned together with the will of God. We want to agree in our prayer and way of life that God’s rule and reign are best.

When I think about this in application to our church today, I think of our submission to God’s will and ways for the future of this local church. Your kingdom come, Lord, not ours! Your will be done, not ours! Praying this way protects us from pride and selfishness in our planning.

Praying this way also protects us from putting our hope in worldly rulers or systems. These earthly kingdoms are temporary, and they will be superseded by God’s kingdom one day. Our hope must be found in His kingdom! This can be a tremendous hope for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. One day God’s kingdom will come, and their faith will be vindicated, no matter how oppressive their current earthly leaders might be.

When you pray, are you praying for God’s rule and reign to come? And do you realize that this means your will / our will needs to be humbled and submitted to his?

Or are you more concerned with your own kingdom being established? Where might God be calling you/us to further align with his will rather than our own? *pause*

In verses 3-4, Jesus transitions to teaching his disciples to present their requests to God. Notice that the prayer did not start with their needs, but with God’s character and kingdom. Yet now we learn that it is appropriate to…

  1. Ask God to give you what is needed

Across these two verses, we find Jesus instructing them in three specific areas of need.

Starting with asking God to give you…

  • Daily Bread

Jesus is modeling dependence on God for daily provision. This encompasses both physical needs, such as your supply of food or beating heart or breath in your lungs, and spiritual needs, such as his ongoing grace, mercy, and favor in your life. This is a reminder that we cannot do anything apart from God! He is our Creator and Sustainer.

Asking God for daily bread keeps us humble. It reminds us that all that we have comes from him. I can’t help but think of Paul’s teaching to the Corinthian church – “What do you have that you did not receive?” The assumed answer is “NOTHING. It’s all given to us by God!”

Do you pray in a way that acknowledges your complete dependence on God? “God, I need you today! I can’t do it without you.” No matter what age or stage of life you are in, this kind of humble, dependent prayer is necessary. We never reach a point where we are no longer dependent on the Lord!

What would our church be like if we were known for this kind of prayer? A humble, dependent group of believers who recognizes all we have comes from God. That sounds like a compelling community! Where God gets all the glory and we get the joy of delighting in His provision. Can you imagine gathering on Sundays or with your small groups and the conversations were consistently about God’s provision of daily bread in your lives? How edifying that would be! I believe God would be greatly glorified in this!

Beyond asking God to give us our daily bread, Jesus also teaches to ask him for…

  • Forgiveness of sins

There it is again. That reminder that we are sinners in need of a Savior! And it is coming from the Son of God as he teaches his people how to pray.

Our personal and corporate prayer patterns ought to include a recognition that we need God’s forgiveness of our sins. He alone is in the position to handle this greatest need – the forgiveness of our sin debt! It is only because of his forgiveness that we have the hope of heaven and eternal life with him.

And remember that this is a pattern for prayer, so Jesus is not saying that we ought to pray this once and never again. No, no, no… This is an ongoing prayer emphasis for the church. We are to ask God for forgiveness often, because the reality is that we continue to struggle with sin.

How could praying this way impact our church? Surely it would also promote a humble posture within us. This is not a church where everyone pretends they have it all together. We do not call ourselves “Harvest Perfect People Chapel”. Praying this way keeps us from self-righteousness. It protects the church from turning into condemnatory, hypocritical looking down our noses at “those dirty sinners” type of people.

But do not mistake this as excusing sin or allowing us to continue to wallow in it. By no means! Praying this way also promotes a desire for holiness. We are recognizing our sin and confessing our desire to be forgiven and made holy again! We do not want to remain in broken fellowship with God or fellow man.

In fact, did you notice that Jesus elaborates on this prayer request when he says, “for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us”? Pay attention! The Son of God, as he models prayer for his disciples, is teaching us that Christians must be committed to forgiving others. The verb in this teaching indicates an ongoing practice, living in a state or posture of extending forgiveness. To whom? Some people? Just the people you like? No, to everyone! Jesus leaves us no room for harboring bitterness and unforgiveness against someone else.

If we turn to Jesus’ sermon on the mount in the Gospel of Matthew, we will hear even more severe teaching on this. Listen to this:

Matthew 6:14–15 (ESV)

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Do you hear that? Christians are expected to be people who walk in forgiveness. Why? Because they have been forgiven so much by their Heavenly Father! Those who have been greatly forgiven should be greatly forgiving… And there is a real danger if you choose to live in a posture of unforgiveness towards others – that God will hold your sins against you.

When Jesus teaches us to ask for forgiveness, it is in direct connection with our own commitment to forgiving others who have sinned against us. They go hand in hand. Consider how powerful this prayer becomes both privately and corporately… Now we are cultivating a Christian community where sin is handled God’s way – by confessing it, asking forgiveness, and granting it – rather than allowing bitterness and division and broken relationships to thrive. What kind of Gospel witness will Christians and the church provide as we function this way? A beautiful testimony of God’s redeeming grace and the forgiveness we’ve received in Christ! It will be radically different than the rest of the world, which is full of broken relationships due to bitterness and a lack of forgiveness. Again, a compelling community is revealed because of our love and commitment to one another. And that is attractive to those who are seeking answers in a lost and broken world.

(Mention the Firm Faith podcast that just came out on this topic today!)

Finally, we see Jesus instructing them to ask God for…

  • Protection from temptation

The translation into our English is a bit confusing in the way it is worded. God does not lead anyone into temptation. This is communicating “cause us not to succumb to temptation”. It is crying out to God to help us in our time of need, as we are enduring temptation.

This is an important component of our prayer life! We all know that we face daily temptations to sin. But are you coming to God in prayer asking for help in those moments? Or even proactively praying before the moment of temptation? That is something that I have found to be most helpful in my walk with God. As we mature and learn the patterns of our struggles, it is so helpful to pray before temptation that God would strengthen and help us to resist it when it comes. I know it is coming at some point, so while I am thinking correctly, I want to ask God for help!

Can you imagine the benefits of praying this together for our church? We want to be a community that flees from temptation! We want one another to be holy as he is holy. What a privilege to come together before the throne of mercy and grace to ask God to protect us! What if our small groups closed with this kind of prayer? “Lord, protect us from temptation this week. We want to honor you in our lives. We do not want to bring disrepute to your name!” That will certainly bear sweet fruit in this church over the long haul.

I believe praying this way would help us to stay alert. That is a consistent theme of Jesus’ teachings. Be alert. Stay awake. The enemy is on the prowl. Temptation crouches at the door. And by praying faithfully for one another’s protection, we are far more likely to stay engaged in spiritual warfare. And we’ll know we are not alone in the battle! I don’t know about you, but I am often tempted to think that I am alone, and no one will understand what I am facing. But that is a lie of the enemy! We are in this together. We are one body, one family, and we have so many brothers and sisters to come alongside of us in our time of need. Praise God for that!

I hope this study of Jesus’ model for prayer for Christians has been helpful for you. There is so much more that could be said. But for the sake of time, I want to wrap up by summarizing what we see in Jesus’ teaching in verses 5-13. This is the section where he provides the example of going to your neighbor at midnight to ask for 3 loaves of bread, and then proceeds to instruct the disciples to ask, seek, and knock, and culminates in comparing God’s graciousness to a father’s graciousness to his own child.

The purpose of these teachings is to invite you to…

  1. Consider God’s willingness to answer and graciousness in giving us the best gift

As Jesus is teaching about prayer, he is driving home the point that God is more willing and more gracious than our fellow man to help us in time of need. Jesus assures us that our asking, seeking, and knocking will be successful. Those who come to God will not be ignored.

These lessons are meant to instill a sense of boldness in coming to God. The man who came to his neighbor at midnight was impudent or shamelessly bold. He ignored social conventions to seek help in time of need. This same kind of boldness is how Christians ought to come to God. We do not have to be bashful about seeking him. He is not too busy to care for us. He delights to give help in time of need.

And Jesus points out that God gives us the best gift – the Holy Spirit, our Divine Helper and the One who brings us into God’s family. To borrow from Paul’s words in Romans 8 and this teaching in Luke 11… If God does not withhold His Holy Spirit or His Son from us, how will he not also graciously give us all things? The assumed answer is he will!!!

The point is that God is a willing and gracious gift-giver. Everything we have is from him, including the most important things about us – that we are invited into His family and get to experience the glory of the Trinitarian love of God. These are realities that take a lot of time to grasp. A lifetime really. So, I want to encourage you to meditate on these wonderful truths this week. Allow them to cause you to have greater awe and reverence for God.

And, if you do not know Jesus as your Savior and have not received this greatest gift of the Holy Spirit bringing you into God’s family, then I would encourage you to do business with that today. Confess your sins to God in prayer. Ask him to forgive you and commit your life to following him. Even better, practice what we heard today and invite someone else to pray with you on these things. We’re in this together.

Let’s pray.

Pray (in line with v2-4)