Luke 11:1-4--The Lord's Prayer

Luke 11:1-4
​English Standard Version

The Lord's Prayer
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.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread,
4 and forgive us our sins,
    for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

---

We often call this prayer "The Lord's Prayer" or "Our Father," but while there is something prescriptive by the kinds of things prayed and how Jesus prayed for them, I'm not sure that Jesus meant for these exact words to be repeated without any thought being put into them (see Jesus' fuller teaching on prayer in Matthew 6, specifically verse 7, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount that we started these journal entries with several years ago).  We are not to use vain repetition or many words thinking that somehow it will make God hear us more.  The purpose of Jesus' teaching here is that we should pray for things that we know that God already desires (there is on "new" thing to them here that we'll talk about when we get to verse 4, and Jesus spends quite a bit of time in Matthew 6 expounding on that because He knows that one phrase was hard for them to hear.

Let's start though with the impetus for this teaching though.  Jesus' disciples saw Him praying and when He was finished they asked Him to teach them how to pray.  This was not an unusual request for a disciple to make of his Rabbi.  In fact, the disciples here reference that John taught his disciples how to pray.  Have you ever prayed publicly in such a way that others were listening in on your conversation and thought, "I wish I had that kind of relationship with God so that I could talk to Him like that."  I've had that experience once in my life.  It would have been easy to let the opportunity pass, but like Jesus I immediately addressed this request with my friend....though it took many, many months for us to look at examples from the Bible on how people prayed and what we could learn from this--this was only one of the prayers that we looked at along with all 150 psalms in the book of Psalms and some prayers offered by Moses and others.  Hopefully my friend learned at least some of the things that Jesus was trying to teach His disciples here.

The first thing to note about this prayer is that it's completely focused on God as the subject, even with the items that affect us personally, God is the one who makes things happen in our lives, and we recognize that.  The second thing to notice is that we are praying for things that God already has promised that He wants to do.  When we pray God's Word, especially His promises from His covenants back to Him, we can be sure that He hears us and will answer us and will do those things.  This prayer interestingly enough though never prays for God's wrath, condemnation or judgment to fall on anyone (the closest you may get to that is praying "thy kingdom come" because with the coming of the kingdom of God will be the judgment of the kingdom of this world--but the prayer specifically asks for His will to be done on earth, by all on earth, as it is in heaven so that none would need to fall under wrath and condemnation).  Let's go through and talk about each of the things that Jesus taught His disciples to pray for.

First, Jesus teaches them to focus on the name of God--a name represents a person's character, reputation and character.  We want the LORD and His great Name to be be considered holy and hallowed (treated as unique and special and not something taken in vain or to be profaned, or treated as something common and ordinary as if he were just like us or even like any of the pagan deities worshiped by so many of the Gentile nations).  God Himself will make His name great, and He will increase His renown and make His Name known throughout all the earth.  

Next Jesus told the disciples to pray, "Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."  We cannot separate "Thy kingdom come" from "thy will be done."  The Jews were looking for a physical kingdom to come where the Messiah would overthrow all the enemies of Himself and His people and would rule from the throne of His father David to bring perfect peace and prosperity, yet there was no inclination among the people that the kingdom of God was near them because the Spirit of the LORD tabernacles among His people and that His kingdom is wherever He is and wherever His subjects have submitted to His authority.  All of creation belongs to Him whether we submit to His authority or not, don't hear me wrong, but we don't have to wait for heaven, or heaven on earth, to experience the kingdom of God.  We can start to experience it in the here and now by submitting to God's authority in the same way that everyone and everything in heaven does--immediate and total obedience with the purpose of glorifying God, making His Name great and proclaiming the greatness of His Name throughout all of creation in how we live in obedience to Him (see how the second point immediately follows out of the first point).  While Jesus doesn't specifically point to the picture of an embassy or diplomatic mission, that is the idea here--we should have outposts wherever we are where the culture of the kingdom of God is there and we as ambassadors are citizens of the new kingdom and we obey a the King of heaven, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  We have already talked much in these journal entries about us being ambassadors of the kingdom, so I will not belabor this point.

Now the tone shifts slightly as we turn to our own needs, but we still are focusing on the LORD as the one who is our sustainer and as a good Father will provide for all the needs of His children (we'll talk more about that next time as this is the teaching the Luke decides to focus on).  We pray "give us this day our daily bread" not to force God to do something He didn't want to do, or to remind God to do something that He might forget as if He might be a negligent parent that forgets to take care of the needs of His children, but because we want to remember each and every day that we only make it through that day because the LORD has provided us with everything we need for that day and we want to be able to see it for what it is--His good provision.  We want to be in a position to recognize and thank the LORD for what He has done that day.  We don't worry about yesterday or tomorrow, but we just pray that the LORD would give us what we need for today so that we can be about the business of doing the work of HIs kingdom here on earth so that all may see and glorify His great name.

Now comes the hard one---"And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us."  Luke states this as a presumption that this is something that the believer will already be doing, but the other gospel writers who record this teaching seem to indicate Jesus saying something along the lines of "And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who we believe owe us something." (that's my own wording, but it includes not only monetary debt, but when we feel that someone has wronged us and should be required to pay a price and it as as we keep a list of grievances in our "little black book" when we hold grudges just as if we were keeping a record of money owed.  1 Corinthians 13 tells us, "Love keeps no record of wrongs" and is speaking on this issue that I just mentioned--we have no accounts to keep if we forgive everyone who has ever wronged us in the same way that we want God to forgive us.  Now it is assumed by Luke that all those who are true disciples and belong to God will be able to pray this as a statement including "since" (they are already doing what is required) instead of the "as" that we see in Matthew 6 which implied that the disciples still had something to learn about in Matthew 6 (and the teachings that followed The Lord's Prayer there) that hopefully they had learned by this point where Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem with His eyes set on the cross.  We too are expected and required as those who claim that we have been forgiven unconditionally to offer the same kind of forgiveness to others because the offense is really not against us, but against God and if the LORD is going to forgive them, then who are we to withhold forgiveness from them?  Don't we want the person who wronged us to believe the gospel and be forgiven?  Yet why would they believe in a God that says He forgives us (which we can't see) when His followers won't forgive and we can see that.  And why would we withhold forgiveness from our brothers in Christ when the verdict of "not guilty" has already been read for them?  We cannot hold something against them that they have already been tried for in the court of heaven and found not guilty of.  While we don't like to think this way, our willingness to forgive says much about what we believe about the gospel, the kingdom of heaven, and the God whose kingdom we have prayed to come.  Are we hoping for God's kingdom to come so that He will destroy all those who we hold grudges against or do we want all to be ready for Him to come and for all to be at peace with Him and obeying Him when He comes?  Are we trusting the LORD to give us good things each and every day, or are we finding the need to take matters into our own hands and make our own justice because we don't trust the LORD to take care of this for us or think that HIs justice won't be good enough?  Don't we believe in a gospel that has the power to change people from the inside out and that has the power to bring forgiveness and reconciliation to all who believe, "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives" as the hymn writer wrote?  Oh how this affects what people think about God and His forgiveness and His gospel and the power of His gospel to save and transform, and that has much to do with how people think about and talk about God and how they treat His great name because we are called by His name and how we act has an impact on what people think about Him, just like how any ambassador acts impacts how people think about the people of the kingdom that ambassador represents, but also impacts how people view the king that put that ambassador into office and allows that ambassador to stay there.

Without belaboring that last point too much, I really think you should go back and read Jesus' teachings on forgiveness from Matthew 6.  It's clear that disciples were shocked by this statement in The Lord's Prayer and it's fair to say that Jesus doubled-down and then went beyond that, possibly even fair to say that He went "all in" on that statement with the parable of the Unmerciful Servant that followed.  As Luke implies here and it is taught clearly in other places in the New Testament, forgiveness is not optional for the believer--especially when it comes to those whom we call "brother" whom the Lord has already forgiven.  Does this mean that we might be taken advantage of by the world?  Most certainly, but remember that they are not sinning against us, but against the Lord Himself, and it is the Lord who will avenge and repay if they do not repent.  If they do repent than their sins no matter how great they look to us, have already been forgiven and we should rejoice at that.  We should not be like the prophet Jonah who was mad at God for extending grace, mercy and forgiveness to those that repented when Jonah wanted to see the people of Nineveh destroyed.

Next Jesus tells the disciples to pray, "And lead us not into temptation."  We're back to something that we already know is a promise from the Word of God, that God will not tempt any man, nor can God Himself be tempted and when any man is tempted we know that man is being drawn away by his own lusts (desires).  However, remember that prayer is something that brings our thoughts and actions into alignment with those of God.  We should not blame God for our mistakes and we need to ask God to forgive us when we mess up but should not expect this kind of forgiveness if we are withholding forgiveness form others. We also should not be provoking one another to sin because that is not who God is and we should be doing what He would be doing and saying what He would be saying and thinking what He would be thinking.  As we are following the Lord in the path that He directs us, we should trust that path may lead us into trials, but not temptations, for it is never the will of the Lord to see anyone, especially those who belong to Him and reflect on His great name, to stumble and sin.

You probably know the version from Matthew that ends with, "but deliver us from evil" or "but deliver us from the evil one" depending on your translation.  That's not here in Luke's account for some reason nor is the part at the end that may have been added later, "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen."  The fact that a phrase or two is different should not bother us as Jesus probably taught these same things many times and we're probably looking at teachings from different parts of Jesus' ministry in the record of Matthew and the record of Luke.  It is normal to give the same sermon multiple times and have slight variations within it.  Matthew is going to come back and tell more about forgiveness, but Luke is going to come back and talk more about "Give us this day our daily bread" and how we can trust that to be true because we have a good Father in heaven who gives only good gifts to His children--even the pagans give good gifts to their children and wouldn't intentionally give them something that harmed them.  So then, we can pray not only "Give us this day our daily bread," but also, "And lead us not into temptation" with confidence because we know the nature of the one whom allows all things to come to us through His will.  If anything comes to us that we think is "bad," then we simply do not understand God's purposes for that thing or event yet because God only gives good gifts to His children and that which the world means for evil for us, God means it for good (see Joseph's words to his brothers in Genesis 50).

We'll come back next time to talk about verses 5-13, but I just wanted to focus on verses 1-4 today.