by Aubrey Botha

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11 Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 Jesus said, “This is how you should pray:a]">[a]

“Father, may your name be kept holy.
    May your Kingdom come soon.
3 Give us each day the food we need,b]">[b]
4 and forgive us our sins,
    as we forgive those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation.c]">[c]”

6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

(Transcribed by TurboScribe)

Thank you for your words, Lord. Thank you for this new series that we may start today as we talk about prayer. Maybe we’ve spoken about prayer a million times.

May we hear something new. But above all, Lord, not just hear something new, but may we, through this, be renewed in this wonderful gift that you have given us of talking to you and being able to be quiet and also listen to you. May we see Jesus and only Jesus.

In your name we pray. Amen. Our first passage this morning comes from Luke chapter 11 verses 1 to 4, and I’m reading from the New Living Translation.

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, as he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples. Jesus said, this is how you should pray. Father, may your name be kept holy.

May your kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And do not let us yield to temptation.

Hello, my name is Aubrey, and I am a recovering prayer wimp. I have to admit that sometimes during prayer, I doze off. Sometimes my mind will zig and zag, and then it will zig again.

And when the ADHD kicks in, I’ll start off with a prayer, and the next thing, I’m busy with a thousand other things, and I forget the thing that I started doing, and that was to pray. Now, it is also true that there are people that really excel at praying. They’re members of the PGA, the Prayer Giants Association.

I am a card-carrying member of the Prayer Wimps Anonymous. Maybe you can relate. Maybe the little chuckles I heard tells me that you relate to what I’ve just said.

Here’s the thing. Most of us pray to some or other extent. Sometimes we’ll pray when we’re happy.

Sometimes we’ll pray when we’re sad. Often we’ll pray when we are in need, when the lump is deemed melanoma. The money runs out before the month runs out.

The layoffs start, and we’ll pray. Am I wrong in my presumption, and I don’t want to use the word assumption because that’s not a good word, that most of us wish that we could pray better and deeper and even with a little more faith. So, for the next four weeks, let’s talk a little bit about that, and hopefully by the end of that, we’ll smile a little more about that, and maybe we can hand in our PWA cards and be members of the PGA.

Someone used this beautiful image of prayer, said, prayer is like a road. It takes you from point A to point B. Sometimes the road is short. Sometimes the road is longer.

It’ll often take you downhill and uphill, and there’s a few twists and a few turns, and sometimes it feels like it’s so long that you’re never going to get to point B, and oftentimes we’ll wonder, is it all worthwhile? It’s not always easy, this road of prayer. Here’s the thing. We’re not the first people to struggle with prayer.

If you go check the sign-up list for Prayer 101, you’re going to find quite a few well-known names in there. Jacob, or some of you know him as James, and his brother John, and Andrew, and Peter, and if you don’t know who those are, they were disciples, and when this other disciple comes up and says, Lord, will you teach us to pray? The interesting thing that we find is this. None of those other disciples say, well, it’s you and Jesus.

You guys try and sort it out. We’re okay. We’ve sorted prayer out.

We’re good. We can go do our own thing. They all stay.

It’s also very interesting, if I have my facts right, you’re going to go check me up on this one this week. Sorry, you’re going to check me up on this maybe, but if I have my facts right, this was the only thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. Lord, teach us to pray.

Did you see Jesus’ response to that? It wasn’t a lecture. It wasn’t a sermon. It wasn’t a dissertation.

It wasn’t a seminar. It was a simple, quotable, easy, repeatable prayer. So easy that, would you join me? 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.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. As simple as that.

And we know it, and we can repeat it, and everything we needed to say is in there. I think sometimes we complicate prayer too much. Us preachers, we kind of make it difficult.

It has to be this, this, this, and this. No, it’s nothing more than a conversation. So in the next four weeks, I’m going to put it into four little things.

Each week we’ll talk about one of those, and maybe that’ll make it easier, easy. Father, you are good. I need help.

They need help. Thank you, in the name of Jesus. When I wake up in the morning, and I think of the day ahead, Father, driving to work, or to school, or wherever I’m going, I need help.

Standing in line, waiting, they need help. And when I come to the end of the day, and I look back on all of God’s grace, thank you, in Jesus’ name. Because that’s the thing about prayer.

It is this gift that God gives us, where we can enter into this conversation with our Father. I speak, He listens. He speaks, I listen.

And on this road of conversation, these are the moments in which God changes my life. And yes, it’s going to happen that sometimes on this road of prayer, we’re going to run into things that we do not expect. But the amazing thing, it’s nothing that God ever did not expect.

Because God is the one who puts me on this road, knows this road, plans this road, and who’s going to get me from A to B, no matter how long it takes, or how up and down it’s going to be. He’s taking me to that point B, that we are talking about. All He asks of me is to take that first step, and get on that road, so we can start.

Second thing I want you to notice, did you see the way in which Jesus started the prayer? Father, Abba, loving Father. For a moment, hold on to that, because that’s the important part. Just need to say this, some of us might have, not me, some of us might have grown up, and we do not have the best image of a Father.

And if that’s you, I’m really sorry. It breaks my heart. Will you for a moment, if that’s you, just let that go, and just hear about this Father that we are talking about.

Because this Abba Father, when the Holy Spirit calls in, Romans 8 says, the Spirit calls in through us, Father, loving Father. That’s who I’m talking about. One who cares, and one who loves, and one who knows you, and one who wants to be there for you, and is there to protect you.

That’s how Jesus starts. For me, I see this little image. I don’t know if you’ve seen this in a while.

These little kids, and maybe I see it more because I have a seven-year-old that I run around with. Little kids that go to the playground with their dads, and they’re hanging out, and they’re yelling, and they’re laughing, and they’re having a lot of fun, and they, Dad, push me on the swing, and Dad pushes on the swing, and they play tag. And it’s just, but you never hear them say, Father, thank you for being so gracious and driving me in thine splendid vehicle to this amazing place of frolic.

Thine benevolence is beyond reproach. Thine care for me is amazing, and thou art so gracious, and neither does God want us to talk to him like that. He wants us to come to him like little kids.

Hey, Dad, how’s it going? Hey, Dad, will you push me on this swing? Come to him just as I am. These little ones, they have no filter. Opa, you’re fat.

Look at your boot pants. I won’t tell you what a boot pants is. South Africans will know what that is.

They’ll just say it as it is, and God wants us to say it as it is. He doesn’t want us to beat around the bush. Thank you for thine benevolence.

God doesn’t even want to know what that means, but when I say, God, I need you. Lord, I need you every moment of my life. I need you.

That he understands. He doesn’t want us to come to him and to pretend. Hi, Aubrey, how are you doing? I’m fine, and God knows I’m lying through my teeth.

He wants us to speak and say, Father God, this is me. This is who I am. We don’t need those words.

Remember the old Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They would stand on the street corners, and they had these huge prayers, the thines and the dows and all those things, and they would go on and on and on. Do you know what God does when they do that? He plays them a Shania Twain song.

You know which one? You don’t impress me much. Listen to what he says. Matthew 6. But you, when you pray, go away by yourself.

Shut the door behind you and pray to your Father in private, and then your Father who sees everything will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.

Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask. See, here’s the thing. Heaven does not have a prayer panel that sits with their paddles, and when I pray and I put all the words together, they’ll put up the paddle and say, oh, Aubrey, you got all the thines and these correct today.

This is a 10 out of 10. God’s going to answer this prayer. And then the day when I doze off a little bit and my mind zigs and zags, I get a paddle come up that says, this is a two.

Go back and try again. Prayer is that conversation between me and my Father who gets me because he made me. And all I have to do, it’s not meant to be judged.

It’s not what prayer is. It’s that moment to say, Father, you are good, and I love you, and I know you love me, and Father does, and Father knows. Because you see, the thing about prayer with Father is, he wants to answer those prayers.

It’s not judging them. He hears, and he answers, and he takes me on this beautiful journey. Sometimes I think we make the mistake of thinking, I’ll say a few words, and then I’ll go out there, and I’ll do it myself.

And then we fail. Prayer is to give it, and to let it go, and to trust him. So can I challenge you? Next time before you face the world, go face your Father first.

Father, you are good. So why don’t we try it tomorrow? Tomorrow’s Monday. So Monday morning, the alarm clock lives up to its name.

And usually you get up, and the first thing you do is, you take your phone, and you start doom-scrolling on that phone. And you go for the coffee, and you’re still doom-scrolling, and by 15 minutes later, you are so down that you don’t even want to face the day. Can we change that tomorrow? When that alarm clock goes off, don’t reach for the phone.

Go get a coffee, because I don’t think God wants to face us without coffee, because we’re way too grumpy. Go get that coffee, but instead of going for that phone thing, go find your favourite chair. Just go sit.

And your hair might still be in a mess, and you still might have a little bit of the creases from the pillow. God doesn’t care. What he does care about is that moment of saying, Good morning, Father.

It’s so cool to start my day with you. Thank you for your, and just to speak, and to give it to him, and see if maybe the day looks a little different, despite of the little things that are going to happen. Because you started by saying, Father, you’re good.

I need help. They need help. Thank you for answering in Jesus’ name.

Come sing. We have this song that we’re going to sing every week. Today, we’re just going to do the verse, one verse, and the chorus, and you’re going to start getting to know this.

Gary was just dumped on her this morning. She just has to do it. So I’ll sing with you, but I’m going to sing from there.

No, I’ll make a mess. Okay. When the night won’t loosen its grip on my chest, And the answers don’t come no matter how hard I confess, My strength feels borrowed and my hope feels thin.

I’ll fall on my knees and begin again. When I don’t have the words, do you hear my heart? Even my silence knows who you are. I will pray when the road feels long.

I will pray when the faith feels gone. I will pray through the tears and pain, till the light breaks through the rain. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I know you’re listening.

So with every breath I have today, I will pray. When I’ve said all I can say, I will pray. When I’ve said all that I can say, Father, thank you.

Thank you for that road that leads for the ups and the downs. And because as we travel this road with you, we learn so much more about you. And we learn to trust you, Lord.

Freewheeling down that downhill and knowing that we’re going to get up the hill because that’s what you teach us as we pray. Thank you, Father. You are good.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.