One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”2 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 Forgive us our sins,    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.And lead us not into temptation.’”5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”Luke 11:1-13

What follows is the text of a sermon I preached on 28th July 2019 at Manningtree Methodist Church, Essex. Scroll to the bottom for an audio recording.

How’s your prayer life? Do you find praying easy? Or maybe like me you know that praying is something that you should do, that you try your utmost to do, but actually find really difficult.

I don’t stand here today as someone who finds prayer easy. Probably like some of you, I find prayer really difficult. I’m fine with reading the Bible; I enjoy getting to grips with scripture. But you know what, I find prayer really hard. Committing to do it regularly is hard enough. Knowing what to say, and how to say it is another thing. I really struggle.

It’s encouraging to find the disciples in a similar position to the one in which I find myself. At the beginning of this passage, Jesus is praying, and his disciples ask him to teach them to pray. No doubt they had witnessed Jesus praying on many occasions and wanted to be able to follow his example. Perhaps they’d seen how prayer at the end of a long, busy, stressful day reinvigorated Jesus and wanted the same for themselves.

So what does Jesus teach them?

Today I plan to focus just on verses 2 to 5, which is what we know as the Lord’s Prayer – a slightly abridged version compared to the one that we usually recite, but the Lord’s Prayer nevertheless. I’d like to look at three points when considering this prayer:

One – to whom do we pray?

Two – we pray for God’s glory.

Three – we pray that God will meet our needs.

So to our first point – to whom do we pray?

Jesus tells his disciples to pray to God as Father.

This is something that we often take for granted, and indeed, we may often begin our own prayers with ‘Father’.

But just think about that for a minute. This is truly astonishing. Jesus tells us to address God as our father. The word he uses is Abba, which is how a small child might address their father, closer to daddy than any other name.

We have an almighty God, who created the earth and the heavens, king of kings and lord of lords, and yet we have the privilege of calling him father.

What a privilege that is.

One of Jesus’ disciples, John, who no doubt was present when Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray, later wrote, “see what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” That’s John’s first letter, chap