Divine Communion: Intimacy with God through the Lord’s Prayer

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Welcome to the Grace at the Fray—a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His Kingdom.

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Jim Lovelady 00:25 Hello, beloved! Welcome to this Season 1 Bonus episode of Grace at the Fray. I hope you’re having a great summer. I’m here at the beach with my family in Ocean City, New Jersey, or in Philly speak, we’re down the shore. If you’re on summer vacation, sitting by the beach or way up in the mountains, trying to practice prayer in a new way, or learning how to pray better, I’ve got a great show for you today. And today, I want to take you to the 2022 Serge company conference in Spain. It happens every four years, where all the folks working with Serge gather for a week of rest and reconnection, and we pray for one another. And this was my first experience with Serge, and as someone new to Serge, the daily corporate prayer time we had every day of the week was the highlight of my time. And we would all gather in a large conference room and teams would share who they were, where they were, what their ministry looks like, and how we could pray for them. And then we would gather around, and we would pray for them. And it was so powerful. 

So, I want to give you a front-row seat at one of the teaching sessions at the conference where Patric Knaak is going to talk about prayer. And look, prayer is the whole point of the Christian life. It’s the main application for every sermon; it’s an avenue for intimacy with God and empowerment for life in His Kingdom. It’s simple, but it’s not so easy. So let’s explore how God’s grace empowers our desire and ability to pray as Patric leads us through a fresh exploration of the Lord’s Prayer.

Patric Knaak 02:16 Well, for those of you who are still new and finding your way here in the company, my name is Patric Knaak. I am one of our Area Directors. I oversee Renewal, which means that I and the teams I oversee, steward, and shepherd all of Serge’s mentoring, training, teaching, and resourcing ministries. Our teams are located in the US, by and large, instead of overseas. However, we are firmly part of the missionary part of the organization, so we raise support and pay administrative fees; all of our reporting flows up to Area Directors and Josiah.

And when Josiah asked if I would be willing to talk this morning and take us through our core value about prayer, I was really honored. I mean, you are the peer group. This is why I do what I do—to be with you guys. And so I was really honored when Josiah asked me, for about 15 seconds! Because then it dawned on me, “Oh crap, you suck at praying, like, what? Why would we put you up front to talk about praying?” 

And that fact was actually pointed out to me by my teenage son a little while ago, Parker, who is graduating from high school next week, which is why he and Jennifer are not able to be with us this week. But he had come down, and I was sitting on the sofa as he was getting ready to leave for school. And before he walked out the door, he looked at me and said, “You know, Dad, I don’t think you’re nearly as godly as Mom is. I thought there’s some truth to that, but do tell, Parker, what’s on your mind? He said, “When I come downstairs, and mom’s on the sofa, she always has her Bible and prayer journal open; she is always talking to Jesus and doing something. When I come downstairs, I never see you doing that. You’re sitting there with your iPad and a cup of coffee. So, I’m just saying.” Now, everything in my heart wanted to say, “But Parker, you don’t understand. I work at this company, and at this company, we pray all the time. We pray twice a week, specifically for Kingdom-centered things, and my team prays all the time. And I work with people, and when we mentor them, I pray with them. Dude, I bet I pray way more than your mother.” I did not, however, say that, and I just smiled. I did, however, over the next several weeks, make a point to be on the sofa with the Bible and a prayer journal, sometimes even just staring off into space, waiting for someone to come down the stairs so that they could see me in the act of praying.

05:09 I struggle with prayer. We pray for the company, the Kingdom, regularly in the Home Office, but I struggle there as well. Can I tell you how many times I’ve come to a prayer meeting and really, honestly, at the bottom level, I don’t want to be there. I feel like I have too much to do and not enough time to do it. It can feel dull, mechanically working our way through lists and lists of prayer petitions. I mean, not your requests. Your requests are fantastic, I love praying for your request, but it just feels like it gets old after time. Essentially, my heart just doesn’t want to be in that place. It feels like working longer or harder or cranking out more emails—that’s what’s going to make a difference for the Kingdom on that particular day. And I know that that’s not true. I know, I know, I know, I know that that’s not true.

06:04 But there are so many times I show up even though I didn’t want to, and I participate well enough. At least, I think well enough, so that other people don’t know that I totally don’t want to be there. And I end up feeling guilty for most of the rest of the day afterward. When that happens, Kingdom-centered prayer starts to feel like a professional obligation instead of spiritual nourishment. And that is a dynamic I think Jesus understands very well, because He addresses it. He addresses it when He gives us what we know of as the Lord’s Prayer, but I think that Jesus is giving us insight into—how do we actually engage in the Kingdom?

06:44 Now, most of you guys know that the Lord’s Prayer is recorded twice in the gospels. The most popular, if you will, version is in Matthew 6. It has a couple of extra phrases in there, so that’s a version that we use almost all the time in public worship. But Jesus actually gave the Lord’s Prayer in a shorter form earlier in His ministry, in Luke 11. And that’s where we’re going to look this morning. We’ll be going very quickly, so if you have access to an electronic Bible, I’d encourage you just to open that up. We’re not going to read every verse, so you might want to be able to see those things. The thing that is unique about the Luke 11 recording is that, unlike the Matthew recording, Jesus is not speaking to a crowd. This isn’t public teaching. It is teaching that is given specifically to His disciples. It is given to His mission team, if you will. He’s talking to the folks who had already left everything in order to follow Him, participate in His mission, and establish His Kingdom. He also gives the teaching in response to a request from one of His disciples. 

Verse one. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)

And so the context in the question that Jesus addresses is essentially, “How do you, Jesus, want us to relate to God and each other to carry out the mission You’re calling us to?” And His response is a prayer that radically re-frames our internal posture and our external actions. 

So we’re going to walk through the prayer. There are three things that I want to draw out even though you can spend the whole week just in the prayer. So three teaching points from the prayer and then three application points before we dismiss and move over to the tables for discussion. Prayer for the kingdom radically reframes our identity, our abilities, and our generosity. So let’s look at each one of those. 

Kingdom-centered prayer reminds us of our true identity. Jesus knows that being comes before doing, so before He shows the disciples what the doing of missional prayer looks like, He reminds them who they are. He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Father.’” Now, I think we’re just so used to starting our prayers as Father that it’s easy to overlook what Jesus is actually doing in terms of setting up this paradigm. He’s making it clear that we are God’s beloved children who are part of a family and not simply hired servants. My identity and relationship with God, His continual love and presence in my life is the foundation for everything that we do in mission. 

I don’t know about you, but on any given day, I have lots of competing identities. I am a Christian worker, which carries with it all sorts of expectations and baggage. I’m a leader, and so I feel like I need to be setting the pace, leading with vision, doing it better, never struggling, whatever—all those things run through my head. I’m professionally trained, as all of you are professionally trained. It’s important to be good at what you do. And in order to be good at what you do, you have to spend time cultivating and developing skills. I want to appear like I’m a good bet to my donors, to my supporters, so I’m always trying to think, “How do I tell my story that wows them just enough that they keep giving me money but it doesn’t sound like I’m bragging as I do it?” I’m a father; I’m a friend; I’m a husband. All of these things can shape my identity. All of those things can become drivers of our identity. And Jesus knows that unless we are, on a daily basis, maybe even hourly basis, radically re-calibrating our identity through prayer, we are likely to be led astray. And so, “Father” is the reminder we are His children, we are beloved, we are intimately welcomed. Today, this morning, in this place, you are safe, you are secure, you are taken care of. We are not homeless orphans left to struggle on our own and fend for ourselves. And by addressing God as “Father,” Jesus is again helping us see who God really is for us. He is with us; He is in control; He is powerful; He is loving; He is compassionate. He knows what is going on in our hearts. He cares for you. You matter to Him. Prayer for the Kingdom has to start with this posture. My heart has to sit with these realities to be reminded that they are true, not just formally but functionally, if I’m going to be in the right frame of mind in order to pray. And starting the prayer by addressing God as Father is not just throwaway language because, as we’ll see later in the passage, Jesus comes back to talk about the importance of fathers in our lives. 

Jesus’ words in having us address God as Father also remind us that we’re part of a family that is engaged in mission. We’re not just individuals out there doing our own work. Notice the plurality in Jesus’ language. “Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins. We also forgive those who sin against us, lead us not in temptation.” No one in the Kingdom is an only child. We’re part of God’s family; we are brothers and sisters. We are joined together in the family business, and that means prayer for the Kingdom is a team sport. It’s a reminder that the Kingdom is primarily about the restoration of relationships and the creation of a forever family, and not just about the doing of things or the completion of causes. So Jesus starts His answer to “How do you pray for the kingdom?” by reminding us of our true identity. 

13:04 And then He goes on in the petitions of the prayer to remind us that Kingdom-centered prayer actually shows us our inability—our need for Him. He said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'” (Luke 11:2-4) Prayer for the Kingdom is, first and foremost, the acknowledgment that we are not enough. Despite whatever resources you have, whatever training you’ve completed, the sacrifices you’ve made, and the gifts and talents you possess, you and I are completely and utterly incapable of doing the things Jesus just asked us to pray for. Every single thing on that list is something that neither you nor I can do on our own. Look at what he’s asking for: set God’s name apart for the glory and worship it deserves in all circumstances and all times; establish God’s restoring reign and rule in the heart of every man, woman, and child on earth by raising the spiritually dead to life. Give us each day our daily bread, the things that we need to be free from living in worry, doubt, and strife. Forgive our infinite sins against an infinite God as we struggle with our justice-demanding hearts to forgive the finite sins committed against ourselves. And keep us away from temptations that are going to cause us again and again and again to worship ourselves and our own priorities instead of our Father in Heaven. Impossible. It is impossible to do those things without God doing them in us first. 

Now, I don’t really know what the disciples were expecting when they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, but if their hearts were like mine, I bet it wasn’t this. If I asked Jesus, “Hey, Jesus, I’m sold out, I’m with you, I’m for you. I want to know, what is it that you want me to be doing? How am I supposed to be praying?” Here is what I would have wanted to hear: a list of reasonable things that can be done definitively so I know when they’re finished. And they’ll take a little time, effort, and dedication, but they’re not impossible, particularly if you dig in and are serious about it. And Jesus is having none of it. He absolutely blows up that type of paradigm for praying. Instead, He tells us to pray for the very things that show our biggest need is for God and the things that only He can provide. We are utterly incapable without Him. 

16:03 It is not an accident that Serge has four core values. Kingdom-centered prayer is just the tangible expression of the centrality of the gospel in the lives of those who are pursuing ministry for weakness as they seek to love other sinful, broken people. Those values are absolutely impossible without the type of prayer that Jesus is talking about right here. 

16:27 So kingdom-centered prayer tells us not only what our true identity is and shows us our inability to live on mission without God, but it also demonstrates God’s limitless generosity. So in verses 5 through 8, Jesus tells a parable about a man who has an unexpected guest, doesn’t have enough food for them, goes next door, and wakes people up in order to get the food. Now we’ll pick up with Verse 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. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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 11:9-13) 

17:40 Now, there’s so much that could be unpacked here. Honestly, you can spend the whole week just in these verses alone. I just want to point out Jesus is saying that when you come to God to pray, come with complete and utter abandon because He wants to give you more than you could ever possibly imagine. He doesn’t just want to do things for you; He wants to give you Himself. So notice how that plays out – the neighbor and the asking. The fact that the request of the neighbor is not unusual, the manner in which he is asking for it is. And so it’s the middle of the night, there are no convenience shops, and an unexpected friend has come. He does not have the supplies to meet the basic expectations of hospitality, so he goes next door to the neighbor. And you have to remember, small, one-room houses, for the most part, everyone would have been sleeping on the ground floor, in the common room. The neighbor, by pounding on the door, that’s like someone pounding on your bedroom door after you turn the lights out for the night. If you’ve ever been woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call or something happening, you know how disturbing that could be. And so he is pounding on the door, and the neighbor is annoyed, “Get out of here, leave me alone.” And Jesus is saying, “That’s right. That is how you should be asking. That’s the way a child goes to his Father to ask.” And then He reinforces that later in verse 5, all of those verbs: ask, seek, knock. Those are all present imperatives. They are commands to do, and they apply over and over again. It says if Jesus is saying, “I’m telling you. Ask! Keep asking. Make it your normal practice to keep asking and keep seeking and keep knocking.” That’s the way a child comes to his dad. That’s what your Father wants you to do. Why is Jesus so emphatic about this point? Well, He knows that asking shapes our souls. Coming to God with our needs isn’t just about getting things to change out there through our prayers, but getting things to change in here through our prayers. Coming, exercising dependence on the one who loves us, who knows us, who will take care of us, who will provide for us. Getting in a posture of doing that with utter abandon, day after day, time after time. 

20:09 The second reason why Jesus is talking about that is because it’s not the quality of our asking that makes prayer effective; it’s the generosity of the Father. When I was younger, I used to read these verses and think, “Oh, so you can’t actually get a prayer answered until you asked a certain number of times.” It’s kind of like you’ve got to put in a certain number of pennies into the slot machine, and finally when you get to that magical number, which no one knows what it is, and probably different for every prayer request, finally, there’s enough asking that you can pull the lever and the prayer gets answered. And Jesus is saying, “No, it’s not about the way that you asked, it’s about the generosity of the Father.” And he makes his point by saying, “Those of us who are fallen, we still know how to bless our children, how much more so with God?” And did you notice how Jesus changes the paradigm right at the very end? So far, we’ve been talking about bread, and we’ve been talking about fish, and we’ve been talking about eggs – those daily need sorts of things. How much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? God sends the Holy Spirit to indwell us. When you think about this, the Father’s love for us is so great that He sends the Son to come and live and die and rise again in our place. And after the Son ascends, God’s love for us still hasn’t been completely displayed, and so He sends the Holy Spirit. He sends Himself to come live, dwell within us, to give us the most intimate, transforming, captivating, constant loving relationship that could ever exist. He’s saying, “If I would do that, how could I fail to give you anything else that you need in order to pursue me and pursue my kingdom?” I think I often miss what God’s doing simply because I forget that His desire and ability to meet my needs far exceeds my ability to ask. 

22:17 Alright, so those are three things I think the passage is teaching us. Real quickly, now how do we live this out practically? How do we lead our teams in ways where this is just part of what we actually do with them? So three suggestions for us here before we move to the tables. 

22:34 Application one: apply the gospel to your own heart as you pray for the kingdom. If God is our Father, then we need to recover that posture of a child running to their dad. How do we do that on those days when I do not feel like going to prayer, or when I feel like, yes, I know that’s important, but I also have these other things that are important. And maybe just today, these other things should be the thing that I’m doing. When we’re in that midst of struggling, well, we go back to the gospel, do what Jesus has been asking us to do all along – apply the gospel to this area of obedience. It’s repenting of those things where essentially I’m just like, “God, I think I know better than You when it comes to this. I mean, I know that I don’t, but realistically, I would rather be in charge here than surrender this and let You be in charge.” And it’s only by coming again to the foot of the cross that I can be reminded of God’s goodness and His power, His love, His authority that far exceeds anything that I give Him credit for. So confess your sin, repent, believe again, and as we do that, that’s what allows us to start to come back to the Father as our Father, as someone who loves us, as someone who will take care of us. It’s easy to forget, a necessary part of “your kingdom come” is God changing our own hearts. The kingdom comes to our hearts as well as to our world. I’d like to encourage you: be ruthless about cultivating this type of mindset with your team. Think about anything, just change the structure. So we’re not talking about prayer, we’re talking about whatever it is, Scripture reading. What do you really want for your teams? We have a team covenant, we will read Scripture together every day, we will do it for 20 minutes, we will do it whether you feel like doing it or not, we will do it whether you are paying attention or not. As a matter of fact, if you just want to mouth the words and let your mind wander or something, we would never do that. We’re like, no, that’s not the point of the Scripture reading. The point of the Scripture reading is to connect our heart with Jesus’ heart. That’s the point of the prayer as well. So cultivate the mindset in your teams, we are committed to doing this, but it’s going to be a struggle because we’re following people. And that’s okay. Jesus shows us what to do to continue to come with a posture of receiving. Alright, so first application – apply the gospel to your own heart. 

25:11 Second, embrace both discipline and desperation as you pray for the Kingdom. Because Kingdom prayer shows us the limits of our abilities, we have to embrace both discipline and desperation when it comes to prayer. In my own life, as important as discipline is, it’s actually desperation that’s more helpful in leading to consistent Kingdom prayer. I don’t have to work hard to feel worried about the future or overwhelmed by the needs of those around me, or stressed and anxious about the volume of work, or wondering if no matter what I do, is this actually going to make a difference in the world? I have a constant supply of those things. What I need to do, though, is to learn how to let that desperation drive me back to Jesus in prayer. Now, I am not saying that discipline is not good. Discipline is a good thing, and we should all in our teams be setting aside regularly scheduled time for focused, extended, weekly, monthly times of dedicated Kingdom-centered prayer. Absolutely, we should be doing that. It’s a foundational part of our jobs. It’s not the thing we do so that we can go do our real work. Prayer is part of the real work. And so we should be regular, we should be methodical about that. But desperation also provides that organic, daily, moment-by-moment motivation that it takes for us to stay connected with God. I don’t have to work hard to become desperate; I just need to pay attention when I am desperate. That is God’s calling card that is saying, “Come back to me. You are trying to do something on your own that you should never try and do on your own.” When I do that, when I start to do that, here’s the main effect that that has is Kingdom-building prayer goes from a to-do on my list, to feeling like, “Oh….” You know when you’ve been on a long, hot walk and you finally get to sit down and have a drink of cool water? That’s what Kingdom-building prayer feels like when we allow our desperation to be part of the equation. So regular scheduled, ongoing, that’s part of it. You show up even if you don’t want to, and you repent of not wanting to be there, but also cluing into those places when we feel overwhelmed, overworked, stressed. That is God saying, “Hey, there’s something amiss. Come back to me. Come back to me in how you’re praying, come back to me as a team, let’s be together.” 

27:58 Final application, because God’s generosity far surpasses what we normally anticipate, it’s really important that we get in the habit of asking for outrageous outcomes and recording them so that we don’t overlook God’s provision for us. One of the things that Jesus is asking us to do is simply pray more boldly than you naturally would. I don’t know about you, but I am not the big prayer. In my heart of hearts, I’m always thinking, “Don’t ask for too much. Ask for those little things that you can mostly do on your own, and that if they don’t come about, won’t really make a huge disappointment to anyone, won’t really be noticed.” The person who walks into the room and up to the front, and the person is in a hospital bed, and puts their hands on them and says, “Jesus, I pray for complete healing in your name,” I am not that guy. I am the guy who goes into the room and says, “Father, if it’s Your will, and all the rest of the legal qualifications and through the provision of these fine medical professionals and all of those things, could this person perhaps feel slightly better today? Amen.” And Jesus is saying, “Don’t do that. Come boldly, come loudly. Wake the whole house up.” We can’t change anything in prayer, it is the Father who gives that changes things in prayer. Come boldly. Pray for the things that could never happen unless Jesus actually showed up to make them happen. Repent of the unbelief in our hearts that causes us to draw back and not really go there.

30:03 Second thing, keep track of God’s answers. It is always good to have a prayer journal; electronic, on paper, scraps of bubble gum wrappers, whatever, write it down for yourself, but also for your team. Review it each quarter as a team. Once a year, maybe in January, set time aside just to rehearse God’s faithfulness over the previous 12 months to see what He’s done. I so easily forget those things. It is, “Here’s my weak, little, small-minded prayer that I offered on the run, that I didn’t think You would answer anyway. Oh, and then here’s this amazing thing that You did and I was so shocked and surprised about it, I immediately forgot about that to go ask for something small again,” and it just builds up over time. Ask boldly, write it down when it happens. Look for those things. Often, God is not giving me the answer to my prayer that I thought I wanted. He’s giving me something much better, but I will never see it unless I really look for it. The transformation of people’s hearts and lives is a small, subtle, skillful thing. And unless we are in a relationship with people, loving them and knowing them, we will often miss it. So look for it, write it down, rehearse God’s faithfulness.

31:23 Alright, we’re going to move over to the tables now. As we do, you’ve heard it said, you’ll hear it said again many times this week, our company is a values-led organization, and here’s the tricky thing about values. You can never actually act against your values because your actions always reveal your values. We want our core values not to be nice things that you can put up on a screen or see printed out when you come to the office. We want them to reflect the reality of our hearts and our actions. So let me encourage you, as you spend time at your tables, be honest, talk about where you’re struggling, talk about what’s working, talk about the things that you can encourage one another to do better with. Alright, so we’re going to have about a half hour over there. We’ll come back for worship. You saw it yesterday, so you’re dismissed. And move quickly, don’t miss out on the conversation.

Jim Lovelady 32:22 When you come to God to pray, come with complete and utter abandon because He wants to give you more than you could ever possibly imagine. He wants to give you Himself. That’s the generosity of the God we worship. So as we conclude this episode, I suppose we should conclude with prayer. So I’m going to pray the Lord’s Prayer, and I want to invite you to pray along with me. And I’m going to pray in the KJV because that’s how I have it memorized. Would you pray with me? Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, take a deep breath. 

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 debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

But you know when you pray, you have to let God have the last word. And what is God saying? What does the Lord say to His people? It’s His blessing, because all the promises of God find their yes and amen in Christ. So as you go, receive this blessing that goes with you everywhere you go.

May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you, turn His bright eyes to you, and give you His peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God, life everlasting. Amen.