Luke does not record the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety as Matthew does.  He spreads the teaching throughout the book and highlights different teaching at different points.  In this passage, he records what Jesus says about prayer as found in Matthew 6, but takes a slightly different approach and adds to it a parable that sheds new light on how to live a life of prayer.

Whenever we study prayer, it’s worth acknowledging that prayer is hard.  It’s not natural, it doesn’t really equate to anything else in life, our natural being seems to rebel against it, and it doesn’t entirely make sense logically.  Yet we know from God’s word that it is an awesome and wonderful privilege, and only by engaging in it will we walk before Him with renewed minds.  Because of that, it’s worth working through and learning about as much as possible.  Prayer is hard but its reward is priceless.

Its reward is likely one of the reasons it’s so difficult.  The Enemy knows how important prayer is and so will do anything to thwart it (make us think that we don’t have time, make us think of a thousand things every time we try to pray, bring interruptions, etc.).  The difficulty of prayer is a sign of how important it is.

God shows how important prayer is to Him by what He says about it in His word.  He tells us to pray continually (I Thess 5:17); tells us how not to pray (Matt 6:5-8); explains that He prays for us through His Spirit (Rom 8:26-27); and here gives us a model to follow.  Prayer is not something God grudgingly allows or allows only under strict conditions; it is something He LONGS for us to do and wants to help us with in any way possible.  Think about that – God WANTS us to pray.  It’s perhaps the clearest indication that we serve a personal God who wants a loving relationship with each of His children.

That prayer relationship is exemplified by Jesus during His time on earth.  Matt 14:23, Lk 5:16, Lk 6:12, and Lk 9:28 all refer to Him going away to spend concentrated times in prayer.  He craves intimacy with the Father and as a submissive Son depends on His guidance.  Throughout His life it’s clear He cannot go long at all without prayer.  He will say that He only speaks what the Father tells Him to speak (Jn 12:49), so He spends time with the Father to know what He wants (just as we should).

What to pray (1-4)
In this slightly different version of the model prayer, note the plural pronouns – our and us.  While prayer is personal, we are not meant to pray in a vacuum.  We are to pray for ourselves but we’re also to intercede on behalf of others (and as we mature, we likely will spend more time on others than on ourselves simply because there ARE more others).  The pronouns also seem to point to the appropriateness of praying with others.  We are not to pray as the hypocrites do to be heard by others instead of God, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray with others to God.  There seems to be a power in corporate prayer that can’t be replicated individually, so we should engage in both types of prayer regularly.

The model prayer as recorded here is not the traditional one we recite but it teaches the same lesson.  Our prayers are to reflect what should be true of our lives – they’re not all about us.

Father, hallowed be Your name

• Hallowed means holy, sanctified, set apart, revered.
• Name encompasses all that God is – His character and attributes (Ex 6:1-8).
• God’s Name is holy – we pray that it will be treated as holy in our lives and in the world.
• Note that this is a petition, not an acknowledgement – we ask God to ACT.
• The very FIRST and FOREMOST thing Jesus tells us to pray is for God to make His Name magnified in our hearts and lives, and in the hearts and lives of all mankind.
• The number one concern in our prayer life is for God to magnify Himself in the world.
• Every time we pray (no matter how desperately), we are to have the mindset that says our over-arching concern in this life is to glorify our Father.  That’s number one – every other request is AFTER that.
• That doesn’t mean that every time we pray we have to start with this petition.  There are certainly times when a perfectly appropriate prayer is simply, “Father, help!”  But even in those prayers we should be aware that His glory comes before our needs.  And in our initial times of concentrated prayer each morning we probably should start with this.  It establishes our perspective for thoughts, actions, and further prayers throughout the day.

Your kingdom come

• Pray that His kingdom – His reign – will be extended in our lives (that we will live as Jesus tells us to – as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, not of this world).
• Pray that His kingdom will spread in the hearts and lives of those who do not yet know Him. We don’t just pray for ourselves; we pray for the lost. It seems appropriate with this petition to pray for the salvation of specific individuals by name.
• Pray that His kingdom will come soon in the form of the returning Christ.
• What is His kingdom? It is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17).
• If we are citizens of the kingdom, we should long for the day when it is fully established.
• II Peter 3:12 – …looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…
• Revelation 22:17,20 – …the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” Come, Lord Jesus.
• Praying this petition affects our behavior as our perspective becomes eternal rather than temporal. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless (II Pet 3:14).
• This flows right out of the first petition. For His Name to be fully glorified throughout the earth, His kingdom must be established.

In the remaining petitions we should be SPECIFIC.  It makes no sense to hold something back from the omniscient God who is everywhere and sees all.  The more specific and precise we are, the better we align our will with His.

Give us each day our daily bread

• Request for personal needs (not just food – not just physical).
• Interesting that this comes first in the order of self-based petitions – we are taught to pray for our personal needs even before confession/forgiveness. 
• With our mind renewed and our perspective correctly focused after the first two petitions, Jesus encourages us to ask our heavenly Father to meet our personal needs.  Praying through HIS NAME and HIS KINGDOM should affect what we categorize as needs for ourselves.
• Daily bread harkens back to an agrarian society where a laborer is paid his wages daily – typically just enough to feed him for that day.  God wants us to understand our DAILY dependence on Him.  By praying this, we acknowledge that all we have is from Him and every need we have must be met by Him.
• This also points to our Father’s desire to answer our requests.  Though Jesus says our Father knows our needs before we ask (Matt 6:8), He still encourages us to ask.  Our Father wants our fellowship and He loves to meet our needs.  Our response to His actions is to give glory and thanks back to Him.
• Per Paul in Philippians 4:6, we should bathe our requests in thanksgiving.

Forgive us our sins…

• Though we are saved, confession and asking for forgiveness should be regular parts of our prayers (specific and surgically precise – we can’t mourn over our sin if we don’t fully acknowledge it).
• If we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I Jn 1:9).
• Regular confession is a protection against further sin.  Coming to God shines light on our sins such that we more clearly see their awfulness in contrast to the beauty of the gospel.  I won’t have a renewed mind that’s repulsed by sin without continual prayers of confession.  We must turn from sin in order to turn to prayer.  Sin inhibits prayer as infidelity inhibits love.  Prayer seeks God’s presence, while sin turns away from God’s presence.  We must turn from sin in order to pray, just as we must turn from prayer in order to sin.  So the habit of prayer is our strongest protection against sin.  Sin and prayer are opposites; they are darkness and light.  (Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners; 83-84)
• If regular confession does not produce an increased confidence and joy in your life, then you do not understand salvation by grace, the essence of the faith. (Tim Keller, Prayer; 115)
• When we understand the enormity of our sin and the enormity of our forgiven debt to God, we can’t help but forgive others any sins committed against us (which pale in comparison to our offenses against God – Matt 18:23-35).  If we do not forgive, we do not understand or appreciate our forgiven state (goes right along with the beatitude on mercy; when we appreciate how merciful God is to us, we’re merciful to others – Matt 5:7).
• This is understood on two levels – as a believer, if I’m holding a grudge, I must deal with that (asking for God’s help in removing it) before I can expect to come to God to ask for forgiveness (for I’m refusing to deal with sin in my life while asking God to forgive me for all other sins).  On a different level, however, if I consistently refuse to forgive or will not give up a grudge, I cannot claim to be a forgiven child of God.

Lead us not into temptation

• This does not mean that God can tempt us.  Per James 1:13, He can’t be tempted, nor does He tempt anyone.  Jesus’ words here draw a contrast.
• It is a plea that unlike our hearts or the Evil One (which lead us into evil), that our Father lead us away from temptation and deliver us from falling into evil and from the power of the Enemy.
• It is an acknowledgement of our vulnerability to sin and our utter dependence on His Spirit to keep us in His will.  It is a plea that nothing interrupt our fellowship with Him.
• It is another area where specifics are important.  We know where we have failed and are prone to failure, so we should pray specifically for protection in those areas.
• We’re arrogant and foolish if we don’t pray this petition continually.  How can we ever start a day without it?  We don’t know our hearts if we do not regularly make this request.

How to Pray (5-10)
After teaching the disciples what to pray, Jesus tells a parable to demonstrate how to put prayer into practice.  Its overarching message is amazing in what it tells us about approaching our heavenly Father in prayer.

The parable is short and sweet.  A man comes to his friend’s house late at night and asks for food for an unexpected guest.  The friend in the house initially refuses to help because it’s late and he’s already in bed.  The man at the door doesn’t leave, however, and eventually the friend inside the house gets up and helps him just to make him go away.  The man at the door’s persistence eventually gets him what he wants.

Jesus follows the parable with an admonition to ask, seek, and knock because what we ask for we’ll get, what we seek we’ll find, and the door we knock on will be opened.

The message of these verses is nothing short of incredible.  Jesus tells us to persist in prayer just like the irritating neighbor who won’t stop knocking on the door.  Realize who is who in the parable.  God is the man inside already in bed.  We are the neighbor who comes asking for a favor.  The illustration has limitations in that it obviously doesn’t mean that we’re to wear God down with prayer to the point that He gives us what we want just to make us stop asking.  But what it DOES mean is that we are to persevere in prayer and not stop until God responds.  We are to pray until we get an answer.

If we think through the implications of this teaching, it is that there’s value in the pursuit of God.  God doesn’t need us to persist in prayer so He’ll remember to respond to the request, and it doesn’t make sense that He only answers prayers that show a requisite level of perseverance.  What apparently is true is that we benefit from pursuing Him.  He wants us to pray and pray and not give up because the persistence itself makes us trust more, know Him more, and become more like Him.  Pursuing God enhances our sanctification.

What this means is that prayer isn’t just a means to an end.  Prayer is an end unto itself.  There is great value in prayer regardless of the answer.  Prayer is valuable for prayer’s sake.

Persistence leads directly into vss 9-10.  We are to ask, seek, and knock, and we are to KEEP asking, KEEP seeking, and KEEP knocking (present tense verbs in Greek reflect a continuing action).  When we do, we receive what we ask for, find what we seek, and open what we try to open (as to what that is, read on in verses 11-13).

To Whom We Pray (11-13)
Verses 11-13 show God’s stance as the receiver of prayer.  He’s the good Father who loves to give good gifts to His children.  He loves His children and will ultimately give them what is best.  Crucially – He won’t give them bad gifts even if they ask for them.

Ultimately what God longs to give His children is Himself.  Prayers that align with this desire are answered (I Jn 5:14-15).  This is the message of vs 13.  God wants to give us the Holy Spirit – He wants to give us Himself.  This answers the question as to what we are to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking FOR. 

God longs to gives us the strength and ability to please Him.  Which means we are to continually and persistently ask for this.  When we do, He answers.  He longs for our obedience and as a good Father will enable us to fulfill that longing.

Summary Thoughts
We must meditate on these truths:

God wants us to pray in a way that acknowledges we exist to glorify Him.

God wants us to pray persistently and not give up praying because the very act of persistent prayer makes us more like the One we persistently pray to.  It is critical to remember this when our continual and longstanding prayers go unanswered.  Sometimes God’s timing has to do with the growth that comes to us by persevering.  There is enormous value in the pursuit of God.  There is enormous value in prayer itself.

God wants us to pray persistently for Him to give us Himself.  Prayers that ask for God, seek God, and knock on God’s door to be opened are ALWAYS answered.  God wants our obedience and fellowship, and He promises to answer our prayers for the ability to obey and walk with Him. 

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.  (Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners; 18)