Children’s Sermon (Luke 11:1-13) The Lord’s Prayer

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“Prayer Practices” Children’s Sermon on the  Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-13)

Main Objective: Prayer can be challenging for young students. Some have a difficult time knowing how to pray or understanding what prayer is. This message should remind students that prayer does not have to be scary or complicated, but is a meaningful way of talking with their Heavenly Father.

Law/Gospel Theme: The Law and commandments can seem to come down heavily if students do not understand what they are for. The Lord’s Prayer is a positive helper to remind kids that God wants to hear from us, and that He has given us grace and enabled us to approach Him.

Object Lesson Props:  Bible, cookbook/recipe book

Bonus Ideas: Some more inspiration for your teaching (offsite links)

• Watch our video teaching example of this children’s lesson
• Browse sermons for kids or see our 10 lesson series on the Lords’ Prayer or download the coloring book based on Jesus’ model prayer
• See the teaching activities for ASK SEEK KNOCK from Sermons 4 Kids

Note: All elements are open to adjustment. Cater to the needs and ages of your group

 Lord’s Prayer Children’s Message / Object Lesson

Greet students, carrying a Bible and a cookbook. Today we will be looking at prayer…

Hello!
So we are going to talk about something very important today, but first I want to talk about making dinner. Do you know what this is? (Hold up cookbook).

It’s a cookbook! That means it is a list of recipes. So, if I want to make something, like maybe green bean casserole, I can look in here, and it will tell me how. This book is full of recipes: lists of ingredients and how to put them together to make a dish. I don’t always have to do exactly what the list says; sometimes I can make substitutions or switch ingredients, but this will help me if I’m not sure how to make something. Now, did you know that God has given us a recipe book? (Hold up Bible)

This is our recipe for life! The Bible gives us some amazing directions for living. Did you know that it also gives us instructions for prayer?
How do you like to pray? Do you have words or phrases you use to pray? (Allow time for student responses).

Sometimes we have prayers that we like to use or say. But sometimes we have a hard time coming up with the right words to say when we pray. We might be uncertain or confused. The good news is that the Bible helps us! There are some great prayers we can find in the book of Psalms, which has some awesome praises and struggles to pray through. Jesus also gave us a great blueprint “recipe” for prayer. In the New Testament, some of His disciples were asking Him how to pray, and He gave them some words to try. We call this “The Lord’s Prayer”, and we can use it to help us pray. We don’t have to say the exact words of this prayer, but we can keep it as a guideline if we are not sure how to talk to God.

First, Jesus said to open up by saying “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name.” This means we recognize Who we are talking to. God is our Father and wants us to be part of His family. We recognize that He is holy and very special.

Next, the prayer says “your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as in Heaven.” That means we want God’s will to be done, and we want what He wants for our lives. The next part of Jesus’s prayer says “Give us this day our daily bread.” That says we want the Lord to give us what we need each day. Sometimes we want things that we don’t need. But when we ask for “daily bread” that means we ask God to give us what we need one day at a time.

Then the prayer says “forgive us our debts as we forgive others.” We are glad that God has already forgiven everything we have done, and everything we will do. We also ask for help in forgiving other people. Then the prayer says “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” God does not tempt us to do bad things, but Satan does sometimes. So we ask for God’s help to stand strong in His will. The prayer ends with “yours is the kingdom and power and glory.” That reminds us that God is powerful. He will always be powerful and we want to serve Him and honor Him with everything and anything we do. This is a great “recipe” if we need help coming up with the words or topics to pray about. We might pray it just like this, or maybe use our own words and phrases. But isn’t it great that God helps us when we don’t know what to say? We can thank Him for that now…and don’t forget, He is our father. He wants to hear from us all the time. We can pray anywhere and everywhere, and He loves us and hears us no matter what!

Suggested Prayer for Children

(Have kids repeat each line, if desired)

Dear God,
Thank you for letting us talk to you
Thank you for your words in the Bible
Help us to use your special instructions to pray
And to obey your wonderful commands

Thank you for your love
We love you, God!
Thank you for Jesus
In His name, Amen!

Luke 11:1-13 — The Lord’s Prayer

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 NIV

Clip-art of the Lord’s Prayer

The clip art version of the Lords’ Prayer is used with permission from Christian Clip Arts.