[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, the disciples come to Jesus and say, Lord, teach us to pray.
God be praised that we have what Jesus taught, that he would also teach us today how to pray.
We’ll pull five quick things from the text and look at it now.
The first thing I want to notice is that prayer is taught.
This is different than how we normally think about prayer because we normally think that
And prayer just sort of bubbles up out of the heart.
Whatever’s on our mind comes out of our mouths, and so we have a prayer.
But the disciples know better, and it’s good for us to know too, that prayer is a discipline.
Prayer is something that we learn.
Out of the heart, says Jesus, comes all sorts of wickedness and unclean things and wicked
things.
So, we want to know that prayer is what bubbles up out of the heart that’s been sanctified
by God’s Word.
In fact, if you could think of prayer this way, it’s thanking the Lord for the gifts
He’s given and asking Him for the gifts He has not yet given, and especially those
gifts that are not yet given, prayer is then asking God to keep His promises.
So prayer begins by knowing what the Lord has promised us and then coming before Him
to ask of it.
Now there’s a little bit of law and gospel when it comes to prayer because I know, at
experience in being a pastor and also being friends with pastors and also talking with
you all that prayer is one of the most difficult things about the Christian life.
The Lord has commanded us to pray the second commandment, you shall not misuse the name
of the Lord your God.
In this commandment, He commands us to use His name rightly, to call upon Him in prayer
and praise and thanksgiving, to ask Him for the things that we need.
But we don’t pray as we ought.
But, this topic of prayer, especially the way that Jesus teaches it today, is really
quite beautiful because He has a theological approach to prayer.
The disciples say, Lord, teach us to pray, and we might expect some instructions to come
after this, and this is maybe the second point with the instructions of Jesus.
We might expect Jesus to teach prayer like the Pharisees taught prayer.
They would teach prayer mostly in reference to the logistics.
When you pray, you have to have this posture.
You’re standing or you’re kneeling or you’re on your face.
Your hands are up and facing in or out or the different directions.
You’re facing east when you pray or facing Jerusalem, and you’re saying these words and
you’re using this posture.
Jesus, when He teaches prayer, is distinctly not interested in the logistics of the thing.
In fact, it shows up, if Jesus is interested in the logistics, He says that don’t do it
like the Pharisees do.
Don’t stand on the corner.
If you’re praying, go to the closet so that you’re not seen.
Don’t think that you’re heard for all the words that you utter.
That’s how the pagans pray, as if their prayers were an offering to God, a sacrifice that
He’s pleased with, and then He’ll come and give you what you’re asking for.
No, Jesus knows that prayer grows out of the work that He is going to accomplish on the
cross.
So that when we pray, and this is an amazing thing Jesus says, when we pray we say, Father.
Maybe in that word is all we need to know about prayer.
Have I told you all this, that I have this idea of writing a book about a man who wakes
up with amnesia, and the only thing that he can remember is the Lord’s Prayer.
prayer.
He can’t remember his name.
He can’t remember where he’s from.
He can’t remember anything else about anything.
All he remembers is the Lord’s Prayer, and he has to figure out who he is from the Lord’s
Prayer.
So he remembers, Father, and he says, ah, I have a father.
I must be a son.
Our father, he says, oh, I must have brothers and sisters.
I’m part of a family.
Our father, who art in heaven, whoa, my father is God.
God, who has a kingdom and a will that’s at war and who provides for me.
Forgive us our trespasses, oh, I’ve done something to offend my Father, and I need His mercy
and forgiveness, and that’s the big risk, and it all works.
In other words, if you want it, and you can maybe imagine this and think through this
on your own, that everything you need to know about how it is with us and God is there in
the Lord’s Prayer.
prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer puts us in the middle of a story or of a history of the way that
God acts.
It makes us the recipients of His love, the objects of His affection.
It makes us His adopted children who rejoice in His care and provision and His mercy.
This is how we pray.
In fact, when Jesus uses the example of prayer, He says, what father of you, if your child
ask for a loaf of bread, we’ll give him a snake, or an egg, we’ll give him a scorpion.
And you are evil, and you know how to give good gifts to your children.
How much more will your Heavenly Father give you all that you ask?
So that our prayer is that we, as the children of God, are coming to Him knowing that He
loves us, knowing that He cares for us, knowing that He provides for us, knowing that He
He knows everything that we need and He’s happy to give it to us, to give us all that
we need.
This is how prayer grows.
It’s not about the words to say or the way to say it or anything else.
Prayer starts with this confidence that you are loved by God the Father.
If you know that, you will know what to pray.
If you know that you’re baptized and all your sins are washed away and that God, instead
of throwing you out, has welcomed you in, if you know that, you will know what to pray.
So, Jesus, this is the second point, teaches us a theological approach to prayer as the
children of God.
But then Jesus gets into the strategy and He says, you should be stubborn children
of God.
This is really wonderful.
Jesus teaches us to be, the word in the text is, impudent, stubborn, hard-headed, knuckle-headed.
Some of you are thinking, Jesus doesn’t need to teach me that.
I am that way already.
But listen to this parable.
It’s quite amazing.
Jesus says, and this is, He’s teaching us not how to be a good neighbor here, He’s teaching
us how to pray.
He says, which of you, if you have a friend come to you at midnight and they arrive and
you don’t have any bread to set before them or any gifts to give, so you go to your neighbor
and you knock on the door to your neighbor’s house and you say, friend, I need some bread
to give to the people that just arrived.
And the guy cries out from his house, he says we’re in bed, we’re asleep, come back in the morning, I’m not going to get the bread.
And then Jesus says, but you just keep on knocking.
And the friend will get up and give you the bread, not because he’s a good friend, not because he loves you,
No, not because He cares about you and your ability to be hospitable to the people around
you.
He’s going to get up and give you the bread because you’re stubborn.
It’s an amazing thing that Jesus is teaching us this about prayer.
He says the same thing in another place.
Remember the persistent widow who goes to the judge and is begging for justice one day
after another after another, and the judge finally gives her justice, not because he’s
a good judge, but because she just wouldn’t be quiet.
And Jesus says, that’s how I want you to pray.
Oh, that the Holy Spirit would make us persistent in our prayers, that we would be impudent
in our prayers, that we would be knuckle-headed when it comes to the spiritual gifts that
God wants to give to us, that we would just keep knocking.
In fact, that’s the fourth point.
Jesus gives us a strategy for our impudence.
He says, ask and seek and knock.
In fact, in the Greek it’s, keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking.
Now here’s how this goes, and this is pretty practical.
Because every prayer that we ask begins as an unanswered prayer.
I mean, our thanksgiving, our thanking the Lord for the gifts that He’s given, but if
we’re asking something, we’re asking for something that we don’t have yet.
We’re asking for something that the Lord hasn’t given.
So, every prayer starts as an unanswered prayer, right?
So we ask for something and then we wait.
But what happens when the Lord doesn’t answer our prayer?
What happens when we ask and we ask and we ask and still we haven’t received from the
Lord an answer to our prayer?
Then we go to part two, we seek.
And here’s what that seeking is.
We turn to the Scriptures and we’re looking for two things in the Scripture.
Number one, we’re looking for the place where God promised to give us what we’re asking
for.
And number two, we’re looking for examples of the Lord who answered that prayer before.
In other words, as we’re asking the Lord and waiting for Him to answer, we say, am I asking
for the right thing?
Am I asking for something pleasing to God?
Am I asking for⦠am I offering a prayer that He’ll answer?
And so we seek the Scriptures, we seek that wisdom in the Bible to know that we’re asking
the right thing.
And when we know, when we find that we’re asking the right thing, then we just keep
on asking.
That’s what Jesus wants.
You all have said to me before, a number of you have said to me, that I think the Lord
is tired of hearing this prayer from me.
And you are wrong.
He does not get tired of hearing your prayers.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve asked it ten times or a hundred times or a thousand times
or a thousand times a day for the last fifty years, that’s what Jesus wants, that’s what
He’s teaching, that’s what He’s saying to us.
He says that we keep on knocking, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
And then Jesus finishes the teaching, this is the fifth point, by promising to give us
the Holy Spirit.
He has another sort of funny parable here with the son, what father of you, if the son
asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
Or if the son asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
And he says that you, even though you’re evil, know how to give good gifts.
How much more will your Heavenly Father give, and then the key thing here, the Holy Spirit
to those who ask?
God the Father has promised to give to you the Holy Spirit.
In fact, this should be our number one prayer, both in the morning and evening and every
day of our lives, we would ask first for the Holy Spirit.
That the Holy Spirit would fill us, that the Holy Spirit would cover us, and that the Holy
Spirit would bring to us His wisdom, His peace, and His comfort.
In fact, we would pray for the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit would help us to pray
and to know what to pray for.
And your Heavenly Father answers this prayer.
When you pray for the Holy Spirit, the Lord gives what you ask.
Not because you’ve deserved it or because you’ve earned it or because you’ve been good
enough or because you’ve prayed hard enough or anything like this but because
God the Father loves you and Christ has died for you and your sins are forgiven
and you are his children you have a good and gracious Heavenly Father who knows
what you need who hears your prayers and who answers them so may God grant you in
this comfort and peace, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
In the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
