As Christians, it can be difficult to grow in prayer. The basis of our confidence in prayer is twofold: the God we pray to and the Gift he gives us. In this message on Luke 11:11–13, Pastor David Platt reminds Christians to turn to the Lord in prayer and fasting.
As Christians, it can be difficult to grow in prayer. The basis of our confidence in prayer is twofold: the God we pray to and the Gift he gives us. In this message on Luke 11:11–13, Pastor David Platt reminds Christians to turn to the Lord in prayer and fasting.
You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author and teacher David Platt. We're gonna continue kind of the trend that we've had during this last few weeks. As we're talking about prayer, I'm studying the word the top of our time together this morning and letting that vault us into time and prayer as a faith family. Before we get started, let me encourage you to pull out those notes that were in your celebration guide that you received when you came in. They'll guide our time together this morning. Before we start, I wanna just tell you a little bit about my week, if that's all right. If it's not all right, I'm going to tell you anyway. But I've spent all of this last week in Oklahoma and it's really been kind of a microcosm, in a sense, of my whole summer. This whole summer I've spent most of my weeks out of town preaching in camps or conferences in different places, all commitments that I'd made before I came to pastor here at Bracilles and so filling out those commitments. And so this Monday morning, early six o'clock Monday morning, flew out to Oklahoma and, if I could be completely honest with you, really didn't wanna be in central Oklahoma all week, just the time away from family, from Heather, from Caleb. I called her at one point this week and I called her right in the middle as she was cooking dinner for Caleb, as well as her niece and nephew that were there, and she said I'm really busy, this is not a good time. I said I don't care, I just wanna talk to my son. Please just put the phone up to my son. I miss my family. And so, anyway, sitting there in Oklahoma all week but preaching at a camp or there were just thousands of students there and I'd preach every night and give an invitation and it was like a Billy Graham crusade. There were just people pouring into the house. This week there were over 200 kids who responded to God's call, their lives in the ministry and missions, and there were close to 300 kids that gave their heart to Christ in Oklahoma and the storm. And it was just a clear reminder that the gospel is good. The gospel is good and we're gonna talk about prayer this morning, particularly as it relates to us as children of God. But if you have never trusted the gospel, then the most important thing you could do this morning is to trust him to save you from your sins. Trust him to bring you into his family. That is the most important thing any one of us could ever do in life, whether you're a student or a senior adult or anywhere in between and everything we talk about when it comes to prayer revolves around whether or not we are children of God. And so I wanna urge you, if you're sitting here this morning and you're not a child of God and you haven't trusted the gospel, trust him this morning to save you from your sins. I want us to look this morning at confidence in prayer. We've talked about desperation and desire and boldness in prayer. As we close out this series and studying this particular passage in Luke 11, one through 13, I want us to think about confidence. This is a word that, if we're really honest with each other, even those of us who have been Christians for a long time really struggle when it comes to really having confidence in our prayer lives. Can you really say that your prayers are very confident? And I want us to look at the basis of our confidence and these couple of verses that we're gonna look at along two lines. I think the basis of our confidence in prayer is two fold. First, the basis of our confidence is in the God we pray to, the God we pray to you've got that in your notes and then second the gift he gives us. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna divide up our time in this text this morning along those two realms the God we pray to and the gift that he gives us. Now I want us to see that unfold at the end of this passage. Let's read the whole thing just to make sure we bring in what we've studied over the last few weeks into the context that we're gonna look at in these last three verses. Look at Luke, chapter 11, verse one. Bible says 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. He said to them, when you pray, say Father, how would 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. Then he said to them suppose one of you has a friend and he goes to him at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And the one inside answers don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. I tell you, though, he will not give up and give him the bread, because he is his friend. Yet because of the man's boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you ask and it will be given. You, seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives. He who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Now here's the verses we're gonna camp out in today. 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? Those verses are thick. We're gonna have to really fly through some things to get through these three verses. Today, I want you to see the God we pray to and the gift he gives us. First of all, the God that we pray to, god is father. That is what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples from the very beginning of this passage to the end of this passage. It's kind of bookended Start by praying, father, how thou'd be your name, comes to the end and he starts talking about what it means for God to be father. So there's an emphasis here, and it doesn't seem like that big a deal to us when we hear that, when we read that, that doesn't leap off the page. Wow, father, but it did to those disciples in that day. And here's why these guys knew a lot of the Old Testament. You go back into the Old Testament. You only see God referred to as Father in the Old Testament 15 times, only 15 times, and those 15 times out of them, not one of those times is referring to praying to God as Father, and so this was a whole new picture. You get to the Gospels, and in the Gospels alone Matthew, mark, luke and John you see God referred to as Father 165 different times, and almost every single one of them in fact 164 of them, all but one Jesus talks about his Father as he relates to his disciples. And so what we're seeing in Jesus' ministry with his disciples is that there is a right and a privilege and an honor that those who trust in Jesus and those who follow Jesus have to be able to come to God as Father. That when we talk to God or we talk about God, we don't talk about God in some theological monologue with these pious sounding phrases. We don't come to God and say Almighty, god of God, of all gods, the dreadful creator of the earth and ground of all being. We come to this God and we say Father, dad. This is an incredible picture that he was showing to his disciples, that they have a relationship with God as their Father. This is something we need to remember when we pray, because we have a tendency if we're really honest, we have a tendency when we pray, to sometimes approach God as if we're the Father and he's the child, as if we know how to run the house a little better than he does, as if we could give him some tips on how to run this universe, because he's messing up in some areas and some things he wouldn't do exactly like we're doing. And even in the church there's a popular idea misconception today that when we pray, the purpose of our prayers is to control God. The only problem with that is, if millions of Christians around the world are controlling God with their limited understanding and mixed motives, they're controlling God's will. Now, what is to keep this world from shattering to a zillion shards of personal priorities that are represented across this room as well as across the rest of the world? And if God's will is under my control, then doesn't that make me God? That's not the way prayer works. He is our Father. When we pray to Him as Father, we basically are acknowledging two things. Number one we are expressing our reverence to Him. We're expressing the fact that he is in control, that he is sovereign. We've talked about that. We talked about that last week. He is in control of things, not us. He is our Father. But not just expressing our reverence to Him. We're enjoying our relationship with Him. There's that intimacy here with the fact that we pray to God as Father. That is astounding. You think about it with me, ladies and gentlemen. For those of you who have trusted in Jesus Christ to save you from your sins, you have intimacy with the Creator of the universe. Let that show come. You have intimacy with the Creator of the universe. You have intimacy with the Creator of the universe. Can anybody say amen to that? Are we excited about this? You have intimacy with the Creator of the universe. You come to this God and you have the privilege of saying Father, wake up. This morning We've got intimacy with Him. We express our reverence to Him and we enjoy our relationship with Him. God is Father and we are children. This is the overriding picture that Jesus is giving us here. God's Father, we are children, and what he does here at the end of this passage is he begins to contrast earthly fathers with heavenly fathers and he begins to help us understand what kind of Father we are praying to. And he says this contrast is kind of arguing from the lesser of the greater. If this is this way, then God is even more so this way. How much more. It's a great phrase that he's showing us here. I want you to think about who God is our Father and how this gives you incredible confidence in your prayer. He basically says you know you look at relationships, fathers and their children on the earth. You know this is the principle your fathers care for their children. We know that Fathers care for their children. That's the picture that we most often see, although obviously there are many of us, I'm guessing, in this room who that has not been the picture in our families, but overriding the picture is fathers delight in caring for their children and, just like a human father, if his son, if Caleb, comes to me and asks me for a fish, I'm not going to give him a snake. If he asks me for an egg, I'm not going to give him a scorpion, and so we can trust that the fathers, just as human fathers, care for their children, how much more will our heavenly Father care for his children? What he does is he gives us a contrast. I want you to think about it with me. He says we are evil. Human fathers are evil. He is good, he's good. Now here's the deal. Jesus knows that there would be frustration in his disciples' prayer lives and there would be frustration in our prayer lives across this room and we all have been there where you're asking God for things and it seems like you're not getting what you're asking. It seems like your prayers are sometimes useless, they're not going anywhere. They never feel like in your prayer life that when you ask God for something, you're actually getting the reverse of what you asked for. And that frustrating. Sometimes you ask you pray that somebody would get better and they end up getting worse and you almost think I wish I just would have prayed that they'd stayed the same, so nothing would have happened. It's almost like when I pray, the reverse happens. So we start playing games, we start thinking, well, maybe I'll ask for the opposite of what I want and maybe I'll get it like we can pull some reverse psychology on God. But we get frustrated and Jesus is saying listen, listen, human fathers, human fathers care for their children even though they're evil. Now, that doesn't mean that every father in this room is a horrible person, but it does mean that every father in this room and every father in all of history has sin and has struggles with sin and, as a result of that, every father in this room, contrary to some of our beliefs, is not right all the time. And every father in this room does make mistakes and doesn't always. Most of the time may be, but doesn't always know what is best. And what Jesus is saying is the Father in heaven always dies. He always knows what is best. He is completely good. Don't miss this. We pray to the Father who is right 100% of the time. We may question that sometimes, but Jesus is reminding us when we're frustrated or we're really wrestling with our prayers. Don't forget the Father's right 100% of the time. He is good. Not only we are evil and he is good. We have limited wisdom. He has infinite wisdom. We have limited wisdom, but he has infinite wisdom. We have wisdom. I know my own dad was an example, a hero for me when it came to wisdom. That's one of the things I admired most about my dad who, so wise, had such good advice for every situation. Even as an adult. When I would explain things I was walking through a decision I was having to make and he would tell me something that I didn't agree with, I'd say, well, that just doesn't understand the whole situation. And I would learn to come back and say, all right, dad, I guess you were right on that one. But even his wisdom was limited. He knew situations. He knew how to judge those situations, but God knows best in every single situation. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows everybody I pray for better than they know themselves. He knows the whole picture. There's nothing that is surprising to God. He has infinite wisdom. So he's good, he has infinite wisdom and we have imperfect love. Fathers in this world have imperfect love. We. God has perfect love. God has perfect love. He is. God is the loving Father, beyond the most loving Father in the world, and His love is perfect and he always, always, always does what is best for His children. This is the Father we pray to Now. This doesn't mean that there is not a level of disappointment and hurt and struggle in our lives, in this room. When, when things don't work out the way we were praying for them to work out, when, when we don't get the promotion at work or when we fail the test, or when our son or daughter rebels, when, when the illness gets worse, when injustice occurs, when, when the relationship just erodes, when evil seems to have its day, there is hurt. It's not that there's not hurt and struggle and wrestling with that in our praying, but faith and confidence and prayer leans on the certainty that whatever didn't work out the way that I really would have liked to have seen it worked out, is due to God's infinite wisdom and perfect love and my finite wisdom and imperfect love. That's a level of faith that Jesus is calling us to in our praying, that we can trust in that. And I I don't say this lightly at all I remember praying on my knees and asking God to let my dad live through that heart attack. I remember calling out for him to do that. I remember the fact that on that Monday night I had meant to call him earlier in the day and forgotten to. And I remember praying, praying out God. I just want to talk to him At least one more time. God please spare his life. And I remember getting the phone call in the middle of my praying saying that he had not survived that heart attack. And I still pray today. God, I trusted in that moment when I asked for a fish. You did not give me a snake. I trust that you're good and you have infinite wisdom and perfect love for me and for my dad and for the rest of my family. I'm not saying this is an easy thing, but it is to God that we pray to. He is good, he is infinite in wisdom and he is perfect in love. This is the care of our heavenly Father. That is the fuel for confidence in prayer. People say. People say in the church if you have enough faith for what you're praying for then God will answer your prayers, if you just have enough faith. The only problem with that is it's not biblical and it's not practical. It's not practical. You're saying that if I had more faith then my dad would have lived through that, that it was because of my lack of faith that that happened. It's not biblical. Jesus said you don't have to have a lot of faith to move mountains. All you have to have is faith of a what A mustard seed, a small amount of faith. It's a little amount of faith. It's not about how much faith, ladies and gentlemen, you can pump into your prayers in order to get God to finally do what you want him to do. It's not about the faith we pump into our prayers. It's about the God that we're praying to and trusting in his goodness and his character, his power, his wisdom and his love. Here's the beauty of it. We don't even have to trust in our prayers because we can trust in our God. Now, some of it on the surface, in a sense that doesn't make sense. We don't want to mean we don't have to trust in our prayers. We can trust in our God. What I'm saying is we don't have to trust in our ability. Our certainty is not resting on what we're asking for it are. Our certainty is resting on the fact that the God of the universe is good, he is holy, he is perfect, he is infinite in all of his attributes and he does what is best 100% of the time. That doesn't mean that we don't ask him for specific things and we call out to him for what we want. That's not what that means. But it does mean we ask him for all the things we ask him for. We call out to him for all the things we call out to him for, and we trust that he is gonna do what is best every single time for his glory and our good. And even that, in and of itself, we wrestle with. And that leads us to this next truth that Jesus is highlighting here he is able to answer better than we can even ask. He's able to answer better than we can even ask. We're gonna talk a little bit and a little bit about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit helps us in this picture. But the beauty of it is some people say that you shouldn't get to the end of your praying and say, not my will but yours be done. That means you're doubting God in prayer or you're just giving yourself an out, you're kind of hedging your bets that maybe or maybe it won't work, and so you should end a prayer like that. And while I know that sometimes that can be expressed flippantly in praying, ladies and gentlemen, do not let anyone ever tell you that you should be ashamed or that you're faithless in your praying, for praying what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before he went to the cross. The depth of prayer is getting the point where we pour our hearts out to God and we say God, these are the things in my heart, but I want what you want more than I want even what's in my heart, and I trust that you're able to answer and to respond in my life even better than I can even ask. Let me give you a couple of examples, one a little more contemporary than the other. I wanna read you a sermon, part of a sermon, that was preached by a pastor named James Montgomery Boyce, incredible pastor, incredible writer, who was taken with cancer and this is the last time he preached to his congregation before succumbing to cancer. I want you to hear what he said. He said a relevant question when you pray is pray for what. Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you're free to do that, of course. My general impression, though, is that the God, who is able to do miracles and he certainly can is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place. So, although miracles do happen, they're rare. By definition, a miracle is an unusual thing. So pray for wisdom, for the doctors, and pray also for the effectiveness and the treatment, but above all, I would say, pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying himself in history and you say, where in all of history has God most glorified himself? He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn't by delivering Jesus from the cross, though he could have. Jesus said don't you think I could call down for my father 10 legions of angels for my defense, but he didn't do that, and yet that's where God is most glorified. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental. It's not as if God somehow forgot what was going on and something bad slipped by. God does everything according to his will. But what I've been impressed with now let's start this what I've been impressed with most is something in addition to that. It's possible, isn't it, for us to begin conceiving of God as sovereign and yet indifferent? God's in charge, but he doesn't care. But it's not that. God is not only the one who is in charge, god is also good and everything he does is good. If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you'd change it, you'd make it worse. It wouldn't be as good. So that's the way we want to accept it and move forward. And who knows what God will do? Sing to the Lord all the earth. Proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples, for great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. Obviously, I don't have cancer and I can pray that. That would be what I would ask for. I know that there are struggles, maybe with cancer, maybe with a variety of things, across this road, and I hope, maybe that gives us a little perspective, from somebody who's walking through that, of how we pray. The other example it's from a guy you've heard me talk about before, named George Mueller. George Mueller was a guy who built his whole life and ministry on prayer. He took care of thousands and thousands and thousands of orphans during his lifetime, but never once did he ask for money or resources to take care of them. All he did was pray. He didn't even make his needs known publicly. All he did was pray and he trusted God to provide. During his life he would deliberately write down prayer requests and then record how God answered them. He recorded during his life over 50,000 specific answers to prayer. He just loved showing the world that God hears and God answers prayer. About 10,000 of those prayers God would answer that very day. You come back later in the day. This is what God did. That's what he did throughout his whole life in ministry, just constantly saying here's how God is responding to my prayers. But here's the thing. This guy who prayed on behalf of orphan children, this guy who was a father to the fatherless in so many ways in his own family, had many struggles. Four children, two of them born stillborn One of them is only son, who lived to be born, died at a year old and then, later on in his life he saw his adult daughter die and that same time frame he saw his first wife pass away and his second wife pass away. This guy who had seen 50,000 answers to prayers and the things that were closest to his life and his heart didn't see a God answer. Or did he Listen to what he said? It is first wife's funeral. This will give you just a picture of their relationship. He said were we happy Very early we were with. Every year our happiness increased more and more. I never saw my beloved wife at any time when I met her unexpectedly anywhere in Bristol without being delighted to do so. I never met her in the orphan house without my heart being delighted to do so. Day by day, as we met in our dressing room at the orphan house to wash our hands before dinner and tea, I was delighted to meet her and she was equally pleased to see me. Thousands of times I told her my darling, I never saw you at any time since you became my wife without my being delighted to see you. She was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and he began to pray that she would get well. He said in her funeral the last portion of scripture which I read to my precious wife was this the Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Now, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have received grace. We are protectors of grace and to all such he will give glory. Also, I said to myself with regard to the latter part of that verse no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. I am in myself a poor, worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ. Therefore I walk uprightly before God. So if it is really good for me and for her, my darling wife will be raised up again, sick as she is. God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then I trust it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God, and all this springs from, as I have often said before, taking God of his word and believing what he says. God gives what is good, muler said at his wife's funeral, a hundred percent of the time, and this is the confidence we have in prayer. He's our father and we're children, and this confidence is utterly crucial to the life of prayer. If this truth, if this picture is not a reality, then we are destined to live defeated prayer lives. You will not sustain a life of prayer, brothers and sisters, if you think that the God of the universe is stonewalling you or if you think that he's angry with you or if you think he's even neutral in your life, we'll never be able to sustain a life of prayer. But you will sustain the life of prayer when you believe that God is able and God is willing, and God will always give much more than even the best father would give if he was put in the same situation. He is father and we are children, and we call out to him to invite you to pull out your Bible again and open up the picture of the fact that we're children. He is father, is the driving confidence behind our praying and it leads us into this next part. That is a little different than what we might expect Jesus to say here in Luke, chapter 11. You get with me, come back with me to Luke, chapter 11, verse 13, and it says if you then know you're evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. So there's the comparison. He says how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? This is one of those parts in scripture where we see something we didn't quite expect to see. Matthew, chapter 7, verse 11. Jesus is giving a very similar teaching. He says if you then know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give anybody know? He says good gifts to those who ask him and that kind of makes sense okay, you know how to give good gifts, so your father will give good gifts. That's not what he says here. Instead of saying good gifts, he actually says the father, your father in heaven, will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. Whenever we see something like this in scripture, it just kind of makes you wonder okay, what's what's she just saying here? Because it's a little different than what we would expect, a little, in a sense, a little disappointing, if you really think about it, because when you pray for things and Jesus says your, your father, will give you the Holy Spirit, you're like it's disrespectful but a little disappointed. That's nice, but I really want this thing over here. I really want what I asked for. Now, this is the spirit, and we'd like to be spiritual enough to think that that would not be the case, but it is the case in most of our lives when we say well, you know, I really wasn't asking for the Holy Spirit, so thanks for that, but what about this deal that I'm praying for? That I really would like to see happen in my life? So what is she just saying here? And and it's at this point that we begin to unlock the beauty of why just why we can be confident with whatever we pray for, because of the gift that he gives us being the spirit. I want you to think about the Holy Spirit of God and how the Holy Spirit of God transforms our confidence in prayer. First of all, the spirit indwells us and dwells us. Think about it with me. Think about it when. This is when this verse just begins to open up wide. When we ask God for things, he always gives us the Holy Spirit in response. When we ask God for comfort, he gives us the comforter. When you ask him for a guidance, he gives us the guide. When we ask him for truth, he gives us the one who teaches all truth. When we ask him for wisdom, he gives us the spirit of wisdom. When we ask him for power or strength, he gives us the spirit of power. He gives us everything. And, giving us the spirit, he doesn't just give us comfort for a little bit, or guidance for a little bit, or or power in this particular situation. Instead, he gives us himself the spirit and dwells us. And that's the beauty of why Jesus would say when you pray, you ask God for good things, as your father, he won't just give you good things, he'll give you himself. He'll give you the good thing, the good one who gives all good things. This is the picture here you've got in your notes. There we ask for gifts. He gives us the giver. We ask for the source, we ask for the supply. He gives us the source. It's like going to God and asking him for money God, I'd like to have some money in this and he says you know, I'm not going to give you money. Instead, I'm just going to give you the bank. Would that be okay? If I give you the bank? We don't. We don't get the gifts. We get the giver of all the good gifts. We don't. We don't get the supply of things, we get the source of all of that supply. We don't just get money. When we go to God, we get, we get the bank. All that he has. Now think about how bold this is to go to the God of the universe and to say you know, god, I don't, I don't want just comfort in this situation. I don't want just guidance in this situation, I don't. I don't want just strength to walk through this situation, if it be alright with you. I know you're running a whole universe and everything, but I need to just come and live in me. Okay, why don't you just come and inhabit me? I know I'm pretty fouled up human being, but I just want you to come in and live in me and I want you to stay here forever, just permanently, if you could. Just, I mean, that's pretty bold, that's. That's kind of pushing the envelope, isn't it? But that's exactly what Jesus is teaching us about prayer, the only prayer to God. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He doesn't just give us things. We are people that are infatuated with things. In our materialistic culture, we don't want things. When we pray, we get God himself. The Holy Spirit of God dwells in us and enables us to walk through every single thing we're praying for. This is an incredible truth. The Spirit indwells us. Not only indwells us, but the Spirit empowers us. Empowers us, you think about it. Jesus is talking to these disciples. These disciples knew about the Spirit of God. You ought to put yourself in their shoes with their Old Testament knowledge. We're gonna run down this and we're not gonna have time to turn all these places, but you might write some of these scriptures down. They knew about the Spirit who formed creation. They knew Genesis, chapter one, verse two. They knew Job, chapter 33, verse four. Isaiah, chapter 40. All those places talking about the Spirit forming creation. The Spirit was hovering on the waters. The Spirit is the one who brought creation into being. Who brought us into being? It was the Spirit of God. So they know that from the Old Testament. They know that this is the Spirit who directed the prophets and the kings throughout the Old Testament. It was the Spirit that was on David and Solomon. It was the Spirit that was on guys like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Hagia and Zechariah Incredible men. It was the Spirit who was giving them everything they needed to prophesy. It was the Spirit who anointed and led Jesus. Remember Isaiah, chapter 61. The Spirit will be on the Messiah and anoint him to preach good news to the poor. And it's why Jesus quotes from that passage in Luke, chapter four. He says the Spirit is on me and Luke shows us over and over again, chapter four especially the Spirit was on Jesus. The Spirit was there when Jesus was baptized. The Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted. It was the Spirit who was leading Jesus Christ himself. It's the Spirit who inaugurated the church. Joel, chapter two, verse 28 through 32,. Ezekiel, chapter 36. In the Old Testament, talking about how there was coming a day when God was gonna put his spirit in his people, called the church Acts. Chapter two is the culmination of that, when Joel two and Ezekiel 36 becoming reality and the Spirit of God comes to dwell on the people of God and empowers them to speak in all kinds of different languages and proclaim the gospel to all the nations that are represented there. It was the Spirit who inaugurated the church. Now, what Jesus is saying is that same Spirit God promised throughout the Old Testament, the Spirit that was hovering on the waters and brought creation into being. The Spirit who was all in these men and women who trusted in God and were used mindfully by God. That Spirit is yours, that same Spirit that you've seen throughout the Old Testament. Now that we've seen throughout the New Testament, do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, that that Spirit is yours in Jesus Christ? This is the Spirit who gives God's children everything, everything that sounds kind of vague. The Spirit gives God's children, gives us everything, but it's true. You cannot name one thing in your life as a Christian and you're a Christian lie. You cannot name one thing in your life as a Christ follower that is not a direct result of the activity of the Holy Spirit of God. You can't name one thing the fact that you were even convicted of your sin and brought to faith in him. John, chapter 16,. The Holy Spirit did that. 1 Corinthians, 12, 3,. The only way you can confess Christ as Lord is if the Spirit moves in you. It enables you to do that. Everything you're gifted with is from the Spirit. 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. You are filled with the Spirit. Ephesians, chapter five, verse 18. You have the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians, chapter five. Whenever we ask for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control all those things they come from who Come from the Spirit. Spirit alone is able to give all of those things. The fact that we are resisting sin and growing in the likeness of Christ is all because of the Spirit. 2nd Thessalonians, chapter two. 2nd Corinthians, chapter three, verse 18. The fact that we even have power over sin and power over death. Romans, chapter eight, verse one no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Every good thing we have in Christ, everything that affects the way we walk with Christ, is all dependent on the Spirit, the Spirit of God. He gives the children of God everything. Now we're beginning to see why we would be foolish to ask for anything but the Holy Spirit in our frame, because the Holy Spirit is foundational for everything in our Christian life. It's God saying I'm not gonna leave you to walk through the struggles in your life this morning alone. I'm gonna put my presence inside of you and I'm gonna enable you. I'm gonna do it for you. I'm gonna give you the strength, the power, the comfort, the guidance, everything you need. I'm gonna come dwell in you with my power. He enduels us, he empowers us and finally, the Spirit pleads for us. The Spirit pleads for us Now. This is where it just all comes together. If you bottom line praying, when it really comes down to it, praying is really asking God for what we want and for things to work out and good for us and for other people. That's really what most of our praying comes down to. Is that a bad thing? I don't think it is. Romans, chapter eight, verse 28 says that is God's desire for every single one of us. In the strong, god works together in all things for the what the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose. God is out for your good and His glory, and they don't contradict at all. But here's the beauty. We know that verse. We always quote Romans 8, 28. I know that in all things God works together for the good. Do you realize how important the Spirit is to 8, 28? You back up two verses. It says we don't know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us, but the groans that words cannot even begin to express. Verse 27 says he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit listen to this the Spirit of God intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. What that means is is the Holy Spirit is constantly, constantly pleading on our behalf. Father, bring about what is good in your children's lives. That's what the Spirit pleads for. Even when we don't know how to express that, the Spirit dies. And so here's where the Spirit just absolutely transforms even what we pray. The Spirit conforms our prayers to the will of God. The Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. How do I pray according to God's will? Ask the Spirit, trust the Spirit. Ask the Spirit to transform your praying, conform it to His will. And then, in the process of conforming our prayers, the Spirit transforms our lives. And everything that God wants to do in every single one of our lives in this room happens as a result of the Spirit, of God's work in our life. And so when we pray, jesus says you ask the Father for good things, he'll give you the good one. He gives you the Spirit. And here's the beauty. Ephesians, chapter one, verse 13 and 14, says for all in this room who have trusted in Christ, the Spirit lives in you Right now. You don't have to ask for Him to come for the first time. He lives in us, he dwells in us. 1 Corinthians, chapter six, verse 18 through 20,. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit dwells in us. And so if we want to experience the abundance of Christ, if we want to experience the abundance of walking with God, our Father, that means we need to get our lives in touch with who? With the Holy Spirit. We don't need to see the Spirit as this thing on the side that we're not sure exactly how he relates to God. The Spirit is living inside of us and he is empowering us and he pleads for us and all throughout this series, it's been a time where I have just been challenged by this text over and over and over again. I really believe that the greatest void in our church right now is the kind of desperate praying that we see all over the book of Acts. That has just not been a reality and us corporately, and what God has shown me over and over again in studying through Luke, chapter 11, is that the reason that it's not there corporately is because it hasn't been in the past or personally, and this has been a humbling study and this text has brought me to my knees, literally brought me to my knees. I want to be a pastor, I want us to be a church. Pleads for the Spirit of God to show Himself in this church in powerful ways, in unusual ways, in fresh ways, so that we don't do church Business is usual anymore, so that we are doing things that, apart from the Spirit of Almighty God could not be explained so that we are a people who are desperate for Him and calling out to Him, for Him to captivate us with His presence, to overwhelm us with His presence, not just in this place it's not about a building, but us as a people that we as a people would be so captivated by the presence of our God and our lives that our lives would look radically different on a day by day by day basis, and this church would look radically different and we would be empowered to walk through the struggles that are represented across this room and we would be empowered to make the gospel and grace of Jesus Christ known to the ends of the earth, just like the Spirit said he would do in His people. We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of Radical with David Platt. For more resources from David Platt, we invite you to visit radicalnet.