SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and today we continue our study of Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We have extra copies.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't bring one with you and you'd like one to follow along, just raise your hand up real high.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody will drop one off at your row.
SPEAKER_00: URL.
SPEAKER_00: One back here in the back if there's anybody that thank you, Matt, for doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your hand up high, and uh Matt will come along.
SPEAKER_00: We want to thank also those who joined us online over the last week for worship andor for Bible study of some sort, or one of our small groups that happens to meet uh online as well.
SPEAKER_00: We had folks from uh see, Shah Alam Selangor, Malaysia.
SPEAKER_00: I hope I said that right.
SPEAKER_00: From Nairobi, Kenya, from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and from Peachtree City, Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's good.
SPEAKER_00: I like all of those places, and uh so grateful uh that we were able to uh have those folks join us.
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege, honor to be able to gather with uh some of God's people from all around the world as well as just down the road in Georgia as well.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in uh Luke chapter 11, and we're gonna call our study the gift, privilege, and power of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of prayer part two, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Last week we did Luke's version of what we call the Lord's Prayer, shorter than what we this uh that we recite and pray each week here is from Matthew chapter 6, and uh in Luke chapter 11, verses 1 through 4, which we studied last week.
SPEAKER_00: We have a what's what would be typically referred to as the Lord's Prayer, but the shorter version or the edited version.
SPEAKER_00: And uh others see it as a completely different teaching of Jesus on prayer, just happens to be similar because he actually believes the same things about prayer every time he taught them.
SPEAKER_00: So uh either way, it's fine with me.
SPEAKER_00: I like it that it's in the context of those four verses that we enter into now uh verses 5 through 13 today.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is one of God's greatest gifts to us.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's an open invitation to communicate with, uh, to actually commune with our Maker, the creator of the entire universe.
SPEAKER_00: And he has invited you and me, as we saw last week, to call him Father, to be in an intimate, close, familial relationship with God, and at the same time realize that he's the creator of everything that exists, uh, that he is uh King of kings, Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's that almighty and yet that close to us as well.
SPEAKER_00: Yet if we're honest, most of us would admit we come to prayer so often with mixed motives, with uh distracted hearts and uncertain faith sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm among folks who could say that and would confess that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus teaches us, though, here in the passage we're going to look at today, that prayer is not only a gift, but it's a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: It's also a source of transforming grace and power in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus will urge us to ask, to seek, and to knock.
SPEAKER_00: You'll read that today as we go through this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And I've probably that's probably the most familiar portion of what we're about to read.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want us to know that Jesus, in telling this parable that he tells here in this passage, uh, is comparing God the Father to not uh not not to the guy that is looking for the loaf of bread, uh, but he's actually contrasting God the Father with this neighbor that the guy goes to ask for bread from, and we'll see how that works out in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Um, when I was a kid, I don't know if this happened when you were a kid, but I used to have um sort of a sense that there were a lot of rules to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Um, how many of you were ever told that you needed to bow your head or anybody close your eyes?
SPEAKER_00: Were you ever told that?
SPEAKER_00: Fold your hands sometimes, and we even have the emoji nowadays that we use so often, all of us that are, yeah, I'm praying for you, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um so we had a lot of rules.
SPEAKER_00: And when I was growing up, um there were uh a number of those, and I and I I even, you know, some of us kids, we would say, if if we caught one of the other kids with their eyes open during a prayer, we would say, You your prayer doesn't count, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And of course they'd say, Well, how'd you know I had my eyes open?
SPEAKER_00: And uh and then I, as a kid, you know, kind of a young younger guy, I when I was reading the Bible, I would I would get to some place where Jesus prayed, and I was always fascinated by that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and one time, I just remember the first time I ever read it and noticed it, that it said, He lifted up his eyes to the heaven and he prayed.
SPEAKER_00: And the thought crossed my mind that Jesus' prayer didn't count.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I was kind of I wasn't sure what to do with that, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Um later on in life, I I I came across this little book.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you probably have this little book, and I I learn a lot by listening to other people pray.
SPEAKER_00: I learn a lot, of course, listening to my wife pray.
SPEAKER_00: She's uh the Lord has given her a gift, and she voices uh what's on our hearts, and and um both in terms of our laments as well as our confidence in God, and I appreciate this so much.
SPEAKER_00: Um this little book is called Children's Letters to God.
SPEAKER_00: It's been around for a long, long time.
SPEAKER_00: I keep it.
SPEAKER_00: And every now and then I just go back and read some of them.
SPEAKER_00: They're they're short, you can probably see it.
SPEAKER_00: They're very, very short little one-sentence prayers, and some of them are quite inspiring.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are kind of odd, but uh you learn a lot, I think, from listening to people pray, and you learn a lot, especially I think, from from kids.
SPEAKER_00: Um I like I like this one.
SPEAKER_00: Allison, dear God, I read in the Bible the word begat.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: No, nobody else seems to know, and that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Marnie writes, dear God, on Halloween, I'm gonna wear a devil's costume.
SPEAKER_00: Is that gonna be all right with you?
SPEAKER_00: That's good, Marnie.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Anita writes uh her prayer out.
SPEAKER_00: It's dear God, is it true that my father won't get into heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house?
SPEAKER_00: So it's probably on the church league and everything.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Um I like this one.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't I'll I'll read uh just a few of these, but dear God, do animals use you or do they have somebody else?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just that's just kind of a curious thought.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what do animals have some kind of a thing or what?
SPEAKER_00: Uh dear God, Dennis writes, my grandpa says you were around when he was a little boy.
SPEAKER_00: How far back do you go?
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this might ruffle your feathers.
SPEAKER_00: Dear God, I'm an American.
SPEAKER_00: What are you?
SPEAKER_00: Robert, that should stir us up a little bit, probably in a good way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Joyce writes, Dear God, thank you for the baby brother.
SPEAKER_00: But what I wanted was a puppy.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's really good.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let's see.
SPEAKER_00: I have, I wanted to go to the back.
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple really, they saved some of the best ones for the last.
SPEAKER_00: I just think this is good.
SPEAKER_00: Uh dear God, I think about you sometimes even when I'm not praying.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, man, that is that's a challenge to me as an adult uh to think that a child would do that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh dear God, my brother told me about being born, but it doesn't sound right.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, they are honest, they think about some of this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Um dear God, do you ever feel alone since dear God, I don't ever feel alone since I found out about you.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's that's true, and that's the way I feel too.
SPEAKER_00: Um Jesus taught us in the Lord's Prayer to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when we look at the one that we we pray every single week, we note that it's all in the plural.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus reminding us in the prayer, the model prayer that he gives us to pray, that you, if you have chosen Jesus as your Savior, if you've been saved, if you belong to Jesus, if you've entered his kingdom and you and our disciple of Jesus, you're never alone for the rest of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Even though there's an epidemic of loneliness out there, ironically, in spite of the fact that we are all more connected than ever before, uh, there is this epidemic of loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: And yet for the Christian, we can say, never alone again.
SPEAKER_00: Not only do you belong to Jesus, but you belong to everyone else who belongs to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a really wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at this passage, it's fascinating that we move from the prayer he taught us to pray, where it's in the plural.
SPEAKER_00: Now we move to a prayer that it seems to me he's really focusing in on the personal aspect of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's quite helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at the text, if you will, Luke 11, verses 5 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, this is right after that Lucan version of the Lord's Prayer, suppose one of you, so how many?
SPEAKER_00: One of you.
SPEAKER_00: Suppose one of you has a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves.
SPEAKER_00: For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.
SPEAKER_00: And from inside he shall answer and say, Do not bother me, the door has already been shut, my children and I are in bed, I can't get up and give you anything.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus continues, and Jesus says, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the guy just keeps banging on the door.
SPEAKER_00: It's late at night, he keeps pounding, he's desperate.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that Middle Eastern hospitality requires him to supply whoever comes to visit him with food and shelter.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in some traditions, you would be spat upon the next day if you had failed in your duty to provide hospitality in that part of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's much different than our in our own, you know, they saw things much differently then.
SPEAKER_00: So he's this guy, Jesus says, maybe he isn't going to get out of bed because he's your neighbor, but maybe if you just, if if this guy keeps persistently banging on the door, he'll get him out of bed.
SPEAKER_00: That'll happen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus says, I say to you, and now he's addressing the people directly after having said this little, given this little parable, I say to you, ask, and it shall be given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Seek, and you shall find.
SPEAKER_00: Knock, and it shall be open to you.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be great if you circle those three verbs, ask, seek, and knock.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you have a pew Bible, feel free to mark it up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Those are three really important verbs there.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who asks, Jesus says, receives.
SPEAKER_00: He who seeks, finds.
SPEAKER_00: To him who knocks, it shall be opened.
SPEAKER_00: Now suppose one of you, fathers, those of you who have children, it is asked by his son for a fish.
SPEAKER_00: The father won't give the child a snake instead of a fish, will he?
SPEAKER_00: Or if he asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
SPEAKER_00: If you then, you fathers that he's talking to, if you then, being evil, you being sinners, you being imperfect fathers, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
SPEAKER_00: Really, really great verses, really helpful when we think about prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to make uh four points along the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start first, though, with this little Richard Foster quote.
SPEAKER_00: The truth of the matter is we will all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives, altruistic and selfish.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so on the one hand, you want to be generous, philanthropic, and all that, but at the same time, you're selfish, right?
SPEAKER_00: You also have the mixed motives of mercy and hatefulness.
SPEAKER_00: You you're also loving and bitter.
SPEAKER_00: Frankly, this side of eternity, Foster says, we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure.
SPEAKER_00: But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.
SPEAKER_00: We do not have to be bright or pure or filled with faith or anything.
SPEAKER_00: That is what grace means.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well, and we pray by it.
SPEAKER_00: And I think Foster's right there.
SPEAKER_00: That's from his book called Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Highly recommend it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, at the end of the sermon, I'll be coming back around to it again.
SPEAKER_00: It is one of those really good books.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to make uh I'm gonna make four points.
SPEAKER_00: One, that prayer is both a gift and a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: That would be the first thing I'd like to highlight for us here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus' teaching on prayer is continuing here from this Lord's prayer that he taught, this version of it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and in spite of um the fact that back then they might have had a lot of memorized prayers, just as for us, this is a memorized prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus wants us to know that it's supposed to still be dynamic, living, active.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So uh I find myself every now and then, because the words say and pray kind of rhyme, I find myself every now and then going, let's say and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Because I might sometimes only say, but I know I need to pray the Lord's Prayer when I get to those words up there.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that I need to do that together with you.
SPEAKER_00: It is in the plural in Matthew's version.
SPEAKER_00: Um, this little section that we're talking about, Jesus posits uh a little scenario, uh, a parable, if you will, of someone who needed something from the next door neighbor so that they could be hospitable to someone else.
SPEAKER_00: And so they go and they ask.
SPEAKER_00: That person gets a little grumpy and annoyed by the pounding and the asking, and it's late at night, and you're inconveniencing me and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus makes the point that you just persist, you persist with your neighbor, and maybe or likely your neighbor will get out of bed and finally give you something because you you banged on that door long enough and hard enough.
SPEAKER_00: And then he turns our attention to God the Father because he wants to contrast God the Father to the neighbor that has to be, you know, stirred up like that, annoyed, and who responds in a grumpy kind of way.
SPEAKER_00: And he's basically telling us your father is neither grumpy nor annoyed when you ask, when you seek, when you knock.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's really important for us to know.
SPEAKER_00: Keller, um, we've learned that prayer is both an instinct and a spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_00: As an instinct, prayer is a response to our innate but fragmentary knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: We instinctively we'll go, help, like that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um it is like a note in a bottle to whatever gods be there be.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole lot of people that yell help.
SPEAKER_00: Even people who aren't Christians will yell help to the God they don't believe in.
SPEAKER_00: Even atheists occasionally who say they're atheists, or agnostics who say we just don't know if there's God at all, will find themselves occasionally crying out to the God they don't know if that God exists.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're desperate and they innately, they intrinsically know they must get outside help in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Even though most of the moments of their lives they would deny the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Keller goes on to say, though, when prayer becomes a gift of the Spirit, prayer becomes the continuation of a conversation that God has started.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say prayer is both a gift and a privilege, I want you to know you didn't create prayer, neither did I.
SPEAKER_00: And even that impulsive scream, the cry for help, the prayer of the atheist, the agnostic, the Christian, and anybody else that ever cries out to God, even that is a gift that God has put in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: He made the first move every time.
SPEAKER_00: And he's the one that somehow or another designed and wired us to want to reach outside of ourselves and look for some kind of help.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing, recognizing some of us that he's actually invited us to prayer, pray, I think is really helpful.
SPEAKER_00: So prayer is a gift, and it's a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I want I want to highlight that just a little bit too, because in the story he told, um, the the guy that needs the loaves has to go next door because he wants to get some bread that he because this other person is coming along to visit him.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want you to know the privilege that you have is that you don't even have to go next door.
SPEAKER_00: You, if you're a if you're a Christian, if you're a person who is a Christian, um, I want you to know something.
SPEAKER_00: You are united with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His life is in you, and your life is in him.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in the New Testament, the term Christian is really only used about three or four times.
SPEAKER_00: Begins in the book of Acts when uh a centurion, I think it is, he notices something about all of the Christian believers in Syrian Antioch, that that town up in Syria that was called Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: There's several towns called Antioch, but that's why it's called Syrian Antioch.
SPEAKER_00: But he notices something about them, that they're like little Christs, and so he calls them Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And say three or four times in our New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: But you know how many times it's said of believers in the New Testament that they are in Christ or in him, and the personal pronoun is a reference to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: At least 160, I'm gonna say it's actually more, but at least 160 times it's said that you who are followers of Jesus, you who have trusted Jesus, you belong to Jesus, and you know it.
SPEAKER_00: Your lives are hidden together with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You're knit together with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You are you you can't be separated because it's God that put you together with Him.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Holy Spirit that baptizes us into the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Holy Spirit that actually converts us in conversion.
SPEAKER_00: We are placed into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a work of God, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the beautiful thing about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's really comforting to me.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift and a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to go next door.
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is as close as your heartbeat and your breath.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the same thing as what's popular out here in this day and time.
SPEAKER_00: When a lot of people say, pray to the God in you, because you are God.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not saying you are God.
SPEAKER_00: We're saying you belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: And we're saying that God has knit you together with Himself and invited you to live in union with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that's closer than your heartbeat, closer than your next breath.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go next door, and you certainly don't have to bang on the door over and over and over again, trying to get God to hear you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus makes that very clear.
SPEAKER_00: Dale Ralph Davis has a commentary on the book of Judges, which we've studied here at the Village Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Love studying through it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just full of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but in it, there was this one little uh quote that I thought applied to our study today.
SPEAKER_00: If Yahweh, this is this is if God's help were given only when we prayed for it, only when we asked for it, only when we had sense enough to seek it, what paupers and orphans we would be.
SPEAKER_00: You see how eager he's saying, Yahweh, God, the God of the Bible, who reveals his personal name in the Old Testament as Yahweh, do you see how eager he is to want to have for us to come to him and to ask to seek to knock?
SPEAKER_00: Um Dale Ralph is making the point we'd be paupers if it was left to us.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not because I know the Lord has been answering lots of your prayers and my prayers before I even thought to pray about them.
SPEAKER_00: Let me try this.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you in this room, we did this last hour too, how many in this room only recognized in hindsight that God did something in your life that if you'd have known that it was coming up, you would have prayed about it, but you didn't pray about it.
SPEAKER_00: And in hindsight, in the kind of a rear view mirror redemption, you look and you go, oh, look what God did tonight.
SPEAKER_00: If I didn't even pray.
SPEAKER_00: Is that you?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if that's you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see, God is at work in your life, and sometimes we just don't even recognize it until it's in the rear view mirror, until we uh uh find that that Jesus beckoning us to uh to come and to ask and to to seek and to knock, which is really the next point I want to make, is to take a look at those verbs.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer encourages us to ask to seek and to knock.
SPEAKER_00: All three of the verbs, this is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a Greek scholar, I just know enough, I'm dangerous enough with a Greek dictionary, I can look some of this stuff up, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Um all three of these verbs are in the present tense, that is.
SPEAKER_00: Ask now, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But they're in the active voice and the imperative mood.
SPEAKER_00: The imperative mood means they're a command.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is saying this to us: ask and keep on asking.
SPEAKER_00: Present tense, continue to ask, keep on asking.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the active voice.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're constantly asking, you're constantly seeking, you're constantly knocking.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not the difference between what Jesus is saying there and what he has said in the parable is that the one guy is banging on the door and he becomes, he becomes an annoyance.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy in the house there with the bread that he wants gets grumpy about the whole thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we don't, we don't, Jesus says that because of his persistence, the guy will get up and give him bread.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus is trying to contrast is with the father, not only is he closer than the next door neighbor, he's as close as you simply praying to him on the way to work, or on the way to the next conversation with your spouse or your roommate, or on the on whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: He's that close.
SPEAKER_00: And that you ask, keep on asking, you seek, keep on seeking, you knock, and you keep on knocking, because the promise is there from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you ask, you'll receive, you seek, you'll find, you knock, it'll be opened unto you.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing promise that is.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing invitation that leads to a promise.
SPEAKER_00: The question is now: will I respond?
SPEAKER_00: Will I believe?
SPEAKER_00: Will I pray?
SPEAKER_00: Now there are other kinds of prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't here teaching about adoring God or confessing our sins to God, unless that's part of asking for his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And for as you repent, of course, you you might do that as they're uh in that way as well.
SPEAKER_00: But this is more about petitionary prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And more often than not, actually, throughout our Bibles, when we read about somebody praying, there's a petition involved.
SPEAKER_00: They're often asking some for something, seeking something, or knocking for something.
SPEAKER_00: Look up on the screen there.
SPEAKER_00: The difference between the three, they overlap.
SPEAKER_00: Of course they do.
SPEAKER_00: We would, even with our English words ask, seek, and knock, we would agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: But I just tried to differentiate a little bit between them.
SPEAKER_00: Asking acknowledges my dependence and my need.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that is one of the one of the most amazing things that God can do in our own hearts is to bring us to the place where we actually acknowledge that he's God and we're not.
SPEAKER_00: That we're the ones that are in need, that we're the ones who are coming to him in humility, bowing before him, lifting up the empty hands of faith, as Francis Schaefer used to say.
SPEAKER_00: And anticipating that he will hear our prayers because why we're invited to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Seeking reminds us that we may draw near.
SPEAKER_00: When I think about that, it's like I'm looking for something, you know, seeking, you know, asking, seeking, and then knocking, you're really getting close.
SPEAKER_00: You're at the door now, you're you're starting to knock.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God, yes, this is what I want to pray about, this is what I want to give to you.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens in the process, a lot of times for me, I don't know if this is true for you or not, a lot of times for me, I ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knocking, keep on knocking.
SPEAKER_00: And the circumstances may change or they may not change, the thing I'm praying about.
SPEAKER_00: But what does change is me.
SPEAKER_00: He changes me as I humble myself before him and ask, as I recognize that he's wiser than I am, as I understand that he's God, he knows what's best, he knows what's good.
SPEAKER_00: See, I think I know what's good all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I think I know what the outcome should be and how it should be brought about.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, here Jesus is reminding us over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: We come to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We come with our petitions as we're instructed to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: But we recognize that He's God.
SPEAKER_00: We're not, He's wise.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't nearly as wise as God is.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really important for us to keep all of that in mind.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis said it this way: prayer is a request.
SPEAKER_00: The essence of prayer as a request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.
SPEAKER_00: And if an infinitely wise being listens to the request of finite foolish creatures like us, of course, he will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them.
SPEAKER_00: So, kind of like the question I asked before and asked you to raise your hands.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you, and I might have asked this last week, but I'm gonna do it again.
SPEAKER_00: How many of us in the room went to the Lord requesting something that was not given to us, it was denied, and later on you found, and you may have been quite passionate about that prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You might have been certain that was the highest good you could achieve and the most flourishing, the way your heart would just flourish.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God didn't give it to you, and in hindsight, you're really glad he did not give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Please, hi, because you're now testifying for a bunch of people who need to see this.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really true.
SPEAKER_00: For a lot of us, we understand in that experience, don't we, that God knows better than we do.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul was really clear about this, just as Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Be anxious for nothing in Philippians 4, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, and then this peace of God, which passes all understanding, will be yours.
SPEAKER_00: Now, do it again, but I think you're probably getting tired of raising your hands.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you have known the peace of God that has passed your understanding?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you've been in the moment, you've been in something, you've gone through something, or maybe you're going through it right now, and you don't, you can't explain.
SPEAKER_00: It passes understanding how it is that you are at peace in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of heads gone like this.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us know that experience.
SPEAKER_00: How quickly I forget, though, and that's why I need to be reminded by reading a passage like this, and I need to be reminded by gathering with other people who have had this kind of experience, with the God of the Bible, who has been faithful to his promises and his invitation for me to come ask and keep on asking, come and seek, keep on seeking, knock and to continue knocking.
SPEAKER_00: God is that great to us.
SPEAKER_00: But on the God side of all of this, here's what's really beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father is delighted.
SPEAKER_00: He's actually delighted when we come to him, when we come to him with those kinds of prayers.
SPEAKER_00: He really loves us.
SPEAKER_00: He's not in bed with his kids, grumpy because you're banging on the door.
SPEAKER_00: That's not God, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: So don't think of God that way.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I've been that way.
SPEAKER_00: I've got I and maybe occasionally you you you catch something like that in a book, little book like The Children's Prayers, where it's, God, I know you're really busy.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're like managing the entire universe right now.
SPEAKER_00: And that must, I that's probably taxing to you, isn't that?
SPEAKER_00: And and here I am.
SPEAKER_00: And what I wanted to pray about was the fact that I can't get the curl out of my hair today.
SPEAKER_00: Trying to straighten my hair.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, or Lord, I'm late for work.
SPEAKER_00: Can you just give me green lights on the way to work?
SPEAKER_00: I need green lights here.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're busy.
SPEAKER_00: I know you got you're trying to solve all the problems of the way, but could I, could I, and I I just I'm here's the point I'm trying to make.
SPEAKER_00: Your Heavenly Father delights that you come to him, and there is nothing so small that he wouldn't be delighted for you to come to him and bring to him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you're gonna get green lights all the way to work.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply saying your father loves it when you come to him.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's something as banal as the curl in your hair that you want to straighten out, or the straight hair that you want to curl.
SPEAKER_00: Seems none of us are satisfied, are we?
SPEAKER_00: But he loves for his children to come to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that different from all of the other kinds of gods you hear about that are demanding you to balance out the moral scales?
SPEAKER_00: And if you can just barely tip the scales to like 51% good deeds over 49% bad deeds, maybe he won't squash you or burn you alive in hell.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the see, the God of the Bible is just, he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: He's delighted when you come to him and he wants you to come asking, seeking, and knocking.
SPEAKER_00: So do that.
SPEAKER_00: Delight the Lord in that way.
SPEAKER_00: Deal Moody uh once said that some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking.
SPEAKER_00: And then Moody makes this slam dunk point.
SPEAKER_00: Look, the way to trouble God is not the come at all.
SPEAKER_00: You want to upset God?
SPEAKER_00: Ignore him.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever come to him.
SPEAKER_00: Don't use the gift he's given you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't access him like you can.
SPEAKER_00: He's closer than your next door neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Even if your neighbor's not grumpy, he's closer than that, too.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you ought to, and I ought to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We should go to him.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon, I love this quote.
SPEAKER_00: Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the Lord with all thy jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores.
SPEAKER_00: Is that you today?
SPEAKER_00: He alone can heal, and he delights to do it.
SPEAKER_00: It is our Lord's office to bind up the brokenhearted, and he is gloriously at home in it.
SPEAKER_00: Man, there's so much there, and it just makes my heart uh thrilled when I think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus says something at the end of the passage that we studied.
SPEAKER_00: Look at uh verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: Would you again?
SPEAKER_00: Um He's describing that if one of the fathers has a son that comes to him for a uh in verse 11, if they if they come asking for a fish, uh uh an earthly father wouldn't give him a snake, would he?
SPEAKER_00: If he comes asking for an egg, you wouldn't give him a scorpion, would you?
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I know most of us, I mean, raise your hands if you're you don't like snakes.
SPEAKER_00: There's a few of us.
SPEAKER_00: How about scorpions?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I don't care for these, chocolate or not, I don't care how you cook them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not interested in any of that stuff at all.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but Jesus' point is if you, human beings, who actually have mixed motives all the time, including in your relationships with your children, including in your relationships with your friends or your spouse or your roommates or your co-workers, you've got mixed motives all the time, so do I.
SPEAKER_00: And they show up in my prayers, that's true.
SPEAKER_00: But if you, all of us, being evil like that, know how to give good gifts to your children, your coworkers, your spouses, your friends, whatever, how much more shall your heavenly father give?
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this, the Holy Spirit, to those who ask him, what is that about?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what we wanted was the cash and the condo and the car.
SPEAKER_00: And you're offering the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You know.
SPEAKER_00: Um, are we supposed to be Pentecostals, all of us?
SPEAKER_00: What is that about?
SPEAKER_00: Are we supposed to be swinging from the chandeliers and running up and down the aisles and all that?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what this is?
SPEAKER_00: No, I know a lot of people think the Holy Spirit only manifests in noisy ways.
SPEAKER_00: But I got news for you.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit manifests in quiet ways as well.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I'm thankful for it.
SPEAKER_00: And so are all the Presbyterians.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm really grateful for it.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is not only about noise, he's not only about sensationalism.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he does some pretty amazing things sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: But again, it always goes back to prayer as a request.
SPEAKER_00: God knows what's best.
SPEAKER_00: God's in charge of the outcomes.
SPEAKER_00: Will we trust him?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we can come and ask and keep on asking.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we can come and seek and keep on seeking and knock and keep on knocking.
SPEAKER_00: And in the process of all of that, the Lord is doing some really great things in our hearts and in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, again, it's not the circumstances he wants to work on.
SPEAKER_00: He who knows best, he who knows what's truly good for your highest good, knows that he wants you to learn something about him and your relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And so he invites you to ask and keep on asking and to seek and keep on seeking, and he wants to give you more of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the role.
SPEAKER_00: Just this is the this is not a comprehensive list.
SPEAKER_00: This is just some of the things the Holy Spirit does in your life and my life.
SPEAKER_00: And why I, as I was thinking about those last two verses, the last verse especially, I thought to myself, well, why would I pray for more of the Holy Spirit in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's some really good reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Because he convinces me of what's true in God's eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And this, by the way, this points out the difference.
SPEAKER_00: This is not about your truth or my truth.
SPEAKER_00: This is about God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how arrogant of you to suggest that you think you know what God's truth is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I myself created that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply saying I point to this book because I think it's the platform from which we hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: And God's truth is in his word, and that's why we study through books of the Bible here.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm glad the Holy Spirit convinces us of God's truth, convicts us of our sin, converts us into new creations in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I need that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad he connects me to the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be alone?
SPEAKER_00: I've seen a lot of lonely people in my time as a pastor and of all ages, people who are ostracized, marginalized by all the others in their prayer group, made fun of, bullied, all kinds of different people who just are lonely.
SPEAKER_00: There's an epidemic of loneliness out there.
SPEAKER_00: Um but when you belong to Jesus, you belong to everybody else who belongs to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Comforts us in all our trials.
SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't want more of that?
SPEAKER_00: Um, conforms us to the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I if I had another line there, I would have poured, I'd say pours courage into me to trust him and believe and to place my hope and confidence in him.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot that the Holy Spirit does, and I want more of the Holy Spirit, and I hope that you do too.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants us to have more of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He is, Jesus Himself is the true and better friend of the friends that were mentioned in that parable there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus himself, God the Father and the Holy Spirit together, are closer to us than a neighbor that we might be able to annoy into giving us a loaf of bread or two.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself is the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just have it, he is it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we keep running to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just have the truth or point out the truth, he is the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And so you always see the Bible pointing you to see God as your greatest need is met in him.
SPEAKER_00: And you, if you're a Christian, are in him, and he is in you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll close with this quote from the second quote from Foster, slowly, almost imperceptibly.
SPEAKER_00: There's a shift in our center of gravity.
SPEAKER_00: We pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realization we are part of his life wondrously and mysteriously.
SPEAKER_00: God moves from the periphery of our prayer experience to the center.
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, village chapel, let us come to him.
SPEAKER_00: Let us go to him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is calling, he's calling you, he's calling me.
SPEAKER_00: And let's not just go occasionally, not just when we're here, for this one-hour experience corporately together.
SPEAKER_00: And it's rich and it's beautiful, and I love to be together with God's people.
SPEAKER_00: But let's all week long hear his summons, his call for us to commune with him in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you stopped praying about some stuff that you were, you that it was on the front of your prayer list, the top of your prayer list.
SPEAKER_00: And you stopped because you think God isn't hearing your prayer, or you think God's just said no, or you might even have gotten to the place where you just don't think God's interested or listening anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And here, this passage for me, I hope this stirs you up to begin praying about that again.
SPEAKER_00: Ask and keep on asking.
SPEAKER_00: He may be doing a work in you right now as you do that.
SPEAKER_00: Father, may the good seed of your word find fertile soil in our hearts today, and in our minds too, as we think.
SPEAKER_00: May we think thoughts that you have offered to us here in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Thoughts about you, thoughts about who we are, thoughts about our relationship with you, thoughts about our prayer life, thoughts about how much we need you, thoughts about how much we can count on you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, speak to us today.
SPEAKER_00: And this week we pray in the name of Jesus, amen and amen.