Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 11:1-13
"Grab a Bible. Find the Gospel of Luke chapter 11." If you did get a bulletin, there's an outline in the bulletin. You can follow along this morning. Luke chapter 11. This morning we're going to talk about prayer in Luke 11. Talking about prayer. I just start by giving you the big idea up front when you look at Luke 11 1 to 13. The big idea is very, very simple and it's this. Grace changes the way we pray. God's grace to us in Jesus Christ changes the way that we pray. You need to know that everything we talk about as we think about prayer this morning falls under the umbrella of Luke 19 10. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost and you need to know we all need to make sure we're on the same page up front that that is grace. Jesus coming to seek us and to save us is God's grace. You could define grace as God giving us the opposite of what we really deserve from Him. So the Bible says that God is holy and the Bible says that we are sinners. That means what we deserve from God, what we have earned from God, what we've merited from God. The wages that He owes us is wrath and death and hell. That's fair. That's justice. When God shows you mercy, He withholds what He should give to you. But when He shows you grace, He gives you the opposite of what He should give you. The Son of Man coming to seek and to save the lost. We have done nothing to deserve that. We've done nothing to merit that. We've done nothing to earn that. That is God giving us the opposite of what He should give us if He were to be fair with us. Grace, G-R-A-C-E. God's riches at Christ's expense. God gives us the opposite of what we deserve. Some of you this morning, I hope you learn a thing or two about prayer, but some of you this morning, that's what you need to get for the very first time. That when we come together on a Sunday morning, it's not just to come into this room, listen to a great band, pat ourselves on the back and say, "Man, God is lucky to have us. We are great people and we are here and God, I hope you're thankful that we all came this morning. We got the family up and we came to church. Man, God, look at all these great folks you have here. It's not us coming to offer something to God. It's not us trying to come earn our way with God. It's not us trying to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps. It's us coming in saying, "God, apart from you, we are lost and dead and we thank you that you gave us grace. You gave us the exact opposite of what we deserved. Instead of just punishing us eternally away from your presence, inhale, which would have been fair, you sent the Son of Man. And He came when we were lost to seek us. And He came when we were dead to save us. Some of you need to get that for the very first time just as a baseline. And this morning, if you take nothing else away, which I hope you do, but if you take nothing else away, you need to leave saying, "No longer am I going to come to God with a resume in hand or with a pile of accomplishments or to show Him how good I can be or to try to earn my way to heaven, I'm just going to acknowledge that I needed to be sought and I needed to be saved and I'm thankful that God gave me grace. He gave me the opposite of what I deserved. When you get that, and I know that many of you have gotten that, but when you get that, in grace takes root in your heart, it changes the way that you pray. Let me give you a few examples from outside of Christendom, outside of Christianity. You can look at major world religions all over planet earth. You have some Muslim men up on the top left, have some Hindu ladies over on the top right, you have some Buddhist men down on the bottom left, and then you have some Taoist priests over there on the bottom right, so just a few examples of world religions. Here's the interesting thing, you look at all these faiths and I put four on the screen, there's many others, they all pray, all of them, practice what they call or what we would call prayer. There's something sort of just universally instinctive in people crying out in prayer, read an interesting study not too long ago where the majority, over 50% of self-professed atheists in the United States, said that they prayed. Who are they talking to? I have no idea. But they said, do I believe there's a God? No, do I pray? Yes, you can figure that out on your own over lunch. But we pray, and you look at these people, these are very religious people, and they pray, but you can go to a mosque, to a prayer service, you can go to a Hindu temple or a Buddhist temple or whatever you want to go, you can go to the jungles to the animistic shaman out in the rainforest. You can listen to how these people pray, and there's a difference, and the difference is in these faiths there is no concept of grace, there is do, do this, do this, do this, if you don't there's going to be a problem. Christianity says you have done this, you have done this, you have done this, and there most certainly is a problem. But God has shown you grace, He's given you the opposite of what you deserve. When you get that, it changes the way you pray, and so I'm just telling you, you can listen to these people pray, and you sit back and you say, that's not how we pray. There's a difference, grace changes the way that you pray. Now that's those guys, let's bring it home to us guys. I hear a lot of self-professed Christians pray sometimes, and I listen to what they say and how they say it, and if I'm honest with you, I listen to myself at times, and I step back and I say, you know, that doesn't sound a lot like Luke 11. For example, have you ever heard Christians pray so casually and flippantly that it's disrespectful? I've heard that, they are calling it prayer. I've heard people pray, maybe you've been guilty of this, I know that I have at times, but I've heard people pray, self-professed Christians. When I listen to their prayer, I think, are you trying to update God on the news? Do you not think he knows what you're telling him? Sometimes I listen to people pray, and it's just sort of like God, we're just checking in with you, want to make sure you know all the sick people we know. So let me go through the list. You know about this person, and you know how you know this, and you know this, and you just sort of, if you're honest, I don't want to make fun of anybody, but if you're honest, you step back and you just sort of say, doesn't he already know that? Does he need you to tell him that? I've heard Christians, self-professed Christians, some in my own family, who when they pray, it is so formulaic. It is just wrote. There's no, I'm convinced, direct engagement with God in what they're saying. They're just going through the words of a formula, and this is what you say, and this is how you say it, and you just, that's prayer. They call that prayer. And I look at that, and I say, I don't know that that's what Jesus is talking about here in Luke 11. I've heard prayer from self-professed Christians, and this prayer is so, it's the opposite of extreme of what I just described. It is so ecstatic, and it is so out of control, and it is so boisterous that you look at that, and you say, does anyone even know what's being said? No one has a clue what's going on. It's total chaos. Listen, Christians call all of that prayer. And I just sort of wonder, are we just going to step back and just sort of be so tolerant to our own fault that we just look at all of that stuff and say, yeah, that's prayer. Or is it possible that some of the things that we call prayer really aren't prayer at all? And Jesus is teaching His disciples in this passage about prayer. And we're going to talk about and listen to what Jesus has to say here. I want you to look at Luke 11, and before we read it, I'll just say this. I'm going to begin in verse 1, but I'll just say this. I hope you don't think that I'm just mocking people in their prayer lives. This is not my intent. And if I'm totally honest with you, I would say that in my personal devotion life, I struggle with prayer. It doesn't come, I don't feel naturally to me. It doesn't come easy to me. It's not always when it should be my first instinct. It's not always my first instinct. And for a long time, I looked at my own spiritual life. And I could see some things in others that, you know, when it comes to prayer that I wasn't, I wasn't quite thrilled about. But if I was honest, I would look at my own prayer life and say, you know, your prayer life doesn't look a whole lot like Luke 11. For a long time, I thought, I think I'm just struggling to get my spiritual act together on this one. The more I've been a pastor, maybe I should say the longer I've been a pastor, and I've talked with people, and I've listened to more people pray, I don't think I'm just the only one who can't get my spiritual act together. I think prayer is tough for most of us. And I think if you don't think it's tough, then maybe you're not doing it right in the first place. Because here's a bunch of guys who walked around with Jesus. We'll read this in just a second. They spent an enormous amount of time with God in human flesh on the earth. And at one point in this story, they just come to Jesus and say, you know what? We don't know how to do it. We need you to teach us. And so we're going to listen to what Jesus has to say here in Luke 11. We want to be gripped by grace. We want to understand the Son of Man came to seek us and to save us, and then we want to listen to Jesus teach us how to pray. Word of God says this, Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, how low would be your name? Your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. And he said to them, which of you who had a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to say before him, and he will answer him from within. Do not bother me. The doors now shut. My children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. I tell you, though, he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him what he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives, the one who seeks, finds into the one who knocks, it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, would give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Let's pray. Father, even as we come to you in prayer, we come humbly, asking that you would teach us to pray. Forgive us for prayers that don't line up with how Jesus is teaching us to pray, and that don't line up with the truths that Jesus is teaching us about prayer. Father, we thank you for your grace, and we thank you that it's not up to us to get the formula right in prayer, and it's not up to us to get all the eyes dotted and tees crossed in prayer, Father, that you are gracious to us, that you sent the Son of Man to seek us and save us while we were lost. And we do pray for those who are here who have never accepted that grace and never had the light bulb come on about what you have done for us through Jesus. We want that to happen today. Father, we also want you to teach us about prayer, and so as we submit our lives and our thoughts and our hearts to your word, we ask that you would speak to us, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Just a few preliminary thoughts about prayer. These next few things are not central to the passage, they're not the main idea of the passage, but they are important as we're thinking about prayer, and I don't want you to miss them. We're going to go through them quickly. Number one, like Jesus, we should pray. Jesus prayed, we should pray. And we've seen this throughout the Gospel of Luke. More than any other gospel author, Luke talks about Jesus' prayer life over and over and over and over again. It seems like every time something important happens in Jesus' life, he's praying, and Luke makes a point more than Matthew, Mark, or John to tell us that Jesus was praying. And we read right here in chapter 11 verse 1, Jesus was praying. Jesus prayed, we should pray. Number two, like the disciples we should want to improve our prayer lives. Now listen to me, improving your prayer life does not mean you double the amount of time you pray every day. Sometimes we have that impression. I remember in seminary we had some Korean students in a class, and one of these Korean students, we're talking about prayer, he starts crying, and he's weeping, and he's having a breakdown. And he says, "I'm so busy this semester, and I need to confess something. I've cut my prayer life back to two hours a day." That makes you feel about two inches small. But listen, good prayer is not always long prayer. In fact, there's several times in the Old Testament in the New Testament where the Bible says you should not pray for a long time, you should just keep it short, because you and me are like Peter, the longer we talk, the more likely we are to say something stupid. And so sometimes the Bible says, "Look, this is not about how long can you go, this is not a marathon, but we do want to improve our prayer lives." These guys came to Jesus and they just said, "We need you to teach us how to do this." Not very many things that they came to Jesus and asked him to teach them how to do it. This was one of them. Having listened to Jesus pray, the light bulb went off and they said, "Oh, that's not how we do it. Will you please teach us how to do it like you do it?" So they want to improve their prayer life. I think sometimes we don't do a good job of this when it comes to our kids and our grandkids. Okay, sometimes I think with our kids and our grandkids, we try to encourage them to pray. That's a good thing. We encourage them to pray. But what we say to them is, "Oh, you got to do talk to God. Just just talk to him." And what the Bible says is, "Well, there's some things you shouldn't say to God." And you should do it like this. Don't do it like this. Do it like this. If Jesus didn't care what you said, all you had to do was talk to him. He would have looked at his buddies and said, "What do you mean teach you how to pray? All you got to do is talk. Just just start flapping your gums and go." Sometimes we do that with our youngsters and then they grow up. They have no idea how to really pray, but they think, "Well, that's all you got to do. Talk to God." We should want for ourselves, for our kids, for our grandkids, to improve our prayer lives. Number three, prayer is not optional. Jesus teaches to pray. Jesus' response, verse two, "When you pray." Not if, but when. When you pray, here's how you do it. Number four, corporate prayer matters to Jesus. Corporate prayer matters to Jesus. When Jesus gives this model prayer, we'll talk about in just a minute, there's no "me's" or "my's" or "I's." It's all "we's" and "us." You can't see this all the time in the modern English translations of the New Testament, but every word in this prayer is a plural word. He's not just talking about you go home and you talk to Jesus and it's just you and Jesus in a sweet little moment of prayer. He's talking about his people praying together. Now I hope when you go home, you have sweet moments where you talk with Jesus one-on-one, but the Bible is clear from Genesis to Revelation. There's something special about God's people praying together. And I hope when you're here and we're together and Tyler finishes a song and prays, please do not think, oh this is the transition. This is what we do between the song and then the sermon. No, prayer is what we're here to do. There's not just filler of space. When we read God's Word and then we pray, that's not because there's something magical in that, but we want to talk to God about that. When we end our service and we pray, that's not just, well, it would be awkward if I told you to get up and leave, so let's sort of make it holy with a prayer at the end. That's one of the things that we're here to do. Corporate prayer, us together, praying together matters to Jesus and you see it in this prayer where all of these words are plural. Look at verse 2. When you pray, that's not when you, Corey, you, Brian, you, Doug, pray. That's when y'all pray. All of you together. Number five, Jesus gives us a normative pattern for prayer, but not a rigid formula for prayer. So we're in Luke chapter 11 and I put a reference up here, Matthew 5. You can go back and look at that later. Matthew 5 in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaching about prayer, very similar to what we read in Luke. In fact, so similar that when you read Luke, you may be tempted to say, I think Luke forgot some of what Jesus really taught his disciples how to pray. Matthew got all of it. He took better notes. Luke, not so much. He left some out. That's not the case. These two incidents are happening at different stages in Jesus' ministry. This may blow your mind or it might not. Jesus taught on the same thing more than one time in his life. It wasn't like, okay boys, now we're going to talk about prayer and I hope you got your pins out because it's the only time I'm going to talk about it. He talked about prayer and then like you and me, the disciples were kind of slow so we taught about it later over and over again and he repeated himself. And like most teachers, he did not say exactly the same thing each time he taught it. Those of you who are teachers and you've had kids cycle through your classrooms. You know how this works. You have one lesson plan. First period comes in, you teach. Second period comes in, you teach the same class, the same subject matter, but you're probably not word for word exactly the same. Jesus was the same way as a teacher. He taught in Matthew 5 about prayer and he said some things and then when he taught later in Luke 11 about prayer he said similar things and he didn't match it word for word exactly this is the exact word you use but they're similar. They have the same spirit in them and you look at the differences and you say look some people take Matthew 5. I don't know why people don't take Luke 11 as much maybe because it's shorter would be easier to memorize. Some people take Matthew 5 and say well this is the prayer, you do it exactly like this. I can think back when I was in 5th grade and I played baseball and had a coach before every practice and at the end of every practice and before every game and at the end of every game we recited Matthew 5 the Lord's Prayer. You say well that sounds like a good thing well I guess it was okay I can tell you the coach was not a Christian. I have no doubt in my mind about that so what he thought we were doing I don't really know but we went through the formula. This is what you're supposed to say and there's something special if you say these words. That's not what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5 or in Luke 11. Similar prayers yes similar enough to suggest that this is sort of the pattern for how your prayers ought to go but not a rigid formula where you say only these words and no other words. A pattern but not a formula. Now look at the prayer very short verse two three and four. I just want to point out a few key words here and talk about the implications of some of these words. First word you need to see is the word father. Jesus says to his disciples and to us when you are going to pray you should default to acknowledging God and to coming before God as your father. Does that mean there's something magical about saying the word father at the beginning of a prayer? No but Jesus is teaching us something and he's saying to his disciples you want to know how to pray look don't act like you're coming before a judge. Is God the judge of the living and the dead? Bible says that he is but when you come before him in prayer as one of his people as somebody that I came to seek and to save you're not coming before first and foremost a judge and he's also saying to a lot of people in our society when you come before God in prayer you're not coming to your buddy to your pal you're not coming to one of your peers you are coming to your father you approach God as if he is your father. Some of you hear that and you say you know what that's tough for me because I didn't have a father I struggle with that. Some of you hear that and you say you know what I had a father and I wish I didn't have a father. He was rotten and when I think about God as my father that just sort of gets all mixed up for me. Some of you were like me and you hear that and you say man I had a great dad I was blessed with a great father and that kind of helps me understand some of what it's supposed to be like in prayer. Listen let me say this is a word of caution to those of you who did not have a dad to those of you who had a horrible father to those of you who had a great father. Don't bring God down to the level of your father whether he was rotten not present or fantastic. Don't bring God down to that level. Your job my job has to be to come to Scripture and to say okay what does it mean that God is our father and we're going to talk about some of that. What does it mean that God is our father and then to evaluate our fathers through that lens. God the Father is the standard by which we evaluate our fathers. Our human fathers are not the standard by which we evaluate God the Father. Whether your father was fantastic not present or rotten. Makes sense? Jesus says you come to God as your father. Here's the next two words Jesus talks about God's name and he wants that name to be hallowed. Name is more than the letters collectively together that are identifying your person. R.O.N. Ron. It's not just what we're talking about. When you're talking in the Bible about somebody's name you're talking about their character. You're talking about their reputation. You're talking about all and everything involved in who they are. And Jesus says you need to pray that God's name, his character, his reputation. Everything about who he is would be hallowed. That's a word we don't use. All it means is kept holy. I want God's character and his reputation and what people think about him and who he is. I want it to be kept holy. I want it to be set apart as unique and special and valuable. I don't want it to be lowered and minimized in my life, in my family, in my church, in my work, in my school. I want God's character to be kept holy, to be lifted up. You know one thing that Jesus is reminding us when we pray this, our Father, hallowed be your name. Would your name be kept holy? We're reminding ourselves that we're not holy and that because God is holy and we're not, there's a double separation between us. We're separated from God. We've talked about this because of our creatureliness. He's the Creator. We're the creature. We're also separated from God because he's perfect and we're sinful and we're reminding ourselves in keeping and praying that we would keep God's name holy. We're reminding ourselves this is not a conversation with a peer. This is not a conversation with an equal. This is a conversation I am having with the one being in the universe who is completely, totally, unequaled and I'm talking to him and when you get that your prayer life is going to change. Our Father, hallowed be your name. Next word is kingdom. Your kingdom come. Kingdom in the Bible talks about God's ruling presence. Jesus did a lot of preaching about God's kingdom. Kingdom of God has come. The kingdom of God is among you and what he's saying is I'm the king. I'm the ruler and God's ruling presence is now here. So when you pray about God's kingdom, like Jesus taught you, what you're saying is God, I want your ruling presence to come into my life. I want your ruling presence to be real today in my life. Do you think that that is high on the prayer list of most Christians? That they want God to rule in their life presently and actively? I don't know. I did some thinking this week and I thought, you know, if I was a betting man and I had to put money on the table and the bet was, what do you think most Christians? Not the people I put up earlier, the Buddhists, the Muslims, all those people, but Christians. What do most Christians in the United States pray about? What do they ask God for first? Here's the list that I came up with this week. Number one, blessing. I don't really even know what that means, but I think it would be high on the list. Blessing, bless me, bless the food, bless this, bless my kids. Number two, safety. Keep it safe. While we travel, keep it safe. While we play T-Ball, keep it safe. While we're in the air, traveling to Kenya, keep it safe. I think that would be high on the list. I think health would be up there. That's just from being in a lot of Wednesday night prayer meetings and I'm not telling you we're going to quit praying for sick people. We're going to keep praying for sick people, but I think that's pretty high on the list. Blessing, safety, health and then lastly I would just say money and I don't mean like give me millions of dollars, but I need some money. I need to have my needs met and maybe in America we get that a little bit twisted and our needs sort of get blended with our wants. But I think that's what probably most of us default to asking God for if we're not careful. And Jesus is going to talk about some of those things here in just a minute, but before he talks about any of those things he talks about God's kingdom and he says you should pray. If you want to learn how to pray, you want to be better at prayer, here you go. I'm telling you, get your pen out. Pray for God's kingdom to come. Pray for his ruling presence to be real in your life. Next three words kind of go together, bread forgive and temptation. Give us our daily bread, forgive us of our sins and keep us from temptation. Lead us not into temptation. This is the focus shifting towards us a little bit. Pray that God is our Father, that his name would be hallowed, that his kingdom would come and now Jesus says you ask for your daily bread, ask for your sins to be forgiven and you ask for spiritual protection to keep you from temptation. It's a pretty simple prayer. I'm going to tell you that's one big difference between how Christians ought to pray and how the other religions pray. In many other religions there's this idea that prayers need to be sort of of a certain height with certain flowery language. And Jesus talked about that else where he said look there's people who think they're going to be heard because they use big words. And you know people that when they pray they start talking in a different language. It's still English but it's not how they talk to you right? They start using words and talking about stuff and you think what art when did you start you when did that do you even know what that means? What are you asking for? None of that stuff in the prayer in Luke 11. It's really simple. Simple enough that I think most of our kids could memorize it and learn it and begin to apply it to their life relatively easily. And maybe we should think about that instead of just saying all you got to do is talk to God. Maybe we should just open the Bible and say this is how you talk to God. You just do it like this. The words aren't magic but here's the pattern that Jesus is laying out for. So it's a pretty simple prayer but that's not all of our passage. Look we still have verse 5 all the way to verse 13. Nine more verses and two more stories. You need to get through your mind and I have to get through my mind that everything Jesus says in verse 5 to 13 is applying the type of prayer He just talked about in verse 1 to 4. Does that make sense? These verses go together for a reason. It's because Jesus is still talking about prayer and there's a problem for a lot of us that we really like some of the things Jesus says in verse 5 to 13 but we forget to pray like Jesus taught us to pray in verse 1 to 4. So just as an example go back to your childhood okay go back and reminisce. How many of you ever played team sports when you were growing up as a kid? Maybe soccer, football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, whatever okay. Maybe you had a coach and maybe your coach was trying to fire the team up one day right and the coach sits everybody down and the coach says hey this is going to be a good game we had a great week of practice. If you guys win today I'm taking everyone out for ice cream. Win today and I take all of you out for ice cream. Everyone gets free ice cream on me. You get excited, you go out you win the game, everybody's celebrating, you know ice cream's coming, you go to the store and you bring your cousin with you who lives across the street but doesn't play soccer and you say hey we're here for the free ice cream and what's your coach gonna say? Who's this guy? He's not on the team. You say oh coach you said we win the game you buy everyone ice cream. My cousin from New Mexico is on his way giving five minutes. He's coming as fast as he can but my neighbor made it right now we're ready we'll have a double scoop of chocolate. Your coach is going to say no and you're going to be running laps next practice. You say but you said everyone and the coach says oh but you know what I meant I'm in everyone not everyone. We make the same mistake when we take the second part of this passage and we try to apply it to any quote-unquote prayer that comes out of our mouth and listen there's a lot of immature Christians and there's a lot of dopey pastors that do that. They take the things that Jesus has to say about prayer in Luke 11 5 to 13 and they completely divorce it from what Jesus just taught us about prayer in verse 1 to 4. When Jesus says this stuff we're about to look at in the bottom half of this passage. He's not saying you know just pray however you want to and then here's how it works. He's saying very clearly this is not rocket science pray like this when you pray like this here's what you can expect and here's how you ought to pray. I hope that makes sense and I hope you understand that what we're talking about in verse 5 to 13 is application of the kind of prayer that Jesus just taught us to pray in the verses above. So let me give you a couple of thoughts two stories two applications. The first application is this if you pattern your prayers after this prayer pray boldly and persistently. If you pattern your prayers after the kind of prayer Jesus just talked about pray boldly and pray persistently. Jesus tells a story and it's really an absurd story and Jesus means for it to be absurd. In fact in the gospels when Jesus begins a story with the words which of you what's coming next is usually going to be a little bit silly. He's kind of setting you up for a preposterous scenario and he's going to make a point through it and so he says which of you imagine this? You're asleep. It's been a long day. Family is crashed out and Jesus's day most homes people slept on the the bottom level and they all were just sort of in there together in the quote unquote bed sleeping area. So he says it's been a long day. You're asleep. Somebody comes knocking on your door. Unexpected company, right? You seen Christmas vacation, right? Cousin Eddie shows up at your door middle of the night. You didn't know he was coming but there he is. Trailer and all. Flip flops, house road. He comes shows up at your door the middle of the night and in this culture you don't have the option of saying Cousin Eddie. Motel 6 is right down the road. In this culture you say Cousin Eddie we're so glad to see you. We're so glad you're here. Come on in. We would like to welcome you into our home. You're probably hungry after a long journey and Cousin Eddie pipes up and says I'm starving. That's a problem because it's the middle of the night. There's no 7/11 open 24/7 right down the road. You don't have any bread but you have company and you're expected to be a good host and so what you do is you get up and you go to your neighbor. Let's just pretend his name is Cory. Hypothetic. Just pull that out of the air. Okay? Cousin Eddie's waiting on you at home. You go next door to Cory's house. You knock on the door at Cory's house. There's a problem. Cory's asleep. The whole family's asleep and Cory doesn't want to get up and give you anything. In fact in the story Cory gives you the four times no. The fourfold no. Look at it in verse 7. Do not bother me. Cory would never say that. The door is shut. Take a hint. My kids are in bed. You're gonna wake my kids up. I can't get up and give you anything. No, no, no, no. In other words your neighbor, not Cory but this neighbor, is a jerk and he won't help you. He doesn't want to do it. He could care less about your dilemma and he just says no, no, no, no. And Jesus says but that's not the end of it because of your and he uses this word we don't ever use it, impudence. Because of your impudence you're gonna get what you want. Impudence means your shameless persistence. Shameless persistence. That means when Cory says no, no, no, no. Your response is gonna be to knock louder and longer and you're gonna just keep knocking and you're gonna wait and eventually the light bulb's gonna go off and Cory said and he's gonna say if my kids are ever gonna get any sleep if I'm ever gonna go back to sleep I just got to get rid of this guy. I will just give you all the bread I have to make you go away. Jesus says prayer is kind of like that and we say what? Did you just say that God is like your jerky neighbor? No, the point of the story is not similarity the point of the story is contrast and what Jesus is saying is look in this crazy situation that you might find yourself in eventually you're gonna get what you want because you just keep knocking and you're bold and you're persistent. How much more is God gonna answer your prayer who's not your jerky neighbor but he's your loving heavenly father? How much more do you not have to worry about it? Be bold and be persistent. Not because God is slow or reluctant to answer your prayers but because even your neighbor will eventually give in because of your impudence your shameless boldness your shameless persistence. God is a lot better Jesus is saying your father is a lot better than your neighbor who doesn't want to get out of bed. Be bold and be persistent Jesus is saying if if you pray like I've just taught you to pray if you're praying like this then do it boldly and do it persistently. You're not being bossy. You understand that? You're not telling God what to do in your boldness in your persistence. This is a prayer that God gave to us so what you're doing is praying that God would do what he already said he would do. That's a win win. Pray like this and you can do it boldly and persistently knowing that your loving heavenly father will answer your prayers and he will do what he has already promised to do. Here's the second application from the second story. If you pattern your prayers after this prayer pray expectantly and competently. Look what Jesus says here in verse 9. He says ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. If you just open your Bible and you do the sort of the put your finger down method and you read that verse for your quiet time and you don't pay attention to anything above it that sounds like a pretty sweet gig right? Ask and you get it. Seek and you find it. Knock and God's gonna open the door. This is how a lot of preachers stand up and sound biblical because they can put the Bible verse up on the screen and they can quote it and they can give you an address. Hey the Bible says it in Luke 11-9. People who don't ever open their Bible sit back and say man our preacher quotes the Bible all day long. Man he's a biblical preacher. You forget what Jesus just said. If you pray like this then ask and seek and knock and you're gonna be answered and you're gonna find and the door will be opened. A lot of people look at this and say ask, seek, knock. Let's start with a million dollars. Let's start with a new car. There's a preacher right now. He's been on the news. I won't name names but he's trying to buy a $63 million jet and he likes Luke 11-9. Ask, seek, knock. I need that jet. Give me some money. I'm asking for it. I'm praying for it. I think I missed that part in Luke 11-1 to 4. Jesus tells another outrageous story and he says look let me explain what I mean here. How many of you if your kid came asking for something they needed would give them something dangerous? How many of your kids hungry for lunch? We understand in this culture they're asking for a fish and you give him instead of poison a snake. You wouldn't do that would you? How many of you if your if your kid was asking for a piece of bread would give him a scorpion that could hurt them. Would you do that? Jesus says explicitly here's again the point is contrast verse 13 if you then who are evil know how to give good good gifts to your children how much more there's the key. How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Jesus saying look this is not rocket science even the worst deadbeat absent father knows that he probably ought to send five bucks in the mail for his kid at Christmas and even good dads know when birthdays come around they want to get their kid a present. Your Heavenly Father is way better than the good dad and he's far better than the deadbeat dad don't you think he's going to give you what's good can't you trust him if evil sinful fathers know that they ought to give their kids good presence how much more will your heavenly father give you a good gift when you ask him so ask seek knock and when you do it you understand that he's good and he gives good gifts and if you don't have it yet then maybe you don't need it if you don't have it yet maybe you're unknowingly asking for a scorpion and instead he's going to give you a piece of bread maybe he knows you don't need it yet and it could be coming but you don't need it yet what you can trust is that your father is good and that he gives good gifts to his children and if even a jerk father can get that through his head how much more can you have confidence when you pray to your heavenly father so when you pray Jesus says like this you pray expectantly and confidently let me sum it up from a verse in the book of Romans you can jot this down it's Romans chapter 8 verse 32 8 32 is written by a guy named Paul Paul and Luke who wrote this gospel were buddies and you can go back and look in Romans 8 32 you can read it in the context but here's what Paul says he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all how will he not also with him with his son graciously give us all things again you could pull that verse out of context and you could make all things mean whatever you wanted it to say here's what Paul is saying when you read it in context Paul saying people church in Rome it is not surprising that God would answer your prayers and take care of you here's what surprising what surprising is that God would not spare his son but that he would give his son up for you because Paul's laid it out pretty clear in Romans up to this point he said look there is no one who does good not even one none of us we are all sinners Romans 3 23 all have sinned we're guilty we don't deserve anything good from God the crazy part is not that he answers your prayers the crazy part is that he didn't spare his son but he gave him up for you he gave you the opposite of what you deserved that's amazing Paul says once he's done that of course he's gonna answer your prayers and give you everything that you need he'll give you all things I put Romans 832 up on the screen because Luke and Paul spent a lot of time together mission trips boats walking riding traveling and they talked about this kind of stuff and Paul says it this way now that he has not spared his son but he gave him up for you of course he's gonna give you everything that you need of course and Luke says man I know the son of man came to seek and save the lost while they were lost and dead when you pray like this of course he's gonna give you everything that you need of course you can trust him to do what's right sometimes we're amazed when we read the promises that Jesus gives us or the promise that Paul gives us in Romans 8 we think man we have this sort of access to God in prayer that's amazing Paul and Luke say the prayer stuff is not that amazing the prayer stuff is just sort of like a of course the amazing part is that God did not spare his son but he gave him up for you the amazing part is the son of man came to seek you and to save you while you were lost and because those things are true of course he's gonna hear you when you pray and of course he's gonna give you what you need when you pray like this you pray boldly you pray persistently you pray expectantly you pray confidently let's pray Father we come before you only by your grace we thank you for the son of man who came to seek us and to save us we thank you that you did not spare your own son but you gave him up for us he died so that we could live we don't ever want to be casual about that we don't ever want to be bored with that we always want to be amazed at the grace that you have poured into our lives and we do want to learn how to pray we want to pray better we want to pray like Jesus taught his disciples to pray father not only in the things that we say but how we say it in our heart and our attitude as we come before you we're thankful for your grace we're thankful that Jesus teaches us truth truth that we need to know truth that we would not come to on our own father we want to take a few moments at the end of our service to respond in prayer together and as individuals we want to sing and father and all of it we come before you with a heart and an attitude of gratefulness and worship we pray in Jesus name amen