I invite you to turn with me tonight in your Bibles. I'm going to have two scripture readings. The one that I have there is listed as James 5, so we will read James 5. I also want to read from Luke 11. So first would you go with me to James 5 and we'll read verses 13-18. And with regard to, obviously, the subject matter of prayer, you will see it's relevant. But we'll start there at verse 13. Let's listen to God's word. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit." Would you turn with me now to Luke 11? I'd like to read 5 through 13. And this passage comes in the context right before it, you can see, where Jesus teaches the Lord's Prayer. So there's two places in the Gospel where we have Jesus teaching the Lord's Prayer, Luke 11. in Matthew chapter 6, but having taught them the Lord's Prayer, Jesus goes on to say this, verse 5, And he said to them, Which of you who has 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 set before him. And he will answer from within, Do not bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up to 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, or his perseverance, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to 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, will he 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?" Amen. May God bless the reading of His Word. I would also invite you then to have your Lord's Day Catechism open as we go through some of the matters there on prayer. So, brothers and sisters, I want to start tonight by making a connection that we may not be thinking of after having spent several weeks going through the Ten Commandments. So, I would invite you to turn to page 887 a moment just so that you can get a visual of this, 887. And there you will see that this is a section that started the third part of the various themes that the catechism is dealing with. The third theme is gratitude. They're page, question and answer 86. Those themes, of course, from the Catechism are from the outline of the Book of Romans. They are, roughly speaking, sin, salvation, and our service to God. Or we could say they deal with our guilt and they speak of God's grace and they then show us the gratitude of a heart that has been redeemed by the Lord Jesus. And really those three themes are dealing with what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? What does it mean to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? And as question 86 talks about, well, we have to remember that there is misery and there is a misery that we need to be delivered from. We need to know that sin and misery. We need to know that need. And then secondly, that we run to Jesus and we trust in Jesus and we seek to be redeemed from our sin and misery and guilt by the Lord Jesus Christ and by His blood shed and have our hearts renewed by the Holy Spirit. And so that's how the question, and then going into the answer, talks about it. Christ having redeemed us by His blood also renews us by His Holy Spirit into His image. And then the third subject then can arise. Those who are redeemed, notice, those who are renewed by the Spirit, with our whole lives we may show ourselves thankful to God for His benefits. See, by the power of Jesus' Spirit and by His enabling grace, we're able to live lives of faithful service. We're able to be those disciples that follow Jesus, take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Christ. And that's a life of thanksgiving. That's a life where we show ourselves truly thankful to God for our salvation. The catechism then goes on to carefully deal with two scripture passages that illustrate, that show for us what a life of gratitude is. And those two passages in that third part of the catechism explaining thankfulness are the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. So, we're called as disciples to obey and pray. That's what a life of discipleship and gratitude to God looks like, giving ourselves to Him in obedience and prayer. And what it's describing is a life that has lived in fellowship with God. We've been redeemed. Now we can live in fellowship with God. And we live in fellowship with the Father and with the Son by the Holy Spirit. It's the triune God that we're living with. And so we begin to live like Him by loving what He loves. And we begin to live like Him by living as He would have us live and living in a way that reflects Him, righteousness. We give ourselves in obedience to His righteousness. And so we've studied the commandments of God. But now we want to turn to this examination of prayer. And so before we look at the Lord's Prayer over the next few weeks, we first want to take a look at this question of why the Christian needs to pray. Notice that's the question in 116 that was put before us. Why do Christians need prayer? Now, the answer is surprising. In a little bit, you might say, it is the most important part of thankfulness that God requires of us. Now to say that something is chief or say that something that is most important means that there are many other important things, right? But this one is the highest priority one. Prayer. Most important. So even before obedience, a disciple of Jesus, a redeemed child of God, understands that prayer is the most important part of living with God, living our lives in fellowship with God, living before God. It has to start with prayer. Now that's a great insight into the Scripture's teaching, but think about this a bit. Why did God make mankind? We've got to go back a little bit. Let's go back and set this in the context of this whole story of Scripture. Why did God make mankind? It says He made mankind after His image, right? We are image bearers of God. And what's the purpose of a human being is to glorify God. and to enjoy Him forever, as we like to say. That's a biblical teaching, right? That we were made for God's glory. We were made to live with God and enjoy living with God. He's our Creator. We were made for Him. Now, that's where you think about the history of the Bible going along now. Because of the fall of Adam, we became alienated from God. We became lost, right? Lost in sin. We're separated from fellowship with God because of our sin. So remember, before the fall, Adam and Eve were without sin, and they lived in close fellowship with God. In fact, Genesis 3 tells us that God would come to them in the cool of the day. In the garden, He would come to them. He would walk with them in the cool of the day. They met together with God face to face. There was no separation because they were without sin, and they could stand in the presence of a holy God. But then the fall happens, then the sin happens, and what happens? God drove them out of the garden. They can no longer have that ability to live before God's face. So when God renews the heart of a sinner, when God unites us to Jesus by the Holy Spirit, Christ is in us. We are in Christ. He adopts us as His children, He works faith in us, and our sins are forgiven, and we're declared righteous before God. We're holy, we're reconciled to God, and now we're able to live with God again because of this redeeming work of Jesus, right? And now we can live in fellowship with God again. So a Christian is one who lives in fellowship with God, having been renewed by Jesus' blood and by the Spirit. So now, the definition of a Christian is that we now live in a relationship with our God. He is our God and we're His people. He's our Father in heaven and we're His children. That's an amazing gift that God has given us sheer out of the merits of Christ alone, out of the sheer gift God has given us. It's all of grace we have this wonderful blessing. We can now live with and know our Creator. So the question is, how do we respond? How does that person whom God has saved and made His own, how do you respond? Now I can think of several ways the Bible speaks of how we have fellowship with God. The Bible says we praise Him. We live as a people who praise the God who made us and loved us. We worship God. We listen to His voice as He speaks to us in His Word. We listen to Him. We want to know God, we have to know God from His own mouth. And so we go to His Word. We hear Him. That's how we have fellowship with God. We hear His voice. And we express our love to Him. We give thanksgiving to Him with our mouths, with our voices and from our hearts, right? We speak to God and that's what prayer is. You are practicing, you are living out of a relationship, a fellowship with God, speaking to Him in prayer. Do you have a relationship with someone that you never talk to? I have a male lady. She comes to my house every single day, and she puts the mail in the mailbox, and I never talk to her. Nothing against her, I just usually don't talk to her. So even though she's in my life every single day, I have no relationship with that person, that mailman, right? Can you imagine getting married to someone? And immediately after the wedding, you never talk. Oh, I hope you can't imagine that. But that wouldn't be a relationship, would it? A good measure of what kind of relationship you have with someone is how much and the extent to which you talk to them. So God has graciously made us His children. Jesus has saved us, united us to Himself by His Spirit. He's given us everlasting life so that we can live with Him forever. Do you respond by talking to God in prayer? Prayer is the most important thing we can do to show our heartfelt joy and thanksgiving to God that we now may come to Him and we may talk to Him anywhere at any time. We have access to the throne of God. Now, there's another reason why we need to pray as Christians. Question 116 goes on. It says, because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who continually and with heartfelt longing ask God for these gifts and thank Him for them. Can God give us His grace and Holy Spirit if we don't ask? Well, of course. God can do anything. But the Bible tells us God will ordinarily fill us with the power of His presence and with His strengthening grace as we ask Him. for those gifts. We pray because God has ordained the means by which He will accomplish His will in this world. God can do anything, but He says, this is the way ordinarily I'm going to do things. You're going to pray. And I'm going to answer your prayers according to His will. It's not an automatic. We don't stick in a coin and out comes out the thing we want. But God, though He can accomplish His purposes without our prayers, God has said, this is how I'm going to accomplish my purposes. When you pray according to the ways that I command you. So when we pray, we're acknowledging something very important. We're acknowledging our total dependence on God for everything. That's why we're reminded here, what do you pray for? Question 118, will you pray for everything you need spiritually and physically, right? Pray for the things you need. We're totally dependent on God. for everything that we have. James chapter 4 tells us that we don't have because we don't ask. Imagine that. God is telling us, you don't have because you don't ask. See, God doesn't need prayer, but He uses our prayer, just like He uses other means to work His will. He causes the crops to grow, but He sends rain. That's a mean, right? But He also sends farmers to work the land and it grows even more productively. He uses means. Well, He uses prayer as a means to do His will. Jesus says, your Father, He says in another place in the Sermon on the Mount, He says, your Father knows what you need before you ever ask Him. But He still wants us to pray. He wants us to seek from Him what He's promised to give us. He wants us to desire His works of power and goodness and love. He wants us to desire those things. He wants us to want His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. He wants us to want that. So He says, pray for that. Yes, I intend to gather my church and build my church and gather out the lost from sin into salvation, but I want you to pray for that. I want you to desire that. I want you to desire my glory to fill the earth through redeemed people." So God does use our prayers to do His will. And James tells us along that line, remember in chapter 5, James says, remember Elijah. What did Elijah do? Elijah prayed fervently that God would not send rain on the land for three and a half years. God withheld the rain from the land. And then He prayed that the Lord would return the rains and God gave what He asked. So that's amazing. But remember what James said, he says, Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours. In other words, Elijah wasn't some super spiritual being who happened to have a better lifeline to heaven than you and me. No, Elijah was just another man. just like us. In faith he prayed for God's will to be done and God honored his prayers. James says our prayers are used by God for a lot of things. He says they are used to bring comfort to those who are suffering. Anybody suffering? Anybody you know who's suffering? You pray for them, James says. How about Are you glad? Are you joyful? It says, sing praise. What he's saying is, sing your prayer of thanksgiving to God when you have great blessings in your life. Sing prayers. We sang one of those, Psalm 145. Psalm 66. He also says that he'll heal the sick. Are you sick? He says, pray. He says, ask the elders to pray. Pray and God will heal the sick, he says. He says, pray and God will forgive sins. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. It's a little different in the ESV. That's the way I memorized it. But you get the point, right? We're to pray. Even with a sense of almost desperate persistence. There we go to Luke chapter 11. What did Jesus say there? He says, ask. And he says, seek. Then he says, knock. Right? You can imagine the guy standing out in the street saying, hey. Ask the question, no answer. So he goes seeking. Where are you? Where are you? Then he starts knocking on the door. See, there's a kind of intensity that's growing there, right? Not a frustration, an intensity, an effort, especially when you don't see your prayers answered. Do you give up? No. He says, just keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. Jesus says in verse 13, what does God give in response to our prayers? It's kind of surprising. He says, He'll give you the Holy Spirit. He didn't say He'll give you everything you want. He'll give you what you need, and that isn't to say He won't heal you. We've said that from James. It doesn't mean He won't comfort you. We've seen that from James, right? But He will give you the Holy Spirit. He will give you the Holy Spirit. God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those who ask wholeheartedly, asking for it, right? The Spirit brings us into communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says. And when we're in communion with Jesus, when we're united to Him, we partake of Jesus more and more. We partake of Jesus' strength. We participate in the strength of Jesus Himself. We participate in His love. We participate in His joy. We participate in His zeal to do the Father's will. These are the things that Jesus shares with his people as we are in union with him. Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. You see why prayer is first. You see why it's most important. What are the two things that a disciple is to do? Obey and pray. Jesus says, apart from him, you cannot, you don't have the ability to obey on your own. You need the strengthening work of the Holy Spirit and His grace, and He enables you to do that. I want you to listen for a moment to the sheer avalanche of ways the Bible tells us this is true. I think it's sometimes good to just sit back and look at the Scriptures and say, what does it say? What does it say about prayer? Well, listen to Philippians 4. I will name these out. I'm going to keep reading them if you want to write them down or follow along in your Bible. And some of you guys I know are very good at flipping the pages. You kids, I know you're very good at this. So Philippians 4, verse 6 and 7. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and minds in Christ Jesus." God's response, our request. Psalm 145, verse 18, we read it as a call to worship, the Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He is near. 1 Chronicles 16, 11, seek the Lord and His strength. Seek His presence continually, continually. Hebrews 4, verse 16, let us then with confidence, with boldness draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive Mercy, find grace to help in time of need, ask, seek, not, right? Come with boldness. Jesus is your high priest. He's there. He's able to give and He will. Ephesians 6 verse 18, pray at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication, all times. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. Pray for all of God's people. That's a prayer of protection in the context there. Remember, that's the armor of God, that Satan is your adversary. You're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers of this area. You pray for each other, he said. Pray at all times. Pray also for the saints. Pray with perseverance. And then this final one, 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 16 through 18. Rejoice always. Part of prayer is rejoicing. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. It's wonderful really to know that God wants us. talk to Him and with Him in our needs. At all times. You could pray while you're driving down the road. I have an uncle who said one of his eight wrecks that he had in his life happened because he was praying while he was driving down the road and this was early on and he closed his eyes. So I don't recommend that. You don't have to close your eyes. But you could pray. You could pray anywhere. And when we do, we don't find God to be a grumpy or grudging friend like the one in Luke 11, where the guy's knocking on the door in the night. He says, ah, my friend has come and I don't have any food. Can you give me some food to help? I got to give my friend some food. And the guy says, ah, go away. My kids are tired and I don't want to wake them up. Just got them to sleep. You know how that goes. I'm not going to help you. Because nobody will eventually because of your pressing on. He says, but when you ask your father for something and you say, Dad, I'd like to have a fish, is Dad going to give you a snake? Dad, can you give me an egg? Ah, here's a scorpion instead. See, that's not how God works. God does answer a prayer. He will give you the Holy Spirit. God will answer. Seek and you will find. And it will be open to you, ask. Peter reminds us, Peter says, cast all your anxieties upon God. He cares for you. I think of how question answer 117 says, you know, we need to acknowledge, we need to acknowledge, that's the second thing he says, you must fully recognize our need and misery. Well, that's what we're doing if you cast all your anxieties on God. You're hiding nothing. It's all there, Lord. You know my needs, my anxieties, and you just pour them out. Maybe nobody else knows all of your anxieties, but you can, without hiding anything, bring them to God and humble ourselves in His majestic presence. It's humbling. It's a humbling act to go to God and say, Lord, I have nothing, and I am so needy. And all these anxieties, and they're very real, and they're very pressing, and they're very present. And I come and I just bring them to you, Lord. You care for me, so I'm going to lay them out. in your majestic presence." And then the catechism goes on to say, we must rest on this unshakable foundation. Even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord, as He promised in His Word, as He promised in His Word. I just read a bunch of those passages as He promised. This is what he's promised to do. Brothers and sisters, we all need to take more time in prayer. I'm not putting a time frame on it. I'm not putting a number of minutes or hours. But the Bible says, look, this is the most important thing that we can do as God's people, as we live in fellowship with our God, that we pray. We pray as we live in relationship with our God who loves us, and so let's pray. Amen.