Let's go to open our Bibles, please, to the book of Luke tonight. The book of Luke, we're going to be in the 11th chapter of the book of Luke here in a moment or two. Luke chapter 11. While you're finding your place in Luke chapter 11, let me just say one thing, one introductory comment before I get into the message. That song, It's Still the Blood, you know why you like that song so much, right? It was written by a West Virginian. It really was. A lady by the name of Lois Gale who goes to Taze Valley Baptist Church in Taze Valley, West Virginia. Lois Gale is about four foot nothing tall. And if she sang with those three, those two men and the lady that sang, she would be the bass. She has an extremely low voice for a woman, but she wrote that song several years ago. And so that's a West Virginia song. We can hang our hat on that. It doesn't say y'all done eight or anything like that. It's a West Virginia song with pretty good grammar. It's awesome. Go ahead. You're in Luke chapter 11. Now there are three things. I would have said two years ago that there are four things that we expect every time we come to church, but we've actually had during the pandemic, church services where we weren't able to pass a plate and take an offering. So one of the things that you would expect every time you come to a Bible-leaving church, that being an offering, we actually had services where we didn't do that. But whether you were in a church service or whether you were sitting at home, The truth of the matter is, there are three things that should be present in every single church service. Matter of fact, if you're missing one of these three things from a church service, you would have every right, as you leave the church auditorium that night, to feel like you have been deprived or cheated along the way. One thing that we expect when we come to church, and we've certainly expected it tonight and had it tonight, is Singing. We expect corporate singing. Think about that. In any other area of your life, do you stand up and sing as a crowd of people other than your grandson's birthday party or if you're at a restaurant when somebody's birthday takes place and all the waitstaff is singing? Or if you're at a baseball game and they sing, take me out to the ballgame, that's really about the end of what we do is corporate singing. You don't go to your job and you sit down and have a big meeting before you go to the factory floor and it's 745 before your shift starts at eight. The foreman gets up and says, all right, we've got some problems. We've got too many people taking getting overtime. So you can't get overtime without permission from the foreman. and you have to wear the brand new such-and-such style shoes because OSHA has changed its regulations, and you have to have this much steel in your toes, and they go through all of those things, and then they say, now before we go out and you guys get on the assembly line, let's sing a couple of choruses to get ourselves motivated for the day. You don't do that in any other place other than church. Corporate singing is one of those things that is uniquely associated with coming to church, with praising the Lord. It should be. In Hebrews chapter 2, the Bible clearly teaches us that Jesus himself is standing in the midst of the congregation praising the Lord. The Apostle Paul wrote twice to two different churches. that music should be used to teaching us and admonishing us in songs and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing with melody in your heart as unto the Lord. We should expect music when we come to church. We expect, here at Central Baptist Church, you expect the choir to be ready. You expect the ladies ensemble, the duet that sang this morning, the trio that sang tonight, the ladies that played for the offertory and both services. You expect music when you come to church. If you came to church here, one service, and you sat through an hour, hour and 15 minute service, and you got to your car, and you looked at your wife, and you said, you know, honey, what was so unusual about that service? We didn't have any music at all. you would have every right to feel just a little bit cheated by that church service, wouldn't you? There's a second thing we expect when we come to church. We expect preaching when we come to church. Now, I've been in lots of churches. I've actually preached in over a thousand churches now, and every now and then you'll hear somebody say, when you get to a service, to a church, they'll say, oh, Brother Harper, you should have been here last week. Boy, so-and-so got up and started testifying, and then this person got up and testified, and this person got up and testified, and they testified for an hour and 45 minutes and we didn't have time for preaching. Listen, I'm not saying that testimonies aren't a wonderful part of a service. I'm not saying that people can't stand up and praise the Lord. I'm saying this, I happen to know your pastor and I think I'm correct in this. If you decided to testify one night for an hour and 45 minutes, when you got finished testifying for an hour and 45 minutes, he's gonna preach his sermon because church, ought to have preaching. It pleased the Lord by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Ought to be preaching when we come to church. I'm not saying that could never ever in the history of mankind happen. I'm saying it doesn't happen nearly as often as people claim that it happens. If you got to the car one night and you said, boy, we sure had some great singing this evening for the evening service, but do you know what? We didn't have any preaching. You would have every right to feel cheated by that church service. But there's a third thing we expect when we come to church. It happens multiple times every time we come into the house of God. We expect praying, don't we? We open the service with prayer. Pastor gets up, opens the service in prayer. We pray before the offering. I'll pray before I actually get into the message after introductory comments and we read the text. We'll pray at the end of the message. We'll pray at the benediction before we're dismissed. We pray multiple times when we come to church. If you got to your car one night and you said, well, we had good singing and we had good preaching, but do you know nobody At any time prayed in this church service, you would have every right to feel cheated by that church service. Here's some things you may or may not know. One of the first one you're gonna know pretty well. But do you realize that when the singers come, and we expect singing to be part of a church service, we expect them to be ready. Do you know what they do? They practice. Actually, the correct musical term is that they rehearse. They have, we've called it choir practice for years in Bible-leaving churches, I'm one of those that I don't think you should change a word just because you want to change it. So we have choir practice. The choir got up and practiced tonight before we got here. I think the children's choir practiced before most of us got here. I'm certain that this trio practiced even though those men couldn't get it right when they got started. I'm certain that the ladies ensemble practice. We practice, we do our very best. And do you realize that the choir, the song that they sang tonight, Hold the Fort, do you realize that they probably sung that song, and I've only heard them do it once, but I would imagine if you've been coming here for a few years, they've sung that song more than once. This isn't the debut of that song. Maybe it is, but I doubt very seriously that it is. But the truth of the matter is, that even though they knew they were gonna do a song that they've done before, they still practiced. They still worked on it. Those ladies that sang in the ensemble, I'm sure they worked on it over and over. That trio practiced over and over, working out time to come with the keyboardist so that you can have the music when you get up to sing. Do you know why they practice so hard? They do not practice so hard so that you'll leave the service and go, wow, That choir really sounded like the angelic choir from heaven tonight, although it's fine if you say that. They did it because they realized how important music is to the church service. They did it because they realized that the music's goal is to prepare the hearts of everyone for the preaching of the word of God. They do it because they're taking a part of a church service. They realize the importance of hundreds of people gathering together to meet and not forsake the assembling of themselves together to honor and praise and serve our Lord in a church service to come in leave differently than we walked in the service, they realize the importance of that, so they do their very best no matter how many times they've ever sung that song before. You may not know this one. Did you know preachers, we don't necessarily practice, but there are, I've got over a hundred books in my library, I'm certain there are hundreds more that have been written on the topic of homiletics. Homiletics means the science or the art of preaching. How to preach. How to prepare a message. How to deliver a message. How to study for a message. How to rightly divide the word of truth. The Practical Guide to Sermon Preparation. The Practical Guide to Sermon Delivery. On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons by John A. Broadus. The Preacher and His Preaching by Alfred Gibbs. On and on and on you can go down the list of books written on how to preach. Did you know this? That those books written on how to preach aren't written for the average person in the pew. they're written for the preachers who are already preaching. Because if a preacher truly realizes, if he truly lets it sink in, and he truly realizes that when he stands in this pulpit behind what we often refer to as the sacred desk, and says, open your Bible, and then says for 45 minutes or so, thus saith the Lord, he is literally borrowing authority from Almighty God, to stand up, and whether he's preaching to encourage you, or whether he's standing up like Isaiah, who was told to cry aloud, and lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins, whatever he's doing, when he gets up here to preach, he wants to preach better than he's ever preached before. Even if he's preached thousands of times, he wants to keep improving. Why? Because they realize just the importance of stating the words, thus saith the Lord. Our singers, who are a big part of our church, are striving to do better. Our preachers, a huge part of the church service, are striving to do better. But did you ever think about this? When it comes to prayer, I think we're pretty much okay with where we are. At least that's the way we act. If I were to ask the question tonight and start over here with this lady on the front row, and go all the way back through this entire row, up this way, and then back this way, and then back this way, and then we worked our way around the balcony, and I had every single person, and some of you are getting a little nervous right now, it's not gonna happen, and I asked every single one of you to stand up and give me a testimony of one specific answer to prayer you've seen in your prayer life. I personally believe that there is not a Christian in this room that couldn't do that. Not a Christian in this room that could not stand up and give me a specific answer to prayer that you've seen over the years. But if we started here at the platform and went back this way, and this way, and this way, and this way, and I asked you this question, how many in this room are completely satisfied with your prayer life? I don't think there's a one of us that would say yes. I can certainly speak from my own experience that I definitely would not say yes. The trouble is not that we're unwilling to admit that we have shortcomings in our prayer life. We would all be willing to admit that. Here's the problem. We're just afraid to ask. We're too proud, even though we admit that our prayer lives have shortcomings, we're too proud to ask the Lord to help us with our prayer life. In this passage of scripture, one of Jesus' disciples, at this time there are 12 traveling with him, one of Jesus' disciples is going to make a request of the Lord. He's going to say this, Lord, Teach us to pray. Even as John also taught his disciple. I do want you to notice that only one of the twelve asked the question. But I do want you to see this as we read the text here in a moment. When this disciple asked the question, Jesus does not say, here's what I want you to do. I want you to get several books on the topic and read them and then come to me and see what your questions really are. He didn't say, I want you to submit your questions in writing so I can answer them for you later. He didn't say, well, give me some time to think about that. I want you to notice when this disciple said, Lord, teach us to pray, do you know what Jesus did immediately? He taught them to pray. What I'm saying is, Christian, if we'll ask Him to help us pray, He will. If we'll ask Him, if we'll swallow our pride and ask Him to help us, He'll help us every single time. I do also want to point out that there were 11 disciples that didn't ask. 11 disciples that just stood there and said nothing. This whole passage of scripture hinges on one disciple who's not afraid of what anybody else would think. He could have said, you know, I sure would like to have the Lord help me to pray better, but what if Peter is gonna make fun of me? What if John doesn't ask the same question? What am I going to do if no one else responds? You have a lot of Christians that when it comes to an invitation, you're looking around seeing if anybody else is going to move. I'm glad this disciple didn't do that. Look at Luke 11 with me, please. Just a simple three-point message, but we'll get into this right now. Luke 11, beginning in verse 1, and it came to pass that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, when you pray, say, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And he said unto them, which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot arise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth he that seeketh findeth him, and knocketh, it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? If he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If he then, being evil, Know how to give good gifts unto your children. How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? I want to preach a message just entitled, Lord, teach us to pray. Ask yourself the question tonight. Are you brave enough to ask Him to help? Let's pray. Lord and Holy Father, we thank you for this evening. Lord, we ask you that you bless the message tonight. Father, I pray that you help us to realize the power and the potential and the privilege of prayer, that you'll help us to rejoice in the fact that we can come boldly before your throne, that we can have audience with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords just by simply speaking to you. Father, help us tonight to desire to have a prayer life that is more effective and more effectual than the prayer life that we have now. Father, I pray that you'll bless the message tonight. Have your will in your way in every heart. In Jesus' name, amen. You'll notice the passage starts, number one, with an exhibition of prayer. As we open up the passage, Jesus is praying. Now, Jesus didn't pray like you and I pray. I heard a preacher say, and I've heard it said many times since then, heard a preacher say one time this, he said, some of the biggest liars in a church service are ones holding a hymnal, that we will stand up and sing, I surrender all, when we haven't surrendered all. tell the Lord that he can have his own way when we're not willing to give him his own way. And one of those problems is that song, sweet hour of prayer. A lot of Christians will stand up and sing sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, that have no idea what an hour of prayer actually feels like. Most of us would be struggling if we sang sweet 15 minutes of prayer. I think we'd all be okay if we sang sweet three minutes of prayer. We'd all pass on that one. But Jesus didn't pray like you and I pray. When Jesus prayed, he prayed a long time. The night before he called his disciples, the Bible tells us he prayed all night. After he'd fed 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves and two fishes, he sent the disciples across the Sea of Galilee while he sent the multitudes away. And after he sent the multitudes away, the Bible says he went into a high mountain apart. to pray. And when the evening was come, hours later, when the evening was come, he was there alone. Our Savior, when he prayed, prayed a long time. And we can almost see those 12 disciples as Jesus is there praying, just like in the Garden of Gethsemane. They wouldn't pray with him for an entire hour, remember that? But Jesus continued to pray. And so the disciples have finished their prayer time and Jesus is still praying. We can almost see them over in the corner, looking at their watches as they tap their feet. Oh, we've got to hurry up. We've got to get to Capernaum. Oh no, we must need to travel through Samaria today. Some of them checking their phone and looking at their iPhone 14. No, they didn't really have that, but anyway. You can almost see them being impatient as the master is praying. But then one of them begins to listen. Think of the audience that he has. He is listening to the second person of the Trinity talk to the first person of the Trinity. He can eavesdrop in a conversation between two parts of the Godhead talking to one another He can listen to the Son of God bring his petitions to his heavenly Father. And he starts to listen as Jesus prays. See, he doesn't ask an academic question. He doesn't want to know what John taught the disciples. He could ask some of those disciples that had been John's disciples. Oh, by the way, what did John teach you about praying? If that's what he wanted to know. He does not approach the Lord and said, Lord, can you please tell me how to pray so that I can impress friends and neighbors as they listen to me pray. Can you teach me to pray so I'm not nervous about praying in public? Lord, can you teach me to pray so my prayer sounds as impressive as the Pharisees and the Sadducees? That's not what he's saying. He's not asking for an academic lecture on prayer. He is listening to the Son of God pray, and he says this, Lord, teach me to pray like that. You can almost hear the disciple as he says inside his heart, you know, if what that is is prayer, then I've never done it before. I've never prayed like he prays. I've never talked to the Lord like he's talking to the Lord. He sits there with burning desire, so much so, he doesn't care what anybody else thinks, no longer worried about the time, no longer worried about where they have to go. He knows that what he wants to do is pray like the Son of God just prayed. He no longer wants to pray like he prays. Don't teach me to pray like that. Never prayed with someone. And it just seemed as if they reached up into the heavens and grabbed the horns of the altar and shook it as they prayed with you. I'll never forget. I first went to Tennessee Temple University in 1981. I was 17 years of age. I went for a year, then took a year off to do basic and AIT with the field artillery. And so in 1983, I'm going back for my second year. But when I went there for my first year, they had just completed the new auditorium. Now let me, for those of you who've never been there, this is a work that has to be described for you to figure the scope of what I'm talking about. The new auditorium was 360 feet from corner to corner. It was like this one, an oval shape, a rounded shape auditorium with multiple sections, 360 feet from that corner to this corner. Do you know what else is 360 feet long? A football field including the end zones. That's the size of this auditorium. The church ran between 9 and 10,000 every single Sunday. That did not include the 72 chapels, which were smaller churches that were literally being pastured by Tennessee Temple students. And so those churches had hundreds in them as they were all over Alabama and Georgia and Tennessee. There were over 4,100 chapel numbers in 1983, 4,100 students that were students at Tennessee Temple University. This did not include the Tennessee Temple schools, which were the elementary and the high school and the junior high, which had over 1,000 students in them. So on any given day, if you walked along the campus there in downtown Chattanooga off Orchard Knob, you could see anywhere from 5 to 14,000 people walking up and down the streets of Chattanooga involved in that ministry in one way or another. In 1983, it was the largest church by membership in the United States of America. Forty-six Thousand people were members of the Highland Park Baptist Church. All of this headed by one individual, a pastor by the name of Lee Roberson. Dr. Roberson was the pastor of the church and the chancellor of the school, all of that under his auspices. I'd gone back there in 1983. Now, during that time, after basic and AIT, I'd settled back down into West Virginia. I was still called to be a preacher at that time, and so I was a preacher boy. And I was going to our church, my Maranatha Baptist Church in Sissonville, West Virginia. And I decided to start going out, and she agreed with me. I decided to start dating my pastor's daughter. Now, that was just fine with my pastor's wife, my girlfriend's mother, because I was a preacher boy. Even though I was freckled-faced, I weighed 128 pounds, and I was from the wrong side of the tracks. I was from a holler in West Virginia. But the truth of the matter was, in Sissonville, West Virginia, where our church was, we did not even have a stoplight at the time. There was basically a Rite Aid pharmacy, a Big Star grocery store, and there was a Geno's pizza bread that was there, and that's all that was in Sissonville at the time. And so my girlfriend's mother decided that it was okay for her to date me since I was in fact a preacher boy going to their church. And when you stop and think about it, the pool of preacher boys in Sissonville, West Virginia was not very deep. It's just that simple. As a matter of fact, there were no other options at the time, so my girlfriend's mother was okay with her dating a freckled-faced, 128-pound boy from the wrong side of the tracks. But when we packed up and headed to Tennessee Temple in 1983, with 4,000-plus students there, surely there were more preacher boys than just one from the wrong side of the tracks. Surely she would be able to find a preacher boy that wasn't freckled-faced. Surely she'd be able to find one that wasn't scrawny. She could find someone when she got there. And so my girlfriend's mother almost immediately began to try to convince her to break up with me and find someone else. Now it took a couple of months, but it finally worked. The constant badgering, she was my mother-in-law, I can say that about her. The constant badgering finally caused her to convince my girlfriend to break up with me. When she broke up with me, I was tore up. I had to talk to someone. I had to get some counsel. So I decided I couldn't call my home pastor. You have to think about that one for just a second, don't you? I decided on Monday morning, I was going to go see Dr. Lee Roberson. I had my first class, and between my first class and then I had an hour free before chapel, so I went to Dr. Roberson's office. I walked up to his secretary, a woman by the name of Dorothy, at the time. I said, Dorothy, I would like to talk to Dr. Roberson. And she said, why? And I said, just as straightforward as I could, well, my girlfriend broke up with me. Now, to her everlasting credit, she did not snicker, she did not roll her eyes, she did not give me any kind of look of disdain at all. She said, hold on just a minute. She got up, she walked back, she knocked on his office door, opened up the door when he said, come in, And she told him I was there. And do you know what he said? I'll see him in just a moment. Within five minutes, I was sitting in the office of Dr. Lee Roberson. Now let me say this because preachers do this every now and then, and I'm sure you've heard the term, a rabbit trail. It's when you go off of the path of your message and say something that's not part of your message. I'm going to take about a minute and a half rabbit trail right now. You say, Brother Harper, why are you doing that? Because it's my rabbit and it's my gun and I'll hunt it if I want to. It's just that simple. I know of men that maybe even are revered, even in our own circles, that pastor churches, and if you go to that church, that pastor's office, and you say, listen, I've just lost a loved one, listen, I've just lost a child, listen, I just found out I've got incurable stage four cancer, and I need to talk to my pastor, you're gonna be greeted with words like this. I can get you an appointment in a couple of months. I'm here to tell you something. If you supposedly are watching for their souls, if you're taking heed to the flock, and you can't counsel a hurting Christian that's a member of your church for two solid months, then you need to quit the ministry and get a job selling used cars, because you'll do better at that than you are at pastoring a church. Five minutes, I'm in the office of Dr. Lee Roberson, and I'm still 18 at the time. He says, what can I help you with? And I say, well, my girlfriend broke up with me. Now here, this shocked me just a little bit, and it shocked you too, Pastor Bloom. I expected him to turn the pages of his Bible and say, well, here's what the Bible says. When thy girlfriend breaketh up with thee, thou shalt therefore weep and... I expected there was a verse in there that he would know, that he would be able to give me so that I would know that there was a Bible answer. But he didn't have a Bible answer because, here's the sad news, there is no Bible answer on that. But after a moment of talking to me, he just said, like he always did if you were ever in his office, he'd said, let's pray. And he did just like that, did his hands like that, let's pray. And we got down on our knees and we started praying together. Now, I know I'm supposed to be praying with him, but I couldn't help but just kneel there and listen as he talked to the Lord, unlike I had never talked to him before. The power in just his prayer life was so monumental. I'm not building up a man. I'm just telling you a personal experience. You could just feel the power in his prayer life as he talked to the Lord for me and about me. And I was so convicted just kneeling next to Dr. Robertson and praying. Please understand, that's me kneeling and listening to a sinful man pray to the Lord. This disciple is listening to the perfect sinless, almighty Son of God talked to His Father. Can you imagine what that would do to your heart? By the way, I know you're going to want the rest of this story, so let me just take a moment and give it to you. After a few weeks, my girlfriend decided that we were getting back together. I was with her on that. I was totally in support of that when she said, I think we ought to get back together. I took her that weekend up to a place called Lookout Mountain, where I got down on one knee, I opened up a little velvet box with a ring that I had purchased from Roan Regency Jewelers in downtown Chattanooga. I asked her if she would marry me and she said yes. And by the way, for those of you in this auditorium that are gonna say, Are you talking about your wife? Of course, I'm talking about my wife. I've only been engaged once. That's Sunday night. I took my fiance now. We were at the bottom of the steps at Highland Park Baptist Church. Now, the platform's about this tall from the floor. And I said, well, let's go up there. All that's up there now, the choir's already gone. All that's up there is Dr. Robertson and Dr. Faulkner. I said, come on up. She goes, no, no, no. No, she's got this look of terror on her face. You're not supposed to go up there. And I guess I was just silly enough not to know I wasn't supposed to go up there. So I finally convinced her to come up. I'm pulling her up like I'm boating a marlin, right? I keep pulling her up and pulling her up, finally get her to the top step, and I walk up to Dr. Robertson. He's standing there, this man that looks so much like Moses, or my picture of Moses. And I said, Dr. Robertson, do you remember praying with me a couple of weeks ago? He said, yes, I remember well, I remember well, just like that. I said, let me show you something, Dr. Roberts. And I grabbed her left hand and I held it up like this. And there was that engagement ring on her finger. And he did this. And I promise you, I am not exaggerating. He said, homa. He said, I didn't know my prayers worked that well. I've prayed with him other times and the same power was there even when he was 97, but it's still just a man praying to his Heavenly Father. This disciple is listening to the Son of God pray to His Heavenly Father. And he says, I can't pray like this anymore. I can't pray the way I pray anymore. I want to pray like that. You teach me to pray. This disciple is already praying. This disciple is already calling the name of the Lord. This disciple is already asking the Lord, bringing his petitions to the Lord. He's already doing all of that. He's not asking to learn the elementary levels of prayer. He says, I want to pray like you pray from now on. Notice, number one, there's the exhibition of prayer. Number two, there's the example of prayer. Immediately, Jesus gives him the model prayer. Now, you'll hear people that refer to this as the Lord's Prayer. I'm not going to argue with you or fight with you or break fellowship with you if you call it the Lord's Prayer, but this is not the Lord's Prayer. You want to read the Lord's Prayer, read John chapter 17, and you'll find out that in the Lord's Prayer, he prays for you specifically. This is the model prayer. It's not something that we're supposed to quote every time we bow our heads and pray. It's not something we're supposed to repeat with vain repetition. We, as independent Baptists, we kind of roll our eyes at people who memorize prayers and quote them and all of that kind of thing, even though we are guilty of the same thing, are we not? Do we not have our memorized offering prayer? The Lord and Holy Father, we thank you for this offering. We pray that you'll bless it with the gift of the giver. Bless the offering to be used for the furthered of your gospel around the world. In Jesus' name, amen. How many times have you heard that one? How about the regular meal prayer? The Lord and Holy Father, we thank you for this food. We pray that you'll bless it and nourish our bodies. Bless the hands that prepared it, in Jesus' name, amen. You've heard that prayer 10,000 times in your life. I'll never forget, though, we were in our home church years ago. It was the Sunday before Christmas. And on that Sunday before Christmas, our regular pianist was out of town. She'd gone to visit family. Debbie Cook is her name, in case you're wondering. She's still the pianist all these years later. Debbie Cook was out of town so we had our second string pianist. Now I've noticed that you guys have lots of pianists in this church. I've noticed that. We were in a church a few weeks ago, actually in February of this year, that had 30 people in the church and I think 10 of them actually played the piano. It was an amazing thing. I've never seen a church like that. but you have several and you have your first string pianist whoever that is and then you've got a second string pianist is just a little bit lower or she might even be equal and then a third string and a fourth string and a fifth string you might have ten strings a tenth string pianist that could sit up there and play every service. In our old home church we had Debbie Cook who was our first string pianist. Our second string pianist was a lady by the name of Mary Pala. If Debbie Cook is this good as a pianist Mary Pala is about this good as a pianist, all right? I have to use the steps to fully illustrate it. Let me, I will say this about Mary Pala. If she were here tonight, she would agree with everything I just said. However, she's willing to step up when she's asked. The truth is she was going to be playing the piano. My brother-in-law at the time was the choir director, the congregational song leader, and he was the only person that could fix a problem with the PA when we had a problem with the PA. He had broken his ankle and was unable to do any of those things on that day. So we had our second string congregational song leader leading the congregational singing with the second string pianist playing the piano. We had our third string choir director leading the choir because our second string choir director was also the second string song leader and they didn't want him to have to do both jobs. And I don't know who was helping the PA but no one could figure that thing out. The devil got in that thing and started screeching and squealing and all that kind of stuff. It was one of those services where things were, I could go on and on about how funny it was, but like, you'd stand up and they'd say, all right, let's stand and let's sing number 67. What a day that will be. And everybody would stand up and Mary Palo would start playing number 69 or something like that. The choir's singing along and everything's going fine. The third string choir director's leading the choir and then all of a sudden everything stops. He stops, the choir stops, everybody stops and we turn as the piano stops and we all look toward the piano and we watched in horror as Mary Pala did this. And then continued to play. After a while, my father-in-law, by the way, if you've pastored for any length of time, you've had one of those services where everything went wrong. My father-in-law finally got control of the service. He's a very experienced pastor. And so after things are almost back to normal, he calls the ushers to come forward and he asks, brother so-and-so, would you please ask the Lord to bless the offering? Talking about the power of prayer there in that moment when everything had gone so wrong, everything had been so far off the tracks. We all bowed our head and closed our eyes as he began to pray, and I'll never forget what he said. He said, Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you for this food. We pray that you'll bless it to the nourishment of our bodies. Bless the hands that prepared it in Jesus' name, amen. Yes, he had quoted the meal prayer instead of the offering prayer. By the way, Christian, if your prayer life is made up of memorized prayers, whatever they are, they're not doing very much good because Jeremiah 29 in verse 13 says, you shall seek me and you shall find me when you search for me with all your heart. Jesus is not giving us a prayer to memorize, but He is giving us an outline, if you will. He's giving us some bullet points that ought to be a part of our prayer life whenever we pray. And I want you to notice this example of prayer starts with praise. Our Father, which art in heaven hallowed or holy, be thy name. Revered be thy name. Let me ask you a question as you sit here tonight. Is God's name holy right now, yes or no? Of course it is. Is God's name always going to be holy? Of course it is. Can you, in any way, make God's name less holy? No, you cannot. If that were the case, then every blaspheming person around the world would be diminishing the holiness of God's name. It doesn't work that way. So if you can't add to or take away from the holiness of God's name, and yet Jesus still tells us to start with, hallowed be thy name. A kingdom come. His kingdom is already coming. You heard a Sunday school lesson about it this morning. You read from your Bible and the books of Daniel and Revelation that His kingdom is coming. Nothing can stop His kingdom from coming. Principalities, powers, rulers of darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places cannot stop His kingdom from coming. And then He says this, Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth. His will is going to be done. Every single thing that God has ever said would come to pass is going to come to pass exactly like He said it was going to come to pass. His will is going to be done. His kingdom is going to come. His name is already holy. So why does Jesus tell me to start with praise? Why does He tell me to start by telling my Heavenly Father how holy He is and how mighty He is? and how powerful He is. You want to know why? Because God deserves it. He deserves our praise. Let me tell you something that'll help you. Every now and then, maybe once a year, maybe once a month, maybe once a week, you go to your prayer closet, and you take your prayer list, and yes, you should have a prayer list. You take your prayer list, and you leave it outside. You go inside your prayer closet, and you close the door, and you say, I didn't come in here to ask you for anything. I didn't come to ask you to bless my family, to fill my finances. I didn't come to ask you to take care of my future. I didn't come with a list of people that I need you to heal. I just came in here to spend a little while telling you how holy you are, and how mighty you are, and how gracious you are, and how powerful you are, and how merciful you are, and how loving you are. I just came in here to spend a little bit of time thanking you for your faithfulness, and your forgiveness. I just came in here for a little while. Thank you for your power and your presence. I just came in here and just spent a little time praising your name. Listen carefully. You'll never pray the same way again once you prayed that way the first time. Notice carefully, he says to start with prayer. A praise in our example of prayer. Then our provision, give us on the first day of the month all the bread that we'll need for the rest of the month. That is what it says, isn't it? give us day by day our daily bread. We don't ask the Lord about daily bread, do we? We have this mentality. Well, I'll pray about the big things, but I'll take care of the little things. Does it surprise you if I tell you this? You've never had a big prayer request. I mean, you've had big prayer requests from your perspective, but never from God's. Lord, we need a million dollars by Thursday as if Almighty God in heaven is going to go, wow, a million dollars. Where am I going to come up with a million dollars? The street's gold, Christian. Did you catch that? You haven't had a prayer request that he can't answer with the snap of his finger. You've never prayed anything that God said, well, that's a big one. It doesn't exist. It's not going to happen. If you're waiting to pray only about the big things, you will never pray one time. You've got to remember something. God didn't tell you to pray about the big things and take care of the little things on your own. He said this, be careful for nothing, but in everything, With prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. We're supposed to pray about it all, not just the big things and not just the little things. We're supposed to pray about everything. By the way, if you pray today, Lord, give us day by day our daily bread. Do you know what you have to pray tomorrow morning? Lord, give me today my daily bread, don't you? But do you know what else you get to do tomorrow morning? You get to say, oh, and Lord, thanks for yesterday's bread, Lord. Notice this example of prayer, praise, provision. Notice also he talks about not just prayer and provision, but also purity. And forgive us our sins. We also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. It's important to realize that if something like this isn't in your prayer, You're pretty much wasting your time. Do you know no time in Scripture did God ever obligate Himself? I'm not saying He doesn't do it. He never obligated Himself to answer the prayer of a disobedient Christian. He answers prayers of disobedient Christians because He's a gracious God, but He never obligated Himself. Remember what He said in verse John chapter 3 and verse 3? What sort of things you ask we receive of Him because we keep His commandments? Isn't that what the Bible says? Doesn't the Bible tell us that if we come to the Lord with unconfessed sin in our lives, we're wasting our time? Psalm 66 and verse 18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Isaiah chapter 59 and verse 2. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. John chapter 9 and verse 31. Now we know that God heareth not sinners. Isaiah 64 and verse 7. Thou hast hid thy face from us, and has consumed us because of our iniquities. There needs to be a time in our prayer where we confess our sin and ask Him for His forgiveness. If we want our prayer lives to be effectual and fervent, they've got to come from a righteous mouth, do they not? Notice this example of prayer. Praise, provision, purity, and then lastly protection. Don't you love this? Two things are here. I think we lump them together. I don't think they're supposed to be lumped together. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. As we mentioned this morning, if you're following Him on that path of righteousness, He's not going to lead you into temptation, is He? But when you get away from Him, and you find yourself in temptation, and you find yourself in evil, isn't it amazing that He's still willing to deliver us? He will not allow us to be tempted above that which we're able, but also with the temptation, also make it a way of escape that we may be able to bear it. Even when we've walked away from Him, even when we're ignoring Him, we've got off that path of righteousness, we end up in the thickets and we end up on a cliffside somewhere, He's still gonna deliver us from evil. I'm here to tell you, He's a great God, isn't He? Notice number one, we saw the exhibition of prayer. Number two, the example of prayer. Number three, I want you to notice our expectancy of prayer. Don't you love as Jesus gives us four illustrations here. These are not parables, these are just illustrations. And they are illustrations that are so simple that everybody who's listening to them would have understood them. He says you have a friend that shows up unexpectedly at midnight. Now, the second worst kind of company in the world is an announced company, isn't it? When you're sitting there just relaxing, doing nothing, there's a knock at your door, oh, we just decided to drop in. Well, you should have decided to drive by is what you should have decided to do. I'm not a gracious host with the drop in, I'm sorry. But the only kind that's worse than that is unexpected company at midnight. This guy, they have no food to sit in front of. There's no convenience stores, there are no Walmarts, there's nothing like that. So now he's gotta go and get some food. He can't go buy any. And he is forced to go from house to house at midnight and try to borrow some bread from someone. I personally think that this man was willing to volunteer for this job because it's a lot better to knock on a stranger's door or a neighbor's door and wake them up in the middle of the night than it would have been to been in his house with his wife at that point in time. Can you imagine the conversation going on at his house? And maybe your house isn't anything like mine. But if we had company that showed up at midnight unannounced, somehow it would be my fault. And so my wife would say something like this, you know, if you had gone to the grocery store this afternoon like you were supposed to, instead of watching that football game, we would have food to set in front of our company when they showed up. People are going to be talking about how bad a hostess I am because I have nothing to set in front of them. You have embarrassed me. And he says, I'll start knocking on doors, honey. He goes to the next door neighbor and he knocks on the door. And he says, friend, I need three loves. And the friend says, go away. I'm in bed. The kids are in bed. The door's locked. Don't bother me anymore. And the Bible tells us, Jesus says, that what he will not rise and give him because he's his friend, yet because of his importunity, he's going to give him as much as he needs. Let me define importunity for you from this passage of scripture. Friend, I need three loaves of bread. It's midnight. Yeah, yeah, I know. I've got company that showed up unannounced, and I'm just trying to find bread. I need three loaves of bread. But the door's locked. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you've got a key. You didn't lock yourself in there forever, so I need three loaves of bread. But I'm in bed. Yeah, that goes along with the midnight thing. I understand what you're saying there. But even though you're in bed, and even though it's midnight, and even though the door's locked, I still need three loaves of bread. But my kids are asleep. Not for long. Finally, the man gets up and gives him all the bread that he wants, not just the three loaves, as many as he needeth. Understand this. There are two times to stop praying for something. Jesus put it this way in Luke 18 and verse 1. The Lord spake a parable unto them to this end that men ought always to pray and not to faint. 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 17 tells us to pray without ceasing. 1 Chronicles 16 and verse 11. Seek the Lord in his strength. Seek his face continually. There are two times, as I understand it in Scripture, that we stop praying. One is when God says yes. Typically, we don't usually keep asking Him for something once He's already given it to us, do we? The other time is when He says no. Please understand, God is more than capable of saying no in a way that you and I understand it. And He does, in fact, say no. Did you ever notice that the Apostle Paul besought the Lord thrice, that he might remove from him his thorn in the flesh? Remember what the Lord's answer was? No. My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Did you ever notice that Paul never asked a fourth time? Once God said no, Paul stopped asking. But when God says no to me and you, we get mad. We say, I don't know why the Lord doesn't love me, why the Lord doesn't take care of me. Doesn't he know how much I need this? And God says no, God's just a giant bully in heaven. Is that not our attitude whenever God says no? Let me ask you a question. As parents and grandparents, when you've said no to your children, or less frequently, to your grandchildren, you'll get that later, Did you do it because you were just being mean? When your four-year-old son went to cross the street without looking both ways and you grabbed his hand and you squeezed and you said, no, were you saying no because you did not want him to experience the exhilaration of dodging traffic? Or did you say no because you love him and know what's best for him? The simple truth is when God says no, he says no because it's the best thing for you. You look back on your Christian life and you have to fall on your knees and just thank Him for the no's along the way. How kind of, how big a mess would you and I make of our lives if He just rubber stamped everything with a yes? Sometimes, by the way, even a no isn't a no. One of the verses that we use a lot of times when we talk about prayer, call unto me, Jeremiah 33 and verse 3, and I will answer thee. And then it says this, And show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. You ever scratch your head a little bit on the witch thou knowest not part? If God does something great and mighty, don't you think you'll know that God did something great and mighty? The great and mighty, the witch thou knowest not, is not talking about the answer in that verse, it's talking about the asking. He says, call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you didn't even know to ask for in the first place. Let me illustrate quickly. My little brother now pastors in Hampton, Virginia, First Calvary Baptist Church. I've been going to that church now for about 20 years. And so I was there before he took the church with the previous pastor. I was on a Monday night after the service. I'm standing in the back shaking hands and an 82 year old retired brigadier general walked up to me. That area has a lot of retired military. And he said, brother Harper, do you have a minute to pray with me? I said, brother, I certainly do. I said, would you mind giving me a few minutes to say goodbye to a few more people and then you and I'll go to pray. But if you need to do it now, we'll do it now. He said, no, no, I'm not in any hurry. I shook a few more hands and I went and found him in the vestibule and we walked through the vestibule up a set of steps that takes you into the fellowship hall. Then we walked across the fellowship hall to a little room called the church library. We went in there and I said, brother, what are we praying about? He said, well, four years ago, they found cancer in my left kidney and they removed it. He said, just a couple of weeks ago, they've now found tumors in my right kidney. I said, I'm sorry. I said, what are we praying about? He said, well, I've got an appointment tomorrow, and they're going to put dye in my system, and they're going to see just how bad it is and see if there's anything that they can do. And I said, yes, sir. He said, now here's my problem. When I went through this the first time, they must have used a different dye at the VA hospital than they use now. For those of you with medical background, it's probably not a change in the dye. It's probably that with one kidney, he can't filter the dye like he could with two kidneys. But he said, if they use that new dye tomorrow, it's gonna make me sick. He said, I'm afraid it will make me so sick. Listen to this. I'm gonna miss church tomorrow night. An 82-year-old man with one kidney and a tumor-filled other kidney was worried that he'd be too sick to miss a Tuesday night of a revival meeting. I'm willing to guess we'll have people that miss Tuesday nights with Tuesday night of this week with less excuse than he would have had. He said, can you pray that they use the old dye tomorrow? I said, I can. We bowed our heads and we prayed. I remember to this day what I prayed. I said, Lord, the heart of the king is in your hand. If it be your will, the pharmacy can run out of the new dye tonight and they'll have to use the old dye tomorrow. If it be your will, the doctor will write the prescription for the procedure and put down the old dye instead of the new dye. But Lord, even if they have to use that new dye, I pray that you'll keep my brother from getting sick so he can come to church tomorrow night. We finished praying, we hugged each other's neck, and we walked out the door. I walked in the next night about 6.15. I came in the side door. My trailer was parked out there. As you come in the side door, there's two concrete, cinder block walls here. On one side, the first door you see is the men's restroom. On the right side, the first door you see is the church nursery. As I walked in, he was walking out of the men's restroom. And I don't want to be graphic, but he'd obviously been sick. He'd obviously been sick a lot. His face was almost completely pale, almost an ashen gray color. There was blue around his lips. He leaned up against the cinder block wall because it was a little cool and cooling him off after being sick. And I looked at him and I want to be transparent. I looked at him and I got upset with the Lord. I said, I don't understand, Lord. All he wanted to do was to feel like coming to church. And Lord, he loves you enough that he's still faithful even though he's sick and you couldn't answer this little prayer for him. I was almost immediately convicted. I asked the Lord to forgive me. I tried to clean up my countenance as soon as I possibly could because this man has come on a Tuesday night, drug in sick, just so he could hear me preach. I didn't want him to think that I had the audacity to argue with God because who do I think I am arguing with God? I looked at him and I tried to make as light of it as I possibly could. And I said, brother, didn't they use that right die? He just shook his head. He was so weak, he just shook his head. And I watched very carefully as the corners of his lips turned up, almost not noticeable. And this is what he said. He said, but they didn't find any cancer either. Wait a minute, wait a minute. We didn't even pray about that. in that little room, that little church library, neither one of us said, and Lord, by the way, just, if it be your will, make sure there's no cancer in there when that test result comes back. No, no, we didn't pray about that. We said, Lord, can you please take care of that dye thing? And you know what the Lord's answer was to us? No. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not. See, because when God does great and mighty things, a preacher can't get the credit, a doctor can't get the credit, a lawyer can't take the credit, a multimillionaire can't take the credit. When God does something great and mighty, only Almighty God can get the credit for that. And I'm here to tell you something, Christians. Sometimes when you get a no, you might want to start looking around to see if there's a great and mighty thing on your way that you weren't expecting. But notice, we keep praying, we keep asking, we keep knocking. That's what it says here. Ask and keep on asking is the Greek word here. And I'm not a Greek scholar, it's the perfect tense, which means you just keep on going. Ask and keep on asking and seek and keep on seeking and knock and keep on knocking. For everyone that asks and keeps on asking, receive it. He that seeketh and keeps on seeking, findeth. He that knocketh and keeps on knocking, it shall be opened. It's not just a one-time thing. And when God doesn't give us what we want, within the first 12 seconds of the first prayer, we give up. You just keep asking. But then he uses one more set of illustrations and we're done. And once again, these illustrations do not say what we typically think they say when we read them. He says, all right, which of you, you're a dad, and your son comes to you and says, Dad, I want some bread. And I've always read this to think, well, this poor dad couldn't give bread to this son when he asked for bread. That's not what it's about at all. It's not that the son has asked for the most expensive bread in the bakery, and the dad says, well, son, I can't get that for you, but I can get you some enriched white bread from Walmart, if that's what you'd like. That's not what's going on here. He said, your son asked you for bread. Dad, I'd like to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and we don't have any bread. Here's some rocks. You realize if your son, not saying that you would ever do this, but if your son actually eats rocks, it's not going to help him. It's going to cause him pain. In other words, your son, it's not that you can't afford something. By the way, if your son asked for the most expensive bread, or especially your grandson asked for the most expensive bread, and you couldn't afford the most expensive bread, you know what you'd do? You'd do without, you'd save up, you'd scrimp and you'd save, and you'd eventually buy him that most expensive bread, because that's what he asked for. That's what we do, isn't it? He said, he's not asking that. He's not saying, which of you, your son asked for bread, and you can't afford to get him bread right now, and your poor son has to go hungry. That's not what he's saying. Your son asked for bread, and instead of bread, you're gonna give him something to hurt him. Do you think every parent standing there is saying, well, of course I wouldn't give him a stone if he asked for bread. Well, how about if he asked for a fish? Would you for a fish give him a serpent? Dad, I'd like to have some lobster. Well, no, son, you can't have some lobster, but I do, in fact, have a copperhead here. Go play with this. This will be fun. No parent would do that. You might have to get them star-kissed tuna instead of lobster because that's the tuna that's with good taste. We understand that, right? So you might have to do that. You might not be able to give them what they've actually asked for, but you're not going to give them something that hurts them. How about if they ask you for an egg? Well, I can't give you an egg, son, but I've got these two scorpions, and I understand that if you put them together and get the claws to attach, it's kind of like playing with Legos. Here, go play with this. No parent would do that. Every parent listening to this is saying, wait a minute, hold on. If my son asks for bread, I'm gonna give him bread. If he asks for a fish, I'm gonna give him a fish. If he asks for an egg, I'm gonna give him an egg. I might not be able to afford the fish and the bread and the egg that he wants, but I'm gonna make sure he has something that's gonna help him to grow up and be healthy. I'm not gonna give him a rock, I'm not gonna give him a serpent, and I'm certainly not gonna give him scorpions. Everybody is sitting there knowing exactly what the Savior is teaching. I'll never forget, it was the first week of November in 2001. My daughter had gotten something in the mail. She was four at the time. She got something in the mail. Let me just stop for just a moment. For those of you under the age of 30, mail is something that used to come to your house made out of paper. They put it in a box. It didn't have an E in front of it, and it didn't come with little round Walmart pictures on there to describe your emotions every time you did it. It was paper that came to your door. And so this came addressed to my four-year-old daughter. It was a catalog. She thought, I'm sorry, it was an advertisement. She thought it was a catalog. It was an advertisement addressed to her from a world-famous doll company. She loved that thing. Every night she would sit at her, every day she would sit at her little desk and she would circle things in that catalog. By the time I saw that advertisement, every single thing in the advertisement had a circle around it. She would sleep with it under her pillow. And now November has come, and she's decided she's brave enough to ask. She comes into my office. I've always had an office since we started evangelism at the house. As an evangelist, you don't have an office at a church. I have an office at the house. She walks into my office. She walks behind my desk. She moves what is on my desk out of the way. And then she lays her little magazine down, and you'll love this. She smoothed it out like this. And then she climbed in my lap and put her arm around me. She said, Daddy, I would like to have this doll. It was the top right-hand doll on the left-hand side of the page. I never know exactly where it was on the page. I would like to have this doll for Christmas. Now, I am a father. I have a daughter. I know how much dolls cost. I've seen dolls at Target. At that time, I'd seen dolls at Kmart. I've seen dolls at Walmart. I've seen dolls at the more expensive stores. I know how much dolls cost. I know what's an expensive doll and I know what's a cheap doll. And so I'm expecting that because of the magazine and the paper and the postage and all of that, and because of the name recognition, this doll is probably on the more expensive side of the expensive doll. So I begin to look. I'm a man, even though I'm a father, but I'm a man too. So I'm looking for one thing on that page. I don't care how long this company's been in existence or how many different names of dolls they have or anything like that. I know there's a dollar sign on that page somewhere. I'm going to find it. I finally find it. I was so shocked. It certainly seemed to me like they were using dollar symbols in their stock numbers. That's how big this number was. It just went on and on and on. It was two or three times more than the most expensive doll I had ever seen. I was shocked when I saw that. And I said, Charity, I'm not going to buy you a doll that costs that much money for Christmas. I pointed on my desk to my desktop phone because I grew up in an era where the phone was on the wall and the TV wasn't. So I said, I'm gonna take this phone right here and I'm gonna call your grandparents and I'm gonna tell them not to buy you a doll that costs that much money for Christmas. My daughter kissed me on my cheek. She told me she loved me and goodnight. She slid down off my lap. She reached over and she grabbed her little magazine and she so gingerly closed it like so. Then she started walking out of my office. And when she got to the door of my office, she stopped and she looked back and she went, She went back into her room to go to bed and sleep with that magazine under her pillow. As she walked out of my office, I grabbed the mouse on my desktop computer, I logged on to the website, and I ordered the doll. You knew. Ladies, let me help you here. There is not a man in this room that has a daughter that didn't know where that story was going as soon as she walked in my office. When it came in, I wrapped it. Now, I am not a good rapper when it comes to Christmas presents. I'm one of those people, and maybe some of you men agree with me. It's my personal belief that if every single square inch of that package is not covered with tape, then somehow it will spontaneously open up before Christmas, revealing the surprise. So I just tape and tape and tape and tape. Every year at the end of the Christmas season, I get a personal handwritten note from the president of the Scotch Tape Company thanking me for keeping them afloat for one more year. My wife can wrap seven presents. I'm not, I don't think I'm exaggerating. She can take a piece of tape that long, just one piece of tape that long. She can wrap seven presents. I can't wrap seven presents with three spools of tape, it's just that bad. I've wrapped it, I put another name under it, I slid it under the tree way in the back. Christmas morning came, we're all over the floor, packages and bells and bows and boxes and all of that are all around us. Charity's having a wonderful time, she's gotten all of her presents. I don't remember what I got, I'm sure I got a wallet. The height of irony is our children buy us wallets for Christmas, isn't it? Probably cologne and maybe some cufflinks. I don't remember. I actually don't remember what I got that year for Christmas. But after Charity's opened everything, I said, Charity, by the way, there's one more present. I said, that last present isn't really for your cousin. I'd put a different name on it. I made up a cousin that she didn't really have, so she wouldn't shake it and try to figure out what was under there. I said, it's not for your cousin. That's for you. I said, that present's from Daddy. She crawled under. She started trying to open that present. It took a while. There's a lot of tape. So finally, she got it open enough, and there was that doll's face staring back at her. She just dropped it in the floor. She ran across the floor, she jumped in my lap, and she squeezed me with her skinny little bony four-year-old arms, squeezed as hard as she could, and she said, thank you, Daddy, I love you. Merry Christmas. Do you know I don't remember what I got that year for Christmas? But I want you to listen to me. I will never forget that hug. Why? She asked for fish. I got her fish. She asked for an egg, I got her an egg. She asked for bread, I got her bread. And before anybody starts patting somebody on the shoulders and on the back because of what a great job they've done, I want to remind you what the next verse says. If ye then, being evil. Listen, that's us, by the way. If you've trusted Christ as your personal savior, you've had his righteousness attributed to you. You're still evil, just like I am. Paul said, Oh, wretched man that I am. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children. If you, being evil, know that when your son asks for bread, you're gonna give him bread. When your son asks for fish, you're gonna give him a fish. When your son asks for an egg, you're gonna give him an egg. If you, being evil, can give your children what they ask for, how much more shall your heavenly Father give to the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? See, Christian, you and I, we don't even scratch the surface of great and mighty things. We're content with asking for fish and getting fish when any evil dad can do that. We should be wanting to pray like he prays. Want to be praying to the God that is able to give us exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. That's who we pray to. See, the problem isn't that every one of us wouldn't acknowledge, yeah, I'd like to have more answers to prayer, I'd like to have a more effective prayer life. The problem is we're too proud to ask. Because if we ask, he'll teach every single time. One question and we're done. Are you gonna be like the one disciple? who heard the Lord pray and wanted to be different, you're gonna be like the 11 who just stood there and did nothing. Let's have our heads bowed and our eyes closed, no one looking around. The Lord, we thank you for this evening. We thank you, Lord, for the privilege of coming into your presence. Lord, we ask that you bless this invitation. Thank you for speaking to hearts. Do what only you can do for the remainder of this service. Hope your people to be obedient. In Jesus' name.