We'll take your Bibles, open up with me to Luke chapter 11 this morning to start. Second lesson here in our series, Lord teach us to pray. This morning we're looking at verse two. I'll read verse one to start again. It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, and of course, then he introduces us to what is called the Lord's Prayer, better called the disciples prayer. But we're focusing on the phrase this morning in verse two, when you pray, and the expectation for prayer in the life of the believer. I do wanna start though by, reading our hymn for this week. This is a hymn from Gadsby's hymns called the Ground and Foundation of Prayer based on Hebrew 725. Therefore he is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. This hymn says, wherewith shall we approach the Lord and bow before his throne by trusting in his faithful word and pleading Christ alone? The blood, the righteousness, and love of Jesus will we plead. He lives within the veil above for us to intercede. Sure ground and sure foundation too we find in Jesus' name. Herein with every blessing view and every favor claim. Then let his name forever be to us supremely dear, only our all prevailing plea for all our hope is there. This is the name the father loves to hear his children plead and all such pleading he approves. and blesses them indeed. As we look at the foundation of prayer and the expectation for prayer, people do ask if prayer, and if fasting, and if giving, and if doing good works, if these things are required for Christians to do. There's become a notion especially probably in the last 40 or 50 years, this idea of the carnal Christian, or those who can be a Christian and not do what Christians are supposed to do, or people who can live completely in the flesh and still claim that they prayed a prayer, they accepted Christ, once saved, always saved, so it doesn't matter how they live. There was this appeal to living under grace, not under the law, but that was misapplied to the point that people thought that Christians didn't have anything to do. All we had to do was pray a prayer, and as long as you prayed that before you died, then you were sure to go to heaven. So I've actually been asked in my ministry by a couple of people over the years if prayer was necessary. Now, quite frankly, looking at the scripture and if you look at your own Christian life, can you imagine doing this without prayer? Can you imagine not communing with God and not taking advantage even of the blessing that prayer is? Well, Jesus answers that question. I've also been asked the question about fasting. Are we supposed to fast? Should we fast? And Jesus answers the question by the statement that he makes to his disciples when he says, when you pray. If you're not expected to do it, he's not gonna say when you do it. He expects us to pray. In Matthew 6, five through seven in Mark 11, 25, here in Luke 11, two, Jesus uses that phrase, when you pray. In Matthew 6, 16, he says, when you fast, there's an expectation there. In Matthew 6, verses two through four, he begins that, when you give to the poor, when you're doing your good works, when you're doing charitable deeds, don't do it to be seen by men. So these things, yes, they're not only expected, but we are equipped to do them by the Holy Spirit. So yes, Jesus expects us to pray. R.A. Torrey writes, if we would know the fullness of blessing that there is in the prayer life, it's important not only that we pray in the right way, but also that we pray at the right time. Now that's the question then is when should we pray? If Jesus says, when you pray, when do we pray? And there are those who would like to put a time on it. A few of those times that R.A. Torrey talks about and actually backs the separate scripture. He says, you should pray in the morning. Now, why should you pray in the morning? Mark 1.35, and early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus rose up, went out of the house and went away to a desolate place and was praying there. Praying in the morning sets the tone for the day. We need to start with what is most important. The first thing we do each day should be to go to God alone, Torrey says, and face the duties, the temptations, and the service of that day, and get strength from God for all. We should get victory before the hour of trial, temptation or service comes. The secret place of prayer is the place to fight our battles and gain our victories. Psalm chapter five, verse three says, O Yahweh, in the morning you will hear my voice, In the morning, I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch. It's to enter each day praying and expecting to see the answer that day and living as if God is going to answer when we pray because he says he will. Psalm 88, 13 says, but as for me, O Yahweh, I have cried out to you for help and in the morning, my prayer comes before you. So here we see an example to pray in the morning. Secondly, R.A. Torrey says, we see that Jesus prayed at night. And several times we're told he prayed through the night. In Luke 6, 12, it happened at this time he went off to the mountain to pray and he was spending the whole night in prayer to God. Torrey writes, oftentimes we will have prayed things through long before the night has passed and we can retire and find more refreshing and invigorating sleep than if we had not spent the time in prayer. At other times, God doubtless will keep us in communion with himself away into the morning. And when he does this in his infinite grace, blessed indeed are those hours of night prayer. Nights of prayer to God are followed by days of power with men. In the night hours, the world is hushed and slumber, and we can easily be alone with God and have undisturbed communion with him. If we set apart the whole night for prayer, there will be no hurry. There will be time for our own hearts to become quiet before God. There will be time for the whole mind to be brought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There will be plenty of time to pray things through. A night of prayer should be put entirely under God's control. We should lay down no rules as to how long we will pray or as to what we shall pray about, but be ready to wait upon God for a short time or a long time as he may lead and to be led out in one direction or another as he may see fit. Psalm 42 verse eight, David writes, by day Yahweh will command his loving kindness and by night, his song will be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Have you ever thought of singing as praying? It is. Singing is praying. Many times in the Psalms, we see that David has written this poetry and he's put these things to music. And as he sings these things, these songs are prayers. Psalm 88 verse one says, O Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and throughout the night before you. So we see, if you ask when to pray, first, we're to pray in the morning. Secondly, we're to pray at night. Third, Torrey says, Jesus prayed before all the great crises in his earthly life. Now, you have to ask there. My first question was, he was facing decisions. He was doing things in ministry. He was facing temptation and he would pray beforehand. Well, the question is, how did he know this was coming? Well, he was God in human flesh. Well, how are we supposed to follow that example? Let me let me just set this out for you. You're probably going to face a crisis today. At least one, you're probably gonna face a crisis tomorrow. You're probably facing some things this week, aren't you? There are things that we're gonna face. Well, we need to be praying before we get there. Too often, our prayer is a reaction after the fact to a crisis. We need to be praying in anticipation of a crisis. David does this all the time. Lord, when this comes, be my salvation, be my deliverance, be my support. Jesus prayed before choosing the 12 disciples. He prayed before the Sermon on the Mount. He prayed before starting out on an evangelistic tour, before his anointing with the Holy Spirit, before he entered into his public ministry. He prayed before announcing the 12, his approaching death, before the great consummation of his life at the cross. He prepared for every important crisis by a protracted season of prayer. So ought we also to do. Whenever any crisis of life is seen to be approaching, we should prepare for it by a season of very definite prayer to God. We should take plenty of time for this prayer. Now, this is if we know there's something coming. And when I say anticipate, that means don't worry about it, but just know there's going to be trouble in this life. We live in a fallen world. There's going to be conflicts and struggles. Most of the conflict and the struggle is with our own self, isn't it? With our own flesh, our own body and what it wants day by day. In Psalm 55, David starts the psalm and he says, Give ear to my prayer, O God, and do not hide yourself from my supplication. Give heed to me and answer me. I am restless in my complaint and I'm surely distracted. You ever felt distracted when you prayed? You ever felt distracted by things going on in life as you're trying to walk in the spirit? And there's the difficulty. We try too hard to walk in the spirit. You know you can't make yourself walk in the spirit. You know how you walk in the spirit? And this is, I mean, I hate to quote Star Wars in this instance, but Yoda was right. There is no try. There is do or do not. We can take that a step further. For the Christian life, there is no try. We're never told to try. You know what we're told? To die. You know how you walk in the spirit? You die to yourself. Walking in the spirit is not me exerting my effort to do what's right. Walking in the Spirit is me surrendering my will and myself as a living sacrifice to God. So it's good to know that David got distracted. Give heed to me and answer me. I am restless in my complaint and I'm surely distracted because of the voice of the enemy, because of the pressure of the wicked, for they shake wickedness down upon me and in anger they bear a grudge against me. So we need to be praying in the morning. We need to pray at night. We need to pray before a crisis. Fourth, Torrey says Christ prayed not only before the great events and victories of his life, but he also prayed after its great achievement and important crises. He prayed before and after. Every circumstance in his life was sandwiched in prayer. When he had fed the 5,000 with the five loaves and the two fishes, and the multitude desired to take him and make him a king, having sent them away, he went up into the mountain apart to pray in Matthew 14. He spent hours there alone in prayer to God. He went that way from victory to victory. Torrey says it's more common for most of us to pray before the great events of life than it is to pray after them. Usually we're praying after the bad things. Do you pray after the good things? Do you pray after the victories? Do you praise and celebrate? He says, the latter is as important as the former. If we would pray after the great achievements of life, we might go on to still greater. As it is, we are either often puffed up or exhausted by the things that we do in the name of the Lord. And so we advance no further. I understand that a spiritual exercise can be exhausting. That happens every week if you preach. Preaching can be exhausting. But if everything we do for the Lord just leaves us exhausted, we're trying too hard. We're in the way. We need to rest. We need to trust the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Psalm 22, verse 20 says, deliver my soul from the sword, my only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion, for the horns of the wild oxen. And the question there, of course, this Psalm 22, where it begins, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In the middle of the Psalm with this prayer for deliverance, the response comes, you've answered me. When God answers prayer, Pray again. If you pray any answers, pray again and thank him for answering the prayer. In Psalm 118 verse 21, David says, I shall give thanks to you for you have answered me and you have become my salvation. So we pray in the morning, we pray at night, we pray before big events, we pray after big events, good or bad. Fifth, Torrey says, Jesus Christ gave a special time to prayer when life was unusually busy. and experience with being busy. Have you ever been so busy you didn't get anything done? Life can be that way, right? Evangelist Delfazenfeld said it's this way. He said, you look at the Christian life, and if your Christian life is busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, but always busy and never getting anything done. We do need to be busy about the work of the Lord, but not just busy for the sake of being busy. And when life is coming at us a million miles an hour, what do we need to do? Torrey says, Jesus would withdraw at such a time from the multitudes that thronged about him. Now you would think if there's a multitude coming to hear Jesus, you would think he would stop and teach them. But what did he do? Several times when he was thronged with the multitudes, he would go into the wilderness and pray. In Luke 5, 15 and 16, we read, but the news about him was spreading even farther and large crowds were gathering to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But he himself would often slip away to the desolate regions and pray. Some men are so busy that they find no time for prayer. Apparently the busier Christ's life was, the more he prayed. Sometimes he had no time to eat. Sometimes he had no time for needed rest, for sleep. but he always took time to pray. And the more the work crowded, the more he prayed. R. A. Torrey said that he had years ago, at the point he was writing this, he had the privilege with other theological students to ask questions of one of the most useful Christian men of the day. He doesn't give the man's name. He says, the writer was led to ask, will you tell us something of your prayer life? The man was silent a moment. This happens a lot. This happens a lot Bible college and seminary, young men in the ministry. And they meet somebody who's established and has been in the ministry a long time. The first couple of questions that they ask are, what books do you recommend? Questions about preaching or about counseling and questions about their own walk with God. What does your sermon prep time look like? What does your devotional time look like? What does your prayer life look like? Well, this was the question that they asked. And this man was quiet. And he says, he turned his eyes earnestly upon me and he replied, well, I must admit that I have been so crowded with work of late that I have not given the time that I should to prayer. Is it any wonder that the man lost power and the great work that he was doing was curtailed to a very marked degree? Let us never forget that the more the work presses on us, the more time we must spend in prayer. So we pray in the morning, we pray in the evening, we pray before a crisis, we pray after a crisis, we pray when life is unusually busy. Sixth, Jesus Christ prayed before the great temptations of his life. Torrey says, as he drew nearer and nearer to the cross and realized that upon it was to come the great final test of his life, Jesus went out into the garden to pray. when we realize how much he poured into the disciples in that upper room. It seems a quick story in most of the gospels, but when you realize and you look at John, Jesus in the upper room, as he is instituting the Passover, before he goes out to the garden to pray, as he's there and he washes the disciples' feet, you realize that's five chapters in the book of John. All of John 14 and 15, all of these great stories and parables that he gives us. were there in the upper room. But then as it got near time to go to the cross, he went to Gethsemane. He said to the disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And we know that he prayed three times. The victory of Calvary was won that night in the garden of Gethsemane. The calm majesty of his bearing in meeting the awful onslaughts of Pilate's judgment hall and of Calvary was the outcome of the struggle, agony and victory of Gethsemane. And what do we find Christ do there? If there's any other way, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. We see Christ surrendering to the will of the Father. Surrendering. Many temptations come upon us, unaware, unannounced, and all we can do is lift a cry to God for help then and there. But many of the temptations of life, we can see approaching from the distance. And in such cases, the victory should be won before the temptation really reaches us. This is using prayer as a weapon. A defensive weapon against temptation. This is taking up the sword of the spirit and the shield of faith. And you realize when we read about the spiritual armor, the spiritual armor says that having done everything, we're to stand. Well, how do we stand? We stand in prayer. We have to pray to be prepared to meet the temptation, to meet the fight, to meet the enemy. If we're fighting the world, the flesh or the devil, we need to be praying. In teaching us to pray, in this prayer, Jesus taught the disciples to pray, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. In Matthew 26, 41, he said, keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. In Psalm 34, 4, David writes, I inquired of Yahweh and he answered me and delivered me from all that I dread. And in Psalm 119, 170, let my supplication come before you, deliver me according to your word. In reading the Psalms this week, I realized last week I started and mentioned how many times the word pray and prayer appear in Psalms and in Acts, those two books more than any other book. Well, I left the whole category out. I went back through the Psalms and in looking at David praying, the number of times that David refers to prayer is calling out to the Lord. I'm calling. with an expectation to be heard and to receive a reply. And you do that and it more than doubles the verses where we find David praying. It's not just praying, it's not just asking, it's not just pleading, he's calling to the Lord. So we pray in the morning, we pray in the evening, we pray when we're busy, we pray before temptation, we pray before crises or tribulation, we pray after great things and victory. Torrey sums it up really where we should have started 1 Thessalonians 5.17, that means we pray without ceasing. What circumstance will you ever be in, or about to be in, or just came out of, that you don't need to pray about? Pray without ceasing. Ephesians 6.18 tells us, praying at all times with all prayer and petition in the spirit, to this end being on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. For as much as the news would like us to be afraid and wring our hands, the more they talk about being afraid, the more we should be praying. We don't need to fear. We need to pray. We know who's in control. We know how the story ends. We know that it's all gonna work out for our good and for God's glory. That's his promise. It's sure he's gonna do it. Torrey says our whole life should be a life of prayer. We should walk in constant communion with God. There should be a constant upward looking of the soul to God. We should walk so habitually in his presence that even when we awaken the night, it would be the most natural thing in the world for us to speak to him in thanksgiving or in petition. Psalm 71 verse three, be to me a rock of habitation to which I may continually come. You have given the command to save me for you are my rock and my fortress. Psalm 105, verse four, inquire of Yahweh in his strength, seek his face continually. I've added a couple of points after Torrey. Torrey had the seven points. I thought of one in Romans 8, 26. This just came up in a cross-reference as I was studying. The question is, well, what if you don't know what to pray? We're talking about when to pray, and apparently that's supposed to be all the time. Well, what if you don't know what to pray? Well, we have the answer in Romans eight, starting in verse 26. In the same way, the spirit also helps our weaknesses for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. At times we don't know what to pray and we just need to pray and tell God that we don't know what to pray. and thank Him that we can depend upon the Spirit to put that confusion into words, because He knows how to pray for us, because He knows even better than we what we need. Ninth, who should we pray for when we pray? And we've all got prayer lists and we've got people on them. And as the prayer list seems to get longer and longer, who do we pray for? Well, I've got good news and bad news. Yes, we do need to be praying for people. The bad news is we need to be praying for all of them. If you don't believe me, look at the world. We need to be praying for all people. And by the way, this is what Paul tells Timothy. In first Timothy two, he starts out in verse one. First of all, then I exhort that petitions and prayers, requests and thanksgiving be made for all men. We need to keep the world in mind as we pray. We need to keep the church in mind as we pray. We need to pray for kings, for those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior. This is another answer, by the way, to the question, if we don't know what to pray. If you don't know what to pray, pick somebody to pray for and pray for them. Intercede on behalf of others. So we pray in the morning, we pray in the evening, we pray before a crisis and after great victories, we pray in the busyness of life, we pray when we're facing temptation, we pray even when we don't know what to pray, and if we don't know what to pray, we pray for all men. Now, if we are to pray for all men and all the time, that means we should always be praying. The question is then, actually, I think that explains traffic in Austin. I think everybody's driving with their heads down and their eyes closed. No, how is it that we pray without ceasing? This is to keep the communication lines open with the Father. We have to be mindful to do that. We have to be aware. We'll look in a few lessons at hindrances to prayer, what interrupts our prayer. So often what interrupts our prayer, honestly, is just our mind wandering, isn't it? Just our flesh getting tired. Tori is talking about praying all night. I don't remember the last time I had an all night prayer meeting. I remember many times I was praying at night and then woke up But as we do strive to pray without ceasing, we need to realize that we're given the power to do this, but it's not power from ourselves. Just as the Spirit intercedes for us, it's the Spirit that empowers our prayers, depending upon Him. And the theme word throughout this study, other than prayer, if you caught it multiple times, was surrender. Prayer is surrender. It's surrendering to communion with the Father. It is giving ourselves daily a living sacrifice, going to the Father to find out what he has for us, what he wants for us, day by day, moment for moment, morning or evening, wherever we find ourselves. Now, next week, Lord willing, we're gonna answer another important question from Luke 11, here in verse two. The question is, to whom do we pray? Do we pray to the Father? Do we pray to Jesus? Do we pray to the Son? Do we pray to angels? Do we pray to Mary? Do we pray to dead relatives? Who do we pray to? Now, the answer should be obvious. Jesus teaches us, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. What does that mean? Tune in next week. We'll continue to learn not only when to pray, but whom to pray to. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you for your word this morning. We thank you for the example of Jesus, for the example that he is to us, that even as God in human flesh, he needed to pray, to spend time alone with you, to go out into desolate places alone, to go up on the mountain, to go out in the wilderness, to pray in the morning and to pray at night, to pray in the garden of Gethsemane, to pray before he was facing ministry and temptation and to pray afterwards We thank you that in him, not only do we have an example, but we have him teaching us as he taught his disciples how to pray. That is our prayer, that in the course of this study, you will teach us how to commune with you so that our prayers might be a sweet smelling aroma, incense before your throne. That's our prayer this morning and we make it in Jesus' name, amen.