Luke chapter number 11. Luke chapter 11. And you think you've probably been in a book series. We've been preaching out of this chapter for so long. And tonight we're going to finish it up. God has something to say to our hearts out of this wonderful passage of Scripture. Luke chapter number 11. Find, if you would please, verse number 5. You remember it's a story of three friends. Jesus tells the parable of the friend at midnight. Three friends. One friend is a friend to feed. He comes to his friend's house in the middle of the night. He's been traveling and his friend answers the door. and realizes that he needs to show him hospitality, but he doesn't have the ability to do so. And so because of that, he goes to another friend, his neighbor, and knocks on his door in the middle of the night and said, Friend, leave me three loaves. I've got some people that have come. Excuse me, I've got a friend that's come, and I don't have anything to set before him I lack. I need, give me three loaves. And we know that his friend, it wasn't a matter that he couldn't, he wouldn't. He didn't want to get out of bed and do it. But yet, because of his importunity, Jesus said, he rose and he gave him as much as he needeth. And he's teaching us something about this matter of prayer. Look what he said in verse number 5, and he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend? Greatest story, one of the greatest stories ever told, the parables of the Lord Jesus. And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend? And she'll go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. It's specific, it's pointed, it's a definite request. For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, hospitality is a big deal in that day, and I have nothing to set before him I lack. Verse 7, And he, this is the neighbor, his friend, says from within, shall answer and say, Trouble me not. The door is now shut, and my children were with me in the bed. I cannot rise 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, because he just kept on knocking at the door and asking for the loaves, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. Then he begins to give us some exhortation after the story. Notice what he says. And I say unto you, ask. He's talking about talking to our Father. Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Did you notice these are promises? You ask, you receive. You seek, you find. You knock, and it shall be opened unto you. He says in verse 10, For everyone that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Aren't you glad that God answers prayer? 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? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, sinful in your nature, sinful hearts, if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, who is perfect, Hey, we have a perfect Father. Give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. We've been preaching the last several messages on Sunday morning. I'm going to finish it up tonight on this matter of what I've been talking about, the secret to power-packed praying. We've noticed that the Lord Jesus is telling a story, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, a parable, a point to it, a truth that He wants us to get that God desires to answer our prayers. But then, He's going to get very specific about a prayer that we need answered in our lives in verse number 13. And it is the power of the Holy Spirit being released in our lives. You see, God delights to answer the prayers of His people. And He wants to answer your prayers tonight. And He wants to release His power in your life and in my life. This man lacked bread. We saw that. You and I lack power tonight. The ability, the resources to rise up to the needs and the crisis, the circumstances, just to live life successfully for God. We need His power. And God gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. He's teaching us to learn to live by His Spirit. And we've learned that if we're going to live by His Spirit, if we're going to understand the secret to power-packed prayer, then we're going to have to make it a priority in our lives as the Lord Jesus did. The Bible said in verse number 1 that He was praying in a certain place. When he paused in his prayers, his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. We want to pray like you pray. The prayer life of the Lord Jesus so impacted the disciples that they wanted to be able to come to the Father as He approached the Father. They wanted to be able to pray like He prayed. Can I help us to understand something tonight? If Jesus needed to pray, how much more do you and I need to pray tonight? And Satan is doing everything he can to distract you and stop you and hinder you from being a man, a woman, a young person of prayer. Can I help you understand that prayer is not just for adult Christians, it's for children too? Can I tell you that God said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not? We use that verse in the area of salvation, and well we should, but can I tell you every born-again child in our church, every born-again teenager in our church has as much access to God as the Christian that's been saved the longest in this building tonight. Every Christian has access to their heavenly Father, and God, young person, you listen to me tonight, boys and girls, you listen to the pastor, God wants to answer your prayers. Oh, how important it is as a child to develop a prayer life. to help our children to learn to pray. Mom and Dad, if they never see you pray. Grandparent, if they never see you pray. How in the world will our children and our young people learn to pray? If it's not important to you, why should it be important to them? how important it is that we be a people of prayer, that we make it a priority in our lives. Number two, we've learned that the Lord gives us a lesson, beginning in verse number two, a pattern to follow, that prayer has a pattern, and He teaches us how to come into the presence of God, to bring our needs into the presence of God. He teaches us that this prayer is a matter of sonship, that I'm coming, This man went to his friend, but we're going to our Father, our Heavenly Father who can meet. Listen, it just so happened this friend had the ability to meet the need of his asking, his requesting friend. You know what? There's times that people can't meet our need. How easy it is for us to go on a vertical level looking for help, looking for resource, looking for answers. But can I help you to understand something tonight? People can't always meet my need, but I have a Heavenly Father who can meet my needs. And God invites me into His presence. He wants me to come and bring every need, burden, problem, issue, crisis, all how we need the Lord tonight and we can come into His presence. But then we learned this morning that prayer involves persistence. We saw in verse number 8, if you would please, this word importunity. And we begin to hone in on that particular word this morning to learn something about this matter of persistence in prayer. of asking. You see this matter of asking and seeking and knocking. It's in the present tense. It's a continuous action. We're to be continually asking, continually seeking, continually finding. Can I help us understand something tonight? This matter of answered prayer is not the exception. It is the norm in the Christian life. Our lives ought to be characterized by praying and receiving answers from God. And there are times that God answers those prayers immediately. We've learned that, but yet we also learn that there's times that God is wanting us to be persistent in bringing the issue, the need, the burden, maybe over and over, maybe even decades. before God answers the prayer. And we talked about this morning why. And I recommend you to go and listen in to this morning's message on why to keep praying when you don't see the answer in front of you. We learn that if we're going to pray persistently, if we're going to have importunity in our prayer life, if we're going to have the secret to power-packed praying, if we're going to have God's power released in our lives, there ought to be an urgency in our praying. Wouldn't we agree with that tonight? There ought to be a seriousness, a soberness, an urgency. This matter of bringing spiritual needs to God is an urgent matter. We pray specifically. This man said, lend me three loaves. He didn't beat around the bush. He didn't say, hey, I need some bread. He said, I need three loaves. I need one for me, one for my wife, and one for my friend. It was definite. If we're going to pray and have power-packed prayer, if we're going to have prayer that gets results, if we're going to have prayer that connects with God, then it needs to be definite and specific and pointed. We saw that. reiterated in verses 11 and 12 where the son asked of his father bread and fish and an egg. And God's saying, listen, if we're sinful creatures and we want to do good things for our children and answer their requests for us, how much more does our heavenly Father want to meet our needs and answer our prayers? What kind of person would be, what kind of cruel, sadistic mindset would be a hungry child come up to his father and say, Dad, I want some bread. And you give him a rock and say, go bite on that for a while, go gnaw on that for a while. Or ask for a fish, a small fish, a sardine-like fish, and instead they give him a serpent, a snake, or an eel out of the water. Or maybe an egg and they hand him a scorpion that's balled up. Nobody does that, God says. And if you on a human level will do that, think about how much more your heavenly Father wants to bring good things into your lives. We found that it ought to be shameless. Friend, there's nothing that we cannot bring to God in prayer. Well, never. You know, one of the areas I think that we become shameful is when we're in this area of confession and we've had failure in our lives and it's repeated failure. Have you ever been guilty of the same sin more than once? Yeah, me too. You ever committed the same sin before and you just sort of was ashamed to go to God and confess it to Him? Just say, God, I blew it again. I'm glad that God has unlimited forgiveness, aren't you? God said, I want you to come shamelessly. I want you to bring it up. It teaches us humility and dependence upon the Lord. God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble. It's insistent. That word importunity also has the idea of being insistent in our requests of continually bringing it to the Lord. You say, why did that friend give him bread? Because he kept banging on the door. That's why he did it. It wasn't that he loved him. It wasn't that he cared that he was hungry. He wanted him to hush. That's what he wanted. I'm going to give you the bread so you quit banging on my door. That was the story. Oh, but God doesn't get tired of your requests. God doesn't get tired of you banging on the door of heaven. God doesn't get tired of you coming into His presence. God created you for Himself. He created you to fellowship with Him. He created you to dwell in His presence. God delights in that. God's desirous of that. And He invites us into His presence. Here's the good news. We don't have to leave. Isn't that good? We can remain in His presence. We can bring it to the Lord and God answers our prayers. We learn that prayer not only changes things, but it changes us, doesn't it? Let's get to this final point tonight. Prayer receives God's promise. We saw that in verse number 13. If you being evil, let's hone in on verse 13 tonight. If you then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? God answers prayer. Prayer, power-packed prayer, receives God's promises. It believes God for that which He has promised us. Matthew puts it this way, If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask? God wants to give you good things. And we've learned that God's good things many times are best things. We have to differentiate between the two because what we think is the good thing may not be the best thing, and God's always going to give us the best thing, right? And that's a variety of things. But then, when you look at verse number 13 and Luke chapter 11, it's very specific. It's the Holy Spirit. In this day of grace, and this is where I want you to pay close attention. In this day of grace, we are not commanded to receive the Holy Spirit. You say, preacher, why is that? Because you already have it. Well, when did I receive it? When you were saved. The moment you received Christ, the Holy Spirit made your heart His home. You didn't feel it, necessarily. You didn't know it necessarily? I didn't know it. I didn't understand all of that at that moment. I just knew that I needed to be saved. I wanted my sins to be forgiven. I wanted to go to heaven. I learned later that the moment I was saved, the Spirit of God impermanently took up residence in my heart. The moment you were saved, He took up residence in your heart. He belongs there. It's His home. He permanently indwells every saint of God. Well, preacher, this verse says that we're to pray to receive the Holy Spirit. I want to help you to understand that there's much confusion that surrounds this verse. Many, many take this verse out of its context and make it a pretext for a false teaching. They will teach that you need some kind of second blessing. That after you're saved, that you need to pray to receive the Holy Spirit because you're saved, but you don't have the Holy Spirit. I want to help us to understand something tonight. If a person claims to be saved, but they don't have the Holy Spirit, they're not saved. Or either they're confused. And the reason is the Bible said, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. We have to be careful that we don't just take a verse and build a doctrine off of one verse within a parable. Parables are designed to teach certain truths. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit's indwelling is not that truth in this passage. You see, we're not to pray for His person. We already have His person. What this verse is teaching, we need to understand in its grammatical and its historical context. What we would understand is a dispensational context. We don't hear that much today. I'm going to do a series. At the turn of the 20th century, in the days of C.I. Scofield, Harry Ironside, these names mean nothing to many of you. I understand that. In those days, John Wolver, Dwight Pentecost, these were men that were crisscrossing America and teaching. And in almost every Bible conference, we don't have those much anymore, every prophecy conference, there would be teaching on this matter of a dispensational approach to Scripture. Of recognizing that God works in different ways at different times in human history. And you have to differentiate that and understand where you live in God's economy. All Scripture may be written for you, but it's not all written to you. There are times that God addresses people and nations that you and I can draw application from, but God's not addressing us. He's not writing to me. It's for my learning and my admonition. But He's not writing to me. Now in this verse, He is, and I'm going to explain it to you. So there's a dispensational, there's a historical context to this verse. Whenever you're in the Gospel, studying the life of the Lord Jesus, you need to understand that Jesus did not live His life under grace. He brought grace, but He didn't live under grace. He lived under the law. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are under the law. You say, preacher, how do you know that? Because Jesus would heal a leper and He would say, go show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifice according to the law of Moses. He came to fulfill the law. That's what He did. He lived under the law that He might fulfill the law, that He might deliver us who are in bondage to the law from the law. Listen, I am not under law tonight, thank God. I am under law to Christ. I am under grace. And we need to recognize that. And when we understand that, it helps us to realize where we are in God's dealing with mankind. And when we see that verse in its context, where it's at, it gives us understanding. Turn with me, if you would please, to John chapter number 14. Would you do that? Tonight's going to be a little more of a teaching message rather than a preaching message. Look at John chapter number 14. The disciples lived under the law. They're going to teach us about grace. The disciples did not at this moment, although they were saved, have the Holy Spirit permanently indwelling them. That did not happen until Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost. That was when they received the Holy Spirit permanently. That doesn't mean the Holy Spirit wasn't active in their lives. That doesn't mean that He didn't enable them and work in their lives, but He didn't permanently reside in their heart. That happened on the day of Pentecost. From that day forward, every time a person believes on Christ, the Holy Spirit permanently indwells them. John chapter number 14. Scripture interprets Scripture. Look, if you would please, verse number 12. Jesus is in the upper room. He's giving last teachings to His disciples before He goes to the cross. He's laying the foundation of life under grace in this new economy, God's new way of dealing with mankind. For 1,500 years, He's dealt with men under a law. At the cross, Christ will abolish the law. and then He will bring in grace. Oh my! Can I help us to understand something tonight? Under law, it was have to. Under grace, it's want to. Under law, it was duty. Living for Jesus under grace is a delight. There's a difference. Oh, it's a disgrace not to live the way we ought to under grace. Notice He comes in verse number 12, Verily, verily, truly, truly, Amen, Amen, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also. So what Jesus did, we can do so far as reaching people, ministering to people, caring for people. It doesn't mean that we're going to do all the miracles that He did, but it does mean that you and I can serve and see God's power at work in our lives. and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father." I'm not going to remain here, fellas. I am going away. Look at verse 13. He ties these greater works to prayer. Power-packed praying. Are you ready? Look what he says, verse 13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. Do you get this idea that God delights in answering prayer? Now let's move a step further to verse 15. If you love me, there it is. It's no longer the law of bondage, it's now a law of love. If you love me, keep my commandments. Not because you have to, but because you love me enough to want to. Can I help us understand loving Jesus is not fuzzy, sentimental stuff. It's not ooey-gooey feelings. You can feel all the ooey-gooey fuzzy feelings you want to feel, but that doesn't mean you love Jesus. You say, preacher, how do I know if I love Jesus? When you keep His commandments. It's very objective. It's very practical. It's very to the point. He said, if you love Me, you keep My commandments. How do I say I love you to Jesus? I obey. That's how I do that. Let's keep going. Look at verse 16, "...And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He..." I'm going away. "...that He may abide with you forever." Wow! I'm not going to leave you orphaned. I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going away and I'm going to give you a Comforter, one just like Me. And He's never going to leave you. Now look at verse 17. Because they don't know who the Comforter is, so He tells them, verse 17, "...even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not." The world does not understand anything about living in the power of the Holy Spirit. They don't even know who He is. They don't comprehend it. But look at verse 17. He says to His disciples, But ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, future tense, and shall be in you. That's powerful, isn't it? These greater works will be empowered by His Spirit. Go down, if you would, to verse 26. We know He reiterates, verse 26, the Comforter. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. So we know that the Holy Spirit is coming to indwell us. He was with them to enable them, to empower them. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon David. He would come upon. Samuel. He would come upon Samson, and He would empower them much like a glove would cover a hand, and He would enable them to carry out the work of God. That's why David, when he sinned, would pray this, Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. That is a prayer Christian you need never pray. David was concerned that because of his failure that God would take away the enabling power of the Holy Spirit that enabled him to lead and serve and shepherd the nation as God's Shepherd King. He was fearful that he would lose the enabling power of God in his life. Now listen, you and I, the Holy Spirit, we may grieve Him, but He'll never leave us. But we can lose His power. I can't lose His person, but I can lose His power. Because if I'm not living in obedience to God, if I'm not living a Spirit-filled life, if I'm not learning to live by His Spirit, if I'm living independent of God, God cannot release His power in our lives. And so in Luke chapter 11, let's go back there, verse number 13, let's help us understand exactly what the prayer is for the disciples. They were not praying for the Spirit's person. They were praying for His power. The Spirit that was with them and one day would be in them, they had His person, they needed His power. And can I help you to understand tonight, Christian? We have the Holy Spirit's person, but we need His power like we've never needed it before in our lives. I can't preach without His power. You can't teach without His power. He said, without Me ye can do nothing. Does that give you understanding of the verse? It's historical. Dispensational. The Holy Spirit was with them to enable them. Thank God tonight He's in me. He's my helper. He's my enabler. He's my comforter. He's my encourager. We're praying for His power to be released in our lives. James 5.16, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. That word availeth means to have power. It means to be effective. It means capable of producing results. God desires to release His power in our lives. He desires to release His power in your life and He does so in answer to prayer. It was Tennyson that wrote, more things have been wrought by prayer than this world dreams. Prayer is the greatest power in the universe. Friend, you don't need some second blessing. You don't need some second work of grace. What you need is more of the Holy Spirit's control in your life, in my life, that He can release His power in us to help us to be all that we should be, can be, and ought to be for God. That's what we need. We don't need another Pentecost. I hear that all the time. Well, what we need is another Pentecost. No we don't. What we need is the power of Pentecost. Pentecost was just an event like Calvary. We don't need Calvary all over again. What Jesus did at Calvary carries on. And what God did at Pentecost in dwelling those first believers in that upper room, friend, that's an ongoing work of God in the lives of His people. We just need Pentecostal power. That's what we need. Prayer, someone said, is the greatest power in the universe. As I was meditating on the passage, I wrote a phrase down and I wanted to be careful with it. But yet, the more I thought about it, the more real it was to me that prayer is omnipotent. Think about that. Prayer is omnipotent. You say, preacher, wait a minute, only God's omnipotent. Right. You're exactly right. Prayer can do anything God can do because it puts me in touch with the God that can do anything and everything. Isn't that powerful? I think that's pretty good theology, don't you? I just want to close tonight by saying if there's a need, God can meet it. If there's a fear, God can calm it. If there's a tear, God can dry it. If there's a sin, God can forgive it. If there's a fallen brother or sister, God can restore them. If there's a wayward son or daughter, God can bring them back. If there's a hardened sinner, God can save them. There's just nothing too hard for God. You say, but yet preacher, I prayed and I had a need and I went bankrupt. God didn't meet that need. Well, He met the need, just not in the way you thought He would. I've met Christians that have lost everything that they owned, but yet they would come back years later and say, it was the very best thing that God ever allowed to happen in my life. It reset my life that I might have the right priorities. in life, that I might live for the right stuff. You see, what you and I see is not always what God sees. I've been doing a deep dive study in the book of Job. It's been an amazing study. I haven't got out of chapter 2 yet. I just keep going back, and I just keep going back. Can I help you understand something tonight? Trials are the norm. That's not the rule. It's not the exception. Excuse me. Trials are the norm. Smooth sailing is the exception to the rule. You will suffer. And so will I. Because we live in a sin-cursed and broken world. And as long as we're this side of glory, we can say with Job that trials are a part of life as the sparks fly upward. Just as assuredly as you throw wood on a fire and the sparks go up. It's just something going. You and I are going to face trials in our lives. We're going to have crises. We're going to face difficulty. We are. I'm thankful for the days of smooth sailing from time to time, aren't you? I praise God for them. I'm thankful for the mountaintops. But I've learned in my life behind every mountain is a valley. But the good news is at the end of every valley is another mountaintop. And the God of the mountains is the God of the valley. And the God that can enable me on the mountain in the good times is the God that can see me through the tough times of life, and that will never fail me, and He'll answer my prayer, and He will give me the power and the strength for the journey. As is thy day, so shall thy strength be. God has the power and the resource and the ability to see you through this life as you and I bring our burdens to Him. Now, sometimes trials not always date deep trial. Sometimes it's as simple as a flat tire or a traffic jam or maybe a head cold or a little sinus flare. It could be something that's just... Those are trials. We get so frustrated with them, don't we? I've learned something is as you put a little years on you, those things become a little more frequent. You don't get over them quite as quickly. You see, I wanted to have surgery one day and be back here the next. That's what I was expecting. God wanted me to just take a little time and spend a little time with Job. And my suffering is nothing like Job's and neither is yours. I want you to go back and read the first two chapters of Job. I want you to imagine standing at ten fresh graves. Ten adult children that were killed all at the same time. and lost everything that He owned. But yet He would rise out of the ashes and He would say, though He slay me, I'm going to trust Him. I can't get through this on my own, God. I can't make it. I'm not sufficient. I'm going to trust You, God, because I don't have any other way through. But I know You're faithful. And that one day, the latter day, I'm going to stand and in my flesh, I will see God. I'm going to cross the finish line. And Christian, God never promised you that you wouldn't go through trials and suffering and hardship. He didn't promise you smooth sailing, but He did promise you a safe landing. Isn't that right? We can trust Him and let Him release His power in our lives and give us strength for the journey. And He's able to see you through it. I don't know what your journey looks like tonight. And I don't know what your struggle is. And I don't know what you're battling. And I don't know what maybe you're praying about waiting for God to answer. I don't know what it is that God has for your life, but here's what I do know, that God's not going to withhold the Spirit's power in your life to give you the strength that you need today to live today for Him and honor His name. God gives the Holy Spirit, His power, to those that ask Him. And we need God tonight, don't we? Father, I love you tonight. I thank You, Lord, that You have all that we need. And Lord, many times we think we need bread, but what we really need is power. We think we need stuff, but what we really need is strength. I'm glad, God, that You know more what I need than what I know. And Lord, that we can trust You, that You're faithful. That, Lord, You'll never fail us. That You taught a principle to Your disciples that they weren't sufficient, but that You are. And that You'll freely and gladly give Your power through Your Spirit in our lives to enable us to enjoy the journey. Lord, that doesn't mean that the journey won't be hard at times or difficult. That it won't be fraught with danger and trial. But yet, Lord, that You promise to see us through the heartache and heartbreak of life. Lord, I'm glad that we come out of the valleys and we rise into the mountaintops. But yet, Lord, we know there's another valley till we get to glory. Thank You, Lord, there's a place called heaven. Help us, Lord, to be faithful. Lord, to retain our integrity. To be men and women of God. to lean on You and look to You and know that You want to answer our prayer, that You're the faithful God tonight. Lord, work in the hearts of Your people, and I'll thank You for it. In Jesus' name I praise You. We stand to our feet tonight. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. God has spoken to your heart. The altar is open. You need to bring a burden and need to the Lord tonight. You come.