If you would turn in your Bibles again to the Gospel of Luke. We've come to chapter 11 this morning. Chapter 11, we'll read the first 13 verses. Jesus addresses a question about prayer. He gives the Lord's Prayer and a couple of parables. about prayer as well. Chapter 11, verse 1, please give careful attention to the reading of God's Holy Word. 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, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, Give us each day our daily bread and forgive our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. And then he said to them, suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. From inside he answers and says, do not bother me. The door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. I think our attitude towards prayer can in some ways be parallel to our culture's distortion of the concept of love. Love is now thought by many as simply a romantic, spontaneous feeling that we have that wells up in you, that comes, that goes, not something you plan for or discipline for. It's felt, it's spontaneous. I think we'd like to think of prayer in the same way at times, something that eagerly and joyfully comes from our hearts, that feels natural to us, like a close human relationship, not something that we need to plan for or discipline ourselves for, but something maybe we hope someday we'll feel that way or be a part of our relationship more with God, or maybe it's something that's for more religious people. But to the degree that these things are true, aspects of love or of prayer, that they're spontaneous, they're natural, they're felt in us, that's wonderful, that's desirable, that those would be part of love or of prayer. But the reality is that just as love is at roots, in fact, a willful act, it's a commitment, it's not necessarily matching our feelings. It must be willful and disciplined and determined. Be true love. So also prayer is not natural to us as sinful humans. We need to be taught how to pray. We need to practice. The sinful flesh and the devil will fight against us using this incredible gift of God, a gift of communing with Him at every point. Well, disciples in this passage here ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. They have observed in the life of Jesus to this point what a huge part prayer takes. in his life. In chapter 5 we've read that he would regularly go off by himself to pray and then in chapter 6 we read that at times he prayed all night. How many of us can sustain prayer for an hour? Jesus would pray all night, we're told. Chapter 9, even when the disciples were with him at times, we learn that he was praying by himself. Later in chapter 9, we have the Mount of Transfiguration scene. But what was Jesus doing on the Mount before the glory and Moses and Elijah came? He was praying. It was a time of prayer. In chapter 10, He calls His disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest, that He would raise up workers to gather in His harvest to see people converted. And there will be, throughout Luke, other commands to pray, examples of Jesus praying, parables about prayer. The disciples have observed this. And we, like the disciples, must recognize that if prayer was so important, even necessary, For the perfect Son of God, who is one with the Father and one with the Spirit, if it was so necessary for Him, how much more for us? How important must it be for us? Jesus was fully like us in every way as a man. And yet the one major difference, besides the fact that He was also God, is that we still struggle with sin. We have the sinful flesh pulling us away from prayer. We have a need for sanctification and so much more that our sin implies. Our need for prayer is so much greater than his. Prayer is a good gift of God and a means by which he's pleased to bless us. It's the means that he has chosen, one of the means that he's chosen, and so it's a means that without he is pleased to withhold his blessing from us. But prayer is hard. It's not easy. We lose sight of its blessing, our rightful motivation to do it, and so we need to be taught. We need to be taught. In the previous passage that we looked at last week, we saw part of our relationship with God necessarily is sitting at His feet and learning. Sitting at the feet of Jesus, as Mary was doing, and learning from Him. Hearing Him speak to us. Another. a necessary part of our relationship with God than is talking to Him, is speaking back to Him after we've listened to Him. And just as we saw last week that we must believe that listening and learning from God is the good portion, as Jesus called it, the one thing necessary, so also we must pray, not simply by willpower or because we feel guilty about it, but because we believe who God is. We understand what prayer is and what a privilege it is that God invites and welcomes and hears and answers our prayers. I want to go backwards through this passage this morning, a little bit unusually. Jesus begins with the what of prayer in giving the Lord's, what we call the Lord's Prayer, and then moves on to an aspect of how we're to pray, and then gives something of why we're to pray. And I want to take those in the other order. Talk first about why, why do we pray, and then something of how, and then consider finally the what of our prayer. why we pray. Look at first the great promises of verses 9 and 10 again. Jesus says, Ask, it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, it will be opened to you. As we'll see in the third point this morning, that Jesus isn't saying anything that you might think of or want, God will give you. In fact, this is an incredible, still an incredible promise. In fact, an even better promise than that. But why is that true? Why is that true? Look at verses 11 to 12, this little parable that Jesus tells. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish. Or if he's asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? This is intended to be two ridiculous little scenarios. Any half-decent father, certainly a good loving father, would never even think to answer these requests in this way. The implied answer is, of course not. So Jesus' conclusion in verse 13 is, if you then, being evil, being a sinful human merely, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Jesus is arguing from the lesser to the greater again. If this is what you do, how much more would this be true of your heavenly Father, whose motives and love are perfect? That's maybe hard to believe at times when we're struggling with various things or when we don't get what we want or when we want it. But faith involves trusting that God is who he says he is in his word, that he's gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in grace, that he's good and kind. He works all things together for the good of those who love him. He loves and waits on His people to give them good things. He asks in the book of James, through James for example, why are you without wisdom? Or if you're without wisdom, just ask. You're without it because you haven't asked. God desires to give generously to those who ask. A prayer Jesus points out in this passage as well is coming to God as Father. Coming to as Father, as a loving and compassionate Father. This is why we pray, because of who God is to us. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray, Father, in heaven. This is his example as well. The only time in any of his prayers and all the Gospels he doesn't address God as Father, interestingly, is on the cross. He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But this is Jesus' example for us. Just as you would come to a loving human Father and know that He wants to hear you, He wants to hear your concerns, He wants to be asked for the things that He provides, so much more ought we to go to our Heavenly Father who gives out of the riches of His grace in Heaven. If prayer is hard for you, as it is for me at times, or perhaps you don't pray much at all, come back to this question. Do you really believe that God is Father, loving, compassionate toward our needs, eager to give. Would not full trust in that fact drive us to our needs more? You might just observe briefly in considering Jesus' teaching to address God as Father in our prayers. It's not wrong to address Jesus in our prayers, or to address prayers to the Holy Spirit. They're equally God, and there is some example in the Scriptures of doing that. But Jesus teaches us, this is the pattern He gives us, is to address God as Father in our prayers. It's the ordinary pattern in teaching in the New Testament, is to pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. That's the pattern of the New Testament, to pray to the Father, through the Son, through His righteousness, through His mediation, in the Spirit, the leading and guidance and wisdom of the Spirit. So I think that ought to be the normal pattern for our prayers, ought to be the way we teach our children to pray, for example, to pray to God the Father. So we pray because God is Father, because He is compassionate, loving Father. Secondly, how to pray. Look at verses 5 through 8. This is the first parable that Jesus teaches. This is a difficult parable to understand in some ways, but I think the basic message is clear. Here it is and how I think we should understand it. There are two ways First of all, to translate the beginning of this parable, the question is, is the parable a question or is it not? The New American Standard here doesn't take it as a question. Jesus says, suppose one of you has a friend. The ESV or the NIV, if you have a different translation in front of you, you might see a question. It goes something like this, which of you who has a friend We'll go to him at midnight, and it goes through the scenario, and the question is, which of you, if you're in this scenario, in verses 5 and 6, would expect an answer like verse 7? Do not bother me. Your neighbor would say to you, go away, basically. I think the implied answer is like the other parable Jesus told. It's a scenario that wouldn't happen. The implied answer is none. You wouldn't expect to hear that answer from your neighbor. Verse 5, here is the scenario. Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves. This is obviously a late and inconvenient request. It's midnight, everybody's in bed, and we learn from verse 7 that they're all sleeping, right? Everything's been shut down for the night, and likely they're all sleeping in one room and all on the same mat, and so it might disturb the family and so on. They have to search for bread, and so it's not a convenient request, at least. But understand the need, why the request comes. Verse 6, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. So this scenario is you're in a bad spot. You've had a friend show up on a journey. And this is probably a little hard for us to understand in our modern context what a bind this man is in. Travelers in the first century, of course, they didn't have grocery stores or 24-hour Wawa or wherever they might just go and get food. We might expect people coming to visit us to be fed when they show up, especially if it was late at night, but they didn't have options like that. There were very limited options for lodging. And partly because of that, his hospitality was an extremely important thing in the first century Middle East. It was not just an occasional voluntary planned event like it is in our lives primarily. It was an important expected cultural obligation even if it was spontaneous, even if your friend showed up on this journey and he hadn't called ahead to tell you he was coming, which of course they couldn't do. And feeding your guests was a huge part of that expectation, was a big part of hospitality. So, the scenario here is not that you had a friend show up and so you go wake up your neighbor at midnight and you say, hey, my friend's here, I wanted to give him a snack before he goes to bed. No, this is a very important responsibility of hospitality. So, the answer, I think, to this parable, the question perhaps, which of you would expect your neighbor then to say, go away, is none. Jesus' conclusion in verse 8 is, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. This verse needs a little explanation as well, that the sense is, I think, even if he's not happy about it, even if he's a grumpy, sleepy neighbor, in first century Palestine, he would certainly give you what you need for your request. Just like the father, who would give the child what he requests. And Jesus says, here in the New American Standard, it's translated, because of his persistence. Now, when we hear the word persistence, we think of repetition, asking again and again. And Jesus teaches a parable later on that has to do with continuing to ask, right? The persistent widow, we call it. But here the word that's translated persistence really that's not the common way to translate it. It doesn't have to do with repetition or a number of times we ask. The NIV gets at the sense of it better I think. It translates it boldness. It's because of his boldness. The ESV has even a little more edge to it. It has because of his impudence. His impudence. Impudence is acting out of impertinence really, presumptuously. The dictionary defines this Greek word as acting without any sensibility to shame or disgrace. You're not afraid of being shamed in this request, you just make it boldly. That's the sense here. So the comparison here is, we need to see clearly that the point Jesus is making, the comparison is between the disciple who he's teaching to pray, the one who would be praying, and the neighbor who's making the request. We get into trouble if we try to push the details of the parable too far and suppose, for example, that the comparison is between the woken neighbor and God. There is a comparison being made to prayer, but the comparison is not between the woken neighbor and God. It's not as if God needs to be woken up, or annoyed, or manipulated, or pressured, or convinced to answer our request. That's not the point. The comparison is with the neighbor who asks, and that we ought to ask in our prayers with boldness. with confidence that it's our privilege to do so. We don't fear any shame or being turned away, or any frustration or annoyance. We can know that we're accepted at any time. And not like a sleepy neighbor reluctantly, but a loving father who, as the Bible says, never slumbers or sleeps. In our culture, we almost never even think about knocking on someone's door in the middle of the night, or really even during the day. Anymore, we don't really show up at someone's house unannounced and just knock on the door and come in. With all the means of communication we have, we would generally communicate ahead of time. Even if we had a need, you would probably call or text or email and then wait for a response. And you might expect you have to wait. for response. Well, contrast that with how your children interact with you. Your children come to you immediately. In fact, they might barge into your very bedroom in the middle of the night, unannounced, maybe because they're sick or scared or just thirsty or whatever it is. And rightly they should. They're your children. That should be the sort of boldness that we have with God, not a disrespectful boldness or a presumptuous in presumptuous in terms of our own wants and needs, but a boldness, a confidence, knowing that we have no shame, knowing that we have the privilege to come to God at any time. Part of our memory work that we read this morning. is to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. That's your right, your privilege, to come to God without fear, without shame. Jesus' instruction in verses 9 and 10 is ask, seek, knock. There's something of a progression in those words, asking, seeking, knocking. They intensify as they go. They suggest a boldness and maybe a persistence as well, even if that's not the main point. Asking is simply asking, saying it. It's more like asking plus acting on it, right? You don't just ask for a deeper knowledge of the scriptures. You seek it out as well. God expects you to seek it, to read. Knocking takes it even one step further. The idea of actually going to the door and knocking until you get an answer is behind this. The reason, of course, that we can do this is not simply because of who God is, that He's just so kind and nice, but because who He's made you to be, who He's made us to be in Christ. The reason you have this privilege, the reason you have the right to become children of God is because you're united to Christ. If you've placed your trust and faith in him because he's cleansed you from your sins and made you acceptable to God, made you adoptable. And God has adopted you as sons and daughters. And so you have this privilege, not because you deserve it, but because of his grace. So are you boldly and persistently seeking God, your father, in prayer? Thirdly, let's consider what Jesus teaches about the what of prayer. What do we pray for? This is the well-known Of course, the well-known Lord's Prayer is in Matthew chapter 6. That's what we recited together this morning. It's what most of us have committed to memory. This is clearly a different occasion. That was in the Sermon on the Mount. This is an occasion when Jesus was praying with his disciples, or maybe more disciples beyond the twelve, somewhere. It's a shorter version, but it's the same really in essence. There are a lot of different ways to study and learn and use the Lord's Prayer. We could spend a week looking at just the Lord's Prayer. We could spend a week looking at each of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer. But for us this morning, I want us just to consider what sorts of things does Jesus teach us to pray for? What is emphasized? What are the proportions in this prayer. This is a model prayer. I believe our prayers are to reflect this prayer, the concerns of this prayer that Jesus teaches to his disciples. As one commentator put it, it's a model, not a mantra. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't use it together occasionally, as we did this morning, as a legitimate way of addressing God and as well as reminding ourselves and teaching ourselves how to pray. It's a model prayer. I think it's important because it's easy for our prayers to be, I know it is for mine, to be rather narrow, to be focused maybe particularly on our own problems at times, or even more narrowly, maybe just focused on physical needs. And even as we're praying for others, we tend to pray particularly for physical needs. And these things are good and important. We ought to be praying for them. But what does Jesus teach us to pray? Notice first there are two petitions that begin this prayer that are towards God. They're God word petitions. The first one, hallowed be your name. That's an old way of saying, Lord, let your name be holy. Of course, God's name is holy, but it's a prayer that God's holiness would be demonstrated and known and acknowledged and loved in our lives, in the world. That it's a prayer that he would work all things to his glory, that he would see this done. The chief end of man, the catechism teaches us, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. This is a prayer that God would work things to that end. God's chief goal in redeeming this world and everything he's doing in this world is to bring glory to himself, to show his holiness in all things. We're praying to that end. Our first concern in prayer is the holiness and glory of God, that it would be manifest. Really, if you think about it, nothing else we might pray for or ask in our prayers is meaningful otherwise. This is God's purpose. The second petition is that His kingdom would come. The Shorter Catechism summarizes, we pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced. ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened, that Jesus would return and bring the fullness of His kingdom. But I encourage you to read the larger catechism as well on these on these petitions. It opens up very helpfully just all the implications of what we pray in this. But the kingdom of God in a word is God's rule, God's sovereign rule. And we speak of His kingdom extending or advancing as it takes hold of our hearts. It's manifest as hearts are changed. So it can do that in a degree, an increasing way in those of us who are already part of God's kingdom. It does it as well in those who are converted, who come into the kingdom. We're praying for that in our own hearts, in our families, in our city, in our nation, in our world. We were saved from, in a sense, seeking our own kingdoms, saved to seeking God's kingdom and enjoying and hoping in His. Ask, is the work of the church around the world, is the work of missionaries part of your prayers, the advancement of His kingdom? Are you concerned before your own needs to see the kingdom of God advance, to see people converted, to see evil ended where it is, to see Jesus return? We pray for these things. This is part of our mission. This is what God is doing in the world. When's the last time we saw someone converted in our congregation? When have we seen an adult baptism? We pray for these things, pray for the spirit to work in these ways. After these two Godward petitions or three petitions for our needs, First is for daily bread. For daily bread, it's not a prayer for luxury or wealth, but a prayer for enough, that we would have enough to be used by God as He pleases. It's good and right to ask God to care for us, to heal us, to provide for us. There's also a challenge here, I think, in the simplicity of this request to consider our use of the word need, for example. And where is the focus of our prayers for physical concerns lie? I was challenged just in reflecting on this to realize I don't often pray, hardly ever, that God would provide food. I often thank Him for our food at our meals, but The provision of it I take so easily for granted. It's always there in the fridge and there's so much more in the grocery store. There's never a question, never has been in my life of there being food. And yet praying to God for our daily bread reminds that it all comes from Him. It's only by His lavish grace and provision. The second petition for our needs is for forgiveness of sins. or forgiveness of sins. Is that regularly a part of your prayers? If you've trusted in Christ, your sins have been forgiven, and yet the scriptures teach us to continue to bring them before God, to be sanctified, to be reminded of our need for forgiveness, to pray for the opposites of those sins to be replaced, to replace them. It's an acknowledgement of our need and dependence of God's grace, of our identity in Christ. The third petition is to keep us from temptation. By implication, it's keep us from sin. This reminds us that we're in a spiritual battle constantly. It implies, again, along with forgiveness of sins, asking God not only to put off the sins of the flesh, but to put on, to work in us, the fruit of the Spirit. Praying to keep us from temptation would imply praying for love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and self-control and all the things that might be true of us in place of sin and temptation. I'm in desperate need of these things so much more than other things that I spend, at times, much more time praying for. Well, how can we summarize the what of this prayer? Well, it includes prayer for physical provision, but the weight of this prayer is heavily on the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom and the sanctification of His people. The weight, if we collect those other things, is on the glory of God through the advancement of His kingdom and the sanctification of His people. That reflects that which is most important to Jesus and most needful for us. And again, Jesus follows this model prayer with these great promises, ask and it will be given to you. Or everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, to him who knocks it will be opened. Again, that's not promising that anything we might want We can ask for and we'll get. It's a better promise than that. The things that are most important and needful for us, for this world, God will give. The things in the Lord's Prayer, God will provide. God is pleased to make His name glorious, to extend His kingdom, to provide food and other needs for you, to give you His grace, to keep you from sin, to grow you in righteousness through prayer. It's through the means of prayer that God grants these things. In other words, if you're lacking in these things, you must pray. We could state it a different way, saying all you have to do is come to your gracious Father who is eager to answer. These commands Jesus gives are actually in the present tense. They may better give us the sense to read, be asking, be seeking, be knocking, or continue asking, continue seeking. One other thing in this passage that points to the fact that the weight of our prayers should be toward the glory of God and His renewing us in sanctification is verse 13, the end of verse 13, where Jesus makes this comparison between human fathers and the Heavenly Father and He says, how much more will your Heavenly Father give, what? The Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. What is the summary that Jesus gives at the end of this teaching on prayer? of God's answer to prayer. It's the Holy Spirit. It's giving of the Holy Spirit. It's primarily the work of the Spirit for which we are to pray. He is the greatest gift that God gives. He's the greatest request that we can make. Whatever is the Spirit's role in our lives, His role in this world, that ought to be primary in our prayers. What does the Scripture say is the work of the Spirit? It's He who convicts us of sins or others that we might be praying for. Convicts us, convinces us of the truth or others we might be praying for. Unites us to Christ. It's He who justifies us and sanctifies us and grants us adoption. It's the Spirit that works in us to put off sin. It's the Spirit that gives us gifts. for service to God, service to others. It's the Spirit that grants us assurance in our minds that God loves us and has adopted us and saves us. It's the Spirit that will raise us from the dead one day when Christ returns and much more. This is the summary of what our prayers ought to be for and what God gives. I want to close just with a few points of practical advice, things that I found helpful for how to make the things that God, the things that Jesus calls us to pray for more a part of our prayers. How do our prayers, how can we practically reflect these emphases in our prayers more? The first is simply pray through Scripture. As you read your Bible, pray along with what you read. Make the concerns of the Bible your concerns. Make its praises your praises. Make its promises your requests. So, pray as you read. The Psalms are particularly helpful in that, but we can do this with any part of the Scripture. By way of preface to this, I found it helpful to have things in prayer written out. Someone who discipled me years ago shared a sort of prayer chart that I continue to use. It has charted down one side the days of the week and charted across the top just lots of different categories for things that we might pray for. And I don't use it perfectly in that way, but when it's in front of me, it's very helpful to remind me of all sorts of things. for which you have to be praying. So, the second suggestion is to write out the attributes of God. In the answer to how do we pray consistently and well and praising God for who He is and asking that His name would be hallowed, that His name would be holy in all the earth, well, write out God's attributes. Use the shorter catechism answer to what is God, infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and His being, wisdom, holy, power, justice, goodness, and truth. I mix those all up, but write those out and praise God for them. Pray that they would be known. Thank Him for them. Thirdly, you might keep a list of missions. or missionaries, or church plants, or even the nations of the world, as you consider, how can I be praying for God's kingdom to come? How can I be praying for His kingdom to advance? What missionaries do you know of, or missions? You could begin with those that we support as a church, as a denomination around the world, in Pakistan, in India, in China, and elsewhere. or others that you know of, church plants, or even just pray for the nations of the world. Keep a list. Fourthly, a suggestion would be to write out, as we consider, how do we pray for God to keep us from temptation? How do we pray for our own sanctification? Well, write out the fruit of the Spirit. Just write the fruit of the Spirit down. There are nine of them listed. Of course, there are many other aspects of sanctification that you can pray for. But this is just one help, one way to start. Pray for one or two of them each day through the week. And a final suggestion would be to write out or find a list. They're collected in lists in many, many websites online or many different places, the prayers of Paul. You can go through the beginnings of most of his letters or just Google the prayers of Paul and find a list and learn from the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul how to pray for your sanctification and for the church's sanctification. Paul's prayers reflect the emphases of the Lord's Prayer in an incredibly beautiful and diverse way. Well, let's go to prayer together now and ask God for these things. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of prayer. We thank you for the knowledge of you as a compassionate Father who loves us and cares for us perfectly. You're eager to give us the things that you've promised We thank You for the confidence, even the boldness, the impudence with which we can come into Your presence and make our requests known. We pray that You would give us in our prayers the concerns of Christ here, especially that Your name would be holy, that Your glory would be seen in us and in the world, that Your kingdom would come, that Your work in people's hearts would advance and the Lord Jesus would return and finish His work, that our grasp of the gospel, our sanctification would progress. Lord, we pray that we would be a praying church, that we would truly believe in our privilege of prayer and the efficacy and necessity of prayer after the example of our Lord Jesus. And we pray in His name. Amen.