Luke 11 (Part 1) :1-13 • Insights on Prayer

open your Bible please to Luke chapter 11 as we continue here on Sunday morning our study through the New Testament and right now the Gospel according to Luke this is part one from Luke chapter 11 and we're going to be looking through the first thirteen verses Luke chapter 11 verse the 1 through 13 alright follow along as I read it says now Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he finished one of his disciples said to him Lord teach us to pray as John 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 us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation and he said to them which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him friend lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him and he will answer from within do not bother me the door is now shut my children are with me in bed I cannot get up and get you anything I tell you though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend yet because of his impotence he will rise and give him whatever he needs and I tell you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened what father among you if his son asks for a fish will instead of a fish give him a serpent or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him stop there let's pray Heavenly Father we open our hearts to you and we invite you to speak to them we just Lord we need you we need your word and we need understanding from it we believe that it is you who give that understanding so lord we just want to have our spiritual eyes and ears open today to hear your voice equip us and direct us we ask in Jesus precious name Amen well as you can see from the text that we're looking at here today we're going to be talking about prayer and we're gonna be looking at three main points from this section here in Luke chapter 11 I'll put them up on the screen for you so you can see them oh by the way parent and I know to your pizza is ready all right here we go we're going to be looking at the content of prayer the persistence of Prayer and we're going to be looking at the object of Prayer before we get into the first point which is that that issue of the the content of Prayer I want to look again with you at verse 1 look in your Bible with me again because this is where it tells us that Jesus was praying and when he had finished and I think that's significant one of his disciples came up to him and and asked him to instruct them in the area of Prayer let me ask you a question have you ever felt that you needed help with your prayer life yeah I know stupid question is III think it's probably a fairly universal need I think we all recognize that our prayer life could you know stand you know some improvement but I think that it's significant that this request made to Jesus about prayer came right on the heels of him praying because here he is doing it he and and and the disciples saw that in his prayer time that is when he connected that is when he communed that is when he he filled up on that relationship with the father for all that he was called to do and you know they and they wanted what he had I don't know if you've ever looked at another Christian and kind of thought man I want what you've got but that's the way they were thinking about it and I think that the disciples are kind of a reflection of all of us as it relates to this need that we have in our hearts you know to be better prayers you you know III like the disciples we all know that prayer is important and that's why they came and asked him to help but they also knew that they were struggling you know they knew that they I'm just not getting the job done it's just not working prayer is a struggle prayer is hard work I think we can relate all of us to long periods of prayerlessness in our lives I know I can even as a pastor there have been too many seasons where I have not prayed as I ought and so these viable verses and this these these sections here in Luke chapter 11 are given to us to help us get on track and and and and I think that these important points that Jesus is covering are all critical so let's highlight the first one that we're going to look at and that is the content of Prayer and you'll notice in verse 2 Jesus began to say to them when you pray say and then you in and he goes through it and and Luke gives us kind of a shortened version of it but you know we all recognize this as the Lord's Prayer and and and probably every single day Christians gather around the world to recite the Lord's Prayer which I believe is not at all what he intended for it I don't think Jesus gave us this as something to recite this is this is an outline you guys and an outline is meant to kind of be a guide if you will it emphasizes key points that were to cover but I don't think Jesus meant us just to stand in in you know in one place and you know you you we've all probably learned the Lord's Prayer and you don't have to even think about it you know my father and most of us even do it from the King James you know I mean how long ago was that that we learned that and it just kind of rolls off the tongue without really even passing through the mind let alone making its way to the heart that's not a all what what what Jesus meant when he gave us this he gave us this outline to say when you pray pray this way begin by addressing the father notice it begins with father that means he wants you and I to remember that when we begin to pray we're talking to a person and I know that sounds like kind of a duh moment but sometimes we forget it sometimes we kind of divorce God from just a person I mean he's God and after all and it's like how do you begin to talk to God well you talk to God like any other person but the point about this is that prayer time is meant to be a personal time it's a time of intimacy it's a time of communion it's a time of connecting we're talking to our Father and I think way too often as Christians we forget the fact that only those who are born of God even have the right to call him father do you know that have you ever noticed that when you're talking to people who don't know the Lord they don't call him father usually they use all kinds of dumb things like the man upstairs or the big guy or or something dumb like that but but father is a is a term of endearment it's a term of intimacy more than that it's a term of family it's a term of family and you know while we were taking communion I even quoted that passage from John chapter one that says to all who received him to those who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God do you understand Christians that it's when we become children of God that he becomes our Father and not before before that he is just your God he's your Creator but there there becomes this important dynamic that that changes it's shifts when you and I come to know Christ in our hearts and we receive what he did on the cross he God becomes our Father and we begin to speak to him on that personal intimate level father I come to you and none of notice that Jesus didn't give us all these fancy adjectives that man over the years has has added you know to addressing God all great holy and high you know not that he isn't deserving of every holy adjective that you can add I'm not saying that I'm just saying that this is a prayer of intimacy and that's and that's an important thing to remember and then after addressing him as father were to say hallowed be your name and again that's not something to be said by rote memorization because hallowed means holy or set apart sanctified and when we say holy be your name we have to remember that in antiquity the name of somebody meant everything about them to you and I you know we think of names as you know we look up online or in a book you know what does my name mean well my name means and we love it when it says something nice you know my name means courageous you know that's not what my name means by the way Paul means little I'm serious yeah Paul means little yeah thank you but that's really about as far as we kind of go when it comes to understanding the meaning of the person's name but in in in Bible times to say you must receive the name of Jesus it meant you had to receive everything about him it means every declaration every every every word that he spoke everything that he is is bound up in his name that's why it says in John to those who received him to those who believed in his name to those who believed in everything about him he gave the right to become children of God right so when we're saying to God hallowed be your name or holy be your name we're just saying holy are you holy are you God and you know we remember that it is the Angels in that's that that are before the throne of God who are constantly day and night were told crying out holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty constantly and I understand that holiness is a concept that that that you and I have a difficult time laying hold of but we are to begin our prayer time magnifying the Lord and when we declare his holiness and even meditate on the fact that he is holy we are doing just that and then we're to say your will be done a simple prayer just for God's will to be accomplished on earth I'm convinced that this is one of if not the most powerful things that you and I can pray in fact I got to tell you there's a lot of times when I'm faced with a situation and and I don't know how to pray exactly and and to just be able to say you know Lord I don't know what's going on here but I just pray your will would be done I want your will in this I don't even know what your will is exactly but I know that you're good that I know and so I pray for your will to be done guys if you don't know what to pray if you're kind of sitting around kind of twiddling your thumbs like I'm gonna pray I don't know to pray for God's will what a glorious thing to pray for we get to participate in God's will in that crazy that he allows you and I to actually help in that process somehow through our prayers and and it's a it's it's a it's a weird thing to even think about but what a beautiful thing to be able to pray and really a very simple thing then he says if you look at verse 3 we're to go on and we're to pray give us each day our daily bread and again this is a very simple request for God to meet our needs and by the way your daily bread might not be anything you put in your mouth your daily bread might need might mean you know the strength that you need that day I've prayed for the daily bread of strength many times or the daily bread of courage or the daily bread of wisdom I mean whatever it may be God invites you and I to come to him so that those needs might get met and so he tells us to pray Lord give me this day my daily bread and you'll notice that it's a daily thing you know it's not like God's limited it's not like he's he can't give you what you need for tomorrow today or even for next week or next month it's not like he can't do that I mean if you were to say to him Lord coming up here next month I got something going on and I'm really gonna need your strength he can do that but he wants you to come to him every single day why he wants to have a relationship with you he wants to have an ongoing relationship that is bound up in more than just I need I need I need and you give and I need you to give which is frankly what most of us I don't know if most I I don't have any way of knowing that for sure I'm willing to say for many of us our relationship with God is limited to I need I need you give and that's what we talk to God about in prayer but the fact of the matter is when we come to him everyday there's a greater impetus to begin just to talk and to pour out your heart and really lay it before him verse 4 were then to say Lord and forgive us our sins why do we have to pray this I thought when I came to Jesus I was forgiven past present and future so why does Jesus tell me to pray ongoingly for forgiveness does that mean I have to get saved again of course not that's nothing to do with it you are saved and in Christ and by faith you are forgiven for all of your sins from that eternal perspective of being held accountable right from anything you have ever done or ever will do related to what Jesus did on the cross for you that's not what you're praying about you're praying for that relationship that you have with the Lord to have no barriers nothing standing in the way no issues no problems and that's what sin does we've talked as many many times we've talked about the fact that the Bible says sin separates us from God and it can even separate you relationally as a believer from God we've all felt distant we've all felt distant from God we've gotten involved you know we've we've not come to the Lord like we should we've not prayed for forgiveness we've been involved in doing junk that we know we shouldn't have done and we just kind of let it sit there and we didn't repent and we didn't come to God and now there's this distance there's this coldness and so you know what do we need to do to get that taken care of we've got to come to the Lord and ask for forgiveness Lord forgive me I know that I haven't lived the way I should I know that I asking you to forgive me and to strengthen me and help me to live for you I'm not praying for forgiveness so that you'll love me and bring me to heaven that's already done that was settled on the cross you guys get that your eternal salvation was settled at the cross Jesus did it he said it is finished it is done you are praying for forgiveness now to make sure that there's not a distance between you and the Lord because that distance comes all too easy and believe me the enemy wants to jump on it and exacerbate that as much as he possibly can so the best thing you and I can do to maintain a heart of intimacy with our Father is to make sure that we come before him and say Lord forgive me but there's another part of this forgiveness he says that we are also to forgive assuming that we are forgiving others for the things that they've done against us and I frankly like how its worded here in Luke it says Lord for you know forgive us our sins as we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us I like that word indebted because that's the essence of forgiveness I I bring that up people on a fairly regular basis when we're talking about forgiveness it's like it's like I owed you money a lot of money and and couldn't pay and so you forgave the debt okay you don't have to pay me back that is forgiveness that's the essence of forgiveness do you know do you know why Christians don't forgive it's not because they can't it's because they think forgiveness means I have to jump right back into that situation that I was in that got me in this place you know in the first place in it for example somebody will say you know there's this person who really hurt me and my family they're very toxic individual and and they did things and said things and and they really hurt us bad I mean we were wounded offended hurt by this individual and I just can't forgive him because I can't go back and do that again and I always look at him and say what does going back and letting that person into your life have to do with forgiveness that is a it's a misunderstanding of what it means to forgive you know Jesus told that parable about that that man who forgave you know these servant of this incredible amount of money that you could no way you could pay back he said I you know the guy begged him for mercy and he forgave him do you think the master turned right around and lent you more money after that I seriously doubt it you know for that there's a point in our lives you guys where there is a need to say I can't go back there but you know what I'm gonna forgive you I am gonna forgive you I choose to release the debt all right and and so we got to understand what that means so Lord we have forgiven I I'm free to forgive even if I can't connect with that person any anymore because it's just there's never been any repentance on there and and there's to live in the same destructive lifestyle they were living before right but that doesn't stop me from forgiving you know Jesus didn't say forgive others if you're capable or if or if you're able to go ahead and forgive them no no no I just forgive so it's really important that we understand that and then the end of verse four it's lead us not into temptation the word temptation literally means testing so this is a prayer you know that we might be delivered from the temptations and the tests and the challenges that that that so quickly and easily come our way in this dark world and can so quickly plunge us into into sin so you know again this is an outline I I believe it's something that the Lord would have us to look at and meditate on and and and not just recite mindlessly but rather look at it as an outline then we come to the second point that we're going to be looking at here which is the persistence of prayer and and it is my considered opinion which frankly isn't worth anything but it is my opinion that for those who do pray this is probably the biggest challenge that most christians face persistence consistency staying at it you know not giving up in prayer and and and Jesus to make this point tells a very simple parable about a man who goes to his neighbor asking for some bread to help feed an unexpected guest who had just arrived at a late hour and in this story the man who has awakened is initially unwilling to help out he's like hey what are you doing man we're all in bed and lights are off and you know what are you talking about bread just you know I'm not gonna give you anything and and and yet it tells us here that in in verse eight that although he's not going to get up and give him anything because they're friends he will get up and actually take care of him just so he can go back to bed now that's an example and and and it says because of his impotence which is an interesting word that's translated that way here in the ESV it literally means check this out it means shameless persistence I like that because of his shameless persistence this man will ultimately get what he needs and it's talking about that determination to knock and keep knocking I mean to the point of being obnoxious about it and and the whole promise here from this verse for our shameless persistence is summed up in verses 9 to 10 look with me in your Bible verses 9 and 10 he says I tell you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks it will be opened now let me ask you a question how long does Jesus say you have to ask seek and knock before you get what you're looking for he doesn't say does he and yet we all have in our minds in our hearts we've got this idea of how long it ought to take and we pray and when we get to our expectation of how long it ought to take before God answers we just say well there you go I prayed and nothing happened I prayed God didn't get an answer yeah big deal huh yeah so much for his promises I pray and people people have never been quite that obnoxious about it when they say it to me but I have had people say to me quite often well I prayed and the inference is we've nothing happened pastor you know is there a warranty on this thing because I think I have a refund coming he doesn't say how long to pray he says just just it's just keep praying and and because guys this is one of the most glorious promises in all the Word of God to be completely honest with you but so few believers are ever willing to lay hold of this promise because they will not pray with shameless persistence you know there's an old Puritan saying that goes like this until you pray and I like that what they're saying is pray and keep praying until you're really praying and the truth is can I just say that I think as Christians most of us don't get past the ground-floor of prayer I know there are some here who have a gift of intercession and we love you and we need you in the body of Christ but for the rest of us we struggle to get past first base as it relates to praying and really praying and too often our prayer time you know resembles a hit-and-run accident rather than a real time of communion and intimacy and connection with the father you know I found a quote let me show you this on the screen da Carson wrote this or said this or he said if we pray until we pray eventually we come to delight in God's presence to rest in his love to cherish his will in the Western world we urgently need this advice for many of us in our praying or like nasty little boys who ring front doorbells and run away before anyone answers I thought man boom he hit it didn't he yeah you know it's like and that's what people are often saying when they come and they say well I rang the doorbell and ran you know it's really important you know persistence in prayer shameless persistence keep praying pray until you breakthrough there have been some occasions in my life where I've prayed until I broke through and I can tell you that there's nothing better than breaking through there's nothing better than meeting with the Living God in a breakthrough of prayer I wish I could I wish I could stand up here and tell you that every time I pray I do that but I can't I wish I could and I would say it except I know that God would strike me dead where I stand finally our third point that we're highlighting here which is the object of prayer and this is an important thing to remember because you know the object of prayer when we talk about the object of prayer we're talking about the one to whom we are praying and that is really the one of the most important points about prayer as Jesus goes on to explain if you look with me again in verse 11 he begins to ask what father among you if his son asks for a fish will you know instead of a fish give him a serpent or if he asks for an egg we'll give him a scorpion so he gives us these rather bizarre examples to kind of highlight the difference between the character of our Heavenly Father with our earthly human fathers and you know we all know that earthly human fathers and I'm one of them we've been corrupted by the influence of sin but even with that corruption when our kids ask us for something you know that they need we still give them what they need and his point is by comparison here's God who is not corrupted by sin who is perfect in compassion and kindness and love and wants the absolute best for you he says listen if you guys are willing to do good things for your kids when they ask you how much more can you expect God to bless you and give you good things that's what he basically says in verse 13 now you'll notice that Luke you know says records it as how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him you know this was something Jesus repeated on several occasions he also repeated this idea on the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew records it there let me put it on the screen for you from Matthew 7 he says if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your father who is in heaven good things to those who ask him so whether he's giving us good things or giving us his holy spirit it's all meant to reinforce the point that God responds differently than earthly human fathers because you see he's never mean or bad-tempered or in a hurry he certainly never cruel Jesus wants to communicate to you and I that it is God's character that is our highest motivation to come to him in prayer you get that if I was going to go ask something of a cruel ruler world ruler and I had a very important request but I knew that this individual almost always turns people down and/or torture them if he didn't happen to like them I probably would be pretty hesitant about going before that individual and laying my requests at his feet in fact I might even say you know what I don't think it's worth it I think I'm just gonna kind of forget it he's gonna say no I wonder how many people think that that's like that's what God is like I'm not even gonna ask because I'm he's probably just gonna say no how sad is that what Jesus is trying to communicate to you and I is that the the character of God if we would but know that character we would we would be drawn to the place of Prayer we would come running to the place of Prayer we couldn't wait to get into his presence to talk to him about our needs if we really truly understood his character and his absolute love for you and I let me end with one final thought about prayer and it comes from Acts chapter 9 and I'm going to put it on the screen for you and the Lord said to him rise and go to the street called straight and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul for behold he is praying these words that you're seeing there and let's leave him up there for just a bit if we could they were spoken to a man by the name of Ananias Ananias lived in Damascus and he was being told to go and find a man named Saul of Tarsus and to pray for him but what Ananias wasn't told was that God had met Paul on his way to Damascus and Paul had seen the glory of Jesus and that glory was such that Paul was blinded knocked to the ground but more than that Jesus revealed himself to Paul in that that meeting and and he did it in such a way that Paul was now a broken and repentant man for the way he'd been living so instead of telling all that to Ananias instead of giving him all this information about Paul and let me explain Ananias what's going on here he gave one qualification for why Ananias should feel fine about going to do this and he said this for behold he's praying now that's interesting isn't it Paul was praying so during this time when he was blind and we're told he didn't eat anything during that time he was praying so was that a big deal to Paul I mean I want to remind you of something about the Apostle Paul before he was the Apostle Paul he was a very religious man you know from the standpoint that he strictly observed the law of Moses we know that he was a Pharisee the son of a Pharisee and as a Pharisee he would have kept the regular Jewish calls to prayer three times a day he would have gathered with other people to pray so yeah Paul was no stranger to prayer and the demands of Prayer but here's the clincher even though Paul was accustomed to spending time in prayer he remained a stranger to the one to whom he prayed crazy isn't it you can pray and not know God but something happened in Paul's life and that's when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and he was revealed - it was revealed to him who Jesus was and and on and on and on and and that was when that religious man Saul of Tarsus that was when he died and that was when the new man the man that we would come to know as the Apostle Paul the broken man the repentant man the new man was born and it was about that new man that God said to Ananias behold he's praying you know I gotta tell you something I I get a lot of requests and I bet you do too I get requests to say prayers for people or for situations and they actually word it that way they'll say pastor Paul would you say prayers for such-and-such and I'll be honest with you I don't ever want to just say prayers because saying prayers is empty religion it's what Saul used to do he did it because he had to do it and I really want no part of it as children of God we don't say prayers what we and that's not what we need to do what we need to do is break through what we need to do is we need to cry out from the depth of our souls to God we need to commune with him in intimacy and brokenness and and we need to pray until we pray I'm I'm done saying prayers I got to be honest with you I don't even like it when we get into a public gathering and they asked me to pray because I'm the pastor I really don't like that at all because what they want me to do is perform a ministerial function and I'll be honest with you I hate it it's like you pray you know hey pastor you want to say a prayer no you do it sometimes I'm bold enough to say that other times I just go ahead and pray but I don't like it because I don't want to say prayers you know it's not what I'm interested in doing prayer is more than that it's not a religious exercise it's either going to be the cry of the harder it's gonna be nothing you guys because the cry of the heart is is the cry of intimacy a son or a daughter to their father that says lord I need you I need you now and I'm not gonna make it without you I got no time to say religious prayers and frankly neither do you it's time for us to start crying out to God because I tell you some I want to be a person about whom God says behold he is praying that's the kind of man I want to be I'm not there but that's the kind of man I want to be and I hope that's the kind of person you want to be

Channel: Calvary Chapel Ontario

Views: 14,978

Rating: 4.8809524 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament

Id: U_lJLRPc9E8

Length: 37min 13sec (2233 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 04 2019