When you Pray

Introduction

What is up guys!

As you know last week we talk about abiding.

We talked about being attached to Christ in all that we do because that is how we produce fruit.

That is how we are truly in him fully.

And that kicked off our sermon series where we are going to talk about Spiritual disciplines.

So when you think about Spiritual disciplines, when you think about things that every Christian should do, I would think the top 2 are praying and reading your Bible.

So today we are going to be jumping into prayer.

And I want y’all to know that I understand most of us were raised in the Church, most of us might ask why do we need to talk about prayer we all know what it is, we all know it is talking to Jesus, we all know that we should be doing it.

but it is the building block of the faith, that I see ignored by people all the time.

A study came out by the National Study of Youth and Religion and it says that 9 out of 10 people under the age of 18 see God as a divine Butler meaning that they treat him like he is in the background of their lives only waiting to be summoned when one has a problem.

Prayer should not be limited to a time of crisis, but should be for every season of life.

So today we are going to dive into prayer

So before we dive into talking about prayer, lets pray.

First we see that Jesus is going to give us the…

The Pattern for Prayer (vv. 1-4)

Luke 11:1–4 CSB

He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” He said to them, “Whenever you pray, say, Father, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us. And do not bring us into temptation.”

Let’s take a second and set the stage for this passage.

You are spending time with Jesus and seeing him do all of these things.

You watch him heal people.

See how he can respond to all of the religious leaders questions.

You just get to see Jesus in action like the disciples did and you can ask him anything.

So if this were you, what question would you ask Jesus?

How to solve world hunger?

Who are you going to marry?

Who is going to win the super bowl this year so I can bet my life savings on it?

Any theology or Bible question you can ever think of.

Like Colin would be having a hay day.

This disciple stops Jesus and says hey how do we pray like you? Hey teach us how to pray.

They saw the power of Jesus praying and how much he prayed it peaked their interests.

So Jesus tell them, “when you pray.”

This lets us know that…

Jesus expects every Christian to pray.

You might be thinking well duh Braden, but Jesus makes it abundantly clear!

Matthew 6:5 - “and when you pray”

Matthew 6:6 - but when you pray

Matthew 6:7 - and when you pray

Matthew 6:9 - pray then like this.

We see here in Luke.

Luke 11:9 - so later in the passage to “ask, seek, and knock”

Luke 18:1 “Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up.”

and these are from Jesus himself.

He is urging us to pray.

But Jesus went to pray. Jesus who is the perfect Son of God went and spent a ton of time in prayer.

I am no where close to Jesus.

He beats me in every aspect of my Spiritual life, he beats every person alive, and every person who has ever been alive.

but he still needed to go to the Father.

He still needed prayer and guys we do too.

but…

We are given a model of how to pray.

We see this as a model, but this is not our every prayer.

We know this because we see written prayers from Jesus and other people who pray and it is not this exact prayer.

It is also not the same exact prayer as the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6.

But it is a guide to follow when we pray.

So how does Jesus map it out?

Recognize the Father as Holy.

It is also something that we do not think about very often that we get to call God our Father.

This does not happen in the Old Testament, they would have called him “adoni” which means Lord because they would not say God’s actually name out of respect and reverence.

Then Jesus comes on the scene.

He says we are his children and we can call him Father.

This is not some special use of the Word Father for it to mean God, it is simply dad.

But he is saying because you are a follower of Jesus and God has saved you, now you are his son or daughter.

Only the believer can rightfully call him Father, but just because of that does not take away from how Holy he is.

God is the Holiest of Holies. We are to respect him by saying he is holy.

by acknowledging it is his kingdom that is coming.

2. Ask the father.

We are told to ask for daily bread!

Bread was a basic need.

We are to ask for the things we need and he will give them.

We are not promised the luxuries in life.

But we are told to rely on God for our daily needs.

We are told to ask for the forgiveness of sins.

God is the only one who can forgive.

We know that God will forgive our sins, but we just have to ask.

Lastly we are told to ask for protection from temptation.

Nothing is too much for God.

His protection can come in many ways.

He might defer the temptation so you are not tempted at all.

but he also might be with you and allow you to lean on him so you can grow.

Either way we are told to ask for protection from temptation.

and someone way smarter than me put it in this acronym PRAY.

P - Praise

R- Repent

A - Ask

Y - Yield

they put it in a different order, but they cover all of their bases.

P - Praise – Holy be your name.

R - Repent – forgiveness of sins.

A - Ask – for daily bread, protection from temptation, His kingdom come.

Y - Yield – Do not rush through prayer. This is communication with God. Prayer is as much listening to God as it is talking to God.

We see that you have this model to follow during prayer, but we also see that we are to be…

Persistant in Prayer (vv. 5-8)

Luke 11:5–8 CSB

He also 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 of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

Let me ask you guys, why the heck does Jesus tell this story?

and if you read the point it is to be persistant in prayer.

What Jesus is doing here is something that if you start reading the gospels realizes he does more than once.

It is called an argument from lesser to greater.

He is taking something “lesser” as in a friend who does not want to get up in the night to help you,

then he is comparing it to something greater without really saying what it is.

Even when you feel like no one else is there, God is always listening! He just wants us to be persistant.

God does not sleep he is not like this friend in the middle of the night who will not get up!

God is there to listen.

but how often do we pray for something a time or two then drop it from our prayer list.

We should be petitioning to God. Asking of him.

Like we just talked about we are told to ask.

You cannot just say well I prayed for my friend Reggie to be saved for a week and nothing happened.

NO! I know people who have prayed for lost people for years.

I have a friend who I prayed to come to Christ for years. Someone who was very close to me that I saw stop going to church after high school. Who was raised in the church, but drifted away.

And I prayed and prayed for him. It was not over night, but I saw curiosity in the word come up in his mind. Then I started to receive text messages asking what my favorite book of the Bible was, what my favorite parable was, then questions about topics, verses, all of the things…

Through the power of prayer, not just by me praying, but also his family, he is now in another country doing mission work on behalf of Christ.

Guys. I want you to know that God hears your prayers.

He just wants you to come to him.

Lets look at some other Bible passages.

Colossians 4:2–4 CSB

Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains, so that I may make it known as I should.

Devote yourselves to prayer. Again, this is an all the time thing.

But we are to pray for God to open doors for us to talk through.

There are people out there that Christ is still a mystery to.

They do not know why we do thing.

They think that Christians are weird.

These people are all over the place, but we know that the love of Christ is a mystery to them, but we are called to share the Gospel with them.

If you do not know how, guess what? We will have a sermon over evangelism before we get to thanksgiving.

but Paul here makes the point and says I am in chains, he is in prison for the gospel, for praying so hard and so often that the Lord is moving.

but it is all worth it for Christ.

We saw when Jesus said “when you pray”

We see the analogy from the knocking on the door saying be presistant in prayer.

Then we see Colossians say to devote ourselves to prayer.

And it leads us to see that…

Prayer should be our first response, not our last resort.

In the good and the bad.

The calm and the storm.

You will never regret praying more than what you are.

We are actually told to pray always.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 CSB

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

We are to be in a constant state of prayer.

I was in a discipleship group and we called them parked vs driving prayers.

You should have that time set aside where you spend time in prayer.

Not before meal, not before a test, not as you see things because those are driving prayers.

But you should have a time where you sit down and just pray.

The first time you do it 5 minutes might feel like an hour. But aim to keep increasing your time, focus on the outline that he gave us just in the previous verses, but talk to the Lord.

but also have those short prayers.

All though out the day staying close to the Lord.

Some call them walkie talkie prayers.

Just sending those short messages to God.

But make sure that you have both.

The best solider is going to be in constant communication with his commander. It should be no different between us and God.

God will listen to you, but we have to make sure we are actually talking to him.

Lastly we see the…

Provision of Prayer (vv. 9-13)

Luke 11:9–13 CSB

“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 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?”

Guys, we have to be confident that God is going to provide when we pray.

That his provision over our lives is perfect.

He calls us to ask, to seek, and to knock!

And you might be thinking all of those words are similar in definition, and they are, but what the text is saying is they are building intensity.

Our first step is to ask.

Like we have the power and ability to ask God anything, and over and over again we see him say ask.

Then he says to seek.

Seeking denotes asking, but also adds the idea of action.

There is still effort in us going out and seeking the things of Christ. Living for him!

Lastly is says to knock.

If you know someone is home and you have an urgent message for them, you are going to keep knocking.

Knocking communicates that there is perserving that they are making noise continuing on in there asking.

We must ask, ask, and ask! When we do this, God hears our plea.

and

Through our prayers, God gives us what we need.

This talks about a father and a son.

The passage says a Son who asks for a fish, the Father will not give him a snake.

but the reason for this is to say that a good Father is not going to answer his child's request with an evil substitute.

Therefore, since we have a good heavenly Father he is going to give us his best.

He might say no. A loving Father still has to tell his child no sometimes, but his response is for our good.

And the best gift that he gives is the Holy Spirit and that is to anyone who put their faith in Christ.

Guys, prayer is important.

It is how we talk to God, so spend time in prayer.

Be intentional this week.

love yall.

any thoughts, comments, questions, concerns? stones for heresy?