Luke 11.1-13

When I was about eighteen years old, I remember overhearing a Christian I knew talking to another Christian about someone they knew who had gotten sick. And I remember hearing one of them ask, “Why do you think she hasn’t been healed yet?” (We were in a context in which physical healing was a big subject.)

The one sister turned to the other and said, “Either she’s got sin in her life, or she’s not praying hard enough.”

I remember that didn’t sit well with me, because I’d been sick recently. And I remember thinking that if this person is sick, no wonder she can’t pray well: who can think straight or summon great fervor in prayer when they’re in extreme physical pain? It’s a lot to ask.

So I left that moment asking myself, “Could they be right about that? Might this woman actually be sick because she’s got sin, or because she’s not praying hard enough? Because if the answer is yes, then I’m in trouble.”

Last week Paul preached on , where we saw that intimacy with Jesus is more important than serving Jesus (as weird as that sounds). It was a vitally important message.

Last week Paul preached on , where we saw that intimacy with Jesus is more important than serving Jesus (as weird as that sounds). It was a vitally important message.

And again, Luke places another text just after it that is closely related to it—it is one of the classic texts in the Bible on prayer.

So I’ll invite you to go to with me. We’ll start reading at v. 1.

Prayer has always been a difficult thing for me.

Pray Needily

Prayer has always been a difficult thing for me, and we’ve run into the same difficulty with Jack. We’re trying to teach him to pray, and the one thing he always says is, “I don’t know what to say.” It’s not pretty enough, I don’t know the right words—what can I possible tell God that he doesn’t already know?

The answer is, of course, nothing. Which is why when the disciples come to Jesus with that same request—“Lord, teach us to pray”—Jesus gives them a wonderfully simple and complete template to follow.

Arnaud preached on this same prayer from another text last year, so we won’t go into great detail; but let’s look at the different parts really quickly, and just notice one thing they all have in common.

V. 1:

11 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.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

3  Give us each day our daily bread,

4  and forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And lead us not into temptation.”

So let’s take it bit by bit. V. 2:

2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

So the first thing we should pray for: God’s glory and his kingdom. “Hallowed be your name” simply means that we want God’s name to be seen for the great and glorious name that it is. We want his glory to be seen, by us and by others, and we want his kingdom to be established in this world, in us and in others.

Secondly, v. 3:

3  Give us each day our daily bread,

So we’re not asking for anything extravagant—“Give us this day our daily magret de canard aux truffes”—but simply what we need for today.

Thirdly, v. 4:

4  and forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

So we’re asking that he forgive our sins, and we’re recognizing our own obligation and duty to forgive others in the same way.

Lastly, v. 4b:

And lead us not into temptation.”

So we’re asking him to not just forgive us of those times we have sinned, but to protect us from needing more forgiveness later on.

The thing all these parts have in common is that they all place us in the position of someone who recognizes their need, and who knows God is the only one who can fill that need.

We can’t make God’s glory be seen, his name be honored, and his kingdom come; we can’t provide for ourselves what we need to survive (no matter how much we think we can); we can’t free ourselves of our own sin, no matter how committed we are to forgiving others; and we can’t keep ourselves from sinning on our own.

The disciple who prays Jesus’s prayer voluntarily puts himself in a position of need, and goes to the one who can fulfill his need.

This is why what Paul said last week is so important. So many Christians imagine that once they become Christians, it becomes their responsibility to serve God—and that’s true. But it’s not true in the way we think. God doesn’t need us to serve him. Like without us, everything would just fall apart. We don’t serve God so that his kingdom will come; we serve God because his kingdom will come. We don’t serve him so that he will give us what we need; we serve him because he DOES give us what we need.

It’s the picture of God that’s given all throughout the Bible; my favorite description of this is in , where God says,

10  I am the Lord your God,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

That’s a far cry from “God needs you to serve him.” It’s rather, “YOU need God, and he’s come to serve you.” The prayer that Jesus taught us helps us to remember that.

Now let’s go back to , because Jesus isn’t finished teaching his disciples how to pray.

Pray Persistently

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

V. 5:

5 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, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

I admit this is a strange parable. But it helps to remember that what Jesus is trying to illustrate is not the attitude of the friend who has the bread, but the attitude of the man who needs the bread.

And it’s important, because Calvinists are not typically good at this kind of prayer. Because we believe that God is sovereign, we pray once and then confidently say, “He’s got it.” But while that confidence is good, our resignation to waiting is not.

Jesus invites us to bug God with our needs. To come to him again, and again, and again, and again, like a child coming to God and saying, “Daddy please can I have a cookie? Daddy please can I have a cookie? Daddy please can I have a cookie?” It’s annoying—and weirdly, God invites us to annoy him.

The question is why? At least that’s the question I always had. And while I’m not a hundred percent sure about the answer to that question, here’s what I think, based on my own experience.

I believe God invites us to pray like this, firstly, because persistent pray helps us feel the depth of our need. Remember to take it along with what Jesus has just said, how he has just taught us to pray. People pray the Lord’s prayer by rote memorization, almost as a ritual. But if we take it seriously, and honestly ask God for our most basic needs every day, and several times a day, our hearts will slowly be changed by that process. We will realize more and more that I really can’t provide for myself in any way that matters; I really can’t make God’s kingdom come on my own; I really can’t protect myself from temptation; I really do need him! Persistent prayer helps us feel the depth of our need.

Secondly, I believe God invites us to persistent prayer because it helps us to realize what is actually worth praying for. Imagine you have a project in mind—something you want for your life—so you pray for God to make it happen. And he doesn’t. So you keep praying. And he still doesn’t.

In my experience, when God consistently says no to any given prayer, I come to a point when I realize that maybe what I’ve been asking for isn’t really all that important. Maybe what I’ve been asking isn’t really worth asking for. So I am able to refine and refocus my prayer, to better reflect what it is I should be praying for: not necessarily what I want, but what I need.

As Jesus said at the end of v. 8,

because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

Which brings us to the last part—the part that people love, and the part that people most often misuse.

Pray Confidently

God’s glory and kingdom

Asking for what we need

Asking for forgiveness; committing to forgive

V. 9:

Protection from temptation

Persistent Prayer

9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

The Promise of an Answer

The meaning here is devastatingly simple: God always answers the prayers of his children. Always, always, always. Everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks will find. Everyone who wants to come in gets to come in.

It’s a wonderful promise.

But it has been horribly misused.

In his horrible book Your Best Life Now—which can’t even loosely be seen as a Christian book—Joel Osteen says, “God wants to give you your own house. God has a big dream for your life… Perhaps you’re searching for a parking spot in a crowded lot. Say, ‘Father, I thank you for leading and guiding me. Your favor will cause me to get a good spot.’”

Why would that work? Because Jesus said, “Ask [for a huge house] and it will be given to you; seek [an excellent parking spot] and you will find; knock [on the door of success] and it will be opened to you.”

THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID!

He is not saying here that if we ask him, he will give us whatever it is we want.

Ask, receive; knock, find the door opened (v. 9-10).

Not what we think: It’s not that he will always give us exactly what we ask. It’s that he will always give us “good gifts”.

If we ask for fish, he won’t give us a serpent. If we ask for an egg, he won’t give us a scorpion.