Luke 11:1-13 The Prayer That Is Always Answered

Intro

How do you pray?

For most Christians, prayer is an implied spiritual discipline. What I mean by that is most people, when they become Christians are told that prayer is just talking to God and then kicked right into the deep end to sink or swim with little instruction at all of what it means to actually pray.

So, from the beginning, many Christians struggle to pray because they feel like their prayers don’t go higher than their ceiling. They feel like no matter how much or how hard they pray, God doesn’t hear them, or maybe even worst, refuses to which leaves feeling alone, hurting and confused.

But God is not ignoring them. They simply haven’t been taught how to pray.

Last week we studied the Parable of the Persistent Widow, where we saw that prayer is not an optional part of the Christian life, but is an essential practice to help us depend upon Jesus Christ and follow him faithfully.

That prayer is a necessary practice for us as Christians because it is a clear, tangible expression of our faith and dependence on God to live a life that glorifies him.

But here is what I don’t want to do as your pastor. I don’t want to tell you that prayer is crucial to your discipleship only to once again kick you out into the deep end of faith.

Even though we know we should all pray, we struggle to believe our prayers actually make a difference. That they are actually effective.

So what I want to do this week is to look at Jesus’ teaching in to really dive into the nitty gritty of how we are to pray like Jesus prayed so that our prayers can be effective to bolster and strengthen our faith.

Even though we know we should all pray, we struggle to believe our prayers actually make a difference. That they are actually effective.

Last week we talked about three principles for effective prayer. We said that when we pray we need to pray 1. Biblically, 2. Continually, and 3. Hopefully.

This week as we look at , you are going to see those principles weaved throughout Jesus’ teaching on prayer but

Where last week we really focused on how necessary prayer is for us to faithfully follow Jesus, this week I want to spend a lot of time intentionally teaching you how to actually pray as the Lord taught us.

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

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.”

Jesus Lived a Life of Prayer

First and foremost we see that Jesus lived a life of prayer. Jesus lived his life by the power of prayer

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Here is the wonderful thing about Jesus. He is God incarnate. tells us that when Jesus became a man, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself.

While being God, Jesus lived his life on earth as a human empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Practically, this means that Jesus showed us what it truly means to be a human being because he is the only human to ever worship God perfectly.

And Jesus, being our example of a godly life showed us that his pattern to live a life or worship and fulfill his ministry was to pray. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Even now today, Jesus is praying for us.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Here is the point I’m trying to make, if Christian discipleship is about following the Lord and living for him by living like him, why in the world would we think we could live our lives praying less than he did?

If we are going to follow Jesus, we have to pray like Jesus. But here’s the rub. Prayer doesn’t just happen. Effective prayer is learned.

Prayer is Learned

Jesus’ own disciples came to the Lord one day after he was praying and asked, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, “When you pray, say...

Jesus’ response should be an encouragement to every single one of us. Prayer is not something that is learned automatically. It isn’t something that just comes natural to us.

In the same way as reading the Bible, effective prayer must be learned by every single Christian.

So let me encourage you. If you are here today and you have no clue how to pray or if you feel uncomfortable praying whether by yourself or with others, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Our goal this morning is to look at what Jesus taught effective prayer looks like so that starting today, you can begin to learn and grow into a life of effective prayer.

So after being asked, “Lord, teach us to pray,” Jesus teaches three aspects of effective prayer. The first is...

The Pattern of Effective Prayer

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

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

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

“Father, hallowed be your name.

“Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your kingdom come.

Your kingdom come.

3  Give us each day our daily bread,

Give us each day our daily bread,

3  Give us each day our daily bread,

4  and forgive us our sins,

and forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And lead us not into temptation.”

And lead us not into temptation.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

When you Pray

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

This is what is commonly known as the Lord’s prayer and Jesus introduces it by saying, “when you pray.” Literally this means “Whenever you are praying.”

Based on this, the Lord’s prayer is given to us as a pattern for all Christian prayer. In other words, all occasions of prayer should be approached in this manner.

Now, Jesus is not trying to tell his disciples when you pray you must use these exact words. Instead, he means that the things found in the Lord’s prayer are the kinds of priorities that should shape their prayers.

Also notice that Jesus uses plural pronouns throughout the prayer.

When you pray is plural.

Give us our daily bread

forgive us

Lead us

What this means is that in our prayer life we should not just pray for ourselves and we should not only pray alone.

These are the kinds of things that Christians ought to be praying for and with one another.

These priorities should shape how we pray not only for ourselves but also our families, our church, and other believers.

And here is how Jesus introduces the pattern for how we are to pray

Father

First and foremost, prayer is a family conversation between a Father and his children.

What that means is that if you want to have your prayers heard and answered by God, you must first know him as Father and this happens when we are born again.

The Bible says that all those that have not put their faith in Jesus Christ, that have not trusted in him for the forgiveness of their sins and given their whole life to him and his kingdom and to worship him are God’s enemies.

They cannot pray to God as their Father because of their sin, they are God’s active enemies. Hating him and refusing to worship him.

But here is the good news. You can be forgiven of your sins through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is that we were all dead in our sins, enemies of God but

God the Father sent God the Son Jesus Christ to be born as a man and to live a sinless life by the power of God the Holy Spirit in our place.

Because Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh, we killed him by murdering him on the cross and as he was dying God poured out all the wrath he had against us and our sin onto Jesus.

He died, was buried, and rose again in victory by the Spirit so that all those that put their faith in him are forgiven of their sins, saved from being enemies and adopted as sons and daughters of God.

So if you are here today and you have not yet put your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins so that you can be free from sin, death, and the coming judgment and instead given eternal life knowing God as Father, I beg you to pray to him now, asking him to forgive all of your sins and God will answer you as your Heavenly Father and give you salvation in Jesus Christ.

Now for the Christian, praying to God as our Father should give us great hope because he is eager to answer our prayers because he loves us. We don’t have to convince or compel him to hear us.

Because of Jesus we do not approach a begrudging deity when we pray, we come to our Father who Jesus says knows what we need before we even ask him ().

So the first way Jesus teaches us to pray is to pray to our Father who loves us

Hallowed Be Your Name

Jesus says that when we pray, we should ask that God would make his name holy and revered.

Now this shouldn’t be taken in the sense of God being deficient in his holiness in anyway as if we are asking him to make himself “more” holy. God is perfectly holy.

What this means is that we should pray to God asking him to allow the fear of the Lord to grip the hearts of men. In other words, that God would be God to us and that we wouldn’t minimize him or whittle him down to some aspect of our life. But that he would receive our highest worship.

Not only this, but is also asking God to let more people know him as Father and worship him. For God to save more people so that they would stop worshiping their idols in their sin and instead worship him alone.

Our first priority in prayer should be, Father, hallowed be your name.

Your Kingdom Come

To pray for Jesus Kingdom to come is to pray for his return. It’s to pray for his literal kingdom to come to this earth where all the sin, evil, sickness, and death we experience will be no more.

And until that day, praying for God’s kingdom to come is asking the Lord to help us experience some of the blessings of that kingdom here and now as we grow to worship God by dying to ourselves more and more and put sin to death in our lives.

So don’t miss this, the pattern of prayer Jesus gives us first and foremost focuses on God and his kingdom. In other words, our prayers should reflect the purposes of God in our lives.

Practically what this means is that our prayers should first and foremost be that our lives would glorify God and that we would live here an now for his kingdom.

Jesus then moves to instruct us to ask three things for oursleves

Then Jesus instructs his disciples to ask three things for themselves that they daily need the grace of God to possess.

First, they are to ask for their “daily bread.”

This is a continuous verb. So it’s like Jesus is praying, keep giving each and every day the things we need.

The Christian is to look to God constantly for all physical needs because God is the giver of all things.

Not only are we to pray to God for our daily physical needs but we also must pray to him for our spiritual needs as well.

Forgive us our sins

No Christian lives a sinless life. Only one has ever done it and he was a Jew.

Luke uses the word debts to describe

What Jesus is showing us is that when we stumble and sin, we should run from God, fearful of what he might do to us because God is our Father and because he is our Father he will surely forgive us.

However, that doesn’t mean we should not fight against our sin because Jesus says that we should pray that God would not lead us into temptation.

Now makes it clear that God doesn’t tempt anyone with sin. That would be evil and wrong. What Jesus is saying we should pray for is that God would protect us from temptation and give us victory over our sin so that we could glorify him.

So the pattern that Jesus lays out for how we are to pray is first to pray for God and his kingdom and then to pray for our needs which still have the purposes of God in mind, not merely our own happiness or wants.

So many Christians only pray to God asking him to make them happy, when they should be praying that God would make them holy.

Jesus’ prayer can be summed up as a prayer for God to help us live for him and him alone.

This pattern keeps us from wandering aimlessly in our prayers, simply praying the same pithy things that float away into the ether.

Jesus’ pattern gives us structure and direction for our prayers and we can have confidence that they will be effective and answered because when we pray this way, we are simply asking God to give us what he himself told us he wants for us.

Jesus’ pattern of prayer is a prayer for God to help us live for him and him alone.

In teaching his disciples how to pray effectively, Jesus doesn’t just give them the pattern for how they are to pray, he also tells them that they must be persistent in how they pray.

The Persistence of Effective Prayer

2X

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. 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.

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. 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.

Just having a pattern for how to pray won’t help us have an effective prayer life where God will answer us. We also need the discipline and determination to be persistent in prayer.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

We can’t just pray one time and then go off living our life as we see fit expecting God to answer. Remember, prayer is a way we express our dependent faith for God to give us all that we need for life and godliness.

To help us understand this Jesus give us a story.

So what you have is a man who gets some unexpected guests in the middle of the night. Not having food for them he thinks, I know. I’ll go to my friend’s house and he will give me what I need.

He goes and knocks on the door and says, “Friend, I need three loaves of bread for some guests. Can you help me out?”

This man’s friend answers back and says, “Are you out of your mind? Its the middle of the night, they are your guests not mine and if you keep banging on my door we are going to have a bigger problem because your going to wake my wife and kids. Get out of here!”

But the man doesn’t take the hint he keeps pounding on the door and Jesus says that this man’s friend wasn’t driven to get up and help him because he wanted to be friendly. Instead it was because of this man’s impudence, or persistence that gets him what he is asking for.

But let’s talk about that word, impudence. In the greek it means not caring about what is proper or what other people will think of you.

Jesus is saying that what finally gets this man the three loaves he asked for was the shamlessness he had in his request.

In other words, he wasn’t going to give up asking until he got what he wanted

And Jesus says that if we want our prayers to be answered, we have to pray like that. The point of Jesus’ parable is that we must pray persistently, as if God will not answer us otherwise. That is the kind of fervor that should shape our prayers

Hold up a minute, I thought we said God was our Father. Why is he so reluctant to answer our prayers? Why do we have to be so persistent.

This part of the passage does not describe God’s side of our prayers. It only describes our part in the practice of prayer.

God’s part in our prayers is described in the next section. Here Jesus is trying to point out that we must persist in prayer not to overcome God’s reluctance at all, but because we know God will hear and answer us.

This is why verses 9-10 say 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 Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Ask…seek…and knock are all continuous verbs. That means what Jesus is saying is that we are supposed to start and not stop.

In other words, its like Jesus is saying, “Ask and keep on asking and it will be given. Seek and keep on seeking and you will find, knock and keep on knocking and it will be opened to you.

In other words, its like Jesus is saying, “Ask and keep on asking and it will be given. Seek and keep on seeking and you will find, knock and keep on knocking and it will be opened to you.”

And in verse 10 Jesus grounds the reason why this is true. He says you will be given and you will find and it will be open FOR everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Think about it this way, the way the passage is structured, it is like Jesus is saying Because if someone asks and keeps on asking, they will receive. If they seek and keep on seeking they will find. If they knock and keep on knocking it will be open to them.

It is persistent prayers that are answered by God.

It is thi

If that’s true then why are all my prayers not answered?

We are asking wrongly

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

gives us the answer. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

This passage teaches us that It is the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer in verses 2-4 plus the persistent prayer of the parable in 5-10 equals effective prayer.

We are asking for our will

When Jesus says that all prayers are answered, he assumes that the prayers his people offer to God will imply “Nevertheless, not my will but yours, be done.”

This is one of Jesus’ prayers. He is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying that God the Father might make away where he doesn’t have to go to the cross.

The Bible tells us that he was in such great agony that he actually started sweating blood and it fell to the ground. Jesus was scared to obey God.

But look at Jesus’ example, even though he was in great personal anguish, he still prayed, Not my will but yours be done.” And the cup of suffering did not pass on from Jesus like he requested but he went to the cross in order to secure salvation for everyone that puts their faith in him.

Jesus is not saying in this parable that if we pray, we will always get what we ask for. After all, "No” or “Later” is just as much as an answer as God saying “Yes.” What Jesus is saying is that true prayer is not ignored, it is always answered in the way God sees best.

Prayer is so often treated as a way of saying “God give me what I want,” when prayer is truly meant to be an expression of our dependent faith in God.

Many of us get discouraged when we are asking God for something we know is his will because it is in the Bible an it doesn’t happen.

For example, praying for God to heal your marriage when it just feels too broken to fix so that your marriage will reflect Christ and his love for the church

Praying that God will bless you with a child so that you can obey and and raise up children in the Lord but you still struggle with getting pregnant

Praying that God will take away your anxiety and help you trust him but it feels like every day you are on the edge

All of these are good and biblical things that we can ask for. However, the answer when God does not give them to us is not to give up or believe that God hates you when they aren’t answered in the exact time or way you expect.

What if God is inviting you to deeper faith and trust in him by calling you to persistently put your desires into his sovereign hands? What if God isn’t keeping anything from you, but he is actually trying to give himself?

Even Jesus’ request in the Garden for the Father to let the cup of suffering pass from him wasn’t answered by God the way Jesus wanted. But what God did answer was for Jesus to have faith and trust that God was working his purposes for him. This is the pattern of prayer.

Prayer is so often believed to be a way of saying “God give me what I want,” when prayer is truly meant to

That is why we must pray according to the pattern of the Lord’s prayer and with shameless persistence so that God will give us what we ask for, ultimately a life that glorifies him. A life that says, not my will but yours be done.

For you to be worshiped. For you to be glorified in me.

This passage teaches us that It is the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer in verses 2-4 plus the persistent prayer of the parable in 5-10 equals effective prayer.

And even though we might not always receive exactly what we ask for, in the next section, Jesus shows us that when we pray according to the his pattern of effective prayer with the persistence of effective prayer, God promises to answer us and give us the Holy Spirit.

The Promise of Effective Prayer

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 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!”

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 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!”

What will happen when we pray like Jesus instructed

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Jesus is here describing what will happen when we pray like Jesus instructed.

If the parable of the friend at midnight teaches us our part to play in the prayer relationship where we are called to pray to God persistently as if he will not listen to us, these verses tell us God’s side of prayer.

Here Jesus asks a simple question. He says that what father among us would give our child a poisonous snake when they ask for a fish or a deadly scorpion when they ask for an egg?

The answer is of course none of us. We love our children and we would not ever give them anything that would harm them.

This is one of the reasons why God doesn’t answer every one of our prayers as if we were spoiled children giving us whatever we want. He is a better Father than that. He is not going to give us the idols of our heart, the things James says we spend our passions asking for wrongly. God doesn’t want to give us our idols that will only hurt us.

But what this also means is that God is not out to trick us. He desires to give us good things.

That’s the argument Jesus is making here. He is saying that if we were to expect someone to give a snake or a scorpion to a child, surely it would be an evil father, but since even that’s not what an evil father would do, then how much more will God the Father who is only good, give good things to his children.

But God doesn’t only give us good things, he gives us the very best thing, he gives us himself because Jesus says that when we pray according to the pattern of effective prayer with the persistence of effective prayer, God is eager to give us the Holy Spirit.

Why is this such an amazing, mind-blowing promise?

Because when God promises to give us the Spirit when we ask him, he is promising to answer us all our requests from the Lord’s prayer through the ministry of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Testifies that God is Our Father

Why is this such an amazing, mind-blowing promise? Because when God promises to give us the Spirit when we ask him, he is promising to give us all our requests in the Lord’s prayer through the ministry of the Spirit.

The Lord’s prayer opens with the word “Father” where we pray to God as our Father who loves us. First and foremost, the Spirit bears witness that God is indeed our Father.

The Lord’s prayer opens with the word “Father” where we pray to God as our Father who loves us. First and foremost, the Spirit bears witness that God is indeed our Father.

 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

But more than just bearing witness that God is our Father, the Holy Spirit also performs several key ministries in our lives to help us live out the rest of the Lord’s prayer.

The Holy Spirit Empowers Us to Live for Jesus and His Kingdom

 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Hear what Jesus is saying here. He is promising that through faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in us to be our Helper. To help us do what exactly? To keep Jesus’ commandments.

How does this connect to the pattern of Prayer we see in the Lord’s Prayer? Let’s walk through it.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Hallowed be your name

We said this was asking God that the fear of God would grip our hearts and the hearts of those that do not yet know Jesus.

The Spirit is the one who gives regeneration and new birth so that we can be born again to worship God.

He also, according to fills us so that we can proclaim the gospel with boldness so that more people might repent and believe in the gospel

It is through this ministry of the Spirit that God’s name is hallowed in our lives and by his grace the lives of others

Your Kingdom Come

The Spirit changes our hearts and our desires so that we no longer live for ourselves and our kingdom, but we begin to live for Jesus and his Kingdom.

And he even empowers us here and now to live in Christ’s kingdom by becoming more like Jesus in our sanctification while we wait for Jesus to return and give us our new, resurrection bodies unmarred by our sin and temptation

Right now, the Spirit is showing us what living in God’s kingdom is like as we put sin to death and love God and love others as God intended.

Give us each day our daily bread

The Spirit helps us to obey Jesus’ command to trust God for all our physical needs. In just after he talked about how we should not worry about what we will eat or what we will wear Jesus said, But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

The Spirit, testifying to our hearts that God is our Father, gives us the faith to believe that God will provide for us like he promised. To trust in him so that we can live for him

Forgive us our sin as we forgive others

The Spirit helps us to believe the Word where Paul said in There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

The Spirit helps us believe that God really does forgive us and we don’t need to run from him in fear when we stumble, but we can run to him with confidence that he will give us grace and forgiveness

He also helps us to obey God’s command to forgive others by making us understand just how much God has forgiven us from our sins so that will forgive others. Its by his power that we give the same grace we have received to others.

Lead us not into Temptation

Here we said that God does not lead anyone into temptation. Rather its more proper to say that God will help and protect in the midst of temptation by giving us the power to put our sin to death by the Spirit.

Paul said in For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

It is by the Spirit’s power that we are protected in the midst of trials and temptations and by relying on him, we are able to put our sin to death and grow in holiness.

So what jesus is saying when he promises that God will give us the Holy Spirit because he is a good Father who gives good things to his children, he is trying to teach us that when we pray according to the Lord’s Pattern for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer

That our greatest desire would be that God’s name be glorified

That we would live for his kingdom here and now

That we would trust him to provide all our physical needs

and that he would give us grace when we stumble and fall in to sin and help protect us moving forward and allow us to put our sin to death

and we pray for these things with persistence, God is faithful to answer this prayer by giving us the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Conclusion

When Jesus was asked by his disciples, “How do we pray?” The very fact that he answered with clear instruction shows us that prayer is something that we have to learn and grow in.

Jesus, desiring to teach us to pray in a way that honors God and will see our prayers answered gives us a blueprint for effective prayer.

First he taught us the pattern of prayer in the Lord’s prayer where we see that our prayers must have a Godward focus where we ask that God would be glorified in the world and also in us as we live for him.

Then Jesus taught us that we can not be weak or fickle in prayer. We must be persistent in prayer because our persistence communicates just how much we need God to answer us. To provide the very things we ask. In the parable of the friend at midnight Jesus says that we must pray as if God will not answer us knowing confidently that he will because

Jesus says that if we follow the pattern of effective prayer with the persistence of effective prayer, God promises to give us the Holy Spirit as the answer to our prayers to help us live for him and his kingdom.

Lets pray

The Holy Spirit Gives Power to Proclaim the Gospel (Hallowed)

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

(Peter and John arrested and told not to preach) And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

When we pray that God’s name is hallowed we said we were asking God to allow people to give him the worship that is due to him.

This happens as people repent of their sin and believe the gospel

The Spirit applies the truths of the gospel to our hearts so that we can grow to worship God more in our own life but he also helps us to boldly proclaim the gospel so that more people would worship him as Father.

When Jesus promises that God will give the Spirit, he is promising that God will send the Spirit to magnify his name in our lives and in the lives of others as we live out the gospel and share the gospel with a lost and dying world which invites allows all those that put their faith in him to live in God’s kingdom as we wait for its full consummation.

The Holy Spirit Gives Power to Live for Jesus’ Kingdom

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

When Christ dwells in our hearts by the power of the Spirit, we are living for him and his kingdom instead of ourselves.

Part of Jesus’ pattern for prayer is that we ask God that his kingdom would come. This is to focus us on his kingdom and his purposes in our lives as we wait for his return.

Now how does this apply to the pattern of the Lord’s prayer?

Daily Bread

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

This is right after Jesus is encouraging his disciples that they don’t need to be anxious about what we will eat or what we will wear.

If we live for God’s kingdom he promises to provide what we need.

The Holy Spirit Gives Power to Put Sin to Death

So that we would see our prayers answered through faith.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .