Sermon for July 28, 2019

This morning I'll be reading Luke chapter 11 verses 1 through 13.

And I'll be reading the King James Version.

I'm reading the King James Version this morning because this version is closer to our interpretation of the Lord's prayer that we say every Sunday. The one that we say every Sunday is actually the one in Matthew. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and this is how He taught them.

1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say,

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. 9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

God bless the reading and the hearing of your word this morning.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, as we begin this morning, we ask that you open our ears to hear and our hearts and minds to receive the message that you have for us today,,, In Jesus' name I pray,,, Amen.

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In these verses Jesus is asked by the disciples to teach them to pray and Luke has recorded them for us so that we can use them as guides also.

We recite the Lord's prayer every Sunday but do we really and truly understand what the words mean that we say?

This morning,,, we will look at the words in this prayer,,, and,,, the rest of the scriptures,,, to try to learn what we can about Jesus' meaning when He taught the disciples to pray.

And I believe that the most exciting thing for us is the fact that we have the ability to pray,,, and,,, a God that hears us when we pray!

(3:30)

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I believe that one of the things that we don't really pay attention to when it comes to our teachings of modeling our behavior after Jesus,,, is the fact that Jesus was always in prayer.

If you take the time and look,,, there are multiple times in scripture where Jesus is in prayer.

Jesus loved God and communicated with Him often.

He prayed for wisdom and guidance in His earthly ministry.

He prayed for others to come to know Him as Savior and Lord.

He prayed for the twelve disciples, that God would protect them from “the evil one.”

Jesus prayed for God to strengthen their ministry once He departed from them.

He prayed for us,,, all Christians that came after His death and resurrection.

He prayed with honesty and reverence.

He prayed with joy and praise.

But most of all, Jesus prayed with expectation.

He knew that God heard His prayers and would respond.

This should be our goal as believers: Pray as Jesus prayed.

(4:37)

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Beginning in the first verse,,, the very first thing that we read is,,, Jesus was praying in a certain place.

It doesn't explain where this was or what significance there was for this.

In a sermon by Mark Barber,,, he asks the question of why does Luke say Jesus was praying in a certain place.

What does it add to the text,,, or is there a certain place to pray?

In Matthew, Jesus tells us not to make a public spectacle of praying but instead pray in the closet.

Mark says that in these verses,,, Jesus is praying in front of others,,, apparently.

And perhaps Luke’s “certain place” is generic in the sense that “any place” is the proper place to pray.

It does not need to be in church or temple or at a particular time or such.

And I agree completely.

So many times we can take what is written in the Bible and use it to justify our actions.

I've used the verse from Matthew in the past as an excuse to keep from praying in public.

Not realizing that the problem wasn't praying in public but making a spectacle of prayer,,, in other words they were usually praying for the wrong reasons.

It was easy for me to use that excuse since I didn't feel like I could pray out loud anyway,,, but that doesn't excuse me for using that verse out of context.

The most important ingredient to prayer is a personal relationship.

And when you have a personal relationship with God,,, you can pray anywhere or anytime.

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Then,,, still in the first verse,,, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

(6:22)

They realized apparently that their prayer life was lacking the intensity and dedication that they saw in Jesus.

What about those of us here today?

Are we praying like we should and with the intensity and dedication that we should?

If we truly use Jesus as a guide for the way that we live our life,,, then prayer must be a priority because He gave us many examples of prayer during His time on earth.

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So as Jesus begins to teach them,,, He begins with the words, "Our Father", which immediately lets us know that God is available to us,,, full of grace and we're all joined together in the family of God.

Then Jesus continues to direct our focus to God by pointing us to the eternal home of God and all Christians,,, by saying "Our Father which art in Heaven".

Jesus lets them and,,, Christians today,,, know that Heaven is real and it's available for us.

In Jesus tells the disciples that He is going away to prepare a place for them and they know where He is going.

Thomas says to Jesus "we don't know where you are going,,, how can we know the way?"

Jesus told him that "I am the way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

From these scriptures Jesus is telling us that Heaven is real and it's available for us as Christians when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

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(7:56)

Continuing on with the prayer Jesus says, "Hallowed be thy name."

Hallowed means "to make Holy,,, consecrate,,, sanctify; to dedicate,,, separate,"

Prayer begins with praise!

All of us and the earth has been contaminated by sin,,, but God has not!

Let us glorify His name in prayer!

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Then we have, "Thy kingdom come".

When we pray these words we are praying for the message of Jesus and the job that He came to earth to accomplish.

Jesus' whole live on earth was about the "Kingdom of God" and what would be set right through His death and resurrection.

Once Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden,,, everything was ruined by the sin of man.

Thy Kingdom come is a cry for that wrong to be made right and the world made perfect again as God made it in the beginning!

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Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

We must be sure that our prayers align with God's will,,, not our own.

That's why that prayer is sometimes seen as not being answered or even heard.

But don't worry,,, your prayer has been heard and appearances can be deceiving.

There may be things going on that we don't know about or understand.

That's why we must remember We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.

Just because we don't get an immediate answer or it's not the answer we were wanting,,, doesn't mean that God doesn't hear.

That's where faith comes in,,, that God is working everything out for our good,,, those called according to His purpose!

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3 Give us day by day our daily bread.

This isn't a request for our daily wants but our needs.

In Jesus' day they made bread every day.

They didn't have refrigerators and freezers where they could put up huge amounts of food.

Today,,, we have and use all of these and we have savings accounts where we save money also.

If we begin to come up short,,, then we will pray for help but as long as things are going ok,,, we tend to ignore this part of the prayer.

But Jesus wants us to realize that everything comes from God and we shouldn't be concerned about tomorrow or it's needs.

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4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.

(10:24)

I believe that all of us understand this part of the prayer and realize that we must forgive those that have done wrong to us just as we were forgiven by God for the times that we fell short.

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And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

This part of scripture has many different meanings written about it in the commentaries that I have.

Some have even gone as far as saying this wasn't translated correctly,,, but I believe that if something wasn't translated correctly by human hands then God would have already corrected it by now.

The fact is,,, that God doesn't tempt us,,, but He can allow it and we need to be aware of that.

Also,,, scripture is clear that Jesus was lead by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted and Jesus knows how hard those temptations were,,, so he’s telling us to ask God not to allow us to be led into temptation.

Just know that God is capable of delivering us from temptation if we pay attention to the Holy Spirit if and when we are tempted.

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In the next part of scripture,,, verses 5-8,,, Jesus tells a parable that almost seems like it's a separate story,,, but it has a lot of meaning for what Jesus thought of prayer.

In the beginning of this parable,,, Jesus says that you have a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night and knock and ask for three loaves of bread.

You tell him that another friend of yours has come and you have nothing to give him.

Now,,, this is after everyone is usually in bed and the lamps or candles have been extinguished and they are settled until morning.

During that time,,, sometimes travelers wouldn't leave until later in the evening and it wasn't unusual for them to arrive in the middle of the night.

Also,,, notice the phrase that you have nothing to provide for the traveler that has come.

This is something that wasn't supposed to happen because you were required to take care of travelers during that time,,, this would have been as bad as running out of wine at the wedding feast where Jesus turned the water into wine.

It was considered bad manners if you didn't have something to feed guest when they arrived.

So you go to your friend next door and ask for bread and you keep knocking even after he tells you that he wouldn't get up because you know that He's the only one that can,,, and will,,, help you.

One of the things that Jesus is saying here,,, be persistent in your prayers because God is the only one that can help you.

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Then in verses 9 & 10 Jesus says: 9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

These verses don't mean that everything that we ask for will be given to us if we just do as He says.

(13:32)

We also need to remember that we can't see everything that God can.

It may be that God has something else going on that you don't know about.

Remember : For as Heaven is higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For our prayers to truly be effective,,, we must be sure that we are tuned into God's will and that we aren't just asking for things that we want.

God promises to give us our daily needs but that doesn't include everything that our worldly heart desires.

We are told over and over that the only thing that we really need to be concerned with as far as the future goes,,, is our eternity in Heaven.

Some of us spend more time planning for our retirement than we ever do planning for our future in Heaven.

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Then in verses 11 & 12 Jesus continues: 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

If we as sinners can show this kind of love to our children,,, then how much better can God treat us as His children!

We see how much better God can treat us by the last verse,,, in verse 13 it says: 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

As Christians trying to live in this world today,,, what better gift can God give than the Holy Spirit to help us through each day while we are here on earth.

This is the gift that keeps us on the correct path to Heaven.

This gift is guaranteed to help us stay connected to God day by day if we pay attention.

What a wonderful gift and what a wonderful God that we serve that loves us so much!

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So as we begin our week,,, I want us to remember these verses and the fact that they were recorded so that we could use them as we pray.

They were written to give us the confidence that we need to go to the Lord in prayer,,, to know that He hears our prayers,,, He supplies our daily needs and gives us the greatest gift,,, the gift of the Holy Spirit!

God is doing everything that He can to make it easy to live the life that we need to live if we just pay attention.

God has done His part,,, now it's time for us to live out His commands as we begin our week and be the light that He wants us to be for others,,, so that they can see God living in us and want that for themselves.

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So as we sing our final hymn,,, let me remind you that the alter is always open,,,

If you feel God speaking to you,,, don't hesitate to come,,, maybe you just have questions,,, God will answer,,, you just have to ask Him,,, whatever the need may be,,,

As we sing the final hymn,,, come if needed!

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