Luke: The Disciple's Prayer (11:1-13)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke chapter 11, beginning at verse 1.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

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 in 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, though the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything.

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.

And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find.

Knock, and it will be opened.

For every one who s who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one and to the one who knocks it will be open.

What father among you, if he has if his son asks for 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?

This is the gospel of Christ.

Heavenly Father, uh we now come to your word to hear it proclaimed.

Father, we just ask that you would speak directly into our hearts and our minds, that you would touch our inner desires, our fears, our joys.

That we, um, as we come to this text, that we would learn from you, not from me, not from anyone else, but from your Holy Spirit.

And I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Practice makes perfect.

I'm sure this is something we've all heard.

You hear it in sports, you hear it in school, you hear it in anything you do.

If you're a musician, you've heard it there.

Uh you may know by now I really like rock climbing.

You're gonna hear a lot about rock climbing in the coming years.

Um, you'll be experts in it by the end.

Um, but the thing with rock climbing is you need to be persistent in it, constantly doing it, or else you'll become not as confident in it.

And the thing with rock climbing is as you do it more and more, especially outside, you become more confident in being um on exposed cliff edges, like a sheer drop, super steep, and you become more confident in moving over steep terrain.

And you begin to trust the systems that are in place, the rope that holds your life.

Um, you trust it.

You be it becomes a trust, especially with your partners, a trust relationship.

And you become stronger, and as you get stronger, you do harder and harder things.

Jesus' disciples have just asked Jesus how to pray.

You may have noticed in your bulletin that the title of this sermon is the disciples' prayer.

I believe that this could be almost a almost better title for the Lord's Prayer because it is about, it's not about how Jesus prays, it's about how we should pray.

And Jesus lays it out to them very, very matter-of-factly.

Jesus gives them the framework and mindset on how to pray.

And this is something we need to take really deep to us, deep in our hearts.

Because Creighton laid it out really good last week about we need to be a church that goes and tells.

But if we're not a church that first prays, we'll never go and tell.

We'll never go if we don't pray for people that we're gonna hopefully go tell the gospel to.

And I can't read my writing here.

Oh, okay, there we go.

I scribbled something down this morning, so it's hard to read.

Um, it's the same thing with uh, if you think about it, um, we need to pray in order to go out.

It's the same way as a mountaineer, if a mountaineer never practiced, never trained, never got their um cardio fitness up or their strength fitness up, they would never make it going up Everest or Ketu or any of those big mountains in the Himalayas or anywhere in the world.

They would fail, instantly fail.

And this is something we need to think about when it comes to prayer.

We need to be a praying church, a praying body of believers that prays for each other, but also prays for people who do not know Christ.

And Jesus gives this framework and mindset in this text, and he does it in three ways.

And it'll be this what to pray, how to pray, and why pray.

So let's see what Jesus says.

So if you haven't yet, turn to Luke 11, verses 1 to 13.

Luke 11:1–13

It's really helpful if you have a Bible.

If you don't have a Bible, um, there's some at the back, and there's also the text in the bulletin.

So verse 1.

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and he finished.

And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.

And just stop quickly here.

Interesting in Luke, we see Jesus praying all the time.

This is the third text that I've spoken on here that Jesus is praying.

It either starts with him praying or a couple verses in, he's praying.

So this is something we need to think about.

We need to reflect on it.

Why is Jesus always praying?

I'll leave that question with you because the sermon's about something else.

But why is he always praying?

It's something we need to think about.

So, continuing, verses two.

Or verse two.

And he said to them, When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who's indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.

See, prayer begins with thanksgiving and reverence.

It's the same way we come when we come to church, we begin with a song of thanksgiving and praise.

We are praising the Lord.

So when we come into prayer, it is fitting to do it almost the same way, that we thank God.

We praise Him.

Now, what does it mean to hollow something?

This is a very, it's an old word, so some people don't know what this word means.

It means to treat something with a reverence, something that just draws us to it, that we are so thankful for, that we feel a certain way about.

You may have a place you think of in your life that is very dear to you.

It could be a memory, it could be an actual physical place.

For me, a place that I almost hold this reverence for, um, whether it could be good or bad, is Squamish BC.

This place, I've spent lots of time there.

Um it is a place that it's an inlet from the ocean, but has mountains coming out of the ocean.

It is a place that I hold very dear in my heart.

And I almost have a reverence for it.

It may be, you may have something similar, maybe it's by just the lake here.

Uh, maybe it's in being in a forest or being around a table of family.

You hold this reverence for it.

Now think of this.

God gives, God is the one who created all of this, all the beauty, everything in this world, everything that is beautiful, he's created.

Now you might be thinking, how do I give a God, the creator of the universe, reverence?

How do I do this?

I don't feel qualified to do this.

And it's just to the best of our ability.

That's why Jesus says, as you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name.

We are just do, it is, it is a mindset for us as we come, as we come before God, that we just give him praise, the best of our ability.

It's not something that we need to do all these fancy things for, as we just come to him, we thank him, and we give him reverence, we give him praise.

Now, as we look again at verse 2, he continues when he says, So you say, Hallowed be your name.

And then he also says, Your kingdom come.

Now, this is a twofold emphasis here.

You may have heard us uh talk about the already, not yet with justification.

You could also apply this to that Jesus has come, the kingdom has come, but the kingdom will come again.

So we are to pray for this.

We are to long for Jesus' return, that his, that God's kingdom will happen on earth, for God to move in this earth.

You may you may think to yourself, well, when I come to prayer, you may you may think something like I think, um, that I just come with a shopping list.

I skip over verse two and I go right to the next part of give me my daily bread.

This is something I'm sure a lot of us struggle with.

Um it is hard to give reverence to God, to give thanksgiving to God, because we we have all these needs, all these things that come in our minds, but it it's with with practice, with persistence, um, it is a glorious thing to give glory to God when we can.

It's something I've been trying to do this week, and it's actually surprisingly hard to take the time and to leave my wants for a moment and just thank God for life, for creation, for coming into, for drawing me to himself, for bringing me into uh, for coming into my life.

Now we move on into the second part of the prayer, and let's see what he says, verses three and four again.

And he says, 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 in temptation.

Now, daily bread, you might be thinking, well, it's just is it just food?

It's more than just food.

We are to ask God to provide everything for us.

Now, the thing with verse 2 and these next verses, they're they're hand in hand.

That when we thank God for what he's given us, it orients our mindset to also ask God for our needs.

But we do it in this thankful way.

If we're never praising God, never thanking God for what he's given us, we'll we'll never ask for daily bread in a proper way.

It's not just food, it could be anything.

It could be God, the times are so hard, but money's tight, inflation is high.

Please provide for my family, Lord.

Please provide.

You are holy, you are gracious, provide for my family.

And then he moves on to forgive us our sins.

You may you might be thinking, well, I'm a Christian.

God has forgiven me of my sins.

Why do I have to keep asking God for forgiveness?

This is when you become a Christian, you are justified.

But we also continue in this life as sinners.

We're justified sinners, and we we sin.

So we need to come before God and ask for daily repentance because it's all about the mindset and orienting our lives.

It's a very practical thing that Jesus is laying out here.

He's giving us the framework to come to Him to live a life of obedience as a disciple.

This is the disciples' prayer.

And then it goes into forgiving others.

Now, this is something that is very hard.

Um I'm sure we all have stories of people in our life that just irks us or they have irked us, and we want to forgive them, but it feels like we can't forgive them.

The thing with forgiveness is that it's not about it's not about just um being all I forgive you, all happy and go lucky after.

Forgiveness is hard work.

Forgiveness is something that takes years, and it may come to a time that you never feel joy for that person again.

But if you work at just saying, God, help me to forgive them, that that there's a moment that comes where you're no longer controlled by that person, by the hurt that they've caused you.

Nothing might be reconciled, but in your heart you've forgiven them.

And that's what it means to forgive people.

Sometimes you don't get reconciliation, but God has worked in your heart to forgive them.

So these are all practical things that Jesus is laying out here.

And then he goes on to say, lead us not into temptation.

This is to ask God for a daily protection, the continual mindset that we are under Jesus, we are under God, we are a disciple.

Protect us, Lord.

Now, something we we always need to remember in this prayer is that it's community focused.

If you notice in every line of the verses that I've just read, it always says us.

It's very similar to our liturgy that we say here.

It's community focused, it's not individual focused.

So this is a prayer that we say together, and we're gonna say it later.

It is a prayer that we pray over each other, and that we help each other in to daily be a disciple of Christ.

It's community focused, it's not individual focused.

We are a community of believers.

This mindset prayer needs to be engraved in our hearts.

It's something we need to do constantly.

But Jesus now switches to a parable to explain how to pray.

So let's take a look.

Verses five to eight.

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, and my children are in bed with me.

I cannot get up and give you anything.

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.

Now just to have some context here that where this is taking place, it's very hot during the day, where Jesus is in the world.

So people travel at night.

So it would actually be a normal thing for people to come on a journey and arrive at night, because most people would travel at night in these settings because it's very hot.

And to go to your neighbor and ask for things to make a meal for someone would have been normal because it was a very community-focused setting.

Maybe the timing of it is a bit off.

Um, this is an invitation to start going around to everybody's houses and start asking for things in the middle of the night.

You'll have uh, you might have a different reaction from me in the middle of the night.

Um but what's going on here?

What is Jesus trying to say in this parable?

In this very simple, in this context, very simple thing that would happen a lot in their culture.

Well, it's in verse 8.

What does it say?

Let's see.

I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything, because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, this another word you can say is persistence.

If you if you have an ESV Bible, it says at the bottom, another word for this would be insist or persistence.

He will rise and give him whatever he needs.

When I um was beginning my curacy fundraising, um, I had absolutely no idea how to fundraise.

I've never done it before.

Um and I was looking for advice, and I talked to someone um in Ottawa that is very experienced in fundraising.

He does a lot of things every year that require funding.

Um so he goes around fundraising a lot.

And I asked him for advice on it.

And he told me, which is really interesting, because it's it's the same thing in the Greek, this word, um, you need to be shameless in this.

Um, and that's what the Greek word is here, too, in the text.

It is a shameless persistence.

So, what Jesus is saying here is that you need to be shameless in your persistence as you pray.

It is you need to constantly be doing it.

A shameless persistence.

Creighton last week um had prayer cards for us to write names on.

I don't know how many people did it, but this is a perfect example of something we need to be shameless to God about.

We need to pray for these people daily.

It may take a lifetime.

It's just about a daily persistence of prayer, of asking God to come into people's lives that we know and reveal himself to them.

For God to give us our daily bread, for God to give us all our needs, for us to praise God, to be shameless in praising him, because he is magnificent, he is perfect, he is holy, and we need to come and be shameless in our prayer, shameless persistence.

If you can remember one thing from this servant, it's that is be almost shameless in your prayers for people and to God in your personal needs.

But look what look what he says next, verses nine to ten.

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, receive, and the one who seeks finds, and the and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.

Note the verbs.

The present imperative verbs.

I didn't know what that meant at first.

I have to go look it up.

But it's ask, seek, knock.

These are in a context of immediate see immediate now.

So it gives you an encouragement.

What Jesus is saying here to his disciples, he's encouraging them to have a continual habit of prayer.

That it's a continual of asking, of seeking, of knocking.

It's not you do it once, it's you keep going.

You keep going on the door and knocking, keep seeking, keep asking God.

But you might be thinking, well, Matt, I have prayed, and God has never answered me.

People I love are suffering, and I haven't people I've prayed for haven't come to faith yet.

Or you might be thinking, well, Matt, I prayed, but my loved ones still passed away, and I am so angry at God, he never answered my plea.

This is something we all have to we should all struggle with together.

And there's no words that I can say up here that will give comfort.

But there's something I can do.

I can point you to someone.

I can point you to the one who knows so deeply, firsthand, what it's like for God not to answer him.

Because as we continue in our Luke series, we're gonna come to a text where Jesus is on the cross, he has lived the perfect life, he has come and he has stood in our place, and now he is on the cross.

And he is crying out to God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

See, there is this moment with Christ that God doesn't answer him.

So when we feel that God is not answering our prayers, we can relate to Christ because he was there first, and he is knows what it's like when God doesn't answer him.

I don't claim to know all the answers here, but I am one thing.

I'm a beggar telling other beggars where to find bread.

Jesus now moves on from how to pray to why to pray.

Verses eleven and thirteen.

Let's see.

What father among you, if he has a s 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 are evil and know how to give good gifts to your children, how much More will the Heavenly Father give to the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

And in the context, a scorpion and a serpent were dangers to them in that time.

So that's why he's saying these things.

But here's the thing: we've all received gifts in this life, gifts that we may remember, gifts that we hold precious.

For me personally, one of the greatest gifts I've ever had is when Amy walked down the aisle with her father.

And her father gave her to me, handed her to me, and I took her hand.

That is something I hold very dear in my heart.

It is one of the greatest gifts I've ever had.

But there is a greater gift, and that is the triune God.

And if Jesus rose from the dead, that changes everything.

And you may be thinking, I don't have time to pray.

I'm busy, I have kids, I have work.

Well, I have a book for you.

It seems like we have a new book recommendation every week here now for the month of October.

Um there's a book by Brother Lawrence, and it's called The Practice in the Presence of God.

And what this book is, it's a very small book.

And Brother Lawrence was a monk who lived on a monastery, and he was a dishwasher and just an errand boy.

But he is famous in Christian circles about being a man of prayer.

And what he's known for is being someone who would pray constantly, whether he's washing dishes, whether he's doing errands or taking the garbage out.

He is someone who is praying.

One-minute prayers, 30-second prayers.

Sometimes when he has these moments of more time, he would pray longer.

And this is something that we can think of when we pray, when we feel like we don't have time.

Prayer doesn't need to be this fancy thing where we light candles, where we kneel and say all these things.

Prayer can be something that we just say from our heart.

Because that's what God wants.

God wants us, our hearts, to be after him, like how David's heart was after him.

You call to the Father, and he delights in hearing you talk to him, hearing you pray to him, hearing you cry out to him.

That's why the book of the Psalms is so big and it shows all the human emotions there.

What does verse 9 say again?

Let's hear what it says again, because it is crucial.

I tell you, ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be opened to you.

I'm from the city, and from in the city, you lock your doors.

Always.

You always lock your doors, your car doors and your house doors.

Many of you, I would assume, are from the country or the surrounding area.

And I know at a time in the country, people didn't lock their doors.

I don't know what it is now, but let's just picture it's that time right now, or you can leave your door unlocked.

The thing with this is that the door that Jesus is talking about here is unlocked, and you can freely enter it.

To be a disciple and one who goes and tells, you must be a disciple who prays.

See, when I when I talked about climbing and being persistent, I went climbing on Monday, and I haven't been persistent.

And I was very shaky, I didn't trust this system, and I felt very out of practice.

And that's the same thing with prayer.

This may feel like a burden, but it's not a burden.

Because God has given you the Holy Spirit in your life if you've put your faith and trust in Jesus.

And if you haven't put your faith and trust in Jesus, or you're struggling to do it, the door is unlocked.

Ask, seek, and knock, and you will find Christ.

Don't ever give up in prayer, even if it's for a brief moment, because we have God, we have Jesus Christ and the work on the cross.

And what does Jesus say?

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 in temptation.

Let's pray.

Um Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you that your word sometimes is very clear, very precise on things that we need to do.

And this is one of these moments, and I just thank you, Father.

Thank you for the gift of prayer.

Thank you that it doesn't need to be something grand, that we can just come to you as we are, as broken people, as people who need bread from you.

And Father, I just pray for everyone here, including myself, that you would draw us to yourself, that you would draw us to prayer.

That that would be the first thing our minds is to pray to you.

And I pray us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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