Praise the Lord That was great We want to turn our attention to God's word and our reading today is from Luke chapter 11 It's found on page four of your program or in your Bible Luke 11 verse 1 to 4 Whenever we look to the Lord's Word The words that Linnea just sang ought to be what spring from our heart, holy spirit Won't you speak to me? Let's invite him to do that as we look to his word right now Luke 11 verse 1 to 4 It says this 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 into temptation Father, we ask that you would teach us to pray And that you would take your word today and use it to speak to us of Jesus And the call that he's placed upon us, the privilege he's given us of being as his people A people of prayer We ask this in his name, amen This month we're talking about prayer on Sundays and last Sunday I talked about how important it is It would be hard to overstate how important it is In the life of the church for Christians to be people who are devoted to prayer Guys, there are a lot of things that we do in the life of a church Some of them are more important than others but there are very few things you could name that we're called to do That would be more important than this There's a lot of activity in the life of the church Some of it we could erase from the calendar and the kingdom of God Here in our neighborhood would not suffer at all but prayer, not at all It is vital, it's vital to us Now whenever you talk about prayer, a question that often arises is the question, how? How do you do this? How do you pray? It's essentially the same question that was asked of Jesus in the passage we just read together Verse 1 says Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he finished one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray Now as we can see you praying Lord, we see you praying all the time and we want to know how to do that too How do you pray? How do you pray? Now before I look at the answer that Jesus gave, let me point out just a couple of observations about the question itself About this idea of a person requesting Lord, teach me to pray A couple of thoughts about that, the first is this If you have come to know Jesus, I mean if you've really met him, you will want to pray I have no question about that, you will want to pray the desire to commune with God in prayer is a characteristic feature of people Well to use Jesus words, people who've been born again Just Christians all over the world, you could go to any part of this planet, in any country here, all over the world And not just now throughout every generation, all Christians have always had this in common regardless of their denomination, their particular doctrinal traditions, whether they're rich or poor, educated or not All over the world Christians have this desire to be able to lift their praise, to be able to confess their sins, to pour out their concerns to God Christians have a desire to pray, one author wrote just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing So the first act of men and women when they're born again is praying, a distinguishing mark of any true believer is this desire To want to know how, to want to learn a desire to pray, I'm not just making that up, you find this in the Bible in Luke 18 verse 7, the elect The elect are described as those quote who cry to God day and night 1 Corinthians 1 verse 2 defines Christians as those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Evil doers, Psalm 144, don't call upon the Lord, that's what it says, but people who've come to know His grace, they always have this desire, this desire to pray Now I know what you might be thinking, certainly there are hypocrites who pray, right? There are people who don't have God's grace and yet for whatever reason perhaps because it's their tradition or just a superstition or maybe to impress others, they go through the motions of praying That's true, there are hypocrites who pray, but listen, there's no such thing as a man or a woman or a boy or a girl who has really come to know Jesus Christ and yet who has no desire for prayer at all Why is that? It is because when you repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, Acts 2 verse 38 says, you receive the gift, say what gift? Well the verse says you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living God of whom Linnea was just now singing, the Spirit of God comes to live within you 1 Corinthians 6 says, your body becomes His temple, when you come to faith in Christ the Spirit of God comes to dwell within you, that Spirit, that same Spirit, Romans 8.15 says He moves you, compels you to cry out, Abba, Father There's this desire implanted within you, sometimes it's pretty weak, I'll admit that, sometimes it's more strong, you can neglect it or you can foster it and develop it, but it will be there Even when you don't know how to pray, even when you don't know what to pray for, Romans 8.26 says the Spirit Himself intercedes for you with groanings too deep for words, so if you come to know Jesus, the little request that this nameless disciple made of Him those many years ago, you'll find yourself at some point in your life saying the same thing, you'll want to know how, and you will say, teach me to pray, I want to be able to do this This is why in today's passage, when this disciple says to Christ Lord, teach us to pray, Jesus doesn't seem very surprised to be hearing that request You read this, you almost get the impression that he was expecting them to ask him that sooner or later, why do I say that? I say that because when he responds to them in verse 2, he doesn't say, well, if any of you do feel like praying, this is how he doesn't say, if you pray What does he say to his disciples? He says, when you pray, when I know you will, sooner or later you will, you're my disciple, you will when you pray, it says if Christ is assuming that if you come to know Him, if you are his disciple, the desire to pray will be present in your heart, is it? If, in all honesty, it's not, I mean, you know, someone invites you to a prayer meeting and, you know, you wouldn't say this out loud, but you're just thinking, you know, I'd rather sit in a dentist chair for an hour You go to a fellowship group because you're looking for friends, but when it comes time to pray, you just can't help looking at your watch, I wish this would end, this is so boring Let me preach that prayer last week and you come back again this Sunday and see another title prayer again, if there's no desire there at all, I want to encourage you to take very seriously a promise that Jesus made just a few verses after this passage in Luke 11 verse 13, he promised this, he said the Father will give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks. So if the desire is never there, it might be that the Spirit is not there and so I would say to you ask, just ask for the Spirit. But that's the first observation about the request, we haven't even got to the answer yet, but just the question, how do you pray? The first observation is if you're asking that, if you've come to know Christ, you'll ask that question, you'll have this desire. Second observation, and you need to balance the first one with the second one, and that is this prayer is something we have to learn. I mean, listen, the desire may be implanted by the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't mean that you'll be a great prayer warrior automatically. When this disciple says to Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray, Jesus doesn't say, what do you mean, teach you to pray? If you are really a disciple of mine, you'd already know how to pray, why should I have to teach you? He doesn't do that. When this believer comes up to him and says, Lord, I really want to know how to pray, just feel so weak here. Would you please teach me what is Jesus do? He doesn't scold him, he doesn't ridicule him, what does he do? He just teaches him to pray. The desire will come from the Spirit, but the ability, the fluency, the confidence and prayer. I think it's something that we need to ask God to help us develop and grow and learn our entire lives. In fact, you will discover, as you hang out with Christians, that those who really seem to grow in their walk with Christ, never stop making that request. As much as they learn about prayer, as confident and comfortable as they become, crying after God and prayer, they never stop saying, Lord, teach me more, teach me more, teach me more, I need to learn. So those are just two thoughts about the request itself. One is that if you've come to know Christ, you'll make that request, you'll want to know how to pray. The second is that if you don't know how yet, please don't beat yourself up. Prayer is something that we learn. So that's the question, what about the answer? Let's look at the answer Christ gives. He teaches them the prayer that we commonly call the Lord's Prayer. You might have been looking at that and saying, wait a minute, some parts missing here, that's not the Lord's Prayer. When I learned the Lord's Prayer or the Father in Westro, whatever you learned it, whatever language, you know, there were some parts here that aren't in this passage, and that's true. You know why that is, don't you? When we learned the Lord's Prayer, most of us, whatever nationality we're from, we learned the version of it that's found in the book of Matthew, chapter 6. There's a different version in Luke. So you're asking, all right, who messed up? Matthew or Luke? I thought the Bible was the reason for that is because Christ taught on this in more than one occasion. Jesus was not a pastor who had a fixed pulpit who preached to the same people every week. He was more like a traveling prophet passing through the land, announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. And so he would often say the same lessons from place to place, different times, Matthew's version takes place, the sermon on the Mount, Luke 11 is a different occasion. And the words aren't the same. He teaches the same prayer, but not exactly the words. You know what that tells us? The words, the exact words are not the most important thing. If it were, he would have said it exactly the same way on exactly every occasion. He doesn't do that. Why? When he teaches us the Lord's Prayer, this is not a little poem for us to memorize and then to recite as a mantra that we just sort of magic words, this is a model to shape the way we approach God. And so, though I'm not going to do this today for lack of time, one of the most fruitful studies you can do as a Christian is to you can spend your life studying the Lord's Prayer. What does this line tell me about how I approach God? What does the next line tell me? And then the third line, what about the fourth? For years now, the Lord's Prayer has been the model for my daily prayer when I'm just on my own with God. You'll never, ever stop learning from it, okay? But we're not going to dig in that deep today. I'm going to keep it real simple. Most of us, when it comes to prayer, we're not lacking in information. Most of us are educated way beyond our level of obedience, okay? So, this won't be deep, but I think it'll be helpful. Let me give you, I gave you two thoughts about the request, three thoughts now about the answer Jesus gives. How do you pray? Look at his answer. There's three things we learned. The first is this. You learn to pray by praying. You learn to pray by praying. It's kind of like riding a bicycle, right? How many of you have learned to ride a bike in your life? Raise your hand. Most of us here, even Phoebe can ride a bike. And she's good. You don't learn to ride a bike by reading books about bike riding or watching instructional videos, right? I mean, it might help to read some books on bike riding, some of the finer techniques of the sport and bicycle maintenance. Maybe you could learn some things, but if you want to learn to ride a bike, the only way to learn is to get on. Start pedaling. You'll fall. You'll skin your knees. You'll look like a fool at first as you wobble down the street. But that's the only way to learn, and that's the way it is with prayer. When this nameless disciple approaches Christ and says, Lord, teach us to prayer. Jesus does not give him an armful of books and say, go home and study these. Nor does he invite him to come attend a long series of lectures on the systematic theology of intersessional prayer. He doesn't do that. When a disciple approaches Christ and says, Lord, teach us to pray. Here's what Jesus does. He goes, when you pray, say this. In other words, he immediately gives him something simple to put into practice, implying that if this man ever wants to learn to pray, the first thing he simply needs to do is just start. It is amazing with prayer that as you grow in your fervency and your focus and your fluency in prayer, it is not dependent upon your ability to read books and study difficult knowledge and learn. It's amazing. If you've been around Christians for a while, you've noticed this. Sometimes you'll find people with books filled with our shelves filled with books on theology and diplomas hanging on the wall. And then when it comes time to pray, you feel like you're with a toddler, and then you'll walk into some little storefront church where the people work in factories and no one's got anywhere beyond high school. The uneducated preacher says, guys, now we're going to pray. You feel like you're standing in the presence of giants because learning to pray doesn't happen from studying prayer or studying doctrines of prayer. It comes from praying. That's the approach Christ gave. He said, when you pray, say this, kneel down with me right now. Let's start. You'll learn to pray by doing it, which for some of us would imply that perhaps perhaps the most spiritually significant thing we could do today would be to go home from church and set our alarm clock to ring 15 minutes earlier tomorrow morning, right? And then with that extra time, just, hey, if you're just starting, read Psalm 1 and spend five minutes praying, just start. Now, when you hear me say that, you might be asking, all right, I will start, but listen, I don't know how do I know God's going to listen to me. I mean, I don't even know what to say. I don't know what words you're supposed to say. Now, I look around. There's some people here that grew up in Christian homes. They're mom and dad taught them, but I didn't have that privilege. I don't know how do I know God will listen to me. Here is something you need to understand. God does not listen to the prayers of his people because of how nicely worded their petitions are. Isn't that true? Why does God listen to our, he listens to the prayers of his people because of Jesus Christ, not because of you, not because of me, because of him. Jesus is our savior. He is our great high priest, Romans 8 says, who is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us. Through his death, he atoned for all of our sin, all of it. He rose from the dead and he lives forever as our undying advocate in the throne room of heaven. So those who come to Christ, no matter who they are, those who come to Christ, repenting of their sin, trusting him for salvation, those who come to Christ are united with him in faith. The Bible says we're made one with him. So this means that since he can approach the father, we can approach the father. Since his prayers are heard, our prayers are heard. Even if our faith is weak, even if our words are fumbling, even if our thoughts are all over the map as mine are normally when I'm praying. I'm always like, God, bring my thoughts back. Here they go again. Here we go again. Always wondering, our prayers are not heard because of us. They're heard because of him. And so two millennia ago, a Christian leader wrote to some believers who were struggling in this area and he wrote to them these words of encouragement from Hebrews 4. He said, since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. And he said this, let us then with confidence, some versions of the Bible say with boldness, let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. Do you know what that means? Let me make this real simple. If you have turned to Christ, Jesus in faith, and tomorrow you need to ask God for courage, ask him, he will give you courage. If you find yourself needing to ask him for strength, you're just so burdened right now by the problems in your life, ask him for strength because of Jesus, he'll hear you and he will strengthen you. Maybe you're facing some very complicated situations, you don't know what to do and you need God to give you wisdom, wisdom from on high. Jesus said, ask him, you'll receive, just do it. Maybe it's nothing quite as lofty or noble as courage or strength or wisdom that you need. Maybe what you need is you just need your sinful heart to be clean. No one else here knows this but you do. Perhaps you've really been straying from God lately. Ask and you'll receive. First John 1.9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That tells me that if you came in here today, this morning, burdened with a sense of guilt and shame over sin, there is not a reason in the world why you have to leave here carrying that burden anymore.
So the first thing we learn from the way Christ responds is that you learn to pray by praying. Second thing you learn from his response is that his response is that you learn to pray by praying often. Look at verse 5, most of you are familiar with this line, if you've learned the Lord's prayer, he taught us to pray, give us each day our daily bread. Not our weekly bread or our monthly bread. Well Lord, would you please, you know, like fresh direct, is that what the name of that company? Would you please send over the truck and give me enough for the next month? No. He said, I don't want you praying that way. I want you to pray for the bread today. Pray for your needs today. Pray. Now what is the implication that it's easy to say? See if Christ taught me to pray today for today's bread, what's he expecting? He's expecting me to pray again tomorrow. What he's inviting us into is not just a one time prayer meeting or a once in a life encounter with God. He's inviting us into a life. A life lived in the presence of God daily coming to him and seeking him in prayer, ongoing learning. And how do you learn to pray? You don't learn it in one day. You learn by praying today and praying tomorrow. And that's how you learn. Now what's interesting is that this is the way that Jesus prayed. He prayed all the time. Luke 5 verse 16 says, Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Jesus often prayed. That's what it says. That verse has to be one of the great understatements of the Bible. Jesus is often prayed. Jesus prayed all the time. And if you study his life, study the life of Christ sometime and just with your lenses on looking for prayer, it is amazing. How in almost every significant episode of his earthly ministry, we find a picture of Jesus Christ talking to the Father in prayer. He was praying at his baptism in Luke 3. When he walked into the waters of the Jordan and the heavens opened and the spirit descended, Luke 3 says that Jesus was praying to the Father at that time. He was praying on the Mount of Transfiguration where his appearance changed and his robe was as white as you can possibly imagine. And his face was shown with the brightness of the sun. Luke 9 says he was praying there. He prayed before he fed the multitude. He prayed before he raised Lazarus from the dead. Before he called the 12 disciples to come and follow him, the Bible says he spent an entire night in prayer. Didn't even go to sleep. Just prayed all night long before he called these 12 men. He prayed at his last supper. He prayed in the garden the night before he died. He even prayed while he was hanging on the cross. He prayed Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And Romans 8 tells us that in some mysterious sense, Jesus is still praying. He says he is interceding for us. I don't know what that means. But it just tells me that Jesus is this kind of person constantly, constantly calling and communing with the Father in prayer. He invites us to that kind of life. You're saying, well listen man, this is way out of my league. Yeah, it's out of my league too. I'm talking about learning here today. How do you learn? How do you learn to pray? You learn to pray by praying. And you learn to pray by praying often regularly. One more thought from his response. You learn to pray by praying. You learn to pray by praying often. Judging from what Christ says here, you learn to pray by praying often with others. With others. Prayer is something, guys, that we learn in community. We learn this together. I need you. You need me. We need each other. We can't learn this on our own. Notice as Christ gives us this prayer, how many times the words us and our appear in this text. This is not the model for personal prayer. I use it that way. But that's not necessarily what this is. This is a corporate prayer here. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we ourselves forgive everyone who's indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. Now there is a place in the Christian life where private prayer. In fact, it's hard to find a Christian. I have not yet found a Christian growing in Christ who doesn't have a discipline of private prayer in their life. There's a place for that. But we will never learn to pray the way God is calling us to pray unless we pray with others. In our fellowship groups, when we have occasions to pray together, the men's prayer meeting starting now. This is something we learn together. Our prayers strengthen each other. I don't fully understand it, but I know that it's true. Jesus said in Matthew 18, he said, again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven for where two or three are gathered in my name. There in my with them, I don't understand that, but I felt that I've experienced. Have you? There's something that happens when Christians gather together and listen, when they stop worrying about whether people are impressed with the, you know, the eloquence of their prayer, when they just stop that, and they just pray. There's a way in which all of our prayers are strengthened. You know, like all the boats rise whenever the tide comes in, all of us, all of us here can become stronger in prayer. If we do this together, if we, if we be a church that believes the power of this, if you, if you ever study the book of Acts, one thing that will impress you is how normal the people were. I mean, that, you know, we talked about this last week, they were as messed up as we are. But another thing that will strike you is the remarkable way God worked in their city, especially you look at the church in Jerusalem, the first four books of Acts, their city was just turned upside, transformed by these ordinary, frail, sinful people. You study the first four books or chapters of the book of Acts. One of the things you'll notice, there's a pattern. It kind of goes like this, the people pray, God works, the people pray, God works, the people pray, God works, again, and again and again, the day of Pensacosta came out of a prayer meeting. They were just together praying. One of those occasions that says in Acts 4 verse 31, it says, as they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. Now, I'm not sure we want that to happen in this building that we're renting from other people, but I would love to see my life shaken. The place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they all spoke the word of God boldly from the strongest among them to the weakest. They were all changed because they prayed together. So, how do you learn to pray? You pray. You pray often. You pray with others. And as you do this, whether you feel like you're doing it well or not, because of Jesus, what I want us to do right now, how else could you end a sermon like this? It's just to pray. We're going to have one person come and voice the prayer for us, but I want us all to pray with this person. I don't know what that means for you, if it just means kind of tracking with him mentally and quietly from your heart, giving your affirmation, I grew up in a tradition where when that was happening, we would even just talk along with the person. That's your tradition. Feel free. Amen. Yes, Lord, hear him, God. But as Ryan comes to lead us in prayer, let us pray. God is here. Ryan, would you come? Come back to the piano and play for us quietly while we pray together now. Moving sermon and the song that we sang just before we had the sermon was what a friend we have in Jesus. We have trials and temptations. We need to take them to the Lord in prayer. We're weak and heavy laden. We need to take that to the Lord in prayer. The verse from Psalm 461 says, God is our refuge and strength and ever present help and trouble. Let's pray to him now. Teach us to pray. I teach us to pray now. God, we ask you, Lord, right now for the desire to pray, the ability to pray. Father, draw us into your present, even now we pray. We confess that you are indeed holy. You are loving God. You are great and awesome God. Your name is hallowed. God, you are incredible. And we confess. We have not sought you like we should have. God, we confess we have been callous. We've been neglectful about seeking you. We confess that other things have taken priority over seeking you. Lord, forgive us and draw us into your presence. We pray. God, we want your kingdom to come right here and right now. Lord, the things it says is the poor and the hungry. You feed them. You close them. You take care of them. God, that's a sign of your kingdom. Let your kingdom come in our neighborhood. Let your kingdom come here in our church. Lord, when your kingdom comes, your people do not sin. Lord, there are many who are facing trials and temptations right now. Lord, the trials and temptations are sinning of addictions, of pornography, of alcohol, of drugs, of cigarettes, of TV, of eating. You name it, Lord. We're facing it. We need you to fight for us, to fight on our behalf, we pray. God, be with us. God, there are many who are weak and heavy laden. Lord, they're not sinning, but people are sinning against them. There are sicknesses and infirmities, depression, grips, some people that you would bear their burden for them, that you would give them strength to stand up underneath it, that you God alone would bring healing peace and joy. God, we ask for our daily bread. We ask for your provision in our lives. God, we need you to provide for us. You've given us the food. We need to eat the places we need to live. God, you give us jobs so that we can work and earn. Lord, some need you to provide for them now. God, you give us these things. We pray that today you will give us exactly what we need. And Lord, do, do, do, forgive us when we sin. We know we sin. God, forgive us. And Lord, as you forgive us, give us a forgiving heart towards others when they sin against us. God, let us be a gracious group of people. Let us, Lord, we know we're going to sin against each other. God, let us be forgiving and receive forgiveness. We pray. Let there be healing and joy. Love amongst us. I ask. God, we lift your name up in praise. God, we thank you for this church. We thank you for this church in this neighborhood. The love that we share, the community that we share, the joy that we share in each other's presence. We want to go out beyond right here. We want this, your love to reach those around us. I'm so glad, Lord, that we sang not only in the English, but in Spanish. Lord, that's a reaching out. I pray that you will reach us out. Let us not just open our arms and draw people in, but Lord, send us out to reach out to the neighborhood around us. Let us be active in sharing your love with people around us. I pray, Lord, not waiting for people to come and ask us, but God, be in bold. Seeing needs around us and reaching out to them, we pray, Lord Jesus, I pray that you will cause us to reach out and let us pray. God, let us pray. Thank you, Lord, for our time together in prayer right now. Thank you for the sermon that David brought to us. Let us not forget it as soon as we walk out the door, but we'll take it with us. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.