Let's turn to Luke chapter 11
this evening. I want to look at one of the most familiar passages
of scripture, I guess, in the Word of God. Luke 11. Let's read a few verses, beginning
with verse 1. 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. And he said unto them, when you
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. Give us day by day our daily
bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. 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, for a friend
of mine in his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to
set before him. 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.
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. 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. For every one that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall
be opened. 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? Or if he shall ask an egg, will
he offer him a scorpion? 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? So many lessons in this passage
of scripture. But let me start by just impressing
upon you the reason that I bring this message tonight. I believe
this is a very important message for all of God's people in our
time, in this day. I believe this is a real problem
in the church, I really do. And I've said it to you before,
you know that we have not because we ask not. I don't think we
understand the privilege that we have to come to the God of
all grace and say, Father, did you hear what he said? The language
is so beautiful that any of you who are a father, and your children
ask you for something. You understand that? If you're
not a father, you had a father, there's nobody that can't understand
this. We have a heavenly father who
will do anything for us and can do anything for us. And I suppose I remember the
words of Peter. I'll keep reminding you. I feel
that it's neat to remind you as long as I'm in this flesh
concerning these things. And I'm talking to myself too
when I do this. We have a father who will and
can do anything. And he says to us, ask and I
will give it. Did you hear what he said? Ask
and I'll give it to you. I commend this church. Everywhere that it is to be commended
and in ways that it is to be commended. And I say this because
I want to be honest with you tonight. We're a family like
no other I know in this world. And I'm not the only one that
thinks that. There is commitment here. like I've rarely if ever
seen anywhere. As your pastor, I commend you
wherever I go, and I also exhort you where I see the need. I haven't
been afraid to do that over the years. Sometimes I warn you about
the concerns of this world, because I see that in all of us. The
cares of this world, our Lord said, choke out the seed, the
word. And that's not, we think about
care as worries, that's certainly part of it, but it's the concerns,
the interests of this world. And so we talk about that sometimes.
He said in Mark 4, 19, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness
of riches and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the
word and it becometh unfruitful. Perhaps most urgently of all,
though, as you know, over the years, I've exhorted you regarding
prayer. Real prayer. Real closet prayer. Just you
and God prayer. Heart prayer. For me, for this
church, for yourselves, for your children, for your loved ones,
for things that matter in this world. Our Savior teaches us in verse
2 to address Him as Father. Every time I look at this passage
of Scripture, I see something I haven't seen before. He calls upon us to address Him
as Father, and then in verses 9 through 13, He reminds us how
a father receives such requests. I've never put that together.
He says, pray like this, father. And then a few verses later,
after my little man has already forgotten what I read four verses
ago, he says, what about you fathers? You're to pray and address
me as father. What if your children came to
you and said, father, I sure do need this or that. He reminds
us of how a father receives requests like that and what he does about
it. When we say our father, it's not just a form of prayer. It's
not just a form. Nothing that we say in prayer
should ever be just because of form. It is the expression and
the acknowledgement of a relationship, a relationship that should affect
how often we pray, how we pray, and what we pray. If I'm praying
to my father, I can't come to him enough, can I? I can't overstay my welcome when
addressing my father with a real need. In the Old Testament, only the
high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies and ever really
be in the immediate presence of God in any sense. Whatever
that was, the Shekinah glory of God that was in that most
holy place. That high priest was in the immediate
presence of God in whatever sense that could be true on this earth.
But now, Christ, our mediator, our high priest, having entered
in for us, to make atonement for us, that high priesthood
is fulfilled, and he's made us kings and priests unto our God.
Now that Christ has made atonement for us, do we have any idea of
the privilege that's ours? Turn to Hebrews 4. I want you
to see this with your own eyes. This is because of our great
high priest having entered in on our behalf and having once
for all made atonement for us. That's why nobody else could
enter in because that high priest pictured him. And the reason
they couldn't enter in after he went in is because that could
never take away sins. But now, once for all, our High
Priest has entered into that holy place not made with hands.
And listen to Hebrews 4 verse 14. See this, I've never seen
this in connection with what they call the Lord's Prayer.
Not the Lord's Prayer. He said, you pray this way. The
Lord doesn't pray like this. He does in some ways. But he
doesn't have to say forgive us our sins. He doesn't have any. He said you pray this way. This
is the disciples prayer, not the Lord. But listen to Hebrews
4.14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed
into the heavens. He's gone to that holy place
not made with hands, with some what to offer, his own precious
blood. Jesus, the Son of God, let us
hold fast our profession, for we have not an high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in
all points tried as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace. Let us do what nobody
has ever been able to do, until our Lord went there for us. Come
to the very throne of the God of all grace. What for? What
do you think? For mercy. What do you need? That we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. Let's come for eternal
things and let's come for temporal things. You see that? Isn't that
beautiful? Let's come from mercy, wherein
we can stand before God, the mercy seat. We can have communion
with God, a sinner. God be merciful to me, though
I'm a sinner. Where? He set the mercy seat.
That's where he was. But also, I need his help. Now, in temporal things, don't you?
Is there anything, is there anything too hard for him? If he spared
not his own son, shall he withhold any good thing from us? Is anything
too hard for him? No, he can. If he spared not
his own son, then surely he will. He can do anything for us. And he will do anything for us. And I'm not sure that me or you
fully understand that. And that's why I wanna tell us
again tonight. He said there in 4.16 of Hebrews that we may
obtain mercy. Do you need mercy? Does anybody that you love need
his mercy? You think about this now. Oh,
but you might be thinking, oh, Chris, you can't obtain mercy
for somebody else. I don't agree. I don't agree. I know that they must do business
with Christ themselves. I know that. But I see these
ones who came on behalf of those that they loved in the scripture
now. Don't you see that in the word of God? I know that they're
gonna have to personally do business with God, son, I understand that.
But I also understand, I saw that passage of scripture where
those men carried their friend on a bed and lowered him down
through the roof so that they could get him to Christ. And
I'll tell you what it said. Listen to what it says in Mark
2.3. It says, They came unto him, bringing one sick of the
posse, which was born of four. And when they could not come
nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where
he was. And when they had broken it up, they let down the bed
wherein the sick of the posse lay. And when Jesus saw their
faith, he said to him, Your sins be forgiven them. I'd be careful to ever say anything
like God can't do that or God won't do that. Let's find out
what he did. Can I go to the throne of grace
to obtain mercy for somebody else? I sure hope so, don't you? Because if it's just up to them,
I know it's not looking good. Do you want God's blessing on
your home? What do you think is important to God with regard
to that? Think about that for just a second. With regard to
Him blessing your home, what do you think is important to
Him? And let me ask you this, what's important to you when
it comes to God blessing your home? Grace to help in time of need. Not only mercy with regard to
eternal things, but our Lord is not unconcerned with our daily
needs. He teaches us in this very context
to pray for our daily bread. What does that, what does give
us this day our daily bread? What does that have to do with
eternity? Well, not much. But we're told
to pray that way. There's nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong with that. When the disciples heard the
Lord pray, when he was finished, they said, Lord, teach us to
do that. Teach us to do that. They heard
him and they realized they didn't know how. Oh my, how many things
do we not know how to do? You know how you're gonna find
out that you don't know how? Look at him. How are you gonna
find out how? Ask him. That's how. When we see him and hear him
in this gospel, how we see our insufficiencies, but we can pray,
Lord teaches to pray. Isn't that beautiful? Even if I don't know how to pray,
I can pray, Lord, teach me to pray. Oh, this is such a, Such
a blessing to me, this beautiful passage of scripture. That might be a good place to
start, huh? Lord, teach me how to pray. Teach us how to pray and teach
us to pray. Teach us to do it. Because we're
just too busy, aren't we? Oh my, I've never preached to
myself any more than I am tonight. He gave them a model prayer.
He didn't say pray this, and listen, in Matthew 6, 9, the
account there of this, it says, after this manner, therefore,
pray you. He didn't say repeat these words
like some kind of a ritual. After this manner, therefore,
pray ye our Father which art in heaven. Pray like that, not
that, not the same thing, not just, when you pray, he said,
don't use vain repetitions as the heathen do. Don't do that. They think that they shall be
heard for their much speaking. Prayer is not just a noise you
make. It's got to come from your heart
right to God's heart. That's prayer. Now what he does
teach us with this model prayer is the attitude in which to pray.
We see that. He teaches us the types of things
for which to pray. And even how we ought to be if
we're gonna pray to him. In other words, don't ask for
forgiveness with an unforgiving heart. You see that in the prayer? Don't do that. I've heard verse eight preached
on where it talks about the importunity. How that that friend, he wouldn't
give him what he asked just because he was his friend, which sounds
a lot like us, doesn't it? You're my friend, but oh, there's
a limit to that. I'm glad I'm not the kind of
friend he is. That he's not the kind of friend I am, in other
words, I should say. I'm glad he's not that kind of
friend. But that's just us, isn't it? You know, we push the limits
sometimes. And we have limits as a friend.
But he said even though he won't do that as a friend, he'll do
it just to get rid of him. Because of his importunity. I've
heard that taught on, and taught to say that we ought to just
keep bugging God until he gives in. Does that sound right to
you? Is that how God seems to you
in the Word? I do think that if we need something
from God badly enough, we ought to just continue to pray about
it, I do believe that, and wait on His good time. But here's
the thing, just because God doesn't give us what we pray for that
day or the next day, it doesn't mean the answer's no. It's just
not time yet. We're just like our children.
When your children were little, and really still, when they're
older, It takes a long time to get past this, doesn't it? Especially
when your children are little. There's no tomorrow. There's
no future. If I can't have it right now, that means I can't
have it. You know what I'm talking about? If we can't go where I
want to go now, that means we're never going there again in as
long as the world, you know. We're that way with God, aren't
we? We want it right now. It's not necessarily no, just
because our time is not his time. And so we do continue to pray,
but the Lord is not teaching here that if we pray for something
that he didn't really want to do, that he'll just do it anyway
if we bug him enough about it. Come on, really? No, that's not
what he's talking about. He's talking about us. He's describing
us there, not himself. That's how we are. When speaking
of himself, it's in terms of family. It's in terms of the
most loving of family, a father. And what this teaches here is
that even we will give what's needed, even if for the wrong
reason. But how much more will God, who's loved us with an everlasting
love, and loves us as he loves his own only begotten precious
son. Didn't he say that in his prayer
in John 17? You've loved them even as you've loved me. How
much more will he give us what we ask? That's the teaching here. Our Father in heaven. Every word of this prayer now,
every word of this prayer is important. Our Father which art
in heaven. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
5.2, be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty
to utter anything before God. for God is in heaven. You see
how he's teaching us to pray? Our Father, which art in heaven.
And Solomon said, our God's in heaven and you're on the earth.
Therefore, let your words be few. Doesn't mean that it has
to be a short prayer, but let your words be select. Be careful
what you say before him because he's in heaven. Our Father in
heaven. Our Father, Hallowed be thy name His name is hallowed holy reverend
venerable And our first request is that his name be hallowed
His name is holy He is reverent. He is to be had in reverence
of all those who around about him the psalmist said But our
prayer is Lord May we hallow your name. Your name be hallowed
by sinners in the earth. Hallowed be thy name by us, by
all. How repulsive that any man, we
just saw it on TV, didn't we? Any man would take unto himself
the title Holy Father. The word of God specifically
says don't you dare call any man your father. You've got one
father. And what do they do? Holy Father. You talk about making somebody
sick. I'm not easily offended. That's offensive. Oh, that's
offensive to me. Even to somebody that does things
every minute that are offensive to God, that makes me sick. How do you think God feels about
that? Well, you remember Herod in Acts
12 when he was revered by the people and it says he gave not
God the glory? God sent an angel and he was
eaten of worms and died. That's how God feels about that.
And if he hadn't done that yet to his reverend, the pope, or
whatever you want to call him, it's just a matter of time. There is one whose name is holy
and reverend. Psalm 119, he sent redemption
unto his people. He hath commanded his covenant
forever. Holy and reverend is his name.
And this is paramount in prayer. That's right out of the box.
The first thing we pray for is thy name be hallowed. Whatever,
whether I get what I think I need or not from you, God, may your
name be exalted and be had in reverence. Whether I receive
anything or don't receive anything, may you be high and lifted up. Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed
in some ways the same as this. He said, Father, the hour has
come He cried from the cross, Father, forgive them. He said
in John 20, 17, he saith unto Mary, touch me not, for I am
not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say
unto them, I love that word, my father, my brethren, and here's
what you tell them. I'm ascending unto my father
and your father. Isn't that wonderful? To be able
to pray like Him in that sense, our Father. And my God and your God. And
then here's what we pray next, thy kingdom come. You know, that's good right at
the beginning of a prayer because if the Lord would answer that
prayer right away, that would render a lot of my requests null
and void. A lot of the things I'm about
to ask for, I won't need them. if his kingdom come. Lord, I need a job. I've prayed
that a time or two. I need a job. But you know what
would be even better? Is if you would come and wrap this whole
thing up right now. And then I wouldn't need a job.
I'd have one. Wouldn't that be good? Let's pray like that. Thy
kingdom come. That's what I'd rather have happen
than anything else I pray for. as far as earthly things are
concerned. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. That's a good way to begin, isn't
it? Thy name be hallowed no matter what else happens, whether I
get well or whether I don't get well, whether I get the job or
lose the job. Thy name be hallowed, and Lord,
come in thy kingdom. And that'll solve all of our
problems with one act, with one answer to one prayer, all of
my problems could be solved. That's a good prayer. And let whatever I ask be in
conformance to your will or let it not be. Thy will be done. You see that? Before we ever
ask for anything, do you see how we're to pray? Pray this
way, after this manner pray you. Thy will be done. If it's your
will to grant my request, let that be done. If it's not your
will to grant my request, let that be done. Thy will be done. Either way. Whether the Lord
gives, or whether the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord,
and may his good will be done, not mine. And people still say,
if you can't change God and mine, then there's no use praying.
Have you read this at all? I'm not talking to you, you know
that, I'm pretty sure you all have read this. But you know
what I'm saying, you've probably met people like that. If God
doesn't change his mind, then what's the use of praying? Oh
Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. Thy will be
done. I don't want to change God's
mind about anything. That's the last thing I wanna
do, is for the perfect, good, omniscient, holy God to do something
that he wasn't gonna do because I said so. Really? We haven't thought about it,
have we? If we say that. Thy will be done
on earth just like it's done in heaven. Perfectly, without
opposition, without hesitation, and without complaint. Thy will
be done. Like it is in heaven. Before
I ever ask for a single thing, thy will be done. We need to
understand that we don't really... Our flesh doesn't really want
God's will to be done. You know that, you realize that,
don't you? We want our will to be done. But the spirit, the
new man, doesn't want our will to be done. That's the last thing
I want. Unless it's his will. By his grace, Lord, teach us
to pray and mean it. Thy will be done. That's easy when everything's
going fine for you But when His will is not your
will, when His will involves the last thing you ever want
to happen, maybe, it'd be hard to pray that, wouldn't it? It'd be hard to hear that your
sons are dead, that God killed them, and say it's the Lord. Let Him do what seemeth Him good.
Thy will be done. Now, my needs. After all that,
my needs now. Bread. What do you need? Bread. And notice, before we go further,
I'm not just praying for myself. Did you notice that? Give us.
Lead us. Forgive us. It's not just about
me. It's everybody I love, to everybody
I know, everybody. It's us. And here's what we need. Bread, forgiveness, to be led,
and to be saved. To be ultimately saved. That's
about it, isn't it? Can you think of anything else?
Bread, forgiveness, for God to lead us everywhere we go. and for him to keep us, to save
us, to ultimately save us. Bread represents here all of
our physical needs, and we're to acknowledge every day our
utter dependence upon God for the most basic of needs. Think
about this, give us this day. This is a prayer that is designed
to be prayed every day, because what day could you go without
praying that? If I'm gonna have what I need
today, I'm gonna have to receive it from the hand of God Almighty.
This is teaching us to pray, isn't it? And let me say this, having asked,
do you know what our Lord said? Having asked him for a daily
bread, you know what he said? Quit worrying about it now. In this same context in Luke
chapter 12. I'll give you this for homework, because I want
to be brief. Luke 12, 22 through 32. He said,
don't be anxious about it. Don't worry about it. Ask the
one who knows how to give good things, and then quit worrying
about it. Do the birds look like they're
worried? They have to get from God every day what they need.
Do they look worried to you? Did your children stay up at
night thinking, I wonder if dad's going to put something on the
table tomorrow? I'm pretty sure of all of the crazy stuff that
entered into my children's minds, that wasn't one of them. I wonder
if I'm gonna have anything to wear tomorrow. Then our spiritual needs are
represented by this one request. Forgive us. Forgive us. Forgive
us. You can't live a day in this
world without saying this, can you? What do you mean by that, Chris?
Well, at the end of a day, when you've lived a day in this world,
you think about your days. When you've gone through a whole
day in this world, what is it that stands out to you as most
needful? Do you think at the end of the
day, man, if people would just act right, if people were just
like me, everything would have been great today. What about this one? If things
would just go my way for a change. There's always gotta be something.
Why, you know. Why did that have to happen?
Why did this have to happen? You know what it oughta be? After
living a day in this world, forgive. Forgive me. Everybody else is not the problem.
I'm the problem. Lord, forgive me. I have to come every day to that
fountain filled with the precious blood
of Christ because I know that sinners plunge beneath that flood,
lose all their guilty stains. Father, forgive me. That's what he prayed, but not
for himself. He said, Father, forgive them.
So how appropriate for us to pray, Father, forgive me. Forgive
me my sins. Forgive me my debts. And this is an interesting prayer
because we know that forgiveness is a once for all finished work
done by him and perfect. Don't we know that? Then why
do you suppose we're to pray this every day? This is our daily
prayer, to pray in this manner. We know that he doesn't need
to do anything more for the forgiveness of our sins, but we acknowledge
daily how we need his forgiveness. That's what this is. This is
not the Lord having to do anything more about it. He's already done
it. But this is a daily acknowledgement
That the problem today was me. And lead us not into temptation.
This word temptation is very interesting. It means an experiment. A trial. Approving. The Lord uses trials in order
to teach us. We know that. He tries faith. But wouldn't you rather learn
just from hearing the gospel? Wouldn't you rather learn from
the mistakes that others have made? We have a whole record
of them, a whole bunch of them. And he said, these things are
written that we might learn from them. Did you ever ask your parents
for a spanking? I got to confess to you, I never
one time ever said, you know, I've been real bad today, I think
I need a spanking. So we pray, Lord, don't, The Lord can teach us without
that, can't he? Or he wouldn't teach us to pray
that way. I know this. If the Lord does
lead me into a trial, he's gonna have to be with me all through
it. He's gonna have to sustain me, he's gonna have to bring
me out the other side. Or I'm not coming out the other side.
And I may not. People say, you know, don't you
just love the religious slogans? If he leads you to it, he'll
lead you through it. He didn't lead Stephen through it. They're talking about earthly
trials, you know, the Lord will deliver you from it. No, he may
not. That's okay, too. Faith is not
believing that he'll lead you through it. Faith is believing
whether he does or not. He's right, and I'm gonna be
all right. because of his grace, approving a trial, an experiment, and deliver us, save us from
evil. That's what we need to be saved
from, my evil, the evil of this world. Satan, who is the father of lies,
the father of evil, all evil. Our Lord prayed this for us also,
didn't he? He prayed, Father, forgive them. And we pray, Father, forgive
us. And he prayed this for us too. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil. And so we pray that way too.
We agree with him in this. And by agreeing with him, we
acknowledge that without him continually holding us up, we
will fall. We will fall. Keep us, Lord. Save us. He that continueth unto
the end shall be saved. Are you saved, Chris? Yeah. But
I need to be saved. Does that make sense to you? The Lord saved me. He's still saving me. And one
of these days, He's gonna save me. This is this, this here deliver
us from evil. Keep us, keep us, keep them from
the evil. You know what that picture, that's
a picture of a father holding his child's hand. What are we
doing when we hold their hand in a dangerous place? Like if
we're crossing the street to visit a neighbor and they're
coming with it, we're going to grab onto that hand. Unless they've
already, we've been able to teach them better. We go to a public
store, a busy place, the mall, somewhere where they could wander
off and get lost, or somebody could take them. Grab ahold of
that hand, what are we doing? We're keeping them from the danger,
keep them from the evil. And that's what our Lord does.
You remember what the writer of Psalm 73 said? We saw this
Psalm not long ago where that psalmist said, Lord, I was envious
at the prosperity of the wicked. And then I went into your sanctuary
and I saw their end and my end. And I realized what a fool I
was. And listen to what it says in Psalm 73, 22. So foolish was
I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee.
Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. That's what we're
talking about. That's what we do when we hold
our child's hand. What are we doing? You need to
be with me. You don't need to be over there wandering around
on your own. You need to be with me. We're keeping them with us.
Why, then, am I continually with him? Why haven't I strayed? Why am I not lost? Why am I not
on my own? Nevertheless, I am continually
with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand. That's why I'm with him. Not
because I'm so smart that I don't stray, because he's got hold
of me, and he's not gonna let go. Lord, teach us to pray. Even if we don't know how to
pray, we can pray that, can't we? Lord, teach us. Let's observe the table tonight.