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As you all know, this is my first week back in the pulpit since returning from Egypt. One thing that is present everywhere in Egypt is prayer. There is prayer, prayer, prayer everywhere. At 3:30, there is a man calling people to prayer: “God is great, come and pray!” When I went to the fish market, there was a group of men praying together in a little place set aside for that purpose. When Anna and I went to lunch, our guide went to a place to pray several times. Prayer is everywhere in Egypt!
And maybe it’s an experience like that which led the disciples to say, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). I look at John’s disciples, and they are praying. Why am I not praying? Jesus, help me know how to pray.
They made this request to Jesus this when Jesus Himself was praying. You see, Jesus was a man of prayer. He was always seeking His Father. He was always praying. Read through Luke’s account of Jesus’ life. You will find that Luke always notes that Jesus was praying. For example, when Jesus was transfigured or changed on the mountain, Luke tells us that this happened while Jesus was praying! The other accounts do not add this detail. You will see this everywhere in the book of Luke.
So, Jesus’ disciples knew that Jesus prayed. They wanted to become like that. They wanted to be people of prayer! That’s what led them to ask Jesus to make them people of prayer. They wanted to live in communion with the Father like Jesus did. They needed help! Do you need help becoming a person of prayer? Jesus is still ready to teach you! I want you to see this in the text today. We are going to look at it backwards, though, for reasons that I think will become clear. I want you to see the God of prayer, persistence in prayer, and the content of prayer. These are the things that Jesus wants us to understand in order to learn to pray.
The God of Prayer (Luke 11:11–13)
The key to prayer is to see the God of prayer. The reason we pray is because we see that God is great. He is exalted above all. We need to see Him as our Creator. We need to see Him as the one who is in control of the world. We may plan to do something after church, but that does not mean we will! If God wills, we will go to this place or that. He is in control. We are not. We may want something, but it is up to God to decide whether we will have it or not. He is the governor. He is the ruler. He is the judge. He is the King. To pray, we must see the greatness of God.
But there is something else here. Jesus teaches us this in such a beautiful way. He says, suppose that a child goes to his father and says, can I have some french fries and chicken nuggets? Will that father say, “here’s a rock”? Here’s some bugs I collected for you to eat. Of course, he will not. Why? Because a father cares about his child. He wants to give the child good things.
Now, this is an argument from the lesser to the greater. Jesus says, if you know how to give good gifts to your children, and you are evil, then how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts? So much more!!
When we look at our needs and the problems of the world, we should not think just about the problems. We should not act as if there is no solution and no help. We have a heavenly Father who can and will help! He just wants us to ask. We should never look at any issue or difficulty and say, we are completely stuck. Why? Because we have a Father in heaven who can and will help!
So, this is how you should think of God: as our heavenly Father! That’s why Jesus teaches them to pray, “Our Father.” Go to Him! Ask from Him! He wants to give. He has so much. He wants to provide. If He doesn’t give you exactly what you want it is only because of His great love for you and because He knows it is not for your best. He will give good things. Expect it. Believe it. See it. And pray to Him!
Persistence in Prayer
And keep praying! That’s the second thing Jesus wants us to learn. In the second section here, he teaches us to be persistent, to keep praying, asking, seeking, and knocking.
Here he speaks of hospitality. A friend comes. They want to give him something to eat. Apparently, Jesus is thinking of a situation during Covid time because the grocery stores were not open. They closed early. So, what do you do? You go to your friend and ask him for some food!
Now, your friend may initially be annoyed; however, he is your friend, and he will help you. He will help you, not because he is happy with you. But he will give it. “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need” (Luke 11:8).
Again, the argument is from the lesser to the greater. If your friend who doesn’t want to give will give when you are persistent, how much more God? If you ask and do not receive, keep asking! Keep seeking! Keep knocking! God is ready to give, and if He waits for a time, it is only because He wants you to learn to see that in God is the source of your goodness.
That’s the lesson Jesus wanted them to learn from this. A good couple of verses to memorize: “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Luke 11:9–10).
The Content of Prayer
So, what should we pray about? What should be the content of our prayer? What are we supposed to say? Let me suggest that there are four main topics of prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray about here.
First, we should pray about any need that concerns us. It’s easier to think of prayer when we are in crisis: when we have cancer, a wayward child, a lost job, an emotional struggle, or something like that. We should pray about these things. God wants to help us with them. That’s why Jesus says to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” God wants to provide for us the things that we need, and He wants us to ask Him for them and give thanks for them.
The second topic is actually the one we should begin with. Consider the words of the Lord’s Prayer, as we commonly call it. We start with praise to God: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” We give Him honor as the Lord, as merciful, as gracious, as just, as wise, as glorious. That’s one thing I always appreciated about Steve Bain. He was a man who loved to pray, and he would always begin by saying, “O Father in heaven, most gracious and infinite God, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good.” I loved to hear him pray, and I miss our brother, though I am happy he is now praying it more clearly than ever before the throne of His Father in heaven.
Third, we can pray for what is important to us, but we should also pray for what is most important to God. We should pray that His will would be done on earth as it is heaven. We should pray that His kingdom and rule would extend throughout the earth. What that means is that we are praying that all people would learn to love and trust their Creator and receive His forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We pray that He would bring peace and joy and hospitality and kindness throughout the world, that He would restore what is broken and renew a dead world. This is our prayer. That’s what the Lord’s Prayer teaches us.
If we can learn to pray about what is important to God, it will also really help us. It changes us. Instead of just seeing the people or the problems around us, we learn to see the big picture. We realize we are just one piece, an important piece, but just one piece in the big picture of God’s world. We start to think that we want people to submit to God and find His grace and forgiveness. This becomes our heart. This makes us want to be like our heavenly Father and to show mercy and love to those around us.
Fourth, we also pray about our character. We should keep asking God to make us into the people we should be and keep us from anything that would damage it. That’s what we pray when we say, “lead us not into temptation.”
We also see this point at the end of this passage. When Jesus speaks about our heavenly Father giving good gifts to His children, what are the good gifts? Listen very carefully to verse 13. “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” It is the Holy Spirit that the Father gives. That is the good gift! Why does God give us the Spirit or send the Holy Spirit to work in us? To make us like our heavenly Father!
Here’s the thing. We often pray about God changing our circumstances, our nation, our neighborhood, our family, our spouse, our children, our job, our locale. We pray that God would change things outside. But what if God wants to change us to make us the type of people who can live well in any circumstances? Wouldn’t that be better? Then, no matter what happened we would be happy and joyful. That’s what God wants to do for us. That’s what the gift of the Holy Spirit is all about. That’s also why sometimes God does not give us what we ask for. His main work is to align us with Himself and make us the type of people He has called us to be.
In preparation for this sermon, I searched some of my journals. I looked for “answer to prayer.” I was amazed to see how many times God had specifically answered my prayers to help me deal with situations, to soften hearts, to bring the right people in my life, and to help people in need. I would encourage you to write down what you are praying for and to write down when God answers prayer. It’s easy to forget.
One of my most recent examples of the power of prayer is from Brenda’s family. I talked to Brenda recently, and she told me that her daughter was doing so well. She was involved in church. She was involved in ministry there. She had gotten married. She was now stable. When she told me this, I was amazed. I remember Brenda asking many times for me to pray for this daughter. She had been in a lot of trouble. She had been involved with drugs, and she had gone to jail. I could tell that it broke Brenda’s heart. So, we prayed, but I really had not thought about it in a long while. But God did. He heard our prayers. He remembered. In the right time, he acted, and he brought his daughter home. That was so encouraging to me!
Conclusion
So, we do not have to stay stuck. We can be transformed. God has given us a powerful tool for transformation: prayer. This just means, we ask! We ask for God to make us the type of people who are faithful, loving, joyful, productive people. That’s what God wants to do in our lives. All we have to is ask, and we will receive. All we have to do is seek, and we will find. All we have to do is knock, and the door will be opened. “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13).