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[0:00] Father, we confess that it's very easy for us to bring our natural human tendencies and the fallenness of our heart to the reading of your word.

[0:12] So, Father, we confess before you that it's not that your word is not clear. It's not, Father, that your word is not wise. It's not that Jesus isn't the Savior.

[0:23] Father, we confess before you that our left to ourselves in our natural human tendencies, we will misread your word and mishear your word and change your word.

[0:34] So we ask, Father, in your mercy and in your kindness that your Holy Spirit would gently but deeply fall upon us so that we might truly hear your word and receive your word and so be gripped by the gospel as disciples of Jesus, learning to live for your glory.

[0:52] And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. I saw a truly heart-rending incident yesterday morning when I was working on my sermon at a Starbucks.

[1:13] So I'm in there working. My Bible's open. I'm working on the sermon, trying to put my notes together, trying to figure out the best way to word different things. And I noticed this guy come in. He's probably in his late 30s, and he looks nervous.

[1:25] And he's sitting there, and he keeps sort of looking around. And he looks nervous. He's looking around, looking around, looking around, keep turning his phone on and looking at the time. Eventually, I can see that he's texting somebody and calling.

[1:39] And it's a Saturday, so I just sort of keep noticing his nervousness. And, you know, I don't know how many of you go into places like Starbucks or Second Cup or Bridgehead, but often a lot of business gets done during weekdays.

[1:53] I often see real estate agents and lawyers and others in there doing work. But it's a Saturday. I was just a bit curious. I thought he was waiting for a date, actually. But then, here's the heart-rending part.

[2:05] I hear the squeal of a high-pitched boy's voice. And I turn around, and I'm just guessing the ages of five-year-old and a seven-year-old come hurtling down through the Starbucks to sit with the fellow, and the youngest one of them immediately goes on the fellow's knee.

[2:23] And coming along quite slowly behind them was a stony-faced young woman. And it was hard not to hear the conversation that's going on, but it's very obvious that this is the dad of these two boys, that he hasn't seen them in a while.

[2:41] And he obviously can only see them for an hour. And they're asking him where he lives. They're asking him why they don't see him anymore.

[2:54] And it just makes him very uncomfortable and nervous when they ask him those questions. And, um, as the hour's coming up, he says, I have to go.

[3:06] I can't stay with you anymore. And the youngest one just, you know, wraps his legs and his arms around the guy. And the young woman continues just to look very stony-faced throughout it.

[3:19] And, um, and then they go out and they're wondering where he lives. And it's a very, very heart-rending hour in a Starbucks in this city on just yesterday morning.

[3:34] And, um, you know, in light of this story, this is often, stories like this are often in the back of our minds, or back of people's minds when they think about something like, think of someone like Jesus and they think of something like the Christian faith.

[3:50] Today we're going to be talking about prayer, what Jesus teaches on prayer. And for many people in our culture, what they would say is, you know, how can Christians talk about prayer when this is what real life is like?

[4:03] Like, how can we take Jesus seriously, or even really listen to him or hear him, when this is what real life is like? Don't you think that maybe these young boys have prayed for their dad, and yet they're still in this terrible situation?

[4:20] Who knows what prayers the dad or the mom said, and still they're in this situation. How can we take the words of Jesus seriously? How can we take prayer seriously when such things happen in the world?

[4:34] So let's look and see what Jesus has to say about prayer. So if you have your Bibles, and if you don't have Bibles with you, there's always some extra Bibles up here at the front. Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel text, which I just read a couple of minutes ago.

[4:46] Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. And we're going to begin reading again and hearing again. Luke chapter 11. From verse 1 on.

[4:57] And just as you're turning to that, we're sort of starting a new series, or recommencing an old series today. The series' name is Jesus for Pagans and Skeptics.

[5:07] It's really the Gospel of Luke. And if you look in the bulletin today, there's my so-called blog, and it talks a little bit about why the title is as it is, Jesus for Pagans and Skeptics.

[5:19] The thing to mainly get out of it is that this Gospel was written probably the year, between year 62 and 65. And Luke was a pagan who became a Christian.

[5:30] And from the introduction, you'll see that he's writing it to a fellow with a pagan name. So whether the fellow is a pagan Christian, who's now become a Christian, or what the status is, nobody knows. But he's writing this letter.

[5:43] And you'll notice again in a couple... Anyway, so let's start reading from this, verse 1, and here's how it begins. 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.

[6:02] Now just sort of put your finger there for a moment. And this is just like a bit of an important little thing to notice. It's not a point. There's so much of something to notice. In all of the Gospels, in all of the four accounts of Jesus' life, this is the only time recorded when somebody asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

[6:21] Only time in the four Gospels. So it's sort of a significant thing. It's a significant passage to come to again and again and again and reflect on, that this is the only time.

[6:32] And it's not the only time Jesus teaches on prayer. In fact, if you're a guest here this morning and you maybe don't know about it, if you go in the bulletin, or if you don't have a bulletin, go online later on on our webpage. Every Sunday, the normal part of the year, I do something called Going Deeper and Growing in Grace.

[6:51] And in Growing in Grace, I give a couple of biblical attitudes that emerge out of the text. I model how to pray part of the text. And in going deeper, what I do is I take out of my notes a couple of things that can be pursued after the sermon.

[7:06] So for instance, this week, it's just a very, very simple thing you can do by yourself. It's better if you do it with somebody else. But you can follow all of the different references to Jesus praying in Luke's Gospel.

[7:17] And then another track is you can look at all of the different times that Jesus tells us about what to pray for in Luke's Gospel. And then there's sort of, you know, just an opportunity first to reflect upon that.

[7:29] And so anyway, those are things in the bulletin that are provided, or you can go online and you can find them every week. But this is the only time in the Gospel that somebody asked Jesus how to pray.

[7:40] And so what does he say? Verse 2. Now just sort of pause here for a second.

[8:05] Don't worry, I'm going to get to the question that I began the sermon with. When we left off doing Luke's Gospel about a year and a half ago, I did a six-week series or seven-week series on Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer.

[8:21] So today I'm actually going to really be looking at verse 5 and following. And if you're interested in what I preached on about that, you can go onto the webpage and you can see the old sermons. But if you're hoping I'm going to preach on the Lord's Prayer, I'm not going to do it this morning.

[8:34] But for some of you, and this is sort of a helpful way to sort of understand Luke's Gospel, you might be wondering why is it that what we just read here sounds very similar but it's also different from the Lord's Prayer that we customarily recite.

[8:49] And some of you might be wondering if this is just yet another reason why we can't really trust the Bible because they get the stories all mixed up. Often if you talk to somebody who's a Muslim, they'll say that the Bible's filled with errors and that you can't trust it, that only the Koran is a true book.

[9:08] And they might look at a text like this and say that the differences show that you can't trust the Bible. But that's a very, very, it doesn't work that way at all. I mean, just if you were actually, just me, I only preach once a week, probably over the course of the year in this church, I'll preach about 45 times or something like that.

[9:27] And if you were to go back and listen to my sermons throughout the years, you'll see that I talk about the same thing more than once. If you were to follow me around throughout the week, and maybe, you know, maybe I speak on Parliament Hill occasionally, I speak in other types of venues occasionally, I talk to the staff, and you would hear that I tell the same jokes.

[9:44] Maybe some of the staff would say he tells the same joke over and over and over again, he's getting old, he can't remember when he's told us something before. You know, you get questions, and maybe you answer the question, and you take five minutes, and you say the same thing slightly different each way.

[9:57] And that's what it's like with Jesus. That's all that shows. You know, do you think, actually, that in the whole three years of his ministry, that Jesus only talked about prayer once?

[10:09] Oh, come on. I mean, that's pretty unreasonable, actually. So Luke just records one of the times that Jesus talked, and so what it shows is you can see some real commonalities between Matthew and Luke about how Jesus taught about it, and we're to learn from that.

[10:26] But you see, if you go back later on, and you read the very beginning of Luke's Gospel, and then you read the very beginning of Acts, the book of Acts, and Luke wrote the same two books somewhere between the years 62 and 65, approximately 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

[10:40] And you'll see that Luke claims to be telling us, after much research and careful thought and examination, in a sense, weeding out legend and exaggeration and stuff that couldn't be counted on and couldn't be depended upon, Luke claims to be writing a true story, a true account of Jesus.

[11:03] And this is very important. If at the end of it, you won't see like you see in movies, inspired by true events or based on true events, which might mean that, I don't know, that there actually was a person like that who lived and everything else is completely and utterly fabricated.

[11:21] You know, who knows what it means in a movie. But Luke is making the claim, we might disagree with it, and it'll be something we talk about in other sermons, but Luke is at least claiming that what he's giving us here is after careful research, even though he himself was not an eyewitness of the events because he became a Christian after the death and resurrection of Jesus, but that he's really looked into this very carefully, and this is a true story of Jesus.

[11:48] In fact, here's the first point, if you could put it up, Andrew. Truth always matters. Luke claims that these are the true and trustworthy words of Jesus on prayer.

[11:59] If you want to make notes, if that's helpful to you and you can't get them because I moved through some of the points fairly quickly, you can always go online on Monday, and the points will be there online.

[12:12] Truth always matters. Luke claims that these are the true and trustworthy words of Jesus on prayer. So some of you might say, Okay, George, so I take it you're not going to talk about this, you know, thing about only calling God Father, and I understand that you did that like a year and a half ago, and I'll look it up online and see what you said.

[12:36] But here's the thing, George, okay? What about that dad with his kids and the stony-faced woman? And I'm guessing an ex-wife or an ex-lived common-law partner or girlfriend or whatever.

[12:54] And, you know, I seem to remember some of the things that you haven't gotten to earlier on in the text. And, like, what about that? Don't, isn't Jesus' words, aren't they extreme?

[13:09] George, don't you think like most religious and spiritual people that Jesus is exaggerating? And we've got to either tone it down or maybe just sort of ignore it or just say whatever and just sort of go on with what we want?

[13:20] Like, don't you think, George, that's the way to hear the words? Let's listen to the words again. Verse 5. So basically in verses 1 to 4, Jesus is outlining or mapping out things to pray, whole areas of our lives to pray about.

[13:37] But now he does something different. He goes in, well, here's what he says, verse 5. And Jesus 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?

[13:57] And he will answer from within, Do not bother me. 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 impotence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

[14:19] We'll just sort of pause there and camp here for a second just to sort of settle on these words. Now, here's, there's sort of two things you get out of the sermon today.

[14:31] By the grace of God, here's one of the first things. And I'm going to try to explain the text, but you need to understand this thing first. If you could put the point up, Andrew, that would be great. Natural human religion focuses on me without the heart.

[14:49] Jesus focuses on both my heart and the true and living God. This is a really important thing to understand all of the Bible and how we read and misread and mishear the Bible, even those of us who have maybe been followers of Jesus for a very long time, is that natural human religion focuses on me without the heart.

[15:14] Jesus focuses on both my heart and the true and living God. And some of you might wonder, I always try to put that, if you're writing notes about this for yourself, that's why I always say me or I, rather than us often, so that you're reading it for yourself.

[15:30] And so what does this mean? Well, first of all, when the Bible uses the word heart, the word heart in the Bible is a very, very important word. And we tend to use the word heart to refer to the place of the emotions.

[15:44] But the Bible, I mean, the emotions are connected to the heart in the Bible. But actually, the Bible usually uses the word heart to refer to the center of who you are.

[15:57] The very, very center of who you are. The central, continuing thing, even though your body ages, even though your body changes, even though your circumstances change, that central, continuing, deep thing that makes you who you are, that's expressed in a wide variety of things, in terms of your strengths, your interests, your talents, your passions, your inner conversation.

[16:22] It's the very, very center of who you are. And that's how the Bible refers to heart. And so the natural human religion focuses on me without the heart.

[16:33] We might be, we don't really ultimately like to really examine deep within what it is that's driving us, what it is that's propelling us, what it is that's really drawing out certain behavior and certain attitudes out of us.

[16:49] We don't like to look within. And we like to always sort of think the best of who we are. Or maybe we feel very bad. But we don't like to really think deep within.

[16:59] And there's this fundamental self-centeredness about how we understand reality. And it's natural human religion. And so often what we have problems with when we're reading the Bible is that we read the Bible from the eyeglasses of our natural human religion and read it from the perspective of me and my without wanting to examine the heart.

[17:24] And when Jesus doesn't speak within that contour, we can't, we find it funny. So you see, here's what happens with the text. Is that, you see, in natural human religion, there might be a focus on the proper way to ask boldly and shamelessly.

[17:45] That's what the word here, which is translated as impudence, means it's like a type of shameless boldness in asking. And so we see this text.

[17:56] And natural human religion will maybe want to tone it down a little bit because in natural human religion, you don't want it to be shameless and bold. So it gets, you want to water that down a little bit.

[18:08] And you might want to focus on duty. And you might want to focus a little bit on if things aren't going the way you want and the way you pray, then there's probably something which is your fault. And natural human religion wants to teach the proper way to pray.

[18:23] And often at the center of natural human religion and religious organizations is a focus on my will. That if my will was just stronger, if my will was more articulate, if my will knew the secret, if my will knew the right steps, then I would be able to accomplish.

[18:44] And whatever it is, I might accomplish that my kids are perfect or that my neighbor becomes a Christian or that the business deal goes forward. But the natural focus is on me learning the right technique to get the right accomplishment.

[18:58] And so I read the text about there's an obviously there's a correct way to be boldlessly shameless so that I get what I want to accomplish. Well, what is that?

[19:11] And dang it all, I'm so frustrated with George because he's not telling me. Like if George was more spiritual, he would tell me these religious things that I've got to do so that it would work.

[19:26] I'm going to find a better church that can tell me these secret things. How many times, how deeply I have to bow, how often I have to do this, how to speak in tongues, how to sing praise courses, how to pray in a small group, how to give more money, how to give less money, how to give more time, how to give less time, how to do this, how to do that, how to be able to think through the problem, how to be able to analyze what's going on within myself.

[19:48] And in more touchy-feely religious things, it's often that what we need is therapy. And so what we need to do is we talk, we need to do some therapy to get you to work on your self-image, your inner confidence, get you in touch with your inner child.

[20:08] That's sort of an 80s type of thing. You know? And that's what we want. And so whether it's more like a therapeutic type of model, or a ritual model, or in spiritual, not religion, it just means that we can be more cutting edge and transgressive.

[20:27] But it's still natural human religion. And in moralism, it's just key to success. And so many people looking at what's going on with natural human religion, they say, whatever.

[20:40] You know, whatever. Just give me a glass of Jack and put me in front of a TV and I'll watch the NFL all day on Sunday. Like, whatever. Don't bother with all that other stuff. You know, just make the business deal and let's just move on.

[20:54] Like, whatever. Forget about all that stuff. And so because we have this natural human religion when we read the text, we're very frustrated with the text. But the story does encourage a bold, shameless asking.

[21:09] But what is it that Jesus asks us to think about? Not the bold, shameless asking, but the fact that it's going to come out again later on.

[21:23] Okay, Sinclair, think about yourself for a second. You know how you get limited by your resources. You know how self-centered you can be.

[21:33] And, you know, you know how afraid you can be if things aren't going the right way. And you know what, George? You can be generous occasionally. Just think how generous God is.

[21:47] Just think how unbelievably generous God is. Like the texts saying that as we think about the bigness and generosity of God, bold, shameless praying follows.

[22:09] In fact, if you could put up the next point, here's what we could pray. Father, grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge of your greatness and your glory and your generosity.

[22:22] In Jesus' name, amen. Father, stop, help me to stop spending all my time thinking about how I can, you know, if I just listen to more Bach or more jazz or more praise music so I can get really pumped.

[22:41] If I could just learn the proper therapeutic technique, if I could just learn the proper amount of prayer meetings to go to, if I could just learn the proper way to genuflect, if I could just learn how to sing the old rugged cross all by myself as I walk along, if I could just learn to pray every hour for five seconds, I'd set my watch and always do it, if I could just learn to pray.

[23:01] Jesus is saying, shut up. Natural human religion focuses on me, but not my heart.

[23:13] I'm inviting you to talk to God and say, God, grow in me a humble, trusting knowledge of your greatness and your glory and your generosity.

[23:30] In Jesus' name, amen. Some of you might say, George, okay, I can sort of see that, but, you know, okay, I'm a little bit confused, George.

[23:44] Are you just saying that all we have to do is just sit around in our house and think great thoughts about God? I don't know how many of you read John Sanford novels. I like them. By the way, just because I like them doesn't mean that they're, I mean, they're very non-Christian.

[23:58] Okay, I'm not saying, okay, this isn't like, he's not C.S. Lewis or J.R. Tolkien, but one of the characters in about five of his novels is a guy by the name of Virgil Flowers who grew up in a very, very devout religious, pietistic Lutheran home, but he himself lives a completely and utterly irreligious life except he has one very, very interesting characteristic.

[24:20] What he likes to do at night is when he glides down to bed, he likes to think about God. That's all he does. He thinks about God, helps him fall asleep, and he sort of finds it interesting to think about God.

[24:30] It's a very curious characteristic in Virgil Flowers. So George, are you telling me that, okay, all you want us to do is think great things about God, but George, it did talk about shameless asking and isn't the next bit ask, seek, and knock?

[24:44] Like, isn't that as if we should be doing something? Like, I'm a little bit confused. Let's look at what goes on after we've read verse eight. It's verse nine, right? So, verse nine says, and I tell you and ask and it will be given to you.

[25:02] Seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For every, and just to make sure we get it, it sort of said the same way slightly different in the next verse.

[25:14] For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks it will be opened. And then Jesus continues. It sort of links in to what he just said about the knocking on the door at the middle of the night.

[25:27] what father among you if he asks, 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?

[25:40] 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? So, Andrew, if you could put the next point up here.

[25:52] Here's, remember my earlier thing I said, this is the exact same point as point number two by the way. Natural human religion focuses on me without the heart. Jesus focuses on both my heart and the true and living God.

[26:07] In other words, as we hear the words of Jesus he's going to keep challenging our heart like what's going on or not going on in the center of who we are. and he's going to keep talking to us about God and something else which we'll get to in a moment.

[26:24] So, like at a very simple level just so you understand Jesus does talk about three types of prayer and ask just means you know literally that like he says ask and it will be given to you that we ask God for certain things it might be knowledge it might be help maybe part of the reason that God had me witness that heart-rending heart-wrenching hour yesterday was that he's calling me and a few other Christians in the room to pray for the man and the kids and the woman maybe that's what I'm asked to pray for and to pray for persecuted Christians and the text does say to ask and it says to seek and that means to seek to know to seek to have more to have a fanning flame within us of desires that we don't be complacent that we don't just be always just feeling that we it's all over that we have enough of God that we have a great enough relationship with our wife or with our kids or with our church or with ministry or with our job that we are to seek we are to seek that there's to be this that God

[27:34] Jesus doesn't want us to stop hungering but we are to seek and the image of knocking is an image of presence that we are it's an image of knocking on a door to enter into God's presence and that's at a very very simple level what God is telling Jesus is telling us to do but here's sort of a development of this point if you could put the next point up Andrew it's another I could have said natural human religion a second time but I just wanted to mix it up a bit my natural tendency is to link proper prayer with proper sacrifice so that God is in my debt my natural tendency is to link proper prayer with proper sacrifice so that God is in my debt many people after we left this after we walked away from our building three and a half years ago we believed many people believed that God was going to give us a building within two years our sacrifice put God in our debt all godly people all read the Bible natural human religion somehow our sacrifice with our prayers puts God in our debt yes he owes us we got him it doesn't come through wasn't the proper prayer and the proper sacrifice if you knew the proper prayer

[29:11] George it would have happened if the church knew the proper prayer it would have happened if we did morning prayer more often if we did evening prayer if we spoke in tongues if we sang more praise choruses we deserve it we didn't do the proper prayer we made the proper sacrifice we didn't do the proper prayer dang it I'm going to go somewhere else where they have better proper prayers and better sacrifices they know the proper prayers they know the proper sacrifices they know that you got to go to Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 4 to interpret all of the proper steps you got to take they wear funny clothes they don't wear funny clothes you see I read the Bible and I'm disappointed in what Jesus says because I want him to outline to me the proper prayer and the proper sacrifice how much money do I have to give and then on one level we want that but on the other hand we sort of have this sense of obligation before God because you know something doesn't happen we don't get that promotion we don't get the girl we don't get the type of kids that we think we deserve we don't get the you know we don't get the marriage we think we deserve we don't get the recognition we think we deserve and inwardly we are very very depressed because we think it's our work and our sacrifice and God why didn't you give that to me

[30:41] I mean after all I go to this church I've made this sacrifice you know God I'm a pastor why don't you do this thing for me because I'm a pastor look at all the time I spent look at all this I did look at all the look how much I know the Bible look at all the things I've sacrificed and done and accomplished and why aren't you showing up doing what I want like don't you realize you're in my debt God Jesus just says the words the Holy Spirit tries to get us to understand that natural human religion focuses on me and not my heart and that in my natural human religion I want to figure out the proper prayer with the proper sacrifice so God is in my debt like in Islam you have to pray five times a day and you don't only have to pray five times a day you have to go through it's very complicated washings and rituals and other types of things and because you have to get the proper prayer there's rules for what happens if there's no water and how you use sand and how you don't use sand and we can say oh well that's just those people but it's not just those people it's us at the same time like we we look for the proper type of prayer you know you see if it's if it's see like

[32:06] Luke is writing as a pagan to pagans and what is it that pagans do? things aren't going up they figure out okay I gotta I gotta make this sacrifice to this goddess I gotta make these sacrifices to this god and when I've done it successfully the proper prayer with the proper sacrifice then there's those gods only but for us we want to know the rituals we want to have the knowledge we want to have the duty we want to have the understanding of the proper type of will we want to understand the principles maybe the romantic principles of the right types of feelings in our hearts maybe it's the the rational the things that we have to do or the relational types of things and and maybe if we've been influenced by the therapeutic culture we want to have the proper type of therapy to to inwardly know how we can ask or get over our problem of asking or our problem of seeking and and actually religion doesn't even really like seeking because it that's that raises all sorts of problematic questions and knocking and actually having God's presence and and if you're spiritual not religious it's just transgressive types of proper prayers and and and you can you know you can you can say she rather than he trying to offend the Bible belt or something like that because it's it's transgressive it somehow is more cutting edge but it's still just the proper prayer with the proper sacrifice because it's natural human religion and so when we read the words of Jesus he doesn't tell me what to sacrifice or the proper words and if we're honest we're disappointed in our natural selves so what's going on well here's where one of the problems one of the things that we have to recapture as Christians is reading not just snippets of the Bible but reading books of the Bible as books of the Bible that

[33:58] Luke doesn't just sort of plunk in these thoughts from Jesus just in the middle of with no context I mean he's been writing a story from Luke chapter 1 verse 1 and if you go back later on and you read what you need to do is you need to read Luke chapter 9 because what you'll discover in Luke chapter 9 is in Luke chapter 9 for the first time Jesus announces to his disciples that he's going to die in Jerusalem and he's going to die a sacrificial death in Jerusalem and then a few verses after that Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem and that means that every single thing that you see from chapter 9 to the middle end of chapter 19 is Jesus walking to Jerusalem to die everything is within that context he's walking to Jerusalem to die upon the cross and he keeps telling his disciples I'm going to Jerusalem to die upon the cross so that gives us a little bit of an understanding of how to understand

[35:07] Jesus' words if you can put it up Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die as God's one perfect complete and all sufficient sacrifice so prayer is now linked with his sacrifice for me not my sacrifice for me that means that when I accept and receive what Jesus has done for me in the cross which is God's provision for me God's provision for me of something that I could never accomplish by myself if I live a life of unbelievable sacrifice

[36:08] I have not added even the tiniest drop to the sacrifice of Jesus and when I receive that which Jesus has done for me once for all perfectly completely and completely and utterly sufficiently I am no more forgiven as I walk into heaven brought into heaven by God than I am right now when I have given my life to Jesus if my prayer is a type of figuring out the sacrifice I can do to get God to owe me there's nothing I can do to get God to owe me I am one only one I am always in his debt I'm always and only in his debt what a glorious debt not debt in a way that crushes us like our debt it's a sacrifice that reconciles me to God fits me for heaven and it's all because God does something

[37:27] I can't do he does it once he does it perfectly he does it completely and he does it in such a way that it's completely and utterly sufficient for everything that makes me me and makes you you that is sufficient to be with him reconciled with him forever actually in a very very subtle way at the original language this is even taught in the text in the original language in the earlier story the guy says come on neighbor loan me bread there's two words in the original language for loan and one of the words for loan says loan and it implies that there's interest charge so that he's saying give me these three loaves of bread and I understand that the interest rate is half a loaf a day and if I don't pay you back by two days in two days I owe you four loaves in four days I owe you five loaves but there's another word for loan that says there's no interest and that's the word that's used in Luke 11 nothing added nothing added by the person asking see here here if we could put up the next thing as we sort of wrap this up to the close as I am gripped by the greatness and the glory of the gospel prayer as ask seek knock grows a smug

[38:54] Christian is a deluded Christian Christian who thinks that they don't need more of God or to know more and have their desires for God grow and his greatness and his glory grow and have greater surrender to desire more a Christian that doesn't desire those things is a deluded Christian one who doesn't want to knock in the presence of God's door and know God's presence more and more is a deluded Christian I'm a deluded Christian when I let those things happen but as I'm gripped by the greatness and the glory of the gospel the gospel is what Jesus accomplishes for me in Jerusalem upon the cross and is once for all perfect complete sacrifice as I'm gripped by the greatness and the glory of the gospel prayer as ask seek knock growth you see it's not that we need the gospel to become a Christian and then after that we don't need the gospel we just need willpower proper techniques proper rituals and oh yeah and then we'll talk about somebody else we need the gospel to get them in the door but then all they need they don't need the gospel we always need the gospel we always need to have a greater greater sense and depth of what it is that

[40:21] Jesus accomplished for us on the cross and as as we're gripped by the greatness and the glory of the gospel as we as we get this sense all of a sudden hopefully by God's Holy Spirit we came in here not realizing our natural human tendencies and natural human religion and now maybe the gospel is coming to our heart the center of who we are and as we start to understand the center of who we are as the gospel is applied to our heart and at the same time it's applied to our heart not to condemn us not to break us down not to make us depressed not to make us despair not to make people think that George is a superstar or somebody else is a superstar such a pastor layperson is a superstar if we go on but as the gospel is applied to our heart in the context of the greatness and the glory of what Jesus does for us in his person and his work prayers ask seek not growth it grows you see we and by the way this is sort of showed in a very very interesting way in the text again remember how it says you know after all of this thing about the stones and the bread in the middle of the night and says if you how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and the Holy Spirit who guides us in prayer who causes us to seek who hope who's God's very presence who's God's very direction who's if God has not withheld his son why can't I ask if God has not withheld his very presence in the person of the Holy

[42:02] Spirit given to me freely not weighing my marriage but pardoning my offenses why can I not speak and ask pray for that man for his kids and for his wife and pray for my own wife and for my family and my church and pray for fruit thanks for the next thing I'll have to do with you and I'll have to do it I'll have to do it for my Lord and I'll have to do you and I'll have to do it and I'll have to do it for you and I'll have to do it prayer not a prayer not a perfect prayer not you do this with the right sacrifice things are going to work sorry folks I'll have to say Lord deliver me from natural human religion have mercy upon me but I'm going to ask you in a moment to stand in a moment to stand and pray with me if the Holy Spirit is pushing putting it upon your heart Father please pour out your Holy Spirit upon me and grant me a humble trusting knowledge of the greatness and the glory and the immensity of your son's death upon the cross for me and so draw me into prayer in Jesus name and for some of you you know maybe this is the moment that you give your lives to Jesus because you see what this wonderful thing is maybe you think you know I thought I you know I spent time I heard about Islam I heard about

[43:13] Buddhism I heard about spiritual not religious I heard about Christianity I heard all it was is rules and and I just couldn't follow those rules I couldn't follow those I'm hopeless at following instructions I'm hopeless at making the right and so and so you turn your back on God but the gospel offers us something different than any form of natural human religion for maybe some of us we are weighed down with depression and despair because we believe that we have put God in our debt and we have not realized that God is never in our debt and so this prayer is to grow a humble trusting knowledge is also maybe for some of us the time that we truly give ourselves to Jesus and begin the Jesus walk with Jesus entering the Jesus way walking with Jesus and others always mindful of this once for all perfect sacrifice for you please stand and as the Holy Spirit leads you please join me in with me because I need this prayer I need this I need something like this every day let's pray father please pour out your Holy Spirit upon me and grant me a humble trusting knowledge of the greatness and the glory of the and the immensity of your son's death upon the cross for me and so draw me into prayer in Jesus's name amen taking a posture of prayer we're now going to go into a time a brief time of intercession

[44:55] Boom operation and this is a ready to change m