Let's pray.
Gracious God, as we come to look at your word now,
and particularly as we look at the issue of prayer
and as Jesus has taught his disciples,
taught us how to pray,
we pray, Father, that we would model that,
model a prayer of discipleship of the Lord Jesus,
that the priorities that have been outlined here in this prayer
will be our priorities,
and we ask it for your sake.
Amen.
One day out in the Canadian wilderness,
an atheist was taking a walk,
admiring the amazing wilderness
that was, in his mind, a freak of accident.
It was an accident.
It was a freak of some random causes.
The wildlife that were there because of some random chance,
the pristine stream that flowed beautifully by
thanks to a bunch of molecules
somehow mistakenly colliding many, many, many, many years ago.
When all of a sudden he was awoken out of his godless dreaming
by a grizzly bear charging at him straight down the trail.
He had no chance.
He knew it.
And before he realized that he was on his back,
pinned to the ground,
with his huge grizzly bear,
one paw on his chest,
another one raised,
ready to strike.
And without even giving it a thought,
he cried out in a loud voice,
God, save me!
Of course, then he realized the inconsistency
of living a life confident that God didn't exist
and then in a moment of need,
decided to call out to him for help.
And so he had a brainwave.
Instead of saving me, God,
what he decided was,
God, if you're there,
make the bear a Christian.
And he figured if the bear was a Christian,
then the bear would need him.
And pretty smart.
He thought it was a pretty smart move
and he was quite surprised
when all of a sudden the bear pulled down its paw,
stepped back,
put his paws together
and said,
for what we're about to receive,
may the Lord make me truly thankful.
When difficulty or danger strikes,
the immediate response of many people is to pray.
Most humans at some point on this planet
will pray at some point in their lives,
usually without giving it much thought at all
about what they are doing.
We notice that children often pray
with a real simplicity and an ease
which adults can't muster up.
And yet I want to say that
prayer for me
is the one thing that exposes my ungodliness.
There is nothing quite like a lack of prayer
or even the kind of prayers that I pray
that really expose what my heart truly is.
I want to be a man of prayer.
Prayer.
And it's the one area in my life
where if it's not humming,
if it's not working,
I feel like a fraud like nothing else.
Prayer, as I said,
is something that we all might do,
even the ungodly do,
but it does expose our ungodliness.
I think that this is a particularly difficult passage for us.
It's a passage that we know so well,
and yet it's a passage which reveals our ungodliness.
Ungodliness in the sense that we go about our daily business,
even good people,
moral people,
religious people go about their daily business
and give no or little thought whatsoever
to the purpose of God,
the glory of God,
or our dependency upon Him day by day.
We attack our work,
we attack our retirement,
we attack our education,
just like anyone else.
We may begin the day in a bit of prayer,
we may end the day with a bit of prayer,
but daily,
as we move from that point,
we give little regard to God's purpose,
His will,
our dependency upon Him,
and His glory.
And that's what I think the Bible calls ungodliness,
going about as if God doesn't exist.
Or our prayers themselves reflect our ungodliness.
Do we pray for kingdom purposes,
or do we have a long list of things
that are just the things
which are troubling us at the moment?
The content of our prayer
can reveal whether or not
we are actually human-centered,
or we're actually God-centered.
You might remember that we are traveling with Jesus,
having resolutely set His face for Jerusalem to die,
and on the way there,
He is clarifying with His disciples
the misconceptions they have
of what it means to follow Him.
And today we see His teaching
on one of the essentials of Christian discipleship,
a life of prayer.
We are looking at the famous,
the most famous of all prayers.
We know it.
We've said it again and again and again
throughout the centuries.
We say it most week in this church.
In fact, we say it in most services most week in this church.
I think that it's ironic that when Matthew records
Jesus' teaching on prayer,
this very passage here in Matthew's Gospel,
he does it in the context of telling Jesus' disciples,
of Jesus telling His disciples
not to go on mindless babbling with words
and not to be like the hypocrites.
And so we have taken Jesus' prayer
and throughout the centuries
have mindlessly babbled His prayer
and not actually understood
what is behind His prayer
instead of just repeating the prayer
but actually seeing it as a model of prayer.
What we know is that Jesus Himself was a man of prayer.
He was praying when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him
like a dove in Luke 3, verse 21.
He began His ministry with a 40-day fast in the wilderness
in chapter 4, verses 1 to 15.
Other times He withdrew into the wilderness to pray
in chapter 5, verse 16.
He prayed all night before choosing the 12,
chapter 6, verse 12.
He was praying alone just before He asked Peter,
who do you say that I am?
In chapter 9, verse 18.
And just before He was transfigured,
He took Peter, James and John on the mountain
to pray in chapter 9, verse 28.
And He was praying here at the beginning of our text
in Luke 11, verse 1.
As a man, Jesus sought His strength
and His guidance from His Father in prayer.
From this alone,
we should feel motivated to make prayer
more central in our lives.
I want to be a man of prayer more than ever.
Jesus also taught us to pray.
It's an amazing thing, isn't it?
His disciples, religious people themselves,
go to Jesus and said, teach us to pray.
I mean, haven't you guys been doing that all of your life?
Isn't that what you do?
And they said to Jesus, you need to teach us to pray.
In other words, teach us the priorities of prayer.
Jesus taught us to pray.
He made amazing promises to us about prayer.
And so He lived a life of prayer
and He taught us a life of prayer.
It is the will of the Lord Jesus
that St. Paul's be a church of prayer.
That this building that we're seated in now
be a house of prayer.
That our people be given daily to prayer.
Prevailing prayer for personal needs,
for the power of the Spirit,
for the progress of the Gospel
and for the glory of God's name.
They're the things that Jesus teaches us here.
The first thing Jesus teaches us
is to make our praying God-centered.
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray
in verse 1,
He says in verse 2,
When you pray, say,
Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Notice here that these are requests.
All of the Lord's prayer is actually requests.
It's not prayer, thanks, it's not praise.
Jesus says,
Our first desire,
our first request,
should be that God's name be hallowed or glorified
and that His kingdom be advanced
and that His kingdom would come.
That's what I mean when I say God-centered prayer.
The glory of God's name and the advancement of God's kingdom
are the primary concerns of this prayer.
The God-centeredness or lack of it
has to be the difference between mature prayer
and immature prayer.
I know plenty of non-Christians who pray.
But the difference is between God-centeredness
and human-centeredness
in their praying.
The plea is that we have Jesus' priorities in praying,
namely that the Father's name be hallowed
and that His kingdom come.
If this feels foreign to you,
if you have never pleaded for the name of God to be hallowed
or the kingdom of God to come,
then I want to say to you,
don't be content.
Don't be content today to stay stuck
at an immature level of prayer.
Don't be content with that.
Instead, say in a fresh new way to God,
this week, today,
this coming week,
for the rest of this year,
Father, hallowed be your name
in my life and in my prayers
for this coming year,
for the year to come,
change my prayer life
so that it becomes God-centered.
God's name will be vindicated
among the nations as true and glorious.
His kingdom will come.
But He has decreed
that we will have a hand
in His triumph
through our prayers.
So make the glory of God
the center of your prayers.
Pray again and again and again
with as many different words
as you can think of.
Father,
let your name be hallowed
and let your kingdom come.
Jesus also teaches us here
to pray with a sense of security
in the Father's love.
Jesus doesn't want us
to feel insecure in our prayers.
He shows this mainly
by teaching us
to call God Father
when we pray to Him.
Then in verses 11 to 13,
if you have a look at that,
He unpacks for us
some of the security
implied in this word.
Father,
which of you fathers,
if your son asks you for a fish,
will give him a snake instead?
Or if he asks for an egg,
will give him a scorpion?
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?
The words,
how much more,
mean that God
is much more inclined
to hear us
and help us
when we pray
than our earthly fathers are.
Jesus wants us
to feel secure
in the Father's love
when we come
to Him in prayer.
He does not want us
to feel precarious
or unsure
of our acceptance
or fearful
that we will find
the Father
out of sorts
or unconcerned
with the aspects
of my daily life.
This sense of security
is utterly crucial
in the life of prayer
and the life of worship.
You cannot sustain
a life of prayer
if you believe
that God is angry with you
or you believe
that He just does not care.
Prayer is sustained
by the confidence
that God
is our Father
and that He
is concerned
and that
His disposition
is just what
Jesus says it is.
He is more
inclined
to give
what we need
than the best
human father
is.
That's incredible.
That's incredible
that God
would be that disposed
positively
towards me.
But we need
to remember
that if we're
going to be
people of prayer.
It's what I've
written on the
bulletin blurb
on the front
of your bulletin
this morning
about the four
points
for significant
things that
Jerry Bridges
outlines
and one of those
things that he says
is we need to
daily appropriate
the gospel
to ourselves
or as another
way I've heard
him put it
we need to
daily preach
the gospel
to ourselves
to remind us
again and
again
God's disposition
towards me
and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Jesus also
teaches us
to prevail
in prayer
without doubting
the Father's
love.
He teaches
us to hang
in there
persevering
persisting
not giving
up
keep on
asking
and seeking
and knocking
at heaven's
door
until the answer
comes
or until
God says
stop praying
it feels
inconsistent
though doesn't
it?
I mean
if God
is more
caring
than the
best
heavenly
father
then why
why would
he sometimes
be so slow
to respond
to my
prayer
if he's
such a
good God?
Jesus
tells the story
in verses
five to
eight of the
man who
goes to
his friend's
house in
the middle
of the
night
to say
that a
guest has
just arrived
there isn't
enough
in the
house
to feed
him
could
you
please
give
me
three
loaves
of
bread
the
man
says
the
door's
locked
he must
look out
of his
bedroom
window
the
door's
locked
children
are asleep
in his
room
don't bother
me
anymore
but his
friend
keeps
knocking
and keeps
asking
until the
man gets
up
not because
of his
friendship
notice
this
it's not
because
of his
friendship
but because
of the
man's
prevailing
and persisting
and persevering
in knocking
in other
words he
annoyed
him
until he
got out
of his
bed and
went
downstairs
and opened
the door
it seems
an unpleasant
image of the
matter of
prayer doesn't
it
but immediately
in verse
nine
Jesus says
there is a
lesson for us
to learn
ask and it
will be given
you
seek and you
will find
knock and
it will be
open to you
three things
here stress
the importance
of prevailing
and not
giving up
in our
prayer life
one is
that the
tension
the original
language
means to
keep on
asking
to keep
on seeking
to keep
on knocking
the second
is the fact
that Jesus
commands
this continuous
action
three times
and he
even repeats
it again
in verse
10
the third
thing that
stress is
prevailing
is that the
three words
used get
increasingly
close to
the answer
and show
a pressing
in on
God
ask
as it
were
for the
guy in
the house
seek until
you find
it
and then
knock until
the door
is opened
ask it
seek until
you find
it and
then knock
until the
door is
open
asking is
the simplest
and requires
no movement
seeking
turns
asking into
an activity
of pursuit
knocking on
and on
the door
again and
again signifies
utter earnestness
and perhaps
even a sense
of desperation
temptation
and so
Jesus clearly
wants us to
be like
this friend
who just
kept knocking
he wants us
to prevail
in our
prayers
but then he
makes a sudden
turn in verse
11 and
shifts from
the image
of the
grumpy
friend
to the
image of
the caring
father
the point
Jesus is
getting across
is that
prevailing
prayer
persisting
persevering
in prayer
is utterly
important for
us
utterly
important for
us
and he
stamps this
truth on
our memories
with a
shocking image
of a friend
who won't
help without
being bothered
enough to
help
but then
Jesus qualifies
his point in
verses 11 to
13 by saying
that God is
not like that
friend
God is not
like that
friend
he's like
the most
caring
father
imaginable
so yes
God
sometimes
gives us
what we
need
only after
a long
season
of prevailing
and persisting
in prayer
but no
it's not
because he's
uncaring
it's not
because he's
insensitive
it's not
because he's
unable
so why
why does
he postpone
it for so
long
I think
Jesus gives
us some
clues
indirectly
in verses
11 to
13
it says
in verse
11 that
a good
father will
not give
his son a
serpent if
he asks
for a
fish
in other
words
the good
father only
gives his
children what
is good
for them
he only
gives them
what is
good for
them
so this
morning
6.30
Isabel
gets up
take her
downstairs
she heads
straight
for where
she knows
the biscuit
tin is
and goes
biscuit
and if
Natalie
wasn't
there
maybe I
might have
given in
but
but no
we have
breakfast
first
and then
she doesn't
want the
biscuit
anymore
I didn't
give in
and give
it to
her
because I
know it's
not good
for her
right there
and right
then
it doesn't
mean I
never give
her
biscuits
but not
first thing
in the
morning
it's not
what I
have for
breakfast
it's the
only answer
that Jesus
gives to our
question in
this text
when the
father in
heaven gives
us a slow
answer
when he
wills that
we prevail
for a
season
it is
because he
is giving
us a fish
and not a
serpent
he is
giving us
what is
good for
us
there is
something in
the prevailing
there is
something in
the asking
the seeking
the knocking
that we
frankly need
as his
disciples
we need
that prevailing
it is good
for us
he knows
what's best
the promise
that will
encourage us
in prevailing
in prayer
is verse
10
I'll read
it with a
little bit
of a twist
based on
the original
language
everyone who
goes on
asking
receives
and he
who goes
on seeking
finds
and to him
who goes
on knocking
it will be
opened
God is not
unresponsive
to prevailing
prayer
the final
teaching that
Jesus gives
us on
prayer is
in
it's if you
like a
circling back
to the very
beginning
to the first
point of
God
centeredness
in our
prayer
and if I
understand
Jesus here
he means
for us
that the
prevailing
heartbeat
of our
life here
as a
church
he means
for us
to be
prevailing
in our
prayer
in Jesus
teaches
in verse
13
that our
prevailing
in prayer
should be
prevailing
for the
Holy Spirit
if you
then
even though
you are
evil
know how
much
how to
give good
gifts to
your
children
how much
more will
your
Father in
heaven
give you
the Holy
Spirit
to those
who ask
him
it's a
prevailing
asking
seeking
knocking
that we
might receive
the Spirit
it is no
accident that
Luke tells
us in
chapter 3
verse 21
that while
Jesus was
praying
the Holy
Spirit
descended on
him like
a dove
or that
the
outpouring
of the
Spirit
at
Pentecost
came
at the
climax
of
10
day
prayer
vigil
or in
Acts
chapter 4
verse 31
that when
the church
had prayed
the place
where they
gathered
was shaken
and they
were filled
with the
Holy
Spirit
prevailing
prayer
is the
pathway
to the
outpouring
of the
Holy
Spirit
when you
prevail
in prayer
for the
outpouring
of the
Holy
Spirit
more is
happening
in your
life
through
this
prevailing
prayer
than you
could
ever
imagine
God
waits
because
our
prevailing
is good
for us
and so
may the
Lord
prevent
us
friends
from
losing
heart
and
failing
in the
very
thing
we
need
mighty
prevailing
prayer
so let
us
enter
this
week
let us
enter
this
week
with
God
centered
prayer
with a
sense
of
security
in the
fatherly
care
of God
with a
new
resolve
to
prevail
and
persist
in
prayer
without
doubting
God's
love
and let
us prevail
specifically
in praying
for the
outpouring
of the
Holy
Spirit
amongst
us
here
his
power
his
gifts
his
full
blessing
all
the
while
rejoicing
that
the
prevailing
itself
is a
great
work
of the
indwelling
Spirit
of the
living
God
and so
let us
pray
let us
pray
and take
the words
of the
Lord's
prayer
and put
them in
my
language
let's
pray
our
gracious
God
and loving
heavenly
father
we long
to see
you
honored
more
and more
in our
church
and in
our
city
cause
your
name
to be
hallowed
and glorified
amongst
us
magnify
your
worth
and your
glory
here
in our
lives
we pray
that your
kingdom
rule
would come
in each
one of
these
hearts
that are
here
right
now
that your
kingdom
will come
and it
will rule
we also
pray
Lord
that your
kingdom
will be
established
here on
earth
we pray
for the
speedy
coming
of the
Lord
Jesus
Christ
we
ask
Lord
that your
kingly
rule
would be
taken up
here more
and more
fully
over our
church
over our
lives
our
families
our
city
over our
ministries
speed the
day we
pray of
Christ's
final
appearing
we ask
Lord
that you
would meet
our
physical
needs
so that
we can
press on
with joy
in the
work
you've
called
us
to
for your
namesake
forgive us
oh Lord
where we
have sinned
and fallen
short of
your glory
where we
have gone
day by
day
in
ungodliness
without reference
to you
your purposes
your name
keep us
Lord as
well from
entangling
temptations
that are
in this
world
that are
designed
to trip
us up
and that
will bring
criticism
to your
name
and your
people
and we
ask this
through
Jesus
Christ
our
Lord
Amen