Luke 11:5-13

Discussion Questions

• Do you struggle with persistence in your own prayer life? Have you ever “given up” praying for something?
• Is there something you need to let go of in your heart, in order to more sincerely ask, seek & knock?
• Can you share a story of a time when you recognized God’s answer to your prayer? How did this experience impact your life?
• What steps can you take today to improve your practice of persistent prayer?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. And today we continue our study of Luke’s gospel. We have extra copies. If you didn’t bring one with you and you’d like one to follow along, just raise your hand up real high. Somebody will drop one off at your row. We also wanted to thank those who joined us online over the last week for worship, or for a Bible study of some sort, or one of our small groups that happens to meet online as well. We had folks from, let’s see, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia; from Nairobi, Kenya; from Windsor, Ontario, Canada and from Peachtree City, Georgia. That’s good. I like all of those places and I’m so grateful that we were able to have those folks join us. What a privilege, honor to be able to gather with some of God’s people from all around the world, as well as just down the road in Georgia as well.

We’re in Luke, Chapter 11 and we’re going to call our study “The Gift, Privilege and Power of Prayer.” It’s kind of Prayer Part Two, isn’t it? Last week we did Luke’s version of what we call The Lord’s Prayer. It’s shorter than that we recite and pray each week. Here is from Matthew, Chapter six and in Luke, Chapter 11, verses one through four, which we studied last week. We have what would be typically referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, but the shorter version or the edited version. And others see it as a completely different teaching of Jesus on prayer, just happens to be similar, because He actually believes the same things about prayer every time He taught them.

So, either way it’s fine with me. I like that it’s in the context of those four verses that we enter into now, verses five through 13 today. Prayer is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. It’s an open invitation to communicate with, to actually commune with our maker, the Creator of the entire universe. And He has invited you and me, as we saw last week, to call Him Father, to be in an intimate, close familial relationship with God. And at the same time realize that He’s the creator of everything that exists, that He is King of Kings, Lord of Lords. He’s that almighty and yet that close to us as well. Yet, if we’re honest, most of us would admit we come to prayer so often with mixed motives, with distracted hearts and uncertain faith sometimes. I am among the folks who could say that. And I would confess that Jesus teaches us, here in the passage we’re going to look at today, that prayer is not only a gift but it’s a privilege. It’s also a source of transforming grace and power in our lives.

And Jesus will urge us to ask to seek and to knock. You’ll read that today, as we go through this passage. And that’s probably the most familiar portion of what we’re about to read. But I just want us to know that Jesus, in telling this parable that He tells here in this passage, is comparing God the Father not to the guy that is looking for the loaf of bread, but He’s actually contrasting God the Father with this neighbor that the guy goes to ask for bread. And we’ll see how that works out in just a moment. When I was a kid, I don’t know if this happened when you were a kid, but I used to have a sense that there were a lot of rules to prayer. How many of you were ever told that you needed to bow your head … Anybody? Close your eyes? Were you ever told that? Fold your hands sometimes. And we even have the emoji nowadays that we use so often, all of us that are … “Yeah. I’m praying for you,” that kind of thing.

So, we had a lot of rules. And when I was growing up, there were a number of those and some of us kids, we would say … If we caught one of the other kids with their eyes open during a prayer, we would say, “Your prayer doesn’t count,” that kind of thing. And of course, they’d say, “Well, how’d you know I had my eyes open?” And then I as a kid, a younger guy, when I was reading the Bible, I would get to some place where Jesus prayed, and I was always fascinated by that. And one time, I just remember the first time I ever read and noticed it, that it said He lifted up His eyes to the heaven and He prayed. And the thought crossed my mind that Jesus’ prayer didn’t count, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Later on in life I came across this little book. Some of you probably have this little book. And I learn a lot by listening to other people pray. I learn a lot of course, listening to my wife pray. The Lord has given her a gift and she voices what’s on our hearts, both in terms of our laments as well as our confidence in God, and I appreciate this so much.

This little book is called Children’s Letters to God. It’s been around for a long, long time. I keep it and every now and then I just go back and read some of them. They’re short. You can probably see it. They’re very, very short little one-sentence prayers. And some of them are quite inspiring. Some of them are odd, but you learn a lot I think from listening to people pray, and you learn a lot, especially I think from kids. I like this one from Alison: “Dear God, I read in the Bible the word “begat.” What does that mean? Nobody else seems to know,” and that’s interesting. Marnie writes, “Dear God, on Halloween I’m going to wear a devil’s costume. Is that going to be all right with You?” That’s good, Marnie. I appreciate that.

Anita writes her prayer out. It’s “Dear God, is it true that my father won’t get into heaven if he uses his “bowling words” in the house?” So, he’s probably on the church league and everything. I don’t know. I like this one. I’ll read just a few of these. “Dear God, do animals use You or do they have somebody else?” That’s just a curious thought. Do animals have some kind of a thing, or what? “Dear God,” Dennis writes, “My grandpa says you were around when he was a little boy. How far back do You go?” In the beginning … Yeah. Right. Right. This might ruffle your feathers: “Dear God, I’m an American. What are You? Robert.” That should stir us up a little bit, probably in a good way. Joyce writes, “Dear God, thank You for the baby brother, but what I wanted was a puppy.” It gets really good.

Let’s see, I wanted to go to the back. They saved some of the best ones for the last. I just think this is good: “Dear God, I think about You sometimes even when I’m not praying,” and I thought man, that’s a challenge to me as an adult, to think that a child would do that. “Dear God, my brother told me about being born, but it doesn’t sound right.” Kids, they are honest, they think about some of this stuff. “Dear God, I don’t ever feel alone, since I found out about You.” See that’s true and that’s the way I feel too. Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer how to pray, and when we look at the one that we pray every single week, we note that it’s all in the plural.

So, Jesus reminding us in the model prayer that He gives us to pray, that you, if you have chosen Jesus as your Savior, if you’ve been saved, if you’ve belong to Jesus, if you’ve entered His kingdom and you now are a disciple of Jesus, you’re never alone for the rest of eternity. Even though there’s an epidemic of loneliness out there. Ironically, in spite of the fact that we are all more connected than ever before, there is this epidemic of loneliness. And yet for the Christian we can say never alone again. Not only do you belong to Jesus, but you belong to everyone else who belongs to Jesus and that’s a really wonderful thing. As we look at this passage, it’s fascinating that we move from the prayer He taught us to pray where it’s in the plural. Now, we move to a prayer that it seems to me He’s really focusing in on the personal aspect of prayer, and I think that’s quite helpful. Look with me at the text, if you will. Luke 11, verses five through thirteen.

He said to them, this is right after that Lukean version of the Lord’s Prayer. “Suppose one of you,” … So how many? One of you. “Suppose one of you has a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him.’ And from inside he shall answer and say, ‘Do not bother me. The door has already been shut. My children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.'” And so, Jesus continues, and Jesus says, “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything, because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.” In other words, the guy just keeps banging on the door. It’s late at night, he keeps pounding. He’s desperate. He knows that Middle Eastern hospitality requires him to supply whoever comes to visit him with food and shelter.

As a matter of fact, in some traditions you would be spat upon the next day if you had failed in your duty to provide hospitality in that part of the world. And so, they saw things much differently then. So, this guy, Jesus says, maybe he isn’t going to get out of bed, because he’s your neighbor, but maybe if this guy keeps persistently banging on the door, he’ll get him out of bed. That’ll happen. Well, Jesus says, “’I say to you,’” and now he’s addressing the people directly after having said, given this little parable, “’I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you.’”

It’d be great if you circle those three verbs, “ask,” “seek” and “knock.” Even if you have a pew Bible, feel free to mark it up a little bit. Those are three really important verbs there. Everyone who asks, Jesus says, receives. “’He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it shall be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers [those of you who have children] is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake.’” The father won’t give the child a snake instead of a fish, will he? “’Or if he asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you, then [you fathers that he’s talking to] if you then being evil[ you being sinners, you being imperfect fathers] if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?’”

Really, really great verses. Really helpful when we think about prayer. And I want to make four points along the way. I’ll start first, though, with this little Richard Foster quote. “The truth of the matter is, we will all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives, altruistic and selfish.” Okay. So, on the one hand you want to be generous, philanthropic and all that. But, at the same time you’re selfish. Right? You also have the mixed motives of mercy and hatefulness. You’re also loving and bitter. “Frankly, this side of eternity,” Foster says, “We will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it.”

And I think Foster’s right there. That’s from his book called Prayer. Highly recommend it to you. Matter of fact, at the end of the sermon, I’ll be coming back around to it again. It is one of those really good books. So, I’m going to make four points. One, that prayer is both a gift and a privilege. That would be the first thing I’d like to highlight for us here. Jesus teaching on prayer is continuing here from this Lord’s Prayer that He taught, this version of it. And in spite of the fact that back then they might’ve had a lot of memorized prayers, just as for us, this is a memorized prayer. Jesus wants us to know that it’s supposed to still be dynamic, living, active, okay?

So, because the words “say” and “pray” rhyme. I find myself every now and then going, “Let’s say and pray,” because I might sometimes only say. But I know I need to pray The Lord’s Prayer when I get to those words up there. And I know that I need to do that together with you. It is in the plural in Matthew’s version. This little section that we’re talking about, Jesus posits a little scenario, a parable if you will, of someone who needed something from the next-door neighbor, so that they could be hospitable to someone else. And so, they go and they ask. That person gets a little grumpy and annoyed by the pounding and the asking, and it’s late at night and “you’re inconveniencing me,” and all that sort of thing. And Jesus makes the point that you just persist, you persist with your neighbor and maybe or likely, your neighbor will get out of bed and finally give you something, because you banged on that door long enough and hard enough.

And then He turns our attention to God the Father, because He wants to contrast God the Father to the neighbor that has to be stirred up like that, annoyed, and who responds in a grumpy way. He’s basically telling us your Father is neither grumpy nor annoyed when you ask, when you seek, when you knock. That’s really important for us to know. Keller says, “We have learned that prayer is both an instinct and a spiritual gift. As an instinct, prayer is a response to our innate but fragmentary knowledge of God.” It’s instinctive. We’ll go “help!” like that. Yeah? “It is like a note in a bottle to ‘whatever gods there be.’” And there’s a whole lot of people that yell “help.” Even people who aren’t Christians will yell “help” to the God they don’t believe in. Even atheists occasionally, who say they’re atheists or agnostics, who say, “We just don’t know if there’s a God at all,” will find themselves occasionally crying out to the God they don’t know, if that God exists, because they’re desperate.

And they innately, they intrinsically, know they must get outside help in that moment, even though most of the moments of their lives they would deny the existence of God. Keller goes on to say though, when prayer becomes “a gift of the Spirit, however, prayer becomes the continuation of a conversation God has started.” So, when I say prayer is both a gift and a privilege, I want you to know you didn’t create prayer, neither did I. And even that impulsive scream, the cry for help, the prayer of the atheist, the agnostic, the Christian and anybody else that ever cries out to God, even that is a gift that God has put in our hearts. He made the first move every time. And He’s the one that somehow or another designed and wired us to want to reach outside of ourselves and look for some kind of help. Knowing, recognizing, that He’s actually invited us to pray, I think is really helpful. So, prayer is a gift.

And it’s a privilege. Secondly, I want to highlight that just a little bit too, because in the story He told, the guy that needs the loaves has to go next door, because he wants to get some bread, because this other person is coming along to visit him. And I just want you to know the privilege that you have is that you don’t even have to go next door. If you’re a Christian, if you’re a person who is a Christian, I want you to know something. You are united with Christ. His life is in you and your life is in Him. As a matter of fact, in the New Testament, the term “Christian,” is really only used about three or four times. Begins in The Book of Acts when a centurion, I think it is, notices something about all of the Christian believers in Syria and Antioch, that town up in Syria that was called Antioch. There’s several towns called Antioch, but that’s why it’s called Syrian Antioch.

But he notices something about them that they’re like little Christs, and so he calls them Christians three or four times in our New Testament. But you know how many times it said of believers in the New Testament that they are “in Christ”? Or “in Him?” And the personal pronoun is a reference to Jesus. At least 160. I’m going to say it’s actually more, but at least 160 times it’s said that you are followers of Jesus. You who have trusted, you belong to Jesus, and you know it. Your lives are hidden together with Christ. You’re knit together with Christ. You can’t be separated, because it’s God that put you together with Him. It’s the Holy Spirit that baptizes us into the body of Christ. It’s the Holy Spirit that actually converts us. In conversion we are placed into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit and that’s a work of God, you see?

And so that’s the beautiful thing about it. It’s really comforting to me. It is a gift and a privilege. You don’t even have to go next door. You know why? Because God is as close as your heartbeat and your breath. That’s not the same thing as what’s popular out here in this day and time, when a lot of people say, “Pray to the God in you because you are God.” No. We’re not saying you are God. We’re saying you belong to God. And we’re saying that God has knit you together with Himself and invited you to live in union with Christ. And that’s closer than your heartbeat, closer than your next breath. You don’t have to go next door, and you certainly don’t have to bang on the door over and over and over again, trying to get God to hear you. Jesus makes that very clear.

Dale Ralph Davis has a commentary on The Book of Judges, which we’ve studied here at the Village Chapel. Loved studying through it. It’s just full of God’s grace. But in it there was this one little quote that I thought applied to our study today. “If Yahweh’s … ” This is, “If God’s help were given only when we prayed for it, only when we asked for it, only when we had sense enough to seek it, what paupers and orphans we would be.” You see how eager he’s saying Yahweh, God, the God of the Bible, who reveals His personal name in the Old Testament as Yahweh … Do you see how eager He is for us to come to Him and to ask, to seek, to knock? Dale Ralph is making the point we’d be paupers if it was left to us. But it’s not because I know the Lord has been answering lots of your prayers and my prayers, before I even thought to pray about them.

Let me try this. How many of you in this room … We did this last hour or two. How many in this room only recognized in hindsight that God did something in your life, that if you’d have known that it was coming up, you would have prayed about it, but you didn’t pray about it? And in hindsight, in their rear-view mirror redemption, you look, and you go, “Oh. Look what God did and I didn’t even pray.” Is that you? Raise your hand if that’s you. Yeah. See, God is at work in your life and sometimes we just don’t even recognize it until it’s in the rear-view mirror, until we find that Jesus beckoning us to come and to ask and to seek and to knock, which is really the next point I want to make, is to take a look at those verbs.

Prayer encourages us to ask, to seek and to knock. All three of the verbs. This is fascinating. I’m not a Greek scholar, I just know enough, I’m dangerous enough with a Greek dictionary. I can look some of this stuff up. Okay? All three of these verbs are in the present tense. That is, ask now. Okay? But they’re in the active voice and the imperative mood. The imperative mood means they’re a command. So, Jesus is saying this to us. “Ask and keep on asking.” Present tense, “Continue to ask. Keep on asking.” It’s in the active voice. And so, you’re constantly asking, you’re constantly seeking, you’re constantly knocking. And the difference between what Jesus is saying there and what He has said in the parable is that the one guy is banging on the door, and he becomes an annoyance. And the guy in the house there with the bread that he wants gets grumpy about the whole thing. Right?

And Jesus says that because of his persistence, the guy will get up and give him bread. And what Jesus is trying to contrast is with the Father, not only is He closer than the next door neighbor, He’s as close as you simply praying to Him on the way to work, or on the way to the next conversation with your spouse or your roommate, or whatever it is. He’s that close. And that you ask, keep on asking, you seek, keep on seeking, you knock, and you keep on knocking, because the promise is there from Jesus. If you ask, you’ll receive, you seek, you’ll find, you knock, it’ll be opened unto you. What an amazing promise that is. What an amazing invitation that leads to a promise. The question is now, will I respond? Will I believe? Will I pray?

Now, there are other kinds of prayers. Jesus isn’t here teaching about adoring God, or confessing our sins to God, unless that’s part of asking for His forgiveness. And for as you repent, of course, you might do that in that way as well. But this is more about petitionary prayer. And more often than not, actually, throughout our Bibles when we read about somebody praying, there’s a petition involved. They’re often asking for something, seeking something or knocking for something. Look up on the screen there. The difference between the three … They overlap, of course they do. We would even with our English words, ask, seek and knock, we would agree with that. But I just tried to differentiate a little bit between them; asking acknowledges my dependence and my need.

That is one of the most amazing things that God can do in our own hearts, is to bring us to the place where we actually acknowledge that He’s God and we are not. That we’re the ones that are in need, that we are the ones who are coming to Him in humility, bowing before Him, lifting up the empty hands of faith as Francis Schaeffer used to say. And anticipating that He will hear our prayers. Because why? We’re invited to pray. Seeking reminds us that we may draw near. When I think about that, it’s like I’m looking for something. Seeking, asking, seeking and then knocking. You’re really getting close. You’re at the door now, you’re starting to knock. “Yes, God. Yes. This is what I want to pray about. This is what I want to give to you.”

And what happens in the process a lot of times for me … I don’t know if this is true for you or not. A lot of times for me I ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking and the circumstances may change, or they may not change the thing I’m praying about. But what does change is me. He changes me as I humble myself before Him and ask, as I recognize that He’s wiser than I am. As I understand that he’s God, he knows what’s best. He knows what’s good. See, I think I know what’s good all the time. I think I know what the outcome should be and how it should be brought about. And yet here Jesus is reminding us over and over again, we come to the Lord, we come with our petitions as we’re instructed to do. That’s right. But we recognize that He’s God, we are not. He’s wise, we aren’t nearly as wise as God is.

And it’s really important for us to keep all of that in mind. Lewis said it this way. “Prayer is request. The essence of prayer as a request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures like us, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them.” So, like the question I asked before and asked you to raise your hands, how many of … And I might’ve asked this last week, but I’m going to do it again. How many of us in the room went to the Lord requesting something that was not given to us? It was denied. And you may have been quite passionate about that prayer, you might’ve been certain that was the highest good you could achieve and the way your heart would just flourish. And yet God didn’t give it to you. And in hindsight, you’re really glad He did not give it to you. Raise your hand. Please high, because you’re now testifying for a bunch of people need to see this.

Yeah. That’s really true for a lot of us. We understand in that experience, don’t we, that God knows better than we do? The apostle Paul was really clear about this, just as Jesus was. He says, “Be anxious for nothing,” in Philippians 4. “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” He goes on to say, “and then this peace of God which passes all understanding will be yours.” Now I’d do it again, but I think you’re probably getting tired of raising your hands. But how many of you have known the peace of God that has passed your understanding? You’ve been in the moment, you’ve been in something, you’ve gone through something or maybe you’re going through it right now, and you can’t explain. It passes understanding how it is that you are at peace in that moment. I see a lot of heads gone like this. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of us know that experience.

How quickly I forget, though. And that’s why I need to be reminded by reading a passage like this, and I need to be reminded by gathering with other people who have had this kind of experience with the God of the Bible, who has been faithful to His promises and His invitation for me to come ask and keep on asking, come and seek, keep on seeking knock and to continue knocking. God is that great to us. But, on the God side of all of this, here’s what’s really beautiful. Our Father is delighted, He’s actually delighted, when we come to Him, when we come to Him with those kinds of prayers. He really loves us. He’s not in bed with his kids grumpy, because you’re banging on the door. That’s not God, Jesus says. So don’t think of God that way.

Sometimes I’ve been that way and maybe occasionally you catch something like that in a little book like the children’s prayers where it’s, “God, I know you’re really busy. I know you’re managing the entire universe right now. And that’s probably taxing to you. Isn’t that? And here I am. And what I wanted to pray about was the fact that I can’t get the curl out of my hair today, I’m trying to straighten my hair.” Or “Lord, I am late for work. Can you just give me green lights on the way to work? I need green lights here. I know You’re busy. I know You’re trying to solve all the problems but could I … ” And here’s the point I’m trying to make: Your Heavenly Father delights that you come to Him and there is nothing so small that He wouldn’t be delighted for you to come to Him and bring to Him. I’m not saying you’re going to get green lights all the way to work, though. I’m not saying that. I’m simply saying your Father loves it when you come to Him.

Whether it’s something as banal as the curl in your hair that you want to straighten out, or the straight hair that you want to curl. It seems none of us are satisfied, are we? But He loves for His children to come to Him. That’s the God of the Bible. Isn’t that different from all of the other kinds of gods you hear about that are demanding you to balance out the moral scales? And if you can just barely tip the scales to like 51% good deeds, over 49% bad deeds, maybe he won’t squash you or burn you alive in hell. See the God of the Bible is just; He loves you. He’s delighted when you come to Him. And He wants you to come asking, seeking and knocking. So do that, delight the Lord in that way.

D.L. Moody once said that “Some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking.” And then Moody makes this slam dunk point. Look “The way to trouble God is not the come at all.” You want to upset God? Ignore Him. Don’t ever come to Him. Don’t use the gift He’s given you. Don’t access Him like you can. He’s closer than your next-door neighbor. Even if your neighbor’s not grumpy, He’s closer than that too. And so, you ought, and I ought, to do that. We should go to Him. Spurgeon, I love this quote, “Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the Lord with all thy jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores.” Is that you today? “He alone can heal, and He delights to do it. It is our Lord’s office to bind up the brokenhearted, and He is gloriously at home at it.” Man, there’s so much there and it just makes my heart thrilled when I think about this.

Now, Jesus says something at the end of the passage that we studied. Look at verses 12 and 13 again. He’s describing that if one of the fathers has a son that comes to him in verse 11, if they come asking for a fish, an earthly father wouldn’t give him a snake, would he? If he comes asking for an egg, you wouldn’t give him a scorpion, would you? And I know most of us … Raise your hands if you don’t like snakes. There’s a few of us. How about scorpions? Yeah. I don’t care for these, chocolate or not. I don’t care how you cook them. I’m not interested in any of that stuff at all. But Jesus’ point is, you human beings actually have mixed motives all the time, including in your relationships with your children, including in your relationships with your friends or your spouse, or your roommates or your co-workers; you’ve got mixed motives all the time. So do I. And they show up in my prayers. That’s true.

But if you, all of us, being evil like that, know how to give good gifts to our children, our co-workers, our spouses, our friends, whatever; how much more shall your heavenly Father give? And then He says this, “the Holy Spirit to those who ask.” What is that about? What we wanted was the cash, and the condo and the car. And you’re offering the Holy Spirit. Are we supposed to be Pentecostals, all of us? What is that about? Are we supposed to be swinging from the chandeliers and running up and down the aisles and all that? Is that what this is? No. I know a lot of people think the Holy Spirit only manifests in noisy ways, but I got news for the Holy Spirit manifests in quiet ways as well. And I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful for it, and so are all the Presbyterians. But I’m really grateful for it. The Holy Spirit is not only about noise. He’s not only about sensationalism. He does some pretty amazing things sometimes.

But again, it always goes back to prayer as a request, God knows what’s best. God’s in charge of the outcomes. Will we trust Him? Yes. We can come and ask and keep on asking. Yes. We can come and seek and keep on seeking; we can knock and keep on knocking. And in the process of all of that, the Lord is doing some really great things in our hearts and in our lives. Sometimes again, it’s not the circumstances He wants to work on. He who knows best. He who knows what’s truly good for your highest good, knows that He wants you to learn something about Him and your relationship with Him. And so, He invites you to ask and keep on asking and to seek and keep on seeking.

And He wants to give you more of the Holy Spirit. Here’s the roll. This is not a comprehensive list. This is just some of the things the Holy Spirit does in your life and my life. And why, as I was thinking about those last two verses, the last verse especially, I thought to myself, “Well, why would I pray for more of the Holy Spirit in my life?” Well, there’s some really good reasons. Because He convinces me of what’s true in God’s eyes. And this, by the way, points out the difference. This is not about your truth or my truth. This is about God’s truth. Well, how arrogant of you to suggest that you think you know what God’s truth is. I’m not saying I myself created that. I’m simply saying I point to this book, because I think it’s the platform from which we hear from God. And God’s truth is in His Word. And that’s why we study through books of the Bible here. And so, I’m glad the Holy Spirit convinces us of God’s truth, convicts us of our sin, converts us into new creations in Christ. I need that.

I’m so glad he connects me to the body of Christ. I don’t want to be alone. Do you want to be alone? I’ve seen a lot of lonely people of all ages in my time as a pastor – people who are ostracized, marginalized by all the others in their peer group, made fun of, bullied all kinds of different people who just are lonely. There’s an epidemic of loneliness out there. But, when you belong to Jesus, you belong to everybody else who belongs to Jesus. The Spirit comforts us in all our trials. Who doesn’t want more of that? He conforms us to the image of Christ. If I had another line there, I’d say He pours courage into me to trust Him and believe, and to place my hope and confidence in him.

So, there’s a lot that the Holy Spirit does, and I want more of the Holy Spirit. And I hope that you do too. Jesus wants us to have more of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself is the true and better friend of the friends that were mentioned in that parable there. Jesus Himself, God the Father and the Holy Spirit together are closer to us than a neighbor that we might be able to annoy into giving us a loaf of bread or two. Jesus Himself is the bread of life. He doesn’t just have it, He is it. And that’s why we keep running to Him. He’s the way, the truth and the life. He doesn’t just have the truth or point out the truth. He is the truth. And so, you always see the Bible pointing you to see God as your greatest need is met in Him. And you, if you’re a Christian, are in Him. And He is in you.

I’ll close with this second quote from Foster. “Slowly, almost imperceptibly, there is a shift in our center of gravity. We pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realization we are part of His life. Wondrously and mysteriously God moves from the periphery of our prayer experience to the center.” So, Village Chapel, let us come to Him. Let us go to Him. Jesus is calling, he’s calling you, he’s calling me. And let’s not just go occasionally, not just when we’re here for this one-hour experience that we have corporately together. And it’s rich and it’s beautiful, and I love to be together with God’s people. But let’s all week long hear His summons, His call for us to commune with Him in prayer.

Some of you stopped praying about some stuff that was on the top of your prayer list. And you stopped because you think God isn’t hearing your prayer, or you think God’s just said no. Or you might even have gotten to the place where you just don’t think God’s interested or listening anymore. And here, this passage for me, I hope this stirs you up to begin praying about that again. Ask and keep on asking. He may be doing a work in you right now as you do that. Father, may the good seed of Your Word find fertile soil in our hearts today and in our minds too. As we think, may we think thoughts that You have offered to us here in Scripture: thoughts about You, thoughts about who we are, thoughts about our relationship with You, thoughts about our prayer life, thoughts about how much we need You, thoughts about how much we can count on You. Oh Lord, speak to us today and this week, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty“ by Joachim Neander; tr. Catherine Winkworth Bailey, Mickle
“He Is Making All Things Right“ by Ben Shive, Bryan Fowler, Skye Peterson
“He Will Hold Me Fast“ by Ada Ruth Habershon and Matthew Merker
“Come Unto Jesus“ by Thomas Moore, Laura Story, Jordan Kauflin, Thomas Hastings, Matt Merker
 “Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #2003690

Call To Worship: The Shield of Saint Patrick

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three.

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me; Christ to comfort and restore me; Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the name, the strong name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three, of whom all nature hath creation, eternal Father, Spirit, Word; praise to the God of my salvation, salvation is of Christ the Lord! Amen!

Confession: “I Believe in Jesus Christ”, The Apostle Creed

Leader: Who is Jesus Christ?
People: Jesus Christ is the eternal Word and Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He took on human nature to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world, the only Mediator between God and fallen humanity.

Leader: What does “Jesus” mean?
People: “Jesus” means “God saves” and is taken from the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua. In Jesus, God has come to save us from the power of sin and death.

Leader: What does “Christ” mean?
People: Christos is the Greek term for the Hebrew title Messiah, mean-ing “Anointed One.” Old Testament kings, priests, and prophets were anointed with oil. Jesus the Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit to perfectly fulfill these roles, and he rules now as Prophet, Priest, and King over his Church and all creation.

Source: ACNA, Q. 48-50

Classic Prayer: St. Patrick’s Lorica

I rise today in the power of Christ’s birth and baptism, in the power of his crucifixion and burial, in the power of his rising and ascending, in the power of his descending and judging. Around me I gather today all these powers, against every cruel and merciless force to attack my body and soul, against the charms of false prophets, the black laws of paganism, the false laws of heretics, the deceptions of idolatry, against spells cast by women, smiths, and druids, and all unlawful knowledge that harms the body and soul. May Christ protect me today: against poison and burning, against drowning and wounding so that I may have abundant reward.

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