Certificate Of Success In Prayer

CERTIFICATE OF SUCCESS IN PRAYER

LUKE 11:9-10

A couple of guys had a building project and needed to go to the lumber yard, so they get in their pick up truck and go. Now it so happens that their names are Heath and Steve. Well Heath walks into the office and said, "We need some four-by-twos."

The clerk said, "You mean two-by-fours, don’t you?"

Heath looked at the man a little confused and said, "I’ll go check," and went back to the truck.

He returned a minute later and said, "Yeah, I meant two-by-fours."

"Alright. The clerk say, “Now how long do you need them?"

Again Heath gets that confused look on his face and says, "I’d better go check."

After awhile, Heath returns to the office and says to clerk, "A long time. We’re gonna build a house."

As can be said about many of my jokes it as nothing to do with my sermon this morning other then now I have everyone’s attention. For the past several weeks we have speaking on the subject of prayer. And the great need that we have to pray.

I would go so far to say is that prayer is an instinct of man. As Spurgeon states, “To seek aid in time of distress from a supernatural being is an instinct of human nature.” While all men may not pray to the true God during times of distress most seek some divine being. There is perhaps no more sincere a prayer then of the one who has ridiculed prayer in prosperity, but now finds themselves in the mist of trouble. Many a person’s atheism has evaporated in times of trouble.

I believe that there is an instinct in man that tell us we ought to pray. Man’s prays because there is something in prayer that meets a basic need. Our creator has created us with the power of thirst, and He has given to us water to meet that thirst, to meet that need. God created in us hunger, and food to meet that need. God has created in us an inclination to talk to Him, thus we have prayer to meet that need.

We see what happens when a person does not drink, they will soon perish. When a person does not satisfy there desire for food, it will not be long before they die. When a person refuses to pray, they to will soon drift away from our heavenly Father, they will wither spiritually.

We must believe that we will have success in prayer, just as we believe that water will cure our thirst, or food cure our hunger. Our God would not call us to prayer, and then have prayer have no effect. How it is that our prayer moves the arm that move the world I do not fully understand, but I know that it does. And as we look to our verse this morning, we will see that we have a certificate of success in our prayers.

Please turn with me to our passage for this morning. That would be Luke 11:9-10. That is page 900 in your pew Bibles this morning. What we see in this passage is a guarantee give by our Lord Jesus Christ that our prayers are heard.

These are the words of our Lord, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

What we see in this passage is what Spurgeon calls “three moral wounds for Christian’s doubts as to prayer.” Those three wounds are; first “The weight of His authority”, second, “A presented promise”, and third, “the indisputable fact that our prayer will be heard.”

Let us look at there three moral wounds to doubt in our prayer. First is that we have the weight of His authority”. Notice how the Lord begins this passage, “I say to you”. It is the Lord Jesus speaking here.

The first mark of a follower of is that he believes his Lord. We cannot say that we are followers of Jesus Christ unless we believe the words He says. To be a follower of Christ we must believe every word He is spoken or we are not a true follower.

Some folks say they are followers of Christ yet they do believe the Words He speaks. So say they follow Jesus yet do not believe Him when He does state; “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Some say they believe in Jesus yet they do not believe when He states that He is the “Way the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him.” People say they are followers of Christ yet deny that He is the only way to salvation as He has said.