Can You Hear Me Now?
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 9/2/2012
VIDEO: Prayer – Can you hear me now? BluefishTV
If you live in our area, you’ve probably noticed the new cell tower that AT&T has put up in town. I for one cannot wait for it to actually go online and start relaying signals. Our cell phone reception has been laughable since we moved here. Usually, if my phone rings I’ve to go to the other side of the house or even outside to get a good signal. I feel like the Verizon guy, walking around saying, “Can you hear me now?”
If you live in an area that’s too distant from a cell tower, you know the feeling.
If you’ve ever looked toward heaven and felt like your prayers weren’t getting any higher than the ceiling, you also know the feeling. Statistics show that almost everyone prays. But do you ever wonder if your prayers really reach Gods ears? Do you sometimes feel like you’ve got a bad connection?
Does God really answer your prayers? And if he did, how would you know? If you’ve got questions about prayer, you’re not alone.
Over and over again, Peter and the other disciples had watched as Jesus withdrew to secluded places to pray. And they had seen the serenity Jesus exuded in the aftermath. They may have been uncertain of what made Christ’s face seem to glow, but one thing was certain: they wanted what he had, and they wanted it now!
One of them, probably Peter, assumes the role of spokesman. But instead of asking, “Lord, teach us how to pray,” he blurts out, “Lord, teach us now to pray” (Luke 11:1). And Jesus does just that. And in teaching them to pray, the first thing Jesus does is give them a pattern.
• A PATTERN
This pattern has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer. Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions—the Lord’s Prayer has been a model prayer for followers of Christ generation after generation.
In fact, a father was once chastising his son for not going to church more often. “You probably don’t even know the Lord’s Prayer,” he shouted sarcastically. “Oh yes, I do,” the boy retorts triumphantly. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Surprised, the father stammers, “Sorry son, I had no idea you knew it.”
No, that’s not the Lord’s Prayer. But this is:
“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Luke 11:2-4 NKJV)
There are two basic parts to this pattern—praise and petition. Jesus starts off by praising God’s holy name and heavenly place. We’d do well to start our prayers the same way. Before you start making requests and appeals, take a moment to acknowledge how awesome God is. He is holy and mighty and amazing. Yet, he chooses to call himself our Father. When David reflected on that fact, he wrote:
“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens… When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:1-4 NIV).
Nothing prepares out hearts for prayer more than and awareness of the majesty and magnificence of the one to whom you’re praying! Take time to praise God, to thanks him and give him the honor that he deserves each time you pray.
Then, slide into the second part of the pattern, which is petitions. Ask God for your daily needs, ask him for forgiveness when you mess up. Ask him to fill you with his Spirit. Ask him to help you avoid temptation—to change your heart and heal your wounds. We’re usually good at asking God for things, but sometimes we’re just not persistent enough. On that note, the next thing Jesus does in teaching us how to pray is give us a parable.
• A PARABLE
You’ll notice in the pattern Jesus gave, he taught us to ask for our daily bread, day by day. There’s reason for that. He wants us to keep coming back and he tells a parable that paints a picture of persistence. This is what Jesus says:
“Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.” (Luke 11:5-8 NIV)
This reminds me of a story that Paul Harvey once told about a 3-year-old boy who went to the grocery store with his mother. Before they entered the grocery store she said to him, “Now you’re not going to get any cookies, so don’t even ask.”
She put him up in the cart ad he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles. He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section. He saw the chocolate chip cookies and he stood up in the seat and said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you not even to ask. You’re not going to get any cookies.” So he sat back down.
They continued down the aisles, but in her search for certain items they came across an end cap with a display of Chips-Ahoy. “Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?” he begged. She said, “I told you that you can’t have any. Now sit down and be quiet.”
Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane. The little boy sensed that this may be his last chance. So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart and shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I please have some chocolate chip cookies?”
And everybody in the store just cracked up. Some even applauded. And, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy and his mother left with 23 boxes of chocolate chip cookies.
That’s what persistence will do for you, Jesus says. The point of the parable isn’t that God wants us to annoy him with our incessant appeals; rather, he wants prayer to become so second nature to us, that we can hardly go a minute without it. Paul put it this way: “Never stop praying” (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NLT). That’s the message of this parable and that’s why Jesus goes on to give a promise.
• A PROMISE
In teaching his followers how to pray, Jesus first gives us a pattern, then a parable, and finally a promise. Here’s his promise: “So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9 HCSB).
Here, Jesus promises that if we keep asking, searching and knocking—we will find the answer to our prayers. The problem is—so often we don’t recognize it when we find it.
We’re like the woman rushing home from a doctor’s appointment after having quite an ordeal at the doctor’s office. She was running behind schedule and she still had to pick up her prescription, get the kids from the baby-sitter, and get home and make supper, all in time to make it to the prayer meeting at her church that evening. As she began to circle the busy Wal-Mart parking lot, looking for a space, it started pouring rain. Weary from her day, she sighed and prayed, “Lord, you know what kind of a day I’ve had, and there’s still an awful lot to do. Could you please grant me a parking space close to the building so I don’t get soaked.” She hadn’t even finished her prayer when she saw the taillights of a car about to back out of the best space in the whole parking lot, right next to the handicap spots and straight out from the front door. She made straight for it and as she pulled in, she said, “never mind God, something just opened up!”
Like that woman, we often fail to recognize that the answer to our prayers is right in front of us. So if we continue to ask, search and knock, what exactly will we receive? What will we find? What’s on the other side of the door? Does this mean that if we’re persistent in prayer that eventually we’ll get everything we’ve ever wanted? No.
What means is that through prayer we’ll discover the heart of God.
At the end of his lesson on prayer, Jesus says, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13 NLT).
You see, prayer isn’t a magic formula to get things from God; it’s about getting God himself. Just as the best part of a journey can be the “getting there,” the sweetest part of prayer is the offering of it. For Christians, prayer should be its own reward. We shouldn’t measure our prayer life by the size and scope of our accomplishments, but by the strength of our relationship with God.
There is a God-shaped hole in our lives and when we pray, God fills that inner vacuum with his Holy Spirit. When we keep asking, searching, and knocking we don’t just find the things of God or the favor of God; we discover God himself.
Conclusion:
Let me ask you a question: was Peter speaking for you when he pleaded, “Lord teach us now to pray?” If so, you may still have some questions. How do we know what to pray about? What to ask for? What do we do when it seems like God isn’t answering us? I’d like to address some of those questions over the next couple of weeks and I’d like to invite you to join me for the next two weeks as we turn our faces heavenward and ask, “Can you hear me now?”
Invitation:
In the meantime, if you’ve been searching for a better signal and you want to reach out to God, as the rest of us stand and sing, I want you to stand and pray. Open your heart to God, draw close to him and he’ll draw close to you. Never stop praying. Keep on asking, searching and knocking. And if you’d like someone to pray with you, then come talk to me while we stand and sing.
