Bob was trying to teach his daughter, Jenny, how to pray before meals. After a few weeks of coaching, Bob decided Jenny was ready to pray all by herself.
Jenny started out fine, thanking God for her mommy and daddy and brother and sister and for the rolls and the salad. Then she ended with a big, “THANK YOU, GOD, FOR THE SPAGHETTI!” and lifted her head.
Now, Bob had taught Jenny to end each prayer with, “In Jesus' name, Amen.” So he prompted her, “In…”
At first, Jenny seemed confused. Then she proudly exclaimed, “IN TOMATO SAUCE. AMEN.” (Barbara J. Doll, Upper Saddle River, N.J. “Kids of the Kingdom,” Christian Reader)
Sometimes we don’t know how to pray, and as children, that’s okay, even humorous sometimes. But as adults, we face bigger problems and more responsibilities, and prayer becomes much more important.
John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, once said, “Real prayer is a serious concern, for we are speaking to the sovereign Lord of all the universe, who is willing to move heaven and earth in answer to sincere and reasonable prayer.” (John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Prayer Book, edited by Louis Gifford Parkhurst, Jr. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no.10)
The question is: How do we pray to such a Lord? How do we pray to our Sovereign God in such a way that He WILL move heaven and earth to come to our aid? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Luke 11, Luke 11, where Jesus’ disciples had a similar question.
Luke 11:1 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.” (ESV)
Imagine what it must have been like to hear Jesus praying. While I was a student at the Moody Bible Institute, I was on one of my Practical Christian Work assignments with another student, visiting the home of an elderly gentleman. When we got ready to leave, the old man asked if he could pray for us, and we said, “Sure.”
He bowed his head and began his prayer with one word, “Papa.” I tell you, a holy hush fell on that dinky little apartment in downtown Chicago. It was like we were transported to the very throne room of heaven itself, and as that elderly gentleman conversed with his Heavenly Father, I knew God was right there listening to every word. I was a young man at the time, 19 or 20 years of age, but it created in my heart a life-long yearning to be able to pray like that.
I’m sure the disciples had a similar feeling as they heard Jesus talking to His Papa in Heaven. “Lord, teach us to pray,” they asked.
Luke 11:2-4 And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.” (ESV)
Jesus here gives his disciples a pattern for prayer. He gives them some specific things to pray for, and notice who’s interests come first – God’s. Do you see it? GOD’S name and GOD’S kingdom are the first concerns in prayer, for if we want God to pay attention to us, then we must first pay attention to Him. We must…
PUT GOD FIRST.
We must put His interests before our own. We must make His reputation and his rule our primary concerns.
That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed by your name.” Father, holy be Your reputation. Father, may people come to know and revere You.
An Australian Christian author and speaker, John Dickson, talks about how he came to Christ. He says the Australian public schools used to offer a Scripture class taught by a volunteer from the local church, and Glenda became his teacher. She was an ordinary, middle-aged mother, but she loved young people. Glenda ended up inviting the whole class to her house on Friday afternoons for lunch and honest conversation about Jesus.
Dickson says they went back the next Friday and the next and the next, where slowly the “Jesus stuff” became as important as the food, so they came with more and more friends. Now, “some of those 15-year-olds were the worst sinners in the school,” Dickson says. “But Glenda just opened her heart every Friday afternoon and treated us all like we were family.”
Then there was a night when Dickson’s friend, Daniel, was quite intoxicated. His friends knew they couldn't take him to his house. His dad was an army man and would be livid. But they didn't want to leave him on the street, so they all said, “Let's take him to Glenda's house. She'll have him. She'll clean him up.”
It was near midnight when they knocked on her door. As it turned out, she was finishing up some kind of posh dinner party with lots of guests, but she didn't bat an eye. She welcomed her late-night visitors in, showed them straight past her guests into the back of the house. She went and got some spare clothes and said, “Throw him in the shower, clean him up, and just put him to bed. We'll sort it out in the morning.” So they did.
The next morning they went back to Glenda's house around 10:00 a.m. to pick Daniel up. He was sitting at the kitchen table, Glenda was making him bacon and eggs, and they were having a good old chat.
Dickson says they took Daniel to Glenda's house because she had left a real impression on them that Christians actually like sinners. They had no doubt that she hated their drinking habits. She was a teetotaler, and talked openly about avoiding alcohol. “But even in that situation,” Dickson says, “her first instinct was not to condemn us but to love us more, and it was extraordinary.”
After about six months of Scripture classes, Friday afternoon events, and the incident with Daniel, Dickson and his friends found themselves thinking that Jesus was real, that he is inescapable, that he is powerful. So about six or eight months into it, about five of them became Christians. Dickson says, “We really surrendered to Christ's lordship and accepted his mercy.”
Years later, Dickson was starting his own ministry and trying to explore new modes of reaching people. So his first thought was, “I'll go to Glenda and ask her what her secret was.” Since several of them had become Christians through her influence, he figured she must have had some strategy. But when he asked her about what program she used, without batting an eye, she said, “Prayer.”
Dickson was really disappointed, but she continued, “That year a bunch of us who taught Scripture decided to make it a year of prayer – just to plead the Lord of the harvest to do something special. And we did. By the end of the year, there you all were, confessing Jesus.” (Adapted from Jeff Manion's sermon “The Guest List,” preached in 2011; www. PreachingToday.com)
Would God do that here in Lyons, Kansas, America? You bet He would, because that’s exactly what Jesus told us to pray for. Jesus told us to pray that people would come to know and revere the Lord, that His name would be hallowed, that He would have a good reputation in our community.
And Jesus told us to pray that God’s kingdom would come, as well. He wants us to pray that God’s rule would be realized on this earth, that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
In heaven, when God says, “Jump,” the angels jump. When God says, “Sing,” the angels sing. When God says, “Go,” the angels go. Is that what happens in your life? Do you give God unquestioning, immediate obedience? Is God’s rule in your life your primary concern? If it is, then you can be sure God will hear and answer your prayers.
1 John 5:14-15 says, “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”
When we put God’s interests ahead of our own, when we put God first, then we can pray with the confident expectation that He will give us what we ask.
In 1540, Martin Luther received a tender, farewell letter from his good friend and assistant, Friedrich Myconius. Myconius was very sick, and no one expected him to live much longer.
When Luther received the message, he immediately sent back a reply: “I command thee in the name of God to live, because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church… The Lord will never let me hear that thou art dead, but will permit thee to survive me. For this I am praying. This is my will, and may my will be done, because I seek only to glorify the name of God.”
Myconius had already lost the ability to speak when Luther’s reply came, but (do you know) he soon recovered. In fact, he lived six more years and died two months AFTER Luther.
God gave Luther exactly what He asked for, because Luther’s primary concern was to “glorify the name of God.” Luther put God’s interests first, and as a result he received marvelous answers to prayer, and the same thing can happen to you and me!
When we put God’s interests first, God WILL move heaven and earth to come to our aid. When we make God’s reputation and God’s rule our primary concerns, then we can also ask Him to meet our daily needs. Jesus said, when you pray, first ask God to hallow His name and to advance His kingdom, then, vs.3, ask God to “Give us each day our daily bread.” Ask God to provide for your physical needs.
Len Sullivan, now a church planter in Tupelo, Mississippi, found himself, in the mid 1980s, in northern Saskatchewan, planting a church. Part of his support came from a local mission, but most of the time he barely received enough to feed himself and his young family.
One week in April, when the ground was still frozen and covered with snow, they were down to only a few dollars in the bank. Their usual reaction to that need was to look for their own solution. This time, however, in a stroke of faith, Len went before the Lord and told Him that they needed eggs, bread, and milk. Len decided to wait upon God.
That afternoon, a man came to his little fix-it shop with a leaky teakettle. He said, “I know I could get another, but it's my favorite kettle. Please fix it.” In a matter of minutes the job was done, and Len didn't even charge him for it. But the man pulled out a $10 bill and insisted that Len take it. It was just enough to buy a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of bread.
As Len left the shop, feeling pretty good about his decision to commit his needs to the Lord in prayer, he thanked the Lord, but he sensed God speaking to Him, “Don't you wish you had asked for a half a beef?” (Len Sullivan, Tupelo, Mississippi)
My friends, when you put God first, don’t be afraid to ask God to meet ALL of your daily needs. Ask God to meet your physical needs, and ask God to meet your spiritual needs as well. Jesus said, “When you pray, say…
Luke 11:4 …forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. (ESV)
Ask God to forgive your sins and to keep you from further sin.
One summer, Erwin McManus sent his young son, Aaron, to a church camp. Erwin figured a church camp would be safe for his little boy, because there he wouldn’t hear all those ghost stories which give kids nightmares. Unfortunately, instead of ghost stories, they told demon and Satan stories, and little Aaron came home terrified.
“Dad, don't turn off the light!” he said before going to bed. “No, Daddy, could you stay here with me? Daddy, I'm afraid. They told all these stories about demons.” Then he said, “Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?”
But Erwin McManus told his son, “Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe. I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room.”
And little Aaron replies, “All right. But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy.” (Erwin McManus, “Seizing Your Divine Moment,” Preaching Today, Issue 252)
I like the attitude of that prayer. It goes beyond just protection. It asks God to make us dangerous followers of Jesus Christ, to make us dangerous to Satan and his kingdom as we advance the Kingdom of God.
What are YOU praying for these days? When you put God first, then you can be bold to ask for big things and expect to get big things in return. So when you talk to God, put His interests before your own, and…
TALK TO GOD LIKE A FRIEND.
Dare to ask God for things you would ask only of a very powerful, close friend. That’s what Jesus encourages us to do.
Luke 11:5-7 And he 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’; 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’? (ESV)
Which one of you has a friend like that – a friend that would refuse to help you in the middle of the night? The answer, of course, is no real friend would ever do that. A real friend will do whatever he can to help at any time of day.
Luke 11:8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence [literally, because of the man’s shamelessness, because of the man’s audacity to ask a friend for bread at midnight] he will rise and give him whatever he needs. (ESV)
We are not ashamed to ask our friends for things we would not dare ask anyone else.
On the day our second child, Peter, was born, we needed somebody to watch his older sister, Elizabeth, who was two-year’s-old at the time. We were in Michigan, and our families were all in Maryland or Pennsylvania, so we couldn’t call on another family member. And since Peter started coming in the middle of the night, we couldn’t call just any babysitter.
So who did we call? We called Miss Marilyn Tiensuu, a friend of ours who lived one block away. We woke her up in the middle of the night, got her out of bed, and asked her to come over on a cold November night to watch our two-year-old, while we went to the hospital. Do you know she was glad to do it, because she was our friend?
You ask friends for things you wouldn’t dare ask anyone else, and they are glad to do it, because they are friends. So it is with God! We can ask Him for things. We can seek Him out. We can knock on His door at any time, and He will be glad to respond, because He is greater than any earthly friend. That’s exactly the point Jesus makes in verse 9.
Luke 11:9-10 And I tell 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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. (ESV)
God is your Friend, so don’t be afraid to ask Him for anything.
Do you want big, bold answers to big, bold prayers? Then put God’s interests above your own, and talk to God like a friend. Finally, if you want God to move heaven and earth to come to your aid, then…
TALK TO GOD LIKE A FATHER.
Approach Him like you would a good father, who delights in giving good things to his children. That’s what Jesus encourages us to do.
Luke 11:11-12 What father among you, 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? (ESV)
No father would do that!
Luke 11:13 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!” (ESV)
God is better than any earthly father. He will give us good things if we ask. And best of all, He will give us the wonderful gift of Himself – His own Holy Spirit.
How many fathers give their children so many things? They give toys. They give cars. They give a college education, but they do not give themselves. They are too busy to spend time with their children.
That’s not at all like our Heavenly Father. He gives us the precious gift of Himself, something more valuable than any other gift He could give us.
Kenneth Wilson, in his book, Have Faith Without Fear, talks about growing up in a three-story house on the side of one of Pittsburgh’s hills. The third floor was really a finished attic with dormer windows. There were two bedrooms, a hallway, and a mysterious storage room for trunks that always smelled of mothballs. That’s where the family slept, because they usually rented out the second floor to help pay for their own rent.
Kenneth recalls that, being the youngest, he had to go to bed first, braving that floor of dark bedrooms. They did not have electricity above the second floor, so a gas light had to be turned on and then turned off once he was settled in bed. For a little boy, it was a long way up those dark steps.
His room seemed to be at the end of the earth, remote from human habitation, close to unexplained noises and dark secrets. Sometimes his father would read him a story, but inevitably the time would come when dad would turn out the light, shut the door, and little Ken would hear his father’s steps on the stairs, growing fainter and fainter. Then all would be quiet, except for the rattling windows, strange noises and a little boy’s cowering imagination.
One night, his father asked him, “Would you rather I leave the light on and go downstairs, or turn the light out and stay with you for awhile?” Little Ken chose his father’s presence with darkness, over absence with light. (Kenneth L. Wilson, Have Faith without Fear, Harper & Row, 1970, p.5)
Isn’t that what we really want when we pray? Don’t we really want our Heavenly Father’s Presence more than anything else? Well, that is something God loves to give us when we ask. Sure, He gives us good things, but best of all, He gives us Himself.
So pray! Talk to God like your Best Friend and the Best Father there ever was, putting His interests above your own. Then watch God move heaven and earth to save souls, to heal families, and to bring revival as we’ve never seen before.
Let’s begin right now by saying together the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory
Forever and ever. Amen.
