1. Many Uses for Prayer
A young man goes into a drug store to buy 3 boxes of chocolate. The pharmacist asks, ”What size, small medium or large?” "One of each." he said, "I’ve been seeing this girl for a while and she’s really beautiful. I want the chocolate because I think tonight¡¦s "the" night. We’re having dinner with her parents, and then we’re going out. If she lets me hold her hand I’m going to give her the small box if she lets me kiss her on the cheek I’m going to give her the medium box and if she lets me kiss her on the lips I’m going to give her the big box. The young man makes his purchase and leaves. Later that evening, he sits down to dinner with his girlfriend and her parents. He asks if he might give the blessing, and they agree. He begins the prayer, but continues praying for several minutes. The girl leans over and says, "You never told me that you were such a religious person." He leans over to her and says, "You never told me that your father is a pharmacist."
2. When we pray we anticipate God’s answer
a. James 1.17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
b. An Answered Prayer: “A true story: Brenda was a young woman who was invited to go rock climbing. Although she was scared to death, she went with her group to a tremendous granite cliff. In spite of her fear, she put on the gear, took a hold on the rope, and started up the face of that rock.
She got to a ledge where she could take a breather. As she was hanging on there, the safety rope snapped against Brenda’s eye and knocked out her contact lens. Here she is on a rock ledge, with hundreds of feet below her and hundreds of feet above her. Of course, she looked and looked and looked, hoping it had landed on the ledge, but it just wasn’t there. Here she was, far from home, her sight now blurry. She was desperate and began to get upset, so she prayed to the Lord to help her to find it.
When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but there was no contact lens to be found. She sat down, despondent, with the rest of the party, waiting for the rest of them to make it up the face of the cliff. She looked out across range after range of mountains, thinking of that Bible verse that says, "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth." She thought, "Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me."
Finally, they walked down the trail to the bottom. At the bottom there was a new party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, "Hey! Any of you guys lose a contact lens?" Well, that would be startling enough, until you learn why the climber saw it. An ant was moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying it!” Who do you think told that ant to pick up that contact lens and carry it? It was God, of course. Why would the ant pick it up; it’s not food. What do you think this woman gained through this experience? She gained a better understanding of how great God is and how much he cares for her.
c. God always answers prayer: Yes; No; Not Yet; Something Better (an alternative to what you ask)
3. Matthew 7.7-12; Luke 11.9-13
4. Lessons from these parallel passages
I. The Generosity and Sensitivity of God
A. God Gives His Presents (Blessings)
1. God provides the necessities of life and more in many cases (Ephesians 3.20-21)
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
2. He does not mock his children
• Stone; Serpent; Scorpion (unclean things)
• Luke 11.13
• Matthew 7.12
3. He gives us what HE wants and what we need
William Barclay wrote, “True prayer is asking God for what He wants.”
B. God Gives His Presence
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!”
1. First Century Jewish thought – HS was available to the holiest people for prophetic purposes
2. Jesus: HS is available to flawed people for the asking
3. Sometimes God says NO to our requests but gives us something even better – Himself!
4. Prayer is the basis for the HS –
• Acts 1.14 14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
• Acts 2.17-21 (Joel 2);
• Acts 4.31 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
II. God Rewards Persistence
Persistence in Prayer
One evening six-year-old Bobby asked his father for a pet. "Sorry, son," his father said, "not now. But if you pray hard for two months, perhaps God will send you a baby brother."
Bobby prayed faithfully for a month, but it seemed futile to pray longer so he gave up.
How surprised he was, when a month later, a little boy arrived at their home, or so Bobby thought when he saw a squirming bundle beside his mother. His proud father drew back the cover and Bobby saw another baby. Twins!
"Aren't you glad you prayed for a baby brother?" asked his father.
"I sure am," said the boy. "But aren't you glad I stopped praying when I did?"
Sometimes, like Bobby, we are tempted to give up prayer when it doesn't seem to be "working". Like the souls under the altar in Rev. 5 9-10, cry out, "How long, O Lord [before you answer our prayers]?" And we sometimes don't like the answer given by God, ".....a little while longer...." (Rev. 5:11
"The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16b)
Shamelessness – Luke 11.5-8
A. Ask -- James 4:2b You do not have, because you do not ask.
• Ask in Faith— Matthew 21:22 ( ESV ) And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
• Ask in Faith in Jesus’ Name – John 16.24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
• Ask in Faith According to God’s Will
James 4.3 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
o When Jesus prayed in the garden he asked that the cup of suffering be taken from him. The Father didn’t grant his request-because it wasn’t his will to.
o Paul asked three times for the demonic thorn in his flesh to be removed; but Jesus didn’t give Paul what he was asking for-not because he enjoyed seeing Paul tormented but because he wanted Paul to understand some things. He did give him a physician to accompany and help him.
o And both Jesus and Paul had the right attitude about that. Jesus said, “Yet not my will but yours be done.” Paul said, “Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” God knows what’s best for us.
B. Seek
• When we ask, we use the voice. When we seek, we use the body to find what God has in store for us
• Seeking implies we are actively seeking God’s will in what we want.
• The problem comes when we want our will instead of God’s will.
C. Knock
• Jesus wants us to be persistent. WE are not to just ask once and quit, we are to ask continually and as we are asking, we are to seek God will continually and as we are doing these things, Jesus wants us to knock at the door of heaven continually.
• Knocking implies that we will have the courage to pass through the open door and that we will have the courage to pass through any worldly obstacles that get into our way!
• Example of Jesus in Revelation 3.20; 4.1ff
III. There is Good and Better
A. “Kal V’Homer” – Light and Heavy teaching method
1. How much more
2. People may give junk – not so with God – how much more he gives to us than we can give
B. Examples:
1. Birds and Grass – Luke 12.24, 28 – people are more important
2. Blood of Christ – Hebrews 9.13-14
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
1. Continual Feast
Proverbs 15:15 Who is of a merry heart has a continual feast.
“If you’re lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,” wrote Ernest Hemingway, “then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.”
Paris is the City of Light; but how much better to have the promise in Proverbs 15:15 from the Father of heavenly lights who bestows on us every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). How richer a continual feast than a movable one! Those who truly know the Lord enjoy the lasting wonder of intractable cheer. Life becomes a smorgasbord of good things. We thank Him for the sunrise, for the air we breathe and the friends we love, for the verses we study and the strength we derive from Him. We learn to count our blessings, minimize our complaints, rejoice in the Lord, and obey the words of Jesus: “Be of good cheer.” The cheerful heart has a continual feast.
A continual feast! This is one of my favorite lines in the whole Bible. I don’t know any better way to describe a life that… is lived with the joyous, optimistic hope that only knowing and walking with Jesus can provide. Stephen Arterburn
2. Seek His Hand but More importantly, seek His Face
o Psalm 105:4 Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.
o Psalm 27:8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD , I will seek.
