The Persistent Prayer of a Passionate Disciple

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  The Persistent Prayer of a Passionate Disciple

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  Good morning Saints of HBC. Please turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 11. We will resume our time in 1 Samuel, Lord willing, and the creek don't rise, next week. We'll be in Samuel 3. But we're going to go and talk about prayer this morning and the persistent prayers of a passionate disciple. And this was on my heart as the season we're in of spring break. And then Easter's coming, and it could feel like things are just moving along rather quickly. And as Easter approaches to have our hearts praying with greater desire on the things that matter to God, the priorities that God has in our own lives, for our own hearts, as well as preaching the good news of the gospel to other people. And I don't think there's a better passage in Scripture to reorient our prayer lives for this one week occasion than Luke 11:1-13. There's power in this passage that compels us, as followers of Jesus Christ, to be praying passionately, passionately because it comes from what God wants, not necessarily what always comes to our mind to want. And then also the call to pray persistently that that passion in prayer would be followed up, rightly so, by a consistent pattern of prayer that allows us to, in our own hearts, be excited for the things of the Lord and want others to know those as well. So follow along. As I read our text and I would just say this morning, as as you're listening and you have, you know, 36 days from now, Easter is off in the distance. But whatever the Lord be putting on your heart this morning as we think about prayer, the people he's laying on your heart, the names you want to take before him, and the reasons you have to pray for them that you would be jotting those down along as you go, and know that that would be something that God could be laying on your heart from his text this morning, from His Word compelling you to do that. Because the fields are ripe for the harvest all around us, and we pray that the Word here today would open our eyes to see it and to pray for it even more. So, follow with me. Luke chapter 11:1-13.
  "It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples. And Jesus 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, as we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. Then Jesus said to them, suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says 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 answers and says, do not bother me. The door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. 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. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives. And he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him 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, being evil, 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." The grass withers and the flower fades. But the Word of our God endures forever. Amen.
  Last week a post on Twitter came across my feed, which was a repost from TikTok in which a popular young priest in the Roman Catholic Church was explaining why he and other Catholics pray to Mary. And this is what he said, word for word. "Look at it this way. I'm a priest, so people often ask me to help with different things. They email, they text, but sometimes I get busy and I fall behind on requests. So you know what people do if I'm not responding? They call my mom and she calls me and says, so-and-so is trying to reach you. Can you get back to them? And you bet I get back to them right away. Sometimes the fastest way to the son is through the mother, and there's something beautiful about that. God chose to become a baby. He became part of a family. He had a mother. That's the basis of Christianity. So why would we think it would be different for Jesus and Mary? Sometimes the fastest way to the son is through the mother. Praying to Mary makes all the sense in the world." The fastest way to the son is not through the mother, because the only way to the Father is through the Son. You get that? We didn't have to sit around and pick that thing apart. You understand what you've been taught, which is there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ the Son. Though the sentimental nature of that priest's words might make someone feel good, it's heresy. The error is that he suggests Jesus is too busy to handle our many requests. And if that is the case, then Jesus is not the Son of God because Jesus is not equal to God. The God who can hear all of our requests all the time because he neither slumbers nor sleeps, nor is his ear ever dull, nor is his hand ever too short. So if this priest is correct, he isn't the son spoken of in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3. Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of God's nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. Except when he's too busy and overwhelmed. Friendly pastoral reminder...young people. This may particularly land on you because it's coming at you. Beware of getting your theology from 45 seconds on TikTok. It might be well crafted. Go, hickory. It might look right, sound right. Good lighting. Catchy saying. Like, sometimes the fastest way to the son is through the mother. It just rings in your ear and you say, well, that's true with my mom. Well, you're not dealing with your mom. You're dealing with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to say, I and the Father are one. And no one comes to the Father except through me. So rather than get your theology from 45 seconds on TikTok, we need 45 minutes of the Bible to learn how to pray Biblically in a way that honors and glorifies God, so that we can be sure that what we pray and how we pray and why we pray line up according to the Word of God and not according to man's opinions.
  So let's see five vital truths for us to understand and apply so that we can pray the way Jesus prayed all the time. But particularly in this time as we look to Easter, as we look to celebrating the high point on the Christian calendar, the death of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of his life on the cross for our sins and the power of his resurrection.  
  First truth number one. The pattern for prayer is to pay attention to how Jesus prayed. Before we get into the content of what to pray, we don't want to skip past the who of prayer...God's Son. Because if anyone knows what God's heavenly priorities are to inform our prayers, it's the son. Just go back two chapters, Luke 9:35 at the Transfiguration, which we see in verse 28 of Luke 9. Eight days after Jesus's sayings...him saying that the Son of Man will lose his life, and you need to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him. Some eight days later, after these sayings, Jesus took Peter and James and John and went up on a mountain to pray. Note in the Gospel of Luke you see specific times of Jesus' life in prayer, corresponding to the important moments that were happening. The pattern of his prayers, not just the precepts that he tells us, but how he modeled prayer to us, corresponds to these heightened times of importance in his life and ministry. Luke 9:35, a voice comes out of the clouds saying, this is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him. So why should we want to listen to what Jesus has to tell us about how to pray? Because God the Father says, listen to my Son. He's my chosen one.  If there is anybody that knows my heart and my hand and how I go about doing things...it's my Son. Not much further away, Luke 9:48, as those were arguing of who was going to be the greatest, he takes a child, puts him by his side, and says, whoever receives this child in my name receives me. Whoever receives me receives him who sent me. Luke 10:16, the one who listens to you, listens to me. The one who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. Is Jesus making himself very clear? The Father has chosen me. The Father has sent me. If you reject me, you reject him. Luke 10:22, all things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son. And to anyone whom the Son wills to reveal him. Leading up to our text today. Why we don't want to skip past verse one. And the pattern for our prayer lives is because Jesus, the Son of God, has made very clear in this gospel who he is and what he's here to do. And if anyone knows what God's heavenly priorities are to inform our prayers, it's him. So Luke 11:1 says, it happened that while Jesus was praying, he's modeling it by pattern. After he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. Now they want to know by precept. Friends, that's discipleship 101...pattern and precept, model and teaching. This is how Jesus did it. This is how we grow to be more like him. And this is how we help other people to grow, to be more like him. As we imitate Christ, others can imitate us and we go no further than his example. For homework this week on your own, just up to chapter 11 in Luke, because of the emphasis Luke gives on Jesus prayer life by pattern and precept. You can go through and you can find seven times up until this chapter, he teaches by pattern and precept, and then five times after it, more than any other gospel. Luke who gave a detailed account, Chapter one says of the life and ministry of Jesus, wants to put his prayer life front and center for you, the reader, to see. It's that important. So I want to stop on this first idea and remind us as we pray, as we think about our prayer lives, how vital it was for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Chosen One, to pray. This is no small thing. John Calvin said in his "Institutes". Prayer is the chief exercise of our faith. What does that mean? Well, I think you know what the word exercise means. Some of you I can see it. That's a compliment. You know what it means to exercise. You're committed to go to the gym to work out. You pay to go to that gym. You pay somebody in that gym to work you out so that you could be stronger and you're not satisfied to just do a minimum workout. You want a maximum workout. That's what prayer is to the Christian. It's the chief exercise of your faith. Why would it be the chief exercise of your faith? Because in that moment where your knees are bowed and your eyes are closed, you're not seeing anything by sight, are you? You're seeing life by faith. And whatever comes into your mind informed by the Word of God is what you're praying and believing upon and taking back to God. It's exercising your faith out. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. It says in favor with God and man. We talked about that a couple weeks ago in 1 Samuel chapter 2. In the same way Samuel was growing in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. So Jesus did as well. And prayer was at the heart of his faith. So study for yourself this week. Take time. Go back and read the Gospel of Luke and note the times Jesus was praying, what he was praying about, what was going on around him. So you're inspired. The same to say, Lord, when I'm facing some big decision, when I'm in some certain season, when I have these great ambitions for you, may they start with me on my knees, as it did with my Savior at his baptism, at his Transfiguration before he went to the cross, before he chose his disciples. All of those Luke records for us to see. But as we see in verse one, it wasn't enough for the disciples to see it. They let him finish praying, which it's interesting to see that though Jesus would teach in Matthew 6:7 the privacy of prayer life, that he did model prayer in a way where they could be around him. I think because the Lord was perfect in heart, in humility. When he was praying within earshot of his disciples...it talks about later in Luke. That it was so they could hear him, so they could see him enough so that they could walk up and say, when he had finished, Lord, would you teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples? They wanted to learn from him.
  So now, moving to truth number two about the prayers of a passionate disciple. We have to have the right priorities. God's kingdom priorities. We move from the who of prayer, following the example of Jesus to the what of our prayers, verses 2 to 4. So Jesus said to them, when you pray, say. This is to be taken at a literal level, as in these words matter...the priorities he has. But it's more than just the words. Otherwise, this would be a very short prayer. And we, thinking that the power is in just saying certain words, might violate the principle Jesus taught on prayer in Matthew 6:7. When you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as in, there's more to it than these words. Though, he's saying when you pray, these are the priorities you are to speak. Follow this pattern, but don't get locked into...you have to say these exact words, otherwise it can become rote, correct? It could just be, hey, if I just say these exact words Bada bing, bada boom, I would be finished with my prayers each day in about seven seconds. The power is in what these words represent...the ideas behind them. So what's the first idea that comes to our mind when we pray according to Jesus, the Son of God? Father, hallowed be your name. He reminds them to address God as their father, which wasn't the norm for disciples to learn from their rabbis. But as J.I. Packer says, "father is the Christian name for God". When you come to the Father, you come through the Son. You pray in the Son's name. It highlights the exclusivity of Jesus claim to be the Son of God. So we're not with everybody else in the world saying, you know, it doesn't matter what God you pray to as long as you pray. It's all the same God. No, it's not because we have a Christian name for God our father, and we only call him father because we come through the son. Hallowed be his name. The first priority is the exaltation of the name of God, to revere him, to sanctify his name, to set it apart, that he would put his name above everything in the world. But that starts with us being reminded to put his name above everything in our hearts. That it's not just a prayer for out there. It's a prayer for in here God, holy be your name. Sanctified be your name, revered be your name. Blessed be your name in my life and in my heart. That's where prayer starts. Our first priority in prayer is always to lift high the name of God, as we saw in the life of Hannah, 1 Samuel 1:11. a few weeks ago, when the first words out of her mouth were, O Lord of hosts, praying to God of the highest heaven. Our prayers are to exalt his name. That's the first priority. Second, our prayers are to expand his kingdom. Your kingdom come. We know over in Matthew chapter 6, this also gets expanded into your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But the idea behind it is the same. Jesus moves from saying, look upward to exalt the name of God, and then ask him to expand his kingdom. Which is a great way to start our prayers, because it immediately puts a stop to us wanting to pray for our kingdoms, our little kingdoms, our little fiefdoms, our little toddler lego lands down here. And you say, what am I doing, focusing so much looking down when Jesus is saying look up, exalt his name, expand his kingdom. Our prayers are to be to that end. So simply put right out of the gates. If we are going to pray with the priorities of God, we put his name and his fame above our own. And we need to be reminded of that often. It's about him, and it's about him in our hearts. That's where it starts, and then it moves outward from there. So the first two priorities in prayer are the exaltation of the name of God and the expansion of his kingdom. And as his kingdom expands in people's hearts, as people come to Christ, his name is exalted, isn't it? You're proof of it in here. The name of God gets exalted every Sunday for an hour and a half in each service, because you've been brought into the kingdom of God by the power of the gospel, and you come here to worship his name, not your own. We don't have a seeker sensitive service, as if we're doing this thing to impress you, to attract you to say that somehow Christianity has become all about you. It's about him. So if you're seeking something this morning and you wind up here today, I hope you realized quickly this isn't about you, and it's not about me. It's not about any of us in here. This is about God. The one with whom we must deal and who has dealt with his children kindly and mercifully in his Son, Jesus Christ. So his name's exalted. His kingdom is expanded. What do we need? Verses 3 and 4, we see three things. They're all about one thing. They're all about equipping us. They're all about helping us. It starts with we look up and we get our focus right on him. And then we can say these three things. First, in verse three, give us each day our daily bread. That's pretty simple...our physical needs. He will get to pray for your spiritual needs in verse four. But you know, at some times the urgent things are not always the most important, that there is a need to say, Lord...daily bread. The things that I need around me. Would you help me with those? I'm not here to say the quantity of it that I need. I just know I need something. Today, as I wake up...provide. You have everything, I have nothing. So praying for that physical need is fine. It's first on the list when it gets to equipping us. But we have to remember that, as Bonhoeffer wrote, neither anxiety or work can secure this daily bread. It is a gift from a loving father. We need to remember this is the same lesson that God was teaching his children ever since he rescued them in the Exodus. If you go back to Exodus chapter 16, God delivers these people in a way that has never been seen before on all the world. He has taken a people who were under subjugation in slavery and bondage, and he has completely shown the world, Egypt in particular, that though you may be the most powerful down here, it does nothing for you if you don't know me. And so Exodus 15, they are delivered. They celebrate with the wonderful song of Moses singing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and rider he's hurled into the sea. It's this wonderful song of praise that ends with, the Lord shall reign forever and ever. And you would think at that they would be set, that they would not worry ever again. They have seen the plagues on Egypt, but themselves be spared, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea. You would think if there was any people who would understand...God is for us and not against us, and we don't need to worry or fear. And then you read chapter 16. Right after this hit song of praise they set out, and all the congregation of the Sons of Israel come to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, and on the 15th day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt, the whole, as in every single one of them, a lot of people, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The sons of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt. Here was there good life. When we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full. That was it. We'd rather be dead in Egypt with full stomachs than be out here in the wilderness starving...free to follow God, the one true God. That quick it could change for people. Shows the fickle heart of man, doesn't it? So God responds with daily bread. Verse 4, then the Lord said to Moses, behold. Listen up, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day. So it's not by accident. The echo of this in our passage today, that Jesus is going all the way back to the first children who had to depend on a father in heaven for their daily bread. The same language here physical needs matter because they represent our daily dependence. Moves from the physical to the spiritual. And that's in two different requests. The first is the number one priority on our list of spiritual need in verse 4 is and always will be, forgiveness of sin. Forgive us our sins. It's the number one priority. Why is that? Because Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for sinners. That's it. That's foremost that when we move into praying for spiritual needs, our eyes look in at our own hearts and examine our own hearts and remind ourselves that the great chasm between a holy God and sinful man had to be what?...provided for by the Son, and I am part of that. When we lose sight of our need for forgiveness of sin, everything else gets out of focus. How? If you don't pray that forgive us our sins. Help me be reminded of my sin. How does our focus get lost? Well then, first we lose sight of our relationship with God. We forget he's the Holy God and we're the sinful people that we haven't arrived. We still need Jesus every day. And when you lose sight of that, second, you lose sight of your relationship with other people. When your own need, when your own sinfulness is lost on you, but you remember everyone else's sins. You won't extend God's grace to others. And when you stop extending that grace to others, all hell breaks loose in relationships. And I mean that. I'm not saying that for shock value. Hell is a place where the unforgiven dwell forever, right? Hell is full of unforgiving people. So if you want a taste of hell on earth, dwell in a place where forgiveness has been abandoned. You know what I'm saying? Relationally, when you want to live in a place, when you want to dwell in a place and stay in a relationship and not grant forgiveness, then you've put the sign from Dante's Inferno over your own home. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Because when you abandon forgiveness, your hope goes up in smoke. And you can ask any person in our church who's trying to help struggling marriages, when you get past all the bad fruits to the root, the root issue is not forgiving the other person. And you see the connection right in front of your face here, don't you? You've made their sin. You've magnified their sin. It's the foremost thing that you can't see anything else but that. And Jesus warns in Matthew 7, yeah, I mean, it's because your vision is off. You've got a log in your own eye and you're looking for the speck in someone else's. We can ask forgiveness from God, but not extend it to others. We're betraying the claim that we know the power of the gospel because we want to claim it for ourselves, but not for them. So Jesus corrects that by saying, when you move to the spiritual realm to pray, first and foremost, deal with your own sin, and with the same introspection, you look into the sin in your own heart and you dig deep to find it. And you say, all these things are coming out, all these other roots I'm seeing, and you bring them to God, and you see that in Christ they're forgiven. It's removed. No guilt, no shame. And you feel that freedom and sense of relief. God, it's paid in full. Pivot immediately then to say, you know what? And that same freedom and forgiveness I've just experienced. I can forgive that person that I've been holding in debt to me. And if you can't do the second part, then you haven't done the first part adequately. You need to dig deeper into your own heart in prayer. That's the first priority. Spiritually. The second priority is 4b...Lead us not into temptation. If our number one priority is sin forgiven and forgiving others. Next on the list is that we would move out at the end of our prayer into the battle, not falling into temptation, and that God would be by our side, not leading us into sin, but leading us through it and out of it. And he will help us stand firm in the Lord. He will do it. He promises to never leave us nor forsake us. He'll be with us in the valley of the shadow of death. So these simple priorities. I mean, think you could pray on these all day. The exaltation of the name of God. The expansion of his kingdom. The equipping of you, his saint, his child with your physical needs. Your need of forgiveness, your need to extend forgiveness, and of course, to be able to move forward in the battle. Those are the priorities of the King that Jesus shares with us.
  And now that you know the what of prayer? Let's talk about the how. How should we pray if that's what we know should be the top priorities in our prayer life? Now we've got the fuel for the flame....the logs to throw in the fire have been given to you in verses 2 to 4. And now Jesus says, you want to keep that thing, you want to keep persisting in it? You want to keep the flames going? Listen to this story and I'll tell you how persistent you should be. He tells a story, a very simple one, verse 5. Jesus says to them, and this isn't in Matthew. This is particular that Luke records this. Jesus says to them, suppose one of you has a friend, and immediately he pulls you in. Normally his parables, you're kind of on the outside listening in. He says, there's a farmer who has a field, or he says, there's a shrewd businessman. He's going about his business, or there's some workers going out to work here. He says, no, no, you you're in the story. I'm going to call you needy. That's your name, so you don't forget it. In this whole story, your needy. Where you sit right there. You think you have what you need. You don't have what you need. That's you in the story. Let's meet the other characters. Suppose one of you, needy, has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, friend, lend me three loaves. We'll call that friend sleepy because you woke him up out of sleep. So you, needy, go to your friend's house, sleepy, at midnight and say to them, I got a problem. A friend of mine...we'll call that friend, hungry, has come to me from a journey, and I have. And here's the key...nothing to set before him. That's your problem. The problem is that he didn't show up at an inconvenient time. In fact, in the time of Jesus, somebody showing up late at your house wouldn't have been unexpected because people would have wanted to travel in the cool of the evening. The problem isn't the inconvenience of the arrival, it's the inadequacy of your pantry. You don't have what you need. So you go to this friend who you know has what you need and you say, can you help me out? I just need three loaves of bread. Three pieces of bread...Kitchen's closed. Right? I don't got nothing. You've got something. Can you help a brother out? Answer from inside. Meaning, you're standing at the window. Imagine a small home in Palestine in the time of Jesus. One bedroom...everybody's sleeping on a mat in the middle of the room. They've excavated homes like these. This is how they're set up. You didn't have your own separate bedrooms, so you and the kids are all piled on top of each other, and you hear a few pebbles hitting off the side of your house next to a window, because if he throws them in the window, he hits you, and you look up and you go, what? And you actually say, hey, don't. Or he says, sorry, sleepy. You're needy. Don't bother me. Why? The door is shut. I'd have to be crawling over all my kids to unbolt it. And my children and I are in a bed and I cannot get up and give you anything. He doesn't say I don't have anything to give. He's just unwilling to do it. And he's your friend. But you needy friend, persist because of your absolute inadequacy and your friend's adequate supply. You knew there was no way you could provide in this situation. You have nothing but what Jesus doesn't want to escape our attention is in verse 8, after you are the one with nothing and your friend sleepy has something. Verse 8, I tell you...because you think the story is over. The disciples would have said, yeah, this is how the world works. We got to create boundaries. That's what my psychologist says. I need boundaries. So, sorry, come over for coffee in the morning. Peace be with you. You think that's the way the story goes? But that's not how Jesus is telling the story. He says, I tell you, even though the friend sleepy will not get up and give you, needy, anything because you're his friend, which is the humor of Jesus. This is a fantastic story. When we talk about the sense of humor of Jesus, it's not like it's the obvious stuff he didn't walk around with like, hi, I'm Jesus...clown, funny. No, he's telling a poignant story that makes you chuckle on the inside one because you have persistent friends, some annoyingly persistent, obstinate even. And listen, this is the moral of the story. Even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend. It ain't about the relationship, because of your needy persistence, your friend sleepy will get up and give you as much as you need. And there's the payoff pitch. It's persistence that gets you there. But it's not as if Jesus is teaching this story to teach us that persistence is an end in and of itself. That's not the moral of the story. That persistence is an end in and of itself. I mean, we do know that in life, any great endeavor we set out to do, you got to stick with it. You got to keep trying. You got to keep going. But see, you keep going because there's an end in mind. And there was an end in mind in the story and the end in mind in the story, is that needy knew he had to meet the need of his friend. It wasn't even about him, and he wasn't even going to get that need met by the relationship. He was going to get it by not giving up. The end game wasn't him insisting on his own way. It's not about insistence. It's not about me. It's about persistence on someone else's behalf. And we just learned on whose behalf, we pray. We pray on God's behalf for his name and for his fame. So when we persist, we are persisting. And here is the lesson of persistence. Persistence in our prayers comes from the presumption of our faith in God, not the insistence on our own will and way. Do you see the difference between the two? Persistence and insistence are not the same thing. Insistence is I want it my way, God. And he opens those clutched hands up to say, no, I have more for you. I have my name and my fame, and I have what you need. But I gotta pry those fingers open as you insist. You want what you want, and you open your hands up and say, okay, it's not what I want. I want what you want. And that is you persisting in prayer on the presumption of your faith in him. He has the supply and you have the need, and you'll just keep praying. How long? Well, 9 and 10 helps us see how long to pray. The principle of the prayer is that we just keep praying. The persistence of the prayer is we have inadequacy, God has the supply. The point of the story is then you just keep praying because Jesus pivots here and 9 and 10 and says, so I say to you, now that you know what persistence looks like, it ain't even because you're this guy's friend. It's because you didn't stop asking that that friend will get up and give you as much as you need. So, I say to you disciples, you're still in the story. Here's the command ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. Why ask, seek, and knock. What's special about that? Well, it's all encompassing, I guess, in every way you could think of making a request to somebody who has what you need. But there seems to be a a progression in intensity. You know that when you want something from somebody else, you first just ask. And if they don't give what you want initially, you keep asking. You seek. You follow them around, you dog them, you know you're just not going to give up. And then even if they slam the door in your face, opportunity knocks. Importunity, which we're talking about here, knocks the door down. That's what Importunity does. It just keeps going and going and going and going and won't quit. And so we see this progression in persistence that can lead to God's provision of grace. And now we're back to what Calvin said about prayer being the chief exercise of faith. Why the progression of persistence? Why the principle that just keep asking and seeking and knocking and whoever asks, receive and seeks, finds and knocks, it will be open because God is building faith in you, Christian. He's working you out in his gym. And he's not doing this to play a game, to say, I want to see how bad you want it. What he's actually doing is trying to get you to see what is it you actually want, and does it align with his priorities and kingdom principles? That's why persistence is not a virtue for its own sake in this story. It's for a higher cause. So he wants you to keep asking and seeking and knocking, working it out with him. He wants you to abide in him, be close to him and figure it out. But you're not really just saying I'm just going to keep saying it over and over and the same...thing that's not praying. That's not communion. That's just saying I'm just going to be obstinate and repeat myself. That's not the point. Much of what it means to be a Christian is in prayer, just to be with the Lord, to have that discipline, to come and talk to him, to plead with him, to ask him. As John 15:7 says, to abide. If you abide in me, Verse 7 John 15, and my words, that's the key...abide in you. Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. So that process of going to God in prayer, he's refining you every time you go back over and over again, asking, then seeking, then knocking. Because hopefully in that time he's refining you. He's conforming you to the image of his Son. He's helping you build endurance.  You're persevering, and it says in Romans, when perseverance is built, character is formed. This is what God's doing when he's saying, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. C.H. Spurgeon said, 'the best prayers I've ever heard in prayer meetings have been the fullest of arguments'. What does he mean by that? Not okay. Clarify. He's not talking about like that good old fashioned church meeting where everybody argues with each other. No, he's saying a prayer meeting...where the people have been the fullest of arguments. What arguments? Pleading God's promises back to him. The three words that I fear most in my house. Dad, you said. Now I am getting hit now in five directions by it...kids age 12 to 5. They figure out that maybe I said this, but the little ones pick up. And while this one's saying dad, you said ice cream, this one says dad and you said ponies with ice cream. I did?...That sounds crazy. Okay. Ponies with ice cream it is. Let's go. Now I can fear, "dad, you said", because I'm fallible. I might have said it. It might be somewhere in the annals of things. Adam says when he's half paying attention. But when you say to your father in heaven, dad, you said...he knows exactly what he said. It has to be here when you plead that promise back to him in importunity in shameless persistence, in audacity that going to him again and again what he's refining in you and the Holy Spirit's working in your heart and prayer, saying, did I really say that? Did I really make you that promise? Or did you just try to name and claim that thing of your own want and your own will and your own desire? And you think, I'm going to answer that, persist in prayer in that, and see where you come out on the other side. You will either be frustrated because you know what you're asking no longer actually aligns with his priorities, or you come out broken and he finally breaks through and you see the thing you've been missing all along. This actually, God was always about me and was not actually about you. That's the principle of persisting in prayer. He has the supply. You have the need, but he wants you to keep coming and asking and seeking and refining in you so that you pray his priorities back to him.
  What's the purpose in this all...our last point. I mean, you could say 9 and 10. The why behind it is...it's his hand. He has the supply. He's the one that can give. He's the one that can open. But Jesus is going to highlight here in these last three verses. It's not just about his hand, it's about his heart. He wants to teach you, his child, about his character, which is the best thing about him. The last lesson on persistent prayer of a passionate disciple. He uses a parable that we can all identify with because we had parents. Some of us are parents, and he just draws a simple parallel to our lives. Suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for Chick fil A, and you bring him Zaxby's. Sometimes I try to get contemporary on you, but the principle is the same. It's the old fakeroo in Jesus time. This father has a son, and his son is hungry for a piece of fish to eat, and he doesn't pull it off and a copperhead comes out. Same if he asks for an egg, he's not going to give him a scorpion. Jesus is just doing something very simple. He's moving in an argument from a lesser to a greater. Verse 13 if you then you in the story being evil, meaning you have sin in your heart, you're not the perfect parent. You don't always know the perfect answer for your kid when you should give them what they want, when you shouldn't. You're figuring that out. You're learning as you go. Jesus isn't. God is never learning as he goes. He's never learning. He's never making a mistake as he goes with you. So if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts, even in your in your fallibility, you can't do it perfectly. You can still give good gifts to your kids. You don't do the switch. How much more will your Heavenly Father give to you? How much more...is the emphasis in this. If you can love your kids and want what is best for them, how much more can your Father in heaven who is all wise and all loving and all powerful and all seeing and all glorious? How much more can he do what's best for you? So this whole section comes to a crescendo on the character of God as Father, not just the power of his hand in 9 and 10, but his perfect heart in verse 13. Are your prayers just wanting to change God's mind without knowing his heart? You just want to see the power of God move on your behalf, but you don't want to know the God behind that power. He wants to teach you about your Heavenly Father, who is always wanting to give much more than you could ask or think or imagine. All of his character and attributes are wonderful. Take any number of them and they fill our hearts with amazement as his children. But the one that draws us closest to his heart is his attribute of a loving father who has moved us from just beholding him in creation to coming to him in His Son, and in justification, but moving out of the courtroom of law, being declared righteous into the living room of his home and his love and your adoption. That's what it means to come to your Father in heaven is to say, you didn't just pardon me in court and declare me guiltless before the throne. You said, come and move in with me, and I'll dwell with you. This is the high point of this passage. Because it's about the beautiful doctrine of adoption. Not just that he can move in power, but that he could provide in love.
  When I was in Texas with a couple of my kids last week, we went to the Institute for Creation Research. It was pretty cool. It was like the one in, I think, in Kentucky. They might be rivals. I don't know. But it was it was awesome. I took my kids through. And we are beholding God's power in creation the way that they just surround you with evidences of God's power and hand over everything from the beginning. And I left there thankful. What a wonderful God we serve. I am no scientist, nor the son of a scientist. So when I get around stuff that shows me where the Bible proves it all, you know, it's the chief of the sciences and studies and science and biology and chemistry flow from it. I was amazed I was on a high. My kids just wanted Whataburger. So we went there and that's a different story. So that was my Saturday. And then I woke up to preach the next morning on this passage and be just getting my mind on how good it is to be a child of God. And I came across a quote from Puritan Thomas Watson. And God made a beautiful connection in that moment. Watson said this, "It was much for God to take a clod of dust and make it into a star. How much more for God to take a clod of dirt and sin and adopt it as his heir?" How much more? The heavens declare the glory of God, and we created in his image are not just clods of dirt. We're clods of sinful, fallen dirt, aren't we? Aren't we? And that he can make a star just out of the dust, out of nothing. But he could make a son and daughter out of sinful dirt. How did he do it? He did it by giving his Son on your behalf.
  If you're not in Christ this morning and you hear of the wonderful love of God for sinners, there's only one prayer for you. There's maybe many things this morning that you go, wow, that's how it works? I can pray to God. And he could answer, Will he? There's one prayer for you this morning if you're not in Christ, and it's in Luke 18, verse 13. A tax collector, a sinner standing some distance away from the temple, was unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That's your prayer today. You have nothing to ask of God this morning if you're not in Christ, outside of his pardoning mercy, which he offers lavishly and freely to you in His Son. He offers Christ to you.  He says come to me with your burden of sin, with your guilt and punishment, and have your sin be washed away by the blood of my Son, who gave himself for you, who lived a life you couldn't live, who died a death you deserved to die as your substitute, who was risen again for your justification and finished it, and now reigns and rules at the hand of the Father. And all of that is offered to you in Christ this morning. But you have to recognize the gap, the distance, and cry out to him, be merciful to me. That's your one and only prayer to God today.
  For those in Christ this morning. I held back one thing...saved the best for last. You see, it's not just how much more will your Heavenly Father give you a gift. He says, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit. Who's much more than a gift, isn't he? He's a giver. He doesn't just say, here's a gift and use it, and then it's gone. He actually gives you the giver of gifts, the Holy Spirit, who constantly and continually is there for you every single moment of the day, for every need you have brother and sister. So when you have a need for strength and you fear you're too weak to go on and life is too hard and you can't pray, the giver is there. Romans 8:26, in the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. When we're weak. Are you weak? You know you're weak, because apart from Jesus, you can do nothing. And when you are at your weakest, he intercedes for you at his best, because he's with you to the end of the age. No matter how hard it gets, he's with you. What greater gift could he have given you than the Spirit to always be with you? If that weren't enough, and you say I lack wisdom, I don't know what to do. I don't know what decisions to make. If God would just show me, he doesn't need to show you it. He gave you the spirit of truth who will guide you into all truth. So you want a decision or you want the spirit of truth? You have him. He's with you. So when you ask for wisdom, he can give it to you. You see how much better it is that saving the best for last? It's just not some generic gift he gives. No, how much does the Father love you as his adopted child? He has given you His Holy Spirit, his indwelling presence and power in you to work through you so that you can pray and know your Father in heaven hears you. So may God remind all of us this morning. When we feel our prayer life is off a little bit. It's not. It may not be merely that our priorities were off. It might not be simply that we were just praying the wrong words. It might be that the Father has said to you this morning, you've not been seeing the right Father. You haven't been seeing me rightly. You need to draw near to my heart, and I long for you to persist with me. Because I love to be with you. Let's pray.
  Father, we thank you for your grace and kindness to us in your Son. And if salvation in Christ were not enough, that you sent your Spirit to dwell within us, and to be with us in our weakness, to intercede for us, to empower us to illumine your love to us. For Paul wrote, the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. So even in this moment, the most downtrodden sinner who's too ashamed to look up can cry out for mercy, and you can meet him in his need, bring Christ to him, see him in his glory, repent and be saved. Or the brokenhearted believer who felt all hope is lost but has been given hope this morning in the power of the gospel, to know that his or her righteousness stands in heaven, and it has been sealed with the Spirit to a promise that will never perish. All these blessings are ours, and 10,000 abide. We thank you for that. Amen.