November 15, 2023 • 59 mins
When we pray, we should make our desires whatever God desires. In this message on Luke 11:2–4, David Platt teaches us that our desire for God is the heart and secret of prayer. Christians can remember that God gives us protection amidst temptations and perseverance amidst trials.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a
weekly podcast with sermons andmessages from pastor, author and
teacher David Platt.
What I want us to see thismorning is a facet of prayer
that I know in my ownexperiences serving in context
overseas.
God has taught me the mostabout and its desire in prayer.
(00:24):
Two particular situations orcircumstances come to my mind.
One was the first time I had anencounter with house church
believers in Asia.
Believers gathered inunderground locations to study
the word in a country where itwas illegal to be a follower of
Jesus Christ and illegal togather like we had gathered.
I remember we were sittingthere, just in this small room,
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a circle of about 20 or 30believers sitting on little
stools, sitting in a circlethere, and we began to pray.
They were sharing testimoniesabout what God was doing in
their lives and they said weneed to pray.
All of a sudden, they fell downon their knees and on their
faces and they began to weep,just to audibly weep before the
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Lord.
For the next hour all they didwas pray and weep and they
weren't praying.
I was having their prayerstranslated to me.
They weren't praying bigtheological prayers, they were
praying things like God, thankyou for not forgetting about us.
God, thank you for loving us.
God, thank you for knowing ournames.
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And for an hour, that's whatthey prayed Non-stop, just
weeping before him and I knowpreachers have a tendency to
exaggerate, but this is noexaggeration.
When we got up off the floorBecause I had lost it, I was
right there with him.
We got up off the floor andliterally there were puddles of
tears around the room for peoplewho were so passionate about
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their God in prayer.
The other situation orcircumstance that comes to my
mind is in the middle of Sudan,where they were on the heels of
20 years of persecution.
We would pray and these guyswould call out to the Lord,
these women would call out tothe Lord with such passion, and
then we'd finish praying andwe'd immediately go into dancing
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.
They had these dances that theywould do and it was wild.
Sitting there dancing withthese Sudanese brothers and
sisters and looking across theway and seeing war torn
buildings, seeing their churchbuilding that had been ravaged
by helicopter gunships, and tosee them dancing in the middle
of it.
What causes you to pray likethat?
What causes you to fall on yourface and just weep before the
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Lord to let your praying lead todancing in the middle of a war
zone.
How does that happen?
I think it has something to dowith desire and prayer.
Based on those circumstances, Ibegan to study prayer and
scripture and began to see andexperience prayer in entirely
new ways that I had neverexperienced before.
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I believe desire and prayer isall over scripture.
I want us to see that thismorning.
I want to lay down twofoundational, primary truths
from the start that are going toguide our time together.
I think these are truths thatwe see all over scripture, but
especially in the passage we'regoing to study this morning.
Here's the two truths.
You've got them in your notes.
(03:19):
Number one desire for God isthe heart of prayer.
Desire for God is the heart ofprayer.
Listen to what Jonathan Edwardssaid, preacher back in the
Great Awakening, who wrote abook called Religious Affections
.
She said a person who has aknowledge of doctrine and
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theology only without religiousaffection has never engaged in
true religion.
I am bold in saying this, but Ibelieve that no one ever seeks
salvation, no one ever cries forwisdom, no one ever wrestles
with God, no one ever kneels inprayer with a heart that remains
unaffected.
(04:00):
In a word, there is never,never, any great achievement by
the things of religion without aheart that is deeply affected
by those things.
Last week we saw in Luke 11,one that we pray because we need
God.
But I want to remind you thismorning that one of the
fundamental reasons why we prayis not just because we need God,
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it's because we want God, it'sbecause we long for God, because
we yearn for God, because oursouls crave God.
That's why we pray because wewant Him, and desire for God is
the heart of prayer and not justthe emotion of prayer.
What I mean by that is thatwithout desire, prayer cannot
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survive.
Our prayer lives cannot surviveapart from desire, deep,
intimate desire for God.
That leads to the second truth.
That desire is not just theheart of prayer, but I'm
convinced that desire for God isthe secret to prayer.
Even last week, when we beganthinking about prayer, we began
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thinking about questions thatmany of us have thought all our
lives about prayer, how doesprayer work?
How do you have the kind ofsuccess and prayer that we see
all over the New Testament, thatfor some reason, if we're
really honest with each other,is completely foreign to our
lives, and I think desire is thesecret of this picture of
success we see in prayer.
(05:29):
And you've got two blanks therein your notes and this might be
a little bit of anoversimplification, but if I
were to summarize a picture ofprayer when it comes to desire
and it being the secret toprayer in two steps that I would
encourage you with this morningthat we're going to see unfold
in this passage, the two stepswould be this In your prayer
life.
Number one make your wants,god's wants.
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Make your wants God's wants,your desires, god's desires.
Desire what God desires.
This is how intimacy is created.
Intimacy is created by a unityof affection.
When you and somebody else,anybody else, when the two of
you long for the same things, oryou desire the same things, or
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you want the same things, itcreates intimacy between you and
that person.
That's the way it works withGod.
When we want what he wants,when we desire what he desires,
and that intimacy that we talkedabout last week, the mystery of
intimacy with God, becomes areality when the things that are
closest to God's heart becomethe things that are closest to
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our heart.
We begin to want what God'swants.
Once you make your wants God'swants.
It leads to step number two askwhatever you want.
Ask for whatever you want andyou've got it.
Jesus says Guaranteed when yourwants are God's wants.
You ask for whatever you wantin prayer and you are guaranteed
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to get it.
You've already have it as soonas you ask for it.
You know you have it when yourwants are God's wants.
Now again, that's maybe alittle bit of an
oversimplication, but I thinkit's biblical Make your wants
God's wants and then have thefreedom to go to God and ask for
whatever you want and he willgive it to you.
You see, that desire is at theheart of prayer and it's the
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secret to prayer.
I want you to see that unfoldin Luke, chapter 11, verse two.
We studied verse one last weekand the whole context of Luke
and Acts.
Disciples have asked Jesus toteach them to pray, and this is
what Jesus says.
It says he said to them whenyou pray, say Father, how lo be
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your name, your kingdom, come,give us each day our daily bread
, forgive us our sins for wealso forgive everyone who sins
against us and lead us not intotemptation.
How many of us recognize that,if not all of us recognize that
is the Lord's prayer.
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I'm guessing somewhere you'rethinking that Luke left out some
important things in there.
We know that Matthew chaptersix gives us a picture of the
Lord's prayer and he includessome things that Luke has
apparently forgotten.
Luke should have taken betternotes when Jesus was talking so
he could have gotten it downright.
Well, that's not exactly right.
Before we harp on Luke, let'srealize that when Jesus began to
teach them to pray, he wasn'tsaying if you recite these exact
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words, then you're going tohave success in prayer.
This is not intended to be somerote religious formula that
becomes a ritual or liturgy forus that we always say and we
know we're in.
There's some kind of magic, soto speak, in saying these
particular words.
I know my high school baseballteam.
We'd get together before everygame, before we ran out in the
field, we would pray the Lord'sprayer and it just it didn't
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work.
We were horrible.
We were horrible, so maybethat's not the way it was
intended to work.
Now that it's bad to pray thisword for word, it's certainly
not a bad thing, but that's notthe point.
Jesus is not just saying youpray these exact words Even in
Matthew chapter six.
We get a little confused,because when you read the Lord's
prayer in Matthew chapter six,it ends with deliverance from
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the evil one and you don't seethe Dine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever andever.
What's the deal with that?
Did Matthew forget somethingtoo?
Well, actually, 1611, kingJames translation.
At that time the manuscript wewere using to get the New
Testament had the Dine is thekingdom, the power and the glory
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forever and ever.
But a lot's happened since 1611and during that time we've
discovered a lot more earliermanuscripts that didn't have
that part.
So it's probably added a littlelater on, and so most
translations of the Bible today,when you go to that part of
Matthew chapter six and I'llhave a little note at the end
says some manuscripts say this.
So we've kind of had that onein there more than Matthew
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forgetting, and I think we do itprimarily for the sake of
weddings, if you ask me.
I just think we like that partof the song at the wedding and
it just doesn't seem as right toend on deliver us from evil.
Okay, amen, y'all have awonderful marriage.
We want that, you know.
Just hit the high note and justlet it rev.
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That'll be the last time I sing, but you just let it rev and
that's beautiful and it may bebeautiful weddings.
The only problem is it's justprobably not biblical.
So, anyway, we come to theLord's prayer and we see not
Jesus saying these are the exactwords you say.
Instead, he is showing us whatwe're supposed to desire in
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prayer when he says when youpray, this is what you say.
That word pray, originallanguage of the New Testament,
it's two words that are puttogether that basically mean, in
the context of intimacy orcloseness, to ask for something,
to request something.
So what do we ask for?
You said last week, dave, gointo your room, close the door
and pray.
What do I do when I get there?
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What do I ask for?
I want you to see, in Luke,chapter 11, verse two, through
four, four primary requests,four primary requests.
Everyone would say there's fivehere.
We're going to group the firsttwo together Four primary
requests.
And here's what we're going todo.
We're going to look at each oneof these requests and then
we're going to pause.
We're going to pray for thatthing that we've just studied I
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want to invite you to do, whenwe come to those times in prayer
, all throughout this service.
My goal is for us just to havethe freedom all across this room
To pray.
We're going to have music wherewe can pray as we sing or you
can pray as you're sitting there.
I want to invite you to havethe freedom to stand.
I want to invite you to havethe freedom to come down here to
the front kneel or go to thesides of kneel or just go to the
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aisles and kneel.
You do it every one.
I know that's a littledifferent, but I want us just to
have freedom as we study theword, to let it become the
prayed word throughout this room, however that looks in your
life.
So what does Jesus tell us?
To ask for?
Number one, jesus says Ask Godfor His glory.
Ask God for His glory.
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He says Pray, father, hallowedbe your name, your kingdom come
Now.
Here's what we've got.
To make sure we don't miss thepoint here.
For years I thought that thiswas a declaration of the glory
of God, of the holiness of God.
God, you are holy, andtherefore you start your praying
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with just saying God is holyand then you go on asking for
things.
But that's not what Jesus issaying.
The language here, this is nota declaration God, you are holy.
It's a request for God tohallow His name.
The verb is passive.
The whole Lord's prayer isrequests Hallow your name.
Now, what does that mean?
To hallow His name?
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What does that mean for God tohallow His name?
Well, this is a word that wesee throughout Scripture that
basically means to sanctifysomething, and to sanctify
something just unpack that alittle bit can be used in one of
two ways throughout Scripture.
Sometimes, sanctify most oftenis the word that's used to
describe how you make somethingholy.
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As followers of Jesus Christ,the Bible says we're in a
process of sanctification.
God is making us holy, he'smaking us look more like Jesus.
But when you come to hallowingthe name of God, there's really
not a lot of holiness to be madethere.
He's already got that cover.
And so the other way we seethis word sanctify used in
Scripture, is not just to makesomething holy, but to treat
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something as holy.
So the prayer here, what we'reasking God to do, is to cause
His name to be treated as holy,to cause His name to be hallowed
, to be sanctified.
Cause your name, oh God, to beregarded as holy.
That's what we're asking God todo.
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We're asking God for His glory.
Now here's the picture of Godthat we have.
Even in the context of thisprayer, you see a few different
characteristics of God broughtto the forefront.
Picture our God here in Luke 11, verse 2.
First of all, he is thesovereign Father, and we're
going to dive a couple of weeksfrom now.
In the last week in this series, we're going to look at what it
means for God to be Father andthe implications of that for how
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we pray.
It suffices to say at thispoint don't miss this.
The God who is sovereign overthe entire universe calls you
child.
Let that soak in.
The God who calls the stars byname and who created the
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mountains and the valleys andthe hills, and the skies and the
seas.
God calls you His Son or HisDaughter.
He is the sovereign Father.
We pray to Him as our Dad, ourFather.
He is the sovereign Father.
Second, he is the Holy One.
This picture of hallowed makeyourself known as holy.
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This is the characteristic ofGod we see throughout the Old
Testament, especially emphasizedIsaiah.
Chapter 6 comes face to facewith the glory of God.
The choir is saying Holy, holy,holy, the only attribute of God
that is mentioned three timesin Scripture is holiness.
It means he is completelyunique.
He is completely other.
Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 23,.
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God says I will show theholiness of my great name.
The nations will know that I amthe sovereign Lord, declares
the Lord, when I show myselfholy through my people, he shows
Himself as holy.
Samuel, chapter 7, verse 22,.
You are sovereign and great, oLord, there is no one like you.
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There is no God but you.
When we pray, hallowed be yourname, we pray God.
Make yourself known as the onethere is nobody else like.
Show to the world that there isno God but you, no one like you
, that you are great, you'reholy.
Not only is he a sovereignFather, the Holy One, he is the
coming King.
Your kingdom come, and this iswhere that second petition kind
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of comes in there.
He is the coming King.
Throughout the New Testament Ialways see a picture of the
kingdom of God being inauguratedin Christ coming to the earth
and showing what the reign ofGod looks like with His life.
But it also looks forward inthe New Testament does to the
consummation of that kingdom,when God will come and he will
reign, and God will one dayeradicate all evil, he will
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demonstrate, manifest Hisrighteousness on the earth.
So when we pray, hallowed beyour name, your kingdom come, we
are praying.
God, come and make your nameknown.
God, come and make your reignknown.
That's what we're asking God todo.
We're not saying God, hallowedis your name, although it is.
We're saying God, make yourname hallowed, make your name
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known as holy.
That's our cry.
But who are we crying that out?
For?
For whom are we praying?
When we pray, hallowed be yourname?
I think there's a personaldimension to this and a
worldwide dimension to this.
I think we're praying.
Our cry is God, make Yourselfknown in my life.
God, make Yourself known in mylife.
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Make Yourself known as holy.
Make Yourself known as great inmy life.
Cause me to treat your name asholy.
I want to believe yourgreatness with greater intensity
.
That's why I'm praying.
I'm praying that you wouldcause me to trust in your power
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with greater intensity.
You'd cause me to obey you likeyou are holy.
You would cause me to be pureas you are pure.
God, make Yourself known in mylife.
Think about it.
Every single one of us in thisroom who has a relationship with
Christ.
We bear the name of our Father.
So how is God going to makeHimself known in the world as
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holy To those who bear His name,you and I?
That's why we pray hallowed beyour name in my life, but not
just in my life.
God, make Yourself known.
Hallowed be your name in allthe world.
There's a cosmic, universaldimension to this prayer.
Hallowed be your name, yourkingdom, come in all the world.
The picture we've got the restof the New Testament, the
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kingdom of God coming, is apicture of every tribe and every
people, in every language,every nation seeing praises to
Him as the King.
That's where our prayers areheaded.
We want Him to make Himselfknown as great and holy and
mighty in all the world, inevery corner of the earth, in
every corner of Birmingham.
We want God's name to be knownas holy Every corner of every
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country on this planet.
We want God's name to be knownas holy when we pray for these
teams in Ecuador.
We pray God, use these brothersand sisters of ours to make
your name known as holy inEcuador, our brothers and
sisters in Venezuela thismorning.
Make your name known as holythrough them for our students in
Ukraine.
Make your name known as greatthroughout Ukraine.
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Through them, they reportedback to us this week that 50
students had come to faith inChrist there in Ukraine.
God, make Yourself known asgreat and Savior in the middle
of Ukraine.
That's what we pray Now.
Here's the beauty of it Our cryfor God's name to be hallowed
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and His kingdom to come.
The beauty of it is and it goesback to where we started this
morning.
God wants this to happen.
He wants His name to behallowed.
We've got to remember that whenwe pray, we're not asking God
to do things he doesn't want todo.
We're asking God to do thatwhich is most passionate on His
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heart.
He is not disinclined to makeHis glory known.
This whole person is inclinedto make His glory known.
There is nothing that is higheron God's priority list than
making His greatness and Hisgrace and His mercy and His
majesty, his love, known.
And so when we pray for that,we're coming in line with the
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desires of God.
This is why we can say makeyour wants God's wants.
Then ask for whatever you wantJesus is saying.
He said that throughoutScripture, god's name will be
vindicated, he will show Hisrighteousness, he will show His
power and His mercy is glory toall nations.
So you pray for that and you'rein on the cosmic plan of God to
make His name hallowed in allthe earth.
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He says you have the privilegeof praying this prayer into
reality in your life.
I'm convinced that if thekingdom of God comes, is
consummated in our lifetime, godmay it be so.
But if it is, it will bebecause the Church of Jesus
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Christ gets serious aboutpraying the Lord's prayer.
Hallowed be your name in allthe earth.
I'm convinced that if we aregoing to do what we talked about
two weeks ago and we are goingto fulfill the Great Commission,
it will be because the Churchat Brook Hills unites in a
concerted effort of prayer wherewe fall on our faces day after
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day and week after week and wecry out together as a faith
family Make your name known asholy throughout the earth.
God wants to answer that.
It longs to answer that.
Let me give you a picture.
I got an email this week fromHouston, a 51 year old man.
He writes in the spring of 2006, with the encouragement of two
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of my friends at work, I beganfor the first time in my life to
study God's Word and apply itto my life.
It was during this time that Ibegan to have a burden to go on
a mission trip to Brazil.
I began praying and seekingGod's direction.
I had no idea where to turn forguidance.
In September, I was contactedwith an opportunity to go to
Brazil in July of 2007, thismonth Because the team of 22
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would come from another place.
I was isolated from trainingand had to work and plan via the
internet.
This is where the Church atBrook Hills plays in.
In early spring of 2007, Istarted subscribing to your
podcast.
It was during the spring andearly summer that I listened to
your messages on sharing myfaith with people in different
cultures.
I can remember listening to themessages on preparing and
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giving our testimonies andsharing with guilt, shame and
fear-based cultures.
I didn't realize at the timewhat God was doing in my life.
Few weeks ago, our team went toSt Helena in the northeast
corner of Brazil.
On Saturday morning I was askedto share my testimony.
By the way, it was less than100 words.
I was asked to share mytestimony with approximately 75
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local Christians.
I then shared with them how towrite and share their
testimonies with others Over thenext three days.
Through the efforts of thoseChristians.
Over 100 Brazilians came toknow the Lord in a personal way.
Now here's where it gets reallygood.
Not that that wasn't good, buthere's where it gets really good
.
I want to personally thank youand the church for all you do
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for the furtherance of God'skingdom.
Also, I would like to thankCharles Carr, jim Shepard, gene
Mason and others at Brooke Hillswhom my wife, pam, had
contacted while I was gone topray for God's will in our lives
.
Mark it down Guaranteed.
You pray for the name of God tobe hallowed in all corners of
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the earth and it will happen.
He will make his glory known.
He will show himself faithful.
He will show himself the Saviorof the world.
He will show himself the Lordof the nations.
Let's be a faith family thatgoes, falls on our knees and
asks God to do it.
Ask God for his glory.
So that's what we're going todo In the next couple of minutes
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.
We're going to come face toface with the glory of Jesus
Christ and we're going to askhim to make his name known as
Holy in our lives.
We're going to ask him to makehis name Holy in all the world,
and Amy's going to sing over us,and while she's singing.
You feel free to sing along Ifyou'd like.
You feel free to just sit inprayer.
You feel free to stand inprayer as you sing along.
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You feel free to come to thefront.
You have the freedom.
But let's, let's do this.
Let's ask God for his glory.
God, cause your name to behallowed in our lives, in this
room, and cause your name to behallowed in all the world.
God, we pray that your namewould be known as Holy in us and
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we pray that you would makeyourself known as great and
mighty, powerful healer anddeliverer and redeemer.
And Ecuador and Venezuela andthe Ukraine, god, we pray that
you would cause your name to beregarded as Holy, as the coming
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King, as the sovereign Fatherand as the Holy One We'd give
ourselves.
And we ask for your glory.
Do may know that is, we knowthat is the priority of your
heart, and so we make it thepriority of ours.
We ask for that in prayer today, in Jesus' name, amen.
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You make your wants as once.
Then you ask whatever you want.
Ask for his glory.
Second petition, second request, and the Lord's prayer.
It's to ask for his gifts.
Ask God for his gifts, it says.
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Give us each day, our dailybread.
Now we come to this point.
We kind of ask the question whyis this the only thing Jesus
tells us to ask God to give tous?
Give us bread.
I mean, let's be honest, thereare things more important even
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than bread.
We need water more than bread.
We need air more than bread.
Why does he say give us ourbread daily?
Well, the picture goes all theway back to God's work among his
people in the Old Testament,exodus, chapter 16,.
You remember, so you mayremember, when God's people were
wandering the wilderness.
They had been taken out ofslavery in Egypt and they were
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brought in to this wildernesswhere they were wandering.
They were hungry, they didn'thave any food.
So God provided food for them,literally bread from heaven,
manna.
They would wake up, walkoutside their tents and then
refood everywhere.
They'd refood enough for thatday and be able to eat for that
day.
But if they tried to save ituntil the next day, what
happened?
Bread wasn't so good anymore,and so they wouldn't want to eat
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the bread on the next day.
They learned to trust God dayby day.
Every morning, god's going toprovide us the food we need.
We go to bed at night we don'thave food for tomorrow.
Wake up the next morning, he'sgiving it to us.
Now, why did God do that, whydid he lead them like that, and
why would that be so importantfor how we pray?
Well, I think there's twotruths that are fundamental to
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understanding Exodus chapter 16,and especially how it relates
to the Lord's Prayer.
Number one God satisfies ourhunger.
Let me ask you a questionthat's going to seem very
elementary, but think about itwith me.
Why were the Israelites in thewilderness?
Why were they hungry?
First, because they didn't haveany food.
But go deeper than that.
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They were hungry because Godcreated them with that hunger
right.
The only reason we are hungryfor food, the only reason we
have cravings, is because Godhas created us that way.
God has created us to hungerafter things, and here's the
beauty of it to hunger afterthings that only he can fill.
He caused them to hunger.
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It literally says in Exoduschapter 16, he created them that
way so that they would look toHim to fulfill that hunger.
He satisfies our hunger, andthat leads to the second truth.
Not only does he satisfy ourhunger, but he sustains our
faith and he teaches us in theprocess to look to Him to give
us the gifts we need, to look toHim to fill those hungers in us
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.
Let me show this to you.
Hold your place here in Luke 11and go back with me to
Deuteronomy, fifth book in theBible, deuteronomy chapter 8.
Genesis X, the Leviticusnumbers.
Then you'll come to Deuteronomy, chapter 8.
This is when God is explainingwhy he did what he did in the
desert.
He's after he had done it andhe is explaining His motivation,
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what His whole purpose forproviding them food in that way
was.
Listen to Deuteronomy, chapter8, verse 3, and you're going to
see both these truths the factthat he satisfies our hunger and
he sustains our faith.
Look for Him here inDeuteronomy, chapter 8, verse 3.
It says he, meaning God,humbled you, causing you to
hunger there.
It is causing you to hunger andthen feeding you with manna
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which neither you nor yourfathers are known.
Two.
Here's the purpose.
Here's why God did it to teachyou that man does not live on
bread alone, but on every wordthat comes from the mouth of the
Lord.
These were people when theywere slaves in Egypt.
They had a lot of food to eatand they even grumbled.
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In Numbers, chapter 11, said wedon't want the man, we want the
food back in Egypt.
The reason God did this is hewanted to teach them that they
had a hunger, that he createdthem so that he would fill it.
So that I'm teaching you totrust in me to provide the bread
you need.
Trust in me to provide thegifts that you need.
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Man does not live on bread.
You live on God, on every wordthat comes from the mouth of God
.
That doesn't mean you're hungry.
You eat the Bible.
It means that you've thought itbefore, haven't you?
What does that make sense?
It's teaching them that God isthe provider for them and
they're to seek Him to providewhat they hunger for and they
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long for.
That's the whole point of whywe get to Luke, chapter 11.
He says give us today, each day, our daily bread.
It's that picture of us sayingon a daily basis God, we have a
hunger for food, a physicalhunger for food, and only you
can provide for that hunger.
We have a thirst for water.
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Only you can provide that.
We have a longing for air on amoment by moment basis.
We don't even think about it,but we've got it.
As soon as it's taken away fromus, we begin immediately to
long for it.
Only you can fulfill that.
We have all kinds of hungers,desires, thirst, longings in our
life for peace, for love, forintimacy, for meaning, for
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purpose.
Jesus is saying you go to Godand you say only you can provide
these things for me.
Now this whole request seemsreally strange in our culture
today because, let's be honest,we don't very often ask God to
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give us bread today, to give usfood today.
Not one of us in this room wasworried about the fact that we
may not have anything to eattoday.
So why would our main requestfor God to give us something be
for bread when in our culture,most, if not all, of us need
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less food, not more?
Why do we ask for daily bread?
Because Jesus is saying thatyou need to pray, and prayer
will be the guard in your lifeto guard you against thinking
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that you can provide bread foryourself on your own, apart from
Him, and prayer will be thehedge of protection to keep you
from thinking that you canprovide what you need, that you
can provide for your hungers bygoing to the things of this
world instead of going to God.
I'm convinced I look at my ownlife.
(32:14):
I look at the state ofChristianity and Western culture
.
One of the reasons that we areso flippant and so casual with
prayer is because we actuallybelieve that we can.
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We can do this thing on our ownand we can sustain our lives on
our own.
We believe that because we'vegot the things to prove it and
we have bought the bill of goods, the materialism that sold us,
that said we don't need God, wejust need our things.
(32:55):
We can make it without Godbecause we've got all our things
.
And Jesus says the core ofprayer is you realizing that you
have a Father in heaven whodesires to give every good and
perfect to you, and you need Him, not bread, you need Him, not
water, not air, not all of thesethings that you hunger and long
for.
You need Him and he willprovide those things for you.
(33:19):
And prayer brings us back tothat realization we have.
We've got to ask God to deliverus in this culture that we live
in, to deliver us fromself-sustaining Christian lives.
You can't.
That goes against the wholepoint of Christianity.
We're only sustained by God,we're only satisfied by God, and
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he gives us that which nothingelse in this world, no matter
how big our house is, no matterhow nice our car is, no matter
how great our 401K is, no matterhow great our job, our salary
is, the possessions that we own,no matter how great they are,
we don't need things, we needGod.
And spending time and closeddoors with God saying we're none
of us, I'm guessing none of usIf I ask today, give me my daily
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bread?
Maybe very few of us, becausewe think we've got it on our own
and we don't.
We don't have it on our own.
We can't do this thing withoutHim.
He alone is our provider.
And so we go to Him and we saygive us, give us the coordinates
.
I need you to provide thesethings for me.
And it's why and we're notalone we need God to provide
(34:26):
these things for me.
And it's why, it's why ourSudanese brothers and sisters in
the middle of the Africanjungle are dancing when they
pray.
It's why, in a war-torncommunity, they're celebrating
Because they they've seen theirfriends and their family members
take it, taken by militantMuslims, miles into the desert
and left there to starve,without food or water, and
(34:49):
they've seen those trucks goback every day to those people
in the desert, those believersin the desert and say if you
will renounce your faith, wewill take you to food.
If you will renounce your faith, we'll take you to water.
And they've seen their friendsand family members die there in
the desert because they wouldrenounce their faith.
Does that mean that God did notgive them their daily bread?
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Absolutely not.
That means our brothers andsisters in the Sudan know that
man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes
from the mouth of God.
God is their sustenance, he istheir satisfaction, and it's why
, when you go to Sudan today andyou say I'm sorry about all the
tapping around you, they'lllook back at you and they'll say
the same three words every time.
Their favorite phrase is God isgreater.
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We don't have food.
God's greater.
We don't have drink.
God's greater.
Our homes are ravaged.
God is greater.
He gives us what we need, hesatisfies us, he sustains us and
he is all we need.
And so we need to pray for ourdaily bread.
(35:53):
We need to pray for God'sprovision, we need to pray for
God's gifts, like we want God togive them and like we can't.
We can't get what he offersanywhere else.
Let's throw over the next fewminutes.
I wanna invite you to let thissoak in in your life and prayer
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Again.
You have the freedom.
You stand you'd like, sit thereand pray if you'd like.
You'd sing along if you'd like.
The whole purpose of thesesongs is to guide us in prayer.
You kneel if you would like,but across this room and this
materialistic, wealthy culturethat we are all immersed in,
(36:36):
let's ask God to give us ourdaily bread and let's confess
that we are desperate for Him toprovide His gifts to us.
Psalm 16, verse two I said tothe Lord you are my Lord, and
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apart from you, lord, we have nogood thing.
We have no good thing apartfrom you, god.
You are our sustainer.
You're the only one whosatisfies us.
So we ask for your satisfaction.
We want you to satisfy us in away that bread can't satisfy us,
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water can't satisfy us, in away that more possessions, cars
or houses, money cannot satisfyus, money cannot satisfy us, and
we need you to sustain us in away that we are completely
dependent on you.
God, help us to find that andprayer and communion with you
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amidst the materialistic culturethat we live in.
God, help us to come out in themiddle of that and say, apart
from God, we have nothing.
Teach us to pray like this inJesus' name, amen.
We ask God for His giftsbecause only he can give them.
(38:10):
We ask God for His glory andHis gifts.
Then we ask God third petition,or request some Lord's prayers
for His grace.
For His grace.
For His grace, forgive us oursins.
For simple words thatabsolutely blow open the
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storehouse of heaven's mercy.
May we never lose sight of thebeauty and the wonder of coming
before the Holy God of theuniverse, saying forgive us our
sins and knowing that we have ahearing with Him.
What an incredible thought.
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Don't go over that quickly soyou can go out in the baseball
field.
Don't go over that quickly soyou can go on to the next thing
that you really wanna get to andask God to do this.
Let that soak in.
Forgive us our sins.
We want His grace, we ask forHis grace.
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God, I need your grace and themore I'm convinced, the more we
walk with God in prayer, themore we connect with Him in
prayer, the more this willbecome a fundamental part of our
prayer.
You'd think it'd be theopposite.
You'd think that the closer youget to God in prayer, the less
you need to ask for His grace,the less you need to ask for His
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forgiveness because you'regetting things taken care of in
your life right.
I think the opposite is true inScripture as well as in
personal experience.
I think the deeper you go inyour relationship with God and
the deeper you walk with Him inprayer, the more you become
aware of your need for His graceand the more he exposes the
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things in your life that younever saw before, that you want
to get rid of so that you canlive the Christ life.
You need His grace so youexperience his forgiveness.
Forgive us our sins and we havethe privilege, in prayer, of
experiencing his forgiveness, of, in that moment of praying to
this God, knowing that our sinsare forgiven, we experience it.
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This is not just a theoreticaltruth on the pages of scripture.
This is a reality in your life.
In prayer.
Forgive us our sins, youexperience his forgiveness.
He looks at you and he says notguilty, don't wipe clean.
That's reason to pray.
Once you want his grace, he'sready to pour it out.
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We experience his forgivenessin a couple of ways, I think in
Luke, chapter 11.
First of all, continually holdpictures.
Whenever you pray.
This is what you say Forgive usour sins.
The Lord's prayer, jesus, seemsto imply, or assume, that we're
always going to need to ask forthis one, this to assume that
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we're in constant need offorgiveness, that even our best
works need to be washed in theblood of Jesus Christ, even the
best things we have to bring tothe table in prayer, filthy rags
that he cleanses with hisrighteousness.
So we ask continually, over andover again God forgive me of
this, god forgive me of this,god forgive me of this.
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And we know, ladies andgentlemen, you cannot exhaust
the mercy of God.
You just keep coming back tothe well and it'll keep covering
you time after time after timeagain.
You ask for his forgivenesscontinually.
And then you ask for hisforgiveness.
You experience his forgiveness.
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Specifically, there's adefinite article the sins Give
us of the sins that we'vecommitted.
It's the prayer there.
It's not just saying to God, Iknow I messed up somewhere, so
I'm just going to cover my basesand say forgive me and that'll
cover it.
You know, there's a point inour salvation where that's
(42:12):
certainly the case.
We come to God and we realizeour sinful nature and we realize
our need for Him.
Our whole life has been headedtowards sin, given over to sin,
and we come to that point wherewe make a decisive trust in
Christ and he cleanses us of allour sins.
Then, at that point on and Ithink the picture here in Luke,
(42:33):
chapter 11, is we're no longercoming before a judge to be
declared guilty or innocent forall of eternity.
Now there's a picture of achild coming before a father,
sitting down at the table with afather and saying you know,
there's some things that I'velet come between me and you and
I need to specifically just getthose out on the table and lay
them out there, as if he doesn'talready know, as if you're
(42:56):
hiding.
You come to those points whereyou say God, I need you to
forgive me for, and you fill inthe blank and you say things
that you would be ashamed foranybody else to hear, because
you know that you have a fatherin heaven who hears you and he
forgives you specifically.
He covers that sin with hisrighteousness.
(43:19):
We can be specific with him andwe let God, in this thing
called prayer, take hold ofthose areas.
We don't want just to wash theoutside of the cup and leave the
filth inside.
Do?
We Watch the whole thing, thisand this and this.
Sometimes we just need to campout at this part of prayer and
ask for his grace when I havehim say to us over and over and
(43:43):
over again you're not guiltyanymore, you're not filthy
anymore.
So we experience hisforgiveness.
And then it's not where thiswhole picture stops and Luke 11
says you extend his forgiveness.
Forgive us our sins, as we alsohave forgiven those who sin
against us.
Now the danger here in Luke,chapter 11, is to think that
(44:06):
what Jesus is saying is that thebasis or the ground for our
forgiveness is our actions withothers.
That's not what scriptureteaches.
The basis for our forgivenessis obviously the grace and the
mercy of Christ and trusting inChrist.
So we ask them to forgive usbased on that.
But here's what Jesus is sayingvery clearly If you ask God to
(44:30):
forgive you of your sins and yetyou are not forgiving others
around you, that unforgivenessis a sin and so you really
haven't asked God to forgive youof your sins.
Unforgiveness, the roots ofbitterness, the grudges, the
desires for revenge that we holdon to at work and we hold on to
(44:55):
at home and we hold on to inthe church.
Jesus calls it out it's sin,because failure to forgive is a
complete contradiction of thegospel that you have trusted in.
It's a complete contradictionof what you're asking God for in
prayer.
And so he says you receive myforgiveness, and then you
(45:17):
radiate my forgiveness, you showmy forgiveness in a way that
makes no sense to the worldaround you.
And so Jesus says to us inpraying, even goes so far as to
say if you come to pray and yourealize that your brother, if
there's something in between youand him, you need to go get
that right, then you come backand you're praying.
(45:40):
The challenge is for all of usin this room to consider what
areas of bitterness are stillthere in our hearts, what
grudges or desires for revengeor whatever that may be
Unforgiveness in our lives, inour relationships with other
brothers or sisters, and we havegot to get those right if we
are going to progress in prayer.
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Quite and simple, this thingcalled confession is not where
we like to camp out a lot, whenI'm convinced that as God works
in our faith family, he leads usdeeper and deeper into His Word
and deeper and deeper into thismission.
We will need more and more timein confession, not less.
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We will need more time to fallon our faces, corporately and as
individually, and to say God, I, I need and I want your grace.
And so over the next fewminutes, that's what we're going
to do.
And, again, the goal thismorning is that there would not
be spectators in corporateworship, but as we've seen this
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in the Word, okay, then we needto pray.
We need to pray all across thisroom as individuals.
God forgive me of and you fillin the blank and you be specific
with God and forgive us of.
There's a corporate nature thatthe whole Lord's prayer.
God, we have fallen short inthis and this and this as your
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people, and if there's thingsthat we're holding onto roots of
bitterness or unforgiveness, sowe need to get those right.
Whether that's even right now,turning the person beside us, or
going to someone else and say,hey, I need to, I need to get
this right with you, or ifthat's saying God, I'm going to
resolve that today, the resultof my praying is I'm going to go
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and handle this.
I want to suspend some time.
Incorporate confession againyou, you bound, pray where you
are.
You say along if you like, youstand or you kneel.
Let's just spend time becominghonestly before the throne of
mercy, saying forgive us oursins.
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Let's ask God for his grace.
God, we want your grace.
We want you to pour it out onus.
We want to bring our filthbefore you and know your grace
and know the power of your grace.
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We need your grace.
I pray that you would give ussuch a strong desire for your
grace that we would be honestwith you in our sin and you
would draw us deeper and deepertowards yourself, and that you
would expose more and more ofour need for your grace.
And we trust that you'llprovide it in abundance, in
(48:34):
Jesus name, amen.
This is how you pray.
You ask God for his glory andhis gifts and you ask God for
his grace.
And then the final petition,the Lord's prayer, is you ask
God for his guidance, lead usnot into temptation.
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And almost seems to imply thatGod wants to tempt us, that God
wants to entice us.
But that's not at all whatscripture is teaching.
We know James one just debunksthat whole idea.
So what is this saying?
I think it comes on the heelsof a need for grace for a reason
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, and I think the picture we'reseeing here in prayer is that we
come before God as a people whoare all prone to sin.
We are all prone to wandertoward temptation.
Every single one of us,including myself.
You need to know that yourpastor in his flesh, is prone to
(49:46):
wander, is prone to leave theGod he loves.
We all are, every single one ofus in this room, without
exception, and so we praybecause we need him to redirect
us.
We need him to lead us, notinto temptation, to lead us in a
way that honors and thatglorifies him.
(50:08):
Lead us in the path of holinessand righteousness.
We need him to do that becausewe can't do it our own.
He gives protection amidsttemptation.
He gives protection fromtemptation.
Christ does, and apart from himwe are powerless against
(50:31):
temptation.
We need to realize that we havethis tendency that goes back to
our self-sustainingChristianity, that this is the
whole point of Christianity.
We have this idea that when wehear people falling into this
sin or that sin, we think Iwould never do that.
And the Bible tells us takeheed lest you fall.
(50:55):
You can't overcome temptationon your own.
Not one of us in this room can.
I can't, you can't.
Only Christ has the power toovercome the snares and the
schemes of the adversary.
Only him, only when we are inhim that we can overcome
temptation.
We need him to guide us, toprotect us amidst temptation.
(51:18):
There are people all acrossthis room who are dabbling and
flirting with this temptation orthat temptation, this sin or
that sin, thinking well, itwould never go beyond that, it
would never get worse than that.
And the greatest need for us isto go home today, this
afternoon, go into the room,close the door and pray lead me
not into temptation.
For some of us, that is themost urgent need, because the
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adversary is somewhere along theway, convinced us that we can
overcome temptation on our own.
We can't.
We need his guidance.
And the picture here is notjust in temptation to sin, but
in the temptation that comes inthe middle of trial.
And Jesus says pray, lead usnot into temptation in a way
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that we would turn away from Godin the middle of trial.
And so he gives protectionamidst temptation, he gives
perseverance amidst in themiddle of trial, he gives the
sustenance that you need tocontinue to seek him and to
trust him in the middle of ourtrials.
The golden thread.
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We've seen it throughout theLord's Prayer, but it knits it
all together.
That golden thread is a prayer,not not my will, but yours be
done.
We see it in Matthew, chaptersix, and it's over different
places in the New Testament.
But let's be honest, in themiddle of trial, let's just be
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honest, there's times where it'seasier to pray not my will but
yours be done than it is othertimes in our life.
And I'm guessing there's awhole host of people who are
sitting in front of me thismorning who are thinking not my
will, but yours be done, dave,I'm, I'm just not there.
I'm having a real hard timepraying that in my life that
(53:13):
whatever God wants to do in themiddle of this trial, I I want
him to do.
And if, if that's you, I wantto encourage you.
This morning I've just got afeeling that God understands
that, that Christ understandsthat you look at Jesus' prayer
(53:37):
life and comes to the Garden ofGethsemane and he doesn't pray
just casually not my will, butyours be done.
Whatever you want, I'll do it.
It's that easy.
He agonizes in prayer andthere's times in our walks with
God in prayer that we need tocamp out here a little longer
than other times, pray for along time.
God I'm just not there and knowthat he understands that, and
(53:59):
the beauty of this picture inprayer is that he leads us to
get there, even though westarted make your wants God's
wants.
Well, how do I do that?
You ask God to lead you and toguide you to want what he wants.
You ask him to take you there.
You don't have to get there onyour own.
Now you're ready.
He guides you and leads you tothat point.
(54:19):
So if life has taken a turn forthe worse, and your family and
your health and your job, orwhen that does happen, ask God
to lead and to God, ask him, andhe'll bring you to the point
where you can say it Not my will, but yours, be done.
This is what happens in prayer.
(54:40):
This is part of that intimacy,and we all know.
We all know that it's not intimes of triumph, but in times
of trial when the beauty and theintimacy of God in prayer is so
much more real than any othertime in our lives.
And he's designed it that wayso that he would guide you.
In the middle there is there'sa phrase that Puritan believers
(55:04):
use back in the 16th and 17thcentury, called the valley of
vision and we talk about how itwas in the middle of the valleys
where God gave clearest visionof who he is and how he leads
and how he guides.
The Puritans are known in thehistory of Christianity as
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leaving some of the greatestlegacy, example of prayer and
devotion, and I'm convinced it'sbecause Puritans were really
born in the picture of thechurch in England during that
timeframe, when they were, theywere trying to bring the church
back to what the word taught andthe purity of the word in the
church, and they were facingpersecution.
Their homes were being burnedand Archbishop was taking their
(55:49):
leaders aside and torturing them, literally cutting off their
ears.
They were being threatened.
Many of them fled and ended upfounding the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, founded by Puritans whowere living in the middle of
persecution.
They left this legacy of prayerand devotion, I'm convinced,
because they knew what it meantfor God to lead and guide in the
(56:11):
middle of the valley.
And so, as we think aboutpraying, asking God for his
guidance, I want to let themlead our prayer time, and what
you're going to see on thescreen is prayers, puritan
prayers that they prayed.
That I hope will encourage usas we pray and ask God for his
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guidance, and then, in betweenthose prayers, we'll have an
opportunity to sing prayers toGod asking him to be our guide.
And if Solomon, I'm guessing,is familiar to many of us, let's
ask God for his guidance.
Lead us not into temptation.
(56:52):
Dear God, we want your guidancebecause we know that ours is so
limited in scope.
We don't know what the nextyear holds, the next five years
(57:14):
or 10 years.
We don't know what the nextweek holds, but we trust that
you do and that you guide usaccording to what is best for
your children and, ultimately,for your glory, and so I pray
that you would lead us.
Lead us in the middle of thetemptations that surround us, in
(57:35):
the trials that we go through.
Lead us to trust in you, andpray that you would show
yourself strong by guiding oursteps according to your glory,
in Jesus' name, amen.
This, then, is how you prayFather in heaven, hallowed be
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your name, your kingdom, come,ask for his glory.
Ladies and gentlemen, think ofas many ways as you can possibly
think of to phrase that.
Just ask for him to make hisname known over and, over and
over again.
Let that be the perspectivethat now counts, as you, asking
for his gifts, with complete andtotal dependence on him, for
(58:21):
his grace and complete needbefore him and ultimately, for
his guidance.
That all brings us back aroundto making his greatness known.
This is how you pray.
So my challenge for you, for usall, as we've seen this in
scripture this morning, mychallenge for us is to be rid
(58:45):
and done with desireless praying, with affectionless praying.
Let's be rid and done, evenwhen we sit down at the table.
Let's be rid and done with therote praying and misses the
heart of prayer desire for him.
(59:06):
And let's let desire for whathe desires be the secret to
discovering his power in prayer.
And let's see what he does.
We hope you've enjoyed thisweek's episode of Radical with
David Platt.
You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a
weekly podcast with sermons andmessages from pastor, author and
teacher David Platt.
What I want us to see thismorning is a facet of prayer
that I know in my ownexperiences serving in context
overseas.
God has taught me the mostabout and its desire in prayer.
(00:24):
Two particular situations orcircumstances come to my mind.
One was the first time I had anencounter with house church
believers in Asia.
Believers gathered inunderground locations to study
the word in a country where itwas illegal to be a follower of
Jesus Christ and illegal togather like we had gathered.
I remember we were sittingthere, just in this small room,
(00:47):
a circle of about 20 or 30believers sitting on little
stools, sitting in a circlethere, and we began to pray.
They were sharing testimoniesabout what God was doing in
their lives and they said weneed to pray.
All of a sudden, they fell downon their knees and on their
faces and they began to weep,just to audibly weep before the
(01:07):
Lord.
For the next hour all they didwas pray and weep and they
weren't praying.
I was having their prayerstranslated to me.
They weren't praying bigtheological prayers, they were
praying things like God, thankyou for not forgetting about us.
God, thank you for loving us.
God, thank you for knowing ournames.
(01:28):
And for an hour, that's whatthey prayed Non-stop, just
weeping before him and I knowpreachers have a tendency to
exaggerate, but this is noexaggeration.
When we got up off the floorBecause I had lost it, I was
right there with him.
We got up off the floor andliterally there were puddles of
tears around the room for peoplewho were so passionate about
(01:53):
their God in prayer.
The other situation orcircumstance that comes to my
mind is in the middle of Sudan,where they were on the heels of
20 years of persecution.
We would pray and these guyswould call out to the Lord,
these women would call out tothe Lord with such passion, and
then we'd finish praying andwe'd immediately go into dancing
(02:15):
.
They had these dances that theywould do and it was wild.
Sitting there dancing withthese Sudanese brothers and
sisters and looking across theway and seeing war torn
buildings, seeing their churchbuilding that had been ravaged
by helicopter gunships, and tosee them dancing in the middle
of it.
What causes you to pray likethat?
What causes you to fall on yourface and just weep before the
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Lord to let your praying lead todancing in the middle of a war
zone.
How does that happen?
I think it has something to dowith desire and prayer.
Based on those circumstances, Ibegan to study prayer and
scripture and began to see andexperience prayer in entirely
new ways that I had neverexperienced before.
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I believe desire and prayer isall over scripture.
I want us to see that thismorning.
I want to lay down twofoundational, primary truths
from the start that are going toguide our time together.
I think these are truths thatwe see all over scripture, but
especially in the passage we'regoing to study this morning.
Here's the two truths.
You've got them in your notes.
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Number one desire for God isthe heart of prayer.
Desire for God is the heart ofprayer.
Listen to what Jonathan Edwardssaid, preacher back in the
Great Awakening, who wrote abook called Religious Affections
.
She said a person who has aknowledge of doctrine and
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theology only without religiousaffection has never engaged in
true religion.
I am bold in saying this, but Ibelieve that no one ever seeks
salvation, no one ever cries forwisdom, no one ever wrestles
with God, no one ever kneels inprayer with a heart that remains
unaffected.
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In a word, there is never,never, any great achievement by
the things of religion without aheart that is deeply affected
by those things.
Last week we saw in Luke 11,one that we pray because we need
God.
But I want to remind you thismorning that one of the
fundamental reasons why we prayis not just because we need God,
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it's because we want God, it'sbecause we long for God, because
we yearn for God, because oursouls crave God.
That's why we pray because wewant Him, and desire for God is
the heart of prayer and not justthe emotion of prayer.
What I mean by that is thatwithout desire, prayer cannot
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survive.
Our prayer lives cannot surviveapart from desire, deep,
intimate desire for God.
That leads to the second truth.
That desire is not just theheart of prayer, but I'm
convinced that desire for God isthe secret to prayer.
Even last week, when we beganthinking about prayer, we began
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thinking about questions thatmany of us have thought all our
lives about prayer, how doesprayer work?
How do you have the kind ofsuccess and prayer that we see
all over the New Testament, thatfor some reason, if we're
really honest with each other,is completely foreign to our
lives, and I think desire is thesecret of this picture of
success we see in prayer.
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And you've got two blanks therein your notes and this might be
a little bit of anoversimplification, but if I
were to summarize a picture ofprayer when it comes to desire
and it being the secret toprayer in two steps that I would
encourage you with this morningthat we're going to see unfold
in this passage, the two stepswould be this In your prayer
life.
Number one make your wants,god's wants.
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Make your wants God's wants,your desires, god's desires.
Desire what God desires.
This is how intimacy is created.
Intimacy is created by a unityof affection.
When you and somebody else,anybody else, when the two of
you long for the same things, oryou desire the same things, or
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you want the same things, itcreates intimacy between you and
that person.
That's the way it works withGod.
When we want what he wants,when we desire what he desires,
and that intimacy that we talkedabout last week, the mystery of
intimacy with God, becomes areality when the things that are
closest to God's heart becomethe things that are closest to
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our heart.
We begin to want what God'swants.
Once you make your wants God'swants.
It leads to step number two askwhatever you want.
Ask for whatever you want andyou've got it.
Jesus says Guaranteed when yourwants are God's wants.
You ask for whatever you wantin prayer and you are guaranteed
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to get it.
You've already have it as soonas you ask for it.
You know you have it when yourwants are God's wants.
Now again, that's maybe alittle bit of an
oversimplication, but I thinkit's biblical Make your wants
God's wants and then have thefreedom to go to God and ask for
whatever you want and he willgive it to you.
You see, that desire is at theheart of prayer and it's the
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secret to prayer.
I want you to see that unfoldin Luke, chapter 11, verse two.
We studied verse one last weekand the whole context of Luke
and Acts.
Disciples have asked Jesus toteach them to pray, and this is
what Jesus says.
It says he said to them whenyou pray, say Father, how lo be
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your name, your kingdom, come,give us each day our daily bread
, forgive us our sins for wealso forgive everyone who sins
against us and lead us not intotemptation.
How many of us recognize that,if not all of us recognize that
is the Lord's prayer.
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I'm guessing somewhere you'rethinking that Luke left out some
important things in there.
We know that Matthew chaptersix gives us a picture of the
Lord's prayer and he includessome things that Luke has
apparently forgotten.
Luke should have taken betternotes when Jesus was talking so
he could have gotten it downright.
Well, that's not exactly right.
Before we harp on Luke, let'srealize that when Jesus began to
teach them to pray, he wasn'tsaying if you recite these exact
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words, then you're going tohave success in prayer.
This is not intended to be somerote religious formula that
becomes a ritual or liturgy forus that we always say and we
know we're in.
There's some kind of magic, soto speak, in saying these
particular words.
I know my high school baseballteam.
We'd get together before everygame, before we ran out in the
field, we would pray the Lord'sprayer and it just it didn't
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work.
We were horrible.
We were horrible, so maybethat's not the way it was
intended to work.
Now that it's bad to pray thisword for word, it's certainly
not a bad thing, but that's notthe point.
Jesus is not just saying youpray these exact words Even in
Matthew chapter six.
We get a little confused,because when you read the Lord's
prayer in Matthew chapter six,it ends with deliverance from
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the evil one and you don't seethe Dine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever andever.
What's the deal with that?
Did Matthew forget somethingtoo?
Well, actually, 1611, kingJames translation.
At that time the manuscript wewere using to get the New
Testament had the Dine is thekingdom, the power and the glory
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forever and ever.
But a lot's happened since 1611and during that time we've
discovered a lot more earliermanuscripts that didn't have
that part.
So it's probably added a littlelater on, and so most
translations of the Bible today,when you go to that part of
Matthew chapter six and I'llhave a little note at the end
says some manuscripts say this.
So we've kind of had that onein there more than Matthew
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forgetting, and I think we do itprimarily for the sake of
weddings, if you ask me.
I just think we like that partof the song at the wedding and
it just doesn't seem as right toend on deliver us from evil.
Okay, amen, y'all have awonderful marriage.
We want that, you know.
Just hit the high note and justlet it rev.
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That'll be the last time I sing, but you just let it rev and
that's beautiful and it may bebeautiful weddings.
The only problem is it's justprobably not biblical.
So, anyway, we come to theLord's prayer and we see not
Jesus saying these are the exactwords you say.
Instead, he is showing us whatwe're supposed to desire in
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prayer when he says when youpray, this is what you say.
That word pray, originallanguage of the New Testament,
it's two words that are puttogether that basically mean, in
the context of intimacy orcloseness, to ask for something,
to request something.
So what do we ask for?
You said last week, dave, gointo your room, close the door
and pray.
What do I do when I get there?
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What do I ask for?
I want you to see, in Luke,chapter 11, verse two, through
four, four primary requests,four primary requests.
Everyone would say there's fivehere.
We're going to group the firsttwo together Four primary
requests.
And here's what we're going todo.
We're going to look at each oneof these requests and then
we're going to pause.
We're going to pray for thatthing that we've just studied I
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want to invite you to do, whenwe come to those times in prayer
, all throughout this service.
My goal is for us just to havethe freedom all across this room
To pray.
We're going to have music wherewe can pray as we sing or you
can pray as you're sitting there.
I want to invite you to havethe freedom to stand.
I want to invite you to havethe freedom to come down here to
the front kneel or go to thesides of kneel or just go to the
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aisles and kneel.
You do it every one.
I know that's a littledifferent, but I want us just to
have freedom as we study theword, to let it become the
prayed word throughout this room, however that looks in your
life.
So what does Jesus tell us?
To ask for?
Number one, jesus says Ask Godfor His glory.
Ask God for His glory.
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He says Pray, father, hallowedbe your name, your kingdom come
Now.
Here's what we've got.
To make sure we don't miss thepoint here.
For years I thought that thiswas a declaration of the glory
of God, of the holiness of God.
God, you are holy, andtherefore you start your praying
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with just saying God is holyand then you go on asking for
things.
But that's not what Jesus issaying.
The language here, this is nota declaration God, you are holy.
It's a request for God tohallow His name.
The verb is passive.
The whole Lord's prayer isrequests Hallow your name.
Now, what does that mean?
To hallow His name?
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What does that mean for God tohallow His name?
Well, this is a word that wesee throughout Scripture that
basically means to sanctifysomething, and to sanctify
something just unpack that alittle bit can be used in one of
two ways throughout Scripture.
Sometimes, sanctify most oftenis the word that's used to
describe how you make somethingholy.
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As followers of Jesus Christ,the Bible says we're in a
process of sanctification.
God is making us holy, he'smaking us look more like Jesus.
But when you come to hallowingthe name of God, there's really
not a lot of holiness to be madethere.
He's already got that cover.
And so the other way we seethis word sanctify used in
Scripture, is not just to makesomething holy, but to treat
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something as holy.
So the prayer here, what we'reasking God to do, is to cause
His name to be treated as holy,to cause His name to be hallowed
, to be sanctified.
Cause your name, oh God, to beregarded as holy.
That's what we're asking God todo.
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We're asking God for His glory.
Now here's the picture of Godthat we have.
Even in the context of thisprayer, you see a few different
characteristics of God broughtto the forefront.
Picture our God here in Luke 11, verse 2.
First of all, he is thesovereign Father, and we're
going to dive a couple of weeksfrom now.
In the last week in this series, we're going to look at what it
means for God to be Father andthe implications of that for how
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we pray.
It suffices to say at thispoint don't miss this.
The God who is sovereign overthe entire universe calls you
child.
Let that soak in.
The God who calls the stars byname and who created the
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mountains and the valleys andthe hills, and the skies and the
seas.
God calls you His Son or HisDaughter.
He is the sovereign Father.
We pray to Him as our Dad, ourFather.
He is the sovereign Father.
Second, he is the Holy One.
This picture of hallowed makeyourself known as holy.
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This is the characteristic ofGod we see throughout the Old
Testament, especially emphasizedIsaiah.
Chapter 6 comes face to facewith the glory of God.
The choir is saying Holy, holy,holy, the only attribute of God
that is mentioned three timesin Scripture is holiness.
It means he is completelyunique.
He is completely other.
Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 23,.
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God says I will show theholiness of my great name.
The nations will know that I amthe sovereign Lord, declares
the Lord, when I show myselfholy through my people, he shows
Himself as holy.
Samuel, chapter 7, verse 22,.
You are sovereign and great, oLord, there is no one like you.
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There is no God but you.
When we pray, hallowed be yourname, we pray God.
Make yourself known as the onethere is nobody else like.
Show to the world that there isno God but you, no one like you
, that you are great, you'reholy.
Not only is he a sovereignFather, the Holy One, he is the
coming King.
Your kingdom come, and this iswhere that second petition kind
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of comes in there.
He is the coming King.
Throughout the New Testament Ialways see a picture of the
kingdom of God being inauguratedin Christ coming to the earth
and showing what the reign ofGod looks like with His life.
But it also looks forward inthe New Testament does to the
consummation of that kingdom,when God will come and he will
reign, and God will one dayeradicate all evil, he will
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demonstrate, manifest Hisrighteousness on the earth.
So when we pray, hallowed beyour name, your kingdom come, we
are praying.
God, come and make your nameknown.
God, come and make your reignknown.
That's what we're asking God todo.
We're not saying God, hallowedis your name, although it is.
We're saying God, make yourname hallowed, make your name
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known as holy.
That's our cry.
But who are we crying that out?
For?
For whom are we praying?
When we pray, hallowed be yourname?
I think there's a personaldimension to this and a
worldwide dimension to this.
I think we're praying.
Our cry is God, make Yourselfknown in my life.
God, make Yourself known in mylife.
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Make Yourself known as holy.
Make Yourself known as great inmy life.
Cause me to treat your name asholy.
I want to believe yourgreatness with greater intensity
.
That's why I'm praying.
I'm praying that you wouldcause me to trust in your power
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with greater intensity.
You'd cause me to obey you likeyou are holy.
You would cause me to be pureas you are pure.
God, make Yourself known in mylife.
Think about it.
Every single one of us in thisroom who has a relationship with
Christ.
We bear the name of our Father.
So how is God going to makeHimself known in the world as
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holy To those who bear His name,you and I?
That's why we pray hallowed beyour name in my life, but not
just in my life.
God, make Yourself known.
Hallowed be your name in allthe world.
There's a cosmic, universaldimension to this prayer.
Hallowed be your name, yourkingdom, come in all the world.
The picture we've got the restof the New Testament, the
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kingdom of God coming, is apicture of every tribe and every
people, in every language,every nation seeing praises to
Him as the King.
That's where our prayers areheaded.
We want Him to make Himselfknown as great and holy and
mighty in all the world, inevery corner of the earth, in
every corner of Birmingham.
We want God's name to be knownas holy Every corner of every
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country on this planet.
We want God's name to be knownas holy when we pray for these
teams in Ecuador.
We pray God, use these brothersand sisters of ours to make
your name known as holy inEcuador, our brothers and
sisters in Venezuela thismorning.
Make your name known as holythrough them for our students in
Ukraine.
Make your name known as greatthroughout Ukraine.
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Through them, they reportedback to us this week that 50
students had come to faith inChrist there in Ukraine.
God, make Yourself known asgreat and Savior in the middle
of Ukraine.
That's what we pray Now.
Here's the beauty of it Our cryfor God's name to be hallowed
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and His kingdom to come.
The beauty of it is and it goesback to where we started this
morning.
God wants this to happen.
He wants His name to behallowed.
We've got to remember that whenwe pray, we're not asking God
to do things he doesn't want todo.
We're asking God to do thatwhich is most passionate on His
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heart.
He is not disinclined to makeHis glory known.
This whole person is inclinedto make His glory known.
There is nothing that is higheron God's priority list than
making His greatness and Hisgrace and His mercy and His
majesty, his love, known.
And so when we pray for that,we're coming in line with the
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desires of God.
This is why we can say makeyour wants God's wants.
Then ask for whatever you wantJesus is saying.
He said that throughoutScripture, god's name will be
vindicated, he will show Hisrighteousness, he will show His
power and His mercy is glory toall nations.
So you pray for that and you'rein on the cosmic plan of God to
make His name hallowed in allthe earth.
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He says you have the privilegeof praying this prayer into
reality in your life.
I'm convinced that if thekingdom of God comes, is
consummated in our lifetime, godmay it be so.
But if it is, it will bebecause the Church of Jesus
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Christ gets serious aboutpraying the Lord's prayer.
Hallowed be your name in allthe earth.
I'm convinced that if we aregoing to do what we talked about
two weeks ago and we are goingto fulfill the Great Commission,
it will be because the Churchat Brook Hills unites in a
concerted effort of prayer wherewe fall on our faces day after
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day and week after week and wecry out together as a faith
family Make your name known asholy throughout the earth.
God wants to answer that.
It longs to answer that.
Let me give you a picture.
I got an email this week fromHouston, a 51 year old man.
He writes in the spring of 2006, with the encouragement of two
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of my friends at work, I beganfor the first time in my life to
study God's Word and apply itto my life.
It was during this time that Ibegan to have a burden to go on
a mission trip to Brazil.
I began praying and seekingGod's direction.
I had no idea where to turn forguidance.
In September, I was contactedwith an opportunity to go to
Brazil in July of 2007, thismonth Because the team of 22
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would come from another place.
I was isolated from trainingand had to work and plan via the
internet.
This is where the Church atBrook Hills plays in.
In early spring of 2007, Istarted subscribing to your
podcast.
It was during the spring andearly summer that I listened to
your messages on sharing myfaith with people in different
cultures.
I can remember listening to themessages on preparing and
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giving our testimonies andsharing with guilt, shame and
fear-based cultures.
I didn't realize at the timewhat God was doing in my life.
Few weeks ago, our team went toSt Helena in the northeast
corner of Brazil.
On Saturday morning I was askedto share my testimony.
By the way, it was less than100 words.
I was asked to share mytestimony with approximately 75
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local Christians.
I then shared with them how towrite and share their
testimonies with others Over thenext three days.
Through the efforts of thoseChristians.
Over 100 Brazilians came toknow the Lord in a personal way.
Now here's where it gets reallygood.
Not that that wasn't good, buthere's where it gets really good
.
I want to personally thank youand the church for all you do
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for the furtherance of God'skingdom.
Also, I would like to thankCharles Carr, jim Shepard, gene
Mason and others at Brooke Hillswhom my wife, pam, had
contacted while I was gone topray for God's will in our lives
.
Mark it down Guaranteed.
You pray for the name of God tobe hallowed in all corners of
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the earth and it will happen.
He will make his glory known.
He will show himself faithful.
He will show himself the Saviorof the world.
He will show himself the Lordof the nations.
Let's be a faith family thatgoes, falls on our knees and
asks God to do it.
Ask God for his glory.
So that's what we're going todo In the next couple of minutes
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.
We're going to come face toface with the glory of Jesus
Christ and we're going to askhim to make his name known as
Holy in our lives.
We're going to ask him to makehis name Holy in all the world,
and Amy's going to sing over us,and while she's singing.
You feel free to sing along Ifyou'd like.
You feel free to just sit inprayer.
You feel free to stand inprayer as you sing along.
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You feel free to come to thefront.
You have the freedom.
But let's, let's do this.
Let's ask God for his glory.
God, cause your name to behallowed in our lives, in this
room, and cause your name to behallowed in all the world.
God, we pray that your namewould be known as Holy in us and
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we pray that you would makeyourself known as great and
mighty, powerful healer anddeliverer and redeemer.
And Ecuador and Venezuela andthe Ukraine, god, we pray that
you would cause your name to beregarded as Holy, as the coming
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King, as the sovereign Fatherand as the Holy One We'd give
ourselves.
And we ask for your glory.
Do may know that is, we knowthat is the priority of your
heart, and so we make it thepriority of ours.
We ask for that in prayer today, in Jesus' name, amen.
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You make your wants as once.
Then you ask whatever you want.
Ask for his glory.
Second petition, second request, and the Lord's prayer.
It's to ask for his gifts.
Ask God for his gifts, it says.
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Give us each day, our dailybread.
Now we come to this point.
We kind of ask the question whyis this the only thing Jesus
tells us to ask God to give tous?
Give us bread.
I mean, let's be honest, thereare things more important even
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than bread.
We need water more than bread.
We need air more than bread.
Why does he say give us ourbread daily?
Well, the picture goes all theway back to God's work among his
people in the Old Testament,exodus, chapter 16,.
You remember, so you mayremember, when God's people were
wandering the wilderness.
They had been taken out ofslavery in Egypt and they were
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brought in to this wildernesswhere they were wandering.
They were hungry, they didn'thave any food.
So God provided food for them,literally bread from heaven,
manna.
They would wake up, walkoutside their tents and then
refood everywhere.
They'd refood enough for thatday and be able to eat for that
day.
But if they tried to save ituntil the next day, what
happened?
Bread wasn't so good anymore,and so they wouldn't want to eat
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the bread on the next day.
They learned to trust God dayby day.
Every morning, god's going toprovide us the food we need.
We go to bed at night we don'thave food for tomorrow.
Wake up the next morning, he'sgiving it to us.
Now, why did God do that, whydid he lead them like that, and
why would that be so importantfor how we pray?
Well, I think there's twotruths that are fundamental to
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understanding Exodus chapter 16,and especially how it relates
to the Lord's Prayer.
Number one God satisfies ourhunger.
Let me ask you a questionthat's going to seem very
elementary, but think about itwith me.
Why were the Israelites in thewilderness?
Why were they hungry?
First, because they didn't haveany food.
But go deeper than that.
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They were hungry because Godcreated them with that hunger
right.
The only reason we are hungryfor food, the only reason we
have cravings, is because Godhas created us that way.
God has created us to hungerafter things, and here's the
beauty of it to hunger afterthings that only he can fill.
He caused them to hunger.
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It literally says in Exoduschapter 16, he created them that
way so that they would look toHim to fulfill that hunger.
He satisfies our hunger, andthat leads to the second truth.
Not only does he satisfy ourhunger, but he sustains our
faith and he teaches us in theprocess to look to Him to give
us the gifts we need, to look toHim to fill those hungers in us
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.
Let me show this to you.
Hold your place here in Luke 11and go back with me to
Deuteronomy, fifth book in theBible, deuteronomy chapter 8.
Genesis X, the Leviticusnumbers.
Then you'll come to Deuteronomy, chapter 8.
This is when God is explainingwhy he did what he did in the
desert.
He's after he had done it andhe is explaining His motivation,
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what His whole purpose forproviding them food in that way
was.
Listen to Deuteronomy, chapter8, verse 3, and you're going to
see both these truths the factthat he satisfies our hunger and
he sustains our faith.
Look for Him here inDeuteronomy, chapter 8, verse 3.
It says he, meaning God,humbled you, causing you to
hunger there.
It is causing you to hunger andthen feeding you with manna
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which neither you nor yourfathers are known.
Two.
Here's the purpose.
Here's why God did it to teachyou that man does not live on
bread alone, but on every wordthat comes from the mouth of the
Lord.
These were people when theywere slaves in Egypt.
They had a lot of food to eatand they even grumbled.
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In Numbers, chapter 11, said wedon't want the man, we want the
food back in Egypt.
The reason God did this is hewanted to teach them that they
had a hunger, that he createdthem so that he would fill it.
So that I'm teaching you totrust in me to provide the bread
you need.
Trust in me to provide thegifts that you need.
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Man does not live on bread.
You live on God, on every wordthat comes from the mouth of God
.
That doesn't mean you're hungry.
You eat the Bible.
It means that you've thought itbefore, haven't you?
What does that make sense?
It's teaching them that God isthe provider for them and
they're to seek Him to providewhat they hunger for and they
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long for.
That's the whole point of whywe get to Luke, chapter 11.
He says give us today, each day, our daily bread.
It's that picture of us sayingon a daily basis God, we have a
hunger for food, a physicalhunger for food, and only you
can provide for that hunger.
We have a thirst for water.
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Only you can provide that.
We have a longing for air on amoment by moment basis.
We don't even think about it,but we've got it.
As soon as it's taken away fromus, we begin immediately to
long for it.
Only you can fulfill that.
We have all kinds of hungers,desires, thirst, longings in our
life for peace, for love, forintimacy, for meaning, for
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purpose.
Jesus is saying you go to Godand you say only you can provide
these things for me.
Now this whole request seemsreally strange in our culture
today because, let's be honest,we don't very often ask God to
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give us bread today, to give usfood today.
Not one of us in this room wasworried about the fact that we
may not have anything to eattoday.
So why would our main requestfor God to give us something be
for bread when in our culture,most, if not all, of us need
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less food, not more?
Why do we ask for daily bread?
Because Jesus is saying thatyou need to pray, and prayer
will be the guard in your lifeto guard you against thinking
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that you can provide bread foryourself on your own, apart from
Him, and prayer will be thehedge of protection to keep you
from thinking that you canprovide what you need, that you
can provide for your hungers bygoing to the things of this
world instead of going to God.
I'm convinced I look at my ownlife.
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I look at the state ofChristianity and Western culture
.
One of the reasons that we areso flippant and so casual with
prayer is because we actuallybelieve that we can.
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We can do this thing on our ownand we can sustain our lives on
our own.
We believe that because we'vegot the things to prove it and
we have bought the bill of goods, the materialism that sold us,
that said we don't need God, wejust need our things.
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We can make it without Godbecause we've got all our things
.
And Jesus says the core ofprayer is you realizing that you
have a Father in heaven whodesires to give every good and
perfect to you, and you need Him, not bread, you need Him, not
water, not air, not all of thesethings that you hunger and long
for.
You need Him and he willprovide those things for you.
(33:19):
And prayer brings us back tothat realization we have.
We've got to ask God to deliverus in this culture that we live
in, to deliver us fromself-sustaining Christian lives.
You can't.
That goes against the wholepoint of Christianity.
We're only sustained by God,we're only satisfied by God, and
(33:43):
he gives us that which nothingelse in this world, no matter
how big our house is, no matterhow nice our car is, no matter
how great our 401K is, no matterhow great our job, our salary
is, the possessions that we own,no matter how great they are,
we don't need things, we needGod.
And spending time and closeddoors with God saying we're none
of us, I'm guessing none of usIf I ask today, give me my daily
(34:04):
bread?
Maybe very few of us, becausewe think we've got it on our own
and we don't.
We don't have it on our own.
We can't do this thing withoutHim.
He alone is our provider.
And so we go to Him and we saygive us, give us the coordinates
.
I need you to provide thesethings for me.
And it's why and we're notalone we need God to provide
(34:26):
these things for me.
And it's why, it's why ourSudanese brothers and sisters in
the middle of the Africanjungle are dancing when they
pray.
It's why, in a war-torncommunity, they're celebrating
Because they they've seen theirfriends and their family members
take it, taken by militantMuslims, miles into the desert
and left there to starve,without food or water, and
(34:49):
they've seen those trucks goback every day to those people
in the desert, those believersin the desert and say if you
will renounce your faith, wewill take you to food.
If you will renounce your faith, we'll take you to water.
And they've seen their friendsand family members die there in
the desert because they wouldrenounce their faith.
Does that mean that God did notgive them their daily bread?
(35:10):
Absolutely not.
That means our brothers andsisters in the Sudan know that
man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes
from the mouth of God.
God is their sustenance, he istheir satisfaction, and it's why
, when you go to Sudan today andyou say I'm sorry about all the
tapping around you, they'lllook back at you and they'll say
the same three words every time.
Their favorite phrase is God isgreater.
(35:33):
We don't have food.
God's greater.
We don't have drink.
God's greater.
Our homes are ravaged.
God is greater.
He gives us what we need, hesatisfies us, he sustains us and
he is all we need.
And so we need to pray for ourdaily bread.
(35:53):
We need to pray for God'sprovision, we need to pray for
God's gifts, like we want God togive them and like we can't.
We can't get what he offersanywhere else.
Let's throw over the next fewminutes.
I wanna invite you to let thissoak in in your life and prayer
(36:16):
Again.
You have the freedom.
You stand you'd like, sit thereand pray if you'd like.
You'd sing along if you'd like.
The whole purpose of thesesongs is to guide us in prayer.
You kneel if you would like,but across this room and this
materialistic, wealthy culturethat we are all immersed in,
(36:36):
let's ask God to give us ourdaily bread and let's confess
that we are desperate for Him toprovide His gifts to us.
Psalm 16, verse two I said tothe Lord you are my Lord, and
(36:57):
apart from you, lord, we have nogood thing.
We have no good thing apartfrom you, god.
You are our sustainer.
You're the only one whosatisfies us.
So we ask for your satisfaction.
We want you to satisfy us in away that bread can't satisfy us,
(37:18):
water can't satisfy us, in away that more possessions, cars
or houses, money cannot satisfyus, money cannot satisfy us, and
we need you to sustain us in away that we are completely
dependent on you.
God, help us to find that andprayer and communion with you
(37:46):
amidst the materialistic culturethat we live in.
God, help us to come out in themiddle of that and say, apart
from God, we have nothing.
Teach us to pray like this inJesus' name, amen.
We ask God for His giftsbecause only he can give them.
(38:10):
We ask God for His glory andHis gifts.
Then we ask God third petition,or request some Lord's prayers
for His grace.
For His grace.
For His grace, forgive us oursins.
For simple words thatabsolutely blow open the
(38:34):
storehouse of heaven's mercy.
May we never lose sight of thebeauty and the wonder of coming
before the Holy God of theuniverse, saying forgive us our
sins and knowing that we have ahearing with Him.
What an incredible thought.
(38:56):
Don't go over that quickly soyou can go out in the baseball
field.
Don't go over that quickly soyou can go on to the next thing
that you really wanna get to andask God to do this.
Let that soak in.
Forgive us our sins.
We want His grace, we ask forHis grace.
(39:17):
God, I need your grace and themore I'm convinced, the more we
walk with God in prayer, themore we connect with Him in
prayer, the more this willbecome a fundamental part of our
prayer.
You'd think it'd be theopposite.
You'd think that the closer youget to God in prayer, the less
you need to ask for His grace,the less you need to ask for His
(39:39):
forgiveness because you'regetting things taken care of in
your life right.
I think the opposite is true inScripture as well as in
personal experience.
I think the deeper you go inyour relationship with God and
the deeper you walk with Him inprayer, the more you become
aware of your need for His graceand the more he exposes the
(40:00):
things in your life that younever saw before, that you want
to get rid of so that you canlive the Christ life.
You need His grace so youexperience his forgiveness.
Forgive us our sins and we havethe privilege, in prayer, of
experiencing his forgiveness, of, in that moment of praying to
this God, knowing that our sinsare forgiven, we experience it.
(40:25):
This is not just a theoreticaltruth on the pages of scripture.
This is a reality in your life.
In prayer.
Forgive us our sins, youexperience his forgiveness.
He looks at you and he says notguilty, don't wipe clean.
That's reason to pray.
Once you want his grace, he'sready to pour it out.
(40:45):
We experience his forgivenessin a couple of ways, I think in
Luke, chapter 11.
First of all, continually holdpictures.
Whenever you pray.
This is what you say Forgive usour sins.
The Lord's prayer, jesus, seemsto imply, or assume, that we're
always going to need to ask forthis one, this to assume that
(41:06):
we're in constant need offorgiveness, that even our best
works need to be washed in theblood of Jesus Christ, even the
best things we have to bring tothe table in prayer, filthy rags
that he cleanses with hisrighteousness.
So we ask continually, over andover again God forgive me of
this, god forgive me of this,god forgive me of this.
(41:27):
And we know, ladies andgentlemen, you cannot exhaust
the mercy of God.
You just keep coming back tothe well and it'll keep covering
you time after time after timeagain.
You ask for his forgivenesscontinually.
And then you ask for hisforgiveness.
You experience his forgiveness.
(41:48):
Specifically, there's adefinite article the sins Give
us of the sins that we'vecommitted.
It's the prayer there.
It's not just saying to God, Iknow I messed up somewhere, so
I'm just going to cover my basesand say forgive me and that'll
cover it.
You know, there's a point inour salvation where that's
(42:12):
certainly the case.
We come to God and we realizeour sinful nature and we realize
our need for Him.
Our whole life has been headedtowards sin, given over to sin,
and we come to that point wherewe make a decisive trust in
Christ and he cleanses us of allour sins.
Then, at that point on and Ithink the picture here in Luke,
(42:33):
chapter 11, is we're no longercoming before a judge to be
declared guilty or innocent forall of eternity.
Now there's a picture of achild coming before a father,
sitting down at the table with afather and saying you know,
there's some things that I'velet come between me and you and
I need to specifically just getthose out on the table and lay
them out there, as if he doesn'talready know, as if you're
(42:56):
hiding.
You come to those points whereyou say God, I need you to
forgive me for, and you fill inthe blank and you say things
that you would be ashamed foranybody else to hear, because
you know that you have a fatherin heaven who hears you and he
forgives you specifically.
He covers that sin with hisrighteousness.
(43:19):
We can be specific with him andwe let God, in this thing
called prayer, take hold ofthose areas.
We don't want just to wash theoutside of the cup and leave the
filth inside.
Do?
We Watch the whole thing, thisand this and this.
Sometimes we just need to campout at this part of prayer and
ask for his grace when I havehim say to us over and over and
(43:43):
over again you're not guiltyanymore, you're not filthy
anymore.
So we experience hisforgiveness.
And then it's not where thiswhole picture stops and Luke 11
says you extend his forgiveness.
Forgive us our sins, as we alsohave forgiven those who sin
against us.
Now the danger here in Luke,chapter 11, is to think that
(44:06):
what Jesus is saying is that thebasis or the ground for our
forgiveness is our actions withothers.
That's not what scriptureteaches.
The basis for our forgivenessis obviously the grace and the
mercy of Christ and trusting inChrist.
So we ask them to forgive usbased on that.
But here's what Jesus is sayingvery clearly If you ask God to
(44:30):
forgive you of your sins and yetyou are not forgiving others
around you, that unforgivenessis a sin and so you really
haven't asked God to forgive youof your sins.
Unforgiveness, the roots ofbitterness, the grudges, the
desires for revenge that we holdon to at work and we hold on to
(44:55):
at home and we hold on to inthe church.
Jesus calls it out it's sin,because failure to forgive is a
complete contradiction of thegospel that you have trusted in.
It's a complete contradictionof what you're asking God for in
prayer.
And so he says you receive myforgiveness, and then you
(45:17):
radiate my forgiveness, you showmy forgiveness in a way that
makes no sense to the worldaround you.
And so Jesus says to us inpraying, even goes so far as to
say if you come to pray and yourealize that your brother, if
there's something in between youand him, you need to go get
that right, then you come backand you're praying.
(45:40):
The challenge is for all of usin this room to consider what
areas of bitterness are stillthere in our hearts, what
grudges or desires for revengeor whatever that may be
Unforgiveness in our lives, inour relationships with other
brothers or sisters, and we havegot to get those right if we
are going to progress in prayer.
(46:00):
Quite and simple, this thingcalled confession is not where
we like to camp out a lot, whenI'm convinced that as God works
in our faith family, he leads usdeeper and deeper into His Word
and deeper and deeper into thismission.
We will need more and more timein confession, not less.
(46:23):
We will need more time to fallon our faces, corporately and as
individually, and to say God, I, I need and I want your grace.
And so over the next fewminutes, that's what we're going
to do.
And, again, the goal thismorning is that there would not
be spectators in corporateworship, but as we've seen this
(46:45):
in the Word, okay, then we needto pray.
We need to pray all across thisroom as individuals.
God forgive me of and you fillin the blank and you be specific
with God and forgive us of.
There's a corporate nature thatthe whole Lord's prayer.
God, we have fallen short inthis and this and this as your
(47:07):
people, and if there's thingsthat we're holding onto roots of
bitterness or unforgiveness, sowe need to get those right.
Whether that's even right now,turning the person beside us, or
going to someone else and say,hey, I need to, I need to get
this right with you, or ifthat's saying God, I'm going to
resolve that today, the resultof my praying is I'm going to go
(47:27):
and handle this.
I want to suspend some time.
Incorporate confession againyou, you bound, pray where you
are.
You say along if you like, youstand or you kneel.
Let's just spend time becominghonestly before the throne of
mercy, saying forgive us oursins.
(47:48):
Let's ask God for his grace.
God, we want your grace.
We want you to pour it out onus.
We want to bring our filthbefore you and know your grace
and know the power of your grace.
(48:11):
We need your grace.
I pray that you would give ussuch a strong desire for your
grace that we would be honestwith you in our sin and you
would draw us deeper and deepertowards yourself, and that you
would expose more and more ofour need for your grace.
And we trust that you'llprovide it in abundance, in
(48:34):
Jesus name, amen.
This is how you pray.
You ask God for his glory andhis gifts and you ask God for
his grace.
And then the final petition,the Lord's prayer, is you ask
God for his guidance, lead usnot into temptation.
(48:56):
And almost seems to imply thatGod wants to tempt us, that God
wants to entice us.
But that's not at all whatscripture is teaching.
We know James one just debunksthat whole idea.
So what is this saying?
I think it comes on the heelsof a need for grace for a reason
(49:20):
, and I think the picture we'reseeing here in prayer is that we
come before God as a people whoare all prone to sin.
We are all prone to wandertoward temptation.
Every single one of us,including myself.
You need to know that yourpastor in his flesh, is prone to
(49:46):
wander, is prone to leave theGod he loves.
We all are, every single one ofus in this room, without
exception, and so we praybecause we need him to redirect
us.
We need him to lead us, notinto temptation, to lead us in a
way that honors and thatglorifies him.
(50:08):
Lead us in the path of holinessand righteousness.
We need him to do that becausewe can't do it our own.
He gives protection amidsttemptation.
He gives protection fromtemptation.
Christ does, and apart from himwe are powerless against
(50:31):
temptation.
We need to realize that we havethis tendency that goes back to
our self-sustainingChristianity, that this is the
whole point of Christianity.
We have this idea that when wehear people falling into this
sin or that sin, we think Iwould never do that.
And the Bible tells us takeheed lest you fall.
(50:55):
You can't overcome temptationon your own.
Not one of us in this room can.
I can't, you can't.
Only Christ has the power toovercome the snares and the
schemes of the adversary.
Only him, only when we are inhim that we can overcome
temptation.
We need him to guide us, toprotect us amidst temptation.
(51:18):
There are people all acrossthis room who are dabbling and
flirting with this temptation orthat temptation, this sin or
that sin, thinking well, itwould never go beyond that, it
would never get worse than that.
And the greatest need for us isto go home today, this
afternoon, go into the room,close the door and pray lead me
not into temptation.
For some of us, that is themost urgent need, because the
(51:45):
adversary is somewhere along theway, convinced us that we can
overcome temptation on our own.
We can't.
We need his guidance.
And the picture here is notjust in temptation to sin, but
in the temptation that comes inthe middle of trial.
And Jesus says pray, lead usnot into temptation in a way
(52:09):
that we would turn away from Godin the middle of trial.
And so he gives protectionamidst temptation, he gives
perseverance amidst in themiddle of trial, he gives the
sustenance that you need tocontinue to seek him and to
trust him in the middle of ourtrials.
The golden thread.
(52:30):
We've seen it throughout theLord's Prayer, but it knits it
all together.
That golden thread is a prayer,not not my will, but yours be
done.
We see it in Matthew, chaptersix, and it's over different
places in the New Testament.
But let's be honest, in themiddle of trial, let's just be
(52:51):
honest, there's times where it'seasier to pray not my will but
yours be done than it is othertimes in our life.
And I'm guessing there's awhole host of people who are
sitting in front of me thismorning who are thinking not my
will, but yours be done, dave,I'm, I'm just not there.
I'm having a real hard timepraying that in my life that
(53:13):
whatever God wants to do in themiddle of this trial, I I want
him to do.
And if, if that's you, I wantto encourage you.
This morning I've just got afeeling that God understands
that, that Christ understandsthat you look at Jesus' prayer
(53:37):
life and comes to the Garden ofGethsemane and he doesn't pray
just casually not my will, butyours be done.
Whatever you want, I'll do it.
It's that easy.
He agonizes in prayer andthere's times in our walks with
God in prayer that we need tocamp out here a little longer
than other times, pray for along time.
God I'm just not there and knowthat he understands that, and
(53:59):
the beauty of this picture inprayer is that he leads us to
get there, even though westarted make your wants God's
wants.
Well, how do I do that?
You ask God to lead you and toguide you to want what he wants.
You ask him to take you there.
You don't have to get there onyour own.
Now you're ready.
He guides you and leads you tothat point.
(54:19):
So if life has taken a turn forthe worse, and your family and
your health and your job, orwhen that does happen, ask God
to lead and to God, ask him, andhe'll bring you to the point
where you can say it Not my will, but yours, be done.
This is what happens in prayer.
(54:40):
This is part of that intimacy,and we all know.
We all know that it's not intimes of triumph, but in times
of trial when the beauty and theintimacy of God in prayer is so
much more real than any othertime in our lives.
And he's designed it that wayso that he would guide you.
In the middle there is there'sa phrase that Puritan believers
(55:04):
use back in the 16th and 17thcentury, called the valley of
vision and we talk about how itwas in the middle of the valleys
where God gave clearest visionof who he is and how he leads
and how he guides.
The Puritans are known in thehistory of Christianity as
(55:26):
leaving some of the greatestlegacy, example of prayer and
devotion, and I'm convinced it'sbecause Puritans were really
born in the picture of thechurch in England during that
timeframe, when they were, theywere trying to bring the church
back to what the word taught andthe purity of the word in the
church, and they were facingpersecution.
Their homes were being burnedand Archbishop was taking their
(55:49):
leaders aside and torturing them, literally cutting off their
ears.
They were being threatened.
Many of them fled and ended upfounding the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, founded by Puritans whowere living in the middle of
persecution.
They left this legacy of prayerand devotion, I'm convinced,
because they knew what it meantfor God to lead and guide in the
(56:11):
middle of the valley.
And so, as we think aboutpraying, asking God for his
guidance, I want to let themlead our prayer time, and what
you're going to see on thescreen is prayers, puritan
prayers that they prayed.
That I hope will encourage usas we pray and ask God for his
(56:32):
guidance, and then, in betweenthose prayers, we'll have an
opportunity to sing prayers toGod asking him to be our guide.
And if Solomon, I'm guessing,is familiar to many of us, let's
ask God for his guidance.
Lead us not into temptation.
(56:52):
Dear God, we want your guidancebecause we know that ours is so
limited in scope.
We don't know what the nextyear holds, the next five years
(57:14):
or 10 years.
We don't know what the nextweek holds, but we trust that
you do and that you guide usaccording to what is best for
your children and, ultimately,for your glory, and so I pray
that you would lead us.
Lead us in the middle of thetemptations that surround us, in
(57:35):
the trials that we go through.
Lead us to trust in you, andpray that you would show
yourself strong by guiding oursteps according to your glory,
in Jesus' name, amen.
This, then, is how you prayFather in heaven, hallowed be
(57:56):
your name, your kingdom, come,ask for his glory.
Ladies and gentlemen, think ofas many ways as you can possibly
think of to phrase that.
Just ask for him to make hisname known over and, over and
over again.
Let that be the perspectivethat now counts, as you, asking
for his gifts, with complete andtotal dependence on him, for
(58:21):
his grace and complete needbefore him and ultimately, for
his guidance.
That all brings us back aroundto making his greatness known.
This is how you pray.
So my challenge for you, for usall, as we've seen this in
scripture this morning, mychallenge for us is to be rid
(58:45):
and done with desireless praying, with affectionless praying.
Let's be rid and done, evenwhen we sit down at the table.
Let's be rid and done with therote praying and misses the
heart of prayer desire for him.
(59:06):
And let's let desire for whathe desires be the secret to
discovering his power in prayer.
And let's see what he does.
We hope you've enjoyed thisweek's episode of Radical with
David Platt.
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