PRAY Week 4 - Ask

The disciples were stirred by what they saw when they saw Jesus pray. The disciples knew Jesus had something that they didn't. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to spend time with the Father just like He did. What does Jesus want us to know about this gift of prayer?

Transcript

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I know it's weird to think that the disciples could even ask the question, Jesus, would you show us how to pray? But the reality is, first century Jewish people probably felt the clunkiness to prayer just like we do. They saw it, they saw the rituals, they saw the routines, they saw the big high and lofty words, and they also saw the oppression of the Roman government on their shoulders. They knew what it was like to not live free, they knew what it was like to be hurting, and they knew what it was like to go, where is God? But yet they were still routinely praying and doing the readings and all the things, but their hearts might not have been in it. Right? Just like us. And yet, the disciples saw something in Jesus that was so different that they had to ask. And they said, Jesus, teach us to pray. Well, welcome in, everyone. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the pastors at Highland Christian Church. And on behalf of our team, I just wanted to say thanks for taking some time to journey with us through the scripture. Our hope is that these words would cause you to think carefully about this Jesus we proclaim, and that you would choose to trust him in your day-to-day. And as always, if you're in the Asheville area, whether you live here or you're visiting, we'd love for you to come join us at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street in person at the Dr. Wesley Grant Senior Southside Center. Our prayer is that God's words would equip you for every good work that He's prepared for you to do today. God, thank you that you let us ask for each other. Thank you that asking is not just a me thing, but it is clearly an us thing according to your word. So I pray that as we were just in this one minute asked to look towards the needs of other people, would you mark us with that? Would a portion of our prayer life be devoted to lifting up the needs of others? Don't let us slack or sleep on the power of intercession for others. Going to the place where we know we'll find bread. It's in your name we pray all of these things. Amen. Y'all can have a seat. Thanks for being weird and awkward with me. You know, it's it's funny because moments like that, and like acknowledging that we're gonna pray for each other, it kind of seems weird. And I don't know if you've ever had one of those revelatory moments, but there are times when I'm like watching TV or I'm watching a movie and I'm taking in social media, and I just get to that point where I'm like, not even that they're trying to, but culture just acknowledges life without God. Just he's not a part of it. He's not there. And it's not like they're trying to destroy his kingdom, actively working against him. But every television show that you watch, I just I remember my wife and I were sitting there, I was like, this is crazy. No acknowledgement of God. Not like it's like he doesn't exist. And it's just, but that's the way it is, and that's the media we take. And so why does this seem weird? Why does it seem because we live in a culture that's just like I'm living life without him, as if he doesn't exist, right? And so it is strange. And so that makes us think well, there's there's people that are good at prayer, and then there's people that just aren't. There's people that know how to pray, and then we just don't. And so we just kind of feel this like clunkiness to prayer in our lives, because we just don't see it. We don't see people actively acknowledging God everywhere we go. So to pray, we're like, oh, I just I should I should not pray for them because they probably it might get weird, and yeah, it probably will, and that's okay. But part of the reason we think prayer is so clunky is just because, in so many ways, our hearts are exhausted, we're tired, and we just don't see Him actively doing stuff in our life, and so we don't ask. I know it's weird to think that the disciples could even ask the question, Jesus, would you show us how to pray? But the reality is, first century Jewish people probably felt the clunkiness to prayer just like we do. They saw it, they saw the rituals, they saw the routines, they saw the big high and lofty words, and they also saw the oppression of the Roman government on their shoulders. They knew what it was like to not live free, they knew what it was like to be hurting, and they knew what it was like to go, where is God? But yet they were still routinely praying and doing the readings and all the things, but their hearts might not have been in it. Right? Just like us. And yet the disciples saw something in Jesus that was so different that they had to ask. And they said, Jesus, teach us to pray. And so Jesus tells them in Luke chapter 11, verse 2, This is how you should pray. Father, may your name be kept holy, may your kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us and don't let us yield to temptation. In the first century, most believed that the two things that were typical to Jewish prayers were first, they were highly formal, meaning God is holy, so we should probably script this bad boy so we don't say anything that's offensive to him, right? So we script things, we repeat things, we get phrases, and we're like, well, he is high and lifted up, so we probably need to have high and lifted up phrases that we use all the time. And it's good and right. But also, Hebrew was the likely language of the prayers that they were to recite. Now, Hebrew was the language of the Torah, but the everyday street language, the heart language, was Aramaic. And so people were being kind of in this weird space of I have to pray in a language that's kind of old to me, and it's really high and lifted up, and I'm not sure I qualify to say these things. So prayer can be clunky. And Jesus would have looked different to the disciples because as he, as they listened in on his prayers, they would have noticed that he prayed in Aramaic, the language of the street, and his prayers were very conversational with his father. Would Jesus have used the Hebrew text? Yes. Would he have used Hebrew? Yes, he would have. But when the disciples were with him in all sorts of times and places, Jesus was praying and it was very much relational. So it would have stirred something in the disciples to go, what in the world is up with you? Like you pray in a way and you come back from your times in prayer that are very different from my times. You come back and you're ready and you're full and you're you're ready to pour out. I just come back and I'm like, I just said some things. Jesus, teach us to pray. Jesus would have looked different to the disciples. And so in our series, as we've been walking through prayer, we've been using the acronym of pause, rejoice. We're asking this week, yield, we'll look at next week. But when Jesus gave them this prayer, he said, I need you to take a moment and acknowledge, Father. May your name be kept holy. You have got to recognize who you're dealing with, a loving Father who is holy and powerful, right? We understand those things, we will pray. And then he says, I need you to rejoice. I need you to understand your kingdom come, your will be done. And why would Jesus have us pray that? Because we have no idea how good it is. We have zero clue of how good his kingdom and his will really are. So Jesus is like, you need to pray this every day. It's gonna change your heart, it's gotta change your mind, it's gotta change the way you think about things. So you have to ask him every day. And so last week we talked about why we can rejoice at his kingdom and his will, the goodness, the truth, the beauty, the community, the work, the wholeness, the justice, all the things that God wants to release on the earth as it is in heaven. We better be asking because it's good. That's why we can rejoice. And this week, as we ask, we get to the point where we're like, all right, give me my daily bread, God. This is where we like to run. We're like, daily bread, God. We take 30 seconds to talk about how holy he is, and then we take 30 minutes to tell him how we need our bank account filled. So we do, right? It it's it's it's where we spend a majority of our time. Because we think that's the most important part. Our need, our forgiveness. We all know that. Jesus actually continues his teaching on prayer in Luke 11. A lot of times we stop and just talk about the ask. Jesus gives us a really good story when it comes to asking. So the stage is set in a small village. In verse 5, Jesus tells this story. Suppose you went to a friend's house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat. And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, Don't bother me, son. The door's locked for the night, my family is asleep, and I'll in bed, and I cannot help you. Jesus is saying, Suppose this happens. The idea that someone would come to your door for bread was super common in village living. Travel at night might not have been very common because of the dangers and all that stuff. But if an unexpected guest showed up to your house, guess what you were supposed to do? Provide bread. You provided your guest with food. It was always, always supposed to be up to you. Now, chances are the host didn't have empty cupboards. He just didn't have enough to provide for this unexpected guest. He didn't have enough, and from Jesus' words, the host needed bread. Bread is central to every meal. It was used. If you've ever been to the Middle East, I mean I've been able to sit in meals and I don't even use silverware, I just use the bread. It's amazing. I love fresh bread. Bread, I'm so glad Jesus is the bread of life, and I am not glutose, or I'm not um uh whatever the one is, what's the gluten, yeah. Yeah. I love all of it. I just pour extra gluten on my stuff all the time. Like I just have packets of gluten, just pour it on. I'm just kidding. I don't. But I love bread, and I'm so glad Jesus is the bread of life. But bread is so central to meals in the Middle East, and it's it's basically your silverware, and so no bread would have not been an option for this guy. Now there's also another element at play here that we don't often consider. Not only would this guy not having any bread and not providing any bread bring shame to himself, but he'd also bring shame to his community. His community would also be known as that one that did not provide bread. This lack of supply or lack of provision would have reflected poorly not just on him, but also on the community. It would have been a community issue. If the door had been slammed in the traveler's face, that traveler probably would have been like, Google review time, travel advisor time, wax time, dear person who slammed the door in my face. Here's what I want you to know. You stop me from ha like this is what we do. I mean, you can go to West Axeville Exchange on Facebook. You ever been there? Dear drop off driver. You put my stuff in my driveway, not on my porch, right? This is what he would have had the opportunity to do, to publicly shame the community. And all the people in the community would share the load of that like shame. And so this this host who hears this knock on his door and doesn't have bread, he's like, uh-oh, I can't say no to this guy, but I also know where I go to get some bread. Here's the option. Many of the smaller, uh, poorer villages in the in the rural, in the communities there would rotate the use of an oven. And I've seen this oven used. It's like this bowl kind of shape thing looking like this. It kind of looks like this, and then you would set some fire underneath it. And in poorer communities, they would pass that oven around from house to house, and it would be different people's jobs essentially to make the bread. And so he would have known in this story who was baking bread that day because the ovens sit outside the homes. So if you had a personal oven, it would have set outside, but if you had the communal one, you would also know they were baking bread today. And so he knew where to go to go get this bread. And he knew exactly what to do. This community would bring honor to this community. That's how they lived. The unprepared host goes to his friend's house and he has a good relationship with his neighbor. He's a friend. He knows the neighbor's gonna hook him up with what he needs because he knows that a request like this means to honor the village too. Jesus' words turn to a, can you even imagine the neighbor being like, My kids are asleep. I can't take care of your need. This is where I go, Jesus, have you ever woken a sleeping child? You know what's gonna happen if you wake up a sleeping baby, I'm not gonna go back to bed and I'm gonna be miserable. So, yeah, I'm not getting any bread for that guy, right? This is what we do, and Jesus is like, that's such a crazy idea. Nobody in their right mind would do that. So what happens? Verse 8. But I tell you this, okay? So he's already said this is this is the chaotic, no way this would never happen. Here's what happens. I tell you this, though he won't do it for friendship's sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. Now, even though these dudes are friends, friendship isn't what motivates this guy to get out of bed. It's actually the last sentence that we just read using that phrase shameless persistence. Now, I need you to nerd out with me just for a few minutes. Please do not let your eyes roll in the back of your head. Try and stay awake. I could nerd out on this all day, but I will try and keep it to two minutes. Okay. Common translations bring into question whose shamelessness are we talking about here? Is it the host or is it the neighbor? Now I'll get to this in just a second so it makes sense. Okay. The NIV, and in this case, the New Living Translation, point to the host, the guy who needed to get the bread, and his shameless persistence. But if you look in the footnotes of your Bible, there might be a little star next to it, right? And this is Bibles going, hey, there's still some discussion about what this word actually means. And as you read it, in order, right? And as you read it, some of your translations at the bottom at the footnote might say, in order to avoid shame, or so his reputation won't be damaged. Now, many scholars today believe that the first century text Greek points to the neighbor in bed. That's who this story hangs on. And here's why. Because the Greek word anadiah, it's a fun word to say, anadiah, anadiah. So you can say it, say it. Anadia, anadia, right? So anadia, the word adiah means shame. You add an in front of that, it negates shame. So that might be where we get the shamelessness from. But a better translation is because that an negates the shame, right? Without shame would be the phrase. Now, in America, we have this idea of shamelessness. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. Shamelessness is being willing to flaunt all you do wrong with everybody else. Well, they just shameless. They're just shameless. They don't even care about what they're doing. Greek would be pointing to without shame. Or with honor. And why does this matter? Because in Jesus' day, shame was what you attempted to avoid all the time. Everything in you said, I cannot bring shame to myself, I can't bring shame to my family, I can't bring shame to my community, I can't just I have to be a person of honor. This is how you wanted to be known. Honor yourself, your family, your community. So simply put, the sleeping neighbor was someone who had no hint of shame, but he was a person of honor. Someone who cared about his name and his reputation and his community's reputation. It's at this moment that we learn that the story, I believe, is about the honor of the neighbor. And not necessarily as this persistence, this shameless persistence came later in translations, but originally in the Greek. And I look, I do not speak Greek. I'm not even going to pretend to speak Greek, but I have access to all the resources you have access to. And you can jump right in as deep as you want to go. And I love going back to original language stuff because I nerd out on that. And that's why I think it's worth nerding out on, because it unlocks the entire rest of this passage when we understand it from this perspective, that the hero of the story is not the guy who is knocking on the door. It's the hero is the one who gives the bread. And as you keep reading, it's at this moment you're seeing that the honor of the neighbor is what's in center stage. Jesus said in other places, yes, and the scriptures do talk about praying at all times, be persistent in your prayers. But there's something that changes in us when we understand that God's answering our prayers are not about how persistent I am, but how good he is. You have to be able to make that shift because if we put the weight of ask-seek knock on our shoulders all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, who's it about? Me. But I ask, seek knock because he's good. This is why it matters how we study the scripture. The fresh bread will be provided for the traveler, not because the host was persistent in his door knocking, but because the neighbor is good and honorable and willing and able to provide the bread. This changes why we ask. This changes how we continue. Jesus' view of prayer involved us asking, not because of who we are, our status, our performance, our persistence, but because of who God is. His character, not our performance, is what front and center in this story. We don't have to do all the routines, the crazy rituals, the babbling on and on. Jesus made that clear. And this doesn't, like I said, it doesn't negate us spending lots of time with our Father because he wants to spend it with us. But our asking is because God is honorable and good and will provide for our needs. How can we know this? Just keep reading. Keep reading. And it'll all connect. Jesus didn't waste any words. Luke 11, 9. And so I tell you, okay? So he's just told us, and so I tell you, keep on asking and you'll receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be open to you because he's good. For everyone who asks receives because he's good. Everyone who seeks finds because he's good. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be open because he's good. Verse 11, listen, you fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not. So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? He's good. This is a beautiful reminder of why we approach him in prayer. This is a beautiful reminder of why we ask. And the burden is not on your shoulders. It's on his. And because he's good and honorable and without shame, he can hear his people and will give them what they need. Jesus gives us the okay to ask, seek, and knock because he's good. He even tries to help us catch that by talking about snakes and scorpions and how no dad would give his kids anything like that. Jesus gets to the point if earthly dads who are super imperfect, fallen, selfish, sinful, even we can know how to take care of our kids' needs. How much more will God take care of ours in his goodness? The giving of the Holy Spirit is the gift that gives all the gifts. So what Jesus is saying is everything you're going to need that is going to supply you for the day is going to be given by his spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the life of the Spirit, all received by faith, not because you worked for it, but because God planned it way before the creation of the world. That we would be his people and he would indwell us. This is the power of his goodness. And when Jesus said to ask, he said to ask daily. Daily bread means daily bread. Many of you are familiar with the story of George Muller. His name is not Mueller, just so we're clear. I'm gonna be that guy today who says, actually, it's George Muller. Not Mueller. We like Mueller because it's easy because Americans say it that way, but his name's Muller. George Mueller, regardless of whether or not you know his story, he is a man who was said, who has said the beginning of true faith is the end of all anxiety, even though he had every reason to be one of the most anxious people on the planet. He was a pastor, philanthropist. He started 117 schools. He cared for over 10,000 orphans. He was known as the robber of the cruel streets for his work with orphans and those who were in the forced labor camps. The robber of the cruel streets. What a great nickname, right? He educated over 120,000 children. So those are some of his pictures. That's him at like 91 years old. That building right there is the fifth orphanage dude built. Need you to know something about him. He never made known to the public his financial needs. Never. He made it a goal to not tell one human any of his needs. Muller decided to trust God to fund his entire operation through prayer. And in doing so, Muller raised over $97 million into day's money. Are you kidding me? Not a person. There's one story that has always stood out to me. And so he had 300 orphans he was preparing to try and give breakfast to one morning. It's all in his journals. You can read his books, you can read his journals, all of it. It's all there. You can read it. And he got up one morning, there was nothing in the kitchen. So he goes into one of these rooms with 300 orphans sitting at tables. And he begins, he goes, Well, we're just going to start the day by thanking God for the food we're going to eat. Can you imagine being an orphan? Can you imagine being an orphan in that moment who's just sitting there going, What did Crazy George just say? Like, there ain't nothing in my bowl, and we can't peter pan this bad boy into imagining anything in our stomachs. Muller leads them. Thank you for this meal that we have. And I kid you not, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that moment. As they finish that thank you, God, he opens the door and the baker says, I've been up since 2 a.m. I don't know why I've been up this early, but I have been baking bread for you guys all morning. And he's bringing trays of bread into this orphanage at the exact same time. I kid you not. A milk truck is broken down right in front of their orphanage. The guy comes in and he's like, bro, uh, this milk is gonna go bad. Do you and the orphans have any need for milk today? Can you imagine being an orphan praying? Give us this day our daily bread ever again after that moment. That story would carry on in them forever. I remember we had nothing in our bowls. Crazy George says, Thank you for the food. I didn't even say it because I was like, that's impossible. And the next thing I know, there's some bread, there's some milk, and my stomach is full. We get to ask because God is good. Muller said it this way: here is the great secret of success. Work with all your might, but trust not in the least in your work. Pray with all your might for the blessing of God, but work at the same time, with all diligence, with all patience, with all perseverance. Pray then and work, work and pray, and still again pray and then work. And so on all the days of your life, the result will surely be abundant blessing. The disciples would be catching from Jesus' words the lateness of your hour of crying out doesn't matter, your worthiness doesn't matter, your right use of words doesn't matter, none of that matters because God answers because of who he is, not because of who we are. And now, because prayer is built on who God is, we ask. If that's the foundation, we best get asking. All day, every day, because he's good. How do I know that my needs will be cared for? How do I know my sins will be forgiven? Not because I ask him over and over, but because of who I'm asking. That's how I can know. This guy who had no bread was like, I don't even know, I don't even have what I need to give you, but I know where I can go to get it. I know where I can go. The host seeks out bread for himself, but he also is seeking bread for someone else. Our prayer life is meant to be that place of petition, but also intercession on behalf of others. We get to ask because he's good. The story just happens to portray the goodness of God and his willingness to give gifts to his children. So let's say this morning that you struggle in asking. How can you grow in asking? If you are not anchored in seeing the person and work and life and death and resurrection of Jesus in the scripture, you will miss out on asking because you will not be convinced of his goodness nor his power. You must see Christ revealed as the scriptures reveal him. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us this then let us run with endurance the race God has set before us, and we do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who get this, initiates and perfects our faith. So you have imperfect faith. You just do. How does it become perfected? Keep your eyes on the one who perfects it. You struggle with prayer? Look at Jesus. Watch how he interacts with the ones who come to him. Watch how he treats those who are hurting and in pain and suffering and don't have what they need, and Jesus meets them. Your heart, my mind, we all have to see that to continue moving forward. But second, I believe we have to have a right understanding of faith. And I am not talking about a prosperity gospel that is destroying people's lives, the promise of health and wealth and all the things just because you pray. But Jesus did say, Your faith has healed you. Jesus did say, faith like a mustard seed. The writer of Hebrews did say, Without faith, it's impossible to please God. We don't have blind faith as believers. God is not asking for a believer to blindly trust him. That's why we have creation, that's why we have the scripture, that's why we see Jesus. He's going, I want you to see all these things, and I want you to choose to put your trust in me. Blind faith does not honor God. You know what honors God? When God says something and we're like, I get it. I believe you. I trust you. God is not asking for blind faith because he has put his thumbprint across history that he is good and trustworthy. Have people screwed up in God's name? Absolutely. We should probably do a little more apologizing than we do. But God has proven himself good and faithful over and over and over to faithless people. This is why we can go to him. And so what we're doing when we say, when we're talking about faith, I'm not putting belief in faith. I'm not putting belief in prayer, I'm not putting belief in any of those things. I'm putting trust in God. Some of you will say, Well, I just believe. What? Well, I just believe in the power of my belief. Why? What is that? That's not what we're doing here. That's not what Jesus is asking us to do. Just believe and pray and believe in your prayers. We can create idols for ourselves. I believe in my prayer and my power of my prayer that I prayed. Oh, really? So you're your own idol now? Jesus is not talking about how much faith. He's talking about the object of our faith. The reason we can ask is because we're asking the God of the universe, who is our Father and who is good. That's why we can pray. Hudson Taylor, who was a missionary and transformative individual in many cultures, said this the issue is not greater faith, but faith in a great God. Yeah, you've got weak faith. So do I. But we have a great God. Why don't we just confess that together? Why don't we just say those things together to each other? Why do we keep pretending my faith is so strong? Shut up. Bro, who are you trying to impress? You ain't impressing anybody. Be real. My faith is about this big, but Jesus said, faith like a mustard seed. And sometimes that's all I have to offer. But because I know he's good, the mountain gets out the way. Right? This is how we pray. For some of you, you need to practice. And what I mean by practice is not sitting around going, get bigger faith. Get bigger faith like that. That's not what I'm saying. Some of you need to learn to start asking God for the little things. Some of you, the only time you cry out to God is when it's a big, gigantic, massive thing. God, please give us world peace. Amen. But could you pray? God, would you help me not slam my coworker today with my mouth? That's a little more realistic prayer, right? Help me not be bitter towards my brother or sister. God, would you provide for us today what we need? And when he does, would you thank him? See, when God answers the little prayers that you pray, everywhere becomes a place of worship, and that's what he wants us to do. Right? When my kid prays a little prayer on the way to school, and when we come home and I say, How'd that go? It went great. We worship in our car, not just in this building. You gotta learn to ask for the little things too. The little things, the big things, is God good enough to hear from his children about the little things and the big things? He is. I need for you to write them down too. Put them in a journal. Like that's what I do. I have a journal, I have prayers. Whenever somebody says, Would you pray for this? I put it down on my phone, then I put it in a journal. And when I ask, how has that gone? And the Lord answers it, I put a red line through it. You know how I put a red line through answered prayers? So when my doubt raises up, I go, Nope. Look at all these red lines. Look at these prayers that I've been asking the Lord to answer. And look at all those red lines. Doubt back up. But this is how forgetful we are as his people. We need practices like this. Dwight Moody said, some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The only way to trouble God is not to come at all. Will you come? Will you ask? Because he's good. Abraham asked for guidance. Maybe you need guidance. Moses asked for someone else to do it. The Lord wouldn't answer him, yes, on that one. Hezekiah asked for healing. Hannah asked for a child. Jacob wrestled with God. Jesus surrendered to God through prayer. Where are you this morning? As the band comes and we consider our kind our time of communion as we head to the table. The church is to do all these things. In all these scenarios, we are to be people who ask. We're to be people who ask for others. We are to be people who surrender the little things and the big things because our God is without shame. He is full of honor and will honor his great name by taking care of his people the way he said he would. This is why we can come to him. We should be persistent in our prayers, but not for persistence's sake. Dare we put our trust in our persistence and not the faithfulness of God. You and I have been invited to ask, and my prayer is this morning, that we would not put our focus on our on our faith or our inabilities, but we would put our focus on God's ability to provide, and the evidence that He can provide was done in history. This is why Jesus did not come as a little metaphor or an abstract idea, but he put on flesh. Why? So we could touch him. So that we could know his story, that we could know of his goodness, we could taste and see legit that he's good. When we come to this table, we now know why we can ask.highlandChristian.com, or you can send us an email at info at highlandchristian.com. God bless you guys.