Desire: Do We Want Him?

Well good morning. If you have a Bible, and I hope you do. Let me invite you to open with me to Luke 11. We’re going to do things a little different, somewhat like we did last week. This morning instead of having some time in song, kind of sets the stage for the word. We’re going to let the Word set the stage for time and response. But we’re going to do it a little different even than last week in that we’re going to have some time to study and then we’re going to have some time in prayer and then we’re going to come back and study and have some time for prayer. We’re going to weave in and out of this text that we’re going to study.

You’ll have to know that there might be some people that are sitting next to you that are pretty tired this morning. We had about 150 of our people get off a plane at 6:00 A.M. from Venezuela this morning. We had about 100 that left yesterday to go down to Venezuela. So they swapped. We have got about 70 people in Ecuador this morning. We still have our 23 students over in Ukraine. We do have some variety of folks that are visiting with us, especially a group from Avondale. Many of our small groups have been going down to Avondale and beginning to get to know folks down there and being a part of Kings Kids in some of the camps that are going on down there. In the last week, I think my understanding is about 28 kids have come to faith in Christ down in Avondale, so we have got a lot to celebrate. 

What I want us to see this morning is a facet of prayer that I know in my own experiences, serving in context overseas, God has taught me the most about, and it’s desire in prayer. Two particular situations of circumstances come to my mind. One was the first time I had an encounter with house church believers in Asia, believers gathered in underground locations to study the Word in a country where it was illegal to be a follower of Jesus Christ and illegal to gather like we had gathered. I remember we were sitting there, just in this small room, a circle of about 20 or 30 believers sitting on little stools, sitting in a circle there and we began to pray. They were sharing testimonies about what God is doing in their lives and they said, “We need to pray.” All of a sudden they fell down on their knees and on their faces and they began to weep, just audibly weep before the Lord. And for the next hour, all they did was pray and weep. And they weren’t praying – I was having their prayers translated to me – they weren’t praying big theological prayers, they were praying things like “God thank you for not forgetting about us.” “God thank you for loving us.” “God thank you for knowing our names.” 

And for an hour, that’s what they prayed non-stop, just weeping before him. And I know preachers have a tendency to exaggerate, but this is no exaggeration. When we got up off the floor – ‘cause I had lost it. I was right there with them. We got up off the floor and literally there were puddles of tears around the room from people who were so passionate about their God in prayer. 

The other situation or circumstance that comes to my mind in the middle of the Sudan, when they were on the heels of 20 years of persecution when we would pray these guys would call out to the Lord. These women would call out to the Lord with such passion. And then we’d finish praying and we’d immediately go into dancing. They had these dances that they would do and it was wild, sitting there dancing with these Sudanese brothers and sisters and looking across the way and seeing war torn buildings, seeing their church building that had been ravaged by helicopter gun ships and see them dancing in the middle of it. 

What causes you to pray like that? What causes you to fall on your face and just weep before the Lord? To let your praying lead to dancing in the middle of a war zone? How does that happen? I think it has something to do with desire in prayer. And based on those circumstances, I began to study prayer and Scripture and began to see and experience prayer in entirely new ways that I have never experienced before. I believe desire in prayer is all over Scripture and so I want us to see that this morning. I want to lay down kind of two foundational, primary truths from the start that are going to guide our time together. 

Two Primary Truths

Desire for God is the heart of prayer.

I think these are truths that we see all over Scripture, but especially in the passage we’re going to study this morning. Here are the two truths, you got them in your notes. Number one, desire for God is the heart of prayer. Desire for God is the heart of prayer. Listen to what Jonathan Edwards said – a preacher back in the Great Awakening who wrote a book called Religious Affections – he said, “A person who has a knowledge of doctrine and theology only, without religious affection, has never engaged in true religion. I am bold in saying this, but I believe that no one ever seeks salvation; no one ever cries for wisdom, no one ever wrestles with God. No one ever kneels in prayer with a heart that remains unaffected. In a word, there is never, never any great achievement by the things of religion without a heart that is deeply affected by those things.” 

Last week we say in Luke 11:1 that we pray because we need God. But I want to remind you this morning that one of the fundamental reasons why we pray is not just because we need God, it’s because we want God, because we long for God, because we yearn for God, because our souls crave God, that’s why we pray, because we want him. And desire for God is the heart of prayer and not just the emotion of prayer. What I mean by that is that without desire, prayer cannot survive. Our prayer lives cannot survive apart from desire, deep, intimate desire for God. 

A Desire for God is the secret to prayer.

That leads to the second truth, that desire is not just the heart of prayer, but I’m convinced that desire for God is the secret to prayer. Even last week when we began thinking about prayer, we began thinking about questions that many of us have thought all our lives about prayer and how does prayer work? How do you have the kind of success in prayer that we see all over the New Testament, that for some reason, if we’re really honest with each other, 

is completely foreign through our lives and I think desire is at the secret of this picture of success we see in prayer. And you have got two blanks there in your notes. This might be a little bit of an oversimplification, but if I were to summarize a picture of prayer when it comes to desire and it being the secret to prayer, in two steps that I would encourage you with this morning, that we’re going to see unfold in this passage. 

The two steps would be this in your prayer life: Number one, make your wants God’s wants. 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 unity of affection. When you and somebody else, anybody else, when the two of you long for the same things or you desire the same things or you want the same things, it creates intimacy between you and that person. That’s the way it works with God. When we want what He wants, when we desire what He desires, that intimacy that we talked about last week, the mystery of intimacy with God becomes a reality and the things that are closest to God’s heart become the things that are closest to our heart. 

We begin to want what God wants. Once you make your wants God’s wants, it leads to step number two, ask whatever you want. Ask for whatever you want and you have got it, Jesus says and guarantees. When your wants are God’s wants, you ask for whatever you want in prayer and you are guaranteed to get it. You already have it. Soon as you ask for it, you know you have it, when your wants are God’s wants. Now again, that’s maybe a little bit of an oversimplification, but I think it’s biblical. Make your wants God’s wants and then have the freedom to go to God and ask for whatever you want and He will give it to you. 

You see that desire is at the heart of prayer is the secret to prayer. I want you to see that unfold in Luke chapter 11:2. We studied verse 1 last week and the whole context of Luke and Acts when the disciples had asked Jesus to teach them to pray. And this is what Jesus said. It says, “He said to them, ‘When you pray say: Father, hallowed by your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation’” (Luke 11:1–4). 

Now many of us recognize that? It’s not all of us recognize that as the Lord’s Prayer. I’m guessing some of you are thinking that Luke left out some important things in there. We know Matthew 6 gives a depiction of the Lord’s Prayer and he includes some things that Luke has apparently forgotten. Luke should have taken better notes when Jesus was talking so he could have gotten it down right. Before we harp on Luke, let’s realize that when Jesus began to teach them to pray, he wasn’t saying, “If you recite these exact words, then you’re going to have success in prayer.” This is not intended to be some rote religious formula that becomes a ritual or a liturgy for us that we always say and we know we’re in; that there’s some kind of magic, so to speak, in saying these particular words. 

I know my high school baseball team, we’d get together before every game before we ran out on the field we would pray the Lord’s Prayer, and it just didn’t work. We were horrible. We were horrible. So maybe that’s not the way it was intended to work. 

Not that it’s bad to pray this word for word. It’s certainly not a bad thing, but that’s not the point. Jesus is not just saying, “You pray these exact words.” Even in Matthew 6 we get a little confused. Because when you read the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, it ends with deliverance from the evil one and you don’t see the, “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever.” What’s the deal with that? Did Matthew forget something, too? Well, actually, the 1611 Kings James Translation, at that time, the manuscripts they were using to get the New Testament, had, “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever.” But a lot has happened since 1611 and during that time we have discovered a lot more earlier manuscripts that didn’t have that part, so it was probably added a little later on. And so most translations in the Bible today when you go to that part in Matthew 6, it’ll have a little note at the end that says, “Some manuscripts say this.” And so we added that one in there more than Matthew forgetting it. 

So we come to the Lord’s Prayer and we see not Jesus saying, “These are the exact words you say.” Instead he is showing us what we’re supposed to desire in prayer. When he says, “When you pray, this is what you say.” That word pray is language in the New Testament, two words that are put together that basically mean, in the context of intimacy or closeness, to ask for something, to request something. So what do we ask for? You said last week, “Dave go into your room and close the door and pray.” What do I do when I get there? What do I ask for? 

Four Primary Requests From Luke 11:2–4

I want you to see in Luke 11:2–4, four primary requests. Some would say there are five here. We’re going to group the first two together. Four primary requests and here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look at each one of these requests and then we’re going to pause and we’re going to pray for that thing that we have just studied. What I want to invite you to do when we come to those times in prayer, all throughout this service, my goal is for us just to have the freedom, all across this room, to pray. We’re going to have music where we can pray as we sing or you can pray as you’re sitting there. I want to invite you to have the freedom to stand. I want to invite you to have the freedom to come down here to the front and kneel or go to the side to kneel or just go to the isles and kneel. You do whatever you want. I know that’s a little different, but I want us just to have freedom as we study the Word to let it become the prayed Word throughout this room, however that looks in your life. 

Ask God for His glory.

So what does Jesus tell us to ask for? Number one, Jesus says “Ask God for His glory.” Ask God for His glory. He says, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come” (Luke 11:2). Now, here’s where we have got to make sure we don’t miss the point here. For years I thought this was a declaration of the glory of God, of the holiness of God. “God, you’re Holy,” and therefore you start your praying with just saying God is holy and then you go on asking for things. But that’s not what Jesus is saying. The language here, this is not a declaration, “God, you’re holy.” It’s a request for God to hallow His name. The verb is passive. The whole Lord’s Prayer is request. Hallow your name. Now what does that mean to hallow his name? What does that mean for God to hallow his name? 

This is a word that we see throughout Scripture that basically means to sanctify something. And so sanctify something, just unpack a little bit. It can be used in one of two ways throughout Scripture. Sometimes sanctify most often is the word that’s used to describe how you make something holy. As followers of Jesus Christ, the Bible says we’re in the process of sanctification. God is making us holy. He’s making us look more like Jesus. But when you come to hallowing the name of God, there’s really not a lot of holiness to be made there. He’s already got that covered and so the other way we see this word sanctified used in the Scripture is not just to make something holy, but to treat something as holy. 

So the prayer here, what we’re asking 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 be regarded as holy.” That’s what we’re asking God to do. We’re asking God for his glory. 

Now here’s a picture God that we have even in the context of this prayer, we see a few different characteristics of God brought to the forefront. Picture our God here in Luke 11:2. First of all, He is the sovereign Father. We’re going to dive a couple weeks from now, the last week in this series we’re going to look at what it means for God to be Father and the implications of that for how we pray. But suffice to say at this point, don’t miss this, the God who is sovereign over the entire universe calls you child. Let that soak in. The God who calls the stars by name and who created the mountains and the valleys and the hills and the skies and the seas that God calls you his son or his daughter. He is the sovereign Father. We pray to Him as our dad, our Father. He is the sovereign Father. 

Second, He is the holy one. This picture of hallowed, make yourself known as holy. This is the characteristic of God we see throughout the Old Testament, especially emphasized Isaiah 6, comes face to face with the glory of God, choirs sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” the only attribute that’s mentioned three times in a row like that in Scripture. His holiness means He is completely unique. He is completely other. Ezekiel 36:23, God says, “I will show the holiness of my great name… Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through [my people].” He shows Himself as holy. 2 Samuel 7:22, “How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you.” When we pray, hallowed be your name, we pray God, make yourself known as the one there’s nobody else like. Show to the world that there is no god but you. No one like you, that you’re great. You’re holy. 

Not only is He the sovereign Father, the holy one, He is the coming King. “Your kingdom come…” This is where that second petition comes in there. He is the coming King. Throughout the New Testament, we see a picture of the Kingdom of God being inaugurated with Christ coming to the earth and showing what the reign of God looks like with His life. But it also looks forward, the New Testament does, to the consummation of that Kingdom when God will come and He will reign and God will one day eradicate all evil. He will demonstrate, manifest His righteousness on the earth. So when we pray, “Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.” We are praying, “God, come and make your name known. God come and make your reign known.” That’s what we’re asking God to do. We’re not saying, “God, hallowed is your name,” although it is. We’re saying, “God, make your name hallowed. 

Make your name 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 your name?” I think there is a personal dimension to this and a worldwide dimension to this. I think when we’re praying our cry is, “God make yourself known in my life. God make yourself known in my life. Make yourself known as Holy. Make yourself known as great in my life. Cause me to treat your name as holy. I want to believe your greatness with greater intensity. That’s why I’m praying. I’m praying that you would cause me to trust in your power with greater intensity. You cause me to obey you like you are holy. You would cause me to be pure as you are pure. God, make yourself known in my life.” 

Think about it. Every single one of us in this room, who has a relationship with Christ, we bear the name of our Father. So how is God going to make Himself known as holy? Through those who bear His name, you and I. That’s why we pray, “Hallowed be your name in my life.” But not just in my life, God make yourself known, hallowed be your name, in all the world. I think there’s a cosmic, universal dimension to this prayer. Hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come in all the world. The picture we have got in the rest of the New Testament, the Kingdom of God coming and picture every tribe and every people and every language, every nation, singing praises to Him as the King. That’s where our prayers are headed. 

We want Him to make Himself known as great and holy and mighty in all the world, every corner of the earth, in every corner of Birmingham, we want God’s name to be known as holy. In every corner of every country on this planet, we want God’s name to be known as holy. When we pray for these teams in Ecuador, we pray God use these brothers and sisters to make your name known as holy in Ecuador. Our brothers and sisters in Venezuela this morning, “Make your name known as holy to them.” For our students in Ukraine, “Make your name known as great throughout Ukraine through them.” 

They reported back to us this week 50 students have come to faith in Christ there in Ukraine. God make yourself known as great and savior in the middle of Ukraine. That’s what we pray. Now here’s the beauty of it, our cry for God’s name to be hallowed as His Kingdom comes, the beauty of it is, and it goes back to where we started this morning, God wants this to happen. He wants His name to be hallowed. We have got to remember that when we pray, we’re not asking God to do things he doesn’t want to do. We’re asking God to do that which is most passionate on His heart. He is not disinclined to make His glory known. His whole person is inclined to make His glory known. There is nothing that is higher on God’s priority list than making His greatness and His grace and His mercy and His majesty, His love known. And so when we pray for that we’re coming in line with the desires of God and this is why we can say, “Make your wants God’s wants, then ask for whatever you want.” 

Jesus is saying, He says it throughout Scripture. God’s name will be vindicated. He will show His righteousness. He will show His power and His mercy and His glory to all nations. So you pray for that and you’re in for a cosmic plan of God to make His name hallowed in all the earth. He says you have the privilege of praying this prayer into reality in your lives. I’m convinced that as the Kingdom of God comes, is consummated in our lifetime, God may it be so, if it is, it will be because the church of Jesus Christ gets serious about praying the Lord’s Prayer. Hallowed be your name in all the earth. 

I’m convinced that if we are going to do what we talked about two weeks ago, if we are going to fulfill the Great Commission, it will be because The Church at Brook Hills unites in a concerted effort of prayer where we fall on our faces day after day and week after week and we cry out together as a faith family, “Make your name known as holy throughout the earth.” 

God wants to answer that. He longs to answer that. 

Let me give you a picture. I got an email this week from Houston. 51 year old man. He writes: 

In the spring of 2006, with the encouragement of two of my friends at work, I began for the first time in my life to study God’s Word and apply it to my life. It was during this time that I began to have a burden to go on a mission trip to Brazil. I began praying and seeking God’s direction. I had no idea where to turn for guidance. In September, I was contacted with an opportunity to go to Brazil in July of 2007, this month. Because the team of 22 would come from another place, I was isolated from training and had to work and plan via the Internet. (This is where The Church at Brook Hills plays in) In early spring of 2007, I started subscribing to your podcast. It was during the spring and early summer that I listened to your messages on sharing my faith with people in different cultures. I can remember listening to the messages on preparing and giving our testimonies and sharing with guilt, shame and fear based cultures. I didn’t realize at the time what God was doing in my life. A few weeks ago our team went to Saint Helene in the Northeast corner of Brazil. On Saturday morning, I was asked to share my testimony. I was asked to share my testimony with approximately 75 local Christians. I then shared with them how to write and share their testimonies with others. Over the next three days through the efforts of those Christians over 100 Brazilians came to know the Lord in a personal way. (Now here’s where it gets really good, not that that wasn’t good, but here’s where it gets really good) I want to personally thank you and the church for all you do for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom. Also, I would like to thank Charles Card, Jim Shepherd, Gene Mason and others at Brook Hills whom my wife, Pam, had contacted while I was gone to pray for God’s will in our lives. 

Luke 11:2–4 encourages us to pray for God’s name to be known around the world.

Mark it down, guaranteed. You pray for the name of God to be hallowed in all corners of the earth, and it will happen. He will make His Glory know. He will show Himself faithful. He will show Himself the Savior of the world. He will show Himself the Lord of the nation. Let’s be a faith family that falls on our knees and asks God to do it, to ask God for His glory. So that’s what we’re going to do in the next couple of minutes, we’re going to come face to face with the glory of Jesus Christ, and we’re going to ask Him to make His name known as holy in our lives. And we’re going to ask Him to make His name holy in all the world. 

God we pray that your name would be known as holy in us, and we pray that you would make yourself known as great and mighty, powerful healer and deliverer and redeemer in Ecuador and in Venezuela and the Ukraine. God we pray that you would cause your name to be regarded as Holy as the coming King, as the sovereign Father and as the holy one. We give ourselves and we ask for your glory to be made known. We know that it’s a priority of your Heart and so we make it the priority of ours. We ask for them in prayer today, in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Luke 11:2–4 reminds us to ask God for his gifts.

You make His wants your wants, then you ask whatever you want. Ask for His glory. Second request in the Lord’s Prayer is to ask for His gifts. Ask God for His gifts. It says, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Now we come to this point, we ask the question, “Why is the only thing Jesus tell us to ask God to give to us is give us bread? Now let’s be honest, there are things more important, even than bread. We need water more than bread. We need air more than bread. Why does he say, “Give us our bread?” 

Well the picture goes all the way back to God’s work among His people in the Old Testament, Exodus 16. Some of you may remember when God’s people were wandering in the wilderness. They had been taken out of slavery in Egypt, and they were brought into this wilderness where they were wandering. They were hungry. They didn’t have any food, so God provided food for them, literally bread from heaven, manna. They would wake up, walk outside their tents and there would be food everywhere. There would be food enough for that day. They would be able to eat for that day, but if they tried to save any until the next day, what happened? The bread wasn’t so good anymore, and so they wouldn’t want to eat the bread on the next day. They learned to trust God day by day. Every morning God’s going to provide us the food we need. We go to bed at night, we don’t have food for tomorrow. Wake up the next morning, He’s given it to us. Now why did God do that? Why did he lead them like that and why would that be so important for how we pray? 

There are two truths that are fundamental to understanding Exodus 16 and especially how it relates to the Lord’s Prayer. Number one, God satisfies our hunger. I’m going to ask you a question that’s going to seem very elementary, but think about it with me. Why were the Israelites in the wilderness, why were they hungry? First thought is because they didn’t have any food, but go deeper than that. They were hungry because God created them with that hunger, right? The only reason we are hungry for food, the only reason we have cravings is because God has created us that way. God has created us to hunger after things, and here’s the beauty of it God has created us to hunger after things that only He can fill. He caused them to hunger, it literally says in Exodus 16. He created them that way so they would look to Him to fulfill that hunger. 

He satisfies our hunger and that leads to the second truth. Not only does He satisfy our hunger, but also He sustains our faith and He teaches us in the process to look to Him to give us the gifts we need. To look to Him to fill the hunger that is in us. 

Let me show this to you. Hold your place there in Luke 11 and go back with me to Deuteronomy, the Fifth book in the Bible, Deuteronomy 8. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and then you will come to Deuteronomy 8. This is when God is explaining why He did what He did in the desert. Listen to Deuteronomy 8:3. Here we see both these truths, the fact that He satisfies our hunger and He sustains our faith. Look for Him here in Deuteronomy 8:3, it says “He” meaning God, “humbles you, causing you to hunger” there it is, causing you to hunger “and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers have known,” Here’s the purpose. Here’s why God did it, “to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They had a lot of food to eat and they even grumbled in Numbers 11, said “We don’t want the manna. We want the food back in Egypt.” 

And the reason God did this is He wanted to teach them that they had a hunger that He created in them so that He would fill it. He said, “I’m teaching you to trust in you to provide the bread you need. Trust in you to provide the gifts that you need.” Man does not live on bread. He lives on God and every word that comes to the mouth of God. That doesn’t mean you’re hungry, you eat the Bible. He’s teaching them that God is the provider for them and they’re to seek Him to provide what they hunger for, they long for. That’s the whole point of why we get to Luke 11, He says, “Give us today, each day our daily bread.” 

It’s that picture of us saying on a daily basis, “God, we have a hunger for food, a physical hunger for food. And only you can provide for that hunger. We have a thirst for water. Only you can provide that. We have a longing for air on a moment-by-moment basis.” We don’t even think about it, but we got it. Soon as it’s taken away from us, we begin immediately to long for it. “Only you can fulfill that.” We have all kinds of hungers, desires, thirsts, longings in our lives for peace, for love, for intimacy, for meaning, for purpose. Jesus is saying you go to God and you say, “Only you can provide these things for me.” 

Now this whole request seems really strange in our culture today. Let’s be honest. We don’t very often ask God to give us bread today, to give us food today. Not one of us in this room was worried about the fact that we may not have anything to eat today. So, why would our main request for God to give us something be for bread when in our culture, most if not all of us need less food, not more? Why do we ask for daily bread? Cause Jesus was saying, “You need to pray and prayer will be the guard in your life, to guard you against thinking that you can provide bread for yourself on your own, apart from Him.” Prayer will be the hedge of protection to keep you from thinking that you can provide what you need and you can provide for your hungers by going to the things of this world instead of going to God. 

I’m convinced when I look at my own life, and I look at the shade of Christianity in Western culture that one of the reasons that we are so flippant and so casual with prayer is because we actually believe that we can do this thing on our own and we can sustain our lives on our own. We believe that because we have got the things to prove it. And we have bought the bill of goods, the materialism that’s sold us that said we don’t need God, we just need our things. We can make it without God because we have got all our things. And Jesus says the core of prayer is you realizing that you have a Father in heaven who desires to give every good and perfect gift to you and you need Him, not bread. You need Him, not water, not air, not all of these things that you hunger and long for. You need Him and He will provide those things for you. 

Prayer brings us back to that realization. We have got to ask God to deliver us, in this culture that we live in, to deliver us from self-sustaining Christian lives. You can’t. That goes against the whole point of Christianity. God only sustains us. We’re only satisfied by God, and he gives us that which nothing else in this world can, no matter how big our house is, not matter how nice our car is, no matter how great our 401(k) is, no matter how great our job or our salary is, the possessions that we own, no matter how great they are. We don’t need things. We need God. I’m guessing none of us has asked today, “Give me my daily bread.” Maybe very few of us ‘cause we think we have got it on our own and we don’t. We don’t have it on our own. We can’t do this thing without Him. He alone is our provider and so we go to Him and we say, “Give us the core needs. I need you to provide these things for me.” 

It’s why our Sudanese brothers and sisters in the middle of the African jungle are dancing when they pray. It’s why in a war torn community they are celebrating because they have seen their friends and their family members taken by militant Muslims miles into the desert and left there to starve without food or water. And they have seen those trucks go back every day to those people in the desert, those believers in the desert and say, “If you will renounce your faith we will take you to food. If you’ll renounce your faith, we’ll take you to water.” And they have seen their friends and family members die there in the desert because they wouldn’t renounce their faith. 

Does that mean that God did not give them their daily bread? Absolutely not. That means our brothers and sisters 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 is their satisfaction and it’s why, when you go to Sudan today, and you say, “I’m sorry about all that’s happened around you” they’ll look back and they’ll say the same three words, every time. Their favorite phrase is “God is greater. We don’t have food. God is greater. We don’t have drink. God’s greater. Our homes are ravaged. God is greater. He gives us what we need. He satisfies us. He sustains us and He is all we need.” 

So we need to pray for our daily bread. We need to pray for God’s provision. We need to pray for God’s gifts like we want God to give them and like we can’t get what He offers anywhere else. And so over the next few minutes, I want to invite you to let this soak in, in your lives through prayer. Across this room and this materialistic wealthy culture that we are all immersed in, let’s ask God to give us our daily bread and let’s confess that we are desperate for Him to provide this gift to us. 

Psalm 16:2, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’” We have no good thing apart from you, God. You are our sustainer. You’re the only one whose satisfies us. So we ask for your satisfaction. We want you to satisfy us in a way that bread can’t satisfy us, water can’t satisfy us, in a way that more possessions, cars, houses, money cannot satisfy us. And we need you to sustain us in a way that we are completely dependent on you. God help us find that in prayer and communion with you amidst the materialistic culture that we live in. God help us to come out of the middle of that and say, “Apart from God, we have nothing.” Teach us to pray like this, in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Luke 11:2–4 reminds us to ask God for his grace.

We ask God for His gifts ‘cause only He can give them. Ask God for His glory and His gifts and we ask God for petition and requests in the Lord’s Prayers for His grace. “Forgive us our sins…” Four simple words that absolutely blow open the storehouse of heaven’s mercy. May we never lose sight of the beauty and the wonder of coming before the holy God of the universe saying, “Forgive us our sins,” and knowing that we have a hearing with Him. What an incredible thought. Don’t go over that quickly so you can go on to the next thing that you really want to get to ask God to do. Let that soak in. Forgive us our sins. We want His grace. We ask for His grace. God, I need your grace. 

I’m convinced the more we walk with God in prayer, the more we connect with Him in prayer, the more this will become a fundamental part of our praying. You would think it would be the opposite. You’d think that the closer you get to God in prayer, the less you need to ask for His grace, the less you need to ask for His forgiveness because you’re getting things taken care of in your life, right? I think the opposite is true in Scripture as well as in personal experience. I think the deeper you go in your relationship with God and the deeper you walk with Him in prayer, the more you become aware of your need for His grace. And the more He exposes the things in your life that you never saw before that you want to get rid of so that you can live the Christ life, you need His grace. 

So you experience His forgiveness. Forgive us our sins. And we have the privilege in prayer of experiencing His forgiveness and in that moment of praying to this God knowing that our sins are forgiven, we experience it. This is not just a theoretical truth on the pages of Scripture. This is a reality in your life, in prayer, “Forgive us our sins,” you experience His forgiveness. He looks at you and He says “Not guilty. Slate wiped clean.” That’s reason to pray. Don’t you want His grace? He is ready to pour it out. 

We experience His forgiveness in a couple of ways, I think, in Luke 11. First of all, continually, whole picture is, whenever you pray, this is what you say, “Forgive us our sins.” The Lord’s Prayer seems to imply or assume that we’re always going to need to ask for this one. Seems to assume that we’re in constant need of forgiveness that even our best works need to be washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. Even the best things that we have to bring to the table in prayer are filthy rags that He cleanses with His righteousness. So we ask continually over and over again, “God forgive me of this. God forgive me of this. God forgive me of this.” And we know, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot exhaust the mercy of God. You just keep coming back to the well, and it’ll keep covering you time after time after time again. 

You ask for His forgiveness continually and then you experience His forgiveness specifically. There’s a definite article, the sins, forgive us of the sins we have committed. It’s a prayer there. It’s not just saying, “God I know I messed up somewhere, so I’m just going to cover my bases and say forgive me and that’ll cover it.” 

You know, there’s a point in our salvation where that’s certainly the case. We come to God and we realize our sinful nature and we realize our need for Him. Our whole life has been headed toward sin, given over to sin and we come to that point where we make a decisive trust in Christ and He cleanses us of all our sins. Then, at that point on, and take a picture here, in Luke 11, is we’re no longer coming forth to a judge to be declared guilty or innocent for all of eternity. Now it’s a picture of a child coming before Father, sitting down at the table with the Father and saying, “You know, there’s some things that I have let come between me and you and I’m specifically just getting those out on the table. I’m laying them out there.” As if He doesn’t already know. As if you’re hiding? You come to those points where you say, “God, I need you to forgive me for…” And you fill in the blank and you say things that you would be ashamed for anybody else to hear. But you know you have a Father in heaven that hears you and He forgives you specifically. He covers that sin with His righteousness. We can be specific with Him. And we let God in this thing called prayer take hold of those areas. We don’t want him just to wash the outside of the cup and leave the filth inside, do we? 

Wash the whole thing, this and this and this. Sometimes we just need to camp out at this part of the prayer and you ask for His grace and have Him say to us over and over and over again, “You’re not guilty anymore. You’re not filthy anymore.” To experience His forgiveness. 

And then, it’s not where this whole picture stops in Luke 11. You extend His forgiveness. “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us” (Luke 11:4). Now the danger here in Luke 11, is to think that what Jesus is saying is that the basis or the ground for our forgiveness is our actions with others. That’s not what Scripture teaches. The basis for our forgiveness is obviously the grace and the mercy of Christ and trusting in Christ. 

So we ask Him to forgive us based on that, but here’s what Jesus is saying very clearly, if you ask God to forgive you of your sins, and yet you are not forgiving others around you that unforgiveness is a sin and so you really haven’t asked God to forgive you of your sins. Unforgiveness, the roots of bitterness and the grudges, the desires for revenge that we hold on to at work and we hold on to at home and we hold on to in the church, Jesus calls it out, it’s sin because failure to forgive is a complete contradiction of the gospel that you have trusted in. 

It’s a complete contradiction of what you’re asking God for in prayer. And so He says, “You have received my forgiveness and then you radiate my forgiveness. You show my forgiveness in a way that makes no sense to the world around you.” That’s what Jesus goes so far to say, “If you come to pray and you realize there’s something between you and him, you need to go get that right, then you come back and pray.” And the challenges for all of us in this room to consider, where areas of bitterness are still there in our hearts or grudges or desires for revenge or whatever that may be, unforgiveness in our lives and our relationships with other brothers or sisters and we have got to get those right if we are going to progress in prayer. 

Now this thing called confession is not where we like to camp out a lot, but I’m convinced that as God works in our faith family and He leads us deeper and deeper into His Word and deeper, deeper into this mission, we will need more and more time in confession, not less. We will need more time to fall on our faces, corporately and individually and to say, “God, I need and I want your grace.” And so over the next few minutes that’s what we’re going to do. Again, the goal this morning is there would not be spectators in corporate worship. We need to pray all across this room as individuals. 

God, forgive me of and you fill in the blank. You be specific with God. You forgive us of… There’s a corporate nature of that. The whole Lord’s Prayer, God we have fallen short in this and this and this as your people. And if there are things you were holding onto, roots of bitterness or unforgiveness, then we need to get those right, whether that’s even right now, turning to the person beside us or going to someone else and say, “Hey, I need to get this right with you.” Or, if that’s saying, “God, I’m going to resolve that today. And the result of my praying is I’m going to go and handle this.” I want us to spend some time in corporate confession. 

And again, you bow and pray where you are. You sing along if you like. You can stand or you kneel, let’s just spend time in coming honestly before the throne of mercy saying, “Forgive us our sins.” Let’s ask God for His grace. 

God, we want your grace. We want you to pour it out on us. We want to bring our filth before you and know your grace and know the power of your grace. We need your grace. I pray that you give us such a strong desire for your grace that we would be honest with you in our sins. That you would draw us deeper and deeper towards yourself and you would expose more and more of our need for your grace. We trust that you provide it in abundance, in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Ask God for His guidance.

This is how you pray and ask God for His glory and His gifts and ask God for His grace, and then the final petition of the Lord’s Prayer is you ask God for His guidance. “Lead us not into temptation…” It almost seems to imply that God wants to tempt us, that God wants to entice us, but that’s not at all what Scripture is teaching. We know James 1 just debunks that whole idea. So, what is this saying? 

I think it comes on the heels of a need for grace for a reason. I think the picture we’re seeing here in prayer is we come before God as a people who are all prone to sin, we are all prone to wander towards temptation. Every single one of us, including myself, you need to know your pastor in his flesh is prone to wander, prone to leave the God he loves. We all are, every single one of us in this room, without exception. And so we pray because we need Him to redirect us. We need Him to lead us not into temptation, but to lead us in a way that honors and glorifies Him. Lead us on the path of holiness and righteousness. 

We need Him to do that because we can’t do it on our own. He gives protection amidst temptation. He gives protection from temptation, Christ does, and apart from Him, we are powerless against temptation. We need to realize that. 

We have this tendency that goes back to our self sustaining Christianity that misses the whole point of Christianity. We have this idea that we hear people falling in this sin or that sin. We think, “I would never do that.” The Bible tells us, “Take heed lest you fall.” You can’t overcome temptation on your own. Not one of us in this room can. I can’t. You can’t. Only Christ has the power to overcome the snares and the schemes of the adversary, only Him. And so it’s only when we are in Him that we can overcome temptation. We need Him to guide us, to protect us amidst temptation. There are people all across this room who are dabbling and flirting with this temptation or that temptation, this sin or that sin, thinking it would never go beyond that. It would never get worse than that. And the greatest need for us is to 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 the most urgent need because the adversary somewhere along the way convinced us that we can overcome temptation on our own. We can’t. We need His guidance. 

And the picture here is not just in temptation to sin, but a temptation that comes in the middle of trial. And so He gives protection amidst temptation. He gives perseverance in the middle of trial. He gives the sustenance that you need to continue to seek Him, trust Him, in the middle of our trials. The golden thread, I have seen it throughout the Lord’s Prayer that knits it altogether that golden thread is a prayer, “Not my will, but yours be done.” You see it in Matthew 6 and it’s all over different places in the New Testament. 

But let’s be honest. In the middle of trial, let’s just be honest, there’s time where it’s easier to pray, “Not my will, but yours be done” than it is other times in our life. And I’m guessing there’s a whole host of people who are sitting in front of me this morning who are thinking, “Not my will, but yours be done. Dave, I’m just not there. I’m having a real hard time praying that in my life that whatever God wants to do in the middle of this trial, I want him 

to do.” And if that’s you, I want to encourage you this morning. I have just got a feeling that God understands that, that Christ understands that. You look at Jesus’ prayer life. He comes to the garden of Gethsemane and He doesn’t pray, just casually, “Not my will, but yours be done. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.” It’s not that easy. He agonizes in prayer and there are times with our walk with God in prayer that we need to camp out here a little longer than other times, maybe for a long time. “God I’m just not there.” And know that He understands that and the beauty of this picture in prayer is that He leads us to get there. Even where we started, “Make your wants God’s wants.” “Well how do I do that?” 

You ask God to lead you and to guide you to want what He wants. You ask him to take you there. You don’t have to get there on your own, now you’re ready. He guides you and leads you to that point. So, if life has taken a turn for the worse in your family, in your health, in your job, or when that does happen, ask God to lead and to guide. Ask Him. He’ll bring you to the point where you can say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” This is what happens in prayer. This is part of that intimacy and we all know, we all know that it’s not in times of triumph but in times of trial when the beauty and the intimacy of God in prayer is so much more real than any other time in our lives. 

He’s designed it that way so if he would guide you in the middle. There’s a phrase that Puritan believers used back in the 16th and 17th century called the valley of vision and talks about how it was in the middle of the valleys where God gave the clearest vision of who He is and how He leads and how He guides. The Puritans are known in history of Christianity as leaving some of the greatest legacy, examples, prayer and devotion and I’m convinced it’s because Puritans were really born in the picture of the church in England during that timeframe when they were trying to bring the church back to what the Word taught and the purity of the Word in the church and they were faced with persecution. 

Their homes were being burned and the archbishop was taking their leaders aside and torturing them, literally cutting off their ears. They were being threatened. Many of them fled and ended up founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded by Puritans who were living in the middle of persecution. They left this legacy of prayer and devotion, I’m convinced, because they knew what it meant for God to lead and guide in the middle of the valley. And so as we thing about praying, asking God for His guidance, I want to let them lead our prayer time. 

And what you’re going to see on the screen are prayers, Puritan prayers that they prayed that I hope will encourage us as we pray and ask God for His guidance. And then in between those prayers, we’ll have an opportunity to sing prayers to God, asking Him to be our guide. Let’s ask God for His guidance, lead us not into temptation. 

Dear God, we want your guidance because we know that ours is so limited in scope. We don’t know what the next year holds, the next five years or ten years. We don’t know what the next week holds. But we trust that you do and that you guide us according what is best for your children and ultimately for your glory and so I pray to you lead us. Lead us in the middle of temptations that surround us in the trials that we go through. Lead us to trust in you only. We pray that you would show yourself strong by guiding our steps according to your glory, in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

This, then, is how you pray. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Ask for His glory. Ladies and gentlemen, think of as many ways as you can possibly think of to phrase that. Just ask for Him to make His name known over and over and over again. Let that be the perspective that now counts as you asking for His gifts. The complete and total dependence on Him, for His grace and complete need before Him and ultimately, for His guidance that all brings us back around to making His greatness known. This is how you pray. 

So my challenge for you for us all, as we have seen this in Scripture this morning, my challenge for us is to be rid and done with desireless praying, with affectionless praying. Let’s be rid and done, even when we sit down at the table, let’s be rid and done with rote praying and this is the heart of prayer, desire for Him. And let’s let desire for what He desires be the secret to discovering His power in prayer. And let’s see what He does.

Observation (What does the passage say?)

• What type of writing is this text?
  _{(Law? Poetry or Wisdom? History? A letter? Narrative? Gospels? Apocalyptic?)}
• Are there any clues about the circumstances under which this text was originally written?
• Are there any major sub-sections or breaks in the text that might help the reader understand the focus of the passage?
• Who is involved in the passage and what do you notice about the specific participants?
• What actions and events are taking place? What words or themes stand out to you and why?
• Was there anything about the passage/message that didn’t make sense to you?

Interpretation (What does the passage mean?)

• How does this text relate to other parts of the Scriptures
  _{(e.g., the surrounding chapters, book, Testament, or Bible)?}
• What does this passage teach us about God? About Jesus?
• How does this passage relate to the gospel?
• How can we sum up the main truth of this passage in our own words?
• How did this truth impact the hearers in their day?

Application (How can I apply this to passage to my life?)

• What challenged you the most from this week’s passage? What encouraged you the most?
• Head: How does this passage change my understanding of the Lord? (How does this impact what I think?)
• Heart: How does this passage correct my understanding of who I am to the Lord? (How should this impact my affections and what I feel?)
• Hands: How should this change the way I view and relate to others and the world? (How does this impact what I should do?)
• What is one action I can take this week to respond in surrender and obedience to the Lord?

[Note: some questions have been adapted from One to One Bible Reading by David Helm]