Luke 11:1-4

Prayer is an ongoing conversation between us and the Lord. Prayer is our lifeline to Heaven. It can either change the situation or change us for the situation.

We ask you Lord that you would strip away cause us to be clear and clean from any distractions that we may give our hearts fully to this word of yours.
For ask it in Jesus name and all God’s people said, amen, grab your bibles and turn then to the gospel of Luke chapter 11 this morning, Luke chapter 11.
And we are looking at the first four verses in our study together and church.
I want to tell you this is part one of a two part message regarding prayer. Chapter 11.
The whole chapter has a great, great amount to do with prayer, but we’re going to be looking at something that is in a strange way, very familiar to you and yet not so familiar to you.
You no doubt have heard about this portion of scripture.
It’s very famous, but little do we know about what is real prayer and how we ought to pray?
The title of the message this morning is when a Christian prays, when a Christian prays. What happens?
What happens when you pray? Well, you might say nothing happens when I pray.
Well, there’s a reason for that.
There might be someone here this morning saying when I pray, I see God move. There’s a reason for that.
Why is it that when we pray, either something happens, doesn’t happen or God says, wait, I’m moving on something.
I’m doing something. What is going on in this life of prayer as a believer?
Again, part one of a two part message when a Christian prays so important is the issue of prayer.
And the Christian praying that the Bible records this actual event of praying more than any other thing in the Bible.
From Genesis to revelation, prayer is saturated in the Bible prayer.
We are invited to pray, we are to no prayer.
Prayer is the single most active powerful invitation that God gives us as a believer.
Again, it’s found in scripture more than any other thing that the believer does on two separate occasions, by the way, right here in Luke chapter 11 and in Mathews gospel chapter six, Jesus speaks on this particular issue of prayer by showing us a structure of prayer and he repeats it as I said, Matthew six, Luke 11, 2 separate occasions.
He speaks it twice to those who are following him about prayer. So let’s look at it together.
Luke chapter 11 beginning into verse one.
Now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased.
Now, one of his disciples said to him, Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.
So he Jesus said to them, when you pray, say our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins.
For we also forgive of everyone who is indebted to us and do not lead us into temptation but to deliver us from the evil one or from evil.
This is so very, very important you might say, well, Jack, I remember the different version of that that’s found in Matthew’s Gospel again, Jesus repeats it twice.
This is not Luke’s rendering and Matthew’s rendering of the same statement that Jesus made. He repeats it.
We’ll study more on that later.
But what a realization that you and I have as believers that when a Christian prays listen, everyone, when a Christian prays someone’s listening and that’s the Lord.
Oh, you may, you may not like what I’m about to say, but I hope it kind of works into your bloodstream for a moment.
We are all for having prayer brought back into the public place. I think God wants that.
I think that’s, that’s what God intends. I’m all for having prayer in school. We need to do that.
But in the argument of fairness, someone is going to say to you or to us or to our system, school system, government system, they’re going to say, well, wait a minute.
If Christians are going to pray, then when are the Muslims going to pray?
When are the Jews going to pray? When are the Hindus going to pray?
And people are gonna get an argument about that Christian. Listen, don’t get in an argument about that.
Here’s the reason why the Bible makes it very clear that when we pray, the Lord is listening, that is the God of the Bible.
There is no other God. When we pray, the Lord God of the Bible is listening.
But the school system or the government might say, well, we’re going to, we’re going to make Monday the Islamic prayer day in school.
Tuesday, the Christians can pray and on Wednesday, the Buddhists can pray. Listen. Don’t panic about that Christian take it.
We’ll take our Tuesday day, Tuesday day of prayer. We’ll take it.
You want to know why on the other days? Ain’t nobody listening. Nobody’s there.
You can jump, holler and scream. There is one God.
He’s the God that has revealed himself in the Bible and he answers the prayers of his people.
There’s only one prayer that God is listening for in regarding or in regards to the non believer.
There’s just one and that is Lord Jesus. I’m coming to you, forgive me of my sins.
He’s looking to the nonbeliever to cry out to him for salvation.
It’s very, you say Jack, I don’t like what you just said.
Are you, are you suggesting that the non believer. God doesn’t hear him.
God does not hear him says the Bible make no mistake about it. He said, I don’t like that.
That’s too bad. You didn’t write the Bible. I didn’t write the Bible.
God wrote the Bible and there is a requirement to you having your prayers heard and the Bible makes it very clear.
It is through or in the name of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit of God directed to the Father above.
Very, very important. Don’t swallow this, this politically correct concept or thought that we’re all praying to the same God.
That is absolute heresy. Do you remember after 9 11, everybody got into Yankee Stadium and they prayed to all kinds of Gods.
You could have just edited that whole prayer meeting down to when the Christian prayed. Think about it.
He said, well, what about the Jewish guy? He believes in the Bible?
Listen, I have many Jewish friends that can’t change my theology.
The Bible makes it very clear that you can’t get to the Father.
But through Jesus Christ, the Bible says, you can’t honor the Father unless you pray in jesus’ name.
See man, that’s narrow. Exactly right.
I’m not saying that it’s narrow because we happen to agree with what the Bible says.
The reason why I agree with what the Bible says is because God has said it.
And so I need you and I need to get on that narrow path that God has declared this.
There’s nothing arrogant about this or, or bigoted about this.
This is what God has said in the Bible, just read the Bible.
And so I want to encourage you this morning, maybe you’re not a Christian.
I want you to listen carefully to this two part study this week and next week about how we come to God in prayer.
And what happens when a Christian prays.
Number one, it is this Christian jot it down when a Christian prays it is this, it’s an ongoing conversation.
Will you write that down? It’s an ongoing conversation. That’s a beautiful thing.
By the way, jot this down if you would. Nehemiah chapter one verse six.
Nehemiah 16, he said says, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant says, Nehemiah praying before you day and night for your servants.
God is listening all the time. It’s a conversation. Prayer is not a one sided thing.
So here in Luke chapter 11 verses one and two, this is what we see when it says here in the scripture that it came to pass as he was praying.
Will you note that in a certain place? Church? This is amazing.
Jesus saw the need to prayer and to pray and to be at prayer. Isn’t it amazing?
You said, well, Jack, wasn’t he the son of God? Yes. Didn’t he come from heaven above down to earth?
Yes. Why did He pray. Jesus saw the need to pray even though He was God, the Son on earth speaking to God, the Father in heaven.
Above. There was this connection that Jesus shows us, was needed for prayer church.
If the Son of God needed to pray, then how much more do you and I need to pray.
We need to pray. By the way, I thank God for four of July morning.
1000 people had fasted and prayed and came here at nine AM on fourth of July morning.
And I got to tell you, I have marked it down in my little journal.
It was one of the highlights of my Christian life in 30 years.
Last fourth of July was awesome as prayer was offered up, it was holy, it was divine, it was blessed.
And I tell you what you prayed, that was a glorious thing.
There was a conversation taking place.
By the way, I was blessed to hear some of the little Children, your Children with hand in toe as mom or dad would bring them to these various prayer altars that we had in the sanctuary, to pray for our schools or to pray for the media or to pray for the church or for our troops.
And these little kids were praying in that incredible prayers.
No doubt, they didn’t learn to pray that moment, but they’ve heard prayer going on in their homes, a conversation with God.
Very, very important. You’re listening to real life with pastor Jack Hibbs, you know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series.
Just go to Jack Hibbs dot com. That’s Jack Hibbs dot com.
And for now let’s get back to our teaching once again, here’s pastor Jack.
Number one is this, it’s an ongoing conversation and mark this down.
It’s an opportunity when you and I pray.
It’s an ongoing conversation with God and it’s an opportunity to hear from the Lord.
When the Bible says that Jesus was praying, we know from other portions of scripture.
It was his custom to be in prayer. Jesus often prayed.
So we need to mimic him in prayer, but it says that he was praying in a certain place.
Do you have to have a certain place to pray? No, but I highly recommend please jot this down.
You know, I just came back from the marriage retreat, which is still going on right now with pastor Sandy Adams and all that’s wonderful.
And you look around that room, there’s 300 people missing from our church today that are out at that retreat.
It’s awesome. But you look around and taking notes.
All the women are taking notes and all the men are watching their wives take notes, guys, you need to start taking notes.
We need to write this stuff down.
And here’s the thing I want you to be aware of as a Christian praying, I encourage you.
Yes, we can pray anywhere at all times, any place and we should, but there needs to be a place where you almost create a nest as it were male and female.
Husband or wife. All of us today. Find a place to have with God. That is your certain place.
Make it your date spot with Jesus in prayer. Maybe it’s a, maybe it’s in your backyard.
Maybe it’s on your, I was gonna say maybe it’s on your hammock. Don’t do that.
You’ll sleep but find a place. Make it a place. What about at work? Find a place.
Maybe it’s your car during break or maybe it’s some other part of the, the company or some location, find a place and, and declare that place to be your place with God.
Find a spot in your home. Teach that to your kids. Show your wife. This is my spot.
This, I mean not to push her out of it, but to say this is my spot.
I have I heard that message on Sunday and I’m going to start practicing prayer and this is my little altar with me and the Lord.
I’m going to be meeting right here at the, at the patio table right here at this chair with God do that.
Jesus had a certain place that he enjoyed going to and he took full advantage of praying.
The Bible says, Luke in chapter Luke chapter, Luke in Luke chapter three verse 21.
The Bible says, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized.
And while he was praying, the heavens opened up, boy, do you want the heavens to open up? Pray?
Luke 5 16 says, and he withdrew himself from the crowd and he went into the wilderness and he prayed, Luke chapter six verse 12 says, now it came to pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to his father.
Prayer. Is that one thing, church that keeps you and I connected to heaven.
There’s no other thing he said, what about worship? That’s a wonderful thing. But it doesn’t connect us to heaven.
It’s prayer. We need to pray like never before Philippians 4 19 says, and Paul spoke to that church at Philippi.
He says, and my God shall supply all of your need according to the riches and glory by Christ. Jesus.
God answers prayer. We just need to pray. It’s an ongoing conversation and it’s productive.
Will you jot that down when we pray church?
Listen, when you and I pray, it should be productive, it should be powerfully productive. When we pray here.
It says when he had ceased, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord teach us to pray.
As John also taught his disciples. He’s talking about John, the Baptist. John, the baptist taught his disciples to pray.
So one of Jesus’s disciples here says, Lord teach us to pray church.
Come on think for one, why did they ask him, teach us to pray?
You know what I think it’s this they saw in jesus’ life, how productive prayer was.
Now, listen, I understand this. I understand something that when you give a message on prayer.
In fact, I’ll give you a few thoughts here. A friend of ours wrote a book.
It’s the best book that I’ve ever read on fast and in prayer. Nobody comes close.
We’re gonna do our best to get this thing published. Fantastic.
Why, why should we be involved in that? Why should we care?
Because this person has gone to the publishers and said, read, read the book. You want to publish it.
You know what their answer was here. You can have your book back.
It’s a great book, you can have it back. Christians are not interested in fasting and in prayer.
The books don’t sell. Oh, but write a book on 12 Christian steps to get rich.
And it would be a best seller. Seven steps to think, a happy thought.
And it would be at the top of the charts but not prayer but not fasting. Why?
Because the church is playing games. The church is not serious enough.
Frankly, the church doesn’t have to be serious enough right now because not enough nasty stuff has happened to the church just yet.
I say that with a sarcasm.
You and I pray when we’re desperate, you and I pray when things are hurting.
Look, have you ever been hurting? What do you do? You pray when you’re hurting?
Don’t you ask people pray for me? You have a big challenge coming up in your life.
Notice that whenever you and I pray, there’s an opportunity that precedes our request for prayer that it might be also productive in America.
We’re not praying enough though. We should be praying hard. We still have it too easy.
I’m wondering though as Texas is being washed away, what other places?
I mean, my goodness, what a messed up country we have.
We’ve got 100 degree temperatures in places that it doesn’t happen. We’ve got floods going on.
We’ve got a drought out west. We’re becoming like all the other nations of the world.
Aren’t we devastated? God’s hand I believe is being lifted from this country.
We’ve offered up prayers to other gods. We’ve sought other altars of prayer and we’ve left God alone.
Maybe God will leave us alone. I don’t know.
We need to pray like never before and cry out to him and it needs to be productive.
They saw that there was a productivity to jesus’ prayer life.
They had come to understand that every time Jesus prayed something happened and he said, well, Jack, that was all the time.
I mean, every page you turn in the bible, Jesus is doing something awesome. You want to know why?
Because Jesus prayed all the time. Maybe you and I should be praying all the time.
They enjoyed his power and they wanted to know where that came from.
They enjoyed and marveled his wisdom and they wanted to know where that came from.
Isn’t it interesting that before Jesus picked his 12 apostles that he spent all night in prayer before he called them out, they were amazed at his miracles.
How did that happen? Prayer, Jesus took full advantage of the opportunity to pray because it was productive in Luke 9 and 18, it says, and it happened that he was alone praying that his disciples joined him.
He says, Luke 9 18, it’s beautiful, not only productive but church effective. It’s an ongoing conversation and it’s effective prayer.
Watch me and hear me. Prayer is not this Lord God bless my day. Take care of everything.
Get me to work on time. May my lane be the fast lane on the freeway?
Give me that raise. Thank you God bye bye. That’s not prayer.
You can direct at the safety clause, but that’s not prayer.
Prayer is actually a dialogue between two people who are real and speaking to one another.
Prayer is a two way street. Have you ever talked to those people? I know you have.
How is it that we all know this one person in our lives when you’re talking to them?
They’re never listening to a word you’re saying?
Have you noticed, do you know what I’m talking about?
You’re talking to them and they’re looking just past your shoulder, they’re looking just over your head and they’re just waiting for you to stop.
So they can say the next thing that whatever they’re going to say, they’re thinking about what they’re going to say, they’re not even listening to what you’re saying.
Is that a dialogue? It’s not a dialogue. It’s a monologue.
When we come to God, we are to talk to him and then listen, I highly recommend this.
Write it down. It’s free. You’ll get this, it’s for free.
Get up in the morning, stop at lunch time in the evening. Pray, then open up your bible.
Let God speak to you. That’s how it happens.
You pray and then you wait upon the Lord with the word of God open and He’ll speak out of the Bible and you’ll know it.
And then when you close your bible, you’ll pray again and thanking him for speaking to you and you’ll know what to do.
God will speak to you. He’ll lead you. It’s effective.
So Jesus said to them, note this jot it down when you pray, not. If you pray, when you pray.
This is a grand assumption here on Jesus’s part that the believer prays, the Christian prays, you might say, well, why should I pray?
Well, as I said, it’s effective in acts chapter 16, verse 25.
It says at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.
Oh, did I mention that they’re in prison?
They got arrested for being Christians and they’re in prison and look what it says here in acts 16, 25 at midnight.
I don’t know about you but midnight, that’s the time to pray. Uh Not to pray.
It’s the time to sleep. See the opportunity, see the reason why they’re in a dialogue with God.
They’re in prison probably hard to sleep at midnight in prison.
Why not pray at midnight when you’re in prison? Why? Because hello effectiveness of prayer.
Get me out of here. God. I don’t want to be in prison.
Paul and Silas, they’re praying and they’re singing songs. What an amazing jacket.
This is absolutely amazing. How, how does that happen?
Look, when you pray, when I pray, God begins to move in our lives and prayer is effective and God begins to answer.
First of all, know this before they are ever released from prison.
God heard their prayers touch their hearts and they began to sing.
Are you bummed out in the situation that you’re in? Are you all you know miserable about it?
Could it be that the very situation that you and I are in God has engineered for us to see how we will handle it to bring about an opportunity to get us to pray?
Let’s be honest, if everything was so smooth and calm and comfortable, we wouldn’t pray you ever fly on an airplane when it’s turbulence?
That’s when you pray. Think about it. You ever been on a boat when it’s tossing and turning?
That’s when you pray. I got to tell you very quickly.
It’s not in my notes, but it comes to my mind.
A bunch of us were flying as we were taking the footsteps of the apostles tour.
Pastor John Carson was with us, John Miller, also pastor there.
We’re flying and we’re going from Rome to Athens and it was horribly terribly bumpy and turbulent and scary.
And I knew we were in trouble.
We had a UPS pilot with us and I looked over at him and he said, not good.
When a pilot says and look, I knew this UPS pilot.
He was on a tour with us. He’s a Christian.
I wanted to grab the guy that was at the yoke of that plane, throw him out of the window and put a Christian behind the.
But when, when the pilot says not good and you know, you look over at Pastor John Carson, he’s hanging on to the seat in front of him and he’s praying God and hope and deliver us from those.
I was expecting to go down any moment.
But if it would have been a smooth fly, people would have been sleeping, sipping their coffee or whatever they’re doing situations in life, stir us up.
And I’m wondering how many times maybe, maybe God will allow it to happen just to hear from us again.
Oh, Jack, it’s good to hear from you again.
Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on Real Life radio with his message called when a Christian Praise.
Thanks for spending some time with us today.
You know, when a Christian Praise part one is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Gospel of Luke.
It’s a series on the book of Luke and the unveiling of Jesus Christ to this world.
And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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