In the sermon titled 'Teach Us to Pray' by Peter Allison, the focus is on the request by Jesus' disciples to learn how to pray as recorded in Luke 11. Jesus responds by teaching them the Lord's Prayer, emphasizing the importance of recognizing God's holiness, seeking His kingdom, and depending on Him for daily needs and forgiveness. The sermon underscores the nature of prayer as an entreaty to God for things we lack, cannot provide for ourselves, and do not deserve. It clarifies misconceptions about prayer, such as it not being a means to bend God's will, but rather aligning ourselves with His will. Prayer is described as a way to seek God Himself, fostering communion and fellowship with Him. The sermon also highlights the necessity of persistence in prayer and the transformative power it holds. Through prayer, believers express their dependence on God and experience His presence, mercy, and provision.

Please turn in your copy of God's Word to Luke chapter 11. Luke 11 beginning at verse 1. As we pick back up in this Gospel, Luke with this request by his disciples to learn how to pray. Hear God's word, Now it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, that one of his disciples said to him, Lord teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. So he 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 everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And he said to them, Which of you shall have a friend? And go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, Do not trouble me.

The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed, and I cannot rise and give it to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? May the Lord consider our affliction and deliver us as we remember His precepts.

Heavenly Father, how beautiful is your Word perfect in every way. It is a Word of beauty, a Word of truth, and it is piercing even to the division of soul and spirit of joints and of marrow. Lord, we ask that your word might work likewise in us this morning. That you would enable us to not only tremble at your warnings but to rejoice in your promises. We pray that your word may come to us in the power of the Holy Spirit and in much assurance.

And I ask that you would also sanctify this vessel of clay to be your messenger this morning that the glory may be yours. In Jesus' name, amen. In Jesus' name, Amen. In a movie I saw recently, one of the actors began a prayer by saying something to the effect of, Lord, I don't ask you for help very often, only once or twice in some very desperate situations. And then he raised a couple of significant times when he had asked the Lord for help.

Now that was meant to cast this person as somebody who is not presumptive, who is not always having his hand out, asking for something, asking for help. But that is the exact opposite of what a Christian should view prayer, how a Christian should view prayer, and how we as God's children should view coming to Him and asking for the things that we need, coming to him to have communion and fellowship. The exact opposite. They couldn't have done a worse job at portraying prayer. And so this, so we've come in this, in our study of Luke, to this passage of the Lord's Prayer.

And I'd like to spend some time, it's my intention to spend some time here sitting on this prayer, this Lord's Prayer, and looking at prayer in general, what is it and how do we do it? Not that we don't know how to pray in any sense in any way, but rather as a time to encourage us and to motivate us and to give to us a hunger, a deeper hunger and zeal for prayer, to be those who are not like this person who only comes when we have big needs, but to come frequently, to come continually, to come zealously, to come yearning more and more for fellowship with the Lord that is realized and enjoyed in prayer. So often though we don't come and when we do come we don't have the enjoyment, we don't have the blessing, We don't have the intimacy of fellowship that we really ought to have. And that, I think, is each of us as children of the heavenly king want to have. This text, this incident that Luke records in this section of this multi-chapter section here in the middle of Luke that records a number of things that aren't recorded in any of the other gospels.

Now this Lord's Prayer is an exception, or that is in the other gospels. But a lot of this material, a lot of these events we've been looking at in this chapter and in the next few chapters. This is material that is only in Luke. But in all these recent events, They open with Jesus praying. Jesus is praying.

And apparently one of his disciples is hearing him pray. And hearing Jesus pray and be in this fellowship and communion and intimacy with the Father, stirred up in this disciple who's not named, who may not even have been one of the twelve disciples, because often those disciples are named, he asked the Lord, Lord teach me, teach us to pray like that. So what is it then to pray? What was Jesus doing? He was praying.

That's a common word. We use it all the time. Even unbelievers talk about praying. They talk about our prayers. What are they talking about?

What should they be talking about? What is a prayer? You can even read court pleadings and they use that word as well. They pray the court, you know, the final sentence in the complaint will be that they pray the court for something or other. What are they doing?

Well, to pray is literally, quite literally, to ask for something. It is to entreat, to entreat, to beg for someone else's favor. That's what a prayer is, and that's why it's used in court complaints, because the people that are coming to the court are entreating for a favor. They're entreating the court to do something on their behalf, to bring relief of some kind. The word is literally a wish.

And so a prayer is a wish. It's a desire that is directed to God. Prayer is described in the Bible as crying out to God. In Exodus 3 verse 9, God told Moses that he had heard The cry of his people. They had cried out to him.

That is prayer. It is an entreaty. It is an entreaty then for something that we don't have. That should be obvious. It should be obvious.

But remember the prayer of the righteous man in the temple and Jesus compared the prayer of the Pharisee and the prayer of the sinner. The prayer of the righteous man was about all the things that he had, if you remember. He wasn't entreating for things that he had need of, he was praying for things that he already had. We pray because we have needs, We ought to pray because we have needs. There's no need to pray for something that we already have.

As Paul says in Romans 8, why do you hope for something that you see? That's senseless. You hope for things that you don't have, you don't see. And when you hope for things that you don't have, you don't see. And when you hope for things that you don't see, then you eagerly wait for them with patience.

So we pray for, we entreat the Lord for things that we need. And prayer then reminds us, it reminds us of our need for God. It reminds us that we're a needy people. It reminds us that we can't do anything without God. We can do nothing without God.

And when we pray, we are living out that reality. We can do nothing without the Lord's assistance, without His blessing, without his provision. We're living out and recognizing the fact that we're a needy people. That we're not self-sufficient. The big difference between goats and sheep are the goats are very self-sufficient.

They're much nicer to have, by the way, because they are self-sufficient. They take care of themselves much more. The sheep are very ignorant, stupid animals. But that's what we are. And when we pray, we are recognizing that fact about ourselves.

We are not only asking, thirdly, something that we don't have and need, but we are asking also for something that we cannot provide ourselves. We cannot provide it for ourselves. That's why We need to ask the Lord for it. To pray then is an admission or recognition that we not only lack something, but that we also lack the ability to even satisfy our need. And so we turn to the Lord for that.

Now you think, well, our daily bread, we're to pray for our daily bread and we do. Isn't that something we're able to provide for ourselves? Well, no. It's not. It's not.

If the Lord doesn't bless our work, then we're not able to provide even our daily food. It's the Lord, we need the Lord to provide our food for us. That is why we thank Him for it. No. But it's also not only something that we need and don't have, and something that we can't provide ourselves, it's also something that we don't deserve.

When we come, when we pray, we are asking and treating the Lord for things that we don't deserve. We don't deserve, we haven't earned the things that we ask for. They're not being paid to us as what is owed to us, as wages. Wages in the Bible are what is owed to us, what we are due, what we have earned, what we have merited by our work, by our whatever. That we don't deserve.

So when we come in prayer, we are coming beseeching the grace of God. There is nothing that we deserve other than God's wrath and condemnation. We don't deserve our food. Lord doesn't owe it to us. We don't deserve to live.

We forfeited that by our sin. We don't deserve life. We don't deserve the blessings of family, of being loved, of being cared for. We don't deserve good health and being healed. We don't deserve any of the many things that the Lord has poured upon us.

But Christ has deserved those things. He has merited those things. He has earned those things. So it is in Christ that we can ask for those things because of Him. It is in His name then that we pray.

He is the ground, the basis on which we can ask for these things because He has promised to give to us these things out of His grace. Prayer is also asking for something that God is not forbidding. To entreat God to do what He will not do is to tempt God and that is something that we are never to do. So we are never to ask the Lord for things, for the Lord to give or for the Lord to do what He will not do. And that's why we don't pray for the dead.

The day of grace is past. There is no further opportunity for the dead to repent. For them it is a time of judgment. So that's an example of something we're not to pray for, because it is something that the Lord will not do. But prayer is really more than simply asking and treating for all these things.

Prayer is also seeking for God Himself. It's seeking the Lord. It's seeking His fellowship. It's more than just asking God for something it is asking for God For God himself It's not just asking God for something It is seeking for God Himself. He is all that we need.

He is all that we need. He is all that we need. In Him is hid all wisdom. In Him Christ has become our wisdom. In Him is All of the things that we need at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.

In His presence is the fullness of joy. And So prayer then is the soul turning to God who has given it life. In the Psalm that we just sang, Psalm 25, it speaks about that. Lifting up our soul to the Lord. To you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

That is prayer. Seeking for God Himself. To lift up our soul to God is to offer ourselves to God. It's to put ourselves at His disposal so that He has His way with us. It's to say we want your will for our life.

We want your will in this situation. We want for you to have your way with us. God is always for us Because God is always for His children, those for whom He has died. He is for us. Prayer then is communion with God.

To pray is to be in the presence of God and to be having fellowship with Him. It's to be in an audience with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the creator of the entire universe. And it's to converse with this one as with a friend because he is our friend Through Jesus Christ We aren't just talking With an entity We aren't just talking with an entity. We aren't just talking with an impersonal being. We are talking with God Himself who is three persons, one God.

And we are talking with Jesus Christ, our elder brother. And if you are in Christ, then you already know. You've already experienced this. You know this experience. We get to know people through conversation with them, through talking with them, through a dialogue back and forth.

And prayer brings us to know the Lord more and more. He speaks to us in His Word and we speak to Him. Prayer is communion with the Lord. As we pray, He brings His Word to us. He brings to our mind the things that He has taught us and we know Him more, as well as us speaking with Him and communicating our desires and our needs and our concerns to Him.

Jesus prayed in His prayer, High Priestly Prayer, and this is eternal life that they, referring to us as he prayed this, and this is eternal life that they may know you. He's praying to the Father, the only true God and the true Jesus whom you have sent. This is eternal life that they may know you. Now there's some misconceptions about prayer that I want to clarify before we move any farther. And that is, first that prayer is not seeking to bend God's will to our will.

It's not about persuading God to do what we want. It's about asking God to do what He wills to do, what He wants to do. Not about bending His will or changing His will or changing His mind. Prayer is also not seeking to persuade God to do something that he's reluctant to do. We're not trying to change his mind, but seeking to release his power.

Prayer is in treating God To do what most comports with his own character, what most comports with his will and his being. In prayer we desire his name to be glorified and his will to be done. To be done. And thirdly then, prayer changes things, but it does not change what God has decreed to do from before the foundation of the world. Prayer changes things, but it does not change what God has decreed to do from before the foundation of the world.

Prayer changes things, but it does not change what God is decreed to do from before the foundation of the world. This can be a hard concept to grasp. We might say then, what is the point of prayer if it doesn't change? What God has decreed will happen. Well James tells us that it does change things.

The effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous has great effect. Prayer changes what would have happened if we had not prayed. Prayer changes what would have happened if we had not prayed. Maybe the easiest way to explain this is just to give you some simple examples, because in one sense it's really very simple, and we live with this all the time. It's just sometimes when we come to prayer, It seems a little bit confusing.

Why do we pray if God has ordained whatever is going to come to pass and that doesn't change? Then why do we pray? Well, here are some examples. When you have that question, here are some examples to think about. Analogies, we might say.

Here is the first analogy. I assume most of you drove a car to get here this morning, unlike my bank deposit yesterday. Did God ordain everything that came to pass in your trip here?" Well, yes. Yes, we would say, yes, he did. And with hindsight, we can now say that God ordained that we would all arrive here safely this morning.

That's right, we're all safely here this morning. So God ordained that we would all get here safely this morning. Now did the driver's actions change anything in us getting here safely this morning? Maybe you were the driver. If you didn't turn the wheel, as your car approached the curve, would that have changed anything in the outcome of your getting here this morning?

What if you didn't brake for the car ahead of you that was stopped, would that have changed anything? And you're getting here safely this morning? You see your actions as a driver, or the actions of the driver if you weren't driving, Your actions have a huge outcome on your trip, whether you end up at the hospital, in the morgue, or here safely in your chair. Your actions as a driver were hugely important in that. Your choice of how fast you went, Your choice of braking or not braking.

Your choice to turn the wheel when you turn the wheel and not at a later or earlier time. Those are all very routine and mundane things but they had huge they have huge implications for you ending up here this morning. Now does that mean that God did not ordain the details of your trip? Not at all. Not at all.

It means that God has ordained your actions as a driver, as one of the primary means of accomplishing His plan. A plan that was established and ordained before the foundation of the world to bring you safely here to church this morning. You see how both of these work together. God has ordained the actions of the driver as well as the outcome of the trip, and he uses your actions as a driver to accomplish his purposes, to bring you here safely. Now, is the Lord able to protect you when you make a mistake.

Yes, he is. And he does. Have you seen these videos where people run a red light and somehow miraculously they miss hitting anything? Because God can use other means as well. He's not limited to us not making mistakes.

He can and does often preserve us when we make mistakes in our driving and other people make mistakes. But ordinarily the Lord ordains our actions as drivers to bring us to safety. Take another example. What if somebody has a heart attack? Does what they do have any effect on the outcome?

Do you say, well, God has simply ordained all the days of my life, it really doesn't matter what I do. If He's ordained me to get well, then I'll get well. If He's ordained that I won't get better, then there's nothing I can do to get better. Do we take that approach? And you say, well, we don't need to call 911, We just don't need to do anything if God has ordained everything that happens.

No. What we do has a tremendous effect on the outcome of that scenario. Does that mean that medicine or technology, the wonder of modern medical technology, does that mean it changes God's plan or His purpose? No. Medicine is simply the means that God has ordained through which he accomplishes his plan.

It's one means, it's not the only means. Lord is free to heal even apart from any means, and he does. And he's also free to not heal through those means. Or take one more example, because I think you're getting the point Evangelism if God is ordained everything that comes to pass then why do we evangelize? Does our evangelism change anything why absolutely it does It gets people saved that otherwise would not be saved.

People are saved by believing the gospel. People believe the gospel because they heard the gospel. People hear the gospel because someone proclaimed the gospel to them. Someone proclaimed the gospel to them because somebody sent them. They were sent to proclaim that gospel.

Evangelism doesn't change what God has ordained from before the foundation of the world, but it is the means through which God has chosen to accomplish the saving of His elect, the gathering of His people. And so this then is why we pray, because it does change things. It is vital. It is the means through which God is ordained to advance His kingdom. It's the means that often God is ordained for Him to move in judgment against the wicked.

It's the means of His blessing. It's the means of His provision. The Bible says we don't have because we don't ask. Prayer is the means of God's provision for us. It's the means by which he advances and glorifies his name in his kingdom.

And so Jesus here is praying. Came to pass he was praying as he, Jesus, was praying in a certain place. In light of all that we've said about prayer, that has some pretty significant implications that Jesus is praying, that Jesus had needs. As a man, Jesus came to do the will of the Father. But as a man, as a true man, he needed the Father.

He needed all the basic necessities of life that we need. He needed to sleep. He needed a place to home, a place to lay his head. He needed food. And he did sleep and he did eat.

He needed also the Father. That's part of the great mystery of the Incarnation is that the One who created all things by the Word of His power, who upholds all things in existence, who knows all things, should in His human nature need to depend upon God the Father, should need to pray. But it was more than just needs that compelled Jesus to pray so consistently and so fervently. He longed also for that deep communion and fellowship with the Father. He and the Father were one, and Christ prayed that he may have that fellowship.

But before we can pray, we need to cry out with David, creating me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. We need to have a heart that is right with God before we can pray. Apostle John said, beloved if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God and whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. First John 3, 21, Whatever, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive from Him.

So here, if this perfect man, Jesus, If he needs prayer, how much greater, how much more do we need prayer? Like Martin Luther said, we can't be too busy to pray. If we are that busy, that overwhelmed with work, how much more then is our need for prayer? And yet so often doesn't it go the other way? We are so busy we hardly have time to pray because we have spent our time in other things.

Really if we are that busy and we have that many needs then we have a much greater need to call upon the Lord. We have a much greater need for fellowship with Him, to know intimacy with Him. A lack of prayer says that we don't see our need. We don't really think we have a need of prayer. That we don't have any needs that we can't handle ourselves with a little bit of work.

Just a little bit of time and we can supply our needs. That leads to a lack of prayer indicates that that's what we're thinking either consciously or subconsciously. That we can supply our own needs, that we don't need Christ, we don't need prayer, we just need a little more time to work and we can get our needs met. And oh, what we forfeit with that attitude. Only disciples can pray to God acceptably.

Darkness can have no fellowship with light. God doesn't know those that are not His disciples. He doesn't hear their prayer. He says, when you spread out your hands, I hide my face from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear you.

Your hands are full of blood. Proverbs 15 tells us that the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. He doesn't hear it. He doesn't hear it. And so, as Jesus is praying, As it happened with so many other significant events, as Jesus is praying, His prayer moves His disciples to want to have that same kind of deep, intimate communion with the Father.

Remember Jesus prayed at His baptism, and while He prayed, heaven was opened. He often, in Luke 5, he breathed through into the wilderness often and prayed. In Luke 6, it was after a night of prayer that he chose his twelve apostles. In Luke 9, Peter's confession about Christ, remember the one that Jesus said was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, Peter's confession that Jesus was a Christ, that came after a time of prayer in which Christ's disciples had joined him. The transfiguration when Jesus appeared in a glorified body happened as he was praying on that mountain with three of his disciples.

And so this conversation, this expression of this disciple to be able to pray and to experience that intimacy of communion and fellowship with the Father, it happened immediately as Jesus was praying. He heard Jesus' prayer and wanted to pray like that. And I think as we close, I just wanted to read this Psalm 86. It's a prayer of David, and I think it captures, it describes many of the things that we've talked about this morning about what prayer is. This psalm is called a prayer of David.

It's a prayer. Many of the Psalms, if not most of the Psalms, contain prayers, but this Psalm is described as a prayer. And just as, remember, think about the things that we've said prayer is, and what it signifies as I just read this prayer of David. Bow down your ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. Right away he's coming, He's recognizing He's coming because he is needy He has needs that he that he cannot meet himself that he doesn't deserve Preserve me my life for I am holy you are my God.

He's coming there because he's in Christ God is his God save your servant who trusts in you be merciful to me Oh Lord for I cry out to you all day long Rejoice the soul of your servant for to you Oh Lord I lift up my soul for you Lord are good and ready to forgive and abundant in mercy to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer and attend to the voice of my supplication. In the day of trouble I will call upon you, for you will answer me. Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord, nor are there any works like your works. All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.

For you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truths. Unite my heart to fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify your name forevermore.

For great is your mercy toward me, and you have delivered me from the depths of Sheol. O God, the proud have risen up against me, and amava violent men have sought my life and have not set you before them. But you, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth. O turn to me and have mercy on me, give your strength to your servant, and save the son of your maidservant. Show me a sign for good that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed because you Lord have helped me and comforted me." That almost follows the pattern of the Lord's Prayer.

Notice how David praises God for who He is, for what He has done. He recognizes His glory, His majesty. He prays for His kingdom, for the Lord's kingdom to come. He prays for the enemies of God to be defeated. And He does it all.

He bases it all on the grace of God to him. Nothing in there comes saying that he deserves anything, any of that which he is asking for. It's all of God's grace and it's all of His mercy. May the Lord encourage us and strengthen us this week to be those who pray as we have seen these examples in Scripture. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time.

We thank you for the intercession of Jesus Christ. That We do not know what we ought to pray for as we should, but your Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Lord, we thank you for those times that you have shown yourself to us, that you have come down to us and given to us your presence and awareness, a sense of your presence, a sense of your blessing, where you have allowed us to enter into communion with you. Lord, we pray that we might long more and more for that, that we might yearn for that, for that. That instead of being too busy to pray, we may be too busy not to pray.

Lord we ask for Your Holy Spirit to fill us, for we want to glorify You. We want to follow You. We want to Make your name known. We want all to know you. We ask, Father, that we might be those who are led by your Spirit, who are filled with your Spirit, who are in fellowship with you, who pray without ceasing, who pray through Christ, who pray with fervency, who pray effectually.

We ask all these things, Lord, through you, because of you. Amen.