Passage: Luke 11:1-13
Preacher: Rev. Bob Hiller
Series: Lectionary Series C
Category: Prayer
Summary:
Prayer...is the gift of God promising to bend His ear to your cries, promising to listen and answer in a way that is best for you, because He loves you. Prayer is the voice of faith, trusting God to listen and answer.
Detail:
This is a truly fascinating portion of scripture today. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened for you. I don’t think there is a piece of scripture we want to be true more than this one, and yet, at the same time, I don’t think there is a piece of scripture we doubt more. Why? Because, for many of us, we’ve had the difficult experience of the opposite. The problem of unanswered prayers. Remember the old Garth Brooks song, “Sometimes I thank God, for unanswered prayers”? Some of us hear that song and say, what a load of garbage. I’ve prayed for things that were good and right, and the opposite happened. I sought and asked and knocked until my knuckles bled. And yet, my prayers weren’t answered. So, what gives?
Well, this is a big question to start with today, yeah? Before we can get at the answer to it, I think we need to take a step back and discuss our view of prayer and what its purpose is. This is the precise place Jesus takes us today. I love this text today because, for once, the bumble-head disciples actually get one right. Jesus comes back from praying and they realize that they, much like you and me, struggle to pray. So, they say to Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray . And so, Jesus does something wonderful, what Jesus always does, He gives them a gift. He gives them the gift of the Lord’s Prayer. He not only teaches them how to pray, He gives them the very words to say. Jesus puts the prayer in their mouths and promises: This is the prayer that God answers. This is what God will give you: His honored name, His kingdom come, His will being done, daily bread, forgiveness of sins, and protection from the devil and temptation. You ask, He gives.
Jesus’ gift of prayer and his teaching on it are a wonderful corrective for how we so often view prayer. I think much of our struggle with prayer comes from two false views we hold of prayer that I want to look at this morning. Then, we’ll see how the Lord corrects our false understanding with His gift of the Lord’s Prayer.
First false view: the genie in the bottle view. This is the perspective that says, Okay, I’m going to pray now. God says, “If I ask, then I will receive.” So, I will rub my lamp, say the right words, and God will give me what I want! The problem with the genie in the bottle view of prayer is that it puts you and me into the driver’s seat. We are the ones who are now in charge and God become our errand boy. See, we operate with this false notion that God exists to keep us happy, and this only makes sense, because we so often view ourselves as the center of the universe. So, as the center of my universe where all things should work together to keep me happy, God, if He is to be worth anything to me, needs to be one of those things. So, my prayers become orders given, wishes demanded. And, if God won’t submit to my will, then, well, I’ll just cast him aside, nail him to a cross, and find a better God who will allow me to have more control. Good heavens, we need to repent.
Let’s just be clear, God is not a genie in a bottle. He does not bow to our will. He loves us much too much for that. He is our God and will not bow to the idolatry of our hearts. Instead, He will expose it, kill it, and give us new hearts. You and I, we need to repent of treating the almighty God in such flippant and selfish ways. But, take heart, that prayer of repentance is one He has certainly promised to answer! The answer is on the cross. The blood is shed. You are forgiven.
OK, so God is not my genie. He’s in charge of the answers to prayer, I’m not the one in the driver seat. Fine. But, then we must be careful that we don’t fall off the other side of the horse, here. We also don’t want to think that God doesn’t answer our prayers. The second error I think we fall into is the idea that God is an impassioned, stoic power that will only always do what He wants and your prayers don’t impact him at all. You’ll hear this where God is described as some sort of immovable, emotionless force and everything is fated to happen regardless of what you pray. Prayer, in this view, is not so much about God listening as it is about us being conformed to God’s will. You’ll hear phrases like this, “Prayer is not about changing God’s mind, it’s about changing our minds.” And I get that. Though, I wonder, if we lose too much in saying that. We are afraid that by saying prayer changes God’s mind we’d be compromising His sovereign power, his almightiness. The trouble is, if we can get theological for a second, in this instance we are trying explain how God works according to our theology, and we aren’t allowing the Bible to teach us about how God works.
So, think about that crazy story with God and Abraham, where ol’ Abe finds out that God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. His dear nephew, Lot, lives in Sodom, and he knows that if God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot is done for. So, he prays. In fact, in his prayer, he barters with God. “If 50 righteous are found, will you save it? If 20? If 10?” And God tell Abraham that, for the sake of 10 righteous people, He won’t destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. But, did God find the 10? No. But was God serious or was He leading Abraham on to teach Abraham a lesson? No, God was serious. But, God did not find even 10 righteous. But, He did still save one family who Abraham loved. Lot, Abraham’s beloved nephew, and his family were saved by God. Though, God did not save Sodom and Gomorrah, He remembered Abraham, and He saved Lot. God was not a stoic, fatalisitic God here. His love drove Him to answer Abraham’s prayer in a way Abraham didn’t expect.
You see, we don’t want to think of God as a genie in the bottle with us as His lord, nor do we want to think of Him as an immovable force who cares not for our cries, where we are mere slaves suffering His decisions. That is not how Jesus describes it all. Jesus, instead, says we are children of a heavenly Father. So that, when you pray, you ask as a child asks his or her dear Father. And, the Father is one who is happy to answer !
The picture you want to have in your mind for prayer is Christmas morning. You run downstairs and come to the tree and there, before you, is a huge gift. Your father smiles and says, “open it!” You tear it open and you have received the very thing you have been wanting all along! You go and you start playing with that toy. You start to understand it the more you use it, you start to enjoy it rather than grow tired of it. It is an incredible gift!
Prayer is a gift. The Father has given you prayer and He wants you to use it. Jesus teaches us the Lord’s Prayer, He gives us the gift of speaking to God by telling us the very words God promises to answer. Ask for His kingdom to come, and it will be given to you, seek Him for your daily bread, and you will find, knock and ask for forgiveness, and the door will be opened to you.
But, then, what of unanswered prayers? I prayed for healing? I prayed for reconciliation? I prayed for this, but I got that? Well, two things must be said. Sometimes, when we pray for others, others push against God’s will. Or we pray for healing, and it doesn’t come. In these instances, we continue to cry out for mercy. But, we also do so with hope, knowing something, that the God who has promised to answer our prayers may not do it when and how we want, but there will be a resurrection. And, on that day, all will be made right, and death will be undone, and tears will be removed, and that which is torn apart will be reconciled. Prayer is a confession that God will ultimately make things right in the end. We pray He makes some things right sooner, because, who knows? He may do it! But, all of God’s promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. And, for you, His beloved child, He will answer in ways you cannot even fathom! You will spend a great deal of eternity rejoicing in God’s answers, though you may faithfully lament now.
Prayer is not you commanding a manipulative deity nor is it beating your head against an immovable wall, it is the gift of God promising to bend His ear to your cries, promising to listen and answer in a way that is best for you, because He loves you. Prayer is the voice of faith, trusting God to listen and answer. Jesus promises, God is listening. So, Let us pray! AMEN!
