Luke 11:1-13 • Praying Backwards
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I can grow pretty impatient with the disciples when I think of their question, "Lord, teach us to pray."
Until I think of my questions.
How do you pray? How do you pray when you face real hardship and the unexpected?
Or just the non-reality of God seeming to be there when you so long for His presence?
I know this question and I want it to answer.
Jesus does answer in these verse 13 verses of Luke 11 again, the opening, "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.
When He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray." Just as John taught His disciples.
He said to them, "When you pray, say,
"Father, hallowed be 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."
Then He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend and he goes to him at midnight and says, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him."
Then the one inside answers, "Don't bother me. The door is already locked. My children are in bed with me. I can't get up and give you anything.
I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs."
So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds and to him who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asked for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.
How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?
Pray with me.
Father, we do ask you to reveal the purposes of your word to us. We need to know how to pray.
We should know. Sometimes we think we know.
But we have to go to that school of prayer over and over again.
To think of the majesty of your word and ways and to rest in them. Teach us the truths that we need.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
In Jesus name, I am depending upon His righteousness, not my own. And still that's not the only reason. There is something perhaps even more important hidden from you if you don't understand the richness of the phrase, "In Jesus name."
You may remember it from your youngest years too.
David went up against Goliath.
David said to Goliath, "You come against me with sword, javelin, and spear. I come in what? The name of the Lord." David went up against Goliath in the name of the Lord. Jesus in this later passage will cast out demons in the name of the Lord. The prophets came in the name of the Lord. Armies were launched in the name of the Lord. We are told as parents to raise our children in the name of the Lord.
When you do anything in the name of the Lord, you wrap it in the purposes of God. You say what I am presenting, what I am doing, what I'm about to do, whatever it is. If I do it in the name of the Lord, I do it for God's purpose, for His glory. I submit whatever it is to the purposes of God.
When I pray in Jesus name, amen.
What I have just prayed is, "Lord, I offer this prayer for Christ's glory, for His purposes,
that His will would be done."
It is after all the very way that Jesus teaches us to pray in this passage. There is the repetition of the Lord's prayer. But I want you to consider carefully what we are being taught in each of these petitions. Think of just the beginning.
You remember verse 2, we are told this, "When you pray, Jesus said, "Father, hallowed be your name." That's the first petition, the first thing being asked for. "Lord, hallowed be your name." Holy be it to whom?
To me, to others, to the whole creation. May all of this world recognize, "Holy is your name." You are divine. May everything be submitted to the glory of your majesty, name, and will. Holy be your name to everything. May your purposes and will be made known.
It's even more explicit in the second petition, "Your kingdom come."
May you have dominion. May you have rule over all. May your will be done. It is after all in the Matthew account, in the earlier rendering of the Lord's prayer, the very words that follow. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done."
The third petition, "Give us each day strawberry, strudel, alabote." No, "Give us each day our daily bread."
Not the frills, not the desserts. Give us what we need. Give us sustenance. What is necessary for us.
It is what Jesus will say here a bit later, right? Give us what we need.
Do your will in us.
After all, what is our bread? Jesus will say in John 4, 34, "My food is after all to do what?
To do the will of Him who sent me." What is the daily bread of the believer?
It is to do God's will.
It is to be in His purpose. It is to submit my will to His.
You may understand more than you ever have the words that follow and why they are so key when you understand that that petition, "Give us our daily bread," is not the first time that that petition has appeared in Scripture.
Look at Proverbs 30.
Turn in your Bibles and see where this petition actually originates, and you'll understand much of the rest of the Lord's Prayer.
In Proverbs 30 and verse 8, these words appear. It's a petition again, a prayer.
"Keep falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my," what?
"Daily bread." Give me my daily bread. Why? Verse 9, "Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, Who is the Lord? Or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God."
Why are we asking for daily bread?
Not the frills and not less. So that our lives may honor God, not that we will have so much that then we become independent and forget about God. That's not in God's will or for His glory and honor. Not to have too much, nor to have too little so that we are tempted to steal. And that, of course, makes sense of the words that follow. "Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our sins." If by not having daily bread, not getting what we should have, we are tempted to do something wrong, and therefore the words lead us not into temptation, what will keep you out of temptation.
Not having too much, nor too little.
But only that that keeps you in the will of God, dedicated to His purpose, to making His name known and great. When you begin to understand the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, you recognize that each one has an essence.
It is simply this.
"Not my will, Lord, but thy will be done."
That is my prayer. I pray that your will would rule.
When you begin to understand that that petition is summarized that way, you begin to understand why our prayers may need to be prayed backwards more frequently.
Because I am saying, if we would say, "In Jesus' name first," it will change the words that follow.
"In Jesus' name, please lower my taxes."
Is that in Jesus' name really?
Is that for Jesus' sake? Is that for the honor of His kingdom and name?
"In Jesus' name," I want a promotion.
Is that in Jesus' name?
Is that for Jesus' purpose?
"In Jesus' name, may our church prosper and get bigger and be more prestigious."
Well, we really have to examine our motives there, don't we?
Is it in Jesus' name? When you begin to word your prayers backwards, to think of the foundation that is beneath them, you may begin to understand how childlike at times our prayers are. Consider, after all, how a child prays relative to the way a mature Christian following Christ instruction does pray. A child prays, "Lord, give me."
The mature saint prays, "Lord, conform me more and more by Thy will and plan and purpose to making Christ's name known."
I'm not saying it will be simple. I'm not saying it will be easy. I'm not even saying it will be pleasant. But, "Lord, my primary purpose is Your glory. That's my heart's greatest desire is to glorify You. Lord, conform me."
A child prays for self.
A saint prays for his Savior.
A child prays for things he can see.
A mature Christian prays that his Savior would be seen.
A child prays, "My will be done."
The Christian following Christ prays, "Thy will be done."
I submit my purposes to Yours. What I ask for, what I seek, is Your honor and glory above all things.
In essence, our prayers always have in them that implicit understanding, the 115th Psalm, not unto us, not unto me, Lord, not unto me. But unto Your name, may there be glory and honor and praise. That's why I am praying this. I am praying this that the purposes of Christ might be fulfilled in my life. Lord, be glorified in me.
A few years ago at Jewish hospital, I went into a hospital room where a good friend of mine, a high school teacher, was struggling with a brain tumor.
So I walked into the room. His wife, who had been there for hours, kind of took the cue and
passed the baton to me to sit there for a while.
She just needed some release for a few minutes to walk into the hall and think other thoughts rather than see her husband suffer. And when she had walked out and when she could not hear, he looked at me and he said, "Brian,
don't let her hurt too much.
I feel sorry for you all.
I'm going to see Jesus soon, and you have to wait. I only pray that I can glorify Jesus in this."
It was his greatest prayer beyond the release from the tumor,
beyond even the release from the pain, that those people who were facing eternity without a Savior
would see in his faith in suffering, in his wife's faith in grief, in the way in which they dealt with the hardest things of life, the glory of an eternal promise of a Savior who died for them and would hold them forever in his hand.
It is a faith that I marvel at. It is a prayer I would ask God to help me pray, and you too. "Lord, in my life, be glorified."
That's my prayer. That's what I ask.
And you truly will pray that prayer if you would dare to pray backwards
and say in Jesus' name, "I now ask these things." When you begin to pray backwards, then you're ready for the next steps.
To pray believing. Yes, we are called to pray believing. But when I say those words, I will tell you, I fear even to say them to you because of the way that popular Christian culture uses the concept that we are to pray believing.
Because too often the way that is said is this. You have to pray letting no doubt into your mind. Don't even think about the fact that you may not receive that very specific thing that you're asking for. Don't even let the thought into your mind. And I must just tell you, I don't know how to pray that way. I mean, somebody telling me not to let another thought into my brain is kind of like saying, "Don't think about pink hippopotamuses. Once you've told me not to think about it, I can't help but think about it." What happens is people begin to put their faith in the wrong thing, their belief in the wrong thing. They're trying to say almost as though I can conjure up the right thoughts in my brain. If I can get on the same right wavelength, if I can keep certain things from even appearing in my thought patterns, if I can just have enough faith that I can accomplish these things, then God's got to do what I say.
That may be a certain faith, but it's faith not in God's faith in you.
It's faith in the wrong object. It's the object that says, "I've got to do something. When I get it correct, then God's got to do what I say."
That may be a lot of faith, but it's a lot of faith in your wisdom that you've got the world figured out. You know what God ought to do.
God is asking for something else. What is the belief that we're supposed to have? Surely an element of it is that we are to believe in God's sovereignty.
It really is what we are being told when we are told in verse 9, "So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek you, will find, knock, and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives. He who seeks find, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." We are to ask, believing that God will answer. But listen, you've got to remember what's already been said. What are you to be asking for?
It's not an unqualified promise. You just ask for the new bicycle for your birthday and you'll get it. What are you to ask for?
His will to be done.
You are to pray, seeking His kingdom and righteousness first.
I remember once hearing a missionary say, "Now you know that I'm mature in life, I get whatever I ask for because I ask for God.
I get whatever I desire because I desire God above all things."
I'm not telling you that's a simple faith, but anything else is an errant faith that we can somehow sidle up to God in His throne room and say, "Because we think we need a particular paycheck, because we need a particular gift for a child."
Or if I can say to you even the hard things, "Because we need a particular child."
But I will walk up to God and eyeball to eyeball, say to the King of the universe, "I've got it figured out what you should do." We believe in the sovereignty of God, that He can do what is in accord with His will and He will bring about good purposes through it.
But when we ask, we're asking very specifically for certain things.
Not just believing in His sovereignty, we are believing in His Spirit.
Do you remember how this passage ends? "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give a new red bicycle to..." No, I mean, we'll give a new... no, it doesn't say that either. We'll give a... no, it doesn't say Lexus either.
"Your Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him."
Now, I know your reaction is going to be, "Well, you know, well, that's great, Father. It's just not what I was asking for." I mean, wasn't it?
It's what Jesus is saying we should be asking for, for the Holy Spirit. Unless you think that's just kind of a passing theologism, that Jesus is kind of throwing out things that you don't need to hear, I want you to remember where this is further explicated. I mean, that dear passage in Romans 8 with a verse that you do know so well, it is the verse that says, "What?" "All things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose." Now, you know the verse, it's Romans 8.28. I want you to look at it and consider its context because it's speaking not just about prayer, it's speaking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in prayer. What is the context after all of that great and majestic promise that all things work together for good? What precedes that verse?
Romans 8.26 says this, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express, and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Now, did you hear the words?
Who is it that prays in accord with the will of God for you and for me?
The Spirit. Now, since I was little and many of you were little, we've always been taught, God will answer our prayers so long as we pray according to what?
According to God's will.
Great.
How do I know what that is?
Do you always know the will of God? What did Romans 8.26 say?
You do not know what to pray for. So who prays for you? The Holy Spirit intercedes for you in accord with God's will.
And therefore, what happens?
All things work together for good. Now listen, if in one hand I hold the new red bicycle,
and in the other hand I say, all things will work together for good in heaven and earth, which do you want to pray for? Which is the better prayer?
It is the belief that God by His Spirit is working in our behalf so that when we are petitioning God, humbling ourselves before the work of the Spirit, God is promising something more than we could ask or even imagine.
That all things are now being worked for good.
I think of it this way sometimes. I used to watch my mom decorate cakes with an icing syringe, and she was an expert. But I would look at the raw material that she used. She would take that icing and just kind of glob it into that icing syringe but then have the decorator tip of the end. And it was when she pushed that icing through the decorator tip that beautiful things happened.
I sometimes think of my prayers being glop.
I don't know how to pray. I don't exactly know what to ask. Should it rain today or tomorrow? I mean, I would like to have it dry because of the Sunday school picnic. But the farmer down the road needs the rain.
Which way should we pray? I don't know how to pray.
So I pray believing in a sovereign God
and a spirit who takes the prayers, I don't know how to pray,
and conforms them to the will of God so that now all things are working together for good to those who love God
and are loved by God.
You see, we're not just believing in his sovereignty. We're not just believing in his spirit. Ultimately, we are believing in our sonship.
The petitions, the prayers began with a word. Jesus said, "When you pray, say," what was the first word?
"Father."
"Father." And then the end of this instruction is the same word. If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? It's not just some kind of, you know, we throw up our hands in fatalism. Well, God is just going to do it. God's going to do it. No, we throw up our hands, but it's in the embrace.
"My father, you who love me enough to send your own son to die, I offer up to you my prayers. Bless, Lord, in the way that you know is best. I come to you in humble petition that you would accomplish your will on this earth and in my life, that your name may be known, that you would glorify yourself in me. Oh, Lord, I don't ask that you would use and abuse me. I pray, Lord, you would treat me like your child, because that's what I am. You gave your son for me. You call me your own now. And so I come to you with this great faith that you're a sovereign God who sent his spirit for his children.
And I'm wanting them asking you, "Lord, bless." "Lord, bless. I ask your care. And when we do so, father knows best and blesses."
So knowing that, how do I pray ultimately? And it's my father to whom I'm praying.
Now I pray boldly.
That's how I pray. Believing and now bold. Why would we dare to ask prayers for our good, for things that we're concerned about?
Because we're going to our father.
I remember when I was in seminary, I had a Chrysler Cricket. It was a great car. It was imported to the United States.
One year only, which tells you how great it was.
Couldn't get parts. Seemed to break down every few hundred miles. I was going home for Christmas, and about Cape Gerardo going to Memphis, my car broke down.
Oh, it was late at night.
Who would I call?
Who did I call?
I called my father.
Hey, it's three and a half hours away to Memphis.
Well, it's my father. I can call him. Why? Because it's my father.
And I'm willing to ask prayers that might seem a little bold. Might seem to impose a bit. Might seem to stretch a little bit his mercy toward me. Why would I do that?
Because he's my father. Because he called me his own. Because though he knows the worst about me, he knows my sin and my weaknesses and my frailties. He's my father.
And I'm willing to be bold with a father. I'll go to him. I'll ask him things, even though it seems like it might be imposing.
Not only will I be bold in the sense that I'll ask these imposing things, I'll even pray specifically. And one of the best things that ever happened to me was when I was in high school, I worked on a church project, and we were doing some construction work. And I was working one day with an older man, also a volunteer who had gone on that project, and we were putting up drywall on a church. And he began to stop hammering on the drywall and begin to look around on the floors. What are you looking for? He said, "Well, I dropped a nail."
We got more nails.
He said, "I know," he said, "but I prayed that God would help me find it. So I think I owe it to him to look a little bit."
I said, "I'm not sure we ought to bother God with prayers for nails."
He said, "Oh, no, Brian. God says in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God."
That's very specific.
We are coming to God with our humanity, confessing He alone is sovereign. He knows what is right, but He desires to hear the prayers of His children. He wants us in everything to be offering up to Him this prayer of faith. "Lord, I'm coming to you because you are the giver of all good things. So I'm still asking you specifically. I submit my will to yours, but part of my submission is being very specific and saying, I know you have the answers. So I'm going to ask you for very specific things. Now, you know God can say yes, no, or over and abundant anything you would ask or think.
I'll ask specifically. I'll be that bold because God commands me to do so. But ultimately, maybe the mark more than anything else of my knowledge that I am coming before my Father is that I won't just be specific. I will be persistent." Look at Luke 18. That's where the persistent widow goes, remember? And she knocks again and again at the door of the unjust judge to get him to give justice. And ultimately, we are told, even if the judge won't give because of his just concerns, because of the woman's persistence, he will answer. How much more will your heavenly Father answer those who are persistent? You think we can't go to God and just keep asking once he says, no, God doesn't want you to keep coming over and over again. Now wait a second. Now, some of you are parents that have kids away at college. And I know how you just hate it when the kids, you know, away at college, call you at home. Don't you just hate it when they call?
No, you don't hate it when they call. You are delighted to hear their voice.
And God is saying as our Father, I delight to hear your voice.
There are some prayers I will tell you that require persistence, sometimes because we are being changed. We are seeing perhaps the foolishness of our prayer. Maybe we're seeing more the revelation of God's plan. Maybe we are simply being called upon daily more and more dependence upon God, that we go again and again and again, saying, Lord, teach me, Lord, change me, Lord, conform me more and more to your purpose.
I know these are old lessons, but they are the ones that God calls us to that in everything we would be going to him and saying, Lord, I know it's a little thing.
Listen to me.
Lord, I know it's a big thing. I know it imposes on your mercy because of the way I've lived and the way I've been. Listen to me.
Lord, I don't even know what to say this time.
But listen to me and to know with such prayers, he listens.
Because he is our Father and he is our sovereign and he has given his spirit to conform all things to his purposes and our good. I was really taught that lesson by an elderly woman in my first pastoral charge,
a little German lump of sugar called May Gabriel.
By the terms and even the places that I basically circle these days, many people would think that May was pathetic. She lived in a little two-room house in a rural area.
Some of her prized possessions were dusty family photos on an old wardrobe,
a velvet leaf plant that had kind of taken over her kitchen,
and a skunk that came out of the woods at night when she fed it. People would look at her and just pitier.
But I will tell you, she was a saint and taught me as much about prayer as anyone I have ever known.
She told me once about the time she had been in the hospital because her husband was so ill. When the doctors told her how ill, she began to pray.
And though it had been 20 years since that event when she told me about it, she cried again.
She said when the doctors told me how sick my Frank was,
I prayed, "Lord, I pray that you will be with me."
"Your will be done?"
I asked that she would heal Frank.
But if you know it's not right to, would you give me the strength to bear it?
And then through her tears with a smile that kind of lit up the whole room, she completed the sentence.
I prayed that he would give me the strength to bear it.
It was a beautiful expression of prayer, but I want you to hear carefully what she prayed. She prayed backwards.
"Lord, I pray for your will.
I'm offering this in your name. I've been very specific, even boldly asking that you would heal. But overall, do what you think is best, for then I will be truly blessed."
And he did.
I know these are simple lessons, but they take shape when you begin to pray backwards.