... had been disappointed too many times

--- if your prayer life is no longer what it used to be ... if your times with the Lord are becoming more and more hurried, your prayers punctuated more and more by distractions and often end abruptly in disarray

but faced with one prayer disappointment after another, little by little, people begin to put their faith on hold ... most will struggle on in the christian life, a little lonelier, a little less sure ...

--- spoke to Him of our deepest hurts, receiving comfort unspeakable from Him

... like times of overwhelming blessing,

when our hearts naturally turn to the Lord in thanksgiving

... or times of extreme distress, when we're visited by sickness,

--- how can we step up our prayer lives to the point where we shall consistently speak and listen to the Lord the way we do during those few but really precious times?

--- turn to luke 11 where Jesus Himself instructs His disciples, addressing these very same questions

--- an unnamed disciple asks Jesus to teach them how to pray, just like John the Baptist had been doing with his disciples ... Jesus' reply? ... when you pray, say this: our Father ...

--- in matt 6, Jesus was at the Sermon on the Mount ... this was approximately one year earlier than luke 11 and Jesus was preaching to a multitude

--- part of Jesus' message to the crowd dwells on prayer

vv5-6 pray not to be seen ... rather pray in a quiet place ... some writers call this an inner chamber, others, a prayer closet ... for me that's either the bathroom or my desk at home ... early, about 4:30 in the morning

vv7-8 pray determinedly, but not babbling repeatedly, like the heathen do

vv9-13 in this manner, therefore pray ... and He introduces them to what has got to be the most carefully studied prayer in the whole bible

--- in matthew, Jesus was speaking to a multitude ... in luke, he was teaching the disciples ... one was a sermon to a crowd numbering thousands, the other was an intimate heart-to-heart lesson, patiently going down to where just a few disciples were at

--- try and visualize the difference ... feel the intimate interaction between Jesus and the disciples ... think of the same chemistry you've felt at one time or another in small group studies ...

--- matt 6:9, in this manner, therefore pray ... those words have been the focus of bible studies and messages throughout the ages ... and why not? what could be more precious? ... Jesus has just given a pattern prayer, precious instruction indeed!

--- note however that in luke, He does something different ... v2: so He said to them, when you pray, say ...

many prefer to ignore this difference ... most evangelicals teach from matt 6 ... understandably, others more partial to memorized or recited prayer are quite

at home in luke 11

--- in vv5-8, he explains using a short parable, the Parable of the Friend at Midnight ... the bottom line? ... as much greater as God is than an earthly friend, so much surer it is that your prayer will be heard by your friend in heaven ...

pictures of a son asking for and receiving gifts from his father ...

in vv9-13 pray like a Son sure of his position, sure that He will receive an answer (vv9-10) ... and sure he will receive what is best for him (vv11-13)

in vv5-8 pray like a son sure of his position ... unashamedly, ... fervently

LIKE A SON COMES TO HIS FATHER ... SURE OF HIS POSITION, JESUS SAYS ... SURE THAT HE WILL RECEIVE A GOOD ANSWER, EVERY SINGLE TIME

--- look up from your earthly parents, Jesus says ... even the very best of them are sinners ... calculate you, all of you then, how much more so will your Father in heaven do the same to you?, He asks

--- the point is simple and readily intelligible .: the petition of a child owes its influence entirely to the relationship between him and his father

--- look a little closer into this simple, yet profound truth

... according to the bible, God is the father of all people in the world ... in the sense that He created all of them and provides sun and rain for their crops

--- what the bible says is that you become His child only when you have been spiritually reborn, after you are born again ... and that happens by grace, miraculously ... as you respond in faith to His invitation to become His child

--- what glorious, life-changing truth! ... particularly when taken in light of Jesus' teaching here in luk 11!

--- turn to psalm 16:3 ... (read where it says: of the saints that are in the earth, in whom is all my delight)

--- now turn to pro 15:8 ... (read: ... the Lord detests the sacrifices of the wicked ... but He delights in the prayer of the upright)

--- or go turn to song of Solomon where same idea is masterfully conveyed in allegory ... here God is describing His love for His beloved ... by allegory: His people, His children ...

song 2:3 says, like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is My beloved ... I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to My taste

--- how must we pray? ... Jesus' answer: like a son who goes to His father, sure he will receive a good answer every single time, He says

every child of mine who asks, receives, He says in v9 ... every single one of them who seeks, finds ... each one of them who knocks will have the door opened for him, He says in v10

--- it's one thing to believe that we are His son and that to come to Him is our birthright ...

but when Jesus begins to explore the tremendous implications of that birthright, we begin to have problems ... when He says ask, seek and knock, and then seemingly offers no qualifications, then incredulity begins to rise up in us

--- sounds like He's writing a blank check ... there's got to be a catch somewhere, you begin thinking ...

--- turn to matt 21, look at v18ff ... (read vv18-19) ... visualize Jesus' disciples staring wide-eyed at the fig tree that had just withered at Jesus' command ... visualize also how Jesus turns to these same bewildered disciples and then calmly says to them in v21-22: if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer

the promise is so outrageous we instinctively check for loopholes ... did Jesus really mean that? ... if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for ... so you go and take a long, second hard look ... only to see that there are no qualifications ... just you believe!

--- well, Jesus did say: if you believe, you will receive ... so if we did not receive, we must not have believed enough ... so we resolve to believe more strongly

--- that's when we promptly get into trouble ... earnest christians trying to believe intensely enough and getting nowhere ... we try harder, fail again, and feel even more frustrated ... or guilty ... possibly both

--- how do you do it? ...

--- many will simply opt to bow out ... not too many can stand disappointment after disappointment , he simply bows out and begins to pray with less and less conviction ... and soon he's praying less and less

--- what then ought we say to him? ... Jesus builds up to the answer in that often misunderstood parable in vv5-9 ... (read)

--- there when a guest arrives, the whole village is involved in entertaining him ... for anyone in the village not to entertain a guest would be a terrible breach of etiquette ... and for the guest to refuse the hospitality would be even worse ... in that culture, whether a visitor is hungry or not, when he is offered food, he must eat

--- now, knowing that, when Jesus described the sleeping neighbor as He did in v7, His listeners must have been horrified ... you can almost hear them gasp: no villager would ever refuse to help a guest! ... for anyone to say: "trouble me not" would be a gross violation of their most basic social codes ... it was an insult to the whole village

v5 is really a rhetorical question: can you imagine a friend, He asks, expecting no reply ... He expects no reply because all of them were immediately thinking: no! we cannot think of any of our neighbors doing such a thing!

--- He was saying: if a sleeping neighbor, on the basis of friendship and social etiquette will meet the needs of a friend, how much more so will your father in heaven meet the needs of His children?

--- now, doesn't that sound familiar? ... yes, that's the very same thought Jesus builds up to and summarizes this whole lesson with in v13 ... I've just gone at it the reverse way, to make sure you all see His point ... look up, Jesus said: if you, even the worst of you, will do this, how much more so will your father in heaven do the same?

--- is He teaching us that we must keep coming again and again to overcome God's unwillingness to act?

so translated, the parable very simply teaches that we are to pray as a son comes to his father ... he comes absolutely sure of his position ... and because of it, he approaches unashamedly ... he comes boldly, taking liberties ...

liberties: as in coming again and again, arguing, pushing for the thing being asked

--- but don't we do something like that ourselves? ... need something or scared that something bad will happen? ... why not toss up a request to God? ... can't hurt, might even work!

when we pray like that, and I submit to you that we do, not all the time, but often ... we're merely pulling a just-in-case spiritual lever ... to see if anything will happen

--- come, Jesus was saying ... come boldly and unashamedly, speak to your Father even of the most outrageous of things ... come again and again if you wish, He was saying ...

but do one thing ... come, sincerely believing that you are knocking at the door of your father's house ... come, with your heart in your hand, sincerely, fervently seeking that which you have come for

... rather it is a picture of fervent, determined, heartfelt prayer ... the very same way a secure, well-loved child comes to his father ... it is a picture of bold yet innocent childlike prayer

--- that man is double-minded, unstable in all he does, james adds in v8

--- the first absolute requirement of course is that you must be His son ... His son, not in the sense that He created you, just like everybody else, but in the sense that He has given you sonship by spiritual rebirth ...

--- but even those of us who are His sons today must believe, really believe that praying is not knocking on wood or whistling in the dark ... we must believe that we are about something real, addressing ourselves to God whom we cannot see but who nonetheless remains real and present with us ... God whom we cannot hear nor by any of our senses come close to, but who nevertheless is as truly with us, as though we were speaking to a friend of flesh and blood like ourselves

--- and we must, all of us, believe like a child, that our prayer delights God and does Him proud ... just like a father of flesh and blood welcomes his children's every prattling about ... and delights even in their shamelessly taking outrageous liberties again and again ... delights in drawing them close when they do, giving them the best gifts he is able to give

--- and we must believe that even when God chooses to give us something other than what we prayed for, we can rejoice just as much as we would have done had He given us what we asked for ... we can rejoice because what He has chosen to give is the best answer possible, considering our every need, even those we are unaware of