Praying to be Heard - Luke 11:1-13

Good morning. And you all hear hear me well? A little bit higher.

Okay. Louder. There we go.

Is that better? Sweet. So, good morning, Sovereign Grace Church.

How are you doing this morning? Doing good. Sweet.

Sweet. So, for those who don't know me, my name is Charles. I am originally from Brazil.

So, that's the accent you're going to have to put in for the next hour. And um I am currently taking my master's of education in a masters of divinity actually in Cochran, Alberta. And uh that's basically a sum up of who I am.

And I have the delight to preach to you this morning. And uh the book in which or the yeah the book in which I would like to call our attention this morning is to be found in the gospel of Luke 11 to13. So the gospel of Luke 11:es 1-13 and we're going to be dealing with the Lord's prayer or as um some more accurately name it the disciples prayer.

And uh an interesting fact about the disciples prayer in my life is that uh it took place before many years before I became a Christian actually and it took place not in a church but it took a place in the soccer pitch. So, as a good Brazilian, I played soccer growing up and I remember being 13 years old at the soccer pitch with my friends, with my teammates and we are just before the the match would start, I would be receiving instructions from the coach. So, we would have our arms wrapped around each other's shoulder, you know, and the coach would be giving instructions and then right after that, we would transition to a time of prayer.

Just minutes before the first whistle would blow, we would transition to a time of prayer. And uh you know, although this seems to be a nice spiritual thing to do, um for us it was nothing more than a war chant. It was so much so that at times we would finish our prayers with let's beat them.

We would basically replace the amen at the end and say let's beat them. The Lord was not remotely close to our minds and especially to mine who was an unbeliever at the time. And I think this illustrates that even if you pray the Lord's prayer to the tea, it does not necessarily mean that you prayed at all.

But isn't it sometimes what we offer to the Lord when our mouth is engaged in prayer but our heart is not? And I mean although this is a funny illustration, I think we do this very often when we go or when we skip the giver and go straight to our wants. Another way we often pray um that replaces the essence of prayer especially here in North America is when we make it turn it into a duty.

We replace the delight that is to be in the presence of the Lord and make it it as a duty. We come before him and then we check a box. We have this uh let's say like this goals we have during our day to read our Bibles a couple times to pray a couple times and we just create this system and then in this system we just check a box finish my prayer of the day finish my prayer of the afternoon finish my evening prayer and that does not embody what prayer was designed for.

And when you look at these prayers that we often pray, that we often bring to the Lord, I think the question that comes to mind is, are these true prayers? Is the Lord listening to those prayers? Is this is he pleased to listen to those prayers?

And it's interesting that if you pay attention to Jesus's teaching in prayer in the New Testament, you're going to see that almost half of his teaching is about how not to pray. So half of his preaching or teaching on prayer is about not how not to pray. in fact that in Matthew 15 he uses this a a uh a not good a bad prayer as an example to teach the Lord's prayer.

So actually the substance of prayer is more important than the words itself. So in order that we may be reminded of what true prayer is about, I would like to call your attention once again to the book or to the Gospel of Luke 11-13. And I pray that God will move us from empty prayers to heartfelt prayers coming before him with joy and delight with confidence that our Lord hears us.

So let us I would like to invite you to stand as we read God's word. So if you are able, stand with me as we read it. So starting on verse one, God's word says, "Now Jesus was praying in a certain place.

And when he finished, so and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. " And he said to them, "When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. " And he said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him. " and he will answer from within.

Do not bother me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.

I tell you, though he will not get up and give you anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks it will be open. For what father among you, if a son asks for a fish will instead of a fish give him a serpent?

Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? You may be seated.

So let us pray. Dear father, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be here in pores of prayer sovereign grace proclaiming your word. I pray that you may be using me Lord this morning.

Use your servant to um come not only with words but with full conviction Lord which is a thing that only your spirit can do. So move your spirit amongst us Lord and uh incline our hearts and our ears to hear and our hearts to do the things that you command us to do Lord being obedient to your word and uh yeah Lord not having prayers that are just ceremonial but prayers that uh want or aim to pierce heaven in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

So, I'm certain that like me when I was 13 years old, you also heard um the Lord's Prayer a couple times during your life. And this is a prayer that was recorded in the scriptures in the Gospels twice. Once in Matthew chapter 6 and later or what we are dealing today, Luke 11.

Most theologians believe that amongst many of Jesus's teachings, this prayer was taught twice and they are not recordings of the same prayer. They are recordings of two separate teachings of Jesus. And they claim that because basically because of the setting.

One, you have Jesus teaching publicly. So Matthew 6, you have Jesus teaching it publicly to a crowd at the sermon on the mount. And then here you have Jesus teaching privately to his apostles.

And I think an important thing to note is that the similarities between the both prayers basically emphasizes that whenever Jesus was asked on the subject of prayer, whenever he was teaching on prayer, he only had one teaching. Jesus did not have any hidden insights for his 12. The same thing that he proclaimed to the crowd, he proclaimed to the 12 the same method, the same preaching, the same teaching.

So when he was in private and in public, he taught the same prayer. And when you turn to our passage especially verse one you'll see that Jesus is start this prayer or Jesus is praying at a certain place and if you notice he's praying and his disciples are playing paying close attention to his prayer. So right after they just were polite enough to wait for him to finish and right after he finished they approached him making their request asking him to teach them to pray.

And there are many important points to consider here, but for the sake of time, I would like to focus only on the reason why the disciples requested to be taught because I'm not sure if you notice it was not Jesus who initiates the topic, but it's the disciples him themselves. He did not have to highlight the importance of prayer. This lecture came out of Jesus' example contrasted with their need.

But what led the disciples to ask Jesus this question? And you know, kind of navigating through this, I had some speculations. I was like, you know what?

I think the apostles were prayerless. And if you read throughout scripture, you're going to see many different places that the apostles were invited to come with Christ to certain different places to pray with him. And then often times you would see that they were doing what?

They were sleeping. Like you have the one of the times at the mount of transfiguration, Jesus inviting the three of his close apostles to go up the mountain with him and then they are found to pray and then they are found asleep. Later on in the Gethsemane garden, you also see the three close apostles of Jesus going a little bit further away with Jesus to pray and they are found doing what?

Asleep again. In a different section of scripture, we also see that the apostles were unable to cast out a demon because of what? Because the lack of prayer and fasting.

So going through all of this information, I'm like, you know what? I think I pinned down their problem was they did not pray. But after thinking a little bit further into the whole subject of prayer and especially in context with their time, I came to the realization that they did not only did not pray enough, but even when they prayed, their prayers were powerless.

Even when they prayed, their prayers were powerless. And the reason I believe this is simply because during their time ceremony and tradition took over the knowledge of scripture regarding prayer. Their prayer were filled with fancy words were empty of heart and relationship with God.

It was known that the Jews of the day, they prayed at least three times a day for 30 minutes each time. And I mean, if you look in the book of Acts, you kind of can see that um that pattern going on there as well. Their prayers, however, was most were mostly treated as a sacramental obligation rather than a genuine communion with God.

Their prayers for the most part became formal recitations that were designed to impress man and not to approach God. And then when you look at their request, the disciples request, you don't see them asking, teach us a prayer, but they ask teach us to pray. So this is not a memorization class.

This is a teaching on prayer. In the New Testament, Jesus actually uses the prayers of the time in a negative example. Matthew 6 says, "When you pray, do not pray like this.

" And he points to the Pharisees. He points to the religious leaders and calls them hypocrites. Their prayers became a show rather than a plead to the Lord.

They prayed to be heard by man and not to be heard by God and to commune with God. So three times a day, an hour and a half of their day, they would spend throwing words into the air, having their prayers not heard by God at all. Therefore, the disciples seeing Jesus's prayer and comparing to their need, they made the request.

And as Puritan Thomas Brook says, example is the best rhetoric. So by assimilation, the disciples realized they needed help to address God just as Jesus and John the Baptist did. They needed their petitions to carry the same power, the same weight that Jesus prayers had, but ultimately they needed their prayers to be heard by the father.

So, and by looking at their situation, I think it is wise for us to stop here quickly and contemplate if we are any different than the Jewish the Jews of the time. Have we turned our prayers into recitations? Or have we turned our prayers into ceremonies or into a checklist that we check at the end of the day?

Have we done that? Do we pray like Jesus who has direct communion with God or we pray just to check a box? And that those are good heart assessments for us this morning as we engaged we engage in this uh teaching of the Lord.

So when we turn to this prayer as you glance over you will notice that Jesus being a God of order is not throwing random petitions but he has a structure. In fact, if you look at your uh your bulletins, I have one right here. You're going to see that I have laid out a little bit of this structure for you.

And we have there from verses 1 to 4, we have the model, we have the prayer. Um and then we we transition to a posture from verses 5 to8. And then from verses 9 to13 we have the incent incentive and I also named a little bit differently.

I named it what do I pray? How do I pray and why should I pray? Because I believe those are the answers that Jesus is or the questions that Jesus is answering.

So you will notice also too that within the model the first section of the prayer before starting with petitions we have the person being addressed we have the address in the second part of verse two and then Jesus transitions to four petitions from verse 3 to 4. So here at the very beginning of this prayer we find the most important component of the prayer which is the person being addressed and the person being addressed is the father who has a hallowed name. So here Jesus is laying down the umbrella the parameters the guard rails in which the whole prayer has to be under.

It is within these guard rails that the whole prayer should be delivered. If you are outside of it, then your prayer is no different than the prayer of a gentile that comes as dabbling words to the Lord. So at the very first word of the prayer we see how we have our address not which is interesting though that is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but is our father.

And this is a shocking teaching to those listening in the context. The apostles were very familiar with Abraham approaching God as Elohim. They also read about Moses approaching God as Yahweh or even in the book of pro of of the prophets Isaiah calling him the holy one of Israel.

But they were not familiar with this closeness. They were not familiar with calling God father. All the prophets and even the angels in the Old Testament approached God from distance.

But in Jesus model of prayer, he's telling us to draw near. While in Exodus, when Moses is approaching the burning bush, God tells him to not come close. Jesus has a different method right now.

He tells them that they have confidence to enter into the holy of holies by his blood. So now through Jesus we have the privilege, not the duty, the privilege to come near to his throne of grace to share in the intimate relationship that Jesus has with the father. Friends, when the scripture tells us that the prophets and Abraham rejoice hearing about Jesus's time, it is not saying that they rejoice because they they they heard about the miracles that Jesus would do.

They also performed many miracles as well. I believe the reason they rejoice is because they rejoice that one day they would be able to enter through the holy of holies not with sacrifice in their hands but empty-handed simply to have communion with the triune God. That is the reason they rejoice.

They rejoiced because they were anticipating the thing that you and I have in prayer. the thing that you and I treat oftentimes as a duty that we often times dread to do. >> So my friends, this prayer is very personal and every prayer must have its foundation in God's closeness.

Notice that Jesus is not giving them an example like you know what when I pray I say father but he's saying when you pray you claim him your father we are to turn to our father not as a ritual not as a mere duty but as children the Christian prayer is not a priv is not a task but a privilege that Jesus purchased with his own life. And as the psalmist says, "Let all who take refuge in him rejoice. " Do you rejoice taking refuge in him in your prayers?

Do you approach him knowing that Christ that in Christ you are his and he is yours? He is your heavenly father. And friends, while this is super exciting and I would love to spend more time in this subject, we have to transition and I have to notice as well that he is that our relationship with him alone is not suffice.

Cuz I mean Jacob and Ashton, my two sons, they have my favor. But often times um what they need and what they want goes beyond my beyond my reach. Often times I cannot provide with what they need.

Like when they are sick like I can give medicines and stuff but I can't truly heal them. But my relationship with God is or our relationship with God is different. So that's why Jesus in his prayer adds hallowed be your name.

He's not only our heavenly father or our father but he has in the prayer father hallowed be your name. And in the scriptures especially in the old testament God's name reflects his character. Thus god's name is speaks of who he is.

And since his name is hallowed, it means that he is set apart. So this ultimately highlights the asiety of God. Meaning that God exists in in of himself.

He is holy other. He is transcendent. He is all powerful.

So Jesus adds this supreme qualification to God. So we don't shrink God to our humanness. So his closeness to us does not diminish his power.

His nearest to us in his nearest to us we do not humanize him to the point of becoming powerless. So differently than our earthly fathers who might have compassion but not always the ability to carry it out. God is holy other.

He's self-sufficient. He's both willing and able to provide us with what we need. He is the creator and sustainer of all things.

He's able to bless. And as the psalmist states, great is the Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure.

So our confidence for prayer should always be found in these two foundation. first our relationship to God and two his transcended power to respond. So now that one has confidently recognized who they are addressing that it is their all powerful father that they are addressing.

The prayer if you notice there transitions into four petitions. And the very first petition we notice that we are not yet to be concerned about the things of man but rather the things of God. It says, "Thy your kingdom come.

" In this first petition, Jesus teaches us to have the right priorities in place. We are to be concerned about God's business before we are to address or to turn to our private needs. Here Jesus, Here Jesus teaching is in practice.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all things will be given unto you. So we are literally seeking the kingdom of heaven first especially when we pray. And this is basically what Jesus taught Martha and Mary a couple verses before this when he says Martha Martha you've been troubled and anxious about many things but one thing is needed and Mary has chosen the right portion.

So Jesus is teaching Martha that spiritual things are of most importance than any other matters. Spiritual things must come first in our priority need or in our priority list. So when your when our prayers we use the best portion the first portion of it to focus on the things from above and the second thing of this petition is that we are to agree with God's promises in prayer.

Did you realize that we are to request his kingdom to come? And if you turn to Daniel, you don't have to, but if you turn to Daniel chapter 4, you will see that God there, he promised, he has promised Daniel that he's escatological kingdom will come. So the question is why do we need to pray for his kingdom to come it since he promised already that his kingdom will come and this in Jesus's prayer has a purpose.

MacArthur says it this way. True prayer is not bending God's ear to ours. It is aligning our will with his and asking him to accomplish what he has already purposed to do.

So we start our prayers agreeing with his promise or when we start our prayers agreeing with his promise, we line up our hearts with his heart. We place the guard rails of our hearts according to his will. So the first petition set the tone for all the rest to come.

It is designed to realign our hearts before we make our own requests. And my friends, this was actually very common amongst the prophets in the Old Testament. If we take for example Elijah, God has promised him at one point that a drought would come.

And what is the thing you see Elijah doing? You see Elijah praying for a drought to come. Later on, you also hear of God promising Elijah that he will send rain.

And what do you see once again? You see Elijah praying for rain. And I'm confident too that John listening, Apostle John listening to this very teaching, he learned that as well because in the second the second last verse in the scriptures, we see Lord Jesus telling him, I will come soon to which John answers to Jesus, even so come Lord Jesus.

So John is also agreeing with the promises of Christ. And if you want to go safe in our prayers, agree with God and his promises. So let us do more of that.

Have prayers that agree with what he promised. Prayers that are within the guard rails of truth. And now in verse three, we transition to our mundane needs.

So after establishing the priority of God's kingdom in prayer, we move to the second petition. Give us each day our daily bread. Now the transition or the translation here is a little bit tricky because the literal translation doesn't really make much sense, but it adds emphasis to the word daily.

The literal Greek translation is like daily give us daily our daily bread. So we have a a a big emphasis in the word daily and that I and that emphasizes that we are that we need him daily in our most primary needs. So when we turn to the Lord, we do not turn him to asking for storage of food.

And the reason for that is because we don't want our abundance to make us forget him. We want just enough so we can turn him tomorrow and ask for more. So this petition is actually actually designed to emphasize our relationship with God and place any other blessing even the primary ones as secondary.

The need to be in his presence daily is far greater than bread itself. He gives us bread while reminding us that by bread alone men shall not live. And I remember um I I think a good illustration for this is uh in my first year in your university I met this beautiful woman who now I call my wife and we share two kids together and uh at that point we were still chatting we're still getting to know each other and we would go for long walks and uh during this long walks you know we' get old and as a good young man, I'm I would offer my jacket.

I'm like, "Hey, you want to have my jacket? " And she would take it. And I think because she knew that I wasn't very good with starting conversations, she would uh often forget to give back my jacket.

And it kind of became our unspoken agreement that she would forget to give back my jacket. So then, guess what would be my ne my line the next day to start the conversation? Hey, what what about my jacket?

you still have it. And and that's that was kind of like how we got to like those little questions is what transition into our marriage. And um I honestly think that um this is precisely the thing that Jesus is teaching here.

Every day when we turn to the father asking for daily bread, every is small petition. Every desperate dependence is not just for survival but it is courtship. It is for relationship with him.

So God is not simply giving you bread. He is drawing you near. Is drawing you close.

And one day like what accumulated in my marriage is going to also accumulate in our marriage with him. All those daily requests for bread is going to turn into the best marriage of all where the church meets her bride or or where the bride meets with the lamb and finally live forever together. So as we draw near to him daily, as we depend on him for our most basic needs, that very closeness begins to reveal something also.

And as you notice the prayer there transitions because this closeness with God we also reveal that when we are close to our holy God we start noticing our sin. And so the next thing that Jesus teaches us is to bring before the to bring before the father is our sins. forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.

So now in the third third petition we have a plead for forgiveness and this petition carries basically two assumptions. One is that we sin and two is that God forgives. And my friends, this is not works salvation.

Forgiveness flows out of our forgiven hearts. As Colossians or Colossians um as Colossians 3:13 says, "As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. " John Calvin analyzing this passage, he explains it this way.

Forgiveness is the highest degree of love. It is the root of all Christian virtues. It is the shest sign of a truly regenerate heart.

In other words, the fruit of a heart that has been forgiven is to forgive others. So the recognition of our need for constant forgiveness is also present in this prayer assuming not only that we need forgiveness but that God grants it. And now turning to our final petition you see that there's going to be a plea for protection.

It says lead us not into temptation. So the Christian prayer is not a prayer that a is not a prayer that solely asks for forgiveness and tells the father I will do better later but it is a prayer that asks for forgiveness and also ask him to protect you. It is a prayer that recognize our weaknesses and pleads for him for shelter.

We cannot honor God in our own strength. So we cry out to him as our refuge knowing that without him we will fail. And this is exactly what Jesus taught his disciples at the Gethsemane garden.

Pray that you may not fall into temptation. Thus, this petition displays that we are to constantly recognize our fragility, weakness, and the ease with which we give away to the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil. So, that was the last petition.

And now, before we close, I want to draw our attention to the two final observations from this passage, the two final sections in our bulletins. And as you notice, Jesus did does not end his teaching on prayer with petitions. He goes further.

He shows us that we need to have the right posture and he also gives us a final incentive, a final fuel for our prayers. I will not spend much time here as I did with the petitions, but I do not want us to miss what Jesus is telling us. He gives us a very interesting example.

Let us read together. So Luke 11 5-8 here's what it says. And he said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves?

For a friend of mine has arrived on the journey, and I have nothing to set before him. " And he will answer from within, "Do not bother me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give you anything because he is his friend, yet because he's impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. So this interesting story that the Lord gave used the word impudence which is a word that's not um that's not frequently used in English or in Greek actually in Greek this word is only used here.

This is the only time that has this word has ever been used in the New Testament. And this word conveys the idea of shameless audacity which shows in conclusion that was not friendship but the friend's relentless and unashamed persistence that moved the man to respond. So likewise, it should not be our status with God alone that will move God to respond, but the state of our hearts before him.

Are we desperately seeking him with all our hearts? My friends, a prayer that is fervent, that is desperate, is not a prayer that's done once or twice, but is a prayer that is constant and is wholeheartly. Charles Persian at one point in his life was asked by one pe one person in his congregation how often he prayed.

to which he answered, "How often I pray, I thought Christians lived corand deal. I thought Christians live before the face of God. I never stop praying.

I'm constantly throwing darts of petitions toward his throne of grace. " Friends, may our amen never be an end to our prayers, but a comma that's just waiting for the next prayer to start. A comma that is ex that is just waiting for this relationship to to continue.

May we pray without ceasing with this understanding in mind that a prayer should not never finish with our amens. And as we turn to the incentive now, I want you to ask you something. What what should be what or what is that move us to pray like this?

What is the fuel that will ignite this desperation within our hearts? And seems like Jesus anticipates that question because in the very next verse he talks about it. Let let us read together.

So verses 9 to13 it says and I tell you ask and you'll be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and you'll be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks it will be open.

What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

Now this passage is very interesting and uh I have to say that if it is not analyzed carefully it could be a field day for prosperity gospel advocates um especially when you read verses 9 to 10 because isolating these uh verses from the context uh some would actually interpret that God could give you absolutely everything you want without any parameters. A friend of mine addressing this, I was talking to him a couple months ago about this and then he he he says that he al always explains it this way. He says, "If a friend invites you over and tells you you can eat anything, what does that mean?

Does that mean you can eat anything and there's no parameters? Does that mean you can eat the dishes, you can eat the napkins, you can eat the colory, you can eat literally everything. And that just highlights the you know how insane an interpretation like that is because there is always parameters.

And if you look in Jesus's life, even he was under those parameters because at Gethsemane Garden when he was about to face the judgment that we deserved. He prayed to the father, "Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me. " But then he brings forth the parameters.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And if even the son of God had parameters in his prayer, how much more should we? And yet the main problem I believe with prosperity gospel is not that they ask way too much from God or they ask wrong things.

The main problem with the prosperity gospel is that they pray for they pray frequently for crumbs. Their prayers are crumb requests to the father. They pray Lord give me crumbs I and I will be satisfied.

to which he answers, "Oh, if you only knew who you were asking and I will give you living waters and you'll be totally satisfied. " And that's exactly what Jesus is reminding us here in verse 13. He says, "If you who are evil or who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, imagine the father who defines goodness, who created goodness, who is the embodiment of goodness.

And he give us not merely what we ask but far beyond what we can imagine, what we most desperately need. The heavenly father give us gives to us his most precious possession. The very spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, his unspeakable gift.

A gift that God in his infinite excellence will never be able to excel. But why do we need the Holy Spirit? Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 3 because Paul talks about the work of the Holy Spirit within the Christian heart.

So 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 8 18 sorry. Look what he says. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the image from one glory or from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. So the spirit of God is used by the Lord to transform us into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another. And my friends, this is precisely what faithful prayer produces.

The more we pray with these principles in mind in our hearts, the more the spirit shape us into the likeness of the ones or the one we are speaking to. Friends, simply praying to check a box will not be enough. He is not interested in another ceremony.

As Jesus himself said, "This is eternal life that we may know him, the only true God. " Prayer is not a duty. It is a privilege.

It is relationship. It is intimacy. And that intimacy transforms.

And perhaps no one aside from the Lord himself illustrates this better than Jesus's brother, Apostle James. Ozius, the church historian, tells us that James, Jesus's brother, had two nicknames, and both of his nicknames embody his devotion to prayer. One of his nicknames talks about his body and the other nickname talks about his character.

The first nickname is not actually very flattering. He was called camo niece and that was basically because of the amount of time he would spend in prayer. He would spend so much time on his knees in prayer before the Lord that his knees took the shape of a camel knee.

And the second nickname which is actually the most famous nickname he had um it speaks of something much greater. They call him also James the righteous. And friends, you cannot understand the second without the first.

one produced the other. The second nickname was not an accident. And sadly, perhaps the reason why you and I and are called righteous by our friends is also not an accident.

Maybe it is because we have not yet learned to delight in the presence of the Lord in prayer rather than treat it as an obligation. So by his spirit, may the callousness of our hearts transition to our knees and may we have delight in the presence of the Lord every day of our lives until we finally meet him face to face. Let us pray.

Dear heavenly father, again I'm so grateful for your word, Lord. So grateful grateful that your word is alive and it pierces our hearts. Above all, I'm grateful that your Lord, your son, did not leave us astray.

He taught us how to come before your throne of grace in time of need. And how much do we need you, Lord? We need you every day.

Even as this prayer emphasizes, we need you daily. We need to have communion with you, Lord. And we honor our prayers to reflect this reality, Lord.

That prayer is not ceremony. It is communion. We know that you're willing and able to answer to our prayers, but we pray that we may be praying prayers that reflect the things that are important to you, Lord.

May the important things to you be important to us. May our prayers never end with the amens, Lord, but just be a comma for the next one to come. Help us to delight in your presence when we read your word and when we pray to you with our petitions.

Help us to have confidence, the confidence that Paul had saying that we are certain of whom we've believed. We know you're gracious. We know you're loving, Lord.

And and we we want to know that even more. We want to not just hear about you by the hearing of the year, but we want to see you with our own eyes. We want to have this uh uh re this experience in our prayers, Lord, where we can come before your throne with our requests knowing that you are there and you are listening.

So help us Lord. It's so easy for us to turn anything that is holy and sacred and good into another ceremony, another obligation, even this beautiful relationship that you purchase through the blood of your son. So yeah, Lord, just forgive us for uh bringing petitions before you that were maybe not pleasing to you.

And we know still, Lord, that even when those petitions were not pleasing to you, we still had Jesus translating our prayers before your throne of grace. But may we not take that for granted and just like have uh prayers that are not um coming to your heart. May we be like the Puritans who who aim to have prayers that pierced heaven.

May we come to your ears as pleasing and to your nose freezing aroma before your throne. So in the name of Jesus, again I'm thankful for your word and thankful that uh you are willing to answer to every prayer we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.