2024.10.20 TFHC – Teach Us To Pray (Luke 11:1-13)

October 20, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey

All right, tonight I want to look at the Lord’s prayer in Luke, chapter eleven. And so I would like to read to you not just the Lord’s prayer. Actually, Jesus talks more about prayer. Right after he gives the Lord’s prayer, he continues, and he gives a parable of prayer and some encouragement to prayer. And so I’m going to read all the way through verse 13. Luke, chapter eleven, verses one through 13.

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. Jesus said, this is how you should pray. Father, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come. Give us each day the food we need and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And do not let us yield to temptation.

Then, teaching them about prayer, he used this story. Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight wanting to borrow three loaves of bread, and you said to him, a friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.

And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you. But I tell you this, though. He won’t get up for his friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he’ll get up and give you whatever you need.

Because of your shameless. I love this phrase. Because of your shameless persistence.

¹⁰ For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? ¹² Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! ¹³ So if you sinful people 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.” (Luke 11:10-13, NLT)

God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.

All right. This is great. I love this. It’s just so simple, so straightforward.

We’re all Christians, and we were talking about in our Bible study when we first became Christians. What did all of our mentors tell us? Read your Bible and pray. Read your Bible and pray. Have a quiet time. Read your Bible and pray.

And so we all started to pray. We said, okay, we pray. What’s praying? It’s talking to God. And so typically what we would do is we would go and talk to God about those current issues in our life.

God, I need an A on this test, and I haven’t studied, so help me out. You know, it’s like they say, as long as there’s tests, there will always be prayer in school. All right? So help me out here, Lord, or I want this job, or I want this girl, or I want this health for this dear person I’m praying for, or I want this election to turn out in this particular way.

And we make our request known to God. And I want to tell you that that is entirely appropriate. Jesus tells us to.

To pray for things like that. In that little phrase, daily bread, he’s telling us to pray for things like that. However, that’s not all there is to prayer.

And most of us, if we’ve been in Christian circles long enough, have tried to pray, and we’ve probably made some kind of commitment. We said, man, I’m going to get serious about this prayer thing. I’m going to pray a half an hour every day or 15 minutes every day. I’m going to get down to it.

And so we get down to it, and we begin praying in the way I just described. We find that about two minutes and 30 seconds in, whatever, our mind starts to wander, and we kind of feel like we’re done. Anybody have that experience?

I think that experience is universal, though. Not all of you raised your hands. Just nod your heads. Then give me some sign that you’re breathing and alive. If you have had that experience, just nod your head that you know your mind wanders, and maybe you feel like you’re a failure.

Oh, my gosh. All these great saints prayed a half an hour a day, and I can’t even pray two minutes. Well, I want to tell you, if that has been your experience, what it means is you’re not really a Christian, and you’re doomed to hell. That’s not what it means.

Here’s what it really means. Here’s what it really means. you’re normal. And maybe the reason you can’t pray for a half an hour isn’t because you’re a bad Christian.

Or an immature Christian, or not a godly enough Christianity, it’s because you’re praying in a way that you were never designed to pray in. you’re simply trying to pray from your own emotion.

And so here, one of Jesus disciples asked one of the best questions in the whole Bible, or makes one of the best requests in the whole Bible. Lord, teach us to pray and Jesus does.

So guess what?

If you don’t feel like your prayer life is good enough or vital enough, or jazzy enough, or long enough or effective enough, here it is twice, by the way, Matthew six and Luke eleven. Jesus says, oh, I’ll teach you how to pray. Pray like this. One of the things that I want to say off the start is if you want to have a deep prayer life and a long prayer life and a rich prayer life, pray from the Scriptures, not from your own imagination, not from your own feelings.

Your feelings are valid, and you can pray from your feelings. And again, I want to say Jesus says it’s okay to pray from your feelings, but don’t make that the sum total of your prayer life.

You have this prayer outline that Jesus gave his disciples. You have the Psalms, which is the Hebrew prayer book of the Bible. You can read any Scripture, as a matter of fact. And whatever comes to mind as you’re reading that Scripture, whatever that Scripture inspires you about God and about life, you can pray that.

You can make a plan to say, I’m going to read through the New Testament. You know, this year we read through the Bible a year. You can say, I’m going to read through the New Testament a year real slow, just take your time.

But as I read through the New Testament, I’m going to pray through the New Testament. What the Bible talks about, I’m going to pray about. And all of a sudden you’ll find that praying 15 minutes or a half an hour isn’t impossible.

There are saints throughout church history who have written prayers.

Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans know about all of this. They have prayer books to help them pray because they’re older groups, and they’ve realized a long time ago that praying out of your own thought life will only take you down the road a certain way, a certain level.

Then the Pentecostals came along, and they said, hey, we got another way to pray. We’re so bad about praying in English.

We’ll ask God to give us a language that we can’t even understand, but we can go on and on in that language, and you can begin to pray in tongues. And people say, well, that, well, what’s the point of that? You don’t know what it means. Yeah, but if God knows what it means and if God’s inspiring it, that’s not bad.

To have a God inspired prayer, praying the Scriptures, praying in tongues, praying with prayer books, praying with the saints, go to prayer meetings. Then you don’t have to pray a half an hour.

You just have to pray two minutes. And if there’s 15 of you there, you’ll get in half an hour if everybody prays two minutes.

Lord, teach us to pray. Let’s get down to the specifics of this prayer. I don’t think it is a prayer to be prayed. You can pray it by rote, but if you pray it by rote and you’re using it as magic, then it avails you nothing.

If you say, well, if I say, to our fathers, I’m going to get what I want. No, Jesus says, don’t pray that way.

That’s how the pagans pray. But he gives us the things, the foundations that we need to know to have an effective prayer life. And you know what? We’re talking about good authors. A good author will start at the most important thing because she doesn’t want to lose you. She doesn’t want to lose you before you know the important thing. So if you’re writing, especially a nonfiction book, if you’re writing a nonfiction book, you tell people right up front, this is what I want to tell you in this book.

And through the rest of the book, I’m going to explain to you why this is what I want to tell you. But you get them. You put the hook in right away.

Jesus, the most important thing in your prayer life is not your emotional or physical needs. The most important thing in your prayer life is knowing who God is. And Jesus taught us this profound thing that no other religion in the history of the world, not even Judaism, before Jesus, very rarely does Judaism mention this.

Bounces on it in the Old Testament a little bit, but not very much. Islam doesn’t teach this. Nobody in the world ever taught this before Jesus. And now it’s such a widely held concept that everybody thinks, oh, everybody’s always thought this. No, nobody thought this.

And now, in fact, in our culture, it’s coming under attack because it’s patriarchal. But here’s the radical, incredible, magnificent thing Jesus taught us that will revolutionize your prayer life. God is your father, and he’s a good father. You remember the song, I think, 2017, 2018.

Everybody was thinking, you’re a good, good father. That’s who you are. That’s who you are, you know.

We were in Arizona at the time with my brother-in-law, who, by the way, doesn’t like repetitive songs, but he liked that one for some reason. We were driving by a church, and on the marquee, it said, there’s a good, good chance this Sunday we’ll sing good, good father because everybody was singing it every week.

All right. God is a good, good father, and Jesus leads with that. He teaches that.

That is revolutionary in the time of Jesus, the Muslim idea that God is great. Some sects of Christianity, it’s all about not God being loving and a father, but more about God being sovereign. And it’s all for his glory.

And we’ll get to God’s glory and God’s holiness in a minute. But Jesus always leads with love. He always leads with love. God is your father. What does that mean? You can trust him. He has your best interest in mind. I am not a perfect father. I wasn’t a perfect father of my children.

I’m not a perfect grandfather. But one thing I can say is I had my kids’ best interest in mind. Whether I was ignorant or too immature to execute that well is more than likely true. But there was never a day where I did not want the best for my kids, and that’s still true.

They’re in their thirties now, and I still want the best for them, and I want the best for my grandkids.

At least my kids could trust me in that, that I’m acting, I’m not acting out of my own self-interest in this relationship. If I’m being hard on you, it’s because I am trying to build a boundary between you and something that is dangerous.

And I want to protect you, and I want life to go well for you. Trust me, I would tell my kids I love you. And so the beginning of prayer is you can come to God and trust him. He is on your side.

How do we know? Jesus came into the world.

He declares it to the whole human race. Here I am, I’m on your side. I want to save you. I want you in my kingdom. I want you to be my child. I have your best interest. I want to forgive your sins. I want you to be washed clean. I want you to live with me forever.

And people complain when we quote Jeremiah 29:11. I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans for your welfare, not for evil, to give you a future.

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11, NLT)

And I hope and they say, well, that was a specific promise to Israel and a specific historical moment. You can’t use that for yourself today. And I say, baloney. Yes, I agree. That was a specific promise given to Israel for a specific historical moment.

But I also want to say it reveals beautifully and wonderfully the nature of God toward his people throughout all history. Which one of you would say to your children or wouldn’t say to your children? I know the plans I have for you.

Plans for your welfare are not evil and what is ever within my power, I want to give you a future and a hope. That’s our desire for our children. That’s our desire for our grandchildren. And Jesus says, you fathers, being sinful, know how to do this. How much more. How much more can you come to God and believe he is good and believe he is on your side? He is. There is trust and there is intimacy.

One of the things in healing prayer when I pray for people to be healed of childhood emotional wounds is I’ll picture them in the throne room. I’ll ask them to picture themselves in the throne room of God and Jesus, the perfect priest, holding their hands, bringing them before the Father.

And Hebrews 4 says, when you come before the Father, you find grace and mercy. Not condemnation and guilt, not shame and punishment, but grace and mercy.

¹⁶ So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. (Hebrews 4:16, NLT)

When you come in Jesus’ Name. Right. We put that on the end of all our prayers. When we put that on the end of our prayers, that’s what we mean. We mean, I’m coming before the father based on the merits of Jesus, based on the works of Jesus, based on the blood of Jesus, and based on faith in Jesus.

And as I come before the father with Jesus, what do I receive from the father? Grace and mercy for every time of need. And sometimes people have been so wounded by the father in their own life, I just tell them, let Jesus put you on the father’s lap.

And, you know, this works better with women than men. Men get a little squeamish at that. But let Jesus put you on the father’s lap, and men be comfortable with that. Let him bounce you on his knee. He’s a good father. You can trust him. He desires fellowship with you. He desires intimacy with you.

God, actually, here’s the deal. God doesn’t save you just because Jesus died and he has to. And he’s grudgingly up there and saying, all right, yeah, based on my covenant and based on what my son did, I got to let Kevin in. I don’t like that guy very much, but, you know, I got to let him in.

No, here’s the deal. If you can believe this, God actually likes me. It’s amazing, isn’t it, Mickey? It’s a miracle. He likes me. He likes Yankees fans. Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing, isn’t it, Kathleen? It is. It’s a miracle.

All right. Hallowed be thy name. Hallowed. He is also holy. We sang the song tonight.

Holy forever. What does holy mean? He is spectacularly, wonderfully different. He is so good and so different from sinful humanity. We don’t even get him. He is unapproachable light. He is glory, he is beauty, he is splendor. And if not covered with the sunglasses of Jesus, we can’t even look at him. But he is holy and therefore, he is to be worshipped. He is bigger than you. He is smarter than you. He is bigger than me. He is smarter than me. He’s the creator, I’m the creation.

He is the lover, I’m the beloved. He’s the savior, I’m the saved. He’s the teacher, I’m the pupil. All right? In every sense, I am submissive. I’m submitted to him. I bow before him. And you know what? That’s okay.

It is actually a relief not to be the big deal in the universe. It is a relief not to be the big deal in my own life. Thank you, God, that it doesn’t all depend on me.

And when we worship God, somehow his presence becomes more tangible, more real. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full on his wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. You were created to worship, and human beings will worship. Human beings are worshipping creatures, all right? Human beings worship.

Atheists worship. Some atheists worship scientific materialism. Some atheists worship their own intellect. Today, all across America, stadiums were filled with people watching American football and adoring young men with high athletic ability. I am one of those people who is vastly entertained by that. I am vastly entertained by athletic ability.

Some people are vastly entertained by musical ability. My wife watches cooking shows. She is vastly entertained by people cooking. I remember I pointed out to her one time, I said, you watch all these cooking shows, but you never make any of this stuff. And she goes, I know. And then my son in law was there, and I should have fired him for this, as being son in law. He says, well, actually, Kevin, you watch a lot of sports shows, and I never see you out there doing anything. you’re never running and catching anything.

It’s like, shut up. Who asked you to marry my daughter? All right, what is the definition of the word coward? Is it just sacred, holy, set apart? Holy. Holy be your name. Yeah, it’s a word we don’t use very much.

In fact, I think in the NIV, what does it say? Or in the New Living, it actually says that, may your name be kept holy. May we always honor you as above. Glorious, beautiful, splendid, magnificent, master. And so we’re created to worship. People will worship.

They’ll worship athletes, they’ll worship music, they’ll worship stars, they’ll worship wealth, they’ll worship sexuality, they’ll worship money. But everybody bows down to something.

You know, Bob Dylan said, you’re going to have to serve somebody. It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody. There’s no such thing as a non-worshiping human being.

So worship God, the true God, praise unto his presence and worship unto perspective. And the perspective is when we turn to God and worship, just what I said.

The troubles and trials of this world, which are real, which we have to go through, which we experience. There’s no escaping them.

I was talking today to somebody. I said, whenever I drive up now to the church in Bremerton, I have a little bit of PTSD because there’s been so many times that there’s been a big pile of trash in front of that door from the homeless that I’ve had to clean up. And I don’t like doing that. I just don’t like doing it.

And there’s been other times where people have been sleeping there and staying there, and I’ve got to ask them to move along. I want to be nice to them, but, you know, I don’t want them laying there.

So now, whenever I just go to work, whenever I just go to church, I’m like, I’m driving up going, okay, what am I? And when there’s no mess there and nobody there, it’s like, yippee. But about 50% of the time, there is.

And I really got some PTSD. But worship onto perspective. What does that mean?

That means that this is not the final word, right? My little PTSD over that is not the final word. It means bigger things. Much bigger things. My friend has cancer. It’s not the final word. My child is prodigal. It’s not the final word. Oh, my goodness. The wrong party might get elected. It’s not the final word. It’s not the final word. It might be the final word on what we know as America, but it’s not God’s final word. The doctor doesn’t get the final word. The politician doesn’t get the final word.

Your accountant doesn’t get the final word. your spouse doesn’t get the final word. Disease doesn’t get the final word.

But when we worship, we realize we turn to God. And like we expressed tonight, we have hope. We worship onto perspective that we have inherited a great salvation.

Psalm 16, which I read, you’ve shown me the path to life. In your presence is the fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

¹¹You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. (Psalm 16:11, NLT)

That’s who we are in the midst of a world that doesn’t see that.

And that lives from the fallenness that it doesn’t see that. And we’re stuck between heaven and hell. Well, we’re not stuck. We’re going to get released. But we’re living between heaven and hell, and we experience both in this world.

But worship turns our attention and our hope and our victory and our. It saves us. It saves us from being defeated. And so, worship God, hallowed be your name, set him apart as holy, adore him, and worship onto perspective.

Then your kingdom come. All right. That is submission to the mission we are commissioned to.

When I first became a Christian, I thought your kingdom come. I thought what I was praying was that the second coming of Jesus would come quickly. your kingdom come. Come on, Jesus, come back. I have now changed that perspective.

I don’t want Jesus to come back today. I mean, I’ll rejoice when he does, but how many of you want Jesus to come back today? Well, think of your unsaved family and friends. Hey, Lord, you know the Bible says God delays so that all might come to repentance. I’m with you on that, God.

I’m with you on that. Come at the optimum time when the most will be saved. And you’re smarter than me, and you know that. But when I pray your kingdom come, that’s not what I’m praying for. I’m praying for heaven to invade earth through me. I am signing up to be a part of King Jesus army, which, by the way, you did at your baptism. You signed up to be a part of King Jesus army. That means your destination is heaven, at least the intermediate heaven and then the new heavens and the new earth.

But your job description is to bring heaven to earth. And you do that as you carry the contagion of the Holy Spirit in your life, and you bring the goodness of the Lord into the land of the living.

I pray three things every day. This is three things I pray every day. I say, at this stage in my life, Lord, I want to bring wisdom, kindness, and encouragement into whatever environment I’m in. I’m sure there’s other things to bring, but those are the three that are on my mind for me.

I want to bring wisdom, kindness and encouragement in whatever situation I’m in. Get your own three. All right. You can use mine. You can borrow any of mine. They’re good, but I’m bringing the kingdom. When you heal the sick, you’re bringing the kingdom. When you cast out devils, you’re bringing the kingdom. When you evangelize, you’re bringing the kingdom. When you feed the hungry, you’re bringing the kingdom. When you clothe the naked, you’re bringing the kingdom. When you have a conversation with a lonely person, you’re bringing the kingdom.

When you’re kind to your husband or wife, you’re bringing the kingdom. When you sacrificially raise your children, you’re bringing the kingdom. But that’s what we mean when we say your kingdom come.

I don’t know, I tell people this all the time. I don’t know how much heaven on earth we can get. But you know what? I bet we can get more. We had one dramatic cancer healing. I’m not satisfied with that. I love that story. I tell that story everywhere I go. But I want 20 of those stories, right?

I want to just say, I want to say that’s not the exception. When we pray, when the firehouse church prays, that’s the rule. You know, instead of being surprised when somebody gets healed, we’ll be surprised when somebody doesn’t get healed.

How much kingdom can we get? Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I sign it up with King Jesus. Every day we pray that the temptation on our part is to pray God’s blessing on my kingdom plans.

Lord, my kingdom come, my will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want to want. I want to want. I remember when my grandson Theo was like three years old. I just called him I want because he’d just come in my house and he’d look in the pantry. I want ice cream. I want a cracker. I want this. I want this show on TV. I want you to play with me. I want, I want, I want, I want, I want.

I just nicknamed him the little I want. Alright, we can all be that way. We all got wants. Nothing wrong with your wants. Well, there may be. You might have twisted wants, but there’s nothing wrong with having wants.

But first we submit to God’s kingdom. Not Jesus prayed it in Gethsemane. Not my will, but your will. I submit to your kingdom purposes for my life. Then guess what? You can pray for your material needs. You can pray your I wants. And more importantly, you can pray to I need. Do you need a job?

Seek first the kingdom of God. What comes before all these things shall be added unto you.

The kingdom of God. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Now, God, I need a job. God, I need shelter.

There’s a woman at church in Bremerton who’s asked for prayer. The last couple, she’s asked for prayer for quite a while. First she needed shelter. She got shelter. But now she has a difficult landlord, and she’s just wondering if she can continue to live there and, you know. But she needs a roof, right?

And she doesn’t have a lot of money, doesn’t have a lot of resources. A good woman, she says her prayers. She needs a roof.

And I said, you know what? I said, God is going to take care of you. God is going to take care of you. And we’ve actually. We’ve helped her. Our church has helped her. you’ve helped her. You don’t even know her, but you’ve helped her.

But it’s okay to say, Lord, I need a roof. Lord, I want my child to be healed. Lord, I want this promotion at work.

Lord, I want that house. Nothing wrong with that. You can make your requests known to God. That’s not being selfish or greedy. The only thing wrong is that is where we start.

And the Bible says, start with a loving father that you worship and adore. Submit yourself to his kingdom purposes, and then just tell him, here’s how my life’s going.

And God does not mind being bugged. God does not mind being bugged. Our two oldest kids had boundaries when it came to wanting things they knew.

Maybe because as older kids, they grew up when mom and dad were poorer. Maybe the youngest, we had more money by the time she came along.

So the oldest kids, we’d take them out to dinner, and they’d say thank you for dinner. You know, sometimes the youngest, the minute you gave her one thing, she was immediately on to the next. Can we get ice cream now? You know, you take you out for a nice dinner, but can we get ice cream?

And then after that, if you gave her ice cream, then it’s on to the next thing. It’s not. There was no. There was never a stopping point.

Can my friend come over and spend the night tonight? Can I skip school tomorrow? Can I stay up late and watch TV? I mean, there was never an end to the requests. They just kept coming. They just kept coming.

And so finally, you know, the only way to stop them was finally to say no at such a certain point. And it’s like. And even then, they’d be pushing.

And then when she would just talk, she would, you know, when you, for whatever reason, she was the talker. Sometimes Jill would have to tell herself to say, Caitlin, mommy’s ears are getting tired.

But I just looked at her one day and I said, and she didn’t even know what this meant because she’s probably like six or seven years old. I said, you know what? you’re going to make a great intercessor. you’re going to make a great intercessor.

What does it say? Jesus says, because of your shameless persistence, that girl had shameless persistence.

God actually likes us to come to him with our needs and our wants. The stupidest prayer in the world is the cowboy prayer. You know, if you’ve seen westerns, like this is somehow noble or good or godly. Well, Lord, if you’re up there, you know, I don’t talk to you much, but if you just get me out of this jam, if you just help me this one time, I promise never to bother you again. That’s just a dumb, macho, proud prayer.

God loves my little grandson. Hey, hey, hey, what about this? Hey, what about this?

Hey, what about this? Have shameless persistence and make your request known to God. It does not offend him. He might not give you everything you want because he’s smarter than you and he knows those things won’t be good for you.

But the other thing, that daily bread and. But he will give you what you need. Yes. I was just wondering, isn’t there a place in Scripture, in the New Testament where he does say, don’t go on like the pagans? Yes. So the pagans, that’s what that’s talking about? That’s a good question.

He says, when he deals with the Lord’s prayer in Matthew, he tells us two ways not to pray.

He says, don’t pray to show off how spiritual and religious you are, like the Pharisees. He says, if you do that, that’s your reward. God doesn’t hear you, but other people can pat you on the back and say, well, yeah, you’re a spiritual man. Big whoophen.

And then the other way is he says, don’t think you’ll be heard for your many repetitions. But what he means by that is praying a formulaic prayer. That’s like magic.

If you say the right incantation, you know, it’s abracadabra. Prayers don’t pray abracadabra prayers.

Or sometimes Christian books will get out and they’ll say, you know, the seven specific ways to pray to get God to answer you.

Okay, that’s starting to move into the realm of magic, not into the realm of a relationship.

So Caitlin prayed to us persistently out of a relationship. you’re my mom and dad. You provide for my needs, you provide for my wants. I’ll let you know what those are.

So the basis of her prayer, the basis of her shameless persistence, was relationship. What Jesus is addressing is the incantations, paganism, and religiosity.

I just thought it was persistent prayer. That’s why I was getting confused. No, no, because here he commends persistent prayer. He’s all about persistent prayer. And so keep going.

All right, daily bread. Also, the other thing, daily bread is besides your material needs. I believe you can expand that to grace for the mission. Lord, I signed up for your kingdom, but now I need the power of Jesus to do your kingdom work.

And so, Lord, help me. I shared last week the story of that little demonized girl, and the Lord kind of put his finger on me and said, yeah, somebody has to go take care of that. And it’s you.

All right, well, immediately I said, well, you got to show up here, God, if I’m going to be fighting demons in this 15-year-old girl. All right, I’ve never done this before. You got to help me. And you know what he did? He did.

Lord, I have an impossible task to do for your kingdom. Help me.

Give me the bread. Give me the heavenly manna. And so give us this day what we need. Forgiveness.

All right, dear ones, be specific about your sins. Don’t just say, oh, God, forgive me. I’m a sinner. We all know that. Tell them exactly what you did wrong.

Lord, I spoke harshly to my wife and I didn’t need to. Lord, I was aggressive and selfish on the highway and was easily angered. Lord, I was loose lipped and I gossiped about somebody.

Lord, I watched that documentary on TV called Baywatch because I really want to know about lifeguards. And I wasn’t watching for voluptuous women in red bathing suits. Oh, wait, I guess I was, Lord. I guess I was all right.

Anybody know that show from the eighties, nineties? All right. Yeah, I had friends from the Midwest. And they came out to California. They came out to Oakdale, which is like the hicks, you know. And where are all the chicks in red bathing suits running around with Pat, you know, like, well, they’re not in Oakdale. Sorry.

They’re in LA, right? They’re all down there. Sure. All right. Be specific. I lusted, I was easily angered. I gossiped, I complained, I ignored you, dear ones, I got to tell you, man, I can’t tell you the number of people have come to me and asked for pastoral advice. None of you, of course. And I have given them pastoral advice and then come back to me a year later. Two years later. Oh, you got to help me, pastor. My life’s a mess. Did you take my advice? No, I didn’t.

All right, should I help him the second time? Give me advice. People should. Okay, okay. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Take notes on this, you knucklehead.

I was talking to a woman just the other day, and she didn’t take my advice a year ago, and now she’s coming to me because of the problems of that. And so I said, okay, we sorted that out. And I said, now, you know, for a year, do this. And she said, what? I don’t want to do that for a year. I said, fine, don’t take my advice again.

Do what you want. All right, but be specific about your sins. Just tell God the truth. Don’t be generic. Don’t be. And don’t be a blamer. Oh, my gosh. Don’t be a blamer and excuse maker.

Listen, this passage nails it. You have sinned and you have been sinned against. All right. That is true of every person in this room. You know, we talk about a victim mentality. Well, quite frankly, there are times people are victims. If you got molested as a child, you’re a victim. It wasn’t your fault.

If your parents divorced when you were a child, the devil told you a lie. That it was your fault. It wasn’t your fault. You know, there’s all sorts of things. You got beat up by bullies, wasn’t your fault. You were a victim. But here’s what I know. I know that most of the problems in my life are because of the first part of this. Forgive me my sins. I’ve done most of the damage, but other people have done some. It’s interesting that the weight of freedom from both of those is forgiveness.

When you have sinned, Lord, forgive me. Just tell him the truth. Repent if you confess your sins first. John says he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

⁹ But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. (1 John 1:9, NLT)

I have found that Jesus is incredibly faithful in forgiving my sins.

And when somebody has sinned against you, forgive them. Here’s the thing about holding a grudge. If you hold a grudge, pretty soon the grudge will hold you. Forgive them. And here’s been my experience.

You may be better at this than me, but my experience is if I’ve been hurt, oftentimes I have to forgive them more than once before. Those feelings of resentment, anger, pain, and hurt go away. But I have discovered this. If I keep doing it, every time those feelings rise up, eventually the infection is gone and the wound is healed.

As a kid in high school, I tried so hard to be an athlete. That’s where I connected with my father around sports.

And so I tried so hard to be good at sports, and God did not create me to be good at sports. That is not my body, all right? Now, I wasn’t a complete dork, all right? I wasn’t a kid that got picked last. I had enough athletic ability, and Lord knows I invested all my energy into that. And so I was skilled. I could field a baseball, I could shoot a basketball. I could throw a football. But, you know, just five eight and slow, I’m not an athlete.

I could hit a tennis ball, the whole thing. But I was never at the top.

I was good enough to make the varsity basketball team in high school, and I made the varsity basketball team. There was another kid who made the varsity basketball team. We had grown up together, and he was a prima donna. He was naturally athletic, and he knew it. He didn’t try as hard as me. He didn’t know the plays as well as me. He wasn’t as good a leader as I was. He wasn’t as good.

He would shoot instead of pass, you know, and he was always showboating, and I would guard him in practice, and every time he missed a shot, oh, my goodness, I fouled him, because God knows he couldn’t miss a shot if he hadn’t been fouled, you know, and I just. He just hacked me off. But, you know, who was the starter? Not the kid who worked the hardest, not the kid who was the smartest, not the kid who tried, tried his best. I was always told, if you try your best, you can achieve anything.

No, you can’t. If you’re a five-eight short, slow, white kid, you’re not going to be Michael Jordan. Try as you might, it wasn’t what I was created to be.

And this kid, ten years after high school, I hadn’t seen him for ten years. And somebody asked me in some, like, ministry setting, do you think you’ve forgiven everybody who’s offended you? Yeah, I have. Anything from high school? I said, well, there’s this one kid who kind of bugged me. They said, well, have you forgiven him? And I said, yeah, I’ve forgiven that beep beep.

And I wasn’t being the roadrunner that beep beep is meant to portray to you. I said another word. And immediately the Lord kind of said, well, if you’re still calling him a beep beep, perhaps that wound is not completely healed.

I haven’t seen this guy for ten years, and yet I’m still carrying that jerk. It wouldn’t have bothered me as much if he started ahead of me, if he would have tried, you know, and if he had earned it, just.

But I will say at that point, I began to say with 100% of my will, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I forgive. And I used his correct name, not the beep beep name.

And so about 30 years after that or 40 years after that, I’m on social media and I’m on a high school group, and I find out that he is seriously ill and going through surgery. And I had no problem at all. Full of compassion, crying out to God for him and for God’s mercy upon him.

And there was no anger left, because if you’re persistent in forgiving others, you can be free. You can be free. And we’ve all been hurt, and we’ve all heard others. Both those things are true. Lead us not into temptation. Again, be specific. All right. There are things you’re tempted to and things you’re not tempted to. Right? There’s things my wife is tempted to. There’s things she’s not tempted to. There’s things I’m tempted to. There’s things she’s not tempted to. you’re not tempted to everything, but you’re tempted to some things, all right?

And so your temptations are probably different than mine. But one thing I’m not tempted to is I’m not tempted to gamble.

I mean, with guys and stuff. I’ll make a bet just for fun. It’s like, I’ll bet you, you know, lunch that this team’s gonna beat that team. But, you know, I am not a gamble. I don’t try to make money gambling. I just know that the odds are always in the house’s favor. They’re gonna take my money.

It just seems like stupid to me to gamble. So I don’t gamble.

I have other addictions, but not gambling. So my wife and I are in a casino. We’re walking through the casino, and I’m seeing these people playing the slots, and I just think, that’s stupid. What a stupid thing to do. Now, if you play the slots, I’m not judging you. If you do it within reason, you’re fine. But all of a sudden, I just started singing this song kind of quietly. Give your money to the poor. Give your money to the poor.

You’ll be so much happier if you don’t give your money to the mob, but give your money to the poor. You know, it’s not a very good song, but that’s what I’m singing, you know, as I’m walking through the casino, and my wife says, shh, be quiet. They can hear you.

So what do you think I do when my wife says, be quiet? Give your money to the poor because I’m a beep beep. Give your money to the poor. Start singing louder. It’s a cuss word for a body part, Karen.

And so, you know, so there we are, and I’m singing. But you know why I’m in that casino in the first place? I don’t gamble. What am I doing in a casino? Because if I get to that elevator and go to the top floor, there is an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Now, I’ll give my money there, because that’s actually a bet I’ll take. They’re betting they can make money on me, but I’m betting if you got all you can eat, you might regret that when I come in the door. That’s right.

So there it is. All right? So when I say, lord, deliver me from temptation, it’s not from gambling. It’s from spending all my money at all-you-can-eat buffets. Because I want to cover my emotional prayer not with a relationship with God, but with a relationship with food. All right? And so that’s my temptation. What’s yours? I’m vulnerable. You don’t have to tell me right now, but.

And then. And then this doesn’t. Has nothing to do with what I just shared, but let the body know. I’m not talking about your physical body.

Once you share your struggles with other people in the body of Christ, that monster in the closet now becomes much smaller. Once you can talk about it and step out of that shame, 60% to 80% of men in the American church have a secret struggle with pornography. Okay? It’s not. It’s known.

But I have found that the biggest, it’s not the final setting free, but the biggest thing that begins the setting free process is where they can tell somebody when they can tell somebody. And so let the body know. Tell the truth. Tell the truth.

Deliver us from evil. We talked about last week, deliverance from demonization. Deliverance from strongholds.

How are strongholds different than demonization? Demonization has to do with a demon that is oppressing you. A stronghold is a pattern of life that you have adopted through habitual routine that Satan implanted in you through a lie, and it becomes a stronghold.

Say that again. It is a pattern of life that you have created through habitual routine based on a lie from the devil.

And you’ve repeated that lie long enough and lived from that lie long enough that you now live from it. It has become an inhibition to your life. It blocks all that God has for you. It doesn’t stop you from being saved, but it’s a struggle. It’s not necessarily a demon. It is something that a demon implanted.

So I’ll give you an example, Kathleen. This is very recent with me, very recent with me, within a year or a little over a year. I was having regular dreams.

And in the dreams, I was working for an impossible boss. You ever had an impossible boss? You know, somebody, maybe you had a parent like this that you could never please.

The task was the task. Whatever you did was always criticized. You were always kind of punished or put down, and, you know, and the next thing was like, are you kidding me? I can’t do that. You know, do that.

And I’m just under the weight of this impossible boss. And I had that dream several times. It was always a different thing.

In fact, one time, Stephen, for whatever reason, I was working on a horse ranch and I had this impossible boss. And other times I was in the military and I had an impossible boss, or I was playing sports and I had an impossible boss or impossible coach. And I’d wake up from those dreams just, you know, I could never please that guy. He’s always gonna be on my back. He’s always gonna be, you know, I’m never gonna be good enough.

And so finally, if you ever dream repetitively, God’s trying to tell you something, or your psyche is trying to tell you something, somebody’s trying to tell you something.

So I finally prayed, right? God, what’s the interpretation of this dream? What does this repeated dream mean? And I got the interpretation, not immediately, but, you know, down the road, I got the interpretation.

I had that dream one night, and I was with a group of friends. And I woke up that morning and it hit me. You know who that impossible boss is, Kevin? No. Who? you.

You’re your impossible boss. you’re the one. You can never, you know, you’re always. you’re not good enough. you’re not, you know, that’s. That. That is a stronghold in your life.

And I confessed that to a group of people. I said, that’s what I think it is. I think, you know, I try to think in my life, was my dad hard on me? No. Was my wife hard on me? No. Has anybody ever been really hard on me? No. Who’s hard on me? Oh, right.

So then I prayed for the application.

Lord, what do you want me to do with this information?

And a couple days later, I’m sitting out front of my brother-in-law’s house, and I hear the voice of the Lord. He says, fire him. Fire that boss. I said, well, the boss is me. Yeah, but that voice doesn’t get to be the boss of you anymore. Fire that voice.

Now, whether that voice was a demon or really what I think it is, is an idea or a thought that demons had planted in my head.

A lie that I had believed was that I have to be the greatest pastor, the greatest everything to be accepted. Were you little or? I think I was little. I think most of those things get planted when you’re little. But I have no recollection of when that lie started. But I realized it was a lie and I fired it. I did it. I said it out loud. I said, in the Name of Jesus, you’re fired. And ever since then, it’s been helpful. Ever since then. And by the way, when I did that, the dream stopped.

I haven’t had that dream. And ever since then, whenever I’m driving down the road and I say something like, oh, you. You stink. Or something like that, immediately I say, oh, wait, you’re fired. Get out of my car. Get out of my car. you’re fired. you’re fired. All right.

That’s a stronghold. Deliver me from strongholds. Deliver me from lies that I’ve believed since I was a child. If you had a father who withheld affection from you and you have this thought that you’re unlovable, it’s a lie.

Fire that thought and ask God to replace it with truth. Deliver me from evil, from strongholds. Bring me protection. All right. Protection. We live in a dangerous world. So I pray protection over my family. I pray Psalm three, three. Over my family. Thou, O Lord, be a shield about me. I pray it over my children and their children. God, be a shield about them. Pray it over you. Thou, O Lord, be a shield about them. Be their glory and the lifter of their heads. Ephesians six. The armor of God. Say it out loud. Say it.

You know, I put on the shield of. I take up the shield of faith. I put on the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth. Right. The sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation, the sandals of the gospel of peace.

Dress yourself in the morning with the armor of God. Protection. All right. And then pray for healing. Healing sickness is evil. Don’t tell me. You know, people say, well, you know, God really used my sickness. Draw me closer to him. Great, great. God can use poverty to draw you closer to him.

God can use all kinds of hardships to draw you closer to him. That doesn’t mean the hardship was good. That means God can win with any hand.

Listen, if healing were… If sickness was a good thing, why did Jesus heal everybody who asked him to, to demonstrate his kingdom? What do you think, there’s gonna be diabetes and cancer in heaven? You know, I need to grow in heaven. Good. I’ll give you seven years of miserable cancer so you can become more like Jesus. It’s not gonna happen that way.

We protect my family from disease, give us healing, and then pray. With shameless persistence, Jesus finishes the Lord’s prayer, and he launches into this parable about this friend who comes to a friend’s house.

And I guess the friend’s house he comes to is not that good of a friend because he ain’t getting out of bed to give him some bread. Go away. I’m tired. The door is locked, and a person won’t stop knocking. So finally, the friend says, fine, I’ll give you bread.

Now, this prayer is not to demonstrate to us the nature of God.

God is not that friend who doesn’t want to give you bread. It’s a contrast. What Jesus is saying is even better. He says it later with fathers. Even sinful fathers know how to give good gifts. Even bad friends will get up if you annoy them enough. And the point is not that God has to be annoyed. The point is, how much more will your good father give you good gifts if you ask for him? But there is something about persistence, and I’m not quite sure what it is. I think it does build character in us.

It does build perseverance, which produces hope and other things. I think sometimes there’s spiritual warfare involved. Daniel fasted, and prayed for 21 days until Michael the archangel could break through the prince of Persia. His prayers were doing something to strengthen the victory that Michael had to get to bring him the answer to his prayers. All I know is that the Bible tells us God is good. God wants to answer your prayer. Seeking, you will find. Knock, and the door will be open. Ask and it will be given to you. But don’t stop seeking.

Don’t stop asking. Don’t stop knocking. Keep doing it with shameless persistence. And if you’re not getting an answer to your prayers, ask God. God, do you want me to pray about this differently? I’ve been praying for a. God, do you want me to pray for b? Sometimes God’s answer to a is found in b.

You understand what I’m saying? God, I want a healed relationship with my wife. Make my wife love me. Make my wife love me. God, I want a healed relationship with my wife. God says, okay, why don’t you pray for this? What?

Pray that you would be a kind and loving husband. Oh, you think that might help? Maybe. Maybe that could work. You know, listen to God’s answer. When you pray. With persistence, he might redirect your prayer. I’ve been praying for revival for 17 years in the Pacific Northwest. God has not taken that prayer off my heart, but he did redirect it. He redirected me to the Psalms, and he said, pray for revival through the Psalms.

And so now I’ve started praying for revival through the Psalms, and I pray for revival with shameless persistence, and I make my request known to God. I say, God, if you’re going to bring the great awakening to America and the great awakening of the Pacific Northwest and the great awakening to Poulsbo and Bremerton and Kitsap county, and you’re going to do it after my lifetime, fine. you’re smarter than me. You have perfect timing. I don’t have perfect timing. You know when it will work the best.

So, if I just pour my life into these dear people at the Firehouse Church and Ats Kagawa becomes the next Reinhard Bonnke, great. Great. Praise the Lord. you’re smarter than me, God. You’re smarter than me.

But then I make my requests known to God. I say, hey, God. But here’s the deal. I want it to happen, and I want to play. I want to be in the middle of it. I want a room full of people slain in the Spirit, crying out for Jesus.

So you got to step over the bodies like it’s a war zone in a church that now has a dozen people in it. I want to see that.

I’m going to pray with shameless persistence for the goodness of the Lord and the land of the living. I’m going to pray that there’ll be a great awakening in America and we will not lose in my generation, my children’s generation, my grandchildren’s generation, the great gift that this country was given when we established a country in freedom.

But here’s the deal.

Whether I get those specific things or not, my persistent prayers will all be turned by God into his glory, into his good, and he will do it better than I could have ever imagined because he is smarter than me.

And then finally, pray for more of the Holy Spirit. All right, I know if you’re a theological purist, you’re saying, wait a minute, Kevin, you can’t get more of the Holy Spirit. I get it. You can’t.

All right, now your theological purity can be assuaged. You got the whole Holy Spirit when you came to Jesus.

He doesn’t dole out the Holy Spirit. Okay, you’re a new Christian. I’ll give you 1% of my spirit. You got 100% Holy Spirit. But when you pray, there’s not 100% manifestation of the Holy Spirit in you and in me. Why, if there was, we’d be like Jesus.

So how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? Well, the implication is more, and you can pray for more. More manifestation of the Holy Spirit in my life, more room in my life for the Holy Spirit to work.

And it’s specifically in two areas: a greater manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit in my life, so that I carry in me and with me the character of Jesus.

So that love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control continue to ripen and grow in me as I abide in the soil of Jesus and the soil of God, that spiritual fruit will grow in me and my life will reflect Jesus in my character.

So people will be able to say, I don’t know what Jesus is like, but, you know, that guy did a pretty good job of reflecting him. That’s what I want. And I know I’ll probably never just be perfect, perfectly like Jesus. Maybe if I live long enough. Maybe I’m not one of those who says that perfection isn’t possible. I’m just saying I haven’t met the person who’s arrived yet. Some of you are close, though. Some of you are closer than me. All right? I don’t envy you. I root for you, and you encourage me.

But the other thing to pray for more of is the gifts of the Spirit. Earnestly desire. Hear it? It’s in the Bible. Cessationists out there. It’s in the Bible. Earnestly desire spiritual gifts. It’s in your infallible, inerrant Bible.

And then it even says this, the one you like the least, especially that you might prophesy. Never says that. Ceases. Never says that. Stops. you’re arguing from experience, not the Bible. There I was just talking to people who are probably never going to watch this, but it made me feel good. All right. Earnestly desire spiritual gifts.

Be zealous for spiritual gifts. Why? Spiritual gifts are the power to do the ministry of Jesus. They’re the power to bring thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

How do you heal the sick? How do these hands heal the sick? They don’t. There’s nothing in these hands that heal the sick. But when the Holy Spirit is working in me and through me and in you and through you, then these hands become a connection point for his grace, and the sick can get healed.

How can you talk to demons and they obey you? Well, you can’t. Jesus I know, Paul I know. But who are you? But if you come clothed in Jesus, they know who you are. You now are in the Jesus I know, Paul I know category, and they tremble.

I’ve heard Christians say, oh, man, I would hate to do a deliverance. That’s so scary. You know who it’s scary for? The demons. you’re more scary to the demons. You know, it’s like.

It’s like when you’re a kid and there was a bug, you know, your mom said, it’s more scared of you than you are of it. It’s like, well, I don’t know if that bug’s that scared. I think he’s too stupid to be scared. But demons are scared.

We all raise our children, so. Oh, I want to protect my children from the devil. That’s good. But here ought to be your goal. That’s further than that.

Instead of wanting to just to protect your children from the devil, I want to raise children that the devil needs protecting from. How about that?

I want to raise kids who know how to pray and know how to do spiritual warfare and know how to advance the kingdom. And I want to be one of those people. And so I pray for gifts.

Listen, this idea that everybody just gets at their conversion, just gets one gift. Where is that in the Bible now? It says to each one is given a gift.

But that is in a particular worship setting. That means in a particular worship setting, you may have this gift to offer, you may have that gift to offer. But all the Christians I know carry multiple gifts. And who’s to say the gifts you have now you’re restricted to? Well, these are my gifts. No, they’re not. They’re God’s gifts to the church through you. I think you got the whole Batman belt available to you.

If you got 100% of the Holy Spirit, every gift is available to you at the right time, at the right place. When you need it, God can pull it out and use it. And what he says to us is, pray that I’ll do that.

In your life, I’ve prayed for every gift but service. And God keeps letting homeless people leave garbage in front of the church. So I got to serve. No, I took one of those spiritual gift inventories. Remember those? Did anybody take those?

Years ago, I scored higher in martyrdom than service, and I showed my wife, and here’s what she said. She said, I knew you’d rather die than help. Yeah, that was her life. She’s hilarious. I mean, she’s not as funny as me, but she tries.

All right, that’s it. Dear ones, pray for more of the Holy Spirit. We’re going to do that right now.

Heavenly Father. Good, good Father. Who wants to give good gifts to your children? People wouldn’t be at the firehouse church if they weren’t interested in the Holy Spirit.

So I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Greater. Hmm. See, every time I do this, it happens to me. I don’t know if it happens to you, but every time I do this, it’s like this. Like an angel lands on my back.

So, Lord, I just pray. Greater manifestation. Hmm, of your Holy Spirit in fruit and in gifts. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus.

Pour out your spirit upon us. Pour out the Spirit of revival, Lord, pour out the Spirit of evangelism. Pour out the Spirit of service.

Pour out the Spirit of healing. Pour out your spirit that we might manifest the works of Jesus. And as we’re manifesting the works of Jesus, Lord, make us like Jesus in character.

Let’s not be hypocrites who walk in the power of Jesus, but who don’t have integrity and love and kindness and walk in the fruit of the Spirit. Lord, give us. Let that fruit grow ripe in our lives. Thank you, Jesus.

Let us leave this building more like you in character and power than when we came in, Holy Spirit.

Father, you promised you would give your Holy Spirit to those who ask, and we ask in Jesus’ Name. Thank you, Father.

And so this week, Lord, let us heal the sick, cast out devils, lead somebody to Jesus, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, be kind to a lonely person. Love our families better. Shine like a light of love and hope and patience in our neighborhoods and workplaces. your kingdom come, your will be done through us on earth as it is in heaven. Amen and Amen.

All right, now you know how to pray.

Turn to somebody next to you and say, I know how to pray.

Now, if you just use the Lord’s prayer as an outline every day of your life, for the rest of your life, you’ll have a better prayer life than 95% of the people out there. All right? So good.

Good Lord, thank you for communion. Thank you for your body given to us and Your Blood shed for us. Thank you for the New Covenant. Thank you for the forgiveness of sins. Feed us tonight, Lord Jesus, at your table with heavenly food.

Holy Spirit, not only fill us, but Lord, fill us as you fill us with these elements. Let this be to us a means of grace, a time of bodily receiving in our lives, the very life of Jesus, and growing in the life of Jesus. We ask it in Your Name, Amen.

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