PRAY Like Jesus: Ask

For week 3 of the “PRAY Like Jesus” series, we actually had decent weather (and by decent, I mean it was still a high of 3° F outside) and were able to gather for worship in the St. Peter Lutheran Church building!

This week we’re talking about the “A” in PRAY, for “Ask.” The texts I’ve chosen are Philippians 4:4-7, Psalm 86:1-7, and Luke 11:1-13. Technically this is Transfiguration Sunday, but we pretty much ignored that for this year.

I found essays on Luke 11:1-13 from Michelle Voss Roberts and Lewis F. Galloway in Feasting on the Gospels: Luke, Volume 1 (Amazon link) particularly helpful in preparing this sermon.

No video this week, but here’s the sermon:

Before I get into the sermon, I need to warn you: This will be the least satisfying sermon in this series on prayer.

If this is your first week of this series, go watch the videos of the first two weeks on the church Facebook page: I’m on much more solid ground talking about Praise and Repent.

Today, we get to the A in pray: Ask, and at least for me, asking is the hardest part of praying. Not because I don’t like asking, but because I so rarely see clear evidence of God answering.

As a kid, I heard the verse where Jesus says, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” and I remember one day walking through the woods and looking at a fallen over tree and wondering, “What would happen if I prayed for this tree to move?”

I believed Jesus’ promise, but I was pretty sure the tree wouldn’t actually move, so I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t pray for that to happen, because if the tree stayed right where it was, what would that say about my faith?

Asking in prayer is dangerous, because what if God doesn’t say yes? Maybe you’ve had the same concern. You’re not alone. In fact, notice that of all the parts of the Lord’s Prayer, it’s the asking Jesus expands on to the disciples.

He gives them some examples of a parent’s eagerness to give gifts to their children, and then Jesus says, if you then, who are evil—You’re basically an evil lot—If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give to those who ask him.

He also tells a story about a guy who answers a request late at night for some bread, because the one asking is persistent. That word “persistence” can also be translated as shamelessness, or even audacity. It’s not so much about negotiating until God gets tired and gives in to your prayers (although that happens sometimes in the Bible too); it’s about our willingness to audaciously go to God in need of help.

When we ask in prayer, we’re putting our needs in God’s hands. God may give us what we want, or God may not, but by asking God, we’re admitting our own powerlessness.

We’re glorifying God. We’re letting God set us free from our burdens. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” We’re not meant to carry everything ourselves. Take it to the Lord in prayer.

This is why we have prayer groups and a prayer chain. We pray for others in times of need because often, there’s nothing else we can do, but we know someone who can do more, who knows far more than we do about what’s needed.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus mentions asking God for daily bread. Martin Luther says “daily bread” is “everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, farm, fields, livestock, money property…peace, health, decency…and the like.” (Small Catechism)

When you pray, it’s ok to be more specific. It’s ok to pray for specific needs, or for specific people. It’s even ok to pray for ourselves, including asking God to deliver us from evil and help us avoid temptation. The Bible is full of examples of asking God for help, like the Psalm we read.

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. During Lent, try writing down your specific prayers in a prayer journal. When we get to Easter, go back through and see how God has answered them.

Bill Hybels puts it like this:

“Nothing is too big for God to handle or too small for him to be interested in. Still, I sometimes wonder if my requests are legitimate. So, I’m honest with God. I say, ‘Lord, I don’t know if I have the right to ask for this. I don’t know how I should pray about it. But I lift it to you and if you’ll tell me how to pray, I’ll pray your way.” (Too Busy Not to Pray, Page 70)

God promises the Holy Spirit works in the gaps of our prayers, nudging us to pray.

We don’t have to go through some elaborate formula to ask God. If you want to write all your prayers in the form of a haiku, that’s great, but God doesn’t give you extra credit points for rhyming or using more syllables.

God listens even if you don’t end with “Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.” God is not a vending machine where once you’ve inserted correct change, you can punch in the right code to get what you want.

That’s both good and bad news. It’s bad news, because it’d be kind of nice to have a sky fairy grant all my wishes. I have all kinds of things I’d ask for if I knew that by just saying the right formula or believing the right thing, I’d receive whatever I asked for.

But it’s also good news, because God not being a vending machine means we can’t manipulate God. That’s tremendously comforting when you’re facing the reality that God’s answer is not always yes.

If there were a precise formula where if you pray right, then God is guaranteed to grant your request, then it’s my fault my aunt didn’t wake up from the coma she was in for a month. It’d mean I didn’t have enough faith, or I didn’t use the right words. Somehow I didn’t pray well enough and therefore my aunt died.

But there’s no code to manipulate God. The answer to prayer is not always yes.

Sometimes, we can look back later and see why. If you’re a parent and your four-year-old son comes and says, “Daddy, may I play with the carving knives? Please?” your answer is going to be “No” precisely because you’re a loving parent. (This illustration comes from Nicky Gumbel in an Alpha course video) Sometimes we as God’s children need protecting from ourselves, and even though we can’t understand it, God knows far better what we need than we do.

Looking back, I assume God would have answered my prayer to move a tree with a “no” because what I was asking didn’t line up with God’s will, and God knew better.

Other times, there’s no explanation this side of heaven why God doesn’t answer yes to a prayer. I had a funeral yesterday in Allison for Wayne Wiegmann. On Monday night, I was in a hospital room with his family praying that somehow, miraculously, he’d wake up without brain damage, praying for him to live. He didn’t wake up. I know God didn’t plan for Wayne to collapse on Monday, but I can’t understand why God didn’t do a miracle there. Yet I believe Jesus when he says God is more loving than any good parent.

Sometimes, what keeps me believing and praying is knowing that this broken world God loves, that God created and called good, is still in the process of redemption and restoration. God’s kingdom is coming and is among us and yet is not fully realized, tragedies still happen.

Miracles do happen, but death happens too.I told you there wouldn’t be satisfying answers at the end of this sermon!

Ultimately, we keep coming to God in prayer and asking because Jesus tells us to. God wants to hear from us. Even if the answer is no, even if the healing doesn’t come, even if there’s no way we can understand what’s going on, or see God at work in our world, we are still called to come to God with our needs, with our hopes, with our dreams and requests.

Our prayers are not going to surprise or manipulate God, but the results of our praying may surprise and change us.

We don’t ask for daily bread because God forgets we need to eat. Luther says, “In fact, God gives daily bread without our prayer, even to all evil people, but we ask in this prayer that God cause us to recognize what our daily bread is and to receive it with thanksgiving.” (Small Catechism)

Listen again to Paul: “The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Next week, we’ll get to the line about God’s will being done and not ours, and we’ll talk about what it means to yield our will to God’s in prayer. The answers are up to God, but the command is clear: Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Finally, look at what Jesus promises as God’s answer to prayer. It’s the last verse of the Gospel reading: “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!” Maybe God’s response includes the specific thing you asked for, or maybe it doesn’t.

But when we pray, God always promises to give us the Holy Spirit. God gives Godself to us, which is more than we deserve, or ask for, or even comprehend.

Ultimately, praying leads us into a deeper relationship with God, the one who gives us the gift of life, sometimes here in this world, and always forever in God’s kingdom.
Amen

Continue to week 4 of the “PRAY Like Jesus” series here.