The Purposeful Powerful Work of Prayer

Well take your Bible, turn back with me to Luke chapter 11. We were in Luke chapter 11 earlier in our scripture reading. Now I did read verse 1 and we went over to the heart of the teaching. I call verses 9 and 10 the heart of the teaching, but we will primarily divide verses 5 through 13. I know that we are skipping verses 2 to 4, that's the model prayer. Sometimes it's called the Lord's Prayer. Luke gives us an abbreviated version. Now that's another sermon for another day. I know that there are some that could say I can't understand how you would skip over the model prayer.

Like I said we might look at that at another time, but this morning we're going to be in verses 5 through 13. Now if you're keeping up with our series through the 10 pillars of the church, you know that we have moved past 4 of the 10 pillars. Now personally I call these 4 that we've just completed, the big 4. We've completed our study of the church. We've completed our study of the gospel. We've completed our study of the word of God or the Bible. And then we have completed our study of saving grace or salvation. Of course we looked at church membership last week, number 5.

Now I mention these 4 as the big 4 because in my view, my understanding, really these 4 are the most important. Let me explain what I mean. We could be a little erroneous or a little off in some of these other areas. We could be weak in evangelism or weak in missions and we could still be a relatively healthy church. But I do not believe we could be weak in our understanding of the institution of the church. I do not believe we could have a weak or a faulty gospel. I do not believe we could move away from the authority and the sufficiency of the scripture and heaven forbid that we move away from saving grace.

If we were to falter in any of those 4, it would be catastrophic. Now I do not say that to imply in any way that the remaining teaching is not as important. All of these 10 pillars are very, very important. Now the teaching on the 10 pillars is fundamental. I'm not sure if I've used that word. This is fundamental. I know several times I have said that this teaching is essential to the health, the function and the ultimate well-being of the church. Now I'll take this one step further. I believe that if we as a church embrace all of this teaching, what I mean by embrace it, we put our minds on our hearts and our arms around it.

If we set our hearts to study this teaching for the rest of our lives, I do not mean to say in any way that we can have all of this fully understood. I believe this is a lifelong journey. And I believe if we set our hearts to act on this teaching and what I mean by act, I mean to live it out, to practice it in the life of the church and in our own lives. I believe we will move to becoming this victorious growing church today and for many years to come. Now I've done this quite a few times because this is also heavy on my heart. I'll speak to you as your pastor here.

If you have not been keeping up with where we are in this study, I really do advise you to catch up. You can go to the church website and access those messages. You can acquire the sermon notes and let's be faithful to study what the Lord is giving us, what He's calling us to be, what He's calling us to do. I know I've said this before, but our children must look at us as individuals and as a church. They must know that this teaching is real and biblical because they see it in our lives. This must be who we are and this must be what we do. I know I've said it, I repeated I could not pastor a church that would not fully embrace this teaching.

I just could not because this is so vitally important. Now one more item by way of introduction. We have been seeing what I call over-loud within these messages. You might have noticed it. I'll explain what I mean by giving you a specific or two. If we go back and we look at the teaching on the gospel. If we go back and look at the teaching on the word or the Bible, that overlaps with our understanding of the church. What I mean by that is this all connects together. It overlaps. As the church, our primary message is the gospel. And as the church, we submit ourselves to the sufficiency and the authority of the word.

All this stuff just connects together. And much of this really, it just overlaps. And this morning we will see a lot more of this overlap. As we continue to in this work of prayer, we will see how prayer is related to many of the ten pillars, much of this teaching. So this morning this moves us to the next room in the house. I continue to use this analogy. We're just going from room to room to room. And the next room is pillar number six. That is prayer. pillar number six. That is prayer. Now let's go back to our verses if we could. We're going to start with verse one and then we'll start with the verses that we will divide verses five to 13.

So let's go back to our passages this morning. And it came about that while he, Jesus, was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray." I pause there. I've heard Bible commentators and other preachers say they did not ask to be taught to preach. They did not ask to be taught to perform great miracles. They asked the Lord to be taught how to pray. This prayer life of Jesus was so riveting and gripping that one dared to step forward. We do not know who and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." Verse five.

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves.' For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from the inside he shall answer to him and say, 'Do not bother me. The door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence or boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. And I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you.

Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you for everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened." Verse eleven. "Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his sons for a fish. He will not get up and give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?" Verse twelve. "Or if he asks for an egg, he will not get up and give him a scorpion, will he?" And then our last verse, verse thirteen.

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Now to be honest with you, we have a lot of teaching here in these verses. So much so, we could really address this in four, five, six messages to do it justice. But we need to see what we have and then I want to show you where we are going. I want to give you a breakdown. Now this is not our outline for the message and this might help you. I've given this to you before. But if you look at verse one, we have an inquiry here. We have the disciples there inquiring of Jesus.

Again, they were riveted. They were gripped by the prayer life of Jesus. And they say, "Lord, would you teach us how to pray?" And then we have the model prayer, verses two through four. Again, this is an abbreviated version. I know we have a longer version if we look at the other gospels. I know Matthew's account is longer. So we have the model, the model prayer. And then third, we have the parable. We have a parable which is in verses five through eight. That's where we'll pick up this morning in verses five through eight. A parable is an earthly story that's just cast alongside spiritual truth. And that's what we have here.

And then fourth, we have the instructions because Jesus gives his disciples instructions starting in verses nine and ten. And then fifth, we have the principle because there are some principles that are taught here to the disciples concerning prayer. That's in verses 11 and 12. And then sixth, we have a promise, a simple promise, but yet profound, very, very weighty here in verse 13. Now what I've given you here is just a breakdown of all of these verses from verse one all the way to verse 13. This could help you in your understanding and getting your mind around this teaching. But we're going to go a little further here on down the line.

Again, I want to show you where we're going. We're going to pick up in verse five and go down to verse 13. And this is how we will divide the verses. I'll give you the truths on the screens before you. Number one in our outline, we'll see the parable that's taught by Jesus. Verses five through eight. The instructions that come out of this teaching, not just the parable, but all of the teaching, that's in verses nine and ten. And the principle, this principle concerning prayer, verses 11 and 12. And then the promise, this promise about prayer connected to prayer, connected to this teaching here in verse 13. Always challenge you to take notes.

Again, we want to be on the same page here. This is who the Lord wants us to be. This is what the Lord wants us to do. I do not believe in any way we can have all of this information acquired and in our minds and hearts. We could study all of this teaching in the ten pillars the rest of our lives. And we will never get to the bottom or get to the top of the mountain. So with this subject of prayer, I want us to see our first major truth, a parable that is taught by Jesus. The parable that is taught by Jesus. Let's go back to the verses. He speaks directly to the disciples, verse two, three and four, the model prayer.

And then there's a shift, verse five. And he said to them, "Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves.' For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from inside he shall answer and say, 'Do not bother me. The door it has already been shut and my children and I are in bed and I cannot get up and give him anything.'" The last verse of the parable.

"And I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend yet because of his persistence, his boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs." Now here we have Jesus teaching his disciples. We must remember the context. This is a private meeting. Jesus with the twelve and he is teaching the disciples now through a parable. Again, he taught them in a straightforward manner with the model prayer. But we must see that a parable is an earthly story with spiritual meaning. A lot of times a parable will have a singular spiritual meaning, but many times there are other spiritual truths as well.

Now the word parable literally means to cast beside or cast alongside. An earthly story was cast alongside spiritual truth and it was meant to illustrate that spiritual truth. So the parable it was meant to teach, it was meant to illustrate, it was to demonstrate spiritual truths. Now sometimes these spiritual truths were easy to see and sometimes they were difficult. As a matter of fact, sometimes the disciples, they needed some more teaching behind the parable. Now here the scene in this story or this parable, it is really a common Jewish home where a family is all asleep in one room. Now this was well known. It was common in that day.

We might not can relate to that in our day because we live in a different time and a different culture. Many homes in that day they would have had one room and many families would sleep in one common area, maybe even on one common mat within the room. This was very common for the culture. Here for a father to get up and to open the door, he would disturb the entire family. There would have been one large door on the residence and there would have been some type of vault or lock for security. But we do see that the man in the parable does respond and he does open the door.

Some commentators that I've studied note some specifics that seem unusual here. And there are two specifically that I want to mention. First, that this traveler, he seemed to be traveling at night. Now night travel was not uncommon. Many times in that day travelers would travel at night, they would take the risk to avoid the heat of the day because it was a very, very hot climate. So this was not out of place culturally. But then second, that this friend went to another friend at such a late hour. This was unusual. But in that culture, the man inside would have been expected to provide a welcome and to meet the need that was in hand.

Many times visitors, they would be guests of others in the community, maybe even the entire community. So that was a great responsibility on the host and the man that was already asleep with his family. He had a great responsibility culturally to meet this need. Now specifically, there are two observations I want to make here. These are familiar with some of you because of our extensive time, the length of time we've stayed in these passages through the years. But first we need to see the perspective. We need to see the perspective, verses five and six.

Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and shall say to him, "Friend, lead me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to put before him." Now these first two verses in the story are meant to teach perspective, understanding, vision. I have used the word vision through the years in dealing with these verses. There is a friend who is in need of bread or a meal. He has a real life need and this need seems to come at an inopportune time, a very inconvenient time. Now the focus can't be on the travel, the inconvenience or the family.

The focus must be on the man who is at the door who has a legitimate and real need. So there's perspective, there's vision, there is a man who is in need. Then the second observation, notice the persistence. The persistence, verse seven and eight, and from inside he shall answer and say, "Do not bother me. The door has already been shut. It's locked and my children and I, we are in bed.

I cannot get up and I cannot give you anything." Verse eight I'll tell you, "Even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, his boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs." So there's persistence from the man who is in need. So here in these verses we have a very important key word. Now the New American that I'm reading from reads persistence. The English Standard Version it reads impudence, the King James' importunity. Now it can be accurately translated boldness or shameless. I like those two words.

Definitely in the margin of your Bible, definitely in your notes write the word boldness or shameless. That is very accurate to the original meaning. This is a striking word. It has a very bold meaning. This causes some to ask a question. Does this mean that if we persist long enough that God will answer our prayers? The focus here is not on God, but on the man doing the asking. Jesus is teaching shamelessness. He is teaching boldness. He is teaching persistence in prayer. So just out of these verses, out of the parable, what do we have here in the story? This is a parable that is cast alongside spiritual truth that Jesus wants to teach.

Again the audience is the disciples and ultimately it is for us. This was a common scene that all the disciples they would have been familiar with culturally. A man has a friend and he comes to him as an unexpected guest. This traveler has been on a journey and he needs a meal. The host goes to a friend at an inopportune time asking for bread for the traveler. Reluctantly the man gives his friend all that he needs for the man. The point here is persistence. The point here is boldness. The point here is shamelessness. And all of this is prayer. This is a parable to teach about prayer.

Now we see this type of prayer all throughout the scriptures. I know that I have referenced this passage back in the times when I have taught on these verses but I remember the serophoenician woman that we learned about quite a few years ago when we were in the gospel of Mark. In doing some study this week in preparation for my trip to the Philippines I found myself back dealing with these verses. Looking at this woman who is Gentile in so many ways. She was a Gentile dog and what does she do? She has a prayer life. She comes to Christ and she is persistent. She is bold. She is shameless in her prayer. And what does the Lord do?

The Lord ultimately meets her need. That is a wonderful picture of prayer that really goes alongside this teaching in Luke 11. I can't think of a better example from the Old Testament than Abraham in his intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah. Where God came and spoke to Abraham and told him he was going to judge Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham begins to intercede. He begins to intercede for who? Lot his nephew. It's a great picture of shamelessness and boldness and prayer and persistence. And what does Abraham do? He keeps going to God and going to God and going to God. God knew Abraham's heart all along.

Another example that I have spoken of so many times is the example of Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter 1. She is childless and she comes to the worship there in Shiloh and she comes in a boldness, in a shamelessness. She is so broken that Eli the priest thinks that she's drunk because she wants a child. Now what am I showing you? In the parable here, Jesus is teaching his disciples to be shameless in prayer. But we must not overlook perspective. Oh, perspective. What do we see? There is a man who is in need, he needs bread. And what do we see all around us? We see lost people all around us. We see sin all around us.

We see hurting people all around us. We see broken families all around us. And broken families produce broken children. Oh, we see an increasingly wicked culture that seems to get worse and worse all around us and we must have perspective. We must have vision and we need God to open up our eyes to all that is around us. What if Abraham had not had vision and perspective? What if this zero Phoenician woman had not had vision and perspective? What if Hannah had not had vision and perspective?

See we need God to open up our eyes to the lost humanity, the sinfulness around us, so much so that we cannot continue to live our lives as we normally do. Because perspective always leads to persistence as we progress. Let's continue on. I want us to notice our second major truth. Notice the instructions from the parable. The instructions from the parable. Jesus shifts here and I say to you verse 9, "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened." Here we have Jesus moving away from the parable.

He takes one step away and he begins to teach the disciples from the parable. Notice the language here and I say to you, remember the context, a private audience, Jesus and the Twelve. Jesus does not merely give the great parable but he begins to apply it. Oh, he begins to drive it home. Now in my personal opinion on teaching and preaching, this is the so what part. I say this regularly. This is the so what. When we're teaching it doesn't matter if it's Leviticus or Revelation or somewhere in between. So what does it mean to me? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to us? This is the so what part.

Jesus teaches the parable and now he begins to say, now this is what it means to you. And we need to see this because if we do not answer the so what, then it can just be pie in the sky. Oh, we've learned this information. That's not enough. Now, there are three observations I want to make here. First notice the position in verse 9. Notice the position. And so I say to you, ask and it should be given to you. Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be open to you. This word asking is a picture and this is the position because this is a picture of an inferior asking of a superior. That's the position.

We see this illustrated in Acts chapter three verse two and a man lame from birth was being carried whom they lay daily at the gate of the temple that is called beautiful to ask alms. He was a beggar. It was an inferior asking of those who were superior. James one verse five, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God. An inferior asking of the superior. So we must see the position here in verse nine. Then notice second, the progression. The progression verses nine and ten. Ask and then seek and then knock. And what does Jesus say in verse ten? For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and the him who knocks the door will be open.

Here we see that Jesus gives the disciples a short series of commands. He commands them to ask and then to seek and then to knock. But we can't make the mistake of seeing this as repetition. That is erroneous. We must see that this is progression. Seeking is more than asking. Knocking is more than seeking. But this is more than a one time action because of the construction of the original language. The verb tenses here communicate keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Truthfully if you were to write in the margin of your Bible, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, you would not be destroying the meaning of the text.

So there's the position, there's the progression. And then third notice the promise. Verse ten. For everyone who asks receives. He who knocks finds and the him who seeks finds and the him who knocks it shall be open. Here we see an all inclusive promise for everyone who asks. This is saying that all who ask and seek and knock the door will be open to them. Now this everyone, this is only those who are converted to Christ. This does not apply to lost people. These were the disciples, remember? Now we know that Judas was here and he was a traitor. He was traitor Judas from the beginning. He was a liar.

But this applies to the disciples and to those who know Christ. So here we have this teaching that comes from the parable. Jesus tells them exactly how they should pray. They should keep on asking and keep on asking and keep on asking. They should keep on seeking. They should keep on knocking. Now this is done with great humility because if you take out the humility, oh then you can be irreverent, isn't that right? What is the humility? We are an inferior asking of a superior and they are to keep on asking. They were to keep on seeking and they were to keep on knocking and this is done with boldness and shamelessness. See how it builds?

Again I reference Hannah from 1 Samuel chapter 1. Oh I encourage you to go study the life of Samuel. That's exactly what she did. Year after year as she went to worship she kept on asking. Year after year as she lived with the burden of being a barren woman she kept on seeking. Year after year as she kept going to worship eventually she got to the place where she was knocking. This was a shameless prayer. This was a persistent prayer. This was a bold prayer. All in great humility. Now you see how it builds?

Little church we need perspective, we need to see those who are around us and then as we engage in prayer for the lost and for our brothers and sisters and the needs of the gospel around the world we begin to pray with persistence and then it must go past persistence. It must go to this progression, this humble position but yet this progression in prayer we're asking and we're seeking and we are knocking. Let's continue on. Let's notice our third major truth. We see number three, the principle concerning prayer. The principle that is concerning prayer. We see this is out of verses 11 and 12. Now it changes again a shift.

Suppose one of you fathers is asked by a son for a fish. He will not give him a snake or a scorpion, some translations read. Instead of a fish will he or if he asks for an egg he will not give him a scorpion will he? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Now here in these two verses we see Jesus the storyteller again. Again he's a master teacher, a master illustrator, a master storyteller. Now this parable is not a continuation of the previous parable from verses 5-8. This is but it does have one common component.

There is one common component and that is food. We see the use of bread in verses 5-6. Now we see the use of a fish, an egg, some translations use the word bread and again these were ordinary things that all the disciples would have been familiar with. Now there are two observations here. First I want us to see the bizarre or the extreme examples. This is really bizarre verses 11-12. I think all of us would see this as bizarre. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish he will not give him a snake instead of a fish will he? Is it that bizarre? Or if he asks for an egg he will not give him a scorpion will he?

Now the reasoning that Jesus is presenting this as absurd, this as bizarre, the reason that he is doing this is a contrast. This would have gotten the disciples attention. Now we know that some of these disciples were married. The scripture say that Peter was married so it would be natural to assume that he had children. Now we do not definitively know that. Maybe many of these disciples were married. It would not be a stretch to say that that was the case. So they would have seen this as bizarre, they would have seen this as strange. It definitely would have gotten their attention. Then second notice the style of argument here.

The style of argument. This style of argument or reasoning was common among teachers of the day. This argument reasons from a lesser to the greater. This is how this argument works. If illustration number one is true then how much more true is illustration number two? This argument starts with sinful parents who obviously provide for their children and their needs. If this is true and it is then how much more can the disciples be certain that their father will answer that prayer? See the reasoning? Jesus is not just being bizarre. This is a teaching style from the day.

This would have caused these disciples to say, "Oh yeah, I get it." This would have caused them to say, "Oh, this is good." Their faces would have lit up. So here we see a loving Heavenly Father. We see the principle of God the Father lovingly answering the prayer of his children. He will do far more than loving fathers or earthly fathers who were sinful do. If he did not, he would tarnish his reputation. If the father did not, he would not be true to his word. This would be contrary to his character.

If the father did not, he would contradict his loving character, his gracious character, his merciful character because he is a loving Heavenly Father. Now I'll call this the principle concerning prayer, but we need to see that this is the principle concerning the Father as well. This teaches us the heart of the Father. See this helps us to correct erroneous views about God. Let me illustrate. Let me explain. You know there are people that see God the Father as this tyrant or maybe this bully. I've known people who illustrated it or said it like this. I just grew up thinking that God was like a big policeman in the sky.

I'll never forget years ago and I know I've used this illustration many times. There was a lady in our church, a dear sweet lady back when I was a layman, and she gave a verbal testimony about how she had a warped sense of who God the Father was because she grew up with a tyrant of a father. She just said I always saw God the Father as a tyrant, as a policeman in the sky, ready to bop me over the head every time I did something wrong. She grew up like that and for years she had an erroneous view of God. Now let me pause here. Let me say this as your pastor. Fathers you be careful how you discipline your children.

You be careful how you relate to your wife around the home. You be careful how you relate to your family because as your children grow up whether they know it or not, they see God the Father maybe like they see you. This dear Christian lady grew up thinking that God the Father was like a tyrant or a bully. But you know sometimes people can grow up thinking that God the Father is in this high ivory tower, never accessible. That's not the case here. He's a loving heavenly Father. Do we not see this? We need to see this people. Our God is a loving heavenly Father and that does not diminish His holiness.

It does not diminish His justice or His wrath. No, it does not. We have a loving heavenly Father. Now let's continue on our fourth major truth and this is the shortest. Truth number four, we see the promise connected to prayer. Verse 13, "And if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him." Now here at the end of verse 13, we see a promise. We see a promise in this answered prayer. This promise is much more than just answered prayer. Now let's think for a moment about who this letter was intended for.

The readers would have read this after Pentecost. This is very important. Now the disciples heard this before Pentecost, but the readers of the book would have read this after Pentecost. Therefore they would have understood the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now for the disciples, they would only come to understand this fully after Pentecost. In John, we saw that Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would teach them. The Holy Spirit would remind them of His teaching. Where there came a day when the Holy Spirit came, and all that Jesus had taught them, the Spirit brought all that back to their mind and their heart and their understanding.

So for the disciples, these truths would have been brought back to them through the ministry and the work of the Spirit in their life. So here we see the promise is the giving of the Holy Spirit to them as their need. Go back to the verse, verse 13. If you then, being sinful, what is He saying? You're sinful, not like the Heavenly Father. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Now I repeat as to their need. This is not some second blessing. I need to say that. This is not some second outpouring of the Spirit.

This is not a perversion of sound teaching concerning the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. If they were in need of salvation in someone's life, the work of the Spirit, the ministry of the Spirit is promised. If they were in need of comfort and encouragement, the work and the ministry of the Spirit is promised. Every need that they could have had could be met through who? The ministry and the work of the Spirit. That's what they are seeing here. For us, we must see that as Christians, we have the promised ministry of the Spirit within us. It's the Spirit that reminds us. It's the Spirit that encourages us. It's the Spirit that teaches us.

It's the Spirit that enables us to witness to the lost. Listen, we must believe in the Holy Spirit. I've said this so many times, but it's so true. Oh, the white goes on TV. The crazy Charismatics have made us Baptists afraid of the Spirit and we can't be. Now I want to move away from the teaching out of verse 11 or chapter 11, and I want to move to some application of this teaching, and this relates to the ten pillars of the church. This is this overlap, okay? This connection of all of this teaching that I was talking about. There are three points of application I will make here if time allows.

First, we must see that this teaching affects how we approach the church. We learn that we should have a mighty expectation concerning the church. Christ Jesus is the sole owner, and He stated in Matthew 16, 18 that He would build His church. The church has a victorious future, and Jesus said that the gates of death, the gates of hell, the gates of the grave cannot overpower the church. So how does this teaching on prayer apply to us? We can come shamelessly. We can come boldly in prayer for the work of the church. We come as an inferior to our superior Lord Jesus Christ. We come to a loving Heavenly Father who desires to build His church.

What institution has He given kingdom work to? Where does He get glory on earth? He has promised to do His work. Some might say, "Pastor, you're being a little bold, aren't you?" Remember our illustration when we looked at the church? Remember I brought a pair of old nasty, dirty work gloves, grease and diesel? Remember that illustration? See Christ is the hand, and we're the glove, and He does the work of the church through us. No, this is not bold.

He has declared to do this work, and we can take this teaching on prayer, and we can boldly come to the throne of grace expecting God to do the work of the church through us and answer to our prayer. It all applies. It all fits together. Second, we must see that this teaching affects how we approach salvation, our saving grace. This one's probably the most important for some of you. We learn the awful truth that all men are sinners. All men are sinners. Men are sinners by nature. All of us who have inherited a sin nature from our Father Adam, and through the sin of attitude and action, we are sinners.

Men are hopeless and helpless outside of Christ, but we learn that God provided a way of salvation through Christ and His sacrifice on the cross. But we learn something very, very important. A man must be regenerated by God first. Man must experience the mysterious work of the new birth first. Man must have a work of God first so that he can trust and can believe and can place his faith in Christ. Man will never repent. Man will never turn from sin and turn to Christ unless he experiences the new birth. So this definitely applies to this work. Again, you might say, "Pastor, is it this a little bone?" No, it is not.

First Timothy chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 teach us that God desires that all men be saved. He says it. I desire that all men be saved. Now I question, will all men be saved? No. No. There is a difference between what God desires and what God decrees to do. That is God's business which we cannot fully understand, and I never can fully explain it. But what do we see? We see the heart of God that he desires to save sinners so we can come shamelessly. We can come bold as an inferior to our superior Lord Jesus and we can beg for the work of the Spirit in sinners' lives to save them.

And then third, real quickly, we must see that this teaching affects how we approach God's Word. We learn that God's Word is inspired by God. God's Word is sufficient and it is authoritative for all matters of life and for the life of the church. So how does this teaching in Luke 11 apply to this? As we come to study God's Word corporately, as we study God's Word individuals, we can pray as beggars who need bread. We need the Word of God. We need understanding and wisdom from God's Word.

This is our need and we see a loving Heavenly Father who promises to give the work of the Spirit in us to teach us and to guide us and to counsel us and to correct us. And this prayer applies to us as we are under the Word of God even now. Again, is this too bold, Pastor? No. God desires that we know and understand His Word. This must be our food. This must be what satisfies us and we can pray, "God, You must do this work in us." He wants it more than we do. Now we don't have time to go, "Father, this teaching on prayer applies to evangelism, it applies to missions." It just goes on and on. We will get there.

Prayer applies to all that we are learning within this study of the Ten Pillars. And this is the secret. This is the secret behind the scenes work, behind all of this teaching, all of the teaching on the Ten Pillars. This is the secret behind the scenes work. This work of prayer is purposeful. Yes, it is purposeful. This work of prayer is powerful. And this work of prayer is our Word. Our Word. Now I've wrestled over the title of the message this week, especially last night and early this morning. I have titled these messages out of Luke 11 so many different things.

But for us this morning, I see it as what I call a purposeful, powerful work of prayer. This prayer, this work has purpose. It all fits to what God's teaching us. It's powerful because He promises to work and it is work because it is our job. And we do this because we love God, love His Son Christ Jesus, and we want to be a part of all that He is doing. Let's pray.