How Our Perception Shapes Our Prayer.

I'm going to invite you to find your way back to your seat today. If you have your Bibles, you can pull them out to Luke chapter 11. If not, it'll be on the screen.

I'm going to read from Luke chapter 11, starting in verse 1, going through verse 13:

One day, Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'" Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him.' Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' "I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him."

Luke 11:1-13

God, we thank you today for your word that is alive and active. We thank you for your Holy Spirit who is present with us, and we thank you for your son Jesus, whose death and resurrection made way for us to commune with you for all of eternity.

We acknowledge your presence here in this space and we ask that your Holy Spirit would take these words and speak to us. Would you use these words to transform our hearts and our lives? It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

How do you see prayer?

I have a question today that I want to start with. We're entering into this new series on prayer where we're going to talk about the practice of prayer and how we can practice prayer. Before we get into that, I want you to take a moment and think: when you hear the word prayer, what comes to mind? If you're taking notes, you can even just jot a few things down.

When you hear prayer, what comes to mind? I also want you to pay attention to how you feel in this moment. Do you start to feel excited, like "I love prayer"? Do you start to feel a little tense? Do you start to feel a little anxious? Or are you thinking, "Oh no, is someone going to ask me how often I pray or when I pray?"

Prayer can bring up a lot of things for a lot of people. Over the next few weeks, we're going to talk a lot about prayer and how, like every spiritual discipline, prayer is something to be practiced. Prayer is often summed up as simply talking to God, which it is. But prayer is so much more than that.

As we talk about prayer, we want this series to be more than just talking. We want to continue to practice prayer together and practice communing with God. In this moment, I want you to think and start to take note of how do I feel and what do I think of?

In the text we read, Jesus is talking to a community of people. He's talking to his disciples. He's teaching them how to pray in the context of community. Just like all spiritual practices, we were never meant to just practice things alone. One of the greatest gifts we have is this community around us to continue to practice the ways of Jesus together.

I used to lead worship for many years of my life, and a lot of my friends back home still have never heard me preach or teach. I shared recently that one of my friends came and visited, and it's still a little funny. They're like, "Oh yeah, I forget you don't really lead worship all that much anymore." Well, the past couple months I have just a little bit more here at church. I've sung and I've played keys again, and what's interesting is that even though I don't play as much with a team or in public settings, I still play and I practice a lot on my own. But practicing on my own can only get me so far.

It's not until I'm up here playing with a team again that I realize the importance of having a team around me. Because I can sit and think I'm playing in the right tempo and the right time when I'm on my own in my room. And then all of a sudden I get up here and I'm like, "Oh no, I need that drum to keep me in tempo. I need the other voices to help me stay in tune." We need each other and we're better when we start to practice together.

When I'm only practicing by myself, when I show up to play, it's not very good. But when I've practiced with a team and I've relied on them to help carry the parts where I can't, it's that much more beautiful. We're going to be talking about this and practicing together over the next few weeks leading up to November, when we're going to have a united week of prayer taking place all across Madison. Churches are going to come together and fill prayer rooms across the city for 24-7. Our prayer room, which on Sundays is where our lovely kids are playing and hanging out, during the week we'll open that up as a prayer room. We're going to ask all of us and other churches in Madison to join us in trying to fill that room as often as we can throughout that week with prayer.

Why? Because prayer matters. Jesus prayed and Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Just as the disciples were apprentices of Jesus and were in the process of becoming like him, we too are apprentices of Jesus. We want to become like our teacher. We want to follow his footsteps. We want to be people in constant communication and constant communion with the Father. And our pathway to that is prayer.

Today I want to highlight three stories in Scripture where people communicated with God and communed with Jesus. I want to talk about how they talked to Jesus and how they approached him. Every week we have a "so what" and a "now what." The so what is, what is this all about? The now what is, what in the world do we do with this information?

Our so what is this: how we see God changes how we seek God. Now what do we do with that? We'll come up with a plan and determine the practices that you're going to do in prayer.

Pray like God really hears you, like he can heal you, and that he longs for heaven to flow through you. How we seek God is a direct reflection of how we see God. If we believe that someone hears us, we're going to talk to them. If we believe that someone likes us, we're going to want to be around them. We know the feeling when someone doesn't want to be around us, right? We know what it feels like to not be welcomed.

The first story: God hears us

The first thing I want to talk about today is this reality: God does hear us. There's a story in the Gospels that's told a couple of different times in Luke chapter 10, in John 11, and later John 12 mentions Martha again. It's the story of Mary and Martha.

Martha and Mary collectively invite Jesus to their home. Martha is preparing the meal while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus. We often hear this story told, and usually it's presented like, "Why was Martha so busy working while Mary was doing what is right?" And Jesus affirms what Mary is doing. When Martha comes to Jesus complaining about her sister, Jesus affirms that Mary's sitting at his feet is the one thing that is important, and that won't be taken away from her.

But here's what I want to highlight in this story: Jesus tells Martha she's worried about too many things. The one thing that is important is to commune with Jesus, to be with Jesus, to be at his feet.

Later we see another instance where after their brother Lazarus dies, Jesus raises him back to life. Martha runs to meet Jesus. I love this interaction because we already have recorded in Scripture that first time where Martha came to Jesus complaining. Jesus met her with compassion while revealing that she should be after communion with him.

Now Martha comes to him again and starts to question. She's saying, "Why did you not come sooner? Why did you let my brother die? Why did you let these things happen?"

Here's what I love about this story: Martha runs to meet Jesus and the way she's expressing herself makes it very clear that she knew she could come and talk to him. She knew she could bring even her questions and her frustrations, her "what in the world are you doing? I don't understand" type of conversations to Jesus. She felt welcomed in his presence. She knew that Jesus heard her, even in the moments when things weren't going the way she had hoped.

She didn't pretend around Jesus, but she had this honest conversation and it shows that she still felt safe in his presence.

This past week, I walked into my brother's home with my Diet Coke from McDonald's in one hand, with my work bag and my computer falling out of the other arm, and somehow on that arm, still a giant bag from Trader Joe's. My groceries. I didn't have time to drop off before coming over. I just said, "Hey," as I'm slipping my shoes off and proceeding to unload my groceries in their fridge without asking permission and saying, "Oh yeah, I just got to store some stuff here while we hang out. I'll get it later before I go home."

Wednesday night, I went to a friend's house. I'd met him, but I'd never met his wife or his kids. When I walk into their house, I brought them some nice chocolates for dessert. I asked where I should put my shoes. I introduced myself to his wife and his kids. I asked where I should sit at the table.

Why? Because when we feel known and welcomed by people and we're close enough to them where their home becomes our home and their place becomes our place, sometimes you feel comfortable to come in and bring all that you are, including quite literally your baggage sometimes. But when someone's a stranger to you, you're a little more polite. You're a little more reserved.

There is a difference. In both places, I was invited and welcomed. But in one place, I knew that all of me was welcomed and that I could bring my whole self when I walk into the room.

How we see people changes how we approach them, changes how we interact with them. Jesus doesn't just invite us, but he welcomes us. All of us. When we start to see our Father as a Father who welcomes us fully, that changes the way we approach him. When we start to see Jesus as someone who welcomes us fully, it changes the questions we ask and the way we talk to him.

We no longer feel like, "I can't tell him that maybe I'm frustrated that he didn't heal me when I wanted him to." We no longer have to pretend, "I'm frustrated that I didn't get this job or this promotion or I still don't know how you're going to provide and the timeline isn't lining up." Because when we trust that he will come through and he welcomes all that we are, it changes how we approach him.

Another thing I love about this story is that Mary talked to Jesus in a very intimate place. A lot of commentators have noted that sitting at his feet would have been, culturally, just about as intimate as being alone in a bedroom with the door closed with him. This was a bit scandalous. It wasn't the most appropriate thing. It would have been disrespectful. Which is even more reason why Martha was like, "What is happening?"

But she felt safe enough to come without feeling as if she was being rude or imposing on Jesus. When Martha later approaches Jesus after Lazarus died with those very honest questions of "Where were you? Why did you let this happen?" it just shows again the intimacy that she had.

When I don't know someone that well, I have a harder time confronting them. When I don't fully trust that they might be for me, I'm going to speak a little bit differently depending on how well we know each other. But Martha had practiced bringing her questions to Jesus. The honesty starts to level up because she had practiced coming to Jesus and talking to Jesus.

So when we talk about practicing prayer, this is what we're talking about: the more risk we start to take in saying, "Okay, God, I'm going to be really honest in this moment," and we watch the way he meets us. We're going to continue to grow that discipline and feel safer and safer coming to him with all that we are.

The other thing I love about this is that Jesus was her first call. When you need to talk to someone, who's your first call? Who's your go-to? When I'm in the middle of a situation and I need to call someone, who do I need to talk about this with?

You typically call the person you're most confident is going to pick up. You call the person you're confident will pick up because you're confident they care, and that confidence is usually based on the way they've picked up for you in the past.

How we seek God is a reflection of how we see God. We need confidence in approaching him, knowing that he hears us and he's going to pick up because he cares for us. He cares for us so deeply and he's longing for us to call. Scripture is full of these reminders.

I recognize that even as I speak some of these words, there can be, "I've asked God for things and I've never had a response, or I feel like I've been talking to God and I'm not hearing anything." One of the best places we can go is right back to Scripture and remember that everything there can speak to us today through the power of his Holy Spirit.

I want to take a moment right now and read a few scriptures that talk about how God cares for us:

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never let the righteous be shaken.

Psalm 55:22

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

Philippians 4:6

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?

Matthew 6:30

What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Psalm 8:4

This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:9-10

God loves us and cares about us so much so that he sent his Son Jesus to be the sacrificial atoning lamb for our sins, to pay the price for our sins. He cares. Because we know that he cares, we can have confidence that when we call, he will pick up.

His answers might not always come the way we expect them to. His voice might sound a little different in the seasons as we grow and change, but he's there and he's with us and he cares.

The second story: God is healer

The next thing is this: if we believe God is healer, then we will ask him. In Luke 11, after the part where it talks about the Lord's Prayer, Jesus starts telling a story:

Suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him." And suppose the one inside answers, "Don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything." I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity, he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open. For everyone who asks receives. The one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Luke 11:5-10

At first you kind of read that and think, "Which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight?" The significance here is cultural context. Everybody there would have understood family dynamics and household dynamics. At that time, all the families probably would have slept in one room together. At the middle of the night, they would have all been there sleeping together.

So he's talking about a friend coming and knocking. They would have all been awakened. He's not just waking one person, but the whole entire household. The household would have had babies, kids, aunties, uncles, all the people living in one tight little space. They're recognizing that if someone is coming, that's a sign of persistence.

He's saying, "I'm going to answer that call when I see someone's persistence." It's not like you're having a craving for some bread at 8 p.m. and you're like, "Got any bread?" That's not the situation. But you're desperate because you're not just showing up to someone's house in the middle of the night because you had a slight craving. It's because you need the bread.

God often waits for our passionate persistence in prayer. This isn't because he's reluctant or needs to be persuaded. Our persistence does not change God, but in the process of us continuing to pray and being persistent, what it does is change us. We start to develop a heart posture that shifts from saying, "God, I need this thing and this thing is everything" to the more we persist in prayer and ask God for those things, our heart starts to shift to coming to God saying, "You are everything. And if this happens, so be it. And if not, you're still enough."

That is a position of prayer that is hard for us to get to. It takes a level of persistence and also recognizing that God is not holding back from us because God already gave us everything through his Son, Jesus. God doesn't hold back from us simply because he longs to change us, but often because in that practice and the process of prayer, we are being changed. And that is one of the benefits that happens when we commune with God. Time after time, he transforms us and changes us more into his likeness until we get to that place of saying, "God, even if you're still enough."

At the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, one of the things we see is that Jesus saw God as Father. He's using the illustration in this story of the Father coming and persisting and getting the bread because Jesus saw him as Father. He saw God as a Father that wants good things for his children. One of those good things that he wants for his children is he longs for us to be healed and for us to be whole.

There's a story of the woman with the issue of blood. It's in Mark 5, verses 25 through 34. It's also in Matthew chapter 9 and Luke chapter 8, if you want to go back and read these accounts. The context is that Jesus is on his way to go heal Jairus's daughter, a synagogue leader whose daughter was very sick. Jesus is on his way. There's a lot of commotion, a lot of people around.

This woman had been bleeding for 12 years. She's spent all her money on doctors. She has nothing left. She has not found any relief. Her condition has only worsened. So at this moment, as an act of faith, she had heard about Jesus and his healing power. Out of faith, she is persistent in pursuing him to find that healing.

As Jesus passed through a crowd, she approached him from behind and touched his cloak. An immediate healing happened. The moment she touched his garment, she felt the bleeding stop and knew that she was healed. And Jesus' response here, I love this because he noticed that something had left. The power had left him. And he turns and he says, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples are standing there and they're puzzled and confused. As many people are pressing around him, many people are touching him, and he's saying, "Who touched my clothes?" They're kind of like, "Everybody is touching your clothes, Jesus." But the woman then trembling with fear approached Jesus, knowing that it was her that he was talking to. And I want you to know how Jesus responds to her. Jesus calls her daughter. He says, "Daughter, your faith has healed you."

Mark 5:25-34

Daughter. Not "how dare you in this public setting when I'm on my way to do another miracle, you're asking for more of me? Like, why would you do that? Why didn't you introduce yourself first?" No. He says, "Daughter." She came in faith and touched him.

How she sees Jesus seems to be a little complex in this moment, because she saw him as healer and she had enough faith to persist and go through the crowd to touch him. Yet it says she was trembling in fear when he turned around. The fear of God can be this awe and wonder of who he is. But I can't help but wonder if in this context, it was a little more like, "Am I going to get in trouble?"

Because of her issue with blood, she would not have been allowed to worship with other people. She would not have been allowed to be in other public gatherings. She would have been shamed. I'm sure many times when she came asking for healing, she was turned away because it's like, "You're too ill. You're too sick. You're too disgusting. You're too far gone. We can't have you around us."

So there was probably a bit of that. Not just awe and wonder of who God was, even though she recognized she was being healed, but also like, "Am I about to be shamed again?" How she saw Jesus was a little bit complex in this moment. However, when he turned and she was afraid, he met her and affirmed her as a daughter.

Sometimes I think we get too caught up in the complexities of how we see Jesus and we start to think, "Can I see him as healer and also be a little scared that he's not going to heal me? Can I see him as the one that forgives my sins and also be afraid that I'm never going to get over this sin pattern in my life? Can I see him as the one that loves me and welcomes me, yet also have a little bit of shame when I come before him?"

These complexities keep us stuck from approaching Jesus. But what we see is that when we come to Jesus with all that we are, he welcomes us and he does not call us by our identities or the names we have started to put on ourselves. But he calls us by our true identity as his child. He sees us as redeemed. He sees us as healed. He sees us as whole. He sees us as his and he welcomes us.

That's how he sees us. So that's how he seeks us and pursues us. If he looks around this room today and he says, "I don't care how old you are, but I see you as my child. And so I'm going to seek you as my child. I'm going to forgive you as my child. I'm going to love you as my child."

How we see God changes how we seek him. Do we see him as the one that loves us and forgives us and heals us over and over again? What does it look like for us to pray to him and talk to him like that?

How do you see God? I want to give you a minute to think about that. Who do you see him to be? Is he just like this big boss up in the sky. Powerful, but not loving? Or is he loving, but you're like, "I don't know about his power." Do you see him as just like this Santa Claus figure where you pray and you ask for things you want and you hope you get it when Christmas comes?

How do you see God? Because how you see God is going to change how you interact with him. It's going to change how you approach him. It's okay if how we see God is a little complex because you're not alone. We see that in so many stories and Scriptures. But if we desire to be people that are healed, that are restored, made whole, then we need to start to see God for who he is so that we can approach him in that way.

I want to read some scriptures over us:

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Isaiah 40:29

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

Lord, my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.

Psalm 32

The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.

Psalm 41:3

By his wounds, we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.

Psalm 103:2-3

When we see God as a healer, a God who has compassion and is kind, that is when we can approach him with confidence that he cares and will meet us with compassion. In the same way that woman did. She was almost expecting a rebuke like, "I was healed, but also you didn't do it in the right way." But the Lord doesn't meet our requests with rebukes. He meets us with intimate invitation to be his child. Sometimes there's rebuke that does happen in moments where he's like, "Okay, we've got to straighten these things out." But first, it's child. First, it's child.

The third reality: heaven flows through us

The final thing I want to talk about today is how God longs to let heaven flow through us. He longs for his kingdom, his glory, his power to flow through us. And it's our surrender that lets it.

Luke starts when he's talking about the Lord's Prayer. This story with Jesus and his disciples in chapter 11. He starts by quoting that Jesus says, "When you pray, say this. Father." He starts with "our Father." It isn't until the middle of the passage that he tells them to ask God for anything.

At that time, there would have been a lot of Jewish practices around common prayers that different people would recite. So this idea of Jesus saying, "Pray this" or "Pray this way," was not uncommon. That was very common. That's even why we pray sometimes things like the Lord's Prayer or we will pray the Psalms. That's still a great prayer practice, to pray pre-written prayers, a way for us to connect to God.

But here's what I love about this. All throughout Scripture, all throughout the Jewish prayers and the Jewish practices, this is the moment where someone for the first time, and that someone being Jesus, addresses God as Father. Growing up in the church, no matter what type of church you grew up in, you probably have had that idea that God is our Father. Jesus is the first one here to address him as that. He felt welcomed enough to come to him and to call him Father.

I recognize too, when we say this, that that can be difficult for a lot of people because our relationships with our earthly fathers can be really complex. So I want to name that because our earthly relationships and dynamics do not always represent the love of our heavenly Father and our heavenly parent. It can be hard to separate that. But I want us to take some time today to name how we see God and who we see God to be in our life.

Because I truly believe that if we want to be people that seek his kingdom come, that say, "Yes, we want to pray and we want to seek you knowing that God, you hear us and you care and you're going to pick up when we call." And if we want to be people that say, "We want to pray and we want to see healing and we want to see restoration and we want to see people be made whole all across this world. And we want to see heaven flow through us." Then we first need to see God as our Father. As a God who's good. As a God who loves us. As a God who not only picks up when we call but he cares and he has compassion. His first response to our first call will always be "child." He will welcome us as child.

How we see God will change how we seek him. I want to invite you to take a moment now. Whether it is just writing it down or it's just in your head, just praying and thinking: is it hard for you to say God is Father? And if so, would you take a moment and would you invite the Holy Spirit to show you? Is there anything inside of me that needs to be healed?

The next part is thinking: is it hard for you to see God as powerful? Because we have seen so many people in power use that power for corruption and evil and selfishness. I want to invite you to take a moment and just say, "Holy Spirit, when I think of God and I think of even the scriptures that were read, what's hard for me? What is hard for me to see God as? As Father? As all-powerful? As a God of love?" And as you do that, would you just say, "Holy Spirit, would you show me? Where is there healing that needs to take place in my life right now?"

The practice of prayer starts with the practice of seeing God for who he is, as a Father, as holy, as King, as one that we can trust, as one that's worth following and giving our lives to. As we pray today and you continue to pray, I want to invite you to take these next few moments to continue to pray, to continue to invite the Holy Spirit to come and show you any false identities, any complex realities, anything that you need to just set aside to say, "God, this is how I see you. Will you show me who you are? Because I want to see you rightly."

Holy Spirit, we welcome your voice in this place. Would you come and would you speak? Would you show us where healing needs to take place in our lives? Holy Spirit, we invite you. Would you show us any false identities that we have placed on you? We ask that you would continue to reveal to us any false identities or complex realities of who you are that we have taken on. Things that we have put on you that are not of you, would they just be gone in the name of Jesus?

If there's pieces and places in our hearts and our lives that we need healing so that we can see you rightly, will you come and will you heal that? Will you restore us, God? Will you pour your love out among us in this place? We desire to seek first your kingdom. We want your kingdom to come and your will to be done in our lives and in this city and all across the world. Lord, would you help us to see you rightly so that we can let heaven flow through us? We ask this in your name. Amen.