Christ prayed ceaselessly... DO YOU?

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Welcome back to the Iron Saints Podcast with your host, Dan Willis.

Welcome back, saints. It's a new day and we are headed further into Luke 11. Before we get going, just a huge shout out to all of you who have taken the time to listen. It's really encouraging to see people going back and starting at the very first episode and working their way through. Uh, I encourage you guys, if that's The way you want to do it, go right ahead and do it. If you want to stick around and just pick up where we are, that's also fantastic. I would just have a quick ask, guys, that if you're enjoying the program, if you guys would consider leaving a review or sharing this out to your communities, it's a great way to help the podcast to grow and reach more people, which is ideally a hope that I have. Regardless, I'm going to keep at this, but I would love to see more and more men coming together and diving into devotion daily. Uh, but with that being said, let's get going and move into Luke chapter 11 today. So as always, guys, I will be reading from the ESV. I welcome you to follow along and encourage you to follow along in whatever translation or paraphrase that you want. Um, feel free to take the time, you know, pause the podcast, go run and grab that if you can. It's always ideal to have that. Copy of Bible in your hands so you can take notes and underline and add your own thoughts for sure. If not though, I understand there's a lot of you that are at work or commuting and this is how you get to read that passage of scripture just by listening and that's fine too. I always make a point of reading out loud but I'm going to read from the ESV. That's my preferred translation so Reading from the ESV, we're going to start at Luke 11. Here we go. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. And he said to them, which of you has had a friend, will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me 3 loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him? And he will answer from within, do not bother me, the door is now shut, my children are with me in bed, I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! So we get Luke's account of the Lord's Prayer, and then we also get a little parable tacked on to the end of this one. So double whammy today. Now, obviously, for those of you that do the traditional Lord's Prayer, this is going to be different than the one that we find in Matthew. It's a little bit shorter, but he also fleshes it out a little bit more when he gets into the parable at the end of this. The big one here is When he pairs these two together, it it really does draw the focus less to the Lord's Prayer and more to the teaching that follows immediately afterwards. Right? When you're we're praying, give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. We ourselves forgive everyone who's indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. It's interesting that he immediately follows that with the parable of a man knocking on a door asking for bread.

Now.

What I like about this is it provides us the clarity of how prayer is supposed to work. If you were genuinely hungry and couldn't feed your family and you had a friend next door that you knew had bread, the time of day isn't really going to matter. You are going to knock on the door and the friend is going to be in the house. You know he's going to be there. You know he's going to have the bread. You're going to knock and you're going to keep knocking because you need to feed your family. And it's interesting that the Lord makes that simple relation with prayer where you have a relationship, and that's the foundation of this, right? It's not about, well, you're so demanding, you're so needy, you're always asking for things. That's not the point. The point of this is you have a relationship. The person you're coming to, you have a relationship with. And this isn't just a friend that we have a relationship with when we're coming with the Lord's Prayer. This is a Father, right? This is Abba. It's an amazing relationship that we have where God who need not love us has chosen to love us. A God who has chosen to protect us, guide us, lead us, shape us, mold us, challenge us. And so Christ is saying, when you pray, ask. But there may be also a touch of ask ceaselessly because we're called to pray ceaselessly. Nobody likes it when somebody's just knocking on the doorbell endless or knocking on the door endlessly or ringing the doorbell endlessly, right? Eventually they're going to come to the door. And I think that's what he's trying to get us to grasp here is this idea of what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent, or if he asks for an egg, give him a scorpion? Okay, great. So if those who are evil know how to give good gifts to their children, why then wouldn't the Father give us the gifts that we are asking for? So long as the thing that you're asking for isn't From temptation, so he keeps tying back this lesson to everything that he is outlining in the Lord's Prayer here. But I tell you though, he will get up and give him anything because he is his friend yet because of his impudence. So impudence being that that persistent, annoying, nagging, and often this would be a negative word. But in this context, that's what your prayer is supposed to be—a persistent, constant nagging almost. Obviously with reverence to the Lord, because it starts, Father, hallowed your name, your kingdom come. So giving credibility to who God is, what his character is, and what your relationship is. But at the same time, being persistent, not giving way, being like Jacob and wrestling through this. Just wrestle. You don't know what the Lord's capable of. And if you're asking for an impossible thing, just keep asking. Just keep asking. Who knows? Just keep at it. So persistence in prayer is the takeaway today. What's your prayer life looking like? I'm thrilled that if you've been a part of this journey and you're here every day, we're going through the passages of Luke. That's fantastic. But what is your prayer life looking like? Are you in prayer daily? Is that something that you are challenged with? Is that something that you're constantly knocking on the door with? If yes, great, keep it up. That's the challenge for today, and it's going to be a relatively easy challenge for you if this is something that you're doing. But if you're facing trials in your life right now, if you're facing challenges in your marriage and your health and your job with your kids, wherever it may be, and you're not ceaselessly in prayer, if you're not constantly knocking on that door, that's the challenge today. Get to knocking. Get knocking. Sounds like a simple challenge, but being consistent and constant is not as easy as it may seem. So take the time today, get going, get knocking. Last but not least, guys, we are going to finish up with prayer here. Bit of a sad one. I know for those of you that were listening yesterday, we did pray for baby Waylon. The doctors had said that it did not look like he was going to pull through. He was on a whole bunch of machines just to try to keep him alive. Unfortunately, Waylon did pass away and join the Lord yesterday. So I would ask that we. Uh, just, you know, keep them on your hearts. Keep the family on your hearts. We're going to pray for them today. Um, but also, if you, if you have a family of your own, guys, take the time to cherish. You never know how long you got. Lord, thank you so much for all of your blessings. You give and you take away, and that's not always the easiest thing to have happen. Lord, I pray for Waylon's family. Um, it's not going to be easy to lose a little one like that. Having experienced that pain myself, I understand that hardship and that agony. Be with them. In those times of great trial like that, folks either cling closer to you or run from you. And I pray that this family would cling to you, Lord, that they would come to you for shelter, that they would come to you for comfort, that they would come to you for reason. I pray that they would turn to you even harder, Lord, to be firmer in you and stronger in you as a result of this terrible, terrible trial and tragedy.

Amen.

The blessing in this, Lord, is Waylon is with you now. So I thank you for that. Lord, I lift up the rest of us who are fathers, who are husbands, and I pray that we would cherish our own families, that we would take the time and just commit to them. Whatever fights or trials that we have, Lord, that we would try to make amends, that we would try to unite our families, strengthen our families, love one another. Please, Lord, be with the fathers. Help them to love their children. Be with the husbands. Help them to love their wives. Be with the grandfathers. Help them to love their Be with the great-grandfathers, help them to love their great-grandchildren. Bless the men that are listening, Lord. Bless the relationships that they have. And I pray that they would go forth and cling to you in their relationships as well. In your name we pray. Amen. Have a fantastic day, guys, and I will catch you tomorrow with another episode.

Thank you for listening to the Iron Saints Podcast. If you are looking to share your prayer requests, check the description for social media or email to contact the show. Blessings on you all until next time.