Jesus gives a masterclass on Prayer

In this message, Pastor Luke takes us into the heart of Jesus' teaching on prayer from Luke 11. Prayer isn't a performance, a formula, or a religious task — it's a real, relational conversation with a Father who delights in us. Luke shares candid stories, warnings from his own prayer journey, and encouragement to build a simple, honest, persistent prayer life that flows through every moment. Whether you're feeling distant, guilty, or stuck, this message will free you to pray like a child again — with joy, trust, and deep confidence that God is listening and working.

--------------------------------
Future Church Brisbane  Website // https://www.futurechurch.io
Future Church Brisbane INSTAGRAM // https://www.instagram.com/futurechurchbrisbane

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Um today I would like to share with you on the subject of prayer. Who's who when you think about prayer? It's easy to think a little bit uh be intimidated by prayer, especially if you've been around a church circle and you've seen like the super prayers. Have you ever seen a super prayer? Someone who's like, you know, they're just dialed into the to the prayer and um they just seem to have the spiritual gifting of praying um very eloquently, very passionately. Or maybe you've seen the uh the preach prayer where people are praying but really they're preaching at the people around them. Um or maybe you've seen the personality swap prayer where they're really just chill when you talk to them, but when they pray, they change personality and become a different person. And you can look at prayer and be like, whoa, this is this is this is a lot, it's a lot. But Jesus' teaching on prayer is quite profound and maybe different than what you imagine that prayer was or or could be. So we're gonna read today Jesus' major teaching on prayer, it comes from, I'm sorry guys, but it comes from the book of Luke. Uh Luke chapter, you saw that coming. Luke chapter 11. Um, again, Luke chapter 11, verse 1 to 13. So we're gonna read this together, okay? This is Jesus' major teaching on prayer, and the answer to the question when his disciples asked him, Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught his disciples how to pray. Why did people ask Jesus how to pray? Probably because the majority of Jesus' prayer was by himself. It wasn't in a prayer meeting, it wasn't on a public street corner like some of the religious people love to do, it was private, it was it was by himself, it was him and God together, it was him and the Father. And then Jesus answered and he said, This is how you should pray. Notice the first word. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation. Notice the first word that Jesus says in his prayer is Father. The first thing that we see about prayer is prayer is relational. That's the first thing we see. Help me out, Kenneth. The first thing we see is that prayer is relational. It's not it's not a formula, it's relational. It's not uh twisting God's arm to get what we want or manipulating God to become like a Santa Claus or uh a list of to-dos for me, it's a relational dynamic that we enter into when we pray. Father. It's not a script. And um, for some of us, our homes, when I think about father and I'm praying to father, and you'll hear me talk like this sometimes, and and you think, well, maybe I don't really have a great relationship with my father. Like that's not the kind of dynamic that we have. Maybe you grew up in a home where even approaching your father, you had to you had to mind your words, you had to be careful, you had to be careful with your father. Or maybe your father was distant, or maybe you didn't you didn't grow up around with dad. And so that whole concept for you is a little bit estranged, but I believe that God would want to come in and be like a great father to you. That's the nature of God. He would love to maybe um bring healing into your life in that area and become the gap in your life that maybe you've you you've missed in your life. He would love to come and be that father in your life, and he would love you to approach him like that perfect father that you could come to anytime. You know, even as I was like making the screens for this this morning in bed, like my daughter Kaylee, she just comes up, starts jumping all over me and all over the computer, and you know, she she has not a care in the world about what I'm doing. You know, she is only concerned with just she she's very confident that daddy loves her so much that she can interrupt anytime, and it's gonna be okay. That's a good that's a good thing. That's a healthy thing. That's what we'd like to see. There's uh there's a level, there's a level of connection there where she feels that I'm interruptible and daddy will listen to me if I interrupt. What a good thing. Yet some of us, when we approach God, very, very um nervous when we approach God. I don't want to interrupt. I don't want to ask God. I heard some people at an alpha table say, I don't want to ask God for things because you know it seems like I don't want to like be a burden to God. Like as if we're twisting God's arm to care for us. Yeah, Jesus says, come back to this idea of God as Father, He cares for us so deeply. Um Kaylee doesn't do anything for me when it comes to work in the house, doesn't vacuum, doesn't wash up, eats all my food. Um, she loves to eat my food as well, as her food. Uh she's a good eater. Um, she's a carnivore, she loves to eat all the meat, and uh amazing. She doesn't do any housework, she doesn't do anything except for being cute. That's what it's a major contribution to our house, our household is her cuteness and making us laugh. But I love her so deeply, and she is able to interrupt, and she has a seat at the table, even though she's she yet contributes nothing. Now, now maybe at some point she needs to, she's gonna have to start doing a little bit of housework around the house. This is called growing up. You know, my nine-year-old and twelve-year-old are finding out about that. Um, but right now she is loved the same as everyone else, even though her contribution to our family is is not much, except for her cuteness. She is loved so deeply. Maybe you're new around here. Oh, I've got to work my way into being able to ask God for things, or I don't really belong here yet, and I'll I'll hold off until no, God's saying, welcome into the family. If you are part of the family, you have the right to call God Father the same way that I do, who's been here a long time. So I don't pray to be able to get in with God, I'm already in with God because He has chosen to bring me in, He's accepted me, He's brought me in. And therefore, that is why I pray. And if we think about that, that will really change the way that you pray. Relationships is the context in which we pray. NT Wright, in his book, Broken Sign Post, puts it like this: prayer is not a technique for getting what we want, it's a joining in in the conversation that God has already started in the world. We're not manipulating God, God already is at work in your life. We're joining in the conversation of what God is already doing in our lives. When I when I think about my relationship with my wife, it's a lot of communication. It's a it's a lot, and it's a very, it's it's a closeness, right? We don't need warm-ups. We don't I don't need to write a long introduction email. My texts to my wife are short because we're close. Closeness means I can be shorter and we're good. You'll notice that most of Jesus's preaching or most of his prayer is it was short. It was it was quite short. His model of prayer takes about 20 seconds to pray. Jesus' master's degree on prayer takes about 20 seconds to pray, right here. His model of prayer. So this is the second thing I wanted to pull out of the scripture was that his prayer model, his prayer teaching is simple. It is simple. You don't need a degree to have it. It's all access to God, it's anywhere, all the time. Take it with you. It's simple and it's not feeling guilty about prayer. I think a lot of Christians feel guilty about prayer. Ever felt like that? I don't pray enough, I'm not good enough, I don't pray in a certain way like someone else, I don't pray like the formula says I pray. And Jesus' prayer is short, especially in public. He does pray longer prayers when he's by himself. Um, he spends time in solitude and where he really prays a long time. You know, in the garden, he's praying a long time because he's about to be murdered. I mean, there's times when Jesus prays long, but all of Jesus' public prayers, you think about Jesus' ministry, it's short. His public ministry is short prayer. Be healed, be delivered, come out of him, go and be blessed. It's it's it's all short. Why is that? Because he's close, because it's all the time, it's consistent, it's not a prayer time and then a not prayer time, it's a life of integrated prayer into his whole life. That's how it works. He prays for his needs, he prays for relationships, he prays for overcoming temptation, and it all takes about 20 seconds to pray. That's Jesus. And and you don't learn how to pray by listening to me preach about praying, by the way. You learn how to pray by simply praying, praying, including God in your prayer. I used to have a list of things to pray for, but then I would always feel guilty about my list. If I didn't get to it or my list got longer and longer, and maybe you'd love a list. Maybe that's great for you. If you love lists of prayer, that's great for you. For me, I I I don't do well with lists. I usually just feel guilty and uh don't get through them, and then I feel bad about prayer. What a what a terrible way for me to pray. I used to pray, I remember as a teenager, I got fired up and I started hearing about prayer, and then I started hearing some preachers talk about how they would pray four hours a day. I thought, wow, okay, that's that's what we're gonna do. If you're a real Christian, you're gonna pray four hours a day from, you know, what is it, 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. or something like that. And so I started, I started trying to pray four hours a day in my bedroom. Um, I'm 16 years old, and I remember there was one day where I actually I did pray four hours in one day, and then my mum knocked on the door and she said, It's time, you know, it's time for dinner. And I told her, Go away, I'm praying. And I thought, I'm in here so much better than you, you're not even, you're not praying, I'm praying. I'm I'm like, and I was I was measuring myself by how many hours I was praying as being better than all the people around me, and I I kind of had this revelation of this the beautiful voice of the Holy Spirit just whispering in my heart, oh arrogant, prideful. You haven't earned anything with God. Everything I have from God is a free gift that I've received. Prayer is a joy, not a tick box with God of my Christian homework. It's a relationship, it's not I have to, it's uh I get to pray. So I had to change. I had to learn how to integrate prayer into every part of my life. It's not about being arrogant or better than somebody else. And what I realized is, especially for young men, is that the more formulas that we had for prayer, the less people prayed. The more formula, the less prayer. Here's the steps, here's the five steps you need to pray. I didn't pray. Got lost on step two, and then threw it out and didn't pray. And then I felt guilty about not praying, so I didn't pray, so I didn't pray even more. And then I felt guilty about that and I didn't pray. And and we get weeks down the line, I I have I've stopped praying. And what I found was if I got rid of the formulas and just learnt to bring God into every area of my life and pray about everything that I'm thinking about, then I was praying more. I was praying more. And that's the idea of um confession, by the way. That's the idea of confession, is the idea of confession is being honest with God about every area of my life, not having secrets with God. Um, some of us are like, I don't want to I don't want to tell God, I don't want to show God what's happening on the inside of me because God wouldn't like that, or God wouldn't approve of that, or I'm ashamed of these areas of my life. Yet God's invitation is let me into everything. Let me into every area of your life. And that's what the idea of confession is, this honesty before God about every area, everything in my life. It's the word confession means to say the truth or to say what is real, to be honest with God. And that's my challenge to so many people that I meet one-on-one with. And I'm saying the the the beginning of healing is a desperate honesty with God, becoming very, very honest. If you look at the book of Job, Job said so many terrible things. He's, you know, in in with all of his struggling, he he said so many faithless things, but he was pointing all of those things at God. He wasn't pointing them at people around him or blaming or all of his complaints, all of his honest frustrations and desperate frustration were all pointed at God. God, why is this happening? What is this? This desperate honesty with God was what we see in the book of Job. It's a powerful, powerful thing. God is big enough to hear your frustrations, your complaints. He's not afraid of them, he's not intimidated by them, he's not put off by your frustration and your desperation in your soul. God is inviting you to engage with reality with him. Invite him into your really painful times, and God will answer. Timothy Keller in his book Prayer, um, I know some of the boys here have read this. God says, God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are, but by his grace, he does not leave us where we are. Prayer is how we respond to that reality simply and honestly. That's how we respond to God. That's our prayer. My encouragement to us is be more honest in prayer. Get rid of the Christianese, get rid of the formulas, and become very, very honest with God. That is the beginning of what God can do in your life. Very powerful. The third thing that Jesus talks about in prayer is being persistent, not giving up. So it's relational, it's simple, and it's never giving up. It's really persistent. Verse 5 says, then teaching them more about prayer, he uses story. Suppose you went to a friend's house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread, and you say to him, A friend of mine is has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat. And suppose he calls out of his bedroom, don't bother me, the door's locked at night, my family are all in bed, I can't help you. But I tell you this though, he won't do it for his friendship's sake. If you keep longing, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. Because you're so annoying. Um, and so I tell you, keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and everyone who knocks, the door will be open to them. Keep on knocking, do not give up in prayer. Some of us have been praying for things for many years and still have not seen the answer to that prayer. And my encouragement is don't give up in prayer. Keep on praying, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. God, don't forget, God, don't forget your promises. This is not faithlessness, this is faith to keep on reminding God of what He has promised you in your life. Keep going. This is part of the Christian story. Again, Tom Wright in his book Broken Signposts. If God's kingdom is coming, prayer is the means by which we hold the door open for it. Refusing to let despair close it again. Don't be discouraged in prayer. If you haven't got what you what you're seeking yet, don't be discouraged. Keep on praying. I think about some of us are here, and you have loved ones who are um they're away from God or they're having struggles in their life, and it's like, what? God, what are you doing? Maybe some of us even you know having children who are who have struggled at times. Don't give up in prayer, keep on praying for those people. God will come through, He will. Keep on going, don't give up. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 16 says this I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Here's how do you how do you not give up in prayer? How do you persist in prayer? Here's one thought, okay? I learned this as a teenager. I think it's I think it's right here. Every the message version says it like this every time I think about you, I pray for you. Every time I think about you, I pray for you. Paul's saying, turn every thought into a prayer. It's like a it's like a trigger on a gun. Every time I think of you, I pray for you. Whatever I think about, I pray about. Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about stuff, right? Worrying about stuff. Worry is kind of like praying to yourself. Like, Luke, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? This is like me praying to myself, Luke. You're the answer. You're gonna do something. You better do something, it's gonna be bad. And my anxiety is building. I don't know, I guess I have to be God. I don't know. I've got to and and the invitation is turn my thoughts into prayers. If I'm thinking about you, I'm praying about you. In fact, most of my prayer life is a spontaneous prayer that comes from what I'm thinking about. So, and God is very involved in this process. When I'm thinking about people, chances are God wants me to pray for them. God is inviting me to pray for that person. So I pray for a lot of our church every week because I think about you a lot. And now it's not a lot, it's not a long prayer, it's not a one-hour prayer, okay? It's a short prayer, probably like Jesus. It's a short prayer, but I'm praying for you a lot, all the time. And it gives God this opportunity to speak to me about people that's really helps when you're pastoring people. Whatever I'm thinking about, I'm praying about. What about you for your workplace? What about you for business owners here? Are you praying over your business? Are you praying over it? Or are you just worrying about it? Stressing about it, obsessing over it, but not inviting God to come in and be part of it. What what a missed opportunity if as a business owner you're not inviting God to come into the business and help you and lead you and change you, you're just you're carrying all that burden yourself. It's like it's like you're competing against the world who are also stressed out. You have this resource called the God of the universe through his spirit living on the inside of you, and you're not praying, you're not using that resource available to you. Now, it's not a resource like um marketing money that you pour on. I'm I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is get God inside of your business. What about your schoolwork? Get God inside of your schoolwork. Or your workplace. Get God into your workplace. How do you do that? Everything you're worried about, start turning it into prayers. Let it be a trigger to prayer. In your marriage, are you praying over your spouse? It's very easy, by the way, to assume on your spouse, isn't it? Assume. They're fine. I know I felt that. I'll pray for everyone else. What about my spouse? She's good. She's she's fine. Actually, she needs a lot of prayer. That's my responsibility to pray for my spouse. Husbands and wives. It's our job to pray over each other, to lift each other up, praying over our kids. Don't leave it to the Sunday school or our kids team. Pray over your children. Let your thoughts become your prayers. And I kind of see it like this: persistence is a bit like this to me. It's like digging a well, right? You keep digging and digging and digging down and down and down, and you don't give up and you keep digging, and at some point you find water. And that water is like a flowing water underneath the ground. It's flowing, it's abundant water. But you've got to dig down in prayer, and once you find that water, it's like you never forget where it is. It's like next time you need that water, it's right there. You can go to it. That's why we when we get into worship here, I feel like as soon as we play the first chord, I can close my eyes, and immediately I feel like I'm in the presence of God. It's because there's digging, it's water. I already found the water before. Now I can just go and scoop the water. It's right here, it's ready. It doesn't mean you need to earn your earn your um closeness with God. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you practice learning how to be close to God through prayer. It helps you, it doesn't help God, God's already here. It helps me to learn how to push everything else aside quickly and get to God quickly. That's what a lifestyle of prayer does. Everything I think about, I pray about. That's how you have prayer without ceasing. That's how you have prayer that doesn't stop. Alright? If you're waiting for a prayer meeting in our church, you might be waiting a little bit. We don't have many prayer meetings. I like prayer meetings, we just don't have many. You don't need a prayer meeting to learn how to pray. You just need to start praying. You need to start turning your thoughts into prayers, and then when we get together, here's what often happens in prayer meetings, okay? People are not praying, and then they come to the prayer meeting. That's the only time they're praying, and we wonder why the prayer meeting is not very great. What would happen though, if we could all learn how to integrate prayer into our lives, start turning thoughts into prayers, and the level of prayers going up in our church, the amount of prayers going up in our church, what would happen then when we get together? It's like instead of adding zeros together, it's like adding fives and sixes and sevens, and then we're all getting together. The accumulation of prayer is easy, and I can feel it when our worship leaders can feel it when people are ready to worship God because they're already in prayer. It's not like you need five songs to warm up. You already have a heart that's prayerful even before you walk in the door. This is normal. This is what it's like to follow Jesus. I'm gonna finish in a moment, um, but let me just talk about Jesus' last part where he talks about what kind of answers to prayer should you expect. Okay. Verse 11. You fathers, if you if your children ask you for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask you for an egg. Kaylee has this obsession with eggs right now. She asks me about five times a day, Daddy, egg, please, egg. Give me an egg. That's why I laugh when I read the scripture. Are you gonna give them a scorpion if she wants an egg? No, of course not. So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, and that's me, I'm not a perfect dad. How much more will your heavenly father, who's perfect, amazing heavenly father, give you the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? God wants to give you good things in your life. Some of us are like nervous about that because we come from like a prosperity gospel flow, which is like you can have whatever you want. As long as you give more money or you pray harder, or whatever you can have. That that that is that's not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying the heart of God is for you. He wants to do good things in your life, he's not against you. Prayer is not twisting God's arm, it's laying a hold of God's greatest willingness to engage your life. He wants to do that for you. Again, let me hear again from Keller from his book prayer. God will either give us what we asked for or give us what we should have asked for if we knew everything He He knows. I love that idea. God doesn't always give you what you want. Is that true? Has anyone found that out? He doesn't always give you what you want. Think about that. I was I was sharing with the the Alpha crew a few weeks ago. If you think about, if you think about traffic lights, okay? Green light, sometimes when you pray, you get exactly what you prayed for. Green light. Like I'm make them-that's my favorite. When I get what I want, that's my favorite. Or sometimes it's a red light, like it's just like a no. No, that's I want that thing, but no, that's the wrong thing for you. That's not what God has for you. And then sometimes, sometimes it's uh not yet. Sometimes it's a yes, but not now. That's like my children who want to drive the car. It's a yes, but it's not now because you'll drive it off off, you'll drive it into a tree, right? You know, it's a yes, but not yet. That's a good answer. That's a good answer from God. Sometimes you you want things from God, but it's not yet. And all of those answers are good from God. That's the kind of answers that but you but you have to trust that whatever God answers, that is the best answer. He knows better than me. So I'm gonna encourage us to be praying, praying and asking God for things. Asking. What are you asking God for in your life? What are you asking him for? Some of us are afraid to ask God for stuff. I'm just gonna be thankful. I'm not gonna ask God for anything. Just be thankful. That is not what Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed for a lot of stuff. He prayed for all of his, um, he prayed for his daily bread. We would consider that maybe fine like we need finance. Need to pray for that. Because finance is how we buy our daily bread. It's how we buy our daily clothes, our pay our rent, our pray. God, you're you're the supply. My boss is not my supplier. God, you are my supplier. I need you to come through for me in this area. He prays for his relationships, praise to help him forgive. Um, he prays for what he needs. What do you need in your life today? What do you need? So we're gonna pray. Um I love, I was sharing this last week, but um one of the girls was at from Alpha, Jamie, was was at the the we had an amazing prayer and worship night last Friday night. Who was it? You guys were there, some of you were there? Amazing night, it was such a great night. And um uh Jamie had this issue with her eye, and someone prayed for her, and her eye was healed right then on the spot. Like an amazing miracle happened in her eye. Um, yeah, we can we can thank God for that. That's pretty good. Uh and then her friend was with her, who's also a a nurse, checked it and saw yes, her she was, she did get healed. And um, her friend wasn't wasn't a Christian at that time. Okay, but she's been coming to Alpha. And her friend was so moved by that that after she later received Jesus as well. So she got healed and her friend received Jesus because someone went up to her and said, Can I pray for your eye? And it was healed. Isn't that amazing? I who wants to see more of that in our church? I want to see more of that in our church, and I think we've got to start asking God for stuff. We've got to start asking God to come through for us. How will you have any testimonies if you don't ask him for anything? Testimonies is glory to God. That's praise God for healing, praise God for salvation. Thank you, God, for that. Well, he's getting that glory because somebody asked him for something. And we need to ask him for more stuff, guys. So let's start, let's start praying. I want to I want to take a moment to pray with us now. And uh, I wonder what you need to pray for. What do you need in your life? What are you asking God for? What do you need God to come through in your life for? We're gonna ask him, okay? All those thoughts, those worries, the stresses that you've been holding and maybe praying to yourself about, we would turn our attention to God and turn our thoughts into prayers. God, we thank you that you are here, Father. Uh, that you love us so much. And we're asking you. God, you see all the needs of these wonderful people in this church. You see that. So, God, we're asking you. We're looking to you, not to the world around us or some other system. God, we're looking to you for the answers. We need you. So, God, I pray, God, for for um that you would supply every need here. You would supply every need. Areas that seem really difficult right now. Putting that trust in you, we're asking you, God, come in and do what only you can do. For those who need healing in their lives, maybe even uh in their mind or in their body right now. I pray for, I pray for more healing, God, to happen even right now in people's lives. Asking you for that, God. I I know there's people here who are struggling financially, who actually need help, they need a breakthrough in this area. I've been struggling, and it feels like they just can't get out of that situation. God, I pray that you would supply their needs, God. You would come through for them, show them your faithfulness, God. We invite you, God, into our relationships that maybe have had some brokenness or have had some hurt or whether it's been offense. God, I pray that you would come in and bring grace and forgiveness in those areas. And just like you prayed about temptation, God, there's people here, you know, with so much temptation around you to compromise or to go a different way. God, I pray that you would help them to be strong in the middle of that temptation and say, No, I'm gonna choose God's way. Help them, Father. And I pray over those who don't know you here today, God, the many who don't know you. I pray, God, that you would come into their lives and show them who you are, give them courage, give them faith to put their trust in you today. In Jesus' name. Amen.