Teach Us to Pray

Good morning, Broward Church. All right. I like this spirit. It’s an incredible honor for me to be here. If you don’t know me, my name is Tiego Silva. I’m from Sao Paulo, Brazil. As Tony said, I just moved here recently with my wife, Caroline. I came to lead the teen’s ministry, the high school ministry with Brittany Philip Polly. I’m pretty sure that if you heard the name Thiago Silva and Brazil together and you are a FIFA player, this came to your mind. I’m pretty sure that this came to your mind. This is a famous soccer player. He’s amazing. He’s been playing for the national team. But our name sounds the same, Tiago Silva. But I need to say that it’s spelled differently. My name has the original spelling and people are going to be like, How do you know that your name is the original one? It’s pretty simple. There is a document that proves that, a really old document, 2,000 years old document, in fact. And if you don’t know what document it is, it is the Bible. It is the Bible. Yes, if you don’t know, I’m going to show it to you.

If you go to the New Testament, you’d have this name. It is in Greek, it’s called Jacobus, which in English is translated as James. And James in English and in Portuguese, if you have a Bible app or something, you can go and check. In Portuguese, it’s going to be Tiago. So that’s it. That’s my name. I think from now on, you guys are never going to forget again about how it is and where it comes from, and also the right spelling. But moving forward, we want to focus now on what is important here in this series that we’re spending so many weeks, so many months talking about. It’s an incredible series and I’m in love with the series. It’s been amazing. And today I’m really honored. I feel really glad to God to be able to contribute with a little chapter of this whole series that we are preaching about the ministry of Jesus. Last week, we had Tony Fernandez talking about Luke 10, about the story of two sisters, Martha and Mary, which shows us a little bit about what should be our focus, what is the priority that we should have, which is to be in front of Jesus, learning from him.

Today we’re going to jump into the very next verse. We’re going to start in Luke Chapter 11. Let’s just move forward. Again, this amazing series and I’m so glad to be here, having this opportunity to be with you guys. This text that we’re going to read right now is about Jesus teaching his disciples. He’s about to teach something. But it’s interesting because it’s a life change lesson to his disciples. This text transformed my thinking. I hope that today, while we are going through this text, the same thing can happen to you. So we’re going to turn our Bibles to Luke 11, starting in verse 1. We’re going to start in the very first verse. So if you have a Bible, please open your Bible, or you can just follow here with me. The word of God said, 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 or the daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us, and lead us not into temptation.

We started this little story here seeing an approach from one of his disciples asked Jesus. The disciple just was watching and thinking about the way that Jesus was praying by himself. This text is really interesting. You’re going to see me repeating a couple of times here today that we can find something really similar in Matthew Chapter 6 and Matthew Chapter 7. But for the sake of the class, I just want to clarify this is a different moment in Jesus’ ministry. In Matthew 6 and 7, he was preaching the sermon of the Mount, which is pretty famous. In fact, one of the most famous sermons that Jesus ever preached. But he has a different moment. In the Sermon on the Mount, he was talking with so many different people. Here, he’s addressing his disciples. It’s a different moment in his ministry. What I want to start doing here, what I want to start to approach here is the very interaction that this disciple is having with Jesus. He has something really interesting to Jesus at this moment. We can see in verse 1 that what he asked is, Lord, teach us to pray.

Teach us to pray. I think it’s a really interesting thing to ask. Why is it really interesting? Because all his disciples were Jews. Jews, really pay attention to the traditions. One of the traditions includes prayer. In fact, they were taught, even when they were kids, how to pray. As we can see in Deuteronomy Chapter 6, we can see that one of the things that they learned was to memorize the scriptures and to pray the scriptures. The Deuteronomy Chapter 6 says he’s talking about the laws. I’m just focusing on this little part right here, it says, Impress them on your children. Talk about calling them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road. When you lie down and when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands and buy them on your foreheads. So what we can see in this text, is that was really important. This Deuteronomy Chapter 6 is called the Shemah nowadays, some Jewish people are still reading and memorizing this scripture every single day. They’re still doing this with kids until nowadays. In fact, I want to show you guys a picture of how it’s been doing until.

You see, until nowadays, they took this teaching a step forward and they literally tie their scriptures on their arms and their foreheads. It’s interesting. This thing on their forehead. It’s called Mezouza. It’s pretty much like little portions of the Bible that they put inside of the little box and they tie on their head. So as you can see, the kids know how to pray. So if they know how to pray since they were kids, the question is why they’re asking the teachers to teach them to pray? Because when you use the words, teach me, that has a meaning of you don’t know how to do it. If you know how to do it, you would say, I see that the way you preach is different. Can you give me some tips on how to improve or can you help me to get better? But when you say, Teach me to pray, again, that means that you don’t know how to pray in this situation. I want to give a little illustration right here so everybody can be on the same page. Think about this young man that just started his first year as a freshman at the university.

And one of his friends asked him, Do you cook? Do you know how to cook? It’s an important question. And he says, Yeah, I do know how to cook. But everything that he knows how to cook, is those instant ramen. But he’s not lying, he knows how to cook, right? This is cooking. This is cooking. But after a few months, Thanksgiving is coming around, and he went to spend the holiday with his grandmother and she was cooking. Wow. And this was the spread. You can see that it’s pretty different, right? You can see it’s pretty different. And I believe that if the young man, if his grandmother, approach him at the table and ask him, My beloved, do you cook? I think the answer will be a little bit different. I think the answer will be, No way. I don’t know how to cook. This is cooking. This is cooking. The thing that I know how to do, I don’t even know if that’s really food. I’m not sure. I’m not sure if that’s really food. Grandma, can you please teach me how to cook? I think that will be this period from behind this like from the heart of this young man.

I think that something really similar happening here back in the text. I think that all that those disciples know how to do it was to memorize scriptures that they were not even reading. Back in those days, not everybody has the scriptures. People were telling, people were repeating to you and you would try to memorize. So all they know is to repeat some words that you memorized. At this moment, I believe that this disciple, when he looked at Jesus and he saw the way that he was talking and being intimate with God, I think for the first time he saw that, Wait, my whole life I’ve been seeking for this. I’ve been seeking to have intimacy with God. I never see anyone having this. But this man, this Jesus, my Master, oh, wow. I want this. I want this level of intimacy. I want those prayers, those lives change prayers. And I’m tired of instant ramen food. I want the Gourmet food. I want the banquet. I want the banquet. So I believe that this is how he approached Jesus. Jesus, look, I don’t know how to pray. Can you teach us? Can you teach not only me, but everyone here because we want to be like you?

We want you to be as close to God as you are because this is amazing. We’re going to see that Jesus is going to use these requests, these incredible requests, to teach them about some principles about how to connect with God. As we can move forward, you’re going to see right now some of the principles right here. Moving on and again, going back to the test. Luke 11, verse 2 says, 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. This little prayer right here has so many principles. There’s so much here, it’s amazing. But I want to highlight today this verse 3 because verse 3 unlocks the whole idea behind the text. This is where we’re going to be focused right now. We’re going to be focused only on those seven words in verse 3, which is, Give us each day our daily bread. What happens here is Jesus is using food as an illustration of the importance and the desperate need for prayer. Some people can think that this is probably a reference to the Manna.

The Manna, if you don’t know it, is the magical and incredible bread that God himself would deliver to the Israelites back in those days when they came out of Egypt. The bread will come magically on the floor and they would eat and they would be satisfied. Yeah, some people might look at this scripture and think in a mystical way, what is the meaning behind that? But I believe that there’s something so much more simple here, and that’s really important. That’s the heart behind the prayer. I think the very thing that Jesus wanted to teach us here, is about frequency, or how often. How often do you eat? How often the question is, how often do we eat? Or how often those people were eating back in those days? We can see that in the past, we see that many people used to have only one meal per day or at least two meals, sometimes three meals. It doesn’t matter. But if you are eating every day and you’re requesting your father that food, that means that at least you’re going to interact with your father to ask him for food, to say, Hey, I’m hungry.

Can you give me food, please? We don’t know the food that how often they used to eat, but we know one thing, they want you to eat every day. I want to, again, use a little illustration. If that doesn’t make too much sense to you, I want to use this illustration again to help us to understand the idea from behind. Let me ask you guys, how it is an interaction between a newborn baby and his mother? The newborn baby, people can think that it’s something like, you wake up, at 7:30, you slept really well as a mother. If you have a baby recently, you know what I’m talking about. When you look aside, your baby is waiting for you and you say, Good morning, Mom. How did you sleep? Great. Could you please go wash your face and brush your hair and come back? Because I’m hungry, I need you to get breastfeeding. If you’re a mother, especially if you have babies recently, you know that this is not how it goes. You know that it’s pretty much something like this. It’s every morning, actually, in fact, all the time, all the time, the kids just asking you for food.

He’s not even using words. That would be really weird if he’s using words. But he just opened his mouth and then gave me food. Do you know what that means? You know that they want food. And the question is how often that happens. All the time. The kid’s going to be crying. They only eat and sleep. That’s all they do the whole time. And that’s okay. That’s expected. We do not expect the kids to be texting the mom and ask for food. We know that this is how it goes. But what is not okay, is to become a teenager and keep just screaming and yelling when he needs food. It’s not okay. Somehow this interaction needs to evolve, needs to mature into something like a conversation, like a talk, things that are more important, not just about food, but having a really decent dialog, like a friendship. That’s what needs to happen. This screaming thing needs to mature into something like a conversation. The key to that is how often are you having this interaction with your mother. In this case, how often are you praying? I think that’s what God intends in our life.

Maybe today our interactions with God might be only requests, might be only asking for food. Maybe you want a new job, maybe a new house, maybe deliverance for a trial, maybe better health. Don’t get me wrong, requests, asking those things to God is not something bad. It’s not something bad at all. But if that’s the only interaction with God it is requesting, it is expected that eventually, these interactions mature into a conversation about your heart. Things that really matter, how you’re feeling, things that you want to see happening in a different way than the way that you’re going to be involved, things that are really important, real friendship. When you understand this concept, that leads us to the rest of the whole text. Prayers based only on request have to eventually morph into something deeper. Eventually, those only request moments need to become something when you’re talking and have a real friendship with God. Again, this is the concept behind the whole text that we’re going to read right now. I hope that helps you with me while we go and unfold the rest of this incredible text that we are looking at right now.

Moving forward, in verse 5, Jesus starts to tell them this really interesting history to illustrate the whole meaning behind those words. In verse 5, we read, Then Jesus said to them, Suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say Friend, lend me eat three loaves of bread. A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have no food to offer him. And suppose the one inside answers, Don’t bother me. The door is already locked and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he would 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 to you. For everyone who asks receive, for the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Here Jesus is just telling this little story to his disciples, his approach, and trying to help them to understand the concept of the prayer that he is teaching.

He tells this little story about this friend that is also a neighbor that has a crazy friend that came up at midnight. Midnight back in those days will be pretty much like nowadays 3 AM. They don’t have any pole lights in the trees. They don’t have electricity. So it was different. Midnight will be pretty late. He comes with a request. He comes with a request and he asked Friend, I need some loaves. He’s not just asking, he’s knocking on the door, he’s making some noise. This is weird. What is going on here? Thinking about somebody… When I think about somebody knocking on my door, 3 AM and I’m sleeping and he’s causing a lot of problems, making a lot of noise. Back in those days, they have only one room for the whole family to sleep in. So the father was in the room with the kids and he’s even like a hostage. There’s nothing that he can do because the guy’s knocking on the door and screaming and asking for food and he can’t even scream back saying, Get out of here because he’s in the room with the kids. If he yells, he’s going to wake up the kids.

So he can’t do much. He’s trying, but he can’t do much, he is a hostage and he needs to do something for this crazy friend. And it’s really interesting because the story tells us that he doesn’t want to go. He’s like, Get out of here. I don’t want to help you. I’m not going to help you. But he does. And the question is, why? Why he helps his friend not because of friendship? It’s not because it’s like, Oh, you know, let me help my friend. He’s so nice to me. Let me help him. No, the reason is because of shameless audacity. That’s the reason that he stands up and gives the friend whatever he needs and says, Get out of here. Let me go to bed with my kids. This friend whom we don’t even know the name of is insistent. He has a bold request. He kept knocking on the door, Give me the bread. Give me the bread the whole time. This is a little story here to teach the disciples something important about intimacy with the Father, something that’s really important. Pray that is not just, I’m just praying here and repeating some word, but prayer that evolves and matures into something deeper.

Prayers become a conversation, a friendship, and something that can be bold with audacity, with shameless prayers. That’s what Jesus is focused on right here. Moving on with the text, you can see this pretty clearly because you can see so many times that Jesus is insisting on this theme about insisting. You see, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives, the one who seeks, finds, and the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Jesus is trying to inform his disciples that his relationship with God, the relationship that he has, the intensity that he has, the intimacy comes from somewhere. There’s something from behind here, there is this willingness about going and repeating and insisting and asking and being bold and being shameless and insisting in prayers, insistent talking with God about it. We’re not going to jump into this text, but if you don’t know that the last moments of Jesus’ life were really intense. He went to the worst moment ever on this whole planet, in the whole of history. He was in pain, he was suffering and he went to the garden to pray.

It’s the passage that he went with the disciples to the Gethsemane. In the Gethsemane, he’s giving a little bit of this. The Bible says that three times he prayed using the same words. So he was insisting, he was knocking, he was asking. Some people can come and say, But wait, he prayed for it three times and he didn’t get what he wants you. He was praying to not go to the cross. I believe that this is not what he really wants. As he talked with his disciple, he said, pray with me because the Spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak. I need strength. I need encouragement to do this that I need to do. I’m the only one who can do it. God gave him that. He felt confident enough to go and move to something that was really, really, really intense and really painful and the worst moment ever in human history. It’s a good example here about insistence, asking and praying, and knocking on the door. Thinking about nowadays in our lives, maybe today, the only prayer that we know how to pray, might be something like an instant noodle prayer.

And that’s okay. Or maybe we are just praying before every meal. When we sat at the table, we pray saying, God, thank you for this food. And that’s okay. There’s no problem if that’s where we are right now. That’s no problem if that’s your life right now. The good news is that we all can have intimacy with God the same way that Jesus had intimacy is to have intimacy with God. So don’t settle for little. Don’t think it’s okay. It is how it is. I think everybody is like this. They’re going to just be repeating the words. Even in the Bible, we can see that some of the disciples were just repeating words. But don’t settle for little. Don’t settle for little. There is so much more. There is so much more that God wants to offer and he wants a friendship with you. So don’t settle for little. Keep trying, keep insisting, keep knocking as Jesus is telling you to do. Right now, I just want you to make a quick clarification, real quick. I just don’t want you to understand this in the wrong way. In the Book of Tiego, the way we say it is in Portuguese, but as we are here, let’s say the Book of James, we read something really interesting.

James is telling in Chapter 4, Verse 2, he says, You do not have because you do not ask. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives that you might spend what you get on your pleasure. The very thing that’s really interesting, he’s affirming the very same thing that Jesus is saying, You do not have because you do not ask. You don’t talk with God. You’re not knocking. You’re not asking. You’re not being bold. But sometimes, yes, you’re doing this, but it’s something wrong here. There’s something that Jesus is trying to do that James is trying to teach us here. Don’t get caught up. That doesn’t mean that everything you ask you’re going to get. In fact, if that happened in your life, that would be really bad. That would be really bad. If you are with the wrong motivation, that would be awful for you. God, love us so much, he would not give us the very thing that we want so badly because sometimes that thing will lead you to death, will lead you to In fact, if you want to read afterward, you can read the first chapter of Book of Romans when Paul is addressing this very topic.

He’s talking about how sad it is when God, because of the bad heart of the man, somehow released the dog. Okay, you want this? So go get it. So I’m not going to be holding you back anymore. And this is so sad. This is so sad. This is definitely something that you don’t want. So I just want you to clarify this real quick so we can jump back into the test. I don’t want anyone to get caught up in this teaching. So we can now move on to the very end of this text. Thank you so much, brother. So we can move on to the very last verse of this teaching. Jesus is moving on, and said, Which of you, fathers, if your son asked for a fish, would give him a snake instead? Or if he asked for an egg, would give him a Scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children? How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? As I told you in the beginning, I want to compare this to what we read in Matthew 7, when he used words that are really similar here.

Again, it’s in Matthew 7. He’s talking with the nations. He’s talking with people that come from many different countries. But here he is different. We can go in that text in Matthew 7 and think, yeah, there are really evil. There’s a lot of people that don’t want to repent. There’s the pharisees. Those guys, they are really bad. But here’s different. Here he’s talking, he’s addressing, he’s teaching, he’s disciples, he’s followers. In other words, Christians like me, Christians like you. W e see there’s a problem here. We know that Jesus is incredible, he’s perfect and God is perfect, he’s good. But I am evil. Why evil? I am evil. Oh, no, there’s a problem here. Let me put it in a different way. Even though I am evil, I’m including myself now, I am evil. What do we do now? Because I am evil. How can I have a deep relationship with God the way that Jesus had? It’s incredible that the fact that even though I am bad, God is willing to give his Spirit to everyone who asks and who seeks him, who keeps knocking on the door. The fact that we are evil does not change the essence, the character of God.

He really wants a deep relationship with you. He really wants you come and live inside of you. That’s really intimacy. He wants you to be together with you. And that’s incredible. That’s such a good news. That’s the best news ever. This is something incredible. And that’s the text in reality, that’s how the text announced. Even though you are evil, you’re father in heaven, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. That’s what he addressed to his disciples. And this amazing promise. And nowadays, if we don’t know that much, we can just look through this text and think, Oh, that’s okay. The Holy Spirit. Yeah, I heard about that. But for those people back in those days, this is a big deal. This is a big deal. If you go back in the Old Testament, I don’t even need to mention the book. You can pretty much choose a book and read a little bit. You’re going to see the presence of the Holy Spirit was something sometimes terrifying. When the Spirit of God would be in the room or in the land, we will have like fired thunders, earthquakes. It was something terrifying. In fact, some people die approach his presence in a way that was not appropriate.

They were like, They would kill it right away because his glory is too much. Our bodies cannot just be in front of him in the way that is not appropriate. So for this is a really big deal. This is a really big deal. Will the Spirit of the Lord is going to live in us? It’s an incredible promise. The Spirit of God can live in me? Me? To A broken, crooked Vessel. That’s crazy. And the thing is, doesn’t matter their syncopes times. There’s no if here. There is no if your father in heaven. But if, no. He’s talking to everyone who wants, everyone that has the heart, the audacity, and be shameless to be knocking and asking and ready to receive, believing that you will receive audacity and insistent prayers because God is willing. He wants you. He really, really, really wants you. Just to finish this whole sermon right here, I want to illustrate this whole context with a story from a sister, a Christian in Brazil that happened many years ago. This story goes like this. This woman, she was a Christian, but her husband was not a Christian. S he was struggling with cancer.

She had cancer. She was fighting against cancer. Her father just passed away and he was fighting with cancer. He died fighting with cancer. Her husband was practicing Santariz, and dealing with spirits. And a few times afterwards, he just left her. He just went out and start another family, leaving the wife and behind. The wife has many kids. Unfortunately, none of them were Christians. So she was living by herself on her house and any of those sons were Christians. In fact, one of those sons was a young man that was all the time persecuting her faith, talking about the Bible, talking bad things about the Bible, about God, saying that God is not good, using scriptures to discourage her and say bad things about the Bible. So this woman, she was in a really, really discourage environment in her own house with her own family. And she was a woman that used to pray a lot. And she was praying all the time and ask for the church to pray for her situation and her family situation. And she was always praying, always asking to God to help her and to help her family. And especially this son that was crazy and was saying a lot of bad things about the Bible, she was like afraid of that.

And she was asking people to pray for that kid, for that kid to be saved. But what is interesting here in the story is that at some point, this young man approached her and told her that he was engaged, but he was breaking up with his fiancee, and he doesn’t want to know about family anymore. In fact, he doesn’t even believe in family anymore. He wants to move move to another country to start a new life, and he’s not anymore going to be wasting time with anything that got close to family. He believes that he should be living his life in his own way and spend the life the way he wants by himself. That very conversation lead that woman to pray a different prayer, to mature her prayer by just asking to something deeper, to something more in more, for something more deeper. And instead of just asking God to save her kids, she prayed, God, my son really wants to move to another country. It is a desire that he has in his heart to get to know the world. But I pray to you that you can help him to become a Christian so he can fulfill his dream about getting to know the world and different cultures and different language.

But I want him to do this preaching the word of God. I want him to go and help people to get to know Jesus and be an instrument of God and be an instrument to convert those that doesn’t know about Jesus. For me, this is like a really bold prayer because the young man was cursing God. A young man was talking bad things about the Bible, and that mother was asking about the very person person to become a Christian and help others to also become a Christian, which is interesting because that’s the woman. That’s the woman that was praying. Her name is Joseliia Silva. She lives in Brazil. I am her son. It’s incredible to see that’s me, my wife, Caroline is over there, and Rosalia Silva, my mom. It’s really encouraging and incredible to think that sometimes you’re praying so much asking for something, and suddenly your prayer, your relationship with God matured and morphed to something different when you’re not going to be just asking for you. You’re going to be asking for others to God, to use that situation as a blessing. T hat’s what happened in this story and that’s what happened nowadays.

Your prayers are not getting you close to God, but it’s allowing you to have the same impact in others’ people life. It’s allowing you to not just learn from Jesus how to have intimacy with God, but also to lead us, to lead others in this very same thing and help others to have intimacy with God. I am so grateful that even though I am evil, God is still hearing my mother’s prayer and also hearing my prayers and helped me to accomplish that very same bold prayer that my mom prayed seven years ago. I’m so glad that her prayer has matured to something instead of just, Save my kid, to use my kid as a tool to save souls and to glorify the name of Jesus. That’s what I’m here doing today. It’s an honor to be here with you guys. In this moment right now, to finish this whole sermon, we’re going to have our communion. We’re going to take communion right now thinking. What I ask you is that you can pray. You can pray. If that’s how you were at right now, if you’re just making quick and short prayers, that’s okay. But let’s move forward.

Let’s keep insisting. Let’s keep knocking on the door. Let’s keep it like all the time talking with God is about insisting and knocking and doing it again and over and over and over and over again. This is how we’re going to find Jesus. We’re going to find the Lord and have intimacy with Him. Let’s right now pray for the Communion. The Lord thank you so much for your Spirit, for Jesus, for everything that you offered to us, Lord, for the intimacy that we can have, the same intimacy that Jesus had or have with you. I pray that everyone here, everyone that has the heart, has the willing, that we can learn from this text that we can have our life transformed and we can learn how to insist and how to be bold and to approach you in a way that is like a friendship, like a friendship between a father and a son. In this moment while we are eating the bread and drinking the juice that represents the flesh and the blood of Jesus, that we can think about those things and pray in our hearts that we can get close to God, that the Spirit can guide us, and we can have a deep and incredible relationship with God through his Spirit.

Thank you so much for Jesus. We pray this in your son’s name. Amen.