Competing Voices RE Prayer

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. In the name of Jesus. So what do you make of that exchange between Abraham and the

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Lord? I mean, it sounds kind of like one of those Middle Eastern haggling things going on.

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How much are you selling that rug for? I might be willing to get rid of it for $50. How about $45?

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$45 seems okay. Well, certainly if you're willing to get rid of it for $45, you might be willing to get rid of it for $30.

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Yeah, I might. How about $10? Sold! Who talks to God this way?

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You see, I would note here that Abraham is praying. And what you think you know about prayer, it's best if you kind of put all that aside.

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There are a lot of competing voices out there that would instruct us about prayer. And over and again,

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I would note those voices have this weird tendency to dissuade us from it.

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Let me explain. Philosophers, you know, I think of some of the Reformed and some of the way they talk.

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They'll say things like, well, God is sovereign. God is sovereign, and He's in control of everything.

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In fact, that predestination thing, you were predestined to be here this morning. That person was predestined for this, predestined for that.

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So prayer may not be as important as you think. Well, why then do we pray? Well, because God in His sovereignty has commanded us to do so.

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All right, it doesn't sound like my prayers are going to be all that effective. But I guess

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I'm supposed to be obedient, right? So you got that voice. But then you also have voices inside of you.

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You have voices that go something like this. Well, I'm not as holy as David or Abraham, and I'm clearly not as on point as Jesus is.

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So why should I think that God is going to hear my prayers? I mean, it always feels like my prayers, when

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I pray, they ricochet right off the ceiling and back onto the floor. It's like they don't seem to do anything.

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So why should I pray? You'll note over and again, there's these weird things that happen.

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All these people, they think they understand how prayer works. But we would be wise to not listen to those voices.

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Listen to the voice of God in the biblical text. Listen to His voice. And consider just how amazing of a gift prayer is.

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Let me explain. In our gospel text today, it says this. Jesus was praying in a certain place.

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Have you ever considered, when you're reading the gospels, that Jesus prays a lot? I mean, a lot. You'll note that He doesn't reserve

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His prayers for, like, Christmas and Easter, which are kind of important days for Jesus. But He's praying, like, all the time.

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He's setting aside time. He's finding desolate places. And sometimes He's praying into the wee watches of the night.

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And so if the Son of God in human flesh thinks that prayer is an important thing, maybe, just maybe,

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I shouldn't despise this thing or think little of it. I mean, Jesus clearly thinks it's important.

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And so it says this. When He had finished, one of His disciples, it doesn't say which one, said to Him, Lord, would you teach us to pray as John taught his disciples?

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And so Jesus said to them, All right, when you pray, and watch the emphasis, say.

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When you pray, say. Now, I'm saying that because there's other voices out there in kind of the larger church at large, visibly, who would say things like this.

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And this is the weirdest thing. They'll say, you Lutherans, I cannot believe that you say the

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Lord's prayer word for word, verbatim, that you have it memorized. Don't you understand that Jesus says you're not to engage in vain repetition?

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And don't you understand that when you're praying God's, you know, Jesus's prayer word for word, that all you're doing is you're putting the

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Holy Spirit in a box and that you need to learn how to pray from your heart. Okay, it's time to stop listening to that voice too.

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Because Jesus said, when you pray, say, right?

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And so here we have Luke's version of it, but for the sake of, you know, not causing too many wrinkles, we'll go with the one that we're familiar with, you know, which is taken from Matthew's account.

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So when you pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

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Have you ever thought about how scandalous that is? I want you to think about this. Scripture says that every human being from the time of Adam and therefore on down to us, we were born dead in trespasses and sins.

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And even Jesus says of humanity, you are of your father, the devil, and your desire is to do his will.

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And yet Jesus, when he teaches us to pray, says, pray, our Father who art in heaven.

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What does this assume? This assumes that you're a Christian. This assumes that you're saved, that you have been raised from the grave, regenerated, forgiven, pardoned, and that you have been reconciled to the

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Father and adopted into his family. This is scandalous. I remember years ago, one lady at Kongsvinger, after a sermon, as people were coming through the line to shake my hand afterwards, she said, you know,

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Pastor, I was thinking about what you were saying in your sermon. I said, yeah. And she goes, I think I figured this out. Okay, what'd you figure out?

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You keep preaching to us like we're already Christians. Yeah. Yes, I do.

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And she was kind of taken aback at this that I confessed that that was the case. I said, listen, a

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Christian congregation called me to be their pastor. I'm assuming you're all

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Christians. If you're not Christians, I don't know what y 'all are. Right? So I'm going to preach to you like you already be saved.

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And I'm going to note that this is exactly, exactly what our epistle text is teaching us.

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And I love how our epistle text really fleshes this out. And whoever put these readings together really knew what they were doing.

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Consider what it says in Colossians 2. And watch the verbs here, because the verbs are amazing. Therefore, as you received, past tense, as you received

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Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, present tense, currently walk in him, rooted, built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

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And they say, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

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Now, a little bit of a note here. This is a little bit of a tough sentence. Let's pull this apart really quickly. You'll note that the apostle

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Paul is making it clear that in the Christian congregation, from the pulpit, the voice that we are to hear is not the voice of Aristotle or Plato or the current in vogue philosophers,

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Derrida and others. We are to hear the voice of Christ. And the thing that he's saying is, is that philosophers can take us captive, back captive.

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And the kind of the thing that they all have in common, in the common denominator is, well, they teach according to human tradition, and this is the tough phrase, according to the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ.

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Now, when was the last time you had a good conversation with your Christian brother about those elemental spirits of the world? You probably haven't.

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In fact, I'll be honest. This is a phrase that for many years, as I would read it in Scripture, all

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I would hear is, wah -wah, wah -wah, wah -wah, wah -wah. I would read the phrase and go, I have no idea what he's talking about, and just keep reading, thinking, maybe

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I'll figure it out someday. Right? But the reality is, is that Paul, in this exact same chapter, explains what the elemental spirits of the world are.

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In fact, same chapter, verse 20, Paul says this, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, and we have, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

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Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings.

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These indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self -made religion, and asceticism, and the severity to the body, but listen to these words, they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

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In other words, what the philosophers all have in common in their teaching of the elemental spirits of the world, it's all about the law, and kind of common sense folk religion based upon something like the law.

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So how do you know that somebody is really holy, that they are really connected to God?

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Well, answer, well, they pray five times a day towards Mecca, their women wear burqas, right?

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And they don't eat pork, they never touch bacon or alcohol, that's how you know that somebody's really in touch with God.

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That's what Paul says is human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

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You see, think of it this way, our Father who art in heaven, we know that scripture says that we are adopted into the family of God.

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Why were you adopted? Was God the Father like Daddy Warbucks?

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Did He come into the human orphanage? And as you saw that He was coming into the human orphanage, you decided to put on your best set of clothes, comb your hair, put on your brightest smile, and make sure to laugh or say something that made you stand out from the other orphans so that Daddy Warbucks would pick you.

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Is that how that works? No. God the

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Father found you dead in trespasses and sins. And in His great mercy, because of Christ and His merit and His work,

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He has given you the gift of faith, regenerated you in the waters of baptism, washed away your sins, united you with Christ in His death and His resurrection, and adopted you all as a gift.

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Not by you staying away from alcohol or bacon. Oh, please don't stay away from bacon.

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That really is good stuff. But you get the idea, right? It's not because of the elemental spirits of the world.

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And so that's what Paul's point is, that the philosophers, they take you captive back to the law.

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Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. None of these have the ability to curb your sinful nature anyway.

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This is nonsense. It's self -made religion. He says this, For in Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily, and you have, listen to the words, because it's past tense, passive, you have been filled in Him.

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This was done to you, for you. Who is the head and the rule of all authority? In Him also you, past tense, were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

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And by the way, this circumcision is both for men and for women. And where did the circumcision take place?

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By the putting off of the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism.

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And this was done to you, for you. Notice the past tense, passive verb, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised

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Him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God has made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

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This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. Remember when Abraham said to God, far be it from the righteous judge of the universe to kill, to destroy the righteous with the wicked.

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God says, yeah, you got a point there, Abraham. But what did God do? God the Father sent

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His Son, the only righteous person who ever lived among us since Adam and Eve's fallen to sin.

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And God caused Him to suffer the fate of the wicked, your wickedness and mine, so that we can be forgiven, pardoned, reconciled to the

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Father. And all of this is given as a gift and received by grace through faith.

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So brothers and sisters, consider again these scandalous words of Jesus. When you pray, say, our

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Father who art in heaven. And now you can see it. We don't pray this prayer because God commands us to pray this.

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We pray this prayer because we have been made alive together in Christ. And now we can say boldly that by grace, now

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God the Father is truly our Father. And that means everything.

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I mean, you think it's a coincidence that heresy and false ideas regarding prayer go hand in hand?

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I mean, think of what goes on in Rome, right? What goes on in Rome? People spend all this time praying to Mary, praying to dead saints.

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But Scripture says there's one mediator between God and man, and that's Christ Jesus. I feel bad for Mary because every time she picks up the phone and looks at her voicemail, she picks it up and it says, you have 10 billion new messages.

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Poor lady, leave her alone. She can't answer your prayers. But the idea is this, is that the devil knows that if he can make it so that people do not call out to God for help, but call out to Mary, dead saints, or some other false god, that God will not hear their voice and God will not come to their aid.

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But we are instructed here to call out to God as our Father, and that's a big deal because when the devil is harassing us, when he's making us to suffer, we call out to our

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Father and say, Father in heaven, help! And which of you who has children?

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When they were knee high to a grasshopper, when they were outside. I know that's a strange concept, but maybe it's a little more of a thing out here.

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Kids still play outside, right? The kids in town are kind of pasty white. They never see the sunlight.

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And you say, you need to go outside. They go, outside, what's that? You know, they've never heard of this place.

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Anyway, but when your kids are playing outside, you know, there's dangers.

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I mean, there's weird strangers, or how about that stray dog that gets out of the neighbor's yard?

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I remember one time a dog got out of the neighbor's yard while my kids were playing, and I hear my son yelling,

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Dad, Dad, there's a dog! I dropped everything. And I went out there, and I let that dog know, you get away from my kids.

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You get away from my son. Go on, you dog. He went, rrrr, and went away. But what did my son do?

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He called out to his Father. How much more so us, our

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Heavenly Father. That's what Jesus is saying, our Father who art in Heaven, call out to Him as your

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Father. And if you think your prayers don't mean anything, don't listen to that voice.

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Does your Father not listen to you when you call out to Him? Of course not. Do you fathers not listen to your own children when they call out to you?

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In the same way, because we are saved, God now is, we've been reconciled to the Father, and we can call out to Him in our time of need, and He hears us.

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We are His dearly beloved children. It's scandalous what Jesus is saying when we pray.

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It requires faith and confidence that God is truly our

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Father, and that He hears us. And remember, the prayers of a righteous man availeth much, the Scripture says.

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And you're clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It doesn't get any more righteous than that.

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So you can see then, that this prayer that Christ has given us is a result of the

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Gospel. It assumes that you are forgiven and pardoned and reconciled to the

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Father. And now you can with confidence cry out to God, Oh, my Father in heaven, hallowed be

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Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And give us this day our daily bread.

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And notice we're not praying for a month's worth of groceries from Sam's Club. We're praying for daily bread, which means we're praying this prayer on a daily basis.

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And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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And then Jesus, to kind of punctuate the point, tells kind of a little mini parable. He says, which of you who has a friend who will come to him at midnight and say,

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Friend, lend me three loaves. I need to make a sandwich. I had a guest who came in in the middle of the night.

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And you'll note that Jesus notes that you're going to help this guy, not because he's your friend. Because at this point, whether or not he's your friend in the morning is kind of up for grabs, right?

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But you're going to say yes to this fellow because of his impudence. But here's the thing. God is nothing like us in that sense.

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And that's his point. He goes on to say, which of you, when your child asks you for bread, will give him a snake or a scorpion or asks for good things?

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He says, you who are evil, who know how to give good gifts to your children. But how much more our

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Heavenly Father because he's not evil. And so what does Jesus say? Ask.

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And you'll receive. Seek. You'll find.

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Knock. The door will be opened. Your father is on the other side of that door.

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And the gospel makes it so that we can have this confidence to come to our

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God and call him Father. And note then that when we pray, it's almost as if some of God's plans, yes,

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God's sovereign, God has got the whole universe well under control. It's as if though in his day planner, some of the things that he's decided that he's going to do are written in pencil so that when we come as his children and we say,

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Father, you need to help me or Father, you've got to help that person.

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They are in desperate need. They are suffering. And God looks at his day planner and his decision and goes, yeah, yeah,

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I think you're right. Hang on a second here. I'm going to erase that. And I'm going to do what you asked. It doesn't make any sense unless God truly is that kind of Father.

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And he is. So when you pray, say, our Father who art in heaven, and don't sit there and go, yeah, come on, that's kid stuff.

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Yeah, actually, it is kid stuff. And that's the point. Because of Jesus, because he's canceled the record of debt that has stood against us, we are

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God's kids by grace through faith. So enjoy the gift of prayer because that's what it is.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again, that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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