If You Ask                                                                                           2/2/41

 

Scripture: Luke 11: 1-13

 

Text:  John 14; 14  “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.”

 

The subject of prayer is one on which we do well to meditate, so that our practice of prayer may be effective and our understanding of its function alert and accurate.

 

Prayer is a painful practice for many who seldom resort to it except in some moment of agony of body or soul.  Then, when sensing trouble has come, they cry out in their anguish, blindly toward God.  Sudden and intolerable suffering comes, or a great shock, or the death of a loved one.  At such times one seems naturally to cry out, “Oh my God.”  Sometimes it is an exclamation of despair.  Usually it is at least a recognition that there is a Being to whom one may look and call in trouble.  And sometimes it is just an expression of trust in Him who, after all, rules our destinies in ways too mysterious for us to understand.

 

Prayer is a perfunctory practice for some.  Having conceded, at on time or another, that one ought to pray, a man may go through the form of praying at certain times and take satisfaction in thus performing his duty.

 

Prayer is a precious experience for many, a man or woman, boy or girl, who has learned to understand and use it as a means toward confidence and strength.  There are many to whom prayer is so important a practice and so precious an experience that they will allow nothing to stand in the way of their regular communion with the Father of all light and life. 

 

When speaking to people about prayer, especially to those who may find it hard to pray, I want always to speak of prayer in such a way as to make it seem a perfectly normal, natural, desirable part of their life - of my life - of anyone’s life.

 

Of course some of the expressions of prayer may seem difficult to many of our people.  We often think of the language of prayer, for instance, as being in the older style of speaking, characteristic of the refined Englishman at the time the King James translation of the Bible came about.  And it is true that there is a stateliness of expression about such language that makes it a fitting expression for many prayers.  But there is nothing hallowed about the language.  If it is not the normal expression of one’s mind and heart it should not be allowed for a moment to stand in the way of one’s communion with God.  Let a man use the language that is natural to him and the tongue in which he thinks most freely, when he prays.

 

There are some who get fairly terror-struck at the thought of leading in public prayer.  Many a man or woman has been able to learn to lead a group in prayer only through taking part in the series of sentence prayers in a Christian Endeavor meeting in a YMCA or YWCA service at a summer conference, or other Christian young people’s gathering.  There is a responsibility connected with leading the thoughts of a group of people toward God, and the attempt to express their feelings, desires and longings, their joys and sorrows, their penitence and their consecration, that makes it a definite task.  Public prayer probably “takes it out of you” faster than any other spiritual exercise, and yet that very fact makes it a most rewarding and satisfying experience. 

 

Praying in private is a different matter.  Here one pours out only his own heart to God, and the form of expression does not matter nearly so much, for one is concerned only that himself and his Lord shall understand.

 

I desire that we may think of prayer as a quite natural, normal experience.  It is just as normal a necessity for the faithful soul as water is for the healthy body.  “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God,” wrote the Psalmist.  “My soul thirsteth for God.”  [Psalm 42: 1, 2].

 

The normal man or woman, boy or girl, knows that he or she needs all of the resources that will help to live closer to fine ideals, with better self-control and more accurate direction, with finer trust and calm steadiness, with vision of life’s finest possibilities, with keen perception of wrong and of right.  Everybody searches for better life and reaches toward it.  And people, either consciously or unknowingly (unless they are in rebellion against their better selves), reach toward God in longing and in hope that they may be granted the gifts of the spirit which are so real.

 

Everyone whose living is worthwhile has moments of joy which just must be expressed - perhaps in song, perhaps in sheer physical action like that of a gamboling pup or a romping boy, perhaps in a conscious prayer of praise to the Great Giver of happiness.  “Then shall my lips praise thee.”  The prayer of joy, of gratitude, is a normal expression in recognition of the “Source whence all blessings flow.”

 

The impulse to pray is a part of our normal native being.  It is only the method of praying - the form of expression - that we have to learn.  People have always prayed as they could - in intelligence and in ignorance, in civilization and in tribal savagery, in calmness and in frenzy.  They have only needed to know how to pray.

 

John the Baptist evidently taught his disciples to pray.  And disciples of Jesus, seeing how naturally he prayed to the Father and with what strength of character he invariably returned from prayer, longed to learn how to pray.  One of them asked him, saying “Lord, teach us to pray.”

 

And so he taught them that great prayer which his followers so often use and which Luke reported in the lesson read this morning, and which Matthew reports perhaps even better.  It is great in the understanding it expresses.  It is most simple in its language.  That was a superb genius in Jesus that enable him to speak as never man spoke before, yet putting matters so simply that even the most untaught could understand.

 

“Our Father.”  It is so simple, so direct, so personal - just like a conversation between parent and child recognizing also that there are many, many other children whose welfare the Father must have at heart as fully as that of the one praying.

 

“Our Father which art in heaven.”  His abiding place is not in the worldly limitations, the shortsightedness, the greed and material-mindedness with which we are surrounded.  His abiding place is heaven, in which existence truth, justice, love, and mercy have no limitations.  The limitations are man’s.  God’s realm is borderless, boundless, the eternal.

 

“Hallowed be thy name.”  It is a name never to be profaned for it represents all of that experience which is supremely precious to the heart of a son or daughter.  Sooner would one allow the respected name of his earthly father to be defamed by his lips, sooner would he allow his mother’s precious name to be bantered about than would he use in vain carelessness the name that is above every other name.

 

“Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.”

These words some to the lips in recognition that our world is far from ideal.  There is unnecessary man-made suffering, there is injustice, there is selfishness, there is greed and covetousness, there is lust, there is disobedience of God and heedlessness of truth, there is slavishness and arrogance, there is impatience and intolerance, there is worldly pride.  And all of these are not of the heavenly kingdom of God.  Oh that more of that kingdom might come, here among the peoples of the earth, among my friends and me, in my household, my fraternity, my place of business, in my government, in my church and school!  Every God-loving son or daughter longs for more truth, more justice, more love, mercy, purity, greater trustworthiness, more of the pride of righteousness which God’s kingdom mean to us.  And insofar as we may help the Father to bring in such an ideal state, we want it here and now in this life at this time, and we will work and pray and struggle to help Him bring it about.

 

“Give us this day our daily bread” - for without food we perish.  The soul on earth needs an adequate body for expression.  It need not be a pretentious house but it must be kept in livable and useful repair.  Food is a daily necessity of all life.  We rightly pray that the labors of our life may be so ordered that food will be provided.

 

“And forgive us our sins,” for we are all sinners.  There is not one conscientious man or woman who does not become conscious from time to time of mistakes, of wrong actions, of wrong habits, of wrong thinking.  It becomes a burden on the soul.  And the only known way to get rid of that burden is to confess it and seek forgiveness from God and from the people whom we may have wronged.  Like telling a lie to cover up a wrong or a danger, it looks easy in various other ways to run away from the burden of sin.  But such an attempt at escape always leads to more trouble than relief.

 

Of course the sense of being forgiven and of having the burden rolled away is always conditioned upon our willingness to forgive others for wrongs which we feel that they have done to us.  Jesus emphasized that law, of which the golden rule is an expression, over and over again.  If you bring a gift to the altar and there remember that you are in enmity with someone, you may as well leave the gift for a time -yes, better- while you go and get reconciled to your brother with whom you are at war.  For no blessing, no repose, no joy, no satisfaction will come in attempting to present a gift acceptable to God while you hate one of his children.  If you seek the joy of forgiveness for yourself you must first freely grant forgiveness to others.

 

“And lead us not into temptation.”  The desire to do evil is not of God.  The only value or good to be found in connection with it is in the refining of our moral fiber as we resist and master such temptation.  It is probable that the word “temptation” here also means the sorrows and burdens of human living.  The prayer is for the leading of God, that temptation and trial may not be greater than we can bear and conquer.  “And” may the Father “deliver us from” all “evil” greater than we can bear.  “Lead us - not into temptation.”

 

Of course this is a prayer for Christians.  It takes a glimpse of God, as Jesus saw him, to be able to say this prayer.  And it has fortified and strengthened millions of the followers of Jesus for generations down to the present time.

 

In praying so simply, and with such trust, the followers of the Christ have learned the truth of his saying that if you ask in sincerity you shall receive.

 

If you ask in sincerity, you shall receive.  But watch yourself when you ask.  It is easy to say a prayer in blind selfishness.  A supremely important attitude is expressed in those words, “Thy will be done.“  It is part of our recognition of the Supreme Being, that, when we lay our petitions before Him in all earnestness and faithfulness, we shall leave the manner of answering that prayer in His hands.  It is part of the discipline of ourselves that we always recognize that what we ask may not be best either for ourselves or for others who may be affected by the answer to our petition.  One may have the joy of a direct answer to the prayer of supplication poured forth to the Father.  Or he may learn more and profit better by an indirect answer in some other way than he expected, but which works for the greater good of all.

 

But when you pray, pray in the full confidence that you will in some way be blessed.  Pray in sincerity; pray earnestly; pray in the confident trust that if you ask, you shall more surely receive bread, or love, or guidance, or understanding or perhaps discipline than even your earthly father would give it.

 

If you ask you shall receive.

 

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Dates and places delivered:

 

            Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, May 2, 1937  AM

            Mokulua Conference, September 14, 1937

            C.E. Convention Sunrise Service,

                        Ala Moana Park, Honolulu, May 15, 1938

            Wisconsin Rapids, February 2, 1941

            W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, February 8, 1941