Luke 11: Persistent Prayer and the Gift of the Spirit

This sermon walks through Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer to show that prayer is not just about getting things from God, but being formed by God. Jesus gives a pattern for prayer that begins with God’s holiness and kingdom, moves to daily needs, forgiveness, and protection from temptation, and then illustrates “ask, seek, knock” with a story of shamelessly persistent knocking at midnight. We see that God is a good Father who never gives “scorpions” to his children, and that the greatest answer to prayer is not stuff, but the Holy Spirit himself. The call is for believers and for our church to live with real expectancy, to keep knocking in prayer, and to ask God to align our hearts with his kingdom and his purposes, especially in light of recent moves of the Spirit in our gatherings.