Sermon Tone Analysis
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INTRODUCTION
When Edmund Gravely died at the controls of his small plane while on the way to Statesboro, Georgia, from the Rocky Mount-Wilson Airport in North Carolina, his wife, Janice, kept the plane aloft for two hours.
As the plane crossed the South Carolina/North Carolina border, she radioed for help: “Help, help, won’t someone help me?
My pilot is unconscious.”
Authorities who picked up her distress signal were not able to reach her by radio during the flight because she kept changing channels.
Eventually Mrs. Gravely made a rough landing and had to crawl for forty-five minutes to a farmhouse for help.
How often God’s people cry out to him for help but switch channels before his message comes through!
They turn to other sources for help, looking for human guidance.
When you cry out to God for his intervention, don’t switch channels!
The text before us today arrests our attention with the reality that God’s people often cry out to him for help but switch channels before his message comes through!
They turn to other sources for help, looking for human guidance.
We should see from the lesson of this text today that when you cry out to God for his intervention, don’t switch channels!
CONTEXT OF THE TEXT
It was on a day when Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”
Jesus does not put it off, but responds immediately to the request.
He said “When you pray, say Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.
Then he launched into a parable, not to confuse them, but to make his point clear.
He asked them to put themselves in a needy situation.
He said, now imagine that you go to a friend for help at the most inopportune time and are denied entrance.
But, because you are in such dire need, and you know that he has the means to help, you keep on knocking on the door.
Jesus says he may not get up to help you because you are his friend, but he will because you won’t stop banging on the door.
He then ups the ante and says “Now put yourselves in the role of a father.
if your child asked you for a fish, you wouldn’t give a snake, would you?
Or, if they asked you for an egg, you wouldn’t give them a scorpion?
He said, if you can be that kind to your children and you are evil, Don’t you think that God will the give us the best as well.
SERMONIC CLAIM
In this text Jesus answers the disciple’s question by saying this is how to pray In
Pray Intelligently, Pray Structurally, Pray Persistently, and Pray Expectantly.
PRAY INTELLIGENTLY
Right from the start, should recognize that the text is tailored to teach that as disciples of Christ we need to learn how to pray.
The unnamed disciple had it right.
Contrary to popular opinion, there are some things that you can’t fake it until you make it.
Did y’all hear me?
When it comes to prayer it will never be caught until it is taught.
This disciple said “teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”
That is to say that it is the job of the teacher to teach the disciple.
This is a good place, right here, to press the issue of discipleship again.
The sad reality with many contemporary churches is that discipleship no longer holds the weight it used to hold.
As a matter of fact, most church folk don’t want to be taught anything because they feel like they know just as much as the one who is sent to teach them.
And so biblical literacy suffers, fellowship suffers, outreach ministries suffer, and learning how to pray suffers.
The old hymn says:
Teach me to pray Lord, teach me to pray
this is my heart’s cry day after day,
I long to know Thy will and Thy way,
Teach me to pray Lord, teach me to pray.
PRAY STRUCTURALLY
Praying intelligently means praying structurally.
We all have heard people pray who are all over the place.
And while it is true that the Lord can decode it; He says to us today that He shouldn’t have to when He has revealed to us the structure.
Listen to the text: Luke 11:2-4
Now there are some who will insist that there are other ways to structure prayer.
But, suffice to say today that this is the structure that the Master gave us.
Let me park parenthetically for a moment and make to observation on Jesus’ remark “When you pray”.
This says to us that prayer is something that you do, not just talk about.
The only prayer that the Lord does not hear is the one you have not pray
Dr. E. M. Bounds
The story is told of a long-ago couple who said farewell to their home church as they were about to leave for an African mission field known as “The White Man’s Grave.”
The husband said, “My wife and I have a strange dread in going.
We feel much as if we were going down into a pit.
We are willing to take the risk and go if you, our home church, will promise to hold the ropes.”
One and all promised to do so.
Less than two years had passed when the wife and the little one God had given the couple succumbed to the dreaded fever.
Soon the husband realized his days were also numbered.
Not waiting to send word of his coming, he started back home at once and arrived at the time of the Wednesday prayer meeting.
He slipped in unnoticed, taking a back seat.
At the close of the meeting, he went forward.
An awe came over the people, for death was written on his face.
He said, “I am your missionary.
My wife and child are buried in Africa and I have come home to die.
This evening I listened anxiously as you prayed for some mention of your missionary to see if you were keeping your promise, but in vain!
You prayed for everything connected with yourselves and your home circle, but you forgot your missionary.
I see now why I am a failure as a missionary.
It is because you have failed to hold the ropes.”1041
PRAY PERSISTENTLY
The sad reality is that many who say they are the disciples are not praying.
It seems that they have forgotten that “Prayer moves the hand that moves the world!”
And so instead of keeping on praying, they stop.
Jesus says to His disciples “if you want to know how to pray…Pray Persistently”.
What do you mean Jesus?
He said, let’s suppose you had a friend: See Luke 11:5-10
The lesson being taught here is that delay doesn’t necessary mean denial.
Let me illustrate:
A woman left her diamond brooch in a hotel.
When she got home she remembered her brooch and called the hotel.
She told the manager what happened and he went to look for it.
He found it, put it in the safe, and returned to the phone to tell her the good news, but she had hung up.
So many of us are like this.
We aren’t willing to wait on the Lord.
Michael P. Green.
(2000).
1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (p.
280).
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
PRAY EXPECTANTLY
Well, Brothers and Sisters, the Lord is trying to teach to pray.
He says When you pray: pray intelligently,pray persistently, and then pray expectantly.
Ask and it shall be given, Seek and you shall find, Knock and the door shall be open.
In other words, Jesus is saying to us today: Pray with Expectation.
It’s right here in the text today!
He changes the relationship from friend to father.
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