“Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1)
God
answers the prayers of sinners, not perfect people. And you can become
perfectly paralyzed in your praying if you do not focus on the cross and
realize this.
I
could show it from numerous Old Testament texts where God hears the cry
of his sinful people, whose very sins had gotten them into the trouble
from which they are crying for deliverance (for example, Psalm 38:4, 15;
40:12–13; 107:11–13). But let me show it from Luke 11 — in two ways:
In
this version of the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2–4), Jesus says, “When you
pray, say . . . ” and then in verse 4 he includes this petition, “and
forgive us our sins.” So, if you connect the beginning of the prayer
with the middle, what he says is, “Whenever you pray, say . . . forgive
us our sins.”
I
take this to mean that this should be as much a part of all our praying
as, “Hallowed be your name.” Which means that Jesus assumes that we
need to seek forgiveness virtually every time we pray.
In
other words, we are always sinners. Nothing we do is perfect. As Martin
Luther said, on his deathbed, “We are beggars. This is true.” Even if
we have achieved some measure of obedience before we pray, we always
come to the Lord as sinners — all of us. And God does not turn away the
prayers of sinners when they pray like this.
The
second place we can see this is in Luke 11:13: “If you then, who are
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Jesus
calls his disciples “evil.” Pretty strong language. And he did not mean
that they were out of fellowship with him. He did not mean that their
prayers could not be answered.
He
meant that as long as this fallen age lasts, even his own disciples
will have an evil bent that pollutes everything they do, but doesn’t
keep them from doing much good as they rely on his grace and power.
We
are simultaneously evil and redeemed. We are gradually overcoming our
evil by the power of the Holy Spirit. But our native corruption is not
obliterated by conversion.
We
are sinners and we are beggars. And if we recognize this sin, renounce
it, fight it, and cling to the cross of Christ as our hope, then God
will hear us and answer our prayers.
John Piper
