Bible Text: Luke 11:9-10 | Preacher: Marty Albanese | Series: Marty’s Sermons

Biggie Sizing Your Faith by Martin Albanese

Luke 11:9-11:10

Biggie Sizing your Walk with God
Wanting more of God

You know how it is when you go through the fast-food chain and the lady at the counter says, Do you want to Biggie-Size your french-fries? What does that mean? It means you want more. Normally after eating it, don’t you feel full?

I am suggesting to you today that you Biggie-Size your prayers, your walk, your attitude, your hunger, your desire to serve. your praise and worship, YOUR EVERYTHING.
LET’S LOOK AT SOME AREAS WE CAN BIGGIE SIZE THIS WALK
1.) We can ASK – SEEK – KNOCK
• Luke 11:9-10 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened. (10) For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.
• Ask – seek – knock – These three words include the ideas of want, loss, and earnestness.
o Ask: turn, beggar at, the door of mercy; you are poor of all spiritual good, and it is God alone who can give it to you; and you have no claim but what his mercy has given you itself.
 Ask with confidence and humility.
o Seek: You have lost God – Look about you – leave no stone unturned there is no peace, no final salvation for you until thou get your soul restored to the favor and image of God.
 Seek with care and application.
o Knock: Be intense – be persistent: Eternity is at hand! and, if you die in your sins, where God is you will never be.
 Knock with earnestness and perseverance.
• Why don’t you have it yet?
• James 4:2b-3 and yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. (3) And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong-you want only what will give you pleasure.
• Psalms 42:1-2 NLT As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. (2) I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him?
o By these comparisons of the thirst and panting, he shows his fervent desire to serve God in his temple
• Psalms 63:1 NLT O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.
o Early – Heb. in the morning, which implies the doing it with diligence and speed.
o Thirsts – For the enjoyment of Your in the house and ordinances.
o Flesh – The desire of my soul is so intense, that my very body feels the effects of it.
o No water – In a land where I want the refreshing waters of the sanctuary.
• Psalms 105:3-4 NLT Exult in his holy name; O worshipers of the LORD, rejoice! (4) Search for the LORD and for his strength, and keep on searching.
o Seek the Lord – Worship the one only Supreme Being, as the only and all-sufficient good for the soul of man.
o And his strength – Man is weak; and needs connection with the strong God that he may be enabled to avoid evil and do good.
o Seek his face – Reconciliation to him. Live not without a sense of his favor.
o Evermore – Let this be thy chief business. In and above all thy seeking, seek this.
• Is that your attitude toward knowing God? Is it like that of a man parched with thirst, traveling through the desert, whose mind and heart and body are consumed with an intense desire for water? Hear what the Scriptures say about the necessity of seeking God in this way:
o Deuteronomy 4:29 NLT From there you will search again for the LORD your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.
 God is longsuffering, and of tender mercy; and waits, ever ready, to receive a backsliding soul when it returns to him.

2.) We need to LET THE LORD BE YOUR STRENGTH
• 2Timothy 4:17 – But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength, that I might preach the Good News in all its fullness for all the Gentiles to hear. And he saved me from certain death.
o The Lord stood with me
 When all human help failed, God, in a more remarkable manner, interposed; and thus the Excellency plainly appeared to be of God, and not of man.
o That by me the preaching might be fully known
 When called on to make his defense he took occasion to preach the Gospel, and to show that the great God of heaven and earth had designed to illuminate the Gentile world with the rays of his light and glory. This must have endeared him to some, while others might consider him an opposer of their gods, and be the more incensed against him.
o I was saved from certain death. (Lion) – I escaped the imminent danger at that time. Probably he was seized in a disorderly manner, and expected to be torn to pieces. The Greek words to be rescued from the mouth or jaws of the lion, are a proverbial form of speech for deliverance from the most imminent danger.
• Jeremiah 17:5-10 NLT This is what the LORD says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from the LORD. (6) They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives. (7) “But blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. (8) They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit. (9) “The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? (10) But I know! I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”
o Shall not see – Or, “shall not fear Jer_17:6.” God’s people feel trouble as much as other people, but they do not fear it because they know
 that it is for their good, and
 that God will give them strength to bear it.
 If the man is so blessed Jer_17:7-8 who trusts in Yahweh, what is the reason why men so generally “make flesh their arm”? And the answer is: Because man’s heart is incapable of seeing things in a straightforward manner, but is full of shrewd guile, and ever seeking to overreach others.
 Desperately wicked – Rather, mortally sick, Hardened by Sin
 What there actions deserve – Reaping and sowing
• Matthew 6:33-34 NLT and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. (34) “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
o Seek first His kingdom; seek first to be righteous, and to become interested in His favor, and all necessary things will be added to you.
o He has control over all things, and He can give you what you need. He will give you what he deems best for you.

3.) MAKE HIM THE PURPOSE OF OUR PRAISE AND WORSHIP
• Worship is not something that we merely observe or attend
o Worship is something in which we actively participate.
o Since we are not its object, any benefit that we derive from it is a gracious gift of our Father.
o Our purpose in worship is to return to God a portion of what He has given us, to offer “ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a holy, living, and acceptable sacrifice.”
• The Nature of Worship
o In worship, we take part in the holy mystery of ascending into Heaven to approach God and commune with Him.
o At the special occasion of approaching our King in His throne room, our attitudes and actions, as well as the décor, sounds, and scents, should be reverent, regal, majestic, and pleasing by His standards.
o The worship of God is for the people of God.

4.) LEAD A PRAYER CENTERED LIFE
• Philippians 4:6-7 NLT Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. (7) If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
o Be careful for nothing – Don’t anxious or worried about the things of the present life
 It does not mean that we are to exercise no care about worldly matters – no care to preserve our property, or to provide for our families
 We are to be in such confidence in God as to free the mind from anxiety, and such a sense of dependence on him as to keep it calm
o But in everything –
 Everything in reference to the supply of your wants, and the wants of your families.
 Everything in respect to afflictions, embarrassments, and trials.
 Everything relating to your spiritual condition.
 There is nothing which pertains to body, mind, estate, friends, conflicts, losses, trials, hopes, fears, in reference to which we may not go and spread it all out before the Lord.
• With thanksgiving – Thanksgiving connected with prayer. We can always find something to be thankful for, no matter what
• Let your request be made known unto God – Not as if you were to give him information, but to express to him your wants.
o God needs not to be informed of our necessities, but he requires that we come and express them to him;
o Compare this verse – Eze 36:37 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am ready to hear Israel’s prayers for these blessings, and I am ready to grant them their requests.

• Ask yourself, What would the church be like . . .
• If everyone attends like I do?
• If everyone gives like I do?
• If everyone arrives like I do?