In Luke 11:5-13 Jesus ends his teaching on prayer by stating: “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!” (v. 13).

Certainly, one responsibility of an expositor will be to explain what it means for the Father to “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.” That will take a few minutes of sermon time for sure.

However, one effective way to preach this instruction is to make everyone aware of the disappointment most feel when they hear about this gift. Virtually no one listening to you preach would have guessed that the Holy Spirit would be the one gift identified. So, we need to spend some time addressing this slightly “disappointing” gift. It becomes a great time to remind everyone how important the Holy Spirit is for salvation (cf. Acts 2:38) and for service (Acts 6:8-10). The Holy Spirit was so important for Jesus (Luke 3:21f.) and the Church (24:49). Take the Holy Spirit out of our Christian experience and what do we have? Downplay His presence and power–sadly, the tendency in my Bible Church tradition– and what do we have?

So, making everyone feel the slight disappointment will go a long way toward giving the Holy Spirit His rightful place in our faith-families. Look for places in your preaching portion for these kinds of unexpected twists and turns.

Preach well for the sake of His reputation in the Church and in the world.