LUKE 11:1-13
INTRODUCTION
In Contemporary Christian Music, John Fischer writes:
I have a bad habit. When my children tell me about
something they’ve learned for the first time, I often act as if I knew that.
Even worse, sometimes, I tell them how the same thing happened to me years ago.
When my wife hears something “new” from the kids, her mouth
drops open and her eyes widen. It’s as if she has never heard this kind of
thing before. The kids’ faces brighten, and they feel as if they have actually
enlightened their mother.
I used to think my wife was just acting and sooner or later
the kids would find out and feel lied to. Then I realized it isn’t an act at
all. Though she may already have experienced what they are trying to tell her,
she’s never experienced it through them. Their personal “revelations” are
entirely new. It is the same with God. As all knowing and sovereign as He is,
I’m sure He’s still eager to hear our prayers because He has never heard it
quite the way we say it. We are all unique. We have our own signature attached
to all we do and say. Our lives, our experiences, and our faith expressed to
Him are never old.
I. A PARADIGM OF PRAYER VV. 1-4
I believe that most travelers on airlines do not pay much
attention to the pre-flight safety announcements that the flight attendants
provide on commercial airlines. However, the near fatal crash of the Delta
airline Jet en route to Canada a couple of years ago, has caused many airline
passengers to pay attention to the pre-flight instructions. If the passengers
in that airplane had ignored the instructions of the flight attendants, perhaps
all of them might have died in the flames that later engulfed the plane.
However, since they paid rapt attention to the instructions all of them got out
safely. There was not a single casualty.
Many Christians neglect prayer in a similar way some
passengers do the oxygen masks that are shown them in commercial flights. If
you take Jesus Christ seriously, you know that prayer is more like oxygen than
an oxygen mask. Prayer is a constant essential of life. As Martin Luther
observed, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be
alive without breathing.” Prayer is more than a privilege; it is a necessity;
an indispensable part of our walk with God.
However, if we would admit in all honesty, prayer is often
a problem in our lives. It is easier to preach about prayer than to pray. The
problem of prayer does not lie exclusively in the intellectual aspect of it.
There is a mystery about it. What should I pray about and how should I do it?
Am I doing it right? If prayer is so great, why does it feel like a burden or a
duty, or worse, like religious play-acting? Does God really hear and answer me?
Prayer was a subject that was on the Lord’s mind
constantly. Our Lord Jesus prayed, and taught His disciples about prayer.
However, prayer was not simply a spiritual discipline for Him. Jesus did not
focus on prayer so much as He focused on His Father. This is very important,
because most of our problems with prayer are due to our misconceptions about
God. If we understood Him better we would pray more and enjoy it more.
Therefore, Jesus does not give His disciples a praying technique so much as an
appreciation of the recipient of prayer. One such place we encounter that
teaching is in the parable of the midnight caller recorded in the Gospel of
Luke 11:5-8. Nevertheless, before Jesus tells the parable, He gives us a
paradigm to guide us in prayer.
Suppose you want to develop a skill such as playing soccer,
basketball, computer whiz, or becoming an author. To whom do you go? A wise
person does not just turn to a willing friend, but to a qualified expert. The
expert on prayer is doubtless the Lord Jesus. Prayer was a normal activity for
Jesus (Luke 5:16; 3:21; 6:12; 9:18; 9:28-29; 22:39-46). If the God-man chose to
pray constantly and consistently, how much more should we?
The disciples not only recognized the priority of prayer in
the life of their Master, they were impressed with what they saw. They must
have sensed that in some way prayer was the secret of Jesus’ life, and that He
was strong at a place where they were weak. “Lord, teach us to pray" is
the only record in Scripture of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them anything.
The disciples never asked Jesus to teach them how to preach, how to perform
miracles, how to heal, or even how to teach, but they asked Him to teach them
to pray.
You can discover people’s spiritual maturity by listening
to them pray. The Jews had distinctive corporate prayers and prayer styles, and
John the Baptist had apparently given his disciples a recognizable prayer
pattern. Jesus’ disciples wanted a Jesus-style prayer. However, they wanted
more than a prayer to recite. The disciples’ request is not “Teach us a
prayer,” but “Teach us to pray.”
I have preached about the Model Prayer when I dealt with
the Sermon on the Mount. I did a verse-by-verse exegesis on the Model Prayer
from Matthew’s Gospel. In view of this, I will not do an extensive exposition
in the first four verses. However, I will give you three prayer principles from
these verses.
Prayer is to the Father. The
heart of all that Jesus came to do is
wrapped up in the simple
address “Father.” Nowhere in the Old Testament do you find a person addressing
God as “Father.” The Jews began their prayer this way: “Lord God of Abraham,
God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God most high, Creator of heaven and earth, our
shield and the shield of our fathers!” However, since the day of Jesus,
believers have been able to come as children and cry out “Father!” The word
“Father” in the Hebrew language is Abba, which is equivalent to our English
term “Daddy.” Therefore, Christian prayer is the language of intimacy, the
loving conversation of a Father and His child. Prayer’s central purpose is not
to transfer information. After all, what can you tell an all-knowing God that
He does not already know? Rather it is to deepen the relationship that we have
with the One who is all that a father could ever be and much more.
2. Prayer is about the Father’s glory.
“Hallowed be your name” is a plea that humans will honor
God’s reputation. “Your kingdom come” anticipates that our Lord’s reign will be
established on the earth. Ultimately, this looks forward to the Lord’s return
in His kingdom glory, and it also reminds us that, as His kingdom people, we
can live under His authority now and extend His rule by sharing the gospel.
What we must not miss is that, in prayer, God’s glory and God’s program take
precedence over all else. You pervert prayer if you make it primarily about
getting your needs met, rather than desiring that your Father be honored and
obeyed properly.
Prayer is about our needs.
To say that prayer is primarily God-centered is not to say
that petition is wrong. On the contrary, there are no concerns that the Father
does not want us to bring to Him. “Daily bread” represents every need related
to our physical existence. Bread is a necessity, not a luxury, an essential,
not just a desire. We come for such needs, just as we also come asking, “Forgive
us our sins,” a sobering admission that we are sinners, who need help in our
relationship with God and others. We are vulnerable people who are attracted to
sin the way a moth is drawn to the flame. “Lead us not into temptation” reminds
us of our continuing moral needs, which are due to the power of sin within us
and Satan outside us.
Having given the disciples a model of prayer, the Lord continues
His instruction by telling a parable. The focus of the parable is important,
because it forces us to think deeply about the one to whom our prayer is made.
II. A PARABLE OF PRAYER VV. 5-8
Among the four Gospels of the NT, only Luke records the
parable of the midnight caller. In just a few colorful words, Jesus paints a
picture of a man who was out of bread. He probably had the last bite for
supper, and then receives a traveler who arrives at midnight. This was a small
village and bread could not be purchased unless a neighbor was willing to lend
a few loaves. Living in the state of Texas, I can understand why the traveler
arrived late in the night. He arrived at midnight, perhaps to avoid the heat of
the day. Probably this was during summer time. Tired and hungry, he looks to
his host for hospitality. However, by coming at an unusual hour, he places his
friend in a predicament of either refusing hospitality, because he is out of
bread, or by going to his neighbor to ask for a few loaves. This is a dilemma
and impossible situation! Custom demands that he feeds his guest. If he refuses
to feed his traveler friend, he has broken the established norm of hospitality
and brings shame on himself and the village. Be reminded that in those days
they did not have refrigerators and local convenience stores, and his cupboards
were empty. If he goes to his neighbor and wakes him up late in the night, he
would incur his displeasure. Desperate situations call for desperate measures.
In his desperation, the host turns to his only alternative, a friend who can
supply what he needs. This was an inconvenience, because it was way past
bedtime. He calls his friend out of sleep: “Friend lend me three loaves,
because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set
before him” He addresses his neighbor as “friend,” may be to discourage anger,
even though it was not a friendly gesture to wake him in the middle of the
night. What makes the host’s situation more difficult is that houses in Israel,
especially in rural areas, were small, consisting of one room used as sitting
room, dining room, and bedroom. The family slept on mats that were spread on
the floor. A house had one door, which was left open throughout the day. But in
the evening when the sun had set, the head of the family would close the door
and set a wooden bar through the rings on both door and wall to keep out
intruders. It was rather difficult to get up in the dark and find a needed
article. If he lit the light, he would wake some of the family. The neighbor is
reluctant to open the door. He says, “I cannot get up and give you anything”
(v.7). The neighbor is saying, “I won’t do it.” The neighbor’s reluctance is
understandable; his refusal is against everything his culture values. According
to the custom of the day, the neighbor was under obligation to help this
friend, but he has to go through some inconvenience in order to provide the
bread to his friend. Therefore, it would be much easier if his next-door
neighbor had disappeared in the dark. But the next-door neighbor is persistent.
He does not give his friend rest and sleep. He knows that he cannot return home
empty-handed, knowing that his guest is hungry and waiting. He keeps on asking
for the bread until the neighbor gets up, light the lamp, removes the wooden
bar, opens the door, and gives him the bread. He gives what goes with the
bread.
What gets the attention of the next-door neighbor to give
this bread to help the traveler in the night is not their friendship, but the
neighbor’s persistence. The word persistence is the key word in the conclusion
of the parable. It depicts the attitude of a person who is obligated to show
hospitality to a friend who came to him at midnight. In the context of his
culture, this neighbor goes out of his way to provide for the physical needs of
his visiting friend. He is willing to sacrifice friendship with his neighbor in
order to be an accommodating host. He persists. He knows that his request would
be honored in adverse circumstances.
How are we to understand this parable of prayer? Is God
like a sleepy neighbor who is irritated when I come to Him at an inconvenient
time with a deep need? Does God have to be badgered, pestered, and shamed into
responding to our requests? Has “God gone to bed?” or is He temporarily “out of
touch?” Exactly the opposite is true. God is not a sleepy friend but a loving
Father. If a drowsy neighbor will respond to persistence when my need is real
and urgent, how much more will my unwearied Father? If an emergency arises in
my child’s life at an inconvenient hour, I may not be thrilled when I get the
call, but I want to get it and do all I can to help. Therefore, my God is eager
all the more to help and all the more anxious to respond to my deep need. The
parable then is not one of comparison but of contrast. The Lord is unlike the
sleepy neighbor at all. God does not need to be shamed or cajoled into acting.
He is sure to hear and quick to answer.
III. PRINCIPLES OF PRAYER VV. 9-13
The first thing that Jesus sets before us is the principle
of persistence. The words “ask, seek, and knock” suggest this, and each of them
occurs in the present tense in the Greek language. It indicates a continuing
action: “Keep on asking; keep on seeking; and keep on knocking.” This shows
that initial barriers to prayer are not to be seen as final refusals. The Lord
often uses delays to deepen our dependence upon Him, or to refine our
understanding of what we need from Him. Prayer involves seeing ourselves as
needy people without the resources to meet our needs. However, the basis of
prayer is not our persistence but the character of our God.
Another fundamental truth about prayer is the principle of
assistance. The gift for which we should be praying and the gift the Father
delights to give is His Holy Spirit, who ministers to the deepest needs of our
hearts. This does not negate our petition. Nevertheless, often in prayer you
set your heart on secondary things, instead of asking, seeking, and knocking
for those things that only God the Spirit can do for you.
Therefore, the Lord has taught us how to pray. We are to
pray trustingly, confident that a loving Father hears, cares, and responds. We
are to pray persistently and audaciously, coming boldly to our God. We are to
pray intimately, knowing that when we knock it is our Father who will open the
door. We are to pray wisely. That is to say, we need to recognize that while we
desire God’s gifts, what we really need is God Himself, who has been made real
to us through His indwelling Spirit. Many of you are spiritual asthmatics,
wheezing your way through life, gasping for air because
your spiritual lives have
been constricted by prayerlessness. When you pray, you admit that you cannot do
it on your own; you need your Father. John Bunyan, English preacher and the
author of Pilgrims Progress, said, “Pray often; for prayer is a shield to the
soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.” God answers prayer in
response to the faith the believer expresses.
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