Why You Should Come and Pray, Part 2 | How to Pray Well

Luke 11:5-13

One of the notable features about Luke’s Gospel is his emphasis throughout the Gospel on prayer. He, more than any other of the Gospel writers, Luke records various parables and teachings from our Lord that center on the habit of prayer, and teach us how to pray, and encourages us to pray and that’s what we’re looking at today. So, with that, take a look at Luke 11, and starting in verse 5, we’ll read to verse 13. “And Jesus said to them, ‘Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him” he will answer from within, “Do not bother me, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything”?

 “‘I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish, give him a serpent; or if he asked for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? 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!’”

So, as Jesus summarizes how this little scenario pans out in verse 8. We can see, that, the friend’s reluctance here. It’s not about the bread. It’s about the bother. He says, in verse 8, “I tell you, though, he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend yet. Because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

 So, he has the supply to give him what he needs. He just didn’t want to be bothered. You’re sleeping friend whom you’ve awakened at midnight, whom you’ve asked to come to your aid and, and, by the way, the, the, request here is not dealing with a life-threatening issue, is it, this need to put a little food before a weary traveler. He’s not immediately alarmed, as if the friend’s been shot, as if there’s some life-threatening situation here. It’s, it’s, just to put food before this traveler.

 So, at this hour, your friend, he’s not inclined to help you, is what Jesus is saying in verse 8. He’s not inclined to help you by pondering the meaning of friendship at this hour, loyalty. He’s not considering the principles underlying friendship. He’s not thinking about the ties that bind, at this moment. He’s groggy. He’s tired. He’s not inclined to think about how many years you go back and how many times you’ve helped him and plowed his field. And you’ve plowed, you’ve plowed one another’s fields. You’ve been there for each other. Watched each other’s kids, and all the rest. It’s midnight for crying out loud. Can’t this guy just sleep until morning?

What Jesus wants you to see, is this, though your friend is not going to be inclined to help you because of the principles that govern your friendship. In that hour, what persuades him to get up, to get out of bed, to unbolt the door, to wake up the entire family, to deal with all the consequences that are going to come from that. What convinces him to act against his self-interest and his own comfort, to give you whatever you need; it is your audacity. It is your shameless appeal. It is the fact that you are willing to set aside normal propriety and ask your friend to inconvenience himself for your sake.

 There’s a word there in verse 8, it’s used only here in the entire New Testament it’s translated, impudence, in the ESV, but that’s not the best translation because impudence implies a an attitude of, of, brazenness, of insolent disregard for somebody. That is not, at all, the sentiment that Jesus is portraying here. The word is anaideia, which takes the word aidos and adds an alpha privative to make that word negative.

So, it conveys an idea of acting in accord with what is socially appropriate with what’s acceptable with what’s modest. It’s not about calling attention to oneself, when you go out in public, it’s about conforming to social norms of dignity, and decency, and respectability. That’s the idea. That Jesus is using a word to negativize this idea of propriety and decency. He’s used the word anaideia. Jesus is saying, just on a human level, when principles of friendship don’t persuade a man to set his family aside and be inconvenienced, when one’s friend sees the need to set aside the normal sense of propriety. The normal sense of personal decorum, social modesty, and make an appeal like this, at this time this shameless insistence is going to be the thing that makes the case. It’s going to persuade the friend to get out of bed for another friend. He’ll do it in the middle of the night, and he’ll give him whatever he needs.

Now listen, because this is, it’s really important for us to stop at this moment and make sure that we’re understanding why exactly Jesus has given this parable to us, because this parable is, in my mind, so often misunderstood and misinterpreted. When it’s not well understood, the parable can be used to persuade Christians to prayer, by telling them the exact opposite of what Jesus is trying to say here. It’s, people use it to say, keep trying harder. Keep pushing your requests forward. Make more effort, more persistence in prayer, greater importunity insistence, even demanding of God.

No, my friends, I think that interpretation turns the parable in a slightly different direction. I think it turns this much welcomed, much needed instruction of Jesus, into a heavy burden and not into a relief. By this parable, I believe Jesus wants to lighten our load and ease our burdens. He wants to overcome our own obstacles in praying rather than to add to them.

 Go back and scan in verses 5 to 8, and remember what we said earlier that Jesus is commanding us, I should say he’s calling us here to imagine ourselves facing the tension of this responsibility between loving our visiting neighbor and loving our resting neighbor, but notice that Jesus never once uses the word neighbor in this parable. He’s described a neighbor, but he’s not using the word neighbor. What word has he chosen for this story? What word has he repeated in this story?

It’s the word friend. Philos, someone who is a close companion. Someone between whom there is a mutual affection. He’s describing an intimate friend. The word, friend, philos is used four times explicitly in this text. And, then, if we were to include all the pronouns, of, between these two, there are about a dozen references to these men interacting with one another as friends.

In this parable, Jesus is telling us to come and pray on the basis of friendship, and that is the point here. Suppose you’re facing this same exact scenario that Jesus has described in the parable, and you’ve got all the same first century expectations of hospitality bearing down upon you. You’ve decided then to call upon a neighbor for help to, to fill in your shortfall. You’re going to walk past the houses to your immediate right and your immediate left, won’t you? You’re going to go visit the friend that lives several blocks away, and you’re going to make this appeal and this kind of shameless appeal to your friend.

 You do the exact same thing that Jesus described in the parable. You’re unwilling to inconvenience, and trouble the neighbors who don’t like you, but you’re totally willing to inconvenience your friendly neighbor, aren’t you? Why is that? I mean, if you’re going to inconvenience someone at midnight, why not inconvenience someone who already doesn’t like you? Why inconvenience a friend? Because, you know, because you have confidence, you have assurance in the fact that no matter how much you inconvenience a friend, at the end of the day, not only will he actually help you, but he’ll be there for you in the end.

 The friendship is the basis for this appeal even when it’s the most inconvenient appeal at the most inopportune time. You know that even if you set propriety aside in making your appeal, because you have to, because your friend won’t get out of bed otherwise. Your friend will come to your aid, no matter how you’ve acted in this present crisis. No matter what depths you’ve stooped to in humiliating yourself, and making the appeal, doing a dance or screaming, or whatever. No matter how much you’ve set propriety aside and acted shamelessly in this moment and undignified yourself during the time of your need, you know your friend is always going to be there to help you, and you’re assured that the bond of friendship is going to continue far after this scene happens.

With that in mind, look at verse 9, as Jesus then takes this parable and applies it to our praying. In fact, let’s start in verse 8. Just get a running start, Jesus says, “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend.” Yet because of his shameless setting aside of convention and propriety, let’s interpret it that way, “he will rise and give him whatever he needs.”

 “And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you.” Jesus assures us of what we already know, instinctively, intuitively on a human level, that when that bond of friendship gives us the confidence to come and ask, to press a friend into service, even to be shameless in pushing our friend to help us in a time of need. We know, verse 9, that we can ask, because it will be given to us.

 We can seek, because we will certainly find. We can knock, because we know, at the end of the day, it will be open to us, if we just knock louder and so, if that’s true on a human level, folks, how much more so is it true of God? If we’re willing to presume upon a friend, when we know that our request is going to inconvenience him, and perhaps even irritate him in the moment, and, and, by the way, it’s going to disrupt his whole family for that night, how much more should we be willing to come to God, at any time, for anything?

Friendship is defined biblically. It’s portrayed most perfectly, when God sent his one and only son to die for his friends. As John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, than that someone lay down his life for his friends.” When you know that kind of friendship, because God’s friendship has been made known to you, because you’re in Christ. Well then you can enjoy the gift of friendship with others because you, now, know what is at the core of it. You know what it consists of. It consists of self-sacrifice. It consists of service. It consists of, humility and meekness. A friendly dealing with one another. It consists of just an intimate neighbor love.

 True friendship has to do with those intangible, unmeasurable joys of things like being able to let your guard down, being transparent, being vulnerable. True friendship is when you can act shamelessly in the presence of a friend. Pressing them into service. Seeking a need from them and he or she will still claim you as a friend. Still act friendly towards you. Still treat you as a friend. Now, to be sure, you don’t want to do that too often with your friend, your human friend. Otherwise, you’re gonna be the one being unfriendly, right? So, you don’t want to take advantage of friendship, but I think you know what I mean by this.

 God is a true friend to us who are in Christ. “God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners,” Romans 5:8, “Christ died for us.” God acted the friend when we were at enmity with him. He knows all of our failings, weaknesses. He knows exactly what we’re about. And get this, he listens anyway. He listens anyway. Unlike a human friend, even the best of friends. For God, it is never midnight. But he is always ‘an ever present now.’ God, who created time, is outside of time. Which means our requests are never poorly timed for God. They’re never unwelcome. We can never inconvenience him, who is all powerful. Him who never feels a lack.

 Unlike our human friends, our God is never bothered. He’s not even able to be bothered, interrupted from his need for rest and repose, from the demands of his busy day. “He will not let your foot be moved,” Psalm 121:3 says, “indeed, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Unlike our human friends.

 For God, the door is never shut. It’s always open to his beloved children. He bids us to come and pray. To seek his face. To knock at the door, and that door will be opened wide. And so, because we live by such an assumption about our human friendships, since we must assume an even greater and deeper and more reliable and unchanging friendliness, in the noble character of God.

 Jesus turns these actions; ask, seek and knock into commands, in verse 9. He goes beyond permitting us to ask, seek, and knock, which is a great privilege, and he commands our obedience to this and when we obey, notice the promises he makes to us in verse 10, “for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.” Each of those verbs are in a participle form there, so it is describing the character of someone who does these things. It’s the one who is characterized by asking. The one who is characterized by seeking. The one who knocks. So, these verbs are indicating a characteristic behavior, a habit of living.

We desire God’s absolution for our sins. We long for that. That’s why we pray for it. We long for holiness. So much so that we pray: God don’t lead us into temptation. Make us holy. Make us holy. Make us holy. We want his protection from sin, from temptation, from falling, from being deceived. So, yeah. Pray on.

If your petitions fit those parameters, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking because those who are characterized by asking, and seeking, and knocking, and get this, anyone and everyone who is so characterized, from the scholar to the simpleton, from the rich to the poor, from the old to the young, from the immature to the mature, and everyone in between, anyone and everyone who makes asking, seeking, and knocking their habit of living, they’re the ones who receive the promise.

 You don’t have to qualify, other than being a child of God, other than being a member of the family and that’s what, something God did for you. So those who ask, receive the gift of God’s grace and we’re going to see that described for us, concretely in verse 13. Those who seek after God as Deuteronomy 4:29 says, “You will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

 If you seek him that way, you’ll find him and those who knock on the door of the kingdom, guess what, Christ has already opened it wide to you. He’s ripped the veil from top to bottom, torn it in two, and given you access into the Holy of Holies. That’s the first reason for security and assurance, that’s the first motivation for coming to God in prayer as a lifelong habit, because of friendship.

 Here’s a second reason we’re to come and pray on the basis of fatherhood. Look at verses 11 to 12, Jesus, again, invites us to imagine a situation here. He poses two questions that expect a negative answer. “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent or if he asked for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” Answer: No father is going to respond to his sons request like that.

In these two examples: a serpent instead of a scorpion. A serpent instead of a fish or a scorpion instead of an egg, it’s not just a matter of the unexpected cruelty in return for a sincere innocent request. The issue here is the similarity between these objects. Between what’s requested and what’s given. It indicates a spirit of meanness, of utter malevolence, of this person toward a son’s request.

To the uninitiated and the inexperienced, like a child, the feel of a serpent may be similar to the feel of a fish. And a scorpion, in this case, it would be the Palestine Yellow Scorpion, when curled up, this deadly death stalker scorpion can look like an egg. It’s giving something repulsive and deadly, instead of the food that’s requested by a trusting unsuspecting child.

This has nothing in common with the kind loving heart of a father. No father would be so cruel, so heartless, so mean to his child’s request. It’s utterly unthinkable. That’s the point. That’s why Jesus is bringing this out. So now that our passions are appropriately inflamed here, Jesus leads us to his final conclusion in verse 13. It’s an argument of the lesser to the greater. “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!” Hmm, if human parents who are evil, looks like Jesus believes in the doctrine of total depravity, doesn’t he?

 The verb that’s used here is a strong expression meaning being evil from the first, being evil already, being evil to the core. Jesus is referring here to the innate depravity of fallen humanity and, and all children are born to sinful parents. You think, I’m a parent, got a newborn baby, got a little toddlers in the home. I don’t want to make all those mistakes my parents did on me.

 Well, guess what? You, you’re going to run from one ditch to another. You’re going to make your own set of mistakes. You’re going to commit your own sets of sins because all children are born to sinful parents and that includes, you, parent. You are a sinful parent, self-centered. We’re bound to fail because we suffer the malady of a sin nature.

 So, if you parents, you being evil from the start, sinful to the core, inherently evil, you can discern between good gifts and bad gifts, if you know how to give good gifts to your children. What do you think is true about the ability of your father, who is inherently good, to come up with a good gift list for his children.

Our Father in heaven certainly knows how to give good gifts. After our salvation, after giving us his beloved son, what greater gift can there be? The Holy Spirit is a gift on par with the gift of his own beloved son and by giving us the Holy Spirit, giving us the son, God has given us himself. The father has given us himself, as well.

 With this statement, we see how each person of the Trinity is involved here. Each person of the Trinity performing his role. Each person doing his part. The father is ready to receive us. He’s ready to hear when we pray. He hears us whenever we pray. We can come to him boldly with confidence. “Drawing near to the throne of grace,” Hebrews 4:16, “that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.” That’s the father’s role, to hear our prayer and to give us what we need from his own bounty, his own supply.

 And the son’s involved as well. He’s the one who executes the father’s plan. He sits at the right hand of God. He indeed is interceding for us, Romans 8:34. And the son is there, right now, bodily interceding for us. He’s been raised from the dead. He’s conquered the grave and so he always lives to make intercession for the saints, Hebrews 7:25.

 The son watches over us with the interest of a good and loving shepherd. He watches every step we take, and he’s shepherding us toward our sanctification. Do his perfect will. Until he shepherds us into eternal glory. Our final home. And now, here, we learn from the son, who came to teach us about the father, and tell us about the promise of the spirit, that we have assistance when we pray.

 The father has given us his Holy Spirit. You, you know the text in Romans 8, Romans 8:26 to 27. He makes our weak imperfect prayer, he makes it effectual. Says there in Romans 8, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

 Like a true friend, he will always receive us. He’ll never turn us away. Like a loving father, he wants us to succeed. He doesn’t leave our success in holiness and fruitfulness to chance. Guarantees our success in prayer and our growth to maturity and sanctification. He gives us his own spirit. He gives us the Holy Spirit, with whom the father shares holy, perfect, infinite knowledge. That’s the Spirit who is also interceding us, interceding for us according to the will of God.

God has stacked the deck, so to speak. All we need to do is play the hand we’ve been given and it is a full hand. We come to him and we pray. So beloved, let this be an encouragement to you, to set propriety aside when you come to God. Trade on the friendship that he has given you. By grace, come boldly to him as a friend. Come as a dear child to a loving father and keep on asking. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking for any need, any concern. Make any petition because you’re dearly loved.