The Stories That Jesus Told

Sermon # 11 

“Parable of The Friend at Midnight”

or

“The Power of Persistent Prayer”

Luke 11:5-13 

       Do you ever feel impatient with God? Does He seem late in answering your requests or meeting your needs?  Certainly all of us as believers have had questions concerning prayer at some point in our Christian life. Why are we to continue to pray for something after if we have already prayed and we are believing God for the answer? Isn’t that unbelief? What about those times when we pray and we are certain of an answer, and yet no answer is forthcoming? We are confident that it is God’s will but nothing happens. What are we to do?

In Luke 11:1-4 in answer to the disciples request “Lord teach us to pray,” (11:1) Jesus gave a prayer that is sometimes called “The Lord’s Prayer.” Like the disciples often times we are distracted by a concern with the mechanics of prayer more than we are with the practice of prayer. This of course reminds me of a story.

“Three ministers were talking about prayer in general and the appropriate and effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background.

One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong--the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.

By this time the phone man couldn't stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground."

[Illlustrations – SermonCentral.com]

I believe that God is more concerned that we prayer than what position we take when we pray.

Today in our series “The Stories That Jesus Told” we are going to be looking a story that Jesus told to illustrate the power of prayer. This parable is sometimes called “The Parable of the Friend at Midnight.” In this story Jesus tells us about “The Power of Persistent Prayer” and tells about three things That Grab Gods Attention. 

First, We Grab God Attention When We Pray Shamelessly  (vv. 5-8)

“And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves; (6) for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him'….”

       The poor unprepared host in the story is faced with a dilemma. His guest is hungry after such a long and exhausting journey and it is his duty as host to provide a meal. Not to do so would not only bring shame upon himself and his family but to the village as a whole. But what is he to do. Though this man cannot supply the need himself he knows of another who can and will supply this need. Jesus continues the story in verse seven, “… and he will answer from within and say, "Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you'? (8) I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.”

To appreciate the Lord’s story we need to picture, a one room home of a poor family, much like what is still widely found in third-world countries today. The whole family would have slept in that room, usually on mats on the floor. In order get to the door and open it, one would have to disturb the whole family.

But despite the inconvenience it would have been a violation of the social code of hospitality not to help his friend. It would not only have been a reflection on this man and his family but of the whole village as well.

When Jesus described the sleeping neighbor’s unwillingness as he did, his listeners would have been horrified. We can imagine Jesus saying to His listeners, “Can you imagine a friend who would react in such a way?” In so doing, he of course expected a negative reply of, “No of course not!” 

But don’t get lost in the comparison. Jesus is not comparing God to a sleepy, selfish and angry neighbor. He is contrasting the two He is telling the disciples that if a neighbor can on the basis of friendship and social etiquette, be persuaded to met the needs of a friend, how much more will your father in heaven meet the needs of his children.

But does verse eight teach that we must keep beating on God‘s door until he answers? Is it that we must overcome God’s unwilling-ness to act, of course not?  The meaning of the Greek word (anaideian) translated “importunity” (KJV, RSV) and as “persistence” (NKJV, NIV) is the key to understanding the lesson that Jesus is teaching here. This is the only time this word appears in the entire New Testament. The Greek word carries the idea of “shamelessness,” the question is which of the men in this story are shameless.

Some point to the neighbor who arose and gave his friend bread, saying that he did so to avoid bringing shame to the village by breaking the rules of hospitality. While this may be true it does not quite fulfill the meaning of the word used here.

The other alternative is that it refers to the man who came making the request. He was shameless in his persistence, continuing his pleading until his friend responded. We as humans understand this kind of request if we stop to think of it. If a good friend of mine should call me at 2:00 A.M. with a request, while I may not be pleased with the timing, I would know that if they called me at that time would have to be important. Or at least it had better be important. 

[Illustration. ”A few years back, someone rang our doorbell at 2 a.m. When I answered the door, there stood one of the young men in our church. He was wet, bedraggled and so tired I think he could have cried. When I got to the door, he said, “Brother John I was coon-hunting and I got lost and I am wet and I am exhausted. Will you please take me home?”  Now when he was willing to awaken me at 2 a.m., it told me two things. First, he demonstrated his confidence in our relationship, that I would not kill him and secondly, that I would know he would not be asking if it were not important!]

       The kind of prayer that claims God’s attention is prayer that recognizes our need, and our own inability to supply the need in our selves. 

We Grab God Attention When We Pray Shamelessly and…… 

Secondly, We Grab God’s Attention When Pray Passionately  (vv. 9-10)

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

       Each of the three actions, asking, seeking and knocking occurs in the present tense in the original Greek language. It thus literally; “Keep Asking, Keep Seeking and Keep Knocking.” But we also need to see that there is a progression in this persistence; asking, seeking and knocking. “Asking means making a simple request. Seeking implies a stronger desire and a more definite kind of request. It is something that takes time. It implies a greater sense of urgency. Knocking shows determination to get an answer.” [The Complete Biblical Library. The New Testament Study Bible – Luke. Vol. 4 (Springfield, Missouri: The Complete Biblical Library, 1988) p. 351]

       In verse ten we are told, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” The answer to each of the actions is also noted in the present tense, ask-receive, seek-find, and knocks-opened. All three of these principles are imperatives; in which our heavenly Father not only hears our prayers but promises to answer each and every prayer, in his time, to his honor and to our joy and amazement.

       By a continued practice of asking, seeking and knocking we break the habit where prayer is no longer just an option, or is for emergency use only. Don’t just come to God with your midnight emergency, keep an open line of communication with your father. 

       The truth behind this persistence is that we will not continue to ask if we do not really feel a need or if we believe we can do it own our own.

“In a scene from ‘Shadowlands’, a film based on the life of C.S. Lewis, Lewis has returned to Oxford from London, where he has just been married to Joy Gresham, an American woman, in a private Episcopal ceremony performed at her hospital bedside. She is dying from cancer, and, through the struggle with her illness, she and Lewis have been discovering the depth of their love for each other. As Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches, he is met by Harry Harrington, an Episcopal priest, who asks what news there is. Lewis hesitates; then, deciding to speak of the marriage and not the cancer, he says, "Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news."

Harrington, not aware of the marriage and thinking that Lewis is referring to Joy's medical situation, replies, "I know how hard you've been praying .... Now, God is answering your prayer."

"That's not why I pray, Harry," Lewis responds. "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God; it changes me." [Thomas G. Long, Whispering The Lyrics, CSS Publishing Company. www.eSermons.com.]

The idea of ask – seek – knock is more than a mere repetition of the same request over and over again. As we keep on asking we are to keep on seeking and in this seeking and a part of this seeking is seeking to discover what the will of God is in this matter. 

      We Grab God’s Attention When Pray Passionate and… 

Third, We Grab God’s Attention When We Pray Expectantly   (vv. 11-13)

 “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? (12) Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?”

       We have learned that God does answer prayer, and now in this verse we learn that his answers are always good ones. Because God is a good God, a loving heavenly father, He can be expected to answer our prayers, but in such a way that it is for our highest good.     

       The bottom line of the whole matter is now given in verse thirteen, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" Do you as a parent ever worry about the answers that give to your child? When I say yes and give them what they want, am I spoiling them? Or when I say no, was my denial selfish or shortsighted? We do the best we can, but sometimes our best is just not good enough. But our heavenly father knows no such limits. God never says no because he is distracted, exhausted or irritable.

I want to just briefly touch on the matter indicated by the promise found in the latter part of this verse, that the “… heavenly Father (will) give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" Is this a promise of a second blessing to saved believers? Obviously not, because the coming of the Holy Spirit as presented in the book of Acts had not yet be recorded. You can’t have a second occurrence until the first has occurred. I believe context reveals to us rather that it speaks to the fact that God loves for his children to develop the habit of asking His help, but he does not leave us trapped by our own limited perception of the situation but makes the Holy Spirit available to present our needs to the Father. I think this may have been what Paul had in mind when he says in letter to the Romans (8:26), “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don’t always (even) know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groaning that can not be expressed in words.” (NLT). 

Conclusion

       Those of us who are parents do our best to provide for our children. We pay for there housing and upkeep, we finance their education; we gladly pay all the expenses necessary for them to live. But the one thing that we cannot give our children unless they want it is a relationship. So it is with God, he desires a relationship with you, he extends an invitation for a relationship, but it is up to you to accept his invitation or not.      

You can gain God’s attention by praying;

 

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