Transcription
Introduction
Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen. I want to invite you, if you will, to open in your New Testaments to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 5, at least as a beginning place this morning. It’s good to see everybody here. We’re glad that uh you have come to be our way. Uh we have a lot of visitors in the audience this morning and we’re especially grateful that you have taken the time to come and to be with us and we hope that as we study for just a little bit from God’s word this morning that the things that we talk about will be helpful to you.
If you have any questions about anything, don’t hesitate to ask. We’re open to questions about the things that we do and the things that we teach and uh we would be glad to talk to you about those things anytime you might like to do so. You know, if there’s one thing that that stands out about the life of Jesus, as it’s recorded in the Gospels, is that Jesus prayed often. We see that here in Luke chapter 5. Luke tells us in verse 16 that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places or deserted places and prayed.
And what he meant by that is he got away from everything that’s going on, all the people who are around him, all of the things that all the ways that people were uh trying to get his attention. And he talked with God. He evidently devoted a significant amount of time to doing that sort of thing. Not just in that he did it often, but also in the amount of time he spent when he did so. And the reason Jesus did that, the reason he withdrew to lonely places or deserted places is because he sp he planned to spend some time talking with his father.
In chapter 6 of Luke in verse 12, we’re told about an occasion when he went out he went out uh to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God. Uh the whole night. And although it seems to me that Jesus often did this by himself, there were also times when he was accompanied by his disciples. If you go a little bit later in the Gospel of Luke chapter 9, we’re told there in verse 18 that it happened that as Jesus was praying alone, the disciples were with him.
And if you go down a few verses from there down to verse 28 of chapter 9, just a few days later, we’re told that Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and whip went up on the mountain to pray. And so the disciples were often with Jesus when he took time to get away and he took time to pray. And all of this was certainly not without effect on the disciples. They surely must have understood that Jesus that for him prayer was important. and they recognized that there were some things that they could learn from him about prayer as well.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if it was on an occasion like these that we’ve been talking about, that we’ve been highlighting as we kind of just skimmed through the Gospel of Luke that Luke has in mind when in chapter 11 and verse one he says that Jesus was praying in a certain place and when he finished one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And what I want us to do in our study this morning is I want us to look some at the teaching of Jesus about prayer.
And for the most part, at least the first part of the lesson. We’re going to we’re still going to spend it in the Gospel of Luke. At the end, we’re going to go to some other places. But in particular, what I want us to do is I want us to look at a couple of parables that Jesus told about about prayer. And one of those follows this request of the unnamed disciple on this occasion that we were just talking about. And we’ll read that in just a little bit.
1. We Need to Be Persistent in Prayer
at Luke 11:es 5-13 or so. And then the other one is found a few chapters later in Luke 18. I actually want us to begin there. So turn over to Luke chapter 18 for just a moment and we’ll read there in just a just a moment. One thing Jesus taught is that we need to be persistent in prayer. So let’s look at what he says there. Verse one. And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. And he said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.
And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Give me justice against my adversary.” And for a while he refused. But afterward he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? You know, I think it’s unfortunate, but you know, widows have always been easy targets for dishonest people. That’s just how it is. Jesus would talk about in Luke 20 and verse 47, those who’d devour widows houses. And that wasn’t uncommon in biblical times. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon today.
But here in this parable, whoever mistreated this this woman uh picked on the wrong widow. She wasn’t having it. And so she was going to get justice and she was going to get justice no matter how many times she had to go back to the judge and ask for it. She was going to keep doing it until it happened. That’s the main point of the parable that Jesus told. It’s been suggested that the judge that is envisioned in this parable, again, this is a this is a story.
This is not a real person, but the judge envisioned in this parable would have likely been a Roman judge. It wasn’t possible under the Jewish system for one person to to sit in judgment. And so, it’s not much of a surprise that this judge didn’t fear God or and as a result of that, if you don’t fear the God who created mankind, it’s not surprising when you don’t have respect for people either. And that’s the kind of person we’re dealing with here. And so, this judge didn’t grant the request of this widow because it was the right thing to do.
She didn’t prevail upon him and he didn’t come to understand, you know, it really is the right thing to do in this case. So, I’m going to follow through with that. He he didn’t do it for that reason. He granted the request so that she would quit bothering him. If I just give her what she wants, she’s going to go away and then we’re all happy except the other guy who, you know, has the judgment against him. And so, you see that in this parable. He didn’t care about justice. He did what he did for selfish reasons.
So, we have the right outcome. and we have the right outcome for the wrong reason. But what’s Jesus trying to say in all of that? I mean, is he saying, you know, God’s a lot like that unjust judge, and if we just if we just keep going to him and asking him for for something in our prayers, he’s eventually going to get to the point where he is going to grant our request simply because he is tired of hearing from us. That the point? Well, no, that’s not the point.
Jesus was basically saying, if an unjust judge, if an unrighteous person will eventually grant the request of someone intreating him, then what do you think a loving God is going to do? Is he going to do less than that somehow? And the answer is of course not. If there’s one thing the Bible teaches, it’s that we need to be persistent in our prayers. For example, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 17, pray without ceasing. Paul would say there or in his letter to the Colossians, Colossians chapter 4 and verse 2 continues steadfastly in prayer as a different translation puts it, devote yourselves to prayer.
But the reason we’re to be persistent in prayer is not so that we can overcome God’s reluctance to answer us. It’s because we know that God will hear us. We know that he’ll answer. He’s proven that. And when we’re tempted to question whether or not it’s, you know, really worthwhile to pray because it seems at times that our prayers do go unanswered. When it seems that God doesn’t hear us, what we’re told is that we need to continue to pray anyway.
2. We Ought to Be Bold in Prayer
And what we need to do is keep in mind the character and the promises of the one we call our father. We need to be persistent. But let’s go back to to chapter 11 for just a moment. Many people believe that the other parable that we uh are going to look at this morning teaches basically the same thing. And I’ll just go ahead and tell you I think that’s at least one possibility for what it’s saying. But I’m inclined to think that Jesus is actually making another point back in Luke 11.
It seems to me that the the point Jesus is making in this other parable is that we ought to be bold in prayer. And so let’s begin reading Lukeap 11:5. 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.” And he will answer him 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 impedance, he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And so I said a moment ago, I suppose Jesus could have been teaching the same point in this parable as he was in the parable of the persistent widow. I don’t think he was, but it’s a possibility. It just seems to me that Jesus is emphasizing the boldness of this man’s request, not his persistence.
And I say that despite the fact that other translations or some translations will give you that impression. The meaning of this parable hinges on really the meaning of one word. In the older translations like the old King James and the Old American Standard, it’s the word importunity. Uh in some of the newer translations like the New King James and the New American Standard, it does use the word persistence. And so that again, that’s a possibility. The translation I’m reading from this morning, as well as some others, uses the word impence. And one translation even uses the word boldness.
And so we’ll talk about that for just a moment. I don’t know about you, I don’t use the word importunity very often. So I’m not an old King James kind of guy. But to be important is to make an overly persistent request or an overly persistent demand. And so the older translations kind of agree with this idea that it’s persistence that’s being talked about. And again, that might be what is what Jesus was saying here. But the word that that Luke uses in this or that Jesus used that Luke records is a word that literally means shameless.
And looking it up in a in a dictionary of of Greek words uh definition a lack of sensitivity to what is proper. And so the reason the translators of the English Standard Version and a few other translations chose to render it with the word impudence is because that word refers to behavior that is offensively bold. In fact, if you look up the word impedent and look up synonyms for it, one of the synonyms for that word is shameless. And whatever else you might say about this man who went to his friend’s house in the middle of the night to ask for bread, he was offensively or he was shamelessly bold.
And that’s why one translation uses that word boldness. And and even another one talks about his shameless audacity for going to his friend’s house in the middle of the night and making his request. And so most commentators when they deal with this passage, they talk about the fact that this man goes to his friend’s house and he keeps beating on the door until finally his friend decides to get up and do something about it. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see that in the parable. What I see is a man who comes and he makes a bold request.
And though although it is inconvenient, his friend feels compelled to grant. Let’s read it again. Which of you who has a friend, verse 5, 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 have nothing to set before him.” And he will answer from within, “Do not bother me. The door’s now shut. 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 impedence, his shameless audacity, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
And so Jesus wasn’t saying if if someone goes to their friend’s house and makes a request like this, the friend’s going to say to them, “Hey, quit bothering me. The door’s shut. My children are in bed. You know, what are you doing here?” That might be what he wants to say, but that’s not what he’s going to say. His point is that he’s not going to respond that way even if he wants to. He’s saying he’s going to get up and he’s going to give the man what he asks for and he’s going to do it if for no other reason than the fact that his friend had the audacity to come and make the request in the first place.
What else could he really do? And so in order to understand what I think Jesus was saying here, I think we have to be honest with ourselves a little bit about how we would be inclined to handle a situation like this. I’m going to I’m going to ask you a question and and I’m going to go and tell you no show of hands on this. All right? We know that we ought to be glad to help out a friend who’s in need even when it’s not convenient. Let me ask you, have you ever helped out someone not because the person was your friend, but rather because you felt compelled to do so in one way or another.
Again, no no hands because I suspect we’ve all done that at some point. We’ve all been in that position. I mean, it happens. And the other person asked you to do something and and it was super inconvenient and you did it anyway. And you may have wanted to say no, but you couldn’t. Not really, not practically. That’s what I think Jesus is talking about here. And as with the parable about the persistent widow, Jesus wasn’t saying, you know, that’s what God’s like.
He’s like that man who who didn’t want to give up and and and get his, you know, give the give in to the request of his friend, he’s going to do it anyway. That’s not it’s not a comparison. It’s really a contrast here. If a man like that will grant the request, even though he doesn’t want to do it, even though his his motives may be not entirely pure, how much more will a loving God grant the request of his people? God actually wants to help us.
He’s proven that time and time again. And that’s why Jesus would go on to say here in verses 9 and 10, I tell you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock. That’s the parable, is it not? 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 open. Again, God does this willingly because he wants to help us. And yet, how often is our situation accurately described by the words of James in James chapter 4 and verse two?
James would say, “You do not have.” Why? Because you do not ask. And that’s often our problem, isn’t it? We don’t ask. And what that means is that we need to take the advice of of Jesus first off also of the writer of Hebrews who would say in Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 16, “Let us keep on coming with boldness to the throne of grace so that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We need to be bold in our prayers.” And so when you look at the things that we’ve talked about up to this point this morning, it sounds kind of easy, doesn’t it?
I mean, all you have to do is be bold and persistent in your prayers. Ask and it will be given to you as Jesus says there in Luke 11. But here’s what I want us to do with the time we have remaining this morning. I I want to point out that parables were never really meant to teach everything there is to know about a subject. they typically have one point. And so what I want us to do with the time we have remaining is I want us to talk about the fact that there are some other considerations that we need to think about, some other conditions for having our prayers answered.
3. Our Prayers Must Be Offered in Faith
And I’m going to put it on the screen as three qualifiers to the things that we’ve talked about this morning. And and the first thing that I want you to see is that we need to be people who ask in faith. Our prayers must be offered in faith. In fact, Jesus would say in Matthew chap 21 and verse 22 that whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive. All right, we’ve already read that, right? But then he adds this, if you have faith, and he wasn’t talking about having faith in God, generally speaking, I believe in God, so I’m going to ask and I’m going to get that.
That’s not what he was talking about. He was talking about having confidence that God not only hears us, but that God also acts upon the things that we request of him. We have to believe that we serve a God who answers prayers. And the two parables we’ve been looking at this morning, it didn’t matter whether the people that uh believed that their requests would be answered or not. Uh they they had nothing to do with the judge giving the widow justice or with the man getting his friend to give up get up and and and give him the the loaves of bread that he needed.
They didn’t have to believe that. They just had to make the request. In other words, Jesus wasn’t dealing with this principle in these parables. But the principle is true all the same because it talks about it in other passages. Do you remember what James said about these things in James chapter 1? He was talking about a particular request. He would say in James 1 and verse 5, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him.
4. Our Prayers Need to Be According to God’s Will
Ask and you shall receive. Right? But look at what he goes on to say. But let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man unstable in all his ways. So there is a conditional here. There is a qualifier here. We must be people who ask in faith. But there’s a second thing I want you to see and that is that our prayers need to be according to God’s will.
You know, the Apostle John in 1 John chapter 5 and:e14 would talk about the fact he’d say, “This is the confidence that we have toward him.” That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And so, we need to recognize that prayer is one of the ways that we seek to promote the will of God. It’s not how we get God to do our will. Those are two entirely different things. And I’m not sure that everyone who prays necessarily understands that. Sometimes people want to lay out the, you know, the list of here’s what I want to God and I expect God to fulfill that.
That’s not what we’re talking about this morning. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray in the sermon on the mount, he he gave them a model prayer much like he did just before telling the parable of the about the friend at midnight in Lukeap 11. And neither that prayer in Luke chapter 11, nor uh the the prayer in Matthew chapter 6 was intended to be, you know, just kind of repeat this, you know, and and you’re good. Just periodically say it. Uh they were model prayers meant to teach us something.
But that prayer in the sermon on the mount that Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 6 goes into greater detail. And in that prayer, Jesus said, Matthew 6 and verse 10, one of the things that we are to pray or the principle at least, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It should come as no surprise that our prayers ought to be in keeping with God’s will. That we are seeking for his will to be to be magnified. And I’m not trying to say that our prayers must never include our personal requests. That’s not it at all.
We can pray about the things that are a concern to us, the anxieties that we have. We can pray for one another, uh, as we did this morning, even for our brother Blake, as we’ve done at other times for other folks. I’m saying that our requests ought to be consistent with the revealed will of God. Prayer is not a selfish pursuit. It was never meant to be the avenue through which we ask God to accomplish our will. As James would say in James 4 and:3, he say, “You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly.”
5. Our Prayers Must Be Accompanied by a Life of Obedience
How do you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions? James said, “That’s not what it’s about.” In other words, their motives were wrong. Our prayers need to be in keeping with God’s will. And then finally, I want you to see that our prayers must be accompanied by a life of obedience. The apostle John would say 1 John 3 and verse 22, “Whatever we ask, we receive from him. Ask and you shall receive because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”
One thing this that that is interesting about what John says here is that he he worded things in such a way that he made it clear that he had in mind a person who continually obeys. A person who continually pleases God. Obeying God’s commands and doing what pleases him are ongoing actions. English translations don’t always make that clear when the this kind of language is is used in scripture. uh it’s used at various points about various things, but it is an ongoing action.
That’s what we have here. And John wasn’t talking about a sinless person here. That’s not it. But he was talking about a faithful person. He was talking about the same kind of person he described back in chapter 1 when he would say in in , “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.” If we want God to hear us, and that’s what we need to do.
Conclusion
Need to be people who walk in the light, we need to be those who are faithful to the Lord. You know, I’d like for us to to end this this morning with with one more passage of scripture. It comes from the letter that Paul wrote to the church in Philippi. Philippians chapter 4 and verse 6. And to this group of saints, Paul would say there in Philippians 4 and verse 6 again, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
He He’s not like the unrighteous judge. He’s not like the inconvenienced friend. He wants us to pray to him. He wants us to do that boldly and persistently because he wants to help us. Why would we not do that? If you were to ask most Christians to give you a list of the things that they could get better about. I think one of the things that most people would put on their list is I could get better about my prayer life as people would frequently refer to it.
I don’t know many people who would say and I’ve got that all figured out. And in some ways that is a shocking thing to say, isn’t it? Because when we look at the things that we’ve talked about this morning, why would we not be taking advantage of that great benefit that God has has reserved for his people? Why would we not do that? Let’s be the people God has called us to be. Let’s live the kind of lives that bring honor to him. and let’s petition him for those things that we need to be his people and to give him that honor and that glory.
If you’re here this morning and you owe some duty to him, maybe your life has not been exactly what it ought to be and you know there are some changes that need to be made. We’d love to help you with that. Maybe it is that you’ve never obeyed the gospel of Christ. Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” And while there are some other things in it that is kind of a summary statement, uh it is absolutely essential. And if you’ve never done that, we want to encourage you to do so this morning. If you have some questions about that, again, come let’s talk about those. Let’s open up our Bibles and let’s look at what the scriptures say because that’s all that’s important.
And so if we can help you this morning, ask you to come as we stand and as we sing.