Scripture: Luke 11:1-13
By anything but prayer…
Wait, wait… Hold on… Did the disciples forget… to pray? Did they think they could be successful in fulfilling their God-ordained mission apart from prayer? It seems like they did!
In which case, can’t we relate?
Obviously, dear Church, we have some important things to pray about right now. We were already praying for a new director of children’s ministry, and that was before you and I both knew that I would soon be moving to South Carolina! So now Toccoa First needs a new pastor, too.
Are we praying? Because it’s a new Methodist world out there… For the first time in 150 years, when your pastor leaves, which happens on August 17, you’re not going to have a new pastor appointed the very next day—as if to say, “Next man up! Let’s see what the new guy is like.” No… that’s not how it works any longer. We are no longer an itinerant system.
So this local church has far greater responsibility—a far more prominent voice—in the appointment of a new pastor… in attracting a pastor to come here… in retaining a pastor once he’s here.
So… Are we praying about that?
Because, please, listen to me, brothers and sisters: The future success of this church will depend in part on the spiritual leadership provided by a gifted pastor. By all means. And it will depend in part on hiring faithful, talented staff people, as necessary, to help direct and marshal the many Spirit-empowered gifts of our church’s laypeople. By all means. And it will depend in part on gifted laypeople rolling up their sleeves and volunteering their time and energy—as they themselves continue to be fed, spiritually, week in and week out, by the faithful proclamation of God’s word in worship, through regular Bible study, and through the Sacraments. By all means. And it will depend in part on God’s people here at Toccoa First giving generously and faithfully to support this kingdom work with money. By all means.
But first and foremost, it will depend on God’s people at Toccoa First praying. Do you believe that? You can’t contract that out. You can’t hire someone to do that for you. You can’t pay or appoint or delegate this task of prayer, which is the most important duty of the entire church… every member.
There’s simply no challenge this or any other church faces that can’t or won’t be solved—first—by God’s people faithfully, earnestly, persistently praying. There’s no problem the church faces that can ever be solved apart from this kind of prayer.
Again… No one you hire can ever do that work of prayer on your behalf… Won’t happen.
Let’s imagine a bright future for Toccoa First… A future that includes excellent preaching, heartfelt worship, compassionate and timely pastoral care, administrative effectiveness, and evangelistic fervor… A future in which our church offers attractive programs for people of all ages, which the community at large notices and chooses to be part of… A future in which our church experiences faithful tithing and stewardship—not disproportionately on the part of the few but the many—each member giving not equal gifts but equal sacrifices… A future in which we offer the timeliest, most state-of-the-art communications with church members and the community… A future in which we enjoy the most beautiful buildings and grounds…
Let’s imagine that our church possesses each of these assets in abundance…
Listen to me… A large surplus of these assets in a church can never overcome or compensate for a deficit of prayer on the part of God’s people in a church.
Literally the first and most important step to solve any problem in church is prayer… bold, stubbornly persistent, and ongoing prayer.
Speaking of problems, boy, did Paul ever have one when he wrote his letter to the Philippians. He was facing execution at the hands of the Romans. He’d been in prison many times before, but this time he wasn’t so sure whether he’d live or die. But finally, in verse 19, he believes that he will be set free from prison so that he can continue his apostolic ministry. He writes, “for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.”
Did you notice that: “through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
Here’s a good question: Since God hardly needs to be informed about what it is we truly need—he knows what we need far more than we do… Why didn’t Paul just say “through the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”? God the Holy Spirit has all the power to deliver Paul. Why does the Spirit also require prayers of God’s people?
Answer: God doesn’t require the prayers of his people. But God wants the prayers of his people. And the sobering truth is that God will often wait to act in powerful ways until God’s people pray as they should! And if, in the meantime, this waiting causes pain and discomfort to God’s people, God seems okay with that. If pain and discomfort are what it takes to motivate prayer, then the pain and discomfort will be worth it. Or do you need me to recount the 40-year history of Israel in the wilderness to convince you of this truth?
God is happy to wait… Read the psalms… How often do the psalmists cry, “How long, O Lord…”?
What blessings could we be missing out on when we don’t pray as we should?
Paul implies that one blessing he may miss out on if the church at Philippi fails to pray for him is his future freedom, his continuing life in this world, and his continuing ability to preach and teach the gospel and glorify God through his ministry in this world.
Do we pray as if our lives depend on it? Do we pray as if the lives of our brothers and sisters in church depend on it? Because they do. To some extent… Both our physical and spiritual wellbeing depend, in part, on our brothers and sisters in Christ praying for us…
Years ago, the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig was asked on a podcast about an item that in the news at the time. Some seminary professor out west was conducting a year-long experiment: He was going to live his life as if he weren’t a Christian—for the first time in his life… No prayer. No churchgoing. No nothing related to his faith… for an entire year. He would then “compare and contrast” a life of faithful Christian living with a life without faith. And find out for himself whether Christian faith makes a positive difference in his life?
An idiotic experiment, I know. But not to worry: he got a book deal out of it… “A Year Without God” or something like that.
So Dr. Craig was asked what he thought of this publicity stunt. And you know what his very first objection to this experiment was? He said, “This man has brothers and sisters at his church who are counting on his prayers for them. They could be harmed because this man isn’t praying for them.”
Whoa…That would not have been near the top of my list of objections… In fact, that thought didn’t cross my mind… but that’s my problem, not Dr. Craig’s.
Because everything I’m preaching right now convicts me too…
Let’s say church is like a hot fudge sundae—we get out a bowl; we put a few scoops of ice cream in; we slice bananas; we chop nuts; we add them to the ice cream; we top it with lots of whipped cream; we heat up the chocolate sauce; we pour it over the mixture; maybe we throw in some candy sprinkles—and then, at long last, we take that maraschino cherry—which, let’s face it, no one really likes anyway—and we place it on top. It’s like a decoration. Something we quickly put off to the side before we dig in to the sundae.
I’m afraid that, too often, we as a church treat prayer like that maraschino cherry. Like it’s the last and least important thing we do. I am guilty of this! I go to plenty of committee meetings, after all… Admin Board meetings, and church business-related meetings. I sanctify the proceedings with an opening prayer; I bless them with prayer when the meeting is finished. But in between… Do I believe that prayer is connected to everything else that happens in the meeting?
What if, instead, prayer is supposed to be the most important thing we do… even at these meetings?
What if we changed our mindset and said something like this instead? The first purpose of Admin Board is for its members to gather and pray for our church—for its ministries, for its administration, for its pastor and staff, for its success in fulfilling the Great Commission. And then we do some other things, too… but prayer remains its first and most important purpose. What if we thought like that? Crazy? The first purpose of the Finance Committee is for its members to gather together and pray for the church’s faithful stewardship. And then we do some other things. The first purpose of Staff-Parish Relations Committee is to gather together and pray for our pastor and staff. And then we do other things.
You get the idea… Sorry I didn’t think of this six years ago!
The church’s work begins with prayer… it continues with prayer… and it finishes with prayer…
Or the church itself will be finished!
So… before Jesus teaches the disciples anything about prayer, he has already taught them by his own example the priority that he places on prayer. They’ve already learned that. Have we?
WWJD? What would Jesus do? Well, the first thing he’d do is pray!
But when Jesus does start using words to teach his disciples about prayer in today’s scripture, the first and most important word that he shares with them is found in verse 2: “And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father… [dot, dot, dot]” And what follows is Luke’s version of the prayer we pray every week in this service, the Lord’s Prayer… or the Model Prayer. But I think the key to understanding all of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in verses 1 through 13 is that word “Father.”
Exactly what kind of God are we dealing with when we pray? A God who is our Father…
A failure to understand this may inhibit or prevent us from praying as we should… or explain why we struggle to pray.
There are a couple of episodes in the gospels I want to draw your attention to: The first is a man who has a skin disease that in the ancient world was known as leprosy. He is an outcast from society. He is ceremonially unclean. He was forbidden to go to the church of his day. He had to keep his distance from respectable people. And as always, many religious people assumed that God was punishing him for his sins by giving him this skin disease.
But he finds the courage to go up to Jesus and say, “If you will, you can make me clean.”1
This takes great faith on the man’s part: he really believes that Jesus has the power to heal him… if only he will. In other words, “If only Jesus wants to.” The leper doesn’t feel worthy of Jesus’ time and attention. He doesn’t feel righteous enough.
Who is this man, after all—a leper—that the Lord of the universe, the Messiah, God’s only begotten Son, the world’s Savior—should want to heal someone like him? He’s a nobody… Worse than a nobody… He’s unclean… He’s an outcast… He’s a sinner…
And then the next verse: “Moved with pity, [Jesus] stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I will; be clean.’”2
“I will” means… perhaps to this man’s surprise… “I want to heal you.”
Or how about that hemorrhaging woman elsewhere in the gospels who’s been suffering for years with a discharge of blood—she’s been to plenty of doctors. Not only has she not been healed, she’s been made worse. Finally, she’s desperate enough to go see Jesus. Except there’s a crowd of people around Jesus… Including a righteous, influential, wealthy V.I.P., an official with the synagogue named Jairus… Jesus is on his way to Jairus’s house to heal the man’s daughter before she dies. Jesus’ mission is urgent. Everyone can understand why Jesus would drop everything at once and rush to Jairus’s house.
So what hope does this woman have of getting Jesus to notice her… to heal her? Like the leper that I described a moment ago—she is also a nobody… She is “unclean,” and if Jesus makes contact with with her, he’ll be considered unclean, too… She is—or so people think—being punished by God for her illness… Plus, she’s a woman… Women are second-class citizens in this day.
That’s a lot working against her. So she thinks, “If I can just touch the hem of his garment,” then I’ll be healed.3 She can’t ask someone as important and holy as Jesus for a miracle—he would surely reject her—so, she figures, she’ll just sneak up from behind, while no one is paying attention, and touch his clothes. Everyone, including Jesus, will be none the wiser.
To her credit, like the leper, she has enough faith to believe that Jesus can heal her. Of that there’s no doubt… But like the leper, she lacks the faith to believe that Jesus would want to heal someone like her!
And remember what happens? The woman touches Jesus. She is instantly healed. Mission accomplished. But Jesus knows what’s going on, of course. And he stops everything. He delays his trip to Jairus’s house to heal the man’s dying daughter. And he says, “Who touched me?” And the disciples think Jesus has lost his mind. “Many people have touched you. Why are you making a big deal out of this?” But Jesus won’t be satisfied until the woman steps forward… Mark writes: “But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.”4 Uh-oh… She knows she’s in trouble now.
But to her surprise, Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”5
Daughter, he calls her… It’s as if Jesus were saying, “You’re not only healed, physically, through faith you are now a beloved child of God… you are a member of my family. I’m not ashamed to say so in front of all these people, many of whom look down on you with scorn. You belong to me.” If this woman is now a daughter of God, then of course Jesus—who is God—wants to heal her! And of course Jesus’ Father wants to heal her.
Jesus says, in John 14:9, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” If you want to know the kind of love that our heavenly Father has for us, just look at Jesus. He’s showing it to us, in the flesh!
That’s how our Father loves us! So of course he wants to heal us! Of course he wants to help us! Of course he wants what’s best for us! Of course he’s always, always, always working in our best interest!
I am talking to some people right now—I know—who are afraid to pray, who are afraid to approach God with boldness, who are afraid to ask God to do bold things for them—heck, who are afraid to ask God to do much of anything for them—because you don’t feel worthy to do so. You think, “Why should God do anything for me?I know my heart. I know I’m a terrible sinner. I know I’m saved because of what Jesus did for me on the cross, but beyond that… why should I expect God to do more than that—by showing me his favor and answering my prayer?
“Why would God do that?”
Why? Because God is our Father.
Now let’s look at this “twisted tale,” this seemingly crazy parable, that Jesus tells in verses 5 though 8… and see how it connects to what I’ve just been saying about our Father and prayer…
What this man asks of his neighbor—to get out of bed in the middle of the night and fetch him some bread for an unexpected guest—is completely inappropriate. He’s asking too much of his friend! It’s midnight, after all. It’s a small house; families slept in close quarters back then. And if the man gets up to get bread for his friend, he’ll wake the whole family—and what if you wake up a sleeping baby? That’s the worst!
But maybe it doesn’t matter because this man’s knocking and shouting is going to end up waking everybody up anyway!
Besides, why is the man’s pantry empty in the first place? If feeding an unexpected guest were so important that you would wake up your friend in the middle of the night to feed him, then it ought to be important enough for you to make sure your pantry is well-stocked with bread in the first place… you know, in case of emergency.
So this man was wrong for doing what he did. Our ESV says he’s “impudent.” Some translations say he’s shameless—which means he ought to be ashamed of himself, he ought to feel embarrassed to do what he does—but he does it anyway.
Yet somehow Jesus says, “Be like him when it comes prayer! Pray like that! Be as shameless as this man when it comes to prayer.” Of course, apart from grace,you’re unworthy to pray. Of course, apart from grace, you don’t deserve to ask God for anything. Of course, apart from grace, you have no right to expect God to give you anything. But if you’re a child of God through faith in Christ, guess what?
You have God’s grace! Always!
We need to understand that Jesus took all of our sins—past, present, and future—suffered the penalty for our sins, suffered hell on the cross for our sins. And in exchange, when we believe in him, he gives us the gift of his own righteousness. This is a doctrine called imputation. So when our Father looks at us, he doesn’t see the ugliness of our sin… No, he sees the very righteousness of Christ!
So pray with boldness!
See, Jesus’ point in the parable is not to compare our heavenly Father with this grumpy neighbor, as if to say, “Your heavenly Father is like this grumpy neighbor, who’s angry with you… who is annoyed by you… who’s grown weary of you always asking him to do things for you… who might give you what you ask, but only reluctantly…”
If that were the case, we wouldn’t want to pray very often! Which is opposite the point Jesus is making!
No! Jesus’ point is, if even a grumpy neighbor will eventually give in… will eventually wake up his family… will eventually get out of bed… go to the kitchen… and give this shameless man the bread that he so desperately needs… then why are we doubting for a moment that our heavenly Father will give us what we need?
And far from being “grumpy,” after all, God is perfectly patient, perfectly merciful, perfectly compassionate, perfectly loving toward his children!
Why are we reluctant to ask? Why don’t we expect our Father to answer our prayers in powerful ways?
Speaking of which, Pastor Eddie Herring—who, until he started preaching at another church recently, served as liturgist in our 11:00 service—is an ordained Methodist pastor like me. He tells the story of the time he was serving a church in a rural part of the state—a farming community. And that part of the sate was suffering through a drought. They desperately needed rain. And with the church’s support, Pastor Eddie called for an evening prayer meeting for the express purpose of praying for rain.
So the people of Eddie’s church showed up for prayer… and Eddie sent them home.
Why?
Because they showed up… and literally no one brought an umbrella, or raincoats, or galoshes. So they didn’t have that prayer meeting until they came back exercising their faith, expecting and believing that actually God will answer their prayers and do something supernatural when they gather for church!
There’s a funny episode in Acts chapter 12 along these same lines… Peter is miraculously freed from prison—an angel comes to him while he’s sleeping between prison guards. His chains and shackles fall off, and the angel escorts him out of the prison gate. Luke tells us that the church was gathered for prayer at a house church nearby… and had been praying fervently for Peter.
Then Peter walks to this house church, where his brothers and sisters are gathered in prayer for him. Verses 13 and 14:
He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, “Peter is standing at the door!”
Then verses 15 and 16:
“You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.” Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed.
To the church’s great credit, they were praying… fervently… faithfully… But not expectantly… It almost seems like they didn’t have the faith to believe that God was going to do something powerful, supernatural, andeven miraculous… in answer to their prayers.
Let’s not be like them.
Instead, let’s be like this poor man without bread in the parable. Let’s expect our Father to give us what we need. Because he always will… when God’s people pray.