Scripture: Luke 11:1-13; 18:1-8
Today is the second of a three-part series I’m calling, “Prayer, Power, and the Promises of God.”As I said last week, the main purpose of this series is to prepare members and regular attenders to make a financial commitment next Sunday for our “Bold Faith” campaign to build our permanent church home. If you’re visiting, please don’t head for the exits just yet! Because today’s sermon, which is specifically about prayer, applies to all Christians! Okay?
But I also want this sermon to encourage those of us who are already part of Five Forks Methodist to pray boldly and specifically for God to give us discernment about how much God wants each of us to give, and that God will give us the means to do so.
Let’s get started with something that happened just last week…
With permission from her mother, I want to share following story about Rebekah’s daughter and my good buddy, Eloise Jane. It just so happens that last Thursday, Lisa, my wife, brought me lunch here at church… from Culver’s. Lisa and I ate lunch together at one of the tables over there. And my lunch included a strawberry milkshake. But before I could eat my lunch, I had to finish up a few things in my office.
By the time I came to the table over there, where my lunch was waiting for me, Lisa had already offered Eloise Jane halfof my milkshake. Lisa didn’t even ask me permission to do that. And when it came time for me to drink the shake, Lisa spooned half of it into a plastic cup for Eloise Jane and placed it in front of her.
And Eloise Jane, with a completely straight face, said, “Can I have all of it?”
I love that kid!
An adult would never be so shameless to ask for all of someone else’s milkshake, right? That would be… what? Inappropriate… Impolite… We would just be happy that that we were given half. Kids, by contrast… they don’t care about manners and “proper etiquette” and money. If they want something, they simply ask for it… They tend to be very bold about asking for what they want.
Therefore what do you think Jesus means when he says, in Luke 18:16, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”
He means—at least when it comes to prayer—that all of us need to become a lot more like Eloise Jane… rather than these “mature,” “respectable,” “polite,” cost-conscious adults that most of us have grown into!
In fact, we need to become more like the desperate man in the parable of Luke 11:5-8—knocking on his neighbor’s door at midnight asking for bread. And we need to become more like this poor widow in Luke 18:1-8, who will not give up until she gets what she needs!
In both cases, they are breaking some powerful unwritten rules. They don’t care. Because what they want, what they’re asking for, means far more to them than their dignity or pride or self-respect!
Today’s scripture is nothing if not a great encouragement from Jesus to us normal, average, everyday Christians… to pray. It’s like a pep talk on prayer… He wants to encourage us to pray boldly…
And the first encouragement is found in Luke chapter 11, verse 2: “And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father… [dot, dot, dot].”
Exactly what kind of God are we dealing with when we pray? A God who is our Father…
Since Jesus was a native Aramaic speaker, we know for sure he would have used the Aramaic word Abba, which means “father.” When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, for instance, Mark tells us that Jesus used the word “Abba”—see Mark 14:36.
But if you’ve been to church a lot over the past fifty years or so, you’ve undoubtedly heard some preacher say something like this: The word Abba is one of the first words an Aramaic-speaking child would have learned. Ah-ba. It even sounds like baby talk: Like Papa, Da-da, Ma-ma. And you’ve also likely heard these same preachers say that Jesus wasn’t saying “Father,” which may sound too formal, too stuffy, too impersonal to many of us today… It’s more like he was saying, “Papa” or “Daddy,” or even “Dad”—these words imply something a little different from father, right?
A “papa,” or a “daddy,” or a “dad,” is someone you can wake up in the middle of the night, someone who will happily comfort you when you’ve had a nightmare… or get you a glass of water if you’re thirsty… or give you medicine when you’re sick…
Or so I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know from personal experience, because I trained my three kids to wake up their motherwhen they needed something in the middle of the night!
Still, “Papa,” “Daddy,” or “Dad” sounds much warmer, friendlier, more intimate, more trusting, than “Father.”
Well, I hate to say it, but this interpretation of Abba has fallen out of fashion recently: while it’s true Abba may be one of the first words a baby learns, it remained the only Aramaic word that even an adult child used to address his father. An infant would call his father “Abba”—sure—but so would an adult child. So it’s fashionable today to say that there’s not really any difference between “Father” and “Abba.”
So preachers like me shouldn’t make a big deal about it.
But you know what? I don’t buy it. In part because of something the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:15: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” And he uses the word “Abba” to make the exact point in Galatians 4:6.
Why does Paul bother to use the word “Abba” at all. The Gentile audience to whom he was mostly writing these two letters didn’t speak Aramaic. What does it mean, therefore, that before using the Greek word for Father, Pater—which they did know—he first uses the word for “father” that Jesus himself used when he prayed to his Father?
Why did he do this?
Because Paul wants these Greek- and Latin-speaking Gentiles to know that they—even they—now enjoy the exact same intimate relationship with God the Father that Jesus himself enjoys! Paul wants them—and now us—to know that what’s true of Jesus’ relationship with the Father is also now true of our relationship with the Father… Why? Because… Jesus took all of our sins—past, present, and future—suffered the penalty for them, suffered hell on the cross for them. And in exchange, when we believe in Christ, he gives us the gift of his own righteousness. This is a doctrine called imputation. So now when our Father looks at us, he doesn’t see the ugly stain of our own sin… No, he sees the very righteousness of Christ!
Therefore our Father loves his adopted children—i.e., you and me—exactly as much—and to the exact same degree, and with the exact same intensity of emotion—that our Father loves his only begotten Son Jesus.
Can you believe it?
Since that’s the case, how can we imagine that our Father doesn’t delight in answering our prayers… just as, believe it or not, I would have been happy to give Eloise Jane my entire milkshake! Maybe not… But I would have at least been happy to buy her her own milkshake! That is definitely true! How could I feel otherwise? I look into those eyes and my heart melts… the same way it did with my own three kids!
Just think: Because God is our Father, he looks at us like that… only more so! Because, unlike human parents, he loves us perfectly!
So of course we should pray with boldness!
Here’s a second encouragement: Let’s look at 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. It’s impolite. It’s rude. 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 unexpected guests were so important that he would wake up his friend in the middle of the night, then it ought to have been important enough for him to make sure his pantry was 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! Don’t be shy… Don’t be reticent… Don’t be reluctant… Be as shameless as this man when it comes to prayer.”
In other words, when you pray, be like Eloise Jane when she boldly asked for all of my milkshake!
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!
And even if God’s beloved children pray for the so-called “wrong” thing or in the “wrong” way, it’s as if our Father hears the the prayer underneath the prayer… And he answers that deeper prayer.
To see what I mean, I like the way Pastor Tim Keller famously put it: “When we pray, God will either give us what we pray for, or what we would have prayed for if we knew everything that God knows.”
“When we pray, God will either give us what we pray for, or what we would have prayed for if we knew everything that God knows.”
I like that! I believe that this is a pretty good summary of what Jesus and the New Testament teaches us about the power of prayer… including verses 11 and 12 of chapter 11: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”
Our Father will only ever give us what’s good for us… what’s best for us in that moment… We often don’t know what that “best thing” is; for example, we could think we’re asking for an egg, yet God knows that if he gave it to us, it would be about as good for us, spiritually speaking, as a scorpion.
But please don’t get the wrong idea: Keller said, “When we pray, God will either give us what we pray for, or what we would have prayed for if we knew everything that God knows.”
But notice what Keller didn’t say: He didn’t say, “God will either give us what we pray for, or what we would have prayed for… you know… if only we’d bothered to pray in the first place”!
There’s a fascinating episode recounted in Mark chapter 9, for instance, about a father who has a son that is often afflicted by an evil spirit that throws him into convulsions—and the spirit tries literally to burn this child in fire or drown him in water. So the father goes to the disciples seeking a healing… After all, the disciples have enjoyed success healing and driving out demons—which Jesus has equipped them to do.
But in this case, the disciples have no success. So now the father is desperate. He goes to Jesus instead… And Jesus delivers this man’s son from demonic possession.
But here’s what I want to emphasize. Later on, when they’re alone, the disciples ask Jesus, “Why couldn’t we do it? Why couldn’t we cast this thing out of the boy?” And Jesus says something insightful: “This kind”—as in, “this kind of evil spirit”—“cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”[1]
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!
So I need us to ask… What blessings from our Father might you be missing out on right now because you don’t pray… or you don’t pray boldly?
What blessings might we as a church miss out on if we don’t pray… or we don’t pray boldly?
Again, the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children… Little children are bold because they’re not “sophisticated enough” to know they shouldn’t simply ask for what they want!
As you know, this church is in the middle of a capital campaign. And we are asking you members to give the church around 1.8 or 1.9 million dollars before the end of the year. The idea is, if we have that amount of money in hand, then we can turn around and ask the bank to lend us that same amount of money—give or take. Because the building will cost around $4 million. Give or take…
With this in mind, a couple of weeks ago, I talked to our church’s prayer team about things we can do to encourage bold prayer during this critical season of fundraising. And we came up with some initiatives—which you’ve heard about… starting tomorrow… when we gather as a church between 5:30 and 6:30 to pray and reflect about our church’s need.
But after I first talked to the prayer team, I said, “I’m going to leave. Y’all brainstorm some ideas and get back to me next week.” But listen to what they did… They came to me about 30 minutes later—because I was still here, visiting with people—and they were excited to tell me, “We’re going to pray that we raise $4 million before the end of the year.” So we could just buy the building outright.
Isn’t that great? They took to heart Jesus’ words about bold, audacious, shameless prayer!
We have a chart over there—you’ve seen it—that demonstrates how realistic it is for our church to reach our goal… If this many people give this amount… If that many people give that amount… We’ll reach our goal of $1.845 million…
There’s nothing wrong with that chart at all. Did you hear me? Nothing wrong with that chart…It’s meant to encourageus.
But there is a potential spiritual danger we need to be aware of when it comes to charts like that. But now that I’m warning you about it, we’re not going to fall victim to to that temptation, okay?
But the potential danger is this: We may start to place more faith in what we believe is “realistic” than in the God who actually has the power to give us an unlimited supply of whatever it is that we need!
Because our problem is, we often underestimate what’s “realistic.”
Like Sarah, for instance—Abraham’s wife—in Genesis 18:13 and 14: “The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.’”
Make no mistake: Sarah was being perfectly “realistic,” as we usually understand that word, when she scoffed at the idea that a 90-year-old woman could have a child!
Yet God asked her, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
The Israelites, standing on the brink of the Promised Land in Numbers chapters 13 and 14, were being perfectly “realistic” when they said, “We’re like grasshoppers compared the giants who live in that land. We’ll never defeat them!”
Listen: If we get $1.845 million it will be because God has graciously supplied it. And we will give him all the glory. And if we get $4 million it will be because God has graciously supplied it. And we will give him all the glory.
But if we’re going to pray boldly the way Jesus teaches us to, we must do so understanding that God can give us whateveramount he chooses to.
And here’s the scary part: the amount God chooses to give us… well… God determines that amount, in part, based on the faithful prayers of God’s people at Five Forks Methodist. Amen?
This is why prayer is so important! This is why we’re emphasizing it! This is why we’re asking you to gather as often next week as you can… between 5:30 and 6:30! This is why I’ve prepared this devotional prayer guide, which you’re going to pick up at the end of this service!
But you see… to believe that God will supply our needs takes faith.
And this brings us to that weird question at the end of the second parable, about the persistent widow… Verse 8: “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
This question has puzzled many readers of scripture for two thousand years… They wonder if Jesus is suddenly changing the subject here. What does a parable about bold and persistent prayer have to do with faith?
Only everything!
We simply won’t pray with the boldness with which our Lord wants us pray unless we believe that our prayers will make a difference in our lives, in our church, and in our world… unless we believe that our Father will do things in response to our prayers that he otherwise may not do if we don’t pray… or don’t pray boldly enough or persistently enough!
Speaking of which, a dear friend of mine from Georgia, a Global Methodist pastor named Eddie Herring, 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 immediately 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!
So… our Lord encourages us to pray boldly and persistently, which is impossible apart from faith. And finally, we do so out of love.
Look again at the parable of Luke 11. Why is this man willing to risk looking like a fool and causing all this trouble by knocking on his neighbor’s door at midnight and pleading with him?
Well, that’s easy: he needs bread. Yes, but why does he need bread?
Because of verse 6: “a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.”
He goes to these great lengths to secure bread to feed a friend in need.
Why go to the trouble?
One overarching reason: because he loves his friend in need!
You and I are praying boldly, persistently, and faithfully during this capital campaign for that same overarching reason: out of love for friends… and for neighbors and family and coworkers and classmates… Out of love for those 900 students every year at Oakview Elementary… and out of love for their parents, grandparents, and siblings… and out of love for faculty and staff… And out of love for people we haven’t met yet!
We’re praying for friends who—like the unexpected guest in the parable—need bread.
“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”[2]
Our Father, what are you calling us to give in order to feed these friends and future friends the Bread of Life? Give each of us the faith we need to give generously… Give each of us the love we need to give extravagantly. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
[1] Mark 9:29
[2] John 6:35