Pray, People, Pray.

Pray, People, Pray.

Luke 11:5-13

Highland Baptist Church

New Chapel Hill Baptist Church

May 15, 2011

Lesson by Rick Crandall

*We are here today to talk about prayer. Some of the best things that have ever happened in this world have happened in answer to prayer. I know this is true in your life, so at the end of class I would like to hear some of your stories on answered prayer.

*But how should we pray? -- The Lord wants us to know. And as Jesus taught His disciples in Luke 11, He also teaches us. How should you pray?

1. First: Pray with great determination.

*The Lord wants us to have the same kind of determination we see in vs. 5-8.

-Jesus said:

5. “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;’

7. 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.

*That man had great determination in his asking. There was great energy in his request. James 5:16 tells us that the energized prayer of a righteous man does great things. That’s the kind of energy this man had when he went to his friend.

*Hebrews 4:16 tells Christians to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” That’s the way our man in need went to his sleeping neighbor. He had the kind of determination to boldly ask his friend for help.

*He had the determination to come to his neighbor, even though he had to come at the worst possible time. It was midnight, the time when his friend was bound to 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!”

*I was awful going to bed as a little boy. I got more spankings for that than for anything else. When I was in the first grade, we lived in a two-story house that had front and back stairs. Lots of nights when my dad put me to bed, I would be down the back stairs before he could get down the front.

*Well, what goes around really does come around. All three of our children were terrible sleepers! I can still remember that little, yellow baby carrier we had when Becky was a baby. Every night one of us had to rock that thing at least 30 minutes just waiting for her to close her eyes. And when she finally got laid down, the last thing I wanted to hear was some guy banging on the door yelling for me to give him something.

*But this poor sleeping dad had it much worse than I ever did. They probably lived in a one room house and everyone slept packed in together on a mat.

*Don’t you know that dad was aggravated? -- But our prayer warrior didn’t let that stop him. Verse 8 tells us that he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

*He prayed with persistence or “importunity” in the KJV. The NIV says he prayed with “boldness.” The New Living Translation says he prayed with “shameless persistence,” and I like that. This man was not about to let embarrassment or fear of rejection keep him from asking.

-He didn’t care if he woke up the whole neighborhood!

-And that’s the way God wants us to pray.

*But why was this praying man so determined?

-That’s an important question, and he tells us in vs. 6: “A friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him.”

-The man was so determined, because he was faced with a need he couldn’t possibly meet on his own.

*What about us?

-Are we ever faced with needs we can’t meet on our own? -- Many times.

-When it comes to our families, our health, our economy, the world situation, we will surely face needs we cannot supply.

*This is not the time to give up! It is the time to pray with more determination than ever. That’s what Jesus tells us in vs. 9: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.