“Knocking on Heaven’s Door”
Luke 11:1-13
When Jesus set out to call 12 men to follow him, He gathered them together and began mentoring them, discipling them so that they in turn would be able to continue the process. So when Jesus started teaching them, since this was the first group of disciples it was critical that they get it right. Because this would be the basis for how every disciple would be trained for thousands of years.
So Jesus modeled many things for them:
• He sent them out to visit in pairs
• he showed them how to deal with temptation by using Scripture
• he never turned anyone away, including children, no matter how busy he might be
• and with every opportunity for ministry that came his way he also taught a lesson from Scripture with it.
In this passage today we find the only time that they came to Jesus and asked him to teach them something very specific. They could have said……
• Jesus show us how you healed that blind man when you spit in the dirt and put mud pies on his eyes.
• Jesus show us how you could simply tell a man who had been lying each day in the same spot for 38 years—tell us how you made him suddenly get up and walk.
So many things they could’ve asked Jesus. And if you had been one of the early disciples you might’ve had a different question you would’ve asked also. The disciples just had one request, Lord teach us to pray. Now why is that? Perhaps it has something to do with his teachings on the subject of prayer... Especially when he said things like….
• Ask and it shall be given to you
• if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done
• whoever says to this mountain, be moved and does not doubt it will be done
• if you asked the father for anything in my name, he will give it to you.
They saw how powerful prayer was in the life of Jesus. They saw him model it on many occasions as he would pray and fast for days at a time and they saw the difference that it made. So when they had a chance to make a request of Jesus this was it... Lord teach us to pray. And this was his response. Would you read this prayer with me?
Lord’s Prayer on screen
If you grew up when I did you know that we used to say this prayer in school every morning right after we said the Pledge of Allegiance. Now neither one is being done.
So when Jesus gave his disciples this prayer what was he telling them? Was he giving us a prayer to memorize and say every day or was he giving us some guidelines as to how to pray? Well either way I want you to notice several things he includes in the model prayer. The model prayer includes (1) A time of worship. Father, hallowed be thy name. Hallowed means holy. There are many names used in Scripture that are given to Jesus to describe his power and his authority. I keep a list on my desk listed alphabetically of 124 names we give to Jesus. Names such as...
• Our advocate
• the branch
• counselor
• Dayspring
And all of these names remind us of who he is. In this prayer Jesus says use this name also when you speak to God. Hallowed. It means holy. Holy is the name of the Lord. Holy be your name.
Then there are 4 requests that he includes. (1) A request for his kingdom to come. Now we have to pause here and make certain we understand the usage of the word kingdom. Write this down. The kingdom of God is God’s redemptive rule. God has come into history in the person of Jesus Christ to break the power of death and Satan and the kingdom will come when Christ returns and the destruction of those enemies will then be complete. It is not complete yet but it will be. When we pray thy kingdom come, this is what we are praying for.
(2) A request for daily bread. Most of us do not fear for having enough to eat. But I would think that all of us have times when we have to stretch our dollars to cover food for our family. But this request is actually a request for our daily needs to be met. This prayer is meant to cover all of life. This is a prayer for our current needs. We are not to worry about the future but we are to pray for the present time that our physical needs will be met.
(3) A request for forgiveness of our sin. Paul tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. He says there is none good, no not one. If we are going to kneel in the presence of God in prayer then we must ask a holy God to cleanse us of our unholiness. Sin separates us. Forgiveness unites us with the father. This is a prayer for our sins in the past.
(4) A request for our future. Our trials. Every day we are tested and challenged in our walk with Christ. Satan throws endless possibilities at us that are sinful; temptations that can destroy us if we give in. Every day our integrity is challenged and we can only overcome this constant source of temptation by the strength Christ provides. We must pray for our future. Who knows what evil we might avoid by praying this prayer?
These are the things Jesus tells us to pray for. His kingdom to come, our daily needs, our past sin and our future trials. Jesus then tells a story that seems to be broken into several parts.
First the parable. In those days people often traveled at night to avoid the heat of the day. In his story a traveler had arrived close to midnight at a friend’s house. People would bake bread daily but usually only enough for the day. So that it was always fresh. So when the traveler arrived late that evening the family would be embarrassed because they had no food to offer. They would go to a friend to borrow something. Now remember it is late. He goes to his friend’s house to borrow some bread and when he arrives the door is closed. In that day no one would knock on the door if it was closed because that meant they wanted privacy. They were asleep. During the day the door was left open, people were coming and going but when the door was shut it was like putting a sign out that meant do not disturb. So what did he do? He knocked. It was important.
But you have to get a picture in your mind of what the home looked like. It was one room. One small window. Third-floor usually covered with dried reeds. The room was divided into two parts. Two thirds of it was on ground-level. The other 1/3 third was slightly raised. On the raised part, the charcoal stove burned all night. Families were large and they would sleep on mats and they slept close together for warmth. So you picture them all huddled up close together. And by the way it was customary to bring the livestock, the chickens, the goats, all into the house. So you get the picture of how crowded the room was. Then a knock at the door. Your turn honey. You gotta step on most of your family, move the cows, pigs out of the way to answer the door. And the whole time I can tell you what you’re thinking. This better be important. The man just keeps on knocking. He is persistent. He knows your home. So the man gets up. Then Jesus says now this story, the story will tell you about prayer.
Now listen. Because what I’m going to tell you will give you a different view of the story than you have heard before. We use the word para and it means to lay something alongside. (something else) so we use words like parachute, paramedic, paraphrase. There are hundreds of words like this that we use. A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
Now if we lay something down beside another thing to teach a lesson there are two ways to look at them. (1) Look at how similar the two things are or (2) Look at how different they are. In this parable we make the mistake of thinking we’ve got to beat the door down to get God’s attention and nothing could be further from the truth. Sure prayer should be persistent but that’s not the point here. We picture ourselves standing, knocking on Heaven’s door, pleading with God, begging him, wringing your hands, worried God will not answer as though we are blocked almost from his presence, worried sick that God would not hear or respond. Listen, all prayer is answered. There is no such thing as unanswered prayer. It may not be the answer we are looking for. It may not be the answer we want. It may not be the answer we expect. But God always answers. So to drive the point home even further he says in Vvs. 11-12. The answer is of course not. So if you who are evil know how to do the right thing, how much more does our Father in heaven know how to do the right thing? Right?
Jimmy Carter was president when we got married. He is a believer. Servant. The story is told that he was in a very important meeting—high ranking officials gathered at the table when suddenly the door burst open and in came running Amy, his daughter-about 10 years old. Those at the table looked at each other thinking how could she be allowed here? Man, I bet she’s in trouble. President Carter got up from his chair, knelt down and simply said hey what do you need?
He let her know that day there was nothing more important than her needs at that moment. She needed to talk to her father. That’s the picture we need to get of our heavenly father. He wants to talk to us he is waiting to talk to us. Whenever I need might be it cannot be too small or too great that he does not want to hear about it. When we pray God always, always, always opens the door.
