Pray Without Inhibition
Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)
Brad Bailey - July 21, 2019
#31 in series
Luke 11:5-13
Intro
I want to invite you to use your imagination with me for a moment.
Imagine you are going up to the front door of a home.
Now I am going to give you two contexts… to allow you to feel the difference in feelings inside you.
First…imagine you are approaching a neighbor’s home. These are people you have waved to as neighbors…but you don’t really know. It’s about 8pm at night…and you are finally going door to door inviting people to the first neighborhood holiday party you are going to host. (Some of us may be able to imagine this well…because we have done this as part of our host a holiday party challenge. And like when Leah and I did this… you come to the door of someone you don’t really know… and there’s no sign of anyone awake in the front of the house. There is no sense that these people will want to hear about such a social event…and a good sense that you may wake them up. Consider what feelings you may have in this context. Perhaps you wonder: We shouldn’t interrupt them. Should we even ring the doorbell? Maybe just a light tap on the door? Maybe just leave the flyer on the doorknob?
Now imagine a very different scenario…
After years of not seeing your parents… you are an adult now with kids…they have been reaching out …hoping… and finally the day has come…you’ve been driving all day…got an early evening note about their excitement for your visit… and you arrive at their doorstep. Consider what feelings you may have in this context. What are you feeling as you walk up to the door… kids in arms? Perhaps you give a knock and it doesn’t sound like anyone is coming to the door yet? No problem…you just knock and ring away. You know the desires that are inside. (OR could change this scenario to: Your house in on fire… and your cell phones are inside it… and you rush to your neighbors… …desperate to call the fire department. You rush to the door… ringing… ringing… ready to break it down.)
Today… Jesus wants to change how we come to prayer. We don’t understand our life with God in prayer if we are coming like we might come to the neighbor… hesitant… reluctant…inhibited…not sure we really should or need to. Today Jesus challenges us to overcome our tendency to engage prayer with that kind of reluctance.
Last week… we heard how the first disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray… and he responds with the type of prayer that is so different than the small and tangential ideas so common associated with prayer today. And with that way of reorienting what it is about….he wants to reorient HOW we come to it.
Luke 11:5-13 (NIV) ?5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' 7 "Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
Jesus sees something that needs to change in his followers…in all of us.
And so, he tells a story to impart change.
He says a man is at his house one night, a friend shows up unexpectedly in the middle of the night, and the man has absolutely nothing to put in front of this friend. And when Jesus says those words, everybody who's listening to him would gasp because of the high social value for hospitality, and it had to do with very famous near-eastern hospitality. In the near-east, when someone showed up at your home, the idea of not putting before them something was unthinkable. In fact, when a visitor showed up in your home, you were to provide them not with just what you would normally provide your own family, you were to provide them with a generous show of blessings.
It is hard for us to fully grasp how essential one felt about such hospitality. It was so fundamental to one’s role as a part of shared life… that one could hardly imagine ever neglecting to fulfill it.
It was a social duty…and a religious duty to God.
Once in a while of course… the need might arise at an inopportune time. A late night arrival could certainly happen …because the heat of the middle east led people on long walking journeys wait until after the mid-day heat to proceed…and that could lead to travelers arriving late in the night. And as in this case…they may do so unannounced.
There was no “I’ll text you when I’m coming.” One could have no idea that a friend would be coming through town.
So what does this guy do? He says, “Okay, I've got a friend. He lives a couple of doors down. I'm heading to his house and I'm asking for some food.” So he gets up in the middle of the night, he goes to his friend's house, and he starts knocking on the door.
“Hey, hey, friend, a friend just came to my house and I have nothing to give him. Please give me some food so that I can give that food to him.”
And his friend says, “Go away! We’re already asleep!”
This was no switch on a nightlight and hit the kitchen moment. Most families lived within a single room or two…and the whole family would sleep on one mat. So bedtime began shortly after dark…when parents got their children to sleep with candlelight ….and might have then brought in a few animals… and finally … extinguished the candles… hoping that all quieted down together.
And does the guy just go away? He doesn't stop. “No, no. I really, really need the food. Please, please friend!” “But if I get up it's going to wake up everybody in the house!” “I know, I know, I'm sorry, but I really need this food!” And finally the guy says, “Okay, okay, I'm getting up. I'm going to give you the food.”
Now, is Jesus trying to teach us that God is like a friend who is in bed in the middle of the night who does not want to get up? Is Jesus teaching us that God needs us to belabor him… to pester him… to wear him down until he gives in and gives us our request?
Here is where it is so important to catch what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is teaching the exact opposite to that.
Jesus makes it clear that the point is not to compare the sleeping man’s reluctance to that of God… but to contrast it.
If such persistence can gain the response of this man…how much more should we have such boldness with God who is not reluctant.
As he comes to make clear… the problem of reluctance is not that of God …but of us not being as bold as this man in asking.
Verse 8 - “…because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”
This type of boldness…is translated by others as “shameless persistence” (NLT)…. Describing one who is “not ashamed to keep on asking.” (CEV / GNT) [1]
It is that difference between the reluctant embarrassed tapping on the door…and the understanding one would have when they are clear and compelled by the need…and will knock boldly… and persistently.
What is the difference?
The difference is the grasp of our clear and compelling need.
A true understanding of prayer will be…Compelled by our need.
Most of us would likely find… that the times in our lives when we have been most bold in prayer have been the times in our lives in which we were compelled by a clear sense of need.
The simple truth is that our sense of need will speak out….and what it is trying to tell us is vital.
As Tim Keller says…
“One of the most interesting things about prayer is that it’s almost an involuntary reflex of the human soul. No matter what you believe, no matter how unbelieving you are, you’ve probably prayed. Prayer is a clue to the origin of your heart. Prayer is a clue to some of the mysteries of life you face right now. Prayer tells you where you’ve come from.”
We are by nature finite…dependent. We can tend to try and avoid that dependency… but Jesus says that dependency is our freedom.
We pray when we are most desperate… but it is not because desperation causes us to lose sight of the way things really are…but rather because in such moments we must face the way things really are… that we are not in control of everything… that we are profoundly finite.
The truth is that we aren’t simply more desperate when we pray…but more human.
When we think we’re in charge, when we think we’re in control of everything, we are actually out of touch with our humanity.
When you feel “desperate” is really when you realize you’re human. You realize you don’t have control over your environment. You realize you’re vulnerable. You realize you’re mortal.
Jesus is calling us out of our reluctance.
Our reluctance to pray can reflect that we tend to think we are generally fine.
We tend to feel that prayer is only for the few things we can’t manage on our own….for the extreme emergency….when we might say: “There’s nothing left to do but pray.”
Jesus sees human life as absolutely dependent upon God as it’s source.
We are always needy. We simply vary and fluctuate as to our awareness of that need.
You see, it's not just that God is greater than the friend in this illustration, it's that our need is greater than the need in this illustration.
Jesus is saying, “Come with shameless boldness…not because God is like a friend who doesn't want to get up in the middle of the night but because, whether you realize it or not, you are always like that friend who has nothing to give unless your friend gives you something to give.”
We must become clear and compelled by our need… and engage God boldly and shamelessly.
Now we may wonder: Does this imply that we should engage in prayer as some sort of cosmic vending machine?
Not at all. Let’s quickly consider what such need is not.
• Such need is not a demand based on our “rights.”
There is a shameless persistence that is simply demanding because we think we deserve something…and there is a shameless persistence because we understand we are desperate.
Notice that he never suggests to the neighbor that they must give him food… that he has any “right” to demand it.
The man knocking at the door knows that it is not his bread to claim.
Jesus calls us to become bold in asking… not demanding.
He speaks of knocking… not grabbing.
What is communicated is not that of saying: “You should do what I want simply to serve me… or because you owe me.
He is raising a request. And that is significant. If you are demand what is yours and it is not given… you naturally will feel violated…and may naturally respond in anger and protest.
But if you make a request based on a need…not a right… you will remain in a posture of gratitude…and growth.
• Such need is not merely our vain desires.
He is seeking the means to provide hospitality. There is nothing vain in this need. He is not asking for some exemplary spread to draw attention to himself. And he certainly isn’t asking for any abundance of wealth or fame. [2]
Jesus is so clear that we are to seek God for all our needs…not all our greeds.
Jesus isn’t suggesting that a get rich quick scheme. But he is calling us to boldly ask for what we need.
• Such need is not merely whims and wishes.
The process of becoming clear and compelled is not simply a fleeting desire. We all know that sometimes our desires can be a little flighty. While not exclusive to children… when we are kids we may be especially prone to this… … one day they think they cannot live without something…they can be really loud and clear… and then you may never hear about even the next day…or ever again.
This weekend we are celebrating my youngest son’s 15th birthday. The other day he came and told me what he wanted for his birthday. So I did what any good father would do if they have the means…I went to Amazon.com…and ordered away. Less than an hour later…he came and told me that he needed something different. I thought…I should have learned by now… we are not always settled on what we really want or need.
It is in the waiting that our needs become most clear and compelling. [3]
We will develop a greater shameless boldness as we become more deeply connected to our need. God may be forming his will in us… and sharpening our discernment of his will.
But let’s not miss what Jesus is calling out in us.
He is saying that when we have a need that is not vain in nature… that we know is not some right to demand… we should embrace being clear and compelled…and be up and asking.
And this is what he drives home… as he says…
Luke 11:9-10
9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Jesus says in essence; Become the opposite of reluctant.
Ask. Seek. Knock.
These are words of pursuit… not passivity.
And their grammatical nature implies that we persist in asking ….seeking…knowing. Every one of those verbs is in the present tense, which speaks of continuous action. In other words Jesus was saying, “keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking”… it is the opposite of the reluctance…and passivity.
There is a sense of increasing intensity in the way Jesus phrased this. Sometimes all we have to do is ask and it comes pretty quickly. At other times there is some seeking involved. Seeking implies a process. A great benefit in the seeking process is that we interact with God and often receive even more than what we were pursuing. [4]
Jesus wants to be clear that the reluctance is in us…not in God.
So he continues…
Luke 11:11-13
11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
A true understanding of prayer will be…Confident in God’s goodness.
Jesus leaves the story that involves a friend asking…and immediately begins talking about prayer in terms of family, in terms of approaching a father.
And this is the very root of our lives and prayer.
Jesus did not say, “Pray this way: ‘Our friend who art in heaven.’ ” He said… “Our Father in heaven.
What Jesus tells us about prayer makes no sense except on family terms.
This is the freedom of a child… and only a child will freely trust… without expecting to understand everything he does… will be both bold and trusting.
How should we pray?
As freely as a child who is utterly dependent on the father’s provision… and who knows that their father is committed to providing. [5]
The little children of kings and presidents … know that they have that place to seek their needs. Now think of the great kings and the great presidents and the great influential and powerful people of the world. The only people who can approach people like that and take such liberties are their little children.
And little children cannot make any distinction between big and small petitions. Children don’t understand that.
This is the radical break from human religious nature.
Human religious nature tends to relate to God like a boss… they agree to be good…and hope to earn your wages.
But when we receive Christ we become children of God.
John 1:12, says,
“As many as received him, as believed on his name, to them he gave authority to become his children.”
Adoption is a change not of nature or even of behavior; adoption is a change of status by an act of the Father, so now you enjoy privileges and an intimacy and an unconditional acceptance.
There are two ways to approach God. One is to say, “God, you are my boss. …and the other approach is, “God, you are my Father.”
And Jesus is very clear… we should come to God as children.
Some of you here may be realizing that though you may be very moral, you may be very decent, you may be very religious, …but God’s heart is that we know him as our Father… and come freely in need.
Jesus brings this home is concluding….
“…how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
Jesus would later describe why it is good he ascends unto the heavenly realm… because he will be sending the Spirit of God…the Holy Spirit…to come work in us. That is what the prophets had long ago foretold.
And the Scriptures tell us that it is the Holy Spirit who fills us with the truth that we are God’s children… [7]
And it is the Spirit that works the work of God is us and for us.
CLOSING:
So I am going to give us an opportunity to embrace being God’s children… and to welcome the Holy Spirit to come bring God’s leading.
Wait on God’s presence.
A few have been praying who may have some promptings from God.
Resources: John Hamby, Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III; Ray C. Stedman (Message – “Prayer's Certainties”); Tim Keller (“Shameless Prayer”, 1993)
Notes:
1. Many note how many variations of translation there are for Greek words the NIV translates as the “man's boldness” in verse 11:8 - This key word is translated differently across English translations:
Later NIV – “shameless audacity”
CEV / GNT – “simply because you are not ashamed to keep on asking”
Voice – “because of his brash persistence”!
CEB – “brashness”
LB – “just because of your persistence”
NIRV – “because you keep bothering him”
NLT – “because of your shameless persistence”
ESV – impudence (or persistence)
2. God is seeking for us to enter into His will…and as such… he seeks prayer that aligns with His will. 1 John 5:14-15 says, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”
Similarly… James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
3. The Scriptures tell us: "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord." (James 1:6-8 RSV)
4. Ray Stedman expands on this progressive nature of asking, seeking, and knocking:
“Seeking is not a simple act, it is a process, a series of acts. Every mother here knows that husbands and children conceive of seeking or searching as a single act. They will stand in the middle of a room and cast one sweeping glance around it, looking for a lost object, and then call for help. "Mom, where is so-and-so?" And mother comes and opens the drawer or moves the bottle or lifts the paper and there is the thing. (I am convinced that my wife is a master of sleight-of-hand, for I cannot understand how an object will suddenly appear right in the place where she is looking and I had just looked there and had not seen it.)
We have an example of this in that well-known incident in the life of the Apostle Paul when he was suffering from that excruciating, painful thing that he called "a thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7 KJV) -- some physical disability which hounded and buffeted and limited him. At least he felt it did. Three times he asked to have this taken away. He asked, but it was left; there was no answer. So the apostle, evidently instructed in these things of God, realized that this was not the kind of thing that is removed by asking, that is requires a search, and the wording that he gives to us in Chapter 12 of Second Corinthians implies that the answer came to him as he waited. As he meditated, and searched out this thing, waiting upon God, the answer came to him, "My grace is sufficient for thee," (2 Corinthians 13:9 KJV). In other words, "It is better this way, Paul. I have allowed this deliberately to come into your life and I will not remove it, for my grace is sufficient for you. I can give you all that it takes to stand this thing, for what it is doing to you is of far more value than anything that would come by its removal." So Paul says, "I have learned, therefore, to glory in my infirmities, my weaknesses, because then the power of Christ rests upon me," (2 Corinthians 12:9). - Ray C. Stedman (Message – “Prayer's Certainties”)
5. This section regarding how prayer is on the terms of family… a child to father… is adapted from thoughts shared by Tim Keller. - Tim Keller (“Shameless Prayer”, 1993)
He further engages the issue of “unanswered prayer” is stating:
Your father gives you what you would have asked for if you knew everything he knows. That’s how prayer works.
Imagine if you gave Aladdin’s lamp to a 5-year-old. “Here honey, any three wishes and they’re yours automatically, whether good or bad, whether smart or stupid.” What would you do if your 5-year-old got ahold of Aladdin’s lamp and you knew three wishes were coming? You’d get out of the world. You’d get in a rocket ship and go someplace. Disaster is looming.
If you are a Christian and you’ve been asking for something and God has not given it to you, you’ve asked for a scorpion. If you’re mad about it, it’s because you want prayer to work like Aladdin’s lamp. It doesn’t. You’re a toddler. It’s so powerful it has to have a safety catch on it, because we’re toddlers. Prayer is not Aladdin’s lamp. If it was we’d all be dead. We’d all have killed each other, if not killed ourselves.
Prayer only works on family terms. You go to your Father, not to a genie. That’s what prayer is. You go to him as a Father, not as a genie, and you say, “This is what I want.” Your Father may say, “Now honey, that would hurt you, but here’s what I would like to get you instead.”
Do you really understand unanswered prayer as a little child? Do you believe he’s your Father? Some of you are bitter and upset and angry, and your life is coagulating underneath that bitterness and all that upset-ness because God hasn’t done things the way you want. You are not practicing the fact that you’re a child. You’re not willing to respond to him as a father. Instead, you want him to be a genie and he’s not. You want him to be a boss and he’s not. He’s a father. Prayer only works on family terms.
Another notes…
Calvin says this — “God does not answer our prayers as we pray them, but as we would pray them if we were wiser.”
Just a few illustrations of this. Genesis 37. Genesis 37:4 tells us the story of Joseph and his brothers, right? And it tells us in Genesis 37 verse 4 that they could not even talk to one another kindly. There was so much tension in that family the brothers could not have a cordial conversation. Now, let's just suppose that Joseph one day had knelt down on his knees beside his mat and prayed, “Lord, would You somehow bring harmony into our family so that we love one another?” I don't know whether Joseph ever prayed that prayer or not, but I do know this, God did that. But do you know how God did that? Well, He had his brothers first attempt to kill him and then throw him into a pit, and then sell him into slavery. And then he went into Egypt and he was false accused by his employer and thrown into prison. And then a famine came into the ancient Near East that killed thousands of people. Now that's pretty rough, but in Genesis 50 — it's either verse 18 or 19 — we're told that Joseph and his brothers spoke to one another and cried on one another's shoulders and embraced one another. And what God had done in that family, He had brought a family, where there was a wall a mile wide and a mile high between the people in that family, and He brought that family together, but boy, did He do it in a way that Joseph never would have thought.
6. Both John and Paul make it very clear, explicitly clear, that the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, is received the moment we believe in Jesus Christ. It is recorded in John's gospel that Jesus stood at the last day of the feast and cried
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. - John 7:37-39 (NIV)
And Paul says in Ephesians 1:13 (NIV)
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
And in First Corinthians 12, says that
For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. - 1 Corinthians 12:13 (NIV)
It’s something that continually happens in our lives. Some of the same people who were filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 were filled with the Spirit in Acts 4:31. Ephesians 5:18 tells us to be continually filled with the Spirit.
7. As we read in Romans 8:15-17 (NIV)
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
