This evening’s message is taken from what is commonly called “A Friend Comes at Midnight.” In this particular passage, Jesus used a parable to relate a certain message about our need to continue knocking on the door. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus declared, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” Jesus said that He stands knocking on the door to our heart, and if we will just open our heart’s door, then He will come in. Jesus loves us so much that He pursues us, and pleads with us to enter the kingdom and seek salvation.
In this parable, Jesus reveals that the door to our heart is not the only door that needs knocking on; and it’s not the only door that needs to be opened. Jesus may knock on our heart’s door, but we need to be knocking on heaven’s gates! We need to desire the forgiveness of our sin, salvation and eternal life so desperately that we’re willing to beat down heaven’s door to get inside! I mean, is Jesus the only one who should pursue our salvation? Should He always be coming after us? Shouldn’t we have a desire to pursue Him? These are some thought-provoking questions that we should seriously consider when reading the following parable.
Asking for Bread (vv. 5-8)
5 And He said to them, “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.”
Many commentaries interpret this parable as an illustration on persistence in prayer, since Jesus had been teaching His disciples how to pray, and had just shared with them “The Lord’s Prayer” (Luke 11:1-4). However, there is actually a sub-message here concerning the bestowal of salvation first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. This sub-message is what we will be looking at tonight.
In verse 5, Jesus addressed His audience by asking, “Which of you shall have a friend?” The audience, which just happened to be Jesus’ disciples (which can also be applied to His followers today), were being told they have a “friend” whom they could approach to ask for some spare bread with which to feed a guest. An old familiar gospel hymn says, “What a friend we have in Jesus!”(1) In this parable, when Jesus initially referred to a “friend,” He was referring to Himself.
In John 15:13-15, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” In this passage from John, Jesus was saying that when He was crucified on the cross that He died for those whom He considered to be His friends. His friends are those who believe in Him as Savior and Lord; and in our parable tonight, we will discover that His friends were His disciples.
Jesus is the “friend” described in this parable from whom someone was asking for bread. Keeping this interpretation in mind, verses 5-6 reveal a hypothetical scenario where someone might be compelled to approach Jesus and ask for some bread to feed one of his own friends. Before we can apply this passage, we must understand the context of this parable and what it meant at the time in which it was spoken. In order to better understand the context, we must begin by looking at the one who asked Jesus for some bread.
The one who asked Jesus for bread was close to Jesus, for he declared, “Friend, lend me three loaves” (v. 5) – he called Jesus his friend. When this individual asked Jesus for bread, he wasn’t asking on behalf of himself, but for one of his other friends. He needed the bread in order to provide his friend and household guest with sustenance. If, in speculation, we suppose that the one who asked Jesus for bread was indeed one of His own disciples, then there is some helpful information here in making sense of the next few verses.
The disciples were Jewish, and so was Jesus. In Matthew 15:24, Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” (NIV). Before the way was open for the Gentiles to enter the kingdom, Jesus preached primarily to the Jews. In Matthew 10:6, Jesus told His own disciples, “But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Before the gospel was shared with the Gentiles, those who were considered Jesus’ friends would have been Jews who chose to believe in Him as Savior and Lord – what we would call Messianic Jews in today’s time. Remember, those who were initially considered His friends were Jews, not Gentiles.
Let’s now continue with the remainder of the parable. Verse 7 says, “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.” Jesus was saying that He wasn’t about to give His disciple some bread just for him to give it away to one of his own friends, because the door was already shut and His children were in bed with Him. Jesus’ children would have been the Jews. Saying that the door was already shut implies that this disciple’s friend, who needed some bread, was indeed a Gentile. The door was not yet open for a Gentile to receive His life-giving sustenance.
So, what bread did this disciple desire to give to his Gentile friend? In John 6:35, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger.” This disciple wanted to offer his friend the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ. He wanted his friend to be able to enter the kingdom with him; but Jesus was saying that this was not possible – at least yet – because the door was shut to the Gentiles. He said that He couldn’t rise and give Bread to His disciple’s friend. His people were already chosen for the kingdom; the Jews were already selected to be snug in the comfortable bed of heaven.
So what happens next in this parable? In verse 8, Jesus said, “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.” Though the disciple who asked for bread was very close to Jesus, we see that He wouldn’t give this disciple bread to feed his own friend. The disciple’s friendship with Jesus did not win him any favor when it came to helping out his Gentile friend. Jesus said, however, that because the disciple was persistent, He would go ahead and give him the loaves of bread to feed his household guest. In other words, Jesus would grant the Gentile eternal life because His own disciple was persistent in pleading for him; and also, because the Gentile wanted it so desperately.
What Jesus said about persistence is certainly true, for there is another instance in Scripture in which a persistent Gentile received His help. In Mathew 15:21-28, a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter. This is the passage in which Jesus said that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He said that He would not heal her daughter because she was a Canaanite and a Gentile; but because the lady was persistent in asking, Jesus healed her daughter anyway. Persistence reveals great faith; for afterward, Jesus declared to the Canaanite woman, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire” (Matthew 15:28).
Today, there is no limitation placed on who can receive Christ into their heart. The door to the kingdom is now wide-open to both Jews and Gentiles. So, the spiritual application we acquire from this parable is that, in order to receive Christ into our heart, we have to truly desire His salvation. We have to want it so desperately that we would be willing to beg the Lord for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life, and not give up until He decided to give it to us.
We also see that if we have a friend who needs the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, then we need to be willing to ask Jesus on behalf of our friend. We need to petition Him for our friend’s salvation. We need to get down on our knees in prayer and plead for all of our friends, that they would have a hunger for the Bread of Life. Jesus shows us that persistence can break down impossible barriers and work miracles.
Just A.S.K. Him (vv. 9-10)
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
So, let me review something I’ve shared before. First of all, let me ask, “Do you know what an acronym is?” It’s a word formed from the first letter of a group of words. Take the word S.C.U.B.A. for example. It stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. The Lord placed an acronym in the Bible. In verse 9, Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” So, what is the Lord telling us to do here? He’s telling us to “ask.” There are three key words that we find here: Ask; Seek; and Knock. The first letters of these three words form the acronym A.S.K. or “Ask.”
When the Lord tells us to ask, “What is it that we should ask for that will open the door?” and “Exactly what door will be thrown open wide?” The reason why I ask these questions is because many times we abuse this statement to mean that God will give us anything we ask for, like a new car or a million dollars. The Lord is telling us that anyone who asks for the Bread of Life, or salvation, will be given eternal life; and the door to the kingdom of heaven will be opened. If we earnestly desire salvation from Jesus Christ, and we are persistent in asking the Lord, seeking the kingdom of God first and knocking on heaven’s door, then we will be granted salvation.
Time of Reflection
Jesus may knock on the door to our heart, but what we see from this parable reveals that we need to do a little knocking ourselves. We know that Jesus loves us, but the question is, “Do we love Him?” Those of us who have already professed Him as Savior and Lord did so, because Jesus spoke to our heart. He knocked on the door and we opened it, in order to let Him in.
So, how have we acted towards Jesus since we opened our heart’s door to Him? Have we been complacent in our walk with Him, just going about our Christian life half-heartedly? If we have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, then it will be evident in our life by whether or not we desire to serve Him. Christians who are on fire for Jesus are those who desire to encounter and experience the Lord. They have sought Him out, and have done a little knocking on heaven’s gates; and their desire and spiritual hunger doesn’t just fizzle out.
For those who do not yet know Jesus Christ, He tells us that anyone who has an earnest desire to be saved will be granted the forgiveness of sin and eternal life. All a person has to do is be persistent and ask. The Lord declared in Jeremiah 29:12-14, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord.” That is a promise! The Lord will be found by anyone who chooses to call out to Him, for the apostle Paul declared in Romans 10:13, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
NOTES
(1) Joseph Scriven, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” The Baptist Hymnal, ed. Wesley L. Forbis (Nashville: Convention Press, 1991), 182.
