The Parable of the Three Friends
(Full disclosure: Dr. Vance Havner wrote a sermon based on this text in his book, “Why Not Just Be Christians?”, published by Fleming Revell before 1977. This message is not a plagiary of his work. I preached a sermon based on this text on Sunday evening, June 1, 2025 at New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO. This is not an exact transcription.)
Introduction: Our Lord Jesus Christ spent a lot of time in prayer while He lived on this earth. After He had finished praying at a certain location, one of His disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray”. The Lord did so and added a parable, maybe with a bit of humor, to illustrate what it really means to pray.
1 The Lord gave an example of prayer
Text: Luke 11:1-4, KJV: 1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
In the immediate context, the Lord had just recently spoken the parable of the Good Samaritan and had enjoyed the company of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha in Bethany (all in Luke 10). Now He is at “a certain place”, not specified, and He has just finished praying. Sometimes He prayed with others, but sometimes He prayed alone. What’s important to remember is that if the Lord needed to pray, how much more do we!
Here He had been praying but one of the disciples (not named) came to Him and asked a simple request, “Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples”. Andrew and Philip had been disciples of John (the Baptist, our Lord’s fore-runner) so this unnamed disciple could have been one of them but we’ll never know this side of Heaven. Someone once suggested that the disciple who asked was left unnamed so that any of us could ask the same question!
And the Lord seemed pleased when the disciple made the request. Without going too deeply, we can see it’s a shorter edition, we might say, of the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6. The basic framework is the same, just with a briefer focus. Besides, the “Lord’s Prayer” in the Sermon on the Mount was given to a large crowd but this model prayer was given only to one of the Lord’s disciples.
That was all this disciple had asked for, but the Lord wasn’t done yet; no, not by a long shot. He had given then a sample prayer; now He was going to give them an example of how to pray!
2 The Lord gave a parable about prayer
Text, Luke 11:5-8, KJV: 5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
Even though this isn’t technically called a parable, it has all the key ingredients for one. There are no proper names, no locations, yet a plausible scenario that some of them may have experienced themselves at one time or another. This parable involves the tension or conflict between home live (especially at night) and the more or less unwritten laws of hospitality.
Now, the Lord sets the stage by describing a man whom we’ll call “Friend A”. He’s the point of the story because Friend A has a Friend B who has just received a sticky situation. Friend B comes to Friend A’s house—at midnight!—and says, in so many words, “Hey, friend, can you loan me three loaves of bread? I wasn’t expecting Friend C to show up at midnight, but here he is, he’s hungry, and I don’t have anything to feed him! How about it, buddy?”
Anybody who’s been wakened (cheated?) out of a good night’s sleep would not be, likely, too anxious to get up and give the one knocking on the door anything but a very strongly worded protest! Friend A, the one who had been sleeping soundly, promptly replied, “Trouble me not” which is a polite way of saying, “Get outta here! Go away! Scram!” or similar phrases. Bottom line: “DON’T BOTHER ME!”
Now here’s what left me kind of puzzled when, as a child, I first read and heard about this story. Most of us, if not all, sleep in bedrooms! These are usually located away from the living room and kitchen so that those whose bed is there can get some rest and sleep there.
That wasn’t the case in the houses of Jesus’ day. From what I’ve seen and heard over the years, once it was bedtime, everyone in the family more or less snuggled and snored together in the main part of the house. Individual bedrooms? Not in any textbooks I’ve ever seen! So here’s the man of the house, Friend A, who can’t help but hear Friend B pounding on the door asking for food for Friend C who just happened (ha!) to drop in at midnight, expecting food before he in turn went to bed.
Did I mention it was midnight? Again, something we in these days may not realize is that there were no grocery stores, supermarkets, or much of anything like those back then. One would have to grow the wheat, grind it to make flour, and then have someone convert flour and whatever other ingredients into bread. And their bread wasn’t long, rectangular loaves like we have; rather, they were like, maybe, pitas, Kaiser rolls, gyros, thick tortilla shells, or extra-large hamburger buns. The exact shape is unknown but that’s close enough to get an idea.
Speaking of bread, you didn’t buy it, you baked it. That also meant starting a fire and watching the bread bake until it was fit to eat. Oh yeah, the ovens that are sometime mentioned in the New Testament? They weren’t electric or gas stoves. According to a couple of books about life in Bible times, the “oven” wasn’t much more than a hole in the ground which was deep enough for, you guessed it, a loaf of bread (see commentaries like Barnes’ Notes on this passage, available online at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/barnes/matthew/6.htm). The fuel? Grass and maybe twigs; the Lord even mentioned this in Matthew 6:30!
Maybe, just maybe, Friend B was not exactly anxious to go through all the prep and baking to make his own bread? Or did he know Friend A usually had some left over? Why didn’t Friend B have something ready for his own breakfast? I mean, these are questions that came to me over the years, but the Lord didn’t elaborate—rather, He explained how diligent and desperate Friend B was to get food for his midnight guest, Friend C!
I mentioned the laws of hospitality. In those days, and in certain parts of the USA today, it’s somewhere between a custom and an expectation to offer a guest something to eat or drink, at least. Family members will often press other family members to share a meal. For some, that’s just the way they were raised and they would not change (my own grandparents were like that—if you came to their house, they would insist on giving you something to eat, drink, or both). Friend B is embarrassed, but he’s not going to let anything stop him from getting Friend C something to eat. And that’s why Friend B went to Friend A to get some food, somehow!
By the way, if anyone is struggling to keep who’s who in this story, feel free to rename them The Sleeper, The Seeker, and The Sojourner if that helps for Friends A, B, and C respectively.
Now let’s go back to Friend A’s house. It’s midnight, Friend B is at the door looking for three loaves of bread for Friend C, and B is not going away! Jesus used an interesting word for this “I’m not giving up till I get something” attitude—He called it “importunity” and it comes from a word that could be translated “persistence (https://biblehub.com/text/luke/11-8.htm)”. In other words, Friend B is basically making a pest of himself because Friend A just wants to sleep!
But, and I think this is the point of the story, Friend A realizes B isn’t leaving without bread so he gets up (and just wonder how he tiptoed through the family) to find three loaves of bread. There are some notes and commentary that have a general theme that A would give B as much as B could carry, just so he’d leave and stop being a pest!
I have to confess, I would probably be doubled over with laughing by this point. Sure, the Lord was called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief but, honest, can you see Him telling this story deadpan, like reading a bank statement or financial report, or even minutes of any regularly scheduled business meeting? My hunch is that He had a good-sized grin on His face!
Then, He moved to express some personal applications for the disciples.
3 The Lord gave some personal exhortations to pray
Text, Luke 11:9-13, KJV: 9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
The Lord ended the parable by stating that because Friend B wouldn’t stop begging for three loaves of bread; Friend A would give him anything he wanted, so to speak, just so he’d leave! Now He gives some personal encouragement for the disciples (and us, by extension) so that we would have the same courage in asking our Father for anything!
He first says, “ask, and it shall be given you”. This doesn’t imply a one-time request, but rather a continued asking. Vincent, in his “New Testament Word Studies” says that the word “ask” is the word ”for the asking of an inferior (https://godrules.net/library/vincent/vincentluk11.htm)”. After all, they’d heard the Lord describe that very action just moments before! It’s as if the Lord was saying, “Just keep on asking, and it shall be given you”. To be sure, we can ask for anything but it’s up to the Father if He says yes, no, or wait a while. He knows what we need before we even ask Him for anything (Matthew 6:7).
The Lord didn’t stop there. In the parable, Friend B had to feed Friend C and had nothing, so he sought food! And in the same way, just as Friend B sought a neighbor who would (eventually) give him something, the Lord encouraged us to seek, literally keep on seeking (and don’t give up, by implication). Someone once observed that if one doesn’t seek the end of a journey, that person will never find it. Friend B kept on seeking bread for Friend C—how many doors did he knock on before Friend A ever gave him the time of day, for that matter?
And He closed the story by saying, “Knock, and it shall be opened”. Again, the disciples had just heard a story about that very thing. After all, if nobody knocks on the door (apparently they were solid in those days), nobody will know who’s out there. Friend A had to open the door (but not very far, I would guess) to give Friend B the bread he wanted.
This whole episode reminds me of a story told about Sir Walter Raleigh. The story goes that he would continue asking Queen Elizabeth for more and more money, and the Queen kept on giving him the money! After a while, the story goes, she asked him, “Raleigh, when will you stop asking for more money?” He replied, “When Your Majesty stops giving!”
Brothers and sisters, ask, seek, and knock. Who knows what the Lord will provide?
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)
