As we’ve seen over the previous weeks, Jesus has been stirring His church worldwide to renew themselves in the passion and priority of prayer.
• He’s been making clear that there is no element of a Christian’s energy or activity that can substitute for depending on God’s power through prayer.
• When Jesus said that His Father’s house was to be a “house of prayer”, he made clear that neither worship…teaching…fellowship…outreach… nor any program can substitute for depending on the power of God in prayer.
• We see this priority and passion in those first disciples of Christ:
Acts 1:14 “They all joined constantly in prayer.”
Col. 4:2 The apostle Paul extorts the new church, “Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful.”
Phil. 4:5-6 “The Lord is near. (So) do not be anxious about anything, but in everything…present your requests to God.
Eph. 6:18 “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests,…Be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”
There are two central instructions regarding prayer noted by the two key words: “all” and “continually”.
This morning, I want to address one final aspect about prayer that flows from those words…. and that is perseverance.
This coming year, we want to bring more and more to God in prayer and to do so consistently. God has prompted us to lay this work of prayer in a 3-fold fashion:
1.) Daily, each day of the year we will all pray for one individual…
2.) Weekly, power of presence; praying ‘onsite with insight’ and with the compassion that comes with presence.
3.) Monthly, a day of fasting.
Towards that end I want o address the nature of persevering in prayer. So often many of us have begun to turn to God in prayer, only to find ourselves quieting or quitting the process early on in our pursuit.
A teenager had decided to quit high school, saying he was just fed up with it all. His father was trying to convince him to stay with it.
“Son”, he said, “you just can’t quit. All the people who are remembered in history didn’t quit. Abe Lincoln, he didn’t quit; Thomas Edison, he didn’t quit; Douglas MacArthur, he didn’t quit; Elmo McCringle…”
“Who,” the son burst in, “Who’s Elmo McCringle?”
“See,” the father replied, “you don’t remember him…. because Elmo quit!”
We live in “instant” times… As a result, we often have little ability to appreciate God’s time-frame and there is little appeal for persisting according to spiritual dynamics.
But Jesus teaches us something: Jesus, in coming from heaven, reveals where heaven stands on the issue; by telling us about His Father’s heart for the persevering… That is what we find here in Luke 11:5-10. The disciples had come upon Christ in prayer, and asked Him to teach them to pray. After offering what we refer to as the Lord’s Prayer as an example, he continues,
“Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 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.’ 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 persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 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. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
The scene that Jesus described was far from foreign in this 1st century context. As William Berclay describes:
“Travelers often journeyed late in the evening to avoid the heat of the midday sun. In Jesus’ story just such a traveler had arrived towards midnight at this friends house. In the east hospitality is a sacred duty; it was not enough to set before a man a bare sufficiency; the guest had to be confronted with an ample abundance. In the villages bread was baked at home. Only enough for the day’s needs was baked because, if it was kept and became stale, no one would wish to eat it.
The late arrival of the traveler confronted the householder with an embarrassing situation, because his larder was empty and he could not fulfill the sacred obligations of hospitality. Late as it was, he went out to borrow from a friend. The friend’s door was shut. In the east no one would knock on a shut door unless the need was imperative. In the morning the door opened and remained open all day, for there was little privacy; but if the door was shut, that was a definite sign that the householder did not wish to be disturbed. But the seeking householder was not deterred. He knocked, and kept on knocking.
The poorer Palestinian house consisted of one room with only one little window. The floor was simply of beaten earth covered with dried reeds and rushes. The room was divided into two parts, not by a partition but by a low platform. Two-thirds of it were on ground level. The other third was slightly raised. On the raised part the charcoal stove burned all night, and round it the whole family slept, not on raised beds but on sleeping mats. Families were large and they slept close together for warmth. For one to rise was inevitably to disturb the whole family. Further, in the villages, it was the custom to bring the livestock, the hens and the cocks and the goats, into the house at night.
“That story,” said Jesus, “will tell you about prayer.” The lesson of that parable is not that we must batter at God’s door until we finally compel him for very weariness to give us what we want, until we coerce an unwilling God to answer.
A parable literally means something laid alongside. If we lay something beside another thing to teach a lesson, that lesson may be drawn from the fact that the things are like each other or from the fact that the things are a contrast to each other. The point here is based, not on likeness, but on contrast. What Jesus says is, “If a churlish and unwilling householder can in the end be coerced by a friend’s shameless persistence into giving him what he needs, how much more will God who is a loving Father supply all his children’s needs?”
The lesson revolves around the boldness involved in the request. Some translations used the word ‘persistence’, but the meaning is something of a combination of both… the idea was that of a ‘SHAMELESS PERSISTENCE’. That word occurs only twice in the Greek New Testament, once in the positive form and here in the negative form.
In 1 Timothy 2:9, this word ‘aidos’ is used to describe a posture of propriety and reverence, referring to the type of adornment that was appropriate for women.
But in Jesus’ use of the word in this parable is in its negated form, ‘anaideia’. Jesus said the reason the midnight seeker gets what he needs is because of his ‘anaideia’. Not his reverence, not his modest sensitivity to the hour, not his caution, not his respect for propriety, but his UNASHAMEDNESS!
It isn’t the brassiness of a smart aleck making demands, but the forwardness of a person convinced of their need. Such bold, shameless, persistence is the constant element in the parable of contrast. The contrast is about the willingness of the householder in contrast to our heavenly Father.
If we can imagine this working, how much more would be the response of our father in heaven? If shameless, persistence is valuable in relating to a reluctant, sleeping householder; how much more to a father who’s already on our side, always awake and waiting, for whom there is no reluctance to overcome.
Therefore, Jesus continues, we are to ASK, SEEK & KNOCK. Again, using works whose Greek tense clearly distinguishes these as ongoing; conveying emphatically the call to persevere in prayer in asking, seeking and knocking.
Most pointedly, Jesus is saying that our barrier to persevering in prayer is not God; it’s our own hesitance to come boldly and ask freely. In so doing, Jesus is teaching us what PERSEVERING IN PRAYER is NOT.
• Persevering prayer is NOT PRESUMPTUOUS - Often, we may feel that it’s presumptuous to ask anything of God, and in particular, if we are persistent, we must be seeking that which is not His will and desire… that may be, and certainly we are wise and proper to maintain a posture submitted to His will… this is often noted… But until it’s clear, persevering in prayer is appropriate.
• Persevering prayer is NOT PESSIMISTIC ANXIETY - Often in prayer, we can be offering up words without offering up our worries. We’re vomiting anxiety and because God’s name gets thrown in, we call it prayer. Prayer is more than words… it’s turning to God, turning over to God. James 1:2-8 The midnight seeker that Jesus speaks of stayed focused on his source.
• Persevering prayer is NOT PRODUCING FABRICATED ZEAL - The midnight seeker is described as only expressing an authentic sense of need… not working up frenzy. Neither should we. Perseverance is by nature a reflection of intensity (noted in the Latin root meaning of ‘intense and severe’), but it’s nothing fabricated or conjured up. If we don’t feel moved within, ask God.
• Persevering prayer is NOT PAYMENT - There can be a temptation to assume that we need to persevere a certain amount; as if we can establish a deal with God…or fulfill an unspoken obligation. Prayer is not about establishing a deal, it’s about establishing dependency.
All of these false ideas can hinder the true passion, priority and perseverance that Jesus is teaching us…
JESUS IS TEACHING US A BOLD, “SHAMELESS PERSISTENCE” THAT IS FITTING OF OUR HEAVENLY PATERNAL PARTNERSHIP.
