Preached Father’s Day Sunday, June 20, 2010
from
Luke 11:5-13
Theme: The Lord Jesus taught us how approachable the heavenly Father is through prayer.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
[podcast]http://www.bethanybible.org/audio/062010.mp3[/podcast]
I hope you don’t mind that, on this Fathers’ Day, I ask that we turn our attention for a little while away from earthly fathers, and put it instead on our heavenly Father. I believe that if we start Fathers’ Day off by giving our primary appreciation to Him, we’ll celebrate it in a worthy way.
And to help us get our attention focused on our heavenly Father, I ask you to open your Bibles to something that the Lord Jesus taught us about Him in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
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While you’re turning there, let me ask: Have you ever thought about what a revolutionary thing it was that Jesus taught His followers to call God “Father”? When Jesus taught the disciples to begin their prayer by saying, “Our Father . . .”, He was really introducing them to a level of intimacy with God that was beyond anything they’d ever heard of before. We today, of course, are a bit used to it; but it was a rather new idea to these Jewish men who followed Jesus to think of speaking to the Almighty God in that way.
Get a concordance of the Bible sometime, and look up the word “father”. You’ll be surprised to discover that the Old Testament saints almost never dared to refer to God by so intimate a name as that. But look up the same word in the New Testament, and you’ll be equally surprised at how often the new covenant saints refer to God as “Father”.
We should never take a thing like that for granted. That was something that Jesus—the only begotten Son of the Father—purchased for us through His own death on the cross. In laying down His life on our behalf, and in paying the death penalty for sin, Jesus took away all the guilt of the sins which separated us from His holy Father in heaven. And do you remember how, after He rose from the grave after dying for our sins, He met Mary, sent her back to the disciples, and told her, “. . . [G]o to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God'” (John 20:17).
In dying on the cross for us, Jesus has now made it possible for us to enter into so deep a relationship of love with the holy God of the universe that we may freely call Him by the very name by which Jesus Himself addresses Him—that is, “Father”.
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I wonder if one day during His time on this earth, when Jesus’ disciples heard Him off by Himself praying, they picked-up on His deep sense of intimacy with the heavenly Father. I wonder if they heard Him speak to the Father with such a level of love and trust and intimacy that it struck them as something amazing. I wonder if they picked-up on such a sense of approachability Jesus had toward the Father, and such a power in His prayers to Him, that they themselves longed to experience it too.
That seems to be the context of our passage this morning. Luke tells us, in Luke 11:1;
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1).
Apparently, sometime along the way, John the Baptist had taught some of his followers how to pray as he prayed; and now, Jesus’ disciples wanted Him to teach them to pray as He Himself prayed. And this became one of those occasions in which our Lord encouraged His followers, “When you pray, say: ‘Our Father in heaven . . .'” (v. 2).
In the verses that follow, Jesus went on to speak further about prayer. And the particular portion of His teaching on prayer that I’m asking you to give special attention to this morning has much to teach us about “our Father” to whom we pray. In verses 5-13, we read,
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; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 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’? 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.
“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. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:5-13).
In these words, Jesus is telling us some things about our heavenly Father that show us how wonderfully approachable a father He is, and how truly welcomed we are to bring every need to Him in prayer as His beloved children through Christ. They are very good and worthy things to give thanks for on Fathers’ Day.
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The first thing that Jesus shows us about our heavenly Father’s approachability is that . . .
1. HE IS INCLINED TO OUR REQUESTS (vv. 5-8).
They aren’t an inconvenience to Him. He isn’t irritated when we ask something of Him in prayer. Far from it! He’s glad when we do so; and is very favorably disposed to hear from us whatever it is that we want to ask.
To illustrate this point, Jesus proposed a situation to His disciples in the form of a parable. He asked them to suppose that a man had a sudden, unexpected, late-night visit from an out-of-town friend.
Nowadays, if an unexpected visitor from out of town came by late at night, they’d most likely have already check-into a nearby motel—just so that they wouldn’t put anyone out. But in the days of our Lord, you’d never want any of your friends or relatives to stay in an inn. They were often terrible places—filled with all sorts of immorality and danger. And not only that, hospitality itself was a very important and very expected virtue to demonstrate to people in that day. You’d go out of your way to welcome even a stranger under your roof, and make sure they had plenty to eat. But perhaps, in our Lord’s parable, the owner of the home was caught completely unprepared by this out-of-town friend. He had nothing to serve him; and because it was late at night, there wouldn’t have been any way to run out to the market to get something. There just weren’t any 7-Elevens in the first century!
Now; even if he had traveled a long distance and was exhausted from the trip, the guest probably could have waited until morning. He might have been hungry for a little while; but it would have been understandable. After all, he had come unannounced. But as non-essential an act as it may have been—and as late as it was—the host nevertheless came up with a solution. He asked his guest to wait, put on his sandals, wrapped his cloak around himself, and made his way out to the home of another nearby friend.
I wonder if you’ve ever been woken-up in the middle of the night by a friend or relative who was in some kind of a fix and needed something from you. I have. I tend to be a pretty nice guy over all—or at least I hope I am; but when I’m woken up from a really deep sleep, and my head’s all fuzzy, I don’t really think I’m as nice as I tend to be otherwise. Not long ago, I got a phone call at 3:45 in the morning from a relative who was in a bit of a jam; and they talked to me for a couple of minutes before I even woke up enough to know that I had the phone in my hand! I had to ask them a little later what in the world it was that I had just agreed to do for them—and hoped that I had been at least somewhat nice about it in the process!
Well; this man went down the road to his friend’s house and began knocking on the door to wake him up. The translation I’m using it says that this happened “at midnight”; but the word that’s used can simply mean anytime in the middle of the night-time. Whenever it was, it was certainly not a time when anyone would want to hear a knock on your door! Jesus said that the man outside called out, “Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him” (v. 6). And I notice that Jesus said that the other man answered “from within” (v. 7). That means that he didn’t even get up and open the door. He stayed in bed and yelled out!
Back in those days, a man’s house usually only had one room; and so everybody in the family—and probably some of the animals—were all sleep. The man even had his small children all tucked-in and in bed with him—which probably took a bit of work, since kids then probably weren’t much different from what they are now when it comes to bedtime! So, he laid in bed and shouted back, “Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you!” (v. 7). And let’s face it—it probably wasn’t that he literally “could not” rise up and help his friend. It was most likely because he didn’t want to.
But the knocking at the door and the calls from the man outside kept right on coming. “Help me, friend.” And the answers kept coming from the inside, “I’m your friend at any time in the daylight hours. But I’m not your friend right now! I’m your sleeping neighbor! You should have planned ahead! Go away!” But the appeals continued to come. And look at what 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” (v. 8).
Now; the translation that I’m using is like a lot of them—they soften things up a bit by calling it “persistence”. But the word in the original language is much stronger than that. It’s the word for “modesty” with what’s called “the alpha-negation” in front of it; making it mean, “modesty—NOT!” I like the way the old King James puts it—that the man inside opened-up because of the other man’s “importunity”. The man outside just wouldn’t let up—no matter what the man inside said to him. He was becoming a real pest about it! Finally, the man inside got up and gave the man outside whatever he wanted—and I’m willing to bet he also stuck a few extra loaves of bread in his arms; with some butter, and some jam, and a few butter-knives and napkins; and maybe even an alarm clock for good measure!
Now; stop and think, dear brothers and sisters. Why, in teaching His disciples about prayer, would the Lord Jesus tell this story? If I may say so reverently, it certainly wouldn’t be because He was telling His disciples, “Now; your heavenly Father is like that man inside the house. He doesn’t really want to help you. But if you keep asking anyway, you’re constant prayers and petitions will bother Him so much that He’ll finally give you whatever you want! So keep on asking until He answers—just to shut you up.”
In no way would the Lord be telling His disciples any such thing! Rather, He’s using what might be called ‘the argument from the lessor to the greater’. If even a friend who is irritated by our persistent asking would eventually be driven to rise up from out of his bed to give us what we needed, how much more does our heavenly Father—who deeply loves us—eagerly incline Himself to our every request? As Paul wrote, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
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When I think of these words of our Lord Jesus, I think of another story about Him that we find in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. There, we’re told about a Gentile woman who kept asking something from Him. Matthew tells us;
And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.” But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour (Matthew 15:22-28).
Jesus didn’t keep putting her off because He was bothered by her. Clearly His disciples were; but He wasn’t. Instead, He merely appeared to be putting her off in order to make her ask with more “persistence”—or, we might say, with even more “importunity”. It revealed her faith in Him. And when He was finally satisfied that He had drawn that faith out of her, He rewarded it by gladly giving her exactly what she wanted.
I suggest that this leads us to another thing that Jesus told His disciples about the approachability of the heavenly Father through our prayers; and that is that . . .
2. HE IS FAITHFUL TO ANSWER (vv. 9-10).
In words very much like what our Lord spoke on another occasion—that is, in the Sermon on The Mount (see Matthew 7:7-8)—He went on to say; “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. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (vv. 9-10).
Look at those words carefully. There’s a graduating intensity of action involved in them. To “ask” is one thing. But to “seek” goes beyond just asking—because the mere asking alone didn’t render the results. And of course, if you seek, it must be that you eventually discover where the thing you’re seeking is to be found, and so you “knock”—which takes the acts of asking and seeking even a set further. What a picture of determination this is in prayer! How easily we give up! How few of us who “ask” go on to “seek”; or who “seek” go on to “knock”!
And you tell me, dear brothers and sisters, if you don’t see what I see in these words. I see a promise—a promise being made, in fact, by none other than the Son of God Himself—that “asking” and “seeking” and “knocking” in prayer to our heavenly Father will result in an answer! After all; doesn’t He say that “everyone who asks receives”? Doesn’t He say that “he who seeks finds”? Doesn’t He say, “to him who knocks it will be opened”? That man in Jesus’ parable—who kept on importunely “asking” and “seeking” and “knocking”, finally got an answer, didn’t he? That faithful woman of Canaan, who kept following Jesus around and asking, finally received, didn’t she? In fact, wasn’t she even praised by our Lord for it?
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Now; it needs to be stressed that this isn’t a promise that everything we ask for will be given to us—just the way we asked for it. Our relationship to God is as “our Father”—not as “our divine Vending Machine”. We very often ask foolishly; and our heavenly Father loves us too much to give us the foolish things we sometimes ask for—just as our earthly fathers loved us too much to give us some of the foolish things we asked them to give us.
But I’ve often noticed something very wonderful about Jesus’ words. He says, “For everyone who asks receives . . .” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who asks receives whatever he asks for in exactly the way that he asked for it.” But there is a promise here that if we ask, we will “receive”. It may not be the very thing we asked for; but the Father heard us, and we will most certainly “receive” from Him in a way that is consistent with His love for us. Nor does Jesus say, “And he who seeks will find the very thing that he is seeking.” Instead, He promises that “he who seeks finds” in a way that’s consistent with His love for us. It may not be that God leads us to the very thing that we are seeking; but we can be sure that the Father knows what we really need and will most certainly lead us—perhaps to something far greater than what we would have known to seek. And Jesus doesn’t say, “And he who knocks upon the door he wants opened will find that the very door he’s knocking on will open up to him in the exact way that he expects.” Instead, He promises that if we knock, the door will open. It may turn out to be a different door than we expected; or it may be that it opens up to an opportunity that we never even dreamed of. But a door will most certainly be opened to us that is completely consistent with His love for us.
I praise God that He is so much wiser than us; and that His answers are so much greater than our poor ability to ask. But I believe we should be encouraged by this that our wonderfully approachable heavenly Father truly is faithful to answer His children. They ask; and He gives to them far more than they expected. They seek; and He sees to it that they find far more than they knew to look for. They knock; and He opens a door to them that they never even realized was there.
I believe this helps us to appreciate a third thing that Jesus teaches us about the Father’s approachability through our prayers; and that is that . . .
3. HE IS GOOD IN WHAT HE GIVES (vv. 11-13).
He gives an illustration that even the worst earthly father in the world could relate to when He says; “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” (vv. 11-12).
Now; from my experience as a father, I have to confess that—sometimes—a son will ask for a serpent when he really needs a fish. Or he’ll ask for a scorpion when he really needs an egg. To a little boy, snakes and scorpions are way cooler than a fish or an egg! But they’re also not good for a little boy to have; and a wise and loving earthly father knows that. And we need to remember that our heavenly Father is wiser still; and will not give us the things that are bad for us just simply because we ask for them. But what Jesus is telling us is that the Father—in giving to His children who ask, and in guiding His children who seek, and in opening doors to His children who knock—is always good to them in the things that He gives.
If a little boy were to come to his father in hunger and ask for a piece of fish, it would be hard to imagine even the meanest earthly father slapping a terrifying snake into the boy’s hand. Or if he were to hold his hand open for an egg, it would be hard to imagine such a father dropping a dangerous scorpion into it. And if even an earthly father—even the worst father in the world—would have enough compassion not to do that, wouldn’t our heavenly Father have even more compassion toward us? As Jesus says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (v. 13).
I believe that the reason Jesus specifies the Holy Spirit here is because there’s nothing you could imagine more wonderful than to be given the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the divine godhead—to dwell in you. To be given the Holy Spirit is to be given a divine Helper; who empowers us for everything we would ever need to do in this life. And more than that; He is the guarantee of salvation and future glory to the fullest degree—even to the degree of sharing in the very inheritance of His Son Jesus Christ forever! The Holy Spirit is, as Paul said, “the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:14).
And if the Father is so good to us that He would even give us as great a gift as the Holy Spirit Himself if we but ask, then how could we ever doubt that He would withhold any good thing from those who pray to Him in His Son’s name?
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This Fathers’ Day, let’s certainly honor our earthly fathers. But let’s make even more sure that, first, we give thanks to our heavenly Father! He is far more approachable than any earthly father could ever be. He is warmly inclined to our every request. He is faithful to answer our every prayer. And He is good to us with respect to our every need.
What a wonderful privilege it is that we may call such a father as this, “our Father”!