Luke 11:5-13 Impudence and the Grouchy Neighbor
Good morning! I want to begin this morning with an important disclaimer. The sermon that you are about to hear is, by definition, hypocrisy. Meaning, that what I am about to say to so over the next half hour or so is not what I do well if I do it at all.
The beauty in that, is that all the authority is in the Word of God and not in my words. These words were spoken and recorded over two thousand years ago and they are still true today just like they were then because they are God’s words.
So with that in mind, we will turn our attention to the topic of prayer as recorded in Luke 11:5-13, and that’s on page 869 in the pew Bibles.
You may remember from last week we addressed the Lord’s Prayer and that’s why Luke recorded these words of Jesus kind if thematically rather than chronologically; meaning, that Jesus most likely gave this teaching at a different time that He gave the Lord’s Prayer.
So let’s look at the text together.
5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell 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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Let’s pray.
This business of preaching is a difficult thing. In my study this week in preparation for today’s message I’ve had to wrestle with some long held misconceptions I’ve had about our Heavenly Father. This is often the danger when we read the Bible with only ourselves and our own good in mind, or what we think is our own good anyway.
The Lord Jesus gives us this little story about a man who had a friend on a long journey stop by his house unexpectedly and he had nothing to give his friend to eat. So the man goes to his other friend who lives nearby at midnight and asks him for some bread to give his friend to eat.
Now, I’ll tell you it doesn’t matter what culture you’re from, or what century you live in, going to a friend’s house at midnight when the doors are shut and the lights are out asking for bread is not the thing to do.
But that’s what this man did. He woke up his friend and asked him for bread to set before the weary traveler. And how did his sleeping friend respond? ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’
This is a pretty polite response I can imagine.
First Century Palestine was pretty much one room living for most folks so banging on this guy’s door in the middle of the night now meant everybody in the house was awake. In fact, the houses were so close together, sometimes sharing adjoining walls, most likely the neighbors on either side were woken up by this as well. But the man persisted and his friend relented.
5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
Because of his impudence… That bears some definition. Impudence means audacity, insolence, shamelessness, a lack of sensitivity to what is proper.
This man shamelessly persisted in his asking for bread in the face of all that seems reasonable.
Add to this Jesus’ following words, “9 And I tell 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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
Now the tenses of the Greek words for “ask, seek, and knock,” are important. Perhaps you’ve heard this before, they are in the present, active, imperative. Which means that the instruction is to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, and it will be given to you, you will find, and it will be opened to you.
Take a minute and think about this. What kind of picture of prayer does this paint in your mind?
The clear implication is that we are the friend who has a guest show up at midnight with no bread to offer them and so we go to God with our need and we persistently must keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking until what?
Be honest, it’s keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking until God gets so annoyed with us that He gives us what we are asking for so that we will shut up and go away. Isn’t that the truth?
But is that really what Jesus is saying?
We tend to get wrapped up in the ask, seek, knock part but remove it from its whole context which makes this passage much more beautiful. Look at verse 11.
11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
The instructions from Jesus here are not to just keep on praying for whatever thing until God relents.
We are certainly encouraged to pray by the Lord Jesus here but not like an impudent friend at the door of an annoyed formerly sleeping friend.
Warren Wiersbe said, “In this parable, Jesus did not say that God is like a grouchy neighbor. In fact, it’s just the opposite. If a tired and selfish neighbor finally meets the needs of a bothersome friend, how much more will a loving heavenly Father meet the needs of His own dear children?”
Jesus doesn’t give us the threefold instruction to keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking because the Father won’t listen to us until we’ve put adequate time into the effort but rather because of our own mistrust that God knows what is good for us.
We ask and keep on asking because we don’t trust that He has heard us, we seek and keep on seeking because we think that He has hidden what is good for us, we knock and keep on knocking because we think that He has locked away what is best for us.
But none of that is true.
We are instructed to persist in prayer, not so that God will relent but so we will.
After a while we start to question our motivation if we are wise, and we start to ask ourselves, “Why do I want this thing that I’ve been asking for? Is it for my glory or for His, is it so my life would be easier or comfortable, so things wouldn’t be hard for me or for those I love?”
Jesus said in Matthew 6:25-33,
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
God knows what is good for us and what is good for us is more of Him.
When we recognize our dependence on Him and make His kingdom and His glory our priority our prayers start to shift. Our focus in prayer starts to move away from the things that we want to the things that will bring our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ the most glory.
But we are certainly instructed here to pray sincerely, consistently, and urgently. But we are not heard by a grouchy God that just wants us to leave Him alone, we are heard by a loving heavenly Father that wants better for us, for others, and for the church than we could ever realize.
John Calvin wrote, “Nothing is better adapted to excite us to prayer than a full conviction that we shall be heard. Those who doubt can only pray in an indifferent manner; and prayer, unaccompanied by faith, is an idle and unmeaning ceremony. Accordingly, Christ, in order to excite us powerfully to this part of our duty, not only enjoins what we ought to do, but promises that our prayers will not be fruitless.”
Ephesians 3:11-12 says that we have boldness and access with confidence to the Father through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, we can, as RC Sproul said, “Pray like we mean it,” because we have a good, loving, heavenly Father that wants to give us good things according to His good and perfect will.
And when we pray for things that are not according to His will, He will say, “no,” for our good, for the good of others, and for the good of the church.”
So let’s pray with the Lord Jesus, “Not my will but yours be done.”
Amen.
