With the many and varied changes in the culture around us – the pressures of secularization, the decline in church attendance, the changed attitudes to sexuality, the rise of militant Islam we might wonder about the future. We can feel powerless.
Too often we overlook the importance of prayer. CS Lewis in The Efficacy of Prayer asks: ‘Can we believe that God really ever modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it’.
GOD HEARS AND ANSWERS PRAYERS
Jesus teaches us that God can be trusted to both hear our prayers and answer them, giving us the good things we need. “And I tell you, ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you…,”he says. “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” (Luke 11:9-12)
Jesus is saying that if a violent thief can be kind to his son or the most mercenary minded father be generous to his daughter, ‘Will God be any less generous?’
Following the logic of Jesus’ words, we learn that to trust in God’s goodness is also to rely on his fatherly wisdom. If a son asks for a fish, will we give him a snake? But what if he asks for a snake, will we give him that? What if the son persists, ‘I want it, I need it, everyone else has one’? Will a good father yield? No. A truly good and loving father will give good gifts, but he’ll use his own discretion as to how he will act.
Jesus assures us that God will not exploit our prayer or act in some malicious way. The words, ‘Your will be done…’ in The Lord’s Prayer, are not those of a fatalist. Rather they are necessary in our conversation with a good and loving, all-powerful Father. We are not wise enough or good enough to get everything we ask for from someone who is all-powerful.
YOUR WILL BE DONE
People who find this difficult to grasp have often experienced an unhappy childhood— perhaps neglected or abused. What Jesus is saying is this: no matter our experiences in life now, we can trust the goodness of our Father in heaven.
God may not give us everything we want. He may delay his response. Furthermore, he may also want to test our seriousness in prayer—whether we will persist, as the widow did in another parable (The Parable of the Unjust Judge, Luke 18:1-8). He may want to test the reality of our relationship with him, the level of our trust in him.
There will also be times when God says, “No”. He did this when Jesus prayed that the cup of suffering might be taken away (Luke 22:42-44). We need to remember that if God says, “No”, it is because his plans are bigger than ours.
UNTOLD BLESSINGS
When we begin a prayer relationship with God the Father, we open a door to untold blessings. That’s why Jesus is speaking with such unqualified confidence when he says: Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Once we start listening to God through his Word, we will want to talk with him. We will long to honor and glorify his name. Indeed, as we come to know God better we will also want to ask him questions, express our feelings, even our doubts, as we make our requests.
God is our Father who loves us and delights to give us the very best in life. 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!”Jesus says (Luke 11:13).
Why does Jesus speak of the Holy Spirit here? He is anticipating the great gift of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit who will open our minds to hear the voice of God through his Word; the Spirit who will open our hearts to God and enable us to call him ‘Father’; the Spirit who will open our lives to God, and empower us to trust God and live with God.
Prayer is a precious privilege. It brings us into the very presence of the God who is at the heart of the universe. Why don’t we pray more consistently than we often do?
Sometimes I am asked: ‘Can I trust God to hear my prayers and answer them? It is all very well to say we can call God, Father, but we know that parents are often preoccupied with other matters and do not hear us, let alone respond. And given the millions who must be praying at any one time, can we be sure our prayers will be heard?
Jesus anticipates our questions. Consider what he promises: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9-10).
On either side of these verses, Jesus answers two questions about prayer: God always listens to us (Luke 11:5-8) and, God always has our very best interests at heart (Luke 11:11-13). This week I will consider the first of his two answers.
A PARABLE
Luke 11:5-8 is sometimes called, ‘The Parable of the Friend at Midnight’. In recent times some commentators have noted that the parable falls into the category of sayings that have an underlying, unspoken question: ‘Can you imagine…?’ With this parable Jesus asks, ‘Can you imagine a man talking like this to a friend in need?’
The key to understanding the parable is in the words in verse 8 usually translated, ‘the man’s boldness’ or ‘importunity’. I want to suggest that this is one place where most of our English translations are unhelpful. According to Dr. Kenneth Bailey who lived in the Middle-East for many years and who has written extensively from his careful research on literary and cultural matters, our translations reflect an understanding that only goes back to the 12th century. The true meaning of the parable is lost, Bailey points out, because of a misunderstanding of the meaning of an important word in verse 8.
The word translated boldness in verse 8 is better translated sense of honor or blamelessness – with reference to the man who is in bed, not the one knocking at the door.
In the original (Greek) text the word has a negative meaning indicating that a significant shift is required to translate the word with a positive meaning – such as boldness or persistence. Bailey has shown that a better translation of the word is avoidance of shame, a positive meaning.
Furthermore, we need to look carefully at the words in verses 7 and 8. In the original text the noun, man’s does not appear: it is the personal pronoun his.The flow of the syntax and the narrative impact of the story, focus on the sleeper in bed, not the man who is knocking on the door.
In this story God is represented as the one who is in bed, seemingly shut in for the night. The unwritten laws of mid-eastern hospitality, which are an important sub-text of the parable, required a man to get up and help his neighbor in need. If he didn’t he would be shamed and would bring dishonor to the whole community.
‘Can you imagine,’ Jesus was asking, ‘anyone saying to a neighbor in need, even at midnight – ‘Don’t disturb me’? or, ‘Get lost’?
TAKING ACTION
So it is with God. His very nature, and the honor of his name, will demand that he get up and act. Otherwise he will bring shame to his name. Because of his honor, his integrity, his name – something for which Jesus tells us we are to pray (Father, hallowed, honored, be your name) – God will hear and act. God will no more ignore the prayers of his people than a mother will ignore her crying baby.
‘God is a God of integrity,’ Jesus is telling us. He can be trusted to hear our requests, no matter how great or small, no matter what time of day or night. He is on call 24/7.
Understanding the nature and importance of prayer Martin Luther once observed: “I find that I am so busy that I now need to pray three hours a day”. The busier he was, the more time he needed to spend with God— not less. Furthermore, he was assured that God, for the honor of his name, would not only hear his prayers but answer them.
In Sydney, Australia, churches have the opportunity to have representatives teach the Christian faith in schools. There’s a story of a boy who came home from school one day and told his mother that the Scripture Teacher had asked each the class quietly to pray to God. Knowing that she had never taught her children to pray, never taught them about God, let alone prayed in their presence, she asked him what he did. ‘I didn’t know what to say,’ he said, ‘so I told God a joke.’
“When you pray”, Jesus said, “Say, ‘Father …” (Luke 11:2).
In his book, Knowing God, Dr. JI Packer asks, ‘What is a Christian?’ Answering his own question he says, ‘…the richest answer I know is one who has God as his/her Father’.
‘Not everyone can say this,’ he points out – only ‘those who, knowing themselves to be sinners, put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their divine sin-bearer and master,…’ No one comes to the Father except by me, Jesus says. In other words, Packer writes, no one is acknowledged by God as a son/daughter, except by the supernatural work of God’s grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus gives us this model prayer showing us that we can confidently express our privileged, personal relationship with God: we can call him, ‘Father’. Indeed, what makes our prayer, prayer, is the fact that we speak to the living, personal God. He is not some distant deity, nor the impersonal force of Star Wars. We can be bold and call him ‘Father’. It is a personal prayer.
Furthermore, the prayer is a simple prayer. There are no complex sentence structures or difficult language. It suggests God is not impressed by complicated words or ideas. He appreciates simplicity. It is also a restrained prayer: there are no wild extravagances. It’s coherent: it makes sense, and is rather matter-of-fact. It serves as a warning to anyone who feels they need to work themselves up into a frenzy, calling out, thinking that God will hear all the better because of it. God is not distant. He’s not even hard of hearing.
It is also a balanced prayer. The first three statements focus on God. Our first concern in prayer should not be ourselves, but God. Like Moses and Daniel in their prayers, we are to be concerned for the honour of God’s name, the triumph of his cause. It looks to the great day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is a big, exciting prayer.
But there is also the recognition that we have needs now. So the next statements concern us – food for our physical bodies each day and food for our spiritual needs. We also need the food of God’s Word. There are also sins to be owned up to and forgiveness sought; linked with this petition is our need to forgive those who have wronged us. As we read in Matthew 6, how can we expect God to forgive us if we ourselves are unwilling to hold out forgiveness to those who have sinned against us? And, there is also a petition to overcome the temptations that inevitably come our way.
Prayer is conversation with God. It makes sense that when we pray we let God begin the conversation. As we noted last Wednesday, we need to listen to God’s voice found in his Word. This way we need to get to know who he is, what he is like, how he thinks, and what he expects of us. Once we start listening we will want to talk with God, ask him questions, and make requests.
Prayer is a precious privilege. It brings us into the very presence of the God who is at the heart of the universe. Yet so often our prayer life is dead. Why don’t we pray more consistently than we do?
We are privileged to address God as ‘Father’: he is a person to be known, a Father to be honored. Our prayers should be simple. We should pray for the victory of God. We can pray for big things and for the little things— our fears and joys, our personal sins and the temptations we face.
The starting point is knowing God as Father. The question is, do we really know him as our ‘Father’?
What do you think of prayer? Do you pray regularly, and if your answer is ‘Yes’, do you pray with confidence? Blaise Pascal, the 17th French philosopher and mathematician wrote in his Pensées: God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.
Pascal understood that the Bible tells us that in making us in his image (Genesis 1:26), God has given us extraordinary privileges. And prayer is one of them.
Yet how often we forget this, especially in those times when God does not seem to be answering our prayers – for work, for a sick loved one or child, for a significant other, or for a place to live.
A good starting point is to think of prayer as a conversation that starts with God. It’s an amazing thought that God who has the creative intelligence and power to put the vast, majestic and complex universe into place, would deign to speak with us. Yet the way Jesus, the Son of God, related to people around him, and what he teaches about prayer, tells us so much about God. Jesus’ actions and his words assure us that God, despite his awesome majesty, delights in speaking with us and having us speak with him.
A LESSON FROM MARTHA AND MARY
Consider, for example, the flow of Luke’s narrative, from Jesus’ words to Martha (Luke 10:38-42) to his words to his disciples specifically about prayer (Luke 11:1-13). Today we’ll look at the first scene.
In Luke 10:38-42 we find two sisters enjoying the company of guests – Jesus and his disciples. But the women were very different. Martha was a focused, active, responsible hostess, busy ensuring everything was done in preparation for the meal. Mary, on the other hand, was more content to be curled up on a lounge, chatting with the guests.
Suddenly Martha’s frustration at her sister’s lack of assistance bubbled over. Bursting in to where Jesus and the others were she blurted out, ‘Lord, when will you tell my sister to help me?’
Jesus’ response is unexpected. We might think he’d gently suggest to Mary that she should be in the kitchen. But he doesn’t. This is surprising, not just because of the culture, but because in the previous scene of Luke’s narrative Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, setting out the meaning of neighbor love.
‘Martha, Martha,’ Jesus chides, ‘You’re too focused on working. Mary has chosen the better portion.’
Jesus wants us to know there are moments in life when the demands of people and the command to love our neighbor pale into insignificance when compared with the prior claim to be with God. The first command is, ‘Love the Lord your God…’. ‘Love your neighbor’, is second.
Important though other things may be, we must not let the pressures of work, study, hospitality, or even ministry be the excuse which prevents us from obeying the first claim of a loving God.
SO, WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT?
Amid the frantic round of activities, we need to carve out time to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen.
It is significant that this little scene occurs immediately before Jesus teaches his followers how to pray. This suggests that when we come to the subject of prayer the first thing we need to do is put aside our busy-ness so we can listen first to God.
How do we do this? Not by simply emptying our minds of any thought but by opening the Bible and reading it.
Over the years I have found the Book of Psalms to be a great starting point for my Bible reading and prayer. Indeed, the Psalms form a helpful prayer book for they are ruthlessly honest as they explore what it means to trust and follow God in a confused and messed up world. The Psalms also give me the freedom to ask questions of God and to learn from him. Indeed, I find ‘a Psalm a day keeps the devil at bay and prompts me to pray.’ More than that, I find God uses the Psalms to start his conversation with me each day.
‘…There’s glory for you!’ ‘I don’t know what you mean by glory,’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t…till I tell you. I meant, “There’s a nice knock-down argument for you!” ‘ But glory doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”‘ Alice objected. When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’ So wrote Lewis Carroll in his, Alice Through the Looking Glass.
The word glory is complex in its meaning, and not least in the Bible and its reference to the glory of God. In a Bible text that has been foundational for my ministry we read: We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:5-6).
OUR PROBLEM
Dr. Ashley Null, whose work involves high-level research into the life and work of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, makes this comment about Cranmer’s understanding of humanity: What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies…’
In an interview in Sydney in 2001, he further noted that Cranmer said, ‘The trouble with human nature is that we are born with a heart that loves ourselves over and above everything else in this world, including God… If left to ourselves, we will always love those things that make us feel good about ourselves, even as we depart more and more from God and his ways.’
Why we don’t believe. In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul tells us: The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
While some say that the god of this world is a reference to the powers of evil, it makes more sense to understand it as, ‘the god who consists of this age’. To become preoccupied with the material things of this world blinds us to the spiritual realities of the next. Malcolm Muggeridge, a former editor of Punch magazine observed, men and women are trapped ‘in a tiny dark dungeon of the ego… So imprisoned and enslaved, we are cut off from God and from the light of his love.’
HOW THEN DOES ANYONE COME TO BELIEVE?
Surely we are all in the same boat as far as spiritual things are concerned – including the apostle Paul. We are all spiritually blind.
2 Corinthians 4:6 tells us what God has done:For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s imagery here is a reference to Genesis 1:3: And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. It is a powerful and encouraging image. Turning from unbelief to belief involves an act of divine initiative as awesome and as powerful as the act of creation. God says to our hearts, ‘Let there be light’ and there is light – and from that moment a new world begins.
We cannot truly love God unless he supernaturally changes our hearts. In the opening prayer in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer there is a Prayer for Purity where we pray: Almighty God … Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord.
To quote Dr. Ashley Null again: ‘For Cranmer, the glory of God is to love the unworthy – that’s Cranmer’s fundamental theological tenet…’ The sign of God’s mercy in our life is when we respond to the news of God’s mercy found in the Lord Jesus Christ. In knowing Jesus, we see the glory of God and the light of his truth. We see meaning and purpose to our life. We experience the hope of the glory yet to come.
Furthermore, as we pray that God might be merciful to our friends, and as we play our part in introducing them to Jesus Christ, we can have every expectation that some at least will come to see the light of God in Jesus Christ. We need not despair. God never forgets his promises.
