Sermon for Sunday August 24th

Midnight Prayers Are Sometimes The Prayer With The Most Meaning by Ed Pruitt

Luke 11:5-13

Midnight Prayers Are Sometimes The Prayers With The Most Meaning
Pastor Ed Pruitt

Sunday June 15, 2003

Who would you call if you need help in the middle of the night?

Most people would say well, I would call a family member.

But, just suppose for a minute that you have no family?

What friend could you call on for help at midnight, confident that he or she would gladly respond to your request for help?

What friend could you get out of bed, knowing that they wouldn’t complain, but would be more than happy to help?

Tonight’s scripture text is about a man who needed help in the middle of the night.
It teaches us some important things about calling upon God in prayer.
Our Text Tonight Is, Luke 11:5-13
5 Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this illustration: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You would say to him,

6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’

7 He would call out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and we are all in bed. I can’t help you this time.’

8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it as a friend, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you what you want so his reputation won’t be damaged.

9 “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened.

10 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.

11 “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

12 Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not!

13 If you sinful people 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.”

When it comes to prayer, there are basically two things that concern us.

First, we need to be motivated to pray!

That is very hard for a lot of people anymore because they have such little faith and so few of their prayers have been answered that they no longer have the motivation to pray!

The prayer that we are going to be talking about tonight is real prayer!

The kind of prayer that expects results!

The kind of prayer where we are willing to wrestle with God until he blesses us!

This is the kind of prayer that requires work!

It is the kind of prayer that is costly!

It takes time!

It requires discipline and perseverance!

So, just merely believing in prayer halfway won’t cut it!

That kind of belief won’t get you out of bed early in the morning to meet with God before work!

It’s not strong enough to drag you away from the television in the middle of "Law and Order", so that you can intercede in prayer for your children or your wife or a friend.

And it certainly won’t bring you out to church for a prayer meeting.

In order for us to be committed to prayer, not just as a nice idea, but as something we actually practice, we must be convinced that it really does matter!

That it really does make a difference whether or not we pray!

We need to believe that prayer changes things; that it’s more than just an exercise in wishful thinking!

Otherwise, even if we believe we ought to pray, and even if we sincerely intend to pray, we won’t pray.

And when you think about it, why should we?

Why should someone get up early, or miss their favorite television program, or attend another meeting at the church, to do something that doesn’t really matter?

When their faith is at that level, to them it doesn’t really matter.
But friend I am here to tell you that is when you really need to be praying!

So the first thing I want to show is that because of God’s attitude toward us, we can pray with absolute confidence that He hears us and will respond to our requests.

Then second is, once we’ve determined that prayer really matters, we’ll look at how to go about it.

As we consider this passage in Luke, the first thing we notice is that God is portrayed as a friend, as someone you can call on for help in the middle of the night.

Now, we need to realize that God is a much better friend than the man in the story.

That man is initially unwilling to provide any help at all, and only relents because of the repeated appeals of his friend standing outside.

Sort of the way a lot of us are with our kids!

Which reminds me of this story that I read that was told by Paul Harvey.

He told about a 3-year-old boy who went to the grocery store with his mother.

Before they entered the grocery store she said to him, "Now you’re not going to get any chocolate chip cookies, so don’t even ask."

She put him up in the cart & he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles.

He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section.

He saw the chocolate chip cookies & he stood up in the seat & said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?”

She said, “I told you not even to ask.

You’re not going to get any at all.”
So he sat back down.
They continued down the aisles, but in their search for certain items they ended up back in the cookie aisle.

“Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?”

She said, “I told you that you can’t have any.

Now sit down & be quiet.”

Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane.

The little boy sensed that this may be his last chance.

So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart & shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies?”

And everybody round about just laughed.

Some even applauded.

And, according to Paul Harvey, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy & his mother left with 23 boxes of chocolate chip cookies.

In the parable, we see that the so-called "friend" can’t be troubled even to get out of bed and unlock the door.

He would prefer that the traveler go hungry, and that his friend be embarrassed at having nothing to feed him, rather than that he himself should be inconvenienced in any way.

And it’s only because of the importuning of this fellow.

Banging on his door and calling out for help in the middle of the night that he finally agrees to grant the request.

But God isn’t like that. He’s glad to help us.

The point Jesus is making is this:

If even someone who doesn’t want to help you will eventually grant your request, just to get rid of you, how much more should you expect that God, will respond favorably, when you come to him in prayer.

Because, unlike the man in the story, God is not selfish, or uncaring, or indifferent to our needs in anyway shape or form.

He welcomes our requests.

He is not an enemy or a stranger! God is a good friend!

God is someone who wants to help us!

God is someone who is just waiting to hear our pleas.

He is more than willing to provide for our needs anytime day or night.

God is a true friend, a faithful friend who will never fail us.

Turn with me in your bibles to,
John 15:12-14
12 I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. 13 And here is how to measure it—the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. 14 You are my friends if you obey me.

John 16:23-24
23 At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. The truth is, you can go directly to the Father and ask him, and he will grant your request because you use my name.
24 You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy.

Psalm 86:1-8
1 A prayer of David.
Bend down, O LORD, and hear my prayer; answer me, for I need your help.

2 Protect me, for I am devoted to you. Save me, for I serve you and trust you. You are my God.

3 Be merciful, O Lord, for I am calling on you constantly.

4 Give me happiness, O Lord, for my life depends on you.

5 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask your aid.

6 Listen closely to my prayer, O LORD; hear my urgent cry.

7 I will call to you whenever trouble strikes, and you will answer me.

8 Nowhere among the pagan gods is there a god like you, O Lord.
There are no other miracles like yours.

Psalm 145:17-19
17 The LORD is righteous in everything he does;
he is filled with kindness.
18 The LORD is close to all who call on him,
yes, to all who call on him sincerely.
19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cries for help and rescues them.
The Scriptures tell us that God’s attitude toward us is one of love and benevolence, friendship and favor.

Now we can pray with confidence, knowing that He welcomes our prayers, knowing that He will answer our cries for help.

Do you really believe that, deep down in your heart?

Do you see Him, not only as a faithful friend, who is ready to come to your aid at any time, but also as a loving Father, who delights in giving good things to his children?

The answer to that question will determine whether your prayer life is full of Power or your prayer life is dead!

Whenever we talk about the blessings and benefits of the Christian life, it’s good to remember where they come from.

We must always remind ourselves of why we are able to enjoy them.

And that’s because of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

We can now experience God’s love, and benevolence, and favor only because Christ broke down the barrier of sin that separated us from him.

Jesus Christ died for our sins!

He was judged, and condemned, and punished in our place, in order to appease God’s wrath toward us and thereby reconcile us to God.

Paul teaches us in, Colossians 1:19-23
19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross.

21 This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions,

22 yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own human body.
As a result, he has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand in it firmly. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed by God to proclaim it.

Let’s move on now to the question of how we should pray.

What does the passage in Luke teach us about that?

I’d like to note two things.

First, note that the man knew how to importune!

When his first request was refused, he didn’t give up.

He repeated his request again and again, until he finally received what he needed.

And we should do the same thing.

When we know that we are praying according to God’s Will, we should continue to bring our needs to God, persisting in prayer, until we receive what we ask for!

God is a friend who is ready and willing to help us; a Father who delights in giving good things to his children!

If that’s the case, then why do we need to ask over and over, as if he had to be persuaded to help us?

That’s a good question.

And the answer is that the purpose of prayer is not to inform God of what we need.

If that were the case, then after we had simply stated the request once, we would be done.

We would have communicated the information, and there would be no reason to repeat it.

But God already knows what we need.

He doesn’t need us to pray in order to find out what’s going on in our lives.

And therefore, the purpose of prayer is not to transmit information.

The purpose of prayer, or at least one of the purposes of prayer is to reveal what’s in our hearts, and to strengthen the faith of those of us who believe!

That’s why He desires for us to importune in prayers.

Let me explain what I mean.

Suppose that someone offers up a prayer to God.

Now remember, what honors and pleases God is faith.

Does this person have faith?

Not necessarily.

People say prayers for all sorts of reasons.

Maybe they’re just covering the bases; trying anything that might possibly work.

And so they give prayer a shot.

If they don’t have faith in God, they’re going to give up relatively quickly.

If they don’t really believe that God answers prayer, then they’re not going to importune in prayer.

The very fact that they don’t importune in their prayer life shows that they were never really trusting God in the first place!

Now as for the believer, God requires persistence in prayer for a different reason!

To test and strengthen our faith.

How does that work?
Every time we pray without getting an immediate result, we have a choice to make.

Am I going to keep praying, or am I going to conclude that God isn’t listening and give up?

In effect, God is asking us,

Do you really believe in Me?

Are you really relying on Me, and Me alone?
Or do you have a backup plan for getting what you want, just in case I don’t come through?"

And every time we decide, at that point, to persevere in prayer instead of giving up and trying something else, our faith grows a little bit.

It grows deeper, and stronger, and more resilient.

Now, you might think that the way for God to build our faith would be immediately answer our prayers.

But if that’s how God worked in our lives, it wouldn’t create a strong faith; it would create a shallow, easily discouraged faith.

The first time we didn’t get what we asked for right away, we’d be tempted to abandon the Christian life altogether.

Now, what builds a strong, deep, lasting faith, a faith that can weather disappointment and discouragement, is the experience of choosing to believe God and keep praying, even when the answer doesn’t come on our timetable.

Listen to these verses:
Romans 5:1-11
1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to endure.

4 And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation.

5 And this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.

7 Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good.

8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment.

10 For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life.

11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God—all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.

And in, James 1:2-4
2 Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.

3 For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.

4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.

If God always answered our prayers right away, there would be no need for perseverance.

But according to these Scriptures, perseverance is what builds Christian character, and maturity, and hope.

And so, because God desires those things for us, as his beloved children, he sometimes delays his answers to prayer to enable us to develop perseverance, and everything that goes with it.

Second, we see that the man asking for help openly acknowledges his need.

He doesn’t try to hide the extent of his poverty, or pretend that he needs only a bit of assistance.

No, he confesses that he is absolutely destitute.

Look at verse six: ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’

In other words, he is utterly dependent on his friend to help him. If the friend doesn’t come to his aid, he will go hungry.

Let me ask you: are your prayers like that?

Is that your attitude?

That your only hope of goodness and blessing is for the Lord to grant your petition?

More fundamentally, do you see the Lord as the source of every good thing in your life; so that without Him, your life would be empty of goodness?

Or is he for you a "God of the gaps," just a God who fills in the things which you can’t provide for yourself, or can’t obtain in some other way.

Do you look to him as the source for absolutely everything you need and desire?

Or do you seek him out only as a last resort?

What I’m getting at here goes beyond just the question of how we pray.

It goes to the heart of our world view, our fundamental approach to life.

Are we seeking our joy, and fulfillment, and happiness, and satisfaction in God, and God alone?

Are we looking to him to meet our deepest needs?

Do we hunger and thirst for God; do we long for him, and yearn for him, and desire him above all else?

Or do we mainly desire and seek after the things of this world, and turn to God only when those don’t fully satisfy?

Listen to how David described his longing for God:

Psalm 42:1-2
As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him?

Psalm 73:25-26
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
I desire you more than anything on earth.

26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart;
he is mine forever.

Do those verses relate with you?

Does that express how you feel about God?

If so, then you are probably already someone who prays.

But if you don’t pray, perhaps it’s because it’s not really God, or his blessings, that you want.

Perhaps you’re satisfied with what you have, and you don’t realize that God isn’t in it.

Listen to what Christ said to the Laodiceans,

Revelation 3:15-22
15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other!
16 But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!

17 You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

18 I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. And also buy white garments so you will not be shamed by your nakedness. And buy ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.

19 I am the one who corrects and disciplines everyone I love. Be diligent and turn from your indifference.

20 “Look! Here I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me calling and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends.
21 I will invite everyone who is victorious to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne.
22 Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”
People who pray do it because, like the man in the parable pleading for bread, they are desperate!

They aren’t satisfied with the things of this world!

They know that without God, they will be utterly destitute of what is truly good!

What they need and desire most can’t come from any other source!

They covet God’s blessings, but even more than that, they long for Him.

They long to know Him, and fellowship with Him, and experience Him.

And that can only come through prayer.

So here’s my appeal.

And I’ll close with this.

Brothers and sisters, if we desire to see in our marriages, and our families, and our children, and our church merely what man can do, if we’re satisfied with that!

Then we don’t need to pray.

But if the desire of our hearts is what God can do!

Then we must pray for our children, and for our families, and for our marriages, and for our church!

Will you do that?
And if all we want for this church is merely the things that man can accomplish, then we don’t need to pray.

But if we long to see in this church what only God can accomplish, and see some real changes then we must pray for the church!

It seems that churches all over have tried man’s way and they keep going down hill.

So if you are ready in this church to see God come alive in the hearts of every person in this church then it looks to me like we need to become a lot stronger in our prayer life!

Will you do that?

Let’s bow our heads.