When you go to God and you go with boldness and you go with persistence and you rush in and you unload what's on your heart and first you ask and then you start pleading and then you start banging, know this, that God is delighted with that because He with His perfect love and perfect wisdom and perfect power and perfect provision is able to give the best to His children. Think about the concept of God's sovereignty.
He is all-powerful, all-understanding, and He always acts according to His perfect will. But if God is sovereign, how can our prayers affect how He acts? Bottom line, does prayer really make any difference? Consider that today on Grace To You as John MacArthur continues a study that may give you several of those aha moments. Really, you may come away with more love for prayer and more in awe of the God you pray to.
John calls his series, Don't Be Afraid To Ask. Now to show you why you can pray boldly, here's John with a lesson. We come now to our look at the Word of God, to listen to what God has said on the pages of Holy Scripture. Luke chapter 11 is our text and we are looking at verses 5 through 13. This is a very, very rich and encouraging portion of Scripture.
Let me read the text for you, starting in verse 5. And He...meaning Jesus...said to them, Suppose one of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from inside he shall answer and say, Do not bother me, the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed.
I cannot get up and get you anything or give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. And I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks, it shall be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? A very remarkable passage.
Starts out with a very simple kind of earthy routine look at a little village in an incident with a man who needed some bread to feed a friend who came at midnight. And it ends up with profound theology in the final verse. Now let me just give you the broad picture of this passage and then we'll get back into it a little bit. The one true and living God, the only God, the true God, the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is very different from the deities and the gods fabricated by men and demons. And the difference is in His essential nature. He is loving, merciful, gracious, forgiving, approachable, available and generous.
That is in direct contrast to all the gods of human religions throughout history whose gods are not loving or merciful or gracious or forgiving or approachable or available or generous. They're sort of designed along the line of typical kings and monarchs and rulers. And if you know anything about ancient history and history of monarchs, you know that they are basically typically unavailable, unapproachable. In fact, in Esther chapter 4 and verse 11, you have a characterization of a typical monarch.
This happened to be in the Persian Empire. But this is what is said, all the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death. If the king doesn't summon you and you go into his presence, he'll kill you. Unless, says Esther 4.11, the king holds out to him a golden scepter so that he may live. You walk into the presence of the king and you can lose your life.
You can't just do that. Now that is a typical way that monarchs functioned. You approached only when you were invited. You approached somewhat delicately. You may have approached going in backwards, we read in some cases, or going in bowed over for certain, in some cases crawling and typically the king was elevated so that it was clear to you that he was way above you and you were somewhere under his feet.
You approached with a certain hesitancy, with a certain delicacy and you certainly didn't approach with an attitude demanding anything. But our God is just the opposite. He is absolutely available, absolutely approachable, gracious, merciful, compassionate, kind and you can go into His presence boldly and ask for whatever you want.
You can go into His presence any time and not interrupt Him. In fact, He desires you to do that. Turn to Hebrews 4.16 for a moment and here's a verse that we'll sort of use as a launch point for our discussion of this text. Hebrews 4.16 sort of pulls together the principle that we learn in this passage in Luke. It says this, verse 16, let us therefore draw near...we're drawing near to God, drawing near to our great High Priest, the Son of God in heaven. Let us therefore draw near with and some translations have the word boldness and some translations have the word confidence.
Let's use boldness, I think it's a truer representation of the Greek. Let us draw near with boldness to the throne and this is the real interesting twist, a throne of grace, a throne that dispenses grace, it's not a throne of law, it's not a throne of justice, it's not a throne of judgment, it's a throne of grace. So we draw near with boldness to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now I want you to see the word boldness, parasia in the Greek, parasia, it means freedom in speaking basically. It means to say whatever you want to say. It means to be bold in your speech. It means to be open and frank. And as we would say, to be up front and say it like it is.
Go to God with openness and frankness and boldness and confidence and ask for whatever you want from the one who is dispensing grace and mercy to help. This is a promise I think often overlooked, that we are told to come to God with boldness for what is on our hearts. Now I showed you some prayers in the Scripture where people actually said, God, listen to me, hear me, give me your attention, don't hide from me, I have this on my heart and I'm bringing it for you to understand and I want you to act, O God, and to hear and to answer my prayer. And while there is certainly a measure of humility there, there is also a very strong element of confidence and boldness.
That kind of boldness is what Jesus is teaching here in this wonderfully rich passage in Luke chapter 11. Now as I said last time, we know that God is holy and that God is all powerful and all wise, all knowing. We know that God is unchangeable. We know that God is absolutely sovereign, that God is in complete control of every circumstance, every detail and He's working out His own plan perfectly.
We know that. And that raises the question, why do I pray? And if God's going to do what He's going to do, why should I pray and how would my prayer have any effect on that?
And certainly I'm just going to get in and get out as quickly as I can since God's going to do what He's going to do anyway. I don't want to bother Him or interrupt Him with my little trivial prayers. And how in the world am I to understand the role of my prayers? And I told you last time that although God has ordained the ends, He has also ordained the means. And the end is fixed and He uses the means to reach His end and one of the means He uses to achieve His ends is our prayers.
That's why the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. God determines who He will save from before the foundation of the world. He elects some to salvation but He though choosing to save them, that is the end, the means is their faith and their repentance. And God has determined that we would be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that's the end. But the means is our obedience. God is determined to build His church but the means is our service and our preaching of the gospel.
God has determined that He will unify His church, the body of Christ. The means is the exercise of our spiritual gifts. God reaches His ends through His means and one of the means that God has given His prayer. And as we pray, we are the means by which God achieves His ends. And even our simplest prayer is not insignificant to God, just as this illustration was so simple, only man wanted was three little pieces of bread.
That seems like a trivial thing, not a necessity, not an emergency, not a great need. And that's exactly why Jesus used that as an illustration. What may seem a small thing to you considering the greatness of God and the vastness of His Kingdom and His eternal purposes is not at all to Him a small thing. You don't need to feel embarrassed when you go to God.
You don't need to feel like your trivialities don't matter to Him. You don't need to consider that because God is sovereign He doesn't need your input, your information. You don't need to consider that because His divine choice and wisdom and power are already in place and He's going to do what He's going to do, that your prayers don't play a part, they do. And you need to go and you need to go boldly whatever the issue might be because like everything else in our spiritual experience, God's ends are achieved through means that involve our will, our obedience, our desire, our faithfulness. Now the key word in Luke 11 is the word persistence. This is what He's pointing at in verse 8.
Where He says, I tell you, even though He will not get up and give Him anything because He is His friend, yet because of His persistence He will get up and give Him as much as He needs. Persistence, I told you, is a very interesting word, anot deon, very unusual word. It means importunity. Importunity is different than opportunity.
Opportunity is simply a circumstance that's favorable to you. Importunity is something completely different. Importunity is another word for being brash or overbold. It's a word for being shameless. It's a word for being overly aggressive. It's a word for, as we said last time, having a lot of nerve or a lot of gall.
It's a word to describe, you know, rushing in where angels fear to tread, that kind of attitude. And Jesus is saying here, this man got what he wanted because he was shameless. He got up in the middle of the night, he went right over there and he bothered his neighbor and it didn't seem to concern him that the man was asleep, he was in bed with his family, it was in the middle of the night and he was going to disrupt the whole family, everybody's going to get up, the man's going to have to get the bread because he had a social duty to do so, and so forth and so forth. This is a bold thing to do. This is a brash thing to do.
This is a thing that takes some nerve to do, to wake up this entire family in the middle of the night for something as simple as three biscuits. The Lord is teaching us here something about how we approach Him. He's calling in this passage for bold, shameless interruptions, prayer that is aggressive, that goes to God when it may seem inopportune, not rushing in and rushing out, but unburdening your whole heart. Now we saw last time the parable, verses 5 through 8, and I won't read it again.
The Lord introduced this issue with a story that everybody would understand. And the point of the story is, when you're not embarrassed to ask, you get what you ask. Remember what James said you have not because you ask not. Don't be hesitant to ask God.
At any midnight, in any circumstance, however small, if you don't have it, it's because you didn't ask for it. Without embarrassment, we're invited to come invading and intruding and claiming we have the invitation and saying, God, You promised, You said to pray without ceasing, You said to ask, You said to come, so sue me if I'm out of line. Here I am. And so we looked at the parable and it was a fascinating one to look at. And the second thing we saw, not only the parable, but in the application of the parable came this incredible promise. The second point is promise, verses 9 and 10.
And I will take you to that again. Jesus again is speaking still. And I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it shall be opened. This is just beyond imagination.
It's staggering. I'm telling you, come, come in the middle of the night, come for what might seem small to you. Come and hold me to my duty, just as one friend held another to his social obligation to show hospitality to give to someone who had a need. Hold me to my promises.
Hold me to my responsibilities. You come, you ask and I'll give. You seek and you'll find. You knock and the door will be opened to you.
This is almost too amazing to be true. So amazing that after saying it once in verse 9, just to deal with our sort of incredulity, he says it again in verse 10. This again is God inviting us to come into His presence and there's a progression.
You start out asking and then you get more aggressive and you start seeking and finally you start knocking, banging. Your appeal gets more aggressive. Does that somehow turn God away? Does that somehow irritate God?
Quite the contrary. You ask, you receive, you seek which means you plead and you find. You knock which means you get more intense and the door to God's blessings will be opened to you.
Now that's just review. Come to a third point and let's call this the principle. The parable made sense because of a promise. The promise makes sense because of a principle. And the principle is a pretty simple principle.
It is this principle. Fathers do good to their children. Look at verse 11. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he's asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? Now this is a basic principle. Fathers give good gifts to their children.
Generally speaking, humanly speaking, fathers care for their children. And he's upping this a little bit from friendship. The friend's response, don't bother me, the door's been shut, my children and I are in bed, I can't get up and give you anything. I'm your friend but don't take this friendship too far. I like to be your friend in the daylight.
I'm not interested in being your friend in the middle of the night. Friendship is one thing and friendship goes so far. Fatherhood is something else, isn't it?
This again is a typical common Jewish pattern of reasoning from the lesser to the greater. If a friend will respond to your boldness, what will a father do? My children certainly didn't hesitate to ask me for what they wanted.
Do yours? They certainly have never hesitated to ask their mother what they wanted. And the expectation is that if it's something they need and we know they need it, they're going to receive it because they understand the relationship that we have is one of love and care and responsibility and affection. And that's the point here. So Jesus is then saying, this promise, you can ask and seek and knock and you will receive and you will find and the door will be open, is based on the fact that you're coming to a father. This is the analogy, this is the principle here.
And it's very interesting how He lays it out. He says, one of you fathers, one of you of the disciples that are listening to this, says back in verse 1 that He was speaking to His disciples, one of you fathers is asked by your son for a fish. Your son's hungry, he wants a fish. He wants fish.
That was kind of the staple meat. And so what are you going to give him? You're going to give him a snake instead of a fish? I mean, if he wants to eat and he's hungry, you're not going to mock his hunger and you're certainly not going to give him a snake.
Some suggest this is also the word for eel. I think it's best to see it as a snake. You wouldn't give him an animal that could poison him.
When he wants food and he wants to be fed, you're not going to give him something that could kill him. And then he gives another simple analogy. If he asks for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? Why that comparison? Because scorpions were a kind of a yellowy color.
There are different, you know, breeds or different kinds of scorpions, but historians tell us the kinds in those days were of a sort of a yellow color, not unlike the color of an egg and they would curl up and when they curl up in a little ball they look like a small egg. So there was some kind of a similarity there to make the analogy work. He says, if your son wants an egg because he's hungry, you're not going to give him a deadly scorpion. Now when Jesus taught this elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, 9, he added a third analogy. He said, if your son asks for bread, you're not going to give him...what?...a stone. You're not going to mock your son's hunger. You're not going to mock your son's need and you're not going to give him something that he can't eat.
You're not going to give him something that will kill him. That's the principle. The principle is that fathers take care of their children. And when children come and they have needs, the father meets the needs. And so we see the parable which illustrates that we are to come at any time, no matter how simple the need, and to be overly bold in our asking. The promise that underlies our coming is that whatever it is that we seek, if it's within the framework of His will, we'll receive it. That is based upon the principle that God is a father. Now that takes us to the fourth and the most important point. Let's call it the premise.
And by premise I mean the bottom line, the foundation on which this whole discussion is built. And here it is, verse 13, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? You can go to God because He's a loving Father, but He's a loving Father far beyond the most loving Father in this world who is by nature evil and who does His best to give good gifts out of a corrupt and fallen heart. How much more will your heavenly Father love you with a perfect love? How much more with perfect wisdom and perfect compassion and perfect mercy and grace and perfect understanding of your situation and perfect goodness give to you? So when you go to God and you go with boldness and you go with persistence and you rush in and you unload what's on your heart and first you ask and then you start pleading and then you start banging, know this, that God is delighted with that...delighted with that because He with His perfect love and perfect wisdom and perfect power and perfect provision is able to give the best to His children. In fact, Psalm 84, 11 says, He withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly His children.
He holds nothing back. This is all so overwhelming to us, Father. We are so undeserving and so utterly unworthy and yet You have just given us way beyond what we could ever comprehend. We asked for a gift and You gave us the giver. We can only say thank You and we will come and we will plead and we will pray, we will ask, we will seek, we will knock because You've told us that that's how we will receive and find and the floodgates will be open to us. We love You and we thank You for being the generous One that You are, so magnanimous.
We could never be so bold as to ask You to live in us and yet that's what You've done. We thank You for that. And we thank You that the Spirit is there to strengthen us, to teach us, to guide us, to comfort us, to help us, to intercede for us and to keep us, seal us until eternal glory. For this we thank You in Christ's name. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Our current series on prayer is titled, Don't Be Afraid to Ask.
John, I want to come back to something we talked about a couple of days ago. It's this concept of coming to God boldly. We tend to be naturally more timid because we're not supposed to treat God flippantly or presumptuously.
So talk about the tension there. What do you tell people who may struggle to see how can we be both bold and reverent at the same time? Well, I think you tell them what you always tell them, and that is to follow what Scripture says. I think about this often where James writes the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person produces much.
You have not because you ask not. And then what we're learning in Luke 11, be bold before the Lord. At the same time, we come to Him in reverence. That's why when the Lord taught us how to pray, He said, start this way, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done. In other words, we start with deferring to God His holiness, His purposes, His kingdom. And then we say, Oh, by the way, forgive us, and so forth. So we don't get to the personal side until we've affirmed the divine side.
That is the pattern that our Lord taught us in praying. You start out with worship and honoring God, and that's full-hearted honor. Do your will. Build your kingdom. Glorify your name.
And here are the requests that I'm bringing before you that I believe would bring honor to your name, and so I'm boldly asking you for these things. So I don't think trusting in the sovereignty of God and His divine purpose hinders us from that boldness, and I think that is why the Lord, after saying the first part of the disciples' prayer, also said, ask for forgiveness. Ask that the Lord will not lead you into temptation. Be bold about your prayer.
So that's a tension that we have to live in. We want to come before God humbly, submissive, willing to receive anything He would give us, and yet He says, Come boldly and pour out your heart. If that were not the case, Phil, then why would there be fasting with prayer, and why would there be prolonged prayer? When there's a problem in our lives of really severe character, the most normal thing for a Christian to do is to pray sort of relentlessly, and fasting comes along with that. I know that's occurred in my life, and that is driven by the fact that you trust that God hears and answers in a way that makes those prayers part of the plan.
So I think we have to see it that way. We give honor to God, and then we pour out our heart, and in confident trust, believe that He will do what is best, but He will also fit our prayers into the doing of it. And friend, after what John said, you may be wondering, How can I know for sure my prayers honor the Lord? To help you answer that question, pick up John's book called Lord Teach Me to Pray. It's filled with practical biblical teaching on how to pray fervently and with boldness.
Contact us today. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Lord Teach Me to Pray looks at what Jesus told his disciples about prayer. It's practical insight that you can apply every time you talk to God.
This book is affordably priced in hardcover, and shipping is free. Again, you can place your order online at gty.org or call us toll free at 800-55-GRACE. And as you listen to today's lesson, perhaps it raised a question about prayer or some other biblical topic. Let me remind you about our Q&A line. Just call and you can leave your question and you might hear John answer it on a future broadcast. The number for our Q&A line is 661-295-6288. Again, that's 661-295-6288.
If you're driving and you can't write it down, you can find that number at the website gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Keep in mind, you can watch Grace to You Television this Sunday on DirecTV, Channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times. And be here tomorrow when John continues his study titled, Don't Be Afraid to Ask, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-12-17 03:53:06 / 2023-12-17 04:03:47 / 11