Well our passage this morning is Luke chapter 11, verses 5 through 13, beginning in verse 5. Then he said to them, Which one of you has a friend? And you 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 answers and says, Don't bother me, The door has already been shut and my children are in bed. I can't get up and 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, his importunity, he will get up and give him as much 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. Now suppose one of you fathers or parents 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 will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Lord, we are so thankful that we have Your Word to guide us, to convict us, to lead us in the way that You desire. We thank You that by Your Word You have taught us the way of salvation, that You have called us to Yourself, that You have given us the knowledge of forgiveness of sins through faith in Your Son. Lord, we ask that Your Spirit would be at work among us now as we look into Your Word, that He would teach us. And this Word would come to us in power and affect us and impact us for the glory of Your kingdom. In Christ's name, amen. Well, in our journey in the gospel, According to Luke, Luke has been focused in recent weeks on Jesus' teaching primarily, but on prayer. He's narrowed his focus now to prayer and what Jesus has to say about prayer. Our passage last Lord's Day, Jesus taught how we are to come to God. in prayer. We must come to Him as our Father in reverence of His holiness, reverence of His name, in gratitude as we ask His blessings. Blessings of this life and those pertaining to the heavenly life, knowing He is the provider of all good things. We come to Him as our Father. Why? Because we've been adopted by Him as his children through faith in Christ. I'm going to read the two brief passages I read last Lord's Day, Galatians 4, 6. Because you are sons, God has sent His Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you're no longer a slave, you're a son. And if a son, you're an heir through God. Romans 8, 15, you have not received a spirit of slavery, leading to fear again. You have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And that's why we can come to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we're His children. Jesus taught us to pray that the name of God may be reverenced in this world, that all honor may be given to Him, that His kingdom may rule and reign in and among us, as men voluntarily surrender themselves to be governed by Him and to live by His commands. His kingdom speaks of His rule in the hearts and minds of His people. And this is evidenced how? By obedience to Him. Love God, love the brethren, love your neighbor. He taught us, Jesus did, to bring our petitions to our Father. Petitions not only for our earthly needs, which He did call us to do, but for our spiritual needs, including that which is every man's greatest need, forgiveness of his sins. And then He may grant that we would respond to His forgiveness of our sins in forgiveness of the sins of others. Christians are a forgiving people. There aren't any exceptions to this. When Jesus taught us to pray that God would grant us a heart that flees from temptation, that flees from the immorality that is in the world, that is in our flesh, that comes to us through the devil. to ask our Father to guard us, weak as we are and as prone to sin as we just sung, from entering into situations which would expose us to temptation. Jesus has let us know that through Him, we who believe have been granted access to God and that we may rely both on His fatherly love for us and His power to do all He will. So now Jesus illustrates and amplifies this blessed truth that God is willing to receive us. And please, if you leave here with no other thought in your mind, remember that. He is willing to receive His children. And He's ready to listen to our prayers. And third, of His own good pleasure, He wants to help us. God wants to help us. How do I know that? Jesus said so. So this illustration, Jesus pictures a man who has an unexpected visitor late at night. His household has used up its supply of food. But the man has to feed the visitor who's arrived late. Hospitality, especially in those days, was considered a sacred duty. So the first man goes to another friend at midnight, hoping to get three small, flat, round bread cakes. That ought to be enough to feed his visitor. But in the story here, the friend is asleep and his children are asleep. And Jesus asks, will the friend say to the man at the door, sorry, my children are asleep. I'm in bed. Can't get up. Don't bother me. Or will the man get up and give the first man the three loaves? Which will he do? Well verse 8, Jesus answers the question that he posts in verses 5, 6, and 7. He says that the friend will not refuse the man at his door. Ultimately, he's going to grant the man's request, not because he's his friend, but because of the man's persistence, his importunity. Look at verse 8. I tell you, even though he won't get up and give him anything because he's his friend, yet because of his persistence, his importunity. We don't get to use that word very often. He will get up and give him as much as he needs. So at some point, the friend is going to get up, open the door, and give the first man the bread he requested. First man will receive what he asked for and sought, not because of the goodness in the heart of his friend, but because of his persistence. His impudence, some translate this. His importunity, others translate. His shameless audacity is the most literal translation we're going to get. In coming to Him in the middle of the night and making this request. I mean, try to picture this. You're going, somebody comes, you're out of pizza, you're going to go to some friend's house, knock on the door, make me a pizza. I have friends coming. He's asleep. And Jesus says He'll get up just to make this all go away. So the word that Jesus used to describe what moved this friend to get up and get the three breadcakes is anidean. In Greek it's persistence, importunity, shameless audacity. It takes some sort of shamelessness and some sort of audacity to come and bang on the friend's door and wake him up. Here's some synonyms for this Greek word in English. Aggravation, annoyance, bedevilment, botheration, bothering, bugging, disturbance, harassment, harrying, pestering. This is the motivation for the man to get up. That's what he's talking about here. So Jesus' point as He begins this passage is where men are concerned. Friendship isn't always the sufficient motive to move us to do things for others. To grant the requests of others. But the persistence of another will move us to give us what another asks of us. Just to get them to stop bothering us. To get them to stop asking. But with God, it is not so. This is not how it is with God. And that's why He uses this illustration. Because He wants to contrast that with the difference between us and our Father. See, our Father will listen to us. And He will hear our petitions anytime, night or day. And He wants to grant us all that is good for us. Not all that we deem good for us. All that He knows is good for us. And that's what Jesus shows us here in verse 9 and 10. 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. He who seeks, finds. To him who knocks, it will be opened. Now I think we all know that if we close our eyes and ask God to park a Rolls-Royce out there for us for when we leave here, that's not going to happen. And the reason it's not going to happen is because that's not what Jesus is talking about. It's an easy example to show Jesus is talking about something else. But He wants us to know that our Father in heaven is nothing like a friend who may feel put upon when awakened in the middle of the night. Our Father invites His children to come to Him at any time, whenever we are in need of His help. Now this does not mean, and I think I just illustrated this, doesn't mean that He will always or even ever grant the desires of our flesh. Certainly not the sinful desires of our flesh. But it does mean that He will hear us and He desires to help us. So Jesus says to His followers, here are the words, ask, seek, and knock. Ask, seek, and knock. And He assures us that our Father will respond. That's what He says here in verse 9 and 10. These three verbs are continuous. There's not one, then you do the other, and then you... No. Ask, seek, and knock. Today, tomorrow, every time you have a need, you cannot come too often to Him. This should be a great, great comfort to us. And this is what our Lord wants us to know. If you come to Him seeking His gifts, He will not turn you away. He's going to listen to you. Now, we cannot ignore the other 2,000 pages of Scripture and think that our every wish is going to be granted, if only we ask. That's obviously a false teaching. But when we come to Him in faith through His Son, He's going to grant us what is good for us. Because what He does is always right. And here's the thing. The certainty that we will be heard should move us to prayer. Believers in Christ, who believe not only in His work on the cross, but in what He has taught us, should hear this and be moved to pray. Should be a praying people. Now we've got three words here. The word ask makes it clear He's speaking first in this trilogy. asks Enoch. He's speaking first about prayer. William Hendrickson sees a rising scale of intensity in these three. He may be right. But they're different. Three different things, but we're doing them all at once. We're not one, and if it doesn't work out, then we do the next one. No. Asking presupposes belief in a personal God. Someone who can hear us and respond to us. With whom we can have fellowship. It speaks of faith in a God who can and will answer us. That word, ask, has a lot that's going on with it. Remember the parable in Luke 18, beginning in verse 9. We've got a Pharisee and a Republican. And the Pharisee thanks God that he's not like other people. He makes no request of the Lord. He doesn't ask for anything. I'm good. He tells the Lord how good he is. What kind of prayer is that? No, we are inclined sometimes to say, Lord, I'm doing everything you said. Now I need this. No. Asking implies humility. It implies an awareness of our need and an awareness that He has the power to grant it. The republican, look at the difference. He just asked God to be merciful to him. God be merciful to me, a sinner. Now, what's seeking? Well, seeking is asking plus acting, doing something. One must be active in seeking to obtain that for which he is asking. You know, we don't just ask God for some blessing that we may be able to impact in some way and then go lie on the beach. No. To seek is to act in the hope of finding something. He says, seek and you will find. It might be something one has lost, such as spiritual life, which we all lost in the garden. Or it may be something that we have yet to discover, some spiritual truth. One may ask God, for example, to reveal His will to him. Well, Jesus teaches us we must also seek out the knowledge of His will. How do we do that? By seeking Him out in His Word. by studying His Word, by attending to the preaching of the Word. So we diligently search and examine the Scriptures as we pray, in addition to praying. More importantly, what one finds when he comes to the Father in heaven is spiritual life. and the benefits of the Spirit of God indwelling us. And he finds fellowship with God. When you are praying and God is listening, you are in fellowship with Him. And after finding life, after He has granted us spiritual life, when we diligently seek Him in His Word and in His church and in the preaching of His Word, we come to a fuller knowledge of Him, we come into a more intimate relationship with Him day by day if we are seeking Him. We come to a more intimate knowledge of His will if we are doing these things. So what's it mean to knock? Well, it won't surprise you to hear me say knocking is asking plus acting plus persevering, persistence. The picture is of one who knocks and knocks and knocks until the door is opened. You pray for a week and say, well, I guess God's not going to grant that one. How many people have some of you been praying for for 20 years for their salvation? Keep going to Him. Keep witnessing to them. Keep praying for them. Keep knocking. Our coming to our Father doesn't cease until He has answered us. And in a sense here, obviously, perseverance is implied in all three of these. Asking, seeking, and knocking. Must persevere in doing all three. One continues to knock on the door of our Father until He opens the door and does what is good for us. So as I said, the idea is not that we ask, and if we don't hear an answer, then we knock, or then we seek. And if we still hear no answer, then we knock. No, we're always to be doing all three. He teaches us that as we ask, we should be actively seeking and persistently knocking on the door of our Father. This is Jesus teaching, folks. To be His disciple is to do as He teaches. And in God's time, He will answer. Charles Spurgeon, over a hundred years ago, saw it this way. He said, to ask means to speak with God concerning our need. To seek is to make use of all the means of grace God has provided. in the church, to learn His promises, to diligently read His Word, to attend to the preaching of His Word, to meditate on the way of salvation, and to avail ourselves of the fellowship of believers. To Knox, Spurgeon says, is to use not only our voices, but our whole hearts, our bodies, our minds, and our souls. The blessed message here is that at the throne of grace, everyone who asks, receives. All who seek, find. And to those who knock, his door is opened. Jesus assures His hearers here of the certainty that such prayers will obtain what is sought if one is seeking heavenly things. There's the rub. If you're sitting there saying, well wait a minute, I've prayed for this and prayed for this and God hasn't granted it. Well one, God determines the time. And God knows what is right and good. One man wrote, one may be a truly industrious man and yet poor in temporal things. But one cannot be a truly praying man and yet poor in spiritual things. See, in another sense, what is prayer but time with God? Time with the Creator of all things. Time with the Sustainer of all things. Time with the One who is, in His own essence, love. Who is goodness. How is it that believers can approach our Father with confidence? How is it we can do that? Well, the writer of Hebrews teaches an immensely important truth regarding the prayers of believers in Jesus Christ. Oh, how I love this passage. Hebrews 4, 14. We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, has gone into the heavenly tabernacle. We have a high priest who took on flesh like us and can therefore sympathize with our weaknesses. He knows what we go through. He was beaten nearly to death. He was rejected, spit upon, mocked in this life. He's been tempted in all things just as we are. He didn't go through this earthly life without temptation and yet He did not sin. And he stands there with the Father. So we, the writer says, can draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. I don't know that I've ever met anybody. There must be some people who have fully taken advantage of this blessing. We're more apt to simply complain about the way things are than to go to God. and spend that time giving Him thanks for what He's done. Who He is. And asking Him, not for the things of this world, but for the things of His kingdom. That He would bless those around us. We can go with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. What a gift. Well then Jesus makes another illustration, verses 11, 12, 13, by which He shows us that His Father will always act in a fatherly way toward all His children. I hope we're filled with joy at the things our Lord is saying here. I hope we have receiving the comfort that this must give us. Suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He won't give him a snake or a serpent instead of a fish, will he? Or if he's asked for an egg, he won't give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, who are evil by nature, 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? Well by this illustration, what's Jesus showing us? He's showing His disciples, all of us, the heart of the Father toward His children. Jesus wants us to know that the Father desires to do good things, to give good gifts to His children. And he illustrates this by reminding us of earthly parents who, after all, are only human and who therefore are by nature evil and children of wrath, born children of wrath. But yet, who desire to give good gifts and good things to their children. Now if that's so, Jesus assures us that this is how our Father looks upon us who are His by our union with Christ. We might paraphrase these three verses this way. Even you who are root evil, ruled by your own lusts and by your own greed and by your own sinful desires, still you have room in your heart to give and want to give good things to your children. If you who are evil are like that, How much more will God, your loving Father, who is good, give to His children who ask of Him? point Jesus is teaching through the three sections here is this. If even an earthly friend would certainly extend help at midnight, whatever his motive, and if an earthly parent, who is evil by nature, will give good things to his children, then won't our heavenly Father, who is love itself, whose motivation is always the good of his children, generously answer our prayers? Jesus is showing us this is the relationship we have with our Heavenly Father. And we come into this relationship with God as our Father when we come to Christ and surrender our lives to Him. And here in this passage, Jesus affirms the importance of prayer. in connection with God's provision of the spiritual needs of His children. He wants us to ask Him for the things we need. Now, just as a parent, though, does not feed a child a steady diet of pizza, chocolate, and ice cream, God does not let us be the ones who decide what is good for us and what is not. James 4.3, you ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. We don't get to decide what's best for us. He always knows what is for our good and what is not. You know, we can look back on our lives. Think of things of this world that we may have desired. Particular job, particular house, particular relationship. But He knows what is best for our spiritual well-being. And we know, we know that He works all things for good, for those who are His. It doesn't always make sense to us at the time. It isn't always pleasant for us at the time when we ask for something of this world and He says no. But He knows what's best. He knows that the gratification of our earthly, fleshly desires is not always what's best. And the things He has granted us, and the things that He's refused to grant us, have led every one of us to this place. Every decision He's made in response to what we've asked has landed us all here. this morning, where we sit before Him in gratitude and worship, believing in Him, and hearing His gospel of eternal life. Everything that's gone on before has led us to here. It's undeniable, folks, He has made every right call in answering our prayers for our good. And this good thing that He gives, what is it? Well, He doesn't leave it in vague terms here. He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. The gift of His Spirit is our highest good. His own Spirit indwells every true son of God. He convicts us of our sin. He teaches us, guides us in our earthly pilgrimage every minute of every day. Jesus said our Father will give the Holy Spirit and all His benefits To who? To whoever asks. Here is the greatest of blessings. He will give the Spirit of God to whoever asks. Now many don't ask. Many want other things. So Christ calls us here to submit our desires to His will. So that He may give us nothing more than what He knows is for our good. We've got to humble ourselves and learn to leave these things up to Him. And not begrudge Him when He doesn't do what we ask Him. When He doesn't grant our fleshly desires. All of our affections, brethren, are corrupted by our sin nature. We're not holy and righteous like God. We're not competent judges of what is truly good for us and what isn't. So we must learn to approach God with the conviction that we will be heard, and we must learn to restrain our hearts from asking anything that's not in accord with His will. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus preached the same truth. He taught us to seek what? Seek first. Not the things of this world. Father will provide you with what you need. He isn't going to respond and give you every lust of your heart. He will provide you with what you need. But to seek what, Don? His kingdom and His righteousness. And if we're genuinely seeking His kingdom and not our earthly desires, we may ask, seek, and knock and expect Him to grant it. Our Heavenly Father will respond with that which is good for us. One question kind of came into my head. One might wonder, well, if God knows what we need and desires to give those things to us, why do we need to pray? Because it's God's way. It's God's way. Spurgeon again. It's His way that we should pray before He gives the blessing. How could a sinner be saved without prayer? You must go to God and confess your sins and ask Him to forgive you. A prayerless soul, Spurgeon says, must be a Christless soul. Our receiving the Holy Spirit is our salvation. It is spiritual life itself. It's entry into the kingdom of God. Anyone who pleads for entry through Christ is admitted. He refuses nobody. It's His way. He wants us to ask Him for the things we need and that He wants to grant us. And again, folks, it's a grave error to read this passage and think that Jesus is speaking of coming to our Father for gratification of our earthly desires, our desires in this life. He's not speaking of worldly things or worldly pleasures or lots of money. Not promising even that God will heal every suffering person for whom we ask for healing. Not promising that at all. We still go to Him and ask for that. Give us this day our daily bread. And that certainly includes petitions for blessings in this life. People sometimes complain that God did not give them what they asked. But did they ask for the Holy Spirit? Is there somebody Going around saying, I prayed out for forgiveness and for the Holy Spirit. I prayed through Jesus and He wouldn't give it to me. I don't know such a person. Did they ask for the grace that He imparts? Grace sufficient to enable us to rejoice and to trust in Him even in the midst of our greatest sorrows and afflictions. If you're praying that God is going to make things perfect for you in this life, here in the fallen world, you're going to be disappointed. He's not going to do that. But He has prepared a perfect world for you if you will come to Him and trust in Him all the way. This lesson that Jesus teaches in this passage is so powerful because He shows us that with God, it's never midnight. He's never bothered when any humble child of His approaches Him. In fact, He invites us to come at any time. And we're never alone when we come to our Father. The Son and the Spirit are with us. The Lord Jesus intercedes for us as we read, and so does His Spirit. Romans 8, 26, in the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. We don't know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is. Because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. On this passage, our Lord Himself gives us strong encouragement and exhortation to prayer. Encouragement to let nothing deter us from praying. And the ground of our confidence lies in His promise to us that our Father will hear us and He will help us. Well, Lord, we again thank you that you open your heart and your mind to us in your Word. We thank you that you've sent your Son not only to die for us, but to teach us and to show us the way of fellowship with you, to give us this assurance that when we seek the things that you seek, when we seek the things of your kingdom, when we desire your Spirit, and all he does in the life of a believer, that you will answer us and grant us our request. Lord, again, I pray that you would deliver this word and bringing it into the hearts of your people. I pray everyone gathered here and who hears this message from our Lord will hear you. and respond in gratitude, worship, joy, and obedience for your kingdom and for your glory in Christ's name.