“Ask, and It will be Given to You”
Luke 11:1-13
July 29, 2007
Kids, imagine if your parents took you to the mall
one day and told you that you could have anything you wanted, anything
they could afford to give you. What would you ask for?
Adults, imagine if Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggar or Pres. Bush called you
personally and told you that he was willing to give you anything that
was in his power to grant you. What would you ask for?
As highly unlikely as these scenarios are, what
would be even more unlikely is if these offers were turned down.
Imagine a child saying, “No, thanks, mom and dad. I’m
good. I have everything I need.” Could you imagine
saying the same thing to the Gov. or the Pres? We’d be
fools, idiots, completely out of our minds. And yet, God promises
to give us the world (we’re heirs of the world in Christ), and
the Apostle Paul writes, “He who did not spare His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give
us all things?” But we so rarely take Him up on the
offer. Here we have the Creator of all things promising us all
things, but we so rarely ask Him for anything. Only when things
get really tough for us do we turn to Him for help. And when He
doesn’t grant our requests for some reason or is slow in doing
so, we give up and conclude either that He doesn’t hear us,
doesn’t love us, or is unable to help. How foolish is that?
Not only is it foolish not to take God up on His
offers, but it’s also sin. To say “No, thanks!”
to God is tantamount to unbelief and rejection of His gifts. It
is to say, “I don’t need your gifts and promises,
God. I can get along just fine without your help.”
So, we need to confess that we have failed to pray as we ought to, and
then let the Lord motivate and instruct us to pray as we should.
The first thing we must learn about prayer is that it’s both a
gift and a command of God. For those who refuse to pray and see
prayer as an optional part of the Christian life, God’s command
to pray must be emphasized. It’s really odd that God should
have to command us to pray. We should want to pray. But
because of our sinful nature and our “I can get along fine own my
own” attitude God must continue to remind and teach us to
pray. It displeases God when, after He has promised us so many
things in His Word, that we don’t come to Him in prayer and ask
Him for those things. And yet, like any other sin, Christ also
died for our failure to pray as we ought to. Where we have failed
in prayer, He fulfilled our obligation by praying faithfully for us and
in our place. For His sake, God forgives us our failure at
prayer, and then He motivates us with His promises and teaches us again
how important it is for His children to pray to Him.
More motivating than emphasizing prayer as an
“ought to” is emphasizing that prayer is a “get
to.” Prayer is a gift to us from God. It is one of
the benefits of Christ’s work on the cross. It is a
privilege that we now have as God’s children, who have been
redeemed with the blood of Jesus and baptized into His Name. We
get to call God “our Father,” and we get to confidently
draw near to God’s throne of grace, so that we might receive
mercy and find grace to help us in our times of need. Again, St.
Paul reminds us that because God did not withhold His own Son from us,
He will not withhold any good thing from us. We can be confident
that when we ask God for a fish He will not give us a snake
instead. God is merciful and generous. He is not stingy nor
does He grant you your requests begrudgingly. He may not give you
everything you ask for or grant you our requests right away, but
that’s because He knows what’s best for you. He knows
what you need even before you ask Him. And He promises you in His
Word that when you ask according to His will, He hears you, and that if
He hears you, then you know that you have the requests for which you
ask. The Father does love you, He does hear you, and He is able
and willing to help you for Christ’s sake. He listens to
you as if you were His Son Jesus Himself.
The second thing we must learn in regards to prayer
is that we would not even be able to pray unless God worked prayer in
us. Jesus tells His disciples that apart from Him they can do
nothing. That goes for prayer as well. Even the desire to
pray is something that God works in you through His Word. The
disciples here could only ask Jesus to teach them to pray, because the
Word of God had been active among them, creating this desire in
them. Like a child who sees his father doing something and wants
to imitate him, so the disciple saw Jesus praying and how important
prayer was to Him, and they wanted to imitate Him. The more we
observe what Jesus does and listen to His Word, the more we will want
to be like Him and do what He commands.
Then, once the Word has done its work of creating a
desire to pray within us, it teaches us how. The third thing we
must learn about prayer is that we must be taught how to pray.
Many people think that prayer is a natural ability that we all
have. “Anyone can pray, and you can pray however you want
to,” they say. They especially emphasize that prayer must
come from the heart, not some dead words printed on a page. Well,
there are at least two things wrong with this kind of thinking.
First, the Bible tells us that we don’t know how to pray as we
should. As the Apostle Paul writes, it takes the Holy Spirit to
help us in our weakness here. He intercedes for us with groanings
too deep for words. Second, Jesus says that the heart is
desperately wicked and that from it flow things like evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and
slander. God doesn’t want what’s in your heart; He
wants to change your heart by putting His Word into your heart, so that
your prayers will be pleasing to Him. Unless your prayers are
informed by God’s Word, you will not be praying according to His
will, and you will have no assurance that He hears you and that you
have the things for which you ask.
The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer that our Lord
teaches us to pray. With this prayer He not only teaches us how
to pray, but also what to pray for. And this is an actual prayer
that we can pray. Some believe that the Lord’s Prayer is
just a sample prayer, and that to pray it word for word would be
nothing but meaningless repetition. Instead of their Lord’s
words they’d rather choose their own words. But here Jesus
says, “When you pray, say...” i.e., say these words which
I’m giving you here. Can the Lord’s Prayer become
meaningless repetition? Yes, when your mind isn’t on what
you’re saying. But there’s no better prayer that you
can offer up to God than the prayer that our Lord has given us to
pray. It encompasses everything that God would have us pray for,
from God’s Name, His kingdom, and His will, to our daily
necessities, the forgiveness of sins, and the deliverance from
temptation and evil. There’s nothing that you could pray
for that isn’t covered by this prayer. Not only is prayer a
gift from God, but this particular prayer itself is a gift to us from
God. And when you pray it, even when you pray it alone, you pray
with and for the whole people of God. It assures you that even
when your alone you’re not alone; you’re part of the family
of God.
Finally, we must be taught to be persistent in
prayer. To teach His disciples this lesson, Jesus sets forth an
absurd scenario. The setting is this: There are these two
friends. It’s late at night. The one along with his
family has already gone to bed. The other is visited by another
friend, but he has no food to offer him. So, he goes to his
friend who’s in bed, bangs on the door and asks him for
help. The friend in bed is reluctant; he doesn’t want to
get up. But because his friend is so persistent, he finally does
get up and gives him whatever he needs. Now, this is an absurd
scenario, because in Jesus’ day there was no question that when
someone in need came to your door (especially if he was your friend),
you helped him, no matter what time of the day it was. And even
if you didn’t want to help him you did, because you didn’t
want to get the reputation that you were stingy and inhospitable.
The lesson is this: If a reluctant friend will get up and help
his friend in need because of his friend’s persistence and
because he doesn’t want to lose face, how much more will God help
you in need, not reluctantly but willingly, no matter what the
circumstances are, especially since His reputation of being merciful
and generous is on the line? You are not bugging God by being
persistent in prayer. He wants to hear from you. But
sometimes God wants to test you to see if you will trust in Him and not
give up in your prayers, even when He doesn’t answer you right
away. Remember, “He who did not spare His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give
us all things?” God will freely give you all things.
He’s already given you His only-begotten Son! Just be
patient and persistent in prayer. Prayer doesn’t change
God; it changes you. If you ask God for something and He grants
it to you, you can’t boast that you made God do something.
Remember that He’s the one who worked that prayer in you in the
first place. All the glory, thanks, and praise go to Him.
And if all of this can’t motivate you to pray,
if neither the fact that prayer is commanded nor that it’s a gift
will move you to pray, then your own need should drive you to
prayer. The very fact that you don’t pray as you should
should move you to pray that the Lord would cause you to pray as you
ought to. Our weaknesses, sins, and needs are real motivating
factors in our lives that should drive us to the foot of the cross of
Christ where we can unload our burdens upon Him and ask Him for the
strength, forgiveness, and help we need to continue to persevere in the
faith. The Apostle Peter tells us the same thing when he writes,
“Cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares for
you.” This we do in prayer.
Since God has taken care of your greatest needs of
forgiveness, life, and salvation through the sacrifice of His Son, what
other needs will He not also meet? “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 the one who seeks finds,
and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” God is always
more willing to hear you than you are to pray to Him. He is
always more generous than the best of your friends. And He always
gives better gifts than the best gifts you could ever give your
children. He gives you His Holy Spirit, the giver of all good
gifts, the one who delivers Jesus and all of His gifts to you through
His Word and Sacraments. What greater gifts could He give than
these?
You are heirs of the world in Christ.
“All things belong to you,” writes St. Paul, “whether
Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things
present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to
Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” So, ask, and it will be
given to you. God has already given you Himself - Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. What other good gifts will He withhold from
you? Amen.