The Friend at Midnight

Luke 11:5-8

INTRODUCTON

My father greatly admired his grandfather Sommerville. His grandfather had come from Scotland with his wife and three children some time during the last half of the 19th Century.

Great-grandfather Sommerville was not an educated man. After a few days in school, his teacher back in Scotland had sent him home with a note that read: “Willie’s so deaf that I can’t teach him anything. Don’t send him back to school.”

So Great-Grandfather Sommerville went to work in the coal mines while he was still a child.

After he married and his three children were born, he brought his family to the United States and went to work in the mines here.

Even though Great-Grandfather Sommerville had little education, he was a diligent student of the Bible. He was noted as a Bible teacher. But my father remembered him more for his prayers.

In his later years, his three children—William, James, and Maggie—took turns keeping their father in their homes.

My father told me that when his grandfather prayed he prayed out loud—very loud. I suppose that was because he was so hard of hearing that he didn’t realize how his voice carried.

My father told me that he used to go to the closed bedroom door and listen to his grandfather’s prayers—it was so interesting.

Great-Grandfather Sommerville really knew how to talk to God.

After his funeral Aunt Maggie said to her brother, my grandfather: “Oh, Willie, who’ll pray for us now?”

I’ve had a lot of education. I’ve studied my Bible and read many books of theology.

But I would trade all my education and all the books I’ve read to be so powerful in prayer.

So I’m preaching this sermon even more for myself that for you. But you can listen in.

I. Jesus, as you know, was a man of prayer.

A. We read that often he would go up on a mountain and pray. He was accustomed to go to a garden to pray. Sometimes he would pray all night.

I can imagine that he would pray for wisdom. He would pray for strength to heal. He would pray for his friends—and for his enemies.

He would pray that God’s word would fall into his hearers’ hearts and take root.

He would pray that those who came to him would respond with faith.

In his prayers Jesus struggled with the powers of evil. He was very much aware of the demonic world around him.

He was very much aware of the hatred of many who were offended by his teaching and his actions.

Even though he was the Son of God, he had to depend on God for everything. Jesus was a man of faith, and to be a man of faith is to be a man of prayer.

B. One day after Jesus had been praying in a certain place, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” We read about his in Luke 11.

Jesus didn’t give them a formula for preaching or special words that will always work.

He gave them a short prayer as a pattern—we call it “The Lord’s Prayer.”

The prayer Jesus gave his disciples was very short. It was certainly not to be the only words they would ever use. It was a pattern, a suggestion of things to include in our prayers.

We come to God as our Heavenly Father.

We ask our Father to honor his name in the world: “…hallowed be thy name.”

We ask our Father to bring his rule into the world of men and women: “Thy kingdom come.”

We ask our Father for our daily necessities: “Give us each day our daily bread.”

We ask our father to forgive us our sins, and we remind ourselves while we are praying that we also must forgive those who offend us.

And we ask God to guard us from the dangers of sin: “Do not bring us into the time of trial.”

After he had given his disciples this short prayer, he told them a story to encourage them—and us—to keep praying.

II. The Parable of the Friend at Midnight

A. Luke 11:5-10

And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend, will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything’?

“I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

“And I tell you, Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

B. Picture the scene.

Houses of the common people in Galilee were small, one or two little rooms.

The family slept on mats, which would be rolled up and put away during the day.

It is midnight.

The night is dark.

All the lights are out and everybody is in bed.

A tapping on the door, and a voice comes from outside, “Friend, lend me three loaves! A friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him!”

He waits. He knocks again, harder. He knows his friend inside is a sound sleeper.

Finally a voice comes through the door: “I can’t get up. We’re all in bed. Please go away.”

The man outside pounds harder.

Now everyone inside is awake.

The neighbors are waking up. A dog barks.

The friend inside finally gets up. He unbars the door and hands out hands out the loaves. “Are you sure three loaves are enough. Here, take four.” The grateful friend outside apologizes for the interruption, thanks him, and promises to do him to return the favor.

Hospitality was a serious responsibility in that time and place.

It would be a shame to fail his neighbor in his need.

III. So what is Jesus teaching his disciples, and us, about prayer?

A. It’s certainly not that our prayers are an annoyance to God or that God needs to be begged.

God is not like the man in the house who says, “Don’t bother me.”

The point of the parable is: Be patient, but keep praying.

God loves to answer prayers.

B. Real prayer isn’t a simple, routine thing of repeating familiar words.

When we pray we are in a battle with the powers of darkness that are trying to distract our minds with worries or pleasures or plans or memories.

When we pray we are in a battle with the inclinations of our bodies that are seeking ease.

I have never prayed all night. I don’t know whether I have ever prayed for a solid hour.

It’s easier to read a book than to pray. It’s easier to preach a sermon than to pray.

It’s easier to talk with a friend than to pray.

If you just pray whenever you feel like it, you will never pray with urgency—like the friend knocking at his neighbor’s door.

Prayer takes discipline, and effort.

Prayer takes time.

Prayer takes imagination. It’s not easy to speak to someone you can’t see.

When God seems reluctant to do for us what we ask, it may be because he is waiting for us to really crave the blessing we are asking for.

Our youngest granddaughter Hannah decided some years ago that she wanted a puppy.

She asked her parents to find her a dog.

They knew how much trouble a dog would be and they put her off.

But Hannah kept asking.

She researched dogs on the Internet.

She would report at the dinner table about what she had learned about dogs.

She promised to take care of the dog.

Her parents realized how important a dog was to her happiness.

And now Hannah has her dog.

I think the Lord wants us to keep praying to show him that what we ask is really important to us.

And then—if we receive what we have asked for—we are really thankful.

Prayer is not effective because we have found just the right words, or because we pray with a lot of fervor, or because we use formal pious language.

Prayer is effective because it is addressed to a Father who loves us,

because by prayer we keep connected,

and because in our requests our desire most of all is that “thy will be done.”

Prayer is effective when it brings us into submission to God, so that we lie low at his feet in humble dependence on him, grateful for every blessing.

And when disappointments come and when we can’t understand why we are suffering so, we ask God to help us draw from our experiences whatever lesson he means to teach us.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes—often—we never receive what we think we need.

In those cases we just need to go on trusting and obeying and living for God.

Maybe what we think is so important is not actually necessary for our happiness.

Maybe we can understand that we become stronger when life is difficult than if life were easier.

We may look back later and say to ourselves: I didn’t get what I thought I had to have, but God was good and things worked out.

We will have all eternity to figure these things out.

And I think that then we’ll understand.

But until then, let’s keep knocking at that door. Let’s keep praying.

How Do You “Do” Jesus’ Words?

Luke 6:46-49

INTRODUCTION

One time in a Bible study Charlotte spoke of a time before she was a Christian. One man in the study was puzzled. He said, “Before you were a Christian, what were you?”

I think he thought that if she wasn’t a Christian, she must have been a heathen.

Most people, in the United States, unless they belong to one of the other religions just assume that if they are good people they are “Christians.”

Whether people do anything about their faith or not, they generally consider themselves Christians.

In Jesus’s time, people who believed in him called him “the Lord,” or “the Lord Jesus.”

When people said they were followers of Jesus, they were owning him as the “Lord of their life,” the one whom they were committed to obey and on whom all their hopes rested.

St. Paul wrote in Romans 10:9: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

In our church we say the Apostles Creed every Sunday: “I believe in God the Father, Maker of Heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, Our Lord…”

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But the earliest creed—the one that goes back to the very beginning of the New Testament was much shorter. It was just three words: “Jesus is Lord.”

To say that and to mean it was enough to assert one’s faith in and commitment to Jesus.

But Jesus noticed that people were calling him “Lord” who didn’t really mean it.

In Luke 6 we read these words that Jesus said to some who considered themselves to be his followers:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do what I tell you?

Every one who comes to me and hears my words and does them,

I will show you what he is like:

he is like a man building a house, who dug deep,

and laid the foundation upon rock;

and when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house,

and could not shake it, because it had been well built.

But he who hears and does not do them

is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation;

against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell,

and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:46-49).

It’s a serious thing to say, “Jesus is Lord.”

And it would be very silly to say, “Jesus is Lord” and not do what he tells us.

And that’s why Jesus told the little story about the two house builders.

I. So let’s consider the parable.

The first builder dug deep and set the foundation on rock.

In Iowa, a good foundation is especially important because the frost will heave the ground up and down and the house will move up and down.

In Jesus’s story, the houses were built in a place prone to flooding, so it was even more important to dig deep and set the foundation on bedrock.

So the first builder built wisely and when the flood and the river broke against his house, the house stood firm.

The other builder just built his house on the ground, without a foundation, and when the rains came, the river broke against the house and immediately it fell, and Jesus adds, “and the ruin of that house was great.”

II. Now let’s consider what Jesus is telling us with this simple story.

A. Some of us have “heard” the words of Jesus since we were little children.

We went to Sunday school and learned the stories of Jesus.

In our house we read the Bible after supper at the table.

We went to church and listened to sermons.

I figure that in my lifetime I have heard over 5000 sermons.

Some of you were “confirmed” when you were in your early teens and made a commitment to church membership.

In other churches—such as the one in which I was raised—we made a profession of faith in Christ later in life and were baptized to testify to our commitment to Jesus.

We read our Bibles. We read our devotional booklets. We say our prayers. We go to church.

I commend you for coming to our service. Most of the residents in this facility don’t bother.

Coming to worship indicates a more than average interest in your faith.

But Jesus seems to be saying that there’s something more.

I have a prayer I use often that goes like this:

“Lord, give me grace

not only to be a hearer of the word, but also a doer of it;

not only to love, but to live the gospel;

not only to profess, but also to practice thy blessed commandments,

to the honor of thy holy name. Amen.”

B. Jesus says it’s no use to just say “Lord, “Lord,” but we must “do” the his words.

We not only hear what Jesus says, we must set ourselves to do what he says.

What difference does it make in your life, that you have heard the words of Jesus?

What difference does it make in our talk?

Is our speech characterized by gracious words, by gratitude, by encouragement?

Or do we fall into the habit of criticizing…or complaining…or belittling other people?

Do we hold grudges? Can we forgive? Can we apologize? Can we acknowledge our faults?

Do we confess our sins?—or do we just excuse them? and say, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

Do we pray and give thanks?

Do we pray for our enemies? To we love those who hate us?

If we don’t have any enemies, do we pray for the people who irritate us?

The Bible says to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 5:15). Sometimes we tell the truth, but we don’t tell the truth in love. Love and truth must go together in our talk.

Are we generous? If we have no money, we can still be generous. We can be generous with our judgments, generous with our compliments, generous in excusing the faults of others, generous with our time when someone needs a listening ear to hear their troubles.

How are you a different person than you would be if you were not a follower of Jesus?

This story comes from Scotland.

An old farm woman said to her pastor: “What was a grand sermon you preached last Lord’s Day at the kirk!”

Seeking to test her sincerity he asked, “And what was the text?”

“Ah, meenister!” she replied. “I dinna ken the text or the words. But I came home and took the false bottom out o’ my peck measure.”

Long ago a man named Ignatius was a soldier in the Spanish army of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1521. He was severely wounded in a battle, he spent many months convalescing in a castle at a town called “Loyola.”

To help pass the time he asked for some adventure stories. None were available, so he was given the lives of Christ and the saints.

He got interested in the lives of these holy men and women.

And when he recovered he decided to devote his life to the service of his God.

We know him as St. Ignatius Loyola.

He wrote a prayer that I often use because it reminds me of what we have been talking about:

“Lord, take to yourself all my freedom: take my memories,

my thoughts, my plans, my desires.

Whatever I have, you have given me.

I give it all back to you,

and entrust it to the guidance of your will.

Only give me your love and your grace and I am rich enough:

I ask for nothing more.”

C.  So what difference does it make?

For us the storms of life are already here. The river is breaking against the house of our life.

We’ve experienced loss of loved ones. We’ve experienced loss of health.

Some of us live in constant pain. We’ve had disappointments and setbacks.

People have disappointed us. We have regrets. Some of us have struggled with doubts.

Jesus says that the way to remain faithful, even through the storms of life is to “do” his words—to live our life in obedience, faithful to the end.

CONCLUSION

This is not to say that we are saved by doing good works.

We are saved by faith, and we can never be good enough to earn God’s forgiveness.

This is just to say that faith includes obedience.

St. Paul wrote, “By grace are you saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

And then he goes on, “For we are his workmanship, created for good works, which God has prepared that we should walk in them.”

Salvation is a road, a road that we walk with Jesus, a road of obedience—because Jesus is not only our Savior, he is also our Lord.