By Dr. Guy Richards

By Dr. Guy Richards, President and Professor of Systematic Theology, RTS Atlanta

I am grateful for the opportunity to be with you this morning. It is a tremendous privilege for me to be here. And so it is a great delight to share God’s Word with you this morning.

I do so with a great deal of fear and trepidation. For twelve years, I served as a pastor and had the privilege of proclaiming God’s Word each and every week. Now, having transitioned to seminary work, I have to be invited to preach. And that has only cemented in me how unique and weighty a privilege it is to open God’s Word with you.

If you have a copy of Scripture, please open it to Luke 11. I believe it will also be on the screen. If not, you can follow along in the Bible in front of you. I’ll be reading from Luke 11, verses 1–13—a well known section on the Lord’s Prayer, the parallel to Matthew 6.

Luke 11, beginning in verse 1:

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” And He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

And He said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say, ‘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 impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.”

“And I tell 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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

Amen.

I am convinced—after having been a Christian now for about thirty years (I know, I know, I don’t look old enough; thank you for thinking that)—that prayer may well be the most convicting topic in the Christian life.

All of us would acknowledge that there have been seasons when we were devoted to prayer, and seasons when we weren’t. When things are tough and we have nowhere else to turn, we turn to the Lord in prayer. But when things are manageable—when we can walk by sight and not by faith—it’s then that we often forget God. We don’t pray the way we know we ought to.

And the more time we spend praying, the more we begin to see the shortcomings in our own prayer life. We don’t pray as often as we ought, or as eloquently as we think we should, or as fervently as we wish we did. And the more we pray, the more we feel that conviction.

I don’t want to add to that burden this morning. Almost every book on prayer I’ve ever read leaves me feeling worse than when I started. We already feel the weight of our failures in prayer. So I want to do two things instead: I want to encourage you, and I want to motivate you.

I want to encourage you by the example of the disciples and by the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to motivate you to pray. That will be the overarching outline of our time together. Under the second point—motivation—there will be three subpoints, and that will be where we spend most of our time.

But first, let me encourage you for a few moments, even as we take up this convicting, weighty subject.

I want to encourage you with the example of the disciples, because I want to suggest that the disciples are exactly where you and I are this morning. In Luke 11, as they watch Jesus pray, they are feeling what we feel.

Jesus is praying in a certain place, and I want to suggest that the disciples were not simply watching Him—though that alone would have been convicting enough. To see the earnestness on His face, to see His body language as He communed with His Father—that must have been a sight.

But I want to suggest they were not only watching Him; they were hearing Him. Prayer in the early church was audible. It was spoken aloud. There was really no such thing as silent prayer in the ancient world. We see a glimpse of that in 1 Samuel 1, and we know it from the nature of Hebrew culture itself—it was an oral culture. Things were spoken, not written. Very little was written at all.

All things in Hebrew culture were passed down from generation to generation out loud. And in 1 Samuel 1—you know the story well—Elkanah goes up with his two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Hannah had no children; she was barren. Peninnah, on the other hand, was bountiful, producing many children, and she used to throw that in Hannah’s face. We’re told in verse 7 that year after year Peninnah provoked Hannah, and Hannah was grieved.

On one of those occasions, when they went up to Shiloh, Hannah—rather than participating in the sacrifice—went into the temple and began to pray. Verse 10 tells us she was “deeply distressed” and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She vowed a vow:

“O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

As she continued praying, Eli the priest observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. And then—listen to this, it’s remarkable—because she was praying silently, because her lips moved but no sound came out, Eli took her to be a drunken woman.

That tells you something. Silent prayer was not the accepted custom. The idea that someone would go into the temple and pray silently—whether privately or publicly—was so unusual that Eli assumed something was wrong. He assumed she must be intoxicated. Of course, you know the rest of the story: she explains, “No, I’m not drunk. I’m deeply distressed. I’m vexed. I’m pouring out my heart to the Lord.”

All of that shows us that in Hebrew culture, prayer was done aloud. There was no such thing as going off by oneself to pray silently, or praying silently in a public setting. Even reading was done out loud. Silent reading was virtually unknown.

So I think it’s safe to say the disciples were not only watching Jesus pray—though that alone would have been convicting enough—they were hearing Him pray. They were listening to His turn of phrase, listening to the words He chose, listening to the unction, the power that dripped from His communion with the Father. And after seeing Him and hearing Him pray, they were cut to the heart. It was as if they realized they had never really known how to pray at all. They say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In seeing Jesus and hearing Jesus, they suddenly recognize their own inadequacy.

And that ought to encourage us this morning. There is nothing new under the sun. For two thousand years of church history, God’s people have struggled with prayer. We’ve struggled to pray as often as we ought, as fervently as we ought, as eloquently as we imagine we should. If you’ve ever struggled with prayer—and I’m tempted to ask for a show of hands, though I won’t, because those who didn’t raise their hands would make the rest of us think they were lying—we all struggle with it. None of us has arrived. Jesus is the only perfect pray er ever to walk the face of the earth.

So if you struggle with prayer, you’re in good company. The disciples struggled too—men who were discipled by Jesus Himself.

But there’s more encouragement: we are reminded anew of what Jesus has done. Our Lord came and lived a perfect life. He died a substitutionary death, taking the weight of your sins and my sins upon Himself—all of them, past, present, and future. All of them were nailed to the cross, and we bear them no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.

And that means not only the selfishness, not only the pride, not only the gossip or the materialism—it means the prayerlessness too. Jesus died for all of our failures in prayer. So as we approach this topic and feel the conviction and the weight of our shortcomings, let’s remember: there is nothing new under the sun, and our God is faithful. He is for us in Christ Jesus, regardless of our struggles in prayer.

There is only one unforgivable sin, and that is final unbelief—finally rejecting Jesus as Lord and Savior. Everything else you and I do is not only forgivable but has already been forgiven in Christ.

So now, motivation.

And here I must confess something: this is somewhat selfish. With all my own failures in prayer, I need to be reminded—again and again—of what prayer is and what prayer does, so that I will be encouraged to give myself to it. Because prayer is not always easy. I don’t wake up every morning, put my feet on the floor, and say, “I get to pray today!” Sometimes, yes—those mountaintop moments when we feel close to the Lord. But many days, it’s hard work simply to put one foot in front of the other, much less to pray.

So I want to motivate you with three things this morning. First: God answers prayer.

I think that’s the overwhelming impression of this passage. Look again at verses 9 and 10. Remember, these are the words of the only perfect theologian who ever lived. No error in His doctrine, no error in His teaching, no error in His understanding.

And what does He say?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

He does not say, “Ask, and it might be given to you.” He does not say, “Seek, and you might find.” He does not say, “Knock, and perhaps the door will be opened.”

This is astounding. Let it sink in. Jesus says:

“For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Now, has that been your experience? Have you received everything you’ve ever asked for? If so, please come see me afterward, because that has not been my experience.

So what does Jesus mean?

This is Jesus—the only perfect theologian who ever walked the face of the earth—and He’s telling us something that, experientially, we know can’t be taken in an absolute, unqualified sense. We’ve all experienced unanswered prayer, at least unanswered in the way we prayed it.

So what is Jesus doing?

He’s not ignorant of the qualifications the rest of Scripture gives. The Bible is full of them. Think of James: we sang that line from James 4 — “You have not because you ask not.” But James goes on, doesn’t he? “And when you ask, you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” In other words, you cannot ask selfishly and expect God to grant your request simply because you asked.

Jesus Himself gives qualifications elsewhere. He says, “Ask in my name.” John tells us to ask according to the will of God. So we know Scripture gives multiple qualifications.

Why, then, doesn’t Jesus give any of them here? And it’s not just Jesus—James only gives one qualification. John gives one. No biblical writer ever gathers all the qualifications into one place. Why not? Why doesn’t Jesus say:

“Everyone who asks receives—except when you ask selfishly, or except when you fail to ask in my name, or except when you don’t ask according to the will of God…”

Why doesn’t He do that?

Because Jesus knows us.

If He stacked all the qualifications together in one place, what would we focus on? We’d fixate on the qualifications. We’d miss the weight of the promise. We’d miss the thunder of His words:

“Everyone who asks receives.”

Jesus knew the qualifications—but He also knew our hearts. He knew we needed to feel the force of this reality: God is a God who answers prayer. We need to be reminded that we have not because we ask not, so that we would be moved to pray.

Have you trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged— Take it to the Lord in prayer.

God answers prayer. That’s the first motivation.

But I also want you to see the kind of prayer God answers.

Did you notice it again in verses 9 and 10—especially verse 9?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

There are two things to see here.

First, Jesus uses the present tense. That may not sound like much, but it is. There’s a difference between saying, “I am with you,” and “I was with you,” or “I will be with you.” The present tense communicates ongoing action.

Jesus is not saying, “Ask once and it will be given.” He’s saying:

Ask—and keep on asking.

Seek—and keep on seeking.

Knock—and keep on knocking.

It may be that God answers the first time we ask. He often does. But that’s not the point here. The point is persistence.

And isn’t that exactly the point of the story Jesus tells?

A man has a friend arrive at midnight. No GPS, no text message saying, “Running late.” No stores open. No drive through. No Chick fil A. Hospitality was the only option. He must have bread to set before his guest.

So he goes to his neighbor and knocks. The neighbor says, “Don’t bother me. The door is shut, and my children are with me in bed.” Now, I know cultures differ, but surely this is universal: I don’t want my children in bed with me. I love them dearly—though they may not always think that when they’re being disciplined—but I don’t want them in bed with me. Apparently this man did.

But what does the first man do? Does he say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. It is midnight. My watch must have stopped. I’ll just do without”?

No. He needs bread. So he keeps knocking.

Jesus says the neighbor doesn’t get up because he’s a friend. He gets up because of the man’s impudence—a word that appears only here in the New Testament. It can mean shameless persistence, shameless boldness, a refusal to be embarrassed.

That’s the kind of prayer God answers:

the prayer that asks and keeps asking, seeks and keeps seeking, knocks and keeps knocking.

But there’s more. Why does Jesus use all three words—ask, seek, knock? If asking were enough, He could have stopped there. But He adds seeking and knocking because each carries a nuance.

• Asking is simply making the request.

• Seeking adds activity—taking steps, pursuing the thing asked for.

• Knocking adds patience—waiting for the door to open.

Jesus is describing a whole-life posture of prayer: active, persistent, patient.

And we see that in 1 Samuel 1. How did Hannah approach her barrenness? She went into the temple to pray.

No doubt this wasn’t the only time Hannah prayed. This was something that gripped her heart. She desperately wanted children, and so she prayed, and she prayed, and she prayed. But that wasn’t all she did. She didn’t simply pray and then go home and sit on her hands. She went home and slept with her husband. There was activity. She prayed, but she also sought. And then she waited, because she could control the intimacy, but she could not control the conception. That had to come from the Lord.

So she asked, she sought, and she knocked. She patiently waited for God, in His time and in His way, to answer.

That’s the kind of prayer God answers—the kind that asks and keeps on asking, that refuses to take no for an answer, that is shameless. It’s like my daughter asking for candy—I’ll embarrass her this morning. She asks and asks and asks, and eventually you say, “Fine—just stop asking.” In a sense, that’s the picture. Not because we have to twist God’s arm—He is already more inclined toward us than we could ever imagine—but because something happens in us when we ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking, and wait patiently for Him to give.

The third thing I want you to see this morning, by way of motivation, is the way God answers prayer.

We’ve said God answers prayer. We’ve said He answers persistent, shameless prayer. Now I want you to see how He answers.

Look with me at verses 11 and following.

If you’re a parent, this makes perfect sense. “What father among you”—or mother, and perhaps especially mother—“if his son asks for a fish, will instead give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “What father among you, if your son asks for a fish, will always give him a fish.” He doesn’t say, “If he asks for an egg, you will always give him an egg.”

Why not?

Because Jesus knows that good parents know that sometimes a fish is not appropriate. Sometimes an egg is not appropriate. Sometimes candy is appropriate—but sometimes candy is not. If all you eat is candy, that’s not appropriate. You need more than that.

Good parents know how to care for their children. There’s a time for sweets, a time for dessert, but also a time for fish, a time for eggs, a time for chicken, a time for greens and salads and all the rest. Yes, I say that as someone who hates broccoli. I hate broccoli. But I eat it. I eat it because I know I should.

Jesus is saying God is the same way. He may not give us a fish when we ask for a fish. He may not give us an egg when we ask for an egg. But He will never give us a serpent when we ask for a fish. He will never give us a scorpion when we ask for an egg. Just as you and I would never give our children something harmful, God will never give us something harmful.

We may not get what we ask for—but we will never get something that will destroy us.

And then Jesus says something unexpected. After talking about fish and eggs, He says in verse 13:

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give…”

And we expect Him to say “good gifts.” That’s what He says in Matthew 7. But here He says:

“…the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”

Why the difference?

Because Scripture cannot contradict itself. If Matthew says “good gifts” and Luke says “the Holy Spirit,” then the two must be taken together. The Holy Spirit and the good gifts of the Spirit—spiritual things, capital “S”- Spiritual things—are what God promises to give.

So here’s what Jesus is saying:

Everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds. Everyone who knocks—the door will be opened. But that does not mean if we ask for a fish, we will always get a fish. It does mean that whatever we receive will be spiritually good. It will be the Holy Spirit and the good gifts of the Spirit.

So if we ask for physical healing, we may or may not receive physical healing. If we do, praise God. But if we don’t, Jesus says we can be absolutely confident that God will answer—with spiritual healing, spiritual strengthening, spiritual good.

The first time I preached this sermon, a man came up to me afterward. He said, “Three years ago my wife died. She was sick in the hospital. I prayed. My family prayed. We wept and prayed. We poured out our hearts to the Lord. We pleaded with Him to spare her life. All for nothing. She died. So what do I do with that? Were all those prayers wasted? Did they fall to the ground unanswered? What kind of God does that?”

His heart was breaking. God was in the dock. God was on trial.

And what I said to him is what Jesus says here: Those prayers were not wasted. They did not fall to the ground unanswered. God answered them—not with physical healing, but with spiritual good. We don’t know exactly what God was doing. Maybe family members came to faith. Maybe doctors or nurses were moved. Maybe believers had their faith strengthened. Maybe that man himself was placed in a position where he had to take spiritual responsibility for his home. We don’t know.

But we do know this:

Our God is good, and His steadfast love endures forever.

This article is based upon a verbatim transcript of a sermon delivered by Dr. Guy Richards. It has been lightly edited in Copilot, as well as the theological staff at Third Millennium Ministries.