Luke chapter 11, and we're going to read in this chapter the first 10 verses, please. Luke chapter 11, and we'll begin at verse 1. And it came to pass that as he was praying, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, when ye pray, say, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And he said unto them, which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Amen. We'll end our reading there and ask the Lord to bless this reading and the preaching to our hearts. In these four verses, verse five through to eight of Luke 11, Christ is continuing to answer a request from his disciples. And of course, you would have seen that request as we read it together in verse one. Lord, teach us to pray. In the verses 2 to 4, which we know very well, Christ had instructed his disciples as to what they should pray. You could call that the matter for prayer. He gave them specific petitions, which we're all familiar with, which make up what we call the Lord's Prayer. A fuller version of this template for prayer is found in Matthew's Gospel. And after giving them the matters for prayer, the petitions that are in keeping with God's word, and that form a pattern that we can all follow, Christ then continued to answer his disciples' request by showing them the manner, the manner of true prayer. We can only be confident that we are truly praying, and that is our concern as we come here this evening to pray together We are concerned with knowing that we pray according to the word of God, that we pray in the spirit, true prayer. And of course, we can only offer true prayer, true biblical, scriptural-based, Christ-centered prayer when we pray according to the word of God. And one such example is the example of verses two to four. But once we know the matter of true prayer, what we should pray for, then Christ has more to teach us believers, disciples, by teaching us the manner of true prayer, how we should pray, the manner in which we should offer our prayers. And that's what I want to consider with you this evening. The first thing that Christ taught his disciples regarding the manner of true prayer is that true prayer takes priority. It's all very well knowing what you should pray. It's good, it's absolutely right to pray according to the scriptures and to pray things that are biblical. We should never pray anything else. That goes without saying. But we have to know how we should pray. And Christ, first of all, teaches that true prayer takes priority. We saw in his own example in verse one that it was his habit to be regularly in prayer. All throughout his earthly ministry, we find the Lord Jesus Christ engaged in prayer, all the way up to the garden. And even while he hung on the cross, he was praying. He was praying for the transgressors. He was praying for his executioners. He was praying for sinners, even as he hung on the cross in his final moments. He was a man of prayer. David said in Psalm 63 in verse one, oh God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. And that verse teaches us that true prayer for the believer must take priority. Early will I seek thee doesn't just mean, Lord, I'll seek you first thing in the morning. It could also mean, Lord, I'll seek you as a matter of priority. On the list of things that I have to do, Lord, prayer, is early on that list, it's top of the list. That would be a good way to approach prayer. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 3 in verse 10 that he was night and day praying exceedingly. For many saints of God in scripture and in our own personal experience and in books that we have read, men and women who knew God and loved God, for them true prayer took priority. Clearly, you understand that you're here this evening. You understand the importance of prayer and it has been made a priority in your lives by the grace of God. May it continue to be so and the same for myself. But as we read this passage, Luke 11, five to eight, Christ teaches his disciples the manner of true prayer by using a parable. As we read it, we're invited to imagine ourselves as the middle man, the middle woman, in a certain scenario. You have two friends who are, it seems, unknown to each other. One friend comes to your house late at night. We'll call him the unexpected guest. The other friend is the person whom you go and ask bread. And he's the unwilling giver. Hopefully that'll help you to keep this clear in your minds because the passage just uses the word friend, friend. Unexpected guest, unwilling giver. If you look at verse six with me, you'll see that it says, for a friend of mine in his journey, this is the unexpected guest, is come to me. That word journey, in his journey, if you look at the original text, and with the help of scholars and commentators, I quickly add, I have learned that this phrase means out of the way. And what do we learn from that? We learn that this man, the unexpected guest, wasn't enjoying great progress on his journey. He was out of his way. He had been on the road for many hours. Somebody who came to your house at midnight was clearly doing so out of complete necessity. They hadn't found anywhere else to stop before that late hour. This man was on a long journey. And because he was out on the road and hungry, it was necessary to be a friend, a true friend, a good host, to feed him. But the host doesn't have any food, so he makes a request for something which the unwilling giver could provide. And true prayer takes priority. First of all, we need to learn that true prayer must take priority because you and I can neither meet our own needs or the needs of others. We can neither meet our own needs or the needs of others. Why did this man go to his friend immediately and ask bread? Well, it was because this unexpected guest came and needed. He needed bread. And in verse six, we learn, I have nothing to set before him. This was the reason for the request. This was the reason why he went as a matter of priority and made this request. He was honest. He realized that he had nothing to set before him. Believer, you and I, one reason why we must give priority to true prayer is, as I've said already, we can neither meet our own needs, our own true deep needs, nor those of others. And when people come across my path, or across your path, who need the bread of life, we need to make it a matter of priority to go to the Lord and ask help, to be able to present them with the bread of life and to be able to point them to Jesus Christ, to give those hungry travelers what they truly need. In and of ourselves, we have nothing to offer. I can't save a soul, you can't save a soul, but the Lord Jesus Christ can. So to whom should we make it a matter of priority to make our requests in order to help others? It's from the Lord, of course. This man had no food in his cupboards. There was certainly no McDonald's. There was no 24-hour shop. There was only one place, one person to whom he could go and get what was needed. And similarly, believer, you and I can only go to the Lord with this kind of request, the request to give people what is really needed. It's only the Lord, and we must go to him as a matter of priority. In Acts chapter six, if you want to turn over there briefly, there's a passage that emphasizes the priority of true prayer, and that it's not to be set aside even for the most important physical needs. We've been thinking about a hungry man. And in Acts chapter six, there are hungry people. Acts chapter six, verse one tells us of a time when the New Testament church was growing quickly. after Pentecost, reads, and in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. And I'm sure many of us have read this passage before. But we learn that the 12, who by now are marked as apostles, verse two, called the multitude of the disciples onto them and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. And here is the priority. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Now, there was a solution that could be found for the physical needs of the widows. And it's important that we are not over spiritualizing things. Physical needs must be met. We all need to eat. But the matter of priority for the apostles here and for every believer as we manage our lives and manage our time and we set our priorities. It's our responsibility to do so. Take the example of the apostles and give ourselves first and foremost to prayer. To give ourselves continually to prayer. And that word continually really brings us to the second thought that I want to present to you from Luke 11, which is the whole point of this parable, continually to prayer. So go back to your text with me. Having learned that true prayer takes priority, let us now see that true prayer is persistent. True prayer is persistent. Look with me at Luke 11, verse 7. And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give thee. Now imagine yourself in this scenario. You've gone around to your friend's house at midnight. You've asked him for a very reasonable, a very necessary thing. And instead of giving you the three loaves that you've asked for, out the window come three objections. Number one, he's not going to give because it would be troubling. Trouble me not. I can't be bothered. Number two, he won't give because the door's shut and the house is in silence and the time for such behavior is long past. It's the middle of the night. I can't give you. And the third reason is that his children are in bed and he doesn't want to wake them, which is fairly relatable, isn't it? And with such a thorough refusal, it seemed to this man, the petitioner, that there was no chance of any success of getting the thing that he asked for. He hasn't left them in any doubt, has he, in verse seven. It's very clear. I'm not going to give you. I can't. Here are all the reasons. But in verse eight, we learn that the petitioner wasn't put off. And there's a word that's used to describe this man in verse eight. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him. Importunity. is how this man was acting. His importunity describes the fact that he was persistent. And it's a word that we don't use much nowadays. Now, if you look words up online, you can see a graph of their usage. And the word importunate used to be used quite a lot. And then as you come into the 1900s, the usage goes way down. And other than the word of God, I've never heard this word anywhere else. So I think it's important that we just take a minute or two to make sure we know what it means. If you're unfortunate, you are persistent, even to the point of being annoying. Unfortunate is to be shameless. And the English word comes from a Latin word that means inconvenient or unseasonable. And that's a lot to take in. I'll run over that again. To be unfortunate is to be persistent, even to the point of being annoying. It comes from a word that means inconvenient or unseasonable. Why would the Lord Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, instruct the writers of scripture to use this word? What does it have to teach us? This is an incredibly important passage. This follows immediately on the heels of the Lord's prayer. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ wanted his disciples and us to know. about prayer. This is important. So what does this word mean? Let me give you an illustration, and this is the opposite. An employee who wants to ask their boss for a pay rise will try to identify an opportune moment to do so. He will not make that request with importunity. For example, he won't make the request at an inconvenient time. If you've any wit and you want to ask your boss for a pay rise, you won't go to him first thing on a Monday morning. You won't go to him just before lunch. No. You'll wait for a good time. Secondly, if you go and ask your boss for a pay rise and he says, look, I'm sorry, we just can't. The money's not there. If you've any sense, you'll listen. And you say, OK, thank you very much. And you won't refuse to take no for an answer. You won't keep asking and asking and pestering this man, ruining your relationship with him or this woman, and completely alienating your boss. That would be foolish. You wait for an opportune moment, and you do not make such a request with importunity. And hopefully, that's showing us what importunity is, being persistent, even annoying. When by all social standards, everybody, if they knew what you were doing, would have said to you, would you give over? Stop it. You're embarrassing yourself. That's importunity. And that's how the Lord Jesus Christ instructs us to pray. To persistently pray, even when you might think you're being annoying. To ask and ask and ask again. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't only teach importunity in prayer in this parable, he did it also in Luke 18. Just go over to that with me, Luke 18. This is the parable of the unjust judge. And in Luke 18, verse one, it says, and he spake a parable unto them to this end that men ought always to pray and not to faint. And then go to verse five. The words of the judge are, in response to this persistent widow, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. Verse six, and the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge saith, and shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Now you look at verse six there in Luke 18, and you see the Lord described the judge as unjust. And it was only because this woman was going to weary him that he eventually gave her what she wanted. She was unfortunate. She was persistent. She didn't give up. And that unjust judge has something in common with the unwilling giver, if you go back to Luke 11. It wasn't very reasonable. In fact, you could say that it was unjust of him not to help his friend. It was truly, it was unjust of him not to give his friend the bread. The friend needed the bread. It was very reasonable. And he only got it in the end by being importunate, by being persistent. And the Lord has given two parables, even just in this gospel, to teach you and I that that is the manner of true prayer. D.L. Moody said in his book on prevailing prayer, the book was called Prevailing Prayer, the only way to trouble God is not to come at all. The only way to trouble God is not to come at all. And that points out one very, very important thing before we come to our third and final thought. We've seen in Luke 11 the unwilling giver. And in Luke 18, briefly, we've seen the unjust judge. Those two characters, as we think of prayer, we put ourselves in the shoes of the man making the request. Those were the people being asked of. But those two people in no way reflect the character of God. from whom we ask. And when we pray to God, we mustn't in any way, I hope in no way have I suggested that God is like this unwilling giver or the unjust judge. He's not at all. That's the point being made in the rest of this passage. If you would look with me at verse 13, the Lord Jesus makes that very clear. The unwilling giver does not reflect the character of God. God is not unwilling. His ear is open unto the righteous. Because he hath inclined, because he hath turned pointed his ear towards me, therefore I will call upon him as long as I live, the psalmist said. And so we need to understand that God is not shown in the character of this unwilling giver. The only way to trouble God is not to come at all. We can't trouble God by coming to him persistently. That's what he's teaching us to do. And so we've seen that true prayer takes priority. We've seen that true prayer is persistent. And in the third and final place, let us see that true prayer prevails. True prayer prevails. And the lesson being taught in Luke 11 is if persistence can win over a selfish and unwilling and grumpy neighbor, how much more effective will persistence be with our dear heavenly Father? who has set his love upon us, who gave us his only begotten son. How much more effective will persistence be when offered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, with whom he is well pleased, and in whom we rest, because of whom we are accepted. You and I know that sometimes the only way to get a thing done in life is by nagging at people. A former boss of mine tried to make this very clear to me one day, and he was getting a bit frustrated because he thought a thing could get done if I would just nag. And he said, Stephen, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. And I thought, why are you speaking in riddles to me? Just talk sense. But I went away and thought about it, and he was right. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. And if persistence wins over reluctant people and unwilling givers and unjust judges, then how much more effective will persistence be from a redeemed sinner to our dear Heavenly Father? Romans chapter 10 and verse 12 says, God is pleased to hear his children pray. He's not wearied. As we often hear in prayer meetings, not wearied by our off time coming. Psalm 116 verse two, I think I quoted this already. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The psalmist was determined to be persistent as long as I live. That's a good ambition. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring. We have no idea how the rest of our days will play out. What we can and cannot do. But as long as there are thoughts going through our heads, there's life and breath in us, we can always pray. I will call upon him as long as I live. And the man in Luke 11, the importunate, the persistent man, was continued and he was rewarded. Verse eight, because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. Our God never slumbers nor sleeps. He's always ready to hear our prayers and to answer those prayers. If you ask anything in my name, I will give it. And you might notice that as we read the final two verses of our passage, verses nine and 10, and I say unto you, ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. I have to admit, Plain and simple, because of a lack of familiarity with the word of God, if I had seen those two verses written somewhere or quoted by someone, as we often do, I would not, until I had studied for this message, have associated them with the unfortunate man. But I always will now. Because verses nine and 10 describe the unfortunate man. Don't they? They describe exactly what he was doing. You picture him there at the door of his friend's house, late at night, pitch black. Remember, this is the eastern Israel. It gets dark quite early. at certain parts of the year. He's standing there in the pitch black, he's knocking, he's asking because he's there, he's seeking for the bread, he's asking as he speaks, and he's knocking on the door. And I'll always think of the unfortunate man when I hear these verses from now on. And I trust that the Lord will use that to remind me because I need reminded to be persistent. I need to be reminded to be consistent in my prayer life. And every time I hear those verses, I'll think of this man who has set forward for us as being a persistent, persistent example of what it is to pray truly. Not only praying scriptural prayers, but praying them consistently. God wants us to pray persistently for our unsaved family and friends. And as time goes on and as you pray for them, and I know you do, you do get weary. It's just part of being human to get wearied and to give up. We're fickle. We're changeable. But our God is immutable. He's unchanging. He never changes. And one thing that never changes about God is that he's never wearied to hear his children pray. And so as we close tonight, let me just leave one verse with you. I'll just read it to you. It was the word of Jacob in Genesis 32 in verse 26. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. May the Lord use these thoughts to bless you tonight, and may the Lord give me and you more persistence in prayer. I know I need it. I know that if I were more persistent in prayer, the Lord would be pleased. He would lead, he would guide, he would bless. And so may we be encouraged tonight and in the days to come to be like this man, important, persistent, and may we pray according to the word of God. God bless us to your hearts. At this point, I just ask your brother to please bring the announcements. Thank you.