Grace and Peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in
the truth; for His word is truth. Amen
The Ninth
Sunday after Pentecost (2010)
Father, Shower
Us with Your Grace
Luke 11:13 (ESV)
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!"
In today’s Gospel Reading, St.
Luke provides us with an illustration of our Lord Jesus answering one of His
disciples who had asked, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his
disciples” (Luke 11:1 ESV). Responding to this request, our Lord then
teaches him and the others the words of the most blessed of all prayers, the Lord’s
Prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer is held in
highest esteem by Christians of every age. Without a doubt, there are many
reasons why the Lord’s Prayer is the most excellent of prayers. The first
reason is because our Lord, Jesus Christ taught us this prayer. For whatever
reason, there have always been those who have argued that a Christian should
never use any set or fixed prayer. They insist that all prayer must come only
from the heart; in one’s own words and any prayer recited other than a prayer
from the heart is not really a prayer. Of course, there is some truth in this
line of thought; for without question, as children of our heavenly Father we
have a relationship with Him that allows us talk to Him, freely, from the
heart. However, that does not mean that we must avoid or even condemn the use
of set prayers which also come from the heart, yet are preserved in written
form. In fact, what else is the Lord’s Prayer than words from the very heart of
Jesus written down so the Church may, for perpetuity, offer this most excellent
of all prayers.
Moreover, the Lord’s Prayer
is the most excellent of all prayers because it contains all that we should and
may ask from God. In the words of the Lord’s Prayer we begin in heaven,
addressing our heavenly Father, giving Him the Glory due His Most Holy Name and
we finish on earth asking for God’s intervention in our lives; giving us our
daily bread, forgiving us, granting us an excellent faith so we may forgive
others; delivering us from the things of Satan.
In these words, taught to us
by our Lord Jesus, He has given us a most excellent way of asking our heavenly Father to Shower Us with His Grace.
As I said earlier, St. Luke
tells us of a disciple who had come to our Lord, asking Him to teach him to
pray. As a man of faith, this disciple most probably didn’t lack the ability to
choose his words for prayer, but he may well have lacked confidence in the
power of prayer. He may well have thought, “I have prayed for many things
sincerely and earnestly, but many of my prayers have gone unanswered. Sometimes
I lose heart and begin to think; is prayer worth it? Does it really pay to
continue to pray?” Thus, it may well be for this reason that our Lord not only
gives him the words of the Lord’s Prayer, but He follows His prayer with a
parable to illustrate His point. Moreover, when we read this account from the
Gospel of St. Luke we realize that this problem may well be one that is close
to our own hearts.
Perhaps there was a time
when you prayed for courage to face some fearful force in your life; or a time
you prayed for a neighbor who was in trouble; or a time you asked for strength
to perform some needed task; or a time you pleaded for wisdom to solve some
problem; or a time you pleaded for health and recovery from an illness or
injury. These are all worthy requests! Yet God did not seem to hear your cry
from your heart. Then you wondered impatiently, why didn’t God give you the
light you needed, the strength you wanted, the peace you longed for or the
healing you needed?
The same temptation to
impatience with God confronts us also in the matter of our progress in
Christian growth. How slowly we move forward in our development of the
Christian character and personality! In other areas of life we become experts
rather quickly. We become expert mechanics, accountants, physicians, teachers,
etc. after just a few years of training and experience, but many of us have
been practicing living the Christian life for decades—and we’re still a long
way from being experts. Now, this isn’t because we’re not willing. Most, I am
certain, who call themselves Christians, wholeheartedly desire that they could
advance more rapidly on the road to becoming a Christian specialist. God knows
we want to be better Christians than what we are!
How often have you prayed
for improvement in living the Christian life? How often have you prayed to have
the virtues of those early century Christians; to have the courage of Peter;
the contentment of Paul; or the love of John? You have longed and prayed for
the power to rise above your self, and again and again you have found that the
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. For years you’ve struggled with some
weakness, some shameful moral defect, some secret sin, and still you have not
conquered it. You’ve made promises to yourself, passed resolutions, and poured
out your heart in fervent prayer, but as you look back, you know that if you
have made progress at all, it has been at a snails pace. Faced with the truth
of this dilemma, impatience with a lack of spiritual progress brings on
frustration leading to possible perilous outcome.
Countless are the poor souls
walking the earth today who gave up their Christian faith because they gave up
on the Christian life. It’s tragic enough to behold those who have never known
Christ and the power and peace which come through fellowship with Him. However,
it is even more tragic to know those who once were members of the Body of
Christ, who were sheep of the true Shepherd, who have bolted from the sheep pen
and have forsaken our Lord, Jesus. Far too many fall into this latter category;
former Christians, men and women who have deserted Christ because they lost
patience with God. Once they had been held firmly in His loving arms through
the wonderful blessings of the Gospel. The promise of an eternal life of peace
and joy which no one in this life can truly anticipate filled them with an
excitement they had never before experienced. They started their quest with
eager anticipation and confidence, feeling certain that they would make rapid
strides in their search for righteousness. They believed they would quickly
develop a strong Christian character, which would immunize them against the
evil influences of a corrupt and wicked world. Moreover, they imagined they
would develop almost overnight those Christ like qualities of heart and mind
which would empower them to master all their fears and anxieties, leading them to
bear all sorrow and grief with unruffled composure. However, they discovered,
to their chagrin, sanctification is a slow and demanding process. It takes
courage and commitment to build a Christian life; to take up one’s cross and
follow Jesus. The Holy Spirit operates on His time. Moreover, they found that
being a Christian does not isolate them from bewilderment and bereavement nor
protect them from the cruel blows of misfortune, illness, or adversity. They
learned, to their dismay, that many times the new man fought a losing battle
against the Old Adam and that living the Christian life is marked by moral
defeats and spiritual failures. Lacking patience with God and failing to have
the time to wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises, these who would be
Christians failed to heed God’s Word when He told them to, “Wait for the Lord; be strong,
and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! (Psalm 27:14 ESV).
Failure to wait on God leads to a lack of perseverance which is so vital in
overcoming the pull of the flesh and the attack of Satan.
Thus, our text this morning
is a plea for all of us to continually to “ask” to “seek” and to “knock” and
never tire while we wait on the Lord to “provide us with the answer”, to “show
us the way” and to “open His heavenly door to our petitions” (Luke 11:9). Often
we must ask a thousand times before we receive an answer, or seek for what
seems an eternity before He shows us the way and our knuckles may get raw and
bloody from our knocking before He opens His heavenly door to our needs, but
fear not; He will respond to your prayer! You will be Showered by His Grace if you but “Wait for the Lord!”
In the parable when Jesus
tells us of a sleeping man who is hesitant to rise and answer the door, He is
not speaking about Himself. On the contrary, such a man is the exact opposite
of our Lord who “neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Psalm 121:4 ESV). In fact, there
is no resemblance between this slumbering man and God. Instead, our Lord,
Jesus, provides us with a clear picture of a loving and gracious God who hears
prayer and answers. He says, “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!” (v. 13). The man in the parable answers simply because
he is annoyed with his neighbors knocking which is disturbing his sleep. Our
Lord, Jesus on the other hand reminds us our of heavenly Father’s loving
concern for us.
Standing at the foot of the
Cross of our crucified Lord, we discover the infinite, glorious grace and mercy
of God. There, at the feet of our Lord Jesus, God, our Father, Showers us with His Grace. Standing at the feet of our Lord
Jesus we can easily hear St. Paul when he says, “He who did not spare his own
Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give
us all things?” (Romans 8:32 ESV). Faced with this truth we ask
ourselves how can we ever doubt God, who gave up His one and only Son so we
could be reconciled to Him, so that we could be forgiven of all our sins, so
that we could live with Him in eternity, forever; how could we ever doubt that
He would also not hear our prayers and supply all our needs?
God will indeed answer all your
prayers, but He will answer them in His time and for His purpose, thus, you
need to remember that you are to be patient. Like the man who needed three
loaves of bread to feed his traveling friend, you must never quit asking, you
must never quit praying for help or longing for holiness; you must persevere! However,
you must remember that with God a thousand years are like a day, and often God
in His wisdom reacts slowly; not only in His response to your prayer, but in
His judgment, for which we are truly grateful.
Being sinful humans you
cannot help but be in a hurry to get what you ask for, and often your prayers
are offered in a frantic spirit, as though God doesn’t understand your urgency
or real need. God keeps you waiting; a year, ten years, perhaps fifty years.
Sometimes He doesn’t answer your prayers on this side of heaven. However,
knowing God and His love and kindness toward you, if you seek, He will show you
the way, but you must never stop seeking. You must never stop asking! You must
never stop knocking, as you wait on the Lord.
God, fulfilling His promise
in the Garden of Eden to send the world a Savior; a Savior, which many believed
in but never witnessed, has called you to a living faith to believe that
because of the atoning sacrifice of His Son all mankind has been reconciled to
Him and offered the forgiveness of sins. He has cleansed you of all sins in the
waters of Baptism, burying you with His Son and raising you up with Him in
faith with new, living hearts to be His children, filled with the Holy Spirit,
and with His Son’s righteousness. You are new persons, born again in the waters
of Baptism, born to love God and led to place your unwavering faith in His
goodness and mercy. Thus, He has saved you from the horrors of hell and granted
you eternal life with Him in His heavenly home all for the sake of His Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord; the Savior He promised to send in the Garden of Eden. He
was patient with His creation, He constantly overlooked their running away from
Him, chasing after other gods who they thought might answer their prayers
quicker. His patience led Him to be merciful and He fulfilled His promise to
send a Savior for all mankind; our Lord, Jesus Christ. He was patient with you,
let us pray that you might also be patient with Him and wait on Him to Shower you with His Grace.
Heavenly Father, grant us
patience to wait on You, so that we might commit our ways to be Your ways and our
will to be Your Will; always trusting in Your One and only Son, Jesus Christ,
who gave His life as a ransom for many; paying the price for the forgiveness of
our sin. Help us always to know that You are a merciful and gracious God caring
for all who love You. Thus we pray, Father of all mercies; shower us with Your
grace leading us to love You above all things and to have patience to wait on
You! For this and all things we pray in the name of Your Son, Jesus, who with You
and the Holy Spirit reign as One God, now and forever. Amen.
May the Peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.