Everyone Who Asks, Receives

Are you all familiar with what a pragmatist is? Some of the kids don't know what a pragmatist is. A pragmatist is someone who looks at a situation and says, okay, what's the least I have to do to fix this, to take care of it? And is it bad to be pragmatic? No, it's not bad to be pragmatic because some things need to be done in life. And if we weren't pragmatic, we wouldn't get them done. And so is it inherently sinful to look at a problem and say, here's a solution? No. But is it faithful to view all of life pragmatically? When you look at a situation, whether it's as simple as, what are we going to have for dinner tonight? Or as complex as, what should I do with the rest of my life? Should I marry this person? You don't want to approach all of life pragmatically.

Okay? And the reason is because God's not, at his essence, he's not a pragmatist. Okay? God, how many times do you get impatient because your prayer's not being answered the way you want, you're not getting the thing you want, you're without. And you're going, well, it only makes sense, I need this thing, so why don't I have it? God's inefficient, is what we think in our sin. And yet he's not inefficient, he's just not a pragmatist like you. He's working and he's creating and he's glorifying and sanctifying something that you don't see yet. And if you're old enough to have seen God's work in your life, you realize that when he acts, when he moves, when he answers your prayer, he does it better than what you expected. And yet the reason we get frustrated with him is because we want it now. I want it quick. I want it simple. I want it now. I want it clean. I want it done. And praise the Lord that he's not manipulated by our impatience.

So I want you to see from the very beginning, each one of us has, in some way or another, this idea of, I just want to get it done. I just want to get it done. And so when we approach situations and we're deciding whether it's practical for us to do this or do that, what we're doing is we're looking at the end and we're saying, this is the outcome I want. Can I get that outcome? And if I decide, no, I can't get that outcome, we decide, well, I'm not going to do the thing anymore. And one of the ways that this is most obvious is in our prayer life.

We see problem. I want to get married. I'm praying for a wife. Okay, good. How long will you pray for a wife before you get discouraged and you get frustrated and bitter and stop praying? How long does it take? It doesn't take very long. I listen to young men. They complain all the time about it. Young women, same thing. They get bitter and angry and frustrated. I want a wife. I want a husband. I want kids. I want a better job. I want a nicer car. I want, I want, I want. But we don't pray for it, not regularly. Why? Why don't we pray for it? Because we don't think that God's going to answer. He's not going to give us what he wants, what we want, and so we go hopeless. We're pragmatists. And it's destructive to us when it comes to our prayer life. It's destructive to us. And so this morning, we're going to be continuing on in our study in the book of Luke. Last week, his disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray.

Even John taught his disciples to pray. You teach us to pray. And so last week we studied the Lord's Prayer. And the text that we're studying this week is a continuation of that. It's not the Lord's Prayer, but it's why we should pray. Who is God? And how should we come to him? That's what we're going to be studying this morning. And we're going to have to do away with pragmatism because pragmatism doesn't have faith as a part of it. Pragmatism looks with its own eyes and says, can this be done? And it determines by its own strength if it can or can't and says, I will or I won't do it. So where is faith in an omnipotent, all-knowing, loving Father when we approach life that way? It's gone. And so this morning, my expectation and my hope is that we would change, that we would be strengthened to pray, strengthened and humbled to come to our Father in heaven and bring our requests to him so long as they exist.

I mean, if I was talking to a young man and he wanted to get married and he wasn't, you know, I had this conversation not too long ago with a guy. I've told some of you about it. This young man says, I want to get married. I really want to get married. Marriage is wonderful and it's great and all the rest. And I said, you're right. And I said, you'll get married, young man. You're not a weirdo, okay? I mean, he's weird, but he's not unmarriable weird, okay? Some people are. He's not. I said, you don't have a third eyeball growing out of your head. You're not a loser. Like, you're marriageable. Most people in our society, the vast majority of them, get married. And yet, all these young Christians think, I'm never going to get married. I'm never going to get married. When am I going to get married? And I say, you know what? Some people don't get married. But the vast majority do. Buddy, you're like, what is it, 22 or something.

I'm like, you'll get married. I don't know when and I don't know to who and I don't know any of that. But you will get married. So stop being a grump about it. And so what he said to me when I said, you're going to get married, he says, well, if the Lord wills. And I said to him, don't you ever say that to me. And he's like, well, what do you mean? That's what James says, if the Lord wills. And I said, you didn't say it by faith. James was telling those men who said, we're going to go to this city and we're going to sell this stuff and we're going to make a profit. He wasn't telling them not to have ambition. He was telling them, acknowledge the Lord's goodness to you in that endeavor and then go do it. And I said to him, I said, don't you come and talk about this without faith. Don't pray. You need to pray. If you want to get married, the most simple, basic, constant thing you should do is pray for a wife. And you should pray.

That you would grow such that you can be a husband when that time comes. Because you know what? You're not ready. You're not even close to ready. You're like, I'm ready to go. And I'm going, no, you're not. So why doesn't he pray? Well, he doesn't pray for a wife because he's looking around. He's going, well, there's not a woman sitting there on the shelf for me to pluck off and take home. That's an awful way to view marriage. But this is how many young people think of marriage. They think of it like, I'm going to go buy cereal at the store. I'm just going to walk over. I want that one.

I'm going to go buy it and I'm going to get married. That's not how marriage works. And none of you will admit that's really what I think. But when you have this immature, foolish idea of wanting to get married and yet you don't pray humbly about it, I'm telling you, that's how you view marriage. You think it's a simple thing. There's no beauty. There's no romance. There's no delight in it. It's just a, I need food. Give me the food. I got the food. Do you have the food? Yes. Will that make for a beautiful, God-honoring marriage? If the Lord blesses it, yes, but not really. You won't enjoy that food the way if you'd actually gone and thought, you know, I'd like to have a nice meal. I am hungry, and it's legitimate for me to be hungry, so I'm going to go get some nice food. And I'm willing to wait for nice food. And so we need to become a people of prayer. We need things. We want things. They're good things.

And so it only makes sense that we would ask God for them. And so that's what our text is about this morning, how we ask God for things. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? From Luke chapter 11, verses 5 through 13. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. Then he said to them, suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from inside he answers and says, Do not bother me. The door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, this is Jesus speaking, I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because of his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to 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 he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened.

Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. Well, he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? This is the word of the Lord. Go ahead and sit down. So how are the disciples, how are we, to approach God in prayer? Jesus tells them two parables, two stories. The first of a friend going to his neighbor's house, his friend's house, because a third friend has showed up and he doesn't have any food. So what happens? Well, to put flesh on it, let's just say it's Daniel and I. I have company, shows up at midnight, middle of the night, and I got no food because no refrigerators and all that kind of stuff. No food yet. Wife's in bed. I can't just give them something. They're hungry.

They've showed up late. They haven't eaten. So at midnight, I go and wake up Daniel. Boom, boom, boom. Daniel, wake up. In such a way that he actually can hear me. So it's got to be loud, right? It's disturbing. It's unsettling. It's frustrating to Daniel. And I'm banging on the door. And I'm yelling through the door, hey, I got company. And I got no food. Can you help? And he replies through the door, no. Leave me alone. Stop bothering me. And we're yelling in the middle of the night at each other through the wall. Okay? This is what's going on here. So why did I go to Daniel? Well, yes, I went to go get food. That's right. But why did I go to him instead of someone else? Because he's my friend. Okay? I went to my friend. I didn't go to a stranger. I went to my friend. Consider if you were at home and your weed eater breaks and you need to mow your grass. And you've got neighbors all over the place, right?

Whose door do you go knock on? Your friend, the one you know, right? Because we understand that our friends are going to be more likely to help us. And so we go to our friend. I go to Daniel. Hey, Daniel, help me out, friend. You're my friend. We have this relationship such that you help me and I'll help you. You're not a stranger. Now, does Daniel in this story reply the way a friend should? No. He says, I'm in bed. My kids are in bed. It's cold. No, you're on your own. I'm not going to help you. And it's not because I'm unable to help you. It's because I'm unwilling to help you. And so then what do I do in the story? No, Daniel, I really need it. And I'm not going to go away until you get it. And if you're worried about your kids waking up, get out of bed and give me some food because I'm not going to stop making noise until you do. It's in everyone's best interest for you to grant my request. Please.

And so he keeps asking until his friend relents. I keep pestering until he relents, until he gives me what I want. So what does it require for me to act like that? Well, it requires perseverance. It requires boldness. It's all funny. You're all kind of sitting here going, that's kind of funny what you're doing, Dave. You kind of look like an idiot up there because you're yelling and you're knocking on the doors and you're doing all this stuff. And what that tells me is none of you are willing to look stupid like me. You go knock on the door. I guess they didn't hear. Sorry, friend, I don't have any food for you. So what does it require of me to continue to beat on his door? It requires persistence. It requires boldness. It requires an expectation that my friend's going to act like a friend. And when he says, I'm not going to act like a friend, I'm saying, you're not being a good friend. Be a good friend and give me what you have because I need it. It's an imposition, right?

I'm imposing on Daniel. I didn't send him a text at 3 p.m. and say, hey, my friend's coming into town at midnight tonight. Would you mind making a couple extra loaves of bread and setting them outside your door so I can swing by after work and pick them up? I'm imposing. I'm waking him up. And so I have to be sure of our relationship such that I can do that to him. Because we wouldn't do that to a perfect stranger, would we? No, if we're going to do it at all, we're going to do it with people we know, people we love, and that love us. So I have to be sure that Daniel loves me, such that I can impose upon him to this extent. We do these sorts of things based entirely upon who we think can and will help us. Now, sometimes that's our closest friends and family. In this account, that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with a friend. Other times, though,

we are more likely to impose on strangers than we are on friends and family. Why? Because you're embarrassed. Because you don't want your friend or your family or someone who knows you or lives next to you knowing that you need something. And so you're willing to go ask a perfect stranger for help instead of those who love you the most. And that is stupid. That is stupid for you to do. The man who went to his neighbor's house, to his friend's house, and imposed upon him did the right thing. thing. You love me and I love you and I have a need and I'm going to be humble and bold enough to come to you and demand by my persistence that you help. But we don't because we go, well, what will they think of me? I asked last week for something. Actually, I've asked three times in the last two months for something and they don't ever ask me for anything. And so I'm a leech. And so I'm going to go

ask somebody else or I'm going to go without. This is how we think. We don't want the help. The help's there, the help's available. You know what may well be going on in that situation? One, it may be that God has put the two of you together so that they can help you. And it's their glory to help you because God's given them the means to do it and you the relationship with them. You are their outlet for mercy. That's sweet. Now what else might it be? It might be that he's actually believing the lies that you're not, that he has needs and he is too proud to ask for them. The reason he doesn't ever ask you for help is not because he never needs anything, but because he's too proud to. And that's not a good thing. Friends ought to ask one another for the help and the support and the care and the love and whatever it is they need so often as they need it. It's burdensome. It feels burdensome to you? You're right, it is. But that's okay. Because it's our glory to bear one another's burdens.

Think of children for a minute, your own children. Kids are forever asking questions, right? They're forever imposing at inconvenient times. And they're persistent. Why? Because they implicitly understand that it's your job and your privilege to provide for them. So they don't mind asking. Now how often do you reply like the neighbor in the house does? Don't bother me. Stop it. Go away. You're going to upset my whole life if you keep this up. So what's this first parable teach us? Who's it teach us about? It teaches us about us. Who does it not teach us about? It does not teach us about God. This is in the context of prayer. And so what is the application of this first story? Pray so long as you have a need.

That's the application. It's really simple. So long as you have a need, you need to be asking for it to be fulfilled. And that's going to require boldness and humility and perseverance. Why don't we pray? I think the reason we don't do what we should do from this passage is because we think that God is like that neighbor. That he doesn't want to help. That he doesn't want to hear. That he doesn't want to be bothered. And yet all of us, when we were talking about the neighbor, said, the neighbor was wrong. He was wrong not to get out of bed. He was wrong not to help. He was bitter and selfish and lazy and unloving. And the list could go on. And yet when we read this passage, I think we go, that's what God's like. Because he doesn't answer. He doesn't give me what I want. I feel like I'm supposed to just go away. I shouldn't bother him. He doesn't want to be bothered by me. Again, for the same thing. And you know that Jesus anticipates this.

inclination in our hearts because he goes on and he changes the story. He tells a different story, right? Suppose one of you fathers has a child and the child comes and asks you for something. So now it's no longer friend to friend because that's not actually our relationship to God. He changes it and it's a child and a father. Remember, how are we to pray? When you pray, say father, not Lord, not God, not all this other stuff. Our principal interaction with God is as our father. And we are his children. And so, all of a sudden, the story changes. And isn't it convenient that when we're to be taught about God's disposition toward us, Jesus changes it from friends, peers, equals, men, to a father and a child. Suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?

Or if he asks you for an egg, you wouldn't give him a scorpion, would you? And all of a sudden, Jesus is coming the other direction at you. And he's saying, okay, you're a dad, right? You get love for your children. That makes sense to you. If your child was hungry, you wouldn't give them poison, would you? And every father says, no, of course not. Who would do that? It's a rhetorical question that makes its point without being answered. No father would do that. Because he wouldn't be a father if he did. And so what is this portion teaching us about? It's teaching us about God. What father denies his children's requests because he can't be bothered? I'll tell you what kind of father denies his children's requests because he can't be bothered. A sinful one. If a father acts like the friend, he's not being a faithful father. Am I saying that fathers have to give their kids everything they ask for?

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is a father's disposition towards his son is not fend for yourself, figure it out, that struggle will always and every time be good for you. It's a father's joy and delight to provide for his children, to care for them, to give them the things that he knows they need. These parables are not theoretical. At the beginning of both of these stories, he says, suppose one of you, Suppose one of you who's a father. Jesus is intentionally trying to get his disciples to put themselves in the situation and say, what would you do? Or what should you do? Suppose one of you has a friend. Would you behave? You should behave like this. Suppose one of you is a father. You wouldn't treat your children this way, would you?

And so these fathers, every one of you is a father, unless you're an utterly, completely wicked man who doesn't even know the inclinations of your heart towards your children, says, yeah, I want to provide for my kids. I want to take care of them. I want to give them and bless them with good things. And then Jesus says this strange thing. He says at the end, he says, if you then, you fathers, being what? Evil. If you then being evil, Sinful, wicked, not perfect men. Here we are as fathers. We live in the tension of this. The tension between what we know we should do and what we actually do. Every one of us tells our kids to go away and not bother us again. I already told you no. And I didn't tell you no because I couldn't help you. I told you no because I wouldn't help you. And I had no good reason to tell you no other than I didn't want to. Because it was an inconvenience to me. It was a bother to me. Figure it out yourself.

We live in the tension between doing that and what we should do, which is bear with our children's weaknesses, care for them, love them, provide for them. So you then, being evil, who don't do what you should do, because you bear the title father, if you, being evil, still know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so your father in heaven? He doesn't live in the tension of our sinful nature. He doesn't have the struggles that we do. He doesn't get tired. He doesn't get worn out. He doesn't just want a break. He doesn't want to just chill out for a minute. He's perfectly and infinitely involved in our lives and caring for us and providing for us and giving us the things that we need. And it's his joy to do it. He doesn't do it because he has to. He does it because he loves to. This is our Father in heaven. He delights in giving us good gifts.

In the same way that you fathers, when you're not being sinful, love giving your children good gifts. It's a great joy to you. The reason it's a joy to you, the reason that you get satisfaction from it, is because in that moment, you are telling the truth about God the Father. Your children come to you and they ask you something. And you, by faith, and because of the goodness of God, you say, yes, I will. I can and I will. Here you go, son. You're telling the truth about God the Father. And that's why you enjoy it. Because obedience is joyful. It's not burdensome. The father who views his position as obligation, obligatory, well, I have to. There's no joy in that. He doesn't delight in it. And you know what? He doesn't give his kids good gifts. But fatherhood is something that you men are to delight in, that you're to take joy in, that you're to glory in, because you get to demonstrate.

to your children and to the world, the kindness of God. Many of us didn't have fathers who did a very good job of that. And our own father's failures, whether you're young now or whether you're a grandpa, grandma, your fathers failed. They were not perfect. And some of them failed really badly. And what's happened is you've taken their failures and superimposed them on to God the Father and said, he's like them. No, he's not. No, he's not. They failed to be like him. They don't get to dictate who the father is. The counterfeit doesn't tell you what the real thing is like. When you find a fault in the counterfeit, you say, bad counterfeit. You don't go, oh, well, $20 bills are worthless now because I got handed a counterfeit. You say, that's a counterfeit. I want the real thing. And I say, you have the real thing. By faith, you have the real thing. You have access to the real thing.

This is something that I know personally. I grew up without a dad, entirely. No men in my life to care for me and love for me until I was in my early 20s. And when I finally went to meet my dad, some of you know the story, some of you don't. When I finally went to meet my dad back in 2011, and I hadn't seen him, I have no memory of it, but pictures of me when I was like six months old. When I finally went to meet with him, the reason I wanted to go meet with him was not to punch him. not to beat him up, not to tell him, you're an awful, wicked, terrible man and you abandoned me and my mom and all of the stuff that was actually true. What I wanted to go and tell him was, I have a father who's taken care of me and provided for me all these years that you didn't. And I'm not mad at you. And you failed. Our wicked fathers don't get to change, should not, cannot change who God the Father is in our minds. And yet we're so susceptible to it.

We're so easily turned aside from who God is and who he says he is and who he demonstrates himself to be. Because our own fathers sin against us. What an awful thing when children stop asking their fathers for help. How terrible is that, fathers? When your kids don't ask you for help, they're struggling. And they've learned from you to push through it without your help. Yes, they need to become men. Yes, they need to learn to bear burdens. Yes, they need to work hard. They need to persevere in adversity and all of that. They need to do that. But if they're not asking you for help because you've taught them that you won't help, you have lied to them. And it's your place to repent. Because you won't have children who are good fathers themselves because they've had a bad model. And they will have believed lies about God. They won't pray. They will be the worst kind of pragmatist. One that has no faith. One that looks at a situation and says, can I do it on my own? Because I've learned through all my life that I have to do it on my own.

Because there's no help available to me in Christ. As I was preparing this sermon, I thought, this is a Father's Day sermon. So, it's a sermon on fatherhood and it's a sermon on prayer. Are any of you comfortable, content, satisfied with your prayer life? I listen to you guys pray. Many of you don't pray to God as Father. If we can be blunt, you don't. Why? You were never taught to pray to God as Father. You weren't taught by your father in his demonstration. And you weren't taught through God's word. You're to pray to God as father. You're to discipline yourself to view God as your father. And when your father failed, you go, my father failed. But God doesn't fail. And he's my father. And I'm going to pray to him. I'm going to discipline myself to learn to view him that way. To learn to relate to him that way. Because God the father won't fail you. And it will change your life.

It will change all of the burdens and all of the struggles and all of the cares that you have. Because you have them. I have them. We all do. Who can you go to? Who can help? Can your friend help? Maybe. Your friend might not want to. Who can help? Who will help? God the Father will. So what does it mean to be a son? In the second parable, the son comes to the father and says, Daddy, I'm hungry. Can I have a fish? Daddy, I'm hungry. Can I have an egg? In other accounts of this, Daddy, I'm hungry. Can I have some bread? What do we learn about the son? We learn that the son asks. Part of being a son is that you must ask. You must ask. And that means for you children, it's your place to ask your father for things. Don't you dare let him teach you by his sin that you should not ask him for things. You ask your daddy to be your daddy.

And you don't stop asking him to be your daddy because he'll never cease to be your daddy. You ask him to care for you. And if he's impatient and he's sinful, you pray for him. And you tell him, Daddy, did I ask for something unreasonable? Please give it to me. So long as you need it, you ask for it. You don't give up praying. You don't give up asking. Not until it's been answered. You, for your part, the good neighbor, the son, you are to petition, to request, to ask, verging on demand. Children can demand that their fathers act like their fathers. Would you be my dad now? Would you do what you should do for me? That is not disrespectful. That is appropriate.

Because a son understands his place and he understands that his dad loves him and wants to provide for him and will do it. And so you ask and you request and you demand and you plead and you cry and you ask again until you're given what you've requested or until you've at least received an answer. It may be that God says no. God said no to Paul when he asked to have his thorn in the flesh removed. I prayed three times that my thorn in the flesh would be removed and the Lord answered me and said, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. And he was answered. And so it's possible for a loving father to answer no, not right now. And I can't explain to you the difference between what's going on behind the scenes when a father says no. Because sometimes a father says no and it's because he's a lazy, selfish pig. And sometimes fathers say no and it's the pinnacle of their love for their child. The Holy Spirit will teach you and help you to see what you're doing when you're doing it. Suffice it to say that if you as a father say no to your children, your motivation should be, I love you and I know what's best for you. I want good things for you and I'm saying no to you because of that. That's why I'm saying no.

What else do we learn about the son? The son makes reasonable requests of his father. He makes reasonable requests. I'm hungry. Can I have food? What did Jesus teach his disciples to pray? Give us this day our daily bread. We talked last week about bread as opposed to other kinds of food. They were being taught to be content and humble in their requests. And that's what a son does. A son might demand his father be a father, but he's not a consumer of his father's goods. If you think of welfare in our society, it's a really good example of inappropriate demanding. Do people need to be cared for? Do they need help in their weakness? Yes, and absolutely. But it actually matters how they ask. And it actually matters what they ask for. For someone to ask for food is one thing if they're hungry. Even scripture tells us that if a man steals because he's hungry to feed his family, he won't be judged the same way that if he's not.

He still has to repay it, but his penalty is not nearly as severe as if he steals because he's selfish. If he takes out of his poverty, it's more understandable. So when people demand things in our society like a cell phone, that's inappropriate. That's not something you need. Every one of us, maybe, at least if you're my age, you lived life without a cell phone. And you were probably the better for it. That's not a need. That's an extravagant, that's an unnecessary request. That's not something that you're entitled to. But food? Yeah, you're entitled to that. It's completely reasonable for children to ask their parents to give them food. And so the son asks. And he asks and he asks and he asks until he gets what he wants. Because that's what we learn from the friend parable. What we learn from the father and son parable is that he asks for reasonable things. He doesn't presume upon his father's obligation. It's mine because I'm your son. You owe it to me. Well, the reality is it is all yours because you're the son.

That's what the Bible tells us, is that everything that God has is yours through Jesus Christ. You have access to all of it. And yet our true son doesn't demand it. So we're to be like the son. We're to pray to our father in heaven, calling him our father in heaven, calling him our daddy. Our daddy. Asking him to provide for us what we need. With an expectation that he will. We are to become like children. In Luke 18, 16 and 17, Jesus says, permit the children to come to me and do not hinder them. For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. You have to become like a child in your relationship to God. And you know what? You'll get older and you'll get married and you'll have kids and you'll get gray hair and your body will deteriorate. And you know what? Every single one of you, wherever you're at on that continuum is still,

A child. The oldest person in this room is a child because they have parents. You never outgrow being God's child. You never grow up to be his peer. You are always his child. And so it's becoming of you for your entire life to relate to him as your father and you understand yourself to be his child. That he has obligation and desire to care for your every need and to bless you and give you the things that are necessary for life. So that's the first application. You're a child and you'll never outgrow it. You relate to God as your father from now until you die. Well, really from now until eternity. But the struggle to do it will only last until you die. And then the struggle will go away and it'll come naturally to you because you'll be new. The second application, the final application. You relate to one another the same way. It is not sufficient.

For you to be private about your needs. It is not okay for you to have needs and to keep them quiet and to keep them away from your family. Because we together are God's family. We together are brothers and sisters through Christ. And so it wouldn't make any sense for me to pray and to ask God to give me things when I can look right at Daniel and see that it would be his glory. For God to use him to provide for that means. So if you're going to pray and ask God to meet your needs, don't you dare be ashamed of the means that he uses to do it. Lord, I hope I can fix my car. Help me fix my car. Is that a good prayer? Yeah, Father, please help me fix my car. That's a great prayer. What else should you do? You should talk to the guy in the church that knows how to work on cars. And you should impose upon him and say, I need your help. And when he says, I can't be bothered, you say, you have to be bothered.

Because you have the tools and you have the know-how and I have the need. And I'm going to make you miserable until you help me. Please and thank you. That's our place. And to the one who is presumed upon, who's been asked, you have an opportunity to behave either like God the Father in that situation or like the lazy neighbor. You choose. You're going to help or you're not going to help? You help. You sacrifice. You give of yourself and you do it with joy because it's your privilege to do it. And you will find joy in it when you're able to give to your brothers and your sisters as God's given to you. You won't find anything that makes you more happy, more satisfied, that gives you more energy. You want it to be true of you that when you die and they're talking about you, that they say, anything he asked for, anything I ever asked for of him, he helped me, he gave to me. He provided for me, he sacrificed.

That's what you want people to know about you. Because that's who God is. And we're to reflect him. We're to imitate him. We're to be like him. This is our place. This is our privilege as Christians. We're the only ones who can do it. The world can't do it. The world doesn't have any interest in doing it. But we get to do it. You look for other people's needs. When they ask you, you meet them. And you do it with joy. Because that glorifies God your Father. Let's pray. Father, when we were poor and helpless, fatherless in this world, you became our Father through Jesus Christ. We praise you and we love you. Our hearts cry out to you, Abba, Father. I pray, Father, that you would make each one of us aware of our need for you, our need of salvation, our need of strength and perseverance, our need of discipleship and instruction. I pray, Father, that you would meet these needs because you love us, and I pray that you'd meet these needs through us toward one another. Help us to love each other as you've loved us, to glorify you, and to make sacrifices because you've made sacrifice for us. We love you, Father, and we praise you. Glorify yourself in us and through our lives, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.