Faith-Filled Prayer (Luke 11:1-13)

An employment company is currently running a couple of advertisements which feature fictional characters who look for their perfect jobs on the company’s app. One of these characters is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She is working in a supermarket but finds what sounds like the perfect job for her by using the company being advertised. The ads finish with the tag line, “Seek and you shall find.”

The promise of these ads is that there might be a better job for us which we can find by using the company’s services. To do that, we first need to believe that what they are offering is possible. If people viewing the ads don’t believe that there is a better job for them or that the company can find a better job for them, they will probably stay where they are and potentially miss out on something better. If they believe the promise that when we seek, they will find a better job, that faith will result in action as they join up with the employment company, look for another job, and possibly find work they are more suited to.

This ad illustrates the idea we discussed a couple of weeks ago when we looked at the story of Naaman (2 Kings 5:1-14). God made a promise to Naaman through the prophet Elisha to heal his leprosy. Naaman eventually believed the promise, and Naaman’s faith led to action as he washed in the River Jordan seven times. With both Naaman’s story and the job ad, there is a promise and when this promise is believed, it results in action.

There is an obvious link between these employment ads and this week’s gospel reading, Luke 11:1-13. As part of his teaching on prayer, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (v9 NIV). It’s hard to know if people watching these ads realise that they are quoting the words of Jesus. However, they teach us something very important about prayer: Prayer is an act of faith. Just like believing the employment agency’s promise that they can find us a better job, so asking, seeking and knocking in prayer is the result of believing God’s promise to us in Jesus.

Sometimes we can hear Jesus’s words like they are a command: we should be asking, seeking or knocking. However, just like using the employment agency is the action which results from believing their promise that they can find us a better job, asking, seeking and knocking in prayer is the result of believing God’s promises to us in Jesus. He promises us that when we ask, he will answer us. When we seek, we will find what we’re looking for. When we knock, God will open up to us. The power lies in the promise more than the command. Jesus makes this clear when he continues, “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (v10 NIV). Jesus is clearly teaching us that everyone who asks will receive; everyone who seeks will find; it will be opened to everyone who knocks. The power to receive, find and open doesn’t rest in our capacity to ask, seek or knock, but in God’s promise to give, make known and open up to us.

Faith gives us the ability to trust God’s promise and believe that God will answer us, make known to us what we’re looking for, and open up to us. Faith trusts firstly that God has everything that we need for life in this world and the next, and secondly that he will give us what we ask for because of his great love for us in Jesus. The hope we have through faith in Jesus is that when we come to God asking, seeking or knocking, because he loves us enough to give his Son for us, he will answer our prayers for Jesus’ sake.

Jesus ends this section by saying, “how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (v13 NIV). We might hear Jesus teaching us to pray for physical things like rain, lower interest rates, or maybe a new car or tractor. While we can certainly be praying for those things, in promising us the Holy Spirit, Jesus points us towards the deeper needs of our hearts and minds. He is promising us the Holy Spirit who gives us the faith to keep trusting our Father in heaven and his love for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When we find a deeper and stronger faith in him, we also find the fruits of the Holy Spirit being produced in our lives. We could all use greater love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22,23), especially when life gets hard or difficult. God might not change our circumstances, but when we trust God’s promises in all the situations we face in life and continue to ask, seek and knock in prayer, he can be changing us into people who are growing in our maturity in faith and in reflecting his goodness to others.

When Dorothy believed the employment company’s promise to deliver what they offered, she did something about it by looking for a better job. Faith showed itself in action. It’s the same when Jesus teaches us to ask, seek and knock. Faith shows itself in actively asking, seeking and knocking. In Jesus’s teaching, these words are continual actions, not just a once off. As Jesus illustrates in the story of the person who receives guests late at night (vv5-8), prayer is the ongoing action of continually asking God for what we need. Faith that God has what we need and will give us what we need because of his love for us in Jesus will result in us continually going to our loving heavenly Father, asking for our deepest needs, seeking God’s goodness and love in all the situations of life, and knocking on his door to ask him for his grace and favour which provides us with everything we need for this life and the next.

Dorothy trusted the company’s promise to find her the perfect job, and her faith led her to look for something better. Faith in God’s promises to us in Jesus will lead us to ask, seek and knock in the hope of a better life for us and for the people around us. This faith can lead us into an active and purpose-filled prayer life, not because we’re told to or because we think we should, but because God promises us that when we ask, we will receive, when we seek, we will find, and when we knock, he will open the door to us. Trusting in God’s promises to us in this passage will lead us to bring all our needs and the needs of the people around us to him in prayer because we believe that he has everything we need, and he will graciously provide us with everything we need because of his great love for us in Jesus.

What will you ask, seek or knock on God’s door for?

More to think about or discuss:

• How do you go with prayer? Do you find it a chore or a burden? Or do you ask, seek or knock regularly for yourself and others in prayer? Why is that the case for you…?
• Have you ever thought about prayer as an act of faith which grows from trusting God’s promises to you in Jesus? How might trusting that God will give, make known and open up to you help you to pray?
• There are lots of different ways to pray such as silent prayer, praying with others, praying while you walk or do another activity, writing your prayers as a letter or a journal, and more. What do you find is the best way for you to pray? How can we help you ask, seek and knock by praying more regularly?