The Friend At Midnight - Luke 11:5-8 (July 12, 2026)

I hope Joe's check cleared.

That was quite the introduction.

I uh only my mother might have given me more uh praise than that.

So that was sweet of him.

Uh yeah, Fields Church, it is it is a privilege for me to be with you guys this morning.

I think uh, well, as Joe said, my name is Nate Hendrickson.

Um man, what a ministry of singing that you guys have.

How wonderful those musicians who led us through that and just uh the way you guys sing.

Uh week in, week out.

That is such a ministry to each other.

And uh thank you for doing that this morning.

Uh and and uh yeah, my my time at Castleview led me to overlap with Joe, led me to overlap with Jeff, and get to see uh the church here planted.

Before you guys begun, uh Jim and Jordan were were elders at Castleview.

Um some of your members, even I think now originally were at Castleview.

My job currently as a pastoral assistant, I didn't even know existed until I met Aaron Delph.

Uh and here he is.

So there's just so many things about this church.

I think if Castleview had the category of sister church, you guys would be at the top of the list.

We really are encouraged by you.

We we regularly pray for you, and uh, and I know you do the same for us, and so it's sweet to be partners in the gospel together.

Well, we're gonna be in Luke 11 this morning.

We're continuing with your series uh on the stories of Jesus and the Gospel of Luke.

So if you do have a Bible, I'd encourage you.

Luke 11, we're gonna be looking at that.

Uh last week, Braden preached on the parable of the persistent widow, and he, in that sermon, reminded us that the Christian life is a life marked by faithful and persistent prayers, because we have a God who loves to hear our prayers.

And so this text this morning is kind of like the fraternal twin of that parable.

We're looking at the parable of the friend at midnight.

Uh I wonder, as you flip there, if you imagine somebody asking you, uh, what is the hardest part about being a Christian?

What would you answer?

I think for some of us we would say evangelism.

Crossing that barrier with an unbeliever, bridging the gap, trying to be true to the gospel, be honest about sin and hell.

It can be so fear-inducing, can't it?

It can be difficult to share about the truth of the gospel with an unbeliever, which makes evangelism hard.

Or maybe we'd answer generosity.

I recently heard a pastor on a podcast say that the last thing converted in the life of a Christian is often their wallet.

And I think that's that's true.

Giving to the mission of the church, partnering financially, uh, even being generous with one another, with the finances that God has given you to steward, that can just be a difficult thing.

It's so different from the world around us.

Well, one answer that I think is a strong contender for what is difficult in the Christian life is prayer.

Prayer just feels hard sometimes, doesn't it?

Think of when you wake up on Monday morning.

It's another day with many things awaiting you, another week with many tasks, many responsibilities.

You feel like you should pray, but it's just so easy to bounce it out to the fringes of life, to get going with the next thing.

Even our hearts that are so warmed by Sunday morning can often just be cold by the time we step out of bed on Monday, can't they?

Or even when we pray together in a worship gathering like this, when we have that moment of silence, or when Jim leads us in praying, I mean, how easy is it, let's just be honest, to let our minds just wander away.

They just go somewhere else.

Why?

Because prayer is hard.

It's really hard.

And when you read the stories of Scripture, uh, it can almost feel even harder.

Here's what I mean.

You you look at some of the Old Testament saints, you look at Abraham, and you see a guy petitioning boldly back and forth with the Lord, and you think, I have never prayed like that.

You think about Moses on Mount Sinai, and he's pleading with God according to God's character and his promises, and God listens to him, and you think, yeah, that's that's not what it's like for me on Tuesdays.

Or you look at David, you look at the book of Psalms, and you hear a guy who's who's pleading with the Lord saying, Vindicate me, oh my God.

Search me, Lord, and know me.

And you hear these prayers and you think, I just can't pray like that.

I just can't pray like that.

And then you get to Luke 11.

And in Luke 11, Jesus hears those those thoughts, and it's as if he he leans over and he says, You know what?

You're right.

You're right.

You you can't.

You can't pray like that.

Because what what Abraham and what Moses and David and Isaiah and Job and Esther and Daniel, what all these Old Testament saints have in common, none of them could ever pray to God and call him Father.

But Jesus says, You can.

You can.

If you want to know what's new about the New Testament, what's new about the New Covenant, well, here it is.

Christians call God their Father.

We get to call him Father.

So let's look at the beginning of Luke 1 together.

And I'm gonna help us see that in the context here, Jesus is framing an understanding of who the Father is.

So if you look at the beginning of Luke, Jesus is praying, and one of the disciples, noticing this, asks, Lord, teach us to pray.

And he says in verse 2, Well, whenever you pray, say Father.

Say Father.

That's how the lesson starts on prayer.

And it's actually the same way he closes it.

So bounce your eyes down to verse 11, where Jesus closes this teaching on prayer by doing what?

By contrasting God versus earthly fathers.

It's another question about fathers.

He says, You earthly fathers, what what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish?

Or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, well, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

We'll touch on that last verse a little later on, but even just notice from the outset the entire context of Jesus' understanding of prayer that he gives to us from beginning to end is about Father.

It's about who the Father is, what he's like.

So when we get to the parable right here in the middle, in verses five through eight, that's still the theme.

That's still the focus.

It's about who is the Father.

Here's the main claim that Jesus is giving us in this parable.

He's saying to us, with God as our father, we have every reason to pray boldly.

If you want this sermon in a sentence, that's it.

With God as our Father, we have every reason to pray boldly.

You know what's gonna help us pray?

It's not better practices necessarily.

It's not, it's not journaling, it's not praying on our knees rather than sitting or standing.

Those all can be fine, they can be helpful, but Jesus' argument is what's gonna help you pray is knowing who your father is.

That's the motivation.

That's why Jesus gives us this story.

So, first, a little roadmap for us this morning, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the parable, we're gonna look at the story, and we're gonna see in this story who the father is not.

That's what Jesus is trying to teach us.

What is God not like?

And he teaches that so that then we can see who he is.

So after we see what he's not like, we're gonna see two glorious truths about who he actually is.

So, first, let's look at the parable.

What is our father not like?

Well, Jesus tells us he's not like a grumpy dad who won't help a friend.

Look at Luke 11, 5 through 8 with me.

He also said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend.

He goes to him at midnight and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don't have anything to offer him.

Then he will answer from inside and say, Don't bother me.

The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed.

I can't get up to give you anything.

I tell you, even though he won't get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet, because of his friend's shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

It's a picture of what God is not like.

You have a story about a desperate friend, a surprise visitor shows up, and so he goes to a neighbor to ask for some bread, and ultimately he gets the bread.

That's the story.

That's the whole thing.

Now, to us, it may seem a little bit odd that there's all this worry about not having bread.

It kind of drives the whole parable.

So we need to understand a little bit about what Jesus is already implying to the disciples, what they would have understood inherently.

See, in this time there were no ins, well, very few ins, and if you went to them, they probably weren't great.

There were no 7-Elevens.

So it was not unusual for a traveler to just show up and and have to stay with a friend, and the friend had the obligation of providing for the visitor.

That was just custom.

Another thing to consider there's there's no text messages in this time.

There's no USPS.

So somebody shows up at your door, they just show up at your door.

You weren't planning on it, you weren't expecting it.

And then lastly, I think what's actually most important to the parable is that this host who has nothing to give his guest is actually in a very shameful position.

Uh it's not like today where we might have someone at our house and we've been chatting with them for an hour or so, and then it kind of dawns on you, and you're like, oh, uh, hey, can I give you a drink or something?

We we don't we don't live in this same culture, so this doesn't quite connect to us.

But in the context of these disciples, to be hospitable was not just like an option.

It was a moral obligation.

To not have something to offer was scandalous, to say the least.

It was shameful.

And not just as an individual, but as but as a family.

It reflected on the family, it even reflected on the whole community.

So when this man goes looking for bread, the disciples are like, yeah, that's what he should do.

That's what we would do.

We would go look for bread for this guy.

Now, before we move on with the story, we should note something that I think sets up Jesus' main point really well for us.

Is that that the host in this story, the guy who goes out at midnight, he's actually a really great example of mature Christian love.

This man is willing to do the inconvenient thing for the good of someone else.

Pretty much all he does in the story is for the sake of others.

So you notice that?

He leaves his home at midnight, not for himself, but for his guest.

He appeals for food, not because he's hungry, but because someone else is.

And he even risks this awkward social shame, not to save his own reputation, but to save the reputation of his family, of his community.

This isn't just like a nice guy who does something nice for someone else.

He's actually very Christ-like.

Paul tells the Philippian church to count others more significant than yourself.

Within the church, we count others more significant than ourselves.

He says, Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

And why do we do that?

Because that's the mind of Christ Jesus.

That's who Jesus is.

Jesus is even here in Luke 11, not for his own needs, but for ours.

He's here teaching about prayer, not because he needs help in his own prayer life, but he knows that we do.

It's for us.

It's not for him that he's trying to teach us about the Father.

He knows the Father perfectly.

We need to know who the Father is.

See, fruitful, mature Christianity doesn't just notice the needs of others, it seeks to meet them, it seeks to pick them up.

It says to someone else, let me carry that with you.

Why do we do that?

Because that's who Jesus is.

That's the gospel motivating us every day.

Now, there's many ways that we could bear burdens with each other, but I think the best way to do that is through prayer.

It's through prayer that we really bear each other's burdens.

Someone might have a problem and you want to offer advice to them, offer your time to them, and that's great.

That can be really helpful, but it's not better than prayer.

It's not better than praying for them.

Our in-the-moment problem solving, our Google searches and AI fixes, none of them compare to going before the Father in prayer.

When we pray for each other as Christians, we get to be like this host, this friend who goes out at midnight.

We we get to say, you know, this is a hard situation.

And I and myself, I really don't have anything to offer you, but I know the one who does.

So let me go to him on your behalf.

I love this quote from Mark Dever.

He says, The only part of my day that I can be absolutely sure wasn't wasted is the time I spent praying for others.

I think that's absolutely true.

Our most effective ministry, whether it's at church or in our families, or in our marriages, or in our parenting or workplace, it's going to be prayer.

It's going to be prayer.

Now, as we go back to the story, we saw our host making his appeal to the neighbor.

He asks for bread.

Look there in the middle of verse 5, he says, Friend, lend me three loaves.

He calls him friend, and he asks him very plainly for what he needs.

And then comes the hinge of the story.

See, up to this point, everything makes sense to the disciples.

You don't have bread for a guest, well, then of course you go out of your house and you go try to find bread for your friend.

Doesn't matter what time it is.

But when this neighbor gives his reply, that's the scandal.

That's the shock.

Actually, I think it's probably kind of funny for the disciples, like so unthinkably ridiculous that it's funny to them.

Look at verse 7 as Jesus tells it.

Then he will answer from inside and say, Don't bother me.

The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed.

I can't get up to give you anything.

This is unimaginable to the disciples.

The neighbor in the house is actually proving himself to be the total opposite of the guy who's out there asking for bread.

He doesn't care about the burden.

He doesn't care about the other person's needs.

He can't be inconvenienced.

He's focused on himself.

That's shocking.

That's shocking to the disciples.

But do you see what Jesus is doing here?

He's lowering their defenses.

He's shocking them to help them understand what God is not like.

And by the end of the story, what happens?

Well, there's ultimately no real refusal.

He gets what he needs and he goes home with bread.

See, the point for the disciples, the point for us is if this grouchy, unfriendly, grumpy dad will respond favorably to his friend, well, how much more will your loving father respond favorably to you when you have needs?

Jesus is showing us that God is not like this guy.

He's not uninterested in your needs.

He's not annoyed or impatient with your requests.

He's not going to lash out at you because you didn't ask the right way or you didn't ask in a compelling enough manner.

No, he's not like that at all.

He's altogether better than that.

If prayer is so hard for us, which it often is, well, what's the motivation we need?

We need to know again that God isn't like this.

He isn't like this.

And so what is he like?

That's what that's the real question that I think we need to ask ourselves.

What is he like?

If this story is teaching us about who the father is not, then who is he?

What kind of a father is he?

Two truths for us to meditate on from that question.

First, he's your father.

What kind of a father is he?

He's your father.

You can boldly pray because God has adopted you as his own child.

You look at the grumpy dad in the parable, and one of his excuses is that his children have already gone to bed.

They're inside the house with him, they're asleep.

And I can somewhat sympathize with this guy at this point.

He's probably a dad of toddlers.

I'm just like, man, this guy doesn't have college kids.

You know, he's like, go down the street to Bill's house, his kids are in college, he'll help you out.

Leave us alone.

What Jesus is subtly getting at here is actually, though, how how we can have these same misconceptions about who God is.

See, one of our main problems in prayer is that we functionally misinterpret our relationship with God.

What Jesus is saying here is that if you're a Christian, then when you pray, you aren't approaching God from outside the house.

You aren't stuck at the door knocking and knocking.

You aren't out at the gates pleading and yelling and hoping somebody will hear you.

No.

No, you're in the house.

You're with the Father because He's adopted you through Jesus.

Now, that idea of God as Father, that is a uniquely Christian idea.

Compared to any other religion, that level of relationship with God is just unheard of, unthinkable.

I mean, for instance, in Islam, uh, your relationship to Allah at best is that of a servant to a master.

No good Muslim could ever be considered a son or daughter.

That would be scandalous to them.

And if that's the highest relationship you can have with God, well then your experience of prayer is going to be very different, isn't it?

I wonder if if we don't fall into that same kind of mentality sometimes.

If we don't look at uh prayer as if it's just something that we should do.

God wants us to do it and therefore we ought to do it.

If I do it today, if I try really hard, then I'm probably doing pretty good with God today.

And if I don't, he's probably gonna be a little bit more distant, a little bit more disapproving of me.

But what's the problem with that kind of thinking?

Well, it puts the focus of prayer ultimately on you and me.

It emphasizes our own activity of praying more than on the Father who we're praying to.

And see, when we view prayer as this kind of spiritual to-do, then we're actually settling for something that is sub-Christian.

If we approach prayer like servants trying to plead our way inside the house, then we have missed what Jesus has given us here in this text.

So, what's our remedy?

What's our remedy?

If this is where our sinful hearts are prone to wonder, how do we make our way back to the truth?

Well, we do it by remembering how we became children in the first place.

What actually brought about adoption for us?

What allowed us in the Father's house in the first place?

Well, it wasn't anything we did.

It wasn't because we prayed enough, it wasn't because we cleaned ourselves up enough.

Now, friends, we can't clean ourselves up enough.

Our sin would keep us outside of God's house forever.

And left to ourselves, we'd have no hope, no hope of ever entering in and being with him.

But what happens?

How does that change?

Well, the Father sends Jesus outside the house for us.

Jesus willingly goes as the only true Son of God, and he leaves the house and he takes the rightful place or takes our place outside the house and gives us his rightful place inside the house.

This is why Jesus goes to the cross.

He goes so that we can have a room.

We can have a place with the Father.

That's what he says in John 14.

He says to the disciples, In my Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you?

Christian, you have a place in the Father's house.

He will always hear you.

He will always hear you.

Why?

Because Jesus purchased your prayer life with his own blood.

He'll always hear you.

So when you struggle to pray this week, don't ask yourself, have I been a good enough Christian today?

No, ask yourself, is Jesus still a good enough Savior?

Is God still a good enough Father?

See, the best fuel for a life full of prayer is not our efforts, it's our memories.

It's remembering who we're talking to when we pray.

It's remembering what he's already done for us in love.

It's remembering that we're in the house and nobody can kick us out.

Not even ourselves.

So the question for us is why wouldn't we want to bring everything to him?

If you're not a Christian this morning, or if you're not sure you're a Christian here this morning, I am glad you're here.

This is a great church to be exploring Christians.

Christianity with, and so I would encourage you to keep coming, keep talking to people, keep listening to scripture and singing these songs.

But I wonder if if this father talk, if it sounds a little bit funny, maybe it sounds a little bit arrogant, a little bit presumptuous, like who do these people think they are?

Why do they think they can call God their father?

And that's a fair question.

I mean, if Christians thought that God was their father because they just did a little bit more, they were just a little bit smarter, they tried a little bit harder, they knew a little bit extra, well, that that would be absolutely arrogant.

But that wouldn't be Christianity either.

That wouldn't be Christianity.

Real Christianity begins with the simple confession that none of us has the right to call God our Father.

None of us do.

Every one of us deserves to live and die outside of his house and his presence.

We all deserve the eternal separation from him that our sins permit, that our sins merit in hell.

But in love, the Father has done something for us that we never could have done for ourselves.

He sent his own son into the world to make us not just servants, but children, to make us family with God.

And that's why Christians can boldly call God their Father.

Not because we're special, but because He is.

Because He loves us for no other reason except that He loves us.

It's like the line in the hymn, Rock of Ages.

It says, Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.

Naked, I come to thee for dress.

Helpless, I look to thee for grace.

Foul, I to the fountain fly.

Wash me, Savior, or I die.

We come with nothing to offer him.

And yet that's the example that Jesus commends in this parable.

He commends spiritual beggars.

He encourages the poor in spirit.

He says, You're the ones, you're the ones who can go boldly to the Father.

Go in my name.

He will not turn you away.

That's an example that you can follow even now.

If you don't know Christ today, even while I'm talking, that can change.

You can boldly ask the Father to adopt you.

Ask him now because that's the kind of prayer that the Father always loves to answer.

We're motivated to pray not because of anything in us, but because of who the Father is.

He's our Father.

That's the first truth that we need to see from this text.

And secondly, we need to see he's a gracious father.

What kind of a father is he?

Well, he is a gracious father.

You can pray boldly because your father is always gracious toward you.

How do we get that from the parable?

Well, I think we see it through the opposite character who's inside the house: the angry neighbor, the guy who won't be bothered, won't get up, the uncharitable and unkind friend, his demeanor is not gracious.

But that's not true with our Father.

No, his grace assures us that we are welcome to come to him at any time.

He's never too busy, never too tired to hear your prayers.

And when you think about that, I mean it's it's kind of incredible.

Because in every other facet of life, the greater somebody is, the harder they are to reach, the harder they are to access.

Just imagine, for example, if if you wanted to try to get lunch with the mayor of Westfield.

Maybe some of you know him.

You probably could do it.

You probably could get lunch with the mayor.

You probably could get time with him in his office, even.

But let's let's go a little bit higher.

What about the governor?

I don't know, maybe maybe an email?

Maybe a phone call?

What about the president?

Maybe Twitter then?

I don't know.

And even if you could get time with any one of those people, think about how quickly they would pass you off to an assistant.

See, because in our world, the more power someone has, the more difficult they are actually to reach, to know, to speak to.

But that's not the God of the Bible.

No, Jesus shows us here that the God who crafted the whole universe offers you and me his whole attention.

The one who sustains all of life in himself, he bends down to speak to you because he cares about all of your life.

All of your life.

His greatness does not contradict his kindness.

Because he's gracious to you.

This is why, just after the parable, if you look at verse 9 there with me in your Bibles, Jesus, kind of in excitement, I think, says to the disciples, If this is who the Father is, well, I say to you, ask.

Ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find.

Knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and to the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened to you.

Jesus knows who the Father is perfectly, and he gives us this command.

He's saying, look, if you understand who God is, if you understand his gracious favor toward you, then you can ask.

You can tell him what you need.

You can bring your requests and you can see what he will do for you.

Now, you might ask the question, well, what about me?

What about if I have been praying for some time?

What if I have been asking God to help me, to provide for me, to do this thing that I think is good?

And it just doesn't seem like he's answering.

It doesn't seem like anything's actually happening.

What do I make of that?

I can understand a question like that.

I think it's a good question.

But there's a couple of things that we need to consider when we're faced with that situation.

First, when it seems like prayers are going unanswered, we need to fight the temptation to be fatalists.

We need to fight the temptations to say things like, well, you know, God is sovereign.

He knows the end from the beginning.

He controls everything, he'll make it happen, or he won't.

And then we don't pray.

Or we can say things like, you know, God knows everything.

He knows my whole life.

He knows what I hope will happen.

And then we don't pray.

See, the problem is with that type of thinking, if we fall into it, we're actually not thinking biblically anymore.

Again and again in the Bible, we we see God acting in history through the prayers of his people.

He is sovereign, yes, he does know all, yes, but in some mysterious way, and it is a mystery, he chooses to work through the little prayers of little people like you and me.

If that weren't the case, a lot of the New Testament just wouldn't even make sense.

It would be strange to read Paul's letters as he says to Christians, hey, pray for us, that God may open a door for the word.

Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead readily.

He tells the Corinthian church they can actively help him.

How?

By praying for him.

He's saying, God is going to work through your prayers.

Now, you and I likely don't appreciate the sovereignty of God like the Apostle Paul does.

And yet, interestingly, for him, that does not stop prayer.

It encourages it, it spurs it on.

Don't fall for fatalism, friends.

Don't think that prayers don't matter, that your prayers don't do anything.

God tells us that's simply just not true.

Instead, I think when prayers go unanswered, we need to first off remember that the Father is both good and wise.

He is good and he's wise.

This is why Jesus, when he compares earthly fathers to the heavenly father, we looked at that in verse 11.

His point is that if you earthly fathers know how to give good gifts, well, how much wiser and how much better is your heavenly father?

Like if you guys can do this, do you really think that God can't?

In fact, God is so good and wise that even when we ask for the wrong things, he's too good to give it to us.

Even if we were to ask for scorpions and snakes, he wouldn't do it because he's too good to give that to us.

J.I.

Packer says it like this, and I love this quote.

Sometimes we ask for the wrong thing.

It's God's prerogative to give good things, things that we have need of.

And if our in our unwisdom we ask for things that don't fall under those headings, God, like any good parent, reserves the right to say, No, not that.

It wouldn't be good for you.

But have this instead.

See, God often gives us what we should have asked for rather than what we actually requested.

Or I like how one other theologian puts it, he says, God will either give us what we ask, or he'll give us what we would have asked if we knew everything he knew.

I don't know what prayer you're longing to see answered in your life right now, but you can trust that the Father does hear and that he does have your best in mind with it.

He is wise, and at the same time, he's endlessly good toward you.

Best of all, when prayers go unanswered, we get to remember not what the father may have said no to, but what he's already said yes to.

Let's go back and look at verse 13 real quick.

Verse 13.

Jesus comparing earthly fathers to God, he says, If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, well, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

He gives us the Holy Spirit.

See, if you struggle to see prayers going answered or unanswered, remember that the Father has already said yes to the most important prayer.

He's already given you the best thing, which is himself, his spirit.

That's what it means to have the spirit.

It's to have everything that's true about Jesus and his righteousness applied to you.

It's to have real fellowship with God.

It's to be his child.

So even when prayers don't seem to yield what you're hoping for, well, you can trust that God is working all things together for your good and that he's already given you the best of things, which is himself.

He's given you himself.

So for all of us this morning, the take-home that Jesus is trying to get across to us is that we can pray because of who our Father is.

We can pray boldly.

We can do that by taking everything in life to the Father, ordinary and extraordinary, feasible and impossible.

It all can be brought to the Father.

So that means for the Christian, you can and you should pray about that meeting tomorrow at work.

You should ask for patience and wisdom in parenting your children.

You should pray about your marriage and how to love your spouse well.

You should talk to God about your anxieties and your fears for the future.

You should ask for help to be able to forgive that person.

You should ask for help to be able to apologize to that person.

There is no category in life where a prayer is off limits to the Father.

There's no moment too small for him.

No, we should pray before we walk into class, before we start our shift.

We should pray before responding to that difficult email or having that hard conversation.

We should pray while we're sitting in the waiting room again, while driving to work, while folding the laundry, all these moments are moments that the Father is happy to welcome you into prayer.

God loves the everyday, ordinary prayers of his children.

Those same old prayers that you probably get tired of praying.

God calls those bold prayers.

So keep bringing them to him.

But we should also go to him with the seemingly impossible things of life.

We should pray again for that friend who we long to see come to know Jesus.

We should pray for recovery, for overcoming addictions.

We should pray that God would uproot anger and lust and pride from our hearts and replace it with love and humility and purity.

We should pray for the government, for people in high positions of authority.

We should pray for the spread of the gospel, the spread of the gospel in Iceland, like we just did, for missionaries in Uganda like the Gordons.

We should pray for church plants in Noblesville.

We should pray for this church in all seasons of life.

That the Lord would help you to be faithful and fruitful, not just in this generation, but in the many, many generations that come.

That the Lord would preserve this congregation.

These are the kinds of prayers that for us are just impossible.

Likely we we won't even see many of them answered in our lifetimes.

But the Father says, bring them to me.

Nothing is too small that it wouldn't interest him, and nothing is too great that it would overwhelm him.

So I don't know when you wake up tomorrow if if prayer is going to just spring from your mouth and feel so much easier now that you had this sermon.

But I do hope that it feels a little simpler.

Because when we go to pray, we don't have to ask ourselves, am I doing this right?

Am I saying all the right things?

Is anything really happening?

No, we can instead say, you know what?

I know who I'm talking to.

I know what he's like, and I know that he cares for me.

So pray boldly, not because your faith is great, not because your words are precise or your requests are perfect.

Pray boldly because your father is gracious.

With that, let's pray now.