Luke 18:1-8 Persistence in Prayer
Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 18. Today we will look at verses 1-8 and that is on page 877 in the pew Bibles.
It is time for more true confessions.
My brain is like a bag of cats, I have great difficulty focusing sometimes. I get so easily distracted by all the other stuff spinning around me and often times within me. The ringing in my ears, traffic driving by, leaves in the wind, random thoughts, Star Wars trivia…
One of the times that I notice this the most is any time I stop to pray, if I stop to pray.
Even in preparing this sermon, I began with prayer asking the Lord to speak to me and I just kept going off on bunny trails thinking about all kinds of other things.
I tell you all of this because as we look at the Scripture this morning I want you to know that this sermon, these words are not coming from a perspective of expertise and in truth some of it will sound like hypocrisy at least in my own ears because I am not the expert here and I fail constantly at this lesson from Jesus.
Let’s look at the text together.
And [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Let’s pray.
Jesus made the lesson of the parable really easy, it’s right there in the first verse! “They ought always to pray and not lose heart.” It doesn’t get any simpler than that! Let’s close in prayer!
Here is the problem I have with the simplicity of this lesson, as Alistair Begg said, “Everything militates against prayer.”
The enemy, the world, even our own sinful natures want to keep us from praying, to keep us distracted and to keep us from speaking to God our Father.
I guess Jesus could have just said, “Hey guys, don’t forget to pray,” but He told His disciples this parable to give that lesson some teeth.
“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.
Here is a description of a modern American if I’ve ever heard one. This judge was a stranger to godliness and honor, a person who only operated according to his own selfish whims.
3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’
Now don’t let’s forget about the context here. Jesus is speaking in First Century Israel, widows had very few rights. There was no welfare system to provide for them. Without family and without a husband they would have no advocate to stand up for them in front of the judge. There were no public defenders and it wasn’t as if they could simply make an appointment to get on the docket for the day. This is why there is so much instruction in the New Testament about the church caring for widows and orphans, and it is still important work.
This poor widow would have to plead with the judge for justice whenever she saw him. She would have had to stand outside the tent used for trials and cry out for justice. And that is what she did, over and over, and over, day after day until the judge finally relented.
4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ”
The Greek literally says, “I will give her justice, so that she will not give me black eyes by her continual coming.”
The widow finally wore down the judge. This poor woman, who had no advocate, persisted in asking this cruel and selfish judge for justice and he finally granted it to her, not out of the goodness of his heart but because he was so annoyed by this lady that he just wanted her to shut up and go away.
Does that sound like a lesson in prayer to you? Well it is one!
It is a lesson by contrast, this is an unequal comparison. There is a vast difference between this cruel and unjust judge and our merciful Father and there is a vast difference between this poor and advocateless widow and disciples of Jesus. God is not like that judge and we are not like that widow.
6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.
The unjust judge was a stranger to godliness and honor, our Heavenly Father is not, He is the Author of it.
The poor widow was rejected with no advocate, we, God’s elect, are not. We are His chosen ones by faith in Jesus, who stands as our advocate before the Father.
Perhaps, you, like me, differ from this poor widow in the way in which Jesus is instructing His disciples to be the same: persistence in prayer; always pray and not lose heart.
At least for me, there are two things that hinder my pattern of prayer. One is distraction that I already mentioned, the other is delay.
Delayed answers to prayer often cause us to lose heart and give up.
RC Sproul wrote, “We are not to give in to despair, or hopelessness, thinking that because God has delayed giving us the total fulfillment of His promises, ultimately He is going to forget about us. No, He tells us to keep praying and not give up.”
John Calvin said, “Let us contend against our impatience, so that the long delay may not induce us to discontinue our prayer.”
It’s important for us to remember that he poor widow wasn’t pleading for a winning lottery ticket, she was pleading for justice. She was distressed and suffering and this motivated her perseverance instead of hindering it.
She wore down the judge with her pleading but we don’t wear God down with our prayers. We are to persevere in prayer because the circumstances may make it appear as if He does not graciously listen to us, but God is always, always, always at work.
This is why Romans 8:28 is in the Bible. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Sometimes we just don’t pray for the right things. We must always examine our motives, and ask the Lord to examine our motives. We also ought to ask the Lord to guide and direct our hearts by His Spirit in order to help us pray for what we ought.
And when we don’t know how to pray we can take comfort in knowing that we have the Holy Spirit to help us.
Romans 8 again says in verses 26-27, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We can also always go back to the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray,
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Jesus ends His sermon with a stinging question of self-examination.
Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
We were having a discussion in prayer meeting this week about the concept of semantic range in translation. What that means is that words tend to have ranges of meanings, this is why it is important to study the original languages or at least have access to a Greek lexicon or dictionary.
Jesus is not asking if, when He returns He will find believers on earth, the rest of the New Testament makes it clear that there will be lots of believers still.
He asks if he will find faith on the earth. Here is an example of semantic range: the word we translate faith can mean belief to the extent of complete trust, or confidence, and the word that stuck out to me in that range: reliance.
When the Son of Man comes will He find reliance on the Father on earth? Will He find people that don’t merely agree with the facts about Jesus but are reliant on the Father for their every need?
Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
When we pray we approach the throne of grace, our Father’s throne, and we don’t ever have to leave.
Keep on praying and do not give up!
Amen.
