Persistent Prayer

Persistent Prayer

CCCAG 1-1-2023

Scripture: Luke 18:1-8, Matthew 7:7, Jeremiah 29:13

Introduction

Happy New Year everyone!

One of the traditions regarding celebrating the new year is to sit back and evaluate the past year or so, and then make decisions to change certain things about ourselves.

We call these New Years Resolutions. It’s not a bad thing to do, but usually when we make them we have in the back of our minds that these resolutions will be broken before the weeks end.

We love to make plans for things don’t we.

There is a saying in the military that all plans for battle become useless upon first contact with the enemy. Kind of like all diet plans become useless upon first contact with our favorite treat.

One of the things I always resolve to do is spend more time in solitude with God in prayer and meditation, and I often spend that alone time with God in the woods hiking or hunting. Well, if I’m honest, this year was probably one of the worst years for that. I spent zero time in the woods, didn’t get out hunting at all because of work and injuring my knee at the start of hunting season, and just running out of time.

It reminds me a little of some commercials on TV growing up, showing video and pictures of starving people in Africa with an appeal to send money to certain charities to fix the problem?

Thinking about that, I then thought what if God would open our eyes into the spiritual, how many of us would appear spiritually emaciated through lack of prayer like many of those on TV look physically emaciated through lack of food.

My friends, let’s mark 2023 with a change in our attitudes about prayer and resting in God.

We all know that prayer is an important part of our faith.

If this on again, and off again cycle that sounds like your prayer life too, then you're in a good place.

Our passage today, We will study The Parable of the Persistent Widow.

Jesus gave us this parable to give us another look at prayer, and we learn just how amazing it can be.

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

4 "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'"

6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Prayer

Main Teaching

Prayer is rapidly becoming a lost virtue in the Christian church. I think one of the main reasons is because our society has become a place of instant gratification.

Have a question- Google will have an answer in less than a second.

Want food? Door Dash can have it to your house in 15 minutes if you live in a major city.

Maybe you need a new kitchen tool, or some type of gadget to make life easier. Again, in a city, Amazon can have it to you in an hour. Here in about a day.

Our world is set up to make this idea of patience a lost art.

We all want instant gratification, and that goes against the whole idea of prayer, which is to teach us patience.

That’s the first thing I want to bring to you this morning that Jesus is trying to teach us in this parable.

Be Patient

Read Luke 18:1-3

Here we’re introduced to the characters of our parable… “a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought,” and a widow seeking justice. We’re also told from the beginning what the purpose or point of the parable is; “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”

With those things in mind, the next thing we learn is that this widow is patient in her pursuit of justice. In verse three we learn that she “kept coming to him with her plea.” She wasn’t about to give up, even when the order from the judge was “no.”