Introduction

Welcome church! We’ve got an important message today about one of the fundamental aspects of the christian faith. And, as you can probably tell by the title graphics, we’re going to be talking about prayer.

We all know that prayer is an important part of our faith. In fact, many of us will commit to pray for all sorts of things. But how many of us follow through in prayer? How many of us simply lose the drive to pray or forget altogether?

Main Teaching

Patience isn’t something that many of us are very good at is it? We are so accustomed to getting what we want, when we want it, how we want it. We’re surrounded by quick fixes and instant answers. In fact, Burger King’s slogan is, “Have it your way!”

Unfortunately, that’s not the slogan of the kingdom of God, nor is it something that you’d hear Jesus encourage His disciples with. Instead, we get parables and teachings like the persistent widow that show us a better way. It’s a more difficult way, but in the end, it’s the way of Jesus.

Be Patient

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.”

This is an important point for all of us as we seek God in prayer in our own lives. Even if you’re getting a “no” it may mean, “not now.” You may have asked God for healing or provision last week, with no obvious answer, but does that mean that you can’t ask again? Does that mean that you should give up and stop asking?

This reminds me of a quote from Mother Teresa about prayer ... View this full sermon with PRO Premium

Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.