This Christmas I traveled to Sun City Center, FL to spend time with my parents and my brother’s family. I love going to see my folks in FL. My wife and I love the beach, the warmer weather, and I always get to go fishing in the bay. I bet you have a favorite place or two as well. Don’t you? I’d like to know where your favorite place is. And so on the count of three, would you do me the honor of telling me what one of your most favorite places in the world is. One, two, three….
I said that One of my favorite places in the world is in Florida, another one is in a little garden half a world away from here; the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Israel. It’s one of the holiest and most sacred sites in the entire world, maybe even the entire universe. Why would I say that? Because the gospels teach that Jesus “often” went there to pray. Jesus, God in the flesh poured out his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane. The small chunk of real estate is drenched with the prayers of God. As I walked through the olive orchard a couple years back I was reminded that some of the olive trees I was looking at are over 2,000 years old. That means they were in the garden when Jesus was in the garden. Their bark felt the back of the Messiah as he leaned up against them and their leaves and branches heard his prayers. Once I stepped on that property I sensed I was on very holy ground. But that was just the start.
After walking around the garden I entered the Church of All Nations which is built on part of that olive orchard. In fact, it is built over the rock that tradition says Jesus prayed the night he was betrayed. There at the front of the sanctuary protruding through the floor was a rock surface the size of our chancel. Surrounding the rock which was laid out in a square was a short black chain fence. On the outside of the fencing was a prayer rail that surrounded the rock on three sides. When you walked in those doors of that church it was like a magnet drew you too the front, to the prayer railing. I don’t know about the others, but I suppose some of them felt it too, but I was drawn to pray. I could do nothing but pray. It was as if I was compelled to pray. I was drawn to the rock. I walked around the prayer railing, stepped over the chain fence and knelt on the rock. I’m telling you I could have prayed there for hours.
But, that’s not the case with everyone who has visited Gethsemane. On the night Jesus was betrayed he went to Gethsemane to pray. He was burdened, he was under stress, he was maxed out as he carried the weight of the world on his back. And so he took his three most mature disciples, his three leaders, those in his inner circle to go with him and pray for him while he also prayed. Matthew 26.36-46 tells us that Jesus told his three trusted pray-ers to pray for him while he went off to another location to pray in the garden. Under so much pressure that the bible says Jesus began to sweat drops of blood he prayed. At one point Jesus returned to his disciples and found them sleeping instead of praying. This happened three times.
How could they have done that? All Jesus asked them to do was pray! He didn’t ask them to hang the moon or overthrow Caesar. He wasn’t asking them to walk on water or work a miracle. He just asked them to pray. How they could they could keep dozing off in Gethsemane like that was beyond me. And that’s when I heard something in my spirit say something like, “Fink, they’re not the only one’s who’s praying has nodded off like that.” That’s when I realized that I hadn’t realized that my praying had nodded off too and that the Holy Spirit was nudging me, to wake it up, shake it up, and break it up.
My guess though, is that I’m not the only one whose prayer life needs to be nudged. I came across a survey the other day that said that “less than 50% of the church members surveyed pray for 5 minutes at least twice a week (Rev. Magazine, May/June 2004, pg. 15. Source quoted from www.intentionaldiscipleship.net). In other words, the majority of Church members surveyed prayed less than ten minutes a week! 90 seconds a day. Do you know what that means? It means there’s a lot of snoring go’in on when it comes to praying.
In light of this I believe the Holy Spirit wants to use the following passage to nudge Christ’s disciples to pray today. Listen to Jesus as he addresses our counterparts in Luke 18 for anything that might speak to us.
“One day Jesus told his disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who was a godless man with great contempt for everyone. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, appealing for justice against someone who had harmed her. 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but eventually she wore him out. ‘I fear neither God nor man,’ he said to himself, 5 ‘but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” “Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this evil judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end, so don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who plead with him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when I, the Son of Man, return, how many will I find who have faith?” (NLT)
There are three important pieces of background information to know about this passage. The Roman courts in Jesus’ day were very corrupt. The people referred to the judges appointed by Herod or Rome as robber judges (The Gospel of Luke, William Barclay, pg. 222) because they ruled in favor of the highest bidder. Unless a plaintiff had influence and money to bribe a judge they had little hope of having a case settled in their favor.
And herein enters the widow. In Jesus’ day a widow had very little resources if any at all. She was defenseless, vulnerable and had little hope whatsoever in a court of law. The only thing this widow had in her favor was her persistence. She just kept going back and going back and going back, day after day after day, asking the judge to decide in her favor. And finally, he did.
Now, don’t confuse what Jesus is saying about the unjust judge with God. Jesus is not saying God is like an unjust judge. What Jesus is saying is if an unethical and corrupted judge ends up granting justice to a poor and defenseless widow because she keeps asking for it, how much more they can expect an ethical, just and loving God to grant his children what they need as a result of their praying.
Jesus wants his disciples to know then and now that persistent praying makes a difference. Jesus wants them to know that persistence is an important factor when it comes to the act of praying. Have you ever brought something to the Lord God in prayer and after awhile given up or quit praying about it because you didn’t see any positive activity? According to Jesus that is a huge mistake. There are a lot of reasons prayer may go unanswered; unconfessed sin, lack of faith, impure motives, but at the top of the list of reasons for unanswered prayer is that disciples give up too soon. The difference between prayer that is answered and unanswered prayer may be nothing more than who persists and who doesn’t. Imagine how the story in Luke 18 might have ended up if the widow had stopped going to the judge just one day earlier.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray with persistence because persistent praying makes a difference.
Think about this. Hebrews 11.6 teaches us that God rewards people who persist in praying. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” The other side of that truth is that God withholds rewards from those who don’t earnestly seek him. Who knows how many people have missed out on their dream job because they stopped praying too soon. Who knows how many marriages dissolved because the husband and the wife quit asking for God’s intervention? Who knows how many neighbors missed an opportunity to experience the abundant living associated with being a Christ follower because a disciples prayer life went to sleep.
You’ve heard the phrase, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?” I think we can also say “all work and no praying makes Jack a duller boy.” Jesus communicates that truth to his disciples in John 15 when he tells them how important it is for a branch to abide in the vine. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15.5) Praying helps us to grow in Christ and experience abundant living like no other discipline. John Wesley said it this way, “...the failure to pray is the most common cause of the wilderness state...” Do you want to have a spiritual freshness or liveliness? Then pray. And know that the more persistent a person is in praying, the more spiritual vitality that person will have.
A journalist assigned to the Jerusalem bureau takes an apartment overlooking the Wailing Wall. Every day when she looks out, she sees an old Jewish man praying vigorously. So, the journalist goes down and introduces herself to the old man. She asks, "You come every day to the wall. How long have you done that, and what are you praying for?" The old man replies, "I have come here to pray every day for 25 years. In the morning I pray for world peace and then for the brotherhood of man. I go home, have a cup of tea, and I come back and pray for the eradication of illness and disease from the earth."
The journalist is amazed. "How does it make you feel to come here every day for 25 years and pray for these things?" she asks. The old man looks at her sadly. "Like I’m talking to a wall." ("Wailing Wall," Religious Joke of the Day, beliefnet.com (4-25-03); submitted by Jerry De Luca, Montreal West, Quebec.)
If you ever feel like you’re talking to a stone wall remember the acronym P.U.S.H which means? Pray until something happens.
I wondered why God wanted this word preached today. And I think I know. I think there is someone here who is about to give up when it comes to praying for something. I think someone’s prayer life is close to comatose and if it doesn’t get woken up it may never come around. I think God is on the verge of answering someone’s request but they’re about to stop praying because it doesn’t seem like it’s doing any good. Or maybe you’ve never taken praying seriously. Who ever you are and what ever you do, don’t stop praying. And if you have, start it up again.
