NOT-GIVING-UP KIND OF PRAYER
LUKE 18:1-8
INTRODUCTION… http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/150915-us-statistics-on-prayer.html
Starting a sermon with facts and figures is always fun for some of us, so let’s do that today! Get ready to be astounded and amazed at the numbers and what they show us. Barna research says slightly more than four out of five adults in the U.S. (84%) claim they had prayed in the past week. That has been the case since Barna began tracking the frequency of prayer in 1993. A Newsweek poll titled "Is God Listening?" indicated that, of those who pray, 87% believed that God answers their prayers at least some of the time. Even so, unanswered prayers did not deter them from praying. 85% insisted that they could accept God's failure to grant their prayers. Only 13% declared they have lost faith because their prayers went unanswered. 54% say that when God doesn't answer their prayers, it means it wasn't God's will to answer.
The things people pray for include health, safety, jobs, and even success, valid or not. 82% said they ask for health or success for a child or family member when they pray. 82% believed that God does not play favorites in answering prayers. 79% said God answers prayer for healing someone with an incurable disease. 75% asked for strength to overcome personal weakness. 73% answered that prayers for help in finding a job are answered. On the lighter side, 51% agreed that God doesn't answer prayers to win sporting events. 36% have never prayed for financial or career success.
Those numbers tell us that people pray. The articles tell us that people report that they pray. Today we will be looking at a passage that encourages us to have persistence in prayer.
BACKGROUND AND INFORMATION
Before we jump headlong into our passage today, we sort of need a little bit of background. We need some background in 2 different areas.
First, what is prayer? John Piper, a well known minister in the United States, when preaching on Colossians 4:2-4 defines prayer as, “Mainly it means asking God for things. By "things" I don't mean objects - stuff. I mean, generally, whatever your heart desires or needs. And, of course, what your heart needs most is God - to know him and trust him and love him and obey him. I know that we should come to God with more than asking. We should come confessing sins and giving thanks and praise. In a broad sense, prayer includes all that. But, speaking precisely, prayer is requesting, asking… But prayer, in the strict sense, means requesting. So I define it as asking God for things… the essence of prayer is the expression of our dependence on God through requests.” (http://pipersnotes.com/piper2k/1-9-00.htm)
I like that definition of prayer. Prayer is the expression of our dependence on God through requests. It can mean praise. It can mean confession. It can mean all those things, but let’s face it, the purpose of any prayer is to praise God, but at the same time we also need from Him. He is the Almighty God! He is the One who Forgives. He is our Provider! So now we know what prayer is and we are all on the same page this morning when we speak about prayer: Prayer is the expression of our dependence on God through requests.
As a side note, I wonder often what the prayer life of people I talk to is like. Most of the time our prayer life probably swings in one direction or the other… you are in one category or the other. The first category is those folks who pray when times are bad. Some of us are great at expressing frustration or criticism and when life is not going our way, we cry out to God to fix it and heal it and make it all better. Sometimes we pray only when it is the absolute last thing we can possibly think of… when we are at our worst and at the end of our rope… then we pray and ask God for help.
The other category is those folks who are great at expressing gratitude and pray when times are good. We pray and we thank God for all that He has done and for blessing us. Yet, when life “goes to pot” or is crashing down around us, we don’t know how to pray to God because we aren’t all that thankful for the things going on. We feel angry and it feels irreverent to speak to God like that.
Let me clue you in to a little secret. A true life of prayer has one foot in each of these categories and exemplifies 1 Thessalonians 5:17 which says, “pray continually.” A true life of prayer is one that builds up our faith and gives us a rich relationship with God as Jude 1:20 commands us, “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” A true life of prayer is a constant conversation with our Heavenly Father no matter the situation and no matter how we are feeling. That is why in my own prayer life I try and talk to God all throughout my day… when I am in the car, walking on the treadmill or working out in the gym, or when I get super frustrated. I do my best to stay in the loop with my Heavenly Father. I am not always successful, but I try. What is your prayer life like?
Anyway, in addition to our definition of prayer, we secondly need some background on how rabbis often taught in Jesus’ day. This will come in handy when we tackle Luke 18:1-8 later. One of the ways that rabbis in Jesus’ day would teach would be to argue or teach something “from the lesser to the greater.” In Latin it is called “argumentum a fortiori” and has been around many centuries in philosophy, law, and educational circles. What does that mean? It means that the teacher makes the case with something that is tangible and easy to understand and then applies the same principle to something greater and abstract and difficult to understand.
For example, in Matthew 6:27-34, Jesus teaches the crowds not to worry by giving the example that God takes care of birds and grass which mean little (lesser) and so God will take care of His people (greater). Both are true and informs us about the huge and incomparable love God has for us. Also, in Matthew 7:8-11, when teaching about the character of God, relates that human fathers give proper and good gifts to their children (lesser) and so the Heavenly Father gives proper and good gifts to His children (greater). Both are true and teaches us about the abstract character of God. Also, in Matthew 12:11-13, when faced with the decision to heal a person or not, Jesus argued that someone would help a stranded sheep on the Sabbath (lesser) and so He should help a man with a shriveled hand (greater). The lesser was true and so Jesus healed a human being and showed true compassion and taught about the Sabbath all at the same time.
So now you have a little bit of background information for us to travel into Luke 18:1-8. But before we do that, we have a few stops to make along the way. The first is a true or false question. This is an important question when thinking about prayer and is THE question of the morning.
T/F QUESTION: True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again.
Don’t be too quick to answer on this one. I am asking this question because before we look at Scripture, the answer could be true or false. It could be true in the sense that God doesn’t mind that we ask for things and ask repeatedly. It could also be false in the sense that if we keep asking… where is our faith that God is taking care of us? To me this seems like a sticky situation regarding prayer. True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again.
In order to answer this true or false question, we are going to look at several passages and see what the Word of God says. God’s Word should always be our first resource when answering questions about God. God’s Word trumps what we think. God’s Word trumps what society tells us. God’s Word trumps what our moms and dads taught us. God’s Word trumps what a self-help book states. In order to discover the correct answer we will first look for a T/F answer in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament.
T/F ANSWER IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
1 Samuel 1 is a heartbreaking story that centers on a woman named Hannah. Hannah had no children and desperately wanted to have them. 1 Samuel chapter 1 describes her husband and that “Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at Shiloh” (1 Samuel 1:3). His wife would go with him and pray that her womb would be opened and she would have a child. There were other factors which caused her grief, but needless to say, 1 Samuel 1:7 tells us plainly and repeats the reality that, “This went on year after year.” 1 Samuel 1:10 further describes the situation in that, “In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD” and later in 1 Samuel 1:15 she tells Eli the high priest, “I was pouring out my soul to the LORD.”
Was this important to Hannah? I think it is clear that it was… she poured herself out to God in prayer.
Was she persistent? Year after year she was and consistently prayed for the same thing.
Was she praying about something worthy of God’s might and power? God is the designer of such things.
Was she praying humbly? She was praying before the Lord in worship and sacrifice… so I think so.
What then was the result of Hannah’s prayers? Did the priest scold her for praying so hard for a child? Did the Word of the Lord come down that she should knock off asking for the same thing over and over? Did she ask once and then never give it another thought? Did she ask and get upset when there was no answer and stopped worshipping God? The answer is “no” to all of those questions. In fact, 1 Samuel 1:17-19, “Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him." 18 She said, "May your servant find favor in your eyes." Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. 19 Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her.” We find that Hannah was a person who continually asked God and continued to worship while she waited for answer from God. Hannah embodied Philippians 4:6 which commands us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” In the end, God answered her prayer and she conceived and bore a son… a son who would be the great prophet Samuel.
So, True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again. What does the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 1 tell us the answer is? I think 1 Samuel 1 tells us that it is TRUE, God does want us to pray about something over and over and over again. He does not mind. The passage does not paint Hannah in a negative light even once, but rather shows her as confident, persistent, humble, and a person of continual prayer.
I wonder if the same will be true in the New Testament. So, in looking for answers… True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again… let’s look at the New Testament. Let’s take a look at Luke 18:1-8.
T/F ANSWER IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
READ 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, 5 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? 8 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?
For the sake of argument, let’s just forget Luke 18:1 for now. At the beginning of Luke 18, Jesus is teaching His disciples about prayer. Remember our definition of prayer: Prayer is the expression of our dependence on God through requests. Jesus is teaching His disciples about prayer and chooses to do so in Luke 18 by sharing a parable which teaches based on the lesser to greater principle.
Jesus tells the disciples a parable about a widow who makes a request of a judge. We need to take note that the requestor in this parable is down and out. She is a woman, a widow, and most likely poor. All three of these descriptions would have made this woman undesirable and completely on the back burner for most people in Jesus’ day. She would not have been at the front of any lines or at the top of anyone’s list. She was facing an “adversary” of some kind who obviously knew that she had very little chance of getting any kind of help. Jesus describes a callous and hard judge as the other character in the parable. I don’t know why this person is described as such, but for no other reason than to show us that this poor widow did not even have much of a chance in the court of law. And the unjust human judge is definitely the “lesser” example in comparison to God.
Note what happens in the parable: Verse 5 shows us that this poor widow’s persistence with the judge pays off and she is able to secure justice for herself. Jesus is teaching us that if a cruel and heartless judge can and will eventually help a poor widow and give her justice (lesser), how much more will our righteous and holy Heavenly Father listen to us and stand ready to help us in our times of need (greater). The greater truth is that our God is faithful and just and hears all our prayers. The greater truth is that if an earthly judge will grant a persistent request that certainly our Heavenly Father will.
So, True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again. What does the New Testament in Luke 18:1-8 tell us the answer is? Now I suppose is the time we should fold 18:1 back into the conversation which tells us that Jesus told the parable for a specific reason, “they should always pray and not give up” (verse 1). I hope you see that Jesus’ lesson from the parable of the persistent widow is that the answer is TRUE, God does want us to pray about something over and over and over again. He does not mind. God listens each and every time we pray to Him and He answers according to His will.
T/F ANSWER CONTEMPORARY LIFE
There is one other area where we can draw truth. While it is not the best place for us to gather answers, as long as personal experience matches up with Scripture, it can be of benefit for us. True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again. We find this to be TRUE in the Old Testament. We find this to be TRUE in the New Testament. And I submit to you that we find it to be TRUE in our own lives today.
I have found that persistence in prayer is TRUE in my own life. Kelly and I made the decision that when our children were born, that she would stay home with the children. We were able to put that plan into action by the time Ian was born if I remember correctly. This is not an abnormal plan for a family. In fact, the US Census Bureau reports that in 2011 there were 5 million stay-at-home moms, the same as in 2010 and down from 5.1 million in 2009 and 5.3 million in 2008. In 2011, 23 percent of married-couple family groups with children under 15 had a stay-at-home mother, up from 21 percent in 2000 (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html). Some of you teenagers might remember perhaps having less money when you were younger and you had your mother at home. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages for both.
Anyway, Kelly and I decided that she would start working outside the home again within the past few years now that our kids are older and they are all in school. It makes sense. She got a great job at a lawyers office which was definitely a blessing. It wasn’t the right fit for her. She started praying and praying. I was praying as well for a part-time job. I mean, as a minister, you can either sell drugs or do extra weddings and funerals. The drug trade dried up and you can’t plan on weddings and funerals to pay off extra bills you have. I prayed and was blessed with the wonderful opportunity to teach at FCC, which our church supports with students and money.
Kelly’s job wasn’t changing. She kept praying. Like I said, it just wasn’t a good fit for her. She finally answered an ad on Craigslist (of all places) for a position at another church. I told her it was probably a scam… who posts a real job on Craigslist! They did! She got it and it has been a super blessing. She kept praying and kept persistent and the Lord answered yes in His timing. In his timing the law office moved way north only after Kelly left there… that would have been a great hardship. It was his timing because she also “happens” to have off Mondays, which is the day I teach at FCC. God worked it out all in His timing and in His ways. This time He said “yes.” Persistence in prayer paid off.
So, True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again. What does personal experience tell us the answer is? I think personal experience varies and in this instance it tells us that it is TRUE, God does want us to pray about something over and over and over again. He does not mind. I never got the sense, neither did Kelly, that we were acting in doubt or impatience by bringing the same issue to God over and over again. He did not mind Kelly and I praying for ways to make extra money to pay off bills. Does it always work out that way… for the positive in the exact way we want? I have to be honest and answer no, but God does always listen and He does always work for my good… even if that is a “no” or a “wait” or a “I have something else planned.”
T/F SUMMARY ANSWER CONCLUSION
True or False… God wants us to pray about something over and over and over again.
1 Samuel 1 tells us that it is TRUE.
Luke 18 tells us that it is TRUE.
Personal experience tells us that it is TRUE.
TRUE. TRUE. TRUE.
I do not know what you are dealing with today. Perhaps you are having boy friend or girl friend stresses and the relationship is not going as you planned or maybe you are heading in a wrong direction sexually. Perhaps you are praying for a family member to come to know the Lord. Perhaps you are praying for healing for someone or for recovery from an illness or surgery. No matter your requests to God, know that He doesn’t mind you asking. No matter your requests to God, know that He doesn’t mind you asking over and over.
If you are one of the four out of five adults in the U.S. (84%) claim they had prayed in the past week, don’t stop praying. Don’t stop expressing your dependence on God through requests. He loves us and wants to hear from us.
I want to leave you this morning with one more passage of Scripture which illustrates that God indeed hears us, answers us, and does not mind us coming to Him over and over. The Prophet Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3:49-58, “My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, 50 until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees. 51 What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of my city. 52 Those who were my enemies without cause hunted me like a bird. 53 They tried to end my life in a pit and threw stones at me; 54 the waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to be cut off. 55 I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit. 56 You heard my plea: "Do not close your ears to my cry for relief." 57 You came near when I called you, and you said, "Do not fear." 58 O Lord, you took up my case; you redeemed my life.” When we cry out to God, He hears us and is near. TRUE. TRUE. TRUE.
CONCLUSION AND INVITATION
