There’s a magazine cartoon that shows a little fellow kneeling beside his bed for his bedtime prayer. He says with some measure of disgust, "Dear God, Uncle Jim still doesn’t have a job; Sis still doesn’t have a date for the social; Grandma is still feeling sick - and I’m tired of praying for this family and not getting results."
It seems that praying was a problem for this little fellow and he’s not alone. Prayer is a problem for a lot of people. If it’s not a problem, then why is it that there are so few people who take prayer seriously? If it’s not a problem for us, then why do we find it so hard to set time aside every day to spend with God in prayer? If we took prayer seriously then we wouldn’t hesitate to be persistent and consistent in the time we spend in conversation with God.
And if you think that this is just a problem for our day and time, think again. Why would Jesus have told parables about prayer to his disciples? Why would he have given them the Lord’s Prayer as a model prayer, if nobody had any trouble with prayer? Prayer is not just a modern problem - it has always been a problem for anyone who believes in God.
If we really believe in the power of prayer, if we really believe that prayer can make a difference regarding the affairs of this world, if we’re truly convinced that prayer changes things, changes us, heals broken lives and restores severed relationships, then we would be praying constantly. You couldn’t keep us from praying. But the problem that most of us have with prayer is one that Jesus addresses in Luke 18. We simply lose heart.
Maybe there was a time in our lives when we thought prayer was effective. But we’ve been disappointed. Huckleberry Finn heard about prayer and put an empty shoebox under his bed, prayed to God to fill it by morning, and, when the box remained empty, said that was it showed that prayer doesn’t do any good. We lose heart.
“Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.” (Luke 18:1)
Jesus tells us the purpose of this parable before he even tells us what the parable is. He wanted his disciples to "always pray and not to give up". Here’s the parable:
“There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ’Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ’Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ Then the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.” (Luke 18:2-8a)
This parable has two main characters. First of all, there is a judge who had no fear of God and cared even less what men said. This was a proverbial saying in Christ’s day to describe someone of questionable character. And so the picture of the judge here is one who was godless and unsympathetic. He simply lived for himself — a rather accurate picture of many judges in Christ’s day.
There were many corrupt judges in Jesus’ day who accepted bribes and gave favors to people who held position and authority. You recall that Felix did that in Acts 24, delaying Paul’s trial, waiting for a bribe. So here was a man who wasn’t concerned about conscience or law, morality or justice. He was simply out to fill his pockets and to gain honor and recognition from those who were influential and held position, power, and wealth.
The other character in this story is a widow who wanted legal protection from her opponent. We conclude that this widow obviously had been mistreated, and her request was just and fair. She wanted legal protection. Someone may have been trying to get her money, or to cheat her out of her land. And so, this poor, lowly widow urgently begs for justice, but since she is a widow she has nothing to offer as a bribe. Neither does she have anyone influential to speak on her behalf. She is a picture of utter helplessness.
But she does have one thing. She has the ability to pester the judge. She kept coming to him. In other words, the widow continually and constantly kept approaching this judge. Leaving messages on his answering machine, constantly appearing in his office, writing him letter after letter, sending faxes. She gives him no peace - she is persistent. She wants justice!
Finally this judge says to himself, "Even though I don’t care about God and I can’t stand this woman, I will give this woman what she wants just to get her out of my hair.”
There was another parable that Jesus told with a similar point:
“He said to them, ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him”; and he will answer from within and say, “Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you”? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.’” (Luke 11:5-9)
There are several points that come out of these two parables. First of all, the man begging bread was in a helpless situation. He needed something and he had no means of getting it for himself at that hour of the night. The widow is even more helpless. She was a nobody in her community, too poor to resort to bribery and lacking in influential friends, the chance of her having any success was virtually nil. And what is more, she couldn’t count on the religious principles of the judge because he didn’t have any. She is a picture of utter helplessness and who wouldn’t blame her for losing heart, for getting discouraged and giving up.
That’s why we often don’t pray -- because we lose heart. As I said, if we really believed that God hears and answers our prayers, if we were convinced that prayer changes things, heals broken lives, and restores relationships then we, like the woman, would be hammering on God’s door constantly, asking, seeking and knocking, and waiting. Even when it seems there is no hope, we consistently and persistently keep on going to God even though we sometimes become discouraged.
There is something here about the responsibility of prayer. In verse one, Jesus says the point of the story is that men “ought always to pray and not lose heart”. Another way to translate this would be to say that men “must” always pray. Why did the widow go to the judge time and time and time again. Because she was in urgent need. In Luke 11, why did the man run down the street and wake up his friend at midnight? Because he was in need and didn’t know where else he could go. We must pray, because like the widow and that man begging bread, we stand in need of something that we cannot supply for ourselves.
The Bible records some of the prayers of people who have gone to God with their seemingly hopeless situations. In the book of Psalms, David comes to God time and time again saying, “God, help me! How long, O Lord, before you’ll do something about my enemies!” In I Samuel 1, we read about Hannah who desperately wanted a child. Year after year, she prayed and she prayed. “She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord, and wept in anguish.” (I Samuel 1:10).
We read of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest, three times in fact. "In great anguish he prayed even more fervently; his sweat as like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
If we really believe that God answers our prayers, then we’ll never give up no matter how hopeless the situation may seem, or how long it seems that God has failed to hear our pleas.
That’s what Jesus is getting at. "Keep on praying", he says. Everything in your life might seem to be utter chaos and a total mess, it might seem that God isn’t even listening, but nevertheless "Keep on praying".
It would have been so easy for that widow to give up because the odds were against her ever moving the corrupt judge to do anything in her favor. In spite of how things might look to you and how overpowering the trouble is in your life, and even though the situation appears hopeless, Jesus urges us not to lose faith but to "keep on praying."
But there’s another point in this parable that’s important to notice. First of all, if we believe that prayer is important nothing should keep us from praying. The second point in this parable has to do with the character of God. If that sleazy and corrupt judge who had no real interest in the widow at his door, will open his hand and answer her request, then how much more will our heavenly Father answer our request. In most parables, Jesus says this is what the kingdom is like or this is what God is like. But in this parable, he says, “That’s NOT what God is like.” He is not a God who has to be begged and cajoled into listening to us.
There was once a Christian missionary who was discussing religion with a Hindu friend. In the course of their conversation, the missionary asked, “Why do you always beat a gong when you enter your temple?” The Hindu was a bit embarrassed by the question. He said, “You’re not going to believe this, but we do it to get our god’s attention.” Christians are blessed to have a heavenly Father who has a deep and intimate concern with everything that happens in our lives, and who is anxious to hear and answer our prayers and petitions.
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” (I John 5:14-15).
John says, “We know this about God.” This parable is about the trustworthiness and generosity of God. If a crooked judge can give what is asked for, how much more will God who is gracious and kind give us what we pray for. Jesus said something similar to this in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:9-11). You see, if sinful parents give good things to their children because they love them, then it follows that our heavenly Father who promised to love us as his own and to make us members of his family, will never ignore our prayers, and will always answer them in the most loving way.
Our text today reassures us that God does hear our prayers, just as the judge heard the widow and her pleadings. We can take comfort in the knowledge that God is far more gracious than the dishonest judge was. He answers out of his goodness and kindness and grace. If his answers depended on us, on how well we pray, on how well we have lived as God’s people, then we could never expect to have our prayers answered. I’m sure every one of us here this morning admits that prayer doesn’t have the place in our lives that it should. Even as we confess our slackness when it comes to praying, he answers that prayer out of love. His answers are always good. As God’s child you can count on that.
There’s a beautiful passage in Isaiah 65:24 where God says, “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.”
This parable of Jesus about the widow and the dishonest judge encourages us to pray. "Don’t give up praying," Jesus is saying, "just because the times are hard."
"Keep on praying!" Why? Because of the relationship that we have with the Father. Keep on praying even if the whole situation looks hopeless in our eyes. Keep on praying because we have a God who is willing and waiting to hear from us. Keep on praying because he loves us and is waiting to answer our prayers in a way that will be for our benefit.
But it’s important that we be persistent. Persistence is important in so many areas of our lives. Athletes win only after persistent training. Students achieve only after persisting in studies. Marriages last only because couples have persistently worked at it. Stable family life is maintained because parents and children work at their family relationships. Prayers are answered and events are changed because Christians persist in prayer. Anything worthwhile comes because someone has stuck at it. It is a law of life that it is always too soon to quit.
Persistence is essential in a person’s prayer life. Too many of us never know prayer as a spiritual force simply because we quit too soon.
I want to impress upon you just how important it is in your life that you P.U.S.H. Some of you may have noticed that’s the title of this morning’s lesson and you’ve been trying to figure out what that has to do with the subject of prayer. Let me explain it to you.
This is something that Milton Jones talked about in one of his lessons while we were in Pensacola two weeks ago. P.U.S.H. simply stands for the words, “Pray Until Something Happens” and that’s what the parable of the judge and the widow is all about -- the need for persistence in our prayer lives.
As Jesus himself said, the point of the parable is to teach us to always pray and to not give up. PUSH, in other words. Pray Until Something Happens. Pray and pray and pray and don’t give up, just pray some more. Pray until something happens.
It’s essential that we learn this lesson. I would imagine that some of you here this morning are really struggling with some sin in your life. And that sin has been there for a long time. Galatians 6:1-2 talks about being “caught” in a sin, being “trapped” in a sin. Some of you have prayed to God once, twice, maybe even twenty or thirty times for God to deal with that sin, and maybe you’re going, “I’m just caught, I’m never going to get out of it.” What should you do? PUSH! Pray until something happens. Don’t give up. Pray and pray and pray again.
Perhaps some of you have got some family problems, perhaps some of you have got marriage problems, perhaps some of you have trouble with your children or even with your parents, what are you going to do? Maybe you say, things seem almost hopeless, they’ve been bad for so long. I want to tell you this morning -- don’t give up praying! PUSH! You just pray and you pray and you pray again, and I don’t know why it is that you pray 99 times and it seems like nothing happens and then finally on the 100th prayer when it’s the same prayer that you pray ed99 times before, something finally happens. Don’t give up. Just keep praying and praying.
Let me tell you -- you have some people in your life and you’ve been hoping they’d become a Christian, and it seems like there’s no way. Right now they seem so closed and you just want to give up and you want to say, “I’m never going to share with them again because they’re just so closed”, I want to tell you this morning, PUSH. Just pray until something happens. You pray for them and pray for them and if it takes a thousand prayers, you pray the thousandth prayer. Just pray until something happens.
What’s your hearts’ desire? What is it you want more than anything else in all the world? What is it you think, this is my dream, this is my spiritual dream, my ministry dream, and it seems like it can never ever, ever happen. It may never happen until you. pray and you pray and you pray and you pray and you pray. Some prayers don’t just get answered like that. You have to push. You have to pray until something happens.
Why does God sometimes not answer our prayers immediately? I don’t know all the reasons, but I suspect many times it has to do with the fact that we don’t need what we’re praying for nearly as much as we need a relationship with God, and that’s what prayer is all about. Developing a relationship with God. Maybe you need what you’re praying for, and you’ll get it somewhere down the line, but what you really need is to talk with God for a long, long time. And that’s not going to happen until you PUSH. Pray until something happens.
I can’t begin to tell you what a difference that concept has made in the life of Sueanne and myself. Since returning from Pensacola, we have been absolutely committed to the concept of prayer in our lives. I dare say we have prayed more together in the past two weeks than we have prayed in the past ten years, and we are committed to continuing in prayer about matters that mean a great deal to us. Many of you are mentioned in our prayers by name, some of you are mentioned each and every day because we are so committed to wanting God to impact your hearts and your lives in some special way. There are things that we want to happen in this church and we intend to PUSH, pray until something happens, and we believe with all of our hearts that things will begin to happen.
In just a moment, we’re going to sing a song of invitation, “While We Pray and While We Plead”. I heard a story once about a congregation where the song was sung, “For You I am Praying”. At the end of the song, the preacher turned to one of the members and said, “Who are you praying for?” The member said, “Well, nobody, it’s just some words I was singing.”
As we sing this song, “While We Plead and While We Plead”, I don’t want it to be just some words that we’re singing. If there are those in the audience to need to respond to become a child of God or to confess sin and seek restoration, I want you to know there are people in this room who have been praying for you and who are praying for you at this very moment.
