Persistent Prayer – January 10, 2010

Luke 18:1-8 (New King James Version)

  ¹ Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, ² saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. ³ Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ ⁴ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, ⁵ yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’”
⁶ Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. ⁷ And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? ⁸ I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

Introduction:

A tale is told about a small town that had historically been "dry," no alcohol, but then a local businessman decided to build a tavern. A group of Christians from a local church were concerned and planned an all-night prayer meeting to ask God to intervene. It just so happened that shortly thereafter lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The owner of the bar sued the church, claiming that the prayers of the congregation were responsible, but the church hired a lawyer to argue in court that they were not responsible. The presiding judge, after his initial review of the case, stated that "no matter how this case comes out, one thing is clear. The tavern owner believes in prayer and the Christians do not."

 Prayer is such an enigma isn’t it? There is not a person here who would not agree with me that prayer is one of the most important practices we need to be doing  as followers of Jesus. Yet, it is probably one of the hardest disciplines of faith to regularly practice day after day, year after.

Early African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions. Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent one, "Brother, the grass grows on your path."

            How grows the grass on your path? Today, we will be talking about persistence in prayer. May God so inspire you, that you wear down so much grass that you make a four lane highway to his throne.

Sermon:

What I like about this scripture is that Jesus is straightforward. He tells us exactly what the point of this story is. We don’t have to go scrambling about in the dark trying to figure it out: keep on praying and don’t give up. There is a need for us to be persistent in our prayers otherwise Jesus would not have mentioned it.

Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Church, tells about an interesting experience after a baptism service in their church. He writes: "I bumped into a woman in the stairwell who was crying. I thought this was a little odd, since the service was so joyful. I asked her if she was all right. She said, 'No, I'm struggling.' She said, 'My mom was baptized today. I prayed for her every day for almost 20 years. The reason I'm crying is because I came this close to giving up on her. At the 5-year mark I said, "Who needs this? God isn't listening." At the 10-year mark I said, "Why am I wasting my breath?" At the 15-year mark I said, "This is absurd." At the 19-year mark I said, "I'm just a fool." But I just kept trying, kept praying. Even with weak faith I kept praying. Then she gave her life to Christ, and she was baptized today. I will never doubt the power of prayer again." There is a need to be persistent in prayer: pray and never give up.

 Notice who Jesus uses as the one represents the follower of God, the one who is praying and the one who represents God. A widow is looking for justice. We don’t know what her case is. We don’t know what justice means to her. She wants her case to be heard and fairness to be administered. That is a common prayer, is it not? How often have we prayed that life would simply be fair? How often have we prayed that God would administer justice upon the earth? That the good would be rewarded and the bad people would be punished. Life often seems unfair, true?

 Now a widow back in Jesus’ time was not in a very good position. It was an extremely chauvinistic society, governed by men. Without a husband to represent her in court, she would be lucky to get her case heard, never mind be able to win the case. Her odds for getting justice, were very small. 

The judge was crooked. Judges in Jesus’ time travelled around and heard cases wherever they stopped. There weren’t any court houses or court officers. They just set up a tent and put up a sign: court is now opened for session. But of course, they were very crooked. They heard the cases that they were paid to hear. Thus the rich and the powerful often paid off the judge to get their case heard or in some case, never heard. Fair, even, justice was almost unheard of.

So this widow basically becomes the squeaky wheel. She pesters him until he finally hears her case just to get rid of her. That sounds like God doesn’t it? I don’t think so.  And Jesus makes that clear at the end of this parable. Because he says, “Listen to what the crooked judge says.” Will not God bring about justice for his children if this crooked judge brings justice for a woman just to get her off his back?

But this parable is not about God. This parable is about being persistent in prayer.  Persistence, our commitment to praying, is about us, those who claim to be followers of Jesus. Being persistent in prayer is one of the most important aspects of our prayer life. It is hard to stick to it. It is hard to keep praying for the same things over and over. We start to think that God doesn’t care of that he isn’t listening or that maybe there’s something wrong with us, that maybe we have done something so that God is mad at us and he’s not going to answer our prayers. These things and others like them, cause us to give up praying.

God’s truth is that being persistent in prayer is for our sakes. Being persistent helps us to grow in our faith. First of all, being persistent in prayer, keeps us in God’s presence. In order to keep praying for something, we have to keep coming to God. We have to be continually in his presence to be continually  speaking to Him.

When I was in seminary, my sister went through a tragic divorce and I inherited her dog, a beautiful Afghan hound named Dylan. There was this girl who lived about a block away from my apartment in Beverly who frequently would walk my dog for me. With the amount of work I had to do in graduate school, I was right in the middle of Hebrew, that was fine with me. So she would persistently take Dylan for his nightly walk. After a while, I didn’t have so much work to do and I started going for these walks too and then this girl and I got to know each other. That girl’s name was of course, Tina, and you know what happened after that.

The purpose of prayer is not to get God to do things for you, it is to allow you to know God and to learn that you can depend on him. Being persistent keeps us in God’s presence where He wants us to be.

Secondly, being persistent in prayer helps you define and refine your prayer requests. Jesus tells us to pray for whatever we want and I believe we should do that but that doesn’t mean that whatever we pray for is going to happen. As we pray for something persistently over a period of time, that request gets defined and re-defined according to God’s will.

Ken  was tired of living "hand-to-mouth", and began to pray that he would receive either a raise in salary or a better paying job. He came up for a performance review at work, and was told that even though he was doing a great job, there was no money in the company for raises this year. So, he began sending out resumes—after sending out dozens he had not received a single offer better than what he already had. During this time God began to speak to him about several areas in which he was spending too much money. Over a period of time his request changed from "Give me more money" to "Make me a better steward of my money." He realized that he could reduce his expenses $300 a month by cutting out unnecessary things, such as HBO, the gym membership he didn’t use, the extravagant plan on his cell phone. He ate out less, and so on. Also, for all of his adult life Ken had had a car payment; every two or three years he would trade in his "old" car for a new one. This year, he decided to pay off the car and keep it for awhile. Ken said, "My income hasn't changed, but it's like I got an $8000 a year raise!" This began with a request for more money. Over time, His request went from, “Lord, give me more money,” to "Lord, make me a better steward of my money." Ken’s prayer request had been re-defined into what he really needed to pray for. Persistent prayer helps us to define and re-define our prayers so that we become more in tune with God’s will for our lives.

Thirdly, persistent prayer proves and improves our faith. Jesus ended this parable by saying, (v. 8) "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" In other words, will he find people praying persistently? Persistent prayers demonstrate faith.

Earlier in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus was teaching on this very same subject, he said,

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. (Luke 11:9-10)

In other words, ask and keep asking, knock and keep knocking, seek and keep seeking.  Persistent prayer not only proves your faith, but improves your faith.

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. Persistent prayer takes prayer out of the "plan b" category. Persistent prayer takes prayer from being a  "last-ditch-effort"  and puts it where it belongs: as a top priority in your life.