Pastor Tim Patoka
Christian Character #2 October 13, 2019 Christian Character: The Believer Is Persistent In Prayer Luke 18:1-8a 1) God Will Answer His Children’s Prayers 2) We Persistently Pray Because Of God’s Love
When you’ve asked for something from someone, how long do you typically wait to get it? Sometimes we quickly get what we ask for like last week when I picked up an Eegee’s party special for our campus ministry Bible study on Galatians. But usually it’s not that quick. A parent asks their child to clean their room and what ends up happening is that the piles of stuff get moved around. But sometimes, we later get what we ask for like when a child writes their Christmas list and later finds what they asked for in a wrapped present. You never know how long it’s going to take to get what you ask someone for. In our verses for this morning, Jesus tells us what we can expect from God when we ask him things in prayer. And he teaches us these things through a parable. The Sunday School definition I learned for a parable is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Jesus doesn’t tell us parables to entertain us. Rather, these parables are teaching tools intended to bring home a point in a way that simply saying the truth wouldn’t do. And in this parable of the persistent widow, we learn that part of a Christian’s character is to be persistent in prayer. For we know that God will answer his children’s prayers. And we are encouraged to persistently pray because of God’s love. 1) God Will Answer His Children’s Prayers You got to hand it to this widow for all the difficulties she went through to finally get justice from her adversary! We’re not told who exactly the people are nor where this takes places. But it doesn’t matter if it’s fact or fiction It’s a parable! And in this parable we see a judge who answered only to himself for he “did not fear God and did not care about people.” (Luke 18:2b) There was also a widow who was denied some justice that was due to her. The judge refused to grant it to her because he did not care about her or any higher power. However, this widow refused to take no for an answer. She persisted and plead with the unjust judge for some time. And finally the judge gave the widow the justice she asked for. No one could have blamed the widow if she gave up asking for this unjust judge for justice. After a while, it must have seemed pointless for her to persistently keep asking for this. We know from our opening verse that this parable is about prayer. Might we too be tempted to think that prayer is pointless when we don’t get what we ask for? When you asked for help in that big project at work or test at school and you ended up winging it. When that unexpected bill came up that upset your life’s plans. Sometimes we ask for help from long-standing problems. A weakness of the flesh to some addiction or chronic health problems. Perhaps we 1
Pastor Tim Patoka
Christian Character #2 October 13, 2019 get frustrated because we ask for something that, according to our wisdom, would be good but we never get it. Imagine the offerings we could give and the people we could help if we won the lottery! No matter which way you cut it, when we don’t get what we ask for in prayer, we’re tempted to lose heart. We struggle to persistently pray to God because we can think it’s pointless. Yet prayer is not pointless for we know that God answers all our prayers. He tells us so in our verses for this morning. “Will not God give justice to his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night? Will he put off helping them? I tell you that he will give them justice quickly.” (Luke 18:7-8a) God is not like the unjust judge who ignored the widow’s pleading. Instead, he will most certainly hear what we pray and help us as he knows best. We also heard this promise in our 2nd Lesson from 1 John chapter 5. “This is the confidence that we have before [God]: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us…we also know that we receive the things we have asked from him” (1 John 5:14, 15b) that are according to his will. And the ways God answers our prayers are in the same ways I alluded to at the beginning of our sermon. He says “yes,” “no,” or “later.” We see examples from Scripture where God answered his children’s prayers in these three ways. In the verses before and after our 1st Lesson where Jacob got renamed as Israel, we see when Jacob prayed to God for his brother Esau to welcome him back home with open arms. And that’s exactly what Esau did. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the Apostle Paul prayed for God to remove his unknown thorn in the flesh. Yet God said “no” explaining to him that “my grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) We see how God said “later” to prayers for a child from couples like Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 25:21), Elkanah and Hannah (1 Samuel 1:11), and Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:13). Regardless how God answered all these prayers, his purpose was the same: to give his children what was best for their eternal good. Praying to God is not pointless because we know that God both hears our prayers and will answer them according to his will. Our struggle is to be persistent in prayer when tempted to lose heart. Think again of the times you’ve prayed to God for something but didn’t get it: help in that one-time event, relief from a long-standing problem, something that you were sure would help you and others. How is it for your eternal best that God responded in the way he did? Now I can’t read God’s mind and tell you why in each case. Perhaps we’ll find out on this side of heaven. More likely it’ll be on the other side. But I do know what he says in his Word. God hears the prayers of his children. And he will answer according to his will, in the way that’s best for your eternal good. A Christian’s character is to be persistent in prayer because we know that God will answer his children’s prayers.
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Pastor Tim Patoka
Christian Character #2 October 13, 2019 2) We Persistently Pray Because Of God’s Love
And we can be sure that as we pray, God will respond because of his love for us. Our Lord above is not some cold, distant figure who answers prayers like a robot or an automated messaging app. No, it is his love that explains why he does this. Let’s look back at the parable. Why did the judge finally give the widow her justice? As he said before, “even though I do not fear God or care about people, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not wear me out with her endless pleading.” (Luke 18:4b-5) The widow became a nuisance to the judge and wore him down with her persistent pleading. So he gave her the justice she was due to get rid of her. In short, the judge answered her because of a selfserving spirit. That’s not how it is with God. God doesn’t answer our prayers because we wear him down or he wants to get rid of us. First of all, it’s impossible for us to wear the almighty God down. But secondly, this is not in line with how God views us. Listen again to how God describes us. “Will not God give justice to his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night? Will he put off helping them?” (Luke 18:7) God calls us his chosen ones, those whom he has blessed to bring from spiritual death to spiritual life through the gift of faith. And what will he not put off? “Helping them.” (Luke 18:7b) If God had a self-serving spirit, he would not help us. Rather, he helps us because he loves us. It is because of his love that God answers our prayers for our eternal good. It’s not only in prayer where we see this love. We see it all the more in why he sent his Son to be our Savior. There is no innate goodness within us sinful creatures to prompt God to do this. As you look through the pages of Old and New Testament history, we see countless examples how God’s people fail to live according to God’s Word let alone those outside of the faith. No one in the history of the world has ever be able to earn God’s loving attention. And yet what remains the case for us all? Our loving Lord tells us in John chapter 3. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) It is because of God’s love for us that we have a Savior who lived, died, and rose for us. And it is because of God’s love for us that we persistently pray. Our Lord spoke this parable of the persistent widow to show us “the need to always pray and not lose heart.” (Luke 18:1b) As such, it is part of a Christian’s character to be persistent in prayer. Our prayers do not fall on deaf ears. Instead God tells us he hears all everything we say in prayer. He promises to answer us according to his will in the way that’s best for our eternal good. And regardless of how God answers our prayers, we know that he does so out of love for those he has chosen to be his children through faith. Reassured of these promises, let us learn from the persistent widow by persisting in prayer when tempted to lose heart. Amen. 3