Luke 18. Luke chapter 18. You say, preacher, you forgot about prayer. No, I didn't. All right. We're mixing things up a little bit. We're going to have some time of prayer at the end. I figured I'm preaching on prayer tonight. So we get the message in and then we can practice what we preach. Amen. Makes good sense to me. And if not to you, that's OK. But I got the microphone. So Luke 18, and stand together if you would. We're gonna read verses one through eight together. The message tonight is entitled simply Persistent Prayer. The Bible says this. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint. saying, there was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while. But afterward he said within himself, though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming She weary me. And the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge saith. Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Tonight, a message entitled Persistent Prayer. Father, I pray that as we take these next few minutes and look into your word. Lord, I ask that you give us open hearts. Lord, that you give us attentive hearts. Lord, it is Wednesday. And Lord, it is the middle of winter. And Lord, there are many factors that make us weary in this hour. But God, I ask that you would give us the grace to have an unusual attention to your word, to what your Holy Spirit desires to do. And God, I ask that you would help us to hear and heed everything. that you'd have for us in this hour. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. You know, as we begin the new year, new years present us with new potential. And really, I'm excited for the new year. I have, I think, what I could describe as a hope-filled expectation. You know, I don't just want this to be a good year, and I don't even really want this to be a great year. I want it to be a year where we see our good God do great things. And I'm going to tell you, there's a big difference between what I can accomplish, or even what we can accomplish, and what He can accomplish. And if I truly want what only God can do, then really I need to ask Him for it. Amen? I love the quote on prayer. The devil fears nothing from our prayerless studies, from our prayerless work, from our prayerless parenting and marriages, from our prayerless toil and even our prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray. You know, as a Christian, I believe that our life will never rise above our prayer life. You say, preacher, where do you get that from? What did Jesus say in John 15, 5? As he described himself as the vine and we're the branches, he said at the end of that verse, he said, for without me, what does it say, church? Ye can do nothing. As a Christian, I believe that our life will never rise above our prayer life. And yet, when I consider our prayer life and the potential of prayer, truly, there is no ceiling to our prayer life. Jesus said in Matthew 7, beginning in verse 7, He said, Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Now I'm gonna make this disclaimer here at the start. A lot of times when somebody preaches on prayer, prayer is one of those kind of like, no matter what happens, it's kind of like one of those guilt messages. Because all of us recognize what? None of us pray enough, right? And the one of you that's like, well, I pray enough. No, you need to pray for forgiveness, you liar. None of us pray enough. And like, we all know it in the depth of our souls. But I want you to know, church, this message is not meant to be a guilt message, because God wants us to be encouraged and empowered in our prayer lives in the coming year. So I want to look at this setting of scripture, and then we'll have some time of prayer together at the end. Look at verse number one. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint. Number one, tonight I want us to notice our call to prayer. Our call to prayer. Jesus here is going to tell a parable. A parable is simply an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And the purpose, the heavenly meaning of this story is that he is teaching or encouraging us to pray and not to faint. I think we have to remember prayer is an absolute necessity to the Christian life. You know, sometimes prayer is treated like the spare tire. Well, at least I've got it in case I get in trouble. Friend, prayer is not the spare tire. Prayer is the engine. Prayer is an absolute necessity for the Christian life. And as we consider our call to prayer, really our command to pray, I really think Jesus presents us here with a choice. He says that men ought always to pray. And what does the end of that verse say? Men ought always to pray and not to faint. And so we have a choice. Pray. or faint. You know, I think these are our choices because of the day in which we live. You know, the context of this parable calls us to consider the days surrounding the return of Christ. If you go back into the previous chapter, really Jesus was teaching about his second coming. Verses 27 through 30 really kind of give us a clear snapshot of that. You can even back up to verse 26, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. And then he talks about the days of Noah, they did eat and they drank, they married wives, were given in marriage and till the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. And verse 28 talks about Lot. Verse 29, Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 30, Thus, even thus, shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Even in our parable tonight, you go to verse 8, you go to the end of the parable, and what do we find? In Luke 18 in verse 8, he says, Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth. You know, I do believe that we are living in some of the last of the last days. And when you look at the last days, what do we find? We find that the scripture characterizes these days as being full of wickedness and full of indifference to the Lord. 2 Timothy chapter 3 reminds us that knowing this, that in the last days perilous times shall come. And then we get a laundry list of evil and peril that will befall society. Much of which you can just check it off that you see on the nightly news on a regular basis. In 2 Thessalonians 2, in verse number 3, the Bible says, I'm going to tell you, even among those who claim to be Christians, There is an incredible apostatizing taking place at an alarming rate. Did you see the new Bible they just published? Hold on. Did you see the new Bible they just published? It is diverse and gender inclusive. And they're making the media tour, talking about how wonderful this Bible is, talking about the liberation of all sorts of marginalized groups and the diversity and equity and inclusion that it includes. I'm going to tell you what that is. That's apostasy. And we see these things. But I'm going to tell you, the more difficult it gets, we need more prayer, not less. We need more prayer, not less. And really, as we consider the day and age in which we live, the reality is we're either going to pray or we're going to faint. Our call to prayer here in verse 1, the Lord Jesus calls us not just to pray, but always to pray. Did you notice that? He said, He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to think. You say, preacher, what does it mean to always pray? Well, this does not mean that God intends for us to pray 24-7, 365, without work, without sleep, without food, et cetera, et cetera. Rather, Jesus is calling us to develop a discipline of and a dependence upon prayer. The Apostle Paul likens the words of Jesus in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, where he tells us this, Now, again, you might on the surface be like, well, does that mean I have to pray 24-7, 365? No, it doesn't. I think a good analogy that we can draw out from this verse, how many of you, and I know probably not many of you have experienced this, but there may be some in the room, how many of you have ever experienced a persistent cough that you couldn't shake? For like, yeah, exactly. Thank you, Kathy. That was perfect. That was perfect. I mean, you just can't help it, can you? And it's like, it's just always happening. And if something happens, like, what is my response? My response is to call. And we do it all the time. That's what this is like. It's not that I have to walk around everywhere praying, praying, praying. Go talk to me, I'm praying. Praying, praying, praying. You're closing your eyes, hitting people while you're driving. It just means that all the time, like a persistent cough, what am I doing? I'm going to God in prayer. I'm going to God in prayer. I'm going to God in prayer. I'm going to God in prayer. I can't help but do it. I naturally respond with it whether I really want to or not. We see here a call to prayer. But then Jesus gives us a parable. And the parable Jesus gives us is given to us to instill confidence in prayer with us. So number one, we saw our call to prayer. Number two, I want us to note our confidence in prayer. Let's look at the parable again. Verse two saying, in a city a judge, which fear not God, neither regard in man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what that unjust judge saith. He saith, Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? Jesus said, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? So number one, we see our call to prayer, that men ought always to pray and not to faint. Number two, in this parable, we see our confidence in prayer. So Jesus' parable demonstrates to us the confidence that we should have in prayer by using a metaphor of contrast. So this would be like calling a bald guy curly. Like if we called brother John Gehring, if we nicknamed him curly, obviously that would be a contrast. And everybody would kind of know what we were getting at, right brother John? Amen, amen. Or calling a really big guy tiny. So it is a metaphor of contrast. So let's look at the parable. We have a widow who desires for the judge to hear her complaint. This judge was not a good man. He didn't fear God. He didn't regard men. But what would happen is this judge would set up in town and he would have a tent where those who were approved could come and have their cases heard. Well, this poor widow wanted to have her case heard before the judge. This judge didn't really want to hear her case. Probably, if I might interject a little bit, because there was nothing in it for him. Number one, she was a widow. So she held no real standing in society whatsoever. She was probably very poor. And so there was absolutely nothing in it for this judge. There was no reason for him to do it. So he was inclined, being one who didn't fear God or man, to not hear her complaint at all. Now, the problem is this little lady was not one to be denied. She had spunk. She had a little bit of fire. How many of us know a little lady like that? She got some spunk in her. I see some people with their hands up. I see brave people with their hands down. Don't want that spunk upside your head. So amen and amen. This lady had spunk. So what did she do? She followed the judge. She walked around his tent, and she plead incessantly for her cause, whether he wanted to hear it or not. So can you imagine? He's trying to hold court, and you got this little lady just walking around, hollering in, hollering in, hey, judge! Hey, judge, avenge me, judge. Hey, judge, avenge me. Judge, I need you. Judge, help me. And over and over and over and over to the point where this man, who neither feared God nor man, said, the only way I'm going to get rid of this woman is to give her what she wants. And so he did. He granted her her cause. Not because he was a just judge, not because he was a good man, not because it was what was right, not because he had pity on her, but simply because he was sick and tired of her asking. The words here in the Bible, when it says that she troubleth me, it means to beat or to cause trouble. To weary means literally to blacken with the eye. In other words, her incessant pleading was just wearing on him in even a physical way. And so this woman was able to have her cause heard and answered because she just wouldn't quit. Now Jesus says in verse number six, he says, hear what the unjust judge sayeth. So he is drawing a contrast. He's gonna say, look, if this woman with no standing coming before an unjust judge, could have her cause, her petition heard. He said, let's think about our situation. Verse seven, he says, shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? And Jesus here demonstrates a couple of reasons we can have confidence in our prayer life. I see confidence because of the contrast between the person of the judge and the Heavenly Father. And church, this is not deep stuff. This is stuff that's important for us to know. God is not some disinterested judge who only cares for his own selfish interests. God is not unjust. God does not only care about the important people or the things that can bring him gain. God is not some unjust judge. No, God is good. God is good. James 1 in verse number 17 reminds us of that, that every good and perfect gift comes from above. And cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Psalm 103 verse 2, the psalmist implores us to bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. In Psalm 84 verse 11, the psalmist says, for the Lord God is a son, and a shield, the Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." God is not some unjust judge who is hard to handle and is hard to get to. No, God is good. God is gracious. And God is merciful. Psalm 103 in verse number 8 tells us the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. Church, do you want to be more confident in your prayer life? Learn to be more confident in who God is. If I can learn to be confident in who He is, boy, I can have a lot of confidence in the requests that I am bringing before Him. He is my shield, amen? He is my hiding place, my strong tower. He is my Father. He is my friend. Who is He tonight? I think so often when we pray, He's little more than some far-off, disinterested judge that may or may not hear our request this time. No, that's not who He is at all. If you want to have confidence in your prayer, you've got to learn who your God is. Who He is. Confidence because of the contrast I see between the judge and our Heavenly Father. Confidence because of the contrasted position of the widow and the believer. Think tonight of this little widow woman. This widow had no relationship to the judge. And this judge did his absolute best to give her no regard. But I'm going to tell you, nothing could be farther from the truth for the believer. You see, I am not just some no-name citizen of heaven. I'm a no-name citizen of the United States, except when it comes to tax time. My elected leaders have no idea who I am. I'm an unnamed citizen of this great land, but I'm going to tell you, I'm a son of the king. I'm a son of the king. And I'm going to tell you what, I know who my kids are. God knows who his kids are. I love. How John puts it in John chapter 1 and verse number 12. John said, but as many as received him. Say this with me, church. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Matthew 7 and verse 11 tells us this. But if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more None of us, none of us, none of us who have kids or grandkids set out on Christmas to do them wrong. Every one of us sought to give good gifts to the people we loved. But if you and I, being fallen, wicked people, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him? Psalm 103 and verse 13 reminds us that like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. I'm going to tell you what. I consider like my own experience. And I have a heart to do good to all. But there is an undeniable reality that I have a special responsibility to my own children. That when they call, when they need, even a lot of times when they want, I want to be there to give them what they need, what they desire. Folks, we are not nameless citizens of heaven. We are sons and daughters of the King. We are joint heirs with Christ. What a beautiful thing that we as His children have access to His throne of grace. And I can pray in confidence. Why? Because I know who He is. And because I know who I am in His sight. I'm a son. I am a son. And I'm going to tell you, this confidence is a big part of praying in faith. So we see here our call to prayer that men ought always to pray and not to faint. We find our confidence in prayer. God is not some unjust, disinterested judge. No, He is our good and gracious Heavenly Father. And we are His beloved sons and daughters. We find our confidence in prayer. Finally tonight, I bring us this to consider our challenge in prayer. James 5.16 tells us this. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. Read the last part of the verse with me. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Let's say it again. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Let's say it again. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Let me ask you tonight, church, do you believe that prayer changes things? Do you believe, and we just read the verse, that prayer, the effectual fervent prayer of a saved man accomplishes much? Do you believe that, church? Prayer then is not a lift for the soul. No, prayer is a lifeline. It is our lifeline. Psalm 34 and verse number 6 tells us this. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. As I consider tonight this little widow woman, as I consider tonight this year, as I consider tonight our privilege of prayer, I end with a couple of applications. That we ought to pray with passion this year. That we ought to pray with a burden. That we ought to pray with brokenness. Let me ask you tonight, what burdens your soul? What burdens your soul? What is heavy upon you? I'm going to tell you, there are things in this life that ought to burden us. They ought to. I'm going to tell you, lost souls ought to burden us. Because if someone dies without Christ, let me ask you, where do they go? Where do they go, church? Where do they go, church? If someone dies without Christ, they go to hell, and they spend eternity apart from God. Lost souls ought to burden us. It ought to weigh on us that the people we live next to, the people we're related to, our sons, our daughters, our mothers, our fathers, are without Christ. And unless something changes, they're on their way to hell. It ought to burden us. But I got good news, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. You know, in the last year, we've been able to take more people off the prayer list for being unsaved than I think any other year, because people, we pray for them, and what happens? They get saved. Amen? The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. There are things that ought to burden us. Lost souls ought to burden us. I'm going to tell you, wayward saints ought to burden us. You know, sometimes we're like, oh, you know, well, they're just doing them or they're whatever. And we kind of distance and downplay it. No, I'm telling you, if there is a Christian who walks away from the Lord and walks away from the things of God, you can look at how Paul describes it in Corinthians and other passages, where in reality, when they remove themselves, from that right relationship with God, from that right relationship with the church, they exit the protective umbrella of the people of God, and they enter the domain of Satan. That's an awful place to be. An awful place to be. I'm going to tell you, wayward saints ought to burden us. It ought to burden us. It ought to weigh on us. We ought to love them and pray for them. What about this? The strongholds of sin. You know, I know no one anymore ever struggles with sin, but the reality is, yes, we do. Yes, we do. We still struggle with pride. We struggle with lust. We struggle with looking at things. We struggle with taking things and doing things that aren't right. We struggle with lying. We struggle with gossip. We struggle with all sorts of things that humanity has struggled with since the beginning of time. We absolutely do. We all do. Because we all have this wicked flesh still. Like Paul said in Romans 7, who will deliver me? And I'm going to tell you, it ought to burden us. There ought to be some brokenness that God would deliver us to help us to mature and grow and be free. You know what? I'm still crazy enough to believe that in Christ we can truly be free. Amen? We can be free. We can be free. The strongholds of sin, the need for wisdom, the need for vision, The need for boldness and courage. What about this one? The need for the Holy Spirit's filling in our lives. But we don't talk about that much, do we? I'm going to preach about that soon. Because we need that. We need to be filled with the Spirit. Absolutely we do, not just on Sunday. You need to be filled with the Spirit on Monday when you go to work. You need to be filled with the Spirit on Monday night when you come home from work. We need to be filled with the Spirit. I'm going to tell you, there are some things in this life that ought to burden us. And as I think about these things, I come to this realization. that the things that ultimately matter, the things that are gonna matter a hundred years from now, the things that are gonna matter a thousand years from now, the things that ultimately matter do not happen unless God gets involved. In other words, like Jesus said, without him, I can do nothing. And when we have this realization, It leads us to pray as if our whole situation depends on it because it does. You know, it burdens me from time to time. will ask one another, how can I pray for you? What can I pray for you about? And you know, we don't want to be that guy and we don't want to air all our troubles. And so how can I pray for you? Oh, I really can't think of anything right now. Boy, you're in worse shape than you realize. Because friend, every one of us needs prayer desperately. And I'm going to tell you, when you recognize how desperately we in this world need prayer, it will lead us to pray passionately, to pray with burden, to pray with brokenness. Pray passionately. But secondly, I want to challenge us to do this, not just to pray passionately. I want us to pray pointedly. to pray specifically, to pray like the point of an arrow. It's not wrong to pray the broad prayers, Lord bless the missionaries, and Lord bless the pastor, and Lord bless this, and Lord bless that, and it's not wrong to pray broadly, but folks, if we want specific answers, we need to pray specific prayers. Sometimes I think we pray broadly in order to give God an out. God doesn't need you to give Him an out. Pray pointedly, pray specifically, like the point of an arrow. And I want to challenge you to do this. This year, I want you to commit to pray for someone and to pray for something. persistently every day this year. I want you to pray for someone. That is someone other than yourself. Someone who needs to be saved. Someone who needs to get right. Someone who needs God's healing hand on their life. Someone who's got some big life choices and decisions upcoming. I want you to pray for someone in a very pointed way this year. Pray for someone. And then if there's something in your life, in your family, in your community, pray for something. But be pointed. Be specific. You know, the Bible calls us over and over and over and over and over again to pray for and to intercede for one another. And I want you to pray for someone this year. Pray for something this year. Pray specifically. Pray persistently. Pray believing. So the obvious question comes, well, what do I do when God answers that prayer? Well, here's what I want to challenge you to do. On a Wednesday night, just like tonight, when God answers that prayer, I want you to put your hand up. And I want you to say, I want to praise God. Because I've been praying for this person, and God answered that prayer. Because I've been praying for this thing, and God answered that prayer. He met that need, He moved, He made a way. I want you to raise your hand, take a microphone, and give glory to God when He answers that prayer. And then I want you to pick someone else or something else. And I want you to pray persistently for that person. And I think it'd be a beautiful thing throughout the year to be able to hear testimony after testimony after testimony. Hey, you remember that Wednesday night way back in January when you finally bothered to come back to church? Me, not you. I'm the one that hadn't been here for like forever. You remember that January way back that Wednesday night when you told us to pray for someone and something. Well, this is how God has answered my prayer. And I think it'd be a beautiful thing all year long to be able to hear God answer prayer after prayer after prayer after prayer. What an awesome thing that would be. Prayer is so important. I wanna end with a couple of thoughts on prayer and then we'll have a time of prayer requests and prayer together tonight. Praying in confident faith is so important because really when we pray in faith, this states that I trust God and I trust that he will always answer for his glory and my good. You know, sometimes things don't turn out the way we want them to, right? Sometimes things don't turn out the way we think they should. But praying in faith recognizes and trusts God to always do what is good and what is right. You know what that forces us to do? That forces each of us to recognize that I don't always know what is good and what is right. I think about it, like if I said, kids, ask me for the desires of your heart. You know what they would ask me for? They would ask me for a phone. They would ask me, one of them is already asking me for a truck, a TV in their bedroom, and pizza. The only good thing on the list is pizza. They ain't getting any of the rest of it. Ain't happening. Why? Because they don't know what's good for them. And ultimately, they don't know what's best. You know, we have to realize the same thing with our Heavenly Father. That we may know what we want, and we may know what we think, but we really don't always know what is best. And so praying in faith recognizes that God will always do what is right and God will always do what is best. That takes faith, church, and really brings us back to the end of our passage. Jesus asks a striking question in verse number 8. It says, Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? And in this matter of prayer, I wonder, will he find anyone still depending on him? Anyone still calling on him? Anyone still waiting on him? Anyone still believing on him? You know, very often, the longer he delays, the longer we pray demonstrates our faith. It really takes very little faith to pray once. It takes great faith to pray always. Church prayer is not a pretense. Prayer is not something that we do just because God tells us to do it or something we do for others to see. No, prayer is a privilege that grants you and I access to the throne of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-merciful, always-present God. I began with a quote that I liked on prayer. I'm going to end with a quote that I like. Someone once said, what the church needs today is not more or better machinery, not new organizations, not new methods, not new buildings, but men and women of prayer. What the church needs is men and women who are willing to answer God's standing challenge. Jeremiah 33 and verse number 3. He said, Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Church, I am fully persuaded that that verse is true. Are you?