Turn to Luke chapter 18 verses 1 through 8 which is where our Sermon will be this morning. We'll take as a text of our sermon Luke chapter 18 Verses 1 through 8 the title of this morning's message is pray and not lose heart We love it as preachers whenever We don't have to search very hard to find the point of a passage. A lot of times I'll spend a full day reading, re-reading, praying over, reading commentaries to understand what is this talking about? How do I preach this? Because I don't understand what the point of this is. Even with seminary training and with years of experience, that's a common thing for preachers to spend a lot of time working on the basic message or the central idea of a text and here in verse 1 Luke gives us the point of this parable and we begin reading in Chapter 18, verse 1. And he, that is Jesus, told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. There's the point of the parable. So great. Write that down. Now I've got that under my belt. I can move forward. Verse 2. He said, in a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. There was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, give me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says, and will not God give justice to his elect who cried to him day and night. Will he delay long over them? I tell you he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" Let's go to the Lord in prayer. We come to you this morning and cry out, Lord, because we do stand in need of the things that only you can give, of the things that only you can do in our lives. God, we don't come with a feeling of self-sufficiency. We come with a sense of self-need. And God, we pray that you would meet those needs, the needs not just of the body, which is a temporary thing, with the needs of our soul, which is eternal. We have to this morning consider the eternality of our soul and where we will be 10 seconds after our death. As we make our way through this world, avoiding temptations and seeking to live for you, to live wisely and faithfully and in a manner that honors you. We need much help, much grace, and we pray that you would give it through the means of your word. Pray that you would open our mind to understand this text and open our hearts to receive its essential message and that we would not lose heart as your people as we await your coming again. As life sometimes gets tough, help us to persevere. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, our passage is about prayer, and it's about persisting in prayer. Jesus says in verse 1 that Luke tells us that Jesus taught a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray, but to pray and not lose heart. So it's prayer, but it's persistence in prayer in particular, but it's about more than this. We need to understand this parable in context Remember that the chapter divisions in your Bible are a little bit arbitrary and they're added. They're not a part of the inspired text of God's Word. They don't come from God. come from the editors of our Bible who seek to organize the Bible into chunks that we can easily reference for the purposes of study, and so that I can tell you, for example, to turn to Luke chapter 18 this morning, and you don't have to look around for the exact words that I'm saying. You can just go by the numbers and quickly navigate your way to this place. But if we ignore the 18, we see that what he's just talked about, he's coming off the heels. It's not something different from what he enters into. Take, for example, the last verse of our text, verse 8. Jesus says here, nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? These are the topics that he's been addressing from before, whenever he said to his disciples, the days are coming in chapter 17, verse 22, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and you will not see it. There is a time whenever we anticipate Jesus coming again, but we don't see it. He's not with us. He's looking forward to this time when He's going to ascend to heaven to be at the right hand of the Father, and He won't be with His people to comfort them, to instruct them, but instead, He's going to be gone from us, present by His Spirit, His indwelling Spirit, but nevertheless, we'll long to be with Him face to face, to see Him in person, in glory, but will not. Well, what's the implications of this? The implications of this is that life in this world for a believer is gonna be tough. We're going to look forward to a day that's coming that's not yet here, and there will be trials. There's going to be difficulties. Our faith may flag. We may want to give up, and yet he's telling us here in this parable not to lose heart. In light of the second coming, of the Son of Man, we should not lose heart." He's just finished teaching his disciples some things about his future glorious return, and they're sobering words, because although the ultimate reality for believers will be eternal life and the interval between Jesus' first and second comings, his people may, like their Lord, suffer and be rejected, he says, and they are called to lose their lives for his sake. The only way that we'll find life eternal is if we're willing to, in this life, lose our lives. So we're called to, in other words, the forecast for us is that we should expect temporal loss on the way to eternal gain, which is encouraging, I guess. This is good news in the long run, but for the here and now, You know, we're glad that eternity is settled, but what about the next five years or 10 years or 20 or 50 years? We're gonna have to suffer and be rejected and possibly lose more than we gain as we look forward to with the eyes of faith, our hope, and the inheritance that's being kept in heaven for us. It is often hard to think about the future when the present is uncertain or painful. Just in ordinary life, we can make plans for the future. When things are settled in our life and we're not having to worry about where our next meal's coming from, we can plan for the future. But if we are worried about where our next meal's coming from and we are uncertain, it's hard for us to focus on a future reality that may be great. We may be looking forward to what's coming, but we have a trouble focusing on that. And the same is true spiritually for us as Christians. We may be convinced of a glorious future, But what about the here and now where we are promised something that is far less glorious? Look, we may be tempted to lose heart. This is exactly the struggle that Jesus addresses here in our passage. We try our best to endure all things with patience as we await Christ's return, but we are tempted to lose heart. We wonder if we'll be able to persevere until the end. When the Son of Man comes, what will He find? Will He find faith on earth? Will faith remain in our hearts? And the parable that Jesus gives in Luke 18, one through eight, then is calculated to increase our faith so that we will not lose heart. And to that end, we ought to pray. I want you to first consider here the concerned person of God. Some people have taken issue with this parable because it seems to compare God to an unjust judge. And there is no injustice in God and this seems to be an unfair comparison. In some ways it is a comparison because just as it is the case with the unjust judge who's pestered until he gives in, so if we are importunate and we are willing to continue to come to God day and night with our prayers, and persist in prayers. Luke is telling us, Jesus is telling us that likewise God will answer those prayers. God hears that. He takes notice of what elsewhere in the Bible is called importunity. It's a good word that just means that we are willing to, in an almost irreverent manner, willing to pester God and just continually come before him with our concerns. More than a comparison, it's a contrast. Jesus is painting a contrast here, and I think the contrast goes something like this. We may be tempted to think of God as one who is in many ways like this unjust judge. What is this judge described like? In verse 2, we see that this is a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. This judge is totally unconcerned with anyone and everyone who is not him. He can't be bothered to care for those around him. He would sell his mother for a dollar or something. He doesn't care about anybody, his family, his friends, his community. And he doesn't even fear God. He's only out for himself. He does not fear God. He does not respect man. And if we think that God is not bound to honor his own righteous and holy character or to keep his promises, I mean, if God doesn't fear God, then what hope do we have? If God is not just, if he is some kind of capricious and even an evil being, then what hope do we have that God is going to deal with us in a fair manner, or that he's going to come through on any of his many promises that he makes? If we think that God is not like this, bound to keep his promises, or if we assume that he has no regard for us, then we will lose heart. And if we go through life and we think, okay, with my limited understanding, all I know is that I'm suffering. I'm praying, but I'm suffering. I'm asking God to deliver me from evil, but God seems to not be hearing that prayer, even though God's word promises that he does hear all of our prayers. Then we're gonna lose heart. We're not having faith in God and the problem is that we can't imagine a situation where God is allowing us to suffer because of his concern for us. Because he loves us. Because he knows that wealth or health are not the best things for us. That we may not flourish. And come on, think about this. How many people win the lottery and that goes I mean, their life turns to shambles. It doesn't go well for them. Their life just disintegrates because they receive wealth. I mean, we can imagine a situation where God would give us everything we desire, and rather than that making us a better person, it makes us a much worse person. And the same could be true for health. There are certain chronic illnesses that have taught people to rely on God, to be patient, to be humble. Paul talks about this thorn in his side. Possibly some kind of physical ailment that the Apostle Paul suffered. And he prayed again and again that God would remove this from him. But what he realized was, God hears my prayers. God loves me. He's concerned for me. But he's not removing this from me. Not because he's refusing to answer my prayers or doesn't love me, but because he is answering in the negative. Because He's wanting to teach me to depend upon Him. And so we can't assume, just because of the appearance of things, that this is true of God. But we might be tempted to, in our experience of suffering, of facing rejection, of losing out in this life, we think, well, God is like an unjust judge. He's not dealing with me fairly. He's not even dealing with me kindly. He's not hearing me at all. He's ignoring me or he's being mean to me. He's punishing me. And that's just, that's pea brain thinking. That's what we think of in our limited, fallen human thinking. We can't imagine. Remember that God doesn't think the way that we think. God can envision becoming a man and suffering and dying in ways that are worse than any suffering that we'll ever face. I mean just total excruciating pain and spiritual torment. He can imagine doing that for a good reason. To bring salvation to many. So he's not indifferent to our suffering. He knows the things we go through in this life as we make our way to glory. And he can bring something good out of evil. Joseph knew about this. I mean, read about the life of Joseph and how much he suffered. And yet, in the end, he could say to his brothers who were the cause of his suffering, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. God allowed this. You have responsibility for this evil, of course. You're the author of this evil. But God allowed this intentionally because of some greater good that he could bring out of it. God brings good out of evil. He did this with the suffering and death of Christ. He's done it again and again. He can do it in your life. And so rather than think of God in this way, Jesus paints a contrast here. And we see this in verse 7. will not and will not God. Verse 6, hear what the unrighteous judge says. Even the unrighteous judge will listen to those who plead with him and who seek his favor again and again and again. And he's contrasting this man with God. Will not God give justice? Because what's implied here is God is not like this man. God is just. God is not unconcerned. He's concerned. He is not unwilling. He is willing. Will he not? He is willing. Jesus sets the Father in contrast with such a person because the Father is concerned. He is willing. In fact, God is more willing to hear your prayers than you are to pray them. Consider that for a moment. So far from God being out only for Himself and concerned with Himself only, unconcerned with you, no compassion, not listening to you, God hears every prayer of yours. In fact, He would hear more of them. He is more willing to hear your prayers than you are to pray them. And the Bible says you have not, not because God is tired of listening to your prayers, but because you ask not. And so we need to be reminded, I think, if we're to not lose heart, we need to be reminded of the willingness, of the concern, of the compassion of the person of God. So there is the concerned person of God. Secondly, there is, we find here some encouragement, I think, here in what we find is the chosen people of God in verse eight also, or verse seven also. Will he not give justice to his elect? This is a teaching that oftentimes for many Christians is a matter of speculation and argument and concern and it's something to think about in an abstract manner but always in the scripture the Bible talks about the elect. Those who by God are chosen for salvation in order to encourage us. From eternity, it was the plan of God to redeem a people for the Son according to His gracious choice. Who does God choose to save? Well, here's what we know. He doesn't save anybody who is worthy of salvation. We need to keep that in mind. No one who receives grace has earned that blessing. Earning is opposed to grace. God's election of a people that he would redeem is based not on earning, but on grace. Why is this encouraging? Now this is crucial. If election, God's choice of us for salvation is based upon something that you did to earn your spot among God's people, there's very little encouragement in that. In that case, you're left scratching your head trying to figure out what God saw in you. And maybe if you're not a conceited person and you don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, you know that there is nothing good in you. So then, if God can only choose people that he sees something good in, then what do you imagine that does to your assurance of salvation when you look honestly at your own heart and you think, well, God's choosing people because of some foreseen goodness or some action that they've done, but I've done nothing. There is no good in me. All of a sudden you aren't so sure that God does love you. If he only loves people on the basis of something they have done for God, some foreseen faith or something, and you know that whatever you've done for God isn't worth anything. But what we find in Scripture is that election is by grace, that God has set his affection on you out of just the overflow of his kindness. It's totally undeserved, unmerited. You can't point to anything in your life and think, well, that's why God brought brought me to salvation, worked faith in my heart, brought me with an earshot of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But here's now the practical benefit of this. Think about this, Romans 8, 31 and 32. What then shall we say to these things? If God has set his affections upon you and has chosen you for salvation, what else does this mean? What else does this mean, believer? What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? The encouragement here, and this is why Jesus talks about, He mentions the elect. He could have used another synonym for a believer, a Christian. But He says the elect is to remind us, I chose you. You're in Christ, you believe. He's saying, I chose you. You didn't choose me, first of all. You didn't choose me, I chose you. You didn't do something good that turned my head so that I would notice you. Out of the overflowing kindness of my heart, I graciously chose you. And so if God has done that for you, then there's nothing that you can do that will disappoint God and God says, I'm giving up on them. That's not the basis of your relationship to God. If you didn't earn your salvation, you can't unearn it, in other words. And so by reminding yourself of this, you give yourself a great deal of assurance that if God saved me through nothing that I did, then is he then going to give up on me? No, surely not. He's going to bring to completion the work that he began in me. So there's great comfort in these words to be reminded that God chose you and God will not give up on you therefore. You are a precious possession of his because you are the one on whom he has set his affection, his grace. So we have here the concerned person of God or the chosen people of God in this passage. Finally, in verse seven, we see the continual prayer to God that is commended by Christ. Will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? Who cry to him day and night? This is the encouragement for us. If we know the character of God and we know the character of man, if we know what God's like and we understand His heart, His kind and compassionate and fatherly and tender heart towards us, that He's not unconcerned and unwilling to hear us and to help us, but that He loves us, that's His heart, and if we know our heart, that God never did love us on the basis of us being good anyway, so we shouldn't be discouraged that we suddenly find that we're not good. We were never good. That's nothing to do with me. It's neither here nor there. then what are we gonna do? We're not going to lose heart. We're not going to lose heart. Our hearts are filled with confidence in God and assurance of salvation and we're going to cry out day and night and day and night and day and night. There's a little bit of a tension here because we're told to persevere. What does this seem to imply? It seems to imply that we may have to pray for quite a long while before we hear an answer to our prayers. We may have to continue on for some time in prayer, but we shouldn't lose heart. We should not give up. On the other hand, what we see here in verse seven, Jesus asks, will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Well, this tension is perhaps resolved in the fact that God has his own timing. For him, a day is a thousand years or as but a day. And we should not lose heart when what seems like to us is a great delay in God's coming through for us or answering our prayers. Because the fact is that God is not delaying at all. The train is on time. God's help is coming through. He is doing exactly what He is intending to do each day, each moment. You can count on His constant provision, His continual care and support, giving you exactly what He knows you need at every moment. And so you are emboldened to cry out to Him continually, knowing that He hears you. encourage you this morning to heed the words of our Lord in Luke 18 1 pray and not lose heart as we pray together this morning. Father God we thank you. You've given us such encouragement because life in this world will have to admit is at times discouraging to our faith. We can be excited at the outset of our Christian life. We can have encouragement, feel that there's fresh wind in our sails, and imagine that this is going to be smooth sailing, and then life knocks this out of us, reminds us that we do live life in a fallen world. We may suffer, and most certainly will as we follow in the footsteps of our master who suffered. As his servants, we're not above our master, and yet we pray that you would help us to persevere, and we know that you will. We pray that we would take encouragement as we remind ourselves of who you are, the basis on which you deal with us, grace, your willingness to hear our prayers and to answer them. We pray that you would, by your spirit, shape us and make us into a people on our knees, who are much in prayer, who plead with you for our own souls, for the encouragement and up-building of our church family and the body of Christ, for the salvation of lost souls who are far from you this morning. Make us into a people whose primary ministry and greatest work is one of prayer. We pray that you would answer these prayers that we might give you. Answer these prayers in ways that are obvious to us, who are often dense and don't see whenever you're at work. We pray that your work would be manifest so that we, even we, could see it so that we could give you glory for it as we recognize your work all around us. We pray that this morning you would work faith in the hearts of those who are yet to believe, who are still in the world, who are trusting in themselves, that are living for the moment and not for eternity. We pray that you'd make them concerned for their souls and grant faith to be given. We pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen.