3/2/25 “A Promising Parable of Persistent Prayer”
“A Promising Parable of Persistent Prayer”
Luke 18:1-8
What’s the one thing that irritates you more than anything else?
(Hopefully, that one thing isn’t sitting right next to you this morning! 😊)
What are some things that you find really annoying?
As the older generation used to say….what really “Sticks in Your Craw?”
Well, I did some research, and I found a list of things that apparently drive Americans absolutely up the wall.
According to a site called ‘Talker Research’, here are the top 10 things that we (collectively) find annoying here in the United States of America:
1) Grocery Prices
2) Politicians
3) Someone else’s driving habits
4) Crowds
5) The Weather
6) Customer Service
7) Social media trends
8) Tipping culture
9) Music you don’t like (Superbowl Halftime shows, anyone!?)
10) TV Volume being too loud.
A couple of other responses that I found interesting were:
- Products locked behind plastic on the shelves
- Self-checkouts
- Parking
o (Apparently, we need to stay away from Wal-Mart to keep from being annoyed! 😊)
A few others:
- Computer Issues
- Text Abbreviations
o Does anyone know what IDK stands for? (I don’t know)
o How about BTW (By the way)
o LMK (Let me know)
o BRB (Be right back)
o IMO (In my opinion)
- Artificial Intelligence
- Movies that are too dark
These are the things that annoy Americans here in America….
But… what annoys Europeans about Americans when we travel across the pond?
I thought this was interesting…According to one website, here are the top 6 things about American tourists that drive Europeans crazy:
Americans:
1) Speak too loudly in public places
2) Expect everyone to speak English
3) Complain about portion sizes
4) Expect Ice in every beverage (Guilty!)
5) Dress too casually
6) Expect air conditioning in every building
I would probably do about 3 or 4 of those things…guess I should never travel to Europe!
Lastly, in honor of the men’s vs women’s Penny Crusade that begins today, I, of course, had to check out the top things that annoy each gender about the other.
According to Glamour magazine, here are the top 5 things that men find annoying about women:
(Ladies, remember, I’m just the messenger here)
1) When women say they are fine…but they’re really not fine.
2) When women talk too much
3) When women constantly ask what men are thinking
4) When women cry to win arguments
5) When women refuse to apologize when they are wrong.
So, Then I searched what the top 5 things are about men that annoy women…
It was weird…at first, the robots at Google didn’t understand the question….
…They gave me answers such as “You’re question is illogical”….and, “There are no valid reasons for women to be annoyed with men”
…But then, after hours of digging, I finally found a search engine that apparently claimed to find a few things…
Ok, truth be told, this is also a list from the same Glamour magazine article:
Top 5 things that women find annoying about men:
1) Men don’t listen properly
2) Men don’t put the toilet seat down (That complaint is so old - I think Eve said that about Adam)
3) Men leave toenail clippings & beard shavings around the house
4) Men bring unsanitary friends over to the house
5) Men hog the remote
Lisa, you’re so fortunate that your husband has never annoyed you…27 years of no annoyances whatsoever!😊…
…actually, the other night, I believe you did say something about toenail clippings….I don’t know…I wasn’t really listening…
….I think I was flipping through the channels with my remote control.
Well, all joking aside, In today’s parable, Jesus tells a story about a man – a judge, actually - who becomes greatly annoyed by the over-the-top persistence of a local widow who is asking this judge to grant her justice regarding someone who apparently has mistreated her in some way.
Luke begins our passage for today in an interesting way.
He actually provides the reader with the lesson, or theme, of Jesus’ parable before we are even introduced to the story.
Typically, it’s the other way around…we read the parable first, then the author of the gospel describes the way in which Jesus explained its meaning, or teaching point.
…But here, we get the golden nugget of wisdom right up front.
Luke writes in verse 1 (Luke 18:1) “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
In other words, don’t get discouraged when answers to your prayers don’t come immediately…or according to your timetable.
The Bible is full of reminders to remain vigilant in prayer…even when we don’t see immediate results of those prayers…
Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:18 to “….pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests…”
Again, he says in Colossians 4:2 “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”
This idea of not giving up, or not becoming discouraged in our prayers, is vitally important for us to remember…especially in the age we live in today.
We live in the age of instant gratification….The age of immediate results.
Some of you are old enough to remember when ‘fast-food’ wasn’t even a thing…
Meals – every meal – took time…you waited….it required a certain degree of patience.
Fast forward to today…and some of us start to get restless if our butter-burger doesn’t arrive at our table or the car door within a couple minutes….
We want things now….but, folks, God doesn’t operate on our timetable…
In fact, I believe that God intentionally makes us wait to experience answers to certain prayers so that we are able to learn a lesson in patience.
Oh…how our culture needs to learn to be patient.
Back in the late 90’s I worked for a music publisher in Milwaukee and each year they would send all of us in the sales department to the big national trade show in Los Angeles.
(In fact, if anyone remembers watching that movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger is riding a horse through a hotel…that’s the hotel we stayed in…I just remember the glass elevators being very scary for someone who doesn’t do heights very well)
Anyway, we spend the week at the trade show where we talk to our customers and write up orders…
…I remember getting back to the office in Milwaukee the next week and meeting with the national sales manager about the contracts I had secured for the company at the show…
I showed him my numbers for the previous week...and I’ll never forget what he told me.
He said, Andy, these aren’t bad…but I need you to bump each of these dollar amounts up by 20%...
I said…But the contracts I wrote are for the exact amount you see in front of you…
Then my boss replied…I realize that, but my boss expects bigger numbers…so that’s what we need to show him.
The CEO and executive board of the company wanted to see results that hadn’t even happened yet….
Aren’t we like that sometimes with our prayer life?
We want answers to our prayers before we even ask God for those answers!
We all-too often incorporate that “I want it yesterday” mentality into our prayer life…then when God decides to make us wait for the answer, we get discouraged…
…We get agitated…We get frustrated…We can even lose hope.
The point of this parable is to not lose hope…to keep praying no matter how long it takes.
Let’s take a look at the story.
It begins in verse 2 (Luke 18:2) “He (Jesus) said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.’”
Now isn’t that a glowing description of someone…?
…The man – this JUDGE – doesn’t care about God…and he could care less about other people.
The Greek word translated ‘Cared about men’ here in the NIV, or ‘Respect man’ in other translations is the word “Entrepo”, which literally means “To be put to shame”
This judge had no desire to live up to any sort of cultural expectation of general decency toward other people…
It was impossible for him to feel shame in his behavior toward others….He couldn’t be held to a higher moral standard…because he didn’t believe in a higher moral standard.
If you recall, Jesus told his followers that the two most important commandments were to ‘Love God’ and to ‘Love Others’?
This man did neither!....he was completely self-absorbed, wicked, corrupt, and immoral.
…He was void of any reverence for God or sympathy for others.
Think there aren’t many people like this Judge in our world today?...
…Just log onto social media sometime…and you will quickly realize that perhaps the Majority of people today actually resemble this judge.
Last week we learned about weeds and wheat…there are a LOT of weeds here in the field in which we live, folks…
…Throngs of people who neither fear God, nor truly care about the well-being of others.
In verse 3 (Luke 18:3) we meet the other character in this story…the widow.
First of all, single women – especially widows - were usually very poor since they had no husband to provide for them….they would be forced to rely on others for their daily needs.
Secondly, it was always the role of the husband (or father) to represent the family in any kind of legal case or litigation.
For a woman to appear before a judge in this culture at this time was virtually unheard of…and when they did…they were all too often ignored or dismissed.
This woman lacked two very important cultural privileges: Money & A Husband.
Therefore, she needed to make up for these cultural deficiencies through her actions…specifically….a decision to be persistent.
This woman relentlessly badgers the judge on a continual basis, asking him to grant her justice against her adversary.
Obviously, someone had done something wrong to her …and the widow – rightly so – wanted justice to be administered.
Verse 4 (Luke 18:4) tells us that the judge – at first – continues to ignore the widow’s persistent plea for justice…
…until – finally – he just can’t stand it any longer.
Verse 5 (Luke 18:5) tells us that the judge eventually gets sick & tired of hearing from this woman…,.
…and just to get her off his back, he decides to take up the widow’s case, and grant her the justice she was deserving of all along.
It’s interesting to note what motivated the judge to finally give this woman justice….
…He wasn’t motivated by a sense of judicial duty….
…He wasn’t motivated because it was his job…
…He wasn’t motivated out of a sense of compassion or pity for the widow
He was motivated by his own self-interest!
The judge is concerned only with his own emotional well-being and comfort.
He’s not at all concerned about the people involved in this legal case…he just wants to experience peace, quiet, and comfort for himself.
There actually might be some sort of lesson here for you ladies who’ve been wanting your husbands to do something around the house for quite some time.
…Disrupt his personal comfort for a few days and watch how quickly that sink gets repaired….
…Hide the remote control and stand amazed at how fast that door gets fixed!
Men really haven’t changed that much in the last 2,000 years…we’ll do almost anything to preserve our peace & quiet…
In verses 6 & 7, Jesus begins to draw out the contrast between the unjust judge in the fictional parable…and the true God…who is all-righteous, all-holy, and – appropriate to this parable - all-just.
Jesus is teaching his disciples through comparatively contrasting the evil attributes of the unjust judge with the holy attributes of God.
His point is that if a sinful man full of depravity is able to eventually have mercy upon someone in need…How Much More will the sinless, all-righteous, all-loving heavenly Father grant justice to His children!
If you recall, Jesus teaches this same lesson about persistent prayer to the multitudes while delivering His sermon on the mount, recorded in the book of Matthew Chapter 7:
(Matthew 7:7-11) “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. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to you children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
God will always desire the best for His children when they come to Him in prayer…but the answer to those prayers will always be in God’s timing…not ours.
So often, we try to force God’s hand…we try to move His timetable into ours, rather than patiently abiding in His perfect will and timing for our lives.
Persistent prayer isn’t about forcing God’s hand to fit our schedule…
Persistent prayer is about demonstrating our intentional commitment to be in consistent communion with our heavenly Father.
We, like the widow in this parable, are helpless and at the mercy of God as our judge…
…Praise God he is nothing like the judge in this parable.
Our persistent prayers are manifestations of our desire to be in the presence of the judge who loves us…and who will always answer our prayers along His perfect timeline.
Not only is this parable a lesson for us to pray with persistence…but it also reminds us to be in continual prayer for the return of our savior.
If we look at the context in which Jesus tells this story, it immediately follows a lengthy teaching concerning His second coming.
It makes sense, then, to also view this parable from an eschatological viewpoint….or, in other words, a vantage point that has the return of Jesus in mind.
Jesus knew that His church would face fierce opposition throughout the centuries…and that His children would at times be tempted to grow weary and weak.
This is why he says back in verse 1 (Luke 18:1) that we should always pray and not give up….
…and also why he ends the description of the parable like this in verse 8 (Luke 18:8) “…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
The world loves to ridicule and taunt Christians by asking them things like “where is this Jesus you claim is coming back?”
“Why hasn’t he returned yet?”
They’ll even be irreverent in their speech by insinuating that God has fallen asleep, or that He has given up on mankind…
Over the past 2,000 years, the Word of God has been unappreciated, assaulted, denied, rejected, persecuted, and ridiculed…
…and Jesus knew this would happen.
He knew that His followers would face rejection and oppression.
That’s why he comforts us with these words in today’s passage…”Don’t give up”
…keep praying for the Lord to return…because He will.
…And when He does, He will deliver justice to those who have been persecuted on account of His name…
every knee will bow…and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord of Lords…and King of Kings.
Jesus said in John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Brothers & Sisters, Jesus is coming back….
Are you ready? If He comes back later today…would you be ready?
The words of Jesus in verse 8 (Luke 18:8) of today’s passage should serve as a wake-up call for all of us…”When the son of man comes, will He find faith on the earth?
Will He find his children consistently, persistently, praying for the return of their King….?
…Or will He find us self-absorbed in our world of toys, distractions, and endless entertainment?...As so many people – dare I say, even Christians – are today
…Do we give the thought of Jesus’ return any attention at all amidst the chaos and congestion of thoughts already bouncing around in our minds….
…Do we even want Jesus to return…or do you have other priorities that come before that of leaving this world for one that is infinitely better?
If you don’t already, incorporate into your prayers the desire to see Jesus return….to take His bride, the church, home to be with Him.
“Maranatha” is not only the name of the Seminary I attended, but it’s an Aramaic word that simply means “Come, Lord”
To see our savior return and bring His kingdom to this earth ought to be the cry of our hearts…
The final recorded words of Jesus in the Bible are this (Revelation 22:20) “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Maranatha! Maranatha!
Come, Lord….Come, Lord.
Let’s Pray.