The Power in Persistent Prayer
Luke 18:1-8

Has there ever been a time in your life when you have prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing seemed to happen?

Maybe you have prayed for a loved one, or for yourself, and there just doesn't seem to be an answer?

Evidently it was a common situation in the early Church because wrote down the teaching of Jesus on this subject. The opening sentence of Luke 18 we read: "Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit."

If Jesus stood here today and we brought up the subject of our feeling our prayers aren't getting answered, he would tell us that story.

This was a judge who did as he pleased. He was completely self-absorbed. God said that we are to live in relationship to God and to one another as clearly outlined in the Ten Commandments. This judge didn't care. He did as he pleased. He did not consider what God wanted nor what anyone else wanted.

This poor widow...which translated to defenseless woman, no one to speak for her, no one to stand up for her rights could have accepted the status quo and remained miserable, but instead she demanded her right for justice and because she kept knocking on the judge's door got what she wanted.

The Message translation quotes the Judge: "Because this widow won't quit badgering me, I'd better do something and see that she gets justice-otherwise, I'm going to end up beaten black and blue by her pounding"

She got justice because she was persistent; she kept after the judge. Her relationship with the judge would not end until she got what she needed.

Jesus wanted us to compare the behavior of a judge in this story, who is self centered, has no regard for other people or for God doing as he pleased, and the Lord God who is entirely in love with us.

The judge gave her what she needed. That was the only way to take care of this adversarial relationship.

If the judge gave the woman what she needed because she was persistent, how much more will God give us what we need if we will persist in our relationship to God?

So often we are content with the status quo of our spiritual connection to God... because we don't ask for more. We don't keep knocking

Friends, God promises to take care of us and give us everything we need to stay in a close relationship with God. As we grow in our relationship with God talking and reading and listening we learn more and more about God and we enjoy being in God's presence more and more and we become the imitators of God.

God delights if giving us what we need to serve him. God delights when we want more of him than we have.

None of us is good enough to find God on our own. God comes looking for us. God sends his Holy Spirit to remind us how hollow life is doing as we please and shows us how far away we are from earning God's favor.

When we desire to know God, when we want forgiveness for our sins, when we accept the sacrifice of Christ as the payment for our sins, God comes running to meet us where we are.
It is from that point that we want to know more about this merciful God who has arranged for us to live forever in his presence.

We find that that hollow spot in life is being filled with what we have needed all along. There is great peace in our hearts and we thirst for more and more of God.

If our connection to God was like a telephone wire, we would say that God stays on the line all the time, all we have to do is pick up the phone and listen. After we have listened then we speak.

In his book "Break Thorough Prayer" Jim Cymbala pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City says there are four secrets in breaking through the barrier to the blessing of God's presence.

The First is Prayer:
No one else is responsible for my prayer life but me. I am free to pray as often as I want or need to hear from God and speak to God. There is no limit to how much God wants to hear from you and me.

You and I have a God who is always eager and willing to hear us and respond. God is interested in your prayers even when they aren't in complete sentences, even when they may not make sense to anyone else.

God is interested to hear from us when we are down and blue and depressed and don't know where to turn.
God is interested to hear from us when we are glad and our hearts are full of joy and all the points in between. Often there is a barrier between us and God because we won't pick up the receiver and listen.

The second secret to breaking through to the presence of God is through God's Word. A tremendous blessing waits for those who will read God's word every day. No one else is responsible for reading the Bible for you or for me. Coming to church once a week and listening to the scripture read is not enough for the one who is persistent in his or her relationship with God. I must read for myself and for my relationship to God. You must do it for yourself and your relationship to God.

It doesn't matter how many times you have started out to read the Bible with good intentions, or how many times you have already read it through.

God uses the Bible to speak to those who will listen.
If you have been away from the phone and you come home and the phone is flashing signaling someone has called and left a message, do you just ignore the flashing red light and press delete? Are you curious who called and what message they left?

Well, God has called when you weren't on the line and left a message. Press the button, open your Bible and listen to God's message.

God's word is alive, and there is a message that will speak to your heart today... you may have read it before and you know it well, but today as you ponder its meaning you will get a fresh message.

If reading the Bible is new to you, then begin with the New Testament book of the Gospel of John. God has a message for you there. Persistence in communicating with God includes persistence in reading God's word.

The third secret to finding the blessing in God's presence is in obedience. Jim Cymbala says, "God wants us to trust him by totally giving him the control of our lives." From our relationship with God we can receive personal directions so we can stay in the center of God's will. How else can I expect God's blessing to follow?"

Friends, when we spend time with God in prayer and when we read God's word, the next step is our choice to obey. We have to choose to do what God tells us to do.

Maybe you don't like what you read in the Scripture. Maybe you don't like the nagging feeling inside as the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart. Maybe you don't like the chain of events that have pointed you to the way God would have you go. You have a choice to make.

You have persistently prayed and prayed, you have read God's word, and now you would choose otherwise?

Most of us have done it. We have convinced ourselves that our wisdom and experience tell us to go another direction, or our desire to please ourselves has gotten the best of us and we have not obeyed. Do you remember that time in your life? Did your choice bring you closer to God?

The fourth secret to finding the blessing of God's presence in our lives has to do with how we see our own power and wealth. In the Scripture, the community, who regarded themselves as God's people, was instructed to bring 10% of their income to the place of worship for God's work.
They were also instructed to give extra every three years to give for the specific purpose of providing for aliens, widows and orphans for those next three years...

They not only gave 10% to keep the business of the religion going, they were to give extra for mission.

When we have persistently sought God's presence through prayer, and reading the scriptures, and through obedience, we develop a desire to respond to God's love and mercy, by making sure we support those things that help others learn of God's love and mercy.

We want to give to the work of the church, and that is great to support the life and ministry of the congregation, but we are also instructed to allow ourselves the joy of giving to those who have very little.

Someone asked me, "Why does the church have so many extra mission projects and offerings, it seems like there is something once a month to give to beyond our church offering."

Friends, that is by design. That follows God's instructions. The leadership of this congregation knows that we must continually give the people of the congregation opportunities to experience joy. Not only is there joy in worshipping God, speaking to God, listening to God's word and deciding to obey it, but the joy is not complete until we join God in what God is doing.

Until we pack a shoe box for a child we will never meet at Christmas, until we give to a disaster fund, or to an offering aimed at peacemaking, or the rural harvest...we haven't experienced the real joy of the relationship with God that God has in mind.

Yes there is joy in praying persistently and knowing that God is listening,
Yes, there is joy in persistently reading God's word and getting the message God has for us,
Yes, there is joy in obeying God and going in the direction to Holy Spirit points us,
But our joy is complete in our relationship with God when in response to God's presence in our lives we persistently join God in the work of God's Kingdom.

You see, we get the part about we are sinners needing God's forgiveness. We know there is nothing we can do to earn God's love. God isn't looking for those who will try to earn it. It is not for sale. God is looking for those who will receive the gift of grace.

We get the part about Jesus died on the cross as the payment for our sins.
We get the part that we can ask for forgiveness and God allows the payment Jesus made to be applied to us.

We are forgiven and the door is open to our relationship with God both in this life and forever in the life to come. We know we have done nothing to earn our salvation.

But from there on we struggle with how the pieces of life fit together. We pray and pray and pray... and that is good because our persistence in prayer will lead us to become better listeners, and our desire to listen will send us to God's word, and God's word will tell us about our need to obey...

But often it stops there and there stands a barrier in our relationship with God. We think there is something more. We aren't quite there. What attitude needs changing? What stands in the way? Where is joy?

Friends the fact is we can't experience the total joy of knowing God, until we persistently bring our prayers to God.
We can't experience the joy of knowing God, until we persistently read God's word and receive the message God has for us.

We can't experience the joy of knowing God until we persistently yield our will to God's.
And we will always have something missing until we imitate God and become the givers of blessings to those who desperately need them.

So how is your prayer life?
Have you persistently asked God for something? Have you again and again brought it to God?
That is good. Jesus taught us in this scripture to keep asking.

Is there more to your relationship to God than just asking? What answer to your prayer have you received from reading God's word?
Could there be an answer there and you just haven't taken the time to listen to the message God has left for you?

Have you persistently asked and then gone your own way? How is your obedience to what you know God wants you to do? How has your obedience led you into being the imitator of God?

How has your persistent prayer life led you to be merciful, forgiving, including? How has your persistent prayer life led you into the joy of providing for the alien, the widow and orphan, those who have no rights and no real place in society?

Have you known the joy of joining God in what God is doing?

Friends, when we do these four things persistently,
When we talk to God, listen to God's word, when we obey and when we give to the needs of others, we certainly have a relationship with God that will lead us into all kinds of joy.

Luke ends this lesson with a question from Jesus. "When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?

Friends, Jesus promised he has gone to prepare a place for us. He promised he will come again to take us where he is. I believe that will happen.

It may be that he comes in the clouds as the scripture outlines, and take the believers with him to heaven. Or it may mean that he will come to us one by one and invite us to that place on our last day on earth. He will come one way or another. He asks, "When he comes, will he find faith?"

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told his discipes a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'"

And the Lord said, "Listen wo what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
(From the New International Version of the Bible.)

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