How to Have an Encouraging Prayer Life
(Luke 18 1-8)
Some people get so discouraged that they are driven to pray, other people sometimes pray and then they get discouraged.
What I mean by that is some people when they pray, and they don't feel they get an answer they lose heart and get discouraged.
So, my question is what you should do when you feel your prayer life is discouraging. Well Jesus addresses that specific question in Luke chapter 18.
The Prable of the Persistent Widow.
1: Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2: He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3: And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4: “For some time he refused. But finally, he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5: yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6: And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7: 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? 8: 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?”
Now this is a short passage today, there is a bit of an introduction at the start and then the parable begins in verse two going down to verse five and then Jesus explains the parable in the closing verses.
(Luke 18: 1-5)
As you know there wouldn’t have been a chapter break in the original passage. Those are man-made and were added 100’s of years later.
What is significant about that is that in the last part of Chapter 17 Jesus is seen to talk about his second coming. So, some have suggested there is a connection between the second coming and what Jesus says here.
That becomes even made more interesting when you notice that in final verse today Jesus concludes by saying, “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.”
So, sandwiched between two references to the second coming is this parable and a discussion on the topic of prayer.
Perhaps what Jesus has in mind is this: "I'm leaving, then later, I'm coming back, and there's going to be an interval between the two. Aware that during that interval, people like you and I might become discouraged , maybe because He is not coming back as quick as we think I should."
At any rate, there seems to be a connection between the second coming and this subject of prayer discussed here..
Now, here's what Jesus says: "People ought always to pray and not lose heart." Now the King James Version, I think, has a really interesting way of translating this. It says, "To pray and not faint."
When we think of faint, we think of failing physically. Perhaps the idea here is that you fail emotionally, and you just want to throw up your hands up and quit.
But if there's any one idea that I'd pick here, it's that you just get so discouraged, you lose heart, you feel helpless and give up.
And Jesus simply said, "Don't do that." And, to communicate what he has in mind, he now tells a parable.
It begins in verse two when it tells us he said. “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought."
Now, this is likely talking about a Gentile judge. The reason we know that is the Jews didn't use single solo judges in their courts. In the Jewish society, people went to elders, who acted as judges. And when there was an issue to be discussed, they always chose three to hear the case.
If there was a conflict, each person chose a judge, and then a third judge was chosen independently of the people involved.
So, had this been a Jewish situation, they would have said three instead of one. At any rate, this Gentile judge comes to town, and he didn't fear God, he didn't care what people think.
From what I understand, this was maybe a judge, appointed either by the Romans or by Herod. This type of judge would come, and they would set up a tent, and their attendants would surround the tent.
You could look in the tent, the flaps were opened, you could see the proceedings, but you couldn't go in unless you had some kind of influence or maybe as was common in those days, you bribed one of the attendants.
Notice this judge is clearly, referred to later in the parable as an unjust judge. He just doesn't care, and as one commentator said that these it was well know that such judges would often render decisions in return for a bribe of as little as a meal.
So often you could bribe them in order to have some kind of influence with them, otherwise you even wouldn't get your case heard.
So, he first introduces us to an unjust judge. Then, in his parable, he introduces a persistent widow.
Now, this woman has everything against her. For starters, she was a woman, and in that day, women had no standing in court.
Secondly, she was a widow. She had no husband who could stand in her place in court, and if she were a widow, she was also probably poor, so she didn't have money to bribe the attendants to get into the tent.
Her only recourse was to walk around the tent shouting at the judge be aggravating, but probably getting his attention. So, that apparently is what's going on here.
She came to him, saying, "I want justice." And the way this is written in the original text it indicates that she just kept coming on and on and on about this.
At first, he paid no attention to her. He was trying the other cases that were before him. But afterward, he said within himself, " Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice.’”
Now, what's going on is rather simply this. He says she bothering him, but that a weak translation. It's a very vivid Greek word. It means she's beating me up. And it was even used as, "she's pummelling me”, and she's clearly irritating me.
As a matter of fact, this word was used to describe a persistent annoyance, and that's what she was to him. She just kept on and kept on, and she was annoying him.
So, he finally gives in, and he says, "I'm going to answer you just so you get out of my hair, and you won't weary me anymore”.
OK, he says, I’ll give you justice, tell me what you want and then get out of here."
And that's the parable.
Remember a couple of days ago Jesus told us about an unjust steward, back in Chapter 15. Now, we've got the unjust judge. Interesting that Jesus would use unjust people, people that are unfair and crooked, to teach a spiritual truth.
So, what is he trying to teach us here?
Well, there's no guessing or speculating. He tells us here, "Then the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says, will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?'"
Now, the Lord says, and it's almost like I'm going to teach a truth by contrast, in that if an unjust judge will do the right thing, then would not a loving father answer you prayer?
But what is interesting in verse seven is says he does though he bears long with them.
That is a very critical point. The Lord sometimes bears long, which I submit to you is the reason they were discouraged and losing heart in the first place.
Sometimes the Lord sometimes delays answers to prayer. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that delay is often part of his plan. I'll let that statement sink in for a moment (Repeat).
Delay is often part of God’s plan. Jesus states that very clearly here: God sometimes delays the answer, he bears along with us, he delays.
Now, why does God delay in answering prayer? I don't know that I know all the reasons he does this, but I'd like to suggest one, and that is he sometimes delays strengthening us, to endure hardship and develop persistence.
That's part of his program. That doesn't mean he's not working. He may be working while he's delaying getting our circumstances into the right place, so that he can then answer in the right way.
But in the meantime, as I like to say, sometimes trials are for our training.
So, the delay is a trial, and he's training you, during it. He's training you to trust him for the strength to endure the hardship until he gets around to answering your request.
Let me put it another way:
"All things work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to his purpose." You know the verse, right? (Romans 8:28.)
Notice the way this verse says God is working to produce good. That's the implication. So, all things are working together, he's working things together, so you'll get an answer in due season.
But it may not be as quick as you would like, but it fits his plan sometimes to delay for a while.
God sometimes gives us kites in the spring when he knows the wind is blowing hard enough to fly them and things of value in old age because only them are we mature enough to know how to appreciate them."
So, there are sometimes delays, but there's purpose in delay. God is in control, and God knows what he is doing. Amen.
So, what should we do then?
Well, this passage says, just keep praying. God didn't want you to forget. The whole point of the passage is there's a delay sometimes.
In fact, perhaps it's timely from God's point of view and in the meantime God is still working.
Don't worry about that. God is still at work, hang on and keep asking.
The Lord then ends today saying this.
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?”
I don't think he's talking about faith here in the sense of Christians who have faith when they pray.
I wonder if you have ever lost heart. You have prayed for something for so long, and you didn't come to pass, and you just said, "Well, scratch that, I'll pray for something else."
We are so discouraged, you just quit praying. I think that happens. We just give up, just throw up our hands, lose heart, so much so that we just quit praying.
Now, what Jesus is saying in here in the final verse is the real issue is faith.
If you lose heart and you quit praying, you might just quit believing. Right?
Think about it, if you quit praying, you're saying, "Well, he's not going to answer anyway, so why keep asking? All I get is a busy signal."
I heard a story of a manager at a concert hall one day received a call from a lady who spoke impatiently on the saying she had attended a concert the previous evening, "Have you found a diamond pendant”, she asked? I think I lost it at the concert last night."
The manager replied, there is nothing in lost property "Let me go and around where you were sitting, please hold." It took a while for him to go search all of the possible places where that piece of diamond pendant might have been located. And finally, he found it.
Returning to the phone, he discovered that the lady was no longer on the line, and she never called again. And that expensive piece of jewellery went unclaimed.
If you hang up, maybe he's God was just coming to the phone so to speak. You just hung up too quick.
The problem is not that God isn't working or God isn't going to answer. The problem is we quit asking, waiting, and persisting in prayer.
So, a very simple, short, sweet spiritual point today, rather than getting discouraged when our prayers are not answered, we should persevere in believing prayer, believing that we believe in a God that answers prayer.
Now, I suggest there's probably not a person listening to this today, including me, who hasn't prayed for something for a long time and not seen it come to pass.
But the one simple lesson from this passage tells me.
Don't lose heart.
Just keep believing God answers prayer so pray.
Is that simple enough for you today? Got it?
If you don't get anything else today form this passage, get that.
That's the point, I believe of this passage.