The Widow & the Unrighteous Judge | Luke 18:1-11

Let me describe a scene that should be familiar to every parent here.

You're in the middle of doing something when your four year old comes up to you

and says, daddy, I want this, or mommy, do this for me.

And being a typical parent, you give them that classic answer that every parent

has used since Adam and Eve.

Not now, honey, in a little while.

And off they go and you think you're safe.

And unfortunately, in a little while for them means, for you means five hours,

in a little while for them means five minutes.

And they're right back asking you again, daddy, can you do this for me?

Mommy, I want this.

And again, you give them your standard reply, in a little while, honey.

And again, they wondered off, disappointed, but undaunted.

How many times will they keep coming back and asking the same question?

If they're like my kids, they'll keep coming back until you stop what you're

doing and do what they want or until you get mad.

But even if you get mad, they will still not give up.

Kids can be incredibly persistent at times.

And every parent has to cope with the persistence of their children in asking

for something over and over again.

And if we're really honest, we have to admit that our prayer life with God

doesn't seem a whole lot different at times.

We keep asking God over and over for something, and he keeps saying wait,

but his idea of waiting and our idea of waiting are two very different things.

And it's easy for us to shake our head at Abraham's impatience when he listened

to Sarah and fathered Ishmael with Hagar.

But how many of us would have waited more than 10 years for God to fill a very

specific promise?

And how many of us would have given up all hope after that long?

And since a long time for us is about a day and a half, we'd have all been hard

pressed to wait nearly as long as Abraham did before he finally said,

God isn't doing anything here, I better do something myself.

And this morning's parable touches on all these things, asking for God,

asking God for something over and over again, the slowness of God and answering

at times, and our discouragement when God doesn't answer as soon as we think

he should.

These are all issues that every one of us faces in our own prayer life.

But the parable of the widow and the unrighteous judge is meant to encourage

us to keep on praying.

And we all know prayer is not easy.

It's not easy to discipline our hearts to take the time.

It's not easy to make the effort to pray sincerely.

And as this parable illustrates, it takes persistence in our prayers to keep on

praying even when we're frustrated or impatient or want an answer right now.

We need to remember the slowness of God isn't due to a lack of concern on his

part, but on his desire to grow us up spiritually and to mature us through the

process of prayer.

So turn to Luke 18, and we're going to examine the parable of the nagging widow

and the unrighteous judge and see what Jesus wants us to learn about our prayer

life.

So start with the setting.

It's always crucial in studying parables to take the setting and context of a

parable into account if you want to understand the meaning.

Each parable is meant to be interpreted, must be interpreted in light of the

setting we find it in and the context where it is told.

The kingdom parables of Matthew 13 have to be interpreted in light of the growing

rejection of Jesus by the Jewish leaders in the preceding chapters.

And here we need to check, to take note of the preceding context as well.

Luke 17 ended with Jesus describing the last days and God's people longing for

deliverance during that time.

And he warned them that the days would come when they would long to see the days

of the Son of Man and they wouldn't see them yet.

But Jesus was speaking to his disciples to give them hope and encouragement even

in the face of opposition from the world and delay in his return.

It is also meant to give encouragement to that last generation of believers who

will find themselves alive at that time.

But that encouragement applies to all believers of every generation as well.

And finally, this is a contrast parable, not a comparison parable.

Most parables teach by comparison.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

The kingdom of heaven is like a man sowing seed.

This one teaches by contrast.

If an evil man will sometimes do right, even if it's for all the wrong reasons,

won't our heavenly father who is totally righteous do right for his children?

That's a contrast.

So keep these points in mind as we go through this parable.

Let's start with the actors.

Like any good drama, our story begins by introducing us to the actors involved.

And they are as different as night and day and each represents something

important in society back then.

And we'll start with the introduction to verse 1

and then we'll look at the actors involved.

Look at verse 1.

Now, he was telling them a parable to show them that at all times they

ought to pray and not lose heart.

After his previous conversation with the disciples,

Jesus decided he needed to encourage them in their prayer lives.

This is one of those places that reveal for us how deeply Jesus understands

our hearts.

He knows how easily discouraged we are when our prayers aren't answered

as quickly as we would like.

And he knows how easily we lose heart and hope,

especially in times of persecution and opposition,

like he described in chapter 17.

So he told this parable to remind them to keep on praying and not give up.

Delay in answering our prayers does not mean denial.

The fact that God hasn't answered yet doesn't mean that he hasn't heard us

or that he won't answer.

Even in the most difficult of circumstances, God is working.

It simply means God is waiting for his timing, not ours.

And so his encouragement to all his children in every age

is to hang in there, keep on praying, and don't lose heart.

God will answer the prayers of his people when the time is right.

And when Jesus says we are to pray at all times,

he means regardless of the circumstances,

we find ourselves sin at the moment.

Prayer should be our normal reaction to life and its problems.

It's maintaining this open attitude toward God throughout the day

and praying without ceasing,

as Paul encourages us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17.

This parable is meant to keep us praying,

even in the face of delay and waiting.

This was new to many Jews,

and some rabbis taught that you should never ask God for anything

more than three times or you might make God weary.

And this is not the first time that Jesus talked about persistence in prayer.

In Matthew 7, in the Sermon on the Mount,

he exhorted his followers to ask and it will be given to you,

to seek and you shall find, knock and it will be open to you.

And the Greek tense in these verses can be rendered as continuous action.

Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.

Persistence in prayer is important.

Look at Luke 11, verse 5.

Luke 11:5

Verses 5 to 8.

Jesus said this, and then he said to them,

suppose one of you has a friend and he goes to him at midnight and says to him,

friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey

and I have nothing to set before him.

And from inside, he answers and says, do not bother me,

the door has already been shut.

My children and I are in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything.

I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything

because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence,

he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

In a different parable, Jesus makes the same point

that persistence in prayer is crucial to getting answers in prayer.

Notice it's the persistence of the man asking for help,

not his friendship that ultimately got him what he needed.

The idea that we could throw up a random prayer here and there

and that's enough is found nowhere in the teachings of Jesus.

Persistent prayer matters.

Now look at 18, verse 2.

Saying, in a certain city, there was a judge who did not fear God

and did not respect man.

The first actor in our drama is a judge in a certain city.

And there are some important things about this judge

that we need to notice.

First, he probably wasn't Jewish.

Jewish disputes were normally settled by a group of men

from the community, not a single judge.

So this man was probably a local official

appointed by Herod or the Romans to keep the peace.

And while normally called judges of the prohibitions by name,

their dishonesty led them to be called robber judges by the people,

a play on words in the original language.

They did not have a good reputation.

And notice this man's character.

He didn't fear God.

That man, he could care less about God's laws

and God's commandments.

He didn't feel bound by them.

And he wasn't worried about his own judgment or accountability

before God one day.

It also means he didn't share God's concern for real justice.

Remember, the constant theme throughout the Old Testament

is a call for judges to exercise righteous judgment

and a condemnation of wicked judges.

This man didn't care.

And second, he didn't respect man.

Now, not fearing man isn't always a bad thing in and of itself.

We are not to let the fear of man control our lives.

But in this case, it means he had no concern for public opinion

or what people thought was right or fair.

He could care less about the norms of right and wrong and justice.

So what guided this judge's decisions?

He was guided completely by his own whims and desires

and probably what was best for him in a given case.

Bribes probably helped him see justice more clearly

in specific cases.

So he wasn't concerned with justice.

He was unaccountable to the people.

And he wasn't constrained by anything outside himself.

The last thing anyone could be sure of when they came

before this judge was justice.

And to think he gave a hoot about a poor widow

is ridiculous.

Jesus deliberately paints the judge as bad as he does

because he wants to make the contrast between this judge

and our Heavenly Father as great as he can be.

The stark contrast is central to the story.

Now look at verse 3.

There was a widow in that city.

And she kept coming to him saying,

give me legal protection from my opponent.

The second actor in our drama is a widow woman

seeking justice from the court.

In the Bible, the widow became a symbol

for somebody who was helpless and needed protection

from the actions of evil people around her.

Over and over in the Old Testament,

God warns Israel to make sure that they take care

of the widows in their midst and not take advantage

of their misfortune.

And apparently, this judge hadn't got the memo.

And it was in the context of caring for widows

that Paul told Timothy that Christians

who fail to provide for their families

are worse than unbelievers and have denied the faith.

God is serious when it comes to treating widows with respect

and protecting them from being exploited.

That this woman was a widow suggests

several things about her.

First, she was probably poor, since most widows back then

were.

So she probably didn't have any money to bribe the judge with.

If he's waiting for her to grease the skids of justice,

he's in for a long wait.

Second, she seems to be alone with no protector or advocate

to plead her case.

She was her own attorney and had no influence or pull

with the judge.

And third, she's powerless.

There's nothing she could do on her own

to compel the judge to give her justice.

And finally, if we take her plea at face value,

she was in the right.

She had been cheated by someone and deserved

a favorable ruling from the judge.

She was only asking him to do his job and protect her.

She wasn't looking for special favors.

She wasn't trying to cheat someone.

Her only desire was simple justice.

And one more thing about this widow.

She was persistent.

Luke tells us she kept coming to the judge over and over

and over again.

It's the imperfect tense in the Greek,

which implies a continuous action.

She was constantly coming to him.

She couldn't make him act for her,

but that didn't stop her from trying day after day.

No matter how many times he ignored her, she kept coming.

And so these are the two actors in our drama.

A crooked judge who could care less about justice

and a poor widow who continually demanded justice from him.

Let's talk about the action taken.

Something had to give sooner or later.

The judge wasn't going to sit there day after day

and listen to this widow crying at him.

Either he was going to act on her case

or he was going to strangle her, one or the other.

But his action may surprise you here.

Look at verses four and five.

For a while he was unwilling, but afterward he

said to himself, even though I do not fear God nor respect

man, yet because this widow bothers me,

I will give her legal protection.

Otherwise, by continually coming to me,

she will wear me out.

For a while the judge simply ignored her plea,

pretending she wasn't there.

This is on the theory, if I ignore her, she'll go away.

Something every parent has tried.

But the judge underestimated the persistence of this widow.

It didn't take long for the judge

to realize she wasn't going away.

Every day when his court opened, she

was right there asking him for justice.

And finally he got fed up with seeing her there every day

and he made a faithful decision.

But notice his reasoning.

He said to himself, even though I don't fear God and respect

man, I can't take this woman coming to me every day

and bothering me.

I'm going to give her legal protection to shut her up

and make her go away.

I can't take this anymore.

Obviously it was probably cutting

into his more lucrative cases where

the bribes were more apparent.

But that phrase in verse five where he says, wear me out,

it literally means to give a black eye to.

It got to a point where the judge began to worry maybe

his reputation would suffer some harm if he didn't do something

to get rid of this widow.

So he gave her justice just to get her out of his courtroom

once and for all.

His motives are all wrong.

He wasn't interested in justice.

He didn't care if she'd been hurt or wronged.

It was just easier to give her what she wanted

than to listen to her whining another day.

Her persistence finally moved the judge

to act on her behalf.

Even though he was corrupt, didn't fear God or respect man

and didn't want to help her.

Her persistence wore him out until he gave in to her request.

And if there's one lesson we can learn right here,

it's that so much in life comes through persistence.

One of my favorite baseball players in the 80s

was Brian Downing of the Angels.

He had a great story.

He rarely played in high school.

He was a second string catcher and rarely

played on his junior college team in Orange County.

Wasn't drafted by anyone.

And one day, he met a scout for the White Sox

who was at his game to scout another player.

And he begged and begged the scout for the White Sox

to give him a chance.

And because the scout felt so sorry for the kid

and because they needed a catcher at their lowest

rookie ball team, the scout finally

signed Brian Downing for the whopping bonus

price of a ticket to Idaho.

But what no one knew at the time was

the persistence of Brian Downing.

He worked and worked and worked.

And eventually, he not only made it to the majors,

he played in the All-Star game and retired

holding many of the Angel career batting records.

Persistence pays off in life, just

like it did for this widow, just like it did for Brian Downing.

And it will pay off in our prayer life

as well as Jesus is about to tell us.

So let's deal with the application.

By now, you should get the point about the need

for persistence in our prayers.

But there's more to it than just that.

We have to make sure that we remember

this parable is about contrast rather than comparisons.

God is not an unrighteous judge who

can be badgered into acting.

His actions will be totally different

because He is our righteous Heavenly Father.

Let's see how Jesus applies this parable to our lives.

Look at verse 6.

And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge said.

He begins by telling us to hear what that unrighteous judge

said, that he had answered the widow only

because of her persistence.

Jesus wants us to remember that because,

remember that because He is about to say something

about God that we need to know and how He answers

our prayers and the motives behind His answers.

And they are in sharp contrast to this unrighteous judge.

The difference between them is night and day.

Look at 7 and the first part of 8.

Now, will not God bring justice to His elect

who cry to Him day and night?

And will He delay long over them?

I tell you, He will bring justice for them quickly.

So as we go through these verses,

I want you to mark down the contrast

Jesus is drawing for us.

First, our God is different.

Our God is not unrighteous at all,

but completely righteous and just in all that He does.

Whereas justice was a whim to this judge,

it's part of the very nature of God Himself.

He is always just and acts in accordance with justice

in all that He does.

And more than that, He is not only just,

He is our Heavenly Father.

And people may yell and complain that God is unfair,

that there isn't any justice in this life.

But come judgment day, every mouth will be closed

and everyone will acknowledge fully

the absolute perfect justice of God.

So our God is different because He is truly a just God

and He loves us.

Jesus tried to point this out in the Sermon on the Mount

when He cautioned His disciples

that long flowery public prayers

like many of the Jewish leaders prayed

didn't impress God,

nor did heaping up words and babbling on and on

to wear God down like the Gentiles work with God.

Instead, He encourages disciples

that their Heavenly Father knows what they need

before they even ask and that He cares for them.

Just come naturally and normally

and lay your request before God

and trust Him with the outcome.

Our God is very different from this unrighteous judge.

Our Heavenly Father loves us and is on our side.

Second, we're different.

We aren't some strangers coming before a judge

we've never met who could care less whether we live or die.

Jesus calls us here, God's elect,

His specially chosen people.

We are His children and He is our Father

and that means we have a love relationship with Him.

And this makes all the difference.

If some stranger comes up to me and asks for money,

I'm skeptical.

I don't know this person, the whole thing could be a scam.

But if one of my kids comes up to me and asks me for money,

I'm still skeptical.

But at least I know them

and I can make sure their need is legitimate

and I have a personal interest in helping them.

Having a personal relationship with someone

always changes the dynamic and gives us a stake

in the outcome of their situation.

God has a personal stake in the outcome

of the situation of our lives.

He wants us to honor Him.

He wants us to glorify Him by our obedience

and faithfulness and persistence.

And He has promised to us as His children

that He will bring justice in our lives

if we will trust Him and be persistent.

We are different because we have a personal relationship

with our God and Father that the judge never,

that the widow never had with the judge.

Third, our persistence is different.

Let's be honest, the judge gave in to the widow

because she nagged him to death.

Nagging works on a human level as every parent knows.

We give in to our kids just to silence them some days.

Do that all the time and you will have a real problem.

But our persistence in prayer is not the same

as the widow's nagging.

Jesus is not telling us if a nagging widow

can make an unrighteous judge give her what she wants,

the nagging saints can make a righteous God

give them what they want.

But notice Jesus does say that God will bring justice

for His elect who cry to Him day and night.

There is a need for us to persevere in our prayers

and to keep coming to the throne of God

until the answers are until we're told by the Spirit

to stop praying.

It's a common theme in scripture that God's people

need to pray to Him and then wait for Him patiently

to answer, especially in difficult times or situations.

As Pastor Jeff showed a number of times in Psalms,

you have David calling out to God for help and justice

and then waiting patiently for God to act.

In Revelation 6, you have the souls of the saints

under the altar in heaven crying out for justice

and God telling them to rest a little longer

and then He would act.

God often asks His people to wait patiently for Him

to act on their behalf and to not give up hope or lose heart.

This is especially true when we're

in the middle of trials or persecution or hard times.

We need to persevere in our prayers

and keep waiting expectantly for God to answer.

It's not wrong to pray for some request again and again

and again if it has not been answered.

I don't know where this idea got started

that you should only pray once and that's it, but it's wrong.

Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Look at verses 7 to 9.

And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation,

for this reason to keep me from exalting myself,

there was given me a thorn in the flesh,

a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me

from exalting myself.

And concerning this, I implored the Lord three times

that it might leave me.

And He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you

and my power is perfected in weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather

boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ

may dwell in me.

There's a lot of discussion over exactly what

Paul's thorn in the flesh was.

Most scholars believe it was some sort of physical issue,

possibly an eye problem.

But Paul went to the Lord three times

and asked that it would be removed.

And it wasn't until God specifically said no

and don't ask again that Paul stopped praying about it.

Paul prayed several times for his thorn in the flesh.

And he prayed until God answered and in his case,

the answer was no.

In Daniel 10, we see that Daniel prayed

for 21 days for understanding of the vision

that God gave him before an angel came and explained it

to him.

And the angel told Daniel that from the first day

he had prayed, the angel had been sent with the answer,

but spiritual warfare with the enemy delayed him.

And Daniel was right to pray repeatedly

until he got an answer.

And I believe his prayers pray to roll

in that successful mission of the angel.

It's not wrong to pray repeatedly.

Think of David as we saw in the Psalms.

He was anointed as king as a young man by Samuel the prophet

and then had to spend over 10 years on the run from Saul

waiting for God's timing to take the throne.

And even after he took the throne of Judah,

he had to wait another seven years before he became

king over all Israel.

And many of the Psalms we've looked at in the last year

reflect David's struggles during this time

as he prayed diligently for God to keep his promises to him

while at the same time waited patiently for God to act.

We should be persistent in our prayers.

We should be persistent in our prayers

for people to come to Christ, praying as long as is necessary.

George Mueller was known as a great man of faith

in England in the 1800s.

And he prayed for a friend to come to know Christ

for more than 40 years.

And he died without seeing that man converted.

But at George Mueller's funeral, that man

gave his heart to Christ.

We need to pray persistently for the souls of the lost.

And we need to pray persistently for wisdom

in the midst of life trials.

I know that some of you are facing hard times

and difficult decisions and tough choices.

You may feel like there isn't any end in sight.

Hang in there.

Don't lose heart.

God knows your situation and he knows what you can bear.

And he knows the kind of pressure it will take

to mold our hearts and produce real holiness in our lives.

Be persistent in your prayers for wisdom in life's ups

and downs, God will answer.

And isn't at the point of Paul's encouragement in Romans 828

that all things work together for good to those who love God

and are called according to his purpose?

If God is waiting to answer, it's

because he is still working to achieve his greater purpose

and good in our lives.

Persistence is one of the keys to prayer.

And we must not be afraid to come to God again and again

and again, not because nagging God works,

but we are convinced that he is righteous and just God who

will answer the prayers of his children

and bring justice to their cause.

He will answer in his perfect timing.

So our perseverance is different than the nagging of the widow.

And fourth, God's timing is different.

When we read that he won't delay long over us

and that he will bring justice speedily,

we tend to think, cool, won't be long now.

But speedily here doesn't mean so much mean quickly

as in view of time, like tomorrow or the next day,

but that when God deems the time right,

then he will act quickly and without delay.

It's a certainty of quick action when the time is right,

not immediate action when we ask.

And over and over in scripture, we see that God act

and his timing, not ours.

Turn to John 11.

Here are verses 1 to 6.

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany,

the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

And it was Mary who anointed the Lord with the ointment

and wiped his feet with her hair,

whose brother Lazarus was sick.

So the sister sent word to him saying,

Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.

But when Jesus heard this, he said,

the sickness does not end in death,

but to the glory of God,

so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that he was sick,

he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

When Lazarus fell ill, Mary and Martha

sent a desperate message to Jesus

to come quickly and heal him.

Instead, Jesus waited two more days

before deciding to go to their village.

And in fact, he deliberately waited

until Lazarus had died before he went to them,

because in the plan of God,

he was gonna demonstrate God's power

by raising Lazarus from the dead, not simply healing him.

And you know the story.

When Jesus arrived and Bethany, Martha and Mary

were distraught because their brother was dead,

they had wanted Jesus to come and raise,

and to heal Lazarus in their timing, and he didn't.

They didn't understand why Jesus delayed so long

and waited till their brother died.

And that last phrase in there is the key

to why we need to persevere in our prayers,

especially in the midst of hard times and severe trials.

We don't understand.

We don't understand the whole picture.

We don't know what tomorrow may bring.

We don't understand our own hearts

and what God is trying to do in them, but God does.

He sees the whole picture,

and he sees it with absolute clarity.

But most of all, he knows our hearts inside and out,

and he knows what must be done to strengthen our faith,

purge out sin, and produce godly character in our hearts.

He knows all this, and he acts speedily

to bring about justice and deliverance for us

exactly when the time is right.

He's not speedily by our watches,

but speedily once the time is right,

and we have grown through the circumstances as he intended.

God's timing is different than our timing,

and the sooner we learn that lesson

and start persevering in our prayers,

the sooner we will be at a place

where God will act on our behalf.

And he will act exactly when it's the best time

for our growth, maturity, and deliverance.

I heard a song a few years ago

that sums up this lesson pretty well,

and it went like this.

He may not come when you want him to,

but he's always right on time.

And so the contrast in this parable

between the widow's relationship with the unrighteous judge

and our relationship with our heavenly father

are night and day.

God is different.

He is a just and loving heavenly father.

We're different.

We are his beloved and chosen children

and have a relationship with him.

Our perseverance is different.

We aren't nagging God until he gives in.

We're coming before him persistently and in trust.

And God's timing is different.

He will answer at exactly the best time

for our growth and his glory.

But there's one more application Jesus made

for this parable that's crucial for us to learn,

and it's a sober challenge for us all.

Look at the end of verse eight.

However, when the Son of Man comes,

will he find faith on the earth?

See, our great worry is God isn't listening

or that he doesn't care about our circumstances,

our problems.

Oh, why doesn't God answer us right now?

Caroline walked through that for three years

and four miscarriages trying to get a handle

on why God took us through all that

and why he didn't act sooner.

But that's not what concerned Jesus.

He wasn't worried about God doing his part.

He knew the heavenly father was faithful.

Jesus was worried about his people doing their part.

That they would, would they trust God enough

to keep on praying and not lose heart,

even when times got tough,

even if God didn't answer when they felt he should.

And Jesus' question ought to cut right to our hearts

and make us stop and take a hard look

at our perseverance in prayer.

Will Jesus find faith on earth when he comes?

Will his people continue to trust him

and act, to act on their behalf?

Will we persevere in our prayers until the end,

no matter what?

God will be faithful, will we?

And Jesus asked his question in light of his teaching

in Luke 17 about the end times

and the pressures his people will face

from an ungodly world.

Will his people keep praying even through the last days

until Christ returns?

That's why Jesus exhorts us to pray always

and not lose heart.

And now's the time we need to examine our own prayer life.

How persistent have we been?

Are we hanging in there and continuing to pray,

even though it's been hard

and even though it seems like God is taking forever?

Or have we pitched this prayer stuff

because we prayed once or twice and God didn't answer?

Will the son of man find faith on earth when he comes?

And if God hasn't answered our prayers yet

or hasn't rescued us from the hard place we're in,

it's because we're not ready yet.

We need to persevere.

We need to learn to be persistent in our prayers

and not lose heart.

Today, we need to commit ourselves

that we will wait for the Lord no matter how long it takes

because we know he loves us, we know he is just,

and we know we can trust him,

and we know that he is working to build our character

and grow us up in our faith.

Too often today, we understand faith in prayer

to mean we believe so much

that all we have to do is ask once and it's done, boom.

Truth is, real faith is seen

in our persistent in prayers over time

because we know and are convinced that God is just

and he is working in our behalf

and he will answer quickly when the time is right.

Faith in prayer is persistently believing

God wants the best for us and is working to achieve it.

Even if we don't understand what we're going through right now

and even if we don't see the light

at the end of the tunnel yet.

And it's persistently coming to God again and again

because we know he is a just and loving heavenly father.

And it's through our persistence that God uses prayer

to change us, mold our character, and deepen our faith.

And if you're wrestling with the slowness of God right now

over an issue you've been praying about, don't give up.

Dr. David Jeremiah has a great statement about prayer

and how God answers.

He says, if the prayer is wrong, he says no.

If the timing's wrong, he says slow.

If we're wrong, he says grow.

But if the request is right and the timing is right

and we're right, he says go.

Our God is not like the unrighteous judge

who acted arbitrarily and had no concern for justice.

Our God is loving, he is just, he is faithful,

and he is working patiently to produce the fruit

of the spirit and the character of Christ in us,

especially in hard times we all endure in this life.

What God wants from us is our persistence.

Hearts that continue to come and pray and refuse to give up

just because God is taking longer than we thought.

Persistence in prayer will always be rewarded

in the timing and the sovereignty of God.

So let's commit ourselves to hang in there,

keep on praying, our Heavenly Father will answer.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you now for the encouragement of your word.

I thank you, Father, that Jesus knows our hearts well.

He knows, Lord, how easily we are discouraged,

how easily we give up, how easily we cease praying

because we haven't gotten something right away

when we thought we should.

And so Father, I pray today

that we would take this parable to heart,

that we would remember you are not an unrighteous judge,

but you are our loving Heavenly Father

who cares deeply for us and has a stake

in the outcome of our lives.

That Father, we are not some stranger coming to you,

we are your dear children,

elect and chosen by you to be your own.

And that Lord, when we come,

we are coming as children to their daddy.

And Father, I thank you that our persistence

is not simply nagging, it is us exercising faith and trust

that you will act and answer when the time is right.

And I thank you, Father, that your timing is perfect.

You will answer when the time is right

to achieve your great purpose in our lives.

Nothing that comes into our lives is an accident, Lord.

It all is filtered through your hand

and you will answer our prayers when you are ready

and it's going to bring you glory in our good.

We ask this now in Jesus' name, amen.