Don't Give Up - Luke 18:1-8

Today we look at a portion of a of the word of the teachings of

Jesus that always feel timely and I'll give it to you on the

onset exactly what Jesus is going to encourage us with

today. He's going to say don't give up

and I know me just saying that to some of you.

Maybe that is the sermon you needed to hear as you came

because I just look around the sanctuary and without knowing

every detail of every life in here.

I know that hanging over every one of our heads either now or

in the near future is great opportunity for discouragement.

There it just the times we live in and you you look at the word

and one of the the constant themes is to not give up and no

matter where you're at, you can relate to this, no doubt.

I was just thinking through all the categories that maybe you're

going through in life that you come to church and say Lord, OK,

if I can just make it to church. I just need to get a little

encouragement because I am almost off the edge.

Anyone feel like they just that they've had one of those weeks,

months, years already where they are almost ready to just throw

in the towel? Well, you don't have to answer

that. I'll give you, I'll share some

statistics with you. About half of our country right

now are thinking about changing jobs or turning in their letter

of resignation. So I know I'm speaking to some

of you right now. Jobs are always hard.

Sometimes you're going to work and you're thinking I'm going to

give it one more week. So this message might be for you

in that regard. Almost 40% of pastors in the

last year. So this little role that I'm in

and across the country, 40% have thought about leaving the

ministry to go to, you know, try to find a less burdensome job at

times. Although this is a great joy of

life when done well, it's the numbers ring true before

divorce. You've heard the stat, 50% of

marriages end in divorce. Well, 50% of people within a

committed relationship have thought about throwing in the

towel. I know I'm speaking to some of

you. Every relationship is on the

brink at times. You think, can I keep going?

And we get this message? Not so that every category could

be spoken to because Jesus isn't speaking to every category

there. There are times where you might

change jobs or you might change churches and there's some

relationships before marriage that might end.

But we get this message because where you also feel this, no

doubt everyone of you, you're alive in Christ.

You've given your life to Jesus. You start to follow him.

And this sermon series is called the Journey to the cross.

As you journey with him, there's going to be times you're like,

this is getting so hard. I don't know if I can open the

Bible this morning. This is getting so hard.

I don't know if I've got what it takes to try to fulfill the will

of God in my life today. Can anyone relate to that?

No show of hands, hands down if you can relate.

OK, everyone relates. So Jesus now is going to give us

the joy of the encouragement, a, a story to help us see not only

the encouragement as a command to not lose heart, but also a, a

picture in story form of why we shouldn't lose heart.

And he's also going to give us the most practical way to start

today to revive the heart that feels faint.

Now any category you're in, Jesus is going to tell you here

is how you don't lose heart starting right now.

So we'll just look at Luke chapter 18 and we'll just get

Luke 18 · chapter mention

through one of the parables that Jesus tells in this chapter and

it says right on the onset, I told you a very simple message,

verse 1, He spoke a parable to them that men always ought to

pray and not lose heart. Prayer is you want to find

somebody who hasn't lost heart, somebody who still has, sees a

little flicker of hope on the horizon.

The people of prayer are people who still believe that it

answers on the way. That breakthrough could come,

that something could change, that discouragement could get

turned around into great joy. And if you want to see people

who have begun to lose heart, the first thing to go in your

spiritual journey is not going to be church.

You can actually hang on to church attendance for a long

time. Some people have gone through

the motions with church and you're here and you stop

believing a long time ago. The first thing to go will not

be your Christian community. You can hang on to those things.

People sometimes leave the church and keep keep the

community. The first thing to go, as you

begin to lose heart and the burden becomes so heavy, will

actually be your communion with God in prayer.

That is the first. And so once again, Jesus finds

us in a position in our journey and discipleship where we need a

story. So he's going to tell a very

simple parable. And the parable is designed to

encourage us that not losing heart and prayer go hand in

hand. And there is a way to find great

confidence right now, today for both.

So let's look at the parable. Verse 3, Sorry, verse 2, there

was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard

man. And now there was in that same

city a widow. So once again, you've probably

noticed in your own reading of the parables of Jesus, or in our

journey through the gospel of Luke and studying the parables,

that Jesus uses extremes to paint a picture.

This is a parable of extremes. We have extreme positions within

this little city that Jesus is describing.

The first position is one of extreme power, authority, a

judge, an overseer of the, the, the land and all of the disputes

would come to him and his rulings rule the day.

So you've got a, a, a great extreme person of position.

And then he says in the same city was a widow.

And this is the other extreme. This is as low as you could go

in Jesus day where there it was a, a society where women already

were at a disadvantage. And then women who did not have

a, a husband, they were connected to at another

disadvantage. The the lowest of the low.

That's why the the word says that part of the, the Christian

virtue is to care for orphans and widows.

It's the category of the least. So in these extreme positions,

we also have extreme personalities.

It isn't just that this judge is extremely powerful overseeing

the affairs of the entire city. He it also comes with maybe the

least favorable quality you could find having in a judge.

It says he has No Fear of God and no regard for man.

Now if you get assigned a judge, you're going to want a judge

that has both of those qualities, or at least one fear

of God would be a judge that realizes that he is answering to

the ultimate lawgiver that there is a judge above him, that he is

serving and administering justice.

But this man has No Fear of God, so he can take his authority and

do whatever he wants with in his mind.

He answers to no one and and that's not a good quality for a

judge. Sadly, in our post Christian

culture we'll probably have more judges that are positioned

without any fear of God. So you better have the second

quality, which is at least a regard for people.

So if you don't honor God above you.

The second quality is that a judge would care about the

people who stand before him, that he wouldn't put his own

interests above theirs, and he would actually think through no

matter where they fall in the social order.

He would think through what is right, fair, and just for the

person that brings the case to him.

This judge has none of it. This would be a bad judge to be

assigned to your case. So he's the highest authority

and he's got a hard heart towards God and people.

And now we have the extreme of the widow, the lowest of the

low. And in verse 3 it says she came

to him saying get justice from me, from my adversary.

She's in a position of no social respect and she's also got some

form of injustice inflicting her life.

And she comes so that the judge would hear her case.

And because as we know, he's not a good judge.

He doesn't care about her or God.

It says in verse four, he would not for a while.

He he doesn't give her justice. He doesn't care.

It's not worth his time or his energy or his ruling.

So he just ignore her for a while.

But afterward he said with himself, though I don't fear God

nor regard man, he has not had a personal revival.

He has not seen the fulfillment of the law in loving God and

loving the neighbor. This is still in, in a total

hardness of heart. He has a change of mind.

Verse 5 Yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her,

I will take care of her injustice, lest by her continual

coming she weary me. So another word for the woman

that is troubling the judge. The word trouble there could be

translated because she's driving me crazy.

So we've got position and personality and extreme.

She's got extreme perseverance. This parable can either be

called the unjust judge or the persistent widow and both work

because these are the characters that Jesus want us to

understand. She's a woman who should give

up. She's a woman when you look at

what she's got. She's got no social influence.

She's got the worst judge she could get, and yet she has the

power of persistence. She wore him down and it worked.

This is the reminder as you relate to a message on

encouragement and you've got just a glimmer of hope.

You made it to church, so at least you're willing to listen.

There is nothing that perseverance in faithfulness to

God cannot overcome. That's one of the messages that

Jesus wants his disciples to hear.

Don't lose heart because if you just keep persevering you will

overcome and in this scenario you wear down a judge.

Look what he says. I will avenge her, lest by her

continual coming she wear me out.

Now I was so grateful to see on our calendar this was not a

family service with all kids joining this morning.

Because kids in our households right now do not have the

spiritual maturity to know this biblical truth that you can

actually wear people down with constant persistence.

Because my kids, if I taught him this parable, they'd be like,

I'm just being a persistent widow dad and I will never leave

you alone until you give me exactly what I want.

They already have that in them, let alone citing Bible verses at

me. But the point is it works.

You can do great things in your life whether you're a churchgoer

or seeking God. You can do great things by not

taking no for an answer. I was just this week if some of

you are on our prayer chain and we have a wonderful woman and

husband of our church and and he just got some troubling news had

to be rushed to the hospital. And when you get to the ER, you

have a decision to make about how persistent you want to be,

because if you're not careful, you might sit in the ER for a

long time. And then when the ER doctor

comes out of the room, he might give you the your next

appointment in two weeks. But this woman of our church,

the wife of a man who had a major medical emergency, she

just kept saying, hey, we, we got to move this to the top.

We got him to get him in now we got to get him to see the next

hour. We got to get him to surgery.

And through persistence, she got him all the way through the

line. Persistence works.

And in this scenario, Jesus is, is trying to help us understand

that you are going to come to a place in your life in all the

categories that are going to require you persistence or

you're going to give up. And you're not going to you're

not going to breakthrough to the actual success of life.

And that is no more true than in your relationship with God.

And this is what Jesus wants us to hear.

This is a parable of extremes. You are going to get an extreme

character that doesn't care, an extreme character that has no

power, and yet there's still breakthrough that happens.

And now the answer for us in verse 6.

Then the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge said.

The unjust judge was willing to move on behalf of someone he

owed nothing to, because she didn't give up.

And what's the lesson now? The lesson, verse 7.

And shall God not avenge his own elect, who cry out day and night

to him? Though he bears long with them,

I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.

Again, a parable of extremes, and also a parable of contrast.

This parable is not teaching us, and I'm going to belabor this

for a moment. This is not teaching us that God

is only willing if we weary him, That the unjust judge is like a

picture of God and we must continually knock and seek

because otherwise he would do nothing on behalf unless we're

like children that annoy him to an answer.

And the parable, by contrast, is also saying, how much more are

you than a widow? You are not like a widow.

And some people today need to hear both of those reminders

that the parable is meant to say.

If this could happen in the most unlikely circumstances, with the

worst judge and the least of these, how much more will God

move on behalf of his people? And this is the point that Jesus

is now going to make, the challenge that has been stirring

in us this whole journey. In the Gospel of Luke, verse 8,

the second-half, he says, nevertheless, when the Son of

Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?

This is what Jesus is pointing his disciples towards.

There's going to be a lot of religion on the earth.

There's going to be a a lot of people who have studied the

scriptures and missed the point. There's going to be a a lot of

people, as it says just a chapter previous that are living

like in the days of Noah. They just ate and they were

married and they just lived life and went through their routines

and they they fit well within just what humans kind of tend to

default to everyday living. There's going to be all sorts of

that. But will there be people that

when they see the challenges of life, they look to God?

Where there'll be people when they're like, if I would have

lost heart unless I still believed in God, where there'll

be a generation of people as the Lord returns that are operating

by faith that is visible in communion with God.

That is the challenge of most everything we've been looking at

this entire series, because what Jesus is not describing is a

faith that has to do with aligned doctrine, not at least

in this moment. He's talking about faith that

looks like a woman who continually bothers and doesn't

give up and against all odds finds a breakthrough.

He's talking about a faith that has movement to it.

And you think about the faith that we've been challenged with

as we've been studying the Gospel of Luke, mindful of the

faith that would be required for some of you to not lose heart

for prodigal children. Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Remember this story and so many as we went through the story of

a, a child who was distant and long and and had had given up

and hardened their heart towards God.

So many of you were probably stirred once again, Lord, I

don't want to lose heart for my kids.

We would need faith. Remember, as we looked at the

tower of Siloam and there was just tragedy upon tragedy that

was presented to Jesus and he said, how do you respond to

tragedy? And he says unless you repent,

you'll likewise perish. You're going to need faith.

When you look at the tragedies of the world we live in, the

culture that we live in, it just seems like 1 tragedy after the

other. How many of you started to read

the news this week or this month or this year and you think, I

don't know if I can keep doing this?

This just feels like 1 hopeless headline after another.

Well, when the Son of Man returns, will he find people who

have faith that keeps trusting that God is good?

Last week we looked at this good and and and challenging reminder

from Jesus to his disciples that don't be surprised when

temptations to sin come. There will be a fence.

There will be scandals in the church and we are a generation

who is being tested for the faith.

When the Son of Man comes, will he find anyone who still trusts

that God is good in spite of all of the scandal?

When he comes, what will he find you doing?

Heard it said that prayer is the language of faith.

Prayer is your commitment to continue to trust God that the

story isn't over. That is troubling as all of

these categories can sometimes look and feel.

Prayer is your way to say to God.

Once again, I trust you. Still another quote says prayer

keeps the candle of faith flickering.

So prayer and faith are inseparable, and prayer and not

losing heart are the only way it'll happen.

So with the time that remains, we've looked at the parable.

He says, how much more will God avenge you?

Let me share with you three ways that your faith in God has to be

restored by prayer and can start right now.

The Son of Man comes. Will he find you as someone who

has an active, trusting relationship with God in prayer

no matter what comes your way. As we look at this parable,

here's one that that I find so helpful as I want my own faith

in prayer to be stirred. And you must have this faith,

otherwise prayer will stop immediately.

You must have faith that God hears.

This is actually seen in the persistence of the widow.

She came and he didn't move and she came back and she kept

pestering and she kept bothering him and she kept showing up to

her court appointed hearing over and over and over again.

Give me justice against my adversary.

There must have been something inside of her that believed that

this man was listening to her and had the ability to help her.

And yet, how many of you when you're close to losing heart?

Sometimes doubt God. Are you still listening?

God is my case still within your jurisdiction in the categories

that the Holy Spirit moves in your heart to not give up on?

Do you still have faith that if today you opened your mouth and

made a request for this specific thing in your life that God has

not grown weary of your prayer? Here's the confidence that you

can have verse 7. And shall God not avenge his own

elect who cry out day and night? Jesus is saying the widow had to

come to a court case. I don't know how many of you've

been in court recently. I was in traffic court recently

and I won't say what happened. I still have my license, if

you're wondering. And, and just the, it's, it's,

it's, it's the, it's the schedule of the court.

You get on the docket, you see the judge and you get your next

court appearance and you go at the point in time, you show up,

you wait in line, you have your moment with the judge and you're

moved on across the line. That's how court works.

And sometimes people think that's how God works.

OK, I got to come to a specific time and maybe you'll hear me

for this moment and I'm going to show up and I'm going to make my

case. And then it's closed and he's on

to the next one. But Jesus says no, not so.

The elect cry out day and night. It's 24/7.

You can cry out to God as you leave this place.

If God has put something on your heart, you could walk out into

the lobby or around the church and you could start speaking to

God about what has brought you trouble, and he will hear your

case morning, afternoon, evening and night.

And this is one of the ways that we get a small revival in our

prayer life is to remember that the Word doesn't just want us to

know that God hears our cry. It encourages us to talk about

it. Everything to God.

Look what it says in First Thessalonians.

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing in

everything. Give thanks, for this is the

will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

You're not bothering him, you're delighting him.

The the revival and the death of every relationship is

conversation. You want to find a friendship, a

marriage, parent to child. You want to find the sweet spot

of where that is going well, talk to each other.

And you want to find a relationship that is on the

brink. The the, the, the, the most

dangerous place a marriage can be is when husband and wife stop

talking. And it is true of the ultimate

relationship. The revival begins with

communication, and the relationship ends with silence.

To have faith as the Son of Man returns that pleases him, you

must believe that he's listening to your prayers.

Another word of encouragement. The righteous cry out, and the

Lord hears and delivers them out of all of their troubles.

God is not wearied. He delights in the prayer of His

people. May you not lose heart today, in

whatever category, simply by bringing once again your prayer

requests to God. Second revival of faith.

According to this story, we must have faith that God actually

cares. This is again a a parable of

contrast. The unjust judge didn't fear God

and had no regard for man. The other translation of that is

didn't care about people. We are, we are given a exact

opposite contrast from the unjust judge and the Father in

heaven. And yet so many people still

think of God as a judge. He is the ultimate judge.

He is the ultimate source of justice.

But when Jesus teaches people how to pray, he says pray to

your Father. Judges can be very black and

white and very arbitrary. And so often we come to God and

we think, OK, you're you're judging my behavior.

You're judging whether or not I've been a good Christian or an

unfaithful one. And my prayer is completely

dependent on me to honor the court.

And yet look what Jesus says as an answer to this.

That faith would be revived verse 7 again.

And shall God not avenge his own elect, who cry out day and

night? This is a parable of contrast,

not only for the unjust judge and the Father in heaven, but

also for a widow and the elect. It doesn't get more extreme.

And our brother Alish already already preached this portion of

the sermon. He said, you want to know what

it means to be elect. It's like adoption.

Being chosen by God is in Christ.

We are the elect chosen by God from the foundation of the

world. Anyone who's put their faith in

Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is made alive and adopted

in. You are not a widow talking to

an unjust judge, you are a child talking to a father.

Says in second Timothy chapter one verse 9.

Who Christ has saved us and called us with a holy calling,

not according to works, but according to his own purpose and

grace with which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time

began. Colossians therefore is the

elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness,

humility, meekness and long-suffering.

And then it says that he bears long with them.

He's long-suffering and patient. God loves you.

God cares about what is causing you to feel faint hearted and to

lose heart, and what He wants is for you to come to Him.

Anyone who is heavy laden and burdened, come to Jesus that He

might give you rest. And if you have any doubt, why

do you think Jesus is sharing the parable?

It's because He loves his disciples.

He loves them to the end. We're going to celebrate the

demonstration of love on the cross of Christ for every single

person who has put their faith in Christ.

You are now the elect, and he loves you as a father loves

child. And yet, what do we think?

Who am I to pray? I don't know.

It's been kind of a tough week. I'm not a pastor.

I don't know a lot about the Bible yet.

I haven't been, you know, doing the Scripture reading.

Who am I to pray? You are chosen by God, adopted

by the blood of Christ. Come boldly to the throne room

of grace. There is not one point of

discouragement in this sanctuary right now.

I I preach this with such confidence.

There is not one burden, not one trouble, not one challenge of

your life that God does not intimately know about, care

about, and have the ability to see you through, which will

bring us to the final revival of faith as we see in this parable.

You must have faith that God hears you, that God cares, and

that God is in fact able. Verse 7 And shall God not avenge

his own elect, who cry out day and night to him, though he

bears long with them? I tell you that he will avenge

them speedily. God is able and there are so

many moments in our life, and these are the these are the

loose heart moments. These are the burden of doubt

moments where ultimately what you are actually questioning is

your prayer life ceases and you stop talking to God and you

start trying to get more practical with your plans.

You are actually wondering, is God actually able?

And you've gone so far beyond does God care?

And now it's you're, you're wondering, does God have what it

takes to see me through this thing?

And I was immediately drawn back to a previous moment in our

series in the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Once again, you'll remember the prodigal son.

And you want to talk about a moment that is a loose heart

moment. You remember he took all of his

inheritance and he wasted it all.

That's kind of a loose heart moment.

He went from riches to rags. He moved to a foreign land and

now there's a famine. That's kind of a loose heart

moment. You know, you pick this spot

that you you've got your dream destination and you get there

and the economy just falls out. And then the only job he can get

is to work with pigs. And he's so hungry that he would

eat their food, but no one gave him any.

This is what we would call rock bottom.

And this is supposed to be relatable to every single one of

us. At times he was on the sinner's

journey. And the most beautiful turn of

any story that you'll ever hear is as he's come to rock bottom.

It says he came to his senses and he remembered his father

said, what am I doing here? My father has everything I need.

My father has servants and they eat food.

And I'll just go to him and be with him.

And of course, in that moment he gets more than he ever dreamed

because he doesn't get treated as a servant.

He gets treated as a son. And he gets a ring and a robe

and sandals and a feast. And that is your turn.

The turning point is to remember once again to come to your

senses, that the God that created the heavens and the

earth with a word, that the Savior who entered into humanity

and took all of our sin and defeated it, yes, all of it, and

left it in the grave with newness of life, resurrected.

He intercedes before you. If God can create the heavens

and the earth, if God can defeat sin and overcome death, then why

would you limit him and think that he couldn't care for your

life? Why would you lose heart knowing

the God who has the power to overcome the grave?

Ephesians 3 says now to him who is able to do exceedingly and

abundantly, above all that we think to ask to have a revival

of faith that would honor the return of Christ.

You have to believe that God is bigger than the wars and the

rumors of wars and the challenges of church and the

difficulties of your job and the bank account when it's low and

the temptation when it's high. God is bigger than it all.

So let me leave you with some encouragement from maybe one of

the great masters on prayer, EM Bounds.

He says this. If we do our part, God will do

his. Around us is a world lost in

sin. Above us is a God willing and

able to save. It is ours to build the bridge

that links heaven and earth. And prayer is the mighty

instrument that does this work. The story of every great

Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.

So we end with what we started. Don't give up.

Or maybe to just use the words of Jesus, always pray and never

give up. These three things you can start

right now. Believe that God hears you.

Believe that God cares about your requests, and believe that

God is able in his perfect way and his perfect timing to avenge

you on your behalf. And that revival can actually

start in a way for all of us as we hold in our hands the

confidence of this message. Jesus says to pray and not lose

heart. And then he walks into the

garden of the Gethsemane, and he prays and doesn't lose heart,

and he picks up his cross. And on the cross of Christ we

have the promise that God cares. God will avenge you of the

ultimate enemy, which is sin that leads to death.

You will be avenged in resurrection.

God cares by paying the price. On the cross we have the

ultimate reminder that God does in fact love you.

Anyone who has the revelation of Christ on the cross for your

sin, You have given your life to Jesus.

You are his chosen and elect. He loves you demonstrated on the

cross and on the cross we have the weekly celebration that the

we are confounding the wise. We hold in our hands bread, a

wafer and a cup to remember that God overcomes sin and death and

the enemies against him. They are all overcome in the

power of the cross. So may we be a people, may we be

revived. Whatever you're going through

right now, don't give up. Be revived and start today.

Open your heart, say a word, pray without ceasing, talk to

God. You can start with a small

prayer. I challenge every single one of

you to pray today, and whatever was challenging your mind and

your heart in discouragement, renew the good fight of faith

and give it to God. Thanks for joining us today.

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