Luke 18:1-8 (July 5, 2026)

Well, good morning.

It's good to be with you all this morning, and uh we are gonna continue our series uh in the parables in the Gospel of Luke.

So if you want to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 18, that's where we'll find ourselves this morning.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

You can also find that in the bulletin as well.

And uh, we've been calling this series the stories of Jesus, because that is in fact what a parable is.

It's it's a story that Jesus tells to reveal spiritual truth.

And this morning we're gonna look at what's been called the parable of the persistent widow.

And as we'll see, this this widow, she is commendable.

Uh, she is enduring, she's steadfast, persistent is the word that we get here, and maybe in our own culture and context, we might even call her the consistent widow.

She's faithful, she's consistent, right?

We all know, and even those in our culture know, that consistency is a key.

It's a key to achieving your goals and your dreams.

We know, uh, and we see that consistency is often celebrated.

And yet, probably each one of us would confess, consistency is hard.

It's hard to be persistent, it's hard to be faithful, it's hard to keep going and doing the same thing over and over again, especially in maybe even when we know that that thing is a good thing.

Even when we know that that consistency or that habit is a really good thing, it can be hard to just keep doing that same thing over and over again.

I'd like to say my lack of consistency is the real reason that I'm not in the NBA today.

It might be more talent than consistency, but nonetheless, we know that if you want to be great at something, you have to be consistent.

And yet we find it so difficult.

I mean, it's right why most of our New Year's resolutions don't make it out of January.

It's why we can't make it through the book of Leviticus.

It's the reason that it seems parenting day by day, and as we even hear this morning, gets harder and harder.

Uh, it can also be why we look for entertainment, for a new house, for a different job, for another vacation.

Because doing the same thing over and over, it just feels tiring.

It's it's mundane, it's it's difficult.

We know we need to endure, and yet in a world of instant gratification, doing anything without any kind of immediate results is challenging.

And the problem is that we can take this same sort of mindset, the same attitude to our prayer lives.

We can think, and we would honestly probably all admit that we have room to grow in our prayer lives.

You see, prayer doesn't yield any immediate results.

It's often uninteresting, it's mundane, it's it's challenging, it's it's often something that we have to do unseen, it doesn't get celebrated by anybody.

And for us as Christians, sometimes it can just feel like one more thing that I know that I should be doing that I'm not.

Friend, I wonder if for you, prayer feels more like a burden than a delight.

Maybe you lack the legs to keep on praying when you know that you should.

I wonder if for you, maybe this morning, do you find it hard to pray?

Well, there's good news.

Our parable this morning is for people just like that.

Jesus actually tells us in Luke chapter 18, verse 1, a little bit of what this parable is going to be about.

Luke 18:1

Look at it with me, verse 1, it says, Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up.

See, Jesus tells us this parable this morning because he knows that we are tempted to give up praying and to lose heart praying.

We're tempted to rarely pray.

And so Jesus doesn't give us this parable this morning as an unreachable standard, as if pray always means that you have to do uh nothing except for pray.

In some ways, he means to consistently pray, to persistently pray.

This parable is actually for those who are discouraged in their prayer life, who wonder if you should keep praying about that thing, who maybe wonder if God cares or if he hears, or maybe if you're you feel like your prayers just bounce off the ceiling.

This parable is for you.

And Jesus invites you to listen in for story time with him.

And let you have your mind changed about the way you think about prayer.

Our main idea this morning is this: persistent prayer is fueled by knowing the character of your God.

Persistent prayer is fueled by knowing the character of your God.

We're gonna go ahead and read Luke 18, verses 1 through 8, so you can turn there with me as I read.

Luke 18:1–8

Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up.

There was a judge in a certain town who didn't fear God or respect people, and a widow in that town kept coming to him, saying, Give me justice against my adversary.

For a while he was unwilling.

But later he said to himself, Even though I don't fear God or respect people, yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I'll give her justice, so that she doesn't wear me out by her persistent coming.

Then the Lord said, Listen to what the unjust judge says.

Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night?

Will he delay helping them?

I tell you that he will swiftly grant them justice.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

This morning, as we look at our passage, we're gonna look at kind of the three primary characters that Jesus tells us about to learn about persistent prayer.

And the first we're gonna see is the desperation of the widow.

We're gonna first look at the widow and her desperation here.

See, to understand Jesus' story and often his parables, it's important to look at the characters.

And that's what we see in our passage.

And verse one tells us again, Jesus highlights in some ways this widow here, because she teaches us what it looks like to pray and not lose heart.

She is who we are to emulate.

And so to learn from her this morning, we're gonna look at her reality and her request.

First, let's look at the widow's reality.

That is that she is desperate.

Now, widows in that society were among the most needy, among the most destitute of people.

In Israel, a woman's place in society depended largely upon a male family member, whether that be her father or eventually her husband, or maybe later on her son.

But for this widow, it seems she has no such help.

She has lost her husband, her husband has died.

That's in fact why she is a widow.

And it seems she has no other male relative who could plead her case in court.

And so that's why she actually has to go and plead her own case.

Even among widows, we see that she's particularly needy.

She's all alone.

And now in our story, she has no system of justice to uphold her cause.

She actually comes before an unjust judge.

You see, many would have heard her situation and despaired.

They would not have done what she does.

And yet, what's commendable is that she goes again and again to this judge.

Because if she, if he if the judge doesn't rule in her favor, she has no other hope.

I want you to notice, though, she doesn't try to figure this out some other way.

At first, it says that he was unwilling.

He's not willing to answer.

He's not willing to help her.

And yet she doesn't try to subvert or go around the justice system.

She doesn't try to pull herself up by her own bootstraps and try to make it through on her own.

No, she knows that she is desperate.

And her only hope, her only help is to go even to this unjust judge and ask him to do something about her situation.

This is the attitude that we are called to have in prayer.

To embody the desperation that this widow has if we are to persist in it.

We must find ourselves to be utterly dependent on God and recognize that He is wealthy, He is able and wants to help us.

And yet, how often is that not our attitude?

So often we are too self-sufficient.

James 4 shows us kind of two issues with the way that we pray sometimes.

James 4 says, you do not have because you do not ask, maybe because we're self-sufficient.

And then you ask and you don't receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

You see, we often don't pray because we don't find much of a correlation between this widow and our own lives.

We look at our own lives and we think we've got all sorts of other solutions, all sorts of other hopes and ways that we can deal with the problems in our lives.

We've got a lot of options, all sorts of experts and books and resources out there that can help us with the problems and the challenges that we feel.

I wonder if prayer feels irrelevant to you.

Maybe a little bit like a last resort.

Some have said maybe it's like a spare tire rather than a steering wheel.

The truth is, in life, we're only going to pursue the help that we think that we need.

And now I think this is especially maybe hard for some of us Midwesterners.

I know some of you out there, you're the kinds of people who can solve just about anything on your own.

Especially with a quick Google search or a YouTube video, you kind of can figure out anything and everything.

I, in some ways, admire you because I know that I am not like that.

It's the reason, in fact, that my wife has to be the one to reach out in order to hang shelves straight in our home.

Uh, she's the one who needs to reach out for help in that way.

Because I know my limitations.

I can't do things like that.

And yet, we'd all probably admit there there's a time and a place where we reach the end of ourselves and there's not enough YouTube videos on the internet for us, and we find something that we just cannot do.

And so eventually, we might reach out.

Maybe for an expert.

We we call somebody, maybe like an AC guy this last week, if you're if your AC went out, and you get somebody to help you because this problem is too big for you to handle.

Sometimes I think maybe we pray like that.

That we pray only if and when we've come to the end of all other sorts of resources and options, that we we only pray when we really need an expert in this particular area?

That we call God as in some ways the guy who deals with our biggest problems?

Christian, I wonder if you find yourself praying about all things, frequently, faithfully asking, seeking God because you depend on him, or is he just the guy you call to grant your wishes?

Like maybe the genie from Aladdin.

I wonder, does your prayer life show that he's the God that you serve?

Or does your prayer intend to make him a servant to you?

Friends, if we're to persevere in prayer, we must recognize how dependent on God we are in all things, in everything.

We must embody this widow's desperation that drives her to keep coming, to keep asking.

We must have this sort of desperation that drives us to our knees.

So that's her reality, but now let's look at her request.

She comes with a simple request in verse three.

She says, Give me justice against my adversary.

She keeps coming with this request over and over again.

She's seeking justice.

And apparently we see that she has an adversary, someone who's against her, someone who's uh opposed to her.

And likely this was probably somebody when her husband had died, who had come and probably taken what was hers.

Probably was more powerful than her, probably knew about the situation and thought that this was a good time to swoop in and get some extra riches, get some extra things for themselves, and leaving her impoverished.

And she's not powerful enough, strong enough, she has no one to plead her case, and so she can't do anything about her situation except go to the justice system.

See, this widow has a just cause.

It's a serious petition.

Her life is at stake here.

So she turns to the judge, who she needs to rule in her favor.

I wonder if sometimes our persistence in prayer lacks the legs because what we pray about isn't all that essential.

What we pray about isn't all that significant to our life.

It's kind of maybe a little bit more like the cherry on top of the Sunday than daily bread.

I wonder if our so many of our prayers concern things that are nice to have, good, helpful, but not need to have, not essential for our spiritual life and walk with God.

I mean, think about your prayer life for a moment.

Maybe if in the last month, if if every prayer of yours was answered, how much of the world would be impacted?

Or would it end up just being you and your family?

Do we pray the kinds of prayers that we need God to make a difference, that only God can do and help with?

You see, this widow, she's crying out for her desperate needs.

This is not a nice to have.

This is not, she can give or take this prayer, this request that she has, and this is what drives her to persistently go, time and time again.

Look again down at verse 7.

Jesus even points to the kind of prayer that we're to cry out with day and night.

He says, Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night?

This idea that Jesus is getting at here is this idea of final vindication.

Will not God make all things right?

Will he not return?

In some way, Jesus is asking and talking about a prayer like in the Lord's prayer, where he says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's the kind of prayer that Jesus is talking about.

It's a prayer about ultimate, eternal things.

Things which are concerned with God's glory and his kingdom, for him to return, for him to make an end to suffering and injustice and sin.

I wonder so often if we don't persist in prayer, because our prayers are much more about our own kingdom, our own comforts, than about God's kingdom.

Things which we cannot affect if God does not intervene, if God does not work.

And so if we want to pray like this widow, we need to learn to pray according to the will of God.

And I think one of the ways that we learn to do that is we learn to pray the Bible.

We learn to pray the scriptures.

It's by letting our hearts, our minds, our requests and prayers be shaped and guided by God's revealed will in the Bible.

John Piper he says this.

I think this is really helpful in thinking about how do we do that.

John Piper says, the scriptures either tell us something about God and Christ when we're reading, so that we can praise him in prayer.

Or they tell him us something about what God and Christ and the Holy Spirit have done, so that we can pray in thanksgiving and express faith in it.

Or they tell us about what God expects from us so that we can cry out for his help in prayer, or they tell us something about what we have failed to do, so that we can confess our sins to God in prayer.

See, in some ways, when we're praying the Bible, we're letting God's thoughts, God's desires inform what we ask of him, what we pray to him.

And as we persistently pray and pray in these we in these ways, God will either bring about the changes that we long for in our lives, or he will change our longings so that we're conformed to his will.

And so he invites us, Jesus tells us here to embody the desperation of the widow, to come like her, to God, to learn how to pray persistently.

That we're to come needy, desperate, recognizing that we need God to help us in all areas of life.

That we're to come with pleas, recognizing that we can't do something about some of these things.

We need him to intervene.

And we're to learn to pray according to his will, about what's essential.

See, if we want to be persistent in prayer, it must be fueled both by knowing our dependence, our desperation, and knowing the character of our God, which is what we're gonna turn to next as we look at the next character.

We're gonna see the judge.

We're gonna look together at the disposition of the judge next.

Now, Jesus' story is to the point.

Here, there's this is no modern-day Hollywood blockbuster where you have to wait a while to figure out who it is that's bad and who it is that's good.

No, we know exactly right from the jump who everyone's rooting for and who everyone does not like.

Verse 2 tells us about this judge.

Here's the summary of his character.

He doesn't fear God or respect people.

In Jesus' day, many would have thought of this kind of a judge.

They could have had a judge similar to this in mind.

Many of the Roman judges were not in office because they cared a lot about justice, but really they were there because of social status, for wealth, or for position and influence.

In fact, these judges that many would have thought in their minds of were exactly what a judge should not be.

And that is unjust, which is exactly who we find here in Jesus' story.

This judge is unconcerned with God's law, which would have called him to plead the case and care for widows.

He doesn't care about God.

And he's also not a people pleaser, and not in a good way.

He doesn't respect people, he doesn't care what people think of him at all.

He lives by no law but his own thoughts, his own authorities.

And he even knows the depths of his wicked character.

Look at verse 4.

He says, even though I don't fear God or respect people, he's he's admitting he knows who he is.

And so even though this widow comes with a righteous cause, he doesn't care.

There's no compassionate bone in his body which causes him to care or do anything about her.

In some ways, he looks at her as just another peasant in a situation that does not concern him.

The judge is maybe like the Grinch who stole Christmas.

And Dr.

Seuss says this.

He says, it could be about the Grinch that his head wasn't screwed on just right, or perhaps his shoes were too tight.

But I think the most likely reason of all is that his heart was two sizes too small.

This might be what the judge was like a Grinch-like judge, evil, vile.

And yet she keeps coming.

But it tells us that he was unwilling to do anything.

Verse 4, this idea is he doesn't just say, come back tomorrow and maybe we'll see.

He's like, I have no interest.

Get away, I'm not going to do anything ever about this thing.

And yet, even though that's the response that she gets, she keeps coming.

And this is where we find the turning point in the parable in verse four.

It says, He was unwilling, but later.

Later, after she keeps coming, for a while later, uh, he said to himself, later, something else changes.

He might be cold and wicked, but he can't be insulated from his own problems.

And now this widow has become a problem to him.

She is the problem.

Look at what he says to himself in verses 4 and 5 again, even though I don't fear God or respect people, yet because this widow keeps pestering me, she's bothering me, I'll give her justice so that she doesn't wear me out and beat me down by her persistent coming.

Why does this judge have a change of heart?

Well, it's not because he repents and all of a sudden likes Christmas, like the Grinch.

No, it he still holds on to his character.

He he's still holding fast.

I don't fear God, I don't respect people, but she is annoying me.

It's because of his own selfish desire for comfort that he's actually worn out by her and gives her justice.

It's amazing, actually, that this seemingly ruthless judge is defeated by the simple persistence in a request by this helpless widow.

See, Jesus tells this masterful story, painting this picture to highlight the effect of persistence in prayer.

To this widow, she has no promise that she'll ever get justice from this judge.

She doesn't have a relationship that she can barter with this judge with.

She has no bribe, nothing that she can give him that would help her case.

No, she has nothing but to just simply come day after day.

And then look at verses 6 and 7.

This is exactly what Jesus says.

Listen to what the unjust judge says.

Will not God grant justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night?

Jesus teaches us to persevere.

Not because our God is similar to this unjust judge, but because of how much better, how much greater our God is than this judge.

He's making an argument from the lesser to the greater.

He says, look to this judge who is unjust, and yet he gives justice.

Won't your God do that?

The God who is just, the God who does care?

The truth is we can feel so often faint-hearted, maybe.

Because it feels like God isn't answering us.

Because it feels like he's not hearing our prayers.

Maybe we can be tempted to think that if God really loved us, he really cared about us, he really sees us, that that our prayers would be answered quickly.

We might even look at this passage actually and say, well, actually, Jesus says, will not God grant justice?

To his elect, won't he swiftly grant them justice?

It seems like he should do it quick.

Well, we have to remember Jesus' point and context actually here.

Because in the passage beforehand in Luke chapter 17, Jesus had just been telling his disciples about waiting for his return.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

About that they are to wait and to look forward to Jesus coming back to long for him.

And now he tells them a parable here about how to pray and not lose heart in the meantime.

While they wait for him to return, they're to keep praying and keep persisting.

In the passage before him, we see, we see that this is what Jesus has been talking about.

So when he talks about swiftly granting them justice, he's talking about the sudden nature of his coming.

That he's gonna come like a thief in the night.

He's gonna come soon and yet unexpectedly at the same time.

And so we know that when Jesus says soon, it doesn't mean it's gonna happen today.

But we know it's imminent, it's unexpected, it is coming.

And so just as we are sure that Christ will return, Jesus wants us to be sure he will answer our prayers.

Even if that answer isn't today and it doesn't feel soon to us.

Jesus wants us to continue praying persistently so that he might find faith on earth when he does return.

I think he's calling us to imitate this widow in her persistence.

It reminds me a little bit of a childlike faith that Jesus calls us to.

You know, in our house, many times I'll come home or I'll just be around and I just hear the constant call, mama, mama, mama, or dada, dada, dada.

And you, if you're a parent, you know this.

You know this constant call of a kid.

They are persistent, if anything else.

And it might be a little bit maybe to annoy us, but I don't think that's the real reason.

I think what it is, the reason kids do that, is because they want our attention and they know we can help.

That's why they're persistent.

That's why they keep saying over and over.

And so we are to be like this widow who says, Abba, Abba, Abba, I need your help, Father.

Only you can do something about this.

See, when we pray persistently, we do so with a childlike faith.

This faith on earth that Jesus wonders about.

And so, friends, persistence in prayer is fueled by knowing the character of your God.

I think in part Jesus gives us this picture of an unjust judge.

Because it might be the reason that we struggle to pray persistently is because we think of God like that.

We think maybe God is a little bit more like this unjust judge than we'd like to admit.

We would say and confess that we know the God of the Bible, and yet our prayer lives often reveal what we truly believe about God.

Maybe I wonder if your prayer life reveals then that you pray to an unjust judge.

That your God is cold, he's calculating, he's only self-interested, not really interested in the things that you need, he's selfish, only granting requests that do him good.

I wonder if you ever think of God up there when he hears your prayers and your prayers kind of fall under his scrutiny, like he's casting some of them out.

Unworthy, insignificant, who cares about that?

Or maybe as you come again with the same request, you ask him again for help in the same area of temptation and sin, he's thinking, You're coming with this again?

Don't you know there's more important things for me to deal with than this prayer that you come to me with?

Sometimes we can think that God is like this unjust judge.

And so we don't pray.

It feels like a lose-lose because either we don't get the answers that we want, or we feel like maybe that's because we're not praying in the right ways, or we're not doing it the right way and praying for the right things.

But what does Jesus say to us?

Oh, verse 1 again.

He tells us this story so that we would pray always and not lose heart.

And so if we're gonna pray persistently, we need to consider the last character, the last person that Jesus tells us about.

And that is the God of justice who cares for his people.

We're gonna look at the God of justice who cares for his people.

See, we've already seen that Jesus presents this unjust judge as a comparison to God, the true judge, who's actually far greater.

And Jesus' point is won't the God who is just actually grant you justice?

Won't he actually help you?

Especially because you're his chosen elect people, and you're crying out day and night, will he put you off?

See, I think Jesus' question is essential for us to really answer in our heart of hearts if we're gonna learn to pray persistently.

I wonder when we hear this question from Jesus, won't God uh grant justice?

Won't God help us?

We say, well, of course we know God hears our prayers.

But I wonder if that truth has made it from your head and from your lips, all the way down into your heart, to what you really believe and what you really feel when you pray and when you think about God?

See, I think the questions that we ponder, and maybe even the questions that our culture wonders about God and who he is and what he's like are right here in this question.

Is God truly just when there's injustice everywhere?

Does God really care if so many people suffer?

If God is in control, why is there so much chaos everywhere?

And maybe even more than these deep philosophical questions.

They can be the questions of our own lives.

What does God care about me?

Am I really his child if it seems like there's no answer on the horizon?

When I keep praying for this good thing, a spouse, a child, for reconciliation, for healing, why is it that God doesn't seem to bring it about?

It seems maybe we feel sometimes that God has forgotten me.

Because when I look around, I look at all sorts of other people who are doing well in life.

They're comfortable, they're living happily, and it feels like I'm barely scraping by.

See, we may confess, of course, at first when we read verse 7.

And yet we might have many instances in our own lives where we're like, well, wait, I don't, I don't know.

It feels like God is delaying and helping me.

So how do we know that God really does here?

Well, I think the answers to these questions is actually not found in the parable itself, but in the storyteller.

It's in the one who tells this story.

See, the true character of God and his activity in the world is revealed and hinges upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who tells us this parable.

For what we need is not all of these specific answers, but we need to see what God really does.

When there's a world of injustice and cries that go in answer and pain and suffering.

And in Christ, the character of God has been fully revealed.

Colossians 2 9 says this that in him, in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity, the whole fullness of God, and his character dwells bodily.

And so, do you want to know what God is like?

Do you want to know what God looks like with skin on?

We look to Jesus.

And he reveals to us the character of God.

So, what do we find when we do, when we look to Jesus?

Well, we find a God of justice who cares for his people.

We find a God who actually even knows the reality of injustice and suffering first person.

For Jesus came to live among us, to live in our muck and to die, a death that we deserve, to suffer and be hanged on a Roman cross as a criminal.

In fact, the greatest injustice in all the world took place on that cross.

The innocent Son of God trading places with sinners.

And the fullness of God's wrath poured out upon him, which he did not deserve.

See, Jesus knows injustice, and yet he took it willingly because he knew that God's justice demands that people, sinners, deserve death.

They deserve punishment for their sin.

They deserve to be separated from God forever.

See, the truth is we only want justice when we're like this unjust, or when we're like this widow.

When justice rules in our favor, when justice ends up being good for us, and the truth is that we deserve to be justly condemned by God.

We deserve to take the punishment that Jesus took.

And so, friend, wherever you find yourself this morning, maybe you're not sure about God and what he's like.

And maybe you do, though, long for justice, long for things to be made right.

Maybe you even look at your own life and you think, I've gotten some things that are not fair in life.

I've had some unjust things done in my life.

Where's God in all of that?

I want you to know.

God cares.

He cares about that.

And I also want you to know that God is just.

And one day, as Jesus says, He will swiftly grant justice.

He will swiftly make an end to all evil and wickedness and sin and injustice.

But that also means sinners who don't take refuge in Christ.

That also means that if you aren't trusting in Jesus, the Bible says God is just and will not pardon you.

So, friends, what we need is not only justice, we need mercy.

We need a God who is also merciful.

And in Christ, we find that we do have a Father of mercies.

A Father like that.

That those who would cry to Him in faith could find mercy on the last day and not condemnation.

See, because Christ has already paid the penalty for every sin on the cross, those who trust in him, look to him in faith, can find forgiveness and freedom.

They no longer relate to God as a judge.

God now becomes our Father, who cares, who hears the cries of his children, who's abounding in steadfast love towards us.

See, in Christ we see a God who looks down upon the greatest difficulty, the greatest needs that you have and has already dealt with all of them.

Especially those greatest things, that separation and the sin that you have, Jesus has done what you needed and could do nothing about.

And so how do we know that God will actually grant justice?

That he doesn't delay in his help, that he actually will help.

Well, it's because of what he's already done in Christ.

See, the help we most deeply needed, he has done for us.

And now for you, Christian, this is the God you know.

This is God's character for you.

That he is our Father in heaven.

No unjust judge.

No, he's a father of mercies.

He he always does what is right and good for you.

He's not cold and calculating.

Jesus shows us the abundant generosity of God towards you, who would give up his greatest treasure, his beloved son, to have a relationship with you.

So you can be sure that if he gave that for you, will he not also give you all things that you need?

And this God is not reluctant, he's not sitting back waiting for you to knock a thousand times.

No, he's eager, he's waiting, he's looking to give and to give you what you need, to have you cry out to him.

He will certainly hear you.

And now, Jesus, the storyteller, the one who tells us about this God, he actually now this morning sits at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven, and he prays persistently for you.

So when you are prayerless, you are being prayed for by this one who reveals the character and heart of God, a God of justice who cares about you.

You see, persistent prayer is fueled by knowing this character of our God.

And so Jesus then leaves us and his audience with a probing question in verse 8.

Verse 8, he says, Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

See, Jesus is asking you and I this morning, will you trust me?

Will you trust my character that I've revealed to you at the cross?

So that no matter what sorts of answers you get as you pray persistently, you will keep praying.

Because you know my faithfulness.

Because you know I'm a God who cares about justice, because you know I'm a God who cares for you and you are my child.

See, friends, we're called to pray persistently, not on the basis of the answers that we get from God, but on the basis of the character of the God we've come to know in Christ.

That's why we pray persistently.

That's how we pray persistently, by continuing to look and cling to this character of God revealed in Christ.

And so if we're gonna pray persistently, friends, we need to look to Christ, who shows us this character of God.

Let's pray.