Stories Jesus Told: The Neighbor and The Widow

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And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands.

Good morning, Brandon.

Oh man.

That is such a wow.

Um well, happy Memorial Day weekend.

You know, when you picture Memorial Day weekend and you try to think about what the weather would look like, I don't think it's possible to picture anything better than it has been like yesterday, today.

This is awesome.

This is great.

I have uh I have a few really, really quick announcements.

Uh, then we're gonna jump into what we're gonna talk about this morning.

Uh, first and foremost, wanna talk really quickly to everyone that's got a child that's about to make a transition, you know, from from elementary school or or, you know, I guess here it would be if you're in the the 5K classes to his kids, from his kids to junior high, junior high to high school, all that kind of stuff is the very first week of August.

That's when we're gonna be making all those official jumps.

So if you have a kid that's in the 5K rooms, very first Sunday of August, that's when they'll be in the uh in the his kids room the same way from his kids to junior high, junior high to high school.

I just want to do that because it's always hard at this time of the year where you're like they they've graduated, what grade are they in, all that kind of stuff.

But the beginning of the school year just kind of makes sense, so that's for you.

Um one favor that we have, just for everyone this morning, this is this is actually a great opportunity to let people know you can join this team if you ever want to.

Uh we're a volunteer church, and so there's only a few of us on staff.

Everything else is done by by you guys, and you're all amazing.

Uh, one of the things that gets done by volunteers uh is is cleaning this room and picking up after Sundays, taking out all the trash and all that kind of stuff.

And we always need people to help with that.

If you're interested, let us know because we will direct you to who to who to talk to.

But one thing all of us can definitely do that would be a huge help is if you do have any trash, just to make sure to take it to the sides and stuff like that, we keep growing and when it's weird, when people grow, so does garbage.

It's just we we are good at that, right?

It's just what we do.

Um, and so just help us out with that.

That would be huge to the people that help out.

And again, if if you could ever help out with that team, it just takes a few minutes after Sunday, and it's a huge, huge help.

So thank you for that.

Umly other thing I want to do is just take a minute to thank everyone who has either served in the past or is currently serving in our military.

There's a verse in Romans, it's Romans 5, 7.

It says, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good.

And something that we are so blessed in this country to have are people who willingly, voluntarily put their lives on the line to protect us and to protect our nation and our freedom and all the amazing things that come along with this place.

And they don't do it because they're forced to, they do it because they believe it's worthwhile.

And so if you have ever served in the military or are currently serving, would you do us a favor and just stand up for a moment so we can thank you for that?

Because that is such a blessing to us.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Awesome.

All right, well, hey, let's pray.

And we'll we'll talk about Jesus for a little while.

Thank you so much.

Oh, Jesus, thank you so much for leading us deeper into a relationship with you.

No matter where we are, you're you're always there calling us closer and closer.

And we just thank, we thank you for that.

And you desire a relationship with us.

We pray that this morning you would speak to our spirits, you'd speak to our hearts.

You already have.

We just pray that you would be doing that.

You would just be calling us deeper with you.

We love you, Jesus.

Holy Spirit, just be in this place.

You're invited here, and we ask that you would uh use your word and everything that even comes into our minds to help us know you better.

We pray all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Well, we have spent the last two months aggressively pursuing more joy in our lives.

I know over a thousand of us picked up a copy of Tommy Newberry's 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life over the last few months.

And if that's something you didn't you didn't get a chance to do, you can still grab a copy of that at the source.

Actually, the source has kind of been revamped.

There's a lot of new books and resources there.

You might you might want to check it out after you're done today.

Um, but that book is great.

If you haven't read it yet, pick it up.

I'm planning on making it kind of a yearly thing.

I think it's something that I'll want to do once a year to stay in that mindset.

What we want to do now that that's done is we want to start a summer with Jesus.

We are, if anything, a Jesus-focused church.

One of the things that really struck me when I first started coming here six years ago was how much we talked about Jesus.

And that makes sense.

It's a church, and we're Jesus' followers.

But I grew up in church, and obviously I learned about Jesus, but I just didn't hear Jesus talked about that often.

We talked a lot about God, we talked a lot about, you know, morals and how we should live life and all that kind of stuff.

But Jesus himself, I don't think I had ever heard about Jesus as much as I had when I started to come here.

And what it did for me was sort of renew this passion and enthusiasm that I have just for Jesus.

Not for Christianity, not for church even, but for Jesus Himself.

And that's what we want.

We never want Jesus to be in the periphery here.

We want him to be our focus because we're Jesus' followers.

We're not followers of a way of life, we're not followers of a belief system, we're not even followers of a book, not primarily.

Primarily, we're followers of a person, and that person is Jesus.

And so every once in a while we just want to spend some time focusing completely on him.

Completely on him.

The things he taught us, the things he did.

That's what we're gonna do this morning.

And to give you kind of a teaser, a little bit of something to pique your curiosity, today we're gonna answer an age-old, all-important, dare I even say philosophical question.

Um, and that would be what do what do a talking donkey, light bulbs, fried chicken, and Jesus have in common?

Said philosophical, I mean it's deep.

What do a talking donkey, light bulbs, fried chicken, and Jesus have in common?

We'll get to that in a minute, but first, I want to just talk about Jesus for a second in general.

Jesus is and and was, as a person living on this this earth.

I always like to say Jesus is.

Sometimes I fall into the habit of saying Jesus was, and I have to say no, he is.

He's he is.

Jesus is a lot of things.

In life, he was a carpenter by trade.

He was an incredibly effective fisherman.

He only fished a few times.

It was a small hobby, but the few times he did, really good.

Really good fisherman.

It probably made Peter and the other people who had fished their whole lives a little angry, but he was a really good fisherman.

Um he was a great teacher, a great speaker.

He was a healer, he was a miracle worker, he was the Messiah, he was the Son of God.

You could just go on and on and on.

Jesus is so many things.

And one thing Jesus definitely is is a great storyteller.

Jesus told stories.

His favorite way of teaching, the way he wanted to deliver, the incredible things about God that only Jesus could know.

I mean, no one could know these things but Jesus, because he is God.

His method of delivery was stories.

He told these incredibly simple stories.

In Matthew chapter 13, it says Jesus always used stories and illustrations like these when speaking to the crowds.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

In fact, he never spoke to them without using such parables.

This fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet.

I will speak to you in parables, I will explain things hidden since the creation of the world.

Jesus always spoke in these little stories, these parables.

And it's important to understand what a parable really is.

One of the things Jesus was passionate about was taking the things that can that got people confused about God, the complicated things that people, you know, kind of said, Hey, I don't, I don't get that.

I don't understand that.

Things that religion really likes to grab a hold of and celebrate how complex and complicated it is, and how not everyone can get this kind of stuff.

And Jesus took that stuff and said, No, no, no.

I want to make this stuff clear to everyone.

Jesus spent his time teaching the everyday people.

And so he used stories.

He wanted to make the complicated things of God as clear for us to understand as possible.

We have this tendency now to take the things that Jesus simplified and then recomplicate them.

That's just our nature as human beings.

But Jesus wanted it to be simple, and so he used really simple stories, parables.

And parables are really, they're really cool because they're not allegories.

An allegory is this perfectly meticulously crafted story in which every minute detail has a symbolic meaning, and you want to look at it, and you want to break it apart, you want to look at every single detail and ask yourself, what does that mean?

And Jesus is deep, so you can look at the parables that he told, and you can look at every detail, and you can find meaning there for sure.

But that's not what a parable is at its core.

It's a simple illustration that's just meant to convey a point.

That's all it is.

So we don't have to look at the parables that Jesus used as these mysterious academic things where we say, oh, well, obviously I'm not a Bible scholar, so I'm not going to really be able to get this stuff.

That's not what they were about.

This was Jesus talking to farmers and shepherds and normal people.

And it's likely that a lot of these parables, if not most of them, were just kind of off-the-cuff illustrations that Jesus used, not these planned out messages.

So if he was talking to a group of farmers, he would say, Oh, you know, the kingdom of heaven, it's like a farmer that sows seed.

Or it's like someone harvesting.

All of us have had conversations with people where an illustration just sort of pops in our head.

And so we we shift gears and use that for a second to help explain our point.

And that's what Jesus is doing.

If he was talking to people in a town where there was a huge wedding going on, he would say, The kingdom of God's like someone that invited guests to a wedding or to a banquet.

If he was talking to shepherds, he would say it's like sheep going through a gate.

He would just use things common to the people around him to help make the complicated things of God easy for people to understand.

In the next several weeks, we're gonna look at parables.

We're gonna look at some of the stories that Jesus told.

And this morning, we're gonna take a look at two very closely related parables.

One of the things that Jesus really wanted to clear up for us was prayer.

Prayer intimidates people.

I'm sure in all of our lives we can think of a time when prayer intimidates us in some way, shape, or form.

You can think about it this way: if you have a ton of friends over for dinner, you have a big party, you invite everyone you know over, and it's time to bless the food.

If you say, Does anyone want to bless the food, if you offer that up, do people fight over that chance?

You know, is it people raising their hands?

It's always the reluctant, like everyone looks around, no one?

I'll do it.

You know, it's like, ah.

I made the mistake one time of having a lot of friends over and putting someone on the spot and asking them to pray and not realizing that it was something that made them really nervous.

And so I remember saying to this person, can you pray?

And they just looked at me with these huge eyes, like, what have you done to me?

And I'm like, I'm sorry.

No, no, I got it.

We don't fight over the chance to pray.

We become very polite at that time.

You know, oh no, by all means.

You, yeah, you got it.

I'm good.

I'll pray for you.

Um that's because prayer has an intimidating quality, it always has.

And the good news is that's not new to us.

2,000 years ago, it was the same way.

In fact, in Luke chapter 11, Jesus' disciples come to him and say, Teach us how to pray.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

We're confused.

And this is what Jesus says to them.

Jesus said, This is how you should pray.

Father, may your name be kept holy.

May your kingdom come soon.

Give us each day the food we need and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

And don't let us yield to temptation.

It's just a very short, very simple, to the point, from the heart prayer.

And that's that's so Jesus.

So let's keep reading.

It says, then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story.

Suppose you went to a friend's house at midnight wanting to borrow three loaves of bread.

You say to him, A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.

And suppose he calls out from his bedroom.

Don't bother me.

The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed.

I can't help you.

But I tell you this: though he won't do it for friendship's sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

I love that phrase, shameless persistence.

In some translations, it doesn't say friend, it says neighbor.

And a lot of times this parable is called the parable of the annoying neighbor.

Which I love.

And it's funny because this is a situation we would never find ourselves in.

Basically, what happens is this person has a friend that shows up at midnight, shows up from a journey, and they're hungry.

And this person does not have anything to feed them.

I don't know if this was an unannounced visit or a poorly planned one, but they have nothing to feed this person, and so their first reaction is I'll go to my neighbor's house at midnight.

We put ourselves in this situation.

We have a very different culture than the culture that Jesus told this to.

We would never do that.

If someone showed up at our house at midnight, I mean, we would go to Walmart.

We go to five Walmarts, we give them taquitos from Quick Trip before we would go knock on the door of our neighbor's house.

You think about the situations that it takes to even make us sometimes talk to our neighbors?

And I know some of us are blessed and we live in neighborhoods where we know our neighbors and we'll talk with them.

Others of us, I know we can all relate to this, we're like, I've never spoken to that person.

I've lived next to him for four years.

We're kind of independent people in America sometimes.

I'm like that.

It takes emergency types of situations sometimes to make us go to our neighbors.

I had one of those happen about a year ago.

It was 11 p.m.

on a Saturday night.

I have a neighbor that's lived next to me for two years.

I've never spoken to this person.

We've done the whole thing where I'm coming out of the garage and she's going in and we do that.

That's our relationship.

And it works.

It works really well.

And so last summer at 11 p.m.

on a Saturday, I'm taking my dog outside.

I open our sliding glass door and I go to step out, and for some reason, just I guess God, my my my eyes look to where my foot is about to step, and I just stop.

Because I see something about an inch away from where my foot is about to go down, and it's a snake.

And so I just shut the door, put my foot back in, and I start to look at it because I can see it as clear as day through the glass, and I'm like, man, that's a that's a pretty good sized snake.

That's not a it's not a little baby snake, so my fear is justified.

Um and then I look at it more closely and I realize that's a copperhead.

That's a poisonous snake.

I grew up in southern Missouri, copperheads are really common, and my mom is terrified of snakes.

And so she was really uh purposeful about teaching us which snakes are poisonous and which snakes aren't.

And we always joked with my mom growing up that every snake was a copperhead to my mother.

Every snake.

So if there was ever, so my mom saw a snake from a thousand feet away, she'd be like, that's a copperhead.

You gotta go.

That's just how it was.

So I see the snake, it's a copperhead, I call Megan down, I say, Megan, we have a there's a poisonous snake in our yard.

She's like, Are you sure?

We we get the computer up, we look up copperheads, and it is definitely a copperhead snake.

And so I'm trying to think of the options, and I decide I've got to kill it.

I have to, because I have a two-year-old son.

I can't just assume this thing is gonna go away.

I don't want it in some corner of our yard.

I've got to kill this snake.

And so I come up with this incredible plan.

Um I'm like, I need a shovel and a chair.

I need those, those are my two weapons of choice.

I'm not that outdoorsy, so you guys I had to improvise.

And and my thought was, I'm gonna open the door and I'm gonna put the chair out first.

Because in my mind, if this thing's gonna strike, it'll maybe it'll go after the chair leg first.

You know, get a good taste of wood or something like that.

I don't want to put my leg out first because just where it was sitting, there was really no way to go outside the door without stepping right in front of it.

So I do that.

I put the chair out, it doesn't move.

It's just staring right at the chair leg.

It's about a foot away at this point.

And then I step onto the top of the chair.

And I've got my shovel, and I strike.

And I failed.

I didn't kill the snake.

And I made I made a rookie mistake.

I did not use a flat bottomed shovel, I used a rounded shovel.

So because I didn't hit it right at the tip, it just kind of pushed the snake to the side.

And this snake, this big copperhead, poisonous snake, slithers into my neighbor's backyard under the fence.

And this shows you I hope, I hope this isn't just me.

It might be.

I'm sorry if this comes across as horrible.

But this can show you how in our culture, visiting our neighbors is such a big deal.

Because my first thought was, should I tell my neighbor about this?

Like, I don't know her, it's late, I don't want to bother her.

And then I thought, well, if I had a poisonous snake in my backyard and got bit and found out my neighbor knew, I would be angry.

So I'll tell her.

So I went next door.

Well, first I put down the shovel, then I went next door.

And I knocked on her door at 11 o'clock at night.

I see the lights go on, I hear some commotion, I see the little shadow at the peephole, and we don't know each other very well.

She probably doesn't recognize me, and I just kind of have to assume she's looking at me, freaking out, and I'm like, I'm your neighbor.

I'm just here to you have a snake in your backyard.

She opens up the door very reluctantly, just sort of peeks her head out at me, and I said, Hey, I'm so sorry, but I know for a fact there is a poisonous snake in your backyard.

I'm happy to come into your backyard, try to help you find it and kill it.

Um, I just want to let you know that.

And she kind of goes, Okay, thanks, and just shuts the door.

I was like, What?

She was obviously annoyed.

I was, anyway, that was the beginning, climax, and end of our relationship.

We haven't talked since.

So, all in that one moment, it was good.

Those are the kinds of things that it takes sometimes to make us go and speak to our neighbors.

Unavoidable situations.

In Jesus' culture, it was completely different.

These communities were close knit.

People were not independent.

You couldn't be independent.

You had to rely on the generosity, the hospitality, the help of other people to do everything, to survive.

Even the way that Jewish homes and Jewish neighborhoods were built in that time made it impossible not to know the people around you.

A typical Jewish home was just a one-level home.

It had about four rooms, depending on the size of the family, and it had a flat roof and stairs that would be on the outside of the house going up to the roof.

And they did that because during the day they would often sit on top of their roofs and speak to their neighbors.

And in the nighttime, especially during the summer, when it would be really hot, the whole family would sleep on the roof because that would be the coolest place to sleep temperature-wise.

You just picture that a whole community, a whole neighborhood of people sleeping on their roofs.

No privacy.

I mean, people knew each other.

You didn't have a front yard and a backyard, you had a courtyard in front of your home that was usually shared between three or four homes.

So all the kids are playing together all the time.

You intimately knew your neighbors.

And so when Jesus starts by saying, Suppose you went to a neighbor's house at midnight, that wouldn't have been that hard for them to grasp.

And that's what happens here.

But the neighbor that this person goes to for help is not willing to help.

They start throwing out these excuses.

It's midnight, I'm asleep.

Back then, families didn't have a bedroom per person, so there are more people sleeping in a room than one.

They don't want to wake everybody up.

He says the door is locked.

In their day it wasn't a deadbolt, it was a large wooden beam across the door.

So he's saying, look, this is a hassle.

I don't want to help you.

And Jesus gives us the secret to getting the person to open the door and help.

And it's not appeal to their greater nature or stir up compassion for your situation.

He says very simply, just keep knocking.

If you knock long enough and hard enough, they will open the door and they will give you whatever you want just to get you to leave.

Be persistent.

Some of the parables that Jesus tells, it doesn't happen a lot, but you know when it does, it's really important.

He gives a sister parable alongside it.

Everything Jesus taught us is important, but if he ever teaches us something and then follows that up with another teaching that's making the exact same point, he's reinforcing it.

You know it must be extremely important.

He really wants us to get it because he doesn't do it that often.

There's the parable of the mustard seed and then the yeast.

There's a parable where a man finds a pearl and then it's followed by one that buys a pearl.

And this is one of those parables.

It has a sister parable.

It's in Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

It says, One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.

There was a judge in a certain city, he said, who neither feared God nor cared about people.

A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.

The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, This is a great self-aware statement, I don't fear God or care about people.

But this woman is driving me crazy.

I'm going to see that she gets justice because she is wearing me out with her constant request.

And then the Lord said, Learn a lesson from this unjust judge.

Even he rendered a just decision in the end.

So don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night?

Will he keep putting them off?

I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly, but when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?

So again, we have this situation.

We have someone that needs help, and they go to someone who is not willing to help, someone who doesn't care to help.

And Jesus' advice is the same be persistent.

Just be persistent.

And like the annoying neighbor, she keeps asking, and eventually she gets what she needs.

One of the amazing things about everything Jesus teaches us is there is a practical and a profound Application.

There's something that we can just look at and start doing in our lives today, and it's going to have a practical impact on our lives.

Our lives are going to get better and probably pretty quickly.

But then there's also something profound.

There's something that if we if we can get a hold of it and really see it, it changes the way we see God.

It changes the way we see life.

And it's big.

And just like that, this has both.

The practical thing is pretty simple to see, right?

It's be persistent.

Be persistent.

Don't give up.

I said earlier we would learn what a talking donkey, light bulbs, fried chicken, and Jesus have in common, and the answer is persistence.

So let's start with a talking donkey because I think that makes sense.

If I say Eddie Murphy to you, and you are above the age of 18, you're probably going to think of 48 Hours, The Nutty Professor, Stand Up Comedy, Saturday Night Live.

I mean, who remembers Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live?

Buckwheat Sings, am I right?

Buckwheat Sings, remember that?

Who remembers Buckwheat Sings?

Anybody?

Yes.

That's my whookin' punub.

That's my favorite ever.

It's the favorite thing.

And if you don't know what that is, if you're too young to know who Buckwheat is, just don't worry about it.

But if you look it up and you will love it, it's great.

Eddie Murphy's one of the funniest people ever to be on Saturday Night Live.

He got his start on Saturday Night Live.

That's where he had his big break.

And it's interesting because usually when someone gets chosen for SNL, they're an up-and-coming comedian who has a following.

They've been in the business a while, they're professionals.

Because being on live TV and having to do all that kind of stuff, it takes work.

They're professionals, they have a following, but they haven't quite gotten famous yet.

They don't want people that are super recognizable.

That's kind of their thing.

But you don't just show up, they don't have open casting calls for Saturday Night Live.

You get asked to audition.

They have talent scouts.

Eddie Murphy is one of only a few people, he may be the only person I know he's one of only a few that never got asked to audition for Saturday Night Live.

So how did he get on?

The talent scouts had never heard of him.

He was a nobody.

And the answer is persistence.

He called the talent scout at SNL every single day and begged for an audition.

Every single day.

This was in an age before caller ID, before you could just ignore people easily.

Thank goodness.

But he called every single day.

He told the guy, I have 18 siblings that are depending on me for this job.

He actually only has two.

But he said, I have 18 siblings.

He was pulling out every stop.

And just like in this story, the talent scout for SNL relented and said, Look, just come here and be an extra.

You can be an extra.

We've got our cast chosen.

I'm not looking for people.

You can be an extra on the show.

Just be in the background, whatever.

And that's all Eddie Murphy needed.

He just needed a foot in the door.

Because the moment he got in there, he made such an impression that within weeks he was a featured cast member.

And it was persistence that got him there.

Light bulbs.

It's a natural transition.

Most of us know that Thomas Edison perfected the modern light bulb, but not all the time do we know how long it took him to do it.

This has kind of become one of those fish story type things where, depending on where you look, the number is greatly different.

But usually it's between 1,000 and 10,000, the number of failed attempts at creating the light bulb that Thomas Edison had before finding success.

And so just for the sake of being realistic and maybe even conservative, we'll go with 3,000.

Because everything I looked at was between 1 and 10,000.

So we'll say 3,000.

3,000 failed attempts before he found success.

And there's this really famous interview that he gave, because Thomas Edison was known.

People knew he was trying to do this.

It was kind of a big deal.

And he was just unsuccessful, time and time again.

And this young reporter very brashly asked Thomas Edison, Do you feel like a failure?

Because you've had 3,000 failed attempts at creating a light bulb.

And Thomas Edison's response was classic, and it showed the persistent nature that he had.

He said, son, I am not a failure.

I have discovered 3,000 ways not to invent a light bulb.

Success is close at hand.

Success is close at hand.

Thomas Edison has a great quote.

He said, Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.

The most certain way to succeed is to always try one more time.

Always try one more time.

That's what Edison said.

It worked out pretty well for him.

Fried chicken.

Can't think of fried chicken without thinking of what?

Never mind.

KFC is where I was going.

Okay?

You can't think of KFC without thinking of what?

Colonel Sanders, thank you.

Colonel Sanders.

Colonel Sanders was 65 years old when he decided to get into the chicken business.

He had retired, he had a$105 a month pension, and he knew he couldn't live on it.

But he had one thing that he believed in greatly, and that was a recipe for chicken.

And so he decided he was going to start making calls and traveling around and get restaurants to use his chicken, and then he would make a cut of that.

The first restaurant he went to said no.

So did the second, so did the third, and so did the next, so did the next 1,005 after that.

It was his 1,09th sales call that gave him his first yes.

After two years of making calls, he had a grand total of five restaurants using his chicken.

Fast forward to today, there's 18,000 KFCs in 120 countries in the world.

It's the second largest grossing restaurant chain in sales next to McDonald's globally.

It took a thousand and eight no's to get a yes.

Now, right after I was done with college, I worked as a commissioned salesman at a direct mail company.

Not junk mail, direct mail.

It's important.

Direct mail.

And my job was simple.

Get on the phones, cold call companies, try to get an interview, try to get a meeting so I could show them what we did and see if they wanted to do it.

And man, you're talking about hearing no.

I mean, I heard no constantly.

I actually read this book called Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work.

I was so desperate.

I just needed something to help me.

And there was this really great advice in it.

It said, chart out the number of no's you get.

And figure out how many no's you average until you get a yes.

And then what you can start doing is once you hear no, you get excited.

Because if you average one yes every 25 no's, you're like, yes, 24 no's till a yes.

And I remember in that book, I remember he sort of scaled it depending on how good you were.

He's like, maybe it takes you 10 no's.

Maybe it takes 25.

It might even take a hundred.

There was no thousand mentioned.

I mean, there may have been a little paragraph I missed that said, by the way, if you do it and you average one yes every 1,009 calls, you should get another job.

Can you imagine if Colonel Sanders had quit after a thousand no's?

I mean, that would have been completely justifiable, but he didn't.

Thank goodness, we wouldn't know what extra crispy even meant.

I mean, that's it's a big deal.

Jesus, though, no one has ever been as persistent as Jesus.

I mean, even dying did not dissuade Jesus from what he was here to do.

I mean, no one has been that persistent.

He never gave up.

You think about Jesus when he traveled to places, the amount of apathy and opposition and anger and resentment, ungratefulness.

Even when he healed people, he got ungratefulness so many times.

That's what Jesus encountered everywhere he went.

He spent years with his disciples.

And they just failed time and time again.

But he never gave up on them.

He never gave up on us as people.

When he was taken to the cross, it did not look like the kingdom of heaven was near.

It did not look like he was just about to experience a breakthrough and this message was gonna spread across the globe.

But he didn't give up.

In the garden, when Jesus was arrested, Peter pulls a sword out to defend Jesus.

It's kind of one of Peter's awesome moments.

And Jesus says this to Peter, he says, put away your sword.

Those who use the sword will die by the sword.

Don't you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly.

But if I did, how would the scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?

We sang that song this morning, the God of angel armies.

And Jesus is God.

Those angel armies were at his command.

And he's saying, Hey, at any point in time, I could do that.

On the cross, Jesus could have been like, That's it.

I'm done.

And there were those angels, and it was it was finished.

Jesus could have done that at any moment.

He was never backed into a corner.

He's Jesus.

But he didn't quit.

He never quit.

He persisted.

And it paid off for us.

Because of that, we know God.

Because of that, millions and millions of people have given their lives to him.

I mean, that's because Jesus persisted.

Persistence pays off.

That's the practical thing.

If you have something in your life that you know is important and it's just not working out, don't quit.

It's easy to say that.

It's so much harder to do it in practice, though.

And look at marriage, for example.

It's amazing how much harder marriage is than it seems it will be when you say I do.

It's hard.

And when it gets hard and then stays hard and that happens for a long period of time consistently, it is so tempting to think, I just feel like quitting.

I just feel like being done.

But don't.

Don't quit.

Persist.

Get counseling, get help.

Do whatever you can to make it because it's worth it.

Don't quit.

If you're at a job and you're not finding success as fast as you want to, as quickly, it's so easy to go, oh, the grass is greener somewhere else.

There's nothing wrong with looking for another job.

But success never comes quickly and it never comes easily, so don't quit.

Don't do it.

If you're looking for a job and you haven't been able to find one, don't go, oh, well, the economy is just bad and there's no hope.

Don't quit.

No.

Apply to twice as many jobs as you have.

Put out twice as many resumes, ask friends for twice as many references.

Don't quit.

Persistence pays off.

Galatians 6.9 says, let's not get tired of doing what is good.

At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up.

At just the right time.

You never know when that moment is.

At just the right time.

God is really good at just the right time.

So don't quit.

The practical stuff, I mean, you can make those applications to everything.

Getting in shape physically, getting over an addiction, whatever it might be.

But there's something awesomely profound.

I don't know if awesomely is a word, but we're going to make it one.

Awesomely profound about what Jesus is teaching us here.

Because what Jesus is really talking about in these passages is prayer.

In both situations, in both these parables, someone is asking someone for something.

And in both of them, the person they're asking doesn't really care to help.

Jesus is not likening God to a grumpy neighbor.

We've all had grumpy neighbors, right?

That's one of the things I love about this story is that even though it's 2,000 years old, we get to learn that grumpy neighbors existed 2,000 years ago.

I had a neighbor when I was a young kid.

I was four years old up to third grade.

His name was Mike.

And my brother and I like to play wiffle ball in the backyard.

We had a small chain link fence that surrounded our property and divided those, not a big privacy fence, and wiffle balls would end up in Mike's yard all the time.

We tried, but it just happened.

And Mike would not give them back to us.

He would keep them.

There was one time that Mike did throw another ball back over, and that was at a time when a nerf ball, a little bit more substantial, more expensive, went into his yard and he did throw that back over.

He cut it into pieces first, but he threw it back over.

Right?

So we can all relate to the concept of a grumpy neighbor.

And it's nice to know that they had those 2,000 years ago as well.

God is not a grumpy neighbor.

He is not an unjust judge.

What Jesus is telling us is hey, even if a grumpy neighbor and a selfish, you know, mean-spirited judge will grant a request for someone eventually if they persist, how much more is our loving, amazing God going to help us if we just keep asking?

Persist.

Keep praying.

Jesus goes on in Luke 11, in verses 9 through 13, he says, I tell you, just keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for.

Keep on seeking and you will find.

Keep on knocking and the door will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives.

Everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be open.

You fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion?

Of course not.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

Pray without without ceasing.

That's what the Apostle Paul said.

He put it very, very eloquently, 1 Thessalonians 5.17.

Never stop praying.

Never stop praying.

Here's where that profound thing comes in.

Because this is huge and hard for me, but I'm excited about moving forward in this.

Jesus did not say that if you keep on asking, you might receive.

And he didn't say if you keep on seeking, you could find.

You never know.

Might as well try.

That is not what Jesus was saying.

He said, You will receive.

You will find.

The door will be open to you.

I tend to hedge my bets in prayer.

When I pray for things, I genuinely believe that God can answer my prayer.

I even genuinely believe that he might want to or could.

But do I really believe that he will?

Not all the time.

Not a lot, actually.

And it's for a lot of different reasons.

We all have our reasons.

You know, I've sinned and things in my life that I'm ashamed of, so sometimes that guilt and shame, you know, causes me to get in this rudd of, oh, I don't deserve God to answer my prayers.

So I'm not going to ask very boldly.

Sometimes I just don't want to get disappointed.

So I sort of go into it a little softer, going, hey God, if you could, if it's your will, if you have time, if whatever, just maybe it might be cool.

You know, that's kind of my approach.

I don't say those words, but that's my spirit.

And that's not what Jesus is saying.

He says, will.

He is very bold here.

He doesn't add a disclaimer.

He says, God will answer your prayer.

So the question for us is: do we believe that God will answer our prayers?

Do we believe it enough to persist?

There are situations in the Bible where we're told God won't answer a prayer.

James 4, 2 through 3 says, yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it.

And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong.

You want only what will give you pleasure.

There's nothing wrong with praying for material things.

There's nothing wrong with praying for something that we just want.

James is just challenging us to examine our hearts and ask ourselves, is my prayer in line with God's will?

But you know, a lot of the times it is.

A lot of the times we're praying for things that we can know God wants for us.

There's a man named George Mueller who was a Christian evangelist in the 1800s in England.

He became known for his passion for orphans.

He started an orphanage, the Abbey Down orphanage in Bristol, England.

And in his lifetime cared for over 10,000 orphans.

And he was a very famous evangelist and speaker.

He had two close friends that didn't believe in Jesus.

Two really close friends that weren't saved.

And so he prayed for them every single day for 60 years.

Every single day.

And very poetically, one of those two friends got saved during the last service that George Mueller ever led before he died in 1898.

His other friend wasn't saved when Mueller died, but within a year of his death, he got saved too.

60 years of praying for something every single day.

I was thinking about that this week and asking myself, have I ever prayed for one thing every day for even six months?

That's challenging.

There are things that you can know God wants for you.

You don't have to wonder, is this his will?

Your marriage.

You can know that God wants you to have an incredible marriage, a marriage full of intimacy and love and companionship and trust and friendship.

He wants that.

You can know that.

So you can pray for that every single day.

Your kids, you can know that God wants your kids to have a relationship with Him.

He wants their lives to be healthy, He wants them to be successful.

And eventually He wants them to move out.

You can know that.

You can believe that.

And so you can pray for it every single day.

You can know if you have anything in your life that's holding you back from getting closer to God, an addiction, a recurring sin, a lack of faith, issues from your past, whatever it might be, you can know that God wants those things to be out of the way.

He wants to help you get through those things.

So you can pray for that every single day.

In this specific instance, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit.

And that's an easy one to give up on, right?

It's so easy to look at other people that just seem to get God better than we do.

And go, man, I wish I had that.

I wish I could get God like that.

I wish I could be that into God and just get spiritual things, but I don't.

It's just not who I am.

It's so easy to give up on that one.

Times where we've wanted to go deeper with God, but it just doesn't seem to come naturally.

Don't give up on that.

Jesus specifically says, how much more will your heavenly father give you the Holy Spirit?

You can know that God wants you to be full of His Spirit.

So pray for it every single day.

All those things, those things that matter the most to you, those things that you want so badly, are they worth 60 years of prayer?

Is your marriage, your kids, your relationship with God, is it worth 60 years of prayer?

I would think so.

So we can pray with persistence.

We have an opportunity this morning as we wrap up.

In fact, if the worship team will come back up on the stage to send us out with another song.

There's a huge opportunity we have.

I was talking with Steve about this this week, and we're kind of talking about what we were going to do this morning.

And Steve mentioned this, and I was like, wow, this would be big for me.

Um so I want to do this.

And the opportunity is for all of us to think of a prayer.

And think of something that at one point in our lives we prayed for, and we did not get it.

It hasn't happened yet, and we gave up on that prayer.

I have a family member that I used to have a really close relationship with, and things got really hard, and I prayed for a long time.

God, please restore this relationship.

Please let it be like it used to be.

Let it be better than it used to be.

And it didn't happen.

So I just sort of said, okay, that's not gonna happen, and I'll I'll readjust my expectations for life accordingly.

The opportunity we have this morning is to pick one of those back up.

Is there something that you used to pray for, something you've asked God for, and it meant the world to you, but it didn't happen?

And so you've kind of let that prayer go.

As hard as it might be, the opportunity we have is to pick it back up today and start praying for it again with persistence.

Not because we think God can answer it, not because we hope he might, but because we believe, like Jesus said, that he will.

Believe that he will answer that.

In fact, I think it'd be really cool if we took 30 seconds.

And maybe you've got one in your mind right now.

Maybe you don't, but maybe you need God to bring one to your memory.

But take 30 seconds right now and just start that here.

Not even put it off.

Just say right now, I'm gonna I'm gonna pray again for that thing.

Whatever it was.

I'm gonna believe that God will do it.

And I'm gonna start praying for this every day.

I'm gonna persist.

I'm gonna keep asking.

So let's do that together.

Let's take 30 seconds and pray.

And then we'll be done.

Well, God will answer your prayer.

And that's not me saying that, that's Jesus, so you can take that one to the bank.

He will.

So let's believe that this morning.

Let's pray and worship.

Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for your your boldness.

Thank you for relentlessly, relentlessly pointing us to God and reminding us that even when we we feel like giving up and we feel like quitting, when we think it's hopeless, that we can persist, that we can keep asking, keep praying.

Because you will answer.

Fill us with faith in that this morning.

Encourage us.

Give us hope.

And answer it as quickly as possible.

We pray all this in your name.

Amen.