Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN:

Any of you ever had that experience.

Don’t you think that we sometimes sound very foolish to God?

I don’t know that He gets amused, but I believe He just might.

He might, that is, if we even bother to pray.

While many people, even those who admit to being unchurched, pray in some fashion, statistics tell us that only 16% of pastors are very satisfied with their prayer lives.

On average, a typical pastor spends 39 minutes per day in prayer.

That may seem like a lot to you until you discover that in any given week that amounts to less than 2 % of his total time.

And that’s a pastor!

Here’s a guy whose life is devoted to serving God and who, if he’s the real deal, at least, realizes that he surely can’t do it on his own, yet he spends less than 2% of his time each week asking for God’s help.

Why is that?

Why do pastors not pray?

And, for that matter, why do lay people who really claim to know God fail to talk to that God?

NEED

Well, in some cases, they never get still enough.

We break-neck our way through our lives with exhausting speed.

When we do slow down, we’re so tired that any thought of prayer often ends in a snore.

Prayer warriors cultivate the art of quietness that allows them to listen as well as speak.

If God could do anything for you this morning in this area, it might just be that He would convict you to carve quietness into your maddeningly busy life.

Many believers just don’t pray because they don’t get still enough.

And the lack of stillness reflects another quality that characterizes the life of a prayerless believer.

You see, many believers don’t pray because they never get desperate enough.

In many ways prayers are acts of desperation.

Now, perhaps they shouldn’t be, but they often are.

Isn’t it amazing how easily we forget the whole notion of prayer until disaster strikes.

In last month’s piracy fiasco, when those Navy seals took out the pirates and rescued the captain, people all over his Vermont home town were riding by the news reporters, hands clasped together in a symbol of answered prayer.

Now I guarantee you that, before that incident, that’s not something you would have seen in that town.

It was the disaster that led to the praying.

Now, I’m not criticizing, I’m just saying that prayers are often acts of despSeration and the reason Christians don’t often pray is that they simply aren’t desperate enough.

If God could accomplish anything through this message this morning, I would pray that it would be to impress upon your heart just how desperate you really are without Him.

Until you realize that fact, your prayer life will be woefully inadequate.

We don’t pray because, often, we just never get desperate enough.

And the reason we aren’t desperate enough to get still enough to pray is because we really don’t understand enough about prayer.

Now, when I say we don’t understand enough about prayer, I am not saying that what we need is more teaching or or knowledge about prayer.

No, I’m talking about coming to understand just what the purpose of prayer really is.

You see, if you and I can connect with the purpose of prayer, I really think we’d find praying a joy and not a burden.

We’d learn not to reserve our least effective time for prayer (such as right before we go to bed).

We’d make prayer a priority and not an afterthought.

And I want you to know that I am praying that God, this very day, will bring you to such a clear understanding about prayer that you will leave here, determined by His grace, to make prayer an integral, important part of your life.

BACKGROUND

Our text is that same parable we looked at 2 weeks ago.

It’s the story of the determined widow and the disgusting judge.

Read it again with me:

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, 2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’

4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”

Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.

7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”

In my last message about this parable, we looked at the contrast between God and the judge.

Today, we’re going to focus more attention on the widow.

What was it that kept her going?

Why did Jesus tell this parable about prayer?

Why, indeed, should we pray and keep on praying?

Well, in the first place.

We should pray

DIVISION 1: BECAUSE OF THE RELIEF THAT IT BRINGS

EXPLANATION

Now it really can’t be denied that this widow in our parable does get that unjust judge to grant her request eventually.

If you apply this to our praying, you would have to say that this story teaches us that our merciful heavenly Father will also grant us relief when we pray and ask Him for it.

But v. 7 puts some boundaries on this principle.

There are some requirements that determine God’s response to our request.

The first boundary is our identity.

This promise isn’t for everyone.

Notice it says, “And shall not God avenge His own elect . . .

In order to pray in faith that God is going to answer, we have to belong to Him; We must be His elect, His child.

If you are an unbeliever, only your prayer to Christ for salvation is guaranteed to be answered.

God’s promise is for His own elect.

The second boundary is our perseverance.

V 7 says, “And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him . .

.”

We don’t pray for our request once or twice, then figure God must have lost interest or even be saying “No.”

We ask and ask and keep on asking.

We persevere in prayer.

The third boundary is God’s plan.

As we said a couple of weeks ago, this parable is given in the context of the second coming of Christ.

The last part of chapter 17 tells us that it will seem to us that Christ is delaying His coming and we will be tempted to buy into the substitute that the world offers to us.

But, in God’s own timing, Jesus will return and set up His Kingdom on this earth.

In context, then, v 7 of chapter 18 says, “And shall not God avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him . .

.? If you look carefully, that verse does not necessarily say that we will get the specific thing we are asking for in prayer and it certainly doesn’t say that we will get it on our timetable.

What it does say is that we, as the elect and loved children of God, will ultimately be avenged.

We will be vindicated.

Our relief will come.

When the dust settles and the smoke clears on this world, Jesus will be reigning on the throne and you and I will be reigning with Him.

Ultimately that’s really all that matters.

ARGUMENTATION:

Now I hear what you might be thinking: “What a cop-out, Rusty!

Why don’t you just go ahead and say that God just isn’t going to answer my prayer rather than saying He’s going to do what He wants and not what I pray for?

You’re just letting God off the hook!

How does God doing what He wants bring me relief?”

O, my friend, its because you might think you know what’s best for you, but do you really?

ILLUSTRATION

In his book The Divine Commodity, Skye Jethani shares a story from a trip he took to India with his father.

While walking the streets of New Delhi, a little boy approached them.

He was "skinny as a rail, and naked but for tattered blue shorts.

His legs were stiff and contorted, like a wire hanger twisted upon itself."

Because of his condition, the little boy could only waddle along on his calloused knees.

He made his way toward Skye and his father and cried out, "One rupee, please!

One rupee!" Skye describes what happened when his father eventually responded to the boy's persistent begging:

“What do you want?" [my father asked].

"One rupee, sir," the boy said while motioning his hand to his mouth and bowing his head in deference.

My father laughed.