Always ask boldly and do not lose heart.

Sermon Transcript

January is prayer emphasis month for Citylight Church. If we’re honest, most of us want to pray, or we are at least attracted to the idea of a praying life. We want to experience awe and intimacy with God. We are attracted to the “less busy heart” that a praying life and a praying church offers. We long to enjoy self-forgetfulness as we praise God in prayer. We’d love to unburden ourselves by regularly confessing our sins to our Father in prayer and receiving his assurance of pardon to all who are in Christ. We want to swell with gratitude as we regularly thank our Father for the myriad of good things that he has given to us. We want to come into our Father’s presence like needy children, bringing our bold requests and daily needs, and watch as our Father gives good gifts to his children who ask. We long for a praying life and we are equally tired of occasional prayer, perfunctory prayer, and faking it in prayer. We want a praying life in a praying church. Joseph Scriven’s song “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” beautifully describes what we want: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!”

We were made to pray. Because we were made to pray, when prayer is a struggle, it’s particularly frustrating and discouraging. Perhaps you know all too well how easy it is to become discouraged with prayer. Thankfully, the Lord Jesus Christ preached what is known as The Parable of the Persistent Widow to help us not lose heart in prayer.

There are two main characters in the parable: A widow and a judge. The widow was powerless, vulnerable, and in need of justice against her adversary. The second character is a judge. He did not fear God or respect man and, therefore, had no concern for giving the widow justice. In the parable, the widow keeps coming to the judge and asking boldly for justice against her adversary. At first the unjust judge refuses. However, because the widow keeps bothering the judge, he grants her justice so that she won’t beat him down by continually asking. The parable is one of contrasts and the Lord Jesus argues from lesser to greater: If the godless, loveless judge gave justice to a persistent widow who was no more than a nuisance to him, how much more will God answer his elect who cry to him day and night without giving up.

Luke summarizes the one purpose of the parable this way: Luke 18:1 – And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. And that brings us to the big idea of our passage this morning: Always ask boldly and do not lose heart. Always ask boldly and do not lose heart. Ok – how do we do that? We’ve tried to pray so many times and grown weary and given up. How do we always ask boldly and not lose heart? 1. See how you’re not like the widow 2. Believe that God isn’t like the judge. 3. Cry to God like the widow.

SEE HOW YOU’RE NOT LIKE THE WIDOW

The first step toward always asking boldly and not losing heart is seeing how you’re not like the widow. I mentioned a moment ago that the Parable of the Persistent Widow is a parable of contrasts. It’s pretty obvious to us that the unjust judge is contrasted with God. However, before I began studying this passage to preach it, I never saw that the first contrast in the parable is between the widow and those whom Jesus calls in the parable God’s “elect.” The first contrast is between the widow and the elect. The “elect” is another way of describing Christians because the Bible teaches that the only reason anyone is a Christian is because God chose, or elected, them in Christ. Ephesians 1:4-5 – “…he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [5] he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…” Christians are the predestined, the chosen, the adopted, the elect. That’s very different from the widow.

Of course, the widow is used as a positive example in the parable. However, the first step toward always asking boldly and never losing heart is seeing how you, the elect in Christ, are not like the widow. Your relationship to the Father is nothing like the widow’s relationship to the unjust judge. Think of it…
The widow is a stranger to the judge. In contrast, the Father knows the elect better than we know ourselves. Psalm 139 says that even before a word is on our tongue, the Father knows it altogether. See how you’re not like the widow.
The widow is an annoying nuisance to the judge. In contrast, the elect have the ear of the Father. 1 John 5:14 – “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”
The judge wishes the widow would go away, the Father bends his ear to the elect. See how you’re not like the widow.
The widow doesn’t factor into the judge’s interests. The elect are uppermost in the Father’s concern.
The widow has not clout with the judge. We are the Father’s beloved children in Christ.

Citylight Church – until you see how you’re not like the widow, you’ll lose heart in prayer. As long as you see yourself as an unknown, annoying nuisance that God wishes would go away, you will never ask boldly and you’ll quickly lose heart in prayer. However, if you see yourself as you are in Christ – beloved, adopted, chosen, elected, and secure – then you’ll always ask your Father boldly for good gifts and you’ll never lose heart. You’re not a nuisance to your Father, you’re his elect. Ask the Father to help you see with the eyes of faith how you’re not like the widow. The second step to always asking boldly and not losing heart is…

BELIEVE THAT GOD ISN’T LIKE THE JUDGE

Let’s remember what the judge is like. Our Lord describes him in Luke 18:2 – He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. The judge did not fear God and, as a result, did not love his fellow man or care about justice. Additionally, the judge is intensely selfish even when he does grant the widow justice. Luke 18:4-5 – For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, [5] yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’”

I believe that at the root of every reason why prayer is a struggle is this one thing: we believe that God is a lot like the unjust judge: distant, selfish, uncaring, and harsh. That’s why our Lord concludes his parable on prayer with a stinging question. Luke 18:8 – I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” The root cause of losing heart in prayer is a lack of faith in the goodness of God. The root problem is that we believe that God is like the unjust judge. In his book, When Prayer Is a Struggle, Kevin Halloran, writes, “I’m convinced that every reason behind our inclination to forget the why of prayer is the result of one foundational issue: our lack of faith.” Maybe your next step in always asking boldly and not losing heart is a simple, genuine confession to the Father: I lack faith in your love. I have hard thoughts about you. I consider you distant, uncaring, harsh, and even worse, irrelevant. My lack of asking always and easily losing heart in prayer, the root of my prayerlessness is that I think you’re a lot like that unjust judge. Please forgive me for my hard thoughts about you. That simple confession can unlock always asking and not losing heart.

So, if God is not like the unjust judge, what is he like? Well, the Lord Jesus does not describe God’s character in the parable. He describes God’s actions, but not His essence from which his actions proceed. So, we need to look outside of our passage to discern the Father’s essential character and contrast it with the judge. Come to Knowing God!

Perhaps the greatest theologian the English speaking world has ever produced was an English Puritan who lived during the 1600’s named John Owen. Owen believed that the medium through which God the Father relates to the elect is his love. As one author has illustrated it, the medium for your relationship with your dentist are your teeth. Similarly, the medium for your relationship with the Father is his love. The primary way the Father relates to the elect, the basis of their relationship, is his love – just like your teeth are the basis for your relationship with your dentist. And we know that Owen is correct about this because we read in 1 John 4:8 and 16 that God is love. Citylight Church – open your eyes to the Father’s unending love to you in Christ. Turn away from thoughts that he is harsh or uncaring. He is kind and tender. As Owen says, “Let us look on him by faith, as one that had thoughts of kindness toward us from everlasting.” Citylight Church – if we will believe in his everlasting tenderness and compassion, then we won’t bear to do anything but always ask him boldly for good gifts and never lose heart. And when you’re tempted to have hard thoughts about him, turn to the cross! Romans 5:8 – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The second step to always asking boldly and never giving up is believing that God isn’t like the judge. That brings us to the final step…

CRY TO GOD LIKE THE WIDOW

Though our relationship with our Father in Heaven is wildly different from the widow’s relationship with the unjust judge, the way that the widow always asks the judge for justice and doesn’t lose heart serves as an example for us to follow in prayer. Luke 18:5-7 – …yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” [6] And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. [7] And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? Believing that we are the elect, not the widow, and that God is our Father in heaven, not the unjust judge, how much more should we cry to him day and night for good gifts. It takes faith to ask boldly, and prayer practices put kindling around the first of prayer. Therefore, as we conclude I want to offer six prayer practices that will build your faith and help you always ask boldly and never lose heart.

Keep praying

The widow cries day and night. As simple as it sounds, if you want to always pray and not lose heart, always pray. Don’t stop. Don’t give up or give into the temptation of discouragement.

Pray together

Private prayer and praying with others go together like breathing in and breathing out. One of the most important things that keeps me asking boldly and not losing heart is the hour I spend in prayer with the other elders every Wednesday morning. You can organize something like that with brothers and sisters here at Citylight.

Find a secret time and a secret place

In Matthew 6, when teaching on prayer, Jesus said that when we pray we should go into our closet, close the door, and pray to our Father who is in secret. To always pray and not lose heart, it helps to have a time and place to pray. This may take creativity. Susanna Wesley, the mother of the great preacher John Wesley and the great hymn writer Charles Wesley, had eleven children in a small home before the days of running water and indoor plumbing. You know how she always asked boldly. She developed the habit of sitting down in her chair, pulling her apron over her head, and praying. That’s as secret as she could get. Her children quickly learned not to disturb their mother when her prayer apron was pulled over her head.

Pray Scripture

The best way that I know to ask boldly and not lose heart is to pray the Bible. When you pray the Bible you can be confident that your prayers reflect the heart of God, which helps you confidently stay at it. You can literally pray the words of a psalm, Paul’s prayers, or the Lord’s Prayer. You can turn any passage of Scripture into prayer use the 3 R’s method: Rejoice, repent, request. Rejoice in God over what you’re reading, repent of sin that your reading reveals in you, and then turn what you’re reading into a request for yourself, your family, your church family, and your world.

Organize your prayers

The second best way that I know to ask boldly and not lose heart is to write down the big, bold, believing prayers that I want to ask God for persistently like the widow asked the judge for justice. I use 3×5 cards, others write prayer lists, and I’ve heard that many people love the app prayer mate because it organizes your prayer cards for you.

Keep eternity in view

Jesus preached the Parable of the Persistent Widow right after he told his disciples that no one will know the precise time of his second coming in advance. In the Parable of the Persistent Widow, Jesus is teaching us not to be discouraged when his second coming seems slow, but to always ask boldly and never give up because he will come at just the right time. At just the right time the Lord Jesus Christ will return to make all things new. He will welcome into his eternal rest those who trust in his amazing grace alone for the forgiveness of sins, and he will make all things new. Keep your eyes on eternity and the future grace that awaits you, and we’ll be a praying church that always asks boldly and never loses heart.