The Benefits of Fervent and Consistent Prayer Luke 18.1-8

The Benefits of Fervent and Consistent Prayer

Luke 18.1-8

 

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Give me justice against my adversary. 4 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. 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? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

 

     A young man went to a pharmacy and bought three boxes of candy, one small, one medium and one large. The pharmacist asked why the three sizes? The young man said that he was going to have date that night. If she let him hold her hand, he would give her the small box. If she let him kiss her on the cheek, he would give her the medium box. If she let him kiss her on the lips, he would give her the large box. Later that evening he arrived at her house for dinner with the family. He was asked to pray. His prayer was fervent and lasted for five minutes! Everyone at the table was worn out. His date then said, “I never knew you were such a religious person?” He replied, “You never told me your father was a pharmacist!”  (from “P.U.S.H. Pray Until Something Happens” by Dr. David O. Dykes, SermonCentral.com). Note: I don't often include jokes in my sermons. Read the conclusion to understand why I used one here!

 

     Almost everyone will resort to prayer in a difficult situation. But God’s word teaches us that prayer is much more than that. It is one of the most important parts of our Christian life. Jesus Himself prayed fervently and often and taught His disciples to pray.  Paul, in several places, says that he himself prayed without ceasing, and he urges us to pray in the same way. “Be constant in prayer,” he said to the Romans (12.12). 

 

     Yet all too often our prayers become inconsistent and weak. Our sinful nature leads us away from prayer and from God.  We awake in the morning and turn on the radio or television. We hustle off to work and keep busy there all day. In the evening we are too tired to pray. And this pattern will repeat itself over and over again. It is to overcome this natural tendency that Jesus taught the Parable of the Persistent Widow.  

 

Fervent Prayer

 

     Let’s begin by pointing out the obvious in this story. Jesus compares our prayers to a widow that keeps bothering a bad and uncaring judge until he finally does something about her request.  The words “beat me down” (ESV) here literally mean “strike under the eye," or "to give someone a black eye" (ὑπωπιάζω).  We have an English phrase for this:  “to browbeat.”  Is Jesus saying that we should browbeat God in our prayers?  In a way that is what He is saying. We have other examples of this in the Bible. Jacob, the Bible tells us, literally wrestled with God and would not give up until He blessed him (Genesis 32.26).  Hannah prayed so fervently for a child that Eli the priest thought she was drunk (1 Samual 1.15-16). In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was facing the greatest test of faith – the sacrifice of His life on the cross, He prayed so fervently that His sweat fell like “great drops of blood” (Luke 22.44).  God wants us to be fervent in our prayers.

 

     But, really, what does it actually mean to be fervent in prayer?  We can begin by noting what fervent prayer is not.  It is not going through the motions of prayer without thinking about what the words mean. This is what Cain (Genesis 4.3ff) and King Saul (1 Samuel 13.8ff)  seem to have done when they came to worship God. Fervency is to look carefully at two things. It is to look carefully at ourselves and our problems. It is to be honest with our situation.  One of my most often said prayers is this, “Lord, help me to pray. Help me to see myself and my situation in the right way. Keep me from misunderstanding. Keep me from praying for the wrong things.”  The other part of fervency is to look carefully at God. Martin Luther liked to compare our prayers to God to his dog Tölpel.  “Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches the meat! All his thoughts are concentrated on the piece of meat. Otherwise he has no thought, wish or hope” (LW 54 p. 37). Prayer is as much about listening to God and concentrating on Him as it is to talk to Him about ourselves. Many people say that they pray all the time with fervency but nothing seems to come of it. That’s probably because they aren’t focusing on God and listening to Him.  When we focus on ourselves and on God in His word, we will be given understanding, comfort and strength. 

 

Consistent Prayer

 

     What about consistency? Jesus said we “ought always to pray and not lose heart” (18.1). The word for “not loose heart” is interesting.  It literally could be translated, “and not give in to what is bad (ἐγκακέω).”  The opposite of fervent prayer is worry and bad thoughts. All of us will sooner or later battle against these. Paul, in his first letter to Timothy talks about the “sound words” of Jesus. When we turn away from these we soon find ourselves struggling with what Paul calls “evil suspicions.” Our mind becomes “depraved” because it is literally “deprived of truth” (1 Timothy 6.4-5).  

 

     Hospitals maintain a positive pressure of purified air to keep bad air out. In the same way we need consistency in prayer to keep the bad thoughts out of our heads.  We need the pure words of God pouring into our minds constantly and the pure words of righteous prayer pouring out. This is not something that can be effective if it is done only intermittantly.  There are many things like this in life. If we take our medicine inconsistently, if we diet or exercise inconsistently, if we try to learn something inconsistently, it just won’t work.  

 

     God tells us in the Third Commandment to make prayer a consistent part of our life.  “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God” (Exodus 20.8-10). David said, “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55.17). I would urge you to look at your weekly and daily routines and commit yourself to the priority of prayer. Don’t say, “I’ll worship if it is convenient.” Don’t think, “I’ll meditate on God’s word if I get some extra time.” Install that system of sound words, both those of Jesus in His word and your own in your prayers, and let it run regularly every day.  But, and this is very important, the command to pray consistently is not enough to inspire us! The command is good, but as Jesus said, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26.41). The inspiration to pray consistently comes from the consistent promises of God. Psalm 91.15 tells us, "He (the one who believes) shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble..." In Isaiah (65.24) God said, "It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear." When Jeremiah was shut up in prison the LORD told him: "Call to Me, and I will answer you... " (33.3). Every week is 168 hours long. A couple of hours of worship each week will always make the other 166 hours much more productive and happy. The same is true for each day. Twenty minutes for meditation and family devotions out our twenty-four hour day will make the rest of the twenty-three hours and forty minutes so much better! God's promises encourage us to maintain consistent times of prayer, and in those prayers God is with us to help us. 

 

Prayers Are Answered with the Cross

 

     Jesus says in the end that justice will be done (v. 8).  We pray because things are wrong. Either something is wrong with us or with others or both.  A little boy was once sent to his room for being naughty. Eventually he asked his mother if he could come out. To appease her a little he said, “I prayed about it.”  His mother said, “Good. God will help you to behave better if you ask Him.”  But the boy replied, “I know that mom, but I also asked God to help you put up with me!”  

 

     God is all about justice. Justice for the stubborn and indifferent is God’s wrath. God fixes the problem by condemning the ones who are bringing it on.  Justice for the repentant is justification.  God fixes the problem by forgiving it and healing it.  For believers the answer to all our prayers begins with the cross.  When I pray, I often pray holding on to this small cross.  I know that every thing I need begins here.  Jesus said that justice will come speedily, and it has come to us in Christ. He takes what is broken and bent and fixes it again. He takes what is sick and heals it. He renews and refreshes what is dead and rotten.  This is no empty promise on His part.  It is the very heart of all truth and reality.  Jesus fulfills the promise of God’s justice in this earth by taking upon Himself all the wrongs of the entire world upon the cross.  There every righteous prayer that has ever been or ever will be uttered has been answered.  The Bible says, "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8.32). There we see the beginning of every thing we need, and we only wait for all the rest of God’s blessings that He will give to us in Christ.  Amen. 

Conclusion

 

     I started this prayer with a little joke, and that's not something I usually do. I don't ever want people to get the impression that I'm not serious about God's word. But in this case I made an exception because I think Jesus is telling a kind of joke in this parable. In this case, though, the joke is not about the word of God or any promises God has made about prayer. The joke is on the devil. I just can't help but think Jesus is telling us a little joke when he portrays this bad judge who "neither feared God or man" being beaten down by a poor widow. The punch line is in these words by the judge: "Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming." Prayer is no joke. Prayer is powerful, and this parable shows how God's promises regarding prayer turn the devil and all his allies into a joke! Amen.