All right, let's open in our Bibles to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. Brandon was already there because he's sitting beside me and was looking ahead. Cheater. All right, Luke 18, and I'll begin reading in verse number one. Then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying, There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city, and she came to him, saying, Get justice for me from my adversary. And he would not for a while. But afterward he said within himself, though I do not fear God nor regard man, 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, and shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him though he bears long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, Will he really find faith on the earth? There is a weird obsession in our day with coming across as profound. Whether that's being seen as someone who has stumbled across some new undiscovered truth, or whether that's somebody who is seen as having the ability to take a truth we all know and say it in such a precise and profound way that it's what the young people of our day would call, it's tweetable. Right? Like it's just so profound. He just summarized this whole sermon into one tweet. I wish I could just be profound like that. But I find in my own life, in my own spiritual walk with the Lord, that it's the simplest truths continuously consider that God uses to do the most work in our lives. Simple truths. Simple truths as it relates to prayer, even. Because I believe we live in a day of prayerlessness. For most people, prayer is nothing more than a formality. Some people have become familiar with the structure of prayer. Some people have become familiar with a particular tradition's presentation of prayer. So they know to start out with Dear Lord, or Gracious God, or Father in Heaven, or Heavenly Father, or whatever. They know to say thank you for things. They know to ask for things. They know to say in Jesus' name at the end. And it's just a performance of a formality. And we see that there's much talk of prayer, There are specific times devoted in our gatherings together where we pray. There are entire meetings, most of them in the middle of the week called Bible study and prayer meeting. And yet most of the prayer that happens in those places at those times and even in private is just formality. We see a picture of prayer in Jacob's wrestling with the Lord. wrestled with him all night. I will not let you go until you bless me." What do we know of prayer like that today? How much of the prayer that is taking place in churches and in the lives of professing believers today is like that? Or what about Abraham pleading with God over the souls of those who are in Sodom? 50, okay, 40, okay, 30, okay, 20, keep coming again and again and again and again. Not because he thought he could change God's mind, but because he said this, will not the judge of all the earth do right? He knew who God was, he was aware of the situation and he kept coming and coming and coming and coming and pleading and praying. Or what about the prayer of Nehemiah when he hears of the ruin of Jerusalem, when he hears that the people are held in disdain, that God's people and God's sanctuary are the laughing stock of the nations. It breaks him so bad he turns to days of prayer and fasting. What about the prayer of Daniel? Three times a day. Now, at this point in Daniel's life, he has a career as a politician. He's high up in the court of the king. Nehemiah was too, yeah. And Daniel steps away from his responsibilities in the palace and goes and prays three times a day. Even when it's illegal, even when it becomes illegal, he doesn't care. He has to go and pray. Or we see Christ, and we've talked about this before, stepping away from the busyness of ministry, stepping outside of the obligations that were being placed on Him and the requests that were being placed on Him, prioritizing communion with God. See Paul and Silas in the prison cell after they've been beaten. We don't see that they were given any kind of care at all. In fact, they're beaten, thrown in prison, chained to the wall. And at midnight, they're praying and singing. That kind of prayer is not a formality. Formality will not cause you to pray like that. Tradition will not cause you to pray like that. The appearances and the opinions of men will not cause you to pray like that. So we ask, is there anything of this kind of prayer today? Of persistent, constant, continual, persevering prayer. It's a tragedy, but it is a truth that much of prayer today is just formality. Words spoken more for the sake of appearance and tradition, rather than a desire to truly commune with God. Words spoken in emptiness, fueled by a false, unbiblical view of God, rather than a pouring out of the heart or the soul to God in the name of Christ, by the help of the Spirit, for those things God has promised in His Word for the good of His people. And so, yeah, go ahead. You know, like that saying keeps coming to my mind. What is it? Reputation or something? It makes me think of the saying, but I can't remember what the saying is. But it's something like that, though. Because people see, like you said, you go through the motions, you know what to say, how to, you know, to go through the, what you pray for and how the steps are praying. You know, just to say, man, that guy knows how to pray. But like you said, when they went away by themselves, you know, how often do we go away by ourselves just to get away? I mean, that shows really true prayer right there. But yeah. So we've been considering prayer, because we don't want to be a prayerless people. And this evening, we want to continue to consider prayer. Specifically, we want to consider prayer as it relates to perseverance and persistence. That's what Jesus is teaching here in Luke 18, by way of a parable. In this passage, what we, persistence and perseverance. Well, I'm going to try to make a distinction in it. Yep. Yep. I think persistence is about an attitude, and perseverance is about an action. So we determine to persist in what we're doing, but then we actually have to do it. We have to keep doing it. So if you want to use a. Another word maybe that sums up both of them, perseverance and persistence, we could use constancy. So what we see in this passage is that constancy and confidence characterize true Christian prayer. But this is the prayer of faith, but not faith in prayer, faith in God. Amen. So, I want to demonstrate that now from this parable. The first thing I want us to notice is the purpose. We see in verse 1, He spoke a parable to them. Now, it was often Jesus' custom to preach and to teach by way of parable. That is, he would use pictures, illustrations, analogies, comparisons, and contrast to teach divine reality, to set before common people spiritual truths in a way that they could grab a hold of them and understand them. In fact, it was foretold that this is how the Messiah would preach and teach. In Matthew 13, In the middle of Jesus giving the great parables regarding the kingdom, Matthew writes this in Matthew 13, 34. All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables. Without a parable, he did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world. So he would use word pictures. The kingdom of heaven is like. or a certain man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho. He would paint these pictures using agricultural imagery, or using story, using analogy, all of these different ways Jesus compiled a parable and set before the people spiritual truths. There was a professor I had in college who described parables. He said he got this definition from his grandson. He learned it in Sunday school. Parables are an earthly story with a heavenly truth, or an earthly story that's meant to convey a heavenly truth. So the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Okay? What in the world does that mean? Well, a mustard seed, Jesus goes on to say, is the smallest of all the garden plants. Smallest seed. When you plant it, and it grows, it's the largest of all the garden plants. Smallest seed, largest plant. Compare that with the other parable that comes right after that, the parable of the leaven. A little bit of leaven put in a A roll of flour, it spreads, it permeates, it leavens the whole flour. The goal is, although the kingdom seems like it begins small and insignificant, it grows, it blossoms to take over all, to spread its rule and reign. So Jesus often uses parables. So there's nothing strange about that except this. The thing that's uncharacteristic about this parable is that its purpose or its interpretation is told to us before the parable is even given. Normally the purpose and interpretation comes after or comes later or comes in private as Jesus asked his disciples, do you understand this parable? Or as the disciples would ask Jesus, explain to us the parable and its meaning. But here, as Matthew Henry so beautifully put it, this parable has the key hanging on the door. Because he tells us the purpose and intention right from the start. He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not to lose heart. The purpose of this parable is to teach us about perseverance and persistence. This is to teach us about our obligation to pray, about the obligation to keep praying, and the reason that we ought to keep praying. He says, this is what ought to be true of every Christian. It's not optional. It's not some kind of prayer that's reserved for the spiritually elite. It's not missionary prayer or pastor prayer. It's not prayer only in the face of sickness. It's not only prayer when you've hit rock bottom. This is what ought to be true. Men always ought to pray. We see this bookended here at the end when Jesus begins explaining it in verse six. He calls the men who ought always to pray God's own elect. So we're talking about all the people of God. The obligation here is presented in both a negative and a positive. Positively, men always ought to pray. Literally, at all times, men ought to be praying. Now it's not saying that every conscious second of the day is to be devoted to prayer. That's impossible. And if we would try to do that, that would also force an abandonment of our other Christian duties, right? We believe that slaves or servants ought to obey their masters. If you're devoting all of your energy to prayer, you can't very well perform in such a way that is pleasing to your employer or that is justifiable for you receiving the wages that you're receiving. You think about family obligations that you have, obligations you have in the church. This is not put in every single conscious second, you must be praying. This is about constancy, regularity, and persistence in prayer. He's saying prayer ought to be part of our constant, regular experience, and it ought to be a discipline of constant practice. That doesn't mean it'll always be as easy to pray as it was at other times. I was actually thinking today, our prayer time starting here, this evening, how different it was from last Thursday evening. We prayed so long last Thursday evening and it seemed like everyone was impressed in such a way, I felt that it would be weird to go on with the study. It almost changed the atmosphere. Tonight, It's very pointed, very concise, very, very straightforward. And now here we are. So it's not saying that our prayer will always be the same. It's just saying that we ought always to pray. Prayer is not a spare tire. It's not a last resort. It's not It's not something that we decide if we're going to do it or we decide when it's necessary to do it. We always ought to be men who pray. It ought to be regular. It ought to be constant. And then, the negative side of this obligation, men ought always to pray and not to lose heart. This is a call not just to constant regular prayer, but to persevering prayer or persistence in prayer. Even when prayer is difficult, even when prayer seems unfruitful, even when we feel discouraged, when we feel depressed, when we're overcome with doubt and unbelief, we still ought to pray then and not lose heart. So the purpose of this parable is intended to press upon the people of God the necessity of perseverance in prayer in all situations so that you will not lose heart or be discouraged. Now, when I think about this, the first question that comes to my mind is why do the people of God need to be taught about the necessity of regular prayer and the obligation of perseverance in prayer? Why do we even need to be taught that? Well, first of all, because we have a proneness to self-reliance. So the first thing he does is set on us the obligation to pray. Men ought to pray. Not just when you finally decide that's the only hope you have. Not when you've tried everything yourself and now you figure, well, I can't do anything. Maybe God can help me out here. or not as a God, I've put my 50% in, now I'm coming to you in prayer, so you'll put your 50% in, meet me halfway. I hear you help those who help themselves, so here I am praying. No, we have to set aside our natural leniency toward self-reliance, that ought to be set aside. We ought to pray, because in reality, God gives us life and breath and everything. We can do nothing of ourself. But we also need to be taught the necessity of perseverance in prayer because we are prone to pursue instant gratification. Think about when you're trying to search for something on your phone and the internet's a little slow. Does anybody remember 1996 trying to get on the internet? Dial-up internet, remember that? And you're sitting there, and if it connected in five minutes, you were like, man, this is getting fast. That's right. Now, if it's not there, as soon as we touch the screen, we're like, come on, come on, come on, go to the drive-thru. Especially at Chick-fil-A. You place your order, when you pull up to the window, you expect to have your food handed to you out the window as soon as you get there. Previous experience has reinforced this mentality where we pursue instant gratification. Think about it. We're watching TV. As soon as you press the button, you want your TV to come on. If it doesn't, something must be wrong. Commercial break? We don't want to watch that. We want to get back to the show. So now we have, we'll record it and watch it later so we can skip the commercials and find out what's going on. Instant gratification. But he says here, men ought always to pray. Not just pray once and give up. Not say, hey, well, I tried it, it didn't seem like it worked. Yeah, well, I prayed and nothing happened. How many times you pray about it? Well, you know, like a couple. Right, you fainted, you lost heart, you gave up. Prayer is not about instant gratification. So we need to be reminded, always keep praying and don't lose heart. And then also, we need to be taught this because we're prone to discouragement. We're prone to discouragement. Blake's been praying for a house for almost two years. I asked him about three weeks ago how discouraged he was getting in that. So that's what we're prone to. Lord, don't you hear? Lord, don't you care? Don't you see? I pray this regularly in my own prayers, often. Lord, I mean, I've been praying for four years. When is the revival gonna come? When's the awakening coming? When are you gonna break in on this? Pray, I'm praying, praying, praying, I'm just discouraged. We're prone to self-reliance, prone to instant gratification, prone to discouragement. So our Lord in His grace is demonstrating for us here, not just our obligation, but He's demonstrating to us His goodness. He knows our frame. He knows that we're prone to self-reliance. He knows that we're prone to instant gratification. He knows that we're prone to discouragement. So in His grace, He gives us a parable to teach us we ought always to pray and not to lose heart. And that's the purpose, or the key. It's left in the door for us, so all we gotta do is walk up, turn the key, and walk in. Yeah, that's a moral obligation. You ought to. Yeah. When you look that word up in the old English, it's a moral obligation. Yeah, it's definitely a command. Yeah, it's a moral obligation of a steward. And that's why I think it's so beautiful that the command isn't just, hey, pray, because I said so. Right, like it comes to you and says, I know prayer's gonna be hard for you. I know you're prone to rely on yourself. I know you're prone to want things now, just like children. I know you're prone to get discouraged when you feel like you're not getting what you want. Just keep praying. Keep praying so that you don't lose heart. And then the parable comes, okay? He told us this parable for this reason. Here's our purpose, that we ought to pray and not lose heart. Now here's the parable, verse two. There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city, and she came to him saying, get justice for me from my adversary. And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. That's it. Simple little story. Two characters, the judge and the widow. One guy, all we know him is as a judge, so we know his office. He has some kind of governmental authority. He had a position to stand before the people as a representative of God's absolute moral law. He had been given the authority to execute judgment and to reward those who do good. And yet we see, in spite of his office, we see his character. He is a lawless judge, which is perhaps, I mean, it's the epitome of irony. Here's a man who's been entrusted with the law to execute justice, and yet he doesn't fear God. There's no reverence for God. He has no estimation of who God is, no understanding of who He is before God as a fallen son of Adam, as a sinner. He has no trembling before God, no sense of His duty to love God, to honor God, to obey God as a creature to His Creator, but no sense of duty to love God, honor God, and obey God in relationship to His office. He has no fear of God. He rules without justice. He doesn't take his office seriously. And his lack of the fear of God means that he has no regard for the law of God. And if he has no regard for the law of God, well, it's in that law that the character and the goodness of God is revealed. So he has no regard for God himself. He's like those in the days of Job who said, who is God? He's like Pharaoh who says, who is your God that I should listen to him or obey his voice? This is the epitome of depravity. In Romans 3, when Paul is concluding that section regarding the depravity of man, he said, you know, their mouths are full of curses and bitterness. The venom of asp is under their tongues. Their feet are swift to shed blood. And their paths are ruined in misery. The way of peace they have not known. Here's the exclamation point on human depravity. There is no fear of God before their eyes. They don't fear God. That's this judge. But also says he has no regard for man. That is justice in the face of wrongdoing, well-being of those over whom he sits in authority, sympathy and sensitivity and goodness. Those were not his interactions. Those weren't the basis of his interactions with his people. Which means if he has no regard for God, No regard for man, there's only one party left, himself. He's number one in his book. That's all he cares about. His judgment was a perversion of justice. for his own advantage and for his own gain. And that's the summary of lawlessness. The first table of the law deals with God and man's obligations toward God. Second table of the law deals with man and our obligation toward men. So this is why I'm calling him lawless, because he had no fear for God, no regard for man. All of God's moral obligations, he threw them to the side. That doesn't matter to me. And then we see, His actions, so we have his office, we have his character, but we also have his actions. His actions reflect his view of God and his view of men. This poor widow keeps coming to him, imploring him by the obligation of his position to give her justice, to avenge her, to give her legal protection, which is just and right. And Jesus says, this judge would not give it to her. The fear of God wouldn't move him. The duty of his office wouldn't move him. The saddest state and the just cause of the widow wouldn't move him. He would not. And yet, finally we see, for some reason, he does give her justice. In verse four it says, he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. So we see here, even in his action of giving justice, his motivation is himself. This widow is troubling me. She's going to weary me. Literally there, the word is to beat. She's going to beat me down, some translations say, by her continual coming. What can I do to get myself some rest? What can I do to give myself some solace from this woman continually coming? So, in an attempt to improve his own situation, he determines the best thing for himself is to give this widow what she's asking for. That's the judge. Second character in the parable is the widow. We see here, by the way she is described, her condition, her estate. Jesus tells us that she is a widow. Now, this time, widowhood meant there's no one to care for you. The only one in your house is you or you and other women. That means you have, it's very difficult for you to own property. It's very difficult for you to have a job and provide for yourself. You're destitute. You're alone. You have no status, no representation, no resources. That's who this woman is. Whatever her case was though, as a widow, she was in the right. She's asking not for help. She's asking for justice. She's asking a judge whose obligation is to do and uphold the law of God, to promote justice, to promote justice and to uphold the law. And we see her actions. She's characterized here in this passage by an unrelenting persistence. She recognizes the only place she can go for that which she desires is to this unjust judge. And she goes, and she goes, and she goes. The Lord describes her as continually coming over and over and over, daily and daily and daily, to such a point where this judge is like, this lady is driving me crazy. She's coming so much. And so we see because of her action, she's given her reward. Not because the judge is convinced, not because he's convicted, not because he's concerned for her, but yet she still receives her reward. And that's the simplicity of this parable. But we gotta be careful here. Don't make the mistake of thinking that this is a parable about the value of hard work. Well, if you just keep at it, you'll get what you're after. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That's not what this is about. Remember, Jesus is using this to press upon the people of God the necessity of perseverance in prayer so that we would not grow weary or lose heart. It's not just, hey, keep trying and maybe you'll get what you're asking for. It's not like a small child. Dad, can I please, can I please, can I please, can I please, can I please, can I please? And finally God will say, oh my goodness, yes, just have it, go, get out of my face. It's not what we're talking about. We're talking about prayer. So we want to consider what is the principle. Well, thankfully, Jesus sets that before us as well. Look at verse number six. Then the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge said. What did the unjust judge say? Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her less by her continual coming, she weary me. And, verse seven, shall not God avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. The principle of perseverance and confidence in prayer is what's being taught here. Perseverance, keep praying, confidence, because God will answer. And Jesus paints that by way of a contrast. A contrast between the character and the action of the unjust judge, contrasted with the character and the action of God the Father toward His elect. The simplicity of what this passage is saying is, God the Father is not an unjust judge. And you are not a destitute widow. He is God Almighty, the Holy Righteous One, and He is your Father. He's chosen you, not out of necessity, not out of obligation, but out of free, sovereign grace and love. He's given His Son for you. He chose you, gave you to His Son, sent His Son to redeem you, sent His Spirit to save you, and now He has adopted you. He's done all of that out of nothing but pure, free love and grace. Therefore, continue persevering in prayer with confidence in what God has done, in who God is, and what God has promised to do. So I want to draw out this contrast with some points, and I unashamedly took these from Matthew Henry because there was no better way to say, no better way to paint these contrasts than the way he paints them. So I think there's eight of them here. The first one. She was a stranger with nothing but a legal relationship to this unjust judge. But you are God's own elect, beloved, chosen, redeemed, and adopted. So you are not a stranger. You are a child. And you're not just a child by consequence. We have our children. We don't get to pick our children. Our children come and they're born to us. They're ours. But we are children by adoption. And we are children of adoption, not because something was good in us. Not because God came in and said, I'd really like to have a blonde haired son with blue eyes, who's kind of athletic, fairly tall, muscular build, decently intelligent, so that I can do something with him. No, there was nothing good in us, nothing desirable in us. It was nothing but grace. So as we see this contrast, we do not stand in relationship the same way this widow stood in relationship. So that ought to drive us to keep praying and it ought to build up our confidence in the God to whom we are praying. Secondly, she was kept at a distance and refused often She came, no. I don't have any reason to talk to you, go away. She came, presented her case, no, I refuse, no, go away from me. But you are accepted in Christ Jesus and brought near to God through Him. More than that, you're given the Spirit of this God, the Spirit of this Christ who enables you. to come near. So the way has been open, you've been invited, you've been brought near and you've been enabled to come, not kept at a distance, not refused. So then this ought to encourage you to keep praying and it ought to build up your confidence in the God to whom you are praying. Thirdly, she came to an unjust judge, you come to a holy and righteous father. who is the judge of all the earth, who always does what is right. The foundation of his throne is absolute righteousness and justice. And he's not just your judge, he's your father. He isn't moody, he doesn't need buttered up with gifts. He doesn't need coerced with your performance. He is good and he always does what is good. He works all things after the counsel of his own will, but in his goodness, he's working all those things also for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. This ought to drive you to keep praying and it ought to build up your confidence in the God to whom you are praying. We see fourthly, she came on her own account with a cause that the unjust judge was unconcerned about. But you come in the name of Christ, asking for God's name to be hallowed, His kingdom to be advanced, and His will to be done, and that is the very cause with which He is engaged in the world. Why has God made you in all things, we ask our children, for His own glory? So when we come in the name of His Son, praying, submitting all of our requests to His glory, we find ourselves seeking the same cause that God is advancing in the world, the reason for which all things exist. So we are thanking God's thoughts after Him. We are echoing God's will back to Him. We are desiring the same thing God desires. And there is a fellowship there. This ought to what? drive our coming to Him, and build up the confidence that we have in this God to whom we are praying. Fifthly, she came without representation to earn her a hearing or to plead her cause. You come having an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the only mediator between God and men, and he ever lives to intercede for you. Who is he who condemns, Paul says. It's Christ who died, furthermore, who is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. So when we come in Jesus' name, and Lord willing, this is what we'll talk about next week, we're not just adding a slogan on the end of our prayers that everybody always says. When we come in Jesus' name, what we're saying is, that risen Christ, whom God the Father has attested His righteousness and His sufficiency by raising Him from the dead, exalting Him above every name, bringing Him into the most holy place and sitting Him down, that Christ is setting down there so that I might come in there. And I'm coming there because He is sitting there for me. And I know that I am welcomed there with confidence because He is sitting there for me. I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. I'm not pleading my own cause. I'm not coming without a representative. I'm not representing myself. Jesus is my representative. So this ought to drive our continuing in prayer and it ought to build up our confidence in the God to whom we are praying. Sixthly, she came with no promise of receiving her petition. And we see that because she was rejected over and over again. But you come with what Matthew Henry called the golden scepter of promise. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and it will be open. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be open. What man is there among you if his son asks for bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? What other promise do you need? If He didn't spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us, will He not also with Him freely give us all things? There's no reason to doubt the Father's goodness, no reason to doubt the Father's willingness. He's given His Son, He's given His promises, and He's given this invitation to prayer. So we're not a destitute widow wondering if our petition is gonna be heard. We're children of a Father who has given us this promise, ask and I will answer. John tells us this is the confidence that we have in Him. If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions we've asked of Him. So we're not setting aside the will of God. We're not talking about altering God. We're talking about praying according to His will. That's the passion of prayer. Remember, His name be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done. Those are our boundaries, but that's also the bounty of Christian prayer. That's the golden scepter of Christian prayer. His ways are good. His thoughts are higher. His will is better. His plans are far above everything we could ask or even imagine. So we come asking according to His will and submitting our requests to His will, trusting that He said, yes, I will answer that. This is not about convincing God, it's about trusting God. It's not about persuading God, it's about expressing your faith in the God who has promised. This is what it means to pray in faith, to lay hold of the promises of His Word as the assurance of your prayer and to keep praying until God does as He has promised. The seventh thing we see here, she came with limited access and no guarantee of a hearing. You have the ear of the Father day and night in Christ. Remember he told his disciples in the upper room, I'm not saying that I will pray for you. The Father himself loves you. The Father himself loves you. this new relationship you've been brought into. Christ is our mediator, yes, but we don't go talk to Christ and then he goes and talks to the Father. Christ is our mediator that has brought us near to the Father. So we now can go to the Father in Christ. Because the Father himself loves us. Number eight, she came at the risk of provoking the unjust judge with her persistence. Every time she's turned away, she takes a greater risk to herself by coming again. But you come to a father who delights in your prayers. Proverbs 15, eight tells us the prayer of the upright is his delight. He delights in your continual coming. The problem is not willingness on God's part, The problem is prayerlessness on the part of the Christian. The problem is not that God needs to be convinced or coerced. The problem is that he is calling you to the prayer of faith and confidence in who he says he is and that he'll do what he says he will do. He's calling you to pray like you believe that. Isaiah, God told the people here in the days of Isaiah, for those of you who are concerned with Jerusalem, give me no rest. until I come." Now God was going to do what he was going to do. The means by which he was going to do that was through the persistent prayer of his people. This is the principle. This is the point. God is not an unjust judge. You are not a poor widow. So keep praying. You think about that one particular sin that you're wrestling with, you're trying to put it to death in your life. You say, well, I've prayed about it. Well, keep praying about it. Why? Because this is the will of God, your sanctification. He's promised that the God who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. He's promised that the God of peace will himself sanctify you completely. So as you wrestle with that sin, as you try to fight it, as you try to put it to death, you take the means that God has given, you take the promises that God has given, you pray and you fight and you keep praying and you keep fighting. Keep praying, why? Because God will avenge his own elect. God will give justice to his elect. He will keep his word and do what he said he will do. You have a lost child. You've been praying for them as long as you can remember, they're still lost. Keep praying. Keep praying. We know that it is the will of God to save sinners. God is a saving God. He has created all of creation to reveal this about Himself. I'm a saving God. Merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He's a God of grace. He's a God of goodness. We need nothing else more to believe that God is a saving God. He has sent Christ Jesus into the world to save sinners. Do you have a lost family member that you've been praying for and you've grown discouraged in that? Keep praying. Why? Because God has promised to save sinners. Christ has promised all of His sheep will hear His voice and come. He's promised to build His church and God will hear the prayers to save His people. Now we don't know who the elect are, but we know that God will save His people. So we pray confidently that this God, who's promised to save all of his people, will save all of his people. And if my children or my family members have not yet come to know Christ and they're still alive, I have no reason to believe they're not among the people that God will be gracious and save. It's kind of interesting that most people, when they adopt the doctrines of grace, they then kind of operate on this assumption that God doesn't really want to save anybody. It seems to me like it's quite the opposite. I brought this up last week. God says to his servant in Isaiah 46, I think it is, or 49, it is too small a thing that I should make you a light for Jacob and the tribes of Israel only. I will make you as salvation for all the nations so that my name might go to the ends of the earth. God is about saving the sinners. Yeah. When you think about the false distorted gospels that are in our community, the shallowness of what calls itself Christianity, friends, family members we have that have been deceived and duped by this false religion, pray. Keep praying. Keep praying. I was looking through an old journal of mine earlier. It was either this week or last week. And I seen that much of the things I'm praying for now as it relates to our community, I was praying for then three years ago. And I haven't seen much by way of that. In fact, I could count probably more than 50 people who are no longer associated with our church since that time. So it seems like it's going the opposite. Keep praying, why? Because God has set His King on His holy hill. Because the nations are His. Because Christ has promised to build His church. Christ has promised that the gates of hell won't prevail against His church. How much less a distorted gospel. So keep praying with this confidence. God will do what He said He will do. He will answer. He will answer. He's promised and He will do it. So keep praying. You think about personal prayers, the desire for usefulness and faithfulness in your walk, or the desire for fruitfulness in your communion with God in the scriptures and in prayer. I was sharing with somebody last night, this has been a very difficult week for me in prayer. Last week also, very, very difficult. Difficult for me to focus. Difficult time in the Scripture. I don't set the Scripture aside and say, well, you know, when I feel a little better, I'll come back to it. I don't set prayer aside and say, well, when it feels like the time is right, I'll pick it back up. It's not a hobby. It's not that drag car that's sitting out in your shed that you get in the mood and you work on it for a couple of weeks and then, well, you fall out of the mood and you get busy and you push it back under the shed and leave it there till you get the next inkling to do it again. That's not prayer. When you long for usefulness and faithfulness, when you long for fruitfulness in the Word and in prayer, especially during times of encouragement, what? You ought to keep praying and not lose heart. Because the fruitfulness doesn't depend on how you feel, it depends on the faithfulness of God. He's faithful. He's promised to sanctify His people in the Word. He's faithful. He's promised that He rewards those that diligently seek Him. So keep praying. Keep praying. the desire to see the name of Christ glorified among all the peoples of the earth and then you turn on the news and it seems like everything's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse. Well, he's promised, he's got people out there. Keep praying. You wanna participate in evangelism or other things that the church is doing and you just lack the boldness or you feel like you don't know enough, pray about it and keep praying about it and keep praying about it even when you start getting into it, you know why? because you're prone to instant gratification. So you need to keep praying. Well, I tried to share the gospel with somebody once, but it was awful. Well, try again. Pray about it. Keep praying about it. Keep praying about it. All of these things, church growth, church unity, church fellowship, revival, awakening, all of your marriage, all of you pray and keep praying. Every spiritual blessing has been purchased for you in Christ. So avail yourself, study God's word, treasure his promises, and then wrestle with him like Jacob did until the blessing comes. You think about Jacob, and I've mentioned this before, he's there wrestling with God for a blessing, right? This man leaps upon him. God initiates the wrestling with Jacob. Jacob wrestles with him with all of his might until the break of day, till that time when the angel of the Lord says, let me go, day is breaking. And Jacob says what? I won't let you go unless you bless me. Now let me ask you this question. I want you to think about this. Was it that wrestling that caused God to choose to bless Jacob and pass the covenant on him and skip over Esau? No. Romans 9 tells us, when Rebekah had conceived by one man, even our father Isaac, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, it was said to her, the older shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. The wrestling was not about changing God's mind or convincing God into blessing Jacob. The wrestling was about faith. The wrestling was to increase Jacob's faith in God. To change Jacob, not to change God. What's the blessing that he gets? His hips put out of place. He walks differently the rest of his life. His name is changed. What's his name changed to? Israel. He who wrestles with God. We're not talking about manipulating God. We're talking about exercising our faith in God. Jacob's wrestling was about faith, faith in the one who could bless him and faith in the promises of the one who had already chosen him for the foundation of the world and had revealed himself to Jacob when he was leaving his homeland at Bethel. That's the point. And Jesus says here, this is the confidence we have. The father will avenge his elect speedily. That is, he's willing, he's able, he's faithful, and when the time comes, He will answer and He will do what He's promised. Now, what does this look like? What does this look like to put this into practice? What does it look like to pray? Jesus describes the prayer of the elect in verse seven, as the elect crying out day and night to God. So he tells us the what of this kind of prayer. It's not always emotional, but it's not merely ceremonial. You won't always be touched with this same feeling, but remember, we're not talking about a formality. This is the cry of a child to their father. This doesn't negate the necessity or the obligation to pray or to pray sincerely. God works through means. He will answer. The means by which that answer will come is His elect crying to Him day and night. Think about that. A man like Paul seen visions that we can't even imagine. And yet he prays that the thorn in the flesh might be taken away three times. Think about Moses. who had seen God do such mighty things in the land of Egypt and still was pleading with the Lord on Mount Sinai, show me your glory. We need to be a people who know how to cry out to God in prayer. To cry out in joy and to cry out in desperation. To cry out in worship and to cry out in pain, devastation. We must be the people who cry to their God. When? Day and night, that is regularly, consistently, persistently even, always. So we're talking about to be a people who are characterized by regular prayer and by persistent prayer that perseveres even in the face of discouragement or in the face of extended answers. Who do we pray to? Unto Him. We cry unto Him, who? The Father, the holy and righteous Father. And how do we pray? We pray with confidence, says He will avenge them. We pray knowing the answer's coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. I may never see a revival in Union Grove in my whole life, but I promise you this, all of God's elect who are here will come to faith in Christ. Every one of them, every single one of them. And I'm gonna labor in prayer to see it happen in my lifetime. But I have this confidence, even if it doesn't, God will save His people. He will. So pray with confidence. And there's this interesting tag here at the end, the end of verse eight. I call it the problem of this passage because Jesus says at the end, nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? It's almost as if Jesus stops and questions, when I come back, will people believe this? Not many pray like this today, not because they do not have faith in prayer, but because they have no faith in God. This is what I'm talking about. We're talking about the prayer of faith that persists and perseveres in prayer, not losing heart, not because they believe in prayer, but because they believe in God. What other connection is there in this text with faith? When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? It's interesting to me, there seems to be some connection here between faith in God and the way we pray. Faith in God in the way we pray. Not that persevering faith justifies or saves a person, but rather that persevering faith characterizes those who are truly saved. Don't buy the lie that there is such a thing as a prayerless Christianity. Don't buy the lie that a genuine Christian will be so discouraged they'll fall away from prayer altogether. Because we don't pray because we believe in prayer. We don't pray because we get a feeling in prayer. We pray because we believe in God and because we know God works through the means of prayer. The fervent prayer of a righteous man has great power at its working. It avails much. It's effectual. Why? Because we bend the will of God? No. because God's children have his ear, because God's children pray according to his will, because God's children keep praying and keep praying, and the means by which God has so determined to accomplish his purposes are the prayers of his people. It's just interesting to me to ask myself and to ask you men, if the Son of Man were to come tonight, would he find that we are people who pray with faith? Faith in who God is, faith in what he has promised, and faith that he will answer. Such that we keep praying, and keep praying, and keep praying. I won't let you go till you bless me. I'm not leaving this mountain till you show me your glory. I'm not getting off my face until you restore Jerusalem. I'm not gonna quit preaching the gospel until all the nations have been brought in. Keep praying. He's not an unjust judge. We're not trying to convince him of a cause contrary to his own. He's the righteous father. He's calling us to exercise our faith. Constancy and confidence characterize the prayer of faith. Not faith in prayer, but faith in God. We ought always to pray and not to lose heart. Why? Because God is faithful. Because he will hear and he will answer. He will do all that he has promised. So let the faithfulness of God drive you to persistence and constancy in prayer, and let the faithfulness of God increase in you confidence in God. Does anybody have any questions?