Praying Like God is Good

Intro

Luke 18:1–8 NASB 2020

Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not become discouraged, saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect any person. Now there was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me justice against my opponent.’ For a while he was unwilling; but later he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect any person, yet because this widow is bothering me, I will give her justice; otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge said; now, will God not bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night, and will He delay long for them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

In the 1940s, Head Coach Bud Wilkinson hung a sign in the Oklahoma Sooners locker room reading, “play like a champion today.” Since then, it has become a tradition that players and coaches tap that sign which hangs over the door heading out into the stadium every game day as they run out onto their field. When Coach Wilkinson hung that sign, the Sooners had yet to win any national titles but the old ball Coach had a vision and he knew that if his vision was to be realized, his players would need to believe in what they could be more than what they could see. The same is true for us as believers.

We live in a pretty broken up world and we know quite well that although many of us have been saved from our sins through Christ and His work, we are still far from all that Christ has promised we will be one day in His presence. What is most important for us though, is to fixate not on our limitations, or where we are now in our spiritual journey, or even where we have been, but rather where we are going.

Power to live a truly Christian life, to be transformed into the image of Christ, come when we keep our hearts firmly focused on God. We must know who we are in Him, Whose we are, and trust that He is good and will do all that He has said He will do for us and for this world.

For the Sooners to become champions, they had to start thinking like champions so they could play like champions. For us, we must pray like champions who are indeed victorious in Christ. In fact, Paul says we are more than conquerors in Christ (Rom 8:37) and yet so few Christians in our country pray with the faith of someone who is on the winning side.

Why is that? Why do Christians in this country seem to so often walk around as if they are defeated? So many have given up on the world Christ already died to save and restore. Many have given up on praying for political leaders, praying that families around them will be saved, praying that Christ will continue to build His church, and praying that Christ’s kingdom will come in power today.

Today, I believe the Lord wants me to encourage this church that you may have 130 years in your past, but that you are only just getting started. The Lord wants you as a people to pray like He is good and wants to bring about good for this church, for this community, for our nation, and for you personally.

Truth

Jesus teaches us some powerful lessons about God and how we are to interact with Him through this parable about an unrighteous and unloving God.

I. We persist in prayer because we know that God is good.

Even an unrighteous and unloving judge might make a good ruling if only through persistence in calling him to provide justice.

Our God is not like the judge in this parable though. Our God loves us and is jealous for our good.

We can be certain that since our God is moved not by his annoyance of us, but by His love for us.

Scripture calls us His elect and that word is really important to understanding our identity in Christ.

We are saved because Jesus wants us. He intentionally died to redeem us and He called us out of this world both collectively as His Church and individually as His beloved children.

As His children, He is to us a good Father who loves to give good gifts to us.

Luke 12:32 NASB 2020

Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father has chosen to give you the kingdom.

Matthew 7:7–11 NASB 2020

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or what person is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? So if you, despite 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!

II. We persist in prayer because we know that God loves us.

These words of Christ in Luke 18 must be observed in light of the previous section about His second coming.

When God delays to answer our prayers in our time frame, we often give up and stop asking far too quickly.

2 Peter 3:8–11 NASB 2020

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be discovered. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

The Lord always has good purpose baked into His delays and when we have faith in His character as well as His ultimate love and concern for us, this motivates us to pray all the more in the midst of what we may view as a delay.

Often, the Lord seeks to teach us something during our periods of waiting on Him.

The Lord wants us to learn patience and childlike dependence upon Him.

The Lord wants us to learn to come into agreement with His decrees.

Sometimes a delay may happen because our will is not totally matched up with God’s, or our hearts may not be in the right place. Still other times, He may delay because we simply aren’t asking for that which He desires to give to us.

III. We persist in prayer because we are confident in who God is.

Christian prayed is not rooted in our performance, nor in our persistence, but in our faith in God; who He is and what He has done.

“I know in whom I have believed.”

When we know God’s character and when we know how much He cares for us, and to what lengths He has gone to in order to redeem and restore us, we are more motivated than ever to continue asking , seeking, and knocking on the Lord’s door.

He is our Father who has loved us so much that He crushed His only begotten Son in order to redeem us. How could He who was willing to crush Christ for us not be also willing to answer our good and righteous petitions which we bring before Him?

Of course unrighteous petitions might not be answered in the way we want. As John writes in 1 John 5 that only prayers which are according to His will can be answered.

Knowing this only motivates the Christian more, stirring in us the desire to be even nearer to the heart of God so that we might pray in alignment with His Kingdom and His will.

God’s design for us in prayer is to lead us to His heart because that is what is best for us and for the world.

Gospel Application

These past 130 years of ministry are evidence of God’s care and concern for this church and for this community. I have no doubt that FBC was established upon the prayers of humble servants of the Lord much like us sitting here today. There was nothing particularly special about them, but there was much which is special about the God they served and appealed to.

I have no doubt that those through whose hands the Lord has built this church here… even many of you sitting here now… were a people of prayer with great faith in what God could do through the hands of humble servants who are devoted to God’s word and empowered by His Holy Spirit. They prayed big prayers, persisted in them, and they got big results in the Lord’s timing.

They prayed like the knew that God was good!

The future of FBC will continue to depend much of the prayers of you who sit here today. If we believe that God is good, then we must never be satisfied with the prayer we have already seen Him answer. We must keep going back for more.

Sure, we thank Him for the past and what He has already done but we know He won’t stop building His church until He returns one day. We thank Him for all he has done while persisting in praying big prayers for our community and our world because we know the heart of Jesus, and we know that He wants to rock this community even more with His gospel and His power as we see His day approaching.

So what does God want to do for you and through you today? I suspect that His goodness to FBC is not in the past only, and that He is waiting for you top keep asking, seeking, and knocking that He may open new doors of ministry and fellowship for you.

He is God and He is indeed God. He has proved His goodness and He will do it again. He has inconvenienced Himself greatly to redeem you for himself and now He wants to change the world through you. You are His children whom He has loved enough to redeem in Christ. Never forget who He is, what He has done, nor who you are in Him. Knowing these things can keep us engaged in prayer even when things around us feel dry and the promises seem distant. We walk by faith in Him, not based on what we can see around us.

As long as our eyes are on Jesus, we can walk on even the choppiest waters. We know that mustard seed sized faith in a good God can move mountains but even mountain sized faith in anything else won’t even more a mustard seed.

So FBC, you have only just begun. Keep going. Run after your God who has been good to you and will continue to do so. Seek our His heart. Persist in prayer. Your future will likely be even greater than your past if you keep your eyes on Him.

So at the risk of being accused of overt cliche… pray like a champion today.