The Parable of the Persistent Widow

18 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? zWill 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?”

Context: Now this parable continues from where Jesus left off in Chapter 17

There is an eschatological theme running through this passage

The intended purpose is to instruct Christians on how to act while waiting for the return of Jesus

You’ll notice immediate similarities with another parable in Luke 11 when Jesus talks about the persistent visitor who rouses his neighbour from bed in the middle of the night.

Now the main point of the parable is already given in v1 (we always ought to pray and not lose heart). That is the main point.

But since this sermon series is designed to help us draw spiritual truths from these parables, lets take a deeper look and see what we may find.

The first thing we’ll take a look at is the Nature of Prayer.

And immediately in v1 Jesus tell us to “always pray and not lose heart”

this is not saying pray continuously - but rather is a focus on praying persistently.

Jesus is telling us that prayer is not for the fainthearted

To the Christian - prayer is our lifeline, and it must be done with a stubborn, dogged persistence.

Our prayer needs to persist even when there is no result visible.

It needs to push through doubt and negativity - without losing heart, without relenting or giving up.

The parable reveals to us that prayer is very often met with opposition and discouragement

Answers are delayed, God is silent, pleas go unheard

And yet the Christian is told not to give up - but instead to even press in. To stubbornly press forward for a result.

Why do we continue in prayer - even when no result is visible? Because prayer changes the one who is praying.

Philippians 4:6-7 speaks of the peace of God in response to our prayers which comes to guard OUR hearts and minds. In other words our earnest prayers have an effect ON us.

C.S Lewis said “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”

It is true that there are times that God grants us the requests we petition to Him.

But it is far more important to realise that the goal of our prayer is not a product or result. The goal of our prayer is communion with the person of God.

A successful prayer is not one where the outcome is changed in our favour, but when we are changed into His image.

And it is only when we adopt this understanding of prayer will this parable make sense.

Persistence in prayer affects our faith.

When we doggedly persist in our prayers we weaponise persistence. It transforms us, it draws us nearer to God, it shapes and molds us into His image.

Remember - the woman in this parable got her answer - but that was not even the point of the parable. The point remains as pray, and don’t lose heart. Persistence.

We must avoid extremes of either not asking God for things or thinking we can bend God’s will to ours.

We need to combine our persistence in prayer with a deep acceptence of God’s wisdom and will - whatever it may be.

In Preaching Today, author and speaker Tony Campolo tells this story:

I was in a church in Oregon not too long ago, and I prayed for a man who had cancer. In the middle of the week, I got a telephone call from his wife. She said, "You prayed for my husband. He had cancer." I said, "Had?" Whoa, I thought, it's happened.

She said, "He died." I felt terrible.

She continued, "Don't feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn't take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence. After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We've sung. We've laughed. We've read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they've been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.

And then she said something incredibly profound. She said, "He wasn't cured, but he was healed.”

The Nature of things prayed for

The second thing we can draw spiritual truths about are the nature of things that are prayed for.

What we cannot ignore, even though briefly mentioned, is what the woman was pleading to the judge about.

She was pleading to be “delivered from her enemies”

The theme of justice appears 4 times in this short parable - highlighting the seriousness of this cause

In other words, she was not pestering the judge about a misdemeanor.

One does not “cry out to God night and day” for a parking space

She was not praying about elective but inescapable issues.

I’m NOT saying that we don’t petition God for small things

What it does mean is that we need to assess what we pray for.

Do we pray for justice, the needy, the lost, the issues that God cares about? Or are our prayers focused on our own issues and problems

The nature of things prayed for reveals the nature of the one praying.

James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

What we pray for is an indication of what is in our hearts. If we pursue things of the world, then this will be what is reflected in our prayers.

“To be avenged from her enemies” is similar to “deliverance from enemies” found in the Psalms. One possible interpretation would be the church of today, praying to be vindicated from the world as it is oppressed, ridiculed and persecuted.

These are the kinds of things that God wants us to turn our hearts towards.

Matters that are close to the heart of God are meant to grow in our hearts as we grow in Christlikeness!

These are the issues that God wants us to persist stubbornly on in prayer.

When is the last time we stubbornly persisted in prayer for the issues close to God’s heart?

The Lost - our friends and families. Have we fought?

Our church - growth? Impact?

The least of these - the needy, the poor, the widows and orphans

The mark of Christian maturity is Christlikeness - that’s reflected not just in our behaviours, but in our burdens too.

ILLUSTRATION: IJM

In April 2011, 1000 staff from the International Justice Mission (which is a Christian organisation that works to rescue victims of slavery and sex trafficking) gathered in Washington DC for a night of prayer over IJM’s most urgent needs. Participants recorded a night of agonising, desperate prayer specifically for the end of slavery in India. It seemed like an impossible thing to pray for - and it was because to pray for the end of bonded labor is to pray for nothing less than a cultural revolution. And yet that night everyone in that room dared to ask God that slavery in India might be eradicated. Witnesses say that the Spirit flooded the room with extraordinary power, pouring out on that staff the boldness to ask something which none of them could possibly achieve on their own.

Just a few weeks later, in a village near Chennai, India - a local IJM official (who was not present at the prayer meeting) summoned the courage to rescue the captives in his own community. He organised a raid where 143 families, a total of 564 people were freed from bonded slavery. It was at the time, the largest single raid that IJM had conducted ever. Police freed the labourers, commandeered a local high school to provide them with health care and arrested those responsible. Hundreds of men, women and children who had been robbed of their God given dignity had been set free.

Since then IJM has estimated that nearly 11 MILLION people have been protected from the threat of unjust slavery and violence around the world. And in 9 of their different jurisdictions slavery has been reduced by at least 50% going as high as 85%.

Do you think it’s coincidence that this was all preceded by a staff team who cared enough to get on their knees, cry out to God - and pray bold prayers? Yeah. I don’t either.

The Nature of God

The final thing I want to cover today is that we can learn about the Nature of God from this parable.

God is pictured here as an unfair, corrupt judge that does not care for people or faith.

This is clearly not an accurate depiction of God but is a common illustrative technique. The vast contrast between the terrible judge and God is meant to show us exactly how much God wants to answer our prayers.

i.e If this terrible judge can still hear and answer the pleas of the widow then HOW MUCH MORE will our God listen to us.

God wants us to see that even though He may delay on His answer His heart IS to answer us - and speedily at that.

ESPECIALLY with regards to issues near His heart - those regarding justice to those who have been wronged, He yearns to answer us - and quickly.

But the real point to note in this parable is this: God responds to our persistence.

We may be tempted to believe that God’s silence can be interpreted as indifference. But this parable reveals otherwise.

God not only hears the cries of His children but yearns to respond speedily to their cries for justice.

While His timing is questionable to us sometimes - it remains perfect within His plan

What we need to know is that His heart is to respond to us - He is NOT unmoved by our persistent petitions to Him.

Perhaps there are some of you here who are crying out to God desperately - for a family member, a friend to come back to Him, for justice over being wronged, for persecution to end, for growth in your church, for revival and fresh revelation over this city - don’t stop!

God hears you - and is moved. Persist in your prayer, God longs to answer you - and will, in His perfect timing.

Jesus’ answer may have indicated a delay but the end result is still the same!

God vindicates His bride, He brings final justice, He rights the wrongs, He restores, He brings peace.

Our confidence in this fact is reflected in our prayer life.

Where there is faith - there will be prayer!

The attitude that we assume in prayer is an expression of our conviction.

A praying Christian is one that believes the power of prayer is in the One who hears it, not in the one who says it!

To cease in prayer is to either undervalue God’s power, or overestimate your own. Either way - a fatal mistake for any person to make.

It is no wonder that the last line of this parable is a question - When Jesus returns, will He find faith on Earth?

Will He find us distracted with our own concerns and agendas?

Will He find us preoccuppied with our work, our studies?

Will He find us defeated and discouraged, our faith all but deflated?

Or will He come back to a church fervent and fiery, on its knees - fighting, and most importantly, persisting, in prayer?

(ILLUSTRATION: Trust over Clarity) When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at "the house of the dying" in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, "And what can I do for you?” Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him. "What do you want me to pray for?" she asked. He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States: "Pray that I have clarity.” She said firmly, "No, I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and

must let go of.” When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, "I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."

The key to persistent prayer is that it trusts the character of God - and He IS good.

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