Grateful Prayer

Scripture: Luke 18:1-8

Luke 18:1–8 NIV

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

10/19/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Standard

Opening Prayer:

Holy One,

we lift our eyes to you in hope and awe.

Grant that we may reject all apathy of spirit,

all impatience and anxiety,

so that, with the persistence of the widow,

we may lift our voice again and again to seek your justice. Amen.

Grateful Prayer

Works Righteousness

A couple weeks ago for Wednesday Bible Study, we were reading some scriptures from Ephesians and James, discussing the relationship between God's work, faith, and the works we do in our lives. For over 500 years, the Protestant branch of the church has declared that salvation comes by faith alone, not from our works, as Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2. Then we struggle to understand and live into the letter of James, which declares that faith without works is dead.

Generally, we settle into some kind of understanding that work is the visible proof of faith. It makes me wonder. Does that mean we always assume that faith is invisible unless there are works coming out of that? I don't know. But Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 2 that we're saved by faith alone, not by works, so that we can live into the purpose God has for our lives and do the works he has intended for us to do. So God works in our lives. We are invited to receive it by faith, and if we do, works will follow. That kind of thought has been generally accepted by the church as a whole. And most of us don't question that, because it puts the responsibility for those really big things in God's hands, where they belong.

But something funny happens when we alter that first piece about what God does for us first. If we put anything up there other than salvation—and by salvation I mean us going to heaven after we die—if we put up there healing, or getting a new job, or providing friends and family in our life, or growing our church, anything we might find ourselves praying about, if we put that up there instead, suddenly we find ourselves wanting to change that around. It's no longer salvation that comes through faith and not of works, so that no one can boast. It becomes “God helps those who help themselves.” God will provide a job to the people who work hard and actively seek employment. Those that don't, won’t get a job. God helps those who pray for friendship find friends if they go out and befriend someone else. And if they don't, God doesn't provide friends for them.

I recognize this idea that God blesses those who help themselves is blessing based on our works. I know that's not what Ephesians says, and I know that's not what James is talking about when he says faith without works is dead. I know there were plenty of people in the scriptures who were blessed far beyond even what they asked for, and they did not deserve it. But God did it anyway. Still, there's something that just sits a little bit right with me about God blessing those who really work for it. Something in my head that says that makes sense. That's how everything should be.

But when we start believing that those who do more for God receive more blessings, we have quietly joined the ranks of the Pharisees. Because that is exactly what they believed.

It is easy for us to forget that our relationship with God does not depend on how much we do. Yet our hearts betray us when we act as though God’s blessings are earned instead of received. God has something to say to that heart, that mind, that person who thinks they are just not doing enough.

The Parable

Luke takes it easy on us in this passage, and he tells us directly what the purpose behind this parable is. Sometimes Jesus just left people to figure it out on their own. Luke was writing with some of those new Christians in mind, who weren't raised Jewish, where everything was new, and they needed all the help they could get. So we can thank him for that. He tells us that this parable was taught to show us that we should be persistent in prayer.

And with that, Jesus jumps in and tells them a tale. Of a place long ago and far away.

He says, once upon a time, there was a judge. And this judge did not believe in or care about God at all. Well, that's not a great start. But there's more. He also didn't care about people at all. If you don't care about God and you don't care about people, there's not much left to care about other than yourself. I wonder if that's the point Jesus is trying to make here.

And one day, there was a widow who came to him, pleading for justice against someone who was accusing her.

What were they accusing her of? We don't know. Back in those days, widows were considered one of the lowest classes of society. Many of them were not young. And some already had children. This made it more challenging for them to get remarried and find social stability. In most cases, women couldn't own land or businesses. And so that would have been taken from her at her husband's death and given to one of the closer male relatives in her family. Or, without physically being able to protect her land and business, it could have just been taken from her by force. She would have had very few rights and no real voice in civic matters. These widows, especially female widows, were pretty much a picture of helplessness.

She goes and pleads her case before the judge, Mister I-don't-care-about-anyone-other-than-myself. And the judge ignores her. So she comes back. And he ignores her again. And she keeps coming back, and he keeps ignoring her. Until one day, he finally breaks down. And the judge, who cared about no one but himself, finally got her the justice she was looking for. Because she was persistent.

Now, before we jump into the moral of this story, I want to go back and reiterate that there are a lot of questions surrounding this. These characters are extreme. And Jesus tells us the story that way on purpose, sets it up as if it's in a fantasy world, in a kind of tongue-in-cheek way of saying, “Now I know you don't know anybody like this... This has never happened to you... Real people don't act this way...” to make us think and question.

He's telling a story with cookie-cutter people. But even if we try to flesh them out a bit, make them seem more real, and dig into some of those questions and missing pieces of information, what would make a judge be this way? Or how can a person like this get to a place of power? Power over his entire community. Who has anything against this poor widow? Is she not as poor as she's made out to be? What's her story? What's she got going on so bad that she keeps coming back to a person and a place that's designed not to listen to her? And is the judge gathering all the pieces, or is he repeatedly thinking, I don't have enough evidence to do anything, even if I wanted to.

We can ask questions and dig deeper into this scripture without adding to it. And we can do that and still be faithful to the point that Jesus is trying to make. Fortunately, in this passage, he makes it really clear to us. The point of this story is that even this extremely despicable, powerful person will relent if the persistence of someone with nothing, no power, no voice wears him down.

And if that's the case, with these crazy, messed-up people in a land far away, how much more will God provide for you when you pray with persistence?

God’s Timing

That is a great lesson, isn't it? Easy to understand. It's easy for us to take action and just say, "Hey, persistence is the key.” We just gotta keep trying. We just gotta keep praying. We just gotta keep serving. Keep doing more good works, and eventually the blessing will come.

But we need to stop right there, because we've gone right back to being Pharisees. And I think if we come away from this text with that idea in our heads, we may have missed the point entirely.

Persistence in faith and in prayer is important. And if you live in a land far, far away with judges of terrible character and a God who doesn't care for anyone but himself, then yes, persistence is key. But that is not the world that we live in, and that is not the God that we serve. And we know that, but we still struggle. And it's not so much with the works part or even the faith part directly. We struggle with God's timing.

When it comes right down to it, this passage is not about justice or injustice. And it's not only about prayer. It's about timing.

I had a conversation with a friend about God's timing. As soon as I mentioned it, he quoted the scripture that says, "A thousand years is like a day to God, and a day is like a thousand years.” It's a scripture that Peter quoted in one of his letters when he was talking about waiting for Jesus to return and justice to be done, giving justice to all those who'd been persecuted for their faith. And Peter quoted it from David in the Psalms, who said it and sang about it in those years when he waited for God to come and save him so that he could save his people, the nation of Israel, that God had anointed him to be king over years earlier when he was just a little boy.

We say we don't question God's goodness. But most of us will admit we do question God's timing. We don't understand it. And we don't understand if we're supposed to be waiting on Him or if He's waiting on us.

Faithful Grateful Prayer

We often talk about God's timing as if it's a bad thing, a frustrating thing, but if we think about that order of God's work again, it begins and ends with His work in us.

And in the middle is His timing.

Let me say that again. If we consider the order in which God works in our lives, it begins with His work for us and ends with His work coming through us. And there in the middle, that's His timing, but that's also the place that our faith goes, and that's God working in us. So whenever we're dealing with God's timing, that's God working in us.

I think we know that because we get to times in our life when we just want to skip to the end. Skip all this stuff in the middle that's not so fun to go through. Get us to the end when it's all worked out and things are good again. We pray with faith through those middle places as we struggle with God’s timing. And we remember this story today. We remember that the evil judge will relent if the persistence of someone with nothing wears him down. And then we remember that our God is not like that. Our world is not like that. We can pray to God once, knowing that He already knows what we need more than we do, that He is able to provide more than we know to ask, and that He loves us and everyone around us more than we ever could. And then we can wait patiently on Him in faith.

There are also moments in the middle, in those challenging parts of our live, where God pours in that blessing too. Those moments are like the birthdays, the weddings, the anniversaries, the celebrations, where we don't want to just plunge forward; instead, we actually look back upon God's timing with gratitude.

We don't have to wait for birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries to do that, though. We can do that any time we choose. I hope you've been reading and blessed by those devotions we have for you, and I think we have some extra copies if you missed getting one. I hope that's begun to instill a sense of gratitude that grows to become a part of who you are, an expression of your faith.

We can choose to wake up and spend our day running around, getting into all kinds of trouble, or trying to stay out of trouble and still ending up in some of it anyway. And then come home, and right before we try to frantically fall asleep, and forget the troubles of the day, remember God, grab our Bibles, grab our devotionals. Weep and wail and gnash our teeth, frustrated at God's timing. And finally come to a place where we remember to be thankful for what He's already done. And maybe right before we fall asleep, we'll think of a couple of things that God did for us just that day that we missed, until right there at the end.

Or we can choose to start out our day being thankful, reminding ourselves of all the things that God has already done for us, and ask for His help in opening our eyes to be more aware of the things that He's doing around us right now, so that we go through our days not like a frantic Pharisee trying to fix everything, but like that faithful child of God who knows their dad is bigger, and smarter, and more loving than anything that they're going to face out there in the world today.

The choice is yours. You can choose each day to begin living and believing and thinking the life of works righteousness, the life of a Pharisee. Or you can choose to begin each day by thanking God before you do anything else, and then watch what He does with the rest of your day, in and through you, in His time.

Closing Prayer

Lord, we know there's a right answer to our struggle trusting in your timing, and sometimes we can get it in our heads. But when challenges come our way, we have a hard time holding it in our hearts. And it seems at times that our bodies are built more to worry than to give you praise and thanks.

And we know that's not right. That's not how you made us or want us to be. So Lord, we're grateful for the work that you've done in our church: in and around our buildings, through our leaders, through the new friends that we're making, through the ways that you're encouraging us, and through our studies and our ministries together. We know that there's still a lot of work to be done inside each one of us, and we often feel like we just want to skip to the end.

But we know you're not like that. You walk with us patiently.

And so, instead, we pray today that you would help us to be more aware of you in our lives. Help us start each day aware, and take the time to thank you before we do anything else. We may grow weary in the waiting. But we know that you don't want us to miss out on the blessings you have for us every day as you work for us, in us, and through us.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.