Don't Give Up

Background to passage: Jesus is on his way down to Jerusalem teaching along the way. There is a litany of parables and lessons to the religious leaders, the disciples, and the crowds. Chapter 18 is made up of several teachings about prayer back to back. There is a specific reason that Jesus tells this parable about prayer.

Luke 18:1–8 ESV

1 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?”

Opening illustration: July 13, 2025 - Maria’s church in Quinches

I was 22 years old, full of dreamy ideals, and fresh out of college when I became the Life Skills Support Special Education teacher in a small-town public high school.  I had visions for planning engaging lesson plans and teaching my students to thrive in the world.

A month into my new career, I vividly remember sitting in the classroom at the end of a grueling day, wiping the tears from my eyes, and wondering how in the world I was going to force myself to return to the classroom the next day.

Nothing about my job was going according to my plans.

I spent most of my time trying to keep my students from hurting themselves, locking themselves in bathroom stalls, fleeing the building, or stabbing their peers with pencils.

As I sat at my desk and looked at the classroom full of empty desks, I was desperate.  In my desperation, I closed the lesson plan book, walked to each desk, and began praying over each desk, imagining the faces of my students as I prayed.

I prayed that God would enable me to break through to them, and most of all, I prayed he would give me eyes to see each student through the lens of his love.

Nothing noteworthy happened right away.

The next day, one of my students attacked another teacher with scissors.  A few days later, another student was expelled for violence.  Meanwhile, as the days rolled into weeks—and the weeks into months—I continued regularly praying over each student.

Over time, the most remarkable shift took place.

I realized I loved my students.

I wasn’t a mother yet, and I had no framework for the kind of love I felt for my students.

Looking back two decades later, I would describe the love God poured into my heart as a form of maternal love.  I loved the sweet boy who often needed me to wipe his nose.  My heart overflowed with love for the girl who brought me gifts from her home, including every spice from her mother’s spice rack.  I loved the boy who often locked himself in the restroom and refused to come out.

The more I prayed for my students, the more God’s love flooded my heart.

My job didn’t get any easier.  But the change of heart enabled me to lay down my desires and hopes for what we were going to learn each day and, instead, embrace the lessons God wanted my students to learn.

Main thought: This morning I want to exhort you not to give up, but to pray persistently, urgently, and refuse to grow weary in prayer.

1) Prone to Giving Up (v. 1)

Luke 18:1 ESV

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

1) Prone to Giving Up (v. 1)

Explanation: The picture of prayer Jesus describes is different from what the rabbis taught and practiced. “Prayer is beset with opposition and discouragement: pleas for justice go unheard (v. 3), answers are delayed (vv. 4, 7), people cry out day and night (v. 7). Prayer is not a parlor exercise, perfunctory and tidy. It is an existential battle, ongoing and ever present, “hope against hope...” Jesus just explained our real lives.

The language in the parable emphasizes the desperate situation and continual return. In fact it is a boxing term that in effect says that the judge is weary of her beating him down with her demands. The judge doesn’t care what God thinks, nor what people think, he is only accountable to himself, but in his self-interest, he gives justice because of her persistence.

Luke 11:7–8 ESV

and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Ephesians 6:18 ESV

praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Illustration: “One does not “cry out to God day and night” (v. 7) for such matters. The prayer enjoined concerns ultimate and existential issues—life, livelihood, honor. These are not elective but inescapable issues, issues about which one prays earnestly,” Plutarch tells of a poor old woman who begged Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, unsuccessfully for justice. When Philip told the woman he had no time for her, she burst forth, “Then give up being king!” Amazed, Philip proceeded to hear her case, and others as well.

Application: Jesus tells this parable for a reason: that we would always pray and not lose heart. Be like the widow, be firm, unyielding, persistent, urgent, and clear. We are prone lose heart and give up. Even though this parable says that God will answer his chosen ones speedily, our speedy and His speedy don’t always align. The judge at first doesn’t care, but even knowing this, she continued to plead with him. We know that God cares, this should compel us to keep coming with our requests. Don’t Stop Believing or Pleading.

Our hearts are redeemed, our souls transformed, but our flesh still remains, and we can falter and become discouraged. The gospel calls us to come boldly before the throne of grace and make our requests know. It calls us to pray and believe. Jesus calls us to come to him because his yoke is easy and his burden is light and he will give us rest. However, we are also called to persist.

2) Prone to Giving Grace (v. 7)

Luke 18:7 ESV

And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?

2) Prone to Giving Grace (v. 7)

Explanation: It’s odd that Jesus would compare the Father to an unjust judge, but he also compared his return to a thief in the night, and we don’t think much about it. Besides at the conclusion of the parable he tells us that the comparison is what an unjust man who regards no opinion would do to a righteous God and what he would do.

So, the point is that God loves to hear his children cry out day and night in faith so that he can show himself mighty to deliver or sufficient to sustain when no deliverance comes. This is the strongest possible construction in Greek that means God “absolutely” will hear and answer swiftly. He is driven by his own love, mercy, kindness, righteousness, compassion, goodness, and joy in his chosen ones.

Hebrews 12:1–3 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

2 Corinthians 12:7–10 ESV

7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Illustration: In the book Delighted In God, Roger Steer writes about his persistent prayer life. “If I say that during the fifty-four years and nine months that I have been a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ I have had thirty thousand answers to prayer, either in the same hour the same day that the requests were made, I should not go a particle too far…But one or the other might suppose all my prayers have been thus promptly answered. No, not all of them. Sometimes I have had to wait weeks, months, or years; sometimes many years…In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without one single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land or on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God, and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other three. Day by day I continued to pray for them, and six years more passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three, and went on praying for the other two. These two remain unconverted. The man to whom God in the riches of His grace has been given tens of thousands of answers to prayer, in the self-same hour or day on which they were offered, has been praying day by day for nearly thirty-six years for the conversion of these two individuals, and yet they remain unconverted.” It is said of D.L. Moody that he had a list of 100 people he believed to come to faith. At the time of his death 96 people had given their lives to Christ. One might think that when we die, our prayers die with us. But this is not the case, our prayers outlive us. At Moody’s funeral the last 4 people came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Application: It’s the person of God, his character, his attributes that Jesus brings to the center of the message of the parable. His reason for telling it was that people would be prone to give up, but the solution he gave was the God of heaven and earth is one that will hear and answer. We put our trust in Him. We fix our eyes on Him. We read and attempt to understand Him. We walk in step with Him. We develop our relationship with Him. He will hear us and he will answer.

We must know our God deeper in 2026 to make it a year of prayer, not just a month. Our commitment to prayer must drive upwards, but we are prone to lose heart. God has given us HOPE and we must pray that he aids us in our response and implementation. Pray he helps us as we strive to make disciples. Pray that he helps us to continue to pray.

3) Nine Strategies Persistence in Prayer:

Rely Only on the One Who Can Help

Pursue intimacy with God beyond requests - “use our prayer times as a springboard to living a prayerful life – giving each thing we do to God. I've found that grace tends most to flood into my life when I do trust the Lord and simply get on with the task in hand, neither lamenting what I'm not able to do, or fussing about the future. The challenge then is to learn to abide in God, living in a focused way. One of the ways we can support our daily walk with God is to set short periods aside for stillness, when we surrender our lives, remember our reliance on God, and learn to listen to the Almighty's still small voice.”

Pray Only for the Will of God

Pray in Faith, Luke 12:32, where it says, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” You are his chosen ones, He knows your voice, you are truly His children

Listen in silence

Know that the Holy Spirit Empowers and Intercedes for Us

He Can Answer: Yes, No, or Wait

Ask God for Help to Persist

Pray Together with Others

Closing illustration: “Monday, April 19. I set apart this day for fasting, and prayer to God for his grace… Accordingly, in the morning, I endeavoured to plead for the divine presence for the day, and not without some life. In the forenoon, I felt the power of intercession for precious, immortal souls; for the advancement of the kingdom of my dear Lord and Saviour in the word; and withal, a most sweet resignation, and even consolation and joy in the thoughts of suffering hardships, distresses, and even death itself, in the promotion of it; and had special enlargement in pleading for the enlightening and conversion of the poor heathen. In the afternoon, God was with me of a truth. O it was blessed company indeed! God enabled me so to agonize in prayer, that I was quite wet with perspiration, though in the shade, and the cool wind. My soul was drawn out very much for the world; for multitudes of souls. I think I had more enlargement for sinners, than for the children of God; though I felt as if I could spend my life in cries for both. I enjoyed great sweetness in communion with my dear Saviour. I think I never in my life felt such an entire weanedness from this world, and so much resigned to God in every thing.–O that I may always live to and upon my blessed God! Amen, Amen.”

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