THE PRAYING CHURCH: TWO PARABLES

THE PRAYING CHURCH: TWO PARABLES Luke 18:1-14 September 6, 2009 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction There was a man named George Muller who fully committed his life to the Lord in 1829. He was led of the Lord to help missionaries, build orphanages and teach the gospel on a world wide level. He was a poor man. He began to pray. God began to provide. He completely trusted God and never asked anyone for a dime. He simply prayed. This he did for 63 years until he died, and God worked mightily through him, channeling millions through him as he faithfully prayed and gave away what God gave him. His work continues. Read Luke 18:1-8 Parable #1 – Lessons from the Widow (Luke 18:1-8) Verse one makes it clear WHY Jesus told this parable – which is quite unusual – normally the Lord just told his parabolic stories and let them make their own point. The purpose of this parable? Unmistakably, to teach his disciples that they should always pray and not give up. So if find that you’ve come to a different conclusion about this parable when you read it, you’ve missed it. One side note: the careful reader will notice that the latter half of chapter 17 of Luke, immediately preceding this parable, is all about the second coming of Christ in the last days. And at the close of the parable he returns to this last days theme with these words: When the Son of Man comes will he find faith in the earth? (18:8) I think it would be well for us to think of this last stage of history as a time for serious, kingdom-minded prayer—prayer for the kingdom of God to come on earth, as it is in heaven, and prayer for the salvation of millions of lost people all around us before Christ comes. We are introduced to a widow. In that day, widows had a very difficult life, in spite of the care that God instructed His people to give them (in fact it was precisely because of their economic oppression the people of God were to be so pastorally present to them). Some kind of legal matter has left this woman struggling to make ends meet, and she is trying to get the judge to help her. This widow had three strikes against her as she tried to get justice. One, she was a woman, and in that day she had little to no standing before the law. Secondly, she was a widow. In the Palestinian society of that day, women just didn’t go to court—that was left to their husbands. Widowed, she was defenseless, with no husband to help her. Thirdly, she was poor and was unable to gather up a bribe for the judge, something that was so common in that day it was almost a matter of protocol. But even if she wanted to offer a bribe, she didn’t have the money. The other character in the story is the judge. Judges in that time were mostly all circuit judges. They didn’t have offices and court-rooms to which people would come with their differences. His courtroom was probably a tent that was moved from place to place as he covered his circuit. With a busy schedule and limited time each case had to be approved and accepted before it could be tried, and few were. Add to that the observation that he was not a godly man, nor did he particularly like people! No wonder this destitute widow and she was having a time getting justice! So her strategy was to wear down the judge with badgering. Men, do you sometimes wonder why your wives resort to nagging? Maybe something you’re doing is making it hard for her to feel she is getting justice! The text says she kept coming to him with her plea, ‘Grant me justice with my adversary!” I suppose that an ungodly judge who didn’t like people would grow weary of that chant every day, maybe five or six times a day. He relents, but only because he wants to shut her up. There is no benevolent or humanitarian motivation in him whatsoever. Now, a lot of people worry about the meaning of this parable because, if you try to understand it like you would the other parables, you think, OK, the widow is all of us people, and the judge is God. He’s busy doing lots of things; He’s got a universe to run; Can’t be bothered by the little things; Lots of needy people… So, only if I’m really desperate do I ever bother Him, and I’ll get on my knees and beg Him over and o-- (Wait! That doesn’t sound like God!) Ironically, to understand this parable we have to see that the Judge does NOT represent God. In fact, he is everything God isn’t. A parable of opposites! Bizarro parable! God is not like the unjust judge The moral of the story is not that we should pester God to get what we want… Nor is it that we have to fumble around looking for the lost key of how to open God’s heart. Like God’s doesn’t really want us to be able to open this vault of love and blessing that He has, so He has hidden the key, and only certain lucky, specially-blessed people find it. There are way too many titles on bookstore shelves (even Christian stores) that talk about finding the secret for wrenching a blessing from God's closed fist. You know, there must be some mysterious way to get break through his reluctance, break the code, finagle a way to get the answer. Please, don't think of God that way. That's not who God is. I remember many years ago in a busy season I was having a very challenging day. Several things were giving me fits, my schedule had a wreck with other people’s realities and I was flustered. The phone in my office rings five times, the secretary is out of the office, impatiently I answer on the sixth ring, knowing it was one more person who wanted a piece of me. I hear a voice, “Daddy?” and I melt. Suddenly I realized this was not another distraction. This is my little Heather, one of the three twinkling stars in my personal heaven. She had my instant, complete attention, and could have asked me for anything. That’s how God hears your prayers. He loves you and loves to hear from you. Never think Him unjust or uncaring. We are not like the powerless widow Not only is God not like the unjust judge, but neither are we like the powerless widow. We really do need to understand that God is not like the unjust judge. The wicked judge is stingy, uncaring and will not give people justice, but God is exactly different from him. Jesus said, God will see that they get justice, and quickly. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? (Mat. 7:9-11) Do you know what that means? That means this Father who is perfect love and compassion, infinite power and resource, is not bothered by your call. He’s wanting and waiting to hear from you. The just judge, the mighty God, the ever-available Father—He is there for you and you are, therefore, never powerless. Look again at the purpose of Jesus in teaching us this parable: that we should always pray and not give up. Prayer, brothers and sisters is more than what we speak with our lips—it is the cry of our hearts. To “always pray” means to have the holy desires of God in our hearts continually, to seek constantly to obey Him, remaining in communion with the Father, asking Him always for His blessing. Take your choice: do you want to pray, or do you want to give up? Parable #2 – From Two Very Different Pray-ers (18:9-14) There is a second parable about prayer, tacked immediately on the end of the persistent widow parable, that I can’t help but feel God would have us study them together. In the previous parable those who sometimes feel powerless are encouraged to be bold and persistent. This next parable brings a sense of balance to those who are already bold in prayer, but whose boldness comes across as demanding, impertinent and even arrogant. Read Luke 18:9-14. We are introduced in this parable to two more players, a Pharisee and a Publican. The Pharisee is one of the group New Testament readers often come to dislike because of the charges Jesus brings against them: hypocrisy and the kind of attitude displayed in this story. But actually, the Pharisees were the most religiously devout people in Judaism, men who cared deeply about the Law, the Messianic hope, and being good and holy servants of God. People respected them. Who can fault their love for God and their fastidious attention to the Law? But over time religion that is not alive and growing dynamically will degenerate and that is what has happened with this Pharisee. This is another of the countless reasons that we should pray generously and genuinely—to maintain that communion with the Lord that not only sustains us but keeps us spiritually tuned. The other character is a tax collector, a publican. These guys were hated passionately by the Jewish citizens. They, too were Jews, but they had traded their knowledge of their neighbors for political favors and sizable commissions. They agreed to collect taxes from their countrymen for the Romans, and permitted to gouge the taxpayers for as much as they could get to line their own pockets. They were resented as traitors. This particular tax collector, though, is cast in favorable light in the parable. Now, understand the dynamics of this parable. Jesus is disfavoring the prayer habit of the highly respected Pharisee, and calling a tax collector’s prayers the kind that please God! That would be a little like telling a twentieth century Christian that God is more pleased with the prayers of a liberal agnostic than those of, say, Billy Graham! It’s enough to get your attention, isn’t it? In building the parable Jesus has a way of making the Pharisee’s prayer quite nauseating. He comes across as better than others, comparing himself most favorably to the publican, reminding God of all the good he does and, in general, coming across like a religious Eddie Haskell. Self-righteousness doesn’t wear well. By contrast, our friend the tax collector comes out of the school of prayer with a pretty good grade. He really doesn’t look like much of a pray-er, though. Palestinian people were used to seeing their leaders standing on street corners, head held high, facing the temple, and raising their voices in devout-sounding prayers. Very inspiring. But the tax collector stands off to the side, out of plain sight, head bowed down looking 180 degrees from heaven, demeaning himself as a sinner. What is it that makes this self-effacing wallflower a better pray-er than the Pharisee, in Jesus’ estimation? In a word, HUMILITY. Somehow in his meager, tattered faith he knew he was barely worthy to speak a word to the holy God. In no way could he exalt himself enough to bring himself up to God’s level and speak as an equal. Humility led this admitted sinner to know only one thing about himself: he needed God’s mercy and help. The Pharisee was so busy recalling what a wonderful guy he was that he forgot who God is. Oh, he made it look good, sound good by masking his narcissism with a token word of gratitude to God, “I thank you…”, but the rest of the prayer belies his pride and self-preoccupation. He came before God to justify himself, and man, the sinner, can never justify himself before the perfect God. The best we can do is humbly admit our need and ask that through His mercy, God might justify us. That’s the approach of the tax collector: pure humility that admits one’s faults and shortcomings, unworthiness and need. God loves that honesty. Psalm 51:6 teaches us God’s heart, that he desires TRUTH in the inward man. There is nothing more noble before God than a sinful human being coming with nothing in his hands, no excuses, no self-ratifying evidence, no rationalizations. The proud man comes before God full of himself; the humble man knows he has nothing to stand on. So the Pharisee in the story betrayed what’s in his heart by praising himself and basically forgetting all about God. The tax collector came honoring God and forgetting himself. Verse 14 says it all, doesn’t it? I tell you, this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Exhortations to biblical balance in the practice of prayer 1. Come boldly, but humbly to God in prayer The one Message emerging from the two parables: In our prayers we must blend the boldness of the widow and the humility of the tax collector. There was a wave of teaching, mostly good, that washed through the church concomitant with the charismatic movement that told believers to “storm heaven” for what they wanted in prayer. Rather like an army laying siege to a castle. But some of the proponents forgot that the true “prayer of faith” has to do with calling down from heaven what God wants, not what we want. 2. Storm heaven, but don’t forget whose castle it is I urge believers to rid themselves of the ill-begotten sense of “entitlement” that pervades so much of the faith community. As someone so pointedly commented in the prayer meeting last Wednesday, it’s not about us—it’s about God and His purposes. We are as those who serve, not those who are served. Boldness comes from one thing—God’s gracious invitation of us to enter his presence by the sacrificial blood of Christ. None of the privilege of prayer is our entitlement, and certainly anything we ourselves have earned. 3. Persist in prayer, but wait on God When you think of prayer, think of it as a lifestyle and not a project. When there is something you believe God is allowing you and wanting you to ask for, start asking and don’t quit until He answers, but don’t try to take from God His unique prerogative to answer in His wisdom and His timing. Wait on Him. 4. Have faith in God, not in your praying Another inappropriate, Pharisee-like prayer is the one that insists that because God has promised to answer our prayers offered in faith, and because we have mustered up faith for something, He therefore MUST answer and give us what we ask. This is such a preposterous distortion of all that prayer is. In the high and holy practice of prayer we must remember GOD is in charge, not we. Prayers are not superstitious incantations that, when recited just right, guarantee results. Prayer is not some talisman we can shake and rattle in the face of almighty God and demand of Him what we want. Don’t fall into that most unholy witchcraft. 5. Bring not just your prayers but YOURSELF to God in prayer It seems to me that, if we are to emulate the kind of praying Jesus Himself honors, and if we want to pray the kind of prayers the widow and the tax collector prayed, we must make the first priority of our prayers to bring ourselves before Him in utter submission and worship. It is all too easy to slip into praying in a manner like going through a drive through. Just give me my food, I’ll hand over my money—better yet I’ll swipe my own debit card and I may not even have to talk to you. I won’t have to park and come in, sit in your booth, handle your menu. Just eat. Drive through prayers make no commitment, call for no serious engagement with the divine—just a nice clean request, and we’re done with it. Rather like making a withdrawal at the bank. But if Jesus connects with us through these parables, we will realize that it is we that He wants—our minds, our hearts, our wills, our love and devotion. And I suppose that’s the first and greatest prayer: Lord, here I am; take me, please; I am yours.     [ Back to Top]