Pray Without Ceasing
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Injustice
We have all experienced that feeling from time to time
After all, we live in an unjust world - an unfair world.
I worked in the elementary school in Reading as a teacher’s aide. I noticed in this time how very attuned young children are to what is fair and unfair. They pick up on inconsistencies in a heartbeat - they’ll call you on it.
I was reminded of my own childhood and the difficult lessons we all learn, that life can be very unfair. Even when we outgrow the selfishness of childhood, we still see a problem with how the world works.
As children, we complain to an adult. As adults, we like to think we take the high road, but think about what we do.
When it comes to everyday things, when we feel we are being treated unfairly, we have our ways to get „what is right,“ or at least prompt others to work on it:
- We ask to speak to a supervisor
- We complain
- We ask repeatedly when it will be done
- We don’t give up
I’m very familiar with a lot of these tactics from my 20 years working in IT.
We see similar things in the Bible. We read Psalm 4 earlier,
How long will you people turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
In Psalm 4:2, David asks: „How long will you people turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?“
He feels he is being treated unjustly, but he does not jut turn to other people. He turns to God in prayer. He prays for justice and shows trust in God. We just heard about the results of his trust: hope, joy, peace, and safety.
Among other things, we pray for justice. We pray, that God’s will will be done on Earth. We pray that things will be make “right.”
We pray for guidance in life’s situations. Sometimes, we pray that God intervenes in certain situations and changes them.
Sometimes, even often, we do not get a quick answer from God. We spoke about this last week with Abram, who never saw the fulfillment of God’s promise. There are other examples throughout the Bible of people who waited on the Lord for a long time.
How does that look and feel?
We pray and pray, and have the feeling our prayers don’t get through - like they’re hitting a brick wall. Nothing seems to change.
What do we do in these situations?
- Do we interpret the absence of an answer as no?
- Do we ask ourselves, why God doesn’t answer?
- Do we even ask ourselves at some point, whether God really cares?
Jesus had something to say about this in Luke 18:
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
At this point, I should say that “always praying” was not exactly the usual practice for the disciples – for Jews in general.
Jews limited their prayers to three times per day. This followed the example in Daniel 6:10,
Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
where Daniel prayed three times daily in thanks. Jewish tradition continued this “limitation” and extended it to all prayers, so as not to “weary” God.
Jesus, however, taught something else. His disciples should always pray.
Paul repeats this many times in his letters. He writes, we should pray always, without ceasing, in every situation.
Jesus now tells the parable:
He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.
And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
The judge in this parable is the perfect example of a “world of one” person. He doesn’t care about God or respect people.
He is completely self-occupied – does not care about anything. He is indifferent.
You cannot expect anything from a man like this.
We often think that hate and evil are the worst things that confront us in people – the opposite of love, for example.
But hate and evil at least assume an emotion, even if it is a negative one. Indifference is a step further.
Elie Wiesel said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
Indifference describes the judge in this parable to a T. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone.
Jesus could not have described a worse adversary for the widow than this man!
The widow is the picture of helplessness. She could not do anything to change her situation. She knew, in her position in society, she could not influence the judge in any way. She was completely dependent on his decision.
She could do one thing, though, and that was to come to him and ask for justice. She did what she could do, and she kept doing it. She did not give up.
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think,
yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ”
Even an unjust judge, a completely indifferent person who could care less about the widow or her case – he did not even care for justice in itself – gave her justice, even if it was just to get her to be quiet.
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.
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?
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?”
What does Jesus mean with this parable?
When my sister and I were young, I am ashamed to say, we knew how to manipulate my dad. We knew there were things we could pester him about and he would eventually give in.
At first glance, it seems that we can bend God’s will by praying without ceasing. In other words, we can bug God until he gives in.
But this is not the case.
What Jesus ways is: an indifferent judge, who does not even care about justice, can be influenced by an unrelenting request.
This is drawing a stark contrast to God.
God is anything but indifferent.
He loves us.
He takes care of us.
He is interested in that which bothers us.
Pray Without Ceasing
We should pray always, without giving up, not, because in doing so we will bug God until he gives in, but because he wants to hear from us what is bothering us.
Jesus told this parable in view of the fact that we are waiting for his return.
We spoke about injustice earlier.
There has always been injustice. There was injustice in David’s time, as we read in Psalm 4 and many other psalms. We read about injustice in many other parts of the Bible.
No, injustice is nothing new.
But...
We see, unfortunately, that the world is getting worse.
More and more people are doing whatever they wish and do not seem to care.
Common courtesy is no longer very common.
Impertinence wins.
Jesus says, though, even in view of all this, we should keep praying with the expectation that he will return and God will bring justice to the world again.
Further, we pray that the Lord moves in and through us to bring His Kingdom down to earth, in some way, even now.
This parable speaks about Jesus’ return, but the example in the parable is valid for all situations in our lives and our prayers.
Jesus calls us to Kingdom living. This is not a waiting game, hoping for eternal life when this life is over or when Jesus returns.
Kingdom living is recognizing that eternal life is ours NOW. Quality of life.
In light of that, what does this parable say to us?
This parable is valid for situations in which we ask for God’s help.
God is not an unjust judge.
God does not torture us.
God does not ignore us because he is not interested in our prayers, only to “give in” when we pester Him long enough or often enough.
God knows what we need, even better than we do.
Even when God reveals his plan, we do not always know how or when he will accomplish his will.
We heard about Abraham’s example last week - a promise he never lived to see fulfilled.
Joseph is another example I mentioned last week (Genesis 37-50).
Joseph saw in dreams as a young boy that he would rule over his brothers. But, knowing God’s goal was not near all of it.
At the age of 17, he was sold into slavery by his brothers.
In Egypt, he was tempted by Potiphar’s wife.
He was thrown into prison by Potiphar (unjustly) and was seemingly forgotten for several years, until he was brought into the employ of the Pharaoh because he was able to interpret dreams.
Through all these years, Joseph stayed true to God and continued to obey God, and we read that “God was with Joseph” throughout these years.
Finally, at the age of 39, he was reunited with his brothers and father. With his position in Egypt, he was in a position of authority over his brothers, just as the dreams from God told him.
22 years went by – 22 years with a lot of roadblocks – until God’s plan for Joseph (which Joseph already knew about) was fulfilled.
What does he say to his brothers, when they are reunited?
Genesis 45:5: And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.
Don’t worry – it was God’s plan!
When we pray and wait on God, patience is necessary.
Paul writes in Philippians 4,6-7:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Paul does not write: pray once and file it away. He writes, pray “in every situation”
In every situation
That means always, and repeatedly, and then even more, etc.
That is praying without ceasing, without giving up, not because we think God is going to forget about us, but trusting fully that God has everything in his hand.
I want to refer back to two verses in the reading from Psalm 4, because I thing they fit well with constant praying and waiting on God.
Psalm 4,4-5:
Tremble and do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.
Offer the sacrifices of the righteous and trust in the Lord.
The ESV says in verse 4: “be angry, and do not sin.”
Just like our relationships with other people, we can experience impatience and even anger sometimes in our relationship with God.
Impatience can make us angry. We might as well admit it in prayer. Read through the Psalms. We see things like impatience, frustration, questioning, even anger. The Psalms do not pull punches. Whether David or another psalmist, all the frustration and anger is expressed to the Lord.
Why not? He knows what we are feeling anyway.
It is in prayer that we can be open and honest with the Lord. We can express what we are feeling. This prepares us to better understand those feelings.
Where does impatience with the Lord come from?
Impatience in waiting on God is often the result of our not understanding, how God wants to work in a situation.
How does that happen?
More often than not, it is because our expectations are turned around.
How often, when we pray, “God, show me a solution,” do we think “God, show me MY solution,” or “God, show me a solution I can live with?”
When I think about times in my past where I was disappointed with God, it was never because he did not answer, but because I was either not willing to wait for his answer or was not ready to accept the answer he gave.
When we pray for God to intervene in a situation – when we ask him to change a situation – we often do not that God may want to change us, rather than the situation.
We are always learning – we are always growing – we must never forget that.
Pray Without Ceasing
With our prayer – our unending prayer without giving up – we are keeping the line of communication with God open.
In our prayers, when we are praying as we ought, we should not only be talking to God – we should be listening.
We should always pray, that God’s will is done in every situation.
We should always ask God to show us, what we can learn from the situation.
We should always ask God whether he wants to change us instead of the situation, then ask him how and what he wants to change.
Finally, we should always ask the Lord what He would have US do.
We should always ask God to show us HIS way.
As we start out on our journey together, I want us to accompany every step of the journey with prayer.
We are going to be learning what it means to be the church after the past year-plus.
How do we do this? We start on our knees.
We pray individually.
We meet together and pray. There is something powerful about praying in a group - hearing others pray out loud and praying out loud ourselves. It is in these times I believe we experience the power of prayer the most.
Prayer binds us together. That is important. Remember, I need you, you need me, we need us!
As we look to move forward, let us be driven by the power of prayer.