Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture Reading

Introduction

Prayer is essential to the Christian life.

The mission field calls for prayer.

Godliness is abounding in many respects in the world.

Churches are without power.

Many have turned to gimmicks and to entertainment.

There is a power that we may have

Acts 6:

1. Persistence in Prayer (v.1)

As we come to this text, the first thing that we must see is that Christ is instructing his disciples on the importance of the duty of prayer.

Immediately in the first verse, we see that Christ would share a parable with his disciples, a picture story, in order to show them the great importance, not only of praying, but of praying persistently, and continuing in prayer.

It is a sad reality that we very often begin praying about things, particularly things that we really desire, and we believe are good things, but in due course that praying begins to fade.

But we must realise that to stop praying, or to give up on prayer would amount to sinful negligence.

It reminds me of the account of Samuel who said to the nation Israel, “far be it from me to sin against you by failing to pray for you.”

He was a man who continually prayed for the nation Israel, and considered it a sin to fail in this regard.

So it is with us if we would fail to pray.

To neglect prayer is to sin against God and against those for whom we ought to be praying.

This is a command from God’s word to His people.

Now, the reality is that prayer is something we all struggle with.

It is not natural or easy to pray to God as we ought.

Many things may affect our prayer life.

Physical weakness

There is our lazy lack of discipline; we simply do not make the time to spend time alone with God in prayer.

There is our callous indifference to a world in need, which ought to be driving us to our knees.

There is our false sense of independence; even if we never come right out and say it, we think we are managing so well on our own that we hardly need to pray.

We don’t have the time - we’re too busy to pray!

Too much to get done.

There is our lack of faith in the promises of God.

Then there is our outright rebellion: the Spirit calls us to pray, but we refuse.

But sometimes, the people of God stop praying because they lose heart.

As they bring their petitions and requests before God, they long to hear an answer from God, but that answer simply doesn’t seem to be coming.

Sometimes a person may be praying for their sick loved ones to be healed, but the healing doesn’t seem to come.

In fact, the opposite happens.

Some may be praying for God to provide employment - a good and necessary thing in life… but although they keep praying, the work / job never seems to arrive.

Some of our younger people may have been praying for a partner in life, but the right person just never seems to arrive.

There are many good things that are asked for, and seem to not come.

And over time, people may become discouraged.

No doubt, this is the reason that Christ would seek to encourage his disciples through this parable.

We read in verse 1 that the specific purpose of Christ teaching his disciples from this parable is in order to show them that they must always pray and never give up.

Christ is teaching His disciples, and us as Christians today, that we must learn the important lesson of being persistent in our prayers.

We must Persevere in Prayer!!

2. The Parable on Prayer (vv.2-5)

2.1.

An Uncaring Judge

Christ firstly introduces the scenario of a judge in a particular town.

As people who live in society, we know well the requirements of judges.

They are employed in order to bring about justice.

They stand as those who ought to be carrying out the task of ensuring the justice of those mistreated, and the punishment of those who do evil.

The task of the judge was to judge people's cases with integrity and honesty.

In that account of Moses being snowed under with hearing the cases of the people of Israel, you will recall that his father-in-law Jethro witnessed the scenario, and then counseled Moses to institute a system whereby particular men were appointed, capable men, who could judge the less complex cases.

This would lighten his load, and then they would only bring the more complex cases to Moses.

But we see in that account that Jethro called upon Moses to appoint a particular quality of leader.

There were character qualities that were to mark such a person.

In the account of this parable as Jesus portrays it, however, this judge didn’t have any of the character qualities that would fit a person of such a position.

According to the parable, Jesus says that this judge didn’t fear God, and didn’t care about people.

Aren’t these the two primary qualities that ought to mark the person in such a position?!

This man simply didn’t care, and all he cared about was himself, and doing what pleased him.

Christ is painting here a picture of the most untenable situation one could imagine.

A unjust judge, and one whose not ashamed to flaunt those areas of his person

2.2.

A Persistent Widow

As Christ continues, the next character in this parable is someone that is the polar opposite of the judge.

The Judge was in the position of power and authority.

He was in a position where he had means.

He would have been someone looked up to in society, simply because of his position as judge.

He would have had the ability to wield extensive power in order to bring about changes.

Obviously, he was using all of that in a very wrong manner.

Nonetheless, this was his position of power.

But now, in steps a widow who is bringing her just cause before this judge in order to find reasonable justice.

Widows in that day were probably in the most sorry state that a person could be in.

Usually they had no work, and thus could not provide an income for themselves.

In societies of that day in general, they were in places of no power and authority.

They didn’t hold power to anything at all.

They were among the most defenseless of all people, along with children.

What ought to have been to this widows benefit was that God had been clear in His word on the importance of ensuring justice and care for such widows.

As Jesus thus told his parable to his disciples, they would immediately have understand the parable within the context of their own world.

A judge ought to have placed special care to defend the cause of this widow as she would bring her case to the judge of her town.

But this judge would have nothing of it.

His lack of fear of God, and lack of concern for people, led him to do nothing.

But notice that the widow kept on coming to the judge.

And this is precisely the emphasis that Jesus wants to bring from this picture.

He wants to show the importance of persisting in bringing a just cause before the judge.

According to the parable, This lady was faced with an adversary.

Besides the usual struggles of a widow trying to get by in life, there was some adversary that had either exploited her, or was continuing to work against her.

I want us to pause and consider for a moment the challenge that this woman would have faced.

2.3.

A Grave Injustice

Notice that the initial response of this unjust judge was to refuse help.

This is precisely the kind of response that is typical of sinful, hardened humanity.

This is the kind of response that you would expect from a judge whose heart is hardened.

In this parable, Jesus says that this judge did this "for some time."

In terms of the parable, we don't know why he refused.

Jesus doesn't include that as part of the parable itself

However, in terms of real life events.... things we know from our own world, there are many reasons that people are denied true justice, or why things don’t happen that ought to happen.

Ideas?

Sometimes, it's not beneficial to the person who has the power to do right, to do so.

They have no personal gain.

Perhaps the person that deserves justice has no financial resources, but the person that they're contending with does.

If you have a person given to corruption, they will most likely side with the one with resources.

This is such a prevalent scenario in South Africa!! Sadly!

Sometimes the person that is able to give justice, or to carry out that which is rightly due, and would be beneifical, is just plain difficult.

They don't want to do their jobs.