MK040 Sermons
Persistence (Audio)
A few years ago my wife and I bought a van from my father-in-law and at the time it seemed like a great idea. My father-in-law is very meticulous in his care for his cars and so I knew that not only would it have not no squeaks and rattles but you know it would be in great condition inside now and it was a reasonable price and so that seemed like a good idea. The one challenge that we faced with buying the car from my father-in-law is he lived in Mountain New Brunswick and we live here in Denver, Pennsylvania and so there seemed to be an urgency about selling the car at that moment in time so we said okay let's find a way to make all this work and make all this happen and so what we did is my wife and I flew up in New Hampshire running a car, drove up to the border crossing there where we normally cross over in a Canada and they drove from New, from Moncton down and seemed like it was a great idea. It shouldn't be too much difficulty to swap vehicles and goo the title of transfer and everything. So we met there prepared to pick up the car and turn around and drive home. It's about a 10 hour drive, 10, 11 hour drive home so we thought we can do this and we go in there, fill out the paperwork, you don't have the right paperwork, like what do you mean we don't have the right paperwork, you've got to go to talk to this person so we're over and talk to this person and they're like you got to wait, somebody's going to be back in a few hours so we waited a few more hours, you've got to go talk to this person so we're over and talk to this person. Well needless to say 36 hours later after staying in a dive of a hotel what the only thing that we had was the clothes that we had on our back, you know overnight, you know sharing a hotel room with my in-laws, you know that was an experience in itself, you know just with all you got is a clothes you have on your back, nothing else you know and we got all through all of that and still didn't have the title transferred to the car so like you know what we're going home and hope we don't get it pulled over you know so we drove home and had the name of a guy that we're supposed to call and every promise this guy he never came through on one day when he told me he's going to have something there, have something available for me. So I started calling this guy after he missed one of the two of the deadlines, I started calling this guy every three days, I was on the phone with him, it took me four months to get that title transferred and apparently when you, there's cars made in Canada for Canadians they don't like them to be sold to Americans, it's a kind of a messy thing but anyway so if I would not have been persistent in trying to get that title we would not have had the title for the car and it required persistence on my part over and over and over and over again for that to happen. And this morning we're going to talk about this idea of persistence and as you think about things that are persistent in your life I thought about some that are persistent in my life the first one that came to mind is our dog Casey you know when Casey wants her head scratched she will find your hand wherever your hand is and get her head underneath your hand so that you will scratch your head and she will keep at it and keep at it, Casey leave me alone go down, go down, go down you know and even after you scratch her she wants more, she wants more, it's never enough you know there's when I thought of those individuals that are persistent I thought of this next slide you know sometimes our kids can be persistent you know and they don't let up and they even call you on their cell on your cell phone in the middle of church services when they need you you know that's how persistent they can be and oh you guys weren't in that service when she did that last year she did that earlier than me this year Alicia did so but our kids can be very very persistent not only can our kids be persistent but our spouses can be persistent and sometimes our spouses are gracious and they're bringing their request and they make the request over and over again if we don't hear their request and honor their request they up the ante and then they get a little bit more you know a little bit more boisterous and so sometimes it's our spouses sometimes it can be at work you know you need someone to get a project done and you need someone to be there show up for a meeting you need someone to take a day for you so you can go somewhere and do something to the family and you are persistent to get them to do that maybe one of the worst ones is when you've got a bill that's due and you know that they're coming after you and you've not sure what to do but I don't know if you can think of things in your life where you are persistent or you're persistent this morning we're going to talk about being persistent not with one another not with our dog or kids or spouse we're going to talk about being persistent with God and as we think of as I think about that and I think about being persistent with God and the dynamic that has with prayer I realize that it affects everybody in this room because the reality is regardless of where you're at in your faith journey whether you're a person of deep faith or you're a person of you know moderate faith you're the person that is not even sure what your faith is this morning nearly everybody I know when life comes to a point of crisis they find themselves persistently calling out to God and so the range is very broad the range is very broad and this morning I want to suggest something to you that the way in which you call out to God the way in which you pray your persistence in prayer is controlled by your view of God as your father how you view prayer reflects how you view God as your father and this morning we're going to look at another parable we've been in a series if you haven't been with us this summer entitled the parables of Jesus and we're going to look at these are stories that Jesus told about matters of faith and about how life works and these are not bedtime stories or fairy tale stories these are stories with the twist stories with an unexpected ending stories that you can't always figure out and stories that usually blindside you when you find yourself in the story somewhere along the way if you have your Bibles if you would turn to Luke 12 with me this morning Luke 12 if you have a on your phone or on a mobile device you can connect on the on our network here and just find it there at Luke 12 if you don't have a Bible our guys have some and they'll pass those out to you love to have you follow along with us this morning I'm sorry Luke 18 Luke 18 we're in Luke 12 last week Luke 18 if you don't have a Bible feel free to take the one that the guys are passing out with you as your own so that you can review this during the week Luke 18 let me read the first couple verses of the story then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they would all that they should always pray and not give up 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 for some time he refused but finally said to him 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 the story opens with Jesus talking to his audience his audiences is his disciples a small select group of followers that were there with him and as he's talking to this group of followers he does something that he really doesn't do and hardly any other parable he tells them what the point of the parable is somewhat odd he said this parable is about praying and not giving up it's about persistence it's about persistence the other thing that's interesting about this timing of this parable is Jesus is just about to move into the city of Jerusalem and the event that we know as Passover and begin what's often called holy week and so right at the beginning of that time right as that time is about to take place he has this prayer about persistence and we're going to see some more elements of that prayer that's taking place but he talks about persistence and persistence and prayer is something that the Jewish people knew about the Israelites knew about that they knew about a story in their history about a man by the name of Elijah who is a prophet of God a spokesperson for God and he prayed and it stopped raining for three years probably the people in California wonder who's been praying that prayer out there for them you know as they're very very drought stricken out there but then at the end of that three years he said God now it's time to bring rain and the servants like it's not rain he's like go look up on the hillside the servant went up and looked and he's like there's no rain and he came back and I just said go back up seven times he sent this guy up finally the guy said there's a rain cloud the size of man's fist on that I mean Elijah said we better high tail it out of here because it's coming and it certainly did so they knew not only the story about that they also they also knew the story about a man by the name of Nehemiah who after the people of Israel were taken captive by a foreign nation and lived there for 70 years Nehemiah was lived and then he worked in the King's house and he heard about how his homeland had been devastated and been destroyed and wiped out and the Bible says and in the book of Nehemiah it says that he wept and fasted and prayed for days on end asking God for an answer and for direction Jesus followers knew about this because they knew earlier and when Jesus was confronted by a woman from Syria and this woman came to Jesus said Jesus my daughter is possessed by a demon and this causing physical harm can you do something about this Jesus didn't even acknowledge her and she got and got more aggressive and said Jesus can't you do something about my daughter's condition and he said why are you coming to me she said if you just offered some bread crumbs at your table I would come and get something from you Jesus said I've not found this kind of faith anywhere in Israel and he said your daughter is going to be healed today and so the Jewish people the followers of Jesus they knew about persistence they knew what that was all about and this story there's two central characters a judge in a widow let's talk about those two individuals for a moment the judge in verse two look how it describes this judge it says that he didn't fear God and he didn't care what people thought so really he didn't care what God thought he didn't care what people thought he had no spiritual or moral guide post in his life no sense of shame and a shame on our culture in those days when you found yourself in a predicament and you weren't sure where to do where to go and you were at the end of your options you would say for the sake of God will you give in and will you give me what I want or what I need that didn't work with this guy he didn't care what God thought if that didn't work someone you sometimes you would say just for my sake would you do this just for me that didn't work with this guy because he didn't care about you either as I thought about this I thought I wonder if the reason that Jesus used the judge who is like this is because it reflected the view of God by people in that culture they were religious people they were Jews but what did they believe to be true about God they believe that God was there that he was present but that he was somewhat distant somewhat unengaged with the challenges that they were facing in their lives somewhat maybe preoccupied that the only way you could get his attention is maybe what this woman ends up doing because you're not that high of a priority for him the other character in the story is a widow she was probably known by her distinct clothing widows would wear dark colored clothing to signify the loss that they had experienced in their lives widows faced a very difficult path in that culture because women in that day usually married when they were young when they were 13 14 and 15 is when they would get married and they would usually marry someone who was quite a bit older someone who was in their late 20s when who was settled and established so you can imagine what would happen is these men would get older and lifespans were much shorter that they would eventually die and there was a large number of women who were widowed at a very young age that's why in the story of acts when Luke is writing in the book of acts and he says we've got to take care of all of these widows because there was a large number of them was part of the culture of that day and widows when they when their husbands passed away they were left in a very difficult situation because what would often happen is if they were married and they and their husband owned some property the property would not automatically revert to them they would lose the property that was there they usually had a couple of options one option was to go and live with their in-laws and that wasn't a good option as some of you can imagine you know they would usually be put to work and consider to slave and just be given tasks to do and be viewed in a very menial way you say well maybe they could go back to their family maybe they could go back to their parents and so that would be an option for them to consider but if they would do that when they were originally married their father would pay a dowry to their his future son-in-law and she was responsible to return that dowry to her parents and so she was left with nothing again sometimes they would just survive on the street sometimes they would be sold into slavery sometimes they would be left all along and the reality is is if she was coming to speak to this judge and she was by herself there was not a single male in her life they could go with her and speak for her there was not a husband there was not a father there was not a brother there was not an uncle there was not a nephew there was no one who could speak for her I have an aunt who lives in the city of Lancaster and she's never been married and every once and while she'll call me on the phone and she calls me Jonathan my full name and she says Jonathan can you help me I'm really kind of in a difficult spot and she said I've got so and so on the phone and if you would just talk to them on the phone then maybe you can get through to them and unfortunately sometimes just hearing my voice is able to get something done for her that she can't get done on her own and that's the condition this woman was in there was no one to speak for her so what was she requesting in verse three it was her request grant me justice against my adversary she's not asking for more than she deserves she's not asking for something that wasn't due or she's just asking for justice against someone who is taking advantage of her we don't know who we don't know what we don't know why it could have been someone was supposed to provide a place for her to live and they weren't coming through on their word it could have been someone who was going to provide some work for her and had been promised and then they backed away on that could have been someone who was potentially posing a physical harm and threats her we don't really know there was just some form of injustice that was taking place in this woman's life and even though widows were left in a pretty difficult spot women in that culture were generally taken care of it's a little bit like the stories that I've heard when our country was being settled and if you traveled in the west you know guys they could do take advantage of other guys they could you know beat them up steal from them rob from them you know harm them and if you could get away with it without the law affecting you you were fine but don't anybody touch a woman are you in serious serious trouble and so there was this sense that she was due she was owed this level of protection for her her request was not unreasonable but against all odds she didn't have any other choice because the judge didn't care about God he didn't care what God said about taking care of widows and orphans God was very specific about their care he didn't care about this woman and so what was the only card that she had left and that card that she had left was the card of persistence looking verse four this is what happened so for some time he refused but finally said to himself even though I don't really give a rip about God and I don't really care about this woman he said because she keeps bugging me I want to make sure she gets justice because actually I don't want her to come and attack me it was really all about him it's really all that it was about you know and as you read this story so the judge finally gives in he finally brings about justice as you read this story you almost anticipate knowing what the purpose of the story was in the very beginning that Jesus said you almost anticipate now for this woman to be praised in some way for her to be applauded for her persistence for to be celebrated because of her faith for her devotion for her commitment to justice and what was right you almost expect that to be what shows up in the story and if like most of people that we think of the woman being like us and God being like the judge what would you think about God you probably think well he really doesn't care about what is true he really doesn't care about people the only way you can get his attention is if you nag the daylight out of him and then he'll give in not because he really cares about you or you're important to him just because he wants you off his back and he doesn't want to risk you doing something worse down the road so why do people find themselves being persistent with God you know as I thought about it I thought rarely do we find ourselves persistent with God for selfish reasons because it's something I want but usually it's something that matters deeply to us it might be a spouse that's committed themselves to you at one time in your life and now their heart has been hardened and they want nothing to do with you might be a child who sat next to you in church and said that they believed in God but as they got to the point of making their faith their own they said that's for you mom and dad that's not for me maybe you were forced out of a job and the market seems really slim and you want to provide but there's just not opportunities maybe God has challenged you and given you this urge to this push to take a step to look at things deeper in your life and as you've cracked open those doors and pride those dead bolted pieces of your life open and ugly and stuff comes out you're like God what I need your help I can't deal with this where are you maybe you're facing injustice at work or in a family situation someone lied cheated stole took advantage of you did not do what was honorable or respectful and you're like God where's the justice in all of this you know I think for most of us especially if I look at my life I find myself responding in one of two categories when that happens sometimes it's resignation I've done everything I can I can't really do any more sometimes I'll pray and I'll ask God for help and I'll be persistent for a period of time and then I'm like all right well I guess he's not doing anything really do I find myself persistent with God persistent with God persistent with God until he does so so instead of focusing on praising this woman for her persistence when justice was due her Jesus ends the story in a little bit different way because instead of turning attention to her he turns his attention to God he doesn't even put God in the judge side by side and said well let's talk about this judge and let's talk about God let's see what the where the judges like God where the judges that doesn't he just turns his attention completely to God look what he says in verse 6 he says listen to what the unjust judge says and then by comparison he 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 it's as if he said if it took a woman nagging this judge to get his attention how much more do you think a God in the heavens who loves you who cares for you who is for you who will do whatever is best for you will show up in your life do you think he's going to put you off do you think he's going to ignore you Jesus talked about this earlier in Luke chapter 11 he tells another story look at the one that's going to come up on the screen he tells us this story says this suppose you have a friend you go to him at midnight and say friend let me some loaves of bread I have some company that's come from on a journey far away and I don't have food and suppose the person decides to don't bother me the door is already locked my kids and I are in bed you know that culture everybody slept in the same room so if you get woken up in the middle of the night guess what the cats up the dogs up the mules are up the chickens are up the kids are up you know your spouse is up everybody's awake you know so he's like don't wake anybody up get out of here leave me alone Jesus follows up that story with these words he says ask he says I tell you that you will not even get up and give the bread because of your friendship yet because of the shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you said your friendship isn't even going to get him out of bed but the fact that you are shamelessly persistent it's going to get him out of bed and then he says these words asking it will be given seek and you will find knock in the door will open anyone who asks receives seeks finds one and knocks the door will be open takes it to those verses about prayer again persistence persistence results in some then persistence results in God showing up and then he says this he says what father if his son ask him for a stone will not give him ask him for a fish will give him a snake and said or ask him for an egg will give him a scorpion that could hurt and harm him he says is that what your father in heaven is like is that what he's like no no and in Matthew he closes this section by saying this he says if 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 you see this judge you didn't care about God didn't care about people this woman nagged him enough that eventually she even got this awful judge to turn his heart towards meeting this woman's need and he says if you have a father in heaven who cares about you and here's your cry how much more will he meet the needs that show up in your life so what does justice look like I don't know I don't know I'm not quite sure and as I sat with this and I wondered why this judge why this judge and maybe this kind of a judge represents the view that the people of that day had a God and as I took a step back even further I said what is my view of God and where do I develop my view of God I certainly can develop my view of God here but my view of God usually results in the way I pray my view of God comes from my view of my dad that's when my view of God comes from when you think of your dad during your childhood years what comes to mind what words would you use to describe him would you describe him as engaged or distant angry or gentle strong abusive words would you describe your father as I think about my dad during that season of his life he was starting a church and working a full-time job and he had five kids under the age of about eight my dad was busy my dad wasn't really involved in my life very much I love my dad dearly but in that season of his life he was very disengaged he wasn't a part of it at all and as I sat with that and thought about that and thought is that the way I view God if you ask me I probably tell you from my head I don't view God that way I view God like we just read about but what does my prayer life look like and is there a connection between my view of my earthly father my view of my heavenly father and the way that I pray which is what I call to my father when I find myself faced with difficult situations sometimes in my own life journey sometimes something that you bring to me my first response is to talk about a solution to talk about what's going on to interact with you about where you are and what's happening in your life and I realized that my propensity my bent is to jump in and rescue and save and solve and fix and I think because I believe at the core of my being at some part that God is around aware these distance and he's not engaged and if he's not engaged then maybe I need to be the one that gets engaged and I need to be the one that gets involved and I might pray but prayer becomes an afterthought for me instead of the place I go to because I believe that there is a loving heavenly father who is willing and ready and able to quickly step in and do something for the ones he loves see this parable this story about persistence doesn't just end with persistence it ends with a view of God it ends with the view of God and as we think about our own lives we think about our view of God and we connect our view of God so the way that we pray we have to take a step back because our actions betray the beliefs at the core of who we are what does persistent prayer look like for you as prayer just kind of one of those things that shows up when life kind of goes bad and you're like I don't have anywhere else to turn I've tried everything I can I guess I better throw one up to God maybe prayer something that's a regular part of your life but it's kind of random it's kind of scattered it's on the run it's whenever you have a little bit of time and oh I should know I forgot maybe I better now and oh that's right that person told me that and oh yeah I should pray for this and you had a big thing I was prayer something that is a deep part of your personal life where there's a regular consistent persistent calling upon God for the things of your heart if you don't find yourself persistently praying to God about the aches of your heart what does this say about what you believe about God do you believe God really does what he wants do you believe prayer doesn't really matter do you believe God won't hear the prayers of the righteous that God won't bring justice in your lifetime our actions expose our beliefs and our beliefs are shaped about God or shaped by earthly father you say but John what do I do if that's true of what that relationship was like but I don't want that to be true of what I believe about my heavenly father some of that for us is to face the shortcomings that we grew up with see but my dad was a good man most of our fathers likely were but the truth is I'm a sinner every dad in this room is says a sinner every one of our fathers are sinners that means that they come up short just like every single one of us and we need to face those things and acknowledge those things grieve those things and in the grief and loss we discover a father who is always there for us who doesn't require us to pound our fist and shake our head just trying to get his attention say but John how does that work in my heart because God's not coming through and God's not showing up and God's not there and I have to tell you I don't have answers for all of those things I wish I did wish I did but in this story Jesus invites us to look at our level of persistence in prayer and to ask ourselves some really hard questions and say what is this expose about what I believe about the God of the heavens the one I claim to be my father what is this expose about my story that I need to walk into that I need to enter that I need to face I don't know about you but I often find myself praying for a little while and then just it just goes away it just goes away I don't like that why is that because of something I believe about God so I hope this morning you will look at your prayer life what does that look like how do you call upon God and not just say I'm gonna do a better job I'm gonna try harder I hope if you walk away if that's what you walk away if you kind of miss this morning because what God wants you this morning is to come and be encountered with who God truly is a God who loves you a God who's there for you a God who provides for you a guy who extends his grace and his mercy and his forgiveness to you a God who is for you as we close this morning I want to invite you just to spend a few minutes in prayer talking to God and maybe there's something on your heart that God's just stirred up and you're like I've kind of let that one go got it I'm just gonna take a few minutes and talk about that maybe God's exposed some things that are faulty beliefs about God himself that you just need to meet with him about so let's take about two minutes and describe the world. [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] God in the story the disciples were just about to enter the scariest time of their lives with Christ about to be unjustly home across wondering what you were up to what you were doing where you were the midst of all of that. You invite them to pray and keep praying and even they in the garden couldn't do that but then you remind them that there is a God in the heavens their God who loves them is there with them who will quickly bring about justice for his people. I wonder if Jesus was unsure if any of them would even be able to make it because he says when the Son of Man returns to this earth will he find people of faith. Just remind us how hard it is to do this God. I pray Father this morning we not only look at the way that we pray but we would look at why this is a barrier for us or a struggle and that we'd be willing to be confronted and exposed the view of God that you want to and that's for him this morning. God who's holding out on us not a God who's dangling this tree over our heads and trying to make us jump for it or but a God who's just waiting to pour out his blessings to be present with us no matter what the struggle is that we're facing for help us in this journey never to lose sight. In fact of how desperately we need you and that you'll be there for us. And you'll be great. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]