See All Sermons in This Series

Summary:

Why is prayer so hard? Why is it so hard to continue in prayer? Jesus says through this parable in Luke 18 that it has to do with how we understand God. Does he care? Is he just? Can we trust him? In this short parable, Jesus compares and contrasts an unjust judge with God himself. If an unjust judge will eventually yield to the persistent pleading of a widow, will God hear us? Well, is God just? Does he care? What do you think? Your prayer life will answer that questions for you.

Excerpt

Whose works matter? Yours' or Jesus'? Salvation by faith or salvation by works? Prosperity gospel is a perversion of the Gospel. Prosperity gospel is not true. God will come. Your waiting will not be in vain. You're crying for justice, and your desire for the kingdom of God to come to earth, as in heaven, will be met. Those desires, those hopes are not in vain. Your cries "God, have mercy on us. Deliver us from this unjust world with such corruption and greed, hatred, wrongdoing, God deliver us from our adversaries," those cries, God will hear those. The second pretty basic main point again, God is your hope. God is your hope. He hears your prayers, and he is your hope.

So last week, think about this passage that we saw last week, last week, chapter 17. It began, of course, with the Pharisees coming to Jesus and asking this question, "hey, when will the kingdom of God come?" And we talked about how we're all obsessed about time and when and God, Jesus, never seems to be concerned with that question very much. And then we heard about how his disciples seemed to have that nagging question too, and he begins to talk to them. And he says, "the days will come when you desire to see the Son of Man, and you will not see him."

Now, we talked about how there was a there's sort of an immediate fulfillment of that the reality that Jesus is actually taken from them, and he's put up on a cross, and he's in the tomb. But there's also this, this story of the long history of the Christian Church, where we long for God to come into the present. The persecuted church knows this far better than we do. But we all ache for the Son of God to be revealed the Son of man in this passage to be revealed Jesus Himself and His kingdom to come. We longed for it. And what Jesus told us last week is that there's a temptation in this longing, because the longing just seems to go on and go on and go on. And the temptation is to give in to all the pleasures of this world as if they were at the pleasures of this world is all you're gonna get and so just take it. He talks about of course, the days of Noah when people are eating and drinking and marrying and buying and selling and doing all this stuff, and they're just oblivious to God. Might as well take it while you can get it. Because after all, hey, life is so painful and there's no end to this injustice. God's ear has not been bent towards us. And a temptation is given, that's the preceding passage, of course, the end of the passage that we had read for us this morning and Luke says this using this same language actually, for God, the Son of Man, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Will he find faith in you? Will you continue when his people cry out to Him to bring in his kingdom to return to Earth to bring down the proud and the greedy and the self serving to vindicate those who have trusted in him. And when they see no sign of his answering, when it seems as though they keep coming, and the judge has no ears for them. Well, they grow so discouraged that they will simply give up loose heart that discouragement will you cease crying out cease praying. We may pray week in week out here. Thy kingdom come with our desire for Christ's kingdom diminishes. After the long time of waiting, wondering "God, do you hear at all? Are you the place of our hope?"

Second Peter 3:8, probably many of you know this, tells us that 1000 years is like a day to the Lord. So you could say "hey, we've only waited two days." But that's not your experience. It's not your experience. It may be a comfort to us that God's timing is absolutely perfect. And it is and I absolutely have the part of what Jesus is saying is when he is glorified, and when his kingdom comes, we're going to think 2000 years was nothing compared to eternity, nothing. But it's a long wait a long time to wait for justice to be brought to the corrupt. For greed to be done away with. And our hatred of these things boils over in our impatience seems to get the best of us. Lord says he's coming quickly.

Previous Page