We are taking a break from Romans 8 for a couple of weeks and I want to talk to you about prayer and fasting. Today addressing prayer, a certain kind of prayer. And next time on fasting. But I felt led of the Lord through a brother and some providential circumstances to take a couple weeks and address these topics. In Romans 8, you get high theology of who God is, his mighty power and unstoppable purposes. Which is good and ought to inspire and fuel prayer rather than dampen our desire for prayer. However, if we become imbalanced in our emphasis, it can do the latter rather than the former. So let’s jump right in to this parable that you probably have heard before. 

The Point of the Parable (v. 1)

The point of this parable is unambiguous. I love how clear this is. We don’t have to wonder at all what conclusion Jesus wants us to draw from this parable. It is clear. 

And [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. (v. 1)

And this answers two basic questions. When should we pray and how should we pray?

First, when should we pray? Well, always. We have all probably heard someone say and perhaps have said ourselves “Well, we’ve tried everything else. Let’s pray.” As though prayer were a last resort after talking to the experts and exhausting every other course of action. No, Luke says that Jesus told his disciples this parable to the effect that they ought always to pray. Always. We heard this last week when Reid unpacked for us 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. 

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Pray without ceasing, for this is God’s will for you. When we come to realize the immense privilege we have as God’s children and the responsibility we have as His ambassadors, incessant prayer makes sense.  

Not only that, but when we come to discern the access we have to God because the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God on our behalf, interceding for us, why wouldn’t we pray always. Furthermore, we have the indwelling Spirit who helps us to pray, empowers our prayers. So when should we pray? Always. “They ought always to pray…”

Second, how should we pray? With energy. And I don’t mean with outward, physical energy necessarily, but with spiritual energy. Jesus told this parable so that we would always pray and not lose heart. And this is for good reason. Because we sometimes do lose heart! The phrase to “lose heart” means to be exhausted, to be weary, to faint, to be spiritless. So the opposite is to pray with an indomitable spirit. To pray with energy. James tells us that a certain kind of prayer accomplishes much and it is “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man…” 

[transition: But it’s the parable that gives legs to what this looks like and it is really instructive.] 

Petitionary Prayer

And this is a parable specifically on what I’d call petitionary prayer. So this is not just prayer that talks to God, which is good. But Jesus’ teaching here is specifically on prayer of petition. Asking God, calling out to God to do something for you or for someone else. It is calling on God to intervene. I just read Psalm 107 Friday morning. There is a remarkable pattern in the chapter. I encourage you to read it later today. Four times it says God’s people were in trouble - sometimes due to their own sin:

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. (Psalm 107:6, 13, 19, 28)

The entire Psalm is a reminder of the goodness and steadfast love of the LORD to his redeemed people; the people whom he has redeemed from trouble. So Jesus tells this parable and in this parable we see 1) the essence of petitionary prayer and 2) the execution of petitionary prayer. 

1) The Essence of Prayer: Rebelling Against the Status Quo

The woman refused to accept her injustice. (v. 2-3)

He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’”

I think right here, we see the essence of petitionary prayer. The woman refused to accept her plight, her injustice. And we too should refuse to accept the world in its fallenness. This is rebelling against the status quo. I think this applies in our lives on a personal level, to our families, our community, our church, our nation. In James 5, we hear the instruction, “Is anyone suffering? Let him pray.” It is in this context that we hear the well known verse, which I remember from long ago in the KJV, “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth (accomplishes) much.” 

Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s prayer to bring petitions to God. It is all petitions (go thorough), until you get to that last phrase that is not in all the manuscripts, but is worth saying: “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen.” But the rest of the prayer is full of petitions. David Wells wrote that petitionary prayer flourishes when we are convinced that:

God’s name is hallowed too irregularly, his kingdom has come too little, and his will is done too infrequently and when we believe that God can do something about it.

Petitionary prayer rebels against the status quo. Which means we need to recognize the status quo. We need to recognize what isn’t right. We need to have clarity on how things have gone awry from God’s intent and push back against it. Darkness, sin, evil, injustice, sickness. We sing the words during the Christmas season “He comes to make his blessing flow as far as the curse is found.” We understand that it will be at Christ’s second coming when his Kingdom comes in its fullness that the effects of the curse will be completely reversed, but his kingdom has come and we are to pray that it comes more, even now. 

And of course, we see in the gospels that Jesus went about proclaiming and bringing the good news of the Kingdom. He preached repentance and cast out demons, healed the sick, and destroyed the works of the devil. And when this truth of the kingdom permeates our thinking, we pray accordingly; we will pray for the King to exercise his power and dominion and destroy the works of the devil.

The essence of petitionary prayer is rebelling against all that is wrong in our lives, our families, our city, our nation, and so forth. 

2) The Execution of Petitionary Prayer: it perseveres

And there was a widow in that city who kept coming… (v. 3)

For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice.” (v. 4-5)

The woman persevered with her case. She did not take no for an answer. She didn’t relent until she received what she sought. This is important! Of course, God is not an unjust judge and we do not come with a demanding, bossy attitude to God. He is God. Nevertheless, we must remember this is Jesus telling us to pray always and not lose heart. He is the one telling us to learn something from how the woman in the parable kept coming, pleading her case. 

This is not the only time Jesus teaches on persevering prayer. In Luke 11 he tells another parable about a man who goes to his friend at midnight to ask for bread because someone was coming into town and he needed something to give him to eat. At first the friend brushes him off, because it’s midnight, but eventually gets up and gives him what he asks for. And Jesus makes it clear that he gives it to him not on the basis of their friendship, but because the man would not take no for an answer. He was persistent.  

And then Jesus jumps out of the parable and tells us the meaning of it. And he says, Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. But more literally it says, 

Keep asking and it will be given to you, keep seeking and you will find, keep knocking and the door will be opened. For everyone who keeps asking receives, and the one who keeps seeking will find, and to the one who keeps knocking the door will be opened. (Luke 11:9-10)

People used to use the phrase “praying through”. Continuing to pray. The puritans used to say “pray until you pray” as a way to communicate this. A man named R.A. Torrey, who died about 100 years ago said the following:

Oh, men and women, pray through; PRAY THROUGH! Do not just begin to pray and praise a little while and throw up your hands and quit, but pray, and pray, and pray, until God bends the heavens and comes down!

Brothers and sisters, we need to learn to pray like this. To always pray and not lose heart. To rebel against the status quo, and not let God go until he blesses us. 

Here is a question I have and I think we ought to consider. Why? Why does Jesus tell us to pray and continue praying? Why is persevering prayer apparently effective? Couldn’t God answer our prayers the first time we ask? Doesn’t he know what we need and want? Isn’t God omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent? Isn’t God totally sovereign, sitting in the heavens, doing what he pleases? YES!

I think it is important to think through this because I don’t believe we need to adopt a lower, sub-Christian view of God in order to pray this way. This parable and teaching as well as the entire bible assumes that the God we pray to actually has the power to do the things we ask him. I remember John Piper once saying that when people ask him why pray if God is sovereign over everything, to which he answered, “Why pray if He’s not?” We actually believe that God is powerful and that nothing is impossible for Him. Okay, so why persevering prayer? Why ask and keep asking? I am sure more could be said, but I’d like to give you two reasons. 

1) God loves to give us victory through battle. In the NT, we hear the metaphor of battle and being soldiers quite often. And in the OT, there was literal warfare throughout. So warfare is a theme in scripture. God’s people fighting God’s enemies. And there are times in the bible when God just works unilaterally and triumphs over his enemies (2 Kings 19, Assyrians, Hezekiah, Isaiah, 185,000 destroyed). And there are times when God triumphs over his enemies through his people going onto the battlefield and fighting. And this is the key: Either way, God gives the victory. Ephesians 6:12 says, 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Do you know how that section ends? Four times Paul says to pray. So we put on the armor of God and pray, pray, pray, pray. Colossians 4:12 says that Epaphras served the Colossian Chrsitians by “always struggling on their behalf in his prayers, that they may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” So this is the way God loves to give us victory - persevering in prayer. So pray and do not lose heart.

2) The perseverance and endurance gained when we persist in prayer is a good thing. In fact, perseverance is a glorious quality God wants to work in us. James 1:2 says, “Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds…” Sometimes the trials we meet are not only the things we need deliverance from, but also in the persisting in prayer without the answer yet. God is doing a good work even while we ask and seek and knock. [Transition: Well, Jesus ends this instruction on prayer with hope and a challenge.]

Hope and Challenge. First, hope (v. 6-7)

And the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. (v. 6-7)

When we pray in this way. Rebelling against the status quo, persisting in our requests to God, He will answer, He will give justice, He will deliver. That’s the hopeful expectation we can have in prayer. We understand that there are times when our prayers are not answered in the way we want or at the time we want. God's ways are not ours, neither are his thoughts our thoughts. [John Quincy Adams (tell the story): “The duty to pray is ours. The results belong to God”]. 

But, I believe God’s children should often experience answers to our petitions. Then we get to verse 8 and hear what I think ought to challenge us; it kind of arrests us.Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? (v. 8)

Without getting into eschatalogical systems here, the thing that I think we need to ask is what kind of faith is Jesus talking about here? Because whatever faith it is, it is the kind of faith we want. I don’t think it is saving faith. I don’t believe Jesus is wondering whether he will find any Christians. I think what Christ is talking about faith that is demonstrated through perseverance.. Faith that prays always and doesn’t lose heart. Faith-filled prayers that rebel against the status quo and perseveres until God brings deliverance; the help we need.

I hope it goes without saying that our God is not an unjust judge. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you are in Christ, He is your Father who delights to welcome you to Himself to pour out your heart to Him; to ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking. He is your Father who delights to give what is good to his children in answer to such prayers. 

If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things? (Matthew 7:11)

And so pray always and never lose heart! Let’s pray.