Don’t lose heart; Luke 18:1-8

There is a saying among some Bible commentators when the text reveals something obvious, that the key to understanding the passage is “hanging on the door.”  That simply means that the key is right there in the text, metaphorically on the outside of the door.  In a lot of the parables that Jesus gave the meaning was obscure, and often the disciples had to ask Him privately what they meant.  But in this case Luke presents the purpose of the illustration right at the beginning, hanging on the door. 

The key to understanding this parable then is right there in vs. 1. However, even though the text says that Jesus taught this parable “to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart” there is still some confusion among some people as to the principle being taught in this parable.  Is Jesus teaching that the way to get God to do what you want Him to do is just keep on pestering Him day and night until He finally relents and gives you what you want?  Is that what Jesus is saying in this parable?  I’m afraid that many television preachers who favor what is called the “word of faith” style of name it and claim it theology which is so prevalent today do in fact teach that is what Jesus is saying.  They say this is evidence that the key to getting what you want from your prayers is just being persistent, and sooner or later God will either get tired of your prayers and give you what you want, or He will reward your perseverance and give you what you want. But either way the end result is the same; that you get what you want.  And that encapsulates those kind of people’s doctrine concerning prayer.  God is kind of like a reluctant genie who needs to be prodded and bothered to the point of finally giving us what we want.

If you happen to hold that doctrine, then I am afraid that I am here to tell you that is not a Biblical view of God, first of all, and neither is it a Biblical view of prayer.  The key hanging on the door is that we are to always pray and not lose heart.  Always pray we should understand to some extent at least.  But what is meant by don’t lose heart?  What are we in danger of losing heart about?  Not getting that new car that I have been asking God for?  Is that it?  I would suggest that the context of this passage indicates that it  means a little more than that. 

First of all, losing heart is translated from the Greek word, “egkakeō”, (en-kä-ke'-ō) which means to lose heart or become discouraged.    Now why would the disciples become discouraged?  Well, the answer comes in the context of the preceding chapter.  Jesus presents this parable as a continuation of His teaching on the coming of the kingdom of heaven which started in vs. 20 of chapter 17. We are sometimes done a disservice by the relatively modern convenience of chapter and verse headings.  They weren’t there when Luke originally wrote the book.  They can be very helpful in helping us navigate through the Bible, but in cases like this we too often tend to see them as introducing an entirely new concept when actually that is not the case, it should be a continuation of what went before.. 

Now we looked at this passage in detail last week but it might help to have a quick review.  Starting in vs.20 Jesus presents some characteristics about the coming of the kingdom of God.  The first principle that He teaches is that it was already here.  The kingdom of God is where the King is.  And Jesus Christ was the incarnation of God Himself upon the earth.  So He says the kingdom of God is in your midst.  Jesus Christ was the kingdom of God realized.   He was the King prophesied in the Old Testament, coming from the throne of David, the Lion of Judah.  Yet though the kingdom was realized in Jesus Christ, it was still an invisible kingdom.  It was a spiritual kingdom.  It was inaugurated in Jesus Christ, and manifested in the lives of those who believed in Him and who had given their hearts to Him.  So the kingdom of God is simply Jesus ruling in the hearts of His people.  Those who have surrendered their lives to Him, are following Him and obeying His will.  Those people by the way are called the church of Christ.  The church then is the manifestation of the kingdom of God throughout the world.  That is how the kingdom operates and functions.  In and through the church.  The church is not a building, but a body of believers who are the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in them and empower them to live as God would have us live. 

But there is another stage of the kingdom of God which is yet to come.  And Jesus references that in vs. 22 to 37 of the last chapter.  This stage is the future consummation of the kingdom.  When the King comes back for His bride, the church, and He brings about the consummation of all things.  And the first thing He says about that time yet in the future is that (vs.22) “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.”  In other words, there is going to be a season after Jesus leaves Earth, when His followers are going to be longing for His return.  It’s going to seem like He has been gone forever.  Like He is never coming back. 

Peter spoke of that attitude that will be prevalent in those days in 2Pet. 3:3-4, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,  and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."  Now this is where the danger of losing heart comes in.  This is where the danger of becoming discouraged comes in.  God doesn’t act in the time frame that we thought He would.  He doesn’t fit into our patented doctrine of eschatology that we expected.  And so the danger is that we become discouraged, even disillusioned and fall away from the truth.  Jesus warned in Matthew 24 that the difficulty and discouragement of those days would be so great, that He says if it were possible, even the very elect would be misled into apostasy.

So in light of the context of this passage, I believe of this clearly shows that the reason that Jesus gives the disciples (and by extension to us) this parable is that when those discouraging times come, when we long for His coming and yet it seems like it will never come, that we would continue to pray and not lose heart.  He wants us to stay resolved in our faith and not lose hope of the King returning for His bride. 

I don’t know about you folks, but sometimes I must confess I get discouraged.  I begin to lose heart.  When I look at the political landscape in our country I become discouraged.  There is no salvation in Washington, I’m afraid.  When I see the moral decline in our society I sometimes lose heart.  It is a tough time to be a Christian. It’s a tough time to be a man, period.  It’s beginning to be a tough times for the church.  I fully expect that within a few years I will no longer be able to stand out here and preach with boldness the Word of God without being arrested.  Though persecution of the church is no where near the point where it was during the time of the Apostles, or even during the Middle Ages, yet I believe we are at a point in history where the persecution of the church is starting to ramp up.  People are starting to lose jobs because of their faith.  Christians are starting to experience difficulty maintaining their faith in the public arena.  If you stand up for your faith today on most college campuses you will bring on yourself a firestorm of ridicule and attacks.  They will more than likely require you to attend sensitivity training.  Judges are requiring businesses to not only accept but promote an ungodly lifestyle or face fines and possibly incarceration.  The government is trying to force abortion rights through health care legislation.  To quote the Revolutionary War hero Thomas Paine, “these are the times that try men’s souls.”

As Christians, we need more than ever to remember what Paul said in Phil. 3:20, that our citizenship is in heaven.  That is where we will finally one day fit in.  This world is not our home.  We are aliens living in a foreign country, longing for home.  Our hope is not in social programs, or political parties, or in new legislation.  Our hope is for Jesus Christ to return and vindicate His followers.  Our hope is for Jesus to make all things new; to create a new heaven and a new earth.  Our hope is for Jesus too put an end forever to sin and death and the devil.  Our hope is for a glorified body that will never die and never get sick and never grow old. Our hope is to see Jesus.

So Jesus presents this parable because He was concerned that the disciples would soon experience the kind of discouragement similar to that a wife who suddenly finds herself widowed.  He was going to Calvary to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin upon the cross.  He would rise from the dead, but after a few days would ascend into heaven with a promise that one day He would return again for those that remained faithful. And Jesus knew that most of them would die for the cause of Christ. So Jesus offers this parable to illustrate that in the days to come, they should always pray and not lose heart. 

Let’s look at the parable for a moment.  We could easily go off in all sorts of directions with this parable if we do not stay within the confines of the context that I just gave you.  Jesus is actually making a very simple point.  The first thing you should realize is that it was very common in those days to argue from the lesser to the greater.  This was the way that rabbis or teachers would present an argument.  If such and such is true in the lesser example, then it stands to reason that such and such is even more true in the greater example.  It was a graphic way of showing contrast and at the same time illustrating a greater truth.

And so Jesus begins this parable by inventing a story of an unrighteous judge.  Now this judge would be the lesser example.  Jesus says this unrighteous judge “did not fear God and did not respect man.”  This guy was in it for himself.  He was in it for money.  In that society, bribery was commonplace.  Most of the time the judges were political appointees.  And so they used these positions of power to feather their own nests.  It was practically expected.  And Jesus paints a pretty dark picture of this judge.  He isn’t going to do what is right because he loves God or because he has any love of his fellow man.  He was in it for himself. 

But Jesus says there is a widow that “kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’”  Now in that society a widow was a helpless individual.  She had practically no rights without a husband.  She may have had no source of real income.  She could not buy property.  She was the type of person that this unrighteous judge could care less about.  She had no political power, no money to offer, no husband to stand up for her.   And this judge could care less about this sort of person.  She had nothing to offer him.

But as we look at vs. 4, we see that even though this judge was a scoundrel, something about the woman’s persistence was enough to cause him to act on her behalf.  “For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’”  Now that is the parable;  even though he didn’t respect her, doesn’t love God or people, even though he is only out for himself, yet because she is persistently being a bother to him, even to the point of wearing him out, he decides to act on her behalf.  The Greek there is actually saying she gives him a black eye.  I think we would say it like this;  “she is beating me up”.  The woman was relentless.  And he figures it would be easier to answer her than have to look forward to seeing her show up at his court every day.  So the judge and the widow is the lesser example. 

Jesus now uses that lesser example to contrast with the greater example.  Vs. 6, “And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge *said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? “I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly.”  If such help is given by an unrighteous judge to someone he considers a nobody, then how much more will the righteous God bring about justice for his elect who cry to Him day and night?  Will He delay long over them?  Obviously, the answer is that the righteous God will answer His people’s prayers to Him for deliverance.  He will not delay any longer than necessary to bring about justice for the elect.  See the elect are not just nobodies.  The world may think you don’t matter.  That being a Christian is equivalent to being a loser.  They may think that what we suffer is insignificant.  But it is not so with God.  We are His chosen ones, the bride of Christ.  We are of such value to God that He gave Jesus up to suffer and die for us that He might bring us to Himself.  How much more then will the righteous God bring about justice for His people?

But the problem for most of us is that our timetable is not on par with God’s timetable.  Our agenda is not God’s agenda.  And so we become impatient.  We lose heart, because we don’t get what we want when we want it.  Going back to the reference in 2 Peter we looked at earlier, 2Pet. 3: 8-9 says, “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” 

See the Lord is not slow because He is sleeping or preoccupied.  He doesn’t need to be roused, to be prodded in order to help His people.  But the Lord has a time schedule that is  eternal in scope, whereas ours is temporal.  The years of our lives slip by and we scurry around, worrying about all these temporal things, feeling the weight of every hour and every second.   And yet against the scale of eternity, our lives are but a vapor, here for a few seconds and then gone. 

I was trying to explain this concept of time last Wednesday evening at our Bible study where we had several young people in attendance.  And I said that when we have lived a thousand years with God in eternity, it will be like only one day.  And then we live another thousand years and in eternity it is only like having been alive two days.  Can you imagine that? So God’s timetable is different than ours.

But in addition to the principle of eternity is the idea of God being patient with mankind, to give them time to repent.  “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”  This is where Jesus reveals the heart of God.  Yes, God is pictured as a Judge, coming in the consummation to bring judgment to the Earth.  But God is a reluctant judge.  He isn’t willing for any to perish. 

We saw that in the last chapter in the illustration given of Noah and the ark which we looked at last week.  Peter says concerning the days of Noah in 1Peter 3:20 that the patience of God kept waiting.  Waiting for what?  What was God being patient about?  Well the answer is He was waiting for people to repent.  The Bible says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and that he built an ark for 120 years after God pronounced judgment upon the earth.  For 120 years God kept waiting for people to repent at the preaching of Noah.  And yet they did not repent.

So if our persistent prayer is not necessarily designed to get God to act according to our timetable, or to act on our agenda, then what exactly is prayer designed to do?  I think the answer is found in the last question Jesus asks there in vs. 8, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”  Prayer is designed to keep us strong, to keep us from losing heart, from becoming discouraged.  It is to bring us into communion with God, to see God’s perspective, to dialogue with God.  Prayer is designed to keep us in the faith. 

Now once again, Jesus brings us back to the real point of this illustration.  He says in vs. 8 “that when the Son of Man comes” will He find faith on the earth.  The emphasis I want to bring out is “when the Son of Man comes” should serve to keep us on track here in the exegesis of this parable.  The parable is about not losing heart because the Lord seems to delay His coming.  It’s about not losing heart in service to the Lord, in the trials and tribulations that accompany salvation.  Did you know that Jesus promises tribulations for His followers?  John 16:33, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”  And because Jesus overcame sin and death and the world and hell and rose again from the grave He now sits on the Father’s right hand and will return again to take out His church, the faithful.

So then how are we to pray?  First of all, Jesus says pray always.  Pray always.  You know, every day I have the intention that today I am going to exercise.  Today I am going to work out.  I have that intention.  I mean well.  But I have learned that unless I purposefully plan a time to work out and then go to that place, it just doesn’t happen.  The day slips by and I lay in bed at night and say, O my, I forgot to work out today.  Or I didn’t have time to work out today.  And I’m afraid that prayer is a lot like that.  I need to schedule prayer.  I got smart one day and decided to combine my prayer and my workout.  So now when I run that is my time to pray.  I run mostly through rural farm roads near my house.  So I can pray out loud and it doesn’t bother anyone.  And I’ve found that works for me.  Maybe you have a long commute to work when you can pray.  But bottom line, if you want to be found faithful, you will make prayer a priority in your life. 

Jesus was our best  example of prayer, wasn’t He?  The Bible says He regularly went away by Himself to pray, sometimes all night.  If Jesus needed to pray, how much more do we need to pray? 

Remember on the night that Jesus was arrested before His crucifixion?  And He prayed so hard that He sweated drops of blood?  I can’t imagine that kind of  prayer.  But what stands out to me is that He prayed, “Not my will, but Your will be done.”  Even though He was equal with God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or held onto.  He submitted Himself in obedience to the will of God.  He was concerned with the coming of the Kingdom of God.  That was the purpose of His prayer. 

So we are to pray always, but what are we supposed to pray for?  Obviously, we pray for the coming of the Lord, the coming of the kingdom. As the example of the Lord’s Prayer illustrates, we should pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” I submit to you that we need to pray not for our will to be done, but for God’s will to be done. We don’t pray to manipulate God to our will, but to be conformed to His will. 

So when we are to pray; always.  What are we to pray? The coming of the kingdom, first in our hearts and then in the world.  And finally, why are we to pray? Remember on that night in which He was betrayed, He went into the Garden to pray and took a little further with Him Peter, James and John.  And He said to them, “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  That is why we pray.  Prayer is designed to keep us from falling into temptation.  I’ve never yet fallen into temptation when I was praying, have you?  I fall into temptation when I either deliberately or inadvertently stop praying.  Prayer is a safeguard against temptation.

Unfortunately, many of us are like the disciples were that night.  They were so tired they couldn’t keep their eyes open.  They kept nodding off.  And when suddenly they were awakened by the gang of soldiers and ruffians coming through the woods to arrest Jesus they found themselves woefully unprepared for the trials that lie ahead.  They all ended up falling away from Him that night.  Peter even found himself cursing and denying Jesus to the soldiers around a campfire later that evening.  And like the disciples when we neglect to pray, when we subordinate prayer to rest and relaxation, to 3 hours of television, or computer, we end up falling asleep spiritually.  Prayer is like being on guard.  On watch against temptation.

Listen, I can assure you that tribulations and troubles will come on all who profess Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  God doesn’t want you to lose heart at the trials that will come.  One way to prevent that discouragement that can lead to falling into temptation is to stay on your knees before God.  Acknowledging that you need His help, His protection.  Confessing your trust in His care.  Professing your faith in His promises and His providence.  Entrusting yourself to a faithful Creator.  I hope and pray that when He comes, you will be found faithful. 

Heb. 10:19-25  “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  Amen.