Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 18.

I am going to preach to you this morning on a story that I have heard preached wrong so many times. It's a story that I never really understood until this week and one that I think will be a great comfort to you in your prayer life.

To those of you who have young children: Do your kids ever nag you? I mean they want something and so they just keep asking and asking and asking and asking and asking.

I'm telling you my kids make an art of this. Drives me nuts.

I think Darci (our five year old) is the worst. Either she has zero emotional regulation or she's a master at it and really good at manipulating people. We haven't figured it out yet. Either way she just will burst into tears and cry and beg and beg and beg, with no thought whatsoever about how socially acceptable that is, until I break down and give her what she wants or she makes everyone around her miserable.

Oh the joys of parenthood.

A lot of Christians have this idea that praying is like spiritual nagging. Like being a good prayer warrior means nagging God until we get what we want. Incessant begging. Emotional barrages of requests.

Christians have been taught that we have to treat prayer like a bombing sortie and just keep hitting God's defenses until we can march in and get what we want. Or maybe they think of it as something meritorious, where if we just pray enough, God will give us what we want. Like we need to build up prayer points that we can then spend on what we want with God.

And while the Bible does teach us that we need to be persistent in prayer and we need to continue in prayer, it is not true that God wants us to nag Him until we get what we want. That completely misunderstands who God is and who we are to Him.

Now one of the parables that has been used to teach this idea that we just need to nag God is the passage we're going to read today and I want to show you today that it means exactly the opposite of that.

It does include a woman who persistently nagged a judge. But it's not meant as a primer for us. It's meant as a contrast.

Are you in Luke 18? Let's read verses 1-8.

1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
Luke 18:1-8 (KJV)

In a lot of Jesus' parables it's kind of hard to figure out what the point of the parable is. Not this one, because Jesus tells us in verse one exactly what the point of this parable is: that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

That word faint means to lose heart or to give up.

I can remember fainting only one time in my entire life. We had lost a basketball game that we should have won in high school and in the next practice our coach just ran us into the ground. I was trying to be a leader on that team and I was trying to prove to everybody that I could give the most effort. I didn't drink any water and I literally just ran myself into the ground and passed out and it was the most miserable feeling.

Back when I was doing marathon training there were a couple of times where I felt almost like that. Cold and clammy, light-headed like I couldn't go on.

Listen, the Christian life is no picnic. The Christian life is difficult and ongoing and you are going to be tempted to quit. You're going to be tempted to lose heart. You're going to be tempted to faint.

You need to keep praying. When you understand prayer right and you practice prayer right, it will help you keep going and not faint.

I love Isaiah 40:31:

31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

So it's very important that we understand prayer. Prayer is a lifeline that's going to keep us going when we want to quit.

So to help us understand prayer Jesus gives us this parable. And I believe the message of it is this:

Christians should be persistent in prayer even through times of difficulty because of who God is and who we are to Him.

I believe Jesus showed us the opposite of that in this parable to make His point.

So the first point I have for you this morning (and I have three) is…

1. How to get what you want from a terrible judge who you have no standing with.

In this parable Jesus introduces two characters.

The first character is a widow. Now in Bible times widows had a really hard time. Women could not just go get a high-paying job, they were generally completely dependent on the men in their life. So when a woman was a widow she was truly in a destitute situation.

Women in Bible times also didn't have the same legal standing as men. They didn't bring cases to court. They had to be represented by a man who was usually their husband so if you were a widow you were kind of out of luck.

Because of that widows tended to be people who had no protections and they tended to be people who were taken advantage of by others and not helped as they should by the legal system.

So in our story you have a widow and she's being taken advantage of. She's being hurt. Maybe somebody is trying to take over her land. Maybe she's working for somebody and they're not paying her what was agreed. Maybe one of her children is working as a servant for somebody and not being taken care of.

We don't know how she's being oppressed but she's being oppressed in some way and she's trying to get the law to help her.

Then we have a second character in this story who is the judge. The judge is described as a person that doesn't fear God and doesn't fear man. In Bible times a judge was supposed to be a person who feared God. That was like quality number one. This judge doesn't care.

And he doesn't really care about people either. He only cares about himself. So he has no incentive whatsoever to help this poor widow woman.

Jesus is portraying a really desperate situation here. This woman has no standing with this judge. She has no chance this judge is going to help her. The judge doesn't care. What is she going to do? How do you get what you want from somebody that doesn't care about you when you have no standing, you have nothing to offer? How do you do it?

Well this woman does it by nagging. She just will not leave this judge alone. I imagine she goes outside where the judge is. In those days often they would do their judging in a tent in the courtyard of the city. I imagine she goes there and just yells:

• Hey, hey, judge, hear my case.
• Hey, are you going to hear my case?
• Hey, please hear my case.

I can see the judge going through the market trying to get some groceries to bring home and she's just behind him: "Hey judge! Judge! I've got a real problem! Are you gonna hear me? Please hear me! Please hear me judge!"

I imagine maybe she finds out where the judge lives and the judge comes out his front door in the morning and she's standing right there. "Hey judge, judge, are you ever going to hear my case? Will you please hear my case?"

Maybe she goes around all the judge's friends and she says to them, "Hey, you know, I have this really serious case that needs to be heard and your friend the judge is not doing anything about it. Will you please intervene on my behalf?"

But you get the idea. This woman just will not stop. And finally the judge gives in and he hears this woman not because he cares at all. He's clear about that. He says, "I don't care about God. I don't care about people. I don't care about you but I'm going to do this for you so you'll just stop."

And so here is the lesson of this parable: If you want to get what you want when you have no standing, you nag. You don't shut up about it. Over and over and over again, every chance you get, you nag and you might get what you want.

That's the parable. Jesus says, "Listen to what you can learn from this unjust judge."

Now again I think the most common reading of this story is we need to nag God in prayer. We need to be like this widow woman and we need to just non-stop, constantly, every chance we get, be asking God, asking God, asking God. God give me this. God give me this. God give me this. God give me this. And maybe just maybe if we're persistent enough in it, we can wear God down.

And that's the exact opposite of how we're supposed to read this story.

I told you I have three points this morning.

The second point I want us to see is this…

2. God is not an unjust judge and we are not helpless widows

Look at verse number 7 again:

7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Luke 18:7 (KJV)

The point of this parable is not comparison; it's contrast. Jesus isn't saying this is what God is like and this is what you are like and this is what prayer is like. He's trying to show us that it's the complete opposite.

Think about God for a second. Is God anything like the unjust judge?

Is God cold and uncaring? Does God need to be bribed? Does God need to be nagged?

No — God is perfectly just and God cares about people.

I often think about the book of Jonah when I think about the character of God. Jonah was sent to preach to the Ninevites. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and the Ninevites and the Assyrians were particularly wicked and cruel and evil people.

But God wanted them to hear from a prophet. God wanted to give them the chance to repent and trust Him and so God sent Jonah. Jonah didn't want to go because Jonah hated the Ninevites. You know the story? Jonah gets swallowed by a whale and spat out. He goes into the city and he preaches the most pathetic message he possibly could and yet the Ninevites repent and turn to God.

And at the end of that book Jonah is sitting on a hill looking at the city of Nineveh, where people have just had genuine revival and turned to God, and he's mad about it. And the Book of Jonah actually ends with a question from God to Jonah with no answer.

11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
Jonah 4:11 (KJV)

This is a city full of people that are wicked and cruel and ultimately headed for God's destruction and yet this question shows that God cared about those people. God cared about His enemies.

Should this surprise us? Isn't this the heart of the gospel?

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 (KJV)

8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 (KJV)

God is a God of mercy and grace that cares for people. He is also just and He's gonna make sure things turn out right but He is nothing like this wicked judge in this parable.

Especially not to His people. To His children.

Think about this: not only is God nothing like the judge but we are nothing like the widow.

We are not people before a judge with no standing. We are God's children. As the verse tells us, we are God's elect. We're His special ones.

The widow would have had no representative because her husband wasn't there but we have more than a representative. We have the Lord Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, who died on our behalf and who ever lives and stands before the Father, pleading our case before Him.

As 1 John 2:1 says, "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

The widow had no promises from this judge, none whatsoever, but we have a whole Bible full of promises from our God. He has to keep His promises.

And church, we're not standing before a court of law. We're standing before the throne of grace.

Church, our experience of prayer before God is nothing like this story and that should be a great encouragement to us.

Church, if a widow can get what she wants and what she deserves from a scoundrel of a judge, then surely we can get what is best for us from our good God.

There is one more point I want you to see this morning from this passage, and it is…

3. Our knowledge of who God is and who we are in Christ should keep us praying and faithful even through times of difficulty.

Look at verses seven and eight one more time:

7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
Luke 18:7-8 (KJV)

As you read that verse don't get caught up on the word "avenge." Avenge here just means "do what's right" or "bring about justice." God is going to bring about justice for His own elect. God is going to take care of things and make sure that everything works out all right.

That knowledge ought to be a massive encouragement in our prayer life and a reason for us to keep going and not faint.

Verse 8 tells us God is going to take care of things speedily. This doesn't mean it's gonna happen right away. It happens at God's time but when God does it, it's gonna happen immediately, speedily.

And you might be thinking, but pastor, I've been praying for this thing for years and God hasn't answered my prayer. He's answering it — just not in a way any of us can understand yet. Because of who God is, someday you will have a clear understanding of why He did what He did and you'll understand that it is good and it is best.

Sometimes He seems silent because we can't understand the answer yet. Sometimes He's deepening our dependence on Him. Sometimes He's waiting for our prayers to mature. But in every case, He is working.

I can promise you this: God is always answering our prayers and He's always answering them exactly when they need to be answered.

He is working all things together for good, to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, but His timing just looks different than your timing — and you have to trust Him that His timing is better and you have to keep praying.

Church, God is good, He is answering your prayers — so keep on praying. Not because you are trying to build up prayer points or because God needs nagging to get what you want — but because He is good, He is in control and because He cares.

So keep praying. Keep praying until Christ comes back. Not because you don't have access but because you do. Not because God is too busy but because God wants to hear your prayers. Not because God is unjust but because He is just.

Church, I hope today that the way you think about prayer has shifted. Prayer is not nagging God. Prayer is not a manipulation technique. Prayer is us bringing our problems and concerns to One who is great and merciful, who loves us, who asks us to cast our cares on Him — and we are doing it as His elect. We are doing it as His children. We are doing it as people who have been promised that our prayers will be answered.

Prayer is not so much about manipulating God as it is reminding our souls who God is.

Let's stand together and we're going to sing number 244 for our invitation today. What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Number 244.

Let's pray.