Every matter, if it is to be done well, calls for the attention of the whole person. A person must give all of his senses and all of his members to the thing that is before him if it is to turn out well.
For example, how many times haven't you seen a football game where the quarterback makes a perfect throw right into the hands of the receiver only to have him drop it? Why? Because the receiver took his eyes off the ball and was already turning them up-field to where he was going to run. If the receiver does not give all of his senses and all of his members to the first task, namely, catching the ball, it won't turn out well. He'll drop the pass every time.
In his inimitable way, Martin Luther said the same thing with this illustration: “A good, active barber must keep his thoughts, mind, and eyes closely on the razor and the hair of the person he is shaving. He must not forget where he is with his stroke and shave. But if he wants to gossip freely at the same time or lets his thoughts or eyes go elsewhere, he may well cut off a man's mouth and nose and his throat besides.”
Every matter, if it is to be done well, calls for the attention of your whole person – all your senses, all your members. If you think about other things rather than that which is before you, it will not turn out well.
Bring that into your life of faith, especially your prayer life. How much more don't your prayers, if they are to be good and effective, require hearts that are undistracted, entirely and solely devoted to God - persistent, dedicated, bold, trained upon the subject at hand? That's the way to approach God in prayer. You must give all your senses and all your members to it.
To that end the Lord Jesus told this parable to His disciples. It is introduced with the words: “Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” God's People Always Pray, giving all their senses and members to it for I. praying is not optional; II. praying honors God and helps us; and III. praying is a mark of faith. So, dear friends, give attention to it.
I. Praying is not optional.
Why do you pray? Or perhaps it is better to ask, “Why does the Christian pray?” because before we are Christians, we don't know how to pray nor do we understand what we are to pray for. Besides that, we can't even approach God in prayer if we are not Christian for Christ is the only access that we have to the ear of God. That's why Jesus said, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give it to you” (Jn.16:23). And again the Bible says, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (Ro.5:1). And again Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father except through me” (Jn.14:6). Only through Christ can we approach God in prayer.
And once in Christ the Christian will pray . It is not optional . Over and over again He makes that clear, commanding, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek…; knock….” And again, “Pray without ceasing.” “Come to me,” He commands in hundreds of different ways. We pray because God urges us to pray; He commands it; and in Christ we will do it.
So, dear friend, look closely at this command and take care that you do not consider prayer an optional work. Indeed, it is a sin for you not to pray for it breaks God's command. He earnestly urges you to pray with the threat of His displeasure and punishment if it is neglected. Martin Luther said that the one who does not do this should know that He is no Christian and does not belong in the kingdom of God.
He put it this way: “If, then, you believe that God is justly angry with the idolatrous, the blasphemers, and the despisers of His Word, with murderers and thieves, and that terrible punishments come upon the world because of such sins, why do you not fear God's wrath when you despise this command and live on in security as if you were not obliged to pray.” (Plass, #3432)
Dear friends, in Christ praying is not optional. On no account should we despise a life of prayer, but should think highly of it.
Take an illustration of this from the other Commandments, for example the Fourth Commandment where God urges, “Honor your father and mother.”
Does a child have the option, before God, to disobey his parents? Did I have the right when I was a boy to tell my Dad, “I don't care what you have to say about my obedience to you. I will go and do this and that, whatever pleases me.” No, the Fourth Commandment does not give a Christian such a right when God
tells us what to do. In love for Him and what He's given me in the Savior, I will do what He says to me in obeying my parents.
Likewise, I will do what He says regarding prayer. God's People Always Pray. He commands it, and in our text Jesus urges it. “Always pray,” He says, “and don't give up.”
II. But there is an even greater reason to pray. Praying honors God and helps us. It acknowledges Him as our only source of aid, and it acknowledges the place that the Savior holds in our lives.
Without the Savior, where would we be? We were separated from God. Sin cut us off completely, like a gigantic wall; it became a barrier to us with no way to come to God. But all of that changed when Christ entered our world, and Christ took care of our sin. With His life and death and resurrection, sin was defeated. And the wall that separated us from God was torn down.
Do you remember how that was shown at the time of Christ's death? The great curtain that was in the temple in Jerusalem separated the people from God. That heavy curtain was torn in two from top to bottom the moment Christ gave up His life on the cross, symbolizing that He had brought us near to God through His blood. As Paul wrote, “He Himself is our peace…and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ep.2:14). Now we can come to God with all our requests, and He promises to hear and answer. All because of Christ.
So, to come to Him in such faith honors God. It honors Him for His grace and mercy in Christ by which He has pledged to us a favorable reception.
Jesus brought this out in our text in the parable of the woman who approached the judge for help. She came to him because she needed help. An enemy was trying to harm her. But the judge kept putting her off. Nevertheless, she came back the next day, and the next day, and the next until he took care of her situation for her. The judge finally reacted to her because of her persistence.
That was an unjust judge who didn't fear God and didn't care about men. Still the woman “honored” him and his position by coming back to him time and time again until he responded. Now, if an unjust judge will react to such behavior, how much more won't a righteous Judge, a gracious God, a forgiving Savior respond to His people when they honor Him in coming to Him for help persistently? Jesus said in our text, “Will not God bring about
justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night?” Let's picture this persistence in approaching God and what it does.
The other day I read the account of an experiment in which an 8 foot long, solid iron bar, weighing 1,500 pounds (the weight of a small car) was suspended from a chain. Hanging next to it was a cork on a silk thread. After the swinging cork had struck the bar for half an hour, the bar began to move. That's an illustration of the power of persistence.
Likewise, Christians are to be steadfast in their prayers. They must continue to pray. “Ask, seek, knock!” Christ says, even though He seems to ignore you.
Have you ever felt that way, as though God did not hear you or hid Himself from you? What did you did? Did you continue, like this woman, to come back again, and again, and again?
About such persistence, Martin Luther made this comment: “We must seek Him out. To begin with we should ask. When we begin to ask, He hides Himself somewhere and will not hear; He will not let Himself be found. Therefore, we must seek Him out; we must continue in prayer. When we so seek Him, He locks Himself in a closet. If we want to go into Him, we must knock. When we knock once or twice, He acts as if He did not hear us. Finally, when we are about to overdo the knocking, He opens the door and says: ‘Well, what do you want?' ‘Lord, I want this or that.' Then He says, ‘Why, then take it!' In this way one must wake Him up…Therefore, the verse, ‘Ask, seek, knock' wants only to command: Ask, call, cry, seek, storm (heaven)! And we should do this constantly, without ceasing” (Plass, #3481). In so praying we honor Him , and in His divine grace and mercy He will help us.
III. Praying is a mark of faith.
Such praying persistently is a part of us not because persistence pays off as much as persistence is a mark of faith.
At the end of our text, Jesus turned to His disciples and asked, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” What do you think is the answer to that question? Will He find faith on earth?
I know that as we look at the world today and see all the junk going on about us, the apostasy, the mocking of God, the coldness and lovelessness of people one towards another, the greed, the fighting, the self-centered acts of men, and so on we almost would
wonder if Jesus would find faith on the earth when He comes again because all these things and more are certainly not marks of faith.
But put that aside for now and simply look at our own lives of prayer? Praying is a mark of faith because God's People Always Pray. Do our own lives reflect this to be true?
I don't know about you, but the devil can tempt me so easily to complacency, unfaithfulness, and a lackadaisical approach to prayer. Our human hearts are so easily and miserably distracted when we pray. The saints of God have always wrestled with this.
Luther tells the story of St. Bernard who had complained to a friend that he found it most difficult to pray aright and that he was unable to finish praying one Lord's Prayer without having foreign thoughts enter his mind. His friend was greatly surprised at this because he thought that praying aright was not at all a hard task. So St. Bernard made a bet with him and a good stallion was to be the wager. But the friend was to tell him the truth if his mind wandered. The friend began to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven…. But before he had come to the end of the First Petition (“Hallowed be Thy name”), he was already wondering whether the saddle, too, was to be his in case he won the horse. He strayed so far with his thoughts that he soon stopped and conceded victory to St. Bernard.
“In a word,” Luther writes, “if you are able to speak one Lord's Prayer without any other thoughts of your own, I shall consider you a master. I cannot do it; in fact, when thoughts come to me, I am glad if they go as readily as they came” (Plass, #3473).
Aren't our human hearts so easily and miserably distracted when we pray? What does that say about our faith if praying is a mark of faith ?
Thank God for a Savior whose gracious act for us on the cross takes care of all sin! And when that truth sinks through to my mind and heart - what great things Christ has done for me – I will respond. And I will pray persistently, knowing that He will hear and answer for His name's sake. He may delay the answer to my request for a time. But He cannot forsake His own. As Jesus said, “As they cry out to Him day and night, He will not keep putting them off but He will see that they get the justice they need.”
God grant it in our lives of faith as we give all our senses and members to it, not letting our attention be diverted and dropping the ball, for God's People Always Pray; for Jesus' sake. Amen.