You're listening to audio from Faith Church, located on the North Side Of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindi.com. Now, here's the teaching. There was, a poor Haitian immigrant, living in Indianapolis who understandably wanted to have her apartment heated in the winter months. She lived under the authority of an unscrupulous landlord who consistently refused any appeals that she made to heat her apartment pro appropriately.

Now this woman, was an immigrant. She was a widow. She was desperately poor, and she knew almost nothing about the American legal system, but she took the court, the case to court on her own behalf saying justice ought to be done. Unfortunately, it, turned out that the judge that she went before was both an atheist and a bigot. And the only principle by which he lived, if one at all, was those people ought to know their place.

So this poor Haitian woman comes before him and things are even more bleak when she realizes she lacks, beyond a knowledge of the law, the one thing that would possibly help her case, which would be a bribe to grease the wheels of justice. Nevertheless, she persisted. Oh, when she first went before this judge, she barely even looked up from his notes and acted bored with the whole thing, and yet she kept coming back and asking for the judge to enforce the law and to justice. Finally, he began to take some notice of her. Another immigrant, he told himself, probably just thinks America owes her something.

But she kept coming back and asking for justice. And finally, her persistence made him self conscious, and then his self consciousness turned to guilt and then to anger and frustration and embarrassment till he finally granted her petition and enforced the law. The story that I've shared was initially, a version of it appeared from doctor David Wells in Christianity Today over forty years ago. Wells states in telling that story what you've probably already guessed, it's not really a true story. It's not even my story, Wells said.

It's really a parable told by Jesus to illustrate the nature of persistent prayer. The story that Wells has sought to update, originally appears in Luke 18, the passage that we just heard read for us. Luke introduces the passage with this explanation. He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. And then Jesus gives this short parable and then concludes in verses six to eight.

Hear what the unrighteous judge says, will not God judge and give justice to his elect to cry to him day and night? Will he delay over them? I tell you he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the son of man comes to the earth, will he find faith? We try to retell parables like Doctor.

Wells did and as I've tried to do in order to hopefully get us to feel some of the the weight and the emotional impact of them. Sometimes we just sort of unpack the parables and and go through the details, try and help us enter into their world. And, in true preacherly fashion, I'm of course going to do both this morning, in the twenty or so minutes that we have left. So we'll we'll see how this goes. The the parable has two obvious characters in it, the widow and and an unjust judge.

But there's a third character in the background, and that is God himself. He appears in the parable when the judge admits that he doesn't fear God or man. He appears again as the one who will bring about justice and righteousness at the end of the age. So it it seems then, I think, that we can take three lessons, I think, from this parable as we look at the characters in it, the widow, the judge, and the lord. If you haven't already, go ahead and turn to Luke 18 as we look at this parable from Jesus.

First, the widow. Widows like orphans and immigrants are pictures in the Bible, embodiments of the vulnerable, the dispossessed, the weak. What little we are told about this woman suggests that she is poor and likely has no male friend or relative to advocate for her because that would be the only reason in that culture that women went to court for themselves. So she perhaps has no male to protect her, to provide for her, and we read in verse three that she kept on. She was repeatedly going to this judge with this plea, grant me justice against my adversary.

We don't know exactly what the dispute was, but, local judges were commonly resolved, were commonly resolved property disputes. And if this woman's a widow, it could be likely that there's some dispute over the estate, and she's trying to get this judge to give her what she is due. But whatever the background is, Jesus is clearly picturing someone who has everything stacked against her. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Luke gives us in advance the lesson of the parable in verse one that the intent was to tell us, tell his disciples that at all times, we ought to pray and not lose heart. Persevering prayer, we might call it.

But when we look at this widow, we see someone whose position, whose circumstances, whose lack of resources suggest anything but perseverance or persistence. It would be easy for her to become demoralized and and give up. Maybe you can relate. We probably at all at times have all felt the discouragement of overwhelming situations, unchanging people, difficult relationships, closed doors. And it's tempting to think, what's the point?

Nothing has changed. Nothing's going to change. Why bother praying? Why why why even talk to God about it? God doesn't seem to be doing anything, and nothing's getting better.

It's hard. It's hard to persist in prayer, to not lose heart when there seems to be no answer. And maybe some of you know that right now. God hasn't answered the prayer, but he clearly hasn't closed the door either. And what we're praying for, ideally, is something that it seems like it would be perfectly good for God to grant, the healing of a debilitating disease, a reconciliation in a broken relationship, the salvation of a friend or a family member.

And yet God doesn't seem to be doing anything, and it's tempting to give up hope. Examples that we know sometimes it only seems hopeless. Some of you can tell stories of having prayed for loved ones for years and years and years, and then seeing them come to faith in Jesus late in life after you'd almost given up hope. I know couples whose marriages have fallen apart and divorced only to reconcile and remarry. We keep calling out for God to work.

And we need this reminder, this encouragement from Jesus because persistence in prayer is not something that we're good at as Americans. All the studies suggest that a few American Christians have regular times of prayer and those that do, it's maybe two or three or five minutes. I mean, hardly enough time to say much to God or hear anything from them. To be more faithful in prayer, to be persistent in prayer might be setting aside a regular time each day and and even blocking it off on our calendars and telling people, I'm sorry. I I have an obligation.

I I can't be there for that. Maybe it means making a list of prayers that we want to offer up in different categories, maybe one for each day of the week, one day praying for a missionary family, one for people in my neighborhood and and work or school, one day praying for, friends at church and ministries, one day praying for international concerns, and family members probably being an ongoing concern almost every day. A couple of things have helped me. I've I've really worked at developing the habit of writing myself a note every time I promise to pray for someone and also just actually praying for them. You know how easy it is to say, I'll pray about that and and then hope that, you know, the right moment will occur.

And I've just learned the the moment to pray is when God lays it on my heart and to come back to those notes. I I stop too when I receive prayer requests, you know, particularly via email and just pray for that situation right then. Jesus is encouraging us to pray persistently, not when it seems convenient or there's nothing better to do. It is possible, even in busy American twenty first century life, to pray persistently and and to let it be a priority. Jesus encourages us to to keep at it, to persevere, to not lose heart even if we don't see the answer.

Because faithfulness, perseverance is possible, especially if we'll pray God to help us be faithful and to persevere. I I think the lesson from the widow is this, to persevere in faith filled prayer and work, to persevere in faith filled prayer and work. Because prayer is is the channel, it's the expression of our faith in Jesus. But the focus of that prayer, the focus of that crying out is the pursuit of justice. And that's what leads us to the second character in the story, this judge.

Jesus tells him about it, tells us about him in verses two and four and five, a judge who did not fear God and didn't respect man. And and interestingly, he even says that about himself in verse four. He's whatever the widow's complaint, it's, you know, sadly ironic that the one place that she goes where she should expect to find justice, the door is slammed in her face by this unjust judge. He doesn't care what the Lord thinks. He has no fear of God.

He takes no consideration for the fact that one day, he will be judged. He will give an account for his own judging and stand before the ultimate judge. Maybe he was involved in a in a system of bribery, which was not uncommon at all in the Roman Empire, in in which a little money under the table helps you get the answer that you're looking for. It's not just something that happened in the first century. Many people in our community, especially people from second or third world countries can relate to a corrupt system described here.

And honestly, even The United States, stories of corrupt officials, people taking advantage of public office to enrich themselves at others' expense, even some shameless in their disregard for the law seem to be coming more and more common. You know, in many ancient cultures, an outcry from the community would have maybe shamed or or prodded the judge into action, but not in this case. Nevertheless, this woman's perseverance gets to him. Initially, he simply refuses to hear her. In verse four, for a while he was unwilling, but but he but even though I don't fear God or respect man, yet this woman keeps on bothering me.

Fascinating. Over time, this this woman is getting annoying. And and then in verse five, I will give her I I will give her an answer. Otherwise, in some version, she will wear me out. She will beat me down.

The end of verse five reads literally, so she won't give me a black eye. I love this picture. This woman is apparently, you know, like acting so out of what the judge expects her her station to be that, maybe she's even capable of, like, leaping across the table and assaulting him. Maybe just metaphorically, like, this woman's crazy. She's she's gonna I don't know what's gonna happen.

The the language itself actually comes from the boxing ring, and so it gives us kind of humorous picture of, you know, some some man in a robe sitting behind a table all important and this tiny little widow, you know, like maybe with a little handbag, and she's gonna, like, knock him down. So not because he cares about justice, but but simply out of fear and and wanting to get rid of her, he grants a request. I wonder how much of our prayers, how much of our activity is directed at confronting injustice. God is a God of justice. That's the God of the Bible, which which isn't so much literally about law codes, but about a system and a culture and an environment where people are treated equitably, where where people get what they deserve, where things are done with a concern for people getting their due and being treated in in the respect and the honor that they deserve.

If that's what God cares about, and if we're God's ambassadors, God's representatives, God's image bearers here on Earth, that's what we're supposed to care about too. I struggle with the temptation sometimes, you know, to to listen to the news, to to read stories about what's going on in the world? Sometimes maybe just so I can make a judgment about those things, so I can feel either good or feel bad about what's happening and and my relation to them. Do I listen to the news so that I can pray, pray for things in our community, in our nation, in our world that matter to God? Do I cry out over the unjust violence in Ukraine or Myanmar or The Middle East or any of a dozen places?

What about the parts of the world that that teeter on the brink of famine and starvation because of corrupt and unjust governments? Are we aware of those issues? Do we do we pray for them? Do we do we give? Do we do we get involved to to help address those things so that this world would look more just and more like God's presence is here?

You know, my retelling of this, story about the persistent widow was only partially a fiction. Some of you, may remember that several years ago, we became aware of some of our neighbors living across the street in the apartments who were literally living in unlivable, unsafe, unsanitary conditions, black mold, no hot water, front doors that wouldn't lock, no heat in the winter. And, and we got involved. We started meeting with them. We started praying for them.

We started advocating for them. And and we found out that the problem was not finding a judge who would give justice, but that the very laws of Indiana were designed not to grant justice in situations like this. That judges have almost no authority to even enforce the health codes other than giving someone a fine. And if they don't pay it, well, they don't pay it. And so what that means is, now we've realized, well, this is a longer term issue then.

This is going to require some persistence to try and advocate that we could get laws established in Indiana that would give tenants rights like they have in 30 or more other states. That the tenants would actually be able to pursue justice and have hope of getting what they're supposedly paying for? How much of our prayer time personally and in church meeting focuses on the greed, the injustice, the abuse of power that brings suffering and harm to the vulnerable and the poor in our communities. I think the lesson of the judge is making justice a larger topic for our prayer and our action. And if God cares about justice in this world, and and there and it's a thousand different things.

There there's there's no one thing that everyone's gonna be involved in. But if God cares about justice isn't that a picture of the activity of God's people in this world seeking justice? Will we persist in seeking justice for the weak and the vulnerable and the powerless? You know, in in many parables, the characters stand for people in our world. Right?

We we sort of map them onto our experience and often the authority figure is a picture of God. In in this case, it's, one of a group of parables that follow a different pattern, and and we need to read it carefully. In this case, it's a pattern that's called from the lesser to the greater or or how much more kind of logic. That is, God is not like the unjust judge who has to be harangued and browbeaten to do what's right. The point is, if even an unjust, ungodly judge will do what is right and what ought to be done.

How much more will our heavenly father do what is right for his children who cry out to him? How much more will God grant his people justice? How much more confidence should we have in approaching him? And that leads us to the last character, the the Lord. We can get in verse six.

Here, here what the unjust judge says, will not God give justice to his elect who cry out to him day and night? And the answer is, yes, of course. Will he delay long over them? And the implied answer is, no. No, he will bring justice.

The ultimate dispensing of that justice happens when Jesus returns at the end of the age to finally destroy injustice and evil forever. God is the standard, the the model, the paragon of justice and goodness and rightness. And so faith in that goodness of God is what leads to persistent, prayerful pursuit of justice. Jesus is not, again, here suggesting like a technique or or how we're supposed to go about praying as though, again, you know, we just we have to pray a certain number of times before God will hear us, or we just have to keep repeating the same thing over and over again. No.

We pray consistently because we are confident in God's goodness and rightness and his willingness and desire to do what is good. If an unjust judge will grant justice to a persistent widow, how much more confidence and persistence should we have as known loved children of the father? We have God the Spirit living in us. We have God the Son interceding for us. We have God the Father working in all things to accomplish His good purposes.

When we stop believing that prayers will be answered or that God is good, we stop praying. We stop believing that God will do what is right. We stop praying. We've given up hope. What items have dropped off your prayer list?

Because maybe you've given up hope. You prayed for a while and nothing happened and, and the, the longing is still there. But you just haven't, for me, kept up praying for that relative that just seems so far from the Lord and so hard to imagine them coming to faith. It's hard to continue a faith filled prayer twenty centuries after Jesus spoke these words, right? Because that's not my definition of God granting justice quickly.

But it was a challenge and a question for even the first followers of Jesus. Peter writes in his second letter, don't forget this one thing, dear friends, with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some count slowness. No. He is patient, patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.

Reason that God has not righted all things yet is because when he does, the door will forever be closed on anyone being able to be reconciled and forgiven to him. He is patiently waiting for more to yet respond to the message of hope and forgiveness that we take out into the world. Jesus prayed intently that the father would take a cup of suffering from him, the cross to bear the weight of sin and guilt for us, for the sake of people who don't deserve mercy and forgiveness. So as we follow Jesus, we are patiently enduring hardship and difficulty and rejection in the same way. We are willing to wait patiently for the father's justice for the sake of those who don't yet know him.

The parable is part of Jesus teaching if you look back in Luke 17 on on his return on the final coming of the kingdom, and he warns the son of man will suffer many things and be rejected, but will return suddenly bringing justice. And I think he's reminding us, reminding these people, reminding us that adversity is not just something we put up with. It's actually part of the process by which God grows us and by which he brings salvation, makes salvation available to the world because he is patient. But apparently, the delay will be long enough that there's a question of whether God's people will wait faithfully for it. Not we can make sense of God's delay.

We can. God is patient. He's waiting. He wants more people to know him. The real issue is what Jesus asked at the end of verse eight.

When the son of man comes, will he find this kind of faith, the faith that literally says on earth? When he returns, will will Jesus find his followers persisting in faith, crying out in prayer, seeking justice, acting justly, however long the wait is? The lesson from God's presence in the parable is remember God's faithful goodness. Trust in God's faithful goodness even though he delays. We've said that parables are sometimes a window.

They give us a picture into what God's kingdom is like. Sometimes they're a door that is an invitation to come into that life, and sometimes they're like a mirror that shows us what's inside our hearts. I think that's probably what this parable is. One New Testament scholar wrote that only as we persist in faith will we persist in prayer, and only as we persist in prayer will we persist in faith. When the Son of Man comes, will he find his beloved children not losing heart, but passionately praying and working for the coming of his kingdom?

Let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, you know, thank you that you know how we experience inexplicable pain, profound injustice, deep losses. And it's normal for us to react with anger, fear, doubt. We may second guess your goodness. We may we may even reconsider whether drawing near to you is worth the effort.

Oh Father, strengthen our faith in you. You are good and you alone know what is good for us. So do what is best to you. Help us to trust in your faithful goodness. With faith and in confidence, we continue to follow you and adore you through Christ our Lord.

Amen.