Luke 18:1-8

Nobody likes to wait. This whole idea of delayed gratification is not very popular. Kids certainly don’t like it. You know how that goes. Mom, I want a drink of water. Mom, I want a drink of water. Mom, I want a drink of water. And Mom is going a little out of her mind because she’s heard the request over and over again.

But that’s not just a kid thing, asking for something again and again. This evening, during our prayer time, we asked for things that we’d already asked for. We did the same this morning, and I’m pretty sure that each one of us, when we pray, ask for things we’ve already asked for.

And when we do, a couple of things go through our minds. First, how many times do we need to ask? How long, O Lord, must we wait? When will He answer our prayers? We’ve asked, and we’ve asked again, and we’ve asked we don’t know how many times. We’ve used different words, different phrases, so that maybe God will listen. And each time we ask, it doesn’t get any easier. In fact, it becomes harder and harder, because we’ve asked so many times, and haven’t seen anything, and maybe God isn’t going to answer this. Or maybe He’s going to answer badly.

But right alongside this fear and frustration, we also wonder if maybe God is annoyed at all this repetition. Is He like Mom, who’s heard the request, for goodness sake, so stop asking. Is He saying, "I know, I’ve heard, move on to something else." Is there a lack of faith in us when we ask, and ask again, and ask again.

No. No way. Jesus tells a parable to reassure us that God is listen and that we can keep asking. Verse 1:

Jesus is qualified to teach this parable, and not just because He’s God. He knows. Remember how He spent all night in the Garden of Gethsemene, praying, and praying and asking and asking? He knows. He’s also praying right now, this minute, for us, and you know that all of His prayers are not first time requests. He continually intercedes, constantly praying.

And He encourages us to do the same. He starts with the parable, in verse 2:

The first person we see in this story is a judge, a person of power who is able to get things done. People would naturally come to this judge to ask for protection or for repayment or for assistance. This is where the authority rests. The judge is over the town.

Except this is not a good judge. This is a judge who enjoys his power and influence, but not for the help of other people. This is a judge who enjoys the power for himself. He enjoys the perks, the benefits of the position. He enjoys being able to control people’s lives. To move them around like pawns, to see them bowing down at his feet, totally dependent on his power.

And, look, there someone is now, begging for help. Verse 3:

Now, obviously this woman has been here before, asking for the same thing. And not just once, by the sound of it. She’s been there, and been refused. But she keeps coming back. You can imagine the judge’s secretary coming to the judges office, rolling her eyes and saying:

And the judge saying, "You’ve got to be kidding. Again?!? She was just here 3 days ago. Can’t she take no for an answer?

Apparently not. She is, if anything, persistent. Probably because she has no other choice. Someone is after her, someone is mistreating her. Maybe they’re ripping her off, stealing from her. Maybe they’re tearing down her reputation, making it impossible for her to do business in the town. Maybe they are threatening her. Something is happening that is not right. And she has justice on her side, if only the keeper of justice, the judge would get up off his seat and actually do something. If she was able to take care of the problem she would. But she can’t. It’s out of her hands. All she can do is keep coming back and asking again and again and again.

And, verse 4:

The judge is so annoyed with all her complaining, the continuous asking, he’s just had it. The power of this woman isn’t any fun anymore. Making her life miserable has gotten old. He’s done, and he wants her off his schedule. He doesn’t want to see her, ever again, so fine, here’s your help, here’s your protection, here’s your justice. Just leave me alone.

And Jesus says, in verse 6:

Listen, because that’s where the lesson is. The picture of the unjust judge helps us understand our Lord better. But let’s not be confused. The unjust judge is not God. God is not the judge in this story. Actually, the judge in the story is the opposite of God. He’s the anti-God. He’s everything that God is not, and God is everything that the judge is not. For everything that we see in the judge in the story, we have to look at the other end of the spectrum for our Lord.

First of all, God IS just. He loves justice. He defines justice. He’s all about justice. God’s will is that the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. Those who delight in the law of the Lord, everything they do succeeds. Those who reject the law of the Lord, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. That’s Psalm 1. That’s the way things are supposed to be. Like we’ve been hearing lately in the morning services, God is fiercely angry when innocent people are victimized, and He shows up.

And second, while the judge cared nothing for human beings, our God does deeply. After all, human beings are created in His image. We look like Him. We have our Father’s eyes, so to speak. When He looks at us, it’s with eyes of love and tenderness, not with tolerance and impatience. He’s not the God who created a world and then got bored and moved on to other, more interesting things. He’s the God who causes every breath that fills our lungs. He’s the God who gave us food this noon, directly from His hand. He’s the God who speaks words of encouragement and comfort and direction to us. He cares so much that He became one of us. He cares so much that, even though He didn’t have to, He allowed Himself to be humiliated and mocked and beat and pierced and killed. I don’t know how to describe His care more clearly. He died for us.

So, if God loves justice, and doesn’t have to be talked into it, and if God cares for human beings so much that He died for us, won’t He listen to our prayers? Verse 7:

We pray for justice in pretty much everything we pray. We want things put back right. People being sick, people being lonely, being tempted, being lost away from Jesus, marriages breaking down, crops stuck in the fields, a nation going away from the Lord, leaders not following Jesus, this is not the ways things are supposed to be. They are the effects of living in a sinful world, and we want those effects to stop. We want the perfect world, the perfect lives, the perfect health. We want justice. We want righteousness. We want heaven.

This is what we pray for, and what we’ve been praying for for a long, long time. Some of us have been praying about the same health concerns for decades. Some of us have been praying for a marriage to be healed for years. Some of us have been praying for a son or a daughter to come back to Jesus ever since they graduated from high school and then stopped coming to church. We want things made right. Why won’t God answer?

Well, He will. After all, He loves justice and He cares for human beings. He wants marriages healed. He wants bodies made healthy and strong. He wants people to know Him as their Savior and Lord and Friend. He wants churches to be healed. He wants nations to be holy. He wants temptation to end. We don’t have to convince Him of any of these things.

But that still leaves a problem. Why do we have to keep asking? Why do we have to wait? Why is it not enough to ask once? It’s not like God has forgotten since the last time we asked Him for these things, and we have to remind Him. Sometimes, maybe, it feels like prayer is like putting coins in a pop machine. Like God is saying, "Okay, you want a marriage to be fixed? Well, that will take 75 prayers to have that one answered. I won’t fix it if you only prayer 74 times, but I will if you pray 75 times."

But that’s not our God. If that’s how we think, then the answer to prayer is on our shoulders. James 4:2 says:

But it doesn’t say:

That’s not our God. Once again, He doesn’t need to be convinced. He doesn’t forget. He cares, and He wants things just perfect even more than we do. But we don’t always understand how things become perfect. You know how kids can’t wait. You mix up a batch of cookie dough, clump it on the cookie sheet, and put it in the oven. And you hear the question, "Are they done yet?" And the answer is, you have to wait. If you took them out of the oven too soon, they wouldn’t be finished, they wouldn’t hold together, they wouldn’t taste good. The process of making something good takes time.

We are the same way. Sure, God can do whatever He wants. He can snap His fingers and do anything instantly. But that doesn’t always work with us. Most of the time, it takes time for us to change. It takes time to drop old practices and thought processes and learn new ones. If God instantly changed our thoughts, our marriages, we would fall apart, the change would be too harsh. Or, we would change for a moment, and then go back to our old habits. True change takes time.

So, while we wait, we pray. Prayer is what we do while we wait. God does respond to prayer, but He remembers our first prayer. He knows how much we want what we’re praying for. Praying, then, as often as we repeat ourselves, is the way we stay hopeful and watchful for God’s answer. If we’re not praying, what else are we doing?

We’re worrying about what might happen. We’re taking things into our own hands and trying to fix things ourselves. We’re giving up hope because the change is just not happening. If we’re not praying.

But Jesus tells us, "Keep praying. Don’t give up. Keep asking. Keep crying to God. Verse 8:

Things will be set straight. Things will be made right. Bodies will be healed. Minds will be restored. Prayers will be answered. God’s answers might not always be the way we expected, the way we asked for, but He will always answer and His answer will always be good. A body might not be healed on this side of heaven, but a body will be healed. A marriage might not always be saved, but a wife, a husband will be comforted and cared for. A mind might not be made whole on this side of Jesus’ return, but it will be made whole. You know how we know?

Because a dead body was made alive again, once, two thousand years ago. Because Jesus was restored to life again, we know that our lives will be restored again, too. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says:

So, 29 weeks out from Easter, in the shadow of the most powerful event in the history of humanity, we pray. And we keep praying, and we keep praying, until we see the answers, until we see Jesus. Jesus asked, in verse 8:

He will, won’t He? He’ll find us praying. He’ll find us asking. He’ll find us talking to Him, and then there He’ll be, to set everything straight, to bring justice. Just ask again.