The Strength in Repetition
Still I Pray
Luke 18 verses 1-8 in the NIV translation. When Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up, he said, in a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused, but finally he said to himself, Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me. And the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says, and will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you, He will see that they get justice and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Talking today just on prayer, and there's so much in the scripture on prayer that we can't cover it in one, and we are going to do a series, Matt wants to do a series on prayer in the next couple of months perhaps. But I just want to share a couple of little things that I've found along the way. I actually went through more than a hundred Bible verses on prayer in preparing this message. And can I say to you up front, There's not one of those verses that I read that gave any time frame for an answer to pray. Nothing in the Word of God that I found says, well look, if you pray this way, it'll take three hours for God to answer or God will answer quickly. Nothing like that at all. We read before of George Mueller praying for over 30 years. I read another story about this young girl, that's father took off and she was broken and when she was 16, she gave her heart to God. She prayed for her dad's conversion. She met him at 16. And she was 32. And her dad came to one of the family parties and told her that he'd just given his heart to God. She prayed for her dad for 16 years for his salvation. We don't have a time frame on things. Another interesting thing that I found and I thought, well, how important. is prayer. know it's important, but what's the Bible say? Sorry, I got a bit close to the mic. And just looking at the King James Version, prayer or pray is mentioned 693 times in 614 verses. So then I thought, well, what other important things do we have in the Christian walk? there's love is mentioned 310 times. Trust, 193 times. Believe, 487. Faith, 336 times. Prayer is mentioned in the Word of God way, way, way, way more than any other aspect of our Christian walk. I hope you're getting where I'm going here. The importance that prayer is to our day-to-day walk. Let's just pray. Dear God, I just thank you for the privilege of just being able to be here. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for your love. I just pray that you will take my words today. Just speak through me. Open the hearts of every one of us, Lord, to your scripture, to Lord, what you've got to say and help us live here today, Lord, just being blessed and touched by the presence of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, I pray. The scripture that we read before is about the persistent widow as its title, that's a parable about this woman that really needed some justification and there's no need to read it again, it was read just before. But she was so persistent with this judge, just asking and asking and asking for his help. He got so sick of her coming to... for the same thing and asking and asking that he gave in and he gave her the help that she needed. And something down toward the end of those verses that it shares, talks about being faithful in our Christian walk. And can I ask how faithful are you in your prayer? She persisted. There's so many stories in the scripture and as I say, there's that many verses in the Bible. There's nowhere in the world that I could read each one of them. But I did do a fair bit of research and there's a number of different stories where people were just persistent in prayer. Jesus was persistent in prayer. and wasn't half-heartedly done. Jesus, when he knew he had to go to the cross, he walked away from the disciples, asked them to watch and pray. And he went and prayed. And Ernie mentioned this a couple of weeks ago in his communion talk. Jesus went away and the Bible says that he just prayed to God that he would take this cup from him. The extent that he prayed was he fell prostrate on the ground and just pleaded with God to take the cup from him. Then went back to his disciples and then he went away again and he did the same thing again. He prayed a second time so earnestly and so broken before God. And then the scripture says that he did it a third time. It wasn't just, hey, God, I don't really want to go through this. If you can take this cup from me, please do. We'll be right now. How often do we just pray like that? So half-heartedly. But even Jesus was down on his knees, his hands and knees prostrate on the ground, it says, pleading with God in prayer. But also said, not my will. but yours. We need to remember that. The two go hand in hand together. Prayer is talked about as just a way to remember it is the word acts. So the acts of prayer. I'll just go through a little bit that I found here. Acts, adoration. confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. I'd like to put it the other way around and call it cats, because personally I think we really should have the confession go up front. and then the Adoration and the Thanksgiving. Adoration involves praising and worshipping God for who He is and His attributes. It's a time of focus on God's character and express admiration for His nature and actions. Confession. This is the step where individuals acknowledge their sins and shortcomings to God. Seeking forgiveness. It involves expressing sorrow for wrongdoing. and asking for cleansing and restoration. Thanksgiving, this part focuses on expressing gratitude to God for his blessings, provisions and love. It's a time to acknowledge the good things in one's life and thank God for them. And then supplication, this involves presenting requests and needs to God, both for oneself and for others. It's a time to ask for guidance, wisdom and specific needs to be met. The Axe Method is a helpful tool for structuring prayer time, encouraging a well-rounded approach to communication with God. Just grab that word communication. That's what prayer is. If we're just, Lord I need this, I need that, help me with such and such. Please give me this. It's not really communication. It really isn't. Relationships are forged in our everyday life by communication, talking with and spending time with someone that we want to get to know better. I can think of many different things. as a young man, guess, sort of looking at some rather neat lady and thinking, sure, wouldn't mind getting to know that one. So the first thing is the approach. The second thing, I guess, is just starting to talk, communicating. How do we go about that? It's got to be a two-way thing. It's got to be a loving thing, not a demanding thing, or she would walk real quick. How do our kids, we've got mums here with little kids, beautiful little kids, very new. How does that work? Our kids come. And they put forward a lot of requests. Me as a granddad knows that when, oh, granddad, could I have a jelly bean? Could I have two jelly beans? And the smile comes on. Could I have a jelly bean and a juke? So you get those sort of things. But it's not only that. There's so many different things that our kids, little as they may be and even older, come to us and request. As parents, as grandparents, we realise that. But there's a lot of times that we can give that, that they request. There's a lot of times that we know that the time isn't right for them to have what they want. It could be in the relation to the jelly beans that they're just about to have lunch. They don't understand all those things when they're really little. could be that maybe they really never need what they're asking for. Because we know that it will be harmful to them. We know that it's not going to help their growth. And can I throw that picture out there to say that that's how I'm sure God is with us. There's so many times that we come to a Heavenly Father with the wrong requests. sometimes the requests of selfishness. Sometimes they're not in a communicating way to get to know God. Sometimes they're probably in a demanding way. How's your heart when you come to God? How is your prayer? Is it persistent for people? Were you like George Mulder and continued to pray? Or like that young girl of 16 that I just mentioned before? Are you faithful? I guess. Too many pieces of paper. I folded it in half just before. There it is, DL Moody, born in 1837, died in 1899. Dale Moody had a list of 100 people. He prayed for and believed to come to faith. At the time of his death, 96 of those 100 people had given their lives to Christ. How precious is that? The story doesn't say how many years he prayed for them, but was faithful and persistent in prayer. 96 people had given their lives to Christ at the time of his death. One might think that when we die, our prayers die with us. But this is not the case. Our prayers outlive us. At Dion Moody's funeral, last four people gave their hearts to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Wow, how precious is that? Today there are many grandfathers, grandmothers. their prayers live on even though they have gone to be with Christ. How persistent are you in prayer, but even more than that, how faithful are you in prayer? What has God laid on your heart to pray for? Are you continuing to pray? Wives, some of you have husbands that maybe don't walk with the Lord. How persistent are you in praying for them? Husbands, the same. How persistent are you in praying for your wife? How persistent are you in praying for friends that God has laid on your heart? your brother, your sister. We pray for them. We pray for those that aren't walking with the Lord. We pray for those that don't know the Lord. Let's not give up. Let's be like the persistent widow that we read in Luke 18. Let's be persistent. Let's keep talking to God. Let's communicate with God to get to know Him better and better and better. Matthew 7, 7. says ask and it will be given you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you. Some versions put it little bit different. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. Don't give up. Prayer ties in so much with faithfulness, being faithful and trusting. Colossians 4-2. Continue steadfastly in prayer. Be watchful in it with thanksgiving. For me that doesn't just mean thank God because he's done something, but that's thank God because we know he's going to do something as well. Some ternsulations in Colossians 4.2 say, devote yourself to prayer. Cultivate a lifestyle of prayer. How precious would that be? Let's just pray. Dear God, thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord, that we can pray. Thank you that that's what you want us to do. Help us to communicate with you, which obviously just builds that relationship with you. Help us to be faithful and to trust you every moment of every day in every situation we ask. and your precious and holy lovely nine. Amen.