Sermon Tone Analysis

Does God actually answer our prayers?

Or let me ask it another way.

Is prayer an essential part of your Christian faith, or is it just something that we do when we don’t really know what else to do?

I mean, I know because we are Christians we are theologically required to say yes, of course God hears our prayers and answer us, but functionally, I fear that many Christians treat prayer no different than the World.

You see the world has no concept of God as Father.

They don’t have a concept of a relationship with a God who loves them and cares for them.

For them, prayer is little more than hopeful feelings.

Just like the world, the way we pray says that we hope God hears us, but we don’t have any real expectation that he cares enough to do something about it.

And because of this, prayer becomes an afterthought of our faith and relegated to the sidelines of the Christian life.

Even a common cultural saying is “on a wish and a prayer” to describe things we hope will happen but we know are a long shot.

However, throughout Jesus’ ministry, he consistently showed us that prayer was essential for his life.

As we continue our series through the parables, Jesus tells a story in to show us just how prayer is not just a part of the Christian’s life, but is actually essential for our Christian life because it is through prayerful dependence on God that we will be able to endure in the faith until Christ returns.

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And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’

4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’

” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.

7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?

zWill he delay long over them?

8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’

4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’

” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.

7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?

Will he delay long over them?

8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The Coming Judgment

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Why was Jesus concerned that his disciples would “lose heart?”

To understand this we need to look immediately before our passage where Jesus was teaching his disciples about his coming kingdom.

Here is what you need to understand about Jesus.

He is going to return one day to crush his enemies, redeem his people, and reign forever on the earth.

We do not serve a God who is absent, far off, or unconcerned with the brokenness of our world.

Jesus died to free all of creation from the power of sin so that our world that is so broken with war, famine, sickness, and death could be redeemed, or made new.

God is working to renew the heavens and the earth and one day when Jesus returns the Bible tells us that Jesus will make all things new ().

Now Christians look forward to Christ’s return with hopeful expectation.

However, Jesus told us that for the world, those that are his enemies, his return will be a day of terrible judgement where every single person will have to give an account of their life to the One True God.

In 26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— 30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.

32 Remember Lot’s wife.

33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— 30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.

32 Remember Lot’s wife.

33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

To teach his disciples about the severity of his sudden and unexpected judgement, Jesus reminds them of two clear events where God poured out his judgement on the earth as a picture of the final judgement that will come upon sinners when Christ returns.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

First he mentions Noah and the Flood.

26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.

27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Tells us that God looked down from heaven and “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah lived in a day where every person rejected God and his kingdom instead choosing their sin over worshiping him.

But the Bible says that Noah was given grace.

God saved Noah and comes to him and tells him to build a boat, load it up with animals, because he is going to destroy every sinner from the face of the earth.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

So Noah obeys God and builds a boat and all the while the people of the earth “were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage.”

For the world, it was life as normal.

they weren’t concerned about God or his coming judgement.

They continued to live for themselves until Jesus says, “the flood came and destroyed them all.”

Then Jesus talks about Lot.

28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—

Now Lot was Abraham’s nephew and lived in a city called Sodom.

Sodom was a wicked city full of debauchery.

God tells Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom and Abraham makes a deal with God that if there were 10 righteous people God would not destroy the city.

So God sends two angels and they meet Lot, and he brings him back to his house where an event transpires that gives us a picture of how wicked this city truly was.

The men of Sodom come to Lot’s house, surround it and demand that Lot throw the two angels out so that they could rape them.

If this story could get any more grotesque, this wasn’t a small segment of the population.

The Bible tells us that it was every man in the city both young and old.

Because of their great wickedness God determined to destroy Sodom in judgment, and just like in the days of Noah, Jesus said that they “were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.”

Again, it was life as normal with people living for themselves instead of worshiping God.

And again, Jesus said that God rained down fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed them all.

And Jesus says that just like in the days of Noah and Lot when God’s judgment came suddenly and severely on unrepentant sinners, 30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

When Jesus came to earth the first time it was to bring salvation through his sinless life, his death on a cross and his resurrection from the grave.

When he returns it will be to execute judgment on all those that refuse to repent of their sin and idolatrous lives where they only live for themselves and put their faith in him.

And because of this coming judgment, Jesus warns his disciples by saying, 31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.

32 Remember Lot’s wife.

33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

So what is Jesus trying to say here?

He’s trying to urge his disciples to not live for themselves, but instead to live for Jesus’ Kingdom.

In other words, to live lives that are transformed by the gospel to no longer live for our sin or idolatry, in other words living for this world, but to live a life that glorifies God.

What Jesus is saying is, “Don’t be so attached to your life in this world that you miss out on your life in my kingdom.

Don’t worry about all the goods you have in your house and don’t look back longingly on your former, sinful life, but remember Lot’s wife.

Now In Genesis as Lot and his family are fleeing the destruction of Sodom, and Lot’s wife, literally looks back to Sodom because she loved her life there among those wicked people.

And when she turned back, she became a pillar of salt.

Instead, we must remember Jesus’ promise that 33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

In other words, to follow Jesus is to die to ourselves and our will and our desires which are sinful.

It is to acknowledge the fact God is king of our life and our whole life is to be given to him in worship.

We literally are called to lose our life, to stop living for ourselves and our sin, and instead live for God and his glory through faith in Christ and in so doing, we will escape the coming Judgment when Jesus brings his Kingdom to fulfillment.

And instead of entering into judgment all those that put their faith in Jesus will enter into eternal life.

And this is why Jesus goes to And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

It is peculiar that Jesus talking about the return of his kingdom would potentially lead his own disciples to “lose heart.”