Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION:

Many of you will recognize Tony Evans.

He’s a powerful preacher from Texas who is in great demand as a conference speaker.

I’ve had the privilege of hearing Tony in person at Willow Creek Church a few autumns ago.

He delivered one of the best messages on the Great Commission that I have ever heard!

Tony tells the story of being in Columbia S.C. to preach a crusade at the University of South Carolina’s football stadium.

Thousands had gathered for the evening session, but news reports indicated a serious thunderstorm was on the way.

In fact, the storm was expected to hit at 7:00 pm—the exact time the meeting was scheduled to start.

Well, the sky grew darker and darker.

The organizers didn’t know what to do.

I mean, if you’d have been in charge what would you have done.

Here, you have thousands awaiting the service; you’ve flown Tony in and put him up at great expense, but it looks like rain is going to drown all your efforts.

What would you do?

Well, it was a group of preacher and christians, so they decided to call a prayer meeting.

When they came together, Tony says that all the preachers prayed “safe prayers” – you know– prayers where God would look good either way it went.

Lots of comments about the Lord’s will and so forth, all quite undemanding of God.

Then, a woman named Linda spoke up, asking if she could pray.

Linda's prayer went something like this: "Lord, thousands have gathered to hear the Good News about your Son.

It would be a shame on your name for us to have all these unbelievers go without the gospel when you control the weather, and you don't stop it.

In the name of Jesus Christ, address this storm!"

Now if you had been there, which way would you have prayed?

Would you have prayed more like the pastors or like Linda?

And, furthermore, which one prayed the more biblically correct prayer?

Well, questions like that can be confusing.

After all, we will admit that our great and awesome God is sovereign, absolutely in control of every circumstance.

And we will admit that our great and awesome God is all-knowing, certainly much more able to determine what is good, beneficial, holy and best in our lives.

If He is so in control, and so Wise, then, why would we possibly attempt to direct him through our praying?

Why would we even ask Him for anything we think we need, since He already knows what we need and has promised to bring what we need into our lives?

Now those are really great questions and they can leave us almost ready to abandon prayer with some misguided appeal to sovereignty.

But, just about the time we think we’ve got it all figured out and that we never need to pray again, we hear about a woman like Linda who had the audacity to forget everything she thought she knew about God and just cry out to Him in faith.

Kinda reminds me of another woman I read about in the Bible.

You find her story in Luke 18.

It says there:

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, 2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’

4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”

Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.

7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.

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

I love this story.

There’s no deep explanation of the “ins and outs” and the “do’s and don’t’s” of prayer.

There’s a simple lady with a simple request who just keeps asking for the same thing over and over and over again.

And when the smoke settles and the dust clears, what happens?

She gets what she prays for!

NEED

You ever stop and just compare yourself to this widow?

How do you measure up?

I’m afraid I don’t very well.

I find prayer one of the hardest things that I have to do, and, if the attendance at our times of prayer in this church is any indication, you do too!

Now sometimes I have the same problem those preachers at Tony Evans’ rally had: I don’t pray because I am disturbed by my theology.

I allow all the debates about how God is supposed to be approached weaken my prayer to some half-hearted prayer that means little to me and, perhaps, nothing to God.

I miss the purpose of my praying and I don’t do it as I should.

Then sometimes I just get discouraged by my failure.

What I mean is that there are times that I do ask boldly.

I come and present my request to the Lord and I may even believe that He is going to answer, then, from my perspective at least, nothing happens.

Listen, there are people I started praying for years ago who still haven’t been saved.

Sometimes it gets mighty discouraging to plod along feeling like a failure and like your prayers aren’t getting anywhere.

I tell you, in this prayer thing it’ real easy to get discouraged and some Christians do just that.

They don’t announce in church that they’ve given up, but they have.

They’re discouraged by their failure.

And both of these two obstacles to prayer find their root in this last one: You see, in this great journey of prayer it is really easy to be deceived by our pride.

As confusing as it might be to sort out your theology on prayer or as difficult as it is to keep on praying when nothing seems to be happening, the most debilitating obstacle to prayer is pride.

Christians don’t pray because quite often, they think they can handle things by themselves.

Now, I know you’d never get them to admit that, but their very determination to work ont heir own problems without ever bringing them to God or taking the time to pray is silent evidence that they think they can do what God cannot!

They don’t pray because their own pride and self-reliance deceives them.

Well, to the disturbed, discouraged and deceived, God offers an antidote to prayerlessness.

It is found in that little story about the helpless widow and the heartless judge.

A careful look at this parable reveals essentials to help a prayerless Christian overcome those barriers that are keeping him prayerless.

How can you overcome the barriers to prayer?

First,

DIV 1: YOU CAN UNDERSTAND GOD’S CHARACTER

EXPLANATION

One of the first principles of interpreting parables is the principle of careful analogy.

Simply put, characters in the stories Jesus told stand for people he was usually addressing.

For instance, when Jesus told the story of the Prodigal son, the elder brother in the story stood for the Pharisees, the Father for God, and the Prodigal for the Gentiles or for Jews who had not kept the law, the “sinners” if you will.

In this story, the characters stand for others as well.

Of course, the widow stands for those who are trusting in God because they are making their dependence evident through prayer.

If you contemporize this story, this widow could stand for you and me, if we know the Lord.

Well, if the widow stands for you and me, just who does this unjust judge stand for?

At first blush, we are tempted to say that He stands for God, but that analogy causes me some difficulty.

Even though the unjust judge is like God in His authority, He is quite unlike God in His character.

The parable says that this unjust judge “did not fear God, nor regard man.”

He was unspiritual in His nature and uncompassionate in his relationships.

That certainly isn’t like God!

If you read v 7 carfully, you begin to understand that what Jesus is setting up here is not a comparison, but a contrast.

If this unjust judge will reach out and help a poor, defenseless widow, even though He doesn’t fear God nor care about anyone, surely our powerful, holy loving God will step into the situation we are praying to Him about and work on our behalf.

That’s precisely what 18:7 says about God.

It says: “And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?”

APPLICATION

Now this contrast needs to be seen more clearly.

This unjust judge provides a study into the character of God in a unique sort of way.

In a sense this unjust judge’s character reveals how we often think about God and how that “stinkin’ thinkin’” tempts us not to pray.

For one thing, the unjust judge is arbitrary.

That is, the unjust judge does whatever He wants that suits his fancy.

There seems to be no purpose other than his own whim and his own desire.

As a result, living under the rule of this kind of a judge would lead to a life of disorder.

It would lead to a life that had no real purpose that we could understand.

Isn’t that often the way it is with us and our praying?

We pray and pray and things seem to just get worse, many times.

Bad things seem to happen and we can’t understand them and it seems to us as if life is just out of control.

Hey, if God really is there He must be arbitrarily doing things without any kind of a purpose that makes any sense.