Dennis Jernigan
was born in 1954 in Salpulpa, Oklahoma. He was raised in a Christian home and
attended a Baptist church. Although he
was surrounded by Christian influences, Dennis struggled with
homosexuality. He battled with same-sex
attraction from middle school through his early twenties. One day while at a concert, Jernigan was
born-again by the Spirit of God. He
confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and began his lifelong sanctification journey.
Upon his conversion, Jernigan started writing music and now his songs are sung
all over the world. I remember singing
his songs in college,
You are my
strength when I am weak / You are the treasure that I seek / You are my all in
all / Seeking You as a precious jewel / Lord to give up I’d be a fool / You are
my all in all. Jesus, Lamb of God /
Worthy is Your name / Jesus, Lamb of God, Worthy is Your Name.
Jernigan has helped Christians
lifted their voices in praise and worship for over 30 years. How did this once practicing homosexual
change to become a world-wide worship leader? The answer came after a concert
in his mid-thirties about ten years after he began his musical career.
A
woman named June Smith approached him after a concert. Ms. Smith had been part of Jernigan’s
grandmother’s weekly prayer group. Ms.
Smith asked Jernigan if he remembered going over to his grandmother’s house to
play the piano when he was a young boy. Of course Jernigan remembered and Ms.
Smith said, “Your grandmother would stand behind you and pray over you that God
would allow you to use your love for music to worship him. She came to our
weekly prayer group and asked us to agree with her in that prayer. We prayed for you every week for years.” Then
she said, “And son, we still do.”
Jernigan became a world-wide vehicle for worship because of the faithful
persevering prayers of his grandmother and her friends. His grandmother would never live to see the
fruit of her prayers, but without her prayerful perseverance Jernigan may still
be lost in homosexuality. Persevering prayer helped to transform Dennis
Jernigan.
Prayer
is powerful. Jesus wants His people to
pray and not lose heart. It took years and years of prayers of a group of godly
older women to transform a lost young man to a new creation in Christ. I want to share from this text 5 marks of
persevering prayer.
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Prayer should be Regular
It
is important to keep in mind the context of this parable. Jesus just finished teaching on the coming of
the kingdom of God when the Son of Man comes in glory. This parable is connected to this previous
teaching by the last sentence, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will
he find faith on earth?” Jesus gives
this parable as an encouragement to persevere/
Luke 18:1 says, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they
ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
The word translated for “ought” here is the Greek word “dei.” It is used
consistently by Luke to give imperatives to the reader. We “must” always pray and not lose
heart. Prayer should be as regular to
the Christian as breathing.
DL
Moody was teaching at an elementary school on one of his trips to
Scotland. He started with a rhetorical
question, “What is prayer?” And a number of hands shot up to the sky, curiosity
caused Moody to call one of the children who said, “"Prayer is an offering
up of our desires unto God, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit,
with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his
mercies." (Answer #98 in the Westminster Catechism) Moody smiled and
looked at the boy and said, “Be thankful son, you were born in Scotland.”[1]
Prayer is simply offering up your desires God in the name of Christ by the help
of His Spirit. Prayer is asking for
God’s help and mercy.
Prayer
should be a regular part of the Christian life so much so that Paul writes in 1
Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” Christians should always pray. This doesn’t mean we are only praying and
never doing anything else, but rather it means we are always bringing our needs
to God. “God help me concentrate during
this sermon, help me eat well today, strengthen me to serve my children,
provide for our family’s daily needs, help my kids make good friends, heal my
friend of cancer, keep me safe on the road, etc. What are your needs? Take those needs and
bring them to God in prayer.
Prayer should be Repeated
We
not only should pray, but we should pray repeatedly to our Father. Jesus told this parable not only to encourage
his disciples to pray, but to pray and not lose heart. We continue to lift our requests to continue
regardless of whether we believe they are being heard. Jesus begins the parable proper in verse 2,
He said, “In a
certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And
there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying,
‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward
he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because
this widow
keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat
me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the
unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry
to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will
give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on earth?
After
preaching one Sunday morning on marriage, a woman came up to me and told me how
hard it was to continue to pray for her husband. She had been going to church alone for 13
years. Every Sunday she would leave the
house alone, walk into the church alone, hear the Word alone, and go home
alone. And after praying week after
week, year after year, for her husband to start to come to church, she looked
at me that Sunday morning and said, “It is hard to continue to pray.” And you know what? It is hard, but we still should always pray and not lose
heart. I told her that I was going to
start praying with her for her husband and by God’s grace, her husband started
coming every Sunday morning to worship, and then starting coming every week to
Sunday School. He is now a vital part of
that congregation because a woman was faithful to persevere in prayer for her
husband for over a decade. She did not
give up, but reaped the harvest of her prayers at the proper time (Gal 6:9).
Beloved,
I know that there are things in your life that you have asked God for years and
years to have been left unanswered. And I am confident that some of you want to
give up praying; you are losing heart. Jesus wants to speak to you this morning
and say that you should always pray and not lose heart. Keep going. Do not give in. I am with you. I have not forsaken you. I have heard your cries
for mercy. Have courage to continue to
pray.
Prayer should be Reasonable
Peter writes in his first epistle that you
should be, “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” We
have anxieties and worries that God tells us to bring to him, but our request should
be reasonable. Would it be wrong to ask God to give you a new car if you are
anxious about reliable transportation to work? Definitely not! Would it be wrong to ask God to give you a
new Lexus so your friends would be jealous? Absolutely yes!! 1 John 5:14-15,
And this is the
confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his
will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask,
we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
And James 4:2b-3
You do not have,
because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to
spend it on your passions.
In these three verses, we see three
reasons our prayers are not answered. First, we are asking for something
outside God’s will. Secondly, we are not asking. We have not because we ask
not. And third, our prayers are not
answered because we ask with the wrong motives.
The
persistent widow had a very reasonable request.
She wanted justice. Verse 3,
And there was a
widow in that city who kept coming to him an saying, ‘Give me justice against
my adversary.’
Widows were commanded throughout
the Law to be cared for by society. In
this case, this widow needed justice, probably financial justice, from someone
who was trying to take advantage of her.
We do not have to think this was an older widow, because woman were
married as young as 13 or 14 so young widows were common (1 Tim 5:3-16). Regardless of her age, she came repeatedly
with a very reasonable request: justice. She was demanding justice.
God’s
people should care about justice. We
should desire God to vindicate us and to deliver us from persecution and
trials. Although we can make application
to prayer with this parable, the thrust of the parable is focused on a specific
prayer; the prayer for justice. Jesus concludes the parable verses 7-8,
And
will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them
speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
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The
greatest challenge for us in our prayers is that God answers them in His
timing. God will give us final justice on the Day of the Lord. Peter connects
God’s promise, patience, and the Day of Lord with a similar encourage,
But do not
overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his
promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any
should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord
will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and
the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the
works that are done on it will be exposed.
The Lord will give us justice, but
His patience is towards us so that no one would perish but all his elect would
come to repentance. We are not called to
understand the Lord’s timing, but to be rooted in His character.
Prayer should be Rooted
Jesus
is offering us a lesser to greater parallel.
He is showing that if an unrighteous judge who does not respect man or
fear God, but makes decisions that serve his own interests. If an unrighteous, selfish judge like that
will give justice to a persistent widow, will not God do so even more? The comparison
can be clearly seen in verse 6-7,
And the Lord said,
“Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his
elect, who cry to him day and night?
Cast your
anxieties on Him, because he cares for you.
Luke 11:13,
If you then, who
are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
James 1:5,
If any of you
lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach,
and it will be given him.
God loves to bless His people. He
loves to give to His children. We see
this most clearly in how he gave us unrighteous sinners, His own Son. Romans
8:32,
He who did not
spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him
graciously give us all things?
We should always pray and not lose
heart because God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. If our
God loves us so much that He willingly would send Jesus to die in our place,
how will not also give us all things?
We
are in Christ. We are children of God.
We are forgiven. We are righteous. We are heirs of the world to God. We are new
creations. God has already given us so
much and he wants to give us more so we should pray and not lose heart.
Friend,
if you are here and not a Christian, have you ever considered how much God
loves you? Have you thought of how much
God desires to have a relationship with you? The Bible says that you are unjust
and will face true justice. We all have been there, but God sent his Son, Jesus
Christ to bear the burden of anyone who would turn from their sins and trust in
Him. He was crucified, but was raised on
the third day. And now because of His victory over the grave, we live in hope
of our future resurrection. Friend, God
promises that He will give justice to His people and he invites you to be one
of his people, will you come? Confess
your sins and believe in Christ.
Prayer should be Refocusing
Prayer is an act
of humility. Every time we pray, we say
to God, “I cannot do it alone. I need you.”
In this way, prayer is refocusing our dependence upon God. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the
humble. Prayer is one way God trains us
in humility. We pray because we need
mercy and grace. We pray because we are insufficient in ourselves. We pray
because only God can do the impossible.
We pray because our God who knows all told us to pray.
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Nevertheless, when
the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
Jesus draws everything back to the
Day of the Lord. When the Lord comes to
bring justice to His people, will he find faith? Will he find people trusting
in His name? Will he find people believing in His love? Will he find people
hoping in their future resurrection on the basis of the resurrection of Christ?
It seemed to me
best done, by the establishing of an Orphan-House. It needed to be something
which could be seen, even by the natural eye. Now, if I, a poor man, simply by
prayer and faith, obtained, without asking any individual, the means for
establishing and carrying on an Orphan-House: there would be something which,
with the Lord's blessing, might be instrumental in strengthening the faith of
the children of God besides being a testimony to the consciences of the
unconverted, of the reality of the things of God. This, then, was the
primary reason, for establishing the Orphan-House. . . The first
and primary object of the work was, (and still is) that God might be
magnified by the fact, that the orphans under my care are provided, with all
they need, only by prayer and faith, without any one being asked by me or my
fellow-laborers, whereby it may be seen, that God is FAITHFUL STILL, and HEARS
PRAYER STILL[2].
Beloved, refocus your hearts on how
great our God is. God is faithful and
will always be faithful. He is faithful to hear our prayers. He will give us justice. He who called you is faithful; He will surely
do it (1 Thess. 5:24).
[2]
http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god#39
accessed 9.6.14
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