Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Prayer Reveals About Faith | Dr. Lamar Hardwick | Luke 18:1-8

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. And I'm Patrick Miller. We have a special guest for you today, Dr. Lamar Hardwick. He's the lead pastor of Tri-Cities Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and he's also known as the autism pastor, diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of 36. Dr. Hardwick's a compelling advocate and teacher, and I think you're really going to enjoy his candid talk about prayer. There's a story about a little boy who wanted to get a new bike for Christmas.

Starting point is 00:00:41 And so rather than praying to Santa for a new bike, he decided he would write a letter to Jesus to ask him for a new bike. And so he sat down and began to write his letter. And he began the letter by saying, Jesus, if I am good and behave for six weeks straight, would you please give me a new bike? Well, the little boy thought about it and realized six weeks is a long time. I'm not sure that I can behave for six weeks straight. So he tore that letter up and began to write the letter again.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Jesus, if I'm good and if I behave for four weeks straight, would you please give me a new bike for Christmas? A little boy thought about it again and realized four weeks is also a long time. I'm not sure that I can be perfect for four weeks. So he tore that letter up and started over again this time writing Jesus, if I'm good for just one whole week, would you please bring me a new bike? And he thought about it and said, you know, a week is also a really long time for me. I'm not sure that I can do it.

Starting point is 00:01:52 So he tore that letter up as well. When he runs into the living room of his grandmother's house and on the mantle above the fireplace, His grandmother had a little statue of the Virgin Mary, Jesus's mother. And so he grabs the statue, takes the statue into his room of the Virgin Mary, gets some duct tape, tapes the mouth of the statue, and throws the statue into the back of his closet. He grabs a pen and paper and sits down to write again. And this time his letter began like this. Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again, I want a new bike for Christmas.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Now, that's sort of a hilarious story, but the reality of it is that that's how most of us engage in prayer. We think that most often prayer is designed for us to leverage God into getting what we want from him. Jesus tells a unique story in Luke chapter 18, verses 1 through 8, that help us to understand the nature of God and the nature of prayer. prayer. The story says, one day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. There was a judge in a certain city, he said, who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly saying, give me justice in this dispute with my enemy. The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, I don't fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I'm going to see that she gets justice because she is wearing me out with her constant requests.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Then the Lord said, learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly. But when the son of man returns, how many will he find on earth who have faith? This is one of my favorite stories about prayer because unlike most parables, this parable isn't a comparison. It's a contrast.

Starting point is 00:04:10 And in this parable, much like the young boy, it appears as though the widow has sort of a progression of aggression. She continues to return to the judge day after day after day. And the reality is it might be due to the desperation of her situation. I mean, how many of us have had to pray to God because we find ourselves in a desperate situation? And perhaps it was also fueled by the fact that the judge was both distant and disinterested in her situation. So as you read the story, it appears that she becomes a little bit more aggressive in trying to get the judge to pay. attention to her needs. And ultimately, Jesus says in this story that the widow complains and complains and complains

Starting point is 00:05:04 to the judge until the judge is finally compliant. Here's what's interesting about this story. So unlike other parables, this one is not a comparison to how the kingdom of God works. It's actually a contrast. In fact, Jesus says in verse 6 that the person that we're supposed to learn from, in this story is not the widow because Jesus says, I want you to learn a lesson from the unjust judge. There's three things that I learned in my personal life that have helped me to understand the nature of God and the nature of prayer. The first thing is, is that God, unlike the judge,

Starting point is 00:05:43 is not distant. Remember, Jesus says in the parable that the judge says to himself that I don't care about God or about people. And the only reason why he does respond to the widow is because he wants to get rid of her. Jesus says, I want you to learn a lesson from the unjust judge. God is not like that. In other words, God is not distant. The judge wanted nothing to do with the widow. He was not interested in a relationship with her at all.

Starting point is 00:06:16 And maybe the lesson we can learn from this parable is that Jesus wants us to know that when it comes to prayer, God is not like that judge. God isn't distant. God wants to be close to us. The other thing that we can learn is that God, unlike the judge in the parable, is not disinterested. You see, the judge was really not interested in the challenges that the widow was facing. In fact, the judge appeared to have no compassion or empathy, saying to himself, I care nothing about God or about people.

Starting point is 00:06:50 Jesus says, I want you to learn. a lesson from the unjust judge about what God is not like. God is not disinterested. God is actually very interested in all of the intricate details of your life, including the challenges that you face. Now, the last part is a little bit difficult because if we follow the same rules of the parable and we learn what God is not like by looking at the judge, we also have to understand that God, unlike the judge, is not always compliant.

Starting point is 00:07:25 See, when Jesus tells the story, the judge is compliant with the woman's request because she continued to complain. So if we follow the same rules of the parable, God is not always compliant with our prayers because we complain. I mean, isn't that the point of prayer? If I complain enough, God. God will actually be compliant? No, Jesus says, God is not like the judge.

Starting point is 00:07:54 God doesn't always comply with your request just because you complain. But here's what we do know, that even though God is not always compliant, unlike the judge, God is always completely committed to relationship with you. So here's a couple of questions that I ask myself, as I learn about the nature of God and the nature of prayer. What if prayer is more than a plea of desperation? What if your prayers were a declaration of dependence? See, unlike the widow, maybe if we turn from simply complaining to God to understanding that it's a direct declaration of dependence to God, it might change how we see prayer.

Starting point is 00:08:42 Here's another question. What if prayer is not an act of aggression? but an act of submission. Jesus paints a picture of a widow who becomes increasingly more aggressive about getting what she needed from the judge because the judge didn't really care about who she was as a person or what she was dealing with in her life. But because we know that God is not like the judge and God is not distant and God is not disinterested. What if our prayers no longer need to be acts of aggression trying to get God to comply, but rather our prayers are at act of. of submission that we understand that God is completely committed to us. And as an act of submission, we pray to demonstrate we are also completely committed to God.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Here's the last question. What if the goal of our prayers was not always just getting closure, but what if the goal of our prayer life was for you and God to become closer? You see, in the end, we learned that God is not like the judge. And so while we know that he's not distant or disinterested, we also realize that God is not always compliant. But let's be honest, if God always gave us everything that we wanted, every time that we asked, then who's really God? So here's what we know that God, according to Jesus in this parable, is completely dependable. and that we have a God who is in control because we pray to a God that cannot be controlled. So I want to invite you to change your prayer life to listen to the story of Jesus and the unjust judge and learn that God is not distant.

Starting point is 00:10:27 God is not disinterested in what's going on in your life. But that also means that sometimes God is not always compliant, but God is in control and God is completely committed. to you. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Prayer Reveals About Faith | Dr. Lamar Hardwick | Luke 18:1-8

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