Will He Find Faith On the Earth?

This morning, we're going to be going on in Luke 18, and this section is a section about faith, which is something we could all talk about, probably with some intelligence, but faith really is a miraculous gift from God. It's not something that you go and you find, or something you grow, or something you do on your own. It's something that God gives, and it's the only way you can get it. And in Hebrews 11, which is not our text for this morning, but the context for our text this morning, we read, And so we learn in the context of what we're jumping into this morning is that if our goal or our aim is to please God, the only way that that can happen is through faith. If you don't have it, You can't please God. And so what is faith? What does it mean to have faith? Well, earlier in that chapter, Hebrews 11, it says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And then it goes on and lists all of these Old Testament saints who've lived the life of faith and who were delivered from all of their troubles and who now enjoy dwelling in the presence of the Lord.

And each one of them is described as living by faith in their context, in their circumstance. And many of them were in very difficult times, very difficult circumstance, and yet they lived by faith. And so what is faith? Well, it's believing God, taking him at his word, and trusting him, no matter what the potential consequences or ramifications of that faith are. And faith is exactly what we need. Everything that we do in this life, is a matter of our faith. We're always demonstrating what we believe to be true. We act, and by we, I mean men, people, not just we, us, but everyone, acts according to what they believe is true, what they have put their faith in. And so questions like, in whom do we trust? Or what do we want? Or how will you pursue it? Will it be worth it?

These are all questions of faith. Without faith, though, we're without hope of redemption, eternally or temporally in this life. Meaning if we don't trust God to do what he says he's going to do, we have no hope. We have nothing to look forward to, nothing to hang our hat on, nothing to move towards. What we have is aimlessness, fear, frustration, pragmatism. And so this morning, we're going to be studying one of the parables that Jesus taught his disciples about faith. And while faith seems like low-hanging fruit that can be easily understood, as I said already, it's a miraculous gift from God. You remember the numerous times that Jesus tells those that he healed? At the end of when it's all said and done, when they've cried out or when they haven't, or when they didn't do anything but just came up and touched his robe, what does he say to them at the end? Time and time again.

Your faith has made you well. Get up and go home. Pick up your cot. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you well. Every one of those people who heard those words declared to them by Jesus had something that they desperately needed. And are we so different than them? Do we not have burdens to bear, each one of us, and crosses to carry, and temptations to quit or to turn away? to give up hope. And so faith is absolutely essential to our perseverance and ultimately to our salvation. If we don't have faith, it is entirely impossible for us to please God. And it's my desire this morning that none of us would be found in that position without faith. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 18.

This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Now he was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart, saying in a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, Give me legal protection from my opponent. For a while he was unwilling, but afterward... He said to himself, even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out. And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now, will not God bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night? And will he delay long over them?

I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now you know that sometimes when Jesus teaches in parables, nobody understands what he's talking about. They're all confused. They're all unsure. Sometimes the disciples afterwards go and ask him, what were you talking about? We didn't get it. Well, this parable is different. At the very beginning, Luke tells us what the point is. Here's what you need to learn. Here's what you need to get. Here's what you need to understand. Got it? Okay, here's an example. And so Jesus addresses their need from the very beginning. He was telling them a parable for the purpose of showing them that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart. And so the need, the point, the lesson of this whole parable is that they would pray and not lose heart.

Now there are a couple of assumptions that go along with prayer and not losing heart. What's the circumstance in which we ought to pray? Why do we pray? And why would it be important for Jesus to teach us not to lose heart? Well, because each one of us face trials and face hardships. Jesus knows that he's about to be leaving them and that the success and the expansion of the kingdom that they've enjoyed and they've come to know is not going to continue in the same way. It will continue, but not as it has been. And so he knows that difficult times will come for his people, and he tells them that in those difficult times, you will need to pray, and you'll need to not lose heart in the work. These trials are going to be constant. If you think of your own life for a minute, are you occasionally burdened, but most of the time just fine? Or are the temptations that you face to sin more regular than that?

I suspect that for most of us, they're more regular. That we wake up in the morning and not long after we wake up, the wheels start to turn and you start to think about the work that you have going on or the thing that didn't get done yesterday or the anxiety about the thing next week or next month or next year. We have these burdens. And what are we supposed to do with them? Well, the question is a valid one. What are you supposed to do with them? Are you supposed to ignore them? Are you supposed to suppress them? Are you supposed to be consumed by them? No. We're supposed to trust God, to pray, and to not lose heart. That's the whole point of the sermon today. Because that's the whole point of the parable. That we would maintain faith and not lose heart as we pray and seek justice. You know the book of Judges? It's like a marathon run on a high school gym track.

It just keeps going around and around and around the same territory time and time again. The people do what's right in their own eyes. They start, things get bad. They cry out, we need a judge. God raises up a judge, they repent, it gets better, and then he dies, and then it just keeps going on and on and on. And one of the things you learn from the book of Judges is that a burdened people that have difficulty, And none of us, I think, would say, yeah, I'm like those people in the book of Judges. We don't want to be like them, but we are like them. And one of the things that's true of God's people is that when they become burdened, their appropriate response is to cry out to the Lord. That's one of the things you can learn from the book of Judges. You can also learn not to fail to do the same thing over and over again. You know, they should have learned not to give themselves to sin time and time again.

But they were faithful that when time got hard, they cried out to the Lord, and they persisted until he heard and he answered. And so a burdened people quickly become a praying people if they know God. And yet those who lack faith, when the burdens come, when the difficulties come, they become something else entirely. They don't turn to prayer. They don't turn to the Lord. They don't return. They become bitter, calloused, hard, distant, cynical. Depressed? None of these things honor the Lord. None of these things worked for our benefit or for his glory. And so we ought not emulate those things when we're tempted to do them. We ought not to say, well, it's okay for me to be upset. It's okay for me to be angry. It's okay for me to be selfish. Because here, look at this hardship. Look at this difficulty. When we see our need, Jesus tells us we're to pray and we're to not lose heart. And so what are we being taught?

about prayer. If we need to pray, what are we being taught? Well, he tells us this parable of this widow woman and this wicked judge. And all of us understand we're supposed to be like the widow woman. She's our instructor in this parable. She's vulnerable. She's being afflicted by her opponent. We don't know what the nature of her affliction is other than that a judge is the one who's able to fix it. And so there's some sort of oppression or taking advantage of her that's inappropriate, that's illegal. And she knows it. And so she goes to the judge and says, give me protection. And so we learn that our prayers ought to be constant. She kept going to him. You see in the judge's rationale, he doesn't care about her. He's the worst kind of judge you could ever want. Because he doesn't fear God or respect man. He's entirely selfish and proud and calloused. Completely self-interested.

and yet he's a judge who's supposed to execute justice. And this is who this woman has. And he says eventually when he meets her request, I'm going to do it because she's bothering me, and if I don't give her what's right, she's just going to wear me out. She's just going to wear me out. Your kids understand that. Some of you wives understand that. You as employees understand that. But do you understand it with the Lord and your burdens, where it's appropriate? And so we ought to be constant. in the face of adversity to pray. We ought also to be demanding. You ought to pray in a demanding way. Now, what do I mean? God, you owe me. You've given me all these hard things, and it's not fair, and I demand that you deliver me from them. Is that what I mean? No, that's not what I mean. Not exactly. But what I do mean is not that far from that. Scripture teaches us to demand justice.

And we can go around, like this woman did, demanding justice from men. But the point of the parable is not simply that we would demand justice from men, but rather that we would demand justice from God. Are you comfortable with that thought, that you would demand justice from God? You're like, no, I can't talk to him that way. And I say, think for a minute then about your boss or your husband or your mom or dad. Somebody who's over you and who's given you their word that they're going to do something. We're going to go to Kings Island this summer, or we're going to go for a walk, or we're going to go swimming, or I'm going to be home for dinner, or whatever it is they have said they will do. Can you demand that they keep their word? Yes. Yes, you can.

Put yourself in the other position. If you give your word that you will do something, what ground do you have to stand on when the people that you have promised to care for and to love and to do things with demand that you do it? Do you understand how monstrous it would be for me to tell my kids, we're going to do something, and then when they come and say, Daddy, I thought we were going to this and that, and I say, no. And they say, but you said we were going to, and I say, I don't care. Do you understand how wicked that would be of me? And how appropriate it would be for them to come to me and say, but Daddy, you said you would. It would be absolutely appropriate for them to demand of me that I keep my word. And so this widow is interacting with a judge whose job it is to mete out justice for the people. That's his job.

And she has every right to go to him and to say, give me what's mine. Your job is to be fair and to protect me. Do your job because you said you would. Do you ever get uncomfortable when you read the book of Psalms and you hear how David speaks and he prays? He's a great example of demanding from the Lord. You have said, how long are you going to wait? Rise up and deliver us. Deliver me. Strike down those who oppress your people. Lay them waste. He demands that God do what he says he's going to. And it's not unholy in the least bit to take your concerns in the midst of affliction and adversity to the Lord and demand that he do what he said he would do. And that you would do that in a way that doesn't stop.

You think of, I've wondered often as My Soul Among Lions sets the psalms to, they versify them and they set music to them. I wonder, how are they going to keep it interesting? Because there's a couple of themes. This theme of deliverance from your enemies is a very common theme throughout the psalms. And how are they going to keep that interesting? Or are we just going to have 70 songs that are all about the same? And I don't know how they're going to do it. I'm interested to see. But one of the things you learn is that David is constant in his prayer, in his expectation, in his demanding that the Lord do what he said he was going to do. And what that does is keep him from losing heart. He prays and demands of God, do what you said you were going to do. You've made promises to this people concerning our deliverance, our protection, our provision.

our well-being, do what you said you were going to do. Jacob did the same thing, the same type of demanding constantly when he wrestled with the Lord. Now, who in this room other than, I know I've wrestled, Dan's wrestled. Has anyone else ever actually like wrestled on a team? Isaiah did. Okay. In high school, a wrestling match is all of six minutes long. Three two-minute periods. Now, six minutes is just not very long. You could do just about anything for six minutes, right? You think. But I'll tell you, I went through all summer conditioning for football. I played a whole football season. I lifted weights. And the first day of wrestling practice afterwards, I could not move. It is so much more physically demanding. It's by far the most demanding thing I've ever done.

Now, why do I tell you that? Well, how long did Jacob wrestle with this angel? All night long. Until daybreak is what it says. Then Jacob was left alone. And do you know the context of this? Jacob is scared to death. because he's going back into the land where his brother is, and they're about to cross over into the land, and he organizes his whole party, and he's, I'm going to send gifts, and I'm going to send blessings, and I'm going to try to convince him not to kill me when he sees me, because that's what he intended to do when I left. Jacob is scared, and he gets everything all set up, and he sends these convoys of gifts and peace offerings and all this stuff. He sends it all to his brother Esau, and then it says, Then Jacob was left alone. He's by himself. He's made all the preparations. He's about to go face his brother, who was intent on killing him. And a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when he, this angel of the Lord, saw that he had not prevailed against him, against Jacob, he touched the socket of his thigh so that the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Now, I know one person that I'm aware of who's had their hip dislocated.

And it took them rolling a vehicle over and over and over again to knock their hip out of socket. And it was the worst pain that they've ever had. This is what the angel of the Lord, after wrestling all night and not being able to whoop, Jacob does to him and tells him, let me go, for the dawn is breaking. But Jacob wrestled all night, dislocated hip, says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Now, why was Jacob so fixated on being blessed? He's just greedy. He deserves it. He's desperate. But why does he think that the Lord's blessing is for him? Did he just make it up? Or had God intended to bless him? He was demanding of the Lord as he went into what he was afraid would be his last days. He demanded the blessing of the Lord. Fought with him all night, dislocated hip and all, demanded the blessing. And the angel says to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob.

He said, you shall no longer be called, no longer be Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. You have persisted. You have been constant in the midst of adversity and fear and a dislocated hip. And you've striven with me all night until the daybreak and you will not give up. And you've prevailed to get what is yours. This is what faith looks like. This is what prayer looks like. And this is what not losing heart looks like. And woe to us, we're so easily put off of this work, so easily discouraged away from requiring of God what he has promised to give us. And so what can we learn from this widow or from Jacob or from David except that wanting justice and blessing, what God says he will give to his people, what can we learn except that that's worth fighting hard enough for?

And that it is essential to the Christian faith. It is the demonstration of our faith that we would pray and demand of God that he do just exactly what he says he would. As Jesus talks about in this parable, what he's making is, you know, technically speaking, what he's making is a how much more than argument. Here you've got this widow woman who's entitled to protection. And the one she has to go to is an unrighteous judge who doesn't fear God and does not respect man. So a very bad judge. She got justice from him. He didn't want to give justice, but acted, even as he gave her justice, he still acted in his own best interest. She's going to wear me out. I'll just do what she said. She is right after all. In other places, Jesus makes this argument when he's talking about the kindness and the goodness.

of our Father in heaven. And he talks about how evil we are as fathers. And he says, how are you being evil? You know how to give good gifts to your children, don't you? And you're wicked. How much more so your Father in heaven? If this unrighteous judge who's full of sin and has no fear of God and no interest in doing what is right will relent because of persistence, how much more so The God of heaven and earth who wants to do this for you and who has promised to do this for you. The Lord said, hear, this is verse 6, hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now, will not God bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night? And will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them quickly. What's quickly?

You have to understand biblically. You start asking these questions, you have to answer them biblically. What's quickly? Well, a day in the presence of the Lord is like a thousand here. Quickly. How long? You're a young earth, you believe in, we're 6,000 or so years into it. Quickly. If 6,000 is young, then that ought to inform what the word quickly means. In contrast to eternity. And so he doesn't measure time. the way that we do. Peter tells us that he's not slow about his promises. Some men count slowness, but is patient toward us, not desiring that any should perish. And so this is the context in which we understand he will execute justice quickly. And so what is justice? What does it mean to want justice? What does it mean to want his blessing? What is the time frame in our minds and in our hearts that we expect God?

To do this work. At what point will we say, I'll go this far and no further. You got to do it by now or the time's expired. How long are we willing to persevere and to toil and to suffer and to pray without losing heart? How long? That's the question. How long? Will we bear up under the burdens that we bear for the rest of our life? And will we have the faith to understand that as we pray and ask for deliverance and justice and blessing, that if that blessing is finally realized when the Lord calls us home, he will have done everything he said he would. He will have done his work with us quickly. If we don't understand our lives and the burdens of our lives and the end of our life, In the context of the world to come and the life that never ends, we will lose heart. Speaking of living or dying, in Philippians, Paul says, I don't know which to choose. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. I don't know which would be better. And I've told you guys before of a conversation I had with a guy, and I said that to him, and he says, you're the first person who's ever said that. He's been in church his whole life.

And all I said to him was, we as Christians ought to actually expect that we'll have it better after we die than now. Does that mean that there's nothing to enjoy now and there's no blessings and there's no things that we should seek to have? No. No. But this life and everything that it consists of is fading away. The most intimate relationships and the most intimate... desires, and the most difficult burdens that we have in this life will all be done away with in the life to come. You won't have a husband or a wife. Death will separate you, and you'll be with the Lord. And so if Jesus tells us that he will deliver us, will bless us, will execute justice for us, and he will do it quickly, do you believe it? Do you believe it?

And we all say, I know, you know, there's this conflict. If you're like me, there's this conflict. You're like, well, I want to believe it. I know that I should believe it. I hope I believe it. And Jesus ends his parable with the question, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? And what he does is introduce, you know, he ends, you know, normally when you end a story, it has a happy ending, and it has... resolution. But here he doesn't. Here he states the tension, and that's the end of it. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Well, what does faith look like? Well, it looks like everything he's just explained, everything we've just discussed. When he returns, will he find a people who have persevered in prayer and not lost heart, who trust him to do what he says he will do? Or by that time, will we have all fallen aside?

to the destruction of our souls. And that's the hard part. That's the bitter part of the pill. Because if I say, will he find faith on the earth? We say, I don't know. I hope so. And we have all of these thoughts. But when we put this together with how Hebrews talks about faith, saying that without faith it's impossible to please God, you see the teeth of this. You see the danger. You see the necessity of persevering and not losing heart. Losing heart's not like, oh, I just can't anymore. I'm too tired. I'm too worn out. I just can't go another step. There are consequences for quitting the race. And there are consequences that none of us want for ourselves or for anyone else. So will Jesus find faith on the earth when he returns? There's a lot of tension in that question. I would very much like to answer it by saying, well, he will if he gives us faith, but if he doesn't give us faith, then we won't have faith. A way of sort of...

turning the spotlight off of me and casting it back onto God and saying, well, I will if you do, but you can't expect anything of me. But is that the way Jesus speaks here? Does he say, well, you will if I will. So it's really all just a, it's just a big game. Will not God bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night? You could have left that part out, you know, and it'd be a lot more comfortable. Will he not bring about justice for his elect? And just leave off that part about them crying out day and night. Just leave off the prayer. Leave off the perseverance. Leave off our responsibility. Will God not simply do what he says he's going to do regardless of what I do? The answer is actually yes, he will. He will bring about his will. And you will not thwart it. You will not earn his blessing. You will not lose his blessing based on your behavior.

But there's a difference in the way that a child understands what his father says and a stranger. You know, when I preach and I talk, you know who understands what I'm talking about the best? My family does. Because they listen to me talk all week when I talk. I don't always talk, but when I do, they have more exposure. They have a broader context and subsequently a stronger desire. to listen to me. And that's our position before the Lord, is that we would have a stronger desire to listen and to do what he says. Far be it from us to argue and reason away our responsibility as his children for fear of him not doing what he said he was going to do. If we trust that he will do what he said he was going to do, that he will do everything that he said he was going to do, How can we argue in a way that questions the very thing we just said we believe? If we believe that he will deliver us, and if we believe that he will bless us, and that he will be a God to us and to our children, and that he will not forsake us, if we believe those things, how can we even consider standing before him and justifying losing heart? We cannot. John tells us.

that in this world we will have trouble. And if your eyes are open, that resonates with you. In this world you have trouble. Various kinds and varying degrees of intensity for various amounts of time. You will have trouble. What does he go on to tell us? In this world you will have trouble, but what? Take heart. Don't lose heart. Take heart. Why? For Jesus has overcome this world. And so in the same way that Jacob travailed, fought with the Lord, and prevailed in it, so will all of God's children who continue to pray and bring their requests before the Lord and expect him to do what he says he's going to do in whatever way that he intends to do it. Those who have faith will not be disappointed. So what does that faith look like? Well, first...

A very common verse or something that a lot of people talk about is Romans 8.28. We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose. And this is often used as a, and it's appropriately used as a balm or a comfort or a reassurance to God's people. It's appropriate that we would view it that way. The difficulty is... When something hard is going on and we fail to see how God's doing this good thing in the midst of this very difficult thing. As if goodness from the Lord and difficulty in this world are antithetical. They can't be going on at the same time. The difficulty in our life doesn't, you know, how could that bring about good, our good? And that's only perceived or understood by faith. How often in your life have you been in the midst of a trial or a hardship and you haven't understood why?

or when, or anything about why this is going on. You just know it's hard, and that you'd like for it to be done. But later, after it's over, you come to understand what was going on, what was really happening, what God was producing, but you couldn't see it in the moment. And so faith believes in the midst of struggle and trial that even right then, God is causing all things to work together for good, and for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. That's the first way that faith enters in or manifests itself. The second is that we believe, as Hebrews said, that he is the rewarder of those who seek him. The King James says those who diligently seek him. If we give in to believing that praying to God repeatedly until he answers is a vain thing to do, that it's in vain to do it, then you know what? You aren't going to do it. You see how hard Jacob fought to obtain his blessing.

We can't neglect that work in our own lives and expect the same result. And so we have to have spiritual eyes, faithful eyes, to see the reward that's coming. The reward may not come in this life. The vast majority of it certainly will not. And only faith can see that and weigh it and find value in it. Losing heart doesn't end well. It doesn't go well for us. And so I want to end by reading to you a couple of verses of what Paul said at the end of his life. to Timothy. And it's my prayer that these would be words that we would speak at the end of our life. 2 Timothy 4, 7 and 8. Paul says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. In the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all.

who have loved his appearing. Let us pray.