PH 5-minute Bible teaching

Invisible force

Every year we do a roughly five week series called You Asked For It where viewers online and in person can submit questions they’d love to hear answered from the pulpit. This week we started with one that seems to come up every year: what can I do about my lost family member?

We live in an era that mocks the concept of prayer. But for the Christian, we have to understand this key reality – especially if we truly want our loved ones to be saved. If you want to just listen to the audio version of this clip, just click here.

If you want to see the full sermon associated with this clip, you can find it here.

---

Transcript: Invisible Force

Wed, Oct 25, 2023 : Peter Heck

(Begin transcript)

I know that we're living in an era now, where everybody says thoughts and prayers, and people say it, but they don't mean it. And in fact, you got a whole group of people to get angry whenever people say thoughts and prayers, because nobody actually means it when they say it, it's just a cliched phrase. My point is that we have to mean it.

If you want your loved one to come to know Christ, you have to mean it. When you say that, I'm going to pray for that individual. Here's what we know that the world doesn't know. And I really want you to get this, I really want you to believe this, we have to that prayer is the single most powerful way of influencing the world. The world will reject that idea. They will scoff at that idea. They get mad whenever there's a school shooting, and people say, “Well, I'm going to pray for this situation.” “Oh, yeah, your prayers aren't doing anything. Your prayers are ridiculous. How about we do something,” that's the way the world responds. But a Christian understands that it is the single most powerful way of influencing the world, we always look to people in positions of power, because they can write laws, they can do stuff.

No, no, what I'm telling you is that an elderly widow, on her knees in her family room, is doing more to influence the world than any position of power or an individual that’s operating in this earth. I'm telling you right now, without question, I believe that we try to be clever, and come up with all of these things that we can do about the situation. But what is prayer doing? Prayer is the invisible force that moves the hand of Almighty God.

Now you answer me a question. You organize some sort of giant charity event that's going to bring people something, I don't know what you're going to do, you're going to bring in hundreds of people and you're going to bring in all of their money, and you're going to pull it, you're going to put it all towards this cause. That's a great thing to do. But if the hand of God moves in that situation, is he not capable of doing more in one, split millisecond than you can in 100 years of rallying all the people in the world, that's what I'm getting at.

If prayer is the invisible force that moves the hand of it is the single most important thing you could possibly do in any situation. In any event in the world. I want you to flip now to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18, Jesus tells a parable. It's an overlooked parable, we hardly ever read it. We hardly ever pay attention to it. But we should. And for whoever asked the question, this is the parable that you need to concentrate on. It starts in verse one.

“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said, in a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.”

So that's a great judge. He doesn't fear God, he doesn't care about anybody. He's just a judge.

“And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused, of course, he refused.” He doesn't care about God, and he doesn't care about people. So what does he care? He refused. “But finally, he said to himself,” verse four, “even though I don't fear God or care,” and I love that, who says that to themselves? Well, I'm a giant jerk. But in spite of that, “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming,” you know, asking all of these questions. “And then the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says, will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?”

Okay, you get what's going on here, right? Jesus is saying even an unjust punk of a judge is eventually going to get worn out and just give in not because he's good, and because he cares about you, but because your persistence is eventually going to wear him down, right? Like, that's how I got Jenny to marry me, just persistence, eventually, yeah whatever. Whatever, okay, that's it. You just remain persistent in the whole thing.

And Jesus is saying, but now you're dealing with a God who you know loves you and cares about you, and wants what's best for you. You're not dealing with a judge that doesn't care. Will he not? Will this loving God not to you? Of course, he will. Pray and keep praying. I'm telling whoever asked this question, be that woman, be the persistent widow. Pray, then pray some more, and then pray some more every day. Even when you're praying for your meal at lunch, and it's a two minute prayer or it's a 30 second prayer. Include that loved one, that you are wanting them to come to know Christ. Badger the Lord with your prayers about your loved one, ceaselessly pray every day for that individual.

(End transcript)