Have you ever heard of Sisyphus? Sisyphus is a character from Greek mythology, a king whose calling card was deceitful craftiness. He was so crafty, that he even managed to pull one over on the gods a couple times. Now, the Greek gods weren’t amused when humans made them look bad, so they punished Sisyphus, making him push a huge boulder up a hill for eternity. The cruel part was that every time Sisyphus got the boulder close to the top of the hill, it would roll back down to the bottom. So Sisyphus would have to start all over again, knowing that despite his efforts, the boulder would always end up back where he started. That’s where our adjective “Sisyphean” comes from, meaning a laborious, but futile effort.
Do you ever feel like Sisyphus when it comes to prayer? Like you pray to God about something day after day, but nothing ever changes? Like no matter how hard you push in prayer, you’re still stuck behind the boulder?
When people think that prayer is a futile effort, they won’t be very motivated to pray persistently. But today, God’s Word seeks to give us a mindset that will motivate us to pray persistently, convinced that prayer isn’t a Sisyphean effort, but a merciful gift. It’s a “how to” session: How to Pray Persistently. And the mindset change only requires one step: to Understand Your Relationship with God. That understanding completely changes the way we pray.
Genesis 18 is a great example of the kind of persistent prayer we’re striving for. You probably know the account. Three travelers, who are actually the LORD and two angels, appear at Abraham’s tent. After they eat and rest, the visitors depart, and Abraham sees them off. As they walk, the two angels break away towards Sodom where Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family lived, and Abraham is left standing with the LORD. The LORD then reveals to Abraham why they’d come, “to see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.” Abraham knew the rampant evil and unbelief of the Sodomites wouldn’t withstand the Lord’s righteous judgment unless God showed them mercy.
So that’s what Abraham persistently prays for: God’s mercy. First, “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?” The LORD heard and answered his prayer, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
Still, Abraham pushes the number lower. “Lord, what if there are only 45…40… 30… 20…10? And every time Abraham persistently prayed, the LORD matched it with his mercy, promising to answer Abraham’s prayer all the way down to saving the city for ten believers. See God’s mercy? Not just saving the 10, but the whole city for their sake!
How could Abraham pray so persistently and boldly? We might think, “Abraham understood his relationship with God! God chose him to share in the covenant and produce the Savior’s line, so he knew the kind of pull he had with God!”
Yes, Abraham prays persistently because he understood his relationship with God. Not just his privileged position; but also his undeserving nature. See how humbly Abraham speaks to God! “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the LORD…” It was bold to speak to God like this because he didn’t deserve to. Abraham admits that he is “nothing but dust and ashes.” Abraham knew how much Sodom and Gomorrah needed God’s mercy, because he understood how much he needed God’s mercy! The sin-stained hearts beating in the Sodomites’ chests mirrored his own sin-stained heart. And so he prays, not depending on his merit, but on God’s mercy.
That’s the first part we need to understand about our relationship with God. We don’t deserve anything from his hand. Attitudes that derail a persistent prayer life form when we misunderstand our relationship with God; when we think we’ve earned God’s ear, but our sinful hearts beat in unison with Sodom; when we think God should serve us rather than us serving him. If we forget our relationship with God, we easily get frustrated if he doesn’t seem to hear our prayers, or answers them differently than we want. When we pray for remission, but the cancer grows; when we pray for a spouse, but the lonely days continue, we get jaded with God. And when we’re frustrated or angry with God, at best we fail to pray persistently, and at worst, we stop praying altogether. In our foolish minds, what’s the point of praying if the boulder keeps rolling downhill?
It’s like parenting, really. When my daughter Faith was a few months old, she screamed every time we bathed her. In her mind, baths were neither good, nor necessary. If Kelly and I had caved to her will, although we know what’s best for her, she would have liked no baths, but it certainly wouldn’t have been good for her or anyone within smelling distance!
It’s no different when flawed sinners like us refuse to humble ourselves to God’s omniscient will, although he knows what’s best for us, and promises to give us just that. In our relationship with God, we haven’t earned a thing, so persistent prayer requires humility. Understanding that helps us to keep praying persistently, because the fact that God even hears our prayers at all just shows he’s merciful!
And that’s the other part about our relationship with God we need to understand to pray persistently: Our God is merciful to us. Abraham understood that he was an undeserving child. But he also understood that he was God’s child. That meant his loving Father promised to hear and answer his prayers. Abraham could confidently approach God, because he knew the Father’s love, just like children confidently ask their dads for things, because they know he loves them.
“Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Abraham trusted that in love, God wouldn’t forsake his children. In fact, the LORD doesn’t just answer Abraham’s prayer, he goes above and beyond. Although not even 10 believers were found in the cities to save them from destruction, we’re told in the next chapter that the LORD sent the two angels to rescue Lot and his family.
Because Abraham understood the loving relationship he had with his Father, he could confidently continue to “Ask, seek, and knock,” as Jesus directs us. And we can ask, seek, and knock just as confidently, because we know our Father’s grace and mercy personally.
We know that mercy through Christ! You see, the conversation Abraham had with God had happened before. As God looked down on earth, he saw nothing but evil people damned for hell. But the Son said to the Father, “What if only one righteous person can be found?” “For the sake of one, I will not destroy it.” Jesus was that righteous one, who came down to earth, humbly submitting himself to his Father’s will; as he carried out the life of perfection we couldn’t, he persistently prayed to his Father; as he prepared to die that we might live, he prayed to his Father, “Not my will but yours be done.” Christ died so that our communication with God that was destroyed by sin, might be reconnected. And he still pleads for us today! When we understand the love the Father has for us in Christ, it changes the way we pray. We can confidently and persistently bring our prayers before God’s throne.
It’s a lot easier to be persistent if something’s been promised to you, right? If your friend borrows your truck and promises to return it, but never brings it back, you’re not just going to say, “Oh well. Guess it’s gone.” No! You wouldn’t give up until you got what you’d been promised!
That’s really what a persistent prayer life is. We’re simply collecting on what God in mercy has promised us: to hear and answer our prayers for our good. We literally have his Word on that!
As Jesus says in Luke, “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Or as Jesus promised, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Or as John tells us, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
But note this…those Greek words for “ask, seek, and knock” are continuing, habitual actions. God wants us to be persistent about asking, seeking, and knocking at his door, just like Abraham was. This isn’t “pray once about it, and only if you’re really in trouble.” This continual persistence is a habit for Christians, a part of our spiritual DNA! Can you imagine how annoyed you’d be if someone was constantly asking you for things or banging on your door? Some of you are thinking, “That’s called parenting.” But that’s exactly what God wants us to do! He longs to hear and answer his people’s prayers!
Does that mean God will always give us what we want, how we want it, when we want it? No. But because we know our Father’s mercy, it’s far better to trust that God will give us exactly what we need, how we need it, when we need it. Knowing God’s mercy helps us to pray persistently, holding our loving Father to his promise to give us exactly what we need.
Prayer is not pushing a boulder up a hill to watch it roll back down again. Prayer is God’s gift wherein he allows us to take the burdensome boulders of worry, doubt, fear, and shame off our backs and unload them at the feet of the God who can and has done something about them. Persistent prayer is not Sisyphean, because the power of our prayer isn’t found in our merit, or skills, or effort. The power of our prayer comes from the one to whom we pray. Our Father. Our brother. Understand your relationships with God, and continue asking, seeking, and knocking. The LORD hears and answers. Amen.