Have you ever wondered why God doesn't answer
some of your best prayers?
When I think about all the things that we talk to God about
I recognize that not everything we pray for is objectively
good and great and should be approved of by God.
All right if I'm goin' on vacation and I'm praying,
please God, no clouds, no rain, no storms.
I finally have a week off, let it be good.
But I recognize that at the same time there's a farmer
who's praying for clouds and rain and his crops, right?
If God says no to my prayer, I get it.
Or if I'm lining up for that penalty kick
in the big soccer game.
And I'm 12 yards out and I'm praying, please Jesus,
let me put this in the back of the net.
But if a goalie is a man of faith, what's he praying for?
Yeah, exact opposite.
And a bunch of your prayers are like that too.
It's okay to pray about it, but we kind of get
if God would say, okay, not today, not that.
What I think is much more difficult to understand is
why God doesn't immediately say yes to the best prayers.
Like when you and I pray for justice.
When we pray for things to be fair.
When we pray for our world to be free from chauvinism
and racism and sexism and ageism.
When we pray for governments
and judges to make good decisions.
When we pray who for bad people who break the law
to not it away with it because of some bribe
or some loophole in the system.
And when we pray for good people to be protected.
For children to be raised in safe environments.
When we ask God for things to be good
and right and fair at school and at work and in the world.
And then we look at another day's headlines
and realize it isn't.
It doesn't seem fair.
Now, this kid didn't do anything wrong
but because of dad's anger or mom's struggle with alcohol,
like, the kid suffers.
And this person didn't do anything wrong but because of bias
and prejudice and racism that they're suffering,
sometimes tragically.
You go to court for the custody hearing
but the judge doesn't have all the evidence,
didn't hear all the words and now the decision
it's not right and it's not fair.
Or a rumor starts and you,
you didn't even do anything wrong
but people grabbed onto it and they spread it
or they read between the lines of your email
and misunderstood and trashed your reputation.
Like well, why, if there's a God who runs everything,
who has the power to stop injustice right now,
if Jesus could come back today and fix it and end it,
why when we pray for justice and fairness doesn't it happen?
And there's actually a spot in the Bible
where Jesus addressed that very thing.
In his day, life wasn't fair either.
The Romans were running the show.
They had power and control and they put up crosses
and put those who rebelled on them.
The guys who were running the church were not holy,
they were hypocrites.
Tax collectors would take your money
and they could get away with it.
And so people cried out to God for justice,
but justice didn't seem to come.
So in a really important teaching from Luke chapter 18,
Jesus said, these words.
I love that verse.
God will bring justice for his people.
If you're a child of God, through faith in Jesus Christ,
if you're one of his chosen ones and you're crying out
to God day and night, fix this, God.
I can't fix this, but you can.
I need your help.
God will not put you off forever.
In fact from Jesus' perspective of time,
quickly you will get justice.
He will return and the world will be made right.
But Jesus' teaching kind of begs another question.
Why not just do it today?
If God hates injustice more than I do and more than you do,
why doesn't Jesus just come back before I'm done talking?
And the answer to that question is simple.
Because God loves people.
I think of the young woman I had coffee with the other day.
She told me that she had been reading the Bible
for the first time.
And she showed me the pages with the highlight
and the underline.
She talked to me about grace and about Jesus.
She told me about the old sins that knew her name,
her drug addiction and her promiscuous lifestyle.
And she said, Pastor, I just don't want to do that anymore.
And I want to read this book
and I want to tell everyone about it and
she didn't understand what was happening to her.
But maybe you do.
God had found her
and opened her eyes and forgiven her and saved her.
And my point is, if Jesus had come back a year ago,
if he had saved us from all the drama of this past year,
what would have happened to that woman
that God loves so much?
She would have been holding onto her sin instead of Jesus,
she would have been lost.
And so God waited.
The lesson here is that God is saving people.
Every day, he is finding his chosen people
and turning them through faith, into his children.
And so we, as Christian people wait.
The headlines break our hearts like they break the heart
of God but we are willing to wait as God saves us
and our friends, our children, our grandchildren, neighbors,
more and more people until the timing is perfectly right
and Jesus returns.
So friends until that day, keep praying, keep trusting.
Don't give up on justice and don't give up on Jesus.
He's coming soon.
And all things will be made new.
Let's pray.
Dear God, we need patience.
Waiting is not our superpower.
And when life is difficult and we don't get you,
it's so easy to turn on you
and to start believing that you don't care
or you don't love us or you're not in control.
Help us not to believe those lies but instead
to trust that you are doing your saving work.
You are bringing people to faith every single day.
People who will be saved, not just from a few years
of suffering, but people who are saved for forever
in your presence.
Help us to trust that that is an amazing exchange
and it's worth waiting for.
We pray this and we pray that you would help us
in our prayers in the days to come.
We ask all this Jesus, in your beautiful name.
Amen.
It's no secret that this has been a really hard year
for so many of us.
So if you can think of someone right now
who desperately needs encouragement,
who's giving up on God and maybe losing their faith,
we would love for you to share this video.
Let's remind each other of the big picture
and plans of God so we can trust him
and try again in prayer.
Thanks for being a great fellow Christian
through the body of Christ.
And we'll talk to you soon.