Join Pastor Jack Hibbs as he unpacks the transformative power of persistence in prayer through the lens of the parables taught by Jesus. This episode dives into the contrast between human limitations and divine possibility, inviting believers to engage with prayer not as a rote obligation but as a vibrant, living conversation with God. Through vivid comparisons and real-world examples, Pastor Jack highlights how perseverance in prayer can bring about spiritual breakthroughs and deeper intimacy with our Creator. Learn how persistent prayer can shape your spiritual journey, providing strength and clarity in the face of life’s myriad challenges.
Jesus is saying, listen, your father in heaven, ask, ask him, knock, seek, go after him. He wants to answer you. So what’s going on here? None other than encouragement to pray, to engage ourselves now and to be encouraged to be persistent at prayer.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. What if the greatest battles in life aren’t fought with swords and armies, but with the struggles of the heart? What if the most defining moments of leadership come not from triumph, but from pain, betrayal, and humility? How do we handle being misunderstood or wronged? And how do we navigate the deep waters of authority, submission, and forgiveness? In A Tale of Three Kings, Jean Edwards takes us inside the lives of King Saul, King David, and Absalom, illustrating the powerful lessons learned from their brokenness and their failures. Through these kings, we discover that true leadership often comes through humility, suffering, and trusting God’s sovereignty, even in the most difficult seasons. This book will challenge you to reflect on your own heart, leadership, and your walk with God. A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. on today’s edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack continues now with his series called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of Persistent Prayer. You know, whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, he often spoke in parables, the truth of God’s Word in a story form or common pictures related to whatever time we live in. In this parable, Jesus is sitting in a boat by the shore of Galilee. And you see, the key to understanding the Bible is in the light of whatever the chapter or context it’s found in. In this case, the disciples are asking Jesus, how should we pray? So Jesus is sitting down as a prophet sits to teach them to pray. And today, Pastor Jack teaches that the parable of persistent prayer is a parable of contrasts, that compared to God, we are limited, that even in the face of fear or thinking that God’s not listening at all, we’ve got to be persistent in prayer. now with his message called Parable of Persistent Prayer. Here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Lord, this is such a serious topic, and yet, Lord, it needs to be done in such a way that is encouraging also. And Lord, again, the sense of being overwhelmed by the topic, and yet the reality is I, we together really traffic in this very parable. So Lord, I pray tonight that you’d speak to us and may we leave this place tonight people more apt to pray. So, Father, we pray now. In Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, amen. Well, church, grab your Bibles tonight and turn to two places. Number one, turn to Matthew chapter 13. Go ahead and go to Matthew first. And while you’re going there, if you’re there quickly, hold your finger there and go to Luke 11. So, Matthew 13 and Luke 11, tonight we’re looking at a message entitled in our parable series, the parable of persistent prayer. What does it mean? We’re gonna look at this tonight, persistent prayer, or to be persistent at prayer. And when you mention the word prayer most often, the Christian, has a tendency to hang their head down because I think no matter how much we pray, we feel like we don’t pray enough. I think that’s true. But then on the flip side also, a Christian walks around in an attitude of prayer. And I’m wondering if you recognize that. I’m wondering if you realize that. I’m wondering, church, tonight, if you recognize how much you do pray. I think you may pray a lot more than you think. Because you and I have the tendency to think that prayer is when we’re only in our prayer closet or in our alone time or when we’re bowed in knee, that that’s the prayer time. That certainly is prayer time. But you’re gonna see tonight that the Bible is Revealing to us that prayer is something much more common among the believer. I want to believe, as Charles Spurgeon believed, that prayer in the spiritual life is just like our lungs working every moment of the day and bringing in O2 and expelling the poison out of our body, the spent air and the oxygenation of our blood cells. That is just natural. You don’t think about it. We just do it. So this could be very encouraging tonight, I pray. Matthew chapter 13, verse one, which sets up the stage. Matthew 13 is really the holy of holies of parables. Matthew 13, one, and on the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. That is Galilee, Tiberias. And great multitudes were gathered together to him so that he got into a boat and and sat and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then he spoke, verse three, many things to them in parables. And so now he cast out divine truth alongside the ears, the minds of the hearer. And a parable, as you guys well know now, a parable is a tool designed by God. to deliver truth wrapped up in a common expression or a common picture of the day. The parables that Jesus used then, they would be different for us if he were to speak them in our culture. He might use today, a man went out to the Apple store to buy a Mac. I mean, he would use things that we would all, oh, yeah, yeah, I know that. He would say things like, a man, you know, got his kids and went to Disneyland. And while he was going, we would go, oh yeah, yeah, that’s right. He would speak so relative to our culture, to what we live. And they all got it. But there were those who heard what he was saying, but they didn’t get it. Two people could hear the exact same delivery, And one get it, and the light comes on, and the other one, nope, I don’t get it. And not only does that word exonerate one person because their heart is open, but the other person, the very same word that could give life to one guy winds up being condemnation to the other, and it’s all based upon how receptive the heart is to the truth of God’s word. So when we talk about persistent prayer and what Jesus is gonna say to us in a parable, The word persistent in the Webster dictionary means a tenacity, a determination, a doggedness, a resolve, a stubbornness. We’re gonna see that the Greek meaning is a little bit more colorful than that. Luke 11 verse five now, turn to Luke 11 five, and here’s where we pick up in what Jesus is teaching us. Luke 11 five, it only appears here in Luke’s gospel, this parable. And Jesus said to them, Which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, that is of bread, for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within, saying, Do not trouble me. The door is now shut. My children are in bed with me. That is in this compartment, this house. I’ll explain in a moment. And cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is a friend. Yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. Bible students, note takers, jot this down. The key, listen, the key to understanding Bible is the context of where it lands in scripture. Church, never take a verse out of a chapter and build a doctrine on that one verse. That would be dividing the word of God in a wrong fashion. The context, chapter, section, where a verse is found, determines or wraps that verse In support. So when you read a verse, especially, boy, I tell you, it applies in all areas of doctrine, but it’s never more powerful than when you look, for example, at Bible prophecy. You always want to read the verse in light of the chapter. And you will have a great example here tonight of the meaning and the necessity to understand what this verse these few verses are saying because the context shapes it for us. For example, you’re in Luke 11, look at verse one. Watch what precedes verses five through eight, and then watch what follows Verses five through eight. Luke 11, one. Now it came to pass that as he was praying, aha, Jesus is praying in a certain place. When he sees that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. That’s interesting, huh? Prayer must be taught. John did it. The disciples see their need to be taught. So he, Jesus said to them, when you pray, say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Look at the next verse that follows. Verses five through eight is this parable about persistent prayer. But now look at verse 9. Remember the context. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then being evil, Jesus is not beating up on these guys. He’s saying if you then are just mere humans and you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more? Please underline that. That’s critical to our study tonight. How much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? This is a parable of contrast. It’s interesting. It’s a brilliant way of teaching. It’s a little bit different than some of the things we’ve studied before. This is a parable of contrast, meaning this, that Jesus takes the lesson, listen everybody, and goes from the lesser, that is the raw presentation of it, and he’s trying to get the listener’s mind to move upward and land… Land at the greater. He starts at the lesser, we can all understand that, and he’s gonna land them at the greater. You can do great destruction to yourself if you overanalyze this parable. Because, for example, you may be thinking, oh my goodness, wow, well, no wonder why I don’t like to pray so much, because if I ask God for something, he’s gonna yell at me and say that he’s in bed and he doesn’t wanna get up and answer. That’s, by the way, how some interpret this verse, this passage. You see, when you take a little chunk of it and look at it that way, they’ll say, oh my goodness, oh, prayer, why pray? God’s gonna yell at me. You gotta read what we just read now in totality in Luke 11. Jesus is saying, listen, your father in heaven, ask, ask him. Knock, seek, go after him. He wants to answer you. So what’s going on here? None other than encouragement to pray. To engage ourselves now and to be encouraged to be persistent at prayer. It’s very good news.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
Number one, persistent in prayer this way, in the face of life. Can you mark that down? In the face of life. We see this in verses five and six. And he said to them, which of you shall have a friend? So he’s telling a story that they all get, and go to him at midnight, and they’re going, oh my goodness, that would not be good, but if somebody came, it must be very important. And Satan, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to set before him. This is the scenario. To you and I, we go, what is he talking about? But let’s put our sandals on and go back 2,000 years ago. First century Israel. Most people, unless you were wealthy, most people, this is how they went to bed. Okay, you with me? All right. Honey, it’s time to go to bed. By the way, nobody stayed up late and worked on their stuff. Imagine this. When it came time for bed, no kid said, I’m just gonna stay up a little bit and watch the Flintstones or something. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, mom, honey, got fresh bedding. Most often it was like a wicker type rolled out thing with padding underneath, straw, stuff like that. She lays down in the back end of the room. Most of them lived in one room apartments, studio type things we would say today. Then dad would get the kids. Get all the kids and put them against mom. Then now watch, this gets crazy. It depends on do you happen to have a servant? If you have a servant, then the servant goes against the kids. Think about going to Subway tonight and building a sandwich. Okay, you’re now tucking them in. If it is a very, very bad weather kind of night, or I’m not kidding, if you have maybe some young sheep, some frail animal, you would bring the animal in. Isn’t that something? The last one to lay down would be dad. He would be laying down between the doorway, the protector, the defender, and the family. And dads got up before the rest of them to go do dad stuff in the morning. And so that’s the deal. And it’s a big ordeal. People are layered in, packed in for warmth and for safety and the door is now shut and ain’t no one gonna open the door. It’s a big deal. And if somebody knocks on the door, if dad’s gotta get up, he could wake up the animals or wake up the kids and if everybody’s up, then it’s a bad deal. It’s a big deal. Now do you see why the man is saying, hey, come on. Dude, it’s midnight. You should have had some bread in your house. You know, why should I get up for your poor planning? The scenario, everyone in the hearing of this would have went going, oh man, don’t you hate when that happens? Life happens that way. Persistent prayer. In this case, it’s first century Israel and that’s how it looks. In your own life, in your own mind, set it up for you. Maybe it’s different for you. Maybe it’s different between you and I. But the guy is basically saying, come on man, it’s gonna cost me so much to get up to answer your prayer, your request. It’s midnight, my kids are in bed, my wife, everybody’s tucked in. Come on. A parable of contrast. What does this mean? Jesus is teaching this because God is not like that. That’s what this is about. If you’ve got a neighbor that you can’t, watch this, it’s kind of a hook. It’s kind of cool. If you can go to your neighbor at midnight and knock on his door, and the issue is keep knocking because there’s a little bit of leverage, and I’m getting ahead of the game here, but it’s kind of fun to keep in mind. If you keep knocking, he has to get up. You wanna know why? In the Middle East, hospitality is number one. If you’ve ever been to the Middle East, it is amazing. Strangers will take care of you. It’s remarkable. It’s crazy. We were in Jordan one time on some crazy, a bit lonely road somewhere, and we thought we were going to die. We finally came to this what looked like a gas station. And this guy comes out, totally wrapped up in Taliban-looking stuff. I thought it was the end of us. The guy almost broke his neck to give us Turkish coffee. Come here. How much is it? No. And I was with Amir, and Amir said, listen, you can’t do that. You offer him money to defend the guy. I mean, okay, okay. It’s just so from the heart. Stay tonight. No, really, we have to go. No, no, stay tonight. Ay, ay, ay. It’s amazing. This culture, if you don’t show forth hospitality, it brings a very bad name upon your home, your family name, and your village. People congregated together in housing. Not like us, we try to, you know, get a far away, build a wall, a fence around. Not them. They’re dependent upon their neighbors. So if somebody’s knocking on the door, the last thing you want is to say, hey, come on, get out of here. The guy’s probably going, get out of here. Can you just leave, please?
SPEAKER 1 :
Shh.
SPEAKER 02 :
The guy’s knocking. You don’t want your neighbors to look at your house and say, oh man, what a bum. He’s not letting that guy in. Well, curse that family. Think of it. So there’s a lot at stake here. The guy is, the visitor that is, the guy who needs the bread, he comes believing. He knows the culture. The answer will come inevitably. Are you getting this for yourself? So knock. Knock. And Jesus is saying, if a person who’s a human is put out, and yet his culture requires him to give, and eventually he’s gonna get up and give, then God is not like that. God will give without you having to beat the door down. It’s a contrast. Now your mind, and it should raise this question. Well, wait a minute. Are you saying I just pray once and then leave? I didn’t say that. Don’t I do persistent prayer? Don’t I stay at, yes you do. There’s a reason for it and we’ll get into this tonight. But Jesus is contrasting from the lesser to the greater, from human response to God response. One is obligation, one is grace. God is willing to answer. Here’s what your problem and my problem is. Think of it. The moment I said God is willing to answer, you might come back and say, well then why didn’t he answer me about this thing and that thing? Ah, I betcha he answered you. You didn’t like the answer. I’m convinced God answers us almost always. I think God answers always inevitably. But we often miss the answer because it’s not the answer we wanted. It’s important. In life, this is life. And so contrast these things. The ability of a friend to help. Church, listen, isn’t it limited? Your friend is limited to help you. He’s a human, but not God. Okay, contrast. The hour of visitation is limited. It’s midnight. Dear friend, have you ever cried out to God in the night? Has he not been there? In fact, doesn’t it seem like he speaks louder at night? Amen. The scope of grace between one another, isn’t that limited? You and I can only show one another so much grace because we’re humans. Is God’s grace limited? No way. A parable of contrast, the association of friendship has limitations, but God is not limited. In fact, he invites us to a sonship or a daughtership. The capacity of humans to supply is limited. There’s nothing about God limited.
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of Persistent Prayer. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s new series called The Parables of Jesus, a series highlighting the teachings of Jesus while he was here on this earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, the Apostle Peter in his letters to the church urged his fellow Christians to keep on learning and growing in the faith, in spite of their suffering and pain. Unlike today, however, resources were scarce. Still, they persevered, and Christ followers were growing in both strength and numbers. Now, there’s no limit of ways to access quality materials on Christian living, including Pastor Jack’s website. When you go to jackhibbs.com and click the media icon, you’ll find not only real-life radio episodes, but real-life podcasts, real-life TV, real-life basics for Christian growth, and even news updates. There’s also specific verse-by-verse studies from books of the Bible and so much more. So, head on over to our website at jackhibbs.com and click on the media tab. That’s jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 01 :
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