Hope Channel

InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2019: "The Least of These" : Ministering to Those in Need

Sikhu Daco

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Jonathan Walter

01-God Created

Callie Williams

02-Blueprint for a Better World

Sebastien Braxton

03-Sabbath: A Day of Freedom

04-Mercy and Justice in Psalms and Proverbs

05-The Cry of the Prophets

06-Worship the Creator

07-Jesus and Those in Need

08-The Least of These

09-Ministry in the New Testament Church

10-Living the Gospel

11-Living the Advent Hope

12-To Love Mercy

13-A Community of Servants

In Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, 2 characters wait for that 1 friend that never comes.

He's essentially saying that's the point of life, waiting for nothing.

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

We are in a series of episodes talking about justice and mercy in the entire Bible.

We have covered a lot of ground on this season and we're looking at the concept of hope and how that plays into play, how that plays with justice when it comes to our own personal suffering and in the history of humanity.

So, Jonathan, if you can read the verse from Luke chapter 18, 1 through 8, but before we always read scripture, we need to have a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of your word.

And as we open it and study and discuss, I pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us, open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from thy law and help us to walk therein.

We pray all these things in Jesus name, amen.

Let's go to Luke chapter 18 verse 1 through 8.

1 of my favorite parables of Jesus and we'll spend some time looking at it, but let's see how it fits in to the concept of hope on waiting, on patience, and about delay.

So verse 1, Siku, can you read that for us?

It says here, then he spoke a parable, that's Jesus, to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart saying, continue.

Saying there was in a certain city, a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.

Now there was a widow in that city and she came to him saying, get justice for me from my adversary.

And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, though I not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

Then the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said, and shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them.

I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?

Well, this parable contrasts an unjust judge with the character of God.

And you know, Jesus says in verse 6, this is an unjust judge can come to the place where he will administer justice for selfish reasons, because this woman is bugging him, like get out of my hair, you know, I've had it with this woman.

For selfish reasons, this unjust judge will administer justice.

And then he asked the question, and shall not God avenge his own elect?

What he's saying is that, do we think that God is worse off than this unjust judge?

What do we think of the character of God?

So in the experience of prayer, which is where it started in verse 1, the whole point of the parable was men ought to pray and not lose heart.

In our experience of prayer, when we're coming to God, requesting of Him justice, we're requesting of Him to intervene in our situations, what Jesus is asking is, what do we think of the character of the God who we are approaching?

Do we think He's like this unjust judge, or do we have the right picture of who God is?

So if this guy is that bad and he's already answering her prayers out of annoyance and out of pettiness and out of whatever, whatever, whatever, then how much more God?

I mean, Jesus is showing that comparison between the 2.

Jonathan, what does it mean, and Seeker kind of alluded to it, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.

Why, why, why don't you just pick up your heart and put it, I mean what's, what is that phrase?

Well, it has to do with, with the fact that we need to be persistent sometimes.

God works through process, and so we often treat God like a, you know, a slot machine.

You put a prayer in and you want the result out.

Or maybe not a slot machine because you don't always get a result out.

A slot machine, you lose heart even more.

So it has to do with being able to wait patiently on God coming in.

We have talked about Psalms before here, that you have this question of how long, how long, how long, God, when will you come and avenge, when will you come and do something?

The point of it is that we need to trust.

This is, I think, why it also talks about faith in the end.

Trust that God will come through, but we need to have that patience with him and keep connecting with him because sometimes we might be asking for something that's actually not the right thing to ask for and in the process of waiting, God teaches us what we ought to ask for.

You know, I heard a sermon that took this parable and contextualized it to a contemporary audience.

And it talked about how there was a black American lady, she went to court and she was asking for justice because her son had died through some crazy circumstances, through racism, and the judge was white.

And the white judge just totally wrote her off, saying, you're black, you don't understand this, and you're wrong.

But she continues to come back, come back, and the white judge, and of course, it's all hypothetical, but based on perhaps contemporary circumstances and scenarios, says, well, no, you're black, you're poor, you don't understand, you're uneducated, writes her off.

And this happens a couple more times, but she continues to come back.

And he, being out of annoyance, out of wicked annoyance, says, oh, the evidence, ah, and then just kind of writes her off and judges in her favor.

And the revolutionary component in this, when looking at it that way, is not only the character of God, how good he is, but also how persistent the lady is.

But not only her persistence, she refuses to get discouraged with the continual results.

So we've heard this many times, like insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results.

That you do the same thing but your hope is not on a earthly realm environment but it's with God and you persist, persist, persist and the revolutionary character of her faith is she's really not doing anything different.

But she's doing the same thing and she continues to persist and that's the fruit of faith comes out from that.

What Jesus brings out when he asked that last question that Jonathan spoke about, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?

The fact that God, that we haven't seen the justice from God, is not a commentary on God's willingness to give justice, Because Jesus already said, I tell you that God will avenge them speedily, not just slowly, not like, oh, you got to wait, you know, because it will take God forever to finally find a solution.

But there's something in our individual experience that needs to be worked out through the process of waiting for this justice.

And what Jesus asks in the end is that when he comes, when God comes back, when Jesus comes back, will he find a people who have confidence in the character of God, who will keep coming because they trust the character of God, because they trust the love of God, even though they may not see the results right now, but they have faith in God based on his character, on what he has demonstrated, based on his ability from what they understand of his ability and they have a faith experience.

When I consider things that are easy to persistently ask for, it's just things that we really, really want.

And that's when, you know, in that parable of that woman really wanted justice for her son, so it's like irrelevant of your racism, irrelevant of you being an awful person, I want this so badly that I'm gonna keep coming back, and you think about a small child who's gonna keep asking for the same toy over and over again, because they really want it, like please daddy, please, please, and days go by and they keep asking for it.

Sorry, I'm not going to give you PTSD right now.

But it's like it's because they want it so badly, but if they don't really want it, it's kind of like, oh, they don't want it, so I guess I don't have to get it anymore.

And so in the same way, God is saying, you know, God has this idea, but the question is, do we really want it?

Series

InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2019: "The Least of These" : Ministering to Those in Need

11-Living the Advent Hope

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

InVerse, 1st Quarter 2021: Romans

04 Abraham and Faith

27m

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2023: Adventist Heritage

09 The Gospel in Adventism

29m

InVerse 3rd Quarter 2024: Stories that Transform

02 Lost but Found

29m

InVerse 3rd Quarter 2024: Stories that Transform

07 The Wedding Garment

29m

InVerse, 1st Quarter 2022: Hebrews

12 Receiving an Unshakeable Kingdom

27m

InVerse, 2nd Quarter 2021: The Promise, God's Everlasting Covenant

11 The Obsolescence and Permanence of the Covenant

28m

InVerse 1st Quarter 2025: Renewing the Mind

01 Renewing the Broken Mind

29m

InVerse, 1st Quarter 2022: Hebrews

07 Jesus, the Anchor of the Soul

27m

InVerse, 1st Quarter 2020: Daniel: Practical Principles for End-Time Living

11-Total Transparency

27m

InVerse, 1st Quarter 2021: Romans

06 Dead to Sin!

27m

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2023: Adventist Heritage

05 The Great Controversy

29m

InVerse, 2nd Quarter 2020: How to Know God’s Will for Your Life

06-Lifestyle: Legalism or Liberalism

27m

Sound Doctrine