Never, Never Give Up | This Is What We Do

Sometimes prayer feels powerful.
Sometimes it feels repetitive.
Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening at all.

So what do we do when prayer feels exhausting… or unanswered… or hard to keep going?

We keep praying.

In this message from our This Is What We Do series, Pastor Mark shares why perseverance in prayer matters—not because God is distant, but because prayer strengthens us for the fight. Just like athletes train with endurance so they’re ready when it matters most, we keep showing up in prayer so our faith grows stronger over time.

You’ll also be reminded of two powerful truths about God:
→ God is Loving — His love for you doesn’t change. You can’t earn more of it, and you can’t lose it.
→ God is Just — He sees every hurt, every injustice, every unseen moment, and He will make things right.

If you’ve been discouraged in prayer, this message is for you.

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Transcript

Never Give Up On Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Here we go. I want to talk to you today about the fact that we should never, never give up. We should never, never give up. Sometimes I I think many of us we give up a little bit. We bury some prayer requests because they seem too far-fetched. They seem like, eh, I don't know. It almost hurts a little bit to keep believing that kind of a thing. And so it's not that you don't pray. It's not that you don't pray before your meal. You don't even stop believing in prayer. But there's a few that you've taken down and be like, I don't know what the holdup with this one was. I don't know if God is just unwilling. I don't know if there's some kind of delay. I don't know if wickedness is winning or something and overthrowing God's justice. I don't know why, but it hurts and I'm weary. And I just don't, I'm not gonna stop praying altogether. But these ones, I just need to take these off and not pray about them anymore. I need to bury them in the ground. We don't say that, but a little bit that's what we do in our hearts. And here's what Jesus is gonna teach his disciples, and he's gonna teach us today. The real crisis is not whether or not God will answer prayer. The real crisis is whether or not Jesus' disciples will keep trusting God. That's it. It's not about whether or not he'll answer, it's about whether or not we'll keep trusting. So here's a parable, and this is one of the few parables where Jesus tells us the end at the beginning. He's like, just to clarify, this is what this is about. I'm about to tell you the story, and this is what the story is about. Excuse me. Verse 1, chapter 18, Luke.

The Persistent Widow Parable

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. They should always pray. I wonder if today's one of those days. Yes, it is. It's always always pray and not give up. He said, in a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with a plea. Grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused, but finally he said to himself, even though I don't fear God and I don't care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me. And the Lord said, This is what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? How often do they do it? Always, day and night. Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and get it quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith

Son Of Man And Real Faith

SPEAKER_00 2:44

on the earth? Let's tear apart a few of those things. Son of Man, okay, this is a title that Daniel refers to in Janual chapter 7. It's really, this is a God King that's going to come and he's gonna be given authority over everything. And one of the ways that Jesus would allude to himself or hint to himself when he was on planet Earth, he'd call himself the Son of Man. He was kind of, he was essentially saying, in some ways, I'm the chosen one, but I don't want to say it out loud. So I'm just telling you, the Son of Man, when he returns, which already implies that he's gonna go somewhere first before he's totally in his rule, will he find faith on the earth? This widow, when the people that Jesus is talking to hear about the widow, here's what they're thinking, okay? This is the most endangered person in the Israelite community. Okay? This is the one who's most socially vulnerable. This is the one who there aren't necessarily a lot of protections. If her husband dies and there's no family around, she doesn't have a lot of recourse for anything. And so what God did in the Old Testament law is he said, Judges, you need to watch out for these widows. Like it's a big deal. I put some protections in the law, you better make sure you take care of them. And so, and this is you can find this in Exodus 22. If a judge doesn't take care of the widows, everybody who's listening knows, oh, that's a corrupt judge. That's a bad judge. Okay, in Exodus 22, if you don't take care of the widows, you're picking a fight with God. Like that's what he says, essentially. You're picking a fight with me if you don't take care of these widows. And so what they know is, okay, she's the good girl, he's the bad guy. This guy shouldn't even be a judge. He should fear God more than he does, but he doesn't fear God. And so he's picking a fight with him. God is the one who put into the law, take care of the widows. And Jesus is, he's not comparing, he's not comparing the judge to God in the parable. He's contrasting the judge and God in the parable. He's saying, look, this dude who doesn't care at all about what God says, and doesn't even care what people say, eventually even he will do this. God, who does care, who wrote the law because he cares about justice, who cares about his people, if this dude who doesn't even care will do it, won't God, the perfect God of love, won't he do it?

Prayer As Long Game Training

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Come on, man. Now, Jesus, he's telling his disciples this the same reason he would tell us this, is because Jesus is always thinking about the long game. He's always thinking, these disciples, he knows what's coming for them. He's like, you guys, this is gonna be a long road and some of the stuff you're not gonna like. And so I want to get you resilient as disciples. I want you to be in shape a little bit. I want you to know it's not always gonna go your way, and you're gonna have to keep praying and keep praying and always pray and never give up, never, never give up. It's about developing yourself as a disciple. Some of you know this, you athletes. Right? When you when you're dude, when you're training and you're going hard after it, maybe you're playing basketball and you're running suicides on the court, or maybe when you were a wrestler like I was, and you would you try to go three minutes and you're huffing and puffing, and you can't even think about your opponent because you're trying so hard to breathe. But when you get in shape and you keep running, suddenly you can breathe. And you don't have to think about just breathing, you can think about winning. Sometimes, guys, the Lord is concerned because, dude, you like get your butt kicked easily, is essentially what I'm saying here. You get your butt kicked easily. You need to get in shape by persevering in prayer over the long haul so that you can just do so you can take it, so you can make it. God is asking, I want you to put prayer on repeat, pervasive, persistent, persevering prayer, and I want you to keep doing it right up until the Son of Man comes. Hey, don't stop. Don't stop, dude. Pick it back up. Pick it back up. Hey, don't stop here, pick it back up. We should

Keep Praying Because God Loves

SPEAKER_00 6:39

always keep praying. Here's number one. Here's why. Because God is loving. Keep praying because God is loving. Why should you do it? Because God loves you. And he cares about what you care about. Verse 7 said, And will he not bring about justice for his chosen ones? This chosen one, talking about the Israelites, they're his chosen nation, they're his elect nation. What that means that he elected them, that means and he tells them this multiple times in the Old Testament. He says, I chose you not because you did anything right. I only chose you because I decided to love you. That's why you're my people, Israel. That's why you're his people. If you're a Christ follower, he chose you because he decided to love you. It's not because you did anything right. In fact, the truth is he loves us despite all the things we do wrong. He loves us. He's decided to, it's permanent. It's permanent just like the Trinity loves each other. See, God didn't need us at all. Before we were ever around, the Trinity, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they were in perfect love and perfect community with one another. Their love was already there. But before the foundation of the world, Jesus knew you. And he knew one of the things that you would love is his love. And so he decided the day would come when he would reveal his love to you through Christ. And you would walk into it, but you would know, hopefully, because it predated you, that you did not cause this love, and therefore you cannot stop this love. Here's an example. Let's say that you and I we're walking into it's a stormy wintry night, and we walk into like a beautiful ski lodge, and it's not only lit well and beautiful, but there's this roaring fire. And you can't even walk in without, like, ooh, yeah, I like this warm. When we walk into that warm, now we know, oh yes. Me walking in didn't cause the fire to go on.

unknown 8:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right? Like me walking in didn't make it suddenly, oh, now it's warm because you're here. If you leave, the warm will leave too. No, the warm was already there. The love of God was already there in Christ between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It was already there and it was set on you before you did anything, before you were even alive. And so when you walk in, it's just like, oh, there it is, baby. Now, if you jack something up, if you fall off the wagon, whatever you do, the love don't go anywhere. The fire's still on. It's still there. You don't have to keep the fire. The fire predated you. The fire's just fine and dandy. So you're not, God's not gonna fall out of love with you. He doesn't just love you when you're doing well. He just doesn't just love you if you don't embarrass him for the day. He doesn't just love you as long as it's not too costly, don't do anything too dumb. No, God loves you forever and ever. And that's what the gospel is about is the Lord doesn't need you to do anything right. He just loved you. And so in the ultimate sacrifice, he sent Jesus Christ, God the Son, to die in the place of people. Not so there could be some cosmic law fulfilled, but so that you and I could be reunited in love with our Heavenly Father. Love is the why. That's the why, baby, and that's why we should persist in prayer. Because God cares about the stuff that we care about. And this is why it's so dangerous. See, sometimes something will go wrong in our circumstances, and we'll be like, well, that must be a sign God doesn't love me. Or some person maybe will mistreat us and we're like, well, you know, maybe God doesn't love me because they don't love me, or they don't like me. Maybe they even they're like a they represent God on some level. They didn't like me, so I guess that's how God feels about me. No, dude. No. It's a really dumb idea to take our cues about God's love from people or circumstances. They don't matter. They don't matter because the fire of God predated any of those guys, and it's gonna be around long afterward. So let's just know, dude, you don't need to badger God into caring. His caring was already there. Dude, just get close to the fire, just walk in and warm up. That fire's not going anywhere. You just warm up, and so what that means is because of that love, we can pray and we can persist in prayer, and we can always pray, even about what we might say is trivial. So it's not just like the Lord doesn't have like days where he's like, hey man, only global crisis. That's all I'm hearing today. That's not what it is, it's the little trivial, minute things that you and I would bring him. It's God, my self-image isn't doing so great lately. God, I'm feeling very lonely, very isolated. That's what I'm wrestling with. Maybe that's dumb. No, it's not dumb. Bring it to your heavenly father because he loves you. He cares about it because he cares about you. God, I'm I'm I'm disappointed with my marriage patterns lately. Bring it to God. Keep praying about it because he loves you. Well, God, I don't like my work fatigue. Bring it to God. He cares about it because he loves you. God, I don't like the fact that it seems like everybody else gets ahead and I don't bring it to God because he cares about you. God, I don't like this financial crisis. I don't like my social anxiety. Bring it to God. Always, always, always bring it to God every day because he cares for you. He cares about it because he cares about you. That's why you pray about it. Come on, somebody. But God doesn't just love us, he does love us eternally, permanently,

Bring Injustice To A Just God

SPEAKER_00 11:58

forever. He loves us. But he's also a just God, and he hates that which would harm us. And so we should always keep praying because God is loving, but also because God is just. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones? God is a God of justice, and he's concerned that this widow gets justice. He wrote it in the law: give her justice. The judge, the wicked judge, doesn't care if she gets justice or not, but God cares. We keep praying because God is not morally indifferent, God is morally concerned. See, God's justice means that God always sees what is right and wrong, God always does what is right, and God will never ultimately let sin and wickedness and evil have the final answer. It's imbalanced and he's tired. He's like, no, I will right in this. I will bring about justice at the right time, especially for my people who keep on crying out, sin will not get the final word. God will get the final word, and that means that God notices when you're treated unfairly at work. He notices when you did the right thing, but for some reason you were penalized for it. He noticed when the truth is, dude, it's unjust, but you're suffering for the sin of other people. God notices it. And that's why he invites you. Hey man, don't leave that, don't just say, well, some things are just unjust. Bring it to God. Bring the injustices to God. Some injustices, they're horrible, dude. And they don't make it. We we can get so used to injustice happening on planet earth. We don't, we just, wow, that's just how it's gonna it's gonna go. There are injustices that never make it to court, but none of them escape the sight of God. God knows. God knows about all the injustices. God was there, he saw it, and he's not gonna let people get away with it forever. God, you've ever done this. God keeps all the screenshots. You ever taking a screenshot? Because you're like, I don't trust that anyone's gonna remember that she said this. So I'm just gonna screenshot this thing right here, the dates on it. Or maybe you asked for time off and you got an email said, Yes, you have the time off because someone later is gonna be like, Why did you take off? Because I got this email right here. I took a screenshot, I got the receipts, I got the proof that it was real because this doggone world messes with the story and it spins stuff and it tries to play things differently than they really are. God never needs the screenshots really because he always knows what's going on. He can't be confused, he can't be spun into a different direction. He always knows, no, it was really this way, and this was the exact way it was, and nobody can stop God from acting on justice. So, you and I, here's what we need to do, or we don't need to do. We don't need to spend our lives trying to correct the story for everybody, trying to get everyone to see, well, this is really this way. Hey, God knows the story, God's got all the screenshots, God will make it right at the right time, leave it in God's hands and bring it to God in prayer because He cares about injustice. Sometimes you even just get like a bill in the mail, and you're like, what the what's this bill, man? Listen to this this is a lie, so this is a scam somehow. Like, why am I getting this bill? Well, bring it to God. Bring the injustice to God. Maybe more tragically, you might see in in the store some child is being mistreated by their parents just the way that they're talking to them. Well, you don't just have to watch it. You say, Judge of all heaven and earth, I'm asking you to sick yourself on this situation. I don't know how you're gonna do it, but bring righteousness and truth and Jesus and glory into it. When you've been mistreated, maybe you've been stereotyped again. God saw that. God's got the receipts. Bring it to God. Let God handle it. Get God in on it. Sometimes we're asking, why hasn't God fixed this yet? And maybe sometimes, because he's waiting, he's like, I wanted you to always pray about this every day. Bring me the injustices. Don't like decide, well, God's not gonna do nothing. Why don't you bring it to me and see if I'm gonna do something about it? And I won't necessarily do it something right then, but I'm gonna do something about it for those who will pray. Y'all are amen and pretty good, so we're gonna keep going. Here's number three.

God Answers At The Right Time

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Because God is loving, because God is just, because God will answer. Because God will answer. Why should we keep praying? Because God will answer. Will listen to that, man. This is powerful, dude. Just reflect on this verse for this week. Will he keep putting them off? I tell you now, this is Jesus Christ promising you this. I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly. Well, Carter, I got a problem with the word quickly in the Bible. I do too sometimes, honestly. Sometimes God says quickly, and it's like, Lord, you said you come back quickly 2,000 years ago, and it ain't it ain't back yet. I guess God has, you know, he has a certain point of view about the word quickly or soon. He just he just sees that maybe maybe from his perspective, it's soon, it's quick. For us, I think the the takeaway for us is it's decidedly gonna happen at the right time. God knows about it, it's decidedly going to happen at the right time. That means he's not gonna let your prayer, he's not gonna let your faith, he's not gonna let your concern for justice go unanswered ultimately. He will answer it, and he will answer it at the right time. As soon as feasibly possible, God is going to be on it. And so, guys, this is why we should keep praying. We should we should keep praying. Not because God is hard to convince, but because he's assured to answer. That's why we should keep praying. He's gonna do it now. Back to the soon word. It's true that sometimes it really is more loving of God because he's always loving and he's always just. He doesn't just pick one, he's always all of it at the same time. It might really be that it's more loving and more just to not do it right at the moment that we're praying, but he wants us to keep praying and build that thing up. Example. Okay, so we've got John chapter 11. Martha and Mary have asked Jesus, hey, come back and heal Lazarus. Your friend, our brother, is dying. It'd be really dope if we're friends for you to come back and just heal him. Just come back and heal him. Jesus doesn't go back. In fact, he intentionally waits four more days. Yeah, he's loving his friend by not going. He knows there's actually a better time. And so there's times when when we're praying and we're praying rightly, we're doing right, and Jesus says, I hear you, I hear you, I hear you. Keep going, keep going. I'm gonna come at just the right time. Might be the fourth day, might be a different time than you expect, but I'm gonna come and I'm going to answer it. Now, we can say that, but here's the danger, and this is what I fear for my people as their pastor. I fear sometimes you're gonna put everything in that category. Well, you know, God's gonna do what he's gonna do whenever he's gonna do it, so there's really no point in badgering him about it. No, baby. Ask. You have not because you asked not. This is exactly what happens when he eventually shows up. He comes to Martha and he's like, Hey, do you believe that I can raise this dude from the dead? She's like, Well, Lord, you know, I know that there's the last day, and on the last day, you know, that'll happen. And what does he do? He interrupts her. He's like, No, Martha, I'm here now. I'm the resurrection. It doesn't matter when it is, it's me that does it. I can do it whenever I want to do it. And so we've got to keep that faith of, well, God might do it someday, but he might do it now. He might do it now, so why not just ask? Do you know that idea that, like, well, God will do it someday? That's not really said very much in the Bible. Most of the time, what the Bible depicts is emotional humans going through trauma saying, God help! And that's God emotionally responds to it. He doesn't like check his theology book and like, well, I don't know if I should really do that because maybe they need the lesson or if they just need to wait. Now, maybe you do need the lesson, but maybe just respond in the horrible moment that you're in and say, God help! And keep asking, always and every day, and keep asking, because you never know, God might do it now. How do you know which one is which? How do you know which one is

Stay Connected When Life Damages

SPEAKER_00 19:48

which? Is it supposed to be now or is it supposed to be later? Well, one of the ways that we're at least comforted in that difficulty is by staying connected. Many of you are familiar with the very famous movie Apollo 13 and the very famous line, Houston, we have a problem with Tom Hanks. You know that what the real problem is that this uh this command module, whatever you call it, takes damage and it cannot make it back to Earth safely. And so Tom Hanks is talking to Houston. And sometimes we've taken damage in life. And we're floating out there and say, I don't know where we're gonna go. I'm talking to Houston, I'm talking to God. And you remember what happens in Apollo 13? Well, one, they say, hey, listen, um, you've got to do these specific things in order to get the command module fixed enough for you guys to get back here. But not only that, at a certain time, you've got to like thrust and get this thing just on the right angle for you to get home. Now the illustration breaks down because you know, Houston is not all wise and not all powerful, God is. Uh, but there's a sense of which we're going through and we're like, God, I'm just floating out here. What is going on? When are we gonna get there? And God says, keep talking to me. I'm gonna comfort you out there in that module. I'm gonna keep you going, and I'm gonna tell you if you need to adjust anything, you just pay attention. I'll tell you when to adjust, I'll tell you what to do to fix whatever you've got to fix, but I'm not unaware that you've taken damage and I know how to get you home. Just keep talking to me. Just keep talking to me, just stay with me, just stay connected, and I'll get you wherever you're supposed to go. And the problem is, we have taken some really important things and we've buried them in the ground. And we've just gotten quiet about these things in prayer. And it might be, well, it's the marriage, or it's the relationship, or it's the kid, or it's the addiction, or it's the calling, or it's the loneliness. And whatever it is, you put it down there and it, my friend, it's not supposed to be down there. It's supposed to be being prayed every day, staying in touch with the master. So, because all these things are true, hey, um, we should keep praying because God is loving and God is just. And God will answer, we should then just keep praying. Just keep praying. In order for us to do this, for us to have the widow's kind of tenacious faith, because that's what Jesus is applauding. He's saying, dude, she was just after it and she just never let go. And even this old stubborn goat of a judge, he eventually did what she wanted. The way to have that kind of faith? We have the Holy Spirit of Jesus to assist us, to empower us. It's not just our self-will. It is, God, I can't keep praying. Would you strengthen me to pray? I can't keep going. Would you strengthen me to keep going? I don't have vision. Would you give me a taste for it and vision again? Would you give me, I've only got a baby mustard seed. Would you cause that thing to grow so I can keep praying? And that might mean it's patience. You know that Isaac had to pray. I mean, do you know this is in the Bible? There's a lot of prayers in the Bible that took decades to see achieved. We should like take instruction from that. Isaac took 20 years to pray for the child of promise that was already prophesied to come. Jacob had to pray ultimately 20 years, first for protection from Esau, and then ultimately for reconciliation with Esau. Joseph had to pray 13 years to make it from being a slave to being not only the prime minister of Egypt, but then 22 years ultimately till he was finally reconciled with the brothers that betrayed him. Dude, it was just a life of prayer always and every day. Never, never give up. Just keep going and keep praying. Don't give in now. And it might be slow goings. Okay, so in another fantastically awesome movie, Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, he orders this rock hammer and he's he's peeling through the wall night by night, inch by inch, just going slow and slow. And now, you know, like it's a fictional story, but ultimately he creates this tunnel. But if you would have talked to anybody else in the prison, they'd be like, Andy, you're crazy, dude. That's never gonna happen. That's ridiculous. And that's what the enemy tells us. You're crazy. What do you keep you keep scrubbing with that little hammer? You think that's gonna, you think your prayer's gonna do something? That's ridiculous. You're nuts. That's not how the world works. And all those people, guess what they're gonna do? They're gonna stay in prison. Because God is calling you and me. Now you keep digging. You keep on digging. You keep on digging. Don't hold back now. See, Andy Dufresne saw a sunrise that nobody else in the prison saw. And you and I need to see a sunrise. There's a day when the sun comes up, yo. There's a day when this prayer is answered. There's a prayer, there's a day when it's different because we trusted God. There's a day, no matter how repetitive, no matter how small it feels, no matter how dumb it looks to everybody else, I'm gonna keep praying always because Jesus taught me I needed to always pray and never, never give up. And if we're honest, many of us, it's not that you've rejected prayer, it's that you've retired some prayers and you've put them in the

Dig Up Buried Prayers This Week

SPEAKER_00 24:59

ground. And here's my challenge to you in the next seven days, go pick one of them back up. Go sift through that ground and be like, you don't belong in the ground. You belong being prayed to my living God because he's a living God. And you say, Well, Cardi, you know, I buried them because they're buried in disappointment. I buried them, they're they're buried in realism. They're buried in, well, I tried that and it didn't work. They're buried in, well, I'm weary and I shouldn't have to keep doing this. Baby, you just get those things back up because Jesus says to you, do not lose heart. You keep praying and praying and praying. And now, listen, he's not promising us that it's all gonna happen in our timeline. Here's what he's promising, you and me. He's saying, There is a father who loves you and he is listening. And there is a real judge who is really just and he is listening, and there is a son of man who is returning. And that son of man has got a question on his mind. And it will I find the widow's kind of faith in them when I return?

Closing Prayer And Next Steps

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Let's go to prayer and dig some stuff up. God, the delay feels very real, but the answer is also real. And so we're praying for stamina to be restored. Lord, I'm praying even right now for everybody listening, for everybody listening later, for everybody here in the room, would you bring to mind some of the things we left there in the ground and we stopped praying because maybe it was too painful? We come against that lie in the name of Jesus. God, we'll put down anything you say to put down, but we're not listening to our flesh and we're not listening to the enemy of our soul. We're not staying in prison. Father, in Jesus' name, show us the ones that need to be lifted out of the ground and prayed again. Show us the ones we need to not give up on. Show us the ones the breakthrough was already almost there. God, whether it's 20 years, whether it's 40 years, whether you're gonna answer it 20 years after we're with you in heaven, we're asking you for the stamina, the spiritual salt to keep praying, to always pray and never give up. For the sake of Jesus' kingdom in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon. If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it. Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel. Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out. Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com. And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.