The Power Of Praying Parents – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Despite our best efforts, sometimes kids go astray, even Christian kids. Anguished parents cry out to God for a solution. And that's exactly what God wants us to do in those tough situations. Today, coming to grips with prodigal children.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, as you teach part nine in your series on fighting for your family, I know a lot of parents wonder if their prayers are doing any good. Well, Dave, here's a special challenge to all those parents who are listening who think that their prayers aren't doing any good. It's important that they listen to this message because I think they will be very encouraged to continue to pray. I believe that this series of messages fighting for your family is so critical. We have prepared a book, and this book has the transcripts of these messages so that you can read them. It has a study guide with some reflective questions, but also provides a link by which you can listen to this message again and again.

Very critical. For a gift of any amount, this resource can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Did I say that too quickly?

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And in the words of Jesus, keep praying and do not lose heart. Today is my privilege to preach message number nine in a series entitled Fighting for Your Family, specifically how to pray for your children and we shall concentrate eventually on praying for prodigals. I don't need to tell you, do I, that there are plenty of prodigal children.

All for ghost stories, but this past week speaking at a Bible conference, a man sits next to me. His son married this woman. They have children.

She's run off to find another lover. So the children now go through the difficulty of divorce. He's a grandparent and has to watch all this happen.

A story told a thousand times. By way of introduction, a couple of questions. Number one, is it always the parent's fault if a child rebels and becomes a prodigal? The answer is sometimes yes. Parents contribute to the rebellion of their children, but many times the answer is no. Do you think in the famous prodigal son story that the real fault for the younger son wanting his inheritance and then going into a far country, do you think it was because he didn't have a good father?

Of course not. The father represents God. Sin is irrational. Young people and older people too do stupid, hurtful, crazy things. They follow their desires wherever they lead, even with good parenting.

So somewhere along the line in this message, I'm going to try to help you as parents to live guilt-free no matter the past. A second question that might be asked very logically is when kids rebel. The child who was brought up in Sunday school, who went to camp and memorized all the verses and served the Lord during high school and then left the faith during college, were they saved? Are they saved or aren't they? Well, the good scriptural answer is we don't know.

That's the answer. I do believe this, that many kids lose their faith in college not because of the intellectual arguments, but because of the moral issues and the environment. They fall into immorality and after that they're looking for justification. And so because they don't know how to handle the guilt and to handle their conscience and yet they don't see any way out, they write home and say, Mom and Dad, I've left Christianity and I've become an atheist. Some instances they may be Christians whom God will bring back. In other instances, indeed, they may never have actually saving believed on Jesus, but only God knows. Now, what I'm going to ask you to do today is to turn to a passage of scripture where we see a mother pleading for her child.

A mother pleading for her child. It's the 15th chapter. It's the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew chapter 15, a remarkable story. It's a story over which some people have stumbled. They said, Jesus here seems rude. He seems so out of character.

What's happening here? Well, that's our text today. I'm in Matthew chapter 15 and I'm in verse 21. But he did not answer her a word. His disciples came and begged him, saying, send her away because she's crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and she knelt before him saying, Lord, help me.

And he answered, is it not right? It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And she agrees. Yes, Lord.

But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. What I'd like us to do is to look at the barriers that this woman overcame in soliciting the help of Jesus for her demonized daughter. What a prayer. What a woman.

What a mother. Now we may begin and ask the question, well, why was this child demonized? Well, you have to go to Baalbek, as I have been in Lebanon, to understand the religion of the Canaanites. It was a very pagan religion filled with sexuality and filled with occultism.

Those two always go together. The Bible talks about the sins of the father being visited upon the next generation. And so what you find is that demonic spirits actually move in family lines. And so apparently this child was demonized as a result of that. I can't believe that the child did something to deserve this or to let these demons in. But thankfully, even today when that happens, this power may be broken and the gospel breaks the cycle.

But there it is. This woman comes and she is a Canaanite and Jesus is going to the northern part where Lebanon is today, Tyre and Sidon, where I was back in 1968. And Jesus is there in the area and she hears about Jesus that he's able to deliver from demons and that the demons obey his very word.

Somehow news about Jesus travels that far. There's no way that she could leave and visit Jesus and try to find out where he is. But the good news is Jesus comes into her area to make grace available even for her. Now, what I'd like to do is to give you five or six barriers that she overcame in getting help for her child and interceding for her child. Now, obviously, her child was not a prodigal, but her child was in desperate need of a word from Jesus that that baby girl, that small girl would be delivered.

Are you ready for the barriers? Barrier number one is she overcame the barrier of her religion. She could have said, there's no way I'm going to go to a Jew to get help for my child. After all, we Canaanites have our own religion.

Can't you just imagine it? There are people today who hide behind their religion for not receiving Christ as savior. They say because of their culture, because of their religion, I'd be betraying my parents if I were to believe. And so she could have said to herself, not only religiously, but culturally, the Canaanites were despised by many of the Jewish people. They were outcasts. And she could have said, I'd rather see my child suffer a demon than to go to a Jew to try to find help. It would be something like a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip reaching out to a Jew for help.

You just didn't do it with those deep cultural roots. So she overcame her religion, her culture, and then a divided family, a divided family. Now, I can't say too much about this because we don't know exactly why her husband wasn't there. It's possible that he was just out in the fields. Maybe he had died, whatever.

The point was she was here as a single mother soliciting the help of Jesus. And some of you single mothers, you are in that predicament, aren't you? Your husband may no longer be in the family. Maybe there's been a divorce. Maybe he's died.

Maybe he's alive, but very disinterested. And it's up to you. God bless you. Can you imagine in a day when the role of a woman was so diminished? In a male dominated culture, this woman goes to 13 men who are in the area.

There's Jesus and the 12 disciples. And she doesn't care. Her child needs deliverance. Her child needs a word from Jesus. And so that's what's happening here in the text. She overcomes her religion. She overcomes her divided home. And then the silence of Jesus.

We just read the text. Your Bibles are open. She comes and it's amazing to me that she knows who Jesus is. She got some good theology along the line.

Have mercy on me, O Lord. Son of David, my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. But he didn't answer her word.

Would you have been put off by that? Those of you who are praying for your children, are you put off by the silence of God? The seemingly indifference of God when your child is out there needing help, needing a word from the Almighty and that word doesn't come. She knows that the silence of God and you ought to write this down, too.

The silence of God is never a sign of the indifference of God. And even here, when Jesus is silent, he is secretly plotting mercy for this child. I happen to think that that's why Jesus went into Tyre and Sidon is because he knew that there was a woman there who needed him. A child that needed deliverance. People think that Jesus was rude.

He seems to be so out of character with the way he reacts in other places. The only answer is that we have to find within the text itself what Jesus was after. And so she overcomes the silence of Jesus. She overcomes the rejection of the disciples.

Notice it says, and his disciples said, send her away. Send her away for she is crying out after us. She's crying out after us. She's a nuisance. She keeps crying out after us. Get rid of her. Now at that point, if you had been this woman, would you have backed off and said enough already? If that's the way these Jews are going to treat me, after all the fact that I came and I sought their help, and that's the kind of cold shoulder that I get, send her away, I'm out of here. That doesn't deter her.

She doesn't stop. And then you'll notice that the text goes on to say not only that, but the words of Jesus. He says, for example, in verse 24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

I was sent only to the house of the lost sheep of Israel. She hears it. The disciples hear it.

And it's very clear to them that that's why they say send her away in this context. Now what Jesus was saying was true to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles. Of course, eventually Jesus is going to become the Messiah to the world, to be sure, but for now I am sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That is my agenda.

That's why I came when he sent out the 70. It was go only to the houses of the lost tribes, or the lost sheep, I should say, of Israel. So Jesus said that's my mission, and he speaks correctly. But again, what she hears is prejudice. I'm a Canaanite, and you Jews get all the blessing. This does not stop her. Notice, verse 25, she came and knelt before him, saying, Lord, help me.

And it still isn't over. Jesus then says, it is not right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs. You know, the Gentiles, that is to say the Canaanites, were called dogs by the Jews. That's the New Testament expression as it reflects the culture of the days. You see, Jesus is saying, you know, the Jews are the children, and they get fed, but we can't take food from them and then give it to the Canaanites, to the dogs. Now, if at this point you are really struggling with Jesus, if you're saying that Jesus seems to be harsh and uncaring, it might help you a little to know that in Greek there are two different words for dogs.

One is those ferocious scavengers who used to run across the country. And that's not the word that Jesus uses. Jesus uses the word for household pets.

We could almost say, it's not right to take the food that belongs to the children and give it to the puppies that are around the table, give it to the little dogs. And he may have even said that with a twinkle in his eye. But notice her response. She doesn't disagree. She doesn't say, how prejudiced can you get? She agrees.

She said, absolutely, absolutely. She said, I don't want anything that belongs to the children. Whatever it is that you give me, may it not diminish what the children get. But, she said, verse 27, yes, Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. You know, the dogs, the puppies, they get to lick up the crumbs.

Don't give me anything that diminishes the food of the kids. I'm not asking for a full meal. I'm just asking for a few crumbs. I'm asking for a little spillover of your blessing to me who is in this desperate situation. Lord, those crumbs are just going to be swept away anyway, and they're going to be thrown away.

Can't you give me a crumb? Oh, wow. I read this yesterday and tears came to my eyes. Can you imagine this woman, this mother? And Jesus finally says, oh, woman, great is your faith.

Pause. Only twice did Jesus ever say, you have great faith. He said it to this woman who was a Gentile, and he said it to a centurion who was a Gentile. When Peter was about to go under the water, after Peter began to walk on the water and go to Jesus, Jesus said, oh, you of little faith.

Here was one of the children. Here was one of the Jewish disciples. He had a little faith. To this woman, Jesus said, oh, you have great faith.

He said, let it be to you as you wish. And her daughter was healed instantly. Can I ask you, at what point would you have stopped in your intercession? Would you have stopped at the silence of God? God's not answering.

Years have gone by. Why should I continue to pray? Would you have stopped because of the influence of other people in the church, like these disciples who say, send her away? Because sometimes God's people can be very difficult to live with. They can be judgmental. They can be like the elder brother in the prodigal.

They can be very obnoxious. Would that have stopped you? And you said, I'm not going to intercede for my child anymore. Someone has said that she scaled the walls of heaven and touched the heart of deity. Luther said that she used the master's own words against him and won his heart. By the time she came through all of those barriers, some of which were erected by Jesus and the disciples, Jesus could say, oh woman, great is thy faith. I think there's another reason why Jesus answered her prayer. It's because of her desperation.

She was absolutely desperate. There was no way that her child was going to be healed. She couldn't have gone there herself and asked a demon to leave. Demons don't obey us, except as we rely on Jesus. They ultimately obey Jesus and at his word, they must leave. But if you don't have the word from God, who are we that we can stand against evil powers? Desperation. God loves desperate people. Now what I'd like to do is to transition just a little bit. And what I'd, this is almost like two sermons in one, but it is still on theme.

It's on target. I'd like to give some advice, four or five steps or principles in praying for prodigals, for praying for prodigals, some of which grow out of the passage of scripture. We just looked at together, some of which grow out of the parable of the prodigal son.

Here's some practical suggestions as you pray for prodigals. Write them down. You say, I don't need them. You may. You may.

If you're a parent, you may. Number one, prayer number one, Lord, change me. Lord, change me. I have no doubt that when there's a prodigal son, God wants to do a work in the heart of the parents, just like he wants to do a work in the heart of their prodigal. And by the way, from here on out, I'll always talk about him, the prodigal him. But of course, you know that there are prodigal daughters, just like there are prodigal sons. In fact, there is probably about 50-50 percentage, though I've never done a poll on it, but I can't always be referring to both genders.

But Lord, change me. I asked the question at the beginning of this message, is it always the fault of the parent when a child rebels? And the answer is no. Is it sometimes do they contribute to it?

Yes. Through harshness of discipline, through self-righteousness, through a judgmental spirit that turns a child off and numbs their spirit, through favoritism. Favoritism oftentimes is the thing that turns a child off. You know, you're a favorite. Yesterday I was in what was called Bug House Square, quite an event that we had over there. Those of you who were there will know it, but there's a very famous skeptic whose name I will not mention here, who's become a friend of mine. And when you listen to his story, it's because of this, you know, your elder brother has achieved, look at who he is, you've done nothing.

So, they don't like me, God doesn't like me, I'm going to be a skeptic. Parents, what you need to do is to say to God, is there anything that we need to ask forgiveness for that has been part of the reason why our child is rebelling? Well, that's a very important question for parents to face.

Have I contributed to my child's delinquency? We've prepared a very special resource for you so that these messages titled Fighting for Your Family can be directly applied to your life and to your family. It's a book which includes transcripts for all of these messages. In addition to that, study questions, study questions for reflection, and then also provides a link so that you can listen to these messages again and again. We've created this resource to help you as you navigate all of the issues that are confronting families today.

For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Here's what you do, go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now, because this is the last week that we are making this resource available to you, I'm going to be giving you that contact info again. But even as you think of the ministry of running to win, we want to thank the many of you who pray for us.

We thank the many of you who support this ministry because our desire is to get these messages around the world. Here's what you do, go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer and of course rtwoffer is all one word.

rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks to you, Running to Win is going around the world. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Only God can count the tears of parents whose kids have gone to the far country. Like the prodigal son in the Bible, their kids chose a path destined for failure. Next time on Running to Win, more on the power of persistent prayer and on a God who answers prayer. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.