CAUSE / EFFECT:
PROMISES / PRAYER
Worship Preview for October 19, 2025
Disciples of Jesus need to learn how to pray. And learning to pray is not like many of the other things we learn to do in our lives. Once we know how to write our name, tie our shoes, or ride a bike, the learning is done. There is virtually no danger we will forget how to do those things. Not so with prayer. Learning to pray consists of a lifetime of persistence. So, what is the cause of persistent prayer? The precious promises of God. “God is not human, that he should lie. . . . Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19). God cannot lie. So, we know every promise he makes us—to forgive, to provide, to help, to be with us—he must keep. When we persistently go to God in prayer and press him to keep his promises, God does not view that as nagging. He loves it! Because it demonstrates that our faith grasps not only that he can do what we ask, but that he will . . . because he promised.
READINGS
Luke 18:1-8
Jesus teaches us to be bold and persistent in our prayers.
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the 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 or 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, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Genesis 32:22-30
In praying that the Lord would keep his promise of blessing, Jacob literally wrestles with God.
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
1 John 5:13-15
When we ask God for something that is according to his will—something that he has promised—we can be absolutely confident we will receive it.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
God, our refuge and strength, have mercy on your church as we come in prayer before you. Answer us not in judgment on our sins but in peace and forgiveness; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.