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If God is sovereign, why do we need to pray? If God is promised something, he's going to do it, right? Whether we pray about it or not. Why do we need to pray? None of these promises are fulfilled mechanically, automatically, insensitively. All of these promises a personal God has made to his people. And this personal God wants His people to meditate on these promises and to enter into the fulfillment of these promises by praying for the promises to be fulfilled.
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You know, it's easy to forget sometimes the privilege that God has given to us, his redeemed people, that we get to enter into the fulfillment of his purposes through the gift of prayer. Hello and welcome to Renewing youg Mind. I'm glad you've joined us today. If you have benefited from this daily Bible teaching, would you consider donating to help make Renewing youg Mind available to even more people around the world? We'll send you two resources when you donate today. Well, we continue to address crucial questions that you and I may have as Christians. And Today we'll hear Dr. W. Robert Godfrey discuss the importance of prayer. How should we pray and what should we pray for? Let's join Dr. Godfrey now.
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I was asked by, I thought, a friend on my way walking over here, do you know anything about prayer? And I thought that was a great question. And I was tempted to answer. I'm a Calvinist. Prayer is a great thing to talk about because it's so easy to make people feel guilty. You don't pray enough, do you? I'm here not to make you feel guilty. I'm here to get us thinking as biblically as we can about this wonderful topic of prayer, and particularly about this question, does prayer change things? There are so many biblical texts that come to mind, but one of them that I thought about was where Jesus in Matthew 9, very familiar, very famous text, says, pray earnestly, that the Lord of the harvest will send forth workers. It certainly seems that Jesus thinks that prayer changes things. And he's usually a pretty reliable guide. Always a very reliable guide. And when we look at the Scriptures, what do we find in the Scriptures? We find the Scriptures are full of prayer. They're full of praying people and stories of praying people. They're full of prayers in the Book of Psalms, that could be models of prayer for us. The ministry of Jesus was full of prayer, wasn't it? We read so often that he went out alone to pray. The ministry of Jesus was full of calls to prayer and examples of prayer and teaching on prayer. Lord, teach us to pray. The disciples said and he did, didn't he? He gave us the Lord's Prayer as a model prayer. And so in the Old Testament, in the Life of our Lord, in the Book of the Apostles, my good friend Terry Johnson said, you can read the Book of the Apostles to see that every great advance of the church is preceded by a prayer meeting. Prayer is central to, to the Scriptures. And over and over again in the Epistles, we hear about prayer and a call to prayer and examples of prayer. And so this is the shortest address in this conference. Does prayer change things? Yes. Thank you very much. The real question is, isn't it, how does prayer change things? In what ways does prayer operate? And in the backdrop is this kind of nagging misrepresentation of Calvinism that would say, if God is sovereign, then prayer can't change anything. If God is sovereign, we don't need to pray. If God is sovereign, we don't need to evangelize. If God is sovereign, we don't need to preach. If God is sovereign, we don't need to eat. But hardly anyone ever says, well, if God is sovereign, do we need to eat? Because we know theologically and more importantly biblically that God uses means to accomplish his ends. He not only sovereignly knows the end from the beginning, but he sovereignly knows how we're getting from the beginning to the end. He wills to use means to accomplish his ends. And what we have to do is avoid a rationalism on the one hand that says we don't need to pray at all because God is sovereign, and a rationalism that says if we need to pray, then God must be dependent on us. Now we know immediately from reading the Scriptures God is not dependent on us. God is not sitting and wondering what helpful advice we might offer him in prayer as to how he can govern the universe. We know that, don't we? We hardly even need to stop and think about that. Jesus reminds us just before he gives us the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6. He says, don't be like the Gentiles going on and on and on, thinking that they will be heard for their many words. God knows what you need before you pray. God knows what you need before you pray. He's sovereign. But that doesn't mean don't pray. That doesn't mean don't pray. But don't pray with the illusion that you're changing the world, that you're changing God's mind. Pray with the recognition. Pray with the faith that you're entering in to the purpose of God. You're entering into the way in which God chooses to operate. And you're entering in in a most marvelous way. God is not just using means as if there were some mechanical operation taking place. God is using the means of. Of his personal, intimate contact with his people so that the means he has appointed is the prayer coming from the people of God, created in God's image to commune with God as one of the great privileges of being a creature and being redeemed. That we are invited, urged, commanded, to speak to our God, person to person, heart to heart, mind to mind. This is what our God has given us as a great gift. And it is a means he uses. He uses it as a means to change the world. He uses it as a means to change us. But he's doing this not in some mechanical form. Prayer is the most intimate, personal connection of our hearts and our spirits with our personal loving God. And the New Testament in so many places wants to get us thinking about that. And one of the passages I want to think with you about a little bit this afternoon is James chapter 5, where at verse 16, James writes, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Certainly seems that James assumes that prayer works. The prayer changes. Prayer has power. Prayer accomplishes things. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And then he gives us an example. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth poured fruit. So James is saying, prayer is important. Prayer is critical. Prayer is powerful. Prayer works things. All you have to do is think about Elijah. All you have to do is think about Elijah. And what do we read about Elijah praying? Well, we read more about Elijah praying at the end of the drought when he prays that rain might be restored after three and a half years to Israel, don't we? And what do we read? He prays. And then he and his servant look for a cloud. No cloud. So what does he do? He says, I guess I couldn't change God's mind. I'm going home to dinner. Now he prays again and goes, no cloud. Prays seven times, we're told in first Kings. And then he gets the seventh time, goes to look and he sees a little cloud far away emerging. And he knows God is answering his prayer. Now, God had promised that rain was coming. So why do we need to pray? Because God uses the prayers of his people to accomplish his purposes, because the universe in which we live is a personal universe where a personal God cares personally for his people. And when James is referring to Elijah and rain, he's not just talking narrowly about the subject of rain, but he's drawing us back into the Old Testament to one of the great moments in Old Testament history where the subject is not really rain, the subject really is who is God. Right. Elijah in chapter 17 and 18 is involved in a great contest as to who is God. And the antagonist in this context is Ahab, the king of Israel. And we're told in 1 Kings 16 that Ahab was quite a successful king. He had economic success at home, and he had some good foreign alliances that he had built. But from Elijah's point of view, the only thing important to know about Ahab was that he had failed in his most important duty as God's king, namely to worship God and exalt his name. And we're told in 1 Kings 16 that Ahab was an idolater, a polluter of the name of God, a betrayer of the name of God. Ahab was guilty of following the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which meant he was guilty of violating the second commandment, claiming to worship the true God, but worshiping the true God falsely. That's the sin of the second commandment. That's the sin that Jeroboam had committed when he left the house of David, when he left the temple of God in Jerusalem and headed north to Samaria to build his own temple, to establish his own priesthood, to introduce his own sacrifices. And he was an idolater, a betrayer of God. But that was not enough for Ahab. He had married a pagan woman, Jezebel, who had brought with her to Samaria her pagan gods, BAAL and the Asherah. And Ahab, as if it was not enough to violate the second commandment, had to violate the first commandment and built a temple to BAAL and a temple to the Asherah, and went in and worshiped. Now, you have to bear in mind he was a good guy. He was making peace between religions. He hadn't deserted the Lord, he still worshiped the Lord, but he had to honor his wife and worship her gods too. How narrow minded of you to be critical. This is the situation to which the Lord sent Elijah. And Elijah is saying to Ahab, it doesn't matter how successful you are in every area of your life besides worship, if you have failed in your worship of the Lord, you have failed in your most essential calling. And God has come to judge you. My word is to bring judgment upon you. And the judgment is this. There'll be no rain in Israel for three and a half years. And why is that such an important judgment? Well, because BAAL was the God of storms, amongst other things. And so what Elijah is really saying when he talks about rain is the God who can act is the true God. So my God, Elijah says, the Lord God, the living God, he will see that there is no storm and there is no rain for three and a half years. Now, Ahab, go into the temple of BAAL and pray and ask the God of storms to send rain. And what happens? Well, I'm sort of intrigued. I wish one of the learned men here would develop this. But apparently God not only sends the rain on the just and the unjust, but he sends drought on the just and the unjust. The whole of Israel has nothing but drought. This is in fulfillment of the threat of judgment made in Deuteronomy 28 to a people who are disobedient to the Lord. And then, of course, you know that story, how it works out. At the end of three and a half years, the contest becomes very focused. And Elijah says to the people, and Ahab, how long will you limp between two opinions? If the Lord be God, serve him, follow him. And then the contest on Mount Carmel and the fire from heaven consuming the sacrifice in the name of the Lord. And the people finally touched by the reality of what they have seen and experienced under the judgment of God, the people cry out, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. And then Elijah prays, and the rain comes the blessing to confirm that the Lord, he is God. And what is happening in this contest, It's a contest about who is truly God. It's a contest about what God can hear and act and therefore whose name, the name of which God should be exalted in the face of the people. Elijah had said when he first spoke to Ahab, as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, there shall be no rain. The Lord. That's the name that Elijah took upon his lips. That's the name that Elijah came to sanctify and to hallow. The more I looked at this, the more I thought about James and thought about Elijah and then thought about Jesus and the Lord's Prayer, the more it seemed to me that James and Jesus are saying very much the same thing in what they're teaching on prayer. God's name must be hallowed. And then I thought, well, maybe Jesus and James had talked about this. The subject of Elijah was a hot topic in Israel in the days of Jesus and of James. Jesus and James saw Elijah on the mount of Transfiguration. It's not at all surprising that what Jesus is saying about prayer, that the very first thing we pray when we pray is hallowed be thy name. And the great concern of Elijah in appearing with the word of God is that the name of the Lord should be holy among his people. And I realized in my praying how little attention I had given to the theme of hallowing God's name. Maybe it's because hallowed is an English word that we never use except in the Lord's Prayer. There's an echo of it in Halloween. But that doesn't really help us, does it? Hallowed, holy, set apart, exalted, honored be your name, O Lord. This should be at the very heart of our prayers. At the very beginning of our prayers, Jesus says, Psalm 34, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. Elijah shows the power of God to protect his name, to exalt his name, to keep his name holy. And Jesus invites us to pray that, to uphold that in our prayers. And this led me to the reflection. How often Jesus asks us to pray for what he has promised to do. How often Jesus asks us to pray for what he has promised to do. And this brings us back to that question of if God is sovereign, why do we need to pray? If God is promised something, he's going to do it right? Whether we pray about it or not, why do we need to pray? And then I took another look at the Lord's Prayer and realized, in a real sense, all the petitions of the Lord's Prayer are things the Lord has promised to do. Is God going to keep his name holy? You bet. Is God's kingdom going to come? Absolutely. Is God's will going to be done for sure? Is God going to give me each day my daily bread? Well, we might debate whether that's absolutely promised, but I think most of us are looking pretty well fed or too well fed. Is God going to forgive our sins? You know, there were a group of Christians at one time who said, well, we should pray the Lord's Prayer asking God to forgive our sins because he's already forgiven our sins. So if we ask him to forgive our sins, it would be calling that forgiveness into doubt. So we shouldn't pray the Lord's Prayer? Well, they were wrong. The Lord has promised to forgive our sins if we trust in Jesus. But the Lord wants us to pray for that as well. Has the Lord promised to deliver us from evil? Absolutely. But in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus is saying to us as his people, none of these promises are fulfilled mechanically, automatically, insensitively. All of these promises a personal God has made to his people. And this personal God wants His people to meditate on these promises and to enter into the fulfillment of these promises by praying for the promises to be fulfilled. And I think it's so crucial for us as the people of God to be filled with this sense of the importance of praying for the fulfillment of the promises that will be definitely fulfilled, even if not one of us prays. But God wants us to be part of the fulfillment of these promises. In our fellowship with him, in our petitioning him to do what he's promised. We think of the way the book of the Revelation ends. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Is Jesus coming again? Now where are the Baptists? Is Jesus coming again? How about a nice grunt from the Presbyterians? You can't get an amen out of a Presbyterian, but you ought to be able to get a grunt. Is Jesus coming again? That's as enthusiastic as we get. Is Jesus coming again? It's promised for sure. So why do we pray for it? Because God wants us to enter into the blessing of thinking about that promise, of anticipating that promise, of participating in the fulfillment of that promise. Think of another great example of Jesus at prayer in the New Testament, what we call his high priestly prayer, recorded for us in John 17. Jesus shows Himself in that chapter to be a preacher because his prayer has three points. And what are the three points? The first petition of the high priestly prayer is, father, glorify your son. Is that promised? Is that certain? Was the Father going to glorify the Son apart from this prayer? You see, Jesus is praying for what is promised. He's praying that he might experience and be filled with the joy of seeing that promise fulfilled. Father, glorify your son. And the second prayer is, father, keep the people you gave me. Isn't that promised? Jesus over and over again in John's Gospel promises that not one will be lost, but Jesus is praying the promises of God. Then the third prayer is, keep those who will believe in unity with us, Father and son. Isn't it promised that all believers will be kept in unity with the Father and the Son? But Jesus is praying for that. And Jesus is showing us the glory of praying the promises of God, of entering in to the purpose of God, of connecting with the person of God of entering into the joy of that communion. And it's not just some kind of game so that we'll feel better. God has appointed this as a reality through which he is going to work, through which he is going to accomplish what he has set out to do. And I think one of the things we need to work on as the people of God. Here I come to the guilt section of this message. What we need to work on is working on more, praying the promises of God that we might be advancing his kingdom and participating in the fulfillment of his will. Now, we are also, I think, taught by Scripture that we are encouraged to pray for things that are not promised explicitly in the Scripture. Jesus, not only in Gethsemane, prayed for something that God had not promised,
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in Gethsemane he prayed for something he knew God would not give. And what does that show us? It seems to me, to show us that God wants us freely to open our hearts to him and pour out our feelings before Him. This is part of why I treasure the Psalter. Part of the glory of the Psalter is the emotion we find the pouring out of the heart of the experience before God in ways that are surprising. One of the psalms before I die that I hope to preach on, but I haven't figured out yet, so I can't preach on it yet, is Psalm 39, which is a psalm of lament before the Lord, a psalm of suffering before the Lord, a psalm where the psalmist senses that the hand of the Lord is heavy upon him. And verse 12, the next to last verse of this psalm, ends in a way that seems very appropriate for us to embrace. Verse 12 says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry. Hold not your peace at my tears, for I am a sojourner with you, a guest like all my fathers. Hear me, Lord, as I pray. Take note of my tears and my suffering. I'm in exile like all who've come before me. That's a good way to end this psalm, isn't it? But it's not how the psalm ends. The psalmist then says, look away from me, that I may smile again before I depart and am no more. Wow. The Lord is so close to me and his presence is a misery. I wish he'd go away. And then maybe I could smile once before I die. I want some preacher to come and help me figure out how I preach this. But what I do know is the psalmist is being honest with how he feels. The psalmist is being honest in saying, I'm not sure I can take your presence anymore, Lord. I'm not sure that I can continue under the disciplinary work of your hand. I need help. I need help. And the help I need is go away. Give me some breathing room now. Is God going to go away? Is God his problem? No, I don't think so. But you see the honesty of the psalmist pouring out the feelings of his heart. It turns out the Psalms are not English. There's no stiff upper lip in the Psalms. There's no grinning and bearing it. There's a pouring out of the heart before God to say what I really feel, what I really want. But just like Jesus in Gethsemane, having told God what we really want, we always close the prayer by saying, yet not my will, but your will be done. Because person to person, I can tell you what I'd like. Person to person, I can tell you what I think would be good. But I know in the end of the day, I'm not God. I'm not wise enough to run the universe. I'm not wise enough to run my own life. And so, having had the great privilege of talking openly and honestly to God and laying out before God what I'd like to see happen, this person to person communication with God ends with me saying, but you know best you'll do, right? You'll give me what I really need. And so youo will be done. May youy name always be kept holy. May youy kingdom come where we'll see the real King, not Ahab, but Jesus, and may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what we're praying about, that's what we're hoping for. And this is the very essence of prayer, you see. The prayer that does change things, the prayer that does change us and that God uses to change the world. Now I always think there has to be a grumpy Calvinist moment in every one of my messages. So here we are at the grumpy Calvinist moment. One of the things that really annoys me is the scene too often pictured in movies. Not that I go to movies, I just hear these reports, the points in movie where some important person is passing through a church. The church of course, is always a non Protestant church. The church is always kind of dark and architecturally impressive. And the hero or heroine in Flight comes to a point in the church where there are little candles burning and the hero or the heroine pauses to light a candle. A sentimental moment. The whole idea is this candle is a prayer before God and After I leave the church, my prayer will stay behind burning before God. This is a moment of anti prayer. This is a moment that is appalling if you really think about it. I don't want to spoil anybody's feel good moment, but this is terrible. It's the opposite of prayer. Prayer is not an invention of some activity that we make, that we invest with some kind of meaning that God has never talked about. And most particularly, prayer is not a physical object that we leave behind burning when we are not praying as if we were still praying. God doesn't want you to light a candle. Maybe at Thanksgiving dinner on the table, but I mean in general, God does not want you to light a candle. He wants you to pause and talk to Him. He doesn't want you to light a candle and leave him behind as if you've fulfilled some sacred duty. He wants you to talk to Him. He's invited you into his presence. He's invited you to be his own. He's invited you to be part of the great work he is doing in bringing redemption into the world. What a privilege we have in prayer. It does change things. It changes the world. It changes us. It doesn't change God because God is always with us and and God is always for us. And God always wants to encourage us by being our Heavenly Father, by caring for us, by listening to us. May God grant that we might be a people who pray and are used by the Lord to accomplish his purpose.
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What a wonderful reality. What a wonderful peace to know that we have an unchanging God. And what a blessing that we can commune with him through prayer. You know, redemptive history is filled with examples of prayerful people who have been used by God. And if you'd like to learn more about some of these figures, we'd like to send you the Hardcover edition of Heroes of the Christian faith by Dr. R.C. sproul, along with the digital study guide. Just call us with Your donation at 800-435-4343 or give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org Tomorrow we'll address another crucial question with a lesson from Reverend Joel Kim answering a question that has stumped secular philosophers for who is God? I hope you'll join us here on Renewing your Mind. Ra.