Transcript
Ben Fallon: I want to read for you these words straight from the mouth of Jesus. This is found in Mark, chapter 11.
And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
1 John, chapter 5, verses 14 and 15 says something similar.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
So, Paul, in light of these verses and many others on prayer, today's question comes from a parent who asks.
We've been praying for our kid to get into a school that he has applied for, but if God is sovereign and this choice has already been made, what's the point of prayer? If we don't pray, does it impact the decision? Would God punish us for not praying by not giving us the result that we are hoping and praying for? I feel kind of silly praying for something that has already been determined before time began. Or at least, I want to believe that my prayer is making a difference and is worth it in whatever way that could be.
Paul Tripp: I want to say that I just love these questions; I don't think that we've ever entertained a bad question. These are just really wonderful questions, and it makes sense to me that this question would be asked. One of the things I want to say, whoever asked this question, I want to congratulate them because they have good biblical theology because they obviously believe in the sovereignty of God. And a lot of people don't. And that is something to be thankful for.
But I want to say that clearly there are two things that you're immediately greeted with in Scripture when it comes to prayer. The first and most well-known is that Jesus, in his most lengthy earthly sermon, the Sermon on the Mount–it's the longest single teaching we have of Jesus, in the middle of that teaching, he gives us a model for prayer. Now why would the Messiah (Jesus), in his most significant teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, say “This is the culture that I want in the lives of people who follow me.” Why would he, in the middle of that, give this very careful, detailed model for prayer if prayer weren't important? If prayer is a waste of time, why would the Messiah waste his time to give us this model? So that's the first thing.
The second thing, you get direct commands in Scripture to pray. I think of 1 Thessalonians 5:17, one of the shortest, most well-known passages on prayer, “Pray without ceasing.” Not only does Jesus give us a model of prayer, but he says, “Don't ever stop. Have a life that's just punctuated with ceaseless prayer.” Now, if I say to you, “Don't ever stop exercising,” your conclusion would be that exercise is important. Or if I say, “You can't live well without eating properly,” you would walk away concluding that eating properly is important. So, if the Creator Messiah tells me to pray, then somehow, someway, prayer is important.
So, this is the way I want to go with this conversation. The first thing I have to say with this question is, “We pray because God commanded it.” I don't understand why God commands me to do all the things he commands me to do. But I do them because I know there's never a point in my life where I'm going to be smarter than God, where I'm going to know better than God. And if God commands me to pray, then somehow, someway, prayer, in the way that he rules his world, must be important. So that leads, obviously, to this question that is being asked.
But why has God commanded us to pray? Now, I'm going to get a little bit theological here, but I think that this theology is important. In the way that God has chosen to sovereignly rule his universe, please pay careful attention, God just doesn't determine what will finally happen, but he determines by what means it will happen. So, God doesn't just determine the end; he determines the means. That means, in God's sovereign plan, the actions of the secondary agent, that's us, God's the first agent, we're the secondary agent, are valid and significant. God works out the plan that he has chosen through the valid actions of the creatures he's chosen. Let me say that again, “God works out the results that he's chosen through the means of the actions of the creatures that he's created.”
Now, this all happens without me ever feeling like a robot. I never get up in the morning to look in my closet for what I'm going to wear, and all of a sudden, my arm starts going toward a shirt I don't want to put on. That's not how it works. It's through my valid choices of my will, my choices, my desire, that God works his plan. So, your obedience to God's command to pray is the means by which he accomplishes what he's already chosen to do. You can't say it's the sovereignty of God versus the actions of people. It's never an either or, it's a ‘both and,’ That's what Scripture teaches.
Let me give you an example; I love this example; this is Acts 13. Paul and Barnabas are preaching, and this is what it says after the conclusion of their sermon, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” I love this passage because it puts everything together. Now, I can argue that only those who are chosen by God believed, but that's not exactly what this passage teaches. It teaches us that Paul and Barnabas had to preach. It teaches us that the Gentiles had to listen. It teaches us that they had to believe, that all of those things were part of the way God then brought to himself those he had already chosen. And so preaching is important. Belief is important because those are means by which God works out his already ordained plan. That's how it works.
So, prayer is a vital means of God accomplishing what he has already chosen to accomplish. That means prayer is not meaningless. It's not a waste of time. It means you should not feel silly. As you pray, you are the earthly means by which God accomplishes his preordained plan.
BF: Paul Tripp Ministries produced a free resource called “The Transforming Power of Prayer” for families to use. It’s five devotionals by Paul on the Lord’s Prayer. You can get it for free online at paultripp.com/prayer. Remember the words of James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
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