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- In thinking through what the Bible teaches
regarding the relationship between divine sovereignty
and human responsibility, a question often
comes to the forefront of prayer.
If God is really sovereign, and He has
planned all things and knows all things
before the foundation of the world, then why pray?
It seems as if prayer is either
meaningless or doesn't change anything.
Some will then say well, if He's already planned
all these things, then why petition a sovereign God?
Well this is a very, very important question
and it really is an application of the larger
divine sovereignty human freedom relationship.
As we work through Scripture, we have to
very, very carefully put together
all that Scripture teaches, and on this issue,
as we work on God's sovereignty,
God is presented from Genesis to Revelation,
as the God who is planned all things,
created all things, rules over all things.
You think of a Ephesians 1:11, a kind of overall
summary statement, that God's plan is that
which encompasses all things, the council of His will,
and that includes then our individual choices,
and prayers, and actions, and all that we do.
Yet, at the same time, Scripture also says
that we are God's image bearers.
We are free in the sense that we
are held accountable for our actions.
Our actions matter, our prayers matter,
what we do matters, but many, many people
see a tension in holding these two together.
Well, Scripture does give us a tension here.
It's not contradictory, Scripture will teach
that God knows all things and plans all things.
That's His sovereignty, yet it will also say
that our prayers are important.
That our prayers are to petition God.
I think of the parable that Jesus gives
in Luke's gospel about the person who constantly
is asking and He tells us to ask over and over again.
Well that's part of petition, so that Scripture
will hold both of these together.
Now, I think the best way to think of the relationship
of divine sovereignty to our prayers,
and the importance of our prayers,
is to think of our prayers as God's planned means.
Our prayers are means to bring about His planned ends.
Their real means, and sometimes we struggle
with how can they be real means?
But Scripture says they are.
Our prayers are real, they're important.
In fact, they are planned so that they, indeed,
bring about those ends, and sometimes
we can then use the reverse logic and say,
well, what if I don't bring about or
don't pray for certain things, will I thwart God?
Scripture says no, you won't.
We could even say He'll raise up someone
to pray and bring about that end.
We can't do that kind of reverse,
yet we have to then say God's sovereign plan
is brought about through our actions,
through our prayers, through our evangelism.
That is how sovereignty and freedom go together,
and that's how our prayers go together
with divine sovereignty as well.
When we think about petitionary prayer,
we think about what we ask God.
It's very, very important to think
about prayer in terms of how we are
taught to pray according to the Scriptures.
You think of the Lord Jesus in John 17,
that great high priestly prayer,
where He petitions His Father,
knowing that the hour is coming.
And the hour in John's gospel is God's
sovereigned, foreordained plan of the cross.
Yet He petitions His Father and says,
"Lord and Father, the hour is here, glorify your Son."
Well of course the Father's going to glorify His Son,
but the Son prays in relationship
to that very sovereign plan, the prayer
functions as a larger means to an end.
Or you think of in Daniel 9, where he's reading,
the prophet Jeremiah, and he knows
that 70 years will be the exile.
He doesn't then say, well, that's part
of God's sovereign plan, it's going to happen 70 years.
I just might as well sit around and wait.
Instead, knowing that very plan, he then
takes that knowledge and he turns it to prayer,
in confession and petitioning that God
would keep His promise, that it would only last 70 years.
Well of course it's only going to last 70 years.
But he prays and petitions God in light
of the very plan, the sovereign plan, the eternal plan
of God that he knows from the prophet Jeremiah.
You read the prayers of Paul and
this is a very, very helpful for us.
How does Paul pray for the churches?
Ephesians 1 is a great example of this.
Ephesians 1:15 and following, follows
off the heels of Paul's wonderful doxology
of praise in verses 3 through 14.
In the early portion of Ephesians 1, he is praising
the triune God for the work of the Father and election,
the work of the Son and redemption,
the work of the Spirit in sealing
all of Christ's work to us, and
giving us the guaranteed inheritance.
All of that's part of God's sovereign plan.
And then he says, "For this reason,"
because of God's sovereign election and redemption
and salvation, he then prays consistent with
that very plan, that the God who has
called you to adoption, the God who has called you
to know the riches that are the inheritance in Christ.
He prays then, "Lord, help the church know those riches.
"Help them to know that inheritance.
"Help them to know that adoption."
So he prays in line with God's sovereign purposes.
That's how prayer functions in Scripture.
It's important, our choices are important,
they're part of God's sovereign plan,
means to ends, and prayer, we then take
what God's plan is, what He's revealed,
what we know of that plan, and we turn that back to Him
in petition, in praise, in praying for one another.
We pray specifically, we petition God
according to His sovereign plan.
So sovereignty and prayer and petitionary prayer
go hand-in-hand, never let the two be separated.
Scripture holds them together and we must
hold them together in our thinking and in our practice,
in our daily lives, and in the church.
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