If God is Sovereign, Why Should we Pray?

Acts chapter four is our reading this morning, the gospel of Acts in chapter number four.

I haven't seen some of you in a week, so let me catch up with you here.

If you had a great week, I mean an outstanding week, don't don't be shy.

Will you say amen?

You had a great week.

Awesome.

How many of you had a terrible week?

Will you say amen?

Now now come.

I know better than that.

You've been some of you have been calling and texting me, okay?

If you've had some struggles last week, can I get a hearty amen right there?

Okay, rejoice in the Lord always.

And again I say rejoice.

And I just remind you that Sunday is the first day of a new week, not the last day of the previous week.

And so this is the week of the weekly pep rally of the Christian life.

And so we come together and learn and are motivated to serve the Lord together.

Acts chapter four is our scripture reading this morning.

Acts chapter four.

We've had a lot of extra things in the service today, and so praying that our time together will be meaningful.

You should have a bulletin there that has the notes of the sermon.

And so what we don't get right this morning, we might finish up a little bit this evening.

I do encourage you to be here on Sunday night as we pick up our conversation.

I I feel like a preacher just has a conversation every week.

Sometimes, sometimes people will come and they they miss a few services or miss a few weeks and they're a little bit lost in the conversation.

So I just encourage you to track along with us.

I've had a few times in my ministry, people will say, Hey, you know, you ought to preach on such and such on Sunday night.

And I would say, you know, it's really interesting because uh I just preached that last weekend.

Where were you?

You know.

But if you can't be with us, we have everything streamed online.

And if you're watching by means of live stream today, welcome in.

And we're grateful that you are here with us today.

Acts chapter 4, beginning in verse 24.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

There's something that happens here that I want to notice.

And when they heard that, this threat, do not preach anymore in Jesus' name, when they heard that.

They lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things?

The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, for of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus.

The world doesn't hate you, it hates his holy child Jesus.

Just think about that next time you're persecuted for righteousness.

They hate you because they hate him.

I'll try not to interrupt myself again.

Notice of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed.

Both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and all the people of Israel were gathered together.

Verse 28 for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Notice verse 28 God, do whatever your hand and your counsel determined to do.

You are sovereign, you are in charge.

Lord, do whatever you have determined to do.

Do you believe that?

You don't have to believe that for it to be true.

It is true.

So let's hold that right here.

He will do whatever he purposes to do.

And all things work together for good.

He will do what's right.

Hang it right here.

Everybody have it?

You got it right there?

Do what you've appointed to do.

And when they prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken.

Now here's the question.

If God has determined to do what God is going to do, why should we pray about it?

If it is so fixed that he will do what he has purposed, what has been predetermined, if there is a distant watchkeeper through which the gears of all of this decree just go about.

It's already been established, it's going to happen.

Why should we pray?

Hey God, I have a question.

If you are sovereign, why should I pray?

Well, let's pray together.

We're going to pray first, whether or not you think we need to, okay?

Father, we are entering into the mysteries of godliness, and we have just a few short moments of time to capture something that might change someone's life.

So as a newspaper editor might need to edit, modify, explain, correct in the real-time moment, may the Holy Spirit guide me in these next few moments together.

I have so many things I plan to say, but only should I say what you want me to say.

And help us, Lord, as we receive the word to receive it patiently.

May it change our lives.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you so much, and you can be seated together.

George Mueller was a mighty man of prayer.

He lived over a century ago in England.

He operated orphanages and cared for thousands of children.

Mueller had purposed early in his ministry not to become a fundraiser.

He was resistant to publicly telling his needs to others.

He would talk to God about his needs and see how God could provide through prayer.

If we put modern inflation numbers on what Mueller prayed in, it would be well into the millions of dollars.

But what if God purposed to send the money, regardless if Mueller ever prayed about it, coming in?

One morning Mueller sat down at breakfast with the children.

He sat around a table that had no milk and no bread, and the children bowed their heads in prayer, asking God to bless their breakfast.

But there was no breakfast.

No bread in sight, no milk had been delivered, no visible evidence that anything was on its way, but still they prayed and thanked God for his provision.

I wonder today if we shouldn't just go ahead and pray and thank him for the provision that's on its way.

Then, as they prayed, in an answer, summoned by no human voice, a baker appeared at the door.

He explained that he had been unable to sleep that morning and felt compelled to rise early and bake extra bread for the orphanage.

He brought it to feed the children.

Shortly after, the sound of a milk wagon stopped outside.

The milkman explained that his cart had broken down directly in front of the orphanage, and if they did not accept the milk, it would spoil before he could get it to its destination.

The children prayed because they needed food, but behind that prayer was the sovereign hand of God, who had already prepared the answer through a sleepless baker and a broken-down milk cart.

God had ordained the provision.

But he also ordained the prayers of Mueller and those children through which they would receive the answer.

Now imagine standing outside that orphanage that morning, if you could see what was happening behind the scenes, you might discover that God had already prepared the answer.

And I'm about to praise God.

He had already prepared the answer.

Before they prayed, the baker was already baking.

Before they prayed, the milkman was already driving.

A cart was already about to break down.

God had set the provision in motion before the children ever sat down at the table.

Can we all say amen?

But God had also ordained that Mueller would pray and that those children would look to God to thank him for his provision that they could not yet see.

It was Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, who said, It is our full belief that God has foreknown and predestinated everything that happens in heaven above or in the earth beneath, and that the foreknown station of a reed by the river is as fixed as the station of a king.

And the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses.

Predestination, he says, embraces the great and the little.

It reaches unto all things.

The question is, why do we pray?

Might it not as logically be asked why we breathe or eat or move?

We have an answer which satisfies us, namely that our prayers are in the predestination and that God has as much ordained his people's prayers as anything else.

And when, watch this line, and when we pray, we are producing links in the chain of ordained facts.

I think we ought to stop preaching this morning and just start praying.

Oh, what needless pain we bear.

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Ask and it shall be given, you seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be open unto you.

It was Jesus three and a half years into his ministry with the disciples that he says to them in John 16, 24, hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name, ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.

John R.

Rice said prayers about two things, asking and receiving.

E.

M.

Bounds in Washington, Georgia, pastored a little church, became a man of prayer, wrote several books on prayer.

Spurgeon that we just quoted in London, the Prince of Preachers, probably since the days of the Apostle Paul, said of E.

M.

Bounds, a small town preacher in Washington, Georgia, that E.

M.

Bounds prayed a hole in heaven.

Ian Bounds said, Thou art coming to a king.

Large petitions with thee bring, for his grace and power are such that none could ever ask too much.

You know what Ian Bounds would say?

Ian Bounds would say, We don't need better methods, we need better men.

Who will do what?

To pray.

You can do lots of things after you pray, but you can do nothing until you have prayed.

But if he is sovereign, why should we pray?

I want to define a few things for us this morning.

First of all, notice the predetermining counsel of God.

That's exactly what the apostles are talking about here in Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

They've come under persecution for preaching the gospel.

It's possible that they might even lose their lives, that they might be imprisoned, beaten, and maybe even martyred for their public profession of faith in the power of Jesus Christ.

And they recognize that God has, notice your scripture here, that he has anointed, verse 27, he's anointed Jesus in verse 28.

He has appointed all things.

Now again, we are not in the kiddie pool.

This is not a zero entry swimming pool.

We just got on the 30-meter board and jumped headfirst into the deep end of theology.

But we have to understand things as simply as we can, that God is sovereign over all things and that we have free will in that we choose to obey and even choose to pray.

What is this word predestined?

It means to mark out or to draw a boundary, to determine beforehand.

Now, if God is omniscient, he could be sovereign.

If he's omniscient, if he knows all things, it means he can mark beforehand a lot of things.

For example, he could mark out those that would be saved.

Clearly, the Bible teaches that whom he did foreknow, he predestinated.

That we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God.

It is that our God is sovereign over predestination, in that he knew those that would trust him by faith.

Now, aren't you glad on the other side of that gate into heaven is not elect according to the foreknowledge of God, but on the other side of the gate it says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

I'm so glad that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

And I can tell you this: you never give the gospel to the wrong person because every creature needs a preacher.

Have you realized that yet?

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Now don't say amen on some of these subpoints.

I'll get stuck and I won't get to the big ideas, okay?

God, by his sovereign choice, marked believers off in eternity past.

But it doesn't just apply to salvation, it applies to God adopting us as sons into his family, the assurance of our ultimate glorification that, beloved, it doth not yet appear but what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Makes me want to sing the little Sunday school song.

He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.

I'm not what I used to be, and praise God, I'm not yet what I'm going to be, but he will complete our salvation.

We have the earnest of his inheritance that we will be glorified in the very presence of God someday for all of eternity.

He's marked us out.

Now let's give a description of God's predestination.

We find that in verse 28.

What does this mean?

Notice the words again.

God, we believe that you will do whatsoever your hand and your counsel has determined to be done.

In other words, they're saying here, do whatever your hand and your plan has predestined to do.

Now let's discuss prayer as a means of God bringing that to pass.

The fact that God has ordained the outcome does not mean that the means are unnecessary.

The means are necessary precisely because God ordained them as the way the outcome would occur.

Some of you probably feel differently than I do.

I like to record ball games.

And I like to record the game not because I need to wait on the conclusion like Super Bowl Sunday, this happens a lot.

By the way, I grew up in an independent Baptist church.

Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night revival meetings.

We were at church.

I mean, we were always at church.

Even if there's like 18,000 inches of snow, we're going to be in church.

So I never saw the end of a golf match growing up.

I never saw the fur at least the first half of a Super Bowl.

I mean, I missed out on a life as a kid growing up in church.

Yeah, I missed out on a lot of things growing up in church.

Missed out on jail and addictions, and I missed out on a lot, you know.

Somebody help me say amen.

You know, the power of God can save you out of sin and he can save you from a life of sin.

I'm glad that we can have testimony of either.

But I don't mind knowing the conclusion of a game because I like to watch a game to see how it all came out.

All the means that brought that conclusion.

Now, watch, I've already read the back of the scoreboard here.

I already know who wins.

We are on the winning side.

We're not fighting for victory, we're fighting from victory.

We're not waiting to see if Jesus can sort all this out.

We're not waiting to see if he'll win the game.

We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

But you know what we're watching?

We're watching the means by which God brings that ultimate victory to pass in our lives.

Do whatever your hand has chosen to do, and God will do some of that through the office and work of prayer.

In other words, let me show you a slide here.

Notice that there are several means that God has to bring this decree, this will to pass in our lives.

God has lots of means to that bring his will to pass.

First of all, think about the scriptures.

God gave the word of God as a way to be preached.

People are saved through the preaching of God's word.

Christian sanctification happens through the ministry of God's word.

How about faith?

Exercising faith when we choose to trust in God, when we evangelize.

By the way, do you know who gives out gospel tracts?

Don't overthink this.

People who carry them.

Hello?

I have to walk, I have to take the walk of shame sometimes, guys.

I met these two really nice ladies in Publix the other day.

And Marie says, give her a tract.

I took the walk of shame to my car to get some.

Let me complete that story.

Relationships God brings into our lives, decisions that we make, circumstances, circumstances are God working incognito in our lives.

Trials, opportunities, the timing, closed doors and open doors, and prayer are all God's means of bringing his sovereign plan to work in our lives.

Someone put it this way: God is sovereign and ordains means as well as ends.

Prayer is a means God has ordained towards the ends.

She's entered the cultic world of sourdough baking.

I didn't know what I was overhearing.

Did you ever realize what you overhear is more interesting than what you hear?

Addison said to my wife, okay, I'll go ahead and feed it.

Feeding what?

The sourdough.

I said, is it a living organism?

How many of you like sourdough?

Okay, lunches at one o'clock, all right?

The Bible says in think of think of this in a farming illustration.

God ordains the means as well as the ends.

They're the finished product.

He he ordains not just the finished product, but the means by which it is achieved.

So we're going to have bread at some point.

I don't think it's been fully fed or festered yet.

What's the process here, Addison?

Oh, we're going to feed it again.

Okay.

I'll know this probably by next Sunday.

You'll have to bear with me.

You say, well, God gives grain and fruit and wheat for harvest.

Is that true?

Is that true?

Okay.

What about the farmer?

Isn't he one of God's means used toward the end, which is a harvest?

God not only ordains the harvest, he ordains the means by which the harvest comes.

The farmer doesn't create the seed, God does.

It was Isaiah writing of technology in Isaiah 28.

Doth not the plowman plow all day to sow?

Did he open and break the clods of the ground?

When he made it plain the face of the ground, doth not he cast abroad the seed and scatter the cumin and cast in the principal wheat and the The pointed barley and the rye in their place, for his God doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him.

In other words, God gives the farmer wisdom and discernment how to develop grape.

God provides the seed.

God gives discernment to the farmer.

God gives wisdom.

You say, who should we thank for the harvest?

Well, we should thank God.

But if you go home today and eat a grass-fed ribeye steak, thank you.

Trying to help you guys.

If you eat a salad, you might ought to thank a farmer.

God has dictated that we pray.

Prayer works the same way.

We might ask, hey, God, if you're sovereign, why should I pray?

Or then could we ask, hey, God, if you're sovereign, why should the farmer plant?

The answer is that planting is one of the means that God ordains to accomplish his purpose.

Listen, church, we do not pray because we doubt God's sovereignty.

We pray because we believe in God's sovereignty.

We believe he has ordained prayer as one of the means by which he accomplishes his purposes in this world.

We should then be wiser about prayer.

Prayer is our most powerful connection to the sovereign God of the universe because prayer is not just about God, prayer is about us and our relationship with God.

So let me give you quickly, number two, the purposes of prayer.

Let me say this very simply.

Prayer is not just about getting God to do what we think is right.

Prayer is our surrender and submission to a God who will do what is right in our lives.

One of our members has a sister who is who is sick.

And she prayed for healing, and God will do that.

And for a Christian, he can do that one of two ways.

And we might pray for the miraculous healing hand of an omnipotent God.

But the fact is, our dear sister, whether through medical means we'll be physically healed, we'll be permanently healed someday.

Prayer is our offering of our desires to God.

Prayer is nothing more and nothing less than our appeal to a personal and present God who grants or withholds our request.

And by the way, the answer is yes, sometimes no, and sometimes it is wait.

But we conclude that prayer moves God, or in other words, it induces the putting forth of God's hand as he brings things to pass in our lives.

Does any does God do anything in our lives except in answer to prayer?

I heard the story of a man who was being pursued by a roaring, hungry lion.

He felt the beast and its hot breath on his neck, and knowing his time was short, he prayed as he ran.

He cried out in desperation, Oh Lord, please make this lion a Christian.

Within seconds, the frightened man became aware that the lion had stopped the chase.

When he looked behind him, he found the lion kneeling in prayer, his lips moving in obvious intercession.

Greatly relieved at this turn of events and desirous of joining the lion in meditation, he approached the king of the jungle when he heard, as he approached nearer, the lion praying, and bless, O Lord, this food for which I'm exceedingly grateful.

Prayer does something for me.

Can I give it to you quickly?

First of all, prayer gives me a means of obeying God.

Pray without ceasing, Scripture says, to not pray is to live a disobedient Christian life.

And we could all crawl lower than a snake's belly before the nail-scarred feet of Jesus to confess our lack of prayer to God.

What about submission to God?

And Jesus went a little further.

He fell on his face, he prayed, saying, Oh, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.

This anointed child became the suffering servant.

Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Let this cross pass from me.

Watch, church, the cross was not God's plan B after Adam sinned.

Redemption through Christ was part of God's eternal purpose, and he would die on a cross, but still he prays in submission.

Father, if it's remotely possible to allow me to escape the ravages of sinful men, deliver me.

Nevertheless, why should we pray?

We need daily to submit and to surrender our lives to an all-knowing, all-powerful, infinite God.

You see, prayer brings us into alignment with God's purposes.

Joe, prayer is not just about me getting God to change my circumstances.

Prayer is sometimes God's way of changing me.

And do I ever need to change?

Why should we pray?

Because we need to surrender.

We need to obey thirdly quickly.

We need to petition God.

Be careful for nothing and everything by prayer and supplication.

Let your request be made known unto God.

Prayer is not always a means of changing our circumstances.

Prayer is about God using our circumstances to change us.

A.W.

Pink said there are certain things that will happen in a man's life when he prays or not.

There are other things that will happen if he prays and will not happen if he does not pray.

Pray.

This text in Philippians says, worry about nothing and pray about everything.

Connection.

Very quickly, connection.

We need often to connect in our relationship with God.

Sometimes I find myself bringing Jesus into super small, concise moments in my life when I'm made aware of my need of Him.

Oh God help me.

I don't know why, I've just been quoting my pastor so often lately.

He'd be preaching to the great Temple Baptist Church, and all of a sudden he would just stop what he was preaching and say, Lord help me.

Lord help us.

Are you in the habit of just stopping in the course of your day, recognizing in all thy ways, acknowledge him?

Lord help us.

Connecting with God.

Number five, we write down expectation.

The Bible says in 1 John 5.14, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.

Would you like to get a prayer answer today?

How many of you would like to get an answer to prayer?

Will you raise your hand?

Okay.

Here it is.

If we pray after the will of God, we know he will give us the thing we desire of him.

So prayer is that work in which God conforms our will and our desires.

And when we pray according to his desires, and his desires become our desires, we'll see him answer in prayer in our lives.

The Bible says, delight thyself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

And what that means is you can get so close to God that you want for your life what God wants for you.

They asked Fanny Crosby, wrote 8,000 hymns.

When you get to heaven, are you going to ask Jesus why he made you blind?

She said, No, I'm glad he made me blind.

One of my favorite books about her ministry, the title, Her Heart Can See.

Fanny Crosby saw things that no one can ever see.

I'm grateful he made me blind.

The purposes of prayer.

Notice lastly here, the power of God in prayer.

Now let's look at our passage in Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Notice verse 28 Do whatsoever thy hand, thy counsel determined before to be done.

Isn't this the Lord's prayer in action here?

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer begins with the establishment of a relationship.

Our Father which art in heaven, faith, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

So one of the principles of prayer is submission.

Your will be done.

That's verse 28.

And they they could have lived by something we call fatalism, that what will be will be.

God's going to do what God's going to do.

What a hopeless life that is.

Verse 29, and now, Lord, behold, their threatenings and granted to thy servant that with all boldness they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that thy signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

And when they had prayed, when they had prayed.

Who shook the house?

God did.

Who prayed for boldness to preach the word?

The people did.

Oh, but who answered by granting boldness to speak the word?

God did.

Who prayed in spite of the king's edict not to pray to the God of heaven?

Daniel did, but who stopped the mouths of lions?

God did.

Who prayed that it may not rain for three years and who prayed seven times that it might rain again?

Elijah did.

But who heard from heaven sending fire and rain and revival?

God did.

Who prayed for Peter as he faced imminent execution in Acts chapter 19?

Acts 19 · chapter mention

The church did.

But who rattled the prison gates and set Peter free?

God did.

Who prayed at his execution in 1536?

Lord, open the King of England's eyes.

Who did that?

God did.

If you have a need in your life today, I want to encourage you to pray.

And you will see the mighty hand of God at work in your life.

I want us to pray.

I want our front line to come and help us sing our hymn of invitation.

I come broken.

Come on.

How many of you say, Pastor, I, oh Lord help us.

Oh Lord help us.

I've got a need in my life today.

Our heads are bowed.

You just lift your hand.

I have a need in my life today.

I have a giant in my life.

Will you lift your hand?

Hold it high.

I want us to make the Lord's house a house of prayer this morning.

I want us to pray.

It is because he is sovereign that we pray.

It's because he is omnipotent that we pray.

You can come down to the altar, we'll have folks here to comfort, pray with you, point you to the scriptures.

Many of you ought to come and pray and just say, Oh God, I bring this burden to you.

You can make your seat a place of prayer.

One of my dear friends said, I had a hard week.

You know what, brother?

God wants to hear you pray.

Turn our heart to Him.

I want us to sing this softly together.

Let's make the Lord's house a house of prayer.

Let's all stand together as we sing.