If God Knows Everything Why Pray?

Introduction

A.A. Milne was the creator of Winnie the Pooh

The main character Christopher Robin was his real son’s name

One of Milne’s poems was amazing about watching his son pray as a little boy

“Hush Hush whisper who dares, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers”

Why are kids prayers so pure?

They have complete trust

Parents are bigger then life and God is big and strong and for us

As we get older we see life and experience the brokenness

Our parents are bigger then life anymore, the God we want Him to be hasn’t lived up to our self made expectations

We stop praying and start to find our own ways to cope and self protect

We don’t believe in the power of prayer

We become fatalists and say God is going to do what God is going to do”

Todays question goes to the heart of that

If God knows everything, Why Pray?

It is really cool because there is a passage in the bible where the 2 collide and Paul teaches us to acutally pray because of God’s sovereignty.

He teaches us to pray for what that sovereignty means for us today, and it teaches us about our own hearts if we aren’t doing it

It is all in Ephesians 1:3-23

What His Sovereignty Is For

God is sovereign

it is one of his attributes that makes Him the one true God

When we say God is sovereign, we mean he is powerful and authoritative to the extent of being able to override all other powers and authorities.

Nothing can successfully stop what He is doing or what is coming

Job 42:2 “I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be stopped.”

Even down to the little things like rolling a dice in your lap Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”

That is hard to grasp and it is even harder in the hard days

How can a loving God allow the worst to happen (thats a question for another day)

But If he is in control why should we even pray

Paul takes us to the school of prayer in Ephesians 1

Because we need the beauty of our good God’s control to run along side of the hard days

First, it is unstoppable power and authority over all things, including the human will.

But Second, it is all in accord with infinite wisdom, infinite justice, infinite mercy through Jesus Christ.

His sovereignty always runs with all of His other attributes

To seperate His sovereignty from his infinite mercy and desire to save all people leaves us with an angry mean God who could care less about the days that make us cry or the sin we battle

Here in Ephesians the 2 collide

Verses 3 - 23

Ephesians for You Chapter 1: Every Blessing (Ephesians Chapter 1 Verses 3–14)

In the original Greek, it’s one long, breathless sentence for 23 verses

Paul says what His sovereignty is for Ephesians 1:3–14 and we have to learn to pray both if we are going to become praying people

for His Glory, to show us he has moved all of human history to give us Jesus at the right time, to save us, to adopt us and make us heirs,

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him., 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ 10 as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.

11 In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, 12 so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.

13 In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.

verse 4 - his sovereignty is what saved us

The Message of Ephesians 1. The past Blessing of Election (Verses 4–6)

In that pre-creation eternity God did something. He formed a purpose in his mind

Let that sink in and make you in awe of our God

A.W. Tozer said "Before we were, before God created a thing, He wasn't doing nothing. His mind was stirring with thoughts of you"

That is the sovereignty Paul is so thankful for he cannot even follow normal speech patterns

The Message of Ephesians 1. The past Blessing of Election (Verses 4–6)

God put us and Christ together in his mind. He determined to make us (who did not yet exist) his own children through the redeeming work of Christ (which had not yet taken place

That is why Jesus is the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world

Nothing stopped his plan to save us…even a Roman Cross

Verses 5- 8 He did it because He loves you

It makes Him happy to see His children come to Him through faith in His Son

It was the joy of saving me 2000 years later that ignited Christ to endure torture

Hebrews 12:2 For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross

it his good will to make us sons and daughters so HE would be shown as the only God

The exodus was a direct answer to a question from Pharaoh - Who is this God that I should listen to Him?

And our saving is answering the same question from us

The exodus from death to life of a sinner like me answers that question

Verse 9 His sovereignty moved all of human history to bring Jesus at the perfect historical time

Romans 5:6 “For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.”

What does that mean

It means that God accomplished what he set out to do in verse 4…to move all of human history to the perfect historical moment to give us Jesus

Roman rule over the known world meant one language, roads connecting the entire world, and on and on

If He moved all of human history then he is doing it now to get us home and save us

Verses 10-12 nothing can stop his plans for his glory and our good

Verses 13-14- nothing can snatch you from his hand because of it

Any conversation about God knowing everything and controlling everything has to be married to all of the other parts of His character

Paul is teaching and Jesus modeled that the way to pray is to pray based on the sovereignty of God and all it is accomplishing for us

Not to use God knowing everything as a reason not to pray

It is because of the beauty of what His sovereignty is doing that should cause us to pray

And it is how we should pray

How We Pray Because of It

Ephesians 1:15-23

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

15 This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit, of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.

GOD’S POWER IN CHRIST

20 He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens—21 far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given,, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he subjected everything under his feet, and appointed him as head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

Look at what he says in verse 15….This is why I pray he says

What is the “this”?

Because God knows everything and controls everything for the ends we just saw we should pray because of It

Verses 15-16- Because of His sovereign grace I thank God he is not just saving me but saving others. It is one thing to be in awe…it is another thing to be in awe of the same thing as a family

We should be praying that God would act in saving the lost because we know it is His desire and we are part of it

We should be praying we have opportunites to play a part in the saving of the lost

Verse 17- (I pray) we have wisdom to live in the story of reality in a world of competing voices

Rome wasn’t much different from America

The Roman dream could offer so much wealth and comfort if you just followed the secular script

Paul wants us to know that competing voices of how to be whole are not equal competitors

Be wise

Examine your life and see how you are looking to yourself or the worlds way to make you whole and happy and cope with the brokeness

Verse 18- (I Pray) that the causal core of who we are is changed to live toward true hope of what we long for

James Smith says our loves drive our actions and discipleship is a heart rehabilitation program

Paul is praying we stay in the rehab of our hearts

Smith says:

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit Chapter 1: You Are What You Love: To Worship Is Human

discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than of knowing and believing. Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all

We should be praying for ourselves and each other that we stay in the fight for our hearts

Are we doing that

Are we helping pray and disciple each other

That is God’s sovereign desire for us and we should be praying to be part of that fight in all of our lives

Verses 19-23 that we would know His power to satisfy our deepest longings

Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation Chapter 10: Praying to the Sovereign God (Ephesians 1:15–23)

Because God is sovereign, Paul offers a review of God’s most dramatic displays of power

Our prayers should be a remembering with God of the awesome things He has done in our lives

We need to remember the wins when suffering seems to be winning

It is one of my prayers for friends in ministry and missionaries I know

It it hard and tough to keep going

Leading this church has been hard and is hard

It is aging me fast

Have you ever seen those pictures of presidents before election and after they served for 8 years

Leading takes a toll

My prayer is that we in ministry see wins and fruit from what we do so we press on

Paul is saying we need to be praying that for ourselves and others

Are we?

These verses are the collision of why we should pray BECAUSE God is sovereign

And it is the why we should do it

Why We Should Pray It

Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation Chapter 10: Praying to the Sovereign God (Ephesians 1:15–23)

Paul’s entire prayer is that the Ephesians might know God better

Paul Miller says - “Prayer is asking God to incarnate, to get dirty in your life. Yes, the eternal God scrubs floors. For sure we know he washes feet. So take Jesus at his word. Ask him. Tell him what you want. Get dirty. Write out your prayer requests; don't mindlessly drift through life on the American narcotic of busyness. If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Seize the corner of his garment and don't let go until he blesses you. He will reshape the day. Prayer is a moment of incarnation - God with us. God involved in the details of my life.

He wants his sovereignty to anchor us and give us unshakable hope as we see Him enter into the mess of our everyday

Based on His sovereignty we ask Him to enter our mess because we trust His end goal in all that is happening

If he moved all of human history and every detail of every life to bring us Jesus once…we can trust even in our suffering or in the mundane that he is preparing us and the world for him to come back

If we want Him to accomplish what Paul said He wants to in his opening explosion WE HAVE TO PRAY for it

That is how God designed things to work

If Jesus had to pray what makes us think we don’t?

I was on the phone with Paul Miller

He wrote a book called “A Praying Life” and I knew that is the man I need to go to for answering this question and he blew my mind with something

If you grew up in church you have read about Jesus’ baptism

Paul asked that I tell him the events as Jesus’ baptism

So i said John baptized Him, he came up out of the water and the heavens opened the Father spoke and the Spirit descended

He said no go back and look at it in Luke 3:21 “When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized. As he was praying, heaven opened,”

I never saw that before

I never saw that the means by which God has designed to incarnate in our lives is through our prayers

Here is the reality in the bible

God has ordained prayer as the means by which He accomplishes His will…because He knows the end from the beginning

Because he is all-wise and all-powerful, knowing “the end from the beginning” (Isa. 46:10), he’s able to weave our requests into his eternally good purposes.

We see it in Exodus 32

Moses appeals to God as the sovereign king to show mercy (vv. 11-13). He is almost reminding God of who He said He would be

And that’s exactly what happens: “Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” (v. 14).

That will to see people saved

That will to see His power in our lives

That will to rehabilitate our hearts

God has ordained prayer as the means by which He accomplishes His will

There are things we have missed out on being apart of in line with His character and plan because we are not praying people

There are things about God I don’t understand or know that He wants me to know about His heart that I don’t know because I don’t pray His word back to Him

He wants us to know him and him to know our heart

God is sovereign and he wants your heart when you are His

he knows your heart the way Morgan knows I love her on a normal day

but when I show her that love in ways i know mean alot to her she KNOWS i love her

Bringing her an iced Matcha with my hat on backwards usually does it

God is the same

He knows you love him but he delights in seeing us actualize that love

Prayer is one of the ways we do that

Prayer is the God ordained means by which He accomplishes His will

That is why we should pray

Ultimately our lack of prayer exposes our hearts and what we truly believe about Him AND our lack of passion for the things God is doing

What does your prayer life say about God?

It exposes what we believe about him

Miller agains says “If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life.”

What can our lack of praying really show what it is we believe about God?

1. God is powerless. Often we do not pray because we do not believe God can do anything about our struggle. We view our struggle as “outside God’s jurisdiction.

3. God is irrelevant. A lack of Prayer may show that we have limited God to addressing “spiritual problems” not every problem in our life

4. God is uncaring. Other times we do not pray because we do not believe God will do anything about our struggle.

5. We have a fear that he will answer it in a way we don’t like so its best to avoid it.

We almost feel burnt from the past experience of Him not answering or letting the bad or suffering moment seem to win

Some answers may mean He has to prune parts of the old me off to make me new and I would rather avoid that

6. We think prayer needs a special place and an hour to do. We believe God wants us to clean up things even where we are praying before we can go to Him

7. We view prayer as just a time to get things off our chest and nothing more then that

But if we look at the character of God and what Paul has said we should not let these lies keep us from the God who stopped at nothing to save us

Think about how inadequate we feel at praying

you think the people Paul wrote too had been to seminary

they were a mess and had just got saved in their 20’s and 30’s and 40’s and older

They didn’t have seminary degrees

Paul was at ground zero of their christian walk and took them to the school of prayer

Pray the word, pray God’s character, pray His plans and longings, pray the word back to Him

Paul is saying pray God’s character and His word and His purposes back to Him anchored in What He has revealed himself to be in gospel that saved you

Our problem in trying to see how prayer “works” is that we often have a wrong view of God in relation to his world.

That is the starting point of prayer not simply “trying harder”

Practically applying this is huge- simply rolling up your sleeves to “pray harder” or pray more often doesn’t help if we don’t first pray about what we beleive about God

“Trying harder” will probably not change the beliefs that keep us from praying .

If we want to become people of prayer, we need to examine our beliefs and get to know God for who He really is

Then pray as Paul showed us in line with His character and His heart and His great plan to get us home

We need to see the impossibility that God the Father Through God the Son wants us to come to Him in prayer with new Hearts from God the Holy Spirit

I say this often because I will always remember it.

I was always scared at bed time at my grandmas house

She would lay down with me and say Psalm 23 and sing what a friend we have in Jesus

She would take me to the school of prayer

Here is what the song says

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer!

Don’t forfeit the peace that is yours through prayer

Don’t carry pain without the help of God through prayer

Don’t have a wrong belief about God that makes prayer un needed in your life

Don’t forfeit knowing God’s heart and Him knowing yours

Don’t fall for the lie that since God knows everything we don’t need to pray

Lets pray