Prayer Q&A: Speaking To God
Hey, everybody. How are you guys? So we are in this question do you want me to give this to you? There you go. We are in this prayer series, as you guys know, and these few sermons in a row actually get devoted specific to questions that you guys put in that prayer questions box.
Joshua:So Grant kicked us off with that last week and did questions that are sort of specific about listening. You know, we try to divide the questions up at least a little bit similarly to each other, in terms of category and that kind So most of his questions were about listening, and the questions I'm going to be speaking about today are questions about speaking to God, praying to God that what the things we say to him, and then the next week we'll actually have questions about answers, the answers we get or don't get, and it's kind of learning that kind of stuff. So that was our best our best sort of guess at how to divide these up. And these questions are tough, so, they're all hard, but they're all really good. So I really appreciate you guys, seeing those in.
Joshua:So yeah. So all of these, the kind of connection, thread between them is about speaking to God, the things we pray to Him, and honestly, each of these questions could be a sermon on their own. So, that just means that we will be moving fast and not going nearly as deep on any of them as we probably could, but that does also mean there's tons more to think about, tons more to explore really good conversations we can have with each other about them, so let's definitely do that. And I'm gonna depend really heavily on scripture to answer all of these, which hopefully, is good news to you. But even in doing that, there's a selection process of sort of just what verses came to mind for me on these topics, and I've got my own mix of experience opinions that certainly find their way into these answers, of course.
Joshua:So any of these things could be something God wants to change my mind about in the future. So don't view this as like, this the answer. I would hate for you to think that and that there's no wiggle room at all and no room for discussion in that I somehow have it right, and have everything right. And you'll see what I mean by some of these and how hard they are and why I would give a caveat like that because they're tough. So that being said, any any of these answers could confuse you, or they might even leave you with more questions, or hour.
Joshua:You just might flat out disagree with what I say or what I think, and I'd love to have more in-depth conversation with you about that. I would that that seemed like a really good use time to just talk more about prayer together. And if it ends up being lots of you guys who have those kinds of questions, then I more than I can handle, then, Leslie and our elders and leaders will be quite glad to also conversations like that about, about these conversations and these questions with you, so do not hesitate about that. Questions you still have, things you're confused about, or something you disagree with me about. Don't hesitate to bring that to my attention or or some of our leaders.
Joshua:So this first question isn't really one of those, though. This is where do I even begin if I feel lost in even starting to talk to god? Where do I even begin if I feel lost in even starting to talk to God. I really love this question. I empathize with it so much.
Joshua:I've totally been here multiple times in my faith, where I feel like I need to reask that question to myself. And I had this sort of question in mind when I did my previous sermon just about speaking to God earlier in our prayer series, because I think this question is just so important. Nothing could be more fundamental to our prayer life and growth is to to ask, where do we begin? Where do we start? And we're reminding ourselves that we're kind of learners, and we're early in this and that we, don't have it all figured out.
Joshua:So if you are the person who wrote this question, and, you hadn't listened to my last sermon about this. I think that some of that will be helpful to you only because it's just a more in-depth, way of trying to approach how we start speaking to God, and I just can't do I can't recap all of that today, but, here's a couple condensed thoughts. I would just say try to clean the slate about who you're talking to. What's this person like? When we pray, who are we even talking to?
Joshua:What is this person like? One of my points in that sermon was just what we think about God affects how we pray before we even start. You remember that? So I think it's good to go review, maybe revise even your vision of who this god is that you're talking to, and I think that will really help, before you really started praying. Who are you talking to?
Joshua:Who is this person? And I think that really makes a big difference. Grant's story this last week exemplified that as he was struggling wrestling through some questions about God and God's even heart for the world. And as he stopped through some of those, it helped make God more approachable to him and more someone he empathized with and wanted to engage with. Again, can't go all the way into detail and recap that, but definitely listen to Grant's sermon last week.
Joshua:The main point I've made a bunch of times already, but just god's this good father. He's a good father. That's who we're talking to. The fatherhoodness of God can be a little tough for people who don't maybe have a good split for a good, father relationship, and I'm currently someone in that same boat right now that doesn't have a good relationship with my own father. So for me, the fatherhoodness of of God has actually been very good news.
Joshua:I could see how for some it might be a little more complicated, but it's been really good news and something I found a lot of comfort in to want to go talk to God, to want to communicate with him when I think about who he is, a good father who wants to listen to me, wants to hear what I have going on. So if you have complicated feelings about fathers, I don't think the solution is that you should think of God as, like, your cool uncle instead. Like, I don't think a good idea just to, like, change relationship. I think it's actually much much better and more fulfilling and healing and biblical to go this route. What if there was a father who was actually good, a father who actually cared about you, everything about you, who actually knew what was best and wanted the best for you, who made time for you, wanted a close relationship with you, who's working on fixing what's wrong in the world and making it right once and for all.
Joshua:I think that really helps to kind of search through that in our hearts before we start approaching God in prayer, thinking about who are we talking to? Who is this guy who wants us to talk to him and to to realign, our thoughts about that with scripture, and have a really truthful thought about who God is, and I think that's more motivating in prayer when we think about him accurately. Some practical things is just I think the Lord's Prayer is a really good place to start, both just the praying of it, thinking about each phrase deeply, and rewriting it or resaying it in your own words and trying to hit those main points that the Lord's prayer makes. I think it's a really, really good place to start. We talked about honest talk with God, which is just sharing your emotions and what's happening in your life with God.
Joshua:Like, just talking to him as if he's a good father who wants to know what's happening in your life and speaking to him. Does that make sense? You guys tired of hearing that? They I think that's really, really helpful. Great place to start.
Joshua:You don't have to filter a ton. Just tell God what is on your mind. What's bothering you? What's he that's what he wants us to do. I think other premade prayers, these are just prayers that we have either we have in scripture.
Joshua:Paul has a bunch of these in his letters. You know, Jesus himself has some of those, and the Lord's prayed one of them. Things that you can read that, you can pray to God if you don't know what words to say, if you're just a little stuck there. The Psalms are such a great place for this. And you might be someone who either will feel really freed by that idea, by the idea of I can go find a prayer that's already written and pray that to God.
Joshua:That's something freeing to you maybe, or you might be someone who feels super restricted by that. The idea of having to pray somebody else's words maybe doesn't feel genuine to you. Whatever it is, that's that's fine, but I just think eventually you need to break down whatever tendency you have, and kind of explore a little bit. But I would say you don't if that's not the thing that sounds like a good starting place to you, then don't do it. But if it if you're really struggling, I think reading scripture, praying scripture to God, and other prayers that have kind been passed down the tradition of the church.
Joshua:It's a really good idea, and I hope that makes, like, the kind of barrier to entry lower for you. And I also think just the the basic thing we all know really is just trying to find out a way to have a routine in prayer, have a way of making it regular because I I think I think we all know this, but 1 or 2 times of praying is not gonna blow our mind. We're not gonna have a huge change and a huge, you know, like, in our life, and maybe you will, but I think most of us have already pre once or twice. And our problem isn't that we have done it a ton, and we are struggling with it. It's that we haven't really done that much.
Joshua:We're expecting a lot from God when we really haven't approached him and given him that much time frequently. So I think one of the things that we've talked about in that sermon too and multiple people have mentioned is just this idea of this routine and this building, this habit, in this muscle we need to really exercise and get into a rhythm of because, God's about relationship. And so the idea of talking just once or twice with somebody, and expecting that to be, like, this really good full picture of what your relationship could be like. It's just not really realistic. It's not really accurate.
Joshua:To try to figure out a way to have a routine because praying once or twice, it's just not gonna blow your mind. We need to be doing this often, talking with God regularly. He wants to grow us as we spend time with him in prayer. So, that's all I could fit in on that question. Great question.
Joshua:This next one is, here we go. Do prayers from righteous people carry more weight? Do prayers from righteous people carry more weight. And my first thought here was just I think the the the scripture that this person who wrote was probably thinking of is that James scripture in James 5 16. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect, so that's, like, very, you know, short and sweet, little bit of scripture we have that may be in some of our minds.
Joshua:And so according to James, there is something of note here. Right? The word righteous isn't the easiest word to just kinda use and expect that we all understand what it means and all have the same definition in our current day, especially because we have phrases like self righteous, which we know what that feels like, when we're around somebody like that. So what could James really be meaning by using the word righteous? And I think the short definition is someone in right relationship with God.
Joshua:Someone in right relationship with God. But what does that mean? I think it's someone who loves God, who follows his ways, who knows him well, who loves their neighbor. In the same section of James literally right before that sentence that I read. It says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed.
Joshua:The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. So that's a part of a continuous thought for James. So I'd say add that to the definition of righteous, part of that continuous thought. To be in right relationship is to confess sin, to be forgiven, to pray for one another. And so I think that's the that's the the definition we should have in mind about righteous.
Joshua:It's not really something that, I don't know that we really think about all the time, but god highly values obedience, doesn't he? That's something we know about him. He values knowing us and in us knowing him, because remember, prayer is about relationship. So, I think it has a big impact on our prayers. Right?
Joshua:But I would say mostly maybe in the realm of what things we pray, what we believe about God, and how much we love him. If we if someone's righteous, based on the definition we should have tried to make just now, how does that affect how they pray, you know, and what say, think about prayer, praying as people who are onboard and committed to God's mission, who are interested in his will being done instead of our own and who care deeply about people creation like he does. I think that changes how we pray. Right? That make sense?
Joshua:Yeah. And maybe even changes that we pray at all. Someone who's onboard those things, who is fits that description, is someone who's going to be praying a lot. I think that would be something we could assume, if they are loving spending time with God and want to spend time with So those are things I feel confident saying about about this, but I think there are ways that it could easily get sort of weird if you try to. If we think too much about righteousness, I think it can lead us to think that we've earned something, that we have earned something.
Joshua:We've earned God attention or something. And that based on the James version of our righteousness sort of forces God's hand in answering our prayers. I don't think that's a helpful way to go. Like, I don't think that's gonna be something that is gonna lead us into a very good place. But This might be obvious, but for me, personally, I feel like it's quite likely for me as someone who is trying most of the time to be righteous in the way that we just define that, to pray something or many things often that god shouldn't answer in the way that I prayed them.
Joshua:You know? I'm righteous, but or try to be. But am I gonna pray all the right things all the time, and should god just have to do what I ask him every time? I don't think so. I think he could have a totally different plan in mind, or where he may want to answer it in a different time frame completely than what I want, or he may have great reasons to just deny what I'm asking altogether.
Joshua:What do I know? You know? What do I know? But I don't think it's wasted breath to pray it anyway. Right?
Joshua:Praying exercises our dependence on God and allows us to be formed by him. And I think Paul has something that to say that loosely fits right here, which is in Romans 8. He says, in the same way, the spirit also helps us in our weakness because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. There's something about this, which is, like, yes, people who are really on God's mission, on God's agenda, trying very hard to be, the things we'll be praying, things we'll be asking him to do. We're in agreement with God on a lot of things, and so those prayers will might be answered, might be very powerful in their and they're speaking and they're praying.
Joshua:But at the same time, we have to acknowledge that we are still very selfish people. We're going to be praying things that we don't know what to say. We don't understand God's ways here. And so there's there's gotta be a tension there about, like, yes, maybe the the prayers of the righteous person are very powerful, but does does that force God's hand anyway. No.
Joshua:I don't think so. So I think depending on the person asking us what things they're thinking and maybe the ways this verse has been used, it could mean a bunch of different things. I think we have to live in attention here about the fact that, our prayers matter and God clearly is saying, and there's plenty of scriptural rule, backup for this, that they matter and they are powerful, but they are not sort of rules that he must abide by because we've earned something. Does that make sense? I can't tell if if I've totally lost everybody or if we're all just a little too turquied out.
Joshua:You know? Okay. Because I gotta move on. Even if it didn't make sense, I would have to move on anyway. So I just spent the rest time on that one already.
Joshua:So that leads us to this next thought. I think this is very connected, about this. This is the same question actually. But, in addition to righteousness, we know that God does value, honesty, and humility. Right?
Joshua:That's something that he really values. Then we have this, this parable in Luke from Jesus. It says, 2 men went up to the temple to pray, 1 a Pharisee, the other tax collector. The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, greedy, unrighteous adulterers, or even this tax collector.
Joshua:I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and saying, god, have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you this one went down to his house justified rather than the other because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exhausted. Will we be heard more for our righteousness or because we're more honest and straightforward with God?
Joshua:Maybe because we're aware, deeply aware of our need for him, our desperate need for God. And should those things even be different, or should that be the same? Should these people be different people, this Pharisee and this tax collector, or should these qualities be the same, someone who really tries to live their life daily as a follower of Jesus, but also humbly comes to God in prayer knowing that we need mercy too. I think that's the sort of way of balancing that equation there. So that makes sense?
Joshua:Yeah. Okay. Sweet. Thanks, Clarissa. Next question.
Joshua:Is it okay to be mad at God when I'm praying about something? Is it okay to be mad at God when I'm praying about something? No. It's not. Next question.
Joshua:Just kidding. This is another really good question, and I, of course, don't know where this person is specifically coming from. I don't want to be really sort of just careful about that because I appreciate your willingness to ask this, and I want to assure you that we all have or will or should have asked the same question if we're kind of being honest in our prayers with God. Is it okay to be mad at God? And so this is the what we've been talking about a little bit, just this emotions and God and how we involve those in our prayer, and it's it's really important, to be honest, it we if we're gonna have any relationship with somebody, we gotta be honest with them.
Joshua:Right? And the Psalms give us a really good raw example of what this looks like. There's, like, absolutely anger in some of the some of that. I just saw your face. Slowly anger in some of the so I just saw your face.
Joshua:Haley just did a really good angry Psalms face, I guess. There's there is absolutely anger in these Psalms. Like, there's not another way to put that. Like, there's many of those. Here's one example.
Joshua:In Psalm d nine. It says, for I've endured insults because of you, and shame has covered my face. I've become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother's sons because zeal for your house has consumed me. The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. I am warned and fasted, but it brought me insults.
Joshua:I wore sackcloth as my clothing, and I was a joke system. Those who sit at the city gate talk about me, and drunkards make up songs about me. This isn't, like, the most shocking or even violent example in the Psalms of anger raw emotions. There's a lot of other ones too, but I picked this one because I think David specifically this is one of the ones that David wrote. Specifically telling God that these things are happening to him because he follows this is an interaction David and God are having where David's saying, because of you, because I follow you, because I'm such a devoted follower of yours, These bad things have happened, and David's getting a chance to just express this frustration with God.
Joshua:And that is scripture. It's in the Bible. Like, it's there. That is in all the so many of these Psalms, it doesn't stay there, but the process of expressing to God our true feelings and frustrations to him must be part of our prayer life. It must be, or we're holding something sort of back, you know, and not communicating with him as he would a friend or a or sister or mother or father, someone else we're close to, we might speak to about our raw feelings.
Joshua:So that I think that's really important. Ian Proven in the Old Testament class talks about this idea of Psalms. The Psalms give us this picture of what sort of real human spirituality should look like in prayer with God. It's the range of emotions. It's going to God when we are joyful and thankful and grateful.
Joshua:It's going to God when we're grieving and we're suffering and we're hurting. It's all the spectrum of emotions, and all those things are things to give to God and to bring to Him, and so that's a full spectrum kind of deal there. So but here's an important thought that we must keep in mind while we, you know, bring our emotions to God is that we have to be very careful not to adopt adopt an untruthful or uncharitable view of God. We need to be honest with him, but we cannot be dishonest about him. Right.
Joshua:That make sense? Honest with God, but not dishonest about him. I'm gonna try to explain that a little bit better. When we adopt an untruthful view of God, we can get into a bad place very fast. So this is the classic example.
Joshua:Adam and Eve adopt often untruthful view of God. The serpent says, no. You will not certainly die. In fact, God knows that when you e and your eyes will be open, and you will be like God knowing good and evil. And what the serpent's saying isn't even untrue, but what he is the way he's putting it, the way he spun this situation makes Eve believe that God is keeping something from her, that God is is trying to withhold something, and he's he's created this lie about something untruthful about god, that something good is being kept from Eve, and that he does not have maybe Eve's best Christian heart in in mind.
Joshua:And James got he also says he's trying to be careful kind of wading through talking about sin. He says, god does not tempt anyone. God does not tempt anyone. This is how tricky some of these sort of, like, these lies that kinda enter our mind can kind of seem. Even just reading some of the serpent stuff at face value.
Joshua:It's like, okay. He's not he's being really careful and sneaky about this, but the place you can end up believing something untrue about God can be really, really dangerous. So God's not trying to trip you up. Right? He doesn't want you to sin.
Joshua:He doesn't want someone to sin against you. He He doesn't want evil to flourish. He doesn't want the world to be broken. And, you know, to quote Grant, once again, he and God's working on fixing that. That's, actually, Grant quoting Kevin if you were here last week.
Joshua:He's God is working on fixing these things about the world. So we start drifting into believing that God does want any of those things, then we are in trouble. And I would like to use the word dangerous here, I said that earlier, to describe that territory because scripturally, that's exactly the same place that the serpent trick Adam and Eve into. They believe something very untrue about God, and they weren't just, like, naive little kids or, like, you know, little teletubbies in the garden or something like that. They they knew God.
Joshua:They walked with him in the garden. They tended creation, maintained it. We're capable of responsibility, and that's, I think, what makes the fall especially sad in my mind. They knew god, and yet the serpent was able to say some things that made them believe something so untrue about God, but they knew God. So so just to kind of summarize that, be honest with God, but don't let yourself be dishonest about God to yourself or others.
Joshua:That gets you somewhere weird fast. So we need we must believe what is true about God, and we must find that in scripture. And, and we must be very, very careful of what things we believe about him and what he wants for the world and for us. Does that make sense? Yes.
Joshua:Yeah. So, yeah, that's That's all I have on that question. That's a really good question, and it might even be the route that whoever asked it wanted me to go down or what might not be about what they're right now. So my apologies if that's the case, and I'd love to talk with you more specifically about what you have, going on in your life. But, that's just that's the thoughts that that came to mind for me this week on that one.
Joshua:Can is the next question. Can our prayer change god's mind or alter his plans. Can our prayer change god god's mind or alter his plans? So, there this is a tough one. It's like there are 3 big examples that have informed my thinking on this.
Joshua:But, again, of all the questions that could have a whole sermon dedicated to 1, this one could have, like, a whole series. You know what I mean? Just talking about these thing. Here's 3 examples from scripture that I think are really important on this question. In Exodus 18, we have this really important moment where where Moses is pleading with God about what's going on with the Israelites having made a golden calf after just being commanded to not do that and after just also being rescued from, Egypt.
Joshua:So here's where we're arriving at the story. The Lord said, the outcry against oh, I'm sorry. I got ahead of myself. This is actually we're not gonna start in Moses. We're starting in Abraham.
Joshua:Sorry. I had gone to 1 page too too far. Okay. We're starting to Abraham. We'll get to Moses in a little bit.
Joshua:Abraham has this very similar interaction with, with the Lord. Oh, it's because I pasted the same the same scripture twice. Here we go. Okay. So Abraham has a similar interaction with God whenever god is thinking about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and here's where we arrive at the story.
Joshua:The lord said, the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the out as the outcry that has reached me. And if not, I'll know. The men turned away and went towards Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said, will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are 50 righteous people in the city?
Joshua:Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the 50 righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you. Will not the judge of all the earth do right? And the lord said, if I find 50 righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.
Joshua:And then Abraham spoke up again. Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is 5 less than will you destroy the whole city for lack of 5 people? If I find 45 there, he said, I will not destroy it. And once again, he spoke to him, what if only 40 are found there? And he said, for the sake of 40, I will not do it.
Joshua:This actually continues all the way to 10 people. So Abraham is praying and pleading with god about this, and it's clear by this interaction that god is willing to interact with and hear our pleas and our cries. And I think what's really key about this too is that Abraham is appealing to god's own goodness God's own grace and God's own character here. It is not that Abraham himself is a better person than God. That gets us into weird places really fast as well, but it's clear that in prayer, God is listening.
Joshua:He's interested in our perspective. He cares about what we think and that he's willing to converse about it because that's relationship. Right? That's relationship. It's not just, you know, 1 person is very firm in with their decision, and the other person has no, ability to change your mind because that's if you've ever had a friend like that, then you know it's not really a friendship.
Joshua:If they're not interested in what you have to say at all, that's not really a relationship. Right. But again, this is hard to think about. We have another example. This is now finally said the Moses one.
Joshua:Moses pleaded with the lord, his god. Lord, why does your fury burn against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and amazing force? Why should the Egyptians say, he had an evil plan to take the people out and kill them in mountains and so wipe them off the earth. Calm down your fierce anger. Change your mind about doing terrible things to your own people.
Joshua:Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, whom you yourself promised, I'll make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky, and I promise to give your descendants this whole land to possess all time, and then the Lord changed his mind about the terrible things he said he would do to his people. So this makes us uncomfortable. Right? This idea is one that, you know, many many of us just don't wanna really think about and wrestle through because it takes a lot of thinking, a lot of reading scripture, and it's just tough to understand. You know, God wants to do something, but didn't the Israelites disobey him very, like, just fervently, flagrantly?
Joshua:And haven't they been doing that all along the way? Is it not right for God to want to punish something that they did? At the same time, then, he's able to he's willing to hear Moses out about this. He's willing to hear Moses' perspective about this. And later in the same story, in the same chapter.
Joshua:Even Moses kinda convinces him by just reminding him of his own character and also a little later offering his own life so the Israelites may live. Moses wants to sacrifice himself instead of the Israelites, perishing. And so, you know, this interaction, Moses is able talk with God about this, and God does change his mind about it. That's literally what the scripture says. It doesn't make it easy to understand, but that's what it says.
Joshua:And I and I think that this is one of those things we have to wrestle with. We have to think through. We have to, like it's not one of these simple simple things that it should make us feel a little weird, I think. It should make us feel a little bit weird, but it is also good. Like, our prayers matter.
Joshua:The god wants to hear them. He wants to interact with us these things. The last example that I thought of is Jesus praying, in the garden, and, He he I'll just read this real quick. He said his disciple, I'm deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.
Joshua:And going a little farther, he fell face down and prayed, my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. This isn't exactly the same as, like, a situation, like, we read the 2 in the Old Testament where God changes his mind. But I think we can learn from this is that Jesus, our example, our rabbi, the person we are apprenticing under who we want to be like and pray like, and who we also know is God and is a trustworthy guide on prayer. He prayed a prayer like this.
Joshua:He humbly requested a change of plan, and I really feel satisfied to read this exactly as it appears that it is just it's possible for God to change his mind or plan and that Jesus submitted his will to the father, whichever way it was going to go. Either way, I'm with you, God. You know? But that he was pleading. If there's any way we could change this, I would love to.
Joshua:And to me, that makes me think that this is possible. Jesus is praying a prayer of something that is possible to happen, and he's he's also demonstrating to us that we can do that too. We can ask god these things. Could this pass from me? Could this cup pass from me?
Joshua:Does that make sense? Sorry that these are the 3 examples we have, and sorry that this is the time we have to talk about that, and sorry that I am not smarter than you. So, but here's something I think we want to think about on this topic. It's just thing can be changed. Sort of if nothing we could say or ask God about could ever be changed, that's actually this idea.
Joshua:There's a label for this. It's called determinism, the idea that things are unchangeable. The world as it is cannot be changed. It is going to happen, and it's it's there's no way around it. And I found this great quote it's just a smidge long, but just better than I could say it from C.
Joshua:S. Lewis talking about this idea. And I'll just tell you before we go into it, I think this is super unscriptural, this idea of determinism, and it's a very sort of Greek and ever various other, philosophies kind of thing. But here's what, CS Lewis tries to say about this. God created things which had free will.
Joshua:That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good, it's also free to be bad, and free will is what has made evil possible. Why then did God give them free will? Well, because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.
Joshua:A world of automata, of creatures that worked like machines, would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely voluntarily united to him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water, and for that, they've got to be free. Of course, god knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way. Apparently, he thought it worth the risk. If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will, that is for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen.
Joshua:Instead of a toy world, which only moves when he pulls the strings, then we may take it. It is worth paying. That risk is worth paying. So we have to live in this tension that god is all knowing an all powerful and also decided to give us freedom to love him or not. And maybe we can't ever really understand how that fully works, but I think the The biblical narrative begs us to live in that tension, this impossible two things.
Joshua:God is all knowing, all powerful, and also wants us to have the freedom to choose him or not. It begs us to do that, and it's it's hard to read the biblical story and narrative with any other sort of philosophy in mind that would, kind of undercut that story. If God knew everything that was going to happen was immovable, unchangeable, that makes that story a very weird one to read, I think, and very hard to know how we live in it, how we live in relationship with a being who is immovable, unchangeable, we can't interact Does that make sense? However, god's character this is the tough thing. God's character doesn't change.
Joshua:His goodness doesn't change. His promises, he keeps. Right, but, but the fact that this world can have some freedom to choose, that we get to choose things is so hard for us to wrap our heads around. But I just think when we pray, we must have in mind that God wants us to pray. He commands us to pray, asks us to pray.
Joshua:Jesus himself models praying. He must think this important. Ask anything in my name. You know? Ask and you'll receive.
Joshua:Knock and the door will be opened. These are things that Jesus himself tells us to do. Doesn't sound like a a person who's really, deterministic, who thinks everything's set, so just just do your thing. Just coast through the rest of the life and be a little toy with the string pulled in the back. But isn't that tough?
Joshua:Isn't that a good question? Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, whoever asked that. Thank you very much for asking that question.
Joshua:I'm just kidding. That really is a good one. And then here's this last one. I know we're getting short on time, so often through this, but this last one says the Bible says to pray to the father. Jesus directed us to pray to the father, the Lord's prayer.
Joshua:And saying this, you know, people pray to the Holy Spirit, to Jesus, to saints, to angels, etcetera. Could you expound on this subject? Again, just be worthy of a much longer answer. And in regard to the saints thing, this is a sort of classic debate between Protestant and non Protestant traditions for a long time. I encourage you to sort of read the verses that, scraying to the saints that's sort of been built on that this idea has come from.
Joshua:I think you'll wonder what I do, which is just sort of how did this become such a large practice, and there's only a handful of references to something like this, and it might kind of make you wonder about that. Again, C. S. Lewis had a great quote about this, but I'm not gonna read. Gonna say that, his sort of main takeaway was just, and he also interacted with a lot of non Protestants.
Joshua:A lot of his his friends were in these traditions, and he was interacting with them quite gracefully and I think really, earnestly. But one of his points which he just makes is that while saints that we know in the New Testament are these massive examples and role models of people we want to live like, our lives like to and follow Jesus their same commitment. They aren't Jesus, though. You know? They're not they aren't Jesus, and they shouldn't be put on a sort of nonhuman pedestal.
Joshua:And in in that same way, they should be viewed with this, approach of this is sort of achievable with God. Any person we do see do anything great in Jesus' name is something that we, if we commit to God and want to be molded and used by him, could also sort of reasonably do as well. So to put another human being on a pedestal store anywhere close to Jesus. It's just probably a little bit dangerous. And so that's all I'll say about that thing.
Joshua:I would say go go read some more about that if you can. You know, Jesus says pray to the father, and he also himself prays to the father. Then Jesus also says things like, you know, whatever you ask in my name. Whatever you ask in my name, you'll be given. And then as Simon Peter's sinking in the water, what after he's walked on water and starts doubt.
Joshua:He says, Lord, save me, and that has spawned a whole tradition of prayers, you know, praying to Jesus, Lord, save me. Have mercy on me. And that's a prayer many people have grade. And so I think this, and then Paul himself references the spirit in regard to prayer many times. So we have a lot of thing that we talked about here.
Joshua:So here's a quote I found from N. T. Wright that I think sums this up really quite nicely. I don't think we should be too fussy about whether we get our trinitarian theology quite right in prayer. The important thing is to pray because prayer is central to the Christian life, and in the end, we have to accept there really is a deep mystery at play whenever we engage with it.
Joshua:And I I think that, you know, the person asking this, I think the question if it's sort of the question is to get our desire is to get this right for ourselves because we care about prayer, and I think God really appreciates that effort and this desire to seek that answer out. But I think if our desire is more about pointing out the wrong way that somebody else is doing it. I have a feeling God might be inclined to tell us to look at the planks in in our own eyes, you know what I mean, as a more important thing to deal with. But I I have a a belief that whoever asked this is just wanting to know, how do I pray? Can I figure this out?
Joshua:How can I sort through it? And I think that, the Lord gives us plenty of grace here as we approach him in prayer and is not expecting us to have to get all of that right before we even come to him in the 1st place, and I think that's really good news. So in conclusion, wrapping up all these different questions. I just wanna remind you, please ask if you have follow ups, and, and these are really good questions. And I just wanna say, man, I love you guys.
Joshua:Like, these questions were encouraging to read despite the fact that I was like, how am I ever gonna talk about all of these in 1 sermon or whatever? But just I always love your questions, your desire to push into these difficult areas of prayer. To me, it felt like this, I don't know, indicator of us really trying to grow in prayer, asking hard questions set, that make us sort of push into deeper areas and aren't just about, like, whether we should or shouldn't pray at all. You know what I mean? And So to me, I just felt really encouraged and very, just a sense of gratitude, especially because of Thanksgiving too just for you guys and just feeling of like, man, these people want to grow in prayer.
Joshua:We want to learn together, ask hard questions together, disagree about stuff together or whatever. And, I just felt very, very blessed by your questions week. So, I just wanna say a short prayer, and the worship team can return to, have us, sing another song. Lord, just thank you for being a God who wants to spend time with us, wants to hear our questions, wants to, hear what we're feeling and what's going on in our lives, and I just pray that as community earnestly seeks to grow in prayer that you would answer that call, answer that question, and help us grow. Give us understanding as much as we need.
Joshua:Give us faith. Give us, just a hunger to bring our cares and concerns to you in prayer, to pray for those who don't know you, to pray for our city, to pray that you would move and and do things in our world and in our life and that you would use us and that your will be done and not ours. And I just we just humbly come you saying we don't understand everything, and we never will. And we just ask you to help us to be content with that. Yeah.
Joshua:And we just love you so much. Thanks for being such such a good God and good father to us.