4 Purposes for Prayer

greetings guys this is pastor Keith I am sorry that I cannot be with you this week in person but I wanted to continue our study that we began last week and so I'm coming to you via video and I'm providing this lesson for those who are watching this is for the men of set free ministry and I'm going to be continuing the lesson that I began last week the last week's lesson was about the subject of prayer and ultimately the title of the message is if God is sovereign why do we pray but really that question is is a little bit broader and so I wanted to go over it again because what I did last week is I broke down the presuppositions of the question the question if God is sovereign why pray it's actually based on several presuppositions which are true but need to be understood in their context so I've said not only if God is sovereign but I've said this if God is sovereign and he knows the future perfectly and has already determined what he will do why pray and so that's the way we're formulating the question and what we did in our lesson last week is we broke down the three premises of the question the question first begins with the question if God is sovereign and I noted if you remember last week that really we need to take the word if out and put in the word sense since God is sovereign because we should never wonder if that is the case the Bible clearly teaches that we serve a sovereign God a God who rules the universe and that he actually upholds the universe by the word of his power the world does not continue to spin simply because of its own power or its own momentum the world continues to move and spin and do as it does because of the command of Almighty God if at any moment God were to remove his hand from creation creation would cease to exist in him the Bible says in him we live and move and have our being and it says that he upholds the universe by the word of his power so we need to understand that God is sovereign so we should never put the if there because or since God is sovereign and knows the future perfectly and we talked about in our lesson last week that God does know the future perfectly he is not limited by space or time he is the all present one not only omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent now but he is the one who is omnipresent through time God is not bound by either space or time he lives in a transcendent position above space and time and so we said this he knows the future perfectly yes he does yes he does know the future perfectly but then the next one is that he is already determined what he is going to do and that is something that we do learn from the Bible the Bible says God has a plan that he is working out and that he has determined the end from the beginning we see this in several passages Psalm 139 reminds us that God saw our unformed substance before we were created and in his book were written every day of our lives when yet there was not one of them God created us knowing how many days we were going to live he knew exactly the day we were going to be born he knew exactly the day we were going to die and how does God know those things because they are part of his divine decree God has determined these things he has decreed that these things will be and therefore we know that God has already determined what he is going to do the Bible says in Proverbs 16 9 the heart of the man plans his way but the Lord establishes his steps Proverbs 1921 many are the plans of the heart of a man but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand and so ultimately we know that God has already determined what he is going to do he has done so by divine decree so yes he knows the future perfectly yes he's already determined what he will do so the question then is why do we pray and the question usually comes to me like this when I'm teaching on the subject and I have an open forum where people have an opportunity to ask questions usually the question comes somewhat like this doesn't it seem that because all of this is true our prayers would be purposeless in fact doesn't this make all spiritual discipline purposeless Bible study discipleship witnessing worship all of that useless if God knows the future he's already determined what he's going to do what is it that we contribute and do we contribute anything isn't it that what everything that we do is useless that's really the heart of the question the question is the heart of the question of is everything that we do ultimately useless and the answer is no but we want to know why the answer is no why does God's sovereignty not cancel out our responsibility especially our responsibility to pray but I would respond by saying also that we can answer this question by first establishing another question and that is this what is the purpose of prayer why do we pray you see there's an assumption in this question the assumption in this question if God is sovereign and knows the future perfectly and already determined what he's going to do why pray what's the assumption in the question I'll tell you what the assumption is the assumption is that we pray to somehow change God's mind that the purpose of prayer is to change God's mind or to tell God something he does not already know so I would ask you this what is the purpose of praying is it to change God's mind no is it to tell God something he doesn't know no is it to tell God to do what he what we want him to do instead of what he wants to do no as if we know better than him is it to thwart his will and replace his will with our own no even though I do think sometimes that's the way people treat prayer I think people treat prayer as if prayer is my opportunity to tell God you're gonna do it this way in fact I remember hearing a preacher one time say those very words he said God sits up and takes notice when I put a demand on his will and when I heard that I was flabbergasted because when someone says I'm putting a demand on the will of the Almighty they're putting themselves in the position of the authority over the Almighty no that is not right the purpose of prayer is not to change God's mind the purpose of prayer is not to tell God something he doesn't already know the purpose of prayer is not to make God do what we want instead of what he wants and the purpose of prayer is certainly not to thwart his will even if we could change God's will or change God's mind would we want to do we know better than the Almighty are we wiser than infinite wisdom are we smarter than infinite intellect do we have more insight than he who sees all things the answer is obviously no so what I want to do in my time today is I want to share with you four purposes of prayer in light of the sovereignty of God four purposes for prayer the question is why pray I want to give you four reasons why we should pray and if you have a notepad I would encourage you to take notes today and the title again you have four reasons to pray I'm going to give you four purposes of prayer and light of the truth of God's sovereignty number one prayer has been appointed as an act of worship prayer has been appointed as an act of worship consider the great prayers of Scripture and how much worshipful language is found within them if we go to 1st Samuel 2 we see the prayer of Hannah after the birth of Samuel and it is a prayer of exaltation it is a prayer of adoration it is a prayer of worship if you go to Psalm 90 verse 1 and 2 you see the prayer of Moses and it opens with a proclamation it is a prayer of worship if we go to Daniel chapter 9 verse 4 it opens with a proclamation a prayer of worship in Matthew chapter 6 verses 7 to 13 we see the prayer of Christ which opens with God's holiness think about the prayer of Christ the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done in heaven and on earth you see that prayer begins with a word of worship one of the failures of modern Christianity is equating worship with singing and music I've not I can't tell you how many times this has happened where I will be at a church and be talking to someone maybe it's the pastor or a church member or something and be talking to someone and they say hey how is the worship here inevitably what that question means is not what is the heart of the people in worship in this place the heart of the question is what's the music like when you when somebody asked what's the worship like they're asking what's the music like and you see that's a problem we have learned to establish one way to worship and that's singing but that's not the way that we worship that's not the only way that we worship Dr.

R.C.

Sproul was at a church and he was asked to preach and they had the time of music as is often the outline of the worship service we begin with music and then we have the time for preaching and the pastor literally came up to the podium and said now that worship has concluded Dr.

Sproul will come up and preach and Dr.