Prayer is something we have all done. And the Scriptures call us to pray in many different places. Paul says in Romans 12:12, “Be constant in prayer. And Colossians 4:2 says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer.”
But the question today is “Why does God ask us to pray?” Or more specifically,
Why do we need to ask?
After all God knows our needs – Matthew 10:30 says, “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” God knows about the details of our lives. And as Jesus also says, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8).
And God is almighty. God says in Jeremiah 32:27 – “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” And its true that nothing is too hard for God.
And, of course, God cares about us. As the familiar John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son . . ..”
So if all this is so, why do we need to be involved? Why do we need to ask? Well, there’s a reason. It isn’t directly addressed in Scripture as such, but it is there. And it is simply that God has determined to work through us to bring about his will in the world. And the key phrase here is “through us.”
Lets look at this. As human beings …
We were created to rule the earth
We are to oversee it, be in charge of it, and to care for it. Genesis 1:26–27 speaks to this. “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
The language of “image” and “likeness” refers to the fact that God made us like him (and the angelic rulers). We are like God in that we also rule and have authority. This shows up even more clearly in the phrase “let them have dominion over” the earth. God has put us in charge.
Psalm 8:4-6 echoes Genesis 1. It says, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”
Humanity is a little lower than the angelic rulers. They have “dominion,” and God has put “all things under his (humanity’s) feet.” Again, God has put us in charge of the earth.
Psalm 115:16 says it simply, “The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to human beings.” By God’s own choice, this is our realm; our sphere of operating.
Now the reason God has put us in charge is to work his will through us
- We are to be the agents of God’s provision and power
- We are to be the ones through whom God does his bidding
An example is Elijah, which is talked about in James 5:17-18. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”
God didn’t just carry out his will in this situation. He could have, but he didn’t. He worked through the prophet Elijah, a human just like us.
Another example is Abraham in Genesis 18. Remember this story? God comes to Abraham and says, “I’m not gonna hide from you what I’m about to do” (Genesis 18:17). God tells him about the plan to judge Sodom. But then Abraham prays, “if you find 50 righteous will you spare the city?” And he goes on, “45? 40? 30? 20? 10?”
And God listened to Abraham and agreed to spare the city for 10 righteous people, which it did not have. But the point is that, God didn’t just carry out his will, but rather involved Abraham, and even allowed him to have a voice in shaping what happened.
These and so many other examples in Scripture show us that God chooses to work through people to accomplish his will on earth. God does a lot without us. Don’t get me wrong. God does acts of providence and acts of mercy all the time. But, what I’m saying is that God will not do it all without us. God limits his activities in this world according to this choice and this purpose that he has for humanity.
And this brings us to . . .
Jesus, the only faithful human
We have not been faithful rulers. We have failed to bring about God’s will on earth.
In fact, we have made things worse. Through our sin we have given the world over to the powers of evil, so that now Satan is “the god of this world” as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4.
But God honored his purpose to rule the earth through a human, and that means to fix its brokenness through a human. And even though we all failed, God doesn’t just give up. God became human, to fulfill his purpose! This is why Jesus came as a human.
Hebrews 2:9 applies Psalm 8, about all humans, specifically to Jesus. It says, “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor.”
We were unfaithful, but Jesus was the faithful human that God was looking for all along, through whom God can rule and work. And he has taken back what we gave away. He has overcome.
And we can now join him – the new Adam, the beginning of a new humanity – and in him take up our role as instruments of God to bring about God’s will on this earth.
The call to prayer
My reason for sharing this with you is not just to give you something for your head; something to think about – the logic of why we pray. Its good to know. But the point is to call you to prayer; to call for a change in behavior and practice.
I began by reminding you that God is almighty, he knows our needs and cares about us. But if we take from this that we don’t need to do much of anything, and say, “Hey, God will take care of it,” well, it will show up in our prayer practices.
And perhaps this does explain the infrequency and lack of intensity in the prayer lives of so many.
But if we realize the truth, that God has chosen us to accomplish his will on earth, then perhaps we will take prayer seriously. And that’s the challenge before us today, to take it seriously.
People, God is waiting for you to take up your role!
- God is waiting for you to become his instrument through which he will provide for the needs of the world
- God is waiting for you to be a channel through which he can bring about his purposes in this world
When we fail to take up our role in God’s order of things, its like a broken electrical circuit. God is there ready to act. God’s power is there ready to engage. But we don’t complete the circuit; we break it, so that the power of God can’t flow into the world.
God is waiting for us to engage, to flip the switch, to complete the circuit, to fulfill our destiny in Jesus. Even right here in our own congregation.
We need to pray intensely and frequently for our congregation, our leaders, our ministries, our people, our faithfulness, our vision. We need to pray that God’s will, will be done, that God’s purpose will be fulfilled through us.
And so I’m giving you a chance to make a commitment to this, this morning. You have in your bulletin a card. You can commit to regular prayer for our congregation. Or, you can sign up for the Prayer Team, to give concentrated effort and commitment to this, meeting once a month and keeping in contact by email.
Would you consider what God would have you do this morning? William Higgins
Christian teaching 