Prepare for Worship | Why Pray?
Last Sunday, Worship Minister Ronnie Morris exhorted us to let the gospel shape our gathering in worship from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
Read: James 5:13-20
This Sunday, Pastor Ken Lewis will close our “Love One Another” series by encouraging us to pray for one another from James 5:13-20. As you prepare for our Sunday gathering, let these words from R. C. Sproul move you to embrace the privilege of praying to our sovereign God, especially on behalf of our brothers and sisters.
Reflect: “Why Pray?”
Nothing escapes God’s notice; nothing oversteps the boundaries of His power. God is authoritative in all things. If I thought even for one moment that a single molecule were running loose in the universe outside the control and domain of almighty God, I wouldn’t sleep tonight. My confidence in the future rests in my confidence in the God who controls history. But how does God exercise that control and manifest that authority? How does God bring to pass the things He sovereignly decrees?
Augustine said that nothing happens in this universe apart from the will of God and that, in a certain sense, God ordains everything that happens. Augustine was not attempting to absolve men of responsibility for their actions, but his teaching raises a question: If God is sovereign over the actions and intents of men, why pray at all? A secondary concern revolves around the question, “Does prayer really change anything?”
Let me answer the first question by stating that the sovereign God commands by His holy Word that we pray. Prayer is not optional for the Christian; it is required.
We might ask, “What if it doesn’t do anything?” That is not the issue. Regardless of “whether prayer does any good, if God commands us to pray, we must pray. It is reason enough that the Lord God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, commands it. Yet He not only commands us to pray, but also invites us to make our requests known. James says that we have not because we ask not (James 4:2). He also tells us that the prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much (James 5:16). Time and again the Bible says that prayer is an effective tool. It is useful; it works.
Prayer, like everything else in the Christian life, is for God’s glory and for our benefit, in that order. Everything that God does, everything that God allows and ordains, is in the supreme sense for His glory. It is also true that while God seeks His own glory supremely, man benefits when God is glorified. We pray to glorify God, but we also pray in order to receive the benefits of prayer from His hand. Prayer is for our benefit, even in light of the fact that God knows the end from the beginning. It is our privilege to bring the whole of our finite existence into the glory of His infinite presence.
One of the great themes of the Reformation was the idea that all of life is to be lived under the authority of God, to the glory of God, in the presence of God. Prayer is not simply a soliloquy, a mere exercise in therapeutic self-analysis, or a religious recitation. Prayer is discourse with the personal God Himself. There, in the act and dynamic of praying, I bring my whole life under His gaze. Yes, He knows what is in my mind, but I still have the privilege of articulating to Him what is there. He says: “Come. Speak to me. Make your requests known to me.” So we come in order to know Him and to be known by Him.
Excerpt from Does Prayer Change Things?, pp. 10-13, by R. C. Sproul.
Sing: Song List for Sunday
1. “He Is Our God,” by Sovereign Grace Music
2. “All-Sufficient Merit,” by Shane & Shane
3. “You’ve Already Won,” by Shane & Shane|
4. “Before the Throne,” Arr. Shane & Shane
5. “The Doxology”