Praying With Confidence in His Will
Wrestling With God
1 John 5 verses 13 to 15. That you may know. Is there a heading? I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. So of course we are at number four out of six. in our series on prayer. And so just a quick reminder of something I said last week, there is a open slot for anyone to win at the very end of this series because in this message, I've actually merged two that I had planned into one. And so now I have an empty slot and I have no idea what to preach. I've had one request and if no one else says anything, that's the one we're doing. So if anyone wants to add some competition to that, go nuts. Otherwise, you'll find out what it is in two weeks. All right. Let us begin in prayer. Father, You are good. And Lord, Your grace is before us with us. And Lord, now You draw near to us, to teach us, to instruct us, Lord, and to fill us with the joy of our salvation. So Father, would You do that now? Would You teach us through Your Spirit and make the words that we hear, not just words, but a power that changes us. Father, we ask for these things and we ask for more. In Jesus' name, Amen. Now, what we are going to be wrestling with today is one of the hardest tensions to deal with, with the reality of prayer, which is, we have a God that we pray to, but we also have a God who is sovereign, meaning He's in control of everything. He knows everything. So, why do we have to pray? What is the point? How do those two things work together? Well, we have a God who literally has planned out everything from beginning to end. Right? He said it, I know the beginning from the end, I'm the Alpha, the Omega. And then He says, your prayers change things. Why pray? What is the point? How do we understand that tension? Well, that's what we're going to be looking at today. Three questions that we are going to answer. Why pray to a God who knows what we need? How do you pray according to His will? then what does it mean to wrestle with God in prayer? Now, we're not looking at just one passage, one point will kind of have its own little passage and or some of them will just have a bunch of them, but anyway, we'll pull it out as we go along. So, for our first question, why pray to a God who knows what we need? Last week, we did the Lord's Prayer, right? We talked about what it is to pray, how Jesus instructs us that we should, the way that we should go. you see, the funny thing is, He says before that, in the verse right before it, in Matthew 6 verse 8, your father knows what you need before you ask him. Then He goes on in verse 9, pray then like this. Now Scripture says, He knows everything you need before you even ask for it, right? And then instantly, afterwards you are commanded, now go and pray for it. Now instantly, in our heads, you think about it enough and everyone's had this thought, if He knows it all, why do I have to bother? Hopefully you haven't been led to the point where you're actually like, well, He kind of knows everything, so I don't actually need to pray about it. Because what that shows is we're actually a slave to our logic, not to the reality of Scripture. We're saying, He knows everything, so I don't need to pray. That's not what the Bible tells us. The Bible is actually telling us that we need to pray. But that still begs the question, all right, okay, I understand, I need to pray, but I still ask the question, why? I want to ask you this, how many things, because one of our impulses we might think, the reason we have to pray is, okay, well, He knows all the things we need, but we kind of need to move Him, you know? Like He's over here, but, you know, He's kind of, you know, relaxing, right? He's had a few too many, and He's just not, He's not really listening properly, right? And so, we need to move Him, we need to get Him up and going, we need to kind of put some oil in the machine and get it going. Is that what God is like? Do need to motivate and push him, get him ready to give because he's kind of reluctant? I want to ask you, how many things do you receive from God every day that you never actually asked for? Money, you might ask for that, food, we say grace. But what about random things that come into your life that you never expected? Good things. What about the air you breathe? What about the life you have? Do you thank Him for that every day? Hey, good Christian if you do. But do you thank Him for every single breath? After every breath, you say, you God. Thank you God. No, no one's doing that. And it's not because he's like, oh, he prayed for it at start of the day, so I'll give you your breath today. He's a gracious God. He's not just sitting there and you've got to do your part and then I'll do mine. He has always done his part before we have ever done anything. He's a continually gracious God and he's happy to give. Because you realize he gives breath and life and everything, even to unbelievers, even to those who reject him, he still shows grace. He is a God who loves to give endlessly. And so understand our prayer does not force an unwilling and lazy God to act. That is not how He works. He is a giver and He always be is ready to listen. You just think about it, right? A good parent doesn't, so good parents, their children do not need to beg to be fed or beg to be clothed, right? Instead, Their parents happily provide all those things. They feed them, they clothe them. Even when their children are ungrateful and don't deserve it, they continue to do it because it is the outflow of their love for that child, right? They don't need to be asked. And so it is the same with God. Even when we are ungrateful, even when we rebel against Him, He's a good parent. He still gives. But He doesn't do this like some kind of vending machine that just kind of, know, oh, I know it needs a bottle of water. then pops out a bottle of water. There is love behind it. He's not a vending machine, right? There's an actual relationship because he is a parent. And just like any parent, you might be, obviously you give to your child even when they're ungrateful, but you do want them to be grateful, right? You do want them because of course, that is what any relationship is like. Our God is not a machine. He is a God. He is a person. He is someone that we can relate to and so... Our relationship with Him is more greatly enjoyed when we reciprocate. When we don't just sit there and say, well, He's just kind of a machine that kind of pops out everything on you, don't really need to do anything with Him. No, we actually thank Him. We are grateful because we are in a relationship that is built on love. And so that requires interaction. So we see, right, prayer doesn't inform God, it doesn't jog His memory, it doesn't wake Him up. So understand end of the day, the primary goal of prayer is not to change God, it is to change you. We'll go to our kids talk to emphasise this. So just as Michelle was sharing, most of you know the story of Mount Carmel, right? The prophets of Baal and all that stuff, right? Two sacrifices. Elijah invites them along and says, hey, I'll put you to the test, all right? Surely if your God will listen to you, this will be easy. 400, prophets, I can't quite remember the number, all come up to Mount Carmel. Two sacrifices are prepared, wood piled on top of each other with a bull placed on top. And then these men, these four, can you imagine a crowd of 400 people? The noise would just be immense. All of them yelling, screaming out, singing, doing all kinds of, cutting themselves, all kinds of weird things, trying to just... cry out to their God to do something. They go for a whole day and He does nothing. Can you imagine just all the, there's just big blood everywhere and it'd be a pretty hard sight to miss. But yet Baal does nothing to the point that even as they reach noon, Elijah, which many of you know, mocks them, right? Cry aloud for He is a God. Either He is musing, He's... relieving himself. He is on a journey. Perhaps he's asleep and you have to wake him up, right? What a dumb thing to say about a God. What a dumb thing that a God would have to do that he can't even notice the cries of his own people. 400 of them screaming at him. Why doesn't he answer? Because he's not real. Because he doesn't exist. Elijah mocked the idea that a real God would actually need to be manipulated by human efforts. When Elijah prayed, what happens? Oh God, he says, and he answers instantly with fire. what was his prayer? He says it like this in chapter 18, verse 36 among King, Oh Lord God of Abraham, Isaac in Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, Lord, answer me that these people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back. Now, I want to ask you in this, in this story, to display the power of God against the power of these idols, who was the one who was actually changed? Was God changed or were the people changed? people were. You see, God didn't change. He was willing to act. He was always ready. He was ready to listen. He was right there. But what was the aim of what he did? The miracle was not meant to change God, it was meant to change the people's hearts, to turn them back to God. And so you see, the purpose of prayer at the end of the day is not to alter how God sees us, but to how He sees our circumstance. He knows it. But it's to change your view of how He sees you and your circumstances. You see, most importantly, this actually reminds us of the truth of why we have everything we have. This is part of the relationship. Because again, remember how I told you, Unbelievers enjoy so much without ever having a thought of God. They can enjoy creation, they can travel, they can enjoy their family, they can enjoy great food and never have a thought of God. All these things that He has made and they don't have to care about God any... He gives it to them, can enjoy. But a Christian knows this truth, that without God, these things, these made things are hollow. C.S. Lewis once had this illustration. He talked of one day as he walked into his tool shed. You know, back in the day, they didn't have power running to their sheds, right? It was just a dark timbered shed with some tools in it. And he was a writer, so I doubt he really used them that much. But he walked in, he said one day, and he just saw that there was a crack in the wood and there was just this light, beam of light shooting in. He said, it was just in such contrast to the darkness of the shed. It was just incredible. And he focused deeply upon it. But then he said, you know what? I wonder what it looks like if I moved into that beam. And so he moves along and as the beam settles on his eyes, and what does he see? Light? No, he sees leaves. He sees trees and better yet, millions of kilometers beyond that, he sees the source of the light. He sees the sun, right? Now you see, this is the foolishness of those who don't pray, of those who don't believe God. They just look at the beam and think that's all there is, right? They are happy and content with the beam, that's all we've been given. But the reality of prayer, God's really going to give you the things you need. You can have them, He'll give them to you, even if you don't pray for them. But you will not truly enjoy them, you'll not truly see the source of where they come from unless you pray. Unless you pray in gratitude, unless you pray and request and ask these things, you'll never actually see along the beam to the one whom it was made by. And these things will actually not truly be enjoyed unless we pray about them and find the source. so you see. Prayer and its purpose, it's not because we need to pray about the things because otherwise God won't answer us. What we are doing is actually inviting Him into the things that He already will give us because that is what a relationship is and better yet, it unlocks the joy of those things. You guys probably like the seats here right now, right? Amen, hallelujah, we don't have wooden pews. It's a blessing, right? But It's such a greater joy when we can know, we can sit in them. God has given those to us to enjoy. Better yet, He's just raised up people who are able to upholster pews. Pews, it's a weird word. um Anyway, a glorious thing. But we move on now to our second question. How do you pray according to His will? So, we recognize that we are to invite God in, into our lives. But Scripture also has another aspect that it demands of us. that our prayers are to align with His will. As we read from 1 John 5, verse 14, this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. Now, I ask you the question, what is the will of God? Now, and again, I've said this number of times in previous weeks, but we do have a bit of a disposition to think, it's, I've talked about the hidden will of God before and the revealed will, right? As in those hidden things, the things He has not revealed in Scripture. I don't know whether you're going to have a bowel movement tomorrow, right? That's not in Scripture. I don't know what's going to happen. But there are things that are in Scripture that we do know that have been revealed to us. And so, see, what we are talking about here is not the hidden will of God, not the things that haven't been revealed to us. But you see, we have this, it's just a disposition as humans, we do want to know what's going to happen tomorrow. We just want to know, because I've got a five-year plan, maybe some of you don't have that long one, because maybe you don't have that long left, but sorry, that's not a jab, but the reality is, we're thinking about tomorrow. But what did Jesus say about tomorrow? Matthew 6 34, do not be anxious about tomorrow. for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient is the day for its own trouble. We're so worried about tomorrow and God's like, have you looked at today? It's got enough problems in it. Why are you worrying about that one? You'll overwhelm yourself if you're thinking about all that. Just focus on today. And particularly is important because there is a lie and a deception of the devil where he says, hey, you should worry about tomorrow. know? Hey, look at all those things you have to do, you know, coming up in a month and 12 months. Why? Because you're not thinking about the things you actually need to do today. The things that God has called you to concern yourself about with right now. those things that He has revealed to us in His Word. That is what He wants us to focus on. That is what He calls us to pray about. Because God's primary will for your life is that you are sanctified, that you are conformed so that one day you might look like Jesus and that each and every day you are moving along that path, not in your power, but in the power of Christ. As you trust in Him more, as you read and understand more of Him, you will become more like Him. And so that is His will for us and prayer is the tool that we use to subject our lives to those truths that are revealed to us in the Word. Because think about this, and again, I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for things that haven't been revealed to us. You can pray for healing. Pray for that, it's an incredible thing to do and we're actually prayed and commanded to pray for healing, but we are not given the outcome. We cannot promise that we shall be healed until of course, the end of the age, when Jesus returns. We may pray for a long life, that's fine, but no specific lifespan is guaranteed. But true alignment, coming into alignment with God's will is praying for the strength to obey the command that He has actually given us. It is bringing our lives in conformity to the promises He has given us, not the ones He hasn't. We had to pray for boldness so we might share the gospel. We had to pray that we might be delivered from sin. We had to pray that He might reveal Himself to us. Why? Because we actually know in His scriptures that He has said He wants to do those things. He has not promised us long life. He has not promised us health. He has not promised us money. He has promised us enough to get through the day and enough to get to the end of our lives. But we know that when we pray for the things that He has commanded, His answer will always be yes. because that is what He says in the next verse, 5 verse 15. You know, I go back to the example that I had a couple of weeks ago of my mother and her death. I asked you, at what point did I feel that peace? What time was it? Was it when I arrived, when I saw the answer to my prayer, or was it three hours beforehand when I prayed? It was beforehand when I prayed. You see, peace didn't come from actually seeing the physical answer. Peace arrived in the moment that I realized God heard me. And so you see. Sorry, I'm actually bit flustered here. I kind of lost my point. I really have lost my point. Anyway, I'll keep trying going on there. I want to go to the example of Daniel. Daniel discovered in the scrolls, he had reading the prophet Jeremiah and he discovered that the Babylonian exile was decreed to happen to last only 70 years. I'll read from Daniel 9 now. He says, I, Daniel, perceived in the book the number of years that according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, the prophet must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession. So there you have the will of God revealed in the scriptures for the people of Israel in that time. It was said in 70 years, you have been sent away to Babylon, you are punished because of your rebellion in the land. So you will be punished. You were sent away for 70 years into a land you do not know among a people who you do not understand. But then he had always promised in 70 years, I will bring you back. And so Daniel sees this, he understands, says 70 years, that's coming to an end. So again, does he kick back? Does he sit back and say, hey, it's all sorted. God, God, it's all in His plan. I don't need to worry about anything. No. As soon as he realized the will of God that was going to come to pass, he prayed about it. He turned to God. He immediately gone to fast and pray intensely for that very thing to happen. Why? Because you see, he knew that even though, why were they taken into the exile? Why were they punished? Because their hearts were so hard. Because the reality is their lives did not live in accordance with the will of God. They were running away from it. So he punished and said, you need to be disciplined. You need to understand that your lives must be in accordance with my will. And so he asked God, make it so that I would live according to your will and Lord make it that the people would too. And so when we pray according to the will of God, when we pray the things that he has revealed to us in scripture, we are asking this, God make you the things you love. Make them what I love. God, make the things that give you tears, give me tears. Lord, make the things that you hate, make me hate. But see our life will not be conformed to His will unless we pray about it. Our life is meant to look like the Bible. And so we need to pray about it. And so then we come now to the third point, because this is what we must wrestle with. What does it mean to wrestle with God in prayer? We come now to the story of Esau and Jacob that we just read, that Alex read for us. We understand, right? that part of prayer is living in relationship with God. That is what I talked about. We invite Him into all our requests, into everything, because we know without Him, what's the point? And better yet, as a Christian, I'm seeking to live my life in accordance with what He's revealed to me in His Word. but now I must wrestle because it's not as simple as I'm just going to pray, Lord, please stop, please just make me no longer a prideful person. Wow, it's actually gone. Wow, that worked. No, it didn't. I'm still a prideful person because here is the point where we must wrestle because you see the name Israel. So Jacob, the son of Isaac was originally named Jacob, which meant deceiver. But then as he wrestled with God after this story here, he was renamed Israel, which means to wrestle with God. So Jacob was returning home. He had cheated his brother out of both his birthright and his inheritance, right? Everything he had taken from him, everything that was rightfully his as the firstborn, he had taken. And now he faced an army of 400 men that were coming with Esau. And he realized, God, what am I gonna do? I cannot deceive my way out of this one. And so he prays, he must... grapple with these two things, Genesis 32, 11 and 12. Please, he says, deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mother, the mothers with the children. But you said, I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. Jacob's mind was trapped between a rock and a hard place. He says, is a very real threat against me. I have taken everything from my brother, everything that was rightfully his, I cheated him out of it. And now, but you have said, you will make my offspring many. So either they will all die or you will deliver me. And so he is dealing with these two things. And so out of fear, he sends waves of gifts ahead. He still has a scheme for how to get out of it. He's going to placate his brother, send things ahead. And what does he do? Well, I'm going to send all my servants first, then the children, then the mothers, and then I'm going to sit right at the very back. Wow, a truly godly husband right there, isn't he? Wow. But of course then in that moment, he's alone. He is taken by this mysterious figure wrestled with and Jacob, realizing it is God, refuses to let go until he will bless him. That is when his name is changed from deceiver to Israel, the one who wrestles with God and God strikes his hip and leaves him with a permanent limp. So what are we to learn from this? We need to understand, obviously, I have to ask, have any of you ever wrestled a mysterious figure on the brink of a river? Anyone? I just wondered them, if there's someone was that would be really interesting. Most of us don't do that nowadays. That's not a part of our Christian life, wrestling weird guys in the mud on a brink of a river, right? But what we do do is experience that same wrestle in prayer. Because you see, there are two wills, ours and God. And you see, have you guys, particularly when you're ever in school or just, you know, bored and you had some magnets with you and they had opposing sides and you would flip the two ones that were magnetic, you like you'd have positive and positive and you would try to put them together. What happens? They repel each other, right? They won't go. But what happens if you push hard enough, particularly when you're getting annoyed and you're like, this is really fun, then one would flip around and then it would connect, right? And that was really annoying, but that is actually what it is like. for our two wills with God and us. For a time, it feels like we battle with God in prayer. Think about Jacob in this moment. He's sitting there in fear saying, God, like my brother's coming and he's gonna kill me. It will be the end of me. And so his brain is saying, run away, come up with some scheme, do something. You've got it in yourself, just find some way out of this. But then he's also saying, I wanna put this on God. God, you were the one who said, you were prophet. will prosper my offspring. You will make them as many as the sand on the shore." And so he wrestles with, will I trust myself or will I trust God? And at the time they seem like they cannot come together. Either he must trust in himself, must trust in God. But as he pushes through, they continue to repel each other. He wrestles, but then he gets to a point where they come together. Now of course, this coming together doesn't mean your will becomes God's will. What happens is your will finally submits to the truth of God and you actually find peace. You stop wrestling and saying, I need to do something, I need to do something, I need to do something. And you realize God's got it. You see, Jacob's wrestling didn't conquer God. He won by submitting to Him. You see this perfectly demonstrated in the life of Jesus. What was He doing in the garden? In the garden of Gethsemane, right before His death, He's sitting there and He's saying, God, please let this cup pass for me, the cup of God's wrath that He had to drink in order to take the punishment for our sin. He's saying, God, please don't make me drink that. Please, if there's another way, let it pass me. Now, that's, you actually see, you get an insight here into the life of Jesus. He wasn't just going along at every moment, just saying, oh God, this is easy. What are these guys whinging about, you know, not being able to keep the law? It's actually quite easy. No, every day he had to walk through every kind of temptation, sitting there saying, God, no, help me, help me, help me. You see right here, he is now struggling with God in prayer with the hardest thing he will have to go through. will have to take on the sin of the world. And so, he asked God, take it from me. And he wrestles with God. But then what happens? He submits His will to God. Not my will, but your will be done. So, you see, the goal of wrestling isn't to bend our plan to God's, but is to bend our plan to His, to bend our hearts in a submission into that which He has called us to. And so you see the goal of wrestling is submission. And then a second thing, expect that when you go through these times, when you have to wrestle with God, that you're going through circumstances, going through things that you don't understand, God will make you feel weak. Just think about the end result of Jacob's wrestle with God. Did he go out and say, wow, I actually got an extra inch on these biceps? No, he came up with a limp. He came out weaker than when he started. He's going to face his brother now, not strengthened in his body, but actually weakened. And so we understand that as we wrestle with God, His answer is not to simply just give us peace. Often He brings difficulty, hardship. Why? Because for Him to actually teach you what do you need to learn, you actually need to be knocked down a rung or two. we keep pushing, we keep pushing, being weakened by him more and more. But you see, as he humbles us, we actually become ready to rest in the fact that he has it in his hands. So then I come to the last part. The third thing that we learn, sometimes, oh sorry, every time God gives peace, but he will not always give an answer. When Jacob finished wrestling with God? Did he find out God's plan for his future? Did he find out what was going to happen when he met Esau? No. But yet, where was he when he was going to meet his brother? As you read in the next chapter, he's at the front. He's the first one to meet his brother. What has happened? He has a limp now. He's probably tired, covered in mud. What has happened? What has changed? He knows God is with him. He has the peace of God that surpasses understanding because he has God's favor over his life and he knows it because he's wrestled with him. You see, this is often the end point of our wrestling. You will never understand everything that God does in your life. You will not understand why he brings sickness. You will not understand why not all of your family is saved. You will not understand why he's leading you through such struggle. But you can arrive at a place where you submit your will to His and you can actually find peace because you know He is a good Father and that He does not lead you through a valley of death for no good reason. So understand this, you do not need a flawless five-year plan when the Almighty God is standing beside you. He has given you this promise. You can conquer the whole world if He is beside you. And so all you need to know is this from Hebrews 13.5, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. Our daily work and prayer is not pushing God to do what He needs to do. He will always do it. Your job in prayer is to remind yourself that God is with you, that He hears you and that He will answer you. God is sovereign over everything and he must be. If we have a God who does not have a will who changes, who can so, if our God has a will that can change, be changed by other people, we have a God who is not all power. But you see, somehow in his mysterious working, his eternal will works in our prayers. He hears us, even though he knows what we will pray before we even pray it. And this is a good thing, because if he is sovereign, we can approach him with total boldness and confidence in the fact that he can actually change things. And so this won't seem like a conclusion to my message yet, but I'll conclude it when we have communion just after we pray. Father, Your grace is so good. And Father, Lord, You have promised us, Lord, that though You know the end from the beginning, that doesn't mean You're distant. That doesn't mean You've set a plan in place and You've just left us here. No, Lord, You listen. You hear. You have said that when we cry out, You hear us. then when we persevere, when we wrestle, Father, we shall find peace in You. So Lord, grant us everything we need to wrestle with You, to bring our lives in accordance to Your will. And so Father, would we be a people of Your will, bringing every part of our lives into submission to Your plan and to Your plan alone. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. I'll invite the helpers up in a sec. um and we will have communion. But I want to read from Romans 8.32. We know God will hear our every prayer, right? Just like for the prophet Elijah as he sat on Mount Carmel, he didn't have to sit there all day with 400 other people. cutting himself and singing songs to try and awaken him. He was ready there, ready to act because he always is. He holds back nothing from his children. How can we know he will hold nothing back from us? Because he has given us his son. That is what it says in the passage. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all. He gave him up for you. But you see, we do this thing when we begin to grow as Christians. where we suddenly think, God does the saving part at the start, but He only really answers my prayers if I'm kind of doing good in this whole Christian thing. No, it has not changed. It was, it might've been a year ago now that just as I read this passage, I've read a hundred times over, but yet I didn't notice this one word. He who did not spare his son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? We suddenly think when it comes to our prayer requests that we need to do something to be able to earn them. The way that you receive Jesus is the same way that you receive every request for your prayers. You don't deserve it and you never will. We don't need to work for our prayer requests. You will never ever deserve them. You do not deserve the air you breathe. But through faith in the name of Jesus, He will give you everything. And He will listen to you always. And so how do we do this? Every week, we partake in communion. We repent of our sins. And we know that God hears us. Because whenever we pray, He does not see just us. He sees His Son in us. He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus. So you don't need to work for it. You can come into the throne room, the very thing that scared the Israelites before Jesus came, because they were so scared of God's holiness. You can come boldly because you are perfect if you believe in faith that Jesus saves you.