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Why Pray If God Knows Everything and Has Planned Everything?

Here is a very fine sermon by Joe Rigney, Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Worldview at Bethlehem College and Seminary, preached last weekend at Bethlehem Baptist Church:

[audio:http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/files/2012/02/Rigney_SundayNight.mp3|titles=Rigney_SundayNight]

Here are the three questions he answers in this sermon:

  1. First, what does the Bible say about the sovereignty of God, and the significance and power of prayer? This is the biblical question.
  2. Second, how does what the Bible teach about these things fit together? This is the philosophical question.
  3. Third, why does God do things in this way? This is the theological question.

Here’s a fuller outline of the message

I. Biblical: What Does the Bible Teach?

Point 1: Scripture teaches that God knows and ordains everything that comes to pass.

Point 2: Prayer moves the hand of God.

Principle: The Christian life is like being drawn and quartered.

II. Philosophical: How do these two biblical truths (the sovereignty of God and the significance of prayer) fit together?

Answer: God ordains means as well as the ends

Principle: God is a Storyteller. This world is his novel. We are his characters.

III. Theological: Why would God do it this way?

Answer: For His Glory

Principle: God glorifies himself by inviting us to participate in his own trinitarian fullness, by extending his own glory so that the triune life comes to exist in creaturely form.

IV. Application

Application 1: God is sovereign. Prayer moves the hand of God. The Christian life is like being drawn and quartered. Therefore, don’t allow the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions to prevent immediate, glad-hearted obedience.

Application 2: God ordains means as well as ends. God is the Author. This is his story. We are his characters. Therefore, Be a faithful character in God’s story.

Application 3: God glorifies himself by inviting us to participate in his own triune fullness. Therefore, join God in knowing, loving, and rejoicing in his own fullness and extending that fullness as far as the eye can see.

HT: @andreafroehlich

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