Why Pray if God Ordains All Things?

Why does Jesus ask us to pray when God has already ordained all things? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can email us anytime at questionsatcorechristianity.com. All right, Adriel, are you ready to rock and roll and take some live calls? I am ready to rock and roll.

Yeah, people should call in. We're excited about today's broadcast. Let's go to Donnie from Roville, Indiana. Donnie, welcome to CORE Christianity. Hey, how are you? Doing well, Donnie. Thank you for calling. What's your question?

Well, thank you for taking my call. This has kind of bothered me here in a little bit. I was reading one night, and I came across the passage in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 20, where Paul tells the Corinthians, When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. We have to go back to verse 17 and 18 in the same chapter, where he's saying, Now this that I declare unto you, I praise you not that ye come together, for the better, but for the worse. Verse 18 says, For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. I know that the divisions that he's talking about in verse 18 are different than what we have going on today, but divisions are still divisions, you know what I mean?

That's right, Donnie. Yeah, what's your question here from this passage? If I can, if I can continue here for a moment, I guess my question really goes to, in verse 22, when he says, What have ye no houses to eat and drink in, or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?

Is he talking about when we leave our homes, which have food and drink, to go to a building to partake in more food and drink for a symbol? In verse 23, Paul tells us that he received of the Lord that which also he delivered unto you. My Bible has a cross-reference that goes to chapter 15, verse 3 of 1 Corinthians.

Yeah, well, so are you asking, I just want to get to your, to your question here, Donnie, but it seems to me, I mean, one thing I'll say is this. One thing we get from 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is the importance of this meal for Christians today. And it seems like the Corinthian church, I mean, obviously you read it there at the beginning there in verse 17 and following. The Corinthians were having a really hard time with this. I mean, there were divisions that were taking place among those in Corinth. People in Corinth were suing each other. There was sexual immorality.

There were all sorts of things happening there. And they're coming together to take the Lord's Supper to participate in this holy meal that Jesus himself instituted for the church for all time. And yet they're doing so in an unworthy manner. And that's what Paul is going to get at a little bit later there. Now, one thing I do want to say, and this is something that we need to get, and it sounds like you were getting to this as well when you were talking about, you know, were they in their homes, having meals, and then coming to the church. There's something unique and special about the Lord's Supper. And I think so often in the church today, Donnie, we can downplay, minimize the importance of the Lord's Supper. If you go back just a couple of chapters in 1 Corinthians 10, in verse 16, Paul said, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? When we gather together, when the church gathers together to take the Lord's Supper, we have communion, participation, it's the Greek word koinonia, with the body and blood of Jesus.

In other words, this is a place where we have intimate fellowship with the risen Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And I think that's something that's fundamental for us as Christians to understand. And so, if we're coming to the communion meal with divisions, within our hearts, not walking in repentance, there's a real problem. And that's why Paul is rebuking them there in 1 Corinthians 11, because that's what was happening.

They're coming together with these divisions, they're not coming in faith as they shouldn't. And he's going to go on to say, in verse 27, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

And let me just say one more thing, because I think this is really important for you listening right now. A lot of times, people think about communion, they just say, you know, I don't feel worthy. I don't feel worthy, I don't feel like I can take the Lord's Supper, this idea of communion with the body and blood of Jesus. On one end, you know, people, I think, minimize it and downplay it and do what the Corinthians are doing.

But I think on the other end, people can feel like, I'm just not worthy, and so I'm not going to participate in this. The Lord's Supper, communion, is for broken sinners. It's for Christians who aren't worthy, but who are coming in faith saying, Lord, I need your grace, I need your mercy. And so I just want to encourage you to, one, have a high view of this meal that Jesus instituted for his Church for all time, and to do exactly what the Apostle Paul says here.

I mean, we observe the Lord's Supper, but we do it in a particular way in faith, believing. And when there are issues, we set those aside, we repent of those things, and we come to the table knowing that we need the grace of God. Donnie, thank you for that question, for getting us into this really important passage here at the beginning of the program. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open right now, and we would love to talk to you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, pick up your phone and call us at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Zagrou from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Hi, Zagrou.

Welcome to Core Christianity. Good afternoon, sir. How are you today?

We're doing well. Thank you for calling. What's your question? My question was, is it possible for a Christian not to have a desire for God's word or a desire for fellowship with other believers? Is it possible for that person to actually be a true born-again Christian and not have those desires?

A really good question. You know, I've just been preaching through 1 John, and throughout that letter in 1 John, John talks about all of these sort of signs that an individual has been born again. The born-again person believes. And one of the things that John highlights there throughout his letter is the importance of love, in particular, love for the body of Christ, that is the people of God. We know we've been born again when we love the brothers, John says there in 1 John. The fact of the matter is, though I think each of us can say, we struggle with love. I mean, it's not easy to love, especially when God calls us to love people who are difficult to love. I mean, you think of what Jesus himself said, not just to love our friends, the people that we enjoy loving, but to love even our enemies. And so we have to be really careful when we're sort of looking within to try to determine whether or not, you know, am I really born again?

Do I have enough fruit? Do I do enough good things in order to prove to myself that I'm saved? And yet at the same time, brother, I think it is clear that when a person has an encounter with the grace of God, when we are born of the Spirit, as Jesus talked about in John chapter 3, that there is this fundamental change that happens in an individual, and that we begin to desire to long for God himself, for his word, and for fellowship with other believers.

Now, that'll never be perfect in us because we still have sin, but I think it is. It really is a sign of the fact that God has worked in an individual, the Spirit of God is at work in our lives, when we want to have fellowship with other Christians, and when we hunger and thirst for the word of God. This was my experience, and I know everybody's experience is a little bit different, but I remember years ago, before I would even have called myself a Christian, I was hearing the gospel, I was learning these things, and finally one night after just thinking about the word of God and being convicted of my sin, I remember praying to the Lord and saying, God, I know that I need your grace, but I really don't want to go to church. The idea of fellowship with other believers and going to church on a Sunday morning just seemed so boring to me, and I remember just crying out to the Lord and saying, God, help. And all of a sudden, the strangest thing happened. I mean, God answered that prayer, and I remember waking up the next morning and actually desiring to go to church.

That was actually the first time I think I ever had that desire in my life. I think that was really the grace of the Holy Spirit in my life. And so I would say, yes, brother, that is a sign that God is at work in us, but we want to be careful that when we struggle with that, because there are times even for genuine believers where it's hard for us to get into the word and even fellowship is difficult, I think when that's the case, we shouldn't just jump to the conclusion that, well, I must not really be a child of God then. No, we go back to the promise of the gospel, what God has said, and we rest in that, and we pursue love for the Lord, love for his word, and love for the body of Christ.

Thanks for your question, brother. You know, we've talked to a lot of people who ask similar questions about faith and feelings, and should we base our relationship with Christ on how we feel at a particular time? And I know you've stressed very clearly that, no, that's not what our faith is based on. Yeah, no, our faith is not based on our feelings. Too often today when people just think about spirituality and religion, it's sort of confused with feeling, right? I feel this, so it must be true. I don't feel anything here, so it must not be true. The Spirit of God must not be working there.

And that's just never what we're called to look to when we're trying to determine whether or not something is real. Don't trust in your feelings. Trust in the word of Jesus. Trust in what God has said. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and we are offering a very special resource this week.

It's one that Adriel has produced himself. It's called Seeing Jesus. You want to tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, and we've been talking about this resource now for a few days.

Hopefully you're not getting tired about hearing about it, but we really are excited about it. We know that people today, there's just this huge need for us to rightly understand who Jesus is. This is a devotional resource. It's going to be something that I think will lead you into a deeper love for Jesus. That's what it's all about.

It's not about just the mental exercise where we're growing in our knowledge. Growing in knowledge is really important, but we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is so that we might love him and serve him. I think that this resource, Seeing Jesus, will help you do that, and it's free for you. You can get a hold of it, Bill, and you have the information on how to do that, right? All you have to do is sign up to get a free copy by going to our website and a special URL, corechristianity.com forward slash Jesus. Just corechristianity.com forward slash Jesus.

You can also call us at 833-843-2673 for help getting any one of our offers. That's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Amanda, who's calling in from Nashville, Tennessee. Amanda, welcome to CORE Christianity. Hi. It's so nice to speak with you, Adriel. Amanda, thank you for calling. We spent some time in Nashville last year a little bit, and it was really delightful. I was there actually with Bill, and so good to hear from you.

Great city. What's your question? Yeah, okay, so we have this interim pastor who does this every single Sunday morning without fail where he will do a men's prayer, and all the men come up to the altar, and he says that the women are just to pray for the men, and the reason that he does this is because men have more responsibility, and then he kind of turns his back and whispers to the men this prayer. And I know that the scriptures that he's referring to, I believe, have to do in the context of a marriage. Not everyone there is married, and I was just wondering, is this biblical?

What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, well, I mean, I could see how it might sort of come off as this is just kind of the special time for the guys in the middle of the worship service. Is this happening during the worship service you were saying? Yes, at the beginning of the regular worship service.

Okay. Yeah, well, I'm not very familiar with your church tradition and kind of how they order the worship service. I know that there are some traditions that, in terms of the individual leading the service, they focus on having the pastor do it, or one of the elders in the church, or some other man in that way. But the reality is all of us, as members of the body of Christ, are called to prayer and to worship. In 1 Corinthians 14, you have men and women praying in the context of the worship service.

And so one thing that I think we have to be careful with is that we're not discouraging that, and certainly also not making people feel like, you know, this is just not for me. I mean, actually, it's sort of interesting, we sometimes throw around the word liturgy to describe what's happening during the worship service, and that word simply means the work of the people. Through what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us, Amanda, we are a priesthood of believers. All of us are called to worship the Lord, to draw near to the Lord. Now, in the context of the worship service, we have different things that we do. Not everybody is getting up there and preaching the Word of God, but all of us ought to be participating. And so, like I said, I'm not entirely sure why it is that this interim pastor has gone this way, and I want to be careful not to make any judgments because I just don't know the situation, the context, what he's trying to accomplish. But I do know that we should all be encouraged to pray, to worship, to hear the Word of God, and to participate in the worship service.

And that's, I think, as far as I can go with that. Does he encourage prayer for the women later in the context of the service? No, it's just all the men come to the front and we pray, or they pray together, and we just kind of... Well, one thing, and I'll just say this as a pastor, one encouragement that I would have for you is maybe approach this interim pastor and just say, hey, I'm kind of confused about this, can you explain it a little bit more? I'm trying to understand why it is that we're doing this and where it sort of fits in the context of the teaching of Scripture. I think that that could be helpful. I think it's important for us when we have those kinds of questions. I appreciate it when members of my church do this with me.

When they approach me, they say, hey, can you help me understand this a little bit more? Maybe there's something there, and that could be a fruitful discussion. And so may the Lord bless you. Thank you so much for calling, Amanda, and I just hope that you continue to worship the Lord and draw near to Him. Interesting question. Haven't heard that one before. Haven't heard about a pastor doing that before.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I really appreciate that question, Bill, and it is an interesting one. It's so important for us to think through why we do what we do in worship. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and let's go to a voicemail we received from a listener named Sandra.

Sandra, and I'm calling from Brooklyn, New York. I have a question, and the question is, Mark 22-24. It says that if you believe and pray for whatever it is that we're praying for, it will happen. If it is the will of God, then it will happen, and if it's not, it will not happen. So then why pray and believe that it will happen if it's not going to happen anyways? That's an excellent question, and, you know, so why pray if God has already ordained everything that's going to take place? We know that God is sovereign. We know that God's sovereign will is always accomplished.

What he has decreed from eternity past, Paul talks about this in Ephesians 1 verses 4-11, in particular in verse 11 there, where Paul talked about God causing all things to work together according to the counsel of his will. And if that's the case, why pray? Well, prayer is not the way in which we change God's mind. Sometimes I think we think like this, you know, the more I pray, I'm sort of bending God's will to my will.

Actually, it's the opposite. Prayer is how we align ourselves with the purposes and will of God in the world. And this is a great mystery, but it really is so beautiful. God has decreed that the way in which he's going to accomplish his purposes in the world is through the prayers of his people. God uses his people to accomplish his will. And so we pray and we have confidence when we pray. And John says this in 1 John 5 verses 14 and 15, that when we pray anything according to the will of God, he hears us and he answers our prayers.

And so I think this is really important for us. It gives us confidence when we pray, knowing that when we pray according to the will of the Lord, he answers us. Now, there are times, instances where we don't know whether or not something is God's will. And even in those situations, we're encouraged to pray, to trust in the Lord, to seek him, to seek him persistently, to be like that persistent widow that Jesus talked about in Luke chapter 18. But I think it's just recognizing that God accomplishes his sovereign will through the prayers of his people. And what a beautiful thing that is that God has invited us to be a part of this, if you will.

He uses you and he uses your prayers. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Bill, who's calling in from southern Illinois. Hi, Bill, how are you?

I'm doing well today. I've read the Bible, I don't know how many times, I'm still confused about holiness and righteousness. So I'd like to get a fair definition of what is holy and what is righteous. How do they manifest in our lives? Can I be kind of holy or kind of righteous, or is it that I either am or am not?

Man, so many, I think, good questions there, Bill. Yeah, two different words, the word holy and the word righteous. The word holy oftentimes in the Old Testament was related first to God, right? God is holy. You think of the angels around his throne, holy, holy, holiest, the Lord of hosts, Isaiah chapter 6. But also related to the worship of God.

You think of the tabernacle in the temple, the holy instruments there of the temple. It's really closely related to Israel's worship. The covenant people were referred to as God's holy people. In the New Testament, you think about in 1 Corinthians, you know, the church, the Christians there, despite the fact that they are struggling with sin, we were talking about that earlier on the program, they're described as holy, as those who have been sanctified in Jesus Christ. Oftentimes when you see the word holy and the word sanctify or sanctified in the New Testament, it's the same word that's being used in the Greek language. The Hebrews, you know, in the book of Hebrews, the author of the Hebrews refers to the Christians to whom he's writing as holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling. And so in one sense, I think we can say, positionally, as believers, through our union with Jesus Christ by faith, we are holy. That's why so often in the New Testament, Christians are referred to as saints. Again, it's the same word there, the word holy as holy ones.

We're holy by virtue of the fact that we belong to and are connected to Jesus Christ, the Holy One. And the word righteous, it's oftentimes associated with the word just in the New Testament. It's more of a sort of legal term, the doctrine of justification that Paul teases out in places like the book of Romans and the book of Galatians. That oftentimes deals with this idea of righteousness and there too, we are as Christians, by faith in Jesus Christ, justified. And so look, Bill, as a Christian, you are holy because you belong to the Holy One, Jesus Christ, you're united to him by faith, and you are righteous, justified, because God has forgiven you all your sins by faith in Jesus, his son, and he has credited to you the righteousness of his son, Jesus Christ. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 4 verse 5, And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, that is, counts as righteous the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Now, to the other part of your question there, Bill, well, how then can we still struggle with sin? I mean, if we're holy and we're righteous, you know, it doesn't sort of make sense. Luther, the Protestant reformer, he talked about how we're simultaneously at the same time just and sinful. And so, positionally, in Jesus Christ, you are holy, you are justified, and yet, so often, like the Corinthians, who were referred to as holy ones, we wrestle with sin.

We struggle. We struggle to live in light of our new identity, what God has done for us in Jesus. And that's going to be a battle that we experience for the rest of our lives as believers, but we can be confident that through the work of Christ, that battle, our struggle, doesn't keep us from belonging to the Lord or cause us to fall out of God's good graces, because Jesus has already declared us righteous and we are holy through our faith in him. And now, as followers of Christ, we get to live in light of that new identity, Bill. And it's so important, isn't it, Adriel, that we don't get discouraged when we do mess up, that we fall back on that incredible promise that we have, that we are sealed, and that we don't need to stress. Obviously, we want to repent of sin, but if we get discouraged to the point of we feel like God has abandoned us, that's not the truth.

Yeah, no, it's not the truth. And I think about what Paul says, again, thinking through that doctrine of justification in Romans chapter 5. He begins by talking about how since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You and I, right now, by faith in Jesus, can have peace with the holy God, not because we're perfect, but because the perfect one, Jesus Christ, died to atone for each and every one of our sins. As we explore the truth of God's Word together.