An unshakable faith in God’s sovereignty should be a source of comfort. As Psalm 115:3 reminds us, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” That means everything, from the tiniest atom to the vast expanse of the universe, is under his control. So Paul in Romans 11:33-36 beautifully concludes, “…from him and through him and to him are all things.” It is why God deserves all the glory (Romans 11:36).
The assurance that all things work for good for those who are God’s children (Romans 8:28) is rooted in the fact that God sustains the universe by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3). We place our trust in him because of nothing else. Moreover, we know that God can use even what is evil to bring about his good purposes (Genesis 50:20) because he orchestrates all things according to his will (Ephesians 1:11).
How do we know this to be true? God proved it through the life, death and resurrection of his Son. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter tells the listening crowd that everything Jesus suffered was not an accident that God managed to reorient. Instead, God ordained it all to bring about the greatest triumph in history: the salvation of sinners (Acts 2:22-36).
Praise God that this is all true! But then it all begs the question, “Why pray if God is sovereign? Doesn’t he already know our thoughts” (Psalm 94:11)? My hope in writing is to show you that praying to a sovereign God is not pointless, but is, in fact, something we should take great delight in. Why?
Because God Commands Us
First and foremost, we pray because God, through his word, commands us to pray. When Paul told the Philippians to make their needs known to God in Philippians 4:6, he wasn’t merely suggesting that they do so. Instead, he was commanding them to do so without anxiety. He also told the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Paul wasn’t requesting that they do so but was giving them a divine instruction they were compelled to follow.
Ephesians 6:17-18 makes the point above even clearer. There, Paul argues that the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, works in tandem with prayer. God’s word has to be rooted in prayer, while at the same time, prayer has to be rooted in God’s word. If anything, you could argue that the Sword of the Spirit includes both God’s word and prayer, as knowledge of God’s word without prayer is as ineffective as praying without being grounded in God’s word (Mark 9:29; Psalm 119:48, 78, 97; John 15:7). Consider the apostles’ rationale for selecting deacons. It was so that they could “devote [themselves] to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). From them, we learn just how inseparable the two disciplines are.
Their devotion to prayer was also built on Christ’s command. He commanded them to make their needs known to him (John 15:7). Needs which (indulge me as I flog a dead horse this once) they were to make known because they were rooted in God’s word: Christ says we are to make our needs known by abiding in him and his words.
Because Prayer Shows our Confident Dependence on God
We pray to a sovereign God to demonstrate that we trust him rather than lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). We pray so that we might not be anxious about anything (Philippians 4:6). Most importantly; we confidently approach God’s throne of grace to gain grace and mercy in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). The point is this: He is God, we are not. We can confidently approach his throne because we know he is sovereign. We reject our frail understanding and lean instead on the One who upholds the universe by simply speaking. We decide to make our needs known to him because he is the same God who cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air (Matthew 6:25-34).
In short, if God isn’t sovereign, we have no reason to trust, depend on, or come to him confidently. And yet, when we trust and acknowledge him, he makes our paths straight. If he cares for such insignificant things as lilies and makes them more beautiful than Solomon’s coat, how much more us?
God was sovereign over all of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Thereon is our confidence that our afflictions are momentary and will produce a weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17-18), which is to say our labour shall not be in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). We cannot possibly grow weary or fainthearted because, like Christ, we have a joy set before us (Hebrews 12:2-3), so we rest on God’s will no matter what (Matthew 26:39).
Because Prayer Brings about the Glory of God, Our Good, and Our Assurance
Prayer is more than merely a means of expressing our needs.
For His Glory
It is also a means to glorify God, who is sovereign. An earlier article, How To Pray, noted that our first petition to God is that his name may be glorified all over the earth. As argued by R C Sproul, prayer isn’t one-dimensional but multi-dimensional. Nothing highlights this more than that making our needs known to God forms only one sentence in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). Everything else before and after it is tethered to how we view God.
Thus, before they become about our needs, our prayers should be about asking that God be glorified. Then, after making our needs known, we should seek God’s pardon for where we might have failed to fulfil man’s chief end, which is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. The command in 1 Corinthians 10:31 is that all our undertakings should be for God’s glory. That includes our prayers. If God is sovereign, it gives us a more significant reason to pray, as that helps us express our adoration of him. Quoting Sproul again, “If God knows what I’m going to say before I say it, his knowledge, rather than limiting my prayer, enhances the beauty of my praise.”
For Our Good
God’s sovereignty is the solid ground whereon grows the confidence that all things work for our good (Romans 8:28). We rest because “those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son….. And those he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30).
Since all this is true, our natural response should be to seek communication with God, as we understand that all things are by his hand. It is the same way that when someone gives you a gift, your natural response will be to seek them out to thank them.
For Our Assurance
Finally, praying in response to God’s sovereignty assures us that we know God and that he also knows us. In praying, we bring all our life under his care. And as we do, we soon find greater joy in our names written in the Lamb’s book of life than in any of his gifts (Luke 10:17-20). If we pray right, it will result in our being assured that we belong to God.
So pray, for the Lord your God is sovereign! And in case you didn’t fully affirm God’s sovereignty, please consider the dangers implicitly pointed out here of praying to a God one doesn’t believe is sovereign. Why would we believe in his promises if anything in the universe is outside God’s control? However, since God is the beginning and the end of all things, we have no reason not to come to him for grace and mercy.
