Sermon Title: You don’t always get what you want. Part I
Scripture: Luke 11:9-10
We are working through a four-stage progression of learning how to communicate and be with God:
Talking to God
Talking with God
Listening to God
And being with God
Pete Grieg offers 3 categories by which we can place our unanswered prayers:
God’s world
God’s will
God’s war
I. God’s World
Common Sense
Contradictions
The laws of nature
Life is tough.
- Doctrine.
II. God’s Will.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” means we can assume 2 things:
Heaven is the place where God’s will is done all of the time.
Earth is the place where God’s will is done some of the time. And prayer is how we live in that tension.
There are at least 4 wills at play:
God’s will
Our will
Spiritual beings
Creation/nature
How much do you think God overrides (or should override) the will of others?
Free will
No matter what you believe about God, his kingdom is not a dictatorship.
“Lodged in the reality of human free will we recognize terrible danger but also the highest potential in the universe. I believe it is this potential that is unlocked in prayer. When Jesus promised miracles to those who pray in accordance with the will of God he was not so much laying down a condition as making an observation. When a human being by the power of god’s grace expresses a desire not rooted in his or her own selfishness (my will) but rather in god’s plan for creation (thy will) such a posture reverses the bias of the fall in that individuals own life and reestablishes a little piece of eden on earth. However, the very power of human choice that can release the purposes of God can also be used to resist God’s will.” God on Mute - Pete Grieg
Additional Notes:
Luke 11:9-10
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.