Does Prayer Change the Mind of God?

Today on Summit life with Jeannie Greer. God has sovereignly placed you in certain situations precisely for the purpose of praying his promises and changing his plans for you to employ divine power to create a different destiny than the one that everybody's headed to God sovereignly put you there. What you see the problem for you to ask. He wanted you to be there. That's why you there. As always, I'm your host Molly minutes okay so have you ever heard the saying prayer doesn't change God.

Prayer changes me know I have that is that really what Scripture teaches us pastor Jimmy is going to tackle this sentiment had on today in a message he's very practically titled this prayer change the mind of God, you just might be surprised at what he has to say. Don't forget you can reach out to us@jeanniegreer.com or give us a call it 866-34-TRUTH 552 20 anytime, but for now let's grab our Bibles and open our hearts to what God has in store for us today your Bible take it out and opened it to Exodus 2, Exodus 32 where in our third week of a series on prayer we call that series. Ask MA comes from the idea of the observation that you can summarize all of Jesus's teaching on prayer simply with the word ask, just ask is what he taught us today.

I want us to consider a mystery in prayer, one that I know troublesome of you, and will even keep you from praying sometimes on board.

I like to ponder life's greatest mysteries things that really stretch my mind and blow my mind. I gotta think about them too much. Like for example the word bed you know it actually spelled that looks like a bed and nothing while is a day that was somebody intended that that's genius I just blows my mind how or when I learned in the eighth grade that Yoda and Miss Piggy were voice for the same guy again. I just messed up my entire world. When I found that out everything came crashing down to the thought that I had the other day that when I'm in a restaurant waiting on my waiter to bring the food that I'm the real waiter and again everything just cannot mind blown middle school, middle school and somebody pointed out to me that if a ghost was trying to kill me.

He was really just trying to make me his best friend criminologist also to be better than I wouldn't scared anymore because I just wanted friends. That's life. He was taunting me about this one I'm reading is essentially staring at dead trees and hallucinating.

That's right every things coming unraveled for you now admit to something I want to say. By the way I'm in impressive people turn the subtitles on on TV when I watch TV so I can you read what's been said and was somebody asking the next day what I did the night before I say I read for a couple hours to just sound like I'm a lot more brilliant right so dry that, here's the last one.

There are no children left on earth who were born in the 20th century. Everybody who was born the 20th century, is now officially an adult mind blowing and depressing well today subject, his mother's things that will really blow your mind anything about it too much, maybe not as much as the bed one, but if you think about this one too much is the question of what role our prayers have been changing God's plans.

In other words, do our prayers actually convince God to do something that God was not otherwise planning to do because as I want to show you in a minute. There are scriptures that clearly indicate that God's purposes are eternal, that God knows the end from the beginning that nothing ever surprises him.

It never dawned on you that nothing ever dawns on God and because of that God's plans are unchangeable and they are unstoppable. What is that, therefore, mean that prayer is really more for Austin. It's a way of changing us.

Maybe you seen the plaque of a gets eaten by one of the Christian bookstore to get you little in a like picture sunset on and it says something like prayer doesn't change the situation. It changes me a minute to sound so spiritual I get changes me. But is that really what's happening to our prayers actually change the future or do they just change us, so I want to do what I want to do in this third week in our series on prayers.

I want to explore a story that I think answers that question currently shows us how to think about that question.

It is an amazing story, though I warn you, it will hurt your mind a little bit if you try to understand all that is going on as we walk through this story. I didn't want to have to get through it. I want to use the central truth, that we find in it Ruzicka slightly right turn and I want to use that to answer another question that I know we deal with and that is this persistent plaguing question of what about on answered prayer. Now you might say but JD we talked about that in the first week and you told us that Jesus's answer to the question of unanswered prayer was to pray persistently and trustingly. Yes, yes. But even with that answer. I know that many of us still struggle with why some prayers never seem to get answer you pretty just made so much sense to you.

It seemed like any loving God would answer that and you can't figure out why God didn't answer a certain prayer that you pray and you like.

I don't think the answer is to pray persistently. For example, maybe you pray for somebody to be healed and he died. I knew I wouldn't make much sense to keep praying persistently on about that.

Or maybe you pray for somebody to come to faith and as far as you know, they never accepted Christ before they died. Or maybe or maybe you're 60 years old and you prayed for 40 years that you would get married and then now you're in your 60s you like even of God answered that prayer now. It's not like I can go back to when I was 20 and live these last 40 years over again about this when maybe you got some inward struggle or some addiction and you ask God to deliver you from that struggle, or that addiction. But God hasn't and you honestly cannot figure out why you like Shirley. That is something that God would want to do. For example, a friend of mine says it, whenever you see a team in church with a same-sex attraction. The first thing that you are dealing with is an on answered prayer because most teens who had the struggle have prayed, pleaded for God to take it away, and often just as troubling for them is the attraction itself is why God has not answered their prayer and some of Bart Herman's works bar government is a famous skeptic Prof. over you and see in some of his works he talks about how when he was in college and he still believed in God that he was starting to experience all these doubts of the pray pleaded for God to take away his doubts and he couldn't figure out if God was really real. Why God didn't take away his doubts and he said that made me conclude that God was not really there. After all, for many, this issue of seemingly on answered prayer is why you walked away from church altogether is why you lost faith in God brothers of you.

Maybe it hasn't done that but it's at least dampen your competence and your enthusiasm for prayer. What were going to get into today is going to give you.

I believe a framework for approaching that question first wishes, Walter the story and I'll take it where I think we ought to go with it. Okay Exodus 32 does God change his mind and Exodus 32 Moses is up on Mount Sinai with God. Moses is going up into the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments God had actually point of fact, here invited all of Israel to go up in the mountain with Moses but Israel was scared.

They didn't really trust God and they said no Moses.

We do want to go there and be with God you go by yourself as our representative will Moses ends up being gone a little longer than he had expected. And so everybody just freaks out thinking that God and Moses have now abandoned them. Now mind you this was a totally insane freak out because why would they think that God had brought them all the way up to this mountain, just to forget about them. There I mean, you remember what happened to them in the last month we meet over there last month for you. Here's what it looked like the last few weeks leading up to this moment God had just delivered them miraculously from the most powerful empire at the time, to a series of 10 supernatural plagues and then just as a finishing touch has their leaving on the way out all the rich Egyptians take off their jewelry and give it to them as a going away present for no real reason at all.

It was a so that they can leave and go to the promised land. With some bleeding, then God leads Israel to the desert to a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day that he splits the Red Sea open in front of them so they can walk through on dry ground in the when the Egyptian army tries to chase them. He close it back on top of them, so they have no more enemies then God miraculously supplies them in the desert with food and meet every single day and just for an extra touch of awesomeness. He keeps their shoes from showing any signs of wear during their several mile journey to Mount Sinai and now they think God has abandoned them, you can't. You feel God up in heavens, shaking his said saying what is wrong with you people, you really feel like after all that I brought you here to leave you. We do the same thing, of course, which I'll explain at the end but the point is, here's Israel blind, ungrateful and unbelieving and they say we need a new God because our other dogs left us so they take all their jewelry that the Egyptians had given them and they melt it down and they create a new God, a golden calf and they put it in the middle of the camp and they they sorta were supplanted to get Cronk. You may have an all-night orgy around it. This is Exodus 32 Not Franklin St. or Hillsboro Street it's Exodus 32 Exodus 32 verse seven the Lord says to Moses, go down Moses for poor people, but whose people are they whose I thought they were God's honey, this is like one parent seem to be a look what your son is doing right now right for your people who you brought up out of the land of the season who brought them up.

I thought, God brought them out got you brought them up my keyboard.

You've corrupted themselves. Let me along to my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them. I wipe them off the face of the earth, and then all started with you, Moses, give you a great nation.

Moses implored the Lord his God.

He prayed, he settled Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against these people your people who brought them up. You brought about by the way is he rebuking God and he's just corrected God twice in one sentence, people are your people and you brought about not me. I lady with a great power with a mighty hand by now. Why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent. Did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains God turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Verse 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants, remember God number them of those guys you will get all the work and a life member that you swore by your own self and you said in them.

I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and all this land I promised I'll give your offspring and it would hurt it forever.don't remember you said that you forgotten God this is your promise, not my Lord relent to the most amazing person back in the book of Exodus and the Lord relented some your translations.

They repented what it literally means in Hebrews changed his mind and the Lord repented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. What in the world is going on Moses prayer convinces God to change his mind by reminding God of something that he evidently had forgotten that he rebukes God in a sense by saying hey you're actually your people not not was God. Just having an off day big I forgot it was quiet on the morning what was going on. Moses really change God's mind what it says. Listening is that it might is true that we usually blame our lack of prayer under lack of discipline and that we try to fix it by making resolution, but really it's a discipline problem theology problem. Deep down we really don't feel like prayer makes a difference.

And even more, we don't realize the love that God has for us, and therefore his desire to answer so this month we are offering a bundle of resources to help me praying regularly little easier.

It's three bucks each. Called five things to praying they will cover how to pray for your city and community for your kids and for your parents and the more that we can embrace God's heart for the most important relationships. The more we cannot only grow closer to those we lead that we can praise him for how he at work in their life. This resource comes with your generous gift to the ministry right now to give us a call and thanks thanks 335-5220 or checkout@ginnygreer.com. Now let's get right back to today's teaching pastor Gina is even more confusing. Moses the same author who recorded the story was to say in the next book that he wrote or what books you read this book of Numbers number 2319 God is not a man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. By the way in Hebrews same word the same word relented a repented.

So in one place. In Exodus Moses that God change his mind and numbers Moses is and I got on the menu never changes his mind to what how what you do with that. I may give you three truths that you're supposed to hold in tension medial warning for you that are engineer types or accountant types.

There is something in the Bible that will perpetually annoy you okay and it is that because God is here, and even the smart of us. Our minds are like, way, way, way down there. There's a lot of things that you and I will never be able to your mind around and instead of being contradictions we have to resolve their tensions that we have to choose we have to hold in tension. This is one of this severe try to work this out on the mat. She did not be able to carry the one have no remainder. You're not going to be able to do it, but what you can see here are three truths are clearly taught in the story that you and I are supposed to hold intention.

Truth number one for God's purposes are unchanging.

All verses like Numbers 2319 are crystal clear. God is not a man. God never learned anything new.

God is not wise it would experience nothing surprises him and nothing changes his mind.

Isaiah the prophet will concur with this. He says in Isaiah 46 I'm God there's nobody like me.

I declare the end from the beginning say my counsel will always stand and I will accomplish how much all of my purpose. Nothing is going to not happen that I have not purpose.

The apostle Paul is going to agree. In the New Testament. In Christ we have been predestined according to the purpose of him who works what all things according to the counsel of his will. So there you have it.

Moses, Isaiah and Paul, I would argue to you are the three most significant Bible writers just in terms of the amount that they contribute to the Bible and all three of them are saying exactly the same thing.

So it is very clear that God's purposes are unchanging but truth number two you get a hold intention is number two God's plans are unfolding into the story says that God change his course of action based on Moses's prayer.

Here's the irony of the story, God was the one who told Moses to go down to see the situation in verse seven knows that have any idea what's going on God, the one season. He's like a Moses go down for your people have corrupted themselves Moses that know about it. God, the one appointed out. Furthermore, the very thing that Moses uses to change God's mind is God's own promise. God, of course, had not forgotten his promise. Moses didn't really need to remind him as if God had forgotten when you put all this together. What you see, listen, is that God had placed Moses into a situation so that Moses would see the problem. Remember God's promise and then petition God to change his course of action. In other words, God wanted Moses to ask this, so he sovereignly put Moses in a place where he would see the problem and then remind God of his promise, which leads me to number three. The third result intention. Our prayers are instrumental all the text is clear. We gotta take it at face value without this prayer, God would have destroyed Israel. This prayer was instrumental in getting God to change his course of action matter for many of you, your minds are starting to spend your life avoiding and what if Moses had refused to pray with that of Matt that God would not of saved them and then without it meant that what God's will. After all, save them. What does that mean for me if I felt pray for somebody that God wants me to pray for. Does that mean that the thing that I didn't pray for what really God's will. After all, gotta just got somebody else to pray for and you thought your mind is about to explode. I told you before that these are the wrong questions that you and I are supposed to ask about the situations. Scripture never teaches us to think about the will of God.

That way it's it's it's beyond us to think this way it teaches us to think in a different way. One of the best illustrations of that is a statement that I've used with you in a number of places in different parts of the Bible. One of these days I'll come up with a better statement off on the new and but for right now I haven't found one and it just so down to earth and clear. So for those you that of her this before, I apologize, but for those you that haven't. This is like this.

I guess what the big about is a quote from a guy named AA Hodge was a 19th-century Princeton theologian. Here's what he asked this does God know the day the chill die what you think. Yes, because he appointed that day. Yes, yes, can you do anything to change that day know why you eat to live, whatever's you don't need you die you don't even die.

It would that be the day that God had appointed for you to die.

I good question. Quit asking stupid questions and just the eating is the preordained way.

The cut has appointed for living in the story goblets. I quit asking stupid questions and just pray because prayer is the preordained way that God has for executing his will on earth. God has hardwired the universe so that it runs on prayer Moses in this story does not dwell on the unchangeable purposes of God, as he does the unchanging promises of God and how they apply to the situation what you and I are supposed to take away from this story is that God has sovereignly placed you in certain situations precisely for the purpose of praying his promises and changing his plans for you to employ divine power to create a different destiny than the one that everybody's headed to God sovereignly put you there to let you see the problem for you to ask. He wanted you to be there. That's why he placed you there. I want you to let that really sink in for a minute okay before we move on God have sovereignly put you in the situation now with all the problems that you see with all the dysfunctional people that are a part of your life. He puts you there to see it and to remember his promise and release his power into the situation like Moses, he has sent you down into a family or group of friends or neighborhood. Some of you look around your family and you have thought, how did I become a part of this family. Why did God give me these people to call my friend. The reason is because he put you there is his emissary.

He wanted somebody to see the problem and wanted somebody to believe in God's willingness to help and you are his instrument like Moses, you have been sent down.

What I'm trying to tell you guys is the system is rigged. The whole system is Rick, the point you there sovereignly in that place, to perceive the problem believe the promise and releases power. You see a lot of times and people talk about the sovereignty of God.

They talk about it as if it keeps them from action. They say silly things like wealth God sovereign been what is a matter what I do because I don't do it and somebody also just do it. Scripture actually point you to be exact opposite place is realizing that God sovereignly put you in places as the instrument of his power.

That's what actually gives you the motivation to pray and the confidence to speak once I was sitting next to a lady on the plane as we were headed to Taipei. I was heading to visit a few were missionaries over there is a nexus like I did know she wasn't an issue between the David Jeremiah book saves your Mizer a popular radio preacher so I strike up a conversation with her like where you had. I knew she was headed Taipei.

But for you, what you doing and she said she said well she said and I are retired about your half two years ago. She says I made a lot of money really fast and I just I and I miss you.

I'm Ghazi. I'm trying to find myself. I just still not happy in life and I'm trying to find meaning and by the supernatural. To guess I guess you call it a search for God in Exodus 11, Taipei, and I like you know something I don't know and she said she said she left.

She denied in living.as far as I know she said I be honest with you, have had sort of a really disappointing experience of really attractive the way of life over there but really not any closer answers and when I started she said as he met the United States was my sisters got a second. We don't think she's gonna make that much longer and and I know that you and she might pass away, and were about the same age and I might pass away, and she is under so confused and then I'm not really sure I'm not really sure right now.

So what's with the David Jeremiah book. She said well is flipping of the radio stations and I came across this guy named David Jeremiah and he sounded like he knew God so I thought while by his book maybe can lead me to God's yes it will what you thought as you read it. She said on and I shall read a few pages but I'm just honest I'm confused and unaware to turn off sick God, if you're out there, or if you're up there.

Would you please reveal yourself to me as a man I don't want to be too presumptuous, but I think God has answered your prayer. We got eight hours okay and so am I pulled out my Bible and for two hours. We sat there and I was water through this moment by moment of the life of Jesus and got toward the end of that two hours in SMM honey people you thought were on this plane she's on about 250 I said probably ran out of all these people you when I got assigned to sit next to each other. I'm telling you, you have prayed for God to show himself to you and this is what God is trying to do.

Cannot anything special, but I'm just God's instrument in the moment and he wants you to belong to him and it was somewhere over the Pacific as she bowed her head and put her trust in Christ. Now I know I know what some of you cynical and skeptical people sit there saying unless that happens you could your pastor know I've been a pastor in the situation as a liability. Okay when I found out I'm a pastor. They clam up and start apologizing for the French or whatever they that for just its back. The reason that happens to me the reason it happens to me is because I have learned to live with the awareness that God is always at work around me, and he never accidentally puts me anywhere, and so when I open my mouth. I'm just open it in faith say I wonder what my heavenly father is up to and why he had me sit next to this lady on this plane. The same thing would happen to you, not with you learn a ton about the Bible or become super eloquent it would happen to you if you simply begin to live with the awareness that our sovereign God has sovereignly put you in a situation to see a problem and believe a promise and to release his power not limited to one little caveat. It's not like every time I open my mouth. But this kind of thing happens. Okay, three out of four, maybe 9/10 times. It goes nowhere, but I'm telling you, this awareness gives me such incredible confidence because I realize that now I have a sovereign father Exodus 32 who says go down and see that I'm putting you there to see it because I want to use you to release my power in the powerful truth here on Senate line teaching career if you like this teaching and want to hear more just like you can find us online dating career.com so JD were offering a bundle of three books right now called my things to pray that cover three different yet related personal topics will what you say is the best way to use this bundle of resources demo these are three books that I use and that I'm happy to come into our Summit life listeners. Each of these guides will give you instruction and biblical promises about how to pray for an aspect of your life grandkids, your parents or your community. Others also little space on each page for you to write in the names of specific situations. Every prayer suggestion is maybe what I appreciate most about the series. Every prayer suggestion. Every prompt is based on the passage of the Bible.

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Come take a look at this bundle of resources right now JD where.com it's something I'm unhappily and enthusiastically committing to you is to make a difference in this minimum box comes with earnings when you donate right now suggesting getting level is $35 or more. Every penny you donate the gospel ministry gift today and ask for your set. I think when you give us a call at 628-663-3552 20 even easier to get on our website clear.com and Molly that event today and tomorrow. If you conclude are showing steady on here on Senate my career