An Audience with God

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director. Mark, last week on the podcast you gave us an update about how things went at the leadership team retreat, and we were grateful to hear that it went really well. That included just a brief mention of one thing you guys did — you asked the guys on the team to share dreams, hopes, and prayers for Sovereign Grace churches in the years to come. But you didn't give us any of those dreams, hopes, or prayers that were shared. And I imagine there are others like me who are interested in hearing about that. And you're going to share with us some of what you guys came up with.

Mark Prater:

I am. First of all, I want to give credit where credit is due — it was actually Jon that gave us this assignment. Jon Payne. So I'm very grateful for Jon's leadership in that regard.

I'm going to give you just a few of them, and then I'll tell you why I'm sharing them. It was a wonderful time to think about our future and the dreams, hopes, and prayers we have for our small family of churches. Here are a few:

— That there would be a wave of young men who feel called to pastoral ministry and just lay down their lives to pursue it.

— That evangelism would become more of a strength in Sovereign Grace. We've grown in that area recently, I think, but we want it to become even more of a strength.

Something related to that — something you can't fabricate, that we want to pray for

— a revival-like work of the Spirit that is very unique for a period of time, that brings more people to Christ.

— A more consistent use of the spiritual gifts in our family of churches.

— Consistent biblical equipping for parenting and marriage in our churches, because that's something that has marked our past and we want to continue to mark our future — taking the gospel and applying it to your marriage and to your parenting.

— That we would establish a Pastors College sometime in the next few years in Manila, Philippines. We think that would be really, really strategic.

— And one more: that God would give us even more gospel patrons. Gospel patrons are those who have the gift of giving — who give beyond their means because they just feel called to that. What we've seen with these gospel patrons is that they have a heart for the church, for the advancement of the gospel, and for a family of churches doing that together. And typically God just gives them more money to give away — which is what we typically see with gospel patrons. So more of those as well.

The reason I'm bringing all this up is just to give you a few things that were on the guys' lists — and the list is much longer than that. As I was looking at it again just this morning, being strengthened in my faith, yet at the same time feeling this greater dependency upon God, I thought: if God does not work — if God does not do what only God can do through His sovereign activity and sovereign plan, through His leading and through His power — we will accomplish none of these things. So it really was a moment of faith-building anticipation that is utterly dependent upon God to move and work as we ask Him in prayer.

Benjamin Kreps:

Excellent. I love how you guys took the time to share that with one another — and now sharing it with us. Big dreams, goals, aspirations. We want to see Christ glorified in a million different ways through Sovereign Grace churches. But like you're saying, in order for any of this to happen, God has to move. And so we must be in prayer. And in order to serve us, you have some encouragement from our friend Mr. Spurgeon to help us grow in prayer.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. I'm sharing this just out of my own dependency. I reached this moment of, "Oh Lord, you've got to move, you've got to work" — and thought, what do I do? And I turned to Mr. Spurgeon for some help. There's a section in his book The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life that is wonderful, under the subtitle "Our Great Goal in Prayer."

Spurgeon says this:

"What we desire in prayer is an audience with God. If the Lord does not hear us, we have gained nothing. And what an honor it is to have an audience with God. The frail, feeble, undeserving creature is permitted to stand in the august presence of God, the God of the whole earth. And the Lord regards that poor creature as if there were nothing else for him to observe, bending his ear and his heart to listen to that creature's cry. It is essential that we know that we are speaking to God and that God is hearing us."

That can stir your faith in this moment of dependence — that through Christ and the shed blood of Christ, we can confidently walk into the presence of God as frail creatures, and that He bends His ear and His heart, and He observes, and He listens as if He has nothing else to do. That's amazing.

The second thing Spurgeon says is that, now that we are in the presence of God, we desire that He should accept our prayer — not merely that He hears it, but that He actually accepts it. And we know that the Lord will do that. Spurgeon says:

"If he does but look and smile, if he does not say one word into our soul, but implies, "I have accepted your prayer" — what a joy it is to have brought an offering that the Lord has accepted. This is the sweetness and delight of supplication."

We come into the presence of God, He accepts it. We don't know how He's going to answer it, but He accepts it. And then the third thing Spurgeon says — the third thing we desire, the thing God gave to Solomon — is that God would answer prayer. And while there are some things we must always pray for with the posture of "Not my will but yours be done," yet there are many things we are encouraged to pray for with importunity — meaning that persistence, being resolved to have them. Spurgeon says:

"Oh, for more holy boldness! Oh, for more assured confidence! We must believe that we have the petitions that we ask for. We must ask in faith without wavering, or we may not expect to receive anything from the Lord."

He's talking about consistent, persistent prayer that asks big things of God, believing that He will answer. Just reading that little section stirred my heart to pray. And if you think about what Spurgeon wrote, it's very God-centered. It's not about my prayers — it's about an audience with God, that God accepts them, and that God answers them in the way that He wants. That stirs my heart to pray.

Benjamin Kreps:

That is excellent encouragement from Mr. Spurgeon, and I appreciate that. It makes me think about a clip I recently saw from a sermon that Haddon Robinson gave, where he talked about how the Christian name for God — as J.I. Packer would say — is Father. Which means that at the center of the universe there is absolute power and love. And that's exactly what you're encouraging us to consider through what you read to us. I trust that we will grow in dependent prayer in the days and years to come. I'm sure that's on somebody's list when it comes to hopes for the future. Before we go — anything else you want to share about prayer?

Mark Prater:

I would just say this: I think the longer I'm a Christian — as the years go on — there's not only a deepening dependence upon God in prayer, but there's a sweetness to prayer. I think one of the challenges for all of us when the topic of prayer comes up is that there's almost immediately a sense of condemnation: "I'm not praying enough." You never feel like you're doing enough. And I don't think God wants us to view prayer that way. Of course we can be deficient in prayer — don't get me wrong. But there is a sweetness to it. He wants us to enjoy communing with God. That's really what Spurgeon is talking about. And the older I get, the more I've found myself grateful for the sweetness of prayer and the closeness you can feel to God because of that time. And that motivates you to pray more.

Benjamin Kreps:

That's beautiful. So thanks, Mark, for sharing some of the aspirations of the leadership team and their hopes for Sovereign Grace — and even more, for your encouragement that we would be dependent in prayer and expectant as we pray for the future that lies ahead of us, with all kinds of opportunities and possibilities. Let's be dependent on God. So thank you, Mark. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. We'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.