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Voddie Baucham - You Can’t Pray and Refuse to Act · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: When Jesus teaches us to pray, right? And you look at,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: you know, the catechism, especially when it comes to the
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  Speaker 1: petitions and the Lord's prayer. Well, what's the first petition?
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You know, our father in heaven, right? Our father, not
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  Speaker 1: my father. Jesus didn't teach me to pray my father
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  Speaker 1: in heaven. He told me to pray our father in heaven.
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  Speaker 1: That's expansive, right? I don't want to just proclaim God
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  Speaker 1: to be my father. I don't want God to just
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  Speaker 1: be my father. I want to acknowledge that God is
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  Speaker 1: our Father, and I want all people to acknowledge God
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  Speaker 1: as their Father. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
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  Speaker 1: I want his name to be hallowed, not just from
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  Speaker 1: my lips and in my life, but all people's lips,
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  Speaker 1: all people's lives, right? And then what do we pray?
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  Speaker 1: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as
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  Speaker 1: it is in heaven. Now, if people are nervous about us,
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  Speaker 1: they ought to be nervous about that, right? if they're
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  Speaker 1: nervous about us, you know, sort of pointing this thing
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  Speaker 1: in a kind of direction and there's this, you know,
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  Speaker 1: impact out there, what do those people do with the
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  Speaker 1: Lord's prayer? Because those first three petitions are kingdom minded
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  Speaker 1: and expansive, right? You can't even pray the way the
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  Speaker 1: Lord taught you without being kingdom minded and expansive. I,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I, my desire is that Christ would have
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  Speaker 1: the fullness of the reward for what you died. Right.
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  Speaker 1: And so I don't, I don't limit that. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: afraid that there might be too much Christian influence. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not afraid that there might be too much lordship of Christ, right,
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  Speaker 1: in my life, in my family, in my community. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not afraid that I'll get to a point and I'll go,
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  Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is looking too influenced by Jesus here.
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  Speaker 1: You know, let's dial it back some. I'm not worried
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  Speaker 1: about that.
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  Speaker 2: So the question is then, I mean, the way that
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  Speaker 2: we conduct business, the way that we go about educating
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  Speaker 2: our children, the way that we govern ourselves politically, the
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  Speaker 2: way that we produce fine arts or even common arts,
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  Speaker 2: are those things then, does the kingdom of God have
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  Speaker 2: something to say about those things? Are those things then,
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  Speaker 2: as Christians, and we're seeking God's will to be done
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  Speaker 2: in the way that I do my business, in the
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  Speaker 2: way that we govern ourselves politically, Does the kingdom of
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  Speaker 2: God then shine through those things as God's people are
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  Speaker 2: engaged in those things?
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  Speaker 1: It has to. It has to. I mean, what area
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  Speaker 1: of life would we say, no, God wouldn't be interested
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  Speaker 1: in that, right? We're just, no, there's not that. And
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  Speaker 1: even when you talk about education, and for me, this
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  Speaker 1: has always been a big piece of this puzzle. I
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  Speaker 1: remember when it just kind of just dawned on me.
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  Speaker 1: It's Luke 640. The pupil is not above his teacher,
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  Speaker 1: but everyone when he's fully trained will be like his teacher.
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  Speaker 1: The Bible says nothing about education. The Bible says much
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  Speaker 1: about discipleship, right? It's always been understood that we have
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  Speaker 1: a responsibility to disciple the next generation. The way we
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  Speaker 1: think about education is informed by a model of education
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  Speaker 1: that that is government-oriented, right? It's the commercialization of discipleship.
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  Speaker 1: We're still committed to this idea that children come into
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  Speaker 1: this world and they have to be shaped, they have
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  Speaker 1: to be formed, they have to be molded. What we've
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  Speaker 1: just gone from the idea that God gives us primarily
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  Speaker 1: families and churches that are doing this shaping and this
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  Speaker 1: molding to now the idea that God primarily gives us
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  Speaker 1: government institutions to do this molding, right? And then we
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  Speaker 1: look back on the scriptures and we read that in,
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  Speaker 1: which is why people get uncomfortable when we talk about
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  Speaker 1: things like Christian education or when we talk about the
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  Speaker 1: problems that we have with government education. I mean, people
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  Speaker 1: get really nervous when you start talking about that, right?
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  Speaker 1: But it has to do with this sort of upside
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  Speaker 1: down reading of the world the way that God gave
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  Speaker 1: it to us.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you think about the Lord's Prayer and 1
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  Speaker 3: Timothy 2, prayer for kings, those in authority, that we
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  Speaker 3: might live quiet, peaceful lives with dignity and reverence. If
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  Speaker 3: we pray for something, should we not try to use
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  Speaker 3: whatever God's put in our hands to work for that
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  Speaker 3: as well? I mean, it just seems like sometimes this
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  Speaker 3: misguided notion of piety says, no, no, it's hands off
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  Speaker 3: over there. Let's pray for kings and those in authority,
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  Speaker 3: but let's don't try to become kings and those in authority.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, not to date this, but didn't we
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  Speaker 1: just see that debate with the school shooting? In Minnesota. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: With the people who are like, yeah, thoughts and prayers.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you guys want thoughts and prayers, but what
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  Speaker 1: we want is we want actions. That's that same idea, right?
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  Speaker 1: That somehow saying that we're committed to praying about something
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  Speaker 1: is tantamount to saying we're committed to not acting on something, right?
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  Speaker 1: To just sitting there passively and waiting and hoping that
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  Speaker 1: something happens. That's not biblical. No, it's not.
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  Speaker 3: And, you know, you see in that, too. everybody runs
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  Speaker 3: to their gods in crisis. And so the godless run
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  Speaker 3: to the government. We need to do something.
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  Speaker 1: We need laws.
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  Speaker 3: We need legislators to do something. Stop your little prayers
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  Speaker 3: over there. And Christians can't be duped by that.
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  Speaker 1: You know what? I was thinking about this as well.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's part of our problem also with the
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  Speaker 1: people who get nervous about this. Go back to the
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  Speaker 1: education thing, right? Education, that's a function of the government.
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  Speaker 1: Everything is a function of the government. So if... your
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  Speaker 1: kingdom is the government, right? If the government is responsible
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  Speaker 1: for morality, if the government is responsible for, you know,
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  Speaker 1: fill in the blank, right? All of that stuff. Well,
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  Speaker 1: then anytime Christians start talking about having an impact in
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  Speaker 1: any way, your assumption is always going to be that
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  Speaker 1: they are trying to take over the levers of government, right? Right.
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  Speaker 1: If government is the only means by which we believe
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  Speaker 1: that these things happen and people start talking about doing
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  Speaker 1: ABC and XYZ, then what they have to mean is
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  Speaker 1: taking over the levers of power in the government. Well,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's that's actually. You know, you're deflecting there. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you're projecting. Actually, that's projection, you know? No, you believe
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  Speaker 1: that the government has all power and all authority, which
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  Speaker 1: is why you believe anytime we want to talk about
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  Speaker 1: any of these things, we have to be trying to
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  Speaker 1: take the government and make it do it for us.
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  Speaker 1: We don't believe that. Yeah, right. We don't believe that
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  Speaker 1: the government has all power and all authority. Therefore, we
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  Speaker 1: do not believe that having impact in a culture is
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  Speaker 1: requires that we take over the levers of power in
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  Speaker 1: the government.
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  Speaker 2: But I'll take it.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: And here's a question that has made people nervous as well,
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  Speaker 3: is do you believe that governors, kings, presidents have an
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  Speaker 3: obligation to do Jesus's will on earth? Oh, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 3: They're thinking exactly the same way there. No, absolutely they do.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: They absolutely do. It's just Jesus' will for the king
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  Speaker 3: is different than Jesus' will for the church.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And you just understand that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: They've got a lane. Yeah. And Jesus calls the governors
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  Speaker 3: to stay in their lane to do their job as
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  Speaker 3: one that has been given authority by him.
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  Speaker 1: To do it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, yeah, these things are— Sphere sovereignty, man. Sphere sovereignty.
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  Speaker 1: You know? And to go back to the educational issue,
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  Speaker 1: this has been my thing— You know, for decades, there's
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  Speaker 1: a sphere sovereignty problem. When you look at the spheres
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  Speaker 1: and then you look at what education is, we've got
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  Speaker 1: the wrong sphere being sovereign over education. That's right. Right?
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  Speaker 1: The one sphere that education wasn't given to is the
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  Speaker 1: sphere that's not exercising sovereignty over education. Yeah. That's upside down.