Praying with humility and boldness
Three Key Takeaways
God invites us into His plans, not just obedience. Abraham's faith had mainly been "God speaks, I obey." God doesn't just want servants. He wants to draw us into what He's doing in the world.
Bold prayer flows from knowing God's character. Abraham negotiated with God, asking "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" not from arrogance, but from understanding who God is. He prayed with both boldness and humility, appealing to God's justice and mercy.
Prayer forms something in us that passes on to others. God invited Abraham to pray not just to get answers, but to form something in him: concern for people, mercy, justice. These qualities would run through his whole family line. God invites us into prayer to shape our character and impact those around us.
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Praying with humility and boldness
We've been doing this series on Abraham, The Life of Faith. He's the prototype believer in the Bible, and his faith becomes the model for everyone who follows him, including us.
Up until now, Abraham's faith has mainly been: God speaks, and he obeys. God speaks to him, and he does what God tells him to DO. That's a pretty good starting point for anyone trying to learn what it means to live for Christ and follow Him.
But we hit this remarkable moment where actually Abraham speaks back.
Reading Scripture for the First Time
When Genesis was written, it was the first Scriptures being written down. It was written so that people trying to understand and know and follow and believe in the God of Israel could know who it was they were following. Who was their God, what was He like, how did they relate to Him?
They would know nothing if it weren't for the fact that God had revealed Himself in these Scriptures. For many of us, we've read ahead. We know the stuff that comes next. But today, try to imagine you're reading this for the first time. You're a person living in 2000 BC or 1500 BC, reading this for the first time, trying to work out what is the God of Israel like?
THE SET UP
Abraham and his wife Sarah have just had a conversation with three mysterious men. They're introduced as three men, and by the end, it seems clear they're two angels and God Himself. Abraham is seeing them out of his tent, waving them off.
Genesis 18:16 says: "Then the men set out from there, and they looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way."
GOD SPEAKS TO HIMSELF
"The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.'"
This is one of the only times in the Bible where God talks to Himself. God says, "Shall I keep from Abraham what I'm about to do? Or shall I talk to him?"
It's obviously a stylised account. It's impossible for us to imagine quite how this conversation between Abraham and the Lord actually went in detail. But it's like God is speaking out or processing out for our benefit as readers.
God is wanting to draw Abraham into His plans. So far, it's been "Abraham, leave and go." "Yes, sir." Abraham obeys. A couple of weeks ago, God made His covenant with him through this elaborate ceremony to say, "I'm promising this to you. I'm committing this." Abraham was like, "Wow, this is amazing."
But now it's different. God is asking, "Shall we take this relationship to the next level? Shall I draw Abraham in?" Because what God wants is for Abraham's family and descendants to become a people marked by being followers of God, marked by justice and truth and mercy. So, God wants to draw Abraham in because He wants to form that in him so that he can teach his children, and his children can teach their children, and a whole nation can be formed out of what God is forming in Abraham now.
A Flabbergasting Thought
If you imagine you're reading this for the first time, trying to discover what the God of Israel is like, you're drawn into something you would not have been able to predict.
If all you knew was that God had created the world, and then you suddenly read this, you discover something remarkable: the God of the heavens, the God of creation, actually wants to draw people into what He is doing.
That is a flabbergasting thought. That is almost unbelievable.
Lots of people, if they believe in a God, can believe in one who's far away, who creates the world, who maybe has some moral sentiment that He wishes everyone would follow. But it is a big step to then believe that God actually comes close and wants to draw us in. Not just to polite conversation, but into what's going to happen in the world.
The Outcry Against Sodom
"Then the Lord said, 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.'"
Again, imagine this is the God you're trying to discover. You don't know anything else about Him except you know He's created the world. Perhaps if you've read up to this point in Genesis, you've read the story of the flood. So, you know that God will judge sin.
Now God is saying, "I'm going to go down to Sodom and Gomorrah, and I'm going to see what's going on, because there's been this outcry that has come up to me."
As you read through the Bible, you reflect on that outcry. A lot of it was to do with injustice, the way they were treating one another. There was a lack of care and kindness and mercy towards the vulnerable. That was part of what was going on.
God hears the cry of the oppressed. He hears the outcry of injustice. And He's going down to see if it's as bad as the outcry suggests.
Abraham's Bold Prayer
The men turn away towards Sodom, but Abraham remains standing before the Lord. Then Abraham draws near and says:
"Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?"
This is extraordinary. Abraham is negotiating with God. He's questioning God. He's challenging God.
But notice how he does it. He appeals to God's character. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" He's not being arrogant. He's being bold because he knows something about who God is.
The Lord says, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
The Negotiation Continues
Abraham continues: "Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?"
God says, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there."
Abraham speaks to Him again: "Suppose forty are found there."
God answers, "For the sake of forty I will not do it."
Abraham says, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there."
God answers, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there."
Abraham says, "Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there."
God answers, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it."
Then Abraham says, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there."
God answers, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."
And the Lord went His way when He had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.
Boldness and Humility
Notice Abraham's approach. He's incredibly bold, negotiating with God, pressing Him, asking again and again. But he's also deeply humble. "I who am but dust and ashes," "Oh let not the Lord be angry."
He combines boldness and humility. The boldness comes from knowing God's character (that God is just, that God is merciful). The humility comes from knowing his own position (he's dust and ashes before the Creator).
This is the pattern of prayer we're invited into. Bold because we know God's character. Humble because we know our own.
Did God Answer?
Here's the thing: there weren't ten righteous people in Sodom. The city was destroyed. So, did God not answer Abraham's prayer?
If you read the next chapter, you discover that God did rescue Lot (Abraham's nephew who lived in Sodom) and his family. The whole city wasn't spared, but the righteous were brought out.
Sometimes we pray and it looks to us that God hasn't heard. Perhaps we only discover days, weeks, months, years later that He did. He didn't answer in the way we thought He was going to. We were hoping there'd be ten righteous people and the whole city would be saved. That's not what happened. But He did have mercy on Lot. He did rescue him and bring him out.
Abraham Points to Jesus
As we work through this story of Abraham, one thing we keep seeing is that Abraham is an example to us. But if we look at Abraham and think, "Okay, I'll just try and be like him," we're in trouble. We'll discover we find it hard to pray like Abraham. We find it hard to obey like Abraham. We keep falling short. It can be quite depressing if you just try to live up to the example of these heroes of the faith.
What we want to do first is always say Abraham is supposed to remind us of Jesus, who is the ultimate priest.
Abraham steps in and prays for these people who are not his people. He steps in to come between God and these people that are deserving of judgement. They're the Canaanites, the people that live in the land that God had promised him. In lots of ways he could be like, "I'll just move out of the way, let the judgement thing go on, and just move in afterwards. That would make sense."
But he doesn't. He steps in.
He reminds us not mainly of ourselves, but firstly of Jesus, who steps in and prays for us. Jesus is described as our great intercessor. He prays. He comes between us. He steps in and represents before God on our behalf with His own righteousness. He prays for us, prays for people, prays for His kingdom to advance across the earth.
An Invitation to Us
But it is also a provocation to us. God forms Abraham by inviting him to pray and get involved in this situation. He does it because He wants to form something in Abraham that He wants to run like a stick of rock through the whole people of Israel. He wants concern for people. He wants mercy and justice and prayer to be foundational to the people of Israel.
So, He invites Abraham in so that something of God's character can be implanted into Abraham through their interactions in prayer.
God invites us to pray not just because He wants to give us answers (though often He does), but particularly because He wants to form something in us that will then get passed on to our children and those around us, those that we invest in, disciple, and pray for.
He wants to form something in you. There are moments where God will get your attention. It might be the tiniest little whisper: "I'm here. I'm here when I'm ready. If you want to pray."
These can be sliding doors moments for us.
Typically what happens to many of us is that we don't know that the God of the Bible is like this. We think our Christian life is turn up to church, maybe go midweek occasionally, read your Bible, do your stuff, go to work. We think that's it.
Actually, what God is inviting us to is something way more radical, way more challenging, way more complicated. But actually God invites us in, like He invites Abraham, like He invites Moses, like He invites Jacob to wrestle with Him.
Those stories are in the Bible because they are an invitation to us. The Bible is trying to describe to us what God is like, so that we can respond to Him.
At Redemption
At Redemption, we're learning not to drift into the well-worn paths of church life where we simply turn up, serve, give, and become a nice church. God is calling us to something more radical.
As Revelation describes, God stands knocking at the door, waiting for us to engage with Him on behalf of others and allow Him to form us and shape something in us.
When we remember the cross of Jesus, we're remembering that the righteousness of one man, Jesus, is sufficient to cover our sin and wickedness thousands of years later, thousands of miles away.
Prayer doesn't come easily. Acting like a priest, concerning ourselves with other people's needs in prayer, knowing how to pray or how far we can go, being both humble and bold at the same time—these are real struggles. But we have Jesus, the perfect prayer, the one who prayed in the garden and continues to intercede in heaven for us.
Christ helps us in our weakness. When we don't know how to pray, He gives us His Spirit to teach us. May there be moments to turn aside to see what God is doing, to lean into Him in prayer, and to allow Him to form something through it.
