Prayer and the Sovereignty of God | Romans 9:30-10:4
A question that is often asked is, “If God works all things according to the counsel of His will (which is what it says in Eph. 1:11), and if God’s knowledge of all things—past, present, and future—is infallible, unthwartable (which is what Scripture teaches), then what’s the point of praying for anything to happen?”
And most frequently, this question comes up when we engage with texts such as Romans 8:29–30 (this past summer), or Romans 9:1–29 (just last Sunday). In other words, the question is raised in relation to human decisions. “If God has predestined some to be his sons and daughters, and if He has chosen them before creation (which is what it says in Eph. 1:4–5), then what is the point in praying for anyone to be saved?” Why bother? If God is the ultimate decisive factor in whether or not a person turns, and trusts Christ, then what do our prayers have to do with it?
And (I believe) the thought process behind those questions is that if prayer is going to be a legitimate, authentic reality, if prayer is going to do anything, then people must have legitimate, authentic power for self-determination. In other words, for prayer to make sense, a person’s decisions must ultimately belong to himself, and not to God. Otherwise, a person’s decisions—any and all his decisions—are really fixed in God’s eternal counsel (to use Paul’s vocabulary in Ephesians 1:11). And if every decision is thus fixed in God’s eternal counsel, then (as the reasoning goes) prayer makes no sense.
So that’s one side of the tension. But there is another side. The apostle Paul, who himself communicates these doctrines of God’s sovereign and divine election, says in Romans 10:1, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them [for my kinsmen, my unconverted family members, my loved ones who have not turned and trusted Christ—my prayer to God for them] is that they may be saved.”
So, that’s the point of tension. And that is the main question that I invite you to lean into, together with me, today: If God is sovereign, then why pray?
And with that question in mind, let’s look at Romans 9:30–10:4.
“What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
My aim is to encourage you to lean into a “healthy tension.” That is, that God is sovereign. Men and women, boys and girls are morally responsible beings. And praying according to God’s will, praying for God’s purpose to be accomplished is actually helped and enabled by the reality of God’s sovereignty. So the first thing I would draw your attention to is where Paul left us in Romans 9:1–29.
God Decides Who Will Be Saved
God has a purpose. And that purpose is to fill the earth with people who will marvel and exult in His stunning, mind-boggling, matchless perfection: “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called?” (Romans 9:22–24a).
“In a world where man would reach to be the highest, ... God alone is God.”
In a world of spectacular human feats of glory—Olympic competitors performing quadruple axels, 1080 flips, and setting records for speed and time never done before in the history of the world—God puts on display feats of His wisdom and power and complexity that no created being could ever perform. In a world where man would reach to be the highest, when it comes to salvation, God alone is God.
“It [being saved] depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. … So then he has mercy on whomever he will, and he hardens whomever he wills” (Romans 9:16, 18).
Who is capable of challenging the creator, the potter, the molder? Who thinks like He thinks? Who believes that they can counsel Him, and get Him straightened out on some things? Who is like God? God alone is sovereign!
But in and under God’s grand display of glory, man is responsible.
Man Is Responsible
Human beings are responsible beings. Look at Romans 9:30–32a.
“What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why?”
Why are so many Gentiles getting saved? Why are so many Gentiles “succeeding” in achieving righteous status before God, where the Jews are not “succeeding in achieving righteous status with God? Based on Romans 9:1–29, we’d expect Paul to say, “God. God is the reason Gentiles are turning and trusting Jesus. And God is the reason the Jews are NOT turning and trusting Jesus. God decides. God decides who will be saved and who will not be saved. Boom. End of the matter.” We might expect that. But that’s NOT what Paul says. Paul does not attribute salvation simply to God’s sovereignty and leave it at that. Instead, Paul says, “Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame’” (Romans 9:30–33).
Do you see that? Rather than laying all the responsibility for salvation on God’s eternal-destiny-determining sovereignty, Paul lays the outcome of salvation in these verses directly on human responsibility. Why aren’t the Jews saved? Because God predestined them to wrath? It doesn’t say that. Rather, Paul says, his Jewish brothers and sisters are not saved, “Because they did not pursue it [i.e. righteousness—being counted right with God—they didn’t pursue salvation] by faith, but [instead they pursued being right with God] as if it [i.e., salvation] were based on works” (Romans 9:32).
They didn’t pursue it. The Jews are not saved, because they did not pursue being saved, being made right with God as they should have. And they are responsible for not pursuing rightness of with God as they should have.
So, what should they have done? How should they have pursued being made right with God? Romans 10:2–4: “For I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
Romans 9:33 says, “Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
What shall we say then? What shall we conclude regarding Paul’s kinsmen who aren’t saved? Write ‘em off because God has not chosen them? Is that what God’s Word tells us to do with people who are not responding to the invitation to be made right with God? No. That’s not Paul’s logic. That’s not what Paul does.
Rather, Paul sees his Jewish kinsmen’s unbelief as an occasion to proclaim the glory of the gospel of God again. When we know people, neighbors, loved ones, who are choosing to ignore the righteousness of God, choosing their own path of salvation, Paul is showing us how to respond rightly.
First, Proclaim Christ!
Paul’s Jewish loved ones did not submit as they should have. The responsibility for the Jews unrighteousness lies squarely on the Jews. What they should have done is pursue righteousness through faith alone, in the fulfillment of righteousness by someone else—namely Jesus. But instead of pursuing righteousness through faith, namely faith in the “righteousness fulfillment” of the law by Christ, they sought salvation through their own fulfillment of the law. They did not submit to God’s provision for righteousness. Instead, they sought to establish their own righteousness, apart from Christ. And according to Romans 9:32, “They have stumbled over the stumbling stone.”
They knew the stone was there. Instead of taking hold of him, as God’s way of salvation. But they stumbled over him anyway. And they bear their guilt based on their pursuit, based on their stumbling, based on the offense they have taken in Jesus. They bear full responsibility for their rejection of Christ as their only hope of being counted right with God.
And meanwhile, the Gentiles, who are being saved, who are attaining right status with God, are being counted righteous—by pursuing righteousness through faith in the perfect fulfillment of the law by another—namely the Lord Jesus. The Gentiles are counted righteous by God based on their right pursuit.
So, is God sovereign? Yes! Look at Romans 9:33: “As it is written (as it was foretold centuries before the coming of Christ), ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.’”
Who put the stone there? God put the stone there. Who put forward Jesus as a rock of offense? God put forward Jesus, as a rock of offense. God did it. God is sovereign. But everyone is responsible for their response to the way, and to the truth, and to the life God holds out to them in Christ. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Christ is the end, the fulfillment of the law, he lived a perfect life. And the perfection of his holy and sinless life can be imputed to you, to anyone, to everyone who turns and entrusts themselves to him. Explain that! Proclaim that. Why? Because God is not only sovereign over who is saved, God is sovereign over how they are saved.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How will anyone call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” —Romans 10:13–14
Paul believed that God is sovereign over who is saved. And Paul also believed that God is sovereign over how people are saved. In order for unconverted to believe—divinely chosen, sovereignly elect people to believe—they needed to hear the truth of the gospel. So Paul spent his life, risked his life, suffered and sacrificed his life to proclaim Christ. That’s one right response to the tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Proclaim Christ. The other is to pray.
Second, Pray for People to Be Saved!
Paul prays that his Jewish brothers and sisters would believe in Jesus, so that they might be made right with God. “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1).
But if God is sovereign, then why pray?
Listen. According to Ephesians 2:1, a person in need of conversion is “dead in trespasses and sins.” According to Romans 6:17 a person in need of conversion is “a slave to sin.” According to 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” According to Ephesians 4:18, a person in need of conversion is “alienated from the life of God . . . due to their hardness of heart.” And according to Romans 8:7, this means that their mind is “hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot.”
God’s Sovereignty Enables Us to Pray
God’s sovereignty, rather than cutting us off at the knees, is what encourages us, and engenders hope as we pray. Loved ones, prayer is a request that God do something. And what God, and God alone can do to save a lost sinner is to make his dead and unwilling heart come to life. What God, and God alone can do is overcome his/her resistance to God. What God, and God alone can do is unshackle that loved one’s enslaved will. What God and God alone can do is open their eyes to see beauty, majesty, glory in the face of Jesus.
These are things only God can do, and if we insist that men and women, boys and girls must assert their own self-determination when it comes to salvation, we are, in effect, insisting that they remain without Christ. Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65).
Is God sovereign? According to His own Word, yes. Are we responsible for our response to Him? According to His own Word, yes.
How Do We Pray for Unbelievers?
We pray that God would do for them what God did for Lydia in Acts 16:14: “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”
We pray 2 Corinthians 4:6, and ask, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out darkness,’ [by that same creative power, to shine] in [their] hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
We pray Ezekiel 36:26, that God will, “remove the heart of stone from [their] flesh and give [them] a heart of flesh.”
We pray John 1:13, and ask that God would cause them to be “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will man, but of God.”
And rather than feeling helpless and passive, we should feel “hope because God knows how to bring people to repentance, and when he decides to do it, it happens. Nothing can stop him. Not the longest pattern of habitual sinning. Not the worst kind of sinning. If God decides for bondage to be broken, and for repentance to happen, it will” (John Piper, Providence, p. 455).
And then together with all our praying, we seek, according to 2 Timothy 2:24–25, to be “kind to everyone . . . correcting [our] opponents with gentleness . . . [for] God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.”
All that to say, we do not pray, asking God to sit back and wait for our unconverted neighbors to decide to change. We don’t come to God appealing for Him to keep His distance, in case His glorious beauty might become overwhelmingly and invincibly attractive, thereby violating my neighbor’s power of self-determination. I think we do just the opposite. We pray, and pray, and pray: “O God, ravish my unbelieving, unconverted neighbor with your beauty. O God, blow his mind with Your majesty. O God, unshackle his enslaved will. O God, make his dead and unresponsive soul to live. O God, don’t allow any inner resistance stop him, lest he be put to shame.”
“Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession—‘I ascribe my change wholly to God.’”
In the past, I’ve recounted this testimony of C.H. Spurgeon: “One night . . . the thought struck me, ‘How did you come to be a Christian?’ I sought the Lord. ‘But how did you come to seek the Lord?’ The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. ‘I prayed’, thought I. But then asked myself, ‘How came I to pray?’ I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. ‘How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so?’ Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession—‘I ascribe my change wholly to God.’”
Loved ones, the only hope that any might be saved, is God’s sovereign, saving grace, poured out in and through Christ. If God had not loved us first, and asserted Himself decisively, we would still be dead and blind and enslaved and rebellious. But hallelujah! All glory to God in Christ! Everyone who calls on His great and gracious name will be saved!