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The Phrase that Altered My Thinking Forever

This week the blog is sponsored by P&R Publishing and is written by Ralph Cunnington.
Years ago, I stumbled repeatedly on an ancient phrase that altered my thinking forever. 
Distinct yet inseparable.
The first time I encountered this phrase was while studying the Council of Chalcedon’s description of the two natures of Christ. Soon after, I found that Augustine had used it to describe the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity. Then I saw that John Calvin had used it to describe the relationship between justification and sanctification. It was so beautiful and clarifying, so simple: there can be distinction without separation. We can experience unity within diversity and diversity within unity.
“Someone should write a book on that one day!” I thought.
Fast-forward to 2020.
Lockdown.
COVID-19.
George Floyd.
Marches.
Riots.
Tensions were running high, and debates raged both in society and in the church.
To mask or not to mask?
Should we take down statues of people we now find problematic?
What is gender?  
What is real and true, and what is not?
I saw the church struggle to respond, and the phrase that had altered my thinking years ago suddenly came to back to me in a brand-new way. Distinct yet inseparable. I was sitting on an ancient concept that could bring clarity to these divisive issues.
And that’s how “Someone should write a book on that one day!” became “I need to write that book.”
Distinct yet inseparable explains who God is and how God works in his world. It explains what he has created us to be and how he has called us to live within the church. Indeed, the concept provides the key to answering the most pressing questions of our time—questions of identity, gender, and ethnicity.
My three children are part of the first generation to grow up with smartphones. According to recent research, they’re also part of the most dissatisfied and depressed generation yet. They are passionate about racial and gender equality, yet deeply pessimistic about the future. They’re not alone. We all need to see how the beautiful news of the gospel fulfils our longing for unity and diversity in a broken and confused world.
I wrote Perfect Unity to play a small part in doing just that.

Should Confidence in Sovereignty Make Me Prayerless?

Audio Transcript

We’ve been talking about God’s sovereignty in recent episodes. Does his sovereignty in salvation make him unfair? That was last time, in APJ 2028. We talk about God’s sovereignty over our suffering next Monday, in APJ 2031. Today, though, we ask, Should God’s all-sovereignty make us less prayerful, since we can resign all things into his hands? The question is from a listener named Jenn.

“Dear Pastor John, I have listened to Ask Pastor John for years. The truth of your mantra that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him is something that resonates deep in my spirit. My question for you is this. Do you think a person can be so satisfied in God that it leads to prayerlessness? What I mean is a circumstance in which you feel so confident and satisfied in God’s purposes and designs in your life and others’ that you lack a desire to petition him. Even when things seem to be going wrong, I tend to feel deeply that praise, rather than petition, is on my heart. I often praise the Lord in thanksgiving, which I consider to be a kind of prayer, but rarely ask or seek intervention from God.

“In 1 Samuel, when Israel begs God for a king, God warns them against their prayer, but as they persist, he eventually tells Samuel to listen to the people and give them a king (1 Samuel 8:7, 22). So, prayers can mask desires that are opposed to God’s desires. That haunts me. Would what I pray to change even be a holy desire to begin with? Bottom line: I guess I feel safer and happier accepting, in faith, whatever the Lord brings about in my life, rather than asking for him to change those things. Is this a wrong approach to life?”

Well, yes, it is a wrong approach to life, but maybe not for the reason you think. I’m not disagreeing that you have said several very true, very important things. For example, you say that “prayers can mask desires that are opposed to God’s desires.” That’s true, because James 4:3 says, “You ask [you pray] and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” So, clearly, we can treat God like a bellhop with prayer, and as the bell goes off and we send up our prayer, we tell him to bring us things that we’re going to misuse. So, that’s right. That’s a crucial observation.

You also say that “there are circumstances in which I feel so confident and satisfied in God’s purposes and designs in my life and others’ that I lack a desire to petition him.” Well, yes, there are moments in life when that’s exactly how we should feel. When Christ made it clear to Paul that the thorn in the flesh was God’s will, he stopped praying for the thorn to be removed and said, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Passive and Active Prayers

But the problem with your approach to prayer is that you have framed the question of prayer in such a way that it treats prayer only as a response to what happens to you rather than treating prayer also as an empowerment of what you should make happen for others. For example, you say, “I feel safer and happier accepting, in faith, whatever the Lord brings about in my life, rather than asking him to change those things.” So, you have framed the question entirely in terms of you as a passive recipient of God bringing things into your life rather than framing the question of prayer also in terms of you being an active person in the world, seeking to fulfill God’s gracious will as you love other people.

So, let me try to get at it like this. Ask this question (I think all of us should ask this question of our lives): Is prayer a wartime walkie-talkie, or is it a domestic intercom to call the butler for another pillow? Now, if prayer is mainly a domestic intercom to call the butler to bring another pillow, your approach to life makes sense — namely, leave the butler alone and be content with the pillow he brought yesterday. Right. That’s good.

“None of us has in us the power needed to do what we’re told to do in the Bible. We must have God’s power.”

But if prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie designed to call down divine power from the military headquarters to give you the ability to defeat the devil, and overcome temptation, and take godly risks for the sake of love, and spread the gospel in dangerous places, and rescue the spiritual prisoners from behind demonic lines, and establish justice, and do acts of mercy, your approach to prayer is totally inadequate.

Mission-Minded Prayers

So, the big question is, What’s prayer? What is it mainly in the Bible? Here’s what Jesus said in John 15:16: “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit . . . so that [that’s a crucial phrase] whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” Huh. In other words, I put you on a fruit-bearing mission so that you’d get answers to prayer. That’s the logic of that verse. Which means prayer is for the empowering of the mission that you have been given from headquarters. Prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom mainly.

Paul said, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). He’s speaking of his Jewish kinsmen. Prayer is for the salvation of lost souls, and there are lots of lost souls in the world. Oh my goodness. It’s for the invading of Satan’s domain and the delivering of captives.

Paul said in Ephesians 6:17–18, “Take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit.” So, “take the sword . . . praying.” Prayer is for the empowerment of wielding “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” as we do battle with the evil one.

Jesus said, “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:38; Luke 10:2). In other words, prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie to call headquarters and say, “Reinforcements, please! Reinforcements. We’ve got a mission to do, and we don’t have enough people to do it. God, send the reinforcements.”

Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). In other words, pray. He’ll give you good things. And then he says, “Therefore [another crucial phrase] whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). What’s the meaning of that therefore? Prayer is a wartime walkie-talkie to call down all necessary empowerment to treat others the way we would like to be treated.

Reframing Prayer

So, I would encourage you to reframe the way you think about prayer. The question is not mainly, Can I be content as a passive recipient of the circumstances God brings? Rather, the question is, Do I have within me all the power necessary in order to do all the things I’m commanded to do in the Bible? And the answer is that you do not. And I don’t either. None of us has in us the power needed to do what we’re told to do in the Bible. We must have God’s power, and he has taught us to ask for it.

We don’t have the power to hallow God’s name. We must ask for it.
We don’t have the power to seek his kingdom first. We must ask for it.
We don’t have the power to do his will the way it’s done in heaven. We must ask for it.
We don’t have the power even to feed ourselves. We have to ask for daily bread.
We don’t have the power to forgive those who trespass against us. We have to ask for that grace.
We don’t have the power to escape temptation. We must ask for it.

In other words, don’t be afraid that you’re going to ask for the wrong thing when you’re asking for divine help to do what God told you to do. And virtually everything that he has told us to do, we cannot and should not do in our own strength, but in the strength that he supplies. And he has ordained that he supply that power in answer to prayer, which is why Paul said, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Because we’ve got things to do at every moment of our lives that we can’t do, and he expects us to lean on him to do it.

So, let’s be a people who all day long are using this indispensable wartime walkie-talkie for the help we need to fight the good fight of faith.

The Humble Young Leader: Four Qualities of Godly Men

God created men to be strong and faithful leaders, especially in their families and churches. Becoming that kind of man does not simply happen, however; we need to train ourselves for godliness and Christlike leadership (1 Timothy 4:7–8).

To grow as men, we follow Jesus — the only sinless man, the God-man, who alone provides us righteousness and the perfect example of how to live. But we also follow the footsteps of those who followed or foreshadowed his (1 Corinthians 11:1). Joshua, though predating the incarnate Christ, can serve as one such example, especially for younger men.

Joshua teaches us that leading well starts with realizing that all you are, have, and accomplish depends on God’s gracious provision. Joshua knew this deeply, even in his younger years, as he served God and led the people into the promised land. I would like to highlight four traits from Joshua that men young and old need today: humble confidence, humble dependence, humble submission, and humble patience.

1. Humble Confidence

At key times in Israel’s history, even as a young man, Joshua stepped forward as a great example of humble confidence. One of the first times we meet Joshua, we see his faith in action, trusting God against the tide of popular opinion.

Joshua took part in a search party sent into Canaan to spy out the land God had promised. The spies returned with a dismal prediction about Israel’s ability to take on the “giants” in the land (Numbers 13–14). Joshua and Caleb were the only two (of twelve) who urged the people to take the land, because they believed God’s word (Numbers 14:7–10). They knew God’s track record and his power to keep his promises. Their confidence was not in themselves but in the God they served.

Here we see one quality that set Joshua and Caleb apart from the rest of the Israelites — they believed the promises of God. They were not intimidated by the size of the warriors or the strength of the cities. Rather, they knew their God and remembered how he had dealt with Egypt, then the most powerful nation on the earth. If God could take care of the mighty Egyptian army, he could certainly take care of the Canaanite tribes. God rewarded Joshua’s and Caleb’s faith by exempting them from the entire generation of Israelites who would perish in the wilderness (Numbers 14:29–30).

Humility and confidence might seem like opposites, but in Joshua and Caleb, we see they are two sides of the same heart. When we find our identity and security in God, we can rest in knowing that our frailty and sin no longer define us. We can walk in the strength that God supplies, even when we are rightly aware of how weak and sinful we are. In fact, God only chooses and empowers those who know how little we can do on our own.

2. Humble Dependence

Joshua could be considered one of the greatest military leaders in history. He led the armies of Israel to victory against far more powerful enemies. Without minimizing Joshua’s gifts and abilities, he knew that God is the one who ultimately vanquishes his people’s foes. He learned this early in his military career, as he led the people in battle against the Amalekites. Exodus 17 tells the story of God’s provision:

Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. (Exodus 17:11–13)

The outcome of the battle depended on something entirely outside of Joshua’s control. Yes, he fought with great courage, but all the while, he realized that the battle belongs to the Lord. The same was true even when the victories were not as supernaturally obvious. God had promised to give the land of Canaan to his people, and Joshua’s trust in God’s power and faithfulness gave him the faith he needed to be the leader God called him to be.

Even when the challenges before us are not nearly as dramatic as Joshua’s, the basis of our confidence is still the same faith — faith not in ourselves or even in the gifts and talents God has given us, but faith in the God who is the Creator, sustainer, and provider for every breath, heartbeat, and victory in life. Joshua’s example reminds us that any skills, opportunities, accomplishments, or victories come as gifts from our gracious Creator. He deserves all the credit for any good in our lives.

We can regularly remind ourselves of this by asking the apostle Paul’s rhetorical question in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you did not receive?” Realizing that God is the source and end of all he gives us leads to humble confidence, and that confidence frees us to follow his will and be used as he sees fit.

3. Humble Submission

As a young man, Joshua learned to trust God’s word, and it guided his life. He knew God’s promises are trustworthy, so he followed his plan even when the challenges were great. God’s word became the core of his confidence, as we see in God’s exhortation to him before the people entered the land of Canaan:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:8–9)

God calls Joshua to be strong and courageous based on his trust in God’s word. A godly man’s confidence, likewise, does not depend on his own abilities or the opinions of others to predict the outcome of circumstances; rather, it depends on what God says is true. When we submit to the authority of the word of God, we are trusting in the character of God. In our day, one’s desires in the moment have become the primary guide for many, but men of God buck that trend and live rooted in the unchanging teaching of the Bible.

4. Humble Patience

The best leaders are men who have learned to follow well. They faithfully contribute to the objectives of a team, even if they do not have a title or position. Joshua’s submission to God translated into his submission to the leader God placed over him.

Joshua served as Moses’s assistant when he was a young man (Exodus 17:8–16). After being chosen, he filled that role with patience for forty years. We are told that when Moses would go into the camp, Joshua “would not depart from the tent” (Exodus 33:11). It must have been deeply challenging at times to serve the people in Moses’s shadow, but we get no indication that Joshua was anything but a dutiful encouragement to Moses and an energetic partner in the mission. His commitment to patiently serve shaped him into the man who could lead God’s people into the promised land.

The lessons Joshua learned as a young man shaped him into an old man who could be trusted as a godly leader. And because of his leadership, “Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel” (Joshua 24:31).

Joshua’s trust in God and his word formed him into a man of humble character. His confidence, dependence, submission, and patience offer powerful glimpses of Jesus, who perfectly lived out these qualities as our substitute and example. May God give many young men in the coming generation the ability to trust their God and lead with Christlike character.

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