Trinitarian Prayer

We talk about the Trinity of God a lot at Living Stones, as we should, and it has often rightly been said that understanding the Trinity is incredibly difficult. There is only one God after all, but that one God is somehow made up of 3 distinct persons. To separate them too far is to fall into heresy, because they are not 3 separate God’s. To unite them too far is also heresy, because Jesus the Son of God died on the cross, but it would be wrong to say that the Father died on the cross or the Holy Spirit died on the cross.

Because there are distinctives in the roles of the members of the trinity, I think it’s appropriate to read the Scriptures carefully and find out as much as we can about their distinct roles and submit to those distinctions. One of the areas where there might be distinction but this distinction is rarely explored and often debated when it is explored is prayer. As with anything, I think it’s clear that all three members of the Trinity are actively involved in prayer, but are there distinctions in Scripture about the various ways that they express their involvement?

Before I discuss the nature of Trinitarian prayer I want to be clear on two things: 1) this post is not necessarily an espousal of a specific position, but rather a discussion starter through a series of questions and observations. 2) The direction I tend to lean on this issue is not an official position of Living stones and if I had to guess by observing the prayers of our other elders I would say most would hold a different view on the issue (but again, I’m not necessarily espousing a view as much as exploring).

Model #1

For most people it seems that Trinitarian prayer simply involves praying to all 3 members of the Trinity of God. I know many people who pray to the specific members of the Trinity depending on the topic they are praying about so as to pray to the member of the Trinity most applicable. So for example, when praying about spiritual gifts they will pray to the Spirit, but when thanking God for the work of Jesus on the cross they will thank Jesus directly. After all, all 3 members of the Trinity are equally God, so it stands to reason that all 3 persons of the Trinity can hear our prayers equally and that it’s equally valid to pray to all 3, right? Maybe – and if this is the conclusion that someone comes to then I don’t see any reason to warn them that they are sinning against God. After all, there is no passage of Scripture that forbids praying to any of the 3 persons of the Trinity.

However, just because there are no verses forbidding praying in the way described above, does that necessarily mean that we should pray that way? In other words, if I had to guess I don’t think God is displeased by a Christian praying to the Holy Spirit, but has God given instructions for prayer in Scripture that might lay out a model for Trinitarian prayer that is different than the one mentioned in model #1? When I’ve asked these questions in the past people have simply responded with – “well why wouldn’t God want us to pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit?” My response is always “I’m not sure”. But just because we can’t think of a good reason, doesn’t mean God doesn’t have one. So the question about Trinitarian prayer is not “why shouldn’t we follow model #1?” The question is rather “Has God instructed us in Scripture on how he would like us to pray?”

Consider some things with me. Although Scripture never forbids praying to either Jesus or the Holy Spirit, it also never once commands us to or even teaches us to. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he prayed “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). When Jesus prayed he obviously wasn’t going to pray to himself, but he never prayed to the Spirit either, he always prayed to the Father. When Paul wrote out his prayers in his letters, he always used “God” which was synonymous with the Father, or even specifically used the Father. He never wrote his prayers out to Jesus or the Spirit. Jesus often talked about us praying in his name, but he said to “ask the Father in my name” (John 15:16).

Many have argued that there are certain times in Scripture when people pray to Jesus, but I don’t buy those arguments. When Stephen cries out to Jesus as he is dying in Acts 7, is that a prayer? I don’t think it fits, he cried out to Jesus because he saw Jesus in the moment that he cried out to him (verse 56). He called to his savior who was visible to him. The same holds true for the argument made about Ananias praying to Jesus in Acts 9. He wasn’t praying, he was having an actual verbal exchange with a Jesus whom he could visibly see at the moment. This seems more akin to me talking to someone face to face than praying to them. There are other examples people use to prove that the Scripture sets precedent for us to pray to Jesus, but I’ve reviewed them all closely and none of them except possibly 2 Corinthians 12 seems like it could be seen as praying in the way that Christians usually experience prayer. As far as the instance in 2 Corinthians, even that passage is tough. Paul says that he asked the Lord to remove a thorn in his side. The word used in Greek is “Kurion”, which means Lord and is usually a reference to Jesus. However Paul quotes the response that he received from Jesus word for word. Was Paul just saying that this was the “sense” that he received from God as to the answer to his request? Are we missing something about the nature of the relationship between Paul and Jesus at the time? Was Paul in direct face to face contact with Jesus? It’s possible, that’s how Paul became a Christian after all. When Jesus taught us to pray to the Father, and Paul clearly addresses the Father in clearer passages in his writing on prayer, is this passage in 2 Corinthians enough to build a theology on to pray differently, especially when this passage has so many questions?

So if it’s possible that the teaching of Scripture is that we should pray to the Father, then does that leave the other 2 persons of the Trinity out of prayer? Not at all. In fact, I think the fact that the other two members of the Trinity have such active roles in other ways lends even more credibility to the possibility that it is the Father we should be praying to.

Model #2

In the Old Testament era people had to go to a priest to be represented before God. Because of their sin they didn’t have direct access to God on their own. Job even cried out for a mediator that would make it possible for him to be in true relationship to the Father. In the book of Hebrews in the New Testament in chapters 4 through7 the author lays out for us that because of the work of Jesus on the cross he is now our High Priest, and when we want access to the Father we now go through him. Jesus says the same thing in John 14:6 when he says that “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Our sin separated us from our Father in heaven, and getting back to the Father is the goal of salvation. When we are saved by Jesus, it is the Father whom we receive justification from. In 1 Timothy 2:5 Paul says “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” In Ephesians 5:20 Paul says that he gives “thanks always in everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus.” Is it possible that it is the Father who desires to be prayed to, and that we pray through Jesus as mediator rather than directly to Jesus? And what about the Holy Spirit? Well, in Romans 8 it says that when we don’t know what to pray that the Spirit prays on our behalf. But the Scripture also says in a few different places that we are to pray “in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18, Jude 20). It never says pray TO the Spirit, but rather IN the Spirit. To pray in the Spirit means to pray in the power of the Spirit, or in recognition of the presence of the Spirit of God who lives in you. As we pray to the Father, the Spirit gives us the ability to connect with Jesus as he mediates between us and the Father. It is the sealing of the Spirit and his power that guarantees that we are a part of the covenant family of God, making it possible for us to utilize the access that we have to the Father as secured by Christ.

All 3 persons of the Trinity active in prayer, but serving distinct roles. Just as all 3 members of the Trinity are active in salvation but with distinct roles. The Father chooses us to salvation, the Son secures our salvation, and the Spirit seals our salvation.

Model #2 says that we pray TO the Father, THROUGH the Son, and IN the Spirit.

Now even if I was to espouse model #2 as my view (which I may not be), I don’t think we have any reason to believe that God is displeased with people praying with model #1 in focus. I just believe that if there seems to be a pattern of what prayer looks like in Scripture, and if Jesus taught prayer a certain way, we should pay attention to that. Even if we could argue that 2 Corinthians 12, Acts 7, Acts 9, and similar passages teach that prayer to Jesus is just fine with God, it’s clearly not the biblical norm. So even then should the majority of prayers be directed to the Father? It’s a good question. What do you think?

Great Expectations - When to Leave a Church

This post co-authored by Deacon Trevor Hallam

When Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem at the start of his final week before his death, many people called out to him saying “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Hosanna is a word that implies adoration of the one receiving the comment – and the simple etymology of the word means “please save” or “save now”. In the context of the crowd’s expectations of the coming of the kingdom of David one thing is crystal clear – the people expected that as Jesus entered Jerusalem on that day that he was bringing an earthly kingdom with him that would realize prosperity for the Jews and freedom from Roman oppression. They expected salvation.

Jesus came to save but not in the way they expected him to. Because of this, many of these very same people were there one week later at the trial of Jesus yelling “Crucify him!”They had expectations of God – he didn’t meet their expectations – they bailed pretty quickly.

This got us thinking – what expectations do we have of the church that are fair – meaning expectations that the church should meet and if it doesn’t that we should indeed feel justified in bailing out? And on the flipside, which expectations do people have of the church that are really terrible reasons to bail on a church, but people often leave anyway because they are either too self focused or because they are expecting the wrong things?

Let’s begin with expectations we should all have. If your church is missing these things, leaving is probably best:

1) Christ centricity – A local church should be focused on Jesus in everything that they do, and it should be concentrated on drawing you closer to Jesus. Jesus must be recognized as the rightful head of the church.

2) Biblical preaching – Your local church must preach from the Bible. This doesn’t mean that the preacher has to have a physical Bible in hand. Reading verses off of a screen is still reading and preaching from the Bible. The physical book isn’t what brings life; it’s the words of God that bring life.

3) Provides avenues for worship – The goal of the local church is to provide a place for the community of believers to worship God. The church should also love to reach non believers with the message of the Kingdom of God with the purpose of drawing new people to worship.

4) Cares about being both wide and deep – For the church to be wide it must grow. If your church never grows, something is wrong. God is not opposed to numbers, in fact Luke often points to numbers of people being saved in Acts. If your numbers equate with saved lives, then celebrating numbers is a great way to recognize the power and grace of God in your church. At the same time, if your church is only wide but it isn’t deep then there is a strong chance that your church is full of people who just love to have their ears tickled but are not engaging in the mission. If your church isn’t growing deeper, it will eventually stop growing wide. Beware when a church puts little value in discipleship.

5) Has elders – If your church is not governed by a plurality of leaders, then there is a good chance that your church is being led by the will of your pastor rather than the will of God. The Holy Spirit speaks through a council of Godly men.

6) Provides godly mentors – If there are no mentors in the church that you can go to in order to ask questions and be discipled, then growth will be difficult. Small groups aren’t necessarily commanded in Scripture, but there is a biblical paradigm for them in the New Testament and they provide a great avenue for mentorship. If mentorship isn’t happening in the church – try to be an agent of change. And don’t disqualify someone’s ability to mentor you because of your own fears or worldly expectations. God often provides mentors in unexpected places.

7) Theological harmony of major doctrines – If you have theological disagreements with a church on primary issues – leave quickly. If you have too many theological disagreements on secondary issues of great importance then you should still support the church you disagree with, but leaving might still be what’s best. Theology always drives what we do as Christians. As you will see below – theological nit picking can be taken too far, but where massive disagreement is had it might be best to find a church where more agreement is found.

8) A place to use your spiritual gifts – Now this one needs clarification. If you have the gift of hospitality and your church doesn’t have a hospitality ministry should you leave – I say no. It just means that you need to be creative about how to use your gift to bless the people around you. But in general, if there are very limited avenues in the community you’re apart of for people to use their gifting, then it becomes difficult to obey God in the area of utilizing your spiritual gifts. The church should encourage people to serve using the gifts God gave them.

9) Concerned with missional living – The church should be concentrated on evangelism, mercy and justice, and working hand in hand with the Church of Jesus outside of its own local expression. If a church is too self focused and ignores its place in the bigger picture of the Kingdom then chances are it isn’t engaged in the mission of Jesus as holistically as it should be.

10) Loves to pray – If a church doesn’t emphasize prayer much then there is a chance that it is guilty of either or both of the following – 1) it isn’t involved in ministry with high enough stakes to need God’s help, or 2) It is too confident in its own strength and abilities and doesn’t feel the need to draw on God. Both of these are bad by the way.

11) Handles money wisely – If the church mishandles money, you shouldn’t trust its leaders with your soul. Be informed and ask questions – a church that is responsible with money shouldn’t mind being transparent about how money is being spent.

People often leave churches for terrible reasons that are based more on self focus and pride than Scripture. Here are 11 popular reasons that should be thought through before leaving:

1) The leadership makes mistakes – Leaders make mistakes. All of them. If you leave a church when your leaders make mistakes, you will be church hoping for the rest of your life. Try showing grace instead, and don’t be afraid to challenge your leaders respectfully when they make mistakes.

2) The church has cliques – Churches have cliques – almost all of them. Try being an agent of change rather than leaving. It’s not solely everyone else’s responsibility to become your best friend; you bear responsibility for reaching out as well. Most people that have told me that their church is full of cliques are the same people that never tried to do anything about it. When you reach out, serve others, and join small groups, the cliquey environment seems less prevalent.

3) It doesn’t meet all of your physical needs – First of all, no church can. There are too many individual needs with each person for a church to effectively meet them all. Secondly, it’s not the churches job to meet each and every need you have anyway. The church isn’t about you, it’s about Jesus and providing an avenue for you to worship him and be discipled in his way.

4) It doesn’t meet all of your spiritual needs – The church should be a place where you can grow spiritually to a degree, but no preacher can preach in a way that meets the exact spiritual need of every individual in the church. If the sermons aren’t deep enough for you – don’t leave the church – get off of your butt and feed yourself. The preacher should be more focusing on connecting with non Christians and babes in Christ who aren’t quite mature enough to feed themselves. And besides, if the constant preaching of the simple gospel isn’t deep enough for you then you aren’t as mature as you thought you were anyway. All of the most mature Christians I know are moved more by the gospel each time they hear it.

5) Musical style – There is a woman in our church that hates our music. She has a hard time singing along and doesn’t really understand our lyrics. She stays in our church because she has a ministry to younger women, loves her small group, and grows by hearing the sermons each week. She is a great model of selflessness. You won’t love everything your church does – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there.

6) Preaching style – Our church uses predominately expository preaching, but I’m always blown away by how many people consider topical preaching to be an unhealthy method. Just because you preach topically doesn’t mean that you ignore difficult passages, and preaching topically actually makes it easier to preach to the current needs of your congregation as a whole. By the way – the Sermon on the Mount was a topical sermon – Jesus seemed to use the method effectively.

7) Background and age of congregation – If you are in a church where very few people are “like” you – great. God likes variety. As long as you have Jesus in common with people, the gospel should be a good enough reason to help you fit in at any church regardless of the genre of people.

8) Theological nit picking – Earlier I stated that too many disagreements on important issues is a good reason to leave a church, but don’t take that too far. There is a woman in our church that disagrees slightly with how far we apply our complementarian theology, but she is a thriving member of our church and a small group leader. If you leave over small theological nuances, you will never find a church that fits.

9) Minor strategy/philosophy differences – If you leave a church when the elders make a decision you don’t agree with then ask yourself one question – do I think I should lead the church? Even the leaders disagree. To be frank, I think I disagree with about 30% of the decisions we make at elder meetings. But when the majority wants to go in a certain direction I respect the decision and keep my mouth shut, and I usually find out that the majority was right. Show humility.

10) Receive church discipline – The Bible commands leaders to carry out church discipline at times. If church discipline is brought to you from your leaders and you leave, then you are communicating that you need to be able to do church – and Christianity for that matter – your own way. You are not your own. You were bought with a price and saved into the church. If church discipline is carried out with you, be mature and take it like a man. Unless you’re a woman, then take it like a woman.

11) If you can’t serve exactly where you want – Sometimes people want to serve in places that they aren’t ready to serve in. Either they aren’t ready from a talent perspective, they haven’t proved that they are faithful with little, or their character disqualifies them. If you aren’t allowed to serve exactly where you want – don’t leave – do what you’re asked by leadership until they believe that you are ready. Again – show humility.

Obedience

At Living Stones we talk quite a bit about the grace of God. Every week in our sermons, music, and welcomes we talk about God’s grace. This is a very good thing. If you don’t talk about the grace of God then you aren’t talking about the gospel. After all, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8). Romans 9:16 says that your salvation depends “…not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” You cannot work for God’s favor, he grants it to you by the work of his son Jesus and by the indwelling of his Holy Spirit.

Should we minimize the grace of God in any way? By no means, so please do not read that such a thing is my intention with what I am writing. I think the grace of God deserves the attention it gets, and even more so. But I do believe that our appropriate response and reverence for the doctrine of God’s grace also comes at the expense of another extremely important concept in the teaching of Scripture.

Obedience.

What often happens in churches, and I think I see it from time to time when I talk with people at Living Stones, is that we focus well on the extension of God’s grace to the elect, but we are so celebratory about this doctrine and about Jesus offering our pardon from sin as a free gift that we often neglect to focus equally on what our appropriate response to this doctrine should be. As such, we become what we think we have been saved from, ungrateful and rebellious. You see, according to the Scriptures, celebrating the grace of God through word only is not really celebrating at all. The Scriptures teach that one of the greatest ways to celebrate God’s grace is through obedience to his teachings and his call on your life. What most Christians fail to realize is that the Scripture also says that if you fail to celebrate the grace of God through obedience, then you probably haven’t actually experienced his grace at all, even if you show up at church a couple of times per month blindly believing that your safe as you completely ignore most of what God has called you to do. Romans 8:1 says that we are no longer under condemnation for sin, but remember, Romans 6:1-2 also remind us that this is not a license to continue smoking weed, getting drunk, looking at porn, sleeping with people you aren’t married to, or spitting filth from your mouth. Paul writes, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Now don’t get me wrong, the Corinthian church was into some really terrible stuff and Paul still said that he was confident that the Grace of God was upon them. But he then sent 3 different letters to sternly warn them that they were possibly on a path to destruction, and in 1 Corinthians 5 he even commanded that a man in the church be thrown out of the congregation for unrepentant sin.

In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus tells his followers to make disciples. This doesn’t only mean to lead them to Jesus; it means to train them in the way of Jesus. Of future disciples he said that they needed to do 2 things, be baptized, and “observe all that I have commanded”.

In Luke 6:46 Jesus asks his followers “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you?” Ephesians 2:10 says that were have been “created in Christ Jesus for good works”. 1 Peter 1:15 says “but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct”.

Are you saved by the grace of God ALONE? Absolutely. Is it necessary for your faith to be accompanied by obedience and good works in order for your faith to be alive and legitimized? You better believe it, or you have more trouble than you realize. James 2:14 says “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” This is a rhetorical question – the answer is no. In verse 17 James says “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

So what does it look like to obey Jesus? 2 Timothy 2:21 says “if anyone cleanses HIMSELF from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” The Holy Spirit definitely cleanses us through sanctification, but the Bible also says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This Timothy passage says that it’s your responsibility to cleanse yourself from what is unclean, unholy, sinful, and dishonoring to God. How do I do that? 2 Peter 1:3 says that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness”. The power of God in your life delivers to you the necessary means to obey God. When you think you can’t shake a sin pattern, then what you are actually saying is that you think that your sin is more powerful than God. Do you really want to say that? I hope not.

So if you’re sleeping with someone you’re not married to, drinking too much, looking at porn, speaking in ways that are not becoming of the calling to which you’ve been called, dealing with people in business with a lack of integrity, or dealing with any other intentional sin, I think the Scripture and the power of God lead you to one great piece of counseling for your first action step – you should stop doing that.

Meat market or family business?

On the Living Stones elder team, we’ve been talking a bit lately about what role the church can play in uniting singles in our church in godly romantic relationships. Obviously because we have such a young congregation we have a lot of single people, and we have heard quite a bit from many of our singles that finding godly partners is very difficult, which is strange, because there are so many singles attending service and serving together every single week.

Many churches have singles ministries, and most people in those churches aren’t offended by that. We’ve specifically decided not to have a singles ministry, at least for now, because of two major concerns 1) those ministries are often more about catering to consumer, meat market mentalities, and 2) another ministry just busies people up with “church stuff” even more, keeping those people from having the extra time to live missionally.

Instead of having specific singles ministries that people are usually not offended by but aren’t always that effective, some of us in church leadership have tried simply introducing godly single people to one another or having get togethers where Christians can hang out in a non threatening environment and meet one another. For some reason, we’ve had a few people in our church get offended by this. So my question is – why?

I have had a few people say to me that it isn’t the role of the church to pair people up or play “love connection”. Really? Where is your verse for that? I would love to see it. I think such opinions are based on a strong misunderstanding of what the church is. Remember, the church is not a building where worship happens; the church is a people who worship together. And while worship is our primary objective, the way that we worship God takes on many forms. The church is not just a group who sings songs together once a week; the church is a family of people who do life together. If your brother, sister, or close friend had a friend that they wanted you to meet would you become grossly offended at the suggestion and tell them that it wasn’t their role to hope that you find a wonderful and godly partner in life? Most of us wouldn’t mind.

So why is the leadership of a church prohibited from playing a role in helping godly people in the church find each other? Is marriage a good thing? The Scripture says yes. Is marriage a part of life? Yes. Do we counsel married couples? Yes. Do people often come to me as a pastor and ask my advice on whether or not they should marry a certain person? All the time. So why is it any different if I decide to have a fun event where both married people and singles can attend, and where some singles may find each other and benefit the church through healthy and kingdom minded romance? I have heard many people object to such a thing, but I haven’t had a biblical or kingdom minded reason placed alongside of these objections.

Is there a command in Scripture that says that church leaders are responsible for pairing up couples? No, there isn’t. But that doesn’t prohibit me or another elder or deacon from doing it. There a lot of things that we do that aren’t commanded in Scripture but people agree are good, healthy, and kingdom minded. For example, there is no deacon meeting in Scripture, but I think our deacons would agree that when we have them they are good. The question is not “does Scripture command it?” the question is “does Scripture forbid it?”, and if not, does it fit with a biblical ethic? I think godly men and women finding each other is consistent with the mood of Scripture, so helping people find each other serves a kingdom minded purpose.

Finally, because there have been instances lately of couples finding each other through introductions or fun events, and because conversations have been had about what role the church might be able to play in helping people find each other, comments have been made that “Living Stones is too concerned with playing match maker lately and its all I hear about”. This reaction is far too extreme. The last time I checked, we have never dedicated a service or even an officially organized church event around this issue, but we still proclaim the name of Jesus every time we meet. Jesus is our concern, and I think Jesus is concerned that godly relationships are built in our church. Healthy relationships mean a healthy church family. Is that a bad thing to spend time working on?