“How can God listen to all our prayers?”

Steve Brown:
How can God listen to all our prayers? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us, but there’s a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man.

Steve Brown:
How are you?

Pete Alwinson:
Good. I’m doing, I’m doing better than I deserve, you know.

Steve Brown:
Tell us about the podcast.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Oh, listen, we love the ForgeTruth podcast and you’re on it. So, go and listen to Steve Brown talking, hear that voice. And then our latest one is of a brother who was a homosexual and came right out of the lifestyle in an amazing, amazing way. So, if you know anybody that struggles with same sex attraction, that’s a powerful one.

Steve Brown:
Where can they go to get it?

Pete Alwinson:
ForgeTruth podcast on podcast or go to YouTube and you can see the video podcast.

Steve Brown:
Can they go to ForgeTruth.com and then click the podcast?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, they can go to ForgeTruth.com and get it there too. Thanks.

Steve Brown:
Hey, listen, go there. Hey, Pete, as you know, comes in on Fridays and we answer your questions, and we love this time and we love your questions. You can ask a question by going to 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, following directions, and then recording your question, and sometimes we put those on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network

P.O. Box 5000

Maitland M A I T L A N D, Florida 32794

if you live in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can send your question to [email protected] and all of those places are places where, should the spirit move, you could help us financially. We’re members of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And both organizations oversee our books to make sure that we’re honest and ethical. Now, we were before they were came along, but that’ll make you feel better. So, if you can help us, do. If you can’t, we understand. Say a prayer for Key Life. Pete, why don’t you pray for us and we’ll get to some questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Our Holy God, we come into your presence right now and we lift up your name. We stop for just a minute to remember that you are the Holy God of the universe, father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Triune, wise, loving, kind, powerful, merciful. Lord, we come to you because we do need all of who you are. Father, we ask that you would bring your power through your Spirit into our lives and take us to the next level of growth, if we’ve plateaued out, we pray that you would help us continue to grow and allow grace to cascade down through our lives. Unleash in us the freedom that you have for the children of God. Thank you for Steve, for Key Life, for we have so many incredible people that do so much behind the scenes. Lord, we lift them up to you today and be with our pastors and teachers and priests and leaders this week-end as they lead us in worship and lead us before your throne as your people. And so, we come to you now with this Q&A ask that you would be honored and glorified through it. For we pray in the strong name of our risen Savior Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, this is an e-mail. How can God have an intimate conversation via prayer, worship with each of his children when thousands upon thousands of us are praying and worshipping him at the same time?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, isn’t that amazing?

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really is.

Pete Alwinson:
And that’s a statement of fact. And that he does.

Steve Brown:
And the question is how?

Pete Alwinson:
And so, it’s a statement that, a question that really forces us to think bigger than our minds are able to think by themselves without, because God is infinite. And I, the closest we can come to infinite is the universe, as it continues to expand even.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, but there is, and it irritates you sometimes when I talk about this, but when you consider that God is not a part of our timeline, and that eternity has no beginning and no end, the time is not a factor, and every prayer that is ever spoken is present before God at this very second. In fact, he listens to Abraham’s prayers and my prayers and both of our grandchildren’s’ prayers and our great, great, great grandchildren. If Jesus tarries, Jesus said before I am, he uses the covenant name of God. In other words, I’ve been here all the time, and the Bible says.

The Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, slain from the foundation of the earth.

What’s with that? That means that it was always an event present in the mind of God himself. And so are you. And if you remember that, you remember he’s got all the time. He’s not like your mother or like your father with a bunch of kids. You’ve got to allot it. You’ve got to get a piece to the pie to everybody. And it’s hard sometimes, but God’s not there.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
I mean, he can give all of his time to all of his people all of the time. And that means you.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. So, take that personally, own that. And then don’t hold back. A lot of times we, people come up to us as ministers and they say, Hey, pray for me because God listens to you more than he does to me. No, he listens to you, listens to everybody because of Jesus.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, that’s a remarkable thing. Don’t hold back. Pray. That’s why Paul says.

Pray without ceasing.

You know, just don’t, don’t ever let the prayer, start it at the beginning of the day and let it continue. Have that ongoing dialogue and enjoy that you have a Father that is incredibly responsive to you.

Steve Brown:
And hears every prayer that you pray.

Pete Alwinson:
And he does, because he’s outside the space and time continuum, you’re right. I agree.

Steve Brown:
Okay, I’m making progress here.

Pete Alwinson:
You are. You’re mentoring me. But I don’t fully understand that.

Steve Brown:
No, I don’t either.

Pete Alwinson:
But that’s the nature of faith. We have enough that we understand. We understand the resurrection is true, therefore we can leap to that he can hear all our prayers.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. That’s true. And the Bible gives a hint of the eternal nature of God, who is outside of our timeline.

Pete Alwinson:
Exactly.

Steve Brown:
People, because of something I taught, and I think I’m the only one, and I’m probably wrong, it’s not in the commentaries, and I never heard anybody else say it. But this is a question, what’s the meaning of the Parable of the Talents?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And it may be, because I’m irritated, that parable has been used by my mother and every teacher I ever had who said, God has given you gifts and you’re not using them.

Pete Alwinson:
You’re not living up to your potential.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. You’re not living up to your potential. But you know, when you look at that parable, that’s really not what it’s all about. He’s talking to the Pharisees who are very uptight. They sleep in their ties, and they’re not risking anything for the glory of God. And so, he gives three guys that, two of which risk, and one doesn’t risk.

Pete Alwinson:
He gives them talents, which are, you know, a unit of measure of actually money, a coin back then.

Steve Brown:
And they go out and make more. And he says.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

But the other guy didn’t lose it, he buried it. And in other words, he wouldn’t risk it. And that’s not what was said to that particular one. And so, I think Jesus is not talking about using your talents successfully. He’s talking about using your talents in a risk. And I really believe that’s what that teaches. It’s not that you’re not living up to your potential. Do you know anybody who does?

Pete Alwinson:
No, I know. I mean, I often feel guilty that I should be doing more.

Steve Brown:
Oh gosh, like every other day.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. So, I like that it’s more, and I would agree, it’s like step out in faith and use what I’ve given you to use to advance my kingdom.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. Risk it.

Pete Alwinson:
Risk it.

Steve Brown:
Even if you lose it, risk it. I believe that third guy, if he had gone to a casino and gambled it away, would have gotten a better comment from the master, then the one that buried it.

Pete Alwinson:
Because really that’s the essential criticism, you buried what I gave you.

Steve Brown:
That’s exactly true.

Pete Alwinson:
You buried it.

Steve Brown:
And you didn’t risk it. You might lose it and you might fail, you might make a fool of yourself, but go risk it anyway.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, that raises even the larger question. And I know we’ve got to move on, but it raises the larger question of fear and how we are so fear based as people. And as Christians, we don’t need to be, particularly after the resurrection.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true.

Pete Alwinson:
We ought to be a lot bolder and a lot more risk oriented.

Steve Brown:
That is so true. This is another e-mail question. In Matthew 16, what does it mean to deny yourself? What we’ve just been talking about.

Pete Alwinson:

Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.

Right?

Steve Brown:
You know, that turns some Christians into weird Christians. The Cat o’ Nine Tails, The Hairshirt, I’ve got to deny every, when I’m hungry, I don’t have to eat. When I want a new tie, I can’t get one. And when I can ride the bus instead of the car, And all of those things you can do if you want to, but that’s not what he’s talking about.

Pete Alwinson:
No, he’s basically saying, follow me.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, there’s a lot of things we can do that are consistent with following him.

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
And they’re not bad deals at all. Like, and I haven’t seen you in a tie in a long time, Steve. And I do have one on right now, you going to go out buy a new tie?

Steve Brown:
Next Friday, I’ll put on a tie, alright?

Pete Alwinson:
You clean up really well, but you’re right, we can get really weird about things like we’ve got to live as ascetics.

Steve Brown:
You know, it’s just, it’s Jesus is the man and risking for him, speaking up, that’s denying yourself in a situation where you would rather remain silent, reaching out and giving and caring and loving. That’s risking.

Pete Alwinson:
That is.

Steve Brown:
Well, I think we’ve adequately answered that question.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s good. That’s very helpful stuff. Very helpful truth.

Steve Brown:
That is, because we spoke it. Hey guys, thanks for joining us. One other thing before we leave, and that is to tell you that Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.