Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through John 14:8-14, where Jesus responds to Philip's request to see the Father, emphasizing that seeing Him is seeing the Father. He highlights the importance of prayer, stating that believers can ask for anything in Jesus' name, aligning with God's will, and that such prayers will be answered to glorify the Father. The sermon encourages the congregation to abide in Christ, trust in His promises, and recognize the power of prayer in their lives.
Housekeeping and Introduction
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Great job. If you have a child that wants to be dismissed to Children's Church, that's available for you at this time. Ms.
Carrie's going to take that and be a great time for you back there. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in John chapter 14, verses 8 through 14, where we'll be at today.
Water went down the wrong pipe this morning and got me choked up a little bit.
Jade did a great job this morning. She's been wanting to do that. It's always nerve-wracking and nervous for a young person to get up and sing and not just brag on her because she's my daughter, but she did a great job, and thank you for all the youth that helped
lead us as well. John chapter 14, verses 8 through 14. We have been talking through and preaching through Jesus in his upper room teaching with his disciples what an intimate setting this has been with him washing his feet. Judas betrayed him and left as he's beginning to look to the cross.
Last week, we looked at our hearts being heavy and how to deal with heaviness in our hearts. And today, we go back to Philip as he's asking questions, as he's asking some things that's going on, and we get to see the heart of what's going on in this story.
So if you have your copy of Scripture, or maybe you don't, there's a copy in front of you, but we'll have it on the screen as well. Let's stand as we read God's Word one last time for you to stretch your legs and get ready for the message today.
The Bible says, verse 8, Lord said, Philip, show us the Father, and that's enough for us.
And Jesus said to him, have I been among you for all this time, and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father?
And you, verse 10, don't you believe that I am the Father, and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you, I do not speak of my own. The Father who lives in me does this work. Believe in me, and that,
believe in me that I am the Father, and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.
Verse 12, Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I have done, and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
Whatever you ask in my name, I will do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask in me anything in my name, I will do it. Father, we love you.
We thank you for what you've done for us. And for the reading of your word, I pray that you'll help us this morning as we walk through this passage and really understand what you're saying about prayer and about our lives and about how we can follow you and who you truly are.
I pray that our lives will be changed as we leave this room today. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
As you know, I like history. Several years ago, I was reading through some historical accounts of the Holocaust, and I've wanted to go to Washington to the Holocaust Museum. I wanted to go to the Holocaust Museum while we were in Israel, but we didn't have time to go there.
Historical Context of Auschwitz
But so much history has been written about Auschwitz and other places and the concentration camps that were in Germany and Poland.
And many of those towns are still there today. You can go and you can walk through some of those places. And tour guides would sometimes interview older residents who grew up during World War II.
And again and again, you would hear this same response. They would say things like, we didn't really know what was happening. They said they heard rumors. They had saw trains. They noticed smoke rising in the distance.
But they didn't really fully understand what was going on in their own backyard. After the war had ended, and you may know this about history, but after the war ended, the Allied forces,
America and other countries, came in, and they took the citizens that were living in the back doors of Auschwitz and around this area, and they made them go through the camps that they were there.
As they went through these camps, they saw the barracks. They saw the ovens. They saw the pile of shoes and the suitcases that belonged to real people. Many of those villagers collapsed in tears when they saw this. You can imagine,
I mean, just right down the road, almost like a chicken farm, right down the road, you would have seen it. You would have understood that something was going on, but you sort of took a blind eye to it.
And now you're walking through this town, you're walking through this concentration camp, and all of a sudden, everything that you see is grabbing at your heartstrings. Why is it that this changed?
Why is it that now they're in tears? It's simply because seeing these things changes everything.
The rumors that they had heard that maybe they just wanted to turn the blind eye to became reality.
The distance that was binding them from maybe a tree, a group of trees that was separating from the concentration camp to their house became personal, and they began to see what was actually going on, and their curiosity turned into conviction.
One historian, as I was reliving this moment this past week, said this, the moment they saw what was going on, they realized that they had been living beside something that they never truly understood. It was in that moment that what they saw with their own eyes changed the way they believed forever.
And this whole illustration gets back to John chapter 14.
Something very similar has happened. And Peter, I'm sorry, Philip looks at Jesus and says, show us the Father and it'll be enough. And Jesus answers with this astonishing statement, have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me, Philip?
Revelation of the Father
You have seen the Father, you see me. He basically is saying, you've been looking for God and God is standing right here in front of you. Can you not look and can you not see?
This really gets us to the heart of this moment of this passage where we begin to see a couple of different ideas where Jesus shows us who he is, where Jesus shows us how we can believe, and really
it gets to some of the most misinterpreted passages of Scripture where we can ask and truly get an answer.
And so at the end of this, I want to sort of talk about how prayer can help us and how we can ask in a certain way. But as we get started, we have to understand the person of who this prayer that we're going to look at the very end gets us to.
So we look at the revelation of the person. Philip is speaking for the entire group.
Oftentimes we would get an illustration where maybe Peter steps up and Peter says something. Peter makes a statement and we like Peter.
Peter puts his foot in his mouth often. Peter's the one that says, Lord, if it's really you out there, let me step out of the boat and come walk on the water. Right? This is Peter that's often asking questions, but Philip begins to ask this question.
Philip is requesting something that the disciples who have walked with Jesus for three years don't fully grasp. They ask, Jesus,
can we see the Father? Can we see what's going on here? Can we see who the Father really is? Show us the Father. And Jesus in this gentle, loving correction. Right? This is not me when I look at this. Right?
This is my kids. They ask me all the time. I've said this before. You have had kids. You have kids. And they ask you some of the funnest questions possible. Right? Dad, when are we going to get there? Right?
The GPS is on the screen. They're saying we're going to get there at 3.05. And yet they're like, Dad, how much longer, Dad? Are we there yet? And you're like,
how many more times are you going to ask me this question? And Jesus is in the same way. He's like, hey, you've seen me.
I've taught. I've told you that me and the Father are one. And Philip's like, hey, Jesus, I know you said this, but can we see the Father? He's like, Philip,
what are you doing? I've told you this. You know that me and the Father are one, but yet he comes to this with gentle,
Fatherly Correction and Patience
fatherly, loving correction. Something that we all as fathers can take and we can say, how can I respond appropriately? How can we have patience as Jesus had? And really it breaks it down into a couple of ideas. In verse 9, we see the problem of the spiritual perception that happens in our life.
Jesus looks at him and said, have you not been with me so long? And have you not known who I am? Jesus is not angry at him.
He's just amazed at like, can you see that I am from the Father, that me and the Father are one? How have you not put in the clothes together? Like I have laid everything out for you to know what's going on for the last three years. Philip, I want you to know this.
But the problem is, I'm like Philip. And if you were to be honest, you would probably be like Philip in this room as well.
Philip says, Jesus, can we have a vision? Can we, can you just pull the curtain of heaven back and can you just show us who God is? Like if I could just see God, if I could just see these things, then my life would be changed.
And he's essentially asking Jesus to do something that Jesus has been doing daily for three years.
For three and a half years, Jesus has pulled back the veil of heaven and said, look at me. I am the Father, the Father is me, and I'm going to do these wonderful works so that your life can be changed. Jesus says something staggering in this moment.
He says something amazing. He says, if you have seen me, then you have seen the Father. This is another clear statement of the deity of Jesus, where he says that the Father and me are one.
This is not merely, I am a representation of God. This is, I am God. I am the one who is God. He is revealing who he is and who God is. Colossians says it like this, the image of the invisible God.
If you want to see God, if you want to see what God is and who he is like, look at Jesus touching the leper.
Look at Jesus humbling himself and going to the most undeserving people, the people who have been forsaken by their friends and family and their neighbors, who are sick and no one wants to be around them. He goes to them and he heals them.
Look at Jesus forgiving the sinner, the woman at the well, forgiving the woman caught in adultery.
He goes to them with loving correction and he loves them. You want to see Jesus,
you want to see God look at him calming the storms and saying, I have control over everything.
Everything and every spiritual thing and every physical thing that you're going to go through in life. You want to see God look at Jesus weeping with the brokenhearted as he stands at his best friend's tomb.
As Lazarus has been buried, as the family is around him and Mary and Martha said, Jesus, if only you were here. If only you were here, Jesus, then my brother, your best friend would still be here. Jesus in this moment in John, in two simple words where it says that Jesus wept.
The son of God, the God who came into this world that was going to die for their sins, began to cry for them because they could not believe that he was God. Jesus is God made visible.
Jesus is God that is standing there in front of us. I said, I like to read. I don't read as much as I should.
My wife says I read too much. Other people say I don't read enough. And so I'm always conflicted. Do I read more? Do I not read more? My wife, she always knows all the answers. And so if I read too much, I should read less. Like I'm always conflicted in this moment.
But I like to read. And one of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis.
C.S. Lewis, not Caleb Samuel Lewis that's not here today. But C.S. Lewis from years and years ago, C.S. Lewis and Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, right? He died at 54 years old. He preached to hundreds of thousands of people.
And when I read these guys, I sort of like, I try to envision like, what if C.S. Lewis were to come into my office and be like, Hey, James, I know you've been reading. Help me. Let me explain some of these things to you.
Or Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, comes in and says, Hey, James, you've been preaching this way. Let me help your preaching style a little better. I would love that. That would be awesome to have that there. But I wouldn't really know who they were, how their voice sounds.
Like you sort of take your own imagination of how their voice sounds. And you sort of read into it. And you can have pictures of what they look like. And you sort of envision that as you're reading. But if they were to walk in.
If Winston Churchill were to walk in the room as I'm reading Winston Churchill's book. And all of a sudden his voice comes out. I know what he sounds like.
I know what he looks like. And now all of a sudden he's sitting there physically in the room. It would change the way I read that.
Character of the Father
And God sent his son into this world to step into the room to say, This is what my father is like.
My father is loving. My father is just. My father is kind. My God is forgiving. My father is compassionate.
He's loving. He's caring. He weeps with those who weep. And all of a sudden Jesus is laying out this image of who the father is. Hebrews says it like this. He is the expressed image,
the person of God. When we begin to see the revelation of who Jesus is. And we begin to see who he truly is. The spiritual perception can go away.
And we can begin to see who he truly is. And who he is in his own spiritual life. The second thing we look at underneath the revelation of his purpose. Not only do we see the problem of the spiritual perception.
But we see the proof of his unity. Something that we all can say we struggle with in our life. Is unity in our life.
I said it in my prayer. And I just got back from a disciple making conference. And I had just done a wedding. I'm doing another wedding in a couple of months. And there was a statistic.
Barna. If y'all have ever seen Barna in statistics and research. We begin to see some things in marriages. Right now I believe that it says that 60% of all marriages in America.
They end in divorce right now. 60%. It's a staggering number. More people that are getting married are getting divorced than ever before. The statistic goes into the church. And that 50% of all church marriages.
Marriages that are in church. That attend church regularly. Are now ended in divorce. It's a terrible statistic as well.
I'm a product of divorce. My mom and dad got divorced when I was a junior in high school. My wife she's a product of divorce. Her parents have been divorced. And both of her parents have been divorced. And they've been remarried.
And so this is part of our life as well. And so I'm constantly saying how can I have unity? How can unity be brought into this?
And Barna just recently put out a statistic. And I thought it was mind blowing. And I've been sharing it with every married couple. And so married couples in the room. Help me out here.
Tune in for a little bit. The statistic is that .0, I believe it's 6% of the couples get a divorce if they add this in their marriage.
So the divorce rate goes from 50% down to .06% if you add one thing into your marriage.
Okay? It's like if you're baking a cake. If Miss Alma's making a cake and she says, my cake is astronomically better when I put this one ingredient in. Right?
She's going to put it in all the time. And so the number of divorce plummets when prayer between a husband and wife is added into the marriage.
When unity of the marriage gets brought together through prayer. Husbands and wives that pray together on a regular basis. The rate of divorce goes from 50% down to .06%.
All because the husband and wife at some point in the day said, I think we should pray together. I think we should be unified in what's going on in our marriage.
And I want to ask you and I want to show you what Jesus is saying here in verse 10. I and the Father are one. The Father is in me and I am in the Father.
This is a description of perfect unity that Jesus is performing every work that he does here on earth because him and the Father are together.
Before Jesus was doing things, they said that he would get up early in the morning. He would go to a high mountain. He would get away from his disciples and he would spend time in prayer with his Father. So that he would do the works of the Father.
The works of Jesus that he performed, they were not independent acts.
Jesus didn't go out there and say, okay, I'm going to do a bunch of things and hopefully that the God of heaven, my Father is going to get glory from it.
No, he specifically went and coveted time in prayer and said, God, I want to make sure that these are for what you want to do. D.A. Carson said it like this.
Unity Between Jesus and the Father
The miracles that Jesus performed were not simply displays of power. They were revelations of the Father's character.
What Jesus is simply saying is this. If you want to see the Father, look at me because I am so in unity. I'm so in touch with God that everything I do, everything I say, every action I make is from the Father. So he's showing his unity.
And then in verse 11, we see the proof of his works. He says, believe in me or maybe you just believe in the very works that I've done.
If his words seem too great to believe, if he said, listen, if you can't fathom the idea that me and the Father are one, just believe the works that I've done. Look at the miracles that I've done. Look at the things that I've performed in the name of God.
John calls it signs and wonders all throughout scripture.
This was pointing to something greater. He took the water that was at the wedding and he turned it into wine. He took a dead man and he brought him back to life.
He took a blind man and he opened up his eyes and said, now you can go and see. He took people all throughout scripture who are broken and hurt and tormented by demons.
And he said, in the name of the Father, you have been set free. The proof of his works point people to who God truly is.
They are like you could say windows to the heavenly world. I use this as illustrations, right? When I'm preaching, I give illustrations as I'm preaching because illustrations give you the window into the message that I'm preaching. Jesus used miracles as a window to reveal who the Father was.
To be able to pull back a little bit of the curtain of heaven and say, you know what God does?
He takes the brokenhearted and he heals them. He mends their heart and he says, let not your heart be troubled.
Believe in me as we looked at last week. He looks at those who have betrayed him and he washes his feet. And he said, this is what the Father does. The Father comes down and he loves those that are going to betray him. He loves those that are going to forsake him.
And yet he shows them love so that we can see who God truly is as we understand this.
The question I want to ask us as we sort of bring this first point to a close as we move on from the passages. If someone were to look at your life, if someone were to say your life is a window into who God is, would they see Christ in your life?
Would they look and say, when I pull back the curtains, when I look through the window into your life,
all I see is God. All I see is Jesus. All I see is someone who is putting others in front of them. All I see is someone who is sacrificially living, who is caring for those that are hurt, who is helping the ones that are brokenhearted. Because that's what Jesus did.
Jesus can relate to us because he's been there for us. And he's been there and he lived this life through this world in a form of a person to show us who he truly is. Are we mimicking the ways of Christ as we live our life?
Number two, we see in verse 12, very simply, the revelation of God's power.
The revelation of Jesus' power. This is one of the most surprising promises that Jesus sort of tucks away in this passage. He says this, believe in me and the works that I do, you will do, and greater works you're going to do than this.
I can only put myself in this picture. As I read scripture, I try to put myself into the situation.
I try to imagine myself sitting in the upper room and Jesus is there and Judas leaves. And Peter's like, I'm not going to betray you, Jesus.
I'm going to be your number one follower. Like, I'm going to be the best you've ever seen. Like, I'm going to be the greatest thing you've ever imagined, Jesus. You're not going to ever have to depend on anyone else other than me. And Jesus is like,
no, Peter, you're going to deny me. He's like, whoa, what did he say there? So I try to put myself into this picture. And all of a sudden, you're sitting. Peter asks this question.
I want to see the Father. Jesus says, you've already seen the Father. And then he sort of throws in and says, if you believe in me, the works that I'm going to do, you're going to do also.
Promise of Greater Works
Okay, that's pretty cool. Jesus, I want to heal people from the dead. I want to take people who are blind and give them back sight. And then he stops and he says, and greater works are you going to do than I have done.
Could you imagine the disciples in this moment? Hold on, Jesus.
Like, no one asks this question. I would be the first one. Jesus, what do you mean? I'm going to do greater works than you? How is that even possible? Look at what you've done.
Look at what you're going to do. Of course, we can see what Jesus is going to do. He's going to rise from the dead. How in the world am I going to do greater than you?
And Jesus is simply in this moment saying, you get to be participants in the power that I have. How does he do this?
Look at what he says. He says, he that believes in me. He's not looking at them saying,
the apostles in this room, you get to do greater than me. He's not looking at them and saying,
the pastors only in the room are going to be able to do greater than me. He says, anyone who believes in the Father, anyone who believes in me gets to do the things that I've done.
And they're going to get to do greater things. Now, I'm not in here talking and preaching prosperity and preaching miracles and healings. I'm describing an ongoing empowered ministry that the disciples got up and they preached the day of Pentecost and 3,000 people came to know Jesus.
We get to be a part of that. We get to be a part of this greater works and his power that we get to see. Now we get to look at the promise.
Look at what he says here, greater works, the promise of the greater works. This phrase confuses people.
And I'm going to try to break it down in the next couple of minutes. But it does not mean that you're going to perform greater miracles than raising people from the dead. What it simply means is the very next phrase, greater works because I go to the Father.
I'm going to go to the Father. And then you're going to be able to do greater works than I did. How is this possible? What happens after Jesus goes to the Father? The Holy Spirit comes.
The day of Pentecost happens. And the gospel is spread throughout the entire world. This is what Jesus is saying. In my earthly ministry, I was confined to Israel. I was confined to 150, 250 mile radius of this little piece of land. And I preached to a couple of people.
And thousands of people heard some things. And lives were changed. But when I'm gone, the church is going to be established.
And the church comes in. And the church gets to go throughout all of the world. Thousands believed at Pentecost.
The gospel has went to every continent across the world. Millions have come to know Jesus. And the greater works he's saying here is not greater in scope, but greater in reach. He's saying, listen, I've been confined to 12 men. And I've been teaching you for three years.
And now you're going to go out and you're going to spread the gospel. And you're going to go further than you ever imagined. Further than even myself is going to be able to go. But you're going to go through the power of the Holy Spirit.
And we as a church get to be a part of this because we get to preach to the nations.
I want to give you this simple illustration. It was the easiest, lowest level of illustration I could think of. How many of you have ever seen a pond before? Okay, a couple of you. We're waking up. Has anyone ever seen water before? Okay, we're getting there. Imagine a little kid,
Hudson, who's crazy, who just got a spanking because he couldn't listen up here. Hudson walks up and we're going to be going to Stone Mountain, Georgia in a couple of weeks on a family vacation. And there's a big pond where we're at, the lake there.
And imagine he picked that little rock up off the seashore. He throws it as far as he can.
And it lands and there's this water, this steel. And that water, that rock hits the middle of it because he's got an arm like Babe Ruth. And he throws it and it lands in the middle.
And that middle splash makes a big splash that comes up.
But then in that moment, there are ripples that come out from that splash that go all the way. And as he's standing on the seashore, where he hit the water there, all of a sudden the waves began to hit where he's at at the seashore. This is the illustration of Jesus.
He said, I am the initial rock that goes into the water. I make the initial splash.
And now you as churches, as generations go, the ripple continues to go out further and further because the power of the Holy Spirit works in you. Because the ripples of the church continue to go forward.
The question we have to ask ourselves is, are we willing to step into those ripples? Are we willing to step in and say, God, I want to be used for you.
I want to take my life and I want to mean something for you.
I want to be someone who not only becomes a spectator at a sport, who sits there and says, you know what, if I was the coach on the field, or if I was the linebacker on the field, or
if I was the quarterback on the field, I would be able to do better than that. No, we get to step into the game and we get to say, coach, put me in. I'm ready to be the quarterback.
I'm ready to be the song leader because I would love to have a song leader. I'm ready to do these things for you. I'm ready to step into the game. This is the promise of the greater work that Jesus has given us. He says, now you don't have to be a spectator.
I've taught you and you get to step into the game.
Prayer in Jesus' Name
Are we willing to step into the game for Jesus? And number three, the revelation of his promise. Jesus moves from the power of who he is to now this moment of prayer.
These verses are probably some of the most encouraging verses that you can look at in all of scripture. But yet they're also, I'm sweating too much up here, church. I got to take my coat off. Claude Jr. gave me permission last week, so I'm taking it off.
These are probably some of the most misunderstood promises in all of scripture. I want you to read it again with me. Verses 13 through 15.
Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. Most people read this passage and they say, whatever I ask, I get.
Right? This is how it was explained to me as I was a kid. We were riding down the road one day and my dad pulled up to an ATM and he put his card in and he punched in. I don't even remember how much it was.
It was a couple hundred dollars he got at the ATM. And all of a sudden as a kid, like a six-year-old kid, all these 20s pop out. You're like, Dad,
how do you have all this money? This is awesome. I want some of that money. And so this is what I did. As a six-year-old, naive little kid, I go,
Dad, can I have one of those 20s? This is what he did. He said, sure, you can have one. And he reached around and he gave me, I'm like, oh, this is awesome. I asked it and I got it.
And so all my brothers are like, my sisters, Dad, I want a 20. Dad, I want a 20. And so my dad looked down and he said, James was the first to ask. So therefore he got it.
The Bible says, and he gave this illustration. He said, the Bible says, ask anything in my name and you're going to get it. And I'm like, this is awesome. Every time my dad goes to the bank, I'm asking for a 20. I'm asking for a 50.
I'm asking for a 100 because if I ask it, I get it. And this is when he looked at him and said, the only reason why the other kids in the car asked was because they saw the blessing of the first person. And he said,
oftentimes we need to step out and ask before anyone else gets the blessing. Now, in my life, as I've grown, as I've gotten older,
this is the perception we get, right? Jesus, I'm going to ask whatever I want and you're going to give it to me. We think of Jesus as a genie in the bottle. Jesus, you're in this bottle.
I'm going to rub it a little bit. You're going to come out in a smoke and I get three wishes. This is what I want. I want this, this, and this. Boom, I get my wishes.
This is not what Jesus is saying. Let's break this down a little bit because this is the misunderstanding part of it. The first we see the provision of prayer. He starts out by saying, whatsoever you ask in my name.
Now, he is saying that Jesus' name is not some magical phrase. In Jesus' name we pray. We close our prayers. In Jesus' name we pray. This is not a magical statement to tack on to the end of our prayer.
What this is meaning is this. In Jesus' name means according to his will.
Father, as we look at Jesus' passage of prayer, as we're going to look at in a couple of weeks, he says, not my will be done, Lord, but your will be done. And you're saying in this prayer,
Jesus, if it be your will for me to be a millionaire, I'd like to be a millionaire. Now, if I don't get that prayer, it's because it's not God's will. So we are praying in his will for his purpose. We're saying, God,
make me a millionaire for the purpose of blessing others. And he goes, eh, no, you're too greedy. I'm not going to give you that money because it's not going to be according to my will. And you're not going to do anything you do. And then in the alignment of his character.
So in this phrase, whatsoever you ask in my name is according to his will for his purpose in the alignment of who God is.
And so we begin to say when Jesus is praying in the name of the Father, as we pray in the name of the Father, we are praying as a representation of who God is. Let me explain it like this.
Let me give you an illustration to it like this. We have ambassadors all across the world that are ambassadors to the United States of America.
The most prominent one right now you've probably seen in the news is Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee is the ambassador from the United States of America to, you might know where he's the ambassador to? Israel.
So right now in the Israel conflict, the media calls up Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee, what's going on? And this is what he says.
As an ambassador to the United States on behalf of the president of the United States.
His words that he's about to say are the same words that the president would say if the president were there. He is a representation of the president. We are ambassadors for Jesus.
So when we are praying in Jesus' name, we are saying I am praying in the one that sent me and I am praying in his will. I am praying for the will of the Father to be done in this prayer. It does not mean we are praying for our will.
We're praying for his will to be done in who he has given us to be. And we have the same authority as Jesus had in this moment if we're praying in the will of the Father. If we're praying in the mindset for the purpose of what God has called us to do.
And so this provision of whatsoever you pray in my name, it's more than just saying in Jesus' name I pray. I want all these things. It is saying God if it be your will, let this thing happen.
Lord if it be your will for this cup that I'm about to go through as Jesus prayed this to pass from me, let it happen. And yet it didn't pass and so it wasn't according to his will. So the second thing we look at is the purpose of prayer.
Notice the purpose that it gets here and I'm going to quickly walk through this for sake of time. The purpose is this, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. The Father may be glorified. God, my prayer that I pray cannot be about getting what I want.
If I pray in the essence of what I want,
it's probably not going to get answered. My prayer has to be that everything I do bring glory to James. No, it brings glory to God.
It says I'm not going to get the glory from this. There's no way I can get the glory from this. And there's no way I can even say that it's my glory. But it's all because of God that this is happening.
And so the purpose of our prayer is when our prayers get answered that we look at it and say, this only happened because of God's goodness and because of who God is. Not because of how strong I am.
Not because of how great I am. Not because I can go to the weight room and bench 300 pounds. It's not because I am this super, super great Christian.
Look at how great I am. It's no, I'm going to look and I'm going to say, this is who God is.
And I can't even lift a toothpick without God helping me. And I can't do these things without God in the picture and the spotlight going back to who Christ is. Because it's all about Jesus and it's all about God in our life.
The purpose of our prayer is to give God the glory, not for us to get the glory. And then in all this statement, he makes these, the provision of how we pray, the purpose of our prayer. And then he makes this statement in verse 14 that blows my mind.
I haven't been able to get away from it. He gives us this personal invitation. He says, ready?
If you ask me anything in my name, I'm going to do it. He brings us into the picture. He brings us into this personal involvement by inviting his followers into a relationship that is dependent on who he is.
If you ask anything in my name, I'm going to do it. The Christian life is never meant to be lived in our own strength.
The Christian life is to be meant to be built in community. As the disciples came in with their 12 and eventually down to 11 and then 3,000 and then 5,000 and then 15,000. There is a community of people that are brought together.
And he is saying we are meant to live in a community that is in constant relationship with Christ. And are we living our life in a constant communication relationship with Christ?
I used to give this illustration when I taught children's church. I'm going to give it right now. Now, it's hard for us to apply this illustration because we have cell phones and there's no cords connected to it. But I used to take in a...
How many of you still have a phone that has a cable in your house?
I know Peggy and Larry do. A couple others do.
Okay, you've got a cable that's connected to your phone. And I would give this illustration.
I'd say, kids, when you pick this phone up, because it's connected to the receiver, you can hear what's going on on the other side.
But if I were to come up with a pair of scissors and I would take a pair of scissors and I would cut it, and all of a sudden you have a phone and a wire that just goes to nothing, you're not going to hear anything.
You're not going to be involved with anything on the other side.
And it's only until this wire gets reconnected to the source are we able to be connected to the Savior.
This is how prayer is in our life. We have to be connected to Christ through this line of prayer as we go through our life.
Abiding in Christ
And we have to be physically praying and saying, God, I want to do these things for you, for your glory, not for my glory. This whole passage, this whole title is called Abiding in Christ, the Remaining in Who Christ Is.
The beautiful thing about abiding in Christ is it's that time where we're cutting weeds and we're cutting pruning trees.
The vine that's connected to the branch doesn't have to do any work. It's all sustained onto the branch.
The tree is what's giving it life as the branch goes out. And we have to get to this point where we say, I am not struggling to produce anything. I am abiding in Christ.
And as Christ works through me, I am producing what He wants me to produce because I am abiding in Him. And so we have to ask ourselves, how is your abiding in Christ living?
It's easy to get weak. It's easy to get discouraged. It's easy to get downhearted.
But when you get to be connected to the vine, when you get to be connected to Christ, and His power flows through us, the exhaustion can go away because His power is flowing through us.
And so we have to ask ourselves two simple questions before Terry can go ahead and come and start playing. Two questions I want to ask you. Is prayer in your life the first response or the last resort?
Is prayer in your life the first thing you do? You get that phone call that you don't want to hear. You get that situation that comes up that you did not want to even be thinking about.
Is it, God, I don't know how I'm going to survive this. God, I need your strength. God, I need your power.
God, I need your, don't let my heart be troubled. God, work in my life. Or is it I'm going to do everything I can to figure out how I'm going to fix this. And then, oh yeah, God, I forgot. Yeah, I need you as well. Oftentimes, this is human life.
We use it as a last resort. We use it as a spare tire as we're riding down the road. We're trying to fix everything in and of ourself. And then as everything is falling apart, oh yeah, I've got a spare tire in the back of the car. Let me throw it on and see what happens.
And we use God's prayer, God's power as a last resort in our life.
The question that I want to sort of close with is this. What might God be able to do if you truly believed in his promises?
If you were like the disciples who were asking these questions and saying, God, I want to see the Father. God, let me see who he is. And Jesus looks at them and say, listen, I've given you power to do things that you never even imagined. If only you would believe.
We just walked through the book of Acts. Look at what they got to do. And we get to be a part of that. Jesus is saying, you've already seen me. You've seen my person. The visible revelation of God.
Who gets to step from heaven into earth. And is eventually going to go and die on a cross. And raise again three days later to bear all of your sins. All of your punishment that you were going to get. I am going to bear on me. We see his power.
That as he works through those who believe.
Invitation to Step into Power
And we see his promise as he invites us to step into this power. To step into what he is doing.
So that we can have a small part to give him all the glory. As we go into our invitation.
Are we looking to Christ? Are we trusting in his power? And church, are we living in his promise? Are we living in the promise that whatever we do for his name. For his glory according to his will. Will be answered.
As long as we're living for what he wants us to do. So that all the glory goes back to him. Maybe here this morning you've never accepted Jesus.
Today would be that wonderful day. Where I would love to lead you to the Lord. I'm going to close in prayer. As we have a time of invitation. Father we love you. We thank you for what you are.
Who you are. Lord for sending your son. Into this world. To go through everything that we could ever imagine. Loss, pain, betrayal.
Everything that this world has to offer. He went through. So that we can relate to him.
God I pray that if there's someone here that doesn't know you today. That today would be the day they come to trust in you. Maybe there's individuals who've been in here that have been saved for 50 years. Who have trusted you but have never fully trusted your promise.
That whatever they ask for in your name according to your will would be done. Help us to step out by that faith this morning. Lord we love you in your name we pray. Amen.
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