Lawson Road CoC Teaching
Peter Horne - The Church Belonging to Jesus Prays
see everybody here this morning and glad you came out. Hope you're weak because it's been a good one. If you have a prayer card that you've filled out at this point, we'll collect those. If you think of something later, we'll also have another opportunity to hand those in. I want to just give everybody a little bit of warning. The first warning is that if you're online, worshiping with us online, next Sunday, we won't be online. So we'll be at the park for worship in the park. You're more than welcome to come and join us there, but we don't have Wi-Fi there, so no online worship service next Sunday. The other warning for everybody is that it's almost growth group season. I know once the first pre-season football game starts, that's the sign. Like, get excited. It's almost growth group season. So that will begin, I think, the second week in September, and we are still sorting out the exact groups. I don't expect any big changes from last year, but you never know. So if you've never been in a group before, if you'd like to know more about our growth groups, talk to me and I can direct you to the group leaders or a group that's near you. We'll have some online, or at least one online, and we'll see. Last year, it was one in person, two online, and we'll see if that stays the way this year or how that changes. But give me feedback, let me know if you're interested. If you haven't been in a growth group before, I just want to encourage you that we believe that the growth groups are opportunities to get together with a smaller number of Christians and to discuss God's Word. We believe that it's a way to grow closer to each other, to grow closer to God as we have these conversations. Also, as we invite people to join them, to grow in numbers, and so that's why they're growth groups. The format that we use for them is that each week we study a lesson that's been prepared that kind of sort of mostly sometimes is connected to the sermon. So in my head, it's very well connected to the sermon. It's like part B of the sermon, but for those that are in the classes, sometimes that's not quite so obvious. Apparently, so I've heard, but that's what we do. It's supposed to be on a topic that relates to the sermon. It provides an opportunity. One of the really good things that I like about that is it provides an opportunity if there's something that's said that's not clear, something that's said that raises questions, something that's said that challenges you, that you have the opportunity to discuss that, to ask questions, to understand it better. That's why we choose to do it that way. This is not so much a warning in a sense, but after the Lord's Supper today, we're going to have a recorded song. Jesus be the center. We've sung it several times, but had it in worship several times, it sort of arises out of last week. I should have had it for last week's sermon, where we talked about Jesus, the Gospels being the center of our Bible, and being the center. Jesus himself is the center of our faith. That's why I choose that for this week. I know it's a week late, but if you know it, sing along with it, but pay attention to those words. I think it's very appropriate. All right. If you guys can just help me out with the first one back there, please first slide. Oops. There we are. So this is the sermon series that we are working through. The church belongs to Jesus, and that's a reinterpretation, if you will, of the familiar church of Christ. And this week we're doing, it's a little bit different. In Acts, chapter 2 and verse 42, we're given a description of the core habits of the new church. This is the baby church, if you will. The Holy Spirit has just been poured out on people. There's been thousands of people baptized, and what are they going to do now? What's it mean? What happens next? And so we're told here, given this summary, that these new converts, we told the verse before, about 3,000, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. I think one way of looking at this, and the first one, the apostles' teaching, I think they're really devoting themselves to learning. They're devoting themselves to learning from the apostles. And so they're also devoted to fellowship, to supporting each other, to encouraging each other. One way they did that was in the breaking of bread, having meals together, meeting around the table. And there would, no doubt, would have been times where that also included a communion, or the Lord's Supper. And then the last thing that's mentioned there is that they're devoted to prayer. So over the last couple of months I've talked a bit about prayer, and while it's tempting in a series like this to say, because we're the church belonging to Christ, we pray like Jesus. And that would probably mean that we do a lesson on the Lord's prayer, right, the model prayer. But we already did that a couple of months ago. So I don't want to do that one again. You can go back and refer to it if you want. It's all online, you can find that. But what I want to do is still focus on prayer. It's one of these things that the first church devoted itself to. It's a vital part of Jesus' life. If we look at Jesus' behavior throughout the Gospels and a vital part of the church's life. In particular, we're going to focus on a promise that Jesus makes about prayer. And it's a promise that we find repeatedly in the Gospel of John. Over the course of three chapters in John, Jesus talks to his disciples six times about praying in his name. And these verses, we'll look at them in a moment, but these verses are probably the reason most of us close our prayers by saying, in Jesus' name, Amen. And so we kind of treat it a little bit like a letter. We open the letter or the prayer by saying our Father in heaven, and we talk about whatever it is, is on our heart. And then we close it, instead of saying sincerely, yours with love, yours always, we say, in Jesus' name, Amen. Okay? And that's kind of the format that we use for our prayers. What's interesting is that none of the prayers in the Bible actually follow this format. Okay? So it's just interesting for us to think about that. I'm pretty sure that over the years I've been given the impression that if I didn't close my prayer with that line in Jesus' name, then God wouldn't hear it. And today I don't believe that that's the that's the case. In fact, I don't believe that the Jesus instructions to ask in his name has anything to do with this formula that we tend to use at the end of our prayers. But I want to have a look at these passages and see what's going on with Jesus' teaching, and then you can make up your own mind. I don't think it's wrong. I just don't think that's what what Jesus had in mind. The first one we look at was part of our reading, John chapter 14. We're just going to be in chapters 14 through 16. Here Jesus says, "I will do whatever you ask in my name." Okay? And then again in verse 14, he says, "Ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." So when we just turn that into a bumper sticker, what is it that you can't get in this life? Nothing. It says anything. What's excluded from anything? Nothing, right? So it's a promise that you can get anything. Is that your experience? Okay? Maybe you're just asking for the wrong things. I don't know about you. So I'm pretty sure my Honda Civic will change into a Lamborghini by the time I get out to the parking lot after worship. I think you guys are lacking faith. That's what I heard with those chuckles. So as always, the context is important. Okay? The context is important. Chapters 14 through 16, where this is the only place in the Bible that this concept is found, is a long section of teaching. And it takes place at the Last Supper the night before Jesus' death. If we go back in chapter 14 to verses 9 and 10, we see there where Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough." That's verse 8. And Jesus says, "Don't you know me, Philip? Even after I've been among you such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you then say, "Show us the Father?" Don't you believe that I'm in the Father? The Father is in me. So we go to this picture. It's about faith. It's about what you believe. Okay? The Jesus is talking to his apostles and he's saying, "Why aren't you getting this? Why aren't you understanding who I am? Why are you saying to me, "Show the Father? How much more do you want to be shown?" You should understand that when you see me, you see the Father, that I have spent all the time that I've been with you representing the Father to you. So he's encouraging them to grow in their faith, to grow in their understanding of who God is. And then at the end of verse 12 there, verse 12, it says, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father." This is a little complicated here. It's unclear exactly what greater things Jesus is referring to. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. It's hard to top that. Not just Lazarus, he raised other people from the dead. He walked on water. He calmed the storm. There are folks in Florida that could have benefited from someone doing greater things over the last week. So what does Jesus mean when he tells his disciples, "You're going to do greater things than me." I think it's tied into this idea of faith and belief that he's been talking about, he's encouraging them. Some people think that he's sort of using a hyperbole there. But I think that it's important here to see that they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. So it's not just because, it's not just saying because you guys are good guys, because you're talented guys, because you're devout guys, you're going to do greater things. He's saying, "Because I'm going to sit on the throne of heaven, I'm going to use you to do greater things." What could those greater things be? Again, we're kind of just connecting dots here, but it seems that when Jesus is on the throne of heaven, what has happened between when he says this and when he gets to the throne of heaven? He's died and he's risen again, right? So now when they go and they tell the message of the kingdom of God, they tell the message of good news, they are telling something they have something tangible to point to. They can say this is what the message and the purpose and the mission of Jesus was about. Up until this time, Jesus has had a difficult time convincing people that what it is that he's here for, why is this here, why is he teaching, what's he trying to accomplish. He tells his disciples that he's going to die and they say, "No, you're not." They don't understand what's going on. And so, yeah, Jesus is doing great things, but I don't think it's just referring to miracles. That wasn't the only thing that Jesus did. The things that Jesus did was loving people, caring for people, accepting people, eating with people, lifting up those who were rejected by others, healing those who were sick and caring for them, being compassionate to people, standing up for those who were oppressed. There's a lot of things that Jesus does through his life that he says, "You guys are going to do these too." And some of them, as we talk about the, as you live into the death and the resurrection of Jesus, in a sense that is greater than what it is that Jesus has done to that point, because he was only looking forward to the cross. And so, he's talking about faith, he's talking about what it's going to be like when he leaves, he's encouraging them, that it's going to be hard for you. And so, they're a little worried about that, and he says to them, "Then, anything you ask, I will do whatever you ask in my name." And again, in verse 14, "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." This is the context, it's that Jesus is leaving, and he wants to give them this reassurance that, "Yeah, you're going to keep going. I'll be with you always," is what he says in Matthew 28, "You're not on your own. And so, you're going to continue my work in my name." But so, let's notice the prerequisites here. We see in the yellow, right, "Whoever believes in me will do the works I've been doing, they will do even greater things through the cross and the resurrection, because," he says, "I am going to the Father," this is the reason that this is all going to happen. And when all of that is in place, he says, "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son, not so that I can have a more comfortable and quicker ride to church each Sunday morning in my new Lamborghini." It's so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. So, we've got to bear in mind that this isn't when you take it as a bumper sticker, and you stick it on your car and just say, "Ask whatever you want in Jesus' name." It gives one impression. But when we understand who he's talking to and why he's having this conversation, I believe it changes our understanding of it. It's for these people who are believing, who are living like Christ, who are involved in the mission of Christ. And because Jesus isn't having working through us, then he'll equip us. He'll give us what we need to carry out that purpose. It's also interesting in verse 14, where we're told to ask Jesus directly. I know some people say, "Oh, you can't pray to Jesus," but here he says, "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." So, it's not as though Jesus is just on the sidelines in our prayer life, or that we just say or do things in his name. He says, "Ask me. Talk to me about that." I think it makes it shouldn't be a problem for us when we recognize the unity of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. That asking one is asking the other, "Praying to one is praying to the other," and I think we see that concept here. It would be a bit strange, nonetheless, to pray, "Dear Jesus, I'm coming to you in your name." Okay? That's not usually the way we would talk about it. So, it seems that when people believe in Jesus, and when they join him in doing the work that he's been doing, that we are living in Jesus' name. The idea of, "I come to you in the name of God," or it might be a messenger in this, the ambassador of this country. Maybe he is in some other country. He says, "I'm coming to you under the auspices of the President of the United States." It's the similar sort of idea. "I'm coming to you in the name of Jesus. I am part of his kingdom, and I'm doing his work, and I'm believing in him. I'm a brother of his. I'm a child of God." And he says, "So in this context that I am coming to you, God, in the name of Jesus, because that's where I live. I live in Jesus." And so, in the name is really a way of just saying, with the authority, with the blessing, out of respect to, in that context. And so, when we live in the kingdom of God, all that we do is done, including our prayers, in the name of Jesus. If we turn over to chapter 15, here Jesus begins by talking about the relationship he wants his disciples to have, even though he's leaving them. He says, "I'm leaving you, but I'm the vine. I'm the trunk, and you are the branches." And what that means is that we're connected to Jesus. He goes on and he says that he loves us, he wants us to remain in his love. Here in verse 16, we see this familiar phrase, "You did not choose me, but I chose you." So, let me just explain that statement. It's kind of like it's election season here, right? Some of you may have heard that. And before we get to the election season, there's the pre-election season, the primaries. And when we have the primaries, you guys know this better than I do, it's all these people out there picking who's the candidate, going to be for each party, each position. And here, I think it's like that, Jesus is saying, "You didn't vote me. You didn't choose me. I'm not who I am because of what you did." I wasn't sitting in heaven, and you guys said, "All right, Everett, Jesus, you need to come down. We need the Son of God down here." And he said, "Oh, well, if you say so, I'll do that, right? If I've got enough votes, I'll come." We didn't choose him. He chose us. He chose to leave heaven, to come to earth. And then he appointed his followers, and he says, "I did this so that you may bear fruit, fruit that will last." And so, that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you. Do you see the condition here again? All right, the bumper sticker is the same. Whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you. But the context, the story, tells us something different. It tells us that we're talking about the whole reason that Jesus came to earth, so that we might bear fruits. Sometimes we automatically think of bearing fruit with converting people, bringing them to Christ, and that may be part of it. But it's also just the way that we live our lives, right? The fruit of the Spirit. And so, we live, like we said before, we do what Jesus has been doing. That's fruit will last. So, it can be both things. But when we're doing those things, when we're living this way, doing what Christ wants us to do, then whatever we ask God in his name, he'll give us. Because he's working with us, right? Oh, really, we're working with him. And so, again, we see this context here. So, this promise is to the people who are abiding in God's love, being obedient, bearing fruit for God. I want us to thank for just a minute that the very existence of prayer requires an attitude of humility on our part. It communicates that we've reached the limit of our abilities. We've reached the limit of what we can do. And when we get to that point where we can do nothing more, or we don't know what to do next, at that point we talk to God. And we say, "God, I need you." Right? That's humility. Humility's, you know, the opposite of that says, "I don't need God. I can do this on my own." But when we flip that and say, "God, I need you. Help me. Guide me. Show me. Strengthen me. Encourage me." When we're saying these words, we're asking for things that we need because we don't have them ourselves. We recognize our dependence upon God. And God comes alongside us to do what we can't. You're about to go bare fruit. Fruit that will last. We've got to do that on our own. See, that would be the temptation, isn't it? Yeah. I've got a plan. I'm going to be a good person. I'm going to tell all my friends about Jesus. Like, I can do this. I think Jesus says, "No, actually, if you're going to do that, you need to back up a little bit. Let's spend some time with God." How do you want God to be involved in your plans, in your fruit, okay? And maybe as you do that, your attitude will change, but God will go with you. You're depending on him, relying on him as you fulfill your mission that God has given us. And so we like the first church to vote ourselves to prayer. Lastly in John chapter 16, verses 22 through 26, we find here that Jesus makes three statements about praying to Yahweh. And we're not going to read all that. I know it's up there. But we can see in the blue, the first one there, very truly, I tell you, my father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete. And then at the end of verse 26, in that day, you will ask in my name. I'm not saying that I will ask the father on your behalf. So we can talk here directly to the father is what he's saying. And so he's again telling them that he's going to be leaving them. That's why he says now at the start there, at the top, now is your time of grief. He's going to leave them, but he promises to come back for them. Once more, these statements have to do with the state of the kingdom of God. Jesus is comforting his disciples as he prepares to leave. He's reassuring them that out of sight is not out of mind. And so once again, this is not a blanket promise forever and all time and all people, right, that God turns into our own personal genie in a lamp. Rather, it is a promise to the followers of Jesus that God hears their prayers, that they are not alone. It doesn't mean that we can all go home today, pray for a pony, and we'll find one on our front steps. Okay, praying in Jesus name, I believe, means that we pray for the things that Jesus wants. And that's really what Jesus lays out in the model prayer, isn't it? It's not. I know I said, it can be, repeat these words, and think about them and find meaning in them. But he's also saying, these are the things that I value. You can pray for them as well in your own words. This is what to pray for. It's interesting, as I said before, that Jesus didn't close that prayer with in Jesus name, amen. If you're teaching someone how to pray, you don't want to miss out the part that's so essential for getting it heard by God. So that would be part of the reason here, though. Say, it's not compulsory to have those, that particular words, like a magic formula at the end of our prayer, to ensure that God hears it. Praying in Jesus name means that I want what Jesus wants, that I'm doing what Jesus wants me to do, that I'm living within Jesus' will, that I'm following him, because that same phrase, ask in my name is also used for do in my name, whatever you do in my name, in other places. And so we don't say, I'm getting into the car in Jesus' name, I'm walking through the door in jail, like we don't say that all the time because we're doing it in Jesus' name. We just go and do it, don't we? As we can pray in Jesus' name, and it's not just about me and what I'm doing, am I in tune with Jesus, what he wants, am I doing what Jesus wants, am I where Jesus wants me to be. There's also this reassurance there that he's saying, the Father is going to hear you, right? You live within my name, under my umbrella, if you will, and God will hear you. You're not alone, you're not deserted. He says, you don't even at the very end of the day you'll ask when he comes back. He says, you'll ask him my name, and that doesn't mean that you're, I'm going to be asking for you. It means that you can go to the Father, that's the relationship that you have with God, the intimacy that he's offering you. And so it's this, this idea that God hears us and is with us, as much as it is us saying or doing exactly the right thing. I came across this quote and I read it and then lost it again, but it said something along these lines. It said, when we're, we're trying to, when we're attempting to live this way to do what Jesus wants us to do, to desire what Jesus desires, to become like him. It's saying, why, why do we ask God? Why do, why do we say to God, God, can you help this person who's sick? They're dying, or they've got, they've been diagnosed with cancer or with something else and, and they're, they're suffering and they're struggling. And when we go to pray, God already knows about that person, right? God already loves that person. God already wants what is best for that person. And it's, it's necessary, it's good for us to, to talk about it with God. But part of that prayer process is that as we pray, we come to find ourselves in tune with God and what he wants for that person. We're not surprising God, but God's working on our heart and say, do you have compassion for this person? Thank you. Thank you for, for talking about this person with me, because I love them. And they're going through a hard time. Thank you. I'm glad that we could have this time together. And sometimes as we pray about people or we pray about things, if you've ever been motivated to do something, to, to take a step and you say, yeah, maybe that person, I should send them a card. Maybe I should make a phone call. Maybe, maybe I can do something for them. And God's saying, yes. Yeah, that's good, because they're going through a hard time. And so the idea of, oh, I need to get things right in G to be in Jesus' name to make my prayer heard, I think is there's some of that, you know, that Jesus certainly wants us to be on the same page as him. But there's also this element of prayer that as we come to God seeking to be doing things in Jesus' name, that gives him the opportunity to speak to us. For as we get in harmony with him on the same page, that because he already knows, he already loves, he already cares. And we're not surprising him. But sometimes he's just been waiting for us to catch up, for us to, to see, to live and to do in Jesus' name as we follow Jesus because we are the church of Christ. Before we sing our next song, I want to just take a moment to pray. Father God, we come to you today in the name of Jesus. We come to you because our faith is in Jesus, our hope is in Jesus, that he is the center of all that we do. Father, we are so grateful that you have made it possible for us to talk to you. We're grateful for the times where the spirit intercedes for us, where it takes our ramblings and makes sense of them and presents them to you. We're thankful for all that you do to ensure that our hearts are heard by you. Father, we just pray that as a church, we will live up to being the church of Christ, the church that belongs to Jesus, Lord, that we will always be seeking to follow him and not just as a group, but individually, Lord, because we know that our individual efforts turn into group efforts. We pray that your spirit will guide us, that we will represent you well in all that we do. Father, there may be some here today that are struggling, that are hurting. You already know about them. We pray that you will give them comfort and help us to recognize opportunities to be your messengers in that regard. For those who, Lord, who have not made a decision to follow you, to give their lives to you, Lord, we pray for them. We pray that you will reveal yourself and that they will recognize their need of you. Father, help us to be approachable, help us to represent you well so that when people see us, they see you. We pray all these things today in Jesus' name. Amen.