Everyday Church
That's a Jesus Question, Part 1
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Keefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. (upbeat music) - So the disciples, through these past hours that Jesus has been talking, on several situations, he said, "You know what, if you'll ask, "you'll receive." And this is not something new, this is not something new that he has said in his ministry. This is the first time he's told him, "Hey, if you ask, you'll receive." This has been a concept that he has taught throughout his earthly ministry. Now, can it shall be opened under you seeking? You shall find, ask, and it shall be given unto you, right? If you being an earthly father knows how to give good gifts, or if you being an evil father, he even said, know how to give good gifts unto your children when they ask how much more you're heavenly father, not to those whom he loves. And so on and on, he said, "Coming to me, "all you that labor in your heavy light, "ask, ask, if you'll ask, you'll receive, "it'll be given unto you." And so as his ministry is winding down, and he's revealed some very serious things, issues with his disciples, again, the fact that Peter's gonna deny him, and Judas is gonna betray him, the fact that he's leaving, this is all very overwhelming for his disciples. And so just imagine, they're dealing with every emotion, possible all at the same time. And in this, Jesus is still trying to tell him, look, if you'll ask, if you'll just ask, that's all you gotta do. In fact, in one place, he says, up to this point, you have anything to ask me. Like I've told you to ask, and you still didn't ask. Whenever you're in leadership, it is assumed that you have all the answers. I often laugh at the questions I get sometimes. Sometimes parents will come up to me, and they'll say, "Pastor Jason, "my child's having an issue with his step-up scholarship "at school. "How should I?" And they'll start asking me questions. I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on." I'm like, "That's a Bob question." Like, you gotta go ask Mr. Bob that question. Sometimes people approach me at church, and they'll say, "Hey, Pastor Jason." And they'll start asking me about something on the schedule, or something like that, and I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on." That's a Ms. Tanya question. That's a Tanya question. Or I'll say it about people on our staff. Somebody'll ask me a question about the finances, and I'll say, "Whoa, whoa, hold on." That's a Ms. Jenny question. Like, you gotta go to Ms. Jenny, like, "I wanna help you, but I do not have the answer for you." You know what I'm saying, right? And oftentimes, we're in life, and we're asking these questions, and they're not the wrong questions, is just we're not taking them to the right source. And so the sworn and the title of the message this morning is this, that's a Jesus question. Like, if we can learn to take our questions and turn them into Jesus' questions, I think we'd see a lot more accomplished in our life. I think we would experience a lot more fruit for our labor. I think we would maybe begin to understand some greater breakthroughs in our life, and see a greater yield in our prayer life if we could just learn to take the questions of life and make them a Jesus question. So as a child of God, Jesus is trying to teach them that when we take life's questions to the Savior, we ultimately experience greater joy and greater peace. Because really, it's just an act of faith and taking it to God and saying, "Lord, it's in your hands." And so when we look up verse 17 this morning, in the text, there's kind of this emotional, overwhelming argument going on, okay? Now remember, John is writing what took place here. He's telling us this is what happened, they were talking among themselves. So they're not talking like a script, right? They're confused. They have fear in their heart. They feel they may have anger in their heart because Jesus is just going to lead them and they're gonna face tribulation in this world and discouragement and all these things. And so they're asking these questions among themselves with all these emotions. You've been in a situation like that before, right? Where you're having a conversation and you're trying to figure out, I don't understand why the boss is making me do this. I know, I know last week he said we had to do this, right? You know, we're throwing all these questions together. And if you filter them all together, you're probably end up with one question. That's what's going on here. That's the first part of the question. I just imagine maybe Peter is saying, I don't understand what he's saying when he says, a little while and you shall not see me again. That doesn't make sense to me, right? Then maybe John says, yeah, and again, a little while, you shall see me, we're not gonna see him. And John's like, yeah, but he said, we're gonna see him, that's weird, right? And then Andrew's over there, he says, right? But then think, what about the other part? When he said, because I go to the father, like really guys, what the world is going on? Like I just, there's some things that are off going on. Some of the things Jesus are saying are not, add not for me. And so they're starting to question among themselves. And so Jesus notices this. And so over from verse 19, he asked the question. He said, do you inquire among yourselves of what I said? We were asking among, why are you asking among yourselves what I said? Why are you questioning? Look, you know you don't have the answer. So why is it that you don't just come to me and ask the question? That's why he says he's up to this point, you've not asked me a question. In other words, look, make it a Jesus question. You're going to the wrong source, you're going to the wrong place. And if we can learn that, I think it would change the prayer dynamic in our life. And really, I think it would produce some life-changing results. In fact, I wanna share with you this morning, three life-changing results, when we turn life's questions into Jesus' questions. The first one this morning is this, asking Jesus positioned you to act in faith. Asking Jesus positioned you to act in faith. Prayer is based on faith. And just to be clear, asking is praying. Asking is praying, they're in the presence of Jesus, but when he talks about asking the Father, that would be prayer, that's when we go to Jesus. So we go to the Father and we ask. And so asking positions us to act in faith. So he asked the question in verse 19, he said, "Do you inquire among yourselves?" Verse 24, he says this, "Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name." Why didn't they ask Jesus the questions? Why didn't one of them speak up and just say, well, why don't we just go ask Jesus? Hoppy, hey, hey, John. Don't you think of Jesus the one that's speaking? Don't you think he would be able to answer the question? I'll always think it's funny whenever you say something and someone will try to clarify what you're saying. And maybe they don't even know, right, what you're saying. I've heard people say, well, pastor, I heard you say this, but then I was talking to some of the day and that kind of was saying what you meant was, and I was like, really? Why didn't you just come ask me? I could have told you what I meant, right? And so Jesus, he exposes their unbelief. You're not even willing to ask me. And so they wouldn't ask him because of their unbelief. And the reality is this morning, the disciples didn't really trust Jesus 'cause a lot of time where they didn't trust Jesus. There was some times throughout Jesus' ministry where they found it hard to go to him in faith. They would go to him, but it was always in doubt. You remember the time when they were on the ship and the storm, the boat was tossed in the storm and the waves crashing and Jesus is asleep in the boat. And you remember they went to Jesus and they asked him a question, didn't they? But if you hear the tone of the question, it's like, Lord, don't you, you don't even care that we're dying. You don't care that we're gonna die. Lord, you're here sleeping and you're not even worried that this boat is gonna go down and that we're gonna die in the midst of this boat. I mean, really what they could have said was Lord, aren't you worried that the God's gonna die in this boat? 'Cause Jesus is right there with them. And what do they do? They expose their unbelief. You remember the time when they, Jesus, the thousands of people were there and Jesus has already let them know, don't send them away. Hey, we're actually, we're gonna feed them. And then I thought we can't feed them 'cause we don't have anything to feed them with. Like what good is three loaves and a couple of fish? What good is that Jesus asking questions in doubt? And so Jesus has spent three and a half years with these disciples and listen, he knows they don't believe. Like he knows that fear rules their heart. And he knows that confusion rules their mind. Remember whenever Jesus walked out on the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the storm and they were so gripped by fear that they couldn't even recognize that it was Jesus. Like Jesus is walking on the water in front of the boat and they're like, well, wait a minute, there's a spirit out there. Like something's out there. Jesus speaks to them and they still don't recognize his voice 'cause they're so gripped by fear. And so now we are at the end of Jesus' ministry and nothing has really changed, they don't believe. And so Jesus just says, look, just ask. Just be willing to ask. And so what do we know this morning is that asking Jesus requires that you stop and listen to his voice. If they could have just stopped and heard what he was saying, what Jesus has told us to ask repeatedly. Maybe we should go to him and ask. Jesus is the fact that whatever you ask, I'll give it to you, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And so we understand this morning that they're all full of doubt, they're all full of fear and they're feeding off of each other's fear, right? They're feeding off of each other's doubt. And oftentimes what we do when we face these situations in life is we find people that are in agreement with us. And we'll go to them and ask questions. Like we'll go to them and try to find the answer because I know so and so agree with me. But in reality, all that does is add more chaos to the unbelief instead of just going to the one whom you can trust. I mean, listen, I gotta tell you, I've been in some pretty bad situations before and I've scratched my head and I've been what and the world is going on. And I've sat down and I've had a conversation with my wife and I've realized really quick that you know what? She's in the same place I'm in. She's in the middle of fear, she's in the middle of doubt, she's in the middle of confusion. Like us sitting there and communicating about this, it ain't going nowhere. Like she's feeding off of my doubt and I'm feeding off of her doubt and she's feeding off my confusion and it gets worse and it gets worse and it gets worse. And in those moments, I gotta realize, look, if I'm going to say, hey, I'm just gonna go ask Jesus, it puts me in this state of belief. I'm like, okay, obviously, if I'm gonna go ask Jesus, I've gotta trust him. I've gotta be willing to listen to what he's gonna say. Like I've gotta accept what he is gonna say and so asking requires that we listen to his voice. Hey, asking requires that you take him at his word. Like what if they would have just took him at his word and said, okay, Jesus said this. Jesus already said, I am the way, the truth and the life. My words are truth. They're life to you. They're promises that can't fail. They're words that I cannot go back on because God is not a man that he can lie. And so the disciples have set for hours and days and weeks and months and years under his teaching and yet they still can't take him at his word. So when you and I come to the place that we're willing to ask, when we ask, we're taking him at his word, God said I could come to him and ask, so I'm going to take him at his word this morning. Oftentimes I think that we negotiate ourselves out of believing him. We come up with all these reasons of, well, that's good that is in the print of the Bible and it's good that God preserved his word that way and that's good that I know that it's God's word and I don't have to doubt that, but what God really meant was if I'll go and pray that he'll work through the way I want him to work, then he's good with that. Remember what we read in Psalm this morning? David said, in my distress, I called upon the Lord. You know what I've found about people that are in distress? They don't care how you save them, they just want you to save them. Like I'm just saying, in your mind for a minute, think about somebody that might would fall overboard on a cruise ship, we hear about that happening pretty often, right? They don't care how they get saved. They're not like Lord, could you please work to the captain of the ship and could you please notify him to let the second lieutenant know that someone has fallen overboard and father that they could sound the alarm and then that they could send some rescuers to possibly throw a life preserver out to me and Lord, are you kidding me? Like they just want to be saved and I'm convinced that we, the modern day American church, we have convinced ourselves that if we'll take a plan to God and we'll say, God, what I'm asking you to do is take my plan and use it so that it glorifies your name and we walk away somehow thinking we've asked Jesus. When's the last time you got on your face before God and just said, God, I don't care how you do it. This is what I need, this is what I want and this is what I'm hoping for. Just take God as word and asking Jesus when you make it a Jesus question, it puts you in this place where you have got to trust him. You've got to believe it's gonna put you in a place where you've got to act in faith. Asking Jesus requires that you rely upon his plan. Look, if I'm gonna go to Jesus and I'm gonna trust Jesus and I'm gonna go ask him ultimately, I have got faith in him and I'm trusting that his plan is gonna work and this is important because I think sometimes we go to God thinking we know the plan of God. But we go to God and pray some of the strangest ways. I'm just saying that woman with the issue of blood that had been to all those doctors and none of them helped and rather her issue grew worse, the Bible says. Like when she went to Jesus, she didn't go down before Jesus and say, Lord, I've got a doctor's appointment next Thursday. And Lord, what I'm praying for is that you'll give some good results and look, I'm not mocking this morning. I've been there, some of you are there today. I'm just saying that lady went to Jesus with faith, believing that whatever she expected and whatever she hoped for, it would happen. And where are God's people that used to believe that way? Where are we at that we used to believe that I've got a burden and I've got a problem and I've got something broken in my life and you know what, I'm gonna go to, I don't know God's plan, I don't know his will. All I know is this, he told me to come and ask and I'm coming and asking. That's all I know. Faith, just Lord, you said come and ask. You told me to come and you told me that you would meet my needs and that you would meet my burdens. I think of what James 5 and 13 says. He says this, is any among you afflicted? Let him pray, is any Mary, let him sing songs, is any sick among you, let him call for the elders of church and let them pray over him, anointing him with all in the name of the Lord, verse 15. And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick of what we've done has said this. Well, that was a New Testament times. Yeah, okay, the problem is James is writing to people just like me and you. Like, look, people say, well, what do you do with the, when people say, well, God uses signs and wonders? They're misunderstanding the issue. The issue isn't, is healing signs and wonders. The issue is some of you need to get to Jesus 'cause you've got a problem and you've got an issue that you can't fix, the doctors can't fix, your finances can't fix, your family can't fix, but Jesus can. And if you can get in that verse, that the prayer of faith, the prayer of faith, everybody say that together, the prayer of faith, say it again, the prayer of faith. If you'll go in faith, you're gonna be good with God's will. - Thank you for listening to Everyday Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it, and subscribe for future content. (upbeat music)