John chapter 16, our text is
going to be taken from verse 23. We're just going to restrict
it to that. I really want to zero in on what
the Lord is saying here to us and how far can we take this. Well, we can read verse 22. And you now therefore have sorrow,
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and
your joy No man taketh from you. And in that day you shall ask
me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give
it to you. So what I'd like us to restrict
our attention to this morning is just these words of our Lord.
You shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you."
How far can you take that? What can we ask for that He will
give us? Because He says, whatsoever.
That means anything. Anything that we ask the Father
in His name, we're given this confidence from His Son, He will
give it to you. How far we can take that, the
answer to that, will be seen by what we ask for. God will
meet you on the grounds by which you approach. What is it that
you will ask for? Now someone in here may be thinking,
I've asked for things before and I didn't get them. I know
you're thinking that because I've thought the same thing.
I've asked for something and I didn't get it. So let's turn
to James chapter 4. James addresses that for us. In James chapter 4, in verse 3, he says, you ask. So, you're asking and you're
not receiving. You receive not because You ask
amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. When we read
that there where he says, you ask and receive not because you
ask amiss. Asking amiss actually means wrong
motive. So you're not receiving what
you're asking for because you're asking out of a wrong motive.
that you may consume it upon your lusts or your pleasures.
So we see this, that asking has something to do, asking and receiving
anyway, has something to do with asking under the right motive.
And the right motive can only be seen by someone who views
themselves to be a sinner. How do I know that? Well, when
the Lord reveals Himself to a person, what do they see? First, they
see His majesty. He's greater than I could ever
understand. He's the creator of the universe. They've seen
the arm of His power. I've had Him revealed to me.
I know that He gave me life to live. I know that it was nothing
in me that gave me the ability to see Him in His Word and to
believe the Gospel. I see the arm of His power. But
I also see the unbending holiness of God. This is a law and a rule
that I cannot go up against because I don't meet the measurement.
I'm much far below it, I don't even come at all. It's that this
unbending holiness is such that it exacts only perfection. Is that too much? Is that too
much for God to expect? Exact perfection? Nothing less? Well, it's only then when we
see Him in this unbending arm of His holiness, who He is, that
we see what Isaiah saw. When Isaiah saw the Lord high
and lifted up, What did he say? His train filled the temple.
He said, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips. That's the first
thing he realized when he saw who the Lord was. Because all
up to that chapter in Isaiah, it's woe is you, woe unto you,
O islands, woe is you for this. And then he saw the Lord, and
he said, woe is me. Now I've seen, my eyes have seen
the King. It's only then we can see that
we can't provide anything to His standards. And we're standing
before Him just as Isaiah did. My thoughts, they're crooked. Every one of them. They're not
right. The things that I do, they're imperfect. He can't accept
them. My words, the things that I say, they just expose me for
what I am. I'm a sinner. And that's all
I'll ever be. And I can't get better for that.
So what I ask for under the right motive can have nothing to do
with my pleasures. More money, more power, more
influence, more things. I want to be happy. All these
things that we could ask for. You know why? Because those have
something to do with exalting self. Every one of those. They
have nothing to do with the glory of Christ. Nothing to do with
cleansing us from what we are. Those are all self-serving and
self-exalting. And if God shows you who He is,
who He is, and then who you are as a sinner before Him, you're
going to cease to be worried about asking for a bigger house,
or to be happy, or to have an extra $1,000 at the end of the
month, an extra $10,000, or an extra $100,000. Because none
of those things are going to be able to deliver your soul
out of the hands of a thrice holy God. When we see things
in that perspective, we're asking under the right motive. Because
I'm gonna ask for, you will only ask for what you cannot provide
yourself. And that's what I want us to
restrict, what we're looking at here this morning is, what
is it that I can't provide for myself that I must ask God for
or I won't have it? So there are five things. The
first thing is forgiveness of sin. I must ask Him for forgiveness
of my sins. And this is a two-fold problem.
Because most of us, if we're honest with ourselves, can look
at what we do and what we've done and say, there's something
wrong with that. I've sinned in this. So we can
all recognize that. Even people who have never heard
the gospel can see and know that their motives are wrong in things
that they have done. I've sinned in this thing. But
the other part of this is, after we've seen who He is, seen who
God is, He's revealed in Himself that He must have perfection,
not only in the deeds, but in the thought, in the mind, in
the motive, everything inside. It's only then that we see, I'm
ashamed of what I am. I'm ashamed of what I've done,
but I'm ashamed of what I am. I'm a sinner. And I need cleansing
from this because It's not even what I've done, it's where it's
coming from. It's this old, dead, crooked
heart. Everything that proceeds forth
from it is cursings and things that are wrong and things that
God can't accept. So all I see in myself is something
that is sinful and crooked. Now something crooked can only
be seen for what it is when compared with something straight. Let
me give you an illustration. In college, I liked to play billiards
a lot. And I got into that. And so,
in some of the places we would play, I had a friend that had
a table, and he had really nice pool sticks. And so we'd play
with those, and I got pretty good at playing there. So we'd
go out and play at some other places, and I would play terrible.
And I was like, what is going on? I always do really good on
his table. Why am I playing so bad in these
other places? And so I asked one of the men
that was in this particular place where we were playing, he brought
his own pull stick. And I was like, there's four
dozen of them on the wall. Why is he bringing his own stick?
So I asked him, I was like, why are you bringing your own pull
stick? And he said, go pick any one off the wall. So I picked
it off the wall. And he said, you see this pull
stick? He put it down on that slate
table, flat slate table. They rolled it. Rolled just as
smooth across that table as it could be. He goes, now roll your
stick. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, rolls over because the stick
was bent. You could never see it though. You would never know
the stick was crooked until you compared it with something straight.
I didn't see that and I didn't know it. But what it showed me
was the crooked has to be revealed for what it is only when it's
compared with something straight. I could grab another one of those
pool sticks off the wall and hold them up side by side, you
still can't tell. Because two crooked sticks won't reveal what's
crooked. So what this shows us is that
as far as men go, among men, some are better than others compared
to other men. And that may be so, but not before
God. Romans 3 23 says all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. That's all. We're all crooked. So what we find here is. Forgiveness
has to be not only for what I've done, it's got to be for what
I am. So I'm ashamed of what I am before
God because I know what I'm capable of is only sin. So I must have
forgiveness of sin. This is one of the things I must
ask God for that I cannot provide. The second thing that I cannot
provide, repentance. We looked at that this morning.
Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Now this
refers to stopping sinning or even a particular sin. How have
you done with that? Not too well, I'm gauging, based
on my own experience. And I compared it in a way, as
I was thinking about this, to breathing. Now you can hold your
breath. Hold your breath, you can do
that for so long. And maybe you'd be pretty good at holding it
longer than somebody else, but eventually again, you're going
to start breathing. In fact, you can hold your breath
till you black out. And then when you open your eyes
again, you're gonna be breathing. You know why? It's because your
body's nature to breathe. That's what it's designed to
do. In the same manner, stopping breathing is just as unnatural
as you trying to stop sinning. You can't do it. Because it's
your body's nature. It's the old man in you, the
nature of the old man is only to sin. And that's all it can
ever do. So to try to put that tiger in a cage and say it's
going to stay there and not hurt anybody, let it out of that cage.
See how tame it is. So that's all we're doing. We're
putting the tiger in a cage. It's still a tiger. Its nature
is still to eat meat. And you let it out and it will.
So we can try to restrain it, but it's still going to do what
it's programmed to do. That's its nature. So what does
repentance mean? Repentance, as we talked about
this morning, is a change of mind. I used to think that if
I stopped one particular sin, it would somehow make me better
than if I had continued in it. And that was always the thing
that had delayed me in wanting to be baptized. I've got to stop
doing this first. I've got to stop doing this first
before I can be baptized. Somebody that is going to be
baptized shouldn't be doing this. You know what I found? It never
stopped. This old heart is still the same old heart that it was
before I ever knew the gospel. It's still with me. These same
legs, everything's with me. There's nothing different. And
so, what I've found in my experience is that'll never change. Somehow
stopping one thing may be okay compared to another man or a
woman, but it's not before God. And that's the measure by which
we're judged. So it doesn't matter. You might
be the finest man in the county here. It doesn't matter because
you're not judged by that. He's your judge. So we have to
go by what his standards say, not by what we say. If you keep
one law, You're a debtor to keep the entire law. Every one of
them. In word, in thought, and in deed. One law, you're a debtor to keep
the whole law. Now I'm in trouble. My mind has
been changed. I now see apart from Christ keeping
the law for me, I'm done for. Because if I can only keep one,
let's say that I've never murdered anybody. Not with my hands, but
I have in my heart. So I'm a debtor to keep that
too. Everybody in here is guilty of that. My mind has been changed
how a man can be just before God. How has my mind changed? My mind has been changed because
I've been born again. My mind's changed because I can
see God for who He is. He's given me this new man in
me that has eyes to see. Isn't that what Job said? Job went through a lot of things
in the book of Job. He thought himself to be righteous.
He thought he knew God. He said he would pray even for
his children on the circumstance that they might have sinned.
So outwardly, Job, he did all the right things. But yet what
Job found in the end, he said, I've heard of you at the hearing
of the year. I knew some facts. I knew a lot of stuff. But now,
my eyes cease. And what did he see about himself
once he saw God? He said, I abhor myself, and
I repent in dust and ashes. I hate what I am now that I've
seen you. So I repent as to how a man can
be just before God. Because He makes me willing to
repent. I am a rebel. I look pretty nice
up here in my suit, I think. And I can give a smile and put
on for most people. But in my heart, I'm a rebel.
You're around me long enough, you'll see it. It's not something
I'm proud of, but it's what I am. He makes even a rebel, even a
rebel like me, willing to repent. Because he breaks my pride, he
breaks my spirit, and he shows me who he is. He's gotta break
your heart. in order for you to see that
He's got to give you a new one. The one that you've got is no
good. People say, oh, won't you give your heart to Jesus? What
good would it do Him? He doesn't want your heart. He's
got to give you a new one. The one you've got is broken.
It's corrupt. It's black. So, when you're given
this new nature, you realize you have a new nature. You see
your old nature. And you hate what it is. You
want to be different, you want to do... Isn't that what Paul
said? He said, the things that I would do, I allow not. He's
saying the things I want to do, I can't do. And the things that
I don't want to do, those are the things that I do do. He had
some understanding that there are two natures. The only person
who doesn't believe that there are two natures is someone who
only has one nature. They've not seen the new man
Christ in them. They've not seen the ability
that the new man gives you to live. You're dead apart from
that. So to repent, my mind must be
changed as to how God saves a sinner. He's got to birth in me this
new man. So the third thing that I cannot provide for myself and
that I must ask God for is for the love of God. You cannot make someone love
you. There must be something about
you to be lovable, despite how hard you try. This world today
uses the word unconditional love. There's no such thing as unconditional
love. All love has conditions. I love my wife, but if she punches
me in the face every morning for the next five years to wake
me up, at some point we're going to have a problem. There are
conditions to my love. So there is no such thing as
unconditional love. So it must be something else.
So with regard to God's love, this is where we have to look
at it, because it doesn't matter what our love means. It only
matters with what love I have towards God. I'm a sinner. You are sinners. And God hates
sin. How then can God love you? Well,
He can't. You're an offense. God hates
sin and will punish sin. In fact, God killed his own son
when sin was found upon him. How do you expect that he's gonna
deal with you and me? If he's willing to kill his own
darling son when sin was found on him, how will he deal with
you and me? How can God love you? Ephesians
chapter one, look at that. Verse 4, he says, according as
He, who's the He? He's the Father, hath chosen
us, who's the us? Those are all the elect in Christ,
in Him, in Christ. So He chose us in Him. Who chose
who? He chose us, didn't He? When
did He do it? Before the foundation of the
world. Before you had any ability to sin and mess it all up. Because
if he had to look at what you did right now for a reason to
save you, would there be anybody in here whom he could find a
reason to save? Not me. So he had to do it before I ever
was. He said before the foundation of the world. Why? Why did he
have to do it before the foundation of the world? What conditions
did that put upon me? That we should be holy. That
means without sin. Holy means other. It's something
that we don't understand and can't be. The only thing that
I am is sin, so the only thing that can be other from what I
am is without sin. So that you could be holy, and
without blame before Him, in what condition? In love. So, in order for us to be loved
by God, He had to choose us, to elect us, in Christ, before
the foundation of the world, so that He could love you. Because
in the course of time, if he had to look at what you did here,
as many people believe and profess, therefore I believe, therefore
I'm an elect. No. He can't look at what you've
done here to say a reason for him to elect you. He elects you
and therefore you do believe. You believe because he loves
you. And he loves you because for the one reason, you're in
his son. And that's the only reason you're
loved. And it says we're in love before
Him. That means by His standards,
not by our standards. It doesn't matter what our standards
are. We may not agree with how He does things. What good does
that do you? You're judged by Him. So what
good? You shake your fist, that'll
get you about how far. Not too far. We're judged by
His standards. So we're elected in Christ and
we're seen in love in His Son. God is love. Right here, He tells
us this is how He loves. So this has to redefine what
we believe about love itself. This is love itself. God is love. He tells us how He loves. He
was willing to save His people and He did all of this. The Lord
said, greater love hath no man than this, than that a man lay
down his life for his friends. Do you realize The way you are
right now, if the Lord laid down his life for you, he can call
you his friend. Consider that for a moment. I
know me. I know the things that I do and
the things I think. I don't see how he could be my
friend. But he can because he put me in Christ before the world
began and he still loves me. He did just that, didn't he?
He died for his friends. We can call him our brother friend. Are there any for whom that he
did lay down his life for that won't be saved? Well, we have
to ask the question then, why did Christ die? Christ died because
there was sin on him. That was the only reason he died. The wages of sin are death. That's
why Christ died. Whose sin was it? It was the
sins that I committed. He made them his own. The sins
that I committed. If He died for my sin, can I
then be punished again for it? Can I be punished for the sin
that Christ died for again after He already was? Well, consider
this. Have you ever tried to pay a
bill twice? I have. I've accidentally paid
the same bill that I thought I was paying, the same payment,
twice. You know what they did when I
tried to pay it twice? They sent the money back to me. Because,
you see, there was no bill to pay. The bill had been paid. There was no balance. I didn't
understand what just happened. So what I did is I logged in
on my computer to try to get... there must be some mistake. I
logged in because I was afraid that I hadn't paid it all off.
And you know what happened? I couldn't even log back into
the account that I signed in on because it said there's no
account. The account had been cancelled because the bill had
been paid. There was not even a record of
the bill having been paid. The account was cancelled. This
is true for every believer in Christ. If Christ died for your
sins and paid for them, that account that you owe has been
paid for and cancelled. It's been forgotten. So it doesn't
exist anymore. So Christ died because a sin
can't be paid for twice. He came to save his people from
their sins. The question is, did he do it?
Did He actually do it when He said, it is finished? I'll say
this, if I'm not risen, then neither is He, because I'm united
to Him. He has a far greater thing to lose by not being risen
than I do by being lost. He loses His glory. He loses
the glory for His namesake. He does everything that He does
for us for His namesake, because of His glory. Turn with me over
to Acts chapter 4. Ask chapter 4 and verse 11. This
is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which
has become the head of the corner. This is speaking of the Lord. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved. We must be saved. These are strong words. Is the
Son loved? Yes, He is. Then all those who
are in Him are loved as well. We must be saved. So all those
who were elected and chosen in Him must be saved. Everything He does in this world,
every place you go, every experience you have, every thought you feel,
these are things all ordered around the salvation of His people.
You consider that. Our God has planned all things. all things around this. And so
this gives us the confidence for when he says we must be saved,
it's going to come to pass. We were saved in Christ before
eternity. We're being saved in terms of
our experience right now. But I'm already saved in my Redeemer
who lives for me and who's already risen. So I'm dropping this flesh
and I'll go to be with him. But in terms of our experience,
we must be saved. So I cannot provide the love
of God, and I must ask for that. So the fourth thing I cannot
provide is a righteousness that He will accept. Turn with me
to Isaiah chapter 64. It's a familiar verse to us,
but I want us to really examine what does this verse mean in
verse 6. But we are all as an unclean thing, and all of our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We all do fate as a leaf. Our iniquities like the wind
have taken us away. All of our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. All of our righteousnesses All
that we would say that He should accept because we did it. Somehow
look favorably upon us because we did something. Righteousnesses
are filthy rags. Now what I want you to consider
right now, we're going to examine what these words mean and consider
our righteousnesses in relation to it. When He says our righteousnesses
are filthy rags, Filthy doesn't mean the dirty rags in my garage
that I use when I'm working on my lawnmower. Filthy means minstress. So the woman goes through the
process of menstruation. Minstress rags is what that word
actually means. And how was a woman viewed when
she was going through the process of menstruation at this time?
She was unclean. She was put outside the city,
you can't come in, you're unclean. So, it represents being unclean. Second thing about this, your
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. The process of menstruation
occurs, why? Why does it occur? It occurs
because there's no life present. Because you see, when a woman's
pregnant, process of menstruation doesn't occur, because life's
present. And he's saying here in the word,
your righteousnesses are as filthy rags because number one, you're
unclean. And number two, there's no life in your righteousnesses.
And if you present them before God, you will be rejected because
they're unfit, they're unclean, and he'll cast it out. So our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags describes anything that
we can do before God to say, show favor upon me because I
did this. We can have no work in the process
of salvation whatsoever. We were cast out like the lepers
who were unclean. They couldn't even come into
the city. Unclean. Your righteousnesses are as filthy
rags. God says it's unclean and there's no life in it. It's not
your sins that'll keep you from Christ. It's your filthy rags. Unclean and unfit. How then do
I have a righteousness that he will accept? Let's turn over
to 2 Corinthians 5. And in verse 21 he says, For
He, God the Father, hath made Him, the Lord, to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. This is the only way that we're
going to have a righteousness that He will accept, is if we
are made the righteousness of God in Him. There's no righteousness
outside of Christ. Anything outside of Christ is
only death. If we are made the righteousness
of God in him, this is the only way we'll have it, is if he gives
it. In him does God find complete
satisfaction for everything that he's done, every thought he's
had, everything he did, every word he spoke. Before the law,
even this unbending law, he finds complete satisfaction in everything
Christ has wrought for us, what we couldn't do. That's the righteousness
I want. I don't want to add anything
to it. I'm throwing my filthy rags at it if I'm adding something
to it. I want His righteousness, so
if I'm in Him, I may just like Him. And what I want you to consider
here is Romans 8.29 says, For whom He did foreknow, He did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. What
does that mean? Conformed to the image of His
Son means the same thing as what we read just here. Made the righteousness
of God in Him. We are made just like Him. How is He viewed before the Father? Is He accepted? Is He holy? Is He without sin? Does He have
complete righteousness that can satisfy all the demands of God?
He does. So are all who are in Him. This is how we're conformed to
the image of His Son. Made the righteousness of God
in Him. So I cannot provide a righteousness that God will accept. And lastly,
I cannot provide salvation itself. What is salvation? Salvation's
many things. It's being free from sin, from
the nature of sin that makes me be able to commit sin. So
being free from sin certainly is salvation. Salvation is also being looked
at favorably by God, having a righteousness that He can accept. It's not
good enough for me to just have, oh, my sin's forgiven, because
I have no righteousness that God will accept. So I can't even
be in His presence. Salvation itself is having faith,
unwavering. These are none of the things
I can provide. I can't provide forgiveness for sin. I can't
provide righteousness that He will accept. And my faith, it
wavers every moment. Turn with me over to Isaiah chapter
63. And this is the Lord speaking,
the Lord God. He says in verse 4, Isaiah 63,
For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my
redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none
to help. And I wondered that there was
none to uphold. Therefore mine own arm brought
salvation unto me, and my fury it upheld me. So when we say
we're asking for the Lord God to provide salvation for us,
he said, I looked and there was none to help. We were all in
the same sinking ship, all sons and daughters of Adam. We're
all in that same ship. We're going down with that ship.
We cannot help ourselves. And he said, I wondered that
there was none to uphold. You cannot bear the burden of
your sins. You cannot do anything to satisfy
God for one sin that you've committed, not one. That's why hell's forever. There's no escaping it because
we can't do anything to pay for the sins that we've committed.
He says, because of these things, because you're in the same sinking
ship, you don't have the power to bear your own sins, he says,
therefore, my own arm brought salvation unto me. He said, I
stepped in and I did it. Who brought salvation? He did. He said, my own arm did it. His
own power and his own will. In Isaiah chapter 40, he says,
your warfare is accomplished. The war that's going on inside
of you, with the new man and the old, the things that you
would do, that you can't. The things that you don't want
to do, that you find yourself, that's all you do. That warfare
is accomplished. Now, in me, I feel the warfare
going on every moment. But it's accomplished. Because
God doesn't operate in time. The old man is going to be put
down. He's going to die one day. And I'll be thankful for the
day he does. Your sin does not reign in your body anymore. Because
what's in here is the new man. That's who I am. Not the old
man. Paul said he did it. He's the one who sinned before
you. He said, not me. So, your warfare,
the things that you war with every day, that war is over.
Christ won that war when he died and said it was finished. That
war's been put down. And you know what else he said?
He said your iniquity, it's pardoned. You're not going to be held chargeable
for anyone who was in Christ that he died for. All that you
owed and that you could never pay for, You can go free now. You're not held to it any longer.
You're free from the law. Imagine that. I mean, I work
around people that are Haddisic Jews. I'm in New York a lot. I see them in the airports. They've
got cloaks on and praying and chanting and chanting and chanting.
They look miserable. Because when is it enough? At what point do you decide,
I've done enough? There is no enough. We are free
from the law and all that it's entitled to. We're free from
it. We're free from sin. There is a day that we will realize
it. We're free from sin right now
in the new man. We don't see it. But we are free
from it. But there will come a day when
we're truly free from the power of sin in our bodies and we won't
even feel it. We won't know it. We're free
from death because if we're free from sin, death and hell have
nothing to say to us. The only reason for death is
sin. The only reason for hell is to
pay for those sins. We are free from all those things.
Free from the law, free from death, free from sin, and free
from hell. And it goes on to say, for she
hath received in the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Who
gave it? The Lord gave it. If you have
anything, do you know the only reason you have anything is because
He gave it to you? Was it just enough? How much
do you have? It says you have double. You
see, because if you miss the payment of this by a penny, you
still wind up short. And that's a penny you can't
pay. So He says, you've been given double. Who is He that
condemneth? It's Christ that died. If it's
Christ that died for me, No one can look at me and condemn me
for anything I've done, because you got a point to him. I was
in him. So if he's not worthy, then I'm in him and I'll go down
with that ship. But he's been raised again. He's
in the presence of the Father. And that's our surety that we
know that we are free from sin and death and hell. When he said,
it is finished, God was satisfied. Are you? Is there something left
to do, for you to do, to make it work for you? I'll give you
something to do. Absolutely nothing. You're to
do absolutely nothing but believe the gospel. Believe what He said
was true and don't make a work out of faith and believing. People
do that even though you hear grace and they work out of, well,
I chose to believe though, or my faith's holding me. No. Believing,
or faith, number one, is the gift of God. So if you have it,
it's because He gave it. So that's the only reason He
gave it. And secondly, believing doesn't give us salvation. Believing is evidence of what
He did for us from before the foundation of the world. So therefore,
you do believe. He causes you to believe. It
just evidences what was already done for us, is what believing
is. All those in Christ must be saved. for His namesake. He won't suffer glory or shame
to come on His name. Aren't you thankful that we have
a Heavenly Father that we can call upon and ask for all these
things? And all we have to do is ask
in His name. May the Lord bless you and enjoy
being with you here today.