So, I just saw this song in our
song book, and this would have been a good one for me to pick
for tonight. I don't know it, and I don't
know if you all know it, but let me give you the first verse.
It says, teach me to pray, Lord, teach me to pray. This is my
heart cry day unto day. I long to know Thy will, and
thy way. Teach me to pray, Lord. Teach
me to pray. And that's what we're learning
tonight through John. The Lord is teaching us to pray.
Our subject is according to His will. That's the key to this
passage. According to His will. Let's begin in verse 14 and read
it again. This is the confidence that we
have in Him. That if we ask anything according
to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He heareth
us, Whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that
we desired of Him. Now let's just look at this before
we get into it. God only hears those who ask
according to His will. That's what He's telling us.
We have this confidence in Him that if we ask anything according
to His will, God hears us. He only hears those who ask according
to His will. But those who He hears, He always
grants our petitions. If we pray according to His will,
He hears us. And all who He hears, He grants
our petition. And so He says, so if we know
that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have
the petitions we desired of Him. True prayer is a believer submissively
asking for God to do His will in whatever it is we're asking
for. You follow that? It's whatever
it is we're asking God, we're asking God to do His will. Not
just saying those words, but truly that's our heart. We want
God's will to be done. That's true prayer. That's true
prayer. That's the end purpose of prayer.
To bring us to submit to God's will to ask God to do whatever
He's willing to do in whatever the situation is. Now I want
to look at three things here. I want to look at our confidence
to approach God in prayer and then our confidence that He hears
us and then our confidence that we have our petitions. First
of all, it's only through faith in Christ that we have confidence
to approach unto God in prayer. He says here, it begins with
the word and, and so that means verse 13 goes with this. He says,
these things have I written unto you that believe on the name
of the Son of God. We're writing to believers here.
And He says, I've written this that you might know you have
eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the Son
of God. And this is the confidence that
we have in Him. You see who our confidence is
in? Our confidence is in Christ. So I'm only going to have confidence
in approaching God in prayer if first I believe on the Son
of God. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. If we're going to come to God,
the only way to come to God is through His Son, through faith
in His Son. He's the truth and there's no
coming to the Father but by Him. He's the way. There's no coming
to God but by Him. So we got to have, first we got
to believe on Christ and trust Him alone. before we can come
to God. We come to Him through faith
in Christ. He's all our confidence to come
to God in prayer. So it's only sinners who believe
on the name of the Son of God who have confidence in Him as
we approach God in prayer. Now look at this next thing.
Our confidence in Christ is that God our Father will hear us.
He says there, verse 14, ìThis is the confidence that we have
in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth
us.î Now it does not say, it does not say, ìIf we ask anything,
He heareth us.î It doesnít say that. This vainly religious world
treats prayer like it's a blank check. You just write in the
amount and God gives you whatever you want. That's not what He
said. He said if we ask anything according
to His will, He hears us. That's the only ones He hears.
Those who ask according to His will. If you ask according to
His will, He hears you. He hears you. Well, what's His
will? How do we ask according to God's
will? Well, I'll try to break this
down into two things. It involves the manner in which
we come to God. That's the first thing, the manner
in which we come to God. It's God's will that we come
to Him in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And that
is much more than just saying those words. When we come before
the Father, we come owning His Son to be our Lord Jesus Christ. We come owning Him. We own Him
to be our Lord, our King, our Master. And we are submissive
to Him. We are subservient to Him. And
this is our heart. Our heart is submission to Him
as our Lord. And we come before the Father
owning His Son to be our Lord. We come before the Father owning
His Son to be our Jesus. That name means Savior. His name
should be called Jesus for He shall save His people from our
sins. We come owning Him. We don't
just say the name Jesus as a name of familiarity. Don't ever pray
in familiarity with God. That's not what we're talking
about here. Your children don't come in, Kevin, and go, Hey,
Kevin, do this. And we don't come, we don't use
that name with familiarity. When we use that name, we're
saying He's our Savior. That's what His name means. And
we come into God owning that He is the Christ. He is God's anointed, sent one,
who God chose to be the salvation and the righteousness and the
holiness and the redemption and the wisdom of His people. We
are owning Him to be everything. We are owning ourselves to be
sinners and we are owning Christ to be all when we come to God
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this. Ephesians
5.20 Paul said, Giving thanks always for all things unto God
and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now turn over to Hebrews 10,
just a few pages to your left. Approaching God in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, we're saying that our confidence is
His blood. Our confidence in approaching
unto God is the blood of Christ. That's what we're saying. Hebrews
10.19, Having therefore, brethren, boldness, confidence, to enter
into the holiest, that is, into God's very presence. That's what
we're doing when we're praying. You ever think about that? When
we pray, we're coming into God's presence. Into God's presence. The holiest
of holies. They wouldn't dare, that holiest
of holies in the tabernacle, they wouldn't dare go in there.
Nobody could go in there but the high priest. We're going
into God's very presence in the holiest of holies. Listen to
this, but we're doing this by the blood of Jesus. That's our
confidence. By a new and living way. which
He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His
flesh. His people deserve to die for
our sins. But our Lord Jesus Christ took
our sins and He took our curse and He gave His flesh, His body
to be broken and bruised in His blood so that our blood would
not be shed and our body would not be broken. under the justice
of God. And so, it's His flesh, His broken
body, His shed blood that is our new way of entering into
that holiest of holies. Not like the old holiest of holies
and not like the way they entered the old holiest of holies. We
have a new way to enter and it's Jesus Christ, our crucified Lord. And because He's risen, it's
a living way. Our way is alive. Jesus Christ
is alive. So we're coming, and this is
God's will right here, for us to come through the blood of
Christ in the name of His Son. Through the blood of Christ,
through His broken body, we approach God. This is our confidence to
approach Him. We come making mention of His
righteousness when we come in the name of His Son. And then
by praying in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we're saying
to the Father that our confidence is that Christ is our great High
Priest. Look at verse 21. And having
an High Priest over the house of God. You know the High Priest,
he was the only one that could go into the holiest of holies.
And he went by himself and he went with blood. He went with
the blood of a lamb. and He would take that blood
and He would sprinkle it on the mercy seat and make atonement
for the sins of the children of Israel. Well, Christ is our
High Priest and He's entered in not to that tabernacle made
with hands, He's entered into God's very presence. And He's
not entered in with the blood of a lamb, He's entered in with
His own blood and He's accomplished our eternal redemption. And He's
our confidence for coming to God in prayer. He's our confidence. And then our confidence is approaching
in full assurance of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing
this, that the reason we have faith and the reason we have
this confidence and trust His blood and trust His righteousness
alone and have this confidence to approach God is because He's
made us holy. Look here, verse 22. Let us draw
near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Where do
we get that true heart? Where do we get this full assurance
of faith? Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience. That's in the blood of Christ
by the Holy Spirit and having our bodies washed with pure water.
That is in the washing of regeneration. This is according to God's will. This is praying according to
God's will. It's the manner in which we come. We come in His
Son and we're welcome. We're welcome. And so this is
our confidence. We have boldness. We have confidence
that the Lord will receive us when we pray to Him in prayer. Whenever Willís friends come
over to the house, theyíll knock on the door and theyíll stand
there and Iíll yell, ìCome in!î You know, and they just stand
there at the door. And Iíll yell louder, ìCome on in!î Theyíll
stand there at the door. Iím going to have to get up out
of my chair and go open the door for them. And Iíll go over there
and Iíll open the door for them and theyíll walk in and mumble
around, you know, and they come in real timid. They want to know
where Willís at, you know, and theyíll just stand there until
I tell them where to go and they take off. My children come in
that door and they just walk right in it and they just have
all boldness and all confidence to walk in and they don't come
in any way like Will's friends do. Those are my children and I'm
their father and that's their house and they know they're welcome
anytime. That's what he's talking about.
We have this confidence because of Christ and what He's done
for us. That's what it is to come to God in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ. It's to come through faith in
Christ, owning Him to be everything. And that's our confidence. So
the first thing in prayer, according to God's will, is the manner
in which we pray. If we're going to pray in God's
will, it's the manner in which we pray. We come submitted to His Son, believing
on His Son, owning His Son to be our all. That's the first
thing. It's God's will. That's how we
come. And that's the manner in which we come. Alright? The second
thing to approach God according to God's will involves what we
ask for. What we ask for. This is what
we generally think about when we think about according to God's
will. We think about what we're asking
for. Well, that is included. When God gives a new heart, that
heart's contrite. That means we're in submission
and resignation to God's will. Our will is no longer the important
thing anymore. God's will is what's important
now. That's the new heart He gives. We want God's will to
be done. Even when God gives you difficult
trials and severe trials, we have our flesh that's going to
go against us. But in our heart of hearts, in
our new man, we want God's will to be done. And that's the heart
He's given us. That's why we know that it's
there. That's the heart He's given you.
When God told Eli all the trouble that was going to come on his
house, and how his sons were going to die, and the priesthood
was going to be taken from Eli, that was some severe news that
he got. And you know how He responded?
It's the Lord's will. Let him do what seemeth to him
good. It's His will. It's not God's will to give us
simply what we want. That's not what He's saying. There's a vast difference between
what we want and what we need. A vast difference. You ask and
receive not, James said, because you ask amiss that you may consume
it upon your lust. That's asking in the flesh when
we ask just what we want. That's what our flesh wants.
And we ask amiss when we do that. If we ask what is not God's will,
God will not give us what we ask. He won't hear us and He
won't grant that petition if we're asking something that's
not God's will to give. But the Holy Spirit will teach
us. Remember we saw in Romans 8, the Holy Spirit will teach
us. We don't know what to pray for as we ought, but the Holy
Spirit will teach us and give you the heart to pray for what
you should pray for. And we have Paul as the example
of that. God gave Paul that thorn in the
flesh. And he gave it to him for a reason.
It was God's will that he have that thorn in his flesh. Well,
Paul goes to praying that the Lord would remove it. Well, that
was not God's will to remove it. And that would have been
the worst thing for Paul if he had removed it. Remember why
he gave it to him? Paul said, lest I be exalted above measure
because of all this abundance of revelations that God had given
him, God kept him humble by giving him a thorn in the flesh. You
can be certain of this. You want to be blessed of God.
You want to have some abundant revelations from God and know
some things and be able to teach things. Well, you just know this. As you get those and God gives
you those, He is going to give you something to keep you humble
too when He gives you that. And so, But God didn't hear him. He would not grant that petition
to him. But he sent the Spirit of God
and he taught Paul that his grace is sufficient. And that was another
reason he gave him that thorn, to teach him that, that his grace
is sufficient. And so he brought Paul into submission
to his will. And Paul ended up saying, so
now I'm thankful for my infirmities. I'm thankful when I'm in these
trials and in these situations that I'm so weak, I have no power
in me. Then I know my strength is Christ. And that's when I'm really strong,
when all my strength is Christ alone. Not me at all. That's when I'm strong. So be
careful to make certain when we pray. Be careful to make certain
our petitions to God are not just wants of the flesh, but
that it's according to God's will. Let's look at some of those.
Go to Ephesians 6. We have God's will all through
the Scriptures. And that's how you know what
it's God's will to pray for. I'm just going to give you a
couple of things here but Ephesians 6.18 Paul says praying always with
all prayer and supplication in the spirit. It's God's will we
pray in the spirit. Now you and I don't have much
control over that but the spirit of God will see to it we pray
in the spirit but that's God's will we pray in the spirit and
it's not going to be some flippant yippity-doo thing that you see
going on in churches, it's going to be a serious matter when you
really truly pray. And it says, "...and watching
thereunto with all perseverance." This is God's will. We're watching
for the proper time to pray. It's not always the time to pray.
We're watching for the time to pray when we'll not be interrupted,
when we'll not be tempted to stop. There's a time to pray. And because he says, watch and
persevere in prayer. Don't stop. Continue. And we're
watching for God to give us the petition that we pray for. We
pray expecting God to give us the petition we pray for. This
is all God's will and how we're to pray. And he says, persevering. That means you don't stop. It's
importunate. You continue asking. God's not
going to give it to you just the second you ask Him. He's
going to make you keep asking. And he says, and supplication
for all saints and for me. This is God's will. We pray for
God's saints and God's preachers. Pray for all his saints and pray
for his preachers. He says, that utterance may be
given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known
the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in bonds
that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So that's
something that's God's will right there for us to pray in that
manner and for those things. Go with me to Matthew 6. This
is our Lord model teaching us to pray and this is where we
learn what to pray for. Matthew 6. You know that the Lord is not
telling us to use these words. We're not just supposed to repeat
this like folks do. This is just telling you, this
is a model, a guideline of what to pray for. Look at Matthew
6, 9. After this manner, therefore pray ye, Our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It's God's will for us to ask
for God's name to be sanctified above all others. That's what hallowed means. For
Him to be sanctified above all. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven. It's God's will we pray for the
good of His kingdom. For God's will to be done in
His kingdom in this earth and in heaven, in earth just like
it is in heaven. Look at verse 11. Give us this
day our daily bread. See that? God's will is for us
to pray for today's bread. Just ask Him for today's bread,
not tomorrow's. Just grace for today. Just today's
needs. And forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors. It's God's will that we confess
our sins to Him and ask God's forgiveness and that we forgive
others. And He says, And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil. It's God's will
we ask Him to keep us and deliver us from trial. He says, For thine
is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. It's God's will for us to give
Him all the glory and all the preeminence. This is praying
according to God's will. This is all God's will right
here. So praying God's will involves the manner in which we pray.
We come in the name of His Son, giving Him all preeminence, and
it's what we pray. These things that are God's will,
I've just given you a few. There's a host of things in the
Scriptures that you can see what others prayed for and how God
answered or didn't answer. And you can find out what is
God's will for us to pray. Now, we have this confidence
in Christ that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth
us. When you pray according to God's
will, He will hear you. All who pray according to His
will, He will hear you if you pray according to His will. God
is the Father of His children and He will never turn a deaf
ear to the cry of His child. In fact, even when He doesn't
hear you, If you pray something that's not His will and He doesn't
hear you so as to grant your petition, that's still hearing
you in a sense because He's not going to give you what's not
good for you. He's going to only give you what you need and what's
for your edification and for His glory. And so you can count
on that. That's what He's going to give.
But you think about the first hour that you truly prayed to
the Father was when He gave you a new heart and taught you what
a sinner you were. And the first thing that you
really cried out to God was you cried out to Christ, to the Lord
to have mercy on you. You confessed your sin and you
asked for mercy. That was according to God's will
and He heard you, didn't He? And ever since then, when you've
prayed according to His will, He hears you. Now we have this
confidence. We come in the name of His Son,
praying according to His will, and He hears us. That's our confidence. Now lastly, look at this. Knowing
the Lord hears us, we know we have the petitions we desire
of Him. He says, Verse 15, And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever
we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired
of Him. Now the key is still praying according to God's will.
God's going to do everything according to His will. And His
will does not change. God does not change and His will
does not change. God only hears if we ask according
to God's will. But when we ask according to
His will, He hears us. And all who He hears, He grants
our petition. So, everything in salvation was
according to God's will. He said He predestinated us to
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ according to the good
pleasure of His will. When our Lord Jesus Christ walked
this earth, when He went to the Garden of Gethsemane, He said,
Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me. But it
wasn't the Father's will. And so the Father didn't let
the cup pass from Him. Our Lord Jesus drank the cup,
and wicked hands did exactly what God determined before to
be done, what was His eternal will to be done. That's what
took place. So see, when He doesn't give
us, when we pray, Lord, if it's Your will, do this, and it's
not His will, and He does not give you what you're asking for,
it's not always bad, is it? He didn't give our Savior what
our Savior prayed for because it wasn't His will. And because
He didn't give Him what He asked for, Christ went to the cross
and He accomplished the salvation of His people. Our Lord did that,
teaching us that lesson. Because He knew the will of the
Father. But you get it. You get what
I'm saying, don't you? It's not always a bad thing when
He doesn't give you what you asked for. And we have an inheritance
now. We have obtained an inheritance
in Christ because we are predestinating according to the purpose of Him
who works all things after the counsel of His will. Nothing
changes God's will. God is immutable. His will is
immutable. It doesn't change. It never has
changed ever. I can't even fathom that. Our will changes just before
we get out the door in the morning. God's will never has ever changed. Well, why then pray if His will
is not going to change? Well, God uses the means of prayer
to change us, to bring us in submission to His will. That's
what prayer is about. Men are always saying, you know,
prayer changes things. Only His child. It doesn't change
God. It changes His child. It brings
us into submission to God. But it doesn't change God or
change what God's going to do. Because God's determined the
end from the beginning. And that's what's come in the
past. Prayer is God making His child submit to God's will. You
know over in Ezekiel 36, I won't have you turn there, but the
Lord said exactly what He was going to do. He said, ìThen will
I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all
your filthiness, from all your idols. Will I cleanse you?î He
is saying what I will do. A new heart also will I give
you. A new spirit will I put within
you. I will take away the stony heart. I'll give you a heart
of flesh. I'll put my spirit within you. I'll cause you to
walk in my statutes. You'll be my people. I will be
your God." He told him everything he was going to do for his people.
And then he said, Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for
this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.
In other words, God already determined what His will is and what He
will do. But He says, yet my people are going to ask me to
do it for them. And that's what God's doing in
everything that He brings us to ask Him for. He's already
determined what He's going to do. He's bringing you into submission
to His will to ask, Lord, do this according to Your will. And that's what he hears. And
everybody he hears, he grants our petitions. And we forget,
we forget what to pray for as we ought. We could read it, but
something comes into our life that's real personal and it's
real painful and we want it to stop and we start praying for
what we want. But the Spirit of God puts prayer
in our heart, teaches us what to pray for as we ought. You've
experienced that how you're going through a trial and it's lasted
a long time and you've been praying, praying, praying and one day
God works in your heart and you realize, I'm going to quit praying
for that. And you begin to really pray for God to do what He will. And that's what He does. And
everything is fine then. Everything is fine then when
you are brought to that place. We ask in Christ's name for His
glory. We ask God to do according to
His will. We ask Him to give His lost child
a new heart, take out the stony heart. And that's what God does. Because He determined before
He ever made anything, that's what He would do. See, we're
not changing God's will in prayer. We're being brought into submission
to God's will to ask what we will. So here's my message. I
told Ben earlier today, I said, let me give you my message. I
said, if you want to know that God always hears you and that
you always have the petition you ask, then in everything you
ask, ask God's will to be done. It's that simple. Just ask God's
will to be done. We got an all-wise Father who
knows the end from the beginning, who knows what He's going to
do, who's going to do it the best way, the wisest way. It's
going to be best for me, best for all my brethren. It's going
to be to His praise and His glory and His honor. It's going to
exalt Christ to the highest. Why on earth wouldn't I just
say, Do it according to your will. I don't even know what's going
to come to pass. He knows it all. So why wouldn't
I just say, Lord, whatever your will is, I'm happy. Just do whatever your will is.
It doesn't matter what the situation is. All right. you