to John chapter 14. John chapter 14. We'll be in
this little monologue here for a few more sermons, actually
several more sermons, because there's a lot here that Jesus
is going to teach in the coming weeks about the Holy Spirit.
and it will do us good to have some reminder of the work in
the person of God, the Spirit regarding our redemption. When we gather together each
week, and this is not something new, but it is redundant in my
voice, we do so as a family. We're not professionals, we're
not here to put on a show, we're not here to provide some type
of experience where people can say, well, we've We've seen God,
and we've enjoyed God, and we've enjoyed God's company, and we've
seen the fog of the Holy Spirit, and we've heard the baseline
of the Son, and you know, a lot of different things. We are here
to experience life together in Christ, intimately around His
Word. As much as many of you may not
believe it, there is a large majority of society who claims
to be in Christ who does not hold, who do not hold, put my
numbers correct, who do not hold to the sufficiency of scripture.
When I say that, I mean this, is that the Christian faith,
whether you believe what's in the Bible or not as a human being,
that's irrelevant. But to say you believe the Christian
faith, but the Christian faith that you believe is not found
in scripture. That's what I mean there. And even amongst evangelicals,
there are pastors all over this community and the communities
surrounding us, the communities where you live, who do not believe
that the Bible is sufficient for the church and the Bible
is sufficient to tell us about the Christian faith. That would
be like buying a novel that a person wrote, who they created the story,
they developed the characters, they did everything out of their
own creation and wrote a novel and you read it and you went,
no that's not how the story goes. Now those characters, there's got
to be some more characters in the story. And that's where fan fiction
comes from. And unfortunately, fan fiction
is the prominent activity, the prominent foundation of Christianity
in our culture. Now there's iterations of certain
types of faith. There's the Russellites and the
Roman Catholics and the Latter-day Saints. There's all many iterations
of so-called Christian faith that There are plenty of things
for anybody of any flavor, of any type of belief system to
go and find. You want to find an affinity, you can find evangelical
churches who center on the affinity of motorcycles, center on the
affinity of having rock music, center on how they dress. The
baseball cap Baptist Church, I guarantee you there's one.
And you're handed a cap when you come in. Everybody wears
a cap. Soledad O'Glory on the front of it. I promise you. It
sounds absurd, but there's some pastor that hasn't done that.
Maybe they'll hear that and they'll go, you know what, that's a great
idea. And I'll start a whole new movement. No Socks Baptist Church,
whatever it might be. But the Word of God testifies
that it is inerrant, infallible, trustworthy. And Jesus actually
says, as we get into chapter 15, which will be a couple of
weeks that to abide in Him is to abide in the word that He
has said. And that the words that He has said, He actually
says are the words of God, the Father. And that the Father is
in Him, and He is in the Father, and indeed they are in one another,
and they are of the same essence. Jesus is claiming to be God fully,
the I Am, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So we are not
in a place as Christians to fight against all of the different
views concerning the Scripture. Yet, the Scripture in itself
fights against the views concerning Christ. Because there is only
one true Christ. There are many Jesus. Many. The name, if we were to translate
it, would be Joshua, I believe, in the English. That would be
a better translation. Yahweh saves is what the name
means. So many people are named Joshua.
Many people are named Jesus. Many people have the name in
this world. But there is only one true Jesus
who is the Christ. Only one who is the Christ. The
English translation of the Greek word Christos, which means Messiah. which is the holy and anointed
one of God, that throughout all of the history of man has been
prophesied to come through the seed of a woman to crush the
head of the serpent. In chapter 14, we approach certain
topics that are within the conversation that Jesus is having. And it's real tempting. It's real tempting to say, oh,
he talked about the unity of the Father. Let's talk about
Trinitarian theology. He's talked about the works and
the miracles. Let's talk about the miracles of Christ. He's
talking about prayer. Let's do a whole series on prayer.
But we need to stay true to what the text is teaching us here.
It's OK to have knowledge of the other sources of the scripture. And of course, the scripture
is synergistic. It works together in unison.
It is not contradictory. People tell me that all the time,
well, the Bible is full of contradictions. And I said, oh, really? I said,
could you give me a few, because I'm interested in learning them.
And they go, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, let me Google that. No, you
don't know what you're saying if you have to look it up, you
see. There's no contradictions there. There's corroboration. There's textual variance. As
a matter of fact, there's a textual variant here this morning. And
it's an omission. It's an omission in some of the
earlier texts, but it doesn't mean that it's not the scripture,
because we have enough of the evidences. We have enough manuscripts
with it there, and I'll get to it in a minute. But what we don't
want to do is we don't want to miss what the Bible is saying
through the evangelist here, John, the apostle, at the cost
of learning doctrinal things. Because what is doctrine anyway?
Teaching. And a lot of times we approach
the Bible, we're all guilty of it, I'm guilty of it as well,
we approach the Bible through word studies, we approach the
Bible through some type of interest in some particular topic or subject
and we do exhaustive or inductive studies when we should be reading
contextually that which God is saying to us presently. You see
how simple that sounds? If we want to know the source
of all things divine, then let's just let God speak for himself.
Rather than thinking that God has hidden something in the midst
of all thousands of these pages that we must go in and mine,
like trying to find precious metal, palladium or platinum
or gold or silver. We don't have to mine. We can
just see. And when we see, there's no undoing
the seeing. There's no undoing. Once we've
been given spiritual sight, it does not go away. Though it may
wane, though our eyes may avert every now and then because of
circumstances, we never stop seeing the truth of the glory
of God revealed fully in Jesus Christ. So please keep these
things in mind, beloved, as we move through this text today.
And next week, I pray that you would begin to pray for the teaching
and the preaching of the word, because there are very dangerous,
eisegetical. What do I mean? People reading
into the text and saying that's what it means. There are very
dangerous, eisegetical doctrines that have come from things like,
if you love me, you'll obey me. If you love me, you will keep
my commandments. these conditions that are shown and previewed
throughout the scripture just like the one we'll deal with
today. Let's go to the word of God and I want to read verses
14, chapter 14, I want to read through verse 14 so that we can
have the context in our ears. Let not your hearts be troubled
Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are
many rooms. If it were not so, would I have
told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you
to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And you know the
way to where I'm going." Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know
where you're going. How can we know the way? Jesus
said to him, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life.
And no one comes to the Father except through me. If you had
known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on,
you do know and have seen Him." Philip said, Lord, show us the
Father and it shall be enough for us. Jesus said, Have I been
with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever
has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the
Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father
is in Me? The words that I say to you,
I do not speak of My own authority, but the Father who dwells in
Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father
and the Father is in Me, or else believe on account of the works
themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me
will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these
will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask
in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. If you ask me anything in my
name, I will do it. May the Lord give us understanding
in hearing of his word. Now first I'll deal with a technical
issue there. Verse 14 is one of those variants that is omitted. It is substantially part of many
texts, but there is a season of history where it was erased. And the reason for it is because
you see there, he already said. Whatever you're asking my name,
this I will do. If you ask me anything in name,
I will do it. They're thinking, that was a copy. We don't need
to say it twice. But Christ said it twice. Another
aspect of that is you see the if. If you ask me anything in
my name, I will do it. And then in verse 15, if you
love me. So when you see, when you're copying transcript and
you see the word if you, if you, You might just skip over the
second one thinking you've already wrote it down. So these are errors
that happen in translate, not transmission, but in translation
and in copying. But still we have the word of
God. The archeological data for the scripture, for the New Testament
scripture alone is insurmountable. Yet it takes a miracle of God
for one to trust in it. Here, I want to talk about the
works of Christ as I did last week, and I also want to talk
about what Jesus means when He deals with prayer. We could easily
go to the synoptics and we could see the model prayer that Jesus
teaches. Pray in this manner, not to be
seen in public, but hidden. Pray in this manner, Our Father
who is in heaven, Your name is holy. All of these things. But He closes that prayer with
one specific thing. Your will be done. He includes that. Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. This is the reality of true prayer,
is that we desire what God desires. And when we see Jesus pray throughout
all of the gospel accounts, we see Him pray in that very thing.
You'll see in the Garden of Gethsemane. I can't speak today. where he
prays, take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours be
done. It's not about what we want.
We oftentimes think that God has established this relationship
with people so that He can give them the utmost of their own
joys. That's not true. We who are parents
in the room and listening to this message, we know that we
don't give our children what makes them happy. We give them
what's good for them. As we talked about Wednesday
night, we do what is good for our neighbor. We build them up
and we encourage them. We don't think selfishly toward
them. We don't act selfishly. We never
make plans for our lives, for ourselves, at the cost of another. As Christians, that's the epitome
of selfishness, the epitome of evil. But we are to, in every
way, consider others in everything that we say and do. The same
is true in the work that we do. Now, when it comes to ministry,
that's a very broad term, isn't it? Ministry. I mean, I'm in
the ministry, you're in the ministry, all God's children are in the
ministry, you've got a dog in the ministry, a cat in the ministry, a snake in the
ministry, everything's in the ministry. I mean, it is such
a common word today, it just means that you're a non-profit
and that you use the Bible every now and then. That's all that
ministry really means in our culture. And it might mean that
you've been ordained by an ecclesiastical body of some kind, or a group
of men, or a group of elders. But it doesn't mean that you
have the ministry. What is the ministry that is found in the
New Testament? There's only one. That's the ministry of Christ.
The ministry of reconciliation. And then a secondary ministry
within the confines of the local body is the ministry of needs.
where we are ministering spirits to each other. And that was a
figure of speech. We are ministering to each other
to provide for each other physical, spiritual, emotional needs as
they arise. So when it comes to ministry,
all of these things that we see in the culture today is not necessarily
ministry because if they are not matching the work of Christ,
then they're not ministry. If we did on 9-11 a celebration
of hometown heroes, we would not be doing ministry. We would
be usurping the glory of God. And as well-meaning as those
things are, as we can often be reminded of that old cliche,
the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And friends, the road to idolatry
is paved with good intentions. There is never a time to usurp
the authority of Christ, the glory of Christ, because in essence
there's nothing greater. There is no desire that you and
I could have as human beings that is greater than the desire
to be with and see the fullness of Christ. Yet our flesh comes
up with all sorts of lies, doesn't it? If I could just have this. If I could just get rid of this.
If I could just obtain that. If I could just succeed this
way. If I could just make this much money. If I could just have
this much time off. If I could just have this type
of job. If I could just have this type of relationship. If
my kids would just act like this. If I could just get here. If
my health would just come to this. Oh, and the list goes on
and on and on. And it is all usurping the glory
of God. And we're all guilty. Pat yourself
on the hand. Because that's what the flesh
does. I don't want to trigger anybody, but I'll quote John
Calvin for the second time in eight years, where he says, the
heart of man is a continual factory of idols. So imagine that, this
little compartment coming out of our chest, and idol number
one, we take it and we love it. Oh, reminds me of the old Looney
Tunes days. I will pat him and pity him and
hurt him. You know, the Abominable Snowman of the Looney Tunes.
And we break this idol and there's another one. As a matter of fact,
this one falls off into the floor and breaks because there's several
more being pushed out of the kiln of our heart. And if it
weren't for the mercies of God, we would always be wanting more. Contentment with godliness is
great gain. That is not just an echo in my
heart and in my mind, but it seems like I have an apparition
of that scripture all over my life. Everywhere I look. But
yet we can justify our own discontentment, can't we? We can justify our
discontentment because, you know what, I really need a car that
I don't have to fix three times a year. So you'd rather go in
debt $50,000 and spend $600 a month on a brand new car than spend
$2,000 a year on it? Logic? Don't think so. Oh, but I just gotta have reliable
transportation, you see. Oh, I need this, I need that.
Oh, that new pair of jeans sure would look nice. How many pairs
of jeans you got? 26? Well, 27 is the magic number. It's just such
a good deal. I saved $20. No, you spent $12. And that's what we do. And men,
women alike. It depends on what we're looking at. It may not
be clothes for us men, but it might be something else. We never
have enough ammo. We can never have enough yard
equipment. I mean, most of us, we go into our garage, we can
open up a landscaping company. Yet the grass is this high, you
know? Because we don't have time, so we pay somebody else to use
our equipment to cut our own grass. Oh, that lawnmower just isn't
working. Go buy another one. I know somebody who can hook
you up. Oh man, the color of our carpet
just is sort of outdated, you see. Is it sinful to buy a new
carpet? Not at all. It's not sinful at
all. But I'm just showing you the constant discontentment.
We could get a brand new love seat and all of a sudden it doesn't
match the wall and we've got to paint. While people around the world
as a whole would love to have the bowl of grits we threw to
the dogs and the dogs turn their nose up because it wasn't the
gravy train that they're used to. Even our dogs are spoiled. Why do I say all this? Because
there's two things that work in this text right here that
we need to eliminate very quickly and understand that ministry
is not what the world shows us it is. And that prayer is not
for the purpose of what the world shows us it is. Ministry is not
for us to get what we want and for us to feel good about making
other people feel good. Ministry is not about taking
people out of misery, but it's about doing that which Christ
has continued to do through his people. And prayer is not about
getting what we want, it's about the will of God being fulfilled
for the sake of the glory of God for what He wants. And that's
what this text is teaching. That's what this text is teaching,
so let's look at it. In verse 11, we'll start where we were
last week and we'll review. that I am in the Father and the
Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
Now let me show you what's here. And I don't know that if I said
this last week, but I need to say it this morning. Jesus is
saying already, believe me. Believe what I've just said to
you, believe this again, that I am in the Father and the Father
is in me. Now what's that saying? That said that everything that
Jesus says and does and is, is everything that the Father says
and does and is, and everything that the Father says and does
and is, is everything that the Son says and does and is. So
in a sense, they're the same being. Different persons. Unified will,
unified mind, unified purpose, unified glory. Jesus in his earthly
ministry and still to this day, even in the ascension, never
seeks to glorify himself, though he is at one with the Father,
he always seeks to give glory to the Father. And remember what
glory means. Glory is to reveal perfectly
the fullness of something. So if we see Jesus glorifying
the Father, that means that what Jesus says reveals the fullness
of who God is. What Jesus does reveals the fullness
of who God is. So Jesus is saying, I say that
I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Believe that. It gives
glory to the Father. And if that doesn't work for
you, in the minimum of your lacking in your cognitive ability to
see miracles, know that I am giving glory to God, the Father,
in the work that I've done and the miracles. The signs are like,
hey, he's God. It's like unwritten signposts
that he's God. That's what it means. Jesus speaks the clear words
that he's God, and then Jesus does the clear work that he's
God, that speak as equally authoritatively as the words. But the miracles
are not life-giving. The miracles and the signs and
the wonders have never saved a soul. There's not one person
who has believed and been born again through watching Jesus
raise Lazarus from the dead. It was hearing his words as he
says, I am the resurrection and the life through which they believe. The ministry. He goes on to say in verse 12
about these works, about his ministry, about his life, the
three and a half years of his public life. Truly, truly, I am saying to
you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do. So there's two things that we're
here to see about works. There's the works that I do and
then and greater works than these. So there's the works that I do
and greater works that I do than I do. This is the ministry. And Jesus is saying, if you believe,
that I am God, it is because God, we can already go back to
the beginning, right? We can already see that even
though they have been granted eternal life through Christ,
Thomas doesn't understand, Philip doesn't understand, the fullness
of what they grasp about Christ is not quite understood. Why? Because Christ has yet to die
and be raised from the dead. So there's still a little bit
of an enigma when it comes to the talking of Christ in their
minds. They trust that God would save them from their sins. That's
the baseline of redemption. God in his mercy saves his people
from their sins. The method through which he would
do that, the person rather, is Jesus Christ and the work of
Christ as they saw it was coming to save their people, his people
from their sins, had nothing to do with him dying, but yet
it was the whole point. So that true ministry that's
not about the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus
is worthless. Speaking to a young man last
night, doubting his salvation. Many seasons of his life. What
do I do? I'm being told by my pastors
because I want to obey or that I'm doing well and I'm not cussing
and drinking and smoking or dating girls who do or any of those
kind of silly things that I'm doing pretty good. I should be
confident. But yet the scripture says, do not be confident in
the works of the flesh. Most, let me tell you something
church, most people who live high moral lives are going straight
to hell. And they say they believe in Jesus. Most of them. Because they don't believe that
Jesus is sufficient. They don't believe the ministry of Christ of reconciliation
is sufficient. They don't believe in the power
of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. And there's no way to
cause them to believe that, to trust in that. Saving faith is
not just knowledge of and assent to, but it's a deep-rooted, unreserved
trusting that only happens in the soul of man by the divine
work of God the Spirit. Because without the work of the
Spirit, every day we're going to see a war within us when we
see sin. Without the work of the Spirit,
we're going to think, what must I do now to continue to be right
with God? I've got to do something. I've got to work something. Jesus'
death, oh my goodness, He opened the door, I've got to keep walking
through it. I keep jumping back out. I'm like, put my right foot
in, my right foot in, and doing the hokey pokey for Jesus over
here. And we don't know what to do. And we're always looking
to make provision for the flesh to think that if we continue
to try to put to death sin in such a way, but what happens
when our flesh puts to death enough sin that our flesh can't
see sin anymore? We've lied to ourselves and we're
deceived. And John says that we make God
a liar. Any person that says that they
are progressing in their sinlessness is a liar. You're a liar, John says, and
the truth is not in you. What does it mean? The truth
of the gospel is that Christ's perfection is our only hope. His death, His ministry of reconciliation
is the only ministry that's ever truly existed under the authority
of God. There is no other ministry. There
is no other gospel. There is no other hope. So we are to what? Push people
to the cross of Christ every breath and every moment that
we can. We don't call people to come
to the cross and then tell them now look in the mirror boy to
make sure you really touched it. That is wicked, sinful, demonic,
disgusting, blasphemous evil. It is Christ alone or it is death. No provision for the flesh is
to be measured in the redemption of God's people. Christ's flesh. Christ. He is the resurrection,
the life. He raised His life up by Himself. He laid His life down by Himself. And in dying and in being raised,
He justified His people by Himself. For Himself. Now I'm not talking
theologically as the Father and the Spirit aren't working as
God in redemption. We know that they are. We've
already learned those things. Jesus doing the will of the Father
is doing His will. I have food that you know not
of. My food is to do the will of the one who sent me. That's
what Jesus says in John 4. So these who believe in me will
do the works that I do. What are the works that Jesus
does? Well, we can include the miracles in there. I mean, do
not the disciples work miracles? The apostles rather? And only
the apostles. Do they work miracles? Why do
they work miracles? Why did Jesus work miracles?
Because there were silent signs displays, billboards, commercials
of what he was preaching publicly. So the purpose of miracles is
always to undergird the preaching to validate the truth. Jesus
is the truth. So as he's telling his disciples,
I'm about to leave you. I'm about to go away. And they're
like, where are you going? We don't know where you're going.
How can we know the way? He says, I am the way, the truth and life.
And I'm going to recapitulate that particular phrase at the
end of the sermon. because it's in view here. I'm
the way, the truth and the life, one building upon the other. And they can't really see it,
but yet now what he's been doing for three and a half years is
to show them he's the way. He's not the map, he's the way. He's not showing the way, he
is the way, Christ. So that they will continue to
do the works that He has done. And then it says, greater works
than these. Now I find that interesting that out of the context here,
if I just grab that phrase, guess what the interpretive legend
is? My imagination. I can decide,
depending on how amazingly imaginative I can be, what that means. Oh,
Jesus raised people from the dead. We're going to raise people
from the dead that have been dead for years. Jesus did that. We're going to do more. Jesus
saw 12 disciples. We're going to have 12 million
disciples. That's not the point. It's not even in view. The context
arrests the meaning. percent of the time. Jesus' work
is the Father's work. Jesus' work is the Father's word. Jesus' work is the power of God
the Father in the miracles. Jesus proves He is God. And now
these works are exposed for what they really were, for what they
really pointed to. And it won't be long, the end
of the week plus three days, they will see their Messiah resurrected. They will see Him some 40 days
after that ascending to the Father. And they will get the commission
that we all read to go make disciples, teaching them, baptizing them. And the promise of God that I
will be with you, the promise of Christ, I will be with you
till the end of age. The works of Christ are fulfilled
and glorified in his people, in his words and his work. So
as we teach the scripture, we are doing greater works than
Christ teaching. Why? I'll show you. Let me just give them all out
and then I'll show you how. In his cross work, We are doing the work of Christ.
Paul says to the church of Colossae, he says, I pray in my suffering
that I may fill up. Imagine you got a drink at a
restaurant and you need a refill, you need to fill it up, you're
thirsty, it's lacking. He says, I may fill up what is
lacking in the suffering of Christ. Now take that out of context
just as you heard it. Imagination runs wild, you go, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold your roll there, Paul! You got some visions
of grandeur there. You think that you are greater
than Christ? Isn't that what the woman in Sychar, you think
you're greater than our father Jacob? You got water that's better
than this well? You know how many people have
been drinking from this well? My great-great-great-great-granddaddy's
dog's mama's rat drank from this well. and you've got nothing
to dip water, and you're telling me you've got water that will
well up to eternal life? Who do you think you are? We could
say to Paul, oh, what do you think you're talking about? You're
going to fill up what is lacking. Nothing's lacking in the suffering
of Christ. Of course nothing's lacking in sufficiency and power.
As a matter of fact, Paul's suffering is not even effectual. But it's a greater work than
the work of Christ's suffering because it points to Christ's
suffering, which is understood now because Christ has suffered,
died, and been raised alive, you see. So it's greater glory. It's greater revelation. It's
greater understanding. It's a greater picture than the
shadow of even the ministry of Jesus that was still hidden until
the week that He was to die. His own disciples were going,
we don't know where you're going. And then they saw where he was
going and they saw where he went and then all of a sudden what
happens? When they preach the same message, it has greater
impact because it is no longer something looking toward, but
it's something we look back to. We have historical crucifixion
and a historical resurrection and a historical ascension. so that the teaching of Christ
now is greater in its impact and glory than it was in the
day of Christ because there's no longer any veiled wonders. If miracles are to happen because
God is unchanging, then they must happen by His nature for
the same reason they happened originally and the reason that
every miracle recorded in the New Testament ever took place
was to validate the Word of God coming out of the mouth of mere
sinful men. They never had a healing ministry. Never had it. The apostles never
had a healing ministry. Jesus did not have a healing
ministry. His ministry was reconciliation.
Every person that he healed died in the flesh. It's a pretty pathetic
healer. So if his ministry was to provide
life in the flesh, he failed miserably. But his ministry was
to be life. so that in the Spirit we live
forever and then in the day of glory we have a flesh that never
dies. So the works of Christ are exposed
in a greater way, are revealed in a greater way with His Word,
the teaching of Scripture, the work of the cross, His resurrection,
which by the way vindicates His divine nature. It vindicates
his sinlessness. Jesus says to the rich young
ruler who says, Oh, good teacher. And Jesus takes a moment to to
teach through that phrase. No. Why do you call me good?
For there is no one good but God. Now, Jesus is not saying he's
not God, he's not good. He's just saying, why do you
call me good? Do you recognize who I am? And of course, we know that the
man could not recognize who he was, because had he recognized
that Jesus was God, he'd have with joy gone and sold everything
he had. He probably wouldn't have sold
it, he'd have given it all away or just left it where it sat
to rot, let the dead bury the dead. And he would have with
joy followed Christ and had a kingdom treasure in heaven. Jesus is
God. His resurrection proves that
he's God. He is divine. He is sinless.
He is perfect in his flesh. He took on flesh and became like
sinners, but he knew no sin and he died. The judgment of sin
at the hand of God, the father freely laying down his life. And this is the greatest work
that will ever be seen in the world throughout all history. If God tarries a billion years,
there is no greater moment in life, no more glorious a thing
than when Jesus died and raised from the dead. So, greater works
than these. I find it interesting here that
Jesus shows what I'm saying. It's not my imagination. If it
were, you best call foul. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever
believes in me will also do the works I do and greater works
than these will he do. Why? Here is the effectual power
behind the greater works, because I'm going to the Father. That's how I know that Jesus
is saying, because I'm going to be raised to life and go to
the Father, the work of redemption is complete. Now, the reality
of the glory of what I am and what I've done is awesomely greater. You will do greater works because
I am going to the Father. And what does Hebrews 1 say?
He did the work of redemption and he sat down at the right
hand of majesty. Jesus finished His ministry of
reconciliation. And now, when we preach it, and
when we minister to each other through it, it's a greater work
in the eyes of those who see it today than in the eyes of
the disciples in this upper room. Have you ever thought about that?
How it must have been to be with Christ in the flesh, how it must
have been to eat dinner with Him, but in their bewilderment,
They couldn't see because they had yet to behold the perfection
of the Christ, of His purpose. So the works that He did was
great. They were great. The words that He preached were
great. His love for them was great. But oh, after He died,
they forgot all about that for a few days, didn't they? Peter
rejects Him. Thomas goes, I don't believe
it, even if I see his scars, put my finger in his side, I'm
not going to believe it. He's dead, he's gone. It was
a good run guys, let's go on with our lives. And then Christ
appeared to them. Christ appeared to Thomas. And
that's the apex of the entire Gospel of John. Behold Thomas,
my hands, my side. Thomas falls to his face. the
Lord of me and the God of me. That's what he says. greater works than these. Because
I am going to the Father, the works that I have done as you
tell them, the works that I continue to do through you as you do them,
will give glory to the Father. They will be greater because
I do what I am going to do through you. So who's doing the work?
Christ. It is still by His authority
that we preach. It is by His Word and then we
are faithful to read and to interpret clearly in the syntax, not through
imagination. And then to expound upon the
teaching of the Scripture, we are doing the work of Christ
for Christ and by Christ. And when we minister to each
other, when we live together, now we see all the pastoral epistles
and the appalling epistles. We see all the teaching and the
admonishment and the encouragement. to live together in this way,
to put away these sins. Every command to the Christian
in the New Testament, from the book of James to the book of
Peter to all the writing of Paul and to John and others, it's
all given for the sake of intimacy of the assembly together in life
because of the gospel of grace, free and sovereign grace. It's
not about us as individuals doing certain things in our lives It's
about us as individuals doing certain things in our lives for
the sake of one another. Just like Christ came to die
for his people, we also lay down our lives for one another. The
ministry of the cross is the prime example that Jesus expounds
upon, or illustrates rather, when he gets his clothes off
and does that which a Jewish slave cannot even do, and washes
the feet of not just his friends, but of his enemy. Because now I will be glorified,
Jesus is saying, in all the words and all the works that you do
or that I do through you. How many of his sheep are in
the world today professing his death and resurrection, professing
the free and sovereign grace of God, living life together
as a unified family? under the banner of the Christ
who suffered, died, and was raised to life. These are greater works
that Christ is doing. I have died, I have been raised,
I am no longer veiled, he would say. And as these disciples could
not fully grasp, he's telling them, you will grasp it. You might not fully grasp it
today because you've already seen. I've said I'm going. I'm
going. Where are you going? We don't know. Blah, blah, blah.
We don't know. You do know. You do know the Father. You do
know the Father. You do know me. You just can't
quite see it yet. But you will see it. When I'm
lifted up, when I die, when I'm raised to life, you will see
it. You will. And then from that
point on, the fullness of my glory will be evident in your
works. When you work and when you teach,
I will be seen. You see why it's so blasphemous
to call ministry that which does not point to the glory of Christ?
You see why it's so wrong to assemble the saints together
to be fed the most amazing, true, intimate morsel meal of the flesh
of Jesus through the teaching of the gospel and not do it? All the works and the words of
Christ led to the cross in his day, and now that the cross is
complete and we can see it, the works and the words of Christ
are clearer and clearer and clearer, so they are greater. You should
have just said that in the beginning. Well, I like to expound slowly.
With much words. So what do we learn there? We
learn what it means. to do ministry. We've learned
what it means for Christ to continue to work in His people and through
His people. And now we need to recognize that what that is saying
to us is that those who are in Christ will continue to do the
work of Christ. This isn't just the disciples
He's talking to. Well, yes, He's talking to, but
it's written for us. We will continue to do not apostolic
work, just like all of us in the room don't do pastoral work,
but we all minister as Christ ambassador. And the realm and
the role and the responsibility that we've been given in our
homes and in our communities and most and certainly in our
local assembly. So those who believe will continue
in the work of Christ. And this believing in Christ,
believing in his name means that we believe and trust fully that
his work, that his ministry is complete, that his ministry is
fulfilled, that his ministry is effectual and that there is
no hope under the sun except in the Son of God. S-U-N-S-O-N,
different words. Faith in Christ then shows and
reveals, we see in the scripture, a great and clear intimacy with
Christ. What does it look like to have
intimacy with Christ? Well, there are a lot of things, but in this
text, what He's showing this week and next week, as we'll
see, is several different ways and the week after. I'll give
them to you. One is that we have absolute certainty of the answering
of our prayers. That's what I'm going to finish
up with this morning. Secondly, we will absolutely follow what
He teaches us to do. And we will have the Holy Spirit
indwelling us and sealing us with a day of redemption and
empowering us to do all the works that he's called us to and empowering
us to pray. And then an apostolic benefit
will give them without error every jot and tittle of this
New Testament with complete perfection. So it is not dependent upon man
to do the work of the ministry of Christ. And that's where we
go. The intimacy with Christ. Not
only will your works greatly magnify me in a greater way than
they did when I did them, because I will do them now through you
with the right perspective. To a larger extent. But I am
able now to be with you in a way that I've never been with you.
You can pray to me. You can speak to me. You see,
we are in an evangelical world always taught we pray to the
Father by the authority of the Son, in the name of the Son.
Nothing wrong with that. But Jesus here takes something
that we typically would practice that belonged to the Father for
Himself. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do. that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. As we stop there, that's a standard
prescription for prayer. You ask in my name to the Father,
it will be done. I will do that, that the Father
may be glorified. So we see Jesus is doing the
answering of the prayer. That means Jesus is listening
to the prayer. And that's why verse 14 is an imperative as
part of this phrase, because he says, if you ask me, Anything
in my name, I will do it. Next time a Russell out rings
your doorbell, say, you know, I've been confused for a long,
long time. Can I ask your opinion on something? And take them to
John 14, 13, 14. What does that mean? They're
going to fall out. Because Jesus is claiming to
be the God who hears and answers prayers. the one and only God who sits
at the side of God and makes Him known. So this intimacy that
we have with Christ affords us the privilege of praying to Christ,
who is God, by the authority of Christ. Christ. What does
that show? That Christ alone is the way
to life. He alone is the truth. He alone
is life. And that when He does His ministry,
the way is open and we are in it. We see it. We are His. We are guarded by the power of
God. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit. We will not be lost, beloved. I am able to answer all your
needs. By my own authority, by my name,
Jesus is able to answer prayer in the work He does to His followers. Now, what does this show us?
What is prayer in its basic form? It's a necessity. It's a necessity. If someone
who is... Well, I'll just give you an illustration.
My wife's not here this morning, not feeling well, but she needs
me at home. She needs me for one specific
reason above all things that she can't reach the upper cabinets.
She never can. And every now and then she'll
get real brave and want to get things down. She's got one of
those little claw clipper things or the spoon or whatever and
you hear crash, crash, bang and you walk in there and there's
like paprika everywhere. So she got smart, she moved the
most common things down lower a while back. But for 24 years
thus far, she has needed me to reach up into the cabinets, into
the heavenlies of those large cabinets and pull out the recipe
instruments that she needs so she could feed her family. And
without me, we would start eating bland food. Nothing like broiled chicken
with no salt on it. We're not European anymore. But there's no way possible she
could do that without some assistance. Of course, I bought her ladders
and step ladders and all that stuff, and then they get in the
way, and I'm the best step ladder that money could buy. Except
with my right hand, I can't do it anymore, so I had to do it. What's the point? Prayer is necessitated
Because without the power of Christ working through our teaching
and ministry, there is nothing. And that's the context of Jesus
speaking here. He is saying that you will be left to do greater
works than these, and you understand what that means now, and you
are thinking, And Jesus answers them without
ever having a conversation about what they're thinking. Whatever
you ask in my name, I'll do it. So they're thinking, how are
we going to do greater works? That's the context of the prayer. How are
we going to do your ministry? How are we going to do your work?
That's nothing to do with anything else. Anybody who ever preaches
anything else out of this text is just a potato chip. Because they haven't read the
context. He's talking about the greater
works in the ministry of His Word and His work. This is the
point here. You see what I mean? We don't
all of a sudden start talking about elephants when we're making marshmallows. And you're thinking, where did
either one of those come from? I don't know. I didn't pray before I said that
statement. So their prayers are necessary.
And when their prayers are necessary, that means that they aren't going
to be doing the work, but that Christ is going to be doing the
work in them and through them, so they must pray and ask Christ
to continue to do the work that He has already done in the lives
of other people through them. That's what Paul means when he
says, I pray that I may fill up what is lacking in the suffering
of Christ in my body. That as he suffers, Christ suffers The
picture of Christ's suffering is seen in His suffering. The
work that we see believers do is the work of Christ. If the
work is related to the work of Christ. Not the work of secular
ministry. Not the work of Americanized
congregationalism. Not the work of the institutionalized
kirks of the world. And he says, whatever you ask,
whatever you ask in my name, this I will do. So the context, as we've already
established here, is the greater works, the greater things, continuing
the work of Christ in a greater way because it's visible and
glorious. Thus the prayers for miracles. Prayers for healing, prayers
for power, prayers for all the things that the apostles did
were so that Christ could continue to work in them the same work
that He did when He was with them. So the scope of prayers are related
to the work of God's kingdom expansion. What do you think about ministering
that? We've got to reach the city for Jesus. Do it. How are we supposed to do it?
Well, since the 19th century, we've been playing games with
Christ. And well-meaning men have said that God has shown
them and told them this is how they're going to reach a culture
for the Lord. Yet everything they've done has not been anything
that Christ is talking about here. So Christ didn't do it. Man did it. You know, I came
to this epiphany about my own ministry some years ago, and
I said this in the midst of an elders meeting, and if I had
not been seated behind a table, they would have sucked me down
their collective throats. How dare you take credit for
what the Lord is doing? My answer to that, because we're
good. We are a sick professional. You give me a topic, you give
me a 12-minute time frame, and you give me an audience of 5,000
people, what do you want? You want them to buy some bread? You want them to raise their
hands? You want them to come out? You want them to go outside and do the hokey pokey? You want
them to try to win $20? Give it to me. Let me show you what
it looks like. You want them to believe in glory
and the finished work of Christ? There's only one thing that'll
do that, and that's to teach Christ. That's to reveal Christ. That's what it means to glorify
Christ, to reveal Christ. And there's no such thing as
a beta switch. There's no such thing as an affinity ministry.
There's no such thing as relationship evangelism. It's all demonic. I can be friends with all of
you and we can have a great time. And at my funeral, you will weep
because you were like, man, I had such a good time with James.
Or I can, in five minutes, preach Christ to you and your life could
forever be changed if it is the will of the spirit. And then we can run this ragged
road together until we all die and you will be crying at my
funeral because I beat you there. Whatever you ask concerning the
kingdom of God, the gospel proclamation, not anything you want. You know
how we know that? Because it is in the name of
Christ. We don't ask for things in the name of Christ that aren't
the will of Christ. What do we ask for? We can ask
for whatever we want, but it is the will of Christ. If you
know anything about James writing to the Christian Jews of his
day in the dispersion, you know he had a few sharp things to
say about how they prayed in James chapter 4. The reason you
don't have what you need is because you don't ask. And the reason
you still don't have when you do ask is because you ask because
you're greedy and you're selfish. You're not concerned about the
ministry of Christ, you're concerned about your own materialism. You're concerned about what you
don't have that your neighbor has. You're concerned about what you
think is best for you. You're concerned about the color of your carpet
and you're praying for God to give you the means to have some
more carpet when there's nothing wrong with the carpet you have.
Now, why is that on my mind? Because I'm thinking about it.
Thankfully, I don't have the money for carpet, but by golly,
if I saw a Roll Side to Road and it was close, we're going
in. Not necessary. It's called discontentment. Discontentment. The scope of prayers must be
the will of God the Father. Jesus prayed every time He prayed.
He would say what He needed and everything He needed was always
for what? For the sake of the will of God for the work of redemption. He needed strength. He needed
clarity. He needed wisdom. James says
if you lack wisdom, ask God for wisdom. It is the will of God the Father
Jesus pray. Jesus is now saying by the authority
of his person and his work that because he now is with the Father
and the Father is in him and he is in the Father, he is with
the Father. He is the authoritative agent
of praying to. He is the one who hears. He is
the one who can answer. He is God and he will answer
according to the will of God. So we pray by the name of Jesus
to the will of the Father. But the question then, what is
the will of the Father in the context of ministry? The redemption of
his sheep. The justification of his sheep,
which he has secured in Christ, now what's left? The new birth
of them all. the life together, intimacy,
the powerful intimacy of the church together for the sake
of the glory of God. This is what life is about. Beloved,
God disciplines us to show us that when we set our flesh as
the pinnacle of our life, He crushes us. So that we get what is best for
us, not what we think is good. And people don't like to hear
that. But I read the text last week out of Hebrews 12. God disciplines
those He loves. Parents who love their children
don't let them do reckless things. Don't let them continue down
a path or a trajectory of destruction. Don't give them battery cables
and hook it up. Let them shock themselves. They
don't do things that cause harm to their children. Neither does
God. It's never punitive. It is always
corrective. And there's one true way that
God works in his people. To prune us. And that is through
suffering. Sometimes it's self-inflicted
by the will of God and other times it is just normative. Whatever you ask, what is the
will of the Father? Redemption is the focus of these
prayers. The gospel, the ministry of reconciliation
is the focus of these prayers. Jesus' name is tied eternally
to His redeeming work. Thus praying anything concerning
Christ's death and the grace of God expanding to His sheep
that results in thanksgiving to God is always answered. And you might say, well, I have
been praying for a loved one for years and they've never come
to faith. But are you praying for their
faith or are you praying for the will of God concerning their
faith? It's a big difference. You see the difference. As the Father and the Son are
in one another, now God the Son is stating, He is the one to
whom they will pray, and He is the one who will hear, and He
is the one who will answer and give them greater works. Why? So that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. You see, Jesus' ministry has
never changed. Although I've said numerous times
today that the ministry of Jesus is the ministry of reconciliation,
but what is the ministry of reconciliation's ultimate end? The glory of God
the Father. That's why we hold to that antique
phrase, Soli Deo Gloria. It's just a phrase. But right here, it's not. It's
a gospel truth. to the praise of His glorious
grace, Paul would say, is why God adopted you and predestined
you and elected you before the foundations of the world. That you will be holy, set apart
and blameless, without reproach before Him, not because of what
you've become in Christ, but because of what Christ became
for you. Both in being the Lamb and being
your righteousness. And beloved, that is just one
of the many things that we see intimacy with Jesus Christ because
of his redemption, because of his redeeming work. Let's pray.