John: Prayer in the Name of Jesus

So if if you're first time here, you're coming around for the first time, we we're so glad you're with us.

And we've been going through the book of John, the Gospel of John, for a year.

We're getting toward, I don't know, we're getting toward John 16, uh, but we have a few more chapters, maybe five more chapters.

Um that's just where we've been.

Uh before that, uh before September of last year, we weren't having services and we were meeting as just a small Bible study, and we went through the book of Ephesians.

So we just sort of like to go through books and to go passage by passage and sort of unpack a given passage.

This morning's a little bit different.

Uh the past, I don't know, maybe eight weeks.

I didn't go count how many sermons we've had at this one scene.

It's this one scene going on in an upper room.

Um so this is Jesus has gathered his disciples, they've done lots of stuff, we've seen this.

Uh the weekend's coming.

When I mean the weekend, I mean his crucifixion and then his resurrection.

That is, that is, it is coming up.

Disciples aren't catching on to this.

Jesus knows what's coming up, and so he's around this table having a meal with his boys, and he decides to have his little last sermonette with his guys, and so he's been unpacking just content and information, sort of like your last chance to say goodbye and to pass on wisdom to somebody.

And this is what's been going on with him.

Now, what we've seen, um, I think in John 14, John 15, and again in John 16, we've seen this phrase that's sort of um sort of bewildering, I think, or or or maybe if we take it the wrong way, it can be misleading, and it's this idea of if you pray whatever you want, and if you ask in my name, you'll receive it.

Right?

Have you ever read this?

And you go, oh, I love the idea of that.

I'm gonna cash in on that a few times, and then you've tried, and what happened?

It it didn't work, right?

I mean, maybe like maybe maybe some of you had something happen, but a lot of us didn't have what we asked, and we I know what you did because I did it, and maybe you did it with a girl in high school or a boy in high school or trying to get into college or a job, or you put in an offer in a house, and and what you did is you're praying for it, and then there's this moment where you remember that verse, and you thought, I'm just gonna tag on in in your name.

I pray this in your name.

And you kind of think, oh, if I you know, if I tag that on, then I'm gonna be that's really gonna bring it in.

Um so I want to unpack that phrase.

What does that mean, right?

And in the context of this, we talked a little bit about prayer.

Now, maybe you don't pray, right?

Like maybe you don't pray, maybe you don't even believe in a higher being.

Um, I know that's possible.

Maybe you get bored when you pray.

Maybe you're like me, and if you pray in a chair, you fall asleep.

I call that a nap.

If I'm in my study and I'm sitting down and I close my eyes to pray, if I do this number in my chair, and my reading chair in my study, that's that's that's a nap, is what that is.

That's not a prayer.

I gotta walk or be moving or something.

Um maybe you're not sure anyone's listening.

But you keep praying, but you're not sure if anyone's listening.

Maybe you you're sure somebody's listening, you're just not sure if they have any care to do anything.

Um maybe you're a prayer warrior, like you are after it, you were you are praying, um, and you pray for everybody and you pray for anything, and God puts stuff on your heart and you pray.

Maybe you come from a family of prayer, maybe you don't come from a family of prayer.

Uh, maybe you just pray when you're in a jam, when the stress is big enough, when your child's having a hard enough time, when the test is hard enough, and then all of a sudden you find yourself back against the wall.

Now all of a sudden I'll I'll pray.

Uh growing up, we you know we we we prayed, and family I grew up, we prayed before meals, and I can remember you know, pretty much the basic prayer.

Thank you, God, for this day.

Although I wasn't always thankful for the day, thank you for the thank you for the food.

Uh bless the food for the nourishment of my body, even though it's from Papa John's.

I'm gonna soak this bread in that garlic butter saw.

It will be a miracle if this bread is for the nourishment, but we're gonna pray it.

We are gonna pray that because we really do need that.

Bless the hands that prepared the Papa John's pizza.

Um we don't know who that is, but bless them all for your service.

Papa John's Pizza, all for your service.

So we learned some lingo about prayer, and I can remember getting in the youth group and coming around church prayer, or not church, but prayer with other people a little bit more.

And at the end of youth group, I was in uh seventh, sixth, seventh grade, I can remember we all we circled up and and we uh we crisscrossed arms.

Um I don't know if you're in youth group, but we would crisscross arms and we pray, and then the end of the prayer you all you'd spin and you would you'd face outward because you were facing the world is what it was symbolic of, and it was moving experience.

But we did the circle prayer then.

You've been a part of this?

And one guy starts and it goes around the circle, and then when you're done praying, you squeeze the hand.

See, if you're not from church, you don't know this, right?

You get in this situation, it's scare you to death.

You know what is going on here.

It's like cultic.

You squeeze the hand of the person next to you, is how it works.

When you're done, you squeeze.

It's just an unspoken rule.

And speaking of unspoken, that's another little caveat of prayer, right?

If you don't want to you don't want to share what you want to pray about, this is really weird.

You say, I've unspoken.

Some of you know what I'm talking about, others are, what are you talking about?

And then if if you have a, and then somebody added on in the youth group I was in, I have an unspoken special.

And so what that was is like that guy's prayer request.

He wasn't willing to share.

I'm my request is actually better than his, so mine's an unspoken special.

Anyways, in my youth group, there Brad was in the youth group.

Brad and I were best friends, he was the he was the preacher's son, so he he had been hearing some lingo around the dinner table for a while.

So he had the phrases and he knew what to pray for.

And so the prayer would start around the circle.

I can I can distinctly remember this.

The prayer would start around the circle.

I was new, like I was I, you know, I was new to the scene.

Prayer would start around, I'm forming, I'm not praying with him, I'm not, I'm barely hearing them because I'm getting my lines in my head for what I'm gonna pray out loud.

Because if you didn't pray out loud, you're a little worried I was gonna judge you.

So um around comes the prayer, and Brad's before me, and he would steal all the good prayers, all of them, right?

Like all the phrases you were gonna say, and then you don't felt weird.

And this is where I picked up on a little bit of the informational prayer, where really you're not really even asking for anything, you're just telling God information.

You know, I want to pray for a little.

I was at the playground earlier today, and the boy that had on a green shirt and blue shorts, he fell, he fell off the slide, and then his dad, instead of being compassionate, his dad went over and grabbed his arm, and it was a little too hard, God, and I was uncomfortable with that God.

And so I want to pray for the boy.

And you took six minutes, just and you could have probably just said, you know, pray for the boy at the playground, or my friend Maggie has cancer at stage two, she's in treatment, she's at Kenistone, she's in room 212, she has Dr.

Ragsdale, who's a great man of God, and and you it's just an informational prayer.

And so, and I catch myself doing this continually with prayer, and and then you remember, and I don't want to make you feel bad about that, you probably catch yourself doing that too.

Um, instead of praying for something, you're just praying information.

And then I remember Psalm 139, 2.

Um, God, you you know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar.

So God is a sovereign being, you know what I'm thinking.

Oh wow, okay, this changes what I how I pray.

You already know what I'm thinking.

Matthew 6.8, your your father, God, he knows what you need before you ask him.

So the goal this morning is not to make you feel bad about how much you pray or how you pray.

It's easy to do that.

You're gonna feel bad anyways.

I'll feel bad at some point within the sermon because we just don't pray that much, and when we do pray, we're not quite sure what to pray.

Um I once went to this church, I was constantly asking, uh, how's your prayer life?

How's your prayer life?

How's your prayer life?

And I always was looking around, just waiting for somebody to go, man, it's going great.

You know, I'm really, I am really killing it.

I am communing with the Lord pretty much all the time, as He asked, 24 hours out of the day.

Um it was just like the question itself formed condemnation, and it made me not want to pray.

I mean, it didn't make me go, oh, now I want to pray all of a sudden.

Thank you for that forcefulness and condemnation.

Um so that's why I'm excited to share this text this morning, is because all of that, all that I just shared, and all that sort of like confusion, and and like you've seen things or heard things or been around things, you're not quite sure.

All right, so John 16 is our text, verse 23.

In that day, so Jesus talking to his disciples, in that day, and so he's he's talking about in the direct context, he's talking about, he's saying, I'm gonna die, there's gonna be a few days here, and you're not gonna see me.

Um, and then I'm gonna resurrect.

And in that day, you will no longer ask me anything.

Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

And so pray so prayer and asking is gonna shift for these disciples before that Jesus was there.

I want to know something?

Ask Jesus.

He's saying, Hey, this I'm not always gonna be here.

So we've talked about the Spirit of God coming and resides in us as we're believers, and and and now we're gonna pray to God.

You don't even have to pray through a priest, you don't have to go ask a priest.

Christ is the your priesthood, and so you can pray to God, and the Spirit of God is in you.

But this phrase, the straight we've seen this phrase before, John 14, 13, and 14, and I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

John 15, 16.

Again, this is all at the same dinner table, the same conversation.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you.

So four times around this table, four times, he says, Whatever you ask in my name, I will give you.

But it's not a magic phrase at the same time.

We know it's not a magic phrase.

So let's talk about this phrase.

I've three points, kind of going through the rest.

The points don't rhyme.

Um, they're not, maybe if you gave me another week or month, I could have like got them really clever.

Um I still think they're reasonably good points, though.

So point number one, uh Jesus opens the door on prayer.

And this is what I mean, is he you know what he says?

He says whatever.

So that's the first part of the phrase.

Philippians 4, 6, uh, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

Not in some situations or in like certain situations that you subjectively deem to be more worthy of presenting to God.

In every situation, you can present requests to God.

Ephesians 6, 18, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions, not some occasions, on all occasions you can present your requests to God.

See, I need the whatever part of this phrase.

I really need the whatever part of this phrase.

I need to know that I can voice my concerns, no matter how noble and holy and truly good they are.

I need to know I can present those, and then I can also present the requests that are truly a concern in my heart, even though there's this big part of me that knows these are selfish and short-sighted, but yet at the same time I need to know I can I can voice it.

I can present it.

So I was thinking about this in regards to my little girls.

So all the time, uh somebody's upset in our house, okay?

So, and what we always say is um, okay, come, let's talk, let's talk about it.

I'll just go freak out or whatever.

So um come here, come here, babe, let's let's talk about it, let's talk about it.

And most of the time, it's insanity.

I mean, most of the time, it's something that it's just it's insanity to me.

Now, to her at age three, or to her at age six, it's the world.

And what does she need to know?

She needs to know that I care about her concern, even though her concern is short-sighted and possibly insane.

That I have room enough in my life and my heart and my being that I can take on whatever it is, let me have it.

What's going on?

Right?

And we even have this thing at bedtime, and I didn't come up with this and learn from somebody else, and just sort of put my hand on their kind of their chest, on their heart, and just say, what's going on in there?

And a lot of times at these ages, it's it's the most random, bizarre stuff that as adults you go, I don't know if that's really that important, but it's important to them.

This is why God cares about your concerns.

It's because it's important to you.

Right?

Like we need the whatever part of this phrase.

We need to know that we can voice the concerns, that he has enough capacity and his sovereignty and patience to take it, to hear it, to work with us in it.

And so we've been given permission to pray about that family crisis, or when we wake up cranky, or you look in the mirror and you're cranky, and that you can you can pray about that, or your heart's broken over your friend, or your heart's broken over the country, your heart's broken over Christians being persecuted by ISIS, and you can pray about all of those things.

And you can pray about losing losing your savings, you can pray about having no savings, you you can pray about losing a friend or losing uh losing your peace.

You can pray about losing your phone.

The other day I was I was trying to leave the house and I couldn't find my phone, right?

We've had this moment.

I can't find my phone, and I'm just going, oh, I can't find my phone, I'm getting more and more stressed.

I was on the phone.

That that's what that's where the phone was.

I was holding, I was holding the phone.

Here's the point.

The point is, you don't have to play your card safe and go, okay, what is noble enough?

What is holy enough to present to God?

It's like you're four years old and you and you're talking to a loving dad, and he's going, I just want to hear what are your concerns?

And and you don't know which ones are insane and short-sighted because you're four.

But he does.

And he and he wants to he wants to be he wants to be in them.

But none of it starts, right?

None of it starts.

The idea of prayer, none of it starts until you feel like uh the metaphor kept coming around this week was under the waves, until you feel like you're under the waves.

So I was seeking back in in college, I had this period of my life where I was sort of a river person.

Don't know if you know what river people are, but I was a river person, so I hung out up at the Okoe River.

So on the Okoe River, uh big river up in Tennessee, and maybe you've been rafting on it.

And so there's this one uh rapid called Cat's Pajamas, and so it was named Cat's Pajamas because there's this one part of the rapid, there's a rock, and you can jump into the rapid and it sucks you down.

And actually, it got its name because it sucked a girl's bathing suit, the legend says, off of her.

Her name was Cat.

So that's why the rapid was called Cat's Pajamas.

May not be appropriate for a sermon, but I just want to let you know the storyline, Cat's Pajamas is the name of the rapid.

And so I so you would get on this rock and you would jump in, and you have your life jacket on, and the the rapid would suck you down, suck you down, and it and it holds you as it moves you downstream, and then later you pop back up.

So I can remember the first time I did this.

I kind of jumped in, held my bathing suit.

I didn't hold my bathing suit, I didn't know that was why it was named, but bathing suit stayed on.

Jump in, holds me down, and there's this moment, right, where, and maybe you felt this in the ocean or you felt this somewhere, and there's this moment where the control went away.

I was under control and now I'm not.

And all of a sudden this is this is when we pray.

This is when we realize we're not we're not under control nearly as much as we think we are.

What happens, what doesn't happen, illness.

And all of a sudden you're underwater.

And we pray.

There's there's honesty because there's a shift of going, oh, I'm I'm not the sovereign being of the universe.

So but the phrase, right?

The phrase is not pray whatever.

It's pray whatever.

And some of you have been thinking this the whole time.

You've been going, oh, hold on, that's not the full phrase.

The phrase is pray whatever.

In my name.

All right, so what that does not mean what we think is like, oh, I'll tag it on, that means I get what I want.

In my name means if you pray it in my mission, in my heartbeat.

Right?

So this almost, it it means you've got to be learning what the heartbeat of God is.

And that what this means is it means this is point number two, that prayer becomes transformation.

So that the change begins in you, and change begins in what you're praying because you're praying whatever, and I need the permission of whatever, but I need the permission of whatever, but I need the direction of pray, whatever in my heartbeat, and in my mission.

So I was at a meeting this week with other pastors, and so is a church planting meeting, and there's older pastors that planted other churches, and some have grown, and some have shrunk, and some have died, and some have multiplied, and and this this one guy who's at my table, he's planted three or four different churches.

He's what you call like a serial planter.

He plants one and then he gets it going, and then they hire somebody else who's more into sort of like securing and stabilizing a place.

He goes and starts another one.

He's an entrepreneurial planter.

And I just asked him, he's probably 55 or 60, and so he's been, I figure you've been praying longer than me.

Maybe he has this figured out.

I have a sermon coming up, and so I said, I said, what I said, what's the difference between thinking and praying?

I don't know if you've ever wondered that.

I'm I go around thinking this, and then I think, and is this thinking, praying, and then I it falls apart a little bit.

I said, What's the difference between thinking and praying?

And he said, Well, praying is inviting God into your thinking.

That's what you're doing when you're praying.

Like you can think, and it'd all be about your self-sufficiency and how you're gonna handle it and your heartbeat and your mission, and probably just increase your anxiety as well.

Or you can think, and maybe you're thinking out loud, or maybe you're thinking into a journal, or maybe you're thinking uh just within your mind and your heart, but you're inviting God.

You're saying, Spirit of God, I'm thinking, but I need you to come into the thinking.

As I think, I want to think toward you about this stuff, some of which I know is insanity, some of which is short-sighted, some of it is noble and wonderful.

I actually need you to help me figure all of that out because my heart can desire things that aren't great for me.

And it's us releasing control and us releasing control, trying to fix everything, and us saying to God, I know you are good beyond this situation.

You see the full story, well, I only see a little part of it.

And this can be done sitting, kneeling, laying down, standing up, running, doing the dishes.

And then we don't have to put it into a box of what prayer means.

Because at the root of it, it is it is abiding.

It's abiding in God and say, God, come into my thinking.

I want to present these thoughts to you.

And that brings the last point, which is prayer becomes not just a frame of time, right?

Like, okay, I'm gonna pray this morning, amen.

And now I move on with my day, and I don't pray at all the rest of the day.

So prayer becomes not just a frame of time, which is good, we need that, but an abiding and the sovereign loving God of the universe.

I was trying to think about how to how to how do I explain this or think about it, break it down and say I talk when when we watch TV at night, I talk, it drives Christy nuts.

I get riled up.

I get very excited or opinionated, can you imagine?

And so say we're watching, um say we're watching Downtown Abbey, because that's what I always use for illustrations.

Say we're watching Downtown Abbey, and Mary says something.

I can't believe she said that, I can't believe she did that.

She wouldn't say that.

I can't, that doesn't line up with her character, right?

And then the show keeps going.

The show's going while I'm voicing, right?

And so it's like it's like conversation while the show continues, and and then Christian finally will get fed up and go, pause it, pause it, you know, like stop, stop.

And then you pause, and then you have this conversation, or Thomas.

Said something horrible like he always does, or Bates and Anna aren't talking and you get upset and you want to talk about it.

And sometimes, right, and you've done it with Downton, or you've done it with even the news or whatever.

Oh, Riley gets you all upset and you don't know what to do.

And so sometimes you're taught, you you you talk while the show keeps going, and and that's what you used to always have to do.

Can you imagine what you did then?

You just fought with your spouse or whoever you watch TV with because one person talked, one didn't.

Now we have this little privilege, and we just kind of hit pause, and let's just talk this through.

Let's just pause.

This is a little bit, it's not perfect, but it's a little bit like prayer, because there's there's times when you need the pause, right?

Like you like you need in the morning, you wake up a raging pagan and you're crazy, and you just need to kind of pause and remind yourself of what's real and not, and and so and you need a little truth, and you can read Galatians.

I don't know how long you do it, you read a little bit, and you just stop, and you're like, okay, that's true.

All right, let's go on, or maybe you get to work and you have these five minutes before you walk into the office.

And so there's all these moments of pause, right?

You pause the show, the show's not gonna keep going, I'm gonna pause, but there's other times where it's just on play, and the show keeps going, and there's this conversation going on in your mind and your heart, and the whole time, what are you doing?

You're saying, I'm I'm gonna present my thinking to you, come into my thinking.

So it's not just a frame of time, but it's it's an abiding in the God of the universe, and that we've been given this privilege.

So I think it's easy at the end of this to go, well, I don't do really any of that very well.

Right?

Like I don't do the pause things really well, um, that whole fall asleep during it, like I connected with you on that.

Um I don't do the play thing very well, as I just kind of get caught up with whatever I'm listening to, or whatever I'm watching.

Um, and and you're going, well, I'm not, you know, look around, and that lady's got it going on because prayer, and that guy does, or they at least show the appearance of it.

Um a good thing we're not done with this text.

Verse 24.

Uh this is how it says the last verse here in this little phrasing about prayer.

So Jesus speaking to his disciples, remember that context.

And remember his death's about to come up.

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.

So he said, Yeah, you haven't asked for anything in my name.

You've been just you've just been talking to me, but I'm gonna be gone, so you're gonna be able to pray to God.

And then he says, Something's gonna change, ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

Okay, so remember the cost.

You remember last week?

Last week we talked about, if you weren't here, we talked about that um when you're you have a vision for your life, and then it vanishes, and then you have grief.

This these disciples, they have a vision for their life of what Jesus is gonna do, and they're gonna like take over, and Rome's not gonna rule Israel anymore, and they're gonna dominate, and so they have this, they have this vision, and it's about to completely vanish, and they are going to be grieving.

And so these disciples, remember, they're just people, they're like me and you.

So what do they do?

They take off, they run, they scatter, and what are they doing when they're running?

They are praying.

I'm assuming this out of just knowing people work with me, they are praying.

God, what is going on?

What happened?

Will you fix this?

God, fix this, because our leader who was supposed to be the Messiah and supposed to be the Messiah for Israel, he just he died.

There's three days of these guys praying, what I'm assuming they are praying, and they're saying, God, fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it.

And then these disciples, they're later, they are in a room, doors locked, and Jesus shows up.

A little scary.

Thomas goes and touches them.

They eat together.

Jesus later shows himself to 500 people.

And here, the key here for us to come away with is that in this verse, ask and you receive, and your joy will be complete.

What's making their joy complete?

That their vision has vanished.

They are grieving and they're saying, God, fix it.

Well, what is God fixing?

That Christ resurrects and that He overcomes.

Their joy is made complete.

Their joy is not made complete because they pray harder or they get some prayers answered about the new home that they're trying to work their way into, or finally they get engaged to the girl that they were hoping to get engaged to.

They have normal life just like us.

Their joy is complete, just the way, the same way our joy is made complete, is that Christ overcomes.

And that your prayer life, your prayer life, um, it's not what it should be.

Can I break the news to you?

Can I break the further news to you?

It's not two years from now, three years from now.

You're not you're not going to feel like it is what it should be.

Probably if you feel that way, maybe we should talk.

There might be a little pride going on, possibly.

Our joy is made complete because Christ overcomes.

See, the point here is not, let's get our prayer life to a certain subjective level that we are going to establish, and this is what maturity is, because you're going to get there and you're not going to feel like anything happened.

And really, you're going to get there by pulling up your own bootstraps.

The point is that our joy is made complete because the disciples' prayer was answered.

The vision wasn't over.

Right?

We thought it was, they thought it was.

They thought the vision had vanished, but it wasn't over.

And he conquered and he forgives us.

He forgives because what Christ did for us, all the times you pray insane prayers that are so selfish and prideful, and me too, I'm safe camp.

Because Christ's blood, God just listens.

And the patience of God, He just listens.

And He's in it.

He's in the thinking, He's working in your thinking, He's working in your heart.

All the times that we should be praying, we don't.

We just say, I'm going to handle this thing myself.

I'm going to fix it.

I'm going to handle it.

I'm going to make it happen.

All of those times.

Because of what Christ did for us.

God's just waiting, patient, loving, Father.

See, we can pray whatever in his name.

And he doesn't come into our thinking to condemn us, but to love us.

He wants to hear you.

And he'll be in it.

And it might not be the answer you want, but we'll learn to pray in his heartbeat and his mission, and he will change us and he will change our prayers as we go.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that the vision did not vanish.

If the disciples' vision had vanished, we would still be helpless.

But they were praying prayers that, God, would you fix this and that you came and you answered it.

And their joy was made complete.

And today our joy can be made complete, not because we get our prayer life in good enough shape, but because you love us no matter where it's at.

God, for me personally, it makes me want to pray to you more.

It makes me want to commune with you, to abide with you, to include you in on my day, to learn about you, to know what is true and what is not.

God, we we thank you that we can come to you and voice whatever.

Would you teach us what it means to voice whatever in your name?

And not just in our name and in our heartbeat, but would you teach us what it means to voice in your name and in your heartbeat?

We're grateful.

Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.