Jesus Promises Every Believer, “You Will Do the Works I Do”— John 14:12-14 (09.06.2026)

I mean, these are amazing words.

What do you do when you are reading your Bible and you come across verses like these?

I mean, in this passage, Jesus says something incredible about the works that we will do.

And he says something incredible about prayer that should stop us in our tracks.

These are not the easiest verses to understand. There are some complicated things

in here to understand, and we'll get to that today.

I do want to bring some clarity to how to interpret these verses correctly.

But in the midst of parsing out exactly how to understand what Jesus is saying,

don't miss the magnitude of these promises to you.

In other words, I mean, these, these promises have the potential to change the way you live your life.

That's, that's not an overstatement and we need to understand them and we need

to, we need to use our mind and our intellect.

We're going to, we're going to do that, but don't miss the magnitude of these promises. Okay.

If nothing else, I just want you to leave here today believing what Jesus is saying to us.

So we're in the middle of this upper room discourse.

We've seen Jesus wash the disciples' feet. And he says that the disciples should

follow his example in that. We've seen him predict Judas's betrayal.

We've seen him predict Peter's denial. And he's started to talk to them about

the fact that things are changing. He's about to go away.

And so you got to put yourself in their shoes.

I mean, they're processing all of this. They've got to be sitting there with

jaws dropped a little bit. You're going away? What?

And yet he's told them, don't let your hearts be troubled. We looked at that last week.

And then he gets to this part where he says, truly, truly.

Now, when Jesus says that, our antenna should be going off. We ought to recognize

he's saying something really, really important.

That's a way of him saying, mark this. Don't miss this. This is very important.

All the things I'm saying are important, but this is very, very important.

Truly, truly, I say to you.

So as he is preparing his disciples for everything to change,

for the hardest trial that they're about to go through, and then he's going

to be crucified and then he's going to be raised.

As he's preparing them for all that's about to happen, he says,

truly, truly, you need to know something. You need to know this.

You need to remember this. This is crucial for you.

And he says to them, I'm going to the Father, yes, but you are going to be doing

the works that I've been doing and greater works than these because I'm going to the Father.

And so they must have been wrestling with all of this, trying to understand

all of what he was saying.

But this promise wasn't just for the 11 men sitting in the room with him that

evening. This promise is for everyone who believes in him.

We're going to talk about that. So that includes all of us.

It includes you. It includes me and every believer.

And Jesus goes on to explain that we're going to do works greater than him.

And we're going to do them through prayer. Prayer.

We have a tendency, every single one of us, to struggle to believe that Jesus

wants to use ordinary Christians like us.

We see, we see our weakness. We see how prone we are to stumble and fumble and fall.

And we have, we have difficulty believing that he would want to use somebody

like me to do his works in the world.

And so we have a tendency to sit on the sidelines rather than participating

in his mission and rather than praying confidently in his name that he would

do things that only he can do.

But we'll see in our passage today that Jesus works through every believer who

comes to him in faith and asks for help to accomplish what he commands them to do for his glory.

So here is where I want us to start out and hang out for just a moment.

Point number one, Jesus works through everyone who believes.

He says, look at the verse, whoever believes will. That's promise language.

Whoever believes will. This is a promise for every believer,

not just an elite few, not just the apostles, everyone who believes.

If you trust in Christ, then you can have great confidence that there is work

for you to do for Christ. If you believe in him, you have a promise right here

that you can stand upon today.

You are included in whoever believes.

And so Jesus means to encourage his disciples. And he means to encourage us

today with this promise.

And he says, 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.

This is where it gets a little tricky to understand what he's saying.

What are the works that Jesus does? What have we seen so far?

I mean, when we just think about the gospel of John, we've seen some amazing

things. He's turned water into wine.

He's healed the sick. He's given sight to the blind.

He's healed a paralyzed man. He's walked on water. He's fed 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes.

And he's raised Lazarus from the dead after being in the grave for four days.

So when Jesus says, you will do greater works than me, everyone who believes

will do greater works than me,

is he saying that every single Christian should do more spectacular miracles

than walking on water, raising the dead, feeding the five, all of these things?

No, no, not exactly, no.

We need to understand a few things.

He isn't saying that we will perform more spectacular miracles than he did.

He is not promising that every believer will see miracles like that in their life.

Even the apostles did not do more spectacular miracles.

They saw incredible miracles, incredible things happen in their midst.

They didn't do more spectacular miracles than these in their ministry.

So what is it that Jesus is saying?

And to understand what Jesus is saying here, We need to understand the purpose

behind all of those miracles and the works that he did.

And we need to consider the power behind the works that he's saying that we will do.

First, let's consider the purpose behind all of the works that he did.

Look at just one verse up in the passage.

Verse 11 says, believe me that I'm in the father and the father is in me or

else believe on account of the works themselves.

What was one of the primary purposes, if not the primary purpose,

in the miracles that Jesus performed?

What have we been seeing again and again and again in the Gospel of John?

The purpose in the miracles was to move people toward faith in him.

The purpose was to point to who he was. It's to highlight that he is the Messiah,

the son of God. He is who he's claiming to be.

The purpose of the miracles was faith. That's the purpose of this whole gospel.

John says he's written these things that we might believe and in believing have life in his name.

So this is why Jesus did the works that he did. And it's what he just said to them.

If nothing else, believe on account of the works. So the purpose,

the purpose, that's what we are connecting with.

We're not going to do more miraculous signs than Jesus. We're not going to do

more miraculous things, more spectacular miracles.

But we will do the same thing in that we will move people.

God will use us and our witness and our life and our faith to help move people,

toward faith in Jesus. That's the purpose.

Second, consider the power behind all of the works that we will do. What does he say?

Because I am going to the Father. This is the reason that believers will do

greater works than he did.

He says, because I am going to the Father. This is so crucial.

This is key to understanding what he's saying.

The works that Jesus gives us to perform are greater because he is going to

the Father. And on the way to the Father, what's he going to do?

He's going to die in our place.

He's going to be raised, defeating sin and death and accomplishing our justification.

And then he is going to ascend into heaven and be exalted at the right hand

of God the Father. And he's sitting at the right hand of God the Father, ruling and reigning.

And in doing so, he has accomplished our redemption and he's ushered in a new order.

This is where the power to perform these works comes from, that Jesus,

through his death, resurrection, and ascension, has ushered in a new era in history.

We can see the difference in the ministry of Jesus,

prior to all of these things happening and the ministry of the apostles afterwards

in that remember that as Jesus goes about, if you read the gospels,

you seek, that may be confusing the first time you read it,

that he seems to be sort of keeping himself veiled.

He'll do a miracle. He'll heal someone and he'll say, don't tell anyone that

this has happened to you. What's going on there?

Or he speaks in parables so that people are listening and they're having a hard time.

And only even his disciples are struggling sometimes to understand what it is that he's getting at.

He's veiled. Why? Because he has not yet accomplished the reason that he's come.

He has not yet fulfilled his purpose.

So upon his death and resurrection and ascension and exaltation,

Jesus has finished. He has accomplished everything, all the prerequisites for

the new covenant. And what does he do?

He pours out his spirit on the church at Pentecost.

And we're going to get into what all that means for us in the weeks ahead,

because Jesus is going to start teaching his disciples about,

I'm sending a helper to you.

You're not going to be left as orphans. you're going to have someone with you.

The Holy Spirit is coming. So he accomplishes all that is needed for redemption

and he pours out his spirit upon the church.

And on this side of Pentecost, every follower of Christ is given the Holy Spirit

and is invited to join him in his mission.

We're invited to do the same kinds of works with the same kind of purpose that

he did his works, but in an age of great gospel, clarity, and power.

Our gospel is going forth now with great clarity and power. We're not telling

anyone like, don't tell anybody this.

We're not limiting our ministry as Jesus did initially to the Jews only,

but the gospel is going out to the world, to everyone.

And so we are in the age of grace because Jesus is with the Father.

The truth about Christ is not veiled to us. The gospel message that we have

believed is the power of God to save not only us, but others also from sin and eternal damnation.

And so when we proclaim the gospel and God uses our feeble witness to bring

someone from death to life in his name.

We are participating in a work of greater eternal significance than the miracles

performed by anyone under the old covenant.

Jesus says in Matthew 11, 11, Truly I say to you, among those born of women,

there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist, yet the one who is least

in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

What is he saying? Is he saying that everyone in the new covenant is a better

person than John the Baptist? I don't think that's what he's saying.

John the Baptist was the greatest man ever born aside from Jesus.

And yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him. Why?

Not because we are personally greater than John, but because we live on this

side of the finished work of the cross.

We live and participate in the age of grace, the new covenant that was ratified

through the shed blood of Jesus.

Because of Christ's finished work on the cross, whoever believes in him will

not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now, look at verse 12 again with all of this in view.

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.

I believe that what Jesus is saying here is my life and works have been moving

people toward faith in me.

And now if you believe in me, your life will move people toward faith in me,

because of what is about to take place when I go to the Father.

Our lives are meant to show people that Jesus is better than whatever it is

that they're trusting in.

Whatever it is that they're living for.

Our lives are meant to be a shining light in darkness.

And the promise that Jesus is making is that every Christian will live this

kind of life. Every true believer will live a life that testifies to the truth

that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

So friends, we can do the works that Jesus did.

We can live our lives in such a way that people will turn from darkness to light.

Our lives can be used to help people move from unbelief to trust in Jesus.

That's the first part of this promise that we have to see, that we have to wrap

our minds around, and it should thrill us.

It should thrill us that God means to use us to accomplish his purposes in the world.

He means to use us empowered by his spirit to change where a person that we

encounter will spend eternity,

this is what we're invited into. So it means that no Christian ever need feel

bored with this life because we've been called into the works that Jesus did.

So having been told that we can expect to do the works that Jesus did and greater

works because of his ascension to the Father,

now Jesus begins to unpack how this will be possible. That's point number two.

Jesus works through us when we pray.

So he goes from saying this incredible promise in verse 12 to verse 13,

another promise, whatever you ask in my name, this I will do.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do. Jesus is not changing the subject here.

He's not switching. He's not like, okay.

Also, here's another thing. He's not changing the subject. Same subject.

What he's doing is explaining how this could possibly be.

His disciples are processing. We ought to be processing. What?

How can this possibly be? How will we do the same kind of work that you've done?

And here's the answer. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do.

The works that Jesus' followers are empowered to do are only possible because

he has ascended to the Father and now helps his followers accomplish those works when they pray.

Again, remember the context that this is happening. These disciples are processing

that Jesus is going away and he is telling them what's going to happen as a

result of his going away.

He's saying, I am going to continue doing work on the earth through you when you ask me to do it.

And just a little bit further along in this upper room discourse in chapter

15, Jesus teaches his disciples that unless they abide in him,

remain connected to him,

they cannot bear fruit.

And he goes on to explain how they will bear fruit. He says in John 15,

7, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

And then a little further down in verse 16, he says, You did not choose me,

but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that

your fruit should abide so that,

whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

This is how we bear fruit. We ask and he bears fruit through us. Why pray?

Why take the time and the energy and the effort to pray? Because God has chosen

to accomplish his work through the prayers of his people.

There are things that the Lord intends to do in your life and through your life,

that will only happen when you pray.

Look at verse 14. 14 begins with a very important word.

If, you see that word? If you ask, if you ask me, the works that Jesus wants

to do through you will be done if you ask him.

John Calvin in his Institutes writes, nothing is promised to be expected from

the Lord, which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers.

Perhaps you struggle to pray because you struggle to believe that praying really changes things.

And I get it. Like we believe in a sovereign God, right?

We believe and trust a God who's all powerful and that he does his will.

He does whatever he pleases. And all of that is true. And this is true.

You do not have because you do not ask. James 4.2.

This is James, the brother of Jesus, who watched Jesus' life up close and knew

his teaching. And he said, here's what I'm taking from Jesus' teaching.

You do not have because you do not ask.

There is work for us to do that will only happen when we pray.

Whatever we need. If we, as we seek to live a life that moves people from unbelief

to belief in the son of God, he will give to us if we ask.

That is the promise that's being made here. And the testimony of scripture and

of history is that prayer is effective.

It accomplishes things.

Charles Spurgeon said it this

way, prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.

James said it this way, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as

it's working. James 5, 16.

The angel Gabriel said it this way when he came to Daniel, as Daniel had been

praying, he said, fear not Daniel, for from the first day that you set your

heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God Listen to this.

Listen, your words have been heard and I have come because of your words.

I mean, can you imagine?

Can you imagine being visited by Gabriel, Gabriel from heaven?

And he comes to you and he says, I've come because of the words that you,

the sounds that came out of your mouth were heard in heaven by the almighty.

And I was sent on a mission because of what you prayed.

If you ever question whether or not prayer accomplishes things, read Daniel.

This happens to him multiple times that Gabriel shows up and says to him,

I'm here because of your prayers.

What an astonishing thing when you consider who God is and who we are,

that he would listen to the words that come out of these sinful mouths and that

a word would go out in heaven and that angels would be sent on missions because of what we pray.

Friends, Jesus said it this way, if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

So again, I ask, why pray? Because the almighty God of the universe hears and he responds.

And because the works he desires to do through us are done when we pray.

This is amazing. So we see that this is a promise for everyone,

for whoever believes that we will join Jesus in doing the works that he has done.

And we've seen that these works are accomplished when we pray.

Now let's see, lastly, what kind of prayers the Lord is directing us to pray.

Jesus answers prayers that bear his name and seek his glory. Look at verses 13 and 14.

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.

Over and over in this upper room discourse that we're breaking into several

weeks of preaching, remember, is happening all in about a five-hour span of

time with these disciples.

Jesus is coming back again and again to this same thing. He's telling them,

ask, and it will be given.

They'll receive good things when they ask what is he encouraging them and through

them us to pray for here in verse 13 what does he say whatever you ask,

in verse 14 ask me anything,

in john 15 7 ask whatever you wish.

In John 15, 6, whatever you ask.

In John 16, 24, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.

So the, I mean, to start with, we need to see how broad Jesus is being in his

permissiveness in telling them what to pray for.

I mean, it's incredibly broad.

Whatever you ask, ask me anything, whatever you wish.

What an encouragement to us when we pray.

He gives one condition. What is it? Ask in my name.

And so we need to understand that one condition.

He says, pray, ask in my name and it will be given.

I'm reading a great little book by the Puritan John Bunyan on prayer and,

commenting on this one condition that Jesus gives to his disciples that we ask

in his name, Bunyan says, Christ

is the way through whom the soul has admittance to God and without whom,

it is impossible that so much as one desire should come into the ears of the Lord.

So first of all, we see that our praying must be in Christ's name because Christ

is our only access to the Father.

He is it. There is no other way to God.

Our prayers are heard only because we are united to him by faith.

So we come to our Father clothed in our big brother's righteousness.

Remember the story of Jacob, the trickster, when he goes to his father and he

is disguised in his big brother's clothes, Esau.

And why does he do it? He goes to trick his father into giving him the big brother's blessing.

And as he goes into the room, he's fearful the whole time. What if I'm found out?

What if my father recognizes that it's me? me.

This story is loaded with gospel imagery.

We go approach our father, we go clothed in our big brother's clothes in his

righteousness. But friends, it is our father who clothed us.

We don't have to go afraid that he will recognize that it's us because he knows.

We come to our father hidden in Christ,

secure in our union with Jesus, and we will receive the blessings that he deserves, not that we deserve.

So come to your father boldly. And as you come, come in his name,

ask for things that he would ask for, that you believe he would ask for in the same situation.

When I was in my 20s, I built houses for a few years with my dad in a small

town called Social Circle.

There was an ACE hardware in Social Circle. And most days we had to go to that

ACE multiple times to get supplies and things we were building in a neighborhood

just down the road from there.

And my dad started and owned the company and our company had an account with the Social Circle ACE.

So we would charge purchases on our ACE account and then pay the bill at the end of each month.

Most of the time, my dad and I would go into ACE together and sometimes he would

send me and I would go by myself to get needed supplies.

And when I went through the checkout, all I had to say was put it on the Preston contracting account.

Now, why did that work? Why didn't they say, no, no, no, you can't leave here

to get out your wallet and you pay for that.

Why did that work because I represented the company that my dad owned.

I was purchasing materials in his name.

And I could do that as his representative because I bore the Preston name.

I wasn't coming in and buying things for my own personal use.

That wouldn't have ended well. I was purchasing the things and only the things

that he wanted me to purchase.

And in a very real way, that's how praying in Jesus' name works,

we're going to God and we're asking him for things.

We're asking him to do things. And we're saying, I'm asking for what I believe

Jesus would ask for in this same situation.

And I bear his name. So charge it to his account.

Far more. It's far deeper. It's far richer than simply words tacked on at the end of a prayer.

This is what Charles Spurgeon says about it. He says,

it is not merely to say at the end of your prayer for Christ's sake,

it is to be able to feel that as Christ stood in your place,

so you dare stand in Christ's place.

And what you have asked, you have asked in his name, feeling that what you have

asked is such that Christ would have asked it.

Now, when you can feel that and can feel that Christ puts his seal on what you

have asked, then you have asked in his name.

1 John 5, 14 instructs us, if we ask anything according to his will,

he hears us. This is what we're saying.

And of course, in order to know his will, we need to know his word,

which is why Jesus says in John 15, 7, if you abide in me and my words abide

in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

So we need to know his word. We need to know his will. And here's a great help to that.

Look at verse 13. He says, this I will do that the father may be glorified in the son.

This is what Jesus desires. You want to know what would Jesus want in any given situation?

He would want that the father would be glorified.

He would want that the father would be glorified in the son.

This is what he prays for in just a little while in the high priestly prayer

in John 17, one father, the hour has come glorify your son that the son may glorify you?

When you pray, ask this question, if God were to give me the thing I'm asking

for, would it glorify him?

If you believe the answer to that question is yes, if you've tested it against

the word and you believe that it is in accordance with his word,

then you can pray with great confidence.

So let's wrap this up. I hope that as you consider this, as you've heard this

today, you're doing a little bit of introspective work and we have a little time now to respond.

And I want us to begin to do a little introspective work. We need to take a

minute now to look back and say, okay, am I living this out? Am I believing this?

How is your private prayer life? does it reflect someone who believes the promises

that we've just studied?

The answer to that question will have an astonishing bearing on the fruit that

your life produces as a Christian.

Our great God has ordained that his works in the world be accomplished through

weak, unimpressive, average people who simply trust him.

He uses ordinary people like you and me,

as we trust the crucified, risen and ascended Christ to do work through us as

we confidently and persistently ask Jesus to do what only he can.

So let's do that. Let's be encouraged to come to him, believing these promises. Let's pray right now.

Lord, I can't help but wonder what things you would have granted had I asked.

Struck, shaken by the words of James, you have not because you ask not.

Lord, help us to be an asking people, a praying church,

a church that is dependent upon you, that believes your promises,

that stands upon your promises and lives according to your promises.

Make us a people who do the works that you do because we ask in your name for the glory of God.

Lord, I pray that you would grow us in our personal prayer lives,

grow us in our corporate prayer life. Help us, help us to pray. Teach us to pray.

In Jesus' name, we pray it. Amen.