Essentially Pray
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Cast Away on a cruise ship.
In 1995, Chuck Noland was an FedEx executive on his way to an assignment in Malaysia.
Obsessively punctual.
Productivity, productivity, productivity.
His plane has technical difficulties crashes over the Pacific Ocean and he’s the sole survivor.
Chuck washes up on a deserted island.
He learns to adapt on the island, and survives there for four years.
Chuck wasn’t alone.
He was accompanied by Wilson
A Wilson volleyball with a hand print.
By this time, you should know this is a movie.
Throughout the movie, he talks with Wilson as if Wilson is a person
Then in the most heart-wrenching point of the movie, Chuck is trying to sail away from the island on log-raft and Wilson begins to float away in the ocean.
“Wilson, where are you?! Wilson?! I’m sorry, Wilson!”
He desperately tries to swim to Wilson
Wilson is a volleyball.
Chuck demonstrates to us that humanity does not thrive alone.
We need connection
Prayer is connection with God.
The Lord speaks to us through His Word, we communicate our hearts, concerns, desires back to God.
Prayer communicates our dependence and reliance on God.
Jesus just finished teaching the disciples that the hour is coming for Him to return to the Father.
The Father loves them because they have loved and believed the Son of God.
The hour is coming for them to be scattered and Jesus will be put on trial.
Jesus speaks very candidly with them that they will have trouble
But in the thick of trouble, His Word is their peace.
143 Trouble and anguish have found me out, but your commandments are my delight.
Jesus Word’s provide peace in the chaos: “It will not always be this way.”
John 17 is a passage where Jesus caps everything He just preached with prayer.
Doctrine is powerless by itself
Doctrine with the Spirit of God is power!
We worship in Spirit and Truth!
People knowing about Jesus is nothing without the Spirit of God moving their heart to faith!
The Posture of Prayer
The Posture of Prayer
Jesus lifts His eyes to heaven (v. 1b)
This is not a common stance for prayer.
Often head bowed, eyes closed, hands clasped.
Reverence; respect
As if we are speaking to one mightier than we are—The Creator of the universe
Jesus’s positions Himself to speak to God with familiarity
Jesus is not uncomfortable here.
Jesus is speaking with confidence.
His stance communicates that in His affections, He might as well be in heaven to have this conversation.
His posture also communicates that the majesty of God is far above any other creature!
This is why we lift our hands when we sing and pray with lifted hands
That posture says that we are lower than God and He is higher than we are!
We need Him to lift us to heaven because we cannot get there ourselves!
But we must be careful that our outward gestures express more than our mind, but that our minds and hearts influence our eyes, hands, feet, and everything else about us.
Jesus’s stance should encourage us that we no longer have to hide from God, but that we can go to Him confidently in Christ!
Notice that Jesus addresses God as “Father!”
Familial language
He just told them that they will go to the Father themselves (16:26-27)
Because the Father loves them!
Endearment!
Through Christ, we can go to God boldly and communicate our needs and desires.
The Father welcomes believers and desires us in His presence!
Prayer requires our hearts to be in a position of bold reliance
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Jesus addresses God as “Father”
He has been claiming to be the Son of God, and now that claim is felt by all who hear this prayer.
What an experience it must have been to hear Jesus pray!
Jesus prays to the Father in the Spirit
All three person’s of the Godhead are in this conversation
And we can hear this conversation!
The Trinity is present and interacting in perfect community with one another.
Jesus praying to the Father models for submission to God the Father.
Jesus knows the Bible. Prayer is communicating with God.
Jesus felt Psalm 63 in a perfect way
Jesus left heaven to be with us, so He was in a dry and weary land far from him.
His soul thirsted for God and the Kingdom!
Yet, the Father was with Him, and He communicated that through prayer.
The Purpose of Prayer
The Purpose of Prayer
Jesus asks for His Kingdom to be glorified so that He may also advance the glory of the Father!
He says the hour has come
Up to that point, He had manifested His glory as the Son of God through miracles.
But, Jesus came for a purpose.
Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus is about to do what He was sent to do.
Jesus came from heaven on a mission: to seek and save the lost.
John 18 would begin the betrayal and unjust trial that would lead to the crucifixion and death of Jesus.
He knew it was coming. And it would glorify God.
God’s glory is God’s motive in everything He does.
There is a clear connection between the glory of Jesus and the glory of God.
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Everything Jesus is and does glorifies God because Jesus is the glory of God.
The Father has given Jesus authority to give eternal life to all that the Father had given Him (v. 2)
There is nothing that God cannot do in a person.
Jesus has authority over “all flesh!”
He does not need permission to save someone!
It’s foolish to believe that someone is outside of God’s authority.
Jesus has, can, and will save the hardest of enemies of God.
That was the purpose of the crucifixion.
The fiercest unbeliever cannot overpower the God of life!
This also means that God doesn’t need your approval to save someone.
The people we don’t like.
The people we think that will never be convinced.
The people we are convinced will never change.
We know that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6) and no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws Him (John 6:44).
But Jesus said that, “All whom the Father gives will come, and He will never cast them out” (John 6:37)
God gives mercy in Jesus to the underserving!
How’s that fair?
God will never withhold eternal life from those who deserve it
The problem is that no one deserves it.
This is why Jesus said that He has the authority to give eternal life.
Jesus can save whoever He wants, whenever He wants.
Jesus brings to life the deadest of people.
We need to pray over those people we think are beyond grace, that they would receive grace!
That they would come to faith in Jesus and live!
Jesus has a reputation with bringing the most unlikely people to Himself.
This should lead us to praise because that means there is hope for you too!
You can take as much mercy and grace as necessary, and then there’s still more!
There’s plenty of room at the cross of Jesus to give grace to sinners!
This is the work that God gave Jesus to do! (v. 4)
He accomplished all of the requirements for our salvation on the cross!
He has given eternal life to all who would come to Him!
He has glorified the Father on earth by bringing the Kingdom!
When God grants salvation to a sinner and gives them faith that leads to life in Christ, the Father is glorified!
The purpose of prayer is to excite our hearts to the glory of God!
The Presence of Prayer
The Presence of Prayer
Jesus now reiterates His request to be glorified, but is specific to the place.
“Glorify me in your presence.”
The presence of God is the safest place for a Christian.
In this world, we experience the brokenness
We’re continually blindsided by the sin of this world.
The presence of God is the most desirable place for a Christian.
The Psalms are Bible’s expression of the human heart.
It’s full of songs and prayers to God.
It is not uncommon for the Psalms to express that absolute desire to be in the presence of God!
Psalm 51:10-11 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”
Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Psalm 84:1-2 “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.”
Psalm 84:10 “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
He is not a God that stands far off and hopes that we figure it out
He is a Father that is intricately involved with us.
He does not leave us to our own vices
He invites us into His presence
Where there is life, goodness, and mercy!
The Person of Prayer
The Person of Prayer
We want to be a people of prayer.
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Ask!
Prayer is neediness, reliance, dependence.
God wants us to ask!
There is nothing that He cannot supply!
He is a loving and generous God who does not withhold good things from His people!
Prayer is an invitation to ask Him!
Conclusion
Conclusion
I can stand and preach for hours.
Doctrine by itself is useless knowledge.
Doctrine with the presence of God is power.
Preaching is all in vain unless it is surrounded by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
I cannot save anyone with my preaching, but through prayer, we want the Lord to bring people to a saving knowledge of the Truth!
Respond
Respond
Time of prayer.
Ourselves
Next Steps
How is my heart?
Dearborn County
Graceland Church
1 lost person in your life you want to see come to life in Jesus.
27 Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.
