Loved by the Father

John 16:25-33

(vv.25-27) We have no need for a prayer mediator

Important note: Our prayers ought to ordinarily be addressed to the Father

It is not wrong to pray to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit

But this is not the normal model of prayer in the New Testament

Matthew 6:6-9- But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

John 16:23- In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

John 17:14- I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

James 1:17- Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Even Jesus does not need to mediate our prayers

It is not as though the Father frowns toward us and we need someone who will get Him to listen

Example:

a child, knowing their father will likely tell them know will go to their mother to aks their father for them

This rules out any type of mediatorial prayers

We never pray to Mary or to Saints as Catholics do

This kind of view of relating to God is directly contrary to the Gospel and undermines the clear teaching of the Bible

The Father Himself loves you

It is not as though we need someone to butter God up for us

We do not need someone to pull His ear or advocate for us in order that He listen ot our pleas

He Himself loves us as His children

He Himself cares for us

He Himself gives generously

James 1:5- If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Matthew 7:9-11- Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 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!

Do you really believe this?

Or have you thought of God as reluctant or preoccupied with more important things than listening to your prayers?

Do you pray knowing that God loves His people?

Do you pray knowing that He is not cold toward you?

Do you know that He is not tight-fisted, but generous?

If you believe this, how might it transform the way that you pray?

(vv.26-27) Prayer in Jesus’ name

He did not only die to bring us peace with God

He also died to establish the promises of God

2 Corinthians 1:20- For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

The gospel is not only the Good News of forgiveness of sin

It is also the realization of all of the promises of God to us

Matthew 11:28- Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Philippians 4:6-7- do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:28- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

We pray in Jesus’ name

This is not a mantra or a mystical phrase that will make all our desires a reality

It is a statement about how our prayers will be answered

It is a statement about the power of Christ to answer your prayers in accordance with His promises and worked out in His wisdom.

In this, God is glorified

(vv.26-27) This is not unconditional

Not everyone enjoys this love and access

Proverbs 15:29- The Lord is far from the wicked,

but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

1 Peter 3:12- For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Those who love Jesus and believe in Him

This is the heart of all who are His

They believer that He is the Son of God who came into the world to save sinners

They love Jesus more than anything/one else because of who He is and what He has done

Access to God in prayer only happens through faith

Ephesians 3:11-12- This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

(vv.32-33) He has overcome, He will give you what you need

He has overcome the world

He is victorious

He is powerful

He is able to empathize with you

He will be faithful to give

(v.1) Sustaining grace for your faith

(v.8) Conviction

(v.13) Knowledge

(v.13) Guidance

(v.22) Joy

(v33) Strength

(v.33) Peace

So how will you know that He will hear and answer your prayer for help as you sit in your car in the driveway after that horrible Monday at work, or anywhere else for that matter? You will know because you know that the Father Himself loves and cares for you.

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Picture this with me: It’s Monday evening and you pull into the driveway after work. It was one of the worst days of work you have ever had. Your coworkers failed to properly do their jobs, so you had to pull extra weight. Your boss was not only unappreciative of your hard work, but he also blamed you for the failures of your coworkers. As pull into the driveway you rember that it is only Monday and you have 4 more days of work before you get another rest from the difficultly of the workplace. Perhaps you remember that Colossians 3:23 says to work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. You can not imagine how you can possible go back to work tomorrow and work heartily and joyfully to do the best job you can. So you bow your head in your car and desperately ask God to help you, strengthen you, and encourage you.

But here is the question: how do you know, in that moment of discouragement and desperation, that God will be pleased to hear you and answer your prayer? And when I say “how will you know?” I mean how will you have full confidence that He hears with compassion and will be faithful to answer by giving you exactly what you need? A vague or general belief that He loves you will not give this kind of deeply-rooted confidence. The tragic thing is that so many Christians, and maybe many of you, do not have such a confidence. You pray and cross your fingers that He might care enough to answer. But there is so much more that the Bible holds out for us. This is what I pray God will convince us of and grow us in this morning.

We have no need for a prayer mediator

Before I go any further, I need to make an important note: our prayers ought to ordinarily be addressed to the Father. It is certainly not wrong to pray to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. However, the consistent witness of the Old Testament and New Testament is that ordinarily, believers pray to God the Father when they address God in prayer. Just so that I might minimize the number of you who might leave this morning with doubts about whether that is true, I want to point you to 4 short passages, which are a few among many others. Matthew 6:6-9- But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. John 16:23- In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. John 17:14- I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. James 1:17- Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. It is becasue of these passages and many others like them that we know this to be true.

Now that I made that point, look at verses 25 to 27 with me. Jesus says “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” What is Jesus’ foremost point in these verses? What we read here may not seem to be joy-filling or awe-inspiring to you, but it should. It may even seem ordinary or dull, and my prayer now is that God will open the eyes of your heart to see beautiful things from these words. The main point of these verses is that you and I do not need a mediator when we pray to God. Now, of course, on one level, we do need a mediator. We will always have Jesus as our mediator, but not in the particular way that I mean from this passage. We need a mediator for our salvation, our forgiveness, our right relationship with God, for the righteousness that we cannot have in ourselves. So, yes, it is true that we sinners must have a mediator with God, and Jesus lives to make endless intercession for us in heaven (Hebrews 7:25). However, when it comes specifically to our praying, we are in no need of a mediator with the Father.

This means that even Jesus does not need to mediate our prayers. It is not as though the Father frowns toward us and we need someone who will get Him to listen. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Children do this kind of stuff all of the time. Yesterday Jayden wanted something and he knew by the look that I gave him that it was not going to be a favorable outcome if he asked me for it. So what did he do? He marched over to Jim and asked him for the same thing. He knows that Erin and I have the final say in the matter, but he knows that if he can get the right person on his side, then he might get us to finally give him what he wants. So, if we do not relate this way to our heavenly Father this way through Christ, then how much more is it illegitimate that we should try to go through any other mediator? This passage, among others, effectively rules out any type of mediatorial prayers.

We are not Catholic for a large number of reasons. We differ on some of the most vitally important doctrines in the Bible. One of these significant differences is in regard to the way we pray. We never pray to Mary or to Saints as Catholics do. This kind of view of relating to God is directly contrary to the Gospel and undermines the clear teaching of the Bible. Not to put it too severely, any notion of a God who would pray to a God who needs someone to speak on your behalf to Him is simply not the God of the Bible.

Why is this so? Jesus tells us why in verse 27. He says that the Father Himself loves you. It is not as though we need someone to butter God up for us. We do not need someone to pull His ear or advocate for us in order that He listen ot our pleas. He Himself loves us as His children. We have been adopted into His family be the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus and He loves all who are His children. He Himself cares for us. He will not neglect the needs which He perfectly knows we have. He Himself gives generously. He is not tight-fisted or reluctant to give us what is good for us. We read in James 1:5- If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. And Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:9-11- Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 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!

The question that now rests before you is, do you really believe this? Do you pray knowing that He is not cold toward you? Do you know that He is not tight fisted, but generous? And if you believe this, how might it transform the way that you pray each day? Are there ways in which you have thought of God as reluctant or preoccupied with more important things than listening to your prayers? Do you pray knowing that God loves His people? Pray with confidence that God loves you and loves to do good to you.

Prayer in Jesus’ name

What I want to do with the rest of our time this morning is to consider just a few of the realities in and behind Christian prayer. We are approaching Easter, and when we think about Easter, we think about the cross and the empty tomb. We think about His sacrifice and His resurrection. We think about these things because they are at the center of all that we believe and all that God has done. As we normally consider the finished work of Jesus, we normally think about the forgiveness of our sins and the peace we have with God through faith. This is inexpressibly important and central to everything we do and who we are as Christians. However, He did not only die to bring us peace with God. He also died to establish the promises of God. Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians 1:20- For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. Have you ever asked yourself why we always end our prayers with the same few words “In Jesus’ name, Amen?” Well, this is why. We have all of the benefits of His promises because of the finished work of Christ. We find confidence in God because of His promises to us. It is through the truth of the promises of God that we know He will answer our prayers as He knows best. For example, He promises in Matthew 11:28- Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Or in Philippians 4:6-7 Paul says- do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Or in Romans 8:28, he says- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. We pray in Jesus’ name, not because it is a mantra or a mystical phrase that will make all our desires a reality. We pray in Jesus’ name because it is a statement about how our prayers will be answered. It is a statement about the power of Christ to answer your prayers in accordance with His promises and worked out in His wisdom. In this God is glorified.

This is not unconditional

But this access to the Father in prayer is not unconditional. Not everyone enjoys love and access to God. The conditional nature of this passage has already been implied in every point so far, but I need to make it clear. There are many people who do not know access to God through prayer. The Old Testament bears witness to this in Proverbs 15:29- The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous. The New Testament also teaches this in multiple places, including 1 Peter 3:12- For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

What is the specific condition for all that we have talk about to be true? Jesus says this access to the Father is only for those who love Jesus and believe in Him. This is the heart of all who are His. They believe that He is the Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners. They love Jesus more than anything/one else because of who He is and what He has done. Another word for this is faith. Access to God in prayer only happens through faith. Isn’t this at the heart of what Paul means in Ephesians 3:11-12 when he says- This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.”? All who are in this room are a part of one of two groups: those of you who have access to the loving Father in prayer through faith and those of you who do not because you have not received Christ through faith.

He has overcome, He will give you what you need

As we close, I simply cannot end without mentioning what Jesus says in verses 32 and 33. He tells them that they will have trouble and be scattered, and we know that their trouble will not end there. In the world, you will have trouble. It is an ongoing reality in our lives that we will have difficulties and troubles and face opposition to Jesus. But then He says “I have overcome the world.” He is victorious, He is powerful, and He is able to empathize with you. He will be faithful to give you all that you need, including that which He has mentioned in this chapter alone. So, as we bring John 16 to a close, let’s remember what He has promised to give His people as we humbly pray to Him:(v.1) Sustaining grace for your faith, (v.8) Conviction, (v.13) Knowledge, (v.13) Guidance, (v.22) Joy, (v33) Strength, and (v.33) Peace.

Brothers and sisters, pray with boldness that He is able and willing to supply all of your needs in accordance with His riches in glory, knowing that He Himself loves and cares for you.