The Promise of Power from Heaven

John 14:8–14 “Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “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 on 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.”

This passage elicits several questions I have heard over the years. What work will we do? What kInd? What Quality? What amount? Is Jesus saying I can ask Him to do this for me? He did say anything didn’t he?

In this passage, Jesus reassures His disciples about the power of prayer and His divine connection with the Father. He encourages them to ask in His name, promising that their prayers will be answered, which emphasizes the relationship and authority believers have in Christ.

Do you think you need more strength and confidence with prayer in your life?

You can find strength and confidence in your prayer lives by understanding the authority given to you through Christ. This message I hope encourages you to bring your requests before God, knowing that prayer is a powerful tool for producing in our own lives the works of Jesus.

The power of prayers produces! We pray for God’s will and His glory in our lives which is to do His works!

Prayer, when aligned with Christ’s will and initiated in His name, has the power to bring his power to bear upon all of life and reveal God's glory in doing the works Christ Jesus promised that we would do in this passage.

It shows us the vital connection between faith, prayer, and the works of Christ in our lives.

Big Idea: Through prayer in Jesus' name, believers can experience the power of God’s presence and action in their lives, enabling them to seek and accomplish His will.

Introduction:

The validity of Jesus’ promise of the way to Heaven to be with Him and the power of Heaven for them, and the prayers to Heaven being effective is BECAUSE HE IS GOD! (2X) This is what Jesus is seeking to bring Philipp and the other disciples to believe that they might do works greater than Jesus!

1. Jesus’ Presence is a Certain Promise

John 14:8–10 “Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “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 on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”

Philip's request to see the Father prompts Jesus to reveal the profound truth of His identity and mission. Do you see in Jesus words who He is and what His mission is? If you have seen me you have seen God! What is said by Jesus has complete authority and the works done by Jesus is the very work of God!

Jesus underscores the importance of recognizing His divine relationship with the Father, which sets the foundation for prayer.

Everything Jesus says and does should assure us he is one with the Father. He is telling us He is in the Father, and His works reveal the Father is in Him.

What Jesus has said to Philipp and the disciples should assure us that when we understand who Jesus is and is with us (in us), our prayers are grounded in a deeper faith in Him.

It will be proven in who’s words are in us and who’s works are in our lives. These works signify that the saving Kingdom of God is at work in the ministry of Jesus. Will you believe it?

2. Jesus’ Power from Heaven Produces

John 14:11–12 “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.”

Are you encouraged by this promise of Jesus? Will you trust that your prayers can lead to greater things when rooted in faith in Jesus and the authority He gives us?

Jesus is saying the fruitful works are for those who have faith in Jesus.

Jesu is saying the fruitful conduct of the believer is the product of his prayers offered in Jesus name!

The things (erga, ‘works’, cf. v. 11) Jesus has been doing, and the greater things that follow, cannot legitimately be restricted to deeds of humility (13:15) or acts of love (13:34–35), still less to proclamation of Jesus’ ‘words’ (v. 10). Jesus’ ‘works’ may include more than his miracles; they never exclude them. But even so, greater works is not a transparent expression. It cannot simply mean more works—i.e. the church will do more things than Jesus did, since it embraces so many people over such a long period of time—since there are perfectly good Greek ways of saying ‘more’, and since in any case the meaning would then be unbearably trite. Nor can greater works mean ‘more spectacular’ or ‘more supernatural’ works: it is hard to imagine works that are more spectacular or supernatural than the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the multiplication of bread and the turning of water into wine.

The clues to the expression “greater works than Jesus does” meaning is as follows. Jesus’ disciples will perform greater works because he is going to the Father:

this cannot mean that they will have greater scope for their activity because he will have faded from the scene and relinquished the turf to them, but that the very basis for their greater works is his going to the Father.

Their works become greater precisely because of the new order that has come about consequent on his going to the Father.

So what am I saying?

I am saying that the works that the disciples perform after the resurrection are greater than those done by Jesus before his death insofar as the former belong to an age of where what Jesus identity and mission become very clear and an age of power introduced by Jesus’ sacrifice and exaltation in the sending of His Spirit from Heaven.

You need to see that both Jesus’ words and his deeds were somewhat veiled during the days of his flesh; even his closest followers, as the foregoing verses make clear, grasped only part of what he was saying. Things were not as clear as of yet!

But Jesus is about to return to his Father, he is about to be glorified, and in the wake of his glorification his followers will know and make known all that Jesus is and does, and their every deed and word will belong to the new eschatological age that will then have dawned. The ‘signs’ and ‘works’ Jesus performed during his ministry could not fully accomplish their true end until after Jesus had risen from the dead and been exalted. Only at that point could they be seen for what they were.

By contrast, the works believers are given to do through the power of the eschatological Spirit, after Jesus’ glorification, will be set in the framework of Jesus’ death and triumph, and will therefore more immediately and truly reveal the Son. Thus greater things is constrained by salvation-historical realities. In consequence many more converts will be gathered into the messianic community, the nascent church, than were drawn in during Jesus’ ministry (cf. 15:26–27; 17:20; 20:21, 29). The contrast itself, however, turns not on raw numbers but on the power and clarity that mushroom after the eschatological hinge has swung and the new day has dawned.

What makes the greatness of John the Baptist and the greatness of the least in the Kingdom of God even greater that him? What is now our reality was not yet theirs or Jesus’.

Matthew 11:7–11 “As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ 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.”

I hope you see this revealed in how Luke, in Acts says this,

Acts 1:1–5 “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.””

Jesus going to the Father is definitely pointing to the sending of the Holy Spirit. John 16:7 “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

It also highlights that in Jesus going to the Father we now have entered into an era unlike any other since Jesus has gone to the Father.

3. Jesus’ Empowered Producer’s Pray

John 14:13–14 “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.”

This passage, Jesus, invites you and me and this church to participate in the mission of Christ through powerful prayers, assured by faith in His name, working towards building, through the works of God in us and through us, God's kingdom on earth.

This passage invites you and me and this church to participate in the mission of Christ through powerful prayers, assured by faith in His name, working towards building, through the words of God in us and coming out of us, God's kingdom on earth.

WE PRAY in his name AS THOSE APPOINTED TO GO AND BEAR FRUIT!

“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.” and 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.”

It is important to understand “in my name” is NOT a magical formula to be attached to the end of a prayer.

WE PRAY IN HIS NAME AS HIS CHILDREN

As was indicated in John 1:12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”

Our Prayers are not irresponsible because of the goal of the prayer: so that the Father’s glory will be shown through the Son. The glory of the father is the one purpose which Jesus has in responding to the requests of those who pray.

Here as elsewhere “to be glorified” refers to a visible manifestation of the divine presence, “so shall the glory of the Father be revealed through the Son.”

We pray powerful prayers in the name of Jesus that the glory of the Father would be revealed! (3 X)

Conclusion:

The promise that whatever we ask in Jesus' name will be done is quite amazing and may be all to often qualified to the point of making our prayer life seem empty of power or authority.

It’s power when understood with Jesus’ teaching in this passage reveals the essential role of Jesus as the access point to the Father in prayer.

The importance of aligning our requests with God's will and purposes will reveal our prayers as powerful for God’s Glory.

This assurance empowers and emboldens us to pray with faith and confidence that God will move, knowing that our petitions, when made in faith and purpose in accord with God’s revealed will, will unveil God's glory and be answered according to His divine plan.

Let us pray!