Jesus: The Beloved Son
Notes
Transcript
The Beloved Son
Text: Matthew 3:17
As we pray tonight, we pray in the Name of Jesus.
23 “And on that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.
Why does Jesus tell us to pray in His Name?
16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
James 4:2b-3
I do encourage us to ask correctly:
New American Standard Bible Chapter 4
You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures.
First of all — we have to ask.
Week before last I was reading an email by Frank Viola. He said:
Last year, I read a book that argued that prayers of petition, supplication, and intercession are nothing more than “begging God to be good.”
The author asserted that such prayers are a waste of time and energy because they assume God isn't good unless we beg Him to do something nice in our lives or in the lives of others. (In other words, unless we pray.)
The logic goes like this:
God already knows what you, your friends, and your loved ones need. And God is good. So it doesn't make sense for you to pray. To pray assumes God isn't good unless you beg Him to be a good boy by asking Him to do something good for yourself or for someone else.
According to this author’s calculus, petition, supplication, and intercession all demonstrate that we believe God won’t pay attention to us or our needs (or the needs of others) unless we beg Him to do so (i.e., pray).
For this reason, it's wrong to ask people to pray for us. And it’s wasteful to pray for ourselves or anyone else.
I’m calling it the “farewell to prayer” perspective.
He then said, “Let’s look at this perspective in light of 2 questions:
Question 1: Does Jesus, Paul, and the rest of the New Testament support the “farewell to prayer” viewpoint?
Question 2. If the New Testament DOES NOT support the “farewell to prayer” view, then why would God ask us to pray? What's the spiritual logic behind prayer?
Obviously Jesus, the Apostle Paul and the New Testament tell us to pray. To pray for others. To pray continuously.
So Viola, then asks why God would have us to pray? Are we begging God to be good?
No!
Viola says, and I agree:
Prayer is God’s power-sharing instrument. It’s the vehicle by which we come to know Him more deeply and participate in His work as co-laborers.
The Lord has arranged the universe in such a way that He involves us in His interventions.
Therefore, we aren’t “begging God” to do something when we pray. Rather, we are co-working with Him to accomplish His will in the earth.
For we are God’s fellow workers. 1 Corinthians 3:9
Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them … Mark 16:20 [1]
This principle explains why Scriptures both exhorts and exemplifies prayer.
God didn’t set up the world so that He could be a solo act.
He wired into His creation an invitation for the participation of humans, to co-labor with Him in bringing His will to pass.
One final observation: People are wide open to latch onto the “farewell to prayer” perspective when they ask God to change situations that hit close to home and their prayers aren’t answered.
I suppose that’s a better way to react than to use White-out on God and erase Him from existence due to unmet expectations (which is how many atheists are born).
Nevertheless, the “farewell to prayer” perspective isn’t sound.
So despite criticisms to the contrary, we pray. Otherwise we have not because we ask not.
Second of all, James encourages us to ask with right motives.
What is our motivation to pray?
For what do we pray? Jesus said in:
33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.
As we seek the Kingdom of God as our first priority:
Is that it be manifested in our lives.
That we will partner with God to manifest it on the earth.
Today’s devotional from Missionary God, Missionary Bible, by Dick Brogden says:
Haggai’s third message is about covenant faithfulness and purity. If you’re not humble and holy, it doesn’t matter what you build. The renowned missionary to India, E. Stanley Jones said, “I have found that all real evangelistic work begins in the evangelist. Around the world the problem of Christian work is the problem of the Christian worker.… Christian service cannot rise above the Christian servant.” Jesus must be glorified in us to be glorified through us.
Brogden, Dick. Missionary God, Missionary Bible (p. 296). Abide Publishers LLC. Kindle Edition.
So, we bow before God tonight and ask in the Name of Jesus, that His Kingdom would come in us in power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
That We would be effective in taking the Kingdom of God to the kingdoms of this world.
That God’s Kingdom would invade and conquer satan’s kingdom.
One of the reasons that the Father listens to our prayers in the Name of Jesus is not just because Jesus is His Son, but because Jesus is His BELOVED Son.
On 2 different occasions the Bible tells us that the Father declared with an audible voice from heaven that Jesus is His beloved Son.
At Jesus’ baptism.
When he was transfigured before His disciples.
Both times the Father proclaimed from heaven:
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17; also Matthew 17:5; John 12:28).
Now, if you were raised on or still read the KJV, you know what says:
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Wednesday we read from modern translations, but the KJV of 1 John 3:1-3 said:
1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
So, the Bible says we are all “sons” of God — that is sons and daughters, CHILDREN, of God..
But Jesus is the BELOVED son, the beloved child.
As Charles Rolls says in his book, The Indescribable Christ (most people can’t appreciate the language he uses, I pray you can) He says :
Infinite preciousness dwells in the person of the Beloved Son;
His matchless beauty of character,
His surpassing excellence of nature
and His unrivaled display of grace and truth make Him to be altogether pre-eminent in nobility, majesty, dignity, and glory.
The diadems of divine dominion that adorn His brow glisten and sparkle with scintillating splendor in an environment of immortal loveliness.
Our everblessed Beloved has no substitute to transplace Him, and no superior to transcend Him, for He fills and floods all heaven with His majestic sweetness.
He is nearest in relationship as the Son of man, sweetest in fellowship, dearest in companionship, staunchest in friendship, stateliest in kingship, fairest in lordship and strongest in guardianship, the Victor who is forever resolute and reliable in His purpose and power.
In His position of [Beloved] Sonship, Christ stands pre-eminent with sole claim to all things; also in right of heirship He has no rival; and in honor of proprietorship He ranks highest in the whole of the hierarchies of heaven.
Unutterable delights are crowded together in His comely personality.
Gracious beyond measure and generous beyond mention is the Son of His love in whom dwelleth all the fullness of Godhead bodily.
His brighter glory and broader majesty, combined with His complete range of credentials verify forever that He is essentially God the Son and eternally the Well-beloved.
The Father affirmed His pleasure in the Son’s perfections and by use of the pronoun, My, expressed the infinite intensity of affection and intimacy of association that forever bind together in oneness of Creatorhood and Redeemerhood, Kinghood and Shepherdhood, Fatherhood and Saviorhood, Covenanthood and Priesthood, Godhood and Servanthood.
How zealously Christ expressed the Father’s likeness by perfectly displaying His mercy!
How completely He exhibited the Father’s glory,
how winsomely He revealed the Father’s beauty,
how thoroughly He portrayed the Father’s sympathy,
how fully He unveiled the Father’s pity
and how graciously He declared the Father’s sovereignty!
In these features and many more He magnified the Father and glorified His name totally, absolutely and finally.
Jesus is the Beloved Son of our heavenly Father.
So we pray in His Name.
And as we pray we realize another spiritual truth:
5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
The KJV says in vs. 6 that we are “accepted in the Beloved.”
Modern translations tell us that His grace is freely bestowed on us through Jesus.
As we pray tonight, we can expect God’s grace, His unmerited favor, to be poured out on us.
Because it is freely bestowed upon us through the Beloved Son — through Jesus.