Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your grace to us. We thank you for this word that you've given to us to stabilize us, Father, and to cause us to think correctly about life and about our place in it, our place with you, who you are. Father, most importantly, about the salvation that you have purchased for us through and only through our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So Father, we ask that as we study the things that we have to look at this morning, that you would open our eyes to them. Father, not only that we would understand them, but that our reception of them would be such that we are obedient and we take these things correctly as from you and apply them in our lives, Father, by your grace and by your power. So we commit this time to you in Jesus name. Amen. We've been looking at a greater understanding of who Jesus Christ is, recognizing that the scripture is about him, and it's about him in so many ways that really go unknown today, simply because there isn't that interest in or the desire for the word of God that there should be. And so we've been looking at these things, and recently we've been looking at the Lord Jesus Christ as the yes to all of God's promises, is the key that unlocks the things of the Father for us. And by the way, there's not a set of keys. There's only one key, and that key is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He's the only one sent by the Father to fulfill all these things. But we read in Second Corinthians chapter one. In verses 20 and 21, just to remind ourselves of this basic passage, for as many as may be the promises of God. And I've heard estimates in the thousands, of course, for as many as may be the promises of God in him, in Christ, they are yes. Wherefore, also by him is our amen, or I believe, or assent to the glory of God through us. Now, he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge or as a down payment. But notice, the promises of God are yes in Jesus Christ. And so we're looking at some of these yes areas, and one of the yes areas that is certainly just goes unknown in the world is that prayer to God must be through Christ. It's not it's not a privilege of the unbeliever, except as he comes to put his faith in Christ and approaches God through Christ. And this is a thing that just would make the world livid to hear you say that God is not answering, listening to prayers that are not offered to him through or coming to him through the merit of Jesus Christ as the Savior. But let's begin this study this morning in John chapter 14. Now, remember, I'm always saying this, but so many of these wonderful chapters, chapter 13 through 17, these chapters didn't take place in the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, but took place in the upper room discourse. Private, the most intimate things after Judas left. went out possessed by Satan himself. And then the Lord dealt with his disciples about these very personal things that and got them prepared for this new age that was about to burst upon them, what we call the church age or the unveiling of the mystery, as we've been looking at in our second session. But here in, what did I say, John chapter 14 and verse 12, the Lord says this. Tell me if this doesn't make you scratch your head. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do shall he do also. And if that wasn't enough, and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father. Our minds, I think, or maybe I should just speak for myself, my mind immediately goes to the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ and the healings and turning the water to wine and raising Lazarus from the dead and all of those things. We have to remember, thy word is truth. And this statement that Jesus Christ makes here is not hyperbole, it's not exaggeration, it's the truth. And how do we get there? What is that about? Well, we have to continue on in the context. OK, he says this emphasis is truly, truly a state of you who believes in me, the works that I do, shall he do also in greater works than these shall he do because I go to the father. He says this. Notice what it is immediately paired with. In other words, let's look at what the context is that the word is speaking about. And he says this. And whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." So the relationship here is the doing of the works that are the works that Christ did, and the greater works are the works that are related to prayer. He says, we have this tremendous promise, and then he says, anything you ask, and so important, in my name, that will I do. And then he says, verse 14, if you ask me again, if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. I should have read back to verse 13 now. And whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Down to verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is under the headship of Christ, and he is to keep the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ. No question about it. And we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and diligently disciplines us if we should. And by the way, we do. We need discipline from time to time. And the thing I love about the Lord is he's faithful and he will bring that discipline to pass. And I've often thought of some thoughts I had with my kids. when they were not being obedient. And his thought was, do you really think, this is in my head, do you really think you can outlast me? Do you really think that I can't up the ante and get your attention on this subject? Do you really think that I'm just going to quit and go away? And on this holy, righteous level of our father. Do you really think that you can outlast him? Do you really think that that he's not going to win the day, that he's not going to carry the day, that he's not going to bring you to a place of understanding of these things through his work in your lives and through the things he can do? And many of us, you know, can testify, listen, when God wants your attention in discipline, he will get it. He will have it. I can remember as a little kid trying to beat my dad fighting. And it just from the time I was little, I wanted to take my dad and I studied the pressure points. How do you know this stuff about how much that hurts? And I've often thought about, the Lord knows your pressure points. Like no one knows. Like you don't even know. Do you know what I mean? Like you may be totally unaware of it. He just touches you in this place. You can't stand it. Do you really want to go to war with the one who knows your pressure points and who loves you enough to use them. To me, it's just an incredible thing. All right. So if you love me, you will keep my commandments. You'll be looking in the word and being obedient to it. And if not, there's times when you may not be doing it. He'll get your attention. He will be at work in you to get that attention. And he says, go down and he says. Verse 16. And I will ask the father. And he will give you another helper. It's clear that there's no way that we can do things here in the context, there's no way that we could keep His commandments without a helper, the Holy Spirit. And there's another thing we're going to be looking at. And there's no way that we could or would pray correctly apart from the Holy Spirit. Those are the two things. And so the Lord is tying all this together. These greater works have to do with asking Him to do His will. And He then does those things. And I say, I look at the Apostle Paul. I say this, that, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ came under the will of the Father to go to the cross, to bear our sins, to be raised up from the dead, to be our Savior. And you have to be so careful how I approach this, but As you look at the work of Jesus Christ, during his time here on the earth, he always accomplished exactly what the Father wanted accomplished. And it was not, at that point, bear with me, it was not the salvation, at that time, of tens of thousands of people. After the Lord Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, how many people follow him? How many people are in prayer waiting for the day of Pentecost that he told them about? And I find a place that says 120. And then it says after his resurrection, 400 people at one time. You see what I'm talking about? If you put all those numbers together, let's and I so let's say it's under a thousand. But how many people came to Christ as a result of the ministry of the Apostle Paul? staggering numbers of people all over the known world came to faith in Christ through the work of the Apostles as they called on God to do His will. And so in that sense, listen, you know, I also have to come back to this. We think about We're wrong about this. We think that a physical miracle is greater than a spiritual miracle. Listen, the greatest miracle that is ever, ever performed is not the healing of somebody's body. It's the salvation of their soul. It's so outstrips that God can take a sinful person and make them right with themselves through the finished work of Jesus Christ. is so much more powerful than a withered arm fixed or a person blind from birth can now see. Because one has only to do with the number of years that that person is going to live on earth. And the other has to do with the eternal destiny of that person forever and ever and ever. All right, so he says, And I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper that he may be with you forever. That is the spirit of truth. Whom the world cannot receive. Because it does not behold him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be church age now and will be in you. Sealed in the Holy with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, he will be in you. OK. Go from that passage to John 15 verse 16. Notice how many times the Lord said this to his disciples in the upper room. I did the last supper just before he's going to be arrested and the next day go to the cross for our sins. He says to his disciples, you did not choose me. But I chose you. And appointed you. That you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain. That, you say, how do you ever do that? How are all those things going to take place? That you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain? You mean not be some wishy-washy thing that gets blown away or washed away? Okay. He says, that whatever you ask of the Father, in my name, He may give it to you. Whatever you ask in the name of my Father, in the name of the Father, He may give it to you. Is that true or not? Then John chapter 16, they're anticipating the loss of the Savior that he's been preparing them for. Verse 22, he says, Therefore, you too now have sorrow, but I will see you again. And your heart will rejoice and no one takes your joy away from you. And in that day, you ask me no question. Truly, truly, I say to you, here we go. If you ask the father for anything, he will give it to you in my name. You can see again and again that the key are those words in my name. Because, listen, we all as believers have asked the Father for things we haven't gotten. Is that not true? You think of the multiple times in your life where you've been in a crisis or in a situation and you've asked the Father and you didn't get what you asked for. Well, let's go back to 1 John and chapter 5. This paragraph starts off with these great words concerning our eternal assurance and security. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. In other words, believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is who he says he is, that he's Lord, he's God, that he's Jesus, the Savior, that he's the Christ, that he's the one promised in the Old Testament and the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies. Okay? These things I have written to you who believe in the name, trust in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life. And of course, faith is the assurance or the being sure of things not seen. And faith always has to be based on the truth of God's word. If we don't have the word of God, then specifically, we don't know what does he promise? What does he said? You know, we wouldn't even know to ask in his name. But we know it because we have the Word of God. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. Know on the basis of what? Well, on the basis of the fact that you trusted Christ and now God says that means I have saved you. And so the foundation is God's Word. So, the person that would come at this book and say, well, I don't believe it's God's Word, there's no way to go with that. I mean, until a person comes to see that it's God's Word and His Word is truth and therefore is reliable and I can count on it every day, all day, throughout all eternity, God's going to keep His Word. And it goes on to say this, and this is the confidence, I love that, are you confident about this? And this is the confidence that we have before Him that if we ask anything, now the words are a little different. According to His will, it's the same thing as in my name. You know, I've always struggled with this, but if you authorize someone to do something in your name, you are authorizing them to do it according to your will. You don't expect that they're going to go and use your name to do whatever they want to do. That's not what we're talking about. In my name means in the name of Jesus Christ, who is absolutely obedient to the Father. And therefore, this whole thing is absolutely revolves around the word of God. And the promise of God and the truth of God. And which all distills down to the will of God. You cannot ask God for anything that is His will, in faith, in prayer, through Christ, and not have it. And you know, the thing that is so interesting to me is most of our prayers are out in the fringe areas. Do you know what I mean by that? Instead of biting into the meat of this, which is, all right, I'm going to go to the Word of God. I'm going to find out what his will is, and then I'm going to ask him about those things, because I know for sure that I'll have those things. You know, for instance, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. So I look at myself, I say, I'm pitiful at it. Is it God's will? that I love my wife as Christ loved the church. Is it? Yes. So I can go to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ and say, Lord, I want you to work this in me. We're not interested in that stuff. You know what I mean? We're always out here on the fringe. I would really like the Lord to do this. We don't know. You could go through Scripture 16 times and not find anything in there that says that this is his will. It's not revealed that it is. I'm not saying it isn't, but it's not there. And so I just think about this so often. Our prayer lives are mostly, maybe I'm being wrong, but I'm afraid mostly We're out there in those areas where we're just saying, I hope. I hope it's his will. Maybe it is. Kind of like playing the lottery. Instead of going to the things that are foundational to the word of God and clearly presented as his will and saying, Lord, you work this in me. You do this because you said it's your will. Do it. And I'll tell you something, the Lord will do it. And this is the confidence which we have before him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, notice, if we ask anything according to his will, which is the same as in his name, in the name of Jesus Christ, And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know, is this powerful? We know that we have the request which we have asked from him. This is so in cement that from the point of asking, according to the will of God, you know you have it. You get what I'm saying? Now God's going to work out the doing of it and so forth, but you know he can't do anything other than work out the doing of this. All right. Go from there to Romans chapter eight. Now, remember, the Lord was talking about if you ask anything in my name and then he said also, and I will send a helper to help you and you'll do greater things than I've done. OK. Verse 26, Paul explains something here, this wonderful passage. And in the same way, the spirit also helps. Isn't that a great word? He helps because he's what? The helper. I will send you a helper, another helper. And in the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness. Now, Paul starts to zero in on some of our weakness. And this is a huge area of our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should. In other words, there are tons of areas in which our lives are affected that we do not know what God's will is. You'd have to agree with that one. You can't find in Scripture that God says one way or the other what he's going to do. In fact, you may find examples where in one case he did one thing and then just the opposite in another. You know, I think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they say, our Lord is able to deliver us. Basically, we don't know whether he will or not. But he's able and they go into the fiery furnace and what happens? They're delivered. But we can find other people in Scripture who weren't delivered, you know, and when they ended up in the lion's mouth, the lion chewed him up and they went to be with the Lord. James, the brother of John, you think of James, lost in the early church, martyred, killed. Stephen, you know, and so Can you imagine being a believer, listening to Stevens address this council? You know, that powerful, powerful passage in Acts where he just cutting them to shreds. And I can't, I can't imagine that there were believers there and they're looking around the council and say, oh, they're getting so angry. This could be really, really bad. I have to believe there were some people there doing that and saying, Lord, protect Stephen. And especially when he's brought out. Now it's getting right down, he's just ticking up rocks. If I were here, I'd say, Lord, Lord, deliver him, do a miracle. We do not know how to pray as we should. Because it's very clear that it was not God's will to deliver Stephen at that point. It wasn't. Or he would have been delivered. And so, there are so many of these areas where we do not know. And I'll tell you, it makes me upset when people declare something is God's will when it's in this category of they don't know. You know, when one person says. God must hear me. No. He may hear you. He can hear you. It's my prayer that he will heal you. But I don't know. I don't know how long your race is. You know, your race may be short. And the Lord may take you home, and I don't know. And, you know, for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has confidence in the plan of God and adores God for his choices in these things, do you really want to be here if he doesn't want you here? Not that you could be, but you know what I mean by that? Do you really do you really want your way? As opposed to. So, OK, I'll deal with that in a minute, verse 26, and in the same way, The Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. This is the helper doing this. And I look at it this way. The Holy Spirit takes my prayers that should be labeled, he does not know how to pray as he should, and it comes out of the agony in my heart, the desire in my heart, whatever, comes out to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit translates it into the will of God. I have great confidence in that. And so really, for the believer in Jesus Christ, There is no such thing as unanswered prayer. You got that? There's no such thing as unanswered prayer. What we mean when we say my prayer wasn't answered, I didn't get what I asked for. But the answer was no. See, the answer was not that, but this. You see it again and again in scripture. People ask for certain things. Sometimes they got them. Sometimes they did not. But in every case, that's answered prayer. Just like a kid asks his dad to do something and his dad says, no, we're not doing that. That's not an unanswered request. It's very much an answer. It just wasn't the answer the kid wanted. But to the degree we know our God, we revel in his no's. Get that? We say, that's wonderful because I don't want a yes when it should be no. I mean, we're taking these prayers, not to our friends. You know what I mean? We're not going to our friends who are saying, well, you know, I think. And sometimes the stuff you get is just totally off the wall, you know. We're not taking our requests before our friends. We're not even taking them before our wise friends. We're taking them to the one who knows everything. and who loves me and has a perfect plan for my life and was working all things after the counsel of his own will. That's the one that we're taking the request to. And if he says no, then you should breathe a sigh of relief and say, I'm so glad I didn't get what I asked for because it wasn't the right thing. So I said this and in the same and the Holy Spirit is doing this for us. That's the wonderful truth. The Holy Spirit is taking these requests. And if I think of it humorously, here comes another wrong one. OK, and it's going to be made right. Because the believer's heart is Lord, I want what you want. Now, sometimes we're fighting that. We know that. But then I ask the question, do you really want what's wrong? In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Even if you knew the words, what the Holy Spirit is doing is beyond words. And he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is. Notice, here's this great thing. Because he, the Spirit, intercedes, prays on our behalf for the saints according to what? The will of God. So, now we're put together. If you ask me anything according to my will, I will do it. I ask that which is not according to his will. The Holy Spirit takes it and makes it what is according to his will. God has to answer the prayer of the Holy Spirit. It's an ironclad thing that the Holy Spirit is doing for me to conform me to these promises that the Father will do whatever I ask. What a wonderful protection, you know, bringing up the kids again. We understand this as parents who are looking at what our child is asking and we're saying, you know, that just wouldn't be good for you. That would not be good at all. And so we look at it and say, I did a great thing for my kid. I did not let him, you know, whatever it is he wanted to do. Because it wouldn't have been good for him. He wouldn't have been protected. You know, whatever it is. And yet, it's the Father, our Father, that is protecting us in the same way as we come and we don't know how to pray as we should. And so we come and we do often ask for things that wouldn't be best. In Hebrews 4, in verse 14, since then, we have a great high priest. Who's that high priest? Jesus Christ. This is this, who has passed through the heavens, the Lord Jesus Christ ascended through the heavens, the atmosphere, outer space, and then into heaven itself. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. You start to put this together, you start to see the Lord's always looking out for my weaknesses. He gave me the Holy Spirit. to take care of my weakness as far as prayer is concerned. Now he's given me what? A great high priest who knows about my weaknesses. It says, who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. Now, I suppose we could talk for a year about what does that confidence entail? Well, certainly it's a confidence that everything we ask in the name of the son. He will do OK, but also the confidence, I believe that we've been looking at this morning, that the answer is the right answer. If the answer wasn't the right answer, how could the Lord say to us in everything, give thanks everything. We would segment it out and we would say, this week I had 24 things that were good that I can be thankful for. But I also had 36 things that didn't go the way I wanted them to, so I didn't thank the Lord for those. And we totally missed that word in everything gives thanks. Well, how can you do that? Only when you realize That your assessment of what's good and what's bad for you isn't necessarily the final say on it. And I'm so convinced of this, I know you're probably sick of hearing it, but when does God become so important to us that we're really listening? And my answer to that is when I'm really under pressure. When things are not at all going the way I want. When I asked the Lord, Lord, take this away, and he didn't. You know, you think of Paul. Three times I asked the Lord. And what did the Lord say? No! He said, my grace is sufficient for you. Well, that meant that Paul needed that situation. It was important for him. Are we better than Paul? There are going to be things in our lives that we need. We need to go through. You know, I think about how we live in a day when this isn't understood that well, but you think about if your child that you're raising never has any difficulty in his life, You're growing up this sissy, namsy, pandy kid that has no idea what life is about. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes they say, Mom, you take care of this, you take care of that. She's running over here, she's running... You know, doing all these things so that... He just has no wants that aren't immediately met. You think, how does that compare with what's going to happen to him when he hits the road? Do you know what I mean? There's not going to be this person running around and combing his hair and doing everything for him. It's not going to happen. And I look and I say, you know, that's me. I want as a Christian, I just want it all good. I want no bumps in my road. And really what I'm saying is I don't want any tests in my faith. I don't want any. I don't want to have to get right down to it. You know, do I really trust the Lord or not? And I see again and again in Scripture that God purposely tested his people. I always come back to Gideon. How many thousands of people show up? That's too many. If I'm Gideon, I'm saying, what? Look at the size of that enemy. And so they send everybody home that's afraid, and a whole bunch of people go, and they're down to, I think, around 10,000 or something like that. And I think Gideon's shaking there, looking, oh, we've only got 10,000. The Lord said, still too many. So we get down to 300, where it becomes absolutely apparent that there has to be the miraculous work of God, or we're all going to die. And that's where the Lord wanted it. So that when it was all over, Gideon couldn't say, you know, it was a brilliant campaign I waged there and all my troops are just great. He couldn't do that. All he could say is the battle forwards and the victory was God's doing. And so often that's where we're at in our lives. We've got to be up against it. Have you ever noticed this? You have a plan, things go well in your plan, you do it. Who takes credit? The other day I came up with this new way of doing this and that. It's all about me. The Lord puts us in places where it becomes very apparent that we don't have what it takes. Father, I would thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ as your yes to us as far as our prayers are concerned in his name, according to your will, Father. with the powerful work of the Holy Spirit interceding, coming through to and through our great High Priest, Father, to you. What a wonderful provision, Father, always getting the absolute perfect answer to our prayers. We thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.