Gospel in Life

Guest (Female): Welcome to Gospel in Life. What keeps your faith from unraveling when trouble comes your way? On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples to not let their hearts be afraid. Today Tim Keller shows us how Jesus offers a new kind of confidence that is rooted in something far more secure than our circumstances.

Today's Scripture is from the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verses 12 through 15.

"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. If you love me, keep my commands." The word of the Lord.

Tim Keller: The night before Jesus died, he trains his disciples, getting them ready to go out into the world to represent him. That's what we're studying in John chapter 13 through 17. Jesus knew this: God sent Jesus into the world to say the things he said and do the things he did, and it got him killed.

Jesus is sending us out into the world to say the things he said and do the things he did, and we should probably expect at least a hard time. Because of that, Jesus, knowing all this, in John chapter 14, he gives his disciples, and therefore us, gifts for the journey. We've been looking at them. He talks about hope for the future and peace for the present and knowing God.

In the book and the movie *Lord of the Rings*, the good guys are on a quest. At one point they go to a place where they are given mighty gifts for their quest. They are magic vials and swords and daggers and things like that. They're all given these great gifts to help them on this incredible quest. In some ways, that's what Jesus is doing right here. He's giving us things that will fortify us and that will equip us for the very difficult work of being his representatives in the world. One of those great gifts is prayer.

If anybody out there is saying, "Oh, yeah, I know that. What else?" You don't know that. I don't think any of us know that. It's one of the mighty gifts that he gives us to get us ready for a difficult life. Therefore, let's take a look at it. It's a very brief passage. In fact, I would go so far, even though I'm going to refer to all the verses, in a sense, everything we need to know about prayer is locked in one verse.

We're going to look at the power of prayer, the conditions for prayer, the purpose of prayer, and the foundation of prayer. It's all in verse 13. "I will do whatever you ask"—that's the power of prayer. "In my name"—that's the conditions of prayer. "So that the Father may be glorified"—that's the purpose of prayer. "In the Son"—that's the foundation. Let's start with the power of prayer: "And I will do whatever you ask."

It is so tempting for me as a minister to immediately run on and say, "Oh, but that does not mean..." and start to look at the conditions. Let me at least say you can't pull this thing out of context. Don't forget, Jesus is sending them into the world. Verse 12 says, "I'm sending you into the world to do even greater things than I have done." That verse is worth a whole sermon in itself.

The consensus of theologians and commentators over the years is Jesus is saying, "Because I'm going to the Father and I will be sending the Holy Spirit into the world in a new way, you will actually be able to bring about greater transformation in the world than anyone has ever been able to do, including me while I was on earth." The idea of his death and his resurrection, his ascension, is going to equip them to do great works.

Don't forget this gift of prayer is being given to people who are passionate in mission, who want to go out there and serve the world as those who love our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is a gift for them. It's not a genie of the lamp thing where if you rub me in the right way, I'll give you whatever you want. It says whatever you ask in mission, in my name, for the glory of God.

Obviously, there are a lot of caveats. We're going to get to them. But I'm afraid if we don't take at least a minute to stop and just be amazed at the power of this anyway. In spite of the caveats, in spite of the conditions, in spite of all the other things we're going to say, let's just rest for a second and think about the power of what we just are being told. Let's boil it down. Here's what it says. The Lord of the universe says, "You ask, I do."

James chapter 5 talks about Elijah, who, as you remember, was confronting Ahab, the wicked king. He prayed that there wouldn't be any rain, and then he prayed that there would be, and God answered his prayer. James 5 draws a lesson. First of all, he says, "Elijah was a man like us." James is first of all trying to say Elijah was a prophet, but he's a man like us. Then he says he prays for rain and God hears. Then he says, "Therefore prayer can have great power and produce wonderful results."

John Calvin believed in predestination and that God is in control of everything. It's amazing what John Calvin says when he comments on James chapter 5 and Elijah praying for rain. Here's a guy who believes everything is under God's control. Here's what John Calvin says: "It was a notable event for God to put heaven, in some sense, under the control of Elijah's prayers, to be obedient to his requests. From Elijah we may see the miraculous power of prayer."

Calvin is being careful. He says "in some sense." He doesn't believe that somehow in our prayer we can somehow grab control of the universe out of God's hands. But he's still saying that prayer is a gift God, in his goodness, makes the world susceptible to our prayers. "It was a notable event for God to put heaven, in some sense, under the control of Elijah's prayers." That's power. So here's the Lord of the universe saying, "You ask, I do." Let's not miss that.

There's a great story that drives that home. Austin Phelps, who wrote a book back in the early 1800s on prayer called *The Still Hour*. It's a great little book on prayer. In the book, there's a story he tells about Æthelfrith. Æthelfrith was the pagan Saxon king of Northumbria in the 7th century AD. He was invading Wales. The Welsh, however, were Christians. The Saxons were invading the Welsh, and the Welsh were Christians.

One day before the battle, Æthelfrith goes up to a high place to survey the opposing army to figure out what he's going to do. He notices a company of men over here that don't have any—they're not armed. But there they are. He says, "Who are they?" One of his counselors says, "Oh, those are the Christian monks of Bangor, and they are there to pray for the success of their army." Æthelfrith says, "Oh, okay. Tomorrow when we begin the battle, attack them first." Austin Phelps says the pagan Saxon king of Northumbria had a better grasp of the power of prayer than the average Christian.

So there's the power of prayer. But yes, it doesn't just say, "Ask whatever you ask and I will do." It is, and it says, "And I will do whatever you ask in my name." Right away let's get into the most famous condition of prayer. Prayer depends not just on asking, but asking in my name. What does it mean to come to God in the name of Jesus? It means at least two things, and in a sense, they're both conditions. Prayer depends on who you are and why you come.

Who are you? A Christian. To come in Jesus' name is to mean you come and Jesus' name is upon you. In Jesus' day, how did you get someone's name put on you? Marriage or adoption. We know that in the Bible the metaphor of adoption is the one that the New Testament writers use to convey the nature of prayer. Jesus taught us to pray "Our Father." That's how you start. John chapter 1 says, "As many as received him who believed on his name, he gave right to become children of God."

Born of God, children of God. Right. When you're adopted, it's a legal thing. You're adopted and you legally come in under the care of your new father and mother, and you have rights—rights of inheritance and, of course, one of the rights is access. Therefore, what we're being told in the New Testament over and over again is as a Christian, prayer is your right.

There are places in the Bible, just for the record, where we see God hearing the prayers of non-believers. Go to the book of Jonah, chapter 3 and go to 1 Kings 21. You'll see other places where God hears and answers the prayers of people who are not believers. But there's no obligation, there's no agreement, there's no arrangement. But what we're being told is if you're a Christian to have a father who's open to hearing your needs day and night, that's your right. That's your privilege. To come in Jesus' name means you come as a Christian. That's the first condition.

The second condition is it does have something to do with not just who you are, but why you come. It does have something to do with the conditions of your heart, the motives of your heart. To come in someone else's name instead of your name means you're not coming in your name. R.A. Torrey was a famous Christian minister about a hundred years ago. He also traveled around the world preaching. He was in Melbourne, Australia, and he was about to get up—he was preaching every evening—he was about to go up to the platform to preach, and someone gave him an anonymous note.

It wasn't signed. It was somebody in the audience. The anonymous note said, "Please, Dr. Torrey, when you get up there, talk about unanswered prayer. I'm really, really concerned. I don't understand unanswered prayer." Here's what the note said: "Dear Dr. Torrey, I am in great perplexity. I've been praying for a long time for something I am confident is according with God's will, but I do not get it. I've been a member of my Presbyterian church for 30 years and consistent in attendance the entire time. I've been superintendent of the Sunday school for 25 years. I've been an elder for 20 years. Yet God has not answered my prayer. I cannot understand it. Can you help me?"

Reuben Torrey walked up to the podium, read the note aloud and said, "This man thinks that because of all of his service to the church, God is obligated to answer his prayer. He's demanding that God answer his prayer because of all his great service. He's actually not praying in Jesus' name. He's coming in his own name." Right after the service, the man, the anonymous note writer, came up to him and said, "That was me, and you hit the nail on the head." I'm surprised he didn't say, "And you hit me on the head, too," because it must have been—Torrey should have said, "It wasn't after the nail, it was actually after you."

Why would motives matter? Oh, my goodness, why would motives matter? James chapter 4 and 5 are another great place to go to learn about prayer, besides John 14, 15, 16. In James chapter 4, verse 2 and 3, there's two somewhat different statements about how crucial your motives are when it comes to prayer and why in a sense the motives of your heart are conditions because if God gave you things and your heart wasn't right, it would destroy you. In James chapter 4, verse 3, James says, "You ask, but you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend it on your selfish desires."

You ask, but you don't receive because you want to spend it on your selfish desires. I can give you a billion examples, but in interest of time, I'll just give you one. Let's just say you pray, "Oh, I want that job. Please get me that job." But what if you want that job too much? What if you want that job in such a way that if you got that job, you would put your career ahead of your health, put your career ahead of your family, put your career ahead of anything else? What if it'd be the worst thing in the world? You have not because you ask and you don't receive because you want to spend it on your selfish desires. God says, "I'm not going to let you destroy yourself by getting things that you've asked for wrongly and that would only take those bad motives of the heart and make them stronger."

Then James chapter 4, verse 2 says something different, but it's still about motive. James chapter 4, verse 2 says, "You have not because you ask not." James 4:2 and 3 are very famous. You have not because you ask not, but when you do ask, often you ask for selfish reasons and you don't get it. When it says "You have not because you ask not," you say, "Well, why would God hold back good things just because we haven't asked? Think."

What God is saying to us in James chapter 4:2 is he's saying, "I've got tons of great things I'd be happy to give you, but it wouldn't be safe to give them to you unless you fervently prayed for them." You know why? Because if they just came, you would say, "Oh, I don't need God, I'm doing fine." It would make you self-sufficient, it would make you overconfident, it would actually cloud your vision about the reality, which is you're dependent on God for everything. It would set you up for a terrible failure in the future.

God is saying it's another motive problem. "Unless you're fervently asking for things in prayer," he says, "I've got all kinds of things I'd love to give you, but you're not asking for them. I can't give them to you. It would ruin you." Or you're asking in the wrong way. "I'm not going to let that destroy you." You see conditions for prayer? First of all, whatever you ask, I will do if you ask in my name. It means it has to do with who you are and why you're coming.

At this point, some of you are saying, "Okay, let me get this straight. Whatever you ask for I'll give you, but not really." I know at this point in a sermon a lot of people say, "Okay, so you're really saying is I'm not going to give you whatever you ask for. So why does he say it if there's all these caveats and things like that?" The answer is, well, at one level, there are of course unanswered prayer, but at another level there's not if you pray with the purpose of prayer in mind.

Our third point is the purpose of prayer. It says, "I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified." If you use something not in accord with its purpose, you shouldn't complain if it doesn't work right. If you have a space heater that's designed just to enhance the heat in your room and you try to cook some food on it and the food actually doesn't come out very well, you can't say, "What a terrible space heater." You say, "No, the space heater is not for that, and because you're using it not in accord with its purpose, you can't complain if it doesn't work." What is the purpose of prayer?

Is the purpose of prayer to get God to satisfy your desires immediately, or is the purpose of prayer to set your heart on the things that will satisfy your desires ultimately? Which is it? Of course, the answer is the second one. Because what will satisfy your desires ultimately is the glory of God. How does that work out when it comes to prayer?

The best place I know to go to understand this is a wonderful letter that Saint Augustine wrote to a woman, a noblewoman, on how to pray. You can find this online. It doesn't have a title, generally. But if you put in "Saint Augustine prayer" and the woman's name, Anicia Proba—A-N-I-C-I-A P-R-O-B-A—and she was a noblewoman, you know, a wealthy woman, which is important when you see what he's going to say to her. She writes, "How do you pray?" He gives you a number of principles, and I'm only going to give you the first two because they're the ones that matter for us today.

It's a remarkable letter. The first thing he says is, "Before you ask for anything, you've got to get something settled in your mind. You must account yourself desolate in the world, however prosperous you may be." He's talking to a wealthy person at this point, but he says, "You must account yourself desolate in the world, however prosperous you may be." Don't ask for anything until you've settled that.

He goes on to explain that. He says you have to understand that all the health, all the wealth, all the human acclaim and approval, all the power, everything out there in the world that you might find desirable, you have to understand will never bring you any lasting happiness or satisfaction—not at all. You have to understand that the honor you're looking for, the love you're looking for, the satisfaction and fulfillment you're looking for, you will only find in the face and the arms of God. It was Augustine who elsewhere said his maybe most famous line, the beginning of his *Confessions*, where he says to God, "You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee."

What's that got to do with the glory of God? When you only see God's power, you go to him to get things. But when you see his glory, you start to love him not for the things that he gave you, but just for the beauty and the greatness and the glory of who he is in himself. To see the glory of God is to see him as something beautiful and great and someone that you want to love and know him himself, all by himself. In prayer, you're trying to get him. You're trying to see more of his glory because the more you see it and experience it, the more you love him for it.

The more all these other things are good things, but they're not ultimate things anymore. They're fine things. Health is great, wealth is great, career is great, all those things are great. But unless you see that even if you have all those things, you are desolate in the world if you don't have him. To have him means to see his glory, to say glory means his ultimate importance, supreme importance, supreme beauty.

The purpose of prayer is to fix your heart on where true joy is going to be found. Do you get that? That's the first thing. Until you understand that, don't even begin to pray—until you account yourself desolate, no matter how prosperous your circumstances are, until you see what I really need is I need actually to see not just God in some abstract way, I need to see his glory, I need to be attracted to him, I need to sense his beauty, I need to sense his love. He can't be an abstraction to me, because all these other things, they're never going to satisfy me. Got that?

Now, the second thing is, now you can begin to pray. What is the first thing you should ask for? I can just see Augustine smiling when he writes this. He says, "If you did the first thing and you account yourself desolate and you recognize the importance of the Lord God, the very first thing that you ought to pray for is ask God for a really happy life." But you're going to do it in a completely different way and you're going to respond in a very different way when things don't go exactly as you asked.

He gives an example. He says, "Here is the way most people ask for 'give us this day our daily bread,' help me to have enough money, help me to have a job. How do we pray for our material wants?" He says, "Here's how most people pray." He says, "O Lord, give me the amount of wealth that a man or woman of my ability and education deserves." He says, "Here's what you really tend—you look at other people of your experience, your age, your education and your ability, you see how well they're doing, and if you're not doing as well then you say, 'O Lord, you've got to get me a better job.'"

At that point, you are not accounting yourself as desolate regardless of how prosperous your circumstances are. You want that too much. That's too important to you. You've lost the purpose of prayer. The purpose of prayer is not to get God to satisfy your desires immediately, but to set your heart on the things that will satisfy your desires ultimately, which is to know him, to please him, to promote his glory, to serve him, and to become the person he wants you to be, which of course will make you glorious and happy.

Instead, what you say is, "Lord, I need a better job. Give this job to me if in the grand scheme of things it makes me the person you want me to be, if in the grand scheme of things it actually gives me—sets my heart where true happiness should be found." Therefore, when you pray like that, when you know what your purpose is, if you're actually saying, "Lord, I want your glory. I want to serve it, I want to promote it, I want to see it, I want to know it." When that's the purpose, you see that's the purpose of prayer. Then there's a core—you might say there's a kernel and a husk to every one of your prayers.

The kernel is always, "Give me this because I really think it will glorify you, because I really think it'll make me who I should be, because it'll really make me a servant of yours, it'll draw me closer to you, it'll make me more like Jesus." In other words, there's a kernel and then there's the husk, and the husk is, "And I think that job will help me, and I think that relationship will help me, and I think that person will help me." There's two ways to pray, "O Lord, let this person want to marry me." One way is "Because then I'll be happy." The other way is "I want you, I want to know you, I want to become the person you want me to be, which I know is incredibly glorious and wonderful. I want to love you for yourself alone because that's the only way I'm ever going to be able to put everything in proportion, and I think that person marrying me will help me get there."

In that case, there's a kernel which he always answers. In fact, John Calvin actually just bowled me over. John Calvin says, "God always grants our prayers even if he does not respond to the exact form of our request." Isn't that amazing? He always grants our prayer—he's thinking about the kernel—even if he doesn't always give it to you the way you want it, which is the husk. Put another way: God always gives you what you would have asked for if you knew every single thing he knows.

God always gives you what you would have asked for if you knew absolutely everything he knows. Once you understand the purpose of prayer and you put up your prayers, God fixes your requests on the way up so they don't destroy you. But on the other hand, as you pray, if you understand the purpose of prayer, it fixes your heart. It makes you the person you ought to be.

Are you praying like that? When I read Augustine's letter, I say, "Yes, this is it. This is the way to do it." But then I say, "But how do you want the glory of God? That's just too abstract for us. Why would I want the glory of God?" The answer is if you love him because you see what it cost God to open the door of prayer to you. Because it doesn't just end: "And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified." It says, "So that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

When Jesus Christ, the night before he's about to die, talks about glorifying the Father, we all know what he's talking about. The ultimate way he glorified the Father was to die. Therefore, unless you meditate on the death of Jesus Christ as his way of glorifying the Father, you're not going to want to love this God and know his glory.

Here's how it works. Think of it like this. If somebody came to me and said, "I have come in the name of Queen Elizabeth II," I have a lot of respect for Queen Elizabeth II, especially after watching *The Crown*, I especially like—I always liked her before. So I respect all that she's done. So if you come to me and say, "I'm coming in the name of Queen Elizabeth II, she sent me, I'm coming in her name," I'm going to treat her not as you deserve—I may not like you—I'm going to treat her as she deserves because of all that she has done.

What does it mean to come in the name of Jesus Christ to the Father? The Father treats us—the reason why the door is always open to the Father day or night while the Lord of the universe, the omnipotent Lord of the universe says, "Just come to me and ask me, yes, care about your motives, remember what the ultimate purpose of prayer is, but now come and ask, the door's always open." Why is that? Because Jesus deserves that kind of open door but we don't.

If God in prayer treats us as Jesus deserves, you know the only reason why that's possible is because at one point God treated Jesus as we deserve. Here's the great irony: Our answered prayers are all based on Jesus' great unanswered prayer. The reason why God can answer our prayer is because he didn't answer Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Some of you have had shattering experiences of unanswered prayer. What worries me as I preach a sermon like this, what worries me is that some of you are going to be saying, "You're just giving me all kinds of weaselly reasons why I shouldn't feel bad that something I asked for that was really important I didn't get and it was shattering to me." Well, I don't think up to now I have given you a good answer. "Well, you have to know that it might not have been the best thing for you," all that sort of thing. Those things are cold comfort. But here's maybe the only thing that might comfort you: God knows. God himself actually knows the shattering experience of unanswered prayer.

God came to earth in Jesus Christ, he went into the Garden of Gethsemane and he saw the wrath of God that he was going to have to drink. It was called the cup. He knew when he went to the cross he was going to suffer the penalty of sin for the human race because of our sin. He was in the garden and he says, "Father, let this cup pass from me. I don't think I can bear it." And the answer was no.

Psalm 69 says, "If I cherish iniquity in my heart, he will not hear me." There was a minister that came to Gordon-Conwell, our seminary—I wasn't there that day—but came and spoke in chapel on Psalm 69. "If I cherish iniquity in my heart, he will not hear me." Everybody who was there was just devastated because he was just saying, "Here's what the Bible says. Unless you are just dead on the sin in your heart, if you cherish it, if you nurture it, if you support it in any way, why should God hear you? God will shut the door." Everybody was just devastated by it. Well, Jesus Christ had no iniquity in his heart. Why was the door shut on him? He got the shut door so that when we come in his name, the door's always open.

Luke chapter 11, Jesus was teaching his disciples on prayer, and he says, "If you fathers, if your son comes and asks you for a fish, will you give him a scorpion or a snake? Your son asks you for a fish to eat, are you going to give him a scorpion or snake?" Then he says, "If you who are evil give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" It's a marvelous statement.

He's saying even you flawed human beings, mothers, fathers, you so want your child to be happy. God is a perfect Father, which means he wants you—he wants more happiness for you than you want for your own child. You go, "I can't be." Well, yes, he does. Listen, no father on the earth wants joy and well-being for his son or daughter like your heavenly Father wants joy and well-being for you. Jesus says, "You know why it's possible? Because I got the scorpion, I got the snake so you could have the fish."

We're like an eight-year-old boy who's crying because his truck broke and then somebody comes walking in and says, "Hey, a distant relative just died and left you a hundred million dollars." You know what that eight-year-old boy is going to do? He's going to keep crying. He won't be consoled at all. Why? Because he doesn't have the capacity to take it in. All he knows is he wants the truck.

God comes and says, "Glory. You're adopted, you're mine, I love you, I'm going to take you to live with me forever. I've put my Holy Spirit in you, you're justified, you're accepted, your sins have been taken away." And then you say, "But I didn't get that job." Augustine says, "Set your heart where true joys are to be found." That's the first purpose of prayer, and after that then just ask for everything and you'll see powerful effects.

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the gift of prayer. I think everyone in this room has to respond to these words of Jesus in a different way. There are people here who have never actually had his name put on them by putting their faith in you and asking that you accept them because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there's also plenty of us in this room that we have to admit we do not use prayer the way we should. Our motives are wrong, we've lost sight of the purpose. In fact, a lot of us just don't pray, and there are so many good things you want to put in our lives but you can't because we haven't asked.

O Lord, enrich us. Make us vehicles for incredible blessing to the people around us because we finally pray. Make us able to face anything in this life because we finally pray. And we ask for prayer in prayer, through Jesus and his name we ask it. Amen.

Guest (Female): Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. To find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelinlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2017. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.