Whatever We Ask
Rev. Res Spears
Walking in Truth and Love • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I have been surprised at just how much preaching has in common with journalism.
When I left the newspaper industry in 2017, I really thought that all that kind of work was now in my rearview mirror. But during the past few years as pastor at Liberty Spring Christian Church, I’ve come to see many similarities.
I like to talk about how I still deliver the news, except now it’s the Good News of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
But that’s just scratching the surface of the similarities. My mentor, for example, was so excited when I became a pastor, because, according to him, I already knew one of the keys to understanding and explaining Scripture: asking the 5 Ws — who, what, when, where, and why — of each particular passage.
Then there’s the writing, of course. I write as much or more today as I ever did as a reporter or editor. The newspaper stories were shorter, and there were more of them each week than the messages I teach and preach, but the total word count of what I write each week is usually greater these days than it was back then.
But one of the similarities between journalism and preaching that has surprised me is the repetitive cycle.
As editor at the Suffolk News-Herald, which was a daily newspaper back then, I’d edit my reporters’ copy, and I’d write my editorial and, perhaps, a column, and we’d design the paper, send it to press, and go home.
And then we’d come in the next day and do it all again. And the day after that, we’d do it all again.
It was easy feel like you were caught on a hamster wheel, just going round and round and round.
I’ll admit that preaching can feel the same sometimes. I’ll open the Bible to this week’s passage, study it, read some commentaries on it, pray about it, discover the main point, figure out how to present it, and then write 3,000 or so words to bring that point into focus for you.
And then, after Sunday’s service, I set aside those pages, and start all over again for the following week. Rinse and repeat.
I haven’t felt like a hamster on a wheel yet, but there is a danger to this process that I’ve sometimes struggled to avoid. And that’s the mistake of thinking that I’m only as good as my next sermon.
You’re all acutely aware, I’m sure, that your pastor is human and fallible — prone to sin, no less than anybody else.
And one of the sins I struggle against — one that’s common within vocational ministry — is the sin of thinking that God’s acceptance of me depends upon my own performance.
Thinking that God’s love for me depends on how well I do what I do up here, rather than how faithfully I simply follow His calling for my life.
And connected to that sin is the sin of thinking that ANYTHING I do or say up here is responsible for your spiritual growth or your salvation.
Your salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit, and your spiritual growth is a work of the Spirit and your obedience. And anything I might say up here that contributes to those things within you is ITSELF a work of the Spirit, not my own abilities.
I tell you all this, because today I feel like a failure as a preacher. Today as we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, we’re going to look at a passage that’s got me stumped.
I’ve studied it, and I’ve prayed about it, and God hasn’t given me clarity about it, at least not on how to present it.
I’ve read commentaries about it from half a dozen of the most respected Bible scholars of the past hundred years, and they all confidently disagree upon its message. Indeed, the disagreements over the message in this passage go back many hundreds of years.
I could spend time sharing the different interpretations with you and let you make up your own minds. But I’m wary of presenting interpretations that don’t seem to fit within the context of this letter. And I can’t present others that aren’t clear even to me.
And so, I stand here today wondering whether I’ve failed you, wondering whether I’ve failed God, and praying that He’ll remind me that He doesn’t love me any less when I’m ignorant than when I’m astute.
Let’s read this passage together, and then I’ll briefly explain the problem before focusing on the part of the passage for which I DO have clarity.
19 We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him
20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.
Now, those first three verses are where the trouble lies. In English, they have a complicated grammatical structure. In the Greek, it’s even more complex. The problem is exacerbated by the various translations of a few of the Greek words.
And recalling that basic doctrine of theology, which says that one verse follows another verse and that the two are usually related somehow, we also have to ask how this passage fits into John’s argument that sacrificial love for one another is one of the evidences of a Christian’s fellowship with God.
I really don’t believe, as some would have it, that John has simply digressed from his argument to talk about how we can be assured that God has forgiven our sins.
It seems to me that this passage MUST be connected to the one that we studied last week, where he said that when we see a brother or sister in Christ who is in need, and we have the means to help, we should help.
But I haven’t been able to find or come up with an interpretation that both connects the two passages and solves the other problems I’ve mentioned.
The best I could find was from Daniel Akin, who wrote this: “When we refuse to love in action and truth [that’s what John was talking about in verse 18], God, who is greater than our hearts in kindness and generosity, motivates us to resist the hardness of heart that would refuse to show compassion to those in need.... [And] God is able to judge, because He is all-knowing. His omniscience strengthens and encourages us, but it also challenges us, for we know that He knows everything and will require an accounting of service done on His behalf.” [Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 164.]
I DO think this comes very close to what John is saying here. And that’s where I’m going to leave it for today, because there’s an important lesson about prayer that is very clear in the next part of this passage. And I want to focus on THAT for the remainder of my time this morning.
Setting aside the difficulties in the previous verses, this passage deals with what love in action does for the follower of Jesus who loves the way that Jesus loves.
And what John says here in verse 21 is that if our heart doesn’t condemn us — in other words, if we’re DOING what we’re commanded to do, if we’re loving one another sacrificially — then we can have confidence before God.
Now, this word, “confidence” means boldness, and it has the sense of the directness and sincerity and honesty with which a child can approach a good father.
And, as verse 22 makes clear, John is talking about prayer here.
Isn’t it wonderful to know that God thinks of our prayers the same way a good father might think of his child sitting by his knee and asking for help with a problem?
In prayer, we come before a God who is high and lifted up. But he stoops down in His grace and mercy to hold us and to listen to us as beloved children.
That’s pretty awesome, right? But what’s even more wonderful is what John says next, that God is eager to give us what we ask Him for.
But, as John says here, there are conditions. He presents two of them in this verse, and we find five others when we look at the rest of Scripture.
So, in our remaining time together today, I want us to take a look at these seven conditions for answered prayer. And I want you to examine your own prayer life and see whether you’re meeting these conditions.
The first condition is obedience. John calls it “keeping His commandments.” In fact, as we see in verse 24, it’s one commandment — singular — to “believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another.”
Here, John brings together two linchpins of the Christian life, faith and love. In fact, the two are inseparable.
As one commentator put it, “You cannot believe without loving, nor love without believing.” [R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St. Jude (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966), 479.]
Now, believing in the name of Jesus is about more than simply agreeing to the facts about Him. It’s about accepting Him completely as who He is, the divine Son of God, the man who is and was without sin, the promised Messiah sent to save mankind from their sins.
Believing in the name of Jesus Christ is about trusting that He is who He said He is and that He will do what He said He will do and then allowing that understanding to change how you live.
That’s why loving one another can’t be separated from the command to believe in Jesus. In light of who He is and what He has done, if we believe in Him — if we follow Him — then we’ll be becoming people who love as He loves, sacrificially and without expecting that love to be returned.
So, obedience to this dual commandment is the first key to answered prayer. Not that our obedience somehow obligates God to us, but that our obedience in these things is the very most basic condition of answered prayer.
Next, John says that doing “the things that are pleasing in His sight” is another condition. The psalmist put it this way:
18 If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;
Solomon put it this way:
29 The Lord is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.
And James said “the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”
None of us can approach the throne of grace without sin. But what we MUST do, if we wish for God to hear and answer us, is come to Him in repentance for our sins, truly desiring to turn from them.
We CANNOT be holding onto our sins and expect God to release His blessings over us.
If you want God to answer your prayers, then one of the first things you need to be praying for is forgiveness for your sins. And you need to be actively working to eliminate them from your life.
So, John gives us obedience and righteous behavior as conditions for answered prayer. But those aren’t the only conditions. We see others scattered throughout the Bible. Let’s talk about the other five.
If we want God to answer our prayers, we need to be praying according to His will.
John returns to this topic of prayer in chapter 5, verse 14 of this letter.
14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
So, what does it mean to ask according to God’s will?
Well, it certainly means that you’re not asking for things that are contrary to what He has revealed in His Word, things that are contrary to righteousness, things that are evil.
So, don’t ask God to bless that affair. Don’t ask Him to help you to get away with cheating on your taxes. He won’t hear those prayers.
Asking according to God’s will means that your prayer requests are aligned with His priorities. It means that YOU want what HE wants.
In the 37th Psalm, King David put it this way:
4 Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
If you delight yourself in the Lord, then you’re finding joy and contentment in Him and in the things that bring Him glory.
And when you find joy and contentment in those things, those are the kinds of things that you’ll be asking for in prayer. Those will be the desires of your heart.
And this leads us to the next condition for answered prayer: that we’re praying for things that bring God glory. We see this in the Book of James:
2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
The problem James was addressing here was a group of believers with selfish motives for their prayers. They were hurting one another and asking for things that would only increase their pleasure in life.
They were treating God like a genie in a bottle, expecting that He would respond to their every wish as if He had some duty to make them comfortable and happy.
The problem with this approach is that it redirects the proper focus of prayer from God onto ourselves. Will it glorify God for you to have a new boat? Well, probably not, and so that’s probably not something you ought to be praying for.
Will it glorify Him for you to be healed from some disease or malady? Perhaps, especially if you’re going to be the type of person who’s proclaiming that miracle from the rooftops.
But it might bring Him greater glory for you to show yourself full of joy and hope, even as you remain unhealed. And so, prayers for healing should always be offered in the recognition that God’s will is sovereign and that His plan is best.
Will it glorify God for you to be given a chance to witness to someone today? Absolutely, and that’s just the kind of prayer that aligns with His will, the kind of prayer that shows you delight yourself in Him.
So, we have obedience and righteousness as conditions for answered prayer in 1 John. And we have praying according to God’s will and for God’s glory as two others.
Jesus gave us another condition when He gave instructions regarding prayer to His disciples. We see this in Mark, chapter 11:
25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.
Unforgiveness is a cancer upon your soul. When we who have been forgiven for all of our sins live with unforgiveness, it suggests that we thinks we has some greater right to retribution against those who have wronged us than God has against us.
We who follow Jesus in faith have been forgiven and redeemed. We who were rebels against His kingdom — enemies of God — have graciously been brought into His kingdom and into His family as sons and daughters.
How can we accept that grace and then not extend it to others?
When Peter asked Jesus how many times a brother must be forgiven for sinning against him, Peter thought he was being generous in suggesting seven times. But Jesus said to forgive “up to seventy times seven.”
And then, Jesus told the parable of the wicked servant, where a man who owed his master more than he could repay in a lifetime was forgiven his debt and then turned around and beat another man who owed HIM a few months’ wages.
The master’s response to this was to ask, “Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?”
If you want God to hear your prayers and answer them, come to Him without grudges, recognizing that it is only by His grace that the you’ve been forgiven a debt far greater than any you might think you’re owed by someone else.
So, obedience and righteous behavior. According to God’s will and for His glory. With a forgiving heart.
The next condition for answered prayer might seem like a formula, but it’s much more than that. It’s praying in the name of Jesus. He talked about this at the Last Supper, and we see it in John, chapter 16.
23 “In 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.
Now, the way we often pray — and I’m as guilty of this as anybody else — is to say whatever it is we have to say and then to add, “In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
That’s why I said it might sound like a formula. We tend to add “in Jesus’ name” as if it’s some set of magic words that’ll cause God to sit up and pay attention.
But in reality, praying in the name of Jesus means we’re coming to God not on our own authority, but rather with the authority of His Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
In His High Priestly Prayer later that night, Jesus said His Father had given Him authority over all flesh. He said that all that belongs to God belong to Him and vice versa.
He said that we who follow Him belong to God, because we belong to Jesus. And He said that the glory God gave Him, He has given to His followers, so that we all may be one in Christ.
And so, when we come to God in the name of Jesus — in Jesus’ authority — we can come with confidence, to the extent that we’ve met the other conditions for answered prayer.
We are, essentially, not asking on our own behalf, but on behalf of God’s Son.
And with that in mind, the final condition for answered prayer — faith in God’s promises — becomes obvious. Here’s what James wrote about prayer that is full of faith:
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
There’s a reason I left faith for last among the conditions for answered prayer.
And that’s because if we’re approaching God in obedience to the command to believe in Jesus and love one another; if we’re coming to Him as people who are acting righteously and repenting of our sins; if we’re praying according to His will and for His glory; if we’re coming with forgiving hearts; and if we’re coming to Him in the authority of His Son — then coming to Him in faith that He will hear us, that He will forgive us, that he will accomplish His will and increase His glory, and that He will honor His Son is the only thing that makes sense!
He is the God who keeps His promises. He is the God who loves His children. He is the God who says that if we’ll do these things, He WILL answer. He is the God who says for us to approach Him with confidence — boldly.
This week, as you pray, I want to encourage you to pray like this. And prepare to be amazed at how He answers. He surely answered me when I prayed about this message. He’ll answer you, too.