Sermon Tone Analysis

*Joy and Prayer*

 

April 5, 2009

*John 16:24*

* *

Last week we heard a message about irrevocable joy.

On this Palm Sunday as we contemplate what Jesus was about to face, what better verse to remember than John 16:/22./

Jesus promises in this verse: / //So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

/What a glorious promise!

Everlasting joy! Today we’ll focus on another promise connected with joy and it is found in two verses.

John 16:24 /Until now you have asked nothing in my name.

Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full/.

What did Jesus say in John 15:11?  /These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full./

Jesus came to change you – to give you joy.

But first you must ask.

God to God in prayer because, Henry Blackaby says, Prayer is not designed to change God, it is designed to change us.

Prayer is not calling God in to bless our activities.

Rather, prayer takes us into God's presence, shows us His will, and prepares us to obey Him.

God will use your prayer times to soften your heart and change your focus.

As you pray for others, the Holy Spirit will work in your heart so that you have the same compassion for them that God does (Rom.

8:26–27).

If you do not love people as you should, pray for them.

If you are not as active in God's service as you know He wants you to be, begin praying.

You cannot be intimately exposed to God's heart and remain complacent.

The time spent with God will change you and make you more like Christ.

The time spent in prayer will increase your joy.

As Blackaby said, “Prayer changes you.”

And, you do want to be changed, don’t you?

I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t crave to be more joyful.

We were made in His image.

He is joy!

And God built into us an overwhelming desire for both love and joy.

/ /

In our key text today, we read:/ Until now you have asked nothing in my name.

Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

/

Christians are sometimes asked, /Are you willing to /surrender all joy if by this God would be more glorified?

The point of the question is to hang Christians on one horn or the other of a dilemma.

If we say no, then we seem to put our happiness above God's glory.

If we say, yes, then presumably we cease to be Christians, because we have stopped pursuing joy.

But our verse today assures us we do not have to give up our pursuit for joy.

Inner joy, like inner peace, is an inner craving which God has planted in our hearts.

Joy is from the Spirit of God.

It’s evidence of God in us isn’t it?

We glorify God by bearing fruit – the fruit of His Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self –control (Gal 5:22-24) We are to, as Isaiah said of Israel /“take root and bear fruit/” (Is 37:31).

In Romans 6, Paul reminds us that we have been set free from sin to become fruit bearing slaves to holiness (Rom 6:22), then a few verses later in Chapter 7, he says we are married to Christ for the purpose of bearing fruit.

So, keep on pursuing joy.

This pursuit is in God’s interest and will bring Him glory.

We Christians should  pursue our joy with all our might.

Therefore, the pursuit of our best interest and our true joy is always /in/ God's best interest.

One of the most precious truth in the Bible is that God's greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of his grace by making sinners joyful in him.

Listen to this montage of a few Scriptures on joy: /Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord, exulting in his salvation/ (Ps 35:9); /Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, /(Jude 24); /For you are our glory and joy.

/(1 Thess 2:20); 

/And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, /(1 Thess 1:6); /for all endurance and patience with joy,/ (Col 1:11b); /And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.

/(2 Cor 2:3); /But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

/(Jn 17:13).

When we humble ourselves like little children and put on no airs of self-sufficiency, but run happily into the joy of our Father's embrace, the glory of /his/ grace is magnified and the longing of /our/ soul is satisfied.

Christians are not idolaters when they pursue them both together.

In God's wisdom and by God's grace /our interest and his glory are one/.

One of the clearest demonstrations that the pursuit of /our/ joy and the pursuit of /God's/ glory are meant to be one and the same pursuit is the teaching of Jesus on prayer in the gospel of John.

The two key verses are John 14:13 /Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

/and 16:24 /Until now you have asked nothing in my name.

Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

/The one shows that prayer is the pursuit of /God's glory/.

The other shows that prayer is the pursuit of /our joy/.

Turn in your Bibles to the book of John and I will read those two verses again.

The first one is in chapter 14, verse 13.

I would recommend if you’re in the habit of underlining key verses that you underline these two Listen again to 14:13  /"Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."/

And now flip over a couple of pages to 16:14  /"/ Until now you have asked nothing in my name.

Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

/"/ The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

And the chief act of man by which these two goals are attained is /prayer/.

Therefore, Christians who pursue in God's glory the fullness of their own joy will above all be people of prayer.

Just like the thirsty deer buckles down to drink at the brook, so the characteristic posture of the Christian will be bowed before God or on our knees.

If you are like me, it doesn’t take much to disrupt your prayer life.

Probably all you need is someone to remind you of its importance and you will be back in the happy groove of early rising or midday meditation or late night prayer.

We need points throughout the year where we take our bearings and re-adjust our course.

I hope today is one of those points in your life of prayer.

Let's look more closely at prayer as the pursuit of God's glory, and prayer and the pursuit of our joy, in that order.

In John 14:13 Jesus says, /"Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."/

Suppose that you are totally paralyzed and can do nothing for yourself but talk.

And suppose that a strong and reliable friend promised to live with you and do whatever you needed done.

How could you glorify your friend if a stranger came to see you?

You could say, "Friend, please come lift me up and put a pillow behind me so I can look at my guest.

And would you please put my glasses on?"

And so your visitor would learn from your requests that you are helpless and that your friend is strong and kind.

You glorify your friend by needing him and asking him for help and counting on him.

If your Bible is still open, turn back to chapter 15.

In John 15:5 Jesus says, /"I am the vine, you are the branches.

He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."/

So we really are paralyzed.

Without Christ we are capable of no good thing (Romans 7:18).

But God wills that we bear fruit for the purpose of loving people into the kingdom.

So he promises to do for us (as a strong and reliable friend) what we can't do for ourselves.

And how do we glorify him?

Jesus gives the answer in John 15:7, /"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you."/

We pray.

We ask God to do for us through Christ what we can't do for ourselves—to make us bear fruit.

Then verse 15:8 gives the result we're after: /"By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit."/

So how is God glorified by prayer?

Prayer is our open admission that without Christ we can do nothing.

And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that he will provide the help we need.

Prayer humbles /us/ as needy and exalts /God/ as wealthy.

Isn’t that true in your life?

Aren’t you needy?