Hello everyone. We’re continuing our study of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the gospel of John and Jesus is giving the upper room discourse there, probably the longest talk that there is in the gospel of John. Let’s continue going through here to see what clues we can get to the self-understanding of Christ. Our passage tonight is John 14:12-14.
12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Anyone who has faith in Jesus. What’s Jesus talking about? Well faith in the biblical sense is not a blind leap as so many people think it is today. One thinks of Richard Dawkins constantly thinking of faith as believing something without evidence. Faith is actually trust in what has been shown to be reliable.
What kind of faith are you to have? Jesus has already told us in verse 1. Trust in God. Trust also in me. You are supposed to have the faith in Jesus that a Jew was supposed to have in God. Now either Jesus is deity, or the disciples should have taken him out and stoned him for blasphemy at that point. This is once again a time to stop and consider what Jesus really said.
Jesus also said we will do greater works than what he did. Jesus was the one who raised Lazarus from the grave. What’s he talking about? It’s easy for us to look at the raising of Lazarus as the greater works as we are caught up in the extraordinary, but there is a greater truth. Raising a man from the deadness of life is a miracle. Bringing a man back to righteousness with God who was dead in his sins is a greater one.
That is our ministry and it is done through Christ. We do nothing independently of him as we shall see later. We are acting as Christ’s agents, but we are doing a greater work than that of physical healing. We are bringing life to those dead in sins.
The last part is tied in with verse 13. Because Christ is going to the Father, we can do those greater works. Christ will be acting for us all in the presence of the Father and he will do anything that we ask in his name.
Whoa! Did Jesus just give us a blank check?
No. To ask in his name means to ask according to his authority. If it is the will of God, he will do it. The more we are in Christ, the more we will live according to the will of God and the more we will get our prayers answered I believe. By then, we’ve learned to submit ourselves to God and we are more pleased with whatever he does.
So no, this passage does not work for the health and wealth Word of Faith teachers. God is not giving us a blank check. After all, God would not answer a prayer yes that he cease to exist or that I be given permission to fornicate with a beautiful lady or something of that sort.
It’s a shame that in how we’ve seen this passage for ourselves, we haven’t seen what it says about Christ. Christ says that what we ask, he will do it. He will be in essence responding to our prayer. What ought that to tell us about him?
Tomorrow, we shall continue looking at these passages and seeing what other amazing truths Jesus is making.
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