Gospel of John, 16:24-33

okay we got we're in lesson 32 and when you said we got down to about five but she wants to talk some more about what's the word you use? intercessory prayer we talked something about prayer last week yeah we did about intercessory and the Lord interceding for us and you made some comments you gave us Hebrews 10 19-21 But I don't totally know what you mean. You have a different slant on it or sensory prayer than I have been familiar with. Well, a couple of things. We're in verse 24, 25, 26, like that. And let's see. I'm going to start.

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things I have spoken unto you in Proverbs, but the time comes when I shall no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father and then that day you shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you." He says he won't do it anymore.

Is that your point? No. For the Father himself loves you and because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father. So I think up to this point their relationship with the Father was through Christ. They went to the Lord Jesus for everything.

And what he's about to tell them is that you don't need a go-between anymore. And the reason you won't, what's the reason you won't need a go-between? Well, let's maybe ask it another way. Why do you need a go-between to start with? Why do you need somebody between you and God? Because there's separation. Separation?

Does it go back to that identification truth where God can't really communicate with us because we are not on his level? That's right. But when we are placed in Christ, then we become on his level and we can talk to each other. Yeah, and this is a theme that's going to carry on as we're going to 17. The reason you can go to the Father is because He is your Father. And because you are on the same, you have, what he's saying is you're going to have it, there's coming a time real soon, when you will be elevated to the point where you can talk to the Father directly.

And you won't have to go through me. Now you can ask Him things in my name, And that's what you've done so far. But you're not going to have to do that in the future. You can still do it, but you won't have to. And so I'm not going to have to be the surrogate. I'm not going to have to go and pray.

Now that's different than him being an advocate. When you look at 1 John 2, for believers who sin, we have an advocate with the Father, the Lord Jesus. Now, what's the difference between that and what he's talking about here? See, we're talking here about relationship between human beings and God, the Father of the universe. In 1 John, we're talking about believers who have this privilege, but who have sinned. And so they have this advocacy available to them to restore them to fellowship and that advocacy is Christ. Now it's not something that you do in Christ's name. What's advocacy? What is an advocate? It's a lawyer. It's someone who represents you. It's someone who represents your interests. So how would the Lord Jesus be your advocate as a believer when you sin? He says that he has bought us with his blood. Sure. Whatever sin the believer has committed has been paid for by the blood of Christ.

So he stands in that gap of sinful behavior and relationship with the Father. There cannot be anything that would damage your position in Christ, but certainly your sinning damages your fellowship with the Father and the Son, and you're walking in the light, so to speak. So what happens is that the restoration process of you confessing and the Lord Jesus being your advocate is to restore you to fellowship.

Here, in John, it's more of creating the relationship. Understand what I mean by that? These disciples at this point, because they don't have the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ, even though they are the chosen ones, go through Christ to the Father. Everything is through Christ because he has the standing and the relationship.

But he's telling them that there's coming a time when, you know, I'm not going to need to pray for you anymore, you can go directly to the Father, because you have the value of what I've done. I think that was the point that you had made that I didn't totally understand, but I do now.

You have the value of, maybe put it this way. Let's say Craig was the President of the United States. And he's going to fix everything, by the way. And I'm his chief of staff. And so I have his view. And so you want to somehow ask him for a favor. And you know me, but you don't know him. So you come to me. And so I go to him. But there's going to come a day when not only are you going to be able to go direct to him, but you're going to be the same family that he is.

You're going to be like, I remember little John John Kennedy going into the Oval Office when John Kennedy was the President. He'd be crawling around on the floor while he was conducting business. That's who we are. Okay, let me run through some of these.

Asking in His name is not merely for Christ's sake as a motive, but in the value of Himself and His acceptance. His worth goes in its fullness to the account of those who thus plead, and how precious and all-prevailing it is in the Father's eyes. In other words, when you come in Christ with that life, you are precious in His sight. And it glorifies both the Father and the Son, and when we get to 17 we'll talk a lot about glory, but it's glorifying to the Father and the Son that you and I can do such a thing.

It's the title of every Christian now. Nobody ever enjoyed this kind of intimacy before, but it's our title now. And so many Christians won't avail themselves of their title because they think they're not worthy. Guess what? They're not. It isn't based on their worthiness, it's based on Christ's worthiness.

This is known nearness and acceptance with the Father. It's applied, our petitions in virtue of Christ fully revealed. when it's work is totally done and accepted. In other words, the value of what Christ is going to do is so complete that it gives you access. My next question is, how does love and faith go together? How do they fit together?

Look at Galatians 5.6. Somebody finds it and reads it to me. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love. Faith working through love. How do you think those go together? Both of them are in operation at the same time.

We sometimes have a tendency, because we're so academic, to think that faith doesn't function outside the realm of love, but it has to be in the relationship with love, because faith is one of those things that avails a believer of his access and his intimacy with Christ and with the Father. You cannot have intimacy fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ outside the realm of love. You can't do it. I know there are plenty of guys in seminaries who think you can, but I don't think you can. It's got to be in the realm of faith and love works together.

Faith works by love. See that? What does faith do? You get a fact, right? Let's pick a fact, any biblical fact. I've been crucified with Christ, okay? So I get the knowledge of that fact, and how am I to respond to it? Believe it. I'm supposed to believe it, right? Is that the end of it? No. That fact is supposed to have some relevance in the way I function and live in my life, right? How can the function of that, I have been crucified with Christ, if I don't see the love in that, then it just becomes an academic idea. What kind of love did it take for Christ to include me in his death?

Because God is a person and we are persons, it's all about fellowship and it's all about relationship. It's not about academics. Well this relationship only has to do with spiritual faith and love. I can have faith this chair won't dump me on the floor if I sit on it. So I sit, I sit down. And that has nothing to do with love. So it's a different realm. It is a different realm, and what's interesting about the realm is the fact that it's the realm that we are suited out to live in now. We are heavenly beings.

We do have access to the Father because of who we are in Christ. We're studying who we are in Christ, the 34 things that we have, the blessings and of being in Christ and every one of those things is true of every believer. I dare say most believers don't believe them because the news is too good. Or they think it must be some sort of a future thing that's going to be true of us when it's true of us right now.

You think about it. How many of you really in your heart buy the fact? that you have unlimited access to go in and sit down with the Father. Just sit there. You belong there. And you can just hang with Him. Talk to Him. And He listens to you. And He has nothing but thoughts of blessing for you. Nothing. And He desires your company way more than you desire His. See that? And that's what the Lord Jesus is trying to communicate to these guys, because He's going to leave.

So, let's see, he says in verse 27-28, For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come unto the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father. Now, my question is, by coming forth from the Father, what does he bring from the Father? What does he bring out from the Father? His love. His Father's love. Acceptance. Acceptance. What else? Attributes. Attributes, that's exactly right.

How would you ever know the Father unless Christ came and revealed him to you? You wouldn't know him. So here he says, I came out from the Father and I brought all of who the Father is with me so that I could show it to you. But now I'm going to go back.

Verse 30 says, and now are we sure that the disciples, let me read it down, in 29, his disciples said unto him, well now speak you plainly and you don't speak in Proverbs or you're not speaking, you know Proverbs were specifically designed to be confusing. And he's saying, well you're speaking plainly. And then they say to him in 30, now we are sure that you know all things, and need not that any man should ask you.

By this we believe that you came forth from God." What's interesting is that we look at these disciples and we think, well, they're not the brightest bulbs in the box. But they do know this, and they do believe that he is the Son of God, and they do believe that he came out from the Father to reveal the Father to them. Because he said to them, they were saying, show us the Father and we'll be satisfied. And what was his answer? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Have you been with me so long?

Up until now, you've been saying that they only understand him as Messiah, not as the Son of God. This is the turning point. Yeah, they're starting to see a lot more here about who he is. And what he's trying to do, he's trying to give them as much information as he can before they leave because he knows in the next few days he's going to be crucified and because of that, their faith is going to wane.

Do you think the Jews thought the Messiah was God? Some of them did. Some of them did. But they thought, I think over time, They began to create in their minds a Messiah that was a political Messiah rather than the Son of God. Because I think there are scriptures, Old Testament scriptures that say that the Messiah would be the Son of God. Peter says to him that he believed that he was the Christ, the Son of God. The Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God. I'm not sure that they, well I am sure, that they did not apprehend fullness of what being the Son of God is like we do.

Of course, we're Monday morning quarterbacking because we get to read the epistles and stuff. But yeah, I think they did. Isn't Emmanuel God with us? Yeah. That's Old Testament. But take that Emmanuel God with us and put it next to what he's trying to explain to them here in terms of their intimacy with him. And this is an elevation above all of that. This is new. And they're saying, yeah, we believe it. You brought out the entire character of the Father. You have revealed to us who He is. And I would say back to them, you haven't seen anything yet. Because imagine the change at Pentecost, when they really can, because now they have the capacity to apprehend the glory of God as attributes, which they don't really have now.

So why do the disciples believe, according to verse 30, that you know all things and have no need that anyone should question you, but we believe that you came forth from God? How do they know that? I think they knew because they believed it. You understand what I mean by that?

I think they believed that he was Christ of God, he was born of God, And they were the recipients of grace like no other human beings have been recipients of grace. I think they transcend the messianic idea that they had of who the Messiah was going to be. And he began to replace in their minds really what the character of who God is, as much as they can apprehend Him. So they respond this way. It's very interesting that they do respond this way, because when we get into chapter 17, you're going to see that the Lord takes them at their word, and part of what He prays for about them is the fact that they do believe. They do believe.

What's the difference between verse 30, in John 6.69.

Somebody look up John 6.69. So what's the difference between that and now we are sure that you know all things and have no need that anyone should question you but by this we believe that you came forth from God. What's the difference between Peter acknowledging that he's the Christ, the Son of God, and they saying, you came forth from God. What do you think? Well, I think it's the fact that they know more. They know all things now, plus the fact that he came from God.

So what was Peter doing? What was Peter ascribing to Christ? He was ascribing his title, that you are the Christ. The Son of the Living God gave him that title. The difference is, on this occasion, I think the disciples were testifying to belief in his origin and his divine nature. See the difference? One is ascribing him title as Messiah, Son of the Living God. Here, the disciples are saying, well, we believe your origin. Your origin is you came out from the Father. And you are divine. You are God. See the difference? Can you pick up the difference there? So was the faith of the disciples real at this point? No. How much did they understand?

They don't have the unveiling Holy Spirit. That's right, they don't have that. I think, maybe put it this way, they just have a glimpse They don't have the fullness of who Christ is, but they do in their minds understand and have somewhat of a realization that he's divine, but they haven't seen the glory. Do you think God the Father was fully revealed in the Son? Sure he was, but that's like turning the light on in a room full of blind people. Do they see the light? No, but he's here.

That was John the Baptist's job, by the way. That's why he was the precursor to Christ. The light came in the world and somebody had to tell the world the light was on. They wouldn't have known otherwise, because they can't see it. And you're right, they're waiting for the presence and power of the Spirit, personally sent down by Christ, And he's needed to make communion with Christ known. This intimacy with the Father and the Son is the job of the Holy Spirit sent down.

And that's why it points out that we've talked before. Why? Let's repeat a question from a couple weeks ago. Why did the Lord Jesus say it's expedient that I go? If I don't go, the Comforter won't come. It's like, you know, I've got to go in the back room, and if I don't go in the back room, the other guy isn't coming out. You remember why it was really important that he went first?

He hadn't been glorified. Yeah, Jesus Christ had not been glorified. So he goes to the Father, he's glorified, and then the Holy Spirit comes, and his job is to present the glorified Christ to believers. That's much different than the Christ that they're hanging out with now. Not that he isn't, but his glory is hidden now. So, it is this which when the conscience is purged brings forth liberty.

Here then, is what so many saints are still ignorant of in the state of their souls pretty much where the disciples were. For though they may see rather better the glory of the Son, they fail to see in him and in his work their title to rest in the Father's love. That's what most believers don't see. Most believers, especially those that somehow are circling around a legal system, don't grasp the concept that they are entitled to go in and sit down in the Father's love and just have Him love them. They don't. And if they hear it, they don't buy it. Because they look at their acceptance as how acceptable they are. You don't have any acceptance.

It's all in Christ. And so it points out how faith is so important for us as believers because when we read the stupendous truth that Paul lays out to us. You know, we balance that truth over against our personal acceptance, and when we do that, we don't take advantage of it. We think, well, God's got to do a lot more work on me before I'm ever going to know what that's about. Nonsense! You know? I think you hit the nail on the head right there, Mike, with most all of Christianity today in the regular churches.

If you live under a lost system, then it's all based on you looking at yourself to see what you can do to be more acceptable to God. If you're Bible-based, grace-based, the deal is that everything is yours. And like Macaulay said, what do you do with grace when it's presented to you? What do you do with it? You take it. You grab it. You take it. And what you find is that as you grabbed it, there was way more than you needed.

So, if grace is unlimited and unmerited, then this entrance into the Father is to sit in His love in an unlimited, unmerited environment that never goes away. Never! And by the way, it will be the same 2,000 years from now or 10,000 years from now. We will not ever in eternity be able to exhaust the grace of God. It won't happen.

And the Lord Jesus is trying to begin the process of them sort of apprehending that concept now. So their faith is real as far as it goes. Even with this assertion from the disciples, what was Jesus' response to their profession of faith? Verse 32, 31. Do you now believe? Behold the hour comes, yea, is now. that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone. Yet I'm not alone because I'm with the Father." So he questions, oh yeah, you guys believe, huh?

Well, he knew what was coming. He knew the pressure that was going to be there. And what I find interesting is that they do have quite a bit of faith at this point. They're believing in new things to them and new things to the nation of Israel. Their faith is real, but it's small, maybe is the way to put it. Well, it doesn't have roots. It's shallow. Because they don't understand everything and they don't have the Holy Spirit and so on. So, that's right. Well, think about it.

What's the environment that he's talking to them? At the very earliest, this is at the end of the supper in the upper room, probably they're on their way, they're walking to Gethsemane. So it's less than 12 hours before he's going to be arrested. And once he gets arrested, you know, they go through a night and a day and then crucifixion and he's gone. He's in the grave.

And what do you think these guys are thinking? They're all hiding under rocks someplace. They're scared to death. Peter denies him. The rest of the disciples, except for John, are hiding because they don't want to be associated. Maybe they're going to kill them, too.

So he knows. It's interesting. The Lord Jesus knows. And I'm always thankful that God never hides the frailties of his servants. Not then and not now. And what he's teaching them, which they'll learn later and which we can learn now, is the constant need for our to be dependent on Him every minute. Every minute. When we're strong in our own eyes, we're weak in His eyes. We are strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ when we're weak. Paul said that, when I'm weak, I'm strong. Now that's a principle I don't think they understood at this point. Explain why in verse 32 Jesus was not alone.

Yeah, and is the father just sort of walking with them and whispering in his ear saying, everything's okay? How close are they? They're the same. They're one. They're the same in relationship, right? Father and son. And the father and son is probably the best way to describe their relationship. One doesn't precede the other. But father and son is the same life, different persons. So how true is that for us today? It should be the same. It is the same. It's exactly the same for us.

You can never as a believer say that you're alone. You can never say as a believer that I've been abandoned by God. You can't say that. because you share the very resurrected life of Christ. And that life has constant intimacy. And we're going to see in John 17, the next chapter, where the Lord Jesus specifically prays for that to be true of the disciples and all those who would believe through them. Isn't that cool? Intimacy. So the Lord Jesus isn't alone in this. Now, there's going to come a moment on the cross where he is alone, but not now. So, let's see.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. So what does he mean, in me you'll have peace? I think they were struggling with the thought that they would be in. You think they're struggling with the thought that they're going to be in it? Okay. Now he tells them that in the world you're going to have tribulation. And here we are looking, we're watching presidential debates hoping one of these two fools can fix the tribulation. Fat chance of that happening. There's no peace outside of Christ. Now what's the peace here?

The fact that he has overcome the world, or will have overcome the world. How did he overcome the world? By dying on the cross for our sins. By dying on the cross for our sins? Okay. What else? Is that enough? To overcome the world? The world has a ruler, doesn't it? He defeated Satan and freed us from being slaves to sin. Yeah, he defeated Satan.

He's holding everything together. He holds everything together. He's with the Father. With the Father. So, the fact that you and I can understand that Christ has overcome the world, does that mean that even though it isn't apparent, we can trust Him to fix our circumstances? Well, He'll be with us through those circumstances.

He's telling these disciples, in the world you're going to have tribulation. That's a giving. So don't think anything else. Don't come to me and say, hey you said we aren't going to have tribulation. No, he's going to say, I told you you'd have it. In the world. But rejoice I've overcome the world. How'd he do it? And what'd the world do to him? Rejected him. Okay? What's the world do to you? Same thing. So how did he overcome the world? He left it. See that? When he rose, he rose to newness of life. We are now, you and I, are members of the body of Christ. Where is our citizenship? Not here. It's in heaven. So, I guess two points here.

One, you can have absolute confidence in the fact that every circumstance in your life is controlled by Him. Because He says so. Romans 8, 28 and 29. And number two, you can have absolute confidence that, maybe put it this way, it's their world It's their world.

Peter says you're a sojourner and a stranger on this earth. Do you realize that? That you are not from around here? My heritage is Irish. I'm not Irish anymore. I'm heavenly. See the difference? I'm not German. I'm not English. I'm not whatever. I'm now heavenly.

Which means that the source and origin of my existence is in heaven. Because that's where the source and origin of my life is. The Lord Jesus Christ. I have been, put it this way, I have been sent to this planet to do what? What am I here to do? Glorify God. Glorify God. And as an ambassador of the reconciliation, I'm here to invite people to leave the planet to come to Christ. That's what I'm here to do.

And I may suffer the tribulations of everybody who belongs here, but I don't belong here. A sojourner is somebody who's passing through. A stranger is someone who's passing through and decided to stay a while and bought a condo. But they're not from here. We should know that in Denver. Everybody from Denver is from somewhere. How many people do you know that grew up here? Not very many.

And that's how the world is overcome. He promises them that the world's tribulation is to be their portion. Not good news. So, and the ones that are going to be the most trying to them are going to be the Jews. So, but he says to them, if you live by faith and trust me and all that I tell you, I've overcome the world and so will you. And the way you overcome it is you abide above the circumstances in him.

So what does it mean I've overcome the world? What does Jesus mean? I think he's talking about the world system that's ruled by Satan. If you had to describe the world, you'd describe it in terms of death, sin, controlled by Satan, The overcoming of the world from his perspective is that he's overcome death, didn't he? He's overcome sin, he's overcome evil, he's overcome law, and he's overcome Satan.

So, you know, like it or not, we're back to living by faith in the facts. The fact that he has overcome. You'll find that some people write these books about being overcomers. And if you do all these really cool things, you'll be an overcomer too. How did you get to be an overcomer? If the Lord said, I have already overcome the world, what can you say about you? So have I. Because I'm in the one who has overcome the world. So you have to look at Satan and all the rest of these circumstances that come around. Satan is a defeated foe. And what do you do with defeated enemies? You put them to work on your behalf.

14. What is the lesson here in regards to the focus of one's faith and the cares and woes of the world?

2 Corinthians 3.18 and then Him saying turn your eyes upon Jesus. Victory over circumstances is attainable how? Through Him. And your association or your abiding in Him is by faith alone. Now, if you're honest, you have to go to him once in a while and say, boy, this circumstance looks overwhelming to me. That's where we learn, I think, how to trust him in spite of the circumstances. The course of the conversation with my buddy Mike all week has been right here. This is what we've been talking about.

The circumstances with his son aren't going to change. but they're overcomable in Christ, right? The source of his anger about this circumstance isn't going to change, because his old man isn't going to decide he isn't going to be angry anymore. He's always going to be angry, right? So what's the answer? What's the answer to his anger? By abiding in the Lord, what happens to that anger?

Don't give place to it. Why don't you have to give place to it? Track with me here now. You're separated from it. There you go. When you died on the cross with Christ, you got separated from the man who's angry. See that? The man who's disappointed. The man who's fearful. the man who's uninformed. You get separated from him, but you don't float out into no man's land.

You're united to and in Christ Jesus who has done all of this overcoming the world. Reckon yourself indeed dead unto sin, but alive unto God. I said to him this week, reckon yourself indeed dead unto anger and alive unto God. Which one is the truth? You being angry or you're alive in the dark? Why do you think John doesn't cover Jesus' agony in Gethsemane? Because we're going to go right from the little walk to Gethsemane to 17 and then right to the cross. There's no Gethsemane in John. How come? It's omitted here.

All of the sorrow and the sweating of blood and all of that. John deals with the divine son of God and Mark has already covered the death of Jesus. Yeah, John deals with the Lord Jesus as the one who is above the circumstances. He is here to be the revealer of the Father, that's his job. even when sorrow and fear have scattered his disciples.

So it's a different viewpoint. And I think that's one reason why you need four Gospels to explain who Christ is. Because each one of the writers of the Gospel come at it from a different perspective. So the fullness of Christ as to what his mission and his work was down on the earth is really see it from different perspectives, but you don't see any agony, you don't see any humanity here so much because you're dealing with a divine person in general.

Any questions on that? Now we're going to go into 17 and it'll take us a month to get through 17 because it's cool. The first question I asked was you to go to Matthew 6, 9-13 and compare the prayer there with John 17. Which one would be suitable? Less than 33? Who took them all? You gave me a whole pile of 32. She's got them all. She stole them. If you want, all the lessons are up here. Okay, now John 17, we're not going to read the whole thing, but what I want to do just to set this up, in Matthew chapter 6 verse 9 through 13, the disciples have asked the Lord Jesus to teach us how to pray.

Here's what he says. After this manner, therefore, pray you, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts or trespasses as we have forgiven our debtors or trespassers. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

So that's the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples. Now, I'm not going to read the whole thing of John, but look at the difference. You'll pick it up in the first few verses. These words spoke Jesus as he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son may also glorify you. You see the difference there? What's the difference?

Who's doing the praying in John 17? Who's doing the praying? The Lord Jesus is, right? Who's supposed to be doing the praying in Matthew 6? The disciples. So the first difference is that the disciples are taught how to pray as good Jewish disciples, And in this case, this is the prayer between the son and the father. And somehow John gets to listen in. And he listens in and he records what he sees. Now, is the relationship between the disciples and the father in Matthew 6 the same as he's been describing here in John 16?

No. It's different, isn't it? It's much different. So there's a change going on here. There's a big change going on here and again it has to do with relationship, with intimacy with the Father. Matthew 6 is kind of a formalized nice Jewish prayer. What we're going to read as we go through 17 is a prayer of intimacy in which the father is asked to do some things by the son, and the father isn't going to say, I'll do four out of five.

He's going to do them all. And what we're going to find is that Jesus is praying this prayer, so there's absolutely no chance that everything he talks about isn't going to be implemented. Everything. As a matter of fact, most of what he talks about, he talks about it as though it's already been done. even though he hasn't been to the cross yet.

So, you could say, just to give you a quick, he says in Matthew 6.10, he says, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. We being heavenly people are in Christ, we are already in Christ, who is the king. So there's a difference between being in the king and living in the kingdom. See that?

I use the example if you lived in England and your last name was Windsor. Who's mom? She's the queen. But she's mom. I live in Christ. Is he the king of the kingdom? Yeah. Who am I? I'm the son of God. I have the same life as he does. And by the way, when he brings the kingdom to the earth to rule and reign, what am I going to be doing? I'll be ruling and reigning with him. Very cool. And then he says, in Matthew, he says, give us this day our daily bread. What's the difference between that and what you and I have?

Ephesians 1.3 says, I have been, aorist tense, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. So, I'm already all blessed with everything. And guess, where is the blessing in the heavenlies? From what position were the disciples to pray? From the earth. And then he says, forgive us our debts, if we forgive them, as we forgive them. Are you forgiven? You mean you don't have to go around this process? No, you're already done. Have you already been delivered from evil, the evil one?

And if that's true, why would you ask? If it's true, I mean, a lady on the Thursday morning class, we looked at 1 John 1, 9, that we're to confess our sins and God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And I said, why doesn't that verse say to ask God for forgiveness? And she said, oh, you have to ask him for forgiveness. I said, why? He doesn't say so. Well, if you don't ask, he doesn't think you're sincere or whatever her answer was. I said, no. Why don't you ask him to forgive you?

Because you already have that. In other words, there's no sense of the believer's sinfulness that wasn't future when Christ died on the cross. Every sin that was ever committed by anybody or will be committed by anybody in this room was future when Christ died, right? paid for, forgiven in Christ. So those are just some of the smaller changes. I've got a, if you want more information, I've got a paper on that.

But I think it's really important for the believer to begin to understand his position before the Father, to take these two prayers, lay them side by side, and read them. See, because they're both written From a different perspective, the man in Christ, the disciple who isn't in Christ yet. Dear Father, how we thank you for the grace that we live under and in. We thank you for your word that reveals your Son and you to us. And we're thankful for the life we have in the Lord Jesus and we pray in his precious name. Amen.