Sermon On Prayer That Will Challenge You

The Glory of God in Creation and the Image of God

Jesus displays what we are supposed to be as image of God in God's world. Just consider it for a moment, when God creates the world, He creates so many unique things. He creates the heavens and the earth, all the amazing planets, right now even are being kept in orbit and rotating the way that they are with all their moons and everything going on, even the rings around these planets.

God is upholding, Hebrews chapter 1, it says that God upholds all things by the word of His power. He carries everything along to its intended destination. God has made some glorious things. You know, when we go to Kauai, we get little moments after we do our mission and we talk to people or we're trying to figure out where we're going, what we're doing, we get little moments in Kauai to actually stop and take it all in.

It's very hard to be an atheist in Kauai, because it's screaming at you about the glory.

Of God.

It truly is.

It's just absolutely a gorgeous place. It's amazing. It is spiritually dark. It is dominated by the cults in the new age in so many ways. They need Jesus there in a bad, bad way. But these little moments we have in Kauai, we get to see the glory of God and His creation, and it will literally take your breath away.

And there are moments where we've gotten a chance to get into the water and it's so clear, you can just see right down through it, and you can get under that water and see these things under the water that you think, if you really stop and think about it, there were thousands of years where human beings weren't allowed, weren't actually able to experience the delight of looking at some of this crazy stuff that's under there.

And you think for a minute, like all that time, that stuff was there. That beauty was there. That glory of creation was under that water, and no human being could go under there and actually look at it.

You might be able to open your eyes a little bit, but it would burn. Or you can look and just see just a little bit of what is under there, but it would be fuzzy, blurry. So you think, well, that's kind of a waste, isn't it?

Right?

To have all that beauty there and no one gets to see it for so long. But you see, that was really created for God's delight, God's joy, God's pleasure. All these beautiful, amazing things underneath there, and now we get to see it and it just fills your heart with just awe of God.

But God did something unique in creation, that after He created everything, all these amazing things, these powerful things, baboons with funny butts and giraffes and ostriches and flamingos and crazy creatures that testify to God's sense of humor, obviously, right?

Crazy, really disturbing looking fish that also give us really strange thoughts about God's thinking process, right? Like why did you make that? It's kind of weird. But He creates human beings and He creates us to be really the light of God reflected into the world.

So think of really the image of God like a mirror angled, right? And a flashlight hits that mirror and it bounces back off the other direction, or like a laser beam. It hits it and it shoots back the other way.

Think about the image of God in that way. Not so much of a mirror reflection of God looking into His face and reflecting back, but more of the image of God reflecting off that mirror and going back out into the world.

Image of God. That's what we were supposed to be. We were supposed to be image of God in the world, His light into the world, testifying to God's glory. He was going to find delight in us being His image and His created order.

And yet we fell. And in the fall, our relationship with God is broken. We're separated from God. Our image is distorted. It's still there. It's often, as I describe it, it's like a coin with an image in it.

If you take that coin with its image and you throw it into the mud and pick it back up, that image is still there. It's marred. It's ugly. But the image doesn't get lost because of the mud. And we're very much like that as image of God.

The image of God is inescapable. It doesn't go away. You can't hide from it. You can't suppress it everywhere. It's going to pop up. Though it may be muddy and marred and ugly, we are called to be the image of God in the.

World.

Humanity’s Distinct Relationship With God

And part of what makes us unique and distinct from all of the rest of creation is that when God created us, He created us to be not just things that shout to His glory and His creativity and His wonder, but He creates human beings to be in intimate fellowship and relationship with Him.

You've seen these videos on YouTube of like dogs praying before they eat their meals. You ever seen that? Someone pours the food into the bowl and the dog's there waiting, right? And he said, okay, let's pray, Harry, before we eat our meal.

And you see the dog sort of bury its nose right in its hand and like, Lord, Father, thank you for the food. And my dog's just like, just like pretending to pray. There's not the same kind of communication that these creatures have that we do.

We don't have that kind of relationship with God where we're just testifying to God's wonder and glory. We have a kind of different relationship with God where we not only testify constantly to God's creativity and His glory and His wonder.

If you deny it, I challenge you to stare at a newborn for 30 minutes and deny it. It testifies to the wonder of God, the glory of God in these little digits and fingers and the small, the little tongue and the nose and the eyeballs.

All of that just shouts to you about God. But it's not just that. It's not just telling us about God. It's a distinct relationship we all have with God of communication and worship. And that's different than creation itself, the general created order.

And what happened in creation is we fell, we rebelled against God. We testify to it constantly. We are all at war with God in our lives as rebels against God. We're supposed to be image bearers of God, living for the glory of God in constant communication with God, dependence upon God, intimate relationships with God.

Christ’s Trust in the Father and Our Sanctification

And here's the glory of Jesus. When He condescends and takes on flesh, we see something in Jesus that we do not see in ourselves. And that is this complete and total trust in the Father's Word. You see it in the trial of Jesus, the temptation of Jesus, I should say, when Jesus goes into the wilderness and Satan is trying to try Him, to test Him, Jesus doesn't have to get physical with Satan.

Jesus doesn't have a high-end scholarly debate with Satan over His challenges. Jesus actually just quotes the Word of God, slays the devil with a word, doesn't bicker with him, doesn't debate with him.

He trusts in the Father's Word. And when things are at their worst, for example, the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus knows what's coming, He knows the pain He's about to endure, He knows He's about to actually receive into Himself, He's gonna exhaust in Himself the Father's wrath for all of His people throughout all time, Jesus, in that moment of pain and desperation, knowing the pain He is about to endure, He is totally and completely trusting and dependent upon the Father.

It's an intimate relationship that Jesus has with the Father that ought to actually draw you in. It ought to challenge you and I as believers that this is what God is conforming us to. That's the point to be made right now, just hear that.

The Bible teaches that when God saves people, He transforms them. There is no such thing in the Bible as a person who comes to Jesus, is joined to Him in faith, is in Christ, raised up with Him, and is not changed.

One of the great heresies of modern evangelicalism is the idea of the carnal Christian, the idea that somebody can say a magic prayer, trust in Jesus, have their ticket punched for heaven one day, and now they're going to heaven but nothing ever happens between it.

That is foreign to the Bible. The Bible teaches, in fact, something different, it says, he that began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. That when God takes a person from darkness to light, He changes their heart from a heart of stone to a heart of what?

Flesh. Something happens from a heart that is hard towards God to where now it's malleable, it's fleshly, it's soft, it can be molded by God. We go from a position where the Bible says we're dead in our sins and trespasses to now we are made alive in Jesus.

And what the Bible teaches is this fundamental truth, that God is going to glorify Himself through conforming His people into the image of Jesus Christ. That means, watch, what Jesus was like, what He is like, but what He was like in His earthly ministry, that is where God is taking us.

And God is jealous for you and I, and He is, listen, He is invested in His glory in this world that He is going to increase the fame of His name through the sanctification of.

His people.

And if you don't believe it, read Ezekiel 36. When God talks about this amazing thing He's going to do in the new covenant, He explicitly says that God's people have brought shame to His name among all the nations because of their lives, because they will not be the image of God, because they won't be the light of God in the world.

And what God says is not for their sake, but for the sake of His name. He's going to vindicate His name through giving new hearts, through indwelling them by His spirit and putting His law within them, causing them to observe His statutes.

Now I think most of us know what that means, right? The law of God within us means that when God saves us, something happens. Some of you guys have amazing stories, crazy stories, where you were pursuing one thing your whole life, you didn't trust in Jesus, you were running the other direction, and all of a sudden God grabbed a hold of you, He pulled you out of your pit, He redeemed you, saved you, and all of a sudden renewed mind, a new heart.

God did something in you and He changed you, transformed you. And now all of a sudden the things that you used to be able to do, you can't do anymore. All of a sudden the things that you loved so much, you don't love anymore.

All of a sudden the idols you used to pursue and fall down before, they've lost their luster. They don't have their draw anymore, their pull anymore. All of a sudden now something happened in you that you couldn't do for yourself before, but He did it.

And we know what it means to love God and have His law within us. But there's an aspect I want to just encourage us to see as believers. It's not just the obedience of Jesus that ought to cause us pause in terms of His obeying the law of God and Him being the righteous substitute for us, having His perfect life given to us as a gift through faith.

But you have to pause and consider the intimate relationship that Jesus has with the Father. Consider for a moment this, listen, John 1, you have it memorized, don't you? Let's do it. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Think about it for a moment now. John takes, in the beginning, famous words from the opening of the Bible. He takes those words, he throws them out. In the beginning, and every Jew goes, God created, right?

They finish the sentence, in the beginning, and they go, I know this. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And John goes, in the beginning was the Word. Jesus was already there. It says in the Greek, in archein hal logos, as far back as you want to go, forever and ever ago, Jesus was already there.

But Jesus, he does something in the text that's actually awesome. It's powerful. It not only demonstrates the triune nature of God, and that Jesus is not the Father, and the Father is not Jesus, it says that Jesus is eternal.

But then John uses some specific words, he had lots to choose from. Greek is an amazing language, very specific. And John chose, through the inspiration of the Spirit of God, to use some powerful words to describe Jesus' eternal relationship to the Father.

He says, in archein hal logos, kai hal logos ein proston theon. And the words, proston theon, describes intimacy. It basically describes the Father and the Son toward one another, proston, toward, or face to face with.

And so, consider for a moment now, husbands and wives, when you have intimacy with one another, and you get face to face with each other, there's a toward one another, an intimacy of face to face. When you go to kiss your children, you get face to face.

When you have a relationship with someone you love, you grab a hold of each other, and you hug each other, and you get face to face. Paul says, of course, greet one another with a holy kiss. Some of you guys are like, please don't take that literally.

It's a cultural thing, of course. They were greeting each other face to face. There's an intimacy of face to face relationship, and John chooses to describe the relationship between Jesus and the Father as proston theon, as toward God, face to face with the Father.

So Jesus had an eternal, happy, beautiful, blissful, perfect relationship with the Father. And then He condescends to be our substitute, and He actually has that intimate relationship with the Father before our watching eyes.

And you know what? This is... Okay, and I have to say this. I don't understand it. You have to confess when you, as a Christian, don't try to answer questions you can't answer. Don't try to always answer questions that God hasn't given us the responsibility to answer.

So here's a compelling thing that I don't get. It says in Isaiah 53 that the Lord, Yahweh, God the Father, was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief. Now, what's that in the context of? Well, about 700 years before Jesus, Isaiah talks about the death of Jesus, right?

And His sacrifice, and he says that the Lord, the Father, was pleased to crush Him, Jesus, putting Him to grief, that He would justify the many as He would bear their iniquities, that Jesus was going to be pierced through for our transgressions, and all of this from God the Father, giving it to Jesus, I don't understand that.

I apprehend it. I certainly do, pierced through for our transgressions. The Lord was pleased to crush Him, but I do not comprehend that, that the Father had an eternal relationship with the Son of intimacy, delight, and perfection, and that yet there was a moment in Jesus' life where He experienced something from the Father He had never experienced ever before in their relationship.

And Jesus goes to the garden knowing that the Father is going to give to Him all of the just punishment that we deserve for our sins. He's going to take it on our behalf, and yet Jesus still trusts Him.

Jesus still talks to Him. Jesus still believes Him. Jesus still clings to Him. And Jesus still strives for Him, and that testifies to exactly who Jesus is. And I believe with all my heart that God in conforming His people to the image of His Son is not just conforming their checking off boxes about obedience, but God is conforming us to the image of His Son in terms of how we relate to our Father, in terms of how you and I have a relationship with God.

The Need for Real Intimacy With God in Prayer

So I just want to say my questions I asked last week, I said we act like we don't even know Him in our relationship toward Him in prayer. I said we act like there isn't a relationship. I described the odd nature of a relationship we would have, a human relationship where you literally go all day without speaking to one another.

What kind of a marriage would that be? How great would your relationship be with your roommate or with your spouse or with your children if literally the only communication is when you wake up it's, how you doing?

Please don't let me die today. Or how you doing? Take care of every need today. And when I do communicate with you, it's a few blips here and there. Maybe it's a cell phone call where I just jump into your presence, I ring your phone and I say, gimme!

And then later. And at the end of every day, all I do is I lay my head down with the last few seconds that I have left of energy and I give you the last 45 seconds before I close my eyes and pass out.

And I say things like, thank you, please forgive me, keep me safe tonight. What kind of relationship is that? What kind of intimacy is that? And I have a question, a sincere question I want to ask myself and all of us.

How has my intimacy with God, my conversation with God changed since coming to Jesus? Has it changed at all? The Bible says all of us know the true God, we're suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness.

Everybody has a knowledge of the true God. And there are times that even unbelievers have their moment in the foxhole, right? Where there are no atheists in foxholes. Did I say that right? There are no atheists, okay, there you go, okay.

I'm not in the military and some of you guys are like, this is not your domain, Jeff.

Okay.

There are no atheists in foxholes, right? Like in times of war, people cry out to God, God help me. And as soon as God gives the mercy and there's the escape, then it's the ignoring of God for the rest of our lives.

But I have this sincere question, what's different between my communication and intimacy with God before I knew Jesus and my intimacy with God now? How do I talk to God in a different way today? How is my relationship with God any different than before I knew him?

Am I barely talking to him? Am I not believing that he cares? Is there no intimacy? Am I only crying out to God when there's trouble? Because one thing is for sure, and you're going to see in a moment about Jesus and his words to us about intimacy and prayer with the Father, it is this, God the Father wants to listen to you.

He desires to display his love and provision, God says it over and over and over again. Now, you and I, listen, we may fail in keeping our promises to one another. We may fail in our personal relationships with one another.

We may lie to one another and make commitments we don't keep. But the Bible says about God, God cannot lie. And when he makes promises to you and me as his children, he keeps those promises. When he makes promises about asking and receiving, seeking and finding, he intends to keep those promises.

When he says that he will supply all of our needs, he intends for us to come to him to.

Ask.

The Gospel, Human Sin, and Justification by Faith

That's certain about God. But I want to say this quickly in terms of a theology of prayer. We have to get this right first of all. All of the rest of this talk is meaningless if we don't understand this point.

And all of this talk of intimacy with God doesn't mean anything if you don't truly know him. I'm not talking about if you prayed a prayer at one time in your life, I'm talking about whether or not you truly have turned from sin to be joined to Christ by faith.

If you've been raised up to newness of life, that's the question. And so we know the good news is preceded by the bad news. The Bible says very clearly about me before God, Ephesians chapter 2 clearly says that we are children of wrath, dead in our sins and trespasses, by nature children of wrath.

The Bible says in Romans chapter 3 that there is none righteous, not even one, none who seeks for God, none who does good. It says their throats are open graves. It says there's no fear of God before their eyes and their feet are swift to shed blood.

Now this is where you need to hear, especially if you don't know where you're at with Jesus today. If you question his love, if you question his presence, if you question where you're at with God, you have to hear this before any of the rest makes any sense or difference.

Romans chapter 3 isn't about some class of people out there that are just especially wicked. You can't read Romans 3, what I just quoted, there is none who seeks for God, there is none righteous, none who does good, and start thinking about who you know that fits that description.

Romans chapter 3 is a description of me. It's my life before God. I am the one who is not righteous. I am the one who is not good. I am the one whose feet are swift to shed blood. The Bible says about each and every one of us before God, we are dead, fallen short of the glory of God, not righteous.

And it actually says about the good deeds we think that we're doing and producing before God, it says all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. And I got to say, because I haven't said it in a long time, that we get that so wrong.

I mentioned many times that I was listening to the radio and a woman called into the radio station and she was talking about how bad she felt about her sin and her guilt and shame. And she just was saying, I don't know what to do with it because I don't know if Jesus is really there and he really wants me.

And this woman, bless her heart, the woman who was the host of the radio show, tried to minister to her in a really meaningful way. She said, listen, the Bible says that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God.

She says, you know what that's like, sweetheart? That's like your dirty laundry. It's exactly how moms would describe it, right? It's like their worst thing, right? It's like dirty laundry. Ew, right?

It's like the worst thing ever. It's like dirty laundry. Every good thing you think you're doing before God is like dirty laundry before God. It won't avail anything before the throne of God. But actually it's much worse.

When Isaiah talked about our righteousnesses as filthy rags before God, all the good things you think you're doing before God as a sinner, he actually is using a different word. He's using a word to describe the garments that women used for their monthly period.

So actually it's much more graphic. It's worse than you ever thought. All of our righteousnesses are like used women's garments before the throne of God. That's what the text says. And so what the Bible teaches about our relationship with God is that we are estranged, that we actually are separated from God, and that there is no way to break across that gulf through our good deeds, through our improvement upon ourselves.

The Bible teaches that the only way we become children of God and forgiven is through what Jesus has done, his work. The Bible teaches that God became a man in Jesus. He lived the righteous and blameless life that we have not.

He was perfect. He was a law keeper. And he came as a substitute to live in your place, to be your representative if you know.

Him.

And he took a death on a cross that you deserve and I deserve. That's the message of the gospel. He wasn't just being a good example. He wasn't just being a great friend and teacher. Jesus was actually representing his people by taking a death that they actually deserve.

And then he conquers that death by rising again from the dead. And what is the result? Jesus says, truly, truly, John 5, 24, he who hears my voice and believes him who sent me has, has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.

Why?

Because the father can now look at me and he could say, because I'm in Jesus through faith that I am righteous, not because I truly am, but because I have the righteousness of another. And he can truly say that he has been just because he actually gave to Jesus all that I deserve.

Some people think that's a perversion of justice. You know that, right? You ever hear these new atheists, these militant atheists of our day, Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, this is the point of contact that these famous atheists today often go to.

They say, how stupid, how ignorant, how fallacious to say that somebody has to die for somebody.

To forgive.

How crazy is that?

If you want to forgive, just forgive.

I say, tell that to the family of a murder victim.

Just forgive.

I say, tell that to the victim of a crime where somebody stole their life savings.

Just forgive.

I say, go into a court and say that to a good judge with his docket, with his day ahead of him, and all these criminals, with all these victims, just go into the courtroom and say to the judge, your honor, just forgive.

We know that's not how it works. There must be justice. There must be harmony. And what God does is he displays, watch, his justice and his love, and they meet in a single place, the cross of his son.

And it's on behalf of his people because God remains just, because he gives everything.

To Jesus.

And it displays his love because it shows how much he truly loves us, and it doesn't make any human sense. But what is accomplished through the redemption we have in Jesus? When you turn from your sin to trust in Christ and what he has done, God counts you righteous, blameless, and he'll never count your sins against you.

Romans 8 .1 says, there is therefore now, know what? Condemnation for those who are in, notice the word, in Christ Jesus. It says in Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible teaches that in Christ, he has counted us righteous and he'll never count us guilty again, Romans chapter 4. So what does that mean? You went from hostility towards God to now child of God. You went from unrighteous to now righteous in God's eyes.

You went from condemnation to righteous and blameless before him for all eternity. And so, what is our relationship with God now? Go to your Bibles to John chapter 1, go quickly, John chapter 1. The Bible says in this powerful passage, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God, all things are made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Remember, look in verse 9, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into.

The world.

He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all, listen closely, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

So who becomes children of God?

Everybody?

No, those who believe in him become children of God. It is a pop culture phenomenon.

What is it?

Everybody is a child of God, right? We're all children of God. Politicians especially love to use that line, all of us are children of God. And here's the thing, I think that we may want to call that, we want to call that sentimental but it's certainly not Christianity.

It might be sentimentalism but it's not Christianity because the Bible teaches this, that those who believe in Jesus Christ become children of God. Actually Jesus had words for false teachers. He said their father was who?

The devil. He says, you are of your father, the devil. So Jesus actually identified that there's people who actually belong to God and there are people who don't. There are people who are the children of the devil and children of God.

And the only difference is grace and the instrument through which that takes place is faith, faith in Jesus. So the Bible teaches, Romans chapter 8 verse 14 says that we've received the spirit of adoption, that we are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, that we've actually gone from death to life, from enemy of God to friend of God, from child of wrath to child of God.

The Fatherhood of God and the Lord’s Prayer

So why stress it? Well here's why I want to stress it. I don't think that I live according to what I believe about God consistently. I don't think that I wake up as a believer who's been saved, who's been forgiven by God and truly experience God in the way that He intends me to.

I don't think that I actually delight in Him being my father like He wants me to. And the reason why is I think that like many of you just now, I get jaded to the truth. Like I may have just given you the gospel just now and you guys were tracking with me the whole time.

You knew what was going to come out of my mouth next. You're like, I know Romans 3, I know Ephesians 2, I know the story, we're all children of wrath and then children of God that's their faith in Jesus.

I get His righteousness, He took my sin. And you know the truth is we're indifferent to it. We've heard the story so much. Some of you guys are kids raised in church, you've heard gospel, gospel, gospel your whole life and you never actually stop to consider the glory of being able to go into your father's presence as a forgiven person who will never be condemned.

You know when intimacy with God is truly going to make glorious sense? When you first close your eyes and then you open them again to His presence. That's when it's going to make the most sense. But I don't believe it has to be the case that we wait until that moment before we start experiencing the delight of knowing Him as Father.

Do we really consider our plight, where we've come from and where we are now? The fact that God calls you His child, that He offers you Himself, that He actually calls you His and He wants you to call Him mine.

You're mine God and I'm yours. You're my Father God. I mean just consider for a moment how scandalous it is that Jesus tells His people, I want you to call Him Father. He's not an absentee landlord, He's not far off, out of reach, I want you to call Him Father.

That's how you're supposed to talk to Him. You call Him Father, you plead to Him as Father. The fact that we can do that is an astonishing thing because if you consider for a moment the Old Testament, the symbols that God put up, what did God have that symbolized His presence, the Holy of Holies?

What blocked the people of God from the Holy of Holies?

A veil.

Who got to go in there? Onyom Kippur, the high priest, and maybe he doesn't make it out alive. Put the rope around his waist, right, everyone will hold it, make sure you get some bells on the guy so if he drops down dead, we know that he died, right?

And he can't even go into God's presence without first a ritual to have an innocent for guilty sacrifice for his own sins. The people of God are outside. There's this symbol of separation from God, but when Jesus died, that veil tears as a testimony before the watching world that now that is open for the people of God to go into His presence with confident, bold access.

You don't have any right to be there. That's what you have to grasp about this entire scenario. I don't have a right to be in His presence, and we just take it for granted that I can call Him Father, that I belong to Him, that He's mine, that He says to me, ask me, seek, come to me, strive for me, come into my presence.

So I want to encourage you to with me repent, repent, repent of your lack of striving for God, repent of your lack of intimacy with God, strive for Him. He condemns His people. In the book of Isaiah 64 verse 7, I read it last week, for what?

Not crying out to God and not striving for Him. God condemns His people for not crying out to Him and not striving for Him. Let's go to this important text for a moment, the Lord's Prayer. Jesus says, this is how you're supposed to pray.

I want you to see the first words. Our Father in heaven. Our Father. God calls you to address Him as Father, to come to Him as a child coming to a father. And I want to just say this in terms of a theology of prayer.

Can I address something that I know many of you are struggling with right now? I know that it's hard for many of us to use the word Father.

Why?

Because maybe we've had horrible earthly fathers. Some of you guys have experienced pain, abuse from your earthly father. And so when you hear Jesus saying, talk like this, Father, your experience with your father here on earth has been laced with pain and suffering and brokenness.

It's been laced with distrust, broken promises, hurt. And so when Jesus says, call him Father, you immediately recoil.

Why?

Because your relationship to your father hurts. And here's the thing I want you to notice about this whole discussion about Father, is the only reason any of us could point to our earthly fathers and say, failure, is because we know as image bearers of God that our fathers fall short of Him.

Every earthly father is supposed to be a reflection of our Father in heaven, and we blow it, we are sinners, we are broken, we fall woefully short. And the only reason any of us could ever say, that's a bad dad, that's an awful father, is because they fall short of the ultimate standard of Father, which is Him.