Calvary Road Baptist Church

“CHRIST’S PROMISE OF ANSWERED PRAYER”

John 15.7 

The day after I trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, I was exposed to the Charismatic/ Pentecostal movement for the first time. I went to a lunchtime Bible study held in a conference room in the building where I worked. Some weeks and a whole bunch of Bible studies later, I was invited to a Baptist Church. Only then did I begin to appreciate the varied landscape that comprises the professing Christian community in the United States. I had always known there were Roman Catholics. I had always known there were Episcopalians and Methodists. I suppose I knew, as well, that there were Nazarenes. One of my grannies had attended a Nazarene church for a while. But I had no awareness of Pentecostalism or the Charismatic Movement.

Pentecostalism began in Lawrence, Kansas, in the year 1900. From there, it took hold in the state of Texas, eventually finding fertile ground in Los Angeles, California. Pentecostalism began as a holiness movement by establishing denominations and forming congregations. The Charismatic Movement started in 1963 in Van Nuys, California, and initially began to spread through mainline denominational churches, subverting already established congregations. Now, almost 60 years later, Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement are virtually indistinguishable, with Pentecostalism having abandoned their holiness position and the Charismatic Movement having for decades established their congregations.

The superficial similarities that exist between Pentecostal Christians and Charismatic Christians are essentially fivefold. #1, Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians promote and practice what they claim to be the gift of tongues.[1] #2, Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians promote and practice ecumenicalism without regard for doctrinal orthodoxy. #3, Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians use subjective life experiences to interpret and apply objective Scriptural truth, rather than objective Scriptural truth to analyze and understand life experiences. #4, Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians are most usually Arminian in their theology, believing that a genuinely born-again Christian can lose his salvation. #5, Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians embrace a name it and claim it theology, otherwise known as the Word of Faith Movement.

The Word of Faith Movement is also known as the Prosperity Gospel. It is a theological position held by most Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians. Those personalities most familiar to us are such well-known figures as Joel Osteen, T. D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Joyce Meyers, Benny Hinn, Marilyn Hickey, Paula White, Pat Robertson, and Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.

Those who embrace the Prosperity Gospel typically make five mistakes owing to their habit of using personal experiences and subjective impressions to interpret and apply biblical truth. #1, They misconstrue the Abrahamic Covenant to be a means to material entitlement. #2, They wrongly extend the Lord Jesus Christ’s atonement to the “sin” of material poverty. #3, They misconstrue Christian giving to being activity engaged in to gain material compensation from God. You give to get. #4, They misinterpret faith as being a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity.[2] #5, They tout prayer as being a tool to force God to grant prosperity.[3]

It is this last item, seeing prayer as a tool to force God to grant prosperity that gives rise to the description Word of Faith. They believe, those who embrace this theology, that if one properly frames a prayer to God using the right terminology and claiming what they understand to be God’s promises, God is obligated to grant that properly formulated prayer request.

Excuse me, but that is paganism pure and simple. My heavenly Father is under no obligation to serve His creatures and do our bidding. It is quite the other way around. We have the high and holy privilege of serving Him, not demanding or conjuring up the means whereby we can manipulate Him to serve us. That said, it is not my expectation that you would agree with my opposition to Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement without resorting with me to God’s Word.

Begin with Matthew 6.9-15, where the Lord Jesus Christ described the pattern of prayer He wanted His disciples to employ when praying to the Father: 

9  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

The first thing you might notice from the Lord Jesus Christ’s model prayer is that prayer requests, as He envisioned them, are not matters of either demand or ultimatum. Prayers, as the Lord Jesus Christ practiced and demonstrated Himself, and taught His disciples, were requests made to God, supplications offered at the throne of grace, and properly presented appeals.

Very near the end of the Lord Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, within hours of His crucifixion, as a matter of fact, He spoke to His remaining apostles following the departure of Judas Iscariot from the Upper Room to betray Him for 30 pieces of silver. From one of the Lord Jesus Christ’s discourses uttered on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, I would like to lift a single verse that is rightly understood to be Christ’s promise to His men of answered prayer. Would you like to learn of His promise to His men of answered prayer? A right understanding of the passage we are about to consider is crucial to not only one’s foundational understanding of prayer in the Bible, but also crucial in deciding upon the legitimacy of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement.

Please turn to John 15.7. When you find that verse, I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s Word: 

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” 

Let us seek to understand this verse so that we might be better prepared to not only offer up prayers to God that are pleasing to Him but also offer up prayers to God that will be answered according to Christ’s promise.

Be mindful that the contemporary evangelical notion of a relationship with Jesus Christ that does not feature a corresponding responsibility to abide in Christ is a concept of Christianity not found in the Bible. It is clear from such passages as Ephesians 2.10 and First Thessalonians 1.1-10 that real life in Christ is not passive, but an energetic and active life of worship, service, and devotion, with the reference to work in both passages not being accidental or without significance. You do not have any Maynard G. Krebs real Christians.[4]

In John 15.1-17, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to His eleven apostles using the literary device known as allegory. In the allegory, the Lord Jesus Christ compares the relationship between God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the believer to a husbandman, a grapevine, and the branches growing from the vine. However, He deviates from the relationship that exists in nature between the vine and the branches in one respect. In our Lord’s allegory, in which He identifies Himself as the True Vine, the branches representing the believer in Jesus Christ are assigned the obligation for fulfilling specific responsibilities vital to fruitfulness. The believer is required to abide.

In verse 1, our Lord introduced the allegory by identifying Himself as the True Vine and the Father as the Husbandman. In verse 2, He described the two contrasting activities of the husbandman. The branches which are not fruitful are removed, seen in the phrase “he taketh away.” The fruitful branch’s remedy for greater fruitfulness is phrased “he purgeth it,” to allow greater fruitfulness. Verse 3 describes the resultant condition of believers when the Father and Son’s responsibilities in the relationship have been discharged; the believers are clean through the Word. Beginning with verse 4, the Lord Jesus Christ sets forth the vine’s responsibilities and the branch, the Lord and the believer, to abide by the one in the other as being crucial to fruitfulness. This truth is emphasized again in verse 5, with a warning found in verse 6, where the Lord steps out of the allegory to clarify the dire consequences of not abiding in Christ. This is accomplished by reminding His men what happens in the natural world to branches that are pruned, withered, cast into a fire, and burned.

Coming now to verse 7, the Lord Jesus Christ turns from warning to optimism and the promise of answered prayer when certain preconditions are met. These preconditions are what show the Word of Faith Movement, the name it and claim it crowd, the Prosperity Gospel, to be the heresy that it is. Listen to Frederick K. Price, or Joel Osteen, or Creflo Dollar, or Joyce Meyers, or Kenneth Copeland, or the others for very long and you will notice that they give voice to the false notion that the child of God needs only to name his desire and claim his desire to get his desire. However, such a concept is one in which God conforms to the creature’s desire and design rather than the Christian needing to conform to God’s desire and design.

Notice, however, what verse 7 teaches: 

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” 

Keep in mind that the word “abide” is straightforward in concept but profound in its implications. It refers to remaining in place, staying put, consciously, and conscientiously being where you are supposed to be. The Lord Jesus Christ challenged His men with their duty, responsibility, and privilege of sticking with Him even when He would no longer physically be with them.

He wanted the totality of their being, their minds, their hearts, their loyalties, their attentions, their time, their treasures, their talents, their all, to be with Him. And when diverse individuals abide in Christ in these respects, though we are each individual with our pasts and our own experiences, abiding in Christ will produce in our lives a commonality, a communion, and a unity of word, thought, and deed as a consequence of our individual decisions to abide in Christ. And our prayers are answered. Of course, this abiding in Christ does not take place in reality unless and until there is a corresponding abiding of His words in us as we abide in Him. That is why we, to abide in Christ, must be men and women who ingest Christ’s words into our lives by a variety of means.

Those means of Christ’s words abiding in us would include attention to the preaching of God’s Word, attention to the teaching of God’s Word, attention to the reading of God’s Word, attention to the memorizing of God’s Word, attention to the studying of God’s Word, and certainly attention to the meditating upon God’s Word so that His Word can be hidden in your heart that you will not sin against Him, Psalm 119.11 and First Timothy 4.15.

What do you imagine occurs when a Christian throws himself or herself into this practice called abiding in Christ and knocks off this nonsense of taking a piecemeal approach to the Christian life and ministry? Several things occur: On one hand, your mind is renewed, Romans 12.2, and you can then prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. You also begin to think God’s thoughts after Him, so that you can say with the Apostle Paul, “But we have the mind of Christ,” First Corinthians 2.16.

It is in this context that we find the promise of answered prayer in John 15.7: 

“ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” 

First, notice that our Lord indicated that the disciple who abides in Christ asks what he will. He does not demand of God or issue a directive to God, or any such thing. He asks, showing that he understands God to be God and that he is God’s creature and child. Second, allow me to illustrate how very sensible this understanding of the principle is:

If a young person with a driver’s license asks his dad, “Hey, Dad, can I borrow the car to take a spin with my friends?” The answer is likely, “I don’t think so, son.” However, if the young person asks, “Dad, can I borrow the car to run an errand for mom, before I get gas for you and wash the car? And on the way home, is it okay if I stop by a friend’s house and bring him back to the house, stopping for a burger on the way?”

Do you see how knowing the father’s will that mom be honored, and that he be honored, can fit nicely with your desires? This type of thing takes place when the Christian abides in Christ. No wonder some Christians have more prayers answered than others. They think God’s thoughts after Him. They have the mind of Christ. And their wishes and desires more closely resemble what God wants for them than the piecemeal Christian who only lives for himself and wonders why so many of his prayers go unanswered.

That aspect of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement that shows itself in the Word of Faith Movement and the Prosperity Gospel has reversed the relationship that is supposed to exist between God and God’s child. Though it is clearly shown in the Bible that God is God and we are His creatures, the Word of Faith Movement and the Prosperity Gospel practices a severe distortion of Christianity that supposes the person engaged in prayer is demanding from God what He is thought to have promised.

I know all of this can be quite confusing since it was very confusing to me as a young Christian. Therefore, what I would like to do to dispel the confusion is present to you, in very simple and straightforward fashion, how to take advantage of the Lord Jesus Christ’s promise to answer prayer.

Our text can easily be divided for consideration into four parts: 

PART ONE: “If ye abide in me” 

This phrase is the beginning of what is called a first-class conditional sentence. It is a literary device that is used to establish an initial condition (that is assumed to be true) that necessitates a predictable conclusion. Again, this phrase is the beginning of the first class conditional sentence.

To properly understand this opening phrase, it is crucial that we understand where the Lord Jesus Christ’s starting point is situated. Since the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to His remaining apostles, the starting point concerning someone who is to abide in Christ is that that someone first be “in Christ.”

One cannot “abide in me” until one is first “in me.” No one can be expected to “abide in Christ” unless and until that individual is first “in Christ.” Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ is not here speaking to men who are not converted. He speaks here to His 11 men and, by extension, to subsequent believers in Jesus Christ.

Would you like to approach God the Father in prayer? Do you crave the privilege of approaching the throne of grace to offer up your requests to God?[5] When you find yourself in trouble, do you want confidence that God will hear your prayers because He knows your access to Him has been provided by His Son, Jesus Christ?

Before you can abide in Christ as a prerequisite to the promise of prayers answered, you must first be in Christ. No one can “abide in Christ” who is not first “in Christ.” To put it another way, it is not at all reasonable to expect someone to cultivate a relationship with Christ, who does not first have a relationship with Christ.

To have any expectation of your prayers being answered by God, you must be a child of God. For Jesus Christ to be your advocate when you pray, Jesus Christ must be your Savior. Therefore, your first consideration is whether or not you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.

Once you are a believer in Jesus Christ and enjoy the relationship with Jesus Christ, the men He was speaking to in our text enjoyed, then you must do what the Savior directed them to do. You must abide in Him. You must consciously, conscientiously, willingly, responsibly, and in Biblically mandated fashion, submit to Jesus Christ as your Lord and devote yourself to serving Him.

This is not something a child of God can engage in passively. Neither is this something the believer in Jesus Christ can accomplish lethargically. Compliance with this directive is not achieved in a halfhearted way or by missing two of the three Church services each week. To abide in Christ requires that you be “all in.” Do you imagine it could be any other way? 

PART TWO: “and my words abide in you” 

Notice if you will that there are two parts to the beginning of this first-class conditional sentence, which is called a protasis. The first half of the protasis is “if ye abide in me.” The second half of the protasis reads, “and my words abide in you.”

Thus, not only is it the obligation of the believer in Jesus Christ to abide in Christ, but it is also the obligation of the believer in Jesus Christ that Christ’s words abide in him. So, you have to be a believer in Jesus Christ, and you have to abide in Christ. That’s what we learn in the first phrase of our verse, Part One. In the second phrase of our verse, Part Two, we see Christ’s directive that His word also abide in us.

It is one thing for the child of God to consciously and conscientiously commit himself to another person, so as to live for him, love him, demonstrate commitment to his cause, and seek to please him in every way imaginable. That is abiding in Christ. But what does it mean to have Christ’s words abiding in you?

May I have your permission to relate what it is to have Christ’s Word abide in you, even though I do not have the time to prove to you what I’m about to say? In Colossians 3.16 the Apostle Paul writes, 

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” 

Ἐnoiká½³oo translated by our English word “dwell,” refers to making one’s home, or being at home.[6] In this verse, it is an imperative verb, a command, a directive. Letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly pictures the notion of your personality being something like a home in which the Word of Christ has full and complete access to every corner and under every cover to produce influence and subsequent change in both your attitudes and your actions.

Part and parcel of abiding in Christ is the determination to be influenced by and in subjection to the Word of Christ. It is the other side of the abiding coin. One cannot abide in Christ without at the same time coming to learn God’s Word, and subsequently complying with what you learn from Scripture to be God’s will for your life.

Practically speaking, how do Christ’s words come to abide in you? This is the collective result of the pastor’s teaching and preaching ministry to equip you for service, the encouragement that you both give and receive when you attend the gathered worship services of the Church, and when you hide God’s Word in your heart so that you might not sin against Him. Can you envision a circumstance whereby Christ’s words will so abide in you as a result of you missing more Church services than you attend, and using the Bible more to gather dust than a manual for living?

So, we have a two-part protasis, a two-part beginning for our first-class conditional sentence. The first part is you abide in Christ. The second part is Christ’s Word abides in you. And notice what we have in the middle, the word translated “and.” Therefore, your prayers are not answered if you abide in Christ but never open your Bible. Neither are your prayers answered when you are a student of God’s Word while paying little attention to serving and exalting the subject of the Bible, who is Christ. The Greek word kaá½·, translated here “and,” means that both parts of the process are crucial to seeing your prayer life prosperous and fruitful. 

PART THREE: “ye shall ask what ye will” 

Before we consider the third phrase of our text, turn with me to Romans 12.1-2, where we find Paul’s description of the result of abiding in Christ and His words abiding in you: 

1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 

You cannot abide in Christ, and Christ’s Word cannot abide in you, without it affecting your personality and altering your mind. A consideration of the personality of someone who abides in Christ and in whom Christ’s Word abides takes you to Galatians 5.22–23. Abiding in Christ and Christ’s Word abiding in the believer, seen in terms of the Holy Spirit’s impact on the believer’s personality, is referred to as the fruit of the Spirit.

Romans 12.1–2, on the other hand, features the mentality and decision-making impact of abiding in Christ and Christ’s words abiding in the believer. Such a person’s mind is renewed, and he becomes a better decision-maker, able “to prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

What impact do these things have on our third phrase, “ye shall ask what ye will”? If you abide in Christ and Christ’s words abide in you, not only do you quite obviously have the mind of Christ, but you display greatly enhanced judgment, wisdom, and discernment.

How does a believer who abides in Christ and in whom the words of Christ abide pray? Consider the example of the Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 1.15-17: 

15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. 

There are other illustrations of what our text shows us that a person who abides in Christ and in whom Christ’s words abide is a spiritual and godly individual. But what do spiritual and godly people pray for? What does someone with the mind of Christ pray for? He does not so much pray for stuff, beyond asking God to give him his daily bread. Such a person will not pray to God for a Gulfstream jet or a Bentley to drive. Rather, such a person prays prayers that affect spiritual matters, grappling with issues of eternal import, and is not so much consumed by stuff and material matters.

The person who abides in Christ and in whom Christ’s words abide can pray for anything he wants, though the result of abiding in Christ and Christ’s words abiding in him dramatically changes what he wants, and what he seeks from God in his prayers. 

PART FOUR: “and it shall be done unto you.” 

Allow me to draw a parallel between the relationship you have with Christ and a little child with his father. You are much like the youngster in your father’s arms as he carries you along with him to a promised destination. Imagine the scene in your mind.

As your father walks along with you in his arms, you look to the left and the right, sometimes to the front, and sometimes to the back. Because you are your father’s child, he carries you, but because you are not abiding in your father you are constantly looking about and squirming, asking for that off to the left, for this off to the right, and frequently behind the two of you as your dad carries you forward.

Understand that your father has a destination for the two of you. Because he loves you, is determined to be a blessing to you, and will protect you at all costs, he will not stop and go back to give you what you ask for. Neither will he deviate to the left or to the right, leaving the path that he has wisely chosen to get for you what you have asked for but does not help you, and will delay your arrival.

Occasionally you look to the front and acquire a glimpse of where your father is taking you. When that happens, something catches your eye off in the distance, and you ask your father to give it to you. Because it is along the way, does not serve to distract in any way, your father is delighted to reach down and grab it for you as you both pass and gives it to you as you have asked.

However, should you turn in your father’s arms to face the same direction he is facing, to align your gaze along the pathway chosen for you by your father, you will mostly see things along the way that lies directly in the path your father has chosen.

Abiding in him in this way and also benefiting from his words abiding in you, you find that everything you ask for along your father’s pathway for you, he is more than willing to give you. 

So, as long as you are abiding in him, and his words are abiding in you, ask for whatever you see and want, and your father will answer your prayers. 

Many of the people who have an unfruitful prayer life are not yet situated in the context of John 15.7. They do not yet know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Some people who pray know they are not Christians, presuming on God to reward their life’s misconduct by answering their prayers even while they reject Christ.

Others who have an unfruitful prayer life are people who are situated in the context of John 15.7. They do know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. They have trusted Christ to the saving of their eternal and undying soul. Their sins are forgiven. They are justified by faith in Christ. However, they do not understand the terms of Christ’s promise to His people.

Here is the deal. And it is a very reasonable deal. You give the Savior what He wants, what He demands, what He commands, what He deserves, and He gives you what you ask for. That is the deal. He is Lord, and you are a creature. You do not dictate terms to Him. He dictates terms to you and me. Isn’t that reasonable? That He has provided this tremendous opportunity to His obedient disciples is a wonderful demonstration of grace. How thankful we ought to be to be given such opportunity to pray.

Sadly, there are many who do not appreciate the terms of our Lord’s prayer promise. They feel very put upon to have to abide in Christ, and to have Christ’s words abide in them for their prayers to be answered. They find the mind of Christ to be inconvenient. They consider themselves more astute at planning out their week’s schedule for Church attendance than Scripture seems to allow for. They want what they want without consideration of providing for the one they call Lord, Master, Savior, King what He wants.

Have you ever heard the story of how a shepherd cures a wandering lamb? Because it is both disobedient and dangerous for a lamb to wander from the shepherd, the merciful shepherd who cares for his sheep must take steps to teach the wandering lamb to stay close by him.

At some point in the escalating severity of chastisement, the conscientious and caring shepherd will do two things to cure the lamb’s tendency to wander. First, he will break the front legs of the lamb. Of course, this is very painful, and he resorts to this with great reluctance. But it must be done. His goal is to save the life of the young sheep.

Next, he sets the broken legs and begins the arduous practice of carrying the lamb everywhere it must go until the legs have mended. Though he inflicts great pain upon the young lamb by breaking his legs, soon, the pain subsides, and the sharp memory of pain recedes. The young lamb lives in the present, mindful that his shepherd shows such love to him, and carrying him everywhere protects him and provides for him. Once his legs have mended, he will remember only the love of the shepherd and will no longer have an inclination to wander.

We have been directed by our Savior to abide in Him and for His words to abide in us. Failure in this regard is disobedience, and wandering from the pathway the Good Shepherd has set before us is dangerous for you. I do not want Him to inflict pain as a way of persuading you to do that which is already best for you and that He promises will give you a lifetime of answered prayers.

To review. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Are you in Christ? You cannot abide in Christ until you are first in Christ. Do you understand Christ’s directive to abide in Him and for His words to abide in you?

When that occurs, you will be affected spiritually, transformed mentally, and be given astonishing perception, wisdom, and discernment. Then you can ask anything you want, and God will answer your prayers.

__________

[1] See my The Gift Of Tongues, available from www.ClassicalBaptist.Press

[2] That faith is given by God is established from Luke 17.5; Ephesians 2.8; Romans 10.17; Second Corinthians 4.13; Hebrews 12.2

[3] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-errors-of-the-prosperity-gospel/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_G._Krebs

[5] Hebrews 4.16

[6] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament, Vol V, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1932), page 259.

Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.

Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church