The Single Most Important Lesson on Prayer You Will Ever Hear

Does prayer actually change things, or is prayer really about changing you?  Does God actually do things just because we have prayed for it, or does God just do what He wants to do, and the point of prayer is just learning to like what He does?  The question is rarely put so bluntly, but the idea that prayer is more about changing us than changing things is very strong in the United States and growing. 

There is such an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, where God does whatever He wants, and our main purpose is to try to align ourselves with what He is planning on doing that there is a lot less expectation that He is really answering our prayers, as in doing the thing that we asked Him for.  We can certainly ask for things, but if it isn’t His will, we won’t get it, but even if we don’t ask, He does His will anyway, so the result is the same but we just missed the personal benefit of this interaction with God of bending our will to His.

This kind of thinking is not voiced too loudly in churches today, because people are still taught to pray about everything, and to actually come out and say what is generally implied would be like the child who tells everybody that the king has no clothes. Everybody is thinking it to some extent, but they don’t want to think about what this really means.

When something happens that corresponds to our prayers and the result is amazing, the feeling is on the level of winning the lottery.  It is entirely unexpected and nothing to give you any direction on future prayers.  There is no general pattern that we could apply to future situations.  God’s will is entirely on a case by case basis, and what He does in one case has no bearing on what will happen in a similar case down the road.

In Luke chapter 11, Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them to pray.  And He does. 

What does that mean?  Does that mean that we have to learn how to pray?  Isn’t prayer just talking to God?  Isn’t prayer just the cry of our heart?  What is there to learn?

More importantly, does it matter if we are taught to pray?  Does this mean that things will be different in my life if I am taught to pray and pray according to these principles? 

Imagine two people in essentially identical circumstances.  One was taught how to pray and the other wasn’t.  They both pray.  Will they get different results?  Wouldn’t God just give them according to His will in each case?  If that was the case, why would Jesus think it was necessary to teach His disciples how to pray?  It wouldn’t matter.  Just pray the way you have always prayed.

But, no, they asked Him, and He proceeded to tell them.  So learning how to pray will make a difference in how God answers your prayer. 

Note too that prayer in this case, the prayer that Jesus is teaching His disciples involves asking and receiving.  A lot of Christians today have essentially given up on the idea that prayer changes anything.  They say that prayer changes us, but we shouldn’t think that our prayers actually change things. 

Because if prayer did change things, or could change things, then we would be responsible for things not being changed that should be changed, and most people can’t handle that or don’t want to.  They feel it would burden them with guilt, or they would feel that certain things were their fault, because they didn’t pray ‘hard enough.’ 

They would rather say that everything is God’s will.  So if things didn’t go the way they wanted, it was God’s choice and not their own. 

But if our prayers were meant to change us rather than circumstance, wouldn’t Jesus have told us this right here?

But let’s go on.

In verse 2, Jesus says, whenever you pray, say this, and He gives us what we have come to call the Lord’s Prayer.

I wouldn’t take that to mean that every time you ever pray, you use only these words and exactly these words.  But I would say that at least once in a day, and I will explain why in a minute, you should use these exact words, just to be sure that you are praying for what Jesus wants you to pray for.and how He wants you to pray for it. 

But doesn’t it then just become vain repetition, the mindless saying of words that you no longer mean or even think about?

Well, there are a lot of things that we do every day that we don’t even have to think about.  I drive the same way to work every day.  I could drive there in my sleep.  But I don’t.  Why?  Because I am driving to work.  I brush my teeth twice a day, and I could just go through the motions, but I am brushing my teeth. 

When I pray this prayer every morning, what we call the Lord’s Prayer, I could just rush through it on autopilot and mumble the words, but I am praying, and I know that my prayers, this prayer, makes a difference.

It begins by calling God Father.  Not Lord, not God, but a word based on a human relationship that hopefully we will all have experienced in a positive way.  Not everybody grew up with a father, and not all fathers were good fathers.  But with very few exceptions, they all wanted to be good fathers.

But I think that anyone who did not have a good father knew what they wished they did have from that father.  But life is designed so that if we don’t learn what it is to be loved unconditionally while we are children, then for most of  us we get a second chance when we become parents and we love our children unconditionally.  All this is meant to teach us about God’s love.

On a side note here, this could be the greatest single reason for the statement that children need their natural fathers in their life.  Now not all natural fathers are good fathers, but I do think that our fathers do and can do a lot in shaping or helping to shape how we feel about God and how we respond to Him.   I think it would be wrong and unwise to think the role of a natural father is not important in the life of a child.

But thinking of God as father should affect how we talk to Him.  We are not talking to Him as the King of the universe, which He is, but as our father who doted over us as a child and taught us how to ride a bike and then riding with us.  Someone we can talk to.

The first thing we are to pray for is that God’s Name be hallowed.  Or you could say honored, or respected.   This draws attention to the bigger picture.  Read the examples of prayers in the Bible, most of which are in the Old Testament, whether Abraham praying for Sodom and Gomorrah, or Moses praying for Israel on several occasions, or Hezekiah praying for Jerusalem.  They prayed like they were lawyers arguing the case before God as to why God should do what they were asking, and the reasons all stemmed back to God’s glory, God’s reputation, God’s Word, His promises. 

I plan to talk more about that at another time. 

But yes, you have needs, and yes, God wants to meet your needs.  But you will find that gradually as you see God meeting your needs, your focus will get off your needs and your problems to those of the world, and your concern will be that God will be exalted through the addressing of these bigger needs. 

But don’t for a second think that God doesn’t’ want to meet your needs.  I know a lot of Christians are concerned that their needs are not really needs but just wants, and that God often doesn’t do wants.

That question should get a separate lesson as well, but this one might answer it for you. 

The next petition is “let Your kingdom come.”  Now this same prayer is also found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, and there the prayer contains a few more lines.  Without going into all the reasons why the two prayers as they are given in most English Bibles are different, for the sake of this lesson, I am going to combine the two.  I don’t think Jesus forgot what He said on the other occasion, and I believe He intended everything He said on that other occasion to have been a part of what He said on this occasion.

So after He said, Let your Kingdom come, He said, Let Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Now why would He tell people to pray that God’s will be done if it already is done?  If everything that happens is God’s will, then why pray for it to be done?

Some will say this is just a way of getting us to conform our wills to His.  Well, if that is the case, then why didn’t He just come out and say it, without leading people on to think that their prayer could actually bring about God’s will? 

Some seem to see the purpose of life as an inward exercise of shaping our souls and spirits through trials and tribulations managed or caused by God for our personal benefit.  I see the purpose of life as bringing God’s Kingdom to the world and God’s will to be done.  When we do that, we will see trials and tribulations brought about by those who would try to keep us from doing our job, and our spiritual growth comes from our overcoming the obstacles that hinder the spread of the Kingdom.

But I think to say that God’s will is always done doesn’t square with Jesus telling us to pray for this every time we pray.  That would also mean that every evil thing done in the world, every murder, every rape, every disease, every war, every person sold into slavery was God’s will, and I don’t think that is even close to the truth.  We are here to change all that.  Nobody said it would be easy.

There are two times in the Bible, I believe, when a prayer to change things wasn’t answered:  Jesus’ prayer in the garden and Paul’s prayer about his thorn. 

But Jesus knew what God’s will was before He even prayed.  He knew the best thing for everybody was for Him to go forward with the plan about His death.  But that still didn’t make it any easier.  So we get to hear His struggle.  This is not meant to get us to doubt whether God will answer any of our prayers because there is always the possibility that this thing wouldn’t be God’s will.  We have this thousand page book to tell us about God and His will, and we should have a pretty good idea of what God would want even before we start to pray.

As for Paul, God told him right from the start that he was going to go through all kinds of junk, and he too prayed to get out of it.  People raise a lot of questions about this thorn in the flesh, and I spent 5 chapters in my book on healing talking about it.  So if you want more information on that, please read my book, The Importance of Healing or go to my blogsite Theimportanceofhealing.blogspot.com, where I have all those chapters posted.

Then the prayer says: Give us this day our daily bread. 

First we need to look at this expression ‘daily bread.’  This is clearly a reference to the story of the manna in the Old Testament.  The Israelites spent 40 years wandering in a wilderness prior to their being brought to a land that God had promised them.  Every morning God would send a wafer-like substance on the ground as food for them.  They had to go out and collect it every morning.  They couldn’t keep it for the next day.  It would spoil, except on the sixth day when it would keep for another day, so they wouldn’t have to go out to get it on the seventh day, the Sabbath.  And they had to get it early in the morning before the sun got hot, otherwise it would melt.  

If they didn’t go out, they wouldn’t have any. 

So Jesus says that we are to pray for our daily bread.  We are supposed to do this every day.  And I would say also early in the day.

But what if we don’t pray for it?  Will we still receive it?  If we will get it anyway, why would He tell us to pray for it?  If it doesn’t matter whether we pray for our daily bread, why would Jesus include this petition in a prayer meant to teach us how to pray?  If the Israelites had to go out and get their daily bread early in the morning every day if they wanted to have some for the day, why would it be so hard to think that God wouldn’t expect the same for us today?

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray.  And He does, implying that learning how to pray makes a difference.  And what does He say? 

He says that we need to pray every day for our daily bread, early in the morning.  And if we don’t, will we still get it?  Well, we live in America, where when we have a drought, the price of bread may go up 20¢. 

But what if we don’t get it, would that be God’s will for us?  After all, He told us to pray for it every day.  And why would He do that if it didn’t matter if we prayed for it or not?

And if He told us to pray for it, we should expect that we will receive it.  And if we don’t pray for it, well, don’t be surprised if you don’t get it, and don’t say it was God’s will that you didn’t.  Because He told you to pray for it.

Is God being petty?  Maybe prayer isn’t like a picture of God sitting on a throne hearing our petitions and deciding whether or not to grant them.  Maybe prayer itself is what unleashes the answer, like writing a check or cashing a check releases the money, and it isn’t the bank deciding to grant our request for money.

Now over the years of praying this prayer, I have learned to be specific, such that I pray for my family, my health, my house, my car, my job, all kinds of things, and a lot of other people as well.  First thing in the morning. 

Now there is a petition further down that says: deliver us from evil.  I know that the modern English translations read this as ‘deliver us from the Evil One.’  Out of context, it can be translated either way, but the idea of a general deliverance or protection from evil itself is found a number of times in the Old Testament and would certainly cover the idea of the Evil One at the same time, while limiting the prayer to the Evil One would seemingly allow for evil not caused by him.  So praying for deliverance from evil is quite consistent with other passages in the Bible.

And Psalm 91, which is one of those Old Testament passages, had already been referred to in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels before Jesus taught us this prayer.  

So we have already established that we are supposed to pray this prayer every day and early in the day before the sun gets hot.  So every day early in the day we are supposed to pray for protection from evil.  Before the fact.

So what if we don’t pray for it?  Might we experience evil that God never intended for us to experience?  After all, He told us to pray to be delivered from it.  Why would He tell us to pray to be delivered from evil if it wouldn’t matter whether we prayed for it or not?

Now if we don’t pray for protection from evil and we experience it, could we say that this was God’s will?  He already told us to pray that we wouldn’t.  If Jesus tells us to do something, let’s just do it.  This is certainly one of the easiest things He told us to do.

As I said before, I have learned to be very specific here.  I don’t just pray every day for my health and the health of my family.  If they have had specific issues before, I will specifically mention those areas.  I pray, as I said, for our house, our property, our cars, my job, a lot of other people, and other things as well.

I have an entire chapter about this in a book that I wrote about this prayer.  The book is called The Importance of the Lord’s Prayer, and you can find the chapter on my blog, LarrysBibleStudies.blogspot.com. 

Now after telling us specifically things that we should pray for and how often we should be praying these things, Jesus tells us a little bit about what to expect when we pray.

First of all, He is very emphatic in telling us to expect to receive the things we ask for.  I believe Christians have grown very skeptical here.  They seem to be forever cautioning people from, first, even thinking they know what to pray for, and, secondly, that we will actually receive it.  Every prayer requires an if-it-be-Thy-will attached to it, to explain why the prayer wasn’t answered and to serve as a subtle rebuke for presuming to know what God’s will is in the first place. 

But Jesus is quite insistent that we should believe God for what we ask.  Just like our regular parents, which Jesus uses to prove His point.  We keep thinking that we will ask for things that God will refuse to give us, because a) obviously we have no idea what we are asking for, and b) God’s will for us is so different from anything we would imagine that we might wonder if we should even pray at all.

But Jesus tells us a story to show us what prayer will often look like, a picture we just don’t see anywhere.

He tells a story about a man who went to a friend’s house in the middle of the night to borrow food.  This may seem strange to us, but this was not so strange at that time in that culture.  The man had a guest who came to him late at night, and he needed to take care of him.  And this was a very serious matter in that culture.  You don’t scrimp on company.

Now for that friend to get up and give this man anything, he would have to disturb his entire family as well as a lot of his animals who would all be sleeping.  Their houses were not like ours.  If he got up, everybody would wake up. 

But because of this man’s shamelessness by coming in the middle of the night, he gets up and gives him what he wants.  The word used here for shamelessness is often translated as persistence, but that is only implied, because the man in the house told him to stop bothering him.  And he didn’t.  Call it shameless persistence.

Some Bible scholars believe that this story contrasts the man in the house with God, because God is far more willing to answer our prayers than he was.  But that is not what Jesus is saying here, because immediately after He says that this man will get up and give the other man however much he wants, He says quite emphatically that we should keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking. 

The fact is that the answers to our prayers may not come as quickly as we would like.

When you pray for something, how long do you wait before you decide that God has answered your prayer?  A day, a week, a month, a year?  And then what do you do?  Do you say that whatever happened or didn’t happen was God’s will?  The point is that what appears to be a no may not be a no at all.  Prayer may often require the persistence of a person who is not going to be denied.

That man in the story who went to his friend’s house at midnight was not going to return home without getting what he came for.  Perhaps the big difference between that man and us is that that man knew what he needed and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and we easily find ourselves questioning whether the thing we are praying for really is God’s will or not.

A lot of Christians will hear/read this and think that I am encouraging whiny, selfish prayers and people who think they can tell God what to do, like God is supposed to serve us and not we serving Him.

Yet look again at the petitions in the prayer that Jesus gave us.  Grammatically speaking, they’re all imperatives, which means a command. 

Some are third person commands, like Let your Name be hallowed, let your kingdom come, let your will be done.  This is like when God said “Let there be light.’  He wasn’t asking anybody to turn on the lights.  He just commanded it to be done, and His word brought it about.

And the rest are second person imperatives, like: Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, and deliver us from evil.  These are not requests like we often ask people if they would please pass the salt, or maybe they could loan us five dollars.  Not even a please in sight.  Just one person telling another person to do something.   There is no uncertainty here about the outcome or the willingness of the person to do what is said.  No one is being asked anything here.

I think we often misunderstand how life works.  I think a lot of Christians look at the world and think of God orchestrating its every move.  They call it the sovereignty of God.  I would say that, while the natural order of things shows God’s handiwork, the human side of life is a complete mess, and God expects Christians to jump in and try to change things.

The fact is we live our lives every day, making hundreds of decisions without asking God in every single case what His will is.   And when we pray for something, it is generally something that we would do anyway if we could.  So to see God’s will as a constant deal breaker is inconsistent with how we live the rest of our lives

Yet there are a lot of things that we don’’t know what is best, things that any wise person would want God to show us what the best thing is and to lead us when we don’t know what to do or where to go.

And I have no doubt that if we pray for something that is stupid, wrong, shortsighted, or that would keep or distract us from something bigger and better that God wants to do for us, if we are paying attention, I am sure God will let us know.

But why the need for this shameless persistence?   Is God playing games with us?  In the book of Daniel, it tells of a time when Daniel prayed with fasting for something for three weeks before the answer came.  Daniel was then told explicitly that the answer to his prayer was held up because of opposition in the spirit world.  It does not say what would have happened if Daniel had stopped praying.  Would the answer still have come?  We don’t know.

Jesus doesn’t come out and say why this possible need for shameless persistence, and I am not even sure that we need to know why.  But we do need to know that we shouldn’t be surprised if or when we find ourselves praying for something that shows no signs of changing.  The truth is that we should not take that as a sign that this is not God’s will, that things shouldn’t change or wouldn’t change.

We need to look again at what we are praying for and, if the need is still the same and we haven’t received any word from God to the contrary, then we need to knock a little louder.  Like we mean it.

No, God’s not deaf or hard of hearing.  Maybe He’s not even the one who needs to hear us.  But Jesus told us that prayer may often require a will and persistence that just won’t quit.

There is a story in the Bible about a man named Jacob.  He was returning home after 20 years.  He left because his brother was planning to kill him.  He had no idea what to expect, and he was afraid.  On the night before he was to meet his brother, the text says that he was alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.   

Who was this man?  In another text, it says that Jacob wrestled with an angel.  Jacob looking back on what had just happened said that he had seen God face to face. 

They wrestled all night.  At daybreak, the man told Jacob to let him go.  Jacob said that he would not let the man go until the man blessed him.  And the man did.  And he even gave Jacob a new name: Israel.  And Jacob became the father of a new nation by that name.  The name means God will strive, or God will contend, but it was given to Jacob, because “you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”

The question is: is this just some nice story about a man who had an encounter with God, or is this meant to teach us something important about God and our relationship with Him?  

Compare this with the story that Jesus just told about prayer.  In both cases you have a person who will not take no for an answer.  Christians commonly see this as a person telling God what to do.  I don’t think God sees it that way or even sees that as a bad thing. 

But Jesus said that prayer can be like going to a friend’s house in the middle of the night.  It takes a sense of urgency that overrides any sense of propriety.  If you are praying for something that you just have to have, until God clearly shows you something else, don’t let up.  Don’t quit. 

And as I said earlier, I didn’t say this was the only lesson on prayer you will ever need, just the most important.

class notes for sermon John 2:23-3:15, I Samuel 1):1-9 Romans 12:1,2

First Congregational Church

Kewanee IL

Adult Sunday School

September 25, 2011

Larry Craig

Sermon Notes

I.          John 2:23-3:15 

A.        The problem of man  John 2:23-3:1

                        1.         Believing is common.  John 2:23 (NASB95)  ²³ Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.  2.23  ¸Wj de\ hÅn e)n toiÍj ¸Ierosolu/moij e)n t%½ pa/sxa e)n tv= e(ortv=, polloiì e)pi¿steusan ei¹j to\ oÃnoma au)tou= qewrou=ntej au)tou= ta\ shmeiÍa aÁ e)poi¿ei:   Cf parable of the sower   Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8

                2.      True faith is not.

                                    a.         Jesus’ response  John 2:24 (NASB95)  ²⁴ But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,  2.24 au)to\j de\ ¹Ihsou=j ou)k e)pi¿steuen au)to\n au)toiÍj dia\ to\ au)to\n ginw¯skein pa/ntaj  

1)         They believed in Him.

2)         He didn’t believe in them.  98 times the word pisteu/w ‘believe’ occurs in John.  This one time it is translated as ‘entrust.’

                        b          Jesus’ knowledge  John 2:25 (NASB95)  ²⁵ and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man   2.25 kaiì oÀti ou) xrei¿an eiåxen iàna tij marturh/sv periì tou= a)nqrw¯pou: au)to\j ga\r e)gi¿nwsken ti¿ hÅn e)n t%½ a)nqrw¯p%. 

           

He knew what was in man.  What was in man?

John 6:60-71 (NASB95)  ⁶⁰ Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” ⁶¹ But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? ⁶² “What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? ⁶³ “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. ⁶⁴ “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. ⁶⁵ And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” ⁶⁶ As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. ⁶⁷ So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” ⁷⁰ Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” ⁷¹ Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

John 7:5 (NASB95)  ⁵ For not even His brothers were believing in Him.

John 7:11-13 (NASB95)  ¹¹ So the Jews were seeking Him at the feast and were saying, “Where is He?” ¹² There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, “He is a good man”; others were saying, “No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.” ¹³ Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.

John 8:30-59 (NASB95)  ³⁰ As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. ³¹ So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” ³³ They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” ³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. ³⁵ “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. ³⁶ “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. ³⁷ “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. ³⁸ “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” ³⁹ They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. ⁴⁰ “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. ⁴¹ “You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” ⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. ⁴³ “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. ⁴⁴ “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. ⁴⁶ “Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? ⁴⁷ “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.” ⁴⁸ The Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” ⁴⁹ Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. ⁵⁰ “But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges. ⁵¹ “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” ⁵² The Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’ ⁵³ “Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?” ⁵⁴ Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’; ⁵⁵ and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word. ⁵⁶ “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” ⁵⁷ So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” ⁵⁹ Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

John 12:42-43 (NASB95)  ⁴² Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; ⁴³ for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

                        c.      Nicodemus’ inquiry  John 3:1 (NASB95)  ¹ Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;   3.1  åHn de\ aÃnqrwpoj e)k tw½n Farisai¿wn, Niko/dhmoj oÃnoma au)t%½, aÃrxwn tw½n ¹Ioudai¿wn:  

1)         Nicodemus was an example of those men.  The use of the word ‘man’ aÃnqrwpoj  links this verse with the preceding verse. 

2)         Nicodemus was an example of these men.

John 7:50-52 (NASB95)  ⁵⁰ Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them [a ruler and Pharisee] said to them, ⁵¹ “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” ⁵² They answered him, “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.”

John 19:39 (NASB95)  ³⁹ Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight.

      

B..       The rebirth of man  John 3:2-3 (NASB95)  ² this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  3.2 ouÂtoj hÅlqen pro\j au)to\n nukto\j kaiì eiåpen au)t%½, ¸Rabbi¿, oiãdamen oÀti a)po\ qeou= e)lh/luqaj dida/skaloj: ou)deiìj ga\r du/natai tau=ta ta\ shmeiÍa poieiÍn aÁ su\ poieiÍj, e)a\n mh\ vÅ o( qeo\j met' au)tou=.   3.3 a)pekri¿qh ¹Ihsou=j kaiì eiåpen au)t%½, ¹Amh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi, e)a\n mh/ tij gennhqv= aÃnwqen, ou) du/natai i¹deiÍn th\n basilei¿an tou= qeou=.  

1.                  The need for rebirth

2.                  The nature of rebirth 

The meanings of  aÃnwqen

a.         again

b.         from above

c.             (all over again) from the beginning     

C.        The renewing of man  John 3:4-6 (NASB95)  ⁴ Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶ “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  3.4 le/gei pro\j au)to\n [o(] Niko/dhmoj, Pw½j du/natai aÃnqrwpoj gennhqh=nai ge/rwn wÓn; mh\ du/natai ei¹j th\n koili¿an th=j mhtro\j au)tou= deu/teron ei¹selqeiÍn kaiì gennhqh=nai;   3.5 a)pekri¿qh ¹Ihsou=j, ¹Amh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi, e)a\n mh/ tij gennhqv= e)c uÀdatoj kaiì pneu/matoj, ou) du/natai ei¹selqeiÍn ei¹j th\n basilei¿an tou= qeou=.   3.6 to\ gegennhme/non e)k th=j sarko\j sa/rc e)stin, kaiì to\ gegennhme/non e)k tou= pneu/matoj pneu=ma/ e)stin.  

                        1.         Repentance  John 1:26-33 (NASB95)  ²⁶ John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. ²⁷ “It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” ²⁸ These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. ²⁹ The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ³¹ “I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” ³² John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. ³³ “I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’

John 2:1-9 (NASB95)  ¹ On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; ² and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” ⁶ Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. ⁷ Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ And He said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it to him. ⁹ When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom,

John 3:23 (NASB95)  ²³ John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people were coming and were being baptized—

2.         The Holy Spirit  John 4:7-15 (NASB95)  ⁷ There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. ⁹ Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” ¹¹ She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? ¹² “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” ¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”

John 4:46 (NASB95)  ⁴⁶ Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum.

John 5:7 (NASB95) ⁷ The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

John 7:38 (NASB95)  ³⁸ “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

John 13:5 (NASB95)  ⁵ Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

John 19:34 (NASB95)  ³⁴ But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

D.        The salvation of man  John 3:7-15 (NASB95)  ⁷ “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹ Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? ¹¹ “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. ¹² “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. ¹⁴ “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵ so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.  

II.        I Samuel 10:1-9 (NASB95)  ¹ Then Samuel took the flask of oil, poured it on his head, kissed him and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you a ruler over His inheritance? ² “When you go from me today, then you will find two men close to Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say to you, ‘The donkeys which you went to look for have been found. Now behold, your father has ceased to be concerned about the donkeys and is anxious for you, saying, “What shall I do about my son?” ’ ³ “Then you will go on further from there, and you will come as far as the oak of Tabor, and there three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a jug of wine; ⁴ and they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from their hand. ⁵ “Afterward you will come to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is; and it shall be as soon as you have come there to the city, that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and a lyre before them, and they will be prophesying. ⁶ “Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. ⁷ “It shall be when these signs come to you, do for yourself what the occasion requires, for God is with you. ⁸ “And you shall go down before me to Gilgal; and behold, I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings. You shall wait seven days until I come to you and show you what you should do.” ⁹ Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart; and all those signs came about on that day.

Old Testament references

Judges 14:6 (NASB95)  ⁶ The Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, so that he tore him as one tears a young goat though he had nothing in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Judges 14:19 (NASB95)  ¹⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of them and took their spoil and gave the changes of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house.

Judges 15:14 (NASB95)  ¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds dropped from his hands.

1 Samuel 10:6 (NASB95)  ⁶ “Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man.

1 Samuel 11:6 (NASB95)  ⁶ Then the Spirit of God came upo n Saul mightily when he heard these words, and he became very angry.

1 Samuel 16:13 (NASB95)  ¹³ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.

New Testament references

Luke 1:15-16 (NASB95)  ¹⁵ “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. ¹⁶ “And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.

Luke 1:41-42 (NASB95)  ⁴¹  . . . and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!

Luke 1:67 (NASB95) ⁶⁷ And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:

Luke 4:28-29 (NASB95)  ²⁸ And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; ²⁹ and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.

Luke 5:7 (NASB95)  ⁷ so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink.

Luke 5:26 (NASB95)  ²⁶ They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God; and they were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

Luke 6:11 (NASB95) ¹¹ But they themselves were filled with rage, and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.

Acts 2:4 (NASB95)  ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

Acts 3:9-11 (NASB95)  ⁹ And all the people saw him walking and praising God; ¹⁰ and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. ¹¹ While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon, full of amazement.

Acts 4:8 (NASB95)  ⁸ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of the people,

Acts 4:31 (NASB95)  ³¹ And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

Acts 5:17-18   ¹⁷ But the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy,  ¹⁸  and they laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail.         Acts 5:17-18 ¹Anasta\j de\ o( a)rxiereu\j kaiì pa/ntej oi¸ su\n au)t%½, h( ouÅsa aiàresij tw½n Saddoukai¿wn, e)plh/sqhsan zh/lou kaiì e)pe/balon ta\j xeiÍraj e)piì tou\j a)posto/louj kaiì eÃqento au)tou\j e)n thrh/sei dhmosi¿#.  

Acts 9:17 (NASB95) ¹⁷ So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 8:14-16 (NASB95)  ¹⁴ Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, ¹⁵ who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶ For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Acts 10:44 (NASB95)  ⁴⁴ While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.

Acts 11:15 (NASB95)  ¹⁵ “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning.

Acts 13:9-10 (NASB95)  ⁹ But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him, ¹⁰ and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

Acts 13:45 (NASB95)  ⁴⁵ But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming.

Acts 19:29 (NASB95)  ²⁹ The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia.

IIIIIIIII.       Romans 12:1-2 (NASB95)  ¹ Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Parakalw½ ouÅn u(ma=j, a)delfoi¿, dia\ tw½n oi¹ktirmw½n tou= qeou= parasth=sai ta\ sw¯mata u(mw½n qusi¿an zw½san a(gi¿an eu)a/reston t%½ qe%½, th\n logikh\n latrei¿an u(mw½n: kaiì mh\ susxhmati¿zesqe t%½ ai¹w½ni tou/t%, a)lla\ metamorfou=sqe tv= a)nakainw¯sei tou= noo\j ei¹j to\ dokima/zein u(ma=j ti¿ to\ qe/lhma tou= qeou=, to\ a)gaqo\n kaiì eu)a/reston kaiì te/leion.  

A.                The mercies of God

1.                  The meaning of the word

a.         Not the usual word for mercy

b.         Common in the OT for רַחֲמִים   (ra - ch^a – veem), a plural intensive from the word for ‘womb,’ meaning ‘compassion’

c.         Usually in the plural form with a singular meaning

d.         The plural here strongly suggests the OT use

2.                  The significance of the word

a.         The distinction

1)         You have might have mercy on an enemy, a criminal, or a stranger, but not for a child, spouse, relative, or a friend

2)         God had mercy on us when Jesus gave His life for us.

3)         When Christians pray or hope for God’s mercy, they are thinking of themselves as outside of a relationship with God.

B.                 The will of God

1.         Tramslation questions

a.         Many translations read ‘the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.’

b.         This portrays a picture of the will of God as narrowly defined and hence difficult to live within.

c.         Better translations see the good, the acceptable, and the perfect all as the will of God.

                        2.         Perfection questions

                                    a.         Perfection as commonly understood is unattainable.

b.         Perfection in Biblical understanding applies to maturity, completeness, attainment of the highest standard

                                                τέλειος,-α,-ον Gn 6,9; Ex 12,5; Dt 18,13; Jgs^B20,26; 21,4  perfect, entire, without spot or blemish (of sacrificial victims) Ex 12,5; perfect (in his kind; of pers.) Gn 6,9; perfect, complete, expert 1 Chr 25,8; complete Jer 13,19; absolute Ps 138 (139),22 

τέλειος, α, ον [of unblemished sacrificial animals] gener. ‘attaining an end or purpose, complete’. ① pert. to meeting the highest standard  ⓐ of things, perfect  α. as acme of goodness ⓑ of persons who are fully up to standard in a certain respect and not satisfied with half-way measures perfect, complete, expert  ② pert. to being mature, full-grown, mature, adult   ④ pert. to being fully developed in a moral sense   ⓐ of humans perfect, fully developed ⓑ of God perfect

3.         Life questions

One question that consumes Christians probably more than any other is: What is God’s will?  Many Christians seem to think of it as a very thin line from which any deviations would put us out of His will.  When they pray, they are always qualifying all their requests with: if it be Thy will. 

One obvious problem with this way of thinking is that most of our lives are lived without asking what God’s will is in every circumstance.  We make hundreds of decisions everyday on what we do or say, so that, if God’s will could be just about anything, then we are risking missing it the vast majority of the time.

A second problem with it is that, if it were this thin, fine line, then it is just far too easy to fall off of it.  We are asking of human beings a sensitivity to God and His still small voice that most human beings are just not going to have. 

Our passage in Romans 12:2 shows another picture of God’s will.  Instead of a thin, fine line on which we try to walk on, picture a large field with clearly defined boundaries. 

Some translations read: that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  Better to read it:  that you may prove what is the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

There are, of course, many matters in which it is wise or highly desirable to have God’s leading.  Finding the best school, job, or spouse are decisions where we wish we could have a lot more information at the time we have to make our decisions.  We plead with God to help us make the right choices.

Yet, in the broader picture, what is God’s will?

The good, the acceptable, the perfect.