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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. My uncle's letter said, my uncle was the tightest man I ever have known. All of his life, every time he got paid, he took $20 out of his paycheck and put it under his mattress. Then he got sick and he was about to die. As he was dying, he said to his wife, I want you to promise me one thing.
What? She asked. I want you to promise me that when I'm dead, you'll take my money from under the mattress and put it in my casket so I can take it all with me. Well, he died and his wife kept her promise. She went, got all that money the day he died, went to the bank and deposited it and wrote out a check and put it in his casket.
If he can cash it, it's his. That's what she was thinking. She was clever.
He was a skin flint. He should have thought of her instead of him, but she kept her promise. God always keeps his promise and he's not underhanded about it. God's promises are wonderful, magnificent. Peter called them exceedingly great and precious promises. Your Bible has in it 31,102 verses, Old and New Testament. Some of those verses are law, some of them are poetic, many of them are prophetic, but some of them are pure promise. There was a guy who decided to count all the promises in the Bible. He was Canadian.
This is written up in Time magazine. And Everett Storms had gone through the Bible 26 times on his 27th read through the Bible. It took him a year and a half, but he wrote down all of the promises that God made to man.
He counted 7,484, I think it was, promises that God made to mankind. So God has promised you and I an awful lot. And have you ever seen those little pocket promise books or those little loaves of bread with the little promises in them that you could, I remember having one as a young Christian.
Somebody gave me, you pull out a promise every day and I was always amazed how many promises there were. But the big question is, what do you do with them? You could say, well, they sit right there on my table.
That's what I do with them. They sit in that little bread thing and I got all the promises right there. Others would say, I tell you what I do with God's promises.
I put them in a nice little frame and it's up on my wall. So I walk by and I can see that promise. Others would say, oh, I memorize the promises of God.
All wonderful if they're on your table, on your wall, in your mind. But the best thing you can do is to believe them, to believe them in your heart and to live by them, to step out and decide I'm going to live by them. There's a great old hymn, standing on the promises of God, standing on the promises of Christ my Savior, standing on the promises of God. Some believers I know aren't standing on the promises.
They're sitting on the premises or they're crawling on the promises because they don't know if they're going to hold up or not, but standing on the promises. In this section of Scripture, this upper room discourse, Jesus meets with His disciples. They are bewildered, they are confused, and He gives them several promises. Now I'm going to take you back to a few verses. I know I went down to around verse 25.
But I was given a request this weekend to go back and comment on a verse that we went through last week, but because I didn't comment on it, I think they felt a little cheated. Even though I've talked about it before, we're going to go back a few verses. And do you remember when I talked about the promise that Jesus gave that you'll do greater works? Well, let's go back up to verse 12, where He says, Most assuredly, I say to you that he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also. And greater worse than these will he do, because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask, there's that verse, whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son, if you ask anything in My name, I will do it. Now that little promise there, that little verse, the promise is given twice, I'll do it, I'll do it. Gives to us how you're going to be able to do those greater works that He promised previously. The works that I do, He will do, and greater works, how's that going to happen?
You said you're leaving. Now, remember last week, Jesus was the one they turned to because of the things He did for them. He provided food for them. When there were so many people who came to listen to Him, and they grew hungry, and He multiplied a simple lunch and made it available to everyone. So He fed them food. He also provided tax money for them.
When He said, Go down to the sea, get out a fish, you'll find a coin, you'll have enough to pay your taxes. He also helped them do what they couldn't do themselves in their own profession. They were fishermen, and there was a time where Peter said, Look, we fished all night and caught nothing. But nevertheless, Jesus, because you want to go fishing, okay, we'll let our nets down.
And they did at His command, and their nets were so full, they were almost breaking. So they have become very accustomed to leaning on Jesus for everything. And Jesus gave a promise we already covered, and He'll touch on it a couple more times, that He was going to send His Holy Spirit, another Helper.
And we mentioned to you the word another is the word another of the same kind. Just like I've been a Helper to you, I'm going to give you another Helper of the same kind, and that is the Holy Spirit. Here He talks about how those greater works are going to be done when He says, If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
What He wants them to know is this, absent doesn't mean unavailable. Just because you can't see Me physically does not mean I'm not available to you spiritually. And the thing that closes the gap, the thing that removes the distance between heaven and earth is simple, prayer. Prayer closes the gap. As soon as you pray, the gap between heaven and earth is closed. It removes the distance, and it opens the floodgates for the resources of God. That's how the greater works are going to be accomplished.
But this verse has been greatly misunderstood. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. Some people read into this like it's a magical formula, that you just tack the words in Jesus' name at the end of a prayer, and it's like abracadabra. Here goes, da-da-da-da, in Jesus' name.
It's like some magical formula. He didn't necessarily mean that you just tag a phrase on at the end of a prayer and expect it like waving a wand things are going to happen. To pray in someone's name, it's like the song we just sang. Here in Your presence, Lord, I surrender to Your glory, for Your glory.
And as I was listening to that song, I thought, we've captured it right there in that little worship song. Here's what it means to pray in the name of Jesus. To pray in the name of Jesus means that you pray according to all that His name embodies. It's to pray in the character of Jesus, to seek the glory and the will of Jesus. It just doesn't mean you add His name at the end so that the Father will go, okay, you said the magic words, now I'm going to do it.
It's like it's a blank check. No, when you pray, Lord, I want to find out what You are up to in this world and I want to be a part of what You're up to. I want to find out what You're about, what You want, and I want to tap into that. Now you're praying according to the name because that's the character and the will of Jesus. And as we go through this, you're going to see how we do that. We do that, but this is a qualifying statement.
It's a qualifying statement. If you ask anything, didn't say that, in my name, according to my will, with my purpose, with my character and reputation and glory in mind. And I'll tell you what, our prayers would dramatically change. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, start 2025 off right. Exploring the richness of God's Word with Pastor Skip's book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet and Accompanying Workbook. These resources offer an aerial view of scripture covering all 66 books of the Bible with a unique flight plan, facts, landmarks, itinerary, gospel, history and travel tips.
They're a perfect tool to help you enrich your Bible study and apply its teachings to your daily life. You'll explore every book of the Bible with Pastor Skip's insightful flight plan, while the workbook provides exercises and questions to guide your reflection. We'll send you The Bible from 30,000 Feet book and workbook as our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. If we say, Lord, I'm praying this for your sake, for the glory of God to be expanded. So there's certain things that you would just maybe have a hard time praying. You say, Lord, I need a brand new television for the glory and sake of your kingdom to be expanded and your name to be upheld.
Oh, I don't know about that. So the qualifying statement, if you ask anything in my name for my sake. So what this will do when you grasp the concept of this is this will counteract all those gimme prayers that we pray. Gimme this, gimme that, gimme the other thing. Because now your focus is on His will, His glory, His character.
And that's the qualifier. So if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Now let's go back down since we covered around several of those verses. Verse 25, Jesus continuing, These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, He's already mentioned the Holy Spirit, but again, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
See, there's that phrase again, in my name. So Jesus is going to ask the Father for the Holy Spirit to be sent. I hope you know that there is an ongoing ministry right now that Jesus has.
He has a ministry in heaven, and He has you in mind in this ministry. Do you know that His work is not done? His work on the cross is done, you can't add to it, it's completed.
That's done. But there's an ongoing work as an intercessor. He's at the right hand and He ever lives, the book of Hebrews tells us, to make intercession for us. His first work, His first work of intercession was to ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit as the other Helper, one of the same kind, because He was leaving and the Holy Spirit was going to take over.
So I'm going to go, I'm going to go to the Father, I'm going to pray, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance the things that I said to you. I'm glad Jesus said that. I'm glad because this explains for me how 12 fishermen were able to pull off the New Testament.
How do you get 12? Well, 11, because Judas has already flaked out. Later on the Lord will add Paul the Apostle and he will write books of the Bible.
But how do you get these guys, holy, uneducated fishermen from Galilee, first of all to remember all of the events that happened in three and a half years and be able to record all of the profound truth as they did in the New Testament Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You know, I have problems remembering my own sermons. I'll have somebody come up to me and say, hey, do you remember that sermon you preached last year? And they look at a blank stare as I look at them. I have a blank stare.
I'm looking and I'm like, I preach sermons every week. Which one? Well, you remember that one they tried to describe? I go, yeah, vaguely. Well, do you remember what you said about that? What page of what book did you find? Would to God I had that kind of a memory?
I can't remember all that goes on. Now, I had a guy here last week that I introduced and he prayed before the service, John Ritchie from Scotland. Now he can remember what I preached. He listens to every message I preach four or five at least times, up to eight times.
Every single one goes deep, listens to it again, goes deep four or five times. So he'll say, you know, six months ago, now give me the text, give me the illustration, how many minutes it was in the sermon. He's like a walking dictionary.
I need him around just to tell me when and where. Of course, you couldn't understand him, you'd have to get translation, but nonetheless. But this helps me understand how these guys were able to put down what Jesus said and what Jesus did.
And why? Because the Holy Spirit would be able to do that. He's going to bring these things back to your memory. He's going to give you the power to recall that and to put that down accurately.
Now, that's very important. One of them is named Peter. Peter was there, as we know, the Apostle Peter was with Jesus during that ministry. But we know that Peter said some pretty dumb things. Well, so how can we trust what Peter is going to say?
Well, Peter tells us, he said, no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophets didn't speak on their own, but they were moved by the Holy Spirit, he said. Moved or carried along by the Holy Spirit. So that what we have, the end result we have, is that though the Holy Spirit moved the author to the destination, in a literary sense, an accurate sense, to the destination predetermined by God, using the words, the very words, the context, the syntax, so it's accurate.
And that is the explanation. The Holy Spirit, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things I said to you. And then he tells this bewildered, troubled, confused bunch, we gave you all the reasons for that last week. He says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. If you go to Israel today and you meet anyone, they're going to say peace to you. That's how they greet you. Shalom, peace. It can mean hello, goodbye, but it literally means peace. It's that common greeting that embraces and wishes that a person will experience the peace of God.
It's a beautiful, beautiful introduction, salutation. So Jesus says to these disciples, peace I give to you. But then he says, my peace. Literally my own peace. It's my peace and I'm giving it to you. The peace that I experience myself. I'm the manufacturer of it and the distributor of it. It is mine, I enjoy it, and I'm conveying that to you.
That's the idea of it. It's my own personal peace and I'm giving that to you. Can you picture Jesus as frenzied and fretful and worried and biting his nails and flipping out?
No, you picture him, you read about him as calm and in control and predicting all things, even his own death. He says, no man takes my life from me. I lay it down and I take it again. Total control, absolute power. Never worried, never worked up, never fretful, never frenzied. Peaceful. And he's saying, now, that's available to my followers. My own peace of which I manufacture, I also distribute it and I'm giving it to you.
The peace that I experience. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now again, he is addressing the disciples who were troubled because of the announcement that he has made at the Last Supper, that he is leaving them, he's going to die.
That Peter is going to deny him, that Judas is going to betray him. And they're worked up and worried and he says, I'm giving you my peace. I've always loved the illustration that seafarers, sailors give to us about what they call the cushion of the sea.
It seems that in the ocean, no matter what is going on on top of the ocean, the wind, the waves can be a huge storm, you can get to a depth in the ocean where it's absolutely calm. If you go deep enough, it's the cushion of the sea, it's calm. No matter what's going around you on the surface, let me take you down to the cushion, my peace. I'll give it to you, I'll convey it for you. You have heard me say to you, I am going away.
And coming back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said, I am going to the Father. For my Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe. Now be careful how you interpret verse 28. That has been a favorite verse of cultists who want to deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They love to pull this out and what they aim to do is to show you why Jesus never claimed to be God, never claimed to be deity because he goes, look, he said my Father is greater than I.
Of course he is. In terms of position at this point in the incarnation where Jesus has left heaven, come to the earth and voluntarily submitted himself to the Father, the position of the Father as calling the shots and the son submitting to the Father as a servant, the Father is greater. Does not say however, my Father is better than I am. My Father is superior to me. My Father in terms of his position and in terms of my position with the incarnation becoming man, Philippians tells us, abdicating the outward manifestation of my glory, I've submitted myself to the will of the Father. In that case, my Father is greater than I.
And that makes perfect sense because he did submit himself to the perfect will of the Father. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Pastor Skip's book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet, and companion workbook to help you dive into scripture in the coming year. This sweeping aerial view of God's word will help you understand the big picture with greater clarity and gain a deeper appreciation for God's timeless truths.
To request your copy, call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast your burdens on His word.
Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times. Now, we want to let you know about an exciting opportunity coming up soon in Southern California.
Hi, Pastor Skip here. I'm heading to Menifee, California to teach at Revival Christian Fellowship's Nuts and Bolts of Expository Preaching Conference in January. I'll be teaching alongside my very good friend and fellow expositor, Pastor John Miller. Join us to deepen your knowledge and ignite or reignite a lasting passion to teach the Bible expositionally.
I hope to see you there. So check out the link and claim your spot. To learn more about the nuts and bolts and to register, visit expositorypreaching.org. That's expositorypreaching.org.
