During the 1920s, the great American missionary, E. Stanley
Jones returned from the Indian subcontinent to share about the slow advance of
the Gospel there. He told of a conversation that he had with Mahatma Gandhi, in
which he asked Gandhi, “What would you suggest that we do” to “see Christianity
naturalized in India ,
so that it shall be no longer a foreign thing identified with a foreign people
and a foreign government…?” Gandhi replied, “I would suggest, first, that all
of you Christians … must begin to live more like Jesus Christ. … Second … I
would suggest that you must practice your religion without adulterating or
toning it down.” As Jones reflected on
this, he confessed, “We are inoculating the world with a mild form of
Christianity, so that it is now practically immune against the real thing.” [1]
If you were to survey a multitude of unbelievers around the
world today, you may likely find the same sort of attitudes about Christianity
and Christians. It is not uncommon for one of our college students to come to
me and ask for my response to something that one of their professors has said
concerning Christianity. Christians have been accused of imposing Western
culture and ideals on the indigenous peoples of Africa, South America, and Asia . Christians have been accused of subjugating women.
Christians are often viewed as a sort of medieval version of Al-Qaeda who
marched through the near east with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the
other on a “convert or be killed” crusade. Some of the allegations are entirely
fabricated, and ignore the valuable contributions that Christians have made
around the world. No movement in history has done more to uphold the rights of
women than Christianity, and none has done more good in the areas of medical
care, education, poverty, hunger, and providing care for orphans, widows, and
other underprivileged people. Still, there are those episodes in Church
History, and even in the present day, in which the church has conducted itself
very much unlike the Christ whom it
claimed to follow.
When those around us are able to draw so sharp a line of
distinction between the Christians and the Christ whom we claim to represent,
we have to confess that we are failing to live out the promise of Jesus Christ
for His people. Jesus made many promises – some of them for the days past, some
awaiting future fulfillment; some conditional, some unconditional; some for
specific individuals, some universal for all people, and some general for all
who trust in Him as their Lord and Savior. Today we come to one of the most
magnificent of these promises. This promise applies to anyone and everyone “who
believes in” Him (v12). He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you.” Every word Jesus
said is true, but when He begins with this phrase, He is calling attention to
something of unusual importance.[2]
And when the promise is spoken, we see how unusually magnificent it is. It
would have been sufficiently unfathomable if Jesus had merely said, “he who
believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also do.” But He actually goes
further to say, “and greater works than these he will do.”
Are you a believer in Christ? If so, then Jesus has given
you the magnificent promise that you will do, not only what He has done, but even
greater things than this! The very thought of it is staggering. The world
around us asks why we are not more like Christ, why we do not do the things
that Jesus did. They ask too little of us, for Jesus has called us and promised
us that we would do even greater things than He did. In order to live out the
promise, we must understand it. That is our aim today: to understand this
magnificent promise, and to live it out by the power which is promised to us here
in the words of the Lord Jesus.
I. The promise of greater works (v12a-b)
When we compare the magnificence of this promise with the
realities we see in the Christian Church throughout history and today, we may
deduce one of three conclusions. Most simply, we may conclude that Jesus was
mistaken; He simply overpromised what we are able to deliver. But any
conclusion that involves Jesus being mistaken has taken a wrong turn somewhere,
so we can rule that one out immediately. Another conclusion is to assume that
Jesus was talking about the raw demonstration of power that we often see at
work in His miracles. I was speaking in a Bible conference last November, and
during the Q&A, one of those in attendance brought this verse up and asked
me, “Why can’t we do the stuff anymore?”
Since we do not see demonstrations of divine power like Jesus did in His
miracles of healing, alterations of natural processes, and even invalidating
death, we may try to limit the application of the promise to the apostles only.
There is good reason to do that because of the unique role that the apostles
played in the process of revelation. Throughout the book of Acts, particularly
in the first half of the book, we do see the apostles doing miracles. God was
using these miracles to provide authentication to the revelation that He was
bringing into the world through the preaching and writing of these men. So, we
might conclude that Jesus was talking about miracles, and He was only promising
this to the apostles. This is obviously not true, because He says, “he who
believes in Me,” implying that this promise is valid for every Christian of
every era. Besides that, one cannot conclude that the miracles done by the
apostles in the book of Acts were equal to, much less greater than, those done
by Jesus Himself. Therefore we may try, as many do, to limit the application in
another way. There are some who say that this promise is for all who believe in
Him, but the paucity of miracles in our day is due to our lack of genuine
faith. They say that we do not enough faith in Him to do these greater works.
While it is true that we could always benefit from greater faith in the Lord Jesus, the fact is that Jesus has always
done His work through people of limited faith, even in the New Testament. He
does not put any qualifiers on the belief of those for whom this promise is
given. If you believe in Him in a
saving way as Lord and Savior, then this promise is for you. It is not limited
to those of more complete or more perfect faith.
So what other option is there? The other option, the correct
one in fact, is to understand these “greater works” as something altogether
different than the miracles Jesus did. We have to remember that God’s ways and
thoughts are higher than ours (Isa 55:8-9). We assume that God’s view of
greatness is the same as ours. We may consider the things that Jesus
did—walking on water, turning water into wine, healing the sick, raising the
dead, etc.—to be the greatest things ever done; but this does not mean that God
considers these things to be the greatest things ever done. “Our fixation on
the visibly miraculous,” as one writer has said, may be due more to the
“scantiness of our knowledge or the vulgarity of our taste” because “physical
healings and miracles of nature take place on a level much easier to grasp.”[3] It
is not that we have deemed the miracles of Jesus performed in the days of His
earthly ministry to be greater than
we should. That could hardly be possible. Rather, it is because we have missed
the point of His miracles and not rightly understood the surpassing greatness
of one miracle that He continues to perform in and through us on a regular
basis.
Why did Jesus perform miracles? It was not the reason He
came into the world. He was not some sideshow magician who blew into town to
perform a few tricks and gather a cult following. No, Jesus came to reveal the
Father. In the previous passage, Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father, and
Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father,” and He pointed to His
words and His works as the means by which the Father had been revealed in Him.
His miracles were done to demonstrate to the world the truth of who God is, and
who He Himself is, and that He has the power to save humanity from the curse of
sin. Every healing, every miracle, was a teaching moment by which Jesus was
pointing people to the truth of Himself and His saving mission. Every single
demonstration of divine power had a singular aim: to reveal God and to draw
people to trust in Him. While He was still in the world, Jesus could only
present a partial revelation of that saving power, because He had not
ultimately accomplished that salvation until His death and resurrection. Having
done that, it would be the mission of the church to carry that message into the
whole world – a world that Jesus Himself only visited a small portion of – to
proclaim the miracle of salvation that comes by grace through faith in Him. The
greater work that Jesus promised to His followers is that of seeing lives
transformed by His saving power. You and I can do something Jesus never did: We
can proclaim the full Gospel of His saving power as a completed act,
accomplished once and for all in Him at the cross and the empty tomb, and we
can see lives ransomed from the curse of sin and transformed by His grace!
Do we underestimate the greatness of the miracle of
salvation? I suppose for many of us, the idea of Christian conversion is merely
that of making bad people good, or good people better. That is why we do not
place it above the opening of blinded eyes, the healing of lame legs, or the
raising of the dead. But in fact, it is greater than all these, and it is what
all of these miracles of Christ demonstrated. We may ask it this way: Which is
greater, a picture of something, or the thing itself? Obviously the thing
itself is greater than the picture. And Jesus’ miracles were pictures of the
reality of His power to save us from our sins. Just as Jesus opened the eyes of
some who were blind, so those without Christ are blinded by sin, and only the
Gospel of Jesus Christ can open their eyes. We are born spiritually lame,
unable to take even one step toward God in our own power; but the Gospel gives
new legs to lame people and enables us to draw near to God in Christ. And as
the Bible says, we are dead in our sins and trespasses, but in the Gospel we
may be made alive with Christ. The physical miracles of Jesus were only
partial; the miracle of conversion is complete! And it is greater.
When Jesus sent His disciples out on their first mission
trip in Luke 10, they returned rejoicing, saying, “Lord, even the demons are
subject to us in Your name!” They were astounded that they had been able to do
the great things that Jesus had done, even casting out demons. But Jesus
responded sharply to them, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject
to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven” (Lk 10:17-20).
Which did Jesus consider to be the greater miracle: the exorcism of
demon-possessed people, or the salvation that belonged to His followers? He
considered salvation to be the greater work! And we must consider this as well!
When we do, we will not lament that we lack the power to perform signs and
wonders, but we will rejoice that we have partaken of the greater miracle of
salvation, and that we can share in that work by extending the fair offer of
the Gospel to all nations!
Do you want to see the world changed? What is the answer?
Should the church boycott businesses that do not support and uphold our values?
Should we strive to get the right men and women elected to positions of power?
Should we grow louder and louder in our protests of the ills of society?
Friends, while there may be a time and place for each of these things, there is
more power to change the world in the simple task of evangelism than in all
these things combined! The world will only be changed as people’s hearts are
changed, and people’s hearts will only be changed by the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. The church on a Gospel mission for Jesus Christ is the most powerful
force in the world. Our mission as a church is not merely to do whatever it
takes to keep the doors open for another generation. Our mission is to open
eyes that are blinded, to raise up the spiritually dead, and to restore the
spiritually lame, as we proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and watch Him move
into the hearts and lives of people in a transforming way. The greater works
that are ours to do are the works of making the world know of Christ and Him
crucified for their salvation. There is no greater work than this, and no
greater miracle than when it happens.
So, this is the promise: we will do greater works than Jesus
did, by proclaiming the full gospel to the whole world—the Good News that
Christ has come, Christ has died, and Christ has risen again to save sinners!
But before we just rush out the door and embark on a fool-hearty mission that
is destined to fail in our own self-efforts (as many have), we must examine the
power behind this promise.
II. The power for greater works (vv12c-18).
A couple of weeks ago, I arrived at church on one of those
frigid Sunday mornings, to be greeted by some disgruntled Sunday School
teachers at the door. The second floor classrooms were freezing cold. Well,
what could the problem be? The unit is brand new, and all its parts have seemed
to function well. The technician who installed it is a smart guy, and he does
good work. The thermostat had been set exactly as it should be, according to
the written instructions. So what’s the problem? The problem was a little valve
in the natural gas line that goes into the furnace. That valve had not been
opened, and so the unit was not getting the fuel it needed to produce heat.
Once the gas line was opened, the heat kicked in. Friends, the church of Jesus Christ
A. The
Power of the Exalted Savior (v12c)
Jesus says that all who believe in Him will do what He has
done, and even greater things than these, “because
I go to the Father.” There are two realties expressed here in this brief
statement: one deals with how He is
going, and the other deals with where He
is going. When Jesus says that He is going to the Father, He is making
reference to His impending death and resurrection. The power for greater works
is made possible by His atoning sacrifice in dying for our sins and rising from
the dead. The death of the Savior makes it possible for the likes of us –
sinful people who are separated from God – to be cleansed and forgiven because
Jesus has taken our sins upon Himself in His death and received the penalty of
our sins on our behalf. Having conquered sin and death for us, He reconciles us
to God so that we who were formerly enemies of God could become the children of
God, and servants of the Most High. For God to use His only begotten Son to
accomplish eternal and divine work in the world is something extraordinary. For
Him to use the likes of us to accomplish eternal and divine work is even
greater still. And it is only possible because of how Jesus went to the Father through His atoning death and
resurrection.
But then there is something here about where Jesus is going that makes it possible for us to do the
greater works. When Jesus goes to the Father, He goes to the place of honor –
He is exalted at the right hand of the Father. In Psalm 110:1, David wrote,
“The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a
footstool for Your feet.” Jesus understood this prophecy to refer to His own
exaltation, and the writers of the New Testament took it up as their favorite
messianic prophecy, quoted more often than any other, upwards of 20 times. At
the right hand of the Father, Jesus is our Advocate (1 Jn 2:1), our Mediator (1
Tim 2:5), our Intecessor (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25), and our Great Provider (Php
4:19), and that brings us to the other two sources of power behind our greater
works.
B. The
Power of Effectual Prayer (vv13-15)
Because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, He is our
intermediary in prayer. He promises all who trust in Him, “Whatever you ask in
My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you
ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” This is as magnificent a promise as
the promise of greater works, but the two are part and parcel of a singular
promise. The reason we can do the greater works is because we have access
through Jesus Christ to the throne of God, and we have been invited to come
with boldness before Him to request whatsoever we desire. He has promised that
this prayer will be heard and answered. Before we assume that God has given us
a blank check or promised here to grant our every whim and wish, we need to
understand that there are several caveats imbedded in this promise.
Jesus says that He will do whatever we ask in His name. To ask in His name does not
mean merely to attach His name to the end of our prayers as if His name is some
kind of magical incantation that opens the floodgates of heaven. To pray in His
name means several distinct things. First, it is to recognize that Jesus and
Jesus alone grants us access to the Father. When Jesus said in John 14:6 that
no one comes to the Father but through Him, He was obviously referring to
salvation and entrance to eternal life in heaven. But He was also speaking of
our way of approach to the Father in other aspects as well, including worship
and prayer. We have no right to come before the throne of God in our own name.
Our access to Him is because of Jesus Christ, so when we come, we must come in
His name. This means that the prayer of the Christian in Jesus’ name is the
only prayer that God has promised to answer. That is always a controversial
notion, because people like to imagine that God answers the prayers of anyone
and everyone. It is true that non-Christians sometimes have their prayers
answered. This is because God is loving and good, and is always showing His
goodness to all people. But God did not promise to always answer the prayer of
anyone and everyone. He promised to answer the prayer of the one who comes to
Him in the name of Jesus Christ.
Secondly, to pray in Jesus’ name means to pray in a way that
is consistent with the character and nature of Jesus Christ. This is the same
thing that is expressed elsewhere as praying “according to His will” (1 Jn
5:14). When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are doing what C. S. Lewis called
“dressing up as Christ.” He says, “You are not a being like the Son of God,
whose will and interests are at one with those of the Father: you are a bundle
of self-centered fears, hopes, greeds, jealousies, and self-conceit.”[4]
But when you pray in His name, you are “dressing up as Christ,” and asking for
the same sorts of things that Christ Himself would ask for. You are asking God
to give to you, or to the one for whom you are praying, not what you or they
deserve, but what Jesus Himself deserves. As F. F. Bruce wrote, “A request made
in the Son’s name is treated as if the Son made it.” So when we pray in His
name, we need to consider what sorts of things Jesus would ask for if He were
in this situation, and pray that way.
Finally, to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray with the same
purpose in view that Jesus seeks. He says what that purpose is here: “so that
the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Throughout the Gospels, Jesus
expressly states that His purpose is always to bring glory to His Father. His
purpose has not changed. He welcomes us to pray for extraordinary things, for
the power to accomplish “greater works”, and when those things align with His
purpose of the Father being glorified in the Son, He has promised to answer.
In addition to the caveat of praying in Jesus’ name, we find
another one in verse 15: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” This
informs us that effective prayers are those that are raised from a life of
intimate obedience. He promises to answer the prayers of those who love Him and
who demonstrate their love for Him in their personal obedience to the way He
has called and commanded us to live. We must take sin seriously in our lives
because it has the potential to choke out the power that would be ours through
prayer. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not
hear.” But if we love Him, we will obey Him, and He promises to hear and answer
when we pray. First John 3:22 says, “Whatever we ask we receive from Him,
because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His
sight.”
So, when a prayer is prayed in Jesus’ name, from a life of
intimate obedience, whether it is directed to the Father or to the Lord Jesus,
He says that He will do it. So, as we set out to do the greater works that
Christ has called us to in the world, we must remember that the power to do
these works comes from Him. He will do the works in and through us as we ask
Him to, because He has gone to the Father. Ask Him for anything, yes, but
friends there is no greater request to make of Him, and none that He would
delight more in granting, than the prayer for the greater work of salvation to
occur in the lives of our lost friends and neighbors and the unreached
multitudes of the world.
And with this we come to the third source of power behind
the greater works that Christ has promised that we will do …
C. The
Power of the Indwelling Spirit (vv16-18)
Because Jesus has gone to the Father, He is in position to
grant us what we most desperately need: power from on high to do the greater works
that He has called us to. The power to do these works, the power to pray
effectively, and the power to live in loving obedience to His commands, does
not reside within our human abilities. These are supernatural tasks, and they
require supernatural power. So, Jesus has promised us that He will ask the
Father, and the Father will give to us another
Helper. Though Christ is going to the Father, He promises that the Helper
will be us forever. Jesus will not leave His people as orphans in the world. He says that He will come to us. He comes to
us in the person of the Helper. And this Helper is the Holy Spirit of God.
Jesus promises His followers here that the Holy Spirit who has ever been
abiding with His followers will be in you.
The follower of Christ, and only the followers of Christ, become
the dwelling place of God the Holy Spirit at the moment we are converted and
become disciples of Jesus. He does not indwell all people. Jesus said that the
world cannot receive Him, does not see Him, or know Him. The Holy Spirit only
comes to live within those who follow Jesus. If praying in Jesus’ name involves
us dressing up as Christ, then the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can be likened
to Jesus dressing up as us! As the
Holy Spirit works in and through us, God-in-Christ is doing His greater works in
the world to bring glory to His name!
Remember in Acts 1:8, just before His ascension into heaven,
Jesus promised His followers, “you will be My witnesses both in Jerusalem , and in all Judea and Samaria , and even to the remotest part of the
earth.” That is the greater work, and it is an enormous task! If the missional
enterprise of the Christian church depended on our own power and resources, it
would be a disaster! And when Christians have attempted to carry it out in our
own resources and power, it has been just that! But Jesus did not call us to
this task in our own power. Before saying that we would be His witnesses, He
said these all important words, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you.”
Divine, supernatural work requires divine, supernatural
power. And Jesus has promised us the supernatural power that enables us to do
this greater work. It is the power of the exalted Savior who has rescued us
from sin through His atoning death and resurrection, and who is seated now at the
right hand of the Father as our Mediator, assuring us that our prayers are
effective as they are prayed in His name from a life of intimate obedience. He has
promised even to live within us in the person of the Holy Spirit, granting us the
unlimited and unstoppable power of God as we engage in the greater work.
The world is crying out for Christians to be more like
Christ and to do the things that Christ Himself has done. Jesus promises us
even more than this. He has promised that through us He will do greater things
than He did before. He will bring nations before His throne in redeeming grace.
Will you pray, in His name, for the salvation of the lost? Your lost friend or
family member, coworker or neighbor, even your enemy? Will you pray for the salvation
of world leaders? Will you pray for the salvation of entire nations where the
name of Jesus has never been mentioned? And will you go, allowing Jesus to work
through you, as you share the good news of His saving power to those in your
family and circle of friends, to those who live across the street, to those who
live across oceans? And will you give generously and sacrificially to enable
others to do this? Will you trust the power of the Gospel to do the greatest
work in the world?
In a world that is asking Christians to be more like Christ,
Jesus is asking the same and then some. The word Christian essentially means
“like Christ.” Isn’t it interesting that the Bible says that the church in Antioch were the first
people in the world to be called Christians. They were the first ones to be
recognized by outsiders as being “like Christ.” What was so special about them?
It was here that the a remarkable movement of global missions began, as Jews
and Gentiles alike were confronted with the good news of Jesus in that city,
and then from that city, as the church sent the first team of missionaries out
to start new gospel churches across the Roman Empire. Where that was being
done, people said, “Hey, those people are like Christ. Let’s call them
Christians.” And ever since, the world has been looking for people that they
would recognize as being like Christ. As we do the greater works Jesus has
promised us, the world will see His power at work in us as lives are
transformed, and they will know that we are Christians, like Christ, because of
the greater works that are done in His name.
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