Jesus Has Opened the Way to Pray John 14:6

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father, who loves to hear us pray, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who teaches us to pray. 

Our message is based on our Gospel, John 14:6: Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” 

When we pray, sometimes we end our prayer with the words, “in the name of Jesus”, or, “for the sake of Jesus”, or “through Jesus Christ, our Lord”. 

We say this because Jesus is the One who has opened up the way for us to pray.  

Without Him, our prayers would be blocked; they’d never make it to God.

But because through His death and resurrection, Jesus has restored our relationship with God, bringing us back into peace and fellowship with Him by faith, now the way has been opened for us to live in holy and personal conversation with God. 

Jesus has opened up the way for us to come before God in prayer. 

So as we heard in our skit, we don’t need angels or saints or anyone sorting through or scrubbing or polishing up our prayers, because they all rise to God and are brought before Him through what His Son has done.

In olden times, not just anyone could see and speak with the king, only a select few. 

Because of Jesus, all who believe have an eternal audience with God, the great King of the Universe… with Him hearing our every word… giving us His complete and undivided attention. 

We might not be so good at giving others our undivided attention… I know I sometimes fail at that, but our God is great at it! 

Because He’s all-powerful, He can fully hear and consider every word we pray. 

Because of His power, He can hear every word… because of His love, He does hear every word.

Again, back to olden days, if you were granted an audience with the king, and you said something that offended him, you were in serious trouble.

But because of Christ, we can pray to God openly and confidently, without fear that He might punish us or be mad at us for saying something wrong.

Because Jesus won our forgiveness, and by faith gives us His righteousness to count as ours, now even though our prayers may be flawed or imperfect, God considers them to be holy and worthy because of His Son.

So we don’t have to live and pray in fear that we might say the wrong thing, or that our prayers aren’t good enough, or that God will scoff at our prayers, or consider them stupid, or unimportant, or irrelevant. 

He doesn’t see us that way, and He doesn’t see our prayers that way. 

He wants us to be comfortable talking with Him, to trust and confide in Him like a dear friend. 

God always welcomes our prayers. Everything you pray about, He wants to hear about. 

Like a loving Father, our words are sweet music to Him, beautiful to Him. 

Like when little children are learning to talk, saying their first words, and their parents just hang on every word, so excited, delighting in each word… 

… that’s how God feels when we talk to Him, when we pray: He hangs on and delights in every precious word. 

So as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Pray without ceasing. 

Never give up on prayer. Keep on praying… and know that God hears, and cares, and answers and blesses you. 

Sometimes when we talk to people in authority, we get the feeling they’re not really listening, that they’re just going to blow us off.

That’s not how God relates to us… He always relates to His children through His Son, who loves us so much that He died for us. 

There’s no way God is going to blow us off after His Son died for us.

Such amazing love shows how much He cares… and because He cares so much for us, He listens to us… He listens intently… and justly… and benevolently. 

He fully considers every word, and answers in the way that’s always best for us, and will spiritually bless us.

Our prayers may not be perfect, but as we live in repentance and grace, as we grow in God’s Word, His Spirit sanctifies our prayers, helping them to be less selfish and misguided, and more in tune with God’s good and gracious will for us.

So even though our prayers may be flawed, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray, but that we should pray all the more. 

So be happy to pray, be fast to pray, be bold to pray, be frequent to pray.

Thanks be to Jesus for opening up the way so that we can pray, any time, any place, any circumstance… always to be heard, never to be ignored… and always for us to be blessed and given what’s best.

And finally as we pray, God’s peace, which passes our understanding, will guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our risen Lord, through whom we rejoice to pray. Amen.