In His Hands

On Sunday we started a new sermon series to help us enjoy our prayer life, through the lens of John chapter 17 – Jesus’ longest recorded prayer.

The prayer we read in chapter 17 occurred somewhere and sometime between the upper room in Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemane. Let’s read the opening lines:

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:1-3, NIV)

Jesus has always enjoyed eternal life. He has always known the Father and been known by Him. They have eternally existing in a relationship of giving and receiving love and glory. Jesus enjoyed His prayer life, everything He did flowed from the place of private prayer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing…” (John 5:19).

Enjoying our prayer life starts by coming to our Father, through the Son. A common posture in prayer is to raise our hands, this can give us a helpful visual reminder of core truth:

1) We Are In His Hands

Our Father is vast. We measure the universe in unfathomable amounts of light years; He measures it with His hand (Isaiah 40:12). We might forget or not feel like we are in His hands, but we also forget that we are travelling at 65,000 mph through space because of the power of gravity. Such is the gravity of His grace that even when we don’t feel like it, we are still being held secure.

Nothing can snatch us out of His hands (John 10:28-30) and we are like clay He is gently shaping (Isaiah 64:8). Even when we feel faithless, prayerless and hopeless, we can trust that our Father will accept us because Jesus is our righteousness, and He is working on us, making us more like His Son. Just before His prayer in chapter 17, Jesus says this to His disciples, “In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” (John 16:26-27)

2) We Bring Nothing and Receive Everything

Looking at our empty hands in prayer can be helpful to reminds us that we did nothing to get ourselves into His hands – that we bring nothing to our salvation – and we continue to receive grace upon grace (John 1:16). Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’ (Ephesians 2:8-10)

God is our loving, powerful Father… so we pray.

Questions

1. “Prayer is enjoying the care of a powerful Father, instead of being left to a frightening loneliness where everything is all down to you.” What do you think of this quote?
2. Do you find it easy to relate God as your Father?
3. How can we encourage each other when we don’t feel like we are in the Father’s hands?