Lord's Day: May 11, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Prayer Scripture: 1 John 3:21–22; Ephesians 3:20–21; Romans 8:26–27; Matthew 6:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Ephesians 6:18; Matthew 7:7–12; 1 John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 2 Peter 1:2–3; Romans 8:32

21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. 1 John 3:21–22

I. This passage also distills for us the essence of prayer

• Baptist Larger Catechism, Q175: “Prayer is offering our desires to God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ with the help of His Spirit, praising Him, confessing our sins, and thankfully recognising His mercies.”
• God works in us to pray, stirs us to pray, and, in our weakness, guides our prayer and intercedes with and for us in our prayers

II. If God gives us whatever we ask for, according to 1 John 3:22, then why do we not always get what we ask for?

• Prayer is relational, a reflection of how we relate with God—not the other way around
• God does not pray to us—we pray to Him—He takes our prayers into consideration and answers them according to His sovereign decree (will) “in the works of creation and providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will,” which includes “His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing of all His creatures and all their actions to His own glory” (Baptist Larger Catechism, Q16, Q20).
• Prayer is a means of God’s grace, God answers our prayers and gives us what we ask for through various means, especially through God’s people and church, which administers the means of grace that God has given all of us, “particularly the Word, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer” (BLC Q143)
• Our theology of prayer and our prayer life—how we prioritize prayer in light of our other duties, our prayer habits, how we pray, what we pray, not just how often or how long we pray—are a reflection of our relationship with God, and of own spiritual condition/maturity
• Just as you cannot love aright without sound doctrine, so likewise you cannot pray aright without the truth of sound doctrine
• Prayer is an outworking (orthopraxy) of our doctrine (orthodoxy)

III. Our Lord Jesus instructs us on what a healthy prayer relationship looks like with our Heavenly Father, as well as some of the things we are called to do “that are pleasing in His sight”

• We must recognize our own reality through God’s eyes, how He sees us—that we are needy children who should regularly ask our loving Father for good and needful things
• God has given us everything already—“He who indeed did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

• ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
  4712 Montana Ave
  El Paso, Texas 79903

Contact us at:

• web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
  call/text: (915) 843-8088
  email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com