Dennis Tuuri

Q1: Questioner:
Is it in English?

Pastor Tuuri:
It is in English. They’re all in English. Remember Handel wrote all these, I think, when he was in England.

Questioner:
Ah, right. Wonderful.

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Q2: Doug H.:
This has always been a troubled passage for me in terms of application to the Christian life, and I’ve struggled with it. We’ve had discussions up there with the Seattle church several times over this. We never did come to a full understanding, and it’s in the section verses 12-14, where it says that we’ll do the works that he has done, even greater than these, and then “whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified, and if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”

And so oftentimes we kind of soften those words with, “Well, he’ll answer your prayer—you know, it may not be what you wanted, but you know, he’ll answer.” But that’s not what it says. It says “anything you ask, I will do it.” And so how do we make sense of that? Because I’ve been asking for a particular job, and I haven’t got it yet. And so the Christian often struggles with that problem when Jesus promises us to answer according to what we ask. How come we don’t see it? Or are we thinking about this wrong?

Pastor Tuuri:
Well, anything I want to tell you, you’ve probably already thought of, but that usually doesn’t stop me.

Questioner:
Usually doesn’t stop you.

Pastor Tuuri:
You know, I think there are two things, and you’ve heard this, I’m sure. But “in my name”—the name of Jesus Christ—means not just in his authority, but the purposes of his kingdom and all that stuff. So the name of God is a representation of all that he is. And so Jesus’s name means that our prayers are going to be answered. The promises that are attached are those prayers that link up with his kingdom, his purposes.

So, number one, there’s a qualifier. It’s not just whatever we pray for. It’s got to be prayed for in his name. Secondly, there’s a little caesura there: “ask, and you’ll get the stuff”—ask in the middle of that—”that the Father may be glorified through the Son.” So that’s another qualifier to our prayers: that ultimately the purpose for them is the glorification of the Father.

So I would say that the promises he makes there are promises relative to particular prayers for particular works—the sort of works that he’s talked about, that are greater ones than that he did. And those are the prayers that he promises to answer affirmatively. But you’ve probably already heard all that before.

Doug H.:
Oh yeah, you mean the “name it and claim it” whole thing was a lot of hokum?

Pastor Tuuri:
Yeah, you know, I will try to remember, Doug, to address that in more detail because, as I said, it’s one of the nice things about preaching through the Farewell Discourses—that everything is mirrored back as we move to the conclusion. And I mentioned briefly the couple of verses in John 16 that says the same thing. So, you know, it bugged me a little bit, and I’ll try to remember to maybe elaborate on that and do some more study as we get to the other half of that prayer stuff.

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Q3: Questioner:
My wife and I were reading that this morning, and we were thinking about how it fit. And correct me if I’m wrong, but it also fits in his will—the things that glorify him—whether that’s a yes or a no. The no is still glorifying to him because it’s his no.

Pastor Tuuri:
Correct. I think that’s right. Yeah, that the context is the glorification of God. But I think what Doug is pointing out is that if you say no, then he hasn’t given us according to what we’ve asked. So I think maybe another way to think of this particular phrasing is that it’s when we ask in accordance with his will—for doing the greater works that he would have us to do and that are part of his purpose—that would bring him glory through answering affirmatively. Those things he will answer affirmatively.

So I think that’s kind of what Doug’s dilemma is: you can’t just put it as a yes or a no.

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Q4: Questioner:
Some of the best, most amazing answers to prayer our family has had are instances where we recognize that we didn’t know if the thing that we thought we wanted was really the best thing. And we prayed in that light: “Lord, Lord, if this is what you want, this seems to be what we ought to have. You know, we know that you can provide this, but if this isn’t it, give us the other thing—you know, whatever is better.”

Pastor Tuuri:
Yeah. And that always balanced our expectations and set us up to really notice what he did and be thankful for it.

Questioner:
That’s good.

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Q5: Questioner:
I really liked what you had to say about the home factor of the church and as believers. And it was in a Sunday school class a couple weeks ago in George Hubin’s class. We were talking about the kingdom of God, and one of the passages that came to mind was Isaiah 60, I believe, which talks about “your walls will call salvation, your gates will be called praise.” And so when you say that there is no one place, God is so immense that this building can’t contain him and so forth, but I see very much that here, within the covenant community, here we are meeting within the gates of God’s house and his walls. As we take it to the ends of the world, it expands. And so it’s that we have that fellowship here, and we see it, and then we can take it with us even to our own homes. And then also vice versa—there’s that whole aspect of how, as a family matures, it brings that leavening of Christ within the home, even into the church, and expansion takes place there as well.

Pastor Tuuri:
Yeah, that’s very good commentary. There’s a sense in which, you know, what we would desire long term—you can talk about vision statements—what we desire long term for RCC is that on Sundays it’s like a homecoming. It’s gathering again as the house of God with people we love who love us and accept us, and fellowshipping—not in isolation with one another, but in family life, trust, and love together.

Questioner:
Good. Anybody else? Okay, let’s grab our meal.