John 16:23-33; James
1:22-27; Numbers 21:4-9
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
That you pray is not a suggestion, but
it is a commandment. While there is a sense in which you are invited to pray,
it is in the same sense in which you are invited to drive at the posted speed
limit. To put it quite bluntly, to pray is to keep and to obey the First
Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” For, when you pray, you “fear,
love, and trust in God above all things.”
Now, to be sure, your heavenly Father
has attached some pretty spectacular promises to your prayer. In fact, your
Lord Jesus promises you, “Whatever you ask of the Father in my Name, He will
give it to you.” And this is key: Your heavenly Father will not give you what
you ask because you pray, because of the words of your prayer, because of the
eloquence of how you pray, because of your great sincerity in prayer, or even
because of your faith, but He will give you those things that you ask in Jesus’
Name. Do not think that this means that you should simply end your prayer with
the words “In the Name of Jesus.” That is indeed a salutary thing to do, but
those words are a confession of your faith. They are worship of God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. They are not magical incantation that will cause God to
give you what you want, as if He were some divine vending machine in the sky.
No! Perish the thought!
But, the command to ask in Jesus’ Name
means to ask for those things that Jesus has revealed in His life and ministry,
in His suffering, death, and resurrection, in His Word, which is the Word of
God. In other words, you are not to ask for Cadillacs and winning lottery
tickets, but you are to ask for those things that God has already promised to
give you: faith, the Holy Spirit, humility, patience, “love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control." As your earthly fathers, who are corrupted by sin and evil,
desire to give you things that are good for you, how much more will Your
heavenly Father give you, not harmful and evil things, but the things that He
knows are truly good for you His dear and beloved child? Moreover, He already
gives you these things. So, why does He command you to pray? Your heavenly
Father commands you to pray because He loves for you to call upon Him, to put
your fear, your love, and your trust in Him, to keep the First Commandment, and
because this is all extremely good, absolving, and life-giving to you. Your
heavenly Father wants you to pray to Him, to ask Him in Jesus’ Name, because He
is love and because He loves you.
Still, there is a great deal more in
Jesus’ command to ask in His Name. To ask in Jesus’ Name is not merely to
mutter the words “In Jesus’ Name,” nor is it merely to ask for those things
that are in Jesus’ Name, that is, those
things that are in accord with the holy will and Word of God. But, to ask in Jesus’
Name is, quite literally, to ask in Jesus,
to ask as Jesus, as one who has been
baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, as a member of Jesus’ body, the
Church. Quite obviously, if you ask in
Jesus, as Jesus, you cannot
possibly ask for something that is not in accord with the holy will and Word of
God. Moreover, your heavenly Father has promised to hear and to answer your
prayer, even to give you precisely what you ask for. In this case, the tired
saying that God always answers prayer with either “Yes,” “No,” or “Later,” is
nonsense. Jesus says quite plainly and literally and truthfully, “Whatever you
ask of the Father in my Name, He will give it to you.” So, if you ask and you
do not receive, it is not that God did not hear your prayer, or that He doesn’t
wish to give you what you ask at this time, or that you didn’t ask rightly,
believe that He would answer, or anything else, but all that it means is that
you did not truly ask in Jesus’ Name.
Now, I understand that this may come as
a surprise to many of you. After all, you’ve heard countless preachers and
teachers, you’ve read devotions and have attended Bible classes in which you
have been taught that you’re simply supposed to ask God for whatever you want,
that if only you “name it,” and truly believe, that you can “claim it” and it
will be so. And, if you don’t get what you want, you have probably felt that
you didn’t ask rightly, that you didn’t believe strongly enough, that God said
“No,” or, maybe, just maybe, you even began to doubt if God was truly there at
all. I say to you, that teaching is from the devil who desires only to lead you
away from fear, love, and trust in God and into fear, love, and trust in
yourself, and who seeks to rob you of comfort and peace. Your Lord Jesus
suffered and died to release you from this bondage. Your Lord Jesus rose from
the dead and ascended to the right hand of His Father in heaven to intercede
and to advocate for you there. As St. James writes, “The effective, fervent
prayer of a righteous man avails much.” This is most certainly true, for that
“righteous man” is Jesus, not you. Any doctrine of prayer that shifts your
focus from Jesus to yourself, or to your works, or to your faith, or to your
words, or to anything else, is from the devil who seeks only to deceive you,
and to destroy you, and to rob you of Christ’s peace.
That is the complete opposite purpose
for which Jesus commands you to pray. “I have said these things to you, that in
me you may have peace,” says Jesus. “In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Notice how Jesus doesn’t sidestep
tribulation. He doesn’t say that you might
have tribulation, but Jesus actually promises you that you will have tribulation.
Therefore, do not be surprised when things don’t go your way, when the world
mocks and ridicules your faith, when everything you believe and hold precious
and true seems to be at odds with the world and the culture around you, when
you don’t fit in, when your faith and church appear to be irrelevant to the
world, when no human wisdom seems to avail, when you don’t know how you’re
going to make it much longer, when… etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Your Lord
Jesus told you beforehand that this would happen so that when it does you might
remember and take comfort in His Words, “I have overcome the world.” It is
Satan that wants you to worry and to be anxious, to fret and to despair. He
will use these fears and dark emotions against you either to separate you from
God and His Church through hopelessness and despair because you believe that
you have failed, that it is your fault, or he will harden your heart against
God and fill you full of pride and self-righteousness that you rail against
God, claiming that He is loveless, merciless, a pitiless and harsh judge and
master, or doesn’t exist at all.
Yes, you need to pray. You need to ask
Him in Jesus’ Name. His command is good for you just as the First Commandment
is good for you. He is God and you are not. To remember this, to believe this,
to confess this, and to return to this, is good for you. God doesn’t need your
prayers, but He loves it when you pray to Him and ask Him for good things, just
as a child asks his loving father, trusting that he wants only good for his
dear child. When you turn to Him in repentance, when you cry to Him for help
and for strength and for the Holy Spirit and for faith, when you lift up your
eyes to Him as the object of your faith, life, and salvation, you will be
comforted, you will be healed, you will be forgiven, even though you are a
victim of that serpent Satan’s poisonous and deadly bite. “Ask, and you will
receive, that your joy may be full.”
And, “Be doers of the word, and not
hears only, deceiving yourselves.” You see, Satan and your own wicked flesh
wish to separate these two things. Some will claim that all they need is to
hear the Word of God and that, despite their works, despite the fruit they do
not bear, they may be confident in their salvation. While, others will claim
that works are most important, even all that is necessary, and justify their
laxity in hearing the Word of the Lord and receiving His Blessed Sacraments.
This, too, is of the lies and deceptions of your enemy, the devil. Thus, St.
James rightly connects the two, faith and works, and show them to be two sides
of the same coin. It is most certainly true that you are saved by grace through
faith alone apart from works, but it is also true that true and living faith is
never alone but is always fruitful. And, this too is a reason for your Lord’s
command to pray and to ask. You are to ask for those things that are in Jesus
that you might bear the fruits of Jesus for others, that they may have His
peace also and that God the Father may be glorified.
And, take note of the emphasis here on
hearing as opposed to speaking. This may seem odd as you likely consider prayer
to be more about speaking than listening. What you need to learn here is that
true and God-pleasing prayer originates in hearing, not speaking, that is, in
hearing God’s Word. And, this takes us right back to where we began: When you
pray, you must pray in Jesus’ Name.
That is, you must pray in Jesus and
ask for those things that are in
Jesus and not for those things that are not in Jesus. How do you know what those
things are? You hear, mark, read, learn, and inwardly digest the Word of God.
The Word must be your sustenance, the very food for your soul. Therefore,
regular hearing of the Word in this fellowship is central and crucial, along
with regular reception of the Word made flesh, the Word made visible and
tangible and edible, the body and blood of Jesus given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of your sins, for the strengthening of your faith, and for life
both now and forevermore. This too is a necessary fruit, a doing, which
corresponds to and flows out of your hearing.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
beloved children of our heavenly Father, your Father and God commands you to
pray that you might return to Him in repentance and receive from Him all that
He desires to give to you in His Son, your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He
would have you fear, love, and trust in Him above all else and, thus, it is the
greatest good for you to pray, to ask Him in Jesus’ Name, and to receive from
Him the things that give you life. And, when you have received, then you have
also to give, for “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father,
is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction,” that is, to is to
humbly serve others as you have been served, “and to keep oneself unstained
from the world.” This gift and promise of His Word He has left with you, and
His Holy Spirit as counselor, comforter, helper, and guide, until He comes,
that you may persevere.
In
the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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