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INJ
'Lord, Teach Us to Pray'
St John 16:23-30
Divine Service
Rogate, 21 May 2006
Dear Saints,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” [St John 16:23,24] This is Jesus' promise concerning prayer, that if we ask in His name, we shall receive. This promise is sure, for there is nothing that is able to stop Jesus from keeping His promises. And what's more, this is not the only time the Lord Jesus gives us this promise that He will answer all our prayers.
Matthew 7:7,8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
Mark 11:24 “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, that you will have them.”
John 14:13,14 “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”
John 15:16 “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
These wonderful promises are consistent with the whole of the Scriptures. In Psalm 50:15 the LORD promises, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Or in his 1st Epistle, St John writes, [5:14,15] “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
The Lord will hear and answer all of our prayers, of this we can be sure and certain, but there is one condition, we ask for these things in the name of Jesus.
Well, what does this mean, to pray in the name of Jesus? Does it mean that we tack on the phrase “in Jesus' name” on the end of all our prayers? If this was the case, then the Lord's Prayer would not be in Jesus' name. But certainly, when we want to learn how to pray, to learn what it means to pray in Jesus' name, we would look to the Lord's Prayer. It is, after all, the Lord Jesus' answer to the disciple's request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” [St Luke 11:1] So that our prayers might be confident and sure as the Lord intends, we consider what it means to pray in the name of Jesus.
Names have to do with families. That's what a name means, that you are part of the family. I was given my name, Wolfmueller, by my dad, Chuck Wolfmueller, who was given his name by his father and so on; and likewise I've give my name to my children, Hannah and Andrew. The name is inherited from the father and gives the child claim on the father, all the rights and privileges of being part of the family; living in the home, eating the food, and having all the comforts that being part of a family afford.
This is what it means, then, to pray in the name of Jesus, it means to pray as part of the family, part of Jesus' family, to pray to God as “Our Father” and Jesus as our brother. Prayer is a family affair. So Jesus pictures prayer for us as a simple thing, a child asking something of their father. “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?” This is what prayer is, a child of the heavenly Father asking their dear Father for the things that we need.
The trouble is that we are not born into this family. By birth we are not sons of God. We are born into sin, and to be a sinner is to be part of the devil's family. Jesus called His opponents sons of the devil, [St John 8:44] and this is how we are born, under the reign of the power of darkness [Colossians 1:13] and children of the flesh. We are not born children of the Heavenly Father, but sinners, children of Adam and Eve, children of the law, children of wrath.
In this condition we cannot pray. The unbeliever cannot say “Our Father” to the God who is not his Father. As Paul says, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed,” [Romans 10:14] and in the Proverbs we hear, “One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination.” [Proverbs 28:9] For God to hear our prayers and answer them, He must make us part of His family, cause us to be born again and give us His name, adopting us as His children, and this is exactly what He does. He gives us the gift of being His children.
“Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the children of God.” [1 John 3:1] “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” [Galatians 4:4,5] Our adoption, says Paul, comes through our redemption. For if being born a sinner makes us a child of the devil, then having the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus' death on the cross means that we are the children of God.
Jesus, who is the very Son of God, makes of Himself a child of Adam, a child of the flesh, a child of sin, a child of wrath, taking our place on the cross. He becomes sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. [2 Corinthians 5:21] By Him God's wrath is appeased; by Him we have a merciful Father in heaven. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” [Galatians 3:26]
And what is the result of being God's son, of having His name? ST Paul says, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!' Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” [Galatians 4:4-7]
So it is, that through Jesus' death on the cross, and through our baptism into that death, and through faith which trusts those promises of God given to us in our baptism and in the Scriptures, we are God's children, adopted into the family, heirs of God. He has put His name on us, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and so we are God's family. This, dear saints, is what it means to pray in Jesus' name.
To pray in Jesus' name is to pray with the certainty and confidence of faith, knowing that through Jesus, through His life and death and resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God, through these things He has reconciled us to the Father. Because of Jesus we have a gracious and merciful Father in heaven, who has made us His dear children; we're part of the family. This Father tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father. [Luther, Small Catechism]
“Most assuredly,” Jesus says to us, “whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” [16:23] May our heavenly Father continue to send forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, that we would confidently pray to Him for all that we need. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church
Aurora, CO
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