Rejoice for prayer in Jesus’ name.

Sermon for Easter 6, May 17, 2020

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

John 16:23-30  ²³ In that day you will not ask me anything.  Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.  ²⁴ Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.  Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.  ²⁵ “I have told you these things using figurative language.  A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you using figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.  ²⁶ In that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will make requests of the Father on your behalf.  ²⁷ For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.  ²⁸ I came from the Father and have come into the world.  Now I am going to leave the world and go to the Father.”  ²⁹ “Yes!” his disciples said, “Now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative language.  ³⁰ Now we know that you know everything and do not need to have anyone ask you anything.  For this reason we believe that you came from God.” (EHV)

Rejoice for prayer in Jesus’ name.

Dear friends in Christ,

            The apostle Paul wrote from a prison cell, “Rejoice in the Lord always!  I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)  There hasn’t been a whole lot of rejoicing in our country of late.  Weddings have been postponed, graduation ceremonies cancelled, much of our way of life has been disrupted, and most of us can’t even visit our grandchildren and other loved ones.  Yet, as Christian believers, we have many reasons to be always rejoicing.  Here we learn to Rejoice for prayer in Jesus’ name.

Since at least the fifth century, the Christian Church has used the 6^th Sunday of the Easter season to rejoice for Christian prayer.  The Church follows this practice because prayer is such a great gift of God to all believers.  Regrettably, we are often lax in opening that gift of the Father.  So, never forget that Jesus promises His disciples that His Father will hear and answer their prayers. 

Now, the command to pray to God is certainly not new.  The Children of Israel had always known that they were supposed to turn to God for help, and they knew God had commanded them to offer sacrifices of thanks for His answered prayers.  However, they also always had to rely on an intermediary to carry those requests to God.  Jesus tells us, here, that from now on His followers can go directly to the Father and the Father will gladly and richly answer their prayers.  Jesus said, “In that day you will not ask me anything.  Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.”

“Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.”  What a wide-open promise!  All of our prayers to God will be heard and our every need will be filled.  You and I should never again be worried or afraid.  The troubles and hardships of this world should no longer bother us because all we must do is ask God in Jesus’ name, and whatever we want is ours, right? 

To answer that honestly, we need to understand what it means to pray in Jesus’ name.  Proverbs 28:9 says, “If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.”  Passages like this can terrify us, and well they should.  God has no ear for the prayers of unbelievers who arrogantly refuse to repent of their sins.  But that’s not praying in Jesus’ name, is it?  

My friends, Jesus isn’t giving us a new law on how to pray.  Rather, He is assuring us that God is always faithful in answering the prayers of His children.  Proverbs 28 declares that “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.  Blessed is the man who always fears the LORD.” (Proverbs 28:13-14)  Jesus was assuring His followers that those who pray in His name will have their prayers heard and answered by the Father.  Yet, the question remains, “What does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name?” 

Experience tells us that we don’t always seem to get an immediate response to our prayers, so some might start to wonder: did I pray correctly?  Is God really listening?  Then, if it doesn’t seem like God is answering quickly, Satan tries to worm his way in and torment us with questions like: “Have you been faithful enough?  Does God hate you?”  And the devil accuses: “You must be too sinful for the Father to hear your prayers!”  At those times we might begin to wonder.  We might even start to accuse Jesus, saying, “You said the Father would give me what I want, well I’m waiting for that promise to come true!”  Does any of that sound like you? 

Jesus told His disciples, “Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.”  Our heavenly Father wants us to come to Him persistently.  So, I have to ask you, do you spend every moment of every day praying to the Father?  Do we always look to God first for every need, or want?  Do we always trust that our heavenly Father is already providing us with every good thing?  I can only speak for myself, but I know that I don’t always measure up to that standard.

It is for times when we feel weak that Jesus assures us: “The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”  The Father doesn’t love us as a reward for believing in Jesus, and He doesn’t answer our prayers as a reward for using Jesus’ name.  Rather, our faith in Jesus shows that the Father has already loved us by bringing us to faith in Christ, just as John wrote saying, “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) 

To pray in Jesus’ name means that we confess our sins before God and trust in His mercy for Jesus’ sake.  As we live in God’s grace, we trust that God is answering every one of our prayers in the way that He knows is best for us.  We leave all doubt behind as we trust His gracious goodness for Jesus’ sake.  To ask in Jesus’ name means that we never turn aside from trusting Him, but spend every moment confident that the Father gives us everything we need for this life and the next. 

To pray in Jesus’ name isn’t about just adding that phrase to our prayers.  It means that the Holy Spirit has given us faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  When Jesus told the disciples to pray in His name, He was promising that His work for the human race would restore the family relationship with the Father that Adam had long ago lost.  When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are trusting in all that the Bible says about Him.  Because of Jesus’ saving work, you and I can, again, go to the Father with full confidence, because He made us His dear children at our baptisms, and out of love for us, He hears our prayers and gives us whatever we need. 

To pray in Jesus’ name means that we recognize our natural sinful condition.  It means that, in faith, we repent of our sins, turn away from them, and trust the only source of forgiveness which is God’s only begotten Son, who lived for us and died on the cross to take away all of our sins, even our sins of doubt and our sins of slowness to use that wonderful gift of prayer.  It means that trusting in Jesus, alone, for our salvation, and putting no hope in anything but Him, we then pray with all confidence that the Triune God will deliver what He promises. 

Rejoice for prayer in Jesus’ name, because when we put all of our trust in Christ and His Father, then the Father will provide for us better than we even know what to ask for, and faith assures us that we can never ask for anything better than what the Father knows we need and wants to give us.  Therefore, in every request the believer lays before the Father, he prays as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)  And, the Father answers exactly as we need.

“Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.”  Our Lord Jesus urges us to keep on asking our Father for everything we could ever want or need.  The prayers of believers go up to God as a sweet smelling offering to Him, because true prayer shows that we trust Him in all things.  Yes, we are frail and weak.  Yes, we sometimes find ourselves doubting and worrying and wondering what will happen next, but Jesus died on the cross to pay for those sins.  When Jesus made these promises to the disciples, He was looking forward to His complete accomplishment of our salvation.  He was looking forward to that moment when He could say, “It is finished.”

Jesus’ disciples responded to His encouragement by saying, " Now we know that you know everything and do not need to have anyone ask you anything.  For this reason we believe that you came from God."  You and I should have that same confidence.  Jesus proceeds from the Father from eternity.  He is true God, begotten of the Father.  Jesus came down to this earth to win our salvation, and after winning our salvation, Jesus returned to the Father not in defeat, as the world might think, but in overwhelming victory.  Jesus rose from the grave to show the world that sin, death and Satan have been conquered, and forgiveness and salvation is now available through faith in Christ.

The disciples said that Jesus needed no one to question His authority.  Those who believe and trust in Jesus don’t worry about what the world thinks.  Nor does the believer listen to Satan as he tempts us to doubt.  The Holy Spirit has given Christians faith in Jesus, and even if all the world should turn against us, we hold onto these truths: that Jesus is from the Father, that He has won your forgiveness, your salvation is an accomplished fact, and you and I have an eternal home in heaven.

Dear Christian friends, we live in a world that will continually try to lead us away from the promise Jesus gives here.  No doubt, Satan will try to get you to doubt that God is listening to you.  Rejoice for prayer in Jesus’ name.  Hold onto Jesus’ promises.  Live your life praying in Jesus’ name, trusting that everything He said is true, and that everything Jesus did accomplished your full and free forgiveness and salvation.  It is in that faith that all your prayers will be answered.  When you live trusting in Jesus and praying in confidence to the Father, your joy will be full, just as Jesus promised.  Even if you have to suffer in this world, the joy that follows will be everlasting, making the troubles of this world look pretty small.

Jesus said, “I have told you these things using figurative language.  A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you using figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.  In that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will make requests of the Father on your behalf.  For the Father himself loves you.”  Full understanding of what Jesus promised was withheld from the disciples that day, but later, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to make their understanding complete. 

You and I have likewise been blessed by the Holy Spirit as He brought us to faith in Jesus through the application of the Gospel.  St. Paul wrote, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)  The Holy Spirit, working through Jesus’ Gospel, is what brings us together here this morning.  That same Holy Spirit will keep us praying in Jesus’ name as long as we continue to heed His Word.

My friends, Jesus told Peter that “the gates of Hades will not overcome” (Matthew 16:18) Peter’s confession of faith, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)  Hold on to that confession and to all of Jesus’ promises.  Trust everything the Bible teaches about Him.  In Jesus’ name, live your faith and pray with your whole life.  Rejoice for prayer in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace, always, in every way.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.