James 1.22–27 + John 16.23-30
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On the fifth Sunday after Easter, we are still in the upper room with Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, listening to Him teaches His disciples before He goes to the Father. Today, He teaches them to pray. He tells them, “In that day—that is, after He ascends to His Father—you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Jesus had taught His disciples to pray on previous occasions. He had given them the Our Father. They knew that to pray is to ask God the Father for the things they need—especially the things He has promised to give—to let their requests be made known to God as Paul says it in Philippians 4:6. But now He teaches them to pray in a way they had not done yet. They are to pray in His name.
To pray in Jesus’ name means to approach God the Father directly. Praying in Jesus name means we approach His heavenly Father because of His merits and for His sake. We cannot approach God the Father in our own name, as if we are worthy in and of ourselves to ask Him for what we need. Nor can we approach God the Father through the name and merits of the saints for the same reason. During their lives they approached God in Jesus’ name, and there’s no word of Scripture telling us ask them to approach God for us or alongside us. Jesus gives us direct access to God the Father in His name, so that we can ask Him for what we need as dear children as their earthly fathers for good things. And we know that He hears us and will answer us precisely because we do not come in our own name, or in the name of any other, but because we come in the name of His only begotten Son whom He loves.
Praying in Jesus’ name also means that we pray as Jesus prayed during the days of His humiliation. Too often people hear Jesus’ words, “Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you,” and fasten their hearts on the word “whatever” and ignore the rest of the sentence. They imagine that God will give them whatever they want in this life. They approach God the Father as if Jesus had promised to give them whatever their heart desires: Health, wealth, and every good thing in this life. They imagine all they need to do is name it and claim it since Jesus has said, “Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” But to pray “in Jesus’ name” is not a magic incantation to twist God’s arm into give you whatever our hearts and flesh desires, so that health, wealth, and whatever else we desire will be given to us unconditionally. He promises to give us all we need for this bodily life, and we know that God gives daily bread even to the wicked and unbelieving. We ask for earthly things in prayer, but the earthly blessings we always ask for conditionally, like David did as He crossed the Brook Kidron, the leper in Matthew 8, and as Christ prayed in Garden of Gethsemane, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matt 26:39). And we trust that whatever God’s will is for us regarding the things of this life, it is good and gracious.
We pray for daily bread conditionally because God hasn’t revealed His will about what He will give us today, but we pray for the spiritual blessings Christ promised unconditionally, since Christ has told us precisely what God’s will is when it comes to these things. God the Father wants to forgive our sins every day, so we ask confidently for mercy in Jesus’ name each day. He wants to give us His Holy Spirit so that we believe His word and live according to it, so we ask for the Holy Spirit. He wants to continually give us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pt 1:3), so we ask, trusting that God has given us what we need in order to live a godly life, to daily put off the old man and live as the new man in Christ. To pray “in Jesus’ name” is to pray for the things He has promised to give, and He has promised these spiritual blessings, which are far greater than the worldly blessings He gives to believers and unbelievers alike. To pray “in Jesus’ name” is to pray for things as Jesus prayed for them, and even Jesus prayed for earthly things, “Thy will be done.” But when asking for spiritual blessings through Christ, we don’t say, “Thy will be done” because He’s told us that it is His will to give them to us, for He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph 1:3).
Then Jesus says, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” The joy that comes is not the joy of having received that for which you asked. That’s part of it, yes. Who isn’t joyful when they receive their request? But more than that, the joy that fills us is the joy of knowing that we have direct access to God the Father in Jesus’ name. This is something that we often take for granted, but if we truly think about what Jesus is promising, we cannot help but be filled with joy. He says, “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” We do not even need Jesus to pray for us! The Father loves us and wants to hear our prayers. This is not the agape love of John 3:16, “For so God so loved the world.” This is the love of friendship and enjoyment. He loves you in this way because you love His Son and know that Christ came forth from God. Because you love Christ by faith, God the Father loves you, dwells with you, wants you to ask for what you need, and wants to give it to you. We’re happy when we receive what we ask for, but we’re filled with joy when we consider that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, loves us this way.
He even encourages us pray despise the fact that knows all things already, including what we will ask for in prayer. In the gospel for two weeks ago, when Jesus tells them about the little while in which they will not see Him, John tells us, “Jesus knew that they desired to ask Him, and He said to them, “Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said?” (Jn 16:19). At the end of today’s gospel they exclaim, “Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You. By this we believe that You came forth from God.” Even though they know Jesus knows all things—including what they will ask for—Jesus tells them to ask. He removes the excuse the flesh makes when it says, “God already knows what I need, so there’s no point in praying.” Of course, God knows what you will pray for. David says in Psalm 139[:2,4], “You understand my thought afar off. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.” And though He knows even our thoughts, He commands us pray nonetheless, because He wants to hear us and because prayer exercises our faith in God’s promise to hear and answer us.
Against any excuse to not pray that the flesh may find, James reminds us in today’s epistle, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” This applies to the entirety of God’s word. He tells us to keep all things He has commanded (Matt 28:20), so it applies to prayer, as well. Be a doer of the word. Be a pray-er. Ask God for what He has promised to give. If we hear Jesus’ promise, then go our way and only pray to Him in this place, we are like a like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. This is the very thing that we prayed for in the Collect of the Day. “O God, from Whom all good things do come, grant to us, Thy humble servants, that by Thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be right and by Thy merciful guiding may perform the same.” He guides our thinking through His word so that we do as James tells us: bridling our tongues, visiting the helpless in their trouble, and keeping ourselves unspotted from world. While these things are pure and undefiled religion—the outward, visible acts of piety God’s words directs us towards, they only flow from the internal religion—the fullness of joy we have because we have a God and Father in heaven who loves us, who dwells in us by faith, and who inspires us by His word to think those things which are right and God-pleasing, so that we do them.
“Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” This promise—and the joy that comes from knowing that God loves us because we love His only begotten Son—is more than enough to motivate us to pray each day in every temptation and trial, in every adversity and affliction. With this promise, in Jesus’ name and by His merits, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
