For the next few weeks on Morning Mercies we will be considering some of the basic principles of prayer as they were taught by Jesus. We have looked at the Lord’s Prayer as it was taught in both Matthew and Luke for a starting place. Now we will look a little further for the principles that shaped His praying.
The first of these will come from John 14, and concerns the promise of “praying in the name of Jesus.” Here the Lord says that if we pray in His name, he “will do it.” How this has been interpreted and applied throughout the ages has led to deep disappointment, for the reality seems to be something different. There have been many prayers prayed in “the name of Jesus” that simply were not fulfilled. So what’s the deal?
Here is a basic principle of interpreting God’s Word. If a piece of scripture seems plain in meaning, but does not prove true, our understanding is wrong. There are many places in scripture, especially the narratives, where the culture of the original audience would have understood what was being said yet we struggle with the meaning. This is so because we do not live in that culture, and certain words, certain idioms carry different meaning in that original culture or language than they do today. What we see as literal might be symbolic to them, and what is today seen as symbolic could be literal to them. So if we come to something that seems problematic in the teaching of Jesus, even when it seems simple, we must look harder at the text and ask, “what was its original meaning then” before we apply it to today.
In the short passage today Jesus is talking to His disciples and a few others, and he is telling them that He is the way to and of life. The Disciples had just had dinner with Christ where he had stooped to wash their feet. When he begins to speak to them about His relationship to the Father, and how he now shares that relationship with them, they are confused. He is trying to get them ready for the Passion which was to shortly follow. He has mentioned this to them at several different times, and so that night he says, “You know the way to where I am going.” Thomas, who in His confusion, speaks for all the disciples, says in response to Him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” This is when Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” Then Jesus tells them remarkably that if they had seen Him, they had seen the Father. It is directly after this that Jesus tells them that if they “ask anything in my name, I will do it.”
We get a help towards understanding this when we consider the context, or what preceded this promise. Jesus had been focussed on the relationship he had with His Father in Heaven. In regards to this relationship Jesus reiterates several times that He and the Father are one. He said, “if you had known me, you would have known the Father.” He said, Whoever has seen me has seen the father.” He said, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” What He wants the disciples to understand is that there is a unity between the Father and the Son, and that unity is of character and will. What the Father wants the Son takes as His own will. What the Son wants is directly from the Father’s heart. As the Son is true, and love, and good, so even is the father, for they are one. There is a unity of relationship within the trinity that is mysterious and beyond words, yet that trinity is of one essence so that in our experience of one of its members we know all it members.
How does this apply to the promise that Christ gave us concerning praying in His name? Simply put, that unity we find in God, between the Son and Father, should be reflected in our relationship with Christ. His will becomes our will out of the love He has pored out on us, and out of the love we offer up to Him. We then accept His will as our own, even as He does with the will of His Father. So, when we pray our heart pours forth its desires for His will to be done, to be accomplished. This is what it means to “pray in the name of Jesus.”
Praying in Jesus’ name means praying in line with the will of God.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: 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 what we asked of him.
1 John 5.14-15
Do hear the promise in all this? If we pray according to the will of God, He will do what we ask. Why? Because our heart is one with His Son, and His Son is one with Him. When we say that we “pray in the name of Jesus” we are one with Him in what He wills, no matter what that may be. The will of God may be contrary to some strong desire of ours, or to some particular preference, but we surrender these desires and preferences to His will. It is at this very point where we struggle with this promise. We either do not know or do not care what the Lord’s will is, we pray instead for according to our own will.
You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:2–3
The word passions here is some times translated as lusts, something that you want at a deep level, but is not yours to have. Lust always is a self-centered willful action, no matter what it is focussed on. James is saying we sometimes pray in this direction, and not according to the will of God. That is what so many of our prayers are not answered or answered with a flat “No!” A person who prays His will is not praying “in the name of Jesus,” but in his own name. He may literally say “in the name of Jesus,” but if it is not according to the will and heart of our Lord, it is just vain words about oneself.
There is something also from the Hebraic culture/language of the first century that needs understood if we are to come to a full understanding of what it means to “pray in the name of Jesus.” To do anything in the name of another person was to assume not only their will, but also their authority in doing it. So when we pray in the name of Jesus not only do we do so according to His will, but also as if He was the one doing the asking. This seems right if we are one with Him in our praying, if the unity between Christ and the believer is to have any meaning at all, it should be here. This does not however give us permission to demand anything from God, even if done in His name. Humility is the only true and right stance as we pray.
To see this, let us turn to Matthew 26.39…And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” Then verse 42…Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” The scripture says that Jesus prayed in the same direction one more time and then returned to the Disciples and his enemies who had come to arrest Him. The picture of Jesus in the Garden is an example of how prayer by every follower should be shaped or said. From the heart, we humbly submit our petitions and and assert the will of God, even over those passionately help personal desires. We may fervently believe that some thing is God’s will, but not be completely sure that it is so. Then we should honestly pray that way, even as Christ did. “I ask you to do this God, but before that, I pray your will be done above everything else.” Such humility is key for our praying.
So the key to our praying within the will of God is to know the will of God, as much as we can. To do this we need to be people of His Word, daily reading the scriptures, because that is primary place where that will is shared with us. If you do not know His Word, you will have little clue to what His will is in any given situation. In Deuteronomy 29:29 it says, “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law” In other words, there are things that we can know through the scriptures that are plainly His will. We need to do them and pray for them.
But also this says that to know the will of God in a situation is often uncertain or hidden, so we must pray that God would show it to us, or lead us through it. Key to these situations is that we know and let God, the Holy Sprit, guide us. So we pray, and then we go forward even when we know not what lies ahead, or what is His will is. He will guide us as we surrender our will to His. This is what it means essentially to pray in His name, to pray according to the Lord’s will and character.
Finally, when we pray in the name of Jesus we do it not for our credit, or for our advantage, but solely for His glory. It is Him and His Kingdom that we seek, in accordance with His will. It is Him that we want to be revealed and seen and called upon. In Matthew 18 it says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” When we pray in agreement for God’s will, he says Amen to our praying. And as the world, our neighbors see us praying together, they may have a revelation of the love of God. That is glorious.
As way of encouragement, I want to say this to you. There are many things which are big in your heart that is God’s will, always. It is God’s will that that child or spouse come into a relationship with Christ, and be “born again.” Pray for them, for their salvation, and believe God will do it, because He will.
It is right that we pray that more of our neighbors join us in church, and that they would find that peace with God. So pray for them, that they would respond to God’s wooing them, and to your invitations.
It is right that we pray for wisdom in our leaders, that they would know how to handle the difficult situations that come there way, and that they would keep themselves from corruption. We all should pray for this because it is God’s will that we would have these things. How do I know? Because it tells us what his will is for our praying in the Bible, the Word of God. There is so much more.
Pray in the name of Jesus, according to the will and character of our LORD, and you will receive the very things you pray for.
Let us pray right now.