"Times of Prayer" encapsulates the little gallery at the bottom: Pic #1 portrays Luther as a man of prayer as he entreats his Father for a little girl on her deathbed. Luther had two daughters: Elisabeth died in infancy and Magdalena died later in childhood; Pic #2 shows a soldier about to do his duty for his country and takes the time to pray; Pic #3 is well-known to everyone as the old man giving thanks for what he has to eat; Pic #4 shows Paul praying as he awaits his execution. The subscript reads, :I have kept the faith" from 2 Timothy 4:7; and, lastly, in Pic #5 we is Luther once more telling the head of the household to make the sign of the cross and give this morning prayer. This brings me to my morning address for Cantate Sunday:
“Prayers are Efficacious in Jesus’ Name”
Text - John 16:23-24. “And in that day 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.” NKJV
My Christian friends: Our text reads, “In that day.” That was a formula you heard about in last Sunday’s Old Testament sermon. This Rogate (command to pray) Sunday may perplex you as it probably did the disciples. “In that day” here means to say in the day of Jesus’ ascending into heaven, which we will remember this coming Thursday.
He and the Father, on that day, promises to send forth the Holy Spirit to give His disciples knowledge of all things, since the Holy Spirit will testify of Jesus. They no longer would need to ask Jesus the spiritual things of which they have inquiry at the present time. However, being full of knowledge, by the Holy Spirit, does not mean to say that they would not be in need. They would, indeed, have needs as do all of you today. Therefore, the disciples are commanded to ask the Father in Jesus’ name. Hence, they are commanded by Jesus to present their requests to the Father for things needful in this life by praying in His name, trusting in the meritorious work of their Savior.
The efficacy of prayer comes about when the human spirit struggles against those things that try to prevent them from asking God the Father for anything. Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:12 that “the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.” Luther explained this passage this way, namely, “For prayer in my opinion is a constant violent action of the spirit as it is lifted up to God, as a ship is driven upward against the power of the storm.”
Your prayer must be importune if it is to be efficacious: Take that opportunity for prayer. As it says in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” In other words, you should remember that prayer is your opportunity to seek something of the Lord, and it is at all times that you should be knocking on heaven’s door with your requests. St. Paul says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.” And “in everything” means just that. “In everything” assumes all needs and assumes all hours of the day or night for the Lord wishes to hear and answer your requests.
There is still much confusion about prayer; however, Jesus gives us insight with today’s gospel text: The person who wishes to know how to pray needs to study prayer in light of Holy Scripture. Jesus, here, tells us, “Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” Therefore, prayer is simply asking or begging. In other places prayer is defined as calling, such as, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” Psalm 50:15. That alone should move Christians to pray.
Luther explains this very well in his introduction to the Lord’s Prayer in his Large Catechism: Therefore we have rightly rejected the prayers of monks and priests, who howl and growl frightfully day and night; not one of them thinks of asking for the least thing. If we gathered all the churches together, with all their clergy, they would have to confess that they never prayed wholeheartedly for so much as a drop of wine. None of them has ever undertaken to pray out of obedience to God and faith in His promise, or out of consideration for his own needs. They only thought, at best, of doing a good work as a payment to God, not willing to receive anything from Him, but only to give Him something.
Now it is that prayer is to be offered “in the name of Jesus,” that is, believing on His name, on His meritorious work. And because Jesus is the only-begotten Son of the Father, our prayers are to be addressed in His name, not some generic god, not to Allah, not to the Great Spirit, not to Mother Earth, neither Mother Mary, nor to any of the numerous saints, but in Jesus’ name only. It is for this reason, namely, that in Jesus and through Jesus only we become children of the heavenly Father. That is why Jesus taught us to address God as “Our Father who art in heaven.” Again, take notice that Jesus tells us, “Whatever you ask the Father in My name.” It is alone through Jesus, the only intercessor between God and man, that His Father has become our Father. God has no other sons than those who love His Son, Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father manifested in the world.
Any prayer offered while not believing on God’s only-begotten Son, no matter how beautiful; no matter how sweet; no matter how touching; no matter how earnest; and, no matter how sincere it is, is not a prayer that is heard of the Father but rather a prayer which is sinful. That is why, in 1984, as a Missouri Synod pastor in the South-eastern District, when Charlotte’s City Council asked me to give the invocation before they began their business, I specifically mentioned the name of Jesus, which brought some really weird sounds from those in attendance. That was very important because the council and Mayor pro-tem, had demanded that my invocation be in a generic god’s name only (which I never agreed to do), so that the non-Christians assembled would not be offended. You can imagine why they never wanted me to pray for them anymore once I invoked the Holy Trinity.
So it was that, long before this Coronavirus pandemic, a visitor to the Nation’s Capital was accompanied by his young son. As they watched from the gallery, the House was brought to order. “Why did the minister pray for all those people, daddy?” “He didn’t,” replied the father, “he looked them over and prayed for the country.” The prayers offered at the opening of every meeting of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are rarely offered in faith believing that Jesus is true God and true Man.
What does Jesus Himself say of these matters? Matthew 8:32-33 records His words: “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him will I confess before My Father who is in heaven.” And conversely, “But whoever denies Me before men, him I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Another reason for offering our prayers in Jesus' name is that by His intercession before the Father you are given power to become the sons of God and you remain as God’s children, washed and cleansed in Jesus’ own blood once and for all shed for your sins and the sins of the whole world upon Calvary’s old, rugged cross.
This is a very important matter to remember since it is because of Jesus’ sacrifice that you have God’s favor and blessing. But the person who prays only out of turmoil, or the prayer of doubt, “God, if you are really, really there, please help me!” is a horrible, blasphemous prayer. James 1:6-8, plainly states, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not a man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” Thus, faith must be centered, must be anchored firmly in Christ. Prayers therefore are humble requests made to the heavenly Father, faithfully trusting that they will be answered for Jesus’ sake.
Now what great benefits or power does prayer give you? The Bible states, as you heard in last Sunday’s epistle regarding James 1:17, that all good and perfect gifts are from the Father of heavenly lights. Jesus puts it this way, “What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
It is written, “The effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much.” And it is so. Think of the great men and women of the Bible who, through much turmoil and pain, came to the realization that they needed the Savior. Think of Solomon, who prayed for wisdom in order to rule the children of God and was given it. Think of Moses who knew that he could not achieve what God called him to do unless God’s own hand was extended to help him. Think of Ruth, who lost her husband, denied her gods and learned, in faith, to trust in the God of Naomi, and received her kinsman-redeemer, Boaz, who begot Obed by Ruth, Obed, who in turn begot Jesse who, in turn, begot King David, through whose ancestry eventually begot Jesus the Savior of all who believe in His name! Think of the benefits gained by men like Luther, Chemnitz, and others who stressed the necessity of faith: These pastors and all men of faith took joy, even in the midst of trouble because they were given the understanding by God to discern the Spirit of truth in the Word of God.
It is true that the church, the community of believers, also prays together as people of God. It is also equally true that infants, when they are brought to the waters of baptism, are included in God’s promise of redemption which Christ has brought to them by his passion, death, and resurrection. But is it just a thing to do, by tradition, to have prayers for the infant at its baptism? Do we take the rite of baptism seriously and reverently or as just a family thing to do in society like christening a ship on its maiden voyage? Do we sometimes feel that we are just breaking a bottle of champagne on the rear end of the baby and sending it on its voyage with its doting parents and sponsors?
Many of those baptisms within our churches, even though efficacious because of the Word and command of the Lord, have turned badly for the baptized infant because we, as Christ’s church, have not taken what we have vowed to do seriously.
Luther, in his Order of Baptism of 1523 called attention to the importance of all believers witnessing a specific baptism join in intercessory prayer for the baptized. Luther said: “For here, in the words of these prayers, you hear how meekly and earnestly the Christian church concerns itself about the little child and how it confesses before God in plain undoubting words that he is possessed by the devil and is a child of wrath, and prays very diligently for aid and grace through baptism that he may become a child of God…Remember, too, that it is very necessary to aid the poor child with all your heart and strong faith, earnestly to intercede for him that God, in accordance with this prayer, would not only free him from the power of the devil, but also strengthen him, so that he may n0obly resist the devil in life and death. And I suspect that people turn out so badly after baptism because our concern for them has been so cold and careless; we, at their baptism, interceded for them without zeal.” (Luther’s Werke 1883, WA 47.)
Whenever we have the opportunity to baptize little ones, let us take that opportunity as a Christian church to bring up such children as the children of God and not leave them to the devil. For, as Martin Luther once said that “the true church has been founded for the purpose of praying.”
Listen, isn’t it recorded in the Acts of the Apostles that the first thing Paul did after he was converted was to pray? In Acts 9, the Lord, in a vision, told Ananias of Damascus to inquire about Saul of Tarsus. And Jesus said to Ananias, “Behold, he (Paul) is praying” (Acts 9:11). The great benefits received through prayer are essentially those by which you can forgive and be forgiven by those whom you have been striving against.
When we have this understanding, given by the Lord, those other things, namely, those good gifts we ask for such as food, shelter, clothing, family, good friends and government, etc. are of smaller importance than honoring the Giver of the gifts by offering our prayers to Him through Jesus Christ. All these things we ask for in the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And as Luther explains: “What does this mean?” “God gives daily bread indeed without our prayer, also to all the wicked; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” Luther continues, “What is meant by daily bread?” [Daily bread is] “Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
With all the great benefits prayer gives to you, all of you who claim the name “Christian,” need to accustom yourselves to pray upon rising in the morning, at the dinner table, and upon retiring at night either as a family or individually, so that, when tribulations of these latter days shake you, you will be able to pray in faith to the One who has promised to deliver you. The power of prayer leads you to the peace of God which passes all human understanding, the peace that calms your hearts in the hour of utmost need. Friends, give your heart to the true and tried, old certainty of the testimonies in Scripture that you will be content to pray at all times, even for all people, so that Jesus may not be a stranger to you either in the times of trouble…or times of prosperity. Amen.
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