05.12.06
Prayer in the Shorter Catechism (4): Praying in the Name of Christ
Read: John 14:13, 14
What is sharper, the scabbard or the sword – the leather casing the sword is stored in, or the sword itself? Of course, it is the sword. What is stronger, to pray and put at the end of each prayer, “for Jesus’ sake”, or to really pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So often, when we are praying, we superstitiously use the mere name of Jesus as a full stop or a way of being confident that God will listen to us. But that is to be a prayer warrior with a scabbard and no sword. Rather, we long to pray with true power and effectiveness, and according to the Shorter Catechism A.98, that is achieved by praying in the name of Christ.
I want to ask three questions about what it means to pray in the name of Christ:
[A] Why Should We Pray in the Name of Christ?
God has given us this wonderful gift of prayer, but He has also given us careful instructions about how to make the best use of it. We mustn’t make up our own instruction manual for prayer, but must rather take God at His Word because He knows best. And primary in His instruction manual for us is that when we pray, we pray in the name of Christ. The question is, for us, therefore, in light of God’s authority over us and His instruction manual for prayer including this, why should we pray in the name of Christ?
1. We Need a Mediator – we must always remember that our God is a consuming fire; His holiness burns and His righteousness is infinite. How then can sinful creatures like you and me come into the presence of such a holy God, as we do when we pray? We often talk of prayer as ‘entering into the throne room of grace’, but how can we enter into the throne room of God and present our petitions before Him when we are sinful and He is perfectly holy? We need a middle man – we need a mediator. Just like no-one may come into the presence of an earthly king without first having gone through that king’s secretaries and being introduced by his steward, so no one may come into the presence of almighty God without a middle-man, a steward of God presenting and introducing us – someone who will say to God, “Accept them not for who they are, but for who I am. You accept me, therefore accept them.” And, “accept their prayers because they are asking in my name.” We need someone who is perfectly holy, so God can accept them in His presence, but someone also that we can relate to.
2. Christ is The Mediator – 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us that “there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.” He is the One whom God accepts because He is perfectly holy and righteous – there is no sin or impurity with Him. And because God accepts Him, He accepts us as we are in Him – as we have faith in Him, God listens to our prayers. Ephesians 3:12 tells us, “in Jesus Christ our Lord we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.” Jesus is the steward and secretary of heaven under whose auspices we enter into the throne room of God. If we stand before an earthly king and he says to us, “who told you to come here. Who let you in here” and you don’t have a good answer, he will throw us out. And the same is true in heaven. But if we come and say, “Jesus told us to come here. Jesus let us in here. He died for us on the cross to take my sins away and He has invited me to come” then God will not only let you stay in His throne room, He will listen to everything you have to say and He will answer every prayer you make. Thomas Boston wrote, “Christ as mediator sends his own to his Father to ask supply of their wants, and allows them to tell that he has sent them, as one recommends a poor man to a friend. So to pray in the name of Christ is to go to God as sent by the poor man’s friend.”
We pray in the name of Christ because there is no other way to gain access into the throne room of heaven, and no other name through which God will listen and answer our prayers.
[B] What Does it Mean to Pray in the Name of Christ?
I think if there is one word which describes what it means for us to pray in the name of Christ it is the word dependence. To pray in the name of Christ means that we depend upon Christ; and upon Christ alone. I think this dependence works in 3 ways:
1. To Depend Upon Christ for Access – what does it mean in practice for us that we have access to God through Christ alone? Well it takes away our ability to depend upon other sources for access to God in prayer. I’m thinking here of three sources people have, at times, mistakenly depended upon for access to God:
· Saints and Angels – I remember in my pre-minister days being told a story by my boss. His mother was a devout Roman Catholic, and one day she lost something – she searched and searched, but with no success. At last, she decided she needed some divine intervention, so she went to the cathedral to pray to St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things. I can’t remember whether afterwards she found what she had lost or not – but the story goes to show that even today, millions of people pray not in the name of Christ, but in the name of a patron saint or an angel. But we are forbidden from praying to angels in Colossians 2:18 “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize.” With respect to the saints, the Puritan Thomas Vincent, using Isaiah 63:16 “Abraham does not know us”, writes, “The chiefest saints in heaven are ignorant of our condition on earth; neither can they, where they are, hear, much less give answers to our prayers.”
· The Way We Pray – the Pharisees of Jesus’ day thought that the key to gaining access to God in prayer was through the way they prayed – for example, where they prayed – standing in the synagogues and on the street corners; and then the pagans, who thought that they would be heard because of their many words – their spells and mantras. But neither the place where we pray – whether in church or in our own houses or wherever, nor the words we use, the length of our prayers or even the fervency with which we pray secure for us access to the presence of God. We must be careful in our own tradition when we hear someone pray fluently and passionately, and perhaps we think, “God must listen to that prayer, but He won’t listen to mine, because I struggle to put two words together”. Remember, our access to God depends upon Christ our Mediator – His character, His work – and not on our own artistry.
· Our Good Works – it is a very subtle temptation for us to believe that if we are living good lives, God is obliged to grant us a hearing. We look at someone we consider to be an especially holy person, and we think that person somehow deserves for God to hear and answer her prayers. Now we do know, because God’s Word tells us that if we cherish sin in our hearts, God will not hear us – but to think that it is our good works which earn us a hearing from God – that somehow God is obliged to listen and answer our prayers because of how much we give in the offering plate, or the fact that we don’t swear – that’s just plain wrong. That is depending upon our own good works to gain access to God and not depending upon Christ. That is legalism, not Christ centred Gospel grace.
We may accuse other denominations of depending upon other sources than Christ when it comes to getting our prayers to God – sources like saints and angels – but what about us – do we depend upon our form, place, art and length of prayer, and do we depend upon our own good works, whatever they are, to ensure our access to God? The lesson is that when it comes to speaking to God, the only source that guarantees us access is Christ.
2. To Depend Upon Christ for Education – the second great feature of praying in the name of Jesus is to remember that we gain our inspiration and guidance from our Lord Jesus Christ. Thomas Boston wrote, “the soul…takes its encouragement to pray from Jesus Christ.” Last time, we looked at the topic of praying for things which were agreeable to the will of God – in a sense we are going back there in this point, because what we are looking to do here is to find our foundation for all our praying in Jesus and in Him alone. I think this crystallises down into four very brief things: first, Jesus’ priorities in prayer – we look very carefully at the life and prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ and ask how that influences our prayer life. Then think also of His humility in prayer, of how He, though He was so great in Himself, always came with deep humility and lowliness to God His Father. Think as well of His boldness in prayer and how He asked for what seemed like impossible things, but He was answered. And lastly, think of His earnestness in prayer – He took prayer so seriously. In Hebrews 5:7 we read of the Jesus who offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. And when you read a text like that, do we not also pray for that same earnestness the Lord Jesus had in prayer? Anyway, does it not make us stop and think at the end of our prayers – can I really say that what I asked for, I asked for in the name of Jesus? I asked for loads of things for myself, and then I appended the spell, “for Jesus’ sake.” But none of the things I asked for were educated by His will, if anything, they had nothing to do with Jesus at all.
3. To Depend Upon Christ for Strength – names meant a lot in Bible times – a name depicted or denoted all that someone was. To call on someone’s name was to call on them, because they were the name. To call on someone’s name was to call on his resources. For example, in Psalm 20:1 we read, “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!” To pray in the name of Jesus is the exact opposite of trusting in ourselves – it is a trusting in Jesus. It is a throwing up of our hands in weakness and admitting that we do not have the resources necessary to accomplish or to answer our own prayers, that only Jesus can give us these things. It is the exact opposite of the Pharisee’s prayer in the Temple, when ostensibly looking up into heaven, he said, “Lord, I thank you that I am not like other men.” Rather, it is to see that it is only through Jesus that we have access to God, and we depend upon Him from moment to moment for the strength we need, not just to pray, but for the answers to our prayers too.
Dependence upon Christ – that at the end of the day, is what prayer is all about – true prayer is an expression of our need of Him. When we pray in Christ’s name we are making Christ big, and ourselves small.
[C] What Happens When We Pray in the Name of Christ?
What is the impact of our praying in the name of Christ – not just mentioning at the end of our prayers, “in Jesus’ name” as though that were some kind of spell, but praying with Jesus as our Mediator and depending upon Him for access, education and strength?
1. We Have an Answer – in John 14:13 Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.” Now sometimes, I think we can be too complicated about the Bible, rather than just simply accepting what God says and promises – and here we have a plain promise from the Lord Jesus Christ. As we are educated into what to pray about, what things are important to Christ; as we depend upon Christ for access to God realising that He is our mediator, our middle man with God in whom there is common ground; as we depend upon His strength in prayer – we begin to see answers to our prayers. The minister of Greyfriars, John Ross, told me a story about some women in his first congregation in Northern Ireland who met together to pray. When John left that congregation, they presented him with 3 or 4 notepads full of written pages. On one side of each page was a prayer request and a note of when it was prayed for; on the other side a record of the answers given by the Lord to that prayer. John noticed that all the major developments in the life of that congregation were in response to the prayer requests of those few women who prayed faithfully for his ministry. Literally, John found that the church moved forward upon the knees of these women. God answers us when we pray in the name of Christ.
2. We Become More Like Christ – praying in the name of Christ is a life-changing experience. As we pray in His name, adopting His values and priorities, calling upon His strength and access, we find ourselves becoming more and more like Christ. I don’t necessarily say that the more we pray, the more Christ-like we will become, because there are plenty muslims (and plenty Christians) who for all their praying aren’t becoming more like Jesus because they aren’t praying in the Name of Jesus. The more we pray in His name, the more like Him we will become – because that, at the end of the day, is God’s ultimate purpose for us in prayer.
To pray in the name of Christ is to be totally focussed upon the Lord Jesus in our prayer lives – to accept His agenda and priorities; to accept His middle-man status between ourselves and God and to depend upon His strength. I pray that each of us will realise the power of praying, not with the scabbard of the spell, “for Jesus’ sake”, but with the sharp sword of the name of Christ. AMEN