When we are truly able to acknowledge our emptiness without God we are in right relationship with God. Then we will live out the life that God calls us to, and our prayers will be heard by God.
Pagans believe in magic rituals and secret spells and potions and sacrifices and reading chicken entrails to influence nature or gods or spirits or whatever in their favor. But what I think is amazing is that many Christians approach prayer and really their whole lives in this same way.
It's the idea that if I'm good God will reward me. We substitute Santa Claus for the living God. We think that if we say the right prayers or if we say them in the right way God will give us what we want. That we can bargain with God. “If you get me out of this one, I'll be good, and give to the poor or whatever. We're like pagans making sacrifices to false gods, but instead of offering slaughtered animals or burnt offerings, we offer our devotion, or our promises, or our supposedly "good" behavior in the hope that God will grant us our wishes.
And why shouldn't we? Your probably all know that Jesus tells us to pray for whatever we want. In John Jesus tells his disciples "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14 ESV). So we think that we should be able to pray for anything: new cars, material good, good luck. And of course when we pray for our wishes and we don't get them we just conclude that prayer doesn't work.
So if we pray at all we put little faith in it. It becomes at best a pious religious ritual "In Jesus' name we pray" ho-hum. Hocus pocus. Gesundheit!
I think one of the best proofs that we've got this whole prayer thing wrong is that we know that Jesus prayed. If we think prayer is just saying the right words in the right order with the right level of devotion in the hope of getting what we really want, why would Jesus have ever needed to pray? Jesus is God. He didn't lack anything. If he wanted wine: "hocus pocus!" And there's the best wine ever. What did Jesus ever need to pray about?
And yet scripture tells us he spent a lot of time in prayer. The subject of prayer is enormous and we're not going to cover the whole issue in the next few lines. But I think I can make some important observations that will get is pointed in the right direction.
We can begin to get an idea of what God is looking for in our prayers if we look at the Old Testament. In Psalm 51 the psalmist, who is in this case King David, cries out to God in repentance of his sin with Bathsheba. It is in my mind one of the most beautiful expressions of repentance in all of scripture. One of the things David observes is, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Ps. 51:16-17 ESV).
What is David saying here? I think, essentially, he is saying that we have nothing to give., and that our recognition of our poverty and emptiness opens us up to God's saving grace. "A broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart." I have nothing to give you Lord, I am entirely at your mercy. And you know this really tracks because sin is our rebellion against God, our putting ourselves in equality with God or even ahead of God. As if we had anything, apart from God. When we are truly able to acknowledge our emptiness without God we are in right relationship with God. Then we will live out the life that God calls us to, and our prayers will be heard by God.
Well what about the part I mentioned that Jesus says he will give us whatever we ask for? That's what he said right? Well, not exactly. He says, whatever you ask in my name. What does that mean?
Did you ever notice how often we end our prayers by saying "In Jesus name we pray" or something like that? Why do you think we do that? And of course the answer is that Jesus told us that if we ask anything in his name that he would give it. We’ve all tried praying for things in his name and unfortunately it doesn't seem to work, so it becomes just another empty ritual.
But before we can know what Jesus means when he says "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." we have to know what he means by "in my name." When we think of a name, we think of it as little more than a label. My name Keith Cox distinguishes me from most other people (obviously, with so many people in the world there are others with the name Keith Cox), but it doesn't really tell you anything about me. It's just a label.
But in the Bible names meant something. Someone's name indicated a lot about that person. That's why in the Old Testament people kept changing their names. Abram changed his name to Abraham to reflect God's promise to make him the father of a great nation. Jacob changed his name to Israel to signify that he inherited the promise of Abraham through his father Isaac (Gen. 32:9). And in the New Testament Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter because he is the “rock” upon which Jesus plans to build his church.
The name of a person in the Bible was more than a label - it represented his whole being, his whole character. So when we hear Jesus say, ask in my name, what he is saying, ask in my whole character, my whole being; ask in the way I would ask; ask for the things I want. And how can we even know what those things are if we are not living the Christ-filled life? The life that we learned about in the so-called Beatitudes: the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers? Can you really imagine Jesus praying to his Father for a new car? Or a better job? Or for his baseball team to win?
When Jesus prayed for his disciples (us) he didn't pray that we would be happy or healthy or wealthy or well fed or any of the other things that we think of as good, he prayed that we would be kept from the evil one and sanctified in the truth. (John 17:17). He prayed that we would come into the same relationship with the Father that he had. When we pray "in his name" that means that we are praying alongside Jesus for the things he desires. It really means that our prayer is Jesus' prayer.
Well what about when we pray for things that are not selfish? Every week I pray for health and healing for this church and for others, and world peace, and an end to hunger and violence and hate and injustice, and I always end my prayer by saying "in Jesus' name" or something like that but all of those things keep happening. Doesn't that mean that God isn't answering our prayers?
No, it does not mean that God is not answering our prayers. Let's think about this episode from Jesus' life:
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.” [and later] ” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” [and again] he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. (Mt. 26:39-44 ESV).
I'm sure you all recognize this as Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, before his crucifixion, Jesus was praying that the cup would pass. He was praying that he would not have to undergo the agony he was about to experience. He must have been praying in Jesus' name, he was Jesus! And yet we know that he did suffer the agony of the cross. Did God not hear him? Did God refuse to answer his prayer?
But notice how Jesus prays. He says, "if it be possible," "not as I will, but as you will," "your will be done." It seems that even Jesus, who was fully human, had doubts about the Father's will. But he was confident that no matter how he felt or what he wanted, that the Father was trustworthy; that if he had to suffer it was because the Father's will was greater than his own desire. So he obeyed the Father's will, even though he might not have been able to see the end.
And of course we know the end. Jesus suffered trial, crucifixion, and death. But it was not the Father's will that he would remain dead, but instead he rose again to everlasting glory. And because of that we can be baptized into his death so that we can be baptized into his life. We can suffer the agony of his crucifixion, so that we can share in his everlasting glory. Jesus didn't get what he prayed for but instead he accomplished the Father's will. If Jesus had gotten what he prayed for in the Garden we would all still be lost.
This is excerpted from the sermon delivered May 5, 2013 at Rock Presbyterian Church English Ministry. The full audio can be found here: RPC Sermon Archive.
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