Rogate – May 25, 2025Psalm 66; Numbers 21:4-9; James 1:22-27St. John 16:23b-33
In the Name of the Father, and of the +
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On the night when He was betrayed, our Lord told His
disciples that the time was coming when He would no longer speak to them in
figurative language but would plainly tell them about the Father.[1]
In these words, Jesus is prophesying concerning the Church and the Apostolic
office. After the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, He
sends the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles that they would remember all that He
taught them and that they would go into the world proclaiming what Jesus has
done. Hence the duty of the Apostles is not to teach in figurative language,
leaving their hearers to interpret what is said. Rather, they are given to
teach, to unfold the Scriptures, that their hearers would understand who God is
and how He has won salvation for them.
This is the primary duty of the Apostolic office – to teach.
Men called into this office are not to teach according to their own words or
according to stories from their own experience. Jesus says that He will
speak in plain language. Men in the office of pastor are speaking the very
words of Jesus, even if arranged differently and spoken according to the voice
of the man called to this specific pulpit.
This is the first of our Lord’s lessons today, but it is not
His primary lesson. The primary lesson concerns prayer. In that very same day
that the Apostles are called to teach Christ’s words plainly, all Christians
are given to ask your heavenly Father as a dear child asks his dear father. You
are the beloved children of God and have been given the right and privilege to
call the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth your Father. It is a false
humility to believe that God does not want to hear your prayers. It is false
humility to believe that God is too busy to hear your concerns, worries,
desires, or questions. This is a false humility because it is treating God as
though He doesn’t care about you in the very name of respecting His
Omnipotence.
When a person experiences lack—perhaps he grew up poor or
fell on hard times in middle age—and then prospers, he tends to overcompensate
by becoming miserly. He will hoard money or possessions for fear that poverty
is always hiding around the next turn of the clock’s hands. He convinces
himself this is only preparation but will soon find himself dying surrounded by
great possessions and nothing to show for it.
The same is true of prayer, of doctrine, of Scripture. A man might memorize the entirety of the bible but if he never tells his neighbor of Christ or comes to believe that he knows everything there is to know about God, it is as much a waste as the man surrounded by possessions. St. James implores us today to be doers of the word and not hearers only.[2]
The man who is baptized into Christ but fails to pray every
day, every moment, finds himself in the same position. He has been given the
access to ask the Almighty God for comfort, blessing, help, mercy, guidance,
faith, salvation, strength, food, clothing, house, home, and everything else
you could imagine and fails to pray because he thinks God is too busy for him. The
fault is not in God, but in man. Perhaps the fault is that you are too busy,
too frugal, too scared of God.
You have been given unfettered access to the Father, to ask
of Him anything in the Name of Christ and the Father has promised to answer
your prayer. The frightening part is that He has not promised the manner or
time in which He will answer that prayer. This is frightening because it is now
out of your control. In general, man views prayer either as a last ditch
effort, something to try when there is no other option, or, as a list of
demands to be met according to my will and schedule. This is not humility. It
is hubris. It is pride. It is sin.
The disciples’ response to Jesus is confusing. By inference,
when Jesus says there will be a time when He no longer uses figurative
language, He means that He is still using figurative language. Yet the
disciples claim that Jesus is now speaking plainly.[3] Are
they speaking from faith, trusting the words of Jesus even if they do not fully
understand Him? Or are they like a child listening to the conversation of
adults and pretending to follow along? The latter seems to make more sense,
especially based on the following verses, where Jesus asks, “Do you now
believe,” as if to say, “Really? Do you believe these words? After everything
I’ve said and done, after everything you’ve seen, it is these confusing words
I’ve just spoken that have opened your ears?”
But even if this is true and the disciples are only trying
to put on a veneer of maturity, it is a pious veneer that we ought to imitate.
They are not denying their sin or their failure to understand all our Lord’s
teachings. They are trying to prove their devotion. This is the child who not
only listens to the adult conversation but tries to contribute. They don’t know
the depth of the topic at hand and so long as they are engaging appropriately
(not yelling, interrupting, or insisting), they are trying to show that they
are mature enough to handle adult conversation. They are trying to say, “I’m
just like you.”
The disciples are trying to engage Jesus. They are trying to
put into practice the type of prayer that He has just explained to them. They
are trying to engage Jesus in conversation the same way that He has been
teaching them for the last three years. Afterall, they will soon be the
teachers of the Church. Their words are wrong, and they are rightly rebuked.
They do not fully grasp what Jesus is saying because they can’t. It is not
until the Holy Spirit descends upon them on Pentecost that all the words of Jesus
will be brought to their remembrance. It is not until they see the words of our
Lord through His resurrection that they can understand any of it.
What then of you and your prayers? “Blessed are they who
believe and have not seen.”[4]
You believe and have not seen. You stand on the other side of the resurrection.
You stand on the other side of Pentecost. You stand in that time promised by
Jesus, when the Father will hear your prayers and grant to you anything you ask
for in the Name of Jesus. You stand in this blessed time so act like it.
Do not view prayer as a list of demands. View prayer as the
unloading of a burden. View prayer as a morning stretch to remove the knots and
kinks accumulated in your sleep. View prayer as a weekend phone call with your
Father, who loves nothing more than to hear your voice. Pray for the simple
things. Pray for the complex things. Pray for everything and everyone. Pray for
15 seconds under your breath. Pray for 30 minutes before bed.
Get into the habit of praying for everything, at all times.
“Lord, keep my mind focused on the service today. Amen.” “Lord, guide my memory
as I take this math test. Amen.” “Dear Jesus, protect our family as we drive to
Minnesota to visit family. Steer the hands of our fellow drivers and grant to
us a pleasant and relaxing trip. Amen.” “Lord, soften my heart to forgive my
sister. Amen.” “Send the Holy Spirit to fill my mouth with those blessed words
to grant faith unto my son, who has gone astray. Amen.” The point is, pray; and
pray in the Name of Jesus.
What does this mean? It means to pray according to the will
of God.[5]
It means first seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness and then
trusting God to deliver all things needful.[6]
Prayer in the Name of Jesus means recognizing that you do not know everything,
but your Father in Heaven does, and He knows what you need before you even ask.[7]
Prayer in the Name of Jesus also recognizes that you are a
sinner, coming before the Lord of Lords to beg for the honest desires of your
heart. God will not hear the prayers of the unrepentant sinner, but He and all
the angels in heaven rejoice over the repentance of a single sinner.[8]
The disciples are like children who desperately desire to be
included in the conversation of adults. They use words they do not understand,
and they claim to be tracking along with everything being said. Yet they do not
understand. They do not have the knowledge nor experience to participate in the
conversation.
Let us be honest in that no matter our age, we are prone to the same. As adults, we are afraid to admit our ignorance. We are afraid that someone might know something we don’t. We would rather hide than ask. We would rather make them be quite so they don’t reveal our ignorance. We would rather fall back on the familiar than learn something we don’t know. This is childish and such childish behavior not only harms your relationships with other people but hinders your ability to grow in wisdom and knowledge. Biblically speaking, knowledge is that which you gain from reading the Scriptures while wisdom is that which you gain from living according to them. When scripture speaks of the wisdom of the aged, it does not refer to the number of years in your life. If refers to the experience you’ve endured and the wisdom gained either from living according to God’s Word or having been rebuked for betraying His Word.
Whenever Christ commends the faith of someone, it is always
tied to his boldness and perseverance. The centurion boldly confesses that
Jesus can heal his son with a simple word because he is not worthy that the
Christ come under his roof.[9]
The Syrophoenician woman will not let Jesus turn her away when He has promised
to deliver us from evil, no matter what the disciples or even Jesus’ own
actions seem to be telling her.[10]
This is the faith in which we pray to the Father in the Name of Jesus.
Ignorance is not a sin. Refusal to learn is. Hiding from
God, His Word, and His gifts is a sin stretching all the way back to Adam and
Eve. They hid in the garden for shame over their sin. Refusing to ask because
of your pride or shame is no different than sewing fig leaves to cover your
nakedness. Repent of such sins and pray that God would embolden your spirit by
His Holy Ghost and kindle in you a desire for knowledge and wisdom.
Jesus says there will come a day when He will no longer pray
to the Father for you, but you will ask the Father directly.[11]
Christ is speaking of the Last Day, when you will no longer bear any sign of
your former sinfulness but will converse with God face-to-face in glory. At
that time, you will have no need for Christ to mediate or the Holy Spirit to
translate our groanings.
Until that day, we do need Christ to be our Mediator. We do
need the Holy Spirit to make intercession for our groanings, because we do not
know what we should pray for as we ought.[12] We
need the guidance of our fathers in the faith and pastors sent by God to direct
our knowledge and wisdom.
God begins the conversation of prayer because without His
Fatherly guidance, we know nothing of what we are to do. And then, when it is
your turn to respond, it is only through the Blood of Jesus that the Father
hears your prayers. It is only when the Spirit takes the aches of your soul and
translates them according to the will of God that your Father in Heaven hears
your pleas and answers them.
This is a great comfort because it means your prayers do not
need to be beautiful on their own. Your prayers do not need to be fanciful,
memorized, or somehow “correct” in every detail. Is there a time for
pre-written, thoroughly rehearsed, rhetorically beautiful prayers? Absolutely.
They serve to teach us how to pray just as hearing your mother speak taught you
English. But whether they are pre-written or created on the spot, prayer needs
to be from your heart, sincere, without any hint of hypocrisy or doubt. Your
prayers boldly come from a sinner who has been saved by the Blood of Jesus and
now asks his Father for all that which is needful.
In + Jesus’
name. Amen.
[1]
St. John 16:25.
[2]
James 1:22.
[3]
St. John 16:30.
[4]
St. John 20:29.
[5]
The rest of the sermon is inspired by the 8 rules of Christian prayer outlined
in Wilhelm Loehe, Seed Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians,
translated by H.A. Weller (Kansas City, KS: Emmanuel Press, 2010), 1-2.
[6]
St. Matthew 6:33.
[7]
St. Matthew 6:8.
[8]
2 Timothy 2; St. John 9:41; St. Luke 15:10.
[9]
St. Matthew 8:5-13.
[10]
St. Matthew 15:21-28.
[11]
St. John 16:26.
[12]
Romans 8:26.
