In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We live in a time where there is a great deal of fascination with spiritual things, but little to no agreement in spiritual matters. On the one hand, there those outside of the Church who consider themselves to be “spiritual but not religious.” They say that spirituality is a very important part of their life, but they refuse to embrace any form of organized religion that defines in clear terms what a proper spiritual life is supposed to look like. They talk about being spiritual, but say nothing about the Holy Spirit. They go on and on about their own spiritual disciplines, but they will not go out of their way to come to church to receive the discipline and instruction of the Spirit of God.  On the other hand, within the Church, even though there is a great deal of talk about spirituality and the Holy Spirit, there is almost no consensus across denominational lines over what He does and how He actually works. Some churches claim to have immediate access to the Holy Spirit and that He talks to them directly even apart from the written words of the Bible. These churches often accuse our church of being void the Spirit. When they attended our worship services, they say that the they do not feel the Spirit’s presence there. They say that the way that we pray and how we preach and teach and conduct ourselves during the liturgy is a hinderance to the Spirit’s work.

People say a lot of things about spirituality and the Holy Spirit. But it should never be our chief concern what other people say. As always, we should be concerned above all with what God says in His Word. And there is no better day for us to listen to what God’s Word says about spirituality and the Holy Spirit then on the day when we commemorate the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. So, in the morning’s sermon, as we look more closely at our second reading from Acts chapter two, let us consider together who the Holy Spirit is, what His most important work is, and how He accomplishes that work in our lives.

First, who is the Holy Spirit? According to God’s Word, the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Holy Trinity. He is not the mere energy of God. He is not the mere power or force of God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is one with God the Father and God the Son, meaning that He shares together with them the one essence of God. And yet, the Holy Spirit is also His own Person. The Holy Spirit is distinct from God the Father and distinct from God the Son. On the day of Pentecost, the Bible says that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. It says that before this happened, they heard a sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind and that tongues of fire appeared and rested on each one of their heads. It’s important to recognize that the Bible does not say that the wind and the fire was the Holy Spirit, but rather that these signs accompanied His presence.

In our Gospel lesson from John chapter fourteen, Jesus speaks to His disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all things.” Notice that when Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit, He does not talk about an object or a power, but about a Person. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit a “He” and not an “it.” Jesus says that the Holy Spirit teaches. He says that the Holy Spirit declares things. When Jesus describes what the Spirit does, He describes what people do. He does that because the Holy Spirit is a Person. He is not an object.

Now, the reason why all of this matters is because when the Holy Spirit is looked at as a substance to be harnessed rather than a Person to be listened to, we can easily set ourselves in the place of God. And that is exactly what we see happening among those who claim that they are “spiritual but not religious.” When people say that they are spiritual but not religious, what that usually amounts to in practice is wanting a god who does not speak. They want to speak for God. They do not want to listen to what God says in the Bible. They want to live their own life. They want to make up their own rules and follow their own way. They want to be spiritual on their own terms. 

Any yet, any spirituality that is not guided by the Holy Spirit is not holy. In fact, it is unholy. The Bible tells us, “Beloved do not believe every spirit, but the test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” The way that we test the spirits is not by listening to our own spirit, and doing whatever feels right to us, but by listening to the words of the Holy Spirit who speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures. As Saint Peter tells us, “No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Again, the Holy Spirit is not something to be harnessed, He is someone who we are to worship. He is someone who we are to submit to, to listen to, and to put our trust in. The Holy Spirit is God.

So, what does this one true God do? That leads us to our second question for today, what is the most important work that the Holy Spirt does? The most important work that the Holy Spirit does is to bring people to saving faith in Jesus. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit worked many different miracles. He caused the wind to blow with great force. He caused tongues of fire to appear on the disciples’ heads and not to burn them. He also gave them the ability to speak in other languages which they had not previously learned. These, of course, were all great miracles. But they were not the Holy Spirit’s greatest miracle. The greatest miracle that the Holy Spirit worked on Pentecost is the one that Joel prophesied of in the Old Testament. In the last verse that Saint Peter quoted from the book of Joel in his sermon on Pentecost, he said, “and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” Shortly after Saint Peter said those words they were fulfilled. For on that same day, we find out that three thousand people who heard the Word of God, believed it, and were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. Three thousand souls called upon the name of the Lord and were saved. 

The Bible tells us that all of that was and is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit caused these things to happen. Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter twelve, “Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Saint Paul, of course, does not mean that no one can literally mouth the words that “Jesus is Lord” without the Spirit’s help. Surely any unbeliever, who does not have the Spirit, can still say those same words and not really mean them. Rather, what Saint Paul means is that no one can truly believe in Jesus unless the Holy Spirit brings them to faith. No one can call upon Jesus’ Name from the heart, unless their heart has been changed by the Spirit. Coming to saving faith in Jesus is an impossible task for us to do on our own. It is something that must be done for us. It is a gift that God the Holy Spirit must give us. That is partly why it is the Spirit’s greatest work, because of how hard it is. The other reason why it is the Spirit’s greatest work, is because saving faith in Jesus is the only way to be saved. We are saved through faith alone. 

Sometimes when people hear about the events of Pentecost, they get caught up on the wrong things. They hear about the disciples speaking in tongues and they are more interested in how they spoke than in what they had to say. Like a little child who gets a present on their birthday, they are more interested in the wrapping paper than the actual gift that it’s wrapped up in it. But the gift of tongues is not greater than the gift of saving faith. Salvation is what we need the most. No one is saved just because they can speak a lot of different languages. No one is saved just because they have the ability to work miracles and do miraculous things. At times the Holy Spirit did give these special gifts to the Church. We know from the Bible that many unique gifts were present, for example, in the church at Corinth. We also know, though, that Saint Paul had to remind the Corinthians over and over again that God gives these gifts when and where He wills it, and that not everyone should expect to receive them. No one should look down on another just because they do not have them. The so-called special gifts of the Spirit, like speaking in tongues, are always to be used in service to God’s greater gift, the gift of faith. Even on the day of Pentecost, the gift of tongues was used in service to the proclamation of the Gospel and to communicate that the Gospel is for all people. 

Those churches in our day who speak in gibberish, claiming that it is the gift of tongues, and ridicule other churches like ours who do not do the same thing as they do are wrong. For one thing, speaking in tongues is speaking in real languages. The people at Pentecost said, “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” Babbling with made-up sounds is not speaking tongues according to the Bible. Speaking in tongues is speaking in real languages. The other problem, and the greater problem, is that these churches who say that they can speak in tongues also often say that any church or any Christian who cannot is not a true Christian at all, or at least a Christian of a lesser kind. But that is extremely problematic. We should not feel like less of a Christian just because we cannot speak in tongues or perform miracles or do spectacular things. The Bible even tells us that at time is coming, or maybe has already come, when these special gifts of the Spirit will cease in the Church. Saint Paul writes, again in 1 Corinthians, “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge; it will pass away.” But what will not pass away is the never- ending life that the Holy Spirit gives to us when He gives us the gift of faith in Jesus. That won’t cease. That will go on forever. So, that is the miracle that we truly need. And that is why the Holy Spirit’s most important work is the work of bringing us to saving faith in Jesus.

Finally, then, how does the Holy Spirit accomplish this work among us? How does He give us the gift of saving faith? Again, we should reiterate that faith is always a gift. We do not come to saving faith by an act of our own free will. We do not come to saving faith by a decision that we make to have saving faith. We come to saving faith when the Holy Spirit gives it to us. The Bible says that “the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” The only way that we fallen sinners can come to accept the things of the Spirit of God is when the Holy Spirit causes us to do so. That acceptance does not come before faith. That acceptance is faith. Faith is accepting what God gives. Faith is receiving the forgiveness sins. Faith is the trust that the Holy Spirit brings about in our hearts, causing us to believe the Gospel.

And notice how those individuals came to faith on Pentecost. It was through the Word of God. The Holy Spirit worked faith in the hearts of those who listened to Saint Peter’s sermon. Peter did not point them to the signs. Peter did not point them to the gift of tongues. And Peter did not point them to a decision of their own free will. Peter said, “Give ear to my words.” When some people accused Saint Peter and the other Apostles of being drunk, Peter pointed them to the Bible. Peter opened the Scriptures to the crowd and explained what they meant because that is always and only the means by which the Holy Spirit speaks to us and gives us the gift of faith. As the Bible says elsewhere, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of Christ.” The Holy Spirit works through the Word. He speaks to us through the Word. We know His presence and His voice, through God’s Word.

No doubt many of us have heard individuals criticize what happens in a traditional Lutheran worship service by saying that they did not feel the Spirit’s presence when they worshiped with us. But our services are filled with the Word of God. The services that we have inherited from our Lutheran forefathers are filled with the pure proclamation of God’s Word of Law and the Gospel. Many of the things that we sing or say in the liturgy are literally direct quotes from the Bible. We sing the Kyrie, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.” That is a quote from the Bible. We sing the Agnus Dei, “O Christ though Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” That is a quote from the Bible. We sing the Nunc Dimittis, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace” and the Gloria, the song that the angels sang to the shepherds, both of which are filled with quotes from the Bible. We sing hymns that teach what the Bible teaches. We confess Creeds that confess what the Bible tells us to confess. We hear sermons preached from the Bible, about the Bible, that use the Bible to explain what the it means and how it applies to our lives. We eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus according to His institution that we read about in the Bible. Our services are full of the Bible. They are full of God’s Word.

We should never be ashamed of what happens in our church. We should never concede that our traditional Lutheran worship services are void of the Spirit. We should never try to make our services look like the services of other churches that say that our services are not services where the Spirit is present. The Holy Spirit works through the Word. Our services are full of the Word. Therefore, our services are full of the Spirit.

It does not matter if people say that they do not feel the Spirit’s presence when they attend our services. People getting excited about something or feeling a certain way does not automatically mean that the Holy Spirit must be there. Did the prophets of Baal have the Holy Spirit when they worked themselves into frenzy in their effort to defeat Elijah? Does people raising up their hands up in the air and losing control of their bodies mean that the Holy Spirit must be there? Do those things demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit, one of which the Scriptures tell us is self-control? No, they don’t. The Bible never tells us to feel the Spirit, it tells us to listen to the Spirit. It tells us to look for the work of the Spirit in God’s Word. When we go looking for a church that simply makes us a feel a certain way, we are not looking for what the Spirit tells us to look for. When we equate the work of the Spirit with our emotions, we replace the Holy Spirit with a different spirit entirely. But there is only one Spirit who can save us. There is only one Spirit who can give us the gift of saving faith, and He works that faith in our hearts only through the Word.

We know that the Holy Spirit is present in our midst today not because there is a mighty rushing wind or tongues of fire on our heads but because we hear Him speaking. We hear Him in speaking in the Word of God. In God’s Word, we hear the Spirit proclaiming the same mighty works that He proclaimed all of those years ago on Pentecost. We hear Him proclaiming the mighty works of Jesus, who died for our sins, and rose from the dead to give eternal life to all believers. 

So, yes, there may be confusion in the world over spiritual matters. There may be disputes in the Church over how the Holy Spirit works. But we rejoice this day that God has made His Spirit known to us through His Word. We rejoice that we have received the Holy Spirit. We rejoice that He has worked faith in our hearts not through or because of our feelings, but through God’s Word. And above all we rejoice in what the Holy Spirit says to each and every one of us on account of the faith that He has given us: “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.    

After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Bible tells us that His disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” This is a helpful detail for understanding what the ascension of Jesus is all about and what it means for the Church. The disciples were not sad when Jesus ascended. They were not angry about it. They were not bitter about it. They were glad about it. When Jesus ascended into heaven, it filled the disciples with joy. 

We should ask ourselves if it does the same thing for us today. When we think about what Jesus did forty days after He rose from the dead, does it still fill us with joy? Do we get excited about celebrating our Lord’s ascension, or is it something that we really don’t think about that much, or maybe even something that we don’t completely understand? My guess is that for most of us, if we are being honest with ourselves, it’s probably the latter. But if we don’t understand exactly what happened when Jesus ascended into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God, then we are missing out on the crown jewel of our Lord’s redemptive work to save us. We are missing out on something that Jesus accomplished specifically that it might bring us joy; that it might comfort us in the midst of worldly sadness and bring us the peace that passes all understanding.

So, in today’s sermon, as we celebrate this pivotal event in the life of Christ, let us answer two questions about it. First, what exactly happened when Jesus ascended in heaven? And, second why should what happened give us joy?

The Bible tells us in multiple places that forty days after His resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and took His seat at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. In Acts chapter one, Saint Luke tells us that “[Jesus] was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” In His Gospel, Luke also adds that, “While [Jesus] blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” And Saint Mark reminds us that Jesus was “taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” 

But where exactly is the heaven to which Jesus ascended, and what does it mean that He is now at the right hand of God? As difficult as it can be for us to understand, we should not think about our Lord’s ascension into heaven in the same way that we think about our loved ones who have died in the faith and whose souls are now at rest in heaven. The Bible does not just say that Jesus went to heaven, but that He ascended far above all the heavens. For example, Saint Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter four, that “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.” Furthermore, Paul says, and this is also in his letter to the Ephesians, that “[God the Father] raised [Jesus] from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority… and He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

The ascension of Jesus does not mean that is now confined to heaven as the other saints are who dwell there with God eternally, but rather that He is far above heaven. It is not that Jesus was received by heaven, but rather that He received heaven, as in, He took up the rulership of heaven. The ascension of Jesus means that Jesus, as both God and now as a man, fully exercises His divine right as the king of heaven. He lords over heaven. He lords over everything. He fills all things.

That is also what it means when the Bible tells us that Jesus is at the right hand of God now. Again, the right hand of God is not a place on a map where Jesus is confined. That is not how the Bible describes God’s right hand. The right hand of God is God’s divine power. It is the way in which God accomplishes His holy will. His right hand is His omnipotence, His omnipresence, and His omniscience. It is synonymous with His almighty rule over all creation. Consider some of the other passages from the Scriptures that talk to us about the right hand of God. From Psalm 118 we read, “the right hand of the Lord does valiantly, the right hand of the Lord exults.” And from Psalm 139 it says, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” When we say that Jesus ascended into heaven to the right hand of God, we are not saying that Jesus went to live someplace far far away from us, but rather that Jesus now rules over us and is constantly with us, even as a man. Jesus can be in more than one place at the same time. 

Now, of course, everyone who believes that Jesus is God, would say that this is true according to His divine nature. Since Jesus is God, and God can be everywhere, Jesus can be everywhere. But the precise meaning of the ascension is that now Jesus promises to be everywhere not only according to His divine nature, but also according to His human nature. Jesus, as a man, can be present with His Church bodily in more than one place at the same time even though He only has one body. Obviously, this is a profound mystery. The ascension of Jesus is sort of like looking at the sun. The more that we stare at it, the more it blurs our vision. The more that we try to figure out how these things are possible, the more that we struggle to believe them, and the more we will be tempted deny them.

And sadly, that is what many Christians do. Some Christians today even claim that because Jesus ascended into heaven, He cannot be with us bodily in the Lord’s Supper. If you know, this is actually one of the main differences between us Lutherans and the so-called Reformed, which would include the modern-day Presbyterians and Baptists. Reformed churches, following the theological tradition of men like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, say that because Jesus ascended into heaven the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is only a symbol of Christ’s far off body and blood and not His actual body and blood. They say that when we take Communion we do no actually eat and drink Jesus real Body and Blood, but that we only eat and drink a reminder of it. But that is not what the Bible says. And that is not what the ascension means. And that false theology can lead people to eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood without discerning it to their own spiritual harm. As Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

Jesus is not gone. Jesus is exulted. Yes, Jesus has disappeared from our eyes, but He has not disappeared from us entirely. Yes, we can no longer see Jesus as others once saw Him, but Jesus is still here. Jesus is still with us. And He is with us in the places that He has promised to be. As Jesus says, and this is also on the mount of His ascension in Matthew’s Gospel, “Behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.” Jesus does not tell us that He is with us only according to His divine nature. He says, “I am with you.” The “I” to which Jesus refers is His whole person, both His divine and human natures. All of Jesus is with us, and He is with us always. That is what His ascension means. That is what happened when He ascended.

So, why should what happened at Jesus’ ascension give us joy? Well, it should give us joy for at least two main reasons. The first reason, as we already talked about, is that Jesus is actually with us. Again, as our Lord says at His ascension, “Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus is truly with us. He is not symbolically with us. He not with us only in spirit. He is not with us only in our memory. Jesus is really with us. And He is with us where He has promised to be: in His Word and Sacraments.

We all know that there is a big difference between someone being there for us for real and someone only being there for us symbolically. There is a big difference between a friend actually standing by your side when you have to do something difficult, and him watching you from afar, giving you encouragement at a distance. We face real challenges in our lives on this side of heaven. We have real temptations that we face day after day. We have reals sins that we fall into day after day. We have real enemies that seek to do us real harm day after day. But Jesus is with us every day. And when we come to church to take Communion, He is actually there with His Body and Blood to feed us with the food that forgives our sins and strengthens us to meet every trail that we face. And that is because of His ascension. That is because Jesus is at the right hand of God, meaning, Jesus has fully taken up the divine authority and power that is His by right. He has stepped into His exulted state, which allows Him to be with us as a man wherever we men and women are.

The second reason why the ascension should give us joy is because not only is Jesus with us, but we are with Jesus. As Saint Paul writes in Ephesians chapter two, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” The Bible teaches us that through faith in Jesus we are seated with Him in the heavenly places. It tells us that because of Christ’s ascension we have the promise of our ascension too. All those who trust in Christ and cling to Him for forgiveness and salvation have the assurance that one day they will live with Jesus in heavenly glory too. 

The Church is the Body of Christ. The Church is all believers in the Gospel. As the Scriptures say, “If one member suffers all suffer together; [and] if one member is honored all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” What that means for us is that the triumph of Jesus is our triumph. Just like His death for sin is our death to sin, and His resurrection to new life is our resurrection to eternal life, His ascension to heaven is our ascension to heaven too.

In His ascension, Jesus showed us that He is the king of kings and the lord of lords. He showed us that He rules over everything. Nothing rules over Jesus. Sin doesn’t rule of him. Death doesn’t rule over him. The devil doesn’t rule over Him. And because we believe in Jesus, none of those things can rule of us either. Because we believe in Jesus, sin can torment us, but it cannot condemn us. Because we believe in Jesus, death can kill us, but it cannot destroy us. Because we believe in Jesus, the devil can accuse us, but He cannot judge us. We have victory over our enemies, because we belong to the One who put all of our enemies under His feet. We belong to Jesus. We have been united to the One who has overcome all our enemies for us already. We have been joined to Him who died, rose, and ascended.

When the disciples saw Jesus ascend into heaven they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. You can return to your life today with great joy too. No matter how miserable your life might look, no matter how hard your life might be to live at times, you can go back to your life with a greater joy than this world could ever know, because you know that your life is bound up with the life of your ascended Lord. Jesus rules and reigns to all eternity, and by faith in His word, you reign along with Him. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus says in John chapter sixteen, our Gospel lesson for today, “Whatever you ask the Father in my Name, He will give it to you.” This, of course, is a wonderful promise from God’s Word about the gift of prayer. Jesus not only invites us to pray. But He also encourages us to believe that God will actually hear our prayers and answer them. And yet, if these wonderful words from Jesus about prayer are not understood correctly, they can have a negative effect not only on our prayer life, but even on our life of faith in general. In fact, if we misunderstand what our Lord means in this verse, as many people often do, it could lead us completely away from God’s actual will for our lives.

And so, what a perfect text for us to talk about on the day that we recognize our high school graduates here at St John. Certainly, as was the case for many of us in the past, when you graduate from High School you are thinking about your future plans. You are thinking about what you’re going to do with your life, and hopefully, if you’re a Christian, you are trying to discern what God wants from your life. You are prayfully considering the different paths and options that God has laid before you, evaluating those things in light of His Word, and you are diligently seeking His approval over which one to take. And in the midst of all that, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He will give it to you.”

So, in this morning’s sermon, as we recognize our gradates and pray for God’s continued blessing on their future, let us think a little bit more about what these words from Jesus mean and what they don’t mean.

We’ll start with what they don’t mean first. Obviously, when Jesus tells us in our reading from John chapter sixteen that God the Father will give us whatever we ask for in His Name, He doesn’t mean that if we simply conclude every one of our prayers with the words, “In Jesus’ Name,” then whatever we said will automatically come true. Praying in Jesus’ Name is not a magic formula for getting whatever we want from God. That’s not what God’s Word teaches us about the gift of prayer.

According to the Bible, some prayer is good prayer and some prayer is bad prayer, and God will not necessarily answer our prayers just because we end them with certain words. Listen to what James says about prayer in the fourth chapter of his Epistle. He writes, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Apparently, some of the people that James was writing to thought that they could use prayer to get whatever they wanted from God. They thought of prayer as an instrument to gratify their own sinful desires. But that, of course, is not the purpose of prayer. And praying in that kind way will not bring about the same result that Jesus is talking about in our reading.

Or think also about what our Lord says concerning prayer in Matthew chapter six, which is the place in the Bible where Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer. There Jesus says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” When we Christians pray to God, we shouldn’t act as if we are trying to get God to do things that He otherwise doesn’t want to do. That’s what the pagans believed about prayer. They thought that if they impressed their gods enough with the way that they prayed to them, if they said enough fancy words, or kept saying the same words over and over again, then their gods would eventually break down and give them whatever they asked for. But again, that is not the right way to pray. Prayer is not about bending God’s will to our own. It is about conforming our will to His. 

And lastly, think about what Jesus teaches us concerning prayer in the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in the Temple. You know how the parable goes. Two men went into Church one day to pray. But one man used his prayer to brag about himself, and the other man used his prayer to humble himself. One man thanked God that he wasn’t a sinner like other people were, and the other man cried out to God to forgive him for his sins. And who did Jesus say had the better prayer? Who did Jesus say went down to his house justified that day? Whose prayer did God really answer? It was the man who asked God for forgiveness, and not the man who asked God for praise. 

Clearly, according to the Bible, not all prayer is the same. And just because we end a prayer with certain words, such as, “In Jesus’ Name,” that does not automatically mean that God will give us whatever we ask for. That cannot possibly be what Jesus means.

So, what does He mean then? Well, simply put, when Jesus tells us in our reading from John chapter sixteen that “Whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He will give it to you,” our Lord is talking about asking for things in faith. He is saying that when we as God’s children bring our requests to Him, trusting that for Jesus’ sake, and because of what He did for on the cross, God will hear our prayers and answer them in the exact perfect way, then we can have every confidence in the world that He will.

Like every other Christian discipline, true prayer is an act of faith. That’s what it means to pray in Jesus’ Name. It means to trust in Jesus and to receive from Him whatever it is that He gives with thanksgiving. Faith isn’t about getting what we want, it is about accepting whatever God wants. It is about trusting that whatever God gives us is always best, because He already gave us His Son, so now we can come to Him and ask for other things too knowing that He will never give us the wrong thing. As Jesus says elsewhere, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg will instead give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Now sometimes even when people recognize that praying in Jesus’ Name means praying in faith, they still get it all wrong. For example, not too long ago there was a very popular religious movement in America called the “name it and claim” movement, also known in some circles as “the power of positive thinking.” Proponents of “name it and claim it” theology taught that if you wanted something bad enough, and had enough faith that God would give it you, then you could literally get whatever you wanted. If you wanted a new car, simply “name it and claim it.” If you wanted a new house, simply “name it and claim it.” If you wanted a completely new life, where all of your wildest dreams came true, then simply “name it and claim it” and all of it would be yours. The “name it and claim it” folks maintained that if you believed in Jesus enough, there was nothing that Jesus wouldn’t give you. And if you didn’t get what you wanted from Jesus, then you must not have had enough faith in Him to begin with. 

But just because we don’t always get exactly what we want as God’s children, that does not mean that we don’t have faith in Him. Did Saint Paul not have faith in Jesus, when he pleaded with the Lord three times to remove from him the thorn that was in His flesh and God told him, “No.” Did King David not have faith in Jesus, when he prayed and fasted all night that his son wouldn’t die, and God did not let the baby get better? Did Moses not have faith in Jesus when He asked God to let him cross over into the promised land and instead the Lord only let him see it from a distance? And what about the prayer that Jesus Himself prayed in the garden of Gethsemane? In the mystery of His state of humiliation, our Lord prayed multiple times that if it were possible for the cup of His suffering to pass from Him, that God would take it away. Did that mean that Jesus did not have enough faith? Of course, it didn’t. Jesus had perfect faith. He completely trusted in the will of His Father at every single turn. And yet, Jesus still had to go to the cross and suffer for our sins.

Lots of times today people act as if prayer is all about trying to figure out God’s secret purpose for their life. Many Christians almost drive themselves to despair, looking for direct answers from God over things that He has completely left up to our freedom. Where in the Bible does it tells us that we should expect direct signs from the Lord about what job we’re supposed to take, what college we’re supposed to attend, or who we’re supposed to marry? Where do the Scriptures tell us that God is going to speak to us through extra-Biblical revelations so that we can have precise directions for every little thing that we face on a daily basis? They don’t. And when Christians act like they do, and when they act like prayer is the means by which we can figure it all out, they turn prayer completely backwards and take away all of the comfort that God gives us through it. What happens when a person thinks that God will show him what to do even in instances where His Word is silent? What happens is that the person makes a decision, the decision leads to hardships, and then they doubt whether or not they made the right decision. Then their conscience becomes burdened over something that God never even commanded them to do in the first place.

The point in all of this is that God’s ultimate will for our life is not something that is hidden. It is very clear in the Bible. As Saint Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” God wants us to live holy lives according to His Word, where we repent of our sins and put our faith in Jesus. He wants us to do that, so that we will go to heaven when we die. Remember what the Catechism says about God’s will? First, it reminds us that “the good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer.” Then it tells us that “God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word until we die.”  That’s God’s will for our lives. It isn’t a secret. It isn’t a mystery. It isn’t something that we have to worry about trying to figure it. God wants us to go to heaven. God wants us to be saved.

And when we pray for things with that perspective in mind, then it becomes easier to see how God actually does give us everything that we ask for in Jesus’ Name. Think again about those examples from earlier. No, God did not take away the thorn from Saint Paul’s side, but He did give him something even better. God gave Paul the assurance of His grace. God reminded Paul how His power is made perfect in weakness so that Paul could continue to trust in the Lord and be saved. No, God did not let King David’s son get better from his sickness in this earthly life, but He did usher David’s son into everlasting life early. Remember what David said, “He cannot come to me, but I will go to him.” No, God did not let Moses go into the promised land, but He did take Moses directly to the promised land of heaven. Which is better, a piece of land in the Middle East that people are still fighting over or a place in our Father’s House where there are many rooms? And no, God did not take away the cup of His wrath from Jesus, but by letting His only begotten Son drink it, God satisfied His wrath over sins of the whole world and made it possible for everyone who believes in Jesus to be saved.

God always answers the prayers that we pray in faith. Even when we don’t know what to pray for, and even when we unknowingly pray for things that could harm us, as it says in Romans chapter eight, the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. God takes our feeble prayers and He polishes them up, and then He provides the perfect response to them. He does that not by giving us necessarily what we always expect, but by giving us exactly what we need the most in order to remain faithful to Him and go to heaven when we die.

No doubt, we have many different things on our hearts and minds this day. Our graduates in particular are probably thinking a lot about their future and what’s going to come next in their life. It’s a good time to think about prayer. We can’t do anything without God’s help. That’s what prayer is all about. When we pray to God, we are acknowledging that we need Him, and that there’s nothing that we can do apart from Him. But simply praying to God is not enough. You also need to pray in Jesus’ Name. Praying in Jesus’ Name does not mean simply ending every prayer with certain words. It means praying in faith and trusting in God’s mercy. It means relying on the Scriptures and believing that Jesus always wants what is best for you. It means having confidence that regardless of what He sends your way, God’s purpose in all things is your eternal salvation. He sent His Son to die for it. He sends His Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments to give it. And He gives you the gift of prayer so that you can rest within it.

So, may the Lord bless each and every one of our graduates this day that their prayers, and more importantly, their faith, would never faulter. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.