Ask in my Name
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.
John 16:23
The verse that I am using today comes from a bigger picture of Jesus telling His disciples that He will be physically leaving them, that He must endure the shame of the cross for the sake of mankind. And He tells them that they will feel bad for a while, but they will get over it and realize the good purpose His death would bring. So, in this verse He tells them that they will not be able to ask Him anything again in person, but that they should start asking our Father in heaven, doing so in the name of Jesus. Here in this verse, we have Jesus telling us to pray. Yes, I say us, because we are His present day disciples; and because we are His disciples we are to adhere to what is written in the Word of God, and may I remind you that what is written is not words from a far gone point in time but is a statement that is living, because the Word of God is a living entity. The Word of God pertains to the time it was spoke by Jesus some 2000 years ago, as well as to today, and tomorrow. So yes, He is telling us to pray to the Father and He will answer our prayers because we do it in the name of Jesus.
This is a true story of a rough high school where there were few Christians apart from one teacher, David Bunton, who taught manual arts. Years after leaving Bunton’s classroom, dozens of his former students became believers. Many have entered the ministry and become pastors and missionaries. I tracked down Bunton, who is now seventy years old and retired. He was stunned with emotion when I told him of the many conversions of his former students.
I asked how his influence had brought such a harvest. He told me that many times he had prayed softly over his classes as he sat at his desk and watched them work. Apart from that, he had done nothing to influence these students toward Christ. The only common point of spiritual connection the students shared was that they were prayed over by their teacher.
Jesus tells us that whatsoever we ask the Father in His name, the Father will give it to us. I am told that this teacher asked for favorable results in the lives of his students. Our heavenly Father wants us to ask. Not unlike a natural father wants his children to come to him for whatever they need. Our heavenly Father wants us to ask Him for anything we need. There is no prayer request too big to ask the Father. Your heavenly Father is waiting for you to ask because He is waiting to do what you need Him to do.
Did any of you catch that last sentence? “Your heavenly Father is waiting for you to ask because He is waiting to do what you need Him to do.” Yes, I purposely wrote it that way because that is the way most of us pray, treating God like He is our personal genie in a bottle. We get up in the morning, or whenever we pray and rub the bottle: “Lord, gimme, gimme, gimme.” Now I must admit that there is nothing wrong with asking for things for you, but do we ever stop and think about what is it that God wants? In Matthew 6:7-13 Jesus gives us the model for our prayers that should align our prayers to what God wants:
And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Verse 9 of the Lord’s Prayer tells us to first and foremost give God the reverence He so rightly deserves. Regardless of how you approach this we need to realize that we are coming to Him to ask for something that we could not do on our own, so it stands to reason that we need to give Him respect first.
Verse 10 of the prayer tells us to keep in mind that it is the will of God that we want to come about in everything. It reminds us that whatever it is we think we need; we need to know that whatever our needs are should be rooted in the will of God, rooted in what He wants to come to pass.
Verse 11 of the prayer now gets to the things that we need. And it is a simple thing: “our daily bread.” Let’s face it, that is all we really need. The children of Israel were given the one thing that was the most difficult for them to get on their own…food to eat. God feed them daily for forty years, providing their daily bread. Here in this section of the Lord’s Prayer God is telling us to ask for our daily needs, and if our daily needs relate to a car so that you can get from place to place, He may just provide you with a bus pass and a reliable route to get you there. Sometimes we ask for more than our daily needs require. Remember that knows what you have need of before you ask it. When King Solomon was given the kingdom, all he prayed for was wisdom to lead God’s people. A simple prayer for the thing he believed he needed, but God knew he needed more, so God gave him prosperity, wisdom, and peace throughout his reign as king.
Verse 12 of the prayer asks us to be merciful to others as God has been and will be merciful to us. And in this verse, we make confession to our Father that we are sinners, and we forgive others, not because we are forgiven by the Father, but because we have a regenerated heart, a heart in Christ that is willing to forgive regards of the reward or lack thereof. By the way, this is part of the daily bread that God gives us: the ability to forgive.
Verse 13 of the prayer causes us to ask for His protection and help in our daily confrontations. So, when Jesus says that we should “ask in my name” what He is saying is that we should pray with the same character that Jesus did when He prayed to the Father. Yes, He may have asked for something for Himself; remember; He asked for the cup of sin and death be taken from Him, but in the end, He stated that God’s will be done. So, when we do as Jesus says to “ask in my name” we do so in prayer, not in a selfish manner but one that works to align our will to the Father’s, not the other way around. To illustrate this point C.S. Lewis puts it this way:
“The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.”
So, in handling Jesus’ request that we “ask in my name” we put ourselves in the background and let God’s will take the foreground. We put our needs aside and ask God for what I can do for Him. Remember when Solomon was asked by God to ask for whatever he wanted, to which Solomon only asked for wisdom to lead God’s people. From that simple request did God so richly bless Solomon and his kingdom. And to further drive this point I have another illustration:
‘Ivan, a Russian citizen, endures all the horrors of a Soviet prison camp. One day he is praying with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner notices him and says with ridicule, "Prayers won't help you get out of here any faster." Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, "I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God."’
What a wonderful picture of a person who takes Jesus at His word to “ask in my name.” To forgo the desire to ask for release from prison, but to ask for alignment of his will to God’s; to continue to endure the hardships of prison to simply ask God what it is you want me to do…think about it, that is what Jesus has been saying throughout His earthly ministry…I must be about my Father’s business. So, to “ask in my name” we too need to be about the Father’s business: the business of bring lost sheep back to Him, the business of seeing that His kingdom come to this sin sick world, the business of walking by faith in Christ Jesus, the business of putting down self and letting Jesus rise. Like John the Baptist said: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” To “ask in my name”, that is in the name of Jesus, we do not treat God like our personal genie, but regard Him with reverence knowing that He has already worked out our problems, knowing that since my problems are already worked out that I now have the time to do His will.
Let me close with this last illustration:
‘Dr. Helen Roseveare, missionary to Zaire, told the following story. "A mother at our mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. We tried to improvise an incubator to keep the infant alive, but the only hot water bottle we had was beyond repair. So, we asked the children to pray for the baby and for her sister. One of the girls responded. 'Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead. And dear Lord, send a doll for the sister so she won't feel so lonely.' That afternoon a large package arrived from England. The children watched eagerly as we opened it. Much to their surprise, under some clothing was a hot water bottle! Immediately the girl who had prayed so earnestly started to dig deeper, exclaiming, 'If God sent that, I'm sure He also sent a doll!' And she was right! The heavenly Father knew in advance of that child's sincere requests, and 5 months earlier He had led a ladies' group to include both of those specific articles."’
