In Jesus' Name: In Jesus' Name

Today, I would like to begin a new series on the topic of prayer entitled “In Jesus’ Name. This series is designed to show us what our prayers should look like in their content as well as the heart that we need to have as we pray.

I have spoken before about the struggles I often have regarding prayer. I know I am not alone in my struggle, as I have had others share with me the same struggle they have. We can often fall into a rut and our prayer life may feel too different from how Jesus describes some who pray in when He spoke of those who were vainly repetitive in their prayers… We may feel this way whether we are being like those described in the text or not…

I would like to talk about this statement for our lesson today because this phrase gives us our whole reason for praying. It gives us a reminder as to why we can have confidence that when we say “amen” at the end of the prayer that our prayer was heard and that God is concerned about us and what we have to say to Him.

– PRAYING “IN JESUS’ NAME”

Let’s begin by turning our Bibles to would like to look at three passages in and also a passage in . In these passages, Jesus is talking to His disciples after He had told his disciples that he would betrayed by one of them and after he told Peter that He would deny Him… Just imagine what would be going through their minds as Jesus said these things to them and told them that He was going to be leaving them… They would be grieved and probably frightened over the words of Jesus, not knowing exactly what was going to happen. There would be uncertainty in their hearts… What would they do after Jesus left… These chapters are meant to give them comfort as Jesus prepares them for that time. It is in this context that He gives His disciples teaching about the Spirit’s role in their lives after he leaves. And He also gives them a great promise regarding prayer…:

“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.”

Then after Jesus tells them about how they can bear fruit by obeying His commandments and by loving one another, Jesus says to them,

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”

One other passage in

“26 In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; 27 for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.

In these passages, Jesus calls his disciples to prayer after He leaves them… This would be their connection to Jesus and to the Father after Jesus ascended to Heaven. Even though He would not be present physically, they still had access to the Father and to all they needed to fulfill the mission that Jesus would give them. All they would need to do is ask, and they would receive what they needed. And in these passages there is one qualifier. They had to pray “in His name.”

They were to pray in the name of Jesus Christ. He says, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name…” This is how they would receive what they asked for…

These three passages are the only ones that I know of that talk about praying in Jesus’ name… So the question we need to answer is, “What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus Christ?”

I do believe these passages are misapplied by many and some incorrect views have come about because of it. Here are some examples of some incorrect views.

· Some believe this is just the “Christian ending” of prayers… We say it to show the prayer is over. It is the sign to that everyone needs to say “amen.” It may be the case that most use the phrase just because they have heard others end their prayers this way.

· Some believe that whenever this phrase is uttered, this is what makes our prayers acceptable to God and gets him to hear them, and then answer them… like this phrase sends our prayers through a prayer switchboard that Jesus is sitting at, and Jesus sends the prayers to the Father… This is not how prayer works… It is a misunderstanding of the idea of Jesus being our intercessor (). And in my judgment, it seems that brethren often treat this phrase like it is come kind of mystical incantation or magical phrase that sends our prayers to heaven.

· Some believe that if this phrase is not vocalized at the end of the prayer, it is not a prayer that is pleasing to God and that He will not answer it. Some would even go as far as saying that to not use this phrase at the end of a prayer is a sin…

· Jesus is commanding us to use the words, “in Jesus’ name,” in our prayers…

I have been in studies and worship services when, if a brother did not end the prayer by saying the exact words, “in Jesus name, Amen,” that a brother who was sitting in the back would yell them out just so he could make sure the prayer was heard by God. This is just the way that you must finish a prayer, and if you don’t do it, then you are not praying “in Jesus’ name” and God doesn’t hear the prayer, was his position.

In my judgment, passages like these in the book of John are misapplied whenever they are used to say that you have to tag this phrase, “in the name of Jesus” on the end of prayers to make it so God will hear them and answer them. This was not the point that Jesus is making in these passages. And this is not what is meant anywhere in scripture when the phrase is used in talking about other things that we do “in His name,” such as baptism, serving someone, etc.

Adding the phrase to the end of a prayer, or saying a specific formula at a baptism, is a tradition. Jesus wasn’t commanding it in these passages, and we do not see an example of one of the Apostles or any Christians in the New Testament tagging this phrase onto the end of their prayers. If this is what Jesus meant, would it not be safe to assume we would see it added to prayers recorded in the New Testament?

WHAT DOES THIS PHRASE MEAN?

Whenever this phrase is used, even in everyday life, it usually means one of a few things:

· Do this by the authority of a person – This is probably the first one that comes to our minds. This is a common idea in scripture. The clearest example of this kind of use is in , in a prophecy about Jesus, “18 ~'I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 ~'It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him. 20 ~'But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.' We often hear this kind of usage of “in the name of” whenever a police officer may say, “stop in the name of the law.” The police officer has the authority of the law of the land behind them, so you need to do what they say or suffer whatever consequences may come. We come to the throne of God by the authority of Christ in the sense that He teaches us how to approach the throne – what kind of attitudes we need to have, what our prayers should look like. But this is not the only use of the idea of doing something in the name of someone else. There are some other ideas we should take note of.

· Given a privilege because of something else’s reputation or actions – You may see this kind of thing on a tv show, where a group of people goes to a club, and they tell the bouncer at the door, “we are friends of Bob,” and because of your friendship, he let’s you in… You gain access to the club… This idea is also seen in where Paul says, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, (and he defines what this means in the end of the verse) giving thanks to the Father THROUGH HIM.” It is through Him that we pray. By His reputation and work for us. We have the privilege to confidently approach the throne of God, not because of great things we have done, but because of what Jesus did for us. Because we have been made children of God by the blood of Christ and receive forgiveness based on what He did, we can gain “access to the throne.”

· Do this as a representative of a person – acting as though you are them – We understand this idea in real life. There are instances where you can say, give a donation to a charitable organization “in the name of” a certain person you want to honor. David in , for instance, sent some of his men to Nabal with a message asking for some food. He says to his men, “"Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him “in my name.” They were to go, give a greeting as representatives of David, and were to give Nabal the message that David wanted them to give. Whenever they went to Nabal, they spoke as though they were David himself. We also do the same whenever we do an action in the name of the Lord Jesus. We do it as though we are Him. We desire to imitate him. And this applies to our prayer. Our desire should be to pray the way Jesus would. We should imitate Him. It is interesting that whenever we look at Luke’s account of Jesus teaching His disciples to pray by giving them the “Lord’s prayer” or “disciple’s prayer,” this teaching came because they were watching Jesus pray and asked Him to teach them to pray as John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. They wanted to pray like Jesus! Shouldn’t we desire to do the same?

I believe it is important to apply all of these ideas in our prayer, and we can do all of these without even using the phrase, “in Jesus’ name” in our prayers. We pray “in Jesus’ name” when we come before the throne boldly based on the sacrifice of Christ, whenever we do so based on the teachings of Christ, and as we follow the example of Christ… By God’s grace and mercy do we have the privilege. These are all things that we need to keep in mind whenever we pray. This is what it means to pray “in Jesus’ name.” These are all things that we tend to forget when we pray.

I want to make this point clearly: I don’t believe it is wrong to use the phrase at the end of our prayers. It is a good reminder to us of why we have the ability to pray and the teaching we are given regarding prayer. We need to remember what it means. We are making claims about ourselves and our prayers when we use the phrase.

We do need to see, though, that using the phrase is not necessary, and to say to a brother and sister in Christ, “Your prayers are not getting heard or answered by God because you do not add this phrase at the end of your prayers” or “Your prayers are unacceptable” or even sinful because they don’t include the phrase is to, as Jesus put it, “teach as doctrines the commandments of men.” This is something we need to be careful of. We need to speak as the oracles of God and be careful not to bind our traditions and lift them to the same level as scripture.

Over the coming months, I would like to spend some time showing what prayer “in Jesus’ name” looks like. My goal is to study the teachings of Christ about prayer, particularly, the model prayer Jesus gives His disciples in and . We may also look at some examples of Jesus’ own prayers and habits.

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In Jesus' Name: In Jesus' Name

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