John 16:23-33
Intro:It’s pretty hard to miss Christ’s main point in these words that He says: “Ask in my Name”. “Ask that your joy may be full”. “I’m not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. The Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I have come from God”. So...Ask! In other words, “Pray!”.
As a Christian, prayer is not simply a “privilege”; It’s a command. It is the dutyof every baptized Christian that is called by God’s Name to also “call upon God’s Name”. That much is sure: It is the duty of you who are called by God’s Name to also call upon God’s Name. The question is not whether or not you should pray, (or need to pray) the question is “what should you pray for?”. If fact, as we think about Jesus’ words here, we should be wondering: “What is it that we might pray for that, as Jesus says, “our joy may be full”? What is it that we might pray for that, as Jesus says, “in me you may have peace”? Jesus isn’t talking about perfect health; incredible wealth; or “fun, fun, fun”. In fact, if you look at what He’s saying, He’s talking about a joy and a peace that He has despite lacking all these things. (Health, wealth, and “fun, fun, fun”). So, what should you pray for?
PRAY FOR THE COMING OF HIS KINGDOM THAT NO MATTER HOW GREAT THE TRIBULATION, YOU MIGHT KNOW HIS PEACE...THE WORLD MIGHT KNOW HIS PEACE...AND THAT YOU ALL MIGHT KNOW THE JOY OF HIM WHO HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD.
I. We’re taught to pray this way in the catechism.
A. What does it mean to pray, “Thy Kingdom Come”?
If you remember, the catechism tells us that “God’s Kingdom certainly comes without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it would come to us also”. In other words, God is going to found and establish His Kingdom. He foretold what He was going to doback in Genesis 3:15when He talked about the offspring of the woman crushing the serpent’s head. He foretold what He was going to dowhen, even before Jacob was born, He told Abraham that his descendants would be in slavery for 400 years...but then He would deliver them. He foretold what He was going to dowhen He promised Jeremiah that the people of Israel would be in slavery for 70 yearsbut then He would bring them home.
God has always promised to do something and then carried it through. That’s what the catechism means when it teaches us that “God’s Kingdom certainly comes without our prayer”. It’s precisely what Jesus is talking about here when He says, “Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come when you will scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone, for the Father is with me”. Jesus is foretelling how the guards will storm into the Garden of Gethsemane. How He will be brought to trial. How not one of them will stand beside Him. Not one of them will speak up for Him. In fact, if anything they will deny Him and be scattered. They will leave Him alone. Yet...God’s Kingdom comes without our prayer because Christ was not alone. The Father who created all things was with Him and what God has ordained is unstoppable. His blood atonement would be made. His salvation would be established in His Name throughout the world.
B. So, why pray?
Why pray if God’s kingdom is going to be established. Why pray if no matter who abandons Him; no matter how great of an earthly authority is set against Him, it’s going to happen anyway? Why bother praying if God is “unstoppable”? Well, as the catechism teaches us, “We pray in this petition, that it may come to us also”.
II. So, how do you that God’s Kingdom has come?
A. Again we’re taughtthat “God’s Kingdom comes when He gives us His Holy Spirit so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead Godly lives here in time and there in eternity”. You may know God’s Word. You may have all sorts of passages from God’s Word memorized, but without the Holy Spirit, you can’t believe it. So, guess what? No doubt the greatest gift that you can ask for as you meditate on God’s Word and as you turn to Him in prayer is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
B. Listen to what Luther says in his Church Postils:
“Unless you are constantly baptized with fire and the Holy Spirit until the end of your life, you will fall back again into unbelief”. How do you receive this gift of fire and the Holy Spirit? Well, the fires of trial and tribulation come well enough on their own. They come because the Devil seeks to separate you from the peace you have in Christ by offering you something that seems like a “better peace” here and now, in this life. So, he seeks to separate you from God’s Word. He seeks to separate you from the means by which God works with His Holy Spirit to both create your faith and sustain your faith. The Holy Spirit works with the Word of Christ and together, that’s how you stand in the tribulations of this life.
I just saw an article yesterday about a former “mega-church pastor” who has now “renounced the faith”. His reasons? Unanswered prayers. Unanswered prayers that, in his view, culminated in his and his former wife’s divorce. That’s really sad. You know what he should be doing? He should have humbled himself before God and asked for the forgiveness of his sins. He should seek the absolution. “Ask, and you shall receive”, Jesus says. Instead, he seems to have decided that if he can’t “strut before the world” like the peacock he was, well then, God must be dead. And that’s sad.
You know, sometimes the hardest time to ask God or to pray to God is after you’ve failed. Sometimes the hardest time to turn to the Lord in prayer is right after you’ve just “stepped in it”, “gloriously”. The last thing you feel like you can do...certainly that last thing you feel like you deserve to do...is to ask God for forgiveness, especially when, right up to the moment you just sinned “gloriously”, you were deliberately ignoring what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell you. That’s one of the toughest times to get on your knees and say, “Lord, forgive me for my sins...let your Kingdom come again”.
That’s why Jesus says what He says here in this sixteenth chapter of John: We’re all like these disciples. It’s not that we don’t love Him as a friend. It’s that we’ve all gone our way at times and left Him alone. We’ve denied Him. We’ve refused to (or at least shied away from) speaking up from Him. We’ve failed to stand by Him. Jesus knows. And when you turn to Him and you ask Him to grant you His Holy Spirit that you might believe His Holy Word, do you know what the Holy Spirit helps you believe? He helps you believe that your salvation was never going to be accomplished by your faithfulness. Your salvation was going to be accomplished...indeed has been accomplished...by His. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, you hear these words anew: “I have said these things to YOU, that in me you may have peace”. In me you may have the joy of knowing the peace that God’s people have because God’s Kingdom comes...it came to the Israelites; it came to the Apostles; it came to the Saints of old; and it comes to you. Ask and you will receive! All has been prepared. All is ready!
III. And pray for the kingdom to those you know: family, friends, classmates, and fellow-workers.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul tell the Corinthians that “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many”. Paul not only expected His prayers to be answered, but he expected that God would bless Him (and thereby those that would be saved through the ministry that God gave to Paul) THROUGH THE PRAYERS OF MANY.
Thy Kingdom Come. If we were to add anything to this explanation, maybe it should be that we add “and others” to those who believe God’s Holy Word by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is certainly a great joy for not only the angels in heaven but for our Lord Himself and for anyone (including everyone of us) who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, have the same mind among us that was in Christ Jesus. Pray for this great joy!
Conclusion: So, this text is not directed to the pretentious and the hypocrites. Jesus is saying these words to His true friends because “the hour is at hand”. Jesus is saying these words to you. Ask when you face the various fires of tribulation in your life. By the power of God’s Holy Spirit, these Words of Christ will give you peace. Ask when you’ve failed. You will be forgiven. Ask when your discouraged or scattered or when you find YOURSELF alone. You will be filled. The joy of the Kingdom of Christ is yours. It is a gift to you and it will be brought to completion. Nothing can stop it. So, pray, and it is yours! In the Name +