LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 355

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
clear and pure speech which God has spoken to us in Jesus
Christ.84

never ceases to sound in the ears of God.”89 The Holy Spirit turns even the
inarticulate sighs of God’s people into prayers (Rom. 8:26).90

“This is pure grace,” says Bonhoeffer, “that God tells us how we can speak
with him.”85

Children not only weep and plead, they also confidently laugh, play,
and sing. So the prayers of God’s children are often joyful song and not
only mournful pleading. Praise marks their gatherings.91 “I will offer in his
tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord”
(Ps. 27:6b).92 Such joyful confidence is not misplaced. It, too, is grounded in the
word “Father” that Jesus puts on our lips, for “the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 1:3) is now our own “God and Father” (Gal. 1:4). The risen
Lord Jesus, whose cross was atonement for the sins of the world, says to Mary
and to all who believe in His name that His God is our God and His Father is
our Father (John 20:17). We are baptized and therefore “sons of God through
faith” (Gal. 3:26–27).93 Justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, we are boldly and confidently permitted and even commanded to call
the almighty, immutable, omniscient, eternal, ubiquitous holy God our dear
and tender Father. If the Son sets you free to call God “Father,” then do so confidently (Heb. 4:16; 1 John 3:21, also John 8:36)!

The way or manner of Christian prayer86
We pray as children of God, “for that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). Consider a child of two or three years, in new command of the gift of speech, and
watch how she uses that gift with her mother and father. She relishes this
ability, talking sometimes incessantly, never afraid to ask for what she needs
or wants. She is confident, though she is also learning that not everything she
asks is given. Her courage is in the loving care she receives from father and
mother. So she speaks. She asks. She expects (Ps. 4:3).
That is a picture of Christian prayer. If “prayer is nothing else than the
lifting up of heart or mind to God,” then that is portrayed by believers who,
like little children, run to their Father in heaven—lifting up their arms to Him
(both figuratively and sometimes literally) for Him to “pick them up” and take
them into His secure presence. 87 This is the very picture of prayer our Lord
gives us when He teaches us to “Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven’”
(Matt. 6:9). Luther explains: “with these words God tenderly invites us to
believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that
with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their
dear Father.”88
The plea of the little child is not dependent on an ability to articulate. Parents respond to their child’s need, not to its careful articulation. So also God’s
children are not hindered by a failure to understand fully what it is that they
need or want to say to God. Our Father does not scorn even impolite, incoherent, halting, or hysterical prayers. His Word is filled with them: “Give ear to
my words, O Lord, consider my groaning” (Ps. 5:1). “How long, O Lord? Will
you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1).
God does not turn away from such prayers. “O Lord, you hear the desire of
the afflicted” (Ps. 10:17a; cp. Ps. 38:9). Augustine reminds us that God hears
even our longing. “It does not always find its way to the ears of man; but it

84

Ibid., 11.

85

Ibid., 15.

86
Luther also refers to the “mood” of Christian prayer. He speaks of the Holy Spirit’s work in
the Psalms in this way: “by this book He prepares both the language and the mood in which we
should address the Heavenly Father and pray for that which the other books have taught us to
do and to imitate.” AE 14:286.
87
AE 42:25; p. 6 above. The liturgy of communion begins with the bidding, “Lift up your
hearts,” and the response, “We lift them up to the Lord.” In many traditions, pastor and people
lift their hands to the Lord as they pray.
88

Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, 19.

Our confidence only increases—for Jesus, the Son of God, assures us
that “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” (John 15:16). From this
comes the commendable custom of ending prayers “in Jesus’ name,” with its
reminder that we can be as certain that God hears our prayers as if we were
Jesus Himself. Yet there is more to prayer in the name of Jesus than the use of
a customary phrase. We earlier considered some misunderstandings of prayer
in Jesus’ name. What, then, does it mean? It is, simply, prayer spoken from
faith in Jesus our Lord. Hallesby suggests that “to pray in the name of Jesus is
the real element of prayer in our prayers. It is the helpless soul’s helpless look

89
Augustine, “Psalm XXXVIII, 13,” NPNF, 107. Augustine also notes how this reality should
affect our longing and desires so that we are seeking what God wants for us. See also Matt. 6:33.
90
“There are times when we cannot pray in words, or pray as we ought; but our inarticulate
longings for a better life are the Spirit’s intercessions on our behalf, audible to God who searches
all hearts, and intelligible and acceptable to Him since they are the voice of His Spirit, and it is
according to His will that the Spirit should intercede for the members of His Son.” From Henry
B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1909), 221.
91
Luther counts prayer and praise to be one of seven “marks” that identify the church. “Where
you see and hear the Lord’s Prayer prayed and taught; or psalms or other spiritual songs sung,
in accordance with the word of God and true faith. . . you may rest assured that a holy Christian
people of God are present.” AE 41:164.
92
On the “playful” element of Christian worship, see Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the
Liturgy (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997), 61–72.
93
An emphasis on Baptism as the foundation for our confidence to call God “Father” is present
in the earliest Christian reflection on the Lord’s Prayer. See Robert L. Simpson, The Interpretation
of Prayer in the Early Church (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1965), 57.

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unto a gracious Friend.”94 Commenting on John 15:16, Luther emphasizes the
connection between being chosen in Christ and the promise that the Father
will hear:

when-God-already-knows attitude discussed above97—such things and much
more dampen any priority for talking to God. We become lackadaisical, failing
to set aside time or to plan and prepare ourselves for prayer. Instead, we pray
when it occurs to us or feel like we need it. We pray half-heartedly and semiconsciously, like the disciples who snoozed while Jesus prayed earnestly in
great agony (Luke 22:39–46).

This [promise] also belongs; yes, it is the power and the result
of His election. For through this grace in Christ we not only
become God’s friends through Him and acquire God as our
Father; but our election also enables us to ask Him for whatever
we need and to be assured that it will be given to us. For since
we continually encounter trials, opposition, and obstacles,
both from the devil and the world and also from our own flesh;
since much weakness and frailty still inheres both in us and in
others; since everything is imperfect—for all these reasons it
is necessary for us to plead for strength, help, and salvation in
every distressing situation.95
God’s encouragement in prayer is coupled with His assurances that He
knows our desperate condition, our “weakness and frailty.” Though terrorized
by Saul, David could nevertheless be certain of a refuge: “Be merciful to me, O
God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your
wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by” (Ps. 57:1). Not
even sin can diminish the confident prayers of God’s children—our access to
God is based on His grace for us in Christ, not on our conduct (Rom. 5:2). Even
while “feeble and crushed” by God’s judgment against his sins, David could
still confidently declare, “O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is
not hidden from you” (Ps. 38:8–9). So Jesus assures us: “And do not fear those
who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy
both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not
one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs
of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than
many sparrows” (Matt. 10:28–31).
Rather than be inhibited by our sins, by the austere majesty of the almighty
God, or by life’s defeats, Jesus “tenderly invites us” to come to God, our Father,
with confidence and zeal. Christ’s purifying work in our lives results in zeal
for good works (Titus 2:14), among which none is more important than prayer.
Yet, zeal for prayer—a sense of eagerness, discipline, and urgency about
it—is often lacking in believers. A traditional collect begins with the truthful admission that God is “always more ready to hear than we to pray.”96 We
struggle to pray. Weariness, busy-ness, doubts, temptations, the why-bother94

Ole Hallesby, Prayer (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1994), 59.

95

AE 24:263; emphasis added.

We also continually face the doubts of our sinful humanity. Does prayer
really matter? Is God there? Are my pathetic needs important to an eternal
God? Prayer becomes foolish to the skeptical. It seems contrary to our natural
pragmatism which constantly says, “Do something!” and sees prayer as just
another form of dithering. Our hearts easily grow cold.
Because such forces constantly distract our prayers, we can only pray in
our Lord Jesus. Only He—by His power, His love, His truth, His Word—can
break through our doubting, dispirited hearts again and again. “Lord, teach us
to pray,” is not a one-time request, it is the constant petition of Christ’s sinnersaints. Only He can spark our faith to realize anew the great treasure that we
have in the invitation from the Lord of heaven and earth to come and talk to
Him. The manner and way of prayer that we learn from Christ is zealous to
the core—it is passionate, eager to call on God, urgent and constant in petition,
for it is such prayers that Christ Himself offers and encourages. Jesus shows
that prayer makes fasting and sleepless nights worthwhile (Matt. 4:2; Luke
6:12; Acts 14:23). Prayer is worthy of disciplined perseverance, like that of the
persistent widow in one of Jesus’ stories (Luke 18:1-8), because He assures us
that His Father is never deaf to us, even if His answers seem long in coming.
The zeal of Christ produces zealous Christian prayer. Only His constancy,
not ours, can aid us in our struggle to pray. He continually invites, “Ask, and
it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened
to you (Matt. 7:7). As we alternate between the struggle to pray and earnest
striving in prayer (see Rom. 15:30–31; Col. 4:12–13), Jesus has given His Spirit
to sustain us (Rom. 8:26).
Another thing is clear about the way or manner of Christian prayer. We
do not pray alone. We pray as members of the Body of Christ, and so, first,
with Christ our Head. He told us to pray with Him—”Our Father”—so we
pray in plural, but not simply because there are other Christians. We pray
first with Him, who enabled our adoption as sons and daughters who say,
“Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:4–7; cp. Rom. 8:15, 23; Eph. 1:3–6). Then, in and with
Christ, we pray as part of the entire family of faith, His body—the one, holy,
catholic,98 and apostolic church. The life of prayer given to each who believes

97

The collect for the 11th Sunday after Trinity. See Commission on Worship of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, Lutheran Service Book: Propers of the Day (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 2007), 368; also Series C, Proper 25, 281. A collect is a brief prayer which
addresses a theme from the Scripture readings for a particular Sunday or festival.
96

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355

See above, pp. 27ff.

98
“Catholic,” the original term used in the Nicene Creed, should not be scorned. The root of
the term is the Greek word for “whole” or wholeness. It is not a reference to the Roman Catholic
Church, but to the church’s universality and completeness—that the church of Christ exists
across human, geographic, and temporal boundaries.

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2013 Convention Workbook